Which Multiclass is More Fun?

[moskowitzda]

I'm trying to decide between running a melee/wizard multi class (probably barb or paladin), a barbarian/skald multi class, or a melee/soulblade multi (probably devoted or barb). I don't really need to know which would be more powerful as much as which would be the most fun.

 

The howler would run more as a melee caster, using barb smash etc. (and maybe choose hearth organ for race) to get tons of crits and spamming lots of invocations.  Ironically, it's the closest I can think of making a melee caster that uses its magic for more than buffing.

 

The melee/wizard would use spells mostly for buffs, and deal damage with the melee class.

 

The melee/soulblade I'm unsure about. I played a melee cipher in PoE 1, and it was a ton of fun, but the impression I'm getting here is that the only super viable way to play a soul blade multi is by taking a random level one power and biting whip and essentially only using the soul annihilation ability and not really bothering with the cipher powers, which were what I really enjoyed about the class.

 

 

I'd appreciate any feedback on people's experience with these kinds of builds so far.

 

[prototype00]

Draining Whip, actually. It builds up your Focus twice as fast which means Soul Annihilation gets nasty in half the time.

 

Been playing a Monk/Soulblade, and it definitely is straight DPS, engage with your Tanks, skirt around to flank, and blow something up on the second or third attack with Soul Annihilation.

 

And with each kill, your max focus increases, so you can build up an even larger SA charge for the next enemy. It’s really effective (I’ve come real close to offing triple red skull enemies with this)

[Ophiuchus]

If you want to play around with Howler a bit, you can recruit Konstanten in Queen's Berth.

[M4xw0lf]

Witch is very fun, but tends to go down a bit fast.

[cactot]

Melee + wizard is going to be the toughest option, as quick casting armor + deflection buffs make you very hard to kill. Particularly if you go kind Wayfarer, your defenses will be sky high and you will have self heals.

 

Barbarian + skald is a lot of fun too, just don't take berzerker or the chants and invocations will hurt your allies. You will want to optimize for attack speed and accuracy to stack up as many crits as possible for those sweet sweet phrases (and, importantly, to reduce the 4.5 second recovery time on invocations).

 

For skald it *might* be worth using two rapiers with the modal active. 25 total bonus accuracy might give you more crits/minute since the action speed debuff will be somewhat offset by rage and dual wield. It would certainly be worth trying out.

 

Soulblade will do the most melee burst damage, but will be the squishiest by far.

[moskowitzda]

Thanks for the help! Barb/Skald definitely sounds like a good option (and thanks for the heads up on berserker, I didn't realize that it's class penalty affected chants/invocations as well).

 

I was thinking barb/wizard over barb/pally, since barbarian seems to have a more fun, active playstyle, and the wizard buffs seem to more than make up for any squishiness relative to pally.

 

As for the soul blade multi, I don't really mind playing squishy characters, and I was perfectly comfortable with the squishiness of my melee cipeher in PoE 1; I guess my question is how much casting do you actually get to do as a soul blade? If it's just autoattack/insert melee class ability here -> soul annihilation, then I guess that doesn't really feel more interesting than just single classing as a melee class and replacing soul annihilation with melee abilities. Do you actually use your shred cipher powers at all, or are you just sacrificing effectiveness in taking them over an ability from the melee class/sacrificing effectiveness by using them in combat over soul annihilation?

 

Maybe multi classing a melee class with ascendant would be more my speed (if ascendant is actually viable at this point as a multi)?

 

I might just end up doing different play-throughs for all of these...

[moskowitzda]

I think I've settled on howler, and I'm thinking about risking berserker, and either making sure I have party members that can give me an int inspiration/pumping alchemy and rp'ing as a svef addict. 

 

I was wondering about race and attribute choices, specifically I think playing as a godlike is interesting from an rp perspective, but I'm worried I'm going to be kicking myself for missing really awesome helm choices later in the game, like in PoE1. However, the nature godlike's bonus seems really powerful (especially since I'll always have a strength inspiration from frenzy), and I was wondering if the fire godlike's burn damage can a) crit and b) if it does crit, can it give me phrases?

 

Also, for a stat spread, I'm planning on going 18 might, but I was wondering how I should prioritize INT, PER, and DEX. Im thinking of doing one of these four stat spreads:

 

MIG 18

CON 8

DEX 10

PER 15

INT 18

RES 10

 

MIG 18

CON 8

DEX 15

PER 18

INT 10

RES 10

 

MIG 18

CON 8

DEX 13/15

PER 15

INT 15/13

RES 10

 

Which would be best?