party Help on self sufficient party!

[Husein]

Hi everyone

Coming back to PoE 2 after a long break. I originally finished the game twice on potd at the beginning of covid and absolutely loved it. With the release of games from owlcat and larian I've been pre occupied, but with avowed coming up I'm returning to deadfire! I never did the dlc so excited to jump into those. 

 

I previously finished the game with a SC wizard, really fun, and then a battle mage wizard with spirit lance. Party complemented, first run using companion base class and second using the unity engine to make them whatever I wanted. Parties were largely heavily optimized, very micro intensive.

I'm looking to go at it again with a slightly different build in mind, a twin combo of the scordeos set. The idea is to build stacks with the pistol, get melee recovery down and then fly in and hopefully proc blade cascade with my quick recovery build up from the pistol and then SoT and let him just go buck wild. I know it's cheesy but like I said I'm on a third run and this just seems both fun and funny.

I know it's slightly unopitmal until i get scordeos edge, the plan is go for faction quests only and rush the main quest to trigger honor among thieves whilst still leaving most side quests/tasks open to complete. 

Using the unity engine again so the plan is 

Xoti lifegiver/priest. Literally a buff and heal bot. 

Ydwin cipher using 2 handed gun/bow. 

I'm looking for suggestions for 

2 front liners (Eder +1) who can soak the pressure while my mc builds stacks. The damage is less important on the Frontline, but THE most important thing is, I really don't want to micro them much at all. They just need to have high engagement, to keep mobs at bay, with xoti doing more than enough to keep them alive. I know AI exists but I basically only use the auto attack function because I can never get it to work and they end up burning slots I dont want them to, or running to weird places. 

I remember with my battlemage, the micro was really heavy, lining up the buffs, constantly checking if they're up or down, recasting etc. That's why I want to rule out wizard multi on any of them, because I just dont want to deal with it.

Xoti will already be a little micro intensive, casting every druid/priest buff in existence. Ydwin will be self sufficient because I only have to check on her every 5-10 seconds or so to use focus and then let her go back to shooting on her own. 

I don't mind to take the classic herald build for one of the tanks, but I find I basically never use my paladin abilities and just want the aura. Chanter, like cipher, is great because it's doing it's thing passively with an occasional check to use my phrases and then back to do it's thing.

With that in mind any suggestions? MC can be micro intensive, almost definitely fighter mutli with something. Given xoti will be my only micro, I dont mind to micro the mc also, so wizard is possibly fine here, but if there is something better I'm happy to take that also. I think action speed is literally the most important thing, as he will be in miscreant leathers anyway and I'm just looking to shoot and slash as quickly as is humanly possible, and between xoti and fighter, I should be survivable enough, especially given I have 2 front liners to body block for me.

The 2 tanks... does a solo class chanter work? Or am is it just better to go herald for the passive paladin aura, even if I don't use the paladin resources mostly. 

2nd tank I have literally no idea what would be micro light. Unbroken fighter + something? 

Thanks everyone in advance! 

 

 

[Husein]

No idea how to edit my original post, but I'm using the community patch if this makes any difference. I can also remove the community patch I'm not bothered either way. It's the only other mod I'm using 

[Boeroer]

Concerning the Herald (Pallegina?) and not using Paladin abilities/zeal much before:

Consider taking Brand Enemy. It is a very fast cast with 0 recovery. You can spend a bunch of Zeal right at the start of battle and just give every enemy (the ones where it makes sense) a neverending burning DoT effect. It can be scripted easily, too - so AI can take care of that for you if you want. 

Since it's an auto-hit even a short-sighted Herald with a helmet made of concrete would have no trouble landing it.

You could also try to use Inspired Beacon. It's not an auto-hit - but the +40% damage taken by enemies who get hit by it are cool when you have AoE damage dealing in the party. This is not as easy to script in an effective way, but still doable. 

Since you need engagement it should be a Shieldbearer imo.

With 2 tank(ish) chars both can be individually less "tanky", so you have more options. For example I had a great (low micro) time with a Streetfighter/Unbroken (could be Edér) which I themed towards a Gladiator: Gladiator's Sword (it's great for a tank in general but also gets +1 PEN which is great for offense) & Bronlar's Phalanx. Devil of Caroc Breastplate with Abraham (Edér+ a Berath's Blessing can have a pet) and Armored Grace is very fast with good AR (later I used the Contender's Armor and Helm bc. Gladiator theme). Death's Maw grants some damage resistance. Human for its passive at 50% health, Undying Burden adds to Bronlar's Phalanx nicely. Use Escape to move while under Large Shield modal etc. 

