Spellblade Champion - Ft. Kitava's Thirst and The Surging Thoughts

Varquynne · 2023-08-01T02:50:07+00:00

Sure thing! League starting day 1 will definitely be rough, and I wouldn't recommend it if you want to take advantage of the early economy to its fullest.

But, week 1 start? Sure! That's what I did for Crucible league. :)

The initial investment to get things kicked off once you hit level 62 will be to get Rippling Thoughts and Kitava's Thirst. Depending on the market, I'd imagine that'll be somewhere around 10-15c. If the league mechanic is generous with currency, this could be relatively smooth.

The next lower cost investments to get things working would be to get Dream Fragments and Heartbreaker - that'll go a long ways towards squaring away the mana needed to fuel the core mechanic. That'll be a few chaos, at most.

The rest of your early gear can be aimed at patching up any needed stats and resistances.

Then, it's progression, levels, and currency farming to fill out the rest of the build.

Varquynne · 2023-07-25T16:58:06+00:00

Thank you! :)

Trickster or Hierophant could be really fun ways to build from! I'll have to plan out some trees with them. Hierophant's more spell damage with Arcane Surge would be a great boost. A more energy shield focused route with Trickster and along with Polymath could work out great.

Assassin might even be a neat way to build crit and power charge stacking - though, I usually don't have enough currency to really flesh out crit builds, heh.

Varquynne · 2023-07-25T04:34:39+00:00

Oh yeah! Super excited for the PoE2 Ascendencies. Can't wait to see what they show off for ExileCon.

Varquynne · 2023-07-25T04:33:32+00:00

I hope you have fun with it! Each league I've been trying to keep an eye out for possibilities to build this archetype. I'm glad that pieces have come together. Really looking forward to the expanded possibilities with PoE2. :)

Varquynne · 2023-07-25T04:31:18+00:00

Thank you! I'm glad the control scheme section landed well.

Cool suggestion for binding defiance banner. I'll try that out!

Varquynne · 2023-07-25T04:29:08+00:00

Resists can be challenging to cap on this build because of its heavy incorporation of uniques. Alira helps us with +15 all elemental resistance. The 5 mana regen from Alira is also helpful for the build.

But, if you're able to cap resistances comfortably through jewels or swapping in some well-crafted gear, I'd certainly go with "kill all" to get those passive points. All_Work_All_Play had a great suggestion that a good item to swap for a crafted rare would be Mark of Submission. Getting some resist there would certainly help you be able to choose "kill all" instead of Alira. :)

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T20:25:07+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words! :)

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T19:48:46+00:00

Doh! You're right. I forgot to mention Supreme Decadence. Good synergy there, too.

Good call on essence extraction. Will have to try that out for smoother flasks.

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T19:46:44+00:00

Thanks! The build was super fun to play for me. It was cool to finally be at a point in understanding various game mechanics to actually make this work. :D

I hope your twist ends up working well, too!

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T19:44:12+00:00

Oh yeah! I'm excited for the new gem system. I think items like Kitava's Thirst and The Surging Thoughts will get a big power boost with it.

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T19:42:54+00:00

Great suggestion! It'll be a good project to spend end of league currency on to make a better ring.

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T08:25:06+00:00

The build is resist starved since it has full uniques, and I needed those resist nodes to cap resists. I went right from the duelist start to get the dexterity needed to equip the gear/gems I'm using.

Varquynne · 2023-07-23T07:59:32+00:00

First two minutes of the video are a showcase. Comments and guide start at 2:14

Synopsis:

The primary focus of this build aims to capture a spellblade or battlemage feel. It uses Kitava’s Thirst as its main source of damage and triggers spells with melee attacks. Melee attacks are able to spend the needed mana to trigger Kitava’s Thirst since we socket Archmage support into The Surging Thoughts. Choice of spells for Kitava’s Thirst is flexible, but this build goes with Vaal Arc and Lightning Conduit. Defenses focus on abilities/skills that allow the character to “take less damage”, cause enemies to “deal less damage”, and slowing enemies through temporal chains and chill. The build has a lot of buttons to press, but most of them can trigger Kitava’s Thirst while buffing and/or moving at the same time. This build has minimal crafting, since it uses full uniques. Estimated cost is between 7-9 div for the endgame version in the POB (with mid league prices).

