Lady of Pain — early musings [Beta]

[AndreaColombo]

Here's an early draft of the Lady of Pain build for the Deadfire backer beta.

 

Most things are subject to change as newer beta versions are rolled out with balance changes; more so once the game is out and we get to see whole ability trees and all unique items.

 

These were the defining traits of the original build, which I'll pursue again with this one:

• Maxing out its MIG score.
• Packing as many damage bonuses as possible.
• Pumping Accuracy as much as possible.
• Reaching 0 recovery (or getting very close to it.)
• Turning its low Deflection into an asset.

With this in mind, my Lady of Pain build for Beta 1.0820B is as follows:

 

Race: Coastal Aumaua

Aumaua gets +2 MIG bonus; Iit is crucial to go for the Coastal subrace in order to get Resistance to Might Afflictions, which makes us immune to Stun.

 

Background: Any

 

Attributes:

MIG   20*
CON   10
DEX   10
PER   18
INT   15
RES   05

* Can be 21 if you remove one point from another stat. I chose 20 to stick to an even number; I didn't want to dump CON (as you'll see, this Lady of Pain is quite the glass cannon compared to its PoE counterpart) and I wanted to allocate all points from RES to INT in order to make up for the Will defense penalty while profiting from a longer duration on all self-buffs.

 

These attributes include the bonus point from your chosen provenance. It can be anywhere so long as you rearrange your stat points to look like the above.

 

Class: Devoted/Helwalker

In Deadfire, synergies between the Fighter and Monk classes abound and nothing screams Lady of Pain like this combination. A few highlights:

 

• Helwalker gets +1MIG per Wound up to +10. This is what turns low Deflection into an asset: Let them help you hit them harder.
• The bonus MIG from Wounds increases your Healing received, including Constant Recovery—this beautifully offsets the extra damage per Wound you take from the Helwalker. *
• Duality of Mortal Presence can be used to gain up to +10 CON (1 per Wound) in a build that already encourages you to hoard Wounds.
• Thunderous Blows gets you +5 MIG and +4 penetration; Lightning Strikes adds a whopping +50% lash and +35% attack speed.
• The Devoted adds +3 penetration and +25% critical hit damage off the bat, plus access to Weapon Specialization, Armored Grace, and fighting style talents.

* as of the upcoming beta build, MIG will no longer affect healing, thus eliminating this synergy.

 

Proficiency: Sword

Here is another deviation from the original build, as Deadfire makes heavy armor + two-handers a rather impractical combination. Namely, heavy armor's recovery penalty was doubled from 50% to 100%. Based on the information we possess from the beta, it is not possible to reach 0 recovery in heavy armor unless you dual-wield—and even then, you must sip a Potion of Relentless Striking to achieve it.

 

Additionally, the modal for Great Sword is rather underwhelming.

 

Swords have a nice modal that gives +2 penetration in exchange from -20 Deflection—a good trade-off for the Lady of Pain, since its Deflection already sucks Granted, there will be fights where taking the Deflection hit will have you killed pretty fast, so we can't have the modal on all the time; however it's a nice-to-have and Swords have good base damage.

 

Talents:

Many good talents in the Fighter/Monk trees. Here are my picks for the beta in no particular order:

 

• Disciplined Barrage
• Two Weapon Style
• Disciplined Strikes
• Fighter Stances
• Knock Down OR Force of Anguish*
• Confident Aim OR Into the Fray OR Determination
• Rapid Recovery

* Now that Prone no loner has a duration and merely counts as an interrupt, Knock Down is no longer as powerful as it used to be in the first game. The push back from Force of Anguish may prove useful if you're taking too much of a beating, as it shoves the enemy and gives you time to drink a potion.

• Mortification of the Soul
• Swift Strikes
• Lesser Wounds
• Lightning Strikes
• Clarity of Agony
• Bull's Will

Note that I am not taking any active Monk abilities that may cost Wounds (we want to keep Wounds high in order to benefit from the extra MIG) or Mortification (we want to use it to pop Lightning Strikes back up when it expires.)

 

Confident Aim is only really "necessary" in this first backer beta build, since Disciplined Strikes is granting Miss-to-Graze conversion without also granting the ability to Graze. From the next update on, I suggest Determination to gain a +20 bonus against Charmed/Dominated effects which could prove ... hurtful, if they landed.

 

Clarity of Agony is very good in case those Afflictions landed anyway, since it will make them last 50% shorter.

 

Bull's Will is highly recommended to make up for the relatively low Will defense.

