Favorite Characters in current state?

[GameJayRemy]

Specifically for those who have nightmare unlocked.

between the season 1 mechanics and some of the bonuses (Like randomly getting to pick 2 skills from a pool of other characters)

Which characters are you really having fun with now?

Fox feels nearly broken, I'm claiming levels which I had only just started to do before I took a break from the game and I can tell if its going to be a solid run after the first 2 stages. With the elemental Toxic Needles stacked on her absurd fire damage, rooms get cleared fairly quickly. The first 2 bosses just get deleted.

Bunny is probably my second, the dash cool downs and empowered primary skill are some serious boons for her, making her a ton of fun to play again,

I tried a few runs with cat, using the elemental ring but it seems inconsistent. I think I'll try him with one of the other elemental uses. (If anyone has tips for him with the season 1 boons let me know.)

[EmeraldFoxDeity]

My favorite by far is The Owl. Though honestly I like them all. The Elemental pulses seem comparatively weak. Not helping that feeling is how difficult it is to see the effect going off. The simple expanding colored circle was fine when the pulses were individual scrolls that come off of your body. But as it is right now, it's difficult to tell it's doing anything. Thorny Carapace and Thunder Step are much more noticeable. If playing the Owl; I recommend Thorny Carapace. Though I must warn that the perk to activate the secondary skill with Owl when a thorn connects is currently bugged. It generates cards in front of you and pulls an Astroaspect as normal. But it does not apply the damage bonus to the summoned cards when you have the Perfect Deck Ascension. I don't think this is intentional, given everything else with the secondary triggers as per normal. Aside from that, it's just cool having the thorns and cards fly off at the enemies nonstop. Though once you upgrade it enough, the thorns will never fire fast enough to run out. OCD can make that mighty annoying, but it's damn strong.

Thunder Step actually compliments The Tiger really well, go figure. You want to be using Tiger's primary Skill rather often already. Mix that with the fastest movement speed in the game and how often you may want to be using dash while using sniper rifles, and he's a real force to be reckoned with. Additionally one of the Thunder Step upgrades accumulates Lightning damage dealt fr its massive explosion of lightning with an empowered primary. If you can get a good Lightning Ksana, then between that and the Tiger's innate lightning damage; you will build up to enormous lightning bolts. It creates a nice feedback loop. As with the Tiger's ascensiions, you'll drastically multiply the damage of your sniper rounds. Which in turn will dramatically empower the empowered Primary skill. It is so much fun.

I played The cat a little too, but I used elemental Pulses. And they sucked lol. Doesn't help that in Reincarnation mode, you can rather easily get the blessing to make your smoke grenades status ailment nukes. Making this redundant at best, and a downgrade at worst.

[Pizzarugi]

I'm a summoner main, I like minions or turrets as a substitute. For better or worse, I will main Nona for she has a minion/turret.

It helps a lot that her mech can res you when you're downed, makes R9 runs a lot smoother. Gets hairy later when enemies can destroy your mech easily, but the suicide device gives it an extra life in case it goes down trying to revive you.

[Eudicots]

Originally posted by GameJayRemy:

I tried a few runs with cat, using the elemental ring but it seems inconsistent. I think I'll try him with one of the other elemental uses. (If anyone has tips for him with the season 1 boons let me know.) :atosight:

You want to use Thorny Carapace with Crown Prince smoke grenade build. The best arcane ascensions would be Thorn mastery (trigger secondary skill), Spine Quiver (more thorns when casting secondary skill), and Harvest (generate secondary skill use). If you are playing reincarnation then its an insta win with painkiller, but in nightmare and lower, you will want to use a lightning weapon to stack miasma.

[Fray]

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

For better or worse, I will main Nona for she has a minion/turret.

The panda's gotta play the panda...

On topic and by totally unrelated logic,
Ao Bai and Li are my go-tos as of late
After the recent changes to Li, I enjoy every playstyle she and Ao Bai offer, and they're diverse enough that at the rate I play the game, I don't really get bored of either. It's a lot easier to roll with the RNG and not feel like I'm hunting for particular things.

[lollars]

prince still my main

[FreshMint]

Much as I love to play Li I can't help but mention Qian Sui with Thunder Step.

Take a character that's already used to doing a lot of dashing, and add a new mechanic on top of what he already had that rewards dashing even further whilst also offering even more ways to reduce the cooldown (including to none at all like before his most recent rework!)
Had a run where I got a lot of dash-related scrolls right at the start as well as the right ascensions- it was a lot of fun.

