Riposte arcane knight or liberator - how to build a frontline caster?

[foxinspace]

Hello! I'd like to build a tanky caster, preferrably an arcane knight, but not sure how to proceed... I was thinking to multiclass with steel garrote to regain health via riposte using the WotEP. I guess blood mage would be a more sustainable combo, than a regular wizard and the ripostes should provide lots of hp back in theory... On the other hand, maybe druid/shieldbearer(?) would be more fun with all the lightning spells? I am also very confused about stats - it seems like riposte arcane knight need pretty much everything and resolve should be pretty high... Does anyone have advice how to build it best or could share their experience in running a build similar to this?

Thanks a lot!

[Exanos]

For riposte build, you want to max RES no matter what. Each point invested in is better than the precedent. 

There is different class combination that work well :

Rogue : have a build in riposte (it's better with the community patch) so you don't necessary need WOTEP. Trickster pair really well with a martial class, streetfighter very well with a spellcasting one (easy to get flanked)

Blood mage : lot of insta buff with big buff to deviation, can regen spell, making them a must have for long fight if no access to brilliant.

Steelgarotte : WOTEP needed, passive health with riposte + endurance aura making it hard to down. Pair extremely well with bloodmage. 

Cipher : you can buff your defense and massively debuff ennemy's one. regenerative ressource is a must have in long fight.

 

Some fun combination :

Steelgarotte/bloodmage with WOTEP;

Streetfighter/bloodmage with WOTEP or anything else (i love concelaut draining touch + magran's shield);

Trickster/soulblade with WOTEP or anything else (i use WOTEp with it);

Trickster/unbroken, you can use fear+disengagement attack fwhen tired of riposte.

 

For liberator it will  be less effective as a riposte build, it's more a mobil AOE tower (nature terror + immolation)

 

[Boeroer]

Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with WotEP is fun. One just has to understand that the focus is not on melee combat but on casting while doing Offensive Parries (which daze and therefore drain health for you). Max Res, good INT, rest can be mediocre.

The following is not really a caster but a variant of the above which is more melee-focused: Steel Garrote/Trickster with Offensive Parry and Riposte. While Offensive Parry only hits 1 enemy the Riposte uses the whole cone AoE of the WotEP.

Furyshaper/Troubadour or Skald is an awesome frontline caster imo. 

Furyshaper/Beguiler, too. 

Unbroken/Bloodmage with a focus on terrify spells (Ryngrim's stuff) is also neat. 

I also like a Streetfighter/Skald who uses summoned Whisps to make himself distracted (unlocking the Streetfighter passive). 

Berserker/Fury can be nice because of the +3 PEN to elemental spells. I'd use Lord Darryn's Voulge. But it needs healing from a party member

Stalker/Bloodmage with Morning Star is also good. 

As is a Stalker/Ancient. The high ACC is nice to reliably land stuff like Plague of Insects etc. 

Forbidden Fist/Ascendant is also nice. Enfeeble + Disintegrate = death sentence.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Boeroer

[foxinspace]

3 hours ago, Exanos said:

Trickster/soulblade with WOTEP or anything else (i use WOTEp with it);

Thanks, this looks really interesting! I guess, getting all the cipher buffs (borrowed instinct, psychovampiric shield) to raise deflection, then - melee? Does riposte generate focus as well?

[foxinspace]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with WotEP is fun. Ony just has to understand that the focus is not on melee combat but on casting while doing Offensive Parries (wich daze and therefore drain health for you). Max Res, good INT, rest can be mediocre.

It's not really a caster but a a variant of this which is more melee-focused is Steel Garrote/Trickster which has Offensive Parry and Riposte. While Offensive Parry only hits 1 enemy the Riposte uses the whole cone AoE of the WotEP.

Furyshaper/Troubadour or Skald is an awesome frontline caster imo. 

Furyshaper/Beguiler, too. 

Unbroken/Bloodmage with a focus on terrify spells (Ryngrim's stuff) is also neat. 

