Trickster with grimoire ? 🤔

[Lonlon]

Hello there,

I'm planning a 3rd (or 4th, can't remember) Deadfire PotD upscaled run before a certain game comes out (I got hyped I have to admit..).

In my previous runs I mainly played melee/brawler builds (bersekers/monks/fighters...) so this time I want to try something a bit more subtile and different. I thought a SC Trickster would be cool but maybe a bit limited/restricted for someone who knows as little about the game as me. So I was thinking it would be nice if my trickster could be a little bit more of a Wizard than he already is by allowing him to use a grimoire thanks to of a mod or something (guile costs would scale with PL as trickster native spells do...). Adding some diversity to a SC rogue sounds fun to me, and also I never played a Wizard MC before so it would be a way to experience engame caster gameplay a little more.

Because you guys now the game way better than I do, I have some questions regarding this project :
- Firstly : do you know if such a mod exist ?
- Do you think it would completely break the game ? (I dont really care if the game gets easier cuz I finished the game several times already but I dont want a spoiled/broken experience neither)
- Do you know if there is a way to improve Trickster's fun by adding spellcasting diversity without modding my game ? Also I kinda want to be a SC Trickster so I can reach high PL and high level spell (I feel like trickster is a fun SC pick)
- Also, am I completly delusional about Trickster not beeing fun enough and willing to add more features on top of what it already has ?

I play with community patch if that matters, and also I like going no rest.

Thanks in advance for your advices, and as always sorry for my mediocre english. Also I have to say it's always a pleasure to find this community alive everytime I dive back into PoE, I will never thank you enough for that guys (without you I definetly would not enjoy this game as much as I do )

Cheers !

[Boeroer]

Hi,

I don't think there's a mod that does this exact thing (but I could be wrong).

You can make Grimoires equippable by anyone with the console. But I don't know if this will give you access to the spells (never tried this). And if it does make the spells accessible I don't think the spells would scale with Power Level (because you will have 0 PL as Wizard). 

Trickster "spells" are copies of wizard spells that then got altered a bit so they cost Guile. Then they got added as direct character abilities to the Rogue class. They scale with Rogue Power Levels.

I think doing a mod for this would be possible - but not trivial.

 

 

[Lonlon]

Thx for the answer Boeroer !

In that case maybe i'll go for a more standard route like Assassin/Bloodmage. I'm pretty sure Bloodmage is a good way to experience intensive spellcasting (and enables the possibility of spamming spells like trickster does) and with Assassin I'll stick with my rogue/stealth initial plan.
Is there a guide you (or someone else) did for that build ? I'm interested by the CC potential of Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure + Assassin for landing spells while stealthed but did not find a proper guide about this route, just read here and there about it (mainly stuff you wrote on this forum now that I think about it ).

Regarding Spellblade, I'm kinda overwhelmed by the different possibilities I read about : Spirit Lance, Chronomatic Staff, the snake weapon grimoire thing I cant remember the name, etc.. In a way it gets me very excited to test those possibilities but also I dont know were to strat. So yeah, I'll take any advices

Also I never properly played Wizard so I wont even be able to tell what control / buff spells I should aim for (early and late game).

Also bloodmage should have some CON for spamming bloodmagic I guess ? RIght ?

In short: so many questions..

Thanks again !
Cheers !

Edited Friday at 07:34 PM by Lonlon

[Elric Galad]

What about Streetfighter Bloodmage ? It should have much better synergy

[Lonlon]

Honestly I couldn't tell. I read a lot about assassin/bloodmage crowd control from stealth build, that's why I considered it as a replacement for my original build idea which involves a mod that does not exist x)

From what I understand, Streetfighter would be more about melee capabilities than slinging control spells all the day ? Right ?

Edited Friday at 08:10 PM by Lonlon

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Lonlon said:

Honestly I couldn't tell. I read a lot about assassin/bloodmage crowd control from stealth build, that's why I considered it as a replacement for my original build idea which involves a mod that does not exist x)

From what I understand, Streetfighter would be more about melee capabilities than slinging control spells all the day ? Right ?

