dgray62

I believe that Come, Come Soft Winds is chosen primarily for the interrupts. As you note, it's damage is low, but it would be a regular pulse of interrupts for every enemy in chant radius.

This looks like a really interesting build, thelee. I like the idea of continually disrupting powerful foes. This seems like a great build for making use of Their Companion. One question I have is why you recommend taking weapon proficiencies in ranged weapons. Doesn't skalds only gain phrases from crits from melee weapons? Also, I like the synergy with a wizard companion. While Fassina works, do you think a bloodmage companion might be best to repeatedly cast combusting wounds and so forth?

I agree completely. For a theurge I think Sasha's and shield is the way to go early game; later you can replace the shield with another stat stick. While +2 PEN for the storm spells is nice, as Boeroer has explained elsewhere, the storm spells don't seem to scale as well with power levels as some other spells do. I suppose that this is due to the relatively low base damage of spells like relentless storm. The Voulge is best used by a more melee oriented character IMO. You can really wreak havoc with it in the hands of a brute or ravager.

I really like Theurge builds, and if you do it makes sense to focus on electric attacks, given the powerful options on both the druid and chanter side. You could, for example start a fight with an empowered Her Revenge while wielding Sasha's, which is even better if you're also wearing the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's Wand in your offhand. Once you're empowered with bonus PLs and inspirations, you could then switch to the Voulge and cast a relentless storm or two. I really like Sasha's because I rarely ever otherwise empower attacks, for the same reason that I rarely use per rest abilities. In other words, I don't like having to rest all the time.

Yes, I they're loot from the battle with the other group of fanatics on the glacier in BoW DLC. As for comparing them, they might be better than Boots of Stone for some builds. They give you +1 RES, +2 freeze AR and resistance to DEX afflictions.

That's right; thanks, Haplok. I remember the old thread where you and others pointed out how killing foes, pushing them, knocking them prone, etc. also triggers parting sorrow. Thanks!

Unfortunately Imagined Pain is a tier nine ability, not available to multi classes. But I wonder if Nomad's Brigandine would still be great for a shadow dancer build, despite the unavailability of Imagined Pain? You could get Parting Sorrow, but that only procs if the enemy breaks your engagement, right?

Maybe it doesn't actually spawn, and can only be added via the console?

I certainly haven't, after many playthroughs with different builds.

I guess for a bomber build you'd want to multiclass with druid, fighter or wizard to get the bonus points at the start. Maybe chanter/fighter would be best for the improved accuracy. Or you could drop chanter and go with a brute or brawler, using the slayer's claw to get energized. You could get it around the same time you'd get the "Their Champion" invocation as a MC chanter.

Thanks for the advice, Kaylon. I didn't even realize that Torc of the Falcon's Eyes is available in Deadfire. I don't think I've ever received it as random loot. Guess it's truly random!

A chanter bomber......interesting. You could paralyze a group of foes and toss a cinder bomb at them; the dex debuff would lower the reflex defense and help the bomb hit, and once they're blinded their reflex and deflection would be further debuffed, making them more vulnerable to the next tic of the bomb as well as other attacks.

Kaylon, what food do you think would be best for this build? Captain's Banquet for the immunities, action speed and extra damage from cipher spells? Or hot razor skewers for the extra STR, weapon PEN and power level?

Thanks for the clarification, Thelee. Your FAQ is very helpful in explaining the odd mechanics of chants.

The Turning wheel lash isn't affected by power levels. It's just a 2% lash per wound, and it's linked to the attack that it modifies. I don't believe that The Dragon Thrashed, the Dragon wailed would be affected either, as I'm pretty sure chants are not affected by power levels. Unfortunately Magran's favor and sun and moon do not seem to give much of a PL boost to cantors. However, they are nonetheless still great weapons for a cantor. If you use the flail modal you can debuff reflex, making it more likely that the great invocations that target reflex will hit. Moreover, if you wield Magran's favor in your main hand and sun and moon in the off hand and have swift flurry, crits from the two heads of sun and moon proc extra attacks from Magran's favor in the main hand, which will do much more damage. But if you really want to take advantage of the boost to fire power levels while also taking advantage of the nice MF, S & M and swift flurry synergy, you might consider multi-classing monk with paladin, priest or wizard.

You are certainly welcome, Lampros.

It seems you made some great choices, Lampros. Priest/paladin is great for a fire nuker/buffer/healer, and theurge is a classic combo that works very well. Hope you enjoy your run!

