Pure caster transcendent?

[Tomucci]

Thinking of trying to build a transcendent as a pure caster.

Helwalker / beguiler or ascendant

The monk half is there for the helwalker might bonus, swift strikes, wheel, thunderous blows and maybe the twin summon (thereby contributing +15 might and +2 penetration, +5 dex and 15% action speed, +10 int or +10 con and +3 armor if needed)

The cipher does the most of the active stuff, either layering deception control spells with dmg spells if I play beguiler, or if I player ascendant spam ranged weapon attacks until I ascend and then go ham with whatever spells I want.

Was thinking of using tuotilos palm with either the eye of wael or whatever one handed ranged weapon generates the most focus

Stats should end up looking like:

Might - 10 (25 with buffs)

Con - 10 (20 if I need to switch to defense)

Dex - 20 (25 with buffs)

Per - 20

Int - 20 (30 with buffs)

Res - 10

 

Any thoughts on beguiler vs ascendant? I'm not playing with the community patch if that impacts.

Any particular equipment that'd be good?

Any other thoughts about the effectiveness of this build or what might help it?

 

[Boeroer]

Pure caster with Cipher: always Psion for me. 

[crdvis16]

Seconded- I modded Ydwin into a Psion/Priest.  You cast a bunch of priest spells early while your focus passively grows and then cast a bunch of cipher spells.  She was super support.

[dgray62]

For a pure caster I would go with SC psion, for the nice PL 8 and 9 abilities as well as faster PL progression, and hence faster regeneration of focus. I am also fond of the psion/troubador and psion/bloodmage MC combos. For the latter two, you can just alternate between casting cipher powers and invocations or spells. The psion/troubador combo is particularly nice for all of the summons you can invoke to keep melee at bay, and you can strengthen the summons with both your chants and cipher powers.

[Tomucci]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Pure caster with Cipher: always Psion for me. 

Thing is I'm not planning on doing much besides spamming cipher spells, surely psion doesn't passively gain focus that quickly? 

[Tomucci]

6 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

Seconded- I modded Ydwin into a Psion/Priest.  You cast a bunch of priest spells early while your focus passively grows and then cast a bunch of cipher spells.  She was super support.

Sounds fun, if I decide to multi with a priest I'll prob go psion/priest of wael or skaen

[Tomucci]

6 hours ago, dgray62 said:

For a pure caster I would go with SC psion, for the nice PL 8 and 9 abilities as well as faster PL progression, and hence faster regeneration of focus. I am also fond of the psion/troubador and psion/bloodmage MC combos. For the latter two, you can just alternate between casting cipher powers and invocations or spells. The psion/troubador combo is particularly nice for all of the summons you can invoke to keep melee at bay, and you can strengthen the summons with both your chants and cipher powers.

Not really interested in SC, I just find it kinda thematically boring when multi is an option. Spiritualist is a lot of fun, my first character when I started the game was a spiritualist, seemed very strong and underrated, dont seem to see many people talking about it. I also love blood mage so I'd consider that multi as well, I want to try the transcendent though and see how good the cipher gets with those crazy stat bonuses supporting them.

[Kaylon]

For pure caster I would go ascendant/helwalker. Essence Interrupter with modal can replenish focus very fast and you can spam high level spells without running out of mana. Later you can use the Chromoprysmathic Staff with Instruments of Pain to generate focus even faster.

[dgray62]

10 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Thing is I'm not planning on doing much besides spamming cipher spells, surely psion doesn't passively gain focus that quickly? 

Psion's focus gain increases with PL. It starts out somewhat slow but gets faster as you go along. You can boost it with abilities, items, food and potions that boost PL. A troubadour/psion with brisk recitation on can pretty much spam low level powers like soul shock (which scales nicely with PL and has a large AOE radius), and just alternate casting cipher powers and chanter invocations. It's fun if you are interested in playing a pure caster with great flexibility and utility. You'll have in your tool belt summons, damaging powers, CC and healing and buffs for your allies.

[Boeroer]

11 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Thing is I'm not planning on doing much besides spamming cipher spells, surely psion doesn't passively gain focus that quickly? 

Depends. If you concentrate on lower level powers then even SC Psion can. You'll have recovery time after all. Players seem to forget that a Psion also generates focus during recovery time. Other cipher subclasses (except Beguiler) will have to stop casting and attack with weapons in order to gain focus. That's not a "pure" caster then imo.

Or you use a multiclass like Wizard/Psion, Priest/Psion, Druid/Psion or Troubadour/Psion and you can alternate between class1 and Psion spells. In case of Troubadour/Psion you will never run out of spells to spam.

[Tomucci]

2 hours ago, Kaylon said:

For pure caster I would go ascendant/helwalker. Essence Interrupter with modal can replenish focus very fast and you can spam high level spells without running out of mana. Later you can use the Chromoprysmathic Staff with Instruments of Pain to generate focus even faster.

