PoE1 and PoE2 single playthrough

[Samugol]

Hi,

when the Avowed announced I had a sudden urge to play both games. I wanted to create a human character, that would be a powerful caster (by powerful I mean lots of cool spells, but great survivability ). I played every caster in PoE1, but I have never played Deadfire (I have been saving it as I know it is awesome and there are periods of game droughts). The thing is I would like to complete both games with a character that is both the same race and same class. By same class I mean that if I start a wizard in PoE1, I could be pretty much any wizard multiclass and or subclass.

I would like to choose either a wizard or a cipher as they are my favorites in PoE1. Since I have no experience with Deadfire, I am looking for some help about what to pair these with and if at all.

From what I read, tactician seems like a very interesting subclass that pairs well with both blood mage and cipher's beguiler or ascendant. However, bloodmage/tactician has been mostly mentioned in solo runs, which I do not plan to do. Getting that brilliant effect might be hard when all party is engaging enemies. Cipher + tactician could definitely be interesting, but I have mostly seen it as a debuffer, which is not my preferred playstyle.  I also do not mind single classes, I know sin tee posted a solo PoTD run with a single class wizard a while back. I am sure the game may have changed since then, got some DLCs etc. so I am really looking for a bit more up to date info.

On a final note, I am not a power gamer, I like to roleplay and choose what I like rather than what the meta is, I may even choose normal/expert difficulty with full party instead of some crazy PoTD solo shenenigans, I do not need the all powerful super build, just something that is really fun, feels strong and is based on wizard or cipher. Also I pretty much always play on ironman mode, so I prefer characters that... do not die (hence the survivability). I do not need help with PoE1, I have plenty of knowledge there. Any help would be much appreciated. Just share your cool builds based on cipher and wizard :D

[thelee]

33 minutes ago, Samugol said:

From what I read, tactician seems like a very interesting subclass that pairs well with both blood mage and cipher's beguiler or ascendant. However, bloodmage/tactician has been mostly mentioned in solo runs, which I do not plan to do. Getting that brilliant effect might be hard when all party is engaging enemies.

tactician is indeed mentioned because of how easy brilliant is to trigger in solo runs. it is harder and requires a lot more metagaming in a party situation, but is doable. having a cipher in your party helps a lot due to phantom foes, but with multiple party members you have to pay more attention to random flanking and perception afflictions. in solo it's easy to just have your mainchar topped off with a captain's banquet (immunity to perception) or svef (resistence to perception afflictions) to help keep brilliant up, but that also gets harder in party. i don't have a ton of experience with making it work outside a solo context, but i'm sure someone can chime in.

 

33 minutes ago, Samugol said:

I do not need the all powerful super build, just something that is really fun, feels strong and is based on wizard or cipher.

i would personally recommend just going all in on a single-class wizard, and probably pick evoker, enchanter, or conjuration (those subclasses so that you retain access to enchantment school). enchantment comes with a bunch of buffs that help with survivability. if you stick with enchantment or evoker you retain access to a bunch of unique spells (some of them are from poe1, like crushing doom or ninagauth's various stuff). conjurer you lose access to evocation and a bunch of unique spells, but in return you gain access to transmutation spells, which include more self-buffs but also very useful spells like slicken, chill fog, and late game spells like petrification or corrosive skin. an evoker loses a bunch of utility from the conjuration school (not important if you don't care about summoned weapons), but gains a lot of useful buffs and debuffs from the illusion school (wall of many colors rocks). the subclass bonus for evoker and conjurer are really good as well, IMO.

one of the reasons for my recommendation is that engagement is arguably more important to pay attention to in deadfire than in poe1 - enemies are more willing to break existing engagements to go after weak party members (including you), and one can move around while engaged as long as you stay in engagement range (whereas in poe1 any movement broke engagement). So your back of the line party members (such as ranged casters) are more vulnerable. One of hte best enchantment spells is Deleterious Alacrity of Motion which functions a bit differently than in poe1. In PoE1 it was a generic movement/recovery speed bonus. In Deadfire the speed boost is not as pronounced, but the big deal is getting immunity to engagement coupled with a movement speed bonus. It is basically one of the best survivability boosts in the game - anytime a melee foe thinks they are going to land an attack on you, you can just rapidly run out of range and make them whiff their attack, and because you move so fast there's nothing they can do to catch up to you. You can literally run circles around everyone, letting a party member engagement someone chasing you.

