crdvis16

This may have been my least favorite build in this playthrough. The idea was to build around Grave Calling's Chilling Grave enchantment (Cast Chill Fog on killing Vessel) by killing your own skeleton vessels and then reap the damage in the form of lots of focus for big Soul Annihilation attacks or other Cipher spells. Beckoners summon twice as many skeletons at half health so they are easier to kill and there's more of them to proc more Chill Fogs. You can also enchant for Grave Bound (when you get 10 stacks of Frosted Edge you paralyze on crit) which can get crazy as crits from Chill Fog ticks count towards the paralyze and those Chill Fogs also stack for some reason. I didn't go for Grave Bound because I thought it would be overpowered (maybe I should have and it would have been more fun). I went 1-handed with Grave Calling to make sure I didn't accidentally kill a skeleton with an off-hand weapon- I had never gone 1-handed before so that was a nice change of pace. The first problem with this build is that Beckoner/Soulblade is pretty bad until you get Grave Calling and start using this synergy. You can probably get Grave Calling pretty darn early in the game, though, so maybe it's not such a big deal (it's just at Crookspur for sale). My actual experience using this synergy in fights is that it often got hard to kill my own skeletons. You want them to be positioned such that when they die the Chill Fog will hit enemies but they are so fragile that they often get killed by enemies before you can get them into position and hit them. Their half HP from the Beckoner trait was really helpful to make sure you could 1 hit your skeletons but it also makes them fragile to enemy damage. This was especially true in boss fights where there is a prevalence of AoE damage going on. And even if the skeletons didn't die from collateral AoE you would sometimes have trouble just getting to them to attack them. Any enclosed space made it difficult to maneuver the skeletons and then get close enough to hit them. When you could get it going it seemed fairly powerful, though. A few Chill Fogs hitting multiple enemies can give you focus in a hurry that you can put toward big Soul Annihilation hits or spamming high cost Cipher spells. But even then it felt rather tedious to try to zoom in and target your hard to see skeletons. And if you missed a swing at a skeleton, or couldn't get to your skeletons, or the skeletons died from enemy AoE you were contributing very little to the fight. I guess it felt really high risk but high reward and the times when things didn't work right were so annoying as to ruin the whole build for me. Others had suggested running Troubador with the single skeleton chant and maybe that would have been better. There were also suggestions to use Berserker instead of Soul Blade because with the confusion from Berserker your Chill Fogs would hit your other skeletons and help you more efficiently kill them without having to rely on auto attacks. In hindsight this seems like it would have been much more reliable as you probably just need to kill 1 skeleton and the cascade of Chill Fogs would probably wipe any others out. I wish I had tried that instead though there were warnings that if you get too many Chill Fogs going at once it can ruin your framerate and even crash POE2

this thread has some info on how it played out. Dichotomous misses out on Effort and Barbarian's Vengeful Defeat (two of the stronger on death effects) and it might be hard to make sure the twins die before their summon duration ends. Ditto with phantoms. But obviously those builds don't have to worry about injuries:) Edit: Forgot about Shroud of the Phantasm as well for multiple cloning bombs. You can turn yourself into a cluster bomb Biggest drawback is that it's not great for boss fights usually, but the fun you have in normal fights is worth it IMO. You don't have to use it as your MC- could use it for Serafen or Xoti (not Xoti, not sure why I included her) perhaps.

A character that punishes foes on death is still "viable" and fun! I ran a Barbarian like that: Weapon = Effort (Valiant Demise) Cape = 7 Storms Armor = Effigy's Husk Belt = Least stable coil Helm = Survivor's Tusk Ability = Vengeful Defeat You do pretty good damage in an AoE on death, sort of making yourself a bomb. All of the effects will trigger multiple times a fight if you keep reviving and later in the game you can self res once per rest with The Twin Eels and then switch to Effort for the 2nd death. Survivor's Tusk can res and clear injuries. My recommendation would be to start a fight with Twin Eels, jump into a group of foes and do as much damage as you can until you die. When Twin Eels resses you, switch to Effort and die again. You now have 2 injuries. For the next fight, equip Survivor's Tusk and when you die you'll res without injuries and can die/res a few more times. Once you have 2-3 injuries and Survivor's Tusk is used up you'll want to rest to reset your unjuries, Twin Eels, and Survivor's Tusk. Also, you may want to use Balance Polishing Mod- the on death effects weren't scaling properly so they were fixed- this really helps their damage in late game.

Furyshaper really is fantastic- his totems are really really strong. I think Furyshaper is probably better than Berserker overall. The only thing I didn't like as much with Furyshaper is that I felt like I was spending too much time casting at the beginning of the fight and not enough time being a Barb smashing things. The "feel" of playing a Barb has to go to Berserker- recklessly charging in, smashing things, and dying relatively frequently.

