TheMetaphysician

Boeroer has some great build ideas for Konstanten as a Howler (Barbarian/Chanter): see here. Using the Willbreaker morningstar with Weakening Chant and modal = great debuffs; find ways to take advantage of that with him and other party members.

His Counselor Ploi build from POE 1 finally gave me what I needed to realize a character mechanically that matched the character I wanted to role-play, which turned the game from something I didn't like as much as I thought I should to one of my favorite games of all time.

No, I wasn't misremembering. I loaded my game up, and sure enough, Magran's Blessing does not have the "shield engagement" item mod on it. And in testing, a character with that shield still has no engagement in battle. Now, I am using a bunch of mods, which could be affecting that. In particular, I'm using a file where I just copied a list of all the items and put it in the override folder, and then I go into that file to alter properties of items as I like (to increase/decrease charges, change from per-rest to per-encounter, etc.) I wonder if I copied that file before the shield got patched and it is overriding the patched version, even though I've made no changes to that item.

Even Magran's Blessing? That's good news, if so. I remember noticing that I didn't have engagement when I had it on, and reading that there was a bug for that shield specifically (here is someone else noticing it.) Maybe it has been fixed and just didn't get fixed for my playthrough with it? That's weird, though, since I played it pretty recently. I also could be deluded and failing to notice obvious things. Wouldn't be the first time.

In game, I noticed that the medium shield block modal's penalty to recovery time doesn't stack with the battle axe modal's recovery time penalty. So you can get the defensive bonuses for "free," as it were, if you are using the battle axe modal. Using the modals together is great.

Yeah, that would totally work. I will say, I played this character pretty far, and one of its limitations is that it doesn't have any engagement slots (unlike the Healing Wall version, which has at least two, one from shield and one from shieldbearer class), since the bashing shield doesn't give you engagement. That means that, while it is really sturdy, it doesn't get attacked quite as much. So the history cloak strikes me as overkill. Unless, of course, you play it like a crazy tank, by (say) unstealthing it first, having enemies attack it, then unstealthing everyone else. I found a mod that gave the paladin class extra engagement slots, which I used, as it seemed fitting. Even then, though, I didn't feel the need for extra defense.

My favorite is indeed the Herald, either a Kind Wayfarer or Shieldbearer Paladin and a Troubadour chanter. The action economy is great -- he heals a ton passively, functions as a tank himself, and can use his actions either for more healing, summoning, or offensive action. Here's a Shieldbearer/Troubadour build (look on page 2 for my elaboration on Climhazzard's original idea); here's a Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour build. Both a lot of fun.

Very cool! I have to say, I think this is the coolest looking character I've ever seen in this game. Even cooler than my amaua pirate with a huge bushy beard (mod), tricorn hat, and saber.

How can a priest trivialize those two fights? (I haven't done any research on megaboss fights; haven't gotten to them yet, somehow.) Is it using Salvation of Time/Ancestor's Memory to keep Barring Death's Door up forever?

I'm playing through this time with MaxQuest and AndreaColumbo's excellent mods that add in Pillars 1 items to Deadfire. I just ran across the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer, and I'm trying to think of uses for its Firebrand weapon -- which isn't just accessible to Druids! Any ideas about how to build around it, or uses for it? Bonus for ways to use it with the existing companions/sidekicks. Obviously, you can use the Ring of Focused Flame with it; and I saw from some older posts Boeroer's idea that using the Ring with it would offset the accuracy loss of the greatsword modal, giving extra damage. Any other synergies or builds?

Yeah, those are nice alternatives. I didn't consider dual-wielding Magran's and Sun&Moon. That will help with the Flames healing, but it will drop your defenses significantly. How much that matters probably depends on party composition, but I think this build works best when it is the hardest character to drop. (It is worth remembering that the White Flames mechanic is just one part of a larger healing strategy, all of which goes away if you get knocked out.) I really love Magran's Blessing, but couldn't find a build that really needed it; it is perfect for this one. Stone of power is a great amulet choice. Otto Starcat doesn't help your healing as much as Prissy, though, since he only affects Flames (not all the other healing sources).

