Porkchopsandwiches247

As mentioned, Priest of Woedica probably has the most impressive summoned weapons outside of a Wizard’s. They do a ton of damage. Combine them with classes/subclasses from a Fighter, Rogue or Barbarian and I imagine youll be melting enemies. With a Devoted Fighter youll even get your Woedica fist proficiency bonuses for ‘free’, since they count as fists (which you're innately proficient with) Normally fists (with the perk) are the most damaging weapons in the game in terms of pure damage, held back by their lack of equipment modifiers on other high level equipment. With the 30% raw damage lash on them, theyre even more devastating.

Thats a shame, appreciate the info. Was indeed talking about seals. Sounds like even a Priest of Magran might benefit a lot from it in that case, with their instant damage spells + significant Fire PL bonuses they can get from equipment.

Sounds like already made up your mind OP, but wanted ti chime in to say imo bear form might be your most interesting pick. Bear form gets a free 1/enc Roar ability to apply Frightened to enemies in a huge radius. Combine this with Spirit Frenzy to also apply Staggered to them, and youve massively debuffed the enemy’s offense in literally less than a second (also lowering enemy REF and FOR defenses a lot!) They also have the equivalent of heavy armor with 0 recovery penalty, combine this with Thick Skinned and One Stands Alone and youre a hell of a tank when you need to be. Its true Cat form has a speed boost, but in my experience it does NOT stack with Frenzy, so its not as much a boost as youd think. They do have naturally higher attack speed however.

How well does a Priest of Skaen pair with an Assassin? I know they have some invisibility related spells as bonuses, so they should be able to use the Assassin passive more frequently. But after checking thelee’s always incredibly informative faq, looks like those Skaen invisibility spells would only be able to apply the Assassin passive to attacks and not the spells after the first one from stealth. Priest of Skaen doesnt have a huge amount of AoE spell nukes, but Pillar of Holy or Shining Beacon should be pretty strong opening moves, and then I could unload arquebus shots or maybe twohanders with strong on-crit effects out of invisibility from that point on. Also how do a Priest’s seals work with Assassinate and invisibility? Can you just spam them while invisible and constantly get big hits? That could be pretty fun.

For anyone curious, Magran’s holy fire summoned sword…does NOT count as a fire weapon. Seriously game lol

Thanks for the info. What a pain lol Guess I could get someone to wear that Heavy Armor that has a -1 armor aura to compensate maybe. Or just never use imbue fireball unless I know it wont have PEN problems

Oh yeah for sure, Eora/Web and then piling on Priest nukes/debuffs would definitely work. I just figured thematically itd be fun to try to incorporate Fireball in the mix, plus I was stacking Fire PL anyway and could make use of Scion of Flame from Priest. Never hurts to have options. I did consider the bounce stacking, that was my logic for using Fire in the Hole and/or Kitchen Stove to have 3 or even 4 hits of Arcane Archer spells. And then I could use an offhand like Magrans Favor or Sun and Moon for the stats (or theyd even be decent in melee in a pinch or for variety).

I never leave home without a Chanter so that would be no problem lol Only issue I see is that it seems like The Shield Cracks would be somewhat hard to reliably hit all the enemies Id be targeting…the range isnt enormous. And then Id have to start worrying about friendly fire from the Fireballs because enemies are up in my face by then (thats still a concern with imbue fireball, right?). You could work around this though for sure. My ‘opening barrage’ tactic for Imbue Fireball would kind of get lost in the mix if it takes too much setup to be viable, so was trying to set it up in a way that it was viable from the start of the fight and then I could get to the casting.

+Fire PL from equipment (unless that doesnt count either…), Champions Boon from Priest, high accuracy causing crits, +1 Fire Penetration from Priest passive. Hopefully all these could add up to overcome those penetration issues, and if I run into enemies with high fire resist, theres always other non-fire Ranger abilities and Priest spells and weapon sets. But yeah thats a legitimate concern for sure that I was also considering.

