Warcaller vs Battlemage

[Phryll]

Hello all! I'm planning on a full playthrough of all the DLCs and the base game, and I was wondering which of the following 2 combinations would be best? I'm planning on running upscaled PotD, using the new subclasses, as I've played through the base game subs a lot already. 

 

I'm considering Tactician, with either Bellower or Bloodmage. My question is, which would lend to a smoother game experience? i.e. capable of going through fights with lesser difficulty given a good amount of strategy. I want to feel like a chessmaster, where a good strategy leads to a strong / overwhelming win. 

 

In addition does the Bellower subclass PL bonus apply only to chants / Invocations? If so, I may swap to troubadour for consideration.

 

Thanks! 

[Takkik]

Playing Tactician/bloodmage with a party on PotD Upscaled and so far love it (i'm in the capital). The discipline on interrupt is not that great, but I'm procing Brilliant regulary (Took lot of blind/flank abilities in the group). My main never run out of resources. The advantage of wizard over chanter is that you have more spells with blind/interrupt.

[dejarik]

Takkik: How have you distributed the stats on the tactician/blood mage? The blood mage's self damage is affected by your might, but as a fighter you want to be doing damage. How are you playing the character - as a ranged debuffer/damage dealer? Melee?

 

A team focusing on blind/flank sounds cool. Are you using companions or mercenaries? If companions - who?

 

Nerd Commando (on youtube) have some interesting build including tactician and blood mage.

The "Oil magnate" is a Paladin/Blood Mage with 4 Might who justs spams Slicken (with some Lay on Hands sprinkled in)

The "Mossad psyblade" is a Tactician/Psion build which seems interesting. Plays as a DPS/CC build with staff/pike using a lot of interrupt abilities (to restore discipline) and phantom phoes to trigger Brilliant Tactician.

The "Trip Hop cleric" is a Tactician/Priest of Wael who's an interrupting tank with the general priest buff/debuff/healing abilities

[Domokun84]

FYI bellower PL is only for chanter skills and does not syneeguze with wizard. I tried to do a bloodmage bellower and no deal guess 3 PL was too powerful for some mage spells.

 

Also I agree the next best choice is tactician bloodmage. You proc brilliant a lot and cover for the main downside of a caster even more than bloodmage, which is lack of spells in long fights (the recharge rate is actually pretty damn fast, you could spam minolettas and dd spells like there's not tomorrow). Not to mention the discipline proc as there are some nice melee choices you can work with too (citzals spirit lance).

 

Bloodmage is actually the weaker of the two imo (since brilliant does kind of negate the whole sacrifice buff when it procs) but a nice way to get a 1 PL bump vs picking the other wizard subclass choices and getting locked out of certain schools.

 

Just...never get flanked

[Takkik]

I'm not doing any min/max. I prefer fun. Using the blessing that give you +2 to each attributs (love A more powerfull main char). I kept might & CON at 10(without the buff), RES at 3 and maxed PER, DEX & INT. (Playing elf for extra).

 

In the end, until now I'm mostly using spells in fact, more a disruptive build. Always buff with discipline strike (the other is useless since you can get the brilliant inspiration) and using chill fog early on for blind a max of targets. Depending of the situation I'm switching grimoire if I want to buff myself or do DPS. When I need it, i go personnal with the whispering great sword and AOE mule kick.

Brilliant tactician + blood sacrifice allow me to always spam spells, and when I need it I can just go melee without problem with the buffs (advantage of blood mage you can buff yourself and still cast offensive spells early on).

 

Since i'm in Neketaka I've done less fight while advancing and haven't a fixed party, but I'm using tekehu & Ydwin(or Seraphin). They have blind spells without friendly fire. Getting discipline from the interrupt is tricky but not impossible, I prefer to rely on Brilliant tactician. I like that I can use any spell when I need it. While the grimoire is on CD, I can blood sacrifice or use my sword.

I could use a summoner to manage better enemies, perhaps I will let palegina learn some summon (Herald) or when I get Fassina (loremaster). I'll see!

[dejarik]

Testing a Tactician/Blood Mage in the first cave now. With Blood Sacrifice and the Brilliant inspiration, I'm spamming Minoletta's Minor Missiles constantly. I haven't tested the Brilliant inspiration on casters before, it seems to have the same effect as Blood Sacrifice - restoring one spell.