Frostseeker

[masterty66]

I'm planning a full run of the series and am gonna do a Ranger. I have this weird desire to use Frostseeker. Is it viable? How would one build a Ranger with using that in mind? Arcane Archer/Helwalker maybe? Or Sharpshooter/Helwalker? 

Or I will be terribly disappointed and want to use another bow or dual mortars instead? lol 

[Boeroer]

Frostseeker is absolutely viable. You want to generate as many crits as possible to tight groups of enemies (like pulled together by Pull of Eora or assembled around a tank. 

Helwalker will work (Lightning Strikes, Duality:INT, MIG, Enduring Dance), Cipher (Borrowed Instincts, Phantom Foes, Eyestrike), Rogue, too (the crit AoE profits from Sneak Attack and Deathblows). Even Fighter (Devoted, Disciplined Strikes) is doable. Paladin will get +20 ACC on Flames of Devotion with the Ring of Focused Flames which will also help with crits (and Zealous Focus, too). Eternal Devotion also works with the Frostseeker AoE I believe.  

An Arcane Archer can pull crowds together by himself (Imbue:Eora) but it's maybe best to leave that part to a wizard who can cast simultaneously and just keep firing arrows. Also Frostseeker will omit two of the three projectiles if used with Imbue shots which is a bit lame imo.

Even a SC Ranger is nice. With Twinned Shots and Driving Flight you are producing up to 12 hit rolls per shot which is pretty great in combination with Avenging Storm (from Heaven's Cacophony or scroll).

Highest ACC you'll get with Ranger/Cipher if I'm not mistaken. The frost AoE also generates a lot of focus. 

[masterty66]

35 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Frostseeker is absolutely viable. You want to generate as many crits as possible to tight groups of enemies (like pulled together by Pull of Eora or assembled around a tank. 

Helwalker will work (Lightning Strikes, Duality:INT, MIG, Enduring Dance), Cipher (Borrowed Instincts, Phantom Foes, Eyestrike), Rogue, too (the crit AoE profits from Sneak Attack and Deathblows). Even Fighter (Devoted, Disciplined Strikes) is doable. Paladin will get +20 ACC on Flames of Devotion with the Ring of Focused Flames which will also help with crits (and Zealous Focus, too). Eternal Devotion also works with the Frostseeker AoE I believe.  

An Arcane Archer can pull crowds together by himself (Imbue:Eora) but it's maybe best to leave that part to a wizard who can cast simultaneously and just keep firing arrows. Also Frostseeker will omit two of the three projectiles if used with Imbue shots which is a bit lame imo.

Even a SC Ranger is nice. With Twinned Shots and Driving Flight you are producing up to 12 hit rolls per shot which is pretty great in combination with Avenging Storm (from Heaven's Cacophony or scroll).

Highest ACC you'll get with Ranger/Cipher if I'm not mistaken. The frost AoE also generates a lot of focus. 

Thanks! That's a lot of great info.

If you weren't going to go Arcane Archer with any of those combos, what would you do instead? Sharpshooter I suppose? 

[Boeroer]

I think I'd go for Ghost Heart. None of the suggested multiclass options has a summon (besides Monk) that would clash with the Spirit Animal Companion, you won't suffer Bonded Grief which you really don't want to experience when aiming for crits (because -10 ACC, ouch). Also you can often drop the AC directly in front of the enemy you want to shoot at, immediately getting the ACC bonus from Stalker's Link. And if the enemies are too far away at least you can drop the AC off behind the enemy lines which makes it less of a hassle to reach the enemies. As a multiclass there's usually lots of great abilites to pick from so it's maybe nice if you don't have to invest into the AC too much.

A Sharpshooter may have 15% crit conversion from >4m distance (which isn't bad at all) but also +10% recovery time - which means that while you are more likely to crit per shot you are also shooting more slowly which in turn means less crits in a given time. Also you'd have to invest more passives into the AC in order to make it more sturdy or heal/revive it so you don't suffer Bonded Grief.

But I'm sure both would be fine. 

  

Edited October 29, 2020 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

To make an effective Frostseeker build you should crit a lot which means very high accuracy. The cipher can debuff deflection by 20 (Phantom Foes+Psychovampiric Shield) and buff his own accuracy by 25 (Borrowed Instinct + Tactical Meld). The helwalker is a good combo for most ranged builds but his accuracy isn't that great (a better combo is helwalker/rogue with dual mortars/the Red Hand).

For the cipher I recommend the ascendant subclass for the 40% dmg bonus (Biting Whip + Ascended). For the ranger I usually recommend Ghost Heart, however for Frostseeker I would go with the Arcane Archer because of the great synergy with Imbue: Eora (the only Imbue worth using at high lvl).

[masterty66]

Thanks guys. Arcane Archer/Ascendant does sound pretty intriguing. I think I might go with that. The super high accuracy you'd get from that build sounds like it would be ideal for Frostseeker what with all the crits. I'd guess that maybe even though the imbue only fires one shot that it might still be worth using given Frostseeker aoes sometimes. 

