Huana run

[summatsupeer]

Planning my pro-Huana run, I think the only constraint is to have Tekehu always involved and avoid anti-huana or companions that won't get on with Tekehu.  I think that rules out Aloth, Pallegina and Maia Rua.

I think a Aumaua character would make sense, which makes me instantly think of Barbarian.  I've never played a Furyshaper but not sure if should try one as MC or SC.   Rangers and Druids also come to mind when I think of Huana, I tend to always use Tekehu as a Druid but could use him differently if my player character is a Druid.

Any fun ideas?

[thelee]

if you've never tried an SC barbarian (esp a furyshaper) i'd recommend it. the power is not totally obvious, but it can really wreck house:

1. heart of fury, nuff said
2. upgraded shouts. they still scale as if they were tier 1 abilities, so their actual damage/potential is much higher than on paper
3. you can make a retribution build, where you get crit alot and get in a lot of free attacks with a slow weapon thanks to barbaric retaliation (2h axe with bleeding modal on is recommended) [and the dazing shout can give you lots hardiness against crits]
4. sc furyshaper gets a totem that lets any damage source regen some health

 

i did a SC konstanten on potd+upscaling, and honestly for half the game it felt a little underwhelming (konstanten's stats are also not great). but once I got to tier 8 and then tier 9 abilities, konstanten skyrocketed to top damage dealer of the party as a dazing shout + retribution build.

Edited March 24, 2022 by thelee

[summatsupeer]

9 minutes ago, thelee said:

if you've never tried an SC barbarian (esp a furyshaper) i'd recommend it. the power is not totally obvious, but it can really wreck house:

1. heart of fury, nuff said
2. upgraded shouts. they still scale as if they were tier 1 abilities, so their actual damage/potential is much higher than on paper
3. you can make a retribution build, where you get crit alot and get in a lot of free attacks with a slow weapon thanks to barbaric retaliation (2h axe with bleeding modal on is recommended) [and the dazing shout can give you lots hardiness against crits]
4. sc furyshaper gets a totem that lets any damage source regen some health

 

i did a SC konstanten on potd+upscaling, and honestly for half the game it felt a little underwhelming (konstanten's stats are also not great). but once I got to tier 8 and then tier 9 abilities, konstanten skyrocketed to top damage dealer of the party as a dazing shout + retribution build.

I did SC Barb as my very first POE 2 run, but it wasn't a Furyshaper.  Was a Retribution build but if I remember correctly didn't work great, mainly due to lack of experience on my part. 

The main thing that makes me question playing SC Barb as main character is how late there "key" abilities come that can build around.  Though with DLC's there's still plenty of fights left if i've not got bored of the run yet.  At least as MC you get the key abilities of the other class and Barb is adds its attack speed buffs to the mix.

[Boeroer]

Furyshaper's Blood Ward is awesome and worth going SC imo. What's also awesome is Driving Roar as damage/CC tool or Dazing Shout as defense/dmg tool. I personally prefer Driving Roar The good thing about it is that even the tier before that comes fairly early (Barbaric Roar) is alredy very useful since it's cheap but already knocks down foes and interrupts. The Fear Ward (which si also very good) also comes rel. early when you are a single class Barb. 

[summatsupeer]

5 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Furyshaper's Blood Ward is awesome and worth going SC imo. What's also awesome is Driving Roar as damage/CC tool or Dazing Shout as defense/dmg tool. I personally prefer Driving Roar The good thing about it is that even the tier before that comes fairly early (Barbaric Roar) is alredy very useful since it's cheap but already knocks down foes and interrupts. The Fear Ward (which si also very good) also comes rel. early when you are a single class Barb. 

Definitely tempting, the Frenzy and Fear Wards add something early on to the SC Barb.

I was just clicking around looking at abilities and thought of:

• Nature Godlike
• Barb (Furyshaper)
• Druid (Fury)

The Barb has easy access to Might Inspiration to trigger the Nature Godlike and has "Fury" in both classes... it just seems to fit!  Never really enjoyed Spiritshifting so as an alternative was looking at Ancient since they get the Beast and Plant bonus which fits well with Nature Godlikes plant aesthetic.  Not sure how good either would perform or how to fully build them, just throwing out ideas.

