Ben Fidel's and bellower/power level.

[Zone Jiujitsu]

In my experience, 

Killers froze stiff benefits from a higher PL when casting. I've noticed that when I cast killers from a bellower as compared to a troubadour - the odds are higher of the invocation hitting.
Is my observation correct?

 

How? I reviewed the PL mega thread - when killers targets will - does it penetrate will?

[Boeroer]

Yes, your observation is correct.

Power Levels  improve the accuracy: +1 per added Power Level.

If you cast Killers with a Bellower - and let's say get +5 PL from his current phrase count - you'll have +5 accuracy. Your attack roll (d100 + accuracy - enemy's will defense) will determine the quality of the hit (miss, graze, hit or crit). 

It has nothing to do with penetration though. That's only a thing when dealing damage (vs. armor) is involved.

Your Killers invocation will also have longer duration because of the added power levels by the way. 

Edited January 2 by Boeroer

[Zone Jiujitsu]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Yes, you observation is correct.

Power Levels  improve the accuracy: +1 per added Power Level.

If you cast Killers with a Bellower - and let's say get +5 PL from his current phrase count - you'll have +5 accuracy. Your attack roll (d100 + accuracy - enemy's will defense) will determine the quality of the hit (miss, graze, hit or crit). 

It has nothing to do with penetration though. That's only a thing when dealing damage (vs. armor) is involved.

Your Killers invocation will also have longer duration because of the added power levels by the way. 

Thank you so much! I am so grateful for the many years of knowledge you have provided! I am trying to do a Loremaster/Blood Mage/and I am unsure if I should go Troub or Bellower. I like Bellower, but I am realizing that troub might be better. 

I am aware that the empowered is removed with Blood mage. I am just trying to decide between Bellower and Troub. I like big shouts, but I like rapid casting the energized invo, as well as the bouncing healing one. 

 

Just don’t know what to do lol.

[thelee]

if you're indecisive, troubadour is the all-around better choice IMO.

i have a lot of fun with bellower but it comes with limitations that you need to work with/around, whereas troubadour is a good all-purpose chanter.

[Boeroer]

I'd also go Troubadour. Troubadour is about speedy invocations (or phrase overlap) while Bellower is about fewer invocations but with more oomph.

One fun part of the Bellower is that you can stack the Power Levels from the phrase count with the Power Levels from Empower (1/encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar). You cannot have that fun experience when multiclassing with Bloodmage.

Also keep in mind that the Bellower's chant AoE is severely smaller than the Troubadour's. 

[Zone Jiujitsu]

6 hours ago, thelee said:

if you're indecisive, troubadour is the all-around better choice IMO.

i have a lot of fun with bellower but it comes with limitations that you need to work with/around, whereas troubadour is a good all-purpose chanter.

Thank you! I really appreciate your feedback.

[Zone Jiujitsu]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I'd also go Troubadour. Troubadour is about speedy invocations (or phrase overlap) while Bellower is about fewer invocations but with more oomph.

One fun part of the Bellower is that you can stack the Power Levels from the phrase count with the Power Levels from Empower (1/encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar). You cannot have that fun experience when multiclassing with Bloodmage.

Also keep in mind that the Bellower's chant AoE is severely smaller than the Troubadour's. 

If you were to go Bellower - how would you play him?

Cantor?

[omgFIREBALLS]

I also say troubadour. With 20 int, a troubadour can have full uptime on two chants, and this pleases the master.

[Zone Jiujitsu]

6 hours ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

I also say troubadour. With 20 int, a troubadour can have full uptime on two chants, and this pleases the master.

Thank you, with just 20? A 30 int bellower can have two chants up too. I know brisk recitation changes things up, but a monk can raise a chanter up to 30 with items too.

On a wiz it can be high too.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Troubadours have longer linger on their chants, so yes, only 20 needed.

[thelee]

18 hours ago, Zone Jiujitsu said:

If you were to go Bellower - how would you play him?

Cantor?

frankly i like SC bellower. getting massive scaling on lower-level chants, and getting a massive-duration dragon at tier 9.

but cantor (helwalker), war caller (tactile barrage and conqueror stance to boost chant/invocation effectiveness), or even a melee wildrhymer (stalker, extra defense and lots of accuracy abilities) can be all good imo while leaning into bellower playstyle.

