Party Advice (Interactions + Final Member)

[patronkus]

I somehow overlooked the following interaction that seems too good to be true and yet I never exploited it until now. Paladins can become Poison immune through Righteous Soul and (IIRC) that includes the Druid spell Venombloom. Paladin's also have Divine Retribution which recovers Zeal when a party member dies. Chanters can use their Skeleton Chant to create an unlimited supply of fodder skeletons to die for the Paladin to recover Zeal. Skeletons are not immune to Poison, so we are going to attempt to use these interactions to create a hazard zone where our main tank (Paladin) is immune to it, enemies are killed and debuffed by it, and the skeletons run into it only to die and have the paladin renew their Zeal. 

So our party would involve a Poison Druid, Tank Paladin and Chanter. For more specifics on these three, it'd involve our Druid casting DOTs like Infestation of Maggots, Plague of Insects and Venombloom to provide damage and debuffs. The druid can also double as a healer with Moonwell, The Moons Light etc to keep the main tank alive. In situations where enemies are Poison immune themselves negating Plague of Insects and Venombloom (2 key spells) the Druid can switch off to Storm spells instead. Also, I doubt a second Plague of Insects will be required most fights due to it not stacking and already having a high duration. Whatever is left after the first PoI it probably isn't worth recasting it as you won't gain the benefit of the full duration so it'll likely be PoI into Relentless Storm anyways most fights but is worth nothing poison immunity isn't uncommon.

The Paladin would be the plain Sacred Immolation Tank build, nothing super special here. Chanter would be summon oriented but there could be a few neat things to go through, mainly if any Chanter summons are immune to Poison also so could run into the Venombloom safely.

As for the remaining 2 party members personally I can't not have a Beguiler in the party as an affliction bot, it's too nice not to have. That leaves 1 final slot which I am unsure of. It's going to want to be something either poison immune or ranged to avoid the Venomblooms. I thought maybe Wizard for Combusting Wounds and Expose Vulnerabilities but honestly not sure. What would fit into this setup well and would the setup itself work well?

EDIT: I tried this out in Noqn's SSS Standalone mod and it was fun (except Survivor trials which are abysmal in any setup) but had some issues. When firing on all cylinders, it's fantastic you are applying 2 tier 2 afflictions with Venombloom which improve your tanks survivability with Frightened and make your follow up Fort targetting spells like Combusting Wounds or Plague of Insects more likely to hit. The damage is great and you have a fantastic spread of healing through Pain Block, Lay on Hands, Moonwell and The Moons Light across 3 characters, ensuring healing is always available. The absolute biggest problem for this build however is that Sacred Immolation is just far too risky to use. It does an absurd amount of damage to the Paladin even with Voidward and was so bad I had to bench the ability. Without it, the DPS definitely slowed down quite a bit but the consistency went way up since your tank is randomly dying to their own effect. It's not the end of the world without Sacred Immolation tho as you can still access nice Paladin features like Lay on Hands and Inspired Beacon.

Edited October 20, 2022 by patronkus

[thelee]

hey wow this is a great find! i definitely didn't know about it. heck,

2 hours ago, patronkus said:

Paladins can become Poison immune through Righteous Soul and (IIRC) that includes the Druid spell Venombloom.

for some reason this never clicked for me, and i'm constantly running with a druid of some sort these days (tekehu, fassina, or otherwise). even ignoring the cheese, paladin face-tanking inside a venombloom sounds awesome.

 

3 hours ago, patronkus said:

I thought maybe Wizard for Combusting Wounds

this is honestly my vote. not just venombloom, but also wall of thorns is poison-based. between the two that's a ton of procs for combusting wounds. it almost doesn't matter what the other wizard spells are

[dgray62]

Yes, with combusting wounds on top enemies that have the misfortune of being in this hazard zone will melt. How about a ranged beguiler/ranger and a wizard to complete your party? Keep in mind that you can also make any party member poison immune with food (Khapa Tea), but this probably isn't necessary for the ranged guys. But it might be a good idea for melee, as the AI will rush them into the hazard zone. But you could make everyone ranged except for your tank; the chanter would be very happy with Blightheart. Given the wizard a wand, rod or scepter until they're high enough level to cast the bow spell; they can cast that and the essential phantom, which would given you even more crazy CC. And your cipher/ranger could use one of the ranged weapons with AOE effects for even more craziness. Make your paladin a pale elf so that they can withstand the various other spells your druid or wizard might cast.

Edited October 19, 2022 by dgray62
Typo correction

[NotDumbEnough]

Are you sure the skeletons are not poison immune? It's been a while, but I believe at least enemy skeletons are.

[masterty66]

Some sort of Bilestomper type build Paladin/Wizard build would be cool I think. @Boeroer

Like a Pale Elf with Righteous Soul who sits inside Chill Fogs and Venomblooms. Buff up to have high deflection but also be immune to poison effects and resistant to elemental damages. 

