Wael Mystic build help

[Darkpockets]

Hey, all. I'm gearing up for a Deadfire playthrough, and I'm really interested in playing a particular class combo from a roleplay perspective: a Mystic (Cipher/Priest) of Wael.

Now, from everything I've read this seems to be fairly non-optimal, but I'm okay with that. I do have a few questions, though, and would love input.

 

1. What's the state of Beguilers at the moment? A while back there was some talk of them being a bit broken, due to regenerating a lot more focus with Deception spells than it maybe seemed like they should. I saw something about that getting fixed, but I haven't been able to locate any specifics on how the subclass ended up. Is it still possible for Beguilers to basically ignore weapon attacks and generate all their focus with their Deceptions?

2. In general, do people think Beguiler/Priest or Ascendant/Priest is a more engaging/rewarding combo? The former certainly has more of that Waelite flavor, but Ascendant makes enough sense to be worth considering -- especially since Salvation of Time seems like it would make for some pretty badass ascensions in the endgame.

3. What are the crucial early-level spell picks for both classes? Especially for that first level choice, I'm unsure of what to go with that will be good for the whole game. Whisper of Treason, or Eyestrike? Holy Power, or Blessing? And for Ascendants in particular, are there any spells that are worth throwing out early in combat before ascending (like a Whisper of Treason on an enemy gunner), or should you always start by DPSing until focus is full?

4. What would the best Priest spells to round out this build be? I imagine mostly just the buffs; Cipher probably has debuffs and damage covered, right? Or does Priest have some spells in those categories that are good enough to still take? Divine Mark does seem solid...

5. Okay, last one. There's a good chance I'll just end up playing on Veteran, but would this Watcher be able to perform someone decently on PotD? I plan on using the story companions, I should note.

 

Thanks, all.

[Boeroer]

1. Beguilers are powerful. They still don't need weapon damage to generate a lot of focus as long as they can target several afflicted enemies with a deception spell.

2. Since you can prolong Ascension with Salvation of Time maybe Ascendant/Priest is the more "synergistic" combo. But I would prefer Beguiler/Priest of Wael for sure for thematic reasons. And Beguilers are plenty strong as I said. 

3.+4. As Beguiler I would take Whisper of Treason, Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors. Those are great for CC and generate lots of focus. Eyestrike would also work but it targets fortitude and that's often a challenge early in the game. 

The spiritual rod (+modal) does some great damage and generates lots of focus for the times you can't get focus from casting deception spells. I would take Blessing over Holy Power. I'd also agree that Cipher should do the debuffs part and priest the buffs, but for damage they both have awesome options. 

Never skip Devotions for the Faithful...

5. You can absolutely play this on PotD effectively.

 

 

[Darkpockets]

Thanks for weighing in with some tips, Boeroer! How would you say this looks for the first 10 levels of a Beguiler Mystic? Doesn't include all the free Wael spells, of course. If I'm missing any really rad picks at these levels, I'd love to know.

1 - Blessing & Whispers of Treason

2 - Eyestrike

3 - Iron Will (or Penetrating Visions?)

4 - Spiritual Weapon & Mind Blades

5 - Phantom Foes

6 - Prayer for the Body (not that sure about this one...)

7 - Divine Mark & Secret Horrors

8 - Dire Blessing

9 - Psychic Backlash (or Hammering Thoughts, for when I'm falling back on the Wael-Rod or a gun against a boss?)

10 - Devotions for the Faithful & Pain Block (or Mind Lance...?)

Edited February 27, 2020 by Darkpockets

[Boeroer]

If you grab Watershaper's Focus from Tekehu you can skip Spiritual Weapon I guess. Since it jumps it will most likely generate more focus per shot.

I would def. pick both of the Cipher's PEN passives (Hammering Thoughts and Penetrating Visions). Of course you only need Hammering Thoughts if you pick non-raw damage spells like Mind Blades and beams and so on.

I would favor Pain Block over Mind Lance.