 

Going into higher levels, make sure you pick the following:

 

• Armored Grace
• Weapon Specialization
• Body Control
• Unstoppable
• Fearless

 

• Duality of Mortal Presence
• Thunderous Blows
• Clarity of Mind

 

Recapping:

 

Damage

• Up to 35 MIG with no spell or item buffs (20 starting + 10 Helwalker + 5 Thunderous Blows); that's a multiplicative 75% damage bonus.
• 50% lash damage from Lightning Strikes.
• 15% damage bonus from Weapon Specialization.
• 25% crit damage bonus from the Devoted sublcass.

You can get an extra 20% from the Potion of Relentless Striking, which becomes 40% with 10 ranks in Alchemy.

 

Penetration

• +3 from the Devoted subclass.
• +4 from Thunderous Blows.
• +2 from Half-Sword (Sword modal.)

That's +9 on top of the extra penetration from the Swords' enchantment; should be enough to guarantee over-penetration every time you land a critical hit.

 

Accuracy

• +8 from Perception.
• +5 from Conqueror Stance.
• +5 from Disciplined Strikes.
• 50% hit-to-crit conversion from Disciplined Strikes.

That's +18 Accuracy on top of that from the Swords' enchantment with no spell or item buffs. You can get +20 from Devotions for the Faithful, which also gets you another +4 MIG that I think stacks with everything else we've been using so far. You can also get +6 from a Potion of Deftness, which becomes +8 if you have 10 ranks in Alchemy (which I dearly endorse for the extra attack speed.)

 

When you crit, you get extra damage and extra penetration; with over-penetration, everything gets a 30% multiplicative bonus, including your MIG which was already multiplicative. That's pretty massive.

 

Recovery:

 

• -35% from Lightning Strikes (20% from the ability; 15% from the Dexterity boost.)
• -50% from dual-wielding.
• -20% from Two Weapon Style.
• -20% from Armored Grace (can't get it as a multi-class in the beta, but eventually you will in the game.)

That's -125% recovery and some of those abilities also boost your attack speed.

 

If wearing medium armor (e.g. Scale Armor, +50% recovery) you must get to 150% to have 0 recovery. Based on the above, a speed weapon would already get you to 5%; an item that gives +2 DEX would get you to 0 without using potions.

 

If wearing heavy armor, that's another 50% penalty—you'll need the Potion of Relentless Striking to get to 0 recovery. Alternatively, a Potion of Deftness with 10 ranks in Alchemy gives you a 75% attack speed bonus, which is enough to reach 0 recovery in Plate armor with no speed weapons and no other boosts to DEX.

 

It is not known how many potions of that kind we'll be able to hoard in the game, nor do we know whether speed weapons still exist and how they work. Hopefully there will be at least one end-game sword with that ability and the potions will be available in large supply.

 

In the beta you can reach 0 recovery wearing medium armor and popping the potion (150% recovery - 155% recovery bonuses.)

 

 

Defenses:

 

• Your Fortitude is unconquerable, especially once you get Duality of Mortal Presence (can't get it as a multiclass in the beta.)
• Your Reflexes are pretty good owing to the bonus from Perception (further increased by the PER bump from Disciplined Strikes and the DEX bump from Lightning Strikes.)
• Your Will is relatively weak, as it's only getting a bonus from Bull's Will. You may want to take the talent Determination for another +20 against Intellect Afflictions (that's +30 total against Confusion/Charmed/Dominated before any item bonuses, which is solid.)
• You are immune to Stun thanks to your racial; with Body Control, you are also immune to Dazed.
• You are immune to Paralyze thanks to Unstoppable and to Terrified thanks to Fearless.
• Your Deflection is poor. Granted, the Conqueror Stance makes up for the 5 points you lose on Resolve, but you're gaining no bonuses from anywhere. Popping a potion of Relentless Striking gets you -10 and using the Sword modal gets you another -20. You'll need to either boost it with spells and items, or watch out when you use those to avoid getting critted too much (enemies will over-penetrate your Armor Rating and hit you for a multiplicative 30% extra damage that also applies to the extra damage you take from the Helwalker ability.)
• You should wear Scale Armor at the very minimum—better Plate or Brigandine. With low Deflection, you want to boost your Armor Rating at every opportunity.

Edited November 30, 2017 by AndreaColombo

[Gromnir]

"Your Will is relatively weak, as it's only getting a bonus from Bull's Will. You may want to take the talent Determination for another +20 against Intellect Afflictions (that's +30 total against Confusion/Charmed/Dominated before any item bonuses, which is solid.)"

 

is worth considering clarity of agony's second tier talent... am forgetting the name, but it provides smart inspiration as well as reducing the duration o' afflictions.  there is gonna be times, against particular foes, when you may actual wanna bleed off wounds, and the smarty inspiration not only provides resistance to intellect afflictions (so no dominated possible... and possible no charm as it may be a 2nd tier inspiration) but the smart is gonna improve your will saves while also increasing the duration o' stuff such as swift strikes and thundering blows.

