Swashbuckler Build Advice (Streetfighter? Black Jacket?)

[bmardiney]

I'm finally read to continue my character's story from PoE 1. I was roleplaying him as a ****y pirate in the first game, and I want his class to reflect that here as well. I'm pretty sure I want him to be a black jacket so that he can start off firing pistols and then close in with sabers and stilettos (depending on the armor of the enemies). I'm unsure if I should just be a regular rogue or if I should also be a streetfighter.

Anyone have any thoughts? I know most people seem to prefer Devoted as the swashbuckler spec, but I really hate locking myself into 1 weapon type (in any RPG), and without the guns, it doesn't feel complete. Still, I might be putting "cool factor" over utility here, I'm not sure. I'm also unsure about streetfighter because I don't know if I want him in the thick of battle or if I want to try to keep him on the edges of battle (thus, I'd be using skills like escape).

EDIT: Okay, wow, I guess censorship is now the law of the internet these days. The word above is a synonym for "arrogant" *eye roll*

Edited August 12, 2019 by bmardiney

[Boeroer]

If you pick blunderbuss instead of pistol I would recommend Streetfighter. Just because with Powder Burns (the modal of blunderbusses that comes with the weapon proficiency) you will distract yourself. Distracted contains Flanked. And frankly the bonuses of a flanked Streetfighter are hard to beat. 

When using pistols a Streetfighter wouldn't be my first option because then it's rather tedious to unlock the Streetfighter's bonus. In that case a Trickster would be my choice. Also fits the c0cky aspect. Swashbucklers with the Trickster subclass can be very sturdy even when build offensively because Mirrored Image and Vigorous Defense do stack their numbers. 

If you want to switch weapons often (which is a smart thing to do given that underpenetration is so punishing) then Black Jacket is the perfect choice. With Quick Switch a Black Jacket has zero recovery penalty when switching which is sweet. I would go for 4 weapon sets (meaning that you'll have to pick Arms Bearer or use Fleshmender or Giftbearer's Cloak) and cover pierce, crush and slash dmg in order to be able to (nearly) always pick the perfect weapon. That can make a huge difference. So for example a set with sabre(s), a set with stiletto(s) and one with club(s). 

It's also beneficial to combine all the modals for such weapons. For example of you combine a club with a flail in one slot and activate both proficiency modals you can lower enemies' Will and Reflex defense by 25 each with one single Full Attack (like Crippling Strike). This can be a huge help for your teammates to land spells etc.

Note that when using pistols the best auto-attack option is to single-wield the pistol and switch on its proficiency modal. That way your effective accuracy is only -3 but your reload time will be halved. This is much faster than using two pistols with negligible ACC loss. For Full Attacks like Crippling Strike it is still better to use two Pistols though.

[bmardiney]

Interesting. Okay so I'll definitely stick with black jacket. Do you think, all things considered, that it's better/more fun to use pistols and stay on the edges of combat or to do the streetfighter thing and use blunderbusses? If PoE 1 was any indication, I'll probably get surrounded often anyway, even if I don't intend that. So maybe just take streetfighter in any case? I don't really see my character as a front-line tank type, but if that's how it's usually going to end up anyway, I guess I shouldn't fight it.

[Boeroer]

I can only say that the Streetfighter bonus "Heating Up" is pretty insane. Not only will you attack very fast, but your Sneak Attack dmg will also be enhanced a lot. And that's not including the additional bonus you get when becoming bloodied. 

If you like dmg output then this will be a lot of fun. A Black Jacket can switch around weapons with no penalty. So it's easy to trigger "Heating Up" with a blunderbuss should nobody flank you in melee. Also note that with a blunderbuss you usually have 4 projectiles that trigger on hit-effects 4 times - see Confounding Blind. 

But... if you decide for blunderbusses (I mean that's not set in stone given that you're a Black Jacket) I would highly, highly recommend using Serafen's Hand Mortar and do his quest asap to get the second mortar of his - which is named "Fire in the Hole". Both mortars deal AoE dmg. Stuff like Blinding Strike, Crippling Strike, Toxic Strike and so on will get applied over the whole area of effect! As bonus those weapons are foe-only, have two damage types (pierce/slash) and target reflex with their AoE which can be a plus when meeting enemies with high deflection. AND Fire in the Hole has an enchantment that lets the whole AoE jump one time (like Driving Flight). And they are still "official" blunderbusses which can trigger "Heating Up" with the Powder Burn modal (which has friendly fire sadly, but it's rather weak). Best weapon set for Streetfighter there is in my opinion.

You can totally do Disciplined Strikes + Vigorous Defense, deal a AoE Blinding Shot into the crowd with the mortars, then close in with stilettos - since you are already heated up and the enemies will suffer big debuffs from the blind you will be nigh untouchable and mop the floor with them, stabbing left and right with great speed.

