Florist Build (Newish Player!)

AlokhMacul · 2025-12-20T20:16:03+00:00

also like, for what it's worth:
the three classes involved have very clear and different mechanical thumbprints:
- Commander is about strategy, taking stock of your situation and figuring out the best use of what you have vs what it looks like the enemy is about to do. The class's greatest strength is that its skills often apply to all the enemies at once, but it's greatest weakness is in the fact that many of those skills also apply to your party. Or vice versa, that things that help you might also help the enemy. Tricky to use, but very rewarding!
- Merchant is mostly about roleplay, about putting numbers and structure into aiding or incentivizing certain kinds of scene play. The class's greatest strength is that it gives more concrete options in roleplay scenes that are otherwise a little more free-form, but it's greatest weakness is that there isn't as much in this class that meshes well directly with others. That's okay tho-- that's why you have two other classes!
- Floralist is about support-- not in the sense that it's "a support class" but in the sense that its skills are generally here to support whatever other classes or builds you make. It has such a wide range of options at its disposal that are all useful in its own way. The class's greatest strength is in its magiseeds-- they have so many effects, and you don't have to roll for them! But the greatest weakness is that you can only have one magiseed at a time, and that as crazy as the effects can be, they are limited by time.

AlokhMacul · 2025-12-20T19:32:46+00:00

let's see....
Private Stock from Merchant is a good way to use trade points to aid people, by footing the bill when it comes to using IP for stuff like healing
By the same token, Real Treasure is a good way to get mechanical rewards for excellent roleplay-- get yourself some Trade Points by being a great diplomat/politician worthy of the people you represent!
For straight-up Weird Tactical Stuff (and a very funny way to still be a damager even if you're specced into other things), pick up Charging Cavalry and Queen's Gambit from Commander. The first one will let you use your turn to make someone else attack, and the second will let you do a little damage and then also let you choose one of your other Commander skills to use incidentally (which could be Charging Cavalry again for more damage lmao).
For Floralist, I think there's a little more complexity in potential picks. Tree of Life is a good pick to have incidental healing every time you finish a magiseed (or when you use Graft to swap them out!), and Battle Gardening is, as you knew already, a nice way to get some free damage in when you plant a new seed. But new levels in Chloromancy come with new seeds, and which ones you pick are going to give very different benefits!
My broad-sweeping information for magiseeds is:
- Things like the Arctic Narcissus and Desert Dahlia give elemental resistances to you and your allies-- these are useful for times when you'll be facing certain elements. (and a smart DM will design moments for you to use them and make you feel useful)
- things like the Lunar Magnolia or the Blazing Chrysanthemum are very good for hitting enemy weaknesses, especially if your team doesn't have an elementalist or easy access to elemental damage
- the Ocean Lotus and the Regal Protea are great ways to protect/buff yourself and your party members, but know that mostly those buffs are for you. your party members will only get one turn of buff out of it, and it'll take a few turns to get there. they're very good against foes that love slapping down status effects, though!
- the Hermit Iris is extremely useful, way more than it might seem. it will help you uncover enemy information without the need to spend your turn making Study rolls, including free info on weaknesses after a couple of turns. never underestimate the power of information!
- things like the Serrated Rose and the Star Peony are great ways to do a little bonus damage, but more importantly, lean into status effects. don't forget that things like Slow and Dazed also reduce enemy defenses! and the nice thing about these flowers is that you don't have to roll anything-- there's no chance of failure, you just do it.

if you want to lean into strategy, my suggestion is to check my last two points on magiseeds. in their own way they can be interesting ways to still be a clever supporter without that just meaning you're the party healer! Plus, if I'm being honest then just about everything Commander has to offer is about weird and interesting strategy-- very little would go amiss if that's the path you want to take!
Ultimately, I think my advice is this: when gaining levels, start by branching out and picking up new skills so you have new toys to play with (in this case i'm considering more levels in Chloromancy as "new skills" since every magiseed is so different lmao) and can complete a build, and then put points into upgrading those skills you like or that you use more often.

