Need help creating a Hydro/Geo Lohse Mage

[SaiGaijin]

Starting a run through with friends. We have Red Prince (Pyro/Poly/Staff), Beast (Aero/Hydro(offense)/Staff), Ifan (Summon/?/Bow or Wand), and me, Lohse (Geo/Hydro/Sword/Shield)

I'm struggling to find a right way to be the Tank/Support character in this group. Everyone else is leaning towards Magic dmg, and I'm not sure whether to go Staff or Wand. What I do know is that I want to use Hydro for the healing abilities, Geo for offence and support, and I don't quite know what else to do.

Has anyone played this build before and can they offer any advice?

[General Malaise]

Yeah, pic an entirely different party.

;)

[General Malaise]

Have you played through before?

That does not sound like a fun or easy to get through with party - except Ifan, if you go full Archer.

Pyro/Geo mage compliments far more. Throw Trap/Throw Mass Traps are some of the best abilities. Throw trap, set it off with a Geo Spell. Aero is much more use for Teleport/Evasion, and later Nether Swap, than for damage and CC. Late game it gets some good stuff though.

Staffs don't work so well - not as well as Wand & Shield/Stat stick weapon and shield, or just weapon. Poly doesn't offer much for Mages - at least until Skingraft, unless you want it for invisibility. It is useful though, to get your Intelligence up, so you do more damage regardless of what spell you're casting/Aero/Geo,/Pyro/Hydro.

I think you'd have more fun with 2 Pyro/Geo mages, and make it a lot easier for your party.

I'm using a Summoner in my current playthrough. I can't say she's great, but I'll stick with it and respec to Necro later. Life would be much easier if she were a second Pyro/Geo for now, but she's not.

[Chaoslink]

The real problem is that tanking neither works because there’s no real aggro control and enemy damage is often too high for raw sustain to manage, nor is it necessary since the best way to handle incoming enemy damage is through evasion or resistance to mitigate or avoid it.

Healing and support is a bit more viable, but it’s really best if everyone handles that themselves. Too often you’ll see a teammate that needs a heal or buff or something but they’ll be dead before you get a turn.

The game favors damage and CC. That’ll be your best route. If you do stick to the idea, you’ll want Int armor and a shield as that gives the best overall armor coverage. Use dodge and dodge aura to evade physical damage while you soak magic. Keep resistance potions on hand for mages. Once Soul Mate appears as a spell for summoning, you’ll want that. It works best as a custom character for Dome of Protection but either way you’ll want to spam all the soothing cold/mend metal and other armor restores over time on yourself and whoever you soul mate to. You’ll recover a ton of armor at the start of each turn and it links between you.

Otherwise, you may want to slide into a different niche in the team if you want to really feel useful. The problem with the tank/support concept is that you’d need full control over your team for positioning and other things to properly allow the tank to tank. You’re not going to be able to with other players.

[Spawnling]

To put it simple: Your team set up deals minimal damage, has minimal defense and terrible crowd control.
Edit to explain magic a bit:
Pyro/Geo: Geo creates oil and poison surfaces. Shooting a fireball on them makes them explode (extra damage) and the other way around, creating an oil surfaces on something (enemy or terrain) that burns creates a fire explosion.

Hydro/Aero: Needs Elemental Affinity and Rain. Casting Rain makes everyone wet (+10% water/ice damage, +20% electric damage, -10% fire damage). Standing in water reduces your Hydro spell costs by 1, which is important as most offensive hydro spells cost 3.
If you cast Rain, you remove oil, poison and fire surfaces and remove burning from enemies.

Having only Pyro or Geo means you can't create fire explosions on your own and the enemy can move out of the Oil/Fire/Poison area before your ally can trigger an explosion.

Summon and (Corss-)bows: Was my first idea for Ifan, too.
Currently my main character is a Summoner (Sebille) and I need 6 AP to Summon and fully buff it. For Summoning to be good, you need it at level 10 asap.
Archers deal massive damage, but you need to max Warfare and need AP to attack.
So it's either summon or shoot.

Poly is great for fighters and rogues. Later (lvl 12+) Poly becomes extremely powerful for mages, too, but until then it's not that good.

Shields: great defense and gives you "shield up": restore magic armor and armor for 2 AP. Great for mages early game, because they lack physical armor.

My suggestions for your team. I'll try to keep the main idea intact, but will suggest changes for the early game:
Red Prince (Pyro/Poly/Staff) -> Start with Geo/Pyro/Shield&Wand or Dual wand. By Level 4 Pyro2/Geo2/Huntsman1 combine a hunter and pyro book for throw explosive trap.
Good starting Talent Torturer.

Beast (Aero/Hydro(offense)/Staff) -> Start Warfare/Aero/Sword&shield worked fine for my Aero/Hydro
Warfare 1, Aero 2, Hydro 2.
Aero: Teleport (deals physical damage, if you teleport one enemy on top of another both get damaged) and Evasion, Lightning can also be useful for extra magic damage
Hydro: Rain, all Hydro damage spells, Frost Armor (At least 2 characters should have it).
Warfare: Battering Ram, Battle Stomp, Bouncing Shield. Crowd control and some extra physical damage that scales with your shield's defense and not with strength.
Talent: If you want to use Hydro offensively, take Elemental Affinity
Lvl 3: Mnemonic as he'll need a lot of memory slots.

You can also make sure that Beast goes first, by giving him the highest Wits (Initiative) in your team (or at least higher than your Pyro/Geo), so he can start with rain and wont remove later any fire/oil surfaces.

Ifan (Summon/?/Bow or Wand) -> Warfare/Huntsman/Crossbow (deals more damge than a bow)
Talent: Executioner
by level 4: Geo 1, Pyro 1, Huntsman 2, Warfare 1
Geo: Fortify (At least 2 characters should have it)
Pyro: Clear Mind, Haste, Throw explosive mine
Huntsman 2: Ricochet, Power Shot, Tactical Retreat, Heal (if needed)

Lohse (Geo/Hydro/Sword/Shield) -> Warfare/Aero/Sword&shield
Aero 2, Warfare 1, Pyro 1, Hydro 1, Huntsman 1
Warfare same as Beast
Aero: Teleport, Evasion
Pyro: Haste, Clear Mind
Hydro: Frost Armor, Heal
Huntsman for throw explosive mine (yes it's that powerful)
Talents:
lvl1 Pet Pal (if you want to talk to animals, or have always best results when talking to animals if you enable the gift bag pet pal option)
lvl3 All Skilled up (Huntsman and Theivery 3)

At least one character should have thievery 3 by the time you are level 4. At level four the merchants get new books; early game all skill books are pretty expensive. Stealing them not only saves you thousands of gold, it gives you the skills way earlier, making the game easier and imo more fun.
A 2nd player with thievery 2 will also help to get all the skill books early as each character can only steal once per game from each merchant.

Make sure to have 12 Strength to equip all swords and 12 Con for the Shields.

After level 4 you it shouldn't matter where you put your points (except for Ifan. He should put it all into Warfare and a good portion into Finesse).
Mild spoiler [information about skill point distribution]:
After you leave the first Island you'll be able to freely reskill your characters for free and as often as you want

[Adramalikh]

what the ♥♥♥♥ are you talking about, you don't even need a tank, if all of ur team is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damage dealers. Stop ropleplaying jesus

[Adramalikh]

huntsman works with spells too