Pathfinder Wrathfinder builds general

[Yosharian]

300 damage on a crit! Wow that's amazing!

300 base damage. Not counting lots of high damage dealing.

Dude the biggest damage dealers in the game can deal over 2k damage per attack on crits. Those numbers are very low. They'd be reasonable on a Merc/companion build

I'm not disagreeing, but I'd like to point out, that the video shows that the 80 and 300 (crit) dmg is pure weapon dmg. There are several secondary dmg effects which bring the overall dmg to 500 and 1000 (crit) per hit. (Some of that stuff is life-stealing so increasing survivability).
So for a build that seems to be a lot around flavor and not aiming for highest single hit dmg or highest DC it looks like an overall pretty round bulid. It looks viable in the beginning and strong in the end, IMHO. (Even if I disagree with the claimed feat starvation...)
I'll try something similar if I ever do another playthrough or perhaps with Midnight Isles...

And I already pointed out that EB which is the source of those Divine damage bonuses was basically removed from the game a few patches ago

 

[Yosharian]

That said if you wanted to build a megatank character, this was posted on Reddit recently, 2500 HP apparently

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder..._tank_mega_2k_hp_for_fun_build_unfair_viable/

 

[Sunri]

I want to complete game on hardest difficulty with lich any build recommendations? Should I make my own team or stick with NPCs?

 

[Cyberarmy]

I want to complete game on hardest difficulty with lich any build recommendations? Should I make my own team or stick with NPCs?

DR stacking melee lich is absolutely powerful in unfair but early on it'll struggle a lot.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Look to this.

Spoiler

• 1.3k hit points (counting temporary)
• Armored casting with no spell failure
• 4 attacks / round each one dealing about 80 base damage
• Over 300 critical damage

In comments : A quick recap :

Strength 14 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 19!Boost Int every time Wis 8 Cha 14

1 Exploiter Wizard Spell Focus Conjuration Martial Weapons Proficiency Greater Spell Focus Conjuration Potent Magic Deity: Urgathoa for unique dialogue
2 Exploiter Wizard Pick your spells
3 Exploiter Wizard Combat Reflexes
4 Exploiter Wizard Spells
5 Exploiter Wizard Improved Initiative Heighten Spell metamagic Wooden Flesh
6 Eldritch Knight Weapon Focus Bardiche
7 Eldritch Knight Outflank Exploiter Wizard Arcane Casting
8 Eldritch Knight Greater False Life(Stacks with False life) Greater Invisibility(You can make this 24 hour duration)
9 Eldritch Knight Power Attack Animate Dead
10 Eldritch Knight Dazzling Display Spells: Echolocation Geniekind (For Elemental Barrage)
11 Eldritch Knight Improved Critical Bardiche Stoneskin Communal Animal Growth if none of your other casters have it
12 Eldritch Knight Greater heroism Transformation important spells
13 Eldritch Knight Shatter Defenses (Combo w/Frightful Aspect)
14 Eldritch Knight Weapon Specialization Bardiche Firebrand (For Elemental Barrage combo) Legendary Proportions
15 Eldritch Knight Skill Focus Arcana (To unlock Loremaster)
16 Loremaster Cleric secret Divine Power Seamantle Frightful Aspect*
17 Loremaster Arcane Armor Training (For Hellknight)
18 Loremaster Combat secret Cleaving Finish Roge secret Opportunist Important Spells: Heroic Invocation Foresight
19 Hellknight Signifier Greater Weapon Focus Order of the Gate Mind Black Communal
20 Hellknight Signifier (Gives Armor passive)

Mythic Close to the Abyss
1 Abundant Casting
2 Improved Abundant Casting
3 Greater Abundant Casting Skeletal Marksman Fear Control
4 Elemental Barrage Skeletal Fighter Shatter Defenses Marksman Buffs Longbow Weapon Focus and Training
5 Enduring Spells
6 Greater Enduring Spells Weapon of Death
7 Ever Ready
8 Power Attack Skeleton Upgrade Cleric
9 Mythic Charge Deathrush
10 Weapon Specialization Bardiche

If you want to build a Necromancer Gish, why not go all the way and build a Legend reformed-Lich who still has access to 10th level Lich spells, caster level 28, and an attack bonus of well over 100 if he smites both evil and chaos (+ 16 BAB each from Paladin and Hellknight levels)?

(AC increases by another 16 (sacred) for the smite target, and 8 more with Seamantle if the enemy doesn't have freedom of movement, + AC from Crane Style on top, so around 100 AC in total against a boss).

