[5.0 class build] "Disruptor" - theurge (skald/animist)

[thelee]

16 minutes ago, Lampros said:

It turns out Combusting Wounds does 1 round even at 20 Intellect. I am not sure what I'd need to get to 2 rounds - 30? If the latter, then that is likely not practicable

do you have PL scaling? my quick math suggests you'd need a total of +7 PL to get pushed over the threshold with 20 intellect. if you can buff intellect anyway (infuse with vital essence?) you can get away with less +PL

 

(a a reminder, for each ability tier that you've unlocked that is higher than the one the spell is on gives you +1 PL. so having access to tier 7 spells is +5 PL right there.)

Edited November 2, 2020 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

13 minutes ago, thelee said:

do you have PL scaling? my quick math suggests you'd need a total of +7 PL to get pushed over the threshold with 20 intellect. if you can buff intellect anyway (infuse with vital essence?) you can get away with less +PL

 

(a a reminder, for each ability tier that you've unlocked that is higher than the one the spell is on gives you +1 PL. so having access to tier 7 spells is +5 PL right there.)

So Magran's Axe and you're good

[thelee]

note to any interested - i updated the build a tiny bit with some tweaks based on end-game play.

basically this build is constrained by action economy a lot, because everything you want to cast is slow and you have so much you want to drop. so i recommend ditching ring of focused flame in late game for kauru's prize (you'll be using less and less fire-keyworded stuff due to action economy and cinder bombs will still be getting +10 from helm), and possibly ditching magnificent escape cape in exchange for shroud of the phantasm and a source of mind inspiration (party member buff - cipher, priest, paladin, another chanter would do it. empowered venombloom with least unstable coil is close to guaranteed to getting you one. communal carnage will get you one, with some ramp up time).

 

also while i flagged nature's terror as an optional pick because of the skill-intensiveness of using it right, it really is a GOAT in this build. club modal, flail modal basically lets you repeatedly crit and interrupt all the time even on tough foes, and nature's terror lasts a super long time and doesn't run into targeting issues with poison-immune or ground-immune enemies. (as always, it works even better if it's overlapping with cinder bombs/venombloom/wicked briars/even tanglefoot)

 

embrace the earth talon also remain immensely useful to increase crit rate to supercharge the skald side of things when needed.

 

also should add as a synergy - blind/disorient afflictions. you already get some blind with cinder bombs, but you really should try to get some more from party support. the way interrupts work is that they add a +2s delay but is capped by the target's current recovery with a minimum of 2s, which could in fact be the main recovery if you've interrupted an action or you're against a particularly fast enemy. blinded lifts that minimum to 3s, which doesn't sound like a lot but in practice is a significant increased window of delay time for further interrupts. on foes with slower actions, blinded can lift the cap so much that they may never get an action again due how large a recovery window they have to get further interrupts (and you'll be dropping a lot on them, potentially).

Edited November 2, 2020 by thelee

[Lampros]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

do you have PL scaling? my quick math suggests you'd need a total of +7 PL to get pushed over the threshold with 20 intellect. if you can buff intellect anyway (infuse with vital essence?) you can get away with less +PL

 

(a a reminder, for each ability tier that you've unlocked that is higher than the one the spell is on gives you +1 PL. so having access to tier 7 spells is +5 PL right there.)

Not sure what the question means precisely, as I am a newb But my Aloth is level 11, and he can access only PL 4 spells at the moment.

[thelee]

38 minutes ago, Lampros said:

Not sure what the question means precisely, as I am a newb But my Aloth is level 11, and he can access only PL 4 spells at the moment.

you should probably acquaint yourself to how power level scaling works.

 

but at only tier 4 spells and no other +PL bonuses or further intellect bonuses i would expect aloth to be unable to get a 2 round combusting wounds.

Edited November 2, 2020 by thelee

[Lampros]

Re-starting yet again to try this build:

But before I do: Will this work well turn-based, too?

[thelee]

On 11/7/2020 at 12:33 PM, Lampros said:

Re-starting yet again to try this build:

But before I do: Will this work well turn-based, too?

i think it'll be OK, but nothing particularly special.

on rtwp, because of how interrupts work, once I get going in a big fight, I basically shut down the enemy from doing anything for the rest of the fight. if i empower venombloom or wicked briars in a non-interrupt immune fight and have energized up, the fight is already pretty much done at that point. (and forget about it if you have least unstable coil)

on turn-based, i strongly suspect that you'll end up being an OK aoe damage dealer, but you won't be very able to prevent enemies from getting their actions each turn since instead of your interrupts happening all over the place, they'd all pretty much just be happening in sync with your turn iirc. the skald component would fare worse because of action economy with physical attacks - you're probably better off using troubadour.

nature's bounty would also be way worse. +20% action speed is great in rtwp, not so much in tb mode.

[thelee]

wow, you still can't edit posts after a certain amount of time. oh well.

[Boeroer]

You could edit before the new theme launch (that problem was fixed some time ago) and at least I still can with the new theme as well. The thing that might throw you off is that the edit option is hidden behind the three dots menu in the upper right (on mobile at least).

