Help with high level channeling build and required gear

J

James Trotta

Mentor
Diversity Committee
Hi friends :)

Can people share their channeling secrets please? I am looking for a simple to build / simple to play character. I can get some items, but I don't want too much to keep track of. I don't think I want to learn new verbals. I think channeling my be good. For example a simple to build character could be 100 celestial channeling, 5 improved channeling, some high magic.

But then I got to thinking, 80 celestial, 20 earth channel would be better. More efficient vs. undead and more versatile with a bit of healing. Only now I need an extra focus. I could even swing 60 celestial / 40 earth if I only have 1 level of high magic.

So what are your secrets? One magic item focus for earth and celestial? One for earth and one for celestial? Keep it cheap and have one for each element and one for healing?
 
Married to a 320xp celestial channeler, and i do the build planning, so I have some experience with the build. Here's some thoughts off the top of my head.

No items are required to make the build work, but a few make it nicer. Enhance Source for all elements in one, e and c, any odds and ends like arcane armor and spirit link or item recall, and then fill the rest of the slots with Greater Source. To my knowledge you don't need two separate sources.

Your pool doesn't stretch very far early on. So, best of luck if you're starting one from scratch. Very easy to run out if not careful even at higher level.

Remember that adding earth channeling to a celestial channeler is more than a 1:1 swap. Secondary channeling ranks cost more then primary, so you're going to have fewer ranks of channeling and take longer to get the improved channeling ranks.

High magic: channeling shield, higher manifestation, celestial armor.

Higher manifestation let her add her favorite thing to the build: a Shield! The build has very little in the way of defenses. You have to sling or drop it to use any of your rituals on the source, but has seemed very worth it.
 
I find Channeling to be a great source of sustained "something to throw" throughout the day. Being able to throw 5s and 10s for a long time is equivalent to an archer, with the bonus of being able to switch elements and do damage even if you hit their cloak/shield/what-have-you. The downside of course is that you *do* run out of ammo (where an archer can just buy more arrows and keep going), but it doesn't take that much of a pool to be able to throw 50-100 packets this way.

If you're looking for Channeling as an all-in "blow them to smithereens" build, though, I'd definitely recommend talking to @Stana - he's got the premiere nearly-pure Channeling build of all those I've seen so far (though he does depend on a fair number of MIs to do it).

-Bryan Gregory
 
Greater Source is still one of the few rituals that grants free power because of that, once you get to 3 levels of improved channeling, your damage really starts to get aggressive.

Depending on access to items, if you can get a wand that's got 18 uses of that, you're in a pretty solid place.

Why were you thinking of going earth? I might suggest instead you build out a large source that has reinforce armor on it. That'll give you some defensive versatility if you want to back pack some folks. (Assuming you aren't dealing with things swinging body or chaos).Then you can just keep a small cache of potions to pick people back up.
 
Thanks for the replies all.

I was thinking about 80 celestial channeling, 20 earth channeling, 5 improved channeling.

Alkalin3 said:
Why were you thinking of going earth? I might suggest instead you build out a large source that has reinforce armor on it. That'll give you some defensive versatility if you want to back pack some folks. (Assuming you aren't dealing with things swinging body or chaos).Then you can just keep a small cache of potions to pick people back up.
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Earth for efficiency against undead and versatility (the option to pick someone up off the floor). Secondary school channeling doesn't cost much extra. I could do 106 celestial channeling instead of 80/20.

However, if focuses become a pain I can certainly skip earth.
 
If you're at all concerned about having to shuffle multiple Sources, then I'm going to recommend doing what you can to get your hands on an Enhanced Source Ritual and casting it at maximum difficulty. It can add up to 4 Elements to an existing Source, based on which Aspect it's being cast as, and doesn't have to be cast on a Source of the same Aspect; cast a Celestial Aspect 4 Elements version onto an Earth Source, and you have one Source that can do Healing and SLIF, all for only 1 Ritual slot (leaving plenty of space for a slew of Greater Source charges, or whatever else you want to put on it).
 
