Chanter PvE build: skills, stigmas, boards and gear priorities

The Chanter is a staff support who still hits hard. Your mantras lift the whole party, your passives make the boss take more damage, and the Dark Crush line does real numbers. Bring a Cleric anyway. Recuperation tops the group up; it does not replace a healer.

Play it if you like being useful twice: once for the buffs everyone else runs on, once for your own damage.

The skill window stops at level 10. Everything past that comes from gear skill lines, Daevanion board nodes and arcana, and a skill can climb a long way that way. The number that matters is the total, because specializations open on it: the first pick at 8, the second at 12, the third at 20. The fifth option of a skill shows up at 16, so a skill that wants it needs 16 before its second pick.

Take these six to 10 first, in this order of value:

After that: Protection Circle (a party barrier every 10 hits and an emergency shield under 50% HP), Survival Willpower, Raging Spell and Crossguard.

Stigma specializations open by themselves at levels 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25. You pick nothing; you just level.

Swaps for the fourth slot:

Two of your stigmas overlap with the Cleric's, and the game picks one:

So in a party with you, the Cleric can drop Light of Protection for another heal, shield or damage stigma. Tell them.

What you bring that a Cleric does not: Critical Hit, Accuracy and Critical Damage Boost on Undefeated Mantra, Combat Speed and cooldown cuts on Storm, Move Speed on Sprint Mantra. What a Cleric brings that you do not: resurrection, bigger heals, Max HP.

Chanter opens five boards. Four of them matter in PvE.

Path toward skill nodes first. Each one is a level on every skill it names, and those levels are how you reach 12 and 20 without perfect gear. Fill the rest with Attack Bonus, Critical Hit, Accuracy, Combat Speed and HP.

You hold five arcana. Run three Vigor and two Magic:

Two Vigor pieces give +60 PvE Attack while you stay above 70% HP; two Magic pieces refill 1,500 MP when you drop under 20%. Four Vigor would lift the attack bonus to +150, but you would give up the Destruction and Wisdom the Magic cards carry.

If your Accuracy is already where it needs to be, swap to Compass of Magic for Death, which turns into Critical Hit.

Each card also carries skill lines: one on a common card, up to four on a unique one. Put them on Dark Crush, Onslaught, Spinning Strike and Incandescent Blow, in that order. Wind's Promise and Impact Hit are the passive lines worth keeping when a card offers them.

Your build starts at Spiritforged Staff +10 with Legend-grade armour at +5, and tops out at Aulamus Staff +15 with Unique Vakron Helm and the rest of the Vakron set at +10.

Every weapon and armour piece rolls up to four sub-stats and up to four skill lines. Roll toward these, best first:

Each armour slot has one stat nothing else rolls: Critical Damage Boost only on pauldrons, Damage Boost only on the breastplate, Combat Speed only on gloves. Those go first on their slot. Wind's Promise and Impact Hit sit near the top everywhere because a skill line is worth more than one more flat stat.

Accessories split the work: earrings and necklace feed passives, rings feed the actives that need 20. Kaldrix Brooch is the brooch that rolls Might and Precision.

Weapon and armour slots take hageup-maseok early and junggeup-maseok later. Roll for Attack, Critical Hit and Accuracy Bonus. A sanggeup-maseok can, rarely, roll Weapon Damage Boost, Critical Damage Boost, Damage Boost or Frontal Damage Boost. Keep any of those you hit.

Engrave Theostone: Aultross's Promise on one weapon and Theostone: Tassin's Command on the other. Two identical theostones only count once, so never double up.

Each creature family (Cogni, Natura, Fera, Varian, Special) has nine stat slots that open one per creature level. The slots come in four kinds; roll each kind like this:

Locking a slot gets more expensive the later it opens, so lock good early rolls and reroll the late ones last. Finishing Genus Insight gives Unbound by Genus, the strongest attack title you can wear.

Wear debaui-choesanggeup-nalgae: Attack Bonus, Accuracy Bonus and Penetration at +10, and twice the Flight Power of anything else here. jamsikdoen-geumbit-nalgae is the swap when you mostly hit from the front, since its stat is Frontal Damage Boost.

Wings with PvE stats at +10, worth enhancing:

Owning 25 wings gives Dominator of Dimensions.

Titles, one per slot:

God stats come from arcana and Pantheon pieces. What each one does for a Chanter:

For the colossus, take colossus-of-disbelief once the achievements are done, colossus-of-zikel before that. Sculptures: fafnirs-poison-blood carries Freedom and Death on one piece, eternal-artifact is the biggest Freedom, sigil-of-lumiel the Wisdom one. veil-of-kaisinel is cheap Illusion and Life, and kromedes-desire spreads three stats across one placement while your stand is still empty.

Set your macro key first. It is unbound by default; put it on right click.

Hold both mouse buttons and the macro does the filler work. Defiance has no quickslot in this layout. Level it anyway.