[Class Build] The Eternal Flame

[Braven]

"We didn't start the fire.  It was always burning, since the world's been turning..."

 

The idea of this build is to have an immortal paladin that uses never-ending sacred immolation to slowly roast all enemies.  It plays on the unlimited zeal theme that chanter's brilliance inspiration invocation provides, combined with the shield-bearers death immunity subclass perk.  If soloing, you can multi-class to chanter and do the same thing (it doesn't need anything from the last two tiers), but the build doesn't come together until level 19 that way.  if using a companion, the chanter and paladin can both be single class which allows the build to come together at level 13 instead of level 19.  Before level 13, stay back with a gun and just play support with your aura and healing ability.  Also wear heavy armor and anything with second chance or CON/HP bonuses to avoid getting one-shot from the minimized CON.  At level 13, you can shed the armor as it will no longer be needed.

 

Class: Shield-Bearer Paladin

Race:  Nature Godlike (Increased Power Level and INT for higher sacred immolation damage and longer lay-on-hands duration).  Alternatively, something that helps resist afflictions is good.  I think paladin has none for strength so coastal might be good to prevent getting stunned.  Maybe there is a helmet that works good for this build?  Not sure.)

Armor:  None.  Damage mitigation doesn't matter at all in this build.  I guess whatever you find that provides affliction resistance.

Weapon:  Weapon(s) that provides affliction resistance/immunity.  I hear there is a sword that makes you immune to intellect afflictions - you don't want to be charmed, though maybe give that to the chanter since you can gain INT resistance with the Mental Fortress ability.  Shields will give you a couple extra engagement if you have a full party to protect.  Or just pick whatever is best for adding further affliction resistance or increasing the damage of sacred immolation.

 

Str: 18

Con: 3

Dex: 19

Per: 15

Int: 20

Res: 3

 

Stat Thoughts:  Resolve is not needed since any impactful afflictions (ones that can disable), you will counter with resistances and you will have sky high fort/will/reflex too so you won't get hit with afflictions too much to benefit from the duration reduction.  Deflection is worthless since you will be immortal anyway.  Likewise, Con is worthless due to immortality.  You could increase CON and lower DEX or PER instead... which is certainly better before level 13, but the theme of this build is to not care about health so I dropped it.  If you don't like dump stats, just move CON and RES up, and lower DEX and PER.

 

Active Abilities: Greater Lay-on-Hands, Sacred Immolation, Exalted Focus (also sworn enemy with zeal refund, if you run out of passives to spend points on.  Can also upgrade sacred immolation to heal allies, if going full party)

Passives:  All that provide defense or resistance against afflictions; with highest priority to resistance to down-grade the disabling ones.  After that, you can buff fort/will/reflex... you should be able to get them all since you only need a couple active abilities and are single class.  Also get anything that helps power level or resource regeneration.

 

Flow of combat:

Cast Lay on hands whenever the "can't die" ability duration is about the expire to ensure you and the chanter don't die.  It only costs one zeal and you will get one zeal every 3 seconds.  With high int and power level, lay on hands immortality should last over 10 seconds.  This, along with affliction resistance, will ensure you and your sidekick will never die regardless of the amount of incoming damage.  The concentration from lay on hands will ensure you never get interrupted too.  Since you will have extra zeal beyond what is needed for lay on hands, you can apply sacred immolation to do the actual killing of enemies.  The raw damage doesn't matter because you can't die.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Braven

[Dongom]

I think Josh messed up his code, it should be 4.3 dmg per second considering how relatively bad that skill is.

 

That being said cool build that can actually take advantage of Death/Fire God-Likes.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Dongom

[Boeroer]

Hah! As if Josh did code anything. 

[Dongom]

This reminds me,

 

Has anyone tested how much damage Fire God Battle-Forged does?

 

How about Death God-Likes Death's Usher?

Edited May 16, 2018 by Dongom

[Braven]

Hmm, I wonder if death godlike would be better.  I don't think you can really stay at near death yourself for the +3 power levels because of the constant healing you get, whether you like it or not.  I wish you could just turn off the healing part of lay on hands and just keep the "can't die" part.  While the +20% damage when enemy is near death will trigger, I am still not convinced it will lower the total number of immolation ticks needed to kill an enemy; particularly when compared with just getting a straight up +2 power levels that applies all the time (thanks to lay on hands robust inspiration triggering wellspring of life permanently)

 

I don't think fire godlike would work for the same reasons.  You are not really near death or bloodied very much because of the constant healing.

 

Also, I like the irony of a green plant-like godlike constantly on fire burning up and destroying the very nature it represents... maybe his/her way of snubbing the gods that cursed him with the ugly plant disfiguration.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Braven

[JerekKruger]

Has anyone tested how much damage Fire God Battle-Forged does?

I haven't tested it properly, but the tooltip remains at 4-7 no matter what your character level is. Hopefully it does scale and is just bugged but if not it's pretty terrible.

[Braven]

 

Has anyone tested how much damage Fire God Battle-Forged does?

I haven't tested it properly, but the tooltip remains at 4-7 no matter what your character level is. Hopefully it does scale and is just bugged but if not it's pretty terrible.

 

 

Really hard to tell with testing because a lot of the tooltips are bugged and a lot of the power level scaling is also bugged.  Welcome to Bugs of Eternity - Part 2. 