[thelee]

8 hours ago, Boeroer said:

You could edit before the new theme launch (that problem was fixed some time ago) and at least I still can with the new theme as well. The thing that might throw you off is that the edit option is hidden behind the three dots menu in the upper right (on mobile at least).

lol, for me either on mobile or not-mobile the three dots menu only has "report" and "share", except on relatively recent posts.

 

i guess this means now i have to put a disclaimer at the top of any future guides that it's not going to be the definitive place to find it. good thing i already moved some of my guides to gamefaqs.

Edited November 10, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

I have "report", "share" and (after a horizontal separator) "edit". Funny - maybe something's messed up with your rights or something. I have no editing limit, just checked with very old posts I dug up. @Aarik D, what do you make of this?

[thelee]

tangential update on this build: i'm cleaning up the megabosses now, and I unintentionally discovered the second or third-easiest method for clearing dorudugan (the first-easiest is definitely scordeo's + bleeding axe modal, there are some BDD-related shenanigans that may or may not be easier depending on how you define "easy").

 

this build has so much accuracy thanks to the maxed perception and helm of the white void (and extra hit->crit), that with some modest buffing and debuffing, you have an extremely high hit rate with Embrace the Earth Talon on Dorudugan. You need body blows modal (-25 fort), a dedicated chant with just "the long night's..." (-14 fort), devotions (+10 acc), holding onto keeper of the flame (+4 acc from aura), intuitive (watcher's ability), potion of perfect aim, +4 bonus PL (stone of power, potion of ascension, acute/brilliant) on top of hte base gear (helm of the white void and gloves of accuracy, i also recommend switching out ring of focused flame for kuaro's prize for the bonus perception). all easily do-able for a level 20 party. the problem is that dorudugan has a gigantic resolve (max 35) so anything you land lasts for but a blip, and improving your duration via intellect and PL is minimally effective due to inversions. the trick is to reduce dorudugan's resolve instead.

wizard (in my case aloth): knows gaze of the adragan, arkemy'rs wondrous torment. set up an AI script to just spam them whenever they are availble.

this theurge: set up an AI script to just spam embrace the earth talon and ben fidel's.

priest (in my case xoti): knows spark the souls of the righteous. set up an AI script to spam salvation of time if they have an intellect inspiration.

some random other party member with weyc's robe. i used two party members with morningstars for redundancy.

 

at start of combat, drink all your potions and set up your buffs, and start empowering an ability to trigger weyc's robe's brilliant. in the mean time, your wizard should be manually spamming arkemyr's wondrous torment (or miasma of dull-mindedness), optionally helped along by an empower or a club modal. eventually one will land (mine landed on the first try at ~30% hit rate with no club modal), and thereafter all future attempts will land very easily due to a vanishingly low will from the debuff [especially with a club modal mixed in].

after everyone gets brilliant, have your priest cast spark the souls of the righteous and move everyone into melee range of dorudugan, make sure the morningstar modals are on. have this theurge use the shield cracks until it lands.

 

after that, it's autopilot. your wizard's AI script will keep refreshing arkemyr's wondrous torment, while your theurge will keep using embrace the erath talon and ben fidel's. earth talon normally despite all the intellect and PL under all these circumstances lasts only 2.9s or so against dorudugan's massive resolve, but with arkemry's wondrous torment in place will instead last ~9s or so, and will have an exceedingly high hit rate. your wizard will have a lower hit rate with gaze of the adragan but they are just there as backup. the shield cracks will make spark the souls of the righteous do tons of damage easily, which will also keep refreshing shield cracks.

i almost could've AFKed at that point, but i stuck around to manually force the theurge to use ben fidel's or embrace the earth talon in situations where i thought one was more important than the other. dorudugan died very quickly (well, by dorudugan standards) and it never got off any of its special attacks. it got about two or three melee attacks in at the beginning and never acted again after that. i occasionally had eder (in my party also) use mule kick as a safety measure, but it was never actually necessary.

 

this dorudugan clear isn't specific to this build (all the components can be done piecemeal in other ways), but it was a nice unintended discovery from running with this build. and i don't mean to over-sell this build in particular - just as important as having a high-accuracy petrify effect+shield cracks+ben fidel+long night's chant was also arkemyr's wondrous torment and spark the souls. 

 

edit: (meanwhile belranga was a dream scenario for this build, to the point i had to hold back a bit because my first attempt the game crashed because there were too many wicked briars going at the same time; once about ~40 spiders died belranga basically stopped being capable of doing anything due to constant interrupts)

Edited November 12, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

@thelee: editing issues solved, right?

[thelee]

11 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

@thelee: editing issues solved, right?

just saw those tweets. awesome!

[Boeroer]

Yeah. Aarik D. is back at Obsidian - so if you have forum issues (or other community-related stuff) you can tag him here or on Twitter. Usually he's very responsive and always happy to help.

Okay, back to the build. Awesome stuff with the Megabosses.

