Next run planning help

[summatsupeer]

Struggling to decide which class to play on my next run, I have an idea of the two main characters which are a Rogue and her barbarian bodyguard.  I want to build the Rogue around Riposte with the Barbarian built like the Golden Dragon with debuffs helping with the Misses/Graze rate.

3rd is an obvious addition with a Priest (Durance) for his Prayer spells and buffs.

4th is Paladin (Pallegina) for her Zealous Endurance and Reinforcing Exhortation to add to the number of grazes for the rogues Riposte.

I'd say this is the core 4, I play on PotD and like to do as many of the quests/tasks as possible including the companions so will swap them in as needed in the other 2 positions.  I think I need some ranged debuff and more damage from the other 2 members of the group, likely one of Aloth or Hiravias will be in the group all the time.

1st question: who do I play as the MC?  Devil fits the Riposte build and Maneha (with the resolve reward) fits the Golden Dragon build.  But both aren't available until WM so do I just make my main 2 characters ASAP then maybe replace one later on?  I'm tempted to play Rogue as the MC as i've never done so before and it fits the story but Mechanics doesn't really help a MC and might be a bit squishy early?

2nd question: are there any other cool synergies with items/abilities to add to my idea?

[Boeroer]

Sturdy Riposte rogue with Badgradr's Barricade is really good.

Thrust of Tattered Veils (unlimited procs per encouter off of bash-crits) benefits from Deathblows (not Sneak Attack), so that's +100% dmg.

 

 

[summatsupeer]

Ah the unlimited procs definitely makes that shield worth it!  I'll probably just use a small shield until I get that.

Im thinking that the Ciphers 'Going Between' power could be useful and not limited to the Paladins aura range?  I'm right in assuming Reinforcing Exhaultation doesn't stack with Rogues Evasion ability?  Might make the paladin more offensive and/or non permanent member of the group...

[summatsupeer]

Accidentally moved and stood on a trap that killed everyone on potd iron mode 

I was a bit underwhelmed by the run anyway, felt too squishy for a retaliation build but probably needed more levels and items or a different group setup.  I think I'd gone a bit too defensive and could of done with more damage for when they didnt attack the riposte rogue.  Either that or I shouldn't of taken so many defensive talents early in preparation of riposte.

[Boeroer]

You should see Riposte as a nice addon, not as the centerpiece of your whole build. A rogue with Badgradr's Barricade is pretty sturdy (for a Rogue anyways who else is squishy as hell) but can never compete with a fighter or paladin when it comes to tankyness. You should still play him offensively and not dump everything into defense. Several attack abilities as Crippling Strike and Blinding Strike etc. work very well with a bashing shield since offhand strikes first.

By the way: Riposte also gets triggered by misses and grazes from Disengagement attacks. There are some talents (like Graceful Retreat) and items (Nightrunner) that give you a bonus against disengagement attacks that stack with any other deflection bonus. You can then run past enemies, trigger disengagment attaks that will most likely miss or graze and eventually do a Riposte. This shouldn't be used a a core technique but it can make running past enemies in order to reach backliners rewarding.

[summatsupeer]

I just tried Devil at level 14 as this build and works nicely.  Defences seemed good enough without needing lots of help, just paladin with defence aura + shield.  Had cipher available to slap extra DR + healing + dodge if needed but so far not been focused with monk as main tank and the paladin. Had that much focus I could use mindweb though Rogues deflection was highest. Didnt have the golden dragon but think they could of replaced the monk but it was my main char with reaping knives to build focus for cipher.

Melted groups so quickly (high level vs dragons and elms reach missions) but damage against high DR targets seems to be the weak point. Maybe due to using a dagger (drawn in spring) even with a lot of the damage abilities.  I thought the raw damage would help but it's based off the base damage, vulnerable attack (dr reduction) didn seem to help much.  I think the shield was doing more damage consistantly.

I need to check but might of been against targets immune/strong to the debuffs.  I had cipher throwing out some combination of Eyestrike, mental binding, phantom foes and secret horrors.

