Remix

All 3 of the chanters I am using are competent in melee and can engage enemies. They also have cross class abilities and ranged weapons. If they're not engaged they're peppering enemies with a pistol, blunderbuss and longbow until they gain chants. Usually once they have garnered the attention of enemies I have my barbarian waiting somewhere to flank any mobs that are close enough together to maximize the barbs AOE melee attacks. If not, I unleash paralysis invocation from my tank, seven knights from my main, and summon ogres or spores with my "necrochanter".

When I get to my computer I will mess around with the build I showed you earlier and tweak it. Do you have any issue with letting your skald alternate between melee and a longbow? What chants and invocations would work well for the character's personality in your opinion? I would reccomend definitely including seven knights (freeze damage is skald-y).

I tend kite and draw foes out with chanters. So they don't really stand around. Have him aggro some enemies so he gets a head start chanting. Use frenzy with seven knights. The different arms of the ice attack are deadly at short range. Use boots that give movement speed.

I could imagine a skald with a blunderbuss and hatchets. A former viking mercenary that has had encounters with pirates and bandits. If you want things for your chanter to do while you're waiting for chants to build up give him some items that cast various spells (like rotfinger gloves). I could definitely see having aspirants mark on a skald-type, too. The bottom line is that if you want something to do other than attack with your weapons while chanting these are your options: equipment with spells, scrolls, cross class talents or figurines (the horn that summons could work). Otherwise you're going to have to be a lot more specific about what you want and what is so boring because all of those options are pretty viable and work with regard to what you're asking for.

I was really just demonstrating how flexible they can be. None of those chanters I mentioned above are really standing around. I use them to kite foes into my barbarian while damaging and disabling/debuffing enemies at the same time. They are the first to engage my enemies unless I decide to split my party because they're getting flanked or they're already surrounded. If you want a chanter that is less focused on its passive aspects then try to lower intelligence. The chanter already has a huge base AOE and no matter how low you drop intelligence the chants always effect the chanter at the very least. You can do something like: 16 might 18 con 8 dex 16 per 10 int 10 res or 16 18 10 14 10 10 or 16 18 8 14 12 10 Start off with shot from a Blunderbuss, blast enemy with aspirants mark, cast whispers of treason, use frenzy, switch to Dual wield hatchets, (take superior deflection), wear heavier armor, use 4-5 soft winds and/or -10 concentration with a longer chant that you need, cast first useful invocation. Then take talents: two weapon fighting, interrupting blows, bloody slaughter, savage attack or frenzy (frenzy is overall more applicable), apprentices' sneak attack, superior deflection, whispers of treason and aspirants mark. Use items, resting, potions and scrolls to offset any stats you want. You will be fairly flexible. Want more int for AOE on chants and invocations? Rest and items and potions and you can increase int to 15-16 which pretty huge if you're going to spend a lot of time in melee wearing down enemies instead of standing on the second or third line. And, again, you can cast the +dex,+per,+int invocation and your int could even reach 20 while your melee, damage and disabling prowess increases from the dex and per exponentially. The build I showed you the picture of earlier was pretty close to something like this and all of those stat increases were from equipped items (armor, rings, belts, helmets, weapons) and no usable items (potions, scrolls, resting bonuses). For trash fights you will be able to use whispers and aspirants mark all you want until invocations can be cast or you just decide to cast frenzy right away and do more damage with weapons.

