Blackguards

Blackguards

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funkybudda Jan 29, 2014 @ 7:20pm
mage/hunter build tips?
hello all,

for those that have finished or gone very far into the game, would you guys mind offer some tips on the early stage of the game in expert mode to build a mage/hunter? I read that there's no respec, so I'd hate to restart again if I didnt put the right points into certain attributes/skills.

Thanks.
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Showing 1-15 of 17 comments
sunwalker0347 Jan 29, 2014 @ 7:44pm 
Play on Expert mode. Be a mage starting for the extra 500 AP at character creation. Raise Dexterity, Intuition, and Strength to 14. Raise the Bow weapon skill to 8. Raise Body Control, Will Power, and Warcraft Talents to 8. Pay the 40 each to learn the Perception, Streetwise, and Survival Talents at 0. Put 8 points into the Hawkeye Marksmanship spell. Learn the Targeted Shot special ability.

This should leave you with just shy of 2000 AP left (1940 AP). You can't save this AP, so spend it on anything that strikes your fancy. Some suggestions though...

Consider doing any or all of the following:
1. Take a melee weapon skill *cough* Axes/Maces *cough* and max it.
2. Raise Agility to 10 and take the Dodge special ability.
3. Take the Vigilance and/or Armor Use special abilities.
4. Learn and possibly max the Balm of Healing, Clarum Purum, and/or Duplicatus Double Vision spells.
5. Consider the last 3 Talents: Treat Wounds, Animal Lore, and Traps

Lastly, you can pick your character's starting equipment (which you will get solely for your first fight, and possibly for flashbacks later once they patch flashbacks). I would go with the bow (make sure to equip arrows in the same weapon slot!), and a melee weapon in slot 2 (I liked the cudgel). Full leather armor set, Gambeson gloves, and a small belt with 2 healing potions. You're set.
Poison Jan 29, 2014 @ 9:02pm 
I'd never cast Duplicatus except from Zurburan, and even then, not much. MC shouldnt be casting Clarum Purum, either, Aurelia and Zurb can do that. Hawkeye isn't a bad idea out of the gate.

Most of the rest isn't bad advice. You don't *need* Body Control/WP/Warcraft to 8 in creation, but it doesn't end the world or anything. I prefer Agi to Str for hunter, also. Vigilance isnt great on a hunter, either, as you stand in the back and ideally dont have to provoke attacks of opp.
sunwalker0347 Jan 29, 2014 @ 9:31pm 
Ideally :) And this was just my suggestion. Poison's advice is strong and good for this game, so listen to him as well I would suggest. Of course, play however you have the most fun regardless!
Poison Jan 29, 2014 @ 9:41pm 
I usually buy all the spells I'd ever want to 0, buy all talents I plan to use to 0, buy all talents I want to focus on in Chapter 1 and 2, and then I spend every single other point on Attributes, getting all of the ones I plan to use to 14/12.

SO if I am doing Hunter, I look at Triple shot and boost the Triple Shot stats up, and if a Mage/Hunter, I want Charisma 14, too, for both Story reasons (Are there story MC charisma options? I dont even know, the hints claim so) and because Astral regen requires it.
Vaylor Jan 29, 2014 @ 9:44pm 
Some of it depends on how focused you want to be in one area or the other. However you want to go, you're probably going to want triple shot, healing level 2-3, burst of flame level 2, and shadow force level 2. Possibly a few other spells of your choosing such as move like lightning, hawkeye, or the cure poison. So just figure out what your priorities are and work towards those first. As far as the mage passives go steady casting boosts your chance to land spells 30-40%, astral regen is essential. The others aren't that important.

If you plan on casting quite a bit definitely invest in steady casting. If you're only going to limit yourself to the 3 basic spells I listed, you're better off just leveling those higher. One good idea for making a balanced mage is to actually go with the basic mage creation instead of expert. The bonus going this route is that you get steady casting for free while not needing to meet the pre-requisites. Then you can just invest heavily into the archery side since your mage side is done minus shadow force level 2.
sunwalker0347 Jan 29, 2014 @ 9:55pm 
This was all just a starting guide. If you could have started with Triple Shot I'd have suggested building solely for it of course :) If you're building primarily an archer, you don't need burst of flame (don't strictly need spells at all of course). You certainly won't need the mage support special abilities like Astral Regen. Most of your points should go into building towards Triple Shot and Bow Mastery, and maxing weapon skills. I've found that dedicated archers benefit greatly late game from the Warcraft Talent at 18 as well (for swapping ammo without taking a full turn to do it). Wish you could start with Shadow Force, but sadly it's not an option.

andydh77 gives good advice if you plan on being a mage-casty-and-shooty archer of course.

