I wonder if there is something wrong with me

[cowboypete]

I started this game on Easy because I was intrigued by the storyline and that's one of the things I like in games - a good story.
But holy hell after other games (such as Avernum: escape from the pit, for example) "easy" level is pretty much bulletproof.  The player can fairly well mess up their characters' talent tree and still manage to scrape through the game.

This is not the case for HoS I have found.  It is almost to the point where I suspect that "easy" difficulty is actually a joke difficulty because although having LOTS of gold, I have made it to Gholla Outlook and clocked up 80 deaths up to cohort level 25.
80 deaths! on Easy!

I have no idea how the game is even playable on nightmare.

Well, these are the arguments I put to myself so that I don't feel so bad that I don't seem to be able to play the game with reasonable proficiency (especially after dying 3 times in a row defending the gates - and Groth hasn't even taken the field yet.  The two beserks get hit maybe 40% of the time, then heal themselves (and other enemies) for 108 health, rendering the efforts useless while Vraes can be killed from full health in one turn.

How many deaths should we expect to get?

My team is Vraes, Vincent, Fyona and Tamilin.
I know I made a couple of mistakes early on, but mostly the builds have been what I considered to be quite balanced and conservative on SP (as the game warns not to allow a single talent to become too expensive for regular use)  But as every time my cohort levels up, my enemies seem to level up too, keeping my dodge and accuracy requirements constantly trying to keep that step ahead.

Vraes has 10 str, 5 dex, 9 con, 6 will, 7 int, 3 know.  3 blades, 11 hammers, 4 polearms, 7 leadership, 7 lore.
Vincent has 4 str, 7 dex, 5 con, 5 will, 9 int, 10 know.  5 blades, 2 polearms, 10 sorcery, 10 conjuring, 5 lore.
Fyona has 9 str, 5 dex, 9 con, 5 will, 8 int, 4 know.  10 hammers, 2 invocation, 6 leadership, 7 lore.
Tamilin has 5 str, 10 dex, 8 con, 5 will, 8 int, 4 know.  4 blades, 10 bows, 7 lore, 5 security, 6 stealth.

Vraes talents CB5, SS4, Jugg2, SSkin2, PS3, NM2, BoS2. (I see Ferocity as being useless as a talent as CB 5 has better stats with 6 sp instead of 16)
Vincent talents SS2, LS3, FA1, ES2, FF3, CS2, TB4, EotS1, ES2
Fyona talents ZS2, HB4, BA4, CD1, R1, HS2, BD1, RF2, SoC3
Tamilin talents AS4, Farsight3, RO2, SS3, DT3, PP2, Blacknight2, DI2

I gave Vraes a polearm point before deciding I would rather use hammers.  I think my leadership and lore levels are a bit high after reading other comments.  I think across the board my dex is low.  Tamilin has lvl3 disarming touch for traps to be easier to disarm and PP2 in anticipation of more difficult doors in the future - otherwise why is it an upgradable talent?

In a nutshell, am I better to pay to respec the team, forfeit the hours of play already spent and restart, or battle on in the bleak hope that things will get better while clocking up the deaths.   (the stats are less of a concern compared to the reduction of enjoyment as the battles are becoming very tedious and annoying)

With all that said, I am loving the game, the story and the basic combat mechanics.  I don't enjoy the equal levelling of the enemies as much, but that's just me.

[En1gma]

cowboypete- first of all, you've come to the right place for advice. Second of all, welcome to the forum!

Give me a bit of time, I'll reread your post, and see if I can pinpoint a few things to fix. Foremost, I urge you to respec your party (After you develop a new strategy, that is). Your entire team is a glass cannon. So many points spent on a blistering offense, but next to none invested into defensive skills.

This game is meant to work best when you specialize your characters. Spreading yourself too thin will result in what you've already found out- inevitable death even on easy.

I'll be back later to try and really help you later. Until then, I would check out some of the threads in the Tips and Techniques sub forum to see how many others have build their parties.

[bobsoup]

First time through is a learning experience.

Second time through is the real deal.

I died about 50 times getting to end of episode 3 first time through. (most early in game before I started boosting dexterity)

On my second play through... Half way through Ep2 and have only had 2 deaths both of which were 100% avoidable.

(once I forgot to heal someone, the other I forgot to buff and forgot to group at the same time... Both silly and avoidable deaths).



The #1 goal I think of a team is to avoid taking hits. That appears to be the secret.

Don't get hit and you won't die. Dexterity is hugely important. My second play through I'm maxing it out before any other attribute and it's helping.

Dodge and Parry are next most important attributes.

Other people on here probably have better and more sophisticated tactics but the simplest way to not die frequently is concentrate on avoiding taking hits.

