Advice on a Hierophant build

[Lunateric]

Hey guys, 

 

Played this game a few years ago and liked it a ton, back then it was a forbidden fist single class monk that managed to do all content on veteran difficulty without much issue.

I'm looking to play a caster centered build and I'm toying with the idea of an ascendant/blood mage that does ranged weapons to reach ascended state and chain cast vampiric shield, secret horrors, mind minding and the better shred spells to massively debuff foes while being able to stack damage on bosses or high priority targets. Considering Pull of Eora, expose defenses and miasma as good wizard spells.

I'm not too sure on what weapons to use though, and also not certain on what grimoire would benefit me the most. I am wondering if St. Omaku's Mercy recovery on crit helps with spell casting and what other good sustained DPS options are there for range that would allow me to pummel things from a distance. Not really interested in dual mortars because honestly they get boring pretty fast and I mostly want to chain together a lot of casting with brief moments of gaining back focus to ascend again for the longer fights.

 

 

[hansvedic]

While this option would require getting into melee range, you may want to consider Magistrate's Cudgel (soulbound to cipher, if you want) for the universal +10 accuracy boost on top of Borrowed Instinct for +30 accuracy for your spells. You have to be wielding it to keep the bonus from its Judge enchantment, though.

EDIT: See the following topic for more information: 

While Magistrate's Cudgel isn't in the first post, it is mentioned later on.

Edited May 8, 2023 by hansvedic

[Lunateric]

Haven't consideres going melee, if I were to go melee I'd probably want to go soul blade instead I think, which isn't exactly what I'm wanting to do for this particular build unless it's much more effective heh

[Shai Hulud]

My knowledge is more specialized for blood mage / soul blade but I've played blood mage / ascendant some.

Use kalakoth's minor blights if you're ranged, at least for fights that aren't 1 on 1. You can build a lot of focus fast. Not as fast as with the lance, but then nothing does. Can also use a morningstar if you need to land disintegrate on a boss or something. Frostseeker is okay also.

Take wall of draining at L19. You can extend the ascended effect indefinitely. Basically you stack debuffs with wizard and cipher spells, while keeping your accuracy high with borrowed instinct, and disintegrate things once they're debuffed and you're ascended. 

Cipher spells you want - psychovampiric shield, secret horrors, phantom foes, mental binding, borrowed instinct, ringleader, soul ignition, disintegrate, if you're in a party also take pain block, echoing shield, ancestor's memory. Take draining whip, iron will, empty soul, echoing horror, lingering echoes.

Jernaugh's Careful Calamities is probably the best grimoire for a caster hierophant. It has miasma of dull-mindedness, kalakoth's minor blights, wall of draining, and the unique spell jernaugh's equalizing burst which is an amazing huge AOE debuff. Also has combusting wounds. After casting a bunch of debuffs you can switch to whatever, e.g. ironclasped or ninagauth if you want some damage spells, though I'd be using wizard side mostly for blights, buffs and debuffs and using ascendant side for debuffs, CC, and damage. Just memorize Pull of Eora, it isn't in any good grimoires unfortunately but it is a very useful spell to group enemies so you hit as many as possible with blights (or lance), which helps you build focus really fast. When enemies are grouped you should be able to max focus in 1 to 2 attacks. 

Edited May 8, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

15 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

My knowledge is more specialized for blood mage / soul blade but I've played blood mage / ascendant some.

Use kalakoth's minor blights if you're ranged, at least for fights that aren't 1 on 1. You can build a lot of focus fast. Not as fast as with the lance, but then nothing does. Can also use a morningstar if you need to land disintegrate on a boss or something. Frostseeker is okay also.

Take wall of draining at L19. You can extend the ascended effect indefinitely. Basically you stack debuffs with wizard and cipher spells, while keeping your accuracy high with borrowed instinct, and disintegrate things once they're debuffed and you're ascended. 

Cipher spells you want - psychovampiric shield, secret horrors, phantom foes, mental binding, borrowed instinct, ringleader, soul ignition, disintegrate, if you're in a party also take pain block, echoing shield, ancestor's memory. Take draining whip, iron will, empty soul, echoing horror, lingering echoes.

Jernaugh's Careful Calamities is probably the best grimoire for a caster hierophant. It has miasma of dull-mindedness, kalakoth's minor blights, wall of draining, and the unique spell jernaugh's equalizing burst which is an amazing huge AOE debuff. Also has combusting wounds. After casting a bunch of debuffs you can switch to whatever, e.g. ironclasped or ninagauth if you want some damage spells, though I'd be using wizard side mostly for blights, buffs and debuffs and using ascendant side for debuffs, CC, and damage. Just memorize Pull of Eora, it isn't in any good grimoires unfortunately but it is a very useful spell to group enemies so you hit as many as possible with blights (or lance), which helps you build focus really fast. When enemies are grouped you should be able to max focus in 1 to 2 attacks. 

Would you recommend any other ranged weapons outside frostseeker?, It seems like an amazing bow for AoE but not sure it's that good versus single target. I am also looking at grimoire stealing escape and nature's balm to compliment the build as a whole though not interested in cheesing all the way with strand of favor (just saw your awesome soul blade/blood mage build)

Btw, did you ever try stalker's patience on it?, Phantom foes > flanked enemies > stalker's patience gets bonus damage (does it apply to everything or just the weapon?)

Thanks for the advice 

[Shai Hulud]

55 minutes ago, Lunateric said:

Would you recommend any other ranged weapons outside frostseeker?, It seems like an amazing bow for AoE but not sure it's that good versus single target. I am also looking at grimoire stealing escape and nature's balm to compliment the build as a whole though not interested in cheesing all the way with strand of favor (just saw your awesome soul blade/blood mage build)

Btw, did you ever try stalker's patience on it?, Phantom foes > flanked enemies > stalker's patience gets bonus damage (does it apply to everything or just the weapon?)

Thanks for the advice 

Beina has escape. Some random other skaenites like a couple multiclassed priests in Temple of Tangaloa ruins. Lot of druids have nature's balm but a convenient spot to steal it is from biakara, who sails around hasongo. Biakara is a watershaper and has a party-friendly chill fog which is also very nice. She is nearby to beina, so right before/after hasongo is a good time to steal spells. 

