Review - Aloth as an Illusionist/Unbroken Battlemage

[crdvis16]

Note: I had the community patch and balance polish mod installed (in case that affects some of the interactions of abilities)

 

I modded Aloth's subclass options for this build.  I've seen this build talked about before but it was one of my favorite builds thus far so I wanted to post about it. 

 

It works like this: Unbroken/Fighter gives you strong disengagement attacks while Illusionist gives you two Ryngrim spells for terrify (one targeting will and the other fortitude) that will occasionally cause afflicted enemies to break engagement.  You also get prone on disengagement hit from Guardian Stance.  Aside from this nice little synergy you're a decent tank thanks to Fighter/Unbroken abilities (despite Aloth having pretty weak stats for tanking) and have some decent non-terrify CC from the Illusionist/Wizard side so that not only are you locking down the enemy front lines with engagement/terrify/disengagement but also throwing CC/debuffs on the backlines with Blackened Sight, Miasma, Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment, etc.  There's also a bunch of items that feed directly into this build, two of which are: 

 

Whitewitch Mask = Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage when bloodied, on rest cast of Ryngrim's Enervating Terror, +1 all Illusion spell levels

One Dozen Stood (armor) = +15% damage and 10 accuracy with disengagement attacks

 

Aside from those, I stacked a bunch of engagement items and abilities to make sure no matter how many front liners the enemy threw I could gobble them all up.  I probably didn't need like +8 engagement but I couldn't stomach the thought that I might run into a situation where I could have engaged/terrified/disengaged another enemy but ran out of engagement.

 

Did the engagement/terrify/disengagement tactic always work?  No.  Often they would resist the terrify or even if they got terrified might not run far enough away to break engagement.  Do the disengagement attacks actually swing fights in your favor consistently?  Probably also no.  But it was just so damned fun when it worked out that I don't really care if it's not the absolute strongest build.

 

Also, going all in as an Illusionist probably isn't necessary.  You gain some power level with Illusion spells but end up unable to cast Conjur/Enchant spells which happen to be some of the stronger self buff spells.  But if ever there was a reason to go Illusionist this seems like it.

[Kaylon]

It works even better with a trickster/unbroken (Eder can fit that role well) because all disengagement attacks can get sneak attack/deathblows bonuses. One Dozen Stood, Magran's Favor and Magran's Blessings also work nicely with this build (the damage shield gets also sneak attack/deathblow bonuses) and you can get also free attacks from Riposte (especially with the medium shield modal activated). 

[Boeroer]

It's imo even more fun if you equip some engagement items (like Reckless Brigandine and Kapana Taga) and then let your Essential Phantom get some disengagement attacks on the same enemies, too. It doesn't have your abilities but disengagement attacks have pretty good bonuses anyway.

If you use Kapana Taga in the offhand and summon Draining Touch in the main hand for the phantom it does pretty awesome dmg on disengagement attacks (for a summon I mean). You could switch to another weapon setup after summoning.

Of course that's a lot of casting for that little bit of added disengagement fun.

But I always enjoyed it to tank and lower my enemies' Will defense with Kapana Taga (+modal) and Miasma oDM for my phantom which attacked them with Draining Touch (which targets Will instead of deflection). And once the enemies get terrified both of us would land nice diseng. attacks occasionally. The Phantom also follows terrified enemies and re-engages automatically.

 

 

 

[crdvis16]

I didn't think about using a phantom- that would have been fun too.

I did use Kapana Taga for the engagement.  I think Maura's belt, too, and a pair of gloves that could terrify on crit.

For Trickster I think you'd only have Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage for terrify and would miss out on Ennervating Terror?  So against high fortitude enemies you wouldn't have the will targeting terrify as a backup.  But maybe the higher damage would be worth it.

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

For Trickster I think you'd only have Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage for terrify and would miss out on Ennervating Terror? 

That's right.

[Helz]

4 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

I didn't think about using a phantom- that would have been fun too.

You couldn't use it though, Essential Phantom is a Conjuration spell.

I played with a Spellblade-Illusionist hireling and I agree that losing out on Enchanting and Conjuration really hurts. I do think there's something fun about playing with flawed characters.

For Illusionists, the Eye of Wael is amazing. I figured since I gave up so much for Illusion, I'd lean into it as much as I could.

For most of the game, she wore the Effigy's Husk. It looks scary and the general idea was that she appears squishy but she's really hard to hit, and when something does touch her, she has a bunch of 'contingencies' that protect her and hurt them.

 

In late game, she wore the Spider Silk robes against anyone that can be poisoned, because Nannasin's Cobra Strike is lethal.

Her most used spells were Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights, Wizard's Double, Llengrath's Displaced Image, Nannasin's, and Concelhaut's Crushing Doom.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Helz

[Boeroer]

2 minutes ago, Helz said:

You couldn't use it though, Essential Phantom is a Conjuration spell.

Right... since the Blood Mage is there I never used something else - so I always forget what specialized wizard subclass loses access to which schools.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

Yeah... I think losing out on other schools is too high a price to pay for the benefits of the school subclasses.  Maybe just a lowered power level with out of school spells would have been better?

 

@Helz Aloth looked pretty nice with One Dozen Stood and the Whitewitch Mask but you're right that Effigys Husk is pretty creepy

Edited November 9, 2021 by crdvis16

[Helz]

 

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

 - so I always forget what specialized wizard subclass loses access to which schools.

I kept forgetting while I was playing. It hurts to open a grimoire and half of it is grayed out.

edit:

2 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

@Helz Aloth looked pretty nice with One Dozen Stood and the Whitewitch Mask but you're right that Effigys Husk is pretty creepy

Yes, One Dozen Stood is heroic.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Helz

[crdvis16]

I'm also partial to it because it's found in, IMO, the coolest place in the poe games