Thanks for the very detailed video btw. Not sure if you know much about fused spells, but a video this detailed about them would be handy, because of the number of odd behaviours of fused spells that can only really be found out through trial and error as what does and doesn't apply to them does not appear to follow any consistent rules. I have hardly done exhaustive tests and it was in an earlier patch, but I have found that, for example: - Level 6 fused spells scale up to level 40 caster level from class levels with legends, rather than being capped at 28 from class levels - In spite of metamagic being intended not to work with fused spells, empowered elemental spells from your final revelation from an elemental mystery from the living god variant does work with fused spells including the relevant elemental damage. - Fused spells appear to have no interaction with features that boost damage per damage dice for spells, like aspect of the brimorak, bloodline bonuses or the last azlanti amulet, but do interact with school focus feats. I never got around to testing things like interaction with spell critical or surprise spells and how much of the above is intended or not by Owlcat, or the likelihood of it ever changing in subsequent patches either way, I have no idea.
For flat footed, a sword saint with shatter defences might be an option. Sword saints can use class level rather than BAB to qualify for feats from level 9 and with their extreme initiative, they can hit a target flat footed in the first round and then have shatter defences triggered for subsequent rounds. For targets in subsequent rounds, dimension strike can near guarantee a hit for the first hit to trigger shatter defences. Perfect strike might actually be worth using for a vital strike build (its an extremely inefficient use of arcane pool ordinarily) and lethal focus presumably does get multiplied on vital strike, as does weapon specialisation.
I didnt know you could add agile to crossbows with knowledge arcana 2, but thanks for including this. Personally, I doubt I will ever use mythic trick arcana beyond rank 1 as I know I would spend an unreasonable amount of time save scumming, but it might be worth the hassle for Nocticula's bane all crossbow.
Excellent video! I have 3 questions. How is a Vital Strike build affected in real-time with pause? Hoes does pathfinder rtwp even work? In BG1 and 2 it simulated rtwp by having a turn based system which was applied on the character level instead of the world level. That way everyone went through the rounds individually and everyone was doing so simultaneously. But this could perhaps cause issues in pathfinder. Imagine you're doing a full attack for 4 seconds of a round and the last 2 seconds you move. Did you just do multiple attacks AND move? Or does moving a certain distance reset your round timer? Technicalities aside, there's also the fact in rtwp enemies move at the same time as you, meaning that enemies basically spend their movement to come to you, which makes it easier to remain stationary and do full attacks. This, too, would affect the usefulness of a VS build. Can you shed light on this? Doesn't Shatter Defenses last until the end of your next turn? That would mean that your first round would give you the bonus on the second round (provided you hit, ofc), and the second round would provide the bonus for the third round. That would mean that SD isn't useless for VS, but somewhat nerfed since you can the bonus in every round the first, and missing a VS attack would force you to restart. Or am I mistaken about that? "With Accomplished Sneak Attacker you can get 3 sneak attack dice on level 4" Isn't your number of sneak attack dice capped by half your character level? (not counting mythic sources)
Regarding Sneak, the cap applies only for the accomplished sneak attacker feat. Like written, if you've have more than half your level in sneak dice from class levels, it won't work. However, you could have one sneak die from Rowdy, one from Sense Vitals, and one from Accomplished Sneak Attacker by level 4 (or level 5 if you're a spontaneous caster). That’s the setup I used in my current build. That said, combining one level of Rowdy, one from another class, and one from Accomplished Sneak Attacker, probably does not work at level 4. I meant to update the original line to specify Sense Vitals (after testing to make sure it doesn't work), but completely forgot. As for Shatter Defenses, It seems I haven’t properly tested it myself. If you’re correct, it should still do something (at least in turn-based mode). Though it would be bad, even more so in RTWP, where you’re likely to miss the window... or maybe not depending on how it's implemented. I’ll look into this further and come back to you. Thanks for pointing this out. Regarding RTWP: moving leaves you with only a single attack on your next action instead of a full attack. I’ll elaborate more on how RTWP works tomorrow when I have more time. Too lazy now. For now, I’ll just say that, in my experience, the move action is still generally less valuable in RTWP. (For many of the reasons you mentioned). One exception is kiting. In the early game, Vital Strike is very effective for RTWP kiting. However, kiting is not viable past the early game. As when enemies start using Haste, there isn’t enough space to kite even on large maps.
Great video! But it seems you've spent the majority focused on ranged combat. The strongest build I've ever used in WotR was a Rowdy 11 / Vivi 9 using Grave Singer with ICF on the Trickster mythic (post nerf VS, pre-nerf GS). She did 67% of the group's total damage (per Bubble Tweaks). Yes, she was weaker on bosses, but that's what those Hellfire Rays are for.
