New game, party setup. Planning phase + progress reports

[TeeWee]

My idea for a new game on Hard: Mjolnir

The name is taken from Thor's hammer and is an obvious play on Lightning (Vincent) and Hammer (Fyona).

I find it really difficult to create a focused plan for Fyona and Vincent. They both have so many things they can do, it's difficult to limit yourself and focus on to at least become really good at some. It's not the first time I've planned a build, but this is the first time I'm explicitly formulating my thoughts in a short article. The goal for me is to formulate my thought process to see if the end result is sound, as well as giving me a base from which I can make better decisions in my builds and keep the right amount focus in the talents. 

I have divided the team roles into early team roles and late team roles.
Team roles Early

• Vraes: main tank, killer
  
• Vincent: Crowd control + skirmishing
• Fyona: second tank, support
• Tamilin: Sniper

Team roles Late (Transition starts after Shaman defeat and early results will be felt before I meet the Baron at Red Hill)

• Vraes: second tank, killer
• Vincent: Crowd control, AoE killing
• Fyona: main tank, support
• Tamilin: Sniper

Early game, when my heroes are still newborn babes to be coaxed to safety, roles are fairly clear. Vraes is there to absorb damage and returning the favor. Fyona is the secondary tank and heals the party when necessary. Vincent will weaken enemies with cursing and be a light skirmisher (Lightning spear / Storm strike on their base level) at opportune moments. Tamilin is the team sniper.

Later on, Vraes will go into the Berserker rage-line and Ferocity (or Juggernaut?) for pure stopping power. Descending into the Berserker-line makes Vraes unsuitable for a main tank role, so Fyona shall take main tanking responsibilities. Vincent will evolve from Crowd control (make enemies inefficient) with a secondary skirmishing role to Crowd control and AoE nuking role. Tamilin will evolve into an efficient sniper, relying mainly on Deadly Intuition. Only when Deadly Intuition is satisfactory, will I dump a point or two in Blacknight to prepare for her Surprise-attack. The Dodge-boost will coincide with the shift in enemy tactics, where Tamilin will be hit more often as the enemies attempt to bypass Fyona and Vraes.

This sketch gives me a nice base to plan the way my heroes grow into their abilities. So:

Vraes
Talents: Early on, focus on Natural Mastery, and a spot of Burst of Speed. When Berserker rage becomes available, invest heavily in that.
Weapons: Best blade available. Killer-role suggest a 2H sword, but I have a problem with 3AP. To compensate, I should perhaps invest in Burst of Speed for 2MP point, or else mobility will hurt too much. Not sure yet.
Question marks: My biggest debate on Vraes is how far I should go into Berserker Rage and if I need Stone Skin to compensate. This reduces some pressure on Fyona to invest in Righteous Fervor. And I also need to decide on which killer move I should go for: Crushing Blow, Ferocity, Juggernaut?

Vincent:

Talents: Focus on Flash Freeze (at least level 2 for cross AoE, have a plan when to hit level 5 for 9-square AoE), Frigid Air to level 3 for 9-square AoE. Minus-dodge is important for Berserker-Vraes and Defensive-Fyona, who both have little in +Accuracy. Start on AoE ranged attacks by the time I hit the Shaman so I can add Eye of the Storm when available.

Weapon: Vincent will start with a (Light) Blade, but won't invest in Blade skill points. In the long run, he will become a staff-wielder.

Question marks: My current debate is whether or not to add Thundering Blades to the build to help the front lines. Also, I have to decide which AoE talent to use.

Fyona
Talents: Early on, focus on Blessed Aura and add Consecrated Defense to build up tanking ability. Add one point of Battlefield Devotion and work on Righteous Fervor when available. Righteous Fervor helps Fyona to tank, but also helps Berserker-Vraes.
Weapons: Tanking role suggest 1H Hammer and shield, but Fyona not wielding a 2H Hammer seems like a waste.
Question marks: Sooo many good talents to choose from! And I'd like to add an extra curse or buff into the mix, but which one? Or is my talent pool already empty with the proposed build?

