Build focused on using nannasins cobra strike? Thinking either arcane knight or spell blade

[Tomucci]

So I've become interested in nannasins cobra strike, very thematically cool weapon, I've seen people talk about it being good but not much in the context of specific builds.

Currently leaning towards bleak walker / blood mage arcane knight, but an assassin / blood mage with cobra arms is also pretty cool conceptually  and from what I understand they're both strong multiclasses.

Something I've seen about it is that it's actually a ranged weapon? This seems cool because that means it gets accuracy and penetration boosted by certain gear.

With the arcane knight my idea is to stack accuracy and penetration on flames of devotion with ring of focused flame, ring of the marksman, possibly acinas tricorn, scion of flame, spirit of decay. Combined with expose vulnerabilities it should get +40 accuracy and +5 penetration on a full attack, and then subsequently apply sickened to the enemy and fire/corrosive lash to my follow up spells. Wondering about a couple of things:

If I crit with flames of devotion, does it extend the amount of time I receive the dmg buff?

While my spells have fire and corrosive lash do they also get the fire and corrosive penetration bonus? And is the lash any good with smaller dmg persistent effects like chill fog or malignant cloud?

Also thinking of using mask of the grotto deep instead of acinas tricorn for the intellect bonus and PL bonus to poison, would this apply to nannasins cobra strikes poison effect?

Any other bleak walker / blood mage synergies I should know about?

With the spell blade I guess the idea is somewhat similar, instead of flame of devotion for cool full attacks and spell casting bonuses it'd be using stealth and the rogues full attacks.

Between backstab, the assassin bonus, sneak attack, deathblows, deep wounds, rogue full attacks and the inherently high base damage of nannasins cobra strike I imagine I could be doing some serious assassinating with it

My main concern here is that with assassins inherent dmg vulnerability and not much capacity to heal it can't sustain as well as the arcane knight, is there something in particular (that doesn't rely on gimmicks or exploits) that gives the spell blade a leg up?

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Tomucci

[Boeroer]

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Something I've seen about it is that it's actually a ranged weapon? This seems cool because that means it gets accuracy and penetration boosted by certain gear.

Indeed. Very short ranged, but still ranged. This also means it works with Driving Flight which makes Rager an appealing multiclass. The poison DoT doesn't suffer any dmg malus like the initial, direct dmg does with projectile jumps. 

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

If I crit with flames of devotion, does it extend the amount of time I receive the dmg buff?

No - but imo Eternal Devotion lasts a pretty long time for a 1-point ability. 

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

While my spells have fire and corrosive lash do they also get the fire and corrosive penetration bonus? And is the lash any good with smaller dmg persistent effects like chill fog or malignant cloud?

 The Bleak Walker's FoD attack is keyworded with fire and acid and thus also gets +1 PEN from Scion of Flame and also Spirit of Decay. It has nothing to do with the lashes themselves. The ability attack or the weapon itself must have been keyworded with the fitting elemental words in order to protif from such PEN abilities (and also from PL boosts such as Otto Starcat pet or ACC boosts such as from the Ring of Focused Flame). Putting simply a lash on attack does nothing in that regard. So subsequent attacks after the FoD attacks will all have a burning lash, but they will not work with Scion of Flame unless you use a weapon that is keyworded with fire (not Cobra Strike) or use a fire spell. 

By the way: Eternal Devotion of the Bleak Walker only gives you the burning lash for some time as buff. The Black Flames' corrosive lash only gets applied to the initial FoD-Attack itself. The following lash buff of Eternal Devotion is burn-only - like with any other Paladin. So your spells will have burning lash only, not corrosive. 

You can get a corrosive lash on spells only with the help of Blightheart (bound to Wizard class).

Iirc Cobra Strike doesn't have the acid keyword itself. Meaning auto-attacks with it will not profit from Spirit of Decay - but I am not 100% sure. I'm pretty confident that the DoT it does is keyworded with "poison" - which means that certain enemies will be immune (mostly undead and constructs, but also some Naga stc.). 

