Lil' synergies with Chanter/something + Wahai Poraga

[Boeroer]

Hello!

Chanter/Soulblade (the big red button)

• The chanter can summon multiple skeletons (first with Ancient Brittle Bones and later with Many Lives Pass By)
• The Soulblade gains +10 max focus and concentration from killing an enemy (or ally, doesn't matter)
• Usually Ciphers don't generate focus from hitting friedly characters
• Wahai Poraga acts like a "confused" AoE weapon
• If you accidentially hit your Skeletons with it s AoE you will generate focus (all Ciphers except Psion)!
• If you kill your Skeletons with its AoE you will gain +10 max focus and concentration (Soulblade passive)!
• Echoing Horrors will get triggered every time you kill a Skeleton ( Frighten a bystanding enemy on kill - it's a passive...)
• If you use Soul Annihilation with it it will apply the full raw damage to the initial target (and some more to the additional ones).
• So against tough singular foes that usually make generating focus difficult you can harvest focus and also max focus and concentration from your skeletons while hitting the enemy
• You can collect a huge amount of focus that way and then dump it all into one Soul Annihilation that destroys the tough enemy
• Skalds can get phrases from crits against skeletons - I used a Troubadour though (faster Many-Lives-skellies)

Chanter/Priest (the undying)

• cast Triumph of the Crusaders
• use Ancient Brittle Bones and/or Many Lives Pass By
• attack with Wahai Poraga and gain lots of health every time a skeleton goes down
• combine with health-on-kill pets for additional healing

Chanter/Barbarian (the obvious choice)

• no need to be a confused Berserker
• use skellies
• every AoE-hit of Wahai Poraga triggers Carnage (foe only) 
• accidentially killed Skeletons trigger Bloodlust and Blood Thirst (hack away without much recovery)
• Blood Storm (additional Frenzy duration on kill) makes it easy to uphold Frenzy endlessly
• Barbaric Smash: AoE-kills when using Barbaric Smash will not refund the Rage cost. The initial target has to die (booh!)

Chanter/Sister of the Reaping Moon (the well of wouds)

• killing a skeleton grants 3 wounds

Chanter/Fighter (clever cleaver)

• killing a skeleton triggers Cleaving Stance (attacking the enemy again because Cleaving Stance chooses the next enemy as initial target, not a skeleton)

 

What doesn't work: Paladin's Inspiring Triumph and Virtuous Triumph won't trigger (too bad).

That's all I found out so far.

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Boeroer
Echoing Horrors is no AoE effect

[thelee]

18 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

• killing a skeleton triggers Cleaving Stance (attacking the enemy again because Cleaving Stance chooses the next enemy as initial target, not a skeleton)

if like, you get a couple skellies in one hit you get two free full attacks on the enemy? (or is it one cleave per attack. doesn't really come up often, so curious)

Edited February 13, 2023 by thelee

[NotDumbEnough]

I'm not sure what you mean, but you can chain Mob Stance procs for multiple kills. Had a lot of fun with a Fighter/Monk once where Mob Stance and Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming procced off of one another

[Boeroer]

11 hours ago, thelee said:

if like, you get a couple skellies in one hit you get two free full attacks on the enemy? (or is it one cleave per attack. doesn't really come up often, so curious)

Yes, indeed. Unfortunately Wahai Poraga has low base dmg and the dmg bonuses of Chanter/Fighter aren't too high so it's not as devastating as it sounds. Also the description of Wahai Poraga is wrong: it doesn't hit "3 additonal" targets as advertised but only 2 (3 including the initial target).  So the number of skeletons getting hit is only 2 at max. And because you seldomly one-shot even your whimpy Many-Lives skeletons with that low dmg per hit you won't see a lot of that. But nevertheless Cleaving Stance offers a lot of "free" additional attacks against the initial target - which suddenly makes the weapon very viable. Without such tricks its dmg output is just bad. But the enchantments are pretty good for a non-shield tank though - so using a fighter to build an "offensive tank" might be a nice idea. Add some cool Huana gear that goes into the same direction (Reckless Brigandine mostly, stacks with the mob stance effect) and you might get a cool Huana Warcaller.

If Wahai Poraga did attack the number of targets it claims it does then this would be even more interesting for sure.