Has anybody tested, or does anybody know, whether White Flames triggers on each of the Sun and Moon flail's two hits? If it does, that makes that the best weapon for this build. Edit: I googled some discussion, and it looks like people tested whether it triggered multiple times with blunderbusses, which it didn't. I assume the same will be true for the multiple hits of Sun and Moon. By the way, that same googling revealed that Boeroer (of course) proposed the idea of Magran's axe/Magran's blessing on a Kind Wayfarer, stacking might and healing in the discussion within a thread. Oh well, it is still good to have the build written out and put on the build list.

The Healing Flame Build concept: The idea for this build started when I was looking for variations on my favorite Deadfire main character build, the Healing Wall. (Look on page 2 of that thread for my full description of the build and gear recommendations, extrapolated from Climhazzard’s original idea.) I originally wanted to do something simple: change the paladin subclass to Kind Wayfarer (from Shieldbearer). I wanted to make this change for two reasons. First, and most importantly, I wanted to change things up from a role-playing perspective; I like playing the diplomat for the most part, but sometimes I really want to punch someone in the face – and Kind Wayfarers, unlike Shieldbearers, don’t get a penalty for the Aggressive disposition. (If you are doing a no-rest run, don’t pick aggressive options until you’ve gotten Nature’s Resolve on Tikawara, since Aggressive disposition prevents you getting offered the mushroom in the scripted event.) Second, I was intrigued by the White Flames unique ability, and thought it would fit perfectly with the build idea; I wanted to try to build around it. I didn’t think this would be a genuinely different build; I thought I’d basically substitute Flames of Devotion for Lay on Hands, and everything else would remain the same. You can do it that way, but you are only getting half the payoff from White Flames if you do, since it goes off twice per Flames use if you are dual-wielding, only once if not. So how can we dual-wield for the purposes of the healing going off without losing the ability to be the main tank in the party? Answer: bashing shields (Magran’s Blessing in particular). Since the point isn’t the damage, but the healing burst, the lower damage doesn’t matter much, and you can keep your sky-high defenses (by combining 2-weapon style with weapon and shield style). With the much lower recovery time, too, it is easier to get off a healing Flames right when you need it, instead of being locked into recovery. How else to maximize White Flames? Fire power levels – Magran’s Favor axe (+2 fire PL). And now it looks like we have a character theme that also works mechanically – a passionate paladin, perhaps pledged to Magran (or near to her heart), aggressive, kicking butts and smashing faces for goodness! All the while healing the party. The change to dual-wielding and focusing on Flames for healing actually changes the playstyle significantly. Instead of planting himself in the middle of the fight and casting (summons and healing spells) as the Healing Wall does, this character is constantly attacking (still from the middle of the fight, though), and you need to pick your moments to use your Flames of Devotion (when some of your party gets below half health). People who don’t like playing the Healing Wall may well really enjoy playing this. Equipment and talent choices turn out to be surprisingly different, as well. Finally, White Flames offers a genuine healing advantage over the Healing Wall’s Lay on Hands because it is party-wide. Because of these facts, I think this has become a genuinely distinct build that warrants its own post, instead of just a minor variation within the general Healing Wall build. With that introduction, I present the Healing Flame. The Healing Flame =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 5.0 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: not intended for solo -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Paladin (Kind Wayfarer)/Chanter (Troubadour) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Moon Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Get one that boosts Might or Intelligence. -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: Max Might and Intelligence, everything else at 10 Skills: Your choice; none helps the build in particular Weapon Proficiencies: medium shield, sword, axe, whatever -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities (!