Fury Evoker (Druid/Wizard) vs Evoker (Wizard)

[Toby40]

So, yesterday i ended Pillars of Eternity as a glass cannon wizard. Great game! I immediately bought the sequel, but still cant decide which way should go. Of course, wizard is no brain option for me, because i love playing as a pure DPS caster, also want to stick to my story from first game. On the other hand, when i first saw Hiravias and his AOE spells like Blizzard or Returning Storm i felt jealous!!! That's when i realised how big DPS potencial is in druid class! When i read about multiclass in 2'nd game, i knew right away that this is a great opportunity to create a AOE monster, but is this really so? I read tons of similar posts about mage and his multiclass, and realised that opinions are mixed, mostly because is not worth to multiclass wizard because of his late game spells. After some digging, im pretty sure that Sorcerer (Fury Evoker) or Solo Wizard (Evoker) are classes that im gonna play... 

 

BUT, FINAL QUESTION, which one is better as a pure DPS? Im prioritizing in order :

- AOE possibility damage

- Single target damage

- Crowd control potencial (much less, but still)

 

I totally don't care about survivability potencial, i will have other companions for that. Also, i guess it could be important, i will play at normal/hard (maybe?) level of difficulty. Thanks for any tips! 

[Fab3686]

Hi,

I would say Single Druid or Single Wizard, otherwise you will misse some of best aoe dps spells : Avenging Storm; Grand Maelstrom for the Druid and Minoletta's Missile Salvo an Wilting Wind.

Sorcerer is still a powerful choice but with other subclass and some experience with the game

[CLASS BUILD] The Thundercat is back! – Sorcerer (Lifegiver / Blood Mage) Solo Upscaled PotD - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

[Not So Clever Hound]

I agree with @Fab3686 and would add that Evoker's power level bonus and small double casting chance can be seducing, but in practice I find that a vanilla Wizard or of course, a Blood Mage has more potential because a lot of very strong nukes aren't Evocation, and you might miss on those. You have other ways to stack power levels if you wish, an endgame Evoker vs endgame Blood Mage/Vanilla will be very close in raw nuking power, but the latter two will have a lot more flexibility and utility.

[thelee]

my two cents:

druid

• is merely OK at dps early on and mid-game. their strength comes from versatility (healing) and the fact that a lot of their damage effects come with crowd control effects or debuffs.
  • edit: their DoTs will do a lot of total damage, but won't hit the charts for dps if that's specifically what you want, and also won't be as relevant if you end fights quickly enough that they don't have a time to let their efficiency shine (and fights will end rather quickly on lower difficulties or once you eventually power-up and are able to roflstomp potd fights)
• Fury misses out on a lot of the versatility and make up for it with better range and being able to do consistent (if not high) damage.
• late game, a single-class DPS can explode through the roof as @Fab3686 says. Even Tornado, which is more of an off-meta pick, still does a stupid amount of damage in a huge area.
• a multi-class druid misses out on that so if you multi-class it'd better be because you want something other than damage.

evoker

• is stupid-good at doing damage. it won't happen often, but echoing a tier 9 evocation spell is basically game-over for enemies in most fights. (i got lucky with an empowered minoletta's missile salvo that got echoed (non-empowered) against a boss in the final DLC and it single-handedly ended the fight right there)

druid/wizard (in general)

• you'd be doing this to give you a good leg-up in spell-casting for early to mid-game. single-class characters run out of juice real fast, multi-class caster/caster can run marathons. 
• if all you care about is spell damage, this falls off real hard at high levels due to missing out on tier 8 or tier 9 spells (from either class)
• can still be a powerful combination if your focus isn't just doing damage. (i did an animist/enchanter that would use wizard buff spells and druid firebrand and it was a lot of fun if not necessarily game-breakingly powerful)

Edited January 11, 2023 by thelee

[thelee]

1 hour ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

You have other ways to stack power levels if you wish, an endgame Evoker vs endgame Blood Mage/Vanilla will be very close in raw nuking power, but the latter two will have a lot more flexibility and utility.

blood mage is certainly very generally powerful, but over time I've gotten to really appreciate the alpha strike potential of an empowered spell. you don't need resource regeneration if the fight is already over.

[thelee]

sorry to triple-post, but just to add, probably the stupid-craziest thing you can do for DPS is

wizard: combusting wounds (+ optionally arkemyr's wondrous torment to make it last longer on tough enemies)

druid: all the various tick and hazard spells (wicked briars, venombloom, nature's terror, relentless storm, returning storm against single targets, and especially wall of thorns)

you can easily end up doing 100s of damage per second, sustained. you'll literally see the health meter deplete in real time off of otherwise bullet-sponge-y bosses. you don't have to multiclass wizard/druid just to do this, but it does give it you to you in a nice easy package. (it also doesn't have to be druid, but druid has a lot of repetitive-strike spells)

Edited January 11, 2023 by thelee

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

sorry to triple-post, but just to add, probably the stupid-craziest thing you can do for DPS is

wizard: combusting wounds (+ optionally arkemyr's wondrous torment to make it last longer on tough enemies)

druid: all the various tick and hazard spells (wicked briars, venombloom, nature's terror, relentless storm, returning storm against single targets, and especially wall of thorns)

you can easily end up doing 100s of damage per second, sustained. you'll literally see the health meter deplete in real time off of otherwise bullet-sponge-y bosses. you don't have to multiclass wizard/druid just to do this, but it does give it you to you in a nice easy package. (it also doesn't have to be druid, but druid has a lot of repetitive-strike spells)

Totally! Had you seen the short video I put to the Thundercat build above that @Fab3686 added? Everything you state plus the super fast casting speed of Cat Form + Cat Flurry buff creates an exponential pulse damage/DoT mayhem, also because Infestation of Maggots + Combusting Wounds at the same time turbocharges all those ticks. It's one of the most fun things in the game IMO.

