Devil of Caroc - how to make her viable? [Hard mode]

[Yosharian]

So apparently Devil is a rather unconventional 'rogue'...  I haven't picked her up yet but from what I gather she has odd stats, locked breastplate armour (ew) and other quirks.

 

I'm currently playing on Hard difficulty.  I'd love to use her in order to enjoy her character, dialogue etc, but I'm really unsure how to build her in order to make her work on this difficulty mode.  This is my party:

 

Me: Barbarian 2H with high Con, Int and Str (Greatsword user, Firebrand at first then Tidefall later)

Main Tank: Zahua using KDubya's Juggernaut build

???: Devil of Caroc

Ranged DPS/Buffs/Disable: Hiravias

Ranged DPS/Offtank: Sagani (pet build at the moment)

Buffs/DPS: Durance

 

My Barbarian build, in case you care:

 

BARBARIAN

 

Mgt: 18

Con: 15

Dex: 4

Per: 18

Int: 20

Res: 3

 

Abilities:

----------

1 Frenzy

3 Savage Defiance

5 One Stands Alone

7 Thick-Skinned

9 Barbaric Shout

11 Heart of Fury

13 Dragon Leap

 

Talents:

--------

2 Gallant's Focus

4 Weapon Focus: Soldier

6 Two-Handed Style

8 Accurate Carnage

10 Greater Frenzy

12 Apprentice's Sneak Attack 

14 Stalwart Defiance

 

I'm using Eder at the moment so Zahua will replace him as main tank while Devil will function as... offtank?  Melee DPS?  More ranged DPS?  (yawn)  I'm really not sure.

 

The only useful information I've found so far is something I found in another thread courtesy of Torm51:
 

 

shes a good front liner that hits super hard and isn't your run of the mill weakling rogue. I toss her reinforcing Exhortation and her deflection is 115 + and she beats the crap out of mobs with her 100 accuracy. I only Play Trial of Iron PoTD and use her this way and she mashes. Her + a Wizard debuffing and deathblows turned the Alpine Dragon into PASTE with Bittercut it wasn't even close 50 + damage hits on a high DR mob LOL

 

 

I don't have a wizard, have no idea what reinforcing Exhortation is or what Bittercut is.  So... Torm seems to think she can be built as a front liner, which would work quite well in my party.  I'd love a clearer explanation of this type of build, if anyone understands it.

 

KDubya adds:

 

(I have no idea what Durgan Steel is.)

 

Upgrade her armor to at least exceptional, slap on a +2 attribute, slash or pierce proof for another +4 (like all armor enhancing a DR that is boosted by the base armor boosts your enchantment as well), and then use Durgan steel on her to drop armor penalty to only 25% but protects like plate.

 

Between her heavy armor and high resolve she was made for tanking. Give her a shield and a reinforcing exhortation and she is around 115 deflection which is decidedly not squishy.

 

For further enhancement durgan steel her shield and weapon for another +30% attack speed buff.

 

From a math standpoint she does fine as long as you embrace her strengths, which is tankyness.

 

From a role play and voice acting standpoint she is a definite keeper.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Yosharian

[PrimeJunta]

Reinforcing Exhortation is a paladin ability that temporarily buffs a comrade.

 

Bittercut is a pretty powerful magic sabre you can find.

 

Rogues aren't as robust as fighters or paladins, and need to be actively managed or they'll go down pretty fast. There are lots of ways you can do this -- equip them with items that let them get out of trouble (e.g. boots of speed), give them talents that let you do this (Escape, Shadowing Beyond), buff them (Reinforcing Exhortation), and so on. They won't survive for long in the front line without such help.

[Yosharian]

Reinforcing Exhortation is a paladin ability that temporarily buffs a comrade.

 

Bittercut is a pretty powerful magic sabre you can find.

 

Rogues aren't as robust as fighters or paladins, and need to be actively managed or they'll go down pretty fast. There are lots of ways you can do this -- equip them with items that let them get out of trouble (e.g. boots of speed), give them talents that let you do this (Escape, Shadowing Beyond), buff them (Reinforcing Exhortation), and so on. They won't survive for long in the front line without such help.

Ok, I don't have a Pally but I do have a Druid and a Priest.

 

I have levelled a Rogue before so I'm familiar with the Rogue abilities that allow escape.

[KDubya]

Whenever I use Devil I never take the typical rogue escape type abilities, I play her more as a damaging fighter type.. Weapon and Shield style, a good sabre and she can survive on PotD in melee combat. I have her start in the second row, start with a pistol shot and then run around and flank the frontline. Unlike a typical rogue she can stand in the fray and doesn't need to run away if engaged.

 

A Paladin makes everything better, especially Devil. A Reinforcing Exhortation will get you +25 deflection for like 25 seconds and a Paladin gets two of them. This bonus +25 deflection is what gets Devil into the 100+ range where the incoming damage is mitigated by a preponderance of grazes instead of hits. Having a Paladin run the Zealous Endurance aura for extra DR and additional hit>graze conversions also greatly enhances the teams survival in melee. With this sort of set up you'll kill the enemy slower but your team will take a lot less damage in doing so.

 

Durgan Steel is what you get after White March pt 1 after you clear Durgan's Battery. It can be used to enchant your items and generally adds to attack rate depending on what you use it on.

[Yosharian]

Whenever I use Devil I never take the typical rogue escape type abilities, I play her more as a damaging fighter type.. Weapon and Shield style, a good sabre and she can survive on PotD in melee combat. I have her start in the second row, start with a pistol shot and then run around and flank the frontline. Unlike a typical rogue she can stand in the fray and doesn't need to run away if engaged.