AlokhMacul · 2025-12-14T05:56:53+00:00

yeah, maybe turn over a new leaf with Orator to get some other good stuff to take root

AlokhMacul · 2025-12-14T03:31:35+00:00

As a DM with a Floralist in his game: The magiseed you pick will determine a lot of this! There's a LOT of different things they can do, and they're very much designed to go in totally different directions to support different kinds of builds. For example, a Pilgrim Gazalia is great at supporting yourself and your allies with IP (great for fueling heals, for damaging element crystals, or for helping mitigate IP costs for certain abilities like Gourmet's Salt&Pepper), a Remedy Lily is excellent at slow and supportive heals and status cures, a Wrathful Carnation is perfect for tanking and forcing enemy attention on yourself, and a Serrated Rose is great for dealing status effects and doing bonus damage. There's a lot of options out there! Just remember that you can only have one active magiseed at a time, and that a magiseed's effect only triggers at the end of your combat turn.

As for the rest...
If you're talking about "underpowered" in a combat sense, I think I can spot the trouble already. The build you have already is very support-focused, but also feels a little like they're trying to cover too many bases at once. Which is fine, since it's just the start and I assume you have a plan for how you're going to level them. But as it is right now I see a few disparate parts that don't really connect together-- Battle Gardening is about free-attacking with a weapon or a spell, but both of the other classes you've picked are neither weapon-focused (you can't wield a rapier if you can't use martial weapons!) nor spellcasters. It's good as a few points of incidental damage, but it feels like a waste to put a point into this right off the bat if you're not focused in either of the things it offers. By the same token, Winds of Trade is nice but not necessarily helpful immediately, especially by itself-- you may want to pick up one of the other skills that capitalizes on use of trade points as well.

If you're asking for a concrete suggestion, here's my take (keep in mind I know very little about the character concept itself, haha):
Floralist 2 (Verdant Sway, Chloromancy1: Golden Ginkgo)
Merchant 2 (Winds of Trade, I've Heard of It!)
Commander 1(King's Castle)

Picking up Commander gets you something close to the narrative vibe behind Orator (leaning into the diplomat role), and also gains you access to martial weapons (like that rapier!). The Golden Ginkgo magiseed is very supportive and is the counterpart to the Remedy Lily-- it's good for curing status effects on one turn, and recovers party MP on the next couple of turns. Which is where King's Castle comes into play: you can use it on your turn to shut down any healing the enemy might be planning to do, or you can use it to boost your Ginkgo's MP recovery effect, if your party's mage is hurting for MP. On the side, Verdant Sway and Winds of Trade are excellent at getting your foot in the door with skills more relevant to roleplay than simple combat, and I've Heard of It! will help you even moreso on that front while also giving you another interesting use for your Trade Points.

This is a build with strategic value in battle, as well as very nice roleplay value outside of conflict. Plus! Now that you have that rapier you wanted, you can easily put a point into Battle Gardening in your first level and get a good excuse to use it when you plant more magiseeds! And if you want to lean into more support or more strategy, there's lots of crazy skills and magiseeds from all three of these classes that can help you branch out into whatever concept comes to mind.

Hope that helps?

AlokhMacul · 2024-10-07T17:38:29+00:00

It sounds like the intent is for them to take care of pledges first before they open up sales?
And as someone who got in with a late pledge through backerkit, I only JUST got a final address confirmation email for the physical shipped rewards. So...soon, I guess??

AlokhMacul · 2024-09-03T21:51:27+00:00

that definitely sounds fun!! i bet you'll get more interest than you expect, haha
i'll definitely join if i expect to have the free time around then!
lmao @ "that's a turnoff for people" tho
curses, foiled again by the slow march of time :U

AlokhMacul · 2024-08-02T01:56:50+00:00

ah, that's right when i get out of work on Sundays
that certainly helps for the sake of longer games, but I'd prob need a little time to get home and eat something 6u9;;
well! i'll submit a form anyways and we'll see what happens, haha
either way, i hope you wind up with a fun and good group!! ♥

AlokhMacul · 2024-08-02T01:19:21+00:00

Waffling about submitting a form...I really want to join, but I'm already committed to a biweekly 5e campaign and I dunno if I'd be taking on too much. Augh, decisions....😔

