Okay, help me build a Chanter.

[Dark Elf]

My restartitis is getting awful and I need to create a character with which to complete the game.

 

So! A Chanter seems ideal. A linguist, a bookish seeker of lore to whom music is life, the kind of person who'd read poetry and Neil Gaiman novels. Yes, a Chanter I will be.

 

And I will be a male Meadow Human, from the Living Lands, Scientist background.

 

But then, I cannot decide on stats, invocations or phrases!

 

How about this?

 

Phrases:

 

Thick Grew Their Tongues, Stumbling O'er Words - decreases enemy Concentration, so must be decent as a general debuff, right?

 

Come, Come, Soft Winds of Death - maybe. Since my first phrase debuffs anyway. Or maybe it hardly affects anything? Is At the Sight of their Comrades better?

 

 

Invocations:

 

I keep hearing that the phantom one is the way to go?

 

 

Stats:

 

 Here I have huge issues, but...

 

20 Mig: Because I keep hearing about The Dragon Thrashed, and it seems like a generally great stat. Or do you dump Might? 

 

8 Con: Seems like a harsh thing to do on a recommended stat, should perhaps be higher? 

 

3 Dex: Since it doesn't seem to affect much at all in a Chanter's life.

 

10 Per: Base. 

 

18 Int: The most useful stat for a Chanter, I hear. 

 

19 Res: Well... for dialogue options, mainly. I keep hearing that it's the best dialogue stat and even though it may not affect actual outcomes all that much in the end, I still care enough about the roleplaying aspect to be a decent diplomat. Then again, perhaps Int + Per achieves the same result while making for a more useful Chanter?

 

 

What changes would you make to this? 

 

 

 

[Livegood118]

My restartitis is getting awful and I need to create a character with which to complete the game.

 

So! A Chanter seems ideal. A linguist, a bookish seeker of lore to whom music is life, the kind of person who'd read poetry and Neil Gaiman novels. Yes, a Chanter I will be.

 

And I will be a male Meadow Human, from the Living Lands, Scientist background.

 

But then, I cannot decide on stats, invocations or phrases!

 

How about this?

 

Phrases:

 

Thick Grew Their Tongues, Stumbling O'er Words - decreases enemy Concentration, so must be decent as a general debuff, right?

 

Come, Come, Soft Winds of Death - maybe. Since my first phrase debuffs anyway. Or maybe it hardly affects anything? Is At the Sight of their Comrades better?

 

 

Invocations:

 

I keep hearing that the phantom one is the way to go?

 

 

Stats:

 

 Here I have huge issues, but...

 

20 Mig: Because I keep hearing about The Dragon Thrashed, and it seems like a generally great stat. Or do you dump Might? 

 

8 Con: Seems like a harsh thing to do on a recommended stat, should perhaps be higher? 

 

3 Dex: Since it doesn't seem to affect much at all in a Chanter's life.

 

10 Per: Base. 

 

18 Int: The most useful stat for a Chanter, I hear. 

 

19 Res: Well... for dialogue options, mainly. I keep hearing that it's the best dialogue stat and even though it may not affect actual outcomes all that much in the end, I still care enough about the roleplaying aspect to be a decent diplomat. Then again, perhaps Int + Per achieves the same result while making for a more useful Chanter?

 

 

What changes would you make to this? 

 

 

Stats seem about right but I'd personally put more resolve in to Con and perhaps raise Per a bit more.

 

The two tank builds by Boroer that you can find in the pinned thread at the top of this forum are both good: 

 

Drake's Ambassador – http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83491-class-build-the-drakes-ambassador-searing-mesmerizing-chanter-tank/

Chillfog – https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86968-class-build-chillfog-cool-soothing-chanter-tank/

 

The key chanter abilities you want to pick up are:

 

– Come Soft Winds (for early levels)

– Phantom Invocation

– Level 2 Paralyse/Charm Invocations

– The Dragon Thrashed

– Seven Nights She Waited

– Ogre Invocation

 

Everything at levels 4 and 5 are both kinda pants. The two level 5 chants can be very good but you get them so late in the game

 

Don't drop Might. Because of the way AI works in this game you need to do damage in order to keep aggro.

