Combat - Mechanics

[fallen]

Mar 20, 2016 17:46:31 GMT -5 wascalwywabbit said:

"Dual Wielding
Some characters can wield two blades at a time (Vraes, Tamilin, Selen, Kincaid)."

Tamilin should be removed from the list since she can no longer dual wield.

Thx, fixed!

[mg979]

Some questions:

Parry: do all enemies have parry, or only the ones with a shield? Or the latter have just more?
Dodge: how useful is stacking dodge curses? Which is the typical dodge for monsters?
Accuracy: which pool of accuracy do curses affect? Strong die accuracy (from weapon/empowered attack) or the standard one? Is it the same for monsters? For example, I curse with -10 accuracy, will I be able to overcurse an enemy this way? What happens really and how useful is it in general?

[fallen]

Jun 22, 2016 9:11:37 GMT -5 mg979 said:

Some questions:

Parry: do all enemies have parry, or only the ones with a shield? Or the latter have just more?
Dodge: how useful is stacking dodge curses? Which is the typical dodge for monsters?
Accuracy: which pool of accuracy do curses affect? Strong die accuracy (from weapon/empowered attack) or the standard one? Is it the same for monsters? For example, I curse with -10 accuracy, will I be able to overcurse an enemy this way? What happens really and how useful is it in general?

All enemies have parry.

Dodge among enemies is a solid stat, generally higher than parry. It scales throughout the game, 2 to 30? With the scaling and over 300+ monster variations, a clear answer isn't easy to give.

Accuracy cursing reduces Strong Dice. You can overcurse to 0 and no additional effect. By the time you reach Episode 2, having 10 dice in this strong dice pool is very common.

[mg979]

Thank you, so it seems it's good to have more dodge curses on strong enemies at least.

[Someone]

Any chance for those stats to become visible in game, perhaps by a talent like sly look or spirit sight?

[fallen]

Jun 22, 2016 19:44:51 GMT -5 Someone said:

Any chance for those stats to become visible in game, perhaps by a talent like sly look or spirit sight?

Something we can consider, but more likely only possible in the game's sequel, Legends of Steel, to wrap that up in a Talent.

[bookworm21]

Do shields make any difference to blocking arrows? Apart from the autoblock % sometimes present. It doesn't look like that's the case, but it seems KCD is taking a lot more damage from Krete than Fyona in practice

[fallen]

Sept 15, 2016 15:14:12 GMT -5 bookworm21 said:

Do shields make any difference to blocking arrows? Apart from the autoblock % sometimes present. It doesn't look like that's the case, but it seems KCD is taking a lot more damage from Krete than Fyona in practice

Only in terms of AutoBlock.

[Ciro]

I have a question - regarding skills like Torrent of Steel. If buffed with an elemental effect (say Vicent or KJ) and using elemental damage accessories, if the base physical damage of the skill is soaked but the elemental damage is not, will the curse take effect?

[matrim]

Yes, the game does not differentiate between damage type after it is soaked/inflicted. Thus, every time you hit a mob, the resulting damage is a single number of all damage sources being added together.

[fallen]

matrim - correct, any damage is all you need.

[achilles73]

A few dual-wielding questions:

1. For a character that can both dual wield and use 2H weapons like Vraes, what's the preferrable route in general?

2. Generally-speaking, does 2 1AP weapons do better damage or is it better to go 1 AP main hand and 2 AP off hand?

[matrim]

1. Dual wield - tends to have greater damage band width. Also with 2 magic weapons you get the benefit of both on any weapon attack that uses both weapons. The damage is additive so if you dual wield 2 swords with 13-25 damage and 11-19 damage the resulting range will be 24-44 damage. Strength rules do not apply to dual wielding.
2h - with properly supporting strength tends to be more consistent damage. The magic ones tend to have better bonuses than 1h weapons although they would fall short of the double bonus that dual wield can offer. 2h also depends on which weapon you wield. Maces most damaging, biggest damage band, swords middle, spears lowest. However in terms of parry and accuracy that reverses with spears offering the most, followed by swords, and maces offering the least.
My personal preference is 2h mace. I love the high, consistent damage and imagining Vraes crushing things to bloody pulps is just satisfying. However that is only a preference, a lucky spear find in a game would bring spears to the top, or maybe lots of magic sword find would put dual wield ahead. It's all random but you have to commit somewhere. A good compromise I think is going swords, you can dual wield them and if you find a crazy 2h sword then you can just put that on and keep rocking!

2. This also depends on some factors. What attack skill are you using? How much damage does your equipment add. Any buffs? In general I would say 1AP/2AP is better for episode 1 but as you start getting better gear in episode 2+ then it swaps to 1AP/1AP. However SP usage is a factor and the higher AP setup uses 33% less SP if you are using empowered attacks. Also if that is your tank then the 2 AP weapons tend to have better parry stats. As always a lucky find or certain game points may favour one over the other as well. 1 AP weapons make a massive jump close to the end of episode 1 but then 2 AP weapons catch up and even pass them mid episode 2. And the ballet continues thus forth.

[achilles73]

Dec 13, 2016 13:28:26 GMT -5 matrim said:

1. Dual wield - tends to have greater damage band width. Also with 2 magic weapons you get the benefit of both on any weapon attack that uses both weapons. The damage is additive so if you dual wield 2 swords with 13-25 damage and 11-19 damage the resulting range will be 24-44 damage. Strength rules do not apply to dual wielding.
2h - with properly supporting strength tends to be more consistent damage. The magic ones tend to have better bonuses than 1h weapons although they would fall short of the double bonus that dual wield can offer. 2h also depends on which weapon you wield. Maces most damaging, biggest damage band, swords middle, spears lowest. However in terms of parry and accuracy that reverses with spears offering the most, followed by swords, and maces offering the least.
My personal preference is 2h mace. I love the high, consistent damage and imagining Vraes crushing things to bloody pulps is just satisfying. However that is only a preference, a lucky spear find in a game would bring spears to the top, or maybe lots of magic sword find would put dual wield ahead. It's all random but you have to commit somewhere. A good compromise I think is going swords, you can dual wield them and if you find a crazy 2h sword then you can just put that on and keep rocking!

2. This also depends on some factors. What attack skill are you using? How much damage does your equipment add. Any buffs? In general I would say 1AP/2AP is better for episode 1 but as you start getting better gear in episode 2+ then it swaps to 1AP/1AP. However SP usage is a factor and the higher AP setup uses 33% less SP if you are using empowered attacks. Also if that is your tank then the 2 AP weapons tend to have better parry stats. As always a lucky find or certain game points may favour one over the other as well. 1 AP weapons make a massive jump close to the end of episode 1 but then 2 AP weapons catch up and even pass them mid episode 2. And the ballet continues thus forth.

Thanks for the detailed answer!

Hmmm, now I sort of regret going knives on both Kincaid AND Selen. I should have gone sword on Kincaid and compared the two. But I can re-spec, right?

The other consideration though was that knives use dex - whereas swords use strength - and I thought dex is more useful for tanking for Kincaid? Or was I misled?

[matrim]

Knives on both is fine. You want dex build on both of them, neither are really made to build strength. With Gallows, you have Vincent using knives as well. This again is not an issue as your attack talents more than make up for any lack of uber gear that you would put on them.