Liberator - Turn-Based Action Economy “Do-It-All” Build

[Injunctive]

I’m playing POE2 for the first time (but am quite familiar with these kinds of CPRGs), and am playing it in turn-based mode.

Obviously, in turn-based mode, your “action speed” doesn’t matter much, since you can only take one action per turn anyways.  I think this really makes stacking a build with useful free actions (as well as passives and modals) the ideal strategy, because your action economy becomes way better.  And, more generally, action economy is always helped by having abilities that last a while.  Basically, you want to be able to sustainably be doing a lot every turn, rather than having to pick and choose one thing to do each turn.  Even if you have lots of options, only doing one thing is less effective than doing multiple things.

I created a Shifter/Trickster build on a hireling that is probably my favorite build I’ve played and it utilizes these concepts a lot, but I think it is best illustrated with a somewhat similar Shifter/Paladin build. The specific Paladin subclass could be Bleak Walker, Goldpact Knight, or Kind Wayfarer—depending on what disposition most suits the playthrough.  I’m running a Bleak Walker so that’s what I’ll describe below, but it’s on a hireling, so that doesn’t make me feel like I need to do an evil playthrough.  And I’ll note that you want high Intelligence, and, since it’s turn-based, Dexterity can be a dump stat.

Anyways, I’m at level 14 at the moment, and it’s just remarkable to me how much this character can contribute across all facets of impact, all at the same time.  

My basic strategy is to cast Form of the Delemgan on my team in the first turn, cast Relentless Storm in the second turn, cast another AOE DOT in the third turn (generally Autumn’s Decay or one of the Insect spells), and then Spiritshift (ideally to Boar form, but that’ll depend on the penetration situation—sometimes I go Bear) and start using Eternal Devotion (with the extra Bleak Walker damage).  In a longer fight, I could shift back and reapply the DOT spells.  Already I think it should be clear that, with a high INT character, I can be sustaining a lot of effects at once (i.e. Form of Delemgan, Relentless Storm, and another DOT all run at once, after I’ve put them on).

But this description misses the “free” stuff underlying this:

- I have Zealous Aura and Exalted Endurance, so I’m always healing and giving armor to allies (note: the armor somewhat overlaps with Form of Delemgan, but obviously affects other damage types).

- I have Sworn Rival, which is a free action I can always have on whoever I’m attacking.

- I have Liberating Exhortation and Reviving Exhortation as free actions that I can use to quickly undo any really bad thing that’s happened to an ally (note: I don’t want to have to use this and basically never do, but they’re there as a free-action option in an emergency).

- Greater Wildstrike and Retribution are passively increasing my melee damage after I shift, and Eternal Devotion both add additional damage on my attacks.

- The Bleak Walker makes me basically passively sicken enemies for a couple turns when I attack them after I shift.

- Inspiring Triumph is passively increasing allies’ defenses when I get kills (which I will do a lot).

- Inspired Defenses and Deep Faith are passively increasing my armor and defenses (note: On a hireling, I’m not sure Deep Faith is worth much, since it’s basically just a +2 extra bonus, but it can be better on a main character).

- Shifting is a free action, and even heals you when you shift back.

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So, just to put all this together, I want to list what this character can easily do all in one fight, at level 14:

1. Single Target Damage: Between Boar + Greater Wildstrike + Bleak Walker Eternal Devotion + Sworn Enemy + Retribution, this build hits extremely hard on single targets, and can spend about half the fight doing so.  

2. AOE Damage: Between Relentless Storm and Autumn’s Decay (or one of the Insect spells), the build puts out quite a lot of AOE damage over the course of a fight.

3. Crowd Control: Starting on the second turn of a fight, Relentless Storm will provide massive crowd control.

4. Healing: Exalting Endurance heals allies every turn.

5. Buffing: Between Form of the Delemgan, Inspiring Triumph, and the armor from Exalting Endurance, this build massively increases the defenses of allies throughout a fight (and also increases Stride).

6. Countering Afflictions: Form of the Delemgan gives the whole party immunity to Dexterity afflictions for many turns, and Liberating Exhortation can counter an affliction as a free action (though I’d save this only for really bad stuff).

7. Debuffing: The build both stuns and sickens enemies.  Stun is mostly a crowd control effect, but even leaving out the crowd control, you’ll be giving enemies -10 Deflection, -5 Constitution, and -25% healing received.  And even if the enemy has resistance to might afflictions, they’ll still be dazed, which is a huge debuff.

8. Tanking: This build has a really high armor rating.  On turn-based you can use heavy armor all the time, but I’ll note that the shifter forms keep up with that (and when you occasionally use Bear form for the slashing damage, your armor rating will have an extra +2 bonus on heavy armor).  You have huge armor buffs from Form of the Delemgan, and you also get armor buffs from Exalted Endurance, and Inspired Defenses.  Deep Faith also gives a hefty bonus to defenses, and Exalted Endurance and Boar form give you passive self-healing akin to a Crusader or a Herald.  Notably, you do also get engagement from the Boar and Bear forms.

9. Resurrection: If anyone actually gets downed, you can revive them as a free action, though this shouldn’t happen much and will admittedly cost enough Zeal that you’ll probably need to Empower if you want to get resources back if you want to keep up your damage.

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It just feels to me like the use of free actions, modals, and passives on this build allows it to contribute massively across all the roles a character might take in a fight.

There’s a few weaknesses to this build:

- First, the damage does decrease a good bit if you run out of Zeal.  But you can Empower in longer fights and you aren’t using Zeal every turn anyways, since you cast your Druid spells.  I do think a Shifter/Trickster is able to sustain its damage a bit more reliably in a long fight, though.  I will eventually get the ability that can refill Zeal on a kill when my character is high enough leve to get that, which should mitigate this issue even further.

- Second, this build doesn’t have a way to debuff enemy armor or buff its own penetration.  Again, the Shifter/Trickster is better at this, since Persistent Distraction debuffs armor and Crippling Strike increases penetration.  However, because it’s a Shifter, it can have ready access to piercing, slashing, and crushing damage without requiring an action to swap (the spirit shifts have piercing and slashing damage, and you can potentially use a crushing damage weapon in your normal form).  You won’t have Greater Wildstrike on your crushing damage, but you’ll still be able to do good damage.  You also have multiple sources of raw DOT damage, as well as multiple sources of probably the two best elemental damage types (shock and corrode). Against something that has really high armor rating across the board, though, you might need an ally to debuff the armor.

- Third, builds that do single-target damage often want to move quickly to get to squishy casters in the backline.  The Shifter/Trickster does this really well with Escape.  This Paladin has a stride buff with Form of the Delemgan, can buff it further with Zealous Aura if need be, and maybe even swap to wolf form for more speed.  I’ve also given it armor that makes it immune to disengagement attacks (at least in normal form—which you can use to get in position before shifting).  But there may occasionally be situations where it can’t get to someone you want to attack.  I’ve given this character a couple items that increase stride even further, but it can occasionally be a limitation.  That said, you’ve got some auras for allies, so it’s not necessarily suboptimal to be unable to go really far from the group.

None of these issues are a big deal, though they are a reason why I might enjoy the Shifter/Trickster version even better, even though it doesn’t really heal and buff allies with the same action-economy efficiency that the Shifter/Paladin version does.