Shai Hulud

Should with instruments of pain, though eventually they'd be knocked out of reach

Force of Anguish / Efficient Anguish use just the primary attack, but are you saying if you get a double strike from efficient anguish it would then skip to the shield? And @Boeroer keeps up instruments of pain which gives +500% melee reach, so after hitting someone with efficient anguish you can do it again. Eventually they'll fall out of range but I'm not sure how long this takes. One-handing Stalker's Patience with a ranger I was getting lots of triple+ strikes so if it does skip to the shield bash that seems like a good reason not to use one, but I suspect if you manually time (or script to spam) efficient anguish as long as you have wounds it will keep doing the primary strike. Doesn't really seem like you need the shield at range but it does count as two-weapon so when you don't trigger mercy strike the recovery would be shorter. But you skip recovery about half the time if you always crit so if the +12 accuracy from one-handing is enough to get you from "usually crit" to "always crit" I would rather one-hand.

I've tried using instruments of pain from range but it is difficult to maintain enough wounds to keep up dichotomous souls plus instruments of pain (and sometimes other stuff like enlightened agony and thunderous blows). It can be done in some fights and is even necessary (like dorudugan) but with mobs it's mostly impossible. But not only that you're also maintaining enough wounds to spam efficient anguish? Or do you rely on other characters to keep back the tide and just maintain insruments of pain + efficient anguish I guess? Also in general I haven't been able to keep up enduring dance (solo) and have to reuse the ability which gets expensive. I wonder if a shattered pillar / ranger would be a viable option here (with community patch). I've never really been able to get it to work very well for wound generation but presumably you get wounds from every time mercy strike procs. I like nalpazcas in theory but the micro of finding enough svef is kind of annoying. Oh and I initially figured out stalker's patience was way better than it says using a ghost heart / barbarian with dumped RES and max CON. It isn't the king of proccing mercy strikes but every time it does proc you trigger carnage and damage from blood storm so it does just massive amounts of DPS. And if using BPM it is even better since every proc can interrupt groups. Ranger/monk is interesting though.

It's an extremely good weapon versus kith, or possibly used with more fragile party members from the second row. It is "ranged" but it's like a couple meters IIRC. I think blood mage / streetfighter would be interesting if you could figure out how to keep from being murdered but fight bloodied. I haven't used the spell a ton mostly because it's in a weird grimoire and comes at a weird time. I mean you have to be L10 to use it but by L13 you can use Citzal's Spirit Lance. Does massive amounts of single target damage though, but like boeroer said lots of stuff immune to poison. Also the snake attacks do piercing, which is unfortunately the most resisted damage type. It's a cool idea and may work, but you'd probably want to switch to another weapon versus resistant enemies. Blood mage / assassin would be pretty strong once you get arkemyr's brilliant departure, but it would involve lots of hit-and-run attacks so blood mage / streetfighter is probably better. Also the "assassinate" bonus doesn't do anything for the DOT from cobra strikes I don't think.

Accuracy only second to ranger/cipher? That's assuming you can keep up enduring dance I guess? Which with a melee character you probably can't. Fighter/ranger is pretty good for crits with intuitive and conqueror stance, also weapon specialization and mastery give bonus accuracy with community patch. Really though if you use ranger pet properly and attack marked + flanked (with pet) targets you have like +30 to +40 just from that (depending on survival of the fittest). Cap of the Laughingstock, blinky, and gauntlets of accuracy also help. And one-handing. Doing all that you should crit every time versus normal opponents especially if you have nature's resolve. @Tomucci Any weapon you carry can proc ripostes, and mercy strike can trigger from ripostes, but you'd want to build high deflection to get more ripostes and it's hard to go for both high deflection and accuracy.

