The Changeling's Mantle with a Berserker/Beckoner

[Boeroer]

Hello!

I just got the Changeling's Mantle again. And while I was looking at the possible "routes" for the soulbound upgrades I got an idea for "Primal Carnage": can a confused Berserker's Carnage which hits your own beast summons (for example wurms) give you the action bonus? This would turn Primal Carnage from a situationally cool gimmick into a thing that's always useful.

So I tested it and yeah: you can summon your 6 wurms and place them around an enemy, then attack that enemy with - let's say Barbaric Smash - and immediately get +15% Action Speed which stacks with all other speed buffs. As a bonus you get Blood Thirst and Bloodlust should you kill your own wurms that way. 

I think that's pretty cool because the Changeling's Mantle looks awesome in the first place and I really needed a justification to wear it.

Next I will test if Amra's Carnage would also add stacks of Primal Carnage. It's capped at 15 stacks so maybe this isn't superimportant - but good to know I guess.

I'll also check if Sun & Moon (which should proc Carnage twice) will give me twice the stacks per attack. Till later!

Edited August 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Sun & Moon: it doesn't proc Carnage twice, so nothing special.

Amra: The "Carnage" of Amra doesn't work with Primal Carnage.

Pukestabber + Lover's Embrace works very well (+20% Action Speed from Pukestabber and 25% Action Speed from Lover's Embrace if you attack the right gender - it stacks with everything). You will stack a lot of action speed, daggers are already fast and you don't instantly kill the wurms with Carnage because the base dmg of daggers is low enough so they survive enough Carnage procs to give you 15 stacks of Primal Carnage.

Only thing is that Daggers don't look so nice with that armor. Stalker's Patience would be nice. Maybe even Berseker/Skald is cool with the recovery-skip of Stalker's Patience. 3 Wurms instead of 6 means double the attacks needed - but if I can crit and skip recovery with the speas once in a while it should still be fast. And I can prifit from the phrases and the lower cost of offensive invocations... hm...  

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

Thanks for sharing this discovery with us, Boeroer!

[Boeroer]

Holy smokes, Berserker/Skald with Stalker's Patience and Changeling's Mantle is fun with this setup. With Old Siec + Ancient Memory + Abraham I can even heal myself enough so that I'm not going down from the self damage. Also 3 Wurms is kind of easier to manage than 6, hehe...  

[Boeroer]

Servus!

[Boeroer]

Ngati's Tusk is also nice. You can stay away, it has a crit conversion and the auto-defense debuff as well as the pike's modal (-10 deflection on hit) works in your favor, too. 

If only Druids had early beast summons... this would feel even nicer with a Berserker/Druid I guess. 

[thelee]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Ngati's Tusk is also nice. You can stay away, it has a crit conversion and the auto-defense debuff as well as the pike's modal (-10 deflection on hit) works in your favor, too. 

I seriously undervalued Ngati's Tusk for way too long. the -fort/ref/will penalty aura (actually: an aura that marks enemies and you get a bonus to accuracy targeting one of those defenses, weird implementation imo) is extremely valuable for being item/passive and stacking with everything. in my last run i picked it up, played with it, and then respeced to get 20+ survival and just used it on a caster who would rarely ever attack with it, but just cast spells near enemies that everyone now had an easier time hitting with debuffs or special attacks.

Edited August 20, 2021 by thelee

[Boeroer]

48 minutes ago, thelee said:

actually: an aura that marks enemies and you get a bonus to accuracy targeting one of those defenses, weird implementation imo

? I don't know how it's implemented internally, but the enemies get a hostile effect named "Hunter of Hunters" and their defenses get lowered directly in the tooltip. Maybe it's just UI - but if you check the log there is no hint that you get an accuracy bonus. The enemies' defenses show the malus:

(ignore Razor's Edge, it's a consoled multi-multiclass )

Since everybody profits from that debuff I think this is the only implementations that makes sense. The other way round (accuracy for everybody who attacks that enemy) would be unnecessarily complicated, wouldn't it?

Like Cap of the Laughingstock's aura this just seems to be a direct, auto-applied debuff? 

But yeah, Ngati's Tusk is very nice, especially Hunter of Hunters. Also you can get pretty high survival values with items and Galawain's boon and such.  

By the way the Cap's deflection debuff and the one from the Pike modal do stack which is nice for a Berserker/Skald with Brute Force who can just attack the lower defense (Fortitude or Deflection - and both get debuffed).

Edited August 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Primal Carnage also works with an Animal Companion, hm... Berserker/Stalker with Stalker's Patience and Hunter's Fang etc...?

