Any tips on the best Liberator build?

[Barba17]

Hey fellas,

I haven't been playing Deadfire in years, last time I have completed it with a pure monk and it was fun. Now I want to try a multi class with a Paladin, and although I know it is quite hard, but I would like to make a tanky Paladin with a magic flavor.

My first option is a Bleak Walker/Fury Liberator, as I would love to cast lightning on foes. My question is: is there anything else the Paladin would benefit from in the Fury class (other than spells)? 

Second option is a Templar, but I remember the priests being kind of underpowered in the game. So far this is the one I like the most in terms of roleplaying, but I wouldn't really know how to build it.

Last but not least, I have read everywhere that the Herald (Paladin/Chanter) is a crazy OP multiclass, but the whole concept doesn't sound convincing.

Also, what races would you suggest for this builds?

Thanks!

 

 

[Barba17]

Nobody out there with some ideas?

[Okkes]

I don't find Pladain's fun to be honest... But monk is super fun, you can multi with rogue, cipher and fighter or just go single class. Sorry you already finish with single class monk didn't read that. But multiclass monk is very different playthrough.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Okkes
edit

[Boeroer]

Hi,

Heralds are not supercrazy OP, but they are pretty good and hard to mess up. Most of the time players of Heralds combine Exalted Endurance (Paladin aura) with Ancient Memory (chant) and thus give their party (and themselves) constant passive healing which is quite potent. One reason why they are popular. They can also be very tanky and also versatile.

Anyway, Paladin/Fury is not bad because the Fury cannot heal, but the Paladin can. So combining both makes some sense. Also the Paladin's Eternal Devotion (gaining a burning lash for some time) also applies to spells, which is nice. Put on Deltro's Cage + Helmet, grab Lord Darryn's Voulge and you have a cool and shocking Liberator. Race doesn't really matter, but I wouldn't use a godlike - because then no Deltro's helmet.  I guess Coastal Aumaua can be nice because you can color the skin blueish with zickzacks - Lightning in your face... literally.

I personally really like Arcane Knights (Paladin/Wizards). They can buff themselves to be very sturdy, they are versatile and fun to play imo. One of my most liked combos is Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with the weapon "Whispers of the Endless Paths", using its echantment "Offensive Parry". It allows you to counterattack on enemies' melee misses, dazes the enemy then which unlocks the Steel Garrote's live stealing passive which stacks with your Exalted Endurance, making it easy to pay for Bloodmage's "Blood Sacrifice" with your own health.  

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Boeroer

[Shai Hulud]

I've tried like 3/4 of the possible builds but neither liberators nor templars. Not really a fan of paladins to be honest. For what it's worth priests are extremely strong. 

If you want something tanky with magic there are better options (in my opinion), e.g.

battlemage - tactician / blood mage is ridiculously strong and tanky especially solo, if with party devoted / blood mage or unbroken / blood mage

ff monk / anything - the best "with magic" options being ff monk / soul blade, ff monk / troubadour

psyblade - devoted / soul blade or unbroken / soul blade

war caller - devoted / troubadour probably the best, or unbroken / troubadour for more tanky

If you are insistent on paladins heralds are pretty good as boereor indicated (I'd take goldpact knight / troubadour personally), or an inquisitor (goldpact knight / soul blade), also arcane knights are very good, particularly goldpact knight / blood mage, as they get extreme amounts of armor, like this build from @Not So Clever Hound and I recommend goldpact knight because they get +4 armor from gilded enmity making them very tanky, but other subclasses have benefits like steel garrotes heal for 15% of damage they cause to afflicted targets (can be triggered by many things like inquisitor and herald both easily apply afflictions), in addition to garrote ability

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[dgray62]

For liberators, I really like the Bleakwalker/shifter, for a melee brute that can dish out elemental lashes like crazy. If you pick Wildstrike freeze and wear Deltro's Helm you can hit with all four elements when you use flames of devotion. Shifters also get the best free spell selection IMO. For Fury, I think you are best off going with single class for a dedicated nuker.

