[COMPANION BUILD] Kana Ranged Arbalest

[Jaryn]

Hi everyone. After several years I returned to Pillars of Eternity and noticed that this forum is missing a little bit more detailed companion builds. So I thought I would try to change that. I also think that maybe because of Avowed there will be more people going back to Pillars of Eternity. I hope that I am not blind and that other people have not already posted the same companion builds.

I will start with Kana.

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Difficulty: PotD
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Class: Chanter
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Game Version: 3.0+
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Race: Island Aumaua
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Background: Rauatai - Scholar
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Skills: Lore 12 (base 8, +2 Chanter, + 2 Scholar), Survival 6, Athletics the rest

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Kana can be found standing outside of Caed Nua.

At character creation, Chanters select two Phrases and one Invocation. Kana at level 1 automatically chooses (you can't change that):
phrases - Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe and At the Sight of their Comrades, their Hearts Grew Bold
invocation - If their Bones Still Slept Under that Hill, None Can Say

So you start leveling Kana from level 2 onwards. Phrases at lvl 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15. Invocations and Talents at lvl 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16.

Level  1: Automatic

Level  2: The Thunder Rolled Like Waves on Black Seas, Ancient Memory

Level  3: Dull the Edge

Level  4: White Worms, Weapon Focus Soldier 

Level  5: Sure-Handed Ila

Level  6: At the Sound of His Voice, Gunner 

Level  7: One Dozen Stood

Level  8: The Lover Cried out to the Beloved, Runner's Wounding Shot

Level  9: Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr

Level 10: The Bride Caught their Ruse, Marksman

Level 11: Rime and Frost Followed

Level 12: Oh But Knock Not, Envenomed Strike

Level 13: They Shielded Their Eyes

Level 14: So Singt thy Biting Winds, Apprentice's Sneak Attack

Level 15: With All Your Strength

Level 16: Called to His Bidding, Beast Slayer OR Secrets of Rime

 

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White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead is an AMAZING early game Invocation. It's basically corpse explosion Just take advatage of chokepoints with your tank and as bodies pile up you can cast White Worms and deal a lot of damage. You can even lure enemies to places where you already have some bodies prepared. Just be aware that if you reload, bodies will dissapear. 

You can even deal nicely with the Raedric fight thanks to White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead. Before you start the fight with Raedric, pull the group of enemeis behind the door to the left of the throne room and lure them to the bedroom door on the right. Chanter can turn on Blessed Was Wengridh for Move Speed. Watch out for the Web spell. Priest at level 5 has Prayer Against Restraint or send someone who can be knocked out for the duration of the fight. Afterwards pull Raedric to the same spot and spam White Worms. 

I picked Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed because my main character was ranged Cipher. Feel free to pick whatever you want instead or keep it.

At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff paralyzes in AoE and foes only. You will use it majority of the game.

One Dozen Stood Against the Power of the Saint is pretty good against Dragons, Lions or anyone with Frightened/Terrified attacks.

Rime and Frost Followed is for the burning house interaction in Stalwart and Cayron's Scar ending interaction

They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze is "surprisingly" good against Fampyrs or anyone who is trying to Confuse, Charm, Dominate your party.

With All Your Strength Slay the Beast for Dragons mostly.

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Prepare these Chants:

 

Chant 1 - Sure-Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr. I have this on most of the time.

Chant 2 - One dozen Stood + Sure Handed Ila.

Chant 3 - They Shielded Their Eyes + Sure Handed Ila.

Chant 4 - With All Your Strength + Sure Handed Ila.

 

Before you get Sure-Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr use Dull the Edge + At the Sight.

 

 

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Weapon Set 1: Hold-Wall, later switch to Aedrin's Wrecker
Weapon Set 2: Great Sword or Pike or War Hammer and Shield

You can buy Hold-Wall in Black Hammer Smithy in Gilded Vale. Aedrin's Wrecker can be found on Level 10 of the Endless Paths of Od Nua.

