Help for a returning player please

[Dalinoth]

I am returning to POE2 after a little over 4 years (I finished the game once purely vanilla).  I am looking to start a new player/companion game on Veteran and would like some advice on the following please:

1) What mods (other than the Community Patch and Enhanced User Interface) are the veterans recommending now?  I am particularly interested in whether or not the vets are using any of the mods that change the class abilities or add subclasses; and 

2) I would like to make a ranged character using a bow this playthrough.  Build suggestions please (and the links to them)?; and

3) Which of the Berath's Blessings are the most helpful/useful?

Much thanks in advance for your input!

Edited April 20, 2023 by Dalinoth

[dgray62]

Regarding mods,  @Elric Galad's Balanced Polishing Mod is quite popular. You can read about it at length here. It contains two mods, buffs and nerfs. You can just install the former if you just want to supercharge your game, or both to make it truly more balanced. As for other mods, such as those that change class or subclass abilities, that's really more a matter of personal preference. After playing for awhile I added a mod that raised the level cap, just to have more fun with MC builds while playing on PotD with the level scaling on.

My favorite ranged build was @Not So Clever Hound's "Soul sniper" mindstalker build, but that's a gun build. For bows, one of the classic favorites is the Ascendant/Arcane archer wielding Frostseeker. There are lots of discussions of this build online; see for example this post.

As for Berath's Blessings, I always take Bonus Attributes, Bonus Skills, Unique Item Vendor, Infamous Past, Loaded Pockets and Mythical Discovery. Loaded Pockets is really great if you have a character with high stealth and decent sleight of hand, as it gives you a chance to get extra loot when pickpocketing, including magical items (which is great early game) and gems, including high level gems once you reach about 10th level, including the rare Adra Ban and Sapphires, which are very scarce resources in the game. It's thus a skill which is always worth using.

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by dgray62
error correction

[WinterWind]

For a ranged character I would highly recommend the hunting bow Essence Interrupter with the Soul Diplomacy upgrade. It is so OP!! Why? Because killed enemies are recreated as allies of some kind. Most often very useful ones.  They are free summons. Lots of them. I would also go with a single class monk maybe xoti or your own higher. Monks are brutal at high level. Nothing beats a monk for group fights - really!

You can get this weapon at Port maje and I used it the entire game. Keep upgrading it to legendary asap and you won't be disappointed

https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Essence_Interrupter

[WinterWind]

I always play with a beguiler cipher/paladin for support and crowd control. A beguiler is the best crowd control in the game in my opinion. Because a beguiler recovers focus on hits for deception spells you will have more focus then you know what to do with. Just choose a bunch of deception spells especially those with AOE or jumps and you will  be spamming crowd control and brilliant the whole game. Select high arcane and use scripts for the beguiler too when you want to do damage.

[Shai Hulud]

I probably don't count as a veteran, though I've logged a lot of hours in the past year.

dgray62 answered your questions well, I'd take mostly same berath blessings, I'd prioritize Bonus Attributes -> Mythical Discovery -> Bonus Skills -> Unique Item Vendor -> Infamous Past -> Discount Craftsman -> Loaded Pockets -> 5k -> 50k -> whatever

Possibly I could elaborate on ranged builds if you're more specific what you're looking for, like pure DPS, mixed range / caster, etc., also are you playing with a full party? Because Maia has a ridiculously good ranged subclass in gunhawk.

I also use the balance polishing mod most of the time. The single class ranger is quite good in the mod, significantly better than in vanilla. I would seriously consider playing that as well, but arcane archer / ascendant sounds fun

Noqn has made a lot of nice minor mods like "no forced rests" "carnage indicator" "binary opposed dispositions" 

I sometimes use deadly deadfire mod but that's kind of masochistic even for me

[elbe]

Are you people seriously denying Eder a pet??  That Blessing is mandatory!

[Boeroer]

I only use the Community Patch (with two or three minor adjustments) and the Enhanced UI mod. 

But I try to recommend stuff based on the vanilla game as a baseline. 

My favorite ranged character is an Arcane Archer/Troubadour with an Arbalest (Spearcaster). It is the most overall useful ranged character I had in any full party run by far (excluding mortar monk - but I consider that to be more of a hybrid build and not really ranged) because it can do so many things very well. But it doesn't use a bow obviously.

