Ivanfyodorovich

Necro'ing to say that this build was as fun as advertised. Thanks for the work to build and share it. I completed a BPM Triple Crown - kill all the things - run and the poet carried the group! I swapped out chanter for Fury Shaper barbarian, which was slightly less fast (if my math is correct), but equally fun. I found myself not messing much with the imbues because of expert mode, but it ran on auto-pilot for the most part, which is another kind of bonus. @Aestus and @thelee talk about this in their class tier list conversation, but having a strong build that can run well without much micro, is great in RTWP party play, where there is a finite limit to player micro capacity. Great for Megabosses - somewhat trivializes HoW and Belranga, who can be interrupted.

One of the best things that @Elric Galad added in BPM was the empower interaction. Predictable "miscast" is flavorful and adds some level of control to the randomness. I have not played BG2, but for the Wild Mage, there was a class ability that always proc'd a "wild surge" but came with benefits (e.g. casting a higher level spell using a level 1 spell slot). I think Empower fits really well here for that function. More thoughts on that later. I think you're so right about them being hard to notice. With the exception of invisibility and stun, there's usually very little visual information presented to you, and the combat log rolls by quickly. I really like having a shorter more impactful list of effects. Even if they were affliction/inspiration, pick a shorter list a la Tayn's Chaotic Orb. I also like the idea of making them focused on Serafen. There's something more playable and flavorful there vs. total chaos. One thing that's missing right now from the current list of Wild Surges is just casting the wrong spell. I think that's slightly harder to do in terms of programming, but even if you cast a second spell randomly chosen, that feels cooler/more flavorful. I'm noodling some effects and will come back with some more refined ideas. Thanks for the feedback/input.

Low level play testing results Xoti: the benefits feel good and balanced with the work required. The accuracy bonus vs near death is very welcome on PotD. Serafen: it feels great to use the hand mortar and I had some huge Crits with Barbaric Blow (bpm) paired with a pistol. Spamming soul shock and mind wave produced a massive # of wild mind procs and did lots of damage. Chaotic, but powerful. I’ll do some more sustained testing at higher levels and see how it feels.

I just wrapped a fun BPM & CP Triple Crown playthrough with a custom party, and it's left me hankering to play through again with companions and really try to lean into their unique classes/items. Elric's fixes in BPM for Xoti's Monk Subclass and Serafen's Cipher subclass work great in terms of balancing them with the smallest number of changes. I've found myself with slightly different desires/goals, though, and was hoping to gather some feedback on some proposed solutions. For both Xoti and Serafen, I wanted to not only update their subclasses, but also their weapons and armor, so that they could be used throughout an entire playthrough. Ideally, the changes would make sense as a package, and point to a general playstyle for each that feels thematic and balanced. Xoti Add: Sister of the Reaping Moon gains Reaping Moon Style: while you have a shield equipped, gain bonus accuracy (+15) and damage (+50%) against Near Death enemies. This focuses the playstyle around killing blows and makes sense of the buckler proficiency, starting items, and flavor text (A monastic order of Gaun, the reaping aspect of Eothas, Sisters of the Reaping Moon are most effective against opponents who are already at death's door.) It feels somewhat balanced, in that it's still worse for raw damage compared to any other monk subclass, but makes shield oriented builds more fun. Tuotilo's Palm is already so good, and this is an indirect buff to it, so I'm not 100% sold on this implementation, but I'm stumped on how to encourage the "with shield or with buckler" playstyle without making it better. Change: Resource Gain mechanic: gain +3 wounds on kill > gain +2 wounds, +2 Mortification on kill. The "worse at wounds, but then better if you can get lots of killing blows" playstyle falls flat, in my opinion, while the mortification gain from the lantern was always a unique and interesting flavor when compared to the other subclasses. I'm eager to try this out and see if it breaks anything, and if the balance of always worse at wounds, but better at mortification is fun. I'd love feedback here. Change: Lantern enchants: Holy Radiance: +2 Restoration, Inspiration PL > 4m Aura (include self): +% healing received (scales with religion) The +PL was always a little odd to me, given Xoti's spell list (she get's exactly 1 bonus spell with one those keywords). I'm not locked in on the healing received, but it feels like the safest effect here. I'm open to suggestions, but want to have it be an aura, so that it has more resonance with the quest upgrade enchant. Soulkeeper: Gain +1 of each Monk resource on kill > gain +1 PL until the end of the encounter on kill, stacks twice This effect might be too strong, esp. b/c it applies to the priest side as well, but I never liked the way the item only half-functioned if you were single class. Easy to tune. Could also replace with another stacking buff on kill. Change: Sickle enchants: Soul Reaper: +5% sickle Damage until combat end on scoring Kill (stacks 4 times) (increases with Religion skill) > +5% sickle Damage until combat end on scoring Kill (stacks 4 times) (increases with Religion skill); +1 penetration with sickle attacks. Change: Spiritual Weapon (Gaun): Added Soul Reaper enchant to the summoned weapon. Bit of an oddity to have the lantern enchants carry over, but not the sickle ones. Change: Vestments of Gaun: Made this unique so the quality can be upgraded. Added an enchant to make it more competitive for both priest and monk. Sacred Duty: reduced recovery that scales with religion. -1% per skill point. (I've tinkered with this a little, but I think this is the cleanest) Serafen Add: Wild Temper passive: gain bonus damage and penetration with AoE attacks. Currently this is a scaling bonus to damage (a la Sneak attack) and a flat +1 to pen. It applies to all AoE attacks, making Serafen a good candidate to keep his beloved hand mortars. It also makes Serafen the best companion to pick up Explosives as a skill. I'm not sure what the right amount of bonus is here, so I'd appreciate feedback in terms of relative balance. I really wanted something to incentivize play that caused the maximum number of wild mind procs, while actually offsetting the risk/reward. @thelee has made a strong case multiple times that randomness favors enemies, and that there needs to be a stronger benefit to offset, even if there are "great" outcomes from the random events. I also really like that this pushes an AoE damage niche rather than AoE debuff play that Beguiler. I also like how it synergizes with Barbarian in theme and mechanic, benefitting Carnage and Spirit Tornado in a Witch Build, offering unique benefit. I turned Miscast back to Friendly Fire to balance things, but kept Elric's awesome "always miscast on an empowered cast" feature. That little bit of control feels really great and enables some fun play. I like the idea of dropping Serafen into the enemy backline as a psychic bomb. Sometimes you get some collateral damage. Change: Serafen's Padded Mail: Made this unique so the quality can be upgraded. Changed it to be padded armor (per the description), but added some bonus armor back to it. More fitting for a mid-range caster, and usable for the whole game. Concealed Chain: +1 crush, pierce, slash AR Crow's Nest Comforts: +2 freeze AR, +2 shock AR I'd love any feedback on these from folks who have thought through ways to improve these characters/items in a balanced way. Thanks!