You’re right; I was more focused on crossbows since my current playthrough build is a crossbow Vital Strike one. This video originally stemmed from a build video I was working on for that build. By the time I reached the Trickster section in the video, I was also pretty burned out. I definitely could have said a lot more about melee Trickster. For example: Perception II is good for "plain" Rowdy builds as it makes use of the many extra feats. This is especially true for your build with the vivi follow up. There might be potential with Mobility II. Honestly, I didn’t test it at all, so I can’t say much about this.
Do you play the pen and paper version of Pathfinder 1e or any other tabletop RPG? You clearly have a gift for minmaxing and it would be cool to see this kind of thorough videos for other rulesets.
This may well be covered in the video, but its quite lengthy so in case I do not finish the video, can you confirm if cleaving finish still applies vital strike damage if you kill with a vital strike as it used to in earlier patches? I haven't played such a build in around 2 years. When I did, I was using demonic charge with vital strike. I can see the chapters, so I assume this is something you have picked up on. If cleave does still work with vital strike, I am not sure if this is something you have covered and I am not sure if this issue has been fixed or not, but there is an issue with improved cleaving finish: When you kill a target and trigger cleaving finish, it will, in the same instant the target dies, select the closest available target and instantly apply the cleave damage to this target. If you are doing vital strike damage, the likelihood of the cleave damage itself being fatal is high for most targets and so will trigger another cleave, all in the same instant as the original vital strike. What causes the issue is that during this instant, any targets killed remain eligible targets for cleaving finish. The consequence is that this will generally mean you vital strike, kill two targets and then cleave back onto the original target which, already being dead, cannot again take fatal damage, thus ending the cleaving chain. Thus, even with a large pack of enemies that would reliably die to a single vital strike and a sufficiently large reach (lets say its a reach weapon with enlarge person and you are fighting the ghoul packs at lost chapel, for example), you will generally just kill two targets. Once you understand this bug, you can generally hit 3 targets pretty easily by identifying a target more distant from another pair of targets are from each other, so when the second target dies, it will definitely have a closer target to cleave onto than the original target that is already dead. But getting this to work for 4 or more targets with a single attack is not something that is going to be very feasible to do reliably and whilst generally is pretty easy for 3 targets if you are paying attention, its very micro intensive, which you might not care for. That said, if cleaving finish applies vital strike, cleaving finish itself is definitely a no brainer. 2 extra feats for improved cleaving finish probably is still a worthwhile option for a vital strike build, as you can fairly reliably get a 3 kill chain as above, and it also means that if you deal deadly damage with a non vital strike, say an outflank AoO for example, you wont have deprived yourself of a cleaving finish on your vital strike attack. Honestly, I probably should just test it myself, but I am too lazy. Any feedback if you know would be appreciated.
Cleaving Finish, unlike many similar abilities (such as Cleaving Shot, Evercold, or Jinx), still benefits from the Vital Strike damage multiplier. Regarding the bug you mentioned: I started a Demon Charge Vital Strike Cleave run in the past but didn’t finish it, so I didn’t encounter enough fights involving Cleaving Finish to observe it. While I did some testing for this episode, it didn’t include scenarios with 4+ enemies. So I can't answer you on that without further testing.
@@DjaliPlays Thanks for confirming. That maintains its functionality somewhat, though beyond the early game, vital strike builds do seem somewhat underwhelming.
Regarding Aspect of the Colloxus, it was a long time ago, but I believe I tried this before treasures of the midnight isles and could not get it to work with vital strike (I assumed it would based on the wording and the fact that zippy magic used to work with vital strike when its wording was much more explicitly for spells). I recall this because aspect of the colloxus not working with vital strike caused me to lose motivation and quit the playthrough in chapter 4. But assuming it used to work with evercold, there presumably must have been a period after treasure of the midnight isles when it did work with colloxus. Maybe it was patched in by accident and patched out again. Its possible I just misremember when I actually tried the build.
Unless my memory fails me, double Vital Strike with Coloxus still worked on the DLC6 patch but was patched out in a subsequent patch within a week; without any mention in the patch notes, as usual. I was actually thinking of doing a Demon run before I found out. They’ve patched and reverted mechanics in the past, so it’s possible it was patched out, reintroduced, and then removed again. Also I haven’t yet done any testing on the latest (Dragon) patch, so for all I know, these abilities may have changed yet again.
Thanks for the very detailed video btw.
