Looking for a Dragon slayer build

[boybrushdRED]

I stumbled upon this build for Pillars 1, and I'm looking for an updated one or something similar for Pillars 2. I'm currently stuck at the dragon fight in Beast of Winter. I would be hiring an adventurer to add to my party to help me kill dragons. Thanks.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/79169-class-build-dragon-slayer-paladin-build/

 

 

[Jayd]

I'm not sure that dragons are enough of a general threat in this game to build directly around. If you're having trouble with the Messenger there are specific tips for her that aren't necessarily for every dragon. She is weak to fire damage, so strong fire spells are useful in chunking her down. I know people swear by Combusting Wounds + Wall of Fire. But Storm of Holy Fire and Meteor Shower work. You can make those with scrolls if you have party members with high arcana.

 

But the #1 important thing in beating her is interrupts. She's a wizard and casts some very powerful spells (chief among them is Llengrath's Safeguard, which she attempts to cast when near 50% health and makes her nearly unkillable). You need to pay attention to her casting cycle and spam reliable interrupts while she is casting (not when she is recovering). She has a few layers of concentration to strip so you'll need to use a few (and/or make her immune to concentration with an Insects spell or that one chanter chant). I just fought her recently and used Force of Anguish on a monk. A Ranger with Concussive Shot/Tranquilizer is very reliable because of the accuracy. But there are plenty of fine options for interrupts. It also helps if you can debuff the defense your main interrupt(s) target(s).

 

Once you plan around interrupting her spells and know you can do damage she becomes much less scary.

[Marigoldran]

Helwalker/Ascendant.   (monk/cipher).   For weapon use Essence Interrupter, which you can buy at Port Maje.  

 

Max Per, Int, Might.  Dump Res.  

 

In battle, get 10 wounds quickly either from Dance of Death or getting damaged.  You'll build up focus fast with Essence Interrupter and Hunting Bow Modal (fires twice as fast).  Armor's not a problem because Essence interrupter is Pierce/Shock.  Any armor that blocks pierce is vulnerable to shock.  Get Turning Wheel's +10 Int bonus.  Get +10 Might Bonus as Helwalker.  You'll be sitting on 35 Might and INT if you add in equipment and food bonuses.

 

This means that when you ascend you'll have almost a full minute of ascension time for free cipher spell spam.  

 

While ascended, spam 35 MIght, 35 INT disintegrates on dragon.

 

Fight ends quickly.  

 

EDIT: If you need someone to tank, stuff a herald or two with their summons in front of her (paladin/chanter-troubadour).  Heralds can tank everything in the game since they can heal, summon, and have insane defenses.  

Edited April 17, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Turning Wheel doesn't work with ranged weapons or spells - so you might as well skip it and stick to Duality of Mortal Presence and spare one ability point.

 

Good boss killer (includes Dragons) usually is a single class monk due to Resonant Touch which has no stack limit. Against single targets which are not pierce immune or highly resistant blunderbuss is best since every hit over 10 dmg adds a Resonant Touch - and blunderbusses hit 4 times per shot. Sun & Moon is also nice since it hits twice per swing. Single class Monks also have the potential for very high accuracy via Enduring Dance (+12) and Razor's Edge (+10). If you use a Forbidden Fist with very high RES you can spam Forbidden Fist on the dragon, get a curse duration of less than 3 sec. and get healed and +1 wound while it runs out. Any other affliction also will run out quickly and heal you and give a wound. That way you don't have to spend a lot of wounds and always stay at 9-10. With Crucible of Suffering you will always have raised defenses. Forbidden Fist costs 0 wounds as long as you are not already cursed. It scales with Power Level and Transcendent Suffering and has a base PEN of 9 which leads to pretty great PEN and dmg at higher levels. Since you are stacking RES already you can make a weapon and Tuotilo's Palm build with high defenses. Your weapon should not be crush but some other dmg type. Forbidden Fist does not use your weapon but only does crush. So you csn have all physical dmg types without switching.

The Enfeeblement of Forbidden Fist gives DoTs on the Dragon +50% duration. So if you have a cipher with Disintegrate he will like you. Usually Dragons have high RES and thus reduce Disintegration time a lot - with enfeebling you can counter that.

Also Enfeebled reduces the dragon's current and max health by 25% which is the equivalent of many hits. More info on CON afflictions and why they are good: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109118-how-good-is-enervating-blows-really/

Edited April 17, 2019 by Boeroer

[Jayd]

Since we're talking about monks, my single class FF would just stun-lock bosses with Skyward Kick. Enduring Dance + FF means enough wound gain to do it indefinitely.