Here’s a Shepard build as an example: Here’s a Holy Slayer build as an example:

Steel Garrote & Rogue has nice synergy. Trickster is great for solo because of the defensive buffs. If you can pick up extra engagement slots from your gear (lots of great ways to do that), you can use Repulsive Visage to great effect, forcing disengagement attacks. Streetfighter is sort of a no-brainer, as well, given that you will be flanked constantly, and likely bloodied often, as well. Ranger & Paladin let's you take even more advantage of your auras and some passives. Stalker gives you and your pet more defenses when close, which you likely would be most of the time. The extra accuracy from Ranger can help if you're using weapons that want you to crit a lot. Most of the powerful builds on the forum work fine for solo, assuming you have some experience playing solo.

Here’s that Pallegina build.

Perception and Intellect highest, with Dexterity third. Might is less important for Rogue. Constitution and Resolve can be dumped to your comfort level of squishiness. AoE weapons are fun with Rogue (mortars, rods w modal) for applying your debuffs on many enemies at once. Slight anti-synergy with Ancient who really wants Lance of the Midwood Stag or The Spine of Thicket Green to boost spell damage, AoE, and duration. The Lance is a fun idea for being in melee without getting hit as often.

This is a great tip, since that will stack and lasts the whole encounter. I did not realize it applied via spells. I completely agree here. If I were creating this build with a hireling or watcher, I would likely choose At the Sight (assuming no other chanters in the party). Because it's a sidekick, that choice is already made for you.

