GTFOOD--Get the .... out of Dodge!! (minor spoilers)
Mar 24, 2020 15:18:01 GMT -5
CdrPlatypus and drspendlove like this
Post by dagger on Mar 24, 2020 15:18:01 GMT -5
Well, all this waiting for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint on the discord has gotten me thinking, "Hmmmm, how could I kill a few months so the waiting doesn't seem so long?" The answer is obviously to make another nightmare run at finishing Heroes of Steel, right? :-) So, with that in mind, I've come up with another plan and off I go again. I've named the team "Get the F...out of Dodge" based on the fact that I'm going to use Kincaid, Vincent, Kyera, and Tamilin. It is going to be a very ranged heavy team, thus, dodge on the monsters is going to be a vital stat to nerf. Each of these characters can do that. Kincaid with his Darting Steel. Vincent with his Flash Freeze. Kyera with her Ethereal Anguish. And, of course, Tamilin with her Torrent of Steel. I'm hoping that by "cursing" enemies multiple times on the same stat I can alleviate the fact that I won't have a lot of talent points left for other things. On the plus side, I should be able to do a LOT of damage from distance and as I get into Ep3 crit damage should start to skyrocket. On the negative side....glass cannons anyone? Gonna take some fancy footwork to stay alive.
There are two main problems I see going into this run.
1) I'm not going to be able to do a ton of buffing on my characters. This obviously means that they are not going to be able to get involved in many toe-to-toe melee fights. I'm going to run up Kincaid's Sure Parry so I can hopefully buy myself at least a turn or two to do the cursing I need to do and then get myself into a defensible position. So, that means I will definitely need to focus on MP talents as well. Again, three of these characters can do that. Kincaid with Live by the Blade, Vincent with Charged Speed, and Tamilin with Black Night. Kyera is going to have to get some gear but there's a really good mace fairly early and I can craft an armor so I think she'll be okay. And....
2) If I want to stay alive, I'm going to end up using a lot of SP. I mean a LOT. Kyera's Ethereal Anguish is an SP hog. Vincent's Flash Freeze and Charged Speed are both guzzlers. Live by the Blade isn't cheap and Darting Steel adds up in a hurry for Kincaid. And Tamilin can consume a bunch with her Black Night and Torrent of Steel and even more with her bow skills. Lots and lots of blue stuff is going to be going down the hatch. At this point, I'm choosing to worry about this aspect as I go. I'm hoping that once I get to level 18 I can start Elemental Sundering for Vincent and take care of the problem but.....in the early going it's going to be a grind.
So, with those things in mind, here is my early plan...
Kincaid: Sure Parry 7, Live by the Blade 4, Darting Steel 9, Cunning Footwork 3. I need the guaranteed parry and the mobility. Darting Steel is for the dodge curse, the accuracy, and the AoE attack. Cunning Footwork will add some defense, some accuracy, and some crit%. Hopefully the crit% helps with the SP. I may have to adjust on the fly by adding more CF in relation to DS. Kinda depends on how much damage I'm getting from other characters.
Vincent: He'll need a couple early Flash Freeze for the AP curse. Then Charged Speed and Lightning Spear get run probably side by side. I may throw in a Thundering Blades or three. Haven't decided yet. But I definitely want to get Elementary Sundering in the mix once it opens up.
Kyera: My plan for her is to just make her as tanky as possible with gear. I want Ethereal Anguish 6 at some point but since she's the only person who can provide any real team benefit, I need to run her Piety Ward up to 10 most likely. I'll also take Warder's Shield to at least 6. And probably 1 Purifying Breeze for curse heals. She's going to need to get a lot of good gear so she can be my off-tank. Although, let's be honest, none of these characters are going to be what I would call a tank.
Tamilin: As always, stealth will be her number one focus. With this team I pretty much have to win the stealth rolls. Tamilin will have some really good dodge built up but....wrong roll, wrong time = dead. Also, since I'm heavily ranged, I need to be able to see what's out there. That means she's going to need at least FarSight 3. I've got to run Torrent of Steel up early or I might not be able to hit anyone. Probably at least 5. Blacknight needs a quick 4 for the movement and the ever-critical stealth. Then I'd really like to get Silent Stalker to 3 and Ranged Onslaught to 4. I also plan to bring Deadly Intuition to at least 3 but that doesn't matter until I start using bows. I may end up respeccing her at some point. Possibly run ToS up to 8 and when I hit like level 35ish respec into bows and DI. We'll see. Only about 150hrs of gameplay for me between now and then... :-)
Progress report:
Oskahold: Team points: 5,795,625
Level/XP HP SP Stats: If the Talent, Skill, or Attribute is not mentioned, it is still where it started
Kincaid: 6/864 186 147 Sure Parry 1, Darting Steel 5 DEX 8, CON 6, INT 5 Thrown Weapons 7
Vincent: 6/820 220 198 Flash Freeze 2, Lightning Spear 2, Charged Speed 1 CON 7 Sorc 6, Conj 4, Lore 3
Kyera: 6/822 235 222 Warders Shield 2, Piety Ward 1, Purifying Breeze 1 CON 7, STR 5 Hammers 6, Conj 4
Tamilin: 6/864 186 147 Torrent of Steel 3, Black Night 1 DEX 7, CON 6, INT 5 Thrown Weapons 6
Oskahold
Well, I made it through the first section. Not without a mishap though. I started the escape from Red Hill, got into the caves, and Tamilin kept losing stealth rolls. She ended up getting killed by the first set of spiders so I had to start over. Early lesson learned though. Stealth is paramount. So on the restart I led with Kincaid until I could get Tam a Black Night. That's taken care of the problem so far but it was a good reminder that you just can't take stealth lightly if you don't want to die. Since then I managed to find a stealth armor with +3 stealth and an Evasion pt so now I feel a little better about things. Oskahold is the first place you can find some good equipment upgrades and will eventually be a place you can start crafting. You need to clear one of the Reeve's objectives before the blacksmith will upgrade his equipment so I've got a little more fighting to do before I can really start boosting my gear but....its coming.
Some early observations: I was definitely correct in my initial concern about this group not being very hardy. Kincaid took a couple shots from shamans in the 60's. The Sure Parry is great for melee but ranged still packs a wallop on him. Definitely need to build his CON and find plenty of Dodge gear for him. Now that Darting Steel is at the AoE level I'll be leveling other talents. Kinda feeling my way forward with this group. Accuracy has been good. Damage is okay. Mostly defense called for right now....
I've been pleasantly surprised by my SP usage so far. While the group definitely uses it up, I've only had one fight where I had to use a potion for one guy. Obviously as talents go up, so will the SP usage but....I thought it would be worse than it's been so far. I'm also liking the 3 AP curse options I have. It's been very handy and I have only had one guy take more than one swing at me in a turn. With the damage this team is starting to do, hopefully that will continue.
Time to find the mastermind behind the Oskahold siege.
I'm going to throw in a list of my crafted items as well in case anyone cares.
Crafting:
Picked up two bloodstones in the North Vault (Fort). First craft for me has to be the Bladesman Knives after the Oskahold Blacksmith upgrades his selection.
Bladesman Knives, 1AP, 3 Acc, 2 Parry, 11-19 crafted with the Ironclad Boots (2 Stealth, 2 Security) turned into: Bladesman Knives, 1AP, 3 Acc, 2 Parry, 19-31 at 3 range; +1MP, +8 Ice dmg, +3% crit, +3 Dodge, +3 Stealth, +4% SP drain. Doesn't get much better than that. Movement, more ice (I've got a +6 ice ring), crit, dodge, stealth, drain. Literally a smorgasbord of upgrades. Maybe the most noticeable and satisfying craft in the game. So good!!!
Crafted another set of the Bladesman Knives with the Travelers Boots (+1 Crit%, +1 Dodge). Since both Tam and Kincaid are using them it was an easy choice. I've got one bloodstone left. Gotta clear the west road and then into the pit...
Picked up 3 more bloodstones in the west so I'm crafting 2 Leather Jerkins, 22 Arm. Used the Charm of the Wise Amulet (+20SP, +4% SP drain) to get the movement one: Leather Jerkins, 22 Arm; +1MP, +60HP, +3% SP drain and used the Blurred Arm Guards Bracers (+2 Dodge) to get the Leather Jerkins, 22 Arm; +30HP, +2 Parry, +2 Dodge, +8 Resistance. Kyera gets the MP set. I can't tell you have much more she can do with just 1 extra MP. Kincaid will get the other set since he's on the front lines. All of those stats will benefit him tremendously going into the Ratkins warrens. I also just realized Vincent can wear light armor. He'll probably get the hand-me-downs from one of these two when I upgrade them. I'm sure I'll pick up a couple quick bloodstones in the warrens so the debate is whether I'll craft a new hammer for Kyera, bite the bullet and just craft a third Jerkin for Vincent, or just save them for Red Hill. Kinda depends on how they do....into the pit.
Great Shaman=dead Team points: 57,869,225
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 13/ 8480 471 214 Sure Parry 2, Darting Steel 5, Cunning Footwork 1 DEX 9, CON 8, INT 5 TW 8, Blades 7, Lead 3
Vincent: 13/ 8430 357 302 Lightning Spear 5, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2 CON 9, KNO 8 Sorc 10, Conj 5
Kyera: 13/ 8891 413 372 Warders Shield 4, Piety Ward 2, Purifying Breeze 1, Smiting Blow 2 STR 7, CON 8 Ham 9, Conj 5, Lore 3
Tamilin: 13/ 8616 313 216 Torrent of Steel 5, Black Night 2, Farsight 2 DEX 8, CON 8, INT 5 TW 9, Bows 5
Great Shaman=dead (Oskahold)
That wasn't too painful. I cleared the Oskahold surroundings with very little threatening me. The jump into the pit looked scary but ended up going very well. I got 2 deathkin in the "deathkin" fight and had no issues. The 3 separate AP cursers work very well together. :-) The Shaman never had a chance. Overall, the team still seems on track with my initial goals with a couple minor exceptions. First of all, Kyera hasn't been hitting very well at all so I chose to give her another point in Smiting Blow. I also decided to throw a point in Flanking Unity for Kincaid to help with accuracy as well. I want Darting Steel at 9 or 10, but if I keep raising it now I'll be guzzling SP potions every time out. He's doing plenty of damage so far and connecting about 80-90% of the time so he's good at 5 for now. Smiting Blow 3 takes accuracy from 3 to 5 so I'm going to give her 1 more level at some point. She just got a new hammer so we'll see how's she's doing against the Krete and RedHill.
I'm pretty sure I'm also going to add 1-3 pts in Thundering Blades for Vincent. Again, that boosts everyone's accuracy and, with both Tam and Kincaid running throwing knives, I'm just leaving way too much damage on the table not to use it. I'm doing fine without it for now but.....with the slightly squishy nature of this team, I need to finish enemies off ASAP with the minimum number of attacks possible. With crit starting to show up on gear, extra magic damage can really turn into some big numbers. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.
I'm a little nervous about the Torrent Watershed coming up. I've got 10 Bloodstones right now so I could do some crafting but I kind of want to wait until Riven Field. I need to craft Tam a new stealth armor and a new bow, Vincent still needs a crafted set of armor, and Kyera needs a shield for sure. We'll see. I'm going against my better judgement a little by not getting Tam some more stealth now. I'm going to have to be very careful dealing with the Krete. I'm going to forego some other stats for stealth and dodge gear on her so I should be okay. 3 in her stealth skill, 4 from Black Night, 5 from gear, 3 from her tk's, and 3 from her armor, for a total of 18 on level 13. I'd feel better at 20 but...I need to craft a bow for that and there really aren't any good ones in Oskahold. I always find a couple good ones in Torrent though so hopefully I find them sooner rather than later.... Next update, after the Baron.
