[COMPANION BUILD] The Valkyrie of Gaun, Ultimate Edition

[Ascaloth]

 

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The Valkyrie of Gaun, Ultimate Edition

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Difficulty: PotD v5.0.0.0040

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Class: Contemplative (Harvester of Gaun + Sister of the Reaping Moon)

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Race: Meadow-Savannah Human

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Background: Readceras (Farmer)

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Stats (char creation, no Berath's Blessings):

MIG: 11

CON: 12

DEX: 15

PER: 12

INT: 14

RES: 11

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Active Skill: Athletics (!)

Passive Skill: Religion (!)

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Weapon Proficiencies:

Small Shield (a)

Dagger (a)

Hatchet (a)

Crossbow (a)

Quarterstaff

War Bow ®

Greatsword ®

Flail

Arbalest

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Abilities (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)

 

PL1

Priest

Blessed Harvest (a)

Restoration (a)

Suppress Affliction

Monk

Swift Strikes (a) 

Force of Anguish

 

PL2

Priest

Withdraw (a)

Spiritual Weapon

Monk

Clarity of Agony 

Common

Two Handed Style ®

Weapon and Shield Style

 

PL3

Priest

Vile Thorns (a)

Consecrated Ground ®

Dire Blessing (!)

Monk

Swift Flurry (!)

Efficient Anguish

 

PL4

Priest

Circle of Protection (a)

Devotions for the Faithful (!)

Monk

Thunderous Blows ®

Duality of Mortal Presence (!)

Rooting Pain (!)

 

PL5

Priest

Wicked Briars (a)

Revive the Fallen ®

Barring Death’s Door (!)

Practiced Healer ®

Monk

Enervating Blows

 

PL6

Priest

Minor Intercession (a)

Salvation of Time (!)

Monk

Turning Wheel (!)

Iron Wheel (!)

Common

Improved Critical ® 

 

PL7

Priest

Wall of Thorns (a)

Resurrection (!)

Cleansing Flame

Monk

Heartbeat Drumming (!)

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Items (*=additional enchantments; !=important, r=recommended):
 

Weapon set 1: The Twin Eels (Renewal*!) (!)

Weapon set 2: Saint Omaku’s Mercy (Sacrifice of Saints*!, Galawain’s Harry*) (!)
 

Chest: Furrante’s Breastplate (Love of Life*!, Intervention*!)

Helmet: Helm of the Falcon ®

Amulet: Bone Setter’s Torc (!)

Trinket: Waidwen's Sundial

Cloak: Nemnok’s Cloak (!)

Gloves: Hylea’s Talons ®

Ring: Halgot’s Warmth (!)

Ring: Voidward ®

Belt: The Undying Burden (!)

Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka (!)

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Xoti is one of the most maligned Companions in the game for many reasons, not least of which concerns her role in the party. As a Harvester of Gaun, she’s a variation on the Priest of Eothas that doesn’t offer that much of interest compared to Priests of Skaen or Wael; as a Sister of the Reaping Moon, her starting lantern and sickle doesn’t give her enough DPS to take advantage of her subclass’s ability to gain Wounds on kill, and is crippled even further by the increased Wound cost for her Monk abilities.
 

And as a Contemplative, she loses access both to the useful Tier VIII and IX Priest spells, as well as 2 PLs on her Monk fists; with no apparent synergy, a multiclass Xoti can seem to combine the worst parts of both her subclasses. Small wonder then, that most would recommend keeping her either a single-class Priest or Monk.
 

That said, there is a way to make a multiclass Xoti not only viable, but also more effective as a combat support specialist. With this build, Xoti can keep her party members topped up on health while contributing to damage at the same time, generate plenty of Wounds to feed her increased ability costs, and make her party that much tougher simply by being there; in short, she’ll truly fulfill her role as Gaun’s Chooser of the Slain.
 

(Note on “Ultimate Edition” builds: With the release of the Ultimate Edition on PS4 and XBox, there will be many first-time players of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire who will be searching for builds online, only to find that most available builds were created for earlier versions of the game. While many of those are still viable even in the final version of Deadfire, this would not be apparent to new players; thus, builds such as this will be tagged as “Ultimate Edition” to indicate that they’ve been tested for version 5.0.0 of Deadfire, including all DLCs.)

 

Xoti, the Reaping

Most people who note the ability of Xoti’s Monk subclass to gain Wounds on Kill seem to think that she has to be built as a DPS to make use of it, and thus are left disappointed when Xoti’s Sickle inevitably fails to make the cut as a weapon capable of dealing sufficient damage. And while letting her rely on her Monk fists lets her do decent DPS, it only works best for her as a single-class Monk; making her a Contemplative makes her Monk fists less effective due to the loss of PL.
 