Not sure if you know much about fused spells, but a video this detailed about them would be handy, because of the number of odd behaviours of fused spells that can only really be found out through trial and error as what does and doesn't apply to them does not appear to follow any consistent rules. I have hardly done exhaustive tests and it was in an earlier patch, but I have found that, for example:
- Level 6 fused spells scale up to level 40 caster level from class levels with legends, rather than being capped at 28 from class levels
- In spite of metamagic being intended not to work with fused spells, empowered elemental spells from your final revelation from an elemental mystery from the living god variant does work with fused spells including the relevant elemental damage.
- Fused spells appear to have no interaction with features that boost damage per damage dice for spells, like aspect of the brimorak, bloodline bonuses or the last azlanti amulet, but do interact with school focus feats.
I never got around to testing things like interaction with spell critical or surprise spells and how much of the above is intended or not by Owlcat, or the likelihood of it ever changing in subsequent patches either way, I have no idea.
For flat footed, a sword saint with shatter defences might be an option. Sword saints can use class level rather than BAB to qualify for feats from level 9 and with their extreme initiative, they can hit a target flat footed in the first round and then have shatter defences triggered for subsequent rounds. For targets in subsequent rounds, dimension strike can near guarantee a hit for the first hit to trigger shatter defences.
Perfect strike might actually be worth using for a vital strike build (its an extremely inefficient use of arcane pool ordinarily) and lethal focus presumably does get multiplied on vital strike, as does weapon specialisation.
I didnt know you could add agile to crossbows with knowledge arcana 2, but thanks for including this. Personally, I doubt I will ever use mythic trick arcana beyond rank 1 as I know I would spend an unreasonable amount of time save scumming, but it might be worth the hassle for Nocticula's bane all crossbow.
Excellent video!
I have 3 questions.
How is a Vital Strike build affected in real-time with pause?
Hoes does pathfinder rtwp even work? In BG1 and 2 it simulated rtwp by having a turn based system which was applied on the character level instead of the world level. That way everyone went through the rounds individually and everyone was doing so simultaneously.
But this could perhaps cause issues in pathfinder. Imagine you're doing a full attack for 4 seconds of a round and the last 2 seconds you move. Did you just do multiple attacks AND move? Or does moving a certain distance reset your round timer?
Technicalities aside, there's also the fact in rtwp enemies move at the same time as you, meaning that enemies basically spend their movement to come to you, which makes it easier to remain stationary and do full attacks.
This, too, would affect the usefulness of a VS build.
Can you shed light on this?
Doesn't Shatter Defenses last until the end of your next turn?
That would mean that your first round would give you the bonus on the second round (provided you hit, ofc), and the second round would provide the bonus for the third round.
That would mean that SD isn't useless for VS, but somewhat nerfed since you can the bonus in every round the first, and missing a VS attack would force you to restart.
Or am I mistaken about that?
"With Accomplished Sneak Attacker you can get 3 sneak attack dice on level 4"
Isn't your number of sneak attack dice capped by half your character level? (not counting mythic sources)
Regarding Sneak, the cap applies only for the accomplished sneak attacker feat. Like written, if you've have more than half your level in sneak dice from class levels, it won't work.
However, you could have one sneak die from Rowdy, one from Sense Vitals, and one from Accomplished Sneak Attacker by level 4 (or level 5 if you're a spontaneous caster). That’s the setup I used in my current build.
That said, combining one level of Rowdy, one from another class, and one from Accomplished Sneak Attacker, probably does not work at level 4. I meant to update the original line to specify Sense Vitals (after testing to make sure it doesn't work), but completely forgot.
As for Shatter Defenses, It seems I haven’t properly tested it myself. If you’re correct, it should still do something (at least in turn-based mode). Though it would be bad, even more so in RTWP, where you’re likely to miss the window... or maybe not depending on how it's implemented. I’ll look into this further and come back to you. Thanks for pointing this out.
Regarding RTWP: moving leaves you with only a single attack on your next action instead of a full attack. I’ll elaborate more on how RTWP works tomorrow when I have more time. Too lazy now.
For now, I’ll just say that, in my experience, the move action is still generally less valuable in RTWP. (For many of the reasons you mentioned).
One exception is kiting. In the early game, Vital Strike is very effective for RTWP kiting.
However, kiting is not viable past the early game. As when enemies start using Haste, there isn’t enough space to kite even on large maps.
@@DjaliPlays Interesting, I had no idea Sense Vitals allowed you to do that.
Thank you for the elaborate response!
Great video! But it seems you've spent the majority focused on ranged combat. The strongest build I've ever used in WotR was a Rowdy 11 / Vivi 9 using Grave Singer with ICF on the Trickster mythic (post nerf VS, pre-nerf GS). She did 67% of the group's total damage (per Bubble Tweaks). Yes, she was weaker on bosses, but that's what those Hellfire Rays are for.