From a DPS perspective the best bows are hunting bows (both Essence Interrupter and Amiina's Legacy are great) and Frostseeker with a more specialized build. Arcane Archer/Ascendant is very strong with Frostseeker because the Accuracy is the highest in the game. It's great even if you just keep shooting and never spend focus for spells other than self buffs (because Ascendant's Soul Whip doesn't turn off when focus is full but instead gives extra dmg).

For the early game a Berserker/Streetfighter with Essence Interrupter  (or later Amiina's Legacy) and the hunting bow modal is ridiculously fast (if you get bloodied from Berserker Frenzy that will trigger the Streetfighter passive). Frenzy, Bloodlust, bow modal and "Heating Up" will all stack and let you shoot incredibly fast, with very high dmg bonuses but not too good accuracy. But this is redeemed a bit with the +5 acc the hunting bows have naturally and the conversions the Barb and Streetfighter abilities can offer. Also stuff like Gauntlets of Greater Reliability do help and of course taking a human (being bloodied gives extra acc and dmg). This build can help a LOT with the erlarly struggles of Gorecci Str. and the digsite and will just gatlin-gun down most enemies. Even if you miss several shots: they do come in to fast and then with such high dmg per hit (Sneak Attack + Streetfighter Sneak Attack Bonus + Blooded + Fighting Spirit) that even higher level enemies get overwhelmed quickly. It is risky though because you will have to deal with the steeply scaling self damage of the Berserker which is used to get to the bloodied state quickly. You don't want to get attacked too much - unless you invest in higher CON, but that significantly prolongs the time it takes to become bloodied and profit from the Streetfighter passive. 

For the patient player there is the kind of counterintuitive way to play a single class wizard - maybe even Conjurer - who uses a hunting bow like Essence Interrupter first and uses his Phantom to help with the ranged DPS (also Phantom's crits also cause enemies to turn into summons after death) and later switches to Caedebald's Blackbow. Wizard + Phantom, optimized with items for bow use (Ring of the Marksman and so on) are devastating on the battlefield when they use the Blackbow. Its projectiles jump once up to 12m in all direction and target fortitude instead of deflection, the dmg is corrosion (Spirit of Decay does +1 PEN) and it causes terrify on every hit. This also makes the Helm of the White Void an excellent choice for headgear because every shot of the bow contains an affliction which means every shot from the Blackbow gets +10 ACC. That way the Wizard can achieve very high ACC (also see Citzals Martial Power) and the Phantom isn't far behind. A party member with a Morning Star and some fortitude debuffs (CON and/or MIG afflictions) dies also help a lot. Besides that the Wizard can cause those debuffs with spells, too (see Ryngrim's spells for example). I find this to be fun and worthwhile the wait, but of course in the beginning it's not really an optimized build for bow use. Feels rewarding later though, so maybe it's interesting. 

 

[Boeroer]

Oh, I forgot: Frostseeker's AoE that procs on crit is a melee attack (weird, but it's like that). Because of that a Mage Slayer can use that bow to apply the spell disruption via bow.

A Mage Slayer/Ranger (like Sharpshooter or Ghost Heart or so) can be built into a high ACC "caster sniper" who not only does good DPS but also shuts down enemy casters reliably from a safe distance and without the need of moving towards the targets.

Mage Slayer/Cipher can do similar things with a bit less accuracy and without Driving Flight of course - but it can combine frighten (see Secret Horrors for example) and the spell disruption to not only shut down casters but also the other offensive abilities of most enemies. Also Mind Control which is always very powerful. 

Mage Slayer/Troubadour can do similar things but has to get a bit closer and has less accuracy. But summons, high versatility and more attack speed make up for that. 

It's a little trick that makes the Mage Slayer worth taking. It's something different and therefore maybe more exciting that a more traditional bow build, no idea. I found it interesting. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Oh, I forgot: Frostseeker's AoE that procs on crit is a melee attack (weird, but it's like that).

Then it should work also with Hylea's Talons, Boltcatchers, The Left Hand of the Obscured...

[Dalinoth]

Thank you to everyone for the help. Have a nice weekend...

[Boeroer]

5 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Then it should work also with Hylea's Talons, Boltcatchers, The Left Hand of the Obscured...

IIRC it's not flagged as an melee weapon attack but like a melee spell attack (similar to vanilla Forbidden Fist attack or Inner Death) so a lot of those items do not work with it. And iirc futher the Mage Slayer's spell disruption works if it's just tagged as melee (and doesn't need the weapon part) - but I may misremember. I will look it up again and then follow up.

