Idira is good?

[SpaceSquid]

Having just beaten the game, never using idira (or any operative), on max difficulty, I'm struggling to work out what makes her so consistently praised - she had awful damage in the early game, and veil degradation makes any psyker worse due to extra actions increasing the odds of getting shafted by RNG. What am I missing there?

[Aranador]

She gets some specific items that can massively amp her up. You can also get things that improve with veil degradation, especially as a Heretic.

[Myth Alric]

Mostly she just has a higher psy rating than everyone else. Just straight up because of her starting stat, regardless of what you do with her.

[Revan619]

You built her wrong. Prologue she has a consistent aoe from her psyker staff. She can also armour strip the boss.

Act 1 you can combine pain channelling and backdrafts talents that allows her psy staff to do high damage aoes that proc extra half damage and send excess damage to new targets. Remember to take her psy rating increases.

Start of act 2 you can take sanctic to use the sanctified staff you pick up on footfall. By going bounty hunter you get 3 bonus turns round 1 to apply more buffs. By stacking your word of the emperor you can do high damage warp aoes that like before throw on an extra half and pass excess damage. Daemon tool from act 1 even allows this to set enemies on fire.

Later in act 2 you get the spirit drape. This causes all non psyker powers to receive -1 ap cost during the first round. So that is 3 bonus turns of 0 ap buffing. An extra damage turn from hot on the trail and whatever officer turns you give her. So now she skyrockets buffs and damage.

By having her you make the whole party stronger and she can also carry as damage even when built to be mostly dedicated buffer. Act 2 gives her unique gloves that perils she generates give +1 psy rating and the heavy armour that gives +1 psy rating can be triggered by allies getting kills when you have heretic 2 conviction.

The only draw back is small chance to self destruct or summon daemons. The self destruct can be mitigated by sanguine siphon and bounty hunter share the spoils.

[Gorwe]

Most likely ; she is just a huge gamble(Unsanctioned) AND she is a very complex build(=starts with TWO "schools") to wrap one's head around.

[Tay of the Lor]

Is it normal for Idira to become crippled? She is permanently crippled in my game, ribs, legs, arm, limited sight, etc. Can I heal these things some how?

[SpaceSquid]

Originally posted by Revan619:

You built her wrong. Prologue she has a consistent aoe from her psyker staff. She can also armour strip the boss.

Act 1 you can combine pain channelling and backdrafts talents that allows her psy staff to do high damage aoes that proc extra half damage and send excess damage to new targets. Remember to take her psy rating increases.

Start of act 2 you can take sanctic to use the sanctified staff you pick up on footfall. By going bounty hunter you get 3 bonus turns round 1 to apply more buffs. By stacking your word of the emperor you can do high damage warp aoes that like before throw on an extra half and pass excess damage. Daemon tool from act 1 even allows this to set enemies on fire.

Later in act 2 you get the spirit drape. This causes all non psyker powers to receive -1 ap cost during the first round. So that is 3 bonus turns of 0 ap buffing. An extra damage turn from hot on the trail and whatever officer turns you give her. So now she skyrockets buffs and damage.

By having her you make the whole party stronger and she can also carry as damage even when built to be mostly dedicated buffer. Act 2 gives her unique gloves that perils she generates give +1 psy rating and the heavy armour that gives +1 psy rating can be triggered by allies getting kills when you have heretic 2 conviction.

The only draw back is small chance to self destruct or summon daemons. The self destruct can be mitigated by sanguine siphon and bounty hunter share the spoils.

Right, so this just sounds like a worse arch-militant, because all of these actions increase the chance of perils, and it all requires going down the least impactful conviction

[Revan619]

ah yes. Arch-militants fantastic 20% damage increase for sweating yourself dry every turn trying to maximise a barely noticible % increase to damage instead of using perils to increase psy rating, momentum and action points which increase your buffs to the 500+ range and your damage to the 20k+ range per attack.

Read warp conductor gloves, psyker's breatplate, thriving in peril, heretic 2 and savour the kill. You quite literally weaponise perils and turn them into a benefit for idira. Sanguine Siphon will stop self destructs. I would normally make an operative psyker for buff or damage as the arch-type is a meme but Idira being unsanctioned makes it all work really well. Idira will out perform all but the most tryhard min-maxed custom rogue traders that have maximised the correct 5/2/2 convictions and absorbed all the gear. Even then they dont benefit from perils as much as unsanctioned.

[SpaceSquid]

Originally posted by Revan619:

ah yes. Arch-militants fantastic 20% damage increase for sweating yourself dry every turn trying to maximise a barely noticible % increase to damage instead of using perils to increase psy rating, momentum and action points which increase your buffs to the 500+ range and your damage to the 20k+ range per attack.