Maybe Ngati's Tusk is not so cool with a party when you are confused... :oops

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

? I don't know how it's implemented internally, but the enemies get a hostile effect named "Hunter of Hunters" and their defenses get lowered directly in the tooltip. Maybe it's just UI - but if you check the log there is no hint that you get an accuracy bonus. The enemies' defenses show the malus:

(ignore Razor's Edge, it's a consoled multi-multiclass )

Since everybody profits from that debuff I think this is the only implementations that makes sense. The other way round (accuracy for everybody who attacks that enemy) would be unnecessarily complicated, wouldn't it?

Uh weiiiird? Maybe this is an interaction with my german language mod, because it definitely shows up as an accuracy bonus - in this case it would be like +11.3 Jager des Jagds or something.

It definitely surprised me because I was looking in tooltip to verify it working, and it took me a while to find it because I was expecting a penalty, not something akin to a "marked" bonus. sigh...

edit: sigh, well now i can't reproduce, at least on my work laptop [benefits of wfh]. sigh, just one of those things that's either buggy behavior or impending senility

Edited August 20, 2021 by thelee

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

Jager des Jagds

If that's really how "Hunter of Hunters" was translated we should find the creators of that mod and hit them with a Dachlatte.  

[thelee]

On 8/20/2021 at 3:38 PM, Boeroer said:

If that's really how "Hunter of Hunters" was translated we should find the creators of that mod and hit them with a Dachlatte.  

that's my own terrible memory at work. it was (presumably) correctly "Jäger des Jägers"

[Boeroer]

Probably "Jäger der Jäger" which would be the literal translation. That's kind of worse, hehe. It's very difficult to translate "Hunter of Hunters" close to the original without it sounding weird in German. They should have translated it as "Jägermeister".

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

They should have translated it as "Jägermeister".

It's particularly effective if you follow up with a Fireball 

[dgray62]

That Fireball image looks like a shifted sorcerer with wild strike burn!

[Hariwulf]

I'm so upset for the class restrictions put on the mantle...it looks amazing, and I could see those upgrades doing wonders on many builds.

[Boeroer]

A mod could change that maybe? Don't know how it would handle the class specific enchantments but I guess it's doable. 

One could also do a non-soulbound version and just take the model of the Ch. Mantle. 

What I really don't understand is why those awesome pangolin gladiator armors from SSS (arena staff mostly but also at least one to pick up) don't have a unique version: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Light_Ceremonial_Garb

Edited August 26, 2021 by Boeroer

[mjo2138]

On 8/20/2021 at 2:46 PM, Boeroer said:

? I don't know how it's implemented internally, but the enemies get a hostile effect named "Hunter of Hunters" and their defenses get lowered directly in the tooltip. Maybe it's just UI - but if you check the log there is no hint that you get an accuracy bonus. The enemies' defenses show the malus:

(ignore Razor's Edge, it's a consoled multi-multiclass )

Since everybody profits from that debuff I think this is the only implementations that makes sense. The other way round (accuracy for everybody who attacks that enemy) would be unnecessarily complicated, wouldn't it?

Like Cap of the Laughingstock's aura this just seems to be a direct, auto-applied debuff? 

But yeah, Ngati's Tusk is very nice, especially Hunter of Hunters. Also you can get pretty high survival values with items and Galawain's boon and such.  

By the way the Cap's deflection debuff and the one from the Pike modal do stack which is nice for a Berserker/Skald with Brute Force who can just attack the lower defense (Fortitude or Deflection - and both get debuffed).

Yes the passive debuff is really tempting. It makes me want to use Aloth and use Conc. Draining Touch instead of Blackbow 

On 8/20/2021 at 1:58 PM, thelee said:

I seriously undervalued Ngati's Tusk for way too long. the -fort/ref/will penalty aura (actually: an aura that marks enemies and you get a bonus to accuracy targeting one of those defenses, weird implementation imo) is extremely valuable for being item/passive and stacking with everything. in my last run i picked it up, played with it, and then respeced to get 20+ survival and just used it on a caster who would rarely ever attack with it, but just cast spells near enemies that everyone now had an easier time hitting with debuffs or special attacks.

Yes, I just saw this today in my current run. At SSS now; I am an SC Tornado Master Troubadour . It makes me want to go deeper into the rabbit hole I am in with using Aloth as a Terrifier.  I also thought of using Keeper of the Flame for the constant -8 will debuff. Dual wielding that with a club would be -20 will quite quickly 

[Boeroer]

After starting that thread Ngati's Tusk became one of my most used items in the following runs with all sorts of characters, even an Assassin/Wizard among them. At some point I imported it into some runs as soon as possible. It's extremely good in the later game - but at the same time it's not overpowered (besides the quality - but there are other early uniques to buy that have high quality) when you are of low level because the Hunter of Hunters enchantment scales with a skill that will not be sky high at the beginning.