Must have traits/stars to recruit and develop

[batteyhead]

Question for y'all:

What are some must-have traits and/or stars or minimum stat growths you need before you decide to recruit and develop a character? Magically Talented, e.g., or Mana Core, Talented Swordsmanship, Quick, etc. I'm curious as to what everyone thinks.

[Wenju]

Talented is busted. Not only you get 20% stat grow in all stats (great for anyone) but you get 2 "stars" (additional 30% stats grow). If you see a talented even with some bad trait, he is already a superior adventurer.
Speaking of star, keep an eye out for those. 30% is no small sum, so if you see someone with educated and star on InT, even if he's originally a warrior, he has a great potential to be mage.
I avoid social traits, like lovable or popular... does not feel like it adds much. Sometimes a random even in the guild, but i barely remember happening.
Mana core is excellent for priest. (more then mages) At elast for me, my priest were huge dps and very active healers. Without mana core i have to force them to do nothing. (special priest you recruit, at first i though she was going to be great, but she was relegated to my third team because i had 2 mana core priest that were miles better).
Stats grow stats should match what you want. Talented strong is a awesome combo for any melee class.
Dont be afraid to hire a bunch and fire them alter. is very easy to lvl up a talented adventurer and promote him to one of your teams.
But honestly, best adventurers are the ones that you get many unique training or events.
Go to the guide to check most of these events.
Very common to farm forest quest to get the arm wrestling trait very early on.

[listless]

I keep my eye out for Born Leader when I'm trying to fill in the last spots on a team.
I like Quick, and anything that helps with Endurance development like Healthy Body.
I agree about ignoring social traits, but positive Mood traits are nice.

[listless]

Lucky's a good one too. It would be interesting to see the looting results of a team where everyone has that trait.
Kind for healers.

[Letterit]

Past Talented, traits are secondary after attributes grow.

And attributes grow depend of classes targeted for the character.

For collecting events on some adventurers it will require use an A Team for any story quests, and even then if you don't use also the A Team for mist quests you'll risk miss some that aren't repeated or very rare.

So detect what can be better but then compute attributes and for what attributes and classes to really select an adventurer. And then to experiment special traits you can just hire the adventurer and try and fire later.

For me signals to check more carefully the character, by priority order:
1. Talented
2. 2 attribute stars
3. 1 Attribute star on STR/DEX/INT/WIS/WP
4. Mana Core, Educated, Rational, Magically Talented, Quick, Fast Learner, Sadist
5. Will Power related, Born Leader, Pretty, Kind, Determined, Survivor, Brave, Drunkard, Hotblooded, Love Pain.
6. Pacifist to try it

But at end, it's attributes grow that matter for the classes targeted.

EDIT:
About collecting events traits on some key characters, past only play with current A Team, you can also consider send key A Team member or even members to other teams. This require some pre knowledge, but for many events you can't guess traits they'll bring so you need pre knowledge anyway.

[Rubidium]

Anyone with Quick and Born Leader gets marked down as a future party leader from day one.

Otherwise, I'm mostly interested in stats/growth. Especially as the special characters mostly end up on my A-team after recruitment, so someone else is going to need to be extra-strong to break through. Given that the unique priest is easily the least useful of the special characters, I especially want someone with good Int growth to take that role.

And yeah, don't pay too much attention to starting classes. I regularly see folks in the tavern who start as, say, defenders with great stats/traits for a mage; it's cheap to reclass them as soon as they are hired.

[Pure_Poetry]

Copy/Paste from guide :

The “Talented” trait is very powerful. It gives :
- +20 growth per attribute
- +20 growth per talent (netting +50 per talent instead of 30)
- At least 2 talents (unless the adventurer is scouted)
==> +220 total guaranteed attribute growth (unless scouted). It is also unfortunately very rare.

For the other traits :
- "Magically talented" and "Educated" are absolutely OP for mages and priests
- "Kind" / "rational" for priests (or those from mages)
- "Sadist" is S-Tier for any damage dealer (due to BP regen), especially for melee and archers (due to STR growth). It is worth noting that ANY INSTANCE OF DAMAGE will yield 2BP. So casting a 2x2 fireball on 4 enemies will yield 8 BP + 8 next turn if you also burned them. Also, having your weapon enchanted will net you 2 BP per type of damage, multiplied per number of enemies targeted (Hi there cleave with elemental enchantments).
- "Strong" or "Soldier training" for any frontliners
- "Mana Core" for SP burners who can't regen properly, archers/rogues especially (+10% SP regen/turn is sick... you just unleash hell every turn)
- Any main stat growth trait for each class (ie : +30 strengh for warrior, etc...)
- Quick : dex growth, ini bonus and especially the +1 mov range is fantastic for everyone !

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

While Talented is pretty great, I find it's not THAT good unless it boosts a primary attack stat.

Talented and a star in STR or INT? Almost certainly an A tier character.

DEX or Willpower? Well, you can work with that, if you want a bard or paladin (WP) or have the item that uses DEX for physical attack.

Talented with a star in Endurance and Wisdom? Eh... while nice to have, unless you also have something that boosts a primary stat it's still going to be a no from me.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

While Talented is pretty great, I find it's not THAT good unless it boosts a primary attack stat.

Strongly supporting this.

IMHO Talented is usually overrated (and also overrated by it's own price). There is no real difference between 90 and 110% stat growth until you're going to reload like a crazy.

