[PARTY SUPPORT/RP BUILD] Tempest Lifeshaper

[Ophiuchus]

The Tempest Lifeshaper

Here’s a build I’ve been floating around the forums lately: a Furyshaper/Lifegiver that fits the RP and aesthetic of a Witch Doctor or Shaman. The Tempest Lifeshaper is meant to be used in a party setting, and can deliver powerful DoTs and HoTs, and support via speed and defensive buffs and Afflictions. As you can guess, this build is held together by The Spine of Thicket Green’s +3 to Beast and Plant PLs, Lifegiver’s +2 PL to Rejuvenation, and Nature Godlike’s Wellspring of Life for an additional level.
 

Furyshaper was chosen for the totem aesthetic and bonus party speed via Shape Ward: Frenzy. Since Druid’s DoTs are mostly raw damage, and because this is a mid to backline character, this multi doesn’t benefit much from Berserker’s bonuses. The +10 accuracy versus spirits serves the RP.

Lifegiver can’t cast Druid summons, which isn’t a problem since totems takes up the slot anyways. We’ll also want to keep the Spine of Thicket Green’s bonuses up and will refrain from shifting to avoid the PL penalty - +3PL to Rejuvenation works just fine.
 

Mind that this isn’t one of those ultra-hardcore min-maxed to the marrow kind of builds.
 

[Nalpazca]: “Those circles, man…”

 

 

 

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Game version: 4.1
Difficulty: Veteran/PotD (upscaled)
Tested: Veteran/Upscaled (about halfway through PoTD atm)
Solo: That ain’t my bag, baby!
 

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Race: Nature Godlike
Class: Tempest (Furyshaper/Lifegiver)
Culture: Deadfire Archipelago or The Living Lands
Background: Whatever suits you. I’m fond of Clergy or Explorer.

 

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Stats:

(Note that I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t like to min-max so adjust these to your liking. This multiclass suffers from penalties to Deflection and Will so dropping Resolve too much might not be the best idea.)

Mig: 17 (+2 BB)
Con: 8 (+2 BB)
Dex: 11 (+1 Godlike, +2 BB)
Per: 13 (+2 BB)
Int: 17 (+1 Godlike, +2 BB)
Res: 8 (+2 BB)

 

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Skills:

Active: Again, whatever suits you. Arcana offers some extra abilities via scrolls while Stealth is useful for early combat buffing. I like investing three points into Athletics for old times’ sake.

Passive: Survival, Insight, and Intimidate fit the RP.

 

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Abilities:

Character Creation:

(Furyshaper) Frenzy:

Frenzy is the cornerstone of this build, providing Strong (+15% Damage and Healing, +10 Fortitude), Fit (+15% Health, +10 Fortitude), and a 25% bonus to Action Speed. Naturally, this will be your main trigger for Nature Godlike’s Wellspring of Life so you’ll want it on all the time – though remember it lowers Deflection by 10.

 

(Furyshaper) Shape Ward: Frenzy:

Shape Ward: Frenzy is why we decided to go for Furyshaper. While the +10% Action Speed bonus isn’t huge, it applies to a wide area and stacks with similar bonuses (including Frenzy), making it ideal for allied casters and archers/gunners. (I’m fond of stacking it with a Chanter using Sure-Handed Ila and Gersnic.)

Positioning the totem can be a bit tricky and often depends on terrain and your party composition. I usually try to summon it in the midline and away from my party’s direct path: just enough for it to cover the team while keeping it out of enemy AoE. I also try to summon it from Stealth to lower the recovery time.

 

Try to keep your totem from expiring (either through damage or time) because you will incur a universal -1 penalty to your PL. Enemies don’t target it often but it has weak defenses and will fall fast to splash damage. Note that your defensive and healing spells will affect it and summoning a new totem while the current is active will not trigger the penalty.

(Lifegiver) Sunbeam or Charm Beasts:

Sunbeam doesn’t fit the build as thematically well as others but it has a long range, offers Blind, and when used in conjunction with Spirit Frenzy (Staggered), is a nice way to apply two afflictions at once. Charm Beasts is situationally useful and pairs better with the core theme of this multiclass, though I find Hold Beasts’ Paralyze a bit better for the bonus chance to crit.

Note: Tanglefoot is a fair choice since it’s keyworded to Plant and can be negated through Form of the Delemgan. However, our Spirit Frenzy will still apply Staggered.

(Lifegiver) Nature’s Vigor (Free):

It’s free but Frenzy already covers our Wellspring of Life. Save this one to counter Con afflictions.

(Lifegiver) Spiritshift:
Pick what you’d like. Since we want The Spine of Thicket Green glued to our hands, we won’t go into animal form often.

