Group build feedback and advice thread

[En1gma]

My newest version of the ancient Electrickening build. The goal? Overwhelming levels of damage demolishing everything in its path. The method? Level 10 Strickening, Level 6 Energy Storm, and 1 AP Kincaid and Selen.

Kincaid: TK curser, and elemental damage dealer. For now he is focusing on Defense, and has put 10 points into Footwork. Next is Parry, then he starts on FU.
Attributes: 10 Dex, 8 Con, 6 Int
Skills: 12 Blades, 5 Thrown, 5 Lore
Talents: Footwork 10, LbtB 1
-- He isn't dealing too much damage as of yet, but he doesn't take any either, which is fine by me... He will be stacking Elemental Damage gear once he gets to SP 4 for the added block. He will eventually get to AoE on his TK to spread even more damage around. Oh yeah, and he's sitting on 19% Crit, so there's that

Vincent: Elemental Damage curser and major source of damage
Attributes: 7 Con, 10 Int, 8 Kno
Skills: 14 Sorcery, 6 Conj
Talents: Energy Storm 6, TB 5. You see where this is going.
-- He will get ES and TB to 10, then work on leveling his FF and EotS to boost crit/acc and allow a secondary AP curse to support Selen before he closes range.

Fyona: STRICKENING-- (AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!)
Attributes: 10 INT, but who cares?? STRICKENING!!!!!
Skills: 9 INV, SO SHE CAN HIT MOAR THINGS WITH STRICKENING!!!!!!!
TALENTS: STRICKENING 10!!! (Who cares about Blessed Aura 2?!? NOT ME)
--AHHHHHHHHH!!! This talent is the SH!!!!!!T. Nothing like blasting the fear of the 9 Faithful into something then watch them get impaled by Selen and her AoE Pinning Shot. I watched her get a triple crit to kill a trio of spiders and each hit was over 135!! On one arrow!!!! Screw any other way to play her, STRICKENING 10 is the way to go. I don't even want her to see combat until waaaay later, as I'm working on SoC until it hits 10, then she can join the fun with RECKONING, after she bitch-slaps a group with STRICKENING!!!

Selen: Full on Elemental Damage build.
Attributes: 11 Dex, 8 Con, 5 Int
Skills: 12 Blades, 2 Bows, 6(10) Stealth (I don't know if I need to win every Stealth roll, especially against mobs that I want to come closer to me so Fyona can roast them...)
Talents: PS 5, QsD 5
-- No time for DoS, she needs to get her defenses up to par so she can forgo winning the Stealth Roll. Who needs it when you want them to come within range of STRICKENING 10?? On a fully debuffed mob, she is dealing 70+ damage on a 1AP swing, and her bow hits for 100+ every time. She is the engine of slaughter that will bring the enemies of mankind to their knees. I will show them all why you don't MESS with Death's Chosen.

**************

Seriously though, this group, and I know I say this all the time, is my favorite one I've made yet, and I plan on actually working my way through to the end of the game with them. CdrPlatypus, I honestly think the secret to this is to go full in on Strickening with Fy... Go full defense on the frontline, and let the mage and the pally develop so that the others can do their thing with less investment into their attack talents. It's like shooting derpy fish in a tiny little bucket. They line up, Kincaid and Selen dodge everything, then they die. All of them. Nothing is spared.

[MintDragon]

Mar 14, 2016 9:37:05 GMT -5 Rashar said:

Learn to understand the combat mechanics, know what it means when an item says +8damage, know what standard and strong dice are, it might take you an hour orso to read it but it will benefit the choises you make ingame and make it a much more enjoyable experience when you start to see that the choises you made for your team are starting to shine.

More information is here: startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/6711/combat-mechanics

With regards to possible respeccing, plan out and do inquiries and if you any questions just ask/shout/yell, I started playing this game 2 weeks ago aswell and I was like John Snow...

Thank you for the link!  I missed it, but am printing it out so I can finally learn about it :-)

[anrdaemon]

MintDragon, in regard to your current build, I would not be as verbose, as the previous speaker, just a few points:
Make sure you max Phalanx Shield soon. You'll need it.
Pick one point in Ranged Onslaught. Should have done that long ago, IMO. Splashing a few crits and retreating out of the distance of enemies' ranged attacks in the opening turn is a huge advantage.
Pumping Kj's CON is… I don't know, it doesn't get nearly as much useful as it could, better don't expose him at all.

[fallen]

Mar 14, 2016 14:40:45 GMT -5 anrdaemon said:

Pumping Kj's CON is… I don't know, it doesn't get nearly as much useful as it could, better don't expose him at all.

