[CLASS BUILD] Archibald Troubafist – Solo Cantor Upscaled PotD

[Not So Clever Hound]

[Heard at the top of Bekarna’s Observatory, one moonless night]

Concelhaut – At last, I shall put an end to the perambulations of Archibald Troubafist! Time to “punch” your ticket, Watcher (hehehe). This might hurt a bit…

Archibald Troubafist – You fool! Pain only makes me stronger! I shall fist you ‘til you die, then sing songs about it!

Concelhaut – I… Wait, what?!

Archibald Troubafist – Yallaaah! [Fist, Fist, Invocation, Fist, Fist, Fist, Invocation…]

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Class: Troubadour/Forbidden Fist

Concept: Somewhat counter-intuitive, self-sufficient Melee/Caster hybrid who punches hard, floods the battlefield with skellies and animated weapons to distract enemies, occasionally uses offensive invocations… and he can do that all day long thanks to never-ending renewable resources.

Game Version: RTwP. Works with latest updates and DLCs as of v5.0.00040. I recommend the Full Community Patch and the No Forced Rests mod (otherwise just metagame around them, it’s fully viable but just a bit annoying). I think this is also a good build to play in Eric’s BPM. (?)

PotD Solo Viable: Yes, tested on all Upscaled. Megabosses (except Auranic) need to be cheesed somehow. Of note, this is a Solo build that is also very compatible with party play – it will be the MVP of the team.

Companion: Nope.

 

 

-----WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT THIS BUILD?------

 

 

At first, I crafted this build to be counter-intuitively synergistic: creating a Solo MC Chanter/Monk who dumps Intelligence, who doesn’t take any summons invocations, and who chooses Her Tears instead of Eld Nary while being powerful enough to dominate on Upscaled PotD, AND running mostly on AI sounded like a very fun challenge.

It worked totally as planned, being unstoppable and just going on and on forever against any opposition until there is no opposition… until I hit end-game content in the DLCs, where I realized that I needed to make a minor adjustment and still pick the Instruments of Death to tweak the odds in my favor on very serious fights. Animated Weapons is yet again here a cornerstone ability. From there, the build became even more powerful, even if a little less unique. (Again, this is due to Upscaled PotD. On any lower difficulty including PotD, this toon just steamrolls everything even without Animated Weapons.)

The Troubadour side brings us healing in the beginning, nice AoE damage with Her Revenge, Her Tears or Eld Nary (Empowered with Sasha’s Scimitar as usual). It most importantly brings survivability at high level with Many Lives and Called To His Bidding: creating distractions that for the latter can also do damage, so that you spread out a bit the deadly incoming offense that Upscaled PotD throws at you.

The Forbidden Fist side brings us very solid single target damage and healing, acceptable defenses with Tuotilo’s, Crucible of Suffering… and most importantly with max Resolve and hostile effect duration reduction from Enlightened Agony, it brings incredible resilience due to the inversion system in Deadfire’s calculations. Basically, no hostile effect can last longer than a few seconds at the very worst, and will heal us which is amazing… as long as we’re not the sole focus of attention of critical enemy parties (hence the Troubadour half for distraction).

This build maximizes the use of the Forbidden Fist ability on AI thanks to optimized action speed vs. curse duration: at the top of our game, which is all the time, we have a Forbidden Fist ability total cycle time of 1.9s while the Curse lasts 1.7s. Perfect! To help with the automation of the FF fisting part, we pick Swift Flurry (of course) and Enlightened Agony, which isn’t very useful for the INT buff since we have Turning Wheel and max wounds… but helps with AI scripting (condition on NOT having INT inspiration). So the buffing and single target damage part is on autopilot, and we have the hand on using Phrases for Invocations (summons, Eld nary, Her revenge or Her tears which is absolutely devastating when surrounded).

