What is the best War Caller build to take advantage of SKALD?

[Dongom]

For DMG.

 

I want to spam dmg Chants as a Skald, so must have lots of critting.

 

What Warrior subclass would be best for this? What weapon? Which stats?

 

Thanks.

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Dongom

[Ganrich]

For DMG.

 

I want to spam dmg Chants as a Skald, so must have lots of critting.

 

What Warrior subclass would be best for this? What weapon? Which stats?

 

Thanks.

 

 

I'd say Devoted or generic Fighter. However, unbroken might work with engagement breaks, but would be more passive.

 

I'd go dual wield. Sabre in one hand and flail in the other. Sabre because Sasha's gives 3 phrases back on 1 empowered invocation an encounter, and can be upgraded to also give you your empower point back (currently bugged tho). Flail because it debuffs Reflex, and EVERY damage invocation attacks Reflex.

 

If devoted use saber, but flail debuff is -25 reflex. It helps more than you know. Especially if you're focusing on damage invocations.

[Dongom]

 

For DMG.

 

I want to spam dmg Chants as a Skald, so must have lots of critting.

 

What Warrior subclass would be best for this? What weapon? Which stats?

 

Thanks.

 

I'd say Devoted or generic Fighter. However, unbroken might work with engagement breaks, but would be more passive.

 

I'd go dual wield. Sabre in one hand and flail in the other. Sabre because Sasha's gives 3 phrases back on 1 empowered invocation an encounter, and can be upgraded to also give you your empower point back (currently bugged tho). Flail because it debuffs Reflex, and EVERY damage invocation attacks Reflex.

 

If devoted use saber, but flail debuff is -25 reflex. It helps more than you know. Especially if you're focusing on damage invocations.

 

 

 

If I wanted to focus more on weapon damage War Caller, I would probably go Devoted and Trabadour right? Sabre again would you say?

Edited May 15, 2018 by Dongom

[Ganrich]

If you want weapon damage either Skald or Troubadour are fine. That is a question of taste. However, as a Devoted, focusing on weapon damage, id for sjre go sabre and grab Hel Hyraf, Killers Froze, etc.

 

Hel Hyraf lowers deflection and attacks fortitude, killers froze paralyzes and attack will, and both help crit chance. So skald would work here. Since they attack different saving throws you have 2 tools for different encounters. These are Also Offensive Invocations. So the Skald gets them cheaply too. Some of the Offensive Invocations don't do damage. So, you could grab these 2, and Thrice was she wronged and have a cheap invocation for every save. Then use melee to attack Deflection.

 

My personal taste is Troubadour because of a few reasons.

 

1) not reliant on crit, and still generates phrases fast when it needs to,

 

2) not tied to melee like skald so you can float in and out without losing a major selling point of the subclass,

 

3) Brisk Recitation being off makes it so you ONLY need a max Intellect of 20 to keep 2 chants up 100% of the time. The other 3 Chanters require 30 Intellect to do the same thing. This allows combos like flame weapons and 12% damage as healing to be up 100%. Or flame weapons and Ila. It's pretty powerful. Brisk Recitation on makes it so you ca. Cast more invocations.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Ganrich

[Balbanes]

Yeah, Troubadour is really powerful and extremely flexible. I can't help fearing it will be nerfed soon, especially since the release nerfed hit-to-critical effects, making Troubadour a better skald than the Skald.

[Ganrich]

Skald is fine. You just jave to actually spec into some perception to get some crits now. Before it was all might and dex. Combined with fighter, barb, pally, Stalker, or monk it's good. Maybe Shifter too.

 

If like me you dont like being relegated to melee then it's bad.

 

If they nerf anything chanter it'll be summons. Which will hit Beckoner more than Troubadour. Drakes and dragons having infinite Empowers is stupid.

 

Also, if troubadour is stepping on any of the 4 Chanter class's toes it is the core class. The only reason the Core Class will exist is for people that dont wanna toggle Brisk Recitation. Which is sad for the core class.

