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I’m planning out a PoE1 & 2 Trial of Iron run for the No Reload thread here on the PoE1 forums. When I get to Deadfire it will be all Orlans, and I’m going Principi for faction. I’m playing with Community Patch and Balance Polishing mods, though I’ll turn off a few changes as desired.
 

Im trying to choose a class for Mirke to be my high deflection melee. The rest of the party is:

  • Priest of Skaen (buff/heal/melee dmg)
  • Retaliation Furyshaper (dmg sponge/melee dmg/buffs/debuffs)
  • Ancient/Troubadour Theurge (dots/heals)
  • SC Cipher Serafen (debuffs/CC/dmg)

I’ll be building around Tuotilo’s Palm for the most part. 
 

Initial thoughts:

Shadowdancer

  • Riposte
  • Pukestabber / Marux Amanth (alternate dmg set)
  • More dmg potential

Brawler

  • More Crits: Intuitive & CP weapon mastery
  • More Deflection
  • More Engagement
  • Unbending

SC Monk

  • Whispers (stuns with Ajumaat is a kind of tanking)
  • Imagined Pain / Razor’s Edge
  • Resonant Touch
Edited by Ivanfyodorovich
fixing mobile formatting
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i would personally stay away from shadowdancer. in case you aren't aware, mirke automatically gets the streetfighter subclass, so while mirke would kick butt for DPS, you might not like the incentives to be reckless on a tank.

for a tank build, i would go for brawler. fighter will help you with the higher deflection quite a bit, though the payoff isn't as nice as a riposte rogue.

Edited by thelee
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1 hour ago, thelee said:

i would personally stay away from shadowdancer. in case you aren't aware, mirke automatically gets the streetfighter subclass, so while mirke would kick butt for DPS, you might not like the incentives to be reckless on a tank.

for a tank build, i would go for brawler. fighter will help you with the higher deflection quite a bit, though the payoff isn't as nice as a riposte rogue.

Thanks for the input, @thelee And, yeah, I was tracking that she is a Streetfighter, but I figured the low recovery penalty when not flanked/bloodied isn't too much of a problem for a tank. I see your point about incentivizing flanked/bloodied, though. It sort of pulls the whole build a little off center in terms of items/etc, and I already have a "tank" that I expect to be bloodied/near death more often. 

Another thing that tips it to Brawler for me is wanting her to be relatively auto-pilot, and I'm getting mostly passives from the Fighter side. 

 

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Shouldn't Shadowdancer with Streetfighter be quite nice in combination with Blade Turning? You will be flanked but melee attacks will get redirected while you can sqeeze in a few attacks on your own - because your recovery is so short...?

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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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48 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Shouldn't Shadowdancer with Streetfighter be quite nice in combination with Blade Turning? You will be flanked but melee attacks will get redirected while you can sqeeze in a few attacks on your own - because your recovery is so short...?

i tried this a while ago on mirke and was a little underwhelmed by it. maybe my setup wasn't great. but even with duality of mortal presence, blade turning wouldn't last very long, so you still don't get to do too much.  spamming blade turning almost every other action while still taking further damage from range or non-melee melee-ranged attacks wasn't a very exciting way to play.

as a brief emergency tanking tool (e.g. 3+ enemies and in danger), or as a cheese with salvation of time, it was pretty good though.

Edited by thelee
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I just thought since it's daggers + Swift Strikes + Two Weapon Style + Heating Up there should be very little recovery left so that even with the short duration of Blade Turning you'd be able to squeeze in two strikes in between or so. Didn't try and I don't recall Mike's INT, but maybe with some +duration food and items as well as INT gear + Duality...?

May very well be that it's boring (I mean triggering the same ability over and over again sure is)  - but I also guess that Blade Turning stuff is easy to set up as AI script? Doesn't even have to be activated all the time. Only once Mirke is bloodied maybe? So you'd have normal attacks + Riposte if you're rel. healthy and switch to Blade Turning + few attacks in between once you're not doing great. Just an idea. 

