dgray62

If you are inclined toward Shieldbearer by all means go for it. You'll be sturdier with a shield, and thus could more reliably support the party. You'd lose out on the nice healing from the KW, but if you use Lethandria's Devotion as your shield you can heal and also boost allies deflection with it. You could also equip the Outworn Buckler in your offhand. If you switch the weapons rapidly you'll heal and also shorten hostile durations with every switch. This can really come in handy when you're hard pressed. Your stats look reasonable. As for standout invocations, Thrice upgraded to Her Revenge is an amazing damage dealer from beginning to end of the game. Her Tears is also very good. If you use Balance Polishing Mod White Worms is also fantastic, but it's buggy in the vanilla game. For MC chanters, the ancient weapons is by far the best summons. Prior to then, the wurms can be good, especially if you focus their fire on a single target, like pesky mages. The ogres are great if your party isn't melee oriented. But beware, whenever you fight ciphers they'll charm your summons. Apparently their will defense is low, so they're vulnerable. I usually kill them off before summoning anything. As for Brisk recitation, it's great if you want to cast invocations frequently. The trade off is you won't have the nice linger for chants that buff your party (or debuffs on the enemies).

Very true, but fortunately a Howler has many ways to debuff foes. You could soften them up with Willbreaker with the modal on first, and then switch to effort. Should work on all except perhaps the toughest mega bosses.

Indeed it does work. I always pick both for monks, and wield Tuotilo's Palm in the offhand.

If you're interested in playing a cantor you might want to check out @Powerotti's Rumbling Boar build. It's a lot of fun and very powerful.

Or you could use a Mage Slayer/Troubador howler wielding Effort, as @Constentin Lévine suggested out in this post. With this set up, your rapid chanting would also interrupt but also apply Spell Interrupt stacks. When they have four, they can't cast spells, and are sitting ducks.

Yes, an assassin shadowdancer, zipping around with WotW boosted by the assassin bonus, backstab and high PL level sneak attack/deathblows would be insanely OP.

Corrosive siphon doesn't require grimoire switching. You just cast it, and heal while the opponents are drained. What you need it for is Conselhaut's Draining Touch. That spell summons a weapon that only lasts for one attack. BUT, if you do not learn it, but cast it from a grimoire, and then switch grimoires before you attack, you'll have one of the best weapons in the game for the rest of the encounter. If you're going to use this, it doesn't matter what you have in your main hand since that weapon will disappear, but your offhand weapon remains. You can have a shield for extra defense, or use a club with the modal on, to debuff will, which will help you land your draining touch attacks. As for sage subclasses, I'm a fan of FF since there's a nice synergy between the classes. Both benefit from lowish MIG, high CON and high RES. The extra healing from the FF curse expiring also helps you as a blood mage. And weakened from the draining touch will soften up foes so you can land enfeebled with the FF attack. Alternating between the draining touch and FF attacks is devastating, especially when you crit, and proc extra draining touch attacks. This would be a more tanky melee oriented sage. On the other hand, if you want attack with Citzal's, you'd be better off I think attacking from a distance (far with instruments of pain!) with a glass canon helwalker, with maxed out MIG and dumped RES.

You can spam SA, but need not do so. I tend use focus at the beginning to cast powers to debuff foes, like Phantom Foes, as well as buffs like Borrowed Instincts; I tend to use SA more later once this is done. You'll want to keep an eye on your focus, as you'll lose your nice damage boost if you max out. When your focus is full, either cast a power or use SA.

FF/Soulblade is one of my favorite combos. I usually start go with 15 STR, 10 CON, 14 DEX, 18 PER, 15 INT, 18 RES with Berath's Blessings bonus points, and with Community Patch. You can easily get to 35 RES with gear, and inspiration and buffs if you do a no-rest run. I like going for Nature Godlike for the extra PL to boost the FF attack. If you are playing the vanilla game, you're better off with beguiler as pointed out above. You can start out unarmed, but then get Tuotillo's Palm. Ultimately you'll probably want either Magran's Favor or the Seeker's Fang in your main hand; both are great with this build. Once you're buffed and geared up the curse should last less than 3 seconds, so you can just alternate the FF attack and soul annihilation, which is devastating. So you'll almost never auto attack, but will hit with your main hand weapon (with the modals on for the rapier/axe and shield) when you swift flurry/heartbeat drumming procs. The modals won't slow you down since you'll rarely autoattack. Note as well that if you cast Borrowed Instincts on enfeebled foes, the duration of the buff will last much longer. There is great synergy between these subclasses IMO.

In my experience consumables are much more important when you play solo. You can pretty much ignore them when playing in a party.....unless you're a Nazpalca! That said, you could build a character with consumables in mind. Aside from assassin, I'd recommend a SC Bellower. Casting from scrolls or throwing bombs will give you more to do than just auto attacking while building phrases. Cast a scroll of nature's mark/earth talon and throw a fire bomb to debuff reflex, then cast Her Revenge, Her Tears, etc. Or scroll of wilting wind, etc., to debuff fortitude then cast Ol Nary.

If you want to specialize in consumables, I'd suggest an assassin build. This is because scrolls cast from stealth can benefit from the very substantial assassinate bonus. With high arcana and stealth you can really do serious damage with higher tier scrolls. @Not So Clever Houndhas posted a number of assassin builds that feature scroll casting as an important aspect of the build. Assassins too can make good use of poisons (as well as potions and drugs) as well as bombs (for afflictions mainly). You might consider an assassin/bellower with blightwood. You can start combat, summon some minions, cast scrolls or invocations from stealth, and gain phrases whenever you kill someone, regardless of the ways in which you do this. It's a very versatile build that you can play in a party or go solo.