Sounds fun to me.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[Lamppost in Winter]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Powder Burns Distracted clears when you switch sets. I have Eder using this setup and I just have him with mortar + sabre.

Cleaving Stance is also a lot of fun with this because you get a mortar shot on every nearby enemy when you get a kill.

[Boeroer]

No, it does not clear. It distracts you for exactly the duration that is displayed on you character. It doesn't matter if you switch weapons or not.

Cleaving Stance with mortars requires a melee weapon in the main hand. It is indeed fun. But I guess not intended.

Clear Out used to work similarly, but with a melee weapon in offhand: you could execute Clear Out with a Mortar in the main hand then which lead to ridiculous AoE dmg (because every AoE hit of Clear Out used to trigger an AoE from the mortar) but I believe this got patched iirc.

[Boeroer]

Just tested Clear Out with mortar/sabre: still works. Just make sure you are in melee range. You can trigger Clear Out with the mortar in the main hand and deal absurd AoE damage if the mob is crammed up (e.g. when gathered around a tank). So it wasn't patched. Cleaving Stance also works with autoattacks and mortar in the main hand since you will attack with the offhand melee weapon only if you are in melee range (unless you are using Full Attacks or Primary Attacks). But I simply put the copied weapon set in reverse order into my second weapon slot to be able to switch from sabre/mortar to morter/sabre - mostly for testing purposes.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[bmardiney]

Okay so most of that goes over my head. I can only really understand broad strokes here until I actually get more into the game. I’m gathering you think being an off-tank streetfighter with blunderbuss is preferable to mobile DPS with pistol.

[Enoch]

One challenge with being a Streetfighter-Fighter is that the cost of deliberately Distracting yourself with Powder Burns is effectively doubled.  One of the key advantages of a Fighter, relative to other martial classes, is that they have easy access to high-tier PER inspirations, through Disciplined Strikes and its upgrades.  But you can't be Distracted at the same time you're Aware or Inspired.  So, going the Powder Burns route not only imposes -5 PER from your baseline at character creation-- it also denies you the +5 PER (and G2H and H2C) that you could be getting easily with a tiny Discipline cost. 

It's not fatal to the character concept (indeed, the Black Jacket synergy should be quite beneficial), but it does undercut it somewhat.

[bmardiney]

So then do you think standard rogue/black jacket is more viable? I didn't realize all of that and now it does seem silly. The more I think about it, the more I think I liked my original concept better -Rogue/Black Jacket with sabers, stillettos and pistols (and also clubs later, as Boemoer said). Then it just becomes a matter of "when should I be using guns vs swords?" Again, it's a fun character concept but I just don't know if there's a gameplay point to doing guns and melee in one character, other than for "cool factor".

By the way, I'm playing turn based, so I don't even think the whole "shoot the guns and then go in for melee rather than reloading" thing even works. In turn based, the game doesn't give you back control of your character until your guns are already reloaded, right?

[Enoch]

I can't speak for how reload works in turn-based.  In real-time mode, both options are perfectly viable.  It's a matter of what you think you're going to have fun playing. 

A front-lines character who opens the fight with a shot (particularly one using a Rogue's Arterial Strike, from stealth) before switching to melee is always nice to have.  I wouldn't expect that bouncing back and forth between melee and ranged in a single fight is something that would happen much, unless you forced it, but I could be wrong. 

Streetfighters are very powerful, but it's also a rather demanding playstyle-- you have to deliberately disadvantage yourself to maximize your effectiveness, and that isn't everybody's cup of tea.  When it works, it has some of the highest DPS potential in the game, and, if you're an active-management type of player, you'll definitely feel like your active management is translating into effectiveness.

[bmardiney]

Okay yeah, that settles it for me then, no streetfighter. Thanks for clarifying that for me

Alright, I think I'll just go with what I listed. But I wouldn't have thought of using clubs as a future weapon pick for blunt, so that's cool. I'll just fire off my guns first turn and then go in for melee once my tank(s) are engaged in combat already. That way my swashbuckler hopefully won't be the main target.

[Wotcha]

The bigger issue if you’re playing turn based is that Action Speed goes from being one of the best things in the game to being basically useless. There’s no POINT to Streetfighter in turn based. Trickster is fine due to the defensive options and the ability to use Arkemyr’s Dazzling Lights to split enemy groups.

Since you’re new and may not get that second part- the noise mechanics of the game are pretty versatile, and can be used to gradually draw one or two enemies away from their allies until they’re far enough away that they can be killed separately. This is super easy to do with the trickster spell that they get at PL 1, but it can be equivalently done with any ground targetable ranged ability. 

[bmardiney]

Oh one last thing - is it worth downloading the community patch listed in Boeroer's signature?