Iron Will and Psychic Backlash wouldn't be my pick when it's about powergaming. Thematically they make sense of course.

Despondent Blows is actually pretty good, but I don't know if it's necessary with all the Beguiler's debuffs. Maybe not. 

Shining Beacon is strong. I would nearly always pick it as priest. 

I would not use Prayer for the Body. Iconic Projection is nice though in my opinion.

I would favour Blessing over Holy Meditation, but if I can I would pick both. Party-wide anti-fear spell can be invaluable at times.

I personally am not a big fan of mind blades. No particular reason really. It works with Hammering Thoughts. Maybe others can chime in since I didn't use it a lot and have not much experience. With high Power Level it might be cool.

Further spells/abilities I would consider up to PL 4: Puppet Master (can be great against INT resistant enemies), Lingering Echoes (works great with rising Power Level), Greater Focus, Silent Scream (or Mind Lance - both target Will which is nice for some of the later Cipher passives which alter will-based spells).

Note that you can cast Disintegrate on charmed/dominated enemies even without flipping them back. This can be a very strong combo. Whisper of Treason almost costs nothing for a Beguiler and following up with Disintegrate means having a "quasi-summon" which disposes itself.

When using Disintegrate: against bosses with high Resolve (which lowers Disintegrate's duration) it is helpful to cast Psychovampiric Shield first Which removes 10 Points of RES which means a lot longer duration of harmful effects on the enemy. So maybe you want to pick that as well. It's rather circumstancial though since you might not need the buff for yourself because you're mostly in the backkine but only want the RES debuff. If you have a Wizard with Miasma you don't need it. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Boeroer

[Noqn]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I personally am not a big fan of mind blades. No particular reason really. It works with Hammering Thoughts. Maybe others can chime in since I didn't use it a lot and have not much experience. With high Power Level it might be cool.

The bounce damage falloff gets real bad at high PL, but I'm not sure if dual-class Ciphers even get that many bounces? Mind Blades should benefit from 5 PL at lv 19-20, which is 2.5 extra bounces, rounded down to just 2 (at most 3 if you get Acute or Brilliant) extra bounces.

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Noqn

[Noqn]

15 hours ago, Darkpockets said:

1 - Blessing & Whispers of Treason

2 - Eyestrike

I'd like to hear others opinion on this, but I prefer Eyestrike at lv1 and Whispers at lv2 for the purpose of respeccing.
Eyestrike remains cheap and potent (and the Mystic's only Perception affliction besides Searing Seal), while Whispers is cheap but outclassed and potentially replaceable by Ringleader/Puppet Master.
I think it's preferable to have option of removing Whispers, especially since Ciphers have so many desirable lv1 Talents.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Noqn

[thelee]

20 hours ago, Darkpockets said:

2. In general, do people think Beguiler/Priest or Ascendant/Priest is a more engaging/rewarding combo? The former certainly has more of that Waelite flavor, but Ascendant makes enough sense to be worth considering -- especially since Salvation of Time seems like it would make for some pretty badass ascensions in the endgame.

it looks like you are leaning to beguiler now, but have you considered just rolling a separate priest? ascendant/priest can definitely be fun, but the Salvation of Time interaction comes real late in the game, and you run into serious action economy issues (you have to attack to generate focus, and while you're attacking you're not making use of priest spells, but while you're using priest spells you're not attacking and not generating focus). i did an ascendant/skaen and it was not bad (especially late game) but the action economy was real painful up until I started spamming disintegrates and other high-level powers left and right with salvation of time (but at that point why even be multiclass? just have another single class priest and you can get salvation of time earlier and you have fewer action economy issues). a beguiler is going to have less of that problem because you generate focus just from using powers on afflicted enemies (and you can set up those afflictions with priest spells as well), but it's still a concern. post-4.0 these days i would prefer actually psion to multiclass with a caster, if i'm expecting them to be more ranged/back of the line.