Something that crits close to 100 percent. I had a lot of fun with a ghost heart / barbarian. Any ranger or ranger / x should crit normal enemies nearly every hit and even bosses most hits if you spec for it. Absolute top tier accuracy would be a seer build. Hunters are pretty good too. But with the right gear a single class stalker would have plenty of accuracy. SC stalker is improved quite a bit with BPM mod, ranger pet has better survivability and you can even get resource return using 8th level ability bonded fury. Also hunters claw +accuracy and upgrades are easier to use with BPM. The ability costs less and is per battle. I like to use it in tough fights with a potion of enlightenment. I dual wield sun and moon and anything else and it takes 3 hunters claw to get +18 accuracy since sun and moon strikes twice. Then if I need healing I use shadowed hunters. From there you should basically always crit one-handing stalkers patience (main exception things like dragon scales). Ranger/barbarian is interesting because crits can interrupt carnage aoe and blood storm is improved along with stalwart defiance making it a dps monster with good cc. Rangers and barbarians both feel a lot better with the mod imo. I have played FF / soul blade a lot (solo mostly) and it is an amazing build but I didn't use weapons. I assume you mean some other monk / soul blade. With heartbeat drumming and swift flurry you'd get tons of mercy strikes. Which one is best depends on your party and your goals. Helwalker/stalker could be pretty devastating but also pretty fragile so I'd be hesitant personally. Vanilla monk or nalpazca would be fine. Never really gotten shattered pillar to work right but it might be decent in a high dps build. Yes ciphers can get about as much accuracy as rangers. Borrowed instinct is +20 psychovampiric shield is effectively +10 and phantom foes +10 and +1 PEN. Can further debuff accuracy with resolve afflictions, which partially stack with PVS. Rangers have potentially more accuracy with hunters claw but you won't use it most battles. Important note for seers...does not stack with borrowed instinct iirc.

It is +12

I haven't been using explosives besides scripted interactions really. Or poisons. I do use potions and scrolls. Do you find it worth investing points into explosives and if so how much? ---- BTW @Vasvary5050 an easy way to avoid berserker confusion for mortars and such is just give the berserker the devil of caroc breastplate with mechanical mind enchant. Also FF SC and MC builds are pretty good using mortars or blunderbuss in main hand (or offhand, or both). The attack still does forbidden fist but if you proc swift flurry, heartbeat drumming, or riposte (in case of shadowdancer) there's instant blunderbuss attacks without reload. Pretty fun on a FF / streetfighter with high deflection. Requires community patch for FF attacks to proc these things though.

So you intend to stick with fists the whole game? If that's the case a helwalker / blood mage is an incredibly powerful martial, though does better with the spirit lance IMO. FF / blood mage is good too for a tankier build. Transcendent Suffering and FF attacks scale with power level without community patch. FF just won't count as weapons for two-weapon style or swift flurry or heartbeat drumming (among other things). FF / priest and helwalker / priest are also very powerful at punching things. I don't think the Lord of the Forest thing really necessitates druid because both priests and blood mages can extend the woodskin effect. But if you like druids FF/druid is pretty interesting, and you'd get the power level boost earlier than with priests and especially blood mages. But priests and blood mages have much better martial buffs (especially priests) than druids, who don't really have any, besides a handful of healing over time spells and minor defensive spells. Should install the community patch regardless IMO, in addition to fixing things like FF there are many minor improvements. Just download and extract to override folder. https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/335

Yeah it just seems to me like for a battlemage citzal's spirit lance is going to be better in like 90% of situations, and you'd mostly want to use fists before L13 so maximizing the power level isn't that critical. Don't think you need conjurer though, assuming they all stack, hot razor skewers + nature godlike + potion of ascension + stone of power = 6, but I don't think stone of power and potion of ascension stack. Tactical barrage instead of stone of power? Think those all stack. Ah I see. Using a 2-hander would slow down your attacks though compared to dual-wielding or using tuotilo's palm so probably not worth it from DPS perspective, unless not using the community patch where FF attack doesn't work right with anything. Woodskin is plant effect so won't this work on a blood mage (or priest)? Just get bloodied, trigger woodskin, wall o draining. Might be decent to carry the staff, cast buffs including llengrath's safeguard, then blood sacrifice down to bloodied to trigger lord of the forest and safeguard, at which point you refresh a WOD and summon a better weapon. Could probably get to +9PL actually. 6 from the above stuff plus 2 from lord of the forest plus steal summon familiar? Or empower weyc's wand with a regular wizard. Not too hard to get the tier 3 procs with regular wizard with least unstable coil. Well, it isn't hard for single class wizard. The lower tier spells that trigger LUC don't reliably proc all of them in my experience. I don't really like multiclass druids, mostly because avenging storm is so awesome and they miss out. I've been testing a SC Fury for an ultimate run. But I've been using Effort because avenging storm procs >>> +2 PL. Also Great Maelstrom just clears the screen which is fun. That is a cool idea with tanglefoot giving FF wounds, though. Some of my FF builds can't generate wounds fast enough, particularly a FF/streetfighter that intentionally uses FF while the curse is up to get bloodied. FF attack gets expensive when carrying multiple curses. I don't think streetfighter has anything like that that would give wounds though, besides maybe powder burns ripostes. Hmm...

