Best melee dps build and Best 2h build

[NightofTheDead]

hey guys, 

I was wondering if you could give any tips for those 2 questions. 

1. Best melee dps build. I would like it not to be a sneak attack build or scordeo combo build, and the build should use weapons.

2.best 2h hander build. Same applies, not a sneak attack build and I would like it to be at least somewhat frontline.

What interests me is class/multiclass, key skills and weapons. Of course, you can elaborate more if you wish, including armor and other things.

[indika_tates]

For a 2h build nothing deals more damage than a berserker + sanguine sword with bloodthirst active. It's quite ridiculous 0.4 attack speed/no recovery + berserker dmg modifiers. Max MIG, INT, CON, average per/dex, dump res. The only problem is that this build begins to shine at level 13, so you can use 2h until then or go dualwield then respec. Multi-classes also get acces to bloodthirst but since you get it at level 19 instead of level 13 I don't even consider multiclassing a barb if I plan on using 2h weapons.

Edited May 31, 2019 by indika_tates

[Waski]

What do you mean "no sneak attack"?  No rouge? Or just no attacks from invisibility?  Shadowdancer is hard to beat in wrecking havoc in enemy backlines.  Move around with escape and spam stunning surge.  If you don't want rouge,  brawler (for example devoted sabre/monk).  With iron wheel /refreshing defences can take a hit and mob stance can trigger swift flurry / heartbeat drumming and vice versa. 

[fYNX]

1 hour ago, Waski said:

Shadowdancer is hard to beat in wrecking havoc in enemy backlines.

I second that. Shadowdancer (No-sub rogue/Nalpazca) was my main character for a PotD playthrough, and he was awesome. Rogue and Monk passives grant high DPS, Flagellant's Path and The Dichtomous Soul make him even more mobile and versatile.

[dunehunter]

3 hours ago, fYNX said:

I second that. Shadowdancer (No-sub rogue/Nalpazca) was my main character for a PotD playthrough, and he was awesome. Rogue and Monk passives grant high DPS, Flagellant's Path and The Dichtomous Soul make him even more mobile and versatile.

Third Shadowdancer, if u don't want a sneak attack build nor a scordeo combo build, shadowdancer is the highest melee dpser on single target in this game. Don't recommend no-sub rogue because trickster is actually a better version of no-sub rogue, there's no reason take no-sub when u can pick trickster, unless u don't like the theme.

Edited May 31, 2019 by dunehunter

[heldred]

I agree with many of the points above...  some random thoughts

 

Monk (Hel) / Rogue (Tricks) - I like trading the imperceptible reduction in DPS for added survivability (Offense Single 10 / Offense AOE 5 / Defense 7 / Utility 5)

Monk (Hel) - T8/T9 abilities makes this a difficult DPS class to overlook (Offense Single 10 / Offense AOE 7 / Defense 6 / Utility 4)

Barb (Zerk) - T8/T9 and carnage make for a potent melee combatant (Offense Single 8 / Offense AOE 9 / Defense 5 / Utility 4)

Druid (Shift) / Rogue (Street or Tricks) - Storms + shifted melee is potent... plus Druid offers great utility (Offense Single 8 / Offense AOE 7 / Defense 7 / Utility 9)

Pali (Bleak) / Rogue (Tricks) - Good DPS, decent support, and high defenses (Offense Single 7 / Offense AOE 4 / Defense 9 / Utility 6)

Fighter (Devoted - 2HS or Estoc) / Cipher (SB) - Good AP & ACC, flexible build, good defenses (Offense Single 8 / Offense AOE 7 / Defense 8 / Utility 7)

Fighter (Devoted -Pike) / Wiz (Blood) - Great defense, great AOE (Citzals), good accuracy, etc.  (Offense Single 6 / Offense AOE 10 / Defense 10 / Utility

 

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by heldred

[AndreaColombo]

Devoted (Greatsword) / Priest of Berath hits like a truck if you max out on Berath’s favored dispositions.

[Boeroer]

I would argue that Streetfighter/Priest of Berath hits like a truck on kerosine.  However - unless we know what "no sneak attack builds" means we put this on hold...

Other very potent 2H-builds include Citzal's Spirit Lance.

 

Shadowdancer, Holy Slayer and Mindstalker are all candidates for very high to highest melee weapon dps - but once again: "no sneak attack builds". What does that mean? No sneaking around and attacking from stealth/doing backstabs? Or no use of Rogues in general because they come with the Sneak Attack passive?

