Most fun build

[AeonsLegend]

So like most people here I have played a lot of different builds and some of them were more fun than others. I have a couple of setups that I keep going back to, such as Devoted/Shattered Pillar with Lord Darryn's Voulge or Berserker/Shattered Pillar with Lord Darryn's Voulge, just because of how easy it is to mess up your enemy without too much micro. I also tried my hand on a Citzal's build, but the amount of buffing you needed to do ultimately had me stop playing it as it got boring. I've been meaning to try my hand on monk/anything together with the Karabörü to see how many strikes I could get for free with it. Sounds insane on paper where every crit can trigger another hit, but can also trigger a double hit from Karabörü. Also tried some casters and some single target hitters with paladins for instance.

 

Classes which I liked the most: Cipher and Monk. I'm not going to say Fighter even though I fit it in for multi a lot.

 

Even with all the fun I have with monks, barbarians and casters the most fun build I've tried so far was:

Psyblade: Tactician/Ascendant

It's almost completely self sufficient. It has infinite uses of fighter abilities and also cipher abilities. Gets lots of extra power levels for damage boosts. My level 20 pc deals over 500 raw damage on Disintigrate and over 140 blunt AoE with Amplified Wave. It's still viable melee (as I like it) and deals lots of single target damage. Usually fill up focus with 2 uses of Penetrating Strike. Early game using Mind Blades is just hillariously OP especially if you get brilliant inspiration plus ascended status. Dealing 40 damage to enemies 6 times when you're struggling to get exceptional or even fine gear? Yes please.

I think using Monk will be "stronger" actually, but I wanted the Brilliant inspiration so I can go on forever without using empowers which is actually very easy to trigger with this build and since you can get it at very early levels it makes the build also very strong early game. Late game where you can use a secondary cipher to cast Ancestor's Memory on you makes the Tactician feel kind of meh, but it's still fun. I've been reading topics here on how Ciphers are very weak and such. But as far as I can see they are one of not the strongest class in the game, with the most amount of raw damage and AoE damage. CC for days, healing and granting brilliant inspirations all over the place. Plus if you kill anything you fear everything around you. Fun!

 

So what's your most fun build that you've tried?

[FleetFeet]

I agree with you that Ciphers can be very powerful (and fun). My first play-thru was as a Mindstalker Assassin and it was a blast.  I wouldn't use assassinate to land alpha damage strikes but instead to sneak in and land borrowed instinct with +35 acc(incl the passive bonus). Then I would smoke cloud back into stealth to land ring leader on 1/2 the enemy with a whopping +55 acc.  Even very high will targets would get dominated. My crew could just hang back while the enemy whittled themselves down, picking off the strays until the time was right to join the fray. I could use that strategy from beginning till the end of the campaign and it was always fun getting that set up to work. 

More recent play-thrus with the class expansions and it is hard to pass-up the infinite resource regen of Tacticians and Bloodmages. Monks are so much fun as well.  I can't pick a favorite but since you mentioned Monk and Brilliant, a fun build I often bring along for both damage and CC is a Brawler (Tactician/Helwalker) using the dual mortar set-up. Max Int along with DoMP(Int) gives a HUGE AOE for the mortars. Once enemies are clustered around my tank(s) and/or sucked up into a Pull of Eora, he will alternate between Stunning Blow(incapacitating and applying a tier 3 affliction across a huge AOE) and Penetrating Strike(stacks with Thunderous Blows for 15 pen with the Mortars) being very effective even against some of higher boss armors. Throw in avenging storm with the Heavens Cacophony helm and a wizards combusting wounds and mobs and bosses alike are obliterated - often without much of a chance to fight back. Stunning Blow lowers Fort working well a wizards Chill Fog and Staggered prevents enemies from engaging/flanking both working together to make it easy getting Brilliant fired up. Bonus, the Blinding Smoke upgrade to the Hand Mortar also applies disoriented/flanked (careful if you have another Tactician in the fray thou, unlike the mortar AOE that upgrade is friend or foe). 

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by FleetFeet
Typo

[Boeroer]

- Mortar Monk (Helwalker): boomboomboomboom!

- Rod Scout (Sharpshooter/Trickster): boooooom!

- Morning Star Witch (Beguiler/Furyshaper): "Booo!"

- Morning Star Howler (Konstanten): "Huhaha theheehehe!"

- Mortar Chanter or Druid (Tekehu): *zapzapzapzapfizzle*

- Arbalest Shepherd (Arcane Archer/Bleak Walker): "Please let me interrupt you there - while I shoot you in the eye."

