Ganrich

Yes, detection is based on Perception now instead of Mechanics.

Yes. The upgrade just makes them more powerful. You still summon them.

Only because they are better meat shields regardless of your level. If you aren't playing on Path of the Damned then I wouldnt worry. Any summon will work well enough.

I haven't picked it up on my playthroughs yet, but it does work with Invocations. Phantom is ok. Most people prefer skeletons, but afaik neither scales too well at high level. However, skeletons summons 3 on Troubadour and 6 on Beckoner. More fodder between you and the enemy. So, it might be somewbat useful later. Nothing at first level scales particularly well tbh. Save maybe the buffs. This is the case on PotD difficulty anyway. At any lower difficulty they will be fine at higher level.

Chant time goes from 6 seconds plus linger to 3 seconds no linger with BR on. So, it helps generate phrases faster to cast more Invocations. The trade off is no linger. Troubadour can more consistently cast high level inspirations with BR on than any other Chanter. It isnt rng dependent like skald, and doesn't have an increase to cost for non-Offensive Inspirations or summons like Skald either.

Depends. If you just focus main story you won't have much. If you even hit 19. If you explore and do side content you have a great deal of game left by 19.

Ranger subs are meh, and most Wizard subs suffer too steep a penalty for what they get. Otherwise, I think most everything else is fine. Also, to add to dunehunter, yeah tanks do damage here. I know the tank I just did a build on does, and it is fine. I will probably try an Unbroken/Trickster at some point. Why? Escape + Charge negates mobility issues. That's why. Also, Mirrored Image + Riposte + Persistent Distraction + Large Shield + Unbroken defenses sounds fun. Add in Spear Modal for another +1 Engagement? Maybe.

Yeah, it isn't like most the Damage Invocations are so good that they justify this type of jumping through hoops. Small AoEs like Thrice was She Wronged and The Thunder Rolled, or has a stipulation like White Worms. It is silly to make them so easy to whiff on PotD. I think the ONLY one that is really solid is Seven Nights, and that is only because of how many targets you can hit with it, and this is only on a build that is in the thick of it a lot. You'd also want high Perception and maybe some accuracy buffs tossed in. So, tank with high perception, and can buff perception. Maybe a Fighter/Chanter would be pretty solid with it. I haven't tried the Tornado or Boil Their Flesh, yet. So, I can't speak to their usefulness.

Yup. That is the issue. If both the enemy's Reflex and Will are high you are kind of screwed on Chanter. The only 2 Fortitude Invocations I can think of are Hel-Hyraf which is useless at high level, and the Tornado Invocation. Usually you won't have these, or they are useless. Let's not forget how Immune/resistant many enemies can be in this game either. That makes using these Afflictions even harder.

Yeah, it is strange the way this scales at higher levels. Especially on PotD. I will say that although the damage Invocations are AoE that you can really boost their chance to hit by using Flail modal for -25 reflex saves for a single target. This combined with adding in a hobble helps tremendously. That is -25 from modal + -10 from hobble for a total of -35 Reflex. Toss in a wizard with Miasma of Slow Mindedness for a -10 Perception for another -20 Reflex if you can. It increases your chance to hit a great deal. It is stupid that you have to debuff this much for your Invocations to land. If you have stronger attribute debuffs than these then use them. They help. I think they need to add some inherent accuracy bonuses to power level. At least for Invocations. It doesn't have to be much, but enough that those Invocations don't feel like trap selections.

Lol. Like I said, I am still waking up.

Troubadour can have 100% up time on 2 phrases if they have 20 Intellect and have Brisk Recitation's modal off. Easy to get 20 if you start at 17, and you could probably do it with a lower Intellect than that. But 20 means no food, just gear, and fairly easily at that. 17 requires very little hassle to get that 100% uptime. Old Siec - Mercy and Kindness - repeat. No 3rd phrase. You may still want to have Ancient Memory and Soft winds for early game, and Ancient Memory works pretty well with Mercy and Kindness as well. You may want to leave 1 of your 4 Chants as a single phrase such as Ancient Memory for when you are near max health, and you can turn on Brisk Recitation and double your phrase generation so you can use Invocations more quickly. Then when your party dips you can turn off BR and switch to Old Siec/Mercy or AM/Mercy. EDIT: Late game, and if Old Siec works with Carnage, then that should be your single phrase Chant. Then you kind of stance dance if you start getting around half health by turning off BR, and going to a Chant with both Old Siec and Mercy.

