Evil run thoughts (CP)

[masterty66]

 

So in all my time playing Poe1/2 I've never done a full evil playthrough. I'm aiming to correct that finally. Currently making my way through Poe1 as a Death Godlike Bleakwalker.

I'm thinking of making this into a Templar (Bleak Walker/Woedica) in Deadfire, as I aim to make the evil choices in 1 (empower Woedica). My thought was that I could use Woedica's Summoned Fists + Bleak Walker FOD lash to hit hard and accurately. And of course, I'd have some utility between lay on hands/buffs/writs.

Only worry is, Templars don't seem like they have great synergy. Nor does Woedica have any fast casting spells really.

Has anyone tried something similar and are there any obvious synergies I'm missing? I know action economy might be an issue, so my thought was to bring Xoti (perhaps eventually Vatnir) along to help with the buffing duties and so I can spend more time hitting things and casting offensive magic. I also know that Death Godlikes aren't exactly a meta choice, but I wanted to play one for some reason. The +Pl might eventually come in handy if I use myself/Xoti to prolong BDD.

I figure my basic strategy in fights would be to cast a buff, cast a writ, and then summon fists and beat on things, throwing out other support magic (or the occasional lay on hands) as needed.

 

[Tomucci]

 

I think this fits nicely at least thematically, and is a very strong build

[Shai Hulud]

FF/Steel garrote is extremely powerful indeed, and more appropriate for woedica since steel garrote is woedica's group.

Another good choice for evil runs is a blood mage / soul blade, particularly if you use cheese to extend your max focus buff. You're greatly encouraged to murder everything in sight so you have insane amounts of focus and can blow up groups with soul annihilation + citzal's spirit lance. I think of it as collecting souls to make you grow more powerful. 

 

[masterty66]

FF/Steel Garrote does seem interesting. Haven't played a FF ever. Bm/SB is I am sure quite powerful but I just played a Soul Blade so not sure I want to dive right into one yet. 

I know Steel Garrote/BM is also a powerful build. 

I think I'd prefer to at least stick to the Paladin base since that's what I'm doing in Poe1 so if I do deviate from my original idea it'd probably be one of those two.

[Boeroer]

I played an evil Assassin/Bleak Walker (focus on True Love's Kiss + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy) and enjoyed it very much. Might as well have been Assassin/Steel Garrote. 

Trickster/Steel Garrote also isn't bad imo. Did that with Whispers of the Endless Paths (Offensive Parry). 

How about an evil Herald with Steel Garrote/Skald or Troubadour or so? Combining Steel Garrote passive + Old Siec maybe?

 

[masterty66]

36 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I played an evil Assassin/Bleak Walker (focus on True Love's Kiss + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy) and enjoyed it very much. Might as well have been Assassin/Steel Garrote. 

Trickster/Steel Garrote also isn't bad imo. Did that with Whispers of the Endless Paths (Offensive Parry). 

How about an evil Herald with Steel Garrote/Skald or Troubadour or so? Combining Steel Garrote passive + Old Siec maybe?

 

Trickster/SG and Assassin/BW sounds interesting. Never done a Rogue playthrough. I suppose the former is more about applying dots via aoe while being reasonably tanky while the latter is more of a single target burner? 

[Boeroer]

Trickster/Steel Garrote uses Riposte + Offensive Parry and all the deflection bonuses you can find. Offensive Parry causes the dazed affliction automatically so the Steel Garrote passive unlocks kind of automatically, a well as Sneak Attack. So you dish out quite nice melee damage even when you are not actively striking. You can of course apply DoTs in a cone, too. And yes, pretty tanky but also good dmg output esp. against common (melee) mobs.

Assassin/Bleak Walker is great solo but is also nice in a party for alpha strikes and "part time solo fights". You can take on a lot of way overleveled enemy groups with that one guy and whittle down the enemy before you party steps in, too. Strike from stealth with single handed Lover's Embrace + Gouging Strike (+42 ACC altogether, it's hard to miss), follow up with Brand Enemy (auto-hit), then vanish and wait in hiding until the enemy dies (pretty quickly from 3 unending DoTs). Once you feel comfortable you bring in the party, too. For normal fighting you can use Pukestabber+Lover's Embrace with high speed and nice FoD+Ring of Focused Flame accuracy and also stack Ring the Bell + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy - and later also Toxic Strike. But the true potential is the ability to take down very tough enemies with a strike and hide tactic. 

[masterty66]

49 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Trickster/Steel Garrote uses Riposte + Offensive Parry and all the deflection bonuses you can find. Offensive Parry causes the dazed affliction automatically so the Steel Garrote passive unlocks kind of automatically, a well as Sneak Attack. So you dish out quite nice melee damage even when you are not actively striking. You can of course apply DoTs in a cone, too. And yes, pretty tanky but also good dmg output esp. against common (melee) mobs.

Assassin/Bleak Walker is great solo but is also nice in a party for alpha strikes and "part time solo fights". You can take on a lot of way overleveled enemy groups with that one guy and whittle down the enemy before you party steps in, too. Strike from stealth with single handed Lover's Embrace + Gouging Strike (+42 ACC altogether, it's hard to miss), follow up with Brand Enemy (auto-hit), then vanish and wait in hiding until the enemy dies (pretty quickly from 3 unending DoTs). Once you feel comfortable you bring in the party, too. For normal fighting you can use Pukestabber+Lover's Embrace with high speed and nice FoD+Ring of Focused Flame accuracy and also stack Ring the Bell + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy - and later also Toxic Strike. But the true potential is the ability to take down very tough enemies with a strike and hide tactic. 

