Weekend test build - solo Spiritualist

[freddfranca]

Hello guys. 
I was planning a psyblade, but when I was reading the post @dgray62 recommended, I saw that someone posted about a spiritualist, and I decided to give a try.

I am with a Troubador/Beguiller. 

This is my stats (I don’t remember exactly, will check it later) (Using Berath blessing)

15/9/17/21/20/8

 

Skills until now:

Troubador

Thrice

Come Come

The summon dragons one 

 

Beguiller

Eye Strike, Whispers, Psychovampiric Shield, Mental Binding, Lingering Echoes and Draining whip.

I am using Arquebus and Gladiator Sword+Shield

Finished the digsite and heading for Neketaka now. What would be the best gear I can get for now?

[dgray62]

For a beguiler/troubadour with a sword and board build, I'd recommend that you wield Sasha's Singing Scimitar and Lethandria's devotion in one weapon set, and then Grave Calling (to be replaced by Seeker's Fang eventually) and the Outworn Buckler. The nice thing about this setup is if you rapidly alternate between the two weapon sets, you will heal yourself and remove time from negative conditions. Instead of an arquebus, I'd recommend the Kitchen Stove in your third weapon set; thunderous report is crazy with a cipher or rogue. Your stats look fine. And definitely get the chants and invocations that cause afflictions, as they'll all be extended by lingering echoes. With a beguiler, definitely get Phantom Foes ASAP. One cast of it can fill up your focus if you hit a large group of foes. Make sure that you get the Empty Soul (more accuracy for powers that target will) and The Complete Self (+5 focus every time you crit with a cipher power). With these two abilities plus the beguiler's innate bonus to focus when hitting afflicted foes, you'll never lack focus when fighting mobs. You might struggle a bit against single bosses however.

[abot]

IIRC The Complete Self is not so good

but hey, I think that summons + pain link is the most powerful troubadour/cipher synergy

Edited June 26, 2021 by abot

[freddfranca]

I am confuse about the chanter skills I must take.

In the first tier, for example, I took Thrice Was She Wronged… but now I am thinking if The Thunder Rolled.. wouldn’t be a better option? 
And the chants, I am using only Come Come Soft Winds of the Dead, I have to take Ancient Memory on tier 3?

Thanks for the replies

[abot]

You want both Thrice and Thunder Rolled, + both upgrades. I'd give priority to Thunder Rolled because coupled with Mental Binding from cipher it will not only do damage but cover most of your control against different resistances/immunities. Ancient memory is good as the (at least one) not-aggressive chant you need to be sure to not come out of stealth when you want to stay stealthed near the enemy (e.g. when you keep summoning and pain-linking your summons from stealth also with 85% less spell recovery time)

The problem with chanter/cipher build is you have so many good spells but can't have all of them, so you may want to respec as you progress e.g.
Eye Strike, Whispers are good, but Eye Strike can be easily replaced with cinder bombs and from Grave Calling sabre chillfog later, and Whisper can be replaced with Puppet Master at higher level.

other must-have for cipher: mind blades, secret horrors, borrowed instinct, ringleader, disintegration
must-have for cipher+chanter: pain link, tactical meld

if solo: you may consider screaming souls to use the ancestor's memory slot, it works great with both chanter called to his bidding/many lives pass
(when you reach proper level, many lives pass + paralyzing enemy only chilling fog from grave calling is OP)

re: summon dragon
IMO with a troubadour most of the times it is better to have 3 summons active, with brisk recitation you will be able to keep summons always up and fresh with just about 16 intelligence, no need to have a damage sponge when you can just resummon

Edited June 27, 2021 by abot

[Boeroer]

Thrice was She Wronged + Upgrade is a great damage tool in general and always nice to have (especially with the Least Unstable Coil because every lightning bolt counts as separate empowered spell which makes it very easy to gain all top-3 inspirations with a single empowered spell).

The Thunder is special because although it causes a Might affliction (stun) it targets Reflex and not Fortitude. So it's one of the rel. rare abilities which can lower a certain defense without having to overcome that defense first. The Push effect is kind of annoying for my playstyle but there's also damage on top of the stun which his cool. The upgrade (+10 ACC) makes it a really nice CC tool then. You can stun high fort. enemies (who often have poor Reflex) like nobody else. Combine with the Helm of the White Void and it's even +20 ACC. Cool indeed...

If I can afford it I will take both.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

16 hours ago, abot said:

IIRC The Complete Self is not so good

but hey, I think that summons + pain link is the most powerful troubadour/cipher synergy

I forgot that the Complete Self can only proc once per attack. This being the case, it seems to be not worth the precious ability point for this MC. And I agree that for a solo run, you'll definitely want summons.

[freddfranca]

Thanks for the replies guys. 
I can’t change Eyestrike because it is my lvl 1 choice. I am at tier 3 now, so I changed Whispers for Puppetmaster and took The Thunder with my tier 1 point. 
EDIT: I also picked Come Come Soft Winds as lvl 1 skill, is it worthy to take Ancient Memory now? Or is better if I invest in another summon?
I am trying to make money to get the Singing Scimitar for now.

Edited June 27, 2021 by freddfranca

[abot]

I think getting  Ancient Memory is good as some healing is always of use and it may be almost needed in certain situations (e.g. if you try the ultimate with such a build there are fights when having AM automatically heal Vela makes you able to concentrate more easily on killing enemies), but if you prefer some other chant, the important thing IMO is it has to be at least one non-aggressive chant to be able to stay stealthed more easily, e.g. Come Come Soft Winds is probably best 1st chant you can get at level 1 but aggressive and this can make you/Vela/companions to be detected and exit from stealth

Edited June 28, 2021 by abot

[freddfranca]

Played all week with this guy, it is really fun. But one thing that I didn’t liked is that I miss to go with more melee action, it’s almost like spam spells all the time. 
I want to try a melee beguiler now. Trickster and Tactician was my first choices, but I played too much with this classes.

