Livegood118

In terms of a melee/tanky chanter it looks to me like in the grand scheme of things you're probably better off going on the low end of Dex. As you point out, the difference doesn't seem that marked unless you're playing a fairly active chanter that's frequently using level 1/2 chants to build up phrases quick. When I'm using Chanters I prefer a more hands off approach that just lets the Dragon Thrashed do the work though I'm wondering now whether that's the best thing to do. While the Chanter's damage chants are situationally very, very useful – for instance Seven Nights she waited vs large foes or Boil Their Flesh/White Worms Writhed vs large groups of corpses – I'd have a hard time believing that focusing on doing them repeatedly other than in those situations would actually do more damage than letting the Dragon Thrashed roll on and then using invocations as a bonus rather than a focus; only one phrase before level 3 does direct damage vs foes. That leaves the CC Invocations and the Summon Invocations, the value of which probably depends on your party composition and the role you want your Chanter to play. A Chanter's never going to out CC a Druid or a Wizard. One of the main reasons I asked about the summons was to assess whether or not they were actually worth their salt – for instance, will the ogres last long enough/survive long enough to justify a cast vs a certain kind of monster? Will you get more benefit as a result of the paralyse CC chant or from summoning the Ogres? This is why I love PoE Sorry for all the theorycrafting – not in a position to test things myself in PoE atm.

Interesting ... so if I'm getting this right: – Heavy Armour + Low Dex = Really Bad – Lighter Armour + Low Dex = OK – Heavy Armour + OK Dex = OK Maybe it is better not to dump Dex if Recovery Penalty is multiplicative with it. Just thinking about the math, if you lose 3-4 seconds every time you do an Invocation that's another Dragon Thrashed at high levels, something which is likely to trump whatever the benefits you could have gained from putting points in to Per. I wish there was a way of calculating what the exact figures were based on the cast times.

Of course, high dex with lower con/resolve will always be doable if you're going for a ranged version of the class. Oh wait actually maybe I got it wrong – does reading from a scroll actually interrupt chants?

I'm still finding it hard to evaluate how important Dex is for Chanters. I think that something to accept is that you're never really going to be able to do that much damage in melee no matter what you do without abilities like the other "melee" classes (Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Paladin, Barb) Let's take two sample "tanky" builds: Somewhat "Balanced" Sword and Board Chanter 18 Might 10 Constitution 10 Dexterity 12 Perception 18 Intellect 10 Resolve "Low Dex" Sword and Board Chanter 18 Might 10 Con 03 Dex 18 Perception 18 Intellect 11 Resolve Dumping dexterity points in to Perception doesn't really lose you any corresponding defensive benefits, and in turn gives you +6 Accuracy for all of your static attacks/Invocations and +1 Resolve at the cost of -21% action speed. I think maybe the answer lies in how frequently your character is going to be performing actions subject to long recovery periods in combat e.g. Invocations, Scroll Casting and Other on-use Abilities (e.g. from equipment, or class talents). If all you're going to be doing is casting Invocations then I think it's probably better to dump Dex in to Per, particularly if you're going to be using invocations that have a high phrase count. However, if you're going to be really active – e.g. using abilities, casting from scrolls then I think it's better to keep Dex at a reasonable level because if you don't your overall DPS through chants will be subject to an inordinate amount of down time.

Interesting – so by "general" attack speed modifiers do you mean things like Frenzy, Deleterious Alacrity of motion or the gloves of swift action, rather than innate weapon speed enchants or the kind of bonus you get from Durgan Steel?

Very interesting. Thanks for clearing that up.

