Backstab build with whispers of the endless paths - still broken?

[Infiltrator_SF]

A few versions ago I wanted to make a glass cannon stealth annihilator build. So I made an assassin/soulblade with the intention of dishing out huge damage from stealth in an AoE.

Unfortunately, the build was broken as the sword bugged out while trying to execute people - there was no aoe with soul annihilation for example, and attacks from stealth reset your attack but the initial strike didn't proc sneak/backstab miltis.

 

Im just wondering if its fixed now, or if you guys have some other variations if it isnt.

[Boeroer]

The AoE is separate from the initial attack roll. That's the case with all AoE weapons. So you will never be able to do an AoE-Backstab unless you use Vanishing Strike (Rogue PL 9).

Reason is that the invisibility/stealth drops right after the initial hit and the following AoE hits are handles as seperate hits which will already be done without stealth/invisibility.

Same with blunderbusses and other multi-shot weapons (Frostseeker for example).

Another thing with AoE would be that you have to be <2m away from the target i order to trigger Backstab and that that is difficult to achieve with an AoE attack roll. 

Since WotEP has lower base damage than a normal Great Sword it's especially bad for Backstabbing. Exception: the enchantment "Run Through" is very good for Backstabbing because it has high base damage. You can only do it 1/encounter though.

Vanishing Strike is an exception because its invisibility doesn't break during duration o matter what you do. That means all attack rolls will count as Backstabs - as long as they are considered as weapon attacks AND they happen not more than 2m away from where you stand.

Weird behaviour with Soul Annihilation + Backstab should be fixed. Afaik they work together and SA's raw dmg will receive a bonus from the Backstab damage. Just use another weapon. Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff for example is nice - as are two handed Battle Axes 

A really great glass cannon "invisibility" build is SC Assassin or SC Streetfighter with Vanishing Strikes, Gambit and dual mortars. Destroys mobs in seconds while being untouchable.

Another way is to use SC Monk with Whispers of the Wind (also makes you invisible which an be combined with the Stalking Cloak that stuns from invisibility). However, WotW does not use the AoE of WotEP but only its initial attack - so also no recommendation for WotEP here. Whith mortars again it's devastating though.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Boeroer

[Infiltrator_SF]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

 A really great glass cannon "invisibility" build is SC Assassin or SC Streetfighter with Vanishing Strikes, Gambit and dual mortars. Destroys mobs in seconds while being untouchable.

 Another way is to use SC Monk with Whispers of the Wind (also makes you invisible which an be combined with the Stalking Cloak that stuns from invisibility). However, WotW does not use the AoE of WotEP but only its initial attack - so also no recommendation for WotEP here. Whith mortars again it's devastating though.

When you say mortars you mean hand mortar and fire in the hole I assume? Where can I get more details about the build?

Also, you can get PL 9 with multiclassing now?

[Boeroer]

Mortars = Hand Mortar & Fire in the Hole, exaclty.

The builds are pretty straightforward since they are single classes. PL8 and 9 are still single class only. But honestly a lot of classes are better as single class builds nowadays due to good PL8/9 abilites, earlier ability progression and earlier and higher Power Level scaling - except in the early to mid game when you pick very front-loaded classes (like Rogue and Paladin for example). At least in a party. Solo is different.

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

14 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The AoE is separate from the initial attack roll. That's the case with all AoE weapons. So you will never be able to do an AoE-Backstab unless you use Vanishing Strike (Rogue PL 9).

The first version of the WotEP worked like that indeed, but after the nerf they removed the first hit and left only the AoE part. Didn't test since the last patch but in theory you should be able to backstab multiple enemies if they're in the 2m range. 

[Boeroer]

Just tested again to be sure: nope.

Only Backstabs on the initial target - even if the secondary one stays right beside and def. is nearer than 2m.

The game even pauses between the initial hit roll and the following AoE ones (if you activated auto pause on encounter start).

Same with Rod + Blast and Mortars. 

I can only Backstab the initial target. Sometimes even that doesn't happen to whatever reasons (maybe targets that stand nearer than the initial target roll first and remove stealth then?).

However: I can sometimes get Assassinate to trigger with the AoE crits. As if Assassinate as a tiny bit of a time tolerance. Or the AoE attack rolls are not considered to be melee or ranged weapon attacks und thus wouldn't trigger Backstab (but Assassinate since it doesn't have the "weapon only" restriction).

Another thing: certain "secondary" effects like Poweder Burns do actually happen before the initial hit roll. They will bust your Backstab. So if you are stealthed and attack somebody with a mortar + Powder Burns then the Powder Burns will roll first, it won't get any bonus from Backstab (since no "proper" weapon attack) but it removes stealth and your Backstab is messed up. Assassinate does work with Powder Burns but the base damage is so low that it's not very impressive. I suspect tha same is true with Blinding Smoke from Hand Mortar.

By the way: Backstab is messed up anyway. It currently doesn't work with Shadowing Beyond for whatever reason and also not with arquebus. @Phenomenum found a way to fix this with a mod if I remember correctly. Our upcoming "Community Patch" will include that fix and also a change of Backstab: away with the stupid base damage bonus that makes heavy hitting weapons the best back stabbing devices. Instead Backlstab will add a portion of raw damage that is not connected to your weapon's base damage. Iirc it starts as 25 raw then (which is roughly the average base damage of the heavier weapons in Deadfire) - so basically like the former +100% - but no matter which weapon you use. It also scales its base damage with Power Level (like any other damaging ability: 5% per PL). So at PL 9 you would do 36.25 and not 25. This will make Backstabbing with light weapons viable while it will not make it worse with the heavy hitters. It also retains a bit more usefulness during the game since it scales. Have to check though if this will get included when calculating lash damage. Because if not it might actually be a worse with heavy hitters.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Boeroer

[Phenomenum]

Ha-ha. The thing is all weapon's AoE attacks, technically, don't treated as weapon attacks - there is everywhere "TreatAsWeapon: false" flag. Backstab bonus damage applied only to weapon attacks. That's the trick.