Ascendant is starting to feel like the stronger pick here I think, I'm early into my run but beguiler isn't quite building focus as quick as I'd hoped, and with how high my int will be ascendant might be the best way to capitalise on it

[Tomucci]

26 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Psion's focus gain increases with PL. It starts out somewhat slow but gets faster as you go along. You can boost it with abilities, items, food and potions that boost PL. A troubadour/psion with brisk recitation on can pretty much spam low level powers like soul shock (which scales nicely with PL and has a large AOE radius), and just alternate casting cipher powers and chanter invocations. It's fun if you are interested in playing a pure caster with great flexibility and utility. You'll have in your tool belt summons, damaging powers, CC and healing and buffs for your allies.

I do enjoy the spiritualist, if I build one again it'll very likely be psion/troubador

I've heard psion only works decently with the community patch though and I don't play with that, might need to test it

[Boeroer]

Ascendant, build/played accordingly, ist a potent cipher subclass. However it can't be a pure caster because it will have to deal weapon damage in oder to ascend.
This can be very frustrating in fights against single, high defense/AR foes (dragons, megabosses, Steelclads etc.) where the Psion has the upper hand. It is more effective vs. numerous weaker enemies though.

[Boeroer]

4 minutes ago, Tomucci said:

I've heard psion only works decently with the community patch though and I don't play with that, might need to test it

No, the CP only makes it so that you can also play a melee Psion (because only crits will stop the focus gain). However, if you play a pure caster you usually will not be in the front line and thus won't get damaged a lot so the difference is negligable. I played a Trouabdour/Psion and an SC Psion. Both times I just took a small shield and weapon & shield style. Since you can cast all the time you won't use the weapon anyway so one might as well pick something like a hatchet for additional deflection - or Sasha's Singing Scimitar for 1/encounter empower for the Troubadour side and the shocking lash that works with spells, too.
If you have other party members in the backline that have lower defenses and/or AR the Psion will almost never get shot at/attacked because he's not a good target compared to his comrades. 

Of course if you want to get very close to enemies then Psion is not a good choice without the CP. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Boeroer

[Tomucci]

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Depends. If you concentrate on lower level powers then even SC Psion can. You'll have recovery time after all. Players seem to forget that a Psion also generates focus during recovery time. Other cipher subclasses (except Beguiler) will have to stop casting and attack with weapons in order to gain focus. That's not a "pure" caster then imo.

Or you use a multiclass like Wizard/Psion, Priest/Psion, Druid/Psion or Troubadour/Psion and you can alternate between class1 and Psion spells. In case of Troubadour/Psion you will never run out of spells to spam.

My idea was to play beguiler and have it supported by all the extra stats from the helwalker, as a control caster it seems fairly strong atm, not generating quite enough focus to be self sustaining without weapons yet but I think that's an early game accuracy issue

Blood mage/psion and troubador/psion are other alternatives I'm considering, I suppose it's just a matter of what I end up liking more between stronger spells (through monk stat boosts, improving their dmg, pen, active and recovery time) and a wider variety of spells

[Tomucci]

14 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Ascendant, build/played accordingly, ist a potent cipher subclass. However it can't be a pure caster because it will have to deal weapon damage in oder to ascend.
This can be very frustrating in fights against single, high defense/AR foes (dragons, megabosses, Steelclads etc.) where the Psion has the upper hand. It is more effective vs. numerous weaker enemies though.

Makes sense

11 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

No, the CP only makes it so that you can also play a melee Psion (because only crits will stop the focus gain). However, if you play a pure caster you usually will not be in the front line and thus won't get damaged a lot so the difference is negligable. I played a Trouabdour/Psion and an SC Psion. Both times I just took a small shield and weapon & shield style. Since you can cast all the time you won't use the weapon anyway so one might as well pick something like a hatchet for additional deflection - or Sasha's Singing Scimitar for 1/encounter empower for the Troubadour side and the shocking lash that works with spells, too.
If you have other party members in the backline that have lower defenses and/or AR the Psion will almost never get shot at/attacked because he's not a good target compared to his comrades. 

Of course if you want to get very close to enemies then Psion is not a good choice without the CP. 

Ok so you recommend psion/helwalker over beguiler/helwalker for pure transcendent caster?

I'll give it a go but I always kinda thought psion was more for multiclasses with other casters like wizards and needed that extra buffer time in between cipher spells to build focus

My build is also high dex so these spells will be cast fairly quickly/frequently

[Boeroer]

Once you get Phantom Foes and Secret Horrors the Beguiler can quickly fill his focus to max just by casting those two spells onto a group of enemies. Against single enemies this doesn't work so well, bit he always has the option of dealing weapon damage for focus, too.  

For a pure Transcendent caster I would pick Helwalker/Psion, yes. Although this combo might have some downtime where you can't cast anything. If occasional weapon attacks for filling focus up are okay I would pick Helwalker/Ascendant (see Kaylon's post).