Build Idea: The Unholy Slayer

[Madscientist]

I had an idea for a build and I want to ask if this makes sense.

My inspiration was to create the main char from this game: Virgo vs the Zodiac

She is a self rightous over zealous fanatic on a crusade to restore order (or what she thinks of it). Everyone with a different opinion is a heretic that needs to be purged with fire and steel. Default equipment is spear+shield but she can use other weapons too. The game is a lot about defending and counter attacks.

My idea was to have a steel garrote paladin/trickster rogue. Steel garrote heal themselves when attacking an afflicted target. I guess this means the enemy needs to have any affliction. Rogues have persistent distraction, so I should heal myself every time I attack an enemy engaged by me. Paladins have high defenses and tricksters have wizard spells like mirror image to increase defense even more. With such a high defense enemies would miss me often so I can riposte. With a large shield, spear modal and persistent distraction I should be able to engage 3 enemies. With large shield modal on, heavy armor + stoic steel I should have very high defense and I take very little damage, but I cannot move. So I am a pillar of eternity. I stand there, enemies try to attack me but I avoid their attacks and stike back, healing myself with every attack. I upgrade the paladin aura to have constant healing. I use my guile for wizard buffs and my zeal for sworn enemy and eternal devotion.

questions:

- Is it true that steel garrote + persistent distraction = self heal with every attack?

- With paladin defense + wizard buffs, will enemies miss me often so that riposte makes sense?

- Can you riposte every time? Usually I attack or I am in recovery. Does riposte cause recovery?

- Does practiced healer increase healing from all sources, including the steel garrote+persistent distraction stuff?

- What stats would you suggest? Max res for defense, but you also need some mig for healing+damage and probably per because your acc is low with a large shield. Con seems unimportent because you are hard to hit and you heal yourself all the time and dex seems also not so importent because you are slow anyway. Not sure about int, it would be mostly for buff duration. Role playing wise she would be human, but a wild orland may be better for min maxers.

- I will not solo the game, but it could be one of the better chars for this. You are hard to hit and you heal yourself all the time. But you are quite slow and immobile.

[Boeroer]

Persistent Distraction applies Distracted which is a regular affliction: Steel Garotte draining works.

Paladin passives + Trickster buffs + Riposte makes a lot of sense. Note that Riposte will also drain life for you once the enemy who gets hit by Riposte is afflicted by something.

Riposte is an invisible Full Attack that has 0 attack time and 0 recovery. It always works - doesn't matter if you are currently casting or recovering or whatever.

Draining effects do NOT profit from any healing buff (not MIG, not Practiced Healer - nothing) because it already scales with the damage you are dealing (more dmg = more healing). 

Steel Garotte draining stacks with other sources of draining (e.g. draining weapon and Blood Ward from Furyshaper and Chant...)

Stats: sounds right. 

A superb weapon for such a class combo is Whispers of the Endless Paths - because its Offensive Parry (just like Riposte) drains health from enemies and procs on 100% of misses. It stacks with Riposte. But you'll lack the engagement slots of spear and shield (and have lower deflection although it comes with a melee deflection buff). You could get more slots with Reckless Brigandine and helmet of the Blackened Plate etc. - but that will look rather funny.

For spears there's a nice backup-spear that deals slash/pierce damage instead of only pierce. Besides that I guess Stalker's Patience is the way to go. 

The best large shield imo is Cadhu Scalth (with high althletics/metaphysics). Its damage reduction stacks with the ones from underpenetration (and Death's Maw with its Death Runes). Akola's Apex Ward has its own retaliation effect but it's rather weak. Bronlar's Phalanx has the highest potential for deflection (scales with lost health).

Edited February 21, 2020 by Boeroer
typo

[Madscientist]

Thanks

- When you have large shield modal on, can you move by using abilities like escape?

- When using abilities like escape, does it end other effects that end when you move?

- Can different riposte effects proc from the same missed attack or do they roll one after the other until one procs or all do not proc? According to the wiki, there is the riposte skill, whispers of the endless path, 2 shields (Akolas Apex Ward and Wintertide bulwark) and the champions helmet.

