dgray62

You might consider playing a single class bellower or troubadour. You can get energized early that way, which allows your passive chants to interrupt foes on crit. Meanwhile, you could throw some bombs (which will also interrupt on crit when your energized) and cast invocations when you have sufficient phrases. Overall it would be a fun build with plenty of time to toss grenades and other explosives. You'd want to max out the explosives skill and wear the gloves you can buy from the merchant in Port Maje with Berath's Blessings points that give you +2 explosives. While it will cost some funds to build the bombs, you'll have no shortage of funds if you engage in piracy, and attack and loot other boats.

You might also consider tactician/berath for another relatively easy source of brilliant, especially if you're going for death godlike. But I love contemplatives. Helwalker/berath would be particularly good if you are going for a build more oriented toward casting spells. If you are going for a more melee oriented build, I'd recommend forbidden fist/berath, with a higher RES (18 would be good). The forbidden fist ability is amazing, inflicting enfeebled, which is a devastating affliction, and it heals you and gives you a wound as soon as the curse expires. The key is to have it expire quickly, with high RES, the Clarity of Agony ability, and Mohora Wraps food. You could wield the great sword as your main weapon, and use FF every few seconds, as soon as the curse expires. The death godlike PL boost will increase the damage, accuracy and PEN of this attack, and when you crit (which you often will), swift flurry and heartbeat drumming will often proc attacks with your main weapon, the great sword, which will hit hard due its lashes.

I wouldn't say that Death Godlike is one of the weakest choices overall. You get a bonus to damage against near death enemies, which is very nice, and the +3 PL when near death is very strong. Also, I'd say that this choice is best with a priest, since you can cast Barring Death's Door to keep yourself alive when near death. The only thing you need to keep this going is renewable priest resources, and for that you need brilliant. You can also bring along a cipher to grant you brilliant, which you can extend with Salvation of Time. However, you can make yourself completely self sufficient if you multi class as a chanter, as is discussed in this thread. You can reliably get brilliant (and all other tier 3 inspirations) by empowering a chanter invocation, Her Revenge or Her Tears, while wielding Sasha's Singing Scimitar and wearing the Least Unstable Coil. With this build, however, you'll pretty much be a dedicated caster. Here chanter, with its focus on lightning and cold spells, complements Priest of Berath nicely, with its fire and corrode spells. But if you want to do a martial priest MC, just bring along a cipher and you'll be fine.

Ngati's Tusk is a great weapon. As for Shea's War Staff, I've never used it since it comes so late, but I can see that it would be great for a martial-caster MC. As for forbidden fist/skald, this is probably one of my favorite combos. Do you think the war staff would outperform the sun and moon, which you wrote about earlier in your "Maelstrom Hand" post?

Like you and Boeroer, I am a big Amra fan too. In my experience it is a much more powerful weapon for melee users, and I would go with Amra for a brute or ravager. I do not think that Chromoprismatic would do nearly as well for a melee build, but since kroonermanblack asked for melee builds with reach weapons, I suggested this. Among the pikes and quarterstaffs, I think that Chromoprismatic is probably the best (albeit among relatively sparse competition), and especially for a Bleakwalker since black flames will get a double PL boost with it. I'm not sure how to make it better; I would have to tinker around with builds with this weapon. I am reluctant to do so, however, since it seems a shame to design a build around a weapon that comes so late in the game. Personally, I think that Boeroer is right that the ideal build for a melee with a reach weapon is a martial wizard multi class with Citzal's. Here either an arcane knight, sage or battlemage would be great. As Boeroer suggests, for front line/tanky arcane knight is fantastic, especially steel garrote/blood mage. You could start out with Whispers of the Endless Paths, which is available as soon as lvl 6, and then start using Citzal's once you reach lvl 13 and gain access to the spell. However, you may find that you prefer WotEP; it's amazing with a steel garrote arcane knight due to its offensive parry upgrade.

Fighter/barb is a great combination too. The only reason I suggested paladin/barb was the synergy between bleakwalker's black flames and the chromoprismatic quarterstaff. But a brute could make excellent use of it too. For a brute, however, you might consider Amra, a one-handed great axes. A brute or ravager wielding it is fantastic, since you can knock your foe back into your carnage zone, hitting them with your primary strike, barbarian carnage and Amra's gore. Most foes melt quickly with this treatment.

You can extend the buff I believe with high INT and items like Strand of Favor. But I don't know if you can extend it long enough to last for all of the Eld Nary bounces. The whirlwind moves very slowly, unfortunately.

The chromoprismatic quarterstaff is a great weapon. It's most often used as a stat stick by casters, but it is also a great melee weapon, so long as you pump up the metaphysics skill, since it give an increase in damage and attack speed linked to this skill. You can also enchant it to give you elemental lashes and a raw damage AOE, both of which are nice. You could do serious damage with the weapon, and also be pretty tanky depending on your build. This might be a great weapon for a bleak walker/berserker fanatic. The Bleakwalker's black flames will benefit from both the +1 fire and +1 acid boost from bound blights, and the paladin side will make you tankier with good defenses and healing. The berserker will add you to your DPS in multiple ways; you'll be faster, stronger and will overall hit much harder. Reach weapons are particularly nice with barbarian carnage; you can aim the weapon to get the maximum number of foes in the carnage radius. Also, you'll have so many lashes that you'll even be able to kill the few crush immune foes that are out there.

