New Player - Please Give Me Some Advice

[Alex]

Hi all!

I've played the game twice now, up to about rescuing the baronness, and I think in both games I made important mistakes and therefore I wasn't enjoying it very much. I'm hoping you can help me avoid some of them this time to make it better for me, so I can have some fun. At the moment, I want to make a new character.

From other posts, it seems it's worth rolling as a mage to access magic skills, but then play the class as something else. Since I get Naurim, I don't want another tank, and I get Zubzub, so I want to start my toon as a hunter, but using magic (just a few support skills).

Basically, is the following viable?

PC - support/hunter - bows, spears and buffing magic (spears for melee and causing wounds)
Naurim - axe/shield for tank, 2h bashing for everything else (I read 2h has better returns than 1h+shield)
Zubzub - Buffer/Debuffer, crossbow for added pewpew.
4th person I'll worry about when it comes.

What I need advice on is: does this build work optimally and as quite an easy combination? Also, what skills should I focus on initially? What major mistakes should I avoid making? I've read the guides, but they don't really give advice in terms of the mistakes that most new players make that chase them away from the game. I get that some people like playing the gave over 5 times to work it all out, but I sadly don't. If I can avoid the obvious problems up front by asking kindly for some advice, I'd rather do that :)

Appreciate any feedback!

[Gregorovitch]

Archer/mage or pure archer are good choices for MC - you will have 2 mages and 2 good melee as the game progresses to complement these builds.

First stop on development is to up your main weapon talents asap - this means you miss less.

Magic seems to work best for buffing and debuffing in this game: spells I've found excellent are standfast catlike, lightening find you, fastness of body, move as lightening, hawkeye marksmanship and corpofesso aching limbs. Later game the level 4 lightening find you and corpofesso aching limbs, which affect all enemies on the field are monsters.

get level 3 balm of healing asap 'cos it heals wounds.

I didn't bother upgrading offensive spells - use those you start with just to finish off nearly dead enemies so your melees and archer can hit enemies with plenty of hit points left to wipe off. Naurim, Tekati and you as an archer do massive damage so using magic to keep them up and at it works best outside of these coup de grace finishes. The exception to this is Aurelia's wrath of the elements spell which is extremely useful as it knocks enemies down from distance as well as doing damage - I upgraded this to level 3.

As archer go straight for triple shot, but use it sparingly as there are limited arrows in the game. Best mage/boss killer in the game.

Don't forget get melee charcters (Naurim and Takati) attack of opportunity - if enemies try to rush past them to get at your backline (which they will) they will get swiped on the way making it a lot easier for your weaker characters to finsh finish them off.

The three big melee damage dealing attacks are Hammer Blow, Liberating Blow and Death Blow all of which are awesome. My approach to to this is to get Naurim hammer blow and use it with 2H axe and get Takate Death Blow to use with spear. Next is to get both of them Liberating Blow for use with 2H swords so they can swipe 3 enemies at once when surrounded. Next is to upgrade warcraft to 18 so they can switch weapons in battle without losing a turn (which means naurim fior example can wallop one enemy with a hammer blow using his 2H axe and next turn swipe three surrounding enemies with his 2H sword if necessary. I also got Hammer Blow for Takati in the end so he could use Hammer Blow with his 2H sword when advantageous. These skills, together with your archer's efforts are the meat and potatoes of damage output in the game.

Naurim and Takati also need armour skill and dodge - parry is good but you only get one per turn whereas dodge has a chance to work against every hit per turn so it's really good.

The key to developing your characters is to have a clear build order plan in mind, such as the examples I've just given, then check the base value requirements for all the spells, special abilities, talents and any other prerequisites required for the next spell upgrade or special ability on the list, counting up the AP cost of getting it all. Upgrade to the required base values first (as these will help incrementally anyways) then save up for the expensive special abilities or spell level upgrades, avoiding frittering away AP on other things.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe:

Hi all!

Basically, is the following viable?

PC - support/hunter - bows, spears and buffing magic (spears for melee and causing wounds)
Naurim - axe/shield for tank, 2h bashing for everything else (I read 2h has better returns than 1h+shield)
Zubzub - Buffer/Debuffer, crossbow for added pewpew.
4th person I'll worry about when it comes.

What I need advice on is: does this build work optimally and as quite an easy combination? Also, what skills should I focus on initially? What major mistakes should I avoid making? I've read the guides, but they don't really give advice in terms of the mistakes that most new players make that chase them away from the game. I get that some people like playing the gave over 5 times to work it all out, but I sadly don't. If I can avoid the obvious problems up front by asking kindly for some advice, I'd rather do that :)

Appreciate any feedback!

