Blightheart for a Chanter - better than you think?

[Boeroer]

Hello,

today I toyed around with Blightheart again. Usually I consider it for a wizard or paladin/wizard because the lashes on wizard spells are just nice and one of the few ways a wizard can increase spell dmg besides PLs, Overpenetration, crits and MIG (and stuff like Harley and Griffin's Blade). Also lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses and I don't know any other source of multiplicative spell dmg increase besides PL. 

Anyway - I wanted to explore the other classes' option further so I tested the individual upgrades for each class Blightheart can have and what excactly they do:

• Chanter/Ranger/Wizard:
  • Living Wood - 20% chance to cast Corrode Damage cone AoE from self and Hobble target on attack: this says "corrode" but actually it is a piercing AoE. I don't know the exact base damage because it's not listed anywhere and the hit roll scales with Power Level since it's an ability. But I think it's something between 10-15 and 12-18 or so. The hobbling effect lasts fairly long but is tagged with antidote so poison-immune enemies will be... well... immune. 
    Driving Flight will give you higher chances of triggering Living Wood per shot of course. All in all it's not bad - occasional AoE with dmg and affliction.
  • Heartbeat -  heals 20% of the damage done by the weapon per 3.0 s for a short duration: That "short" duration is 6 sac bse if I'm not mistaken. It scales with INT naturally. It does't seem to heal 20% of the damage done per tick but rather takes the 20% of the damage done and devides it through the number of ticks you are going to get. So for example I did a shot taht caused 60 pierce dmg and got 4 healing per tick (for 9secs = 3 ticks). Not too great - but better than nothing. I mean getting healed by shooting things isn't bad. Especially if you can proloing it bc. it's a healing over time effect (see Wall of Draining). The damage done by Living Wood doesn't seem to have an effect on the healing, only the initial shot. 
  • Corrupting Beauty - nearby enemies will become Distracted after killing an enemy with the weapon for 20.0 sec: works as advertised. Nice touch and also nce in combo with Hamn of Decay (see right below).
• Chanter:
  • Hymn of Decay - +1 Phrases per kill: So... I didn't think much about this before testing it today because I assumed that you have to kill enemies with Blightheart itself to get a phrase - like it works with other weapons that have on-kill-effects (see Grave Calling etc.). But no! It doesn't matter how you kill enemies - you will always get a phrase as long as the kill can be connected to you. Traps, Walls and Seals will not workm but everything else will. This makes a Chanter who focuses on damaging invocation and other abilites more fun. 
• Wizard: 
  • Tainted Being - +10% Damage dealt as Corrode with spells: just great. Stacks with Eternal Devotion so you can have +10% corrode and +10% burn on your Wizard spells. Spicy.
• Ranger:
  • Blighted Shot - Grants Blighted Shot (1 per encounter): this isn't too exciting because it doesn't do much besides applying hobbled and weakened for a rel. long amount of time. Scales like other active abilities it seems. Still: the worst of the class-specific enchantments if you ask me. 

So the only really exciting thing besides Tainted Being was the Hymn of Decay and that it works with any kill of the Chanter. So you can use the gun as stat stick basically and don't have to attack with it to be useful. I liked it on the Helwalker/Bellower test char I used it after discovering. The high dmg per invocation was a nice combo with the increased phrase generation.

I hope you like it too - thanks and bye-bye.

[Jayd]

Yes! I've been using it with Konstanten as SC Skald. Empower with Sasha's Singing Scimitar, then swap to Blightheart. See the phrases accumulate as Eld Nary does what it does. Konstanten doesn't have...ideal Chanter stats but he does have a good chunk of Might, so he doesn't struggle to kill with Eld Nary and Seven Nights when he can hit with them. As a Skald, he can spam offensive invocations like crazy. I supposed an optimised Skald would do better focused on melee crits but this is a good substitute if you want them on the backline.

[Not So Clever Hound]

Nice, I had never cared much for this weapon but actually it could be interesting on a Bloodmage/Assassin, possibly even better with one that mixes weapon attacks and spells from stealth. You could do fun sequences like: open with a debilitating strike with Blightheart to enable deathblow, restealth, finish the target with Ninagauth Killing Bolt which will spawn a friendly Spectre, and repeat (if you use the vaporous wizardy grimoire that will give x2 level 7 spells to a MC Wizard). I'm not much into Chanter gameplay so I can't comment on that but this part sounds powerful indeed.

