Rangers in 5.0

[Raven Darkholme]

Bloodmage and Tactician are more op than Troubadour, Streetfighter and Trickster by far.

Just because they feel especially good in boss fights doesn't make them any less good in other fights.

(Especially Wall of Draining + Unbending combo is especially good in trash fights and no less good in boss fights)

[Boeroer]

Blood Mage is already OP if you only cast Corrosive Siphon + Blood Sacrifice nonstop and nothing else. Just put it into the AI as an endless loop and you're good. 

Tactician: I don't agree 100%. It's way easier to exploit its strengths the less party members you have. It's a supergood choice for solo or duo runs and becomes more tedious and fiddly once you add more guys.

Streetfighter is only OP because of Powder Burns. If that didn't cause Distracted (or all PER-afflictions wouldn't contain Flanked) that subclass would be reasonably well balanced. With blunderbusses it's just too easy to stay "flanked" all the time without actually suffering from it (meaning getting slapped in the face, ears and neck).

Troubadour is OP because you have to do nothing to make it better than any other chanter. Some other subclasses are OP because you can easily circumvent their cons - but Troubadour is just better right from the shelf. If you have no clue what you're doing in Deadfire: grab a Troubadour. Same with Trickster I would argue. 

Edited December 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

I mean keeping a party unflanked is not that big of a deal there are at least 3 items with flank immunity and very slight micromanagement will do the rest.

[Boeroer]

Yeah... but when does the average player get those items? 

Also in a whole party you rarely need Brilliant. If it comes easy (like with Ancestor's Memory): great! But if you have to taylor your whole party and equipment for it: not worth it in a lot of cases in my opinion. If you're going with a cipher, wizard and priest anyway and like immunity to flanked then it's great synergy of course.  

Really good solo though - even with the unavoidable malus to PEN and ACC. When using summons you can even prevent that.

[Raven Darkholme]

Squid's Grasp can just be bought tho and Kapanga Taga is not that hard to obtain. Gipon Prudensco is somewhat tedious to get but shouldn't be exactly hard with a party either.

You are right it does shine solo and many fights will be over before one will need brilliant, also there is little need for it with Ancestor's memory, but all that doesn't change how op the tactician and bloodmage are, it just pretty much says: meh most of the time I don't even need something this op, but it nowhere takes away from the strength of a class.

(Shouldn't soloperformance actually be the true measure of a class's strength by itself anyway? If you take other classes into equasion like the cipher or priest it says more about those classes than the class supported by it, and if we go by party play only nothing beats the opness of cipher and priest combo and you can make any class shine with it,

Ghost Heart (to get back on topic :P) will be much stronger with brilliant from cipher and other ranger subs will be much stronger because of brilliant + SOT + BDD)

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

(Shouldn't soloperformance actually be the true measure of a class's strength by itself anyway? If you take other classes into equasion like the cipher or priest it says more about those classes than the class supported by it, and if we go by party play only nothing beats the opness of cipher and priest combo and you can make any class shine with it,

absolutely not, because this is a party-based game, and classes by design fulfill different roles. if a given class can't solo very well, that says nothing about it's quality/strength because solo play is essentially a whole other type of game. you can certainly try to rank classes by their strength in their ability to solo, but it's not a general ranking. example 1: in poe1, i completed the ultimate with a high-resolve paladin. i would never ever rate that as a very strong party-based build, because its sole strength was simply the ability to grind out fights via high defenses and sustain; it would basically be useless in any reasonable party because everyone else would DPS the enemy down way before the paladin's tankiness would ever become needed. example 2: tactician/skaen is probably the second best ultimate build, but i would consider it a supremely parasitic build for party-based build, because so much of what makes the class powerful relies solely on the mechanics of solo play and related challenges, and they literally don't work at all in a party-based build (unless everyone else is a */skaen or /*rogue of some sort).

combos can certainly elevate the quality of a party-based class, but the more a class relies on that combo to be playable, the worse the class actually is (because maximum viability is a stated goal of the game design). If this were magic: the gathering with perpetual support and more aggressive balancing, wizards of the coast would step in and ban combos that are too good.