I’ve had this build in draft for years now, but just completed a full playthrough to test it exhaustively. I love the companion and sidekick builds @Ascaloth and others have posted, especially the way they mix mechanical fun with narrative details for each character. This build works great in most parties, but is designed to be paired with a Fassina Sorcerer build that I’m posting as well. This build is a riff on @Boeroer’s Konstanten Build (post) set up to offtank and pair well with Fassina. The lightbulb clicked when I saw Konstanten has the highest base Fortitude of any companion or sidekick. Maybe he had a wizard cousin who liked wearing diving helmets? I’m posting this build so that it’s available for folks who want to bring Konstanten along and are looking for a quick, fool-proof build. I tested this on PotD Upscaled with a typical party (Swash Eder, Herald Pallegina, Priest Xoti, Sorcerer Fassina). I used the Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, but the build does not depend on them to work. I’ll do my best to highlight if something is a CP or BPM feature only. (Borrowing @thelee's formatting here, slightly edited) The Pitch: This build drops enemy Fortitude through the floor while dropping Will and AR to boot. It stands in the middle of melee and shrugs off attacks that target Fortitude or deal Corrode damage. Howler - Chanter (Skald), Barbarian (no sub) Mountain Dwarf, The Dyrwood - Drifter (+1 RES, +1 Sleight of Hand, Bluff, Streetwise) Attributes: MIG 15 CON 17 DEX 12 PER 11 INT 10 RES 13 Note: If you are playing this build with a hired adventurer or watcher, you could make these choices to further optimize. Choose any non-godlike race. You could do worse than Mountain Dwarf, as CON Resistance is nice to have out of the box. Choose any Barbarian Subclasses that you fancy, though you need an answer for Berserker’s Confused status. Corpse Eater would fit well with the BPM upgrades, giving you even more survivability in most fights. Make CON, PER and INT your highest scores, followed by MIG and DEX. You could dump RES a little. Skills: Athletics and/or Alchemy and Survival. More explanation below. Abilities: AT1 Come, Come Soft Death (a), The Thunder Rolled (a) // Barbaric Yell (a) And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon the Shield Frenzy AT2 Thick Grew Their Tongues // Thick Skinned One Dozen Stood, Two-Handed Style, One-Handed Style [BPM] or Accurate Carnage [BPM] AT3 Reny Daret’s Ghost Spake // One Stands Alone The Shield Cracks Bloody Slaughter AT4 The Long Night’s Drink // Spirit Frenzy Savage Defiance Barbaric Shout AT5 Ben Fidel’s Neck Was Exposed // Bear's Fortitude (AT2) Leap, Tough, or Uncanny Luck AT6 Old Siec Would Not Rest // Brute Force Spell Resistance Oh, But Knock Not (AT4), What Ruo Naka Found, Threatening Presence [BPM], or Interrupting Blows (AT6) AT7 Called to His Bidding or Accurate Empower [BPM] // Spirit Tornado Stalwart Defiance [BPM], or choice of previous Weapon Proficiencies: Battle axe (a), Mace (a) Morning star Club Weapon slots: I: The Willbreaker (Unavoidable Demise, Make Them Flinch) II: Shattered Vengeance or Kapana Taga Essential gear: Helm of the Void Aloth’s Leather Armor Voidward Undying Burden Playstyle: This build focuses on synergistic debuffs to reduce enemy Fortitude, Will, and AR, setting up your party for faster kills, while soaking up enemy attacks. - The real work horse here is the synergy between the chant The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning and the Barbarian abilities Spirit Frenzy/Spirit Tornado. While frenzied, every attack you make, with any ability, will cause Staggered (-5 MIG, Cannot engage enemies). Because The Long Night’s Drink is an attack, enemies affected by it are not only Weakened, but also Staggered. These two conditions together lower their Fortitude by 20!. For enemies who are resistant or immune to MIG afflictions, The Long Night’s Drink also lowers MIG independent of any affliction, resulting in an only slightly less impactful -14 Fortitude. This would be powerful even if it was a one time use ability, but the attack repeats every 6 or 12 seconds, and synergizes with itself, because it targets Fortitude. Once it hits, it has a much easier time of reapplying again, making it last the entire encounter in most situations. *Note: there is a bug in the vanilla game where Spirit Tornado only applies staggered on weapon attacks. If you’re playing vanilla, do not upgrade to Spirit Tornado. - In addition to Long Night’s Drink and Spirit Frenzy, we can lower an enemy's Fortitude by an additional 25 points with the Morning star modal Body Blows, which targets Deflection. This is often the first wedge to pry open high Fortitude enemies, as it makes The Long Night’s Drink much easier to land. On top of those, we have the upgraded version of Reny Daret’s Ghost Spake (Ben Fidel’s Neck Was Exposed), which targets Will and lowers all defenses by 10 and applies Frightened (-5 Deflection, -10 Will, -3 power levels). Lastly, the invocation And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon The Shield lowers AR by 2. With the upgrade, this can be kept up for the entire battle without much effort (especially on any target being focused). The net effect on all of this on enemies who are not affliction resistant or immune is: -2 AR -15 Deflection -55 Fortitude -10 Reflex -20 Will - Spirit Tornado is worth a quick mention here. With BPM, it is very worth snagging, and honestly great for end game even in Vanilla, as many late game enemies have Might affliction resistance anyway. Terrified for 1 Rage in an AoE is very fun. - Choosing higher level invocations increases your max phrases. Your goal is to have at least 5 max so that you can cast Ben Fidel’s Neck and Hel-Hyraf back to back at the start of combat. Non-offensive invocations cost +1, and choosing a high level one will give you the highest possible max phrase count. - Keep your weapon modals on all the time. The damage penalties eat up all of your bonus damage from MIG, but in light or medium armor with frenzy, you still put out some decent damage. I didn’t do any math on this, but my gut is that the modal deals more total damage across the party if at least 1 other party member is attacking Fortitude. Once you have The Willbreaker, it makes more sense to use that 100% of the time and have another character use a club to keep Bewildering Blows up, even when trying to lower enemy Will, because Relentless stacks with those and adds an additional -3 to -15 Will. - With Kosntanten’s health pool being so large (~500 hp with a few points of bonus constitution and frenzy), you don’t have to babysit him. Instead, when you notice he’s getting close to bloodied, or is being focused by a few high damage enemies, you can toss a heal over time on him