 

 

-----SPECS------

 

 

Race: Human for the 35 RES here, doesn’t really matter if you build up RES otherwise

Background: Aedyr – Hunter

 

FINAL STATS WITH ALL PERMABUFFS AND NO-REST BUFFS AS OF 5.0 (without combat buffs):

 

MIG 26 (17 Base +1 Human +2 Berath +1 Gift from Machine +1 Rabyuna’s Boon +2 Alchemic Brawn +2 Hot Razor Skewers)

CON 15 (8 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Brawn +3 Girdle of Eoten CON)

DEX 20 (12 Base +1 Rabyuna +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Guile +2 Amira’s Blessing +1 Boots of the Stone)

PER 24 (18 Base +2 Berath +1 Effigy: Sagani +2 Alchemic Guile +1 Savage Cunning)

INT 7 (3 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits)

RES 35 (17 Base +1 Human +1 Aedyr +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits +2 Nature’s Resolve +2 Rikuhu’s Blessing +2 Rabyuna +1 Cauldron’s Brew +2 Eviee Pet +2 Token of Faith +1 Boots of Stone)

 

ADDITIONAL PERMABUFFS:

 

Food: Hot Razor Skewers

Adratic Glow

All Trainings

Dawnstar Blessing

Luminous Adra Potion

Nature’s Resolve (Accuracy)

Savage Cunning (Survival)

Galawain’s Gift

Magran’s Blessing

Immunity to all Sigils

Infamous Captain, Bonus Skills, Champion Stats, Port Maje vendor, Fully discovered Map, Bonus Money… invested all 105 Berath’s Blessing Points

 

SKILLS

 

I just spent between Mechanics and Athletics, then a bit of Diplomacy/Survival but end game dump all in History.

 

 

----- ABILITIES ------

 

 

ACTIVES

Chanter: Thrice Was She Wronged; And Hel Hyraf…; Not Felled By the Axe…; Her Revenge; …Nor Flame; So Singt thy Biting; Called To his Bidding.
(Optional vs. So Singt thy Biting = Her Tears is devastating when you let the enemy surround you and empower it... but it costs 2 points).

Monk: Swift Strike; Swift Flurry; Clarity Of Agony; Enlightened Agony; Duality; Turning Wheel.

 

PASSIVES

Chanter: Soft Winds; Ancient Memory; Rapid Casting; Quick Summoning; Many Lives.

Monk: Two Weapons; Weapon & Shield; Long Stride; Soul Mirror; Crucible; Rooting Pain; Tough; Uncanny Luck; Improved Critical; Heartbeat Drumming.

 

 

-----GEAR------

 

 

Weapon Set 1: Sasha’s Singing Scimitar (Refreshing Finale, Shocking Prelude), Tuotilo’s Palm (Precision Striker, Balanced Shield).

Weapon Set 2: Can wield Grave Calling for chillfog cheese. Or a ranged weapon e.g. Bightheart.

Head: Helm Of the White Void (+10 ACC to FF attack!).

Neck: Token of Faith.

Chest: Devil of Caroc (Devil’s Due, Heart of Bronze).

Cape: Giftbearer’s Cloth.

Gloves: Hylea’s Talons (amazing for any FF).

Rings: Greater Regen, Entonia’s Ring.

Boots: Boots of the Stone.

Belt: Girdle of Eoten Constitution or Least Unstable Coil for Empower fun (not that impactful here).

Pet: Eviee.

 

 

-----STRATEGIES------

 

 

Turn Brisk Recitation on, and never turn it off.

Early on, just use a chant with healing (Soft Winds/Ancient Memory), fight in a corner or narrow corridor and kill them all one by one.

Later on, switch to Many Lives for distraction and alternate fisting and invocations. The tougher the opposition, the more summoning you want. In really hard fights, use potions (invisibility, healing, ascension, arcane reflection, ryngrim…) to get an edge. An invisibility potion at the beginning of the fight to have all enemies front load their worst abilities on your poor skellies and letting you cast Animated Weapons in peace can be invaluable.

