[CLASS BUILD] The Leech (barbarian time bandit tank)

[Boeroer]

Eleven-year-old Maira lived in the White that Wends and had a vivid imagination and was fascinated by histories, particularly of Ancient Engwyth; her parents ignored her activities, having become more obsessed with hunting seals and fish and extending their igloo to keep up with their neighbours. One night, as Maira was sleeping, an armoured knight on a horse bursted out of her icy wardrobe. Maira was scared and hided as the knight rode off into a forest setting where once her bedroom wall was; when Maira looked back out, the room was back to normal and she found one of her ice cravings on the wall similar to the forest she saw. The next night she prepared a satchel with supplies, but was surprised when six boreal dwarves spilled out of her wardrobe. Maira quickly learned the group had stolen a large, worn map, and were looking for an exit from Maira's room before they are discovered. They found that Maira's bedroom wall can be pushed, revealing a long hallway. Maira was hesitant to join until the visage of a menacing aurochs – a supreme being – appeared behind them, demanding the return of the map. Maira and the dwarves fell into an empty void at the end of the hallway.

 

They landed on an island in the Deadfire Archipelago during a battle over said island. As they recovered, Maira learned that Randaluq was the lead dwarf of the group. They were once employed by the supreme being to repair holes in the barrier between the world and Rymrgand's domain called "Frost Hewn Breaches", but instead realized the potential to use the map he gave them to steal riches. Over the following years, with the map and Maira's help, they visited several locations, stole a lot of riches and later developed a strategy that good-looking and exotic Maira would seduce and then beat up wealthy people to get their riches - which wasn't very nice of them to be honest. She soon was known as "The Leech" because of that.

 

One day one of those people turned out to be a powerful animancer and engineer who wanted to visit the old Engwythan ruins in order to learn more about soul manipulation and the technology the old builders used. He wanted to leave for the Dyrwood and secretly enter some of those ruins that the Glanfathans are guarding. He also wanted to assemble an expedition for that. What he didn't want was to be robbed by some notorious boreal dwarfes, so he launched a barrage of missiles from the awesome armor he invented and burned them to dust - sparing Maira because he was not only a mighty animancer and engineer but also a lecherous old fart. Maira remembered that she always wanted to see all these engwythian things when she was a kid. So they went out for the Dyrwood. The Engineer got slapped a lot on the way...

 

 

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The Leech

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Difficulty: PotD

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Class: Barbarian

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Race: Pale Elf

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Background: Deadfire Archipelago - Mercenary 

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Stats:

 

MIG: 10

CON: 10

DEX: 20  

PER: 10 

INT: 18

RES: 10

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Skills: Stealth 4, Athl. 5, Mech 0, Surv. 9, Lore 8

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Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)

Accurate Carnage®

Greater Frenzy®

Stalwart Defiance(!)

Weapon Focus Noble(!)

Weapon & SHield Style(!)

Savage Attack

Vulnerable Attack®

 

Abilities

Elemental Endurance(a)

Carnage(a)

Frenzy(!)

Thick Skinned®

Threatening Presence®

Savage Defiance(!)

One Stands Alone®

Brute Force (! if you have a priest with Painful Interdiction, else take smth. different)

Bloodlust

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Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended):

 

Weapon set 1: Spelltongue(!) (Durgan Refined*, Slaying Wilder*, Exceptional*, Accurate 1, Time Siphon, Spellbind: Conc. Corr. Siphon) & Black Sanctuary

Weapon Set 2: The Grey Sleeper ® or St. Ydwen's Redeemer

 

Boots: Boots of Stability®

 

Head: Dunryd Demon® (+2 INT) or Garodh's Chorus v. 2 (+3 MIG, Preservation)

 

Armor: Blaidh Golan® (Exceptional*, Break Out, Preservation, Durgan Reinforced*, +2 DEX*, Crush Proofed*) or

       Wayfarer's Hide (Superb, Freedom, Durgan Reinforced*, +1 INT*, Crush Proofed*, Spellbind:Nature's Vigor)

 

Neck: Cloak of Protection

 

Belt: Blunting Belt®

 

Rings: Ring of Overseeing®, Ring of Unshackling(!)

 

Hands: Bracers of Deflection

 

Quick slots: selfbuffing Potions & Scrolls

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First of all: I mainly used a pale elf because a) the colors of pale elves (light blue, white and so on) fit to Spelltongue's blue tone and b) because they have nice elemental resistances.