Head: Anything with Intellect
Armor: Angio's Gambeson or any light armor
Neck: Finreah's Grace
Hands: Spiderfingers
Boots: Glanfathan Stalking Boots
Belt: whatever you want
Rings: Ring of Protection, Ring of Overseeing, Ring of Searing Flames or whatever you want

None of these equipment choices are set in stone to be honest. You just want nice Dexterity and Intellect boost and some Perception.

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I find Kana to be quite good from start to finish. With arbalest he will knock down enemies, buff and protect your party with chants, CC your enemies and summon help. 

You should also give him enough Lore skill so Kana can use some handy scrolls. I like scroll of Valor, scroll of Defense, scroll of Protection (amazing against Ogre Druids, Delemgan, Pŵgra, Adragan, Mênpŵgra), scroll of Revival, scroll of Prayer against Imprisonment, scroll of Prayer against Treachery.

 

 

Edited May 8 by Jaryn

[Vasvary5050]

Hi Jaryn. I'm currently playing Pillars 1 (POTD), currently in act 2 at level 7, and I have Kana as part of my main squad.

With chanters (in both Pillars 1 and Deadfire), I tend to gravitate towards making them a heavily armoured off-tank or emergency tank because, as I understand it (*), their class specific abilities - i.e. their chants and invocations - are essentially not impacted by them wearing the heaviest armour with the steepest recovery time penalties, because chants just happen passively in the background at the same pace regardless of armour, and the recovery time on invocations is shorter than the time required to complete 3 or more phrases. Armour of course effects their weapon recovery time, so wearing light armour will increase their base weapon DPS, but it seems to me that of all the classes, chanters are the one least negatively impacted by wearing heavy armour. So I tend to give Kana heavy armour, and have him stand next to my tank (I used to have him carry a large shield and hatchet for max deflection until it was pointed out to me that the shield mallus does affect accuracy for chants, and that - for reasons - chanters do benefit from the +12 bonus of one-handed only weapon on their chants (and maybe invocations?)

The exception to using Kana as an off-tank is when I'm fighting monsters that can pump out a lot of paralysis, at which point I do put him at the back with a ranged weapon so that he can easily hit the entire party with shatter their shackles after 4 phrases, and not get paralysed himself before doing so. But that's more an exception than the rule, and in these cases I should swap him into light armour (and when I don't its because I'm being lazy or forgetful). 

Seeing your build with Kana using an Arbalest (a weapon type I have sadly neglected) and light armour, I'm now wondering if maybe my approach to using chanters is wrong, and whether I should put him on the backline all the time in light armour. I'm genuinely not sure.

(*) I deliberately said as a "I understand it" as I am not a Pillars expert, and I don't want any of the above to come across as me disagreeing with you. It's just thinking out loud about your build suggestion and wondering whether I should build my Kana differently to how I've done so. (I've completed Deadfire a few times including on POTD, but this is my first time playing Pillars 1 on POTD, and its quite different to Deadfire on POTD).

Edited May 12 by Vasvary5050

[Boeroer]

I'm currently running a party with my MC chanter in the backline (with an Arbalest, albeit the Spike Flinger now that it's fixed bc. it reloads so much faster - but it doesn't have prone on crit) and Sure-Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr AND Kana in the front line with fat armor, a single handed hatchet and the Dragon Thrashed exclusively. The single weapon gives the Dragon Thrashed +12 accuracy (offensive chants are the only thing - apart from the weapon accuracy itself - where single handed weapon usage does that).

Both work fine, both are viable. Shooting requires a bit more micromanagement - which is fine for my MC. Kana in fat armor and without any meaningful way to deal weapon damage requires almost no micromanagement (which I find useful in a party of 6).

Imo there is no "better" in this case. It depends on what your party needs.

Both in one party has been very smooth sailing so far by the way (front line: Firebrand Edér, Dragon Thrashed Kana, dual hatchet Spiritshift Shocker Hiravias; back line: MC arbalest Chanter, Durance and CC Aloth). 

 

Edited May 13 by Boeroer

[Jaryn]

Hi Vasvary5050.

