Durance Priest strategy adjustments?

[claudius]

Ok so I was reading a priest Guide near the top of the threads and it was really great information.  I'm still reading it and have thought about the level 1 -3 spells.  So far sounds like a crucial stat for a Priest is high Dexterity so that in important fights you can pump out your buffs/debuffs ASAP.  So my question is how do you adjust that for Durance?  The obvious side of things to me is to give him gear that raises dexterity and bring him closer to what is needed.  Any other ideas on how to modify standard Priest tactics.  I'm playing on Normal difficulty if that matters.

[Boeroer]

Start the fight with Inspiring Radiance. It's a fast cast and thus you won't notice any difference whether DEX is low or high. This will give your party +10 ACC right away and they can start doing things like casting CC etc. Durance then has more time to cast his next spell without slowing your whole party down that much.

If you also pick Aggrandizing Radiance he will get +2 to all attributes, including DEX. It stacks with everything.

Also Durance had high RES. If you use him for buffs & heals mainly you can add a large shield and weapon & shield style and skip armor. That will reduce his recovery.

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Boeroer

[jintegrity]

Quote

Also Durance had high RES. If you use him for buffs & heals mainly you can add a large shield and weapon & shield style and skip armor. That will reduce his recovery.

Huh. That's a neat idea. I was actually wondering the opposite though: what about skipping the Interdiction Talents (or greatly delaying them), to take weapon/tanking Talents, wear appropriate armor for being on the frontline/off-tank position, and trade Iconic Projection spam for a cast of Consecrated Ground before fighting on the front line?

[Boeroer]

You can do that. Depends on his role in combat and the overall composition and tactics of your party. I personally don't use Interdiction that much because usually I just don't have the points for it. But it can be very good in the early game to focus on the per-encounter abilites (Radiance + Interdiction) since you'll have so few spell uses and it feels good if your priest can contribute with something meaningful in every fight.

Generally I feel like using Iconic Projection for damage purposes only is a bit of a waste. I think it's best used from the backline to spam it into the fray in quick succession so that you don't only damage foes but at the same time heal up your comrades. But maybe that's what you meant anyway. ANd of course: whatever floats your boat. I also had lots of fun with a great-sword-swinging DEX-2 Priest of Berath in plate armor. Hit like a truck, accellerate like a truck. 

More generally about role in party/party composition: For example in a slow yet sturdy party (like with a chanter, paladin and such) a slow and rel. sturdy priest like Durance with even a fat armor on is no problem. If he wants to deal damage with Shining Beacon for example (slow but very powerful if you look at the "dmg per spell use" ratio like nealry all DoTs) then his sluggishness is not crucial - hitting the enemy reliably with that one spell is and then outlasting them. By the way this way to play leads to fewer rests and reloads and thus doesn't really slow your progress down in real time (that's my experience anyway).

But if you want to win an encounter as fast as possible (plenty of early nuking and focus on dps) then he'll feel like a drag because everybody's way ahead of him while he's still finishing his cast of Devotions.  So in that case you might want to focus on fast buffing your comrade's ACC with Devotions + Inspiring Radiance before they do their debuffing and then damaging and later in the encounter do some healing and re-buffing if necessary. You need zero ACC for that so a large shield, while improving your survivability a ton, will not slow your casting down nor will it have any negative impact on your buffing or healing spells (since they don't need to hit anything).

Another thing to consider is the AI: certain enemies have different priorities: for example enemy barbs will attack the party memebr withthe lowest defelction if they can reach them easily. Generally speaking: the higher your defensive stats the less likely your character will get targeted. So giving the priest a large shield and weapon & shield style (and having high RES like Durance) will put him off the list of many enemies right away and thus you won't have to deal with rushers that much. Same can be true with DR (that seems to help against ranged characters a lot who mostly seem to seek out low DR and low deflection targets), but to a lesser extend I feel. So it's not only the actual DR when you get hit or the higher deflection once you get attackes that saves you a lot of trouble but also the enemies' AI which will not try to hurt your that desperately anymore since there are more attractive targets maybe (e.g. an Animal Companion or a summon which can be a great bait and can help to control the battlefield - both don't run into health problems when struck ).

Edited January 19, 2020 by Boeroer