This is likely a suboptimal type of build, but one I think might be fun and interesting to try out. The logic is as follows: -Dual Wield, in one hand Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot upgrade, for the eventual +2 bounces with Driving Flight. Or Kitchen Stove with Wild Barrage for +3 bounces if I stop being so stubborn about not resting. In the other hand, Magran's Favor for the +2 to Fire PL. Plus Otto Starcat for another +1 to Fire PL. -Only using ranged attacks to pump out Imbue Fireball: As I understand it, it should launch a Fireball for each bounce, and with the +PL to Fire they should be pretty powerful. The Arcane Archer ACC bonus to Imbue Attacks + Fire PL bonuses should offset the Blunderbuss's low innate ACC too. -Then you can cast spells after your opening barrage. Your pet will continue to wail on the enemy while you burn them to a crisp or buff/debuff as needed -If you have some downtime, team up with your pet in melee range and chop down enemies with Magran's Favor. With Ranger's high ACC buffs and only attacking with that weapon at Dual Wield speed, you actually should be able to proc Enduring Flaming on crit pretty often, which should add up pretty well. Nothing says you cant switch off to another weapon set if there are piercing issues either or if you wanted to stay ranged. Maybe use summoned weapons for once? I have to assume Kitchen Stove's Frantic Reload + Gunner + Maia's Garb + possible Sure Handed Chant from a teammate would attack very quickly (albeit with the -5 ACC from Arcane Archer...) Anything jump out that might be problematic? Or strong options I'm missing? I know other weapons like Watershaper's Focus would work with Arcane Archer, but I'd prefer to go the Dual Wield firearm+melee weapon route for thematic reasons. I'm making an assumption that Magran's Favor would be treated as Fire weapon, but actually who knows, those rules can be wonky. I also wonder if a Priest of Magran's summoned weapons would be counted as such...you'd think they would of any weapon, but again...things like that can get weird in this game lol

I didnt mean that but it was worth pointing out for clarification. I can see how my comment could be misinterpretted lol. I thought pointing out the AoE aspect important for the multiclass options I put below. Even if you have slow recovery because of heavy armor, you slap a Gouging Strike in an AoE on a stack of enemies and theyre going to be in pain for the rest of the fight. Not to mention the blinding status effect itself benefiting Rogue and Steel Garrote (apart from being a strong debuff in itself). Mule kick is pretty funny too, sending a crowd of enemies flying with one swing. Could fit the theme of a slow powerful supertank. I actually dont recall the interaction it has with Clear Out, I think that went through patches at one time or another and its throwing me off. Also Nameless: I personally wouldnt go Devoted with an Estoc for the reason you stated. Pierce is way too resisted in my opinion, its infuriating seeing your attacks do 0 damage. You could pick up Monastic Unarmed Training to punch people as a backup, but then you wouldnt be getting the Two Hander bonus. You can of course make it work but it wouldnt be my first (or second) choice. Plus Estocs do lower base damage than Greatswords, their benefit being in their bonus penetration...which you get +2 from Devoted, so your Greatswords will very often be getting that bonus anyway because of its two damage types it can 'choose' from.

Sounds like a perfect fit could be getting Whispers of the Endless path from Periki’s Overlook. An upgrade allows a full attack for any miss against you, so you can overcome that slow attack speed from heavy armor just through sky high defense (that you should have through a Paladin in the first place). And it attacks in an AoE too! I personally wouldnt recommend long casting classes with heavy armor…they take forever to fire anything off. But you can make it work. Devoted + that Whispers of the Endless Path + the stance that allows for free attacks on melee kills will cause you to get tons of free attacks and basically be invincible. Plus Armoured Grace + a pet can take a TON of the sting out of the heavy armor youd want to wear. Not to mention the Perception buffs you can give yourself. Possibly could be boring though. Trickster Rogue + Paladin might be fun too. Riposte gives another chance for a counterattack on miss, and the defense spells buffs can greatly help fuel that. Then you can have shenanigans like applying multiple endless DoTs on the enemies (Gouging Strike+Brand Enemy upgrade). Also one more Ill mention is Herald. Chants are passive, so even if youre slow they still give full effect. If you get the passive damage ones (Soft Winds and Dragon Thrashed) + the armor that also has a damaging aura, you can weaken and kill enemies just standing there. Combine with summons + the Energized invocation and you can even chain Interrupt enemies in an AoE. Or of course you can just choose chants that buff your party as the ultimate tank/passive buffer.

Awesome, thanks for the info. I kind of find Ascendents boring because you never end up using your earlier spells once you unlock a new tier…you just spam the highest cost ones over and over, otherwise its a waste. Just a personal preference thing. I can definitely see that as a strong and powerful pairing. No reason it wouldnt work with a regular Cipher either. I wonder how fun a Cipher/Arcane Archer would be paired with the Essence Interrupter. I believe the -5 ACC would be removed with that weapon, and with high Arcane your imbue abilities would have bonus ACC too. I doubt those abilities would contribute to Focus gain, but could be enjoyable in terms of variety.

