Idea for a Jack-of-all-trades build. Advice welcomed! (Updated)

[Jet]

Hello all, I recently created a new character and wanted to try something different than the DPS-oriented Archer build I had used for my first character. Eventually I landed on a Jack-of-all-trades build that can simultaneously heal and buff allies as well as damage and de-buff enemies at once due to a summon, similar to the Arcanist in FFXIV. I tried not to be wordy and slimmed this post down for brevity, if you have any questions or criticism please let me know.


Class: White Mage, Human Noble Scion

I feel the best choice for this build is the White Mage, simply for the Healer's Hands perk. The stat affinities are also pretty solid for what you'll be using in this build; Presence to keep your summon from getting one shot, Willpower to boost the potency of Heal and Healer's Hands, and Toughness to keep you alive longer. For the Race and Background choice, I normally go with Human Noble Scion for the Presence boost. Sources of Leadership are hard to come by, so I take them wherever possible. Min-maxing like this is completely optional however, if you want to choose another Race/Background feel free.


Powers: Heal, Blessing, Summon Phyria, Grease

For healing, you have Heal (duh). By far the best At-Will power for a White Mage, it keeps you and your allies alive and healthy by restoring your HP. For de-buffs, take Grease. This power is just an all-around great addition to any loadout. It disables the entire enemy team, disrupts any stances or channeling (effectively wasting 3 turns if they want to get back into a stance they were previously in. Harpies in flight, I’m looking at you.) and leaves them vulnerable to fire damage for 2 turns if it connects. For damage, take Summon Phyria. Your summon is there strictly for damage, and in that regard the other two summons can’t compete with her constant damage output. And lastly, for buffs you’ll want to take Blessing. This is the spell you’ll be using during downtime between Grease cooldowns and keeping your party healed. It gives your allies a buff to Accuracy, Attack Power and Spellpower on their next turn.



Stats: Willpower, Presence, Agility

Willpower is your first priority, as it increases Spellpower. Heal scales off of Spellpower, which is the bread-and-butter of this build. Your next priority is Presence, which grants you Leadership. Your Summon’s stats are governed by Leadership, and a large HP pool is crucial to keep your summon from getting one shot by an unlucky turn of events. Lastly, you’ll want to invest in Agility to increase your Accuracy. The success rate of your Grease power hinges on this stat, making it a worthy investment.



Party Members: Cait, Brint

Cait: Highly Recommended

Having another healer in your party almost trivializes the game, as long as you have an offensive ally like Brint/Brienne paired with a summon to do damage while you and Cait focus on buffing and healing them. When she’s not healing, she can contribute to the team’s damage output with White Fire or hamper the enemies’ damage output with Sun of Jassira.

Brint/Brienne: Highly Recommended

Boasting the highest Strength rating as well as the second highest Toughness rating in the party, Brint/Brienne excels at taking hard hits while dishing out their own. Your build synergizes well with Brint/Brienne, as your Blessing power allows them to hit harder and more consistently while keeping them healthy enough to stay alive in battle, even while Frenzy is active.

Atugia: Recommended

If the idea of running double healer doesn’t strike your fancy, you can take Atugia along for the ride as your tank. She has the highest Toughness rating in the game, the Guarded Stance power to give her more durability/increased Threat, and two heals (one being regen and the other once an encounter, but still) to make your job easier while she takes the brunt of the enemies’ attacks.

Berwyn: Not Recommended

Unfortunately, Berwyn serves a similar role to you – A jack-of-all-trades. While he can serve as DPS, Brint out-performs him on that front. And while he can serve as a secondary healer, the only healing power available to him is Group Heal which has a 4 turn cooldown. On top of that, his Encounter power clashes with yours, taking up the only slot for a summon in battle. You can make him work in your party, but not as well as the other members.

Etheryn: Not Recommended

She suffers the same fate as Berwyn – A jack of all trades, but a master of none. What’s worse is her primary form of damage doesn’t synergize with your Grease ability like Berwyn’s Fire Bolt does. Again, if you’re determined to make her work you can, but keep in mind that another party member could work better.

 

[Upcast Drake]

The Wiki states that Grease targets Physical Resistance. On my older character, whenever they used Grease, it would knock almost every enemy off their feet. But with this new character, my success rate seems much lower. Is there a stat that I can increase to improve the success rate of this move?

Only increasing your base accuracy or getting a higher accuracy weapon. This is kind of a weird intersection in the combat system and may change in the future, but grease uses physical hits rather than magical hits, which means it uses your weapon's accuracy stat in the hit roll no matter what. Most other spells use magical hits where your weapon's accuracy is ignored unless the weapon is a catalyst.
Otherwise you can increase your base accuracy by getting more agility.

- How do Summons and Presence interact with each other, scaling wise? From what I've observed, a point in Leadership increases a summon's HP by 5 each point. But does it affect how much damage your summons do? I haven't been able to observe any meaningful difference in damage tied to Leadership changes.

ALL of a summon's core stats are based on your presence/leadership. Different summons have different ratios for different stats, but they are all based on your leadership still. The innate stat ratios, HP bonus/penalty, resistances, and powers loadout is what differentiates summons.

 

[Barakiel]

Hehehe, interesting build, but tell me which allies do you use?

 

[Jet]

Only increasing your base accuracy or getting a higher accuracy weapon. This is kind of a weird intersection in the combat system and may change in the future, but grease uses physical hits rather than magical hits, which means it uses your weapon's accuracy stat in the hit roll no matter what. Most other spells use magical hits where your weapon's accuracy is ignored unless the weapon is a catalyst.
Otherwise you can increase your base accuracy by getting more agility.


ALL of a summon's core stats are based on your presence/leadership. Different summons have different ratios for different stats, but they are all based on your leadership still. The innate stat ratios, HP bonus/penalty, resistances, and powers loadout is what differentiates summons.

Gotcha. I was pumping Willpower, Presence and Toughness for my level-ups, but I think I'll swap out Toughness for Agility so Grease can hit more. I'll also sacrifice some Spellpower for more Accuracy by swapping the Blade Staff for the Short Sword (+10 Accuracy), and Lynx Totem in my off-hand (+5 Spellpower). It's not as much as the generous +15 Spellpower of the Blade Staff, but it'll do.

Interesting point about the Leadership relationship with summons. I just assumed it was HP and Damage, it's cool to see how it affects everything. Thanks for the answers, much appreciated.

Hehehe, interesting build, but tell me which allies do you use?

I'm definitely enjoying Brint in the party. He seems to whiff often, but when I'm buffing him with Blessing, he's hitting more often and much harder, it's great. He also draws aggro away from me and my summon because of the damage he's putting out. As far as the 3rd party member however, I'm really unsure. I'd really like for Berwyn to be my 3rd party member for a reliable source of magic damage, but his Encounter power being another summon kind of clashes with my own. My second choice was going to be Etheryn, but you kind of run into a similar problem with Harrick... I'll mess around with different members in the 3rd slot and get back to you on that.

EDIT: Cait feels really good in the 3rd slot. With another healer in the party you're pretty much ensuring no one gets knocked out unless you get extremely unlucky, and when she has no healing to do she can use White Fire or Sun of Jassira - both of which are amplified by the Fire Resistance debuff of your Grease spell.