Beginner questions about some classes

[freddfranca]

22 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Ascendant doesn't work too well with Barbarian (ofc you can make anything work) Soulblade + barb is a match made in heaven.

I saw a video on YouTube that was just SA spam, and this makes me step away from this combination 

[Boeroer]

Ascended + Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst is a great combo imo. Speeding up casting times + recovery as well as removing recovery on kill is nice while ascended in order to squeeze a lot of spells into that time window. If you pick spells with short casting time and long recovery (Mind Blades, Amplified Thrust and Mind Lance for example) it can be so much fun because you can squeeze a lot of them into the ascended time eventually. Mind Blades works quite well with Bloody Slaughter by the way because it can hit the same enemy multiple times. 

Edit: I would either pick Furyshaper (even faster casting with Frenzy Ward which stacks with other speed bonuses) or Berserker (+2 PEN for your spells as well and faster Ascension).
 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

9 minutes ago, freddfranca said:

I saw a video on YouTube that was just SA spam, and this makes me step away from this combination 

Well as I said you can make anything work as @Boeroer pointed out a way to amke it somewhat viable already.

The question I would ask myself is if you'd enjoy any cipher/barbarian combo, if you dislike SA "spam" especially Ascendant is all about spam, sadly thats how deadfire is balanced with the bloated hp on many enemies.

I already pointed out SC wizard and will gladly do so again, because of how much variety you can bring into every fight.

Ciphers sadly just arent about variety in this game at least not if you actually wanna do damage with them.

Or before any cipher lovers cry out in anger let me try and reword that.

The combination of high enemy hp and very high fortitude defense on relevant dangerous enemies makes awesome damaging spells from the cipher pretty useless in the harder fights (at least on potd) so you resort to the things that work, targeting deflection or at least will (won't always work)

[freddfranca]

Thanks for all responses, I think I will do the simplest, will go with a SC on this first run and then I try to make things more complicated.

After all, a Barbarian dual wielding axes can’t go wrong, right?

[Not So Clever Hound]

8 minutes ago, freddfranca said:

After all, a Barbarian dual wielding axes can’t go wrong, right?

as long as they grab the weapon by the handle and not by the blade, they should mostly be fine

One day they shall dual wield Magran's Favor and Slayer's Claw and be very happy about it.

[freddfranca]

And of course will be a Dwarf with a big mohawk.

[Raven Darkholme]

Just be sure to use bleeding cut.

[dgray62]

3 hours ago, freddfranca said:

And of course will be a Dwarf with a big mohawk.

I think that the Dwarf with a big mohawk needs a 2-handed axe, so Amra or Oathbreaker's End.

[freddfranca]

15 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

I think that the Dwarf with a big mohawk needs a 2-handed axe, so Amra or Oathbreaker's End.

This is what I have in my mind

 

[dgray62]

Understood. I thought your reference was to this:

[Haplok]

13 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Ciphers sadly just arent about variety in this game at least not if you actually wanna do damage with them.

Or before any cipher lovers cry out in anger let me try and reword that.

The combination of high enemy hp and very high fortitude defense on relevant dangerous enemies makes awesome damaging spells from the cipher pretty useless in the harder fights (at least on potd) so you resort to the things that work, targeting deflection or at least will (won't always work)

If you don't play solo, its less of an issue. I tend to always bring Pallegina Herald with Willbreaker morningstar along. Body Blows modal => -25 Fortitude. Can also chant Long Night's Drink for another -14 or my Ciphers often use Secret Horrors (-10, doesn't stack with Chant) and sometimes Mind Plague (or Stunning Surge - if Transcendant) for another -10!

Anyway, with -35 or -49 Fort, most enemies are nicely primed for a Disintegrate. Against squishier mobs, Amplified Wave can also work well.

