How viable is WotEP War Caller?

[anergyboy]

Would it be viable to leverage the Offensive Parry enchantment of WotEP by drawing aggro with high deflection to generate phrases as a Skald, using the bonus deflection talents from fighter and chanter?

[Boeroer]

It is viable. Less on PotD than on the lower difficulties, but with some effort and good item selection it's still viable and fun on PotD. Just don't expect to be able to facetank everything. While melee attackers will have a hard time the ranged ones will still be hitting you often enough which might get you in trouble if you are too ****y.

The Offensive Parry does indeed generate phrases for you should it crit. So stacking melee deflection is a high priority. But you can also use deliberate disengagement as a source for Offensiove Parries. The armors Gipon Prudensco and Nmad's Brigandine both offer an enchantment that makes you immune to disengagement attacks. That doesn't mean that those attacks won't occur if you break engagement but nstead those attacks will all be converted to misses (100%) - and Offensive Parry will trigger. 

Fortunately both armors also offer an enchantment that rases deflection - which is nice. Te main difference is that Nomad's Brigandine offers a lot more AR with the know downsides (slower recovery). 

So you can try to tank a lot of enemies in order to trigger a lot of Offensive Parries from their misses - and if it's getting too hot you can just run away and trigger some more Offensive Parries in the process - hopefull gaining some more additional phrases.

On top of that you might want to max out RES, get refreshing defense (it stacks with all deflection-only buffs like The Silver Knight's Shields or Warrior Stance - so that's great), Entonia Signet Ring, Superior Deflection, Cape and Bracers of Greater Deflection and Offensive Parry itself.
Casità Samelia's Legacy is also a viable armor, but you'll have to raise the Intimidate skill in order to make it worthwhile. This can be good if you also take the Berath's Blessing "Infamous Past". But it lacks the disengagment trick. 

Of course it is benefical to debuff enemies' accuracy with the whole party. See Priest's Devotions for the Faithful and Desponent Blows, all sources of Blindness (Chillfog for example), PER debuffs (Miasma of Dull Mindedness) and so on.

On top of all the Offensive Parry stuff you will also have the very good combo of the WotEP's cone attack with Clear Out later on. This will also be able to give you a very high chance of gaining a phrase because not only does Clear Out roll twice against the initial target but also every target in the cone of Clear Out will proc a new cone of WotEP which leads to a ton of individual hit rolls which not only send enemies sprawling in all sorty of direction but also makes it very likely to deal a critical hit that produces a phrase for you.

For that combo to be good you also need high INT (=bigger AoE cones). 

 

[Elric Galad]

You can also plan to bring along a good backup weapon such as Voidwheel (which benefit from your Crit seeking build up) when facing single foe or scattered archers. As a fighter you can pick Quick switch and Black Jacket just to be able to pick always the appropriate weapon. If you plan to use mostly Voidwheel and WotEP, you may also select Devoted. 

[Vasvary5050]

As part of a party (as opposed to solo), I've found War Caller and Herald to be extremely good tanks, albeit I tend to lean towards Troubadour for my chanters. Herald (Kind Wayfarer Troubadour) is amazing IMO. I think when I used a War Caller I also had a Kind Wayfarer in the party so it felt just as solid. However, if you mean as a solo-character, then I'm not sure (solo isn't my thing). I've tried using a Skald, and found it fine, but I much prefer Troubadour.