Certain Certain Mutiny

[Noqn]

I haven't seen anyone upgrade Squid's Grasp into Certain Mutiny over the mutually exclusive Attempted Parley.
Here's a fun way to trigger it consistently:

1. Make a Berserker Witch.
2. Equip any party member with Squid's Grasp (upgraded with Certain Mutiny).
3. Confuse the Witch with Frenzy.
4. Have the Witch cast Puppet Master on themself (possible thanks to Confusion).

The wielder of Squid's Grasp will get two Tier 3 Inspirations, and the Witch will no longer cause friendly fire since Dominate overrides the Confusion from Frenzy!

It's also doable just with Charm, but that would disable the target's Abilities. If that's acceptable, the best option would be a Debonaire's charm which also generates up to three Body Inspiration on the target.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Noqn

[dgray62]

That's interesting, Noqn. Do you think a fire blight summoned by the Belt of Magran's Chosen would be considered a "party member"? Since they are hostile when summoned, it would be pretty cool if charming or dominating them would trigger Certain Mutiny.

[Boeroer]

ROFL - nice one. I never tried to dominate myself. I never eve suspected that one might be able to cast a mind control on oneself at all (even when confused).

Berseker/Debonaire charming themselves sounds like a hilarious dissociative-identity-disorder-character-concept.

So if the wielder of Squid's Grasp and the Berserker/Debonaire would be the same person - would you get up to three Body Inspirations from Roguish Charm AND Swift + Intuitive from the rapier (Swift will override one of the charm bonuses at some point but stil...)?

[Boeroer]

4 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

a fire blight summoned by the Belt of Magran's Chosen would be considered a "party member"?

Nope. Hostiles can't be party members. Not even allies. Ally and party member are not the same by the way. The first can include summons (I think all friendly summons are considered allies), the second one only actual party members (those five guys you steer around).

So it shouldn't even work if a summon gets charmed. But it may be that the description isn't accurate. Worth testing I think...

Edited September 7, 2020 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

3 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Nope. Hostiles can't be party members. Not even allies. Ally and party member are not the same by the way. The first can include summons (I think all friendly summons are considered allies), the second one only actual party members (those five guys you steer around).

So it shouldn't even work if a summon gets charmed. But it may be that the description isn't accurate. Worth testing I think...

Thanks for the quick reply! The witch or berserker/debonaire builds sound doable. I like the idea of a witch dominating itself to remove confusion, while gaining two tier 3 inspirations. Very nice idea!

[SArgentus]

Sounds like a fun setup for potentially powerful effects! Does self-charm/dominate turn you against your own team or do you simply lose control of the character? I'm sadly not able to check it myself right now.

[Noqn]

46 minutes ago, SArgentus said:

Sounds like a fun setup for potentially powerful effects! Does self-charm/dominate turn you against your own team or do you simply lose control of the character? I'm sadly not able to check it myself right now.

You still have full control of the character, though you might have to re-select it right after getting Dominated.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

So if the wielder of Squid's Grasp and the Berserker/Debonaire would be the same person - would you get up to three Body Inspirations from Roguish Charm AND Swift + Intuitive from the rapier (Swift will override one of the charm bonuses at some point but stil...)?

Yep!

  

1 hour ago, dgray62 said:

Do you think a fire blight summoned by the Belt of Magran's Chosen would be considered a "party member"?

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

[...] So it shouldn't even work if a summon gets charmed. But it may be that the description isn't accurate. Worth testing I think...

Yeah, doesn't work with summons. Also doesn't seem to work with Animal Companions.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Noqn

[Noqn]

Another fun combo, if your Berserker/Debonaire Charms an ally, they can switch to a weapon set with Modwyr to remove the Int affliction but keep the Inspirations!

Edited September 7, 2020 by Noqn

[mepp22]

Does it have to be a party member or can you charm yourself? 

[Noqn]

You can charm yourself.

[SArgentus]

It probably won't be worth it, but this could potentially be combined withe the BoW items that grant bonuses when afflicted.

[mepp22]

You can get some serious hit to crit conversion with Intuitive on a Berserker. Maybe Seekers Fang could be interesting, it can be pretty pretty devastating with an Ascendant. I wonder if Spiders Flurry triggers Carnage and if Carnage triggers any of the Dots. 

[mepp22]

I imagine you could also use Squids grasp on a Monk/Berserker and have a different party member dominate them. Add Stalker's patience in the offhand and spam Stunning Surge all day long. Swift flurry + Heartbeat drumming with such a high crit chance would be insane since I believe Boeroer wrote somewhere that their crits can trigger themselves. I also assume the extra hits can trigger the 20% chance of 0 recovery. And you can use the rapier modal to further boost accuracy since Stunning Surge will only use your offhand recovery. Both weapons are available super early and would offer some serious DPS all game. 

