Steel Garrote bloodmage build

[Jitsuka]

Hi folks, I’ve searched quite a bit but can’t find this build brought up by Boeroer in a few discussions. It uses the great sword with offensive parry.  Any help with a link or more details would be much appreciated.

[Boeroer]

Hi. There was no comprehensive build description, just some mentions here and there. 

This works best of you have Berath Blessing points and spend them on the vendor in Port Maje and extra attribute points.

You take a Steel Garrote and a Bloodmage. You maximize AR and deflection (Resolve, Cloak of Greater Deflection from the vendor, else a normal Cloak of Deflection, Rings of Deflection, later Entonia Signet Ring, Mirrored Images or Arcane Veil, Llengrath's Safeguard (stacks with deflection-only buffs), Deep Faith, Inspiring Triumph and all that stuff). For armor I would recommend Nomad's Brigandine because it gives you up to +10 deflection in melee without any skill shenanigans and at the same time has solid AR and the enchantment to become immune to Disengagement attacks.

Your late game gear should include Bracers of Greater Deflection and Mask of the Weyc. The Mask's deflection bonus is awesome because it stacks with your spells' deflection bonuses(!). And like all other timed buffs and healings you currently have you can prolong all that, including the Mask's buff, with Wall of Draining. 

Get Whispers of the Endless Paths and enchant it with Offensive Parry. 

At the start of the fight you buff up and take on the melee enemies. You can then use Inspiring Beacon and then follow up with all kinds of spells like Corrosive Siphon and later Wall of Draining and then stuff like Shadowflame and so on and so forth. 

Wall of Draining also prolongs Lay on Hands by the way. Great synergy with Blood Sacrifice.

It's not primarily about the melee dmg with Offensive Parry (it's not superhigh because Paladin + Wizard lack good weapon passives) - although it gets better with Inspiring Beacon of course. It's more about being able to cast while dazing and draining life from melee attackers as Steel Garrote so you can use Blood Sacrifice often without the need to heal up yourself manually and just keep casting spells. 

Use Eternal Devotion early on so that your spells will get that 10% burning lash, too. 

Use Lay in Hands or Hands of Light (you might want the Courageous buff) to heal yourself if parrying is not enough. 

Sometimes you'll start a fight right away with a lot of focused gunfire against you (e.g. boarding fights) - or lots of casters, ranged beasts or enemies whose accuracy is just too high for Offensive Parry to be very effective. In such situations I would switch to a more defensive setup with a large shield (+modal) until the situation is better suited for Offensive Parry again. For example with boarding fights it often helps to start with a large shield + modal to survive the first salvo of shots and then move and switch to Offensive Parry. 

This was not "invented" as a main tank - but it can tank melee attackers pretty well nonetheless.

 

 

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Boeroer

[Jitsuka]

Awesome, thanks for the detailed reply. Any thoughts on attribute distribution? Max resolve you’ve mentioned. High perception is always important. What about might and intelligence? Medium? 14ish? Does race matter?

I’ve been lurking in these boards now since I got the game last month. I have an issue with rpgs where I can never decide on a character and spend about 40 hours just starting and restarting. This game is especially “bad” because it’s so complex. I’ve played fort maje quite a few times now. It’s amazing how much expertise some of you have with this game. I’ve had an easier time with physiology courses than understating some of the systems in this game. Anyway, thanks again for being so helpful.  

[freddfranca]

9 minutes ago, Jitsuka said:

Awesome, thanks for the detailed reply. Any thoughts on attribute distribution? Max resolve you’ve mentioned. High perception is always important. What about might and intelligence? Medium? 14ish? Does race matter?

I’ve been lurking in these boards now since I got the game last month. I have an issue with rpgs where I can never decide on a character and spend about 40 hours just starting and restarting. This game is especially “bad” because it’s so complex. I’ve played fort maje quite a few times now. It’s amazing how much expertise some of you have with this game. I’ve had an easier time with physiology courses than understating some of the systems in this game. Anyway, thanks again for being so helpful.  

I am on the same boat, mate.

I tried every class, and still couldn’t decide what to choose. One of my favorites was Cipher, but at the same time I don’t like one-button-spam abilities. 
 

