Non-PotD Chanter.. need info on the exact role in party.

[Remix]

You only kite foes or you also attack them with weapons? Is there a specific way in which I can obtain combat abilities? So that I attack during chants and throw in some cool ability?

All 3 of the chanters I am using are competent in melee and can engage enemies. They also have cross class abilities and ranged weapons. If they're not engaged they're peppering enemies with a pistol, blunderbuss and longbow until they gain chants.

 

Usually once they have garnered the attention of enemies I have my barbarian waiting somewhere to flank any mobs that are close enough together to maximize the barbs AOE melee attacks. If not, I unleash paralysis invocation from my tank, seven knights from my main, and summon ogres or spores with my "necrochanter".

[Slack83er]

No issue at all. Nordic people had both axes and bows. As for the chants... I'd take those that buff self and party... let's give some example....

 

1st Level: Wengridh, At the Sight

 

2nd Level: Sure handed Ila, Lo, their endless host

 

3rd Level: The silver knights

 

4th Level: Old Siec 

 

Invocations:  Reny Daret, At the sound of his voice, Gernisc's beast, Seven Nights, The bride caught, So singt. (the champion would fit solo...)

 

 

 

That's what I think at first thought...

[Remix]

I will work on something when I get a chance.

[Remix]

Quick question: where will your chanter be more often in relation to your party? Front line, second line, flanking, or third line?

[Slack83er]

Quick question: where will your chanter be more often in relation to your party? Front line, second line, flanking, or third line?

Thank you first of all. My idea is second line, between tank/dps and wizard/ranged. Being in the middle helps me spread my AoE better.

If someone draws near, I'll face 'em with hatchets/axes.

 

Edit... Even behind would suit, as I could be the one who gives courage to the party... but what do I do with Hatchets then?

Edited October 5, 2016 by Slack83er

[Remix]

The thing with chanters like this is that you want to be adaptable as encounters bring different situations. The dual hatchets will up your deflection so you'll be useful in melee. Frenzy will cancel that out but you'll be somewhat quicker and stronger. With enemies that you don't want to engage you'll sit back and pepper them with arrows (sure handed will come in handy here).

 

Since you're not playing on potd defelection is less necesaary but if you want hide armor you will probably only engage foes in melee if they engage you first (you won't be much of a tank without supplemental buffs and healing from other party members). You will need healers and probably ancient memory, beloved spirits and vets recovery so you can draw more from your overall health pool and maintain survivability.

 

I'll likely tweak the build I showed you initially in the screenshots so that you can use weapons without too hefty a penalty (probably won't dump dex much if at all).

 

If you have an idea of what the rest of your party will be class, role and build-wise that will really help in how I craft the character.

[Slack83er]

Ok let's see.. I'm sure of Eder, Aloth and Durance. Kana is to be evaluated, since he's chanter as well. As for the rest I dunno right now... I think I will decide a bit later based on how I fare during combat...

 

Thanks for your efforts Remix, really appreciate.

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Only thing is the invocation are just an extra gimmick of the chanter and not his main strength which is .... chanting.

Phew you are pretty harsh on invocations

To be honest I find them better than chants for a long time, at least until you get the damage reduction and dragon thrashed chants. Even then seven nights is great, the burst damage is insane. Add almost permanent paralyze and the phantom which I useful till 8th level...

 

Well up to level 9 you are right, but you can get there quite easily.

After that I often just use them to end a fight cause of stacking dragon slashed.

[Remix]

List of Invocations
 

 

Base Stats

 

Buffed with bride caught and frenzy

 

Inventory and useful items, appearance. 

 

Stats with equipped items. 

 

Talents. 


Nothing is set in stone here. You can probably adjust things as you figure out a playstyle that fits best with your party. 

Survival will probably be useful here. if you can get it to 12 you get the second-level healing bonus. stacked with all the regen and damage you're doing while tanking with okay DR and deflection you will likely need it in the same way the barbarian does. 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Remix

[Remix]

Kite enemies with Wengridh to build up a few chants. Switch to sure handed when you're not in melee and fire arrows. Cast Bride and Frenzy. Switch chants again if you want at this point (+25 fire damage or +10 deflection 3rd level chants both work well). Rush chanter in toward enemies. Have another caster buff defensive spells if necessary. Cast Seven Nights. Do a ton of damage. 