=important, r=recommended, (a) automatic) PL 1 (levels 1-3) Paladin (a) Flames of Devotion (!) Sworn Enemy (r) Deep Faith (!) Retribution (r) Chanter Soft Winds (r) Thunder rolled (r) PL 2 (levels 4-6) Paladin Zealous Auras (!) Weapon and shield style (!) Pick 1 of: Divine Purpose, Inspiring Triumph, or Inspired Defenses Chanter 2-weapon style (!) PL 3 (levels 7-9) Paladin Shared Flames (!) Sworn Rival (r) Chanter Ancient Memory (!) Two Fingers of Daylight (r) PL 4 (levels 10-12) Paladin Exalted Endurance (!) Scion of Flame (!) Inspired Path (r) Chanter Mith Fyr chant (r) PL 5 (levels 13-15) Paladin Practiced healer (!) Mental Fortress Clear Head or Iron Gut Chanter Thunder Rolled upgrade PL 6 (levels 16-18) Paladin Clear Head or Iron Gut (remaining one) Virtuous Triumph Chanter Their Champion Braved the Horde Alone They Shielded Their Eyes ‘Gainst the Fampyr’s Gaze PL 7 (levels 19-20) Paladin Stoic Steel Chanter Mercy and Kindness (!) Ancient Weapons summon or Skeleton summon chant --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended) Weapon Set 1: Magran’s Favor (! - +Blazing Core !), Magran’s Blessing (! - +Purifying Flame (r), +Righteous Bash (r)) Weapon Set 2: Sun and Moon (+Solar Excellence, +Golden Sun), Magran's Blessing (The second set does almost the same thing the first set does, but gives you an all-crushing-damage set option. As Boeroer points out below, you can wield Magran's Favor and the Sun and Moon flail together for +4 fire power levels, but that costs you significantly on your defenses. I don't think it is worth it, but if you have a tanky party already, you could do it.) Head: None (moon godlike) Back: Three Trolls Stitched (or Cloak of Greater Protection/Deflection) Neck: Bone Setter’s Torc (!) Armor: Blackened Plate Armor (! - +Life in Death (!), +Usher’s Visage) Waist: Physicker’s Belt (!) Hands: Gauntlets of Ogre Might (!) Rings: Ring of Focused Flame (!), Ring of Greater Regeneration (r) Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka (!) (or Shod-in-Faith, from the Spoils of Caed Nua mod) Pet: Prissy (! - +15% healing done) Early game equipment: The Blackened Plate Armor, Magran’s Favor, and Bonesetter’s Torc can be relatively late-game acquisitions. Before then, the Gladiator Sword is really good on this character, and can carry you until Magran’s Favor. The Sun and Moon flail is a good substitute for Magran's Favor (if you don't want to rush to the island it is on), if you make sure you do your fighting during the daytime to get the +2 Fire PL -- the Ring of Focused Flame will actually increase the accuracy of the Sun flail head. Armor is more up to you; you may find your personal regeneration is high enough that you can go with a medium armor. Nomad’s Brigandine, Honor Guard Breastplate with Pride of the Ducs, and Devil of Caroc breastplate are all pretty good (and the Devil breastplate will give you 2 extra uses of Flames of Devotion per encounter), but anything with bonus defensive stuff would be good. There are a lot of good amulets: Charm of Bones, Heart-Chime Amulet, Orishia, Cog of Cohh, Stone of Power, Cipher’s Shackle are all good choices. Strengths of the Build: Constant Party-Wide Regeneration: The Core Idea This build keeps the central idea of the Healing Wall build, which is to stack constant party-wide regeneration effects. There are three: the paladin’s Exalted Endurance aura, the Ancient Memory chant, and the Life in Death upgrade to the Blackened Plate armor. To support those regeneration effects, we want to maximize might and stack +healing gear, which is why I’ve chosen the belt, boots, gauntlets, and necklace we have. We also want to maximize intelligence to make the auras as wide as possible; also, 20 intelligence allows us to use a second chant as Troubadour (I use Mith Fyr until getting Mercy and Kindness at level 19) without any downtime for Ancient Memory. All those stacked healing bonuses will also affect the Ring of Greater Regeneration and Three Trolls Stitched, so you’ll be very hard to bring down. If you go down, the party goes down soon after, since you are the health battery. White Flames and other healing bursts Since we’ve stacked +healing gear and might, we can also take advantage of other ways to heal. The key point at which this build diverges from the Healing Wall build is its focus on the Kind Wayfarer White Flames upgrade to Flames of Devotion. All of your Zeal (except for the initial 1 spent on Sworn Rival) will go into using Flames of Devotion, which in this build is a healing spell – the damage to the opponent is a bonus. Inspired Zeal and Virtuous Triumph will get you more uses of Flames per encounter. Ring of Focused Flame helps the accuracy of Flames of Devotion, which is important because if you miss, the healing burst doesn’t go off. I highly recommend doing a no-rest run with this character, even more than with the Healing Wall. Permanent Dawnstar’s Blessing (+50% healing) is just as good on this character as the Healing Wall; this character uses no per-rest healing spells (unlike the way I equipped the Healing Wall); and this character benefits much more than the Healing Wall from Nature’s Resolve that you can get from the scripted encounter on Tikawara, since the +10 accuracy helps land Flames of Devotion. I find no-rest runs rather fun, simply because you have to take injuries more seriously: you’ll need to use one of your limited Adra potions, or trek all the way to the baths in Neketaka, so you’ll have to try to win your fights “clean,” with no one going down. That's a fun challenge when your main character is built to keep the whole party standing, like this one is; it is nice extra challenge and test of the build, not just a way to boost your power. That also strikes me as a more plausible way of dealing