Crafting:
Yay! Riven Field. Time to do some much needed crafting.
First, Kyera needs a shield and I'm going to upgrade her armor as well. I want the MP so this armor may end up lasting her for quite some time as there aren't many +MP armor sets for a while after this one. I'll have to get her MP from either gear or a weapon down the road. Time to tank her up! Spiked Shield-5 Parry tuned with Kallassian Boots (+1 Dodge, +4 Armor) turned into: Spiked Shield-6 Parry; AB 3%, +200 HP, +6 dmg, 2% Crit, +4 Dodge. Big upgrades on all fronts. Parry, dmg, crit, and dodge, and a big boost to HP for overall survivability. Combine that with her armor upgrade: Leather Skin-28 Armor tuned with Earthenweave Tread (Boots) (+2 Armor, +4 All-resists) turned into: Leather Skin-28 Armor; +1MP, +10 Lightning dmg, +10 All Elemental Resists. More armor, still got the MP, plus Lightning to go with Vincent's Thundering Blades (when I get it) and more resists on top of Piety Ward. Giant defensive improvement here. Crafted Vincent one of these as well using the Eyestruck Ring (+6 Ice Damage, +2% Lightning Resist). The synergies are just too good to ignore. +MP and +10 Lightning dmg on top of his spear? Beautiful!
Tamilin gets a new bow: Oxenbone Bow-2AP, 5 Acc, 17-48 at 6 range tuned with Bracers of the Deep (+20 HP) turned into: Oxenbone Bow-2AP, 6 Acc, 21-52 at 6 range; +80 HP, +80 SP, +10 Lightning dmg, 4% Crit, +24% Crit dmg, +6 Stealth. The 6 stealth is what I'm really after here as I don't use the bow much yet. Everything else is gravy. Although the 80 HP and SP is really nice. Armor: Bandit's Garb-16 Armor, +3 Evasion, +4 Stealth tuned with Serpent's Torque (+4 Fire dmg, +2% Fire Resist, +2% Ice Resist) turned into: Bandit's Garb-16 Armor, +3 Evasion, +4 Stealth; +8 Lightning Dmg, +8 All Elemental Resists, +2% SP Drain. Nice! More armor, +3 strong dice on both melee and ranged defense with the evasion, more stealth, elemental resists on top of Piety again, and Lightning dmg to go on top of Thundering Blades. The 2% drain is just the cherry on top. Awesome!!!
Still have 3 Bloodstones left but I think I'll save them for now. Nothing for Kincaid yet. The dodge/parry on his armor is still enough to wait for a bigger upgrade. Just got a new blade and the TK's are still hitting. Next stop: Red Hill.
Red Hill (Baron dead) Team points: 145,856,725
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 18/22,812 504 234 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 7, Cunning Footwork 1, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1 DEX 10, CON 10, INT 5 TW 10, Blades 8, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 18/22,071 440 276 Lightning Spear 6, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 3 CON 11, KNO 8 Sorcery 13, Conjuring 6, Lore 4
Kyera: 18/22,294 587 380 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1 STR 8, DEX 4, CON 9 Hammers 13, Conjuring 6, Lore 3
Tamilin: 18/22,000 494 311 Torrent of Steel 5, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 1 DEX 9, CON 10, INT 5 TW 11, Bows 8
Progress Report:
Ok, Ep1 almost done. Just the storerooms and then it's eastward, ho. My decision to bump Smiting Blow to 3 for Kyera paid off in spades. Same for adding 3 Thundering Blades for Vincent. Kyera is currently my wrecking ball for the heavily armored monsters. Kincaid, on the other hand, is having problems with damage. He had seven straight zeroes against an armored elite in Red Hill. That means he was hitting every time. He just wasn't generating enough damage to clear the enemy soak. Talk about an SP hit. Right now, he's not much of a damage dealer. I just use him to curse with Darting Steel so Tamilin can then further curse and do some damage with her ToS, so that Vincent and Kyera can clean up most of the enemy hit points. Battles basically go: Kyera and Vincent AP/dodge curse with Ethereal Anguish and Flash Freeze, respectively. Then Kincaid curses parry and dodge with Darting Steel, Tamilin further curses dodge and also resistance, and then Kyera and Vincent come in and clean up with Smiting Blow and Lightning Spear. Kyera has a ton of HPs so I stick her in the way of archers when necessary and Kincaid's got Sure Parry 4 now so he weathers the melee.
Now, however, the difficulty spikes. The storerooms are usually a brutal awakening to any weaknesses your team has. I added quite a bit of defense with this last level up. Kincaid crafted a new knife which added 1 Acc, 1 Parry, and 3 Dodge plus he raised his DEX and blades. Kyera raised Warders Shield to 6, which added another point of dodge and parry to everyone. She also raised her hammers to 13 for more melee defense and her DEX to 4 to get the extra point of Dodge (75% of DEX-so dodge went from 2 to 3). Tamilin spent her last two points on Black Night which added a MP and two dodge along with the extra stealth. She also raised her CON to 10 for an extra point in toughness. It all adds up. Hopefully that will all pay dividends because it's a long way to Brunehorn and the next major gear upgrade.
Lastly, the SP issue I feared at the beginning is starting to rear its head. I just can't get enough drain gear on these guys right now to make much of a difference. Kincaid is the worst of the bunch right now. Hopefully his blade upgrade will help alleviate that somewhat. His base damage on his last blade was only 13-25. This blade takes it to 19-38 and adds a 5% SP drain. With the added fire damage and the lightning gear coupled with Vincent's Thundering Blades 3, I'm thinking I should be able to start hitting again with his blade. When the fights aren't too intense, I can take my time whittling away with that thing, adding 2-3 pts of SP per crack. With a nut of 30SP for his buffs however, and 10SP per crack with his Darting Steel, that's a LOT of whittling to try and make it last. I've got some SP gear I can put on him to raise his tank size but.....safety first. I'll have to see how he's performing defensively before taking that risk. Okay, next major update will be heading into the Underforge. I'm sure I'll add a few comments when I craft but....this section is going to take a while.
Crafting:
Just killed the Baron and I'm still in Red Hill. I've been looking through the crafting to see what, if anything, I should upgrade before going into the storerooms and then making my way to Brunehorn. The only thing that seems really worthwhile to do now vs waiting is Kincaid's 1AP blade. The Scything Blade-1AP, 4 Acc, 1 Parry, 19-36 tuned with Banded Bracers (+1 Parry, +4 Armor) turned into: Scything Blade-1AP, 5 Acc, 1 Parry, 19-38; +12 Fire damage, +5% Crit, +3 Parry, +3 Dodge, +5% SP Drain. I was running with Lukai's Blade and this significantly upgrades the damage from 13-25 to 19-38. Plus more Acc, Parry, and Dodge. Toss in a whopping 5% crit and some fire damage and this is just a monster upgrade for this point in the game. Plus, as I said, you have to get almost completely through Ep2 before you find anything even close to being better than this. Definitely worth the Bloodstones here.
Made it to Brunehorn and want to craft Kyera that sweet +MP Infantry Hammer. The only problem is I basically need a +MP piece of gear to get it (without luck) and I haven't seen any yet. Also, since I'm following the max XP thread, I am going to have to clear like 16 boards before I get to the throwing knives at the Ember forward camp. So while my current knives from Oskahold are still doing well, at some point along the way the accuracy is NOT going to be good enough. Which means, I might as well craft something now. I wanted to do the Long Spines but....again, the only way to get what I wanted was a small crit dmg% piece of gear. Don't have that yet either. Turns out it was a half blessing in disguise. I just looted a set of Segmented Knives on the Sea Road. Those have an option that is better for Kincaid. Not so much Tamilin because she needs stealth but...I only have one anyway so here it is: Segmented Knives-1AP, 8 Acc, 3 Parry, 21-44 at 3 range; tuned with Stormwrought Torc (amulet) +8 Lightning Damage, +3% SP Drain turned into: Segmented Knives-1AP, 8 Acc, 3 Parry, 25-46 at 3 range; +1MP, +16 Lightning Damage, +7% Crit, +16% Crit Damage. I hated to use up a +lightning piece of gear but, this is a monster damage upgrade for Kincaid. He was already doing 30s and 40s regularly with his knives from Oskahold. This upgrades 8 ice to 16 lit, crit from 3 to 7%, keeps the MP and takes the top end of the range from 31 to 46. Huge upgrade. He was already critting for over 100. This will probably push some close to 200. A little sad about there being no drain but....he's still wearing some drain gear so hopefully the higher damage will keep him getting good chunks back.
Also crafting Kyera the Defender's Shield, 7 Parry. Again, she doesn't necessarily need it now, but she will. Basically doing the same model as the Spiked Shield I had. Just upgrades all the stats (except the 6 damage). Defender's Shield, 7 Parry tuned with Blurred Arm Guards (+2 Dodge) turned into: Defender's Shield, 8 Parry; AB 5%, +320 HP, +2% Crit, +5 Dodge.
Granthorn: Another of my favorite crafts in the game here. Kyera gets a big armor upgrade. Heavy Leathers (Light) 52 Armor, -1 Stealth tuned with Earthen Walk Boots (+2 Armor, +4 All-Resists) turned into: Heavy Leathers (Light) 52 Armor, -1 Stealth; +1MP, +14 Lightning Damage, +12 All-Elemental Resists. The armor goes up by 24 pts, I keep the MP, and she adds 14 lightning on top of Vincent's Thundering Blades and 12 resists on top of Piety Ward. Really, really good.
Kincaid gets an armor upgrade here as well. Enemy archers are getting stronger and stronger so the damage is getting pretty significant. This will go a long way to helping that. Lamellar Armor (Light) 56 Armor, -1 Stealth tuned with the Silvered Bracers (+3 All-Resists) turned into: Lamellar Armor (Light) 56 Armor, -1 Stealth; +4 Parry, +6 Dodge, +10 All-Resists. As much as I'd love to give him the same heavy leathers with the Lightning damage and MP, I need someone to be able to take some enemy fire and this should allow him to do that. Vincent, on the other hand, can get the same Heavy Leathers that Kyera got. So, I'm doing that one again. Tuned this one with the Wisewalk Boots (+2 Magical Dmg (Fire, Ice, Lit, Earth, Holy), +2 Fire-Resist). Running low on resists gear so I gambled a little using this tuner. I was pretty confident I was going to get the one I wanted but, there are only two options documented by the Heavy Leathers right now; mine and the one in the Episode thread. Because I'm not sure what the stats on the third option are there was a possibility all these different damage types could have triggered that one. Really wish I could find some +MP gear......
Ember Lake Forward Camp (Braeys): Finally! After traipsing around all over the eastern underdeep I finally get to craft again. I've been saving my bloodstones so I could upgrade pretty much everything here but it's been a grind using underpowered gear. I'm still using the Bladesman Knives I crafted in Oskahold for Tamilin. I still manage to hit more than half the time but it's been slow going. Anyway, first things first. Upgrade those knives.
Stalkers Knives 1AP, 9 Acc, 4 Parry, 23-54 at 3 range; tuned with Nightfall Shroud (Cloak) (+2 Ranged Acc, +2 Stealth) turned into: Stalker's Knives 1 AP, 9 Acc, 4 Parry, 25-62 at 3 range; +1MP, +16 Ice Damage, 4% Crit, +4 Stealth. Kept my MP, raised accuracy 6 points from my last set, added a point of crit and point of stealth, and doubled my ice damage to 16. Lost the dodge and drain but....can't have everything. As always with Tam, stealth is top priority and this is the only result with stealth so....this is what she gets.
