How do you play non cipher casters?

[yorname]

After completing so many runs I still haven't finished one with a "proper" caster. Especially one that mainly uses damage spells. With bloated enemy HP, limited casts and mediocre spell accuracy / penetration, I always found them hard to pull off compared to CC caster multiclasses. How do you play them, especially against high level enemies and bosses?

[thelee]

I’m assuming you’re talking about hard or PotD, and I’m assuming you mostly mean a blaster caster. In those difficulties I think it really, really helps to have a source of penetration advantage. Otherwise you can only really reliably use the high-PEN spells for damage for a long time and they aren’t that great for damage (though way better than an underpenetrating fireball).

Priest SC can work as damage (if a bit underwhelming early on) bc of Champion’s Boon. They can also support a different blaster caster with it.

multiclassing with Monk helps (they get tenacious), also you can make a Berserker barbarian work.

chanter offers best support by far IMO with their AR reduction invocation. With the upgrade you can get permanent uptime on it. You can slot that into any party and make a blaster work real well.

i think a fury naturally works really well. Inherent bonus PEN, extra range, plus Druid also has a ton of great raw damage DoT effects that are really efficient damage/cast.

aside from fury and chanter these are all mid-game solutions. And yeah IME early game for blaster casters is pretty rough. You miss half the time and even when you hit you’re getting like a -50% or -75% damage reduction penalty. It is sort of a fact of life that pure blasting is not as good on higher difficulties because of health and under penetration, at least until you accumulate better levels and gear.

[thelee]

Adding a post to mention that against high level enemies and bosses, SC blaster casters eventually take care of themselves. Many tier 8 and 9 spells for casters are really character-definingly good. Especially empowered (which a pure SC will likely be able to do much better for any spell anyway by picking up the empower passives).

I’ve recounted this anecdote before on the forums but no joke once I had an SC evoker in one run and they empowered the tier 9 missile spell and got a lucky evocation echo and that one casting knocked out a forgotten sanctum boss pretty much single-handedly, on PotD no less

Edited December 5, 2023 by thelee

[yorname]

6 hours ago, thelee said:

Adding a post to mention that against high level enemies and bosses, SC blaster casters eventually take care of themselves. Many tier 8 and 9 spells for casters are really character-definingly good. Especially empowered (which a pure SC will likely be able to do much better by picking up the empower passives).

I’ve recounted this anecdote before on the forums but no joke once I had an SC evoker in one run and they empowered the tier 9 missile spell and got a lucky evocation echo and that one casting knocked out a forgotten sanctum boss pretty much single-handedly, on PotD no less

Taking about empower, one thing about blast casters is that empowerment usage seems inevitable, but no rest is also extremely good. Do you find the need to empower or refill spells often?

[yorname]

7 hours ago, thelee said:

I’m assuming you’re talking about hard or PotD, and I’m assuming you mostly mean a blaster caster. In those difficulties I think it really, really helps to have a source of penetration advantage. Otherwise you can only really reliably use the high-PEN spells for damage for a long time and they aren’t that great for damage (though way better than an underpenetrating fireball).

Priest SC can work as damage (if a bit underwhelming early on) bc of Champion’s Boon. They can also support a different blaster caster with it.

multiclassing with Monk helps (they get tenacious), also you can make a Berserker barbarian work.

chanter offers best support by far IMO with their AR reduction invocation. With the upgrade you can get permanent uptime on it. You can slot that into any party and make a blaster work real well.

i think a fury naturally works really well. Inherent bonus PEN, extra range, plus Druid also has a ton of great raw damage DoT effects that are really efficient damage/cast.

aside from fury and chanter these are all mid-game solutions. And yeah IME early game for blaster casters is pretty rough. You miss half the time and even when you hit you’re getting like a -50% or -75% damage reduction penalty. It is sort of a fact of life that pure blasting is not as good on higher difficulties because of health and under penetration, at least until you accumulate better levels and gear.

It's a bit annoying that actually useful spells are so limited, often one can quickly run out of certain tier spells and have to sit on useless other ones. I guess for blast casters eventually have to find other jobs to do with those slots.

[mjo2138]

13 hours ago, yorname said:

It's a bit annoying that actually useful spells are so limited, often one can quickly run out of certain tier spells and have to sit on useless other ones. I guess for blast casters eventually have to find other jobs to do with those slots.