Summon Dragon to distract enemy every now and again. 

Nothing is set in stone with this build. I barely tested it. I don't know if you can do a ton of melee damage like this. If health regen is good enough, though, you can probably just switch to dual wielding axes. Maybe take Secrets of Rime and focus on a ton of freeze damage alongside using rimecutter. 

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Remix

[Slack83er]

Well... great work! The appearance is also fitting perfectly!

I can't see the abilities, only see athletics at 6.. you get lore and survival I guess..

[Remix]

I just did the skills something like survival at 12, lore and athletics at 6. I didn't really incorporate skills in the build as I just wanted to test if it works okay. You can do whatever you want, really. Although the survival healing bonus is probably very useful.

[Slack83er]

I'll give it a try as soon as I have rested a bit from my nightshift. Seems solid enough.

[Remix]

Let me know how it works. There's still a lot of tweaks that can be applied, I'm sure.

[Slack83er]

I'm trying it now. I hope it works. I see you did it very tanky with a lot of constitution... maybe I'd have gone with a little bit more of INT for the radiuses and durations...

[Remix]

Yeah. In my testing I only messed around with the character at level 16.
I had enough time to frenzy and invocation-buff myself, melee for a bit, and then build up another set of chants to cast seven nights. With the int buff I was able to have a solid AOE, as well. 

If you're not playing on POtD you can probably get away with less con or detract a little bit from perception. You might suffer a bit in ranged combat and hitting enemies with your attack spells and debuffs but using "the bride" invocation probably offsets that enough, anyway.
That seems to be the main plan with this build: attack, draw and kite, flank and chant while you're building up to cast frenzy and "the bride" buff. Then rush enemies and do some crazy AOE damage that isn't dangerous to your allies. 

There is one thing I should mention: if you take another chanter (Kana) you can also cast the +might+con+resolve invocation and turn your skald into a complete beast at the same time as you cast the +Per+dex+int invocation.

This will make you and everyone caught in the path of these spells insanely effective at... well... everything.
If you do that it might give you more wiggle room for the character's base stats. The only thing is... I think the +might+con+res invocation will (probably) cancel out frenzy. It's not really a big deal, though, as you can cast Frenzy at the start of battle and still buff your stats while you "wait" for your chants to build up. Plus, you can still use frenzy - strangely enough - to buff the damage on your ranged hits a little bit. That way the loss of deflection won't really hurt you since you're not actively engaging enemies. 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Remix

[Remix]

I also don't want to say this is a necessary suggestion but if you're willing to (and it doesn't disrupt your play-style too much) you could probably afford to dump a couple points of resolve and use it somewhere else. Either Int, Dex or Might. 

Plenty of characters and classes have other buffs that can mitigate your lack of deflection (you said you might use Durance and Kana - both would allow you to focus more on offensive characteristics since their buffs can take care of any glaring defensive flaws). 

On a side note:
Honestly, the more I think about it the more it seems like having a second chanter (kana, in your case) would only benefit you exponentially. Having the ability to buff all of your stats at once by synchronizing "The Bride Caught" and "The Brideman Slew" would not only allow you more flexibility with your base attributes but it would also probably be really fun to just absolutely annihilate everything you and your party touches. 

[Remix]

Really, when you look at it, you can build a pretty effective party with minimal min-maxing just by playing two chanters that can utilize these invocations simultaneously. It's also a really great way to boost the story companions' base attributes. 

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Remix

[Slack83er]

Of course you can! Two chanters is just too good to be true! The bonuses accrue, and it's a thing you can do effortlessly... sometimes I think this class is broken...

[Remix]

Frenzy does still (kinda) work when using the +might+con+dex invocation. The +might+con part of the frenzy is suppressed but the 20% attack speed still applies, it seems. I just tested it.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Remix

[Slack83er]

The singing war machine

[Remix]

Haha. That's probably what one would call a full party of chanters.

 

Maybe I'll try and come up with a party of 6 unique chanters all built around different archetypes and post them.

[Remix]

Any word on how the build is working?

[Slack83er]

I tried it just a bit, not very intensively but from what I can see it works... I'm starting to think that if I make a Chanter with all 3 in stats it's going to work nonetheles...haha this class is too strong!