If you run Arwen as a priest/paladin, you might consider making her a Priest of Magran, and having her dual wield Magran's Favor and Sun and Moon, for the nice +4 to fire power levels (during the day), as well as to Flames of Devotion. For tougher fights, you could replace Sun and Moon with Magran's Blessing. Late game, you could have her dual wield Magran's Favor and the Wand of Weyc (soulbound to the paladin class), while wearing least unstable coil, and cast an empowered Rain of Holy Fire, for a big PL boost as well as multiple inspirations from the coil, all of which you could extend with Salvations of Time.

You might consider trying Fassina as sorceror (wizard/druid) combo. That's my favorite way to play her, as she pretty much never runs out of spells from mid game onward. I have always played Eder as a sword'n'board tank, so I cannot comment on a ranged build for him.

Ah, I see that this is the fruit of all your recent post, Lampros. While I might be inclined to quibble with the idea of Gandalf as a warcaller, it looks like a solid party with a nice blend of strong melee DPS with support from spell casters. Too bad you can have a sixth party member, like POE1, to add "Gimli." Since paladins are pretty tanky I'd be inclined to have "Arwen" be primarily melee. As for Gandalf, you might consider making him an ancient/troubador theurge, a staff wielder, naturally. That would fit better thematically I think, and might add more to the party.

Yes, Hel Hyraf is a great invocation that will benefit you and your summons; the upgrade is great because it basically lasts forever, so long as you land hits. It may not be as necessary once you get the spell Champion's Boon, which gives you tenacious and hence +2 PEN, but it will always help your summons, and will still help you with the tougher foes. I think, but am not 100% sure, that the +2 PEN from tenacious stacks with the -2 AR from Hel Hyraf, giving you a net +4 PEN boost.

This is probably the best reason to multi-class as a fighter if you want a godlike late game character.

I think that this is a great idea, Mudcrabjedi. I recently tried a priest of magran/bellower celebrant build for my MC as a variant of thelee's fire dancer build. I followed thelee's idea of stacking power levels, to give the build great fire power. But I replaced the Helwalker monk with a Bellower chanter. My thinking here is bellowers naturally give you fantastic power level stacking as part of their kit. More over, the bellower has two really great powers that benefit from increased power levels, namely Her Revenge and O'Eld Nary. They complement the heavy fire focus of the priest of magran, giving you powerful lightning and cold attacks, which comes in handy when you face fire resistant or immune foes, of which there are many. And it benefits from Sasha's Singing Scimitar, enabling you to empower an invocation once per encounter, which gives you a huge boost when also wielding Weyc's Wand and the Least Unstable coil. It's a fun build that's very caster oriented, but you'll never run out of "spells," on the chanter side at least. Even at low levels, you can alternate between casting invocations and priest spells without running out of spells for most encounters. As for summoning wurms and drakes, bellower is probably the best subclass for this, as your increased power levels will lead to longer durations for the summon. Ultimately, however, you'll probably want to get the Ancient Instruments of Death summons, as it is arguably the best summon a multi-classed chanter can get, even though it doesn't fit the "Dragon chanter" theme. Whatever summons you chose, your chants will heal and strengthen them, just as they do you and your party members. So, you can start battles with a summon, cast a priest fire spell, buff and/or heal, as needed, followed by an offensive invocation, and repeat until the battle is over.

Lampros, to my knowledge only stalker's link is conditional on the ranger and pet targeting the same enemy. Marked Prey and Survival of the Fittest grant the bonus to both ranger and pet, but as far as I know the pet isn't required. So you could still get these bonuses if you chose the ghost heart subclass and don't summon your pet. I'm not 100% certain, however, as I started playing rangers only recently, when I switched from veteran to PotD, as a way to boost accuracy. As I prefer melee builds with the stalker subclass, I usually pick the bear pet (for its higher AR) as it is tankier and seems to very rarely go down, even on PotD. So I'm used to playing with the pet. If you want to spam ancestor's memory or any other power, you might consider an ascendant/helwalker with maxed DEX and INT and dumped RES. With very high INT (from turning wheel) and high DEX (from lightning flurry and gear, since you're playing ranged), you can spam many powers while in the ascended state. By "best weapons in the game" I meant monks' fists, which start out very strong and just get better and better as you level up. They lack the nice effects of the cooler unique melee weapons, but end up with high damage, PEN and accuracy, while being extremely fast weapons.

I guess that this is needed for those enemies whose concentration isn't broken by killing blows!