Wait what? So I could keep casting avenging storm every 40s or whatever and it would stay empowered indefinitely? This is because new casts add duration on the old cast and keep the empowered effect I suppose? Would this work on other sources of empowered like zandethus' draconic fury?
I think SC druid can easily do solo at least if you're willing to use strand of favor. If not, then it's slightly harder, but you'd still just have to avoid combat until you get LUC and Effort and hit L16. You can get effort and L16 without combat, but LUC requires some arena fights. Still, not that many, and you can pick the easier fights and do those repeatedly so I think it is doable. Weyc items (robe and wand) can also be gained without fighting, if one wanted to grab those before getting LUC.
Yes a max level fury/cipher, fury/wizard, or fury/chanter would be insane. Fury/bloodmage can't empower unfortunately, but you could extend the avenging storm so it would still be good, and would be better before getting those items. Fury/cipher would probably be the most damaging since you get the high accuracy avenging storm spell plus borrowed instinct plus .5s huge AOE casts.
I have. The Effort stuff doesn't build focus/concentration, not sure why.
Beguiler seems like the best cipher for this because they get back (at L20) 14 to 18 focus (depending on whether you have + power level stuff) per deception cast. First you max your focus so AOEs benefit from shared nightmare for like +200% AOE (on top of INT), then you can just spam mental binding and phantom foes, losing only 2 to 6 focus per cast, every 20th cast or so attack something to top off focus, repeat. Psion is really good too because there's no spell restriction, you start stealthed and build up focus, then alternate antipathetic field with mind blades. Antipathetic field pulses per second and mind blades hits 9+ enemies. These spells are all .5 second casts, and it doesn't really matter if the spell base damage is low because as long as you keep up borrowed instinct your avenging storm scrolls will crit a ton transforming all these low level spells into an endless stream of lightning bolts. And even if mind blade base damage is low you can cast so many of them in such a small amount of time it adds up.
Not an infinite amount of avenging storm scrolls, but palm slats are plentiful, velune pretty common, and primal wind pretty common, so you can probably craft/buy/find enough for all the major fights at least.
Fighting spirit also +7 accuracy applies, so builds that can fight low like a death godlike wizard with a potion of final stand add a lot of damage to the avenging storm scrolls, +15% from fighting spirit, +25% from potion of final stand, and whatever damage bonus you get from the bonus power levels, the avenging storm bolts can do 30 to 40 damage and often chain. Can also proc all the LUC stuff with meteor shower or minoletta's missile salvo, or even minoletta's concussive missiles, though the last one requires you hit 6 enemies which is kind of tough. Zandethus' Draconic Fury also works and is extendable but I think the renewing effect goes away on changing grimoires. Also works with flame shield but flame shield requires to be hit AND take damage, doesn't seem to work if your health is low and you have a prevent death effect. Takes too long to get all the inspirations, so casting shower/salvo, extending, and being immune to intellect seems the best route.
Ciphers and wizards though can't get the +10 accurate empower, and the scroll has less accuracy than the spell to begin with. You can get pretty close to druid accuracy though with a cipher, probably surpass it with a seer. Main problem with druid is the good casts tend to be long. I can cast like 10 phantom foes in the time it takes for one great maelstrom. The maelstrom does damage over time so maybe it's worth it, IDK. When using effort the weyc's wand empowers don't refresh, but the robe does. Mirrored Empower being up permanently makes you basically immune to spells targeting you, so that's fairly valuable, although it isn't hard for wizards to keep up arcane reflection either.
wizard/ bellower is also pretty really good though I haven't tried it with effort. But even without, you can easily proc LUC all 6 inspirations in every fight but dorudugan and neriscyrlas maybe, maintain the +6 power level from bellower, and spam her tears for like 800 damage. I wonder if each "ray" of her tears and the cluster explosions would proc avenging storm. I'm guessing...yes. skaen/bellower is probably better since you don't have problems when it's just one enemy, but skaen offensive spells aren't as good so you wouldn't proc avenging storm quite as much.
Wall of draining doesn't seem to proc avenging storm
-------
Just had a thought, do crits from effort / avenging storm gain phrases for skald?
EDIT: It does not
Still I cleared the tactical ogres encounter in about five seconds. Troubadour/psion would be quite powerful as a caster with Effort. You start empowering her revenge with wand/scimitar/robe, which triggers muse of mystery and hopefully all 6 LUC inspirations. So you generate 1 phrase per 2 seconds from brisk recitation + muse of mystery, and brilliant gives a phrase per 6s, so combined you have 4 phrases every 3 seconds, cast avenging storm then alternate her revenge, antipathetic field and ghost blades. Or just use bellower so you don't get the +1 cost on inspirations and start with Her Tears, you'd still get 1 phrase per second.
The chants thick grew their tongues and dragon thrashed become ridiculously good since their crits can proc avenging storm which often chains, which with energized + intuitive gives you a lot of passive interrupts, meanwhile you're generating both focus and phrases and both sides have cheap, powerful .5s casts. For skald they are extremely cheap, her revenge / the thunder / at the sound of his voice all cost 2 phrases
Too bad you can't play stormspeaker. I mean I know you can with mods / console, I think this stormspeaker build is just crazy broken. Don't even need to rest unlike the druid, and have lots of .5s casts for chanter. Loss of summons isn't that bad because I think you'd clear most fights in about 5 to 10 seconds.
EDIT 2: Installed a mod and tested stormspeaker. It would be crazy good in parties but you can either use effort or you can get phrases back quickly with sasha's singing scimitar. Using Effort you spend a lot of time waiting for phrases, at least if you've procced scordeo's edge. Can't spam spells like psion/skald. Her Revenge is god tier with The Ranga + Effort though. I get how the corrupting beauty thing works now also
Killing an enemy with Blightheart gives Corrupting Beauty passive, which pulses every 3s to try to disorient nearby enemies. If you kill an enemy towards end of a combat you can extend it with strand of favor. Otherwise you can extend with Salvation of Time or Wall of Draining.
With Corrupting Beauty procced, cast empowered The Ranga while wearing weyc items and coil and sasha's singing scimitar with encore
Corrupting Beauty pulse rolls vs will at nearby enemies ever 3s. IF IT HITS, The Ranga procs a bolt
Every time The Ranga is procced, the scimitar + weyc items + coil reapply their "on empower" effects, if you have the wand equipped
So your phrase count is refilled, muse of mystery is reapplied, omnipotence is reapplied, Follower of the Obscured clears your recovery, and attuned channel is reapplied. Least Unstable Coil is also reapplied, the number depending how many enemies are nearby and hit.
Constentin already stated all this but I wasn't quite following because Corrupted Beauty seems bugged, like it doesn't actually apply disoriented to things as far as I can tell, though I only tested for like 20 minutes, and it doesn't really make sense for it to proc avenging storm bolts, not being a melee attack, but it does. It also makes a gunshot sound whenever it pulses, which also seems buggy.