 

The Leech is a tank with good dps. How is this build going to be a tank with this stupid stats you say? Well... the key of his tankyness is the fact that Spelltongue endlessly prolongs ALL buffs on The Leech as long as she's hitting foes. That means that Greater Frenzy will be active until the end of an encounter, but also that the healing and defense bonuses of Stalwart Defiance never expire. Same goes for all buffs that The Leech receives from his friends (in my case Sheemer's Needler, a skaen priestess). At lvl 14, after Frenzy & Stalwart Defiance were cast and a potion of Llengrath's was drunk, all defenses were around 120. But the real trick that adds A LOT of tankyness is the Ring of Unshackling (or the preist spell or the ability of the paladin): You can cast this on The Leech when combat starts and before she gets afflicted by anything. She will then walk into the fray and prolong the suppression of afflictions forever. She will get hit by them eventually because 120 defense is no guarantee to be spared, but you won't notice until the fight is over. There are some afflictions that don't get suppressed, so you want to make sure that her defenses are high. The worst thing that can happen is that The Leecher gets knocked down or paralyzed at the beginning of a fight when the durations of her buffs have not been prolonged yet. However, that happenend only once in my playthrough because I didn't prebuff her correctly.

 

The damage of Spelltongue is rather low - but with Vulnerable Attack it's ok against low to mid DR foes. Because of 22 DEX and Frenzy's +33% attack speed (remember - that lasts forever) you hit very fast and that's important because you want to siphon as fast as possible to stack durations. Recovery bar shows up, but just for a fraction of a second. You will interrupt a lot, but these are rather short. Anyway, it helps. The damage of Spelltongue was ok for me - but if you want more DPS you can easily skip Vulnerable Attack, take Quick Switch and use the Grey Sleeper or St. Ydwen's Redeemer in your second weapon slot. When your buff durations got extended, switch to the two hander and deal some good damage to the mob - then switch back to further extend the buffs. Works like a chram but requires some micro - so I didn't do that. As I said: Spelltongue's damage was enough for me.

 

 

Your next question might be: "But the low PER! How on earth will you hit something on PoTD?" Good question - I also wasn't sure if this is the right strategy, but it turned out that this really wasn't a problem at all. First of all: Spelltongue has Accuracy 1 - as all rapiers have. That compensates for the low PER and is enough for the common mob. Then there are some nice priest buffs and consumables like potion of Eldrith Aim and Scroll of Valor and so on. Sine they never expire in a fight, I'm more willing to use them. Against tough enemies these things give enough bonus to land a lot of hits/crits without the need of having maxed PER.

 

I just took this build and solo'ed the Nalrend bounty in order to really test the tankyness. By the way I always choose this bounty quest because it's a pain in the a**. All this Plagues of Insects and the knockdowns can put you down real fast if you're too squishy. If you can solo it then you're good I say. So - she killed the horde on her own and had 100% endurance and 50% health left. I call that a win.

 

Works even better (let'S say extremely well) with a priest as you might guess. With a fortitude debuff of more than 40 points and brute force crits start to fly around a lot (siphoning even more time and doing more dps).

 

Oooph... now I'm tired... have fun!

Edited April 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

:D

[Abbzug]

That's really clever.

[limaxophobiacq]

Can only echo Abbzug and say that's a really smart use of spelltongue.

 

Wouldn't you get better dps if you switch ring of overseeing for a ring of deflection so you can substitute bracers of deflection for gauntlets of accuracy or vambracers though? You already have pretty good AoE expecially if you are wearing Dunryd Demon over Gharod's Chorus.

Edited December 8, 2015 by limaxophobiacq

[Boeroer]

Thank you.

 

Yes, you could do that. I like to split the good gear over the whole party and don't put it all onto one char. So in theory you could take all my builds an put them into one party and they won't have to share items. Maybe it doesn't work out 100%, but I try. E.g. Ryona's Vambraces I desperately need for the Backlash Beldam. Gauntlets of ACC maybe an option though since I didn't use them yet for one of my builds that I posted. To be honest I think you could just skip all the +deflection items because with the buffs and all you can get enough long lasting deflection if needed. Or you could just skip the shield and go for dual wielding instead (maybe with a mace).

 

But I think the easiest way to cheese out a lot more damage would indeed be quick switch and another high damage weapon set. The durations of Frenzy and Stalwart Defiance get up very quickly and you'll have enough time to switch and wreak havok before you would have to go back to Spelltongue. The +15% of attack speed that Spelltongue steals also apply to the second weapon set - that's great. But that also needs a lot of microing because of the manual switching. 

Edited December 8, 2015 by Boeroer

[Abbzug]

Yah I like the use of spelltongue to buff an offset. Soulbounds are a good choice. Daggers maybe even since march steel and the superb one isn't bad, plus you get the flick of the wrist bonus if you need a little more accuracy.

[AndreaColombo]

Subscribe spell = cast.

[Boeroer]

Firebrand would also be a good choice for the second weapon slot I guess. Does anybody know if it also has this "flexible" weapon focus like Concelhaut's Staff, Citzal's Lance and the soulbound weapons (I mean that no matter which weapon focus you have, it applies to it)? 

 

I lately realized that despite the description of Firebrand I can't switch weapon slots any more if I cast it. Is this a bug?

Edited December 9, 2015 by Boeroer

[Vorad]

Yet another interesting build, good job!

