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Rygmrand's "Artist" Class: Spiritualist ( Soulblade/Chanter ) Difficulty: PotD+ Version: 2.1 Solo: Hel Yes DESCRIPTION: A powerful build that snowballs early into a biawac of destruction and test the power of your gaming contraption! Kill your enemies with ice and decay. If you thought Grave Calling/Hel Beckoning's imp route was neat, you're in for a real big treat. Soul annihilating summons all day! RP: A character I imagined who would rise up to be Rymgrand's top agent. (EDIT) Patch 2.1 - Soul Annihilation's killing blow now has been fixed, but the skeleton and chillfog synergy is still going strong. Difference is now you can either dump SA on enemies or spam cipher spells during chillfog bursts kind of like a semi-ascendant that has Soul Annihilation. I also recommend trying out a Berserker Howler (skeleton nukes) or Harbinger multiclass (deathblow passives) for damage output if you can make do without the cipher utility to increase accuracy or weaken enemy fortitude defenses. There are 2 things that make this build work: 1. Soulblade's Soul Annihilation (SA) despite saying "Primary Attack", will trigger any weapon "on kill" effects if the target dies from the raw damage portion of the attack even if the weapon with the effect is equipped on the offhand. Apparently it also ignores the type of creature it is when it is killed, which will fulfill any "on kill" effect that requires a certain monster type (kith, etc). CAUTION: I am sure this is unintended so enjoy it while it lasts. D: 2. Most abilities that are activated or procced from a weapon will usually calculate damage and special effects using the weapon and any passive abilities the character has. In the case of the cipher, it will generate focus for them. There are some exceptions, but it is usually the case. Technically you could use SA's agnostic killing blow on any soulblade multiclass, which would probably make soulblade/rogue into an insane force of destruction on trash, but the chanter multiclass was the safer choice in order to supply your own "easy fuel" for SA kills and to default back to a chanter summon line on harder fights. Using the raw damage hit of the Soulblade's Soul Annihilation, I am able to 1-2 shot my low HP summons and able to proc the on kill effects of Grave Calling and Hel Beckoning regardless if they are a vessel or spirit. For Grave Calling I have enchanted it to cast chill fog on a vessel kill which will be my skellies. This will result in a free AoE non-hazardous chillfog spell when I kill my summon that blinds and pulses damage to enemies that ALSO contribute to my focus gain, which means I can then use soul annihilation immediately again on an enemy or spam cipher spells. This also stacks my ice lash buff and with the paralyzation on crit enchant, many of the enemies caught in the chillfog spam become blinded and paralyzed as they get torn apart. The afflictions will still persist even if they are immune to freeze damage. The even nastier thing is that if a vessel dies from chillfog it will spawn another chillfog because it is still benefiting from Grave Calling's passives. You will want to cull near-death non-vessels with SA to take advantage of their deaths. POST 2.1 - While this still can work when fighting spirits, it now requires a bit more micro of what blade does killing blows. The other styles seem a lot more viable now and even weapon/ranged can work since the build has no full attacks. In the case for Hel Beckoning, which has procs on a spirit kill and behaves similar to Grave Calling, the two options are a corrode AoE or a corrode imp summon. Although the AoE option is definitely the higher damage option on normal fights, the single aoe cast can miss since it is after all going against fortitude defense, can be resisted by poison immunes, and it doesn't pulse like chillfog does. So for this weapon in solo mode I opted to turn it into a imp summoning tool though in a party you can opt for the AoE instead since you won't have to worry about resistances and survivability as much. The main benefit is to gain ranged cannon fodder separate from the chanter's summons that will also leave usable bodies for "The White Worms AKA Corpse Explosion," which will give a crush damage vs reflex option. Note: The bodies still have the summoning timer and will disappear when it expires. Also of course, the white worms can be used aggressively to unload even more damage on top of the chillfog deathzone to end encounters even quicker without needing focus to spam amplified wave. Hel Beckoning may not always be your main offhand since there are options like Resounding Hammer that gives a free Might+PEN inspiration when killing your summons. Now the obvious weaknesses of the 2 weapons is that the major damage abilties go against fortitude, chillfog is only freeze damage, and maintaining an imp army can only go so far with their pitiful corrode damage PEN. In these specific situations, we can then fallback to the summon meatshield wall of chanters while we pick off targets to gain focus and grind them down via cipher spells or switch to another weapon with another kill effect (although not as strong as Grave Calling but they are "good enough"). We also still have the options from chanter and cipher abilties to lower defenses for the weapon's abilities to land. Some freeze immunes like rime constructs still are vulnerable to the paralyzing effects of chillfog so even if you do no damage, the enemy is prepped to be killed via other means. POST 2.1 - Auto skellies instead and dump SA on enemies while chillfog taps them for focus. While the fire lash chant is great for focus gain, the build does not use it because SA gets countered if your summon is benefitting from the fire lash chant for some reason. In this build, I've opted to use 2 chants: 1. Life Leech Chant: Since you will be doing a lot of damage on trash and hitting your weak defense summons, this chant works great as a healing option. In times of desperation you can back away and "tap" your minions to recover. 