Team: Modified Gallows Tap Dancers (1st group ever)

[achilles73]

I've had 0 death that did not involve a misclick from level 29 to 43 so far. One major change in build has been to replace Lightening Spear with Energy Storm on Vincent. Given that I have Thundering Blades on Vincent as well, this has worked a lot better, since the aggregate damage I gained for the group likely outweighs the individual damage loss from Vincent. It has also helped the SP drain issue a bit for the group as well. However, I have not tried Lightening Spear with the Eye of the Storm, and Lightening Spear probably needs it to best maximize it. But at a certain juncture before I entered the City of the Dead, I had a tremendous difficulty with accuracy, so I decided to get both Flanking Unity on Kincaid and Thundering Blades on Vincent. So in essence I was ultimately forced to go to Energy Storm to supplement Thundering Blades.

But with this group, combat has been very easy. I've accidentally pulled 3 groups at the bridge fight at the beginning of the episode 4 and still easily survived. Both Kincaid and Selen are essentially un-hittable so they can hold up a flank for eternity. They both do tremendous damage, too: Kincaid mainly single-target where his Flashing Blades currently stands at 19-189 damage (minus the elemental damage from Vincent) and at 41 percent crit. Selen has Pinning Shot at 8, so AoE is her thing. The relationship between Kyera and Vincent have undergone a fascinating change. Around level 29-32, Kyera was my main nuker and Vincent curser, because I was in the City of the Dead, and neither Selen nor Vincent had their ranged talents high. Now Vincent does a lot more damage and damage support debuffs, so Kyera does most of the cursing. And they both have range 8 AP curses, in cases when there are too many mobs, and I have to spend the entire first turn cursing with both. I know some people feel this is inefficient, but it works for me.

I am thinking this group is solid enough that the "Normal" difficulty offers no challenge now. So I will either in the next playthrough bump up a difficulty with the same group - or play a Vrase/Fyonna-based group the next run at Normal.

[achilles73]

Ok, the first real challenge since level 29 resulted in 4 deaths in the Cortias fight. Brutal - but fun. I think I need Sure Parry to 3 blocks to ensure Kincaid's Sure Parry is almost never broken. Also, there was a dude who seemed to bypass melee defense and just hits me for 700 or so. WTF?

[fallen]

achilles73 - sounds like a time to upgrade difficulty for the next play thru?

Cortias is one of the gods of war. No one "bypasses melee defense." All dice are rolled standard. He may just trump your stats completely. Or maybe you're talking about the ranged version of C?

[achilles73]

Dec 25, 2016 18:19:24 GMT -5 fallen said:

achilles73 - sounds like a time to upgrade difficulty for the next play thru?

Cortias is one of the gods of war. No one "bypasses melee defense." All dice are rolled standard. He may just trump your stats completely. Or maybe you're talking about the ranged version of C?

I don't think he was a ranged guy. It looked like a guy using some sort of flail. And he hit me and damaged me while Sure Parry was unbroken. So I was assuming that attack bypasses melee defense.

[fallen]

Dec 25, 2016 18:51:54 GMT -5 achilles73 said:

Dec 25, 2016 18:19:24 GMT -5 fallen said:

achilles73 - sounds like a time to upgrade difficulty for the next play thru?

Cortias is one of the gods of war. No one "bypasses melee defense." All dice are rolled standard. He may just trump your stats completely. Or maybe you're talking about the ranged version of C?

I don't think he was a ranged guy. It looked like a guy using some sort of flail. And he hit me and damaged me while Sure Parry was unbroken. So I was assuming that attack bypasses melee defense.

The chain wielding Cortias is considered ranged. His max range is 3.

[achilles73]

Dec 25, 2016 21:09:08 GMT -5 fallen said:

Dec 25, 2016 18:51:54 GMT -5 achilles73 said:

I don't think he was a ranged guy. It looked like a guy using some sort of flail. And he hit me and damaged me while Sure Parry was unbroken. So I was assuming that attack bypasses melee defense.

The chain wielding Cortias is considered ranged. His max range is 3.

Thanks; that explains it. He hit super-hard, too!

[wascalwywabbit]

Vraes wants that chain so bad he can taste it, especially after it hits him in the face...

[John Robinson]

Dec 20, 2016 11:39:24 GMT -5 achilles73 said:

I finally have Tulwar! It should last me a long time!