[Zone Jiujitsu]

9 minutes ago, thelee said:

frankly i like SC bellower. getting massive scaling on lower-level chants, and getting a massive-duration dragon at tier 9.

but cantor (helwalker), war caller (tactile barrage and conqueror stance to boost chant/invocation effectiveness), or even a melee wildrhymer (stalker, extra defense and lots of accuracy abilities) can be all good imo while leaning into bellower playstyle.

Ok, Thank you for this. I think I might be leaning towards the cantor play but I will have to change up the distribution of points aka not dump res and con. 

 

1 hour ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

Troubadours have longer linger on their chants, so yes, only 20 needed.

Yeah...I dont know I just love the huge shouts and dont want my character only shouting all the time. Because the phrases come in quicker with troub, I sense that I am shouting all the time and not doing auto attacks as much. Then I cant focus on my wizard or the other custom heroes I created. 

[thelee]

14 minutes ago, Zone Jiujitsu said:

Yeah...I dont know I just love the huge shouts and dont want my character only shouting all the time. Because the phrases come in quicker with troub, I sense that I am shouting all the time and not doing auto attacks as much. Then I cant focus on my wizard or the other custom heroes I created. 

you can also just let troubadour chant at normal speed. then it's like a normal chanter (albeit a bit slower on invocations bc they all cost +1). i tend to just let troubadour chant at normal speed so i can get a lot more chant uptime and only switch on the super-fast invocations if i need to spam a shout for some reason (or to trigger resistance/shield chants repeatedly)

[Boeroer]

On 1/3/2024 at 1:31 AM, Zone Jiujitsu said:

If you were to go Bellower - how would you play him?

Cantor?

Single class or Bellower/Helwalker I guess. 

Some high level stuff like Eld Nary's Curse is very potent with a lot of bonus Power Levels. Also single class can take more of the empower passives which work pretty well with the 1/encounter Empower that Sasha's Singing Scimitar provides. 

Helwalker adds MIG, INT, cheap PEN (Thunderous Blows) and ACC ((Enduring) Dance of Death) and also has a theoretically unless unlimited supply of resources (wounds). It's a great multiclass addition for any caster imo. Also Monk/Chanter can be pretty good in melee bc. of Turning Wheel + Myth Fir + Lightning Strikes giving lots of lashes for little investment. Adds versatility...

Edited January 4 by Boeroer

[Zone Jiujitsu]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Single class or Bellower/Helwalker I guess. 

Some high level stuff like Eld Nary's Curse is very potent with a lot of bonus Power Levels. Also single class can take more of the empower passives which work pretty well with the 1/encounter Empower that Sasha's Singing Scimitar provides. 

Helwalker adds MIG, INT, cheap PEN (Thunderous Blows) and ACC ((Enduring) Dance of Death) and also has a theoretically unless unlimited supply of resources (wounds). It's a great multiclass addition for any caster imo. Also Monk/Chanter can be pretty good in melee bc. of Turning Wheel + Myth Fir + Lightning Strikes giving lots of lashes for little investment. Adds versatility...

I figured as much, I love that they both technically have unlimited resources. Also the addition of int makes up for the lack of aura. I think I read somewhere that 30 int can make it so you can have two chants up?

Anyways, THANK EVERYONE for the awesome info.

[thelee]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Some high level stuff like Eld Nary's Curse is very potent with a lot of bonus Power Levels.

unfortunately doesn't work with bellower in RTWP, only in TB mode.

eld nary is so slow to bounce that the bonus power level effect from the bellower actually expires before you actually get extra bounces from it even with really high int (you basically need salvation of time). you get some scaling for the initial couple hits, but the potential is wasted on a bellower.

TB mode is different because the game politely waits for the spell to fully finish before advancing time and expiring the bellower buff.

Edited January 4 by thelee

[Zone Jiujitsu]

I ended up going with troub/Blood mage. 
Troub supplements a melee playstyle, deleterious, citzals, etc. Troub gets me great healing so I can spam spells. I will think about a cantor/bellower in the future but for now troub/blood mage works. Really gives me the spell blade vibes. 

 

I can't wait to put one of @Boeroer ideas to use, wall of draining with troub will be a blast to use. 

[Elric Galad]

12 hours ago, thelee said:

unfortunately doesn't work with bellower in RTWP, only in TB mode.

eld nary is so slow to bounce that the bonus power level effect from the bellower actually expires before you actually get extra bounces from it even with really high int (you basically need salvation of time). you get some scaling for the initial couple hits, but the potential is wasted on a bellower.