Tamilin:
Talents: Farsight level 2 for 2AP. Deadly Intuition. I will save up some early Talent points to spend once I get level 6 and Deadly Intuition becomes available. Prepare for Silent Stalker by adding Blacknight.
Weapon: The best bow in town.
Question marks: This build seems really straighforward. My only real debate is how many points of Aimed Shot I want vs Deadly Intuition and if early Blacknight is worth it. And I'll need to add some points in thieving talents later on, but that's definately not an early concern. 

Next step
Putting it all together in concrete leveling plan is the next phase. I need to  see if the skill progression and the role evolutions will match in time and also if I have enough ability points to spend. It's no use developing Vraes into the ultimate Beserker if Fyona is not ready to absorb great amounts of damage or having insufficient cursing overall to actually hit the targets, or if my talents will be spread too thin to do any real good. I will attempt to do so later, hopefully tonight.

Any thoughts so far?

[TeeWee]

And my first planning table:

Notes on reading the table:

1. Fyona's leveling table is not 100% correct. Total number of attributes are correct at Lvl18, but moment of gaining them may be wrong.
   
2. The skills on level 15 give 2 total points.
   

This is preliminary and is my first plan going by the principles in my original post. This is already far more focused than my "intuitive" builds on the go. But at the same time, it's itching, especially with Vincent and Fyona. I want to add Thundering Blades to Vincent or add Shield of Cortias or Holy Strickening to Fyona. But I cannot find what to replace and diluting the build more would maybe just weaken the party as a whole.
Time to review. Any ideas?

[tenbsmith]

This is very well thought out. I especially like the way you have early and late game goals.

Too bad with Vraes you're splitting effort between a Lore Talent (Natural Mastery) and a Leadership Talent (Berserk Rage). i really wish those two talents used the same skill. I'm playing with a Vraes who focuses on Phalanx and Berserk, but that would blow your two-handed late game idea.

[TeeWee]

After a night's sleep, I'm reviewing my plan with fresh eyes.

The plan looks sound in the its principles, but I think the transition is a bit too soon for Vraes. Raw survivability for him might be too low to go fully berserk at level 13. I might need to slow tempo a bit by adding a point into Natural Mastery and/or an empowered attack.
This gives Vincent some time to add to his curses, which slows his nuke-role development.
Fyona seems about right, though I might need an extra blessed aura in there. She'll also need an extra INT point. Looking at the plan, her SP progression is shockingly slow.
Tamilin seems like a very straightforward build. Depending on the effectiveness of Deadly Intuition, I might stop a bit earlier and save an extra point for silent stalker when available.

Vraes still needs to choose which empowered attack to pursue. Ferocity drains SP very quickly and can only be used against high priority targets. That, or turn him into a potion addict. Crushing blows are more easily manageable while the Juggernaut looks fun, but comes late and I don't think I want to wait that long for more raw killing power.

Likewise I'm not sure which ranged attack to invest in with Vincent. Is splitting it between Lightning Spear and his level 18 talent a feasible strategy?

[TeeWee]

May 20, 2014 13:44:03 GMT -5 tenbsmith said:

This is very well thought out. I especially like the way you have early and late game goals.

Too bad with Vraes you're splitting effort between a Lore Talent (Natural Mastery) and a Leadership Talent (Berserk Rage). i really wish those two talents used the same skill. I'm playing with a Vraes who focuses on Phalanx and Berserk, but that would blow your two-handed late game idea.

I have yet to try a Vraes without a heavy Natural Mastery component and I'm scared to try. That talent simply increases the effectiveness of everything you want Vraes to do. The only thing NM doesn't do, is ranged defense. It's no coincidence that he seems to die most often when a bunch of archers decide to use him as a pincushion in the game where I'm most advanced :-)

This time around, Vraes will have a more defensive Fyona to lean on as well as a damage mitigating Vincent instead of an attack focused Kjartan, so I hope his survivability is a bit higher in this team.

[tenbsmith]

The pin cushion thing is true.

[TeeWee]

Barring some small adjustments to my original plan, I deem it sound until I reach Oskahold (estimated at level 6). After that point, I'm going to reevaluate the plan and the progress I'm making.