In theory I like this idea, but for some builds you need PD to enable deathblows, so maybe it would have negative consequences.

Hmm, maybe a sharpshooter/cipher would be a great MC combo using these weapons?

Very powerful and sturdy. Hylea's Bounty nicely makes up for the lack of skill points (due to no Luminous Adra Potion), and with the healing from a pet, Soft Winds and the DoC breastplate has been sufficient to keep howling. I've been alternating Thick Grew Their Tongues and Soft Winds with brisk recitation on, although I wonder if a different set of chants might be better.

I played a berserker/steel garrote fanatic once wielding Lord Darryn's Voulge. It was a lot of fun, and did great AOE damage when you'd crit and proc the static thunder charges. As a fanatic, you can crit easily when you wish by using Flames of Devotion, augmented by the ring that gives you +10 accuracy with fire attacks.

Regarding SC barbarian, you might want to check out this thread, which explores the Mage Killer subclass (SC or MC) wielding the great sword Effort as a remarkable way to take care of all foes, and mages especially. As for the other options, I am personally not a huge fan of street fighter simply because I do not like (ab)using the blunderbuss modal to get flanked. If you're not going to use the modal, I'd recommend streetfighter/steel garrote, as you'd have amazing healing to keep you alive when you are flanked by enemies. This is nice because of the high defenses and the offensive parry enchantment on WotEP. But you're better off with the trickster subclass for this build IMO. My favorite combo among those you list is forbidden fist/soulblade. There's amazing synergy between FF monks and ciphers. With high RES you can pretty much alternate between the devastating FF attack and soul annihilation. I'd recommend going with Nature Godlike to boost your FF attack. As for weapons, Magran's Favor and Tuotillo's Palm, with the axe and small shield modals on, in the main and off hands, are great. The modals will slow you down with auto attacks, but the beauty of the build is that you will almost never auto attack, since you'll largely be alternating between FF and SA, as well as occasionally casting cipher powers. However, when you crit, heart beat drumming and swift flurry with give you a good chance to instantly hit with MF, adding a stack of the raw damage from the modal. Meanwhile, when foes miss you, which they'll often do, you'll get +15 ACC on the next attack due to the shield modal. If you go this route, be sure to turn gibs off, and enfeeble foes with FF before casting buffs like borrowed instincts which simultaneously debuff foes. If you do this, enfeeblement will dramatically increase the duration of the debuff as well as your corresponding buff. Other weapons great for this build include Seeker's Fang, Grave Calling (esp. when fighting vessels) and Sun & Moon, which is always a great weapon for any soul blade.

That party sounds like a lot of fun. I'm currently trying a mage slayer/troubadour howler as Constentin Lévine suggested. I think I am going to run two chants, most likely Soft Winds (for healing, interrupts and some damage) as well as Thick Grew Their Tongues (to facilitate the interrupts). I'll have two other chanters in my party to sing other chants like Long Night's Drink, etc. Also, I'm going to use the Hylea background to get Hylea's Bounty. It's too bad that you can't drink potions as a MS, and I'll miss access to Luminous Adra Potion, but Hylea's Bounty will help make up the gap in skill points.

I agree with Constentin Lévine that a chanter/priest is fantastic support character. You certainly could wield a bow, but in my experience later in the you probably won't be using it much. Since priest spells take awhile to cast and troubadours gain phrases quickly with brisk recitation on, you mainly will be casting spells, more or less alternating invocations and priest spells. This being the case, you'd be better off with stat sticks in hand, such as Sasha's Singing Scimitar, Sun and Moon, etc. If you really want to go to the bow route, you'd be better office going chanter/ranger. You'd have less supportive power and AOE offense, but much better damage with the bow itself.

Yes, I can see that a Mage Slayer/Troubador wielding Effort would be extremely powerful. Thanks for the recommendation. For the Howler, I'd probably want to go with Spirit Frenzy, which can also crit I believe and give you additional chances to proc Hemorrhaging.

Thanks for the reply! I was just curious, but clearly a SC barbarian with Effort would be great even without LUC.

SC Mage Slayer with Effort sounds really interesting. I was wondering, if you empowered Driving Roar while wearing least unstable coil, would you get multiple procs of empowered being if you hit multiple foes? I don't recall reading about any barbarian abilities discussed in connection with LUC.

You can also sneak past them to avoid the encounter. After you reach the pillar in the dungeon below, they'll disappear. If you want to fight them, you'll want a means of healing yourself. The cinder bombs you can buy or steal in Port Maje will also help, as you can blind the panthers, boars and drake when they swarm you with them. Charming one or more of the beasts (with a cipher or druid) can also make things much easier, as will chanter or ancient druid summons.

Yes, only the ones on the roof, in a small group by the stairway, go hostile after you kill Benweth. They're easy to avoid, but there's no consequence if you kill them.

For a veteran, first run I'd recommend a Berserker/Nalpazca or Berserker/Devoted wielding Lord Darryn's Voulge, bound to the barbarian class. It's loads of fun, and you'll deal serious AOE damage, and occasionally AOE lightning explosions that will destroy mobs. It's an off tank DPS build, that will be a bit tankier if you go with Devoted. Nalpazca's a little less tankier, but perhaps will do a bit more DPS with swift flurry and heartbeat drumming. It doesn't work quite as reliably on PotD, since you need crits to cause the explosions, but it works amazingly well on veteran. You can get LDV very early, as soon as you leave Port Make around lvl 5-6, which is a nice plus for this build.

Yes, I think you are right; the extra PLs in the ascended state likely make the difference. And its fast cast makes it particularly great for ascendants.