The (Best) Specs for Your Trolls

[northw1nd]

Upon completing the game for a quite a few playthroughs (I think its a total of 5 or 6 currently) I just wanted to share what I consider to be the best, most fun (and strong ofc), and synergetic builds for main character development, which will help you beat the game rather confidently, even on circle mage difficulty.

I will do my best to keep spoilers to a minimum here.

Before anyone tells me that there have been multiple threads on this topic, yeah, I have seen and commented on a few of them, but those have been idle for a while and I know people who are still new to the game or are just looking to start it will certainly find this helpful, at least for their first playthrough.

Please note that this build is a personal preference and its not like THE BEST POSSIBLE THING out there, or something. It's just a decent, strong build that does well through the early, mid and late game (level 18ish being the strongest point, give or take).


Akrog - Gift of Blood (WILL, STR-focused)
Grangwar - Nature (WILL, INT, STR-focused)
Zazka - Gloom (STR, WILL/INT-focused)
Noag - Savage/Tribe-focused (STR, CON, WILL-focused)

For those who maybe are confused like me when I first picked up the game, we have come to know the STR stat to be a melee hero type of attribute from multiple other games. However, resistances scale with STR and also most of the good weapons require STR as a scaling attribute in SF3, so its a really useful skill, even for mage-like heroes (or casters, you could say).

Akrog

While Akrog is the chieftain, his unique ability tree doesn't really shine in terms of DPS or even support at that matter. I have found most of his abilities being rather "useless" (its a strong word, but hey, that's what it feels like), apart from some great quality-of-life abilities that you can acquire pretty early on. Gift of Blood allows him to fill the role of a strong de-buffer.

Skills to focus on:

Unique Tree - Moonkin March, Cheiftain's Mark, Little Blood Smash
Blood Tree - Demonic Strike, Rain of Blood, Eldrich Halo (its the skill name from Soul Harvest, the weakening aura at the bottom right of the tree, sorry, I forgot the name in FG). The rest can go anywhere else, there are some good abilities that provide life leech per auto attack, another one that grants you immunity and regen at low HP, etc. The primary goal is to get that sweet tweaking for mobs (especially relevant on Circle Mage difficulty), raw (also known as true) damage, and silence/interrupt from the demonic strike. The synergy ability is rather good, although it seems a bit buggy currently, you may or may not consider taking this.

Focus on STR/CON for the start of the game to avoid getting one-shot, then build towards Blood Rain, and later on towards the Eldrich Halo. This will also allow you to wear/craft heavy armor with some good resistances, which again, helps survive the early game. You may also consider re-specing abilities and attribute points at around level 16ish.

Grangwar

The MVP of your hero party, Grungwar is your bread and butter hero that really carries everything and everyone on his shoulders, for pretty much the whole campaign. He will provide the AOE damage and healing you need, along with some nice perks and tricks that you will unlock later in the game (trying to keep spoilers to a minimum here).

Skills to focus on:

Unique tree - Healing totem, fire totem, slowing totem, the perk that grants resistance and focus regeneration for every nearby troll hero, synergy skill.
Nature tree - Single target healing, flat resistances. The rest again can go anywhere you want. I'd recommend getting the lightning totem and slowing totem towards later parts of the game when you can start combo-ing those with Zazka (more on that below). Extra focus and maybe Chain Lightning can be good fillers in the early game, but you will end up re-specing these towards the mid and late game, which is more than fine. Also, I felt like having two healing abilities is very much needed and saves you a lot of the times.

Focus on WILL, INT (a bit more WILL than INT, but try to keep them equal-ish), and like 3-5 CON for the start of the game, depending on your comfort zone.

Zazka

The smallest guy on your hero party, Zazka brings great DPS and combo potential for the whole group, when taking into account the whole combo. He isn't going to do a lot during the early game but will start showing his true power during the mid and late game.

Skills to focus on:

Unique tree - Ingredients (4 is a decent amount overall), the aura to gather ingredients, poison cloud.
Gloom - Your main goal is to pretty much get to the bottom right skill - Spirit Harvest. I absolutely LOVE this ability, especially the animation and the mechanic. You do more damage to groups of enemies per every debuff that you apply, and it feels incredibly satisfying to swoosh hoards of orcs and goblins with literally the reaper's scythe. For the early game, I'd recommend focusing on summoning abilities and not even bother with the unique tree. The spiders and zombies will act as a shield for your hero party and help get through the early game pretty comfortably.

Focus on WILL/CON for the early game and just span your summons. You'll be looking to re-spec, later on (around level 15-16ish), get the Spirit Harvest skill (which scales with weapon damage, so the STR weapons will be useful here as well), ingredients, ingredient gathering aura, the perk that makes you do more damage to taunted targets, and poison cloud. The rest can go where-ever you want. The synergy skill is very nice, helps with survivability (and anything that helps with survivability is good on Circle Mage difficulty), Gloom tree perks, and the single-target "ping" ability, which helps kill flying units (since your whole group is using melee weapons, this comes in handy at a few points in the game). Focus on STR mainly, get enough WILL to be able to cast Spirit harvest 2-3 times, and the rest can go to INT or DEX/CON, as you prefer. Again, having around 5 CON helps not getting one-shot and wearing some decent armor.

Noag

The unique guy of the group, most of his abilities will unlock based on your story and dialogue choices as you get deeper into the game. Ideally, you want to build him as a Savage and Tribe-focused.