[Be Gay, Do Crimes, Smoke Weed!]

The Snow Leopard and the Turtle are my faves across any mode.

[GameJayRemy]

Originally posted by FreshMint:

Much as I love to play Li I can't help but mention Qian Sui with Thunder Step.

Take a character that's already used to doing a lot of dashing, and add a new mechanic on top of what he already had that rewards dashing even further whilst also offering even more ways to reduce the cooldown (including to none at all like before his most recent rework!)
Had a run where I got a lot of dash-related scrolls right at the start as well as the right ascensions- it was a lot of fun.

It's been so long since I've messed around with dash build! I think I did it early on for the achievement unlocks, he was my first character to beat the game on normal lol.

Originally posted by Be Gay, Do Crimes, Smoke Weed!:

The Snow Leopard and the Turtle are my faves across any mode.

I've been trying to get the sniping related frame unlock with him.

Originally posted by Fray:

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

For better or worse, I will main Nona for she has a minion/turret.

The panda's gotta play the panda...

On topic and by totally unrelated logic,
Ao Bai and Li are my go-tos as of late :marten_sip:
After the recent changes to Li, I enjoy every playstyle she and Ao Bai offer, and they're diverse enough that at the rate I play the game, I don't really get bored of either. It's a lot easier to roll with the RNG and not feel like I'm hunting for particular things.

Not sure why, I just never really got into Ao Boi that much. Probably the only character I've not meshed with but its been some time since I've played him.

[Draco18s]

The only characters I don't play are the Crown Prince and Ao Bai. Tao's then my least favorite of the rest, followed by Nona (just feels over powered in a not-fun way).

[Ruan2k]

For me, the cat is broken with Element ring + blessing Elemental (the one that trigger all elemental every 3s when u deal element dmg)

[Porp]

Qian Sui with the thunder blessing makes him too good.

[lollars]

Originally posted by Puul:

Qian Sui with the thunder blessing makes him too good.

i played him yesterday with the thunderstep and the blessing that give dodge -50% cooldown and at the end i had 6 dashes and under 1 sec cooldown with like 6m range

[Fishy Snake]

Qian Sui for me, hands down. In addition to his aspis being a frontal near-invincibility shield, skill damage builds on him are absolutely ridiculous whether you're going for a punch build or, particularly in Reincarnation, what I call the "Hurtle Turtle" build, where you just put up his aspis and proceed to Initial D all over the place because your dash always has 0.2s cooldown at worst and whatever you charge into dies. Most of the time I play with friends, I don't even do weapons with him and just spend my money upgrading my friends' weapons instead, yet my damage numbers (almost) always come out on top. I absolutely love him, as well as his aesthetic design. Haven't tried him past Reincarnation 3, so I don't know how he fares higher up.

The Thunder Step from this season's arcana system just ups the ante. If I feel like it, I'll just dash repeatedly into a corner and lightning storms far away from me zap my enemies to death.

[GameJayRemy]

Yeah the turtle build is pretty insane with the lightning augmentations!
Did a few runs with him and it was pretty crazy for a while.
It was honestly difficult to track my own character, to the point is was easier to use the enemy radar on the mini map instead of looking for enemies regularly.

Monkey is pretty entertaining, he was my favorite when he first came out but seems pretty underwhelming (for me so far) by the time you get to T3. However I'm at the tail end of a run now using Monkey with the Toxic spike augment and that's pretty entertaining.

Essentially I use spikes to generate hits with my 2nd ability as well as get chargers.
Use my 2nd to generate spikes. They just feed into each other so it's a solid boon to chain essence without needing goblets to help gen his ability 2.
-I'm only on T3 with him but by the time I hit the later half of area 3, everything died pretty quickly. Just have the snow area to clear.

[Eudicots]

Originally posted by GameJayRemy:

seems pretty underwhelming by the time you get to T3. However I'm at the tail end of a run now using Monkey with the Toxic spike augment and that's pretty entertaining.

Essentially I use spikes to generate hits with my 2nd ability as well as get chargers.
Use my 2nd to generate spikes. They just feed into each other so it's a solid boon to chain essence without needing goblets to help gen his ability 2.
-I'm only on T3 with him but by the time I hit the later half of area 3, everything died pretty quickly. Just have the snow area to clear.

If you are going for a secondary skill build with monkey then grab a sunder as early as possible and level it up as many times as possible. That way your primary is still useful and takes advantage of your secondary skill bonuses. Easily in the top 3 builds in the game and can reliably clear r9 in under 20 minutes.