 

just a thought.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by Gromnir

[KDubya]

I'd think about dropping Knockdown and replace with Force of Anguish.

• Knockdown uses your Fighter resource which can be saved for something better
• Force of Anguish uses wounds which will drop your total damage output but are limitless and I have a feeling that gaining wounds for this guy is not going to be a problem

I'd also go with Gromnir's suggestion for Clarity of Agony, its just so useful

 

The cleaving stance might be more useful as +5% action speed per nearby enemy is probably more useful than accuracy (which is good) that becomes deflection (not so helpful) as you get Bloodied which might be a real common occurrence.

 

I do worry for the health of your team mates when you get charmed though

Edited November 28, 2017 by KDubya

[dunehunter]

Some little thought, how do u pass the enemy frontliners to kill the caster/rangers? The deflection seems really low so in PotD u will get a lot crits, and that is x1.5 of incoming penetration. If you engage a lot enemies that Constant Recovery might not be able to help u stand.

Edited November 28, 2017 by dunehunter

[Gromnir]

Some little thought, how do u pass the enemy frontliners to kill the caster/rangers? The deflection seems really low so in PotD u will get a lot crits, and that is x1.5 of incoming penetration. If you engage a lot enemies that Constant Recovery might not be able to help u stand.

make certain to put all possible points in athletics, and take laborer.  athletics, particular with big might, is gonna get this build a functional free life every encounter.  even so, is not an ideal solo build as a few bosses and a few bad rng encounters will see health drop precipitous.  a paladin companion or hierling casting lay-on-hands (particular with robust) at the start o' a battle will add a functional layer o' invulnerability to this build.  priest and cipher have similar buffing capacity.

 

as long as one does not look at the build in a vacuum, its vulnerabilities can be largely mitigated.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[AndreaColombo]

is worth considering clarity of agony's second tier talent... am forgetting the name, but it provides smart inspiration as well as reducing the duration o' afflictions.  there is gonna be times, against particular foes, when you may actual wanna bleed off wounds, and the smarty inspiration not only provides resistance to intellect afflictions (so no dominated possible... and possible no charm as it may be a 2nd tier inspiration) but the smart is gonna improve your will saves while also increasing the duration o' stuff such as swift strikes and thundering blows.

 

I agree—in fact, that's actually a very good thought! I'll add this suggestion to the OP.

 

 

I'd think about dropping Knockdown and replace with Force of Anguish.

 

At first I rejected the thought as I was never a fan of Force of Anguish in the first game; however that's because when I proned an enemy, I didn't want to push them away—rather, I wanted them close so I could beat them to a pulp. However, with prone being significantly less powerful in Deadfire, Force of Anguish may indeed serve the build better: If you're taking too much of a beating, you can push your enemy away and sip a potion of healing.

 

I'll add all this to the OP too.

 

And yeah, getting charmed was always a problem with the Lady of Pain; better have a Suppress Affliction handy

 

Some little thought, how do u pass the enemy frontliners to kill the caster/rangers? The deflection seems really low so in PotD u will get a lot crits, and that is x1.5 of incoming penetration. If you engage a lot enemies that Constant Recovery might not be able to help u stand.

 

I second what Gromnir said in the post above. The Lady of Pain was born with a full party in mind and would make a poor choice for solo play; enemies would surround her and kill her in no time. With a party, however, there are many ways to get around her squishy Deflection—including careful positioning to draw aggro to other party members in big fights.

 

In addition to that, the Deadfire LoP can be more durable than its Pillars of Eternity counterpart thanks to Duality of Mortal Presence. Once you've reached 10 Wounds, you can drink a potion of healing and find yourself with a CON score of 20 and a significant Health pool. Besides, you don't have to use the Half-Sword modal and drink a Potion of Relentless Strikes in every fight.

 

The recently announced changes to Might/Resolve gimp the Constant Recovery synergy big time, and in fact make my RES dump hurt the build quite a bit—not to mention the fact that Second Wind will no longer benefit from the high Might (or should I say Strength) score.

 

My recent discovery that the Alchemy skill increases the positive effects of potions and decreases their negative effects, paired with the removal of Healing from Might/Strength, leads me to advise a maxed out Alchemy for the build. A Potion of Relentless Strikes with 10 ranks in Alchemy goes to +60% Action Speed, +40% melee damage, -8 Deflection. The Deflection penalty doesn't change much, but the bonus damage doubles (!!). A Potion of Deftness goes to +8 Accuracy and +75% Action Speed (!!!), which means you can reach 0 recovery more easily, without a Deflection penalty, and with extra Accuracy to increase the likelihood of landing crits.

Edited November 28, 2017 by AndreaColombo