[summatsupeer]

Started a run as a Barbarian (Furyshaper) + Druid (Ancient) as Nature Godlike.  Up to now i've only really used Tekuku as Druid so only certain abilities so still learning a bit.  Whilst I quite like the theme the number of abilities i'd say there's very few Beast/Plant abilities that are really good.  Many are quite specialist (Beetle Shell) or difficult to use (Stags Horn) and even then don't look that strong.  The raw damage of Insect Swarm is great and i'm sure Plague will be to once reach it. Only up to tier 3 abilities so that might be part of the issue, plus not got the number of spells to spam yet.  Maybe part of the issue is wanting to be quite offensive but some of the abilities are healing/defensive so got a bit too much buffing and not enough actual damage dealing.  Might also be to do with Tekehu lacking Pen on his abilities so end up with nothing left and them both auto-attacking and also having Priest Xoti back there.

Am I correct that you can't summon the Sporelings and have a Totem spawned?

Trying to decide if I should stick with it and it will get better or to restart as Fury, although more of a duplication in abilities with Tekehu then.  Maybe use Beserker instead of Furyshaper but if Ancient the raw damage spells don't need the pen so that would be more for with Fury.  Maybe not a Nature Godlike either since lost that theme with Ancient.

Edited March 26, 2022 by summatsupeer

[Boeroer]

5 hours ago, summatsupeer said:

Am I correct that you can't summon the Sporelings and have a Totem spawned?

Yes, correct. And the Sporelings are very good summons considered the immediate access. That's why I wouldn't have recommended Furyshaper/Ancient (if I had read your plans before today ;)). I'd still say that Furyshaper is a great Single Class.  

The offensive beast and plant spells that are DoTs are very good (Insect Swarm, Plague of Insects, Venombloom) and adding Infestation of Maggots to the mix (although not a beast or plant spell itself). There's only two possible problems with them: first they all target fortitude which is often the highest defense - so you might need a reliable way (in the party) to debuff it. For example a SC or MC Chanter with The Long Night's Drink, your own Tanglefoot while Spirit Frenzy is active and so on. The better candidate for a Ancient Multiclass is the Helwalker imo. +10 INT are great to have for summons an DoT spells. And up to +15 MIG is great for DoTs, too (+10 from Helwalker passive, +5 from Thunderous Blows - although the +2 PEN is a little wasted if one mostly uses raw dmg DoTs - but for stuff like Wicked Briars it's great). 

What is also a nice candidate for an Ancient is the Psion. It needs no weapon damage to gain focus. You can stay behind and cast spells from cover. Psions have access to (mass-)charm and dominate which works really well in combination with summons such as Sporelings. It's very effective to be able to not only put summons on the field but at the same time also produce allies from enemies via mind control. Also the Psion has access to some accuracy buffing (Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld) which helps with landing spells. Alternating between druid spells and cipher spells and having one bottomless ressource pool is great imo. 

A Berserker/Fury has the advantage that he could stack +2 PEN from Frenzy with the +1 PEN of the Fury (when casting elemental spells) and then later even +1 PEN from some of the elemental talents such as Heart of the Storm and so on. +4 PEN on elemental druid spells is a big deal and helps a lot. Combining fast casting with spell spamming is nice as well. Also using Lord Darryn's Voulge is pretty cool as a Berserker/Fury.  Once you get Blood Thirst this combo can be really fun when using stuff like Relentless Storm and Nature's Terror. Just make sure to get rid of confusion before casting Relentless Storm...
The only thing that's not so great is that Furies don't have access to restoration spells - which means you cannot heal yourself from Berserker's self damage while frenzied (except with Savage Defiance and Second Wind and of course scrolls or potions). So a good healer in the party would be nice to have (for example using Tekehu with some Moonwell + the Moon's Night etc.).  

 

[summatsupeer]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Yes, correct. And the Sporelings are very good summons considered the immediate access. That's why I wouldn't have recommended Furyshaper/Ancient (if I had read your plans before today ;)). I'd still say that Furyshaper is a great Single Class.  

The main thing putting me off SC Furyshaper is it doesn't really feel that different from just using Serafen or Konstanten, especially early on when you can't really see the effect the Ward has or the accuracy vs spirits.  Maybe the Fear ward effect is more visible once you get it, but then its a big gap till the Blood ward which I think would be the thing that makes the class able to do different things.

Quote

The offensive beast and plant spells that are DoTs are very good (Insect Swarm, Plague of Insects, Venombloom) and adding Infestation of Maggots to the mix (although not a beast or plant spell itself). There's only two possible problems with them: first they all target fortitude which is often the highest defense - so you might need a reliable way (in the party) to debuff it. For example a SC or MC Chanter with The Long Night's Drink, your own Tanglefoot while Spirit Frenzy is active and so on. The better candidate for a Ancient Multiclass is the Helwalker imo. +10 INT are great to have for summons an DoT spells. And up to +15 MIG is great for DoTs, too (+10 from Helwalker passive, +5 from Thunderous Blows - although the +2 PEN is a little wasted if one mostly uses raw dmg DoTs - but for stuff like Wicked Briars it's great). 

