masterty66

This topic is somewhat tempting me to do a multi class Ranger. Stalker/Shifter sounds really fun. Of course I also still want to try out a Brute with Amra as well. Too many fun builds to try, not enough time. I've taken a few month break from Poe since I was grinding playthroughs for a while and I wanted to mix it up but it might be about that time again soon ;).

Wait binding roots unlocks Vion-Ceth's bonuses? I actually never thought about that before. That's a really neat trick. I always wondered what the point of that hatchet was as it seemed really niche. I never thought to use a Ranger to set up the debuff. That's pretty cool!

I definitely use escape in numerous ways and not just for defense. It's a great offensive tool to hit the backline of enemies and to your point it can be nice for repositioning to save another squishy as well. It's just a great talent imo.

Eder can be built out to have a crap load of engagement slots. But even with that, there will be some enemies that do zip by your frontline like Boeroer said. So it can sometimes be advisable to have another character who can baby sit the backline and take care of anything that gets past Eder or whoever your main tank is. I generally like to have one more tanky character who soaks up a lot of enagements and then another melee character who isn't built out purely to be an engagement specialist but who can maybe engage a few enemies if needed and can take a few hits while dishing it out too. An example of this might be like Eder as a Swashbuckler who is specced for engagement slots and uses Kapa Tanga + Cadlu Scalth and takes all the engagement talents and then Serafen as a Barb with Willbreaker to debuff enemies but also able to attract a bit of enemy attention without dying if anything breaks past Eder. Summons can sometimes serve this role as well. A few Ogres summoned from Pallegina as a Herald can soak up a lot of enemy actions. I also prefer that my backline not be completely squishy unless I'm doing some sort of gimmick build that needs to be. So having Aloth as a backliner for example...he'll have some defensive spells at the ready if he gets rushed even if his main role is to do damage and apply CC. Or Maia if she's a Ranger/Rogue I'll give her escape to reposition if needed or if she's a Geomancer I'll have her have some defensive spells ready as well so she doesn't get crushed if she gets enemy attention. Ever since Poe1's DLC it's been my preference to have a backline that can defend itself a little bit if needed because WM1 & 2 love to throw enemies at you from all angles and tank and spank on POTD in that is not easy :). Imo if you're gonna have a glass cannon character that character better be a hell of a cannon and you better take every precaution to CC or engage enemies so they can do their trick. But most classes will have at least some minor way of defending themselves even if they're focused on offense. It's always good to not neglect defensive abilities completely. Even something as simple as Escape on your Rogue can save that character's life in certain situations.

So with Amra do you target your skeletons specifically to trigger the on kill effects or do you just wait til you kill an enemy to proc and kill a nearby skele via cleave? What's more efficient?

How are you hitting 25 might for Amra if you're starting with 18? Frenzy gives 5. Where is the other 2 might coming from to unlock Amra's bonuses?

I am almost done with my Psion/Troubadour playthrough and it's a fun multiclass. The bread and butter for me early on was spamming the Killers Froze Stiff and then hitting enemies with Soul Shock. A lot of enemies are vulnerable to lightning damage it feels like so the combo of crowd control + damage felt very nice early on. Later I also took the Ogre Summon and some charm spells and got good mileage out of those as well. Recently now that I am higher level I still spam the paralyze invocation a lot but now after doing so my go-to tends to be to either cast Ancestor's Memory on my casters (to let them spam high PL things like Missile Salvo etc) or I buff myself with Borrowed Instinct and then spam Disintegration onto enemies. Having party members that can apply the morningstar fort debuff or club modal will debuff can be very nice to help you land your offensive spells as well. A wizard who hits enemies with miasma and arkemyrs torment and such things can be really nice to help you with that as well. As far as chants go I pretty much just spammed the skeleton summon chant once I got it because popping out a skeleton every 3 seconds is really strong. I did also pick up the resistance chants and made a song that just casts those because sometimes that can be really clutch against enemies that like to hit you with debilitating afflictions. Having each resistance chant go off every 3 seconds means I can clear my party of hostile effects rapidly. All in all it has been one of the stronger characters I've played. It's so versatile. The offense is actually quite strong once you get Pl6 Cipher spells because Disintegrate is one of the best offensive spells in the game. But even before that Paralyze invocation + Soul Shock will get you through a lot of the earlier content, and you can use charms and summons and things too. This character could truly do it all too depending on how you want to build it. Heal? Take Ancestor's Memory and the + heal effectiveness chant. Take the Cipher spells that heal. Summon? You got all kinds of summon invocations to choose from. I like the Ogres because they hit hard and have lots of health. Charm? Both Chanters and Ciphers can do that. Dps? Disintegrate, Soulshock, Soul Ignition, etc. Crowd control? Paralyze, charm, etc. I dunno. It's fun