Well, Streetfighter would be about harming yourself until blooded to get its speed boost. Then you do whatever you like, attacking ranged or melee, slinging spells, etc... 

The issue with Assassin is that its accuracy bonus isn't super reliable (you basically have to test a spell to be sure it gets the accuracy bonus). 

But there is indeed a trick :

Assassin clunkiness - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

 

[Lonlon]

24 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

But there is indeed a trick :

Assassin clunkiness - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

 

Yes, the existance of this grimoire/spell was one of the main reason I went for this build 

[Boeroer]

Assassin/Bloodmage is excellent as a debuffer/cc caster. But you need Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure for it to be really great. That's no problem though, you just have to finish Arkemyr's quest line to get one of his grimoires that contains the spell. Or you kill him...

The trick is that Brilliant Departure makes you invisible - but that invisibility does not break on your hit rolls UNLESS you (personally) damage somebody directly (this includes Blood Sacrifices bc. you're damaging yourself directly). Walls and summons don't count.

So all CC and debuffing spells you cast let you stay invisible and profit from the +25 acc the Assassin provides. This leads to a combo that lets you take on encounters (like bounties or ships for example) that are usually way above your "pay grade" - because you can disable and debuff them rel. easily for your party members. Even pulsing spells like Pull of Eora, Sicken and so on will gain +25 acc for all their pulses because you stay invisible. 

Wall of Draining can be used to uphold invisibility almost indefinitely. The only thing that breaks it then is your own Blood Sacrifice - when you run out of spells to cast and want to get some back.  

You can still cause damage with all damaging wall spells and Essential Phantom: cast Concelhaut's Draining Touch and then summon the Phantom. In the meantime you debuff enemies' Will defense into the ground with Miasma (-40) and Dazzling Lights (-10). The Phantom will hit like a truck with Draining Touch (bc. it targets Will instead of Deflection), drain health and apply weakened. And the Draining Touch doesn't disappear on it like it would if you used it yourself. If carry a shield or Kapana Taga or something else with +engagement, the Phantom will also have it. Then it can even dish out powerful disengagement attacks occasionally. Like when you cast Ryngrim's Enervating Terror on the poor enemies and they crawl around, breaking engagement.

Since you are invisible it's also pretty safe to use the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry without the need for Rekvu's Fractured Casque. 

If you don't care about Wall of Draining and other Conjurations too much: this also works very well with an Illusionist instead of a Bloodmage. You can get to +5 Power Levels easily with Illusion spells that way which are great for debuffing. And you can use empower to either gain back some spells or empower an illusion spell out of stealth/insivibility with +10 Power Levels and +25 accuracy (which is bonkers).

---

Streetfighter/Bloodmage can be an insane single target damage dealer if you use club+modal in the offhand and use Concelhaut's Draining Touch with the Grimoire switching trick in the main hand. The trick is to NOT learn Draining Touch but cast it from a Grimoire and then switch to a Grimoire that doesn't have the spell. That way the draining touch weapon will stay on you until combat ends.

It has insane base damage wich works very well with all the Streetfighter's damage bonuses: Sneak Attack, bonus Sneak Attack when Heating Up (bloodied or flanked), Deathblows, extra crit damage when On the Edge (bloodied and flanked) and so on.

The offhand club + modal will reduce enemies' Will by 25 points automatically, Draining Touch in the main hand targets Will: perfect combo.

Most draining touch hits will go over 150 damage with auto attacks, you will be lightning fast because of the -50% recovery of Heating Up. 

This recovery bonus can also be used to cast spells a lot faster. Especially if you combine it with action speed bonuses (Del. Alacrity of Motion etc.).

And it's so easy to trigger Heating Up: just spam Blood Sacrifice until you are bloodied. If you want to trigger On the Edge right away, too: fire a blunderbuss with modal. 

---

So, in my case those are two very dissimilar playstyles even though the class combos don't seem to be so different. 