 

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PL1:
 

Fast Runner:
Fast Runner is useful since some of your more powerful abilities (Nature’s Balm, Venombloom) are short range and you may need to re-position your totem during longer battles.
 

(Lifegiver) Touch of Rot or Charm Beasts or Nature’s Mark:
Touch of Rot scales well with PL but has problems reaching PEN on PoTD when multi-classed. Nature’s Mark is decent early on.

 

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PL2:

 

(Furyshaper) Thick Skinned:
The extra engagement is marginal since we’re hugging the back/midline but +1 AR versus physical damage ain’t bad.

(Furyshaper) Wilder Hunter:
A situational +25% damage versus Wilder, which will translate to our DoTs. We’re picking this one since our passives are limited – the weapon passives won’t do much for us since Spine of Thicket Green is a stat stick.
 

(Lifegiver) The Moon’s Light (Free), Insect Swarm, and Hold Beasts:
At PL2 we finally get access to our first HoT with The Moon’s Light; and our first Beast DoT with Insect Swarm (which prevents enemy Concentration!). Hold Beasts is situational but has a hefty 20 second base duration and a long range at 15m.
 

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PL3:

 

(Furyshaper) Bloodlust:
Bloodlust is a bit clunky as we rely on DoTs for damage but the effect will trigger enough against larger groups. More speed is always appreciated.

Bull’s Will:
A crucial defensive bonus since this multi has awful Will.

 

(Lifegiver) Nature’s Balm (Free) and Infestation of Maggots:
Garcon! More HoTs and DoTs, please!

 

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PL4:

 

(Furyshaper) Shape Ward: Fear (Free):
Our second and last ward as a multi-classed Furyshaper. This one pulses Terrify versus Will every three seconds, and works well as a defensive tool but the pulse range seems bugged (it’s roughly half of the circle). Between it and Shape Ward: Fury, I prefer the latter since there’s other sources of Terrify and Venombloom procs Frightened. Also, passive bonuses won’t apply to it and PL only increases its duration, so it doesn’t mesh too well in PotD.

 

(Furyshaper) Spirit Frenzy:
Spirit Frenzy is another one of our core abilities, so pick this up as soon as you get to level 10. The Staggered proc combines well with all of your offensive spells, notably Plague of Insects and Venombloom to lower the enemy’s outgoing and incoming healing. Like I mentioned above, it also pairs well with Sunbeam for backline harassment.

 

(Furyshaper) Unflinching:
For one humble ability point, we gain Resistance to Mig, Con, and Dex afflictions so long as our Tempest’s health remains at 75 percent and above – not too shabby considering it prevents our Frenzy Inspirations from being stripped by Staggered and Sickened.

 

(Lifegiver) Moonwell (Free) and Form of the Delemgan:

Moonwell is another solid HoT that provides some fair (+10) defense though I think The Moon’s Light scales better with PL since it’s a lower-level spell. Form of the Delemgan deserves a slot for its swath of bonuses (+25% Stride, +20 Defense while disengaging, immunity to Dex afflictions, +6 AR versus Burn, Pierce, and Shock): handy versus archers, gunners, spiders, Rathun, and the like; and it couples well with Wizard’s Binding Web.

 

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PL5:

Note: I don’t like the Empower mechanic much, so we’ll be dipping into more PL5 passives to help solidify the build.

 

(Furyshaper) Leap:
Leap is useful as an escape or repositioning tool but use it sparingly since it’s costly.

 

(Lifegiver) Cleansing Wind and Plague of Insects
Cleansing Wind is meh since it’s not tagged as a Rejuvenation spell, and therefore won’t be affected by Lifegiver’s bonus. Plague of Insects is our most powerful friendly-fire DoT: combining damage, Sickness, and Concentration disabling; its wide area and superb range (15m!) lets you cast it from safety.

 

Rapid Casting, Practiced Healer, Other Defensive Passives
They do what they say on the tin.

 

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PL6:

(Furyshaper) Tough:
We’re not going to be investing too much into Furyshaper’s abilities at this point so Tough can be reserved for this PL.

 

(Lifegiver) Garden of Life (Free), Venombloom, *Rot Skulls:
Admittedly, I haven’t used Garden of Life enough to vet it (the other HoTs do the job fine) but it seems alright so long as gibs are turned off. Venombloom is a powerful friendly-fire Plant DoT that also inflicts Weakness and Frightened (and Staggered!) – it has a short range and can be hard to see in the heat of battle so be wary.

 

*Sometimes I like to use One-Handed Style and Rot Skulls against trash mobs and for fun/RP. Note that this will reduce the strength of your ongoing Beast and Plant DoTs since the skulls replace SoTG.