Now I want to go mainly with a barbarian, but I couldn’t build it properly. Another option was a Forbidden Fist, but I am confused with the stats. I need high INT for the duration of the cipher spells, but it will give me more time of the FF curse.

Any ideas how to build this two characters?

[dgray62]

A beguiler witch is a fun multiclass. You could either choose berserker or furyshaper as your barbarian subclass; both would bring a lot to the build. You could also try a forbidden fist transcendent. If you're playing the vanilla game, beguiler/FF would be the best option. If you like to mod, then I suggest a soul blade/FF if you're using community patch and also the no rest mod, to help you buff RES. I usually play this character with 15 STR, 10 CON, 15 DEX, 18 PER, 15 INT and 18 RES with Berath's Blessings. With 18 RES you can get to the max of 35 with a RES inspiration (easy to get with a cipher), gear and other bonuses, which are easier to maintain if you use the no rest mod.

[freddfranca]

4 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

A beguiler witch is a fun multiclass. You could either choose berserker or furyshaper as your barbarian subclass; both would bring a lot to the build. You could also try a forbidden fist transcendent. If you're playing the vanilla game, beguiler/FF would be the best option. If you like to mod, then I suggest a soul blade/FF if you're using community patch and also the no rest mod, to help you buff RES. I usually play this character with 15 STR, 10 CON, 15 DEX, 18 PER, 15 INT and 18 RES with Berath's Blessings. With 18 RES you can get to the max of 35 with a RES inspiration (easy to get with a cipher), gear and other bonuses, which are easier to maintain if you use the no rest mod.

I don’t use mods, I play on Xbox.

And the my problem with the witch is that I don’t know how to survive with a barbarian no defensive buffs, no health regen… 

[Boeroer]

Barbarians do have healing: Savage --> Stalwart Defiance. But it comes rather late for multiclasses - same as the Furyshaper's Fear Ward which also helps a lot with survivability. 

I just like the Witch's overall debuffing qualities, especially in combination with Spirit Frenzy which turns any offensive AoE ability into mass MIG/Fortitude debuff (which also removes any MIG inspiration on enemies on the fly). 

I don't think it's especially good as solo character though. I played a solo Furyshaper and it was fun (mostly due to Blood Ward) - but it wasn't great against Megabosses. The cipher part can surely help here but lack of staying power might indeed become an issue...?

Edited July 3, 2021 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

5 hours ago, freddfranca said:

I don’t use mods, I play on Xbox.

And the my problem with the witch is that I don’t know how to survive with a barbarian no defensive buffs, no health regen… 

In that case, the transcendent build can work if you go with FF/beguiler. I don't know how well it would work for a solo run however.

[freddfranca]

Thanks guys, I will try them later

Edited July 3, 2021 by freddfranca

[freddfranca]

After all, I started a Steel Garrote/Beguiler.

Have a good synergy, almost a perma heal, and the good defensive paladin buffs.

This is the stats : 18 STR / 10 CON / 17 DEX / 21 PER / 17 INT / 7 RES.

I choose high Dex for attack speed, what means more heals.

One question, I started with Hammer and Shield (I like paladins with hammer ), later I will try leave out the shield. Is it better dual wield or go two handed

 

EDIT: changed the shield for a dagger with modal. I need keep attacking to maintain the heals up.

 

EDIT 2: tweaked the stats a bit

17 / 10 / 15 / 21 / 18 / 9

and started with dual daggers. If I need more defense I just turn the modal on and sworn enemy compensates the damage reduction 

 

EDIT 3: Too boring, felt asleep playing with him

Edited July 4, 2021 by freddfranca

[freddfranca]

The problem with this guy was that he was effective only against small packs of enemies. When I faced larger groups, the auto healing wasn’t enough, or if I missed my cipher debuffs. 
Anyway, how would a wizard/cipher performs? Or maybe a Ghost Heart and specializes in Echoes spells?

[dgray62]

Have you considered steel garrote/blood mage? Blood mage brings great debuffs too, and also more defensive buffs than a cipher, making you tankier. If you chose this build, you might want to consider wielding Whispers of the Endless Paths with the offensive parry upgrade. While you're casting spells, enemies who attack you will often miss, triggering offensive parry, which will daze them and heal you. It's a strong multiclass combo with lots of great synergy.

[freddfranca]

57 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Have you considered steel garrote/blood mage? Blood mage brings great debuffs too, and also more defensive buffs than a cipher, making you tankier. If you chose this build, you might want to consider wielding Whispers of the Endless Paths with the offensive parry upgrade. While you're casting spells, enemies who attack you will often miss, triggering offensive parry, which will daze them and heal you. It's a strong multiclass combo with lots of great synergy.

Thanks for the suggestion but now I am in the cipher’s vibe

I am trying a seer now, if it doesn’t work as I planned,  I will return with the spiritualist.

[dgray62]

Seers have great synergy as well. Enjoy!

[freddfranca]

9 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Seers have great synergy as well. Enjoy!

Played the digsite part with the seer (Beguiler/GH). 
I was used to play with a Stalker, but it’s  more fun I don’t have to worry about the pet  

I am not sure it I can do higher levels areas with him, but I will play a bit more