Builds Working Against Themselves?

[Gr8Scott]

Just want to say up front I am not expecting any game changes here, just some ideas on character builds.  This is not a complaint about a great game, but more of a build strategy question.

Every character has a "straight up" or "natural" build that works well.  Example- Vraes: pump Lore skill and build talents Natural Mastery, StoneSkin, Burst of Speed.  Vincent: Pump Conjuring (& Sorcery) build Frigid Air/Flash Freeze, possibly Thundering Blades & some offensive spell.

But it seems like the alternate talents which take work and planning to build have talents that work against each other.  Example- Vraes Alternate:  pump Leadership invest in Berserk Rage and then Phalanx Shield.  Berserk Rage is a Crit hit builder to do massive damage and to compliment that Berserk damage we stick with a lower damage  2AP weapon and shield to improve defense?  Why?  It seems Stoneskin and Berserk Rage would work together better allowing some added defense to compliment the use of 3AP weapon and more damage.  Phalanx Shield with Natural Mastery would seem to build a more conservative, defensive Vraes to Tank upfront. 
Example 2: Vincent Alternate- pump lore and build Charged Speed and Eye of the Storm?  Charged Speed lends itself to a Melee Vraes with added AP and Dodge then Eye of the Storm only increases Ranged accuracy for Spells.  It would seem Thundering Blades would be a better Lore match to increase Melee skill.  Eye of the Storm seems better matched with the Stripping spell, Flash Freeze.

So I guess I am saying that the "alternate" talents don't seem to match to make a 2nd build that is more natural.  You either have to Split skill points which, at least early in the game but probably less of an issue later, makes characters less effective or stick to the natural build.  I still have not figured out how to build a Melee Vincent I am happy with for Episode 2.  His Area of Effect offensive attack seems to be a must with the larger groups that are faced. ONLY Tamilin and/or Kyera have AOE attacks but the don't become active until Episode 2. So taking on Groth and Gereax and Ratkin in large battles becomes a bit more difficult when the group can't be softened up.

So any advice on Alternate builds and what has to be given up (or lived with through episode 1) until these alternate talents become more effective?  I have been working on the assumptions that the Mage's AOE Offense is necessary and that EP 1 can only build 3 talents Max (Offensive, Defensive, Misc.)  The "Running without a Healer" thread made me rethink the necessity of the Healer focusing on the necessity Healing as a talent so my assumptions probably need to be challenged here as well.

Again, thanks in advance for the advice.  I may eventually get to Episode 3.  It's too much fun trying to create good character and party builds through EP 2.

[Cory Trese]

I would not say that this build is natural at all. I actually am struggling to exactly understand what type of builds you've tried so far.

Your Vraes example "pump Lore skill and build talents Natural Mastery, StoneSkin, Burst of Speed" sounds highly ineffective. Based on common player path, natural Vraes is to pump up Blades, Constitution, Savage Sweep and Stone Skin.

Of Vraes 4 talents, each of the two part combos was very carefully thought out. I put up some great concepts on another thread about damage avoidance, that matrix serves very well to illustrate the basic interplay between the talents, tactics beyond that and gear is up to you to maximize.

[fallen]

Gr8Scott - there are a ton of threads on-going on the forum sharing some really amazing group builds (Thundercats, Gallows Tap Dancers, Holy Rollers, Iron Curtain and many many others) that you could check out to see how others are working this!

[samopop]

Gr8Scott - I think the decisions about which attribute/skill/talent to pick at each level were designed to be difficult and involve tradeoffs. Therefore, I believe it was intentional that a single skill does not support all of the talents that might "naturally" work well together. In the interest of balance, it was also designed (I believe) to have no "right" answer either. The correct decisions will be based upon the rest of your party as well as your play style and your desired outcome. Finally, I think you will find that for many talents you don't need to support them with skills that only lengthen their time until much later in the game. For the most part, early skill points are better used (for Vraes) in blades or hammers or polearms since they give accuracy and defense.

[fallen]

samopop - yep, you pretty much hit that on the head a few times

[Gr8Scott]

Apr 10, 2015 11:35:33 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Your Vraes example "pump Lore skill and build talents Natural Mastery, StoneSkin, Burst of Speed" sounds highly ineffective. Based on common player path, natural Vraes is to pump up Blades, Constitution, Savage Sweep and Stone Skin.

Of Vraes 4 talents, each of the two part combos was very carefully thought out. I put up some great concepts on another thread about damage avoidance, that matrix serves very well to illustrate the basic interplay between the talents, tactics beyond that and gear is up to you to maximize.

Cory. I have been using the basic +accuracy attack as my base attack. Low SP and a +3 accuracy for Vraes each attack.  Pumping lore and Natural Mastery adds to off/def and usually takes Vraes through 3 battles without needing to rebuff.  Burst of Speed 1 or 3 gives mobility with a 3AP weapon and stoneskin helps absorb damage. Add in Healer Parry/Dodge Spell. Weapon skill gets added later to continue increased off/def and Ferocity for those high damage enemies.  It has worked well for me.  Minimal healing needed. Tank first, attack second.  

Searching for damage avoidance thread, but no luck so far.  The matrix is probably what I am looking for and should help me alot. 

[Gr8Scott]

Apr 10, 2015 11:36:52 GMT -5 fallen said:

Gr8Scott - there are a ton of threads on-going on the forum sharing some really amazing group builds (Thundercats, Gallows Tap Dancers, Holy Rollers, Iron Curtain and many many others) that you could check out to see how others are working this!