[Desmodeus]

Only problem with chanter bonus from Blightheart is that wizard bonus exists xD

[Boeroer]

Yeah - non-melee Skald sounds like the kind of counterintuitive out-of-the-box thing I would like to play.

Assassin/Bloodmage also sounds nice - the dmg bonus on crit paired with the multipl. lash: cool.

If Inspired Beacon wouldn't have such abysmal recovery and short duration then a Paladin/Bloodmage with Eternal Devotion and Blightheart would also be a very good offensive caster - besides the obvious defensive goodies.

 

[dgray62]

This is a great discovery, Boeroer. Thanks for sharing it. I was thinking of trying a Ranger/Chanter MC (stalker/bellower or stalker/skald, maybe?), and mainly going melee, but it might be great to empower Old El Nary and then switch to Blightheart as Jayd recommends, and then jump back into the fray with one's phrase limit maxed out again.

[Exanos]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Yeah - non-melee Skald sounds like the kind of counterintuitive out-of-the-box thing I would like to play.

 

...no...

Now i have to add a ranged hellwalker/skald (or bleakwalker/skald)  to my to do list... i just arrived at neketaka with my bleakwalker/shifter! Rhaaaaaaaaa ! 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Exanos

[Boeroer]

Holy smokes... Barbarian/Skald with the combination of Blood Thirst & Her Revenge is fun. Once you kill you'll get a phrase and Her Revenge only costs 2. And it has 0.5 sec casting time only but the recovery becomes 0 because of Blood Thirst. Feels like playing angry Palpatine...
 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Jeez! Testing Berserker/Skald with Blightheart at lvl 20 is so much fun. Great synergies and also quite versatile. I guess I'll have to start a new playthrough to see if it's also ok in the early game.

Mith Fyr + Barbaric Smash + Bloody Slaughter does some nasty damage as finisher. Costs no rage then and gives 1 phrase (sometimes more when Living Wood procs and kills some other enemies). As soon as the first enemies fall it's:

[Not So Clever Hound]

19 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Assassin/Bloodmage also sounds nice - the dmg bonus on crit paired with the multipl. lash: cool.

In case this is of interest: I was wondering if the lash would be considered as a weapon effect, and if as such it could benefit from Sneak Attack or Deathblow which otherwise don't interact with damage spells. Short answer is, it doesn't.

It makes me sad, but not as sad as when I discovered that Three Bells Through could not apply Gouging Strike in a line. I have a troubled history with Arquebuses.  

The multiplicative lash is still pretty cool though on big damaging spell crits with the Assassinate +50% bonus. It does indeed work as your total damage done x 1.1.

[Powerotti]

@BoeroerCan it produce multiple phrases at once if Her Revenge kills more than one enemy? Or it's capped like skald passive?

[Boeroer]

@PowerottiIt produces excactly 1 phrase per kill. No cap like Skald. If you kill 3 with oine cast you will get 3 phrases. With Blood Thirst that means you cast right again.
Wait: I mean of course there is a cap: it's your max phrase count. But besides that: nope. 

I had one fight where I suddenly had 8 phrases - my max phrase count was 7. Don't know what happened there. I was not able to reproduce it. Hickup maybe. But I will test further. 

I discovered that killing your own summons (skeletons in my test case) does not seem to work. I tried with Skald/Wizard and used some friendly fire AoEs. It seems to be it only works with enemy kills. Need further tests though. I will now try to kill my skeletons when confused (as Berserker). Maybe then it's different.

Also White-Worms-kills don't seem to produce phrases. I guess like traps, walls and seals (and summons of course) the damage isn't directly connected to your character (but maybe to the corpse that is exploding, dunno). 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Boeroer

[Exanos]

Do you think berserker/skald is better than hellwalker/bellower with this weapon for kill generation?

[Boeroer]

Uff no idea. It's just a lot of fun to have those superfast lightning sequences with Berserker/Skald once the first enemy drops. And the casting speed is better per se because of Frenzy. Also that Her Revenge costs only 2 phrases is very good. It's so cheap that one phrase sung + one kill is enough to recast and you can cast 3 of them right at the start of battle if your max phrase count is high enough (e.g. if you picked something like Ancient Weapons just to raise your max count).

