Healer/Support build

[Redeemed_Jester]

Hello- I just bought the game (been waiting for it to go on sale- 9 euros might not be much for some, but here its practically 1 week's worth of fruits and veggies for me). Anyway- me and 2 friends of mine are looking to do a co-op run, and we're already aware that in the game, a full on physical team is the most efficient. What we've decided to do is go for a trifecta- one melee dps, one ranged dps, and a healer/support who is supposed to be focused more on CC (crowd control). If anyone could give me a general guideline for such a build, that wouldn't set the team back in later content, I'd appreciate it. I don't need a... full level-by-level guide (where's the fun in that?) but just a few ideas as to where to begin and what to do would be ideal! Thanks in advance!

[Recjawjind]

So you are looking to run a 3 person party? I would say that is the second most inefficient way to approach it in general, since you are one charakter down and cannot take the lone wolf talent either. I do recommand that one of you picks up an aditional charakter, but if you choose not to, thats fine aswell. You can get trough with 3 people no problem, even on the highest difficulty.

That said, i can give a little advise.

1. Healing does not scale off of inteligence, so its no problem to give the healer some ranged weapon aswell (bow/crossbow) to add to the overall damage output of the party.
2. Healing does scale off of your level and your hydroscophist stat, so investing in that is a good idea, though, if you go fullly into that alone, you will soon find your heals massively overhealing every charakter in your party.
3. Get a few points in Geomancy since it provides magical CC without having to break the enemies magical armor first (slowdown) and it allows you to cast armor enhancing and restoring spells. The damage of the slowing abilities scales off of inteligence but i assume that is not your priority so you do not need to invest in that stat. The armor buffs and restores do not scale with int.
4. Pick up summoning. Summoning an incredebly versitile and powerfull school and will make sure that your healer will never lag behind the others in power. Invest a point early on and get the 3 basic skills associated with it (Summon Incarnate, Farsight and Power infusion). Invest in hydro/geo untill you hit a comfortable level there, afterwards skill hard into summoning. This does not scale off of inteligence either.
5. If you, instead of another ranger want to keep this charakter magic based without making a magic damage/phys damage split party, pick up a few points (1 suffices early, youd like to get to 5 in midgame and stay at that level) of necromancy. Necro skills are basicly spells that scale off of inteligence but do physical damage. If you choose to go that route, get Mosquito swarm and raise bloated corpse and the summoning skill overload (raise a bloated corpse and overload it, then blow it up next to an enemy on its first turn for a massive AOE nuke). Be aware, a bloated corpse and an incarnate cannot exist at the same time, so be sure to raise the bloated corpse when your incarnate has outlived its usefulness, or summon the incarnate after the bloated corpse has already been blown up. Also get the talent "Elemental Affinity" if you choose to go this route (especially effective as an elf since an elf can always create a blood puddle), since it reduces the action point cost of your necro spells while standing in blood.
6. In general, (this counts for every charakter) after getting your ability stats to a level at which you can use all of the skills you currently want/have acess to, invest into Polymorph. The school has several highly useful abilities and opens up absolutely insane options lategame, aswell as being a more effective damage increse than going for example into ranger, since it allows you to spend an aditional attribute point, which gives (depending on wepaon type, str or finesse based) 5% extra damage per point spent across the bord and doesnt need specific circumstances (like high ground bonus) to take effect.

Hope i could help and that its not too rambly. Good luck and have fun!

[Redeemed_Jester]

I appreciate this response- it was a very interesting read, and not rambly at all! And the tips for necromancy and poly are great as well. I was gonna need some offensive abilities anyway- so this is perfect! Thank you!
Edit: We were planning for the host to take on an assassin-y companion to come with us, but it's still great to know that we could trio the game.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by BlackPhoenixRising:

I appreciate this response- it was a very interesting read, and not rambly at all! And the tips for necromancy and poly are great as well. I was gonna need some offensive abilities anyway- so this is perfect! Thank you!
Edit: We were planning for the host to take on an assassin-y companion to come with us, but it's still great to know that we could trio the game.