[Dark Elf]

Thank you, I'll check those threads out.

[Livegood118]

Also a lot of people will recommend the Level 3 Chant Aeyfyllath Ues Mys Fyr. I've never found much use for it but test it yourself and see what you think!

[Boeroer]

Just  some sidenotes:

 

DEX can be important fpr a chanter if you want to use invocations a lot. A chanter won't chant right after the use of an invocation because there will be a significant recovery time. This can be greatly reduced with high DEX. So let's say you want to spam Killers Froze Stiff as often as possible then you shouldn't dump DEX. If you plan to mostly use chants (like stacking Dragon Thrashed or Her Courage) and don't care about invocations then it's totally cool to dump DEX.

 

Dropping MIG is indeed not good if you plan to use things that damage or heal (Dragon Thrashed, Come Sweet Winds, White Worms, Ancient Memory, Veteran's Recovery and so on). If you want to focus on summons, CC or support only (Aefyllath, Mercy and Kindness, Killers Froze Stiff, Sure Handed Ila...) then MIG can be dumped.

 

Aefyllath is indeed a good phrase (as is Dragon Thrashed). It is especially good if you have a lot of casters, because - surprise, surprise - its lashes also apply to all non-DoT spell damage. Dragon Thrashed does a ton of damage of course, but you need high MIG and want to have high ACC for it to be really good. For Aefyllath you need no special stats at all. So it can be a great support phrase for a chanter with low MIG, DEX and PER (typically the stat spread of a pure tank).

Edited March 11, 2017 by Boeroer

[Pope]

Hey Boeroer, could you perhaps advise me on how to spec Kana?

 

Bearing in mind:

- I've already finished the main game and therefore will only be taking him through White March which I've yet to tackle. So any chants/invocations only useful at low to mid levels can be ignored. Party is level 12.

- I have Edér and Pallegina as frontliners so it shouldn't necessarily be a tank build. But if that were to be the best build then I'll surely go with it.

[Boeroer]

Hi,

 

take gear that enhances MIG, INT and PER and Accuracy (like Gauntlets of Accuracy). Use an item that has the Overseeing enchantment (ring, Aloth's Armor or Celebrant's Gloves for example). Pick up the Voice of the Mountaintop amulet (see wiki where to buy it).

 

Use only Dragon Thrashed. Nothing else. The invocations can be Killers Froze Stiff, Seven Nights and The rivive invocation, rest doesn't matter much.

 

Then go the tanky route with a small shield + hatchet (like Little Savior) and thick armor. Only take defensive talents like Superior Deflection, Cautious Attack (if you don't use other deflection buffs via spells a lot) Weapon & Shield, Bear's Fortitude, Body Control and so on as well as Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits. This will result in a great frontline tank who also heals his fellow frontliners a bit.

Put a single hatchet into your second weapon slot and switch to that if you don't get attacked a lot. This will boost your Dragon Thrashed ACC by +12. Switch back to shield set if you get attacked.

 

 

This will decimate most enemies in very short time. If fighting dragons sing Slay the Beast chant and add two or three Dragon Thrashed in the linger time of Slay the Beast. This will make it a lot easier to hit a dragon with the chant.

 

Make sure to debuff enemies reflexes with a wizard or druid. This can be done with Binding Web for example. If you give Kana a Stag Helmet or the Wyrwood Ring he will be immune to stuck and can move freely where enemies get stuck and receive hefty reflex debuffs. He will crit a lot with the Dragon Chant then.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Boeroer

[scythesong]

I'd say the crucial chanter stats are Int and Per. Int increases the range/duration of your powers and Per makes it so that your offensive powers don't always end up as grazes, a well as increase your chance to crit with them. You don't need to max Per for your character I suppose, but yes a decent amount is very useful.