[thelee]

just popping in again to say that this build is exceeding my expectations with regard to megabosses. anything that isn't interrupt-immune is basically a done deal from the start (and even dorudugan ended up going down pretty easily). just for fun i recorded the hauani o whe fight to show how the build works at peak effectiveness. i didn't need to do any prep work for hauani (unlike dorudugan), in fact i made some dumb mistakes (e.g. i still had some AI script settings leftover from the dorudugan fight by accident, forgot about salvation of time positioning for quite a while).

once the build gets going, there's no stopping it. i don't think hauane gets more than a few actions off the entire fight (including all split oozes). the hardest part was just getting all the buffs going at the start and stripping hauani's concentration (too high fort to get plague of insects to land). megaboss fights are so long i use brilliant, but in typical fights you don't need that to wreck the enemies.

recommended for viewing at 1.25x or 1.5x speed due to its relative length.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by thelee

[dgray62]

On 11/2/2020 at 10:25 AM, thelee said:

basically this build is constrained by action economy a lot, because everything you want to cast is slow and you have so much you want to drop. so i recommend ditching ring of focused flame in late game for kauru's prize (you'll be using less and less fire-keyworded stuff due to action economy and cinder bombs will still be getting +10 from helm), and possibly ditching magnificent escape cape in exchange for shroud of the phantasm and a source of mind inspiration (party member buff - cipher, priest, paladin, another chanter would do it. empowered venombloom with least unstable coil is close to guaranteed to getting you one. communal carnage will get you one, with some ramp up time).

thelee, does the 10% boost to spell casting speed from the shroud stack with other sources of action speed boost, such as the 20% boost from the Captain's Banquet?

[thelee]

17 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

thelee, does the 10% boost to spell casting speed from the shroud stack with other sources of action speed boost, such as the 20% boost from the Captain's Banquet?

yep.

typically in end-game i would have nature's bounty, frenzy ward, and shroud of phantasm's action speed buff all active, and they all stacked.

edit: oh and for hard fights i would empwoer venombloom, which would get me swift for further action speed boost (+5 dex)

as i got more used to playing the build, the action economy wasn't as bad, because it mostly becomes about evaluating when it's worth getting all the disruption stuff going, or when just being a theurge who can Ben Fidel + debuff enemies [with maybe one wicked birars or venomblom for damage as oppossed to disruption] is more useful. i should probably do an editing pass on the OP.

Edited November 16, 2020 by thelee

[dgray62]

Thanks for the quick reply, thelee. It's great to know that shroud's boost stacks, which definitely makes it an even more powerful item than I realized. And as for action economy issue, the problem you describe, deciding when it is worth it and necessary to go all out with a build's bells and whistles, is common to most builds, I think.

[Boeroer]

Are there any speed buffs that get suppressed? Since stacking of speed buffs is different from PoE's (where it had increasing returns so the stacking was limited) I believe there are none that get suppressed. Or are there? At least I didn't encounter those. But I don't use comsumables besides food so maybe I'm missing something.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

That I know of, in accordance to Deadfire's stacking rules, active speed buffs don't stack with each other—so for example if you play a Barbarian/Monk, the speed buffs from Frenzy and Swift Strikes won't stack. Likewise with the speed buff from Deleterious Alacrity of Motion if you play a Monk/Wizard or Barbarian/Wizard, and speed buffs from consumables as well are considered active AFAIK.

Tangentially, Crimson Panoply's Frenzy is a passive effect and its speed bonus will stack with consumables or other active speed buffs.

Edited November 17, 2020 by AndreaColombo

[Elric Galad]

But I think Recovery bonus and Action Speed bonus are different type and stack, even if they come from active abilities, nay ?

[AndreaColombo]

Good point. I haven't tested this, but I believe they should.

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, AndreaColombo said:

That I know of, in accordance to Deadfire's stacking rules, active speed buffs don't stack with each other—so for example if you play a Barbarian/Monk, the speed buffs from Frenzy and Swift Strikes won't stack. Likewise with the speed buff from Deleterious Alacrity of Motion if you play a Monk/Wizard or Barbarian/Wizard, and speed buffs from consumables as well are considered active AFAIK.

Tangentially, Crimson Panoply's Frenzy is a passive effect and its speed bonus will stack with consumables or other active speed buffs.

Ah, yes. I now remember that my last Barb/Monk had that Frenzy+Swift Strikes issue. How could I forget? Maybe because it was still useful to use both because of the +5 DEX. 

[thelee]

5 hours ago, AndreaColombo said:

Good point. I haven't tested this, but I believe they should.

they do - in fact this is is one way to get around some of the non-stacking rules when it comes to food. koiki fruit, rymsjodda lager, and brew battered ysae are really great because they reduce recovery time, which is rare for an active buff to do so i can stack it with nature's bounty/potion of deftness/frenzy/swift strikes/etc (whereas using rum, captain's banquet, etc. won't work because they are all action speed bonuses (this ignores the cheese of turning food bonuses into passive bonuses))

 

edit - rymsjodda lager is really useful with rymrgand's challenge enabled because it also lasts 14 days. rymrgand can really change how you think about exploration - i had some notes listing all koiki fruit vendors i ran into throughout deadfire since that only lasts 3 days but is more useful than the lager.

Edited November 17, 2020 by thelee