This is true, and plus you can even get a passive +1 PEN to that shock damage via Heart of the Storm (depending on your class/multiass). My one issue with Essence Interrupter is Ive read it can cause you to miss out on looting bodies sometimes…maybe this was fixed at some point or I am misremembering? Now that you mention Cipher, they also get a+1 PEN passive, and have those ACC buffs like you said. Might indeed be a great pairing. Weird they cant get Heart of the Storm considering they have electric spells. Might be a fun and synergistic pick. I liked the Devoted combo simply because it takes care of all the downsides completely passively at the start of battle. Literally not a second wasted on casting buffs, no special equipment, etc. But your point is well made that Penetrating Shot is the only active weapon ability you could use. Although its pretty a strong one really. Was looking at it more from a multiclass POV where youd be picking Fighter mostly for their buffs to a caster, the high attack damage was just icing on the cake.

I never really sat down and did the math for them before, but Hunting Bow + its modal does crazy dps. Higher than any other ranged damage outside of specific weapons like The Red Hand. Now, I wrote them off mainly because of two legitimate concerns: -huge Accuracy debuff for the modal (-15) -Hunting Bows have low base Penetration However, at second glance this isnt quite as big a concern as I thought. Hunting Bows innately have a +5 to Accuracy, offsetting the malus a bit. And it does best of two different damage types, so you can often skirt around the Pen issues. But the real combo Ive noticed: Hunting Bow + Devoted. Disciplined Barrage/Strikes + Confident Aim will frequently ‘upgrade’ your attacks, so the accuracy hit is far less painful as long as you can get Misses off the table. Not to mention the Acc bonuses from Warrior/Conqueror stance. Devoted also gives +2 to base Pen, so between that and the two damage types, your penetration issues are largely dealt with. I find that any multiclass I have with a Fighter, hunting bows are now a go to. My humble Priest/Fighter mostly based around buffs is now able to shred enemies with just autoattacks as well.

I never considered targeting Fort for most of the Druids DoTs to be a downside. Unlike PoE1, Fort is not always sky high, and plus there a TON of ways to lower fort. A Long Nights Drink + Spirit Frenzy Staggered + 1 Morningstar modal hit should drop it by 45 for particularly strong enemies, and by 20 in an AoE (if Im doing the calculations correct). Thats dead simple, it takes basically 0 setup. Thats one reason I love my Tempest. I see no reason NOT to bring a Chanter along personally, A Long Nights Drink is amazing even without using Fort targeting abilities. And a Druid isnt just limited to Fort as a DoT. If you go Shifter, you can stack a stupid amount of DoTs from your boar form, which for some reason has a way longer DoT than a normal class spiritshift. You can count this as Deflection based DoT (I think its just deflection based?). And as thelee said, Autumns Decay targets reflex. Only DoT youre missing is Will based. And a lot of the DoT they bring is raw damage, even if Corrode is resisted (which is fairly rare) When you actually run the numbers, Druid DoTs do a shocking amount of damage for the level you get them. Humble level 1 Touch of Rot is basically a level 6+ Wizard spell if it can run the its full duration. And this is ignoring shenanigans like smacking an enemy with Enfeebled from Forbidden Fist or stacking Int and Crits for insanely long lasting DoTs. (Sidenote: might be worth checking out a Forbidden Fist + Shifter lol. A hell of a lot of fun)

So wait, the weird Blood Storm+Dragon Thrashed on Brisk Recitation thing could actually work as intended? Get crits per roll every 3 seconds, trigger another DoT off of it? Would the Ring of Focused Flame work with it? Im not see TDT keyworded as a fire ability. And itd only work with the Fire portion of the hit Id assume, not the 50% chance to do slash damage?

Thank you for testing. The reason I bring up Troubador/Brisk Recitation is because if you theoretically could cancel and remove TDT, you could ‘force’ a reroll and try to get another a crit. In other words, if you jumped between say TDT and a Long Nights Drink, and you could get them to crit, maybe blood storm would proc each time. And because you remove the linger with Brisk, the existing status effect would be removed, so ot wouldnt end up reapplied…it would be a new roll each time. So maybe you could force new rolls every 3 seconds. Hopefully Im explaining my thought process in an understandable way lol. Unfortunately I dont have a saved game available where I could test myself, so I appreciate the feedback.