Thinking my backup weapon should be a 2H weapon with better base damage and/or -DR build in.  Next run will be more offensive early and backline.

Edited January 7, 2020 by summatsupeer

[Boeroer]

Wounding (Drawn in Spring) is not based off of base damage but it's a multiplicative DoT-lash that is based on the pre-DR dmg roll you do. So if you roll 20 slash dmg the wounding will do additional 5 raw damage over time. Funny thing is that wounding also scales with MIG. So if you have 20 MIG it not only does 25% raw dmg as it says but actually 32.5% (6.5 in this csse). And if your INT is high it will spread that dmg over a longer time - if your INT is low it will take less time. So low INT is better for dps on this special case.

A better weapon would be a stunning or overbearing one (Godansthunyr or Cladhaliath or We Toki) so that the shield bash crit would proc its Thrust of Tattered Veils more often. It's also easier to unlock Deathblows that way.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Boeroer

[summatsupeer]

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Wounding (Drawn in Spring) is not based off of base damage but it's a multiplicative DoT-lash that is based on the pre-DR dmg roll you do. So if you roll 20 slash dmg the wounding will do additional 5 raw damage over time. Funny thing is that wounding also scales with MIG. So if you have 20 MIG it not only does 25% raw dmg as it says but actually 32.5% (6.5 in this csse).

Oh thats good.  I must of misunderstood when I was looking at the log last night, it was very late 

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

And if your INT is high it will spread that dmg over a longer time - if your INT is low it will take less time. So low INT is better for dps on this special case.

I was thinking of making INT minimum in my next attempt as I noticed it didn't stack and just refreshed the time, unless i'm mistaken again?

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

A better weapon would be a stunning or overbearing one (Godansthunyr or Cladhaliath or We Toki) so that the shield bash crit would proc its Thrust of Tattered Veils more often. It's also easier to unlock Deathblows that way.

Yeah that makes sense, earlier on when companions have less available I guess thats even more important to.

[Boeroer]

Wounding stacks. You will apply multiple instances that run parallel. It's hard to see in the combat log though. You will have to monitor the red numbers that pop up over the enemies' heads.

Wounding is the most potent dps enchantment in PoE. That and the speed enchantment.

[summatsupeer]

Oh wow so many TIL! I was looking at the top left where it tells you what buffs/debuffs are on the selected target and only ever saw one whilst things like Dragon thrashed would appear multiple times!

[Boeroer]

Yeah I know: it's neither very consistent nor well explained. You'd have to do a lot of testing and/or reading in order to find out about all those little details.

[BlindDruid]

I would totally add in a cipher for this build.

Going between (lvl 4 cipher spell) will help your riposte build a lot.

With upgraded starting focus to start it's available midgame to help the rogue get misses even more. Pain block might be useful as well.

Apart from that the Cipher can add a ton of effects which help the rogue dealing more dmg.

On lvl 15 she can even combo with any melee who has fast attack speed for her raw DMG blades and basically unlimited focus for her.

Which then opens up some other builds which synergizes around the ciper. Like a Chanter with Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr , because it applies to all spell damage dealt. It doesn't affect the raw dmg blades though if i remember correctly, but i need to check it again in one of my safegames.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[summatsupeer]

I was thinking Riposte would work like a Retaliation build but I overlooked that Riposte is chance based so not only do you have to roll for the miss/graze you then only get 20-30% (i think) of those as Riposte attacks rather than 100% that retaliation does.  That really killed it as a center piece of the build as Boeroer rightly said "You should see Riposte as a nice addon, not as the centerpiece of your whole build.".  By time level 10+ enemies tended to try to avoid due to defences being so high so extra help wasn't really needed and I found myself just wanting more damage, probably because i had too many off-tank frontliners (paladin + barb).

It was pretty simple since I stacked mostly passives and avoided active abilities since most were only ~6s long due to min INT.  I'll probably use that kind of build on Devil in future but doubt i'll do a player character like that again.