There is more than one way to play a Chanter. Even on the highest difficulty.

I chose light armor and Arbalest for Kana because I wanted to play ranged Cipher (MC) supported by Chanter standing next to my MC and out of harms way most of the time. Light armor helps Kana with recovery speed, Arbalest can inflict prone on crit and this weapon choice for Kana allows me to give arquebus to Durance in early game.

I also didn't need another frontliner. My party had Eder and Pallegina as tanks.

There is nothing wrong with playing a melee Chanter. Boeroer addressed that already in a comment above mine.

Edited May 13 by Jaryn

[Vasvary5050]

Thanks Jaryn and Boeroer!

I think I'll continue to use Kana as a sort of multi-function Swiss army knife. For some fights, especially in big open areas, I'll have him wearing the heavy armour and hatchet, and being the 3rd member of the front-line (I have Eder and MC Kind Wayfarer as my permanent front-line). For other fights, where paralysis and petrification attacks are a problem, or where I can force fights to be in botte-necks and doorways, I'll have him change into his light armour and give him a ranged weapon (at the moment I've given him St. Garam's Spark as I'm more interested in him giving +10 accuracy to my cipher or ranger than using a higher DPS weapon himself). I don't have dragon thrashed yet, but Kana has useful chants for both the back or front line so it feels like he can be easily moved to a different role without having to re-spec him, and whilst he is not min-maxed for optimal damage dealing in either role, I'm more interested in him providing good support than damage dealing in any case. (I don't have dragon-thrashed yet, but I like these: Sure-Handed Ila, Lo Their Endless Host, and Come Soft Winds of Death, and the Shatter my Shackles invocation has been a life-saver).

Quick question about St Garam's Spark (and marking weapons in general): Is there anyway to know who the +10 accuracy buff will be applied to? Is it the nearest ally to the person firing the marking weapon that is targeting the same enemy that it is applied to, or is it a random ally targeting the same target? And how/when is it applied? I presume the accuracy buff starts to apply after the person firing the marked weapon fires (but I presume it doesn't need to hit)? Or is just the aiming itself that is relevant (e.g., if I swap targets with the character firing the marking weapon, will the ally accuracy buff then be applied to an ally firing at the new target even before I actually fire St Garam's Spark, or will it still be the old target until the marking weapon is fired again)? Phew, so many possible permutations.

By the way, I did swap Kana out for a short while for Hiravias. I was stunned by how quickly he can rip through enemies when shifted so I thought I'd focus on making him a shifter first and a caster second rather than the other way around as I originally planned. And he's great. He does a LOT of damage. But he is also squishy as heck, and sometimes get curb stomped really fast. Ended up swapping him back out for Kana. The fights take a bit longer, but there is something about having Kana in the party that makes the party endure through the longer fights that I notice more when he is  missing than when he is there.

Edited May 13 by Vasvary5050

[Jaryn]

Marking gives bonus ONLY to the nearest party member attacking the same target. So only one party member. AFAIK Marking gives the accuracy bonus the moment you select a target and somebody from your party, standing close, attacks the same target. There is no need for the target to get hit first.

Marking also stacks with paladin's Coordinated Attacks. For example, Pallegina with Shame or Glory sword and Coordinated Attacks talent will give the nearest ally +20 accuracy.

Edited May 13 by Jaryn

[Chaospread]

Hi, I'm a little late but I agree that chanters can be played as tanker, off-tank, ranged, healer, buffer and in a loto of other ways
Kana Rua lends himself to be played as ranged, but you can find Kana's builds as melee tanker and the popular way to build a chanter in PoE1 is the tank /off-tank with low/min DEX.
In both ways, ranged or tanker/off-tank, Kana is viable, effective and feasible.

No issues as you build a companion, until he perform as you wish and you have fun

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Jaryn said:

AFAIK Marking gives the accuracy bonus the moment you select a target and somebody from your party, standing close, attacks the same target. There is no need for the target to get hit first.

That's correct and well explained.