Edit/follow-up:
I misremembered. But the outcome is almost the same.
So the on-crit attack from Frostseeker is a melee weapon attack. But it's not the damaging AoE itself. This intermediary melee attack is triggered by a crit of Frostseeker's projectiles and it then triggers the AoE (don't ask me why it's implemented with that step in between, I have no idea).
This melee attack is an auto-hit, so no separate hit roll that can crit. That is the reason why on-crit stuff like Boltcatchers, Swift Flurry etc. won't work. 

Mage Slayer's spell disruption works because it works on any hit quality (not misses of couzrse). And Hylea's Talons work, too. Anything that works on melee weapon hit should. No fancy accessory comes to my mind besides Hylea's Talons atm but maybe there is something.  

Edited April 21, 2023 by Boeroer

[Shai Hulud]

I forgot, regarding the berath's blessing probably the best blessing for a party, maybe even before "bonus attributes" is ..."can i pet him anyway"? 

This lets you have TWO pets and pets can provide enormous bonuses for the party, some combinations are crazy good. 

Like blinky + nikki = +8 accuracy with melee weapons for party
boras + milx = +5 spell accuracy and 5% ability/spell hit to crit for party
retina + sky dragon wurm - +8 accuracy against distant enemies (applies to spells and ranged attacks), 3 deflection/reflex against distant enemies for party
nalvi + abraham - reduces armor recovery penalty for party, restores health on kill for party, character with abraham also gets armor recovery reduction (unsure if they stack though)

Some of the best pets are DLC or otherwise late (like nalvi and nikki) but there are good ones you can get early like harley, pes, sky dragon wurm, abraham, milx, and atlas

For a ranged MC the best pets will probably be retina, sky dragon wurm, harley, and atlas.

[Boeroer]

I also almost always use Edér's pet slot. There are a lot of nice combos in it. 

For example +20 healing on kill pets and +10 healing on kill (party wide) pets also do stack. I mean that's not really surprising since healing sources never suppress each other. So if you have a offensively strong glass cannon character this can be a nice form of "passive" healing without wasting any time or character resources. The healing scales with items and so on as usual. 

But I guess my primary Berath's Blessing is the combo of the Port Maje dealer + 50K.

On the other hand: I have maxed out Breath Blessing points long ago so it's hard to tell what I would pick first nowadays if those points where scarce. Maybe lvl 4 now that I think about it. I start a new run so often and it really helps to speed the early game up. It would be more like a convenience thing. As a player who only aims to play once or twice I 'd probably pick attribute points because they feel the most special. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Boeroer

[Shai Hulud]

16 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I also almost always use Edér's pet slot. There are a lot of nice combos in it. 

For example +20 healing on kill pets and +10 healing on kill (party wide) pets also do stack. I mean that's not really surprising since healing sources never suppress each other. So if you have a offensively strong glass cannon character this can be a nice form of "passive" healing without wasting any time or character resources. The healing scales with items and so on as usual. 

But I guess my primary Berath's Blessing is the combo of the Port Maje dealer + 50K.

On the other hand: I have maxed out Breath Blessing points long ago so it's hard to tell what I would pick first nowadays if those points where scarce. Maybe lvl 4 now that I think about it. I start a new run so often and it really helps to speed the early game up. It would be more like a convenience thing. As a player who only aims to play once or twice I 'd probably pick attribute points because they feel the most special. 

Do you know if Abraham + Nalvi stack? I'm guessing they do since recovery reduction usually stacks, but not sure. I don't have a party save handy with that blessing. 