Also did not know you got Steady Casting for free without meeting reqs if you went basic mage. Good bringing that up!
Poison Jan 29, 2014 @ 9:57pm 
I'd say its not a great plan to cast a ton on the MC, because you dont need or want Zurb, Aurelia and yourself all casting, spells aren't good enough to have that many people casting them =)
funkybudda Jan 30, 2014 @ 6:27pm 
Originally posted by andydh77:
Some of it depends on how focused you want to be in one area or the other. However you want to go, you're probably going to want triple shot, healing level 2-3, burst of flame level 2, and shadow force level 2. Possibly a few other spells of your choosing such as move like lightning, hawkeye, or the cure poison. So just figure out what your priorities are and work towards those first. As far as the mage passives go steady casting boosts your chance to land spells 30-40%, astral regen is essential. The others aren't that important.

If you plan on casting quite a bit definitely invest in steady casting. If you're only going to limit yourself to the 3 basic spells I listed, you're better off just leveling those higher. One good idea for making a balanced mage is to actually go with the basic mage creation instead of expert. The bonus going this route is that you get steady casting for free while not needing to meet the pre-requisites. Then you can just invest heavily into the archery side since your mage side is done minus shadow force level 2.


thanks for the tips, especially with getting "steady casting for free" from basic mage creation option.

PS: Much appreciation to other people who contributed as well, I heard many good things about this game, going to start it tomorrow.


Bear in mind there are several fights in the game where you lose your gear and even lose level going back in time. It was very frustrating decimating the crypt lice queen in 1 attempt and then spending a few attempts on the crypt lice gathering, due to a intially weak range/caster build and no access to bows. So i probably would put a few points in a melee weapon or at least offensive spells. (i had neither, just bows and heals).
Ashley Schaeffer Jan 30, 2014 @ 8:02pm 
Originally posted by Kris:
Bear in mind there are several fights in the game where you lose your gear and even lose level going back in time. It was very frustrating decimating the crypt lice queen in 1 attempt and then spending a few attempts on the crypt lice gathering, due to a intially weak range/caster build and no access to bows. So i probably would put a few points in a melee weapon or at least offensive spells. (i had neither, just bows and heals).

Lol yeah the flashback fight with the crypt lice totally left my hero gimped as he was all bow/dagger. Hopefully the devs can put some ranged gear onto the second weapon set, would be helpful.
sunwalker0347 Jan 30, 2014 @ 9:34pm 
Hope you're enjoying your mage/archer OP!
ShivaFang Jan 30, 2014 @ 11:04pm 
sunwalker nails it (although I would go with a spear instead of axes as a personal preference) ... except it's not an extra 500 AP for being a mage. It *costs* 500 AP right out of the gate to be a mage. Characters are built on 10000 points. If you are mage, you pay 500 and only have 9500 to build with (the advantage here being you can learn spells, even if you don't start with any, wheras id you are not a mage, you have 500 points to spend but you can never, ever learn magic.)

Oh and I *strongly* reccomend 8 ranks in Balm of Healing right out the gate. Flashback scenes will be pretty much impossible without it.
Last edited by ShivaFang; Jan 30, 2014 @ 11:08pm
ShivaFang Jan 30, 2014 @ 11:12pm 
Originally posted by Poison:
I'd never cast Duplicatus except from Zurburan, and even then, not much.

@poison - Duplicatus is pretty solid as a stall tactic. I play a mage spearman and sometimes I got into a full defensive duplicatus/heal while I keep the enemies attention while the rest of my party runs around doing other important map objectives. (Usually only when the dwarf is needed to do the map objectives though, otherwise he tanks.)

Oh and also - while its good to purchase Hawkeye (it's awesome for archers) - leave it at 0 for character creation. It's useless in flashbacks - you are better of spending your character creation points elsewhere and increasing it after.
Dorok Jan 30, 2014 @ 11:40pm 
Originally posted by andydh77:
...One good idea for making a balanced mage is to actually go with the basic mage creation instead of expert. The bonus going this route is that you get steady casting for free while not needing to meet the pre-requisites. Then you can just invest heavily into the archery side since your mage side is done minus shadow force level 2.
I compared Basic mage creation and Expert creation, I didn't knew how get the window mode and couldn't switch to another application so it was tedious and I could have made an error. But the result was Basic mage had about 200 extra AP at creation plus Steady Casting for free and without to have to meet the requirements for it.

But the price is you have no choice like for attributes and spells. You could not want a few spells of the Basic Mage and you could want avoid spend some points in some weapons talents of Basic Mage. The attributes are also oriented to Mage and you could want something different but on that point the Basic Mage setup seems a solid base for a Mage Archer.

sunwalker0347 Jan 31, 2014 @ 1:05am 
In Poison's defense, his builds are more effecient than mine. His advice on character builds will typically bring you through the tougher fights more smoothly and quickly. I prefer my battles to take longer, and play much more defensively.

I'm glad you liked my build advice ShivaFang, and I look forward to hearing about your own ideas. I happen to like using spears too despite the lower damage potential against late-game opponents. I guess I worded paying the 500 extra AP for magic in a confusing way so I apologize for that.

The main reason I suggested the axe skill instead of any other weapon is because at the time he was asking for advice, the weapon they give you in flashbacks is an axe. It's something the dev has addressed in a different thread and are working on fixing.
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Date Posted: Jan 29, 2014 @ 7:20pm
Posts: 17