[Boeroer]

It seems that unlike other AoE weapons, the 3 potential hits of Wahai Poraga per swing count as seperate actions. This makes it possible for a Skald to gain more than 1 phrase per swing.
With a weapon such as WotEP it doesn't work (Skald gets max 1 phrase from a swing even if it crits mutliple times) - but I'm pretty sure I saw more than that during my tests with Wahai Poraga + Skald. It's not that easy to determine because the Skald is also singing phrases which generate points in between. But I saw jumps from 1 to 4 in an instant often enough so I guess my assumption is correct. Maybe needs more testing to be 100% sure. 

This would also explain why Barbaric Smash doesn't refund if a secondary target dies and why Stunning Surge doesn't seem to refund if you crit secondary targets.

Didn't try Gambit but I suspect it won't refund on secondary crits, too. Not motivated to test that though because Gambit can't be used with Chanter/Rogue in the first place - and I was looking for "self-contained" synergies. 

On the other hand: stuff like the stun of Stunning Surge does get applied to the secondary targets just fine. Maybe secondary attacks are not entirely separated actions after all...

Edited February 14, 2023 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Another hint that the attacks are somewhat separate actions comes from Torment's Reach/Raised Torment: unlike all other AoE weapos, Raised Torment+cone triggers for every one of the attack rolls of Wahai Poraga! This is pretty cool...

Funnily enough Wounding Shot (Ranger) refuses to work with the secondary attacks - as it does with all other AoE weapons (resp. their additional attack rolls). 

Shattered Pillar gains wounds from auto-attack dmg done to the skeletons - which is great. And somehow I also  always "regain" 1 wound even when I use an attack ability like Skyward Kick for example. This is werid: It costs 3 wounds, I execute it, 3 wounds get substracted - but then I gain 1 back as soon as the whirling attack is done. Huh??? Also Rooting Pain might trigger frm that wound so I guess I'm not imagining this. 

Also Swift Flurry/HBD seem to trigger a whole whirl action again? Because I find it extremely(!) easy to produce AoE-crit-chains with Wahai Poraga. The Skeletons help to produce easy crits due to their abysmal defenses I suspect. 

 

 

[Boeroer]

Just now, Boeroer said:

Also Swift Flurry/HBD seem to trigger a whole whirl action again? Because I find it extremely(!) easy to produce AoE-crit-chains with Wahai Poraga. The Skeletons help to produce easy crits due to their abysmal defenses I suspect. 

Okay, against tougher foes the crit chains don't occur that easily anymore. Still I see several additional attacks due to Swift Flurry/HBD which surely helps.

[thelee]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

This makes it possible for a Skald to gain more than 1 phrase per swing.

*sighs, takes Konstanten out of the storage closet* time for another run

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

*sighs, takes Konstanten out of the storage closet* time for another run

Hehe - another plus is that the AoE size of Wahai Poraga is fixed. Konstanten's lowish INT often bothers me - at least this weapon doesn't care.

[hansvedic]

What about Chanter/Druid with Taste of the Hunt? Maybe empower it with the least unstable coil and see what happens?

Edited February 15, 2023 by hansvedic

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, hansvedic said:

What about Chanter/Druid with Taste of the Hunt? Maybe empower it with the least unstable coil and see what happens?

It would apply the raw dmg to the enemy and up to two skeletons and give you some healing. I don't see anything out of the ordinary with that combo.

[dgray62]

How about chanter/fighter, maybe devoted so as to get more out of the weapon? Killing skellies will give you a lot of free attacks with mob stance, and I imagine that Clear Out would be very interesting with this weapon.

[Boeroer]

17 hours ago, dgray62 said:

How about chanter/fighter, maybe devoted so as to get more out of the weapon? Killing skellies will give you a lot of free attacks with mob stance, and I imagine that Clear Out would be very interesting with this weapon.

Yes, I adressed Chanter/Fighter and Cleaving Stance as the main synergy in the opening post (only briefly I admit). 

