[CLASS BUILD] The Skeletor (Spellcaster and spellbreaker)

[Mlok]

Hello and welcome to my first ever guide! Please excuse my weak english skills, I just hope that you can get over them somehow and ejoy my text nevertheless.

In Pillars of Eternity some classes are pretty straightforward and even new player cant do much wrong with them, like paladin, barbarian, ranger...  You can build them in traditional way, just like you did in other games, and you get pretty nice result. Wizard needs better understanding on the game. I allways had Aloth in party, but he was not doing much aside of lie dead on ground.

But this is how it should be, wizard needs to be clever and will be strong only with perfect knowledge of his spells and their applications. So I present you my guide:

 

 

 

Skeletor the human wizard for POTD v3.02 that relies on his spells more then on his weapons

 

You can play whatever race you want, I like to play humans.

 

Stats:

Might: 22 (16 +1 Human +1 Gift from the Machine +4 Maegfolc Skull)

Constitution: 5 ( 3 + 2 Binding Rope )

Dexterity: 22 (17 + Effigy: Devil of Caroc +4 Viettros formal footwear)

Preception: 26 (+1 The White that Wends, +4 Mantle of Excavator +3 Tower resting Bonus)

Intellect: 22 ( 18 + +4 Gwyns Band of Union)

Resolve: 10 (3 + 1 Human +3 Kerdhed Pames +3 Gyrd Háewanes Sténes)

 

Spells:

Tier 1: Chill Fog, Fan of Flames, Slicken, Eldrich Aim

Tier 2: Bewildering Spectatle, Concealhauts Corrosive Siphon (Combusting Wounds after Spell Mastery), Fetid Caress, Mirrored Image

Tier 3: DAOM, Minor Blights (Arcane Damper after Spell Masterty), Llengraths Displaced Image, Noxious Burst

Tier 4: Essential Phantom, Ninaguats Shadowflame, Confusion, Dimensional Shift (to save yourself, or to save otehrs in tank mode)

Tier 5: Citzal Spirit Lance, Llengrath Safeguard

Tier 6: Gaze of the Adragon, Citzals Marzial power

Rest: what you like

 

Spell Mastery: Slicken, Concealhauts Corrosive Siphon, DAOM and Minor Blights

 

Talents:

Weapon focus: Noble

Blast

Arcane Veil

Penetrating Blast

Hardened Veil

Dangerous Implement

Weapon and Shield

whatever you like

 

I tried Penetrating Shot, but in my verison of game bonus doesnt apply to anything beyond first target of my attack. Also I often dont attack to do damage, but to proc as many domination effect as I can.

 

Skills:
Lore: 9 (12 with footwear)

Survival: 11 (13 with mantle)

rest is up to you

 

Items:

Helmet: Maegfolc Skull - this item is madatory if you cant to play Skeletor

Armor: Kerdhed Pames - or whatever you like, Raiment of Waels Eyes worked for me very well

Cloak: Mantle of Excavator (which replaced Liliths Shawl

Hands: Ryonas Vabracers, Gauntless of swift Action, Accuracy, maybe Deflection if you insist on mainly tanking

Ring: Gwyns Band of Union

Ring: Ring of the Selonan - two more Slickens and two more DAOMs or Noxious Bursts

Feet: Vitteros formal footwear

Belt: Binding rope (very usefull debuff)

 

Quick items: Scrolls, potions, figurines

 

Weapon 1: Gyrd Háewanes Sténes - you dont use it to do damage, you want to bring chaos to enemy ranks

Weapon 2: Spelltongue + Little Savior - to make your buffs last forever

Weapon 3: Minor Blights - to throw hundreds of AoE damage each attack on your enemis

Weapon 4: Citzals Spirit Lance - to get the power!!!!

 

With Durgan enchant and DAOM my Gyrd attack have like 0,5s recovery and rapier attack have no recovery at all. Due to nature of Skeletor attacks, which most of them are AoE, intellect is your primary stat for damage. Most important stat is still Preception, because for wizard accuracy is king. 

