Any reason to play daeran?

[Edstyles]

Seems to me Sociel is like a better Daeran .
Being cleric alone is pretty nice for some domain shenanigans.

[T.W. Hamill]

引用自 revan1229：

引用自 elationtheory：

just pumping strength doesn't give you the BAB you need, dude. unless you're playing on normal and below. no shame if you do, really.

i'm not arguing that he can't hit things when he's juiced up with buffs. of course he can hit when he's fully buffed. in fact, any character can hit things when you stack enough attack buffs on them. which is why what i'm arguing about is whether investing valuable spell slots, feats and mythic feats, - AS A CLERIC - just to make him an underwhelming damage dealer, is a good decision or not.

also, "hoarding" is kinda a straw man, don't you think? there's limited slots. you have something like 5-6 level 5 slots in act 4. fewer, before that. by this time, most builds and parties have come online and are cruising through the game. and your sosiel is still expending his spell slots on personal buffs to take on trash.

says a lot, doesn't it?

just let him do his cleric thing and stop trying to turn him into a fighter, man. he has abysmal dex and he's not cut out to be in the thick of things.

btw, guarded heath IS a thing. it's a VERY BIG thing. i don't know why you got the impression that i didn't think it was. i think highly enough of it that i said it's the ONLY reason to bring sosiel out anywhere. it's an insane "i win" buff that he can put out once a day.

Back to square one, eh? How is Sosiel doing underwhelming damage with extended Divine Power, Eaglesoul, Frightening Aspect (which lasts 1 minute/level at base length, by the way), and Crusader's Edge? Let's put the argument of whether you want to spend these slots aside for now (we'll get to it). Please explain concretely how up to +6 luck bonus to damage/attack rolls, an extra attack, +4 sacred STR, +6 size STR, and bane Outsiders affect on his weapon would lead to underwhelming damage? If he's riding a pet, that's even more damage and utility. Divine Power alone puts him in a good position relative to full-time martials, given the other things that he can do; everything else is a (significant) bonus.

Now, the question of slots: Clerics should be taking Abundant Casting no matter what. Add in Metamagic Extend and +WIS items, and he should have enough key buffs for everyone with slots to spare, easily. Sosiel in Act 4 in my game had 9 level 4 slots and 9 level 5 slots with Abundant Casting. And Clerics have 3/4 BAB. Even with just the standard buffs you would have on the rest of your party at different points in the game (Good Hope, Bull's Strength, Bless, Greater Heroism, etc.), he should not be struggling to hit during a standard battle against a group of Babaus. And for the tougher battles, he should have the slots to roid up and will be dropping a Guarded Heath under his feet.

And you phrased Guarded Hearth as just something that Sosiel can do offhand. Well, yeah. Dragging someone along for that alone is already not a bad idea. You're suggesting I'm saying he should abandon Cleric duties. No-he's a Cleric first, absolutely. But hitting things with a reach weapon when he's done buffing isn't interfering with that because of how long most of the buffs he casts will last.

Now take literally everything you said here, remove the need to waste feats on getting worthwhile domains, spending feats on power attack, etc...

And just make Lann a cleric.

His damage will be staggeringly better, hell hit way more often, much more frequently get full-attack rounds (since he doesn't have to move).

Sosiel sucks. Try to get over your fees fees being hurt, but he sucks. A lot.

With Daeran you get a board-wiping AoE blaster caster in addition to your (better) healing and equivalent party buffing.

With Lann-as-Cleric-Archer you get EVERYTHING Sosiel gets - all of it - AND more. And he doesn't have to wait until the last 90 minutes of the game to pop off and actually be useful.

Lets do some math though:

16 base Str.
+6 luck attack/damage (Divine Power) + attack (irrelevant because party should always be hasted in any remotely hard fight and they dont stack).
+4 Str (Eaglesoul)
+6 Str (Frightful Aspect) - keep in mind this makes him easier to hit (not AC wise, but because hes now large, enemies can hit him from further away).
+6 Str (stat belt)

So, 32 Strength - seems impressive, but my two Str based fightery types are well over 40.

To get Guarded Hearth you have to blow a Mythic Ability or Feat (i dont recall which). You do not have to do this on Lann.

Okay, +11 damage to hit and damage due to Str. Cool. +6 more from Divine Power.

