New Sacrifice Analysis

[progor]

I had to put the new numbers into Google Sheets to see exactly how the efficiency works out through the levels and with various amounts of Lore.

Long story short, the sweet spots are at level 4 and 8.  The efficiency basically flatlines from level 4-7, since SP cost rises faster through those levels than the others.  It is still worth putting points in it, at least from a quality of life perspective, since there are fewer casts required to top off the team.  I have to cast it 8 times to bring Vincent from empty to full, so it will be nice to reduce that, but I look forward to the spike in efficiency at level 8 and beyond.  On the other hand, I was getting 50 SP per cast at level 2 before, now I have to spend another point to get back to where I was, so this was a nerf for low-level Sacrifice.

Kyera was basically a HP/SP healer with a side job of Ethereal Anguish and Warder's Shield in the game I use her the most.  So far (in Episode 2), the monetary benefits of using Sacrifice over potions have yet to be realized.  I just have extra money and extra unused potions.  Maybe there will be other opportunities to buy powerful equipment later on, but so far I'm finding that the team finds better equipment drops than I can buy at shops most of the time, and I don't need many potions with Kyera keeping the team topped off.  Maybe the best synergy with high-level Sacrifice is otherwise cost-prohibitive skills like Ferocity.  With Sacrifice 10 and 16 Lore, you can basically treat all skills as if they cost 40% less than listed, because that is the amount of SP you need to replace on Kyera after she casts Sacrifice on the skill user.  It's still expensive, but maybe more doable now.

[fallen]

progor - great analysis! It looks a lot like the charts we built when balancing out again. Yes, it was definitely a nerf for low level Sacrifice, but we chose this type of nerf (requiring more levels invested to get back to the same level) instead of moving the entire Talent up to 2 AP.

As you've pointed, I do not think the optimal use of Sacrifice is to have Kyera drink all the potions and cast Sacrifice a million times. That is one reason it stayed at 1 AP. Yes, you could do that, but I think you'd be better working on builds that are powered by Sacrifice (Vraes + Ferocity + never raised Int ... Tamilin + Ranged Onslaught + never raised Int). Kyera has too many powerful Talents to spend her AP on, you'll want to be doing something else too

You're doing very well on loot drops if you're not buying anything. What difficulty? I find my Nightmare groups buying 25-40% new equipment when a major new area opens up, often just to "top up" but ... in Nightmare you want the best! There are lots of high power, high cost items in late E2-E4 that you'll want that money for. If you are in E2, go visit the hermit or Granthorn -- you'll drop some coin!

[progor]

I am level 27 in City of the Dead on hard difficulty. I haven't done the southern route through E2 yet, but I did bypass the city of the dead and go up to Gholla Outlook and the Storm Bastion (killing level 30 mobs at level 22 took patience, but was surprisingly not that difficult on this team). I definitely found a few nice things for Vincent at Storm Bastion and I did pick up a thing or two from the Hermit, but for the most part it seems like the stuff in shops generally has slightly better base stats, but the dropped stuff has a lot better boosts/enchantments/whatever-you-call-the-yellow-text.  I'm not saying I don't buy anything, just saying I'm not worried where the next potion is coming from like I have been in other play throughs. I have a very completionist playstyle, so that may mean by the time I get to the cities that have the good loot, I'm a little higher level and have been getting slightly better drops that way? I have 12 deaths at this point, all falling in one of three categories: 1) forgot to cast buffs 2) Tamilin lost the stealth roll and got wailed on - usually because I forgot to cast buffs 3) every archer in a 10 mile radius decided to use Vincent as a pincushion. I don't care for ironman, and I haven't had a death I couldn't easily recover from, so I just take these in stride.

Either way, the team is Vraes with Crushing Blow 10 and Stone Skin 8, starting to work up Berserk Rage now. Vincent has Lightning Spear 10 and Thundering Blades 8. Tamilin has Aimed Shot 10, Ranged Onslaught 7, Blacknight 1, and Deadly Intuition 1. Kyera has Ethereal Anguish 6, Myshana's Tears 5, Warder's Shield 6, and now Sacrifice 3. For gear, Vincent and Tamilin focus on damage and accuracy (Tamilin makes a concession for stealth and dodge as team leader), and Vraes and Kyera focus on Parry, Dodge, and Armor, in that order. Vraes is a little unorthodox - he dual wields 1AP light blades - the Dexterity makes up for the lack of a shield, and the damage output with Crushing Blow keeps pace with Vincent and Tamilin (although on a single target to their 2-8).