[Jitsuka]

Yeah, you discovery an ability and it’s awesome but after doing the same thing for 10 hours, it loses its appeal and you’re ready for a restart! The key, I think, is finding something flexible with a lot of different options.

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Jitsuka said:

finding something flexible with a lot of different options

If I may, that sounds a lot like you need a mage . Why not try a single class Bloodmage to get the jist of the game with the most flex (it will also enable you to do everything everywhere) and come back to other tasty combinations once (said respectfully) you fully know what you're doing in the game?

Chanter is also very versatile, but Bloodmage can use every single grimoire they find - you can have fun with many buff/debuff, inspirations/afflictions, damage-type interactions in the game that way, without respec. I personally find that Bloodmage is the best learning tool that also doesn't limit yourself in anything you want to achieve in the game.

[Raven Darkholme]

Yeah if you get bored easily wizards are the way to go.

You can approach every single fight in a completely different way and still be effective.

 

[freddfranca]

11 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Yeah if you get bored easily wizards are the way to go.

You can approach every single fight in a completely different way and still be effective.

 

Is it possible to solo with a mage?

[Not So Clever Hound]

Yes, this is a build I've made for solo PotD. Read also the discussion/comments below and you'll be all set.

 

EDIT: to be clear, my build is just a suggestion, there are many other ways to do a solo Bloodmage. This one is pretty sweet though and enabled me to complete everything I could possibly want to .

Edited April 13, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[freddfranca]

15 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Yes, this is a build I've made for solo PotD. Read also the discussion/comments below and you'll be all set.

 

EDIT: to be clear, my build is just a suggestion, there are many other ways to do a solo Bloodmage. This one is pretty sweet though and enabled me to complete everything I could possibly want to .

Thanks I will take a look

[Raven Darkholme]

For solo a bloodmage/fighter is easier to play than a single class blood mage but it is definitely viable and more interesting to play single class.

[Jitsuka]

I was actually using your build, not so clever hound, and enjoying it a lot, but had an itch to start over to see what else I could do. I just love alts and trying new stuff. Once I finish a game though, I never feel like going back. I try to play different characters and finish with the one I most identify with and enjoy. I’m on my 5th play through of Skyrim and have never finished it. Lol. I had 80 hours in poe1 before I settled on a barbarian and finally finished it - and only because I wanted to play dead fire. I’m hoping there’s a poe3 but not hearing good news about it.

[Haplok]

13 hours ago, freddfranca said:

I am on the same boat, mate.

I tried every class, and still couldn’t decide what to choose. One of my favorites was Cipher, but at the same time I don’t like one-button-spam abilities. 
 

Perhaps you should try a non-Soulblade cipher then. They have a solid variety of powers, for different occassions and vs different defenses (mostly Will and Fortitude - but the nice beams target Reflex). Soulblade definitely isn't my favorite cipher subclass.

Of course, a Bloodmage is great also (and maybe even moreso).

 

[Boeroer]

Everybody seems to play Soulblade as Soul Annihilation spammer - and of course that can be pretty boring. But a Soulblade also gets more max focus for a melee kill and (more importantly imo) has a discount for shred spells. You don't need to use Soul Annihilation all the time. For example you can play a shred caster with a ranged weapon in one had and a melee weapon or bashing shield in the other, shooting/casting at range and only using Soul Annihilation as soon as he is engaged in melee to get rid of enemies.

By the way: you can extend the duration of the Soul Blade's +10 max focus buff with Strand of Favor - meaning you can stack an absurd amount of max focus for a very long time if you want. This can be pretty hilarious with Shared Nightmare (and of course with Soul Annihilation). 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Everybody seems to play Soulblade as Soul Annihilation spammer - and of course that can be pretty boring. But a Soulblade also gets more max focus for a melee kill and (more importantly imo) has a discount for shred spells. You don't need to use Soul Annihilation all the time. For example you can play a shred caster with a ranged weapon in one had and a melee weapon or bashing shield in the other, shooting/casting at range and only using Soul Annihilation as soon as he is engaged in melee to get rid of enemies.

By the way: you can extend the duration of the Soul Blade's +10 max focus buff with Strand of Favor - meaning you can stack an absurd amount of max focus for a very long time if you want. This can be pretty hilarious with Shared Nightmare (and of course with Soul Annihilation). 