Are all of you playing selfmade charakters or are you choosing origin charakters? Because if youre all playing selfmade, you only get to experience one origin charakters personal story. If that is the case, i would recommand picking either lohse or fane since those two have byfar the best stories. Every charakter can be turned into anything (when recruiting them, you can just tell em to be a rogue and they will be a rogue) and respecs are after act 1 infinite anyway. I wont hand into that decision, but in my opinion, Lohse is the best girl and i cannot bring myself to not pick her whenever i play.

[Nibbie]

There is generally enough skill points in the game to focus on two trees, especially early on (later on you can splash a couple points in others for useful skills). For your melee dps, that would probably be warfare plus polymorph or necromancy. For ranged, physical dps would be hunstman+something (necro for healing and utility, aero for battlefield manipulation, warfare for strict dps, for examples) while magical dps would probably be pyro/geo. For healer/support, hydro/aero with a little geo is probably your best bet.

Since your title specifically mentions support, I will go a little more in detail there.
Hydrosophist has the most healing skills in the game, skills that restore magic armor, and skills that deal water damage and Chill. It has Rain, which is the easiest way to set Wet on enemies, a status which can be combined with Chilled to Freeze enemies, or with Shocked (from Aerotheurge) to Stun them. Simply Chilling an enemy twice can also Freeze them, making Hydro excellent at CC.
Aerotheurge has skills that buff evasion and movement speed, skills that deal air damage and Shock, and have various skills that manipulate the battlefield, such as teleporting people or clearing surfaces. Shocking a Wet or Shocked enemy will Stun them. You will probably also want to pick up a bit of Geomancer, for its skills that restore physical armor, and to add some more kinds of CC like Slow, Cripple, and Entangle.
Of course, other skill sets have useful skills in them you may want to grab towards the middle/late game, even if you don't care about what else the set has to offer. For example, the only self-movement skill you have access to with magic is Nether Swap, which requires something at the other end to swap yourself with. Putting a couple points into Warfare, Scoundrel, Hunstman, or Polymorph for their teleport/leap/fly skills could be useful.

Also note that you can recruit an NPC to be your fourth party member. The host can select which one of you will control them, and they will largely function just as any of your characters do. You can always try it with just the three of you and see how it goes, but remember you always have the option of recruitment if you find you are hitting a wall.

[Redeemed_Jester]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

There is generally enough skill points in the game to focus on two trees, especially early on (later on you can splash a couple points in others for useful skills). For your melee dps, that would probably be warfare plus polymorph or necromancy. For ranged, physical dps would be hunstman+something (necro for healing and utility, aero for battlefield manipulation, warfare for strict dps, for examples) while magical dps would probably be pyro/geo. For healer/support, hydro/aero with a little geo is probably your best bet.

Since your title specifically mentions support, I will go a little more in detail there.
Hydrosophist has the most healing skills in the game, skills that restore magic armor, and skills that deal water damage and Chill. It has Rain, which is the easiest way to set Wet on enemies, a status which can be combined with Chilled to Freeze enemies, or with Shocked (from Aerotheurge) to Stun them. Simply Chilling an enemy twice can also Freeze them, making Hydro excellent at CC.
Aerotheurge has skills that buff evasion and movement speed, skills that deal air damage and Shock, and have various skills that manipulate the battlefield, such as teleporting people or clearing surfaces. Shocking a Wet or Shocked enemy will Stun them. You will probably also want to pick up a bit of Geomancer, for its skills that restore physical armor, and to add some more kinds of CC like Slow, Cripple, and Entangle.
Of course, other skill sets have useful skills in them you may want to grab towards the middle/late game, even if you don't care about what else the set has to offer. For example, the only self-movement skill you have access to with magic is Nether Swap, which requires something at the other end to swap yourself with. Putting a couple points into Warfare, Scoundrel, Hunstman, or Polymorph for their teleport/leap/fly skills could be useful.

Also note that you can recruit an NPC to be your fourth party member. The host can select which one of you will control them, and they will largely function just as any of your characters do. You can always try it with just the three of you and see how it goes, but remember you always have the option of recruitment if you find you are hitting a wall.

I have to say, this is giving me a lot of food for thought- basically with a bit of Necro, everyone can heal themselves- which I guess makes it so a healer would be useless- should I focus more on a crowd control/buff/debuff build?

