[CLASS BUILD] UPDATED - The Bleeding Arcanist 2.0

[Not So Clever Hound]

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Why would you buy the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry?

Maybe compulsive shoplifting doesn't befit the roleplaying of a masochistic, arcane mobile artillery platform?  

But indeed with a decent Mechanic skill, minimal Stealth skill and a couple firecrackers, there is no item locked in a container that you can't steal in this game. @yogaman28734 just in case you didn't know, the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardy is stealable in the circular bookshelf in the middle of the Dark Cupboard.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Not So Clever Hound]

11 hours ago, yogaman28734 said:

this build is plenty sturdy and the best part, it’s “‘very forgiving.’”

Once you get to level 14 or so, which doesn’t take long in solo play, you can make some of the mistakes I made, and still mop the decks with your foes if they are not way above your level:  (1) explore dungeons with a torch, and forget to change back to sword and shield when the fight starts (didn’t notice the difference); (2) go into battle with your thieving gear still on (Burglar’s Gloves, Boots of Stealth, Mirrorback Cape or the later one) and never know it until the fight is over; (3) buff your skills with a Luminous Adra Potion and forget to re-injure yourself, then board Oheiro to fight about 3 wizards, a couple of priests, some rogues and chanters and fighters, realize that you were interrupting yourself with the Vaporous grimoire, and you still annihilated about 18 tough Rauatai defenders (after your crew was knocked out in the first 20 seconds).

No worries at all, thanks for posting and glad you enjoy playing it! I agree with you and made the same small mistakes here and there. This build allows for some error, experimentation, non-optimal gear/point allocation... this is still Solo PotD though so against top-tier end-game enemies you will still run into trouble if you go to battle wearing only your underwear.

The necklace of Fireballs is indeed a nice complement to pull through in style in the beginning, in tough Digsite encounters for instance (just as with many other builds) but is not required.

[Boeroer]

Speaking of Necklace of Fireballs:

In case you guys didn't know: if you have at least two Necklaces of Fireball you can unleash 8 Fireballs per encounter "for free". Just keep one charged necklace in the stash (NOT the character's inventory) and wear the other necklace. After a fight where you used charges of FIreballs just stack them in the stash, then reequip and *tadaa*: necklaces refilled to 8 charges.

This works with all items that have per-rest uses or charged uses IF you can find at least two of them. Necklace of Fireballs, Missile Gloves and Stone of Power are the ones that most people find two or more of, at least if you use the Berath's Blessings vendor. 

You can also export a character with items such as Ring of Reset and then hire that guy with items in your actual playthrough to just take those items. That way you can turn all per-rest/charged items into per-encounter items.

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Speaking of Necklace of Fireballs:

In case you guys didn't know: if you have at least two Necklaces of Fireball you can unleash 8 Fireballs per encounter "for free". Just keep one charged necklace in the stash (NOT the character's inventory) and wear the other necklace. After a fight where you used charges of FIreballs just stack them in the stash, then reequip and *tadaa*: necklaces refilled to 8 charges.

This works with all items that have per-rest uses or charged uses IF you can find at least two of them. Necklace of Fireballs, Missile Gloves and Stone of Power are the ones that most people find two or more of, at least if you use the Berath's Blessings vendor. 

You can also export a character with items such as Ring of Reset and then hire that guy with items in your actual playthrough to just take those items. That way you can turn all per-rest/charged items into per-encounter items.

 

Thanks Boeroer, indeed I had read your detailed thread on the topic . This reminds me of how in Infinity Engine games you could replenish depleted charged items by selling/buying them back from vendors, enabling you to exploit powerful consumables like the Rod of Resurrection. Anyway, wrong game...  

Regarding the char export/import trick, I can see how it would be highly convenient with one of the builds that (ab)use Heaven's Cacophony. Stack two of those and cast Avenging Storm in every fight. Although, I'm with you and others on this forum that Avenging Storm is a class-defining ability that shouldn't be "democratized" via items or scrolls. But it is ridiculously strong on blunderbuss Monks and the likes as many have demonstrated before.

