New game, party setup. Planning phase + progress reports

[TeeWee]

Time for a longer update.

First, the hard facts: my current build at level 20.


Generally, I'm happy with my build. I am dying a bit more often than I'm used to now in the Orcin caves, but there's definately merit to this build.

The good stuff
I have good Area of Effect with both Lightning Spear and Ranged Onslaught. Combined with some crit%, clumps of foes will readily be reduced to whimpering babies awaiting a mercy stroke. For raw killing power, nothing beats Vraes + Crushing Blow + Berserk. These three characters all have some +Crit% equipment to help them have good peak damage.

Fyona is starting to come into her role to protect Tamilin and Vincent. She can stand in the way and reduces the need for Vraes to be everywhere at the same time. This way, Vraes can unleash his inner berserker ("Chaaaarge!!!" anyone?). He's really good at being mobile (Burst of Speed) and killing threats before returning to the defensive line next to Fyona.

I also love Reckoning. It combines nicely with both of Vincent's curses. I've also started to notice that Silent Stalker is not just a Stealth Crit generator, but has a cursing ability in its own right. In short, I'm seeing a good way to reduce enemy effectiveness in the future if I manage to concentrate on this aspect. Flash Freeze + Frigid Air + Reckoning + Silent Stalker results (for the survivor) in reduced damage output, reduced action points, reduced accuracy. This seems a good line to focus on.

Concerns
Raw survivability is still hard for Fyona. Vraes just seems tougher. With enemies being able to inflict 140 HP worth of damage after Soak makes tanking a risky business. At times, Fyona only has time to heal people. Another point in Blessed Aura may be needed soon to help with that; potions are an option, but Vraes and Fyona are already turning into addicts and funding their habits is starting to kill my purse. I really feel the need to be mobile in the current levels. Just standing and slugging it out is really risky.

Some of my concerns are about equipment: Tamilin's damage output is starting to fall behind. Maybe it's a sign I need to go for a 3AP bow, but I'd rather not lose the extra attack. On low-armor opponents like Javilineers or Hund-like beasts there's still high (100+) crits, but versus better armor, my usual crits are more in the range of 60.

I also noted that I have accuracy concerns for Fyona. So much of her effectiveness is bound in being able to hit opponents. She doesn't need to hit hard: a measly 10 points already activates her Consecrated Defense or Reckoning abilities. Being able to do that consistently is a worry for me. She still hits often enough, but I feel a need to adjust her equipment for +ACC. It's logical, but I have a strong in-character wish to keep as much +Holy Dmg on her as possible. That's just the price I pay for immersion... Earlier in this thread, I lamented the lack of good -Dodge curses, which would help Fyona a lot. But choosing Frigid Air over Flash Freeze made a lot of sense around level 12 when I was reevaluating my plans, as well as skipping over Holy Strickening. Alas.

As I noted in my previous post though, I have a strong suspicion I went for the wrong party buff. I took Righteous Fervor, but in retrospect, I think that +Parry/+Dodge would have been more valuable for my party than +HP/+Armor/+Resist. I'm wondering if I should shift and add Shield of Cortias into the mix.

Future development
Vincent needs to balance AoE effectiveness against cursing effectiveness. I believe I made the right choice to go for Frigid Air over Flash Freeze as the talent to develop. The Cross-shaped Flash Freeze is always useful for its -1AP; Frigid Air must be scaled with the enemies to keep its effectiveness and I had already invested points to make it 9square AoE, so keeping it as my high-level curse just makes sense. The main decision is whether Vincent is a curser first and a AoE killer second, or the other way around. Currently, while a killer is more active to play, a curser may be the role this group needs Vincent for the most.

Tamilin is really just single-purpose: she kills from a distance. It's only a matter of balancing the levels of Deadly Intuition, Blacknight, Silent Stalker and Ranged Onslaught. They all do the same thing (helping her kill people with her bow) and there's no other direction that competes for her attention. She already has a very nice DI-base of 6 and Blacknight is necessary to keep her winning her stealth rolls. So I'll probably develop Ranged Onslaught first for now, only adding the Blacknight when I feel there's a possiblility of losing more stealth rolls than I feel comfortable with.

Vraes' speed of development as a Berserker is tied closely with Fyona's ability to tank. The more she's able to tank on her own, the more Vraes will be allowed to descend into Berserk Rage and become the walking killing machine. Whenever I feel taking a level of Berserk Rage is inappropriate, I'll take one of Natural Mastery, Burst of Speed or Crushing Blow.

Fyona is the difficult one. I feel I've made the wrong decision on Shield of Cortias. But developing that from scratch takes some time that takes away from maintaining and improving her existing skill set. I have no ready answer to that. I just hit level 20. If Kyera's leveling table is any guide (Fyona's is really different, but there are patterns across all characters), there may be 3 talent points for grabs between 21-23 to help her develop something with relative speed.

