Thoughts and advice needed for character building, (melee chars)

[Myrtillo]

Hello everyone,

 

Like everyone here I am eagerly waiting for the release, and wondering what character I will bring into my first playthrough. I like to give it some thought because I suffer from a serious reroll syndrome, but I guess it is a common pathology of crpg players :D

 

Before starting, a few general thoughts: I see most people here announcing that they will go for a multiclassed characters. Although I can understand the appeal and flexibility, loosing the highest tier abilities is out of the question for me, so I'll be single class. This might change when we actually discover said big abilities, though, but even then I might stick to single class just because I like it.

I like having a moderate amount of RP on my characters, not a big fan of min-maxing, I like making smart choice in accordance with the archetype but not completely optimizing. I go for what sounds fun and cool.

I will most likely be playing on Veteran, and all I'm extrapolating is pure theory since I didn't play the beta (actualy the reason why I post this, so that those who did give me their thoughts)

 

To give you a bit of context: I like playing melee characters, charisma and intelligence oriented. The character I played in POE1 was a fighter that relied on one handed rapier (later with a buckler when I started finding the good ones and durgan steel, he also had a pistol for opening volley), with maxed intelligence. It was good fun, especially given the fact that being the watcher and having decent might and super high intelligence synergised well with watcher abilities. It was this extra edge that didn't make him a plain boring autoattacker with defenses in fights.

So he was relatively tanky while dishing good damage. I want to have this kind of feeling.

 

So to summarize, I want:

- A melee character

- Single class

- Offtank

- Using a sword or rapier (more on that later)

- No shield (this is a new requirement)

- Maxed intelligence, and "face" archetype

 

All this is mandatory. I did my research, and ended up with those few ideas:

 

 

- Fighter (devoted)

The obvious choice, a direct continuation from what I played in POE1

Using 1 handed sword (no offhand) gets justified here as the crits (from +acc and 1H style conversion) get highly amplified (+dmg on crit and +pen from devoted that gets multiplied). I imagine it would allow to have relatively low might and still do very significant damage

The defenses that fighter gets would help with the offtanking, at least to survive heavy damage long enough for party heals and buffs to kick in.

Intelligence will be put to great use on a fighter.

Cons:

- penalty to guns accuracy, and I like the idea of the opening shot>switch to melee. Not that terrible

- I did this already, it is the evolution of my previous build I am leaning towards something new

- I am afraid it would be both a bit boring (autoattack and self buffs), and even worse: a bit too good. Feels almost like an opti build.

 

- Rogue (Streetfighter)

Now this is an interesting option. I normally don't play rogues because I hate sneak in games. But POE/Deadfire rogues offer different approaches of the rogue.

Obviously any sneak related skills are out, so no backstab.

I like the duelist archetype, and I think it suits an intelligent charismatic fighter. So riposte is cool. I imagine it would be better on a swashbuckler, but no multiclassing.

We need to find a way to pump up deflection, both for riposting purposes and to have some way of fulfilling the offtank role (or atleast surviving in the midst of battle) and shields are out.

The solution I came with is to use a dagger with the modal on. I normally don't go dual wielding, but in that case, the famous duelist dagger/rapier combo is perfectly acceptable. The other slot would be my pistol for opening volley, with decent damage and that good feeling of pew pew.

Again, damage from sneak attack, decent dps from dual wield (full attacks, the occasional riposte) and streetfighter passives should allow to have the needed damage output without having to pump might or per too high. This hopefully leaves enough stats points for high intelligence and max resolve for some much needed additional deflection.

Now the question on this one is: Is this enough ? Will high resolve+modal bonus on dagger+decent con+some light armor (leather?) will be enough to not get obliterated on veteran ? I don't mind having to support him a bit with buffs or defensive auras, i just don't want to get one shotted in every other fights.

This is my favourite option right now, but I will only go for it if this char has some survivability. I won't be a second line rogue.

 

- Rogue (trickster)

Copy and paste the ideas from above, except this time we make use of our int on illusion spells (which from a gameplay perspective is a good substitute to watcher abilities).

Illusion defensive spells would definitely help the deflection (even skyrocket it in some case) making good use of riposte.

Overall, will depend on what high level spells trickster gets. Is the selection until power lvl 5 good ?

However, that's a massive damage loss, and will have to be compensated somehow, with high might. This takes points away from somewhere else, and stats points are a scarce ressource!

Most importantly, I still have to decide if this choice is acceptable from a roleplay perspective: illusion and sneak are close cousins. And I would loose the badass feeling of the streetfighter.

 

- Cipher (soulblade)

I have not given too much thought into that class, but I like the lore behind ciphers, so I am including the option to open the discussion.

Would it be possible to make an offtank cipher using a single melee weapon with no offhand work ? Probably would have to be with debuff and cc from powers (as I don't think cipher have self buffs for defense ?).

But I am afraid that the stats investment needed to have the survivability would in the end gimp the damage too hard (even with soul whip), and therefore the ability to cast, in turn hindering the survivability.

Might work, might not, but seems risky. I would still like to hear some thoughts from cipher experts.

 

Aaaaand, that's about it. I realize the post is long and a bit all over the place. Thanks for reading me to the end, sorry if my english isn't perfect sometimes (second language). Feel free to comment, give your insight, and suggest alternatives that I may have missed.

 

<3

[cactot]

If streetfighter is your favorite option go with that, it will work out fine. Because of all the invisibility abilities it should have fine survivability, particularly if you are going for a defensive build. Your biggest problem will be lack of guile, so you will want a single class chanter to keep the brilliant inspiration on him.

Edited May 5, 2018 by cactot