Please help me decide my PotD Turn-Based Party

[JackalTornMoons]

Hello there. This will be my 2nd time through the game (sided with the Huana the first time so I'd like to choose a different path). I only used story companions the first time through, so this play through I'm probably going to do most/all custom characters so I can try out some fun builds. Any advice on builds and/or what character should be the main character (for the Berath's blessing stat bonus and/or priest/paladin disposition effectiveness) would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here are the options I've come up with so far:

 

Team 1:

Tactician/Wizard: You know him; you love him. Blind people and go to town. Could be ranged or melee. Are any of the subclasses worth it?

Black Jacket/Skald: Probably the primary tank. Switch to one-handed rapier when attacking for the crits; switch to dagger/shield after you attack for the deflection. Stun or paralyze everyone at every opportunity.

Priest/Druid: Not really sure which subclasses to take; Eothas/Fury? Big stuns, buffs, and heals?

Ghost Heart/Cipher: Throw your ghost dog behind the enemy team and Ectopsychic Echo them to death. Which Cipher subclass do you think would be best? I could see the rationale behind any of them really.

Berserker/Bleak Walker: Can deal with his own confusion. Morning Star Modal + Black Flames + Brute force sounds like a fun time, and would combo well if the Cipher went Ascendant and spammed Disintegration.

 

Team 2:

Tactician/Cipher - Kinda the same as the Battlemage, but a little different. Not sure if Brilliant is as worth it for a cipher multiclass. Ranged or melee? What Cipher subclass?

Sharpshooter/Skald - Arquebus/Crossbow for the crits, AoE CC whenever possible. Pretty straightforward.

Berserker/Blood Mage - This guy just seems fun. Can take care of his own confusion and has all the blood synergy. Buff up. Get angry. Smash things. Not sure how spirit lance interacts with carnage but it seems like it'd be interesting.

Black Jacket/Fury - Use Lord Darryn's Voulge when storming, swap to Firebrand when bopping, swap to dagger/shield afterwards to tank. Seems like a fun build.

Some sort of Priest - Lots of options here. Woedica/Helwalker and be a boxer (how good are the spirit weapon fists?)? Wael/Bleak Walker to be a tanky melee beast and help the Berserker target Fort? Skaen/Assassin for the invis/backstab spam?

 

Team 3:

Priest/Beckoner - Buff lots and use summons to annoy the bad guys

Black Jacket/Fury - See above.

Tactician/Wizard - He's back

Berserker/Bleak Walker - He's back too

Ghost Heart/Cipher - Yeah, her again also

 

 

After typing them all out, Team 2 seems like it'd be the most interesting, but is it going to be actually good?

 

I really do appreciate any help y'all can give.

[Belzeboozo]

I'm going with:

MC tactician/bloodmage with WotEP. Main tank.

 

Troubadour/st. Elcga. Passive healer, secondary tank, summoner.

 

Beguiler/ghost heart. Debuffer, ranged with the red hand.

 

Helwalker with both blunderbuss from serafen. Aoe damage dealer.

 

Fury druid with lord darryn's voulge and deltro's cage. Aoe damage dealer, crowd controller.

 

This party is destroying everything

[AeonsLegend]

I find priests very redundant when you can just have a druid/chanter to fullfil any and all supporting roles. Pick a paladin with any other combo and you'll have all the support you'll need and you can just pick whatever flavor you want on top.

 

Also, isn't tactician an odd choice when a single Cipher spell can give you the same effect?

Edited March 17, 2019 by AeonsLegend

[Ivanfyodorovich]

I'm also in my second run, doing TB and PotD Upscaled. I didn't have a priest for most of the beginning and realized how much that was slowing me down to not have Devotions for the Faithful and Aware on demand via Dire Blessing for my whole party (especially my Serafen Barbarian). I've already committed to a Lifegiver Druid as my healer, so I created an Accuracy Buffbot Tactician/Magran with all of the Fire DMG spells. Right now, I've replaced that character with Vatnir filling essentially the same role (with a little more diverse spell selection). 

 

Looking at your party 1, it looks like it would need a priest the least with the Fighter Multis and Ranger buffs. I believe the accuracy weapon modals don't stack with Devotions, so depending on weapon selection, you might not miss it on the paladin. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Ivanfyodorovich

[Taudis]

Team 1

Tactician/Wizard - Bloodmage is really the only sub to consider. Do you mostly use Empower to refill? Go Bloodmage. Mostly to supercharge? No-sub. Evoker is pretty good but you definitely don't want to lose Chillfog.

