Call to action; more chanter builds

[QuiteGoneJin]

So far we have two tanks (regen ice, and fire) and a swifty gun swapper.

 

We need more imo.

 

A pure summoner?

 

A non summoner cone using beast

 

A 1 handed finess character (iirc one handed acc gives a bonus to acc on chants)

 

etc etc.

[Boeroer]

I played a one handed chanter with a lot of DEX and PER, high move speed and low armor in order to spam Killers Froze Stiff. You can perma-paralyze at higher levels if you choose lvl-1-chants. I just didn't write a build for it because it became more powerful once you switched to Dragon Thrashed - and well we already have a build around that.

 

There are some vague build descriptions of summoning chanters floating around. Basically they dump PER and MIG and let the summons do the offensive work while being sturdy enough but keeping recovery time short. But nobody wrote down a proper build description.

[Livegood118]

I've tried other Chanter builds but I've never found them particularly impressive. A 1H high dex-per-int killers froze stiff build as described above sounds like it could be pretty damn good if taken to completion/optimised further.

 

One of the main conceptual problems I have in making other chanter builds is that they are just so damn good at tanking it feels a waste to do anything else with them. Sure, they've got low endurance, but the manner in which their offensive abilities work means you can can tank dex and don't need to take any offensive talents (unless you want to take secrets of rime to beef up you're seven nights she waited, but this also has a defensive component), meaning you can focus solely on beefing up defence.

[AlphaMagnum]

Question -- I love both the damage of the Dragon Thrashed chant as well as the healing of the Chillfog build. How can I combine them? I don't mind doing a bit less damage or a bit less healing if I can provide massive party regen. I've just started a PotD party for the first time and Ancient Memory + Veteran's/Constant Recovery on my other frontliners has been amazing. Even just the 20% healing boost + Fulvano's amulet is great! They just heal through everything except burst damage (those damn boars in Magran's Fork hit like trucks!)

 

At this point my biggest issue is that Kana keeps running out of Health every other fight! My Lv4 pick is necessarily going to be Wound Binding as a result.

[JerekKruger]

@AlphaMagnum looking at the two builds, they have relatively similar Attributes and their talent selections aren't all that different either. I think if you read through the description for each and pick out the key talents and abilities for each one. Write those down and see if a build has space for them all, then fill in any remaining gaps with whichever picks you prefer.

 

I think the main thing standing in your way as far as combing the two is that the Drake's Ambassador wants to maximise the amount of time Dragon Thrashed is firing (to the extent you might not even want to cast invocations at all), but Chillfog uses the phrase Mercy and Kindness to buff his healing and is a high level phrase, thus is long. Combining the two phrases to achieve both objectives might not be all that doable.

[AlphaMagnum]

I mean, I feel like with this premise I'm more than willing to have everyone using the +Healing survival bonus at all times because it certainly seems better than +3DR, although the targeted accuracy may be more useful in difficult encounters.

 

Also, you raise a very good point. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to just compare the builds and come up with my own hybrid!

Edited March 7, 2017 by AlphaMagnum

[MaxQuest]

A pure summoner?

A non summoner cone using beast

Had a summoner chanter with dumped Per/Dex, but high Mig/Int for buffing chants/scrolls/beloved spirits and summoning invocations in mind for awhile. But imho, summons are just too fragile.  

 

A 1 handed finess character (iirc one handed acc gives a bonus to acc on chants)

Was thinking about this one too. Still, if you need that extra acc, it's easier to throw a mass paralyze and thus dump enemy reflex to oblivion.

 

Another possible way could be a cc-chanter. A 2/15/5/20/18/18 wild orlan offtank, focused on cc-invocations + scrolls, and either completely low-level chants or Aefyllath + Sure Handed, if you have many ranged (non-dot) dps'ers.

Edited March 7, 2017 by MaxQuest

[JerekKruger]

Also, you raise a very good point. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to just compare the builds and come up with my own hybrid!

 

Just to say, I didn't mean it in a snarky way

[QuiteGoneJin]

I was trying to imagine a one handed skirmisher type build, with with equal parts might, dex, int, death godlike whose aura melts his enemies; light armor and a rapier. No summons all cone spells.  Seems like it could be fun. 

[Boeroer]

You can sing Kindness and then maybe squeeze 3 Dragons into its linger time at the higher levels. Maybe even four at lvl 16 (Brisk Recitation at 50%), never tried it though. If there's a little gap between the Kindness phrases it's not a big problem.

But actually Come Sweet Winds also does some damage at higher levels because it triggers every 2 seconds. And it does raw damage which can be great against high DR foes. Of course it's not comparable with Dragon Thrashed, but the Seven Nights invocation can close the gap... a bit...

Edited March 7, 2017 by Boeroer

[Livegood118]

It's so hard to beat the damage output of a decently specced Dragon-Thrashed Chanter. With 25 Might, 25 Intellect against a 16 DR target a hit will do:

 

14.5 vs DR*.25 + 14.5 vs DR*.25 per tick

10.5/10.5 damage per tick = 21 damage per tick

Duration = 4 + 4*1.75 = 11 Seconds (=4.66 Ticks)

21*4.66 = 97.86 damage (Graze = 73.5 damage, Crit = 123.5 Damage)

 

And that's triggered passively every four seconds in a massive radius. So tasty. After 12 seconds you'll be doing approximately 22-24 damage a second assuming all hits.

