Why is no one talking about tactician/skaen or bloodmage?

[Darab Masood]

Go invisible, brilliant, shoot, go invisible again. If you don't mind waiting six seconds you can even cast your strongest spell repeatedly without any enemy interrupting.

[Boeroer]

Yeah, it's a powerful interaction for sure.

Maybe because lots of players talked about it in the past, now they ran out of things to say about it.

The "turn invisible->becoming brilliant" part only works solo btw. - bc. of a logical flaw in the implementation of the "Brilliant Tactician" passive.

Here's a cool solo build by @Kaylon from 2019 that uses this very mechanic:

 

Since the mechanic seems to be unintended by the devs it is considered cheesy by some players - and thus I think they are not too enthusiastic to recommend it nowadays. 

Same thing with Lover's Embrace/Gouging Strike/Brand Enemy in combination with invisibility: you can solo 99% of the game with just those endless DoT attacks: Just apply the bleeding (and/or burning), turn invisible, hide out of sight and wait until the enemy's dead, combat ends, repeat. You can even kill several megabosses like that. It's super effective (even in a party just to take on totally overpowered enemies in order to get certain loot early for example)... but also kind of lame after a while. 

I suspect the same effect sets in with (solo) Brilliant Tactician and invisibility: it's very repetitive and may feel cheesy, so I guess some players aren't too enthusiastic about it. 

It is a very powerful combination nonetheless and if you like it then there's nothing to hold you back.

 

[Boeroer]

Btw.: I didn't test this but Brilliant Tactician should also trigger if you can charm or dominate all enemies.

The faulty logic is: if there are no enemies, then zero enemies are NOT flanked -> must mean all enemies are flanked -> become brilliant.

This might also trigger as soon as all enemies are friendly. But as I said I didn't try it out. 

Edited January 27 by Boeroer

[Darab Masood]

Nvm. Shadowing beyond or brilliant departure don't give stealth recovery. The 6 second wait for the 2nd guile for smoke veil should segue nicely with the reload time for arquebuses

Edited January 27 by Darab Masood

[Chaospread]

Mmm, well, tactician for brilliant (SOLO) ok. Then Rogue has invisibility, ok, Priest of Skaen has invisibility, ok... but what invisibility has wizard? And Bloodmage doesn't need brilliant.

By the way, don't offensive spells broke invisibility?

And more, As @Boeroer said, this discovery is hot water, there are plenty of these build in The Ultimate Page: 2 Tactician / Skaen, 4 Skaen / Blood Mage (!), 2 SC Blood Mage, other Skaen / whatever...

[Darab Masood]

Wizard has arkemyrs brilliant departure. I know about the ultimate but I saw no build posted here. Just kaylons assassin. I was just saying how skaen and wizard invisibility replenishes as soon as brilliant triggers. We can use offensive spells as long as they do damage instantly. Like minolettas precisely piercing burst or torrent of flame. Wizard is better than priest for that. And bloodmage is unreliable but getting your spell back is guaranteed even for high level spells if you have brilliant. 

Instead of waiting 6 seconds for smoke veil, and then shooting with arquebus a wizard or skaenite can cast an offensive spell. A real crowd pleaser like piercing burst. Repeatedly.

Edited January 27 by Darab Masood

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Darab Masood said:

But actually using a priest of skaen or wizard is more efficient.

I don't know. Depends on the enemies. Against mobs some AoE spells are surely more effective in terms of overall dps. But is dps a useful metric in a solo run in the first place?

The Assassin/Tactician gets +25 accuracy for his attacks from Assassinate (the damage bonuses don't really matter that much - Kaylin even states that Deathblows isn't worth the trouble - but they are a nice addon of course) which stacks with Aware/Intuitive and the arquebus' modal (+20 acc). In Kaylon's case where he uses Dragon's Dowry (which does fire-tagged attacks) you could even add the Ring of Focused Flames for additional +10 acc and the Ring of the Marksman (+5 acc) and Helm of the White Void (+10 acc if Rogue strike ability) or Acina's Tricorn (+5 acc) which is all very efficient in order to take on enemies with high defenses (bosses, buffed up enemies or simply overleveled encounters). The overall acc bonus adds up to +70 or +75 after a while.

It doesn't really matter if it takes a bit longer than casting spells imo - since you cannot get attacked anyway - so there's no need to kill multiple enemies asap in one go (other than getting bored, heh). 

It's also a lot easier to play.

But It may be that it's more fun to abuse this mechanic with a Priest of Skaen or a Wizard instead of an Assassin. There's more variety and versatility for sure.

Now that I said that: a whole party of vanishers (Rogues, Wizards, Priest of Skaen) mixed with one or more Tacticians could be really fun to use with this mechanic. Even SC Monk (Whispers of the Wind) as well as normal Priests (Withdraw counts as invisibility) could work at some point. As soon as all party members are invisible the Tactician(s) in the party would all become brilliant. Hm, hm, hm...  

 

 

Edited January 27 by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Now that I said that: a whole party of vanishers (Rogues, Wizards, Priest of Skaen) mixed with one or more Tacticians could be really fun to use with this mechanic. Even SC Monk (Whispers of the Wind) as well as normal Priests (Withdraw counts as invisibility) could work at some point. As soon as all party members are invisible the Tactician(s) in the party would all become brilliant. Hm, hm, hm...  

Maybe can you extend this for a party of custom classes with potion of invisibility?
Ok, only for a limited number of encounters, but it could work...

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The overall acc bonus adds up to +70 or +75 after a while.

Yep, and you have Gouging Strike also.

3 hours ago, Darab Masood said:

Wizard has arkemyrs brilliant departure

Ok, I forget, but ABD is "cumbersome" and you need to occupy a grimoire slot for it.

3 hours ago, Darab Masood said:

We can use offensive spells as long as they do damage instantly

Oh, I though DoT spells don't ended invisibility, instead it is the contrary... thanks. Anyway, a bug for sure.

3 hours ago, Darab Masood said:

I know about the ultimate but I saw no build posted here

Oh, Tactician / whatVanisherYouLike is a "Template" that doesn't need a build: you know the general rule and every build you create, with skills, abilities, attributes you like is virtually invincible.
It's like BDD + Brilliant + SoT: once you know the combo you can "cook" it like you want; i.e. I build a Corpse Eater / Priest of Berath and played with that.

Edited January 27 by Chaospread
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