No rogue builds that can have very high melee dps are SC Soulblade (Time Siphon + Reaping Knives allows for non-stop spamming Soul Annihilation with minimal recovery), Ranger/Soulblade can be very good (if you emphasize on Takedown Combo - but very micro-heavy).

If we are looking at high levels then I would say the non-rogue class with the highest melee dps potential will be single class Monk due to Resonant Touch. Use Keeper of the Flame + Sun & Moon and Swift Flurry.

 

Generally what generates high dps is:

a) high additive bonuses combined with 

b) high lashes (which are multiplicative) combined with

c) high attack speed

This usually means we are talking about Streetfighter (since he combines the highest additive dmg bonuses AND one of the best speedup modifiers in one class) with anything that can have a lash or works like one (multiplicative dmg bonus) which means Monk (Lightning Strikes/Swift Flurry + Turning Wheel), Paladin (FoD and Eternal Devotion), Druid (Wildstrike and Boar form), Chanter (Mith Fyr), even Wizard (Spirit Lance + Zandethu's Draconic Fury), Soul Blade (Soul Annihilation profits from additive dmg bonuses in a multiplicative way like a lash) and Priest with Spiritual Weapons.

[AndreaColombo]

My problem with the Streetfighter is that it needs to be flanked and bloodied to benefit from the bonuses. Unless I rely on BDD shenanigans, I'm as good as dead after swinging my weapon twice. Fighter/Priest may dish out less damage, but is definitely more durable (even a SC Priest of Berath could be a decent damage dealer; the high-level spells are pretty good.)

Edited June 1, 2019 by AndreaColombo

[Boeroer]

Well the Streetfighter has the same additive bonuses as any other rogue even when not bloodied AND flanked.

Getting flanked is fairly easy - and then you benefit from ridiculous attack speed and increased Sneak Attack damage. If you now wanted to also get +100% crit damage then you'd have to be bloodied. But it's  the class with the highest additive dmg bonuses and one of the fastest hitters even without being bloodied. Just get flanked and your dps explodes already.

 

 

[AndreaColombo]

Besides the blunderbuss modal and running in the middle of a pack of ravenous enemies, are there other ways to make yourself flanked?

[Boeroer]

sure - if you're not solo.

First of all you don't need to be in the midst of anything as long as you don't pile up engagement slots like crazy. Usually you'll have 1 from Persistent Distraction and that's it. That means you can get flanked quite easily.

Or stand where somebody else fires Powder Burns (using a Pale Elf usually leads to hefty underpenetration). edit: That doesn't work at all.

Same Pale Elf can be build with a Perception resistance and dance in your Wizard's Chillfog for example. 

Your Cipher/Berseker buddy can cast Phantom Foes.

You can use a Chanter's Whisps to shoot at you (auto-distract).

And so on - there are quite a few ways to trigger "Heating Up" at will - if you have a party. 

Edited June 1, 2019 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Apart from that: what does "best" mean anyway? I think that is highly dependend on your preferences as a player and also dependend on you party composition.

Best != highest (potential) dps. If you drop dead too soon your average dps drops rather significantly. If you can only hit single targets you won't keep up with somebody wo can hit several enemies at once and so on.

It all depends. That's why I usually don't respond very quickly to such vague questions - because there is no definitive "best" of anything basic in Deadfire. Maybe when you solo (but even then it highly depends on the player), but surely not with a party.  Once it is more clear what OP really wants it's much easier to give meaningful tips.

Often enough there's a question like "what's the best X" and people start givig tips - but then OP comes around and says "Yeah cool cool cool cool - but I want my X to be a bit more Y you know because of Z" - and I'm like "why not mentioning that in the first place?"  

Edited June 1, 2019 by Boeroer

[Ivanfyodorovich]

I had some fun playing around with a blade master of Magran idea devoted/helwalker. Dump INT, Max DEX, PER and MIG on an elf. Stacking up every additive bonus (fighter passives, modal, etc.) and lash (iron wheel, lightening lash, magran belt) you can and toss in firebrand for fun. Its 25% fire lash is weaker than spiritual weapon maxed (I think?), but it’s duration is 60 seconds and unaffected by INT. Athletics and Contenders armor plus armored grace have a similar interaction as Palehide  or miscreant’s, where you are faster than if you had no armor on (again, I’m pretty sure). The added engagement slot also gives another +5% speed with mob stance (not sure if it stacks with lightening strikes). Then stack the usual speed stuff - helm of the falcon, dex boots, etc. 

it seemed pretty much the idea of the lady of pain, but with a few changes. 

