Post by anemoneenemy on Mar 6, 2018 20:46:19 GMT -5
Hi, all. So I finished my first playthrough--great game, congratulations/applause to the creators. I'm having some trouble, so I figured I'd put down what worked for me and what didn't to see if I can, with help, come up with a good alternate team.
I wound up abandoning a run at episode 2 and using boost-in to be able to rebuild my characters because what I had wasn't working. I took some advice from various forum threads and wound up with a party that's been able to make it through everything, albeit with a lot of deaths. The deaths were mostly from low-Dodge characters (Kyera...) getting hit two or three times by powerful archers like necromancer lords, or from accidentally stumbling into multiple encounters at the same time.
The hardest encounters had shaman types in the back with melee guys in front of them to wade through, keeping me from getting to the shamans without putting my group in too much danger.
What worked:
Vraes - Phalanx Shield 10, which made him feel actually tanky. Then a sprinkling of Natural Mastery and 1 point of Burst of Speed for the +1MP, then Juggernaut 10. The rest is gear. He's ended up with a solid crit rate, which, combined with SP drain, means I can more or less spam Juggernaut and stomp through enemies with Juggernaut crits.
Tamilin - probably the workhorse of the party. Good enough Dodge to not be hit by archers, decent parry, and 1 AP throwing knives hitting multiple enemies at a time really let me clear out groups. With a ~50% crit rate,
Kyera - I wound up respeccing her part way through to dump Lore and pick up Holy Banishment and then Smiting Blow. With the legendary hammer, she hits like a truck in melee and can use Holy Banishment for crowds. She spent a lot of rounds using EA 1 (up to 4 by the end of the game) to strip mobs of AP, though.
Kjartan - Mostly dropped Choking Ash until I got Immolate to a decent level, then he mostly Immolated people to make crits more likely with the occasional Ash--I stopped needing Ash with +accuracy gear and I wanted to get that +crit chance on them right away to be more likely to kill them fast.
I felt like my group's defenses were pretty low but their offense made up for it. I had some accuracy issues vs lower level monsters that got "scaled up" specifically, but other than that, +accuracy gear kept me hitting.
Looking at the alternate characters, I'm not sure how I can replace Tamilin's 1-AP multitarget attack, Vraes' ability to finish a bunch of weakened enemies like Juggernaut lets him do, and Kjartan's ability to help everyone crit via Burning Blades and Immolation.
It looks like the Duelist has a 1-AP multitarget throwing-knife attack like Tamilin, but his doesn't have a -AP curse, so I'd have to get -AP from somewhere else. I'd also be missing EA, so I'd need to replace that too. His +critical buff also isn't as large as Tamilin's and to keep his accuracy up with Thrown I have to neglect his melee skills. On top of that, without Kjartan, I'm critting less often.
For -AP, my options are Flash Freeze, Pinning Shot (which requires raising Bows instead of Selen's melee talents, which means not getting those 1 AP attacks) and Fyona's Reckoning (which needs her to get into melee to hit, as opposed to the 2-AP EA that I can drop from like 6-7 squares away.
So how would I build a team with all the alternate characters? On top of the above, I'm worried about how the Duelist and Selen both want 1-AP light blades, and maybe Vincent too--a lot of competition for the same weapons. And on top of that, the Duelist and Selen both kind of push you to split your points up among melee and ranged, which makes you less accurate than both! (I guess Kincaid's Unity skill makes up for it?)
I guess Flash Freeze and Pinning Shot both giving -Dodge could mean that everyone (well, except Fyona...) makes ranged attacks and doesn't worry about enemy parry.
On the other hand, it will be nice to have more than one functional tank.
Anyway, I'm open to advice for an all-alternate-character party (or maybe I should swap in one of the originals?)
I wound up abandoning a run at episode 2 and using boost-in to be able to rebuild my characters because what I had wasn't working. I took some advice from various forum threads and wound up with a party that's been able to make it through everything, albeit with a lot of deaths. The deaths were mostly from low-Dodge characters (Kyera...) getting hit two or three times by powerful archers like necromancer lords, or from accidentally stumbling into multiple encounters at the same time.
The hardest encounters had shaman types in the back with melee guys in front of them to wade through, keeping me from getting to the shamans without putting my group in too much danger.
What worked:
Vraes - Phalanx Shield 10, which made him feel actually tanky. Then a sprinkling of Natural Mastery and 1 point of Burst of Speed for the +1MP, then Juggernaut 10. The rest is gear. He's ended up with a solid crit rate, which, combined with SP drain, means I can more or less spam Juggernaut and stomp through enemies with Juggernaut crits.
Tamilin - probably the workhorse of the party. Good enough Dodge to not be hit by archers, decent parry, and 1 AP throwing knives hitting multiple enemies at a time really let me clear out groups. With a ~50% crit rate,
Kyera - I wound up respeccing her part way through to dump Lore and pick up Holy Banishment and then Smiting Blow. With the legendary hammer, she hits like a truck in melee and can use Holy Banishment for crowds. She spent a lot of rounds using EA 1 (up to 4 by the end of the game) to strip mobs of AP, though.
Kjartan - Mostly dropped Choking Ash until I got Immolate to a decent level, then he mostly Immolated people to make crits more likely with the occasional Ash--I stopped needing Ash with +accuracy gear and I wanted to get that +crit chance on them right away to be more likely to kill them fast.
I felt like my group's defenses were pretty low but their offense made up for it. I had some accuracy issues vs lower level monsters that got "scaled up" specifically, but other than that, +accuracy gear kept me hitting.
Looking at the alternate characters, I'm not sure how I can replace Tamilin's 1-AP multitarget attack, Vraes' ability to finish a bunch of weakened enemies like Juggernaut lets him do, and Kjartan's ability to help everyone crit via Burning Blades and Immolation.
It looks like the Duelist has a 1-AP multitarget throwing-knife attack like Tamilin, but his doesn't have a -AP curse, so I'd have to get -AP from somewhere else. I'd also be missing EA, so I'd need to replace that too. His +critical buff also isn't as large as Tamilin's and to keep his accuracy up with Thrown I have to neglect his melee skills. On top of that, without Kjartan, I'm critting less often.
For -AP, my options are Flash Freeze, Pinning Shot (which requires raising Bows instead of Selen's melee talents, which means not getting those 1 AP attacks) and Fyona's Reckoning (which needs her to get into melee to hit, as opposed to the 2-AP EA that I can drop from like 6-7 squares away.
So how would I build a team with all the alternate characters? On top of the above, I'm worried about how the Duelist and Selen both want 1-AP light blades, and maybe Vincent too--a lot of competition for the same weapons. And on top of that, the Duelist and Selen both kind of push you to split your points up among melee and ranged, which makes you less accurate than both! (I guess Kincaid's Unity skill makes up for it?)
I guess Flash Freeze and Pinning Shot both giving -Dodge could mean that everyone (well, except Fyona...) makes ranged attacks and doesn't worry about enemy parry.
On the other hand, it will be nice to have more than one functional tank.
Anyway, I'm open to advice for an all-alternate-character party (or maybe I should swap in one of the originals?)