[Blitz]

May 6, 2015 7:47:59 GMT -5 bobsoup said:

First time through is a learning experience.

Second time through is the real deal. :)

I died about 50 times getting to end of episode 3 first time through. (most early in game before I started boosting dexterity)

On my second play through... Half way through Ep2 and have only had 2 deaths both of which were 100% avoidable.

(once I forgot to heal someone, the other I forgot to buff and forgot to group at the same time... Both silly and avoidable deaths).



The #1 goal I think of a team is to avoid taking hits. That appears to be the secret.

Don't get hit and you won't die. Dexterity is hugely important. My second play through I'm maxing it out before any other attribute and it's helping.

Dodge and Parry are next most important attributes.

Other people on here probably have better and more sophisticated tactics but the simplest way to not die frequently is concentrate on avoiding taking hits.

I'd say there are other ways to reduce incoming damage. -Dmg curses, -Accuracy curses, -AP curses. You can also buff up armor and HP and rely on lots of healing skills - not to mention gear. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to go full Dex - though I will say that if you do that right, then it's a relatively stress free way of playing.

Other than that, simple fact is that if you flipflop between lots of spells, and not focussing on any, then you'll have trouble

[bobsoup]

Blitz said:

I'd say there are other ways to reduce incoming damage. -Dmg curses, -Accuracy curses, -AP curses. You can also buff up armor and HP and rely on lots of healing skills - not to mention gear.

There are lots of ways to play the game successfully. A lot depends on the characters in your party too... And the debuffing abilities they have.

Going all out in Dex, Dodge and Parry seems to work wonderfully in hard. (Not tried it in nightmare... Might not work for nightmare folks). But if works in hard I suspect it should make easy... Um easy.

The important thing. Be it debuffs or physical... Don't get hit. Avoiding damage appears to be so much more crucial than causing damage imo.

I also think relying on healers can be tricky. Once you get to a tough enemy you can get wiped out in round one before healer gets chance to heal. Better to avoid damage than rely on healing it.

With Fyona for example; Shield of Cortias which boosts dodge and Parry is so much more important than her healing spells imo.

[bobsoup]

Other important basic tactics:

1) Don't just attack random enemies. Focus on one at a time. If you do 100 damage to 4 enemies with 150hp each... Those 4 enemies will still be around to kill you next round.

If all of your party focuses on same enemies... That 400 worth of damage you did could have removed two enemies in that same round... 2 less enemies get to hit you next turn.

Also... I always leave certain units to last to kill. Things like trolls and underdeep beetles almost never register a hit against me. Kill off the units that DO hit you first.

Frequently boss units take several rounds to kill off... In many battles it's best to kill off the wimpy creatures first... There are exceptions... Like Baron Arhaive... Don't leave him alive too long he does brutal damage for that stage in the game.

2) Use advantage of terrain. Make the enemy waste movement points on slow terrain like stairs and stepping stones...

If you have three good melee units move into a bottleneck where you can fit three side by side but the enemy can only move two to face you.

Move out of the line of sight of archers.

[En1gma]

bobsoup- for your own reference, enemies are unaffected by terrain and suffer no penalties when moving over them.

[En1gma]

Ok, I've thought about how to make your life far easier, but if you want to continue with this party and not start over again, I would strongly advise you to use a respec. On, well, the whole team...

The group configuration is sound, but the talent spread is too watered down to keep your group effective. Here are some of my suggestions:

Vraes needs to focus on CON first, STR second, and put at 2 points into INT. For big V, the higher the CON, the more HP and natural armor he has to soak up the damage dealt to him. For Vraes, I would strongly recommend switching over to Spears. Your group suffers from both a lack of defense and accuracy, and this is where Spears come in. True, they have a lower damage band than the Hammers, but I'll get to that.
-Skill spread: I would recommend MAXING out whatever weapon skill you use, as this adds to your dice pool. Once this is maxed out, then you can focus on Lore/Leadership.
-Talent Spread: (17 total to spend) MAX out Phalanx Shield (10 TP) BoS 3 (+2 MP, 3 TP) Savage Sweep 4 (3 TP) Natural Mastery 1 (1 TP)
--This allocation allows Vraes to really tank, while dealing respectable damage with Savage Sweep. Take SS over CB be ause of the +ACC bonuses- you have no Parry curses, so you need all the dice you can get.

******

I'll come back to this later, just getting started

[bobsoup]

May 6, 2015 9:26:51 GMT -5 En1gma said:

bobsoup- for your own reference, enemies are unaffected by terrain and suffer no penalties when moving over them.

Interesting... I assumed they were. Still. Rather than cross a stream and use up all your AP, still better to get them to come to you.

[fallen]

cowboypete - welcome to the forum!