 

Resolve is not a particularly important stat for a chanter since even Kana (10 Res) can reach very high deflection thanks to a shield, talents and buffs/debuffs.

The great thing about Kana is that he has three weapon slots, give him Athletics and he'll have one more fallback heal but in your case Survival might be more useful because you've skipped the early-mid game part.

 

The thing about Might is that ultimately chanters are a lot like rogues in that you can stack a lot of things on them to increase your damage in a party setting (on top of items/food/etc) so that the bonus of your base Might score becomes the equivalent of one just one more buff - but bad accuracy can really screw you up in general, especially since grazes affect the duration of your chants/invocations. Even on PotD a chanter with 10 base Might can still destroy things with The Dragon Thrashed crits.

It's really not that big of an issue unless you solo, then you need all the +%damage you can get.

 

Edit: Just noticed this was a resurrected topic

Edited April 24, 2017 by scythesong

[Ensign]

I like to use Aefyllath as the very first phrase on a Dragon Thrashed Chanter before swapping to Dragon Thrashed full time.  I usually don't start combat with foes inside of chant range, so the first Dragon Thrashed is wasted - Aefyllath on the other hand stacks up a buff for the alpha strike before going into full armageddon mode.


For stats, you want max Intellect and high Might.  Intellect is essential to maximize buff/debuff coverage; Might is crucial for Dragon Thrashed and also Ancient Memory.  Perception is important enough that you don't want to dump it (and it does increase damage - Dragon Thrashed is an attack); the rest are relatively unimportant and you can season to taste.

[MasterCipher]

I use a wood elf Stormcaller chanter with beast and wilder bane stun warbow and confusion warbow with 16 base DEX. Stormcaller sets up a shock druid very nicely.

 

This is slightly off topic, but useful for playing any party chanter. Even at higher levels, you may want to consider opening with low level chants so you can quickly get off an invocation. For example, you can load up 2 ogres in 10 seconds (2s x 5 = 5 invocations). This is made easier if you bow pull and run back to where your party is waiting.

 

Duration by chant level : 2s, 3s, 4s, 6s

Linger by chant level: 3s, 4.5s, 6s, 9s

Edited April 25, 2017 by MasterCipher

[scythesong]

I think that's the reason why the game gives you multiple chant setups (you can even name each one), so you can adjust tactics on the fly.

I always have one setup with at least one Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe, for example. You never know when you might want to do some emergency re-positioning.

 

If you're not scroll-savvy perma-offensive chants can actually get people killed if someone lands a confuse/charm/dominate/etc on your guys.

Edited April 25, 2017 by scythesong

[Boeroer]

Pope asked about high lvl Kana. Since his stats are fixed all advice around optimizing them is futile. You can use certain items like Gwyn's Band of Union and so on. The max range of Dragon Thrashed you'll get with with Kana will be with Gwyn's Band (+20%), Voice of the Mountaintop (+20%) and an overseeing item (+10%).

 

Scythesong has a really good point: you might want to give Kana some defenses against mind control. If you don't have a paladin with Aegis or a priest then a flipped Dragon Thrashed chanter is really bad for the party.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Boeroer

[Messier-31]

Pope asked about high lvl Kana. Since his stats are fixed all advice around optimizing them is futile. You can use certain items like Gwyn's Band of Union and so on. The max range of Dragon Thrashed you'll get with with Kana will be with Gwyn's Band (+20%), Voice of the Mountaintop (+20%) and an overseeing item (+10%).

 

Scythesong has a really good point: you might want to give Kana some defenses against mind control. If you don't have a paladin with Aegis or a priest then a flipped Dragon Thrashed chanter is really bad for the party.

 

[Boeroer]

Speechless?

[MortyTheGobbo]

Huh, I've never realized that lower-level chants build up more quickly. But it makes sense, and would explain why they seemed to do it slower or faster sometimes. The chants' utility kind of varies, in my experience. Some are solid, especially if they do something that's hard to get with other classes' spells. But some just feel way too situational or impractical.