I'm wondering with this trick, what do you think would be the most powerful/useful item to abuse the charges? The Ring of Reset?

EDIT: After looking into this a bit more, I think that provided you have a build that can use it well and you are OK using it, Heaven's Cacophony is the strongest item to basically make per-encounter instead of per-rest. Even better if you also stack Stone of Power. Ah, if only you could also stack PoE1 Rings of Searing Flame...

Edited January 24, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

Most powerful or effective would be spamming summons from figurines or some of the DLC trinkets maybe? Didn't really analyze that.

I never used that export/import "trick" for an actual playthrough - except for a partial one with a Barbarian I build around Vengeful Defeat (with items such as Effort and other items that trigger AoE stuff on knockout).
In PoE you could turn off kockout injuries so such a suicidal Barb could be fun enough to play. In Deadfire you can't opt out of injuries - it would be possible to use Vengeful Defeat up to three times per encounter - but you'd want to rest after each fight and that's kinda lame. So I exported/imported the Ring of Reset to be able to use the same approach but with no injuries after the encounter (and no need to cast a reviving spell of course). So basically it spared me the rest-spamming. I didn't consider that to be superpowerful - just a lot more convenient. 

So I can see how this little glitch may enable you to play some cool character ideas - like a fireball-slinging SC Helwalker or an all-fire themed SC Paladin who can still sling some spells then. Basically you could add a (tiny) subset of wizard spells to a single class or multiclass char. Like adding half a class on top.  
Something like my old Engineer build from PoE times who was a Fighter who used elecricity and missile spellbindings. This could be done with a Fighter/Skald for the shock stuff and the whisp summons and then add Missile Gloves. Stuff like that. Not necessarily OP but just something different that is still viable and more importantly fun.     

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

Indeed, your idea opens up a lot of possibilities - a key thing to keep it fun IMHO is to avoid creating a one-trick pony, which is hard when crafting this kind of very specialized builds. I like the SC Paladin idea, there hasn't been a lot of builds based on it. A lot of synergy and RP potential there, for example wielding Magran's Favor and Magran's Blessing.

Your comment about your old Engineer build reminded me that I tried at some point to emulate your PoE1 Bilestomper build (adorable ) in PoE2: my idea was to create a low DEX/RES, high CON/STR Wizard that stacked the thickest armor and AR buffs while killing enemies with powerful retaliation effects like Piercing Sigil, Cloak of Death, Flame Shield and staying alive by avoiding PEN/OVERPEN, having a big health pool, high FORT saves... It worked well up to a certain point but was boring, plus I would have needed more AR for end-game survivability at least on PotD. Could have multiclassed with something like Unbroken but most of my offense were Wizard PL8+ spells. Didn't work out in the end!

[dgray62]

I have never played Deadfire solo yet, and I would like to try this for the first time using your build, Not So Clever Hound. I was just wondering how you handle healing while playing solo? Do you rely primarily on potions, popping one when needed?  I tried this build in a party and was delighted to see how sturdy it is, so I'm sure it's not a big deal. Maybe you could just keep a grimoire with the corrosive siphon spell to use when needed?

[dgray62]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

So I can see how this little glitch may enable you to play some cool character ideas - like a fireball-slinging SC Helwalker or an all-fire themed SC Paladin who can still sling some spells then. Basically you could add a (tiny) subset of wizard spells to a single class or multiclass char. Like adding half a class on top.  
Something like my old Engineer build from PoE times who was a Fighter who used elecricity and missile spellbindings. This could be done with a Fighter/Skald for the shock stuff and the whisp summons and then add Missile Gloves. Stuff like that. Not necessarily OP but just something different that is still viable and more importantly fun.     

How about a Votary using Magran's Favor, Sungrazer and the necklace of fireballs? The addition of 8 fireballs/encounter would help make Voltron's old Burn Baby Burn! build viable again. 

