[CLASS BUILD] Lady of Pain - High-speed, heavy-armored DPS Fighter

[Lampros]

As promised, here are some observations from my last play through:

• Triggered Immunity is a much better ability than I had initially thought. I gave it a spin and found it triggered more often than expected, making my character immune to the most immediate source of damage. It is a fine addition to any variant of this build, and I'd suggest taking it.
• Charge is basically the Fighter version of Flagellant's Path, and it deals a boatload of damage when your MIG's pumped. Being able to reach priority targets immediately and without a care for engagement or any physical obstacles has proven invaluable, to the point I now favor this ability over Sundering Blow. If you have two Fighters in your party, it might be a good idea to have Charge on one and Sundering Blow on the other—you never know when that -8 DR comes in handy—but if the Lady of Pain is your only Fighter, Charge is too good to pass.
• Potion of Llengrath's Displaced Image is an incredibly powerful consumable that I'd been iniquitously neglecting. +25 Deflection and +20 Reflex are a massive boost during tough fights; used in conjunction with Crowns for the Faithful, it can provide a whopping +50 Deflection at the beginning of the fight. It doesn't stack with Scroll of Defense, of course, but the latter still has value for everyone else in the party (and you get an extra +5 Deflection and +20 Reflex from the potion.) Totally worth having in your quick slots.
• Runner's Wounding Shot is good, but I found myself using it a lot less than I thought I would. Hobbled is a great affliction, but for as long as I have Knock Downs left, I'm gonna use those because prone enemies can't fight back. Once my Knock Downs are gone, I can usually get away with brute-forcing who's left and rarely need Runner's Wound Shot (however this might be due to my having Edér around for he, too, had this talent; things might be different if the LoP was the only one around that had it.) Many valid alternatives can be considered depending on your play style (Quick Switch or the damage vs. creature type talents being the most obvious candidates.)
• The Annihilation enchant appears to be actually working correctly, thus making the Lord of the Crits variant fully viable from right now. Rejoice!

Additionally, I have been following the discussion over Braven's excellent Fighter build, the Glass Tsunami. This inspired me to creating a fourth variant of the Lady of Pain, which I call—

 

 

Glass of Pain

Anything not explicitly mentioned below is to be considered unchanged from the build on post 96.

 

Attribute Scores

 

 

 

 

 

These are the final attribute scores, complete with a detailed breakdown:

 

MIG: 28 (18 base, +2 Aumaua, +1 The Living Lands, +1 Gift from the Machine, +1 Effigy's Resentment, +1 Galawain's Boon, +4 Maegfolc Skull)

 

CON: 7 (7 base)

 

DEX: 20 (17 base, +3 Ring of Thorns)

 

PER: 20 (15 base, +1 Song of the Heavens, +1 Mental Prowess, +3 Caed Nua resting bonus)

 

INT: 17 (12 base, +1 Mental Prowess, +4 Gwyn's Band of Union)

 

RES: 7 (6 base, +1 Mental Prowess)

 

Notes:

• Mental Prowess is the talent you get for choosing the peaceful solution to the fight with Llengrath. I'm keeping it into account at character creation to end up with a higher INT score; however, as Mental Prowess comes rather late in the game, you may want to start with 16 PER / 10 INT / 7 RES as with the regular LoP build and respec after getting the talent (if you're into this use of the respec feature.)
• The extra INT serves the purpose of extending the duration of your abilities—in particular Constant Recovery, which will make this variant virtually immortal. You can bring it up to 19 with Casità Casserole.

Talents & Abilities

 

 

 

Talents:

Weapon Focus

Weapon Mastery

Two-Handed Style

Bonus Knock Down

Savage Attack

Vulnerable Attack

Apprentice's Sneak Attack

Rapid Recovery

 

Notes:

• Even though I never list talents in a prescriptive order, for this variant I suggest taking Rapid Recovery earlier rather than later.