I think part of the problem is that people want chanters to be something they aren't. They're more passive and don't need a lot of micro management. Personally, I really like how they play. I don't have to focus too hard on my chanters and, instead, I can control classes that need a bit more attention (like barbarians, ciphers and monks). I'm using a party of 3 chanters, 1 dd-tank barbarian (hight might, hight int), 1 tank-heal-buff paladin (low dex, low per, maxed out rest of stats) and a crowd-control only (low-min might build) wizard. I'm Probably going to swap the wizard with a cipher, though, and go entirely without a vancian caster. The chanter's are all 3 different types, 1st one is a necromancer that uses summons (ogres, mushroom, skeletons). It also has the capacity to do some damage with corpse explosion and seven knights while using health buffs/regeneration chants (soft winds mixed in with 15%damage done regenerated chant and 100% healing chant). Also has +dex,+per,+int invocation to use on barbarian. The other is a tank that uses disables and buffs. Chants mostly Damage shield, deflection bonus, +damage to beast mixed with some 1st level buff-chants. Utilizes paralyze invocation debuff and +might,+con,+res invocation which buffs my barb and last chanter below big time. The last one is actually my main character, which is a damage dealing off-tank, utilizing dd (dragon thrashed, come soft winds building up to engaging a group of enemies and casting seven knights after my barb and chanter-tank disables them). Synergizing the 3 chanters' chants with ancient memory, vets recovery and disables-buffs pretty much recreates the same effect of having a priest, a druid and a wizard casting at the same time. The only difference is that I never run out of spells (invocations or chants) and the chanters' chants are great spells alone (buffs, disables, foe damage) that are cast constantly with no penalty to the chanter whatsoever because they can still attack and cast while "casting" chants. The only flaw is when they are disabled in a way that stops them from chanting (casting) for the party. This would effect any traditional casters (per day casters) either way, however. The thing about chanters is this: one doesn't have to choose between chanting and invocations. Just pick one or two of the longer chants (level 3+ ones like dragon thrashed, damage shield, deflection bonus, healing multipliers) and weave in about 4 or 5 1st level chants and talents that synergize with them (soft winds with damage and health regen, +fortitude with deflection bonus, +reflex/speed with sure handed, -foe concentration with dragon thrashed and interrupting blows... the list goes on). Usually, if it's an encounter where chanters didn't cast an invocation... it wasn't an encounter one would waste a traditional casters per-rest spell for, anyway. The difference, though, is that even the 1st level invocations are useful for a reasonable part of the game and it's not too hard to get those off (corpse explosion especially). If you want something the chanter can do while they're chanting just take whispers of treason and aspirant's mark on them. Both are very useful at the beginning of a battle when you first start engaging enemies. This party I listed above is a beast, btw. I use invocations quite frequently and pretty much had the wizard standing around with a hatchet and shield occasionally casting a cc spell if things really got out of hand. I didn't need the wizard at all, really. I swapped it out for a bunch of random other classes and characters and the core of the group handled everything else perfectly fine.

Give the chanter whispers of treason, aspirants mark, holy radiance, or magic missile cross class talents if you're looking for some utility while you accumulate chants. You can also use potions and scrolls in that same light. Scroll of paralysis, twin stones, moonwell, confusion, entangle, malestrom...ect.

Just dual wield or two handed style and mitigate some con into res if that works. Have the character ocassionally chant the +10 deflection chant or the 30pt damage shield chant and you will negate penalties from frenzy. Mix 1st level chants in. These will buff your whole party and increase your tankiness. Also, use a lot of health and endurance regen. Maybe even try dual wield or just stick with blunderbuss. It really depends on what you want this character to do for your party. Maybe pair your skald with a dd-front line barbarian. The barb will benefit big time from the +int per dex invocation and ancient memory with defensive chants.

Can probably do something like this: image hosting services img hosting Tall grass and weapon/shield for skald. Whispers of Yen for +2 con. What you see is outside combat and no buffs. Items only. Cast crossclass frenzy and +dex per int invocation at the same time. Get there quick with lvl 1 chants. Switch to damaging or disabling chants after buffing all your stats. Throw seven knights during the next chance. The use of blunderbuss is also possible.

If you want to play on medium difficulty and not potd min maxing is less necessary. Melee for all classes is easier on lower difficulties. Don't dump dex as much and balance your stats more. You can kinda have a gunslinger/sword-shield hybrid.