Hm I never really considered Shared Nightmare super good, but the more I think about it, might be secretly busted with AoE weapons ... I wonder if Amra crits can spread Soul Annihilation....

[Boeroer]

I don't know actually but I don't think so. Doesn't seem to be considered a melee or even weapon effect because it doesn't generate focus, right?

Shared Nightmare is very nice with Watershaper's Focus (in combination with Time Parasite to counter the +50% recovery time from Blast) and mortars (obviously).

Whispers otEP does apply Soul Annihilalation in the whole cone AoE. The bigger the better. And since it's a cone its length grows quite a bit with Shared Nightmare.

It's also very good with Current's Rush. That scepter's AoE proc can trigger itself so the bigger the AoE the more likely is a deadly crit-chain-reaction that kills all enemies in range. It's already very good with a high INT SC Ranger with Driving Flight + Twinned Shot (maximizing proc chance per shot) but It may be equally good with huge AoE. And the AoE proc does generate focus iirc.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I don't know actually but I don't think so. Doesn't seem to be considered a melee or even weapon effect because it doesn't generate focus, right?

Shared Nightmare is very nice with Watershaper's Focus (in combination with Time Parasite to counter the +50% recovery time from Blast) and mortars (obviously).

Whispers otEP does apply Soul Annihilalation in the whole cone AoE. The bigger the better. And since it's a cone its length grows quite a bit with Shared Nightmare.

It's also very good with Current's Rush. That scepter's AoE proc can trigger itself so the bigger the AoE the more likely is a deadly crit-chain-reaction that kills all enemies in range. It's already very good with a high INT SC Ranger with Driving Flight + Twinned Shot (maximizing proc chance per shot) but It may be equally good with huge AoE. And the AoE proc does generate focus iirc.

Ye you might be right about Amra, shame.

Whispers is probably the best option, but I guess the ranged aoe weapons are nice for clearing lower hp packs.

[Raven Darkholme]

I tested around with Shared Nightmare and it isn't super impressive.

I'd guess it's not a multiplicative bonus to AoE like Int

A 2.5 radius is not even getting tripled with over 1000% AoE (It goes to 5.9).

I already have over 100% Aoe from Int here and low and behold that is actually close to doubling AoE....

The numbers do look hilarious and ofc the AoEs are even nicer than just with alotta int, but its just not impressive, only "cool".

[Boeroer]

Shared Nightmare works like INT (and other stuff like Overseeing etc).

It may feel like it's not because it comes on top of a big INT bonus often. Area has the quadratic function π * radius². You won't see that much increase in radius the bigger the area.

AoE increase/decrease in Deadfire is different from what it was in PoE. In PoE the INT modifier was directly multiplied with the radius - which lead to ridiculous AoE growth as soon as your INT reached certain numbers (because of quadratic growth):

AoE = π * (mod_INT * radius)²

Let's do an example for PoE: base radius of 5m with 30 INT --> +100% modifier; AoE = 3.142 * (2*5m)² = 314m²
Let's assume Shared Nightmare was a thing in PoE and add +200% from focus: 3.142 * (4*5m)² = 1,257m² (quadrupled)

In Deadfire INT and stuff like Overseeing and Shared Nightmares directly affects the area, not the radius:

AoE = (π * radius²) * mod_INT

Same exemplary numbers in Deadfire (5 base radius, 30 INT): AoE = 3.142 * 5² * 2 =  157m²
With Shared Nightmare at +200%: AoE = 3.142 * 5² * 4 =  314m² (doubled)

So naturally when you already have an AoE bonus of +100% then another +100% will not be that visible because the radius won't grow much (because a tiny increase in radius will already have a bif effect on the size of the area). Still: the area the circle will cover is doubled.

In PoE the returns were increasing. Now looking at the circles in Deadfire one could think that the returns are diminishing - but mathematically they are linear. It's debateable though if they are kind of diminishing in the scope of the game - because enemies have a rel. fixed space they occupy. Even if the the area is growing in a linear fashion and you'll double it... it's the growth of the radius that's more "obviously important" to reach new enemies and not how much m² you actually cover. But radius will only crawl forward with already big AoEs - even with huge additional gains of area.