Yes Llengrath's safeguard procs on bloodied, but it is so good you should cast it anyway, and sometimes intentionally trigger it. I usually trigger it pretty quickly from blood sacrifices while going through buff routine, or just rush into combat and you'll probably trigger it pretty fast. It is definitely an exploit but stealing spells can be fun. It doesn't get to be super broken unless you steal high level priest spells with major grimoire imprint, which multiclass doesn't get. I like stealing escape the most. Lets you zip around the battlefield as it is an insta cast with no recovery. Beina has it, various other skeinites. What you do is equip a grimoire with minor grimoire imprint (aloth's is easiest to get). Do not memorize it. Cast minor grimoire imprint from the grimoire against a caster (druid/priest/wizard and some others like xaurip priests or rathun flamecallers). When you get a spell you want to keep, cycle to another grimoire and it will stay permanently. For stolen wizard spells they are displayed with your grimoire spells, but for priest and druid they stay in the hotbar, which does not wrap it just extends so you can only steal about 9 or 10 priest/druid spells before you can't see the new ones.

Is this +6 PL all so the fists are slightly better? Because they're good enough at +3 PL even soloing POTD upscaled. FF/shifter is really interesting because you can still use FF while shapeshifted and it keeps the attack speed values. So you can wear robes and turn into a bear and spam FF for instance. What's the ascetic idea? I'm not following how it goes with the lance besides it being a decent stat stick. I mean you could still use FF attack while holding it I guess?

That isn't what I meant (or said). OP expressed concern over losing spells and I listed some of the better ones. I even said "Not saying don't go evoker, it could still be worth it depending how you want to use the character but just be aware of the tradeoffs." Don't know where cheese vs. effective distinction came in.

I'm not an expert on this build and there are a lot of chanter abilities so sometimes you want one set of abilities and other times a different one, but this is what I'd take for the most situations. This is from a Bellower/Skaen build, keep in mind Skaen has some nice priest defaults I'd probably take otherwise (like divine mark, spiritual ally, minor avatar). I didn't take a ton on priest side. Also I don't have any summons because spiritual ally is good, also the bellower gets huge power level bonuses (which can be extended) on chanter side, the main thing you do is spam Her Tears, and once you get weyc items and least unstable coil you can spam storm of holy fire on priest side. Empowering Her Revenge or Her Tears can potentially give all six tier 3 inspirations, as can Storm of Holy Fire (though you can't get the empower point back with sasha's singing scimitar with storm of holy fire). 1 Thrice Was She Wronged, Come Soft Winds, Halt 2 The Thunder Rolled Like Waves on Black Seas 3 Arms Bearer (or whatever) 4 At the sound of his voice, Withdraw 5 Thick Grew Their Tongues 6 One Dozen Stood 7 Her Revenge, Dire Blessing 8 Ancient Memory 9 Bear's Fortitude 10 Its Crash Could Not Be Denied 11 Devotions for the faithful 12 And Their Fear Followed, Shining Beacon 13 Seven Nights She Waited, Barring Death's Door 14 Champion's Boon 15 The Bride Caught Their Ruse 16 So Singt Thy Biting Winds, Salvation of Time 17 Farcasting 18 Scion of Flame 19 Her Tears Fell Like Rain, Storm of Holy Fire 20 Set To Their Purpose It would actually be better to take more things like Tough, Rapid Casting, Practiced Healer, Bull's Will, and spec chants and invocations for specific fights, but this is what I'd take trying to grab as many useful chants and invocations as possible. If you wanted to take chanter summons the ogres are good, the wyrms are good, but once you're high level you'd only want the instruments of death (rare exceptions). Chant Ancient Memory + Thick Grew Their Tongues usually, could also take Mercy and Kindness at 20 and skip one of the chanter invocations, then chant Mercy and Kindness + Ancient Memory for a lot of healing.

