Thoughts - Part 1 (Possible Spoilers)

[Karjus]

Finally finished my first run last night on Nightmare. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is quite refreshing to play a rpg on the phone that isn't simply a hack and slash with no story, with a very detailed and well thought out mechanics behind it all. The drips and drabs of background slowly fed through dialogue seem to be well thought out, never overloading with too much but always offering another morsel with a conversation.

The character setups by completion were as follows
Vraes, level 11
4 Dex
7 Con
10 Str
5 Will
4 Int
3 Know

12 Blades
7 Crushing Blow
1 Natural Mastery

Karjtan, level 12
4 Dex
4 Con
3 Str
7 Will
10 Int
6 Know

11 Sorcery
7 Firebolt
2 Choking Ash

Kyera, level 11
3 Dex
5 Con
4 Str
4 Will
11 Int
6 Know

11 Lore
5 Myshana's Tears
3 Purifying Breeze

Tamilin, level 11
10 Dex
5 Con
5 Str
4 Will
5 Int
4 Know

12 Bows
2 Disarming Touch
7 Aimed Shot

Vraes was disappointing. In the Prologue he was fantastic, able to not only take hits but dish out some real damage with Crushing Blow. Shortly into Part 1 however, he quickly began to miss a *lot* even against the more basic foes. By the end of it, he was more there to tie down opponents from getting near anyone else and if he was lucky land a blow and do some damage. I started working on Natural Mastery (Too late though) in the hopes that it would improve his attack chances but I think it was too little too late. Next time, I'd like to try a combination of Natural Mastery/Stone Skin with perhaps a 4/4 split to see how well a buff build would do.

Karjtan was an absolute beast. He'd drain through spirit fairly quick whenever he went on full offensive, but considering if he had a lucky round he could easily annihilate a Giant Rat/Shaman in a round and a Deathkin/Great Shaman in two to three I was quite okay with that. Was always awesome seeming him 1-shot 3 Ratkin. Still, a lot of the time he was doing nothing due to it being pointless to try and hit anything with his staff and totally not worth wasting the spirit unless getting absolutely swarmed which didn't happen often due to usage of choke points. I'd probably not build up Firebolt so quickly next time, and instead work up Ash a little more in the hopes of allowing other people to also do damage.

Kyera did unexpectedly well. She struggled keeping Vraes healed to begin with, requiring two casts a round to keep up with the amount of incoming damage in the Prologue sometimes. However, after a few upgrades on Tears she could quite happily do one cast and then carry on with her merry little life of not doing much. She'd pop into combat to throw a hit with a hammer every now and then but due to never putting any points into it of she course she very rarely connected. When she did, even right at the end however she seemed to do solid damage up to the 20s range with a store bought 1-H Hammer. I'm truly not sure how I'd build her differently. Firstly, I think I'd only bother with 1 point in Breeze. Only when I screwed up did my entire party take damage, and I'd also possibly only put Tears up to a max of 4 as 5 was overkill and just meant she burned through spirit faster. Where I'd go next, I don't know. I personally am not a huge fan of her buffs, with Warder's Shield seeming very weak until you invest quite a lot of points. Perhaps Piety Ward? Do Resists only effect incoming magic damage? I'd really like to love Ethereal Anguish, but when the skill gets good it is a lot of Spirit for a single-target debuff that lasts only a base duration of 3 turns. Still, I might try getting it to the -2 AP point. In the long term, the only skills out of her lot that do interest me are Sacrifice/Banishment. Once you hit Sacrifice 6, it would be easy enough to have her quaff one potion and return that exact amount to the rest of your party which is superb.

