Tekehu: Watershaper vs Stormspeaker vs Theurge? Also Bloom Mage constitution?

[SirMirrorcoat]

As I am about to restart once again - because no matter how cool Wurms/Drakes/Dragons are, I prefer a bit more active roles for my main than just being a summon bot - I am now also questioning my class choice for Tekehu.

So far, I did not have a single tougher encounter where Watershaper-Tekehu didn't run out of spells halfway through the fight. Which sucked. Not only that, but he also misses a surprising amount of times. Wasting 2 Chillfogs only to successfully hit ONE enemy sucks. He constantly runs out of Empowerments simply because he needs to cast so much just to successfully do stuff.

Is it just that I got unlucky? Should I just make him my heal/buffbot instead? How do I unlock his hidden potential? I read so much about how both his subclasses are so strong, but at least for Watershaper I can't see the power at level 9... Does he come online later? Or is it the combination of Watershaper+Stormspeaker that makes him so good in the end?

 

And considering the self damage, how high should I set my Con for a Blood Mage? I also couldn't find any data on how much HP they regen? Highest Con I could comfortably get would be 15 (as in 15 in every stat). Or would 12 or even 10 be enough? That way I could get 18/20 Int instead... 

 

3. How do I go about reliably triggering Brilliant Tactitian? Because I can't manage it in crowded battles so far.. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by SirMirrorcoat

[Ouroboros226]

Custom AI behavior fixes everything (almost). But they can be a real headache to set up.

[Boeroer]

The Blood Mage regenerates 1 point of health (base) every 6 secs.

Not too low CON (or wearing a Greater Amulet of Health and picking up the Tough passive later on) is advised because Blood Sacrifice may be able to one-shot you with too little health. 10 can be enough imo, but I'm not an avid player of Blood Mages.

Watershaper has a really nice spell collection. Besides that Tekehu as SC Watershaper can decide almost all encounters with just one cast of Great Maelstrom. If you're not hitting you are doing something wrong with your buffing & debuffing. If you just start slinging offensive spells with a caster who has no inherent ACC bonuses you will be ineffective. First buff ACC, then debuff enemies defenses with that higher ACC, then deal damage. Takes a bit longer but you won't waste as much spells with misses. The more levels the more spell uses and less often you will run out of spells. If you have a Cipher in the party this problem will go away once you take Ancestor's Memory. 
The power of the Waterhshaper comes from his powerful foe-only spells (which usually would cause friendly fire). Foe-only Chillfog for example is very good (if your ACC is buffed nicely).

As Stormspeaker Tekehu has access to Avenging Storm. Which is great. I played him as Mortar Stormspeaker (Hand Mortar + Blinding Smoke or Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot in the offhand and Sasha's Singing Scimitar in the main hand). Every AoE hit roll will proc a lightning. Blinding Smoke triggers Avenging Storm, too (which is very powerful). I used Sure-Handed Ila to speed up the shooting a lot (-20% reloading time AND -20% recovery time both apply to all reloading weapons). Stacks with the dual wielding and Two-Weapon Style. You can't use Mith Fyr for Tekehu himself because his ocean-godlike's passive will clear all fire effects (hostile or benefical) every few seconds.
 
A neat trick is to use Shash's Singing Scimitar with Refreshing Finale to empower Avenging Storm 1/encounter. Every proc of Avenging Storm counts as empowered spell. Refreshing Finale now grants you 3 phrases for every empowered spell. This means if you shoot with Hand Mortar or Fire in the Hole after empowering Avenging Storm you will get up to 8 phrases with one single shot (and deal big damage, too). More on that here:

This means you can unleash so many invocations in no time it's quite insane and only limited to your casting speed, not your phrases. You will swim in phrases.

Granted: this comes as late as PL8 - but before that you can still dish out nice shock damage with cheap Dancing Bolts, Her Revenge and whatnot and empower such invocations 1/encounter - which is pretty impactful imo. And even without Avenging Storm the Hand Mortar + Sure Handed Ila still does nice AoE dps in between invocations. 

You can combine that with the Least Unstable Coil, too. You'll get all 6 tier-3 inspirations because every Avenging Storm proc counts as empowered spell. CHanter's don't need Brilliant so much - but still nice to have all tier-3 inspirations for sure.

