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Spot on! That trinket basically puts her in the position where she should be at the start of a run to grow from there. It's as baseline for this broken class as you can go. I do not understand why the developer did make a complete overhaul of the MAA and Jester yet fully ignored the Duellist.

Sometimes you get lucky.. sometimes.. only when you don't need it ^^

Not gonna lie my neighbours also witnessed this moment with the nerd next door screaming in rage for about 10sec. Perfect showcase how bad the Duellist is and that the Chirurgeon and his minions are a bit too "bursty" in the dmg department. Last achievement I am missing in this game is the 5 memories on Duellist.. I am afraid this is never gonna happen -.-

@@Labatyd385 I think I've said this before, but there's nothing she can do that other characters don't do better, and on top of that she can't heal or inflict DOT.

@@nigelee so true. I have been trying to "make her work" for a substantial amount of runs. There is nothing about her that "works". She is just condition on top of condition on top of condition you have to meet for any one of her skills. Then if you meet all of them you are rewarded with a mediocre performance any other character will have with base skills or maybe 1 mastery point. Add to this the LOWEST HP POOL of any character and nonexisting self preservation skills (nope Medititation is terrible) and you have the perfect worst character in DD2. I suppose this was designed on paper with no serious playtesting ever done. Even worse they applied the same design mindset to the Jester overhaul (which wasn't even that good of a character to begin with). If there is a condition be it stance, position or movement in a skill you have to be rewarded by meeting that condition. This is not the case for the Duellist. Sorry for the rant, I am really triggered by the Duellist and new Jester at this point xD

No doubt it is. I personally prefer dots over direct damages on a general basis (except for the Corpse Light). On the Killer's Glow their advantages become even more obvious when you are avoiding 3 stress on each kill.

Yep this fight didn't look like getting a happy ending :D classic "making the best out of a bad situation".

Yes, that is absolutely the challenge about this flame. I initially completely underestimated this in the Act1 run. From my experience on any other flame you only need one efficient stress healer in your team. This can either be the Crusader, Man-at-arms or Jester. Here you need at least two to deal with the stress. The crit bonus per kill you get is actually completely irrelevant. Killer's Glow is just the "high stress flame". I like it to be honest. You cannot just play your favourite comps but need to adapt 🙂

85 CRIT! *BAM* ^^

The whole team worked quite well (which I didn't expect). Leviathan is usually the lair boss I like to avoid without a heavy move resist tank. Lesson learned, with enough direct dmg you can just delete the Hand and trivialize the encounter :D

Pretty much 🙂 This was probably the best version of Dismas I ever had. Still trying to find anything not "sorta useless" about the Duellist though *sigh*

It’s difficult to find a use for her that another character doesn’t already do much better.@@Labatyd385

@@Labatyd385 who are your favorites ? kinda feels like you prefer heavy DOT teams as opposed to direct DPS

@@inusek Your feeling is correct. I think direct damage is substantially undertuned compared to DOT dmg. You only have to compare faily basic skills such as Highwayman Wicked Slice+ (7.5dmg average 20% crit) with Runaway Fire Fly+ (18.5dmg average 10% crit) to move towards this conclusion. DOT dmg is also virtually unaffected by weakness tokens and enemy protection tokens which are abundant throughout DD2. You can make an argument that they do not benefit from strength tokens either but applying these on your end usually requires other investments such as trinket slots or buffing by skills. I believe the developer planned the enemy resist chances to be the equaling factor between direct dmg and DOTs but both Runaway and Plague Doctor have their paths to virtually negate this disadvantage entirely. And this is just the res pierce you get from the start but there are also plenty of res piercing trinkets and combat items in the game solving the same problem. This is a very complex subject and sharing all my thoughts on the matter in a comment is not really feasible. I might record a commented video discussing this in detail some time in the future. To answer your question on my favourite comp (which I consider the most efficient team you can play on average): Alchemist - Arsonist - MAA (can be any path) - Ravager. Position 1 direct dmg is mostly chosen to make use of trinkets that otherwise don't benefit DOT dps. Having 2 DOT dps with mediocre trinkets and 1 direct dmg dps with godly trinkets is better than having 3 DOT dps with bad trinket imho. Hellion comes at the benefit of beeing self sufficient, mobile and being able to attack rank 4. Thats why I prefer her over something like the Leper who can be a death sentence for your team when he gets shuffled.

@@Labatyd385 thanks for the exhaustive response, I appreciate it!