So all in all you will get +10 ACC from the Ring, +1 PEN from Scion oF, +1 PEN from Spirit oD when you execute FoD (Bleak Walker) - but none of that if you auto-attack just with the burnung lash of Eternal Devotion on you (unless Cobra Strike is keyworded acid, then +1 PEN - as I said: not sure).

 

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Also thinking of using mask of the grotto deep instead of acinas tricorn for the intellect bonus and PL bonus to poison, would this apply to nannasins cobra strikes poison effect?

If the poison DoT is keyworded with poison (again: I'm pretty confident that it is) then it will work with the Mask of the Grotto Deep's PL bonus. For me this would be a must-have iem - not necessarily for the mechanics but 100% bc. of thematic reasons.

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Any other bleak walker / blood mage synergies I should know about?

 Same that all Arcane Knights have. Can't think of anything special. Just thought that pairing Brand Enemy with Cobra Strike's DoT should work well. By the way: the poison DoT doesn't stack like Bleeding Cuts or Deep Wounds do. But new hits will prolong the duration. But in general dps-wise it is benefical to hit multiple enemies one after the other with the DoT instead of focusing on a single one. Also AoE-attacks with it would be great. But nothing comes to my mind except Driving Flight as a kind-of AoE (not really, but you know what I mean).

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

Between backstab, the assassin bonus, sneak attack, deathblows, deep wounds, rogue full attacks and the inherently high base damage of nannasins cobra strike I imagine I could be doing some serious assassinating with it

 Due to the high base dmg Streetfighter would be better than Assassin (unfortunately, theme-wise). Assassinate or Backstab only work during invisibility/stealth - and that will break as soon as you hit with the first cobra strike. Streetfighter's bonuses apply as soon as you are either flanked or bloodied. Both can be achieved fairly reliably if you use some movement abilities (Escape into crowds) and/or self damage (see Blood Sacrifice).

12 hours ago, Tomucci said:

My main concern here is that with assassins inherent dmg vulnerability and not much capacity to heal it can't sustain as well as the arcane knight, is there something in particular (that doesn't rely on gimmicks or exploits) that gives the spell blade a leg up?

A spellblade will never be as sturdy as an arcane knight. But you can always use invisibility or Escape to get away - for a damage dealer that's acceptable imo. A Bloodmage/Streetfigher will do considerably more damage than an Arcane Knight. Downside would be that he will be more squishy. Pick your poison (pun intended again ).

You could go a more safe route with a Spellblade and take Trickster instead of Streetfighter or Assassin. :shrug

My pick would be Streetfighter. Or maybe either Arcane Archer or Stalker.

[Shai Hulud]

It's an extremely good weapon versus kith, or possibly used with more fragile party members from the second row. It is "ranged" but it's like a couple meters IIRC. I think blood mage / streetfighter would be interesting if you could figure out how to keep from being murdered but fight bloodied. I haven't used the spell a ton mostly because it's in a weird grimoire and comes at a weird time. I mean you have to be L10 to use it but by L13 you can use Citzal's Spirit Lance. Does massive amounts of single target damage though, but like boeroer said lots of stuff immune to poison. Also the snake attacks do piercing, which is unfortunately the most resisted damage type. It's a cool idea and may work, but you'd probably want to switch to another weapon versus resistant enemies. 

Blood mage / assassin would be pretty strong once you get arkemyr's brilliant departure, but it would involve lots of hit-and-run attacks so blood mage / streetfighter is probably better. Also the "assassinate" bonus doesn't do anything for the DOT from cobra strikes I don't think. 

[Tomucci]

On 5/22/2023 at 1:48 AM, Boeroer said:

Indeed. Very short ranged, but still ranged. This also means it works with Driving Flight which makes Rager an appealing multiclass. The poison DoT doesn't suffer any dmg malus like the initial, direct dmg does with projectile jumps. 

No - but imo Eternal Devotion lasts a pretty long time for a 1-point ability. 