and/or use Stalwart Defiance. In BPM, Defiance stacks with Robust, in addition to getting extra base healing, but even without those changes, it’s a pretty great fit for K. - Surviving fights also requires having enough armor for the enemies you’re fighting. At a minimum, enough means that when he’s critically hit, he has enough AR to avoid overpenetration. You can figure out what that target is by using this formula (AR needed to avoid overpen=1+((Enemy PEN * 1.5)/2). With Thick Skinned, he should be fine in most fights with upgraded Light or Medium armor even on PotD. When in doubt, Potions of Spirit Shield last a decently long time and are cheap. Aloth’s Leather Armor is a phenomenal choice, because it has no weaknesses if you upgrade to Structurally Stable (and actually gains extra Corrode AR). The bonus defense against Transmutation and the Overseeing enchantments are also wonderful. Other great choices are Magnera’s Chain, Iridescent Scale, or Saint’s War Armor. The latter two really depend on Woodskin/Delemgan and some +corrode AR to work, but they have great enchantments). If you are facing particularly challenging enemies (e.g. rogues with ranged weapons that prioritize low HP allies), Heavy armor works great, too. Blackened Plate with the damage aura and -AR aura are a natural fit here. Both autohit, so won’t apply Staggered from Spirit Frenzy, but they do stack with everything else in your toolbox. - One very powerful trick that I like using Konstanten for on challenging bosses is putting him into the Kahako Nihi armor from SSS with the Hardened Plates upgrade. With heavy armor, K can take crits easily, and the debuff that it causes lasts the entire encounter. This is especially nice on Megabosses like Dorudugan and Hauani O Whe, where you’re stuck grinding them down. - The biggest downside of K in this build is low accuracy and low Intellect. These aren’t as damning as you might think, though. Gloves of Reliability and Helm of the Void, are a big help early (as of course priest/paladin buffs). Since your biggest single debuff targets deflection, flanking, etc also helps. The other reason it’s not completely damning, is that your main abilities are very cheap (1 Rage, 2 and 3 Phrases). If you whiff one, you can try again at little cost. Similarly, lower duration is not much of an issue. Lastly, as a melee chanter, your chants and invocations easily hit multiple enemies. - Pretty much as soon as you can get K, you can snag Saru-sichr from Arkemyr’s mansion with no violence. If you planned ahead and started with some extra gold from Berath’s Blessings, you should also have Shattered Vengeance. These will keep K in business for most of the game. I’d also recommend doing Beast of Winter as soon as you can (14 is great). Helm of the Void is huge. If you have a wizard with Combusting Wounds, Neriscyrlas is a breeze. K can make sure it lands, and Thick Grew Their Tongues helps you keep that pesky Llengrath’s Safeguard. Sidenote: if you’re running Fassina here, all of her poison spells work on top of Combusting Wounds shenanigans. Very easy once K gets N’s Fortitude under control. - This build works exceptionally well with Fassina and other characters with abilities that target Fortitude and Will. Big K has no problem standing in the hostile AoE spells that Fassina uses. If you use an Antidote, Khapa Tea, or get Purge Toxins from Fassina, you can safely ignore Venombloom, Malignant Cloud, and Noxious Burst. But if you don’t have immunity to poison, your high Fortitude and Voidward will make them completely survivable. Konstanten has the highest base Fortitude of any companion or sidekick.** We take Bear’s Fortitude to increase that even further, and with Frenzy up, he gains an additional +20 Fortitude. If you have an active source of +All Defenses (Circle of Protection, etc.), that’s helpful, but not necessary. I also usually give Konstanten a Cloak of Greater Protection for an additional +10. **For fun, here’s a breakdown of the top 5. Konstanten (Barbarian): 54 (30 class, 10 MIG, 14 CON) Konstanten (Howler): 49 (25 class, 10 MIG, 14 CON) Pallegina (Paladin): 45 (25 class, 4 MIG, 6 CON, 10 Faith & Conviction (+Deep Faith)) Eder (Fighter): 44 (20 class, 12 MIG, 12 CON) Serafen (Barbarian): 42 (30 class, 10 MIG, 2 CON) - I think Alchemy is by far the most useful active skill, especially for the late game where fights can go very long and keeping buffs up is worth quite a bit. That said, there is great synergy with Athletics and Undying Burden, and if your party needs someone with high Athletics, that’s a great fit, also. - As mentioned above, Konstanten works great with a source of consistent Healing over time. A Herald with Ancient Memory and Exalted Endurance is usually plenty to keep him happy (also a great choice to work with Fassina, due to Righteous Soul). Some things that worked for me on Megabosses: Dorudugan: I had K face tank Doru to start the fight until he caught Hardened Plates, then had him wail away with Willbreaker, standing far enough away from the other 2 melee so that a Brutal slash would only ever hit 2 of the 3. BPM savage defiance and some back up heals along with stacked AR meant no overpen with crits, and underpen on regular hits. You have to do some work with a few characters to make a debuff strategy work here, but K is a key piece of the puzzle. BPM Threatening Presence helps quite a bit (immune to engagement when above 75% HP), but you can eat a disengagement crit with this setup with a similar amount of health. I respec to Blood Frenzy/Bloodstorm for this b/c he is resistant to Body Afflictions, and w/ BPM I had basically infinite frenzy (I think BPM Salvation of Time or something else has an odd interaction here, but I couldn’t figure it out). The extra dmg from the dot is not huge, but there’s not much else to spend points on. Hauani O Whe: Similar to Doru, stack AR, stay alive through the crits. I used Disintegrate to shorten the fight tremendously, and K helped that land. If you weren’t doing that, I’d pick up the accuracy boost for The Thunder Rolled and keep oozes stunned (5s base, vs Reflex w/ one attack roll for 2 Phrases) Sigilmaster Auranic: The biggest contribution K makes is the use of his old massage room back the the Wild Mare, but he does fine here smashing on sigils and making Auranic easier to land damage on. Spirit Tornado is fun on Auranic, who can be terrified. Belranga: Pretty happy here with Khapa Tea smashing away. Carnage is nice to speed up spiderling kills. Once you switch over to Belranga, the lowered defenses help speed everything up a bit. BPM Notes: - The Improved Empowered Abilities are great with this build. Accurate is a must, Lasting is great as a second. With Lasting, Ben Fidel’s Neck is probably your best choice to empower at the start of a fight.