 

from a party-based perspective, i think how you assess a class's strength falls into these questions:

1. what is the class's nominal role(s)? (primary weight)
   1. how well does the class fulfill this/these role(s)?
   2. how necessary are these roles in a party?
2. how well does the class interact with the metagame of equipment and other such (secondary weight)?
3. for combos (and secondarily itemization), how reliant on these combos is a class? how viable are they without? (tertiary weight)
4. for all of the above, is it weighted towards specific levels? (for example, if a class is only good at a role and can metagame well for a specific role by like level 19, this might make the class pretty bad for the role because much of hte game is weighted towards earlier levels and multiclasses may not ever reach the necessary ability level; tertiary weight)

 

in my gamefaqs guide i tried to do #1 with some of the casters. e.g. from the perspective of healing, i'd go lifegiver->kind wayfarer->shieldbearer->other druid->other paladin->priest->troubadour->other chanter->(way way at the bottom)cipher. for resurrection, i'd go priest->troubadour->other chanter->paladin->druid. for party-buffing, i'd go priest->troubadour->shieldbearer->other paladin/chanter->druid. In other words, there's no catchall "best ranking" for classes because needs are different, and there's not even a "best ranking for defense" because there are different aspects to that that classes have varying strengths and weaknesses as part of balancing and diversity.

so if you're thinking purely of a 'what is the best support class?' it's not a good enough question. you can probably assign some weights to how much you care about the various aspects of being a support class, but you need to split out their roles. and it becomes more of a question 'for this party, i'm missing healing and don't care about revive capabilities. which class should i put in?' At the same time, the answer to some of these actually change on difficulty. For normal difficulty, for example, i would rate "party buffing" as a very weak and unnecessary part of a party, and consequently any class that relies on fulfilling this role and any slot in your party for this role becomes worse and rankings shift in favor of just brute-force damage. On the other hand, on PotD party buffing and enemy debuffing I find to be much more valuable; consequently such spots in a party become more valuable and classes that are good at buffing or debuffing also become comparatively better.


edit: for a combo like brilliant + duration extension, because it is so accessible to any class (all you need is a priest, not even a cipher) it's not actually worth considering as a factor in determining class strength anyway, unless the party role you are trying to fulfill is "i want to extend powerful buffs" at which point the ranking is sc priest->mc priest->(way way way down)non-evocation/transmuter wizard.

Edited December 6, 2019 by thelee

[Raven Darkholme]

Hm, it seems like we define "strength of a class" very differently in the first place.

For me the strength of a class doesn't need to come to play in every little trash mob fight, but it is important that a class does it's jobs in tougher fights (If one wins a fight "too quickly" for a tank to take damage, does it really matter if the tank could have been less tanky and the fight would have been over even more quickly?)

As to PoE 1 specifically while I never build a paladin like that solo, since paladin's main weakness to me personally was damage and not tankiness, in fact I buld a very similar paladin when I played with a party, even tho it was only a trio:
Very high resolve and general defensive stats, less damage (but not dumped), but in my specific party this paladin fulfilled an awesome role because my party members were Kana and GM, the cipher casting mind web on the paladin, which turned my entire party into defensive powerhouses, but chanter and cipher were build fully offensive and this was only possible thru mindweb being on the super tanky paladin.

(While intense micro can often solve this without such tactic some fights felt like an absolute breeze because of this setup, which are insnaely tedious without it.

[thelee]

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Hm, it seems like we define "strength of a class" very differently in the first place.

For me the strength of a class doesn't need to come to play in every little trash mob fight, but it is important that a class does it's jobs in tougher fights (If one wins a fight "too quickly" for a tank to take damage, does it really matter if the tank could have been less tanky and the fight would have been over even more quickly?)

yeah, i would go on the flip side and say that if something is only useful for e.g. the four megabosses, then that doesn't make it a strength.

my easiest example would be chanter. if it was just up to how influential a chanter can be for the hardest fights, i would put troubadour at the top, easy-peasy, and just spam animated weapons all day long while having one of the several sustain-or-sustain-assist chants on all the time. however, that doesn't strike me as very meaningful, because even on PotD most fights simply don't last long enough where such perpeptual sustain and weapon uptime is really that strong of a factor versus the many other factors that might be useful... at which point having to break out by roles and interactions with itemization becomes important.

