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Post by Blitz on Apr 22, 2015 13:34:46 GMT -5
So, I started a new nightmare game with a boosted build. I never did get far in Ep2 and this is the furthest I've gotten. I went south first, did the Krete mission at the outpost, then on to Brunehorn and the Cultist island mission. I didn't talk to anyone else in Brunehorn, backtracked and headed north. I then saved Valent and got to Braeyshaulm. But then I randomly wandered off screen into Gholla and had to complete that, which I did. Those orcs can't hit anything. Now I'm back in Braeyshaulm. I haven't had any deaths so far and hope to keep it that way, but some threads are telling me lack of AoE is a problem in the southeast. So, 1) where should I go next and complete, and 2) how should I develop my party from here?
This is my party right now. Everyone's Level 22.
Kincaid - 5 Str, 16 Dex, 6 Con, 5 Wil, 5 Int, 4 Kno
4 Blades, 16 Thrown, 6 Leadership, 2 Lore, 2 Stealth
1 Lunge, 1 Sure Parry, 4 DSteel, 10 Flanking Unity, 1 Cunning Footwork, 1 LbtB
Damage gear. Have +40 Dam right now. High parry light blade and 1AP TK.
Kjartan - 3 Str, 9 Dex, 8 Con, 7 Wil, 8 Int, 4 Kno
2 Polearms, 4 Sorcery, 15 Conjuring, 2 Lore
1 Firebolt, 5 Choking Ash, 10 Pureflame Shield, 1 Burning Blades, 1 Firestorm
+60 SP, +60 HP and +16 Fire Dam. Staff
Kyera - 4 Str, 3 Dex, 11 Con, 4 Wil, 11 Int, 6 Kno
2 Hammers, 2 Polearms, 6 Invocation, 4 Conjuring, 16 Lore
1 Smiting Blow, 1 Tears, 4 EA, 10 Warder's Shield, 1 Purifying Breeze, 1 Banishment
+60 SP, +20 Holy Dam. Staff
Selen - 5 Str, 16 Dex, 6 Con, 3 Wil, 5 Int, 4 Kno
16 Blades, 2 Bows, 6 Lore, 2 Security, 4 Stealth
1 Frenzied Blows, 1 of all utility skills, 10 QD, 4 Punishing Blades, 1 Dance of Shadows
Dodge gear. +12 Dodge from gear. 1AP light blade and 3 AP 1H-Sword
THis is how I'm playing the party.
With all the skills, Selen gets +38 Dodge bonus and +25 Parry bonus and 74 armor. Resists are a bit suckier at 38. I keep her in front and just watch her dodge EVERYTHING. Seriously. She's gone below 50% HP ONCE to around ~30%. Whole party revolves around her having enemies try and hit only her. Easier with some, harder with others. Kincaid, has decent dodge stats thanks to 16 Dex and can avoid a few hits HP of 430 and 70 armor. Kyera, has 533 HP and 76 armor and can take a couple of hits too. I can switch these two around to take that odd hit but neither can take much. Kjartan's the worst with only 376HP and only 60 armor. I keep him out of harm's way. He only ever takes hits from offtargeting enemies and he can survive a couple of those hits.
I lead with Choking Ash, follow with EA if I don't think I can kill that particular enemy in a single turn (in which case I use EA on the surrounding enemies), Then I use Punishing Blades on all the enemies surrounding Selen. The 1+3 setup lets me hit 4 enemies in one turn but I might switch because of damage soak. I then use TKs for the curse, and, if they have AP, firestorm and Banishment (neither of which do much damage as they're level 1 but are reasonable if they can hit multiple enemies in one go). Otherwise clean up with Selen and Kincaid, depending on who has AP.
My problems with this build right now are that both Selen and Kincaid run out of SP really fast - I can make 2 battles, only if they're short or I need potions or rest. The other problem is that I take forever to deal with huge numbers. Gholla took forever. I was barely taking damage but I was hardly dealing any, especially to those pesky heavily armored orcs. The other problem is left over AP. I don't like it. Selen and Kincaid usually end on 0AP, but both Kyera and Kjartan have had issues spending more than 4AP in a turn, especially in prolonged battles where everyone's already cursed and Selen's up there not taking any damage. Firebolt 1 is useless and I need to spend a few points for holy retribution to be remotely useful.
So, will this setup work against Cultists and beyond? What quests should I do next? How should I build my party out from here? Is Selen as a dodge tank viable later on in the game? Or has she peaked too early?
Thanks in advance! This turned out longer than I thought it would...
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Post by anrdaemon on Apr 22, 2015 14:36:22 GMT -5
If you've had no issues with Krete, there's nothing worse than that, until you get dumped in the middle of story encounter with no other choice than to gamble your chances against every archer in the vicinity.
And to the SP issues… Stock on potions. Or rest more often. It will only get worse.
Also, Banishment is enough of an AoE to tip scales your way. Also Firestorm.
P.S.
EA is also -Dodge, it makes sense to roll it along with CA.