So... AoE backstabbing wouldn't work without modding that part.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Phenomenum]

The trick is #2: Changing "TreatAsWeapon" flag to "true" for Powder Burns AoE activates some funny recursion:

 

So i can't imagine what i can do.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Phenomenum]

@Infiltrator_SF Test this mod: https://uploadfiles.io/u6f3307y

Mod changes three things:

1. Backstab damage bonus always applies correct from invincibility (Shadowing Beyond and so on) with all weapons
2. Damage bonus applies to all 4 projectiles with Blunderbuss attacks
3. Damage bonus applies to all targets with AoE weapons attacks (Whispers of EP, Amra etc.)

Damage bonus still the same as vanilla: +100%

Edited June 4, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Boeroer]

Did you:

a) alter the AoEs of WotEP, Blast, mortars etc. to "TreatAsWeapon:true" - or

b) did you remove that restriction from Backstab?

Because with a) there might be problems with stuff like WotEP + Carnage (every AoE hit will trigger Carnage maybe?) and with b) it would mean that also spells get Backstab bonus...? 

 

Edited June 4, 2019 by Boeroer

[Phenomenum]

26 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Did you:

a) alter the AoEs of WotEP, Blast, mortars etc. to "TreatAsWeapon:true" - or

b) did you remove that restriction from Backstab?

Because with a) there might be problems with stuff like WotEP + Carnage (every AoE hit will trigger Carnage maybe?) and with b) it would mean that also spells yoput get Backstab bonus...? 

a) Nope
b) Yes, but it's not working for Powder Burns. I don't know why - maybe, because PB ability not directly linked to specific weapon attack... Don't know. And no, weapon restriction is still here, no bonus for spells. Basically, it's still vanilla Backstab, with a few bugfixes, but without Raw Damage.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Infiltrator_SF]

On 6/4/2019 at 9:03 AM, Boeroer said:

By the way: Backstab is messed up anyway. It currently doesn't work with Shadowing Beyond for whatever reason and also not with arquebus. @Phenomenum found a way to fix this with a mod if I remember correctly. Our upcoming "Community Patch" will include that fix and also a change of Backstab: away with the stupid base damage bonus that makes heavy hitting weapons the best back stabbing devices. Instead Backlstab will add a portion of raw damage that is not connected to your weapon's base damage. Iirc it starts as 25 raw then (which is roughly the average base damage of the heavier weapons in Deadfire) - so basically like the former +100% - but no matter which weapon you use. It also scales its base damage with Power Level (like any other damaging ability: 5% per PL). So at PL 9 you would do 36.25 and not 25. This will make Backstabbing with light weapons viable while it will not make it worse with the heavy hitters. It also retains a bit more usefulness during the game since it scales. Have to check though if this will get included when calculating lash damage. Because if not it might actually be a worse with heavy hitters.

Interesting, when would this community patch go live?

Thanks.

[Boeroer]

In 2 days if i'm not mistaken. Or 1? Something like that.

I guess we should summon and ask @Phenomenum who will put it online.

It will not include trinkets for Priests and Druids yet (still in the making - will come with a later version) - but I guess that's no your current concern anyway.

[Infiltrator_SF]

Damn I should restart then.. do you have a changelog/link to a page for that?

[Phenomenum]

I will make some final polishing tomorrow (+ i totally forgot to change keywords for scrolls) and then send all to MQ for publishing. So i think it will be released on Saturday / Sunday.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Phenomenum]

1 hour ago, Infiltrator_SF said:

It also scales its base damage with Power Level (like any other damaging ability: 5% per PL). So at PL 9 you would do 36.25 and not 25.

@Boeroer did a small mistake. Backstab base Raw damage bonus is 20, not 25. And it scales by 5% (+1 pt. Raw Damage) from lvl 2, so at PL 10 (single class rogue + Prestige) base damage will be 30. Also it scales with Might, and since PL bonus is multiplicative, with high Might attribute you can achieve some nice Raw Damage bonus (40-45 Raw Damage it's a real number for high-level character). And this is will work for any weapon. Basically, Backstab damage will be higher nearly x2, compared to vanilla.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Phenomenum]

59 minutes ago, Infiltrator_SF said:

Damn I should restart then.. do you have a changelog/link to a page for that?

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109032-deadfire-polishing-poll/

[Boeroer]

45 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

@Boeroer did a small mistake. Backstab base Raw damage bonus is 20, not 25. And it scales by 5% (+1 pt. Raw Damage) from lvl 2, so at PL 10 (single class rogue + Prestige) base damage will be 30. Also it scales with Might, and since PL bonus is multiplicative, with high Might attribute you can achieve some nice Raw Damage bonus (40-45 Raw Damage it's a real number for high-level character). And this is will work for any weapon. Basically, Backstab damage will be higher nearly x2, compared to vanilla.

Oops, thanks for clarifying. I recently compared the new with the old Backstab (because of lash mechanics) and it may be that 25 was the average heavy weapon base gamage I estimated - and then messed that up afterwards in my head.

[Phenomenum]

30 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Oops, thanks for clarifying. I recently compared the new with the old Backstab (because of lash mechanics) and it may be that 25 was the average heavy weapon base gamage I estimated - and then messed that up afterwards in my head.

I want to add scaling for Basic version of Backstab: +5% every PL, up to +150%. Since №2 suggestion about Backstab was "Increase damage multiplier" and this suggestion received about 30% of votes.

What do you think about it?

Edited June 6, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Boeroer]

I'm fine with that.