Black Mage Build
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Your attributes, perhaps, should be Agility, Willpower, Presence. Use Spiced Wine for boon to maximize Toughness.
However, I would say that the reliability of the mechanism is equal to the reliability of the most fragile part of it (i.e. your companions, which are often not tenacious enough for my taste), so you can not worry about Toughness, but instead invest all your points in Willpower, Cunning, Presence. Apple Cider is used as boon to maximize Agility.
Use the Metal Wand from the wandering caravan as a weapon. Why? Weapon with storm damage, ranged. Off-Hand? Mage Wand from Ivris (because among the catalysts available at that time, this has the best stats overall). In terms of magical stats, this combination is inferior to the Spiraled Staff only incrit terms of Spellpower (5 less). Later it will be possible to replace the Mage Wand with Blank Scroll (+5 spellpower, -5 crit)/Bull Totem (+10 spellpower -5 crit) or Shield Orb (a shield that increases magical abilities), although I somewhat dislike the penalty to crit and the lack of bonus to accuracy. You can also try using Harp of Waves, there is no spell penetrative, but it increases Leadership and opens up the possibility of using a new Power (Aria of Waves, it seems that this Power had some kind of low damage bug in the past, but I think it was fixed a long time ago).
For armor, I would use Leather Jerkin and quickly switch to Lamellar Armour (for my taste, physical damage is the most dangerous type of damage in the game, so I would give priority to protection against it). If your tank/damage dealer is good enough to draw attention to them (I mean high Threat Level, which after version 0.5.0 finally works properly) and you are not afraid of enemy damage, then you can also use Tiran Nun's Habit /Tiran Vestments. Also in the case of using fire or blight spells, Regal Kimono is a possible option (you get this from Tetsuya, it seems this item just appears in your inventory or I was traditionally inattentive and did not notice the moment of gifting). Why? Well, this item seems to increase the damage of all fire and blight attacks by 20%.
On the shoulders? Leather Spaulders as the only hon-heavy item with the physical resistance (save rolls against some atacks). After Winter City can be replaced with Seaweave Shaman's Cape for immunity to Sundered. I would not rule out other options, but I would call the items known to me more situational. I'm talking, of course, this is only about the items that I knew at the time of the update, do not forget to check the wiki in case other interesting options appear.
As a belt, Champion's Belt and Senninbari are arguably the best options. People who focus on maximum Spellpower can use the Reagent Pouch, but personally I prefer not to forget the protection that other belts give me.
Amulet of Transference/Amulet of Union is very good, but I would not rely too much on an item that will one day be taken from you. So Serpent Locket or Fluffy Scarf are probably the best options.
The rings, of course, are the Wizard Ring, after receiving the Mare's Ring you replace one of them. I would consider wearing two Lucky Strike, but I'm not sure how useful it will be, a similar situation with Ring of Fortune....
The best At-Will Power, I think, will be Equilibrium (taught by Zo). Because I hate being knocked prone and missing the turn. Disarm Immunity are not as useful for a mage as for a warrior or a thief, but it's nice to have it too.
Recharge Powers. The Grease+Fireball combo is still effective, but when fighting opponents with resistance to fire, I prefer to use Crackle Powder+Arc Cannon. By the way, Crackle Powder is the main reason to use Metal Wand, despite the fact that the Control Rod is better.
As an Encounter Power, Vitality Reap, Summon Wolf Spirit and Summon Phyria looks best, choose one of these three abilities depending on what kind of enemy you expect to meet.
Ultimate... I find the Banishment effect somewhat weak, but logically it's a useful ability and in a fight with a strong opponent, the opportunity to buying yourself some time can be invaluable. Also, this ability can provide instant victory in certain battles, but this only affects Ethereals and Constructs.
But you better not use it against Synneva and Queen Atheldred, it blocks the best possible solution to the event.
Companions.
Queenly Raiment Ryn as a healer. Cait in her witch attire may seem preferable, but Queen Etheryn has one very important trump card... the Blessing spell, which increases the damage of your next attack by roughly 50%.
Who is the third?
Hexblade Leathers Cait as a single target damage dealer.
Winter Knight Brint doesn't fit the group as well as Cait for my taste, but not bad either.
Kami-no-Michi Kiyoko has not been tested as a Black Mage follower, but her abilities look mind-blowing. Also in some version she got a new set (Kanso) that makes her kind of a mix of tank and healer, a very good set, these two rounds of near invulnerability will be very useful in fights with something like the Faceless Blade.
Agnimitra? Her Encounter and Ultimate abilities look good, but in my opinion she is not the best addition to the Black Mage group. Also, her buff is gaining strength too slowly, I would say that by the fifth round, most of the battles will be over.
UPDATE. WOW! It seems that my old advices is still useful to someone, despite being outdated and having errors. In this case, I corrected the errors I noticed.
Also added a little new, more relevant in current versions, but does not make sense at the time of version 0.4.28, when my comment was posted.
However, I would say that the reliability of the mechanism is equal to the reliability of the most fragile part of it (i.e. your companions, which are often not tenacious enough for my taste), so you can not worry about Toughness, but instead invest all your points in Willpower, Cunning, Presence. Apple Cider is used as boon to maximize Agility.