with injuries – camping for the night can’t possibly help a “gaping wound”, after all. If you don’t like no-resting, you can use AndreaColumbo’s mod for permanent per-rest bonuses; I get rid of the optional parts, so it just applies mainly to those two buffs and the Alchemic stat boosts. We also have other sources of healing, none of which involve spells with long casting times. (I stayed away from spells with long casting times, since it goes against the feel of playing this character, and makes it feel more like the Healing Wall.) One is the Moon Godlike’s Silver Tide. I highly recommend Caelum’s Godlike Rebalance mod (which can be found on the Steam Workshop), as it restores Godlike abilities to usefulness. It doesn’t break the game at all – it is what the game should have been in the first place. It makes Silver Tide feel like it did in Pillars 1; a very useful heal that goes off automatically as you get hurt. But even if you don’t use that mod, Silver Tide is nice and fits the build. The other is the chanter invocation Two Fingers of Daylight. I always have trouble aiming the thing, but it has a half-second cast time, which is great, and the immunity to Resolve afflictions is situationally useful. Since this character won’t be doing as much summoning as the Healing Wall, it has phrases to spend, and might as well have a healing option to spend them on. Speaking of mods: I recommend the mod Spoils of Caed Nua (by MaxQuest), which adapts some items from Pillars 1 and inserts them into Deadfire. One is the Shod-in-Faith boots. If you have those, they are perfect for this build – another party-wide healing spell that triggers automatically. I played this character with that mod and the Godlike rebalance mod, and it felt like being back in Pillars 1, with a Moon Godlike front-liner with Shod-in-Faith taking hits and pulsing out healing. Enjoyably nostalgic. Party buffing and enemy debuffing In addition to providing all the healing your party will ever need, we can take advantage of the large AOE boost from high intelligence and central location in the battle as a tank by getting other constant party-wide buffs. This character has the Mith Fyr chant and Shared Flames, boosting party damage. You also get two ways to debuff the enemy. One is the Usher’s Visage upgrade to the Blackened Plate Armor which is an aura that gives -1 AR to enemies. The other is the Thunder Rolled invocation, which you have phrases to use since you won’t be using them on summons as much as the Healing Wall. Again, this has a half-second cast time, so you don’t feel like you are sitting and casting. That’s the main invocation you’ll be using in battle. Tankiness This character loses very little in the way of defenses from the Healing Wall. It uses a medium shield instead of a large one, so it loses a few points on deflection and reflex, but it can use the Block modal to compensate if you want. But the defenses are still sky-high, making a great tank. With the gear and ability choices I’ve made, he has only three affliction resistances: perception, intelligence, constitution (paladin abilities). It loses out on the Might affliction resistance from race and the resolve from the helmet that the Healing Wall gets with the gear choices I made; the might one matters a bit more, actually, since it reduces healing. If you are roleplaying passionate, you might get the Watcher’s Ire ability, which give a Might inspiration on use, which could help Summons The big thing you lose when you move from the Healing Wall to the Healing Flame is actually the summoning. Summons are so incredibly useful, but they really change the feel of the gameplay, back to a melee-caster (which is what the Healing Wall feels like) rather than an aggressive melee attacker. You lose the flexibility to pop a suddenly-needed Flames, since you are locked into a long cast time. You could just keep doing the summoning (you have access to the same invocations, and they are just as good), but I think it violates the character idea. I compromised; I took the Ogre summon invocation, but I just didn’t use it all that much. (Edit: I realized that I made an obvious mistake and forgot Scion of Flame. I got rid of the Ogre summons for it; using the stunning invocation was more fun anyway.) It is there for the fights you need it, but it isn’t the automatic-use spell it was for the Healing Wall. If you want more summoning, you can take the wurm summon early if you like. As I said, summoning is incredibly powerful. Damage Damage isn’t your priority; you are a party healer and tank. But this build does quite a lot more damage than the Healing Wall (which did very little). (Though, honestly, I’m not sure how to calculate the summons’ damage; the Healing Wall gets more damage that doesn’t show up on the Records sheet from the summons that the Healing Flame isn’t getting as much, and I don’t know how to weigh that. My impression was always that the wurms did ok damage early, but that the Ogres were pretty much just damage sponges with very little damage output of their own.) You’ll actually contribute to the total damage done, with Sworn Rival up, dual-wielding, and lots of boosted Flames of Devotion.