I can't really speak to solo play to be honest with you. I've never tried it in this series. Lifegiver is certainly very strong in a party. Strong Aoe heals, aoe damage. It's great.

Yeah I try to avoid total gamebreaking stuff. Salvation of time + BDD is something I no longer do really. I used it on occasion to beat megabosses but it felt cheesy so I don't even do that any more, and generally just avoid mega bosses unless I really feel like grinding it out or have a build that is especially suited for them.

I do think it is important to realize that a Lifegiver can still dish out respectable damage with Druid spells like you said. People might see the name and assume healbot. Yes it can heal exceptionally well but the offense is surprisingly good too. Druids are just a really strong class. One of the best.

That makes sense. Yeah I've been using the weaken/interrupt chants a lot. I also have a song setup to blitz through all the resistance chants. That one is nice on fights where afflictions are irritating as I can quickly clear out (or at least reduce) all negative effects. I haven't quite gotten to the level to do Many Lives yet but I'm looking forward to trying it out. I have been using summons more than I thought I might. The Ogre summon is just so good sometimes. However my go-to is still killers froze stiff/soul shock. If the enemy is resistant to dex afflictions I'll use summons or charms at that point. Still, those Ogres hit so damned hard on crush vuln enemies that they're nice sometimes. It's kinda nutty how versatile this class combo is. I feel like I have tools for most any enemy type.

I've been playing a Troubadour/Psion. It's pretty fun! Summons, charms, and the old reliable killers/soul shock spam. One thing I'm still kinda struggling with is when to use Brisk Recitation versus when not to. To be honest I've been using it almost all the time. When I have afflictions it lets me clear those faster if I play those songs and if I just want an all purpose chant it lets me build invocations quickly. But with how quickly the chants elapse I wonder if certain ones are even worth it if using brisk recitation. For example something like the fire lash chant...that elapses so quickly that timing it to actually give a benefit when swinging a weapon seems rather difficult. On the other hand, something like ancient memory, or the skeleton summoning chant, is going to provide value no matter what. So when do you guys use the standard extra long linger with a Troubadour? I guess it would be valuable if I were not trying to spam invocations/cipher spells or if I really wanted to get extra long buff chants such as having a really long time to keep burning lash on my weapon. But it seems not so great for chants that give instant benefits like summoning skeletons. Unless I'm missing something. What do you guys think?

If I'm using the medium shield modal on a caster, is that basically just free defense? The tooltip says that it gives 25% increased recovery with weapons. So if I used it on say my Psion/Troubadour (who casts 99% of the time) is there any drawback? I would still cast as fast as normal, right?

So I have the medium shield modal on my Psion/Troubadour. This character rarely goes into melee and is almost always casting something. The modal says "25% increased recovery with weapons". Does this mean if I'm only casting spells that I will incur no penalty for having it up all the time?

I can't speak to Vatnir but I was messing around with Tekehu as a single class chanter last playthrough and it was not bad. Some of the class only invocations he got were pretty nice and you can make a somewhat funny build of having Tekehu use dual mortars and use the free level 8 avenging storm invocation he gets to dish out pretty good dps. It's a really bizarre build for Tekehu to use thematically but it does work lol.

Thanks, that's a lot of really good info to consider. Interesting that you favor the resistance chants so much. I actually hadn't thought to pick them up before since they seemed so situational but you make a compelling argument for them. I'll definitely give them a try this go-around. I wonder...does one dozen stack with a wild orlan's racial? My guy is a wild orlan and it'd be hilarious if having that chant + the racial made him really hard to fear.