Don't remember having issues to land the big damage Disintegrate on enemies. Plus with Seeker's Fang, you also have the spammy mini-disintegrate vs Deflection (needs a Crit, but the attacks are rapid, Flurry is aoe cone and works very well vs many enemies). Granted, I usually didn't fight most of the Megabosses, so its probably more difficult there. But normal enemies are fair game on PotD Upscaled.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

One reason why I like bringing a Furyshaper/Skald or Troub with Willbreaker. The "on the fly" Fortitude and Will debuffing + the individual Body Blows are so great against imo. I used to enchant Willbreaker with the DoT but found that you don't need it at all and that the "Make them Flinch" enchantment that gives 25% miss to graze is much more useful - it stacks with the Gauntlets of Greater Reliability (25% as well) which makes it quite easy to debuff enemies' fortitude by 25 initially even if you wouldn't otherwise be able to graze them (which isn't likely to happen a lot - but just for showing how good and overlooked those enchantments are). Then cast Ben Fidel's Neck for another -10 to all defenses and enemies' fortitude is at (-25-20-10=) -55. And that's achievable before your buddy even gets to Disintegration iirc. Later combine with Brute Force of course.

You can stack it with a party member with Ngati's Tusk later with max survival. The defense debuff is an auto-hit aura.

I also employ one char with a club + modal and one with Draining Touch (trick). In various setups, doesn't matter. Often the club bearer is a fighter because Clear Out = AoE Will debuff then. Add a nice Miasma on Top for massive Will reduction (-40) and good deflection debuff (-10).

You'll then have a party who can debuff Fortitude and Will off to never-neverland which is both great for any cipher (but also Barb, Furyshaper, Trickster, Wizard, Priest, Chanter and Druid).

Yeah I love to play the debuffing game I have to admit.

[Raven Darkholme]

Well to an extent I can see how it's easier with a party because you can do several things simultaneously.

The main problem is besides Morningstar most fortitude debuffs also target fort.

If you have the extreme example of Dorudugan who has also massive resolve Morningstar debuff will last for 1 sec or so :s

He has 187 Fort, so even with -25 you have to hot fort targeting debuffs vs 162 fort in a very short time window.

(Yes with a party you can just keep smacking him with Morningstar but it can still be awkward).

I agree that the rest of the game is not as annoying as Doru but there is quite a few enemies with bloated fort and to me it alwys seems easier to resort to other skills.

[Boeroer]

13 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Well to an extent I can see how it's easier with a party because you can do several things simultaneously.

Yes, that is the main thing indeed.

THat's also why - in a party - you shouldn't cramp all the synergistic stuff into one character. It absolutely hurts the action economy of your party. It's cool if a character X can do A, B and C, but it will take thrice as long as if char X does A, Y does B and Z does C at the same time. That's also why single classes shine in a party more than solo (generally speaking) because it's easier to cover all necessary "roles" with 5 chars. The individual chars may look more "boring" - but you will simply be faster imo.

But that's why I love the Barb/Chanter debuffer so much - because he can stagger + weaken with a phrase (Spirit Frenzy triggers from phrases, too) and can focus on hitting stuff with a morning star and Ben Fidel (or whatever invocation). And the repeating phrases make it easy to eventually hit. 

Against Dorudugan Ngati's Tusk is great because its debuff is auto-hit and there's no duration or immunity (RES is useless). That's already -10. Afflictions don't work well because of resistance/immunities. Miasma and Psychovampiric Shield could help with the high RES though? I didn't fight him that often so I don't remember how long the Body Blows lasted - but maybe against Doru I wouldn't really want to play the debuff chess game anyway. I'll just hit him with a Gouging Strike from Lover's Embrace and say Sayonara.  Superannoying dude he is... 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

Well you can deal with him quite easily, just not by targeting Fort.

The main ways to damage him are things like Bleeding Cut and Soul Annihilation.

He can die in 10 secs to a solo rogue as @Waskihas shown.

He can also be perma cced with Blade Cascade + Grave Calling, even tho he is immune to mind afflictions, item effects are not afflictions and only share the name.