I decided to make an arbitrary blessings ranking for the party on a budget

1) Bonus Attributes (player only) - +2 per attribute speaks for itself, at 15 cost expensive but worth it
2) ...Can I pet him anyway? The extra pet allows things like +3 accuracy/deflection/reflex vs distant enemies for the whole party, which for five characters (plus the extra boost for eder) is a lot, and probably better than Bonus Attributes by the time you get the really good pets. Costs 15 but worth it unless you hate Eder
3) Mythical Discovery - Allows you to get mythic weapons or armor (kind of wasted on a shield IMO) way earlier, which is really good, but expensive at 30, if you can't afford both this and numbers 4 5 6 maybe skip
4) Discount Craftsman - Money isn't too hard to come by but this will save you a lot more than 50k throughout the game, especially for an entire party, expensive at 15 but best "save money" choice IMO
5) Unique item vendor - More useful for a party than solo, very affordable at 5
6) +5000 starting money - At 3 points this is affordable and 5k makes enough of a difference early to want to have it
7) Loaded Pockets - Similar to 4, if you pickpocket a lot you can find some good non-unique items that you can keep or sell, helps gearing up early and also making money, kind of expensive at 12
8 ) Explored World Map - if you don't know the world map perfectly or have on certain challenges like eothas or ondra, or just want to know where the deck of many things is this is super useful, for a solo run I'd rank more like #3, sometimes worth buying at 12
9) Bonus Skills - A lot more useful solo but still good, and pretty cheap at 3 points
10) Infamous Past - Also more useful solo, kind of expensive at 8 but pretty decent
11) 50k starting money - Convenient but the other "save money" choices are better unless you want to splurge right away in Neketaka. At 15 points it is expensive and although per point cheaper than the 5k, I'd rank this much lower because 5k early is very useful, the extra 45k early is sort of useful and probably not worth the extra 12 points
12) Start at Level 4 - considering how quickly you'll reach level 4 this is kind of worthless, but some builds are really bad pre level 4 so it can save you some headache if you insist on fighting things in the sea cave. Expensive at 12 points. 
13) Fine Equipment - Very meh, can help you a tiny bit at the very beginning and can sell for like a thousand, but costs 5 points so much worse than the 5k
14) Legendary Crew - Kind of useless unless you're doing an eothas run, in which case it is amazing for the instant access to a legendary navigator, also if you want to crew up a galleon or junk it is useful mostly for the extra legendary cannoneer (there are only 3 others you can train up to legendary), also only way to get a legendary surgeon but who cares. Costs way too much at 12
15) Upgraded Ship Sails - Sort of useful on eothas run, but better to buy palm sails in neketaka, costs too much at 8
16) Experienced Ship Captain - It takes like one or two ship combats to get to expert and it doesn't do that much anyway, 4 points

[elbe]

The most valuable Berath Blessings to me are the ones that give bonuses that can't be obtained in the game otherwise (Bonus Attributes, Bonus Skills, Can I Pet Him Anyway?, Unique Item Vendor (in terms of getting extra uniques)) or that are a real pain to obtain normally (e.g Infamous Past).

The exceptions to this rule where I tend to skip the blessing are Legendary Crew (not that hard to level up regular sailors to rank 4 and prefer to just keep each sailor on a single role) and Mythical Discovery (I find it too expensive point wise).

A lot of the other blessings like bonus gold, fine equipment, upgraded ship, start at level 4, are mostly for convenience in the early game.  I tend to pick these up if I have spare points left or if I just want to blitz through the early game as fast as possible.

On the topic of mods, one mod I recommend if you like AI scripting is the enhanced AI conditions mod, which adds a lot more AI conditions for things that would otherwise be hard to script (e.g. for buffs that don't provide an inspiration).

[Shai Hulud]

2 hours ago, elbe said:

The most valuable Berath Blessings to me are the ones that give bonuses that can't be obtained in the game otherwise (Bonus Attributes, Bonus Skills, Can I Pet Him Anyway?, Unique Item Vendor (in terms of getting extra uniques)) or that are a real pain to obtain normally (e.g Infamous Past).

The exceptions to this rule where I tend to skip the blessing are Legendary Crew (not that hard to level up regular sailors to rank 4 and prefer to just keep each sailor on a single role) and Mythical Discovery (I find it too expensive point wise).

A lot of the other blessings like bonus gold, fine equipment, upgraded ship, start at level 4, are mostly for convenience in the early game.  I tend to pick these up if I have spare points left or if I just want to blitz through the early game as fast as possible.

Agree in general, though mythical discovery is the only way to give everyone in your party a mythic weapon (or armor), it is eventually worth it IMO, unless you only have like 50ish points.

2 hours ago, elbe said:

On the topic of mods, one mod I recommend if you like AI scripting is the enhanced AI conditions mod, which adds a lot more AI conditions for things that would otherwise be hard to script (e.g. for buffs that don't provide an inspiration).

Oh my god how did I not know about this? I've been wanting to make something like this myself because (also more actions) but didn't really have the knowledge. Thank you!

 

[elbe]

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Agree in general, though mythical discovery is the only way to give everyone in your party a mythic weapon (or armor), it is eventually worth it IMO, unless you only have like 50ish points.

Oh my god how did I not know about this? I've been wanting to make something like this myself because (also more actions) but didn't really have the knowledge. Thank you!