Hi all, I've got a few questions about chanters I was hoping some people might be able to help me to answer: 1. How is the Chanter's recovery period calculated after an Invocation? What affects it? (e.g. Armour Recovery, Dex Modifier, DaoM potion) This is important I think to working out what spells you should be using in different scenarios. For instance, when to use the White Worms Writhed (Level 1) Invocation for 3 Phrases vs when to use Boil their Flesh (Level 5) Invocation for 7 phrases. If the better invocations come with a much greater refractory period afterwards then maybe it's better to spam the first level versions of the spell rather than save up for the level 5 version? (Spamming level 1 version might create corpses faster, increasing its power faster vs using the better one less frequently for more damage). The temptation I find with many melee chanter builds is to reduce Dex as much as possible to bump might/per/res/int to higher levels. The way I understand things at the minute, even with Invocations such as he braved the horde alone, the Chanter does not have any native abilities that are very good for melee/ability points to spare to make it worthwhile spending points on melee damage when you could otherwise be making yourself more tanky or with better chants/phrases. He braved the Horde Alone isn't even that great either, for instances you could substitute it pretty well with a DaoM potion/Per Buff from Priest when you actually need it 2. Is there any resource that has the stats for the summons e.g. accuracy, deflection? I'm thinking ogres are still better vs the animated weapons summon as the level 5 invocation.

Wow thanks for the great explanation. It seems to me like they could have reached a mathematical solution on this that wasn't so needlessly complicated and confusing to the player (I love this game all the same tho not gonna lie). Only one thing confused me: Shouldn't total duration be: recitation duration + base linger duration + (base linger duration x INT multiplier - base linger duration) + (base linger duration x graze/crit multipler - base linger duration)? My understanding was that crit effects were always additive - e.g. they affect the base rather than compounding other effects. So, for instance, Annihilation on a 2-10 damage weapon would only ever increase the physical damage portion of a crit from 1 to 5 rather than taking in to account +damage modification. The decision to make ticks work vs .25 DR is kinda strange to me but I guess they had to reach something arbitrary so that DR could play a role in the equation. Consequently, it seems to me that the value of the Dragon Thrashed is quite diminished, though it is ultimately still a good skill. Vs a higher DR enemy 20 slash/20 fire at 22 Might and 20 Intellect level 16 Chanter on an ordinary hit would do: Duration = 4 + 4 + (4*1.5 - 4) = 10 Seconds DamagePerTick (Slash) = (10*1.36) - (20*0.25) = 13.6 - 5 = 8.6 DamagePerTick (Burn) = (10*1.36) - (20*0.25) = 13.6 - 5 = 8.6 Total damage (Ordinary Hit) = 8.6*3.33 + 8.6*3.33 = 28.64 + 28.64 = 57.28 Total damage (Crit) = 8.6*4 + 8.6*4 = 34.4 + 34.4 = 68.8 Actually, now that I think about it, that's not bad at all for a massive AoE that can be triggered and stacked every four seconds (and this is for enemies with unusually high DR). Given that Dragon Thrashed works over a larger AoE than Barbarian Carnage I'd say that vs larger groups of mobs the chanter may actually be putting out more damage than a Barbarian. A Dragon Thrashed hit vs a Dragon with 30 DR, 22 Might and 20 Intellect: Duration = 4 + 4 (4*1.5 - 4) = 10 Seconds DamagePerTick (Slash) = (10*1.36) - (30*0.25) = 13.6 - 7.5 = 6.1 DamagePerTick (Burn) = (10*1.36) - (30*0.25) = 13.6 - 7.5 = 6.1 Total Damage (Ordinary Hit) = 6.1*3.33 + 6.1*3.33 = 40 I would say somewhere between 15 DR to 30 DR and with less than 3 enemies is the point where Aeyfalluth Mys Fyr becomes the much better option. On my Chanters before I switch to a big damaging spell I always quick switch to that anyway for the extra free 1.25 boost.

