Help Me Tune My War Caller

[VeritasWaits]

I'm kicking off my "truly final ultimate" run now that the final DLC is out, which means dusting off my Chanter Bladesinger main character from PoE 1. I'm excited about some of the multiclass options for realizing the character concepts even more effectively. I was inspired by the D&D Bladesinger class (an old favorite), and built an invocation focused chanter/swordmaster that worked out pretty well, but I always felt like I was fighting the class design the whole way.

 

So now I'm planning on a Fighter/Skald that takes advantage of cheaper offensive invocations to bust out frequent "spells". I'm going to be using the Unity console to "choose" some of Teheku's shock style inspirations (still paying a talent point for them), but otherwise it's Skald business as usual. Except that I plan on doing more than just "paralyze shout, swipe, swipe, swipe, paralyze shout" even though I know that's an effective approach with crits and all.

 

I'm less confident about the best Fighter subclass to use though.

 

At first I was all excited about Tactitian, because generating extra phrases would be great. But then it hit me that I believe the -1 Pen, -5 Acc would apply to pretty much all of my invocations since they will usually hit at least some targets that aren't being directly threatened in melee by a party member. Can anyone confirm if that's how it works? Assuming that IS how it works, how big of a price do you think that is to pay, and is it worth it? I guess this could be the "quantity over quality" approach, perhaps?

 

The second option is Devoted. It doesn't really do anything to help the Chanter side directly, but extra Pen and crit damage on weapon attacks is a good bonus given that I already know I'll be using Sabers most of the time anyway (Singing Saber, and there are several other great ones). It's not a terribly exciting choice, but it's solid.

 

The third option is Unbroken for a more tanky/defensive approach with a shield. I'd been thinking of the character as more of a mobile striker/dps that uses the best spell for the situation, but this could work too.

 

So, my main questions for discussion are:

1. What are your thoughts on the best fighter subclass option for this build?

2. Any Skald playstyle/build advice you can share? Hidden synergies, gear uses, etc I might want to consider?

3. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladened swallow?

Edited December 18, 2018 by VeritasWaits