 

2 hours ago, Noqn said:

I'd like to hear others opinion on this, but I prefer Eyestrike at lv1 and Whispers at lv2 for the purpose of respeccing.

i think whispers is always going to be good; IME in my typical parties i have no shortage of ways to blind or perception debuff (even just from cinder bombs) so eyestrike quickly loses impact after the beginning of the game.

controversially, has anyone given much thought to tenuous grasp? it's absolutely aces against weakness: intellect targets, and confusing enemy barbarians, paladins, chanters, priests, and druids at significant range with fast cast speed for only 10 focus has surprised me in its utility. (also some enemy non-kith/xaurips are good consistent targets, too.)

 

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Despondent Blows is actually pretty good, but I don't know if it's necessary with all the Beguiler's debuffs. Maybe not. 

Shining Beacon is strong. I would nearly always pick it as priest. 

I would not use Prayer for the Body. Iconic Projection is nice though in my opinion.

I would favour Blessing over Holy Meditation, but if I can I would pick both. Party-wide anti-fear spell can be invaluable at times.

prayer for the body is extremely niche. I would only pick it up if you have nature godlike somewhere and you want an easy way to give them a huge duration +1 PL bonus (or if you are a dedicated healer and need a way to get rid of con afflictions).

blessing isn't bad, but for a level 1 pick I would pick something more long-lived like restore, suppress affliction, or like interdiction or something (which would also help beguiler). blessing suffers in that it gets rendered redundant pretty badly by the priest later on. while it's still useful to keep around (especially in fights where blind gets tossed around a lot), i think it's a good idea to keep open the option of re-speccing out of it later (which you can't do if you do it as a level 1 pick).

depending on difficulty, holy meditation is useful also just for the persistent concentration. it's not exactly a first-pick for me at level 2, but level 2 doesn't have a lot of flat-out great picks. you could just use this ability level to pick up passives and just lean on iconic projection from wael for the priest side (iconic is pretty good, especially if you're aggressive about repositioning to max out the heal and damage potential).

Edited February 27, 2020 by thelee

[Darkpockets]

2 hours ago, Noqn said:

I'd like to hear others opinion on this, but I prefer Eyestrike at lv1 and Whispers at lv2 for the purpose of respeccing.
Eyestrike remains cheap and potent (and the Mystic's only Perception affliction besides Searing Seal), while Whispers is cheap but outclassed and potentially replaceable by Ringleader/Puppet Master.
I think it's preferable to have option of removing Whispers, especially since Ciphers have so many desirable lv1 Talents.

I'll certainly consider it, especially as Eyestrike also has that nice Wael-y theme going for it. 

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I would def. pick both of the Cipher's PEN passives (Hammering Thoughts and Penetrating Visions). Of course you only need Hammering Thoughts if you pick non-raw damage spells like Mind Blades and beams and so on.

I personally am not a big fan of mind blades. No particular reason really. It works with Hammering Thoughts. Maybe others can chime in since I didn't use it a lot and have not much experience. With high Power Level it might be cool.

Hm. Now I'm a bit confused about which Cipher spells benefit from Hammering Thoughts, and which benefit from Penetrating Visions. Does the latter only apply to spells that deal Raw/Elemental damage, or does Hammering Thoughts just uniquely apply to Mind Blades because that spell targets Deflection? Seems like building around one or the other +PEN passive would definitely have an effect on my spell choices, but at the moment I'm not clear on which choices I ought to make.

What else would you suggest for a damage spell, Boeroer? It seems that Amplified Wave is incredibly good, but that's an endgame ability for a Mystic. For the lower levels, would you take Soul Shock over Mind Blades? Or one of the weird Antipathetic/Ectopsychic beams, perhaps?

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Further spells/abilities I would consider up to PL 4: Puppet Master (can be great against INT resistant enemies), Lingering Echoes (works great with rising Power Level), Greater Focus, Silent Scream (or Mind Lance - both target Will which is nice for some of the later Cipher passives which alter will-based spells).

Note that you can cast Disintegrate on charmed/dominated enemies even without flipping them back. This can be a very strong combo. Whisper of Treason almost costs nothing for a Beguiler and following up with Disintegrate means having a "quasi-summon" which disposes itself.

