Thoughts - Part 2 (Possible Spoilers)

[contributor]

Are there any side quests in E1A2? I never went in and talked with the officials in Riven Field and I'm thinking that maybe I'm missed something. I'm also curious to know what happens if I tell Barnett Giova "No" at the end.

[Karjus]

I only talked to them after already meeting the contact regarding Vraes' friend (B something? Sheesh. Slowly learning the PCs, will learn everyone else!), but before resting. The guards told me to come back tomorrow. I then rested at the inn, to have the heroes meet the contact who commented that the officials can wait but B (Barnet?!?!) can't so they headed off to the Siege Camp. From the sounds of what will be contained in the next part, I imagine the heroes end up having to travel back through Riven Field and the officials might get contacted then. After all, there were all those mercenary encampments and that prison area in the east of the city that went unused.. they might be the seeds of future quest lines.

[fallen]

Jan 31, 2014 10:37:39 GMT -5 Karjus said:

Oh forgot to mention finding the hidden cache on the orc level. After the comment of hiding it away to keep it from the orcs I was salivating at the thought of someone interesting.

It was then my first empty chest I had in a long time and found myself cussing the incompetent soldiers for not being able to hide better.

Sent from my GT-I9100P using proboards

Fixed in next!

[shallowthought]

So I've just finished playing through episode 2, not sure that having a job is all it's cracked up to be given the lack of time left to play Heroes of Steel.
First off, here's a round-up of my characters at the end of ep 2 (playing on hard difficulty):

Attributes:

	Dex	Con	Str	Wil	Int	Kno	Bla	Ham	Pol	Lea	Lor	Sor	Con	Bow	Sec	Inv	Ste
Vraes	5	7	8	5	8	3	10	3	3	1	9	-	-	-	-	-	-
Karjtan	4	4	3	7	8	10	-	-	9	-	2	9	7	-	-	-	-
Kyera	5	6	7	4	8	6	-	8	2	-	8	-	5	-	-	3	-
Tamilin	9	5	5	4	9	4	1	-	-	-	8	-	-	9	3(6)	-	5(12)

Talents are as follows (ignoring any I didn't put points into):
Vraes - Natural master 5, Savage sweep 2, Stone skin 5, Berserk rage 1
Karjtan - Burning blades 5, Choking ash 3, Pureflame shield 2, Immolation 1, Meteoric shockwave 2
Kyera - Myshana's tears 4, Warder's shield 5, Ethereal anguish 4
Tamilin - Aimed shot 3, Deadly intuition 7, Blacknight 1, Silent stalker 2

In terms of the story, pretty good going. The narrative built up a proper sense of urgency but I was glad that this wasn't enforced in the game (no hard limit on how long you had to get through the keep) so you could take your time and fully explore. There were plenty of decent battles on the go, I think the one in Groth's lair was probably the best (and hardest). Got killed once on that I think but eventually managed to curse enough of the enemies that I could start taking them out. On the whole it built well on what happened in ep 1 and I'm looking forward to see what happens in the next act.
For this game I went more with spending talent points buffs / debuffs rather than empowered attacks - this totally saves on SP as you basically cast once instead of every round. I think that as a general strategy this is definitely the way to go.

Thoughts on characters:
Vraes - same as usual, tanking away. When he's buffed up he can take pretty much anything that comes at him, and does a decent job of dodging attacks. Other than that his HP is massive so generally can go a couple of rounds of getting shot and stabbed before there's anything to worry about. In terms of attack, solid and steady, was doing 30-50 damage towards the end most of the time, accuracy not 100% but pretty good, and he did manage a massive 250 damage with a critical on a debuffed enemy at one point. I think the point I put into berserk rage would have been better spent elsewhere, I'm not convinced that the drop in armour is worth it.

Karjtan - not brilliant at dealing damage himself (although he does have some gear on to boost fire damage), but not totally useless either in offence. Burning blades and pureflame shield are pretty much essential for the rest of the team, and Choking ash / meteoric shockwave are pretty good for debuffs. Next talent point is going into MS to get the AOE. As I say, offence isn't brilliant but immolation is the only AOE attack the team has so useful for weakening off groups of enemies and fireball is enough to finish off anyone with low resistance. Really wish I had some more points to spend on talents here but that's just part of the game.

Kyera - surprisingly a really good melee fighter this time round. With all the buffs on the team damage taken was a lot lower than the other times I've played, so she wasn't spending every round just healing. Put a load of points into constitution and hammers, equip the right gear, and most of the time I have her up beside Vraes. Damage isn't massive but does a pretty good job, generally 30 damage with a 2AP weapon, so dealing about the same as Vraes unless called on for healing. Ethereal anguish was very useful in some of the final battles, basically halves the damage most archers can deal so once I'd hit most of them with this it was possible to stop running and turn around to fight. The last point I put into Myshana's tears was after the last battle, next time round it'll be before that as the team was relying mostly on potions to make it through

Tamilin - as usual, deadly with the bow. Massive chance of criticals with burning blades, deadly intuition and the help of some additional gear. Not much more to say here really, other than I was a bit disappointed in the stealth crits - damage seemed a bit low really.