[Boeroer]

Bilestomper was ultimately designed to be able to shower himself (and the enemy of course) with poison/disease/corrosion spells. The Mountain Dwarf passive helped a lot - but in Deadfire the Mountain Dwarf gets a completely different racial ability. In Deadfire a similar approach would be to use Rekvu's Scorched Cloak and shower yourself with fire spells I guess.

Addendum: Neckless of Fireballs has the keywords Fire and Evocation. It scales with universal Power Level but also fire Power Levels but NOT Evocation Power Levels (for whatever reason). So a Helwalker with Sun & Moon + Magran's Favor + Otto Starcat, Prestige and Thunderous Blows does >100 fire damage per target with the necklace easily at lvl 20 due to the 60%+ PL bonus combined with the insane MIG.

Unfortunately you can't stack the same amount of power levels for the Missile Gloves (only keyword is evocation and that doesn't work for some reason as I said above). Universal PLs like from Lance of the Midwood Stag do work though. 

[Boeroer]

33 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

How about a Votary using Magran's Favor, Sungrazer and the necklace of fireballs? The addition of 8 fireballs/encounter would help make Voltron's old Burn Baby Burn! build viable again. 

Yes, I can see a lot of combos that would be fun.

[dgray62]

Thanks, maybe I'll try it.

[Not So Clever Hound]

57 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

I have never played Deadfire solo yet, and I would like to try this for the first time using your build, Not So Clever Hound. I was just wondering how you handle healing while playing solo? Do you rely primarily on potions, popping one when needed?  I tried this build in a party and was delighted to see how sturdy it is, so I'm sure it's not a big deal. Maybe you could just keep a grimoire with the corrosive siphon spell to use when needed?

Great! I hope you'll have at least as much fun as I did. So here is a little bit more about the survivability of the build including healing (hard to talk about healing in isolation because it is intertwined with other things to prevent death).

You will stay alive most of the time because:

1) Your defenses can reach very high levels and you can tailor your buffs to the opposition (more on that in a second).
2) You have a lot of health (end-game I clock in at Health = 401 without buffs and Health = 449 with Infuse with VH).
3) The build is all about quickly inflicting severe AOE damage and debuff/CC (sometimes all 3 at the same time) so combat doesn't drag on.
4) If combat does drag on, you have healing over time. Not a lot, true, but infinite: your Bloodmage ability heals you, as well Sheltering Light from Lethandria's Devotion, until combat ends. It's nothing crazy, like a combined 10HP every 6 sec or so as I just reloaded a save, but in close calls it can make a difference. In few situations I used potions of healing but VERY rarely, and when I did it was more out of laziness than because I couldn't have pulled through otherwise. If things drag on, wall of draining will also extend your buffs as required.
5) If all else fails... well you have potions of the final cheese at the ready .

On defenses and buffs I typically did the following:

- Lower Risk Fight = Infuse with VH, Deleterious Alacrity, Displaced Image, Ironskin, Arcane Veil, Eldritch Aim, Blood Sacrifice. (it takes about one second to cast everything and then you can go to town on the enemy with your hardest hitting spells).
- Higher Risk Fight = Same as above + Arcane Reflection, Llengrath's Safeguard and Wall of Draining to keep everything up just in case things drag on. And be ready to gulp a PotFS if things go south, but I never had to use a PotFS in a fight where I hadn't planned to use one (and I definitely used less than 10 in the completionist playthrough). With the Safeguard and your Human passive, you get a big power and survivability surge if you get to Bloodied, which still leaves you with 200+ health points so you can finish up everybody.

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

55 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Thanks, maybe I'll try it.

There might be your opportunity to fit in Rekvu's Scorched Cloak.  

[dgray62]

Thanks for the additional clarification!

[yogaman28734]

Doh!  Thanks for reminding me, I completely forgot that you can steal this grimoire.  My solo stealth is low when I first hit Neketaka, but the Cobbler has the boots, and pop some thieves putty.

My point really is that the main gear for this build can all be had very early with Berath’s blessings, a lot of it before you leave Port Maje.  Cape of greater protection will do until you get the giftbearer’s cloth, and waiting for Kuaru’s prize ring you can use ring of focused flame or anything else.