Me neither but after boring myself to death with a grand slam on the Fragile Flame I felt kinda "experimental" :D

Alchemist PD has baseline 33% res piercing + 30% for Noxious Blast on combo (which you have plenty on this flame). Both PD and Grave Robber have substantial crit boosters here (Snappy Swig and Silent Treatment). Crits give you another 20% res piercing. The rest is just luck. On the child for instance I used Poison Dart 3 times and got only 1 resist @ 60% resist chance. Pretty lucky. Still, she didn't score a single crit while having 60% crit with Silent Treatment.. its just the rng sometimes ^^

The team is actually the first time I ever tried Anamnesis Occultist in rank 2 and yes it was quite fun 🙂 Seething Sigh either needs a team team that can reliably attack the lungs or burst the main body down quickly imho. In this run "machine-gun-Orphan" ("Temptation" trinket) did fulfil the 2nd condition. Otherwise the comp is rather weak to the Act 2 boss.

Originally I didn't even realize the spectres could be debuffed by other characters. Discovered this and the Controlled Burn thing by pure chance. The encounter is awesome and I love that they recycled the music from the DD1 final dungeon. Wayne June could have put in more gravitas into the introduction though. ".. Your body of work" just doesn't sound as great as "Our creator, and our destroyer" from the first game..

Yes, I personally like the GR quite a bit more than the Highwayman (I know this is a controversial opinion). GR/Venomdrop is absolutely nuts with the right trinkets. I chose her here particularly because of the "Silent Treatment" I got on the Altar. Nightsworn can also enable some very nice plays by beeing the only character that allows to put taunt tokens on another character (think Disman on Riposte). I don't like Deadeye or Wanderer that much but as you correctly pointed out "she got a tool for everything" including the very important self-sufficiency that the Highwayman completely lacks.

The main reason this comp looks capable is probably because we are coming from Bastard's Beacon where everything is insanely hard. SotC is very very easy in comparison since the mechanic is barely noticable. Therefore, you have much more freedom to pick more "exotic" chars/paths even if they are not overly efficient. I mainly decided to pick the Vestal because I got the "Profane Scroll"-Trinket at the Altar and wanted to test it on the position 2 Vestal 🙂 Still, I would not recommend this team on the harder flames..

Basically every Bastard's Beacon confession boss is a vicous challenge ^^ I think I had to put more brain into these fights than for any other encounter on the other flames. MAA Crush is awesome indeed but I am kinda expecting a nerf in the next patch :-(

Yea looking back the Flagellant was a bad choice for this team. I should have rather taken the Hellion or Highwayman instead to have more direct damage (also you don't want to meet Death on the Bastard's Beacon). Still, Damian at the confession boss 100% carried the team with the Sickening Silence trinket (+6 blight dmg upon being hit) an Toxic state (another +2) while I could focus on keeping everyone alive.

Thanks mate. The Occultis Anamnesis choice came natural with this team being heavily focused on healing. I was missing a single position 2 dps that could carry the team and also heal if necessary. OCC/Anamn synergized nicely with Consecration of Light and Firestarter :)

Correct, you can do that with the Shambler pet. I counts as equipped stained item for all characters.

In terms of "raw healing power" you are absolutely correct. Junia is tied with Damian (Flaggelant) for the best healer in the game. Sadly, she doesn't offer much besides healing and thats the main reason she is rarely the best choice to pick. For the "Hateful Pyre"-Flame I specifically wanted to have her on the roster since she can top off the party better than any other character. She also synergized well with the Aspirant. In this comp and with this flame I believe she has a niche to fill :)

Haha this whole run was a complete "panic experience". I didn't notice at first that for the "Hateful Pyre" on low the opponents get knockback. The comp was particular vulnerable to that. Also, this run should have ended at the Leviathan with all the death's door checks. In the end the AI probably screamed more at the screen than I did xD

Highwayman still tops it imho xD *swirlslash*

Indeed it is :)

Good piece yea but I have no clue were to find it either. Doesn't appear to be included in the official soundtrack on Spotify..

You can send him to rehab in the sanatorium (sector where you meet Kronenberg in the underground) as a sector specific operation. If you do he will be cured of his addictions and become "Sober Larry" with slightly different stats (less health but more wisdom/marksmanship/dex/agi). He will also lose the helmet but Ted stays with him as his rehab animal :D

@@Labatyd385 Nice, haven't gotten that far yet, but good to know!