One variant is using void wheel to generate wounds and stating at range with instruments and dance of death. Voidwheel only has a 20% lash (combined), but it’s 2 other dmg types (raw and corrode). I didn’t get to test that as much, but instruments with a greatsword is pretty fun and fits the idea of someone who has honed their training with a weapon to the point where they can hit you with it from across the room. 

[Boeroer]

Since when does INT not affect summoned weapons' duration? Ah I guess because it's from a scroll? 

Speed bonuses from Lightning Strikes and Mob Stance do stack.

Nice idea to use Great Sword's modal with the lashes. With Enduring Dance you get an ACC bonus that evens out the ACC malus. And once you wear the Ring of Focused Flames you'll have +10 ACC with Firebrand. Only thing I wouldn't like is using scrolls. Too bad we don't have things like Forgemaster Gloves anymore. 

[AndreaColombo]

How long does the Accuracy buff from Enduring Dance last? Until you’re hit enough times (and how many times is that)?

Firebrand from a scroll only requires 2 Arcana, one point of which you can get from one of the skill trainers, and casts rather quickly. It’s very good to use in BoW, though the Fire Keyword makes it so that enemies can dispel it rather easily. It was very good against the dragon, though.

However, during my last playthrough I compared my Devoted/Helwalker to a SC Helwalker and the latter felt quite a bit more powerful with WotW and the Stalking Cloak, even without extra cheese like Avenging Storm and Hand Mortars.

 

EDIT: How high is your DPS characters’ Accuracy on average? Mine is usually between 120 and 130, but some of the Megabosses require higher figures to hit reliably.

Edited June 2, 2019 by AndreaColombo

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Speed bonuses from Lightning Strikes and Mob Stance do stack.

Interesting, maybe because one is Speed Bonus and the other is Recovery Bonus.

I guess it should work with similar effects (such as pistol modal and DAoM).

[Boeroer]

No, afaik all speed bonuses stack in Deadfire (I mean if applicable to your current action in the first place).

They are not calculated like in PoE where every stackable additional speed bonus yielded increasing returns (when it comes to absolute frame count). In DF it's just the other way round: the more bonuses you stack the less frames every single bonus will take away. 

Like if you would want to empty a glass of water by repeatedly talking half out of it. Every iteration will take less water out and you can't reach complete emptyness.

That's the reason why it was so easy to reach 0 recovery in PoE and why it's impossible to reach 0 in Deadfire (unless you use stuff like Blade Cascade or Blood Thirst etc. which totally omit recovery).

Therefore PoE had to restrict stacking of speed bonuses (which were only recovery bonuses to begin with) to not totally break the game while DF doesn't need to.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Boeroer

[Ivanfyodorovich]

6 hours ago, AndreaColombo said:

However, during my last playthrough I compared my Devoted/Helwalker to a SC Helwalker and the latter felt quite a bit more powerful with WotW and the Stalking Cloak, even without extra cheese like Avenging Storm and Hand Mortars.

 

EDIT: How high is your DPS characters’ Accuracy on average? Mine is usually between 120 and 130, but some of the Megabosses require higher figures to hit reliably.

WotW is hard to beat. Are you saying that WotW with a Greatsword feels more powerful than a Devoted/Helwalker with Greatsword? Or are you using two weapons on the SC to optimize the Full Attacks? 

 

There are 2 ways to go with this Brawler that I'm seeing. One is more defensive and stays in the middle of enemies with Mob Stance on and Refreshing Defense, etc. The other plays at range with Dance of Death and Conquerer's Stance (won't stack with Dance, but is +10 Acc for the first 12 seconds until Dance can stack up).

The Mob Stance bruiser version with Firebrand, Accuracy is 119 (109 with Savage Attack on) in Mob Stance self-buffed only. You could pick up +10 from a priest or 5 from paladin/deadeye. *Note that Mob Stance Free Attacks get bonus Accuracy: +8 ability level and +2 per power level (+10 for this character).