Yeah I was making use of Maggots once Insect Swarm had been given time to work.  Got Konstanten along as SC Barb to use Morningstar and Tekehu as Theurge to help lower Fortitude, though i'm considering making Tekehu a SC Chanter just because having my own druid spells plus Priest Xoti and Theurge Tekehu is so much ability management every single fight!  I think having fewer but stronger abilities supporting my character might suit me better.

The attack speed bonuses of the Barb kind of go to waste, Monk looks to add a lot more as you've pointed out, even a bit of accuracy by using Dance assuming it applies to abilities?

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

What is also a nice candidate for an Ancient is the Psion. It needs no weapon damage to gain focus. You can stay behind and cast spells from cover. Psions have access to (mass-)charm and dominate which works really well in combination with summons such as Sporelings. It's very effective to be able to not only put summons on the field but at the same time also produce allies from enemies via mind control. Also the Psion has access to some accuracy buffing (Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld) which helps with landing spells. Alternating between druid spells and cipher spells and having one bottomless ressource pool is great imo. 

I think the extra accuracy would defiantly be good. The DoT spells would still be ticking over whilst they're Charmed does amuse me.  Definitely interesting, totally agree with the bottomless pool thing, it makes Cipher one of my favourites.  With the AOE DoT style I feel like you need some good "delaying" through CC/Defence whilst the DoT spells tick over, plus the longer fights go on the better the bottomless resource pool is.

Is Psions +1 focus per second always that or does it increase with levels?  Would make the higher level active abilities unusable I think.

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

A Berserker/Fury has the advantage that he could stack +2 PEN from Frenzy with the +1 PEN of the Fury (when casting elemental spells) and then later even +1 PEN from some of the elemental talents such as Heart of the Storm and so on. +4 PEN on elemental druid spells is a big deal and helps a lot. Combining fast casting with spell spamming is nice as well. Also using Lord Darryn's Voulge is pretty cool as a Berserker/Fury.  Once you get Blood Thirst this combo can be really fun when using stuff like Relentless Storm and Nature's Terror. Just make sure to get rid of confusion before casting Relentless Storm...
The only thing that's not so great is that Furies don't have access to restoration spells - which means you cannot heal yourself from Berserker's self damage while frenzied (except with Savage Defiance and Second Wind and of course scrolls or potions). So a good healer in the party would be nice to have (for example using Tekehu with some Moonwell + the Moon's Night etc.).  

Yeah I love the idea of Barbarians but I just don't like there sub-classes, especially how Berserkers self damage scaling works.  I might try this kind of build in the future but since I want Tekehu in the group and he will have some Shock based abilities I don't really want my player character to have a Shock focus to.

------------------------------

My next plan I think is:

• Player - Oracle (Ancient+Psion) or Ascetic (Ancient+Helwalker).  DoT with some Protection/heals.
• Eder - MC Swashbuckler Tank to drop abilities on
• Konstanten - SC Barb Tank with Morningstar + Yells + Drop to Debuff
• Tekehu - SC Chanter to Debuff (Long Nights Drink, Shield Cracks, Ben Fidel's)
• Xoti - SC Priest Buffs + Heals

Not having Tekehu's Druid spells might hurt though, being able to drop Chill Fog on top of Swashbuckler to blind and help him tank just seems too good, especially with chance of Riposte attacks.  Oracle could offer more CC/Blind etc abilties so favouring that for this group.  Ascetic does seem very powerful just through its own abilities though.  Keeping RP in mind would there be a better group to support the Oracle / Ascetic?

Edited March 26, 2022 by summatsupeer

[Constentin Lévine]

Since you plan to play Konstanten as SC Barb, when he will have acces to Barbaric Reliatation, casting Beetle Shell on him with your main (or Tekehu) is great : the stunning effect is not a truly on (no might malus if I remember correctely) and even if he cant do anything, the reliatation effect still work on crit. This reliatation work with every weapons, and because you need the lowest deflection possible to take a lot of crits, switching to an arquebuse with modal before the Beetle Shell shield is nice in the middle of the melee! 

Psion focus generation grow with PL ; if you play with the Community Patch, the focus generation is paused on crit instead of on damaged.

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, summatsupeer said:

The attack speed bonuses of the Barb kind of go to waste, Monk looks to add a lot more as you've pointed out, even a bit of accuracy by using Dance assuming it applies to abilities?

Frenzy also speeds up casting, how does it go to waste?
Yes, Dance of Death applies its ACC bonus to all attack rolls.