Loss aversion? I use every one of these spells regularly which is why I listed them. One can work around their absence, but why bother unless you just want a particular challenge or unique flavor? Wizard subclasses are not well-balanced in this game IMO. OP is free to do what they like I'm just saying some very good spells can no longer be cast (with longer recovery for even more) which makes a questionable tradeoff.

Finding quill leaves and a bit of money is hardly "a lot of tax to pay" especially compared to the notion of losing access to two tiers of spells. Most of my builds are crit bulids. Particularly with the lance. Also with a blood mage / x I am always going to have up infuse with vital essence, so for me all tactical barrage gives is +1 PL. The other tier 2 defense spells that are nice are Arcane Veil and Mirrored Images, but you'd have little reason to cast both, and Infuse has a ridiculously long duration. I guess you could cast Arcane Veil twice, but you only need it once after getting wall of draining, and before that you'd probably prefer Mirrored Images for its longer duration. Crits are good for far more than just heartbeat drumming or whatever. Many spells interrupt on crits, many weapons have on-crit applications, etc., I find intuitive extremely useful on builds that don't have sky-high accuracy already. In this case the lance crush AOE interrupts on crits so 25% hit to crit is very useful Is he? He mentioned the lance repeatedly, I think he is wanting to use fists until L13 then the lance, but perhaps I misread something. Can always take barrage early I suppose and respec. Good point, though most of the buffs come from wizard side so it's still pretty useful. He has +2 PEN and +25% crit damage with fists though from devoted, so IDK why you think crits are no big deal, or that he is in dire need of stacking power levels. I've had no problems beating megabosses to death without even the devoted bonus much less nature godlike, conjurer etc. As a nature godlike all he needs is a potion of ascension, or stone of power with razor skewers to reach +3PL anyway. And you can get three stones of power very early. My point was just that conjurer is really really unnecessary for the bonus power level, it isn't hard to reach +3 as a blood mage, and the ability to regain spells is far better than what you get as a conjurer even ignoring losing evocation and illusion.

Ectopsychic Echo doesn't work on phantoms. It does work on party-controllable summons like spiritual ally, chanter summons, or ghost heart summon. It was much better in POE1, did 20 to 30 damage per second and interrupted, also had better range. It's okay though, and becomes decent if you can cast it on something like ishiza since she is useless at damage but can move pretty fast and avoid engagement. And you're weclome. Didn't see your edit about the pet with seer. You can't script pets but you can script their owners and control the pet. Like this works for a ghost heart to auto-summon the companion near marked prey and then attack whatever the companion is attacking so stalker's link applies. I don't recall if you went with a ghost heart, if not you can still script things but I like ghost hearts because you can just summon them behind the enemy in a script whereas with others you have to move the pet. You can also script your seer to cast ectopsychic echo (or whatever) like this. These conditionals probably aren't optimal, I was just testing it out, I don't have a fully worked out seer script, though I could probably mash together my savage and hierophant scripts and come up with something. Anyway this block has several conditionals. The animal companion: is active conditional makes sure you have one (in case of ghost heart, this could be important if he isn't summoned, otherwise I think what would happen is the script looks for an animal companion, sees there isn't one, then casts it on a random ally). Then I have a health below 50% (not) block so we don't cast it if he's bloodied. And there's a target: enemies in melee range > 0 conditional so it isn't cast until your pet is in melee range of an enemy. Then it casts Ectopsychic Echo every 10 seconds. It's probably not optimal, and you may want to add focus > X conditional or change the cooldown, or make it target: enemies in melee range > 1 but in general this is how you script things around your pet. You still have to move the pet manually if his autoattack doesn't engage, but you can set his autoattack to aggressive and he should seek out enemies giving you less micromanagement.

You'd lose not only conjuration but also transmutation spells with Evoker, and transmutation has some of the best spells especially early. Slicken, Chill Fog, Combusting Wounds, Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon, Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, and Pull of Eora to name a few. And on conjuration side you lose *Wall of Draining*, which is arguably the best spell in the game. Also some great buffs like Arcane Veil in addition to weapons and phantoms. Not saying don't go evoker, it could still be worth it depending how you want to use the character but just be aware of the tradeoffs.

