Help with Kana Skills and Talents

[Slayer Seraph]

Hey,
I need some quick help making Kana better and picking Talents.
I recently did a few respecs for my PC, Eder and now Kana.
Durance may be next.
With Kana I respec him because I dislike some of his starting Invocations and his Field Triage is totally useless, and I heard Ancient Armory is also pretty weak.
Currently I don't have specific weapon type for anyone of my characters. Except my casters who are using Wand/Scepters and my PC who uses Bow/Wand.

For Kana I currently have his starting Arquebas, a Fine Spear and Hearths Harvest.
Inexplicably his Accuracy with Spears
Or Rapier is the best.

I need to give Kana better Talents and Invocations/Phrases for the Chanting.
I know spme people make Kana a melee Tank while others make him Ranged Attacker.
Or a mix of both.

1) I thought about Gallant's Focus since it is Modal ability and therefore free always on +4 Accuracy to Kana and Friends in good reach.
2) Gunner and/ or Marksman.
3) Sword and Shield Style???
4) Hold the Line - I heard its good, cutr what if he isn't in the front?
5) people suggests Kana needs to be melee because his spells are mostly short Cone ranged.

6)what Chants should I take and use often?
I don't like stuff that's super specific. Or a useless weak debuff.

I think he is level 6 now and I mostly just send him to attack in melee
Thanks for the help.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Where the heck do you "hear" such things? And has a rationale been given for those suggestions?

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Ancient_Memory

Kana's Arquebus is best given to Durance, who as a Priest of Magran can learn a stacking +10 Accuracy for Sword and Arquebus weapons.

What talents to learn can depend a lot on what your companions do and can do. Gallant's Focus would conflict with a Paladin learning the stronger Zealous Focus aura. Its radius is also smaller than the Paladin's aura - ask yourself who should benefit from it?

Kana doesn't need to learn offensive invocations at all. He could learn support invocations and focus on chanting low level phrases to summon help more often - some of the summons are just too good. Later he can do high damage with phrases, such as The Dragon Thrashed, The Dragon Wailed.

[Slayer Seraph]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Where the heck do you "hear" such things? And has a rationale been given for those suggestions?

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Ancient_Memory

Kana's Arquebus is best given to Durance, who as a Priest of Magran can learn a stacking +10 Accuracy for Sword and Arquebus weapons.

What talents to learn can depend a lot on what your companions do and can do. Gallant's Focus would conflict with a Paladin learning the stronger Zealous Focus aura. Its radius is also smaller than the Paladin's aura - ask yourself who should benefit from it?

Kana doesn't need to learn offensive invocations at all. He could learn support invocations and focus on chanting low level phrases to summon help more often - some of the summons are just too good. Later he can do high damage with phrases, such as The Dragon Thrashed, The Dragon Wailed.

Hello
Thanks for helping.
1. I read these things online by doing several simple google searches and reading pages in Steam, PoE and Reddit forums.

Many people suggest that Ancient Memory is too slow and too weak - and wasn't a good skill to begin with.
And they claim that Beloved Spirits was NERFED too badly making the upgrade even more useless and with it - making AM also less effective.
One of the rationales given were that the speed of healing is too slow, and its only Endurance that refills at the end of combat.

Can you please explain why you think AM is useful ?
And should I pick Beloved Spirits as well?

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2. Don't have a Paladin atm. Do you get one later on?
Why would it conflict with a Paladin's stronger Zealous Focus aura? Can you please explain. Thought it would stuck with anything else.
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3. Do you suggest making Durance a Sword & Arcubas user? I currently mainly use his starting special Quarterstaff and a Fine Scepter. Is it common to take those 2 Talents? (the one for Magran's Priests and the one with weapon focus on Soldier ?

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I still don't what to do with Kana.
What armor, weapons, talents, Invocations/Phrases to give and how to arrange his chants.