I didn't test Helwalker/Bellower as much as I did Berserker/Skald now - so I can't really say. But I guess the bigger AoE and the bonus dmg from MIG also also great - especially with the multiplicative dmg bonus that is PL scaling from the Bellower's passive. Bonus ACC from Enduring Dance, too. But  the "lose all phrases" thing slows you down a lot actually. With Eld Nary it's not that bad though because that uses some time do go around anyway.  

Edited February 14, 2021 by Boeroer

[Griffonheart]

Sorry to interrupt, but is this a "range Paladin" we're talking about?

[Haplok]

On 2/13/2021 at 6:07 PM, Not So Clever Hound said:

Nice, I had never cared much for this weapon but actually it could be interesting on a Bloodmage/Assassin, possibly even better with one that mixes weapon attacks and spells from stealth. You could do fun sequences like: open with a debilitating strike with Blightheart to enable deathblow, restealth, finish the target with Ninagauth Killing Bolt which will spawn a friendly Spectre, and repeat (if you use the vaporous wizardy grimoire that will give x2 level 7 spells to a MC Wizard). I'm not much into Chanter gameplay so I can't comment on that but this part sounds powerful indeed.

I agree its a top weapon for an Assassin/Bloodmage. I only liked Engoliero de Espirs more late game - Blightheart is more... reliable and works from the start, but Engoliero large aoe damages, kill cascades and huge self-heals are just too much fun.

However I'm not sold on "wasting" the Stealth resources that way to pick single targets. Instead of a single target shot from a Superb weapon, followed by another single target spell, I'd rather use the Assassination bonuses for aoe effects, that will affect multiple enemies (and potentially do just as much damage to each of them with something like Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst).

[Boeroer]

22 minutes ago, Griffonheart said:

Sorry to interrupt, but is this a "range Paladin" we're talking about?

If it's a Paladin/Wizard with Blightheart then yes. In my case it would be a Bleak Walker/Bloodmage. But it can be any Paladin/Wizard combo. Lay on Hands is great to counter Blood Sacrifice's health loss, the lash from Eternal Devotion stacks with Blightheart's Tainted Being, giving you +10% burn and 10% corrode to your spell damage which is (in terms of dmg only) as good as stacking 4 Power Levels. In between you can shoot around with Eternal Devotion. Also do support for party members of course. 

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, Haplok said:

 potentially do just as much damage to each of them with something like Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst).

The cool thing about M's PPBurst + Assassinate is that you not only might get the +50% crit dmg bonus but also 20+ PEN which nearly always results in Overpenetration even when you're not landing a crit.

By the way: another weapon that will give you a lash (0%-16% shocking based on your phrase counter) on all the direct damage you deal (including spells) is Sasha's Singing Scimitar. It's not that cool from Stealth obviously though because you'll have 0 phrases by then. 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

7 hours ago, Haplok said:

However I'm not sold on "wasting" the Stealth resources that way to pick single targets. 

First, my apologies @Boeroer as this goes somewhat off-topic with your thread, we can totally take the discussion somewhere else . 

@HaplokI totally agree with you, the one minor annoyance that I was trying to solve is that as a solo assassin/bloodmage when you re-stealth several times in a fight and decide to stay where the action is, ranged enemies can sometimes get very reactive and ruin your day the very second you break stealth. Killing one squishy ranged enemy to immediately spam a Spectre that will aggro everybody around him could be a nice way to do several jobs at once: disrupt the enemy and diminish the threat while you continue your stealth/AOE nuking routine and stay close to the action all the time.

I'm just trying to find a way to make Killing Bolt interesting since it fits very well with the Assassin/Bloodmage theme but is otherwise not that useful. With that in mind, I think that the Blightheart lash would be best way to maximize the Killing Bolt damage. Regarding Rogue resources, you are almost only using your Guile for stealth so you have quite a bit to spare. But you can also just stay out of range and use AOE spells with stealth  .

[Boeroer]

No worries - the important point (Blightheart on Chanter = 1 phrase per whatever kill) was made - so just go wild.

[Boeroer]

39 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I'm just trying to find a way to make Killing Bolt interesting since it fits very well with the Assassin/Bloodmage theme but is otherwise not that useful. With that in mind, I think that the Blightheart lash would be best way to maximize the Killing Bolt damage. Regarding Rogue resources, you are almost only using your Guile for stealth so you have quite a bit to spare. But you can also just stay out of range and use AOE spells with stealth  .