Frostseeker isn't too bad single target, at least if you crit a lot. I'm getting about 120 focus a shot at L20. I was going to suggest Essence Interrupter but I am only getting like 70ish focus from it single target. I'm testing L20 char vs rotghasts though, Essence Interrupter does have the hunting bow modal and does pierce/shock so it can be really good DPS. With the modal it fires way faster than Frostseeker. Also leaves friendly allies (aka cannon fodder) so I like the bow even if it isn't the highest damage. With The Red Hand I get about 110 focus per shot (x2), but it has to reload. 

Really nothing comes close to Frostseeker or Blights for ranged...one cool thing about blights also is you can dual-wield them if you want (blight + wand/scepter/pistol), or one-hand for extra accuracy. If you aren't getting good focus from Frostseeker you may not have enough penetration. You have to crit for the frost/slash AOE, and its penetration isn't great so you want the weapon enchanted as highly as possible for maximum benefit. 

I am fond of stalker's patience but not for this build. It does very good single target damage and with high accuracy has good probability of hitting multiple times in a row with mercy strike. Ambushing gives some bonus damage but mercy strike is the main draw. Still, compared to citzal's spirit lance it just doesn't come close especially for a soul blade since the lance not only *collects* focus from everyone it hits, it also *distributes* soul annihilation to everyone it hits. And the base damage is quite high being a two-handed weapon, also same damage type as stalker's patience. For situations against pierce immune things concelhaut's parasitic quarterstaff is actually decent, but keep in mind I didn't try a ton of weapons because in an ultimate run abydon's challenge causes weapons to break pretty quickly and it's rarely worth worrying about them.

The ambushing bonus just applies to stalker's patience as far as I know.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

14 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Beina has escape. Some random other skaenites like a couple multiclassed priests in Temple of Tangaloa ruins. Lot of druids have nature's balm but a convenient spot to steal it is from biakara, who sails around hasongo. Biakara is a watershaper and has a party-friendly chill fog which is also very nice. She is nearby to beina, so right before/after hasongo is a good time to steal spells. 

Frostseeker isn't too bad single target, at least if you crit a lot. I'm getting about 120 focus a shot at L20. I was going to suggest Essence Interrupter but I am only getting like 70ish focus from it single target. I'm testing L20 char vs rotghasts though, Essence Interrupter does have the hunting bow modal and does pierce/shock so it can be really good DPS. With the modal it fires way faster than Frostseeker. Also leaves friendly allies (aka cannon fodder) so I like the bow even if it isn't the highest damage. With The Red Hand I get about 110 focus per shot (x2), but it has to reload. 

Really nothing comes close to Frostseeker or Blights for ranged...one cool thing about blights also is you can dual-wield them if you want (blight + wand/scepter/pistol), or one-hand for extra accuracy. If you aren't getting good focus from Frostseeker you may not have enough penetration. You have to crit for the frost/slash AOE, and its penetration isn't great so you want the weapon enchanted as highly as possible for maximum benefit. 

I am fond of stalker's patience but not for this build. It does very good single target damage and with high accuracy has good probability of hitting multiple times in a row with mercy strike. Ambushing gives some bonus damage but mercy strike is the main draw. Still, compared to citzal's spirit lance it just doesn't come close especially for a soul blade since the lance not only *collects* focus from everyone it hits, it also *distributes* soul annihilation to everyone it hits. And the base damage is quite high being a two-handed weapon, also same damage type as stalker's patience. For situations against pierce immune things concelhaut's parasitic quarterstaff is actually decent, but keep in mind I didn't try a ton of weapons because in an ultimate run abydon's challenge causes weapons to break pretty quickly and it's rarely worth worrying about them.

The ambushing bonus just applies to stalker's patience as far as I know.

Wanted to give you an update since you gave me tons of solid advice. I have been trying summoned weapons more and noticed a nice interaction with Concelhaut's Draining Touch and grimoire swapping that lets you keep it if you swap out of the grimoire you used to cast it. It was probably known already but I found it super useful, the creepy hand is pretty good.

The best thing about it is it targets will and I can absolutely nuke will with club modal, psychovampiric shield, borrowed instincts and miasma. It may be my favorite single target weapon in the game right now. Does it benefit from spirit of decay?, if it does then that's even nicer.

For encounters with a lot of enemies I use the spirit lance and I can easily fill my focus in a quick moment, not sure I want to cheese yet with strand of favor focus stacking but it's still early in the game for me I think.

What level do you recommend I tackle the SSS DLC with this build?

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, Lunateric said:

Wanted to give you an update since you gave me tons of solid advice. I have been trying summoned weapons more and noticed a nice interaction with Concelhaut's Draining Touch and grimoire swapping that lets you keep it if you swap out of the grimoire you used to cast it. It was probably known already but I found it super useful, the creepy hand is pretty good.

The best thing about it is it targets will and I can absolutely nuke will with club modal, psychovampiric shield, borrowed instincts and miasma. It may be my favorite single target weapon in the game right now. Does it benefit from spirit of decay?, if it does then that's even nicer.

For encounters with a lot of enemies I use the spirit lance and I can easily fill my focus in a quick moment, not sure I want to cheese yet with strand of favor focus stacking but it's still early in the game for me I think.

What level do you recommend I tackle the SSS DLC with this build?

Yeah the draining touch trick is good. Draining touch hand is probably the most damaging single target attack, besides maybe forbidden fist (unsure would have to check). It is better than the quarterstaff but I still prefer the lance for situations with more than two enemies. Also draining touch isn't scriptable with grimoire switches which for me is annoying. Spirit of decay should apply and I'm pretty sure it does with the community patch but I need to recheck that. I recall there being at least a couple wizard spells where the PEN talents didn't apply.

You don't have to stack focus with strand of favor and personally I probably wouldn't have if I weren't doing an ultimate run. Although it is pretty satisfying to rip through groups of high level enemies in like 5 seconds. Also wall of draining will stack focus during encounters and if you do encounters close to each other and keep up the wall focus can get pretty high in some situations like SSS arena. 

