[Solo PotD Priest Build] Pale Knight

[Dr <3]

Aka Everyone favorite Bloody Frenzied Priest

[i will borrow a template from Boeroer, since i liked his guides a lot]

 

Disclaimer : i own the Italian version of the game, so if some name is improperly translated in English i bag your pardon

 

This is a build i tested for solo in normal game for fun, but i founded to be pretty effective also in Path of the Damned, so i wanted to share to interested people. With this build the priest is still able to dish out tons of dmg just with spells, BUT is ALSO able to perform 60-70 dmg crit and permastun on the majority of enemy, so is just more fun to play and need less rest. At higher lvls lot  of encounter can be won just spamming lvl 1-3 spells and with your huge sword

 

===================================

Pale knight

===================================

Difficulty: PotD v. 2.03

--------------------------------------------------------------

Class: Priest - Berath

--------------------------------------------------------------

Race: Human

--------------------------------------------------------------

Background: The Living Lands - Scientist

--------------------------------------------------------------

Stats:

 

MIG: 16

CON: 8

DEX: 18

PER: 10

INT: 16

RES: 10

--------------------------------------------------------------

Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 4, Lore 7, Mech. 11, Surv. 5

--------------------------------------------------------------

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

 

Pale Hand (!) --> is why we are death knights of berath

Sword and shield (!) --> survival and reflex

Soldier weapon ® --> more hits and crits

Deep pockets ® --> i want a lot of summons in some fights, hate micro from the backpack for items and food

Flame heir (+ 20 dmg with fire spells talent) (!) --> always pick this with priest

Gallant focus ®  --> +4 precision with weapon AND spells is more than ok

Apprentice sneack attack --> more dmg, very easy to enable, is +15% dmg with our one hand weapon AND our 2-h weapon, so we pick this over 2h style

 

Story talents:

Merciless hand (!) --> more crit dmg

Dungeon explorer (!) --> even a bit more

Machinery gift ®

Blooded hunter

Song of the skyes ® --> +1 per for free

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

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

 

Weapon set 1:

- mace --> crow wing --> nightshroud (!)

- small shield --> sura supper plate --> aila breccia (!) (*Exceptional, *Durgan Refined)

 

Weapon set 2 :

- Long sword --> The Hours of saint Rumbaldt (!) (*Excellent, * Durgan Refined * Corrosive lash)

 

Boots: healing boots from crucible knight (!) , take also boots of stability / echo of affliction boots for swich in some fights

 

Head: pilgrim vigil --> Garodh chorus (!) (the best version for the buils should be the defensive one, but we are death knights, so no one may touch us for free, so we pick the offensive one)

 

Armor: Plate from baker in first village --> Sanguine plate (!) (* exceptional, * anti-perforation * Durgan Refined) / Blaid Golan (* exceptional, * Durgan , + 2 int ) for some fight with heavy stunners or for late game if we need fater caster speed

 

Neck: anything --> Ruehpek mk 2 ® (+ 2 per; + 2 enemy for flank)

 

Belt: belt of blunt (?) [buyable in the first village] --> belt of quick swich, + 15 precision to traps ®

 

Rings: Ring of deflection +9 , Ring of resolution + 3, domination (ogre from stalwart)

 

Hands: Rotfinger gloves --> Gauntel of precision ® / of swift action

 

Quick slots:  Potion of Alacrity, Potion of healing, all summons you want

 

 

 

Style:

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Ok so the strategy for the majority of encounter is plain straight : start with a trap (usally the stun trap spell lvl2) and with mace and shield. Aggro the monsters. Monster become stunned for 13 sec (or 20+ if crits. More if we are in avatar form). Cast a second seal over the mobs so when the first wake up are all stunned again. Cast some dmg spells. When there are only 1-2 mobs alive swich to great sword and permastun them while dealing massive critical attacks. In the meantime the boots take us alive and the sanguine plate give us good attack speed to help the dmg    

 

 

Notes :

- Mechanic boost a lot the precision of your traps, so you can spam lvl 2-3-4 trap for all the game with high chance of hits and crits, misses are really rare

   correction after testing: mechanics don't affect traps accuracy anymore, the +15 accuracy coming from belt work on traps (normal traps) but NOT on sigils (spells), so apart from the quick swich is not useful as i previously thought. Feel free to use a belt of your choice.

- Fast swich belt is very useful because we need to change  often from defensive to offensive  build during the fight. Permastun and dmg come from the great sword, survivability and reflex from mace and shield. Mace max lvl also permits you to escape in case of danger (1 per rest shadowing beyond ). Aila breccia durgan refined do wonders vs caster and ranged attackers, if you boost deflection  lot of attacks are reflected with devastating effect.

