Outlasting the enemy - theorycrafting a tanky party

[Fruney]

Hi again guys,

Can't play much so I scratch my itch theorycrafting.  After several more difficult encounters in my "normal" run I was thinking (running out of resources, etc), how viable would it be to have a party centered around outlasting the opponent and grinding them down with DoTs and auto attacks. Some builds seem to be already out there for individual chars, especially this kind of good-for-solo-nor-really-party-viable. Anybody tried it? Any nice synergies? Preferably no cheese such us Ancestral Memory into Salvation of time.

So, obviously classes with infinite resources come into mind - cipher, chanter, monk. Conditionally: barbarian and paladin (pal with bonus points for the auras, etc). Then other martial classes for their passive and auto attacks. Ranger is the most debatable IMO, because of the companion being a potential liability with this approach. The casters - limited resources put them at the end of the list, but maybe some builds may justify it - my buffed-up Aloth set for melee combat has very long durations anyway and I could perform the combo twice per combat, if I skimp the spellcasts for other purposes.

Thoughts, experiences? I've come across the Swordsinger heral/war caller and Burn Baby Burn pal/monk, which seems to fit into the theme.

[Boeroer]

The virtual incarnation of that concept is the Herald (pref. Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour). Stacking "passive" healing in form of Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory + Mercy and Kindness for the whole party and offering support and occasional healing spikes. Also Paladins can deliver Brand Enemy, an everlasting DoT that has no hit roll (alsways hits).

I guess adding some sturdy Trickster/Whatever with Gouging Strike would add to the everlasting DoT department. Rogues have limited resources, but since Gouging Strike lasts forever this makes up for it. And the second class might have unlimited resources. 

An SC Shieldbearer, paired with a Troubadour in the party who constantly summons skeletons via Many Lives Pass By chant will basically drown in Zeal points once he reaches Power Level 9, making him the most potent support character in the party who can drop Lay on Hands laced with Barring Death's Door at all times to make the party supersturdy.

Besides that everything sturdy with good defense and unlimited resources comes to mind. I really like a sturdy Psion/something. Pain Block for healing, support, neverending resource that generates itself and nasty DoT and good accuracy.  

  

Edited January 10 by Boeroer

[omgFIREBALLS]

This is what I do every damn time. Do you want the spreadsheet with skill point assignments? No? Ok.

All five are multiclassed paladins, specifically shieldbearers. Paladins have nice defensive bonuses, and Lay on Hands is awesome, even awesomer as a shieldbearer.

Herald 1
Shieldbearer/Troubadour
High might and int
Chants: Ancient Memory + Mercy and Kindness (Blessed Was Wengridh before that)
Sasha's Singing Scimitar + Lethandria's Devotion
Brand Enemy, Zealous Endurance
Hylea's Bounty

Herald 2
Shieldbearer/Troubadour
High int
Chants: Hearts Grew Bold + Silver Knights' Shields
Dual sabres - endgame it's Tarn's Respite and Scordeo's Edge. Keep a shield handy because this character is a popular target.
Zealous Focus
Hylea's Bounty

Crusader 1
Shieldbearer/Tactician (or Unbroken)
Tank, but when fighting a lone boss that feels like ignoring her, swaps to Rännig's Wrath and spams Mule Kick (easier to spam as a tactician)
Kapana Taga and/or passives negate tactician penalties
Mohora Wraps

Crusader 2 (Watcher)
Shieldbearer/Devoted (quarterstaff)
Bringing the dam.
Hylea's Bounty

Inquisitor
Shieldbearer/Psion
High int
Keeping the outlast game going with Pain Block and Ancestor's Memory.
Wand + Large Shield, lategame it's Keeper of the Flame + Shining Bulwark without actually attacking
Zealous Charge
Shark Soup

Playing no rest, feasting on immunity/defensive talents. An important tactic is that the answer to "Who should Lay on Hands?" is usually "whoever can do it the soonest", because death immunity and all that. I could write a whole essay here because I play this setup over and over as I really enjoy outlasting my enemies, so it is very refined for that purpose. It used to be that Herald 1 was the Watcher and that there was no devoted in the party, but, well, some killing power is nice to have...

