Group build feedback and advice thread

[anrdaemon]

Mar 14, 2016 14:47:43 GMT -5 fallen said:

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

Yeah, but at this point, her run is way past this milestone, I'm afraid…

[anrdaemon]

Mar 14, 2016 17:42:08 GMT -5 wascalwywabbit said:

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 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.

1AP TK, -2AP ToS and she can laugh in the face of anyone running up to her. (Though, played properly, she can just run away from anyone running up to her. As they would expend all their MP+AP on the run.)

[wascalwywabbit]

On NM Tam needs more than just ToS and/or safe distances. She needs great gear and/or solid team D ToS, BN and SS buildout or a combination of all the above. It's too much a limit on her damage, and possibly not doable at all, to ask her to tank unaided, so I usually have at least 2 teammates helping her out e.g. CS, PfS/MS or FA and/or reckoning/RF/SoC or WS/EA. Selen is often fine with just 1 teammate's aid dodge and QsD, she still needs more than 1 if soak though.

The update to parrying TKs and higher skills at 30 plus have made dodge iron man much more plausible for Tam. Except for testing builds I'm not ready to fully invest time into nmi though.

[CdrPlatypus]

En1gma Your damage output will definitely be stellar. It will be interesting putting Fyona behind the front line as a curse bot.

I wouldn't take the group on an ironman run, but it looks fun to play.

[En1gma]

It's insane.

[shallowthought]

So, thought I'd finally get around to posting one of my groups here...

Currently at level 20, going through the Vast Cavern (headed north right after the lowland crossroads)

Kinkaid:
13 dexterity, 9 constitution
12 blades, 9 leadership, 3 lore
Cunning footwork 3, Live by the blade 3, Flanking unity 5, Storm of steel 1
1 AP light blade + 2 AP 1h sword

Vincent:
9 constitution, 11 intelligence
9 sorcery, 9 conjuring, 6 lore
Flash freeze 6, Charged speed 2, Energy storm 1, Thundering blades 4
Staff

Kyera:
7 strength, 10 constitution, 8 intelligence
7 hammers, 5 conjuring, 11 lore
Myshana's tears 4, Ethereal anguish 4, Warder's shield 4, Piety ward 3
1h hammer + shield

Selen:
12 dexterity, 9 constitution
12 blades, 6 lore, 6 stealth
Punishing blades 4, Dance of shadows 3, Quicksilver defense 6
1 AP light blade + 2 AP 1h sword

Currently battles are basically Vincent curses everything with flash freeze for AP removal with kyera getting anything he misses with ethereal anguish, Selen hits 3 things/round with punishing blades, then Kinkaid and kyera clean up. Vincent fires off with energy storm once everything's cursed down to 1 AP and kyera heals as required.

Next few points with selen/kinkaid are going to be getting to 3 mp, then cunning footwork/dance of shadows, vincent will just be energy storm/thundering blades until they're maxed and kyera will probably drop the next talent into purifying breeze for curse removal then max warder's shield, raising myshana's tears so she can heal anyone in a single cast. 

In terms of gear, kyera has +1mp boots and SP drain, selen and kinkaid both have SP drain so they're pretty much self powering, and vincent is +SP and a bit of +damage (currently he does nowhere near enough damage for sp drain to be worth it).

Any thoughts/feedback?

Edit: should have said but this is on hard and no deaths so far. Currently number 4 on the steam leaderboards

[fallen]

A huge thanks to everyone sharing their groups! There are multiple threads going on for sharing, and thousands of posts between them. Always proud of how the theory-crafting of Heroes has been such a point of engagement -- everyone has a different group build to try, swear by, or say is "the best!"

Thanks all and a big +1

[En1gma]

Hey johndramey-- Congratulations on well over 20,000 views on your little thread here!

It has been invaluable to me for several years here, and has been my favorite place to hang out-- probably the reason I stayed around so long, and continued to post and talk with everyone. So here's to you good buddy, and I hope we have fun on the way to 40K!

[johndramey]

Haha, well I hope so to. I need to be a little more active in it, as between BF and work I've been neglecting HoS. Don't worry, Vraes, I'll come back to you soon!

[John Robinson]

Mar 22, 2016 18:27:21 GMT -5 En1gma said:

Hey johndramey -- Congratulations on well over 20,000 views on your little thread here!

It has been invaluable to me for several years here, and has been my favorite place to hang out-- probably the reason I stayed around so long, and continued to post and talk with everyone. So here's to you good buddy, and I hope we have fun on the way to 40K!

