What class should I start with for a spellsword or battlemagish build?

[Awakened Gamer]

Looking for a mix of ranged magic and melee abilities thanks.

[Tycen]

You can look through the forum, there is no definite class to make something like that. But I would recommend Scion as it’s the jack of all trades. Got to unlock her in act 4 though.

[TheDiaz]

Scion is the best option to mix classes in the game. As it starts in the middle of the passive skill tree it can go anywhere without trouble. You cqn still tey to do it qith any character, more with those that are close to the magic users.

[Grumpy]

Originally posted by Dragonbound:

Looking for a mix of ranged magic and melee abilities thanks.

ranged spells + melee probably wont work, if you want play efficient. You would play just one of them. the closest thing to that, what could "fit" the descriptions would either spells with physical damage or melee with elemental damage.

In general:
#1 pick a skill you like, because PoE is skill centered game. and most builds just having 1 main skill. and a couple of support and defensive skills
#2 pick a class, ascendancy which fits the best to your skill and also to determine the starting point on the tree
#3 plan your build.

[Drake]

Also, the game has a wide range of skills, there are elemental attacks, like lightning strike, molten strike, ice crash, frost blades, wild strike etc. They can shoot projectiles and use your weapon.

So you don't have to mix spells and melee attacks for simple effects. If you want however, you might have to rely on a pure crit build, because it works with any direct damage.

[Awakened Gamer]

Originally posted by Grumpy:

Originally posted by Dragonbound:

Looking for a mix of ranged magic and melee abilities thanks.

ranged spells + melee probably wont work, if you want play efficient. You would play just one of them. the closest thing to that, what could "fit" the descriptions would either spells with physical damage or melee with elemental damage.

In general:
#1 pick a skill you like, because PoE is skill centered game. and most builds just having 1 main skill. and a couple of support and defensive skills
#2 pick a class, ascendancy which fits the best to your skill and also to determine the starting point on the tree
#3 plan your build.

I do not care about the meta, I do like to be effective but no thanks on mindless boring cookie cutter builds.

[Awakened Gamer]

Originally posted by Sajah:

Also, the game has a wide range of skills, there are elemental attacks, like lightning strike, molten strike, ice crash, frost blades, wild strike etc. They can shoot projectiles and use your weapon.

So you don't have to mix spells and melee attacks for simple effects. If you want however, you might have to rely on a pure crit build, because it works with any direct damage.

Hmm.

[Gerrick]

I'd suggest long term looking at a build centered around the unique Mjolnir. You get to cast lighting spells as you swing with a melee attack. For a start to do this, you could go witch for a caster start, templar, or marauder. You'll need to read the unique though, as you'll need 414 str and 300 int to use it, which is really quite a lot. There are some other uniques, like a necklace that gives you 100 to all stats that would be useful, but the build won't really come online till the 60's at the earliest.

For a easier beginer build with magic/melee, I'd suggest looking into doing a hierophant templar, and using your favorite melee elemental damage ability with flame totems, and later spell totems doing things like glacial cascade. I found this sort of build to be very durable with mind over matter, and fun to play (3 totems spamming glacial cascade is visually impressive).

[Awakened Gamer]

Originally posted by Gerrick:

I'd suggest long term looking at a build centered around the unique Mjolnir. You get to cast lighting spells as you swing with a melee attack. For a start to do this, you could go witch for a caster start, templar, or marauder. You'll need to read the unique though, as you'll need 414 str and 300 int to use it, which is really quite a lot. There are some other uniques, like a necklace that gives you 100 to all stats that would be useful, but the build won't really come online till the 60's at the earliest.

For a easier beginer build with magic/melee, I'd suggest looking into doing a hierophant templar, and using your favorite melee elemental damage ability with flame totems, and later spell totems doing things like glacial cascade. I found this sort of build to be very durable with mind over matter, and fun to play (3 totems spamming glacial cascade is visually impressive).

Awesome thanks for the info, is the build effective? And what would you recommend out of these? Can templars wear pants or no? Also I am interested in using just a few abilities at a time is that possible?

[mss73055]

Mjolnir is a terrible starter item. Sure it's fun to tinker with once you get to meet its crazy requirements.

You can have a go with Reave. Reave is a channeled melee ability and viable on its own.

Later on you can mix in spells with "cast on melee kill" or "cast while channeling".
Spells and melee are hard to combine, because nodes with melee physical damage don't apply to physical spells --- you have to go elemental or AoE to make the best of it.

[Grumpy]

Originally posted by Dragonbound:

Originally posted by Grumpy:

ranged spells + melee probably wont work, if you want play efficient. You would play just one of them. the closest thing to that, what could "fit" the descriptions would either spells with physical damage or melee with elemental damage.

In general:
#1 pick a skill you like, because PoE is skill centered game. and most builds just having 1 main skill. and a couple of support and defensive skills
#2 pick a class, ascendancy which fits the best to your skill and also to determine the starting point on the tree
#3 plan your build.

I do not care about the meta, I do like to be effective but no thanks on mindless boring cookie cutter builds.

what I wrote dont solely apply to meta. its just how the game is.

I mean sure, nobody stops you to make a templar who doing an arc spell, also doing heavy strike and using some minions because necromancy is cool.
But would it be efficient enough to clear more then white maps with it? probably not.

[Grumpy]

Originally posted by mss73055:

You can have a go with Reave. Reave is a channeled melee ability and viable on its own..

Since when is Reave a channel skill?

[mss73055]

Originally posted by Grumpy:

Originally posted by mss73055:

You can have a go with Reave. Reave is a channeled melee ability and viable on its own..

Since when is Reave a channel skill?

derp you're right. I meant Blade Flurry.

[[WEDIE] LilanKahn]

play a melee skill with a cospris malice, gives you spells whenever you crit

[Gurkog]

If you want to combine melee and range you will need to focus on non-specified damage nodes.

Shadow has the most and can choose any damage type.
Templar has elemental nodes so you can do those types of skills with him. His hierophant ascendency class can do huge damage by ignoring elemental resists.

After picking a damage type, stack global critical chance and multiplier, because it boosts all skills able to crit. Templar has global crit when using staves while shadow crit bonuses apply to anything.

[Awakened Gamer]

How spell like are some of those melee abilities then?