Bard/Sorceror/FVS work in progress heroic racial life

[ValariusK]

So the considerations for a racial life with immediate TR are a lot different from a build that's going to do an ETR or a build that is intended to stay for a while at cap.
One of my internal rules is I pretty much never repeat a build during a set of 3 racial lives for a race. Did tiefling fire sorc, and yeah, it was very fast and very powerful.
This life I'm doing something different. Going to do a charisma to everything build as near as possible. So
Charisma 20, Con 14, rest of stats to taste.
Took my racial AP out of the gate, lots of toys in tiefling.
General build philosophy here is to make every new level Christmas morning as much as possible, and to not worry too much about levels too much into the future, especially levels 18 and 19 and 20 where I'll be spending very very little playtime).
Started out bard 1 with SWF (a concession to the future, I'd not actually use SWF till level 4). Took Master's touch. Deployed my +1 silver keen falchion of ghost touch (cannith crafted). Chopped up the kobold's new ringleader on elite with no issues.
Took sorceror 1, got jump spell and shield. Also got the EK cleave, siphon, and item defense. Item defense is really nice early on with so many oozes in the harbor. Continued with the Falchion, mixing in a few uses of tiefling ASH SLA.
Level 3, took bard 2. Got completionist and one of my favorite legacy pieces of old cannith crafted loot, the trinket of mobility and melee alacrity (10%).
Level 4, took bard 3. Got to swashing and charisma to damage. Started using dagger of inquisition (because it has ghost touch).
Level 5, took bard 4. Got level 2 bard spells, the infamous soundburst and cure moderate. Also got going with my Chronoscope set. Level 5 is always a good level. Got the swashy nothing in the other hand going
Level 6 (planned) FVS 1, get the charisma to damage going on and smite for 4 ap. This will be a substantial boost. Probably take Vol as a deity, as will often use daggers. Get precision as a feat
Level 7 (planned) sorceror 2, another d6 scaling with fire spellpower on wounded targets from tiefling cores
Level 8 (planned) sorceror 3 Get spellsword going for more damage. This also opens up charisma to hit
Level 9 sorceror 4 About this time we switch to skirmisher and start using a buckler. Improved shield bash
Level 10 Sorceror 5 Ravenloft gear, and the von Richten's cane.
Level 11 Sorceror 6 Yet more spellsword damage,
Level 12 Bard 5 EK Tier 5s. Bab is 6, so Improved SWF
Level 13 Bard 6
Level 14 Bard 7 Level 3 spells
Level 15 bard 8 Bab is 6 + 3 or 9, so improved crit, probably pierce (for light pick, shortsword, dagger)
Level 16 bard 9
Level 17 bard 10
level 18 bard 11 Greater SWF
Level 19 bard 12 Mostly skipped, as I will be turning in the 2 ES sagas
Level 20 bard 13 immediate racial TR

[ValariusK]

Up to level 8 now. Noticed you need 4 sorc levels for cha to hit, so will likely be getting that at level 9. Running about 150 fire spell power, so getting d4*2.5 (at 75%), d6*2.5 (at 50%) and d6 * 2.5 (spellsword) as bonus damage is pretty nice. Level 10 will give a big bump in fire spellpower, and level 11 will give 2d6 on spellsword as a base.
Regular melee damage is very respectable, and en pointe and eldritch strike cleaves give acceptable AE. Soundburst is still a fave.

[ValariusK]

Up to level 8 now. Noticed you need 4 sorc levels for cha to hit, so will likely be getting that at level 9. Running about 150 fire spell power, so getting d4*2.5 (at 75%), d6*2.5 (at 50%) and d6 * 2.5 (spellsword) as bonus damage is pretty nice. Level 10 will give a big bump in fire spellpower, and level 11 will give 2d6 on spellsword as a base.
Regular melee damage is very respectable, and en pointe and eldritch strike cleaves give acceptable AE. Soundburst is still a fave.

Up to level 12 now. Lots more spell power, 2d6 base now on spellblade. Can't afford my t5s yet, but probably will in level 13.
Have 14 in bard, 4 in fvs war soul, rest in EK.
Having charisma to damage, 1/2 charisma bonus to damage, and charisma to hit is really a big deal coupled with the high attack speed and doublestrike of a swashy. Shield bashing at 35% is a nice plus too. Relative to a single class swashy, what I have going for me is more doublestrike (fair bit of it in EK), spellblade adding more damage, and a good bit of extra utility from sorc spells. Also I have a trance ability (divine presence) that works off my main stat. What I have less of is the bard specials and spells. In particular I probably heal worse, although my superior universal spell power mitigates that some.

[ValariusK]

Up to level 12 now. Lots more spell power, 2d6 base now on spellblade. Can't afford my t5s yet, but probably will in level 13.
Have 14 in bard, 4 in fvs war soul, rest in EK.
Having charisma to damage, 1/2 charisma bonus to damage, and charisma to hit is really a big deal coupled with the high attack speed and doublestrike of a swashy. Shield bashing at 35% is a nice plus too. Relative to a single class swashy, what I have going for me is more doublestrike (fair bit of it in EK), spellblade adding more damage, and a good bit of extra utility from sorc spells. Also I have a trance ability (divine presence) that works off my main stat. What I have less of is the bard specials and spells. In particular I probably heal worse, although my superior universal spell power mitigates that some.