Stormspeakers have a huge downside though: they cannot use summons. But since you did that already with another character and want to try something else - maybe that's even an advantage for you?  

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Boeroer

[SirMirrorcoat]

I buffed him with Dire Blessing before casting debuffs and then offensive stuff. Maybe I just got ridiciulously unlucky...

And it isn't summoning per se, it was more the problem that my Watcher was doing nothing else but resummoning Wurms non-stop. I got maybe 1 invocation in between xD

So, Theurge you wouldn't recommend?

[SirMirrorcoat]

The above example with SC Stormspeaker Tekehu is especially nice if you use Sasha's + Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke (without CP because there BS triggering AS was removed: ((1+AoE_circle_HaMo)*(1+AoE_cone_BliSmo) procs) or Fire in the Hole (1+AoE_cirlce_FitH+1+AoE_cirlce_FitH_jump procs) or Blunderbuss (4 procs) or Sun and Moon (2 procs) or Keeper of the Flame (1+AoE_circle_KotF procs).

Can you explain this one? CP BS AS throw me off xD

[Boeroer]

CP = Community Patch

BS/BliSmo = Blinding Smoke

AS = Avenging Storm

HaMo = Hand Mortar

FitH = Fire in the Hole

KotF = Keeper of the Flame

 

 

 

 

[SirMirrorcoat]

thanks

So, using the community patch screws over 1 use of Avenging Storm, good to know.

But aside from that Avenging Storm + Sasha's still works with CP?

[SirMirrorcoat]

sin tee's video made me consider Theurge for him because of the insane versatility...

[Boeroer]

5 hours ago, SirMirrorcoat said:

thanks

So, using the community patch screws over 1 use of Avenging Storm, good to know.

No. CP makes it so that Blinding Smoke hits don't proc Avenging Storm anymore.
Blinding Smoke is a cone attack. Every attack roll from the Hand Mortar's AoE that crits will create a Blinding Smoke cone attack.

Removing those additional hit rolls from the cones from Avenging Storm makes a big difference - especially once you shoot into tight groups of enemies.

It may even be that Blinding Smoke can proc itself because I often get way more hit rolls that I should. I couldn't fully determine that but I suspect it is so. Anyway: Blinding Smok NOT triggering Avenging Storm makes big difference as soon as you can hit multiple enemies at once. 

You can use CP anyway and just rename or remove the file that changes Avenging Storm. But maybe CP didn't even change the Stormspeaker's version of Avenging Storm but only the original Druid spell (didn't check).  

Edited September 19, 2021 by Boeroer

[SirMirrorcoat]

Reading through that and checking the pic, it seems that what CP does makes it less cheesy, so I am content with that

If I went Theurge, I would have exactly 1 character as singleclass in my main squad. And everyone would have a regenerable resource xD

Only that I still can't figure out how to make Eder (Tactician/Trickster) not get flanked. Any advice? Otherwise I'll just make him a mega-tank with Unbroken...

 

[Boeroer]

You could give him an item that gives immunity to flanked. There are two weapons and one armor that can do this:

- Squid's Grasp (Rapier)
- Kapana Taga (Club)
- Gipon Prudensco (Padded Armor)

 

[NotDumbEnough]

Blunderbuss + Avenging Storm isn't the most broken interaction iirc. Last I checked, each individual proc of Avenging Storm counts as a new spell cast, so with Sasha's Singing Scimitar you get 3 phrases every time you hit someone with empowered Avenging Storm, effectively near infinite phrases.

[SirMirrorcoat]

Oi, a club would be lovely

How early can I get that tho?

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, SirMirrorcoat said:

Oi, a club would be lovely

How early can I get that tho?

You need to sink the ship of Fyrgist at the Black Isles. Forget boarding it early. It's quite high level but you can do it as soon as you have two master cannoneers (four stars). With a bit of luck there will be a special event (below deck members injured, flooding, fire etc.) that will force the enemy to reassign crew instead of firing at you. If you can repeat that ofen enough you can take out the ship very early on. Or use Berath Blessings to get the master sailors and the upgraded hull & sails right away. It's also possible to just take the "money" blessings and then put good stuff and crew on your ship first.