[Fruney]

@Boeroer YES! Gouging freaking strike! It's the second thing that came to my mind after Herald when I was thinking about it a few days ago. Ydwin posthumously won the Messenger fight with it. Are there any other until-combat-ends abilities out there?

@omgFIREBALLS nice! I wouldn't overdo it with a full pal party to meet the diversity quota, but it's yet one more reason to hate 5-men party cap. The game begs for differently build duos of Pals, Chanters and Ciphers at least. Anyway, I'd probably do such a run as a RDC-backing ruthless-but-not-unnecessarily-cruel party, steel (brass?) clad steamroller, so definitely picking up some ideas from you. 

Do you play your psions with Community Patch? I play vanilla game. By the way, that's quite a clever idea. Im not usually lacking focus for my Cipher, but when I do lack it, it's the hardest fight and the clutch moment, cuz I can't do enough damage. With trash mobs I overflow with focus, obviously, but there's hardly a target for Disintegration anyway.

[omgFIREBALLS]

4 minutes ago, Fruney said:

Do you play your psions with Community Patch? I play vanilla game. 

As far as balance mods go, only Deadlier Deadfire.

[Boeroer]

2 minutes ago, Fruney said:

Are there any other until-combat-ends abilities out there?

There's Gouging Strike, Brand Enemy and True Love's Kiss (passive of the unique Dagger "Lover's Embrace"). I usually combine all three when doing a solo Assassin run (whatever Paladin/Assassin).

One could say that Soft Winds of Death and Dragn Thrashed (chants) also fall under that category since they won't stop until combat ends (or the chanter goes down). 

There's also the Blackened Plate which can be enchanted with an aura that does automatic DoT (auto-hit) in an area (that's smaller than a chant's AoE). THis also only stops when the wearer goes down or the combat ends.

Then there are some DoTs that don't last forever - but a pretty long time, namely Battle Axes' Bleeding Cuts (modal) and Saru Sichr's (Morning Star) Poison Dipped (poison DoT). I guess there are some more that last rel. long that I forgot.

9 minutes ago, Fruney said:

Im not usually lacking focus for my Cipher, but when I do lack it, it's the hardest fight and the clutch moment, cuz I can't do enough damage. With trash mobs I overflow with focus, obviously, but there's hardly a target for Disintegration anyway.

  Yeah, that's the strong suit of the Psion. If you build him with small shield, weapon & shield style and generelly with good defenses the "stop generating focus on getting damaged" isn't too bad. If you use summons and/or mind control there's ususally more attractive targets for the enemies.  

[Fruney]

Lover's Embrace! Yes, thank you! It pains me that I cannot really find a way to use it in my current run.

By the way, what other items are there that provide some kind of aura or other party benefits? Blackened plate, as mentioned. St. Omaku Mercy war bow, Xoti's lantern, what else? I have a foggy memory of items that cause effects on knock out (Effort greatsword, but I am pretty sure there is more). With paladin and chanter heavy party maybe it would be viable to have one suicide bomber go in to die and be revived, at least as a backup plan?

Also, how to specialize? There's probably a nuanced balance to be found by testing. I'd guess it's best to focus on support with literal shieldbearers and on offensive skills with dual-wielders and 2handers due to accuracy penalty of the shield. But then these offensive guys would probably end up to squishy which defeats the purpose.

[omgFIREBALLS]

1 hour ago, Fruney said:

By the way, what other items are there that provide some kind of aura or other party benefits?

Since I love having all these buffs I have a bunch of them in my party.