Tamilin was another gem. Even with her basic bow attack, she hit consistently and did reasonable damage. Against tougher opponents, she'd often not get through their armor but at that point I'd switch to Aimed Shot for the extra damage. Between her and Karjtan, it wasn't uncommon for them to destroy 4 basic Ratkin in a turn, and leave another 1 badly wounded for Vraes to miss constantly. She also didn't blow through Spirit that fast, due to her basic attack being pretty good, but I still think next time a point or two more in Intelligence. I'd also like to give Deadly Intuition a try, even with its low base duration but personally Blacknight doesn't interest me. Pretty easy to get a lot of +Stealth gear anyway (Tamilin had 9 by the end, having never put a point in) and a ranged build shouldn't be getting hit enough to make a personal Dodge buff important. If it had Security to it as well, I'd be all over it but otherwise it seems to be something for people who love Torrent of Steel. Not sure if I like Disarming Touch/Farsight. Farsight as an idea is amazing, but if it is getting to the point where I'm being very cautious as to what is ahead then it means I'm falling back to camp instead of using precious Spirit to poke ahead for a safe haven. Disarming Touch as well, seems to be a lot of guess work. There are places you'd expect traps, where there aren't but a square away there is. I'll probably build this up to an AoE next time so I can blanket areas but I feel the way the system is setup it mostly encourages people to run back to Camps more. Either use Farsight more/Trap Detect more which means more spirit drain, which means running back and forth more. I understand the desire to make it tenser, and more dangerous but have you looked into thoughts of Farsight not taking as much spirit if the result is green or perhaps Disarming Touch not taking as much spirit/or any if there ends up no traps in the target space?

I've a couple of last thoughts that don't really fit into the specific characters and are more generalized.

• I love how you explain away the lack of respawns in the North Vault with the Reese/Knight saying they'd put patrols in place to keep the Ratkin back while the adventurers explored. That put a smile on my face. Have you considered, after that dialogue, spawning a couple of guards that stand around the now abandoned Ratkin Fort in the vault? The first time they go back, they could comment about how they better make it worth the blood they're spilling etc etc. Just an extra touch of life.
• You've commented on how important it is to be equipped as best as you can before, as the game branches out I can imagine this pushing players on the harder difficulties down set paths. On this play through, I did every optional before Nordhold and 100% cleared every area before venturing into the Tunnels, which I also 100% cleared before finally tangling with the Shaman. Next time, I'll not be 100% clearing and doing Nordhold first and then going directly to the Shaman. Why? This will give me access to the best equipment for Part 1, the fastest, while limiting my level. I personally only found 1 weapon in the entire Part that was better than what I'd purchased in Oskahold with the only useful things in chests being every now and then a bracer/ring. The rest was mostly worse than what I could buy with the occasional item I could purchase. As such, it was all gold fodder and the gear I bought right at the beginning of Part 1 was used right through to the end. Even on Nightmare difficulty, it would be nice to see more than 1 in a good chunk of playtime that would be useful.
• Also on equipment, while some of the end quest rewards were fairly generic and useful for most builds I felt the Outlander's was very lacking. It is a very nice sword. But what if he doesn't use swords? If moving onto Part 2, you're expecting the Outlander to be using a weapon of that quality but due to instead having put all his points into Hammers is still using one bought from the Oskahold shop.. well, he might be screwed. Would it be possible for when weapon rewards are handed out for specific characters, that the weapon be based on the highest weapon skill the character has at that time?

Sure I'll think of some other things later, but for now this is what has mulled through my brain.

In closing, very bloody well done. Truly enjoyed it, and look forward to pushing through on a Sorcerer run.

[contributor]

Karjus, great write up. My first play through was only on hard but I experienced many of the same things you did. One idea for Kyera would be to try building her out to be more of a warrior. That's what I did and she was often able to deliver more damage more consistently than Vraes. That seems somewhat odd to me though because his skills were higher than hers in all the things that would add into getting hits. She might have had 1 more accuracy on her weapon than him, but it seemed like his greater strength should have made up for that. I did build up Vraes' Savage Sweep ability which I found gave him the ability to get a lot more hits in. I've got a nascent new group and I won't be putting anything into Crushing Blow for him. It just seems like a waste of SP. It's interesting what you said about Karjtan being able to deal out damage. I built him more to be a buffer and he had a lot of trouble landing his fireballs on anyone with any resistance. Next time I'll see if I can make him a little more deadly.

Really like the suggestion about rewards at the end of chapter 1 being based on most advanced skill. In the next game Vraes is going to focus on Pole Arms, which means his gift at the end won't really be that useful for him.