Debatable Inability to wear helmets is a pretty big tradeoff, like rekvu's fractured casque can make you immune to interrupts which helps a lot in some fights. Just be aware. I like humans, pale elves, and wild orlans for battlemage. Penetrating Strike is not really necessary but if you have nothing better to take sure. And yes you don't need to take any wizard spells, but to avoid excessive grimoire switching I'd probably take a couple. I like Llengrath's Martial Mysteries which has all the fighter stuff except Arcane Veil and Wall of Draining, also I'm fond of Pull of Eora for grouping enemies so that the lance hits as many as possible. So I usually take those three spells with a wizard martial and spend everything else on the other class and spellcasting passives. Might also consider tactician, if you turn on berath's challenge you regain discipline when going invisible. Takes a bit more game knowledge to use at its full potential. Any battlemage is going to be really good though, because blood mages are so good at buffing martial stuff and extending effects. Yes, though eventually Llengrath's Safeguard gives +20 all defenses and it does not stack, so once you hit L13 and can cast the safeguard, you no longer need vigorous defense or refreshing defense. Sure, but I usually prefer just murdering things with conqueror stance, the extra accuracy helps a lot I'd probably go human for fighting spirit and headgear. Tactical Barrage is fine but for battlemages I personally prefer Disciplined Strikes since you have Infuse with Vital Essence, so the combo gives intuitive + smart + fit vs acute + aware + fit. I prefer the first one but it's debatable. Like Boeroer said Stones of Power necklaces are good, but mostly use Potions of Ascension, they last the entire battle and give +2 PL. Yes this is pretty fantastic, though I wouldn't neglect mule kick, with the lance it will knock up the entire crowd and it interrupts on graze. Even works on things immune to interrupt IIRC because "knock up" is different from a traditional interrupt. Also only costs 1 discipline. Particularly good with tactician / blood mage since tacticians get back discipline when interrupting spells or abilities. Merciless Gaze is much better with the community patch since it's brought down to a fast cast like the other buffs. I'd recommend using the community patch anyway if you aren't already. Expose Vulnerabilities is a solid combat opener due to the huge AOE. Not quite as good as monk fists but monastic unarmed training fists do more damage than most weapons for most of the game, even without devoted, so with devoted PEN and CRIT bonuses fists are very solid weapons. You could easily play the entire game with monastic unarmed training (I have). I think at L20 penetration is normally 13, but if you drink a potion of ascension it goes up to 14. So with devoted that would be 15 and 16. Accuracy and damage also get a boost from power level. In my opinion yes, I'd rather have disciplined strikes. Nature godlike + potion of ascension gives you +3PL so just drink a potion of ascension in tougher fights. Buy quill leaves when you see them and you can craft them a lot, especially if you wait 24h for cuitzli's to restock. Even without waiting I can typically craft 20+. ------- I really would not go conjurer. Losing evocation is not a huge deal for a battlemage, but losing illusion spells is not great. More than that you can't blood sacrifice. Just drink potions of ascension when you need a boost. Also blood sacrifice gives you +1 PL for like 20s with high intelligence, so you'll have boosted power level from that most of the time.

Good idea but... It's a pollaxe and it's much worse than the lance for soul annihilation purposes. Does about half as much damage per hit, hits a max 4 targets, and can hit friend/foe, but the main problem is it just doesn't bring that much focus. I tested it surrounded by lagufaeth and got 110 focus, with the lance I went from 0 to 225 hitting 4 targets, and there's no maximum either, if you run up your focus max either through wall of draining or strand of favor you can collect ridiculous amounts of focus in crowds. AOE on lance is also larger (same base 1.5m but pollaxe is not modified by intelligence, my modified lance AOE is 2.6m radius making the area 2.25x as large), lance can interrupt, and worst of all wahai poraga doesn't properly distribute soul annihilation, it seems to do like 15% raw damage on secondary targets, maybe because it strikes in sequence rather than all at once like the lance. Like I just tested it and first guy hit got 211 raw damage and the other three only got 37.5 (exactly). A lance annihilation on four targets rolls for raw damage individually and the number is anywhere from 30 something to full amount, in addition to the larger crush damage AOE which still procs on soul annihilation. You should try testing in a battle with tons of enemies like SSS Lagufaeth Brood, I actually hit 11 guys with one lance annihilation it was pretty funny. Most of the time you can't hit that many people so the difference between the weapons isn't as large but it still does several times the DPS. Only thing that sucks about the lance is it does pierce rather than pierce/slash, but the AOE attacks do crush so it is still pretty badass. Also penetration isn't as high as a mythic pollaxe but with hammering thoughts and razor skewers it's high enough. Another thing I hadn't really noticed about the lance but which is awesome is your primary target gets hit by both the pierce attack and the crush attack, so even 1v1 you do more damage than anything I'm aware of. So if you hit 4 enemies, the primary one is hit with pierce and then there is a crush AOE which hits all four of them. I think WoTEP might distribute soul annihlation correctly, but I haven't really used it because base damage is bad and it's a cone.