When using Disintegrate: against bosses with high Resolve (which lowers Disintegrate's duration) it is helpful to cast Psychovampiric Shield first Which removes 10 Points of RES which means a lot longer duration of harmful effects on the enemy. So maybe you want to pick that as well. It's rather circumstancial though since you might not need the buff for yourself because you're mostly in the backkine but only want the RES debuff. If you have a Wizard with Miasma you don't need it. 

Man, AL3 & AL4 have some really good spells! Tough choices, there.

Thanks for that Disintegration trick. Definitely appealing.

As for Psychovampiric Shield, I'm planning on running with Serafen as a Witch, and giving him those good buff/debuff combo moves: Psychvamp Shield, Body Attunement, Borrowed Instinct, etc.

[Darkpockets]

5 minutes ago, thelee said:

it looks like you are leaning to beguiler now, but have you considered just rolling a separate priest? ascendant/priest can definitely be fun, but the Salvation of Time interaction comes real late in the game, and you run into serious action economy issues (you have to attack to generate focus, and while you're attacking you're not making use of priest spells, but while you're using priest spells you're not attacking and not generating focus). i did an ascendant/skaen and it was not bad (especially late game) but the action economy was real painful up until I started spamming disintegrates and other high-level powers left and right with salvation of time (but at that point why even be multiclass? just have another single class priest and you can get salvation of time earlier and you have fewer action economy issues). a beguiler is going to have less of that problem because you generate focus just from using powers on afflicted enemies (and you can set up those afflictions with priest spells as well), but it's still a concern. post-4.0 these days i would prefer actually psion to multiclass with a caster, if i'm expecting them to be more ranged/back of the line.

I'd considered Psion, but I think I prefer the flavor of Beguiler, as well as having a bit more control over when and how I use my Cipher spells. Part of the appeal to me is that flexibility, and the Chanter-esque slow buildup of Psion seems like it loses that. Especially since the Priest abilities seem more like situational casts that I'll want to hang on to for the right moments, as opposed to the Cipher casts which I'll want to be tossing out consistently.

I hear you on the Ascendant feelings, yeah. I definitely think I'm leaning Beguiler.

As for rolling a separate priest... eh, it's possible. I might run with Vatnir, for instance. For the most part, though, I want to lean on the full story companions. One of the many non-ideal stipulations I'm bringing to this conversation.

13 minutes ago, thelee said:

i think whispers is always going to be good; IME in my typical parties i have no shortage of ways to blind or perception debuff (even just from cinder bombs) so eyestrike quickly loses impact after the beginning of the game.

controversially, has anyone given much thought to tenuous grasp? it's absolutely aces against weakness: intellect targets, and confusing enemy barbarians, paladins, chanters, priests, and druids at significant range with fast cast speed for only 10 focus has surprised me in its utility.

Gah, you're making this so hard! So many possibilities!  I do plan on running with Swashbuckler Eder and Persistent Distraction, which does mean a lot of Perception debuffs should be getting tosses around -- at least at my melee opponents, and by the early mid-game.

Tenuous Grasp... does look pretty decent, now that you mention it. Confused definitely seems less useful than Charmed, but throwing in Shaken is also a pretty good PL debuff, and... yeah, that combo of extremely good range and 20 sec duration is certainly appealing. 

I guess I could see taking either one as my early-game single-target CC.

29 minutes ago, thelee said:

blessing isn't bad, but for a level 1 pick I would pick something more long-lived like restore, suppress affliction, or like interdiction or something (which would also help beguiler). blessing suffers in that it gets rendered redundant pretty badly by the priest later on. while it's still useful to keep around (especially in fights where blind gets tossed around a lot), i think it's a good idea to keep open the option of re-speccing out of it later (which you can't do if you do it as a level 1 pick).

depending on difficulty, holy meditation is useful also just for the persistent concentration. it's not exactly a first-pick for me at level 2, but level 2 doesn't have a lot of flat-out great picks. you could just use this ability level to pick up passives and just lean on iconic projection from wael for the priest side (iconic is pretty good, especially if you're aggressive about repositioning to max out the heal and damage potential).