 

(Lifegiver) Quick Summoning or Spell Resistance
Totems are slow to cast/recover, and you have low Deflection and Will.

 

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PL7:

(Furyshaper): Blood Thirst
Like Bloodlust, Blood Thirst will trigger sporadically but negating the recovery time on your next action has immense value.

 

(Lifegiver): Nature’s Bounty
This is a weird spell that’s a bit finicky to use but the +20% Action Speed is there for classes without those bonuses and the healing is decent.

 

(Lifegiver): Rusted Armor or Weather the Storm
Both are situational; note the Burn and Shock AR on Form of the Delemgan won’t stack with Weather the Storm.

 

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Gear:

 

The Furyshaper/Lifegiver is a character meant to support a party, and as such, as your gear choices will vary based on party composition.

 

Generally, I go with:

Weapon: The Spine of Thicket Green (duh) upgraded with Empowering Instinct and Purifying (it seems Poison/Disease threats are more common than Plant/Decay). The bonus accuracy and damage versus vessels applies to your DoTs!

 

Armor: Fleshmender’s (relatively) higher AR may deter ranged enemies from targeting you. Aloth’s Leather Armor has some nice upgrades. Changeling’s Mantle would fit it well thematically but I haven’t tried it yet.

 

Armor (Modded): Checoden’s Deadfire Tweaks mod makes Xoti’s vestments a proper enchantable armor suited for healing.

Head (if not going Godlike): Helm of the White Void adds +10 Accuracy to abilities attached to Afflictions. (I wonder how Spirit Frenzy would work with this?). The Helm of Grotto’s Deep is nice for its +2 INT.

 

Necklace: Charm of Bones for +2 Int and more accuracy versus Vessels.

 

Cloak: Cloak of Greater Deflection/Protection by your preference. Cloak of the Theocrat is alright if you can find one. The Magnificent Escape Cape is good in a pinch.

 

Hands: Gauntlets of Ogre Might (+2 Mig) or Woedica’s Strangling Grasp (+2 Mig, +2 Burn AR)

 

Rings: Rings of Minor Protection, Unshackling, and Overseeing depending on the situation.

 

Waist: Belt of the Upright Captain. One bad pull or push with wreck you fast.

 

Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka for +2 Dex and +10% Healing.

 

Pet: Nalvi

 

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Thanks for reading. Like I said, this build won’t let you solo Sissak on PoTD/upscaled while singing Aim Spirente in your shorts but it’s definitely fun.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Ophiuchus

[Jayd]

Thanks for this. I noticed you mentioned stealth is useful for lowering recovery time. I didn't know that was a thing and can't seem to find more info. Is recovery time reduced while in stealth?

[Boeroer]

Yes. Recovery time and reloading time is -85% in stealth (NOT invisibility). THat means that after an attack from stealth you usually can do the next one very quickly. Actions that don't break stealth can be done in very quick succession (e.g. some spells).

Edited February 5, 2019 by Boeroer

[Jayd]

Yes. Recovvery time and reloading time is -85% in stealth (NOT invisibility). THat means that after an attack from stealth you usually can do the next one very quickly. Actions that don't break stealth can be done in very quick succession (e.g. some spells).

This changes a lot. How can you tell which actions break stealth and which do? Is there a list? And do actions which break stealth not benefit (since their recovery won't actually be in stealth)?

Edited February 5, 2019 by Jayd

[Boeroer]

Everything that you initiate while stealthed will benefit. It doesn't matter that the recovery itself is not taking place while stealthed. The recovery time gets calculated while performing the action - while you are still stealthed.

 

All offensive actions that actually hit enemies do break stealth - even if they make no noise (e.g. Marked Prey). Most abilities that are quite (see description) and don't hit enemies won't break stealth. Most buffs can't be cast outside of combat - but if a party members starts combat and you are still stealthed you can cast a buff and profit from the stealth bonus.

 

Best is if you test it yourself.

[Ophiuchus]

 

Yes. Recovvery time and reloading time is -85% in stealth (NOT invisibility). THat means that after an attack from stealth you usually can do the next one very quickly. Actions that don't break stealth can be done in very quick succession (e.g. some spells).

This changes a lot. How can you tell which actions break stealth and which do? Is there a list? And do actions which break stealth not benefit (since their recovery won't actually be in stealth)?

 

Purely defensive abilities (such as Form of the Delemgan and Moonwell) won't break Stealth; offensive abilities (Plague of Insects, Sunbeam, a plain attack) will. In both cases, they'll receive the 85 percent recovery reduction.

 

Like Boeroer said, you can use this to quickly chain buffs.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Ophiuchus