Very nice. 

I think the problem you will run into in the end game is the DCs if you go monk.

With the speed combat moves you can't count of debuffs, beyond the crucial shattermantle and Dispel shot. So you have to have a cranked active DC, with monk you will struggle to get really high DCs needed in the legendary content.

But you will have lots of shots with your build. 

Without Epic enchant focus, inspire excellence, and Spell singer Your losing 9 DC. By passing on Exalted angel you lose another 3dc (EA core). That puts the monk route down 12 DC, it will still work for the normal imbues because you can hit the mob 5-10 times quickly to get the paralyze, etc.. by overwhelming the low DC with volume of shots.  But if your going for banish, smite, or PK you have to find a way to the really large numbers and that missing 12 DC will hurt and force you to spend almost all your epic level feats buying back DC.

By the same reasoning you can go with rogue levels along with the Bard and AA,  and pick up the GxB with the auto loader, which does raise you ROF (unlike boosts) along with the expanded Vorp it gives you a great ROV, but again you kiss goodbye way to much DC. I know cause I made one of these this weekend as well. It does great in EH and LN but beyond those only the front end imbue is effective after numerous shots. On the bright side it does do a fair bit of Boss DPS, not pure Mech numbers but a decent compromise.

But to get dependable Vorp effects they are not quite there.

My feats:
Focus enchant
Greater enchant
Bard past life
Wiz past
inspire excellence
Epic focus enchant
embolden spell
arcane insight

Repeater prof
Rapid reload
point blank
Improved precise shot

On my most effective version of this type,  I went Drow, because I thought it would be using shuriken for ROF, but in the end it turned out repeater was better in this case. ROV. It could be done with Elf, or even human but the human will keep you hitting boosts to get the extra 3 Wis to make up for the lost enchant +1DC, so either or. Although I find the repeater annoying, it is hard to not love how well Shattermantle shot works with it. In one shot I can drop a mobs SR by 9! and the same with the dispel shot, In one shot from the repeater 9 beneficial effects can be taken down. In both cases I went rank three, they also get +3[w]. 

LV 30 Bard 16/rgr4/Epic10
DCs: Smite, Banish, para- 81
       Terror-85
       (with some grinding I should be able to get these up another 4-6)
        In a nasty situation, I pop the Arcane insight for another 6DC, it works great. But there's no guarantee you will Vorp during it's 30 secs. 
Drow 9
AA 26
SS 32
SwB 11
Wrch 2
-not a lot of flex in these numbers, you have to have 32 in ss for max DC, Min 24 in AA and that's without second wis, and 9 in Drow to pick up +1 Enchant, the remaining 16 points you can move a bit.   I put 11 into Swash to pick up more doubleshot, dodge, songs, 16%running speed, deflect arrows, and uncanny dodge, and got a +1 con and some Prr from Warchanter. But I could have spent those on DWS for Positive power, Dam boost, and +1 wis. But I was on a even Wis number so it wasn't worth it.

The Drow is squishy as shit, but to be honest with the 1.5K-2k shots, it hardly matters to be at this point, but it's nasty in the mid epic to have those kind of HP.

One other thing of note the switch between imbues is very clunky when you are using something other than a bow, but no real work around, it's a shame they took away the old AA capstone of lingering imbues, that would be tremendous with these builds.


Oh, also Undead are a serious pain in the ass compared to everything else. You can scare them (go figure..) but no PK or any other Vorp. So after I looted +6, +2insight googles I would switch to an improved disrupt, but the 1.5k hp ceiling was a pain as well. 

12 Ranger and 8 Monk can take all the same feats and PLs as the bard, It does lose Spellsinger Enchantments no doubt, but AA T5 Elemetnal arrows is good for -5 saves (lethargy). But level draining will reduces saves so quickly I really don't think it matters. You're really just down 4-6 DC from not having Spellsinger. But arguably, your wisdom is much higher (4 From Monk stance, several from enhancement trees), which is 2-3 DC on it's own. The difference is negligible, though you will be missing debuff spells. It might be worth splashing 1 or 2 levels of wizard for those.

harharharhar wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 1:14pm:


Going that way you can't take the epic spell focus, or the excellence song, or Spell singer so that is 9 lost there, and without EA that is another 3 so a total of 12DC lost, you can't pick up 24 wis in the monk trees, so the difference is not negligible. 

And even if we count lethargy, (counting debuffs is a mistake in practice IMO) you will need five frost crits before you get the -5. Even on a chucker that will take a couple of seconds to crit 5 times. If I want to debuff I use the EA shadows upon you followed by a volley to get a instant -8 save for 20 seconds. But really debuffing isn't a practical pursuit, because you are wasting Vorps in the mean time that would take them down with a proper upfront DC.

But for the sake of discussion, best case even after you have -5 from lethargy your still 7dc behind and that is not negligible at end game, 7 is a big spread. My build is already sitting on 3 tree bought wis. With human I can pick up another 4, but give up the inherent +1dc and become a slave to boosting.

And if you take the monk stance for Wis you will have to give up Air's dex and attack speed.


Another problem with counting on the Lethargy tactic is that the imbues don't run simultaneously,  you are going to have to switch between Elemental imbues and terror/smit/banish imbues by hitting the switch then equipping a bow, then re-equipping shuriken again, that devours time, which means it's eating into Vorp effects.


On the bright side a chucker build can gain the benefits of off hand weapon properties, which is cool.

Cool ideas Dave, Jak, I look forward to seeing full builds if you get around to it. And if you would prefer to keep private PM me and I can give you a email you could send a pdf.


Thanks for all the work guys, I do wonder if this means that going Longbow would just be another case of being forced to gimp a character if you want to stick to flavor. Everything so far seems to say so.

That instantaneous -9 Spell resist debuff, and 9 spell dispell is a freaking amazing trick on Dave. Handy way to overcome those pesky deathwards on PK. I'm curious how quickly can you wipe out say 40+ spell resist?

Bard12/rang4/art4, 

Dispel shot + Terror arrows with a standing DC of 91 + light repeater endless fusilade + IPS =  5 seconds of my screen flared out from all PK's procs as the mobs scared to death.

This may be one of the funnest things I've played in the last year.

Oh hmm, so the build actually works? I was under the impression the PK part was a fixed 35 DC. Time for trolling...

string table error, tableDID wrote on Feb 13^th, 2016 at 7:30am:


Your right that it's not an exploit all the feats and trees were laid out over a month ago read the previous posts by Davenote, Forest, and Jakeelala. BTW what you listed is not going to get you in the 80's much less 90's. Also going for AA via the elf will be points you will need later.