Blackjacket/Skald - Not much to say here, other than don't forget Sasha's Singing Scimitar. Very fun with Blackjacket. Amira's Wing, Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff, and Watershaper's Focus are all also nice when you get Eld Nary. Chanters have some pretty high break points for INT and sending PER through the roof is always useful on a Skald, so I'd make this the Watcher on this team just for the BB attribute boost.

BTW, two weapon is way better for crits than one-handed.

Priest/Druid - Priest is way better single class. Druid is also better singleclassed but pairs well with Barbarian or Helwalker Monk. Druid is a great nuker/controller, Priest is a great buffer/nuker. Subclass-wise, it depends on your role. Priest: Wael is the best generic Priest sub, Skaen has some much needed mobility, Woedica has the best control, Rymrgand is the best nuker. Druid: Fury if you don't care about being the healer, Lifegiver if you do.

Ghost Heart/Cipher - Beguiler would complement your Tactician. Soulblade works with the plan to use the leash Powers like Ectoplasmic Echo, since they're pretty cheap and don't stop you from spamming Soul Annihilation. Ascendant is fairly hard to pull off in TB, since you need INT through the roof and you can't actually spam in TB. +3 PL is still very good and it's not hard to ascend. It's 19 INT for a 4 round Ascendance, and 30 INT for 5 rounds, BTW (you can also hit 5 rounds with a 22 INT character who wears Strand of Favor and eats Mari Crudia - that's 22 before the Mari Crudia and Strand of Favor INT bonuses).

I'd personally go Beguiler, since its "drawback" is basically meaningless in a team - it will be way rarer that an enemy doesn't qualify for sneak attack. Beguiler is head-and-shoulders the best caster Cipher in TB.

Berzerker/Bleakwalker - Not much to say here, it's a decent way to wield the Willbreaker. If you're targeting FORT, don't forget Spirit Frenzy adds Staggered on hits, so you can pretty reliably apply -45 FORT (and a decent WILL penalty from Terrified and the Willbreaker).

 

Team 2

Tactician/Cipher - You're right that Wizard is probably better.

Sharpshooter/Skald - 'Fraid that's a non-bo. Skald is melee only crits. If you stay Skald here, I'd make this the Watcher for the same reasons as above.

Berserker/Bloodmage - Yup, it's fun. Highly recommend Human or Death Godlike because their racials work really well with hurting yourself and it's also useful to get a notification that it's maybe time for some heals.

Blackjacket/Fury - I'm going to recommend Helwalker/Fury as a pretty much straight upgrade. Druids don't really need to be tanky in TB, they just need to resolve Relentless Storm to stop the entire battlefield from acting, and LD Voulge hits hard. You can attack with it and cast with it, there's no need to switch.

Some Sort Of Priest - I know you're trying to do hirelings, but single class Vatnir is the best priest. Rymrgand bonus spells actually fill a hole in the Priest spell list (non-fire damage) and Vatnir has sensible attributes for the job. My runner up would Assassin/Skaen. Stealthed Pillars of Fire wreck stuff and rogue passives are helpful on a priest.

 

Team 3

Priest/Beckoner - I personally find being forced to micro every summon in TB very tedious. Once again, I'll mention that a single class Priest is way better at Priest stuff. Troubs and Brisk Recitation are probably also way better at summons. I hate to recommend it (because it gets recommended all the time), but support/summons is definitely best filled by a Herald.

Blackjacket/Fury - See above. +15 MIG and +10 INT from Helwalker > anything a Fighter offers a Druid.

Everyone Else - Already said my piece. There is some very minor conflict with the Bleakzeerker if you take my suggestion to use a Herald. Bleak Walker is the "worst" Paladin order for a Herald, and the only Paladin order with compatible disposition is Steel Garrote, which is probably the second "worst". Both still make great Heralds, it's just that Kind Wayfarers and Goldpact Knights are the best Herald orders.

I'd go with Ghost Heart as the Watcher on this team. No one needs the extra attributes and Ranger Watchers get some good extra dialogue.

 

My Suggested Team

Tactician/Bloodmage - Despite seeming redundant, they go surprisingly well together. Getting 2 spells back a turn means you can buff up and still spam.

Single Class Vatnir - Could also be a hireling if you get the "unlock all subclasses" mod. Priest of Rymrgand nukes like mad, buffs like mad. It has the same disliked dispositions as Bleakwalker, too, so if you remember to be Honest and Rational in addition to Aggressive and Cruel, you'll have a decent Holy Radiance.