You'll see a bigger increase in radius with cone-shaped AoEs (which are actually cicular sectors and not cones,  because a cone is a 3D body - but whatever) because they use the formula for cicular sectors: AoE = radius²/2 * (α - sin α), where α is the angle of the "cone" which is usually listed in the tooltip.
Therefore cone AoEs will grow more visible with high INT and also Shared Nightmare. Also here the radius will increase less and less with more stacked bonuses - but the "decline" of radous-growth isn't that steep as with circular AoEs.

Also AoE effects with already big base radiuses will feel a lot better with high INT and Shared Nightmare than AoEs which start with small base radiuses. Check out Amplified Wave (5m base) with 30 INT and Shared Nightmare vs. Soul Shock (2.5m base) for example. 

If you want to have Shared Nightmare to have a big visual an practical effect you should use it with a Cipher who has 3 or even 1 INT. Not kidding, I played one quite some time ago.  Only picked abilites that don't care about INT (beams, Mind Blades, Mind Lance etc.) or even were better with low INT (Disintegrate back then) and then after PL9 retrained and got the ones with AoEs, too.

  

Edited April 15, 2021 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

5 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Shared Nightmare works like INT (and other stuff like Overseeing etc).

It may feel like it's not because it comes on top of a big INT bonus often. Area has the quadratic function π * radius². You won't see that much increase in radius the bigger the area.

AoE increase/decrease in Deadfire is different from what it was in PoE. In PoE the INT modifier was directly multiplied with the radius - which lead to ridiculous AoE growth as soon as your INT reached certain numbers (because of quadratic growth):

AoE = π * (mod_INT * radius)²

Let's do an example for PoE: base radius of 5m with 30 INT --> +100% modifier; AoE = 3.142 * (2*5m)² = 314m²
Let's assume Shared Nightmare was a thing in PoE and add +200% from focus: 3.142 * (4*5m)² = 1,257m² (quadrupled)

In Deadfire INT and stuff like Overseeing and Shared Nightmares directly affects the area, not the radius:

AoE = (π * radius²) * mod_INT

Same exemplary numbers in Deadfire (5 base radius, 30 INT): AoE = 3.142 * 5² * 2 =  157m²
With Shared Nightmare at +200%: AoE = 3.142 * 5² * 4 =  314m² (doubled)

So naturally when you already have an AoE bonus of +100% then another +100% will not be that visible because the radius won't grow much (because a tiny increase in radius will already have a bif effect on the size of the area). Still: the area the circle will cover is doubled.

In PoE the returns were increasing. Now looking at the circles in Deadfire one could think that the returns are diminishing - but mathematically they are linear. It's debateable though if they are kind of diminishing in the scope of the game - because enemies have a rel. fixed space they occupy. Even if the the area is growing in a linear fashion and you'll double it... it's the growth of the radius that's more "obviously important" to reach new enemies and not how much m² you actually cover. But radius will only crawl forward with already big AoEs - even with huge additional gains of area.

You'll see a bigger increase in radius with cone-shaped AoEs (which are actually cicular sectors and not cones,  because a cone is a 3D body - but whatever) because they use the formula for cicular sectors: AoE = radius²/2 * (α - sin α), where α is the angle of the "cone" which is usually listed in the tooltip.
Therefore cone AoEs will grow more visible with high INT and also Shared Nightmare. Also here the radius will increase less and less with more stacked bonuses - but the "decline" of radous-growth isn't that steep as with circular AoEs.

Also AoE effects with already big base radiuses will feel a lot better with high INT and Shared Nightmare than AoEs which start with small base radiuses. Check out Amplified Wave (5m base) with 30 INT and Shared Nightmare vs. Soul Shock (2.5m base) for example. 

If you want to have Shared Nightmare to have a big visual an practical effect you should use it with a Cipher who has 3 or even 1 INT. Not kidding, I played one quite some time ago.  Only picked abilites that don't care about INT (beams, Mind Blades, Mind Lance etc.) or even were better with low INT (Disintegrate back then) and then after PL9 retrained and got the ones with AoEs, too.

  

I have to add that yesterday when I tested it I was tired and stupid and made some mistakes.