Some other popular builds of all classes, the gear you want comes much later in the game.

[Boeroer]

I don't think you need any stealth for stealing the grimoire. I'm not even sure you need mechnics(?).

[Not So Clever Hound]

That's correct, you just need to time it right with the patrolling construct and the bookshelf isn't locked. Just keep clicking on it until it isn't marked as "stealing". For the rest of the stuff in the shop though you need a little bit of stealth (3 or 4 is enough I think) and mechanics to get everything. For the Ring of Focused Flames you need a firecracker too.

[yogaman28734]

On 1/24/2021 at 7:54 AM, Not So Clever Hound said:

I'm wondering with this trick, what do you think would be the most powerful/useful item to abuse the charges? The Ring of Reset?

I’m awfully fond of the Dragon Pendant when I can find it. I always wondered why the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer from PoE1 [DP] isn’t found in PoE2, but it would be awesome to recharge this way.

[Boeroer]

Little trick: if you took the Bounding Boots from Benweth you can reach most (if not all) chests/containters stealthed without having to use Sparkcrackers. 

[yogaman28734]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Little trick: if you took the Bounding Boots from Benweth you can reach most (if not all) chests/containters stealthed without having to use Sparkcrackers. 

Wow that’s good

[Not So Clever Hound]

That is indeed a neat use of your bounding boots trick (cancelling the leap mid-air).

BTW I'm using those boots in a solo playthrough with Kaylon's Glimmer Man Tactician Assassin build that I'm trying to tweak to see if it can solo the entire content, and if I can find even more synergy/efficiency with the build idea. Bounding Boots Trick + ranged Arterial Strike on dumb melee enemy AI is almost too good.

[Campber]

Nice build. Just finished my first playthrough of the game as a non-specialised Wizard and was thinking of going back in for a Solo run. With the Griffin's Blade, shield and Miscreant's Leathers what enchantments did you put onto them? Also, did you enable the Solo option when starting the new character or did you just recruit the companions and leave them on the ship?

[David Carter]

@BoeroerIt gives +1 to all spell levels ... more spells to cast

[Not So Clever Hound]

On 2/3/2021 at 8:26 AM, Campber said:

Nice build. Just finished my first playthrough of the game as a non-specialised Wizard and was thinking of going back in for a Solo run. With the Griffin's Blade, shield and Miscreant's Leathers what enchantments did you put onto them? Also, did you enable the Solo option when starting the new character or did you just recruit the companions and leave them on the ship?

Thanks. I don't know what your generalist Wizard build was, but I can guarantee that playing solo with this build (or another optimized Blood Mage one) will be a new experience and a new and very rewarding way to play around with spells and strategies so if I may, good idea to go back  . 

To your questions:

Griffin Blade got Hound Courage (optimal choice)
Lethandria got Sheltering Light (optimal) and Captivating Crystal (or Lustrous is great, you're not getting crit in melee anytime soon anyway)
Miscreant Leather I went with Chest Guard but again both are OK
All were upgraded to Mythic by end-game

I did not enable the Solo option (I don't think it provides anything besides the weird owl's glowing eyes on the HUD). I like to hire companions and keep them on my boat (as in real life  ). If only to get some of the unique weapons to test out new builds and such. I also like to enable them to actually do things (besides dying) in boarding events but to be clear, you don't need them at all. I keep them usually levelled up and go as martial as possible with Monastic Unarmed Training and all the passives that can give them a low-key, easy time beating Slavers to a pulp on the deck of the Defiant. If you want to enable the Solo challenge, this build is 100% viable.

EDIT: If you go full solo, you will have to respec to meet the Religion skill check for the Bleakrock Shrine permabuff on Crookspur. Otherwise, just bring Xoti along.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, David Carter said:

@BoeroerIt gives +1 to all spell levels ... more spells to cast

Äh... was that an answer to my question "Why would you buy the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry"?

If yes: let my visualize what the emphasis was meant to be: "Why would you ***BUY*** the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry?"

Edited February 4, 2021 by Boeroer