Newbie Questions

[Nasami]

I just picked this up and only have the base attribute points and talent points and have been looking through guides, but most of it seems to be higher level play, so I had some questions.
Does anyone have a recommended stat spread? I've been hearing: Dex > Int = Con > Str = Luck based on how hard they are to upgrade the base. Does it matter what you're spread is?
I've heard Fist/Sword/Blade are the best weapons, but Spear comes online super early and to avoid the Music and Short weapons at the start.
With 30 talent points what talents are good? Will I be gimping myself hard by taking loner for the EXP and Damage boost? When it says no allies, does that mean no allies in battle or in party in general?
I kind of want to try my first run in hell mode, normal seems too easy and I usually like going all in. Any suggestions or recommendations for that?

[Atilas]

You should unlock more talent points by sleeping through 100 days at Nightmare difficulty to unlock a bunch of achievements, including those survival achievements for Easy, Normal and Hell. You do that by starting a game at Nightmare level with the talent "Dream Training", ignore both the girls, move south to exit the map and entered the abandoned temple. From there, you just sleep for four "shichen" at one time for 100 days.

For the first real game, go with the easy/normal mode. Easier for you to unlock the achievements. Some NPCs who you might need to keep alive in some story-line battles might get killed due to higher difficulty settings and the story-line might be ended from there.

Personal opinion, Dex > Con > Int/Luck > Str
Strength is the easiest to gain as you should max it when doing harvesting resources. More Int means less starting MP but level up skills quicker.

[Gopher]

Put more points in STR, CON, and DEX. Don't worry about INT or LUK. Don't worry about grabbing weapon skill traits. I don't remember what the starting traits are, but grab any that increase your action speed. Go for Nightmare as your start, as it is honestly not that bad, as long as you remember to train up. Don't leave the starting area till your level 20+, and remember to equip your manuals. Help one of the ladies at the start and grab the HP regen internal. It'll be a life saver in many early fights.

As for weapon, it depends on how you want to start. There is an Old Man who you meet in the first village that offers you an initial sect and feeds you some decent manuals that increase skills for all weapons, so if you are going with him, I would recommend Fist, as those are the most readily available manuals in the game, imo. Any weapon will work with his techniques, even though they are meant to be fist techniques, so it's really a preference thing on your part. If you want to avoid his sect, then fist is still a good choice due to the sheer availability of their techniques.

[Nasami]

Thanks for the replies. Do any of the sect stories lock you out from other sects, or can I join a sect, do it's quests to completion then leave the sect and do another?

[Gopher]

You can join and drop, but you'll lost most of the Sect traits you get from joining unless you leave under specific conditions. Since you just bought the game, though, I wouldn't recommend such haphazard play on a single character. Make each character tailored to the sect you want them to play. There is a compendium in the Guides section I HIGHLY recommend you have favorited and open in your Steam overlay for quick referencing during the game itself. It literally explains everything.

[darkshintos]

Originally posted by Nasami:

Will I be gimping myself hard by taking loner for the EXP and Damage boost? When it says no allies, does that mean no allies in battle or in party in general?

Comparatively speaking, an MC with Lone Wanderer will be better off than an MC without it. Party members are fairly lacking in the late game and the MC has higher power ceiling due to all the traits he can acquire.

Loner and Lone Wanderer both look at your Party Member slots (Green Health Bars in battle). Guests (Blue Health Bars) won't affect them. So a pet is perfectly fine.

Lone Wanderer is in the Top 10 strongest traits in the game. Lone Wanderer alone will make you stronger than any party member you can get. Its effect of +100% damage alone is ridiculously powerful. The 3x exp is ridiculously powerful too.
Your MC will typically be the strongest member of your Party, so increasing his damage will be better than having more people who deal 1/4th of his damage at 1/2 his speed.

Loner is not that great. For slightly less points, you can take Rapid Response and Quick Reflex instead. That will give you the same amount of Action Speed with no downside.
Later on, some allies will provide a larger buff to your AS than you get from Loner, so it ends up being a rather mid-tier trait.

[Gopher]

Lone Wanderer doesn't require you to be alone, just to be clear. It's effects only require your protag land the killing blow, which is hard to do when you have any type of ally, including mind controlled enemies, my newest thing to hate...

[darkshintos]

Originally posted by Gopher:

Lone Wanderer doesn't require you to be alone, just to be clear. It's effects only require your protag land the killing blow, which is hard to do when you have any type of ally, including mind controlled enemies, my newest thing to hate...

Lone Wanderer does require you to be alone for the exp effect too.
For example, if a Lone Wanderer MC with the Doctor in his party gets 12 exp for killing a snake in the Lost Forest, he will get 36 exp for killing the same snake without the Doctor in his party.
The after battle exp will be the same 44 exp.

Easiest seen if you have a party member with you while you kill 1 snake, then kick them out before killing a 2nd snake.