Skills to focus on:

Left tree - the right side of three with the tank abilities, including taunt and enfeebled perk.
Right tree - pretty much all the savage abilities to the max, and the Get Behind Noag ability from tribal. The rest can go where-ever you like. I prefer getting a single point into "Selfish Noag" just to unlock a skill that grants you 20/30/50% focus upon usage at the cost of some HP (I forgot the name sorry). This is great to be able to instantly cast taunt and Moonkin roar (Savage Noag ability) at the start of any fight. You can also get a ring that allows you to cast abilities at the cost of HP instead of Focus, which is a good alternative as well.

Focus on CON/STR for the early game (aiming for as high as 9 CON for a very tanky armor piece you can get very early in the game). using a shield and a one-handed STR weapon is a good idea, but you can swap to a two-handed STR weapon or even dual-wield two STR weapons towards mid and late game.


The Combo

once you have unlocked most of the core abilities, the AOE combo is the following:

Blood Rain (Akrog), taunt + Moonkin roar (Noag) if you have the ability that grants focus for some HP, use that), Slowing totem (Grungwar), Poison cloud, followed by Spirit Harvest (Zazka). the whole combo can be done in like 2 seconds with all the applied debuffs if you press the buttons quickly enough (it's a good idea to change the keybinds in the menu since the default layout is using F1-F12 keys, which isn't comfortable at all). The combo applies pretty much every single debuff in the game (save for silence) and the Spirit Harvest smokes everything, which is both strong and extremely satisfying.

Once the initial combo is done, proceed with supplementing the fight as needed - re-apply blood rain, poison cloud, taunt, heal/healing totem, fire totem for more AoE damage, Little blood Smash (Akrog - if you're specced into that), etc.

This combo is also strong vs single target opponents/bosses, just make sure to apply Demonic Strike (Akrog) before the Spirit Harvest (Zazka) for even more damage.


For weapons and armor, it's not extremely important and I can't say much without spoiling stuff, so just go with your gut, it will be pretty easy to figure out the good from the bad, and make the tweaks as you want. If you want to know more, there are very detailed threads in the discussion that you can find.

There are a few other abilities that you may consider using/swapping to (for example, Groundspliiter and Earth-shaking abilities from Nature tree for Grungwar), but these, while flashy, are pretty underwhelming in terms of damage and overall effectiveness. Worth giving them a try though, since it will cost you just a re-spec potion, which is pretty cheap to craft.

Hope this post helps new people, who are unsure what to do/what to focus on and maybe don't have the time to spend on figuring it out themselves.
Cheers!

[Gorwe]

On what difficulty do you assess these?

[northw1nd]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

On what difficulty do you assess these?

I have completed the game using slightly different versions of this build on both hard and circle mage. I also had completed another run using double Gloom Zazka and Akrog for double spirit harvest, but I have learned that demonology (or blood, rather) is absolutely essential for the raw damage and reducing resistances, otherwise, you'll be lacking too much DPS, especially in the early game.

[paja45]

I think it's the opposite, the builds don't matter that much because all are powerful, and I'd say gear is the main thing that makes the game go from challenging to relatively easy. If you focus Zazka on Dexterity you can buy him the spear that spams wildlife and then when Noag gets the Constitution focused armor that makes him immune to afflictions and you max out Akrog's skill that makes Noag attack like 40% faster its gg, your party is unkillable.

Good post anyhow!

[northw1nd]

Originally posted by paja45:

I think it's the opposite, the builds don't matter that much because all are powerful, and I'd say gear is the main thing that makes the game go from challenging to relatively easy. If you focus Zazka on Dexterity you can buy him the spear that spams wildlife and then when Noag gets the Constitution-focused armor that makes him immune to afflictions and you max out Akrog's skill that makes Noag attack like 40% faster its gg, your party is unkillable.

Good post anyhow!

Hey!
If we're talking raw power and simply completing the game, you're absolutely right. In fact, there are many other combos that will make your party go simply insane, and honestly, you wouldn't even need to touch the keyboard at all at some point (empowerment stacking with various defensive/offensive abilities).

That's why I said in the beginning that this is a personal preference, not the best build out there or anything. Personally, I'm not a big fan of DEX-based weapons and ranged weapons/specs in general and I love combos, that you need to put a bit of work in to pull off (that's also the fun aspect for me, which is no less important I think). The gear for this combo specifically doesn't matter too much, obviously the better, the more effective it becomes, but I also didn't wanna spoil too much for new players.

That being said, you're correct of course :) I'd just like everyone to experience the "reaper's scythe" satisfaction at least once since it was so much fun for me!

[hantavirus64]

Originally posted by paja45:

I think it's the opposite, the builds don't matter that much because all are powerful, and I'd say gear is the main thing that makes the game go from challenging to relatively easy. If you focus Zazka on Dexterity you can buy him the spear that spams wildlife and then when Noag gets the Constitution focused armor that makes him immune to afflictions and you max out Akrog's skill that makes Noag attack like 40% faster its gg, your party is unkillable.

Good post anyhow!

Do you remember the name of the spear, and how much dex it needed? And do you remember the name of the CONS armor for Noag?

[Lord Of Nothing]

Another insane dexterity melee weapon: Bonekin's Hex stick. When used by a way of crushing things build it has 100% uptime on +35 all resists for all nearby friendlies.