why i recommend single-classing is because the tier 8 and tier 9 spells are very good, and importantly you get the opportunity to really power up your empowered attacks with perks (wizards are unique in that essentially you don't have to pick any late game [or any] ability and rely on switching grimoires [which is much less painful than in poe1] and just invest in lots of good passives). One empowered late game spell with all the empowered passives (+10 acc, +1 PEN, +15% dam, +15% aff duration) plus prestige (additional +1 PL) can single-handedly end most end-game trash fights (and even some boss fights). Retaining access to evocation spells is best for this, with Meteor Swarm and Missile Salvo as candidates, but there are plenty of other spells you can happily abuse like this. As an example, on PotD with upscaling and challenges, a single empowered missile salvo was enough to take out the first couple of Forgotten Sanctum boss fights.

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[Samugol]

@thelee Thank you very much man. This is very helpful and insightful. I was thinking of doing an evoker wizard as well. The thing I am a bit worried abouth though is survivability. I just hate when my character goes down in ironman mode. I usually also play with a self imposed rule, that the main character cannot be downed in a playthrough. I do not plan to stand on the front lines, but having the ability to off-tank is really handy. Especially since there are many encounters that I am not aware of and it may prove difficult to survive at that particular instance. Running around and kiting is definitely an option, but tanking/evading can be cool though (the note about Deleterious Alacrity of Motion is very useful). Also, since multiclassing does not exist in PoE1, I was somewhat looking forward to it. I mean playing a single class wizard that is really powerful is perfectly fine, but I just wanted to hear a couple of examples of how a wizard would pair well with other classes (fighter, paladin, you name it... just something).

[Scrapulous]

A single class wizard is very survivable in Deadfire, even on PotD difficulty. The protective Enchantment spells that @thelee mentioned are very good. There are also some Illusion spells I like. Here they are all together.

• Ability Level 1:
  • Wizard's Double (Illusions): +40 (!!) Deflection until hit
  • Fleet Feet (Enchanting): +5 Dex, +100% movement speed, +20 Defense when Disengaging
• AL 2:
  • Arcane Veil (Conjuration): +50 Deflection against non-Veil Piercing attacks (most things besides firearms and a handful of spells), Concentration
  • Bulwark Against the Elements (Enchanting): +5 Armor Rating against Burn, Freeze, Shock, Corrode
  • Mirrored Image (Illusions): +30 Deflection
• AL 3:
  • Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (Enchanting): +5 Dex, +100% movement speed, Immunity to Engagement, +15% action speed, -3 Health per 3 seconds
  • Llengrath's Displaced Image (Illusions): +10 Deflection, +20 Reflex, 30% of incoming hits targeting Deflection or Reflex converted to grazes
• AL 4:
  • Ironskin (Enchanting): +5 Armor Rating
  • Minor Arcane Reflection (Enchanting): 100% chance to reflect spells for a total of 15 spell levels
  • Flame Shield (Evocation): +10 Freeze Armor Rating, attackers take burn damage when they hit you in melee
• AL 6:
  • Arcane Reflection (Enchanting): 100% chance to reflect spells for a total of 30 spell levels

The things all of these spells have in common are that they have a base cast time of .4 seconds and a recovery time of 0. With strong caster stats, you can get the cast times down to .3 or .2 seconds. At .3 you can have all of the non-redundant spells in that list active by the time enemy archers are preparing their second volley.

By way of example, in a lategame save, my Aloth, who is a single class wizard, has after buffing himself: Deflection 144, Fortitude 124, Reflex 171, Will 149. He completed his buffs before a single attack was made in the combat (it was a ship boarding battle). Compared to my tank Eder, who has Def 147, Fort 132, Ref 140, Wil 119. Now, Aloth's defenses can get torn down by a dedicated mob or the right enemy spells while Eder's are durable. That's why Eder is my tank. But that situation almost never happens because I don't put Aloth at the front of the party formation and Eder is built to make enemies pay for trying to get to my back line.