[Boeroer]

The phrases also get shorter because of Brisk Recitation which chanters get from lvl 4 on and which improves every 4 levels to a mximum of -50% at level 16. That means that tier-1 phrases like Come Sweet Winds only needs 2 secs to complete (instead of 4) and tier-3 phrases like Dragon Thrashed only 4 secs (instead of - which makes them even more powerful. Remember that Come Sweet Winds and Dragon Thrashed stack with themselves. That means that Kana (with some MIG and INT bonuses) will deliver around 80 burn + 80 slash damage in a huge AoE every 4 seconds (and that's without crits).

 

In my opinion there is no other phrase combination which comes close to this when we speak about damage and overall usefulness. If you're looking for CC I would go the max DEX route, skip armor and take only tier-1-phrases and try to paralyze-lock whole groups with Killers Froze Stiff. This is also nice. But since Kana has lousy DEX he is way better with Dragon Thrashed and the tank approach.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Boeroer

[scythesong]

Yep, especially since you probably don't want to micro him a lot. There are already too many ability-dependent/glass cannon NPCs to worry about IMO, I consider the fact that you can make Kana semi-autonomous a pretty big plus.

I suppose that's also one reason why I don't really like to make tanky chanter-types, because the game already gives you one and his personality can grow on you over time (unlike a certain priest we all know).

 

Anyway you mostly only have to manage his positioning, weapons sets/chants, make sure all his modals are on and give him a few useful "panic button" items (eg. Ring of Unshackling) and he's good to go.

Edited April 25, 2017 by scythesong

[Pope]

Then go the tanky route with a small shield + hatchet (like Little Savior) and thick armor. Only take defensive talents like Superior Deflection, Cautious Attack (if you don't use other deflection buffs via spells a lot) Weapon & Shield, Bear's Fortitude, Body Control and so on as well as Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits. This will result in a great frontline tank who also heals his fellow frontliners a bit.

 

Thanks man!

I don't quite understand how that healing would work though.

 

Edit: never mind, it's Ancient Memory. I'm such a noob at chanters.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Pope

[Boeroer]

Hehe, yes it is. It also got fixed so it doeasn't stop after the first incovation. Ancient Memory stacks with Veteran's Recovery or Constant Recovery. It's also very benefical to have high survival and get an item with a healig bonus because this can double the healing from Veteran's/Constant Recovery + Ancient Memory.

 

Once you get the Mercy and Kindness phrase (+100% healing) you can sing that first (there will be no enemeis in Dragon THrashed range anyways) and then add three or four Dragon Thrashed uses into the linger time of Mercy & Kindness. This way your party members will benefit from awesomest healing bonuses for ALL healing sources except draining (without MIG, with survival 14 + item + Mercy = +185% healing - also works with health gain from Wound Binding/Field Triage and also Potion of Infuse with Vital Essence) and you can still burn/slash everything (with a slight delay).

[MortyTheGobbo]

Hm. So, if I wanted to build a CC/debuff Chanter, I'd probably want to just keep my chant track filled with Come, Swift Winds of Death, Dull the Edge and maybe Blessed was Wendgrith/At the Sight of their Comrades, because defence bonuses are always good. Then I'd repeatedly use invocations to stun, paralyze and charm.

[Boeroer]

Yes. And after each invocation there will be a recovery time in which you don't sing phrases - so you want low recovery penalties from armor and also high DEX in order to keep that recovery short.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Feels like a bit of a waste to only use a handful of phrases, but if it works... and I could keep a separate chant with buffs and the like.

[scythesong]

Pros and cons, everyone has them. You have to find the setup that works best for you.

[MortyTheGobbo]

A major problem I see with Kana as a tank, now that I've tried it, is that he has no way to keep enemies engaged, until I gear up and take the appropriate talent. I got my ass handed to me by the encounter at the crossroads in Magran's Fork.

[Boeroer]

As long as he is using a damaging chant most enemies should stick to him.

 

Always send him in first before the others unstealth.

 

In my opinion, everything related to engagement (Hold the Line, guarding, Defender etc.) is pretty useless.