- WotEP Transcendent (Shattered Pillar/Soulblade):

Error: wound and focus overflow

 

 

Edited March 13, 2020 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

This build sounds like a lot of fun, AeonsLegend. Did you play it in a party or solo? If in a party, how did you keep party members from being flanked? Also, what cipher powers did you find to be useful aside from those you mentioned, Mind Blades, Disintegration and Amplified Wave? Any tips regarding optimal gear would be appreciated too. Like you, I prefer melee ciphers, even though ranged might be more optimal.

[AeonsLegend]

On 3/13/2020 at 5:38 PM, dgray62 said:

This build sounds like a lot of fun, AeonsLegend. Did you play it in a party or solo? If in a party, how did you keep party members from being flanked? Also, what cipher powers did you find to be useful aside from those you mentioned, Mind Blades, Disintegration and Amplified Wave? Any tips regarding optimal gear would be appreciated too. Like you, I prefer melee ciphers, even though ranged might be more optimal.

Positioning is key. I played in a party with an extra cipher, meaning I could have good coverage of Phantom Foes to make sure everyone is flanked in the first round of combat. This usually already triggers Brilliant Tactician because enemies aren't in range yet then buff up with Fighter actives such as Disciplined Strikes and Vigorous Defense and then go to town with Penetrating Strike. Early game you can use Warrior Stance, but later in the game it's better to go with Cleaving Stance, al lot if not all of the discipline will regenerate.

 

With regards to useful Cipher spells I think Eyestrike is very strong, even though I did not select it here for some reason XD. Early game Whispers of Treason is the strongest you can have though, but you can switch that out later for something else. Then Mental Binding for some good instant CC. Note that Paralyzed opponents not only are prevented from doing anything they also have increased crit chance when hitting them! Secret Horrors is always good. Never pass this up. Pain Block is a must. As an ascendant you can put Robust on your entire party in a few seconds. Borrowed Instinct for extra accuracy and defenses. And finally Ancestor's Memory to be able to make everyone in the party Brilliant as well. This way you have unlimited healing and abilities across the board. It does require some management, but that also makes it more fun in my opinion.

Ectopsychic Echo is also a good ability and I likely did not select this because other abilities were more necessary. If you have Mind Blades then you don't really need Ectopsychic Echo.

 

Focus on Int, Per and Dex as the most important stats. I never upgraded Vigorous Defense to Refreshing Defense because I basically have unlimited uses and that saves a skill point for other goodies.

Race: Wood Elf

I've added the skill selection as images

 

For Party:

Custom Priest/Paladin Healing/Buffing bot. Cannot be killed due to immense Armor/Stats. Use champions boon on PC and then Salvation of Time on Party. Then buff/debuff as necessary. Hardly deals damage, but can draw lot's of aggro. I had her as weapon/shield for a long time, but I now gave her Karabörü so she can be useull to deal AoE damage and debuff enemy deflection as well.

Mirke: Fighter/Monk with Lord Darynn's Vaulge to disrupt/instagib spellcasters and cause disruption on enemy team. Care for getting flanked though.

Saffina: Wizard/Druid. Healing/Damage/Debuff/Buff. Best spellslinger ever. Does it all. I equipped her with Lethandria's Devotion for more healing/stats.

Serafen: Cipher/Barbarian. Just there because I went with the Principi and needed a Cipher. He uses dual wield weapons in Melee to be any good. His stats are terrible, but as a Witch he's somewhat useful. Although his wild mind is one of the worst things in the game.

 

Dunno about Optimal Gear, but I went with:

Head: Thaos Headdress

Necklace: Strand of Favor

Ring 1: Ring of Prosperity's Fortune

Ring 2: Chameleon's Touch

Belt: The Undying Burden

Boots: Boots of the Stone

Cloak: Greater cloak of deflection (could be replaced by something more useful, but you are in melee range a lot)

Armor: Miscreant Leathers

Weapons: Modwyr and Watcher's blade

Pet: Eliel (I took the eder pet upgrade and then gave that to Mirke and gave her Nalvi so I have 0% armor penalty)

 

For resistances I have modwyr (immune to intellect afflictions), Boots of the Stone resistance to might afflictions, wood elf passive resistance to dexterity afflictions and finally Fighter passive Fearless for resistance against Resolve afflictions. This last one is important as your powerlevel defines a lot of your damage. You could say it would be good to have defense against con afflictions as well, but since I have unlimited uses of "Robust" in the party I felt it wasn't necessary. 

Since you're going to be killing a lot of enemies Echoing Horror is very very useful.

