Need build help, suggestions please.

[DreadWulf]

Wanting to do a psiblade + pugilism build but not sure what would be the ideal way to go about it. My first circle clear was with Tengu + Mubari + Hadad + pugilism (only) and I liked it. Not expecting to get a Ruddy Fist for heals but if I do, all the better. Any suggestions on race, class, deity?

I really like Hadad because it adds extra dmg sources and I never use prayers anyways except for maybe a heal at end of map. With Hadad I get psychic, slash, blunt, fire and lightning dmg. Still not sure if Tengu or Mubari are ideal. Dodge is nice but I like standing still too and the benefits of being able to equip gears instead of relying on pure dodge and low encumbrance.

Anyways, any suggestions are appreciated. Maybe I am missing seeing certain synergies. Additional skills also since I am presuming no prestige class or just use psiblade + pugilism? Thanks in advance to whoever replies. Cheers.

[Draken]

I also had a Psiblade + Pugilism build.
I heavily switched into dealing at least 50 physical damage thanks to a pair of Emerald Gauntlets that I got, piling up over 100 sickness stacks in a single turn.
Here is how it looked at the end:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2974760882
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2974760860
But that was very item dependent.

Tengu or Nagui seems to be the best race to take. Tengu for offense, Nagui for defense.
Adbi seems to be the best starting class, though if you aim to stack some debuffs on an enemy, Priest also could work. Templar too if you give up one of your prayer charges for damage and dodge.

As for other skills, Tenacity or Technique could be useful. Tenacity for a bit of heal as well as reducing Encumbrance. Technique does the same for Inflexibility.

After you got Psiblade to the range you want and Pugilism up to a few good hits you could also get some other on-hit effects going.

Fire: damage, healing, two prestige classes, maybe scaling(scorch)
Skills: Pyrokinesis, Fire Healing, maybe Pyromancy and Immolation
Prestige Class: Pyromaniac seems nice. If you go 30 points deep into Fire, Kashra would be far better though.

Lightning: damage, scaling(charge), defense(dodge)
Skills: Electrokinesis, Power Charge, maybe Skera
Prestige Class: Gothi would double down on getting a high dodge.

Poison: damage, scaling(sickness), debuff(sickness)
Skills: Toxokinesis, Morbumancy
Prestige Class: Venite would give you some extra attacks, but only if you had already applied sickness. The extra hits are short ranged for a Psiblade build.

Death: damage, healing, scaling(doom)
Skills: Necrokinesis, Cursed Flesh
Prestige Class: Doomsayer and Pain Cleric are useless for this build

Ice: damage, debuff(freeze), scaling(freeze)
Skills: Cyrokinesis, Obident Ice
Prestige Class: Angiok would deal a bit more Pierce damage

Astral: damage, a lot of prestige classes
Skills: Astrokinesis
Prestige Class: Psychonaut would work well if you go with Master Repulsion, otherwise the random teleports might be dangerous. Arch-Magus would be great for scaling with Meditate as well as some more damage. Sahasi would also quickly ramp up your block and armor via poise, and you shouldn't need to move much. The Kashra is also available again, though that would require 30 astral points.

Psychic: damage, scaling(repulsion), block(repulsion)
Skills: Psychokinesis, Master Repulsion
Prestige Class: Mindpiercer doesn't do much as you probably don't have invested much in Wisdom, though if you have gear/skills that cares about pierce damage, it might still be worth it.

Life: damage, debuff(entangle), scaling(entangle)
Skills: Vinakinesis, Piercing Vines
Prestige Class: Earth Mage for some cheap distraction minions? Samnite if you want some encumbrance free armor and damage. Though the extra attack shouldn't trigger duo to Psiblade's range.

Blood: damage
Skills: Hemokinesis
Prestige Class: Blood Mage, useless. Executioner might be worth it for the heal and armor. Sadly fists do not count as two-handing weapons.

So yeah, the base of Pugilism + Psiblade is pretty solid and would work with most skill categories. I would probably wait and level up Psiblade and Pugilism and then check out what kind of gear you got and then select accordingly.

Hope this helps.

[DreadWulf]

Wow, awesome suggestions. Thank you for the detailed info. This was exactly what I was looking for. Points for you! Cheers.

[JackThejil]

Tengu/hadad is my go to for psiblade/pugilism builds, for what it's worth... but it's almost entirely for the baseline speed, since you won't actually be attacking much. Humbaba honestly might work better due to the extra bit of Hit/defense/HP boost and the baked in healing, but I like the damage variety hahad provides. Starting class is largely irrelevant, though I generally go muba just for the extra bit of speed -- psiblade/pugilism is so strong it doesn't actually matter much.

