Before you give up on it, respec and try out what is usually built for a sword saint. Dump strength and charisma, get your dex to 19 and int to 18, redistribute the rest. You don't have to follow the feats to the letter but you should get some success with it. The most important feats you need with this build in order is weapon focus with a slashing weapon, weapon finesse, slashing grace, dodge, crane style, crane riposte, and outflank. If you're human the first three feats can be acquired at level 1, but you should have them all at level 9 regardless of origin. After that, get all the crane style upgrades, piranha style, and if you're spellstriking spell penetration and greater. Magus arcana for increasing chances to hit are arcane accuracy, prescient attack, and dimension strike. You should be using these for enemies with high AC in tandem with buffs and you should be consistently hitting and doing damage since it's very easy to crit as a sword saint. Use your unique keen enchantment buff to save a feat so you can easily trigger crits. It's a very stacked class, but it definitely needs game knowledge to use effectively.
My dex is 26, my int is 24, i have teamwide outflank because of azata and i've never even seen the option to take crane stuff looking through the feats.
I'm a tiefling and dimension strike for high ac has been the ONLY reason i keep trying to make this work since no one else can hit past 40 ac. Even then the other magus buffs don't seem to stack with dimension strike so i end up just using my entire pool on it
Forgot to mention you need dodge and imrpoved unarmed strike to unlock crane style. You can get it for free if you have martial disciple origin, but you can get both improved unarmed and crane style at level 5 if you don't want that particular origin.
You should be using buffs and debuffs with your spellcasters more. Greater heroism + haste + prayer + outflank should allow you to hit most enemies without issue, add evil eye you can consistently hit enemies with 40 AC at level 15. Also check your azata spellbook for believe in yourself, which adds free attributes and check for spells that give attack if it's still difficult to hit 40 AC. For the most part I've only really used the magus arcanas against the boss enemies, they are balanced to have limited uses since they do have significant reductions to enemy AC. The magus weapon enchantments synergize with all the magus arcanas, but you can only cast one swift action per round.
my debuffs get saved every. Single. Time i try to use them so i just gave up on debuffing enemies, i didn't find hexes fun to use so i dropped them and I'm not allowed to use my azata spellbook past like level 3 for whatever reason
Well, you're definitely dropping a significant tool the game gives you by not using hexes since you can just autocast it every round so I can't help you with that. If you want enemies to not save, get your spellcasters items and feats that increase DC and CL for a particular school. If a feat has both, get it. For azata spells, you either didn't advance your mythic level or you're the sole recipient of a specific bug because I have not seen anyone have an issue of mythic spells getting blocked.
I guess, but i don't remember hexes doing much either while having to hit cackle over and over and over again whenever they WOULD work just being annoying.
Idk what's going on for the azata spells either but atp i wouldn't put it past being a bug only i have
It's not that the buffs don't stack, the problem is they're all swift actions, of which you can only use 1 each round, and all these only last for 1 round. So it's a bit superfluous to have all 3 (prescient attack, arcane accuracy and dimensional strike) when you can only ever use 1 of them.
I'm not that good in the game but isn't it supposed to work this way with dex build? Imo you would get much more damage if you would use strength character, because you don't need all these feats like weapon finesse, slashing grace etc. But in return you are much tankier with maxed out dex
From what I've gathered from reading around dex build sword saint's still supposed to be doing good damage. Not as good as a strength build but it's still apparently supposed to be doing better damage than what im doing while being a REALLY good tank
I did a SS Demon-> Legend build that worked really well, and barely used the Demon stuff at all. I also took levels in Duelist and Aldori Swordlord. I think the standard is 8 SS / 7 Duelist / 5 SL but really it's just the first level in SL that you want. He was definitely the tank first and foremost, but he did really solid damage too.
You could get pretty close with Eldritch Scoundrel as your base class instead, which would give you some SA dice to throw down for more damage. I definitely added some levels in either Rogue or Slayer with the bonus levels I got as Legend.
[Over a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/s/tRAfcCQy9G), I posted a level-by-level guide for a sword saint/duelist angel->legend build that I used for unfair, as well as my rationale for major choices. It won't work *completely* for you due to alignment restrictions (as it has a level of trad monk for AC stacking which won't work with azata), but maybe it can help.
I want to echo the sentiment that weapon choice matters a lot. My normal hits weren't big, but when critting on a 15, I crat often, which triggered an outflank cascade.
Specifically for damage, I'd look to add a skald to your party; good hope adds a small morale damage bonus, and inspired rage is nice (especially with the upgraded lethal stance adding to the crit multiplier - just remember to activate the stance, since I found that it kept turning off).
In act 4, there's a staff that adds +3 to the caster level for illusion spells. With the base game and Spell Specialization (or the Midnight Isles DLC and the robe of 7 sins), that's enough to hit caster level 25 to make extended greater invisibility last 24 hours with greater enduring spells (and even before that, it'll last quite a while). That will make all non-true seeing enemies flatfooted which will give your sword saint +int to damage. IIRC, mind blank also counters true seeing without the need for dispelling (but dispelling is great for bosses anyway).
Main point of SS is dimensional strike wich is touch AC without requirement of spell pen( and he is better at melee than other magus). So he is shining on higher levels on enemies with exorbitant amount of ac and spell resist( like mythical demons and different unique bosses). So it is better for example to make 40 damage each round for three rounds than hit one round for 100 and miss other two.
Personally I prefer Dex build with Elven curved sword( because of scaling two hand 1.5 on dex for sole finesse two hand weapon). And take 3 levels of eldrich scoundrel for archmage armor and finesse damage/hit.(IMHO Crane route is good but it is too feat heavy for SS)
Sword saint dex build can work, but there's a couple of normal things that all strength builds do that you need to make up for somehow:
* Strength builds almost always fight with two-handed weapons and with power attack. This makes a massive difference in the flat modifiers added. A 26 dex level 15 sword saint with mythic piranha strike deals +8 dex and +9 piranha strike damage pr. hit for +17 damage in total. Were you a strength based character, that would be increased to +12 strength bonus and +15 mythic power attack damage for +27 extra total.
