Review - Rekke as a Fury/Helwalker Ascetic

[crdvis16]

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

I modded Rekke's class/subclass choices for this build.  These two subclasses play nicely with each other and have a good amount of synergy.  The Helwalker side gives us some nice buffs in the form of Swift Strikes (for faster action speed), Clarity of Agony to reduce hostile effect duration, and most especially +10 Int and +10 Might from the Helwalker trait and Duality of Mortal Presence.  Enduring Dance can quickly get you to 10 wounds for that +10 Int/Might.  The main drawback of Helwalker is that you take a lot more damage.  

On the Fury side you get bonuses to Elemental keyword spells (penetration and range) and a special shifted form at the cost of not being able to cast Restoration spells.  You're essentially encouraged to cast from afar (which plays into staying out of danger lest the Helwalker drawback get you killed) and cast damaging Elemental spells with increased pen, AoE size from the Helwalker Int, and damage from the Helwalker might.

In most fights you get to stand in the back and just unleash on the enemies.  You sometimes want to get a tad closer for Relentless or Returning Storm to be able to hit but even then the AoE size is pretty decently large.  If an enemy happens to get close enough to attack you, your shifted form has a fast-cast teleport spell to bail you out and reposition yourself.

The biggest drawback to this build is probably not getting access to the last two Druid power level spells for Great Maelstrom and Avenging Storm.  However, both of these spells exist as scrolls so investing in Arcana can alleviate this issue.  There's also the helm Heaven's Cacophony which gives you a per-rest cast of Avenging Storm.  Avenging Storm is nice when combined with the Fury's shifted form which has a bounce to its attack, giving you multiple lightning strikes per attack when you don't want to cast any more big Elemental spells.

I happen to not like using consumables very much, though, so I didn't often use Maelstrom/Avenging with Rekke.  Absent those spells he felt somewhat less impactful.  Relentless/Returning Storm have nice stuns but its random and therefore less reliable.  Spells like Hail Storm or World's Maw were nice, especially with the humongous AoE size but their damage was often underwhelming compared to the AoE from my MC as an Arcane Archer.  I think I expected this glass cannon to have a bit more cannon (he certainly had the glass part down when at 10 wounds ).

Edited November 17, 2021 by crdvis16

[Boeroer]

Helwalker/Druid is more impactful when not using direct damage spells but damage over time or pulsing spells imo. The +10 MIG raises the tick/pulse damage while the +10 INT adds more ticks/pulses. That way you get +30% additive dmg per tick and 50% multiplicative dmg via duration over all.

A bit surprised you don't mention Thunderous Blows because it has decent impact on elemental spells, also because it stacks with the Helwalker's MIG bonus but also the Fury's +1 PEN and Heart of the Storm etc. 

Did you notice that the Fury's range extension stacks nicely with Farcasting, giving you really long range? For stuff like Relentless Storm etc. I like to add Rings of Overseeing and Aloth's Armor as well as Charm of Bones and Heaven's Cacophony to the +10 INT because the AoE is so big then that it can be cast like a ranged spell almost.  

Imo it's not fair to compare a Fury's spell damage with that of a Arcane Archer who uses Driving Flight and a bouncing weapon.  

By the way: iirc you can stack two Tenacious effects if you use Resounding Call. If you destroy something with the hammer you can get Thunderou Blows, too - and if I'm not mistaken it stacks with the "natural" Thunderous Blows because it's from a weapon. Additional +2 PEN is pretty cool for elemental spells. But maybe this got fixed...?

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

Oh man, I assumed Thunderous Blows' might did not stack with the Helwalker bonus.  The pen is always nice but I decided that my spells had enough different damage types that I could usually find a weakness in enemy armor without further pen beyond what I was already getting.  If I knew the might stacked I definitely would have picked it up.

For DoT spells I don't think there are very many Elemental keyworded ones?  I did use Plague of Insects but felt kind of dirty every time I did because it wasn't Elemental .  I really wanted to lean into the Fury/Elemental shtick but maybe that gave me tunnel vision.

I did use an overseer ring with him.  I agree that getting the range of Relentless/Returning to be large is paramount because you really want to be able to stay at range to protect yourself.  Usually I could safely put the enemy front line into range of the Storm spells but maybe not the enemy ranged units.