Unless I need specific DLC items I usually do something like hasongo -> crookspur -> sayuka -> Fampyrs -> nemnok -> belranga -> concelhaut -> ashen maw -> remaining neketaka quests -> dunnage + deadlight (scordeos edge) -> SSS -> HOW -> Doru -> FS -> BW -> auranic -> endgame

This is planned mostly for efficient pathing which may not be relevant.

Blood mage hierophant doesn't need any specific items really. I mean the shroud can make things easier but isn't needed since you have wizard and cipher resource regen already. So really whenever you feel like it. I usually hit l20 before ashen maw but I believe SSS was meant for like level 16+ so you can rush ashen maw and do the DLCs after. The only relevant late spell you get is wall of draining so I guess I'd try to do the DLCs L19+, but you can do them whenever. Forgotten Sanctum is probably the hardest although you can sneak past a lot of the nastier fights if you want though a true soul devourer murders everything in sight

EDIT: There actually is one DLC item that (can) be relevant, if you're stacking good procs with SOF anyway, and that is the slayer's claw from SSS. I don't know if you're soloing or not, if not you likely have easy sources of might which slayer's claw can boost to energized and that plus the lance means you interrupt the hell out of everything not outright immune. If solo the easiest source of might is probably the dagger lover's embrace, which can give you frenzy, and you can proc stabbing a crew member or companion on the ship, though I prefer using Amra because there's no deflection penalty. Just kill a crew member or companion to proc it. Ideally kill a pet because they respawn and it's like 25% on kill I think. Ishiza or Pig Sticker Rukowa has a pet I think. Then you switch weapons a couple times and you have frenzy + energized, which can be extended, although you'll lose the energized inspiration sometimes unless you're immune from food or wearing effigy's husk.

Also grab the healing hands, I didn't do this in my ultimate run, didn't think to, but once you have wall of draining the wall + healing hands can give you a ton of health regen. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah the draining touch trick is good. Draining touch hand is probably the most damaging single target attack, besides maybe forbidden fist (unsure would have to check). It is better than the quarterstaff but I still prefer the lance for situations with more than two enemies. Also draining touch isn't scriptable with grimoire switches which for me is annoying. Spirit of decay should apply and I'm pretty sure it does with the community patch but I need to recheck that. I recall there being at least a couple wizard spells where the PEN talents didn't apply.

You don't have to stack focus with strand of favor and personally I probably wouldn't have if I weren't doing an ultimate run. Although it is pretty satisfying to rip through groups of high level enemies in like 5 seconds. Also wall of draining will stack focus during encounters and if you do encounters close to each other and keep up the wall focus can get pretty high in some situations like SSS arena. 

Unless I need specific DLC items I usually do something like hasongo -> crookspur -> sayuka -> Fampyrs -> nemnok -> belranga -> concelhaut -> ashen maw -> remaining neketaka quests -> dunnage + deadlight (scordeos edge) -> SSS -> HOW -> Doru -> FS -> BW -> auranic -> endgame

This is planned mostly for efficient pathing which may not be relevant.

Blood mage hierophant doesn't need any specific items really. I mean the shroud can make things easier but isn't needed since you have wizard and cipher resource regen already. So really whenever you feel like it. I usually hit l20 before ashen maw but I believe SSS was meant for like level 16+ so you can rush ashen maw and do the DLCs after. The only relevant late spell you get is wall of draining so I guess I'd try to do the DLCs L19+, but you can do them whenever. Forgotten Sanctum is probably the hardest although you can sneak past a lot of the nastier fights if you want though a true soul devourer murders everything in sight

EDIT: There actually is one DLC item that (can) be relevant, if you're stacking good procs with SOF anyway, and that is the slayer's claw from SSS. I don't know if you're soloing or not, if not you likely have easy sources of might which slayer's claw can boost to energized and that plus the lance means you interrupt the hell out of everything not outright immune. If solo the easiest source of might is probably the dagger lover's embrace, which can give you frenzy, and you can proc stabbing a crew member or companion on the ship, though I prefer using Amra because there's no deflection penalty. Just kill a crew member or companion to proc it. Ideally kill a pet because they respawn and it's like 25% on kill I think. Ishiza or Pig Sticker Rukowa has a pet I think. Then you switch weapons a couple times and you have frenzy + energized, which can be extended, although you'll lose the energized inspiration sometimes unless you're immune from food or wearing effigy's husk.

Also grab the healing hands, I didn't do this in my ultimate run, didn't think to, but once you have wall of draining the wall + healing hands can give you a ton of health regen. 

I will try and do things in the order you presented just to have a change of pace from my last run. I have been doing PotD so far but with a 3 person party (me as Hierophant, Tekehu as pure druid and Pallegina as chanter/paladin), they hate each other's guts but there is a lot of synergy with their kits and my own.

It is kinda annoying to be doing the grimoire swap I agree, not sure if it's possible since I have never seen someone doing it but would you mind sharing your hierophant script?, I wanna see what a proper setup can and can't do.

Also returning to one of your previous points, hunting bow modal Essence Interrupter is indeed quite fast and I suspect it's one of the highest DPS options for ranged at least in this setup, it's very satisfying to watch my character machine gun things and ascend the first few seconds of battle.

 

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Lunateric said:

I will try and do things in the order you presented just to have a change of pace from my last run. I have been doing PotD so far but with a 3 person party (me as Hierophant, Tekehu as pure druid and Pallegina as chanter/paladin), they hate each other's guts but there is a lot of synergy with their kits and my own.

It is kinda annoying to be doing the grimoire swap I agree, not sure if it's possible since I have never seen someone doing it but would you mind sharing your hierophant script?, I wanna see what a proper setup can and can't do.

Also returning to one of your previous points, hunting bow modal Essence Interrupter is indeed quite fast and I suspect it's one of the highest DPS options for ranged at least in this setup, it's very satisfying to watch my character machine gun things and ascend the first few seconds of battle.