 I think you hit the nail on the head here: casters cannot, and should not, only do damage spells. In a party, your ability to debuff with wizard spells, for instance, and apply terrify through certain spells, is so powerful and more "damaging" than a giant fireball.  Terrify is one my favorites spells, since the disengagement attacks are do deadly, and enemies are useless when terrified.  Miasma of Dull Mind, Chill Fog, Combusting Wounds, and countless others are perfect set up spells before you cast a damage spell. As @thelee mentions, empowering is quite strong with certian spells, esp. at high levels.  I haven't played an Evoker Wizard or Fury Druid, but if did , I would have another cast who does the debuffing for me. 

 

I tend not to empower much at all early or midgame. I stack up on incredible foods, and boons from the Inns, and then continue the game. I do not metagame around required rest situations, as that is too much micromanagement. I also do not use no-rest approaches, for the same reason. Personally, after finishing Port Maje I tend to find a party I want to run, and eat the best food right after. You can get all the ingredients early and cheap with this: 

Spoiler

You can buy most ingredients for Incredible tier foods (Crusted Swordfish) for + 2 PEN to spells , + 20 DMG, which . 

Cornering PEN, Empowering certain spells each encounter means +PL for the spell, which is only + 1.25 PEN. That's why I prefer to eat foods instead that provide a bonus each time. That  being said, when you reach later levels, the empower passives make it even better. To each their own, I say, as both approaches are good. if you are not against resting multiple times, then you can use per rest abilities for weapons and gear. That unlocks another dimension of play. 

Lastly , I personally do not empower characters to get resources back. Between the PEN reduction strategies mentioned already in this thread, you have enough tools to win most battles. 

 

 

[mjo2138]

21 hours ago, thelee said:

Adding a post to mention that against high level enemies and bosses, SC blaster casters eventually take care of themselves. Many tier 8 and 9 spells for casters are really character-definingly good. Especially empowered (which a pure SC will likely be able to do much better by picking up the empower passives).

I’ve recounted this anecdote before on the forums but no joke once I had an SC evoker in one run and they empowered the tier 9 missile spell and got a lucky evocation echo and that one casting knocked out a forgotten sanctum boss pretty much single-handedly, on PotD no less

That is so cool! How does an echo apply here ? Does it cast the spell twice? So that is like 10000 missiles  haha! 

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, mjo2138 said:

Does it cast the spell twice?

Yes, you'll have two instances of Missile Salvo. Pretty dope when that happens. 

With Vithrack Silk Slippers you could theoretically get 2 echoes (3 instances of missile salvo) from one cast. Extremely low chance and I never got this, but should be great fun when it happens.  

By the way @thelee: did you ever test if an Evoker/Priest of Magran (who in the non-CP-modded game gets copied wizard spells tagged with evocation) could stack the echo chance from the evoker passive and Marux Amanth for those evok-ish Priest spells? 

Imagine a triple echo from Evoker, Slippers and Marux Amanth at the same time, tihihi.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Boeroer

[NotDumbEnough]

1. Most of the time the strongest way to open a fight from stealth is with a spell. If you have more than one caster, you can synchronize their timings so the spells go off at the same time. Combos like Pull of Eora+Symbol of Deity can more or less win fights by themselves.

2. Non-hostile spells do not break stealth. I usually build Xoti as a stealth priest who spams buffs from stealth. While in stealth your recovery is extremely fast, almost doubling the rate at which you cast spells.

3. Keep in mind that the AI is dumb and will not attempt to run away from hazardous AOEs. Put your Chillfog in a choke point and stand right outside it, and the enemies will fight inside it and get blinded for the entire fight. Also consider using Chillfog's blind to herd ranged enemies closer to your parties so that you can hit more targets with AoE spells.

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

1. Most of the time the strongest way to open a fight from stealth is with a spell. If you have more than one caster, you can synchronize their timings so the spells go off at the same time. Combos like Pull of Eora+Symbol of Deity can more or less win fights by themselves.

Yeah, that's why Assassin/offensive Caster can make a lot of sense. The +25ACC is just awesome, especially during the early game.  Of course you'll not the to PL 8 and 9 spells, but the +25 ACC while stealthed or invisible do absolutely make up for it imo (besides some other goodies a Rogue can bring to the multiclass). 