[fallen]

TeeWee - I am very interested in this party. Please keep sharing your experiences, especially around your Fyona build and her challenges. It is never too late to add Shield of Cortias, but I love to hear your thoughts on Righteous Fervor. You're getting it on everyone, and it just isn't making the difference?

[TeeWee]

Jun 21, 2014 7:52:11 GMT -5 fallen said:

TeeWee - I am very interested in this party. Please keep sharing your experiences, especially around your Fyona build and her challenges. It is never too late to add Shield of Cortias, but I love to hear your thoughts on Righteous Fervor. You're getting it on everyone, and it just isn't making the difference?

What I think my problems with Righteous Fervor is not that it's having any effect, but that pumping soak stats is, when seen in balance with the escalating damage output of the enemies, inefficient. An extra 8 armor does almost nothing if that Orcin is able to deal over 200 damage. Of course, i can't see how many accuracy dice the enemies get, but I have a slight feeling that it's easier to keep up the race with evasion stats.

On the other hand, I haven't seen large amounts of Unholy damage yet, which may make Righteous Fervor a much stronger proposition. Extra HP is nice, but much more than that.

Of course, this is just one playthrough and I'm not a really good player (yet). So I may be wrong in my perception. I may also be missing some nice interactions and synergies with other talents. It does compensate for Berserk's penalties. But if I would redo this particular game now, I'd be much more aggresive in increasing Dodge and Parry stats and worry less about Armor.

[En1gma]

For what it's worth, I've never really considered using Righteous Fervor, only because the bonuses gained seem way too small for such a late talent. I suppose using it in tandem with Pureflame Shield and a high level SSk could yield some good gains armor-wise, but other than that, for me talent points could be better spent elsewhere... Even less viable for me, now that I've heard some of the raw damage that higher level mobs put out.

[fallen]

Thanks for the great feedback, I will investigate this Talent specifically.

[En1gma]

fallen- it looks like it would have the potential to be an amazing talent, and I'm sure people have used it effectively, but preventing max 16 damage between armor, resistance, and hp (RF 1) isn't as effective in my opinion as the strong dice provided by Shield of Cortias. Perhaps if the initial bonuses evened out with SoC earlier on (I usually have SoC 2 or 3 depending on how I'm playing her by level 12) then this talent could be much more tempting to try out. Also, what is the first mob that deals unholy damage?

[TeeWee]

I have changed tack a little in an attempt to alleviate the concerns I have about Fyona.

First off, I'm starting a run into Shield of Cortias. It's a little late, but I feel that extra evasion dice (Parry, Dodge) are always valuable. So I'm going to build on that instead of Righteous Fervor, at least for a little while. It's going to be dividing my attention between Consecrated Defense (my main attack), Reckoning and Shield of Cortias for now, with a splash of Blessed Aura if necessary.

The other concern I had was about Fyona's ability to connect with her hammer. This, I'm trying to solve with Vincent's help. Earlier on, I had invested in Eye of the Storm. In isolation, that's the best buff for a ranged Vincent. Lots of (ranged) accuracy and crit% plus an AoE attack is just evil. But where Eye of the Storm is a self-buff, Thundering Blades is a party buff. I don't care too much about the extra damage, but I do care about adding accuracy. So I've changed my strategy a little: where previously it would be "time" to add in an extra level of Eye, I will now add Thundering Blades instead. They both give me +1 accuracy (the stat I'm chiefly concerned about, the Crit% and the Damage are a bonus) and Thundering Blades gives it to everybody.

Lesson learned: In a future Ranged-Vincent, I'd probably take 1 level of Eye (because that raises his accuracy with +3!) and fill the rest of the buffs with Thundering Blades (each level of ThBl or Eye adds an extra +1 acc; it's Level 1 of Eye that adds two extra bonus accuracy points!). Only after I'm satisfied with that, will I start upgrading Eye some more.

Something entirely different just clicked with me last night: AoE attacks and Crit% are a match made in heaven! It's something I've noticed with both Vincent and Tamilin now as they both have AoE. I started to notice that Vincent's measly 6% Crit was activating a lot more than expected. The math just makes it extra yummie:
Say, Vincent hits a 3 target LS with all hits. His Crit% is 6%. But each target has its own Crit-chance! So instead of there being a 6% chance of a critical hit in this attack, it's actually much higher. The chance that no crit at all is made on 3 targets is: (100 - 6)% x (100 - 6)% x (100 - 6)% = 83%. So on a 3 target Lightning Spear, you have a 27% chance to have at least 1 critical hit.
On Tamilin, it's even yummier: Deadly Intuition plus gear currently gives her 19% critical hits. On a clump of 3 and ranged onslaught, this makes: 0.81 x 0.81 x 0.81 = 0.53 chance of not making a critical at all. In other words, a 47% chance to get at least 1 critical hit! So when firing accross a clump of 3, it gives me the same chance as Silent Stalker to get at least 1 critical hit and I may even hit more criticals. Of course, Silent Stalker is much better at guaranteeing a Crit on a single target, but at a clump, given you can get enough hits, Ranged Onslaugt is at least its equal.