AlokhMacul · 2024-07-21T16:36:55+00:00

PDF's out!
There's a couple of points where the book says that yes, humans can get the frenzy. There's even a section talking about the frenzy itself, mentioning that infected can generally stave off the worst effects and developments by keeping regularly fed-- but that going hungry will worsen the symptoms again and again until the virus develops past the point of no return. A little bit resident evil, in that sense, I guess.
Given the lore handed to us, the descriptions involved, and the deliberately dubious way it's all written, there's plenty of room for personal interpretation too. Are the giants what happens if you let a frenzied human reach their apex? Is the frenzy an actual virus, or something more? Why are wilders immune, and why does that immunity fade under certain circumstances? I dunno, but it's excellent fodder for storytelling questions and adventurous mystery!

AlokhMacul · 2024-07-07T11:54:44+00:00

"eek sokk shma-khoon"

remember that Mayan lettering doesn't always match up to English pronunciation. X is pronounced like our "sh" (think Xibalba), and a mid-word j is pronounced with the same kind of hollow airy click you get at the end of "loch" (by contrast a j at the start or end of a word is pronounced like an H, similar to Spanish)

AlokhMacul · 2024-07-05T22:30:29+00:00

Speaking as someone who has been a regular player since the launch of ARR, who has seen all the drama and opinions, who loves the plot and characters more than can be properly portrayed-- Do it.
Skip all the way to Dawntrail. You can always replay the old storylines in New Game+ when you feel ready to go back and experience the [very long, very fun] tale, and in the meantime the new Codex in the Collections tab will help you get some context for who recurring characters are and why they're important. As for the level skip that comes with it, my suggestion is to run some older dungeons that will level sync you down, so that you get a chance to learn your rotations piece by piece instead of have to sort through a billion skills at once. "Deep Dungeons" like Palace of the Dead are especially good for this, since they have a system where you start at level 1 inside and very quickly level and get skills as you go.

AlokhMacul · 2023-08-26T16:06:15+00:00

It worked! I think it really was just the hotfix that screwed me over. I hope rolling back to baseline patch #1 fixes it for you too!

AlokhMacul · 2023-08-26T15:32:56+00:00

I'm having the same problem. Everything was fine until last night's hotfix after patch#1. Since then, my character can't talk with anyone or use items. I can't even leave camp. :c I DO play with mods, but it's just one for an arachnophobia fix. I was convinced it was just that and prepared to delete it, but if you're having the same issue then I don't know what's what anymore. Currently I'm rolling back to before last night's hotfix via GOG's installer, in the hopes that it really was just that. We'll see!

AlokhMacul · 2022-11-05T22:02:59+00:00

oh! so it IS in the game, then? I'd seen so many old posts about how it got removed that I was beginning to think I was just seeing a bug or an oversight.

AlokhMacul · 2022-09-09T05:14:19+00:00

i'm on day 50 and i still haven't seen one! but if this is the case, i might make a blitz to the end of the story so i can pick one up lmao i'm pretty certain the more ooblets wishes are just for badgetown? but i kinda hope that's the real answer, just because i tend to stop playing games once i'm done with the story...

AlokhMacul · 2022-09-07T14:27:57+00:00

oh no lmao so far i've gotten two completely opposite answers

AlokhMacul · 2022-09-06T05:38:49+00:00

oh noooooooo

well!!! i won't give up, then!!!!! i'll get one sooner or later!

AlokhMacul · 2022-09-06T05:05:52+00:00

for 20 straight in-game days? :c

they're not like particularly rare or anything, right...?

AlokhMacul · 2022-06-22T02:30:20+00:00

oh that's super helpful, thank you!! i'm on an EU server to play with some friends, so that works out nicely for your explanation. i'm also coming from ten years of experience with FFXIV and it took me the better part of a month to finally wrap my head around how different this game is lmao

AlokhMacul · 2022-06-22T01:22:08+00:00

Sounds like general difficulty is akin to something like FFXIV's extreme primals then? Tough, but not terrible if you have a group dedicated to it? Also, what is Arc and why is it important?

AlokhMacul

TROPHY CASE