In theory one could make a chanter with high might and int and have it work somewhat like a barbarian. Their raise int-per-dex invocation is deadly in conbination with the cross class frenzy talent. If you don't dump dex make it a dex-perception balanced gunslinger or a pike user. If you max out might leave int around 15-16 and adjust resolve accordingly. If you do dump dex put it into perception, max int and then decide if you want it more tanky-buff-debuff-style and raise resolve or damage dealing spellcasting-style and max might. Or kesp the two balanced and have a more "backup jack of all trades" type.

I have actually been messing with Chanters a lot. I can post some example builds later.

I just used my ver 2 POTD party after the 3.0 update and, I have to say, since the changes to the chanter this party is even more potent. I have two vanican casters and I rarely even have to use their spells in most encounters. I can save them for "oh ****" situations and boss fights. Party setup is as follows: Fighter DD/Tank Paladin Tank/Healer/Buffer Chanter AOE DD/Off tank Cipher CC/AOE DD Wizard CC/Debuffer Druid AOE DD I already used the chanter in a similar way but now I can string dragon thrashed with 1st level phrases and get 5-7 phrases built up pretty quickly. He's gone from being a decent damage dealer to one of my primary offensive options. And mixing his summons with the ciphers ectopsychic echo means I can demolish most trash mobs with little effort. If anyone is interested I can post more throrough details of my party build.

Engagement is really negated when you learn how to kite correctly. On potd I usually have a paladin act as my tank/debuffer/healer, a fighter as my dd/tank and a chanter acting as a 2nd line dd and off tank. I can usually funnel my enemies exactly where I want while my druid, cipher and wizard deal aoe damage and keep crowds under control. It seems like an effective strategy.

Instead of making casters weaker or get rid of per encounter spells, more mobs should be backed by casters that can utilize spells which buff their said mobs to resist low level spells.

It would be nice if they had a middle ground and included some more named foes that, while not as strong as some of the bosses and bounties, would help mix things up in a few of these trash mobs. It'd be interesting if they could randomize where they might appear on maps and dungeons, too. So every trash fight wasn't so predictable.

Or wasteland 2 for that matter. Where the charisma stat is independent of the speech skills.

The game you are looking for is arcanum.

I'm playing a potd toi game and, honestly, my wizard and druid, while useful, aren't dominating the game the way you say. My cipher and chanter are just as useful.

I'm just trying to suggest alternatives for the people whining about per-encounter spells. Personally, I have no problem with them. If I had it my way I would want more per encounter abilities and just make the fights more difficult and steategic as a whole. The main gripe I have with the resting system is that, unlike bg and iwd, the compensation for having a limited number of camping supplies is an easier game overall. In the d&d games you had unlimited rests with the threat of random encounters. The limited rests in poe just makes everything more tedious than challenging.

This is why I think having per encounter spells would function best as a talent that casters have to take. It limits other abilities that they can take on and gives people the option not to take it if they don't want to.

A lot of games that do new game+ tend to reset items to default equipment. I know wasteland 2 did this and imo it worked out pretty well.

Chanters make a great addition to ciphers. Make a ranged cipher with high might and a chanter that can run around quickly with lots of bonuses to disengagement and the frost trap chant. Cast ectopsychic echo on the chanter and have your chanter run all over the battlefield, leaving frost trails and damaging any enemies in between them and the cipher. Use any cc to keep your enemies stationary and you will decimate huge crowds in no time.

The only class I have ever really dumped perception on was a potd toi darcozzi paladin. Stats were along these lines: Max might Max con Min dex Min per Max dex Max res Early on the reflex saves were low but the deflection-reflex bonus from sword and shield style kinda made up for it. And items with bonuses to reflex saves. After a while said paladin had average saves and functioned really well as a tank/buffer/healer. Sure, they were useless in melee but thats why I had a damage dealing tank in my fighter and 3 dd casters in a chanter, druid and cipher.

I have played through the game fine without min-maxing. Having a bunch of characters with evenly distributed atteibutes is viable depending on your classes. You just won't have anyone that excels ls in any specific niche.