Abilities:

Knock Down

Disciplined Barrage

Confident Aim

Weapon Specialization

Armored Grace

Fearless OR Critical Defense

Charge

Triggered Immunity

 

 

 

Equipment

 

 

 

Head: Maegfolc Skull

Neck: Cloak of the Tireless Defender

Body: Sanguine Plate (enchanted to Legendary; Damage-proofed; Durgan-reinforced.)

Hands: Gauntlet's of Accuracy OR Gauntlets of Swift Action

Ring: Gwyn's Band of Union

Ring: Ring of Thorns

Boots: Frythr's Plated Greaves OR Boots of Speed OR Fenwalkers OR Boots of the Long March

Belt: Belt of Bountiful Healing

 

Notes:

• Maegfolc Skull is an all-around better choice than Sanguine Plate Helm for this build, even though I have generally stuck to the latter for aesthetic reasons. However, as MIG directly affects the amount of healing per tick you receive from Constant Recovery, for this variant it is important to pack as much as possible. The Skull also gives the Unbending ability, which is one of the staples of Braven's Glass Tsunami build; this way, you won't have to invest an ability point in it.
• Cloak of the Tireless Defender and Belt of Bountiful Healing complement your Constant Recovery + Rapid Recovery combo, which I suggest you further boost by selecting Heal Multiplier as your Survival resting bonus (with a score of 14 you should be able to get the third-tier version, which amounts to +60% healing received.) Add your stellar MIG score to the mix and, when fully buffed, your Endurance regeneration should be in the neighborhood of 22-23 per tick.
• As you're getting your MIG bonus from Maegfolc Skull, you no longer need to wear Pensiavi més Rei; better replace it with Gwyn's Band of Union to boost your INT and increase the duration of all your abilities—in particular, Constant Recovery.
• Last but not least, it seems that the healing from Shod-in-Faith doesn't stack with the bonus recovery from Cloak of the Tireless Defender. Better then to give the boots to someone else and replace them with another pair. My suggestion is Frythr's Plated Greaves, as their +3 DR bonus should stack with your armor's from patch 3.02 and will make up for the extra DR you lose by renouncing Hiro's Mantle (and will in fact be even better, as the bonus from the Greaves is universal.) The extra 5% attack speed penalty means you'll attack with 2% recovery instead of 0 if you play the 0-recovery variant—that's about 1 frame before DEX, so ... so close to 0 as it makes no difference. Alternatively, I offer a list of popular solutions above.

When all is said and done (and Champion's Boon is cast), this build's DR will look like this:

 

 

and all healing it receives will be increased by 169% (84% MIG + 60% Survival resting bonus + 25% Belt of Bountiful Healing). This means most enemies will hit for minimum damage all the time, and by the time they hit again, Constant Recovery will have ticked and healed you for 22-23 points of Endurance. For enemies who hit harder, there's Triggered Immunity. Voilà!

 

 

Does Runner's Wounding Shot work with melee weapons or do you need to switch to a ranged weapon?

 

Also, can I just replace the 2H related talents and weapons in this build with their dual wield equivalents?

 

Anyways, this is the closest build to the type of Fighter I want - lots of DPS and yet sturdy and can do quite a bit of CC as well.

[AndreaColombo]

Does Runner's Wounding Shot work with melee weapons or do you need to switch to a ranged weapon?

 

Also, can I just replace the 2H related talents and weapons in this build with their dual wield equivalents?

 

Going by memory, "Runner's Wounding Shot" works in melee as well (I definitely never switch to ranged with the LoP and wouldn't put a ranged-only talent in the build.)

 

And yes, you can definitely replace 2H talents with DW talents if you'd rather dual-wield

[Boeroer]

Runner's Wounding Shot does work with melee weapons.

[Lampros]

 

Does Runner's Wounding Shot work with melee weapons or do you need to switch to a ranged weapon?

 

Also, can I just replace the 2H related talents and weapons in this build with their dual wield equivalents?

 

Going by memory, "Runner's Wounding Shot" works in melee as well (I definitely never switch to ranged with the LoP and wouldn't put a ranged-only talent in the build.)

 

And yes, you can definitely replace 2H talents with DW talents if you'd rather dual-wield

 

 

Runner's Wounding Shot does work with melee weapons.