I ended up finding some pretty good stuff in chests, a very nice hammer for Kyera and a +20SP cloak. Maybe you had bad luck, maybe you get less stuff on Nightmare. What you said was very true for me about armor though. I never got anything better than what was offered at the smith.

As for respawns, your comment got me thinking that it would actually be nice to have limited enemy respawns. At the end of episode 1 I've got all this cool new gear, but all the bad guys are dead. What if enemies respawned on the West Road or the Warm Cave or you could go back into Krelling Deep and knock some heads together?

A thought of my own. Certain maps seemed unnecessarily large, especially the west-road. I like have a big world and the idea of having to travel through unoccupied territory. One thought is that more diverse graphics might make some of it seem less big. If we were seeing new things or there were a few more dialogue spots, those would fill those spaces nicely. I like the really superfluous stuff that makes the characters seem like real people, such as Tamilin's whining about getting to the Inn and taking a rest etc.

[Karjus]

Dec 15, 2013 11:57:03 GMT -5 contributor said:

Karjus, great write up. My first play through was only on hard but I experienced many of the same things you did. One idea for Kyera would be to try building her out to be more of a warrior. That's what I did and she was often able to deliver more damage more consistently than Vraes. That seems somewhat odd to me though because his skills were higher than hers in all the things that would add into getting hits. She might have had 1 more accuracy on her weapon than him, but it seemed like his greater strength should have made up for that. I did build up Vraes' Savage Sweep ability which I found gave him the ability to get a lot more hits in. I've got a nascent new group and I won't be putting anything into Crushing Blow for him. It just seems like a waste of SP. It's interesting what you said about Karjtan being able to deal out damage. I built him more to be a buffer and he had a lot of trouble landing his fireballs on anyone with any resistance. Next time I'll see if I can make him a little more deadly.

Really like the suggestion about rewards at the end of chapter 1 being based on most advanced skill. In the next game Vraes is going to focus on Pole Arms, which means his gift at the end won't really be that useful for him.

I ended up finding some pretty good stuff in chests, a very nice hammer for Kyera and a +20SP cloak. Maybe you had bad luck, maybe you get less stuff on Nightmare. What you said was very true for me about armor though. I never got anything better than what was offered at the smith.

As for respawns, your comment got me thinking that it would actually be nice to have limited enemy respawns. At the end of episode 1 I've got all this cool new gear, but all the bad guys are dead. What if enemies respawned on the West Road or the Warm Cave or you could go back into Krelling Deep and knock some heads together?

A thought of my own. Certain maps seemed unnecessarily large, especially the west-road. I like have a big world and the idea of having to travel through unoccupied territory. One thought is that more diverse graphics might make some of it seem less big. If we were seeing new things or there were a few more dialogue spots, those would fill those spaces nicely. I like the really superfluous stuff that makes the characters seem like real people, such as Tamilin's whining about getting to the Inn and taking a rest etc.

Started playing around with a group with Sorcerer, and I'm completely ignoring Crushing/Sweeping on Vraes in favor of Iron Skin/Natural Mastery. He's an absolute beast at the moment (Level 6) but that might change as the enemies keep getting harder but his weapon doesn't change. Using spears this time, and seeing him hit for 40+ on a hit is nice. Working on the party being buff/debuff based compared to flat damage so we'll see how it goes with Vincent once he works Lightning Blades up a bit more. Missing Karjtan though. I really do recommend trying a pure damage build with him, just because it's awesome seeing him do 100+ damage on a bolt. Whenever I always went all out with him, I kept having flashes of Jon Irenicus in my mind "You will suffer! YOU WILL ALL SUFFER!"

I found two +20 HP cloaks, 1 or two unusual bracelets but in terms of weapons/armor really zilch. Might have just been appalling luck, in combination with Nightmare (Worse loot) but it does really take the joy out of finding chests.

[fallen]

Karjus - thanks for the post, really great information. Sorry that your Vraes build did not work out well, ... he is normally a terror.