Yes, please. I updated the post. I hope that is clear enough. I am still waking up. lol Thanks Boeroer.

The favorite low level Invocation is still Killer's Froze Stiff. Hel-Hyraf is Ok, but IMHO it tapers off in the late game. Thrice was She Wrong does respectable damage at higher levels when fully upgraded, and it is a cheap Invocation to boot. So, Hel-Hyraf helps with early game damage, but tapers off. It attacks Fortitude. Thrice was She Wronged does pretty good damage throughout the game, but it attacks Reflex. If you are going to go with Thrice was She Wrong then I recommend Flail proficiency as its modal reduces Reflex by 25 on a single target. I don't know if that modal applies to everything hit by Carnage. I doubt it. Club modal does the same thing with Will saves, and works well if you are using Killers Froze Stiff a lot. If you opt for a two handed weapon build then Morningstar lowers Fortitude the same way. As for healing with Phrases: You have Soft Winds, Ancient Memory, Old Siec, and Mercy and Kindness. A Barbarian would benefit from Old Siec which is a 12% lifetap, but I am unsure if the heal works with Carnage. If it does it will get pretty nasty if you can stack it with Mercy and Kindness which increases all healing by 100%. 24% lifetap total. keep in mind that Soft Winds damages any enemy in range, but only heals you. Both Barbarian and Fighter work really well with Chanter, and have some OP combos. You can't go wrong with either.