Read warp conductor gloves, psyker's breatplate, thriving in peril, heretic 2 and savour the kill. You quite literally weaponise perils and turn them into a benefit for idira. Sanguine Siphon will stop self destructs. I would normally make an operative psyker for buff or damage as the arch-type is a meme but Idira being unsanctioned makes it all work really well. Idira will out perform all but the most tryhard min-maxed custom rogue traders that have maximised the correct 5/2/2 convictions and absorbed all the gear. Even then they dont benefit from perils as much as unsanctioned.

If you are only getting 20% damage from arch militant, you're playing wrong. In any case, I'll admit I undervalued Idira

[Gorwe]

A question about Operatives, seeing how Idira is one.

If you have two Ops and both of them stack Exploits and only the second / latter one attacks or cashes in Exploits ... does he use ALL Exploits or only ones that he put on the target?

[Danceofmasks]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

A question about Operatives, seeing how Idira is one.

If you have two Ops and both of them stack Exploits and only the second / latter one attacks or cashes in Exploits ... does he use ALL Exploits or only ones that he put on the target?

All, but it's sort of weird.
If you shoot a unit with 5 exploits, you probably hit pretty hard, but you only acquire 1 instance of tides of excellence. But if you remove 1 exploit from 5 targets, you get a bunch.
On the other hand, if you're using tactical knowledge to remove exploits to get buffs instead, you want to do it on a single lone enemy with a massive stack of exploits (and repeat the process).
So, you can use exploits wide or tall, but usually not both.
Idira probably wants to go wide with tides of excellence, while a sniper probably wants to go tall with tactical knowledge.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by Danceofmasks:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

A question about Operatives, seeing how Idira is one.

If you have two Ops and both of them stack Exploits and only the second / latter one attacks or cashes in Exploits ... does he use ALL Exploits or only ones that he put on the target?

All, but it's sort of weird.
If you shoot a unit with 5 exploits, you probably hit pretty hard, but you only acquire 1 instance of tides of excellence. But if you remove 1 exploit from 5 targets, you get a bunch.
On the other hand, if you're using tactical knowledge to remove exploits to get buffs instead, you want to do it on a single lone enemy with a massive stack of exploits (and repeat the process).
So, you can use exploits wide or tall, but usually not both.
Idira probably wants to go wide with tides of excellence, while a sniper probably wants to go tall with tactical knowledge.

And what about my actual example(s)? Attack or Exploit Weakness(believe that's the name).

[Revan619]

Originally posted by SpaceSquid:

Originally posted by Revan619:

ah yes. Arch-militants fantastic 20% damage increase for sweating yourself dry every turn trying to maximise a barely noticible % increase to damage instead of using perils to increase psy rating, momentum and action points which increase your buffs to the 500+ range and your damage to the 20k+ range per attack.

Read warp conductor gloves, psyker's breatplate, thriving in peril, heretic 2 and savour the kill. You quite literally weaponise perils and turn them into a benefit for idira. Sanguine Siphon will stop self destructs. I would normally make an operative psyker for buff or damage as the arch-type is a meme but Idira being unsanctioned makes it all work really well. Idira will out perform all but the most tryhard min-maxed custom rogue traders that have maximised the correct 5/2/2 convictions and absorbed all the gear. Even then they dont benefit from perils as much as unsanctioned.

If you are only getting 20% damage from arch militant, you're playing wrong. In any case, I'll admit I undervalued Idira

"The Arch-Militant gains +3 WS and BS for every stack of versatility. If the Arch-Militant has 4 or more stacks of versatility, the Arch-Militant deals an additional +(10 + WS bonus)%"

So 20% is about 100 weapon score. Which is actually quite high. If your ws is 70 that is 10 stacks.

You need 3-4 stacks per 1% damage boost not including your base score.

I know how to min max it by swapping 1 ap attacks like strike then ignite. But you still need 3-4 attacks for a %. Which is less than extermination Which gives 1% per attack. Which means any high attack economy setup can keep up or vastly out perform with proper use

[spammdc]

Originally posted by Tay of the Lor:

Is it normal for Idira to become crippled? She is permanently crippled in my game, ribs, legs, arm, limited sight, etc. Can I heal these things some how?

Generally going back to the ship heals these injuries.

Idera,
Her % chance t summon warp instability and hurt your party in the 1st round for me is an issue as it often happens at the worst of times. So when I have used her in the past I have in my last few games not used her Psy powers in the first round and started using them in the 2nd round.
In my game now I made a merc to fill her slot which is a Sanctioned Psy with the same build I use normally. And I can use their powers the 1st round without the issue of summoning or dealing damage to those around me.
So for it is working well and I have enjoyed not having issues but I do miss the various story and voice options she brings to the game when she is in party.