Now the bow....stealth first, again. I've got three options here. I can go with the 2AP Stalkers Bow with 12 Acc, 27-82, 9% crit, 7 Stealth, and 16 Fire. Or maybe go with the 3AP Argronwood with 15 Acc, 51-126 at 7 range, no crit, 20 fire and 6 stealth. Lots more damage. Pretty much a guaranteed hit with 15 Acc. And a very attractive extra square of range. Or, option number three, and the one I'm going with, the 2AP Keen Horned Bow, 9 Acc, 33-102 at 6 range tuned with the Dawn Band (ring) (+2 dmg, +2% crit) turned into: 2AP Keen Horned Bow, 10 Acc, 33-104 at 7 range, +20 Lightning Damage, +6% Crit, +70% Crit Damage, +8 Stealth. The best of both worlds. Got 8 stealth. Huge! 7 range. Huge! 6% Crit. Very nice! And 20 Lightning to go with gear and Thundering Blades. Monster bow, especially at only 2AP. Accuracy is a little lower than I'd wish but....I've been hitting consistently with my 6 Accuracy bow so this should be just fine.
Kyera finally gets a hammer. She also has been carrying her weapon since Oskahold. I don't have her taking a lot of swings, mostly defense and cursing, but now she'll actually be able to do some damage. Plainsman Star 1-handed, 2AP, 5 Acc, 5 Parry, 56-87 tuned with: Guard of the Black Bear (Bracers) (+28 HP) turned into: Plainsman Star, 1-handed, 2AP, 6 Acc, 5 Parry, 56-93; +1MP, +120 HP, +20 Holy Damage, 5% Crit, +20% Crit Damage, +3 Parry. Such a great upgrade for her. MP, Acc, Parry, Holy Crit. Everything is good here. It's been a long time coming but it was worth the wait.
Kincaid is starting to hit for zeroes pretty regularly with his blade so he needs to up his damage range. So he gets a 1AP Tulwar, 5 Acc, 5 Parry, 31-45 tuned with Stormwrought Torc (Amulet) (+8 Lightning Damage, 3% SP Drain) turned into: 1AP Tulwar, 6 Acc, 6 Parry, 31-48; +18 Lightning Damage, +6% SP Drain. I lose the 5% crit I had but, realistically, that was the only time he was really hitting anyway so....since I mostly use his blade for SP recharge to fuel his throwing knives, this should at least give me some more consistency. The 18 lightning on top of Thundering Blades should get him doing decent damage again. I still need to craft Tam some armor but....haven't been able to find one I like so I'm still holding off. I'll probably end up waiting for the Cinched Plate stealth armor in Ep3. There's a legitimate chance I'll loot something I can wear before then but.....she's okay for now. Just gotta make sure she doesn't get hit. Next update, the Underforge.
Orcin Caverns cleared; into the Underforge Team points: 334,442,725
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 24/53,839 600 282 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 2, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1 DEX 11, CON 12, INT 5 TW 12, Blades 11, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 24/53,415 528 352 Lightning Spear 6, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 5, Elem Sund 1, EotS 1 CON 12, KNO 10 Sorc 16, Conj 6, Lore 5, Blades 4
Kyera: 24/53,381 954 388 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, SAVED 4 STR 10, CON 10, DEX 4 Hammers 16, Conj 7, Invo 4
Tamilin: 24/53,418 528 301 Torrent of Steel 8, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 2, Ranged Onslaught 1 DEX 10, CON 12, INT 5 TW 14, Bows 10
Progress Report:
After a long grind, I've managed to make it back to Brunehorn. The team is again performing well after finally upgrading some equipment in the Ember Lake Forward Camp. Up until that point it was slow going. I was still doing decent damage once I was able to curse things with Darting Steel and Torrent of Steel but I wasn't hitting very consistently so, as I said, it was a grind. As far as the team goes, I can't quite figure out what to do with Vincent. I'm going to take Lightning Spear to 10 next but I'm not sure where to go next. Energy Storm is the obvious choice since it also runs on his sorcery stat but giving him a little more power in melee appeals to me as well. Still trying to figure it out. Kyera has been saving points this whole time. I'm pretty sure I want to run her Ethereal Anguish all the way up but it is just sooo SP intensive I'm having a hard time justifying it. In the meantime, there's no point in putting the points in the talent now. Other than the -AP, the other stats don't really help much. Especially since both DS and ToS already curse dodge a ton. I may end up continuing to save the points and then put them all into Retribution or Banishment. Having those talents available for the CoD is very enticing. We'll see. Tam is probably going to get another Silent Stalker then take Ranged Onslaught to 4. Need to work on her bow stat but her knives are still her most important weapon. I'm getting a little nervous about her stealth but I just crafted 12 stealth points for her on her current weapons so I think I should still be okay for a while. It's at 29 on level 23 so that should be enough but, all it takes is once. Fingers crossed. Kincaid's next point is going into Cunning Footwork and then I have to decide on Sure Parry 7, Live by the Blade 4, or continuing Cunning Footwork to 6. Probably going to go with one of the last two since with three -AP cursers it's rare he gets more than 2 swings at him in a turn. I'm also going to pay attention to hit rate as I may need to add a Flanking Unity point or two as we go for accuracy. The next update will be fairly quick (after clearing the Underforge) so there won't be too much happening anyway. Hello, Vurnak. Ready to meet your sister?
Underforge complete (1 death): Team points: 520,958,125 Bloodstones: 21 Crafts: 18 So 57 total Bloodstones found so far. Remember, I'm following the max XP (Braeys) thread found in the Tips & Tech forum. pg 3 or 4
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 27/77,537 639 306 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 4, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1 DEX 12, CON 12, INT 5 TW 13, Blades 12, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 27/77,285 591 466 Lightning Spear 8, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 5, Elem Sund 1, EotS 1 CON 12, KNO 11 Sorc 16, Conj 6, Lore 5, Blades 4, Polearms 2
Kyera: 27/78,483 1007 412 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, SAVED 6 STR 11, CON 10, DEX 4 Hammers 16, Conj 7, Invocation 6
Tamilin: 27/77,373 567 322 Torrent of Steel 8, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 1, Deadly Int 1 DEX 11, CON 12, INT 5 TW 15, Bows 11
Progress Report:
Welp, I got sloppy and died once fighting Vurnak. It was late, I was tired, and I didn't reveal some fog where I should have so I got gunned down from the darkness. Stupid mistake. That's how it happens. I had no trouble clearing the area on my next turn but....that's nightmare for you. Oh well, on to the rest of the game. Team is still doing fine. They are, as I said from the beginning, not the sturdiest bunch, but they can do enough damage quickly enough that it really hasn't been an issue. But you have to pay attention. One slip......and that's the result. So, with the ironman out of the way, I'm now going to build for speed. Lots of mobility and lots of damage. 1 death, 10 deaths, it's all the same to me. I'm going to keep building Kincaids Cunning Footwork. Accuracy, crit%, Parry, Dodge....hard to go wrong there. Vincent is going to take Lightning Spear to 10 and then I'm not sure. Probably Energy Storm but....with death no longer a factor, I might see about turning him into a melee character and see what happens. Tamilin is going to take Deadly Intuition to 3 to start with and then I'm going to run her bows up. Maybe 1 or 2 more in Silent Stalker and then Ranged Onslaught. Kyera is sitting on 6 saved points right now. I'm probably just going to dump them all in Banishment. Craft myself the SP shield and some other gear and turn her into a ranged bomber. I might respecc her and move a few Conj points into Invocation so she can hit more people at once. We'll see. I really don't plan on using the skill much until the CoD so, by then, I should be able to take Invo to 10 through regular leveling. Anyway, onward. It's the first time since the first game I played 5 years ago that I'm going to keep going after dying. We'll see how it goes.
Crafting:
I've got a ton of bloodstones (23 right now) so since I don't see any results for the (Dex) 2AP Cutlass, 7 Acc, 3 Parry, 35-54 I'm going to tune it with the Flashing Ring (+1MP, +2% SP drain) I bought from the Bone Pass hermit, to see if there's a +MP option out there. There is: (Dex) 2AP Cutlass, 6 Acc, 3 Parry, 43-64; +1MP, +14 Ice Dmg, +2% Crit, +20% Crit Dmg, +6 Dodge. Not the greatest, not the worst. The MP is nice. As is the jump in base damage range, 35-54 up to 43-64. The ice is probably just enough to count if you've got some more ice stacked somewhere. And the 6 dodge is very good. However, the loss of 1 Acc and only 3 Parry make this, as I said, not great. But not bad. Overall, there are probably better ones out there. Going to try it again with lightning for the heck of it. Tuned with: Left Fist of the Thunder (Bracers) (+14 Lightning Dmg) turned into: (Dex) 2 AP Cutlass, 7 Acc, 3 Parry, 35-54; +14 Lightning Dmg, +30% Crit Dmg, +2 Parry, +2 Dodge. Okay, again not the greatest. The accuracy stayed at 7 this time so that's good. Added 2 Parry and 2 Dodge, also good. And the lightning dmg will stack a lot better with Vincent teams. But the damage range didn't move from the original and no +MP on this one. Again, probably better options out there. I'm sure there's a fire option but....not going to waste any more bloodstones looking for it.
It's finally time. Pretty sure better armor wouldn't have saved Tam earlier, but now that I'm not so focused on Stealth I'm going to upgrade her armor. Reis Lodge has the Banded Leather Garb, 34 Armor, 5 Evasion, 3 Stealth. Tuned with Hardbone Chain (Amulet) (+8 All-Resists) I get the Banded Leather Garb, 34 Armor, 5 Evasion, 3 Stealth; +1MP, +12 Ice Damage, +12 All Elemental Resists. Basically adding 18 armor, a MP, and turning 8 lit dmg to 12 Ice dmg, plus the resists, compared to my last armor. I add 1 more evasion but lose 1 stealth. A definite upgrade. My bow now does 22 Ice and 46 Lightning dmg while my throwing knives do 38 Ice and 26 Lightning. Should definitely be some nice crits coming as I head to Gholla.
Kincaid isn't hitting as well as I'd like and he's also burning through his SP too fast with his Darting Steel so I'm going to craft a couple 2AP weapons to up his Accuracy and damage. This will slow the SP going out and hopefully raise it coming in. First, his throwing knives. I only see one result for 2AP Assassin's Spikes, 10 Acc, 4 Parry, 34-103 at 4 range so I'm going to shoot for a different one. Tuning with Alken's Way Boots (+1MP, +4% crit dmg, +4% drain). None of these stats are on the current known result so....here goes. Nice!!! 2AP Assassin's Spikes, 11 Acc, 4 Parry, 34-105 at 4 range; +1MP, +6 Holy dmg, +20 Lightning dmg, +16% crit dmg. How great is that!?! I'm running Vincent's Thundering Blades so 20 lightning is stellar. Holy damage always comes in handy. A Movement Point & extra crit dmg. All at 4 range instead of 3. The only thing really missing is the drain but the bumps in these other stats may allow me to trade out some gear to put the drain there. Plus, as I said, since it's 2AP, I won't be using nearly as much attacking. Critting with these should bring back a pretty big return regardless.