Class: Street Fighter/Troubadour Race: Human or Fire Godlike Background: Aedyr - Hunter DIfficulty: PotD Solo: No Descriptor: This build using key gear, Persistent Distraction, and Chanter phrases simultaneously boosts the player's defenses and Armor Rating as they take damage in order to stay in the Bloodied state (required by Street Fighter) with relative safety. Simultaneously it focuses on doing most of its damage via DoTs so you can hit an enemy once, and watch it die while you focus on the next enemy. You have one CC, a couple of buffs, and a great deal of debuffing in your Phrases. All enemies Engaged with this Tank do less damage, and because Persistent Distraction lowers Perception they are Distracted and Flanked for Sneak Attack damage. Combined with Phrase The Long Night's Drink which lowers their Con by 5, might by 2, and reduces healing by 50% the enemies die easily, and they do very little damage as a fight wears on. Late game Rogue ability costs mean nothing with the Brilliant Inspiration. So, you can spam away, and do so very quickly while flanked and/or Bloodied. Starting Attributes: Might: 10-12 Constitution: 10-12 Dexterity: 10 Perception: 16 Intellect: 17 Resolve: 10 These are where I have the attributes set, but you could lose some Perception for Constitution or what have you. Using Blunderbuss modal made early game build whiff too much for my liking. Abilities by Level: Hel-Hyraf, Dull the Edge, and Crippling Strike Escape Arms Bearer Killer's Froze Stiff, Blinding Strike Weapon and Shield Dirty Fighting The Shield Cracks, Riposte Ancient Memory Strike the Bell Silver Knight's Shields, Persistent Distraction The Long Night's Drink Confounding Blind Deep Wounds, Seven nights Ring the Bell The Bride Caught Their Ruse Imp. Critical, Her Courage Thick as Steel The Bride Slew Each Kill fed his Fury (this and The Bride Slew can be swapped for Reny Darret's Voice for a Fear debuff) Set to Their Purpose, and Deathblows This doesn't matter, but I went with Accurate Empower for Rogue abilities. Weapon Proficiency in order of priority; Blunderbuss Spear Shield (I went with Medium) Sabre/Sword/Club/Flail Gear: Primary Gear is Stalker's Presence (Spear found in Sayuka) Reckless Brigandine (Early on Blood Links works pretty well) Entonia Signet Ring The Undying Burder (belt) Nerian's Ward (Medium Shield) Death's Maw (good early and can be swapped out later in the game) Sasha's Singing Sabre Modwyr Etc. After this grab good versions of some of the other weapons you are proficient in. Early on you want a Spear and either a blunt or Slash weapon equipped along with a Blunderbuss for an opening volley with its modal on. Combat Skills: Alchemy (this is your primary Skill) Stealth (this is your secondary, and will be prioritized later in game) Athletics (just a point or two because if you go too much higher it will bring you out of bloodied state) Notes: Spear Modal + Shield + Persistent Distraction + The Silver Knight's Shields = a lot of Engagement. Persistant Distraction causes enemies to be Distracted thus gaining -5 Perception and the Flanked affliction. The Long Night's Drink add Weakened to enemies (-5 con and -50% healing recieved) and it adds -2 Might. These 2 are your Bread and butter Phrases from level 11 on. Ring the Bell, Stalker's Presence, and Deep Wounds = a lot of DoT damage being applied to your target. They melt fast if RtB lands. Seven Nights is just a mob clearer for bigger fights, and since it is a pbAoE it gets anyone you're engaged with. Flail Modal + Seven Nights for more stout targets. Club Modal to help ensure Killers Froze Stiff lands on crucial targets. Modwyr for fun. Scout the enemies to ensure you have the best weapons in your arsenal equipped. Reckless Brigandine + Nerian's Ward + Undying Burden + Entonia Signet Ring all either increase damage and/or saves and AR as you become more injured. This makes sitting in the Bloodied pocket easier. Use Second Wind and switch to a Chant including Ancient Memory or Old Siec to keep you close to the ceiling of Bloodied so that you don't get gibbed. You don't want to rely on healing from Priests, Druids, etc because they usually over heal you. Targets with high Deflection get Confounding Blind or Hel-Hyraf in order to bring them down. If you land Confounding Blind then attack with one of your ranged as well to ensure you stack the Deflection Debuff and they will melt. Early game, you leave Brisk Recitation on since you only have 1 phrase. When you get Ancient Memory you can start to swap it on and off. Then when you get to level 11 you tend to leave BR off in order to maintain 2 buffs at all times. If targets are immune to Weaken then have a Chant Ready for Dull the Edge/Her Courage Thick as Steel + The Silver Knight's Shield. The idea is maximum Engage + debuffs. Use Buffs to start combat, CC's debuffs to help reduce incoming damage, and use Seven Nights/Rogue DoT's to clean up. Swap to Sasha's Singing Sabre (if equipped) for an Empowered Seven Nights. This will let you follow up with another Chant, or get your started back to casting Set to Their Purpose again. Set to Their Purpose is your OP way of ensuring everyone is Blinded or has Ring the Bell DoT applied to them. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Riposte is there because if you aren't Bloodied/Flanked you have the chance of tossing out some damage with your slow Street Fighter recovery times. Some of the smaller fights it can be hard to get Heating Up going. If you want to do more damage go Human, and if you want to counter how squishy early game can be then go Fire Godlike. Chants in late game: Ancient Memory and Her Courage Thick as Steel. The Long Night's Drink and The Silver Knight's Shield The Silver Knight's Shield and Her Courage Thick as Steel. Ancient Memory and The Silver Knight's Shield. You won't use Dull the Edge once you get the other 4 Chants. At least I didn't. Use 1 or 4 to build health back up. Use 2 and 3 to Debuff. So, you tend to slowly switch back and forth between these depending on the situation. Pros: Easy Deathblows later game. This combined with Deep Wounds, Stalker's Patience, and Ring the Bell means you just have to hit once or twice on a target. Fair CC/heal support Solid Tank/DPS late game. Cons: Street Fighter attack speed penalty when you can't get bloodied or flanked. Somewhat Squishy early on. Blunderbuss modal turns off when you weapon swap. So, at the beginning of combat make sure it is on. Summary: That's the thrust of the build. It is really fun, and late game an absolute wrecking ball. Early on it may require babysitting a bit. I hope you all enjoy it. I have. EDIT: Alchemy is predominantly for poisons and buffs, but also for big heals if needed in a boss fight or a fight with a ton of enemies. Stealth increases Stalker's Presence DoT, and that is why you toss some late game points in there. EDIT: This is an update for version 1.1 where Brilliant has been removed thus making Set to Their Purpose not desirable. The only real difference is in talent selection on the Chanter side of things. Replace The Bride Caught Their Ruse and Her courage at levels 15 and 16 with Reny Daret's Ghost spake and Ben Fidel's neck was exposed. Replace Set to their Purpose at level 19 with Her Tears Fell Like Rain or one of the Empower Upgrades.

