SC Woedica Priest Questions

[Buddy Smiles]

Finally back to playing this game after Avowed, and I'm finally playing a SC priest for the first time, settled on Woedica because the writs looked interesting.

I couldn't help but notice that the summoned weapon seems to do a lot of damage? I'm not on PotD but I've been noticing as far as just auto attacking goes, I'm doing pretty similar single target damage to martial builds, which is neat considering I'm a caster. The first writ seems suspiciously strong due to the engagement (you can just pull your party members out for free without any disengagement attacks?! I feel like there's lots of tricks with just this lol, that fight with the drake on Port Maje was VERY easy with this build, easier than it's ever been), and I'm level 5 now and just curious how I could possibly maximize this kind of approach of casting a couple of writs, then buffing myself/party, then punching things. I like punching things. I've only got about 14 MIG, but I just about maxed out dex, per, int.

I'm pretty sure monastic unarmed training doesn't work with the spirit weapon, but is there anything else I need to know? Any interesting items or combinations I might not be thinking of? I noticed that the lash on the spirit weapon seems to be raw damage which I thought was pretty neat, too. There's just so many items in the game, and I've never experimented with spirit weapons prior to this so I'm not really sure what would be good.

[Boeroer]

The only thing to know about the spiritual weapons in general is that the lash scales with your reputation/disposition. If they match the preferred ones of your deity the lash will grow stronger. If you collect opposing reputation points it will become weaker. 

Monastic Unarmed Training used to work with Woedica's spiritual weapon - but that combination was so strong that they patched it out quickly. Doesn't work anymore.

 

 

[thelee]

6 hours ago, Buddy Smiles said:

I couldn't help but notice that the summoned weapon seems to do a lot of damage?

yeah. it's frankly a bit overtuned (given where other summoned weapons are at).

from https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/priest

they are the same as base monk fists, which are already above-grade - they do slow one-handed weapon damage at fast one-handed weapon speed, which for comparison purposes is basically like applying a 30%x multiplier damage compared to a normal weapon, which is insane. Add to that that priests can get up to 31% lash on their spiritual weapon, and that's adding on even more. Further on that, woedicans get a raw lash, which completely bypasses AR issues, making it generally the best possible type. The only thing holding them back against an actual monk with actual monk fists is the fact that they still scale like summoned weapons, instead of scaling like monk fists, but even then monks need to do a bit of work just to catch up to that raw lash.

Edited Thursday at 11:18 PM by thelee

[thelee]

6 hours ago, Buddy Smiles said:

The first writ seems suspiciously strong due to the engagement

it's alright. Dazed is available at AT1 for priests and is good for engagement and survivability. i think it's mostly useful against bosses in longer fights [where longer duration from writ is useful] or in situations where you'd have a hard time landing a strength affliction [barbarians, might immunity, etc]

[Buddy Smiles]

1 minute ago, thelee said:

it's alright. Dazed is available at AT1 for priests and is good for engagement and survivability. i think it's mostly useful against bosses in longer fights [where longer duration from writ is useful] or in situations where you'd have a hard time landing a strength affliction [barbarians, might immunity, etc]

Yeah, probably why I thought the drake fight was so comically easy. A 15-20 second affliction with a generous enough AoE to hit everything at once that early is quite nice IMO. Of course the next writ's nowhere near as good IMO, but still. I've only ever used Xoti so I'm not that used to a priest doing work, I suppose.

[Boeroer]

7 hours ago, Buddy Smiles said:

Yeah, probably why I thought the drake fight was so comically easy. A 15-20 second affliction with a generous enough AoE to hit everything at once that early is quite nice IMO. Of course the next writ's nowhere near as good IMO, but still. 

There are no enemies in the Drake fight who can engage, so I guess your impression comes from the Stagger affliction alone?

The enemies deal a bit less dmg bc. of reduced MIG. If MIG drops below 10 it means they even get a damage malus (negative dmg modifier). Due to the inner workings of Deadfire's damage calculation process, this is more severe than just getting one's damage bonus reduced (so try to never drop under 10 MIG).

