Blood mage / assassin questions

[Tomucci]

I want the build to be kinda poison centric thematically, so I'm planning on using the helm and robes that boost poison PL and nannasins cobra strike, and toxic strike with kalakoths or citzals, ideally from stealth, and prob fit in other poison spells here and there when I can, when I fight poison resistant enemies I'm sure I'll have other more generic spell blade options

I've heard the best thing about this build is arkemyrs brilliant departure to gain the effect for a decent duration and fit in multiple cc spells with the assassin acc bonus, with this being said:

How early can I get a grimoire with that spell? Usually I'm lvl13 by the time I start actually engaging in combat (apart from the beginning and a couple of other encounters), can I venture out to do the appropriate quest from there?

With maximising the use of ABD, I'm assuming both INT and DEX are important but I don't want to leave myself in the lerch with other important stats for this build such as PER and CON, so I was thinking max INT and PER, then an even split between DEX and CON, with might and resolve sitting around 10 (I know res can be dumped but conceptually I'm not a fan of timid MCs), is 10 mig / 14 con / 14 dex / 21 per / 21 int / 10 res good ? I'm kinda iffy on splitting between con and dex if one is objectively more useful for this build, my reasoning for the split is they both end up getting buffed to 19 with spells anyway.

Can I sustain the blood mage without fleshmender? Does DOC armors heal on crit effect work with spells and trigger multiple times on AOEs? 

Any other tips for this multiclass?

[Boeroer]

On 7/19/2023 at 10:32 AM, Tomucci said:

How early can I get a grimoire with that spell? Usually I'm lvl13 by the time I start actually engaging in combat (apart from the beginning and a couple of other encounters), can I venture out to do the appropriate quest from there?

It's in these grimoires:

• Arkemyr's Grimoire (loot when killing Arkemyr)
• Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries (reward from Arkemyr for completing the quest "Berkana's Folly")
• Bekarna's Celestial Grimoire (Forgotten Sanctum stuff)
• Celestial Grimoire (Forgotten Sanctum stuff)

The first two can be obtained as soon as you can either kill Arkemyr or complete Berkana's Folly. If you kill Arkemyr before completing Berkana's Folly the quest will fail, so I wouldn't do that even if it might be easier to kill Arkemyr instead of completing that quest. If you complete the quest and kill Arkemyr afterwards you can get both grimoires. 

The latter two are high level stuff as the placement in the Forgotten Sactum indicates.

You can complete Berkana's Folly easily even if you are severly underleveled with an Assassin/Bloodmage if you go solo (or park the party outside of enemies' attention range), wear Bounding Boots (or have high stealth), Lover's Embrace as single weapon and use Gouging Strike as well as Smoke Veil (or Shadowing Beyond). Simply stab an enemy from stealth with a Gouging Strike and then retreat and hide - until the enemy is dead. Rinse an repeat. It will take a while because most of it is waiting - but's it's rel. foolproof even against the hardest enemies in that quest.

Good thing that you can obtain that quest so early - just rob Arkemyr's vault asap. It's a piece of cake if you use the "wear Arkemyr's old robe" approach.

So, all in all you can get Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries pretty early if you are willing to invest some idle time. Lvl 13 will be totally fine. Maybe you can even do the quest without all that stab and hide stuff and just brute-force it with a good party composition. But if not: stab and hide always works. 

On 7/19/2023 at 10:32 AM, Tomucci said:

Can I sustain the blood mage without fleshmender? Does DOC armors heal on crit effect work with spells and trigger multiple times on AOEs? 

You can use Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon. DoC Breastplate only works with weapon crits.
The effect of Healing Hands (superearly gloves) can be prolonged with Wall of Draining. Same with the healing from Blightheart shots. 

On 7/19/2023 at 10:32 AM, Tomucci said:

Any other tips for this multiclass?

Any form of damage you deal (except from Wall spells) will cancel the invisibility of Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure - poison DoTs included. So if you put any DoT on an enemy (like Toxic Strike for example) you cannot profit from ABD while the DoT is ticking. ABD will break on the next dmg tick (as soon as an enemy suffers dmg). Shadowing Beyond and Smoke Veil won't do that. They break on grazes/hits/crits you roll against enemies.
That's why I consider the use of DoTs + ABD as antisynergistic if you don't cleary separate a "debuff/CC" phase from a "damage dealing phase with DoTs" in combat. But since the CC/debuff spells donÄt last forever and you might want to refresh them it's not that easy to separate imo (unless the fights are rel. short). 