The adjustments in the early part are adding some extra INT-points in there and reshuffling the order of Bows vs Lore. I've made a small mistake here, as I wanted to give Fyona 1 INT and 1 CON as her first two points, but accidentally gave her 2 INT points.

Further into the future, I'll also add an extra level of Blessed Aura instead of Righteous Fervor. And I'll also need to decide on where I want Flash Freeze to hit the 9-square cloud level and which offensive damage talent(s) Vincent should focus on.

Will post the updated planning sheet soon.

Progress so far

Our intrepid heroes made their escape from Red Hill, with Fyona and Tamilin even hitting level 4 at the Forgotten Waystation! On this early part of the road, Vraes can  hold the line without many problems and Fyona guarding his flank. Vincent can either Lightning Spear or Storm Strike for a kill. Tamilin is a serial user of Aimed Shot. 

I now have a party of level 4 characters in the Krellin Deeps. I've made it past the first detour towards the Highway. -1AP is always a big help. Damage is now caused primarily by Crushing Blow Vraes and Tamilin. Fyona and Vraes have the same weapon (1H Club), but Fyona's damage is pitiful, even after I'm buffed up with Zealous Strike. This difference seems to be even when I'm not using Crushing Blows. But this may be a selective memory or just poor die rolling.

Poor armor on Fyona is also still a problem. I must be careful to not push her as the main tank too soon. Her starting 6-armor + Consecrated Defense 1 is still far too low to be a good main tank. She needs a lot of extra development there and the misclick on INT instead of CON is also being felt. CON could have given her that extra bit of early survivability as well as perhaps upping her Toughness soak stat a little.

I've also noticed that this party seems to be slightly more potion-hungry than other parties I've tried. Maybe my play style is evolving a little bit. I always consider consumable resources like a rare commodity to be used in emergencies, but now I'm also seeing it as a means to free up some AP for (especially) Fyona. A potion is now evolving more from a HP-emergency topup to a AP-management tool. 

Finally, I'm wondering if I can afford to invest 0 points into Aimed shot and save all my talent points for Deadly Intuition. The Oskahold assault might be a bigger challenge than I'm used to, as I don't expect a much better bow until I reach the fletcher in the farmhall and Deadly Intuition might be available only after I reach the Inn at Oskahold. 

[TeeWee]

My new plan.


Added an extra Blessed Aura to the mix, late in the Red Hill assault.

[TeeWee]

Progress
Raising the Oskahold siege ended up being easy: I hit level 6 with everyone except for Vincent at the last camp at Kern's Highway.

Tamilin's Deadly Intuition was superb. With a 2% Crit Ring, she's having a good time crit-hitting monsters and the sieging vermin had no chance at the eastern gate.

Freeing the farmhalls wasn't too difficult, though Fyona had a near-death experience on the bridge in Korvain's Trench. After clearing the center of the fort, I went east first to buy Tamilin a nice new bow. I chose the best normal bow even though I was happily surprised to see a selection of great bows. The reason is that, at least for now, the extra range is not worth giving up on an extra AP. Usually, Tamilin is a square or two behind Vraes / Fyona and that's enough to hit all the important targets already.

Vincent is difficult; he's mainly a curser now and feeding him XP is difficult. I do have to say that his contribution is vital. -1AP is an excellent curse that I sorely miss in my other Vraes/Kjartan/Fyona/Selen game. Frigid air also is good at damage mitigation. The only thing I really miss, is something that replaces Kjartan's Choking Ashes. Flash Freeze does take away some dodge, but is nowhere as effective. As I just put a point into Crushing Blow instead of Savage Sweep, I wonder if I made a mistake there. Or I just have to load up Vraes with +ACC equipment later on in the game.

Currently, my party is level 7. I've chosen Lightning Spear as Vincent's ranged attack. I'm sort of regretting not having included Thundering Blades into my plans. I may need to change it a little bit to make some space, but I like Vincent, the elemental rage god that I envision him to be later on.

Tamilin may need to add a point of Aimed shot in there somewhere, though I feel I'm overusing it a bit. By upping it a level, I need to rely more on keeping Deadly Intuition active and making Aimed Shot much more useful for "Must kills".