All of this to say: a single class wizard can be very durable on its own as long as you don't choose a specialization that cuts out Enchanting or Illusions and you are consistent with your buffing or you script your AI to handle it for you.

I'd also say that an Evoker is powerful but probably overkill for difficulties outside of PotD. I would just go with a vanilla wizard if you're playing on Normal or Veteran, because the flexibility loss for specializing is rather steep in my opinion. But if you want big booms and don't care about flexibility, Evoker is good fun.

[Samugol]

@Scrapulous Thanks. I did not realize buffing is so fast in Deadfire, it takes a while longer in PoE1 (even insta cast Arcane Veil can take a few seconds because of recovery time from other action, but having 0.2s and no recovery... yeah that is insane).  I am definitely leaning towards single class wizard. Unless someone makes an interesting alternative suggestion. I am off to study which wizard specialization locks what school. That said I always love jack of all trades characters, so no specialization wizard is appealing.

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Samugol

[thelee]

1 hour ago, Samugol said:

Also, since multiclassing does not exist in PoE1, I was somewhat looking forward to it. I mean playing a single class wizard that is really powerful is perfectly fine, but I just wanted to hear a couple of examples of how a wizard would pair well with other classes (fighter, paladin, you name it... just something).

well, as an example, an arcane knight (paladin/wizard) can be pretty tough. you get most of hte defensive buffs from the wizard (not a lot you miss from tier 8-9), and you also get up to +15 all defenses from the paladin. Coupled with a shield and lay on hands you could have insane survivability. for such a setup i would recommend a generic wizard so you get access to arcane veil, enchantment buffs, as well as some illusion magic for other sources of +deflection in case you're up against gunfire or arcane veil runs out. on lower difficulties wizard's double plus all the tankiness of a paladin with a shield can make you very very hard to hit, for the entire fight (since no one will actually hit you, wizard's double will stay up; because wizard's double has no duration, it can't be cleansed and i don't think it can be suppressed either.)

a more esoteric example would be wizard + ranger (stalker). if you haven't looked too deeply into the ranger ability tree, there's ways to get tons of bonus accuracy that also applies to spellcasting, in addition to hunter's claw, which lets you get up to +20 acc against a specific type of enemy. It can be upgraded to either +20% damage as well, or +20 all defenses as well (the latter can be good as a survivability measure, as +all defenses stacks with +deflection bonuses since they are bonuses of different types; the stacking rules in deadfire are different than poe1). this requires quite a bit more metagaming and micromanagement, and while you miss out on tier 8 or 9 spells the bonus accuracy and damage can more than make up for it.

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[thelee]

to add to @Scrapulous's list, Spirit Shield gives you +3 AR for a long time and Llengrath's Safeguard gives you +15 all defenses (again, stacks with deflection, but not with other +all defenses) and +5 AR for a long time. i suggested stalker in my last post because they get a +1 AR as a passive bonus that stacks with other sources of +AR.

 

on higher difficulties i wouldn't recommend AR-boosters too much them unless you are on a tankier wizard multiclass wearing at least medium armor, but on lower difficulties they can make a light armor-wearing wizard very tough. AR in deadfire is very different than Damage Reduction and can give you enormous survivability if you are able to put enemies into underpenetration.

my end-game tanky aloth would take piddling amounts of damage from even high level casters because they couldn't penetrate his massive AR, especially against elemental spells with bulwark against the elements (he was wearing heavy armor enchanted up the wazoo and would open eveyr fight with those buffs; not many casters can do much when dazed (-4 PEN) against 18+ AR, and those that do I would just buff up with spell reflection)

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[thelee]

10 minutes ago, Samugol said:

(even insta cast Arcane Veil can take a few seconds because of recovery time from other action, but having 0.2s and no recovery... yeah that is insan

(sorry for triple posting)

 

for a specialized wizard, the instant-cast nature of most enchantment spells means that the downside of picking conjuration or evoker is frequently irrelevant; getting a recovery penalty on spells with 0 recovery is still 0 recovery . similar thing with conjuration - while they are not instant, most summoned weapon spells have 0 recovery, so if you just dip into conjuration for the weapons the downside of a slower recovery for going enchanter or transmuter is basically irrelevant.

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[Samugol]

Quote

well, as an example, an arcane knight (paladin/wizard) can be pretty tough.