Could also cast transformation to get more attacks and another bunch of AB, but I normally don't bother because it's more fun mixing casting with melee.

He doesn't do much damage per hit, but he also gets decent life drain damage with each hit (d6+28).

The aim for this was to build the best all-round character I could, so high AB, high AC, high saves, powerful magic, 24 hour round/level buffs, can self-heal.

 

[Longes]

Look to this.

• 1.3k hit points (counting temporary)
• Armored casting with no spell failure
• 4 attacks / round each one dealing about 80 base damage
• Over 300 critical damage

In comments : A quick recap :

Strength 14 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 19!Boost Int every time Wis 8 Cha 14

1 Exploiter Wizard Spell Focus Conjuration Martial Weapons Proficiency Greater Spell Focus Conjuration Potent Magic Deity: Urgathoa for unique dialogue
2 Exploiter Wizard Pick your spells
3 Exploiter Wizard Combat Reflexes
4 Exploiter Wizard Spells
5 Exploiter Wizard Improved Initiative Heighten Spell metamagic Wooden Flesh
6 Eldritch Knight Weapon Focus Bardiche
7 Eldritch Knight Outflank Exploiter Wizard Arcane Casting
8 Eldritch Knight Greater False Life(Stacks with False life) Greater Invisibility(You can make this 24 hour duration)
9 Eldritch Knight Power Attack Animate Dead
10 Eldritch Knight Dazzling Display Spells: Echolocation Geniekind (For Elemental Barrage)
11 Eldritch Knight Improved Critical Bardiche Stoneskin Communal Animal Growth if none of your other casters have it
12 Eldritch Knight Greater heroism Transformation important spells
13 Eldritch Knight Shatter Defenses (Combo w/Frightful Aspect)
14 Eldritch Knight Weapon Specialization Bardiche Firebrand (For Elemental Barrage combo) Legendary Proportions
15 Eldritch Knight Skill Focus Arcana (To unlock Loremaster)
16 Loremaster Cleric secret Divine Power Seamantle Frightful Aspect*
17 Loremaster Arcane Armor Training (For Hellknight)
18 Loremaster Combat secret Cleaving Finish Roge secret Opportunist Important Spells: Heroic Invocation Foresight
19 Hellknight Signifier Greater Weapon Focus Order of the Gate Mind Black Communal
20 Hellknight Signifier (Gives Armor passive)

Mythic Close to the Abyss
1 Abundant Casting
2 Improved Abundant Casting
3 Greater Abundant Casting Skeletal Marksman Fear Control
4 Elemental Barrage Skeletal Fighter Shatter Defenses Marksman Buffs Longbow Weapon Focus and Training
5 Enduring Spells
6 Greater Enduring Spells Weapon of Death
7 Ever Ready
8 Power Attack Skeleton Upgrade Cleric
9 Mythic Charge Deathrush
10 Weapon Specialization Bardiche

Tbh, this is all completely unnecessary. Lich spells are so good that just going Wizard 20 and spending all your turns casting Lich spells is just about the best way to spend your time. Your 4 attacks per round at 80 damage each are good, but they are not Blood Feast/Domain Of Hungry Flesh/Negative Energy Burst good.

 

[Cryomancer]

a Legend reformed-Lich who still has access to 10th level Lich spells

I'm pretty sure Legend loses merged spellbook as of the latest patch

Yes!! And the caster level is capped at 28, so you can't get caster level = 40+.

 

[Yosharian]

Man, these stealth changes are annoying as fuck.

 

[_V_]

So since it took me a while to come up with a build, that I really like, I thought I'd share.
I finally reached "Legend", so I can judge the build in action.
My requirements were:

1. Two-handed, strength-based melee (because I like the concept but usually ended up with something different).
2. Long term buffs but no reliance on short term(, limited per day) buffs or abilities.
3. No obvious weaknesses/drawbacks (that cannot be compensated by equipment/long term buffs)
4. Decent amount of skill points.
5. Ideally still effective, even if all buffs are dispelled.
6. Viable from beginning to end (and while I'm still early in Act 5, I'm confident that he'll stay more than viable until the end)
7. Not too reliant on specific equipment.

So I ended up with a 16 vivi, 11 quarterstaff master, 8 two-handed fighter, 1 Thug (I'm currently lvl 36. Two lvls will go to two-handed fighter and one to quarterstaff master. The last lvl is undecided.)