I like everything about Interdiction except for the crummy duration, really. Kind of ruins it for me. Restore I'll probably pass on just because I'm foisting healing duty on Tekehu, but the versatility of Suppress Affliction does seem nice.

I'll probably go with Holy Meditation at some point, yeah. The annoying thing about AL2 is that the passives aren't even that great for this character -- it's almost all just weapon styles, and this Beguiler Waelite doesn't seem to need much weapon damage at all. Though I guess I could always use one of those picks to reach back and nab Lingering Echoes/Penetrating Visions.

 

[thelee]

27 minutes ago, Darkpockets said:

As for rolling a separate priest... eh, it's possible. I might run with Vatnir, for instance. For the most part, though, I want to lean on the full story companions. One of the many non-ideal stipulations I'm bringing to this conversation.

xoti is a decent priest, if you haven't considered her. her AL1 blessed harvest is my personal pick for best level 1 ability in the game and her other unique spells ain't bad. but that's mostly just for consideration with ascendant.

 

27 minutes ago, Darkpockets said:

I'd considered Psion, but I think I prefer the flavor of Beguiler, as well as having a bit more control over when and how I use my Cipher spells. Part of the appeal to me is that flexibility, and the Chanter-esque slow buildup of Psion seems like it loses that. Especially since the Priest abilities seem more like situational casts that I'll want to hang on to for the right moments, as opposed to the Cipher casts which I'll want to be tossing out consistently.

don't mistake this for a hard-sell in favor of psion, just pointing out some things about psion that might not be obvious or might not be apparent without having played with one:

•  the focus regeneration for psion scales up with power level. every odd PL increases it by 1/second, so it starts off as a drip (1/s) and steadily becomes a flow and then a torrent (and with bonus PL can get huge). for multiclass, it tops out naturally at 4/s, for single-class 5/s (with prestige and one source of +1 PL it's easy to get to 6/s). it's never going to compete with an ideal (e.g. no underpen) optimized normal cipher, but it does pretty well especially considering the following bullet points.
• in my current run i have a psion/druid. in practice, i'm almost never short of focus, because casting druid spells is plenty of time--even at low levels--to accumulate a lot of focus.
  •  basically the only time i'm really short of focus is when i'm getting hit with DoTs or incidental attacks.
• even when you're using a cipher power, you are still regenerating focus. i know this sounds like an obvious insight to make, but it has the powerful ramification that a psion can spam focus powers in a way that normal ciphers can't (except for beguilers in mass debuff situations).
  •  their free level 1 telekinetic burst at 3PL or higher can be used virtually non-stop (this assumes a total of ~5s of action and recovery). coupled with club modal or other way to debuff will you can lock enemies out from doing anything important (great for hauane o whe)
  • at 3PL or higher and some will debuffing and good intellect (and/or resolve debuffing), you can perma-paralyze a non-dex resistant enemy with level 2 mental binding. by the time your paralyze duration has worn off you've basically accumulated enough to immediately cast it again. (i literally slowly chipped down a triple-red skull steelclad construct by doing this. they would get off an attack every once and a while if i grazed or missed, but for the most part they were just standing helplessly)
  • there are more examples, but those are some easy low-level ones. you can't really do these as any other cipher because at some point you have to stop to attack and regenerate focus again. (again beguiler does pretty OK here, particularly mass-debuff situations)
• psion is arguably more valuable on PotD+upscaling. underpenetrating the enemy? extremely high enemy defenses? no problem! you are still getting focus.
• had to escape with withdraw? protect with beetle shell? momentarily stunned or paralyzed? come back with tons of focus ready to spend.

Edited February 27, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Sorry - when speaking about Mind Blades I mixed up Hammering Thoughts and Penetrating Visions. The names are really shyte.

