Chanter Skill overlap

[Marthenil]

Hello folks, I'm in the process of planning a Herald playthrough, my goal is to make a sort of Death Knight build, a melee debuffer with summons, however, I noticed that there's some overlap with two of the skills I was planning to take, [Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch You, Ben Fidel"] and [At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff] and their upgrades (they both cause Frightened). I've not played Deadfire yet, only PoE and I've not played a chanter there so I'm not sure. Do they really overlap or is it just my outsider view?  

Edited July 9, 2022 by Marthenil

[dgray62]

I strongly recommend that you invest in Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch You, Ben Fidel" and it's upgrade. Being able to frighten foes and debuff all their defenses is fantastic. While At the Sound of His Voice is great for the paralysis debuff, there's no point investing in the upgrade if you're also going to get the former invocation.

[Marthenil]

Yeah I suspected as much, just thought I'd ask because maybe there's a reason to take both that I wasn't seeing (ie, resistances or something) but guess not. Thanks!

[Marthenil]

Oh and something else I forgot to ask, what's the consensus over Skellies vs Ghost summon for game 2?

[omgFIREBALLS]

The phantom is definitely not the uber spell it was in PoE 1 (because phantoms aren't uber). I do believe the skellies are better. Not so much for their damage as for the fact that you need to kill them six nine times (with Ancient Brittle Bones). The AI can waste a lot of attention on them.

Edited July 9, 2022 by omgFIREBALLS
quick maffs

[Boeroer]

The skeleton are numerous and they have engagement. So that alone will stop enemies right in their tracks (because movement stops when getting engaged).

Their weapons don't scale with level so their damage will be absolutely pathetic at some point. But they count as allies and vessels which can be used to your advantage. For example:  every killed skeleton in the party gives a single class Paladin with Devine Retribution 2 points of Zeal. And with Ancient Brittle Bones you can summon a lot of skeletons...
You can also kill them yourself with the sabre Grave Calling and either create imps from them or produce a foe-only Chillfop (depending on the enchantment route).

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Boeroer

[NotDumbEnough]

Unless you plan to metagame I'd suggest you take neither. Low level summons on Chanter are really not very interesting compared to what you get at higher levels. My low tier invocation choice is usually The Shield Cracks as it's a spammable -AR debuff that also happens to target deflection. Most -AR debuffs aren't particularly spammable or target fortitude (which tends to be much harder to hit) so it's really nice to have.

[Boeroer]

Skeletons (like all summons, but especially because they are numerous and have engagement) - are very useful in the early game because they provide a strong crowd control effect without the need for accuracy and overcoming enemies' defenses. Hence calling them forth just always works and is never in vain like a CC spell might be if you miss the roll or the enemy is resistant or immune. There is no defense, resistance or immunty when it's about getting engaged by a summons or being boxed out/blocked by them.
Drop some at the start of  fight and most enemies will be under control - because first of all they tend to target the skeletons (because they have weak defenses and low HP) and as I said even enemies who wanted to ignore them and rush to your party will be stopped (if the skeletons are placed somewhat correctly and you actively attack enemies with them which will trigger the engagement which then stops movement). Note that you can individually control each skeleton directly (not the additional ones that come from Ancient Brittle Bones though), those are steered by game AI).

A similarly useful lvl-1-summoning spell are the Sporelings of the Ancient Druid. Also very potent in the early game. 

The phantom isn't bad - but it takes noteably longer to cast (and so to appear), has no engagement and is alone. The individual creature is better than those of "If their bones still slept" though. 

The wurms (PL 2) are a good offensive tool for some time if you don't need skeletons for CC. They also scale poorly and will have to be replaced eventually (and an upgrade is not worth it, unlike with Ancient Brittle Bones) - but for some time they really help to overwhelm enemies pretty quickly, especially if you focus fire on a single enemy.

If you reach a point where better summons become available (for example Ogres or Ancient Instruments of Death or whatever) you can simply retrain the character and skip the lower tier summons then.

[NotDumbEnough]

Yeah. But you shouldn't take it at character creation since your first skill point can't be refunded. A Herald has multiple abilities they want at level 1 and should probably not lock themselves into the skeleton summon.

[Elric Galad]

For Chanter Summons without mod, go for Ancient Weapons.

All other Summons have non-scaling weapons and their Penetration will be bad anyway.

Ancient Weapons are the only good summon for endgame, except Dragon for AoE abilities and basically infinite pool of HP, and skellies for metagame combos.

If you want to test other summon before, I would strongly suggest you allow yourself to respec since your basically compensating for Devs unfinished business.

[Boeroer]

4 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Yeah. But you shouldn't take it at character creation since your first skill point can't be refunded. A Herald has multiple abilities they want at level 1 and should probably not lock themselves into the skeleton summon.

Hey, that is a very good point.

I didn't have that specific problem of ability pick during char creation in mind... and just assumed one would take "if their bones still slept" during the first few regular level-ups (which will come pretty early - and since I often pick the Berath Blessing that lets you start at lvl 4 - just to be able to speed over Maje Islad more quickly - I'm so used to be able to have several ability picks before the game even starts... oops).

So I, too strongly suggest to not take any summoning invication at character creation but do it at the next regular level up.   

But then I personally would strongly suggest skeletons for a "Death Knight" kind of char instead of the phantom. And later Instruments of Death. I mean if summons fir into your theme in the first place of course. But imo skeletons do. Also the phrase "Many Lives Pass By" is very good imo and the summons there "stack" with all other summons you might call.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Boeroer

[Marthenil]

I'll probably get skellies or ghost as a first skill, it's not efficient as you say but it fits the theme of the character. I might go ghost and add a modded higher level version of it as I also want to do a pure necromancer playthrough at some point (wizard/chanter) and skellies would make much more sense then or just replace the summoned model for the Ogres (whatever model the CRE_Dummy uses would look sweet :P)