edit - personally, again, it's some "intuitive" system of weighting. i don't completely ignore megaboss fights because i hate switching out party members, but i also don't overoptimize just for the 1% of extremely hard fights. because of this, chanters do get more representation in my parties than i would normally do without megabosses, as do certain items and setups (Marux Amanth has been a staple in most of my runs because of how effective it is at instakilling megabosses when dual-wielded; even these days when I'm not constantlly rolling a priest variant as a main I'm heavily incentivized to bring along a priest anyway just because of weyc's + salvation of time combo because of the few megaboss fights)

edit 2 - i guess the problem with my interpretation is that there really is no way to consider classes "in a vacuum" to reason about their strengths. They basically rely on metagame knowledge. Going back to Marux Amanth as example, that item alone upgrades rogue, priest, and paladin because of its existence, but at the same time that upgrade becomes weaker if you flip on a rest-limiting challenge (Eothas and to lesser extents Rymrgand, Woedica). And Marux Amanth is valuable solely because of tanky HP-sponge enemies. If this were PoE1, for example, an item like marux amanth wouldn't be nearly as useful.

Edited December 6, 2019 by thelee

[Raven Darkholme]

I mean there is other fights besides megabosses where these types of characters shine, but I think it's safe to say that quite a few people have different opinions on what makes a character strong.

(And I honestly don't think there is a wrong or right opinion here, opinions usually form from personal preferences and experiences)

I have played with parties to little for my opinion to carry too much weight for others than myself (I never used a companion in Deadfire, ever. And in poe 1 I only had two full playthroughs with a party one of them a trio another a six chanter meme party) but from my limited experience I can say that especially in Poe there is always a way to not only include one solo type character but make it the centerpiece of the party without it it wouldn't work.

From my experience with other games like Baldur's Gate, kingmaker, Tyranny and quite a few others I can say that the type of synergies you can make in poe don't exist in those games and if you try to play solo characters in a party they end up doing their own thing while everything else minds their own business as well.

I feel like PoE is unique in regards of synergies between different classes so while my own record of finished playthrus with parties have been meager I have played most of the classes extensively and enjoy theorycrafting parties every now and then.

 

A probably unpopular opinion I have: it would be much easier to make a party that shines at trashmobfights and can't beat megabosses, then to make a party optimized for megabosses which somehow finds a way to struggle with the rest of the game.

And I think in this little detail our opinions differ: for me it doesn't matter if I don't get to use my full arsenal in every fight, as long as I don't struggle and am just somehow "unoptimized" it's ok, as long as the optimization for the difficult fights is there.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Raven Darkholme

[Boeroer]

Something that also plays a role (when it comes to perceived strength) is how fun a character is to play. And it's no fun to watch your party whittle down an enemy very slowly - even if your dudes are sturdy as hell and can't really lose.

Once you've determined that your party can reliably win a fight the qualifier for "stronger" shifts from "who can win this?" to: "who can win this faster"?

Edited December 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

Maybe I play too much solo and just have a different perception of slow or fast combat, but with my trio party and the chanter fights never felt too slow, I think both in Poe 1 and 2 just adding a barbarian will probably make most fights insanely fast, no matter what the comp looks like.

But youa re right fun is most important if playing with a party for example I personally need a "theme" or it would bore me to death.

[Zera Strife]

On 11/29/2019 at 5:45 AM, Boeroer said:

 

One of the most fun solo chars I had so far was a melee Geomancer (Wizard/Stalker), combining very high AR with three bodies (bear, me and my Essential Phantom) with great damage, debuffing and top accuracy. That build relied heavily on the AC. Also fun was a ranged Scout I posted in the build thread who uses Watershaper's Focus. It's still fun and viable but doesn't use the AC a lot. So both can be nice and viable.

Boeroer,

Would you mind sharing the Geomancer build please?!?!?!?!?!?

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Zera Strife said:

Boeroer,

Would you mind sharing the Geomancer build please?!?!?!?!?!?

Maybe I still have it as a savegame. Will look it up once I'm at the PC, stay tuned.

[Zera Strife]

24 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Maybe I still have it as a savegame. Will look it up once I'm at the PC, stay tuned.

Dude, thank you!!!!

[Boeroer]

So, I still had a savegame with him. Only of the testing session on Port Maje though - the savegame of the run I did I seem to have deleted. But I guess the test dummy is good enough because I don't remember that I changed a lot of stuff (besides adapting to encounters during the run of course).

The gist of it is that you use Willbreaker and turn your Animal Companion (AC) and an Essential Phantom into your main damage dealers - while you drop down the defenses of the enemy - and then also deal damage.