That’s why her sickle as well as Xoti’s Lantern are usually seen as trap choices for Xoti DPS builds; it would be a different story if her lantern could be used as a bashing shield, and both it and the sickle scaled with Monk levels like Tuotilo’s Palm, but there’s no accounting for the dev’s design choices.
 

That said, I feel that’s the wrong way to look at it. To make use of her Wound gain on kill ability, I don’t think Xoti has to be a DPS. She doesn’t have to deliver that much damage, nor throw as many attacks as Monks tend to do.
 

All she needs to do is throw one good hit. Specifically, the last one.
 

With that in mind, the sickle and lantern still isn’t going to cut it; she needs a weapon that can help her killsteal her own party members as reliably as possible.
 

Ideally, the weapon would;

- Have high base damage so Xoti can land the one good hit for the kill; that pretty much means a 2H weapon.

- Has enchantments that helps with maximising the damage per hit as much as possible, and

- Comes with an on-kill effect to further incentivise Xoti making the kill.
 

Now, if you’re anything like me, you probably max’d out Xoti’s Religion passive skill as a reflection of her… evangelistic tendencies. That said, doing so makes one weapon in particular hit all three points above; specifically, The Twin Eels Greatsword.
 

The offensive potential of The Twin Eels lies in its Death’s Embrace enchantment, a Hit-to-Crit percentage that scales with Religion; in other words, perfect for Xoti who’s likely to have the most Religion in the party. This can be boosted with an additional Hit-to-Crit roll from the Bone Setter’s Torc Amulet, increased attack speed thanks to the Helm of the Falcon, and complemented with the Swift Flurry-Heartbeat Drumming Monk combo.
 

And the fact that Xoti can gain Wounds for each kill means that she can access a synergy specific to her alone; it turns Rooting Pain from a retaliatory passive into an offensive one, since Xoti earning 3 Wounds per kill also means she gets 3 rolls of the dice to activate it on enemies unlucky enough to be in the vicinity.
 

And when all of this comes together, it can look like this;
 

 

Also, there are a number of weapons with on-kill effects in the game, but only The Twin Eels has a Heal-on-kill that also scales with Xoti’s Religion skill. With max Religion, plus healing boosts from the Love of Life enchantment on Furrante's Breastplate, Bone Setter’s Torc, Footprints of Ahu Taka and Practiced Healer, the Health that Xoti can heal with each killsteal can add up to a pretty decent amount indeed;
 

 

With this setup, Xoti is best played not as a DPS per se, but positioned just behind the frontline doing Priest things such as healing and buffing… until her party members have reduced an enemy to Near Death, at which point she becomes an opportunistic killstealer charging in to deliver the final blow, gaining Wounds and healing her party members when she lands it.
 

This let's Xoti contribute to the fight while not neglecting her healing duties, making the best of both her subclasses.

 

Xoti, the Sacrificing

With Furrante’s Breastplate, Xoti makes her party members that much tougher thanks to the Bodyguard enchantment, which makes them take 10% less damage as long as she sticks close to them. This comes with the flipside that Xoti herself takes 15% more damage from all sources, making her squishier than usual.
 

This would be bad in most cases, but as a Monk, it also helps to fuel her Wound generation as well, making it a win-win proposition.
 

She can double down on that with the Intervention enchantment, which gives her access to the Take the Hit ability usually reserved for single-classed Fighters. This makes her party members even tougher for a short period of time, at the cost of causing more damage to Xoti herself… fueling her Wound generation even further.
 

And at times when a party member is close to dying and desperately needs a burst heal, Xoti can provide with the Sacrifice of Saints enchantment from the Saint Omaku’s Mercy Warbow;

 

 

With max Religion, Xoti can heal any party member from dying up to near full Health once per Rest, which comes at the cost of Xoti herself eating Raw damage… which again fuels her Wound generation.
 

Along with Priest staples such as Restoration, Consecrated Ground, Revive the Fallen, Barring Death’s Door and Resurrection, Xoti can thus keep her party alive that much longer simply by being there. However, all this utility comes at a cost of making her pretty damn fragile.
 

So, how do I keep Xoti alive in the face of all this?

 

Xoti, the Undying

I do it by giving her The Undying Burden Belt, which reduces the incoming weapon damage Xoti suffers by up to 30% as she loses Health (it also gives her a second use of Second Wind, which is why I recommended Athletics as her active Skill). On top of it, I also gave her the Voidward Ring, which reduces the Raw damage she takes by 25%; very useful for minimising the damage taken from Sacrifice of Saints and Take the Hit in particular.