 

Got it; thanks, guys!

[Stonebridge809]

Just started tank of pain build, looks really interesting. What would be a good main tank option for this guy, as this looks like will be my off tank (should I dual wield vs bosses) or when tanking isn't needed. The buffs a paladin tank bring look good but not sure if Thier the best for getting agro or whether the barb golden build would b good with ACC reducing shouts.

Thanks

[diazexmachina]

On 10/9/2016 at 6:07 PM, AndreaColombo said:

If you want a higher RES score, check out the alternative stat array below.

Where is this "Alternative Stat Array" for Tank of Pain? I can't find it.

[Boeroer]

direct link without the fancy preview 'cause that sucks

 

Click on "Reveal Hidden Content" tag to open up the stat scores unter the caption  Attribute scores

   

Edited September 7, 2019 by Boeroer

[diazexmachina]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Click on "Reveal Hidden Content" tag to open up the stat scores unter the caption  Attribute scores

Yes, I know the Attribute scores are hidden in a spoiler, but in the same spoiler, after the Stat Array, the OP wrote "If you want a higher RES score, check out the alternative stat array below.". But I can't find any other array in the post. Am I missing something?

[Boeroer]

Under Want a tankier version? down below at the end of the post there's another spoiler tag which contains alternative stats ("stats" as a more brad term - not "attributes" like MIG, INT, RES and so on). I think that is the "stat array" he meant.

In there is a different set of items, including Argwe's Adra plate armor and the fitting Helmet which gives you +3 RES.

If you want even more RES just raise RES to 18 instead of 15 and drop three other attributes further (like DEX, PER and CON for example).

Edited September 7, 2019 by Boeroer

[diazexmachina]

Ok, thank you for the clarification @Boeroer

[li.co]

I know this is an older thread but still trying my luck. I want to use the Glass of Pain variant for a Mercenary but I can't find any recommended Weapon for it in this thread.

 

It says: "Anything not explicitly mentioned below is to be considered unchanged from the build on post 96"

 

But those have only weapons for all the other variants. Was the post maybe edited  and had the Weapon mentioned in the past but then was updated for the other builds and Andrea forgot to readd it?

 

Does anyone maybe know what it was? Appreciate the help.

[li.co]

Sorry I can't seem to edit my previous posts since they have to be verified first it seems.

 

Also Andrea states Aumaua as the race but is it Coastal or Island? They don't say it anywhere or at least I can't find it and if I had to guess it would be Coastal since there are no alternate Weapons for the other slots mentioned I think.

[Boeroer]

16 hours ago, li.co said:

Does anyone maybe know what it was? Appreciate the help.

The post he was referring to said about weapon choice:
 

• 0-recovery variant: Blade of the Endless Paths (comes late)
• Hulk Smash variant: Abydon's Hammer (comes even later)
• Lord of the Crits variant:  The Hours of St. Rumbalt (early)

The original weapon choice of the LoP was Tidefall (early). Andrea didn't know that the wounding lash on that great sword scales with Might - and since the LoP build has very high Might it may actually be the highest dps variant overall, despite the Blade of the Endless Paths having higher speed.

I personally would settle for Tidefall or the Hours of St. Rumbalt because you can get them rel. early which means you can play with your preferred weapon for a much longer time.

 

16 hours ago, li.co said:

Also Andrea states Aumaua as the race but is it Coastal or Island? They don't say it anywhere or at least I can't find it and if I had to guess it would be Coastal since there are no alternate Weapons for the other slots mentioned I think.

It doesn't really matter because he only picked Aumaua because of the Might bonus. So either will do. What you like better. You could also go Dwarf - I think Andrea didn't pick that because it also gets -1 DEX which means a little bit less potential dps. But then again Boreal Dwarfs get +15 ACC against Primordial and Wilder which can be a huge dps raise in certain fights, for example against Lagufaeth in the White March, Xaurips in the early game and so on. 

Edited April 17 by Boeroer

[li.co]

Thank you so much Boeroer you're truly awesome.