 The Bleak Walker's FoD attack is keyworded with fire and acid and thus also gets +1 PEN from Scion of Flame and also Spirit of Decay. It has nothing to do with the lashes themselves. The ability attack or the weapon itself must have been keyworded with the fitting elemental words in order to protif from such PEN abilities (and also from PL boosts such as Otto Starcat pet or ACC boosts such as from the Ring of Focused Flame). Putting simply a lash on attack does nothing in that regard. So subsequent attacks after the FoD attacks will all have a burning lash, but they will not work with Scion of Flame unless you use a weapon that is keyworded with fire (not Cobra Strike) or use a fire spell. 

By the way: Eternal Devotion of the Bleak Walker only gives you the burning lash for some time as buff. The Black Flames' corrosive lash only gets applied to the initial FoD-Attack itself. The following lash buff of Eternal Devotion is burn-only - like with any other Paladin. So your spells will have burning lash only, not corrosive. 

You can get a corrosive lash on spells only with the help of Blightheart (bound to Wizard class).

Iirc Cobra Strike doesn't have the acid keyword itself. Meaning auto-attacks with it will not profit from Spirit of Decay - but I am not 100% sure. I'm pretty confident that the DoT it does is keyworded with "poison" - which means that certain enemies will be immune (mostly undead and constructs, but also some Naga stc.). 

So all in all you will get +10 ACC from the Ring, +1 PEN from Scion oF, +1 PEN from Spirit oD when you execute FoD (Bleak Walker) - but none of that if you auto-attack just with the burnung lash of Eternal Devotion on you (unless Cobra Strike is keyworded acid, then +1 PEN - as I said: not sure).

 

If the poison DoT is keyworded with poison (again: I'm pretty confident that it is) then it will work with the Mask of the Grotto Deep's PL bonus. For me this would be a must-have iem - not necessarily for the mechanics but 100% bc. of thematic reasons.

 Same that all Arcane Knights have. Can't think of anything special. Just thought that pairing Brand Enemy with Cobra Strike's DoT should work well. By the way: the poison DoT doesn't stack like Bleeding Cuts or Deep Wounds do. But new hits will prolong the duration. But in general dps-wise it is benefical to hit multiple enemies one after the other with the DoT instead of focusing on a single one. Also AoE-attacks with it would be great. But nothing comes to my mind except Driving Flight as a kind-of AoE (not really, but you know what I mean).

 Due to the high base dmg Streetfighter would be better than Assassin (unfortunately, theme-wise). Assassinate or Backstab only work during invisibility/stealth - and that will break as soon as you hit with the first cobra strike. Streetfighter's bonuses apply as soon as you are either flanked or bloodied. Both can be achieved fairly reliably if you use some movement abilities (Escape into crowds) and/or self damage (see Blood Sacrifice).

A spellblade will never be as sturdy as an arcane knight. But you can always use invisibility or Escape to get away - for a damage dealer that's acceptable imo. A Bloodmage/Streetfigher will do considerably more damage than an Arcane Knight. Downside would be that he will be more squishy. Pick your poison (pun intended again ).

You could go a more safe route with a Spellblade and take Trickster instead of Streetfighter or Assassin. :shrug

My pick would be Streetfighter. Or maybe either Arcane Archer or Stalker.

Thanks for all the info, geomancer seems good for this, wasn't really interested in it before for thematic reasons but a stalker could be cool, keeps the nature/animal theme going anyway

I was actually thinking about trickster, normally doubling up on wizard spells wouldn't seem good but with a spell blade not having many options to heal the blood mages self dmg the extra resource pool would be useful. Streetfighter would be too squishy for my taste I think.

[masterty66]

I'd echo @Boeroer's stance on Spellblade being a fine pick. I've played Aloth that way before and had him use Nanassin's and he's been fairly effective with it.

Against enemies resistant to poison I often had Aloth use Kalakoth's Minor Blights which are fantastic for a Spellblade as you can apply things like Gouging Strike in an aoe.