 

But the key piece of gear that really helps keep Xoti on her feet is Nemnok’s Cloak; while it makes Xoti even more squishy by making her take an additional 15% damage, it also gives her Spirit Shield and Ironskin when she falls below half Health. Together with Iron Wheel, Xoti can go up to 22 AR;
 

 

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the Cloak also gives Xoti a free Barring Death’s Door when she’s… well, at death’s door. And should all these defenses still not suffice to keep her from falling to 0 HP, the Renewal enchantment from The Twin Eels (which also scales Health regained with Religion) lets Xoti automatically revive for free once per Rest, letting her stand up to get right back it again;
 

 

This means that Xoti is capable of saving lost fights single-handedly, bringing her fallen party members back to their feet in turn.

 

All these means that despite taking more damage than the rest of the party, this build makes Xoti a tough cookie in her own right, and capable of filling in as an off-tank in a pinch.
 

Final Thoughts
 

Pros: 

- Contributes to party DPS and Health at the same time by killstealing for fun and profit.

- Makes her party members tougher just by existing, and is capable of pulling them back from near death.

- Is unexpectedly tough in her own right, and can save seemingly-lost fights by her own hand.
 

Cons:

- Several key pieces of equipment are late-game gear (Furrante’s Breastplate, Nemnok’s Cloak), which means this build will not be fully realized until rather late in the game.

- Tier VIII and IX Priest and Monk abilities are some of the most powerful in Deadfire, which means the Valkyrie build, despite its effectiveness, still involves trade-offs.

- As effective as the Valkyrie of Gaun is, it doesn’t do anything to mitigate Xoti’s zealous and sometimes-annoying personality.
 

Last but not least, see the attached file for the AI script I created for Xoti as the Valkyrie of Gaun.

Xoti Custom (Contemplative) (Druid Monk Priest) (e38db4a0-68b9-4f2c-ac8a-5bd58d0a69e3).customai

Edited January 30, 2020 by Ascaloth

[AndreaColombo]

Haven't been active over here in a long, long time—but I just had to login and give you props for another fantastic build!

Makes me want to play again ... and right when I was thinking, if I play again, I'm probably gonna ditch Xoti!

If you're not using it on your main, you could give her DoC's breastplate until you get Furrante's. Looks really good with the helm and the sword (which by the way is also mid-to-late game because it comes in Beast of Winter.)

[Boeroer]

50 minutes ago, AndreaColombo said:

Haven't been active over here in a long, long time

Yeah, and massive shame on you for that!  

[Boeroer]

By the way you can kill-steal pretty nicely with WotEP's "Run Through" until you get Twin Eels. It's only 1/encounter but still.

[AndreaColombo]

28 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Yeah, and massive shame on you for that!  

Heh, my passion for audio has been stealing the show of late Now I'm toying with the idea of another Deadfire playthrough, if nothing else to finally play SSS and FS...!

[timidobserver]

I may try this. My first Xbox play through is using her as a single class priest and, at least in early game, she's basically useless after a few casts. 

[Ascaloth]

19 hours ago, AndreaColombo said:

Haven't been active over here in a long, long time—but I just had to login and give you props for another fantastic build!

Makes me want to play again ... and right when I was thinking, if I play again, I'm probably gonna ditch Xoti!

If you're not using it on your main, you could give her DoC's breastplate until you get Furrante's. Looks really good with the helm and the sword (which by the way is also mid-to-late game because it comes in Beast of Winter.)

Thanks. 

Another armor that could work before you get Furrante's is the Contender Armor in SSS. You can give it an enchantment that gives Recovery reduction which scales with Athletics; perfect for Xoti, since she's maxing it anyway to make use of The Undying Burden.

I realize there's not so many of us left here these days, but assuming folks here like this build, I'm thinking about putting it up in the Project Eternity subreddit so more people can see it, especially new players coming from the PS4 and XBox releases.

Also, I'll see whether I can put up more Companion and Sidekick builds over the next few weeks. Might be tough since I'm juggling with changed life circumstances these days, but we'll see.

[Seccirsin]

Good job m8.
I like it when people think outside the box, experiment and try goofy stuff, without concern of popular opinion and 'meta'. It's also a great motivator for other people to do the same.
Even if I personally hate Xoti's guts, this is a fantastic build. 
 

[Ascaloth]

On 2/25/2020 at 5:21 PM, Seccirsin said:

Good job m8.
I like it when people think outside the box, experiment and try goofy stuff, without concern of popular opinion and 'meta'. It's also a great motivator for other people to do the same.
Even if I personally hate Xoti's guts, this is a fantastic build. 
 

Thanks.

[mjo2138]

This is great. I spent the better part of a day trying to decide to take Xoti as a contemplative or priest. Doing 4th run of POTD now.