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[Toby40]

Thanks for all answers, it really help! I decided to play as evoker, mostly because of that small chance to cast double spell, especially when i have all DLC so i should max lvl my character faster than in default edition i guess and get advantage of that tier 8/9 spells.

[thelee]

11 hours ago, Toby40 said:

Thanks for all answers, it really help! I decided to play as evoker, mostly because of that small chance to cast double spell, especially when i have all DLC so i should max lvl my character faster than in default edition i guess and get advantage of that tier 8/9 spells.

have fun!

in the final DLC there are some slippers that give you a 5% chance to echo. it's not a lot, but stacks multiplicatively with the evoker echo and gives you just a bit of extra oomph. It also does mean there is a very very very slight chance to echo a spell twice. Not terribly likely for any given spellcast, but there are enough fights left at that point that there's a reasonable chance it'll happen once (though because of how uncommon it is it might be relatively wasted on like a level 1 spell).

Edited January 12, 2023 by thelee

[Not So Clever Hound]

26 minutes ago, thelee said:

in the final DLC there are some slippers that give you a 5% chance to echo. it's not a lot, but stacks multiplicatively with the evoker echo and gives you just a bit of extra oomph. It also does mean there is a very very very slight chance to echo a spell twice. Not terribly likely for any given spellcast, but there are enough fights left at that point that there's a reasonable chance it'll happen once (though because of how uncommon it is it might be relatively wasted on like a level 1 spell).

On the topic of stacking spell echo chances, @Kosai had posted something interesting that I haven't tested myself but amended slightly below for clarity:

Evoker/Priest of Magran: evocation keyword spells can stack with all three echo effects below:
-Evoker (wizard class), 15% chance on evocation spells evocation spells only (will work with those on Magran priest spell list)
-Marux Amanth (weapon - dagger), 10% chance with priest spells (including Magran's evocation spells)
-Vithrack Silk Slippers (shoes), 5% chance  (works with all spells)

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[thelee]

17 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

On the topic of stacking spell echo chances, @Kosai had posted something interesting that I haven't tested myself but amended slightly below for clarity:

Evoker/Priest of Magran: evocation keyword spells can stack with all three echo effects below:
-Evoker (wizard class), 5% chance on evocation spells evocation spells only (will work with those on Magran priest spell list)
-Marux Amanth (weapon - dagger), 10% chance with priest spells (including Magran's evocation spells)
-Vithrack Silk Slippers (shoes), 5% chance  (works with all spells)

yeah, it works. i think i posted a build sometime a while back that if you just care about doing some fire nukes, this is the way to go.

small correction: for evoker, it's a 15% chance for evoker to echo.

too bad that Magran spell list "wastes" a few slots on non-evocation or useless evocation (like Flame Shield). So you mostly get Fan of Flames early on (Ray of Fire is a little underpowered imo, better than nothing) and then eventually Torrent of Flame (only one cast normally). At least you can bathe in the bath house to boost your Fan of Flames output.

edit: IIRC for the build itself, it also stacks a ton of +fire and generic PL (i think i get up to +13 sustained), recommends champion's boon for the +2 PEN and might bonus, and salvation of time (which can also echo) to boost the bonus PL you get from using it with weyc's wand.

 

the vithrack silk slippers also works with scrolls. i've only ever had it happen once, but i noticed it because i got a targeting indicator again with my cursor (!)

Edited January 12, 2023 by thelee

[Not So Clever Hound]

10 minutes ago, thelee said:

Ray of Fire is a little underpowered imo, better than nothing) and then eventually Torrent of Flame

Thanks. Ray of Fire can be great for some time with Wall of Flame + Combusting Wounds along with Ring of Focused Flames and +Fire PL. But being an Evoker that's not relevant. 

[dgray62]

Unless you steal CW from a Priest of Magran, if you're using one of the mods like BPM that gives this subclass this amazing spell......

[thelee]

2 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Unless you steal CW from a Priest of Magran, if you're using one of the mods like BPM that gives this subclass this amazing spell......

i don't think you can cast restricted spells even if you steal it with grimoire imprint... can you?

[dgray62]

You can't, if it's from your class. So an evoker can't steal the wizard version of CW. But they can steal priest versions of restricted spells. Of course, you lose the PL scaling when you do this, so it's not exactly OP.

[Boeroer]

17 hours ago, dgray62 said:

You can't, if it's from your class. So an evoker can't steal the wizard version of CW. But they can steal priest versions of restricted spells. Of course, you lose the PL scaling when you do this, so it's not exactly OP.

Is it possible that this is only working because of the Community Patch? Because that mod removes Wizard keywords from spells that get used as Priest spells (see Fan of Flames for Pr. of Magran) and gives them fitting priestly keywords instead. Or does it also work without Community Patch (or the keyword component that's contained in it)?

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Is it possible that this is only working because of the Community Patch? Because that mod removes Wizard keywords from spells that get used as Priest spells (see Fan of Flames for Pr. of Magran) and gives them fitting priestly keywords instead? Or does it also work without Community Patch (or the keyword component that's contained in it)?

 

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. It does work with the CP mod, which I use. I haven't tried doing this in an unmodded game, but I expect the wizard keywords would block this.