The Pale Hide unique armor is much better than I thought

[Not So Clever Hound]

Hi everyone,

I'm doing a Solo run with an SC Trickster build which I will write about a little later (very fun, very versatile and surprisingly powerful). For uber-style, I went with the Whitewitch Mask and the Pale Hide which is a unique armor that, to my great shame, I hadn't thought a lot about or used much before.

You probably know this but for those who don't, it turns out it's a really great armor, so I wanted to write a little dedicated post about it.

Of course, the 20% Hit to Graze enchant can synergize really well with things like Llengrath's Displaced Image. So can the elemental AR bonus with Pale Elf and various armor buffs. But what really surprised me was the enchant Dread Howl, which gives a per-encounter Frighten ability.

Maybe this doesn't look amazingly strong but with a high INT, high ACC character this gives:

• A gigantic radius around the caster and fast cast, so ideal at the beginning of combat. With good placement you can hit everyone.
• Relatively long duration (30-35sec easily achievable on Hit, more on Crit).
• All afflicted enemies suffer -5 Deflection, -10 Will, +15% hostile effect duration, -3 all PL, AND cannot use Hostile abilities (any offensive spell/ability except autoattack) for the whole duration.
• Per-encounter, can be obtained right after Maje.

In fights where enemies pummel you from the start with a barrage of powerful abilities that interrupt, CC, debuff, or do very high damage, this ability can increase the survivability of certain builds, in particular Solo ones, by A LOT! It can give enough breathing room to gain the upper hand and deal with the most dangerous customers before the duration expires.

On Upscaled PotD (which is the difficulty I play on), enemies will still be able to hit you hard with autoattacks. But no Arcane Dampener, no Helpless Beast, no Accurate Wounding Shot, no Gouging Strike... for 35 sec! It works really well with this Trickster build, but I think this armor could have even stronger incremental usefulness on other solo/party builds and if you haven't already, I encourage you to try it. Plus, it looks awesome, almost has a little Planescape Torment vibe .

Let me know if you have other thoughts about it!

Edited June 11, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

It was pretty cool on a recent Berserker/Streetfigter, too. I moved on to thicker armor eventually (also because I had other sources of frighten) but it's indeed a nice feature of the armor.

I guess on a Monk/Cipher with Helm of the White Void it would be very nice, too. Lots of duration, AoE size and Accuracy.

[Raven Darkholme]

Sounds nice for sure, ofc wizards and most casters have better cc, but awesome for non casters for sure.

  

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

It was pretty cool on a recent Berserker/Streetfigter, too. I moved on to thicker armor eventually (also because I had other sources of frighten) but it's indeed a nice feature of the armor.

I guess on a Monk/Cipher with Helm of the White Void it would be very nice, too. Lots of duration, AoE size and Accuracy.

 

Why not just charm with a cipher.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Raven Darkholme

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

 Why not just charm with a cipher.

You can use Dread Howl whenever you want - whether you have focus or not. It's nice to have a long-lasting, 5m-base(!) radius frighten effect which not only prevents enemies from using their attack abilities but also lowers their Will by 10 (costs no focus).

I thought is could be nice to cast a huge AoE frighten with high ACC that prepares enemies for other spells against Will. YOu will still have spend no focus after all. I guess if you're a Beguiler that isn't super interesting maybe, but for an Ascendant (who isn't ascended yet) it could be cool to have a cast that doesn't delay your ascension. 

Anyway I only was looking for a "great AoE + great ACC + long duration" combo and Monk/Cipher was the first that came to mind. Monk/whatever class that has no frighten effect with Willbreaker could also profit nicely from that armor I guess (bc. of Battered Mind/The Mind Makes Real).

  

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by Boeroer

[Ranndar]

3 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Hi everyone,

I'm doing a Solo run with an SC Trickster build which I will write about a little later (very fun, very versatile and surprisingly powerful). For uber-style, I went with the Whitewhich Mask and the Pale Hide which is a unique armor that, to my great shame, I hadn't thought a lot about or used much before.

You probably know this but for those who don't, it turns out it's a really great armor, so I wanted to write a little dedicated post about it.