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matrim
Star Hero
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Posts: 708 
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Post by matrim on Apr 22, 2015 14:39:50 GMT -5
Ok here we go. You are doubling up on a lot of things in your group and have some unusual buffs imo. Choking Ash is already killing their dodge and parry and armour, having DS up there and flanking unity 10 is overkill. My suggestion is to take out the DS points and put them into CfW. He can still use DS but with all that armour reduction and +acc they will be used for kill shots rather than the debuff. Stick with the weapons. Kjartan does not need PfS developed if nothing is hitting Selen, if you have only been hit enough to bring her below 50% once then that means that those 9 points went into blocking maybe 50 damage? Give her good armour so that when she does get hit it will not hurt but I would take Kjartan one of two ways. Put those 9 points into BB and watch everyone's damage skyrocket or put most of them into MS to play to your strengths. You can MS high acc things (boars, warlords, wolf lords) and with that debuff in place Kincaid can easily join the tanking front (I suggest giving him the 3 parry and 3 dodge cloak if you do, this should put him into prime tanking mode, other items can be damage). The other points can go into BB or to pump CA or even into a damage move to use some more of his AP. You have a 16 lore Kyera, you might as well go for broke and do 2 points into Sac to help with the SP problem. Take them out of banishment and Purifying breeze. If this does not appeal to you get rid of the lore points entirely and put them into hammers. Kyera can hit hard, especially with that flanking unity so high, and consistently...give her a 1 move point item so that she can move in, use 6 ap to attack and then move back. The low str won't even matter. Finally we arrive at Selen. I highly suggest you swap her to a 1 ap blade only (bow in the other hand, her high dex and CA will make sure that she can hit pretty often)...at most 2 1 ap blades. You have CA and PB which means you are able to take almost any monster in the game down to 0 armour...low ap weapons REALLY shine here. You should be getting 7 attacks doing about 31-110 damage...if you develop BB tack on an average of 20 more damage onto that. You can probably swap out some of the defence items for offence items to further boost her damage. In the future develop con on everyone to take out the damage spike moments that are going to happen and grab some SP drain gear for Selen and Kincaid. Go light on PB when you have CA, generally only 1 or the other is needed, both is too much on all but the toughest of foes (war trolls, warlords, spider hosts). This should help spread you over 3 fights and then you need to multi-pull groups to get more efficiency. Get 1 group down to 2-3 mobs and go searching for a new fight with Selen while Kincaid tanks the last mobs. Your buffs should last through 2-3 maybe even 4 fights if you can pull fast enough.
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Post by Blitz on Apr 22, 2015 16:25:12 GMT -5
Ok here we go. You are doubling up on a lot of things in your group and have some unusual buffs imo. Choking Ash is already killing their dodge and parry and armour, having DS up there and flanking unity 10 is overkill. My suggestion is to take out the DS points and put them into CfW. He can still use DS but with all that armour reduction and +acc they will be used for kill shots rather than the debuff. Stick with the weapons. Kjartan does not need PfS developed if nothing is hitting Selen, if you have only been hit enough to bring her below 50% once then that means that those 9 points went into blocking maybe 50 damage? Give her good armour so that when she does get hit it will not hurt but I would take Kjartan one of two ways. Put those 9 points into BB and watch everyone's damage skyrocket or put most of them into MS to play to your strengths. You can MS high acc things (boars, warlords, wolf lords) and with that debuff in place Kincaid can easily join the tanking front (I suggest giving him the 3 parry and 3 dodge cloak if you do, this should put him into prime tanking mode, other items can be damage). The other points can go into BB or to pump CA or even into a damage move to use some more of his AP. You have a 16 lore Kyera, you might as well go for broke and do 2 points into Sac to help with the SP problem. Take them out of banishment and Purifying breeze. If this does not appeal to you get rid of the lore points entirely and put them into hammers. Kyera can hit hard, especially with that flanking unity so high, and consistently...give her a 1 move point item so that she can move in, use 6 ap to attack and then move back. The low str won't even matter. Finally we arrive at Selen. I highly suggest you swap her to a 1 ap blade only (bow in the other hand, her high dex and CA will make sure that she can hit pretty often)...at most 2 1 ap blades. You have CA and PB which means you are able to take almost any monster in the game down to 0 armour...low ap weapons REALLY shine here. You should be getting 7 attacks doing about 31-110 damage...if you develop BB tack on an average of 20 more damage onto that. You can probably swap out some of the defence items for offence items to further boost her damage. In the future develop con on everyone to take out the damage spike moments that are going to happen and grab some SP drain gear for Selen and Kincaid. Go light on PB when you have CA, generally only 1 or the other is needed, both is too much on all but the toughest of foes (war trolls, warlords, spider hosts). This should help spread you over 3 fights and then you need to multi-pull groups to get more efficiency. Get 1 group down to 2-3 mobs and go searching for a new fight with Selen while Kincaid tanks the last mobs. Your buffs should last through 2-3 maybe even 4 fights if you can pull fast enough. Hmm, the reason I have both PB and CA is because I've had issues with the orcs. Both the War Trolls and armored orcs have huge armor and my build is based around TK and low AP weapons. I'm using TK Kincaid as my main damage dealer. That said, you're