Blackjacket/Skald - What you were theorycrafting with this one is pretty much on the money. Here's my big discovery from playing something similar: 21 INT+Tactical Barrage makes The Thunder Rolled into a 2 round stun (at level 19+). Same as above, I'd make this the Watcher.

Bleakzerker - You brought this up twice, you clearly want to play it. It's a good build, so you should play it.

Helwalker/Beguiler - Complements the Tac/Blood and absolutely wrecks with dual Hand Mortars. Disintegrate is a very nice ability to have in your pocket with some of the health bloat enemies in this game. The typical Helwalker/Ascendant is doable, too, but I really feel like Beguiler is the stronger sub for team play.

You could still do the Ghost Heart Cipher here too. Cipher is really the key part of the build - they're just useful to have on a team. If the reason you're interested in Cipher is to do leash tricks with the Ghost pet, then Ghost Heart is definitely the way to go.

 

Some general stuff:

Priest/Paladin dispositions are always based off the Watcher. Your hirelings will use your Watcher's disposition, so you don't need the Watcher to be the party's Paladin/Priest.

Single class Wizard, Priest, Druid, Cipher, Monk, Ranger, and Barb are all easily as good as most of their multiclass variants. I didn't overly suggest it because you seem interested in multis (except with Priests) but if the reason you're interested in any of those builds is because of one of the listed classes, you really ought to try the single class.

Druids are super powerful but boring as all get out in TB, and it's entirely due to Relentless Storm. You listed a Druid in every team, so I assume you want to play one but I really gotta warn you that they trivialize every single combat where the enemies don't have MIG resistance/immunity. They also act as a sort of gravity well in a team, where they heavily push everyone towards DPR so that you can end an encounter before Relentless Storm wears off. I beat the game with one, I personally like absolutely crushing foes but after a while it got pretty boring since every fight was the same and way too easy.

Blackjacket quick switch is fun and all but the Dagger/Shield thing loses value in the parties you want to play, since they'll be able to control the enemies well enough that you don't need to tank up super hard. I'd put heavier priority on getting stat sticks for your Blackjacket is what I'm saying here. For example, if you do use Blackjacket/Fury, I'd go with something like Watershaper's Focus, Spine of the Thicket Green, and LD Voulge. Weapons with powerful activated abilities are also worth looking at - I used the Kitchen Stove's Thunderous Report fairly frequently on my last Blackjacket.

You should probably prepare to have Serafen on your team for a while, since doing his quest and reaching disposition 2 with him gets you two very useful items - Fire In The Hole (dual Mortars forever!) and Fair Favor (all those Skalds you brought up want this). He slots into the Bleakzerker spot as a single class Barb for the little while you'll have to lug him around.

Edited March 17, 2019 by Taudis

[JackalTornMoons]

Thank you so much for the thorough reply

[Taudis]

Party

Looks good to me. I don't have anything new to say about Berzerker/Blood Mage or Blackjacket/Skald, they're both versatile and powerful multiclasses. Single class is a decent way to run Fury. I prefer Ghost Heart with a Cipher for the "drop a bear behind enemy lines" trick, but Sharpshooter is really just as good. Especially if you're planning on using Blunderbusses or Pistols since the upclose PEN should stack with Hammering Thoughts to really cut through AR.

 

Nice thing about using hirelings is you can sort of dodge restartitis by just hiring more. Most builds don't need Watcher-only bonuses. I've played through this game too many times and a good piece of advice is to just hire a ton of level 19 adventurers in classes you wanna try out when you hit 20. A good third or so of the game is post-20, and your quest XP will level them all up to 20 really quick.

 

Single Class Priest v. Tactician Priest

I'm a big fan of single class Priest because their PL8/9 spells are quite good (the Symbols!) and getting things like Dire Blessings and Devotions of the Faithful earlier is very nice. +3 PL means they're more accurate than their multi-class variants. Priests also don't have any fast casts, so it takes 17 rounds for them to actually empty their arsenal. You won't necessarily have relevant spells at every spell level of course but between the slower casting and Empower-refill, Priests just don't really need to be Brilliant. So generically, I'd say Single Class > Tactician.

 

In that party, though? The Seer and the Warlock are good sources of low-level mass-Flanked, and every class likes Brilliant in the earlier levels. Later on, the Warlock will probably appreciate the mid-to-high level trick of constant Salvation of Time and Barring Death's Door. Priest of Wael actually gets Free Action spells too, so they'll will burn through their slots quicker. A Tactician/Priest of Wael works in that party, I'd say.