+17 damage.

Seems great.

But unless you burn EVEN MORE of his extremely limited feats (as a pure Cleric he gets only the every-odd level base feats and nothing more) on Blind FIghting, Weapon Focus (he may already have that, dont recall, but that means it was still spent), Power Attack, Mythic Power Attack (uh-oh, starting to eat into available resources to take Abundant Casting AND Additional Domains AND Enduring Spells)... Without Power Attack and Mythic Power attack he will fall WAY behind any melee/ranged dps. Oh, and he needs Shattered Defenses on difficulties other than normal to stand a chance of hitting anything important... which is two more feats he's already short on. And definitely no space for Thundering Blows, etc.

And on top of that.. Glaive as a weapon is trash in this game and there are almost no good Glaives.

You're starting to come up staggeringly short.

Lann, OTOH, gets almost every archery feat you need for free with just 3 levels of Zen Archer. You really only need to take Improved Precise Shot (ignore cover) and Deadly Aim. You can get Clustered Shots if you really want, but it isnt strictly necessary, though it does put him ahead of Solsiel again in that he trivializes most DR this way by it calculating off of the total damage done by his arrows. You dont need to take Rapid Shot (because his Flurry replicates it WITHOUT the -2 penalty) and you therefore DONT need to take Mythic Rapid shot and only have to sack one Mythic Feat to get Mythic Deadly Aim.

And he doesn't even have to be near the front line to do all this. And he can pick up the Domains you want when he chooses a god - without having to spend yet more Mythic Abilities/Feats to do so, leaving him plenty of space to take Abundant Casting and Enduring Spells. (All he really has to take is Mythic Deadly Aim, and Cleaving Shots).

Sosiel is Trash.

Sorry you're having difficulty accepting reality.

[elationtheory]

引用自 revan1229：

snipping for length

any properly built front liner with an equivalent level of attack buffs will do more damage, more consistently than sosiel. that's the point.

beating up babaus is hardly a challenge. a typical two handed barb can do that with its eyes closed with just the typical heroism/good hope/magical vestment/mage armor and still tank even on core. no extended buffs necessary, no divine power, no crusaders edge etc. that's the character you should be buffing. not sosiel. and when you buff that character, it's because you need to bring it for big fights, not stomping babaus.

if you're gonna use sosiel to buff, at least build with enforced vigor in mind so that he can buff EVERYONE ELSE that could use the BAB better. not self buffs that raise his damage contribution from non-existent to simply meh.

then there's the most important reason why you would put either sosiel or daeran in your party: because your party needs sustain. that's their primary duty as cleric and life oracle. your front line should only need heals from enemy crits or high boss BAB that goes through their AC. when this happens, they lose chunks of health. sosiel can't compare to daeran when it comes to these "oh ♥♥♥♥" moments because you're pumping strength. dude can't heal with his channel unless you use mass heal. how many slots do you have for those?

other than healing, they both offer other things - sosiel can contribute a little martial damage from the second line + have an "i win" aoe once every day, while daeran can blast big time when he's not healing.

on higher difficulty levels, daeran is the better choice because of that. monster AC scales way faster than their spell save, plus he can take ascendant element to bypass immunity.

but sosiel is great is for instances like iz where he can pull out guarded hearth against deskari. he shines only in very specific circumstances where you can hold a fight over guarded hearth.

even for this purpose, he fights for it with cleric lann, who can also hearth and have an animal companion. the only reason sosiel even edges lann out for this is because lann starts with 1 level in monk instead of cleric, which means he can't go full 20 cleric.

[T.W. Hamill]

引用自 elationtheory：

dude (Sosiel) can't heal with his channel unless you use mass heal. how many slots do you have for those?

And Daeran gets more, beceause he gets it at a lower level.

even for this purpose, he fights for it with cleric lann, who can also hearth and have an animal companion. the only reason sosiel even edges lann out for this is because lann starts with 1 level in monk instead of cleric, which means he can't go full 20 cleric.

In Lann's defense, though, there's not really a giant benefit to going 20 Cleric vs 17 Cleric.

And the benefit he gets from going to 3 Zen Archer is HUGE and actually keeps him completely competitive in damage (unlike Sosiel) and gives him a MASSIVE feat advantage over Sosiel (as he doesn't have to take a ton of feats just to bring his damage up to meh).