Plus Talented often comes with very low starting attributes. And starting attributes are quite important EARLY.

Let's compare two chars:
130% natural growth and 8 starting attribute.
160% natural growth and 3 starting attrubute.
Sure, in ~20 levels they will catch each other. But in same time char A would be much stronger in early combat (most important ones).

Darryl also a good example here. Very poor starting stats so while EVENTUALLY he would became the best assassin (thanks to his unique skills), around lvl 6-10 a scouted Sadist/ManaCore/Quick would perform so much better...

[Letterit]

It seems very clear that scouting is easier so stronger than RNG hires, it allows design fast a coherent A Team, so Talented is only in context of RNG hires.

Ignore a Talented hire is non sense, but at end what matters is grows for attributes that matter for the class.

And Talented gives +20% grow to each of those attributes, only that isn't neglect-able. Typical is +20% DEX for any class is good, +20% STR/INT/WP is good for any class, +20% WP is good for any class. +20% WIS is a plus for any class. And it's only one trait base that gives it.

[Letterit]

Originally posted by corisai:

Let's compare two chars:
130% natural growth and 8 starting attribute.
160% natural growth and 3 starting attrubute.
Sure, in ~20 levels they will catch each other. But in same time char A would be much stronger in early combat (most important ones).

I don't remind such difference with RNG hires, for scouting it's clearly easier than RNG so I won't argue on that.

But with RNG level up that is the default rule, 30% grow difference can make a big difference with the double roll option.

And for first levels consideration, it's related to difficulty level played, at Normal difficulty start attributes won't be a problem, and a significant grow difference will make quite a difference. I don't remind 8 vs 3, but even that could be match at level 6.

For Derryl, he can play some levels Archer then Ranger and then switch Assassin, but is really the 100% hit make him better Assassin than Assira?

Moreover up to level 10 more or less, it's very doable to play with a class and level up with another, it has a price but it's manageable at low levels for one or two characters.

[Letterit]

Originally posted by Pure_Poetry:

- "Sadist" is S-Tier for any damage dealer (due to BP regen), especially for melee and archers (due to STR growth). It is worth noting that ANY INSTANCE OF DAMAGE will yield 2BP. So casting a 2x2 fireball on 4 enemies will yield 8 BP + 8 next turn if you also burned them. Also, having your weapon enchanted will net you 2 BP per type of damage, multiplied per number of enemies targeted (Hi there cleave with elemental enchantments).

That already big but is there also restore for any team reaction shot? And is it working for Poison?

It looks almost broken in fact.

[Letterit]

An example to show that for RNG hires, even if Talented matter it's not the panacea; what matter is grow for attributes that matter plus probably Sadist insane trait.

1. Arrogant, Talented, Lazy, DEX and WIS with star.
From a Archer/Ranger perspective:
DEX +50%
STR +20%
WP +40%
Not bad not top but for a campaign start would be a solid Ranger aim start, perhaps Rogue/Assassin too.
And WIS +50%, END +40%, and even INT +20% are small but good to take extra.

2. Educated, Organized, Bright, Determined
From a mage/cleric perspective:
INT +100%
DEX/WIS +0%
WP +20%
That's a quite interesting Mage/Cleric start, no matter what are saying experienced players at highest difficulties, the low WIS is a penalty, but at start of campaign if I'm not wrong it's a more noticeable initial recruit than the Talented.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Letterit:

For Derryl, he can play some levels Archer then Ranger and then switch Assassin, but is really the 100% hit make him better Assassin than Assira?

Throw Knife (2AP cost with a trait) -> kill wounded enemy & gain BP -> restore 2 AP ...

Yes, 100% hit chance turning this ability chain into a chainsaw against enemies
P.S. Additional to-hit talent is also a god-send for higher difficulties.

[Letterit]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Letterit:

For Derryl, he can play some levels Archer then Ranger and then switch Assassin, but is really the 100% hit make him better Assassin than Assira?

Throw Knife (2AP cost with a trait) -> kill wounded enemy & gain BP -> restore 2 AP ...

Yes, 100% hit chance turning this ability chain into a chainsaw against enemies
P.S. Additional to-hit talent is also a god-send for higher difficulties.

1AP cost is even possible if it can stack with an item, and not reserved to Derryl.

Asisa will do quite higher damages, hence will have much more one shot kill opportunities, and it's not the 95% vs 100% of Derryl that will change it and make him better for that.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Letterit:

Originally posted by corisai:

Throw Knife (2AP cost with a trait) -> kill wounded enemy & gain BP -> restore 2 AP ...

1AP cost is even possible if it can stack with an item, and not reserved to Derryl.

No, it doesn't stack so 1 AP is not possible. (That would be overpowered anyway.)

The skill makes melee dagger skills cheaper, not throw knife.

So to get 2 AP knife-throw you need Adrenaline (which makes all skills cheaper but it doesn't stack and only lasts 1 turn) or the throwing knife Epic accessory.

Still worth it.

Asisa will do quite higher damages, hence will have much more one shot kill opportunities, and it's not the 95% vs 100% of Derryl that will change it and make him better for that.

The advantage of Darryl is not just that he gets 100% hit chance. It is that any hit chance OVER 100% becomes critical chance.

So with high enough DEX, he will always score critical hits. That makes his damage higher.