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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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Blade turning, as constant defensive tactics, is totally viable for Watcher. With high int and some effect prolonging equipment (ooblit, cabalist gambeson etc) it can last about 10sec. It synergize great with blade cascade of scordeo's edge (single handed), that can last long enough, to refresh itself without gaps by sf/hbd chains and cut blade turning recovery to 0. Shattered pillar can generate tons of wounds this way, and use instruments of pain and skyward kick or efficient anguish, to interrupt almost every spell on the battlefield. 

For mirke it is still possible, but street fighter subclass would be useless in this setup

Edited by Powerotti
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11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

May very well be that it's boring (I mean triggering the same ability over and over again sure is)  - but I also guess that Blade Turning stuff is easy to set up as AI script? Doesn't even have to be activated all the time. Only once Mirke is bloodied maybe? So you'd have normal attacks + Riposte if you're rel. healthy and switch to Blade Turning + few attacks in between once you're not doing great. Just an idea. 

scripting blade turning runs into an AI issue that someone else found a short while back - the AI decides on the next action as soon as the current action is completed, regardless of recovery, so even short cooldowns might in practice result in poor uptime because the AI script (at least by default) has no way to examine the current existence of blade turning and its duration, relative to recovery. in practice i found it really hard to find an AI script that got me decent uptime while still allowing me to do other actions, especially once reality (with interrupts and things like disorienting/blinding) comes into play. in fact, i had this AI script gated by mirke health AND being actively threatened by more than 1 enemy in melee range, simply because it was so annoying at higher health levels that it didn't feel justified until i knew mirke was in danger AND basically guaranteed to have streetfighter enabled.

 

i'm sure there exists a more interesting build (ooblit would help a lot, basically a free +20 intellect on something like blade turning. being on a non-tank who can afford to be close to naked without being slaughtered by spells or arrows would also help). but mirke in particular was not a compelling or interesting one.

that being said, like i said earlier, cheese still exists. mirke was king tank against dorudugan.

Edited by thelee
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Setting aside the value/viability of Bladeturning, are there any other pro/cons folks are seeing here that haven't been mentioned? I'm leaning toward Brawler, because it's a Trial of Iron run (even if it is Veteran), and I'd rather have a slower, but more sturdy team. 

Anyone think SC Monk is viable as a tank? I'd prefer to be playing with a max RES Forbidden Fist, but I'm settled on using Mirke here instead of a hired adventurer. 

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19 minutes ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

Anyone think SC Monk is viable as a tank? I'd prefer to be playing with a max RES Forbidden Fist, but I'm settled on using Mirke here instead of a hired adventurer. 

i think it's doable, but you'd miss out on what i think the absolute best meta for an sc monk is ajumaat + whispers of the wind. i would not call that even "pseudo" tanking, though, because there is still a delay between each jump and uptime and stun duration can vary, which can be a massive opening for enemies to overrun your party if you don't have any other tanks. you can also end up in odd places depending on your final jump (and not enough wounds to start up again possibly), which can leave your party SoL if you don't have an actual tank.

max res forbidden fist is indeed a likely better choice, but for mirke honestly a brawler adds so much utility for a tank role that i'd be hard pressed to go with sc monk for a tank.

Edited by thelee
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Update:

I'm rolling with Brawler Mirke. After 3 failed double Trial of Iron runs, I don't want to take any unnecessary risks. Which brings me to my other change. I'm nixing my Fury Shaper, and rolling Serafen a passable replacement. The build will be less fun, but I just won't find it funny at all if I lose my run to Wild Mind procs. Once I get 1 double run on the board, I'll be more open to taking chances. Final roster:

  • MC: single class Priest of Skaen - Buffs/heals/Storm of Holy Fire
  • Serafen: single class Barbarian - Retaliation tank/dps (Rekvu's Cloak)
  • Mirke: Brawler (Fighter/Monk) - DEF tank
  • Hired Theurge (Ancient / Troubador) - AoE heals/dots (same as the hired Chanter from PoE1 playthrough)
  • Hired Mindstalker (Beguiler / Trickster) - AoE debuffs/dps w/ Mortars
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