Those both sound pretty fun. I'll probably end up doing one of those two or FF/SG depending on what whim strikes me when I get to Deadfire lol.

I am enjoying being a jerk. I normally play a diplomatic/benevolent type character so this Bleakwalker in Poe1 is so far about as far from my normal character as possible. 

[dgray62]

A FF/SG is a real tank with serious DPS potential as well. It's also one of the few builds in this game that can safely spam sacred immolation, since with max RES you quickly shrug off the raw damage caused by that ability. If you follow @Powerotti guide, keep in mind that you don't need to use Mohora Wraps as food so long as you max RES, since that alone is enough to keep the duration very short for your FF curse; apparently the added malus to negative effect duration from the food doesn't do much due to the way the math works in this game. I prefer using Hot Razor Skewers for the +1 PL and the +2 PEN for weapon attacks. The main thing for this build is to make sure you get to 35 RES. Doing a no rest run or a mod that makes this unnecessary makes this much easier to reach.

[masterty66]

28 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

A FF/SG is a real tank with serious DPS potential as well. It's also one of the few builds in this game that can safely spam sacred immolation, since with max RES you quickly shrug off the raw damage caused by that ability. If you follow @Powerotti guide, keep in mind that you don't need to use Mohora Wraps as food so long as you max RES, since that alone is enough to keep the duration very short for your FF curse; apparently the added malus to negative effect duration from the food doesn't do much due to the way the math works in this game. I prefer using Hot Razor Skewers for the +1 PL and the +2 PEN for weapon attacks. The main thing for this build is to make sure you get to 35 RES. Doing a no rest run or a mod that makes this unnecessary makes this much easier to reach.

Still wrapping up Poe1 but I am leaning towards either this or Trickster/SG. I think those are the two I've narrowed it down to. 

[dgray62]

22 hours ago, masterty66 said:

Still wrapping up Poe1 but I am leaning towards either this or Trickster/SG. I think those are the two I've narrowed it down to. 

You could have a real fun time playing both! Pick one as your MC and hire the other as a custom hireling. That would be a very fun evil party duo. If you do, give the FF/SG Magran's Favor and Tuotilo's shield per @Powerotti's recommendation, and equip the trickster/SG with WotEP per @Boeroer's. Give the latter 10 STR and also pump up RES, so both toons can torch mobs with sacred immolation late game. You'd want to give the latter Mohora's Wraps since they'd lack Clarity of Agony. If you want, you could go with a trio by adding a psion/woedica priest, if you want extra CC and debuffing. I have recently been playing a psion mystic and it is loads of fun; you can just alternate casting cipher powers and priest spells all day long.

Edited June 29, 2023 by dgray62
Additional info.

[masterty66]

53 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

You could have a real fun time playing both! Pick one as your MC and hire the other as a custom hireling. That would be a very fun evil party duo. If you do, give the FF/SG Magran's Favor and Tuotilo's shield per @Powerotti's recommendation, and equip the trickster/SG with WotEP per @Boeroer's. Give the latter 10 STR and also pump up RES, so both toons can torch mobs with sacred immolation late game. You'd want to give the latter Mohora's Wraps since they'd lack Clarity of Agony. If you want, you could go with a trio by adding a psion/woedica priest, if you want extra CC and debuffing. I have recently been playing a psion mystic and it is loads of fun; you can just alternate casting cipher powers and priest spells all day long.

That could indeed be fun. I think I may do that. I've recently started experimenting with using a hireling in my runs. I like to grab npcs for the story but fitting in one or even two hirelings wouldn't be the worst thing. Could still have 2 real npcs that way to round out the rest of the party.

Last run I paired a Kind Wayfarer dual wielding pistols ( @Boeroer mentioned this idea in one thread or another) with a Soul Blade/Stalker using Sun & Moon + Tuotilos. Rest of the party was npcs. Was my first time running a serious hireling that I kept past Port Maje and she was super effective with those pistols at healing and the dps was much higher than I expected it to be also. So I'm starting to warm up to the idea of sprinkling in a hireling or two in my runs to test out more builds. 

[masterty66]

Finally got this going and having a good time with it so far. I've got a FF/SG (PC), SG/Trickster, Priest of Woedica/Psion. The last two slots are rotating Obsidian npcs depending on what quests I'm doing.

This is the first time in a long time that I haven't been leaning on Eder as a main tank and it's kinda interesting. My frontline has hardly any engagement slots but it hasn't seemed to matter so far (potd/upscaled). If I'm ever doing an area where I feel I need that I probably can sub Eder or Pallegina in. 

I think the lack of engagements slots hasn't been felt too much for two reasons. 1) Enemies seem perfectly content to attack my front liners despite the lack of engagements and 2) My frontline has exceptional defenses and when needed good emergency healing as both front liners have lay on hands. The Mystic has a bit of healing and withdraw in a pinch as well.

Dps has been pretty good so far. It's kinda disgusting how much dps the FF/SG outputs considering all the durability it also has. The SG/Trickster hasn't been lighting the world on fire dps-wise but with Wotep + her defenses she's a very sturdy dpser. Can't do dps if you're dead. Mystic provides amazing utility between buffs, writs, and cipher spells. Can pretty much do it all.

[dgray62]

That is an evil trio of destruction! You can wreck the game just with them, and throw in a companion or sidekick or two for flavor as you wish.