Also, DoT's dmg doesn't profit from Assassinate.

So, best to go invis. with ABD, debuff the enemy into the ground and emerge from invisibility with a hefty direct-dmg spell like Shadowflame or so to deal the maximum damage with an Assassinate-crit. After that the DoT stuff can start without interfering with your invisibility.  

  

   

Edited July 20, 2023 by Boeroer

[Tomucci]

17 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It's in these grimoires:

• Arkemyr's Grimoire (loot when killing Arkemyr)
• Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries (reward from Arkemyr for completing the quest "Berkana's Folly")
• Bekarna's Celestial Grimoire (Forgotten Sanctum stuff)
• Celestial Grimoire (Forgotten Sanctum stuff)

The first two can be obtained as soon as you can either kill Arkemyr or complete Berkana's Folly. If you kill Arkemyr before completing Berkana's Folly the quest will fail, so I wouldn't do that even if it might be easier to kill Arkemyr instead of completing that quest. If you complete the quest and kill Arkemyr afterwards you can get both grimoires. 

The latter two are high level stuff as the placement in the Forgotten Sactum indicates.

You can complete Berkana's Folly easily even if you are severly underleveled with an Assassin/Bloodmage if you go solo (or park the party outside of enemies' attention range), wear Bounding Boots (or have high stealth), Lover's Embrace as single weapon and use Gouging Strike as well as Smoke Veil (or Shadowing Beyond). Simply stab an enemy from stealth with a Gouging Strike and then retreat and hide - until the enemy is dead. Rinse an repeat. It will take a while because most of it is waiting - but's it's rel. foolproof even against the hardest enemies in that quest.

Good thing that you can obtain that quest so early - just rob Arkemyr's vault asap. It's a piece of cake if you use the "wear Arkemyr's old robe" approach.

So, all in all you can get Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries pretty early if you are willing to invest some idle time. Lvl 13 will be totally fine. Maybe you can even do the quest without all that stab and hide stuff and just brute-force it with a good party composition. But if not: stab and hide always works. 

You can use Concenhaut's Corrosive Siphon. DoC Breastplate only works with weapon crits.
The effect of Healing Hands (superearly gloves) can be prolonged with Wall of Draining. Same with the healing from Blightheart shots. 

Any form of damage you deal (except from Wall spells) will cancel the invisibility of Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure - poison DoTs included. So if you put any DoT on an enemy (like Toxic Strike for example) you cannot profit from ABD while the DoT is ticking. ABD will break on the next dmg tick (as soon as an enemy suffers dmg). Shadowing Beyond and Smoke Veil won't do that. They break on grazes/hits/crits you roll against enemies.
That's why I consider the use of DoTs + ABD as antisynergistic if you don't cleary separate a "debuff/CC" phase from a "damage dealing phase with DoTs" in combat. But since the CC/debuff spells donÄt last forever and you might want to refresh them it's not that easy to separate imo (unless the fights are rel. short). 

Also, DoT's dmg doesn't profit from Assassinate.

So, best to go invis. with ABD, debuff the enemy into the ground and emerge from invisibility with a hefty direct-dmg spell like Shadowflame or so to deal the maximum damage with an Assassinate-crit. After that the DoT stuff can start without interfering with your invisibility.  

  

   

Thanks for the info, I'll give the quest a go and bring that dagger with me just in case.

I'm guessing summoning weapons doesn't break ABD so I'll probably do some cc spells, summon an aoe weapon and end it with a toxic strike, i know the dots arent affected by assassinate but i like the accuracy buff for the initial hit, and the duration of the effect might be extended by a crit? If not that theres other good options like shadow fireball or something.

Anything you'd change with my stats?

 

[Boeroer]

The stats are fine imo.

Summoning weapons does not break ABD. I just recalled that Blood Sacrifice does break ABD - because you are dealing damage. It's self damage but it still counts unfortunately. I don't remember if the self dmg from Deleterious Alacrity of Motion also breaks ABD - but I guess it does.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Boeroer