Originally posted by Ameranth:

Originally posted by necroz:

Are you serious ? It makes this talent most OP talent in the game. Wow..

Yessir! It's intended to, in tandem with Tenebrium items, make investment in Tenebrium a competitive option.

I dunno, I would still use tenebrium weapons even without the occultist, simply because they seem to have about 30-40% more damage. With big enough AP pool and high crit, it's not easy to increase your damage with attributes (which you mostly need to sacrifice for tenebrium skill), compared to increasing weapon damage which is a base for many skills.
Though for weapons requiring high tenebrium like 7-9 it's probably justified talent :)

Originally posted by necroz:

Originally posted by Ragshak:

Using word "Alchemist" you refer to...? Skill? Armor set? Item?

It's a build centered around poison and the Alchemist talent

For some reason I dont see such talent at talent tab... Will unsusribe and suscribe again.

Even after activating latest mod build I dont see "Alchemist" durning character creation.

@Ragshak the talent needs a crafting point to activate, though you should be always able to see it in the inaccessible talents list. If you can't see it at all than your installation is broken..

@Ragshak: I remember you played the mod a while ago, if you never redownloaded the Steam Supplement when 1.1.9 (Artificer's Update) hit, you'll want to go grab it again.

I still can't figure out how to make Pestilence/Alchemist work. It seems like to make Alchemist/Craft9 and Poison vulnerability work you need series-like attacks, but the only series for spears is Flurry. Problem is both Pestilence and Fecundity force a dex/int build, so if you add soldier5 / str 15 to the build it becomes spread thin and weak. The build I discussed above (heavy damage Centurion) could work for double LW, but I'm running full team of 4
Poison spells..well the only series-like spell is Deadly Spores, but it's a Master spell and needs zombie team for the best effect. I don't like the idea of zombie team as in my opinion it creates more problems than it solves due to how easy it becomes for enemies to kill you with healing spells.
Balance/Nature's Fury/Creeping Ooze are a waste of AP and low level toys.

I think poison vulnerability bow could work much better because of Barrage, Fussilade, etc but then I lose crafting point and crafting 9 becomes expensive. If I could find a bow with -1 AP and poison vulnerability it would work great with Audacity (minus Fussilade), but finding it would be almost like winning a lottery

UPD: I think Audacity + DW with poison for alchemist would also work great. Can't beat double poison attack for 2AP - looks like best "series" you could get. So 4 AP will give full poison penetration. Can't comment on rogue alchemist though - I think rogue has too much burst single target damage to be a debuffer for the team

I do like though how much defense spear builds give. The weird part is that one of the best use for spear seems like not to attack at all - find a spear with good +attributes and focus on spells.
Then if you can reach 200 defense you don't need much armor which creates some interesting combinations - Abyss armor is just one example, but there are other options, probably.

@necroz: you may want to try Thorn Cascade as well--it will stack your Alchemist to the max possible in one attack.

Originally posted by Elric:

@necroz: you may want to try Thorn Cascade as well--it will stack your Alchemist to the max possible in one attack.

I thought it only applies Poisoned status, not doing instant poison damage ? I remember it was only applying starting stack for me before, but maybe I was missing/confusing something ?
Thanks, will try it again.
UPD: Indeed it works! It's weird how it re-applies Poisoned and triggering new poison damage again and again.. Though I still prefer a weapon-based approach, because then I can apply both untreated poison and vulnerability in one go - and they resist the poison from the Thorn Cascade - not reliable option, unfortunately.

Thorn Cascade has too low chance to poison. You need huge Int to have acceptable success rate, and even then it will not be 100% reliable due to having to pass saving throw. But huge int is a waste on a Geo mage.