 

Creation:

 

I tried many things with my wizard: reach staff medium armor unit, combusting wounds+fire shield+retaliation items heavy armor tank, cloth (0 DR 0 recovery armor) ranged glass cannon. Eventually I had this idea based around item Gyrd Háewanes Sténes – you get this item basically right from start and domination efect also proc on blasts, that is small aoe explosion wizard gets when attacing with wands and such. I was thinking: what if I make my wizard attack as fast as possible to get as many domination effect as I can?

 

At normal or hard difficulties, you usually dont have much trouble with groups of opponents. This is why barbarian is not popular, because you kill groups easily even with no aoe, but aoe doesnt help you much with dangerous and strong bosses. I wouldnt bother domination a dude you could oneshot second later anyway, but in POTD you get groups of very tough enemes everywhere, one or two domination proc brigs chaos to the battlefield and can turn tide of lost battle. It gives you more breath, more time to do whatever you need to do, beacue enemies tend to turn around and attack your dominated target right away!

 

Skeletor have several „mods“:

 

0) Allways start with Deletrious Aclaricity of Motion if you want to get serious. Great choice for Spell Mastery

 

 

1) Control - As a Skeletor, your mail role will allways be a control. Just dont let enemies do their things if you wan to win! Knock them prone, confuse them, dominate them, stun them or turn them into stone. Keep this in mind even when you go damage or tank. Also you should cripple them with debuff, suppress buffs with arcane damper and make them overall weaker. -20 accuracy on enemies is like +20 deflection buff that stacks with every other buff on yourself.

 

 

2) Damage – There is one enemy status even better, then petrified – dead. Death is very reliable and perament debuff, so you should use it as much as you can. You have several options:

 

  a) Dangerous Implement + Minor Blights + Blast. This thig is ridiculous, because Minor Blights have AoE attack and every hit enemy trigger separate blast. It is also one of reasons why intellect results in more damage, then might. Cast controling spells every now and then. Did you know taht you can take spell mastery from the same spell level twice? You can get DAOM + Minor Blights and have then every combat

 

  b) Spam spells. It is a good way to both controll and kill enemies. Spaming spells can be very effective, just unleash havoc first and if enemies still stand, it is time to do some serious thinking. Dont forget to leave one level 5 spell up for 4

 

 

3) Tank – Even with only 3 constitution you can be a serious tank! Having over 200 deflection is easy, as you can see on screenshot. I didnt use anything special, I dont have food or priest buffs. Hardened Veil only last for a shrot while, but you can keep it up forever with Spelltongue! I actually discovered this myself, I equipped a Spelltongue with shield on my wizard just because I had „Weapon focus: Noble“ tried the damage on Pallegina and guess what! Buffs lasted forever! Then typed „Arcane Veil + Spelltongue“ into google and it turns out more people got this idea, like Royal Court Battlemage by Conjurer.

Anyway, you wont be doing much tanking against unbuffed enemies – but those enemies should be easilly controlled with your spells. If you meet some badass invulnerable paladins – drain their buffs into your own Arcane Veil. Cast Veil first, then whitch into rapier + shield. I am considering quick switch talent, but so far I have no trouble doing it even wihout. Just be aware that guns ignore Veil.

 

 

4) I have the power!!! You can also have the power, if you conjure Citzals Spirit Lance. It is fast and it hits with ridicilous impact, triggering massive AoE damage.  Want more? Petrify them with Gaze of Adragon and watch the numbers. Need ultimate last stand option? Trigger Citzals Martial Power and go all in. You do not need two handed talent, this lance thing do enough damage on its own.

 

 

Playing the game:

On first levels use Parasitic Staff. It deals great damage. Caravan vendor buys at ridiculous prices, so you can sell him everything and do first encounters naked. It is hard, but you will start with good money and you need money to learn spells.

 

Go to get your Stronghold as fast as you can, but be prepared for incredibly hard fights. Build stuff that generate items every turn, so you get most benefit from quests. Hire some random heroes to do quests for you untill you get enough party memebers.