As for speed, after a Crit (for necklace buff) with 2 enemies engaged, attack speed is .4 and recovery is 1.9 (1.8 with Abraham). That's with every slot dedicated to speed (Aegor's, Necklace of the Harvest Moon, Helm of the Falcon, etc.). 

I'll play around with the Dance of Death + Instruments version, but I think it's wanting something different. There's less incentive to wear the Contender's armor, since we won't be engaging from range and the extra armor isn't helping as much. Someone who is better at attack/recovery math can weigh in if downgrading to Miscreants is better here, or if the single large bonus from Mobility is still better, or if we just scrap light/medium armor + Armored grace and switch to a 0 recovery armor. You would want to dump RES here instead of INT, to extend the duration of Instruments.  

Also, in a little bit of testing, I don't think wound generation is high enough with just Voidwheel self damage and Dance of Death. The 4 wounds for Instruments, which needs to be refreshed, along with Thundering Blows, leaves very little for Monk Torment's Reach (which gives another +25% additive DMG). I'm imagining trading out the Devoted for a Berserker would work better. In that case we really are dancing with death. You probably would have enough wounds to keep up Blade Turning, in a pinch, but the self-DMG might be too damn high. 

[AndreaColombo]

3 hours ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

WotW is hard to beat. Are you saying that WotW with a Greatsword feels more powerful than a Devoted/Helwalker with Greatsword? Or are you using two weapons on the SC to optimize the Full Attacks?

SC Helwalker was using fists. My intention when I hired the SC Helwalker merc was not to do a direct comparison between it and the Brawler; I just wanted to try WotW with the cloak. In doing so, I realized the Helwalker just felt more powerful and generally more satisfying to play despite lacking a lot of additional bonuses that my Watcher had (e.g. stat boost from Berath's Blessings, Gift from the Machine, etc.)

As for speed, I use Faster Deadfire and stacking bonuses stops being effective after a while. Sure, I could stack another bonus to shave another 0.1 or 0.2 from my recovery, but 0.1/0.2 hardly make a difference. If you use Berath's Blessings to unlock Edér's pet slot and give him Nalvi, then use either Abraham or Cutthroat Cosmo for the Watcher with Armored Grace, you remove the recovery penalty completely from medium armor.

 

EDIT: Just tried Streetfighter / Priest of Berath and it is a killing machine against mobs. I was hoping to play Tekehu as a SC Druid this time, but I'll probably need the Wisp summon to get Flanked against bosses.

Edited June 2, 2019 by AndreaColombo

[NightofTheDead]

"No sneak attack build", what I mean by that is no attacks from stealth, so if you wouldn't do it, would bringing rogue or rogue multi-class would still be worth it? or shadowdancer for that matter. It can still be rogue, if it does more regular/skill attack damage, but I wont be using attacks from invisibility at all, so I was wondering what the best next build would be, rogue included, although I guess that would gimp it.

 

[AndreaColombo]

Actually Rogues in this game don’t rely on attacks from stealth/invisibility all that much. Only the Backstab ability works that way, and you can choose not to pick it. Sneak Attack and Death Blows both activate if your target has Afflictions, which ideally you’ll want to bestow anyway.

[Boeroer]

Like AndreaColombo said.

In general: relying on attack from stealth/invisibility is a weak move in a party based playthrough to begin with (with the exception of Vanishing Strikes/SC Rogue and Whispers of the Wind/SC Monk). It can be fun an is effective in certain encounters, but it is a completly different playstyle then. It's great for soloing though.

But Rogues are not all about that. Not at all. Their "Sneak Attack" passive simply means they deal a hell lot of more damage to any enemy that has an affliction. Given that melee rogues have a passive named "Persistent Distraction" that causes two affliction just by engaging somebody (Distract which includes Flanked) his Sneak Attack turns into a 100% uptime passive damage bonus. But even without Persistent Distraction: it's so easy to put afflictions on enemies with all kinds of abilities that Sneak Attack nearly always applies. No stealth involved. 

If you want high melee dps a Rogue is your best bet - generally speaking.

[Ensign]

Why the preference for Sanguine Greatsword over Effort or non-greatswords?  I presume the self heal on crit is valued highly?

[AndreaColombo]

For me it's the hit-to-crit conversion and great looks. Its ability "Prepare the offering" is also pretty good.

Voidwheel outputs higher DPS if you mitigate the self-damage.