A few build questions

[HoopleDoople]

I'm going to be starting a PoTD playthrough with the following party - Darcozzi Paladin PC, Monk, Barbarian, Cipher, Wizard, Druid(?).

 

I had a few specific questions regarding builds:

 

1) What is a good way to distribute attribute points for a support/tank Darcozzi Paladin? INT and RES definitely seem to be crucial, but everything else appears to be helpful but not required. Which attributes, if any, would you recommend dumping?

 

2) Is Zealous Focus or Zealous Endurance likely to be more useful for this party?

 

3) What races are recommended for DPS/off-tank Monk and Barbarian?

 

4) Which melee weapons (or lack thereof, in the case of fists) are optimal for a Monk?

 

5) Which ranged weapon type has the best focus generation for Ciphers? I am not interested in micromanaging multiple guns on the Cipher, if that makes a difference.

 

6) Would you suggest any other class in place of the Druid? Please note I'd prefer not to use a Fighter or Priest in this party.

 

Please feel free to answer as many or as few of these questions as you are able to. Any other relevant advice you have on the party composition or class builds is also welcome.

[Nobear]

1) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844&insideModal=1 has some good info and ideas that might inspire you. He has certain unconventional ideas, though, like one of his paladin tank builds minimizes Constitution. He argues that Perception and Resolve carry more weight as defensive stats, seeing that they increase one defensive stat by 2 per point, as well as Deflection by 1 per point. I keep going back and forth, and I've restarted the game more times than I'd like to say and therefore not gotten very far >.>, but currently my paladin tank has the following stat spread:

 

10/14/4/18/14/18

 

Minimizing might would gimp Moon or Fire Godlike or Darkozzi abilities. You could tweak this a little by having 10 Constitution and 18 Intellect, but keep in mind there is an inn in Defiance Bay that grants 4 Intellect, and I chose to have decent Constitution partly because, along with the Intellect resting bonus, I think that'll open up just about as many dialogue options as I can (which have to be on your main character).

 

2) I would still argue for Zealous Endurance on PoTD even if you don't have a priest for accuracy, largely because the range of the paladin's aura may not be enough to cover the casters in the back that would benefit most from accuracy. That said, if you choose to have 18+ Int and take the 4 Int resting bonus mentioned above, your auras just might get big enough to do the trick.

 

3) I have chosen Moon Godlike for my Shieldbearer paladin tank's race, but for a Darkozzi maybe you would prefer Fire Godlike to add to the retaliation pain. Especially in the latter case, I'd choose Moon Godlike for your monk. A monk's abilities depend on being hit, and it'd be awesome if he in turn healed everyone including himself, recovering that damage that he depends on taking.

 

Barbarians are not my style simply because their frenzy conceals their health and endurance and I want to always see that info. Therefore, I am not qualified to give you advice on barbarian race. I don't know if they depend on being front liners (meaning another Moon Godlike would seem fine and dandy for PoTD), or if they can be played well in the second row with reach weapons, so that you might consider Hearth Orlan to maximize their DPS. I just don't know barbarians, so you'll have to ask someone else about that.

 

Next is which character you want as your main. I have chosen my paladin tank, because paladins get their defenses boosted as a result of your dialogue choices, but only if it's your main character. It's up to you whether you want to restrict your dialogue choices for the sake of roleplaying and/or ultimate min-maxing. Lore skill helps your main character the most out of the skills, and I will eventually get decent lore for all my characters except maybe my mechanic cipher, but I will prioritize it for my main. Of course, 3 Athletics for everyone to avoid fatigue and pass checks that could injure weak party members, and I like to have a decent amount of Stealth too on everyone, but that's personal preference. If you're going to take Stealth, you need it on everyone, at least your front liners so that you can position your tanks at the beginning of the battle.

 

Have fun!

Edited June 11, 2015 by Nobear

[EphemeralToast]

3) What races are recommended for DPS/off-tank Monk and Barbarian?

 

Your choice may depend on how "off" they are, I suppose. Moon Godlike is always a strong choice for a party member who will be getting hit, especially since you're not going to have a priest, those extra heals will be helpful. A Barbarian has ungodly terrible deflection so the WIld Orlan's racial will help that in fights where an enemy is spamming fear aura or what have you, and a Pale Elf's will help in dragon or shade fights. The Coastal Aumaua resistance helps greatly against 2 of the worst disables for a tank to have, again extra useful without a priest.

 

If you want to focus more on the DPS side of things, a Hearth Orlan is strong. A Human is an ok choice for Barb if you like to live dangerously, and there are a couple Barb abilities that thrive on low endurance.

 

Ultimately you can pick any race you like and be successful, though.

 

Also, I don't know about Monks, but Barbs can be superb in the second row with a reach weapon. Buy Tall Grass ASAP and have fun. Obviously limits their tanking ability to a certain extent, of course.

[Certus]

I minimised con and Dex for darcozzi, is working fine on hard. Only change I would make is take quick switch earlier as waiting after initial ranged weapon strike is long. Dual wielding is the go to

[HoopleDoople]

I'm going to be starting a PoTD playthrough with the following party - Darcozzi Paladin PC, Monk, Barbarian, Cipher, Wizard, Druid(?).