Reloaded the save today and either I straight up looked for a 1.5 radius skill that grew to 5.9, thinking it was the 2.5 one, or instead of looking at the numbers in combat with full focus I looked at them out of combat.

Either way in reality the 2.5 radius actually becomes 9 with 1000% inc Aoe, so I decided to hire a ranger adventurer and grind focus some more on their helpless pet.

(One of the reasons I was so annoyed yesterday is I really wanted to grind my focus solo but with single class cipher it is so very annoying opposed to ranger/cipher mc)

I grinded my focus all the way to 3.8k and most Aoes actually become screenwide.

WoteP honestly profits least from it, because it mainly becomes very long.

I tried applying Soul Annihilation with it and only hit 1 other enemy even tho I was positioned well enough to hit 5 at least.

The best thing really is Watershaper focus, that thing is a beauty because of the rod modal and additional bounce and the 5% proc for wave.

(which procs all the time btw because of how many enemies are hit)

It doesn't even matter if enemies have several hundred hp the entire screen just melts in seconds.

I was using Blade cascade tho.

[Boeroer]

3.8K focus rofl.

I love Watershaper's focus. Ondra's Wave also generates focus, right? I mean not that you need that with 3.8K - but still.
Ondra's Wave used to proc off itself. That was patched out at some point but it is still such a fun weapon (even without Blade Cascade). 

 

[Raven Darkholme]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

3.8K focus rofl.

I love Watershaper's focus. Ondra's Wave also generates focus, right? I mean not that you need that with 3.8K - but still.
Ondra's Wave used to proc off itself. That was patched out at some point but it is still such a fun weapon (even without Blade Cascade). 

 

Hm hard to say, focus is displayed weirdly once you have 3 digits, let alone 4.

The next time I load up the save I will put slow motion and try and keep track of focus generation.

One thing I also found out during that testing, even tho unrelated:

Since if you have a unique item effect on you and then remove that item, then save and reload, the item effect gets renamed to the name of the item.

(wtf even is that abomination of a sentence :P)

Brilliant from Shroud of the phantasm doesn't seem to be considered the brilliant inspiration anymore.

(buff is just called shroud of the phantasm, even tho if you hover over your int it will still say +5 brilliant)

The way I discovered this was getting confused during a fight and NOT LOSING MY BRILLIANT.

Now this is kind of massive because it makes self confuse strategies much more effective even in longer fights where you might want brilliant.

(you still can't use Captain's banquet which kind of sucks tho. terrify is super annoying)

So one of the things I wanna do with the massive cipher AoE is hire a chanter and then do the good ole confused Grave Calling chillfog triggrs another chillfog strategy just with 4000 % inc AOE xd.

But even for solo this is pretty nice ofc, because Bers/Chanter would run out of frenzies eventually without Brilliant, I guess Tactician would kind of work, but its much less micro intensive to keep up berserker rage than confuse from bb.

[Boeroer]

Oh wohawohawhoa! Does that also mean that the "renamed" effect like Brilliant from Shroud of the Phantasm and an ordinary effect like Brilliant could stack?

[Raven Darkholme]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Oh wohawohawhoa! Does that also mean that the "renamed" effect like Brilliant from Shroud of the Phantasm and an ordinary effect like Brilliant could stack?

If you never remove shroud after reequipping it, it SHOULD stack, I will test in a little bit.

Most unique effects stack like this see Gipon Prudensco where the unique wording of the duration even makes it stack infinitely.

On most items you can "only" restack once, like Scordeos will end up giving you max 40 accuracy to all weapons etc.

For shroud you might not be able to stack int, because Int buff still says "brilliant" (also doesn't disappear when you are confused tho), but you definitely should be able to stack resource regen, its just kinda overkill, brilliant in itself is already op enough.

On another note I tested if Ondra's Wave generates focus and it does indeed SEEM like it does.

There just doesn't seem to be a good way to test it, what I did look at my focus before and after a "normal" sceptre hit and one where wave procs and with a decent amount of enemies my normal sceptre gives me 200-300 focus per hit while wave seems to proc 500-600.

[Not So Clever Hound]

Could you stack 2+ frenzy-like effects from Amra with that? That could be massive too.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound