Ep 2: To re-spec or not to re-spec. That is the question...

[matrim]

A respec allows you to totally rebuild the character. All talents, skills, and attributes.

The types of monsters is something you might want to note. Certain things will be tougher or tend towards certain strategies (I like to wait for Krete and Orcs to come to me cause they have ranged units, I charge wolves and beetles because they have no ranged capabilities, so it is not a worry). Resists of elements is a factor but something I find is not worth constantly swapping things in and out for. I generally have 1 set of equips for all my characters. I may occasionally have a second sword to dual wield against some really tough foe but it is rare.

Episode 3 is easier than end episode 2. However, it still punishes tactical errors and episode 3 damage does damage climb quite a bit. There are some missteps in episode 3 that will result in a 100% death. By end episode 3, the difficulty is similar to end episode 2.

Curses last a certain number of turns depending on what level and which creature cast it. You can see the icon with your buffs in the top right corner of the screen. After combat a certain number of turns auto passes (2 I think on hard) so the curse timer will run down by that much. Some strong curses may last for 2 entire battles. As achilles73 state, you can buy scrolls or Level talents to address this (Fyona has the talent, it's her single target heal). I would recommend just using scrolls to handle them. The game give a good supply of them and not all curses are deadly (cursing parry and dodge on your wizard for example, he should not be getting hit anyway so who cares). You can check what a curse does by going to the character's status screen and pressing the icon on the lower right hand side of their portrait. It will give a summary of all buffs and curses affecting the character.

[achilles73]

Dec 20, 2016 16:24:02 GMT -5 matrim said:

Episode 3 is easier than end episode 2. However, it still punishes tactical errors and episode 3 damage does damage climb quite a bit. There are some missteps in episode 3 that will result in a 100% death. By end episode 3, the difficulty is similar to end episode 2.

Got it. And I will make sure to come here and whine and pester people with questions when I encounter difficult fights in Episode 3

By the way, how difficult are the fights I will soon encounter at the City of the Dead? Should I be especially wary of anything? Is the boss fight easier than the spider temple? Harder?

[dagger]

So, back to re-specing. I'm very nervous about doing this for some reason...

Anyway, here's what I've got and here's where I'm thinking of going. Thoughts appreciated...

Current Proposed

Crushing Blow 2 1
Stone Skin 3 2
Savage Sweep 5 3
Strike 1 1
Phalanx Shield 1 5
Natural Mastery 1 0
Burst of Speed 1 3
Ferocity 1 0
Berserk Rage 1 0
Juggernaut 0 1


Blades 11 16
Hammers 3 3
Polearms 3 3
Leadership 4 3
Lore 6 2

I've got to go sledding with my kids so no time to do Attributes. I'll be back in a few hours but this is a start....


Thank you!

STR  11  10
DEX  4   6
CON  9   9
WIL   5  5
INT   5  4
KNO  3  3

She wasn't ready so I added these....  :-)

[fallen]

dagger - great to write it down all in advance, or its easy to get it wrong

[matrim]

Looking good. Some alternatives to consider

Maybe Crushing Blow instead of Savage Sweep. Reason being that you have Kjartan to Choking Ash everyone, accuracy is not going to be a big issue as long as you invest in sword skills and maybe do a little Natural Mastery (1 point is a good investment for +3 acc/parry) later in the build.
Berserk Rage even at low levels can help tremendously with damage, it is worth the downside.
Stoneskin is not a terribly competitive talent, I would just leave it at one and invest further into Phalanx Shield or Berserk Rage.
Juggernaut is a good talent but it might be a bit early to invest. Getting defense up with max Phalanx should be prioritized over it as a level 1 Juggernaut is going to do little for you now while one more PS could block that killing arrow.
If you want you can lower Vraes' damage output a bit (against high armoured foes) to up defense by going straight dexterity instead of strength. You would use a dex based blade instead of a strength based sword. This does lower damage (in some cases) but raise defense by a considerable margin (also with high enough CA, 1 AP blades do more damage than 2 AP swords for a long time). If you did this you would ignore strength entirely on Vraes and build dexterity and constitution (it also chucks out the 2H weapon alternative too, although you can dual wield 2 blades to similar effect).

[dagger]

Well here are my thoughts to your thoughts....

I didn't have very good luck hitting with Crushing Blow in the first episode so I went with Savage Sweep instead. Plus, unless I'm mistaken, the Savage Sweep Accuracy bumps are all Strong Dice vs Standard Dice with buffs from others.