You said that no subclass wizard.  What about paladin subclass. I think I read something from Boroer who mentioned Blood Mage and Steel Garrote as an interesting build. I always try to think of builds in terms of how much is gained vs how much is sacrificed. For example (this is completely made up) if make the single most powerful evoker wizard, with all gear and everything focused on damage and he does 10000dmg to a boss that has 1500HP. That is nice, he can kill the boss in one shot, but because of all the offensive sacrifice, he would be one shotted (again, not sure if that is how it works in the game). Compare that to a wizard that does 1000dmg, but is extremely survivable, can CC and support the team. He is still very effective vs the boss (2 shots will kill it) but he is also a lot better in many other situations. What I am getting at, how much does the overall survivability and damage of multiclass wizard compare to a single wizard. If the answer is A LOT in any regard, would you elaborate? If not... well then it is more of a roleplaying decision.

[Scrapulous]

Yeah, if you want to tank with your main character, I'd say multiclassing a wizard with a paladin or a fighter would be extremely tough. @Boeroer writes about going martial/caster using the Whispers of the Endless Path greatsword to do passive AoE riposte damage while you're casting if you want the multiclass and do melee damage while you cast. You could very easily tank with this character (wizard's defensive buffs more than make up for no shield).

@thelee, thanks! I completely overlooked Spirit Shield (AL1, Enchanting, +3 AR and Concentration), which is embarrassing because I use it as my primary source of supplementary Concentration. oops! I left Llengrath's Safeguard out of the list deliberately because it has a base 3.0 second cast time (but still 0.0 recovery), which I find inconsistent and irritating.

[Samugol]

3 minutes ago, Scrapulous said:

Yeah, if you want to tank with your main character, I'd say multiclassing a wizard with a paladin or a fighter would be extremely tough.

Tough like really hard to kill and tanky? Or tough like really hard to pull off because it makes little sense :D.

[thelee]

Just now, Samugol said:

You said that no subclass wizard.  What about paladin subclass. I think I read something from Boroer who mentioned Blood Mage and Steel Garrote as an interesting build. I always try to think of builds in terms of how much is gained vs how much is sacrificed. For example (this is completely made up) if make the single most powerful evoker wizard, with all gear and everything focused on damage and he does 10000dmg to a boss that has 1500HP. That is nice, he can kill the boss in one shot, but because of all the offensive sacrifice, he would be one shotted (again, not sure if that is how it works in the game). Compare that to a wizard that does 1000dmg, but is extremely survivable, can CC and support the team. He is still very effective vs the boss (2 shots will kill it) but he is also a lot better in many other situations. What I am getting at, how much does the overall survivability and damage of multiclass wizard compare to a single wizard. If the answer is A LOT in any regard, would you elaborate? If not... well then it is more of a roleplaying decision.

well tbf i think you lose a lot going with a paladin setup. you have to spend more of your time (at least on higher difficulties) refreshing your buffs to keep your survivability up in hard fights, and action economy means you just have less opportunity to do spellcasting. but there are ways to metagame extra offense out of it, if that's your cup of tea (such as the whispers combo that scrapulous mentions).

 

kind wayfarers is an extremely good subclass if you want to take a support tank role. dual-wielded weapons means that each strike with flames of devotion heals, which means you can heal almost as much as a Restore, except you are also damaging the enemy, possibly buffing your party (with shared flames upgrade), and unlike Restore or most other healing spells, you can spam it for basically the entire fight since it only costs 1 zeal.

for offense, i dunno. i always find paladin a little mediocre on offense, except for divine immolation setup, and a multiclass won't get as much out of divine immolation.