Edited April 6, 2023 by dgray62
Error correction

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, dgray62 said:

For liberators, I really like the Bleakwalker/shifter, for a melee brute that can dish out elemental lashes like crazy. If you pick Wildstrike freeze and wear Debtor's Helm you can hit with all four elements when you use flames of devotion. Shifters also get the best free spell selection IMO. For Fury, I think you are best off going with single class for a dedicated nuker.

Was thinking "Debtor's Helm" was a mistranslation but now I'm guessing you type Deltro's Cage Helm on a phone? How do you keep up the conduit buff? I've never played a shifter--do the shifter forms last long enough for longer combats? I usually don't like druids' shifting because it seems limited in longer fights. 

[Barba17]

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Hi,

Heralds are not supercrazy OP, but they are pretty good and hard to mess up. Most of the time players of Heralds combine Exalted Endurance (Paladin aura) with Ancient Memory (chant) and thus give their party (and themselves) constant passive healing which is quite potent. One reason why they are popular. They can also be very tanky and also versatile.

Anyway, Paladin/Fury is not bad because the Fury cannot heal, but the Paladin can. So combining both makes some sense. Also the Paladin's Eternal Devotion (gaining a burning lash for some time) also applies to spells, which is nice. Put on Deltro's Cage + Helmet, grab Lord Darryn's Voulge and you have a cool and shocking Liberator. Race doesn't really matter, but I wouldn't use a godlike - because then no Deltro's helmet.  I guess Coastal Aumaua can be nice because you can color the skin blueish with zickzacks - Lightning in your face... literally.

I personally really like Arcane Knights (Paladin/Wizards). They can buff themselves to be very sturdy, they are versatile and fun to play imo. One of my most liked combos is Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with the weapon "Whispers of the Endless Paths", using its echantment "Offensive Parry". It allows you to counterattack on enemies' melee misses, dazes the enemy then which unlocks the Steel Garrote's live stealing passive which stacks with your Exalted Endurance, making it easy to pay for Bloodmage's "Blood Sacrifice" with your own health.  

 

that's great, thanks! My bad, I have chosen a nature godlike to play a kind of Green Knight themed warrior, but I am at the beginning, still fresh to change it. Yet I would rather go dual wielding, is there any other electric sword/saber I might use?

 

[Shai Hulud]

8 minutes ago, Barba17 said:

that's great, thanks! My bad, I have chosen a nature godlike to play a kind of Green Knight themed warrior, but I am at the beginning, still fresh to change it. Yet I would rather go dual wielding, is there any other electric sword/saber I might use?

 

If you want to build around max lightning damage you really need deltro's cage helm. 

You don't have to start over if you want to change the race. This will disable achievements but from console type "setplayerrace orlan wildorlan" for example. This unlocks the helmet slot and changes race base stats but doesn't fix the abilities. 

So to complete the change you'd do 

removeability player<tab> wellspeing<tab>

Addability player<tab> defiant<tab>

Each race has different abilities like humans have fighting spirit. Usually the name is obvious in console like I think defiant resolve is defiant_resolve but you can find it with "findgamedata defiant" and look for the right ability. 

Then you can change tje portrait and appearance from inventory screen. 

-----

There are only two weapons that do shock damage iirc, lord Darryns voulge and essence interrupter (a hunting bow). 

Animancer's energy blade does raw damage, thematically it might be what you're looking for. If you went chanter / anything you'll want sasha's singing scimitar for the free empower point on invocation, so that would be a decent combination 

[Kaylon]

Heralds are very strong and versatile if you build them well. For a party I would pick a darcozzi/skald because his long duration damage shield helps his damage output more than any other active abilities (also darcozzis are the most fun paladins to roleplay). The skald has a lower cost for offensive spells which allows casting more often Her Revenge... (very effective AoE even at high levels).

Arcane knights are overall even stronger than heralds (especially blood mage/steel garrote) but they require a lot of buffing (however it's possible to use AI scripts to make it less tedious). Also they can use some tricks like summoning Concelhaut's Draining Touch for the entire fight or perma stealing spells up to lv3 with infinite uses (using Grimoire Imprint) which makes them even more crazy.