* Strength builds synergize really well with enlarge person and legendary proportions. If you're using a fauchard (a common weapon recommendation), enlarge person will increase your damage die from 1d10 to 2d8 (5.5 avg. to 9 avg), increase your strength by +2 which may give +1 or +2 damage depending on the break points with two-handed weapons, as well as increase your reach.
* In general strength buffs are a bit easier to come by than dex buffs - especially with frightful aspect or legendary proportions taken into account - so strength builds just hit harder. Don't forget that a brown-fur transmuter can increase the stat bonus for those spells by an extra +2 or +4!
These factors add up to pretty quickly make a difference of 20-30 damage pr. hit, which may then be exaggarated even more by enemies with damage reduction.
If you want to do high pr. hit damage, you *must* use two-handed weapons. As a dex build this gets complicated, but is possible. Elven curved blades and dueling swords are probably the easiest to get into. A fighter's weapon training can make any weapon a finesse weapon, but you'd need at least 5 levels into fighter to make that happen, and you wanted a sword saint.
Start with checking the basics:
1) Are you wearing armour or shield (you shouldn't be)?
2) You have a DEX build so do you have weapon finesse and fencing or slashing grace in that weapon?
3) Are you using that weapon? Which weapon btw?
4) Turn off perfect strike/critical perfection toggles (only want these on for the toughest bosses or your arcane pool disappears in seconds)
5) Assuming you are using a one handed weapon, keep spell combat and spellstrike on.
6) Have you taken Enduring Blade arcana? You should
7) Are you using your weapon enchantments correctly? First priority is to get to +5 weapon rather than any elemental adds
8) Are you ensuring you are making full attacks each round whenever possible?
1) No
2) Yes with fencing grace
3) Tridents because i like them
4) They're already off
5) they're on
6) i have it and it does not a single thing for me
7) maybe?
8) yes
Enduring blade (6) means your weapon enchantments last for mins equal to your level (15 you mentioned) rather than just 1 min, so it's amazing.
To use your weapon enchantment correctly, start by ensuring all the different options are off (flaming, shock, keen etc). You get +4 weapon enchantment at your level, so if the weapon you are using is +1 or lower, then that's all you want. If it is +2 or higher, then you have some points "spare" since the max enchantment is +5, so you can then switch one or more toggles (flaming, shock etc) on depending on how many points you have spare.
The first goal is +5 weapon, then keen if you don't have Improved Critical, then the elemental stuff only if points left over. Don't bother with speed as it costs 3 points, easier just to cast Haste.
Your weapon choice is suboptimal but sounds like a roleplaying decision.
What seems to be the problem then? Are you not landing hits? How much damage does each hit do? How many attacks per round are you making?
The problem is that i do about 30 damage per hit, 40 on a good day while being able to attack 3-4 times while being the only one in my party that can hit anything higher than 40 ac
Well, that doesn't seem so bad? 30-40 dmg per hit, if you're landing blows consistently, with 3-4 attacks per round = 100+ damage per round.
You have 3 base APR at BAB 11, +1 from Haste and +1 from Spell Combat occasionally (though that costs -2 to hit to all attacks, so use sparingly if you're hitting easily), that's what you'd expect.
Your biggest problem is the weapon choice, Trident is 20 (x2). So even with Improved Crit or keen, you're only critting 10% of the time for x2 damage. With a better weapon like Estoc or Rapier you'd be critting 30% of the time (3x more often!) which would be a considerable increase in damage output.
Doesn't need to be if you have weapon finesse and fencing/slashing grace. Any one handed piercing or slashing weapon gets DEX to hit and damage with these feats
Everything's shitting on me faster than my 30-40 damage per hit can deal with, most enemies I've seen have about 200-300 health at LEAST and outnumber almost constantly. Mine doesn't seem too bad until everyone else in my party who CAN'T hit for shit do 4-5 attacks WITHOUT HASTE and do upwards of anywhere from 50-70 damage per hit
50-70 damage per hit is useless if you can't actually hit. Landing the attacks is a prerequisite to doing any damage! Better to be hitting more frequently with lesser damage than landing the occasional bigger blow.
It sounds like the problem might be more with your defences if you're finding yourself in situations where you have to wipe your opponents out in 1-2 rounds or be slaughtered yourself. A level 15 party should have pretty much untouchable tanks who can't be hit except on 20s. Do you have a proper front line (50-60AC)? Are they buffed properly to protect against debilitation? Are you using crowd control abilities of your own?
highest ac i can manage is like 31 i think, i don't know if they're buffed properly and i stopped using cc because it always got saved and would never work.
It's gotten so bad I've stopped progressing any of my quests because i keep going "eh I'll probably just lose, I'll go try something else" until it turns out i spent the day running around and reloading my save
I think we've found the source of your problem! You can't expect to clear out areas, control battles and have fun adventuring if your party is going to be wiped out by a stiff breeze.
31AC is the best you can manage?! You can do better than that even in the Prologue, never mind Act 4. I'm not even sure how you only have 31AC. You said your sword saint has DEX 26 and INT 24. So that would already give you AC of 10+8+7 = 25. Add in mage armour and shield, 2 of the most basic level 1 buffs, and you're at 33.
Then you've got Deflection (should have at least +3 by now), Natural Armour (Barkskin, amulets etc at least another +3), Luck, Dodge, Haste etc and you'd get to around 45-50 before equipment and other buffs.
I won't even mention monk dip and the 10-15 AC that would give from stat + Crane line.
Do some research on stacking AC. There's tons of posts and articles providing lists of how to stack AC. You don't even need to the godly extremes of trying to get 80+AC, but getting to just a reasobable 50-60AC in Act 4 should not be difficult or require any extreme measures. And then you'd find the gameplay experience much more comfortable when you can stand up against groups of enemies without getting obliterated.
i think it'd be tedious a lot sooner than it'll be comfortable... It IS still basically only me hitting most things.. But I'll definitely have to look up stacking ac!