Yeah, you can definitely set up a buff set of Chants and a Debuff. Generally, you only have about 4-5 by end game, and it definitely makes it weird and micro intensive. Also, the Assassin always wants to restealth, and attack. There is a Cooldown of sorts when changing Chants, and it may be too long to keep from tripping up when trying to restealth. I didn't give my attempt enough time to figure out if it is possible or if the cons outweigh the Pros. It would be far easier to just go all buff chants with an Assassin, and my issue with that is the lack of The Long Night's Drink. Which is the ONLY chant to give an Affliction. For Rogue multiclassing it is a choice phrase. 100% uptime on sneak attack, and combined with Persistant Distraction you have 2 Afflictions for Deathblows. I couldn't get the AoE to apply when I tried, but I may have had my Dex too low and was coming out of stealth before the ability fired. I was trying it with White Worms, but it has a 4.5 (?) second cast time. Thrice was She Wronged would only apply 1 of the 3 bolts, and it has .5 second cast time. As you said it is the first hit in a multishot that works with Assassinate. I just think Assassin/Chanter is a bit too awkward to get right, but if someone tried it and finds out what works and what doesn't then I will be perfectly willing to give it a go down the road. As I said earlier, Street FIghter and Vanilla Rogue are really good with Chanter. As long as you are playing it more like a offtank/mDPS. mDPS would pretty much just waste the ranged/casters in the backline before committing to the middle of the battle. It gives you something to do while you are building chants, some phrases work nearly perfectly with Rogues, and some of the Invocations have long Afflicitons (EG White Worms upgrade is 30s of Sicken). However, The Long Night's Drink does what that SIcken does better. The SIcken only gets -25% healing while The Long Night gets -50% healing and a -2 Might debuff to boot. The Long Nights Drink + The SIlver Knight's Shield + Persistent Distraction + Weapon and Shield + Spear Modal = -5 Con, -50% healing, -2 might, -5 Perception, Flanked (-10 Deflection) for the enemies, and +10 Deflection, +4 Engagement for you. Street Fighter/Troubadour with 20 Intellect with Brisk Recitation off so both The Long Night and the Silver Knight's Shield are up 100% of the time. You are a walking Affliction machine, and if they bloody and/or flank you? It is good night. You may be a sword and shield guy, but you start swinging super fast and turn the field into your own personal gib-athon. And Berath forbid if they break engagement. Add it some choice gear, and you can sit in the Bloodied sweet spot fairly safely even on PotD. The only issue is it takes level 10-11 for the build to really come online. It is only OK at best early on.

I've been playing it almost solely. However, take this as somewhat a subjective assessment. Assassin is the hardest Rogue subclass to make work with Chanter. You have to take all buffing Phrases. No, Soft winds of death. No Blunt the Edge. Etc. All the debuff phrases will pull you from stealth. If you are going to try it with Assassin I would recommend Troubadour over Skald as well. Since Skald benefits from dual wielding to maximize chance to crit, and they benefit from being in constant combat. Backstab only works with the first weapon strike so you don't want to Dual Wield, but instead use 2 handed weapons or maybe one handed style Where the Assassin benefits from stealthing and attacking from stealth. Troubadour would let you do that, has Brisk Recitation to build phrases quickly, and if you turn BR off you can (with 20 intellect) have 2 phrases buffing you at all times. If you are dead set on Skald then I would look at Non-subclass Rogue or maybe Street Fighter. They can be more in the thick of it getting crits.

