Martial wizard or druid

[SargentoPichita]

 

This is my first post, but i´ve been reading you and informing me with your wisdom since the first days of pillars 1 and 2.

Here are my concerns: I am looking for a fun build being a wizard or druid  and multiclassing with a "martial class" for dealing love with melee weapons. When i say "martial class", i mean fighter, ranger, rogue, even pally; barb and monk are not my style.

I am far from being an expert in poe combat and builds, but my first thought was:

A godlike(fire,nature or moon) Wizard(bloodmage)/Fighter(black jacket)

Stats without blessings:

STR: 16

CON: 10

DEX: 12/13 (Race+backgorund)

PER: 14

INT: 16 (race)

RES: 10 (thinking on dumping it, i play with party and i think i can rely on my companions)

As i said, i´d like a fun build, i play on veteran, with default party members for dialogs and story, except the tank, i always do a good sturdy mercenary veteran for that role hehe.

Regarding the druid i´m going to be honest, i don´t now how to develop it. I´m open to suggestions about the wizard, the druid, or even a priest. Do you think there could be good synergy with the specifications I am looking for?

Edited September 3, 2019 by SargentoPichita

[Enoch]

Others who have played more of these options can probably advise you better, but, for my part, a Citzal's Lance Spellblade is a lot of fun.  Can work with base classes for the most straighforward option, but Streetfighter-Bloodmage has the highest damage ceiling, for the price of some fragility and management trickiness.  Infuse w/ VE, Deleterious Alacrity, Citzal's Lance, and L's Safeguard, drop your HP to under 50% to trigger the safeguard, then add Mirrored Image or Arcane Veil and hope that nothing sneaks by your silly-boosted defenses.  (With base classes, just cast all the buffs above plus Spirit Shield at the outset and don't worry about keeping your health low-but-not-too-low.  Can probably skip the Safeguard for most fights, too.) 

Black Jacket is a somewhat unusual pairing for a melee-caster multiclass, in that many such builds make use of summoned weapons.  AFAIK, you can't switch out of a weapon after you've summoned it, so the benefit of Black Jacket might end up being under-utilized. 

[Ctstrphlls]

I ve tried a few,

Paladin + Wizard + ring of focused flame makes a really fun fiery martial caster. Grab all the fire and defensive spells, pretty tanky thanks to paladin so go in the middle of the enemies and cast your aoe spells, when you re out you still have FoD to finish the survivors.

Fighter + wizard is pretty straightforward, cast defensive spells + citzal lance and proceed to clear out the most monsters.

For druid I m playing a Barb/Fury which is amazing but since you don't like barbarians, I suggest Trickster/Shifter. I havent tried it but a mirrored werecat with deathblows should do wonders. Cast a few druid spells of your chosing, spiritshift and whack away. You ll be very tanky thanks to trickster spells and will do a lot of damage thanks to rogue passives.

 

[Boeroer]

There are several nice combos with Ciphers, Priests and Chanters. But I will concentrate on Wizard and Druid mostly:

Goldpact Knight + Bear Form = superhigh AR and thus very sturdy while stacking lashes with FoD + Wildstrike. Use Ring of Focused Flame and Scion of Flame.

Kind Wayfarer + Wizard + Sun and Moon + Magran's Favor + Fire PL pet (like Otto Starcat) + FoD. +5 PL for all your fire abilities including FoD. I suspect the White Flames healing scales with the increased PL as well...? Also works with Priest (of Magran) and Druid (if you stick to fire spells mostly).

Rogue/Druid + Firebrand + Ring of Focused Flame + Scion of Flame does great melee dmg due to +10 ACC and +1 PEN while the many additive dmg bonuses multiply with the lash of Firebrand. 

Devoted with the same setup has +3 PEN with Firebrand and +10 ACC as well of course.

Bleak Walker + Fury + Scion of Flame + Spirit of Decay + Heart of the Storm + Ring of Focused Flame = +3 PEN and +10 ACC with natural weapons. Eternal Devotion applies to spells as well.

Paladin/Wizard + Blightheart + Eternal Flame = +10% corrosive lash and 10% burning lash for all your spells. Not really melee but worth noting since it's a big dmg increase for a spellcaster. If you use The Beacon for +40% dmg and then do something like Torrent of Flame or Death Ring you can see impressive dmg numbers.

Tactician/Wizard + Dazzling Lights + Pull of Eora + Chillfog = Brilliant.

Tactician/Cipher + Phantom Foes = Brilliant

Clear Out with Spirit Lance alone is great. Same with Spirit Lance + Rogue's strikes.

Steel Garrote/Blood Mage with Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff drains health like a champ.

Whispers of the Endless Paths + Taste of the Hunt applies its DoT over the whole cone Area. It's strong. You need lots of INT though. With a Rogue you can stack several DoTs in an AoE then: Toxic Strike + Taste of the Hunt + Deep Wounds makes shirt work of most mobs. The low base dmg of the cone doesn't even matter.

My favorite is: Stalker/Wizard + Willbreaker + Wolf + Takedown Combo + Concelhaut's Draining Touch + Essential Phantom. The setup-casting is a bit lengthy (I tend to start combat with a tank and keep the rest of the party in stealth mode to buff up secretly) but then you suddenly have a high AR melee Geomancer with two buddies who lowers fortitude by 25 with Body Blows and Will (with enchantment) so that his Wolf can apply Takedown Combo easily and then the Phantom does its *booom* with its non-dissipating Draining Touch which targets Will and weakens (lowers Fortitude even more) - and does +100% damage. Note that Draining Touch has the highest base dmg of all weapons so the hit from the Phantom can reach high dmg numbers. All the while the Geomancer casts some other single target spell (Necrotic Lance or Killing Bolt for example) that targets fortitude (by now fortitude is down by 35 points) and times it with Takedown Combo for the sweet +100% dmg. Or he casts Combusting Wounds. This combo is sturdy (high AR and three bodies), does tremendous single target damage and has a lot of options. You can also fall back a bit and use Blightheart for the +10% lash on spells (great with Takedown Combo since lashes are multiplicative). It's micro-intense but very strong. I guess it would be even better in Turn Based (since then the micro part and timing isn't so messy). I would use Bloodmage but I find I don't need that many spells with a party - and I like Empowered spells + Takedown Combo too much... I can solo the Beast of Winter and Dracolich with this - with zero consumables, food or resting bonuses - although it's not meant to be a solo build. 

I mean that's my favorite besides all kinds of Warlocks, Sages, Tempests and Ascetics which are the most fun due to the most useful synergies. Too bad you don't like Barbs and Monks.

I never tried an Evoker/Priest who focuses on fire spells with Sun & Moon + Marux Amanth. It would be all about the somewhat stacked spell repeating effects and not about melee combat obviously, but still a melee weapon setup. I wonder if this would be fun or not...

Honorable mention: Vatnir as Rogue/Priest with his summoned Battle Axes, stacking DoTs like crazy with his strikes. I found him to be a very good melee damage dealer (while still keeping all the advantages of being a priest).

There's so much more but that's what just came to my mind while typing

 

[SargentoPichita]

LOL, thx guys, that´s a lot of info, you gave me good stuff man hahaha. I really like the barbas and monks, but want to try something else. I used the monk/wiz with the lance, and is really powerfull