The Essential Phantom inherits your items. If you are currently equipped with Concelhaut's Draining Touch (CDT) then the Phantom will have it as well - and it will not lose it on hit. Instead it will keep it until the Phantom is killed or expires.
CDT targets Will instead of Deflection and also has high base damage - so on crits it does substancial damage even with the non-optimized phantom. It also drains health which lets the phantom last a lot longer. It weakens on hit - that lowers enemies' fortitude and health. All in all a formidable weapon. 

So what we want to do is to throw enemies' will defense on the ground - so that the phantom (or us when while are using CDT) will crit nearly every time. Dazzling Lights + Miasma + Willbreaker will drop enemies will defense really fast and reliably (-50 and beyond if you also use terrifiy effects).
Your phantom will crit the heck out of such will-debuffed enemies. Club would be even better, but here's the other part of the build that calls for a Morning Star:

The Animal Companion, besides his normal attacks + passives, has Takedown Combo (TDC) which makes the next attack on target get +100% dmg. This can be used with the phantom for a really hefty CDT smash or for your spells (like Necrotic Lance or Killing Bolt). Unfortunately TDC targets fortitude. That's why we will use a Morning Star + modal to lower enemies fortitude by 25 via Body Blows. This makes it way easier for the AC to land its TDC. The Phantom with CDT also helps (-10 fortitude). Besides TDC also a lot of spells profit from the lowered fortitude. So the Willbreaker is the ideal weapon for this combo since it lowers fortitude AND will. 

It's important that we really hit the enemy with our initial debuffs before the phantom and AC can go to work, Hence we need lots of ACC.

At the same time we are also tanking a bit for our compagneros who are not supersturdy - so we want to have very high AR. Stalker, spells, armor and items help. 

If you want to also attack with the CDT once your enemies are set up correctly and you seek to clean up more quickly you can use the "keep CDT for the whole encounter" trick: only cast it from a grimoire (don't learn it). Once it's there, before hitting anything with it, change the grimoire to one that doesn't have CDT: voilá - it will not disappear after a successful hit and you can use it like a regular weapon - very effective in combo with club + modal in a dual wield setup to drop enemies will even further and without the need to recast Miasma etc. all the time. I'd only do that when enemies' fortitude is low anyways and the enemies are not supertough. In boss encounters the Morning Star is always better in my opinion because several impactful spells need to overcome fortitude (e.g. Combusting Wounds vs. Lich Dragon which really helps to bring it down a lot faster).  

Besides that you also want to interrupt the enemy once its about to do something that would really mess you your strategy. That's why Concussive Shot/Transquilizer is so good. That's also why I don't keep hitting the target mindlessly with my morning star but ionstead watch what it does, let the AC/Phantom do the hitting and stay ready to interrupt or debuff the enemy. Nothing's more frustrating when you see the enemy starting a nasty ability but you can't interrupt because you are in the middle of a recovery phase. Since our recovery is rather long due to armor we want to fight smart, not hard. The dmagae dealing is done by our guys anyway.

----------------------

Race: Mountain Dwarf (not that important, Coastal Aumaua, Wild Orlan are also nice - resistances in general are good since neitehr Ranger nor Wizard have passives for that. Pale Elf is also good)

Background: Old Vailia - Hunter (background doesn't really matter but I want the +1 INT)

Classes: Stalker/Wizard (was pre Bloodmage - I would consider Bloodmage nowadays. The combo of Concelhaut's Corrosiphe Siphon and regeneration gear + Blood Sacrifice is hard to pass. Although an empowered spell + Takedown Combo can save the day, too)

MIG: 10
CON: 11
DEX: 17
PER: 18
INT: 19
RES: 03

Skills: Athletics 20, Survival 20 (you'll have to retrain for certain events, this was used during the fight with Neriscyrlas - I didn't need the Survival though. I guess a leftover from some skill check before)

Abilites (I fiddled around with the console with this test char, so maybe there's too few or to many abilities here, I didn't double check)

Ranger:

• Actives:
  • Wolf Companion: highest damage per hit. But I would consider Boar or Bear for better staying power due to endless regeneration/higher AR.
  • Marked Prey --> Mark of the Hunt: We want the bonus ACC mainly for the tough-to-hit bosses in order to debuff for our allies (Phantom & Animal Companion)
  • Wounding Shot --> Accurate Wounding Shot: same, also unlocks Predator's Sense as a bonus
  • Takedown --> Takedown Combo: works with spells and also for the Phantom's attacks
  • Hunter's Claw: wasn't present when I did this. I think I would take it now if I had enough metagaming knowledge - e.g. if I knew which enemies come next. You can really supercharge your ACC against bosses during some mob encouters before if you know whom to hit with it. 
  • Concussive Hot-->Tranquilizer: you really really want to use this gainst some bosses (e.g. to prevent Neriscyrlas from casting Llengrath's Safeguard)
• Passives:
  • Vicious Companion
  • Resilient Companion
  • Merciless Companion
  • Protective Companion --> Stalker's Link (more ACC)
  • Predator's Sense
  • Survival of the Fittest (more ACC)

Wizard:

• Actives (important ones in bold; besides Concelhaut's Draining Touch it doesn't matter if from Grimoire or learned. Make it so that you don't put too many points into leanred spells but also have a collection of these without too much Grimoire swapping):
  • Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights (lowers Will directly by 10 and dazes--> enemies' PEN -4 - which is important since our sturdyness comes from AR/underpenetration of enemies)
  • Spirit Shield (Concentration + AR is golden)
  • Miasma of Dull-Mindedness (massive -40 drop of Will defense which stacks with Dazzling Lights and -10 Deflection)
  • Mirrored Image (prevents crits should we get targeted)
  • Combusting Wounds (always good if you have multiple sources of attack rolls - like two allies)
  • Necrotic Lance (nice as early single target spell in combo with Takedown Combo - but only the initial dmg will get the +100%, not the DoT)
  • Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon (source of healing)
  • Infuse with Vital Essence (more INT = more duration)
  • Essential Phantom (our super punchy ally)
  • Llengrath's Displaced Image (see Mirrored Image)
  • Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (terrify targets Will and lowers Will at the same time and is very powerful alltogether)
  • Concelhaut's Draining Touch (do NOT learn this but use it from a Grimoire - see "the gist" description above)
  • Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (like Miasma but longer range and lasts longer - backup if you have no uses left for Miasma)
  • Llengrath's Safeguard (more AR when things go south)
  • Ryngrim's Enervating Terror (moar terrify!)
  • Iron Skin (everlasting +5 AR as long as you don't get hit - can have its uses)
  • Citzal's Martial Power (+20 ACC for the times you really can't hit something)
  • Substancial Phantom (should you run out of essential ones - this is actually worse in our case since it often starts to casts spells when we want it to smack things)
  • Ninaguath's Killing Bolt (great with Takedown Combo's +100% dmg boost)
• Passives:
  • Rapid Casting
  • Martial Caster
  • Quick Summoning
  • Accurate Empower (if not Bloodmage obviously)

Items (will change from encounter to encounter obviously - depends whom you are facing - but basically) :

• Head:
  • Death's Maw (great early game source damage reduction that stacks with underpenetration)
  • White Witch Mask (terrify when blooded is nice, the +1 PL for our Illusions/Will debuffs is as well)
• Back:
  • Shroud of the Phantasm (Animal Companion also gets its Living Illusions: hilarious. Also I had my Living Illusions cast Essential Phantoms: even more hilarious). 
  • Three Trolls Stiched (in combo with other regenration items can be nice for a Bloodmage)
  • Cloak of Greater Deflection (due to our low RES we can really use some more deflection)
• Neck:
  • Cog of Cooh (Communal Carnage is not that important but nice - but the constant Aware inspiration from my dudes killig things sells it)
  • Wahaki Tua (when you don't want to get terrified)
  • Strand of Favor (generally useful especially for a 3-RES char)
  • Precognition (the crit protection can be a live saver against arquebus gunners and such)
  • Dragon Pendant (agaisnt slashing enemies it's great: +1 slash AR that stacks)
• Armor:
  • Nomad's Brigandine (I didn't use anything esle once I got this. Tactical Withdraw: it's so useful for this char to cancel enemies' engagement entirely. With the Horde gives us +5 deflection all the time as AC and Phantom are always there, Head of the Column gives us another +5 deflection vs. melee weapons - stacks nicely with stuff like Mirrored Images)
• Hands:
  • Gatecrashers (the knock down occurs from time to time because we crit frequetly due to our very high ACC + flanking, Reeling Blow is nice)
  • Hylea's Talons (to keep up Predator's Sense most of the time)
  • Corroded Vambraces (reduce enemies' PEN by -1 on 50% of crits: nice)
  • The Left Hand of the Obscured (terrify chance on crit: nice)
  • Engwithan Bracers (when you really don't want to get Paralyzed etc.)
  • Bracers of Greater Deflection (see Cloak)
• Weapon:
  • The Willbreaker (Battered Mind, Unavoidable Demise - will drop Fortitude by 25 points via Body Blows which we will never turn off. Will also lower Will per hit)
  • Concelhaut's Draining Touch (pure destruction to targets with low Will and corrode AR)
• Rings:
  • Ring of Greater Regeneration (especially Blood Mage)
  • Ring of Regeneration
  • Ring of Minor Protection
• Waist:
  • Blunting Belt (most of times)
  • The Maker's Own Power (when you are facing mostly crushing enemies and expect to get pommeled real hard)
  • Undying Burden (best if your enemies are underpenetrating at -3 anyway - since its DR stacks with underpenetration - like Death's Maw)
  • Upright Captain's Belt (when you face pushing enemies you really want this - else they push you away from your AC and you'll lose 1 AR which we don't want)
• Boots:
  • Boots of Speed
  • Boots of the Stone (resistance)
• Pet: Abraham (I used nothing else although Animancy Cat might be nice as well for the Phantom in situations where it has trouble penetrating)