Street Fighter/Blunderbuss modal has been mentioned. Bloody Links works really good with Street Fighter because of increased deflection when bloodied, and can be upgraded to also increase AR when bloodied i do believe. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_Bloody_Links Death's Maw increases DR when you are near an enemy corpse. Both pump up defenses in a mid-late encounter, and if you are bloodied then that is a good thing. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Death%27s_Maw Both are pretty cheap, and they can be gotten early off of vendors. If you are a Fire Godlike you can be pretty stable at the bloodied state. Humans will hit harder, and more accurately when bloodied. Still looking for good SF weapons. I don't see any Hadoukens in the game files though.

I agree with evilcat on Rogue for Deep Pockets. It is almost a must for Explosives, and really makes a Wizard/Rogue with heavy Grimoire swapping a blast. Trickster for spells is also good. The 3 classes that get an Explosive bonus are Fighter, Druid, and Wizard. So selecting any of those 3. I would probably do Wizard too, but only have 1 backup Grimoire, and a healing potion for safety sake. Then have 4 grenades. Scientist is the only background with an Explosives bonus, and if you don't mind starting a little behind I think a Trickster/Ranger with Scientist background would work really well. . I have issue with using Explosives in melee. It works fine, but I would rather toss them from the back lines. That's probably just me with a perception issue. I did mess with explosives and an Assassin build. It works well. Although, a Fighter/Trickster could toss them at pesky mages in the back, and be a really good Riposte tank. I might try this at some point, or give it a go with Eder my next playthrough.

Sneak Attack is weapon damage only. Assassinate, I am not 100% about. I know it works with Explosives, and I was under the impression it works with spells. However, my testing was minimal, and it could be that i was popping from stealth before the spell was finished casting (long cast times FTL). It says all attacks from stealth. So, one would think that it does work for spells. However, I'd wait for someone more certain than I am to confirm.

@jmerc - I haven't tried them together, no. I can say that I think Trickster is a bit more defensive, but once you get Gaze of Adragan it might work. However, Skald comes equipped with a similar Paralyze so it is kind of doubling up. Though, Gaze attacks Fortitude and Killer's Froze attacks will. So you will have a very versatile tool set to paralyze many different enemy types. Which is good because you get a 50% chance to crit the paralyzed enemies. Otherwise the Trickster will help you keep from getting hit, but not help with Crits. However, you could do a Reposte type build maybe. Skald works fine with Rogue. Not as good as Skald tends to work with Barb, Fighter, Monk, or maybe even Pally. It will work though. Troubadour works well enough with all of them. I went Troub/SF because I don't like the crit reliance of Skald, with BR on you generate phrases really fast, and you aren't penalized for any type of Invocation. If you want to dabble in summons, offensive, or non-offensive Invocations you can, and they all cost the same. Allows you to pick up a little of this and a little of that without feeling like you are waiting forever to cast an Invocation your subclass makes more expensive. Also, I am not tethered to melee on troubadour. if the situation calls I can swap to blunderbuss, and spit hot fire. My phrase generation doesn't change for doing it either. I'd give it a go (Skald/Trickster), tbh. I think it might work surprisingly well. Make sure you dual wield. If you are using damage invocations then select Flail Proficiency for -25 Reflex. Only Tornado invocation attacks Fort, and all the other DPS Invocations attack Reflex. Also get Club modal too. It hits the enemy with a -25 Will to help ensure that Killer's Froze sticks. a Saber proficiency is wise as well. The weapon with a -25 Fortitude is 2 handed, but it would help debuff for Gaze of the Adragon. So, maybe grab it too. I'd not bother, but it's your party. Dual Wield is better because you get more opportunities to crit and generate a phrase. If you are doing ANY stealth do not get Phrases that Attack an Enemy. Come, Come soft winds of death or dull the edge will bring you out of stealth the moment they hit an enemy. If you want to stealth then be prepared to get Buff friendly Phrases almost entirely.