Problem areas
The only real problem area so far is Giant Rats. I haven't met the Deathkin yet, but killing one rat takes ages. No Choking Ashes to make it more hittable, just Flash Freeze, which does reduce the rats effectiveness in its lifetime.

Vincent only has LS2 now. It's not super effective, but somewhat good enough to hit some clusters of simple lowly ratkin. Though he remains a curser above all (by design).

Question
Does Aimed shot's +dmg component add into the base damage for calculating the total critical? I guess so, but just checking, as I was wondering last night.

[fallen]

TeeWee - any +Dmg buff or gear adds damage to the damage dice, not the base damage. And yes, all +Dmg are calculated into the critical before the damage is multiplied.

[TeeWee]

fallen thanks. Your explanation is what I was expecting, I just formulated it poorly.

Short update
I had my first casualty. Tamilin was leading the party in the troll cave, a bunch of rats got the jump on her and bit her to death. Gruesome way to go.

I hadn't yet put points into blacknight nor into stealth. I also still had low armor, prioritising armor for Vraes and Fyona and a bow for Tamilin. I have upgraded her armor now...
Currently fighting vermin in the tunnels. I've met and killed my first deathkin.

Just hit Level 10 and will descend into the tunnels after a short nap at the inn.

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[TeeWee]

Just hit level 11 and I'm in a crisis now. I feel I need to reevaluate the plan.

My biggest concern is vincent. He's a fine curse flinger, but he's poor at dealing damage. Looking at his stats and talents, maybe things will be solved by an extra level of lightning spear, but I'm not convinced.

I'm tempted to let Fyona help in the form of holy strickening. But my other heroes do little in the form of magical damage, so it will be 100% supporting just the ranged attacks from vincent.

I could of course make others deal lightning damage, but that would mean thundering blades and I would have to sacrifice lightning spear or eye of the storm. And that was a large part of the build for ep1,act 2.

Suggestions?

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[En1gma]

Personally I'd forgo the level 11 Flash Freeze and stick another Spear in there, just because I love that spell... You already have the cross shaped AoE which is where I typically leave it for a time- it gets very expensive... 

[TeeWee]

En1gma It's exactly that Flash Freeze I'm having this internal debate about. I'm seriously considering turning this into an extra level of Lightning Spear. I was using that extra Flash Freeze level in preparation for the Hex-AoE level curse. I find that Hex-shape is much more useful than cross-shape. But that takes away a lot of pure attacking power from Vincent.

Maybe one level of Lightning Spear in lvl 11, and changing a late (lvl 17) LS to FF so I can work on getting a Hex-based -AP curse in Ep2.

For Ep2 damage development: I don't know yet whether to concentrate on LS, Vince's level 18-talent or spread it between them both.

As for Fyona: the question is now to add Holy Strickening to the plan, or just keep it where it is. I find that as things now stand, I can get away with one level of Blessed Aura less than planned (or delay it to a bit further up the road). So level 11 choice is freed up. I can wait for lvl 12 to get a point of Righteous Fervor early, invest in Holy Strickening, or add an extra point in Consecrated Defense. If I find I need an extra point of Blessed Aura later, I can always swap my late Blessed Aura-talent for a Righteous Fervor during my Red Hill assault.

Any thoughts?

[TeeWee]

OK, I've mixed it up a little bit.
Vincent gets a level of Lightning Spear. I've provisionally drawn up a level of Flash Freeze to prepare for a bigger AoE, but I'll have to judge if I find a 9-square AoE a must have during the battle for Red Hill.

I'm opting for Holy Strickening. The -Dodge penalty sold it in the end. It is spreading my talents a bit thin: especially Consecrated Defense is going to have a hard time upgrading now, competing with Blessed Aura (I will need one extra point in it sooner or later), Righteous Fervor and Holy Strickening. Especially Righteous Fervor will be high priority early Ep2, when Vraes starts going down into a Berserker path.

Tamilin gets a level of Aimed Shot for a little boost to Oomph! instead of an extra level of Blacknight. I'll have to see in the next level which one of Silent Stalker, Deadly Intuition and Blacknight to level when. This depends a bit on the damage output and the amount of stealth rolls I win.