[Boeroer]

To get the most of of the Arcane Archer variant (I mean circumventing the frustrating omittance of the second and third imbue projectile) I personally would use Watershaper's Focus from stealth to open combat. First use Imbue: Web once the enemies got lured to a spot or gathered around the tank.
Then later def. Imbue: Pull of Eora. That way you will not drop only two Pulls (initial + Driving Flight) but three (init. + DF + Watershaper's Focus build-in jump). It's very hard for enemies to escape three parallel pulls that were applied with sky-high ACC.
Also there will be three times the Blast damage of the rod which very often triggers its enchantment "Ondra's Wrath" which might ascend you right at the spot.
Because you shoot this one from stealth you will have nearly no recovery (stealth offers a -85% recovery time bonus).
You can then switch to Frostseeker. Sure, there will be switching recovery, but I think it's absolutely worth it. Because of that I was thinking about an Arcane Archer/Black Jacket with 0 switching recovery and four weapon slots (Frostseeker/Watershaper's Focus/Spearcaster/Essence Interrupter) to cover all resistances/immunites of enemies and be able to interrupt at the spot. Penetrating Strike and Disciplined Strikes would be nice to have for Frostseeker. And you wouldn't need to cast a bunch of debuffs/buffs like the Ascendant would. But I think Ascendant is more up your alley if you want to focus on Frostseeker.  
By the way: since you are scaling Arcane anyway it would be a crime to use Frostseeker and not use scrolls of Avenging Storm from time to time.  It's just too good.

Speaking of Cipher again: Biting Whip is pretty bad in the vanilla game - I mean compared to Draining Whip. If you install the Community Patch you will have a more balanced Biting Whip ability. That mod also fixes an annoying bug of the Arcane Archer: all his damaging Imbue shots (Missiles, Fireball and Death Ring) won't scale their PEN - so they become rather bad at higher levels because they can't penetrate anymore. The mod makes it so that the PEN of imbue shots scales with your Arcana skill. This helps to keep them viable until the end. And on top you'll get unique passive icons for every class in the game as sugar coating.

Even if Black Jacket isn't your thing I would still encourage you to try Spearcaster at some point just to see how it is with an Archane Archer. It's Rune Shot enchantments gets bonus ACC from the Arcana skill and it stacks with the Arcana-induced bonus of the imbue shots, giving you absurd amounts of ACC (with an Imbue or Accurate Wounding Shot). It can be very good against enemies you want to interrupt very reliably with the modal. You don't need to commit yourself to it, just try it out some time.  

Edited October 29, 2020 by Boeroer

[masterty66]

I did at one point do a run with a Bleak Walker with Spearcaster and it was definitely pretty good.

The Blackjacket idea is interesting and definitely one I will consider. It's going to take me a bit of time to finish Poe1 so I'll have some time to consider whether I want to go with that or the Ascendant. Both ideas sound pretty fun. I can definitely see the appeal of having multiple weapon types so that I can be effective depending on the enemy I face. 

Also I absolutely love using scrolls. I suppose that's a holdover from the many times I've played poe1 but I've always loved using scrolls and spell bindings. They were often quite powerful in poe1 and I know in poe2 they continue to be so. It's easy to forget about them sometimes because you get into a routine in combats of using your normal rotations but well placed consumables have often been able to win fights for me in these games when I remember to use them. 

 

[AndreaColombo]

Speaking of spell bindings—do they scale at all in Deadfire?

[Boeroer]

Stuff like Necklace of Fireballs and Missile Gloves do scale. Don't ask me for the specifics though. 

That makes them good because both of them can be aquired at least twice so you can use all their charges or per-rest uses in one encounter and recharge by stacking in the stash. 

[AndreaColombo]

Cool beans

[mjo2138]

23 hours ago, Kaylon said:

To make an effective Frostseeker build you should crit a lot which means very high accuracy. The cipher can debuff deflection by 20 (Phantom Foes+Psychovampiric Shield) and buff his own accuracy by 25 (Borrowed Instinct + Tactical Meld). The helwalker is a good combo for most ranged builds but his accuracy isn't that great (a better combo is helwalker/rogue with dual mortars/the Red Hand).

For the cipher I recommend the ascendant subclass for the 40% dmg bonus (Biting Whip + Ascended). For the ranger I usually recommend Ghost Heart, however for Frostseeker I would go with the Arcane Archer because of the great synergy with Imbue: Eora (the only Imbue worth using at high lvl).

 

On 10/28/2020 at 4:16 PM, Boeroer said:

I think I'd go for Ghost Heart. None of the suggested multiclass options has a summon (besides Monk) that would clash with the Spirit Animal Companion, you won't suffer Bonded Grief which you really don't want to experience when aiming for crits (because -10 ACC, ouch). Also you can often drop the AC directly in front of the enemy you want to shoot at, immediately getting the ACC bonus from Stalker's Link. And if the enemies are too far away at least you can drop the AC off behind the enemy lines which makes it less of a hassle to reach the enemies. As a multiclass there's usually lots of great abilites to pick from so it's maybe nice if you don't have to invest into the AC too much.

A Sharpshooter may have 15% crit conversion from >4m distance (which isn't bad at all) but also +10% recovery time - which means that while you are more likely to crit per shot you are also shooting more slowly which in turn means less crits in a given time. Also you'd have to invest more passives into the AC in order to make it more sturdy or heal/revive it so you don't suffer Bonded Grief.

But I'm sure both would be fine. 

  

Do you think Ydwin as a mindstalker is good for bow builds, or are the advantages or ranger(GH; AA subclass) +cipher (ascendant) much better? 

[Kaylon]

Losing accuracy and Driving Flight will basically cut your damage in half for a Frostseeker build - Ydwin is better used as a caster than a ranged fighter...

Edited October 29, 2020 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

Unfortunately the AoE that procs off of crits from Frostseeker doesn't transport Rogues' strike effects - like Blast or mortar AoEs do.

It will profit from Sneak Attack and Deathblows, but you will crit significantly less I think. Keep in mind that Driving Flight not only delivers more damage but also raises the chance for AoE procs a lot - on top of the higher ACC.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Boeroer

[Lampros]

Frostseeker is utterly insane. I thought of it as a transition weapon until I get Saint Omaku's on my Cipher/Ranger. But against large groups (and most of the game is against large groups), it is just a light show.

Edit: I really wish that changing weapons for free would be a universal lvel-up

Edited October 31, 2020 by Lampros