Team Mercy, Playthrough Normal

[Officer Genious]

Yeah, I only put one point into Polearms versus Swords (4 vs. 3, I believe)-- I didn't think it would be so rough early on! But hey, learn something new, right? Just got through the Ratkin traps and am making my way to the "formidable foe" the Ratkin are afraid off. I hope he has good loot, I could use more low-level SP potions and a Hammer.

The game keeps dropping me all the good potions, but I don't want to use them so early on. XD Forgive me, for I am HOARDER.

[CdrPlatypus]

No forgiveness needed that is the smart way to go. Save the big potions for the big fights where you will want to refuel for 1ap. You can't buy any above the low ones until rivenfeild so the big ones are extremely valuable in E1A1

[Officer Genious]

Got some time to play a little more today, and just got to the way station at the start of Kern's Stairs on the way to Oskahold. Tamilin babbles about how she can't wait to reach an inn.

I babble about how I can't wait to leave the damn Keep caves. XD

All but Tam are level 5, with Tam being level 6. I should level now, but everyone is literally 5 xp or less from reaching level 6... On the other hand, I'm definitely feeling weaker against enemies from not leveling for a while. Decisions, decisions...

[Officer Genious]

Sorry for double-post, but I'm thinking and I want some input.

Vincent has been my cleanup guy when Kyera isn't hitting anything. I noticed he actually has a few points in light blades while Kyera is middle of the road on staves vs. hammers.

Would it be plausible to make Vincent my dodge-off-tank? If I did and made Kyera a spellcaster, how would I handle larger groups? I would have to move Vincent around to cast spells, which would be fine with Kyera as I have one or two points in constitution but that would be bad news for Tamilin...

Maybe I shouldn't. I'm sitting on quite a few pts while I decide.

Any suggestions? That $5 respec is expensive for what it does, but I'm getting tempted now...

[En1gma]

Not going to happen, OG. Even on normal (my home town) he is too fragile for taking hits. He gets a respectable amount of dodge when he uses Charged Speed, but to raise it to the levels you would need, it would cripple his effectiveness. Imo you would be much better served using Kyera as your off tank. She is nowhere near as effective as Vincent when it comes to dealing damage... You need to handle large groups of enemies? Vincent was BORN to handle large groups of enemies.

[Officer Genious]

Bah, I suspected as much. I heard Vincent gets some interesting staves, but is it worth investing points into staves for? Or should I just switch between swords and staves depending on where Vincent is? I'm leaning towards the latter, but still.

I'm going to review John Robinson's notes on Lore and how long things last (I can never tell by reading the skill screen-- is that a max of 11 turns or a min of 11 turns for Stone Skin 1??). One day I'll have this all down in my head.

In the meantime, I'm off to make some money. I heard a caravan went down-- I better make sure those nice swords and armors don't burn with it!

[fallen]

I love Storm-Strike Vincent which means he is in and out of melee often. Give him a solid suit of light armor, but he can never take too many hits.

[Officer Genious]

Well I finally (AFTER ABOUT FOUR HOURS!) found the damn caravan as I initially went west and south, which led me to the founder tombs (which I'll likely forget how to find, after saving Oskahold, as I always do) and straight into the gods-forsaken Underdeep Beetles.

Oh, how I loathe you. -_- High armor, AP, Resistance and damage. And as my money went to upgrading Kyera's hammer, poor Vraes was stuck poking the stupid beetles to death. However, Tamilin has a 3AP bow I bought and made his life much easier, especially as I invested in Black night 2 for surprises and Deadly Intuition 1 for ranged critical. Vincent caused passive mayhem with Eye of the Storm and Thundering Blades buffs for everyone when he was done Flash Freezing and Frigid Freezing archers and Giant Rats. Kyera emerged as quite the attacker with her new mace and mace skill investment, though she still suffers a bit from her lowish constitution. I'll be working on it though-- it'll be Constitution and Ethereal Anguish I'll work on with Kyera.

I gave Vincent a staff and he's happily using the extra SP to make life interesting for everyone, and in the process I decided to leave his sword and staff skills alone. I rarely leave Vincent unattended and I kept his light sword on hand just in case.