 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Boeroer

[Zera Strife]

Boeroer, THANK YOU!

[Crucis]

On 12/6/2019 at 4:41 PM, Boeroer said:

Something that also plays a role (when it comes to perceived strength) is how fun a character is to play. And it's no fun to watch your party whittle down an enemy very slowly - even if your dudes are sturdy as hell and can't really lose.

Once you've determined that your party can reliably win a fight the qualifier for "stronger" shifts from "who can win this?" to: "who can win this faster"?

Boeroer, I guess that it's a matter of perspective.  I've never associated nuking the enemy with having fun, so slowly whittling down the enemy has never bothered me nor reduced my enjoyment of the game.

[Boeroer]

Of course it is a matter of taste and/or perspective. I was speaking about what I think the average player feels. And my assumption is that winning faster feels more powerful to most players than winning more slowly (but more reliably) once you lose only occasionally.

This can get shifted a lot by certain circumstances - for example playing Trial of Iron.

 

[Manveru123]

On 12/6/2019 at 12:46 PM, Boeroer said:

Blood Mage is already OP if you only cast Corrosive Siphon + Blood Sacrifice nonstop and nothing else. Just put it into the AI as an endless loop and you're good. 

Tactician: I don't agree 100%. It's way easier to exploit its strengths the less party members you have. It's a supergood choice for solo or duo runs and becomes more tedious and fiddly once you add more guys.

Streetfighter is only OP because of Powder Burns. If that didn't cause Distracted (or all PER-afflictions wouldn't contain Flanked) that subclass would be reasonably well balanced. With blunderbusses it's just too easy to stay "flanked" all the time without actually suffering from it (meaning getting slapped in the face, ears and neck).

Troubadour is OP because you have to do nothing to make it better than any other chanter. Some other subclasses are OP because you can easily circumvent their cons - but Troubadour is just better right from the shelf. If you have no clue what you're doing in Deadfire: grab a Troubadour. Same with Trickster I would argue. 

Would you say Troubadour/BM is a good multiclass combo? I've been struggling trying to build a powerful Loremaster recently.

[Boeroer]

Hmmm - I don't see particularly great synergy effects with Loremasters in general...

Well - maybe Alacrity + Sure-Handed Ila + Mith Fyr + Kalakoth's Minor Blights is nice. It's easy to maintain both chants with a Troubadour.

Or using the Bloodmage for endless fast-buffing and the Troubadour's Brisk Recitation with Ancient Memory for dishing out invocations non-stop while healing the Blood Sacrifice?

No idea if that's cool - I didn't really play Loremasters much... But at least you'll have plenty of refillable resources.

[Manveru123]

35 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Hmmm - I don't see particularly great synergy effects with Loremasters in general...

Well - maybe Alacrity + Sure-Handed Ila + Mith Fyr + Kalakoth's Minor Blights is nice. It's easy to maintain both chants with a Troubadour.

Or using the Bloodmage for endless fast-buffing and the Troubadour's Brisk Recitation with Ancient Memory for dishing out invocations non-stop while healing the Blood Sacrifice?

