Chanter mechanic explanation

[Aerinqq]

Hi everyone,

could anyone explain to me the chanter mechanic? How many of those passive phrases (Ancient Memory, Dragon Threshed etc) can I use at the same time? When I click "edit chants" and get 4 different ones there, will they all active during the fight? If so, will they active at the same time/or one after another? Do they reset during a fight? I was browsing multiple forums but couldnt really find an exact explanation of this mechanic (and game doesnt rly tell you anything).

 

Thanks in advance

 

[bringingyouthefuture]

As far as I know you set the combination of chants or a single chant ahead of time and the game allows you to switch between the 4 sets of chants/chant, there is a cooldown period if you switch between sets similar to switching grimoires.

A chant has a period of time it takes to chant it, and while chanting I believe you get the bonus or cause the effect, and also there is a linger effect where as you start a new chant in the set (can be the same chant over and over again, or you can have different chants in a set as stated above) the linger effect keeps the bonus or effect going until it runs out.

I never play a Chanter but that is how I have always understood it, others can chime in

 

 

Edited June 15, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture

[Boeroer]

You sing a chant. A chant is composed of one or more phrases (the things you pick on the passive/right side of the ability tree at level up). 

A chant loops. That means it starts with the first phrase you set in your songbook. Every phrase takes 6 seconds and then it's the next one until the last phrase is sung and the chart starts again.

Phrases have a linger time of 3 seconds. That means that the effect of the phrase will keep working for 3 seconds although you stopped singing that phrase. Like an echo basically. 

Since the linger time is only half as long as the phrase time it's difficult to overlap two phrases so that their effects are always active without any gap.

Linger time is influenced by INT. In order to keep two parallel phrase effects active without a gap you would need 6 seconds linger time - or in other words an INT score of 30 (3sec linger base*(1+20*0.05)=6). 

Chants do get paused: several afflictions like stun, paralyze etc. cause a pause of chanting. 

Also using an invocation will cause a chanting pause. This pause is not affected by anything (neither stat nor armor etc.). 

Chanters can compose several chants in their songbook and during encounter switch between those chants. There's a pause when switching chants. 

A Chanter starts combat with a filled phrase counter. The max phrases you can accumulate is determined by the invocation with the highest cost you have(!). So it can make total sense to pick a very costly invocation even though you don't plan to use it. Example: Skalds pay +1 phrases for non-offensive invocations. If a Skald picks a non-offensive invocation which usually costs 6 phrases to cast - and 7 for the Skald - he will set his max phrase counter to 7. He will then be able to collect up to 7 phrase points during combat and start combat with 7 phrase points(!). Not many players realize this since it's unintuitive and obscure.

A Troubadour has the automatic effect that his linger is longer. He can easily have two parallel phrases going without any gap. With investment in INT even more. The downside is that his invocations are more costly (+1 phrases). His modal ability "Brisk Recitation" makes phrase time a lot shorter (3 sec instead of 6) and removes linger time completely. This means no parallel phrase effects whatsoever, but double the phrase point generation. It basically means you can switch the Troubadour from "passive phrase mode" into "active invocation mode" with that modal.

A Bellower gets a Power Level bonus for his invocations based on the number of phrases he holds, but his chant radius is halved.

A Skald works pretty much like a vanilla Chanter when it comes to chanting - but can get additional phrase points by doing melee crits.

A Beckoner's chants/phrases are like vanilla Chanter's (even the skeleton summoning one).

 

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

A Chanter starts combat with a filled phrase counter. The max phrases you can accumulate is determined by the invocation with the highest cost you have(!). So it can make total sense to pick a very costly invocation even though you don't plan to use it. Example: Skalds pay +1 phrases for non-offensive invocations. If a Skald picks a non-offensive invocation which usually costs 6 phrases to cast - and 7 for the Skald - he will set his max phrase counter to 7. He will then be able to collect up to 7 phrase points during combat and start combat with 7 phrase points(!). Not many players realize this since it's unintuitive and obscure.

That is, indeed, something I didn’t know about. 

[Aerinqq]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

You sing a chant. A chant is composed of one or more phrases (the things you pick on the passive/right side of the ability tree at level up). 

A chant loops. That means it starts with the first phrase you set in your songbook. Every phrase takes 6 seconds and then it's the next one until the last phrase is sung and the chart starts again.