Agree 100%. That goes for you too En1gma . Seeing you both on the boards really makes these Trese forums a very special place to spend time.    +1K to both of you great guys. 

[En1gma]

Did you guys see that Immolation though?

I'm busy playing BF, I don't have time for this nonsense

How well does this synergize with Deadly Intuition and Berserk Rage (rhetorical question)? I think I'll need to run an OG group through to see the new changes and how they work with the original crew.

Though... I think Kincaid, KJ, Kyera, and Selen just got a slow burning upgrade.
-Footwork 10, Crippling Strikes 6, Flashing Blades for the end game. Go either TK or 2AP dual wield and focus on crit percentage/AoE damage.
-Immolation and Ash stay in lockstep until they are maxed out. With the newest changes to Immolation getting -Armor, and the fact that you can take enemies negative, KJ can dish out some serious pain with Immolation(FINALLY) and the enemies with highest armor counts are even weaker.
-EA 10 and WS 10 for obvious reasons
-Bows for Selen, as always, PS 5, Dance of Shadows, and high levels of Punishing Blades take even more armor away, while boosting her crit damage.

Probably need to think about it obsessively for the next three weeks, but who knows?

[En1gma]

I'm having second thoughts about my current path through the UD this time around.

I'm running that Strickening 10, ES, and Elemental damage group, and now that I'm past the Spur, I was going to head for the Cultists, so I could let my group mature to be able to handle the Orcin armor more effectively through ES 10 and beginning to work on Punishing Blades to work on armor even harder. Now that I've fought a few of the Orcin camps in the Darkmoss, I'm beginning to wonder if I should just go do the Orcin first. Even with 40+ Armor, once I got to where I was dealing Elemental damage, it was business as usual, with 70+ damage for Selen's 1AP dagger, and 100+ on her bow. My only concern is that Kincaid doesn't have as much Elemental Gear on him, so he would really only be damaging the wolves and Hellhunds, due to the severe lack of the ability to overcome that class of armor whatsoever.

My question: What would you do in my case? Devote Kincaid to tanking the Orcin and damaging the low armor enemies, while Vincent and Selen take care of damaging/removing the Orcin. Alternately I could press on to the Forges and completely tweak my way through them, slaughtering them by the dozens as I remove any thought of their resistances and let their pitiful HP take the fall. This would be the easier in the short term by a huge margin, but would level the group, and thus the Orcin, to much higher levels, and for a group lacking a good armor curse until Punishing Blades this could prove deadly.


Thoughts?

[CdrPlatypus]

Apr 22, 2016 11:05:57 GMT -5 En1gma said:

I'm having second thoughts about my current path through the UD this time around.

I'm running that Strickening 10, ES, and Elemental damage group, and now that I'm past the Spur, I was going to head for the Cultists, so I could let my group mature to be able to handle the Orcin armor more effectively through ES 10 and beginning to work on Punishing Blades to work on armor even harder. Now that I've fought a few of the Orcin camps in the Darkmoss, I'm beginning to wonder if I should just go do the Orcin first. Even with 40+ Armor, once I got to where I was dealing Elemental damage, it was business as usual, with 70+ damage for Selen's 1AP dagger, and 100+ on her bow. My only concern is that Kincaid doesn't have as much Elemental Gear on him, so he would really only be damaging the wolves and Hellhunds, due to the severe lack of the ability to overcome that class of armor whatsoever.

My question: What would you do in my case? Devote Kincaid to tanking the Orcin and damaging the low armor enemies, while Vincent and Selen take care of damaging/removing the Orcin. Alternately I could press on to the Forges and completely tweak my way through them, slaughtering them by the dozens as I remove any thought of their resistances and let their pitiful HP take the fall. This would be the easier in the short term by a huge margin, but would level the group, and thus the Orcin, to much higher levels, and for a group lacking a good armor curse until Punishing Blades this could prove deadly.


Thoughts?

My suggestion is to hit the orcin first. Just use Kincaid as a blocker and have Vincent level the high armor targets with the es double tap, bring extra sp potions

[cypherzj]

Here is my party on Nightmare

Currently going through A4, most fights end in 2-3 turns if mobs aren't sparse. A bit longer if they are (chasing after ranged is kind of annoying, I prefer to OOS[out of sight] or LOS[line of sight] pull them)

I did have a lot of deaths in A1, A2 as this was my first game (I stopped at A2 because it was too hard and restarted on Hard Mode with a different group to learn the game). After the change in immolation, I picked up this group again. Haven't died since entering COD.

