[After seeing all the high class abilities...]

Hmm, they nerfed "Her Courage Thick as Steel" really hard (now only 10pt damage shield instead of 30pt). So now I'm sure I will play a Beckoner instead of a Troubadour. But I don't know yet if I really want to go single class. By going multi class I miss the dragon summon (or 2 dragons for beckonner ) and the upgrade for the summoned weapons (so multi beckoner gets only 6 instead of 8 summons from it). A multi also doesn't get the anti beast chant and some other stuff. I really have to rewatch the other classes to see how good these synergize with a dedicated summoner. I also need to think about if these are really neccessary on the main character or if these can be provided by the party instead.

 

The reason I want to multi a Beckoner is because of 2 things:

 

1) Summons scale of character level not power level so outside of getting access to new summons pure Beckoner's summons are not any stronger then a multi's.

 

2) The later summons have a base duration of 25 seconds. So basically outside of summons what are you going to do all you will do is use phrases and auto attacks.

[Early Access Stream Friday 8am EST]

And what's with the Chanter's tier-7 phrase that summons a skeleton? Pretty weird: Summons a skeleton every 6 seconds or how might this work? What's the linger time for? And what about a Troubadour with Brisk Recitation? Will he summon a skeleton every 3 seconds? Will the new one replace the old one? WIll they accumulate? With the other (actively summoned) creatures? 

 

Really strange phrase I think it's just a plain 6 sec phrase with 3 sec linger. A lot will depend on it's stats. Seems hard to justify though there are a lot of good phrases by then. Isn't that the same level you get the lifesteal phrase?

 

*edit* Actually that seems to come the power level before and it has a 10 sec duration so it should easy to rotate with another phrase.

[What class(s) are you planning making your first character and why?]

Helwalker/Wizard or Berserker/Beckoner. Not really decided yet.

 

Let me guess 10 wounds for the might and Int boost and spam spells?

 

And a Glass cannon Berserker who will DPS while using pets to tank and block? Cleave city?

 

Anyway my first will PROBABLY be a Beckoner/Fury. Basically pets to tank while I spam Foe only AoE on everything (Relentless Storm and the Insect Spells). Should be an absolute room clearer.

[After seeing all the high class abilities...]

Beckoner will be may starting point. It can contribute so much without having to take up a lot of actions to do it.

 

The question is what to pair with it. At the moment my front runner is a Druid, either Lifegiver or Fury. Either more heals and DoTs or pure offense with Storms for all.

[Paladins seem pretty strong as Main Protagonist. What would you build?]

the only thing that concerns me a bit about a beckoner-paladin build is that it kinda shoehorns you into that specific build and you'll do the same for every fight -> summon -> flames -> summon -> flames etc... not sure if that doesn't get boring over 100 hours

 

You know I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

I know a Paladin/Beckoner is effective but after you use your shared FoDs what else do you do except auto attack? Add to that having a tanking class combined with another tanky class seems a bit of a waste.

 

To me I thinking what would synergise with Beckoner not on an ability level but on a playstyle level.

 

For example: Beckoner/Helwalker. The idea being that Helwalker is a great offensive character (Might/acc/attackspeed/lash) but is really fragile. So he can hide behind the summons while dpsing and even gives a +10 int boost (eventually).

 

Another one may be Wizard(Evoker)/Beckoner. This is purely a playstyle combo where the Wizard is good in shorter fights but weaker in longer ones whereas Beckoner are tilted in the opposite direction. So when the Wizard runs out of steam then fight has gone on long enough for the Beckoner to really hit their stride.

[Your Tiers List [Base Classes, Subclasses]]

Thought I read that Courage Thick as Steel no longer stacks? Or were they mistaken?

 

Heals are much better than the damage shield; they're like a shield for each ally in range, plus they replenish lost health. So with 3 melee characters that 40 vs. 30 is more like 120 vs. 30....

 

I would say they are about equal. Sure healing can raise health but a shield can actually raise your health above it's maximum. It's proactive rather then reactive.

 

Even if it does not stack there are so many good phrases now that you can have plenty of others to pair it with. Flame Lash, Range reload, healing, etc.

[Cool gears in the new sneak peak]

And Beckoner I presume.

 

Actually it will be amazing for Beckoner since they tend to have a larger number of weaker creatures so the extra penetration may be just what they need to break a DR threshold.

[What multiclasses have you played with so far?]

I really like the summoner builds and now tried the Troubadour (and Shieldbearer/Troubadour):

- when using "Brisk Recitation" he can pump out lower tier summons at the same rate and higher tier summons faster than the Beckoner (drake: 4x6=24sec as Beckoner, 6x3=18sec as Troubadour)

- because "Brisk Recitation" disables the linger and the summon duration is longer compared to a Beckoner you can lower INT (maybe even dump it ... depends on desired chant radius)

- another approch with high INT is to use "Brisk Recitation" first, to get your summons out fast and then switch it off for double chants (or keep it on for more invocations)

- as a Troubadour you can keep up 2 chants all the time with 20 INT (duration = 6 seconds, linger = 6 seconds)

- as a Troubadour you get only half amount of summons per cast compared to a Beckoner, but they have doubled health (although defenses/damage seem to be the same)

- so you get: less DPS, but sturdier summons with longer duration => they seem to work better as "meat shields" or vs. enemies with AoE damage

 

 

Doubled health but half numbers = identical health over all. Beckoner summons do 2x damage plus they do something in PoE2 that was very important in PoE1: they block space better.

