Looking for fighter/cipher turn based

[Madscientist]

Its been a long time since I last played and I never played it turn based so far.

I want to be evil this time and I have already finished siding with the huana and valians, so I want to join another faction. I am not playing PotD, but normal or veteran.

The Char:

- I was thinking about a devoted/soul blade dual wielding swords. I have no experience with turn based combat in this game.

Are these classes good? Which stats should I have? Is dual wielding the best style? There are many swords, they have 2 damage types and I like modwyr. Which spells should I select and should I cast spells or use the focus for the soul blade special attack?

The Party

Ok. its pirates or RDC. Which of my companions will stay with me if I join one of them, support slavery and work against the locals and the valians? I want to play with companions only. Serafen hates slavery, Takehu likes Huana and Pallegine loves Valians. Looks like the only option is to join RDC and have Eder, Aloth, Xoti and Maia.

[thelee]

The char:

devoted is great, just make sure you pick a piercing or slashing weapon (you already have blunt via your fists) for damage diversity. sounds like you were looking at swords, so you're already there (and sword and great sword arguably benefit the most from the devoted's +2 PEN).

soul blade is less great. i think many people would recommend beguiler, but as a martial/caster multiclass a soul blade isn't a bad choice thanks to the concentration you can keep gaining and the ability to dump all your focus if need be (due to action economy constraints). perhaps in turn-based soul blade multiclass is even better than beguiler due to the more stringent action economy - you'll basically find it much harder to generate focus, use powers, and use fighter attacks due to turn-based messing up the action economy, but if all else fails you can just max out your focus and dump it in one big soul annihilation attack (might want to beef up your might since a devoted is not going to have many damage bonuses for it unlike, say, a rogue).

 

In turn-based mode, dual-wielding is less all-around the best. You get a -35% inverted penalty to all attacks (not just full attack abilities), putting it roughly on par with 2h weapons, except dual-wielding is generally going to be -1 PEN compared to similar 2h weapons. Because of turn-based mechanics, while having high initiative isn't great it isn't nearly as bad as having high recovery time in real-time mode (because you're always guaranteed a turn per round). So while dual-wielding is still solid, it's no longer the general DPS king in turn-based mode.

 

The party: what about sidekicks? with all the DLC they have decent reactivity (though not in base game, and nothing like reputations with your other party members). Mirke is a perfect fit for partyingpirating. Even though Fassina is vailian being a sidekick she won't ditch you for being treacherous. If you haven't played in a long while (welcome back!) Vatnir is an amazing sidekick, but comes kinda late. Also - why not principi? You can support Furrante if you want to go the slavery route, but I think you lose Maia at that point.

Edited January 22, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Soul Annihilation seems to be better in Turn Based Mode than in RTwP - because you can hardly miss. The biggest meh-moment with Soul Annihilation usually is when you count on it and then it misses, taking all your focus with it.

[Madscientist]

Thanks

So might for damage and per for hitting things would be most importent. I probably go for coastal Aumaua.

I am not sure how int will work with turns. I do not have much AoE stuff, but duration could be good for some things. Dex seems to be less importent in turn based.

I chose devoted+cipher to max out penetration because I really did not like the PEN vs AR mechanic. Thats one reason why I do not play on higher difficulties, there you always have to max PEN to do some damage at all. When dual wielding gets a general damage loss I might go for greatsword. Initially I chose sword because you have the biggest number of this weapon type. Are there good greatswords early in the game? Morning star and pollaxe have also 2 damage types, but even less unique weapons.

If I use (great)sword for piercing/slash damage, should I take monastic unarmed training for unarmed crush damage?

Does soul anihilation still produce focus before turning it to raw damage? So it would be the default attack no matter how much focus you have unless you want to cast a spell.

Are weapon modals useful in turn based mode?

I have not played PoE2 turn based, but I know lots of other turn based games. In turn based you usually need less actions to win a fight so each action is more importent. Having max might, per, a huge weapon and everything that boost damage sounds good. For spells this means I should take only those that do a strong debuff or massive damage. Not sure how dots (like disintegration) and beams (like ectopsychic echo) work in turn based.

Yes, Mirke in the party plus joining Furrante would be great for an evil pirate. So its me, Eder and Aloth ( I just cannot play without them), Mirke and Xoti (for healing and buffs, she is the harvester of souls and I make sure she gets lots of souls to harvest).

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Madscientist said:

per for hitting things would be most importent.

on turn-based, probably not at all. as boeroer alluded, they significantly expanded the graze range (to 0-50) so in fact on typical, non-PotD difficulties, you'll almost never miss. even on PotD maybe, but i think might and int would be more important.

 

3 hours ago, Madscientist said:

I am not sure how int will work with turns.

the frustrating answer is: it depends. The game keeps track of second durations behind-the-scenes, and then rounds/truncates it into turns (0-11.99 seconds is 1 turn, then seconds divided by 6 to get your turns). intellect thus has non-linear returns on turn-based mode. find what abilities you care about, and then optimize intellect just to put them over the turn cutoff.

 

3 hours ago, Madscientist said:

If I use (great)sword for piercing/slash damage, should I take monastic unarmed training for unarmed crush damage?

i would say it's less important outside of PotD (or veteran, to a degree), but still a light recommendation to do so.

 

3 hours ago, Madscientist said:

Does soul anihilation still produce focus before turning it to raw damage?

last i checked (all the way from 1.0), soul annihilation doesn't use the focus it generates for raw damage, though i guess follow-up attacks would consume that focus. you could use it as a default attack, but the returns are real crappy and i would rather primarily use fighter abilities, and then by the time you get around to abilities or soul annihilation you have a lot saved up.

 

3 hours ago, Madscientist said:

Are weapon modals useful in turn based mode?

probably more useful since recovery time penalties aren't nearly as punishing.

 

3 hours ago, Madscientist said:

Not sure how dots (like disintegration) and beams (like ectopsychic echo) work in turn based

see above question about int. also, for the most part turn-based transforms those dots properly into turn-based - so you get lots of ticks from beam effects IIRC, and multiple ticks from DoTs as necessary.