Now I just need a way to keep Vincent and Kyera's (mostly Vincent's) SP cost under control.

Oh, question for Kyera and Vraes--


Kyera: I have an extra Talent Point and I'm wondering if I should invest in Ethereal Anguish and try to make my way to that AoE and make it a bit cheaper for big groups? Or keep it simple?

Vraes-- I have Accuracy as he really only uses Spears and Stone Skin (leaving me plenty of room to dump into his accuracy when needed), so now I'm wondering-- Ferocity or Mighty Blow??

[En1gma]

If you're planning on using Vincent as your primary curse character, I wouldn't invest too far in EA. It is very SP efficient at level one and makes an acceptable compliment to Vincent and his AoE Flash Freeze.

For Vraes, you're probably best suited boosting Savage Sweep. You don't have a true parry curse, so as you progress you're going to find it harder and harder to connect with Crushing Blow and Ferocity. As powerful as they are, if you can't connect they become useless, and are just a waste of valuable Talent Points.

[Officer Genious]

Mar 13, 2015 12:37:01 GMT -5 En1gma said:

If you're planning on using Vincent as your primary curse character, I wouldn't invest too far in EA. It is very SP efficient at level one and makes an acceptable compliment to Vincent and his AoE Flash Freeze.

For Vraes, you're probably best suited boosting Savage Sweep. You don't have a true parry curse, so as you progress you're going to find it harder and harder to connect with Crushing Blow and Ferocity. As powerful as they are, if you can't connect they become useless, and are just a waste of valuable Talent Points.

Okay, I'll have to figure out what I want to do with Kyera later then. She's fairly well situated at the moment anyway.

As for Vraes, I'll still have problems even with Thundering Blades 2 (and Accuracy bonuses)+ 2-Handed Spears (inherent accuracy bonus)+ High Polearms skills (as I don't really need any of the other skills)?

I know you must feel like you're dealing with a particularly daft child here, but I'm asking as it seems like an have a lot of Accuracy bonuses on Vraes as it is, so I'm a bit baffled as to why everyone suggests I take more Accuracy power attacks.

[En1gma]

Officer Genious- I live and breath HoS like you are with CK. I'm sure if I needed help with CK you would do the same for me.

The reason I'm so biased towards SSw in this case is because you don't have a parry curse. Even if you had a basic curse in this class I would say to go with Crushing Blow. Simply put, the enemy defenses ramp up faster than your offenses. Take my Kinetic Energy build- because I'm going with Kincaid, Vincent, Kyera, and Selen (melee, not Pinning Shot) my biggest issue has been with accuracy and I'm considering using a respec on them because they have serious issues connecting sometimes. They have Kincaid on Flanking Unity, maxed out blades, Flash Freeze 6, and they still have issues. I needed to have invested in more FU or Flashing Blades to keep Kincaid consistent. Selen has the luxury of having the better accuracy because of her weapon set, but with all this, I seriously miss having Pinning Shot on my side, and if I respec I'll likely either scrap Storm of Steel and go with Crippling Strikes, or I'll make Selen a switch hitter and give her a bow.

Honestly accuracy matters- Just look at why CdrPlatypus and I (and others I'm sure) never use Consecrated Defense- it's because the chances of it missing make it less useable than Shield of Cortias.

Simply put, it is better to swing and hit, then to swing hard and catch air. Another thing John Robinson talks about is the 'Death by a thousand cuts' this just means that if you never miss, and take every effort not to miss, you end up doing tons and tons more damage over the course of the game than you would if you missed consistently.

[Officer Genious]

Thanks for understanding that I'm just wondering, and I didn't realize forumers were so aware of my CK addiction (you're the second to mention me and CK in less than two weeks!). I suppose the cat's outtakes the bag, I'm looking to take on honey badger grävling for her CK throne on Brutal. XD Naturally I'd help you in CK if you asked, but that's because you're awesome.