[How useful would a Chanter/Monk be?]

 

I apologize in advance if this seems like a stupid topic

There are a some really stupid topics, but yours is definitely not among them.

 

There are some nice synergies between chanter and monk.

 

Few examples:

 

Combine "Her courage thick as steel" (30pt damage soaking shield) with a "Dance of Death" (generating wound every 3 sec as long as not getting damaged): since the 30pt-damage shield kind of stacks you can make sure little to no damage comes trough (every single hit over 30 dmg will come through, the rest will get catched). This is nice because you can get wounds without getting hit and also the nice ACC bonus (up to +12) and it won't stop soon because you'll suffer damage seldomly. You can even combine it with Blade Turning. Turning Wheel and Iron WHeel will come back at higer power levels, so it might be very benefical to keep up 10 wounds all the time because you don't get hit a lot.

 

With 10 wounds a Helwalker can get +10 MIG and like any other monk, he can also get +10 INT via Duality of Mortal Presence. This boosts chanter's AoE and stuff like the healing of Ancient Memory, the damage and healing of Soft Winds, the damage of Dragon Thrashed etc. like crazy.

 

Mith Fyr and Lightning Strikes stack so that you'll have +30% shocking damage and +25% burn damage on all your weapons. With Duality of Mortal Presence and 10 INT from it you can also make sure that your linger time is so long that you can have two different (non-stacking) chants running without a gap. For example Mith Fyr and that really neat weakening chant I forgot the name of.

 

The Long Pain works with Sure-Handed Ila, making them shoot even faster. Long Pain with Ila + Mith Fyr is very good.

 

Skald's special feat (gets phrases when he crits in melee - sorry, melee only) works well with Swift Flurry (30% chance to trigger an additional attack on a crit - which can also be a crit and so on). THis can lead to a fasteer phrase cumulation of the Skald. Especially if you cast "Killers Froze Stiff" on the enemies first - because in Deadfire a paralyzed target gives you a 50% hit-to-crit conversion(!). 

 

And so on. That combo has some nice potential.

 

 

You could also hide behind summons while doing damage and be almost completely safe doing great damage.

[Chanter: recovery, dexterity, chanting speed, invocation cast times]

Ok, now I sat down and tried a chanter/wizard in order to find out what pauses his chants. Did lower DEX to 1, than raised it to 30 and so on. Also used weapon and shield modals that affect recovery and switched armor types. This is what I found out:

 

1) Chanting speed is not affected by DEX and/or recovery. It is only affected by Troubadour's Brisk Recitation.

 

2) Invocation cast times are affected by DEX and universal speed buffs (from abilites such as Frenzy or drugs or potions), not armor or weapon modals or dual wiedling or styles.

 

3) The general recovery after an invocation (you can't attack) is affected by armor, DEX and also speed buffs - but not weapon modals.

 

4) unlike PoE, the special chanting pause after casting an invocation is not affected by DEX, armor penalty or whatever. It's always the same: round about 2 or 3 seconds pause after an invocation happen. You stop chanting as soon as the invocation goes off and after 2 to 3(?) seconds you resume. When I set DEX to 1 it had no effect on the pause. When I raised it to 30 it had no effect. When I used an invocation with a long recovery or one with a short recovery - it had no effect on the chanting pause. It seems to be a entirely fixed amount of time. Hooray for turtles then!  I learned something new today.

 

5) Casting an invocation (or anything else like spells) does not pause chanting. When the casting animation is done (and as soon as the invocation goes off) the pause happens.

 

6) Chanting only has that special pause after an invocation. Every other ability I tested (spells, FoD and so on) don't cause that pause. You can cast Fireballs without interrupting your chants. It's like Mongolian Throat Singing.

 

What a mess. Hope that helps. 

 

 

Appreciate the testing.

 

I was wondering how people were keeping up perma skeletons with Beckoner because I was basing it off the idea that you stopped chanting while casting Invocations. You do during the recovery but the recovery is a lot shorter then the cast.

[Chanter: recovery, dexterity, chanting speed, invocation cast times]

1. No, not affected

 

2. Only the low DEX

 

3. Recovery will suffer from it all - except weapon modal (that only affects weapon attacks)

 

4. Yes. Chanting pause after invocation. So as an active invocation user you don't want to be a slow turtle unless you use fast invocations with short recovery.

 

So it's not paused while channeling the Invocation just the recovery after?

[Paladin orders and their influence on gameplay]

Is there a way to edit the files so my character can be a bleak walker but not suffer reduced benefits from devotion when he doesn't want to be a complete ****?

 

Is there still the talent that lets you ignore the negative effects of going against your order's expectations?

[Paladins seem pretty strong as Main Protagonist. What would you build?]

Paladin/Beckoner here.

 

I love that sort of mass buffing of a pet army.

 

Does the Bleakwalker/Kind Wayer FoD buffs affect the FoD your allies get if you have Shared flames?