Detailed info on party members/companions

[AZengus]

Having fun with Blackguards, but there's one thing that kind of irks me - I'm not really sure what I should spend my AP on for my characters, and it's mostly to do with uncertainty about what my future party members are like (right now I'm still running around with the main character, Naurim and Zurbaran in Act 1)

I've been trying to dig up useful information in the forum but I'm mostly getting bits and pieces - all very helpful of course, but not what I'm looking for specifically.

Can anyone provide any detailed information on my current and future party members? I'm looking for how they're initially specced (what attributes), any spells/skillsets that are exclusive to the character, etc. It would help me plan a bit better when I decide to use my APs, so I don't have any characters that are redundant in purpose and stay uniquely useful in my party.

If it's not clear already I'm a bit of a min-max guy, I don't like to waste my points :)

[AZengus]

As an example, I found out quickly that Zurbaran had a reasonably high Constitution, so I immediately restarted my game, changing my character to a hybrid ranger/mage with low Constitution, so I can focus on the other half of the spells that do not use that stat. Most of the spells that rely on Constitution are damage spells like Fireball and the Cold spells, which is why I sacrificed points in CON so I can spend it focusing on archery.

[Dorok]

Frankly it's quite a garbage if you really want decipher some scheme in that I suggest you do a calc, columns are attributes, lines are spells. I'm not sure you will find any scheme in that.

[AZengus]

Nah, I'm not looking for something like that. At the most basic level, I'm curious about:

When Takate and Aurelia join the party, what are their default attributes, spells, abilities? This would be enough to set a guideline for me on how I would like to build the main, Naurim and Zurbaran earlier in the game.

[Dorok]

Ha ok I wonder if you can extract anything from few examples.

[5pam!]

Takate:
Spear quite high (14?)
Throwing Weapons 8
No Mage
Feint Tree until Death blow learned
No ranged Skills
higher Dex, Agi, Intu than Naurim, less Strength & Const
-> Either a "hit in the face" guy or respec him into a ranger since he has high stats therefore. Would not repec him until chapter 3, because he is quite a good tank. But his damage is rather lacking, compared to triple shot or hammer blow.

Aurelia:
Clearly a mage, whith low Const (10) & Strength (9).
14 Clever, Intu, Charisma
12 Dagger
8 Throwing Weapons
Got Ranged Spell 2, Astral Reg 1, Dodge 1
some useless witch spells
has corpofesso and shadow force
No Balm of Healing or Clarum Purum
-> if you use Zurb as a pure mage you should definitely respec her into something else. Meele is probably not a good idea because her stats are quite low. Some people suggested Ranger with triple shot and shadow force. Not a bad idea i think.

[testthewest]

The attributes should not be spend like you say: One attribute high on each character.
Instead get whatever you need, even if this means having no character with 18 in a certain attribute.

So if you asking for spoilers:
They will kill your ranger, Niam, and you might even lose Aurelia befiore the endfight. Thus look to get all important spells on your MC, Zurbaran, Takate and Naurim.

Furthermore it is useful to sometimes ignore the original skill of the joining characters. You certainly not want to go down the witchspells-route with aurelia and you don't want to put any more points into spears with takate.
Because in the end, it is just a few AP to skill a weapon talent up, and that's alot better than running around with the wrong weapon the whole game.
(Example: Not getting hammerblow, a skill that easily does 30+ damage every hit (up to over 90), just to run around with a spear is bad.)

In the end you are quite free to skill as you will, and there are many different setups that let's you win the game on hard, so go ahead and try your own style!

[dugger999]

Running around with a spear wounding the mob is far from bad. I had Takate as tank, archer, wounder, with spear, 2h swords, 2h hammer. He can do almost everything and very well. And i seen him doing lots of dmg with his spear and the one with infantry dmg have nothing to envy any bashing 2 handers. My favorite is as an archer with his spear at 18 warcraft. The most versatile guy around.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by testthewest:

...
So if you asking for spoilers:
They will kill your ranger, Niam, and you might even lose Aurelia befiore the endfight. Thus look to get all important spells on your MC, Zurbaran, Takate and Naurim.
...

For Niam it's less a pain because if you want you can build rather quick Aurelia as a Niam. But I just got all spells removed from Aurelia and it's just mad design. There's no justification for such pathetic design and I'm surprised not more players complain, probably because most just cheat and check that sort of stuff before to play.

[AZengus]

Thanks for the info on Takate and Aurelia, 5pam. The advice is appreciated, too. Much of what I read on the forums does discuss focusing on damage and how useful Hammer Blow and Triple Shot is... it does look like weapons like Spears, Fencing and Crossbows are kind of limited in capability.

So there's no archer that sticks with you throughout the game... guess I'm glad I restarted with my main having some ranged ability. I think I have a good idea of where to go with Naurim and Zurbaran, and subsequently Takate and Aurelia.

To be clear, no one uses 2H Swords? There's that neat 2H sword with Distance, would be nice to have someone learn that weapon. I'm also indecisive on whether or not to use shields, it looks like on average you just get +2/3 parry and your other stats may or may not go down... you can certainly get more parry from other places like weapon skill or buffs.

Edit: To elaborate on parry, what I mean is it doesn't seem very useful. Every turn you only get one chance to parry, and you can't choose when to use it. Whoever attacks your character first will initiate the parry roll, even if it's some wimp with a dagger. If there's a big guy with a 2H weapon that attacks you second, you probably wasted your parry already. That's what I'm thinking when I ask about having a shield or no shield.

I had one last question (for now) - are there any spell/abilities exclusive to each character? Like those Witch spells... can only Aurelia learn them? I understand they're garbage spells, but just for the sake of knowledge :)

[valky]

Originally posted by AZengus:

To be clear, no one uses 2H Swords? There's that neat 2H sword with Distance, would be nice to have someone learn that weapon.

Takate uses very successful 2H swords in my game :P Not sure anymore where I got this from but it's called "Rondrakam" or similar in English. Does a lil bit less damage than the halberd you got from that plant-thingie (Pailos) but it's magical damage and has less penalties on parry & initiative, and also hits hard.

About parry: it ain't that bad if your skill is high enough, but you are right too. That's why I tried to unlock avoidance III for at least Naurim & Takate early on or once you get access to that trainer. It's noticeable and can trigger more than once and helps against nearly anything (bigger sized foes -> if that is even implemented, arrows...)
Biggest point about this very skilltree it gives you also a decent initiative boost, which becomes more and more important in chap 3+

[AZengus]

Originally posted by billi:

Originally posted by AZengus:

To be clear, no one uses 2H Swords? There's that neat 2H sword with Distance, would be nice to have someone learn that weapon.

Takate uses very successful 2H swords in my game :P Not sure anymore where I got this from but it's called "Rondrakam" or similar in English. Does a lil bit less damage than the halberd you got from that plant-thingie (Pailos) but it's magical damage and has less penalties on parry & initiative, and also hits hard.

About parry: it ain't that bad if your skill is high enough, but you are right too. That's why I tried to unlock avoidance III for at least Naurim & Takate early on or once you get access to that trainer. It's noticeable and can trigger more than once and helps against nearly anything (bigger sized foes -> if that is even implemented, arrows...)
Biggest point about this very skilltree it gives you also a decent initiative boost, which becomes more and more important in chap 3+

From what was said it looks like Takate has all his points in Spears. But yeah, I was wondering if any characters come along with point spent in 2H Sword already, I probably need Naurim or Takate to learn 2H Swords.

Good to know initiative is very important, maybe there's a reason to use Daggers/Fencing weapons.