4. Are there Phrases and Invocations that I should avoid?
I thought about taking the one that makes ranged attacks faster (for my bows and wands) and reloading weapons faster. The Phantom Summoning sounds OK but aren't the Skeletons better?
I know some people like the Stun wave attack.

5. Is Kana really "meant" for melee like some people suggest? Or a ranged attacker?
If Melee - should I equip him with a Shield as well? I have no idea how to make "tank" builds. Never really liked those and I am still not very familiar with PoE systems.

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6. EDER:
My Eder is mainly dual wielding 2 weapons, or weapon and shield and focused on dealing damage:
I've RESPEC Eder: Removed his *Defender* - because I use Savage Attack instead, so I never found myself activating Defender.
Then gave him: Savage Attack, Disciplined Barrage, Vigorous Defense and Rapid Recovery.
I consider giving him the Outlander Frenzy next or some Weapon Focus (but since it's impossible for me to know what weapons he will use in the long run - I don't know what to pick.

7. Is Defender/Hold the Line useful? I know some people take Hold the Line with Kana.
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8. Weapon Focuses - I find those feats difficult to select. The weapon combos are always a random mix and usually you can have you 2-3 favorite weapons on a character within the same Talent. And since I am still in Defiance Bay early on, I don't know which one to pick with which character.

9. Thought about Respecing Durance then replacing his Bear's Endurance with something more useful - suggestions?
I'm just trying to optmize my characters, without having "dead-skills" that I never use, don't do much or are used too seldomly.

[Slayer Seraph]

I'm really beating up head up trying to figure out what Talents to pick for my characters on Respec or Level Ups. I have spent a great deal of time yesterday thinking, researching and considering them before giving up and coming here.
(One of the biggest problems is that the info on the web is usually not up to date with the current version).

[Gloomseeker]

Regarding Durance, the idea to pick Inspired Flame is to increase Accuracy which stacks with Weapon Focus Soldier and makes him much better with an Arquebus (and you probably don't want him in the middle of the fray).

Similarly if you put Kana in the back with a gun or arbalest and heavy armour you can pretty much let him do his thing (and depending on the chants you pick you can have him buff the party, summon creatures or damage enemies).

It also depends on your playstyle. If you're not babysitting your guys then passive bonuses are probably going to be more helpful.

By the way some ability having been nerfed doesn't mean it's utterly useless, it also means that you probably can't go wrong (or not to the point of actually gimping your character) if you pick skills that sound good to you and match your style.

I think you may be obsessing about efficiency and that you may have a better time just picking what sounds fun to you instead of trying to achieve perfection.

[mainer]

I remember the first time I played POE years ago, I was overwhelmed by the amount & variety of choices for talents/skills that were available during level up. So many choices, and your character & companions can only reach level 16 (if you have WM 1&2), so you can only choose a few. Planning how you will use each character in combat at the beginning helps avoid taking a talent/skill you might not utilize. Depends on how you play.

I do avoid taking Weapon Focus skills, for the very reason you mentioned. None of them fit any ot my characters perfectly. There might be 1 or 2 in a grouping, but the others I would never use. I wish Weapon Focus, if you chose it, would allow you to pick 3 weapons of your choice.

I think for weapon oriented characters, like Eder or Palagina, it is important to get additional weapon slots, so that you have at least 3, if not 4, weapons available during combat. So many enemies are resistant or immune to certain types of damage (piercing/slashing/crushing). You need to be able to switch weapon types during combat, based on what you're facing.

While I don't like Weapon Focus, I do like to take Weapon Style like Two Handed or Dual Weapons, Sword & Shield, ect. Eder is always my Sword & Shield & heavy armor fighter. Kana was always the toughest for me to level up. I generally spec him to be mid to front line combatant and using 2 handed weapons, and an arbelast for long range.

[Slayer Seraph]

Originally posted by Gloomseeker:

Regarding Durance, the idea to pick Inspired Flame is to increase Accuracy which stacks with Weapon Focus Soldier and makes him much better with an Arquebus (and you probably don't want him in the middle of the fray).