Very true. You could also switch to Effort after Teheku casts the empowered Avenging Storm with SSS. However, be warned, the game will then become trivially easy, as I learned in my recent run with a SC Fury. As soon as I got Effort, the game became too easy, as is typically the case with these OP combos.

That's amazing! Thanks for sharing this. I wish that we could select the Stormspeaker subclass for our main characters. Perhaps there is a mod allowing this? I recall I couldn't find one when I searched in the past.

Thanks. I thought it was a separate upgrade.

If you enchant Effort with Lacerating in addition to Hemorrhaging, each crit will not only proc the latter as well as avenging storm, but also the former's raw DoT. A SC druid wielding this weapon can really wreak mayhem! Edit: I did some further testing and discovered that Lacerating only procs from hits from the weapon itself, and not from crits from spells. It's so crazy when you wield Effort with a druid with multiple spells lashing foes that it is challenging to discover how the different effects comes about.

These days I mainly play with Tekehu (since watery double is such a great spell, as Constentin Lévine recently showed us) and three custom NPCs to complement my MC's strengths. Currently I'm playing a SC bloodmage with Tekehu as a theurge, with a contemplative, a zealot and spiritualist (troubadour/psion). I currently like having two priests in my party since some of their buffs are so great. I usually open battles with one of them casting Triumph of Crusaders and the other casting Devotions for the Faithful over the party and nearby foes. I used to always have a paladin tank in every party, and I sometimes do still include one. SC bloodmage is so strong, however, I don't need one in this party.

What I am suggesting is, if spirit shift was made into a PL 1 spell, that Lifegivers get a flat +2 PL rejuvenation bonus. The additional +5 while shifted, and the -5 PL after spirit shift ends, doesn't seem to make sense if Lifegivers get 2+ spiritshifts. But this is just a suggestion. I guess that the +5/-5 could be implemented, but lacking any modding experience I defer to those among us with this experience. Edit: I see that I was unclear. No, I did not mean to suggest that they receive an additional +2 PL bonus on top of the +2 they already receive. I just meant that they should keep their original +2 bonus, and that the additional +5/-5 bonus and malus connected with spiritshifting be dropped.

Yes. Lifegivers could keep their +2 PL, but it would be fixed. That is, one might drop the bonus while shifted, as well as the post-shift malus. I don't think that the bonus and malus make sense if spirit shift is treated as a lvl 1 spell.

I like the idea of making Spiritshift a lvl 1 spell. I guess it would be a "free" spell for all subclasses, right? With this in mind, maybe it would be a good idea to give lifegivers a fixed +2 PL bonus for rejuvenation spells, and remove the bonus and penalty connected with spiritshifting? However, one last thought: if we make it a spell, wizards will be able to steal it. What would be the implications of that?

Or maybe get 1 Spiritshift per PL?

Very true. I agree that shifter gets a great set of spells, and you can set the AI so that druids shift only when surrounded by multiple enemies, for the boost to AR at the expense of temporarily loosing casting ability.

I can't speak for Freddfranca, but I did try a shifter theurge once, and quickly abandoned it when I realized you couldn't cast invocations when shifted. Also, it's too bad that shifters also can't cast Taste of the Hunt while shifted; it would be an ideal spell for them. Personally I'd go with a hierophant, maybe soulblade/blood mage, specializing in Concelhaut's Draining Touch. Ciphers have so many spells that drain power from foes it fits the theme well I think. You can also get quite tanky with a shield in the offhand, and all of the buffs hierophants can get.

Not necessarily, in my experience. MC builds can be very effective, particularly in the early game, when twice the resources can really make a difference. However, SC gets the more powerful higher tier abilities faster, and have exclusive access to the highest tier abilities, some of which, for some classes (druid, monk, priest, wizard) are really incredible. Some other classes have relatively lackluster tier 8 & 9 abilities, such that it is advantageous to use them in MC builds mainly. In my experience, the game just gets easier the more you play it, regardless of the selections you make for your party.

Can you really get the 31% lash with Vatnir's weapons? I ask because as an Obsidian made companion I thought that the disposition system doesn't work for him, and that he always stays with the flat 20% lash. If so, what are his favored and unfavored dispositions?

Or maybe a sage, with Concelhaut's Draining Touch (which is corrode only if I remember correctly) and Instruments of Pain? BTW, does Instruments of Pain turn melee attacks into ranged? I ask because it would be nice if the ranged boni from Harley pet, etc. applied to such attacks.

You could always consider a ranged monk MC, such as helwalker/ascendent, using the ranged weapon of your choice (such as frostseeker for this this combo), and then switch to fists and fire up the long pain during those rare encounters with pierce immune foes. You could play most of the game using the ranged weapon(s) of your choice, with a strong crush backup when needed. The twins would be great for a ranged character, keeping aggro away from you.

Ha, they die so fast there's no time for further testing! Thanks for the additional explanations. Yes, this would be great for Stormspeakers too. But maybe Fury would be a too fragile a druid subclass for this build, unless you pump up RES high to minimize the wound ticks.

Wow, this would definitely be better than LDV for SC druid. Thanks for this excellent observation! A SC Fury with effort would be amazing. One thing that I am not clear about....is it beneficial to also wield Hylea's Talons when using Effort in this manner?