Best Use of Slayer Essences?

[Fynox]

I'm planning which Essences to use on which characters and I am a little undecided on the best use of the Slayer Essences. I'm trying to match each with a character who uses a damage type that is effective against that enemy type already. And these can be used on even weaker characters (marksmen) since the other hero types have their 4 slots used up with more important Essences. Here are my thoughts so far:

Essence of the Lost Slayer: Sir Tristan. He is entirely poison damage (Lost are poison immune) and this can help make up for the lack of DOTs he will be applying to them. And it makes sense for a skeleton to know the best way to kill other skeletons :).

Essence of the Pict Slayer: Sir Bors. He also uses poison damage and Pict are humanoid enemies that are vulnerable to poison DOTs. Their melee characters tend to group up a little so his ability to spread poison to adjacent enemies could be useful.

Essence of the Sidhe Slayer: Lady Boudicea or Red Knight. They seem to have some high hp characters that make high priority targets for assassination so Lady Boudicea makes sense. Red Knight is an option because he has an open slot and I think Sidhe (Seelie and Unseelie) are vulnerable to bleeds.

Essence of the Fomorian Slayer: Sir Brunor or Sir Dagonet. Both characters have free Essence slots so I might as well use it on someone but I don't have much experience against these guys yet. I think Fomorian are susceptible to bleeds (Sir Brunor) and since they are an endgame enemy I expect hordes of them so AOEs on groups and debuffs on powerful characters good be useful (Sir Dagonet).

These slayer essences are lower priority than some of the other ones in my opinion so I do have some freedom in how I will assign them. Let me know what you think of my choices and what you recommend changing. Also point out enemy mistakes I made so I don't spread misinformation. Thanks in advance.

[kbiz]

Champion: +1 AP per kill
Merlin: +20% fire dmg

The other good ones are +10% dmg, +1 AP, +20% armor breaking, and +3 armor. But even they depend on preference.

All the rest don't matter too much. I would give them to my A-Team though.

[Fynox]

Yeah, those are the ones I already have plans for. Trying to figure out how to use these Slayer Essences which gives buffs (20 or 25 percent more damage) against a particular enemy type. Thanks for the reminder about Merlin though, definitely giving him the fire one on my Rightful Old Faith playthrough where I'll pick him instead of mom!

[GeistMachine]

The best dps and tank ones obviously went to my damage dealer and tank. The Slayer Essences I dumped on my arcanist and sage. Outside the +1 spell range, not much they need as they just debuff and soften up targets.

[kbiz]

The problem with the slayer essences is you get them after they are useful. A +25% bonus against a faction becomes situational later in the game.

[holy-death]

Originally posted by kbiz:

The problem with the slayer essences is you get them after they are useful. A +25% bonus against a faction becomes situational later in the game.

You still fight various factions so they remain useful, even if it's situational. I find the idea of creating of a dedicated slayer against particular enemies to be very interesting. Especially if you make some characters dedicated for dealing DoT, such as Bleed or Poison. I tended to avoid them (by focusing on either fire or pure damage), because neither was useful against the Lost and this is the frequent starting enemy type.

[kbiz]

Originally posted by holy-death:

You still fight various factions so they remain useful, even if it's situational.

To keep it in perspective, there are 5 factions = 1 human + 4 non-human. Let's assume they are randomly distributed in missions. Over the long-run, your average dmg bonus will be 5% = 25%/5 - or lower if it's not a Fomorian. Meh. I've got nothing else? Fine, I'll take it.

As for a slayer build, what class or knight do you think would work well it? It's not a bad idea for Isolde or Guinevere actually...

I forgot to include the +1 range potion. That's a good one too.

I just looked at my end game inventory. I have eight (8) essence potions just sitting there. Yeah, a couple essences are fantastic, some are good, and the rest are fillers.

[holy-death]

Originally posted by kbiz:

As for a slayer build, what class or knight do you think would work well it? It's not a bad idea for Isolde or Guinevere actually...

That depends on what knights you have. Giving Bors the Essence of the Pict Slayer is a good example.