My suggestion - look for combinations that work. Don't expect a single high level talent (Firebolt) to be the best strategy. Use a lower level Firebolt and stack Burning Blades. Relying on Vraes to kill on Crushing Blow will never be a winning strategy. I saw another post you made about shields being ineffective. Same principle, just picking up a shield won't make an effective defensive fighter. Look for combinations that make it work (Warder's Shield, Phalanx Shield is critical).

On the other 3 points,
1) will definitely work on adding some patrol scenes to the North Vault at a later point.
2) Did you visit the smith more than once? He upgrades his armor sale, of which you should at least take advantage.
3) Oskahold is a poor town, I will try to beef up the dialog a bit more to make that clear. They give you what they can, but they aren't sitting on legendary artifacts to suddenly hand out. And Lukai used a sword ... why would the history of the world change if your Outlander picked up a spear? We are working through some display issues with magical weapons (small phones, always fighting for space) and when we have worked them out, those two weapons will become slightly magical, but they still will be representative of what Oskahold can give. You aren't saving the rich and powerful.

[Cory Trese]

Thank you!

[Karjus]

Dec 15, 2013 23:26:22 GMT -5 fallen said:

Karjus - thanks for the post, really great information. Sorry that your Vraes build did not work out well, ... he is normally a terror.

My suggestion - look for combinations that work. Don't expect a single high level talent (Firebolt) to be the best strategy. Use a lower level Firebolt and stack Burning Blades. Relying on Vraes to kill on Crushing Blow will never be a winning strategy. I saw another post you made about shields being ineffective. Same principle, just picking up a shield won't make an effective defensive fighter. Look for combinations that make it work (Warder's Shield, Phalanx Shield is critical).

On the other 3 points,
1) will definitely work on adding some patrol scenes to the North Vault at a later point.
2) Did you visit the smith more than once? He upgrades his armor sale, of which you should at least take advantage.
3) Oskahold is a poor town, I will try to beef up the dialog a bit more to make that clear. They give you what they can, but they aren't sitting on legendary artifacts to suddenly hand out. And Lukai used a sword ... why would the history of the world change if your Outlander picked up a spear? We are working through some display issues with magical weapons (small phones, always fighting for space) and when we have worked them out, those two weapons will become slightly magical, but they still will be representative of what Oskahold can give. You aren't saving the rich and powerful.

After finishing one run, I immediately tried another and have gone for completely different builds. I'm starting to understand why you've found buffs/debuffs so useful and needed in Nightmare difficulty. I've managed to blend my preferred offense is the best defense strategem with not just looking at flat damage as at that level of difficulty you really need stacked accuracy buffs and defensive debuffs to make sure you're landing those hits. Natural Mastery is just absolutely gorgeous towards that end with Vraes, especially as it also helps his melee defense.

Playing around with Burning Blades, and the single best thing about it is giving every a chance for a Critical Hit. I am however hugely missing his high level Firebolt. And my opinion on shields being ineffective is due to the fact I despise defensive strategy via turtling. In my opinion the best defense is via mobility and offense. I imagine someone who much prefers a static variation of play or even a more straight forward way will find them highly useful.

I did visit the smith more than once, and took care of his armor upgrades. Weirdly enough though, I never felt like my party was ever in much danger of dying unless I put them in a stupid position it was more than they felt ineffective in causing damage.

For me, the variation in weaponry has nothing to do with the poorness of the town. It is metagaming over lore, by ensuring that regardless of what sort of build a person has used for Vraes by that point of the game that they get something useful out of it. Their Vraes might be a master hammerman and barely knows which end of a sword you stick someone with, who'll just look at the sword they're offered and go "No thanks, give me some coin instead. More useful." Like I said, meta not lore. My preference when it comes to quest rewards, especially ones for main episode quests is usually meta as it ensures every player thinks "Cool, I got something useful" instead of "Well here is more stuff to vendor."

[shallowthought]

Just finished playing through for the first time on normal. Here's my characters:

	Dex	Con	Str	Wil	Int	Kno	Bla	Ham	Pol	Lea	Lor	Sor	Con	Bow	Sec	Inv	Ste
Vraes	4	7	9	5	5	3	3	3	9	1	5	-	-	-	-	-	-
Karjtan	4	4	3	7	8	8	-	-	2	-	2	7	6	-	-	-	-
Kyera	3	6	5	4	8	7	3	-	-	-	3	-	-	8	4	-	4(6)
Tamilin	8	5	5	4	7	4	-	6	2	-	4	-	6	-	-	3	-

Everyone's at level 11 apart from Karjtan at level 12.