I'll not give a step by step rundown, because there are many viable ways to develop him. 2 levels of monk and the rest in vivi will get you to the point when you can become a legend.

For race I took keen Kitsune (for vulpine pounce).
Stats:
Dump cha.
Dex 16
Con 14
Wis 14 (or 12)
Int 16 (or 17, if you really like skill points)
Str rest. All level-up points go here, obviously. (Unless you went fot int 17.)

Mythic until legend: I went with Trickster for crits, "Normal Spell" and increased modifiers on magical equipment.

Pros:
Currently I have 9 attacks with my main hand + 2 bite attacks (can be increased by haste and by monk ability). Fully buffed the first 3 are made at 63 attack bonus. (More if I deactivate power attack. When I've reached max level, I'll be just shy of 70 att.) 9d6 are sneak dmg (which usually applies).
The first attack per round includes a free trip with CMB 87. Charge is a full attack (vulpine pounce). Dmg on normal hits is just shy of 200 dmg. On crits around 480 dmg. (Crit range is 17-20). Without charge that dmg is reduced by 33 (66 crits) (boots of stampede).
Haven't played him long since he reached this stage, but so far no enemy survived a full round of attacks.
He's immune to poison, disease, cold and negative levels. And immune to mind effects via equipment.
High points in various skills (I took perception, persuasion, athletics and mobility. And some stealth and Knowledge World)
It's bugged, so that he still has the Trickster ability that makes a demoralization check against all enemies at the beginning of combat. (But I gave him Cornugon Smash anyway...) The level of Thug is because of this. I just like the idea of everybody cowering in fear/fleeing just at the sight of him.
With long term buffs AC is around 65 (around 45 for touch), saves between 40 and 50.
HP slightly above 700.


Cons:
There don't seem to be great quarterstaves for melee around. I'm currently using Ashmaker but of course, most enemies are resistant to the fire dmg. I'll probably end up using Finnean.
I have to run around as a furry.
The game is currently too easy.

If anyone has a suggestion where the last lvl should go, let me know.

 

[Yosharian]

On crits around 480 dmg

That's not too bad but there is room for a lot of optimization!

https://ibb.co/k8crQyr

 

[Yosharian]

It's bugged, so that he still has the Trickster ability that makes a demoralization check against all enemies at the beginning of combat.

Waiiiit a minute are you saying that Trick doesn't get removed correctly when you go Legend?

Does this happen for any of the other tricks?

 

[_V_]

Well, my party keeps all the "normal" (= non-mythic) feats (a.k.a. "Improved improved ... crit" and "Normal Spell Metamagic"). I guess this works as intended.
Perception Rank 3 gives "At last, you notice the most important thing — problems within yourself. And to negate those problems, you learn to quickly find ways to use other mythic tricks. You can now use up to two wandering rank one mythic tricks, that you can change every day."
I used that for Persuasion (and Lore Nature, I think). Shortly after I got that, I became a full legend and lost the trickster mythic skills. But the wandering rank in Persuasion wasn't removed.
All other tricks seem to be correctly removed. I've only rested once since then and didn't have an eye on whether Lore Nature is still active, too.
Since my dirge bard and my MC would frighten them anyway, I don't consider it a big deal. ~50% of enemies are immune anyway.

 

[Yosharian]

Well, my party keeps all the "normal" (= non-mythic) feats (a.k.a. "Improved improved ... crit" and "Normal Spell Metamagic"). I guess this works as intended.
Perception Rank 3 gives "At last, you notice the most important thing — problems within yourself. And to negate those problems, you learn to quickly find ways to use other mythic tricks. You can now use up to two wandering rank one mythic tricks, that you can change every day."
I used that for Persuasion (and Lore Nature, I think). Shortly after I got that, I became a full legend and lost the trickster mythic skills. But the wandering rank in Persuasion wasn't removed.
All other tricks seem to be correctly removed. I've only rested once since then and didn't have an eye on whether Lore Nature is still active, too.
Since my dirge bard and my MC would frighten them anyway, I don't consider it a big deal. ~50% of enemies are immune anyway.

Ahhh holy shit. This is interesting. So the wandering tricks aren't getting removed properly, perhaps.

Yeah if it's only the Persuasion trick that isn't getting removed, that's not very good. But if other tricks aren't removed correctly, then this could be pretty interesting.