This insight will lead me to build differently in the future if crits are something I want to maximise. I already was convinced that Tamilin was the Number 1 Crit% Master, but now, I'm thinking that an AoE-master (probably Vincent as his AoE-ability is strongest) may follow her as the Number 2 and Selen will trail some distance behind that unless she specializes in Pinning Shot (which may make a PS + DoS specced Selen, combined with Burning Blades the best Crit% build for Selen)

Hmm, I should put this into its seperate post instead of hidden in this thread I think. Later, when I have more time. 

[TeeWee]

Progress has been slow. Less time on my hands as well as having ST4X to master...

Anyway, I just hit level 24 and am in the Aracnid Temple level.


I have died a couple of times, mostly because of sloppy play (combat not over? Hmm, let's just advance forwards without worrying about tactics. Dang, Forged Spider runs up to Vince, no more Vince) and once or twice failing a stealth check. I remember complaining in another thread about combat starting too far apart. Well, I no longer complain

I have grabbed two levels in Shield of Cortias (to help my party defense) as well as two levels of Thundering Blades (to help my party accuracy). So, how's that working out? It's hard to judge effects of a single level of these two talents, but overall, I can say something about how I feel the party is working. First, I notice that Vraes normally is better at avoiding getting hit. It helps that he now has a 1H Knightsblade instead of a 2H sword, so he can carry a shield at the moment. But Fyona is a bit more prone to get hit. The exception is when Consecrated Defense has activated. Once that's on, she's much harder to hit. The problem is getting Fyona to connect when it counts. Sometimes, it takes a while before Consecrated Defense (or Reckoning) hits. Especially on high damage targets (the big Melee-spiders or a Spider Host) adding Reckoning on top of Flash Freeze is very important, more important than hitting Consecrated Defense. For future parties, I wonder if it's possible to forego healing altogether, relying 100% on potions and just load up on Zealous Strikes instead. For now, Fyona is getting help from Vincent's Thundering Blades as well as +ACC equipment.

Combat is usually as follows: Tamilin (with Blacknight, plus some Stealth equipment, a +1MP pair of boots and +Crit Ring) wins stealth. Vraes runs past to scout out the enemy. Tamilin has a 2-3 target Ranged Onslaught (2 shots, using a heavy bow) for around 60-150 damage per hit. Depending on the target, that just makes melee easier or it kills some ranged opponents. She retreats with the two spare 1:1 MP:AP she still has (if she doesn't have to move to shoot). Vincent will Flash Freeze a high priority target and retreat as well. Vraes comes back to form a wall with Fyona. Usually, it's Fyona's task to absorb hits (Consecrated Defense!) and use reckoning to lower enemy effectiveness, Vraes is the killer (hits from Vraes go from 90-300). Tamilin is the lone sniper, Vincent is surprisingly effective as a ranged combatant. While LS is not a super heavy hitter, regular crits plus damage bonuses (Thundering Blades, equipment) do make a difference here. Frigid Air I'm never quite certain about. I do think it helps and I do apply it liberally, both on ranged cultists to make their hits more like mosquito bites than a serious threat, as well as on big targets to simply mitigate damage. Combat is longer than in the past and after each combat, there's a serious decision on consuming potions or heading to camp.

I've decided now that Righteous Fervor was, indeed, a bad choice. I let the higher level requirement influence me to choose this over Shield of Cortias in the past. I am starting to put much more attention in parry/dodge instead in equipment. Seeing the difference when Consecrated Defense is on is also a pointer to me that that's a much better way to spend talent points. If armor or HP is what I want, I shall choose CON or equipment to get this in the future. It's definately not that RF is of no use, but more that it has cost me the opportunity to improve Shield of Cortias to a decent level instead.

Currently back in town just after levelling, so one last trip to the shops to replace all my drained potions and then, Once more into the breach!

[tenbsmith]

Ima come back read that later. too long to read during work.

[tenbsmith]

Nice report. I liked the narrative of a typical fight.

How often do Vraes and Tamilin hit?

[TeeWee]

Often enough. Tamilin has a 50 for accuracy on ranged onslaught and vraes has 46 on crushing blow. Tamilin used to hit all the time, and a miss every 4 turns or so (7 hits out of 8 attacks). Numbers are a bit skewed because ranged onslaught messes up the math a bit.

Vraes had something similar, missing one hit in every 3 turns (5 hits from 6 attacks.)

Fyona seems to have a similar accuracy score (43 using consecrated defense) but maybe there are more weak dice for her. She has a 2ap weapon and turns without hits happen often enough that I need to accommodate that chance of happening. Is a bit worse with reckoning, as that talent has lower accuracy for at this level.

Just before I reached level 24,i noticed my hit rate dropping, especially vs the big green melee spiders (forged spiders?). I hope this will get better soon :-)