 

Fair point about mythical discovery.  I usually just find I don't have a pressing need for THAT many mythical weapons by the end game, as I'd normally have a caster or two with a stat stick anyway.  For me I prefer the convenience of a faster early game.

The mod is great, I couldn't live without it.  If you enjoy running FF Monks you'll love the new Forbidden Curses Less Than X condition.  Can set it to use FF every time Curses are less than 1 which is a lot less fiddly then messing around with cooldown times.  Only issue is the AI only checks the condition at the time of queuing an action, so if it has queued a normal attack and the curse expires after the action has been queued the AI isn't smart enough to change the action to FF and will just follow through with a normal attack.  More of an issue with the AI system in general though rather than the mod.

 

 

 

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, elbe said:

Fair point about mythical discovery.  I usually just find I don't have a pressing need for THAT many mythical weapons by the end game, as I'd normally have a caster or two with a stat stick anyway.  For me I prefer the convenience of a faster early game.

The mod is great, I couldn't live without it.  If you enjoy running FF Monks you'll love the new Forbidden Curses Less Than X condition.  Can set it to use FF every time Curses are less than 1 which is a lot less fiddly then messing around with cooldown times.  Only issue is the AI only checks the condition at the time of queuing an action, so if it has queued a normal attack and the curse expires after the action has been queued the AI isn't smart enough to change the action to FF and will just follow through with a normal attack.  More of an issue with the AI system in general though rather than the mod.

 

 

 

Yeah FFs are such a pain to script in vanilla, have to get the int/dex/res exactly right, plus if you're wearing ring of the solitary wanderer you have to take into account whether you have any summons nearby, which negates the -35% hostile effect duration, etc. I've been scripting it to cast enlightened agony when not smart and use FF only if has intellect inspiration, which usually works, unless ring of the solitary wanderer gets messed up. 

Lately I've been working on a streetfighter / FF that is especially hard to script because of the heating up / looking for a fight differences in recovery time. I have her start intentionally building up the curse (but no more than 3) to get bloodied, then switch weapon sets from dual wielding to xoti's lantern, which slows recovery time and can be used to regain swift flurry (which I only use non-bloodied). When it works right it is amazing and does like +500% damage on crits and attacks very fast in heavy armor, but it has been so hard to get the scripting down, every time I think I have it down something happens and my character mysteriously builds up the curse and dies. I think there's some weird interaction with swift flurry or heartbeat drumming sometimes that can cause the curse to proc twice in one attack... otherwise I can't explalin why it's normally 1.5s long and I attack every 1.6s but still build up the curse sometimes (besides resolve afflictions and debuffs which I always look for)

Also just all the conditions like checking if a cipher has max focus is so useful for when to use soul annihilation, and a million other things checking for specific spells, or the improved targeting. My hierophant which had a really good 35ish block script considering vanilla would still cast psychovampiric shield over and over on destructibles like the obelisks in sigilmaster auranic's fight (since they had the lowest will), now you can check if a target is immune to something. Would also frequently cast psychovampiric shield on the same target, which doesn't work if they still have any duration left, so I made two psychovampiric shield blocks, one cast on lowest will, one on highest will. Lot of messy solutions like that.

So this is a fantastic mod, thanks again, though the most obvious thing to do wasn't done: add an "OR" condition in the conditionals. It's still just "AND" as far as I can tell. Also still no movement actions, and can't seem to script casting things on non-party summons (phantoms and dichotomous souls), but a vast improvement overall. I could completely automate a lot of builds now.

And yeah I hear you about the AI checking conditions at the wrong time, this is why sometimes it won't do like an FF attack if you don't have any wounds, even though it will cost 0 once the curse expires, at the moment it costs 1 and it already ran the check to see if you could cast it and decided you can't. I miss the scripting of Baldur's Gate, it was complicated, no nice interface (just pseudocode basically) but you could script absolutely everything. I tried replaying it recently and was kind of overwhelmed by my old scripts, also the general speed of the game is like 3 or 4 times as fast as Deadfire. Should play it again, I've put way too many hours into Deadfire.

[foxinspace]

On 4/21/2023 at 1:48 PM, Boeroer said:

My favorite ranged character is an Arcane Archer/Troubadour with an Arbalest (Spearcaster). It is the most overall useful ranged character I had in any full party run by far (excluding mortar monk - but I consider that to be more of a hybrid build and not really ranged) because it can do so many things very well. But it doesn't use a bow obviously.

