Hi!

I tried a little new idea: combining Skald, Blightheart and Ancient into a death & decay-themed build.

The core mechanics are:

• using Wicked Briars etc. to "accidentially" kill weak summons such as Ancient Brittle Bones and later Many Lives Pass By (Venombloom doesn't work bc. skeleton are immune to poison)
• Blightheart grants +1 phrases per such kill (and killed enemies, too of course)
• use those phrases to cast White Worms (and later the upgrade Putrid Stench) which only costs 2 phrases, has a huge AoE and does incredible base damage
• only drawback: White Worms needs a fresh corpse for every cast. But here comes the fun part:
• Many Lives Skeletons actually leave a body when they die. This body can be used for White Worms (and other things such as Garden of Life).
• The Skald's 6-sec gap between each skeleton is enough to provide sufficient phrases for spamming White Worms constantly, killing enemies very quickly (and being able to use their bodies then, too)

I tried it out with a "consoled" character in SSS: it works remarkably well. Being able to nearly always use White Worms "on demand" is a gamechanger imo. The build is also very versatile, being a Theurge and so on.

Besides the core mechanics/spells you can pick whatever spells/ invocations sound great and fitting.

In general special gear besides Blightheart does not matter much, which lets you "dress up" more freely to match the theme. I used the Horns of the Bleak Mother because it looks cool and fits this build because of the Pwgra story attached to it. But the White Void helmet would be better because it gives the White Worms Upgrade (Putrid Stench) +10 ACC (because there's sicken attached to it) and of course it's great for Venombloom etc., too.

Nature Godlike or Death Godlike would be fitting as well I think.

But what do you think? 

 

   

It is thematic and match very well with the Charm of Bones, for the AoE size of Putrid Stench and the Wicked Briar attacks vs skellies.

Hah, I used that while testing.

This is crazy! I have been getting back into the game in preparation for Avowed. For the last several months I have been trying to make this EXACT idea work. Thank you for this! I absolutely LOVE blightheart and really wish it would work with paladin (bleakwalker) and Ancient druid as those are probably my favorite classes. 

Great thought!
Unfortunately there are more suitable items in PoE1, anyway I think Ragged Cloak and Whispers of Neriscyrlas maybe make sense for this build.

btw: one problem of the upgraded White Worms is that you can sometimes "miss" the corpse. It seems that White Worms does a hidden hit roll against the corpse's reflex defense (don't ask me why a corpse has any reflex at all, not interested in that discussion ;)).
And sometimes this results in a situation where you cast the spell and... nothing happens at all.

Fortunately the many-lives skeletons have truly abysmal reflex - so you won't miss their bones.  

Edited December 29, 20241 yr by Boeroer

deadfire community patch does fix the roll-to-hit the corpse part of white worms, which is an oddly annoying aspect of it.