Battlemage/ Spellblade for the first time player

[whatever369]

Hello all, 
I would like to start my first post by tipping hat to all you Watchers out there.

I` ve been reading various topics regarding Deadfire mechanics in preparation for my first playthrough and I noticed that most of builds were created in earlier iterations of the game.  
Plus, some ideas and skills looks good on paper but in game are broken or just dull.
For those reasons, I would like to ask you guys for your opinions about my build and overall experience with this game.

[Bear in mind that I`m going to use several mods i.e. Caelum`s Godlike Rebalance and Vanilla Wizard Rebalance]

My idea is: [veteran difficulty]
Nature Godlike Wizard [evoker] + Devoted [DW swords] or Assassin
STR: 16
CON: 7
DEX: 15
PER: 20
INT: 16
RES: 6

I`m not min/max fanatic and I don`t want to get stuck in a single approch to all fights. I would like this jolly green fellow to be able to withstand in melee [wizard buffs] but also outmaneuver enemies [fighters charge or rogue escape, smoke veil] and pack a nice spell punch from a distance. 

My questions are - is that doable? Which of these classes provides better versitality or just more fun? Is my statline applicable for this approach or some stats are over/under invested. Especially, isn`t 20 PER a little over the top, given that acc is also scaled by Power and Ability levels. 

Thanks in advance for anyone that took time to read this obnoxiously long post

Have a great day,
BR

[Enoch]

If being able to approach fights in varied ways is a high priority, those may not be the best subclass choices.  Evoker isn't a great pairing for a melee multiclass, as you lose all the lovely summoned weapons in Conjuration, which is really half the point of a Wizard multiclass.  (Also the two Phantoms, which are cool.)  Devoted has similar issues with the weapon summons.  Evoker-Assassin, in particular, is a specialized character-- a top-shelf nuker.  Cast an AoE damage spell from stealth (every affected target gets the PEN, ACC, and Crit-damage boost from Assassinate), then disappear again and repeat.  You could swap grimoires, buff up, and get into melee afterwards, but it'd be working against the subclasses' design to a certain extent.

So I'd suggest a base-class Wizard or Blood Mage.  And my preference would be for Spellblade over Battlemage.  A Battlemage really leans toward tankiness, while a Spellblade has more of that "just enough survivability" paired with mobility that it seems like you're interested in.  And using K's Minor Blights or C's Spirit Lance to apply Crippling/Blinding/Toxic Strike over an AoE really is great fun.  Personally, I'd pick a base class or Streetfighter over an Assassin, but I've never been keen on the Rogue's invisibility stuff-- my Rogues all tend to skip those and just take the attack abilities and passives.   

Consider also a single-classed Trickster.  That gets you the melee defense buffs, along with some nice debuffs and a high-level nuke.  If you're sold on double-swording it and not interested in weapon summoning, this is probably a better way to go than a multiclass.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Enoch

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Wizard/Melee relies heavily on buffs or summoned weapons and doesn't really profit from Evoker in the way a single class or other caster would. I'd go for single class or blood mage depending on if you want to empower or not, though I'm not familiar with the mod you mentioned and thay obviously changes the mechanics of Wizard.

If you really want Evoker, the Fighters disciplined strikes is good for concentration and both upgrades are good, but other than defense there really isn't much else besides Brilliant from tactician. Rogue itself doesn't have great things for Evoker, but Assassin brings a passive that will let you nuke from stealth while Trickster gives decent illusion buffs you can cast with guile, meaning more Evocation spells. However both tend to be more effective with Spirit Lance (best weapon in the game imo)and their abilities, and even if you don't want to use the summoned weapon the martial classes tend to work better with the great wizard buffs and abilities than they do as casting direct damage spells.

Of course if you're not playing on PotD you can get away with almost anything and fun matters more than net effectiveness. 

[Boeroer]

Tactician/Bloodmage with Whispers of the Endless Paths (using Mule Kick in order to apply AoE Disorient/Flanking) and later Spirit Lance (same trick) with the support of Chillfog (AoE Blind/Flanking) is pretty nice. 

Also Clear Out with Whispers otEP and Spirit Lance is pretty good. 

Tactical Barrage and Disciplined Strikes are both pretty nice - but since you can get +5 INT/smart via Infuse wVE already I'd probably go for Disciplined Strikes.

Unlessyou want to use Monastic Unarmed Training. In that case you want to stack every power level you can get for the fist scaling. Or if you want to use lots of spells that scale well with Power Level (like Missiles etc.).

Generally speaking with Tactical Barrage vs. Disciplined Strikes on a Battlemage you trade +5 INT and +1 PL (+5% multiplicative dmg, +duration, + PEN, +ACC with all offensive abilities) for +25% crit conversion. Usually I'd say Tactical Barrage wins this comparison, but since you can already get smart with another ability...

Also notable: Vigorous Defense stacks its buffs with Wizard spells like Mirrored Image, giving you +50 deflection and +20 to the other defenses. Vigorous Defense does NOT stack with Llengrath's Safeguard though. But with all other wizard buffs that raise deflection.

With Spellblade the nice thing is that AoE weapons like Minor Blights and Spirit Lance can apply all your afflictions and DoTs in an AoE. Arterial Strike, applied right at the start of the encounter on a bunch of enemies, can have a devastating effect for example. Same a Toxic Strike - especially if you buff up your INT.

Also Riposte can be pretty nice with Spirit Lance and all those self buffs. Llengrath's Safeguard stacks its defenses with Mirrored Image etc. Llengrath's Displaced Image works very well with a large shield and Adept Evasion in order to make reflex based spells no threat to your Spellblade. You can basically nuke yourself with reflex based spells like Fireballs  but won't get harmed a lot.