 

I have to make one remark only regarding the "supress afflicion" last time I checked it after the new patch a few weeks ago, it seems it only suppresses current afflictions. I was using it to prevent early game stun/confusion and casting it beforehand wasn't helping at all, the spell was only suppressing current active afflictions so I could only cast it after my guy got stunned then it would suppress it but only the current stun which meant another minion could re-stun him after suppress was cast rinse and repeat. It seems it can't work proactively. On a second note paladin's liberating exhortations seem to work a bit differently because in that case not only it would suppress the active afflictions but it also provides full immunity to any new attempts while the duration lasts.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Vorad

[PrimeJunta]

Damn it Boeroer, you're really good at finding ways to break the game. I would never have thought of this way of using Spelltongue.

[Boeroer]

Yet another interesting build, good job!

 

I have to make one remark only regarding the "supress afflicion" last time I checked it after the new patch a few weeks ago, it seems it only suppresses current afflictions. I was using it to prevent early game stun/confusion and casting it beforehand wasn't helping at all, the spell was only suppressing current active afflictions so I could only cast it after my guy got stunned then it would suppress it but only the current stun which meant another minion could re-stun him after suppress was cast rinse and repeat. It seems it can't work proactively. On a second note paladin's liberating exhortations seem to work a bit differently because in that case not only it would suppress the active afflictions but it also provides full immunity to any new attempts while the duration lasts.

Really? That's good to know. I never had that issues - but I never used that spell a lot before this build. Maybe it counts as "reapplied"  when Spelltongue prolongs the duration of Suppress Affliction? As if it was cast again on me?

Or my defenses where high enough at that time when I used the ring that it didn't really matter. I had this idea quite late in my hasty playthrough. But on the other hand:  I remember reading a lot of (suppressed) status effects on my barb all the time after putting on the ring.

 

However: I will test that excessively in the next days to clear this up.

 

The remark concerning Liberating Exhortation is good info. This will work perfectly well on the barb I guess. Same with Hastening Exhortation and stuff.

[Vorad]

ah I haven't tried it with spelltongue just the spell itself from priest or ring, perhaps with spelltongue it refreshes on every hit in which case it would be really nice. Te pala buffs would really be superb on him yes admitably those are among the best single target buffs in game. Keep up the good job!

[mosspit]

Wow it will be something else if spelltongue interacts with suppress affliction like that. If that's the case then theoretically you can very easily shrug off any affliction that doesn't prevent actions. Even domination can be self removed if the dominated char hits someone else under the effects of SA (Domination can be removed by SA cast) . Very close to affliction immunities.

 

Sadly, I can't test post-2.0 weapons and abilities easily.

[AndreaColombo]

^ how so?

[mosspit]

I was referring to the part where Spelltongue "reapplies " Suppress Affliction effects instead of just extending its duration. That would be very neat if the interaction was as such 

Edited December 10, 2015 by mosspit

[AndreaColombo]

^ I meant, how come it is harder for you to test things post 2.0?

 

Boeroer - what does the Preservation ability do on the alternative version of the helm? I've always taken the other one.

Edited December 10, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[mosspit]

Oh that... all of my playthroughs past 2.0 are ToI so testing isn't convenient.

 

Oh and I might as well also provide the alternate version of the helm. It is Retaliation.

 

Edited December 10, 2015 by mosspit

[L4wlight]

Here is the alternate version.

[Boeroer]

It's the same enchantment as on Blaidh Golan e.g. (the hide armor you can find in the Brackenbury Sanatorium in Cadman Azo's place). It's very good for a frontliner. Reatliation is ok if you know how to employ it, but this one is better I think. However - the dialogue options to get it are somewhat painful.

 

Edit: I also had a screenshot made - but L4wlight was quicker.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

Thanks! Pretty underwhelming alternative compared to Retaliation; pity.

[Boeroer]

Wha? Are you serious? There are a lot of retaliation items but few with Preservation. It's very handy when you get stunned or knocked down. Your defenses will still be high and you don't get pummeled to death.

 

You can't stack it by the way.

[AndreaColombo]

In absolute terms, I consider Retaliation to be a better and more powerful ability than Preservation. Sure, the former is more common but I can't complain, since it is also more effective

[Boeroer]

I think it's overrated. There are exceptions like tanky rogues with Deep Wounds and melee ciphers though.

[B4nJ0]

Spelltongue is by far the best weapon in the game if you know how to abuse it, it's so cheesy that is not even fun 

Edited December 13, 2015 by B4nJ0

[Lurch3d]

Has anyone tested the viability of triggering fighting spirit as a human with this build by chance? I assume if you let your barbarian go below 50% endurance on purpose, spelltongue would keep the bonus active indefinitely. For nature godlikes it apparently wouldn't work, since their ability is tied directly to their endurance pool. Also a wild orlan with defiant resolve should work as well, given a will attack source?

 

Also, for those who don't care to switch weapons constantly, why not simply dual wield spelltongue with sword of daenysis or march steel dagger? Wouldn't durgan steel enhanced weapons, one with attack speed steal, the other with attack speed bonus, two weapon style, forgemasters gloves, frenzy, bloodlust, potions etc. give you enough speed to still use vulnerable attack and/or armor?

Edited December 16, 2015 by Lurch3d