Explain Flagellant to me

[1.99$man]

I played a lot of Flagellant in dd2 and decided to buy his dlc for dd1. Im not super sure on what his playstyle is, i think im supposed to get him to low health and have a meltdown? Also what are his strengths and weaknesses? Cause in dd2 he's an absolute beast

[aidanfilson25]

tldr pretty good bleed skills, can support teammates by either transferring dots to himself or giving them regeneration at the expense of risking a bleed on himself, and at low hp can cash in either redeem or exsanguinate to give himself a massive heal while also healing a teammate or dealing massive damage with a large bleed respectively.

Also can transfer stress from teammates to himself which has limited utility but he does have the highest individual stress removal camping skill in the game with the restriction of only working on himself.

Biggest strength is that in normal missions he's a veritable punching bag who never really needs healing that badly because as long as he isn't killed before his turn comes around he can recover a massive amount of hp easily. He also has relatively high base accuracy on his attacks so he can easily fill roles like being the designated holder of utility trinkets like increased scouting chance so that other heroes can take accuracy + utility/damage trinkets.

Largest weakness is probably that each use of redeem/exsanguinate puts a reduced healing debuff on him until the end of the battle that can eventually make him unable to heal effectively over the course of drawn out battles but even boss fights don't tend to last long enough that it's a significant problem for him. It is also noteworthy that in most circumstances he has no means to immediately heal someone since his only unconditional heal puts regeneration on someone rather than directly healing them which can be a problem if someone is already on death's door and enemies will have an opportunity to attack before their turn comes up again. Though that can be mitigated by putting at least one other person on the same team with any amount of healing in their kit ie arbalest, crusader, plague doctor etc.

[Giga]

Pure dmg Frontliner with okay spd and good attack range. Compensates mid hp for two moves that heal a set percentage of his hp when he gets low (healing gets worse if you spam it in quick succession and both Exsanguinate and Redeem have limited uses). Since he's a frontliner, he'll take dmg and get set to low hp eventually so there's no need to start fights at low hp. He only harms himself with Reclaim. Has no cc like stun/debuff/pull so he has to rely on his team to control the battlefield. His dmg moves are rank 1-2, so keep his positioning in mind if you're running a dance team or if you are fighting any enemies that can move him to position 3.

Punish and Rain of Sorrows are your spam buttons to hit front and backline. Exsanguinate is his big dmg button. Reclaim and Redeem allows him to healbot. Endure is an okay stress heal. Suffer is a niche defensive option.

A majority of your damage is coming from bleed, so bring a bleed trinket if you're against an enemy faction with good bleed resist. Self bleed from Reclaim can be resisted and is affected by any bleed trinkets you have equipped, but you should play like it has a 100% chance of being applied anyways.

Camp skills let him heal stress or cure a disease. Since he's getting hit alot its nice options to have. Lash's Kiss could be good for the +3 spd so you can outspeed the enemy.

[AarkNoa]

Mix Flagellant with a character that inflicts blight, like plague doctor or shieldbreaker and watch that health drop

[RopeDrink]

Cause in dd2 he's an absolute beast

Flagellant in DD2 is arguably the No.1 most powerful hero, both mechanically (in-game) and from a lore/scaling perspective.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3362920580

He is also very good here in DD1, but alas, you are better off playing him like a regular Joe Soap rather than leaning into his exclusive traits.

Just like DD2, Flagellant cannot become Virtuous (Resolute). Here, he becomes "Rapturous" @ 100 stress, just like DD2 Flagellant becomes "Toxic". Due to lacking virtue and having various +Stress elements ingrained in his kit, Red Hook wanted Rapturous to be 'not as bad' as other afflictions, even providing a few buffs, enough to make players consider stressing him intentionally -- but alas, just like every other affliction, it still involves loss of control of your character very frequently, ensuring that you are still better off keeping him affliction free just as much as everyone else.

Conversely, Flagellant gains buffs at various low-health thresholds, but just like Rapturous (stress), you are better off keeping him as healthy as possible, too. Just like DD2 - the increased Deathblow Resist is nice, but nothing is stopping you from rolling the lowest percent when hit on Death's Door and instantly dying anyway, so unless you're happy to gamble with a hero's life, just keep him healthy, stress-free, and enjoy the fact that baseline damage is more than enough to stomp mudholes into the game without taking extra risks for the sake of paltry buffs and nuisances.

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Having said all that, Flagellant has the undisputed best bleeds in the game by a country mile, coupled with great sustain (both healing and self), good speed, good range, one of the first (if only) sources of Regen, and just like DD2, a very good stress-heal (when paired with someone like Jester to help shoulder the stress-increasing side of it).

A good example comp is VES-JES-FLA-HEL -- arguably the best front-to-back Crimson Court stomping team in the game. When you don't want VES/JES to play a typical Health/Stress bot, Flagellant can step in and hoard health/stress concerns onto himself (to be normalized later), or vice versa, with 3/4 heroes having very good bleeds (vs) the Court's lowered bleed resistance, making trash and boss health-bars disappear.

It may be designed with Crimson Court in mind, but you can just as easily drag them to the bleed-resistant ruins with absolutely no concerns at all, having everything they need to keep their own health and stress in tip-top form for hours on end while retaining the damage, dots, range, and sustain to turn most fights into a joke.

Alternatively, you can play Flagellant as a full-time healer, even a full-time soother (so long as you manage his stress appropriately), but ideally, you want him doling out his obnoxiously powerful bleeds.

[1.99$man]

thanks everyone, now i get it :)