Camelia build?

[mbradtke]

How much room is there for a good Camelia build?
I was planning to play her as pure support, more or less...
So i gave her shield wall feat because my main is a paladin like seelah,
i would prolly expand on this and focus on support and tanky feats,
how much am i forced to go into fencing grace rapiers?
i would have to spend 2 feats but maybe just get mythic feat later? should be fine or?
maybe there are some agile weapons she can use as well? it is just not my prio to deal damage on her early on, i think best use for her is using hexes anyways.... at last early on,
any advice? i would like to keep her as pure shaman

[jedi7000nathan/sevenbillionjedi]

I'd recommend full dex tank; Cam-Cam excels in that particuler field and I'm not exaggerating, enemies can hardly hit her and with a couple levels in Fighter she becomes a fairly strong companion.

[Steffan]

Whatever you do with her, I strongly recommend Protective luck, chant and evil eye hexes. You can get Fencing Grace to increase her damage as well.

Even as pure support, she is good as a pure shaman. I know she can become quite tanky but she has not been my main tank so far.

I usually use her to summon skeletons and apply hexes. I do give her thundering blows, though. And with the weapon enhancements, later on she can compete with Seelah on pure damage against non-demons.

[Raikon]

Well I cant comment on a good camelia build, she took the elemental barrage nerf really hard.

I can say that while I use her (which isnt for very long most of the time) I like to give her javelins. She still has great AC, decent AB, and you can still use the bucklers with javelins. You get a decent cold iron one in the shield maze, and you get a decent named one in kenabras.

Most of my playthroughs she doesnt really get used beyond act 3

I keep her pure, and take protective luck first, then iceplant, then battle.

She is a good second line tank if someone runs past my front line. The buckler, high ac, buffs/spells keep her alive without issue. Her damage sucks, but realistically you shouldnt be relying on her for that imo.

[Kaze]

Elemental Barrage got a nerf? I mean... it requires some specific weapons but other than that... or are you talking about the geniekind exploit?

[Uzkin]

Elemental weapon enchants (permanent or temporary) no longer activate Elemental Barrage. Many things became useless because of that (geniekind, shaman/magus/warpriest/... weapon imbues, elemental enchanted weapons, and so on).

In case of Camellia,

Offensively, she was made useless by the Elemental Barrage (and Greater Magic Weapon) nerfs.

Defensively, she was made useless by the Magic Vestment: Armor and Magic Vestment: Shield nerfs.

She's still a shaman buff-bot, though. This includes her giving your melee damage dealers frequent opportunity strikes (works best on RTwP).

[fox5s]

I like to build my Camellia as a pure Shaman. Her initial damage is crap but this can easily be fixed by making sure you take Weapon Focus Rapier followed by Fencing Grace as her first two feats. This allows her to do decent, though not spectacular, damage in melee. Eventually getting the Battle Hex gives her an extra attack of opportunity and weapon Spec feats eventually. (No need to pick that one right away but you want it at some point.)

She has a huge dexterity and can easily fill the tank or off-tank role. All you need to do is make sure she picks the Iceheart hex at some point, buy the Icy Protector ring in the tavern, and give her the magic mithril chain shirt in the basement of the Tower. Now she is rocking AC that will easily carry you through Act 2 at least. (I am assuming that you are buffing her with the standard tanking stuffs.)

She has room in her hexes to get Protective Luck, Evil Eye, and Chant. This allows her to make sure the main tank wont be hit and debuff the enemies all while sitting at the front line. And if you run out of things to hex, she can still throw her damage in for an attack a round while still Chanting. And it all stacks with doing the same things with Ember. Double protective lucks are AMAZING. The only downside here is that you want to be running in Turn-Based mode to keep everything up easily and correctly.

The sole reason she's not the best main tank is that she can't Protective Luck herself. Ember can still throw hers but three chances to be missed is better than two.

And let's not forget about her Shaman spells. She can be set up to buff the party beforehand so that none of the previous things interfere with her casting. She's the only companion (I think) that has access to Barkskin for the party. Abundant casting is ever useful. She is a nine level caster. This just gets better and better as the levels go on.

Having a slot or two open for some Animate Dead spells are wonderful. She can even throw out said skelebros and still keep Chanting. They aren't always helpful, but having the availability to drop them is nice. Her spells after that are fine. I think she even gets Flamestrike at some point.

I don't have as much advice for high levels. Everything I've been talking about will set her up to succeed and help the party through the rest. You can really do what you wish with her after that. Notice I haven't mentioned anything about Mythic Abilities other than Abundant Casting. If you want her to be more supporty, get the Extend Spells. If you want her fightier, there are options. Really, she can do whatever you want after a certain point. I personally like focusing on her casting as she can usually do that and keep her other things up while still Chanting.

[jutschi78]

Aru has barkskin too. Daeran can get this wirh second mystery nature (wich is for a buff build very good for him + grab wolf pet)

I use Cam mostly as prebuffer and tank. I give her atl lvl 13 then 2 lvl of instinktual warrior for wis on AC plus mythic second spirit wind for the windamor hex. I spare fencing grace and go cranestyle instead. Mythic finesse give you more weapon options to ur playstyle.