Wow Natural Order can crit! First, I did not expect this at all ("magic" spells don't crit normally), It transforms the spell from useless to overpowered..well, not overpowered, but very strong.
With poison vulnerability and untreated poison, Natural Order/Pestilence crit hurts so much! It almost killed poor vampire on turn 1. Note: no rage/oath and no gaze for poison yet, only used lower resistances and plague
https://imgur.com/a/AAkhk

@necroz: Glad that you reconciled with that ability! It's one of my favorites. :D

My spear alchemist is so tanky, she was laughing in the face of Nightwalker when he could not hit her. He could hit her max 1 time in turn, with great luck.With centurion she will be a monster. But need to make sacrifices..
I tried leeching spear with centurion - it works for centurion attacks, lol..broken

Originally posted by Elric:

@necroz: Glad that you reconciled with that ability! It's one of my favorites. :D

I still can't get full effect of Natural Order - most battles last 3 turns and usually the mob is dead even before 3rd turn. I think this spell could see some nerf in terms of damage (right now the potential damage it could do is ridiculous), while gaining some useful debuff - bleeding is not an attactive option at all. Also the part where it has 3x damage on turn 3 could be removed with damage distributed equally between turns. Or atleast it should trigger on turn 2 instead of 3 so we could use it for ordinary mobs and not just bosses.

I reached lvl23 and going to switch my alchemist from ranger5/geo3/witch3/aero3/hydro2 to soldier5/scoundrel3/aero5/witch3 - I think it will perform much better.

Necroz im liking the look of the team you've made would you mind posting pictures of the build or a mini guide for the 4 party team youve made?

Sure I can post some details, but the builds are in transition now.
Basically my team, by the order they act in battles (will edit this post later)

1. Jahan as support/initiator mage. He is party leader with leadership 6. He is heavily optimized for cc/buff/debuff, I make sure he has highest initiative in the team (which is hard at times because of other heroes who stack perception). He is hydro5/witch5/geo4/air2 at the moment. He starts the battle with buffs (oath, blessed earth,etc), then picks biggest group of enemies and casts Erosion, following with Plague, Lower Resistances. He can also cast freeze - he has all ice spells including Hailstorm and Winterblast (thanks to the amulet). Then depending on AP left he can also cast Maze/Drain WP/Soulsap. Generally I like him to cast Empowered Adrenaline on turn 1, so that he will cast most of his spells at once. He ends his turn with Invulnerability so that he can't die - he has grit 0 but wp 5, so that enemy Decaying Touch is unlikely to land. Every turn he casts witch/healing spells.

2. Bairdotr as debuff/damage archer. Uses crossbow (bombarding are generally the best, but with occultist 9 it's optional) with poison, Has Astrologer's gaze with metamind 8 and occultist with tenebrium 9. Her job every turn is to apply gaze to every enemy using AoE attacks, soften up enemies, and probably kill 1 or 2.

3. Spear alchemist with Pestilence spear. Before I was using her mostly as support/cc with ranger/geo/air/hydro/witch, but when I transform her to the soldier build I described she will be doing very serious damage while sacrificing some healing/clense/control for more offensive abilities. Her main job is to make sure enemies have untreated poison debuff, and poison vulnerability stack, if possible - it's very hard to do using the Pestilence, that's why I'm not very satisfied with spear builds and still experimenting.

4. 2h soldier with Gram sword. The core of the build is obvious soldier5/scoundrel3. Her job is to finish softened enemies fast - with Reaper she is very efficient - she can kill 5 enemies in 1 turn very easily. Before she was using normal armor but now I'm experimenting with Abyss armor as now she has Drog's Luck amulet giving her lots of attributes so she can become a battlemage with invulnerability/oath/air spells. I think she will one shot most enemies, but right now she is a bit soft without invulnerability - trying her with Glass cannon. Depending on encounter she will either die on turn 1 or kill everyone ;)

The strength of this team is almost perfect control and very high burst damage - no need to deal with enemies' armor and Gram/Pestilence can do crazy damage on debuffed enemies

I'm a bit lazy to describe everything in detail including every item/stat, but If you have specific questions feel free to ask