2 hours ago, summatsupeer said:

Is Psions +1 focus per second always that or does it increase with levels?  Would make the higher level active abilities unusable I think.

It scales with Power Level. I think at PL9 it's at 5 focus per second (or 6? can't remember). But with additional power level bonuses (for example from Lance of the Midwood Stag's enchantment Lord of the Forest) you can go even higher. The good thing is that focus even loads up while you are in recovery and cast Druid spells - or just run around. 

3 hours ago, summatsupeer said:

Not having Tekehu's Druid spells might hurt though

 SC Stormspeaker has access to Avenging Storm though and can cast it over an over. You can try it out with either Effort (+Hemorrhaging) which will make all your crits (including chant and invocation crits) proc Avenging Storm  - or you use Sure-Handed Ila + dual mortars (Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke and Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot). 

[summatsupeer]

25 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Frenzy also speeds up casting, how does it go to waste?

Maybe "waste" wasn't the best term since Frenzy is giving Might and Action Speed straight away.  I was thinking that in the early game there's not many druid abilities to cast and by time Bloodlust is triggered your probably down to auto attacks.  Plus many of the strong Barb abilities are melee weapons only so can't take them to help your auto attacks.

25 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

It scales with Power Level. I think at PL9 it's at 5 focus per second (or 6? can't remember). But with additional power level bonuses (for example from Lance of the Midwood Stag's enchantment Lord of the Forest) you can go even higher. The good thing is that focus even loads up while you are in recovery and cast Druid spells - or just run around. 

Interesting, some of those abilities are tucked away on those enchanting levels.

25 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

 SC Stormspeaker has access to Avenging Storm though and can cast it over an over. You can try it out with either Effort (+Hemorrhaging) which will make all your crits (including chant and invocation crits) proc Avenging Storm  - or you use Sure-Handed Ila + dual mortars (Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke and Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot). 

I was thinking more about the lack of the attack speed slow, blind etc that you get early game.

Another cool interaction I never thought of with melee weapon affecting chants/invocations.  Dual Mortars are amazing for those on hit procs.

Cheers for help.

[summatsupeer]

1 hour ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Since you plan to play Konstanten as SC Barb, when he will have acces to Barbaric Reliatation, casting Beetle Shell on him with your main (or Tekehu) is great : the stunning effect is not a truly on (no might malus if I remember correctely) and even if he cant do anything, the reliatation effect still work on crit. This reliatation work with every weapons, and because you need the lowest deflection possible to take a lot of crits, switching to an arquebuse with modal before the Beetle Shell shield is nice in the middle of the melee! 

Psion focus generation grow with PL ; if you play with the Community Patch, the focus generation is paused on crit instead of on damaged.

Do you guys accidently discover these things?!?  Interesting interaction thanks!

[Constentin Lévine]

1 hour ago, summatsupeer said:

Do you guys accidently discover these things?!?  Interesting interaction thanks!

Actually, I was looking for the possibility to switch the weapon's set when paralysed (to shut down the effect) and I also watched fot automatic effects , in this topic https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/126636-paralysed-and-stunned/

Using an arquebuse (high damages) with the modal (+20acc) without any Attack and Reload time is nice, I thought about that when you spoke about Beetle Shell few post ago. 

 

[Boeroer]

Against crowds I like Amra + modal even more. You'll be frenzied + flanked and can even wear the Cap of the Laughingstock + Sandals of the Water Lilly which will drop your deflection by 40 points which makes cross against you very likely. Piling up damage reduction gear and armor is crucial though. Then you'll have Carnage + potential Riven Gore + Bleeding Cuts from a Retaliation and the +50% recovery time from Bleeding Cuts won't matter at all while Blood Thirst will work fine (doesn't for arquebus). So you can use that for some active 0-recovery-HoF or -Dazing Shouts or whatever after the shell breaks. 

Lord Darryn's Voulge: also really nice with this setup bc. of Static Thunder. 

Even a rod + modal works well. With something like Rod of the Deep Hunter + Sisyphos Stone you can slow down bunch of enemies' considerably while doing damage. 

Against singular (or not that many) tough foes the arquebus trick is pretty amazing though.

 

 

[Constentin Lévine]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Against singular (or not that many) tough foes the arquebus trick is pretty amazing though.

Indeed, but I spoke in the case when the reliatation barbarian is under the effect of Beetle Shell ; then Blood Thirst is not considered but the deflection penalty from Unfit for Melee is nice, since when the shell is over, switching to a melee weapon (like Amra) "clear" the malus.

[Okkes]

Single class barbarian very powerful indeed. If you think the best abilities comes very late, what you can do is starting with bounties and the quest doesnt involves fighting. You can get to level 15-16 very easily, and than you ll still have like 70-80 percent of gameplay left.

