Some thoughts after unlocking all the characters

[Zand]

New bosses are fun and have interesting (if sometimes a little hard to read) attack

The new areas are all pretty good and feel different enough to the originals

Strength builds seem kinda bad, none of the traits or weapons feel impactful enough to make me want to go a strength build

Dex is good but always feels kinda weighted toward a few really powerful bows

Int builds are great, there is a lot of variety in the weapons and traits

The new Aura traits and armour effects seem extremely powerful with the right build at Cinder 0 at least i haven't gone deep on Cinder in this patch while unlocking everyone. I dont want these nerfed into the ground but they feel like outliers in the power rankings.

[Red]

Who are the best classes in your opinion?

[Mao]

There's a few good strength traits I've been grabbing like the 200% debuff strength depending on encumbrance which is absolutely busted, and the trait that gives % damage but sacrificing attack speed if you're doing a big bleed/burn build, but otherwise I feel like the majority of the new strength traits can be easily found on low-tier equipment like taunt. crushing blow, ruthless strikes.

Dex traits I find are very similar to strength such that there's a lot of traits you can find easily on gear and weapons, while buffs to infusions just made perma infusions trait even better. That and repeating attacks are usually my chase traits.

For the int traits I find auras to be similar to the perma infusion trait though I've noticed it's easier to find aura +effect gear which not only increases the degen of the aura, but also the flat damage it provides. And, then there's the int trait that increases auras even more and EVERY buff in the game depending on int. Grabbing that trait and pumping int is basically GG any run.

With how much more flat damage there is in the game, it's more consistent to play a quick attack speed build than it is to play a bulky slow melee builds, but that's how it was even before the update.

[Stanis23]

Aura build is pretty much the king right now for anyone who struggles at the game. It's cheap and you can pretty much use any weapons and still work because it doesn't care for raw damage and weapon scaling at all.

[Thanagor Doccy]

Originally posted by Stanis23:

Aura build is pretty much the king right now for anyone who struggles at the game. It's cheap and you can pretty much use any weapons and still work because it doesn't care for raw damage and weapon scaling at all.

And god save their foes if they get the chest that amplifies aura size and damage.

[Ol' Salty]

For strength builds, there is one really broken and “easy” build I came across yesterday,

Take the perk that gets rid of crits and does 100% crushing attacks. Then get the perk that gives you a bone w/shards attack for every crushing attack. This single handedly broke the run.

[HeraldOfOpera]

You'll want a fair bit of strength just to avoid the crippling encumbrance penalties, so I'm fine with it being less than ideal as a primary focus. Especially funny that you're saying the traits can be replaced by equipment because that requires Strength anyway!

[Managedant]

Originally posted by Red:

Who are the best classes in your opinion?

Easily thief, samurai, paladin, super hero, necromancer.


Thief nearly completely negates the necessity for keys, just have to be good at the mini game.
Samurai has an insanely broken passive ability and has a very unique play style because of it.
Paladin just flat out starts with one of the best armor sets in the entire game IMO as it comes with a decent amount of armor and lets you be very tanky.
Super hero, if playing on any cinder level is extremely hard to use on the first floor but it’s initial trait giving 30 of any main stat, 10 luck or 5 armor right out the gate is just insane. He also starts with one of the best chest pieces in the game, as it gives 5 seconds of invincibility after a hit.
Necromancer has a great starting weapon, and has the ability to summon three companions so his initial floors are coastable and his late game is one of the strongest there is if you’ve managed to stack a good stockpile of souls.

Out of the base classes, sorcerer is still great. Ranger is good. Pyromancer is awesome now that periodical damage was changed the way it was. I beat a cinder 13 throne run with his base weapon and an uncommon just because the traits I got were broken.

[Mao]

The starting Hero can easily get +4 luck early on and every +1 Good alignment is a free 10% damage which has no cap it seems. I think I had like 200% extra damage by the end of one of my runs with them. Mystic can get pretty bonkers with the right trinkets, which also stacks with the legendary belt that also doubles trinket powers (Level 15 weapons anyone?).

But the real OP is the alchemist with the +buff effectiveness intelligence trait as one of the potions you can make allows for extended invulnerability time after being hit. Basically I was immune to damage for at least 30-40 seconds near the end of my run.

[Loquitran]

I recently bought this game, played with a bunch of characters, still have like 4 or 5 to unlock. I won 2 runs, two runs with the pyromancer.

The trait that enables you to deal an explosion after a few burn ticks is kinda insane. This class feels a tad too strong imo.

[scrabble]

I think I've been sleeping on the auras, i thought they were awful lol

[Doombringer]

The shock aura is awful, the others are good.
(almost no damage, easy to get shock stack other ways)

[Managedant]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

The shock aura is awful, the others are good.
(almost no damage, easy to get shock stack other ways)

Shock aura is solid if you can get something that gives zap and odin set/mjolnir. Oooh and that lightning strikes twice trait.


But otherwise, it’s not nearly as awesome as poison aura or fire aura.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by scrabble:

I think I've been sleeping on the auras, i thought they were awful lol

The poison and fire auras deal such a frankly irresponsible amount of damage that it's actually a good thing they're capped at 5k effective infliction (which is not difficult to reach).