Dindrane and Damas are other two choices. Poison Blast upgrade on Poisoned Arrow increases the damage from Weak Spots - an upgrade to Shoot skill. So if you kill somebody, then everyone is poisoned and essentially has a Vulnerability on themselves. And if you kill anyone with Shoot, then Elusive upgrade will reduce cooldown on your abilities.

You can throw in Essence of Blight on top of that, too. And take Dash, to reposition for backstab attacks, therefore making it more likely that target will die.

For similar reasons you can give it to Tristan and have him go on missions against the Picts. Not that it is needed for a Vanguard.

I would argue Marksmen are benefiting more from this. Especially if you take Corrosion upgrade from Alchemist skill - which you'd want anyway, because it makes poison skills cheaper to use - and it'll strip Armour from enemies with no immunity when poison spreads everywhere, making them softer over time.

Edit:

Essence of the Lost Slayer:

My advice would be - White Knight, Percivale or Galahad.

The latter two have Flaming Strake that can be upgraded with Undeadbane (+50% damage versus the Lost), meaning their output goes up to 75%.

White Knight has Blessed Weapon. On top of Consecrated Blade (+10% weapon damage) you can also get Banishment (+15% bonus damage versus the Lost). If you use Strong Grip (+15% bonus damage) on Strike (the basic attack) your total damage will go up by 65%. For two-handers that's A LOT.

And we're not counting bonuses from other stuff here (Rage, Bless, Juggernaut, Vengeance, etc.)!

[kbiz]

Originally posted by holy-death:

Poison Blast upgrade on Poisoned Arrow increases the damage from Weak Spots - an upgrade to Shoot skill. So if you kill somebody, then everyone is poisoned and essentially has a Vulnerability on themselves. And if you kill anyone with Shoot, then Elusive upgrade will reduce cooldown on your abilities.

My main problem with poison is that it doesn't work on the Lost. That puts a major nerf on your poison character - and that nerf can last an entire mission. Another problem with poison is that it doesn't do much damage. But the way it spreads is cool.

Not a fan of bleeding damage either. I'd much rather have the kill bonus.

Yeah, some of my post game A-Team have used zero essence potions. I should probably just toss them on someone and forget about it. I probably should've created my lil slayer sage a while ago.

You want to put the slayer essences on someone that will do decent damage. 25% of a 20 dmg sword is 5 dmg. The averaged 5% of a 20 dmg sword is 1 dmg. So we gotta keep it in perspective. Those numbers ain't gonna do sh!t against the Fomorians.

The slayer essences don't work well on your champion though - because your champion should be using different essences.

So then you want to put them on someone that has +x dmg per kill items. And they gotta be a character that does some quick killing. Probably a vanguad.

I like the Lost slayer on Galahad.

[holy-death]

Originally posted by kbiz:

My main problem with poison is that it doesn't work on the Lost. That puts a major nerf on your poison character - and that nerf can last an entire mission.

Sure, but that's one faction out of a few and you will know what enemies you are going up against beforehand.

Originally posted by kbiz:

Not a fan of bleeding damage either. I'd much rather have the kill bonus.

I have similar opinion, but dedicating a single character to that kind of damage is not going to hurt you.

Originally posted by kbiz:

You want to put the slayer essences on someone that will do decent damage. 25% of a 20 dmg sword is 5 dmg. The averaged 5% of a 20 dmg sword is 1 dmg. So we gotta keep it in perspective. Those numbers ain't gonna do sh!t against the Fomorians.

Well, we're talking about Essences against specifically non-Fomorian enemies, are we not?

And every bit helps, having 25% extra damage is not an insignificant boost. This is the kind of bonus you'd get from Sage's Bless. If you throw in an item that kills enemies when their health drops to a certain threshold, you will end up killing them. This is particularly true against the Lost, but works on any enemy type.

Originally posted by kbiz:

The slayer essences don't work well on your champion though - because your champion should be using different essences.

So then you want to put them on someone that has +x dmg per kill items. And they gotta be a character that does some quick killing. Probably a vanguad.

You can give +X damager per kill items to Champions. That's what I do.