Phrases have a linger time of 3 seconds. That means that the effect of the phrase will keep working for 3 seconds although you stopped singing that phrase. Like an echo basically. 

Since the linger time is only half as long as the phrase time it's difficult to overlap two phrases so that their effects are always active without any gap.

Linger time is influenced by INT. In order to keep two parallel phrase effects active without a gap you would need 6 seconds linger time - or in other words an INT score of 30 (3sec linger base*(1+20*0.05)=6). 

Chants do get paused: several afflictions like stun, paralyze etc. cause a pause of chanting. 

Also using an invocation will cause a chanting pause. This pause is not affected by anything (neither stat nor armor etc.). 

Chanters can compose several chants in their songbook and during encounter switch between those chants. There's a pause when switching chants. 

A Chanter starts combat with a filled phrase counter. The max phrases you can accumulate is determined by the invocation with the highest cost you have(!). So it can make total sense to pick a very costly invocation even though you don't plan to use it. Example: Skalds pay +1 phrases for non-offensive invocations. If a Skald picks a non-offensive invocation which usually costs 6 phrases to cast - and 7 for the Skald - he will set his max phrase counter to 7. He will then be able to collect up to 7 phrase points during combat and start combat with 7 phrase points(!). Not many players realize this since it's unintuitive and obscure.

A Troubadour has the automatic effect that his linger is longer. He can easily have two parallel phrases going without any gap. With investment in INT even more. The downside is that his invocations are more costly (+1 phrases). His modal ability "Brisk Recitation" makes phrase time a lot shorter (3 sec instead of 6) and removes linger time completely. This means no parallel phrase effects whatsoever, but double the phrase point generation. It basically means you can switch the Troubadour from "passive phrase mode" into "active invocation mode" with that modal.

A Bellower gets a Power Level bonus for his invocations based on the number of phrases he holds, but his chant radius is halved.

A Skald works pretty much like a vanilla Chanter when it comes to chanting - but can get additional phrase points by doing melee crits.

A Beckoner's chants/phrases are like vanilla Chanter's (even the skeleton summoning one).

 

Thx so much, very good explanation So if I understand it correctly, for a vanilla chanter its probably not a good idea to have more than 2 phrases in 1 chant since only 2 can be active at the same time and will overlap only partially anyway unless we have 30 INT. So I guess best choice is to prolly make like 2 different chants (one with offensive phrases and the other with defensive/healing phrases) and use them depending on the situation? If I can be more specific, in my party I have Pallegina as a Herald who basically serves as a tank, healing bot and summoner and also Theurge Tekehu following this build https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104571-companion-build-tāwhirimātea-the-god-of-storms/. 

So should I just use 1 chant with Pallegina with Ancient Memory + Soft Wins of Death and Dragon Threshed + some other offensive phrase with Tekehu so I get the best of both worlds?

[Boeroer]

It depends.

If you use offensive chants (I mean those who do attack rolls like Dragon Thrashed or The Long Night's Drink) it doesn't matter much if your phrases overlap without a gap. Because the duration of effects that those phrases produce are not based on linger. Most of those effects last 10 seconds (plus INT bonus). It doesn't matter much it there's some gap in between the phrases as long as the durations you apply to the enemies are long enough (and they usually are with 10 secs base).

Once you want "gapless" support with stuff like Ancient Memory or Mith Fyr you might either want 30 INT or pick a Troubadour (in order to have 100% uptime with two parallel supportive effects) or stick to one single phrase. 

Pallegina may be best with Ancient Memory only and Exalted Endurance as Aura for example. I don't remember: is she a Troubadour or vanilla chanter? Haven't used her for a long long while...

Edited June 15, 2019 by Boeroer

[Aerinqq]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It depends.

If you use offensive chants (I mean those who do attack rolls like Dragon Thrashed or The Long Night's Drink) it doesn't matter much if your phrases overlap without a gap. Because the duration of effects that those phrases produce are not based on linger. Most of those effects last 10 seconds (plus INT bonus). It doesn't matter much it there's some gap in between the phrases as long as the durations you apply to the enemies are long enough (and they usually are with 10 secs base).

Once you want "gapless" support with stuff like Ancient Memory or Mith Fyr you might either want 30 INT or pick a Troubadour (in order to have 100% uptime with two parallel supportive effects) or stick to one single phrase. 

Pallegina may be best with Ancient Memory only and Exalted Endurance as Aura for example. I don't remember: is she a Troubadour or vanilla chanter? Haven't used her for a long long while...

