Deadfire Priest of Berath

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Samugol said:

it could get very tedious, very quickly

Looking at my post count I haven't reached that point yet, hehe  

[Samugol]

I do have to say that your number of posts is...extraordinary. Is there anyone that has more posts than you here? I do not think so... (just curiosity).

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Samugol said:

Is there anyone that has more posts than you here? I do not think so... (just curiosity).

I didn't look that up for a very long time but now did.  

You can check stuff like that here:
https://forums.obsidian.net/topmembers/?filter=member_posts

or under the menu point "Leaderboard" in the top bar of the forum under the Obsidian logo. 

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

I dont see this mentioned too often, but oddly I find Ranger+Priest to be a solid combination.

The biggest complaint to Priest is usually that they spend so much time casting buffs/spells that they cant do anything else. Consequently, you would want some passives that do things in the meantime. Ranger has the animal companion built in, so it can be tanking and doing damage while youre completing your long cast time spells.

Also, thematically if you go Ghost Heart it fits nicely with a Priest of Berath. God(dess) of Death, summoning ghost spectral companions to assist. Plus a ghost heart is even more ‘passive’ than usual, since you can fire and forget it without any babysitting to keep it alive.

On top of that, a Ranger can get a ton of passive accuracy bonuses. So you can debuff the hell out of some enemies reliably. And if you want to summon up your Berath Greatsword to take down a stubborn, strong enemy or boss, you will be getting plenty of crits (this might even be one of the few times the Greatsword modal would be worthwhile, since the accuracy penalty would be offset with all your accuracy buffs)

In the meantime you could equip an arquebus or dual pistols to unload a big burst of damage at the start of combat before you go into casting mode, which will be an even bigger burst with Driving Flight, and can let you take a break once in a while from casting to pick off fragile targets close to death. So you play the part of an executioner.

One last fun thing: if you equip Marux Amanth (dagger) and soulbound it to your priest, you can get a 10% chance to recast your priest spells. If you equip a pistol in the other hand and keep your distance, you will fire with that nonstop at dual wield speed. A ranger with that setup does very respectable damage (particularly with a unique pistol), and you can keep that echo chance at the same time.

[Boeroer]

Your valid point about using the animal companion while casting gets somewhat torpedoed by using Ghost Heart.

First of all you need to actively (and repeatedly if you don't care for it) summon the spirit (can't cast while doing that) and then it also blocks the slot for priest summons you might want to use.

Since you are a priest with decent healing and buffing capabilities it's not that hard to keep a "real" animal companion alive (although I still wouldn't use it for tanking). If things go south you can revive multiple times (which shouldn't be necessary too often though). Most of that healing and buffing you will cast anyway on your party so I guess it's not a big impact on the priest's action economy. 

Rangers can get a lot of accuracy bonuses, but most of those are either tied to ranged weapons (Marksman), melee weapon usage (Hunter's stuff) or Stalker's Link (most often single target unless you buff it with Champion's Boon). For better accuracy I would prefer combos like Monk/Priest (Enduring Dance) or Cipher/Priest (Borrowed Instincst). 

But the point about lots of casting + animal companion is a good one. Also applies to other casters I think. Psion/Ranger comes to mind. Here the combination of Stalker's  Link + Borrowed Instinct for high ACC single target cc (dominate for the most part) comes to mind. Also Pain Block + Animal Companion makes losing the AC a lot less likely. Combining an Animal Companion + several dominated foes should turn most encounters into cakewalks pretty easily. Psion doesn't need a lot of Cipher abilities to rock - so there's room for all the passives that make the animal companion better.

Same it true for Priest if you limit your spell portfolio a bit I guess. 

 

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

15 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Your valid point about using the animal companion while casting gets somewhat torpedoed by using Ghost Heart.

First of all you need to actively (and repeatedly if you don't care for it) summon the spirit (can't cast while doing that) and then it also blocks the slot for priest summons you might want to use.

Since you are a priest with decent healing and buffing capabilities it's not that hard to keep a "real" animal companion alive (although I still wouldn't use it for tanking). If things go south you can revive multiple times (which shouldn't be necessary too often though). Most of that healing and buffing you will cast anyway on your party so I guess it's not a big impact on the priest's action economy. 

Rangers can get a lot of accuracy bonuses, but most of those are either tied to ranged weapons (Marksman), melee weapon usage (Hunter's stuff) or Stalker's Link (most often single target unless you buff it with Champion's Boon). For better accuracy I would prefer combos like Monk/Priest (Enduring Dance) or Cipher/Priest (Borrowed Instincst). 