[Gopher]

Isn't that cause the exp is shared? I just know if the doctor gets the kill, the exp received by him is lower than if the protag gets the kill. I like leveling up the npc's, so I just figured it was reduced due to some kind of shared exp thing, since I have noticed npc's leveling up techniques off of other people getting kills mid-battle. My main point is that Lone Wanderer is not worded such that it should be as affected by having others in a party as Loner would be.

[darkshintos]

Originally posted by Gopher:

Isn't that cause the exp is shared?

Not quite. Kill exp works off of the highest level in your party.
Kill Exp only goes to the person who killed the target. External Martial Arts also gets exp based on use, and Internals get about 10% of the Kill Exp.
Then you get Post Battle Exp, which is about 2x Base Kill Exp (Before any modifiers like Difficulty. So the Kill Exp you would get on Easy difficulty).
Then there's Training Exp which is a flat amount depending on the sparring partner. Everyone in the party gets these 2 types of exp.

A Level 10 MC without Lone Wanderer would get 12 exp by killing a Snake on Easy.

A Level 10 MC without Lone Wanderer in a party with a Level 10 Doctor, both would get 12 exp by killing that Snake (The killer gets the 12, the other gets none).

A Level 10 MC with Lone Wanderer without the Doctor would get 36 Exp for that kill.

A Level 10 MC with Lone Wanderer with the Doctor would get the original 12 Exp for that kill.

A Level 5 MC without Lone Wanderer would get 25 Exp for the kill.
If you recruit the Level 10 Doctor, the MC would get 12 Exp for the kill since the highest level in the party is now 10.

[Nasami]

Are Offensive or Defensive internals better for my main internal? I can make one that auto counters on parry and auto crits on hit, then gets a bunch of bonus damage for critting and bonus reduction for parrying. I can also make one that gives 20% regen on action, removes 10 status, and makes me immune to status outright too.

[darkshintos]

Originally posted by Nasami:

Are Offensive or Defensive internals better for my main internal?

I say its better to keep both around, having more stats is always useful. Combination manuals are so powerful from their pure stats that you won't go wrong combining any of them together. And you can spend a turn to change your Main Internal in combat, so you aren't losing anything by keeping both combos.
You can also relearn your original manual if you want to make 2 of the same combo or have 2 combos with the same main component.

Here's my take on your 2 combos:
Sun Burning Sky Technique + Omnipotent Demon Sealing Move have good synergy with each other but Omnipotent is the one doing most of the work. With the Imperial Seal (Or either of its 2 components) accessory, the combination tends to be overkill but feels great to use. The only one who would be an issue is the Confucius Leader, since his Internal prevents Parry and Crits.

Nine Provinces Manual + Vairocana Solar Sutra is a powerful combo but one that not be used very often in future runs. Since you can more or less pick up immunity to all 5 standard status effects through character creation and the special status effects aren't common.

Both Internal Combos are more defensive and reactive in nature. Any combo with Omnipotent Demon Sealing is more of a mix of offense and defense too.
I prefer combining Nine Provinces Manual + Confucius Thirteen Sutra or Nine Provinces Manual + Omnipotent Demon Sealing Move as my 2 go to defensive combos.

An Offensive Internal Combo would be something like:
Archdemon Soul Eater Technique + Endless Maha or Deviation from Form Technique.
Soul Eater provides 20% Life Steal and 5% MP Drain.
Endless Maha provides +50% Damage after a Critical Hit.
Deviation from Form provides a flat +50% Atk/Damage at the cost of +100% more MP costs.

[Nasami]

Alright, thanks again. Another question, is there a way to keep Allies/Wives when destroying/conquering sects? It feels like they get teleported to the sect when I try no matter what.

[darkshintos]

Originally posted by Nasami:

Alright, thanks again. Another question, is there a way to keep Allies/Wives when destroying/conquering sects? It feels like they get teleported to the sect when I try no matter what.

There is not. The only character that will leave their sect is Miao Caidie due to her story. Everyone else is still a part of the sect.
In order to exterminate a sect, you need to kill all members, including your allies and wives.
The challenge will make them teleport to the fight, and manually killing members of the sect will make those allies attack you.

Because characters have 2 relationships with you. Their personal relationship and their Sect's Relationship. Having either one in the negatives will cause them to fight you.

[Nasami]

Originally posted by darkshintos:

Originally posted by Nasami:

Alright, thanks again. Another question, is there a way to keep Allies/Wives when destroying/conquering sects? It feels like they get teleported to the sect when I try no matter what.

There is not. The only character that will leave their sect is Miao Caidie due to her story. Everyone else is still a part of the sect.
In order to exterminate a sect, you need to kill all members, including your allies and wives.
The challenge will make them teleport to the fight, and manually killing members of the sect will make those allies attack you.

Because characters have 2 relationships with you. Their personal relationship and their Sect's Relationship. Having either one in the negatives will cause them to fight you.

That's unfortunate, at least there's a silver lining in that I can keep Maio Caidie.

[Atilas]

Usually, I will just make a save, destroy the sect, get the achievement and reload from my previous save. Repeat until I get all the "Sect Destruction" achievements.