I'm a bit sad that the Paladin's "on kill" passives don't work in this case. Inspired Defenses (100% uptime) and Inspiring Triumph (new Zeal all the time) would have been great - and Heralds are good to begin with. It's interesting though that this class is the only one where the devs seem to have been paying attention to this "profit from killing your own summons" trick. They did miss Divine Retribution at PL9 - but it's not obtainable for a multiclass character.     

[dgray62]

Thanks, I missed that initial bit. I think I'd like to try a chanter/soulblade with wahai poraga. I was wondering, however, if you were using the vanilla weapon, which only has one additional attack rather than three, or if you were using the mod you wrote and shared in an earlier post that fixed it? If the latter is the case I'll download and install your mod first. Also, in that same post you mentioned that the additional attack was flagged as a ranged attack. Are you sure that soul blades get the concentration and bonus max focus when they kill skellies with it? Usually kills with ranged attacks won't proc this.

[Boeroer]

I used the vanilla version. My mod also did a pull-effect - I didn't really use it myself, it was more like a little practice session.

I think @Noqnor @Elric Galaddid a version where the additional hits meet the description properly (3).

I think with the vanilla version 2 additional target can get hit, not only 1 - despite the description saying 3. 

One has to pay attention to the way wahai poraga delivers its attacks: it seems to do it counterclockwise. So if you face two or three enemies I would attack the last one in the row from a "counterclockwise perspective" if you know what I mean. Else the skeletons might not get attacked and the benefits of killing them quickly might not occur.  Then, if you want to use Soul Annihilation I would target the first enemy in the row so that raw dmg gets applied to all of them and nothing is "waisted" on skeletons. 

The upside of the Chanter/Soulwhip is that it works at early levels (as soon as you get the weapon). Barbarian with Blood Thirst is stronger imo (esp. in combination with Interrupting Blows), but Bloods Thirst is late game material for a MC Barb unfortunately.

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Boeroer

[Shai Hulud]

Nice compilation but I thought this stuff was known.

I've played a howler a decent amount. Wasn't using Wahai Poroga. Does bad damage and breaks in like 5 seconds. In vanilla this tactic is pretty good just using fists, but blood thirst was kinda nerfed in BPM, or it is bugged, not sure, but I don't always get zero recovery after proccing it. Usually I don't actually. Most of the time blood thirst seems to do nothing. 

In theory you can chant the skellies as a berserker / troubadour, attack skellies, then attack enemy (or just hit enemy with carnage attacks), use offensive invocations on enemies without recovery, etc. And berserker can maintain massive healing in BPM with potions of enlightenment. Wear voidward with a moon godlike to cut the health damage by half. You can keep up blood storm and stalwart defiance with max INT. But due to blood thirst not working right and the build being pretty goofy I eventually just abandoned it. 

Amra is also a good weapon to use on skellies because you'll always crit triggering the 33% carnage effect, also always kill due to higher base damage and 1/4 kills you trigger Frenzy without the deflection penalty, not too hard to keep up.

[Boeroer]

I neither use Abydon's Challenge nor BPM and I try to write stuff that applies to the vanilla game so that everybody is on the same page. 

The difference is (as I said in the initial post) that with Wahai Poraga you don't have to be confused (that usually means picking Berserker or Tactician) to combine on-kill effects with summons because Wahai Poraga does friendly fire. This means you can combine the skeletons with any other class pick (that has some useful ability to combine friendly fire with) instead of being bound to classes that can confuse (themselves).

Another point was that it was not known (at least not to me) that when using Wahai Poraga with a Cipher you can gain focus from hitting friendly targets. Usually a cipher won't generate focus by hitting non-hostile targets (for exame when hitting charmed or dominated foes) - Wahai Poragas special mechanics seem to solve that "problem". As I said above, this makes it easy to harvest focus in fights where a Cipher usually struggles to generate good focus (like boss fights). 

---

I did lots of posts about the ability to use Confusion (mostly Berserker) to your advantage. Like a topic about Berserker/Cipher + Amplified Thrust and other cipher spells that can usually only be cast on allies, Berserker/Priest who uses Withdraw on enemies in order to take them out of the fight right away with no chance to resist (auto-hit), Berserker/Chanter with Grave Calling/Chilling Grave for unlimited Chillfogs, Berserker/Skald with Blightheart (bound to chanter) with Her Revenge so that using it on enemies would also kill your skeletons which grants 1 phrase (and Her Revenge only costs 2), turning you a bit into Emperor Palatine, Paladin's Devine Retribution with skeletons to gain unlimited Zeal (cool with Kind Wayfarer - unlimited AoE healing) and so on and so forth.

