Favorite story companion builds

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

What would you say are the most effective or fun builds for story companions? What I generally go with:

Eder - Swashbuckler, but I pick up monastic unarmed training and give him Toutilo’s Palm. This lets him get very high defense with Weapon and Shield Style while still having solid dual wielding damage and strong Full Attacks from abilities. Plus you can get a ton of counterattacks from Riposte+Outward Spikes. With 3 default engagements, hes a solid tank that can get +15% recovery speed from mob stance or -30% damage taken in defender stance. Or more with appropriate equipment/buffs. I love having the versatility without sacrificing much damage.

Maia - simple. Ranger/Rogue, the Red Hand. Melts everything, not too much setup beyond that needed.

Xoti - Monk/Priest, barehands + Maraux Aranth. (Alternatively her lantern with either). I like the echo chance on Priest spells, it can get pretty nuts to have something like Blessed Harvest hit twice on a boss. Hits hard when taking a break from spellcasting.

Pallegina - chanter/paladin, dual wield Singing scimitar plus Xotis Sickle. Between the two passive attack speed bonuses from the weapons, Pallegina can attack very quickly while still being incredibly durable and supportive. I like to run Soft Winds of Death on her to ‘steal’ kills for more triggers of her ‘on-kill’ effects from both Paladin passives and Xotis Sickle. The other chant depending on what other chanter(s) I already have running.

Tekehu - yeah I make my entire party multiclasses lol. Chanter + Druid, giving him support abilities primarily plus his offensive Friendly-Fire-safe spells. Im never sure what weapons to give him, since hes so busy constantly casting it doesnt come into play too often, so a lot of the time its for burst damage at combat start or passive buffs.

Serafen - against my better judgement I risk giving him his Cipher subclass with a twohanded long range melee weapon (too fragile on the frontlines imo). I like using Whispers of the Endless Paths, as it is long range AND hits in a cone, meaning Focus should fill up crazy fast, and with the reduced recovery time per hit on it, he gains momentum as the fight goes on beyond the initial bursts of damage at the start and when casting spells. Generally prefer fast cast Cipher spells so that he can get back to attacking in melee. Switch off to my best available staff or pike when theres only one enemy/boss left.

Aloth - Fighter+Wizard, I find these synergize surprisingly well with the Fighter’s passive buffs that generally also buff spells. Plus if you start using some of the fighter’s active abilities with wizard summoned weapons, you can get hilarious results (most notable with Citzal’s Spirit Lance and Clear Out or Mule Kick). I actually like using the Willbreaker with modal to melt enemy defenses, although I will switch off to other two handed weapons to for pure damage in some situations. Blightheart is pretty fun due to the +10% corrode spell damage

Interested to hear what other people do.

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Porkchopsandwiches247 said:

Tekehu - yeah I make my entire party multiclasses lol. Chanter + Druid

i've rolled Tekehu as a main tank as a SC chanter. hatchet modal + shield + that bonus deflection/engagement chant + ancient memory chant + heavy armor. actually worked out pretty decently on potd + upscaled + challenges. unfortunately most of his invocations are useless because his perception and accuracy suck in this setup, but i mostly just used the bonus AR invocation, the "Weather the storm"-esque invocation in elemental fights [very useful in beast of winter], and when i had time, the +5 might/con/res invocation (extra res helps survivability and when upgraded it lasts a super long time in big fights). in very very high level fights, he wouldn't even need to tank; i'd have my casters empower-cast their tier 9 spells and tekehu would then immediately use the invocation that restores a class resource to get another round of tier 9 spells, that would end most big fights on its own. chanter as main tank is probably very odd setup, but worked quite well; an optimized custom chanter would do even better than tekehu.

though long after i did that run, someone discovered that sasha's singing scimitar would work great with tekehu's avenging storm invocation, so if i ever did that setup again i would do that.

 

add in to the list: xoti as SC monk. whispers of the wound + her unique subclass => tons of wound generation as you clear out enemy fights. she basically carried my entire party in the endgame.

aloth as fighter/rogue was a lot of fun - real evasive and had powerful summoned weapons + sneak attack. i did this really early in my potd playing, if i were to do it again with all the metagame knowledge i have now, i would make a sick riposte build probably.

konstanten - not really unique to konstanten, but i made a high AR very slow 2h axe build centered around barbaric retaliation (his high constitution helps). spam dazing shout for tons of damage and to lower enemy PEN, frenzy for lowered deflection, and all the crits enemies were getting off on me caused a lot of instant stalking bleeding wounds debuffs. it was actually wild how rapidly his damage contribution to my party before hitting tier 9 abilities (like 4th) and after tier 9 abilities (i think ended up leaping to 2nd, possibly got to 1st by the end). against Dorudugan, i had him use scordeo's edge until he triggered blade cascade, then i used salvation of time while konstanten sswitched back to his massive axe and watched him add like 80 bleeding modal stack onto dorudugan and cause death within a few tens of seconds; i don't even think brilliant was necessary for extra salvations of time, just a self-empower. (though the huge number of debuffs crashed my game the first time i tried it)

Edited January 31, 2022 by thelee

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

Interesting, I never make Tekehu as a single class Chanter simply because I enjoy using his unique Druid anilities. That said of course he has his unique Chanter ones too so its not like its a waste.

My problem with Aloth as a Rogue-Wizard is the synergy only seems to go one way…although actually as Im writing this, I assume deep wounds actually would apply to a number of Wizard spells too, so I guess its not completely one sided. Fighter bonuses seem to apply more consistently to spells though, which I find a bit more fun.

Ive considered going single class Monk with Xoti, its just so hard for me to pass up Blessed Harvest…I love that spell lol. I can definitely see her subclass working amazing as a SC monk though.

[limaxophobiacq]

Ydwin as a gunslinging mindstalker more or less like this build minus the assassin bonus plus a bit of survivability. With deathblows/soul whip/deep wounds for weapon damage and borked might scaling on disintegrate her low might doesn't really matter that much.

It's not much of a build really but single class priest of Rymrgand is just so good and Vatnir actually has good stats for a backline blaster/support caster I can't really see him going anything but single class priest. Has anyone had success with him as Celebrant or Zealot?

Edited February 1, 2022 by limaxophobiacq