I’ve had this build in draft for years now, but just completed a full playthrough to test it exhaustively. I love the companion and sidekick builds @Ascaloth and others have posted, especially the way they mix mechanical fun with narrative details for each character. This build works great in most parties, but is designed to be paired with a Konstanten Howler build that I’m posting as well. This is in no way unique insight or creativity on my part, but mostly a very basic build that focuses on fun synergies. I’m posting so that it’s available for folks who want to bring Fassina along and are looking for a quick, fool-proof build. I tested this on PotD Upscaled with a typical party (Swash Eder, Herald Pallegina, Priest Xoti, Howler Konstanten). I used the Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, but the build does not depend on them to work. I’ll do my best to highlight if something is a CP or BPM feature only. (Borrowing @thelee's format here w/ some slight edits) The Pitch: Stack gross amounts of +PL and clear the battlefield with layers of AoE DoT, Pulse, and direct corrode and raw damage. Sorcerer - Wizard (Conjurer), Druid (Animist) Human (Ocean Folk), Vailian Republics - Arcane Apprentice (+1 INT, +2 Arcana) Attributes: MIG 13 CON 11 DEX 12 PER 12 INT 16 RES 14 Note: If you are playing this build with a hired adventurer or watcher you could make these choices to further optimize. Choose Nature Godlike (trade +1 Poison PL and +2 INT for +1 universal PL) Choose Ancient Druid instead of Animist (additional stacking +1 PL for plant and beast spells). Make PER and INT your highest scores, followed by MIG and DEX. You could dump RES and CON as much as you are comfortable. Skills: Alchemy (or Arcana) and Metaphysics. More explanation below. Abilities: AT1 Concelhaut’s Parasitic Staff (a), Conjure Familiar (a) // Talon’s Reach (a), Sunbeam (a), Spiritshift Wolf (a) Slicken Choice of: Touch of Rot, Tanglefoot, Vile Thorns, Nature’s Mark AT2 Infuse with Vital Essence // Insect Swarm, The Moon’s Light (a) Necrotic Lance Autumn’s Decay or Binding Web AT3 Deleterious Alacrity of Motion // Infestation of Maggots, Returning Storm (a) Combat Focus Purge of Toxins [BPM] AT4 Spirit of Decay // Form of the Delemgan, Conjure Blight (a) Wicked Briars or Wall of Flame Spell Shaping AT5 Rapid Casting // Wall of Thorns, Plague of Insects (a) Farcasting Embrace of the Earth Talon or (Uncanny Luck, Heart of the Storm, or Scion of Flame) AT6 Arkemyr’s Capricious Hex or Ninaguath’s Freezing Pillar // Venombloom, Sunlance (a) Choice of: Quick Summoning, Garden of Life, Spell Resistance [BPM], or an optoin from a previous tier AT7 Tayn’s Chaotic Orb or Wall of Draining // Accurate Empower [BPM] or Call to the Primordials, Lashing Vine (a) Potent Empower [BPM] or an option from a previous tier Weapon Proficiencies: Dagger (a), Rod (a) Staff or/and Pike Hunting Bow Arquebus Scepter Weapon slots: I: The Spine of Thicket Green (Empowering Instinct, Grove’s Respite) or Lance of the Midwood Stag (Lord of the Forest) II: Essence Interrupter or Blightheart or Amaliorra Note: Spine vs. Lance. Both are available immediately for “free”; I used the Spine for my playthrough, but on reflection, Lance is likely better in every case except vs Vessels. Both work great, though. You could always juggle them to maximize PL for plant/beast spells, but that is more micro than it’s worth for me, plus I prefer to have my second weapon set for an alternative ranged option. Essential gear: Spider Silk Robe (Spider Blooded, Poison Master) Mask of the Grotto Deep Serpentskin Grimoire Fassina’s Grimoire Battle-worn Grimoire Playstyle: This build focuses on maximizing a few strong spells with synergistic keywords (Poison, Plant, Beast, Acid, Decay, Conjuration) to stack up staggering amounts of damage, but stays flexible with tried and true utility spells for every situation. Universal +1/+3: (Summon Familiar/Lance of the Midwood Stag) Poison +3 (Mask of Grotto Deep & Spider Silk Robe) Conjuration +2 (Conjurer subclass) Plant +3 (Spine of Thicket Green) Beast +3 (Spine of Thicket Green) +PL by Spell: +8 Malignant Cloud (Conjuration, Poison) +6 (+7 w/ Spine) Plague of Insects (Beast, Poison [BPM]) Venombloom (Plant, Poison) Wall of Thorns (Plant, Poison [BPM]) Vile Thorns (Plant, Poison) +6 Noxious Burst (Poison) +5 Necrotic Lance (Conjuration) Binding Web (Conjuration) Death Ring (Conjuration) All Wizard Wall spells (Conjuration) +3 (+4 w/ Spine) Insect Swarm Talon’s Reach Tanglefoot Wicked Briars Form of the Delemgan Lashing Vine Call to the Primordials The basic flow is standard stuff: buff > DoT spells > direct damage spells w/ debuffs and utility spells as needed. Buffs: Infuse w/ Vital Essence Deleterious Alacrity of Motion Summon Familiar Form of the Delemgan Core DoTs: Plague of Insects Infestation of Maggots Venombloom Malignant Cloud Insect Swarm - Keep the staff modal on most of the time. Pike modal is a great debuff if you aren’t using Nature’s Mark or similar active effects that reduce Deflection. You should be able to stay in robes the whole game, but if you are concerned about getting focused fired, Cabalist Gambeson is great b/c Woodskin and Delemgan cover the AR gaps perfectly (always a fan of flaunting the haul from Arkemyr’s Vault, too). Ironskin is also great and is in the Snakeskin Grimoire. - Form of the Delemgan is easily the strongest spell in your entire repertoire. It single-handedly makes many encounters go from deadly to average with the Dexterity Affliction immunity and bonus AR. For your tankier party members, it makes Scale armor and Brigandine amazing by shoring up their pierce AR gap. Note that bonus AR is one place where specific does not stack with general. If you have both Spirit Shield and Form of the Delemgan, it will choose the higher