Witch Stats Help

[nikkolasmical@gmail.com]

So this is my first time playing Deadfire and I'm no expert at these type of games, much as I love them. I'm just playing on normal.

I wanted to try Ascendant Cipher (I don't wanna be pure melee so no Soul Blade.) + some type of Barbarian but not sure which.

I just don't know which stats I can afford to dump. Some builds I have found say you can dump CON but I dunno about that. Maybe pro players can but I am afraid.

Do I need Perception or can I at least lower it to 7 or 8? 

I know everyone dumps Resolve but I consider stats to be important for roleplaying. Low Resolve doesn't fit my ideas for my character. I suppose I could just come up with a different character idea.

And so I'm just kinda lost. Maxing Dexterity or Intellect seem like the way to go but after that...I got nothing.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edited June 2, 2020 by nikkolasmical@gmail.com

[dgray62]

For a Ascendant Witch I'd recommend that you max INT (for long periods of ascension) and go for relatively high PER, so you can crit a lot. DEX should be relatively high as well for speed, fast recovery and overall DPS. Your STR doesn't need to be too high, since you'll get fury and cipher damage boosts. Personally I would keep CON at 10, although you can lower it if you like living dangerously. RES can be dumped if you're not going for a melee build.

[Vitalis]

6 hours ago, nikkolasmical@gmail.com said:

So this is my first time playing Deadfire and I'm no expert at these type of games, much as I love them. I'm just playing on normal.

I wanted to try Ascendant Cipher (I don't wanna be pure melee so no Soul Blade.) + some type of Barbarian but not sure which.

I just don't know which stats I can afford to dump. Some builds I have found say you can dump CON but I dunno about that. Maybe pro players can but I am afraid.

Do I need Perception or can I at least lower it to 7 or 8? 

I know everyone dumps Resolve but I consider stats to be important for roleplaying. Low Resolve doesn't fit my ideas for my character. I suppose I could just come up with a different character idea.

And so I'm just kinda lost. Maxing Dexterity or Intellect seem like the way to go but after that...I got nothing.

Any help would be appreciated.

Back during launch I did try to build a witch build here on the forum. I dont know what's been nerfed exactly, but I also ran mine as a beserker/soul blade so this may not fully apply to you.

Like you, I also prefer roleplay stats so I raised dex/int/and perception to ~16 (before Berath's blessing) with roleplay stats also adjusted for. 

 

[dgray62]

Vitalis, my understanding is Soul blade's soul annihilation attack was seriously nerfed. I only have played post nerf, and found it underwhelming. I love Beguiler; it is a very "witchy" class with the focus on deception/mind control powers, and is really OP, since casting these powers can restore focus for you, allowing you to cast them again and again. But personally I love ascendant the most. I just love spamming mind blades and other damaging powers while in the ascended state. And a multiclass with barbarian is great for the extra recovery and attack speed and penetration (if you go with berserker).

[thelee]

On 6/2/2020 at 8:48 PM, dgray62 said:

For a Ascendant Witch I'd recommend that you max INT (for long periods of ascension) and go for relatively high PER, so you can crit a lot. DEX should be relatively high as well for speed, fast recovery and overall DPS. Your STR doesn't need to be too high, since you'll get fury and cipher damage boosts. Personally I would keep CON at 10, although you can lower it if you like living dangerously. RES can be dumped if you're not going for a melee build.

Agreeing with dgray62 here, but adding on some extra notes: INT and DEX are basically king stats in general, but especially so for ascendant. The only thing that makes ascension last longer (without a priest or the Ooblit pet) is intellect. Dex--by making your actions faster--will let you squeeze more in during that ascension period. The returns here are effectively non-linear; the difference between four powers during ascension and squeezing an additional fifth might be just one more dexterity point.

Perception and Might are roughly equal in most cases (so typically you want to balance them), but for a witch perception is much better - so much rides on you actually hitting the enemy that perception becomes more powerful (and with carnage actually gives you much better returns than might - barbarian is an exception where--contrary to most barbarian builds you'd naively expect--perception is much more important than might).

Edited June 4, 2020 by thelee