But my SP drain is back to 8 percent

Excellent.  I fight melee with Selen using 2 Tulwars.  I just wish it didn't take so long to buy them.  Maybe a mini quest to get them earlier would be cool to add?
I haven't read all your posts yet but really like them.  I genuinely had allot of doubts with Kincaid and have never gone all the way with him, You have changed my mind.
Fyona still mystifies me.  I'm not sure how to use her talents, there are so many it is difficult to specialize.  Hope to read about your experiences with her. 

[achilles73]

Jan 3, 2017 9:05:02 GMT -5 John Robinson said:

Dec 20, 2016 11:39:24 GMT -5 achilles73 said:

I finally have Tulwar! It should last me a long time!

But my SP drain is back to 8 percent

Excellent.  I fight melee with Selen using 2 Tulwars.  I just wish it didn't take so long to buy them.  Maybe a mini quest to get them earlier would be cool to add?
I haven't read all your posts yet but really like them.  I genuinely had allot of doubts with Kincaid and have never gone all the way with him, You have changed my mind.
Fyona still mystifies me.  I'm not sure how to use her talents, there are so many it is difficult to specialize.  Hope to read about your experiences with her. 

Thanks for kind words; and I apologize for making too many changes to your original formula! But as I stressed, it is more a reflection of my limitations and playstyle than of the flaws in your original design.

As for Vrase v. Kincaid: I have yet to use Vrase - or anyone but the ones I have used for this run. So perhaps I would change my mind once I use Vrase. My conclusions are very tentative.

I did, however, use Selen as both melee specialist and hybrid - and the hybrid option seems far superior at least for the group I ran. If I had serious ranged firepower like Kjartan, however, I see the use of running her as a pure melee. But even Kyera and Vincent together were insufficient for me, because they were both constrained as hybrid characters (both curser and damage dealer) to do sufficient damage, and Vincent's range limitation also loomed large.

Finally, on Fyona. I plan on running her as a buffer/curser, with some damage mixed in perhaps. Either Vrase or Kincaid will main tank, and Selen will off-tank. So I don't need Fyona to tank. I do wish, however, that she had at least one intermediate distance nuke.

[John Robinson]

achilles73

Making Changes is just what I hoped for.  Gallows is just a jump off to inspire the imagination of others.  I created Gallows way back on April 7th 2015.  About time it got a face lift.  Thanks for creating the separate thread.  It's generating allot of new ideas 6 pages already, wow.  Now I have something to poach from on my next team lol.  Good Job!  

When I think back on all the versions and changes to talents.  Not to mention monster abilities and prior to boost in.  Today is a whole new world.  My next team will include the lessons I learned from my first group that reached level 47, and the weekly evolution of the game provided by the Trese Brothers bottomless well of talent.

[olbrokenaxescotsman]

Dec 19, 2016 17:58:01 GMT -5 matrim said:

Ok, now that I can see your build and equips, let's take a moment to discuss optimization.

Kincaid - Sure Parry 4 or 7, 5 is not optimal because of how charges on SP work. Once you lose a charge of SP, the buff lowers to the highest parry/dodge value of that charge's class (an example is needed: SP 5 gives 3 P/D with 2 charges, a charge gets used. The buff now drops to 2 P/D with 1 charge because if you look at the skill the highest it can go is 2 with one charge). For this reason, SP 1,4,7 (10 if you have excessive talent points I guess, but Kincaid has so many great talents this should not be the case) are the only levels you should consider of the talent to maximize its effect. I almost exclusively build to 4 as I find 2 charges is good enough for almost all content.
Flanking Unity- (no higher than 8, but 8 is what you should aim for) you are having accuracy issues across the board. This buff is too valuable and will fix your Vincent and Kyera. You will also be able to ditch some accuracy gear in favour of damage gear on Selen and Kincaid, who need no acc help. Flashing Blades is more endgame. It only adds to Kincaid's effectiveness while Flanking Unity dramatically increases everyone's damage by a similar margin.
Equips - with little in the way of armour curses I would use 2 1 AP blades. This will give you solid damage on everything and his crit rate will make sure that he kills something when he crits it. 1 AP blade is too light hitting and throwing knives improve accuracy which is not going to be needed after getting Flanking Unity (higher difficulties however may require you to use TK and gut Kincaid's damage a bit). You will need to add leadership into his skills for FU. Also, I would blitz dex to 16 and ignore con till it is maxed, then max con. If you feel you need HP then just equip HP gear, which can add 80-140 at your point in the game and gives far more value than throwing rare attribute points on con. Dex helps acc and dodging, its effectiveness is hard to overstate, especially when you are avoidance tanking with a low WS from Kyera.