Sasha's Singing Scimitar (action speed)
Lethandria's Devotion (saving throws and healing)
Baubles of the Fin (damage)
Cog of Cohh (damage)
Shining Bulwark (armor)
Keeper of the Flame (a few to choose from, I use accuracy)

All the auras I'm filtering in my own mod, so probably a quite exhaustive list:

Spoiler

- Paladin Zealous/Exalted auras
- Mantle of Authority (Thaos' Headdress)
- Communal Carnage (Cog of Cohh)
- Cruelty and Curios (Baubles of the Fin)
- Sweet Aroma (Keeper of the Flame)
- Defensive Beacon (Shining Bulwark)
- Companion's Prelude (Sasha's Singing Scimitar)
- Pale/Nourishing/Sheltering Light (Lethandria's Devotion)
- Life in Death (Blackened Plate Armor)
- Timeless/Timeless Flame/Timeless Perseverance (Outworn Buckler)
- Saint's Grace (Saint Omaku's Mercy)
- The Gallows Breaker (The Mung Bean's Mouth Organ)
- Bodyguard/Vigorous Protector (Furrante's Breastplate)
- Pelt of Many Kinds (The Changeling's Mantle)
- Threshing Aura/Light of the Dawnstar (Xoti's Lantern)

 

Edited January 10 by omgFIREBALLS

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, Fruney said:

By the way, what other items are there that provide some kind of aura or other party benefits?

Three Four things that came to mind in addition to what @omgFIREBALLS said:

• Outworn Buckler - shortens hostile effects' duration and potentially bonus burn AR
• Ngati's Tusk - its aura "Lord of the Hunt" lowers enemies' defenses based on your Survival skill. It's an auto-hit and the AoE is pretty big. The debuff stacks with everything. It's excellent with enough survival.
• Cap of the Laughingstock - its pretty big aura lowers everybody's(!) deflection by 10 and grants immunity to Resolve afflictions. If build around it can be very good. The deflection debuff stacks with everything.
• Thundercrack Pistol - can grant an aura in which armored characters or chracters with shields suffer speed and ACC debuffs.  

Edited January 10 by Boeroer

[Fruney]

Very nice, Gentlemen, many thanks.

So, for the moment I would opt for:

1. Psion/troubadour - weapon + (small shield), maybe this Thundercrack pistol or some implement. But for this guy it's merely a stat stick anyway. 

2. Pal/rogue dual wielding Lover's Embrace and something else (Marux Amanth? Magi's Cudgel?). Trickster most probably.

3. Herald (Darkozzi w/ Outworn buckler is tempting, but not sure if worth it. Would rather go Shieldbearer with large shield (Cadhu Scalth?) and max engagement slots.

4. I am tempted to go single class with at least 1 character and leaning towards Paladin to farm zeal from skeletons. In such a case, a 2-hander would be in order.

5. I was tempted to go inquisitor or crusader here, but wait a second, I have seen some fun cantor builds around here!

 

 

[dgray62]

I'd recommend making #5 a cantor, and specifically a Forbidden Fist cantor, such as @Not So Clever Hound's FF cantor build. Cantors are fun in general as you noted, but the reason I recommend this is the Forbidden Fist attack, which you can spam with the right build and afflict your foes with the enfeebled affliction. This is, by the way, the very best way IMO to eliminate the tankiest fighters you'll encounter, since it shuts down all their incredible healing from unbending trunk, which can otherwise pretty much out heal the damage you inflict. Alternately, you could do something else with #5 and make #4 a steel garrote/FF.

[Fruney]

@dgray62 thanks a lot, this is exactly the build I had in mind and also probably will make him the Watcher.

Although 4 is quite open still. Would be quite nice to have an SC character to benefit from quicker progression. SC pally was originally the idea for the skeleton abuse and maybe I will come with some ideas for kamikaze tactics, such as these self-immolation abilities + Effort effect in case of knockout. Yet, Valiant Demise looks underwhelming, but aren't there more items like that? The more I think about it, the more I lean towards chanter - less gimmicky, more sustainable and I realized I can get class resources for OTHERS with His Heart instead of drowning in my own skelly-indeuced Zeal. Then extra PEN with lvl 9 chant and lvl 8 invo to top it off. 

EDIT: Now I realized I end up with 4 chanters and 2 pallies. Well, that would probably mean swapping Herald for Inquisitor, which may be even better, more interesting. Then SC Chanter will go sword and board in place of the Herald and this fellow will get the pike and high PER. But first I will check "tanky inquisitor build" I've seen here.

Edited January 11 by Fruney