Yeah I put summoned weapons in the same block, if you want to use a particular one for a certain fight just move it to the top of the list in the editor, otherwise it goes by the order listed and what you have memorized.

Ironclasped IMO. Ninagauth also has some good damage spells. Corrosive Siphon, Draining Missiles, and Crushing Doom. That Concelhaut knows how to scribe a spell. But...I don't think this build will work at a high level with BPM because wall of draining is severely nerfed, so you can't extend shapeshifts unless you're consistently hitting 4+ enemies. Also beating Dorudugan without cheese is going to range from hard to impossible depending on your party. If it's just the blood mage, then borderline impossible. It's difficult even with vanilla wall of draining, with BPM WOD you'd need to proc 3 fire blights to extend anything meaningfully. Offensive spells are generally problematic unless you've procced brilliant (also nerfed in BPM for blood mages) and can spam Minoletta's Missile Salvos with +200% damage conduit lash (or similar). His defenses are high and he has just a ridiculous amount of health. Over 18k with BPM. So you'll likely run out of spells before making a dent, even as a blood mage. Typically people use deification techniques and proc blade cascade + conduit, without any of these... Generally you either need a super tank character that can just stand there and punch him to death, or keep summons between him and you and use ranged weapons. Essence Interrupter is the best, but war bows can work if you can get 18 pen. Or if you have enough accuracy to crit regularly, hunting bows can work with pierce. Spearcaster is good since you get +18ish accuracy with maxed arcana, and it also has a chance to proc minoletta's minor missiles which can't miss, and unlike spells you have infinite bolts. So IMO if you want to fight him cheese-free you need someone face-tanking him, or summons face-tanking him, and characters using ranged weapons. *Maybe* a blood mage / x can solo him in BPM with a potion of enlightenment, provided you keep summoning essential phantoms and just pelt him with Spearcaster or Essence Interrupter. I tried this but my phantoms weren't surviving long enough. Could work with the right equipment, particularly for like an arcane knight or sage with 20+ armor. Rekvu's Scorched Cloak doesn't work on phantoms though because they can't carry injuries. OR you can use different forms of cheese not addressed in BPM, like Least Unstable Coil + Robes of the Weyc on a chanter with blightheart can trigger "omnipotence" every 3s, which gives your party brilliant for a few seconds, or in wizards' case "brilliant cycle". Can be very powerful with a bellower, you get +6PL on chanter casts so Her Tears can do solid damage and it is spammable. There are also other technical aspects to the fight like making sure his helfire barrages don't hit him (or you). They can heal him like 800 in one round, so you have to run away to direct the AI to target you, then run in a different direction once he starts moving towards you. Hopefully @Not So Clever Hound will chime in but I have a feeling his answer will be to use Lover's Embrace and Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure --------- Edit - decided to see if I could defeat dorudugan with blood mage / x, so far not having much luck with spellcasting. Concelhaut's Draining Missiles are really good but Dorudugan has 180 fortitude and my toon with maxed perception has 102 spell accuracy so always misses...I think I could eventually beat Doru to death with this heavily armored sage but that's relying on the monk half. Going to try a ranged armored character so the phantom doesn't die instantly. Hmm. Phantom doesn't benefit from safeguard or giftwrapper or iron wheel or even the fire godlike's battle-forged, so I can't get armor higher than 16, which vs Doru is not much better than 0. Not optimistic this will work solo. Did it with a blood mage / troubadour, using skellies from many lives pass by. Well, got Doru down to about half health and concluded I could do it anyway. If you can get him to hurt he is beatable. Just shot him with Essence Interrupter while skellies and instruments of death took the heat. Still not really a spellcasting solution though.

