Pure 20 Spellsinger AA

[giftie]

I've just pulled my old Elven bardcher out of retirement to play around with the new enhancements.

The new Elven tree means that splashing Ranger is no longer a de facto requirement for archers, and it's less attribute dependent as well. Feats and enhancements are extremely tight though.

UPDATE: updated build to include the suggestions below.

Starting stats for my 32-pointer (for 34 and 36 start with 17 and 18 DEX respectively):

STR: 8
DEX: 16
CON: 14
INT: 8
WIS: 8
CHA: 18 (all level-ups here)

Skills:

Balance
Concentration
Diplomacy
UMD
Perform
Tumble (pure flavor choice, and assuming +2 tome - I always loved backflips, otherwise go Healing at half ranks)

Enhancements:

Elf (21 AP):

Core II
Enchantment Lore III
Aerenal Weapon Training IV
Aerenal Grace
Arcanum I
Arcane Archer

Warchanter (6 AP):

Core II
The Poetic Edda III
Bravery I

Arcane Archer (13 AP):

Core I
Conjure Arrows
Energy of the Wild II
Force Arrows III
Soul Magic

(Alternatvely drop Force Arrows II and III for Core II and III)

Spellsinger (41 AP):

Core VI (6 AP)
Magical Studies III (3 AP)
Lingering Songs III (3 AP)
Scroll Mastery III (6 AP)
Yellow Marigold Crown (2 AP)
Charisma II (4 AP)
Spell Song Trance (2 AP)
Song of Arcane Might (2 AP)
Spell Song Vigor (2 AP)
Entrallment (2 AP)
Spell Penetration III (3 AP)
Advanced Magical Studies III (3 AP)
Prodigy III (3 AP)

Feats:

Point Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Precise Shot
Manyshot
Quicken
Improved Precise Shot
Spell Focus: Enchantment

Inspire Excellence
Empower Healing
Heighten or Improved Critical: Ranged

Fatesinger ED with Enchantment Specialist and probably Prism and Rainbow twists. Would've loved to actually run in Shiradi, but I can't justify the loss of spell DCs.

[supott]

If you trade spell focus enchantment for Improved Precise shot, you'd have potentially a ton lot more DPS.

-1 to Enchantment DC's but you could debuff opponents before enchanting them with: Hypnotize (-3 will saves even on fail), Crushing Despair (-5 DCs even on fail and -7 on success). Hypnotize is 10 SP while Crushing Despair is 20 SP.

[giftie]

"Potentially" being the operative word. I'm not a big fan of IPS. I know common wisdom dictates IPS on any ranged character, but I found it to be too situational, and I usually ended up taking too much aggro for it to be very useful.

I'd normally agree as there are much better feats out there than a +1 DC. But SF:Enchantment is required for Enchantment Specialist twist, so I'd count it as being +4 DC.

[unbongwah]

Do you feel your Enchant spells land often enough w/out Heighten or any Spell Pen feats to be worthwhile?

[giftie]

Good question! I'll let you know once I get my EDs in order.

As for spell pen, the enhancements give +6 (+8 if you drop the Warchanter line for Arcanum III), which isn't half bad..

[SerPounce]

I'm doing something very similar with my bard except:

1. I have heighten and IPS instead of combat archery and empower healing. Isn't combat archery bugged anyway? And IPS works quite nicely when you've got a bunch of mobs in a dancing ball. I'd love to have empower healing, but between heal for "oh S***" situations and heal scrolls for the bread and butter I think I'm ok without it.

2. I've completely dropped out of warchanter so I have AP for the +1 enchantment from elf and some more spell pen.

3. I started with 18 CHA (all lvl ups) 18 DEX, and 12 CON. It's a low aggro toon I think I can manage with 28 fewer HP, and bards get enough skill points.

That gives me a total of +4 DC over your build (+2 heighten, +1 elf, +1 CHA), and you need every bit of that to make your CC work.

Making the CC works also seems to be about debuffs, I generally drop crushing despair, mind fog, and disco ball together. I haven't tried it in much EE yet though, so we'll see how it works.

[giftie]

1) Combat archery was apparently fixed in U19 along with Zen Mastery + Dance of Flowers, but admittely kind of a weak feat given the lack of high base damage bows. It will be the first feat to go if I end up regretting not taking Heighten. I'll stick by Empower Healing though. Now that we finally get Heal, seems a shame not to take advantage of it.

2) I can't believe I missed that the third level of Enchantment Lore adds DC. You're right, this is in. It doesn't necessarily rule out Warchanter, as it only raises the minimum investment in Elf from 19 to 21 (and Sustaining Song is just plainly horrible). On the one hand, Shattermantle Shot is very tempting... on the other, as good songs as any splashed Warchanter is equally hard to pass up.

3) Yes, it was definitely a mistake to not go 18 CHA. I might've opted to drop DEX rather than CON, but it will work out the same with a 36-point build.

I'm very grateful for your input. Just out of curiosity, what enhancements did you end up with?

[SerPounce]

My enhancements are:
Elf:26 points including full enchantment lore, Elven Arcana, Skill, and dex-to-damage

Spellsinger: 41 points: full spell pen, vigor, advanced magical studies, and prodigy. I do have sustaining song right now, I agree it's kind of weak given current damage levels, but I can't reduce total points in spellsinger and get the capstone (which I obviously want), and I don't know what's better in the tree.

AA: 13 points
first 3 innates
conjure arrows
Energy of the wild 3 (for magical training to qualify for advanced magical studies)
Force Arrows 1
Soul magic

Pretty bare bones in AA unfortunately, but it gives me the basics.

[giftie]

Do you feel your Enchant spells land often enough w/out Heighten or any Spell Pen feats to be worthwhile?

I'm now on my second life (with a wizard PL thanks to the LR+20).

Throughout heroic content Spell Pen was fine even without an item bonus, pretty much no-fail. DCs could have used an improvement though (even with Enchantment Focus +2 item).

I've just entered Epic content and while I'm still satisfied with how often the spells land (on EH, still not geared for EE), my damage is really lagging behind. I can't see much alternative to getting IPS if I'm to contribute meaningfully to DPS. I was worried I'd be pulling too high numbers; turns out that fear wasn't exactly justified.

Still not sure about final feats, but the current list (in approximate order during levelling) is:

Point Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Precise Shot
Manyshot
Quicken
Improved Precise Shot
Spell Focus: Enchantment

Inspire Excellence
Empower Healing
Heighten or Improved Critical: Ranged

IC:R being pushed to least priority given that Reign and many other effects only trigger on vorpals and Manyshot is more important in that regard.

One thing that did work out much better than expected was Soul Magic. It gives WAY more temporary SP than it should. Though it doesn't add any USP as far as I could tell, which is a shame.