 

Then I go around and grab all desired comanions, grab Gyrd, start main quest in catacombs and go finish White March 1 right away. After that I have PROPER SPELLBOOK and other pretty powerfull items and I can do whatever I can. I like to leave some content to the higher levels, like White March 2, but I usually get all those powerfull items right after White March 1. You need to kill a lot of stuff to level soublond items, so you better get them early.

 

 

POTD is hard, what should I do?

 

Dont do mistakes.
You are a wizard, you have power in your hands. If you use it well, you get great results, if you mess up, you die! No redemption, no second chancess!

 

Bring friends!
As a Skeletor I like to have bunch of weirdos with me when I go on stroll. I dont use custom characters, I like story companions. They are weaker, but that makes your main character shine :D I take Pallegina (Corrode Scimitar + Outworn Buckler, defensive talents and DR aura + imolate, healing spells and Spirit of Decay + Scion of Fire), Kana (Tanking gear and talents, +10 deflection and damage chant for normal play, „ogrecalling chant“ (two random level 1 chants) for fights I need ogers fast) Hirvalis (Medium armor, greenstone staff, spam some storms and turn to lion. I dont know if there is some bug, but with all wildstrike talents and wildstrike belt Hirvalis attacks very fast and hits for 60-90 damage, he is crazy damage dealer in lion form) Grieving Mother (Twin Sting, light armor, debuffs and control, flanks everyone with phantom forces for baby sneak attacks) and Sagani (Stormcaller, Hearth of the Storm, she fires 2 arrows that hit 4 targets total, procing storms, lovering lightning treshold and have good chance to stun?) No priest, no barbarien, no rogue, no fighter, no monk. I dont need them at all.  

 

Make your own library!
You are a wizard! Get bunch of tomes from dead enemies and store all spells in your personal library! I think some spells can be tought only during leveling up. To get all spells, you need to respec... Anyway, respeccing a wizard is VERY VERY expensive. Sometimes you will not have enough money to relearn all spells, so make sure you have them backed up in your tomes in case you need one.

 

Make scrolls and potions!
Most of the time you will steamroll packs of enemies. Then you will find something like Alpine Dragon. Hard fight like this perfect place to use potions and scrolls. You can craft them and most of them are pretty strong. Your companions need some lore to use them, but when your ranger casts Confuse on all enemies and then Revives entire party, you will apriciate it.

When you go all out with food, potions, figurines, scrolls, limited charge items, you can overcome even strongest enemies.

 

But remember you are a main character as well! Dont sacrifice everything to damage, you need stats and skills for dialogue options as well, maybe you want to roleplay, point of this game is to enjoy it, right?

[Mlok]

Re-learning all spells in game will cost you about 34 000 copper.

 

Do you guys have any other tips and tricks for spellcasters and other wizards?

[DreamWayfarer]

You should make hirelings instead of respecing your char if learning all spells is what you want. I mean, that way at least you only have to learn spells you didn't already know instead of forgetting everything.

Edited July 6, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[mukurome]

there are only few spells, that we can obtain only via level up, rest are learnable from books, so we do not need to respec to gain all spells.

[Dropman]

What about spell guide? Im always little lost when it comes to spell choice..

[Mlok]

This is perview how Minor Blights + Blast works:

 

 

First AoE attack with Minor Blights (its a cojured implement) then each target trigger a blast. Blast hit and crit go for about 10-15 damage at average, sometimes more, sometimes less. Those 29 blast attacks did about 290-435 damage. Add 291 frost damage from original attack and you get 581-726 total damage. I attack with less then 1 second recovery time, so damage is pretty good.

 

Can I edit original post somehow? I would like to add this to guide.

 

I will make a basic spell guide later this week.

[AndreaColombo]

You should be able to edit the OP normally for an indefinite period of time (except the title); is it not working?

[Boeroer]

Solid wizard build. Reminds me of my childhood. I had Castle Grayskull and my friend had Snake Mountain. Those were good times. Ach, but it's still good times if you ask me.

 

Blast with Blights is always nice. Did you use K. Pames because of the looks or because of the +3 RES?

 

Another question: Why didn't you use a blue Coastal Aumaua?

Edited July 9, 2016 by Boeroer