 

The new Scion of Flame ability seems pretty lack-luster... a measly +1 penetration for fire attacks.  Most of the time, it will do absolutely nothing thanks to the new armor system having hard break-points.  Still, I would take it with this build because why not.  I wish it were just a +x% damage increase, though, like before.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

I mentioned "it would be nice if lay on hands could just not heal" so that you can benefit from all of the "near death" items and abilities.  Well, it turns out there are ways to prevent yourself from getting healed.  This allows for death godlike instead of nature godlike, which has a higher +3 power level and +20% damage bonuses.  The health is worthless with "can't die", so might as well try and stop it.  Since paladin can regain zeal by killing enemies, if your damage is buffed strong enough you might not even need chanter support since lay on hands only costs one zeal.

 

Here are a couple ways I have found to prevent healing:

 

1)  Monk Nalpazca.  My understanding is that you stay "crashed" until you rest or take another drug.  So just take one drug per day, wait for it to crash, and start your day.  Does the -1 wound/tick happen if crashed too?  Might not matter because of the amount of self-inflicted pain you are giving yourself.

2)  Weakened affliction removes healing if you can find a way to apply it to yourself on-demand.

 

The monk seems easy since you are only limited by your drug supply, though I guess it can get pricy.  I've heard gold is no object later in the game, though.  Passive damage buffs, like turning wheel, could really super-charge your sacred immolation and also lengthen lay on hands with that +INT/wound bonus.  Do you still gain wounds if you have no health and still are taking damage?  Do wounds expire like in POE1 after a while?  Can Mortification of the Soul be used multiple times for effectively unlimited wound resources?  There is also rooting pain to do more passive damage to all enemies around you without having to do anything or spend anything.

 

Weakened could allow for multi-class with Street-fighter for some crazy damage buffs.  You would need to be careful to avoid any resistance that would prevent it and your high defenses might make it hard to get weakened reliably.  So not sure how to make that work but I will be thinking about it...

Edited May 17, 2018 by Braven

[JerekKruger]

Most of the time, it will do absolutely nothing thanks to the new armor system having hard break-points.

 

Exactly why I think the new armour system is not only worse than the old one, but plain bad.

[Braven]

Okay... I think I have it refined to being stupidly, broken OP enough now.  Instead of preventing lay on hands healing, use it instead to generate a bunch of wounds over and over again.  Because you will always be low on health from mutilating yourself, you also get all the benefits of death godlike.  If sacred immolation is not painful enough to keep you at no health or generating wounds fast enough, sit in some kind of AOE damage spell or have your mates shoot you in the back with arrows.  Your main source of damage will actually be rooting pain, which is also available earlier than sacred immolation.  Though feel free to use both. 

 

How to use up all these wounds you are generating with self-inflicted hurt?  That is where Thunderous Blows comes in.  It gives you 5 more might, but the main thing is that it is instant cast so you can spam it over and over again without delay to always ensure you have capacity to generate wounds for Rooting Pain.  Helwalker's penalty is actually a boon for this build because it allows you to hurt yourself much faster for more wounds.  The might bonus provided by the subclass will significantly increase the damage of rooting pain and sacred immolation, and generate health in order to make more wounds.

 

Class:  Helwalker Monk / Shieldbearer Paladin

Race:  Death Godlike

 

Key Abilties: 

Root Pain  (AOE damage every-time you get a wound.  This is your main damage dealing source because it will be firing off constantly)

Sacred immolation (helps generate wounds and damages enemies)

Thunderous Blows  (instant cast no recovery buff and uses wounds up so you can generate tons by spamming it over and over.  The extra might and penetration it provides will also help kill things quicker and gain health faster for more wounds)

lay on hands (makes you immortal and heals you quickly so you are able to create more wounds)

Turning Wheel / Duality of Mortal Presence / Iron Wheel  (boosts your stats massively to lengthen duration of lay on hands, AOE range of all the passive damage, 

Virtuous Triumph  (gets you more zeal for lay on hands.  You will be killing enemies very fast, so you shouldn't need a chanter anymore)

Lesser Wounds (helps generate wounds faster)

Swift Strike (helps get out lay on hands faster so less time is wasted refreshing it.)

Clarity of Mind can be used for another +5 INT from smart to help with durations.  Buffed, this character can easily have 38 or more intelligence making for a decent length lay on hands immortality duration.

 

Any ideas on how to hurt yourself quicker?  Traps?  Friendly Fire?  Poison your self?  I am open to ideas.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

Another option for the original build is doing Priest instead of paladin. Priest has an immortality ability with double the duration (10 sec. base). With INT and PL buffs, that can go to over 25 seconds or so, reducing the burden of recasting. There is also Salvation of time that adds another 10 seconds and is in a different power level so it doesn't use up spell casts. Instead of sacred immolation just use priest spells given the extra time you have from the much longer immortality duration. Works great with death godlike since you are always at 1 hp. Again, need a chanter though, unlike paladin/monk which also is available earlier (rooting pain is only tier 4), though it might be hard to massively hurt yourself until sacred immolation at level 19.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Braven

[Phyriel]

I'm gonna roll this priest + chanter combo. Will be hard up till late midgame tho:P