Of course, the 20% Hit to Graze enchant can synergize really well with things like Llengrath's Displaced Image. So can the elemental AR bonus with Pale Elf and various armor buffs. But what really surprised me was the enchant Dread Howl, which gives a per-encounter Frighten ability.

Maybe this doesn't look amazingly strong but with a high INT, high ACC character this gives:

• A gigantic radius around the caster and fast cast, so ideal at the beginning of combat. With good placement you can hit everyone.
• Relatively long duration (30-35sec easily achievable on Hit, more on Crit).
• All afflicted enemies suffer -5 Deflection, -10 Will, +15% hostile effect duration, -3 all PL, AND cannot use Hostile abilities (any offensive spell/ability except autoattack) for the whole duration.
• Per-encounter, can be obtained right after Maje.

In fights where enemies pummel you from the start with a barrage of powerful abilities that interrupt, CC, debuff, or do very high damage, this ability can increase the survivability of certain builds, in particular Solo ones, by A LOT! It can give enough breathing room to gain the upper hand and deal with the most dangerous customers before the duration expires.

On Upscaled PotD (which is the difficulty I play on), enemies will still be able to hit you hard with autoattacks. But no Arcane Dampener, no Helpless Beast, no Accurate Wounding Shot, no Gouging Strike... for 35 sec! It works really well with this Trickster build, but I think this armor could have even stronger incremental usefulness on other solo/party builds and if you haven't already, I encourage you to try it. Plus, it looks awesome, almost has a little Planescape Torment vibe .

Let me know if you have other thoughts about it!

I am planning a SC Trickster, how are you going? How did you spread the atributes?

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 minutes ago, Ranndar said:

I am planning a SC Trickster, how are you going? How did you spread the atributes?

Berath Blessing, max PER, INT, DEX, then MIG, dumped CON and RES. No Rest Run with all the benefits. Stack as much Illusion PL as possible via Prestige, Weapons, Items, Hot Razor Skewers... mixing supercharged "spellcasting" and rogue abilities with powerful ranged weaponry and Monastic Unarmed Training for when I want to get upclose and personal to finish Terrified enemies.

I'll write up a little build in the coming days if you'd like to have a look, but I want to play a bit more high level content before that. So far it's been really awesome to play. Very fun, can really adapt to different situations and bring a surprising amount of oomph to the fight. PL14 Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, Gaze of Adragan, Freezing Rake or Wall of Many Colors are no joke.

[Ranndar]

2 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Berath Blessing, max PER, INT, DEX, then MIG, dumped CON and RES. No Rest Run with all the benefits. Stack as much Illusion PL as possible via Prestige, Weapons, Items, Hot Razor Skewers... mixing supercharged "spellcasting" and rogue abilities with powerful ranged weaponry and Monastic Unarmed Training for when I want to get upclose and personal to finish Terrified enemies.

I'll write up a little build in the coming days if you'd like to have a look, but I want to play a bit more high level content before that. So far it's been really awesome to play. Very fun, can really adapt to different situations and bring a surprising amount of oomph to the fight. PL14 Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, Gaze of Adragan, Freezing Rake or Wall of Many Colors are no joke.

Thanks, My intention is a critical focused build , using dual daggers. The attack speed with trickster is good enough? I was using a streetfighter, but taking so much damage sometimes.

[Not So Clever Hound]

22 minutes ago, Ranndar said:

The attack speed with trickster is good enough?

I don't know what good enough is  but yes you can be fast. I have 27 DEX and low recovery armor so a full attack+recovery cycle with Daggers dual wielded with the 2WS ability is under 2s from the tooltip. That is not outstanding but that is fast.

The interesting thing about Trickster is that you can approach things in many different ways. You could for instance attract/group enemies from stealth with Dazzling Lights used as sparcrackers, Gaze of the Adragan from stealth, jump in and yank everybody with your dual daggers while reapplying Gaze of the Adragan (which you could do 6 times per fight or 7 with DoC Breastplate). That is a suboptimal but interesting take on the Solo Melee Rogue playstyle: to survive and kill, you don't use Vanishing Strike, but Petrify effects. You would have the (highly theoretical) potential to Petrify a whole battlefield for over 90 sec per encounter with the right build I think. But Gaze of the Adragan can be hard to land on high FORT enemies, and there are many on PotD.