- We take Dex over all for fast casting, maybe at the beginning of the game you can take it down for Per, and respect later when you actually needed fast cast speed

- We need NOT max precision also if this is a crit build only because the priest have a lot of insane self buff, so dex is more useful in cast the buff fast so they are actually usable. The same is for INT, we need longer buff, so we don't need to recast to much and can focus on dmg dealing

- You can stop lore at lvl 6, but with 7 and the ancient rite scroll we have all the 10 point to cast anything we may need

- We don't need the +6 precision talent with mace because we use a soulbound one that takes also the bonus applied to the greatsword

- Stealth is for pussies, we are made to kill thing, not run like rats. Go for Skaen in that case, not to the mighty Berath

 

 

16-1-16 editing :

- sorry for the color, background on the "Pc version" was black, i didn't consider the mobile one

- i'm not able to upload img, i will work on that

Edited January 16, 2016 by Dr <3

[Dr <3]

Aspect

 

 

 

Stats

 

 

 

Boosted stats

 

 

[gogocactus]

The text of your post is written in white, so at first sight the text seems invisible.

 

I did read your build though. I love it and I'm going to try it out on my next playthrough .

[Kardgar]

good setup, some general thoughts. Early on the priests will need to supplement with melee. Late game they won't need it, and I recommend taking the extra fourth level spell so you can stack shining beacon. This pretty much melts everything in mass. There are a couple of fire immune mobs in Craghodlt that you'll need melee for so you might require a respec to sort that place out. 

 

Late game I'll open with a trap at max range and shoot an iconic projection off into the fog off war. This will agro whatever pack you're fighting. You immediately get one or two buffs up depending on the encounter and you've basically won. Crown of the Faithful is fantastic, nothing like 35 resolve to ensure some staying power, toss up avatar and spam two shining beacons and another trap and you've won. You can reasonably do 3-4 fights per rest.

 

I did something similar as you've described and ended up dumping all melee prowess in favor of full defense late game since I was all spells at that stage.

[Boeroer]

The mobile version of the forums has a white background. Yellow on white is a bit hard to read.

[Boeroer]

Great! Thanks a lot.

[Boeroer]

Nice build.

 

Your statements concerning Gallant's Focus and Apprentice's Sneak Attack totally make sense.

 

You could also get Flick of the Wrist from playing "Orlan's Head" in the Gref's Rest in Stalwart. It also works for all Soulbound Weapons. But there's a bug at the moment: it doesn't stack with the Pale Hand (or any other +ACC talent from the other gods). Hopefully this will get fixed. The talent from playing "Dozens" in the cellar might also help a tiny bit with survivability.

 

Mechanics don't have any effects on priest's seals anymore. But maybe the Coil of Resourcefulness (quick switch belt, +15 ACC on traps) still works with seals. Seals have a very high ACC by themselves because they are seen as hazards - hence the high chance of hitting/critting. But since you want to have mechanics in a solo run anyway it doesn't really matter.

 

P.s.: I would really love to see an enchantment called "anti-perforation". Lovely. It's like my "Wuthering Strike" I posted the other day or AndreaColombo's "Buttercut". :D

Edited January 16, 2016 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

For solo PoTD you definitely need more PER.

Otherwise awesome build.

[Dr <3]

[...]

 

Mechanics don't have any effects on priest's seals anymore. But maybe the Coil of Resourcefulness (quick switch belt, +15 ACC on traps) still works with seals. Seals have a very high ACC by themselves because they are seen as hazards - hence the high chance of hitting/critting. But since you want to have mechanics in a solo run anyway it doesn't really matter.

[...]

 

you are right, after some testing i can confirm that mechanics don't affect traps accuracy anymore, and the +15 accuracy coming from belt work only on traps (normal traps) and NOT on sigils (spells), so apart from the quick swich is not useful as i previously thought. Feel free to use a belt of your choice.

 

 

For solo PoTD you definitely need more PER.

Otherwise awesome build.

 

After Prone (-10 def) inflicted by the sigil and + 20 acc from Devotion for the faithful, wich is like a plain +30 acc for us i never felt i missed PER. Maybe at the beginning of the game you can exchange PER with DEX since you don't cast much, but from midgame DEX is just better.

 

At higher lvl just avatar and storm of holy fire clean the vast majority of "not fire proof" mobs (with mace and shield you can stay in the middle of the storm and wach monsters around die) i just don't use it all the time because ruin the fun to use the sword   

[Mocker22]

I doubt more PER is really necessary. He has +20 from his talents and then you throw in the absurd priest buffs. I could see dropping a bit of dex to boost per tho.

[Boeroer]

Just remember that the priest starts with 10 ACC less than some martial classes. So the +10 from the Pale Hand only sets them on par - and that's only with two special weapons. A fighter or rogue with 10 PER still hits better with scrolls than a 19 PER priest. But I agree that his buffs do compensate this - as long as you have spells left.

[Raven Darkholme]

Well soloing the game was possible before 2.0, I did it twice, so ofc you don't NEED the accuraccy.

It's just, that not missing/grazing and critting more often is very useful and way better for your damage than boosting MI for example.