Talents -
Vraes: crushing blow 2, stone skin 2, savage sweep 1, natural mastery 2, ferocity 3
Karjtan: firebolt 4, choking ash 1, pureflame shield 1, burning blades 1, immolation 3
Kyera: smiting blow 3, myshana's tears 3, ethereal anguish 2, holy retribution 1, purifying breeze 1
Tamilin: aimed shot 5, disarming touch 1, farsight 1, precision pick 1, blacknight 1, deadly intuition 2

Equipment -
Vraes: Double spear(2H spear, 26-52 dmg), leather jerkin(22 armour), Korvain's chain(+10HP,+20SP,+2 resists), Serpent-tread boots (+2 accuracy,+6 armour), Sage's band(+8SP)
Karjtan: Walking staff (staff, 4-10 dmg), traveller's overcloak(mage armour, 14 armour), druidic cloak(+10SP), Ring of the hunter (+6dmg,2%crit), Right hand of flame(+4 fire dmg, +1 accuracy)
Kyera: Chaplain's heavy mace(1H hammer, 28-42 dmg), reinforced shield(3 parry), leather jerkin(22 armour), serpentine clasp(+8SP, +1 dodge)
Tamilin: Leaf dagger(10-21 dmg, 2acc,2parry), Cadet's bow (4 accuracy, 14-30 dmg), stealth brigadine (+3 dodge, +2 stealth), savage boots (+4dmg), serpentine clasp(+8SP, +1 dodge)

Vraes was pretty good, although he did lag a bit around level 5-6, where accuracy became a problem. At the end though, he could hit for 100 damage with ferocity. I think it was the natural mastery that boosted accuracy enough to actually hit. I went for polearms over swords as it looked like they would do more max damage, but by the end I think there's a better selection of swords - going for a 1H sword would let him hold a shield which would help as he would consistently get hit by everything.

Karjtan was also pretty good. Fireball would consistently hit and do reasonable damage. Immolation was a bit disappointing - level 1 would do pretty much no damage at all, and only by level 3 was it worthwhile using. I'd suggest bumping up the levels for this by 1 so it's actually usable. Choking ash was useful as well, I would probably put a few more points into it next time.

Kyera was the worst of the lot. She didn't have quite enough HP to work in melee, and basically spent most of the time healing Vraes. However, whenever she had some spare SP left over, there was nothing that would do much damage. Holy retribution was underpowered - might try to put some more points in next time round but that means not going for smiting blow, making her even more useless in hand to hand. Ethereal anguish was OK but would be a lot better with area of effect.

Tamilin was probably the best of the group. Aimed shot was always reliable, not dealing massive damage but three hits would take down most ratkin and put a sizeable dent in the giant rats. I don't think I ever used blacknight, I tried to avoid hand to hand with Tamilin so I could focus on ranged.

Overall the game was awesome, hours of game play for 50p (or whatever the exchange rate is) is a bargain compared with most other games out there. Loved the dialogue and graphics.

I found the traps basically tedious, it's impossible to predict where they'll be reliably and I don't think they add much.

Pretty much all of the weapons found in chests after Oskahold were worse than those you could buy. I think it would be a more interesting game if you were guaranteed to find at least on of each weapon class better than the ones in the shop somewhere in north vault (but different weapon / chest) each time.

To avoid running out of potions and save cash, I found myself running back to taverns and campsites after every two or three battles. This was pretty time consuming - would you consider adding a campsite somewhere in the north vault? This would basically save just running back and forth and waiting for maps to load while going in and out of town.

Given I never put points into swords with any of the characters, I've got to agree with Karjus on the end quest reward. Surely a little tweak to the dialogue at that point could tweak the world's history such that you get a useful weapon?

I'm most looking forward to a replacement healer character, not too fussed as to how they're different to Kyera, just want a more useful character.


