At what difficulty is min maxing necessary?

[Resk]

Playing on daring
i tend not to pick the optimal talents/abilities so would this be a problem in the long run if i stick to daring difficulty?

[Sin]

It really depends on how non optimal you pick.
Even a mediocer build will eventually start scaling out of controle unless you deliberatly pick the wrong talents, it's just that that time will be during your exemplar levels (late act 3 or during act 4, so way late into the game) and getting there might not be all that fun if you do nothing but reloading fights.

Daring with okay builds should work out.
Daring with meme builds might be an ask.
Daring with guided builds will make you fall asleep.

You can also always change the difficulty downwards (I am not sure wether or not you can increase it again) in your options menue. So if you bit off more than you can / want handle than just dial it down a little.

Generally:
Abelard, Cassia, Argenta and Heinrix are difficult to spec so badly that they will drag you down.
Idira is a bit more complicated if you want her to be really good and she comes with inherit drawbacks but if you are willing to spend some thought on her she can be good for strong buffs / debuffs or damage.
Pasqal is in danger of being ruined. There are at least 3 ways to skill him which would work out individually, but not necessarily mixed. Wish we had a decent character to replace him in your party before Jae gets all her scaling way late into the game. (Don't get me wrong, well written, occasionally funny and strong when build correctly, it's just that you have to understand his skills and which talents support what aspect.)

pick 2-4 of the first mentioned (I often don'T take heinrix because I usually play psyker myself and 2 is a party 3 is a crowed), add pasqal for the talents he provides and see if you can make something fun out of him and you should be ok even when you go for suboptimal choices. (Read: Suboptimal doesn't mean terrible, just .. I don't know ..flamer Argenta instead of burst fire Argenta.. )

As I said: Difficulty can be changed and eventually you get so many talents that it might be difficult to consistently pick something weak.

[FAT WANZER]

Originally posted by Sin:

It really depends on how non optimal you pick.
Even a mediocer build will eventually start scaling out of controle unless you deliberatly pick the wrong talents, it's just that that time will be during your exemplar levels (late act 3 or during act 4, so way late into the game) and getting there might not be all that fun if you do nothing but reloading fights.

Daring with okay builds should work out.
Daring with meme builds might be an ask.
Daring with guided builds will make you fall asleep.

You can also always change the difficulty downwards (I am not sure wether or not you can increase it again) in your options menue. So if you bit off more than you can / want handle than just dial it down a little.

Generally:
Abelard, Cassia, Argenta and Heinrix are difficult to spec so badly that they will drag you down.
Idira is a bit more complicated if you want her to be really good and she comes with inherit drawbacks but if you are willing to spend some thought on her she can be good for strong buffs / debuffs or damage.
Pasqal is in danger of being ruined. There are at least 3 ways to skill him which would work out individually, but not necessarily mixed. Wish we had a decent character to replace him in your party before Jae gets all her scaling way late into the game. (Don't get me wrong, well written, occasionally funny and strong when build correctly, it's just that you have to understand his skills and which talents support what aspect.)

pick 2-4 of the first mentioned (I often don'T take heinrix because I usually play psyker myself and 2 is a party 3 is a crowed), add pasqal for the talents he provides and see if you can make something fun out of him and you should be ok even when you go for suboptimal choices. (Read: Suboptimal doesn't mean terrible, just .. I don't know ..flamer Argenta instead of burst fire Argenta.. )

As I said: Difficulty can be changed and eventually you get so many talents that it might be difficult to consistently pick something weak.

meme build sometimes works out tho like a bleed,executioner,pyro psyker put dot on whole map(heroic act) and activate the burn re proc from psyker.... profit

[Sin]

Originally posted by FAT WANZER:

Originally posted by Sin:

It really depends on how non optimal you pick.
.

meme build sometimes works out tho like a bleed,executioner,pyro psyker put dot on whole map(heroic act) and activate the burn re proc from psyker.... profit

Playing a Pyro-Dancer-Executioner right now - that one isn't a meme. It's probably not "optimal" since the soldier ranged pyro exists, but a character than can clear half the battlefields of act 1 and 2 in 1-2 turns on unfair isn't a meme ^^ - might fall of though once HP numbers trend towards multiple thousands.

[Resk]

Originally posted by Sin:

It really depends on how non optimal you pick.
Even a mediocer build will eventually start scaling out of controle unless you deliberatly pick the wrong talents, it's just that that time will be during your exemplar levels (late act 3 or during act 4, so way late into the game) and getting there might not be all that fun if you do nothing but reloading fights.

Daring with okay builds should work out.
Daring with meme builds might be an ask.
Daring with guided builds will make you fall asleep.

You can also always change the difficulty downwards (I am not sure wether or not you can increase it again) in your options menue. So if you bit off more than you can / want handle than just dial it down a little.