As for being able to hit, that's true. I'm simply wary about dying by a thousand cuts. XD Underdeep beetles tore my butt up like a holiday ham because I couldn't dispatch them fast enough, and while Vraes wasn't taking more than maybe 20 damage tops and typically more like 15 per, he was being munched on by four of the suckers at a time and barely hitting 11 back with Mighty Blow 1. Now part of it is because he's stuck with a one-handed Training Spear as I have no money (-56g, I'M POOR, BITCH!), but keeping him afloat meant pushing Tam and her bow to his enemies, which in turn left Kyera to take on beetles up to two at a time and drink health potions like mad.

Basically, it was a war of attrition that broke that bank because of the health potions and SP potions required to crack through their armor and resistance to kill the beetles.

It was horrible.

I'm simply averse to doing that again. So how exactly does enemy parry work, and how can you see it in the enemy info screen?

[En1gma]

It isn't shown, sadly. It is most certainly there however, just wait until you try taking down your first Deathkin without having any parry/dodge off of it- even on Normal it is a feat to even hit them, let alone kill one.

I've found that even a basic parry curse is often enough to tip the scales in your favor, and makes life that much easier...

[Officer Genious]

Well, I have Flash Freeze 2 to drop dodge by 2 pts, but without knowing what their dodge skill is in the first place, that help is somewhat limited. Possible suggestion, Cory Trese/fallen? Showing dodge/parry on the monster screen. I can deduce dodge if nothing else, but Parry really isn't seen at all with the monsters. And auto-buff button plz!!!)

I should probably look into buffing Vincent's Flash Freeze again, but its kinda expensive both SP and AP wise, especially AP wise. :/

And +1 karma En1gma for the help!!

[John Robinson]

Flash Freeze(6) at 50 SP may seem expensive right now, but Vincent's SP reserve will grow rapidly as Intelligence approaches 16.  In addition there is mage armor of the 5th circle that can be purchased which will add +200 SP.  There is the Druid sub quest that will reward a staff with +200 SP, and quite a few +SP gear items are sprinkled in the drops. My current Vincent at level 27 is packing 997 SP.  A Vincent curse build moves in and out with charged speed so he doesn't have to concentrate on defense and can pack on the +SP gear.  Ask yourself, What do enemy Shamans like to curse?  The answer is most often parry and dodge.

F-Freeze lowers dodge creating better accuracy for the party especially magic users.  Dodge is normal dice for melee defense, strong dice for ranged defense.  Selen's Punishing Blades will drop enemy armor and reduce soak, it also reduces the amount of damage an enemy can do, (similar to Frigid Air).

Deathkin.  En1gma is right most of the time Vraes can't hit one unless it is cursed.  However they are weak to Holy Damage.  Three or four shots with Holy Retribution(5) will take one out. Faster if they have been cursed.  I'm currently using H-Ret(8) + Accuracy equipment, hits with or without curse but does more damage if the target has been cursed with F-Freeze.  When I look at a Deathkin, they don't wear heavy armor and get 4 attacks per round, extremely accurate and are awfully hard to hit.  I think that means their Dexterity and Dodge must be through the roof!  Curse and Kill (Pillage then burn Haha)

Underdeep Beetles.  Curse them to kill them, drop their armor with a cursing attack.

Vraes Accuracy:  My first choice is Savage Sweep, take it all the way to 10 it's SP cheap.  Take at least one level of Natural Mastery.  The first level adds +2 to all melee skills.  This is the only way to raise your Polearm skill above 16.  If Polearm(16) + N-Mastery(1) in your character stats you will see Polearm(18), the more dice that get rolled the better chance you have to hit.  My current Vraes at Level 27 is using a Freemat mace + Savage Sweep(7) + N-Mastery(1) + (Accuracy Damage gear).  Death by a thousand cuts is working well as he gets 70's - mid 90's damage per hit, and hits with all three attacks per round, missing has become a surprise instead of an expectation.  "Share the love" sometimes it's better for him to weaken 3 enemies than kill one, the rest of the team can finish them off.

Selen

SPOILER: Click to show

is not only one of the chosen but has transformed into a worshiper of Ryethin as her personal deity. Think about what that means about her melee Talents.