For strategy thoughts, everyone on here is making killer suggestions. They are the types of pros playing Nightmare and trying to reach Gholla without a single death, so they know what they're talking about

The game demands a "team strategy" over an individual strategy -- so picking the right set of buffs, curses, and attacks that weave together into a good strategy.

On Easy, the intention is that you can ignore the team strategy, but you're going to be way better off in this case to focus your Talent points. For Vraes, CB5, SS4, Jugg2 is a lot of of points that should be consolidated into CB10 or something. One way to make Vraes really survivable is to bump Stone Skin high. Are you wearing heavy armor (70+ Armor rating?)

[matrim]

You need a dedicated tank. Enigma's suggestion is right on the money, Vraes will be unhittable with that build by everything except archers and archer hits he will be laughing off with his huge hp pool and armour. The increase in INT is a taste thing, I find there are more than enough potions in this game to forgo INT on everyone and focus on stats that help raise combat dice/survivability. With Vraes solidly tanking it lets your other characters focus on damage. Vincent is amazing for his versatility in builds you can do. Max LS is a really fun build, especially with the high number of monsters you are going to encounter...he just melts everything. TB with ES can be another effective "ranged" build for him, max out TB first to get everyone else's damage up and then cast 1 or 2 ES's around to lower lightning resist on everything and watch the others carve them up. My current build with him has max TB and curses while running a blade on him. This lets him buff everything, curse (he does not need ranged acc to curse as it auto hits so I can neglect knowledge and sorcery almost entirely...need a little sorc to get target count up) and run in and do very good spirit free damage. Tam is easy to build, go for damage and then go for more damage. RO is crazy and silent stalker can be used outside of the surprise round even for its amazing curse. BN has +MP which is essential for any attacker, you are going to need to reposition for good AoEing and want as much ap to attack with as possible. This should start you down the road to some good builds. If you have the boost in feature unlocked I would highly recommend using it. This feature gives all the characters 10-11 talent points to use which lets you test out any talent (except the level 18 one) and only takes 10 minutes to try out. Boost the talent you want to test to 10 and see how it goes, base your build on taste from there.

[anrdaemon]

I've seriously tried to come up with a short answer, but I don't know how to start it without writing a similarly long and probably not very easy to read post.
I think I'll post the topic on my group now instead. This was -Fyona +Kyera group and I played on normal, but it is largely the same basic setup as yours and it was nowhere near 80 deaths by the end of Ep.2.

[anrdaemon]

Done. Please have a look: startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/11292/first-party-playing-normal

[Blitz]

May 6, 2015 8:53:44 GMT -5 bobsoup said:

Blitz said:

I'd say there are other ways to reduce incoming damage. -Dmg curses, -Accuracy curses, -AP curses. You can also buff up armor and HP and rely on lots of healing skills - not to mention gear.

There are lots of ways to play the game successfully. A lot depends on the characters in your party too... And the debuffing abilities they have.

Going all out in Dex, Dodge and Parry seems to work wonderfully in hard. (Not tried it in nightmare... Might not work for nightmare folks). But if works in hard I suspect it should make easy... Um easy.

The important thing. Be it debuffs or physical... Don't get hit. Avoiding damage appears to be so much more crucial than causing damage imo.

I also think relying on healers can be tricky. Once you get to a tough enemy you can get wiped out in round one before healer gets chance to heal. Better to avoid damage than rely on healing it.

With Fyona for example; Shield of Cortias which boosts dodge and Parry is so much more important than her healing spells imo.

It does work on nightmare. At least on boosted builds with Selen going all in Dex, Blades and QsD buffed with max Warder's shield and dodge gear. That particular build was amazing, at least in Ep2. I'd just let her get surrounded while everyone else hammers away from range. The problem with that is getting till level 9 without dying. It's tricky but doable.

[cowboypete]

Firstly, Thank you for the warm welcome and the great advice.

Secondly I would like to point out that despite my errors (which were very pronounced once I write them down) I did actually have some method to my madness.
But like the thread title I think there was something wrong with me - my thinking attitude.
I first noticed something wrong when I couldn't hit enemies with basic talent and struggled to hit otherwise without vincents debuffing of enemies first. That is one reason why offense was highlighted, and with strength being the source of vraes accuracy his dex was overlooked.
I found other concerns when I had tamilin open a locked door only to encounter a deathkin who unleashed his fury on her all at once leaving me just watching helpless and unable to respond.

Vraes doesn't have the heavy armour due to the evasion drop as I had read somewhere armour deflects damage at 50% armour value so I figured that decreasing damage by 15 when being hit for 150, and being more likely to BE hit, it didn't stack up against other benefit armour. Maybe I got this wrong too.

I think I will re spec and let you know how I get on.

Thank you