 

Yeah Essence Interrupter with the modal is probably close to Frostseeker in DPS, also with soul diplomacy you get friends on death so Is like the bow. Most of the time I use summoned weapons because it's easier to script (and there are really good wizard summon weapons). Give Tekehu the least unstable coil and Effort with Hemoraging upgrade when you get the items, he ascends to god tier damage output by empowering avenging storm with effort equipped and then casting pulsing spells like venombloom and relentless storm.

It's pretty easy to share scripts actually just put the scripts here
C:\Users\<username>\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity II\CustomAIBehaviors

The second script (Hierophant Improved Mirror) is the one I used most of my Ultimate run. It doesn't use wall of draining but relies on having stolen lots of spells and procced stuff like opening barrage or blade cascade. Still, the bottom part may be instructive of how to use Escape at least, I got pretty good at scripting Escape to close distances rapidly.

The first script is better but more complicated and for it to really work correctly you need the shroud of the phantasm equipped, plus a potion of final stand or at least healing hands, and the outworn buckler with the courageous enchant if desired. And for the brilliant proc you need Minoletta's Minor Missiles memorized. Ideally you'd also have Scordeo's Edge equipped in Slot 1 with Outworn buckler. I think I negated those blocks though because soul blades have enough concentration stacks they don't really need courageous. Basically the script tries to proc brilliant and courageous (I negated the courageous blocks because usually not necessary), then once that happens attacks things with scordeo's edge until you proc blade cascade. Meanwhile it uses potion of final stand and healing hands so you don't die and throws up a wall of draining often enough to keep up buffs. There is no script conditional for blade cascade so what I do is when that procs I just summon a weapon, and once a weapon is summoned that block is skipped.

After summoning a weapon (which you can do manually to skip the deification part if you want), the script proceeds to cast a bunch of fast wizard buffs, then slower wizard buffs, then borrowed instinct, then wizard debuffs, then cipher debuffs, then uses soul annihilation every now and then and attacks things in groups. I labeled the blocks but still may be confusing. Also the cooldown times are designed around having zero recovery, so if you don't have scordeo's trophy or scordeo's edge just increase the cooldown times a lot on the various buffs/debuffs, and you may need to negate some of them (just check the always true box to negate a block). 

I don't have a script specifically for ascendant hierophants, but this one would work, it just doesn't recognize an "ascended" state because.... There is no conditional for the ascended state unfortunately so once ascended you would just toggle off the script, cast a wall of draining every now and then and use disintegrations or whatever. One could get around the "no ascended conditional" problem by using conditional of equipping a certain weapon set and then manually swapping weapon sets when ascended but it would be kind of janky. Maybe I'll see if that's doable at some point...another alternative is you make a second script where you machinegun cipher spells and cast wall of draining, then switch to that script when you reach ascended.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/5uwvkj80bvy3jnj/Hierophant+Deification+(Cipher+Wizard+Monk)+(439e2d6b-a0e3-4bbc-8049-235cb9344c4c).customai/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/uqp0lwmb5jxlxbe/Hierophant+Improved+Mirror+(Wizard+Cipher+Priest+Druid)+(2dc5cb58-e0f2-4e78-8030-e5f95a264145).customai/file

By the way you can only stack focus with soul blades, with ascendants it maxes at 275 (but becomes effectively infinite once ascended, you just can't release thousands of focus in soul annihilations). I'm unclear if you're doing a blood mage / soul blade or blood mage / ascendant. I think the latter, but you made reference to stacking focus so...unsure. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

41 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah Essence Interrupter with the modal is probably close to Frostseeker in DPS, also with soul diplomacy you get friends on death so Is like the bow. Most of the time I use summoned weapons because it's easier to script (and there are really good wizard summon weapons). Give Tekehu the least unstable coil and Effort with Hemoraging upgrade when you get the items, he ascends to god tier damage output by empowering avenging storm with effort equipped and then casting pulsing spells like venombloom and relentless storm.

It's pretty easy to share scripts actually just put the scripts here
C:\Users\<username>\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity II\CustomAIBehaviors

The second script (Hierophant Improved Mirror) is the one I used most of my Ultimate run. It doesn't use wall of draining but relies on having stolen lots of spells and procced stuff like opening barrage or blade cascade. Still, the bottom part may be instructive of how to use Escape at least, I got pretty good at scripting Escape to close distances rapidly.

The first script is better but more complicated and for it to really work correctly you need the shroud of the phantasm equipped, plus a potion of final stand or at least healing hands, and the outworn buckler with the courageous enchant if desired. And for the brilliant proc you need Minoletta's Minor Missiles memorized. Ideally you'd also have Scordeo's Edge equipped in Slot 1 with Outworn buckler. I think I negated those blocks though because soul blades have enough concentration stacks they don't really need courageous. Basically the script tries to proc brilliant and courageous (I negated the courageous blocks because usually not necessary), then once that happens attacks things with scordeo's edge until you proc blade cascade. Meanwhile it uses potion of final stand and healing hands so you don't die and throws up a wall of draining often enough to keep up buffs. There is no script conditional for blade cascade so what I do is when that procs I just summon a weapon, and once a weapon is summoned that block is skipped.

After summoning a weapon (which you can do manually to skip the deification part if you want), the script proceeds to cast a bunch of fast wizard buffs, then slower wizard buffs, then borrowed instinct, then wizard debuffs, then cipher debuffs, then uses soul annihilation every now and then and attacks things in groups. I labeled the blocks but still may be confusing. Also the cooldown times are designed around having zero recovery, so if you don't have scordeo's trophy or scordeo's edge just increase the cooldown times a lot on the various buffs/debuffs, and you may need to negate some of them (just check the always true box to negate a block). 