I don't know the answers to 1 and 3. For 4 I think the answer is no which is unfortunate considering you CAN see the Stag's carnage radius when shapeshifted as a Druid (at least with the BPM version, I assume in the vanilla game as well). For 2), I've always skipped Savage Defiance when playing a Berserker. Rage is in short supply and I couldn't justify using it for a buff that I'm mostly already getting from Frenzy. I don't think Berserkers are a trap subclass. The maluses can be troublesome and lead to your Berserker dying if you don't baby sit him a little by throwing him some heals on occassion but it's also a powerful subclass with some fun synergies to play with. There are also some items that can help- voidward reduces raw damage, Modwyr or Devil's armor can remove confused, and Maker's Own Power can auto petrify+heal you when you're low on hp. You can also keep an eye on your list of buffs for anything that triggers when low on health to know you're in danger.

I'm doing something similar with Scordeo Edge/Trophy in my current playthrough with Xoti modded into a Shattered Pillar monk. Whispers of the Wind will hit with both Edge and Trophy stacking the attack speed and accuracy buffs as well as Resonent Touch stacks. And then combined with Heartbeat Drumming, Blade Cascade, etc you have an auto attacking machine gun. Others had pointed this strategy out so certainly not my discovery. Note that the latest version of BPM increases the wound cost for both WotW and Resonent Touch but it still feels really strong.

Choosing "intimidate" when attacking their ships in the ocean works for me and doesn't require doing any quests a certain way.

Seconded- I modded Ydwin into a Psion/Priest. You cast a bunch of priest spells early while your focus passively grows and then cast a bunch of cipher spells. She was super support.

For Soulblade/Assassin you typically want to use a 2Her. Assassinate only benefits the first attack out of stealth so when dual wielding your 2nd swing loses the buff. Your survivability when playing an Assassin usually comes from being invisible a lot and just not getting hit. Soulblades usually want to spend their focus on Soul Annihilation for that sweet raw damage. There's a little bit of anti-synergy between Assassin and Soulblade because Assassin adds a lot of penetration (from the Assassinate bonus to penetration as well as the bonus to penetration when critting) while Soulblade is often hitting with raw damage which ignores armor vs penetration altogether. But that's a minor point. What about this combo felt underwhelming? Assassin benefits a lot from some specific items (slippers of the Assassin, ajamuut stalking cloak) so I could see it feeling a little weak early. I've only played a soulblade once but it felt decent to me, though that was a Soulblade/Barbarian multi. If you're set on Mindtalker: Soulblade could pair fine with Assassin, Trickster, and Streetfighter. I've never found a good use for Debonaire personally. Psion probably shouldn't pair with Rogue at all- not taking advantage of Rogue damage for focus gain would feel weird. Ascendent could work but I'd probably go Streetfighter. The fast recovery could be useful to take advantage of the Ascendent buff. And I wouldn't multi a Beguiler personally. If I did it would be with a class like Monk, Wiz, or Fighter that has some instant cast buffs that wouldn't get in the way of casting Deception spells. They can cast deception spells basically non-stop so they usually don't do well paired with another class that wants to use up their casting time.

Maybe a good mod could implement all this? Sounds like a lot of work though.

Oh duh- of course. Thanks!

@Kaylon can you expand on this part: the SA bonus is affected twice by the weapon bonuses (when is generated and also when is applied), thus a rogue can generate the highest dps with SA I get that rogues are the kings of damage modifiers but how does SA double dip them?

Ah ok- understood. Sun/Moon is the catalyst for Soul Annihilation while the Trickster multi is for added damage/survivability and could be replaced with other multis.

Sorry I think I mispoke- I think the post I remember reading went into the math to show that SC Ascendent was typically better than multiclassed because of efficiency of focus maybe? I just tried to search for it but couldn't find it and now it's going to bother me. I can't remember exactly the logic but it seemed to make sense. For the Soulblade/Trickster, couldn't any combo continously use soul annihilation (since it has no real focus cost)? I've played a Soul Blade/Barbarian and basically used Soul Annihilation as a focus dump for high single target damage. Did you mean Forbidden Fist/Trickster by chance? For the Streetfighter/Garrote, do you use the Blunder modal to trigger flanked->Heating Up? BPM nerfed that so it takes a little more effort to trigger flanked or bloodied. Bloodied is probably too dangerous for a melee character but there are other ways to trip flanked (sparkcrackers, Wisp attack from a Chanter summon). Or the old fashioned actually getting flanked if it doesn't put you in too much danger I suppose. Bloodmage/Assassin sounds like a nice combo. I've played a melee Assassin before and running out of guile before a boss fight finished often made him feel weak or led to him getting killed. And using the drain weapons to counter the Bloodmage ability is a nice touch. Helwalker/Paladin sounds cool. I like SI. Do you not find that the Helwalker damage increase makes it too squishy for a character that wants to be in the middle of the enemy? I guess picking up a lot of defensive abilities and heavy armor might keep you alive?

