Viability of low perception/accuracy builds in solo PoTD?

[Fgh]

Specific build I am thinking about is a fire godlike monk/streetfighter multiclass with attributes Might 12 | Constitution 18 | Dexterity 19 | Perception 8 | Intelligence 4 | Resolve 16. The idea is to go all out on dexterity and recovery, both in items and consumables, using fastest weapons and leather armor. I do not care about getting crits, but I still need to hit reliably with abilities. So is this something that seems doable, and if not, what would you say is the minimum starting perception that would make this kind of speed focused character possible?

[Boeroer]

You will have problems in the early game - but later on it will not be that bad anymore. But it also depends on the weapons. If you use blunderbusses + Powder Burns it will be a lot worse than if you use Daggers (e.g. Pukestabber which is very fast - with the use of alcohol). Because blunderbusses have an inherent ACC malus AND Powder Burns will distract you - which will cause -5 PER on top. Daggers however come with +5 ACC. 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Boeroer

[Fgh]

Well, proficiencies I pick at character creation are pistols and dagger, and after that I want to go for all the top tier weapons in terms of speed. Always dual wielding. At the beginning probably mostly fists.

If I wanted to go for more optimal build, which stat should I relocate, while keeping the maximum speed gimmick?

[Haplok]

IMO no speed boosts will compensate mostly loosing Swift Flurry / Heartbeat Drumming chains of (animation-less) attacks - triggered on crits.

[Boeroer]

You don't need that much RES (unless you want it for scripted scenes/attribute checks in dialogue). You can leave MIG at 10 - Rogues already get high damage bonuses and don't really need much Might. Intellect 4 would be way too low for my taste. Swift Flurry or Lightning Strikes will be over very soon even with Tuning Wheel activated. Also stuff like Arterial Strike, Ring the Bell (it's good!) and Toxic Strike as well as Stunning Surge will be very short-lived which is not great imo.
You also won't need CON 18. Instead make sure you get healing from party members a lot. With sufficient healing you can lower CON a lot.

Whether you want to pick Lightning Strikes or Swift Flurry depends on the difficulty (on PotD enemies' defenses are higher -> less crits), the weapon (best pick: Sun & Moon), your accuracy (the higher the better) any hit/crit conversion (dito). Once you get Heartbeat Drumming Swift FLurry can be really good because each of those can proc the other - which leads to crit-chains a lot more often than with Swift Flurry alone. Before getting Heartbeat Drumming  I would say that Lightning Strikes is strictly better with most builds. You can retrain once you get Heartbet Drumming and swtich to Swift Flurry if you want.

   

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Haplok]

I kind of disagree with that (gasp!).

On PotD, before Heartbeat Drumming, IMO Swift Flurry with good Accuracy is still better then Lightning Strikes (when melee, SF doesn't work on ranged attacks, duh). Although it depends on your priorities, of course. And party composition/roles, I guess. LS will be better vs bosses and small groups of tough foes. But its usually the squishy enemy casters and rangers that give me the most pain - and Swift Flurry is strictly better vs those.

[Boeroer]

It is good against low defense targets and bad against high defense ones. Whether it's the better pick for a certain chartacter on PotD is difficult to determine and it evenchanges from enemy to enemy. It surely is big fun when it triggers (and you know I favor fun over number crunching) - but I still would say that overall Lightning Strikes is the better pick if you're not dedicated to raise ACC and crit conversion and don't want to take on low defense enemies primarily. If you want to do that AND wear Sun & Moon then I would say Swift Flurry is the better pick.

By the way: non-main-hand attacks that trigger Swift Flurry and/or Heartbeat Drumming will always trigger main-hand-attacks. That means you should always wear Sun & Moon in the main hand to maximize the chance for crit chances. Funnily enough the bash AND the Fire Shield attacks of Magran's Blessing will trigger main hand attacks then. That means if some enemy hits you and our Fire Shield crits them (and trigger Swift FLurry or HBD) you will instantly attack with Sun & Moon, probably setting off a crit chain. It's not really for OP's Monk/Streetfighter - but it is a cool way to combine damage with tankyness on a Monk or Monk multiclass. It may be that the retaliation attacks from Tuotilo's Palm do the same - didn't test those.    

[Fgh]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

You also won't need CON 18. Instead make sure you get healing from party members a lot. With sufficient healing you can lower CON a lot.

The build is intended for solo, so I cant rely on healing. The reason I put so much into constitution, other than more wounds, is to get the most out of Streetfighter passive, and I thought that having low health pool when I need to be both bloodied and flanked would lead to quick demise. And also it just seemed a better investment per point to get +5% HP rather than 1 accuracy, particularly if I am never going to get it high enough to crit reliably anyway. I tried fighting through that cave where you shipwreck, it was doable, but I do not know if that is representative of difficulty for the rest of the game. I am afraid that I wont be able to hit bosses with this build.

[thelee]

to add on to what others said, i've used streetfighter builds that generally are constantly distracted or blinded and so have a perception around what you have (or worse), but the massive speed boost more than makes up for it.

