[Class Build] One-eyed Jack: dual wield melee/ranged ghost heart/soulbade

[doggiep0op]

One-eyed Jack

 

 

 

With the catastrophe of the White March averted, the goodly ranger Jack looked forward to some peace and quiet in his secluded keep. Having battled cult assassins, killer constructs, and demi-liches, protecting his land from local bandits alongside his trusted wolf companion made for an easy and enjoyable living. That simple life came swiftly to an end when, of all things, a god exploded out of the ground in the middle of the keep, laying waste to everything in his path. Through Berath's intervention, the watcher survived and is commissioned to track down the rogue god.    

 

Sadly, the watcher's  loyal  companion could not be saved. Instead of returning to the wheel, though, the animal's spirit clung stubbornly to the In-between, determined to answer his master's call in times of need. After taking a lagufaeth dart in the eye, the watcher now favors the blade. Jack can still do some damage with the blunderbluss, and is pretty handy with the pistol. He does pull a bit to the left, but he makes up for it with his quick reload. Strangely, the watcher found that his return to life rewired the pathways of his brain, granting him access to powers he did not know existed.             

 

Seer (cipher/ranger)

Versatile striker melee and ranged build, dual-wielding melee and ranged weapons with crowd control capabilities

• Game Version - 1.2
• Difficulty - veteran, up-scaled critical path
• Race: Wooden Elf
• Class - (Ranger) Ghost Heart / (Cipher) soulblade     
• Companion - wolf 

Blessings: start level 4 (speeds things up a bit), 5000, double skills, fine weapons

 

Attributes

• Might - 12
• Constitution - 10
• Dexterity - 14 (deadfire)
• Perception - 16 
• Intellect - 14
• Resolve - 10 

Skills

• Athletics
• Arcana  
• Stealth
• Intimidate 

Abilities

• Whispers of Treason + Marked Prey  
• Wounding shot 
• Merciless companion
• Biting Whip  + vicious companion
• Gunner 
• Two weapon style  
• Psychovampiric shield + evasive roll
• Ectopsychic Echo  
• marked for the hunt
• Silent Scream + predator’s link
• Hobbling shot
• Take down

plan to take these

• Borrowed instincts + evasive shot
• Driving flight
• Tactical Meld or ringleader
• Amplified wave + Survival of the Fittest 
• Takedown combo
• Binding roots
• The Complete Self (CL19) + Superior Camouflage (HL19)
• Thorny roots

Equipement

• Pet: Abracham 
• Weapon 1: Scordeo's edge  + Scordeo's Trophy
  • early game whatever 1 handed you prefer with speed enchantment. Talking sword and griffin’s blade are great. I really like  stalker’s patience
  • You can get scrod’s trophy pretty early, but you can rush the thundercrack pistol at the Polo Kohara ruins after leaving Port Maje. I started with the level 4 blessing so was at level 7 I think. It was a challenge but doable. 
• Weapon 2: kitchen stove + thundercrack pistol for AOE options and quick focus fill
• Armor: casita samelia’s legacy
• Head: acina’s tricorn  
• Ring: Ring of the Marksman + cameleon’s ring or entonia signet ring
• Footprints: whatever, using boots of the stone
• Cloak: cape of Greater Deflection 
• Gloves: I like gate crashers
• Belt: undying burden
• Amulet: Strand of favor or baubles of the fin

 

1st build attempt...Definitely not optimized nor a power build so not for face tanking everything. I’m a fan of the melee ranger and wanted to dual melee and ranged. This seemed like a good choice without losing out on too many full attack powers. Summon pet works really well as shield, or you can drop behind a target and cast ecto. Against squishy backlines damage was great. I usually hang back to fire off a few, self buff or cc cipher spells, and then finish off melee/soul annihilation. You can also use scrolls for more AOE attacks so pretty versatile. 

 

Built for veteran and group play but probably can do POTD, although needs babysitting in lower levels. Not sure about solo. Meant to finish before posting but may not have time to so just wanted to share. Got to level 12 and has been pretty fun and haven't felt the need to re-roll. Back story makes sense too. Feel free to leave any feedback!

Edited July 24, 2018 by doggiep0op

[LonelyFatGuy]

Hey, did you ever fleshed it out more?