I used to mainline Abdi on the build, but eventually I realized that +3 hits on a pugilism build is... it's just not much, y'know? It's somewhat less than 3 levels of pugilism, since it just adds some hits without the accompanying stats -- not nothing, but not much.

My actual suggestion these days would probably be Amir; you're at your weakest in the first turn or two, and having some bodies around to soak hits from an unfortunate spawn is pretty nice... plus it matches speed with Mubarizun, so you're not losing out there. Extra bonus, it gives you an easy guideline for when to splash a bit of willpower, since you can drip some into the build as your glory gets high enough to need space for another nomad.

That said, so far as build goes, you get psiblade to 5 (match range with gold demons), pugilism to four or five, and at that point you can do pretty much whatever you want. Range 6 attack with enough pugilism to lay in a decent amount of damage pretty much negates the game on every cycle, heh.

Prestige classes, arch-magus is strong, possibly the strongest prestige class option you have (though, unfortunately, Astral itself is kinda' crud compared to life/poison/ice for the debuff stacking... though again, it doesn't matter 'cause psiblade+pugilism is literally enough by itself without any help). Anything that interacts with on-hit is, so gothi, pyro, etc. all do alright. Venite is... sorta' strong, but it's more "win-more"; very little will survive more than two attacks from you anyway, so quadrupling the amount of damage you do on the second hit doesn't really do much. If they die in the first attack after being sickened, the 3 more attacks you have chambered just vanish into the aether, heh. All the stand still or game turn stuff is just kinda' meh. It mostly won't hurt, but it also isn't likely to help much.

Psychonaut is possibly suicide, it's the one option I'd say to 100% avoid as a psiblade pugilist; you live by killing everything, being right beside something high damage is the absolute last place you want to be, and psychonaut loves to put things in stabbing range of your kidneys. Protect your kidneys, don't let psychonaut give acroserpents their shanking keys.

Edit: And just for a peek at 12th cycle silliness for this thing: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976970463

Bonus, King prior to the first swing at them: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976970542

And after: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976970593

There was no third swing :V

[Draken]

Origineel geplaatst door JackThejil:

Psychonaut is possibly suicide, it's the one option I'd say to 100% avoid as a psiblade pugilist; you live by killing everything, being right beside something high damage is the absolute last place you want to be, and psychonaut loves to put things in stabbing range of your kidneys. Protect your kidneys, don't let psychonaut give acroserpents their shanking keys.

Hehehe:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976981587

I just did a Pugilism Psiblade run. I found an Intabah so I went with Psychic and Master Repulsion. This made me unlock the Psychonaut, and then I found of Robe of Dreams.
I just had to try it and it was hilarious. Teleporting 50+ times against the last boss. I don't know how many times exactly, as the combat log is too short. It really paid of as the Emerald Helmet dealt tens of thousands of points of damage to anything that I teleported next to. And that regularly happened multiple times a turn.

It was also pretty safe with 900+ dodge and a block that started out at 800+ and then ramped up to over 3k.

Here are some more screenshots:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976976475
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2976977032

So Psychonaut can be a ton of fun. I don't know how viable it would be without the Robe of Dreams, but it still might not be that bad and allow you to use more close ranged skills and items.

[JackThejil]

Yeah, dream robe changes a lot of things about basically any teleportation build. You're just not guaranteed to ever see it, heh. If you find the robe before you make a prestige decision, it'd make psychonaut substantially less risky.

[DreadWulf]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Much appreciated. Points for all!

[Draken]

Origineel geplaatst door JackThejil:

Yeah, dream robe changes a lot of things about basically any teleportation build. You're just not guaranteed to ever see it, heh. If you find the robe before you make a prestige decision, it'd make psychonaut substantially less risky.

I tried out the same build without the Robe of Dreams.
Went Naqui for a bit more defense.
2 levels of Technique to be able to wear the Void Cuirass without a speed penalty. 5 levels of Agility to get a bit more dodge.

End result was over 1k dodge, 90% block that also quickly scales up over 1k and 676 armor and over 2k health. Which meant it was pretty safe even when teleporting next to an enemy. Which honestly didn't happen all that often. The higher your speed the less you actually teleport around.
So in my opinion Psychonaut is definitely viable for a Psiblad Pugilism with Master Repulse.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2977146040
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2977317047