I would just say that these things need careful consideration and experience with each class and its combos. This is why I'm not willing to tackle any buffs in this thread, especially for all classes at the same time. I'll do some class specific ones when I'm more comfortable with my understanding of all abilities. Pretty much the same here. I've messed with Chanters and Rogues enough to discuss them with some knowledge. In fact, outside of maxing a Monk to try Inner Death combo, I have been retrying different Rogue/Chanter combos. Finding out what works, and what doesn't. I haven't messed with much else other than companions and their classes. Mostly trying this combo because it isn't as OP as say Chanter/Fighter, or one of the other silly builds I have seen on here. Working on this SF/Troub to get a build for the build section. Although Chanter/anything is probably OP, but I am a Chanter fanboy. So sue me.

I will say that Strike the Bell, with a high Intellect build, using one handed weapons is a really good ability. As long as you didn't dump Might, and I don't know why you would. Combined with Deep Wounds and Death Blows? Jeeze Louise. My Street Fighter has it, and gets about 30 seconds of 9 raw damage every 3 seconds. If you, once again, have them Debuffed with an Affliction prior to using Ring the Bell it is a kiss of death. I think it is for sure worth its Guile. It works well with MCing the Rogue too. I am just talking about the 1 handed section, though. Dunno if 2h stagger, or ranged pen are worth it. I imagine they are, but I haven't tried. Street Fighter/Troubadour - Ring the Bell + Persistent Distraction + Chanter Phrase "The Long Night's Drink" + Chanter phrase "Aefyllath" + Deep Wounds + Deathblows. If I have them engaged they are Distracted, and they most likely are weakened by The Long Night's Drink. There are my 2 Afflictions for Deathblows. If I am Bloodied and Flanked? It's Overkill. Obviously Brisk Recitation isn't on at this point so that I have full 100% up time on both phrases. When you need a bit of protection to stay bloodied, and not drop dead suddenly. Well, you have Her Courage and The Silver Knight's Shield for +10 Deflection, +1 Engaged (1 more enemy is distracted so they have a Perception debuff), and 10pt damage shield. Add in Fire Godlike Racial if you wish. Human if you want to be a little more offensive.

Nope. I won't complain. They are good. Top tier even. However, many builds will do much better with another Race. Building a Street Fighter? Well Humans and Fire Godlike look good for that. I'd say Moon GL too, but they can pull you out of being bloodied and ruin the bonus' from the class. Building a support or Tank? Plenty of good choices. Now, that said, I can't see myself making a Ranger and not using a Hearth Orlan. That combo is too good. Maybe even a ranged weapon built Beckoner using Rogue, Pally, etc plus summons to get that racial going.

Yeah, combos like Fighter/Chanter Unyielding ad infinitum need to go. Same with Monk level 8 Empowered Strikes + level 9 Inner Death which will delete a target from your harddrive and possibly from time itself. Same with broken Empowered AoE death storms. Same with a lot of other classes. You cannot make PotD a challenge while these exist. Period. End of story. No argument that "you should play solo" works either. I like playing with my party, and I find solo tedious. The game should be balanced around 5 man parties, and those that want to solo can do so to their hearts content. Those who want to steam roll the content have 3 other difficulties to do so. I expect even if they tone these major combos down that on Veteran and below they will still blow stuff up with ease. You will never get everything 100% balanced, but getting abilities that just wipe the enemy with 1 or 2 abilities is silly. Those abilities should still be viable, but they shouldn't be this broken. Although I agree rogue's abilities are too pricey for what you get in a lot of cases. I will play devils advocate and say that Rogues have sneak attack. Which, by the time you get Withering Strike (and if you have an affliction on the target already), you are going to do a great deal more than +25% damage. I am not sure the exact scaling of Sneak Attack by that level, but by end game it is pretty up there (70%?). That's not including Deathblows and Deep Wounds either. Rogue's definitely need another 1 point spender at the minimum, and probably a whole re-tuning of their Guile costs.