No idea if that's cool - I didn't really play Loremasters much... But at least you'll have plenty of refillable resources.

They used to be extremely powerful with Set To Their Purpose giving Brilliant and I've been trying to replicate that somehow with Blood Magic, but I start thinking that it's simply not worth the effort. Thanks for the feedback though

[Boeroer]

Yeah, everything was powerful with the old "Set to their Purpose".

Strong healing + Blood Sacrifice is good though.

What I didn't check: do the -2-AR debuffs of Expose Vulnerability and Hel-Hyraf/Shield Cracks stack? I guess not... but if that would be a great combo for a Loremaster to cast I guess.

[elohinen]

Can anyone tell me if the ranger's lvl 8 passive ability Vengeful grief triggers off of the Stalker's separation anxiety? Cuz it gives bonded grief after all?

Given how important armor rating seems to be this time around, is the bear companion the only real choice?

Is Hunter's Claw as bad as it seems? Bond cost of 2 means one would need to spam it exclusively for a few encounters and have played the game previously to begin with (or be using a walkthrough at the very least, I suppose) in order to know what's coming next.. And the since the ability speaks of race, I guess one gets the bonus only against, well a single 'race', i.e. only dwarves? Not against all kith or against all wilder etc?

How low can you keep perception on a ranger? Let's say, PoTD but with a party?

Edited February 25, 2020 by elohinen

[thelee]

1 hour ago, elohinen said:

Given how important armor rating seems to be this time around, is the bear companion the only real choice?

nope. bear is definitely decent for survivability, but other pets are viable. resilient companion helps, so does just healing your pet. worst case, just spend 2 bond to revive your pet (with the ability).

 

1 hour ago, elohinen said:

Is Hunter's Claw as bad as it seems? Bond cost of 2 means one would need to spam it exclusively for a few encounters and have played the game previously to begin with (or be using a walkthrough at the very least, I suppose) in order to know what's coming next.. And the since the ability speaks of race, I guess one gets the bonus only against, well a single 'race', i.e. only dwarves? Not against all kith or against all wilder etc?

hunter's claw is amazing. it does require a wee bit of metagame knowledge, but you can sorta tell what enemies you're going to face as you enter an area. and "race" here means one of kith, wilder, vessel, spirit, beast, primordial. primordials are probably the one that's uncommon enough that it's not worth really stacking up with (except for megaboss, since hauani o whe is a primordial). but otherwise it's so good it's worth dual-wielding melee weapons [since when dual-wielded you double your potential hunter's claw stack speed] and just spamming only that, plus self-empower for extra uses, just for the first few fights after a rest to max out your bonus. (and technically, it's bugged, so if you save/reload you can stack infinitely). +20 accuracy is huge and applies to everything you do (including spells, if you're a multiclass). same with +20% damage (it also applies to spells). the +20 defense option is good for a tankier build since by being an "All defenses" bonus it stacks with deflection-only bonuses like mirror image, arcane veil,  or even a dagger modal. basically hunter's claw is so good that you would have to have a very good reason not to pick it up on any and all rangers. (note: do not combine a hunter's claw build with the woedica god's challenge as you'll have a very bad time)

 

1 hour ago, elohinen said:

How low can you keep perception on a ranger? Let's say, PoTD but with a party?

strictly speaking, given that you can get up to +50 accuracy (+10 marked prey, +10 stalker's link, +20 hunter's claw, +10 survival of the fittest vs <50% health targets), you could completely dump perception altogether and still crit enemies left and right. but personally i don't like dumping stats below 5 or 6, and it takes a while for the ranger to really ramp up all their accuracy bonuses, and on PotD enemies have high defenses, so as a general rule on PotD i really try to avoid pulling perception below 10 at all, doing so only if it's a character that is not really offensively minded (a buffer, a healer, or a tank).

Edited February 25, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Once again I have to point out that Hunter Claw also works with a ranged weapon (like Blunderbuss) in the offhand. With Driving Flight you can get a lot of stacks just by firing one blunderbuss shot. So you don't have to use a melee-only setup if you don't want to get too close to enemies. Hand mortars do even work with the AoE hits - although not all of them will count (it's kind of weird). You do need to put a melee weapon in one hand though.

Sun & Moon does give you 2 stacks per swing by the way. So it's a great Hunter's-Claw weapon as well (melee of course).

Edited February 25, 2020 by Boeroer