Generally:
Abelard, Cassia, Argenta and Heinrix are difficult to spec so badly that they will drag you down.
Idira is a bit more complicated if you want her to be really good and she comes with inherit drawbacks but if you are willing to spend some thought on her she can be good for strong buffs / debuffs or damage.
Pasqal is in danger of being ruined. There are at least 3 ways to skill him which would work out individually, but not necessarily mixed. Wish we had a decent character to replace him in your party before Jae gets all her scaling way late into the game. (Don't get me wrong, well written, occasionally funny and strong when build correctly, it's just that you have to understand his skills and which talents support what aspect.)

pick 2-4 of the first mentioned (I often don'T take heinrix because I usually play psyker myself and 2 is a party 3 is a crowed), add pasqal for the talents he provides and see if you can make something fun out of him and you should be ok even when you go for suboptimal choices. (Read: Suboptimal doesn't mean terrible, just .. I don't know ..flamer Argenta instead of burst fire Argenta.. )

As I said: Difficulty can be changed and eventually you get so many talents that it might be difficult to consistently pick something weak.

To put some context, i RPG's i like running the classic heavy armor + 2 handed weapon
so i asumed i wouldnt have to rely on agility only to find out that aparently agility is pretty good for melee characters, i wanted to know if by ignoring agility im condemning myself to a massive difficulty curve or something like that wont have any effect on my difficulty selection

also, when you mentioned guided builds i assume you meant those builds are tuned for higher difficutly so they would make me stomp through the game?

[Balekai]

None even on Unfair. Unfair in this game is Core difficulty in Kingmaker/Wotr. In the Beta I put it on Unfair just to test it and never looked back since lol.

Min Maxing is not required, but proper party/character building along with a proper understanding of the squad combat mechanics is. You don't have to stack or bloat stats to win with weird combinations, or to hit an enemy like once every 10 tries. Many talents and abilities do this by default and have a true impact on the battlefield, unlike DnD where in many cases feats etc. give near useless incremental buffs. RT benefits from the superior D100 as opposed to D20 system for proper difficulty scaling.

There are virtually no enemies that are flat immune to damage or crowds control like 90% of enemies in Kingmaker/Wotr. Or you must only take "insert characters here," (although Cassia is basically Mary Sue must have as it would be stupid not to lol). Reading ability/talents and making rational character progression decisions should keep you in good shape.

Having said all that, this is how you win no matter what or some variation of such:

- Cassia being a little bit Officer for extra turns and maybe the Officer heal. Go heavy on Navigator talents/abilities that have huge anti MAD (Multiple Ability Score Dependency) making most mechanics scale off just Willpower and Perception. She can debuff like crazy while doing crazy CC/AoE damage and buff your party.. and give extra turns. Make her a Grand Strategist (GS) for always going first in Combat, allowing her to open up combat CCing enemies, giving extra turns etc. Don't take GS talents and abilities with her (save for the talent that gives you a random Stratagem, diversion zone and/or the talent that allows you to use Officer abilities in a combat zone effected by a Stratagem at any range) and just focus on Navigator stuff.

- Pascal as a Plasma gun specialist and a GS, so he acts first in combat as well. Pascal with his special Plasma abilities and a Finest hour from at least Cassia he can spam that thing about 11 times in hat turn.

Have him take GS stratagems. Stratagems on Combat Zones can trivialize combat like making your team immune to injuries with Stronghold Stratagem, or make enemies treat everyone in the Rear Combat zone w/ a stratagem lowest priority targets via Diversion Zone (most enemies will ignore you backline for frontline characters), or auto kills in Front Combat Zone with Killzone Strategem at certain % life left.

This is in combination with the great passive buffs from Combat Zones themselves, that are free to use and scale up with multiple party GSes. This means that the Highest Intelligence and the Highest Fellowship in the party is used for the zone buffs. So if you have Cassia with high Fellowship, but low Intelligence and Pascal vice versa, the modifiers for Zones will use Cassia's Fellowship and Pascal's Intelligence to scale. Even if you have a 3rd GS character with no Fellowship/Intelligence investment, their Zones will be of Cassia+Pascal effectiveness.

- Idira can be built much like Cassia but focusing on her Psyker Power damage and CC. Since the nerf and change to Seize the Moment, I have started to make her a Grand Strategist to open up with debuffs as well. Although by endgame Cassia will have just about every stat of any boss at 1. Her as a GS gives me another character that can move around Combat zones and always have them where I want them to be (especially Frontline zone).

- Argenta as a Heavy Weapons specialist using Heavy Bolter than later Improved heavy bolster. A staple for the team and a major part of your DPS.

- Abelard as a Vanguard scaling up HP and temp hp stacking for tanking AND massive damage output.

There's more ways to build everyone to their fullest with varying secondary Archetypes and builds. They all work.

