Cross Platform Nightmare Ironman

[xdesperado]

Sept 14, 2014 21:05:15 GMT -5 plunk said:

While the upgrades from Eternal Anguish 2 to 5 are pretty useless, 6 is definitely more than worth the cost for that extra AP penalty.

You're forgetting that EA 4 is a great level because thats when it becomes area effect which will likely save you considerable SP and AP as you'll need far fewer castings.

[plunk]

Never found the SP cost to justify the AoE

And the cross AoE is really, really bad at hitting more than 2 enemies. And sometimes the other enemies you hit are those that really aren't much of a threat because they weren't threats to begin with or are just sitting there doing nothing because of a chokepoint strategy.

Although if it's your only Dodge reducing debuff, sure, I guess the cost justifies the AoE.

[fallen]

If I use EA, I always go for AoE when I can. I find the cross to be very useful. Have to plan some of your movement around it, but its great to hit 2-3 consistently. Helps her cover all of the enemies easily 2-3 times as fast.

Everybody does it different

[plunk]

Really? My experience with positioning tactics usually ends up with at most 3 undebuffed enemies that could be a threat (being able to attack the next turn), 1 usually dies, the other 2 get debuffed. The only time I have a horde of enemies ready to attack me no matter what I do and are clumped together is if I don't try to use the lay of the land.

Do enemies end up being able to dispell curses on them? Because without that I really can't see how positioning doesn't grant the player some leeway in how fast they can debuff every enemy on the field. Although by that time it's moot as Kyrea would have AoE anyway because she'd have enough skill points for the -2AP upgrade.

[fallen]

plunk - enemies do not decurse themselves, tho its a cool ability and I will look into that one!

[xdesperado]

plunk I play Selen and zip up PS to at least 4. Getting Kyera up to EA4 allows me to reduce every enemy in range to one or at most 2 AP. Kyera not having to make multiple casts of EA every turn frees her up to do other things like HR or Tears if needed. I seldom find myself in the position of wondering if casting EA to prevent an extra attack is better or casting Tears knowing the target is likely to get hit by extra attacks.

The curse lasts multiple rounds so even if not an immediate threat they likely will become one shortly. Plus it doesn't just reduce AP but also reduces their accuracy making them less likely to hit and their dodge making my attacks more likely to hit. Thats a lot of good stuff from one spell and getting as many enemies with it as fast as possible makes life better for the good guys.

[CdrPlatypus]

The best thing about ea is the 2ap cost

[plunk]

Like I said, if Eternal Anguish is your only source of -Dodge then sure, AoE makes sense. I made it clear that I was talking about a party that has both Kjartan and Kyaera. The -Dodge from Eternal Anguish is pretty useless if Kjartan is dropping decent leveled Choking Ashes everywhere. And -1 Accuracy is not reliable even in the slightest.

[CdrPlatypus]

plunk there is an old post that goes really in depth analysis of ea. Called angst and joy of ethereal anguish, I'll look up the link when I'm back at my desktop after work. The -1 accuracy is useless but it gets better if you go deep into Ea. I was just saying that ea's distinguishing characteristic is its 2ap cost, which is balanced by the high sp cost that is all. All the other curses (not cursing attacks) are 3ap.

[xdesperado]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but a -1 Accuracy is not useless as that's one less dice being rolled on the attack and correspondingly lowers chance of critical hit...on Nightmare I'll take every little advantage I can get so even if that -1 Accuracy is only reducing chance of hit and possible crit by a couple percentage points it's still an edge in my favor.

[plunk]

I wasn't replying to your post, didn't even see it until now.

[CdrPlatypus]

xdesperado The -1 accuracy is technically not useless, but on nightmare it is nothing to write home about. A nice little bonus, but not a major factor. Now if you go all the way down and grab the -7 you'll really notice the difference.

[plunk]

I'd think not having Kyaera SP starved for the first few rounds of each battle (because that's what debuffing every enemy with Eternal Anguish 4 asap will do) forcing you to quaff a potion every round, every battle is an advantage. A fairly important one when enemies that are already at half or 2/3rds effectiveness compared to piling up an additional accuracy penalty.

The game gives a couple of potions, but it really doesn't give out enough to sustain Eternal Anguish 4 in every battle.

It's a 100%(if you hit 2 enemies) 200% (if you hit 1 undebuffed enemy which will happen if your going to spam it on everything) increase in SP costs for a Talent that is casted multiple times for a marginal effect.

Smart placing eliminates the need to debuff everything. There's no need to reduce every enemy's AP on the first 2-3 turns.

[CdrPlatypus]

Agreed. Using terrain, positioning, tactical retreat aka kite ing, is where advanced gameplay starts and saves a lot of sp and pain.

[xdesperado]

I camp after every fight

spaming EA is no problem and because I have a good chance with EA4 to get more than one enemy on every cast I end up saving both SP and AP.

I also have Kjartan hitting all opponents with CA and Selen hitting them all with PS.

Because all 3 are dropping Curses with overlapping effects none of them have to be super high, So I can also support training up other Talents.