moskowitzda

So, I've had this gunslinger build idea using streetfighter/wizard knocking around in my head a bit, and I was wondering if there was a way to actualize it, and I had some question about how the street fighter works. I think the rogue goodies synergize pretty well with all of the wizard's awesome cc abilities, and I had this idea of taking advantage of the street fighter's recovery bonus to make a gunslinger who can put out a wall of bullets with fast reload speeds, while also putting out some enviable crowd control. The issue is that in order to get the streetfighter's recovery buff it looks like I both need to be flanked or bloodied and have the character I'm targeting is flanked or afflicted. Getting an affliction on my target seems really easy with a wizard (there are tons of wizard spells giving aoe afflictions, starting with chill fog at level 1), but getting myself flanked or bloodied seems really difficult as a ranged character (I'd have to put him in the middle of a bunch of enemies which kind of defeats the whole point of a ranged character). The only ideas I could come up with are using the scepter modal, to keep my char at bloodied (which I don't like from an aesthetic standpoint because I want to be a gunslinger, but I guess I could open with scepters and change to pistols/blunderbuss once I'm at bloodied); using the blunderbuss modal, to keep myself flanked (the wiki says it leaves the target distracted, but the in game description implies it's the wielder; there is also the accuracy debuff from being distracted, though); or making a berserker/soulblade adventurer, and then open each fight by using frenzy and then have the adventurer use phantom foes on my main to keep him flanked (this feels kind of complicated and overly involved, though). Do any of these routes seem viable to anyone, or are there any other methods to keep the street fighter buff up on a ranged character (for instance, are there any legendaries that would apply flanked to my char without having him in the middle of the fighting)? Also, I'd heard that there was a bug which kept reload times for ranged weapons really long, and I wanted to check if that had been resolved (or if it had ever really been a problem in the first place).

I think I've settled on howler, and I'm thinking about risking berserker, and either making sure I have party members that can give me an int inspiration/pumping alchemy and rp'ing as a svef addict. I was wondering about race and attribute choices, specifically I think playing as a godlike is interesting from an rp perspective, but I'm worried I'm going to be kicking myself for missing really awesome helm choices later in the game, like in PoE1. However, the nature godlike's bonus seems really powerful (especially since I'll always have a strength inspiration from frenzy), and I was wondering if the fire godlike's burn damage can a) crit and b) if it does crit, can it give me phrases? Also, for a stat spread, I'm planning on going 18 might, but I was wondering how I should prioritize INT, PER, and DEX. Im thinking of doing one of these four stat spreads: MIG 18 CON 8 DEX 10 PER 15 INT 18 RES 10 MIG 18 CON 8 DEX 15 PER 18 INT 10 RES 10 MIG 18 CON 8 DEX 13/15 PER 15 INT 15/13 RES 10 Which would be best?

Thanks for the help! Barb/Skald definitely sounds like a good option (and thanks for the heads up on berserker, I didn't realize that it's class penalty affected chants/invocations as well). I was thinking barb/wizard over barb/pally, since barbarian seems to have a more fun, active playstyle, and the wizard buffs seem to more than make up for any squishiness relative to pally. As for the soul blade multi, I don't really mind playing squishy characters, and I was perfectly comfortable with the squishiness of my melee cipeher in PoE 1; I guess my question is how much casting do you actually get to do as a soul blade? If it's just autoattack/insert melee class ability here -> soul annihilation, then I guess that doesn't really feel more interesting than just single classing as a melee class and replacing soul annihilation with melee abilities. Do you actually use your shred cipher powers at all, or are you just sacrificing effectiveness in taking them over an ability from the melee class/sacrificing effectiveness by using them in combat over soul annihilation? Maybe multi classing a melee class with ascendant would be more my speed (if ascendant is actually viable at this point as a multi)? I might just end up doing different play-throughs for all of these...

I'm trying to decide between running a melee/wizard multi class (probably barb or paladin), a barbarian/skald multi class, or a melee/soulblade multi (probably devoted or barb). I don't really need to know which would be more powerful as much as which would be the most fun. The howler would run more as a melee caster, using barb smash etc. (and maybe choose hearth organ for race) to get tons of crits and spamming lots of invocations. Ironically, it's the closest I can think of making a melee caster that uses its magic for more than buffing. The melee/wizard would use spells mostly for buffs, and deal damage with the melee class. The melee/soulblade I'm unsure about. I played a melee cipher in PoE 1, and it was a ton of fun, but the impression I'm getting here is that the only super viable way to play a soul blade multi is by taking a random level one power and biting whip and essentially only using the soul annihilation ability and not really bothering with the cipher powers, which were what I really enjoyed about the class. I'd appreciate any feedback on people's experience with these kinds of builds so far.

I've actually been thinking about this too, since rogue seems to have gotten nerfed, and I've never been a huge fan of monk or fighter for arbitrary play style reasons. I think you might want to have PER higher and maybe have CON a bit higher. Most of the melee classes give you some accuracy buffs or splash damage (or both), so even though there are a couple of accuracy buffing spells, I feel like you're going to have trouble hitting stuff often enough to build focus. Also, your health is going to be pretty low compared to some of the melee multi classes, so you might need higher CON to make it up. I think you can probably run with 10 DEX, because you can make up for the attack speed loss with DAOM and other buffs. I feel like enchanter or normal wizard would probably be best. Enchanter gets most of the really cool buff spells you want earlier, but no subclass wizard means you don't lose out on illusion buffs. I think that enchanter will probably be more powerful early on, but no subclass wizard might be the most powerful when fully leveled. For beguiler, part of me feels like a single class wizard or single class beguiler makes a lot more sense than multi classing them. I'm not super sure of what synergy one adds to the other. I think it might just end up being a character that's mediocre at damage and mediocre at cc'ing? I definitely think that soul blade is the way to go, because I feel like you need soul annihilation and the extra damage from biting whip. The stat spread also feels really tight, but I think this will be ok playing normal.