Since it's a tank it will get flanked constantly (not much to do on your part) and then actually do great weapon dps without much micro. Once you get some engagement  abilities/gear you can also use Mob Stance to increase attack speed even further and add more damage. I use regular Edér as a Swashbuckler single tank for my parties all the time and it works fine defensively. With a Streetfighter you tank noting away from that but add a lot more low-micro damage output. 

 

[Husein]

44 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Concerning the Herald (Pallegina?) and not using Paladin abilities/zeal much before:

Consider taking Brand Enemy. It is a very fast cast with 0 recovery. You can spend a bunch of Zeal right at the start of battle and just give every enemy (the ones where it makes sense) a neverending burning DoT effect. It can be scripted easily, too - so AI can take care of that for you if you want. 

Since it's an auto-hit even a short-sighted Herald with a helmet made of concrete would have no trouble landing it.

You could also try to use Inspired Beacon. It's not an auto-hit - but the +40% damage taken by enemies who get hit by it are cool when you have AoE damage dealing in the party. This is not as easy to script in an effective way, but still doable. 

Since you need engagement it should be a Shieldbearer imo.

With 2 tank(ish) chars both can be individually less "tanky", so you have more options. For example I had a great (low micro) time with a Streetfighter/Unbroken (could be Edér) which I themed towards a Gladiator: Gladiator's Sword (it's great for a tank in general but also gets +1 PEN which is great for offense) & Bronlar's Phalanx. Devil of Caroc Breastplate with Abraham (Edér+ a Berath's Blessing can have a pet) and Armored Grace is very fast with good AR (later I used the Contender's Armor and Helm bc. Gladiator theme). Death's Maw grants some damage resistance. Human for its passive at 50% health, Undying Burden adds to Bronlar's Phalanx nicely. Use Escape to move while under Large Shield modal etc. 

Since it's a tank it will get flanked constantly (not much to do on your part) and then actually do great weapon dps without much micro. Once you get some engagement  abilities/gear you can also use Mob Stance to increase attack speed even further and add more damage. I use regular Edér as a Swashbuckler single tank for my parties all the time and it works fine defensively. With a Streetfighter you tank noting away from that but add a lot more low-micro damage output. 

 

Thank you man, this is very useful! I think deffo go herald/swashbuckler and let them do whatever.

For the MC, did you have any thoughts? I thought maybe fighter/cipher, cipher literally for the weapon damage and any focus built up can just be dumped on a soul annihilation when I finally go melee.

Or fighter/monk, swift flurry +dance + disciplined strikes and pistol modal should let me stack scordeos quite quickly? Will also boost accuracy to the moon and give me chance to proc more crits. 

Fighter/wizard - alacrity I guess is nice? Not really sure why I'm suggesting this I'm not seeing synergy now I think about as I already have 2 tanks

 

[Boeroer]

Wizard + Scordeo's Trophy is nice because you can pick the universal recovery bonus enchantment of the pistol (-5% for all recovery, not -10% for the melee one) and prolong the individual stacks with Wall of Draining. Then you'll get super short recovery for everything including spells. But since you plan to use Blade Cascade + SoT anyway maybe it's redundant. And since your plan is to shoot and then jump into melee (and not cast around) it's also not really fitting. Although Alacrity is nice for free movement without any engagement.

Ranger is good with Scordeo's Trophy to build up the recovery bonus asap because of Driving Flight. Only takes half the shots then (if there's at least two enemies involved). And pistol modal + Gunner is faster than just pistol modal. 

I think for switching between ranged an melee quickly some cheap mobility ability would be great - like Rogue's Escape or Ranger's Evasive Roll. Ranger again.

How does Ghost Heart/Soulblade sound? Highest accuracy potential (Ranger stuff + Borrowed Instincts), great melee dmg with Soul Annihilation, mobility, Driving Flight, no Bonded Grief to care for when zipping around on the battlefield... Shoot the pistol, load up focus and recovery bonus, move in, deal Soul Annihilation damage, maybe profit from Blade Cascade and then move out, shoot the pistol etc. 

Another idea would be to use Ghost Heart/Black Jacket and not use both Scordeo's in one weapon set but instead use two separate ones: weapon set 1: one handed Scordeo's Trophy + modal + one handed style. Weapon set 2: one handed Scordeo's Edge + one handed style. Switching costs no recovery with Black Jacket passive + Quick Switch. Result is more acc for the pistol yet great speed due to modal (and Gunner). And then way better accuracy for the sabre once melee starts. With all the stacks of recovery bonus from the shots: dual wielding speed shouldn't make such a big difference... and once Blade Cascade procs dual wielding is of no use anyway (more like a disadvantage then).