Interesting. If this is the case, I wonder if by alternating between Soft Winds and TDT as a troubador, you could proc new “hits” every 3 seconds, which could help trigger blood storm and/or Combusting Wounds? Or maybe some other offensive chant, if the raw damage from Soft Winds doesnt count as a proper crit.

I considered it, but I dont care much for the much smaller chant radius and the fact that the PL boosts only effect the duration for summons, not their strength. I have no doubt it is very strong in conjunction with a few items so I certainly wouldnt consider it a bad option by any means, just that Im not partial to it. That said belting out a super strong invocation between your other Priest spellcasting definitely makes sense

That sucks! Lol thanks for the information though. Getting a pretty reliable DoT on top of tge normal firebug flat damage isnt the end of the world though, still pretty solid.

But if DoTs apply their first hit on application (as I think I remember reading), if it gets ‘overwritten’ multiple times on each new application, wouldnt you sort of get a bonus 4 raw damage on every crit? (If you get my meaning)

I remember how cool and powerful the Dragon Thrashed (TDT from now on because Im lazy) was in PoE1. To be fair, it was probably a little TOO good, so Im ok with it being tuned down. But it seems to have gotten nerfed a little too much in the process, partly due to its lack of penetration as I understand it, which stays at a low 7. So, for some stubborn reason, I would like to get it to be powerful no matter the sacrifice. So Im going to throw out a few multiclass options/questions: -is this considered a proper DoT application, or is each tick of the DoT its own separate hit? -I recall reading and observing that DoTs have a somewhat odd mechanic where the DoT tick damage is applied on application. Does this mean you can supercharge something like TDT by going Brisk Recitation? (One tick on apply, one after 3 seconds, one more after reapplication) I dont think so, but something to consider maybe. -due to another thread I was considering a Barbarian with Blood Frenzy. If TDT can crit, and Blood Frenzy applies on crit, and chants get bonus accuracy per power level…can you essentially get a weirdly good proxy DoT on top of your normal one that normally sucks? And getting kills with your passive chant can fuel the Barbarians normal melee offense via bloodlust and blood thirst -stacking penetration through tenacious, crits, and the passive +1 to fire penetration that a number of classes get. -was thinking of stacking Fire PL bonuses, but I dont think TDT is actually keyworded as such, might be useless. -combusting wounds might actually work in a way, each new tick of TDT would trigger it, so you get a DoT on top of your DoT. You could even stack this with Soft Winds (since TDT doesnt stack on itself) -was wondering if +% lashes from say a Paladin’s eternal devotion or a Wizard with Blightheart would apply on TDT Anyways, Ill stop with my mess of theorycrafting lol, I think I have enough for the time being already. Thanks for reading.

I dont notice the lower accuracy on my Tempest too often simply because you can debuff the enemy so much. As long as you have a chanter in your team (I always do lol) you can have A Long Nights Drink on. Between that + Staggered from Spirit Frenzy, youre dropping enemy fortitude by a ton, and most your DoTs target Fort. Then with Brute Force even your autoattacks and some spells will too. And you can always just shout at them or roar at them in bear form to lower their resolve too. The reflex based hits of your storm spells are the only ones to miss out there. Consequently, Firebug (multi hit bounce)+Fort debuffs+Brute Force+blood frenzy can weirdly start doing a lot of DoT damage. I dont recall if blood frenzy stacks actually, that could be pretty funny to ping pong between two enemies. Sidenote: as a Forbidden Fist, wouldnt you have so many points in RES and lower INT generally? I feel like that might kill your ability to do long lasting area DoTs, although because of enfeebled you should be fine on single targets.

Coming back to this, I decided to try out a Celebrant (Priest+Chanter) as suggested early in the thread, and I think thematically it fits very well while working solidly. The chants help you be useful passively while youre preoccupied casting your long spells, so youre doubling down on being the ultimate support character. Im actually not sure which Chanter subclass would be more fun between Beckoner and Troubador. Beckoner can give you hordes of skeletons (which Im sure is hilarious) and later 6x summoned weapons for a ton of damage, plus theres that late game Priest spell that does damage based on the number of allies would provide a ton of synergy. And if you run the reload speed chant as one of your two active chants, I imagine even your autoattack damage would be plenty respectable with guns/arbalests (maybe even give your character Blightheart so you get free chanter phrases on kill) On the other hand Troubador can give you passively a ton of little skeletons via chant, which fits the theme really well, and you can still have your summoned weapons too. Only problem is that going Brisk means you can only have that one chant going, which kind of sucks. Of course you can switch it off, but then your invocations will take a while to accumulate.