[NotDumbEnough]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Against crowds I like Amra + modal even more. You'll be frenzied + flanked and can even wear the Cap of the Laughingstock + Sandals of the Water Lilly which will drop your deflection by 40 points which makes cross against you very likely. Piling up damage reduction gear and armor is crucial though. Then you'll have Carnage + potential Riven Gore + Bleeding Cuts from a Retaliation and the +50% recovery time from Bleeding Cuts won't matter at all while Blood Thirst will work fine (doesn't for arquebus). So you can use that for some active 0-recovery-HoF or -Dazing Shouts or whatever after the shell breaks. 

Lord Darryn's Voulge: also really nice with this setup bc. of Static Thunder. 

Even a rod + modal works well. With something like Rod of the Deep Hunter + Sisyphos Stone you can slow down bunch of enemies' considerably while doing damage. 

Against singular (or not that many) tough foes the arquebus trick is pretty amazing though.

 

 

Do you know how weapons that negate recovery work with Retaliation? e.g. if Sungrazer's effect triggers does it remove all current recovery?

[summatsupeer]

Definitely like the Cipher + Druid combo.  Start with Cipher spells to help setup the Fortitude based abilities then switch back.

I think I hit I key level for my group when I got Pain Block.  Before then Konst would have issues self healing cos of being hit so much and interrupted. 

I didn't take Flanking or Secret horrors since Eder has Persistent Distraction and Tekehu "should" be hitting Ben Fidel and Long Nights Drink. But Tekehu having Perception 10 on PotD doesn't really help his hit rate when using offensive invocations/chants.  I do have Xoti casting Dire Blessing so get Aware inspiration.  No point taking Tactical Meld over Borrowed Instinct.  Just picked up Plague of Insects so should melt groups even more but the single target damage is lacking.  Can get Disintegration in a few levels but its another Fort attack and I just had Might+Con resistant/immune (can't remember which) enemies so felt could of done with some raw weapon damage.   I think I went a bit too defensive with Eder with sword+board and Riposte etc.

Having fun though, thanks for the help/ideas 

[summatsupeer]

Got a few questions about Stormspeaker Tekehu and Sasha Sabre but also Chanters in general.

Firstly I think for my group the most "effective" use is to just Empower Ben Fidels with Sashas Sabre (Refreshing Finale).  I know other weapons were mentioned but I wanted to try Sasha's Sabre as i'd never used it.

I was wondering for opponents weak against Shock damage would it be worth doing:

1. Relentless Storm (Deltro's Cage)
2. Empower The Ranga Meted Out the Fury of the Gods (Sashas Sabre - Encore)
3. 2x The Skies Opened

If not a group of enemies and just a few then maybe "Not One Foe Was Spared Amira's Wrath" would be better?  Any better uses for Empowering Tekehu's shock damage?

Finally my googling has failed me: is the Accuracy for Chants and Invocations just the accuracy value shown on the character screen with whatever the current weapon selected is?  If so then his accuracy really isn't as bad as I expected for having base 10 Perception as I am just one single handed weapon.  How does that work with dual wielding? Can you do Rapier+Modal trick?

[Constentin Lévine]

To me the most effective use of Sacha Singing Smitar with Tekehu is : 

Early in the game, or for variety, some other spells are nice with the sabre :

• Her Revenge... (each lightning will trigger another empowered spell)
• White Worms... and Their Putrid... (the corpse explosion cause another empowered spell per enemy, like Cipher's Detonate)
• Her Tears... (Each bolts trigger an empowered explosion)
• Boil Their Flesh and upgrade (near death enemies will trigger an empowered explosion, like Cipher's Detonate too)

Because each time the spell cause another empowered spell that trigger the sabre abilities, that mean you can empowering everything for a fight, and refresh every empowering point the next one with one of these spells.

Later, with the Least Unstable Coil, every of these spells (especially The Ranga) give you the chance to get many tiers 3 inspirations on empowerement. More later again, the Weyc's items will work on the same way.

 

10 per is not big but with Aware or Intuitive (Least Unstable Coil) it is better, +5acc + bonus ; Ben Fidel's Neck cause a 10 malus to all defenses (+ defenses malus from Frightened), like +10acc . It is like 25 per (only for acc I mean). Tekehu is not a Skald and have tools for being effective in despite of this 10 per. And Because of The Ranga and Refreshing Finale, the "skald" effect (phrase on crit) is "stormspeaker" effect (3 or all phrases on hit), one handed or dual wield will both work I think. 

 

[Faraleth]

I did this, Barbarian+Devoted with Amra, IA+Deadfire background