Ethereal Anguish is my least used talent. Vincent normally starts off with taking out half the group single-handedly with 3 casts of Lightning Spear. Tamilin follows up on a separate group with Ranged Onslaught, or picks off the high HP targets with Aimed Shot. Vraes cleans up whats left, then positions himself between the heroes and whatever mobs are left. By then Kyera would normally have to overextend herself to cast Ethereal Anguish on anything of importance, so she stays in the back, guards the flanks, and tops off the group's HP and SP. Occassionally there's a very high HP mob still standing, or the mobs are very spread out, and she'll hit them with EA, but that's about it other than boss mobs. That also means EA rarely hits more than one mob (or Vincent or Tamilin would have targeted the group), making its SP cost prohibitive - and Kyera can't sacrifice to herself. This is probably completely different for higher play levels where the initial volley can't easily kill most enemies, but on hard, EA seems to be highly situational.

I tried respeccing Kyera as a damage dealer and all her support capabilities suffered.

So, for this game, I'm considering respeccing out of EA to bring Sacrifice up to 8, exchanging Crushing Blow for Ferocity on Vraes (and perhaps getting more Berserk Rage and less Stone Skin - he hasn't come close to death yet), maxing out Ranged Onslaught as primary attack and dropping Aimed Shot on Tamilin, replacing with Deadly Intuition. Lightning Spear is bread-and-butter and cheesy goodness too, so I don't see anything to change on Vincent (he's going for Energy Storm after Thundering Blades to keep ramping up team damage, but still good at this level). I'll probably back up my save folder and try it tonight... I'll post how it goes. Either way, I like the change. Also, with Ferocity, Berserk Rage and Thundering Blades, almost all of Vraes's damage comes from bonus damage... I wonder how well a single 1 AP weapon and shield would do with this setup? It would burn through his entire SP pool every round, but that's what sacrifice is for, right? +282 damage, 33% critical, with a 31-46 Tulwar is (30 + D298) * 7 or dual wielding is (60 + D314) * 3 + (30 + D298). So that averages at 1253 damage for 700 SP single (1.79 dmg/SP), or 830 damage for 400 SP dual (2.08 dmg/SP). Of course, Crushing Blow with all the buffs is +172 damage, so even single it is (30 + D188) * 7 = average 868 damage for 112 SP (7.75 dmg / SP), so dmg/SP isn't as important as raw damage when considering the switch to Ferocity. I'll have to play with it to see how much of that damage gets soaked by armor with single and dual wield.

P.S. Hmmm, originally I thought I was too much of a perfectionist to waste potions on everybody when Kyera could use 40% less, but I just realized that my potion math may be off when group SP potions are taken into account.

single potions = 540 gold for average 420 SP = 1.28 gold per SP
group potions = 780 gold for average 220x3-4 == 660-880 SP = 1.18-0.88 gold per SP

So, if group pots are fully used on all 4 team members, they are 45% more gold efficient than single pots, negating most of the benefit of SP transfer from Kyera (she can give 68% more SP than she uses with 10 Sacrifice, 16 Lore). On the other hand, Vraes can't hold much SP without pumping intelligence, so if it only fills 3 on the team, they are only 8% more efficient, swinging the balance back towards Kyera topping everyone off and drinking a single potion. So, it looks like one useful strategy is to give Vraes a big SP necklace or several points in intelligence so he is on par with the rest of the team, then use group SP potions to bring the highest member up to full, and fill in the lowest member with Sacrifice if necessary.

[fallen]

progor - nice clean analysis of Tinctures (group pots) vs. potions. The most important thing is that there are many different ways to get the successful results, and you have to balance the trade offs. I think your analysis shows that nicely. To really get into it, you'd have to look at AP spent as well. I know that often, there just aren't enough AP to go around on certain characters, so group pots are simply more important because a back-line character can find that 1 extra AP. If the frontline characters has the AP to do it him/herself, then I'd pick a single pot.

Your team does seem like a perfect one for Sacrifice to help out, especially if you respec Vraes to Ferocity! I always start with EA, even if I plan to kill the monsters, but that is to help with accuracy. It helps my teams balance less on accuracy in gear and more on Crit and damage -- but, every group is different, plus difficulty is a huge factor.