I noticed something weird with Killing Bolt when I wanted to combine it with Ranger's Takedown Combo (+100% dmg): while all other single target spells I tried worked normally (meaning they got the +100% bonus for the dmg roll just fine), Killing Bolt's log entry said it got +100% - but the rolled dmg wasn't doubled. More like +50% or so. I didn't investigate further because I went along playing that Geomancer and forgot to - but now I remember. Maybe Assassinate + Killing Bolt might have the same problem?

Edited February 15, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

33 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Maybe Assassinate + Killing Bolt can havbe the same problem?

Interesting. I just tested this and Assassinate works perfectly well with Killing Bolt, as the Blightheart lash and any other DMG goodie I have.

By the way, to your earlier point about Minoletta's PPB: it can reach a PEN of 33 on crit with Assassinate, potentially more. Guaranteed overpen on all enemies with up to 16 pierce AR, which means more DMG and more lash from Blightheart.

EDIT: Actually with Crusted Swordfish you can reach 36 PEN with Minoletta PPB! I just got the overpen bonus on Ikorno who was at Pierce AR = 18. Cool!

Edited February 15, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Exanos]

Hi, gonna make a chanter with this weapon for my next playthrough and i'm really wondering which class combo i should use for reliable/efficient phrase farming. Don't have much time to run test them so maybe will you be able to help me with advice.

• Weapon set 1 : Sacha singing scimitar (refresh empower point for more use ) + slayer claw (+1 tier might inspiration for barbarians/pala/fighter) or Kitchen stove (if hellwalker multi)
• Weapon set 2 : Blightheart

Strat is simple,start fight with weapon set 1, get hit by a might inspiration, cast empower eld nary, then switch to weapon set 2.

1. Bellower vs Skald

Bellower as a much highter ceiling for damage (those PL bonus are not negligeable : +6 for eld nary  = +3 jump, + 30%damage + 2 Pen (with amulet of power)), but skald's invocation are cheaper and skald should be better vs boss cause you can swap bligheart for your melee set and go crit farming.

 

    2. Helwalker vs berseker vs assassin vs bleakwalker

• Hellwalker :
  • Pro : Getting 35 might and 30 intel will be easy, allowing more damage and duo chant (myth fyr+the reload one). Accuracy bonus + fire lash + elec lash + T2 might inspiration + Dex inspiration is cherry on top.
  • Con : stunning blow is the only special attack usable at range and is not a great finisher.

-> If you equip bligheart and flagellant path to an ennemy, will the crits work for skald's phrase generation ?

• Berseker :
  • Pro : T2 might (becoming t3)+ no recovery on kill make an easy kill farmer. Barbaric blow is an amazing finisher;
  • Con : Lesser might/int than hellwalker = no duo chant and less powerfull invocation.

• Assasin : for this one i'm not sure how eld nary's bounce take assassinate in consideration does they keep the bonus after the first bounce?
  • Pro : Hight accuracy/pen from stealth, Finishing blow + deathblow make near death target easy kill;
  • Con : no might and no dex bonus. You will exaust guile quite quicly. Not sure it work with eld nary.
• Bleakwalker :
  • Pro : Sworn rival + FoD is nice for finishing near death ennemy (cheap, and hight accuracy+damage). Eternal devotion lash apply to  invocation;
  • Con : no might and no dex bonus. Cruel gameplay (RP > all).

Not sure which composition of these class will be the most effective/fun on a full playthrough (POTd upscalled). Any preference ?

 

Edit : corrected slayer claw for barbarian 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Exanos

[Not So Clever Hound]

11 minutes ago, Exanos said:

Assasin : for this one i'm not sure how eld nary's bounce take assassinate in consideration does they keep the bonus after the first bounce?

I haven't tried this exact combo but in my experience bounce/multiple projectiles lose the Assassinate bonus as soon as you break stealth. Your first Eld Nary crit from stealth will still be pretty strong though!

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, Exanos said:

 

• Berseker :
  • Pro : T2 might (becoming t3)+ no recovery on kill make an easy kill farmer. Barbaric blow is an amazing finisher;
  • Con : Lesser might/int than hellwalker = no duo chant and less powerfull invocation.

 

With maxed INT and a bit of INt bonus from gear my Linger Time officially is at 5.6 secs only - but still my current phrases overlap without any gap. In my case Dragon Thrased + Come Sweet Winds will have 100% uptime on the enemies. Don't ask me why...

Of course I can't be confused. I have to either wear Devil's Breastplate or get rid of confusion otherwise (food, drugs, Modwyr etc.).

Edited February 15, 2021 by Boeroer