- I guess all retaliation effects (automatic effect on the attacker when you get hit) can proc at once because every item or skill produces a different effect.

[thelee]

42 minutes ago, Madscientist said:

- When you have large shield modal on, can you move by using abilities like escape?

yes. my umezawa build (which is my #1 favorite build) relies on this mobility (and the hyuuuuge +50 deflection bonus from escape)

 

42 minutes ago, Madscientist said:

- When using abilities like escape, does it end other effects that end when you move?

no. escape doesn't count as movement.

 

42 minutes ago, Madscientist said:

- Can different riposte effects proc from the same missed attack or do they roll one after the other until one procs or all do not proc? According to the wiki, there is the riposte skill, whispers of the endless path, 2 shields (Akolas Apex Ward and Wintertide bulwark) and the champions helmet.

afaict riposte effects are distinct. my umezawa build used riposte and the BoW large shield that triggers attacks on enemy misses, independently of whether or not riposte triggered.

[Madscientist]

Nice

So you can do up to 3 different free attacks every time an enemy misses you with a melee weapon and each attack can heal you if they have an affliction.

Maximizing engagement slots would be the best way to afflickt enemies around you. As a perception affliction it reduces their hit chance which improves your riposte chance, good. Except crippling strike and the AoE spells I have no way to apply a second affliction for deathblows. Or is distracted enough because it also causes flanked? Crippling strike was the only special attack I used with my rogues ( 1 guile, full attack, +25% damage, +2 pen, can interrupt)

I played around with character creation and my first guess for stats would be: mig 14, con 8, dex 8, int 14, per 14, res 20 (human or orlan from Aedyr). I do not like dumping stats. I have to look later for the skill trees.

[Boeroer]

18 hours ago, Madscientist said:

- Can different riposte effects proc from the same missed attack or do they roll one after the other until one procs or all do not proc? According to the wiki, there is the riposte skill, whispers of the endless path, 2 shields (Akolas Apex Ward and Wintertide bulwark) and the champions helmet.

- I guess all retaliation effects (automatic effect on the attacker when you get hit) can proc at once because every item or skill produces a different effect.

As I said they stack - I meant that you can proc stuff like Offensive Parry AND Riposte (or other stuff like from the shield thelee mentioned) from the one same attack that missed you. So yes, they all seem to get checked and executed seperately. 

Tuotilo's Palm also has a riposte-like enchantment (Outward Spikes).  

I don't know if those non-weapon ripostes do drain life (or would generate focus for a cipher if you were one) but Riposte (Rogue) and Offensive Parry (WotEP) def. do drain life for a Steel Garrote.

I hope you don't play on Turn Based Mode because there the miss/graze ratio is heavily shifted towards grazes and misses don't occur often. In that case Retaliation and Offensive Parry and stuff are ineffective. 

Engagement can be a powerful tool for a Trickster/Steel Garrote because Tricksters can terrify enemies with Repulsive Visage and if terrified enemies leave your engagement there is a chance that you proc disengagmeent attacks. Doesn't happen always but often enough. Disengagement attacks have increased stats and will also drain life for you.

Also you can stack up defenses against disengagement attacks (see Boots of Speed for example), then willfully disengage and provoke disengagement attacks that will miss, proccing Ripostes for you at an insane speed.  

Edited February 21, 2020 by Boeroer

[Madscientist]

some more questions:

- Like PoE1, 1h weapon + bashing shield does less damage than 1h weapon + normal shield because shield damage is low. Is this correct?

- When using Tuolitos palm and upgrade it to counter attack, do you attack only with the shield or is it a full attack? The description says :"20% Chance on being Missed by a Melee attack to strike back instantly". If it was a full attack, this would be the first opportunity in this game to have a riposte attack. If it is just the shield attack, I can ignore this shield.

- The medium shield modal where you can block attacks, does it count as miss (can cause riposte), does it cout as hit ( activating stuff that starts on being hit) or is it something different?