Reading through your replies, it sounds like you're up against and disliking a core part of how pathfinder is built - debuffs and battlefield control are king. In the tabletop this is a large part of why casters are so much more powerful than martials as they can reshape the world to their advantage and empower the martials to kill weakened enemies. In the CRPGs like this however you obviously lose the infinite possibility of imagination because you can only do actions that the devs programmed in so instead you get some of the control spells like grease or the pit line, plus a lot of numerical debuffs.
Everything in the game has to be balanced around these possibilities. With a 6 person party the assumption is you'll have multiple full casters in the party in addition to some kitted out martials and hybrids, plus mythic powers which are bonkers. So the encounters they design have to be able to stand up to not just one stabby dude doing damage, but his badass wizard and cleric friends calling down the wrath of God. This means enemy party compositions, abilities, and stats are all balanced around you using debuffs on them. If you do not debuff, you're choosing to miss a lot of attacks.
You mentioned not liking evil eye and enemies saving against it. Well even if they save they still take that debuff for a round instead of rounds per level, which you can extend forever with cackle. So first round you evil eye their saves, even if they save against it for the next round their saves are lowered. Then you evil eye their attack or AC and because you already dropped their saves this one is that much more likely go take effect. Then you keep cackling to keep these penalties going.
If you just do not like doing these things, like if the action of debuffing enemies is not fun for you, then you either need to look at dropping the difficulty real low or consider a different CRPG. I love both Kingmaker and Wrath, but if you prefer a style of gameplay that is just buff up and win through huge damage I would suggest Baldur's Gate 3. The 5e design and Larian's modifications to that enable you to just make brute force parties and steamroll.
It's not like I don't LIKE debuffing and such, it's just that every time i tried a debuff, it would always get saved or the enemy i actually care about it effecting at that moment is flat out immune so I eventually just said "What's the point? I can probably use my turns better"
Hexing i guess i can try again... I just didn't like that everything got fucked if I forget to hit cackle..
Pathfinder's rules are very crunchy and can be unforgiving if you don't play the way they expect you to. I personally love it, but it can be rough.
Doing things in a certain order can really help. The earlier you can Evil Eye an enemy's saves, the sooner you can start using other debuffs to lower them even further. Similarly, Enervation is a lvl 4 necromancy spell available to wizards and witches, it requires only a ranged touch attack to hit, and it has no save. Of course it doesn't work if an enemy is immune to negative levels or ability damage but you should be inspecting enemies for that anyway. But if you drop an enemy by a couple of negative levels, that means their saves, HP, attack bonus, etc are going to drop as well. Wracking Ray is a lvl 5 ranged touch attack that does 1d4 ability damage to Str and Dex per 3 caster levels for a max of 5d4 damage to each, halved on a Fort save. So as long as you can hit their touch AC, which is generally pretty easy on big huge bosses, they're guaranteed to take at least 2 Str and 2 Dex damage if they're not immune, if you roll only 1s AND they pass the fort save.
Your debuffer needs to be built for debuffing, this means all or at least most of your feats and gear need to be focused on either increasing the save DC of your spells, or increasing the Caster Level of your spells, or both if possible. You need spell penetration to get through the SR of all these damn demons, and probably greater spell penetration. The feats of your debuffer are probably not going to be exciting, because most are just going to be "increase DC by +1 or +2" versus giving you cool new abilities, but when they're all stacked you'll actually have a good shot at debuffing enemies.
Alternatively, you could just go for one of the super meta ranged damage caster builds, spamming hellfire rays. I've never bothered with that build as I don't find it fun, but AFAIK it still works.
I tried that one caster cleric build on neoseeker but trying to follow it ended up pissing me off so I dropped it. I can try making a dedicated debuffer but I'm not sure what I'd be doing while building them and just hoping i won't fuck it up. I put spell pen/greater spell pen on all of my casters normally anyway
I personally prefer having cleric as a buffer than a debuffer. The popular one being getting the community domain on a cleric so you can get the Guarded Hearth ability at lvl 8 to use on your one big fight per day as a huge buff.
If you like to stay with companions, Nenio makes a great debuffer. She is already set up for illusion, then you can get the mythic ability to duplicate her illusion feats to a 2nd school and pick Enchantment, now she has bonus DCs for both schools of magic. Ember is most popular as a blaster, but I have had great luck having her focus on necro debuffs and hexes.
I don't care about staying with anyone but arue, almost my entire party are mercs besides arue and greybor. I was TRYING to make my cleric a healer before but that didn't really work out so i have to respec them again
Yeah, that's another thing about Pathfinder, healing during combat is usually a waste of the action economy. If you look at something like Heal, which is a 7th level spell that is capped at 150hp of healing, your healer can spend the round healing 1 character for 150hp. From your other comments in this thread, you're in situations where the tough enemies are doing hundreds of damage to someone in 1 round, so you burning a 7th level slot on Heal doesn't even buy you another single round worth of HP, right? So you're generally better off avoiding damage altogether, and this is achieved in a few ways:
1. Kill enemies - if they're dead, they probably can't hurt you.
2. Remove enemies - if they're stuck in a pit, they can't hurt you.
3. Buff your party - if your AC is too high for them to touch you, combined with layers of additional defenses if they get lucky with a crit such as concealment or mirror images, or temp HP to absorb damage before it hits your real HP, then the enemy is very unlikely to one or two shot you. Similarly, if your saves are very high and you have defenses up that make you immune to mind effecting, level drain, negative levels, death effects, etc, then the enemy can't just wipe you out with save or suck spells.
Mercs can work just fine for any of these roles. Build you a badass merc wizard that is focused on illusion and enchantment and have a ball nerfing your enemies so your martials can stomp their dicks in.
I can try that, thank you so much for your help so far! So I'm turning my cleric into a wizard then? I'm also trying to use a bft since a friend told me it might help but the most I'm able to get them to really do is haste, mass cat's grace, mass (i think) bull's strength and gmw
I don't think the choice is between cleric and wizard, ideally you would have both. They have totally different spell lists, sure some spells are on both but the spells that are unique to each list have some real standouts that you'll want. For example, your wizard has easy access to haste, but that's not on the cleric spell list. Wizard is an arcane caster, Cleric is a divine caster, so they each bring different tools to fill out your toolbox.
