Epic failure's challenge!

[phaze]

Always a terrible feeling. Sorry to hear matrim.

The dice give and take. Just depends on the day.

I've been toying with different parties and have a couple in Ep 1. Currently testing Vraes versions and party combinations. I think he would benefit most from crafting and can't wait until it drops. Despite his melee defense potential, I really miss sure parry.

Take a break let us know of your next party attempt!

[matrim]

Already started it. Needed a change as I have that exact party at the end of content 2 times now. New party is V,K,F,T. I have never given Vraes an honest shot ever since getting access to Kincaid, time to change that. Also really excited to try out immolation Kjartan with those awesome episode 4 staves I have just been selling. Going to miss Vincent's awesome melee damage but let's see how Kjartan plays out. The other 2 members are staples and now my faves.

[phaze]

Ha. Same here. I actually have that party in Ep 2 Orcin Caverns.

I am testing that party, V/K/F/S, and the original party. Having not played these characters in any real way in a long time, it is interesting to relearn the play style.

From my farthest party, I see Vraes coming together with Berserk, some epic damage possible. The major issue I run into is that Berserk eats into defense and despite Vraes having large defensive dice pools possible, it is not consistent like Sure Parry. And ranged attackers hurt really badly despite a maxed Phalanx.

[achilles73]

Mar 28, 2016 13:09:15 GMT -5 matrim said:

It has begun! The challenge shall be trying our original groups to see if we can shatter the iOS boards! I shall be making a team of KVFS.

Kincaid - primary tank till about the end of episode 1. It will be at this point that Selen shall take the mantle from him so he can focus on his more damaging talents. He will maintain the offtank role in order to provide support, especially for the feared Orcin Warlords, Spider Hosts, and Ghoul Lords that may land a blow upon Selen.
Flanking Unity - 8, Sure Parry 4, Cunning Footwork - 10, Live by the Blade - 1, Darting Steel - 9, Storm of Steel - 1. With any points after this going into Sure Parry till 7 and then either Flashing Blades for more damage or Live by the Blade for more mobility.

Vincent - sword artist extraordinaire! His focus is cursing first, damage second. Key to this team as archers are a huge weakness that his curses counter nicely. His sword is death incarnate, wiping swathes of creatures away with elemental sundering.
Thundering Blades - 10, Charged Speed 2, Elemental Sundering 1, Frigid Air - 10, Flash Freeze - 6, Eye of the Storm - 10. Good crit, good AE, awesome cursing. Any left over points will be invested into Charged Speed to make him even more mobile, although I may put 2 more points into FF to get the range increase. It all depends on what the TBs throw at us in the end.

Fyona - the Strickening paladin. First her focus is to bring team defenses to nigh unhittableness with Shield of Cortias. After that she turns into a curse machine that causes all evil that stands in the way of the chosen of death to immediately regret it.
Shield of Cortias - 10, Reckoning - 1, Strickening - 10, Righteous Fervor - 10, Zealous Strike - 10. This takes her to level 60ish I believe. Not many points to spare but each point is pure gold. The key to the team and if she has any spare points I suspect they will go into Reckoning to give that a bit more punch.

Selen - tank and ranged specialist. The rest of the team has a 3 range max (Vincent, with EotS 10, can bust out an occasional level 1 LS when the situation is dire but he would rather just slice things up with his sword) while Selen will boast a 6-7 range 2 AP bow for most of the game. She will also be matrix tanking everything, laughing at the clumsy orcs who try to lay a spear upon her person.
Pinning Shot - 5, Quicksilver Defense - 10, Dance of Shadows - 10, Sly Look 4. This is all I have for her currently. She will finish this build quite early compared to the others and I am undecided on the distribution of points after. With - armour being made official, Punishing Blades looks very attractive however with Strickening being the mainstay of this group I have found PB to be a little lackluster because of my elemental damage focus. I will probably get Frenzied Blows to 10 to take advantage of the crit that it offers as I think that will pan out better than PB. PS will of course be raised to 8 as well after the base build is finished (you will notice that Selen may be the only one with an empowered attack level'd. This group has 0 accuracy issues and uses basic attacks for virtually the entire game. The exception of course is when SP drain reaches a point where they may use their level 1 empowered attacks at absolutely 0 cost).

What a crazy group!

Can Vincent really stay alive as a melee specialist - even with everything have been cursed? How do you manage it? Also, how comparable is his melee damage to the real melee damage dealers?

And just 1 primary ranged damage dealer, and it's Selen - so nuts!

It would be a long time before I try a group like this - much less try an Ironman run with it...