[Mauman]

引用自 T.W. Hamill：

In Lann's defense, though, there's not really a giant benefit to going 20 Cleric vs 17 Cleric.

And the benefit he gets from going to 3 Zen Archer is HUGE and actually keeps him completely competitive in damage (unlike Sosiel) and gives him a MASSIVE feat advantage over Sosiel (as he doesn't have to take a ton of feats just to bring his damage up to meh).

And this is why I go Druid with Lann. I want to have an animal companion with him but I also want level 3 Zen Archer. Even if I take impossible domain with Lann his animal companion is going to be a whopping seven levels behind, which is something that boon companion can't fix.

[revan1229]

引用自 T.W. Hamill：

引用自 revan1229：

Back to square one, eh? How is Sosiel doing underwhelming damage with extended Divine Power, Eaglesoul, Frightening Aspect (which lasts 1 minute/level at base length, by the way), and Crusader's Edge? Let's put the argument of whether you want to spend these slots aside for now (we'll get to it). Please explain concretely how up to +6 luck bonus to damage/attack rolls, an extra attack, +4 sacred STR, +6 size STR, and bane Outsiders affect on his weapon would lead to underwhelming damage? If he's riding a pet, that's even more damage and utility. Divine Power alone puts him in a good position relative to full-time martials, given the other things that he can do; everything else is a (significant) bonus.

Now, the question of slots: Clerics should be taking Abundant Casting no matter what. Add in Metamagic Extend and +WIS items, and he should have enough key buffs for everyone with slots to spare, easily. Sosiel in Act 4 in my game had 9 level 4 slots and 9 level 5 slots with Abundant Casting. And Clerics have 3/4 BAB. Even with just the standard buffs you would have on the rest of your party at different points in the game (Good Hope, Bull's Strength, Bless, Greater Heroism, etc.), he should not be struggling to hit during a standard battle against a group of Babaus. And for the tougher battles, he should have the slots to roid up and will be dropping a Guarded Heath under his feet.

And you phrased Guarded Hearth as just something that Sosiel can do offhand. Well, yeah. Dragging someone along for that alone is already not a bad idea. You're suggesting I'm saying he should abandon Cleric duties. No-he's a Cleric first, absolutely. But hitting things with a reach weapon when he's done buffing isn't interfering with that because of how long most of the buffs he casts will last.

Now take literally everything you said here, remove the need to waste feats on getting worthwhile domains, spending feats on power attack, etc...

And just make Lann a cleric.

His damage will be staggeringly better, hell hit way more often, much more frequently get full-attack rounds (since he doesn't have to move).

Sosiel sucks. Try to get over your fees fees being hurt, but he sucks. A lot.

With Daeran you get a board-wiping AoE blaster caster in addition to your (better) healing and equivalent party buffing.

With Lann-as-Cleric-Archer you get EVERYTHING Sosiel gets - all of it - AND more. And he doesn't have to wait until the last 90 minutes of the game to pop off and actually be useful.

Lets do some math though:

16 base Str.
+6 luck attack/damage (Divine Power) + attack (irrelevant because party should always be hasted in any remotely hard fight and they dont stack).
+4 Str (Eaglesoul)
+6 Str (Frightful Aspect) - keep in mind this makes him easier to hit (not AC wise, but because hes now large, enemies can hit him from further away).
+6 Str (stat belt)

So, 32 Strength - seems impressive, but my two Str based fightery types are well over 40.

To get Guarded Hearth you have to blow a Mythic Ability or Feat (i dont recall which). You do not have to do this on Lann.

Okay, +11 damage to hit and damage due to Str. Cool. +6 more from Divine Power.

+17 damage.

Seems great.

But unless you burn EVEN MORE of his extremely limited feats (as a pure Cleric he gets only the every-odd level base feats and nothing more) on Blind FIghting, Weapon Focus (he may already have that, dont recall, but that means it was still spent), Power Attack, Mythic Power Attack (uh-oh, starting to eat into available resources to take Abundant Casting AND Additional Domains AND Enduring Spells)... Without Power Attack and Mythic Power attack he will fall WAY behind any melee/ranged dps. Oh, and he needs Shattered Defenses on difficulties other than normal to stand a chance of hitting anything important... which is two more feats he's already short on. And definitely no space for Thundering Blows, etc.