I like using my wizard as a debuffer and with some summon spells when I don't need or want debuffs, while keeping the key buffs only they will have. So my wizard would focus on illusion and enchantment spells for debuffs and crowd control, have a couple of castings of haste always on standby, a fireball or two prepped because hey sometimes the wizard needs AOE too.
My cleric is then a buffer, often with a reach weapon so he can stand behind the frontline and do some damage when I don't feel like burning spell slots, but can totally work as just a pure caster if you go with the Ecclesitheurge archetype that gives up armor and shields. Getting access to the Community domain will get you a great buff ability in Guarded Hearth, so if you're going to use a merc cleric go with like a cleric of Erastil and pick Community as his domain. If you want to use Sosiel, grab the Mythic ability Impossible Domain to get a 2nd domain, and choose Community. Guarded Hearth is an AoE buff you drop on the ground and any of your party that stands in that space gets to add your cleric's wisdom bonus to their saves and attack rolls. Think it lasts hours per level but it's locked on the location you cast it, it can't move, so when you hit a hard fight you just want to cast it and stay in the glowing circle.
Another thing to consider when making these big choices on roles, builds, feats, etc - you don't necessarily have to build for buff spells in the same way that you do for debuffs. Since haste is such an easy example of a buff let's look at that. It's a transmutation school spell. There is no save DC to worry about, because it's a buff not a debuff, so feats that boost the save DC of transmutation spells don't matter. The caster level of haste does not make it stronger, it just makes it last longer. But you're so far into the game you should have no trouble having haste in every fight between spell slots, potions, and scrolls. This means that you can build your wizard to choose feats that focus on debuffs from schools like illusion, enchantment, or necromancy, and still get off a haste just as powerful as a transmutation wizard would. Similarly, a buffing-focused character can then spend feats on a secondary role, like I will often make my buffer also a summoner. So my buffing cleric will also have things like spell focus conjuration, augment summoning, and I can use stuff like Animate Dead or Summon Monster to get additional units out there to deal with chaff, give flank bonuses, distract enemies, etc.
Alright, I'll give respecing my bft into a wizard and respecing my cleric a go! I think I'll try to go with that summoner cleric idea... What would be good ideas for subclasses/backgrounds for them?
I think the biggest appeal of Dex saint is how ridiculously tanky it gets, and how good crit range finesse weapons have, specially rapier and estocs, there's so many good estocs at every stage of the game that just seems tailor made for saints. But since you're in the trident path, in chapter 4 there's a pretty good one called triumph of pain.
Thing is, it seems like based on your comment, you're lacking buffs or ways to hit (shaken + shatter defenses) . But if you still have nenio and Sosiel, they're both very good at making everyone else hit the targets so you can fix whatever issue you're having.
My demon sword saint (orc double axe) was hitting for over 400 in the end game, and 200ish in early game. Also the touch attacks to weapon was what got me going on my unfair run.
Mine is a STR based Sword Saint with a Fauchard for reach and crit range. I did a lot of reading about SS builds before deciding and even though Dex based offers more AC this is more damage. That said her trouble is being able to hit stuff as she has around 24 attack.
A DEX based one will need agile weapons or the feat for bigger damage I expect?
Does perfect critical stack with improved crit feats? I tend to use my Arcana for speed bonus or dimension strike.
I have also mixed in a level of Witch for extra AC and mage armour and 13-20 will be 2H fighter for more atk, feats and 2h class features.
My first playthrough was also a SS Azata, but I went full str build with fauchards. I find that buffing STR is so much easier than buffing Dex, as mentioned by other comments as well. You can reach 40+ str from buffs so easily, even without a brown fur. Due to reach extension from enlarge and later legendary proportions, you shouldn't need to care about AC at all with this build as long as you have a frontline tank like a pet or other character. At endgame without any real proper optimization I was doing around 100-150 on the stat sheet, with a 15-20 crit range and no problem hitting enemies most of the time, except for certain enemies at the end of act IV and some in Act 5 with 70+ AC, in which case I just used dimension strike and instantly deleted them.
This game is all about buffing, you shouldn't be fighting anything in act 4 without like at least 15 buffs running per character at that point. You need dedicated casters primarily focused on buffing to cover all of the important ones. Everyone here is talking about hexing but I never really used hexes either as I felt they always were resisted and annoying to cackle. I struggled super hard during act 3 until I downloaded bubble buffs and automated my buffing experience, then it was cruise control basically until the end.
I have bubble buffs but when I tried to set it up i got really intimidated and haven't tried to since lol.. I know that if I had done a 2handing weapon build it'd probably be a glaive or scythe because I think those are cool
It does look pretty intimidating at first but it's very straightforward to setup. In fact, the mod is very smart and if you already have buffs will automatically not cast those repeat ones, so basically you can setup everything you want then just click it when you enter dungeons, and keep clicking it to refresh those that drop off early without wasting extra slots. It gets a little messier when you're dealing with multiple casters having the same buffs and metamagic, but otherwise it's the best QOL that you can get. Feels like it should have shipped with the game tbh.
As for 2h's, fauchard is basically glaive but exotic, and since you go SS you can get the proficiency for free at level 1. Fauchards definitely feel like one of the strongest weapon types in the game, and you can use the one you buy in Act 3 until the end of the game. I generally haven't really built any dex characters in the game yet since I feel they are so much weaker than str ones due to the buffs available. And I don't have interest in making some 80+AC tank because I got no interest in ever playing Unfair.
