Kincaid's Talent Table of Crimson Steel

[CdrPlatypus]

En1gma I am working on a straight to Cunning footwork 10 build right now I'll let you know, so far its fun. My thought is it will build a very solid dice pool for him for the rest of the game.

[En1gma]

CdrPlatypus will you be using the stealth gear for this build or going for armor gear? Straight to 10 will also really help with his crit percentage too... What other abilities are you considering, and what's the party?

[CdrPlatypus]

En1gma Not sure about light armor vs stealth at the moment lvl 10 he is wearing light armor...contemplating buying +3evasion stealth for the shaman fight. We'll see how it goes. I've actually been using fyona to hp tank shamans in the ratkin warrens because he is much better at dodging arrows then spells right now.

talent wise Im going cunning to 10 then Storm of steel then probably lbtb 1 and sure parry 4, may pick up a point or two of flanking unity and maybe drop a pt into lunge for more accurate single target attacks. But I plan his main attack to be storm of steel to fully take advantage of the crit% from cunning footwork

It's an electric strickening team I posted in group build. All the IAP characters. Focused on an AOE rampage

[CdrPlatypus]

En1gma Update for you. I have Kincaid up to cunning footwork 10 in my current build. Lvl 16; nightmare no deaths. And I am loving it. I did have two very close calls in the Vermin Lair, literally surviving with a sliver of hp...that place always seems to be more a pain for me than the great shaman battle, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Anyways due to that experience I started investing in con after hitting dex 12 and its going really well. Next stop storm of steel then back to sure parry. I am really loving this build plan for Kincaid because by the time he reaches cunning footwork 10 he will have not only the awesome benefits, but blades 16 and be able to invest in lore to make sure parry last longer than 5 turns. The SP cost of higher level sure parry will also be less of an issue as a percentage of his sp bank.

[En1gma]

I always feel like I'm doing great, then I go down the rabbit hole and then I feel like the game really starts for me. I can putz my way through the farmhalls and the west road, but down there is when I buckle down and get to work. I'm happy to hear that it's viable on Nightmare- I'll have to try it on my difficulty of choice /cough normal.

[CdrPlatypus]

En1gma I wanted to let you know that I did try out the cunning footwork 10 build with evasion/stealth gear as opposed to regular light armor and was very pleased. It made a huge difference in avoiding ranged attacks (I'm not stealth leading with him in this build, so haven't been testing that). It provided just enough extra dice to take him from 50/50 on taking a ranged hit to about 70/30 in favor of avoiding the hit. This is with a priority on dodge gear in all gear slots as well rather than dmg gear. But even with the dodge gear it was the evasion armor that finally pushed the numbers in my direction for allowing him to ignore archers without having to curse them down with FA/MS/EA

[En1gma]

Does anyone ever use Flashing Blades? I honestly can't find a use for it... The only way I think I would include it is if I were to go with TK and just use Flashing Blades to make sure they hit. Who has a group where this talent is paying off for them?

[mushroom]

I just started it, but then realized that Flanking Unity is beter. I think once FU and CF are maxed it's a good investment. Good build with just those three, I think.

[samopop]

Mar 26, 2015 15:59:52 GMT -5 En1gma said:

Does anyone ever use Flashing Blades? I honestly can't find a use for it... The only way I think I would include it is if I were to go with TK and just use Flashing Blades to make sure they hit. Who has a group where this talent is paying off for them?

  I'm no expert (my Nightmare group is currently at ~90 deaths), but I plan on eventually maxing Flashing Blades.  I don't think it is worth concentrating on early-game, but late game it could be powerful.  Here is my level 32 Kincaid: Cunning Footwork 10, Flanking Unity 6, Flashing Blades 2, Lunge 1, SoS 2, Sure Parry 1, Live by the Blade 1.

I will increase Flanking Unity to 8 (to maximize group +acc), and then I will max Flashing Blades.  I see it as a talent-efficient way to increase damage output.  The increase in accuracy allows me to keep only 1 talent in both Lunge and Storm of Steel (the 2 in SoS was a mistake in hindsight).   The increase in critical percentage increases damage output in a manner that scales with weapon quality.  In act 3 Kincaid regularly dishes out over 100 damage per (3 AP) hit, meaning each extra % crit gives over 2.5 pts (avg) damage.   In Act 4 each extra crit % will be worth even more.  Plus, for enemies with ridiculous amounts of armor, a crit hit is worth many, many regular hits.

Between cunning footwork and flashing blades that is 28% crit before you start adding items and buffs!

[Kanly]

Mar 26, 2015 15:59:52 GMT -5 En1gma said:

Does anyone ever use Flashing Blades? I honestly can't find a use for it... The only way I think I would include it is if I were to go with TK and just use Flashing Blades to make sure they hit. Who has a group where this talent is paying off for them?

I came here to ask this same question. Flanking unity just seems superior to me because it applies to the whole group and should be always up in combat.

[crimsonking]

Group buffs have the tendency to be superior to single character buffs. Still, FB is strong because, as it has been mentioned, you can keep your attack talents at 1 or even use the basic attack and still be efficient. Especially SoS gets really SP expensive when levelled up.

I generally run with the strategy to raise accuracy through buffs instead of weapon attack talents. It doesn't really pay off in a standard encounter, but makes the big ones far cheaper.