Yeah huge power spike at L13, mostly due to the lance but also borrowed instinct gives +20 accuracy +20 all defenses, so you should be able to wreck crowds with the lance now and have better defenses. One hit is usually enough to fill focus, then soul annihilation, repeat. Next major power spike is L19 with wall of draining, at which point you become both a DPS monster and relatively invulnerable (or absolutely invulnerable if using potions of final stand, which can be scripted by the way to drink at any health level making them less risky). Though if you're playing with BPM the wall of draining spell won't be as useful. Arcane archer / ascendant is recommended a lot mostly since you get such huge accuracy bonuses especially with imbued ambition and high arcana. Imbue: Eora is particularly nice, but expensive at 3 bond. And ascendant keeps on the soul whip damage, which is stronger when ascended, so this build is mostly about ranged DPS vs hitting ascended and going into caster mode (though you can certainly do that too). Berserker / ascendant would be solid I guess because the downsides of being berserker frenzied aren't as bad ranged, and you could still trigger blooded a lot due to the health loss. And berserker frenzy gives +2 pen +2 AR and 30% hit to crit in addition to the +5 might +5 con and attack speed boosts, so yeah that looks pretty solid. A ranger is going to have much better accuracy but not attack quite as fast and have lower PEN. The PEN is actually not a big deal for the seer since a seer should crit nearly every shot which gives +50% PEN rounded up. Berserker/streetfighter is also interesting for super fast ranged attacks due to synergy with heating up. Personally I like seers, ghostheart / ascendant is also solid and requires less pet micro, but the imbued ammunition is really cool and imbue:eora will help your soul blade guy hit more people with the lance. Any of these would work in that party but I say...try ascendant / arcane archer.

Yeah you told me about leap cancelling but iirc you seemed to be against it as too cheesy. But I just use bounding boots for that I see little reason to take the ability. Charge can be pretty useful since brutes don't have much CC. But to each his own, take leap if you like it. There are a lot of abilities I want to take in this build so some things have to be sacrificed. Accurate carnage may not be as impactful at high levels as low in every fight, but it's PL3 and what else are you going to take that I didn't already? Besides Rekke would have carnage accuracy 107 with the gear I'm wearing plus aware. And without gauntlets of accuracy it's 104. Without accurate carnage it would be 99 and that's with fighting spirit and conqueror stance. In testing "Trial by Fangs and Fur" which this build can easily solo BTW, 99 accuracy has negative adjustment against every enemy. I think it's definitely worth taking because weapon accuracy isn't applied to carnage and carnage has to at least graze to trigger, plus you want to apply effects from blood frenzy or spirit frenzy. Agree magneras chain is nice, I recommended that for my hierophant build. I usually get it quite a lot later than reckless brigandine or DOC BP though. Bloody Links are nice if you build around staying bloody, like paired with akolas Apex ward or used with a streetfighter. I like the +2 armor enchant. I like the reckless brigandine not just for the speed enchant but mostly the Into The Breach upgrade, which gives bonus armor and damage when hurt. It is usually enough armor to take you into underpenetration territory. More armor than anything else actually. But I recommended using Stalker's Patience, and spear modal gives +1 engagement for an easy tradeoff of 15% stride. So even with just thick skinned you have 4 engagement which gives -15% attack time and recovery speed. Blackened Plate Helm is a solid helm for another engagement if you want but I think 4 is enough. Nomads brigandine is synergistic with some builds but I rarely use it due to high recovery and less armor compared to reckless brigandine. Helm of the falcon is solid choice for 2 handed weapon. And yes it looks better than pretty much every other helm. Speaking of looks I really like The Changeling's Mantle as armor for a barbarian, though it is a very late acquisition. Same recovery time as Miscreant's Leather.

Ah my bad I didn't check the cooldown time for other druids. Anyway I didn't mean it was unbalanced just that I got what lunateric meant in having to wait for the cooldowns. Probably be kind of imbalanced without universal cooldown, I just played around with it for like 30 minutes. I've had issues trying to script things with cooldowns, like a ranger ability that used to have one in bpm. In the vanilla game there are no cooldowns and the AI is the same so it can hang on those blocks trying to use the ability not realizing it is unavailable. I'd just hotkey the shifter forms I guess Yeah ascetic is interesting particularly bear form with robes. I could quickly solo some SSS arena stuff but didn't test anything else. FF in general is extremely good seems you can multiclass it with just about anything and there's some kind of synergy...