Dragon Chanter Questions

[Mudcrabjedi]

So, to begin this post, I'd like to state that i have been a lurker for a few months. Ive seen that this forum isn't necessarily as "alive" as it once was, but is still very active.

 

With that in mind, ive an idea for a build, but it's bare bones and just an idea currently. I'm not sure if it will function very well and will certainly not be exceedingly powerful, but the idea sounds fun to me.

 

So, my question is whether a Priest of Magran/ Chanter could work. The idea is a dragon (drake) tamer. I say drake, as it's obviously a multiclass and Drakes and Wurms are all I will have.

 

So, has anyone tried this, and would it be fun? I know everyone's idea of fun is subjective, but humor me please.

 

The idea may sound familiar, and thats because it comes from the palagina build on the build compilation. So i know a herald "might" be a better choice, but I'm roleplaying a Magranite anyway, so I'd like to stay with the 2 classes i already have.

 

Im sorry if that was vague, but any advice on this build idea would be MUCH appreciated.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Mudcrabjedi

[dgray62]

I think that this is a great idea, Mudcrabjedi. I recently tried a priest of magran/bellower celebrant build for my MC as a variant of thelee's fire dancer build. I followed thelee's idea of stacking power levels, to give the build great fire power. But I replaced the Helwalker monk with a Bellower chanter. My thinking here is bellowers naturally give you fantastic power level stacking as part of their kit. More over, the bellower has two really great powers that benefit from increased power levels, namely Her Revenge and O'Eld Nary. They complement the heavy fire focus of the priest of magran, giving you powerful lightning and cold attacks, which comes in handy when you face fire resistant or immune foes, of which there are many. And it benefits from Sasha's Singing Scimitar, enabling you to empower an invocation once per encounter, which gives you a huge boost when also wielding Weyc's Wand and the Least Unstable coil. It's a fun build that's very caster oriented, but you'll never run out of "spells," on the chanter side at least. Even at low levels, you can alternate between casting invocations and priest spells without running out of spells for most encounters. As for summoning wurms and drakes, bellower is probably the best subclass for this, as your increased power levels will lead to longer durations for the summon. Ultimately, however, you'll probably want to get the Ancient Instruments of Death summons, as it is arguably the best summon a multi-classed chanter can get, even though it doesn't fit the "Dragon chanter" theme. Whatever summons you chose, your chants will heal and strengthen them, just as they do you and your party members. So, you can start battles with a summon, cast a priest fire spell, buff and/or heal, as needed, followed by an offensive invocation, and repeat until the battle is over.

[Mudcrabjedi]

Thank you for taking the time to reply! I will take all of this in to account and test out something in a bit!

[thelee]

whatever you do, i highly recommend supplementing your build with hel-hyraf/the shield breaks invocation and geting animancy cat. the combined benefits of the two will have it so that even the summons that you have that don't scale will still be relevant as enemies get tougher armor.

 

(magran spells will also love having enemies subjected to the shield breaks for its own damage purposes)

Edited October 19, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

The shield only cracks, it doesn't break.

#abilityNameAnalMinMaxing

[dgray62]

7 hours ago, thelee said:

whatever you do, i highly recommend supplementing your build with hel-hyraf/the shield breaks invocation and geting animancy cat. the combined benefits of the two will have it so that even the summons that you have that don't scale will still be relevant as enemies get tougher armor.

Yes, Hel Hyraf is a great invocation that will benefit you and your summons; the upgrade is great because it basically lasts forever, so long as you land hits. It may not be as necessary once you get the spell Champion's Boon, which gives you tenacious and hence +2 PEN, but it will always help your summons, and will still help you with the tougher foes. I think, but am not 100% sure, that the +2 PEN from tenacious stacks with the -2 AR from Hel Hyraf, giving you a net +4 PEN boost.

[Boeroer]

Yes, they stack. Since one is a debuff and the other one a buff there's no interference whatsoever (like debuffing Deflection and buffing Accuracy). 

[Mudcrabjedi]

Ok, so one more question. Beckoned, or bellower? Which one is actually better for the purposes of summoning?

[Boeroer]

Depends (I know it's frustrating).

If you are planning to use Grave Calling with Chilling Grave in the party then Beckoner.

If you have a SC Paladin in the party then also Beckoner.

If you want to use Grave Calling and have a SC Paladin then so very much Beckoner.

If your Grave Calling wielder is a Berserker then you must bring a Beckoner, it's a law.

 

I never tried two Dragons with the Beckoner for tanking purposes but offensively the Animated Weapons dish out a lot more dmg with a Beckoner than with a Bellower.

I would also argue that Troubadour is top notch as soon as you get the chant Many Lives Pass By. He will pop a skeleton every 3 secs and they don't replace other summons, not even themselves. It's a constant stream of skeletons on top of the faster phrase collection for the other summons you want to call forth. 

Also remember that the Bellower is bad at supporting the party with chants.

[thelee]

15 hours ago, Mudcrabjedi said:

Ok, so one more question. Beckoned, or bellower? Which one is actually better for the purposes of summoning?

to add to boeroer's stuff, i'm a big bellower fan but i would go right out and say that for most purposes you want a beckoner or troubadour for summons. bellower is good for summons where you expect them to be durable and you want them to stick around while also getting linger. if you want to do more damage, a beckoner with 6-8 animated weapons is what you want.

but if you want your summons to facetank for you, you should go with a bellower. for a beckoner the malus on summon health is so severe (-75% i believe) and the duration hit so strong (-28% or so; 25s down to 18s base) that even the super duper tanky dragon will be whittle down to miniscule levels of health and even if it survives it'll be unsummoned so quickly that it'll almost be a waste to use them.

but even then, a troubaoudr can get you summon uptime with brisk recitation. bellowers will get you linger and long-lasting summons, and can synergize well with other invocations. so... it depends!

Edited October 21, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

I'd go Troubadour I think. Also because it's more flexible and impactful before the high levels. 

Edit: I forgot something. Not only when you use Grave Calling and/or a SC Paladin a Beckoner is preferable, but also if you have a SC priest who wants to use "Spark the Souls of the Righteous". If you time it right and all summons (for example all skeletons or later all animated weapons) receive it that's nice.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

Good thing to note about Beckoner's drakes : the drake upgrade that summons another drake upon initial drake death summons a normal drake.

- Summon 2 drake with 25% health
- Get them killed
- Now you have 2 normal drakes ! You can't control these new drakes but they "do not count as summons". You can summon another summon at this point.

Drakes are still subpar summons to be honnest (everything is subpar compared to animated weapons, but drakes even more), but with beckoner they are better. 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Same thing applies to Ancient Brittle Bones: the skeletons that spawn if one of the tiny original ones is killed will have normal size and health (and you can't control them either and they don't count towards the summon limit).