[Boeroer]

Several Overseeing items will stack by the way, so wearing two Rings + Aloth's Armor gives +35% AoE size iirc. 

 

[crdvis16]

Good to know!  Aloth was a tank this playthrough so wasn't even using his armor but I have a goofy RP aversion to using someone's armor/weapon on another character (which is often at odds with making a better character).  I could have gone with two overseeing rings, though, and really leaned into the big AoE sizes.  It's hard to know when big is big enough I guess and when you'd be better off with a different ring. 

[Boeroer]

Yes, it's a tradeoff.  

I like those items on a Monk/Caster because you can reach the INT cap of 35 with a Monk rel. easily (not with Rekke I guess though) - but those items will still add AoE size on top.  That's why Loki is one of my favorite pets.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

Need a screen shot of the biggest AoE possible... 35 int, 2x overseer ring, Aloth armor.  For the spell, either a Fury with a big Elemental spells like Hail Storm or a Druid with Plague of Insects maybe?  One of the Wizard confusion spells has a big AoE too I know. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 minute ago, crdvis16 said:

Need a screen shot of the biggest AoE possible... 35 int, 2x overseer ring, Aloth armor.  For the spell, either a Fury with a big Elemental spells like Hail Storm or a Druid with Plague of Insects maybe?  One of the Wizard confusion spells has a big AoE too I know. 

I think it would actually be SC Ascendant, max Focus, Phantom Foes with Shared Nightmare.

[Boeroer]

Instead of an Ascendant it should be a Soulblade with Shared Nightmare and several kills under his belt (because +10 max focus per kill).

With Strand of Favor or Salvation of Time + Brilliant etc. you can even prolong the max-focus-bonus and stack them until infinity, giving you "World-Wide-AoE" in theory. I'm sure there's an internal cap of some sort lest the game crashes.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Boeroer

[Helz]

9 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

Need a screen shot of the biggest AoE possible...

I'd like to see that too. Here is Aloth's Legendary armor.

 

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7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

With Strand of Favor or Salvation of Time + Brilliant etc. you can even prolong the max-focus-bonus and stack them until infinity, giving you "World-Wide-AoE" in theory.

I hope the maniac would reach resonance before then.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Helz

[thelee]

fyi overseer rings are also good because the area bonus actually works with consumables (bombs and scrolls) whereas intellect boosts get ignored (one of many annoying aspects of consumables not benefiting from stats).

[Boeroer]

29 minutes ago, thelee said:

fyi overseer rings are also good because the area bonus actually works with consumables (bombs and scrolls) whereas intellect boosts get ignored (one of many annoying aspects of consumables not benefiting from stats).

Oh, that's something I didn't know. Cool!

[dgray62]

On 11/16/2021 at 10:44 AM, Boeroer said:

Instead of an Ascendant it should be a Soulblade with Shared Nightmare and several kills under his belt (because +10 max focus per kill).

I've been meaning to try playing a SC Soulblade, which is also my favorite cipher subclass for melee-oriented cipher MC builds. Think I'll start out with Monastic Unarmed Training (which I always take for melee builds when available) but then segue to 2H AOE weapons like WotEP and the Watershaper's Focus once I get Shared Nightmare.

[Boeroer]

20 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

2H AOE weapons like WotEP

Offensive Parry generates focus.

[MaxQuest]

On 11/16/2021 at 2:50 PM, crdvis16 said:

The main drawback of Helwalker is that you take a lot more damage.  

On 11/16/2021 at 2:50 PM, crdvis16 said:

The biggest drawback to this build is probably not getting access to the last two Druid power level spells for Great Maelstrom and Avenging Storm.

I had a similar experience with Xoti modded as priest/helwalker with maxed MIG/INT.

Theoretically she should have dished a lot of damage over time; and scepter modal was helping with arriving to 10 wounds.

But in majority of fights she was still underperforming:

• easy fights were over before her DoTs would deal full damage
• in harder fights she felt really squishy. Special mention goes to burning skeleton archers from BoW, that would oneshot her. And Tuotilo's Palm wasn't helping much.
• in boss fights she was running out of spells
• she was great in bounty and ship fights though. But had to wait for level 10 to get Shinning Beacon and level 19 for Cleansing Flame and Storm of Holy Fire.

That said, had two other damage dealers in party, that were doing more total damage while causing less hassle.