And a 2AP Dex blade for him. Doing the Dex 2AP Long Sabre, 7 Acc, 5 Parry, 51-95 tuned with the Necklace of Cortias (3 Parry, 12 armor). I'm tempted to go for one of the two crafts not known yet but....the lightning and crit are so good on this one, I can't pass it up. Turned into: Dex 2AP Long Sabre, 7 Acc, 6 Parry, 55-99; +20 Lightning dmg, 5% crit, +20% crit dmg, +2 Parry, +4 Dodge. Outstanding! Again, no drain but it's got everything else. Big jump in base damage to overcome soak, lightning again, the 5% crit means he'll be hitting at almost 20% crit now so the extra crit dmg will come into play, and you always need parry and dodge. Kincaid is a new man going forward. On to the druidess and Granthorn....
Episode 2 Complete + Granthorn: Team points: 734,624,025 Bloodstones: 15 Crafts: 23 So, 61 Bloodstones found so far through Ep2.
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 31/119,617 691 338 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 6, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1, Flashing Blades 1 DEX 14, CON 12, INT 5 TW 13, Blades 16, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 31/119,493 645 660 Lightning Spear 10, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 6, Elem Sund 1, Eye of the Storm 1 DEX 5, CON 12, KNO 12 Sorc 18, Conj 6, Lore 6, Blades 4, Polearms 4
Kyera: 31/119,582 1,012 404 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, Banishment 9 STR 12, CON 11, DEX 4 Hammers 17, Conj 7, Invocation 9
Tamilin: 31/120,100 619 322 Torrent of Steel 9, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 2, Deadly Intuition 1 DEX 13, CON 12, INT 5 TW 16, Bows 14
Progress Report:
After a long grind through lots of respawns and finishing of half-finished maps, I'm finally through to Episode 3. My team was performing extremely well with the crafting I did above and I was mowing through Volpa etc. like butter. But then came another difficulty spike. After the whole Wyatt thing, I had to go back and finish "finding things" and then reclear the Bone Pass when, all of a sudden, I wasn't hitting very well anymore and shots that were doing 40, 50, even 60 or more points of damage were barely registering or coming up zeroes. Very disheartening. So, time to retool again. Kincaid got a new ring to help Acc, Parry, and Dodge. Vincent, with his 10 Lightning Spear is still hitting okay so he just kept what he was wearing. Kyera also got a new Acc, Dodge, Parry ring. And Tamilin upgraded her Dodge, Stealth, Security Cloak, plus I switched some other gear for more accuracy as well. I'm headed to the Storm Bastion with some serious Orcin fights in my future so I'm going to test how these adjustments fare and then I'm definitely going to need to do some crafting. My next formal update is entering the CoD but I'm sure I'll be updating as I craft.
Crafting:
I actually only did a couple crafts in this section. The adjustments I made in my last update turned out to work very well. Everyone is now hitting consistently again, if not with as much damage as I'd like. To that end, I upgraded a couple items for Tamilin. First, I finally pulled the trigger on her armor. I took the Banded Sheathe, 48 Armor, 6 Evasion, 5 Parry and tuned it with a piece of Lightning dmg gear. In past playthroughs, I've tried many different tuners trying to find a second result but it always comes up the same. This time was no different. I now have all the different stats I've tried listed in the crafting guide. Not many left to try. There must only be the one result. Anyway, I got the Banded Sheathe, 48 Armor, 7 Evasion, 5 Parry; +1 MP, 100 HP, +4% SP drain. Tamilin is no longer doing big damage numbers so I needed to get some more drain gear on her to help her keep pace with the others. This has done the trick. My whole group is now pretty self-sufficient on drain. The extra Evasion, Parry, and HP's don't hurt either. And I kept the MP I had with the last set I was wearing. I also crafted a second set of the 1 AP Stalkers Knives, 9 Acc, 4 Parry, 23-56 at 3 range. Just used a +6 Ice dmg tuner as I wanted the one with lightning dmg and it has 8 ice damage as well. So it turned into the 1AP Stalkers Knives, 9 Acc, 5 Parry, 23-56 at 3 range; +8 Ice dmg, +16 Lightning dmg, +7% crit, +4% SP drain. As I mentioned, Tamilin isn't hitting for as much damage as she has been, mainly because I've got 2 pieces of Accuracy gear on her and no damage buffs. Her -AP curse is still her most important asset so I can't really afford to be missing when I use her. Thus, extra accuracy but less damage.
Storm Bastion done. Into the City of the Dead: Team points: 1,012,889,325 Bloodstones: 14 Crafts:25 So, 68 bloodstones found so far.
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 34/159,410 754 362 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 7, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1, Flashing Blades 1 DEX 15, CON 13, INT 5 TW 14, Blades 17, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 34/159,712 678 684 Lightning Spear 10, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 7, Elem Sundering 1, Eye of the Storm 1 DEX 5, CON 12, KNO 14 Sorc 18, Conj 6, Lore 6, Blades 4, Polearms 6
Kyera: 34/159,973 1,066 428 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, Banishment 10 STR 12, CON 12, DEX 4, KNO 7 Hammers 18, Conjuring 7, Invocation 10
Tamilin: 34/159,522 758 343 Torrent of Steel 9, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 4, Deadly Intuition 1 DEX 15, CON 12, INT 5 TW 17, Bows 15
Progress Report:
Welp, here I go again. Into the City of the Dead. This team is definitely the least defensive team I've entered with. But they do lots of damage so battles don't last as long. They're also very nimble with Kyera having +2MP, Kincaid +3, Tam +4, and Vincent +5. With three of them able to AP curse, those extra MP's get a lot of use. It will be interesting to see how their current gear makeup does in the CoD. Like I said, I really don't have a ton of +damage gear on anyone but Kincaid. He's wearing a couple rainbow pieces of gear that currently adds +11 combined to each of the 5 damages. Depending upon how things go early on, I may make a run back to Granthorn to pick up the +12 rainbow gear. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any drain on it though, so even though it does extremely good damage, it's not worth it if I have to constantly down potions or run back to waypoints. It will also be nice to start working on some other talents for a couple of my people. Kyera finally took Banishment to 10 so now I can start adding other things. Tamilin just got Ranged Onslaught to 4, which is where I plan on stopping it for a while so now she can put at least a couple more points in Deadly Intuition. Vincent and Kincaid still have another 3 to go on Thundering Blades and Cunning Footwork, respectively. But they're getting there. I'm also probably going to craft Tam one of the Argronwood Bows for bigger damage numbers. I'll lose an MP though so still debating on when to actually do that. Anyway, more to come as I progress....
City of the Dead: Standing outside the Great Gate Team points: 1,524,380,625 Bloodstones: 31 Crafts: 25 81 Bloodstones found so far.
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 40/246,798 856 410 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 10, Flanking Unity 2, Live by the Blade 1, Flashing Blades 1 DEX 17, CON 14, INT 5 TW 17, Blades 19, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 40/247,122 744 612 Lightning Spear 10, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 10, Elem Sundering 1, Eye of the Storm 2 DEX 6, CON 12, KNO 16 Sorc 19, Conj 6, Lore 6, Blades 4, Polearms 10
Kyera: 40/247,232 1,132 476 Smiting Blow 4, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 5, Purifying Breeze 1, Banishment 10, Myshana's Tears 2 STR 15, CON 12, DEX 4, KNO 7 Hammers 18, Conjuring 7, Invocation 15
Tamilin: 40/246,854 854 385 Torrent of Steel 9, Black Night 4, Farsight 3, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 4, Deadly Intuition 4 DEX 17, CON 13, INT 5 TW 18, Bows 17, Lore 4
Progress Report:
So, I'm standing at the Great Gate with only the final stretch of the CoD left. This is the furthest I've ever been on Nightmare. Like all the other "sections" so far, the City of the Dead can be a grind. It's huge with map after map to clear as you work your way to the end. My team is still managing to move forward with only the one death. The further I get, the more annoying that becomes but....oh well. I've finally finished running up some Talents so I'm now starting to work on a third major talent for each player. Overall, my team continues to perform very well. My only complaint is their accuracy just isn't as high as it needs to be so instead of wearing a bunch of +damage and +drain gear I have to wear things with +Accuracy. This means that although they are all doing solid damage, I haven't been able to take it to super high numbers. Vincent crits for around 400 occasionally, as does Kincaid with his TKs. Tamilin, unfortunately, has to be almost exclusively used for cursing. I get in some good Silent Stalker and Ranged Onslaught attacks when I'm dealing with those obelisks but...she doesn't hit often enough with enough damage to use it a lot. I'm hoping to change that with some more crafting. In the meantime, a quick rundown of performance and plan.
Kincaid finished running up Cunning Footwork and threw his last point in Flanking Unity. I'm probably going to run that up in conjunction with Flashing Blades. Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. His damage is very solid and he's critting on a regular basis. Just gotta keep up with the monsters.
Vincent has really turned into the star of the team. With his visit to Platinum Peak he's now doing some amazing damage both with his Lightning Spear and in melee. I've been running up his Polearms and he's finally starting to hit things that haven't been cursed by both Tam and Kincaid. That was literally the only way his melee would ever connect; Darting Steel then Torrent of Steel then swing. Even then it would only hit once, maybe twice out of three whacks. I will say it's fun regaining 100 SP in three hits now though. It allows me to really use Lightning Spear throughout the battle, rather than just as a luxury or necessity. As of now, the plan is to run up Eye of the Storm for a while. Accuracy and crit. What more do you need? I'm also going to raise his DEX some for the same reason.
Kyera is still performing her functions well. I added a point to Myshana's Tears so she could heal at 76 pts a crack rather than 35. It was taking too long to heal people after battles. That helped. Since every mob seems to have some sort of magic damage attached I decided to add a couple points to Piety Shield. The plan at this point is to just add Smiting Blow, Warders Shield, and Piety Ward in whatever order the mood strikes me. This team can't stand toe-to-toe with anyone so while Piety and Warders are definitely nice, if I have to rely on them I'm probably dead anyway. So, I'm just going to throw points at those Talents haphazardly and we'll see where I end up. She still uses her Ethereal Anguish on a regular basis and can take about 1000 hps out of mobs with her Banishment. Plus, she can take a hit or two with her 1100 HP when I need to let someone take a whack at me.
Tamilin, as I said, is almost straight cursing right now. She really needs an equipment overhaul in the worst way. If you'll notice, I have not crafted a single thing since I started the CoD. I've gone up six levels and found well over a dozen Bloodstones but there hasn't been anything to upgrade to. I finally looted a War Bow in my last map but....I don't see it in the crafting lists anywhere so I'm going to have to discover the options on my own. I have very fond memories of her doing outrageous damage with some of my other teams but the accuracy limitations here have forced me to gear her in +accuracy stuff so...I can't get the drain, crit, damage I want. Like I said, I'm hoping that crafting will help.
In the meantime, I'm off to see what the final tower holds for me. I have a fuzzy recollection of doing it about 4 years ago on hard difficulty. Only time I've been there. We'll see. Not sure when the next update will be since I'm in uncharted territory here. I'm sure a story point will present itself as I go....
Crafting:
Crafted Kyera a new set of armor. Her current set with the +14 Lightning dmg and 14 resists isn't really helping all that much since she doesn't swing a ton so....crafted the Fremat Lamellar Overcoat (light) 74 Armor, 1 Evasion, -2 Stealth, tuned with a small HP tuner (can't remember which) turned into: Fremat Lamellar Overcoat (Light) 72 Armor, no Evasion, -2 Stealth; +1 MP, +140 HP, +5% SP drain. Like I said, the extra armor, MP, HP, and drain should more than make up for the loss of the 14 lightning damage and resists. If not, I'll switch back but I'm pretty sure that won't be the case. And the MP could prove vital in the upcoming boss fight at the end of the CoD. I also tried finding the 3rd option on the Leather & Pauldrons 74 Armor but came up empty. I tried for +MP on that one too but got a random known result so....no MP on the missing 3rd option. I did the 2AP War Bow 34-112 at 6 range, 10 Acc, as well. Got a decent result: 2AP War Bow 34-113 at 6 range, 10 Acc; +1 MP, +80 SP, +20 Lightning dmg, +6% crit, +4% SP drain but my current bow has close to the same damage and a 7 range with 8 stealth. Can't afford to take it out of action for one with no stealth. Might switch it out during battle though....we'll see.