She is just standard chanter (without subclass). I modified her attributes a little bit so she is more suitable for her role. This thing is certainly more complicated than I originally thought xD So if I understand it correctly, it works like this (correct me please if I am wrong): At the beginning of the battle the first phrase gets activated and it will last 6 (or 10?) seconds. After this second phrase starts immediately. Since she has 18 int, there is gonna be time internal of around 4-5 second where both phrases will be active at the same time and after this period the first phrase will stop and only the second one will be active. If we have 2 phrases in the chant book, the first one will start after this again and whole process repeats itself. Is this correct?

So if I use more than 2 phrases, there is gonna be much bigger gap between the first and the last phrase, so its prolly not a good idea to use more than 2 (unless some very specific circumstances?).

If I use invocation (lets say I summon ogres), the chanting will stop for some period and then it will resume from the first phrase?

[Enoch]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Also using an invocation will cause a chanting pause. This pause is not affected by anything (neither stat nor armor etc.).

Something I've wondered but never tested:  is this exploitable?  Reading the combat log, it appears that the invocation doesn't pause so much as it stops when the invocation action starts, and starts over when the invocation is cast.  If you don't care about accruing phrases, is that a way to cycle Phrases faster than the typical 6-second period?  Can I rack up Many Lives Pass By skellies or cause more frequent attack rolls with Thick Grew Their Tongues, Long Night's Drink, etc.?

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Aerinqq said:

She is just standard chanter (without subclass). I modified her attributes a little bit so she is more suitable for her role. This thing is certainly more complicated than I originally thought xD So if I understand it correctly, it works like this (correct me please if I am wrong): At the beginning of the battle the first phrase gets activated and it will last 6 (or 10?) seconds.

The phrase will be sung for 6 seconds. If it's a support phrase that means its effects will be up for 6+lingertime seconds.

But if it is an offensive phrase it will try to hit enemies within those 6+x seconds. And once it hits it applies an effect to the enemy (e.g. Long Night's Drink applies a weaken affliction) which has a duration of 10 seconds base (I believe).

I you use an invocation your chant "pauses". It stops where it was and then it resumes there. 

@Enoch: Hm sorry, I didn't really understand what you were suggesting. 

[Aerinqq]

24 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

The phrase will be sung for 6 seconds. If it's a support phrase that means its effects will be up for 6+lingertime seconds.

But if it is an offensive phrase it will try to hit enemies within those 6+x seconds. And once it hits it applies an effect to the enemy (e.g. Long Night's Drink applies a weaken affliction) which has a duration of 10 seconds base (I believe).

I you use an invocation your chant "pauses". It stops where it was and then it resumes there. 

@Enoch: Hm sorry, I didn't really understand what you were suggesting. 

So all in all, what would you say its best to use for tank/healer/summoner Pallegina for "standard" battles? Maybe a mix of Soft Winds + Ancient Memory or only run Ancient Memory?

And what would you suggest to use for offensive orientated Tekehu that uses mainly water/shock damage and also provides minor healing? Maybe Dragon Threshed + something else?

 

thanks a lot man

[Boeroer]

I actually don't know if Ancient Memory stacks with itself nowadays. But if it does I would only use that single phrase with Exalted Endurance. Winds of Death is weak if you are not solo. 

If it doesn't then I'd maybe combine the dmg shield phrase with Ancient Memory.

Tekehu has foe-only Chillfog which targets fortitude. So I would maybe only use the Long Night's Drink with him. It's a strong phrase anyway - and if it overlaps you are more likely to keep most enemies weakened 100% of times. Or Mith Fyr since it's strong as well.

Dragon Thrashed is really bad without a mod.

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by Boeroer

[Aerinqq]

19 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I actually don't know if Ancient Memory stacks with itself nowadays. But if it does I would only use that single phrase with Exalted Endurance. Winds of Death is weak if you are not solo. 

If it doesn't then I'd maybe combine the dmg shield phrase with Ancient Memory.

Tekehu has foe-only Chillfog which targets fortitude. So I would maybe only use the Long Night's Drink with him. It's a strong phrase anyway - and if it overlaps you are more likely to keep most enemies weakened 100% of times. Or Mith Fyr since it's strong as well.

Dragon Thrashed is really bad without a mod.

 

Which damage shield phrase do you mean? "The silver knights shields..." or "Her courage thick as steel"?

[Boeroer]

Courage