dgray62

I know that a MC ranger can cast summon spells, which coexist with the animal companion. But can ghost heart rangers do this as well, namely, summon both their ghostly companion and another summons like spiritual ally?

I think you both are right; it must scale differently that +5% per PL. It really becomes very substantial later in the game. I don't know offhand how high it can get, but I seem to recall it can easily reach 30 or so per 3 seconds later in the game. But it can be mitigated. One of the most successful mitigation strategies that I have tried is Boeroer's brute (berserker/devoted) build wielding Amra. Here you heal with one of the healing pets, which procs constantly due to all of the skeletons you destroy.

Berserker self-damage scales with PL (+5% for each PL I believe), including not only the natural PLs you gain from leveling up but also additional PLs gained from items, food or intellect inspirations. It is also boosted +3% for each point of STR above 10. It can become quite substantial later in the game. You can mitigate it with items that give you general damage reduction (like the Death's Maw helm) or raw damage reduction (the ring Voidward), and also by boosting your healing over time with items or spells. Weapons that drain health are great too, as is, for a howler, the Old Siec chant and the Savage Defiance ability. The latter can really help a lot, and can be sustained indefinitely with a source of brilliant, such as a cipher companion. You can also make yourself brilliant if you wear the Least Unstable Coil belt and wield Sasha's Singing Scimitar, upgraded to allow you allow you to empower one ability per encounter. If you empower the Her Revenge or Her Tears invocations and hit a group of foes you should get all six tier 3 inspirations, including brilliant and robust. You can extend them by having a priest companion cast Salvation of Time on you.

Ah, thanks for the clarification! I confused SoT with Suppress Affliction. And it makes sense to enfeeble and then cast borrowed instincts.

Regarding Helwalker/paladin, you might consider going with Helwalker/steel garrote. That way you'd have great healing, from exalted endurance and the SG passive draining from afflicted or flanked characters. You'd also have high defenses and AR from the paladin side. This should mitigate the increased damage from helwalker. As for SI, as Kaylon indicated, Clarity of Agony would greatly reduce the self-damage, enabling you to safely use the ability. Since you'd get big buffs to STR and INT from the monk side, you'd also want to pump up RES to further minimize all negative effects.

So if I understand correctly, normally you cannot extend buffs like borrowed instincts with SoT because is linked to the debuff on the enemy. But if you "break the link" by extending the debuff with enfeebled or dispersed suffering, THEN you can extend the buff with SoT or Wall of Draining. Is this correct?

Personally forbidden fist is my favorite monk subclass. It tends to be much more sturdy since you need high RES to play it properly. It works well MCed with a shifter if you want your focus to be more on melee mayhem and less on spell casting. There's also a nice synergy, since some of the best druid spells target fortitude, which a FF monk can easily lower by stunning and enfeebling. But for a glass cannon caster Helwalker is the best IMO.

Helwalker is great in a MC with casters, since the bonus to INT and STR (as well as action speeds from swift strikes/flurry) nicely boosts casting. And as you note, a monk/shifter multi class is a lot of fun. I love the animations from monk abilities while shifted; seeing your bear side kicking foes is great. The druid side also adds healing and AR, which the monk needs, especially if you go with helwalker.

Yes, you can only get +10 INT with DMP. The only thing that stacks is the Helwalker +1 STR per wound with a STR inspiration. Helwalkers can potentially get +15 STR with 10 wounds and Thunderous Blows.

Yes, I just read in another post that TP can't be extended with SoT. It was reported as a bug, but it makes sense that you cannot extend it, as you explain Constentin Lévine. Thanks!

But you could use SoT to extend both the ascended state as well as the time parasite speed bonus, right? All the more reason to bring a priest along with you.....

I'll try to answer a few of your questions, leaving it to others to address some of of the others. I have never played a Black jacket, so I can't answer the questions specific to that class. But have you considered an unbroken/trickster? That combo is well-known and can enable a much tankier approach. As for terrify proccing disengagement attacks, the answer is "yes, but." That it, it will, but unfortunately not consistently. Sometimes the foes will just cower and do nothing, and sometimes they will attempt to flee, in which case you may get a disengagement attack. But in my experience this only happens some of the time. The key thing is that they need to be engaged by you for this to happen. So the more engagement slots you have, the more likely it is to happen. Hence going with unbroken with a shield would probably be advantageous. However, regardless of what build you chose, terrify is great CC, and makes trickster a great complement to this build. As for armor, I recommend that you not use Fleshmender, as its AR is just too low for a front line DPS/tank build. DoC would be great for a melee MC like this, and Reckless Brigandine would also be good if you have a lot of engagement slots, i.e., particularly if you go with Unbroken. Lastly, yes, the AOE of the mortars increases with INT. You can also increase them with food, pets and items that increase AOE size.