Up to level 14 now, so bard 7, fvs1, sorc 6. Have my T5s (mostly) now and my divine presence back.
Some notes, this build has good ae with 3 cleaves (eldritch strike, eldritch tempest and en pointe). It has truly excellent single target damage. Its self healing improved to OK at level 14, with 3rd level spells. Next level should improve that a bit with soothing song (it is a pain to heal other people when you're in knight's transform, which I mostly live in). Ash is still pretty useful as a 4th ersatz cleave.

[ValariusK]

Up to level 17 now. With EK and Swashy filled up as much as I'd like, minoring now in Warchanter. Really nice to have that 50% sprint boost available again. Single target damage is still really strong, and the 3 virtual cleaves are still cleaning house.
Some notes on Eldritch tempest.
It gives +3 to crit multiplier, so with a light pick (barovian), it has a 8x multiplier. It has +10 to threat range, so its crit rate is 70%, in other words, most of the time. With a handaxe it'd be 80% rate with 7x multiplier.

Some notes on en pointe. With a light pick, it is doing 4xmultiplier with +12 threat range, so critting at 80%, again most of the time. Hand ax would be 90%, at 3x multiplier.

I'm finding it convenient to mostly just use my barovian light pick. It generates lines of damage that look like (base weapon), (weapon proc 3d6 fire), (weapon proc 3d6 holy)
(2d6 fire * 5), d4 fire *5 (if 75% or less), d6 fire *5 (if 50% or less), d8*2 *5 (if 25% or less). If the target is undead, throw another 3d10 onto it. And the attack rate between 11% alacrity, 20% combat speed , sizable doublestrike and offhand hits (shield bash) with the cane sound like popping corn. It is scaling well into late heroics, well enough that it competes well for kills with the insta killers.

[ValariusK]

Wrapped it up and hit 20 off my 2 ES sagas. Build stayed very strong all through heroics. Didn't do any epic on it. Would probably do very well in fatesinger though.

[ValariusK]

Wrapped it up and hit 20 off my 2 ES sagas. Build stayed very strong all through heroics. Didn't do any epic on it. Would probably do very well in fatesinger though.


Going to give this a roll of the dice as a scoundrel iconic. Scoundrel gives me some additional hit and damage over the previous run with dashing weapons. Using mostly razorend in heroics and have a fairly good sentient epic envenomed blade for low epics and moonwillow for upper epics. My Balizarde isn't fully tricked out yet, needing another 4 or so commendations of heroism, but it will be able to fill the middle.

[ValariusK]

Going to give this a roll of the dice as a scoundrel iconic. Scoundrel gives me some additional hit and damage over the previous run with dashing weapons. Using mostly razorend in heroics and have a fairly good sentient epic envenomed blade for low epics and moonwillow for upper epics. My Balizarde isn't fully tricked out yet, needing another 4 or so commendations of heroism, but it will be able to fill the middle.

Ran this for an ETR in epics. Yeah, its a beast.
Did blessed blades, sacred ground, consecration, legendary shield mastery for twists. Ran in fatesinger.
A few more notes:
Level 2 knock and gust of wind are damned useful spells from sorc (for level 3 I took magic circle against evil). You'd be shocked how many locked doors and chests you can open with even a fairly crappy (level 11 because of fatesinger) caster level plus a strong charisma. Gust of wind is damned useful also. All the little buff spells are much better too with the free extend from fatesinger. For healing other people, because of knight's transform and epic defensive fighting, I mostly use consecrate and cure light wounds, mass Just self target and you heal yourself and anybody close by. That's good enough for most applications. 38 or 40 points in EK, 17 or 18 in warchanter, 4 in warsoul, and 15 or so in swashy and you're golden. For point blank retail crowd control you've got a good freeze attack with a good dc plus your ash arpeggio, with a crazy dc. You've also got the knockdown from eldritch tempest, and your daze on crit which makes en pointe an ae daze.

[scut207]

Was your final build Still Bard 13/Sorc6/FVS1?

What was your issue with SWF?

Can you supply a feat list? this looks like fun...

Thanks

[ValariusK]

Was your final build Still Bard 13/Sorc6/FVS1?

What was your issue with SWF?

Can you supply a feat list? this looks like fun...

Thanks

Yes, I ETR'd it and back to 29th now on 13 bard/6 sorc/1 fvs.
For feats I had the 3 SWF feats, improved crit pierce, completionist, precision, shield mastery in heroics If you don't have completionist, you can get imp shield mastery in heroics.
in epics I took improved shield mastery, inspire excellence, and overwhelming crit at 27th (at 25th and 28th get perfect 2wf and swf)).