Hi all, I was just wondering whether someone can clarify how DoT Damage, DR, Might, Crits/Graze and Intellect interact in the latest patch? The conclusions from various versions of the game appear to be inconsistent. For instance, if someone could help me understand a practical example: A level 16 Chanter with 50% brisk recitation chants the Dragon Thrashed, the Dragon Wailed (50 slash/50 fire base damage, 8 sec base before added linger time from +int) vs an enemy with 6 Slash DR and 8 Fire DR. What would be the difference in total damage done if: Scenario 1: The Chanter has 18 Might, 14 Intellect and lands a crit Scenario 2: The Chanter has 15 Might, 19 Intellect and lands a graze I understand the damage is done through 3 seconds ticks and that there is a remainder tick, but beyond that there seems to be different evidence to suggest that each tick works vs .25 DR or there's a sum total approach (e.g. Damage vs DR, then this is the sum that is divided in to ticks over time and there are functionally no independent DR checks per tick as it has been resolved at first instance). Questions for bonus points: – If the total DR of the enemy increases by +2 after the second tick of the DoT, how will the total damage be effected in the first scenario? – If the Might and Intellect of the Chanter increases by +2 after the second tick of the DoT, how will the total damage be effected in the second scenario? PS. Do +%elemental damage talents work with DoTs yet? ^^ PPS. Do +%enemy type damage talents (e.g. vs vessels) work with DoTs?

Howdy - just checking in to see whether any progress was made here with the devs?

woo great

I was doing a little bit of experimentation with a high level chanter in Northwield against some Swamp Lurkers and it seems that that the racial accuracy bonus from Survival is not applying to chanters' chants or invocations. I experimented with both the Dragon Thrashed and Lo their endless hosts – no effect.

That's likely an unintended side effect of some other code change they made. I doubt they went out of their way and wasted development time to remove a feature that was harmless at best. I think that's been pretty much confirmed by Aaron D.

That's another reason I'd prefer a Dev approved fix - with all the respect in the world to the IE mod guys who've obviously put a lot of work in to it, I'd prefer something that's definitely/always going to be completely stable. Like I said previously, the majority of my salt on this subject comes from the fact that it was an option that was open to players before and now it's gone. I guess we'll see when the next patch comes out.

It is not true that implementing this won't affect me. If you go to the bug forum, you see that it is a bug that you can not set the companions attributes to different values persistently via cheats. Lets see what the devs have to say about that in the corresponding thread : What can we take away from this:- If it is not easy to implement the cheats, it's obviously not easy to make a option for retraining. - If they were to implement it, it would cost them a lot of ressources. Also, additional information includes: - As people have already commented in this thread, there are workarounds to adjust the companions attributes. - The companions have never been able to retrain their attributes before without cheat codes if I'm not mistaken. - There are still many bugs in the bug forum to be taken care of. If you get your 'best of both worlds', that will cost ressources. But the game will only get a couple of more patches until they will drop support, since WM2 was the last content provided and ressources are finite. It is very likely that not all bugs will be fixed. Feel free to draw your own conclusion, but mine is that as long as there are still bugs around that break items, talents, spells or general game mechanics, companion respec has a very very low priority on this list. I can't make a fix for the bug of losing several damage multipliers I have at the moment, you can fix your issues. Giving your stuff priority has the potential to be detriment to my future playthroughs through lack of patching of other stuff I actually might encounter, so you can bet I will openly disagree with your wish, even though I understand it. It's not even like people tried to be impolite. That's a pretty reasonable response, but if somebody can jury rig a fix as quickly as they did - as evident from those links - then it stands to reason that the devs can find a solution too without an insurmountable effort. It's obviously an important issue to a lot of people and I wouldn't begrudge you the fixes you want either, though it's not as if they're mutually exclusive. Given the outcry about this - as evident from this thread and others - it seems to me like a feature they should restore, even though it was never supported in an "official" capacity.

Very true. Since 2.0 the "pure tank" is pretty much useless – save a few very, very specific builds – and I find it's generally better to aim for balanced offence/defence which can be satisfied by using a good shield with sword and shield style and maybe superior deflection. I still make most of my ranged characters glass cannons (7/10 CON and 3 RES) though will make sure they have defence abilities and a hatchet/shield on switch if things get ropey.