 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Boeroer

[Lonlon]

Streetfighter subclass seems really strong indead. Do we agree that appart from their recovery time, all of their bonuses only apply to weapon combat ? (not spells)
I mean even if it's weapons only + 50% damage + 100% crit damage - 50% recovery time is nuts 

Maybe recovery alone would make streefighter a more versatile pick compared to assassin ? I mean if I want to land my spells maybe I'm better going SF, getting recovery buff and using it to prep enemies faster with miasma and all that good stuff ?
SF would also open the possibility for melee efficiency with Spirit Lance i guess (or any weapons really) ? I kinda want to have a hybrid MC (potent with spells but still able to strike with weapons).
On the other hand I dont want one of those build that play Wizard either to bug-exploit the game or just to buff weapon combat potency.

Do you think SF is a safer pick for someone looking for versatility ?

I was also looking at Bloodmage/Cipher (mostly Soul Blade for the melee synergy), is it any good ? I'm a bit afraid it'll be too much of a melee centric build as soon as Spirit lance is unlocked. There is also Psion but I'm pretty sure there's no melee synergy whatsoever here...

Or maybe full Trickster was a good pick regarding what i'm looking for after all ? Even without Grimoires

Thanks a lot for all you answers. That's helping a ton

Edited 17 hours ago by Lonlon

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, Lonlon said:

Streetfighter subclass seems really strong indead. Do we agree that appart from their recovery time, all of their bonuses only apply to weapon combat ?

That is correct.

2 hours ago, Lonlon said:

Do you think SF is a safer pick for someone looking for versatility ?

Maybe... in this case because it is so easy to trigger Heating Up at will. On the other hand Assassin also applies to the first cast from stealth - that alone can already turn the tides for you.
I think it really depends on what you want to do with your Spellblade. If you want somebody who deals great weapon damage and doesn't want to bother with stealth and invisibility too much then I'd pick Streetfighter.
Assassin needs more planning and setup imo.

2 hours ago, Lonlon said:

I was also looking at Bloodmage/Cipher (mostly Soul Blade for the melee synergy), is it any good ?

 Bloodmage/Soulblade can be very powerful in combination with Citzal's Spirit Lance and Wall of Draining. You can keep all the great buffs (and healing over time) for a long, long time with Wall of Draining (including the +10 max focus on kill the Soulblade gets). Spirit Lance applies raw damage of Soul Annihilation to all enemies in the AoE (not the full number though, that's only for the initial target - still every enemy gets some and that's very good). And of course you have two resource pools that are potentially limitless and lots of great spells to pick from: very versatile combo.

Psion is great for pure casters, it's not good for melee characters.

2 hours ago, Lonlon said:

Or maybe full Trickster was a good pick regarding what i'm looking for after all ? Even without Grimoires

I think SC Trickster is pretty cool. Gambit with enough Guile (Devil of Caroc Breastplate adds +2 Guile) has over 100% crit conversion and with any dual wielding setup (includes Tuotilo's Palm) you can use it many times - because the 4 refund is almost guaranteed (if you don't miss or graze). Combined with Wall of Flashing Steel (+10 deflection on crit - that's almost always with Gambit), some deflection gear such as Gipon Prudensco, Casita Samelia's Legacy (maxed Intimidate) or Nomad's Brigandine and Bracers and Cloak of Greater Deflection, also Mirrored Images or Llengrath's Displaced Image as well as Riposte you will have a very sturdy Rogue who still dishes out crazy single target damage with Gambit. And if Guile starts dropping so that Gambit isn't refunding reliably anymore you can use the remaining Guile for hefty spells such as Kalakoth's Freezing Rake. I think that is one of my best liked SC Rogues because you don't have to worry about dropping dead and can still be a deadly Rogue (with spells). 

 

 

[Chaospread]

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

You can get to +5 Power Levels easily with Illusion spells th

Why/how +5?

Anyway, I'm for extremist so a MC Trickster/Illusionist with plenty of defensive spells/abilities from these 2 subclass and the single damage skills of rouge plus some other enhanced illusion spells such as Gaze of the Adragan and... do you know that Concelhaut Crushing Doom is illusion, don't you? Also good self-defending debuffer Not for a SOLO run, but I guess a good mate in a party.

[Boeroer]

36 minutes ago, Chaospread said:

Why/how +5?

How: Illusionist +2, Eye of Wael +2, Whitewitch Mask +1