Thanks for the references. I will check them out.  I think I sm just in a rut and want slme other options.  I tend to lean toward protections first and strips next. Offense is usually last to get improvements.  Maybe i should try an all out an all attack group and  see at what point I get frustrated and give up. 

[Cory Trese]

Building an Vraes centers around which attack talent you're going to increase, eventually to 10.

He has several options that you can start building immediately, Crushing Blow (CB) and Savage Sweep (SS.)

CB is best paired with high AR weapons like Spears. SS works very well with Hammers and Blades.

If you intend to focus on Ferocity or Juggernaut you will spend few (if any) points on CB and SS and focus on a buff-centric early build. This is easiest with Spears and Blades, for Hammers you may end up needing a shield until the mid to late game break towards 2H. A few iterations ago, this type of build was more nuanced -- now you just cram the levels on SS and your selected buffs and then respec!

I feel strongly that if you are not increasing the attack talent you are using, you are doing it wrong. A level of NM is a nice way to get 3 quick attack dice, but after Level 1 it isn't worth raising again until the mid-20s.

[matrim]

On higher difficulties the end of a battle runs buffs out (I only play nightmare and I think that when a battle ends it runs a buff for 10 rounds, making them expire almost all the time). This means that the "natural" build style can and does change based on difficulty. Even on normal or hard your buffs are rarely going to stretch out over the entire length of 2 complete fights making the practice of putting skill points into increasing their length largely useless (it does become a factor later on when fights are longer and buffs are not lasting through an entire fight though). The "natural" build style can vary but should always include some base components: you need skills that let you hit things (curses that -dodge or parry or skills that increase accuracy), you need skills that let things miss you (increase dodge and parry, curses that lower monster accuracy), you need to make sure that when you hit you are doing damage (curses that lower armor or resistance, buffs that increase damage or add elemental damage, or high ap weapons with a good damage range to bypass natural armor) and lastly you need to make sure that when you are hit it is doing as little damage as possible (skills that increase armor or curses that decrease monster damage). Neglecting any of these things will result in frustration either through frequent deaths or lengthy fights. At lower difficulties you can focus on the offensive aspects more but from my understanding defense can never be totally neglected on any difficulty. So for example, if you never focus on dodge and parry and just do armor it can be effective at first. You negate almost all damage and have very predictable damage dealt every round. However the monster's damage does increase faster than you can ever increase armor so you will get to a point where the damage is just too much for your armor to absorb every attack hitting all the time, hence you need to focus avoidance a bit as well so you are not taking every hit to the face. There are many builds out there and lots are really fun but they all have a similar goal; balancing these 4 basic things.

Just as a side note to some of the things said in your original post. Eye of the storm is not good for a complete curse Vincent because curses auto hit (can't miss ever) and can't critical and charged speed is good for any build of Vincent; LS requires frequent repositioning to maximize its effectiveness, curses require MP to move in and hit as many things as possible and move out to stay out of danger. The Vraes thing too...beserk and phalanx can work wonders together as long as the balance of defense and offence is maintained.

[Cory Trese]

This "the practice of putting skill points into increasing their length largely useless" depends a lot on your tactics.

I only play on nightmare, and am usually adding skill points uniformly across the group so that buff length extends quickly in the mid game.

For maximum kills / turn you want to avoid hitting the post-combat debuff whenever possible -- this means you need to do double pulls in every combat you can. Once you have enough skill points that your buff length is increased, you can move up to trip and quad pulls.

The analysis by matrim is very good, and makes some excellent points about builds as a "components" exercise.

You need to consider a couple of different elements, and not get locked into think that they need to come from a particular source. A +3 Ring of Accuracy is as good as Level 1 Natural Mastery, but is way less effective than another level of Berserk Rage or Savage Sweep.

[Gr8Scott]

Cory & Matrim,
Thanks for the added info. I plan most parties with offense, defense, stripping, & buffing in mind. I remember when Episode 2 was released and it seemed like focusing on 1 or 2 talents alone seemed to work best in Ep. 1 to make your party more effective when the party got there. Now it seems like the "balance" word is making a comeback. I realize you can take 1 character focused on 1 thing (like a berserk, ferocity, hammer wielding Vraes) but the party will have to balance him out with defense, strip spells and healing.

Cory, where is the damage assessment matrix thread you were talking about?  Also clarify "double pulls" for me. Thanks again for the ideas. 

[fallen]

Gr8Scott - a double pull is when you are already fighting one group of monsters and you stumble (or intentionally trigger) a second group.

[Gr8Scott]

I suppose I am trying to verbalize a Skill Based Character, rather than a Talent Based Character.
IE Vraes either splits Lore/Leadership and recasts more often or Ignores Leadership Talents to lengthen NM, SS, BoS. I see this as loosly related to to the attack talent. Vince's Lore option is similar in that Charged Speed gives the ability to Melee and retreat while Eye of the Storm increases only ranged accuracy.
The Healer slot is better defined in that the additional Skill opens up a new talent-Ky ranged attacks & Fy HS, a Stripping spell.

I suppose the biggest discrepancy I see is Vraes Leadership opens up Berserk (all out attackl and Phalanx Shield (Defense) at the same time. It would seem Stoneskkn would be a better Skillet the other match (more HP Armor) .

[En1gma]

Berserker Rage and Phalanx Shield actually compliment each other nicely. Phalanx provides the defense necessary for the negative effects of Berserk.