I'd really like Stone Skin 3 more for the 80HPs than the armor. I just feel better with more of a cushion. That bump from 36HP to 80HP from SS2 to SS3 is attractive to me. Looks like diminishing returns after that however so that's as high as I'll go.

Phalanx Shield I can see is a huge priority. I need that as high as I can get it as soon as possible, mostly for the ranged defense but the Parry and Armor don't hurt my feelings any...

As for Berserk Rage...the crit% bonus is very attractive but I only have so many points to go around. I see how it could be a great complement to Phalanx with both operating off of Leadership but...I feel like I have other priorities first...like getting Phalanx Shield to 10 for instance...

The 1 point in Juggernaut is a potential SP grabber as well as having the Accuracy dice being Strong again. Plus, my biggest damage dealer so far (and I'm hoping it will continue) is Tamilin with her Torrent of Steel so I'm thinking having this available to do cleanup with potential extra MP's might really come in handy. Obviously with only 1 point I won't be able to count on it but, I feel it could really turn a battle if the dice fall right.

What I'm really having the hardest time with at this point is your suggestion to go DEX based vs STR based on my weapons. I don't like the .75 multiplier on DEX to Dodge. STR is one to one and I can max it easier/earlier. CON is 1.25 on Toughness which, as you've correctly pointed out, is not a big deal vs not getting hit at all.

So....my question has now changed from "To re-spec or not to re-spec" to "To DEX or not to DEX". Any further thoughts to help me decide would be appreciated. Pros and cons. What am I losing by not raising STR? I know I'm gaining significant Dodge with DEX and then one attribute would actually be responsible for both defense(dodge) and offense(accuracy), correct? So I could boost CON and DEX instead of STR, CON, and DEX thus improving myself fast but starting at a lower level (DEX starts at 4 whereas STR starts at 7....does that sound right?

Another question in regards to DEX vx STR.  Does Natural Mastery switch to a DEX bonus to damage if I'm using DEX-based weapons?  In other words, my melee accuracy is WeaponAccuracy+Blades+STR+Bonus. Would it switch to Weapon+Blades+DEX+Natural Mastery+Bonus?  Or would the Natural Mastery add to the DEX?  Or not at all?

[wascalwywabbit]

1h weapon w/shield vraes key talents are...

natural mastery -NM
phalanx shield -PSh
Burst of speed -BoS
berserk rage -BR
Juggernaut, CB, ssw or ferocity choose just 1 ideally... imo NM and BR are the preferred ways to add acc and dmg, vs ssw (acc) CB or ferocity (dmg) so that leaves juggernaut...

2h or dual wield is the same except:

PSh changes to...
stone skin -SSk

Now dex or str it depends on whether defense or dmg is more needed. Especially with the relatively new str rules and NM effective str for dmg, though not acc purposes, I think if you're gonna go str build Vraes (and possibly Fyona) is the best char to do it with.

[En1gma]

Never done a Dex based Vraes in my 125+ builds, and I don't intend to. STR all the way, every time, IMO

[dagger]

Thanks for the input. Can somebody answer my last question above about Natural Mastery? Does it help a DEX-based Vraes?

[matrim]

The skills and accuracy on NM work with dex Vraes, the damage minimum component will not.

[crimsonking]

You effectively trade damage for dodge and ranged defense. If you try to make Vraes into the best possible tank DEX is the better way to go.

[dagger]

Thank you! I'm going to try the DEX way then. We'll see how it goes. Now that I've started to figure things out I may end up re-starting on a higher difficulty anyway. I don't feel like re-speccing my whole party so if I can't manage to get the other three to work well with my new Vraes I'll start over. Thanks again for your help!

[fallen]

dagger - right, thing being if you take a DEX weapon, you don't get the minimum Damage bonus for Strength. So, that is 16-32 dmg missed on every single attack, and even more if you are investing in Natural Mastery.

[dagger]

Don't I know it!!!  Ha!!!  I'm clubbing away with a 1AP weapon knocking it out of the park at somewhere between 9-14 damage a whack.  I'm paper-cutting them to death!!!!  


But, I'm not getting hit.  So there is a bright side.....  

[crimsonking]

Dec 22, 2016 14:31:17 GMT -5 fallen said:

dagger - right, thing being if you take a DEX weapon, you don't get the minimum Damage bonus for Strength. So, that is 16-32 dmg missed on every single attack, and even more if you are investing in Natural Mastery.

I thought it's only 8 to 16 damage missed, since only the minimum damage is raised by STR, so the average added damage is half of that. Am I wrong?