 

back a while ago i ran some simulations and found that dexterity adds about 3% net damage per point, and perception 2% per point (similar with might), so in the long run, even with low accuracy, the trade-off works in dexterity's favor. (and later on, exceptional, superb, etc. enchantments give you higher chance to hit and most enemies' defenses dont' have similar scaling bonuses)

(in case it isn't clear, even though might adds +3% to damage, it amounts to only around 2% net damage due to the fact that the damage bonus is additive and the non-linearity of graze and underpenetration damage penalties. dexterity benefits in that there are very few standard ways to interact with action speed, so the +3% action speed is very nearly 1:1 a 3% net damage increase)

 

edit: these are just averages. they do not apply to specific scenarios. these days i prize accuracy hugely on casters and debuffers, because i always fight megabosses, and all the averages in the world don't work if i can't land a spell or debuff consistently in the hardest fights that i absolutely need to land them in. something to consider for solo potd (since unlike with a party you can't swap characters in an out in case you need some extra stats somewhere). but standard critical path and DLCs should probably be fine.

Edited January 20, 2021 by thelee

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Fgh said:

I am afraid that I wont be able to hit bosses with this build.

Bosses (like Dragons and stuff) will be doable. Megabosses: I don't think so.

The initial cave is not repersentative because a lot of builds unfold only later while some start already strong. I don't find it to be very difficult though. Peaks are Gorecci Street and the Engwithan Digsite (that early in the game).

Edited January 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Powerotti]

2 hours ago, Fgh said:

it just seemed a better investment per point to get +5% HP rather than 1 accuracy

If one can't outheal damage or restrain enemy, max HP is negligible, in most cases. Defences and AR have a way greater impact in terms of survivability, and ACC is much more important for removing the danger (killing, interrupting or hard CC).

2 hours ago, thelee said:

dexterity adds about 3% net damage per point, and perception 2% per point (similar with might), so in the long run, even with low accuracy, the trade-off works in dexterity's favor

Unless someone is using Blade Cascade/Strand of Favor exploit

 

There is very few type of builds, that prioritize something other than max per, dex, int

[Fgh]

Can graze-to-hit and hit-to-crit modifiers be applied on top of each other? So for example I roll graze, using flail then turns it to hit, does that hit have a chance to be turned into crit?

Edited January 20, 2021 by Fgh

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Powerotti said:

Unless someone is using Blade Cascade/Strand of Favor exploit

lol, funnily even with blade cascade and no recovery dexterity still speeds up the action time to land the hit, so it still matters just as much as before, except now probably there are some extreme rounding breakpoints (i don't know how much precision deadfire keeps track off beyond 1/10's fraction).

[dgray62]

3 hours ago, Powerotti said:

Unless someone is using Blade Cascade/Strand of Favor exploit

What exactly is this exploit, Powerotti?

[Powerotti]

@dgray62It is possible to trigger blade cascade and some other equipment abilities outside of combat or only in combat, but they won't get erased after combat ends (try shroud of the phantasm and least unstable coil for brilliant). Strand of favor affects actual, not base effect duration, so one can extend it endlessly, by puting SoF on and of a dozen times. Unfortunately it won't work with Nemnok cloack.

 

12 hours ago, Fgh said:

Can graze-to-hit and hit-to-crit modifiers be applied on top of each other? So for example I roll graze, using flail then turns it to hit, does that hit have a chance to be turned into crit?

No, only one conversion at a time and one can't reach 100% by stacking. It's good to have, but i find high acc much more reliable.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Powerotti

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, Powerotti said:

No, only one conversion at a time and one can't reach 100% by stacking. It's good to have, but i find high acc much more reliable.

Indeed. You can't convert from miss to graze and then further to hit for example.

High ACC is more reliable, but there can be situations where you can only hit and never crit with your ACC for example - in those cases conversions are very good. 
Best imo is miss-to-graze conversion. There are only few (see Willbreaker or Boreal Dwarf).   
 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

6 hours ago, Powerotti said:

@dgray62It is possible to trigger blade cascade and some other equipment abilities outside of combat or only in combat, but they won't get erased after combat ends (try shroud of the phantasm and least unstable coil for brilliant). Strand of favor affects actual, not base effect duration, so one can extend it endlessly, by puting SoF on and of a dozen times. Unfortunately it won't work with Nemnok cloack.

Thanks for the tip, Powerotti.

[NotDumbEnough]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Indeed. You can't convert from miss to graze and then further to hit for example.

High ACC is more reliable, but there can be situations where you can only hit and nevere crit with your ACC for example - in those cases conversions are very good. 
Best imo is miss-to-graze conversion. There are only few (see Willbreaker or Boreal Dwarf).   
 

You actually CAN go from graze to crit. I suspect that you need to have paralyze on the enemy.

[Boeroer]

Hah! Good catch!

I didn't know that this is possible. I guess in this case it is possible because the conversion from graze to hit is an effect on the character and the hit to crit effect is attached to the enemy. Makes sense now that I think a bit more about it. The conversion on the enemy works for everyone who does an attack roll against them - the game logic doesn't check whether those attacks were already converted or not. At least that's what I guess.

Anyway: good to know. It's crazy how you can play this rel. old game for thousands of hours and read a ton of stuff here in the forums and elsewhere - and yet something new pops up every now and then.