If you could use PL8/9 abilities while multiclassing

[Ctstrphlls]

Like I do using this mod : https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/175

What character would you do?

What do you think are the most fun/cool/OP combinations?

 

[Ophiuchus]

A Geomancer, probably Wizard/Arcane Archer or Ghost Heart with the Black Bow always seemed appealing.

[Boeroer]

It's a pity that the Blackbow is PL 8 and not 7. The SC Wizard is not cool enough with it. 

I would build a Ranger/Druid with Driving Flight, Avenging Storm + Twinned Shot who shoots dual hand mortars.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Empowered Strikes + Missle Salvo.

[Raven Darkholme]

I think purely damagewise prolly nothing beats whispers of the wind + backstab/sneak/deathblow combo.

[Kaylon]

5 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

I think purely damagewise prolly nothing beats whispers of the wind + backstab/sneak/deathblow combo.

You forgot deep wounds and assassinate bonuses. The only drawback is it doesn't work vs single targets.

But there's an even more powerful combo than that and works also vs single targets - priest/assassin. With Salvation of Time and Brilliant you get infinite unbreakable invisibility. Then proceed spamming Gambit...

[Raven Darkholme]

Shh, priests shall not be named.

[Jayd]

12 hours ago, Kaylon said:

You forgot deep wounds and assassinate bonuses. The only drawback is it doesn't work vs single targets.

But there's an even more powerful combo than that and works also vs single targets - priest/assassin. With Salvation of Time and Brilliant you get infinite unbreakable invisibility. Then proceed spamming Gambit...

 

I don't think SOT works with Vanishing Strikes because you're untargetable while invis, so the SOT aoe doesn't hit you. What I would try instead is Wizard/Assassin with Wall of Draining. I don't think the wall needs to target you.

[Kaylon]

44 minutes ago, Jayd said:

 

I don't think SOT works with Vanishing Strikes because you're untargetable while invis, so the SOT aoe doesn't hit you. What I would try instead is Wizard/Assassin with Wall of Draining. I don't think the wall needs to target you.

It works, trust me  The Wall of Draining works too, but is less reliable because it can be resisted.

[Raven Darkholme]

SoT is an Aoe, no need to target.

[Jayd]

I was specifically told on this forum before that it doesn't work. Guess I was misled. Or am being misled. Eh.

[Wotcha]

47 minutes ago, Jayd said:

I was specifically told on this forum before that it doesn't work. Guess I was misled. Or am being misled. Eh.

I just tested it to be sure of it myself.  The invisible rogue does NOT get hit by Salvation of Time when the spell is being cast by a different character.  You can tell by the rogue's targeting circle not changing to the four-pie-slices symbol indicating that he will be hit by the spell even when clearly in the spell area, and also by seeing the duration not increase when the spell goes off.

Where the confusion arises, which I have also just tested, is that an invisible target CAN hit THEMSELVES with Salvation of Time (or other buffs), and again you can verify this by noting that their targeting circle does change to the four-pie-slices and also that durations increase, when they are casting the spell themselves and including themselves in the target area.  Although, since invisibility powers other than Vanishing Strike or Arkemyr's Sudden Departure fall off on any action, you can't increase the duration of Shadowing Beyond, Smoke Veil, etc.

So in the hypothetical case of a priest/rogue able to cast T8/T9 abilities, yes, this would be basically a one-stop-shop for facerolling pretty much anything solo.  Get yourself Brilliant from Wit of Death's Herald, Vanishing Strike, and spam SoT and whatever massively boosted attacks struck your fancy, while everything melts around you.  Might be a little tricky solo if you aren't running the Berath challenge because you might awkwardly fall out of combat and suddenly lose the invisibility buff.  

Edited September 5, 2019 by Wotcha
Clarification

[Jayd]

I was wondering if it could be the wacky situation that it only works if you cast it yourself. This game never ceases to amaze.

[Raven Darkholme]

Let's be real it would be hard to find a class combo that wouldn't be op with multiclass and P8/9 abilities, using a priest should just be straight up forbidden.

If I played with that mod I would try and find a useful cipher combo that doesn't include priest, prolly wizard for those blights which are prolly by far the highest focus building ability ingame?

[Boeroer]

Which Blights? Kalakoth's Minor Blights? They have pretty low PEN (7 base). And the AoE is "only" 1.3 base which doesn't scale as good. Spirit Lance seems better (1 more PEN, 1.5 AoE base) - also if you include Draconic Fury. It only applies to the initial his but it's still a 2*15% lash. 

Or what did you mean?

[Raven Darkholme]

Yes Kalakoth's, the 1 pen easily gets countered by Ring of the Marksman.

The Aoe might not be the biggest but it does 100% damage as if hitting main target, so focus build is insanely fast.

The main problem with a mc Cipher/wizard is the lack of actual good ways to spend focus solo (tbf if you used Lance you could just go Soulblade, but that's boring), but with PL 8/9 maybe that would be different. (Never actually tested cipher pl 8/9 once since release lol)

[Boeroer]

Shared Nightmare is pretty cool with an Ascendant (or Beguiler). You'll increase your AoE by a lot (1% per 1 point of focus you hold) and your focus doesn't drop once you are ascended (or Beguiler gets focus back while casting). So you can cast a lot of cipher powers with immense AoE. 