[thelee]

as an idea (sorry for walls of text, but i'm bored at work right now :)) a fighter/wizard would be pretty tanky as well but not lose as much offensively (you sacrifice some general party support over a paladin). i've not done a fighter/wizard, but i've done fighter/other-casters so the concept is pretty similar.

some things a fighter/wizard gets:

1. disciplined barrage upgrade to tactical barrage. disciplined barrage is way better than in poe1 because you can spam it a lot (instead of just 1/encounter), and because of multiclassing. getting a huge accuracy boost to your multiclass is great. tactical barrage also gives you an intellect inspiration which makes your spellcasting way better
2. armored grace means you can put on heavier armor without costing your spellcasting as much.
3. constant recovery means that at the start of the fight (which also tends to be the most dangerous because enemy AI frequently likes to frontload their abilities) your fighter/wizard can grind through the pain
4. fighter stances are great. the +5 acc from adventurer (up to +10 w/conqueror) stance also helps spellcasting. mob stance's recovery speed bonus can make your spellcasting faster when you're engaging a bunch of foes.
5. there are several wizard spells that work best at close range, and what better way to be close range than to run up and get surrounded by enemies
6. body control is nice for an offensive caster. one of the worst things that can happen to an offensive spellcaster is get dazed, especially on higher difficulties, because spells are harder to get up to higher PEN versus enemy AR than weapons are, and -4 PEN is just brutal. body control lets you resist dazed down to something that is basically ignorable for a caster (also makes sure you can never get stunned and because stun durations tend to be so short the effect of it being resisted down to dazed is almost completely ignorable as well)

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[Scrapulous]

4 minutes ago, Samugol said:

Tough like really hard to kill and tanky? Or tough like really hard to pull off because it makes little sense :D.

Very tanky. A paladin is tough on its own. Adding all those wizard defensive buffs on top takes that paladin to another level.

I suspect the Blood Mage / Steel Garotte build you mentioned in that Boeroer post is based on the idea that the Blood Mage can have unlimited spells at the cost of health. The Steel Garotte paladin vampires health from doing melee damage. If you add them together, you have potentially unlimited spells. But that's not enough synergy for a Boeroer build, so I am guessing that he also recommends something like that Whispers of the Endless Path approach (to passively do aoe melee damage for huge Steel Garotte health leeching to pay for lots of blood magic) or some other third dimension of synergy, maybe with the Garotte ability strangling and paralyzing a megaboss while Combusting Wounds builds up big stacks of damage or something. Maybe both. He's sneaky that way.

As far as your question about the merits of single class vs. multiclass... I'd say the balance is pretty good in this game. There's I think some edge for multiclasses that goes up the more savvy you get with the various ability interactions that are possible in the game. But you don't need those things. A lot of the fun of that is basically being able to punk even PotD trash fights and bosses because of your build/research skills. It's not needed. I was able to win and have fun and feel powerful without doing those things. I think you should play what sounds fun or thematic or canonical for your character, depending on your motivations, especially for your first time through Deadfire. Then start experimenting with combos and nutty things.

Example: I made an Illusionist / Trickster character because there is some gear in the game that I normally rarely use that makes illusion spells more powerful. Is it a kick ass build? No, it's kind of clunky so far. Would I have enjoyed it on my first playthrough? No, I would have felt frustrated. But I'm really loving it now, just because it's weird and thematic and I enjoy seeing what's possible in the game.

9 minutes ago, thelee said:

(sorry for walls of text, but i'm bored at work right now :))

Yeah

[Samugol]

Not at all my friend I totally welcome the information. I am sitting here, pondering what the best course of action would be. I am deciding now:

1. Pure wizard - I get reasonable survivability because of defensive buffs, I am able to unload amazingly strong spells. All round an interesting choice.

2. Wizard/paladin - (be it kind wayfarer or steel garotte). Much more more survivable than just a wizard, sacrifices some spells. Giving up wizard casts to buff oneself instead of offense may be a problem.

3. Wizard/fighter - pretty great from all the reasons you described above.

The thing is I really like when there are as many things packed in a build. I really love great synergy between abilities. While a single wizard is really powerful I feel that the build is lacking character. I get awesome spells.... yeah that is pretty much it. Compared to wizard/fighter or wizard/paladin where there are abilities that really work well together. Where I can look forward to epic heavy armor and awesome swords as well as the wizard spells.

22 minutes ago, thelee said:

well tbf i think you lose a lot going with a paladin setup. you have to spend more of your time (at least on higher difficulties) refreshing your buffs to keep your survivability up in hard fights, and action economy means you just have less opportunity to do spellcasting. but there are ways to metagame extra offense out of it, if that's your cup of tea (such as the whispers combo that scrapulous mentions).

metagame extra offense is not necessarily my cup of tea, but the idea of a character doing tanking, healing itself, using weapon, spells... doing everything seems really intriguing. I am not sure whether a build like that would work out of the gate though, cause I really do not like builds that are awesome...for the last 10% of the game. I like builds that are strong throughout the game, where there is always some nice expectation be it next level, better gear or something. I am completely undecided at this point I welcome any advice regarding this.