So maybe some of the beasts in that fight (I suspect panthers and wurms might have only mediocre Might) have mediocre Might - and giving them -5 via Stagger does impact their dmg output more than is obvious.

What often gets overlooked with Writ of Consumption (and Writ of Engagement, too): it targets Will but lowers Fortitude by 10 points (bc. it applies Sickened). Like with Ryngrim's Enervating Terror (Wizard), such spells can be very useful to crack a tough enemies' defenses open. High fortitude enemies usually have lower Will - and being able to lower Fortitude by attacking Will can be very good then. It can make a hard fight easier for party members whose strongest offensive abilities target Fortitude (see Disintegrate, Plague of Insects and such). 

Using both Writs against enemies with high Fortitude but low Will is a great way to overcome their defenses. Stagger + Sicken - and the Fortitude of those enemies is already at -20. 

Besides that: there are a few enemies that do use potions, one example is Torkar (an ogre with a bounty on his head). I didn't try to prevent him from emptying his bottles with Writ of Consumption yet - but I guess it would make the fight significantly easier if Torkar couldn't chuck down his seemingly endless supply of potions.  But maybe it's just a healing ability of his that only has a potion drinking animation, don't really know. 

In general it's true: that anti-consumption feature of the spell doesn't do a lot for you. It's way cooler for hostile Priests of Woedica who fight against you, heh.

Edited Friday at 07:02 AM by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Monastic Unarmed Training used to work with Woedica's spiritual weapon - but that combination was so strong that they patched it out quickly. Doesn't work anymore.

But, if I were a Contemplative (Monk/Priest), would Trascendent Suffering work with Woedica's spiritual weapon?

[Boeroer]

3 minutes ago, Chaospread said:

But, if I were a Contemplative (Monk/Priest), would Trascendent Suffering work with Woedica's spiritual weapon?

No. Same patch.  

[Buddy Smiles]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

There are no enemies in the Drake fight who can engage, so I guess your impression comes from the Stagger affliction alone?

The enemies deal a bit less dmg bc. of reduced MIG. If MIG drops below 10 it means they even get a damage malus (negative dmg modifier). Due to the inner workings of Deadfire's damage calculation process, this is more severe than just getting one's damage bonus reduced (so try to never drop under 10 MIG).

So maybe some of the beasts in that fight (I suspect panthers and wurms might have only mediocre Might) have mediocre Might - and giving them -5 via Stagger does impact their dmg output more than is obvious.

What often gets overlooked with Writ of Consumption (and Writ of Engagement, too): it targets Will but lowers Fortitude by 10 points (bc. it applies Sickened). Like with Ryngrim's Enervating Terror (Wizard), such spells can be very useful to crack a tough enemies' defenses open. High fortitude enemies usually have lower Will - and being able to lower Fortitude by attacking Will can be very good then. It can make a hard fight easier for party members whose strongest offensive abilities target Fortitude (see Disintegrate, Plague of Insects and such). 

Using both Writs against enemies with high Fortitude but low Will is a great way to overcome their defenses. Stagger + Sicken - and the Fortitude of those enemies is already at -20. 

Besides that: there are a few enemies that do use potions, one example is Torkar (an ogre with a bounty on his head). I didn't try to prevent him from emptying his bottles with Writ of Consumption yet - but I guess it would make the fight significantly easier if Torkar couldn't chuck down his seemingly endless supply of potions.  But maybe it's just a healing ability of his that only has a potion drinking animation, don't really know. 

In general it's true: that anti-consumption feature of the spell doesn't do a lot for you. It's way cooler for hostile Priests of Woedica who fight against you, heh.

I never knew that about the engagement in that fight! That's probably why sometimes I've been somewhat reliably able to kite the panthers around with Xoti as I cleared the imps. Huh. Neat. Love all your builds btw your reputation precedes you

[Chaospread]

Ok, it's all very beautiful and thrilling, but it is not a Port Maje fight, but a Engwithan Digsite fight