I also like a Streetfighter/Skald who uses summoned Whisps to make himself distracted (unlocking the Streetfighter passive). 

Berserker/Fury can be nice because of the +3 PEN to elemental spells. I'd use Lord Darryn's Voulge. But it needs healing from a party member

Stalker/Bloodmage with Morning Star is also good. 

As is a Stalker/Ancient. The high ACC is nice to reliably land stuff like Plague of Insects etc. 

Forbidden Fist/Ascendant is also nice. Enfeeble + Disintegrate = death sentence.

 

Thanks for tons of great ideas as always, @Boeroer! Now that I'm thinking about it, I like the concept of Steel Garrote/Trickster... Is the damage (and I guess persistent distraction for the extra drain) that good to forego the spellcasting?

[Exanos]

7 hours ago, foxinspace said:

Thanks, this looks really interesting! I guess, getting all the cipher buffs (borrowed instinct, psychovampiric shield) to raise deflection, then - melee? Does riposte generate focus as well?

Yes it does and that is what make it so nice. 

You can go full casting or soul anihilation non stop. I think there is a mod allowing cipher spell to target yourself (not needed, but briliant on yourself should be a fun addition).

The nice part about wotep and trickster is spreading all your dot in an aoe.

Steelgarrote/trickster will work fine, but it is much more melee focused, you will lack ressource regen (not a huge deal for 98% of the game), and not a problem if you have acces to brilliant.

[Boeroer]

The damage of Steel Garrote/Trickster is very good against melee mobs. And once you get too much damage you can just use Repulsive Visage and trigger Disengagement Attacks. 

Against ranged enemies or spellcasters the whole Riposte stuff is obviously doing nothing - but you'll have other party members.

It's not really a caster though. It's just dishing out Ripostes while at the same time attacking the enemies the "conventional" way. As always the AoE of WotEP with Rogue strikes such as Arterial Strike etc. or Toxic Strike is great.

Most of the casting will be Mirrored Images/Llengrath's stuff.

Trickster/Soulblade will generate focus with Offensive Parry (which is awesome) but not with the Rogue Riposte iirc. I did a test not too long ago but I'm not 100% sure on Riposte anymore. Offensive Parry 100% though. 

I once did a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade with Offensive Parry: it will generate focus as well as wounds. If you use Nomad's Brigandine and pick the Disengagement immunity as enchantment you can run away from enemies and their Disengagement Attacks will turn to misses 100% - triggering Offensive Parry every time. Gives focus and wounds that you can then use to turn around and hit them. At the same time normal melee misses against you will still trigger Offensive Parry of course. But Monk/Cipher won't have such high deflection as Trickster/Cipher or Paladin/Cipher of course. Still fun!

Shattered Pillar calls for installing the Community Patch though (see my signature). It sets the max wound count of Shattered Pillar back to 10. When Shattered Pillar was introduced it was too strong. So it got nerfed twice: first the max wound count was set to 5. That wasn't enough so it was also determined that only non-ability-attacks will generate wounds. That was a huge nerf. They then forgot to lift the first one. Comm.Patch does that (and has some other nice balancing/fixing goodies, too. And UI-wise it has unique passive icons for your ability tree which otherwise all use the same repeating icons which is confusing).

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The damage of Steel Garrote/Trickster is very good against melee mobs. And once you get too much damage you can just use Repulsive Visage and trigger Disengagement Attacks. 

Oh by the way: I forgot that all the Paladin/something variants with WotEP & Offensive Parry profit a lot from Inspired Beacon. Normally the action economy prevents Inspired Beacon from being very good unless you use it to set up the casting for another party member. But here your Offensive Parries (& also Riposts if Trickster) can happen right after casting during recovery phase. It wll give you more virtual deflection (because Blinded enemies have lower ACC) and better draining (+40% dmg). It's also great in combination with Sacred Immolation (draining works aginst the self damage - still have to use Lay on Hands though).