There are two main problems I see going into this run.
1) I'm not going to be able to do a ton of buffing on my characters. This obviously means that they are not going to be able to get involved in many toe-to-toe melee fights. I'm going to run up Kincaid's Sure Parry so I can hopefully buy myself at least a turn or two to do the cursing I need to do and then get myself into a defensible position. So, that means I will definitely need to focus on MP talents as well. Again, three of these characters can do that. Kincaid with Live by the Blade, Vincent with Charged Speed, and Tamilin with Black Night. Kyera is going to have to get some gear but there's a really good mace fairly early and I can craft an armor so I think she'll be okay. And....
2) If I want to stay alive, I'm going to end up using a lot of SP. I mean a LOT. Kyera's Ethereal Anguish is an SP hog. Vincent's Flash Freeze and Charged Speed are both guzzlers. Live by the Blade isn't cheap and Darting Steel adds up in a hurry for Kincaid. And Tamilin can consume a bunch with her Black Night and Torrent of Steel and even more with her bow skills. Lots and lots of blue stuff is going to be going down the hatch. At this point, I'm choosing to worry about this aspect as I go. I'm hoping that once I get to level 18 I can start Elemental Sundering for Vincent and take care of the problem but.....in the early going it's going to be a grind.
So, with those things in mind, here is my early plan...
Kincaid: Sure Parry 7, Live by the Blade 4, Darting Steel 9, Cunning Footwork 3. I need the guaranteed parry and the mobility. Darting Steel is for the dodge curse, the accuracy, and the AoE attack. Cunning Footwork will add some defense, some accuracy, and some crit%. Hopefully the crit% helps with the SP. I may have to adjust on the fly by adding more CF in relation to DS. Kinda depends on how much damage I'm getting from other characters.
Vincent: He'll need a couple early Flash Freeze for the AP curse. Then Charged Speed and Lightning Spear get run probably side by side. I may throw in a Thundering Blades or three. Haven't decided yet. But I definitely want to get Elementary Sundering in the mix once it opens up.
Kyera: My plan for her is to just make her as tanky as possible with gear. I want Ethereal Anguish 6 at some point but since she's the only person who can provide any real team benefit, I need to run her Piety Ward up to 10 most likely. I'll also take Warder's Shield to at least 6. And probably 1 Purifying Breeze for curse heals. She's going to need to get a lot of good gear so she can be my off-tank. Although, let's be honest, none of these characters are going to be what I would call a tank.
Tamilin: As always, stealth will be her number one focus. With this team I pretty much have to win the stealth rolls. Tamilin will have some really good dodge built up but....wrong roll, wrong time = dead. Also, since I'm heavily ranged, I need to be able to see what's out there. That means she's going to need at least FarSight 3. I've got to run Torrent of Steel up early or I might not be able to hit anyone. Probably at least 5. Blacknight needs a quick 4 for the movement and the ever-critical stealth. Then I'd really like to get Silent Stalker to 3 and Ranged Onslaught to 4. I also plan to bring Deadly Intuition to at least 3 but that doesn't matter until I start using bows. I may end up respeccing her at some point. Possibly run ToS up to 8 and when I hit like level 35ish respec into bows and DI. We'll see. Only about 150hrs of gameplay for me between now and then... :-)
Progress report:
Oskahold: Team points: 5,795,625
Level/XP HP SP Stats: If the Talent, Skill, or Attribute is not mentioned, it is still where it started
Kincaid: 6/864 186 147 Sure Parry 1, Darting Steel 5 DEX 8, CON 6, INT 5 Thrown Weapons 7
Vincent: 6/820 220 198 Flash Freeze 2, Lightning Spear 2, Charged Speed 1 CON 7 Sorc 6, Conj 4, Lore 3
Kyera: 6/822 235 222 Warders Shield 2, Piety Ward 1, Purifying Breeze 1 CON 7, STR 5 Hammers 6, Conj 4
Tamilin: 6/864 186 147 Torrent of Steel 3, Black Night 1 DEX 7, CON 6, INT 5 Thrown Weapons 6
Oskahold
Well, I made it through the first section. Not without a mishap though. I started the escape from Red Hill, got into the caves, and Tamilin kept losing stealth rolls. She ended up getting killed by the first set of spiders so I had to start over. Early lesson learned though. Stealth is paramount. So on the restart I led with Kincaid until I could get Tam a Black Night. That's taken care of the problem so far but it was a good reminder that you just can't take stealth lightly if you don't want to die. Since then I managed to find a stealth armor with +3 stealth and an Evasion pt so now I feel a little better about things. Oskahold is the first place you can find some good equipment upgrades and will eventually be a place you can start crafting. You need to clear one of the Reeve's objectives before the blacksmith will upgrade his equipment so I've got a little more fighting to do before I can really start boosting my gear but....its coming.
Some early observations: I was definitely correct in my initial concern about this group not being very hardy. Kincaid took a couple shots from shamans in the 60's. The Sure Parry is great for melee but ranged still packs a wallop on him. Definitely need to build his CON and find plenty of Dodge gear for him. Now that Darting Steel is at the AoE level I'll be leveling other talents. Kinda feeling my way forward with this group. Accuracy has been good. Damage is okay. Mostly defense called for right now....
I've been pleasantly surprised by my SP usage so far. While the group definitely uses it up, I've only had one fight where I had to use a potion for one guy. Obviously as talents go up, so will the SP usage but....I thought it would be worse than it's been so far. I'm also liking the 3 AP curse options I have. It's been very handy and I have only had one guy take more than one swing at me in a turn. With the damage this team is starting to do, hopefully that will continue.
Time to find the mastermind behind the Oskahold siege.
I'm going to throw in a list of my crafted items as well in case anyone cares.
Crafting:
Picked up two bloodstones in the North Vault (Fort). First craft for me has to be the Bladesman Knives after the Oskahold Blacksmith upgrades his selection.
Bladesman Knives, 1AP, 3 Acc, 2 Parry, 11-19 crafted with the Ironclad Boots (2 Stealth, 2 Security) turned into: Bladesman Knives, 1AP, 3 Acc, 2 Parry, 19-31 at 3 range; +1MP, +8 Ice dmg, +3% crit, +3 Dodge, +3 Stealth, +4% SP drain. Doesn't get much better than that. Movement, more ice (I've got a +6 ice ring), crit, dodge, stealth, drain. Literally a smorgasbord of upgrades. Maybe the most noticeable and satisfying craft in the game. So good!!!
Crafted another set of the Bladesman Knives with the Travelers Boots (+1 Crit%, +1 Dodge). Since both Tam and Kincaid are using them it was an easy choice. I've got one bloodstone left. Gotta clear the west road and then into the pit...
Picked up 3 more bloodstones in the west so I'm crafting 2 Leather Jerkins, 22 Arm. Used the Charm of the Wise Amulet (+20SP, +4% SP drain) to get the movement one: Leather Jerkins, 22 Arm; +1MP, +60HP, +3% SP drain and used the Blurred Arm Guards Bracers (+2 Dodge) to get the Leather Jerkins, 22 Arm; +30HP, +2 Parry, +2 Dodge, +8 Resistance. Kyera gets the MP set. I can't tell you have much more she can do with just 1 extra MP. Kincaid will get the other set since he's on the front lines. All of those stats will benefit him tremendously going into the Ratkins warrens. I also just realized Vincent can wear light armor. He'll probably get the hand-me-downs from one of these two when I upgrade them. I'm sure I'll pick up a couple quick bloodstones in the warrens so the debate is whether I'll craft a new hammer for Kyera, bite the bullet and just craft a third Jerkin for Vincent, or just save them for Red Hill. Kinda depends on how they do....into the pit.
Great Shaman=dead Team points: 57,869,225
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 13/ 8480 471 214 Sure Parry 2, Darting Steel 5, Cunning Footwork 1 DEX 9, CON 8, INT 5 TW 8, Blades 7, Lead 3
Vincent: 13/ 8430 357 302 Lightning Spear 5, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2 CON 9, KNO 8 Sorc 10, Conj 5
Kyera: 13/ 8891 413 372 Warders Shield 4, Piety Ward 2, Purifying Breeze 1, Smiting Blow 2 STR 7, CON 8 Ham 9, Conj 5, Lore 3
Tamilin: 13/ 8616 313 216 Torrent of Steel 5, Black Night 2, Farsight 2 DEX 8, CON 8, INT 5 TW 9, Bows 5
Great Shaman=dead (Oskahold)
That wasn't too painful. I cleared the Oskahold surroundings with very little threatening me. The jump into the pit looked scary but ended up going very well. I got 2 deathkin in the "deathkin" fight and had no issues. The 3 separate AP cursers work very well together. :-) The Shaman never had a chance. Overall, the team still seems on track with my initial goals with a couple minor exceptions. First of all, Kyera hasn't been hitting very well at all so I chose to give her another point in Smiting Blow. I also decided to throw a point in Flanking Unity for Kincaid to help with accuracy as well. I want Darting Steel at 9 or 10, but if I keep raising it now I'll be guzzling SP potions every time out. He's doing plenty of damage so far and connecting about 80-90% of the time so he's good at 5 for now. Smiting Blow 3 takes accuracy from 3 to 5 so I'm going to give her 1 more level at some point. She just got a new hammer so we'll see how's she's doing against the Krete and RedHill.
I'm pretty sure I'm also going to add 1-3 pts in Thundering Blades for Vincent. Again, that boosts everyone's accuracy and, with both Tam and Kincaid running throwing knives, I'm just leaving way too much damage on the table not to use it. I'm doing fine without it for now but.....with the slightly squishy nature of this team, I need to finish enemies off ASAP with the minimum number of attacks possible. With crit starting to show up on gear, extra magic damage can really turn into some big numbers. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.
I'm a little nervous about the Torrent Watershed coming up. I've got 10 Bloodstones right now so I could do some crafting but I kind of want to wait until Riven Field. I need to craft Tam a new stealth armor and a new bow, Vincent still needs a crafted set of armor, and Kyera needs a shield for sure. We'll see. I'm going against my better judgement a little by not getting Tam some more stealth now. I'm going to have to be very careful dealing with the Krete. I'm going to forego some other stats for stealth and dodge gear on her so I should be okay. 3 in her stealth skill, 4 from Black Night, 5 from gear, 3 from her tk's, and 3 from her armor, for a total of 18 on level 13. I'd feel better at 20 but...I need to craft a bow for that and there really aren't any good ones in Oskahold. I always find a couple good ones in Torrent though so hopefully I find them sooner rather than later.... Next update, after the Baron.
Crafting:
Yay! Riven Field. Time to do some much needed crafting.
First, Kyera needs a shield and I'm going to upgrade her armor as well. I want the MP so this armor may end up lasting her for quite some time as there aren't many +MP armor sets for a while after this one. I'll have to get her MP from either gear or a weapon down the road. Time to tank her up! Spiked Shield-5 Parry tuned with Kallassian Boots (+1 Dodge, +4 Armor) turned into: Spiked Shield-6 Parry; AB 3%, +200 HP, +6 dmg, 2% Crit, +4 Dodge. Big upgrades on all fronts. Parry, dmg, crit, and dodge, and a big boost to HP for overall survivability. Combine that with her armor upgrade: Leather Skin-28 Armor tuned with Earthenweave Tread (Boots) (+2 Armor, +4 All-resists) turned into: Leather Skin-28 Armor; +1MP, +10 Lightning dmg, +10 All Elemental Resists. More armor, still got the MP, plus Lightning to go with Vincent's Thundering Blades (when I get it) and more resists on top of Piety Ward. Giant defensive improvement here. Crafted Vincent one of these as well using the Eyestruck Ring (+6 Ice Damage, +2% Lightning Resist). The synergies are just too good to ignore. +MP and +10 Lightning dmg on top of his spear? Beautiful!