And on top of that.. Glaive as a weapon is trash in this game and there are almost no good Glaives.

You're starting to come up staggeringly short.

Lann, OTOH, gets almost every archery feat you need for free with just 3 levels of Zen Archer. You really only need to take Improved Precise Shot (ignore cover) and Deadly Aim. You can get Clustered Shots if you really want, but it isnt strictly necessary, though it does put him ahead of Solsiel again in that he trivializes most DR this way by it calculating off of the total damage done by his arrows. You dont need to take Rapid Shot (because his Flurry replicates it WITHOUT the -2 penalty) and you therefore DONT need to take Mythic Rapid shot and only have to sack one Mythic Feat to get Mythic Deadly Aim.

And he doesn't even have to be near the front line to do all this. And he can pick up the Domains you want when he chooses a god - without having to spend yet more Mythic Abilities/Feats to do so, leaving him plenty of space to take Abundant Casting and Enduring Spells. (All he really has to take is Mythic Deadly Aim, and Cleaving Shots).

Sosiel is Trash.

Sorry you're having difficulty accepting reality.

First, explain to me how Lann gets Community Domain without spending a feat. Lann does not choose a God. Kindly open your game, make Lann a Cleric, and come back to address this point. Who has trouble with reality here?

Second, I would consider taking Lann (and Camellia, who has better domains than both) over Sosiel as a Cleric. Both are competitive and actually better on paper, but always being a level behind is still something to consider before later in the game. I think I mentioned this somewhere else. But you came in being internet tough guy and completely missing the point of this argument. That being said, I used Sosiel on my first Core runthrough and he performed well, despite Owlcat continuing the trend of butchering Cleric companions from KM.

Also, he already has Weapon Focus Glaives. If you think there aren't good glaives, you haven't looked very hard: https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Glaives.

Also, missing the point about fighting. Sosiel doesn't have to compete with Fighters. He is not a Fighter. He is an Anomen; a Cleric that can fight. All those numbers do not mean that Sosiel does poor damage because he doesn't. He does less damage than the specialists, true, but that damage is already very high and this is on top of performing Cleric duty. And he doesn't need all of those feats. Party buffs exist; he, like everyone else, gets and provides support in that regard.

Owlcat, for some reason, gave him the short end of the stick with his default build and worse, refuse to let us respec him at 1 like the early game companions. No one is arguing against that. However, Sosiel is not bad by virtue of being a pure Cleric. Clerics are very strong. Could I make a better one? Sure could. But Sosiel will absolutely work.

[Frostfeather]

引用自 revan1229：

And you phrased Guarded Hearth as just something that Sosiel can do offhand. Well, yeah. Dragging someone along for that alone is already not a bad idea.

Mmm it kind of is a bad idea. Guarded Hearth just isn't that amazing for any difficulty (but especially Unfair) because you can't rely on it often enough... because you can't usually spam rest whenever you want. You need to be able to finish most fights, including successive difficult fights, without using it.

So then the Cleric needs to be contributing significantly outside of Guarded Hearth. Which ties into:

引用自 revan1229：

However, Sosiel is not bad by virtue of being a pure Cleric. Clerics are very strong. Could I make a better one? Sure could. But Sosiel will absolutely work.

引用自 revan1229：

I used Sosiel on my first Core runthrough and he performed well

You're basically suggesting that he's just ok and wouldn't do very well on a difficulty higher than Core. And I would categorize Daeran's performance as much better than "well" on any difficulty.

When you keep mentioning how mediocre Sosiel is, it seems that you're unintentionally arguing against him.

[Benedicter]

引用自 Babbles：

引用自 Benedicter：

Well as far as I see it people can debate the Sosiel-Daeran conundrum all day long but it comes down to only one thing - your difficulty setting.
If you are playing on Hard or Unfair you HAVE to use a cleric because of domains. A cleric will give you access to the mandatory-on-high-levels Community domain. Also Nobility and Animal domain are very important as well and can all be taken with the mythic feats 'Impossible domain'.
Now the real question on those difficulties is Sosiel or Lann as a cleric. I think Lann can do a better job because you get him sooner and can level him up better, but he also has his downsides like his low Charisma.
On lower difficulties you can go with whatever you like, maybe Daeran indeed because of his personality and again it's because of personal preferences, not a must in any way.

