Celebrant Build Questions

[dgray62]

I'd like to design a MC to take full advantage of the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's gear on upscaled PotD. I was thinking that an optimal build might be a bellower/priest of Magran multiclass. My reasoning is you could start the empowerment fun quite early, when you get to Neketaka, with Sasha's singing scimitar and the Her Revenge invocation. While troubadour is clearly the most popular chanter subclass, I was thinking that bellower might be best on PotD for the PL boosts to the invocations. Late game, when you have the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's gear, empowered Storm of Holy Fire would be the best spell to proc third tier inspirations from the coil as well as the +3 PL boost with Weyc's wand, to be extended via Salvation of Time. And I was thinking that Priest of Magran brings the most firepower, complementing the chanter's powerful electric and cold attacks. If anyone has any alternative suggestions for such a build, I'd love to hear them.

[thelee]

On 10/6/2020 at 1:54 PM, dgray62 said:

While troubadour is clearly the most popular chanter subclass, I was thinking that bellower might be best on PotD for the PL boosts to the invocations.

I'm a huge fan of the bellower, so I approve this.

 

With Sasha's Stinging Scimitar, her revenge might be a better trigger than Holy Fire for least unstable coil, even in late game, for non-critical ubertough fighters (basically excluding fights where you definitely want brilliant, which rain of holy fire is much better at).

Imagine this: bellower empowered her revenge -> nice damage, 66% chance of brilliant, your chants pass 50% faster (using weyc's robe), sasha's scimitar restores all phrases, and immediately spend it on another invocation of your choice (maybe the shield breaks so that all of magran's damage spells land well). if you got brilliant triggered, you could start stretching out that faster-chant effect while you also start magran mayhem at +3 PL, so you'll have souped up invocations for the rest of the fight. You don't get the faster chants if you empower rain of holy fire. if you didn't get brilliant but still want it, you could use the watcher ability for it.

[dgray62]

Thanks, Thelee. That is exactly what I was thinking. I am finishing up a run using your fire dancer build and thought that this would be a nice alternative. Although I'd lose the very nice Helwalker monk buffs and abilities, this would make for a more flexible caster, with very strong fire, electric and cold attacks. And a great thing about the chanter is you get a really great power at level 1, Thrice, which becomes amazing when upgraded to Her Revenge, especially for a bellower. The problem with a Priest of Magran MC is you don't get a really great spell until level 10, although when you do, you shine. Your fire dancer, with all of its PL boosts, melts most mobs with Shining Beacon, and significantly weaken most bosses too. I thought it would be great to have both, for a build that would be almost entirely a caster wielding stat stick weapons like Sasha's and Magran's favor. There's a nice rhythm here too; cast an invocation, then cast a priest spell or two, then another invocation, etc.

[Boeroer]

14 hours ago, thelee said:

I'm a huge fan of the bellower, so I approve this.

 

With Sasha's Stinging Scimitar, her revenge might be a better trigger than Holy Fire for least unstable coil, even in late game, for non-critical ubertough fighters (basically excluding fights where you definitely want brilliant, which rain of holy fire is much better at).

Imagine this: bellower empowered her revenge -> nice damage, 66% chance of brilliant, your chants pass 50% faster (using weyc's robe), sasha's scimitar restores all phrases, and immediately spend it on another invocation of your choice (maybe the shield breaks so that all of magran's damage spells land well). if you got brilliant triggered, you could start stretching out that faster-chant effect while you also start magran mayhem at +3 PL, so you'll have souped up invocations for the rest of the fight. You don't get the faster chants if you empower rain of holy fire. if you didn't get brilliant but still want it, you could use the watcher ability for it.

I would prefer to use Her Revenge with the enchantment "Refreshing Finale" that restores the empower point and gives you +3 phrases instead of the full phrase refillment (but no empower refund) of "Encore".