I've now bought Vincent and I'm going to give that a run through on hard difficulty. Will post back with my thoughts on that once I finish it again.

[fallen]

shallowthought - thanks for the full run down on everything, really appreciate it for data gathering and group comparisons. There is a authoring mistake in the loot maps used in the Ratkin Lairs and Vermin Warren that is preventing you from getting the better weapons you deserve. The loot map is prepared, but was not referenced. It will take a little time to fix, but that will be resolved in the future.

Having played with Kjartan with Immolation for a while, I too am looking forward to a chance to rebalance it.

Great to see you try out one set of builds. Other players have reported very different setups and results as to who is "most useful" so its nice to see that different strategies pay off in different ways.

[sgbeal]

My 0.02 Euros, after having beat the Great Shaman...

The Warrior: after the initial cave escape, he became useful only as a pin cushion. He rarely hits (despite Blades being his only skill of note) and does only mediocre damage. He gets his most powerful weapon early on in the game, with no hopes for upgrades. His special attacks drain quickly because of his low INT score. i used him only to block the way so that the Mage could do his thing.

The Mage: the _only_ character who can dish out reasonable damage. He became my single offensive weapon during the last string of battles, picking off most Ratkins before they could get within striking distance.

The Thief: ended up being my second most valued offensive character. She could sometimes take out a Ratkin archer in one round, but normally ended up finishing off Ratkins which the Mage's fire didn't quite do in. She was always the leader of my group because of her Far Sight and the rumor of some advantage of Stealth (which i never actually saw).

The Cleric: next to useless. She was used to block the way when the Warrior couldn't do it alone, and of course she'd heal the Warrior or herself where necessary, but she was idle 80% of the time. Her offensive spells are too Spirit-expensive. She had to be beefed up considerably before her healing skills became all that useful. Enemy Archers seemed to like her, and in some of the larger battles she would catch 7-8 arrows per turn (meaning she spent all of her AP healing herself and swallowing potions).


My combats always centered around the Warrior blocking the way, the Mage raining fiery death down (3 shots, 1 Spirit potion each turn), the Thief taking pock-shots where she could, and the Cleric either being a secondary blocker or just standing aside and waiting for the Warrior to absorb enough damage to make it worth her while to heal him.

And what's up with the Superrats - they're hard as hell to hit!

[Karjus]

sgbeal, sounds like your experience with the setup of your party was near enough the same as mine on my first playthrough.

My advice, to make the Outlander infinitely more useful is to work on his Natural Mastery ability. While the other classes seem to get a variety of abilities that give them decent buffs to accuracy as well as causing extra damage, for the Outlander you either have to hit the NM or work Sweeping Attack. I honestly don't bother with any of his active abilities myself, and just cast NM before every fight. With it up, I'm finding Vraes probably does the most damage out of the group. I can't wait to be able to expand him enough to get Berserk onboard as well.

Also, with Karjtan look into using Cursing Ashes and Burning Blades. The Ashes make every enemy easier to hit, and the Blades makes your guys hit harder. Throw in a bit of Firebolt if you want, and while he won't be the damage dealing beast he is if you focus on it.. he is sort of the hinge that is needed to make the rest of your party awesome. Except for Tamilin. She just rocks.

Not sure what to do about the Cleric myself either. With Cursing Ashes/Burning Blades she manages to land blows every now and then, but I still mostly use her to heal and use Etheral Anguish on the occasional foe I rate as dangerous (Deathkin, and the occasional Giant Rat if I'm going to have to tank it instead of kill it) Eventually, I'd like to work on her being able to use Banishment but as for now I'm loath to spend points on abilities I'm not sure she'll end up using eventually.

[sgbeal]

Karjus, but if the Wizard can (with sufficiently high fireball skill) blast anything to dust post haste, what's the point in him buffing everyone else up for +2 or +4 damage per attack? i was, as you say, surprised how much damage the Thief ended up dealing. Because she's got the range, she easily dealt more damage than my Warrior ever did (she hit for slightly less damage, but he rarely ever gets to actually attack because Fireball-boy mows them down). i've also been saving up my Cleric's points for that final (level 18+) skill because (A) her healing already adds 200 HP or so and (B) all the other skills seem fairly underwhelming.