[matrim]

achilles73 This was a repeat of a group I ironmanned to the end of current content already (the group in this post died to level 34 Krete in the Torrent Swamp). I always play Vincent melee, it frees up so many points not taking a spell and the curses are so good. He was my best dd from end episode 1 till episode 4. Kincaid and Fyona got their legendaries at this point and there is no 1 AP legendary for Vincent so his damage suffers. Right now he is second in damage behind Kincaid (Fyona is probably tied with him because her legendary weapon is just so awesome, certainly she does not do more damage. 1 AP store bought weapons just so thoroughly outperform that it can even tie or beat 2 AP legendary weapons).

[achilles73]

Dec 17, 2016 2:38:03 GMT -5 matrim said:

achilles73 This was a repeat of a group I ironmanned to the end of current content already (the group in this post died to level 34 Krete in the Torrent Swamp). I always play Vincent melee, it frees up so many points not taking a spell and the curses are so good. He was my best dd from end episode 1 till episode 4. Kincaid and Fyona got their legendaries at this point and there is no 1 AP legendary for Vincent so his damage suffers. Right now he is second in damage behind Kincaid (Fyona is probably tied with him because her legendary weapon is just so awesome, certainly she does not do more damage. 1 AP store bought weapons just so thoroughly outperform that it can even tie or beat 2 AP legendary weapons).

I just cannot imagine doing ironman, becuse you could lose literally 100-plus hours of progress with just one mistake - even a misclick! Are you guys ranked on Steam leaderboards? What are your IDs, may I ask? I see some really outlandish scores at the top.

Also, there are lengendaries? What exactly are they? Just weapons? Or any gear? And how do you get them?

Edit: Also, I just don't see how Vincent can survive in melee with his low HPs and without melee-specific defensive talents... Tips, in case I want to try out?

[wascalwywabbit]

achilles73

Vincent gets surprisingly high dodge between charged speed and sundering... check out the player guides/tables in the tips and techniques section.

Matrim and Phaze are top ironmanners both and have a lot of the ins and outs memorized and have played at a high level of the public builds more than anyone else I've seen, so always listen to them like the devs Cory and Andrew.

[phaze]

I play on iOS only. The leaderboards are system specific I believe.

[matrim]

I am betterlookingtwin (my brother hates that ID). I should be the top ironman nightmare group on there last I checked and that group is not even to the end (they are really close though)!

[phaze]

Awesome. What is your final score? I only see a Matrim999 just behind me at 1.947B. There are definitely some optimizing things I realized I could do. There is room for improvement.

In light of that, I am starting a new party to beat my score (and prepare for the newest content). Same party except using Selen, I am testing Tamilin. Since I used Selen mostly for range, Tamilin's better offense may prove to win out. My current plan is ToS 5, DI 10, Bln 8, SS 1, and Fs 4. That leaves about 10 talent points by Ep 4 to play with. I am thinking either SS for party support, at -12 acc, -26 armor, and automatic crit on first turn of surprise, it plays to improving party damage and complementing my avoidance kincaid. However, I am tempted by AS or RO for sheer ranged damage.

The rationale. From lots of extensive play, there are usually stray ranged enemies that I can't close with Kincaid for some reason. The stray archer here and there or Necromancers often the case, but I need a way to take them out. SS can neutralize their attacks with -acc but still leaves them in play to summon or hit the rest of my party. Killing them would be better. ToS is limited in this capacity due to its range. Pinning Shot does well in this regard, and why a ranged Selen does well. I could use RO but find its SP cost pricey to spam and also overlaps with AoE damage from ToS. I am intrigued by the change to AS given its plus 60% crit damage. At 10, AS could decimate those pesky ranged targets. I'm pretty sure I could get a crit with a 2 AP bow close to 800 damage on the top end.

[matrim]

I am matrim999 on iOS and betterlookingtwin on steam. The 1.94B is my first ironman group to get to the end, before gold score changes. I think they are at 1.8B around now. I am very happy with Tamilin. I take ToS to 9 because the -res synergizes with Strickening but besides that we have the same build. I also find more value in raise SS. Charging forward with TK on the opening round can create awkward moments but sitting back and dealing huge crits is always fun. Also the curse is unique to the party so it has lots of value. I take 1 in RO for the odd AoE goodness, especially just as they spawn, they clump up often.

[achilles73]

Mar 28, 2016 16:16:39 GMT -5 Rashar said:

Heartbeat of spring is completely retarded frigging overpowered, my 1st thoughts about have changed, originally I was like... it's good but... No buts anymore that item excisting and being a 100% justified my Vraes build with rank 4 ferocity. (and still have unlimited sp) The item in itself justifies that 1 hero can go for an outrageously expensive sp heavy build and completely kick arse.