of the two values for each damage type, rather than stacking. - Early/mid game you’re going to want to pay attention to enemy defenses and armor and cast the best spell you have for those defenses/AR, regardless of bonus PL. Sunbeam, Returning Storm, Slicken, Chill Fog, and Combusting Wounds are almost always useful. When all else fails, switch over to your ranged weapon and plug away (or bonk w staff or pike). - Poison immune enemies are not that scary or troublesome. Just lean on your non-poison options. Unless you wait till very late, you won’t have many poison spells for Hanging Sepulchers. The rest of your early game kit works great. Same for Poko Kohara Ruins/Engwithan Waystation. Splintered Reef is an interesting case, as the Fampyrs are not immune to poison and many have lowish Fortitude. It’s worth blasting them with everything you’ve got and not worrying about the immune skeletons and guls. Speaking of, Guls and Alguls are weak to fire, so blast away. The fights in SSS with constructs, skeletons, and naga are all manageable, as well. Essence interrupter w/ Essential Phantom works great for the constructs. For the Naga you have less options, but Chill Fog, Slicken, Wicked Briars, Tayn’s Chaotic Orb, Lashing Vine are all helpful. - I recommend rushing the Kraken (lvl 10/11) and Splintered Reef (lvl 15/16) to maximize the time you have with your full equipment set. The Kraken has high Fortitude, but is not immune to Poison, and is weak to freeze and corrode. See above for Splintered Reef. When I did Splintered Reef Menzaggo died from AoE DoTs before I ever targeted him with anything else. While it doesn’t have much we really need for Fassina, rushing Beast of Winter is quite easy, too. Fassina eats Neriscyrlas up (Combusting Wounds, Wall of Flame, Insects to strip Concentration, Wall of Thorns - RIP). - This build works exceptionally well with a Howler like Konstanten built to lower enemy Fortitude and take the occasional hit from hostile AoEs. See my companion build, The Bodyworker for a version of this kind of build. It’s particularly helpful to crack open big enemies with high Fortitude via Morningstar Modal and -all Defense debuffs. Anything that lowers Fortitude in an AoE is awesome. Especially awesome are debuffs for Fortitude that target a different defense. For example, vs. Will:. Devotions of the Faithful, Secret Horrors, Interdiction, Mind Plague, Reny Daret's Ghost Spake w/ Upgrade, and Shining Beacon. - Other fun combinations include: watch a big boss’s HP bar fall through the floor by stacking up all of your DoTs and have a priest cast Cleansing Flame (this might depend on BPM fixes). watch all of your DoT and debuff durations fly through the roof when a boss is hit with Enfeebled from a Forbidden Fist monk - Paladins with Righteous Soul and melee characters with Khapa Tea make your life much simpler once you have Malignant Cloud and Venombloom. You can gather up all of the melee enemies and then plop your spells right on top without worry. - I like the idea of stacking Alchemy all the way and using poisons to take advantage of the +PL. This sort of works with Blightheart and the Arquebus modal (which gives a much needed +20 accuracy to the poison). The fact is, though, it adds significant micro and not much versatility. Arcana is the clear best choice, not the least of which, because Fassina gets a special background with +2. Being able to cast all those evocation spells, along with some of the best from Priest, is so valuable at the end of the game. - Accuracy is not Fassina’s strength, so look for all the ways you can improve that. Aware from Priests or Ciphers, +Accuracy from Priests or Paladins or Deadeye. Potion of Perfect Aim is wonderful and should be used for every difficult fight. Some things that worked for me on Megabosses: Dorudugan: Equip Essence Interrupter and keep an Essential Phantom up. Keep Form of the Delemgan up on anyone in melee. Respec to grab heals - Moonwell counters a few spells, which can really help survivability. Embrace of the Earth Talon is great if you use Amaliorra and every possible debuff / accuracy boost. Hauani O Whe: Not poison immune, but the highest Fortitude defense of any enemy in the whole game. For simplicity sake, I used Disintegrate to cut the fight in half, but her DoTs would shred through some smaller oozes. For big HOW, I landed a combusting wounds and then dropped every wall spell I had on ‘em. Wall of Thorns, Flames, Force from Fassina. Watch his health plummet. Venombloom is great, too. Sigilmaster Auranic: Nice addition with Arcane Reflection self-cast. Essence Interrupter and Phantom for the Sigils. Form of Delemgan is a life saver vs. all the Petrify and Paralyze. Venombloom and all the rest aren’t too hard to land here, once you clear the sigils. Probably some other tricks you could do, but this one is relatively easy. Belranga: Form of the Delemgan majorly trivializes a key mechanic by eliminating all of the paralyze/petrify. DoTs clear up the spiders with ease. Once you get Belranga into territory where you can land spells, any of your tricks work great. Stack up the DoTs and watch her fall. BPM Notes: - Wildstrike Corrode seems like an easy fit in this build, but it’s actually not as useful for us, because when you are Spiritshifted, your carried weapons are replaced by the Spiritshift ones. This means you are always trading away more applicable +PL for the narrower Wildstrike bonus. That said, there are other reasons to spiritshift, and if you want to have more to do while shifted, by all means. - The Improved Empowered Abilities are great with this build. Accurate is a must, Potent & Lasting are great as a second/third. Venombloom is probably your best choice to empower, so kick things off with a bang and then toss out the rest of your spells.