TBH apart from flavor if you play Solo I think it's hard to find an optimal Dual-Dagger SC Trickster style. Even if you want to be overwhelmingly a melee character, Monastic Unarmed Training would probably be better IMO with the Perma-paralyze style. Permanent Distraction + Deathblows + Near-Legendary MUT fists = Brutal. But it also depends very much on the difficulty level you want to play at, and what you want to complete in the game.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[thelee]

5 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Of course, the 20% Hit to Graze enchant can synergize really well with things like Llengrath's Displaced Image. So can the elemental AR bonus with Pale Elf and various armor buffs. But what really surprised me was the enchant Dread Howl, which gives a per-encounter Frighten ability.

i've never ever paid much attention to dread howl before because that hit to graze was so juicy, so it's good to hear that it is much better than i expected; namely - large aoe, long duration, and per encounter. will have to give it a try next time.

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 minutes ago, thelee said:

i've never ever paid much attention to dread howl before because that hit to graze was so juicy, so it's good to hear that it is much better than i expected; namely - large aoe, long duration, and per encounter. will have to give it a try next time.

Even better, they're not mutually exclusive! You can have both enchants  

Namely Ghost in White and Dread Howl.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

Dread Howl is mutually exclusive with Nocturnal Vigor (-10% recovery at night).

The hit to graze is mutually exclusive with +8 deflection while flanked. 

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Dread Howl is mutually exclusive with Nocturnal Vigor (-10% recovery at night).

oof that's a tough tradeoff then. -10% recovery is pretty sweet, even if conditional.

[Ophiuchus]

Always dismissed this one but will definitely give it a go on a future playthrough: maybe on a Brute or Brawler. At 30k (legendary by default!) there's no reason not to pick it up. Completing Serafen's quest and skulking around Hanging Sepulchers would be a good way to fund it early.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Ophiuchus

[Boeroer]

The only problem I have with hide armors in Deadfire is the looks...

[Not So Clever Hound]

23 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

The only problem I have with hide armors in Deadfire is the looks...

I really don't know what you mean  

[Ophiuchus]

4 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I really don't know what you mean  

"I got somethin' to say! It's better to burn out than fade away."

[Boeroer]

I think they all look pretty ridiculous. But that's only my personal feeling.  I assume the devs did some research on polynesian/samoan/etc. "armor" and I guess that's kind of what it looked like. Still: don't like it. Way too much frippery. The Huana brigandines I like better. 

[dgray62]

On 6/11/2021 at 7:24 AM, Not So Clever Hound said:

I'll write up a little build in the coming days if you'd like to have a look, but I want to play a bit more high level content before that. So far it's been really awesome to play. Very fun, can really adapt to different situations and bring a surprising amount of oomph to the fight. PL14 Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, Gaze of Adragan, Freezing Rake or Wall of Many Colors are no joke.

I'm looking forward to this, Not So Clever Hound. I've never played a SC rogue and will be interested to hear how it goes. Have you taken gambit? I'll be interested in learning how well it helps with end-game guile regeneration. It seems that if you use dual mortars you might restore more guile than you use if you crit a lot. Also, if I recall correctly wall of flashing steel has a chance to restore guile on crits if you use either Community or Balance Polishing mods (I use both, and can't recall which one adds this nice and much needed feature).

[Not So Clever Hound]

On 6/12/2021 at 9:18 PM, dgray62 said:

I'm looking forward to this, Not So Clever Hound. I've never played a SC rogue and will be interested to hear how it goes. Have you taken gambit? I'll be interested in learning how well it helps with end-game guile regeneration. It seems that if you use dual mortars you might restore more guile than you use if you crit a lot. Also, if I recall correctly wall of flashing steel has a chance to restore guile on crits if you use either Community or Balance Polishing mods (I use both, and can't recall which one adds this nice and much needed feature).

Thanks @dgray62 I'll write about the build as soon as I've played a little more DLC stuff. Great weather and family fun have got in the way of playing Deadfire in the last few days .

I am using the Community Patch but not (yet) Elric Galad's mod so I can't speak to that.

In my version of the game, Wall of Flashing Steel doesn't regen Guile, it just adds a short DEF buff.