 

Love the idea I would want to try melee instead of ranged combo.

 

Would love to hear your idea on it

[Shai Hulud]

On 1/21/2023 at 7:58 AM, LonelyFatGuy said:

Hey, did you ever fleshed it out more?

 

Love the idea I would want to try melee instead of ranged combo.

 

Would love to hear your idea on it

I love soul blade but I don't think it works very well in a ranged build since soul annihilation requires a melee weapon and you'd have to switch weapons to use it... probably not the worth the increased cost of the best spells. 

I've run a ranger / soul blade melee, and it works pretty well. Based on sarcasticsarcophage's ultimate seer run

This is based on his build but that was an ultimate run so I tweaked it some. For instance I'd raise dex to the detriment of resolve and con unless you're using strand of favor shenanigans. This build is solo viable.

You can do ghost heart / soul blade if you prefer, but the boar is tanky enough you shouldn't get bonded grief that often. Also..I'm not sure if the ghost heart boar being immune to engagement means enemies can't engage the boar or the boar can't engage enemies (or both). If it is the latter two it would interfere with the boar's ability to tank.

Balanced Spread / Min-max spread (I prefer min-max since we have iron will and a pet deflection is not so important)

MIG 16 / 16
CON 12 / 10
DEX 11 / 19
PER 20 / 20
INT 10 / 10
RES 9 / 3
 

wood elf, boar, white that wends, hunter. You want mostly stealth and diplomacy at first (with a little mechanics as needed), then later can take some athletics and survival, you want to hit around 15 with these skills to pass most checks. 

L1 Valorous Echoes (decent pet buff and the other l1 cipher spells are pretty meh)
L2 Lingering Echoes (longer duration is welcome, this talent is even better if using Balance Polishing Mod)
L3 Iron Will (compensates for low RES and stacks with bull's will which we take later)
L4 Psychovampiric Shield / Resilient Companion (PVS amazing buff/debuff, RC to make boar tankier) 
L5 Draining Whip (+100% focus gain > +10% damage)
L6 Recall Agony (great for bosses)
L7 Hammering Thoughts / Evasive Roll (HT is amazing, Evasive Roll has execllent utility for moving around the battlefield plus quick, has no recovery)
L8 Weapon and Shield or your preferred weapon talent (one-handed is good in BPM but the deflection helps if dumping RES)
L9 Bear's Fortitude (our fort sucks)
L10 Pain Block / Concussive Shot  (PB for buffing pet or party members, CS mostly for the upgrade)
L11 Bull's Will (more will is awesome)
L12 Snake's Reflexes (not super necessary but not a lot of better picks)
L13 Borrowed Instinct / Uncanny Luck (BI is ridiculously good buff/debuff, keep it up always, extra crit chance is welcome)
L14 Echoing Shield (buff pet + break concentration of enemies)
L15 Tough (more HP for our lowish con)
L16 Improved Critical / Concussive Tranquilizer (we crit a lot so more damage is great, even better in BPM, CT amazing to remove enemy beneficial effects)
L17 Rapid Casting (extra speed good)
L18 The Empty Soul (+10 accuracy for the spells we care about)
L19 Echoing Horror / Survival of the Fittest (passively frightening is great, even more accuracy vs hurt enemies)
L20 Practiced Healer or Spell Resistance or another cipher spell (I like Phantom Foes and Secret Horros)

Can change the order a bit as you like. You might want Heal Companion at lower levels, or sub it for something else like Snake's Reflexes (particularly if you have Weapon and Shield then your reflexes are already awesome).

Gear you want

Helm - Horns of the Bleak Mother / Cap of the Laughingstock 
Neck - Precognition or Claim/Refusal
Armor - Devil of Caroc BP / Magnera's Chain or whatever you want, lot of decent choices
Rings - Entonia Signet Ring / Rings of Minor Protection / Ring of Prosperity's Fortune once you have money
Shoes - Boots of Stability / Boots of the Stone / Bounding Boots depending on situation
Cloak - Cloak of Greater Protection early, then Cape of the Falling Star
Hands - Killer's Gloves, Gauntlets of Ogre Might / Onepaha's Strength / Woedica's Stranging Grasp all good, gauntlets of greater deflection for some more defense
Belt - Undying Burden / Upright Captain's Belt depending on situation
Pet - Kaz when running around, Pes for combat