The nice thing about a chanter is not only that you can empower in every fight as soon as you get the scimitar but also that Her Revenge (and the upgrade) is quite good with empower so it's already fun pre late game. Most other classes are not very special in terms of empower until you get the coil. Then of course stuff like Missile Salvo, Storm of Holy Fire and even Avenging Storm (especially with dual mortars, helloooo!  ) are supernice to trigger Brilliant - but before that it's just a plain ol priest/wizard/druid.

I used Thekehu's Stormspeaker class with the scimitar to empower Avenging Storm once I got it as invocation at PL8, then after that switched to mortars and rain the wildest pierce/slash/shock AoE dmg (used Sure Handed Ila - Mith Fyr doesn't work with Tekehu because his race cancels out fire effects) while triggerig Brillant nearly 100% (practically 100% - theoretically a tiny bit less ;)) due to the unbelievably high amount of Avenging Storm lightnings that get put out by Blinding Smoke (hand mortar) and also the jump of chain Shot (Fire in the Hole, but less). But of course: that's not an MC build. I mean unless you use the console or a mod and make your MC a Stormspeaker. Then I would say that's the most fun way to use the empower mechanics that lead to he unstable coil and Weyc's stuff. First use with Her Revenge and later use Avenging Storm (most likely you will already have this when the coil is ready anyway).
BUT: Obviously the triggering of Brilliant isn't that impactful for a SC Stormspeaker as it is for an MC Priest...

If that's not cool then I would also pick Bellower/caster - just because everybody and their neighbor use Troubadour and that's just so boring right now.



 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Boeroer

[thelee]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I would prefer to use Her Revenge with the enchantment "Refreshing Finale" that restores the empower point and gives you +3 phrases instead of the full phrase refillment (but no empower refund) of "Encore".

normally i would agree with you on this, but the bellower mechanics are such that I found it to be *extremely* worth while to get the enchant that gives you full phrases instead. you have to rest a lot more, which can be annoying if you have good bonuses or are on a challenge like eothas or rymrgand, but bellowers benefit from having full phrase count way more than any other chanter imo. keep in mind also that unlike other chanters, bellowers lose all their phrases when they use an invocation, which means that the expected value of free phrases for a bellower is much higher than for other chanters when using the "full phrase" enchant on sasha's.

[Boeroer]

Yes, but instead of landing at 0 phrases (after empowering an invocation with Refreshing Finale) they end up with 3. With Encore they would have 6 instead (which is better obviously) but would have to rest more often for "only" having 3 phrases more after using Empower. You are totally right though that when you have no problem with resting frequently anyway you should def. pick Encore over Refreshing Finale.

By the way: the shocking lash of Shocking Prelude (2% - 14% for a MC Bellower) - like Eternal Devotion - works with all kinds of damage you deal, invocations included. 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

ignore, double post...

Edited October 9, 2020 by Boeroer
my stupidity

[dgray62]

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I have always picked the Refreshing Finale enchantment when using SSS, and never tried Encore. This is typically because when I play a chanter I get SSS ASAP, usually at level 7, when my phase cap is still three, making Refreshing Finale the natural choice. But I can see that Encore would make sense from a late game perspective, especially if you were already planning on resting frequently. I will consider this possibility this time around.

[AndreaColombo]

Some crazy good stuff in this thread.

 

@Boeroerwhat do you think of multiclassed Tekehu + Scroll of Avenging Storm for the combination you mentioned?

Granted, the scroll is available in much more limited supply compared to the Stormspeaker’s power—but you get the healing capabilities of the Druid class which are always useful (and Tekehu’s overly cool shark Spiritshift as a bonus.)

 

On a tangentially related note, how would you guys build Konstanten? I was going to ask in a new thread (which I’ll open anyway) to plan my next playthrough, but since we’re talking Chanter combos...

 

[Boeroer]

20 hours ago, AndreaColombo said:

Some crazy good stuff in this thread.

 

@Boeroerwhat do you think of multiclassed Tekehu + Scroll of Avenging Storm for the combination you mentioned?