[Boeroer]

32 minutes ago, Madscientist said:

some more questions:

- Like PoE1, 1h weapon + bashing shield does less damage than 1h weapon + normal shield because shield damage is low. Is this correct?

Not entirely because in PoE bashing shields didn't count as dual wielding. So you alternated between main weapon and bash at normal (slow speed). In Deadfire bashing shields count as offhand weapon and thus get the innate 30% speed boost and also profit from two weapon style. So generally the dps should be higher than with a normal shield (with rel. normal weapons). 

BUT: most bashing shields don't scale their offensive properties with quality. That means PEN etc. will stay the same even if you enchant the shield to superb etc. This makes their offensive capabilities very poor in the late game because they almost never penetrate. "Tuotilo's Palm": its offensive stats scale with Monastic Unarmed Training (or Transcendent Suffering, but that's Monk) and the "Best Defense" bashing shield can be enchanted with +25% dmg and +2 PEN "manually". But the rest of the bashing shields (there's only Magrans Blessing left iirc) won't do much dmg.

By the way: a dagger in the offhand + modal can be a viable alternative to a shield for a Riposte build. +10 deflection is good and while the -25% dmg is a bit sad you can still count on proccing nice effects (see Pukestabber for example). And their PEN and dmg will scale with weapon quality.

But again you'll lose engagement. 

A great offhand weapon could be Kapana Taga (club) which can make you immune to flanking (basically the equivalent of +10 deflection and +1 AR if surrounded) and it can give you +2 engagement. But again: it might look funny with the rest of your gear. Fits very well with Reckless Brigandine and Champion's Helmet though...

 

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Boeroer

[Madscientist]

Thanks

More questions:

1.) Are weapon modals active or passive?

Most importent, do they get overwritten by buffs with the same effect? Like dagger/staff modal + mirror image, +2 penetration with tier 2 strengh inspiration and so on.

2.) Riposte is called full attack, so I guess you do this with your equipped weapon. Are disengagement attacks also done with your weapon? I ask because of on hit effects, both from modals and the weapon itself.

3.) Should I switch from mirror image to llengraths displaced image when I get it?

Mirror image gets more deflection and lasts longer but it get reduced on hit (lowered by how much? On hit means not on grazes, I guess)

Llengraths displaced image gives less deflection, but it gives also reflex and hit -> graze.

[Raven Darkholme]

Last time I checked modals didn't stack with actives, so they also counted as actives.

Mirror Image is far worse in this game, because for some reasons also grazes remove it, afaik 8 grazes remove the entire buff, so I guess you lose 1/8 per hit, also not only deflection attacks can remove it.

Hit to graze is pretty good as well in this game, cuz AR is op as opposed to Poe1.

 

Not sure about the disengagements I seem to remember it works with engaged weapons but not 100% positive.

[Boeroer]

On 2/22/2020 at 8:08 AM, Madscientist said:

Thanks

More questions:

1.) Are weapon modals active or passive?

Most importent, do they get overwritten by buffs with the same effect? Like dagger/staff modal + mirror image, +2 penetration with tier 2 strengh inspiration and so on.

2.) Riposte is called full attack, so I guess you do this with your equipped weapon. Are disengagement attacks also done with your weapon? I ask because of on hit effects, both from modals and the weapon itself.

3.) Should I switch from mirror image to llengraths displaced image when I get it?

Mirror image gets more deflection and lasts longer but it get reduced on hit (lowered by how much? On hit means not on grazes, I guess)

Llengraths displaced image gives less deflection, but it gives also reflex and hit -> graze.

1) active. But in case of Dagger modal + Mirrored Image they stack because Dagger modal gives +10 deflection vs. melee only who h stacks with Mirrored Image which is universal +30 Deflection (not only melee)

2) Disengament Attack is done with your main hand weapon (not a Full Attack). Riposte is done with both weapons (like all Full Attacks). 

3) You can use both. The deflection bonus won't stack, but Mirrored Image gives +30 and loses 5 deflection with every graze/hit/crit you receive - and if you drop to 10 Llengrath's takes over. As Raven said the conversion is always good.