[Scrapulous]

In that case I think you probably won't go wrong with Boeroer's build or with the fighter/wizard approach. Neither build will wait until the end of the game to get good. Both will start competitive and will get strong relatively early, and will keep getting better from there. Paladin in my experience has both an early peak and a late peak, but wizard has a smooth upward curve.

[Samugol]

Both of you guys I really appreciate the advice. I do not mind the text, just keep it coming. For me the fun is exactly this process of creating a fun thematic build, thinking about what is cool. What plays best. I am well aware of the fact that the game is totally beatable with a single class, just playing reasonable but... that extra depth, synergy, that is the gravy. Since I have no knowledge in Deadfire here is a PoE1 example:

wizard with a wand is OK...casts spells and uses wand a bit

add blast talents... it is better now, because it affects foe AoE, cool but nothing great

add a cool weapon that capitalizes on this such as a wand that has a chance to charm foes, but now, we blast a lot of them... so insta charm all the time

add venomous strike... yeah it works with blast, suddenly that little blast thingy kills mobs of enemies with a single wand attack

add kalakoths minor blights... it is a summoned wand, that capitalizes on everything said before, doing insane damage

On top of that, you feel like a death wizard, using wands and curses to destroy enemies (suddenly you have your own Harry Potter twisted fantasy).

and you go from "doing little wand support when saving spells with a bland character" to "destroying mobs of enemies like a death eater". I am looking for something like this. This... hidden awesome synergistic(it is a word) build that is just joy to play.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Samugol

[dgray62]

You might consider a tactician/wizard (vanilla) or tactician/bloodmage in a party. You'll be able to spam chillfogs, and with the help of a companion cipher's phantom foes you'll get brilliant often. Later, you'll have really powerful health regeneration from unbending/unbending trunk, which becomes crazy if you hit foes with a wall of draining, and have the cap of the laughing stock on a nearby tank.

[thelee]

33 minutes ago, Samugol said:

and you go from "doing little wand support when saving spells with a bland character" to "destroying mobs of enemies like a death eater". I am looking for something like this. This... hidden awesome synergystic(it is a word) build that is just joy to play.

you might enjoy a martial/wizard multiclass then over a pure caster.

there are a bunch of weapons and gear that you can cobble together to really soup up spellcasting, and a martial multiclass would be much more capable of wielding them or taking advantage of them than a pure caster.

examples for a damage wizard: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Magran's_Favor +2 fire PL, a martial class would also be good at landing killing blows with it which would make the weapon even better;  https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Sun_and_Moon +2 fire OR frost PL (depending on time of day), a martial class would be better capable of taking advantage of the eothas/ondra upgrades; https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Shea's_War_Staff rewards a martial multiclass because it grants bonus crit chance on weapon attacks, and weapon crits grant concentration;  https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Chromoprismatic_Quarterstaff gives you lots of different +1 PL and is a good martial weapon. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_Mask_of_the_Weyc makes you extremely hard to hit early in fights, and lets you empower more.

there's plenty of opportunities to organically beef up a martial/caster multiclass, and it doesn't require extensive metagaming - alot of this stuff you can find in stores (albeit expensive) or find as rewards as you progress through the game.

 

you can actually get pretty deranged with itemization - fire keyworded spells the most. magran's favor in one hand, with sun and moon in the other is +4 fire PL together (they stack, being passive). if you look in the forums for my "Firedancer" build you can see an extreme example for a monk/priest multiclass.

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[Haplok]

I'm a bit surprised Bloodmage gets so little mention here.

For me its nearly a straight upgrade to regular wizards. The only case I were NOT going for one would be if I cared much about the Empower mechanic (which got some support from itemization in the DLCs, I guess). But as I never bother about per rest abilities....