[bmardiney]

8 minutes ago, Wotcha said:

The bigger issue if you’re playing turn based is that Action Speed goes from being one of the best things in the game to being basically useless. There’s no POINT to Streetfighter in turn based. Trickster is fine due to the defensive options and the ability to use Arkemyr’s Dazzling Lights to split enemy groups.

Since you’re new and may not get that second part- the noise mechanics of the game are pretty versatile, and can be used to gradually draw one or two enemies away from their allies until they’re far enough away that they can be killed separately. This is super easy to do with the trickster spell that they get at PL 1, but it can be equivalently done with any ground targetable ranged ability. 

Well that brings up a whole other topic - maybe I should just play it real time? I would prefer to play turn based but I'm worried that because it was a post-production add-on, it's not as balanced as the real time.

(Though I don't really want to play a trickster because my guy in PoE 1 certainly didn't have magical abilities and I want to keep it true to the same guy).

Edited August 13, 2019 by bmardiney

[Wotcha]

You need a lot of patience for turn based. It can be... very slow. For a first play through it’s probably not a great choice. 

And what do you mean, no magical abilities? Did you miss the whole “I see dead people” schtick?  Relax and roll with it. Perhaps your brief brush with divinity awoke yet another former life’s talents in you. Maybe you picked up stage magic as a hobby to while away those long, boring Caed Nua afternoons.

 

[bmardiney]

Okay but even still, I give up a lot of sneak attack damage for it. I don't want to give up DPS for parlor tricks 

Edit: Oh wait, it's only 10% less. Hmmmmmm. Well if I'm going to play real time now, spells on top of watcher abilities AND switching weapons all the time is going to get too micro-managey.

Edited August 13, 2019 by bmardiney

[Boeroer]

Trickster malus to Sneak Attack is negligible. Sneak Attack scales with Power Level. And the -10% stays the same. 10% is not much in general. After some levels it doesn't matter at all. You get some powerful stuff in return.

Note that with Turn Based mode all effects that speed you up are a lot less potent than with Real Time with Pause mode. 

I wouldn't use a Streetfighter then.

Black Jacket is actually op in Turn Based mode. His weapon switching is a free action which means at the end of your turn you could switch to the most defensive setup (like hatchet + shield) and once it's your turn again: switch to the most offensive one and deal damage, then switch back to defense mode. 

The Community Patch in my signature is a collection of rather conservative "fixes". No OP stuff, just small tweakings of things that didn't seem right or unbalanced to most of the community. This also includes a few small nerfs, not only buffs of abilities. It also has unique icons for all passives that I made with @Phenomenum. In the original game they use the same 4 or 5 icons for all passives which can be a bit boring to look at. I'd also recommend the Enhanced UI mod. It doesn't alter the game mechanics but adds some nice, unobtrusive and helpful UI elements. Very good mod. 

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by Boeroer

[Vonbek]

12 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It also has unique icons for all passives that I made with @Phenomenum.

Even if you use nothing else from the CP, the Icons are worth it alone.

 

I've went from having to mouseover everything to check to being able to see by sight where something is half the time... especially on lines where you might have two "might" icons and 3 "armour" ones, to everything having their own icons.

[Boeroer]

Thanks a lot. I wanted to add that the whole other stuff of the Community Patch (everything besides the icons) was initiated and done by @MaxQuest and @Phenomenum. I merely took part in the discussions. After the discussion (here in the forum) there was an open poll about the suggested changes and only changes/fixes with enough "yes" votes were included. I played with it (+ Enhanced UI mod) and can very much recommend it (both).

You can easily deactivate certain certain aspects of the Community Patch. It's structured in a way that you can "turn off" changes that you don't agree with but keep the others.

[bmardiney]

Vortex is saying all of the community patch mods are incompatible.

[Vonbek]

8 hours ago, bmardiney said:

Vortex is saying all of the community patch mods are incompatible.

Vortex says just about everything is incompatible, and not just for POE. I stopped using it for games about 18 months ago.

 

Manual Install works fine for just about everything apart from a niggling issue I have with UC.

[Boeroer]

You have to manually install the mod (aka copy the folder into the correct game folder by yourself). It's written in the mod description.

Unfortunately Vortex can't handle this mod (any many others) properly.

 

[bmardiney]

Well that’s weird because when I go into the game, it says the mods are in fact installed. And they seem to be working (at least the visible ones). Including the missing text on the Sabre special ability

[Vonbek]

41 minutes ago, bmardiney said:

Well that’s weird because when I go into the game, it says the mods are in fact installed. And they seem to be working (at least the visible ones). Including the missing text on the Sabre special ability

Yup.

 

Same with many games I tried it with. Endless Legends was he worst. At that point it recognised Zero mods...

 

In Game, everything showed and applied fine.