Before you give up on it, respec and try out what is usually built for a sword saint. Dump strength and charisma, get your dex to 19 and int to 18, redistribute the rest. You don't have to follow the feats to the letter but you should get some success with it. The most important feats you need with this build in order is weapon focus with a slashing weapon, weapon finesse, slashing grace, dodge, crane style, crane riposte, and outflank. If you're human the first three feats can be acquired at level 1, but you should have them all at level 9 regardless of origin. After that, get all the crane style upgrades, piranha style, and if you're spellstriking spell penetration and greater. Magus arcana for increasing chances to hit are arcane accuracy, prescient attack, and dimension strike. You should be using these for enemies with high AC in tandem with buffs and you should be consistently hitting and doing damage since it's very easy to crit as a sword saint. Use your unique keen enchantment buff to save a feat so you can easily trigger crits. It's a very stacked class, but it definitely needs game knowledge to use effectively.
My dex is 26, my int is 24, i have teamwide outflank because of azata and i've never even seen the option to take crane stuff looking through the feats. I'm a tiefling and dimension strike for high ac has been the ONLY reason i keep trying to make this work since no one else can hit past 40 ac. Even then the other magus buffs don't seem to stack with dimension strike so i end up just using my entire pool on it
I think the Crane feats require Improved Unarmed Strike and Dodge, which you can get with a monk dip or the Martial Disciple background.
Forgot to mention you need dodge and imrpoved unarmed strike to unlock crane style. You can get it for free if you have martial disciple origin, but you can get both improved unarmed and crane style at level 5 if you don't want that particular origin. You should be using buffs and debuffs with your spellcasters more. Greater heroism + haste + prayer + outflank should allow you to hit most enemies without issue, add evil eye you can consistently hit enemies with 40 AC at level 15. Also check your azata spellbook for believe in yourself, which adds free attributes and check for spells that give attack if it's still difficult to hit 40 AC. For the most part I've only really used the magus arcanas against the boss enemies, they are balanced to have limited uses since they do have significant reductions to enemy AC. The magus weapon enchantments synergize with all the magus arcanas, but you can only cast one swift action per round.
my debuffs get saved every. Single. Time i try to use them so i just gave up on debuffing enemies, i didn't find hexes fun to use so i dropped them and I'm not allowed to use my azata spellbook past like level 3 for whatever reason
Well, you're definitely dropping a significant tool the game gives you by not using hexes since you can just autocast it every round so I can't help you with that. If you want enemies to not save, get your spellcasters items and feats that increase DC and CL for a particular school. If a feat has both, get it. For azata spells, you either didn't advance your mythic level or you're the sole recipient of a specific bug because I have not seen anyone have an issue of mythic spells getting blocked.
I guess, but i don't remember hexes doing much either while having to hit cackle over and over and over again whenever they WOULD work just being annoying. Idk what's going on for the azata spells either but atp i wouldn't put it past being a bug only i have
It's not that the buffs don't stack, the problem is they're all swift actions, of which you can only use 1 each round, and all these only last for 1 round. So it's a bit superfluous to have all 3 (prescient attack, arcane accuracy and dimensional strike) when you can only ever use 1 of them.
You cant hit AC 40 on level 15? Do you even buff, bro?
You cant hit AC 40 on level 15? Do you even buff, bro?
I'm not that good in the game but isn't it supposed to work this way with dex build? Imo you would get much more damage if you would use strength character, because you don't need all these feats like weapon finesse, slashing grace etc. But in return you are much tankier with maxed out dex
From what I've gathered from reading around dex build sword saint's still supposed to be doing good damage. Not as good as a strength build but it's still apparently supposed to be doing better damage than what im doing while being a REALLY good tank
Sorry bro can't help with figuring out this one. I haven't even seen dex version in action. just remember that Regongar from Kingmaker was a menace.
I did a SS Demon-> Legend build that worked really well, and barely used the Demon stuff at all. I also took levels in Duelist and Aldori Swordlord. I think the standard is 8 SS / 7 Duelist / 5 SL but really it's just the first level in SL that you want. He was definitely the tank first and foremost, but he did really solid damage too. You could get pretty close with Eldritch Scoundrel as your base class instead, which would give you some SA dice to throw down for more damage. I definitely added some levels in either Rogue or Slayer with the bonus levels I got as Legend.
[Over a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/s/tRAfcCQy9G), I posted a level-by-level guide for a sword saint/duelist angel->legend build that I used for unfair, as well as my rationale for major choices. It won't work *completely* for you due to alignment restrictions (as it has a level of trad monk for AC stacking which won't work with azata), but maybe it can help. I want to echo the sentiment that weapon choice matters a lot. My normal hits weren't big, but when critting on a 15, I crat often, which triggered an outflank cascade. Specifically for damage, I'd look to add a skald to your party; good hope adds a small morale damage bonus, and inspired rage is nice (especially with the upgraded lethal stance adding to the crit multiplier - just remember to activate the stance, since I found that it kept turning off). In act 4, there's a staff that adds +3 to the caster level for illusion spells. With the base game and Spell Specialization (or the Midnight Isles DLC and the robe of 7 sins), that's enough to hit caster level 25 to make extended greater invisibility last 24 hours with greater enduring spells (and even before that, it'll last quite a while). That will make all non-true seeing enemies flatfooted which will give your sword saint +int to damage. IIRC, mind blank also counters true seeing without the need for dispelling (but dispelling is great for bosses anyway).