Unfortunately, there's nothing left for me to go attack, and i haven't got the energy to spend another 2-3 days re-playing the same levels. i'm hoping that eventually an "Arena Mode" will be added for those of us who just want to play a few skirmish rounds without the story. That'd give us something to do while waiting for Episodes II and III. Until then, i'm going to go give Cyber Knights a try, but my initial impression is that it will end up being too detail-oriented for my tastes (like Star Traders - an outstanding overall game, but requiring a huge time commitment to learn to play it effectively).

[Karjus]

It is far more than +2 to +4 an attack, and there is the fact that to keep the Wizard sustainable with a high level Firebolt you're constantly quaffing potions or running back to camp every single fight. I've gone from a party that literally relied on the Wizard to do any sort of damage at all against harder monsters and needs to camp every big fight, to one that can cost through two to three and everyone except for the Cleric can contribute a great deal. The second is vastly more satisfying playing with and a lot more effective.

Seeing Vraes land hits for over a 100 damage on a critical, with the Thief doing 30-50 ones consistently just using a normal arrow, and despite zero extra points in Firebolt the Wizard still managing to land a decent hit now and then is.. nice. Further down the road, once I start working on the Wizard's actual attack spells I expect it to be even more enjoyable.

Note my experience is on Nightmare so mileage may vary.

[fallen]

sgbeal - I'd definitely suggest taking Karjus's advice. If not specifically on the Burning Blades, but to look for a strategy that does not rely on raising a single talent in isolation and relying on that to win the war. The game is a team game, and you will find with good coordination, the right mix of Curses and Buffs, that you can cut through hordes of Ratkin with impressively low SP expenditure. In my good builds, I'd say that every one of my characters "is a beast."

Hope you'll consider checking out the other strategic options when we get to releasing new content in 2014!

[sgbeal]

fallen, i did that until mid-game, when still nobody but the mage (with level 4(?) fireball) could consistently do any reasonable damage (all the best weapons/armor are gotten relatively early on). At which point i decided to go all-fireball on the mage and leave the others for use as pin cushions/blockers. My problem with the various debuff approaches is that the attributes are completely opaque - i have zero idea what affect the debuffs are _really_ having. Same with the cleric spell which removes debuffs. Sure, i get cursed all the time by shamans, but because i cannot see what effect those are having on me (in terms of concrete numbers, or even in with a scary halo/animation), i don't feel compelled to counter them. Quite unfortunately, i don't have unlimited time/energy to experiment with them, so i go for what most obviously works, with the goal being to play through the story (as opposed to the goal being to try out every build combination). If the one-trick-wonder gets me through the story, then so be it .

The lack of ability to save/branch makes it particularly time-consuming to try out other build options, and the time it takes to play through the opening scene alone is enough to dissuade me from trying a second run using Vincent(?). The ability to export/import games (e.g. so we could branch right after the escape scene) would help alleviate that.

Please don't take this as an attack on HoS or its design decisions - i'm here because you guys' energy and long-term commitment to your products is impressive and contagious. HoS is one of only a small handful of Android games which i've played all the way through to the (current) end - most get abandoned relatively early on. However, i'm a casual gamer and do not enjoy (nor do i have the energy for) playing through each game multiple times to try to find a master combination. i can count on one hand the number of games i've played through multiple times in my life (Final Fantasy Tactics for the GameBoy Advanced being (by far) #1 amongst them).

So, for now at least, i'm content with my current PC state in HoS and will let them rest while i eagerly await the arrival of Episodes II and III, all the while watching the forum to see if anything changes drastically enough to justify running through the Prologue and Episode I again (e.g. "all treasures are doubled on easy mode" might count as a justification .

(Okay, that was a bit longer than intended.)

[Karjus]

If you look at "Effects" for a character hit by the debuff, you'll notice it is a rather nasty hit to Parry/Armor if I remember rightly.

And having reached the final section of the tunnels, I'm finding despite the Nightmare difficulty and zero weapon upgrades everyone does very consistent damage. I can't wait to finish it up once my bugged game is fixed.