Weapons - whatever you want, there aren't any special interactions with the class I'm aware of. Lot of good sabres, can use sun and moon if you want since it generates focus really fast but personally I prefer more damaging weapons

Food and other per rest buffs - Hylea's Bounty and don't rest. Get +2 RES on Bleakrock Shrine (need 15 religion), +2 dex on random neketaka event, +2 everything from alchemic boons on outcast's respite, permanent +1 PER from cauldron, konstanten's boon, nature's resolve (+10 acc, +2 RES) on Tikawara is very important, dawnstar's blessing gives +50% healing (see my soul devourer thread for more on these)
 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Boeroer]

Immune to engagement:

It means that enemies cannot engage the (Ghost) Boar. The Boar can engage just fine once he gets an engagement slot (with the help of the right abilities - animal companions don't start with an engagement slot). 

[Shai Hulud]

18 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Immune to engagement:

It means that enemies cannot engage the (Ghost) Boar. The Boar can engage just fine once he gets an engagement slot (with the help of the right abilities - animal companions don't start with an engagement slot). 

Ah. In that case I think the ghostheart subclass is probably fine.

But...pets are very useful for positioning pre-combat, pulling enemies away while stealthed, etc., and you lose all that with ghost heart. I think I still prefer generic ranger / soul blade. The time and bond cost to summon the boar is probably not worth it IMO. The boar should not be dying that often if you keep up the buffs.

[Boeroer]

Yes, I agree. I think Ghost Heart is neat in special cases, but I generally prefer the normal animal companion. It "stacks" with summons, it cannot suffer injuries so you can revive it infinite times and it's a good bait/decoy right at the start of the battle that doesn't need any action time or resource. 

I'm just a bit mad still that Ancient's Wild Growth doesn't work with Animal Companions. That would have been so cool...

[Skwid]

On 1/29/2023 at 11:32 PM, Shai Hulud said:

Ah. In that case I think the ghostheart subclass is probably fine.

But...pets are very useful for positioning pre-combat, pulling enemies away while stealthed, etc., and you lose all that with ghost heart. I think I still prefer generic ranger / soul blade. The time and bond cost to summon the boar is probably not worth it IMO. The boar should not be dying that often if you keep up the buffs.

If you're going melee ranger anyways, is there a reason for generic over stalker?

[Shai Hulud]

19 hours ago, Skwid said:

If you're going melee ranger anyways, is there a reason for generic over stalker?

If you're confident you'll almost always be within 7m of the pet then no. But 7m isn't a large distance and even with a melee build you may sometimes want to use ranged weapons, or if you have a party you may sometimes have the pet near other characters while you're meleeing enemies somewhere else. 

Basically there is a bit less micromanagement and more flexibility with generic, but yeah stalker is better if you always stay close to the pet.

[doggiep0op]

On 1/21/2023 at 5:58 AM, LonelyFatGuy said:

Hey, did you ever fleshed it out more?

 

Love the idea I would want to try melee instead of ranged combo.

 

Would love to hear your idea on it

Started playing again after a long hiatus and browsing the forums again. I was half-way through the original post before I realized that… I wrote it 4 years ago haha. Finally upgraded my computer, amazing being able to play with max graphics! 
 

I never finished the original game but I think I’ll revisit it! I would minimize resolve and max per > intellect > Dex, keep con at 8 before blessings and rest in might. 

I really want to like stalker especially with the true stalker mod but it just takes too many points to make the pet worthwhile. I think the build still works, start with some ranged attacks to bump your cipher pool and throw some cipher cc. Then ranger roll to the back line, pop your pet behind bad guy and beam attack. 
 

this is also one of the few builds where melee weapon/gun dual could still work. Fire off at range and close in, few strikes and dump your focus with soul annil. 
 

Again not meant to be a power build but could use a lot of different weapons/playing styles in case things get boring

 

Edited March 13, 2023 by doggiep0op

[kronozord]

@Shai Hulud How do you manged to survive with such low Res, did you relied on stealth for everything?!

Im using your build in POTD with no dump stats and it gets taken down in 1 second, all the enemy AI focus on this guy even when i stack deflection and AR, idem animal companion.

Edited June 29, 2023 by kronozord