Please critique my Tactician/Beguiler build:

[Yosharian]

14 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I don't understand. You can never have 0% recovery (only when having Blade Cascade or similar effects). Maybe you mean you'll have 0% recovery penalty from armor?

That only means that you have no penalty from armor. That penalty prolongs your normal recovery time. But Mob Stance will not reduce that armor penalty (only Armored Grace and some pets do that) - it directly shortens your recovery time no matter the armor.
Even if you are butt-naked a Great Sword still has 4 secs of recovery (at 10 DEX). Mob Stance would directly shorten that recovery time.

Contender Armor does the same: it lowers recovery time directly, it does NOT lower the penalty. So even if you reach a recovery bonus that balances out the pentalty you can still stack more bonus because then you are actually faster than naked. Same is true for Miscrean't Leather and Devil of Caroc Breastplate. They reduce recovery time directly, NOT the recovery penalty.

It may still be the case that you don't need Mob Stance - but maybe not for the reasons you thought. It's effect is quite limited if you are not fighting a lot of enemies at once. It is noticable if you are surrounded though.

Generally speaking you can't have too many recovery time reducers or action speed buffs. THey have linear returns so more is always better. What you mean might happen if you take Armored Grace and an armor-penalty-reducing pet while wearing a very light armor or robes: once you are at 0% recovery penalty  it makes no sense to stack more. But that's not the case with Mob Stance, Contender's Armor and so on. Everything that says -x% recovery time or +x% action speed is good to have and will benefit you. You just have to decide if it's worth the cost. 



 

Ah right.  I was thinking to have Armored Grace, Contendor's Armor, and an armor-penalty-reducing pet.  I'm not sure if Mob Stance would have much benefit then, because I only have limited engagement slots.

I also don't know how much DEX would be optimal in this situation.  I thought 15 DEX would be best, but I'm not sure.  I'd have to reduce my STR to boost it more.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Yosharian

[Boeroer]

Then maybe it would be a waste of ability points. Having the stances with no upgrade can be reasonable, too. Cleaving Stance is pretty neat by itself. 

[Haplok]

I'd still go for Ectopsychic Echo (especially for tough enemies) and Disintegrate (fire and forget, move to next target and leave them to die - works best on squishes, but with morningstar debuff might stick also on bosses). But you do you.

[Boeroer]

As a side note: if you charm/dominate an enemy and then cast Disintegrate on them they won't flip back. It avoids that the enemies still attack you while they are dying from the DoT. Also works with Soul Ignition. Whisper of Treason almost costs nothing for a Beguiler. The only thing is that I don't know how charmed/dominated enemies interact with Brilliant Tactician. It may well be that they screw it up. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Boeroer

[thelee]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The only thing is that I don't know how charmed/dominated enemies interact with Brilliant Tactician. It may well be that they screw it up. 

I seem to recall during one of my ultimate attempt practices against the Oracle, having one of the enemy mages get dominated messed up my ability to immediately bounce back from being dominated. I could be misremembering, but I definitely prioritized killing the adds in the real run. so the game might treat dominated/charmed enemies as part of your party for (not) triggering brilliant tactician.

Edited September 8, 2020 by thelee