[dunehunter]

Resonant Touch is good because it lets you not worry about enemy’s AR and deflection, as long as your attack not miss, it’s always 15+ raw damage bonus per hit. And blunderbuss makes it really OP since u hit 4 times per attack, that’s means 60~80+ damage bonus per hit regardless enemy defense stats. Not any abilities come close to such high damage bonus, not even deep wounds + deathblow since the extra damage from these passives heavily relies on enemy AR and deflection.

 

So yeah SC monk is the No.1 boss killer class imo, I wanna nominate SC rogue as they can do potentially high damage to big mobs too, not as strong as blunderbuss monk but close. Open fight with lover’s kiss dagger + stealth and Gouging Strike you can apply constant DoT to enemy until combat ends, they can also use the soulbound dagger to instantly kill enemy with less than 25% health, you can even combine the DoT with brand enemy from paladin to make it even stronger.

Edited April 17, 2019 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

I would choose Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts over Lover's Kiss. Especially with Full Attacks and a light weapon in the offhand - e.g. Marux Amanth as you said.

[Marigoldran]

Resonant Touch is good because it lets you not worry about enemy’s AR and deflection, as long as your attack not miss, it’s always 15+ raw damage bonus per hit. And blunderbuss makes it really OP since u hit 4 times per attack, that’s means 60~80+ damage bonus per hit regardless enemy defense stats. Not any abilities come close to such high damage bonus, not even deep wounds + deathblow since the extra damage from these passives heavily relies on enemy AR and deflection.

 

So yeah SC monk is the No.1 boss killer class imo, I wanna nominate SC rogue as they can do potentially high damage to big mobs too, not as strong as blunderbuss monk but close. Open fight with lover’s kiss dagger + stealth and Gouging Strike you can apply constant DoT to enemy until combat ends, they can also use the soulbound dagger to instantly kill enemy with less than 25% health, you can even combine the DoT with brand enemy from paladin to make it even stronger.

 

I nominate Helwalker/Ascendant.  For resonance to work, you still have to hit multiple times.  Whereas with disintegrate all you have to do is hit a couple of times and the boss is dead.  

[dunehunter]

I would choose Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts over Lover's Kiss. Especially with Full Attacks and a light weapon in the offhand - e.g. Marux Amanth as you said.

Well that’s just an Opener, u can still switch to axe/dagger after right

 

Edit: I forget to mention Skullcrusher, as it can cause injury on enemy with empowered ability = chance to reduce 15% max health. With Final Sacrifice u only need to do damage equal to 60% of boss’ hp to kill them. So you can go Lover's Kiss + Skullcrusher + empowered Gouging + injury for opener, then switch to Magran's Favor + Marux Amanth after and finish near death boss with final sacrifice.

Edited April 18, 2019 by dunehunter

[dunehunter]

 

Resonant Touch is good because it lets you not worry about enemy’s AR and deflection, as long as your attack not miss, it’s always 15+ raw damage bonus per hit. And blunderbuss makes it really OP since u hit 4 times per attack, that’s means 60~80+ damage bonus per hit regardless enemy defense stats. Not any abilities come close to such high damage bonus, not even deep wounds + deathblow since the extra damage from these passives heavily relies on enemy AR and deflection.

 

So yeah SC monk is the No.1 boss killer class imo, I wanna nominate SC rogue as they can do potentially high damage to big mobs too, not as strong as blunderbuss monk but close. Open fight with lover’s kiss dagger + stealth and Gouging Strike you can apply constant DoT to enemy until combat ends, they can also use the soulbound dagger to instantly kill enemy with less than 25% health, you can even combine the DoT with brand enemy from paladin to make it even stronger.

I nominate Helwalker/Ascendant. For resonance to work, you still have to hit multiple times. Whereas with disintegrate all you have to do is hit a couple of times and the boss is dead.

Like I said in my thread, boss in deadfire usually has very high defense, specially fortitude, for disintegrate to work on boss u need very special setup, like Morningstar modal and very high accuracy. even if u finally land one on boss, the total damage would be around 200 (because u usually will only graze on target), which if I remember correctly, don’t stack with itself, u can only expend it’s duration. not as efficient as resonant touch imo.

Edited April 18, 2019 by dunehunter

[Marigoldran]

That's why you have the herald tank smack the boss with the morningstar.  

 

You can spam 7 disintegrates in a minute.  One or two of them is going to hit (not graze).  