[Sin]

Originally posted by Resk:

Originally posted by Sin:

It really depends on how non optimal you pick.
.

To put some context, i RPG's i like running the classic heavy armor + 2 handed weapon
so i asumed i wouldnt have to rely on agility only to find out that aparently agility is pretty good for melee characters, i wanted to know if by ignoring agility im condemning myself to a massive difficulty curve or something like that wont have any effect on my difficulty selection

also, when you mentioned guided builds i assume you meant those builds are tuned for higher difficutly so they would make me stomp through the game?

Guided Builds:
Most people only upload a guide when they are fairly certain that those who spend time crunching numbers and than go out to validate their ideas against others won't have an easy time calling them out on "mistakes".
I put mistakes in quotation marks because it is a game, not a competition.
So most guides you find out there will lead to you stomping the game, yes.

Melee without Agility:
Generally you want offense, defense and mobility in your melee fighters, that is probably not a secret.
Agility is well liked for many characters because it gives you alot of dodge and some initiative / movement range.

Heavy armor cuts your dodge in half, some make it even worse.
Movement is compensated by charge.
Initiative is the odd one out, but the initiative system in RT is so fickle that you really have to stack the deck in order to feel the benefitial effect.

In short: Agility isn't something that mixes well with heavy armor.

I assume you went for a mix of weaponskill toughness and strength for your character, if so don't worry and enjoy.

[Balekai]

Yeah he would have to build much like Abelard as a Vanguard to be an effective non agility tank taking pretty much 0 damage from anything, and still gain hundreds of damage with hits (my favourite is Abelard with hammer pushing). Like I mentioned above go Vanguard, scale up Maximum Wounds and Temp Wounds, then take talents that scale things like damage and Strength off maximum wounds.

There's two very good Heavy Armours in the game that have extra Deflection based off Carouse or Coercion ranks respectfully. that can easily hive a Heavy Armour Tank like 7-15 base Deflection.

[Resk]

Ah thats good to know, so that talent that increases the distance of charge is pretty good cause charge is both movement and free attack.
and yeah, im having my rogue trader be a heavy melee dps while abelard is full on tank

[Resk]

Originally posted by Balekai:

Yeah he would have to build much like Abelard as a Vanguard to be an effective non agility tank taking pretty much 0 damage from anything, and still gain hundreds of damage with hits (my favourite is Abelard with hammer pushing). Like I mentioned above go Vanguard, scale up Maximum Wounds and Temp Wounds, then take talents that scale things like damage and Strength off maximum wounds.

There's two very good Heavy Armours in the game that have extra Deflection based off Carouse or Coercion ranks respectfully. that can easily hive a Heavy Armour Tank like 7-15 base Deflection.

got it, didn't know there were talents that scaled out of wounds, i should probably sit down and read the whole talent tree, i havent event checked exemplar yet

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Resk:

Originally posted by Balekai:

Yeah he would have to build much like Abelard as a Vanguard to be an effective non agility tank taking pretty much 0 damage from anything, and still gain hundreds of damage with hits (my favourite is Abelard with hammer pushing). Like I mentioned above go Vanguard, scale up Maximum Wounds and Temp Wounds, then take talents that scale things like damage and Strength off maximum wounds.

There's two very good Heavy Armours in the game that have extra Deflection based off Carouse or Coercion ranks respectfully. that can easily hive a Heavy Armour Tank like 7-15 base Deflection.

got it, didn't know there were talents that scaled out of wounds, i should probably sit down and read the whole talent tree, i havent event checked exemplar yet

Tough as Steel - The character gains an additional 12 wounds. Those wounds are further increased by Toughness, increasing by +(10 x TGH bonus)%, in the same way as basic wounds. Exemplar Talent.

+

It will Not Die etc. from normal talents that give more Wounds

+

Means of generating lots of Temporary Wounds as Vanguard can stack Temp Wounds.

+

Peak Condition - The character gains a bonus to their Strength equal to 20% of their maximum wounds. Exemplar Talent.

*This strategy also works for Executioner builds due to similar % damage mechanics based off maximum wounds with Reckless Abandon.*

+

Vanguard's Beacon of Might talent: At the start of the Vanguard's turn, before their temporary wounds are lost, the Vanguard gains +number of temporary wounds Strength for 1 round.


With my Officer GS Bio/Sanctic Psyker healer/buff bot buffing him with Iron Arm, then spamming overhealing criting Light of the Emperors for like 50-100+ healing, he was stacking hundreds of Temp Wounds which would give him even more strength from Temp Wounds.

Then add in Hammer of the Emperor giving him +64 more or less base damage on his next attack. That all adds up to mid to high hundreds of damage (sometimes 1000+ as a full tank lol). But you can get him to hit for like 100 damage without all of that. :p