[dgray62]

All you really need in the party is a Berserker and a cipher, with someone wielding squid's grasp. The possibilities are endless, really. You just wouldn't want the Berserker multiclassed with a caster, such as the witch combo I suggested above, since the -5 INT from being dominated would hurt if you're a caster.

[Boeroer]

I tried it on a solo Berserker/Debonaire with Squid's Grasp. In theory it all works out: the character gains several inspirations from Rapier and Roguish Charm as planned, but the downside is you can't steer the charmed char anymore (so no switching to Modwyr like I also planned to do). You can't reselect as solo char because there's nobody else to select. Maybe there's some key to unselect all?

And besides not being able to steer him he also doesn't do anything -  because he lacks the AI I guess (didn't try to make a custom AI and switch it on). Maybe max RES and -x% hostile effects stuff could make this usable, but I don't think so. 

So I suspect it's best to not put the Rapier and the Roguish Charm on the same character...?

Should try if a good AI setting takes over once I charm myself. If so this could be a way out and make this "one man selfcharming army" useful - for a party setup at least. If I can get the AI to switch to Modwyr that would be super good. The inspirations last quite a long time. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

PS: this episode also taught me that I can cast Brand Enemy on a Berserker/Paladin which is hilarious in combination with Rekvu's Scorched Cloak.

[SArgentus]

Now this won't be usable on the same character (With Squid's Grasp granting immunity to flanked, although with weapon switching it might be possible), but the Tactician subclass potentially also has confused on demand by using the blunderbuss modal if one wished to avoid Berserker/Barbarian for some reason.

[Noqn]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I tried it on a solo Berserker/Debonaire with Squid's Grasp. In theory it all works out: the character gains several inspirations from Rapier and Roguish Charm as planned, but the downside is you can't steer the charmed char anymore (so no switching to Modwyr like I also planned to do). You can't reselect as solo char because there's nobody else to select. Maybe there's some key to unselect all?

Works for me by pressing the Select All key (defult: Backspace?)

 

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, SArgentus said:

Now this won't be usable on the same character (With Squid's Grasp granting immunity to flanked, although with weapon switching it might be possible), but the Tactician subclass potentially also has confused on demand by using the blunderbuss modal if one wished to avoid Berserker/Barbarian for some reason.

Squid's Grasp + Hand Mortar (+Powder Burns+Blinding Smoke) on a Tactician/Debonaire sounds pretty fun though. Will test...

Works for me by pressing the Select All key (defult: Backspace?)

Ah thanks. Will try that.

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Ah thanks. Will try that.

Ha, it works if you unselect all and select all. I can't manually select the charmed character (via mouseclick) - but select all works.

[mepp22]

21 hours ago, Noqn said:

Another fun combo, if your Berserker/Debonaire Charms an ally, they can switch to a weapon set with Modwyr to remove the Int affliction but keep the Inspirations!

Wouldn't Svef work as well? Might be a bit easier than doing a weapon switch. Actually I think that only downgrades Int Afflictions 1 Tier.  But Svef with Enlightened Agony should be enough to remove it.

Edited September 8, 2020 by mepp22

[thelee]

21 hours ago, Noqn said:

Another fun combo, if your Berserker/Debonaire Charms an ally, they can switch to a weapon set with Modwyr to remove the Int affliction but keep the Inspirations!

Boeroer kinda figured this out, but charm on a player character is kind of busted. I think something about the AI scripting doesn't quite work right, because mostly it just means my characters stand around. So you really dominate for this to work.

 

24 minutes ago, mepp22 said:

But Svef with Enlightened Agony should be enough to remove it.

You don't even need Svef - Enlightened Agony will remove it. (Any inspiration of one type will cancel out any affliction of the same type, doesn't matter if they are different tiers.)

[dgray62]

I tried it with a Berserker/witch. It works quite well, since you don't lose control when dominated. But only the confused character can cast Puppet Master on itself; another cipher cannot do so, since you are unable to target party members with Puppet Master unless you are confused, or the other party member is dominated by an enemy caster. I'm going to add a berserker witch to my next party so the MC, wielding squid's grasp, can benefit from the 2 tier 3 inspirations.

[lewis_cb]

For a solo wizard, what about Bekarna's Mercurial Madness on yourself? Couldn't try since I didn't get that grimoire yet, but it says "target", not "foe" so I was wondering if you can cast it on yourself.

[Noqn]

16 hours ago, lewis_cb said:

For a solo wizard, what about Bekarna's Mercurial Madness on yourself? Couldn't try since I didn't get that grimoire yet, but it says "target", not "foe" so I was wondering if you can cast it on yourself.

Arkemyr's Mercurial Madness and Wall of Many Colors were actually the first abilities I considered, but those spells only trigger one of several possible effects each Xth seconds, so there's no ensurance when (or even if) Dominate will trigger. You'd also need a combination of Res/Dex immunity and no Int resistance for best effect. From what little I tested I dismissed them pretty quickly.