I personally think that Exalted Endurance is the best choice, even for a Goldpact. It's +1 AR is always on, so will protect you, say, from opening fire at the beginning of an encounter, before you can cast Gilded Enmity, and will also protect you once the gold is broken, before you can recast it.

For a Goldpact Paladin, the AR bonuses don't stack since both are active. However, if you select Exalted Endurance, the +1 AR will benefit your allies (as well as yourself before you cast Gilded Enmity), and everyone will benefit from the healing. But you can also pick Exalted Focus instead, of course.

Thanks for the quick confirmation! I'm going to give this a try.

I was thinking it might, but of course will have to test it to be sure. I think I'll try this. I've actually never completed the game with a SC priest, so this would be fun. I also like how BPM added one of my favorite spells, Combusting Wounds, to the Magran bonus spells. Also, a Priest of Magran would ultimately look great in the Crimson Panopoly, and the controlled rage upgrade would synergize well with this build. And as Constentin Lévine has shown elswhere, an empowered StSotR works extremely well with the least unstable coil.

I was thinking of trying a run as a SC Priest of Magran, with the ultimate goal of trying out Effort and casting Avenging Storm from scrolls. If I cast Spark the Souls of the Righteous while wielding effort with Avenging Storm active, would all of the procs of StSotR trigger hemorrhaging and Avenging Storm? If so, that would be wild, and would provide some nice non-fire damage for a Priest of Magran. My guess is that the ticks of Symbol of Magran and Magran's Might would also trigger this mayhem.

When I play contemplatives I usually set STR around 15 (with Helwalker you'll be able to add another 15 to that!) and put the rest into DEX, PER and INT. I usually keep CON flat at 10 and dump RES (as low as you are comfortable with). With Barring Death's Door and Salvation of Time you'll be able to take a pounding.

No problem for me either!

I really enjoy playing a forbidden fist/soulblade, ultimately dual wielding the Grave Calling and the Seeker's Fang, which is also great for ciphers due to the raw DoT it inflicts on crits, which also build focus for ciphers. As I always have at least one chanter in my parties, you can have them summon skellies when needed, and just kill one or two of them, to keep the graphics card from glitching.

That's the problem with this build unfortunately. My game slows to a crawl due to all the pulsing chillfogs.

Chanter/priest is not hard to play, and is a very viable build, including for solo play on PotD. From the chanter side you have summons, which are tremendous when playing solo. You have buffs for yourself and the summons on both the chanter and priest side, and you have the amazing combo of Barring Death's Door and Salvation of Time, which makes even Trial of Iron not too stressful, as you basically become unkillable. You can get all of the tier 3 inspirations every battle with Sasha's and the least unstable coil, which you can extend with SoT. You also have great fire nukes on the priest side, and two great lightning and cold ones (Her Revenge and Her Tears) on the chanter side. You can also debilitate and perm-interrupt foes when energized with your chants, particularly if you pick troubadour and turn on fast recitation. Overall, it's a very powerful and fun to play combo. But keep in mind with this build you'd basically be a caster, alternating between chanter invocations and priest spells. If you want more of a melee orientation, then I'd recommend Helwalker/skald, wielding sun & moon for incredible crit fests that give you phrases. It's not quite as sturdy as the celebrant, but very fun to play. The goal here is to control aggro through hard CC, by permanently paralyzing and/or stunning dangerous foes. There are some great builds for this combo that have been previously posted.

Keep in mind that the Voulge is a very different weapon in the hands of a druid that it is for a barb. For the former it is basically a stat stick that boosts your storm spells. For a barb, it's a fantastic and unique weapon, the only one to my knowledge that applies effects via carnage. Hits with the weapon (including via carnage) apply static thunder stacks to the foes surrounding you, and then when you crit, all those stacks are discharged in an often spectacular AOE lightning explosion. It's worth using at least twice, once for a druid and at least once on a barb.

That's nice to know; this gives more flexibility. Either you could max RES and use a different food, or drop RES a bit and compensate (I hope!) with the wraps.

This would work for Chanter/Priest casting an empowered Storm of Holy Fire, right?