I don't have a script specifically for ascendant hierophants, but this one would work, it just doesn't recognize an "ascended" state because.... There is no conditional for the ascended state unfortunately so once ascended you would just toggle off the script, cast a wall of draining every now and then and use disintegrations or whatever. One could get around the "no ascended conditional" problem by using conditional of equipping a certain weapon set and then manually swapping weapon sets when ascended but it would be kind of janky. Maybe I'll see if that's doable at some point...another alternative is you make a second script where you machinegun cipher spells and cast wall of draining, then switch to that script when you reach ascended.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/5uwvkj80bvy3jnj/Hierophant+Deification+(Cipher+Wizard+Monk)+(439e2d6b-a0e3-4bbc-8049-235cb9344c4c).customai/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/uqp0lwmb5jxlxbe/Hierophant+Improved+Mirror+(Wizard+Cipher+Priest+Druid)+(2dc5cb58-e0f2-4e78-8030-e5f95a264145).customai/file

By the way you can only stack focus with soul blades, with ascendants it maxes at 275 (but becomes effectively infinite once ascended, you just can't release thousands of focus in soul annihilations). I'm unclear if you're doing a blood mage / soul blade or blood mage / ascendant. I think the latter, but you made reference to stacking focus so...unsure. 

Just to get it out of the way, I am playing an ascendant/blood mage, I just happened to mention soulblade because I saw your build and really liked it, but that was after actually making my original post, whoops. I don't mind turning on a particular ascendant script once I ascend since I like to play my fights hands on, I have mostly issues with menial things like: buffing (there are a lot of buffs to cast and I am sure as hell not wanting to do it manually) and also getting my summoned weapon out, I also think it would be interesting to script blood sacrifice since I am mostly playing like a backliner with heavy debuffs and some DPS, avoiding most if not all damage (got escape handy too). Waiting on a few more levels to unlock Freezing Pillar and Desintegration to actually start ramping up self DPS.

So all in all I have a very barebones script that casts Infuse with Vital Essence and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and that's about it!

Now that I think about it, I understand Kalakoth's Minor Blights are great DPS too from what you have written so far, and could be dual wielded with a pistol, for example, did you ever try them with Scordeo's Trophy?, with the stacking recovery bonus it sounds like it could be an amazing sustained damage combo.

For even more context, I am also playing with the Community Patch and I am thinking on downloading the Balance Polishing Mod just to smooth things out and maybe give an honest chance to Tenous Grasp (already have it but rarely use it) and Soul Ignition.

Just to reiterate, Hierophant is an incredibly versatile multiclass, my only grip is not knowing more about the game to automate certain behaviors and interactions that detract from actually playing the game and not playing buff simulator. I think I could toy with focus conditionals to do ascended state just fine now that I think about it, can't wait to get home.

Thank you for sharing your scripts!

 

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Lunateric

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Lunateric said:

Just to get it out of the way, I am playing an ascendant/blood mage, I just happened to mention soulblade because I saw your build and really liked it, but that was after actually making my original post, whoops. I don't mind turning on a particular ascendant script once I ascend since I like to play my fights hands on, I have mostly issues with menial things like: buffing (there are a lot of buffs to cast and I am sure as hell not wanting to do it manually) and also getting my summoned weapon out, I also think it would be interesting to script blood sacrifice since I am mostly playing like a backliner with heavy debuffs and some DPS, avoiding most if not all damage (got escape handy too). Waiting on a few more levels to unlock Freezing Pillar and Desintegration to actually start ramping up self DPS.

So all in all I have a very barebones script that casts Infuse with Vital Essence and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and that's about it!

Now that I think about it, I understand Kalakoth's Minor Blights are great DPS too from what you have written so far, and could be dual wielded with a pistol, for example, did you ever try them with Scordeo's Trophy?, with the stacking recovery bonus it sounds like it could be an amazing sustained damage combo.

For even more context, I am also playing with the Community Patch and I am thinking on downloading the Balance Polishing Mod just to smooth things out and maybe give an honest chance to Tenous Grasp (already have it but rarely use it) and Soul Ignition.

Just to reiterate, Hierophant is an incredibly versatile multiclass, my only grip is not knowing more about the game to automate certain behaviors and interactions that detract from actually playing the game and not playing buff simulator. I think I could toy with focus conditionals to do ascended state just fine now that I think about it, can't wait to get home.

Thank you for sharing your scripts!

 

 

If you're willing to mod which I take it you are then there's an excellent mod called "more AI conditions" which among other things allows you to check if focus is at maximum. When an ascendant is ascended the focus is at maximum so your ascended blocks would just look like

Conditional1: Class specific: cipher - Focus is at maximum, Condtional 2: Status Target: Has Damage Over Time Effect (not), Action: Disintegration on Enemy with Lowest Fortitude

Then you could clone that block for soul ignition on enemy with lowest will (with bpm). There are many many useful conditionals like you can check if borrowed instinct is on someone (or you), whether an enemy has a specific debuff, etc. There isn't one to check if they're under disintegration but the above conditional will work because it checks if you're ascended, if so, it looks for enemies without a DOT, then fires disintegrations until everyone has a DOT.

Could hand out brilliant with 

Condtional1: Class specific: cipher - focus is at maximum, conditional 2: has inspiration: intellect (not), target type ally, ancestor's memory by nearest ally

Lot of possibilities open up with the ability to check if focus is at maximum (can't believe this isn't in the base game, you can only check if focus > 90). 

My scripts I linked don't use the advanced AI conditions (mostly because they can't be used in an ultimate run), but they'd be easy to modify with advanced conditionals, or add/subtract blocks

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/88

And yes the blights can be dual-wielded, opening barrage with scordeo's trophy would gain you a decent bit of action speed, although when you dual wield a pistol and something else you still have to reload the pistol so for DPS it would probably not be as good as dual-wielding a blight and a scepter or wand

Edited May 9, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

That mod is exactly what I was looking for, it's amazing. I just set up BPM so gonna toy with that first for sure.

Are there any interesting combinations of classes you'd recommend besides this considering modding?, I'm not interested in cheating but the balance mods most people have been using do feel refreshing.

[Shai Hulud]

39 minutes ago, Lunateric said:

That mod is exactly what I was looking for, it's amazing. I just set up BPM so gonna toy with that first for sure.

Are there any interesting combinations of classes you'd recommend besides this considering modding?, I'm not interested in cheating but the balance mods most people have been using do feel refreshing.

SC ranger is quite a bit better than in vanilla. Barbarians also. Carnage can crit which leads to energized being able to interrupt crowds. 