TB mode is different because the game politely waits for the spell to fully finish before advancing time and expiring the bellower buff.

Oh I though the bounce were fixed at launch, but the expiration of Bellower bonus just caused the damages of the latest bounces to not benefit from it. 

[thelee]

10 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Oh I though the bounce were fixed at launch, but the expiration of Bellower bonus just caused the damages of the latest bounces to not benefit from it. 

nah, my tests were a while ago, but i'm 99% sure that i did a test where i counted and it ended way too early.

if i were to guess, i'd say that every time a bounce spell is about to bounce, it checks num_bounces <= max_bounces and that max_bounce number dynamically changes. it just is very very rare (borderline impossible outside of bellower and eld nary) for this to actually matter.

 

edit: rather than try to search my memory, i checked my guide where pretty much everything in there has been tested or verified some other way, and i did indeed a note about it not working with eld nary back in 2019 (wow the years have really gone by!)

Edited January 5 by thelee

[Zone Jiujitsu]

Another question related to invocations and accuracy. I would argue that buffing you accuracy/having a class with innate accuracy bonus is better than having power levels right? In regards to hitting.

If I pull off Cipher's +20 accuracy ability - that will make my invocations even more likely to hit??!!

So in the end Troubador Cipher is really solid - as the invocations will hit more because of the accuracy buffs provided by Cipher.

Right/wrong??

Edited January 16 by Zone Jiujitsu

[Zone Jiujitsu]

Holy crap - man why did I never put this together. For the spells/invocations to hit - you increase accuracy. So Cipher, and Monk have ways to increase the chance of hitting. I thought it only effected weapons.

Just wow. Never knew this. I've been in a form of paralysis trying to make Bellower work, Troubador really is the best. Just increase the accuracy via Cipher or Monks Dance - then done you will hit with the spell more.
WOW.

Edited January 17 by Zone Jiujitsu

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, Zone Jiujitsu said:

Holy crap - man why did I never put this together. For the spells/invocations to hit - you increase accuracy. So Cipher, and Monk have ways to increase the chance of hitting. I thought it only effected weapons.

Just wow. Never knew this. I've been in a form of paralysis trying to make Bellower work, Troubador really is the best. Just increase the accuracy via Cipher or Monks Dance - then done you will hit with the spell more.
WOW.

Don't forget PER Inspiration.
Fighter has access to instant Aware/Intuitive and +10 Acc from one of their modal upgrade, for a total +15 Acc, 50% Graze to Hit, 25% Hit to Crit. The best part is that they take no time to cast.

[thelee]

20 hours ago, Zone Jiujitsu said:

Holy crap - man why did I never put this together. For the spells/invocations to hit - you increase accuracy. So Cipher, and Monk have ways to increase the chance of hitting. I thought it only effected weapons.

Just wow. Never knew this. I've been in a form of paralysis trying to make Bellower work, Troubador really is the best. Just increase the accuracy via Cipher or Monks Dance - then done you will hit with the spell more.
WOW.

yeah, thinking about the game mechanics really benefits from taking a "lawyer"ly approach to reading the descriptions and seeing where loopholes arise. you can find some surprising interactions that way, instead of assuming that something won't work with something else because of an assumption of how that something is "intended" to be done.

i would say that a decent chunk of the fun of theorycrafting and toying with the mechanics of deadfire is the joy of discovering new interactions, it's like a treasure hunt.

 

anyway for the reasons you mention, both fighter and monk (especially helwalker) are very interesting classes to multiclass with a caster. they have tons of passives and buffs that are ok for a martial but really open things up for a caster.

Edited January 17 by thelee

[Boeroer]

On 1/17/2024 at 12:35 AM, Zone Jiujitsu said:

Another question related to invocations and accuracy. I would argue that buffing you accuracy/having a class with innate accuracy bonus is better than having power levels right? In regards to hitting.

If I pull off Cipher's +20 accuracy ability - that will make my invocations even more likely to hit??!!

So in the end Troubador Cipher is really solid - as the invocations will hit more because of the accuracy buffs provided by Cipher.

Right/wrong??

Yeah, but doing both and then combine it with lowering enemies' defenses is when things really start to take off.