Progress Update I went through the trinkets and made the following changes (mod files attached): Changed the cast time of all abilities to Very Fast (1.7 seconds for all of them) Changed recovery time for all abilities that deal damage immediately on cast to Very Fast (2.0 seconds) Draconic Blast (Whispers of Neriscyrlas) Final Flame (Detonator Shard) Changed recovery time for all abilities that do not deal damage immediately on cast to Instant (0.0 seconds) Changed all ability usage: 1 per rest > 1 per encounter Added +10 Accuracy to all attacks Update Keywords for Petrifying Venom (Spider Empress' Mandibles) - Poison (display only, attack already had the keyword) Final Flame (Detonator Shard) - Fire (display only, attack already had the keyword) Draconic Blast (Whispers of Neriscyrlas) - Acid (display only, attack already had the keyword) Tayn's Chaotic Missiles (Tayn's Gratitude) - Summoned Weapon (display only, ability already had the keyword) Other changes Draconic Blast (Whispers of Neriscyrlas) Increased Base Penetration: 7 > 9 Llengrath's Warding Totem (Glasanam Argûes) Reworked Ability to increase its uniqueness and power level. The original is a less useful version (because of positioning requirement and short duration) of the Level 9 Wizard Spell Llengrath's Reflection. Original ability creates a small (1.5m) area on the ground (no scaling) for 10s (no scaling). While the caster (does not affect any other characters) stands in the circle, 100% of spells are reflected. There is no limit to the number of spells that can be reflected in this way. Reworked ability has the same AoE and duration, but now resists 100 of spells, rather than reflecting. This makes the user immune to all hostile spell effects, including spells that are AoEs, which are normally not affected by Spell Reflect abilities. Some remaining questions/decisions: Tayn's Chaotic Missiles (Summoned Weapon) is typed as unarmed (with a fist icon). Should this be changed to wand or scepter? I seem to recall that Kalakoth's Minor Blights are considered a wand. At the very least, we could change the icon to be the same as Tayn's Chaotic Orb Spell. I can't figure how to do that in Apotheosis, so welcome any help. Do the summons need scaling? Muātu's Aid (Muātu's Head) Superb Weapon (Ngati's Tusk), joined my level 20 party as level 23, I think (summoned in Periki's Overlook) Servants of the Stars (Celestial Agitator) Have very small HP and die easily, but that's sort of by design, I think. They hit decently hard w/ a frost attack, but not much in the way of accuracy. Trinket Fix.rar