Hey everyone -- my favorite way to play is with a super-tank in the middle of the fight, controlling everything, which is why I like the Healing Wall build so much. I also love paladins, for RP reasons. I'm trying to brainstorm an Arcane Knight (Paladin/Wizard) tank (using Cadhu Scalth) that tries to control the battlefield. I've not used wizards much, so I'd appreciate advice on what wizard spells to use (or paladin abilities that are useful for control). So far, the ideas I have are: (1) use Vaporous Grimoire and Rekvu's helmet for an extra cast per level and immunity to interrupts -- that takes care of the concern about being a melee caster; (2) drop Pull of Eora on myself to pull everyone to me. Other spells that seem useful for a control caster tank are: Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (for debuffing), Thrust of Tattered Veils (to interrupt dangerous abilities); summon spells (though they compete with Pull of Eora for spell slots). Any suggestions for other spells and/or tactics for this build idea? Maybe Arcane Dampener? Would Dimensional Shift be good for this character? I'm a bit worried that the large shield will hurt accuracy enough to make control spells that only fire once less effective (repulsive visage, chill fog, and pull of eora all pulse, as I recall). Bonus question: how to write an AI routine (I have the expanded AI mod) that will use Thrust of Tattered Veils effectively to interrupt the most dangerous abilities? I rarely pay attention closely enough to notice what's coming up.

I keep discovering new things in this game. Here is an alternative armor for this build, which isn't quite as good as Blackened Plate Armor, but which you might get earlier (or like the look of better): Furrante's Breastplate. (You'll need to side with Aldys and kill Furrante to get it -- I don't think you get it if you go the peaceful route and get the Principi to turn on Furrante. That's why I've never gotten it in game.) Take the "Love of life" (+10% healing received to allies in a 2.5 meter radius) and "Intervention" (redirect 50% of damage allies suffer to self as Raw damage in a 2.5 meter radius). You may want to pair this with more self-healing gear to offset the damage you are taking from allies: the ring of greater regeneration, the three-trolls-stitched cloak, and the Survivor's Tusks soulbound helmet. I haven't playtested this. I don't actually know if redirecting damage from allies to self would make things better or worse, by focusing the damage on yourself, given that your passive healing affects everyone equally. But it really fits the "tank" idea.