hey Kali, love your enthusiasm and the thoughtful explanation and breakdown!
I hate PDKs—is there a version of this that is Drow and using Finality for the short sword’s special strikethrough? It would save a heart +1, lose the tactics boost of PDK and require a couple more AP in the Feydark tree for CHA hit and damage, but would it be doable?
Finality gets the Sealed bonus for some great debuffing (Ash or Oooze etc) or CC (Salt).
Hey
It would be a bit tight, even if you have enough racial lives under your belt for some spare racial APs:
- This build spends +3 racial tome points on PDK, and just 2 points nets it CHA hit + dmg + stackable tactics
- you'd still have to spend this on Drow, so it's not like you'll be able to move these APs and spend elsewhere
- the stackable PDK bonus to tactical DCs is very unique and pretty powerful, and though this build also benefits from the War Domain buff [Level 9: Your tactical DCs are increased by half your Cleric level], Consecration would likely not be as effective for CC as it is with this build, which is a major loss when other forms of helpless AoE CC are not available. Considering how short some of these CC spells are in higher reaper, I find this extra helpless CC frequently helpful in the groups I join.
- you'd need to free up 7 Action Points from somewhere just to get Charisma to hit and damage from Feydark Illusionist
- If you have +3 universal tree tome, this gets reduced to 4 APs you'd have to get from elsewhere
4 APs (if you have the universal tomes) don't look like much, but this build is actually Action Point starved, and by this I mean there are some very nice goodies I would love to add, but don't have points for, e.g.:
- Dark Apostate's:
> 'Enhanced curse III [T4]' (2 APs)
- Your Apostate's Curse gains: On crit, you apply the effects of the Curse spell. +1 bonus Imbue Dice.
- This synergises nicely with T3 Prey for Mercy already in use: The damage of your Prayer-like spells is doubled against enemies that are Cursed
> 'Dark Judgement [T4]' (3 APs):
- When you use Turn Undead, you and allies you control gain +[3/6/10] Temporary HP per bonus Imbue Dice
- This synergises with the frequent use of Turn Undead to buff everyone with Melee Power (Cleric War Domain: When you use Turn Undead your party gains a Divine bonus to Melee Power and Ranged Power equal to half your Cleric level for 20 seconds.)
> 'Return to Dusk [T4]' (2 APs):
- While you are in any Undead form, when you are knocked unconscious, you dissolve into shadows, granting you Invisibility and Displacement. After 5 seconds, your body reforms, and you are healed for 1d6 Negative Energy per Character Level. This ability costs one usage of Turn Undead, and may only happen once every 3 minutes.
- not essential, but could be a nice thing to have in conjunction with some unconcious range bonuses
- Warpriest's '
Divine Intervention [T5]' (2 APs)
- Ward your target against fatal damage. Hit point damage cannot lower a warded ally's hit point total below -9. When a warded ally is incapacitated, this effect heals the target after a few seconds for 10 to 39 hit points and then fade. (Activation Cost: 30 spell points. Cooldown: 2 minutes)
- potential for a very nice combo with DA's 'Return to Dusk': it would be interesting to see if after Divine Intervention triggers, preventing death and rendering you unconcious, 'Return to Dusk' would immediately trigger to revive and heal you.
In other words, if anything, to make this build better I'd say we need to get extra Action Points to spend on those, rather than find at least 4 to remove from the current choices I proposed.
Worth a try if you are happy with the sacrifices you'd have to make
Btw, if the looks of the PDK are a big issue for you (it kind of is for me), the undead visual is SOOO good, you won't even remember that you are playing with a PDK. Anyway, finding what to remove from has proven quite hard too, whenever I wanted to tweak things to get some of the above.
But ya, a +1 heart is not ideal, I get that, and also having to find 2x Golden Age weapons to get hold of a Bastard Sword is really not great either.