2. Skelly Summon Chant: This frees up phrases that would have been used to initiate battles with summons to allow different invocations to be used. Unlike the invocation skellies, the bodies of these skellies can be used for corpse explosion if you are fast enough to trigger it before the body disappears. OTHER NOTES: You do not gain focus from hitting your own summons even with confuse just to be clear with it. There is also a bit of mental micro of needing to know, which blade is being used when auto-attacking your summons. This build also makes use of the Magran belt. While the additional burn damage is nice for minor focus gain, the primary reason is to gain a chance to summon a fire elemental whenever you hit, which is a lot when you have several weapon aoes hitting mobs. The elemental will then serve as easy focus fuel in the midst of tougher or dwindling enemies. There is one really interesting caveat you need watch out for and that is the confused affliction. With the affliction, your aoe zones will damage you which will result in death if you don't have the defenses to get out or survive it if you happen to be in the thick of it. For this reason, INT and DEX resistances are recommended to have. It also serves as an amazing mechanic since now you can just summon your skeletons directly into the chillfog and have them blow up into a nuclear chillfog, which is pretty amazing to watch honestly if your computer can handle it. In a party, have some berserker caster or rogue put a controlled confusion on you for skelly chillfog bombs that would violate the Geneva Convention so hard. Having said that, a howler (berserker/chanter) can do this all by himself using Grave Calling normally. With the SA trick, you could also go double imp enchants for 2 imps for the price of one body. Keep killing your imps to generate more imps as long as you alternate hitting an enemy in between since hitting your own summons does not generate any focus for you. Using this trick, even a non-chanter can build up a ton of imps really quick that can fuel other types of mob builds, but chillfog is too good to give up for an imp. SUBCLASSES: Each chanter subclass has its perks in the build. Skald - Skeletons and wisps have really low defenses so hitting them will generate phrases really quickly, which then can be spent on discounted offensive invocations. Unfortunately it does not generate any phrases from chillfog or noxious blast. Troubadour - Not as bursty as skald's phrase generation, but a lot more consistent than beckoner for rapid phrase generation and helpful when retreating after enemies ripped apart your summons really fast. A skelly every 3 seconds from the skelly chant is also amazing for lazy summon fuel. Beckoner - The lowered HP of the summons helps for initial kills with SA. Even with the lowered duration of summons, a high INT build is still sufficient to be able to have summons constantly up and there is usually enough time to kill a few. It is however, tighter on resources on tough fights until level 19 where the skelly chant will free up some room to use phrases on non-summoning invocations and a bit difficult to use on lower INT builds. It also is the strongest nuclear chillfog subclass when using confuse affliction. Ascended - If you prefer autoattacking summons with just Grave Calling, Ascended works just as well, but this guide will be about Soul Blades since ascended builds perform similar to each other once hitting the ascended buff. RACES: Pale Elf - I chose pale elf to be more in line with the lore of being Rymgrand's BFF, but the real benefit of it is that the fire and freeze AR is extremely helpful when finding several summoned fire elementals chasing your character around or a sudden intellect affliction has the character in the middle of a chillfog deathzone. Wood Elf - Same stats as Pale Elf, but gives a free dexterity resistance. Human - Can be useful in a party since the accuracy boost and damage boost from being bloodied is easier to maintain and control, but you will have to forgo using the life leech aura. CULTURE & BACKGROUND: The White that Wends for perception since accuracy is the highest priority in the build. Matches with the whole RP thing too. You're free to choose whatever though. ATTRIBUTES: SKILLS: WEAPONS & MODALS: ABILITIES: +Good / ?Notable / -Bad EQUIPMENT: +Good / ?Conditional / -Bad