I would say the fury druid has the least synergy with the paladin since you are mostly a melee fighter. Animists and shapeshifters are probably better choices (either for increasing melee performance or for using the shapeshift as a buff).

Paladin/priest is a bit redundant if you play normally. However with Salvation of Time you can do many crazy things too.

 

[Barba17]

I got it. Considering that the fury cannot heal, would you see more synergy with a Steel garrote paladin maybe?

Although I am afraid I would deliver less elemental damage this way

[Barba17]

also maybe I should say that I want to play turn-based this time 

[dgray62]

19 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Was thinking "Debtor's Helm" was a mistranslation but now I'm guessing you type Deltro's Cage Helm on a phone? How do you keep up the conduit buff? I've never played a shifter--do the shifter forms last long enough for longer combats? I usually don't like druids' shifting because it seems limited in longer fights. 

You guessed right! That was an "autocorrect" that I missed. Thanks for catching that. As for playing shifter, it's best if you use BPM since there's a cooldown added, allowing unlimited shifting for longer battles. With the vanilla game, it's fine for 99% of the battles, but less effective against mega bosses.

[Shai Hulud]

2 hours ago, dgray62 said:

You guessed right! That was an "autocorrect" that I missed. Thanks for catching that. As for playing shifter, it's best if you use BPM since there's a cooldown added, allowing unlimited shifting for longer battles. With the vanilla game, it's fine for 99% of the battles, but less effective against mega bosses.

I mostly play with BPM now, main exception if I want to play a blood mage. 

Same question though, how do you keep up conduit? It only lasts like 20ish seconds with very high intelligence...short of using wall of draining or salvation of time, you'd have to self-damage with hazards or pulses I guess? I've tried like this but not been very successful. 

[dgray62]

In the past I've used SoT to maintain a decent (but not insanely OP) lash. If you prefer a cheese free game, you'd need to self regularly, which may be more hassle than it is worth IMO.

[Boeroer]

On 4/6/2023 at 10:48 AM, Barba17 said:

I got it. Considering that the fury cannot heal, would you see more synergy with a Steel garrote paladin maybe?

Every Paladin has access to Lay on Hands and also Exalted Endurance. Jmo that's enough to counter the loss of healing from Fury. Steel Garrote is only useful if you use melee weapons and do put afflictions on your melee enemies often and reliably. For such things Nature's Terror is really good - but beware the friendly fire!

The Steel Garrote passive doesn't work with ranged weapons, so a shifted Fury (Storm Blight form) doesn't profit (because its natural weapons are ranged shock bolts).

If you want to use those bolts and still get additional healing then Kind Wayfarer would be my pick. AoE healing via Flames of Devotion is nice, also for party members. And you can use Scion of Flame + Heart of the Storm to gain +2 PEN for the natural weapons of the shifted Fury (+1 for the fire part of FoD, +1 for the shocking base dmg).

If you use a Bleak Walker/Fury you can get +3 PEN for Flames of Devotion with Scion of Flame, Heart of the Storm and Spirit of Decay (+1 for the fire part and +1 for the corrosion part of Bleak Walker's FoD, +1 for the shocking base dmg). 

With Ring of Focused Flame and Ring of Marksman this leads to +20ACC with FoD, double elemental lash (FoD + Wildstrike) and +4 PEN (the aforementioned+3 plus the Ring +1). The base dmg of the bolts isn't fantastic, but they so bounce once or additional enemies and with that much PEN and lashes they become fearsome.

A Paladin/Druid can also use Firebrand to get persistent +10 ACC bonus with Ring of Focused Flame (all attacks of Firebrand count as fire attacks, even non-FoD) as well as +1 PEN from Scion of Flame. Also, if I remember correctly, Furies might get +1 PEN with Firebrand as well because of their passive (+1PEN with elemental spells)? Edit: nope for that last part  

 

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by Boeroer