Edited March 19, 2020 by AeonsLegend

[dgray62]

Thank you for the very detailed reply, AeonsLegend. I've never played with Saffina but I like the idea of adding her to a party.  I wonder if adding Tekehu would be a good idea, for the foe-only chill fog to help activate Brilliant Tactician. But I gather this isn't necessary, since clearly two ciphers can handle this very well.

[AeonsLegend]

4 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Thank you for the very detailed reply, AeonsLegend. I've never played with Saffina but I like the idea of adding her to a party.  I wonder if adding Tekehu would be a good idea, for the foe-only chill fog to help activate Brilliant Tactician. But I gather this isn't necessary, since clearly two ciphers can handle this very well.

Tekehu could work, but his damage output is very limited due to the spell selection he gets. The main reason for me not to use him is simply the lock in for Huana if you want him to stay with you. You can't play for the Valians or Rautaians or he will leave the party. I think Principi is ok. At any rate, Fassina is just slightly more powerful imo, plus she's invested in the expansion "The Forgotten Sanctum". If you pick Tekehu, defintely go for Chanter/Druid. In terms of damage output he's a bit lacking because he doesn't get Plague of Insects. He also doesn't get Form of the Delemgan. He does get some nifty special spells such as Boiling Spray, Chill Fog and Ocean Burst, but the radius on those is a bit small.

[abot]

Trobadour/Psion caster

[AeonsLegend]

On 3/17/2020 at 3:21 PM, abot said:

Trobadour/Psion caster

Hi. How would you play this? I can make some assumptions, but I'm curious on how this makes the build fun

[abot]

20 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:

Hi. How would you play this? I can make some assumptions, but I'm curious on how this makes the build fun

Well if you like casters I think it is fun.
Basically, you should aim to be able to limit weapons use only to powerful area ability (e.g. kitchen stove thunderous report ) or in rare cases while your focus is not auto-recharging
If you manage to put up your summons before being surrounded usually you are able to keep the summons up forever with at least 15 Intelligence /brisk recitation while having your focus auto recharging, IIRC you can reach 4 focus/sec recharging max so e.g.  in theory assuming 3 phrases to spam a trobadour her revenge in 9 sec you can perma cast also up to level 3 psion spells, and so on e.g. ancient weapons 32 sec - 8 sec cast up for 24 sec you can use to spam  > 90 focus worth cypher spells
Usually summons can make a meat wall to avoid being surrounded in melee, and wand modal can help  making ranged fire less dangerous the first seconds until you can use e.g. Secret Horrors/Blind, but anyway with enemy groups you may need to lure enemy with traps to get enough time to put the summons up
(about Hylea challenge, note that you could gain a few seconds with telekinetic burst on Vela but still too random without a bunch of priest scrolls)

It worked well for me so far as pre-ultimate level solo / no rest build (without Hylea challenge/iron man because first one is frustrating without a priest and second one is always frustrating. Also no Eothas, that can be also frustrating but probably it is possible) and I managed to kill a few dragons with it

Race: probably not necessary, but I like pale elf also for fire/ice resistance, perception, high perception is always needed with POTD/upscaled
Might: 13 base+gift of the machine for a nice damage/healing boost
Constitution: 9 base as less is hard especially at the beginning if you want to kill something. Lately you get e.g. + 2 Ngati Blessings, +2 Konstanten boon, +1 Upright Captain Belt (we can aim for no-rest boon as we have infinite resources)
Dexterity: 12 base + 1 elf + 1 e.g. boots of the stone for a nice little action speed boost
Perception: 18 base + 1 elf + 1 white that wends + 1 far effigy Sagani, lately + 1 Konstanten boon, + 1 e.g. horns of the bleak mother
Intellect: 15 base, this is needed to keep summons always up, lately + 1 konstanten boon and other items eventually
Resolve: 8 base (less makes it hard to survive), lately + 1 boots of the stone

Brisk recitation always on.