Gambit is amazing but sadly, cannot give back more Guile than the 4 points it uses, even if you use Multishot or AoE weapons - at least in my version of the game. This is true with Mortars, Blunderbusses and Sun & Moon. It's still really good because you get more chances to Crit and get your Guile back, but you can't get more than 4 points.

The best SC Rogue for Gambit IMO is Assassin, if you use Vanishing Strike then as many Gambit as possible before reapplying VS. You can get a long duration for VS (~15s), then Gambit will hit like a truck and crit all the time and every hit you also get an instance of Backstab... it's really strong, as long as enemies don't wander all over the place when you're invisible. Very strong combos include Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon with Ring of Focused Flame, but I've also loved using the dual unique Spears that you get in Sayuka/Cignath Mor. You want to wear the Cap of the Laughingstock. Throw in a Pernicious Cloud at the beginning and you will also enable Deathblows while dealing serious DoT to everyone!

The SC Trickster I play makes a more selective use of Gambit in certain situations. For example, you have a pack of melee/close range foes: you can group them with Dazzling lights, approach in stealth and hit them all with a PL14 Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (nasty!). Then switch to Fists with Monastic Training while everybody's Terrified for a super long duration each time the ability pulses, you can pummel enemies with Gambit with of course Persistent Distraction on (Deathblows), reapply Repulsive Visage as needed... very efficient use of Guile and can completely destroy a whole pack of melee/close-range enemies. But for this build Gambit is not the primary tool, just because Trickster has so many other, well, tricks up his sleeve.

Anyway more to come soon .

Edited June 14, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[dgray62]

Thanks! I look forward to reading your build when you post it. Given that Gambit can't recover more than 4 guile, it probably is less useful than I initially thought.

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Thanks! I look forward to reading your build when you post it. Given that Gambit can't recover more than 4 guile, it probably is less useful than I initially thought.

That's fair! But then if it was refunding on Crit without limits, dual wielding Blunderbusses/Mortars could Crit 8+ times per Full Attack (not including Powder Burns, Blinding Smoke etc. just the main attack that is the only thing that counts for Gambit).

That would potentially refund 16+ Guile per Full Attack, effectively making any Assassin a never-stopping cloaked Terminator. Therefore I guess it's OK as is, after all SC Rogue is still the only class in the game with a built-in God Mode. I think that having Gambit refund Guile without limits would be **almost** like extending Vanishing Strike with Strand of Favor: the most powerful thing in the game, but that removes immediately all the challenge.

[dgray62]

Yes, I agree. But it seems that in the unmodded game one of the primary weaknesses of the rogue is the inability to renew any resources. But there's always the SoF cheese to make up for this! You might want to check out the Balancing Polishing mod, however. It tweaks Wall of Flashing Steel to give you a chance to restore guile, which seems like a nice boost for SC rogues.

[Waski]

22 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Yes, I agree. But it seems that in the unmodded game one of the primary weaknesses of the rogue is the inability to renew any resources. But there's always the SoF cheese to make up for this! You might want to check out the Balancing Polishing mod, however. It tweaks Wall of Flashing Steel to give you a chance to restore guile, which seems like a nice boost for SC rogues.

but if you rest during run you can have 14+7(empower)+2(sacrifice from marux amanth)+15(85 sec of brilliant from wit of death herald) = 38 guile, thats over 2 minutes of invis, assassin can do alot of dmg during that time, especially with max arcana/scrolls on some harder, non resetable encounters

[Elric Galad]

31 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Yes, I agree. But it seems that in the unmodded game one of the primary weaknesses of the rogue is the inability to renew any resources. But there's always the SoF cheese to make up for this! You might want to check out the Balancing Polishing mod, however. It tweaks Wall of Flashing Steel to give you a chance to restore guile, which seems like a nice boost for SC rogues.

Yep, that's 10% on Crit. That isn't much but is meant to synergize with Gambit and Assassin + Vanishing Strike. Of course it should work well with Multi Hit weapons such as Blunderbuss or Frost Seeker. 

BPM makes SoT cheese unavailable by the way. But Brilliant should still work on its own. And Potion of Enlightenment helps a tiny bit too by giving 1 ressource every 30s.

[dgray62]

 Thanks, Elric Galad, for this change, It's a much needed tweak to the rogue package IMO.