Most interesting builds I've played with BPM are Ranger / barbarian and barbarian / black jacket. Also a big fan of FF / soul blade though this only needs the community patch.

Rogues, chanters, and paladins are all improved as well (mainly single class). Priests nerfed. Monks slightly nerfed. Fighters overall about the same, unbending was nerfed but rapid recovery is better. Tacticians much harder to use. Ciphers are about the same. Druids about the same.

IMO wizards suck in BPM. Blood sacrifice was nerfed very hard and wall of draining nerfed as well so its only really useful if you can hit 4+ people which is not easy. I wouldn't recommend playing a hierophant with BPM. Or any wizard besides super tank wizards like arcane knights or sages, which while they still work from stacking tons if armor, are rather boring. You can remove individual nerfs (blood sacrifice and wall of draining mainly) from the override folder or just install the buffs and summon rebalancing. 

Blood mages are especially bad since they can't empower and empower is better with BPM. You can still imprint because that's hard-coded but stealing spells is incredibly tedious given blood sacrifice has a recovery and completely negates healing for 6s. In addition getting back minor grimoire imprint is 50% vs 100% in vanilla, and tier 7 spells are 33% vs 50% in vanilla.

One other thing, potions of enlightenment help make a lot of classes more playable particularly solo. Every 30s you can regain a resource for the duration of the fight. They're sort of expensive but not enough you wouldn't want to use them. 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

SC ranger is quite a bit better than in vanilla. Barbarians also. Carnage can crit which leads to energized being able to interrupt crowds. 

Most interesting builds I've played with BPM are Ranger / barbarian and barbarian / black jacket. Also a big fan of FF / soul blade though this only needs the community patch.

Rogues, chanters, and paladins are all improved as well (mainly single class). Priests nerfed. Monks slightly nerfed. Fighters overall about the same, unbending was nerfed but rapid recovery is better. Tacticians much harder to use. Ciphers are about the same. Druids about the same.

IMO wizards suck in BPM. Blood sacrifice was nerfed very hard and wall of draining nerfed as well so its only really useful if you can hit 4+ people which is not easy. I wouldn't recommend playing a hierophant with BPM. Or any wizard besides super tank wizards like arcane knights or sages, which while they still work from stacking tons if armor, are rather boring. You can remove individual nerfs (blood sacrifice and wall of draining mainly) from the override folder or just install the buffs and summon rebalancing. 

Blood mages are especially bad since they can't empower and empower is better with BPM. You can still imprint because that's hard-coded but stealing spells is incredibly tedious given blood sacrifice has a recovery and completely negates healing for 6s. In addition getting back minor grimoire imprint is 50% vs 100% in vanilla, and tier 7 spells are 33% vs 50% in vanilla.

One other thing, potions of enlightenment help make a lot of classes more playable particularly solo. Every 30s you can regain a resource for the duration of the fight. They're sort of expensive but not enough you wouldn't want to use them. 

I will give stalker a try (always liked Stalker's Patience bonuses and design), also deeply interested in how shape shift works with it since I feel like it does what it should have done since the very beginning, allow druids to shape shift more freely. I still think it should be akin to a modal but maybe that's too good. It makes a blood mage/lifegiver build significantly better I think and I wonder how it interacts with soulblade (do you gain focus while shifted?).

That'll come after Hierophant though, but I think cat form for example could be a very strong DPS contender to current top dogs.

[dgray62]

A cipher/druid gains focus from attacking while spirit shifted, since the claw attacks are considered weapon attacks. But a fury/soulblade wouldn't get concentration or increased max focus from attacks while shifted, since the storm blight's attacks are ranged.

[Lunateric]

On 5/9/2023 at 11:27 PM, dgray62 said:

A cipher/druid gains focus from attacking while spirit shifted, since the claw attacks are considered weapon attacks. But a fury/soulblade wouldn't get concentration or increased max focus from attacks while shifted, since the storm blight's attacks are ranged.

I learned the hard way that cipher spells aren't available while in animal form as a Shifter (makes perfect sense, don't know what I was thinking). So not really synergistic at least as a Shifter/Soul Blade but could have a really strong party support and healer with Lifegiver/Psion.

@Shai Hulud been playing with Hierophant (soul blade/blood mage) more and felt a power spike once I unlocked Spirit Lance, it feels quite strong right now. Still interested to make a good ranged DPS Ascendant/X. Been reading different posts here that recommend ranger (maybe Arcane Archer) and even Barbarian, so haven't decided yet. It will be my third and final build for this PotD fiesta: shifter/forbidden fist Ascetic, soul blade/blood mage Hierophant and ascendant/X.

[Shai Hulud]

2 hours ago, Lunateric said:

I learned the hard way that cipher spells aren't available while in animal form as a Shifter (makes perfect sense, don't know what I was thinking). So not really synergistic at least as a Shifter/Soul Blade but could have a really strong party support and healer with Lifegiver/Psion.

@Shai Hulud been playing with Hierophant (soul blade/blood mage) more and felt a power spike once I unlocked Spirit Lance, it feels quite strong right now. Still interested to make a good ranged DPS Ascendant/X. Been reading different posts here that recommend ranger (maybe Arcane Archer) and even Barbarian, so haven't decided yet. It will be my third and final build for this PotD fiesta: shifter/forbidden fist Ascetic, soul blade/blood mage Hierophant and ascendant/X.

Yeah huge power spike at L13, mostly due to the lance but also borrowed instinct gives +20 accuracy +20 all defenses, so you should be able to wreck crowds with the lance now and have better defenses. One hit is usually enough to fill focus, then soul annihilation, repeat. Next major power spike is L19 with wall of draining, at which point you become both a DPS monster and relatively invulnerable (or absolutely invulnerable if using potions of final stand, which can be scripted by the way to drink at any health level making them less risky). Though if you're playing with BPM the wall of draining spell won't be as useful. 