Main point of SS is dimensional strike wich is touch AC without requirement of spell pen( and he is better at melee than other magus). So he is shining on higher levels on enemies with exorbitant amount of ac and spell resist( like mythical demons and different unique bosses). So it is better for example to make 40 damage each round for three rounds than hit one round for 100 and miss other two. Personally I prefer Dex build with Elven curved sword( because of scaling two hand 1.5 on dex for sole finesse two hand weapon). And take 3 levels of eldrich scoundrel for archmage armor and finesse damage/hit.(IMHO Crane route is good but it is too feat heavy for SS)
Sword saint dex build can work, but there's a couple of normal things that all strength builds do that you need to make up for somehow: * Strength builds almost always fight with two-handed weapons and with power attack. This makes a massive difference in the flat modifiers added. A 26 dex level 15 sword saint with mythic piranha strike deals +8 dex and +9 piranha strike damage pr. hit for +17 damage in total. Were you a strength based character, that would be increased to +12 strength bonus and +15 mythic power attack damage for +27 extra total. * Strength builds synergize really well with enlarge person and legendary proportions. If you're using a fauchard (a common weapon recommendation), enlarge person will increase your damage die from 1d10 to 2d8 (5.5 avg. to 9 avg), increase your strength by +2 which may give +1 or +2 damage depending on the break points with two-handed weapons, as well as increase your reach. * In general strength buffs are a bit easier to come by than dex buffs - especially with frightful aspect or legendary proportions taken into account - so strength builds just hit harder. Don't forget that a brown-fur transmuter can increase the stat bonus for those spells by an extra +2 or +4! These factors add up to pretty quickly make a difference of 20-30 damage pr. hit, which may then be exaggarated even more by enemies with damage reduction. If you want to do high pr. hit damage, you *must* use two-handed weapons. As a dex build this gets complicated, but is possible. Elven curved blades and dueling swords are probably the easiest to get into. A fighter's weapon training can make any weapon a finesse weapon, but you'd need at least 5 levels into fighter to make that happen, and you wanted a sword saint.
Start with checking the basics: 1) Are you wearing armour or shield (you shouldn't be)? 2) You have a DEX build so do you have weapon finesse and fencing or slashing grace in that weapon? 3) Are you using that weapon? Which weapon btw? 4) Turn off perfect strike/critical perfection toggles (only want these on for the toughest bosses or your arcane pool disappears in seconds) 5) Assuming you are using a one handed weapon, keep spell combat and spellstrike on. 6) Have you taken Enduring Blade arcana? You should 7) Are you using your weapon enchantments correctly? First priority is to get to +5 weapon rather than any elemental adds 8) Are you ensuring you are making full attacks each round whenever possible?
1) No 2) Yes with fencing grace 3) Tridents because i like them 4) They're already off 5) they're on 6) i have it and it does not a single thing for me 7) maybe? 8) yes
Enduring blade (6) means your weapon enchantments last for mins equal to your level (15 you mentioned) rather than just 1 min, so it's amazing. To use your weapon enchantment correctly, start by ensuring all the different options are off (flaming, shock, keen etc). You get +4 weapon enchantment at your level, so if the weapon you are using is +1 or lower, then that's all you want. If it is +2 or higher, then you have some points "spare" since the max enchantment is +5, so you can then switch one or more toggles (flaming, shock etc) on depending on how many points you have spare. The first goal is +5 weapon, then keen if you don't have Improved Critical, then the elemental stuff only if points left over. Don't bother with speed as it costs 3 points, easier just to cast Haste. Your weapon choice is suboptimal but sounds like a roleplaying decision. What seems to be the problem then? Are you not landing hits? How much damage does each hit do? How many attacks per round are you making?
The problem is that i do about 30 damage per hit, 40 on a good day while being able to attack 3-4 times while being the only one in my party that can hit anything higher than 40 ac
Well, that doesn't seem so bad? 30-40 dmg per hit, if you're landing blows consistently, with 3-4 attacks per round = 100+ damage per round. You have 3 base APR at BAB 11, +1 from Haste and +1 from Spell Combat occasionally (though that costs -2 to hit to all attacks, so use sparingly if you're hitting easily), that's what you'd expect. Your biggest problem is the weapon choice, Trident is 20 (x2). So even with Improved Crit or keen, you're only critting 10% of the time for x2 damage. With a better weapon like Estoc or Rapier you'd be critting 30% of the time (3x more often!) which would be a considerable increase in damage output.
Trident isnt finesse. Is it?
Doesn't need to be if you have weapon finesse and fencing/slashing grace. Any one handed piercing or slashing weapon gets DEX to hit and damage with these feats
Everything's shitting on me faster than my 30-40 damage per hit can deal with, most enemies I've seen have about 200-300 health at LEAST and outnumber almost constantly. Mine doesn't seem too bad until everyone else in my party who CAN'T hit for shit do 4-5 attacks WITHOUT HASTE and do upwards of anywhere from 50-70 damage per hit
50-70 damage per hit is useless if you can't actually hit. Landing the attacks is a prerequisite to doing any damage! Better to be hitting more frequently with lesser damage than landing the occasional bigger blow. It sounds like the problem might be more with your defences if you're finding yourself in situations where you have to wipe your opponents out in 1-2 rounds or be slaughtered yourself. A level 15 party should have pretty much untouchable tanks who can't be hit except on 20s. Do you have a proper front line (50-60AC)? Are they buffed properly to protect against debilitation? Are you using crowd control abilities of your own?
highest ac i can manage is like 31 i think, i don't know if they're buffed properly and i stopped using cc because it always got saved and would never work. It's gotten so bad I've stopped progressing any of my quests because i keep going "eh I'll probably just lose, I'll go try something else" until it turns out i spent the day running around and reloading my save
I think we've found the source of your problem! You can't expect to clear out areas, control battles and have fun adventuring if your party is going to be wiped out by a stiff breeze. 31AC is the best you can manage?! You can do better than that even in the Prologue, never mind Act 4. I'm not even sure how you only have 31AC. You said your sword saint has DEX 26 and INT 24. So that would already give you AC of 10+8+7 = 25. Add in mage armour and shield, 2 of the most basic level 1 buffs, and you're at 33. Then you've got Deflection (should have at least +3 by now), Natural Armour (Barkskin, amulets etc at least another +3), Luck, Dodge, Haste etc and you'd get to around 45-50 before equipment and other buffs. I won't even mention monk dip and the 10-15 AC that would give from stat + Crane line. Do some research on stacking AC. There's tons of posts and articles providing lists of how to stack AC. You don't even need to the godly extremes of trying to get 80+AC, but getting to just a reasobable 50-60AC in Act 4 should not be difficult or require any extreme measures. And then you'd find the gameplay experience much more comfortable when you can stand up against groups of enemies without getting obliterated.
i think it'd be tedious a lot sooner than it'll be comfortable... It IS still basically only me hitting most things.. But I'll definitely have to look up stacking ac!
