Boeroer

Andrea - sorry to bother you, but it's acutally mopher - half monk, half cipher. They don't morph anything - at least nothing that I know of...

The build in this forum was named "Damaging Healbot". I was just too lazy to write down all the words. I mean he has to do damage because otherwise he wouldn't heal as well. Heck - now that I read my posts again: I was even too lazy to write "Heal" and only wrote "''Bot" at some point.

Did you know that the elemental damage (and DR) bonus talents don't work on DoT spells?

There should really be a talent that adds FoD uses. Like Bonus Knockdown for Fighters. They can skip Critical Focus and integrate that into Zealous Focus from the start.

cba? California Bureau of... of... Awesomeness?

Yeah - it's a great synergy: the Observer marks the foe and boosts the Healbot's ACC into the sky - and the Healbot then takes out some enemies with nice +30 ACC (or even more with the camping bonuses) while the rogue pokes here and there with his +80% hit-to-crit conversion for massive single target CC and ouchyness while getting healed by the 'Bot if things start to go south for him. Durance can sip a hot tea after his initial buffs.

A speedy wizard with the Rod of Pale Shades (Spell Mastery Expose Vulnerabilites and Pull of Eora), Interrupting Blows and Mourning Gloves is really powerful without using a single per rest spell. By the way it's perfectly cool to use a ranger with Swift Aim + Driving Flight and Golden Gaze to proc Expose Vulnerabilitiies.

Of course - if you have a priest Dire Blessing would be better. And by the way Inspiring Radiance's +10 ACC stacks with everything, too. So a priest, the Forward Observer and a Hearth Orlan rogue could really wreak havok - no matter how high enemies' defenses are. Oh - and don't forget the cipher with Tactical Meld which he will cast on the paladin in order to get +20 ACC on top of all the buffing. Hehehe... Man - this Forward Observer and the Healbot would make a hell of a paladin dream team. edit: forgot the word "rogue".

By the way: do the rogue's Dirty Fighting/Minor Threat stack with Potion of Merciless Gaze? That way you could stack 30(Dirty F. + Minor Thr.) +5(Crit. Focus) +15(potion) = 50% hit to crit conversion. With a durganized Tall Grass this would mean +75% hit to crit conversion. Plus the sky high ACC when you attack the same target as the paladin... ouch!

Yeah - it's a pain in the a** maintenance wise. By the way: I meant an all ranged party that kites and shoots. No desginated tanks or offtanks whatsoever. Zealous Charge + Shot on the Run plus the chanter's goodies is very powerful in open terrain. In close quarters you have to switch from shooting to tanking with some of your "rangers", but that's not much of a problem. For example a fighter can be a nice ranged dps who can easily switch to tanking mode. Same with paladins and rangers - if you don't build glass cannons of course. But most of the time you can just keep shooting if your CC lands.

Phew - hard to tell. To be honest I'm also thinking about taking both and skip greater LoH. With both you can always switch from speedier offense to offense against higher DR to defense mode. Greater Lay on Hands ist most of the time overhealing anyways. But if I would have to decide between the two I think I would go for Vulnerable Attack. This also works with retaliation (you migh want to wear Garodh's Chorus or Hiro's Mantle) and also with scrolls and spell bindings that count as melee (Jolting Touch mostly). By the way retaliation now also profits from high ACC and can crit. On the other hand: once you get Sacred Immolation you can forget Vulnerable Attack - then Cautious Attack would be better to make you even more sturdy. So maybe take Vuln. Attack at level 4 and retrain to Cautious Attack at lvl 13?

Psychovampiric Shield is really help- and powerful in the early game. +25 at low levels is huge. Later on I skip it most of the time because you'll have more endurance and +25 is less powerful (percentage wise) - but from early to mid game it is really great.

I guess it was not intended at first. But it adds something nice to the rogue - so I hope they leave it like it is. Or - as I said - I wouldn't mind a tlant that unlocks deathblows and/or Sneak Attack for spells and scrolls.

Well, a chanter with Aefyllath and Sure-Handed Ila is great for any party that relies on ranged combat. It is still a very powerful playstyle to combine high movement speed with ranged weapons and shot on the run. That chanter adds a lot of damage with Aefyllath - since not only ranged weapons get buffed but also spells, scrolls and such (people tend to overlook that - it's superpowerful). And besides that he speeds up your shooting and reloading. And apart from that, he can put out a nice invocation from time to time (see it as a bonus). There's no other character who can do this for the whole party. And he himself will do good damage, too. Of course, he doen't have fancy +dmg abilities himself, but withoput him all the speedup and +burn dfamage magic won't happen at all. If you give him Scion of Flames, Arms Bearer, Quick Switch and four arquebuses you can watch him vaporizing enemies while Aefyllath is on - and once his last gun was fired he profits from the reload speedup. You could even give him all fire spellbind items (meaning 10 fireballs and 6 Sunlances per rest) and combine this with Aefyllath. He will do more damage with that than any wizard while buffing the whole party damage AND speedup their shots. I think this is quite good without using the Dragon Thrashed.