If you take ember or another specialised fire caster, you can take fire as second spirit instead . Flamecurse hex give a huge damage boost to firespells on one target.

[Invisible]

I use the respec mod to make her "Master of all" rogue class.

[fox5s]

I agree that you can go Mythic Finesse instead of Fencing Grace. However, it feels better to use normal Feats on it and saving the Mythic stuff for more important things (like Mythic Spell Pen or Weapon Focus). And, you can also access Fencing Grace faster (level 5) than Mythic Finesse (Mythic Rank 2 which is near the end of Act 2, around level 10 or so).

I guess you'd say I use her as a prebuffer, off-tank, and hexer with the option to throw in some extra spellcasting as needed. And of course, Trickery wench. It's so easy to have an astronomical Trickery with her. Just don't ask about her other skills... >.>

[MjKorz]

Shaman15/Loremaster5 allows you to get Transformation for full BAB as well as Seamantle without using the Second Spirit mythic ability on Nature and using it on Flame spirit for Flame Curse instead. The third spell/feat is up to you (Eaglesoul is an option) or you can go Shaman17/Loremaster3. Alernatively, you can take Bones as your Second Spirit to become incorporeal via Shedding Form, but it's not super strong in a game with a +7 Deflection ring.

Another option is the Shaman18/InstinctualWarrior2 build, but you have to take it into account right at the start of the game, because wielding a rapier with this build is pointless since you can just use both hands and use ECB, but then you will have to wait until MR2 to get DEX to damage via Mythic Weapon Finesse as you cannot use Slashing Grace with ECB.

There is no reason to keep Camellia as a pure Shaman. Even if you want a pet via Second Spirit Nature, you can still go Loremaster3 to get full BAB via Transformation and then get the full pet levels via Boon Companion feat.

[Immortal Reaver]

I go Tank+Support.
Spirit Hunter 3 (to get Barskin)
MW 1 (to get proficiencies and feat)
Spirit Hunter 14 (lvl 9 spells, and +5 enchantment)
MW 2 (mutagen and feat)
I get her a Mythic Finesse to be able to get Heavy Shield/Tower Shield, instead of just being limited to Buckler.
I get her just Rapier, but you can use any 1 light weapon (1 because SH gets her Weapon Focus).

[RB]

shaman 10 // duelist 10

1) giving her spirit-wind to grab the wind barrier
(decent AC bonus without wearing armor.
goes well with the duelist, as duelist requires light armor or no armor // no shield)

2) hex- Iceplant and iceplant related ring (2AC bonus) - total 4AC

3) Unspeakable Truth set (goggle + cloak) + stat dopes (DEX, INT, CON, ctra ctra)
Duelist gains AC from INT, and Camellia is stupid as fk.
So I'm giving her the Unspeakable Truth set from treasure Island
and other INT-related buffs, so she can take some extra AC.

4) combat logic;
sometimes stick to the Protectictive Luck
sometimes buff herself to poke some asses and parry things..
she's always mediocre to me wherever I guide her to.
didn't try more than 3 archetypes though.

[mbradtke]

thanks for the input everyone, appreciate it (-:

[fox5s]

Glad to help! Thanks to MjKorz for finishing out the build I started. He knows the late game and what works there WAAAAAAY better than I do.

I hope you enjoy Camellia. She is so useful. Is she not? :3

[Belegc]

I like to build her as:
1 Shaman (Default)

1 Stigmatized Witch - Access to mage armor + reduce person (or any other spell you would like), +1 AC from lizard familiar, +4 AC from Iceplant + ring, Powerless Prophecy curse for uncanny dodge and the rest. staggered can be countered with Freedom of Movement so I keep her ranged until then.

18 Sanctified Slayer - this gives her access to:
domains (I like to give her Madness + Nobility since they are strong and depend on class level and not her mediocre wisdom. also its kind of.. fitting the character.. if you get what I mean).

sneak attacks

wisdom to initiative+intimidate+perception

(greater) bane

Stalwart (which I complete by giving her an evasion ring)

a bunch of useful spells to take the load off your buffers (freedom of movement, death ward, true seeing communal and a few more)

extra feats together with some teamwork feats (which will work on her solo)

studied target (Last time I checked a few months ago the mythic ability "defensive study" was bugged and didn't give all the AC it should. maybe it was fixed) and exploit weakness

4 skill points (I dislike the fact she is getting only 2 skill points with her default Shaman build, in general I like to have a lot of skill points on my chars)

I prefer to give her access to Estocs since I find them to be better than Rapiers. (there is a brilliant energy one in act 5, but every estoc is really good in this game)

you can exchange two levels of Sanctified Slayer with Instinctual Warrior to give her Wisdom to AC, but I find her AC to be high enough anyway (I don't play on the hardest difficulties) and I prefer not to reduce the effects from touch of madness any further.

the missing spells (seamantle etc.) from her Shaman class can be replaced using UMD (she has 4 skill points each level).
regarding the missing hexes - her wisdom and the fact she cannot wear a necklace keeps her hex DC low. its true that even then hexes are useful but its a price I prefer to pay in exchange for all of the above. it fits her stat block better in my opinion.

Edit - posted all this and then saw you wanted to keep her as a pure Shaman. sorry for that. still, I think the above build might be something to consider...