[Darkpockets]

I appreciate the tips and tricks RE: Psion! Definitely wouldn’t have known a lot of those angles. Much to consider.

On the subjects of both Psions and Beguilers (since neither focuses on weapon damage), do people have a particular “stat stick”-esque weapon they’d advise using?

Honestly, now I’m just wondering if I should go single-class Cipher after all. So many good spells.
 

11 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Sorry - when speaking about Mind Blades I mixed up Hammering Thoughts and Penetrating Visions. The names are really shyte.

Gotcha! Thanks.

[omgFIREBALLS]

1 minute ago, Darkpockets said:

On the subjects of both Psions and Beguilers (since neither focuses on weapon damage), do people have a particular “stat stick”-esque weapon they’d advise using?

A psion has become a core party member for me, in the form of an inquisitor (cipher/paladin). As she reaches higher levels, she has pretty much two jobs: Pain Block and Ancestor's Memory. If she has focus for anything else, it's not a hard fight to begin with. They're buffs, so her accuracy doesn't matter.

Therefore, she is indeed sporting stat sticks. I use Keeper of the Flame to provide an accuracy aura, and Shining Bulwark for an armor aura. There's also The Changeling's Mantle, for a random quasi-aura. If no one else is using Lethandria's Devotion, that would be my shield of choice (with Sheltering Light) over the Shining Bulwark.

[thelee]

35 minutes ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

A psion has become a core party member for me, in the form of an inquisitor (cipher/paladin). As she reaches higher levels, she has pretty much two jobs: Pain Block

oh boy , this just reminds me of a recent chaotic battle i had. it was in the hanging sepulchers, and for the first time in literally ever i was approaching the eastern poem tablet from the top, having climbed in via tree (normally i always go form the bottom, even if i came in via the tree). i was doing it this way because i thought i could dodge the wraith abduction. wrong! xoti got abducted to the bottom of the map anyway, only this time because I had gone in from the top, there were tons of upscaled mobs still in the way. after clearing the enemies around the poem, i ran my psion down the map, using summons and other party members to try and distract all the enemy mobs i was aggroing along the way, while xoti did everything she could to stay alive. by the time my hobbled psion made it down, she had accumulated enough focus to instantly pain block and then stun some of the enemies and save xoti's skin. would not have been possible with any other cipher, because the psion was accumulating all this focus just by walking down the map.

i know it sounds like i'm trying to really hype up the psion, which i'm not. but i do think that people undervalue the utility of a psion, possibly because the mechanics are so different from all the other ciphers and from poe1 and because it didn't arrive until patch 4.0.

[Boeroer]

Psion ist very nice in some situations (lonely bosses) and especially when you want to have a guy who doesn't care about accuracy - and with builds/parties that can make sure they get hit only seldomly...

but the combined focus generation from weapon + deception spells of Beguiler is a lot stronger for most of my parties. You can gain full focus from a Phantom Foes cast (from stealth or in the midst of battle) very often (lots of enemies usually) and still have the option of firing one rod blast or an arquebus (+ACC modal) shot should you need more focus.

Psion can not gain focus from weapon dmg. This makes it too inflexible for my taste. At the same time it's also more independent.

Psion feels very underwhelming in the early game. Its focus mechanic is good later on though due to it's decent PL scaling. Not that this is bad per se - but it might put off players who try it so it's good to know beforehand that it gets a lot better.

In this case I would certainly use Beguiler because of Wael.

SC ciphers have some great passives. Shared Nightmare's AoE increase works with every AoE (weapons included). And with Greater Focus and a Beguiler you can stay at full focus while debuffing/cc'ing with Phantom Foes, Mental Binding, Secret Horrors, Ringleader etc. So your AoE sizes will be enormously big and once you want to cast a non-deception spell with huge AoE (for example Amplified Wave) you will have full focus. 

You can alternate between deception-shred-deception-shred without ever needing a weapon attack. But as soon as you need focus from weapon you can get it. 

Also good that nearly all deceptions target Will and the Cipher's has some awesome passives around spells that target Will.

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Boeroer