I agree on the summons - for my playstyle they are totally useless and therefore... I never use them. And it's true that the CC part of chanters needs way more planning and tactics than with the usual "I'll cast it in your face NOW!" cc guy. But once the phrase counter hits 4 and you can cone-paralyze nearly all enemies (and do this over and over again if you have to) the chanter makes most encounters easy. It is true that this is of no use at the start of the fight. But you can overcome this if you drag enemies towards your group (if your chanter is the only guy who can do cc). It's a bit annoying but you can work around it. Other classes on the other hand have no means whatsoever of doing great (AoE) damage, (AoE) CC, healing, revival, boosting defenses and whatnot all at the same time. Nobody complains that a dps rogue can't do any good cc or drops dead all the time. A tanky chanter however can do lots of dps (chaining Dragon Thrashed doe more damage than Sacred Immolation - in a bigger area) while also being able to buff and revive and cc. I don't understand what's to complain about - I mean if you look at it impartially. You can hate him or like him or just feeling "so-so" - but I don't think you can say he's weak or boring or something like that.

I like to have longer fights with sturdier party members (who don't die quickly). So a chanter is great for this because the slowness of my fights is a plus for them. And you all forgot on of the most powerful weapon of chanters which they can have from level 1 on and only costs 3 phrases: White Worms. This thing is absolutely devastating even if you only have one chanter. With more than one it gets absurd. You just have to build around the fact that you have to pile up corpses and don't reload. And turn off the gib option (gib=no corpse). I would say that the high level chanter is one of the most powerful chars there is. And if you use more than one the usefulness acually rises expotentially. Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits + Veteran's Recovery + max PER + six times Dragon Thrashed melts everything while you will have a very high regeneration rate - you won't go down. Even Dragons will go down after some time if you manage to cc them. Six times Damage Shield makes you near invulnerable (180 damage shield). You think it gets suppressed, but as soon as the first 30 damage are used up the next shield takes it's place.

Ouh nice. Good find. With targeted spells only (missiles and so on) or also with AoE spells like Fireball?

It does. But I can't answer your question. There are weapons or spells which do physical/elemental damage (Minor Missiles, Prestidigitator's Missiles, Durance's Staff...) and some which do it the other way round (Stormcaller, Bittercut...). Only the later will profit from a talent like Spirit of Decay, Heart of the Storm or Scion of Flame. I'm a bit sad that there's no weapon that does freeze/physical damage. Rimecutter, the White Spire or Wendwalker would have been great for this. Because all in all, Secrets of Rime and all the ice stuff is a bit underpowered. There are two or three nice ice spells and that's it. No pure freeze damage scroll, no freezing weapon, no special abilities. Fire, corrode and shock have a lot of spells, weapons, abilities and scrolls. I tried to build an ice themed chanter - and although he has two nice invocations with that theme and a chant, he's just inferior to a fire based chanter. Same with a wizard or druid. And what's that witch all the fire(ball) spellbindings? Flames of Fair Rhian, Taluntain's Staff, Necklace of Fireballs, Curoc's Brand, The Sun Touched Mail, Amulet of Summer Solstice. You can build a mighty Pyromamcer with those items. If you duplicate the Flames sabre you can have 10 Fireballs per rest and 6 Sunbeams. Lots of fire based scrolls on top of that. If you want to build that with ice... you're screwed.

I'm just playing around with my unarmed twin ciphers and did cast recall agony. I have the impression that it's damage generates focus for you. Could that be?

A high level chanter with max MIG and INT and The Dragon Thrashed is the best to clear mobs and adds. Tons of damage, hughe AoE. You can put him in the midst of the crowd and cast withdraw on him and he will still burn and slash everything. It's the only char with which I'm able to do all the bounties solo just by walking into their midst. He can be a great alternative to a paladin (there are chants that can mimic Zealous Endurance and Zealous Charge, he can raise defenses, can heal and revive). And nowadays - with brisk recitation, the invocations also come quickly enough. A high chanter with lvl-1-chants can paralyze-lock whole groups. I think chanters are great.

That would be really nice. Then He would not need any other buff or polishing. That would be powerful enough. I even would appreciate a talent or ability like "Arcane Trickster" or something like that which would unlock Sneak Attack and Deathblows for spells (and maybe even Backstab).

I think estocs are a solid choice for a melee cipher. Most melee ciphers need thicker armor and not too low endurance - or they will drop dead when the enemy looks at them. If you want more damage and less sturdyness while still using melee weapons (normally gives you more focus) then reach weapons are good. Hitting from the second row is a save bet - and since most of your damage and cc spells are foe only this is a good synergy.

No, sadly not. I have no idea if this is working as intended. If this gets "fixed" in a way that Deathblows doesn't work anymore this build can pack it's things and go. Then fighter or monks would be better scroll users. They would be more sturdy while having the same ACC and damage output. Especially since Turning Wheel works with all the melee spells like Jolting Touch.

Those are all very viable names. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is just the title of a famous german poem, written by Goethe. In this poem the apprentice tries out the magic of his master (who went out for a short time) and it all goes south because the apprentice knows the words to start the magic but doesn't know how to stop it. I had to learn it when I was in school and although I can't remember the words anymore I remember that I liked it. I thought it is quite fitting for this guy. I just couldn't find any poem where a rogue stole scrolls and used them with more proficiency than the author, hehe.