The +300 max sp is icing on the cake and with enough %sp becomes redundant but it is still might handy, much more then I originally said/thought.
The +42 holy damage is completely retardedly overpowered, especially with 90% of the enemies in act 3 and 4 having problems with holy and then there is the synergy when you give this to characters that can aoe... and then if they have a high % crit it will be ridiculous. The synergy with tanilin who lowers res by 10 is kinda iffy but I imagine that combined with Fyona this thing will wreck faces.
The 14% SP drain is godly and aslong as you score high enough dmg most attacks will refund for a big part if not all and critical hits are like using spirit potions.

Tavensa´s wintery wrath was a pretty sick fight for me on easy (did not die though) but then my party setup wasnt perfect, only had 1 tank and they attack from 2 sides very heavily and Tavensa can pack a punch and so does the big bad wolf... they managed to hit Vraes a few times back then. For me most annoying on that fight was a caster was behind a pillar and kept cursing -30% crit on my vraes so had to keep on using items to decurse etc. And I couldnt reach the little bugger without risking another hero dying.

On average I would say the item is like having +15 intelligence and a free rank 8 talent.

I really want to see the alternative items from the magic store to properly judge the worth of Heartbeats though. But since the game has no save and reload, I am not sure I want to ever try the non-Heartbeats path, in case the sold items suck.

[achilles73]

Aug 19, 2016 13:45:57 GMT -5 fallen said:

phaze - absolutely awesome post and what a great run down for anyone looking for a PRO strategy. I especially like the notes on early-mid-late game, and how well you planned out the transitions between the different sections.

I picked out two points I love to see -- often it is said that Kyera can't play a good melee striker / back-up tanks, and I love to see how you planned the perfect team to make that a successful strategy! Really top notch.

Aug 19, 2016 6:51:34 GMT -5 phaze said:

.. 2 Meteoric Shockwave for -4 acc and aiding avoidance attacks. This is very much key as as -4 acc allows Kyera to be a secondary tank for much of the early game, and helps ensure Kincaid's safety from accurate enemies. BB and PS added in at low levels. PS is a passive boost to survivability. Very useful in the Underforge for later game. Raising this is adding effective HP to the party by reducing incoming damage. The resists are useful to negate enemies that do +all damage. Mid game. Max CA. Raise PS and BB in a 1/2 fashion until advanced. By Ep 3, add three points to Immolation to give Kjartan some punch and added crit chance for the party. Late game. Finish maxing PS and raise Immo and BB to improve damage. Kjartan is a curser and defuffer most of the game. This maximizes the capacity of the other three characters to their best. Fireball 1 does a decent amount of damage to finish stragglers if you maximize equipment accordingly. Later game, immolation starts to take off as a damage dealer plus boosting party damage. Equipment that bolsters HP and SP is great as well as equipment that bolsters damage, acc, and especially movement to give Kjartan the greatest utility of curses and attacks..

Aug 19, 2016 6:51:34 GMT -5 phaze said:

Kyera's role: Holy warrior with hammers and SP drain to fuel the party's damage and decrease camping for score improvement coupled with EA to take away panic of assaulting enemies. Early game. Hammers all the way to increase parry ability. Max Con for survivability. Raise Myshana's tears to 2, focus on Warder's Shield for avoiding party damage. Above all, Kyera is used as a secondary tank at the Bridge and other pincers. WS, high hammers, a shield, and equipment that focuses on parry/dodge are utilities to survive pincers comfortably. Meteoric Shockwave is immensely useful for aiding Kyera. Absolutely use EA to reduce damage. ..

Without any investment in Dex and very few gear that grants Parry/Dodge, I still don't understand how Phaze's Kyera could tank. I suppose it's something I'd have to see in video - that is, in action - to understand better.

[achilles73]

Dec 17, 2016 17:26:56 GMT -5 matrim said:

I am betterlookingtwin (my brother hates that ID). I should be the top ironman nightmare group on there last I checked and that group is not even to the end (they are really close though)!

Thanks; sent a friend invitation

[phaze]

That's the beauty of this game. Equipment can change to reflect current needs.

Kyera can act as a secondary tank for the following: max con, max hammers, high parry shield, max WS, and drumroll, parry/dodge gear maxed when needed for boss battles, and pincers. She is appropriately supported by EA and MS for -Acc and reduce AP to minimize attacks. Add +HP and she is sturdy enough to get the job done.

To be fair, her current set-up does allow her to tank lightly at 28 parry and 36 standard defense dice.

For most of my game, Kincaid leads the battle several spaces ahead, lets enemies clump, and the rest of the party deal damage. Secondary tanks are only needed in key battles.