Looking for advice re: synergistic builds for a Mystic (Priest/Cipher) or Universalist (Priest/Druid) MC

[TJ-Galad]

Hello all! I am planning a next Deadfire playthrough before Avowed comes out, and I wanted to get advice on if there is a way to make synergistic builds as either a Mystic (Priest/Cipher) or as a Universalist (Priest/Druid) for my MC.  Otherwise, I was planning on playing as a Nature godlike based on my POE save file, and I am planning on playing on Veteran (or maybe PotD?), if this is relevant.

I know this might not be optimal necessarily, but these are my preferred classes and I wanted to see what advice you might have about better builds for these classes. I would be happy to hear about talents, items, companions, etc. that might help synergy.

As a final note, I play with the community patch mods which includes the tweak that "Psion's passive focus generation is now paused on getting Crit, instead of onDamage"  among others.

Thank you!

[Constentin Lévine]

Depending of what do you expect from your MC, you can take many directions with your two choices : a cipher (psion or beguiler) / priest of Woedica as "Deceptionist" should be great, the woedica's unique spells complete very well the afflictions a cipher can give. In other hand, cipher can also help a lot the party, with some echo spells to increase the protecting potential of priest (all of them). Then, as a inspiration dealer, Mystic work very well too. These way to play doesnt require Might to be decisive, where a Cipher Priest of Berath can be a good damage dealer with this stat.

For Universalist, again, you can dirige your MC in a healer-buffer side of these classes, or looking for more versatility with a combinason of what do you like, since there is significantly less Passives to get at leveling. Then within MinMaxing stats, you can have a very solid build. 

In my concern, for Mystic, it is important to have an idea of where do you want to go with the character, because it is easy to loose yourself in this deck of many things these classes can be, and so you can have some regrets however the re-leveling option at the tavern. With universalist you take a lesser risk. If that can help you to make your choice..

Edited November 23 by Constentin Lévine

[limaxophobiacq]

Priest of Wael/Soulblade using the Whispers of the Endless Paths greatsword seemed decent enough when I tried it though I didn't complete a full playthrough with it. The "offensive parry" enchantment on the sword (which get you free attacks when enemies miss you) combined with Arcane Veil from priest of Wael and Borrowed Instinct from cipher get your deflection quite high and let you generate a good amount of focus from automatic counter-attacks as long as there's melee enemies. You will need to switch weapons for some fights though too another two-hander (maybe Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff if you take lots of Metaphysics skill which seems appropriate for a mystic) since Whispers of the Endless Paths is very ineffective when there aren't melee attackers.

For this build you would want max Intellect, some perception, and fairly balanced attributes are fine since you will be on the front line.

Mid game you probably spend most time of your time casting buffs but later you can cast minor avatar -> arcane veil -> borrowed instinct and start swinging and blasting.

Edited November 24 by limaxophobiacq

[Boeroer]

Ascendant/any Priest has a good synergy with ascension + Salvation of Time. If you have a source of Brilliant you can keep being ascended and cast Cipher spells and Priest spells "for free". Unfortunately a Cipher cannot use Ancestor's Memory (Brilliant) on himself. But something like Least Unstable Coil + an empowered Storm of Holy Fire will almost always give you the Brilliant inspiration (plus a bunch of other ones).

Priest/Livegiver(Cat) can also form a great healing synergy with the Spine of Thicket Green (+2 PL to Rejuvenation and Restoration). This also fits the Nature Godlike best thematically I think. You can prolong the Spiritshift and its cat flurry with Salvation of Time. Livegiver's Spritishift does +5 PL to all Restoration spells which is a huge bonus. Cat Flurry lets you cast extremely quickly (no armor recovery, too). As soon as you drop out of Spiritshift your Rejuvenation spells will suffer -5 PL (actually only -3 bc. of the staff's +2 PL), but now you can use the Priest's Restoration spells with no drawback (and the staff's +2 PL). Priest of Eothas has the best healing auto picks iirc. But any Priest subclass works. The spell cycle might most likely be: buffing, shifting for healing/buffing (Moonwell etc.), healing without spiritshift. Later one can also keep up the Spiritshift longer with Salvation of Time. Of course any other Spiritshift form works, too. It's just that the cat form has the best benefit for casting spells (speed). 

Edited November 24 by Boeroer

[TJ-Galad]

@Boeroer Thank you for your thoughts. Do you have any suggestions about how to build focus quickly as an ascendant/priest? Weapons, talents, etc. At least before you get the Unstable Coil + an empowered Storm of Holy Fire combo.

[Chaospread]

I guess you already choose chiper/priest, but in case of druid / priest I'll do a buffer priest for the spiritshift druid and go martial, somenthing like minor avatar + SoT + any other buff and spiritshift.

[thelee]

IMO universalist is pretty hard to make truly synergistic; "more heals" is a bit overkill given how good of a healer druid already is. i had a build in these forums that made it like a "keeper" from wc3, but what might actually be more synergistic is to go wael + whatever and make it a flameblade or spiritshift build that uses wael magic for protection. 

i got great mileage from doing wizard + druid with flameblade and ring of focused flame doing essentially something similar. priest lacks as many fast self-buffs so you have more action economy issues (and no deleterious alacrity of motion), but it might still be pretty good.

[Boeroer]

On 11/24/2024 at 3:28 PM, TJ-Galad said:

@Boeroer Thank you for your thoughts. Do you have any suggestions about how to build focus quickly as an ascendant/priest? Weapons, talents, etc. At least before you get the Unstable Coil + an empowered Storm of Holy Fire combo.

I personally would use Kitchen Stove (+Thunderous Report) for the initial focus boost and then I guess switch to the Red Hand. Reloading weapons have the benefit that you can always cancel the reloading process and cst right away after shooting. Cannot do that with recovery weapons. There's need for a backup weapon though against pierce-immune foes (like a rod maybe).
Priest of Magran had the arquebus as favorite weapon in PoE1... Now has spiritual pistol+sword which is a sh!tty combo imo. 

If melee I would maybe use the Spiritual Weapon - because lashes generate focus and spiritual weapons have good lashes if your disposition is mananged properly. And then either dual-wield it with a similar weapon (for example Spiritual Flail + Sun & Moon if Priest of Eothas) or use a two-hander (e.g. spiritual greatsword in case of Berath).

 

Edited November 25 by Boeroer

[TJ-Galad]

@Boeroer Could I ask you also why you favor ascendent over psion (+community patch) in a mystic build? 

Thank you all for your advice so far!

 

[Boeroer]

4 hours ago, TJ-Galad said:

@Boeroer Could I ask you also why you favor ascendent over psion (+community patch) in a mystic build? 

Thank you all for your advice so far!

 

I personally would prefer Psion over any other Cipher subclass when paired with a caster.

But a particularly strong synergy between Ascendant and Priest is Ascension + Salvation of Time. 

The "only" synergy Psion/Priest has is good action and resource economy (gaining focus while casting spells). But that's the case with any Psion/Caster multiclass and not special for Psion/Priest.

Priest of Wael/Beguiler would be a thematically very fitting combo and it's also not bad mechanically I think. But also here there's no special synergy that stands out to me. 

Edited November 26 by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

14 hours ago, thelee said:

priest lacks as many fast self-buffs so you have more action economy issues (and no deleterious alacrity of motion), but it might still be pretty good.

True indeed, but if you are a Wael Priest you have many speed self buff, litanies and prayers usually are fast, you have some fast debuffs and with Wael's spells defense plus BDD + SoT you have plenty of time to cast average and slow spells as Minor Avatar, DftF and so on

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Priest of Magran had the arquebus as favorite weapon in PoE1... Now has spiritual pistol+sword which is a sh!tty combo imo. 

Arquebus is better but a dual wield pistol can do wonders as well. Even if mid-later game pistols are better, Eccea's Arcane Blaster especially
Keeping in topic I agree is better a Priest of Wael / Psion as combo (more defenses while building focus), if you wanna go more aggressive and use an ascendant, then I'd take Skaen to enhance focus through defense debuffs early (Barbs of Condemnation, Divine Mark) then you'll get Finshing Blows and Minor Avatar, as Spiritual Weapon you have club which helps Cipher's spell with its modal and you have also some defensive spells (Escape, Shadowing Beyond). I think he could be also pretty funny  

[Boeroer]

I forgot that Priest of Skaen can use Finishing Blow. Not that it's a particulary great ability, but for a class combo which has zero other martial attack abilities otherwise, this Full Attack could indeed help to build focus faster. 

Edited November 26 by Boeroer

[thelee]

9 hours ago, Chaospread said:

True indeed, but if you are a Wael Priest you have many speed self buff, litanies and prayers usually are fast, you have some fast debuffs and with Wael's spells defense plus BDD + SoT you have plenty of time to cast average and slow spells as Minor Avatar, DftF and so on

the big problem is that deleterious alacrity of motion (which priest doesn't get) is a huuuge survivability boost for an up-close glass cannon that comes online much earlier. it requires some micromanagement, but it essentially means that you don't even need to rely on things like wizard's double or arcane veil for most protection (just for ranged) because you just constantly run out of range of melee attacks. (so you can spend those spell slots on other buffs or utility, like infuse with vital essence)

eventually BDD + SoT is better than anything, but that also comes up against my general resistance to using cheese in my runs unless absolutely necessary

Edited November 26 by thelee

[Chaospread]

There should be a DAoM potion like in PoE1
You could get some protection from engagement/disengagement with items, but I recognise having DAoM as spell is much better. You can also go ranged, maybe for a Magran Priest, for a Wael is more difficult, maybe you can decide that SoT + BDD WITHOUT Brilliant can't be cheese... and in a party some defenses tools can come from companions.

But I agree, speed + DEX + stride + no engagement at level 3 is a great thing

[TJ-Galad]

A question for you all: what sort of stat spread would you recommend for a mystic (ascendent/priest of eothas) or universalist (lifegiver druid/priest)?

 

[Boeroer]

Livegiver/Priest: high MIG and INT and DEX

Ascendant/Priest: high INT, PER and DEX, decent MIG

If you use official companions for the party, then I would use 16+ PER for the main character in any case, because finding secrets and traps is based on the party's highest PER value - and the official companions all don't have very high PER. It's annoying to step into traps and not be able to find many secret stashes, levers etc. 

[Chaospread]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Livegiver/Priest: high MIG and INT and DEX

Ascendant/Priest: high INT, PER and DEX, decent MIG

Agree 100%

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

If you use official companions for the party, then I would use 16+ PER for the main character in any case, because finding secrets and traps is based on the party's highest PER value - and the official companions all don't have very high PER

@TJ-Galad if you don't wanna "waste" point in PER (in the case of Lifegiver i.e.) some companions have high PER (Maia Rua - 17, and she comes almost early), some early companion (Serafen, Pallegina, Mirke) have good PER (about 14) and with early pet, item, prostitute boons and/or rest/food you can reach easily 16/17 for one of them (I add: it is recommended to have ALWAYS an high PER character, especially early / mid game).
If you wish I can "spoiler" the "minimun" PER needed to discover ALL traps and secrets