@Kaylon I like the Arcane Ascendent- Imbue Fireball would fill your focus in a hurry. But I think I've seen analysis that shows being Ascended as a multiclass is only slightly better than just multiclassing as a normal Cipher. In other words, Ascendent is usually best as a single class. What's the synergy with Sun/Moon+Tuotillos and Soulblade/Trickster? Does Sun/Moon hit twice with the raw Damage from Soul Annihilation? I'm not sure I get the synergy in the other builds either- would you be willing to elaborate on them a bit?

Hey that's not bad- I did run a shifter/conjuror but the Wiz multiclass added survivability more than damage. I haven't recruited Mirke or Konstanten yet so maybe I'll make one of them a shifter/Monk. Maybe I'll go Nalpazca so they aren't dependent on taking damage for wounds and because a Bear on PCP sounds hilarious.

I'm playing a Shattered Pillar Xoti right now so really interested to see how those new wound thresholds and wound costs feel. I think you're right that WotW especially was way too cheap before.

I was going to take that chant for extra skellies, though not arriving until PL7 means I'll spend a good portion of the game behind the Beckoner's skelly generation until I get it. Tough call.

Yeah, I just hired an adventurer and made him a Beckoner/Soulblade and sent him to the crucible for a test run with Grave Calling. I wasn't usually able to kill a skellie every swing but usually in two. If I had 2-3 chillfogs going it would fill my focus fairly quickly and I could do a big soul annihilation hit. Enemies were often killing off my skellies before I could get to them so it's not completely fool proof I guess. And if I wanted my skellies to die among lots of enemies so that the chillfog would be well placed then that increases the chances that the skellies get killed before I can kill them myself. So it does seem like it has some potential pitfalls I guess where you end up doing nothing but trying and failing to kill your own skeletons. I'll give it a shot on Ydwin and if it ends up being too overpowered I'll just stop using her.

Maybe if I keep it more tame and not do the Berserker part I won't kill my graphics card? It's pretty weird that the Chillfog ticks count as weapon attacks. This game is full of such weird mechanics. It also sounds like it might trivialize the game which I'm trying to mostly avoid. Beckoner/Soulblade where I only get chillfogs to spawn from actually attacking my skellies with Grave Calling directly might limit the number of chillfogs active at any given time. Less stress on the GPU and hopefully a decently powerful but not overpowered build? Edit: and depending on how silly the paralyze enchantment is I might skip it as well. Seems like a bug that the chillfogs would increment the counter for the paralyze.

One build I seemed to have missed is a Beckoner built around Grave Calling chillfogs. You kill your own skellies with Grave Calling and spawn foe-only chillfogs each time (that can stack I guess?). Maybe multiclassed with something that benefits from either on-kills (like Barb?) or others seemed to like Cipher because the chill fogs generate focus. I'll probably give that a try on one of my companions, maybe modded Ydwin.

Ok- looks like Coil's Volatile, Cape of the Fallen Star's Fiery Descent, and Effigy's Husk's Skaen's Hatred are all getting the +10 accuracy, 2.5 pen (not Skaen's Hatred of course because it's raw damage), and the +50% damage on my lv20 character. However, Final Storm on Mantle of the Seven Bolts is not getting its bonuses. Not sure why that one is different from the rest. I did test them each individually. Hope that helps some! I would help even more but like you time is limited due to kiddos : / edit: and the net effect with these updates is nice. I just suicided my Vengeful Defeat Barbarian into the crucible with Twin Eels -> Effort for 2 deaths with Cape of the Fallen Star, Least Unstable Coil, and Effigy's Husk and did very respectable damage. Still probably not a great build for boss fights but very fun and effective against tough fights with many enemies to hit with all the AoE.

I'll try to test the on-death effects from Effigy's Husk, Least Unstable Coil, Cape of the Fallen Star, and Mantle of Seven Bolts right now. I've been testing those on my silly on-death Barbarian so I'll know what to look for I think and I have those items handy.

Seconding this question! I just started another playthrough but would start over if necessary or just update on the fly if allowed.

Do you trigger the Streetfighter bonuses from flanked then? Because it would probably be somewhat dangerous to be bloodied and in melee without BDD support I imagine? With BPM its a bit harder to get flanked (no more blunderbuss modal). You can get flanked the old fashioned way but then you're in some danger unless built a little tanky (at which point you're sacrificing some damage for that tankiness). I think there are probably other ways, like hitting yourself with sparkcrackers maybe as long as your mechanics skill is better than your will?