Tamilin gets a new bow: Oxenbone Bow-2AP, 5 Acc, 17-48 at 6 range tuned with Bracers of the Deep (+20 HP) turned into: Oxenbone Bow-2AP, 6 Acc, 21-52 at 6 range; +80 HP, +80 SP, +10 Lightning dmg, 4% Crit, +24% Crit dmg, +6 Stealth. The 6 stealth is what I'm really after here as I don't use the bow much yet. Everything else is gravy. Although the 80 HP and SP is really nice. Armor: Bandit's Garb-16 Armor, +3 Evasion, +4 Stealth tuned with Serpent's Torque (+4 Fire dmg, +2% Fire Resist, +2% Ice Resist) turned into: Bandit's Garb-16 Armor, +3 Evasion, +4 Stealth; +8 Lightning Dmg, +8 All Elemental Resists, +2% SP Drain. Nice! More armor, +3 strong dice on both melee and ranged defense with the evasion, more stealth, elemental resists on top of Piety again, and Lightning dmg to go on top of Thundering Blades. The 2% drain is just the cherry on top. Awesome!!!
Still have 3 Bloodstones left but I think I'll save them for now. Nothing for Kincaid yet. The dodge/parry on his armor is still enough to wait for a bigger upgrade. Just got a new blade and the TK's are still hitting. Next stop: Red Hill.
Red Hill (Baron dead) Team points: 145,856,725
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 18/22,812 504 234 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 7, Cunning Footwork 1, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1 DEX 10, CON 10, INT 5 TW 10, Blades 8, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 18/22,071 440 276 Lightning Spear 6, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 3 CON 11, KNO 8 Sorcery 13, Conjuring 6, Lore 4
Kyera: 18/22,294 587 380 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1 STR 8, DEX 4, CON 9 Hammers 13, Conjuring 6, Lore 3
Tamilin: 18/22,000 494 311 Torrent of Steel 5, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 1 DEX 9, CON 10, INT 5 TW 11, Bows 8
Progress Report:
Ok, Ep1 almost done. Just the storerooms and then it's eastward, ho. My decision to bump Smiting Blow to 3 for Kyera paid off in spades. Same for adding 3 Thundering Blades for Vincent. Kyera is currently my wrecking ball for the heavily armored monsters. Kincaid, on the other hand, is having problems with damage. He had seven straight zeroes against an armored elite in Red Hill. That means he was hitting every time. He just wasn't generating enough damage to clear the enemy soak. Talk about an SP hit. Right now, he's not much of a damage dealer. I just use him to curse with Darting Steel so Tamilin can then further curse and do some damage with her ToS, so that Vincent and Kyera can clean up most of the enemy hit points. Battles basically go: Kyera and Vincent AP/dodge curse with Ethereal Anguish and Flash Freeze, respectively. Then Kincaid curses parry and dodge with Darting Steel, Tamilin further curses dodge and also resistance, and then Kyera and Vincent come in and clean up with Smiting Blow and Lightning Spear. Kyera has a ton of HPs so I stick her in the way of archers when necessary and Kincaid's got Sure Parry 4 now so he weathers the melee.
Now, however, the difficulty spikes. The storerooms are usually a brutal awakening to any weaknesses your team has. I added quite a bit of defense with this last level up. Kincaid crafted a new knife which added 1 Acc, 1 Parry, and 3 Dodge plus he raised his DEX and blades. Kyera raised Warders Shield to 6, which added another point of dodge and parry to everyone. She also raised her hammers to 13 for more melee defense and her DEX to 4 to get the extra point of Dodge (75% of DEX-so dodge went from 2 to 3). Tamilin spent her last two points on Black Night which added a MP and two dodge along with the extra stealth. She also raised her CON to 10 for an extra point in toughness. It all adds up. Hopefully that will all pay dividends because it's a long way to Brunehorn and the next major gear upgrade.
Lastly, the SP issue I feared at the beginning is starting to rear its head. I just can't get enough drain gear on these guys right now to make much of a difference. Kincaid is the worst of the bunch right now. Hopefully his blade upgrade will help alleviate that somewhat. His base damage on his last blade was only 13-25. This blade takes it to 19-38 and adds a 5% SP drain. With the added fire damage and the lightning gear coupled with Vincent's Thundering Blades 3, I'm thinking I should be able to start hitting again with his blade. When the fights aren't too intense, I can take my time whittling away with that thing, adding 2-3 pts of SP per crack. With a nut of 30SP for his buffs however, and 10SP per crack with his Darting Steel, that's a LOT of whittling to try and make it last. I've got some SP gear I can put on him to raise his tank size but.....safety first. I'll have to see how he's performing defensively before taking that risk. Okay, next major update will be heading into the Underforge. I'm sure I'll add a few comments when I craft but....this section is going to take a while.
Crafting:
Just killed the Baron and I'm still in Red Hill. I've been looking through the crafting to see what, if anything, I should upgrade before going into the storerooms and then making my way to Brunehorn. The only thing that seems really worthwhile to do now vs waiting is Kincaid's 1AP blade. The Scything Blade-1AP, 4 Acc, 1 Parry, 19-36 tuned with Banded Bracers (+1 Parry, +4 Armor) turned into: Scything Blade-1AP, 5 Acc, 1 Parry, 19-38; +12 Fire damage, +5% Crit, +3 Parry, +3 Dodge, +5% SP Drain. I was running with Lukai's Blade and this significantly upgrades the damage from 13-25 to 19-38. Plus more Acc, Parry, and Dodge. Toss in a whopping 5% crit and some fire damage and this is just a monster upgrade for this point in the game. Plus, as I said, you have to get almost completely through Ep2 before you find anything even close to being better than this. Definitely worth the Bloodstones here.
Made it to Brunehorn and want to craft Kyera that sweet +MP Infantry Hammer. The only problem is I basically need a +MP piece of gear to get it (without luck) and I haven't seen any yet. Also, since I'm following the max XP thread, I am going to have to clear like 16 boards before I get to the throwing knives at the Ember forward camp. So while my current knives from Oskahold are still doing well, at some point along the way the accuracy is NOT going to be good enough. Which means, I might as well craft something now. I wanted to do the Long Spines but....again, the only way to get what I wanted was a small crit dmg% piece of gear. Don't have that yet either. Turns out it was a half blessing in disguise. I just looted a set of Segmented Knives on the Sea Road. Those have an option that is better for Kincaid. Not so much Tamilin because she needs stealth but...I only have one anyway so here it is: Segmented Knives-1AP, 8 Acc, 3 Parry, 21-44 at 3 range; tuned with Stormwrought Torc (amulet) +8 Lightning Damage, +3% SP Drain turned into: Segmented Knives-1AP, 8 Acc, 3 Parry, 25-46 at 3 range; +1MP, +16 Lightning Damage, +7% Crit, +16% Crit Damage. I hated to use up a +lightning piece of gear but, this is a monster damage upgrade for Kincaid. He was already doing 30s and 40s regularly with his knives from Oskahold. This upgrades 8 ice to 16 lit, crit from 3 to 7%, keeps the MP and takes the top end of the range from 31 to 46. Huge upgrade. He was already critting for over 100. This will probably push some close to 200. A little sad about there being no drain but....he's still wearing some drain gear so hopefully the higher damage will keep him getting good chunks back.
Also crafting Kyera the Defender's Shield, 7 Parry. Again, she doesn't necessarily need it now, but she will. Basically doing the same model as the Spiked Shield I had. Just upgrades all the stats (except the 6 damage). Defender's Shield, 7 Parry tuned with Blurred Arm Guards (+2 Dodge) turned into: Defender's Shield, 8 Parry; AB 5%, +320 HP, +2% Crit, +5 Dodge.
Granthorn: Another of my favorite crafts in the game here. Kyera gets a big armor upgrade. Heavy Leathers (Light) 52 Armor, -1 Stealth tuned with Earthen Walk Boots (+2 Armor, +4 All-Resists) turned into: Heavy Leathers (Light) 52 Armor, -1 Stealth; +1MP, +14 Lightning Damage, +12 All-Elemental Resists. The armor goes up by 24 pts, I keep the MP, and she adds 14 lightning on top of Vincent's Thundering Blades and 12 resists on top of Piety Ward. Really, really good.
Kincaid gets an armor upgrade here as well. Enemy archers are getting stronger and stronger so the damage is getting pretty significant. This will go a long way to helping that. Lamellar Armor (Light) 56 Armor, -1 Stealth tuned with the Silvered Bracers (+3 All-Resists) turned into: Lamellar Armor (Light) 56 Armor, -1 Stealth; +4 Parry, +6 Dodge, +10 All-Resists. As much as I'd love to give him the same heavy leathers with the Lightning damage and MP, I need someone to be able to take some enemy fire and this should allow him to do that. Vincent, on the other hand, can get the same Heavy Leathers that Kyera got. So, I'm doing that one again. Tuned this one with the Wisewalk Boots (+2 Magical Dmg (Fire, Ice, Lit, Earth, Holy), +2 Fire-Resist). Running low on resists gear so I gambled a little using this tuner. I was pretty confident I was going to get the one I wanted but, there are only two options documented by the Heavy Leathers right now; mine and the one in the Episode thread. Because I'm not sure what the stats on the third option are there was a possibility all these different damage types could have triggered that one. Really wish I could find some +MP gear......
Ember Lake Forward Camp (Braeys): Finally! After traipsing around all over the eastern underdeep I finally get to craft again. I've been saving my bloodstones so I could upgrade pretty much everything here but it's been a grind using underpowered gear. I'm still using the Bladesman Knives I crafted in Oskahold for Tamilin. I still manage to hit more than half the time but it's been slow going. Anyway, first things first. Upgrade those knives.
Stalkers Knives 1AP, 9 Acc, 4 Parry, 23-54 at 3 range; tuned with Nightfall Shroud (Cloak) (+2 Ranged Acc, +2 Stealth) turned into: Stalker's Knives 1 AP, 9 Acc, 4 Parry, 25-62 at 3 range; +1MP, +16 Ice Damage, 4% Crit, +4 Stealth. Kept my MP, raised accuracy 6 points from my last set, added a point of crit and point of stealth, and doubled my ice damage to 16. Lost the dodge and drain but....can't have everything. As always with Tam, stealth is top priority and this is the only result with stealth so....this is what she gets.
Now the bow....stealth first, again. I've got three options here. I can go with the 2AP Stalkers Bow with 12 Acc, 27-82, 9% crit, 7 Stealth, and 16 Fire. Or maybe go with the 3AP Argronwood with 15 Acc, 51-126 at 7 range, no crit, 20 fire and 6 stealth. Lots more damage. Pretty much a guaranteed hit with 15 Acc. And a very attractive extra square of range. Or, option number three, and the one I'm going with, the 2AP Keen Horned Bow, 9 Acc, 33-102 at 6 range tuned with the Dawn Band (ring) (+2 dmg, +2% crit) turned into: 2AP Keen Horned Bow, 10 Acc, 33-104 at 7 range, +20 Lightning Damage, +6% Crit, +70% Crit Damage, +8 Stealth. The best of both worlds. Got 8 stealth. Huge! 7 range. Huge! 6% Crit. Very nice! And 20 Lightning to go with gear and Thundering Blades. Monster bow, especially at only 2AP. Accuracy is a little lower than I'd wish but....I've been hitting consistently with my 6 Accuracy bow so this should be just fine.