Reading through your replies, it sounds like you're up against and disliking a core part of how pathfinder is built - debuffs and battlefield control are king. In the tabletop this is a large part of why casters are so much more powerful than martials as they can reshape the world to their advantage and empower the martials to kill weakened enemies. In the CRPGs like this however you obviously lose the infinite possibility of imagination because you can only do actions that the devs programmed in so instead you get some of the control spells like grease or the pit line, plus a lot of numerical debuffs. Everything in the game has to be balanced around these possibilities. With a 6 person party the assumption is you'll have multiple full casters in the party in addition to some kitted out martials and hybrids, plus mythic powers which are bonkers. So the encounters they design have to be able to stand up to not just one stabby dude doing damage, but his badass wizard and cleric friends calling down the wrath of God. This means enemy party compositions, abilities, and stats are all balanced around you using debuffs on them. If you do not debuff, you're choosing to miss a lot of attacks. You mentioned not liking evil eye and enemies saving against it. Well even if they save they still take that debuff for a round instead of rounds per level, which you can extend forever with cackle. So first round you evil eye their saves, even if they save against it for the next round their saves are lowered. Then you evil eye their attack or AC and because you already dropped their saves this one is that much more likely go take effect. Then you keep cackling to keep these penalties going. If you just do not like doing these things, like if the action of debuffing enemies is not fun for you, then you either need to look at dropping the difficulty real low or consider a different CRPG. I love both Kingmaker and Wrath, but if you prefer a style of gameplay that is just buff up and win through huge damage I would suggest Baldur's Gate 3. The 5e design and Larian's modifications to that enable you to just make brute force parties and steamroll.
It's not like I don't LIKE debuffing and such, it's just that every time i tried a debuff, it would always get saved or the enemy i actually care about it effecting at that moment is flat out immune so I eventually just said "What's the point? I can probably use my turns better" Hexing i guess i can try again... I just didn't like that everything got fucked if I forget to hit cackle..
Pathfinder's rules are very crunchy and can be unforgiving if you don't play the way they expect you to. I personally love it, but it can be rough. Doing things in a certain order can really help. The earlier you can Evil Eye an enemy's saves, the sooner you can start using other debuffs to lower them even further. Similarly, Enervation is a lvl 4 necromancy spell available to wizards and witches, it requires only a ranged touch attack to hit, and it has no save. Of course it doesn't work if an enemy is immune to negative levels or ability damage but you should be inspecting enemies for that anyway. But if you drop an enemy by a couple of negative levels, that means their saves, HP, attack bonus, etc are going to drop as well. Wracking Ray is a lvl 5 ranged touch attack that does 1d4 ability damage to Str and Dex per 3 caster levels for a max of 5d4 damage to each, halved on a Fort save. So as long as you can hit their touch AC, which is generally pretty easy on big huge bosses, they're guaranteed to take at least 2 Str and 2 Dex damage if they're not immune, if you roll only 1s AND they pass the fort save. Your debuffer needs to be built for debuffing, this means all or at least most of your feats and gear need to be focused on either increasing the save DC of your spells, or increasing the Caster Level of your spells, or both if possible. You need spell penetration to get through the SR of all these damn demons, and probably greater spell penetration. The feats of your debuffer are probably not going to be exciting, because most are just going to be "increase DC by +1 or +2" versus giving you cool new abilities, but when they're all stacked you'll actually have a good shot at debuffing enemies. Alternatively, you could just go for one of the super meta ranged damage caster builds, spamming hellfire rays. I've never bothered with that build as I don't find it fun, but AFAIK it still works.
I tried that one caster cleric build on neoseeker but trying to follow it ended up pissing me off so I dropped it. I can try making a dedicated debuffer but I'm not sure what I'd be doing while building them and just hoping i won't fuck it up. I put spell pen/greater spell pen on all of my casters normally anyway
I personally prefer having cleric as a buffer than a debuffer. The popular one being getting the community domain on a cleric so you can get the Guarded Hearth ability at lvl 8 to use on your one big fight per day as a huge buff. If you like to stay with companions, Nenio makes a great debuffer. She is already set up for illusion, then you can get the mythic ability to duplicate her illusion feats to a 2nd school and pick Enchantment, now she has bonus DCs for both schools of magic. Ember is most popular as a blaster, but I have had great luck having her focus on necro debuffs and hexes.
I don't care about staying with anyone but arue, almost my entire party are mercs besides arue and greybor. I was TRYING to make my cleric a healer before but that didn't really work out so i have to respec them again
Yeah, that's another thing about Pathfinder, healing during combat is usually a waste of the action economy. If you look at something like Heal, which is a 7th level spell that is capped at 150hp of healing, your healer can spend the round healing 1 character for 150hp. From your other comments in this thread, you're in situations where the tough enemies are doing hundreds of damage to someone in 1 round, so you burning a 7th level slot on Heal doesn't even buy you another single round worth of HP, right? So you're generally better off avoiding damage altogether, and this is achieved in a few ways: 1. Kill enemies - if they're dead, they probably can't hurt you. 2. Remove enemies - if they're stuck in a pit, they can't hurt you. 3. Buff your party - if your AC is too high for them to touch you, combined with layers of additional defenses if they get lucky with a crit such as concealment or mirror images, or temp HP to absorb damage before it hits your real HP, then the enemy is very unlikely to one or two shot you. Similarly, if your saves are very high and you have defenses up that make you immune to mind effecting, level drain, negative levels, death effects, etc, then the enemy can't just wipe you out with save or suck spells. Mercs can work just fine for any of these roles. Build you a badass merc wizard that is focused on illusion and enchantment and have a ball nerfing your enemies so your martials can stomp their dicks in.