[Sobric]

I've been playing a skald/fighter and works pretty well, but crits don't generate quite as many phrases as you'd hope (still only a 50% chance to generate a phrase).

 

The main advantage of skald is the reduced offensive invocation cost, which means Killers Froze Stiff spam is great. Damage output is okay too, although nothing special.

[Juodas Varnas]

Barb/Skald worked really nice for me with Barbaric Blow dealing extra crits and those crits giving me more Invocations is very nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j9QeUoPOi4

[Voltron]

Yeah, Troubadour is really powerful and extremely flexible. I can't help fearing it will be nerfed soon, especially since the release nerfed hit-to-critical effects, making Troubadour a better skald than the Skald.

 

I don't think so. Troubadour and Skald are balanced. It's just first one is more flexible and second one is pure offensive. Besides they said that they want to focus first on bug fixes etc. before they roll any balance patches.

 

OP- if you want to take Fighter- Take Troubadour. If you want to play Skald (and it's not a solo run) take Berserker. You will have 30% Hits to Crits from start. Later grab hat Far Favor (or something like that) that gives you another 15% Hits to Crit, then grab 5% Passive and you will have 50% Hits to Crit at some point in fight. Take Two Weapons and Sasha's sabre + Modyr with Soul and you are golden. 

 

Troubadour with Brisk modal active will actually cast more high level Invocations than Skald because he get's new pharses 50% faster and not rely on crits. And you have Her Courage Thick as Steel up all the time or mixed with Old Siec, which both works well with Brisk active (just make sure you start combat with Thick as steel as enemies will get their first attack (especially range ones) and then Old Siec is running for you and so on. 

 

Skald plays best with everything that can boost that crit rate since it's only 50% chance on Crit. So imo Fighter doesn't go along (Same as Paladin).

Edited May 15, 2018 by Voltron

[angryusaman]

So, from what I've read in these forums, it seems like the 15% fire damage chant and Sure-handed Ila are the go to phrases (are they still called phrases in PoE2?) right now.  I've been using 15% fire dmg + ancient memory on my beckoner or just 15% fire dmg at the start of fights then switch when I need healing.  They must have nerfed The Dragon Thrashed or something from the first game, or is it just that the other chants are better now?

[Voltron]

So, from what I've read in these forums, it seems like the 15% fire damage chant and Sure-handed Ila are the go to phrases (are they still called phrases in PoE2?) right now.  I've been using 15% fire dmg + ancient memory on my beckoner or just 15% fire dmg at the start of fights then switch when I need healing.  They must have nerfed The Dragon Thrashed or something from the first game, or is it just that the other chants are better now?

 

It's not that simple. It depends. For example in some fights I want to stack self heal so use Soft Wind + Ancient Memory (and maybe + Her Courage), for some I go full offense with Mith Fyr (fire dmg) + Old Siec (15% dmg as healing) and sometimes I go mix with Dull the Edge (if enemies have a lot of swords + guns/bows/crossbows) + Her Courage. 

 

Mind I play Troubadour so I have a lot more flex as I have longer Linger (so chants stack a lot later on 20 INT) or I can chant without Linger super fast with is good with healing chants or with single offensive (Old Siec or Mith Fr) or single defensive Chant (Her Courage) or mix Old Siec with Her Courage then as they work well together in Brisk modal. Sure-handed Ila is only good for range weapons, so I wouldn't grab that. Also with Troubadour you can just chant Her Courage all the time in Brisk modal and pretty much have permanent 10 dmg reduction.

 

As for The Dragon Thrashed - it's decent, but not OP anymore. It works best with Troubadour in normal mode because with his Linger he can stack them together (so more damage) or use it with other chant as they linger. It's good but not that good anymore.

 

On non-Troubadour It's harder to play with Chants as much.

 

I am thinking about buffing Dragon Thrashed maybe with mod. 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Voltron