Herald Build and Spell damage

[Walden]

Does anyone know if Kuaru’s prize and Griffin’s Blade (Hound’s Courage) affect damage output of passive chants or active offensive invocations?

[Boeroer]

@Walden: The only damaging Chants are Damage over Time effects (DoTs) - and both items do nothing for DoTs. So unfortunately: no. 

Invocations: yes, they both work with stuff like "The Thunder Rolled" and so on. They are only additive dmg bonuses though so the impact isn't breathtaking. However, you can combine them with the follwing:

What does work for a Herald (for his invocations and also his other offensive abilites like Sacred Immolation) is Eternal Devotion (10% burning lash to all direct damage abilities, inluding spells) and Shocking Prelude from Sasha's Singing Scimitar (shocking lash that's based on the number of your phrase count and also applies to all direct damage abilites). Lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses and thus work nicely with additive ones.

So you could use the ring and wield Griffin's Blade with Sasha's Singing Scimitar and get all the dmg bonuses (additive and multiplicative) for your invocations. Which is a noticable difference. I would prefer Scordeo's Edge over Griffin's Blade because of the accuracy bonus though, but that's another story.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Boeroer

[Walden]

Thanks, Boeroer. Hmm that likely means that the bonus would apply to Cipher spells as well and would be particularly useful for an ascendant. 
 

I’ve been theorycrafting a multi class character for a re-roll. Herald was one option, but since you’re the preeminent Deadfire expert, I’m curious what you think of an Ascendant/Tactician. My only stumbling block would be generating damage quickly to achieve ascended status, which made me think of a build utilizing Veilpiercer’s weightless draw upgrade to pick up quick crits before casting. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[Boeroer]

Griffin's Blade does indeed work for Cipher spells. I didn't test the ring but I think it's safe to assume it also does (since it uses the same mechanics as the blade in terms of damage bonuses).

I don't think that Ascendant/Tactician is a spectacular combo (because other classes like Helwalker/Streetfighter/Furyshaper are better with Ascendant imo). If it's all about triggering Briliant yourself with Phantom Foes I'd rather use a Beguiler: since you are going to cast Phantom Foes anyway and gain massive focus from it - no need to deal weapon damage and easy to trigger Brilliant over and over again. But it's actually better to not combine the "causing flanked" part and the Tactician in one character. Unless solo of course. 

Anyway, Veilpiercer's (and also St. Omaku's Mercy's) enchantment that omits recovery on crit (50%) is pretty amazing. 

[thelee]

On 4/14/2020 at 3:27 AM, Boeroer said:

and both items do nothing for DoTs.

the +10% spell damage from griffin's blade does nothing for DoTs? uh oh (literally just started a character that wanted to use this interaction)

[Boeroer]

I tested with Come Sweet Winds and Dragon Thrashed and the damage didn't change a bit with both items. So I assumed DoTs don't work. Maybe other DoT's will? Are chant-DoTs implemented differently? I don't think so but it may be worth a try.

I know that other dmg-boosts do work with DoTs like Disintegrate (see  Takedown Combo).

Edited April 15, 2020 by Boeroer

[Walden]

Didn’t think of combining with a monk or rogue. I’m assuming you’d initial play Helwalker/Ascendant as a ranged character?

[thelee]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I tested with Come Sweet Winds and Dragon Thrashed and the damage didn't change a bit with both items. So I assumed DoTs don't work. Maybe other DoT's will? Are chant-DoTs implemented differently? I don't think so but it may be worth a try.

I know that other dmg-boosts do work with DoTs like Disintegrate (see  Takedown Combo).

I just tested more thoroughly - and I think it's just chanter DoTs. They definitely don't get boosted by hound's courage. But I tested with Shining Beacon and Cleansing Flame (two different kinds of DoT spells) and they both got boosted by Hound's Courage, even showed up in the spell tooltip (not just combat log). Maybe for some reason chanter chants don't count as spells? Because they were getting a +3% bonus (not much, but enough to go from 2.7 to 2.8 for come sweet winds) from the curio necklace my test character had.

I think chanter chants in general are weird and should just be treated as their own thing. They don't do PL scaling like normal, and they aren't affected by something like intellect in a typical fashion.

Edited April 15, 2020 by thelee

[Haplok]

8 hours ago, Walden said:

Didn’t think of combining with a monk or rogue. I’m assuming you’d initial play Helwalker/Ascendant as a ranged character?

Its certainly the typical approach. My experience was that I could offtank a bit when I donned heavier armor.

Spent the middle of the game in "middle range" with Grave Calling, typically starting the combat by Thunderous Report from Kitchen Stove, then casting - taking a break to kill my herald's skeletons (first softened by a Fireball/Ningauth's Shadowflame when mixed with enemies) and creating foe only blinding, paralyzing Chillfogs - that even provide Focus trough their aoe ticks.

 

Late game I had the Seeker's Fang rapier and was zig-zaging trough the battlefield with Flagellant's Path, applying deadly DOTs to most enemies between casting Disintegrates on priority targets (also DOT btw.).

Edited April 16, 2020 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

Since I love the combination of Monks & Mortars it's nearly always dual mortars for me.  Stunning Surge with dual mortars is just great. Hard disable AND damage for free most of times (because AoE and jumping projectile nearly always leads to at least one crit). And the focus gain is pretty insane, too. Especially with the huge AoE from +10 INT. Also: dual damage types of mortars + Thunderous Blows usually means no PEN issues. For single targets I summon the Long Pain which is very good. 

But you can also use a reach weapon (aiming for Chromoprismatic Staff for example) and then later use Instruments of Pain with it. You'll get 10.8 meters of melee range and can use Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming (I actually never cheched if those would also trigger Soul Storm) and stuff to quickly gain focus off of weak enemies that are far away. And you would still be able to also use Force of Anguish, Torment's Reach, Envervating Blows and all that. Which isn't possible with ranged weapons.  

Lots of options really.   

[Haplok]

Note Instruments of Pain is a late game solution. But sure.

 

I was a bit dissapointed it didn't want to work with my rapier + blunderbuss combo (for melee attack speed + Thunderous Report openings). Needed to dual wield (or single-wield) melee weapons to use Instruments.

In the end it wasn't such a big deal for me... at that point it was fun to cross the battlefield with Flagellant's Path.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Haplok