Selen - very versatile but choose a role. You have her split ineffectively across quite a range of things. How I think you want her built is skirmisher, meleeing when possible, ranged attacks when prudent, tanky as well. The best thing is that you can do stealth effectively too as her stealth talent is simply too good to pass up. Pinning Shot 5. No higher, this is the most effective place for it to be till you get excessive talent points in episode 4. DoS to +2 MP. Selen needs MP, this also gives her crit, which she needs as well, stealth is a bonus. QsD to 10. Do the first 2 first then max this out. She can main tank at around the 7 mark and just gets more and more effective the more you feed into it. Next max DoS. Then sly look 4. Then look at punishing blades or FB (choose 1 and only 1, do not build 2 attack talents, Selen is too talent starved to do that, personally I think PB fits the group better).
Equips - Similar to Kincaid. Have a second 1 AP blade to put on her when you are left with high armor enemies and won't need the bow (like Berserks or Trolls). I like to have 1 HP thing on to give her that breathing room as she has no SP to auto block bad rolls. Build her crit, most important, then damage. She will need no tank gear with QsD. The dex 16 > con 16 is for her too, dex is too valuable on her. Finally on skills build blades 16, then work on stealth. Her buffs have long timers naturally (so no lore needed) and serving as a stealth lead is very valuable, you will want it in the City of the Dead. You won't need to add any bow skills. Bows have high natural accuracy, plus PS adds accuracy, plus FU and TB. All of these get my hit rate to about 95% on nightmare, I am sure you will be close to 100% on normal with 0 bow investment.

Vincent - He is watered down unfortunately. If you are going LS with him, he needs LS 10 to pack serious punch. With Kyera cursing I would not bother to build curses with him till later (Kyera is so effective there is no need). LS 10 will melt everything, then TB 10 to add damage and accuracy to everything. Sprinkle 2 points into BS when you feel you need the movement. Lastly EotS is good value that finishes off the build nicely. Alternatively you can build ES instead of LS (worse early game, better late). The lightning damage curse it puts on everything is extremely valuable (especially with no Fyona) and just gets better with 10 TB. If you go this route I would swap Kincaid to 1 AP as the added lightning damage would put the 1 AP blade ahead in damage with almost every mob type (Selen will do tons of damage too). If you want to try melee build go 10 TB, 1 ES,2 BS, 2 FF, 10 FA. This allows him to curse when it's needed (although it won't be in most cases) and still do killer damage with a sword. My personal choice (especially on normal difficulty) is the ES route, bumps the whole team's efficiency up.
Equips - attributewise I would add con to 16 if going caster. Then Will to up the damage of spells. Equips is anything with lightning damage first, then crit second. Accuracy is not a concern. SP drain is nice because ES can get expensive to spam. If melee then dex 16 > con 16 as per Kincaid and Selen. Lightning damage > SP drain = damage > crit if melee.

Kyera - Again spread around a lot. EA 6 is going to give you tons of mileage. Then you can choose 1 spell if you want her to nuke. I feel a melee Kyera is better with curses but either is good. 1 of the nukes to 10, then WS, then EA to 10, then PW I guess. I avoid healing talents like the plague, healing is much more efficiently done with potions.
Equips - Con, then Will if nuke, Str, then con if melee. Int might find a place here as she is going to be an SP hog but I like to avoid it if possible and just get SP drain. Sp drain > crit > lightning or holy damage for equip choices. I would equip her with high damage robes regardless of melee or not because they have better bonuses and she should not be being hit.

So there you have it, my assessment anyway. In builds it pays to focus and let other teammates pick up where the build slacks. Trying to do too many things with all the characters (all damage, too many tanks, too many cursers) is going to hurt you in the end. You want 1 or 2 characters that are really good at the different roles (damage, tanking, supporting, cursing) and that is it, more and they lose effectiveness, less and they could be better.

thank you matrim you have given me a little more focus..going to ditch my old game, start with this group and optimization. maybe loose Vincent not sure though..playing on android tablet.