This build is a steady achiever, I had a lot of fun playing it. Hope it can inspire your inner cantor. Feedback always welcome!

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Constentin Lévine]

How long the ennemies may "disabling" your cantor with tiers3 afflictions? I mean your 1.7s is depending of your int but you lowered it, and I understand whatever the affliction, you turn it in some heals instead of punishment, even Enfeebled, but what is the average of "vulnerability period" you was confronted?

Very nice build

[Not So Clever Hound]

12 hours ago, Constentin Lévine said:

How long the ennemies may "disabling" your cantor with tiers3 afflictions? I mean your 1.7s is depending of your int but you lowered it, and I understand whatever the affliction, you turn it in some heals instead of punishment, even Enfeebled, but what is the average of "vulnerability period" you was confronted?

Very nice build

Merci !  

The disable is always very small, usually under 2 sec. In practice between high-ish defenses and reduction modifier, I've never bothered/noticed afflictions and other effects.

My total combined negative effect duration modifier is -80% and before (?) that is applied the hard -5s duration of Enlightened Agony. (I'm assuming it's applied before the -80% coefficient otherwise most negative effects effectively wouldn't have a duration...).

Breakdown assumption:

RES = 75% duration reduction = -3 once inverted
Enlightened Agony = 50% duration reduction = -1 once inverted
Total = 1/1-(-3-1)=0.2.

So if I'm hit with a 10s effect: first it's reduced to 5s (hard -5s), then it's reduced by 80%: 10*0.2=2s
 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Constentin Lévine]

So while followed by a druid who cast Tanglefoot under your monk, it is like a regeneration cure for him! Great!

[Boeroer]

51 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I'm assuming it's applied before the -80% coefficient otherwise most negative effects effectively wouldn't have a duration...

The -5 secs will only get applied to existing hostile effects that are currently on you when you cast Clarity of Agony. For the rest of the duration of CoA newly applied hostile effects will get the -50% duration, but not the -5 secs. 

So it has an immediate effect (-5 secs from all current hostile effects) as well as an ongoing effect (-50%). 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

@Not So Clever Hound , how do you set up the AI to use the FF attack once the curse expires? Is this possible? I don't see how to set this condition in the AI. When I've tried doing this in the past, my FF monks stack the curse repeatedly, which obviously is something to be avoided.

[thelee]

maybe there's an advanced AI scripting mod that'll let you do this?

In the past, I've just set it on a very short timer. (To be optimum, it has to be extremely short, because the AI commits to an action during recovery, so if the timer expires in the middle of a recovery, the AI will continue with an autoattack or something else)

Edited April 13, 2022 by thelee

[NotDumbEnough]

There's a really handy mod that adds additional AI conditions:

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/88?tab=description

 

Unfortunately there's no condition for the Forbidden Fist curse specifically, as the mod seems to predate it. It still works just fine though as I personally use it.

 

You could probably set the condition to be "Not affected by Damage over Time" and do it manually if you get affected by some other DoT.

[Not So Clever Hound]

36 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

how do you set up the AI to use the FF attack once the curse expires? Is this possible? I don't see how to set this condition in the AI. When I've tried doing this in the past, my FF monks stack the curse repeatedly, which obviously is something to be avoided.

I'm glad that you ask actually  this is why I take Enlightened Agony and work it out vs. my FF attack cycle time:

Rule 1: Doesn't have Intellect Inspiration > Cast Enlightened Agony

Rule 2: Doesn't have Dexterity Inspiration > Cast Swift Flurry

Rule 3: Has an Intellect Inspiration > Use FF ability

Under Swift Flurry + Enlightened Agony my FF ability total cycle time is 1.9s and the Curse lasts 1.7s. Everything works out on autopilot then and I only keep the hand on Invocations (which I could automate too but hey, I've gotta do something).

Edited April 13, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[dgray62]

Ah, I see, this makes a lot of sense. I see that you will not be able to stack curses so long as EA agony's on and RES is maxed out.  Thanks!