[freddfranca]

19 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Ascended + Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst is a great combo imo. Speeding up casting times + recovery as well as removing recovery on kill is nice while ascended in order to squeeze a lot of spells into that time window. If you pick spells with short casting time and long recovery (Mind Blades, Amplified Thrust and Mind Lance for example) it can be so much fun because you can squeeze a lot of them into the ascended time eventually. Mind Blades works quite well with Bloody Slaughter by the way because it can hit the same enemy multiple times. 

Edit: I would either pick Furyshaper (even faster casting with Frenzy Ward which stacks with other speed bonuses) or Berserker (+2 PEN for your spells as well and faster Ascension).
 

Would this work in melee? I can’t see a Barbarian using ranged attacks

[Boeroer]

24 minutes ago, freddfranca said:

Would this work in melee? I can’t see a Barbarian using ranged attacks

Sure. But what melee abilites does a cipher have? During Ascension a Witch with Blood Thirst wants to spam "free" damaging cipher spells in order to kill asap - so that recovery gets removed and the next "free" spell can follow. And most of the damaging abilites of ciphers are ranged ones.

But of course you can totally use melee weapons to collect focus and ascend. 

As Barb/Ascendant you could even stop casting spells alltogether and just use the higher Soul Whip dmg bonus to boost your melee damage. But imo you could as well (or even better) play a Barb/Rogue or Barb/Monk then.  

[Raven Darkholme]

40 minutes ago, freddfranca said:

Would this work in melee? I can’t see a Barbarian using ranged attacks

This is why I suggested Soul Blade because it is the only melee cipher option that nakes A lot of sense with barbarian, barbarian is all about AoE weapon attacks and Soul Blade's Soul Annihilation does alotta damage which can be spread with barbarian.

I think @Boeroer's suggestion was more because it seemed like you wanted to use less boring abilites than melee. so the Barb/Ascendant would be more like a caster hybrid.

Sure it can still use melee, but theres no real point in going Ascendant then.

(Once again in this game you can make anything work, and min maxing can steal fun ofc)

[Haplok]

Well, one (late game) reason to go with Ascendant for melee is his higher Focus pool... and a certain rapier that scales its Raw DOT of current Focus.

One of my favorite weapons.

[Bosmer]

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

He can also be perma cced with Blade Cascade + Grave Calling, even tho he is immune to mind afflictions, item effects are not afflictions and only share the name.

Wow, I didn't know this! Is this true for all item afflictions? For example will breaker's shaken "affliction" would work even on immune / resistant enemies?

[Raven Darkholme]

17 minutes ago, Haplok said:

Well, one (late game) reason to go with Ascendant for melee is his higher Focus pool... and a certain rapier that scales its Raw DOT of current Focus.

One of my favorite weapons.

My Soul Blade has a focus pool of 4000, but you're not gonna like how I got it.

Jokes aside even with a normal party comp and no cheese soul blade should get more focus during a fight than Ascendant, you can kill a lot of enemies in 60+ secs and each melee kill is +10 focus pool.

edit: wow I didn't even know about Seekers Fang, gasp.

8 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

Wow, I didn't know this! Is this true for all item afflictions? For example will breaker's shaken "affliction" would work even on immune / resistant enemies?

I haven't tested it with every weapon and deadfire is famous for having weird exceptions everywhere, but in general yes thats how it should work (theres just better afflictions than shaken imo)

Edited April 15, 2021 by Raven Darkholme

[Bosmer]

2 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

I haven't tested it with every weapon and deadfire is famous for having weird exceptions everywhere, but in general yes thats how it should work (theres just better afflictions than shaken imo)

Sure, but in the context of Dorudugan it might help to further reduce its resolve (and will) besides psychovampiric shield etc.

[Raven Darkholme]

19 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

Sure, but in the context of Dorudugan it might help to further reduce its resolve (and will) besides psychovampiric shield etc.

True if your goal is to debuff him to prove you can, it would be a useful affliction, but why debuff him if you can just permaparalyze him?

[freddfranca]

After all, I decided go with Berserker/Blood Mage. I hope I can survive the battles

[Boeroer]

See you tomorrow with some other build suggestions.