Use the Metal Wand from the wandering caravan as a weapon. Why? Weapon with storm damage, ranged. Off-Hand? Mage Wand from Ivris (because among the catalysts available at that time, this has the best stats overall). In terms of magical stats, this combination is inferior to the Spiraled Staff only in
For armor, I would use Leather Jerkin and quickly switch to Lamellar Armour (for my taste, physical damage is the most dangerous type of damage in the game, so I would give priority to protection against it). If your tank/damage dealer is good enough to draw attention to them (I mean high Threat Level, which after version 0.5.0 finally works properly) and you are not afraid of enemy damage, then you can also use Tiran Nun's Habit /Tiran Vestments. Also in the case of using fire or blight spells, Regal Kimono is a possible option (you get this from Tetsuya, it seems this item just appears in your inventory or I was traditionally inattentive and did not notice the moment of gifting). Why? Well, this item seems to increase the damage of all fire and blight attacks by 20%.
On the shoulders? Leather Spaulders as the only hon-heavy item with the physical resistance (save rolls against some atacks). After Winter City can be replaced with Seaweave Shaman's Cape for immunity to Sundered. I would not rule out other options, but I would call the items known to me more situational. I'm talking, of course, this is only about the items that I knew at the time of the update, do not forget to check the wiki in case other interesting options appear.
As a belt, Champion's Belt and Senninbari are arguably the best options. People who focus on maximum Spellpower can use the Reagent Pouch, but personally I prefer not to forget the protection that other belts give me.
Amulet of Transference/Amulet of Union is very good, but I would not rely too much on an item that will one day be taken from you. So Serpent Locket or Fluffy Scarf are probably the best options.
The rings, of course, are the Wizard Ring, after receiving the Mare's Ring you replace one of them. I would consider wearing two Lucky Strike, but I'm not sure how useful it will be, a similar situation with Ring of Fortune....
The best At-Will Power, I think, will be Equilibrium (taught by Zo). Because I hate being knocked prone and missing the turn. Disarm Immunity are not as useful for a mage as for a warrior or a thief, but it's nice to have it too.
Recharge Powers. The Grease+Fireball combo is still effective, but when fighting opponents with resistance to fire, I prefer to use Crackle Powder+Arc Cannon. By the way, Crackle Powder is the main reason to use Metal Wand, despite the fact that the Control Rod is better.
As an Encounter Power, Vitality Reap, Summon Wolf Spirit and Summon Phyria looks best, choose one of these three abilities depending on what kind of enemy you expect to meet.
Ultimate... I find the Banishment effect somewhat weak, but logically it's a useful ability and in a fight with a strong opponent, the opportunity to buying yourself some time can be invaluable. Also, this ability can provide instant victory in certain battles, but this only affects Ethereals and Constructs.
But you better not use it against Synneva and Queen Atheldred, it blocks the best possible solution to the event.
Companions.
Queenly Raiment Ryn as a healer. Cait in her witch attire may seem preferable, but Queen Etheryn has one very important trump card... the Blessing spell, which increases the damage of your next attack by roughly 50%.
Who is the third?
Hexblade Leathers Cait as a single target damage dealer.
Winter Knight Brint doesn't fit the group as well as Cait for my taste, but not bad either.
Kami-no-Michi Kiyoko has not been tested as a Black Mage follower, but her abilities look mind-blowing. Also in some version she got a new set (Kanso) that makes her kind of a mix of tank and healer, a very good set, these two rounds of near invulnerability will be very useful in fights with something like the Faceless Blade.
Agnimitra? Her Encounter and Ultimate abilities look good, but in my opinion she is not the best addition to the Black Mage group. Also, her buff is gaining strength too slowly, I would say that by the fifth round, most of the battles will be over.
UPDATE. WOW! It seems that my old advices is still useful to someone, despite being outdated and having errors. In this case, I corrected the errors I noticed.
Also added a little new, more relevant in current versions, but does not make sense at the time of version 0.4.28, when my comment was posted.
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Oh, so she's on the wiki, I just didn't see her in the list of companions ... Yes, I'm talking about her.
By the way, it just dawned on me now that @SH60 might not understand what I meant by titles before the names of the characters. After all, as it turned out, the pages of the characters on the wiki are terribly outdated and do not contain details on the abilities of the characters I advised...
Perhaps? Try her yourself and decide if she suits you as a companion.
Sorry, I have no experience with Brienne but I do not have much confidence in her At-Will and Encounter Powers.
At-Will because it is an interruptible ability with gradually increasing damage, it becomes equal to Firebolt only on the third use* (IF not interrupted), so the problem here is the same as that of the War Hymn (Agnimitra) - this power gains normal strength only on 4+ rounds when the fight is about to end.
* I mean DPS (DPR?) this Power versus Firebolt's DPS. Half the damage of Firebolt on the first use, equal damage on the second, and one and a half times on the third. Thus, after three uses, the total damage is equal to three firebolts.
The Encounter because it is a summon without immunity to physical damage (damn, the bull does not even have a fire resistance!) and because it is summoned by a character with a low Presence.
However, when you use Grease + Fireball combo, having another character with Fireball in the group can be nice, and the fire attack with DoT is also good.
P.S. Did I advise you Onmyodo Kiyoko? Forget it, I was wrong with the name of the build. I mean the Kami-no-Michi build (fire DoT, shield of holy retribution to melee attacker and AoE blight attack that rips off buffs of enemies). Flthough she seems to have all three builds are not bad and she can be a worthy companion in any of her builds...