Kyera finally gets a hammer. She also has been carrying her weapon since Oskahold. I don't have her taking a lot of swings, mostly defense and cursing, but now she'll actually be able to do some damage. Plainsman Star 1-handed, 2AP, 5 Acc, 5 Parry, 56-87 tuned with: Guard of the Black Bear (Bracers) (+28 HP) turned into: Plainsman Star, 1-handed, 2AP, 6 Acc, 5 Parry, 56-93; +1MP, +120 HP, +20 Holy Damage, 5% Crit, +20% Crit Damage, +3 Parry. Such a great upgrade for her. MP, Acc, Parry, Holy Crit. Everything is good here. It's been a long time coming but it was worth the wait.
Kincaid is starting to hit for zeroes pretty regularly with his blade so he needs to up his damage range. So he gets a 1AP Tulwar, 5 Acc, 5 Parry, 31-45 tuned with Stormwrought Torc (Amulet) (+8 Lightning Damage, 3% SP Drain) turned into: 1AP Tulwar, 6 Acc, 6 Parry, 31-48; +18 Lightning Damage, +6% SP Drain. I lose the 5% crit I had but, realistically, that was the only time he was really hitting anyway so....since I mostly use his blade for SP recharge to fuel his throwing knives, this should at least give me some more consistency. The 18 lightning on top of Thundering Blades should get him doing decent damage again. I still need to craft Tam some armor but....haven't been able to find one I like so I'm still holding off. I'll probably end up waiting for the Cinched Plate stealth armor in Ep3. There's a legitimate chance I'll loot something I can wear before then but.....she's okay for now. Just gotta make sure she doesn't get hit. Next update, the Underforge.
Orcin Caverns cleared; into the Underforge Team points: 334,442,725
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 24/53,839 600 282 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 2, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1 DEX 11, CON 12, INT 5 TW 12, Blades 11, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 24/53,415 528 352 Lightning Spear 6, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 5, Elem Sund 1, EotS 1 CON 12, KNO 10 Sorc 16, Conj 6, Lore 5, Blades 4
Kyera: 24/53,381 954 388 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, SAVED 4 STR 10, CON 10, DEX 4 Hammers 16, Conj 7, Invo 4
Tamilin: 24/53,418 528 301 Torrent of Steel 8, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 2, Ranged Onslaught 1 DEX 10, CON 12, INT 5 TW 14, Bows 10
Progress Report:
After a long grind, I've managed to make it back to Brunehorn. The team is again performing well after finally upgrading some equipment in the Ember Lake Forward Camp. Up until that point it was slow going. I was still doing decent damage once I was able to curse things with Darting Steel and Torrent of Steel but I wasn't hitting very consistently so, as I said, it was a grind. As far as the team goes, I can't quite figure out what to do with Vincent. I'm going to take Lightning Spear to 10 next but I'm not sure where to go next. Energy Storm is the obvious choice since it also runs on his sorcery stat but giving him a little more power in melee appeals to me as well. Still trying to figure it out. Kyera has been saving points this whole time. I'm pretty sure I want to run her Ethereal Anguish all the way up but it is just sooo SP intensive I'm having a hard time justifying it. In the meantime, there's no point in putting the points in the talent now. Other than the -AP, the other stats don't really help much. Especially since both DS and ToS already curse dodge a ton. I may end up continuing to save the points and then put them all into Retribution or Banishment. Having those talents available for the CoD is very enticing. We'll see. Tam is probably going to get another Silent Stalker then take Ranged Onslaught to 4. Need to work on her bow stat but her knives are still her most important weapon. I'm getting a little nervous about her stealth but I just crafted 12 stealth points for her on her current weapons so I think I should still be okay for a while. It's at 29 on level 23 so that should be enough but, all it takes is once. Fingers crossed. Kincaid's next point is going into Cunning Footwork and then I have to decide on Sure Parry 7, Live by the Blade 4, or continuing Cunning Footwork to 6. Probably going to go with one of the last two since with three -AP cursers it's rare he gets more than 2 swings at him in a turn. I'm also going to pay attention to hit rate as I may need to add a Flanking Unity point or two as we go for accuracy. The next update will be fairly quick (after clearing the Underforge) so there won't be too much happening anyway. Hello, Vurnak. Ready to meet your sister?
Underforge complete (1 death): Team points: 520,958,125 Bloodstones: 21 Crafts: 18 So 57 total Bloodstones found so far. Remember, I'm following the max XP (Braeys) thread found in the Tips & Tech forum. pg 3 or 4
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 27/77,537 639 306 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 4, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1 DEX 12, CON 12, INT 5 TW 13, Blades 12, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 27/77,285 591 466 Lightning Spear 8, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 5, Elem Sund 1, EotS 1 CON 12, KNO 11 Sorc 16, Conj 6, Lore 5, Blades 4, Polearms 2
Kyera: 27/78,483 1007 412 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, SAVED 6 STR 11, CON 10, DEX 4 Hammers 16, Conj 7, Invocation 6
Tamilin: 27/77,373 567 322 Torrent of Steel 8, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 1, Deadly Int 1 DEX 11, CON 12, INT 5 TW 15, Bows 11
Progress Report:
Welp, I got sloppy and died once fighting Vurnak. It was late, I was tired, and I didn't reveal some fog where I should have so I got gunned down from the darkness. Stupid mistake. That's how it happens. I had no trouble clearing the area on my next turn but....that's nightmare for you. Oh well, on to the rest of the game. Team is still doing fine. They are, as I said from the beginning, not the sturdiest bunch, but they can do enough damage quickly enough that it really hasn't been an issue. But you have to pay attention. One slip......and that's the result. So, with the ironman out of the way, I'm now going to build for speed. Lots of mobility and lots of damage. 1 death, 10 deaths, it's all the same to me. I'm going to keep building Kincaids Cunning Footwork. Accuracy, crit%, Parry, Dodge....hard to go wrong there. Vincent is going to take Lightning Spear to 10 and then I'm not sure. Probably Energy Storm but....with death no longer a factor, I might see about turning him into a melee character and see what happens. Tamilin is going to take Deadly Intuition to 3 to start with and then I'm going to run her bows up. Maybe 1 or 2 more in Silent Stalker and then Ranged Onslaught. Kyera is sitting on 6 saved points right now. I'm probably just going to dump them all in Banishment. Craft myself the SP shield and some other gear and turn her into a ranged bomber. I might respecc her and move a few Conj points into Invocation so she can hit more people at once. We'll see. I really don't plan on using the skill much until the CoD so, by then, I should be able to take Invo to 10 through regular leveling. Anyway, onward. It's the first time since the first game I played 5 years ago that I'm going to keep going after dying. We'll see how it goes.
Crafting:
I've got a ton of bloodstones (23 right now) so since I don't see any results for the (Dex) 2AP Cutlass, 7 Acc, 3 Parry, 35-54 I'm going to tune it with the Flashing Ring (+1MP, +2% SP drain) I bought from the Bone Pass hermit, to see if there's a +MP option out there. There is: (Dex) 2AP Cutlass, 6 Acc, 3 Parry, 43-64; +1MP, +14 Ice Dmg, +2% Crit, +20% Crit Dmg, +6 Dodge. Not the greatest, not the worst. The MP is nice. As is the jump in base damage range, 35-54 up to 43-64. The ice is probably just enough to count if you've got some more ice stacked somewhere. And the 6 dodge is very good. However, the loss of 1 Acc and only 3 Parry make this, as I said, not great. But not bad. Overall, there are probably better ones out there. Going to try it again with lightning for the heck of it. Tuned with: Left Fist of the Thunder (Bracers) (+14 Lightning Dmg) turned into: (Dex) 2 AP Cutlass, 7 Acc, 3 Parry, 35-54; +14 Lightning Dmg, +30% Crit Dmg, +2 Parry, +2 Dodge. Okay, again not the greatest. The accuracy stayed at 7 this time so that's good. Added 2 Parry and 2 Dodge, also good. And the lightning dmg will stack a lot better with Vincent teams. But the damage range didn't move from the original and no +MP on this one. Again, probably better options out there. I'm sure there's a fire option but....not going to waste any more bloodstones looking for it.
It's finally time. Pretty sure better armor wouldn't have saved Tam earlier, but now that I'm not so focused on Stealth I'm going to upgrade her armor. Reis Lodge has the Banded Leather Garb, 34 Armor, 5 Evasion, 3 Stealth. Tuned with Hardbone Chain (Amulet) (+8 All-Resists) I get the Banded Leather Garb, 34 Armor, 5 Evasion, 3 Stealth; +1MP, +12 Ice Damage, +12 All Elemental Resists. Basically adding 18 armor, a MP, and turning 8 lit dmg to 12 Ice dmg, plus the resists, compared to my last armor. I add 1 more evasion but lose 1 stealth. A definite upgrade. My bow now does 22 Ice and 46 Lightning dmg while my throwing knives do 38 Ice and 26 Lightning. Should definitely be some nice crits coming as I head to Gholla.
Kincaid isn't hitting as well as I'd like and he's also burning through his SP too fast with his Darting Steel so I'm going to craft a couple 2AP weapons to up his Accuracy and damage. This will slow the SP going out and hopefully raise it coming in. First, his throwing knives. I only see one result for 2AP Assassin's Spikes, 10 Acc, 4 Parry, 34-103 at 4 range so I'm going to shoot for a different one. Tuning with Alken's Way Boots (+1MP, +4% crit dmg, +4% drain). None of these stats are on the current known result so....here goes. Nice!!! 2AP Assassin's Spikes, 11 Acc, 4 Parry, 34-105 at 4 range; +1MP, +6 Holy dmg, +20 Lightning dmg, +16% crit dmg. How great is that!?! I'm running Vincent's Thundering Blades so 20 lightning is stellar. Holy damage always comes in handy. A Movement Point & extra crit dmg. All at 4 range instead of 3. The only thing really missing is the drain but the bumps in these other stats may allow me to trade out some gear to put the drain there. Plus, as I said, since it's 2AP, I won't be using nearly as much attacking. Critting with these should bring back a pretty big return regardless.
And a 2AP Dex blade for him. Doing the Dex 2AP Long Sabre, 7 Acc, 5 Parry, 51-95 tuned with the Necklace of Cortias (3 Parry, 12 armor). I'm tempted to go for one of the two crafts not known yet but....the lightning and crit are so good on this one, I can't pass it up. Turned into: Dex 2AP Long Sabre, 7 Acc, 6 Parry, 55-99; +20 Lightning dmg, 5% crit, +20% crit dmg, +2 Parry, +4 Dodge. Outstanding! Again, no drain but it's got everything else. Big jump in base damage to overcome soak, lightning again, the 5% crit means he'll be hitting at almost 20% crit now so the extra crit dmg will come into play, and you always need parry and dodge. Kincaid is a new man going forward. On to the druidess and Granthorn....
Episode 2 Complete + Granthorn: Team points: 734,624,025 Bloodstones: 15 Crafts: 23 So, 61 Bloodstones found so far through Ep2.