But the point about lots of casting + animal companion is a good one. Also applies to other casters I think. Psion/Ranger comes to mind. Here the combination of Stalker's  Link + Borrowed Instinct for high ACC single target cc (dominate for the most part) comes to mind. Also Pain Block + Animal Companion makes losing the AC a lot less likely. Combining an Animal Companion + several dominated foes should turn most encounters into cakewalks pretty easily. Psion doesn't need a lot of Cipher abilities to rock - so there's room for all the passives that make the animal companion better.

Same it true for Priest if you limit your spell portfolio a bit I guess. 

 

Doesnt the animal spirit take half a second to summon and have instant recovery? I dont think it would cut into casting time almost at all.

The reason I would choose Ghost Heart is 1. Thematically it fits well and 2. You wouldnt have to worry at all about protecting it or the debuffs from losing a real one. I think having to revive or heal the pet would take up more time than summoning it

I dont consider Priest summons particularly good or worthwhile compared to their spells at that rank, so I dont consider that a loss.

The logic behind the build was that you would start off fights casting buffs and heals, then AoE, until theres only one or two tougher enemies left to focus down, and thats where the single target accuracy bonuses come into play. Actually now that I think on it, does accuracy even matter for buffs or healing?

Its not perfect but I thought it was different, fit the theme well, and performed surprisingly well when I tested it out.

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, Porkchopsandwiches247 said:

I dont consider Priest summons particularly good or worthwhile compared to their spells at that rank, so I dont consider that a loss.

Spiritual Ally has an Infinite cast of Robust.

Ironically, it is one of the best Priest healing spell.

Offensively, it's meh, but at least it absords a couple of hits.

[Boeroer]

Spiritual Ally is dope. Spiritual Ally + Animal Companion is dopamine... even dopamaxe if you ask me.  

Thematically Chost Heart + Berath fits nicely, it's true. 

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

Hmm actually I had totally forgotten that Spiritual Ally had the endless healing shenanigans, thats a fair argument.

I would usually opt for Salvation of Time or Pillar of Holy Fire at that level and dont like that you cant control it, so it doesnt cross my mind.

[Boeroer]

Spiritual Ally is controllable. It not only has unlimited use of Robust but also unlimited use of Corrosive Breath (cone attack with good base dmg but low PEN).
You can cast the Robust healing on the Spiritual Ally itself - which makes it quite tanky (13 AR + healing, over 400 max health at lvl 20). It's basically an animat.
 

[dgray62]

I know that a MC ranger can cast summon spells, which coexist with the animal companion. But can ghost heart rangers do this as well, namely, summon both their ghostly companion and another summons like spiritual ally?

[Boeroer]

No, they can't - and that was the point of my argument.  

The Animal Companion spirit counts towards your summoning limit - and thus summoning Spiritual Ally will replace the Animal Companion. 

There are summons which don't count towards your summoning limit (Skeletons from Many Lives Pass By, Wurms from Dire Talon, Imps from Grave Calling, Creatures from Essence Interrupter and stuff like that) - but Animal Companiopn of Ghost Heart Rangers are none of those.

This was one reason for my solo Geomancer to not pick Ghost Heart: I would not have been able to have Essential/Substancial Phantom + Animal Companion at the same time. Since I wanted to play a melee Geomancer I took Stalker anyway - but still a point to consider.

Of course: if you don't plan to use Spiritual Ally in the first place there's not much downside with taking Ghost Heart. The summoning process has to be done between casting Priest spells, but as @Porkchopsandwiches247 pointed out the summoning process is pretty fast - and the time you spend summoning between casting buffs etc. might be balanced out by the fact that a conventional AC would need healing/resurrection from time to time. 

 

By the way: Conjurer's Familiars also count towards the summoning limit (which is pretty stupid imo). So as soon as you want to use any other summons on a regular basis the Summon Familiar spell becomes very unappealing (basically a lvl-1 emergency summon for distraction only if you have o other spell uses for better summons left).

[Samugol]

@BoeroerBlackened Plate armor looks really sick, that was a great advice. However, I find myself casting a lot more than I though and I am thinking of just using a weapon and shield, but I am struggling to find a shield to goes with it. Any ideas? Maces are nice from fashion perspective, but they do not really do much for the build...

Also, I found Magran's Favor, that has a very nice +2PL to fire stuff, if I was playing some kind of fire themed character, any advice what it would pair nice with (thematically and visually). I looked around the wiki a bit and found One Dozen Stood which seems nice. Any other suggestions? Thanks.

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

Coming back to this, I decided to try out a Celebrant (Priest+Chanter) as suggested early in the thread, and I think thematically it fits very well while working solidly. The chants help you be useful passively while youre preoccupied casting your long spells, so youre doubling down on being the ultimate support character.