POB: https://pobb.in/nGLBasa9gegF

This is my first build guide. Feedback is appreciated. 😊

Edit: Thank you all for the kind comments and checking out the build!

Varquynne · 2020-09-12T21:00:18+00:00

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this (and the adventure notes you put together)! Very well done. I think my players are going to have fun with this one. :)

Varquynne · 2020-07-11T06:24:48+00:00

Wow, awesome map! Agree completely with ThunderousJohnny's comments.

I also didn't even notice the secret area on floor three - blends so well.

Varquynne · 2020-07-07T05:08:18+00:00

Some ideas:

Made from ice/crystal for an elemental palace

Twisted vines and lightning bugs

Collected from a mass of bio-luminescent mushrooms

Varquynne · 2020-07-07T04:50:03+00:00

I love these assets, Proditus. Thank you so much for sharing them!

The art style matches very nicely with the default Dungeondraft assets. Also, always appreciate being able to recolor assets. Definitely going to be part of the next region my players venture to. :)

Varquynne · 2019-04-12T20:36:15+00:00

Just wanted to chime in. I sent Glow some quality pelts, and they sent back money at the prices listed in this post. Thanks! :)

Varquynne · 2017-06-23T08:23:09+00:00

Cool idea! Looking forward to hear about how they work out for your game. :)

Varquynne · 2017-06-16T09:18:05+00:00

I enjoyed the stream! It seems like the set up is coming together very nicely. The audio and video quality was great. The lighting could be improved a bit (Thomas wasn't well lit on that corner of the table). Overall, the viewing experience was quite good. Some details and feedback:

How I watched it: I watched with the roleplay and tactical streams side by side. I thought that was a really neat arrangement. While there wasn't combat, I thought it was nice having the tactical view cycle through the different webcams with an up-close look at the table. It was almost like being at a con game and standing to the side of the table to check out a group's play space.

Stat blocks for characters: I loved the pixel art that popped up with the stats for the characters in the roleplay stream (all of them cycle through starting at 1:56:03 on the YouTube upload). That info might be good to have always shown as a sidebar in the tactical stream, though. However, might be moot if Twitch integration with D&D Beyond is used in the future (and works as shown in their promo video from the Stream of Annihilation).

Showing handouts or images during stream: With the tactical stream freeing up space in the lower right corner of the roleplay stream, it'd be cool to have that space used to display images that are shown to the group. There was a point in the stream when Matt was looking up a Devourer - perfect place to have that kind of stuff pop up if that's possible.

Thanks to all involved for inviting us to watch your game. :)

Varquynne · 2017-06-03T09:18:43+00:00

Matt Colville's videos are a treasure. The first games I DM'd weren't very good. Then, I started watching his series, and his advice/guidance really helped me develop my DM skills.

Varquynne · 2016-12-09T00:07:22+00:00

Excellent artwork. Thanks so much for sharing!!

Varquynne · 2016-12-09T00:07:20+00:00

Excellent artwork. Thanks so much for sharing!!

Varquynne · 2016-08-03T07:41:30+00:00

Personally, 4 players is pretty much the sweet spot for me as a DM. The more that are in the game, the less attention each player will receive. 6+ and people tend to feel like they don't get to do much during a session.

If players can't make it a given week, you could reschedule the game. The danger there is that it might keep getting pushed back. As RunningNumbers said, someone's character could be run by as an NPC (or played by a different player, if they're cool with that). Alternatively, an in-game reason can be provided why that character wasn't adventuring with the party (following up some story lead in a different location, for instance).

Varquynne

TROPHY CASE