Granted, the scroll is available in much more limited supply compared to the Stormspeaker’s power—but you get the healing capabilities of the Druid class which are always useful (and Tekehu’s overly cool shark Spiritshift as a bonus.)

 

On a tangentially related note, how would you guys build Konstanten? I was going to ask in a new thread (which I’ll open anyway) to plan my next playthrough, but since we’re talking Chanter combos...

 

Since I don't use potions and scrolls much that's not an option for me.

I took Konstanten only once I believe (at least that the one I remember). I made him a Barb/Skald and was very pleased with his effordless will- and fortitude-debuffing capabilities through The Willbreaker + Spirit Frenzy/Tornado + Ben Fidel's Neck invocation and The Long Night's Drink phrase. Besides the great debuffing for party members: with Brute Force it was very easy to do melee crit after crit then, too. Did damage and regained phrases rather quickly. I think people underestimate how effective the lower phrase cost for offensive invocations + phrase gain on melee crit can be. Like "Her Revenge", "Killers Froze Stiff" or "The Shield Cracks" only cost 2 phrases which is really cheap, especially if you occasionally gain a phrase by whacking enemies an lowering theit will and fort at the same time.  

Oh, and when he crits he does a funny laughter (his voice is pretty incredible to begin with) which made me grin a lot. 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

So Barb/Skald is a good combo, then. No SSS for him? I reckon The Willbreaker is a pretty amazing weapon but perhaps SSS is better in fights where debuffing Will is less crucial?

[Boeroer]

I played SSS with him. Him having special conversation options was the main reason to bring him in the first place. Willbreaker is great in nearly all fights because it not only lowers Will on hit (-3 Will effect per hit stacks with itself) but also -25 fortitude with the Body Blows modal at the same time. Lowering fortitude is especially helpful in SSS because there are several enemies with very high fort which otherwise make some of the most useful spells less effective (see Chillfog and so on).

Edited October 11, 2020 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

By SSS I actually meant the weapon rather than the expansion

[Boeroer]

With Carnage Stagger + Long Night's Drink you debuff several enemies' fortitude by -24 right away in an AoE "on the fly" iirc. Singular enemies get get brought down to nearly -50 with Body Blows then. Add Ben Fidel's Neck and you can temporarily lower fortitude by ~60. Because Ben Fidel's Neck stacks with everything. Pretty dope.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

2 minutes ago, AndreaColombo said:

By SSS I actually meant the weapon rather than the expansion

Sasha's SInging Scimitar - it's great, no doubt. Not if your goal is to be a debuffer though.

By the way: if I'm not mistaken then disengagement attacks can also lead to phrase gain. So using Spirit Tornado with Terrify and having a few engagement slots might be good.

Skald can also be pretty great with Whispers otEP - because every Offensive Parry has a chance to gain you phrases if it crits. But Barb/Skald is not the right combo for that unless you use Nomad's Brigandine and force disengagment attacks (that will all be converted to misses and trigger Offensive Parries).

[AndreaColombo]

If you had to build Konstanten offensively and around Sasha’s Singing Scimitar, how would you go about? Or would that be a hopeless cause for Konstanten just works so much better as a debuffer?

I plan on taking him on for SSS (the expansion this time) in my next playthrough and kind of pictured him as an offensive build, but I’ve never actually used him before.

Edited October 11, 2020 by AndreaColombo

[dgray62]

A great companion for Konstanten the howler wielding Willbreaker would be Powerotti's Rumbling boar build, a Helwalker/skald wielding Sun and Moon with the flail modal on to debuff reflex. That pair would debuff and crit like crazy. When playing that build, I prefer dual wielding SSS and Sun and Moon, and using the Ring Prosperity's fortune. You crit perhaps slightly less often than if you single wielded Sun and Moon, but I prefer having a scimitar in the main hand so you'll get more powerful swift flurry and heartbeat drumming procs

Edited October 16, 2020 by dgray62
Corrected several errors.