Edited April 18, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Boeroer]

Problem with Disintegrate is that it gets reduced by high RES a lot - and since bosses usually have very high RES... Combined with a graze it does pretty horrible dps. Not much compared to Resonant Touch. But if you can apply enfeebled that not only brings down CON by 5, Fortuitude by 10 and health by 25% but also prevents any healing and makes Disintegrate much more viable on bosses again.

 

Of course... why not combine both in a party?

 

By the way: keep in mind that Essence Interrupter still destroys unique loot (very reliably - always if you manage to crit). I wouldn't use it if you expect good things to drop.

[dunehunter]

Problem with Disintegrate is that it gets reduced by high RES a lot - and since bosses usually have very high RES... Combined with a graze it does pretty horrible dps. Not much compared to Resonant Touch. But if you can apply enfeebled that not only brings down CON by 5, Fortuitude by 10 and health by 25% but also prevents any healing and makes Disintegrate much more viable on bosses again.

 

Of course... why not combine both in a party?

 

By the way: keep in mind that Essence Interrupter still destroys unique loot (very reliably - always if you manage to crit). I wouldn't use it if you expect good things to drop.

 

If enemy has only 10 Con then Con affliction will reduce health by 25%, but if they have very high Con, the reduction is much less. Let's say a boss has a base of 1000 hp, 30 Con, so final hp = 1000 x (1 + 20 x 5%) = 2000. Under Con affliction, affected hp = 1000 x (1 + 15 x 5%) = 1750, so 2000/1750 - 100% that's like 14% health off.

Edited April 18, 2019 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

Actually it's only 12.5% less. Which is exactly the half of 25%. Because CON is twice as high. You should divide 1750 by 2000 to get the percentage that's taken away. ~14% is the gain from 1750 to 2000.

But yeah sure, it's only 25% if you assume 10 CON. With less CON it's more (unlikely with bosses though) and with higher CON it's less. But I don't want to look up all bosses and their CON values to give the exact percentage - so I just stick to the basic "5 less CON = 25% less health".

12.5% health with such high base health pools is still very nice though. Besides the other good effects that enfeebled brings to the table this is also pretty nice. I mean you reduced the health pool by 250 points just with an affliction in your example. That's worth some attacks, even for a monk.

More on CON afflictions' math for the curious forum reader:
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109118-how-good-is-enervating-blows-really/

Edited April 18, 2019 by Boeroer

[dunehunter]

Actually it's only 12.5% less. Wich is exactly the half of 25%. Because CON is twice as high. You should divide 1750 by 2000 to get the percentage that's taken away. ~14% is the gain from 1750 to 2000.

 

But yeah sure, it's only 25% if you assume 10 CON. With less CON it's more (unlikely with bosses though) and with higher CON it's less. But I don't want to look up all bosses and their CON values to give the exact percentage - so I just stick to the basic "5 less CON = 25% less health".

 

12.5% health with such high base health pools is still very nice though. Besides the other good effects that enfeebled brings to the table this is also pretty nice. I mean you reduced the health pool by 250 points just with an affliction in your example. That's worth some attacks, even for a monk.

 

More on CON afflictions' math for the curious forum reader:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109118-how-good-is-enervating-blows-really/

Yeah you are right it's 12.5% less health. But to be noted you need to keep Con Affliction on target when u dealing damage. Otherwise it's fake health reduction as we talked in that Con affliction thread. I wouldn't rely on that on big boss since it's usually hard to land Con Affliction on them (except FF I guess since u can spam forbidden fist), but it's a nice extra bonus

Edited April 18, 2019 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

Yes, with Forbidden Fist it's quite easy since you not only can spam it (with high RES) but also the Enfeebled affliction makes the next Enfeebled affliction last 50% longer.

 

I have to say Forbidden Fist (after the last bugfix/buff) is starting to grow on me. Also the multiclass synergies are quite nice. SO for example a Forbidden Fist/Cipher can do more damage than a Helwalker with Disintegrate (not dps though) because the Enfeebling will add 50% multiplicative dmg instead of "only" +30% additive dmg with MIG. On top comes the CON reduction. And getting wounds is no problem once you amped up your RES enough (and use Clarity + get one or two items that reduce durations of harmfull effects).

 

Next thing I would want to try is Forbidden Fist/Wizard with Upright Captain's Belt, using Pull of Eora on myself. I wonder if the Pull of Eora status effect gets even applied if you are immune to the pull... In theory this should give you tons of wounds all the time (which I know it does) without the annoying repositioning all the time (hope so).