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 31/119,617 691 338 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 6, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1, Flashing Blades 1 DEX 14, CON 12, INT 5 TW 13, Blades 16, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 31/119,493 645 660 Lightning Spear 10, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 6, Elem Sund 1, Eye of the Storm 1 DEX 5, CON 12, KNO 12 Sorc 18, Conj 6, Lore 6, Blades 4, Polearms 4
Kyera: 31/119,582 1,012 404 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, Banishment 9 STR 12, CON 11, DEX 4 Hammers 17, Conj 7, Invocation 9
Tamilin: 31/120,100 619 322 Torrent of Steel 9, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 2, Deadly Intuition 1 DEX 13, CON 12, INT 5 TW 16, Bows 14
Progress Report:
After a long grind through lots of respawns and finishing of half-finished maps, I'm finally through to Episode 3. My team was performing extremely well with the crafting I did above and I was mowing through Volpa etc. like butter. But then came another difficulty spike. After the whole Wyatt thing, I had to go back and finish "finding things" and then reclear the Bone Pass when, all of a sudden, I wasn't hitting very well anymore and shots that were doing 40, 50, even 60 or more points of damage were barely registering or coming up zeroes. Very disheartening. So, time to retool again. Kincaid got a new ring to help Acc, Parry, and Dodge. Vincent, with his 10 Lightning Spear is still hitting okay so he just kept what he was wearing. Kyera also got a new Acc, Dodge, Parry ring. And Tamilin upgraded her Dodge, Stealth, Security Cloak, plus I switched some other gear for more accuracy as well. I'm headed to the Storm Bastion with some serious Orcin fights in my future so I'm going to test how these adjustments fare and then I'm definitely going to need to do some crafting. My next formal update is entering the CoD but I'm sure I'll be updating as I craft.
Crafting:
I actually only did a couple crafts in this section. The adjustments I made in my last update turned out to work very well. Everyone is now hitting consistently again, if not with as much damage as I'd like. To that end, I upgraded a couple items for Tamilin. First, I finally pulled the trigger on her armor. I took the Banded Sheathe, 48 Armor, 6 Evasion, 5 Parry and tuned it with a piece of Lightning dmg gear. In past playthroughs, I've tried many different tuners trying to find a second result but it always comes up the same. This time was no different. I now have all the different stats I've tried listed in the crafting guide. Not many left to try. There must only be the one result. Anyway, I got the Banded Sheathe, 48 Armor, 7 Evasion, 5 Parry; +1 MP, 100 HP, +4% SP drain. Tamilin is no longer doing big damage numbers so I needed to get some more drain gear on her to help her keep pace with the others. This has done the trick. My whole group is now pretty self-sufficient on drain. The extra Evasion, Parry, and HP's don't hurt either. And I kept the MP I had with the last set I was wearing. I also crafted a second set of the 1 AP Stalkers Knives, 9 Acc, 4 Parry, 23-56 at 3 range. Just used a +6 Ice dmg tuner as I wanted the one with lightning dmg and it has 8 ice damage as well. So it turned into the 1AP Stalkers Knives, 9 Acc, 5 Parry, 23-56 at 3 range; +8 Ice dmg, +16 Lightning dmg, +7% crit, +4% SP drain. As I mentioned, Tamilin isn't hitting for as much damage as she has been, mainly because I've got 2 pieces of Accuracy gear on her and no damage buffs. Her -AP curse is still her most important asset so I can't really afford to be missing when I use her. Thus, extra accuracy but less damage.
Storm Bastion done. Into the City of the Dead: Team points: 1,012,889,325 Bloodstones: 14 Crafts:25 So, 68 bloodstones found so far.
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 34/159,410 754 362 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 7, Flanking Unity 1, Live by the Blade 1, Flashing Blades 1 DEX 15, CON 13, INT 5 TW 14, Blades 17, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 34/159,712 678 684 Lightning Spear 10, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 7, Elem Sundering 1, Eye of the Storm 1 DEX 5, CON 12, KNO 14 Sorc 18, Conj 6, Lore 6, Blades 4, Polearms 6
Kyera: 34/159,973 1,066 428 Smiting Blow 3, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 3, Purifying Breeze 1, Banishment 10 STR 12, CON 12, DEX 4, KNO 7 Hammers 18, Conjuring 7, Invocation 10
Tamilin: 34/159,522 758 343 Torrent of Steel 9, Black Night 4, Farsight 2, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 4, Deadly Intuition 1 DEX 15, CON 12, INT 5 TW 17, Bows 15
Progress Report:
Welp, here I go again. Into the City of the Dead. This team is definitely the least defensive team I've entered with. But they do lots of damage so battles don't last as long. They're also very nimble with Kyera having +2MP, Kincaid +3, Tam +4, and Vincent +5. With three of them able to AP curse, those extra MP's get a lot of use. It will be interesting to see how their current gear makeup does in the CoD. Like I said, I really don't have a ton of +damage gear on anyone but Kincaid. He's wearing a couple rainbow pieces of gear that currently adds +11 combined to each of the 5 damages. Depending upon how things go early on, I may make a run back to Granthorn to pick up the +12 rainbow gear. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any drain on it though, so even though it does extremely good damage, it's not worth it if I have to constantly down potions or run back to waypoints. It will also be nice to start working on some other talents for a couple of my people. Kyera finally took Banishment to 10 so now I can start adding other things. Tamilin just got Ranged Onslaught to 4, which is where I plan on stopping it for a while so now she can put at least a couple more points in Deadly Intuition. Vincent and Kincaid still have another 3 to go on Thundering Blades and Cunning Footwork, respectively. But they're getting there. I'm also probably going to craft Tam one of the Argronwood Bows for bigger damage numbers. I'll lose an MP though so still debating on when to actually do that. Anyway, more to come as I progress....
City of the Dead: Standing outside the Great Gate Team points: 1,524,380,625 Bloodstones: 31 Crafts: 25 81 Bloodstones found so far.
Level/XP HP SP
Kincaid: 40/246,798 856 410 Sure Parry 4, Darting Steel 10, Cunning Footwork 10, Flanking Unity 2, Live by the Blade 1, Flashing Blades 1 DEX 17, CON 14, INT 5 TW 17, Blades 19, Leadership 4, Lore 3
Vincent: 40/247,122 744 612 Lightning Spear 10, Flash Freeze 2, Charged Speed 2, Thundering Blades 10, Elem Sundering 1, Eye of the Storm 2 DEX 6, CON 12, KNO 16 Sorc 19, Conj 6, Lore 6, Blades 4, Polearms 10
Kyera: 40/247,232 1,132 476 Smiting Blow 4, Warders Shield 6, Piety Ward 5, Purifying Breeze 1, Banishment 10, Myshana's Tears 2 STR 15, CON 12, DEX 4, KNO 7 Hammers 18, Conjuring 7, Invocation 15
Tamilin: 40/246,854 854 385 Torrent of Steel 9, Black Night 4, Farsight 3, Silent Stalker 3, Ranged Onslaught 4, Deadly Intuition 4 DEX 17, CON 13, INT 5 TW 18, Bows 17, Lore 4
Progress Report:
So, I'm standing at the Great Gate with only the final stretch of the CoD left. This is the furthest I've ever been on Nightmare. Like all the other "sections" so far, the City of the Dead can be a grind. It's huge with map after map to clear as you work your way to the end. My team is still managing to move forward with only the one death. The further I get, the more annoying that becomes but....oh well. I've finally finished running up some Talents so I'm now starting to work on a third major talent for each player. Overall, my team continues to perform very well. My only complaint is their accuracy just isn't as high as it needs to be so instead of wearing a bunch of +damage and +drain gear I have to wear things with +Accuracy. This means that although they are all doing solid damage, I haven't been able to take it to super high numbers. Vincent crits for around 400 occasionally, as does Kincaid with his TKs. Tamilin, unfortunately, has to be almost exclusively used for cursing. I get in some good Silent Stalker and Ranged Onslaught attacks when I'm dealing with those obelisks but...she doesn't hit often enough with enough damage to use it a lot. I'm hoping to change that with some more crafting. In the meantime, a quick rundown of performance and plan.
Kincaid finished running up Cunning Footwork and threw his last point in Flanking Unity. I'm probably going to run that up in conjunction with Flashing Blades. Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. His damage is very solid and he's critting on a regular basis. Just gotta keep up with the monsters.
Vincent has really turned into the star of the team. With his visit to Platinum Peak he's now doing some amazing damage both with his Lightning Spear and in melee. I've been running up his Polearms and he's finally starting to hit things that haven't been cursed by both Tam and Kincaid. That was literally the only way his melee would ever connect; Darting Steel then Torrent of Steel then swing. Even then it would only hit once, maybe twice out of three whacks. I will say it's fun regaining 100 SP in three hits now though. It allows me to really use Lightning Spear throughout the battle, rather than just as a luxury or necessity. As of now, the plan is to run up Eye of the Storm for a while. Accuracy and crit. What more do you need? I'm also going to raise his DEX some for the same reason.
Kyera is still performing her functions well. I added a point to Myshana's Tears so she could heal at 76 pts a crack rather than 35. It was taking too long to heal people after battles. That helped. Since every mob seems to have some sort of magic damage attached I decided to add a couple points to Piety Shield. The plan at this point is to just add Smiting Blow, Warders Shield, and Piety Ward in whatever order the mood strikes me. This team can't stand toe-to-toe with anyone so while Piety and Warders are definitely nice, if I have to rely on them I'm probably dead anyway. So, I'm just going to throw points at those Talents haphazardly and we'll see where I end up. She still uses her Ethereal Anguish on a regular basis and can take about 1000 hps out of mobs with her Banishment. Plus, she can take a hit or two with her 1100 HP when I need to let someone take a whack at me.
Tamilin, as I said, is almost straight cursing right now. She really needs an equipment overhaul in the worst way. If you'll notice, I have not crafted a single thing since I started the CoD. I've gone up six levels and found well over a dozen Bloodstones but there hasn't been anything to upgrade to. I finally looted a War Bow in my last map but....I don't see it in the crafting lists anywhere so I'm going to have to discover the options on my own. I have very fond memories of her doing outrageous damage with some of my other teams but the accuracy limitations here have forced me to gear her in +accuracy stuff so...I can't get the drain, crit, damage I want. Like I said, I'm hoping that crafting will help.
In the meantime, I'm off to see what the final tower holds for me. I have a fuzzy recollection of doing it about 4 years ago on hard difficulty. Only time I've been there. We'll see. Not sure when the next update will be since I'm in uncharted territory here. I'm sure a story point will present itself as I go....
Crafting:
Crafted Kyera a new set of armor. Her current set with the +14 Lightning dmg and 14 resists isn't really helping all that much since she doesn't swing a ton so....crafted the Fremat Lamellar Overcoat (light) 74 Armor, 1 Evasion, -2 Stealth, tuned with a small HP tuner (can't remember which) turned into: Fremat Lamellar Overcoat (Light) 72 Armor, no Evasion, -2 Stealth; +1 MP, +140 HP, +5% SP drain. Like I said, the extra armor, MP, HP, and drain should more than make up for the loss of the 14 lightning damage and resists. If not, I'll switch back but I'm pretty sure that won't be the case. And the MP could prove vital in the upcoming boss fight at the end of the CoD. I also tried finding the 3rd option on the Leather & Pauldrons 74 Armor but came up empty. I tried for +MP on that one too but got a random known result so....no MP on the missing 3rd option. I did the 2AP War Bow 34-112 at 6 range, 10 Acc, as well. Got a decent result: 2AP War Bow 34-113 at 6 range, 10 Acc; +1 MP, +80 SP, +20 Lightning dmg, +6% crit, +4% SP drain but my current bow has close to the same damage and a 7 range with 8 stealth. Can't afford to take it out of action for one with no stealth. Might switch it out during battle though....we'll see.
things on your mind but...