Demeter, Ishtar, or something else for support builds?

[Andrew. (the weeblord)]

I've been playing around with dedicated support builds (for multiplayer), which means party defensive buffs, healing, and personal sustain.

I like Ishtar's deliverance. I think is a better ability than auto heal if you're purely interested in keeping your allies alive. But Ishtar's base stats doesn't meet the requirements for foulblood barrier (50% damage reduction for one hit). I see it as borderline mandatory to keep people alive without me taking a metric ♥♥♥♥-ton of damage if they're really bad.

You can equip it if you give up 2 passive slots in order to use it. 1 thing I'm factoring in is that deliverance makes you susceptible to a lot of damage that's technically out of your control. Is the trade-off worth it? With Demeter, I use those passive slots for extra sustain.

[Kyo-]

Demeter pretty much use your own HP to heal ppl while Ishtar is dmg total transfer. It’s not exactly 1-1 trade off but best for holding your partner while they’re taking dmg.
There is a reason for using elemental def in these cases where your partner doing bad at dodging attacks. It’s not deliverance problem, probably your partner wear a low def blood veil (or NG+).
Abusing Foolblood barrier is only draining your ichor. Most cases, the bosses won’t do only one attack at the time. Just be sure to dodge or block attack.
If you want to do other way around, use Eos with ablative blood or Astrea for boost your def. Got to pick a specific type of support instead of all rounder.

Btw adding this, if you want the boss to shift the target to you because you know that player gonna die right away or take way too much of your hp bar. Set up a dps blood code in order to switch places if you’re confident in fight the mechanics.
Survival instinct and feral tenacity is a main core for solo builds. Gift prowess for boost gift speed or passive type if you want to quickly kill the enemies. Most important isn’t to kill the enemies but to stagger them so they don’t attack your partner. (Let the AI do the work if they have one with, otherwise just revive them so they don’t continue to die. (Either elemental weakness, stagger gift like precision with heavy attack, parry, or explosive gifts,...)
Also be sure to have yourself a average to high def resistance. If both using high def armor with correct boost, chances that you only get tiny dmg subtain (pretty much def and your HP stacking up btw)

[Andrew. (the weeblord)]

Originally posted by Kyo-:

Demeter pretty much use your own HP to heal ppl while Ishtar is dmg total transfer. It’s not exactly 1-1 trade off but best for holding your partner while they’re taking dmg.
There is a reason for using elemental def in these cases where your partner doing bad at dodging attacks. It’s not deliverance problem, probably your partner wear a low def blood veil (or NG+).

Abusing Foolblood barrier is only draining your ichor. Most cases, the bosses won’t do only one attack at the time. Just be sure to dodge or block attack.
If you want to do other way around, use Eos with ablative blood or Astrea for boost your def. Got to pick a specific type of support instead of all rounder.

You mention a lot of general advice, which I do appreciate and will keep in mind, but my exact intention right now is to do 100% support. I'm not looking to carry in multiplayer. I want to prep them for success. I have all of the partner heals, resistances, and buffs available and I have blood veil sets for the common bosses people request help for.

I get the foulblood barrier thing and how it gets eaten up by small attacks, but ichor is never a problem for me and its main utility is to stop me/partner from getting one-shotted in ng+. Preventing one shots even 4 - 5 times (between 2 people + AI) already pays for itself imo, since my support build is not ichor hungry and it saves us a ton of HP if one of us gets downed

[Rock]

I prefer Ishtar for support build and I do spec in Foulblood Barrier. It's just too good for the entire party to miss out on.

The problem I have with Demeter's auto heal is it's cooldown. ''Oh he died, good thing I have auto heal'' *4 seconds later* ''Oh he died again''. You really need to have another revive ability slotted in aswell with Demeter and I think it get's redundant at that point.

Ichor isn't an issue for builds anyway since you can easily get your drain rating very high. Devour transform on weapon and if you use say bloodsucking blades, hunting feast or put weapon drain rating passive on top of devour you already have stupid good ichor management at that point.

Also Cleansing Light is a must in slot for supporting. That thing is very good at mitigating damage for yourself, if you took a hit directly or via Deliverance. Oh took a big hit ? You got 70-75% of that lost HP back.

[Serikos]

The big flaw with the ishtar's deliverance is that it can be EXTREMELY expensive on your health in comparison to letting someone overcap die by 2000 then just reviving them for 600 health.

my current support build is actually the fionn with fire/ice protection and prismatic wall, lets me be fast, tanky, supportive and with a fire winter coat, i suppose cuddly too.

[Andrew. (the weeblord)]

Originally posted by Stallios:

The big flaw with the ishtar's deliverance is that it can be EXTREMELY expensive on your health in comparison to letting someone overcap die by 2000 then just reviving them for 600 health.

my current support build is actually the fionn with fire/ice protection and prismatic wall, lets me be fast, tanky, supportive and with a fire winter coat, i suppose cuddly too.

Yea, those are some good points. I think I'm going to stick with auto heal and foulblood barrier. fire winter coat + ice/fire/prismatic wall makes your party virtually unkillable against cannoneer and sword bearer. And since I run 3 heals, it's basically unlosable as well

[Kasukei]

I run Eos with "Abrasive Blood"? and Cleansing Light for sustain during fights, and healing the host with hp transfer + resistance and buffs like overdrive. Works really well but Ichor maintenance is pretty high to sustain if you're constantly spamming the buffs.