See, this whole "create your own custom adventurers to replace original companions if you don't like them" is exactly the option for all you guys who want to have characters with stats that you desire. Creating a tool that will specifically alter the stats of original companions is in my opinion unnecessary. Yeah, I would totally skip that part if it was ever implemented (just as Big Head Mode), but I guess more ideas would emerge? Soon there might be requests like "I want Thaos avatar to be replaced into a xaurip" or something like that. "If you don't want Thaos to be a xaurip for RP reasons then that's great, don't do it in your game. The choice is completely open to you." Okay, now I'm just teasin' with ya mate Part of the reason for my salt is that it is a feature that WAS in the game that I used frequently which has now been removed, and it's unclear why that's the case. Also slippery slope argument etc ... I guess my main point is that I want the best of both worlds: the ability to vary my characters as I want to experiment with different builds, strengths and weaknesses and some nice story/banter as well. I don't think that's too much to ask, nor will it lead to Thaos becoming a Xaurip.

Just some anecdotal experience from me but my Chanter tank in my last playthrough was absolutely baller (some of the invocations/chants are paraphrased): Chanter – Moon Godlike Hatchet/Strike Hard, Little Saviour MIG: 18 CON: 11 DEX: 03 PER: 15 INT: 18 RES: 12 Invocations: Reny Daret's Ghosts Damage Reduction Reducer The Thunder Rolled: AoE Stun White Wurms Writhed: AoE Explosion AoE Paralyze Urdle and Gurdel Aoe Revive Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept Frost Jump Spell Chants: Run Speed Chant Fort and Will Chant Come, Come Soft Winds Lo, Their Endless Host Dull the Edge, blunt the Point The Dragon Thrashed Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr Old Siec Would Not Rest With all your strength, you slay the Beast Weapon and Shield Superior Deflection Cautious Attack Secrets of Rime Ancient Memory Beloved Spirits [Whatever] [Whatever] Dex can be reduced a lot because your damage comes passively from chants. The 2nd level AoE paralyse spell is pretty godly now and one of the best sources of paralysis in the game – with brisk recitation you'll be able to pop it every 8 seconds at max level and very few enemies are immune to it (other than primordials iirc). I'd use the dragon thrashed in most ordinary mob encounters for great damage and then for smaller packs of stronger enemies Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr. The Frost spell that shoots out seven beams is really useful against large enemies (e.g. dragons) and the AoE revive invocation saved my ass more times than I can count. I think before you do a big damage invocation you can quickly switch to Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr for +25% damage added on via the Fire Lash (which can then be increased with Scion of Flame if that tickles your fancy).

I literally cannot understand peoples' problems with this request. If you don't want to mod NPC companions' attributes for RP reasons then that's great, don't do it in your game. The choice is completely open to you. What I don't get is that there are some people that don't want other people to be able to do it – even when it has absolutely no consequence on their experience of the game.

Problem is, as of the latest patch, named companions' attribute scores reset when you load a save or load a new area, making it a pain to do this.

I would say one point is worth it if you're just going to use Arcane Veil as an "oh S***" button and want a bit of extra survivability. Two points is worth it if you're going for a melee focused Wizard, particularly if you can prolong through spelltongue/wall of draining.

Exactly. I don't get why every time someone brings up the fact that people want to be able to change named NPC companions' stats there's a lot of people who talk about how it doesn't really make much of a difference, why bother, you don't need it etc ... It's a feature. Some people like to craft and test their own builds with their own relative strengths and weaknesses to see how they work and that's one of the main things that keeps them coming back to the game; but, they also like the story/humour that you get from bringing named companions along for the ride. It's about variation rather than power.

Ya'll are getting trolled pretty hard itt

Actually wait hold on ... does that mean a +50% crit multiplier is only 0.5(13 – 19) = 6.5 – 9.5 extra damage with a sabre?

Thanks!