ppscurry

Do what I do: Rings? Meh. Boots? Meh. Belts? Meh. Gloves? What's that? Throw on Giftbearer's Cloak and you're gucci. Also, ranger pets are so bad lol. The irony of the class is that it's so bad, you become tanky because of all the defensive talents you end up taking since you have nothing else to use.

Good to know! What do you think should be the better choice? The Shieldbearers of St.Elcga Or Kind Wayfarers In a party? Shieldbearer, definitely. The arquebus allows you throw out Lay on Hands that prevent death, rapidly and on demand. Guns don't trigger recovery after all.

First thing you should do is dump the resolve. Everything hits you on PotD. Keep Con low and learn to focus on certain stats instead. What you need for PoE2 is armour rating, decent deflection so you don't get autocrit 24/7 and high reflex/fortitude/will ,in that order. Roughly 130-140 for decent survivability on PotD. 150+ makes you unkillable. If you wish to play a dps druid that melees and cast spells, you should probably ask yourself what is your main source of damage. Elemental spells? Melee Weapons? Summons? If you plan on using elemental spells to kill stuff but still want to keep some semblance of melee capabilities. I suggest going fighter as your multi-class. Their level one can be upgraded to give +1 power levels while boosting the accuracy of your own melee attacks. Their aura gives +5 accuracy to your spells as well. Overall, they have pretty decent fast cast melee attack/defense abilities that won't affect your spell casting too much. Eg. charge for positioning and an instant attack. buffs are instant with no recovery. Mob stance gives faster recovery as well and great for clearing mobs that were weakened by your spells. For something more spell focused, chanter would be best but then it is kind of op right now. Priest is a decent choice with their buffs +acc/+power level etc. For something more weapon focused with druid acting as the support, you can consider a bleak walker or just fighter. Monk is great too but it is kinda op right now. Bleak Walker will give you all the defence you will ever need to charge in with a two-hander, double or single weapon. Just spam Flames of Devotion for damage and use cold druid spells to supplement your lack of damage diversity. Their aura helps your spells as well. In general, just ask yourself can your build deal at least two damage types, does it have a sustainable source of damage with empower included (final boss has 2 phases. Bosses like Nemnok have a ton of hp.) Does your build have a way to handle large mobs/does it have a way of pulling mobs if it can't aoe? This is assuming you are running solo potd. If it's a team build, just go paladin and go full spell spammer. Lay on Hands is all the heal you will ever need.

Hmmm, does the helmet add lightning damage to chanter phrases? Cool idea by the way.

Junk, pretty much. Unless you can stack your deflection up to 150. If you can, you have a 25% chance of getting a free full attack IF they target your deflection. That's a really big if by the way. Considering the fact that the final boss is a dragon and likes to hit your reflex instead, you are kinda boned if you rely on riposte. Most bosses like to spam abilities so chances are they won't target your deflection too. Conclusion: Junk as a build around. Junk as a bonus since you have to build around it to even stand a chance of getting that bonus.

I wonder where people in this forum keep getting the false idea that beckoners can't keep up their summons. Are you guys running 3 INT or something? Even without the resource generating invocation, you can easily keep up your summons unless you pick something fragile. With that resource generating invocation, you have too much phrases instead. Without it, you can't cast anything else but honestly chanter invocations aren't that great compared to their summons. With just one cast of ancient weapons on a beckoner, I can force a phase change on the final boss in potd solo while afking in a corner. If I wanted to, I can just stand far away and watch my summons solo the game. Troubadour sounds a lot more fun though so I would recommend that as well. Beckoner is just too strong and honestly braindead.

Bleak walker does more damage with flames of devotion. You can change it, but just keep it mind that it will do less damage. EDIT: Bleak Walker doesn't do much for the final boss in the game so it is actually better to dump Bleak Walker assuming you only plan around that boss fight.

Is there even a point in arguing whether something is butchered or not when you label a mechanic that's supposed to help it, "cheese"? If you ask me, the empower system is made just for wizards/druids/priests who only have 1 or 2 casts so they have to make them count. If the game is too easy then the mobs should be buffed, empower as a mechanic is great and gives wizards more flavor. As for the lack of spell casts, I honestly wished they toned down the individual power of every spell but added 2 more casts to each tier. That way you are encouraged to pick more spells or at least bring more spells rather than just casting arcane veil and mirrored image every single fight and having nothing else to cast after that.

Lol, I agree with you on that point. I'm avoiding it on purpose now even if it makes complete sense to multiclass with it.

Hmm, do passives buff their damage though? Even if they don't, I think Shining Beacon upgraded should help(paladin). It stacks a 40?% dmg taken debuff. Wizard for the vortex spell that pulls them in?

Summons can solo the game. With ancient skeletons, you can take on lower level red skulls if you position yourself and them correctly. Ancient weapons(PL7) can solo most bosses. Ogres can solo concelhaut at a low level if you give them time. There's really nothing a chanter's summons can't do.

Having played a loremaster solo, I can safely say that interrupts aren't as bad as you think if you build defensively. Honestly, you can just grab the concentration passive... The moment you get your first wave of summons out, they can tank any mob because of their sheer numbers. As for aoes blasting everything to bits, you're severely underestimating beckoner summons here. The ancient brittle skeletons spawn extra skeletons on death and those persist even when you summon a new batch of skeletons. Thanks to your meat wall, you can easily run to the back where it's perfectly safe and out of range of the enemy. Just cast your summon the moment your phrases charge up. Ogres are beefy enough in most cases as well. By the way, there are hardly any situations where you can't find a choke point...unless you decide to stand there for no rhyme or reason...you can pull mobs you know. Also, there aren't many fast attacking mobs in PoE 2 so even if they kill your summons, you still have a decent chunk of time to finish your invocation. Once more, choke points are everywhere, you just gotta find them. Ancient weapons are amazing. Give them a shot. One last thing, if you are playing a multiclass chanter, you don't really need that many phrases. Instead of casting invocations, you can just rely on your other class to dps/heal/buff/whatever so not much versatility loss there. You only have one action per recovery after all.

Do you want burst or do you want sustained damage? Soul Blade has that single burst of damage but you do give up quite a bit of flexibility and fun for that one moment of glory. Chanter is great everywhere so you can't go wrong with that. Chances are you will pick up the plus burn damage chant along with FoD so you can either go the summon route or offensive spam route. Something with cold damage. Skald has +1 penalty to non-offensive invocations but I still suggest going the summon route because chanter summons are just that great. Besides, your summons can dps while you attack and aren't a dps loss overall unlike offensive invocations which probably won't outdamage your summons over time.

Solo? PoTD?

Hmm, it is possible. Guns do not trigger recovery so you can instantly teleport away or cast smoke bomb. I finished an assassin run with that kind of gameplay using swords so I wanted to avoid that in this run. However, it is an interesting idea. You give up ranger which kinda reduces your aoe abilities and accuracy. Hmm, I'm actually in love with Driving Flight right now so I think I would still pick Ranger knowing that suggestion. That bouncing attack with FoD and Dragon's Dowry is just sick.