If I’m remembering correctly, you can get the sword quite early (assuming you beat Hanging Sepulchers), but it’s only a quest item. It becomes an actual sword you can use only after defeating Rivan in the third act. So you have to get through Ashen Maw and kill Aeldys or Furrante before you can get it.

Yeah - I knew you made that choice for BPM, and I think it's the right one. I don't think a total system overhaul makes sense here, either. My thought was to try and do for a small number of items what BPM did for PL8 & 9 class abilities, and catch up a few bugs in the process, hopefully. I think this is a really sensible list. Resounding Call: My thinking here was just to make it worth using outside of 3 or 4 battles. Make the proc a little better, touch up the upgrades a smidge. Glacierbane: I think it's great, except the Harder Than Ice upgrade seemed like too much setup for a buff that isn't really needed. Hammers already trade base damage away for +1 pen and dual damage types. On top of that, they have a +pen modal. That said, I tested, and the buff lasts until the end of combat, so maybe it's fine. 2 stacks and +10% damage, too, would be better. Not a priority. edit: you can also stack it up outside of combat, and it will last until the end of the next combat. Last Word: Agreed on just removing lower level restriction. Probably fine.

Looking these over, and I agree on Resounding Call and Glacierbane. Last Word I always thought worked fine for an engagement tank, but looking at it again, I think it's lacking. Specifically, effects that only work on lower levelled enemies are contradictory design at best. They do nothing in the case you most need them, and out-levelling content to make them work more often undermines the whole project of paying close attention to the items you're using. The smallest adjustment would be to add a lesser effect that works on same and higher level enemies. The best case, though, is to just change it to an effect that works on everything. Using Last Word as a test case (Lower level enemies cannot use active abilities for 2/3.0 sec on Critical Hit), I think it's probably fine to just make this work on everyone. Writ of War and Writ of Sorcery exist now. Even if it did work on everyone, 2.0/3.0 seconds is very short. Prone is a stronger effect, and prone on crit exists for a few items. I'm thinking upgrade it to 3.0/5.0 seconds. The other enchantments could use a pass, too (Steadfast for 6s on kill is pretty weak - should be at least 8s, if not 10s). Can someone remind me how duration of item proc abilities scale in terms of duration? Is that "classless" power level? Universal power level?