 

I had a few specific questions regarding builds:

 

1) What is a good way to distribute attribute points for a support/tank Darcozzi Paladin? INT and RES definitely seem to be crucial, but everything else appears to be helpful but not required. Which attributes, if any, would you recommend dumping?

 

2) Is Zealous Focus or Zealous Endurance likely to be more useful for this party?

 

3) What races are recommended for DPS/off-tank Monk and Barbarian?

 

4) Which melee weapons (or lack thereof, in the case of fists) are optimal for a Monk?

 

5) Which ranged weapon type has the best focus generation for Ciphers? I am not interested in micromanaging multiple guns on the Cipher, if that makes a difference.

 

6) Would you suggest any other class in place of the Druid? Please note I'd prefer not to use a Fighter or Priest in this party.

 

Please feel free to answer as many or as few of these questions as you are able to. Any other relevant advice you have on the party composition or class builds is also welcome.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've started it up and so far things are mostly working out for me. I've decided that:

 

1) 10/3/10/19/18/19 - so far my Paladin is quite resilient with superlative defenses (save fortitude) despite the CON dump. Dumping more DEX for STR might have been a reasonable choice but I wanted my Paladin to not be too terribly slow.

 

2) I'm trying Zealous Focus due to my high int. It covers the whole party in my standard formation plus a little extra, and that's without resting bonuses. I'll just need to pay attention and bring my ranged attackers up a little closer whenever my Paladin advances.

 

3) I opted for Moon Godlike Monk to provide my party with some healing and allow him to make up for the damage he's going to take tanking/obtaining wounds. I decided my Barbarian is going to be primarily a Pike wielder so I opted for Hearth Orlan to get those extra crits for Tall Grass.

 

4) I looked around and it sounded like fists weren't optimal so I'm going Ruffian for Sabres.

 

5) I still haven't figured this one out but I'm not planning to take a weapon focus for several levels. Please let me know what you think.

 

6) I'm going with the Druid for now but if it doesn't seem to be necessary I might hire another adventurer as a Ranger or ranged Rogue.

Edited June 12, 2015 by HoopleDoople

[Nobear]

Sounds good.

 

5) I have heard that blunderbusses are the best weapons for ciphers, although I'm not 100% sure if that's still true. One of the drugs that increases their focus gain (Blasconn) was changed to be percentage based, so it wouldn't care what weapon type you're using as long as it's high DPS. The other drug (Golan Carow I think it's called) still gives a flat focus gain per hit, so blunderbusses would still be the best with that since they fire 6 pellets (6 separate hits) per shot. If you go with blunderbuss, you probably eventually want both Gunner and Penetrating Shot, so the low damage per pellet can pierce through DR effectively. See, guns spend far more time reloading than actually shooting, so reload speed gains are tremendous while attack speed losses aren't quite as bad.

 

6) I will tell you that I enjoyed ranger in Hard, and a ranger pet can even off tank in the early game on PoTD, but the problem comes that the pet doesn't scale with gear or level (aside from a fixed 3 DR boost which probably won't go far enough). Since you already have three melee, I think a fourth would be overkill, even a pet. What you'll find is that, in many cases where you are going through narrow spaces, that many melee can't all fit and get to the enemy. That's why I think you made a good choice with your barbarian being a second row guy who can reach.

 

Personally I love ranged chanters with their Sure-Handed Ila chant, which boosts both ranged attack speed AND reload speed by 20% (and yes, each one independently affects guns). Then again, I have three gun users and one other ranged in my party. Chanters also have lots of summons, which I think are better than a ranger pet, because you only use them when you need them. When you are in a narrow space, for instance, the chanter can do a different powerful spell instead. Druids can also summon blights, but I don't know how good these are. If my party had one less gun user, I'd be tempted to take druid over chanter. Ranged rogue is something I haven't tried, but I've heard they can be at least as high DPS as rangers without having to worry about a pet.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Nobear

[AshenPlanet]

1) dump con and dex, avg str, and max int/per/res.

2) Zealous Focus is the only good option unless you have multiple paladins...

3) Monk - human or godlike, and Barbarian orc (amanua) or halfling - I prefer human monk and orc barb, but not a huge difference in race for most classes.

4) melee weapons - spear, hatchet as these share your weapon focus group, crappy hatchets, but there are a couple very nice spears.  Hands are actually your best weapon if you went max str on your monk as hands benefit from str modifier twice, but if you went avg. str or low str, then other weapons are better - carry weapons and hands, monks get a free weapon slot since you always have hands available even if your weapon slots are both filled with weapons, so you can switch from hands to piercing against high bludgeoning DR.

5) Ciphers - hunting bows, although the good named hunting bow is very late game, and you can get nice warbows much earlier, in which case go adventurer and warbow if you don't want to make your own hunting bow and wait for the late game one.  You have intrinsic damage bonuses so you want a speedy weapon, avoid reloading if you are not using weapon switches.  Blunderbuss sucks for ciphers now.

6) Druid > priest.  Druid is also better than fighter starting at 9th level when you get unlimited spells.