(Keep It Stupid Simple) KISS Inquisitor Class: Inquisitor ( Soulblade/Paladin ) Difficulty: PotD+ Version: 2.0 Solo: Untested PATCH 2.1 NOTE: The low INT trick that this build was built around has now been fixed and a higher INT is now always better for overall disintegration damage. So this build's concept is now deprecated unless you just want to play a low INT Soulblade Inquisitor using Soul Annihilation and other shred abilities. DESCRIPTION: A build around the Mule's Wit ring to dump INT to the lowest value in order to shorten the time needed for disintegrate to do its maximum damage and to raise other stats that would have gone into INT. Using the paladin's innate defenses and the raw damage skills of the cipher, the KISS Inquisitor is a decent melee that can be a functional tank while still maintaining a decent DPS presence against armored single targets. The higher the RES or hostile affliction reduction on a target, the nastier disintegrate gets thanks to how fixed damage DoTs work. The build's simplicity allows it to be easily AI scripted to perform its function well enough so you can do other things with the party. In a higher damage party, you can switch out from disintegration to just Soul Annihilation or even Amplified Wave although disintegration is great for tougher targets. With its resilient bonuses from the ring and the paladin's passives, it can continue doing its thing unhindered and can be further enhanced thru other items and drugs. While its damage output does not come close to a cipher/rogue who can also benefit from low INT (deep wounds), the paladin choice was to increase disintegrate damage via sworn enemy's blanket +20% damage boost for focus generation and disintegration while being a tanky melee that has lower maintenance. GAMEPLAY: Core Style - Use sworn enemy on target. Hit them. Disintegrate. Repeat. Use Soul Annihilation in early game until you can get Disintegration or you need to quickly dump focus for an execute or getting fast focus gain from attack speed buffs. Sworn Enemy/Fire Brand Style (AoE/DoT Mode)- Cast sworn enemy/fire brand on everything. Scroll and bomb things to take advantage of brand's damage boost on the targets. Amplified Wave might be useful in this way, but its small AoE is limited. Fire Brand can also be useful too to contribute chip damage though PotD armor can reduce it quite a bit without PEN bonuses. OTHER NOTES: Ascended? The build's low INT only gives you about ~7 seconds of ascended mode. If you are in a high level party with a priest with salvation of time, you could give the priest the brilliance inspiration, which then makes them to go into a loop of constantly casting salvation of time to extend everyone's buffs. In this way you can achieve ascended long enough to chaincast disintegrate. However, you will be stuck being mediocre for majority of the game until you reach that level. DISADVANTAGES: The build's core abilities aren't exactly exciting since it's supposed to be stupidly (har har har) simple that you could script the AI to do so you will probably want to spice it up with some other micro in the party or skills/weapons. SUBCLASSES: Bleak Walker - For damage oriented builds to get more focus from the corrode lash. The sicken debuff is also awesome for stripping off CON buffs from enemies. Goldpact Knights - You will be casting sworn enemy a lot, the added AR is great for huge fights. Kind Wayfarer's - Since you are abandoning Lay of Hands thanks to your dismal INT score, the healing from FoD can be a lifesaver for the lazy. Darcozzi Paladin - Low INT reduces the buff, but the fire shield damage is alright. Lay of Hands is wasted on the build though. Shieldbearer of St. Whatever - The lay of hands boon is dismal on low INT so this subclass is the worst even for a tank paladin. RACES: Human - The boost from being bloodied is great for the extra accuracy and damage for disintegrate. Since the paladin has decent defense stats, you can stay bloodied relatively well. ATTRIBUTES: MIG - Maxed. Make that disintegrate damage as high as you can. CON - Medium. Nice to have to keep your comfort level in bloodied state. DEX - Varies. Adjust accordingly if the character will be a dedicated damage dealer or a tank. Faster hits, more focus. PER - Maxed. Disintegrate will be your bread and butter so you will want it to land as much as possible especially since it is going against fortitude defense. INT - Dump. Completely wasted with mule's wit -8INT penalty. RES - Varied. Adjust accordingly if the character will be a dedicated damage dealer or a tank. Reduces hostile debuff timers on you. SKILLS: Since the build has abandoned lay of hands. You will want something that can heal you. Arcana - It does not get affected by your low INT and can be used for pinch aoe damage, healing, and stripping off buffs from enemies. The fire +1PEN passive may be viable if going arcana for meteor showers. Alchemy - Gives good mileage from even the lowest of potions. The extended self buffs from potions are always great. Athletics - Useful for events and if you are lazy in a party with a dedicated healer. Good to have if tanking with Cadhu Scath large shield. Explosives - Useful for AoE and stripping off enemy buffs. Has healing bomb, but it also can heal enemies. CULTURE & BACKGROUND: Avoid Old Vallia for the wasted INT, but anything else should be fine. Living Lands for the MIG or White that Wends for the extra PER is my recommendation. I find the idea of being a scientist or scholar amusing for a build with the lowest INT possible, but its skills are decent for the build. Colonist is the choice I would recommend. WEAPONS & MODALS: +Good / ?Notable / -Bad There are a few strong recommendations, but you are free to choose whatever happens to be the best focus generation weapon for your encounters. ABILITIES: +Good / ?Notable / -Bad EQUIPMENT: +Good / ?Conditional / -Bad