Also a topic about Berserker+Amra+Skeletons. In that case the skeletons came from a party member - because I used a Berserker/Fighter to combine Blood Thirst with Cleaving Stance - which is a brutal combination with Riven Gore of Amra. It always instakills the many-lives skeletons because they always have less than 50hp.

But this topic was more about the weapon and ways to make Wahai Poraga a viable pick - because else it's one of the most lame unique weapons there is unfortunately. Which is a pity because the way to get it is rel. long and imo cries for more rewarding loot. So maybe those few ideas for some weird synergies would help to build something cool and functional with it.  

Edited February 20, 2023 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

On 2/14/2023 at 5:47 PM, thelee said:

*sighs, takes Konstanten out of the storage closet* time for another run

I was playing around with Konstanten as Howler today in the BoW DLC and gave him Wahai Poraga. I was almost drowing in phrases.  Was able to keep Soul Collectors perma-stunned with the help of the Helm of the White Void and  "Its Crash Could Not Be Denied" which then has +25 ACC. Most enemies, even with high Will, cannot defend against that (except with immunities and resistaces of course - then Killers Froze Stiff is a nice alternative I guess, though shorter CC). Didn't try the charming invocation but that could be great, too, maybe I'll try that later.

One or two swirls - stun! - another swirl - stun! and so on. It's pretty cool. The easy way to get phrases from the crits on skeletons makes phrase generation a breeze. It's more fun that I expected. Good option for Konstanten imo. 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Boeroer

[hansvedic]

If Wahai Poraga is upgraded with Counterattack and the Chanter is buffed with Pain Link, that’s half the damage done in melee shared with the attacker; could be a cool combo! Unfortunately, I’ve read that Pain Link can’t be cast on self in Deadfire…

[thelee]

2 hours ago, hansvedic said:

If Wahai Poraga is upgraded with Counterattack and the Chanter is buffed with Pain Link, that’s half the damage done in melee shared with the attacker; could be a cool combo! Unfortunately, I’ve read that Pain Link can’t be cast on self in Deadfire…

still a mini combo! not everything has to be hermetic to a solo character.

though the big problem with this stuff is that at least on PotD enemy health way outscales your character, so relying on returning some of the damage you receive in any meaningful way does not seem like a great strategy. at least with stuff like riposte, you are avoiding damage at the same time. 

[dgray62]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

still a mini combo! not everything has to be hermetic to a solo character.

though the big problem with this stuff is that at least on PotD enemy health way outscales your character, so relying on returning some of the damage you receive in any meaningful way does not seem like a great strategy. at least with stuff like riposte, you are avoiding damage at the same time. 

It would be a nice combo even on PotD, if you made use of Barring Death's Door or the potion with the same effect when in difficult fights.

[Boeroer]

Did some more goofing around with a Skald - and man: with Wahai Poraga it's even cool to go SC Skald. With a fast setup (high DEX, low armor penatly etc.) I can generate phrases from skeletons so quickly that I can basically spam Eld Nary's Curse. Sometimes I can cast a second one before the first runs out, hehe. 

Also a CC-focused build with almost any second class is very nice. I can stunlock or paralyze-lock all sorts of enemies because those invocations are so cheap while the phrases keep flying in.   

[Constentin Lévine]

I remember when I tried this weapon with a monk, and my guess was the SF HbD chain only proc on the main target (the AoE is not melee) but Im not sure anymore about what happen for nearby enemies (if the main attack in chain also proc the AoE each time).

What I know for sure is the AoE attack is threated as Weapon in the files, in opposite to the others AoE from weapons (effects). So that can explain most of these interractions!

This is a very nice find , any synergy with Rogue? 

 

[Boeroer]

On 3/9/2023 at 2:09 PM, Constentin Lévine said:

This is a very nice find , any synergy with Rogue? 

Rogues don't seem to have interesting on-crit or on-kill effects. So I didn't really test Rogue/Chanter. Did I miss something maybe?