No - you don't. I play Hard and Sosiel is Benched. Perma Benched.

Daeran is A team, all the time. Give him Battle mystery and he gets some amazing buffs.

No Cleric levels, no vivi levels, no bards, no monks, no mercs - and especially: no Sosiel :)

If you are indeed on Hard - May god have mercy on your F8 key.

[revan1229]

引用自 night4：

引用自 revan1229：

And you phrased Guarded Hearth as just something that Sosiel can do offhand. Well, yeah. Dragging someone along for that alone is already not a bad idea.

Mmm it kind of is a bad idea. Guarded Hearth just isn't that amazing for any difficulty (but especially Unfair) because you can't rely on it often enough... because you can't usually spam rest whenever you want. You need to be able to finish most fights, including successive difficult fights, without using it.

So then the Cleric needs to be contributing significantly outside of Guarded Hearth. Which ties into:

引用自 revan1229：

However, Sosiel is not bad by virtue of being a pure Cleric. Clerics are very strong. Could I make a better one? Sure could. But Sosiel will absolutely work.

引用自 revan1229：

I used Sosiel on my first Core runthrough and he performed well

You're basically suggesting that he's just ok and wouldn't do very well on a difficulty higher than Core. And I would categorize Daeran's performance as much better than "well" on any difficulty.

When you keep mentioning how mediocre Sosiel is, it seems that you're unintentionally arguing against him.

You're not understanding the point if you're reading it that way. Sosiel's weaknesses are superseded by the fact that he is a pure Cleric (and the fact that Clerics can fix some of their weaknesses with feats unlike in KM). Clerics are very strong. Sosiel is not a perfect Cleric, but even an imperfect Cleric is good. And you're literally the first person I've heard that says Guarded Hearth isn't that good. +WIS to attack and saves is objectively very good. In terms of frequency, you need it for the hardest fights, not every fight. Those fights may not be that frequent, but having Guarded Hearth will make a huge difference on top of your other buffs.

[Frostfeather]

引用自 revan1229：

You're not understanding the point if you're reading it that way. Sosiel's weaknesses are superseded by the fact that he is a pure Cleric (and the fact that Clerics can fix some of their weaknesses with feats unlike in KM). Clerics are very strong. Sosiel is not a perfect Cleric, but even an imperfect Cleric is good. And you're literally the first person I've heard that says Guarded Hearth isn't that good. +WIS to attack and saves is objectively very good. In terms of frequency, you need it for the hardest fights, not every fight. Those fights may not be that frequent, but having Guarded Hearth will make a huge difference on top of your other buffs.

So how does that relate to Sosiel being better than Daeran, though? Especially when Daeran's build has fewer weaknesses vs Sosiel's? And the fact that Oracles are at least "very strong", if not stronger?

As for Guarded Hearth, yeah it can be ok for boss fights. But if you "need it for the hardest fights", you're doing something wrong on the whole and will likely fail when there are multiple successive difficult fights (like I said). Many of the people who talk about using it on Unfair are speaking hypothetically and have not actually played Unfair enough to know how limited it is. And if we're talking about lower than Unfair... you simply don't need it at all because nothing is difficult enough.

[Planeforger]

引用自 Benedicter：

引用自 Babbles：

No - you don't. I play Hard and Sosiel is Benched. Perma Benched.

Daeran is A team, all the time. Give him Battle mystery and he gets some amazing buffs.

No Cleric levels, no vivi levels, no bards, no monks, no mercs - and especially: no Sosiel :)

If you are indeed on Hard - May god have mercy on your F8 key.

I'm playing on Core difficulty. Sosiel is completely mediocre (although he's better now that I've respecced him as a Druid with a boar mount - it was the only way to survive the arena fight).

Meanwhile, Daeran is a god-tier healer who also dishes out serious battlefield support (with summons, powerful dispells, and damage). His channelled healing is glorious. His ranged heals don't trigger AOOs. And, glitch or not, the ability to double the max health of every party member with a single spell completely trivialises fights.