I'm not a big channeler, but I like to theorycraft and think about how things play.

So with 5 improved channeling, you are able to throw 60's (or 120 with greater source). With 80 c-channel you have a pool of 2250 - so that's 37 packets at max damage. 20 e-channel gives you 500 pool, or 8 packets. Even if you just go straight c-channel, its only 48 packets. That's both a lot of damage, and not a lot of packets. So a lot of it will be figuring out how you want to use it.

You mention you have some itemization budget. If you can, get an item that is 18x greater source, 1 enhanced, 1 preserve duration. If you can get more of them, get more. The XP-equivalent gain from a greater source is huge for you - at your max damage, each one is worth 2.4 channel purchases so 7.2xp per - so each 18x-greater source item is an item with the equivalent of 13 levels of build. Its one of the only XP-equivalent rituals left in game, and it scales multiplicatively with uses of improved channeling - which you have a lot of.

If you are buying earth only to use against undead, depending on your game, greater source's might be wasted on them as it doesn't matter if you throw a 60 or 120 packet at an undead, if it only has 25 body. The changes in 2.0 have undead changed to have less body and more armor. To a lesser extent, you might also find this to be true for celestial damage - but that's going to depend a lot on your local chapter. If you showed up at one of the chapters with a lower APL, a lot of the monsters won't have more than 60 body+armor. So if you can estimate the damage you need, you might be using greater sources to instead stretch the number of packets. Instead of throwing 60-from-pool to one-shot something, you are throwing 30-from-pool-doubled, functionally getting as many extra packets as you have greater source rits. But a lot of that is dependent on the scaling of your local game.

You may want to look at staff & the high magic oak of the archmage. Delivering your channeling via staff can be quite effective. You have enough packets you may also want a source for some packet delivery, assuming you can get enough greater source and are trying to throw every packet using it. Both of the big channelers in my local chapter default to using oak of the archmage.

If you want to be only at range, I might suggest picking up a heavy crossbow, use it to throw 4's all day. (Archery has its own annoyances - quivers, blue packets, etc. - so it might not be worth it.) And then swap to your channeling when things need to die fast.

You may also want to look at spell stores and the high magic that lets you fill them. Its a way to let you have some protectives and some flexibility - but you'd need to learn the incants for what you put in to them. With that said, the protective spells all share one incant, so it might not be that bad. But having enough high magic to fill your spell store a couple times lets you cover some of the weaknesses of a pure channel build. "Reinforce Armor" rits and "Channeling Shield" high magic are also both good ways to improved your durability against damage.
 
Feldor said:
So with 5 improved channeling, you are able to throw 60's (or 120 with greater source). With 80 c-channel you have a pool of 2250 - so that's 37 packets at max damage. 20 e-channel gives you 500 pool, or 8 packets. Even if you just go straight c-channel, its only 48 packets. That's both a lot of damage, and not a lot of packets. So a lot of it will be figuring out how you want to use it.
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IMO the single biggest benefit to Channeling is that it gives so much flexibility in how much you want to throw. If I memorize an 8th level Evocation Bolt, I've got a single 40 to throw. That's it, no choices. One shot. If I have 40 points of Channeling Pool to throw, I have a lot of options. If I'm in a longer wave battle, I can contribute with the archers and throw 8 shots of 5s. If something's rushing me and I need to put it down quick, I can be just as effective as if I'd mem'd the Evo Bolt. But finding that 'sweet spot' and knowing that you should throw a 5 at this thing to get its attention and find out what it's weak to, and a 20 at that thing because it's been softened up already, and a 40 at that other thing because it needs a bit hit to take it down, is part of what makes the best Channelers incredibly effective with their damage - and more effective than just the raw numbers compared to inflexible Evocation Bolts.

2250 pool is *up to* 450 separate packets, which is more than many dedicated archers throw in an entire day. Or it can be as few as the 37 you point out. The glory of Channeling is that you can do any combination thereof, and - if you want to - have fuel to just keep on throwing all day long.
 
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