Master cannoneers (who do special events that block the enemy's offensive actions) and good (not too slow) cannons and a decent hull as backup make it rel. easy to sink way overleveled ships - which in turn brings very expensive loot which you otherwise wouldn't get so soon. This can be sold. That's a very good investment of the starting money imo. 

With master cannoneers and decent cannons you can get Kapana Taga quite early. I usually manage to get it around lvl 6 when I use Berath Blessings (for money & sailors).

Sometimes it doesn't work out and I have to reload. So getting it early is nothing for an Ironman run imo.

[SirMirrorcoat]

Okay, I will spend all my money on a ship then xD

Voyager vs Dhow? I only ever read about the Dhow being good, but you mentioning speed, I wonder if Voyager would be more advantageous?

 

Also, second time I killed the Young Drake at the Digsite at level 3. This time with only wasting 1 healing potion.
Blood Mage spammage ist geil  

[Boeroer]

I always only use the starting Sloop. It's good because it only takes one turn to jibe so your rate of firing is perfect for Royal Bronzers (5 rounds: fire one side, jibe, hold position, fire, jibe, fire other side and so on). So no need to spend money on a new ship. Better to just upgrade stuff like cannons and hull (if you are not taking the Berath Blessings for hull + sail I would recommend to spend the money on the Red Dream hull in Dunnage ti make your Sloop really sturdy).

 

[SirMirrorcoat]

So, with Berath's Blessings (which I have), I only need to buy the Royal Bronzers in the Citadel? That seems easy, cool.

I checked the range of the bronzers. Sad that they share the same optimal range with Dyrwoodan Hog Nosle. No longer exploiting their range with Iron Thunderer.

Also, wouldn't Haeferic's Nose  be slightly better because longer range (again with the Hog Nosle tactic)? I should get them iirc from my decisions in White March...

[Haplok]

Dhow is significantly more durable, while still decently fast. Extra row of cannons too.

I found it a big upgrade, which together with experienced crew, let me tackle all enemy ships (except those fire giant ships - they always close so fast I cannot do enough damage before they board). The bigger hostiles were a significant hazard with a sloop. Or maybe I'm not good enough at this.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Haplok

[SirMirrorcoat]

Okay, I'll stick with the sloop for now and if I die too much I buy the Dhow

[Boeroer]

15 hours ago, SirMirrorcoat said:

Also, wouldn't Haeferic's Nose  be slightly better because longer range (again with the Hog Nosle tactic)? I should get them iirc from my decisions in White March...

Yes, if you have it it's a great cannon. Getting it depends on your choices in PoE though.

I also use Vaillian Hullbreakers. Very fast and lots of damage. The poor range is not a big problem with Master Cannoneers against bigger ships because the ACC penalty is countered by the defense penalty of the bigger ships and the cannoneers bonuses. Usually I go with 2 Hullbreakers and 2 Royal Bronzers. At the beginning four Iron Thunderers are also quite fine imo. 

[SirMirrorcoat]

I got it wrong. Haeferic's Nose is for when I bound the souls to the cannons, not the Battery

Oh, well, Bronzers and Hullbreakers it is.

One of each on either side, right? Or is there some trick in using the different ranged guns separately?

[SirMirrorcoat]

And still the old question.

@Boeroer

Would Theurge be good?

I would like everyone to have regenerating resources, but I also would prefer Theurge over pure Chanter from a conceptual pov. But if Theurge sucks comparatively, I guess Imma try SC Druid for Tekehu again and just get some Brilliant source for him...

[dgray62]

Theurge can be really good. As Watershaper Tekehu gets some great spells, and as a Stormspeaker he'll have renewable resources. But as always, you'll miss out on great PL 8+9 abilities like Avenging Storm and Greater Maelstrom. This the classic SC vs. MC dilemma.

[Boeroer]

Theurge is fine.

[SirMirrorcoat]

Isnt Tekehu locked out of Greater Maelstrom anyway?

But yeah, a tough decision...

 

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Theurge is fine.

That sounds reassuring xD