Arcane archer / ascendant is recommended a lot mostly since you get such huge accuracy bonuses especially with imbued ambition and high arcana. Imbue: Eora is particularly nice, but expensive at 3 bond. And ascendant keeps on the soul whip damage, which is stronger when ascended, so this build is mostly about ranged DPS vs hitting ascended and going into caster mode (though you can certainly do that too). Berserker / ascendant would be solid I guess because the downsides of being berserker frenzied aren't as bad ranged, and you could still trigger blooded a lot due to the health loss. And berserker frenzy gives +2 pen +2 AR and 30% hit to crit in addition to the +5 might +5 con and attack speed boosts, so yeah that looks pretty solid. A ranger is going to have much better accuracy but not attack quite as fast and have lower PEN. The PEN is actually not a big deal for the seer since a seer should crit nearly every shot which gives +50% PEN rounded up. Berserker/streetfighter is also interesting for super fast ranged attacks due to synergy with heating up. 

Personally I like seers, ghostheart / ascendant is also solid and requires less pet micro, but the imbued ammunition is really cool and imbue:eora will help your soul blade guy hit more people with the lance. Any of these would work in that party but I say...try ascendant / arcane archer. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah huge power spike at L13, mostly due to the lance but also borrowed instinct gives +20 accuracy +20 all defenses, so you should be able to wreck crowds with the lance now and have better defenses. One hit is usually enough to fill focus, then soul annihilation, repeat. Next major power spike is L19 with wall of draining, at which point you become both a DPS monster and relatively invulnerable (or absolutely invulnerable if using potions of final stand, which can be scripted by the way to drink at any health level making them less risky). Though if you're playing with BPM the wall of draining spell won't be as useful. 

Arcane archer / ascendant is recommended a lot mostly since you get such huge accuracy bonuses especially with imbued ambition and high arcana. Imbue: Eora is particularly nice, but expensive at 3 bond. And ascendant keeps on the soul whip damage, which is stronger when ascended, so this build is mostly about ranged DPS vs hitting ascended and going into caster mode (though you can certainly do that too). Berserker / ascendant would be solid I guess because the downsides of being berserker frenzied aren't as bad ranged, and you could still trigger blooded a lot due to the health loss. And berserker frenzy gives +2 pen +2 AR and 30% hit to crit in addition to the +5 might +5 con and attack speed boosts, so yeah that looks pretty solid. A ranger is going to have much better accuracy but not attack quite as fast and have lower PEN. The PEN is actually not a big deal for the seer since a seer should crit nearly every shot which gives +50% PEN rounded up. Berserker/streetfighter is also interesting for super fast ranged attacks due to synergy with heating up. 

Personally I like seers, ghostheart / ascendant is also solid and requires less pet micro, but the imbued ammunition is really cool and imbue:eora will help your soul blade guy hit more people with the lance. Any of these would work in that party but I say...try ascendant / arcane archer. 

I will give it a try today, I am looking forward to a true ranged DPS/caster hybrid since most of my builds are purely melee, I find the typical dual mortar build somewhat annoying/overused for some reason, though I know it's quite strong.

Would you mind sharing any of the rules you got on your scripts for Citzal's Spirit Lance/Parasitic Staff?, I want to have them always on without microing the cast.

EDIT: It's in the scripts you shared, nevermind my dumbness

Edited May 16, 2023 by Lunateric

[Shai Hulud]

7 hours ago, Lunateric said:

I will give it a try today, I am looking forward to a true ranged DPS/caster hybrid since most of my builds are purely melee, I find the typical dual mortar build somewhat annoying/overused for some reason, though I know it's quite strong.

Would you mind sharing any of the rules you got on your scripts for Citzal's Spirit Lance/Parasitic Staff?, I want to have them always on without microing the cast.

EDIT: It's in the scripts you shared, nevermind my dumbness

Yeah I put summoned weapons in the same block, if you want to use a particular one for a certain fight just move it to the top of the list in the editor, otherwise it goes by the order listed and what you have memorized. 

[Lunateric]

Waaaaaiiiiittttt, @Shai Hulud have you tested the unique pike, Wahai Poraga?, wondering if soul annihilation distributes damage between all targets (read in BPM notes that the the weapon was fixed), sounds like an amazing weapon for a witch (soul blade/barb) build for example.

Edit: set up my Seer and have been doing Maje island, kinda irks me I can't set my pet to just automatically attack apparently, it just stays put until I issue a command. Is there any scripting magic involved?

Edited May 17, 2023 by Lunateric

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Lunateric said:

Waaaaaiiiiittttt, @Shai Hulud have you tested the unique pike, Wahai Poraga?, wondering if soul annihilation distributes damage between all targets (read in BPM notes that the the weapon was fixed), sounds like an amazing weapon for a witch (soul blade/barb) build for example.

Good idea but...

It's a pollaxe and it's much worse than the lance for soul annihilation purposes. Does about half as much damage per hit, hits a max 4 targets, and can hit friend/foe, but the main problem is it just doesn't bring that much focus. I tested it surrounded by lagufaeth and got 110 focus, with the lance I went from 0 to 225 hitting 4 targets, and there's no maximum either, if you run up your focus max either through wall of draining or strand of favor you can collect ridiculous amounts of focus in crowds. AOE on lance is also larger (same base 1.5m but pollaxe is not modified by intelligence, my modified lance AOE is 2.6m radius making the area 2.25x as large), lance can interrupt, and worst of all wahai poraga doesn't properly distribute soul annihilation, it seems to do like 15% raw damage on secondary targets, maybe because it strikes in sequence rather than all at once like the lance. Like I just tested it and first guy hit got 211 raw damage and the other three only got 37.5 (exactly). A lance annihilation on four targets rolls for raw damage individually and the number is anywhere from 30 something to full amount, in addition to the larger crush damage AOE which still procs on soul annihilation. 

You should try testing in a battle with tons of enemies like SSS Lagufaeth Brood, I actually hit 11 guys with one lance annihilation it was pretty funny. Most of the time you can't hit that many people so the difference between the weapons isn't as large but it still does several times the DPS. 

Only thing that sucks about the lance is it does pierce rather than pierce/slash, but the AOE attacks do crush so it is still pretty badass. Also penetration isn't as high as a mythic pollaxe but with hammering thoughts and razor skewers it's high enough.