You’re right; I was more focused on crossbows since my current playthrough build is a crossbow Vital Strike one. This video originally stemmed from a build video I was working on for that build.
By the time I reached the Trickster section in the video, I was also pretty burned out. I definitely could have said a lot more about melee Trickster. For example:
Perception II is good for "plain" Rowdy builds as it makes use of the many extra feats. This is especially true for your build with the vivi follow up.
There might be potential with Mobility II. Honestly, I didn’t test it at all, so I can’t say much about this.
Do you play the pen and paper version of Pathfinder 1e or any other tabletop RPG? You clearly have a gift for minmaxing and it would be cool to see this kind of thorough videos for other rulesets.
Sorry to say I don't.
This may well be covered in the video, but its quite lengthy so in case I do not finish the video, can you confirm if cleaving finish still applies vital strike damage if you kill with a vital strike as it used to in earlier patches? I haven't played such a build in around 2 years.
When I did, I was using demonic charge with vital strike. I can see the chapters, so I assume this is something you have picked up on.
If cleave does still work with vital strike, I am not sure if this is something you have covered and I am not sure if this issue has been fixed or not, but there is an issue with improved cleaving finish:
When you kill a target and trigger cleaving finish, it will, in the same instant the target dies, select the closest available target and instantly apply the cleave damage to this target. If you are doing vital strike damage, the likelihood of the cleave damage itself being fatal is high for most targets and so will trigger another cleave, all in the same instant as the original vital strike.
What causes the issue is that during this instant, any targets killed remain eligible targets for cleaving finish. The consequence is that this will generally mean you vital strike, kill two targets and then cleave back onto the original target which, already being dead, cannot again take fatal damage, thus ending the cleaving chain.
Thus, even with a large pack of enemies that would reliably die to a single vital strike and a sufficiently large reach (lets say its a reach weapon with enlarge person and you are fighting the ghoul packs at lost chapel, for example), you will generally just kill two targets.
Once you understand this bug, you can generally hit 3 targets pretty easily by identifying a target more distant from another pair of targets are from each other, so when the second target dies, it will definitely have a closer target to cleave onto than the original target that is already dead. But getting this to work for 4 or more targets with a single attack is not something that is going to be very feasible to do reliably and whilst generally is pretty easy for 3 targets if you are paying attention, its very micro intensive, which you might not care for.
That said, if cleaving finish applies vital strike, cleaving finish itself is definitely a no brainer. 2 extra feats for improved cleaving finish probably is still a worthwhile option for a vital strike build, as you can fairly reliably get a 3 kill chain as above, and it also means that if you deal deadly damage with a non vital strike, say an outflank AoO for example, you wont have deprived yourself of a cleaving finish on your vital strike attack.
Honestly, I probably should just test it myself, but I am too lazy. Any feedback if you know would be appreciated.
Cleaving Finish, unlike many similar abilities (such as Cleaving Shot, Evercold, or Jinx), still benefits from the Vital Strike damage multiplier.
Regarding the bug you mentioned: I started a Demon Charge Vital Strike Cleave run in the past but didn’t finish it, so I didn’t encounter enough fights involving Cleaving Finish to observe it. While I did some testing for this episode, it didn’t include scenarios with 4+ enemies. So I can't answer you on that without further testing.
@@DjaliPlays Thanks for confirming. That maintains its functionality somewhat, though beyond the early game, vital strike builds do seem somewhat underwhelming.
Regarding Aspect of the Colloxus, it was a long time ago, but I believe I tried this before treasures of the midnight isles and could not get it to work with vital strike (I assumed it would based on the wording and the fact that zippy magic used to work with vital strike when its wording was much more explicitly for spells). I recall this because aspect of the colloxus not working with vital strike caused me to lose motivation and quit the playthrough in chapter 4.
But assuming it used to work with evercold, there presumably must have been a period after treasure of the midnight isles when it did work with colloxus. Maybe it was patched in by accident and patched out again. Its possible I just misremember when I actually tried the build.
Unless my memory fails me, double Vital Strike with Coloxus still worked on the DLC6 patch but was patched out in a subsequent patch within a week; without any mention in the patch notes, as usual. I was actually thinking of doing a Demon run before I found out.
They’ve patched and reverted mechanics in the past, so it’s possible it was patched out, reintroduced, and then removed again.
Also I haven’t yet done any testing on the latest (Dragon) patch, so for all I know, these abilities may have changed yet again.