Also, Daeren's biggest advantage is flexibility. Sometimes you *need* to cast Restoration eight times in a row. Sometimes you need a combination of healing and condition removal. Sometimes you just want to summon all day, healing be damned. Spontaneous casting is absolutely brilliant for a healer, where every spellslot is always used on the perfect spell to support your party.

[revan1229]

引用自 night4：

引用自 revan1229：

You're not understanding the point if you're reading it that way. Sosiel's weaknesses are superseded by the fact that he is a pure Cleric (and the fact that Clerics can fix some of their weaknesses with feats unlike in KM). Clerics are very strong. Sosiel is not a perfect Cleric, but even an imperfect Cleric is good. And you're literally the first person I've heard that says Guarded Hearth isn't that good. +WIS to attack and saves is objectively very good. In terms of frequency, you need it for the hardest fights, not every fight. Those fights may not be that frequent, but having Guarded Hearth will make a huge difference on top of your other buffs.

So how does that relate to Sosiel being better than Daeran, though? Especially when Daeran's build has fewer weaknesses vs Sosiel's? And the fact that Oracles are at least "very strong", if not stronger?

As for Guarded Hearth, yeah it can be ok for boss fights. But if you "need it for the hardest fights", you're doing something wrong on the whole and will likely fail when there are multiple successive difficult fights (like I said). Many of the people who talk about using it on Unfair are speaking hypothetically and have not actually played Unfair enough to know how limited it is. And if we're talking about lower than Unfair... you simply don't need it at all because nothing is difficult enough.

How do you think? Is Daeran a Cleric? Oracle is strong, and Owlcat surely was more generous with Daeran than Sosiel. However, as I've said in this thread, I prefer Clerics for pure divine support (and I think they have the edge there) and Oracles for versatile all-around casting (or being part of a main tank build). Not completely identical roles. In addition to domains, Clerics have faster progression and on reaching a new spell level, get access to everything. Oracles can get nukes from Mysteries and equipment.

And aside from posturing, your argument does not discount that Guarded Hearth is very strong. I'm not claiming anything about Unfair. Both I and the person I was talking to are talking about Core. But what you say can apply to a whole slew of things; I mean, technically, nothing is really necessary to beat the game. However, certain tools at the party's disposal are strong, and Guarded hearth is one such thing. But you're so hardcore, so why even waste your time talking to us Core plebeians? Do you stream, by the way?

[Frostfeather]

引用自 revan1229：

I prefer Clerics for pure divine support (and I think they have the edge there)

This kind of sums everything up though, doesn't it? That you personally prefer Clerics. You're not even talking about Sosiel vs Daeran anymore and won't answer my questions because you'll always prefer Clerics no matter what. And that's fine, but don't come into a thread discussing specific companions when you can't be objective.

引用自 revan1229：

But you're so hardcore, so why even waste your time talking to us Core plebeians? Do you stream, by the way?

I didn't say I was "hardcore", nor did I imply anyone was a "pleb" or anything like that. The fact that you're reacting this way means you have no argument... so I think we're done here.

[revan1229]

引用自 night4：

引用自 revan1229：

I prefer Clerics for pure divine support (and I think they have the edge there)

This kind of sums everything up though, doesn't it? That you personally prefer Clerics. You're not even talking about Sosiel vs Daeran anymore and won't answer my questions because you'll always prefer Clerics no matter what. And that's fine, but don't come into a thread discussing specific companions when you can't be objective.

引用自 revan1229：

But you're so hardcore, so why even waste your time talking to us Core plebeians? Do you stream, by the way?

I didn't say I was "hardcore", nor did I imply anyone was a "pleb" or anything like that. The fact that you're reacting this way means you have no argument... so I think we're done here.

Nah-I like and use both. Plenty of arguments and objective points on both sides (pages, in fact). You're too far behind, though. You latched onto the tail end of the comments not really understanding the point of what we ended up arguing about but chose to impart your sage wisdom anyway. So yeah. See ya.

[Babbles]

引用自 revan1229：

引用自 T.W. Hamill：

He is an Anomen; a Cleric that can fight.

And there you go, you just lost all credibility with one and a half sentences.

[Babbles]

引用自 Benedicter：

引用自 Babbles：

If you are indeed on Hard - May god have mercy on your F8 key.

Hey now, same personal house rules made it through Kingmaker on Unfair plenty of times :)

But yeah, that reload function gets a lot of flex.