Similarly if you put Kana in the back with a gun or arbalest and heavy armour you can pretty much let him do his thing (and depending on the chants you pick you can have him buff the party, summon creatures or damage enemies).

It also depends on your playstyle. If you're not babysitting your guys then passive bonuses are probably going to be more helpful.

By the way some ability having been nerfed doesn't mean it's utterly useless, it also means that you probably can't go wrong (or not to the point of actually gimping your character) if you pick skills that sound good to you and match your style.

I think you may be obsessing about efficiency and that you may have a better time just picking what sounds fun to you instead of trying to achieve perfection.

Thanks for the comment.
What's wrong with having Durance in the back? He is actually my current Mechanic so he is in the front/middle (2nd/3rd). I think the Middle is a perfect spot for him since most of his always-useful go-to spells, mainly combat buffs, including his Radiance ability, are Circle AoE centered on Durance (Blessing, Divine Armor, the Critical hit blessing, etc). He seems pretty tough to me too.
Also sounds like a normal longsword can work well too, perhaps with a shield, especially, if you give him that Solider Weapon Focus and Magran's Inspired Flame.
I just don't understand - why did the developers give him a Talent that upgrades Swords and Arc.Guns when he is clearly meant to hold a STAFF !?
He seem to be the last person fitting to shield a sword. Almost like they totally mixed him up with something else.


About Kana, so is AM and BS Talents worth it? That healing doesn't sound so great, especially BS.

I guess you have a point. I actually play mostly for fun and story.
I don't even look into "builds" or fan guides for the best stats and abilities. I don't even like the term "builds" and people's obsession about it in many RPG and Action RPG games.

However I am not familiar enough with the ruling and systems yet. So I just seek some tips and creative but simple ways to make my characters better and more fun to use.

[Slayer Seraph]

Originally posted by dransaw:

I remember the first time I played POE years ago, I was overwhelmed by the amount & variety of choices for talents/skills that were available during level up. So many choices, and your character & companions can only reach level 16 (if you have WM 1&2), so you can only choose a few. Planning how you will use each character in combat at the beginning helps avoid taking a talent/skill you might not utilize. Depends on how you play.

I do avoid taking Weapon Focus skills, for the very reason you mentioned. None of them fit any ot my characters perfectly. There might be 1 or 2 in a grouping, but the others I would never use. I wish Weapon Focus, if you chose it, would allow you to pick 3 weapons of your choice.

I think for weapon oriented characters, like Eder or Palagina, it is important to get additional weapon slots, so that you have at least 3, if not 4, weapons available during combat. So many enemies are resistant or immune to certain types of damage (piercing/slashing/crushing). You need to be able to switch weapon types during combat, based on what you're facing.

While I don't like Weapon Focus, I do like to take Weapon Style like Two Handed or Dual Weapons, Sword & Shield, ect. Eder is always my Sword & Shield & heavy armor fighter. Kana was always the toughest for me to level up. I generally spec him to be mid to front line combatant and using 2 handed weapons, and an arbelast for long range.

Funny, my Eder is more about damage and Dual-wielding weapons. So Savage Strike (modal +25% damage, -5 accuracy only !), Disiplined Barrage, and Vigorous Defense (when surrounded) works well. Especially with Durance Inspired Radiance ability and the Blessing spell.

I'm just trying to figure out if those Ancient Memory and Blessed Spirits are any good. Because the 2 skills basically needs to be together to be of any use.
Is the slow Endurance healing "tick" worth investing 2 talents on?

Aren't the 2 handed weapons like Greatsword and Estoc and the heavy Arbelast/Arquebus weapons TOO SLOW? They have that scary Slow/VERY SLOW attack speed and that rifle has a loading time of forever basically.

If you used Arbelast and Greatsword then I assume you picked the Solider Weapon Focus (or whatever had both of those weapons in)

[Slayer Seraph]

little bumping here ^^
?