 

Even the mighty Evoker, besides being spell-starved compared to a Bloodmage, sacrifices damn much. Too much IMO. Wall of Draining is great combo enabler. Wall of Many Colors is top tier CC. Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar is a top damage spell. Combusting Wounds a great damage multiplier when properly supported. Chilling Fog is an early staple, Slicken is an effective disabler for large, clumsy enemies and enemy casters. Then there are the summons and weapon summons.

 

If you would like to experiment with multiclassing, I really enjoyed my Bloodmage / Assassin. Granted, I played it in Turn Based. But Assassinate works for spells (just the initial strike/explosion, so not great for multi-projectile or delayed effect spells), granting HUGE bonuses: +25 Accuracy, +4 PEN, +50% Critical Damage. These bonuses work in aoe, contrary to single-target Accuracy a ranger can stack. Plus, a wizard is quite safe when under the cover of stealth, which is kinda neat also. Shadowing Beyond is costly Guile-wise, but has no Recovery.

[Boeroer]

Speaking of wizard multiclasses:

Arcane Knight is a very forgiving combo. Bloodmage/Steel Garrote with Whispers of the Endless Paths is still my current favorite Arcane Knight.

Sage can be a lot of fun. Especially when using Citzal's Spirit Lance. Helwalker/Bloodmage would be my pick.

I personally really like a melee Geomancer with the Willbreaker (Morning Star). Stalker/Wizard. I use Concelhaut's Draining Touch for my Essential Phantom and the Morning Star (+modal) to lower fortitude for my animal companion's Takedown Combo.

Warlock can be very nice to play because that combo can reach very fast casting speed, especially once Blood Thirst is available. Berserker/Wizard for the nice PEN boost. 

Battlemage with Citzal's Spirit Lance is also fun. Once you get Clear Out mobs are flying like puppets. 

 

 

[thelee]

8 minutes ago, Haplok said:

I'm a bit surprised Bloodmage gets so little mention here.

i deliberately avoided mentioning bloodmage since OP mentioned doing an ironman run. i'm sure it's doable, but it seems like more headache then what it might be worth for a new deadfire player.

Edited August 18, 2020 by thelee

[Samugol]

Wow, so many great ideas Damn, I am not sure what to pick now I will ask Boeroer since he is the GOD of PoE games (I am not dimishing other people's knowledge, but this has been giving me awesome advice since I started playing PoE 1 on PS4 His life draining cipher is to this day my favorite cipher build). So in your opinion, which wizard combination is (and since there are many answers)

1. Most overall powerful

2. Most fun and synergystic

3. Most castery (heaviest casting of spells)

4. Most survivable

5. Most thematic in some cool way

6. Most suited for iron man run, but in a party

 

Thanks I think I will just pick based on this, because it is becoming clear to me, that most of these builds are amazing. And it is more of a personal preference than anything else. (I kinda like the idea of choosing a wizard in PoE1, giving him dangerous implements - to signify his blood magic and advocation of self harm to gain power and then go some cool blood magic combo that plays well in a party).

Edited August 18, 2020 by Samugol

[Scrapulous]

Bloodmage is unquestionably powerful, but I also think it's overkill in a way. For most fights you have enough spells. Where I think Bloodmages excel is against megabosses: long, drawn-out fights with a lot of choreography and special needs. Bloodmage has the entire suite of wizard spells available to answer every need and the ability to renew those spells if they're depleted. That's a big deal to be sure.

But in trash fights I never needed to renew spells, and even against most bosses there's plenty of power available even if you deplete your favorite spell level.

One caveat is that I haven't yet played a blood mage on PotD, but I'm approaching the megaboss stage with an Evoker/Magranite, so I have the sense that I know how non-Bloodmage wizards play.

Haplok, do you disagree? I think it may well be that I'm missing an important factor.

[Haplok]

6 minutes ago, thelee said:

i explicitly avoided mentioning bloodmage since OP mentioned doing an ironman run. i'm sure it's doable, but it seems like more headache then what it might be worth for a new deadfire player.

Hm, okay, Ironman. That does change things. An Assassin multiclass can be pretty survivable, as he can be untargettable for large portions of combat. But of course, he can also die pretty fast. Heck, I've committed seppuku many times on my own by hitting myself with a Chain Lightning crit to trigger Deltro's Cage Helm crazy lash at below 50% health... and sometimes with the Lightning effect doubled by the Silk Slippers.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Haplok