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

2. Non-hostile spells do not break stealth. I usually build Xoti as a stealth priest who spams buffs from stealth.

Yes, and even hostile spells don't break stealth (and don't start encounters) - if you don't hit anyone with them (so if no actual attack roll is performed). This seems to be useless info at first, but it can be very useful to lure enemies somewhere - or to set up a spell that lasts some time (Chillfog, Pull of Eora, XY-Seal, Wall spells and so on) and only then start the fight with something more direct. Way faster casting than the other way round.  

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

While in stealth your recovery is extremely fast, almost doubling the rate at which you cast spells.

This is a very good point and I haven't read about this very often. Buffing while stealthed is very benefical, especially if the casting time isn't that long but the recovery would normally be. Recovery time is -80% while stealthed - which is the single best recovery "buff" you can get in the game (aside from 100% via Blood Thirst or Blade Cascade etc.). 

Just watch out when using Devotions for the Faithful: it has the hostile debuffing component that can break invisibility (stealth not really a problem bc. you would have been too close anyway) if you touch an enemy with the AoE.

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Boeroer

[Constentin Lévine]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Yeah, that's why Assassin/offensive Caster can make a lot of sense. The +25ACC is just awesome, especially during the early game.  Of course you'll not the to PL 8 and 9 spells, but the +25 ACC while stealthed or invisible do absolutely make up for it imo (besides some other goodies a Rogue can bring to the multiclass).

Eventually you can invest in arcana with a SC assassin, and the shadow from Vanishing Strike can give you the assassinate bonus to a Storm of Holy Fire, or others. But, of course, it is available at the level 19 so..

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Yes, and even hostile spells don't break stealth (and don't start encounters) - if you don't hit anyone with them (so if no actual attack roll is performed). This seems to be useless info at first, but it can be very useful to lure enemies somewhere - or to set up a spell that lasts some time (Chillfog, Pull of Eora, XY-Seal, Wall spells and so on) and only then start the fight with something more direct. Way faster casting than the other way round.  

Or for action economy! Most of the time I start the fights with a Pull of Eora while the party is stealthed, between them and the enemies, then i wait the spell is refreshed for my caster to break the stealth. Enemies come and are trapped, for "free".

 

[Boeroer]

Yes - you will lose a bit of duration of the effect - but on the other hand it's a free cast then. 

Seals for example would be really good if their effects weren't so meh: by design you can cast a seal out of combat/from stealth, let the spell use refresh and basically have a seal for free. That way you can even empower two spells for one encounter: empower the seal spell, wait for the refresh and then empower your opening spell.  Of course empower doesn't have a huge impact on seal spells unfortunately...  

[thelee]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:39 AM, Boeroer said:

By the way @thelee: did you ever test if an Evoker/Priest of Magran (who in the non-CP-modded game gets copied wizard spells tagged with evocation) could stack the echo chance from the evoker passive and Marux Amanth for those evok-ish Priest spells? 

ISTR that i did and it worked. i cast a lot of fan of flames in the gullet

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Seals for example would be really good if their effects weren't so meh: by design you can cast a seal out of combat/from stealth, let the spell use refresh and basically have a seal for free.

this is also why Delayed Fireball is great. NOT a meh spell, and the delay before it blows up is just enough to get back your spell cast.

 

On 12/2/2023 at 6:54 PM, yorname said:

Taking about empower, one thing about blast casters is that empowerment usage seems inevitable, but no rest is also extremely good. Do you find the need to empower or refill spells often?

i play on potd w/ challenges with only moderate min-maxing, so i do find the need to refill (mostly early game) and empower (mostly late game). probably each member of my party empowers, on average, once/two encounters, so i find the need to rest after 5-6 fights. it can be a bit punishing on rymrgand to downgrade on rest bonuses when doing this, but that's just part of the challenge/fun.

edit: early on, empowering a spell for blaster casters is kind of a trap. doesn't meaningfully help your accuracy, and the boost in power isn't significant compared to getting spells back. eventually, your spells are better and additional scaling is hot, and especially with the empowering talents you can easily swing a fight. case in point - i used to be pretty bullish on blood mage, and blood mage is super good no doubt, but alpha-striking the start of a mid-late game fight with an empowered top-level spell can pretty much end a fight right then and there, so the fact that you can regen spells with a blood mage almost becomes moot.

Edited December 5, 2023 by thelee