Important if you are going for a No-Deaths run

[xdesperado]

Thinking about doing a Boost-In with Kincaid, Kjartan, Fiona and Selen.
Kjartan will focus on Choking Ash 10 and Burning Blades, Fiona on Strickning 10 and Reckoning.
Selen with Pinning Shot 5 and Punishing Blades, Kincaid with Crippling Strikes 6.

Stripping as much armor and resistance as possible and taking down AP as well.

[wascalwywabbit]

CA 9 at boost in is enough I think, punishing blades will only be needed for high armor targets like ROUSes. You can drop a point into immolation to have a bit more to do after cursing, or just go BB or something. If you do use fire support KJ after cursing instead of PfS then don't forget to match Will with fire dmg level where possible. You might want to have PS 4 and drop a point into DoS, just to be a bit more sp efficient at that level I think.

fallen does Will improve all elemental damage, like gear and bb/tb for everyone, or just the caster's/healer's talents?

[En1gma]

xdesperado-- you're going to have a blast with that setup.

One thing though, I think SoS would be a better investment than the 6 points for CS. Reason being that with SO much of the group focusing on building their offense, Kincaid might need those points into Footwork or Parry to keep himself protected while he builds up his offense.

[fallen]

Mar 14, 2016 15:45:56 GMT -5 wascalwywabbit said:

fallen does Will improve all elemental damage, like gear and bb/tb for everyone, or just the caster's/healer's talents?

Only Spell Attacks.

[wascalwywabbit]

xdesperado you may also want more elemental damage first to take advantage of strickening, relying on pb for armor removal.

En1gma the reason CS works decently with that setup imo (may need some tweaking) is cs, reckoning and pb are all damage reducing and have ap and armor removal respectively. With that setup soak works ok I think.

[xdesperado]

Mar 14, 2016 15:47:33 GMT -5 En1gma said:

xdesperado-- you're going to have a blast with that setup.

One thing though, I think SoS would be a better investment than the 6 points for CS. Reason being that with SO much of the group focusing on building their offense, Kincaid might need those points into Footwork or Parry to keep himself protected while he builds up his offense.

SoS?
And after looking at things Tamlin might be a better option than Selen since she can help strip both resistance and armor as well as remove AP.

[xdesperado]

The idea is to reduce enemy defenses as much as possible and reduce their number of attacks and incoming damage. Trash mobs can be dealt with easily by just about any group setup, this is designed to take down those high defense enemies and bosses quickly.
My current KKKS team is fun and works ok but is still spending a lot of time trying to deal with things like Orc Berserker, ROUS etc, that have both high Armor and strong resistance.

[wascalwywabbit]

SoS= storm of steel - Kincaid's lvl 18, advantage = cross AoE lvl 1 higher dmg, disadvantage is pure offense, no debuffs, high sp costs at higher levels.

[En1gma]

By SoS I meant Storm of Steel, xdesperado

I agree that CS could work very well here, since you are running KJ and not my boy Vinnie. Soak in this group would work just fine, especially since the option for KJ to run MS is available. By combining MS and CS, you could certainly get away with using gear to bolster Kincaid's defense.

I don't think Tam is better for this setup than Selen though... Fyona forgoing SoC and running only Strickening could leave her wide open and I don't think she could cut it as an off tank. In my group, she likely won't even see combat until E3, so she can have time to grab some gear and develop SoC.

[xdesperado]

Mar 14, 2016 16:48:20 GMT -5 En1gma said:

By SoS I meant Storm of Steel, xdesperado

I agree that CS could work very well here, since you are running KJ and not my boy Vinnie. Soak in this group would work just fine, especially since the option for KJ to run MS is available. By combining MS and CS, you could certainly get away with using gear to bolster Kincaid's defense.

I don't think Tam is better for this setup than Selen though... Fyona forgoing SoC and running only Strickening could leave her wide open and I don't think she could cut it as an off tank. In my group, she likely won't even see combat until E3, so she can have time to grab some gear and develop SoC.

I'm planning on giving Fiona SoC, she's not got to get Reckoning very high initially so will likely split between SoC and her group heal after first level of Reckoning.
Kincaid will start with Sure Parry 4 and Cunning Footwork 1, I'll bring CF up to 3 then split between CF and SP until he hits SP7, after that I'll start building LbtB for the extra MP.
Tam can be effective with lower level of ToS than Selen with PS so lets me put a few points elsewhere, plus she can help reduce resistance.
I'd rather over curse to start episode 2 than get behind.

[wascalwywabbit]

if Tam is running ss and black night, combined with SoC along with the new parry for tks and other newish gear she's not as vulnerable compared to Selen as she once was. She's can still a bit of a glass cannon, because it takes two of her talents to dodge tank, but there's always Fyona to off tank some.