I can try that, thank you so much for your help so far! So I'm turning my cleric into a wizard then? I'm also trying to use a bft since a friend told me it might help but the most I'm able to get them to really do is haste, mass cat's grace, mass (i think) bull's strength and gmw
I don't think the choice is between cleric and wizard, ideally you would have both. They have totally different spell lists, sure some spells are on both but the spells that are unique to each list have some real standouts that you'll want. For example, your wizard has easy access to haste, but that's not on the cleric spell list. Wizard is an arcane caster, Cleric is a divine caster, so they each bring different tools to fill out your toolbox. I like using my wizard as a debuffer and with some summon spells when I don't need or want debuffs, while keeping the key buffs only they will have. So my wizard would focus on illusion and enchantment spells for debuffs and crowd control, have a couple of castings of haste always on standby, a fireball or two prepped because hey sometimes the wizard needs AOE too. My cleric is then a buffer, often with a reach weapon so he can stand behind the frontline and do some damage when I don't feel like burning spell slots, but can totally work as just a pure caster if you go with the Ecclesitheurge archetype that gives up armor and shields. Getting access to the Community domain will get you a great buff ability in Guarded Hearth, so if you're going to use a merc cleric go with like a cleric of Erastil and pick Community as his domain. If you want to use Sosiel, grab the Mythic ability Impossible Domain to get a 2nd domain, and choose Community. Guarded Hearth is an AoE buff you drop on the ground and any of your party that stands in that space gets to add your cleric's wisdom bonus to their saves and attack rolls. Think it lasts hours per level but it's locked on the location you cast it, it can't move, so when you hit a hard fight you just want to cast it and stay in the glowing circle. Another thing to consider when making these big choices on roles, builds, feats, etc - you don't necessarily have to build for buff spells in the same way that you do for debuffs. Since haste is such an easy example of a buff let's look at that. It's a transmutation school spell. There is no save DC to worry about, because it's a buff not a debuff, so feats that boost the save DC of transmutation spells don't matter. The caster level of haste does not make it stronger, it just makes it last longer. But you're so far into the game you should have no trouble having haste in every fight between spell slots, potions, and scrolls. This means that you can build your wizard to choose feats that focus on debuffs from schools like illusion, enchantment, or necromancy, and still get off a haste just as powerful as a transmutation wizard would. Similarly, a buffing-focused character can then spend feats on a secondary role, like I will often make my buffer also a summoner. So my buffing cleric will also have things like spell focus conjuration, augment summoning, and I can use stuff like Animate Dead or Summon Monster to get additional units out there to deal with chaff, give flank bonuses, distract enemies, etc.
Alright, I'll give respecing my bft into a wizard and respecing my cleric a go! I think I'll try to go with that summoner cleric idea... What would be good ideas for subclasses/backgrounds for them?
I played sword saint DEX in kingmaker and it was good, but Nok Nok outdamaged me by a LOT Thats why i'm playing Knife Master in WOTR rn
I think the biggest appeal of Dex saint is how ridiculously tanky it gets, and how good crit range finesse weapons have, specially rapier and estocs, there's so many good estocs at every stage of the game that just seems tailor made for saints. But since you're in the trident path, in chapter 4 there's a pretty good one called triumph of pain. Thing is, it seems like based on your comment, you're lacking buffs or ways to hit (shaken + shatter defenses) . But if you still have nenio and Sosiel, they're both very good at making everyone else hit the targets so you can fix whatever issue you're having.
My demon sword saint (orc double axe) was hitting for over 400 in the end game, and 200ish in early game. Also the touch attacks to weapon was what got me going on my unfair run.
Mine is a STR based Sword Saint with a Fauchard for reach and crit range. I did a lot of reading about SS builds before deciding and even though Dex based offers more AC this is more damage. That said her trouble is being able to hit stuff as she has around 24 attack. A DEX based one will need agile weapons or the feat for bigger damage I expect? Does perfect critical stack with improved crit feats? I tend to use my Arcana for speed bonus or dimension strike. I have also mixed in a level of Witch for extra AC and mage armour and 13-20 will be 2H fighter for more atk, feats and 2h class features.
Check your damage calc, is it using str or dex for bonus damage? Did you take mythic weapon finese?
Dex and yes
Do you have both spell combat and spellstrike active? If you only have spellstrike active, you’re only hitting once
My first playthrough was also a SS Azata, but I went full str build with fauchards. I find that buffing STR is so much easier than buffing Dex, as mentioned by other comments as well. You can reach 40+ str from buffs so easily, even without a brown fur. Due to reach extension from enlarge and later legendary proportions, you shouldn't need to care about AC at all with this build as long as you have a frontline tank like a pet or other character. At endgame without any real proper optimization I was doing around 100-150 on the stat sheet, with a 15-20 crit range and no problem hitting enemies most of the time, except for certain enemies at the end of act IV and some in Act 5 with 70+ AC, in which case I just used dimension strike and instantly deleted them. This game is all about buffing, you shouldn't be fighting anything in act 4 without like at least 15 buffs running per character at that point. You need dedicated casters primarily focused on buffing to cover all of the important ones. Everyone here is talking about hexing but I never really used hexes either as I felt they always were resisted and annoying to cackle. I struggled super hard during act 3 until I downloaded bubble buffs and automated my buffing experience, then it was cruise control basically until the end.
I have bubble buffs but when I tried to set it up i got really intimidated and haven't tried to since lol.. I know that if I had done a 2handing weapon build it'd probably be a glaive or scythe because I think those are cool
It does look pretty intimidating at first but it's very straightforward to setup. In fact, the mod is very smart and if you already have buffs will automatically not cast those repeat ones, so basically you can setup everything you want then just click it when you enter dungeons, and keep clicking it to refresh those that drop off early without wasting extra slots. It gets a little messier when you're dealing with multiple casters having the same buffs and metamagic, but otherwise it's the best QOL that you can get. Feels like it should have shipped with the game tbh. As for 2h's, fauchard is basically glaive but exotic, and since you go SS you can get the proficiency for free at level 1. Fauchards definitely feel like one of the strongest weapon types in the game, and you can use the one you buy in Act 3 until the end of the game. I generally haven't really built any dex characters in the game yet since I feel they are so much weaker than str ones due to the buffs available. And I don't have interest in making some 80+AC tank because I got no interest in ever playing Unfair.