It will work, I'm not sure about spears though... It'll cost a ton of AP to get the 15 courage for death blow, and feint and targeted stab aren't very good. Even death blow is kind of a waste. imo, same damage as power blow and two additional wounds. If you want to debuff an enemy use spells, you want your melee attacks to apply the ulitmate debuff (death). Considering that you're investing in Archery, which requires a 14 Agility and magic, I would add dual wielding as a melee option and make sure you go down the dodge line of abilities. I'll post the final stats on the mage/archer I took through hard mode, it might help you plan your character (you'll have more AP if you have the DLC and aren't playing on hard mode).

Attributes:
Courage 12
Cleverness 15
Intuition 15
Charisma 15
Dexterity 15
Agility 15
Constitution 8 (less courage and more constitution would have been better... maybe 10 in each and a 16 Agility)
Strength 10
Vitality 5 (32 Vitality points)
Astral Energy 3 (40 Astral Energy points)
Resist Magic 0 (It currently only works for the enemies so don't bother putting any points in this for your party)

Weapon Talents
Fencing Weapons 17 (11 attack, 6 parry)
Bows 17

Talents
Body Control 8
Willpower 13
Streetwise 0 (I think the speed increase requires an active check, so Streetwise and Survival can be dropped)
Survival 0
Animal Lore 13
Warcraft 13 (Warcraft 18 would have been nice for the weapon switching)

Spells
Move as the Lightning 13
Hawkeye Marksmanship 8
Ecliptifactus Shadow Force 8 (I was planning on using this to have the clone use tripple shot without consuming arrows, but mana cost for this, Move as the Lightning 3, Standfast Catlike 4 and Hawkeye Marksmanship 2 was prohibitive)
Standfast Catlike 18
Claurm Purum 18
Balm of Healing 13

Special Abilities
Targeted Shot
Tripple Shot
Astral Regeneration 1
Astral Regeneration 2
Astral Mastery
Steady Casting
Dodge 1
Dodge 2
Dodge 3
Battle Mastery
Dual Wielding 1
Dual Wielding 2

[76561198131892993]

This is not D&D where it is possible to select a kensai/mage at start, and he fights like a grandmaster and casts like an archmage. Here you get AP and get exactly as much in return as invested. With that in mind:


>Basically, is the following viable?
Not really

>Does this build work optimally and as quite an easy combination?
No

>Also, what skills should I focus on initially?
weapon talent max and willpower 8 for fighters, balm of healing 13 for one mage

>What major mistakes should I avoid making?
avoid outstretching, where you are trying to squeeze 3 classes into main character, 2 classes into Naurim, and 2 classes into Zurbaran. Im not saying it absolutely will not work. But youll spend the game building a party, instead of playing it. Simple rule, one class = one character.

[Gregorovitch]

Regarding the idea of giving mages, e.g. Zuberan, crossbows etc, this sounds like a good idea but bear in mind that there are staffs and daggers in the game that give +1-3 Astral Point per turn buffs in battle - AFAIK these dont work unless they are equipped, and I would argue those extra Atral Points are worth more than a few flaky crossbow shots. Having Zuberan doing an extra heal before he has to quaff a potion can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

On the same lines, if you mix Archer and Mage, you will inevitably reduce Archer ability to some extent compared to pure Archer build. There is a big difference between being able to take down enemy archers and mages in two rather than three turns.

Not saying it's not viable, just that roller12 has a point. You can't really go wrong specialising your characters to a single class - you can by mixing it up.

[Alex]

Thank you all so much for your comments. I'm going to roll a pure hunter then, and will post back here with a build so you guys can give me feedback on that :)

[furtadomario]

You can do a fighter/mage very well in the game. You just have to specialize and note that you won't be as good as a pure fighter for fighting or as a pure mage for spellcasting. What you give up in specialty though, you get back in versatility and support.
Here is how I specced my fighter/mage meleer
Swords to 18 (best defense melee option and decent damage)
Willpower to 13
Bodycontrol to 8
1 pt. Warcraft, Animal Lore, Streetwise and Survival
Spells:
Cold Shock max (Ag, Con, Cha)
Healing 8-9 (Cl, Intu, Cha)
Clarum 6 (Cl, Cl, Cha)
Duplicatus 9 (Cl, Cha, Ag)
Corpofesso (Cl, Con, Str)
Stats:
Agility to 15
Constitution to 13 (eventually)
Strength to 15
Intuition to 15 (eventually)
Special Abilities:
Feint, Powerblow (that's it from both trees)
Shield 2, Dodge 3

Main stats are Agility, Constitution and Strength, with the main spell stat being Constitution (it's in both RM spells). I use Cold Shock for ranged archer maps, and Corpofesso for melee maps. Usually only cast 1 spell per combat, and then swing for the rest of the fight.
If needed Healing and Duplicatus are there for the truly dangerous fights.

Dejnov

[erich.scheuch]

In Drol there is a poison in the alchemist to buy. With that you can stun the opponent. So it's pretty easy.