Im actually not sure which Chanter subclass would be more fun between Beckoner and Troubador. Beckoner can give you hordes of skeletons (which Im sure is hilarious) and later 6x summoned weapons for a ton of damage, plus theres that late game Priest spell that does damage based on the number of allies would provide a ton of synergy. And if you run the reload speed chant as one of your two active chants, I imagine even your autoattack damage would be plenty respectable with guns/arbalests (maybe even give your character Blightheart so you get free chanter phrases on kill)

On the other hand Troubador can give you passively a ton of little skeletons via chant, which fits the theme really well, and you can still have your summoned weapons too. Only problem is that going Brisk means you can only have that one chant going, which kind of sucks. Of course you can switch it off, but then your invocations will take a while to accumulate.

[Boeroer]

8 minutes ago, Porkchopsandwiches247 said:

Im actually not sure which Chanter subclass would be more fun between Beckoner and Troubador. Beckoner can give you hordes of skeletons (which Im sure is hilarious) and later 6x summoned weapons for a ton of damage, plus theres that late game Priest spell that does damage based on the number of allies would provide a ton of synergy.

If you mean "Spark the Souls of the Righteous" - that's Power Level 8 and thus can't be picked by a multiclassed Priest. Of course it would work if you have another SC Priest in the party (like Xoti for example).

[Samugol]

@Porkchopsandwiches247 have you considered Bellower? I have to say that I am fascinated by the fact that you can EMPOWER your invocations (through the Sasha's Singing Scimitar) every battle. I am sure that that is very powerful and fun. If you add Bellower into it, you will get even more power levels into the empowered spell AT EVERY BATTLE.

Finally, if you choose a death godlike, and you used Barring Death's Door, when you are close to dying, you would be able to sustain this state for longer to get additional +3 power levels.  You would be like the ultimate super caster. You could either empower some of the priest spells, or the invocations. Later, when you get the Least Unstable Coil, you would be able to sustain this state perpetually. The only reason I am not playing this build is that I wanted to play with a two-hander first (which I am slightly regretting since I am mostly casting anyway, hence the above post).

Also, like Boeroer mentioned on several occasions, this build would the strongest late game when you get all the Weyc stuff (robes and wand primarily), but since you are able to get Sasha's Singing Scimitar relatively early and you are able to empower things every battle, it is a very fun and solid playstyle throughout the entire playthrough.

I wish I could help you with the stuff you have already mentioned, but I have little experience in playing a chanter in Deadfire, I am only writing the stuff that I have researched so far.

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

7 minutes ago, Samugol said:

@Porkchopsandwiches247 have you considered Bellower? I have to say that I am fascinated by the fact that you can EMPOWER your invocations (through the Sasha's Singing Scimitar) every battle. I am sure that that is very powerful and fun. If you add Bellower into it, you will get even more power levels into the empowered spell AT EVERY BATTLE.

Finally, if you choose a death godlike, and you used Barring Death's Door, when you are close to dying, you would be able to sustain this state for longer to get additional +3 power levels.  You would be like the ultimate super caster. You could either empower some of the priest spells, or the invocations. Later, when you get the Least Unstable Coil, you would be able to sustain this state perpetually. The only reason I am not playing this build is that I wanted to play with a two-hander first (which I am slightly regretting since I am mostly casting anyway, hence the above post).

Also, like Boeroer mentioned on several occasions, this build would the strongest late game when you get all the Weyc stuff (robes and wand primarily), but since you are able to get Sasha's Singing Scimitar relatively early and you are able to empower things every battle, it is a very fun and solid playstyle throughout the entire playthrough.

I wish I could help you with the stuff you have already mentioned, but I have little experience in playing a chanter in Deadfire, I am only writing the stuff that I have researched so far.

I considered it, but I dont care much for the much smaller chant radius and the fact that the PL boosts only effect the duration for summons, not their strength. I have no doubt it is very strong in conjunction with a few items so I certainly wouldnt consider it a bad option by any means, just that Im not partial to it. That said belting out a super strong invocation between your other Priest spellcasting definitely makes sense

[Samugol]

That is a very legitimate opinion. Actually, could you do me a favor? When you create the build, could you post it here? I would love to see what you ended up with. Do not be afraid to be detailed and whatnot. I am sure it will be useful for someone who finds it here. Maybe I will play it myself .

[dgray62]

If you are interested in specializing in summons, then troubadour or beckoner are definitely the way to go. If you want more of a melee approach (say, with Berath and the great sword) you might consider skald. But for a pure caster I prefer bellower (particularly bellower/magran with the BPM, as I like the selection of spells Magran priests get with this mod). Here you would cast powerful invocations when you have the phrases, and cast priest spells while you are building up phrases. Since priest spells are somewhat slow, you can really just cast invocations and spells non stop. I really like how impactful Her Revenge and Her Tears are with the bellower's extra PLs. The lightning and cold damage invocations also nicely complement the priest's spell arsenal, which is very much weighted toward fire spells.