 

A Paladin makes everything better, especially Devil. A Reinforcing Exhortation will get you +25 deflection for like 25 seconds and a Paladin gets two of them. This bonus +25 deflection is what gets Devil into the 100+ range where the incoming damage is mitigated by a preponderance of grazes instead of hits. Having a Paladin run the Zealous Endurance aura for extra DR and additional hit>graze conversions also greatly enhances the teams survival in melee. With this sort of set up you'll kill the enemy slower but your team will take a lot less damage in doing so.

 

Durgan Steel is what you get after White March pt 1 after you clear Durgan's Battery. It can be used to enchant your items and generally adds to attack rate depending on what you use it on.

I see.  Do you think she's workable in this role without the Paladin buff?

[PrimeJunta]

At least I think she'll be entirely workable in that role without the paladin buff. Use priestly buffs instead, debuff enemy Accuracy with the druid and wizard, and find ways of getting her out of trouble if she gets into it.

 

(Paladins are freakin' awesome by the way. Probably my favorite class in fact. They're a real "force multiplier" -- with a paladin onboard, everybody else just works better to start with, and s/he can get them out of trouble like nothing else.)

[Yosharian]

So I decided to go with nerdcommando's Golden Axe rogue build (look here http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844) with some slight changes.

 

Role: offtank/disabler.  The idea is to focus entirely on crits, with some survivability as a secondary priority.

 

2Weapon And Shield

3Reckless Assault

4Shadowing Beyond (I feel this is more useful than Deflecting Assault early on - can't imagine a rogue without this!)

5Dirty Fighting

6Vicious Fighting

7Crippling Strike (since Devil begins with Blinding Strike (ugh) I thought I'd get this rather than the sub-par Deep Wounds)

8Superior Deflection

9Finishing Blow (accuracy bonus helps us crit)

10Weapon Focus: Knight (for Battleaxe specialization)

11Deathblows

12Deflecting Assault

13Withering Strike

14Bloody Slaughter

 

Rejected talents/abilities:

 

One-Handed Style-does not produce crits

Savage Attack-accuracy is too important

Vulnerable Attack-don't care enough about DR bypass

Backstab-too situational

Escape-1 use per encounter is trash

Riposte-misses too unreliable

Deep Wounds-damage is negligible with this build

 

I didn't bother with Adept Evasion because Devil's stats are so piss-poor that I don't feel she has enough reflex to make it worthwhile.

 

Since her main weapon is a Battleaxe (slashing damage) she will need alternate damage sources for certain creatures (cheat sheet: http://orcz.com/Pillars_of_Eternity:_Monster_Strengths_and_Weaknesses), this will almost universally be crushing damage (only creature that resists slashing AND crushing is Flesh Construct, everything else that resists slash is weak/weaker against crush), so the use of a mace/club/war hammer will be useful against those creature types, or you can use a morningstar I suppose.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Yosharian

[evilcat]

I think that idea for Devil with Sword and Board is good, but i still dont feel good about it.

Each class can do antything (range, s&b...) but some classes are just predestined to go one specific way.

Like Paladin has this defenses bonuses, so using it for getting agro is more rewarding, while going for ranged paladin is a bit of waste.

And rogue has a bonus of multiplying dmg, and not using that to deal even more dmg is a loss.

Maybe S&B devil is the best we can squize from the tincan, but it is not the best use of rogue in the 1st place.

[HawkSoft]

I equip Devil with spear (for accuracy) and shield then use her for nailing prone and blinded foes.

[DreamWayfarer]

I think that idea for Devil with Sword and Board is good, but i still dont feel good about it.

Each class can do antything (range, s&b...) but some classes are just predestined to go one specific way.

Like Paladin has this defenses bonuses, so using it for getting agro is more rewarding, while going for ranged paladin is a bit of waste.

And rogue has a bonus of multiplying dmg, and not using that to deal even more dmg is a loss.

Maybe S&B devil is the best we can squize from the tincan, but it is not the best use of rogue in the 1st place.

First, ranged Kind Wayfarers can and do rock. Second, there is such a thing as an off-tank Damage Dealer. Edited December 30, 2015 by DreamWayfarer

[Zenbane]

Great choice on the rogue axe build. I plan to use it after the next update.

[Boeroer]

I used a rogue with Badgradr's Barricade which has bash and limitless spell strikings of Thrust of Tattered Veils when you crit. This shield profits from high crit chance and you will still have high defenses. There's a bug though: Two Weapon Style doesn't apply to bash - but it's in the bug database and should be fixed soon.

[Yosharian]

I swapped Withering Strike and Finishing Blow in the build order because I like the way the AI uses skills effectively and having one more per-encounter way of enabling Sneak Attacks (and other similar effects, for example bonus damage on Sagani's pet) is more useful to me at the moment than a per-rest ability like Finishing Blow.

 

 

I think that idea for Devil with Sword and Board is good, but i still dont feel good about it.

Each class can do antything (range, s&b...) but some classes are just predestined to go one specific way.

Like Paladin has this defenses bonuses, so using it for getting agro is more rewarding, while going for ranged paladin is a bit of waste.

And rogue has a bonus of multiplying dmg, and not using that to deal even more dmg is a loss.

Maybe S&B devil is the best we can squize from the tincan, but it is not the best use of rogue in the 1st place.

Hmmm, in some ways I agree that it's perhaps not the best use of a Rogue but I really like the way she force multiplies everyone else's damage by offering consistent and reliable per-encounter hobbles, blinds, weakens, etc, allowing my other damage dealers to take advantage.

 

I do agree that it's kind of like putting a square peg in a round hole though.  Devil's stats are also miserable and she is missing a talent point I believe.

 

The main objective for me was to find a way to use Devil reasonably so I could enjoy her dialogue.  Otherwise I'd just have brought in a custom-made hireling.