Yeah I've had so many playthroughs where I get pretty far and then reroll to something else. It's so hard to get myself to finish because there's always another fun build to try on the horizon lol.

Currently working through Poe1 on a Cipher that I want to go Psion/Troubadour with in Deadfire (thanks Boeroer for that idea). What I'm curious about is what chants should I go for? I know for invocations the basic workable idea is killers + soul shock as a combo, but what chants do you guys like to focus on? Do you do a certain order with them? How many do you take? There's a lot of really good ones but I'm always at a loss with my chanters of how many chants to take and what order is good to put them in. There's just so many pretty useful ones!

I think it's like he said: because the PL bonus applies to decay spells too, whereas Spine of Thicket Green only applies to plant/beast spells. I actually didn't know the Lance worked that way. The +pl to decay would be handy for touch of rot and maggots. I do agree with you that the crush damage is nice on the staff. I've actually been surprised how hard I can smack enemies with that thing, though meleeing is rare for me to need to do with all the aoe spells I can dish out.

That Troubadour/Psion build sounds kind of fun. Might go for that next play. I'm torn between that and some kind of Paladin. How do you handle the Troubadour/Psion, Boeroer? Do you wear a shield with Sasha's Scimitar? I suppose that + the Blood Armor would probably make a decently tanky caster that can just spam invocations and cipher spells all day? Right now I'm playing a SC Ancient and it's really strong. With Spine of Thicket Green the dots are really powerful, and the summons are really useful too. It can also heal and dish out decent melee damage when needed with Spiritshift. It's pretty badass.

I did at one point do a run with a Bleak Walker with Spearcaster and it was definitely pretty good. The Blackjacket idea is interesting and definitely one I will consider. It's going to take me a bit of time to finish Poe1 so I'll have some time to consider whether I want to go with that or the Ascendant. Both ideas sound pretty fun. I can definitely see the appeal of having multiple weapon types so that I can be effective depending on the enemy I face. Also I absolutely love using scrolls. I suppose that's a holdover from the many times I've played poe1 but I've always loved using scrolls and spell bindings. They were often quite powerful in poe1 and I know in poe2 they continue to be so. It's easy to forget about them sometimes because you get into a routine in combats of using your normal rotations but well placed consumables have often been able to win fights for me in these games when I remember to use them.

Thanks guys. Arcane Archer/Ascendant does sound pretty intriguing. I think I might go with that. The super high accuracy you'd get from that build sounds like it would be ideal for Frostseeker what with all the crits. I'd guess that maybe even though the imbue only fires one shot that it might still be worth using given Frostseeker aoes sometimes.

Thanks! That's a lot of great info. If you weren't going to go Arcane Archer with any of those combos, what would you do instead? Sharpshooter I suppose?

I'm planning a full run of the series and am gonna do a Ranger. I have this weird desire to use Frostseeker. Is it viable? How would one build a Ranger with using that in mind? Arcane Archer/Helwalker maybe? Or Sharpshooter/Helwalker? Or I will be terribly disappointed and want to use another bow or dual mortars instead? lol

Yeah it's a lot of fun. Versatile too. Sure you have your damaging spells and scrolls but you can also do things like charm enemies, paralyze them, etc. Godansthunyr + Badgradr's is definitely an awesome combo. You could go for that with this build if you wanted to have like a core set of weapons that you would use when you don't feel like casting spells. I opted to go slightly more spellheavy and setup my weapon sets such that I always had something with spellbindings on it but if you wanted to balance more towards melee then Godansthunyr + Badgradrs is awesome and you would still have plenty of other slots on this guy to use for spellbindings when you wanted them. This guy certainly should still be able to melee well, but it's got more of a caster bent to it. Also I just like being able to survive while I'm slinging my spells and not have to worry so much about Lagafueth and such gunning my Rogue down before he has a chance to unleash his spells. So the shield just works so well for that, and it's an added bonus that you can dps with it too :).