Hi @Boeroer! I used your arcane archer/pally build with a spearcaster & dragon's dowry with a party on PotD and it had a very significant impact. I've been thinking about AA/chanter build as well, but even at the planning stage it does not quite sit well with me. Both chanter and AA have a lot of very useful passives (AA), invocations and chants (Chanter) and I am not sure how to focus the build to make it most useful to the team overall, as you intended. Sure-handed ila + myth fyr are good dps choices, I guess from invocations one could focus on summons (drakes and ancient weapons later on) + their champion to interrupt on imbued web, but I find drakes much less impactful later on in the game. On the ranger side, there are quite a few passives to pick up for the animal companion, plus the usual marksman/gunner(is it even needed with sure-handed ila?)/driving flight and so on. Would also be good to somehow squeeze in takedown > takedown combo too. Feels very ability-starved to be impactful, but that is just me planning ahead, so I am not sure how it would perform in later stages of the game.

Overall I am not sure I am seeing the clear role and contribution of this character - AA/pally felt much more impactful, at least in early/mid levels - accuracy can be stacked higher, and I think that overall dps with eternal devotion is better (despite fast reload & myth fyr on the chanter). Having energized is nice, but AA/pally can reliably interrupt single dangerous targets when it matters most anyway.
  
Could you please explain what works so well with this character that you consider it most useful overall for your team as a ranged build?

Edited April 28, 2023 by foxinspace

[thelee]

3 hours ago, foxinspace said:

but I find drakes much less impactful later on in the game

you can always respec later in the game. especially for chanter, i respect a lot as i level up because some of the lower-level summons don't scale well (like drakes as you mention)

have you considered later respeccing the chanter part to the party-buffing invocations? if you don't have a priest, the party-buffing ones can be very effective in boosting overall party capability. "the bride" (quick, insightful, upgradable to also grant smart) is better than "the brideman" (strong, steadfast, upgradable to +5 might/con/res and duration extension upon kill*), but either way both invocations i feel might be underrated.

 

* the usefulness of the upgrade depends on whether or not you have the mod that "fixes" it. in vanilla, it grants +5 to stats instead of the inspiration, so it can't counter debuffs. on the other hand, it does mean that debuffs won't dispel the buffs, just counteract them.

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, foxinspace said:

Hi @Boeroer! I used your arcane archer/pally build with a spearcaster & dragon's dowry with a party on PotD and it had a very significant impact. I've been thinking about AA/chanter build as well, but even at the planning stage it does not quite sit well with me. Both chanter and AA have a lot of very useful passives (AA), invocations and chants (Chanter) and I am not sure how to focus the build to make it most useful to the team overall, as you intended. Sure-handed ila + myth fyr are good dps choices, I guess from invocations one could focus on summons (drakes and ancient weapons later on) + their champion to interrupt on imbued web, but I find drakes much less impactful later on in the game. On the ranger side, there are quite a few passives to pick up for the animal companion, plus the usual marksman/gunner(is it even needed with sure-handed ila?)/driving flight and so on. Would also be good to somehow squeeze in takedown > takedown combo too. Feels very ability-starved to be impactful, but that is just me planning ahead, so I am not sure how it would perform in later stages of the game.

Overall I am not sure I am seeing the clear role and contribution of this character - AA/pally felt much more impactful, at least in early/mid levels - accuracy can be stacked higher, and I think that overall dps with eternal devotion is better (despite fast reload & myth fyr on the chanter). Having energized is nice, but AA/pally can reliably interrupt single dangerous targets when it matters most anyway.
  
Could you please explain what works so well with this character that you consider it most useful overall for your team as a ranged build?

I focused on interrupts and CC. My goal with this character is to shoot the arbalest + modal really fast. Sure-Handed Ila (2* -20% reloading time for reloading weapons) and Gunner do help of course - and so are item that reduce reloading/recovery time and buff action speed (Acina's Tricorn and whatnot). Since Spearcaster with high Arcana (goal to max it with Arcane Archer anyway) has incredible accuracy you can interrupt-prone everything with your shot. For example I managed to prone-lock Neriscyrlas for the whole fight: she had no chance. 
Myth Fir is good. But against bosses I value stuff like "Stumbling over words" more because it removes all concentration which can be crucial when trying to interrupt a lot.