[Samugol]

10 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

But for a pure caster I prefer bellower (particularly bellower/magran with the BPM, as I like the selection of spells Magran priests get with this mod).

Since I am playing on a console, I will not play with any mods (shame), but since I am really enjoying the caster playstyle it really seems appealing to do invocations as well. I looked at thelee's Firedancer build and that is also a caster (mainly). How would these two compare? Quite honestly, I am thinking that a chanter would not need to be hit as often and since there are so many nice pieces connected with Magran (Magran's Favor, Magran's Blessing, One Stood) I am getting a serious itch to play a fire caster I am just not sure which one would be better/more fun and in what way.

I think that all the invocations would also allow the caster to have more options (you have already mentioned that and I wholeheartedly agree). I am just not sure how I would incorporate SSS into the build because it feels like it should be a part of it somehow (but I would also love to use the Magran's items). Have you played a character like that before? Do you some insight? I am not asking for a full build, but maybe some breakdown of how it plays and how much you have enjoyed it.

[dgray62]

Yes, inspired by thelee's Firedancer build (which was very fun to play), I tried playing a Bellower/Priest of Magran, which I also enjoyed for reasons I explained above. As for how they compare, helwalker monks add a lot to any caster MC, and they have fists as a default weapon which is also very nice. When I played the contemplative celebrant, however, I took Monastic Unarmed Training at lvl 2, since it is such a great ability. But what I particularly like about the contemplative celebrant is the nice synergy with Sasha's Singing Scimitar, least unstable coil and the Weyc items, giving you huge boosts that you can extend indefinitely with SoT. Basically, the way I played it was having SSS and Weyc's wand in one weapon set, which I'd use for empowering an invocation at the start of battle. Then I'd switch to Magran's Axe and Marux Amanth, for the fire PL boost and the nice 10% chance to repeat priest spells, and start casting. You can also use Sun and Moon, but I don't like it quite as much for this build due to the weird day and night alteration between fire and cold PL boosts.

While you don't get the coil and the Weyc's items until late game, you can get SSS very early (lvl 7 or so), and you can get Marux Amanth once you level up a bit in Neketaka, and then you'll be ready to tackle Hasango and also go get the Magran Axe as well as Sungrazer (which also is a fantastic weapon IMO). By that time you're ready to go get the coil, and eventually, the wand. So I'd likely start off wielding SSS with Marux Amanth in the offhand. Once I get the axe, I'll switch to SSS and a shield (Magran's perhaps!) as the starting weapon set, with the shield to help protect against opening volleys, with Magran's axe and Marux Amanth in the second set. When I get the Weyc wand (making sure to bind it to chanter, not priest, for the nice +3 PL boost), I replace the shield with it in weapon set 1.

Edited February 8, 2022 by dgray62
Error correction

[Samugol]

34 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

When I played the contemplative, however, I took Monastic Unarmed Training at lvl 2, since it is such a great ability. But what I particularly like about the contemplative is the nice synergy with Sasha's Singing Scimitar, least unstable coil and the Weyc items, giving you huge boosts that you can extend indefinitely with SoT.

I am a bit confused here. I think at first you are talking about a contemplative (helwalker/priest) (because I do not see why a Monastic Unarmed Training is good for a caster) and then you are talking about celebrant (chanter/priest) - the caster you eventually played. I assume that the unarmed training was for the contemplative, but the SSS and weycs stuff was definitely for celebrant. Sorry I don't want to nitpick, I just want to clarify in case I am missing some synergy I am not seeing. I appreciate your response it has a ton of great info. Especially the cool items and how you switch them around (I think that it makes a lot of senese to use SSS + Weycs for casting and then the other stuff for power level boosting, I think I like the idea of starting with a Shield + Axe for initial damage, then switch to cast with SSS and Weyc and then go back to Shield + Axe for sustained power level bonus but also more defense, I will lose the dagger's effect though... I will see how it works - I just cannot imagine playing a chanter without a shield to be honest after PoE 1).

I think I will give this bad boy a try once I am done with my current playthrough.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Samugol

[dgray62]

Oops! I meant to say celebrant but said contemplative by mistake. I'll correct that. I also like playing contemplatives. As for MuT, I almost always get it when I play non monk classes that can use it. For my celebrant, I used it primarily in the early game. Not much need to use it later when your focus becomes almost entirely spell casting.

Edited February 8, 2022 by dgray62
Error correction