I'm playing a SC Soulblade with WotEP atm (although I thought I wouldn't play Deadfire anymore and the size of the cone is pretty ridiculous with Greater Focus and Shared Nightmare. Would be even bigger as Ascendants (higher max focus than Soulblade).

I guess even with a base of only 1.3 Minor Blights' AoE would also be nice.

And of course all your wizard-AoEs...

[thelee]

no one mentioned beckoner/priest?

8x animated weapons + spark the souls of the righteous = mayhem. It would also be a nightmare to micro. though at that point, I'm not sure you even need to do anything other than block off the enemies with your weapons and let a bajillion overlapping sparks happen.

true you can do this with two single class characters, but it constantly frustrates me that spark the souls is just out of reach of a celebrant multiclass.

13 hours ago, Wotcha said:

Where the confusion arises, which I have also just tested, is that an invisible target CAN hit THEMSELVES with Salvation of Time (or other buffs), and again you can verify this by noting that their targeting circle does change to the four-pie-slices and also that durations increase, when they are casting the spell themselves and including themselves in the target area.  Although, since invisibility powers other than Vanishing Strike or Arkemyr's Sudden Departure fall off on any action, you can't increase the duration of Shadowing Beyond, Smoke Veil, etc.

this is a derangedly specific interaction. shouldn't normally come up though, since it would be impossible to cast salvation of time on your self and have vanishing strikes. i wonder if targeting yourself is treated the same in-game as a self-cast (e.g. like drinking a potion or casting Mirror Image) which bypasses untargetability? If you're including Arkemyr's (Brilliant) Departure, though, you should also include Shadow Form from those slippers. Only Vanishing Strike would really let you do anything useful with that extended invisibility though (ark and shadow form only let you buff without breaking invis, sorta like stealth).

[Jayd]

The interaction makes sense from a flavour perspective when I think about it. Let's reasonably assume foe-only abilities are so because the caster has conscious control over who they do and do not affect. They wouldn't know where an invisible ally is, so they wouldn't be able to focus their magic (or whatever) on him/her. But the invisible ally  knows exactly where they are and would be able to affect him/herself with the magic.

Honestly kudos to them if they did extra work because of this in-universe logic. It's nice and balanced too.

[Wotcha]

19 minutes ago, thelee said:

this is a derangedly specific interaction. shouldn't normally come up though, since it would be impossible to cast salvation of time on your self and have vanishing strikes. i wonder if targeting yourself is treated the same in-game as a self-cast (e.g. like drinking a potion or casting Mirror Image) which bypasses untargetability? If you're including Arkemyr's (Brilliant) Departure, though, you should also include Shadow Form from those slippers. Only Vanishing Strike would really let you do anything useful with that extended invisibility though (ark and shadow form only let you buff without breaking invis, sorta like stealth).

Hey, man, I didn't write the code, all I did was test it.

I was suspecting the same thing, that there's some specific rule for self-targeting while invisible, which probably needs to be there for strict self-buffs like Intuitive Strikes or similar, but the mechanism by which they implemented it also allows targeting by AoE buffs.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I want to test what happens for damaging AoEs like Fireball.  If my guess is correct, a fireball cast by an ally at an area including a friendly invisible target WON'T damage that target, but if the invisible target themselves were to cast that fireball, they WOULD hit themselves.  Which is a little bit amusing if that turns out to be how it works. 

[thelee]

14 minutes ago, Jayd said:

The interaction makes sense from a flavour perspective when I think about it. Let's reasonably assume foe-only abilities are so because the caster has conscious control over who they do and do not affect. They wouldn't know where an invisible ally is, so they wouldn't be able to focus their magic (or whatever) on him/her. But the invisible ally  knows exactly where they are and would be able to affect him/herself with the magic.

Honestly kudos to them if they did extra work because of this in-universe logic. It's nice and balanced too.

the problem with that logic is that the inverse doesn't work - foe/friend spells means the caster has no ability to control the targeting. and yet invisible people would be able to dodge that completely.

personally i wouldn't think about the in-universe logic to that too hard, mostly as artifacts of the gameplay mechanics. Invisibility (including the stealth variety) is just such a really bizarre and inconsistently implemented mechanic.

[Jayd]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

the problem with that logic is that the inverse doesn't work - foe/friend spells means the caster has no ability to control the targeting. and yet invisible people would be able to dodge that completely.

personally i wouldn't think about the in-universe logic to that too hard, mostly as artifacts of the gameplay mechanics. Invisibility (including the stealth variety) is just such a really bizarre and inconsistently implemented mechanic.

Fair policy, but if you'll indulge me a bit, the lore for Shadowing Beyond does say that the "invisibility" is a result of the Rogue travelling through the Beyond. If we assume that all "invisibility" effects are similar that could mean that the invisible character is interacting with the world through a kind of one-way window into another dimension. That could explain why they can't be hit at all, except by themselves when they want to be.

[Boeroer]

Uhh nice explanation.