Invocation-wise I liked Killers Froze Stiff and Ben Fidel's Neck best. Both have a pretty big cone - so you don't have to be so near to the action as with other, shorter cones. Later I also use the Champion invocatiuon a lot because as you said: you can interrupt via Binding Web or other imbue shots but also with yout chants (see Stumbling over words - it can crit and thus interrupt it self while energized). 

I didn't actually use a lot of summons because I was so busy shooting all the time and use Killers/Ben Fidel. Also the animal companion got a bit neglected - because I don't want it to run into my imbue areas I mostly used it as a bodyguard who could intercept enemy rushers. I think it only had resilent companion and Stalker's Link. I like Takedown Combo - but with this char I didn't bother because the AC was only used in emergencies as I said. 

That freed up more abilities. 

Also since I used the arbalest modal I didn't use stuff like Concussive Tranquilizer a lot. I first took it but later retrained becaue I realized I almost never used it (because arbalest + modal is sufficient and doesn't cost anything). So nearly all my Bond could be used for Imbue:Pull of Eora and Binding Web. Other abilities from the Ranger side: Marksman, Gunner, Driving Flight(!) and so on.  

[foxinspace]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

have you considered later respeccing the chanter part to the party-buffing invocations? if you don't have a priest, the party-buffing ones can be very effective in boosting overall party capability. "the bride" (quick, insightful, upgradable to also grant smart) is better than "the brideman" (strong, steadfast, upgradable to +5 might/con/res and duration extension upon kill*), but either way both invocations i feel might be underrated.

Thanks, @thelee - I usually don't like to respec, but the buffing invocations actually sound much better than the summon for my current party. I usually take dmg invocations and affliction removal phrases + thick grew their tongues... for my chanter, maybe I'll shift some points to phrases as well. Good to have some songs for affliction removal just in case.

Edited April 28, 2023 by foxinspace

[foxinspace]

38 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I didn't actually use a lot of summons because I was so busy shooting all the time and use Killers/Ben Fidel. Also the animal companion got a bit neglected - because I don't want it to run into my imbue areas I mostly used it as a bodyguard who could intercept enemy rushers. I think it only had resilent companion and Stalker's Link. I like Takedown Combo - but with this char I didn't bother because the AC was only used in emergencies as I said. 

That freed up more abilities. 

Also since I used the arbalest modal I didn't use stuff like Concussive Tranquilizer a lot. I first took it but later retrained becaue I realized I almost never used it (because arbalest + modal is sufficient and doesn't cost anything). So nearly all my Bond could be used for Imbue:Pull of Eora and Binding Web. Other abilities from the Ranger side: Marksman, Gunner, Driving Flight(!) and so on.  

Thank you, @Boeroer - now I understand what your plan was with this char. Reallocating the AC to bodyguard duty actually frees up a whole bunch of ability points, that's great!

[Shai Hulud]

8 hours ago, thelee said:

you can always respec later in the game. especially for chanter, i respect a lot as i level up because some of the lower-level summons don't scale well (like drakes as you mention)

have you considered later respeccing the chanter part to the party-buffing invocations? if you don't have a priest, the party-buffing ones can be very effective in boosting overall party capability. "the bride" (quick, insightful, upgradable to also grant smart) is better than "the brideman" (strong, steadfast, upgradable to +5 might/con/res and duration extension upon kill*), but either way both invocations i feel might be underrated.

 

* the usefulness of the upgrade depends on whether or not you have the mod that "fixes" it. in vanilla, it grants +5 to stats instead of the inspiration, so it can't counter debuffs. on the other hand, it does mean that debuffs won't dispel the buffs, just counteract them.

Also means you can stack might/con/res inspirations with each kill fed his fury, which can lead to some stupid high stats on chanter / x builds. Was playing a chanter / wizard in vanilla with least unstable coil and most of my stats were 30+ which was fun. Think I preferred the untyped stat bonuses personally. 

[Boeroer]

By the way: the chants that give resistance to whatever can be used to make your party quasi-immune against those afflictions if you use a Troubadour with Brisk Recitation. Every time the chant "hits" your party it will remove 1 tier of affliction that's on your party. So let's say your whole party is enfeebled and the chanter sings "One Dozen Stood" with Brisk Recitation. He will then reduce the enfeeblement to weakened, then after 3 secs that will get reduced to sickened and 3 secs later reduction to nothing. So I like to have those three resistance chants up my sleeve. Not if ability points become scarce, but if there's room I will consider them. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Boeroer