[Constentin Lévine]

I tried in the past a Paladin-Druid for this reason, and I used the Shea's War Staff as weapon (the Frightened Attack from Venombloom is melee and Combat Casting give concentration on scoring melee crit, with a 15% hit-to-crit chance from Channeled Strike). Of course I didnt use skelies (multiclassed paladin). I named this paladin "submulticlass" a Fleuriste (florist). Sadly other druid spells and paladin goodies dont really synergize but as tank this character was good (+20defl. from the Staff modal, Deep Faith etc) and other allies in the venombloom range was protected by Purge of Toxins /Liberating Exhortation. 

Because he was a source of damage for enemies, they always came at range, to take more damage from Inspired Beacon, and Inspired Triumph proc often with this paladin. Brilliant with this character was fun, for spamming Venombloom (5 or 6 proc per 3s)!

Edit :

If there was not so many poison immune in the game, then a whole party of Paladin-floral-druid should be very funny.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Constentin Lévine

[patronkus]

8 hours ago, thelee said:

hey wow this is a great find! i definitely didn't know about it. heck,

for some reason this never clicked for me, and i'm constantly running with a druid of some sort these days (tekehu, fassina, or otherwise). even ignoring the cheese, paladin face-tanking inside a venombloom sounds awesome.

 

this is honestly my vote. not just venombloom, but also wall of thorns is poison-based. between the two that's a ton of procs for combusting wounds. it almost doesn't matter what the other wizard spells are

I also forgot Malignant Cloud is poison too and could be layered on top of the Venombloom. It also syngergises with Combusting Wounds for even more procs!

[patronkus]

8 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Yes, with combusting wounds on top enemies that have the misfortune of being in this hazard zone will melt. How about a ranged beguiler/ranger and a wizard to complete your party? Keep in mind that you can also make any party member poison immune with food (Khapa Tea), but this probably isn't necessary for the ranged guys. But it might be a good idea for melee, as the AI will rush them into the hazard zone. But you could make everyone ranged except for your tank; the chanter would be very happy with Blightheart. Given the wizard a wand, rod or scepter until they're high enough level to cast the bow spell; they can cast that and the essential phantom, which would given you even more crazy CC. And your cipher/ranger could use one of the ranged weapons with AOE effects for even more craziness. Make your paladin a pale elf so that they can withstand the various other spells your druid or wizard might cast.

I had no idea about the Khapa Tea immunity! Definitely makes it an option for other melee party members to get among the spores. Blightheart is a great call for the Chanter, I'd probably run the Eld Nary chant for offence which would be sure to pick up some kills for more phrases for more Eld Nary. Fassina would be an excellent option for this as Conjurer gets most of the desirable spells we want and boosts the Conjuration summons and Malignant Cloud. I am a bit partial against Multiclassing so while your suggestion is great I might keep it SC Beguiler for simplicity sake.

[patronkus]

8 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Are you sure the skeletons are not poison immune? It's been a while, but I believe at least enemy skeletons are.

They definitely could be however even if they are they still die frequently enough without this intended killing field for the bonus Zeal to be impactful.

[patronkus]

5 hours ago, Constentin Lévine said:

I tried in the past a Paladin-Druid for this reason, and I used the Shea's War Staff as weapon (the Frightened Attack from Venombloom is melee and Combat Casting give concentration on scoring melee crit, with a 15% hit-to-crit chance from Channeled Strike). Of course I didnt use skelies (multiclassed paladin). I named this paladin "submulticlass" a Fleuriste (florist). Sadly other druid spells and paladin goodies dont really synergize but as tank this character was good (+20defl. from the Staff modal, Deep Faith etc) and other allies in the venombloom range was protected by Purge of Toxins /Liberating Exhortation. 

Because he was a source of damage for enemies, they always came at range, to take more damage from Inspired Beacon, and Inspired Triumph proc often with this paladin. Brilliant with this character was fun, for spamming Venombloom (5 or 6 proc per 3s)!

Edit :

If there was not so many poison immune in the game, then a whole party of Paladin-floral-druid should be very funny.

Definitely Brilliant would be awesome, I'll be taking Ancestor Memory on the Cipher to have renewing Venomblooms to keep the spores plentiful.

[Exanos]

For the last slot i would take a sniper/mage slayer ( Constentin talked about it in recent post) and omg it s amazing to shutdown from faraway those nasty spellcaster. AA/mageslayer can also be very nice for those bound spells

[Boeroer]

Arcane Archer would be my favorite Ranger subclass for this. Frostseeker doesn't put the usual ACC malus on auto-attacks of an Arcane Archer and the added CC from Binding Web and Pull of Eora is great (because great ACC, two spells in one shot with Driving Flight - and almost no casting time).