My current party is KKFT, I don't use stealth lead, although Kindred happens to have some stealth from gear so I win like 1/5 rolls.

The focus of this party is to debuff the target using curses, and deal massive elemental crit damage with Holy Sickening.

I start most pulls by either LOSing or OOSing mobs, so that I can get to the gathered ranged mobs and kill them in 1 turn.  I usually ignore melee mobs until the end, and have Fyona offtank them while everyone else stays with Kindred and go straight for ranged mobs.

I try to have at least 2 MP on each char for chasing the ranged mobs.  I have around 10% SP drain on most chars, except Ky, who has like 30%.  They are pretty much self sustaining, I only rest to heal HP.

The standard combo to debuff a group of targets -

Ky CA 8 (Total debuff = - 8P, - 6D, -20A) - 4 AP left
Fyona HS 10 (-8P, -13D, -20A, -22R, -16AR) - 4 AP left (I only use this if the mobs have a ton of armor or 3k+ hp)
Tam ToS 8 (-2AP, -8P, -23D, -20A, -30R, -16AR) - 6 AP left
Kindred DS 5 (-2AP, -14P, -29D, -20A, -30R, -16AR) - 6 AP left
Ky Immo 10 (-2AP, -14P, -29D, -28A, -30R, -16AR, -16Crit) - 1 AP left

At this point, most chars will have 30-60% crit chance, and no issues with accuracy.

6 AP on Tam, 6 AP on Kindred for damage.  (Tam has 4 AP but her damage is not a big factor, I'd rather reposition her to offtank)

With 1 AP TKs, they average 150-300 non crit, 300-500 crits, in a 2 by 2 aoe.  I can usually kill all ranged mobs in 1 turn unless they are super spread apart.  If that's the case, I try to tag them with ToS so they usually end up with 1 AP, not a big threat.

With the ranged mobs dead within 3 turns, the melee mobs would be gathered enough to die in 1 turn after.

Kindred - Lvl 42
Wep - 1 AP TK, 1 AP Light Blade
Gearing Priority -

1) Around 25/25 Dodge/Parry bonus (will need more as I level up)
2) 8% SP drain (will get from legendary TK)
3) At least +16 magical damage
4) Crit

Attr - 16 Dex, 16 Con
Skill - 16 Blade, 13 Thrown, 11 Leadership
Talent - 10 CF, 4 SP, 5 DS, 8 FU, 1 LBtB, 1 SoS, 1 FB (going to max this going forward)

Role - Main Dodge Tank, debuff with DS, try to tank all ranged hits if possible

Kyartan - Lvl 42
Wep - 2 AP Staff
Gearing Priority -

1) +2 or higher MP from gear
2) At least +16 magical damage
3) SP Drain to sustain
4) Crit

Attr - 16 Con, 13 Knowledge
Skill - 20 Sorcery, 12 Conjuring
Talent - 9 CA, 10 BB, 10 Immo.  After CA is maxed, will probably go with Pureflame Shield

Role - AoE Debuffer, keep behind tanks

Fyona - Lvl 41
Wep - 1H 2 AP Hammer, Shield

Attr - 11 Str, 10 Dex, 14 Con
Skill - 20 Hammer, 7 Invocation
Talent - 6 ZS, 10 SoC, 10 Holy Sickening, 1 Reckoning.  After ZS is maxed, will go CD.
Gearing Priority -

1) +2 or higher MP from gear
2) 20/20 dodge/parry bonus (will need more as I level up)
3) SP Drain to sustain
4) Crit / Elemental dmg (not that necessary)

Role - Off-tank / Debuffer, stick near melee enemies, protect Tam and Ky top priority

Tamilin - Lvl 42
Wep - 1AP TK, 2 AP Bow

Attr - 16 Dex, 14 Const
Skill - 20 Thrown, 9 Bow, 12 Lore
Talent - 8 ToS, 10 DI, 7 BK.  Going for 8 BK, and then max ToS, and then 4 Farsight

Gearing Priority -

1) SP Drain to sustain ToS spam
2) At least +16 magical damage
3) Crit

Role - Main DPS / AP debuffer.  On a single fully debuffed target, can usually do up to 3k damage in 1 turn.

[fallen]

cypherzj - very nice, I especially like the "order of action" where you put down the basic start to each combat. That is a great strategy to have in hand and to make sure you hit it every time on higher difficulties.

Great to see you are enjoying the Immolation changes. Very well paired with Fyona's Holy Strickening!