 

Seven Nights She Waited is absolutely crazy as well against targets that you can hit multiple times. I'm pretty sure you can get four hits in on some dudes but if we say you get three hits with 25 Might (+45%), Secrets of Rime (+20%), Champions Boon (+30%), Flanked Bonus from Phantom Foes (+30%) and the crit talents (+1.9 damage on crits):

 

Damage increase = 125%

45 – 60 *2.25 = 101.25 – 135

Range of Damage assume no graze = 303.75 – 405 minus DR*3

Range of Damage assume all crits = 425.25 – 526.5 minus DR*3

 

All crits is easily achievable with petrify and you'll get an extra damage bonus there too. RIP Dragons (who I think you can get four hits on). Can churn this out every 12-13 seconds with a high level Chanter.

 

Nothing else in the Chanter's arsenal really compares to these two in terms of damage unless you're getting very creative with White Worms Writhed. Such a great class - makes D&D bards look like a toddler 

[MountainTiger]

I've been wondering if there is something clever to be done with a Stormcaller chanter, but it just seems like a suboptimal use of both the weapon and the chanter. Could do a lot of work kiting, I guess, but that's never been my style.

[smjjames]

Some examples of how chants are set up for the builds would be nice actually. Also, not sure how to build Kana, not sure I entirely understand how to build it correctly or do the chants correctly.

[Boeroer]

He? Put one Dragon Thrashed phrase into your chant and name it "Armageddon" - finished. That's how you do chants with Kana...

[MortyTheGobbo]

What is this "Kindness" chant people keep bringing up? I can't find it anywhere.

 

Also, I admit chanters are one of the two classes I can't quite crack, either (the other being ciphers, although I have a better idea now). I'm planning to build Kana as a tank with Dragon Trashed next time, but I wouldn't have come up with it by myself. A lot of their chants just feel situational, or just unimpressive. Like the 2nd level one that gives a defence bonus against fear - nice, but I can just get complete immunity from a 1st level priest spell, or a scroll.

[Dr <3]

I tried once a "Wolverine" Chanter: vet recovery, beloved spirits, High survival for +40/60% healing boost, mahea armor or fulvano amulet, kindness chant, High const & str & Dex . Dual wielder ( punch --> novice suffering or other weapons--> dual bittercut). Invocation: Champion for +40 attack speed and dr, on occasion others.

 

It was quite fun, but had 2 problems ( was a solo potd run):

1) without the deflecion from the shield in late game even with your wonderful regen you can't tank for long ( and chanter suffer also from a low endurance for health multiplier, so in any case you will not tank for long, unless you have very High deflecion)

2) It lacked the whole aoe DMG you "need" for a solo run ( not actually need but makes things a lot faster). I even tried to squeeze some winds of death between the kindness phrase for a bit of DMG and to quicken the reach of 5 phrase for the Seven nights invocation. A bit better but nothing special.

3) hack and slash enemies instead of burn them all down in 1/10 of the time let you a bad taste

[Gnomic]

What is this "Kindness" chant people keep bringing up? I can't find it anywhere.

EDIT: derp, nevermind.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Gnomic

[MountainTiger]

Mercy and Kindness Followed Where'er She Walked is a phrase that boosts healing received by 100%. I think it was added in WM 2.

[scythesong]

I find too much focus on a chanter restrictive, unless you solo. The summons are nowhere near as useful as another character, for example, but they're always useful for buying you extra time do stuff or just being on the receiving end of some very nasty nukes (Cleansing Flame comes to mind, I find chanters invaluable for blocking those especially in PotD). Disable spam is rather hit-or-miss (literally) and sometimes it's easier to just kill something outright rather than disable them. No chanter should go without nukes like White-Worms-Writhed-in-the-Bellies-of-the-Dead, regardless of your might score - those can clear entire areas by itself if you plan for them.

Finally, you actually need to target something to cast several of your invocations, but because many of your abilities use an AoE cone for targeting you get more mileage out of them if you equip a range weapon - at the same time, melee potentially gives you a much higher DPS with chants and dual-wield.

 

In end I really just plan for what type of warrior I want my chanter to be, offensive or defensive. I make up the details as I go.

The only thing that doesn't change is that all my chanters start with good Int/Per.

Edited April 19, 2017 by scythesong

[MortyTheGobbo]

Mercy and Kindness Followed Where'er She Walked is a phrase that boosts healing received by 100%. I think it was added in WM 2.

 

That's odd. Neither the game's wiki nor Gamebanshee have it listed. I'll try respeccing Kana and see if it's there.

 

On high levels, I mostly had Kana use Her Courage as Thick as Steel and The Silver Knights' Shields Broke Both Arrow and Blade as chants. They felt like solid defensive ones that felt neither redundant nor situational. Oh, and Sure-Handed Ila, of course. My crossbow-rogue found it very helpful.