Another thing I hadn't really noticed about the lance but which is awesome is your primary target gets hit by both the pierce attack and the crush attack, so even 1v1 you do more damage than anything I'm aware of. So if you hit 4 enemies, the primary one is hit with pierce and then there is a crush AOE which hits all four of them. 

I think WoTEP might distribute soul annihlation correctly, but I haven't really used it because base damage is bad and it's a cone.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lunateric]

14 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Good idea but...

It's a pollaxe and it's much worse than the lance for soul annihilation purposes. Does about half as much damage per hit, hits a max 4 targets, and can hit friend/foe, but the main problem is it just doesn't bring that much focus. I tested it surrounded by lagufaeth and got 110 focus, with the lance I went from 0 to 225 hitting 4 targets, and there's no maximum either, if you run up your focus max either through wall of draining or strand of favor you can collect ridiculous amounts of focus in crowds. AOE on lance is also larger (same base 1.5m but pollaxe is not modified by intelligence, my modified lance AOE is 2.6m radius making the area 2.25x as large), lance can interrupt, and worst of all wahai poraga doesn't properly distribute soul annihilation, it seems to do like 15% raw damage on secondary targets, maybe because it strikes in sequence rather than all at once like the lance. Like I just tested it and first guy hit got 211 raw damage and the other three only got 37.5 (exactly). A lance annihilation on four targets rolls for raw damage individually and the number is anywhere from 30 something to full amount, in addition to the larger crush damage AOE which still procs on soul annihilation. 

You should try testing in a battle with tons of enemies like SSS Lagufaeth Brood, I actually hit 11 guys with one lance annihilation it was pretty funny. Most of the time you can't hit that many people so the difference between the weapons isn't as large but it still does several times the DPS. 

Only thing that sucks about the lance is it does pierce rather than pierce/slash, but the AOE attacks do crush so it is still pretty badass. Also penetration isn't as high as a mythic pollaxe but with hammering thoughts and razor skewers it's high enough.

Another thing I hadn't really noticed about the lance but which is awesome is your primary target gets hit by both the pierce attack and the crush attack, so even 1v1 you do more damage than anything I'm aware of. So if you hit 4 enemies, the primary one is hit with pierce and then there is a crush AOE which hits all four of them. 

I think WoTEP might distribute soul annihlation correctly, but I haven't really used it because base damage is bad and it's a cone.

Yeah you're correct on all regards, was just testing it after getting annoyed at the lack of pet scripting on the Seer as I said on my previous post. Lance is incredibly strong and makes the build go from fairly versatile to an almost silly powerhouse, it's particularly funny to hit a crit on a paralyzed foe (mental binding) and watch it get chopped into gibs with everything around it. I also used Ectopsychic Echo for the first time and consider it a fairly strong spell if you aren't playing solo, kinda miffed I don't see it mentioned more since it's crush damage every second if I'm not mistaken. Imagine for a moment you could put it on Maia Rua's hawk and just roleplay as a bomber going behind enemy lines/or if you had the bird as a pet to begin with as a player. Not sure if it can work with the phantoms you can summon as wizard but it'll be a quick respec just to try it out.

Thank you again for all the very useful information you have given me, I have enjoyed this game much more this time around and I'm actually eager to play more of it or similar games after being able to metagame a bit with people here.

[Boeroer]

Unless you have one or two very special builds (where Wahai Poraga's friendly fire can be used to your advantage) it's just crap unfortunately.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Boeroer

[Shai Hulud]

14 hours ago, Lunateric said:

Yeah you're correct on all regards, was just testing it after getting annoyed at the lack of pet scripting on the Seer as I said on my previous post. Lance is incredibly strong and makes the build go from fairly versatile to an almost silly powerhouse, it's particularly funny to hit a crit on a paralyzed foe (mental binding) and watch it get chopped into gibs with everything around it. I also used Ectopsychic Echo for the first time and consider it a fairly strong spell if you aren't playing solo, kinda miffed I don't see it mentioned more since it's crush damage every second if I'm not mistaken. Imagine for a moment you could put it on Maia Rua's hawk and just roleplay as a bomber going behind enemy lines/or if you had the bird as a pet to begin with as a player. Not sure if it can work with the phantoms you can summon as wizard but it'll be a quick respec just to try it out.

Thank you again for all the very useful information you have given me, I have enjoyed this game much more this time around and I'm actually eager to play more of it or similar games after being able to metagame a bit with people here.

Ectopsychic Echo doesn't work on phantoms. It does work on party-controllable summons like spiritual ally, chanter summons, or ghost heart summon. It was much better in POE1, did 20 to 30 damage per second and interrupted, also had better range. It's okay though, and becomes decent if you can cast it on something like ishiza since she is useless at damage but can move pretty fast and avoid engagement. 

And you're weclome. Didn't see your edit about the pet with seer. You can't script pets but you can script their owners and control the pet. Like this works for a ghost heart to auto-summon the companion near marked prey and then attack whatever the companion is attacking so stalker's link applies. I don't recall if you went with a ghost heart, if not you can still script things but I like ghost hearts because you can just summon them behind the enemy in a script whereas with others you have to move the pet.

You can also script your seer to cast ectopsychic echo (or whatever) like this. These conditionals probably aren't optimal, I was just testing it out, I don't have a fully worked out seer script, though I could probably mash together my savage and hierophant scripts and come up with something.

Anyway this block has several conditionals. The animal companion: is active conditional makes sure you have one (in case of ghost heart, this could be important if he isn't summoned, otherwise I think what would happen is the script looks for an animal companion, sees there isn't one, then casts it on a random ally). Then I have a health below 50% (not) block so we don't cast it if he's bloodied. And there's a target: enemies in melee range > 0 conditional so it isn't cast until your pet is in melee range of an enemy. Then it casts Ectopsychic Echo every 10 seconds. It's probably not optimal, and you may want to add focus > X conditional or change the cooldown, or make it target: enemies in melee range > 1 but in general this is how you script things around your pet. You still have to move the pet manually if his autoattack doesn't engage, but you can set his autoattack to aggressive and he should seek out enemies giving you less micromanagement.