At start:
modals: medium shield (best survivability) and arquebus (best alpha strike damage/accuracy)
Trobadour: Come Come soft winds of death + try thrice was she wronged... (so you can avoid keeping the skeletons that are not really useful), if it's too hard in the first fights having if their bones... may be easier but you get stuck with them so not ideal
Psion: whispers of treason (survival help at the beginning, always great lately if you have not enough focus for ringleader)

level up:
Trobadour:
thrice was she wronged upgrade is one of the best low level damage spell (area spell + nothing wasted for single target)
thick grew their tongues makes interrumpting enemy easier automatically, ancient memory can save your life when soft winds of death is not enough/in between active combat
Green level 3 phrases wurms are all in all your best ally for most of the game (fast enough to summon to be easily always up, good damage/health), for enemies resistant to fire you may want also the ogres but 3 summons is better than 2 and i usually end high level with only the green wurms and the ancient weapons summons
the long night is nice but not really needed as you can spam secret horrors
the bride caught (quick+ insightful) is great for a spell spammer
the brideman slew + update can be powerful (+5 might +5 constitution + 5 resolve auto renovating on kill) and I had it a couple times absurdly powerful, maybe a glitch managing to kill tons of  cannon fodder skeletons with screaming souls, that made it almost infinite time
Eld nary is always great, but especially when your enemy is both resistant to fire and electricity
finally, our aces: called to his bidding, and many lives pass: the sinergy with screaming souls is amazing

Psion: soul shock is a great area spell you can use forever if you keep your summons up. Ideally you should try to spam it after secret horrors -> (lower fortitude) -> blind (lower perception) and get penetrating visions.
Ectopsychic Echo can also be great damage with 3 permasummons it should be easy to place one behind enemy lines if you want
pain link may be necessary to survive/slowly kill a tough boss damaging your eternal summons, at least until you can spam disintegrate and/or screaming soul
psychovampiric shield can help until you have borrowed instinct, and it is always nice
Silent Scream is great to save your hide (stun) and raw damage/gain time with a tough melee enemy
Borrowed Instinct is your best step for easier survivability and bypassing tough defenses and ringleader can make impossible battles against too many enemies at once a possible win
disintegrate is probably the best single boss killer available, before of it you can use soul ignition
get the empty soul ASAP, hammering thoughts is not really necessary for this build as we do not aim to use weapons much ideally but always nice to have
screaming souls: now this is where the real fun is: spam this on your perma ancient weapons or on your Many lives pass skeletons cannon fodder

e.g. something like this




gear: differently from priests ultimate builds, we can not be unkillable so an armor helps, but with Abydon challenge is a resource sink so better to keep and use all the decent armors you find and drop them when they are ruined in this case. Same with medium shields, even low level medium shields help as the modal is great
so e.g. exceptional scale armor (keep the special armors for very hard encounters but be prepared to pay a lot to repair them). if not using Abydon Challenge, there are many good armors (e.g. deltro's cage + 2 electricity, Nomad brigandine, Devil of caroc, miscreant leathers...)
neck: dual necklace of fireballs, dual stone of power, strand of favor, cog of coh...
hands: dual missile gloves (we like dual things for a no rest run)
rings: ring of greater regeneration, ring of focused flame with the necklace, ring of solitary wanderer, chameleon's touch...

[EDIT] weapons: kitchen stove ability is great, as any weapon property lowering enemy defense/offense, rising player defense/offense, not using weapons direct damage you also can avoid a money sink with Abydon challenge. Sasha's Singing scimitar is great, using grave calling to kill the skeletons is not as easy as it seems in practice and probably not worth as you have lots of spells to choose

boots: boots of the stone
belt. upright captain
pet: otto startcat, epsilon, peter, the animancer cat




 

Edited March 20, 2020 by abot

[Boeroer]

Since you're casting Secret Horrors and other Deceptions on a regular basis anyway: why not use a Beguiler?

[abot]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Since you're casting Secret Horrors and other Deceptions on a regular basis anyway: why not use a Beguiler?

 

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

yes, probably without Berath challenge the beguiler is as good or even better if you manage to time your spells right and effectively
with Berath challenge  all in all I think in encounters with few hard enemies the psion is better if you can manage to hide and auto recharge because with very few hard enemies you can't gain too much focus reliably with beguiler
with psion you can use a priest-like brilliant+salvation of time tactic with super hard fights, lure with traps + spell and hide for a while filling your focus to the max before coming back with full ascended like (but still recharging) focus with no time limits to spam it
[EDIT] wrong challenge
[EDIT] oh, and if you get an extra slot instead of e.g. psychovampiric shield or weapon penetration you can more easily use the pale light shield AI script trick to refill health in a few seconds without too much risk of having the shield damaged in the process
P.S: sorry I don't know how to quote right with this forum, I miss simple BBCode source

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by abot

[Boeroer]

I don't consider builds for the ultimate challenge or Berath's challenge to be particularly fun to play, but to each their own.

I just reckon that the same modus operandi would be more fun with a Beguiler than with a Psion. Except in fights with single tough foes (e.g. certain Dragons or Megabosses).