• Lore (Religion) 1 trick could be cool because your Legend can get ridiculous bonuses to this skill so can remove any afflictions post-battle without spending any resources, for the rest of the game.
• Knowledge (Arcana) 1 trick: keeping this for the rest of the game is actually pretty nice.
• Athletics 1 trick: again, having this as a Legend is super neat because your bonus can get really high.

I would appreciate it if you checked your save game to see if Lore (Nature) got stuck to your character too.

 

[_V_]

I didn't get a random potion/scroll at resting, so Lore Nature doesn't seem to be active anymore.
I also realized that the free trip only comes with a flurry of blows (=full round attack). I don't need it there. Only a certain someone at the end of Iz survived a full round of attacks by me. And his CMD was 116... A successful Trip was challenging, even for my CMB 87 :D
A free trip on every AOO (with a free extra attack with great trip, which I'll get anyway) would have been sweet. The quarterstaff master free trip is also slightly weaker than pummeling bully, since it requires the first hit per round to land. Oh well, still very effective.

 

[Yosharian]

I didn't get a random potion/scroll at resting, so Lore Nature doesn't seem to be active anymore.
I also realized that the free trip only comes with a flurry of blows (=full round attack). I don't need it there. Only a certain someone at the end of Iz survived a full round of attacks by me. And his CMD was 116... A successful Trip was challenging, even for my CMB 87 :D
A free trip on every AOO (with a free extra attack with great trip, which I'll get anyway) would have been sweet. The quarterstaff master free trip is also slightly weaker than pummeling bully, since it requires the first hit per round to land. Oh well, still very effective.

Yeah tripping and combat maneuvers in general seems to be very difficult on the higher difficulties

 

[Longes]

I've just checked today the spellbook merging on Legend. Two interesting facts:
1. Legend still keeps a merged spellbook if you were Lich or Angel.
2. You can still get level 10 spells as Legend, if you get your caster level to 28. By, for example, being Sorcerer 20/Arcane Trickster 10 you get sweet 6 spells a day of level 10 goodness.

So while martial builds are probably still better for Legend due to nutty BAB stacking, there's a solid reason to be a Legend caster if you came from Angel or Lich.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah my main issue with this is that I'm not really interested in Angel, and with Lich I find it more interesting to exploit the martial abilities like vampiric blade or whatever it's called. Rather than just cast a spell and everything dies.

 

[razvedchiki]

i want a skald merc for hard, is it better to focus him on spellcasting/cc and singing or can i dual wield throwing axes+ singing?

 

[Average Manatee]

Skalds are massive martial (especially melee) buffers, and their bonus combat feets would be wasted if you're spending most of your time casting. I give mine a reach weapon + lunge, basically gives them ranged-level reach once you enlarge them.

You can choose Court Poet instead to change the song and other stuff to all boost casters. Haven't tried playing that way.

 

[Haplo]

i want a skald merc for hard, is it better to focus him on spellcasting/cc and singing or can i dual wield throwing axes+ singing?

Seems like it'dbe an uphill battle to focus skald on CC on higher difficulties. Should work on normal, maybe Hard?

Dual throwing axes work, however they get only a part of the Skald's bonuses (Lethal AB bonus, no AB or damage bonus from Inspire Rage) and are a very feat intensive style.
Like Manatee, I'm personally more partial to reach melee on them.

 

[razvedchiki]

there is an abundance of enchanting school spell items, of course you need a heavy investment in terms of feats/mythic feats in order to beat the dice in hard.

 

[ga♥]

I think you will be feat starved to get the TWF feats for dual wielding throwing axes, even if you do STR.

 

[volklore]

Te bard spell list is loaded with good enchant and sonic spells though. Enchant and sonic both have good itemization support. Herald of the horn skald would make a pretty good azata MC caster that has great CC potential and amazing support via songs.
For mercs though, I think you'd be able to CC the rabble in most fights seeing the amount of DC support enchantment gets, but not so much the big dudes.

Also if you were planning on using cacophonous call/cacophonous call, mass (which should have been great spells in this campaign), forget it, owlcat put the poison descriptor on the general nauseated conditions meaning everything under the sun is immune to it (or use TTT to fix it)

 

[razvedchiki]

i really shouldnt fight with him at all, he has to sing/dazzle to proc shatter/ caste spells no actions left to throw axes or swing a greataxe.
its interesting that the iconic skald from the tabletop is dual wielding axes.
i will make arushale a bard and be done with it, she has sky high stats and fits her as a theme.

 

[Yosharian]

Enchant and sonic both have good itemization support.

Sonic is nowhere near as well supported as Enchantment