probably right about having too many points into DS. I don't really need the dodge and parry reduction, considering Kincaid has maxed dex and thrown and Selen has maxed dex and bows. I could take those points out and start pumping up CfW. I'll enjoy the extra Crit and that will help with survivability. I don't really need him to tank but he does need to withstand a few blows, especially if he doesn't have PfS anymore. You're right about PfS - probably the biggest mistake of this build. If the point is to not get hit, the extra armor is nigh on useless. I might as well dial that back to 1. The question is where to put them. I could get MS6 and and start maxing out BB. Or I could do Immolation or firebolt and then max out BB. The question really is, do I really need the -accuracy for Selen, especially later? Is equipment based dodge and parry is good enough as I go further or do enemies start hitting better than I can keep up with equipment? I'd rather not do all three skills, as I won't be able to use them all efficiently. I'll need to put more points in sorcery points too... I don't really know what to do with Kyera. I put in all those points into Lore thinking I'll need healing but I don't really. I just need a point in purifying breeze for curses. I don't really care for Sacrifice because I never really run out of SP *in* battle. I have a buff heavy build and buffs basically die after battle in nightmare and recasting them basically kills my SP. I'm not even sure I actually need EA. I get hit so little that all it does at this point is make enemy turns shorter, but I still think I might need it later. What I could do is put all those lore points into conjuring and invocation, get EA6, get banishment 4 and then pump up Piety ward to make up for the lack of PfS. Give her damage gear, and with Flanking Unity and BB, she should become a decent support caster. It still doesn't help with AP usage, especially once everyone's cursed. I could get Holy Retribution 4...but that's just a horribly expensive and inefficient spell... You're also right about Selen. I don't really need her to be hard hitting, especially with all the -armor. I'm happy with the way she's built right now, but I do have a couple of ways to go forward from here. I can give her 2 1AP blades, go up to PB6, get Frenzied Blows 6 and then Max out Dance of Shadows - this lets her do a decent bit of damage, especially with all the crit. Or I could go 1AP blade and a bow (maybe a 3AP one for the extra range?) and get Pinning shot 5 and then max out Dance of Shadows. This means I use her mainly as a curser (other than her primary dodge tank role). Not sure which would be a better option at all. So many choices...aaaah |
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Post by anrdaemon on Apr 22, 2015 16:29:57 GMT -5
You do need EA. Trust me. x.x
May be not EA 10, depends how you have built Selen. But you do need it.
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Post by Blitz on Apr 22, 2015 17:01:52 GMT -5
You do need EA. Trust me. x.x May be not EA 10, depends how you have built Selen. But you do need it. I'll take your word for it. :) But, tell me, do enemies start hitting better that you can't keep your dodge and party high enough in late game? Also, how much -AP would I need for a dodge heavy party? Can I keep EA at 4 (-1AP), or do I need more? I can get upto three with EA6 and pinning shot 5 |
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Post by anrdaemon on Apr 22, 2015 17:39:03 GMT -5
In late game, you only ever need -AP for selected few of opponents. Most of skeletons only ever have 1 AP. It is the middle that you want your opponents suppressed as much as possible. Deathkins… cough… cough…Also orcin berserkers, trolls and other things that have 4AP. Necromancers have 3, so do spider summoners. If you don't want to get hit, don't let the enemy a chance to hit you in first place. |
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Post by carthaginians on Apr 22, 2015 20:06:43 GMT -5
Like ur group. Very similar to my nmi team. Most important change imo is hammers for kyera. If u don't sac u don't need lore. Not only will she be able to hit things but the parry it gives her will allow her to off tank as well.
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Post by Blitz on Apr 24, 2015 16:53:55 GMT -5
Quick question everyone. Have I pretty much reached peak dodge with Selen? Since I maxed out all talent, skill and attribute based dodge, I'm now dependent on equipment. Can equipment keep up with enemy accuracy in late game or do I seriously need to work on armor, resists and HP?
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Post by anrdaemon on Apr 24, 2015 17:45:56 GMT -5
You absolutely need resists independent of anything else.
And to the HP (means, Constitution), once you've maxed Dex and have no [notable] issues with SP, there's little you can raise other than Con.
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Post by carthaginians on Apr 25, 2015 2:10:04 GMT -5
Also 1 point in storm of steel is really good!
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Post by Blitz on Apr 25, 2015 15:41:39 GMT -5
You absolutely need resists independent of anything else. And to the HP (means, Constitution), once you've maxed Dex and have no [notable] issues with SP, there's little you can raise other than Con. Hmm, I haven't respecced yet. Taking a break from this build. I could leave pure flame shield as is and add a few points into piety ward. Would that be good enough? |
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Post by achilles73 on Dec 17, 2016 14:52:08 GMT -5
So, I started a new nightmare game with a boosted build. I never did get far in Ep2 and this is the furthest I've gotten. I went south first, did the Krete mission at the outpost, then on to Brunehorn and the Cultist island mission. I didn't talk to anyone else in Brunehorn, backtracked and headed north. I then saved Valent and got to Braeyshaulm. But then I randomly wandered off screen into Gholla and had to complete that, which I did. Those orcs can't hit anything. What? So what ws your secret to ensuring that they "can't hit anything"? |
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