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

There is generally enough skill points in the game to focus on two trees, especially early on (later on you can splash a couple points in others for useful skills).

Something to keep in mind, though, is that while you can put up to 10 points into any Combat Ability, you'll need no more than 5 to be able to use the top-tier 3 Source skills. 3 points gets you access to all regular skills and most of the Source skills. That allows for splashing cheaply into schools you wouldn't otherwise use.

Originally posted by BlackPhoenixRising:

I have to say, this is giving me a lot of food for thought- basically with a bit of Necro, everyone can heal themselves- which I guess makes it so a healer would be useless- should I focus more on a crowd control/buff/debuff build?

A little Hydro on everyone is probably more reliable healing than a little Necro, as that gets you Restoration, Frost Armor, and Healing Ritual.

The bonus from necromancer allows you to leech a little health from damage that does direct damage to armor. Necromancer also has Mosquito Swarm which is resisted by Physical armor and Blood Sucker which needs a puddle of blood around the target (which can be anyone, not just you).

[Redeemed_Jester]

Originally posted by Stabbey:

Originally posted by Nibbie:

There is generally enough skill points in the game to focus on two trees, especially early on (later on you can splash a couple points in others for useful skills).

Something to keep in mind, though, is that while you can put up to 10 points into any Combat Ability, you'll need no more than 5 to be able to use the top-tier 3 Source skills. 3 points gets you access to all regular skills and most of the Source skills. That allows for splashing cheaply into schools you wouldn't otherwise use.

Originally posted by BlackPhoenixRising:

I have to say, this is giving me a lot of food for thought- basically with a bit of Necro, everyone can heal themselves- which I guess makes it so a healer would be useless- should I focus more on a crowd control/buff/debuff build?

A little Hydro on everyone is probably more reliable healing than a little Necro, as that gets you Restoration, Frost Armor, and Healing Ritual.

The bonus from necromancer allows you to leech a little health from damage that does direct damage to armor. Necromancer also has Mosquito Swarm which is resisted by Physical armor and Blood Sucker which needs a puddle of blood around the target (which can be anyone, not just you).

I have a question- how do crowd control abilities work in general- would I benefit more from a melee or a ranged build? And assuming that I go melee, do I need to invest into Hydro or Geo for armor enchancement? I was told that enemies ignore tanky builds, is that a thing?

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by BlackPhoenixRising:

Originally posted by Stabbey:

Something to keep in mind, though, is that while you can put up to 10 points into any Combat Ability, you'll need no more than 5 to be able to use the top-tier 3 Source skills. 3 points gets you access to all regular skills and most of the Source skills. That allows for splashing cheaply into schools you wouldn't otherwise use.




A little Hydro on everyone is probably more reliable healing than a little Necro, as that gets you Restoration, Frost Armor, and Healing Ritual.

The bonus from necromancer allows you to leech a little health from damage that does direct damage to armor. Necromancer also has Mosquito Swarm which is resisted by Physical armor and Blood Sucker which needs a puddle of blood around the target (which can be anyone, not just you).

I have a question- how do crowd control abilities work in general- would I benefit more from a melee or a ranged build? And assuming that I go melee, do I need to invest into Hydro or Geo for armor enchancement? I was told that enemies ignore tanky builds, is that a thing?

Very tanky charakters are lower on the enemies priority list but dont outright get egnored. Hard CC is defenitly more prevelant in melee phys builds, ranged only have consumable arrows and nades to force skip enemy turns, so if you want to be a CC monster, defenitly play melee. To get the armor buffs and regeneration, one point in the respective skill (hydro/geo) suffices. For more advanced, youll never be forced to go past 3 in either.

[Stabbey]

STR and FIN status effects are generally resisted by Physical Armor. INT status effects are resisted by Magic armor.

Each school has several status effect skills available, so your question of "which is better" doesn't make sense. Pick the skills that match the damage type you want to do.

You don't NEED to go Hydro or Geo, but those skills don't scale with INT, only with the school itself, so anyone can make use of them.

Enemies do ignore Tanky builds, but that's something which will change in the Definitive Edition.