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Flagelant is an odd one, I can't really put my finger on it, sometimes I did use him to great success, but other times he underperforms really badly.
And Musketeers are way cooler than Arbalests IMHO XD
The problem with shieldbreaker is the HP total, seems like in higher level dungeons you have to put a lot of effort into it to make the class viable past early dungeons (without worrying about it getting one shotted) 3
Getting crit isn't really that bad on SBs, sure they are not MAA level, but they can take 1 crit and a normal hit without going to death's door. Keep in mind that when they crit they get Protection. Also they have trinkets with max hp / protection, and after finishing their nightmares they get more hp / prot from camping (as a passive buff not use of a camping skill).
Also they have high dodge and great speed. I am looking at 44+ dodge on them without any external buffs on 75+ torchlight (without the torch upgrades district built yet).
I am not running any tanky trinkets on them nor locking perks for HP (protection is nice because you can get more of it on your own via crits / camping / trinkets), pretty much speed and damage if I run with MAA or Jester, otherwise melee crit on one ancestor trinket and ranged on other one coupled with a general dmg increase.
Dunno about Musketeer, unless you're aiming for a speed run, time really isn't an issue. I pretty much only used a Musketeer / Arbalest on a specific nightmare for my SBs were all the enemies start stealthed, but they don't really see much play otherwise. For me is more of a flavor character than the Arbalest. But they have a very niche role and outside of marking teams or specific bosses, they aren't really that great.
In my current run (week 130 if memory serves) I only lost 1 SB and that because I was greedy to kill every single wood piece at champion Prophet boss fight. I could have ended the fight in 3 rounds top if I went straight for the boss, or if I would have picked 4 scales to bring on the quest.
Simple. He is terrible in Ruins because it's full of skellies that don't bleed. He's still good on the bosses there, but getting him there can be a chore.
He is mediocre in Cove without bleed buffs, which means taking up trinket slots for it.
In Warrens/Weald he is top notch.
I personally had bad experiences with him in warrens and weald. Pretty much his shining or should I say saving grace is the bleeds (he has the highest ones in the game, period), but his damage is patethic. Now what happens when said Flagelant hits some random monster in weald or warrens that is supposedly weak to bleeds (by having a resist of 60 to bleeds for example) and the bleed doesn't apply? Yep you have someone that hits like a wet noodle (weaker than a naked vestal meleeing), that has no utility unless someone is bleeding / poisoned / marked or himself is at <40% HP.
That's my problem with him. That's why I gave up on trying to make bleed parties for warrens / weald (with joker / HM / flagelant) because without his bleeds actually applying / stacking, the damage is too weak and you take back too much (direct damage, bleeds, diseases, stuns etc).
So I just ended up running in weald / warrens with paired SBs and just brute forcing dancing arround the battlefield. They don't need the blight to deal damage. They can hit normal / armored targets without any problem, can hit all rows, etc.
People focus too much on him being bleed centric and 'oh no, ruins'. That was true back in vanilla before the DoT rework, not so much any more.
Flagellant is perfectly fine pretty much everywhere. Ruins being 'full of skeletons' is only the half-truth - it is also infested with bandits, cultists and spiders, all of which get wrecked by him. He is also the only consistent stress-healing replacement for Crusaders and Jesters, and you get one early in your campaign due to the DLC event. He is also an off-healer that functions in the front-line. Him having less impact via bleeds against one enemy type doesn't wash away his usefulness. I take FLA's to the Ruins (and everywhere else) constantly with great success.
I'd make effort to quote the debate from the Crusader thread that debunked comments like this - but it's probably not worth it. People who honestly believe his impact damage is pants clearly haven't played him enough and are set in their ways. His damage is moderate, not pathetic, and having the best bleeds in the game is the off-set for this.
Let's just say:
+Dam/Crit/Speed when hurt (people always forget this) + viable damage trinkets = you'll out-damage and out-speed Hellions in some cases in every way other than back-rank impact damage.
Is this a joke? See first quote-response. Even his main attack has utility due to bleed-res-stripping, nevermind above-mentioned fact that he's a healer and stress-healer rolled into one. The only way you can say he lacks utility is in having entirely greedy camping skills and being more favoured in bleed-centric comps that compliment his ridiculous bleeds even more.
Honestly, if I can have so much fun with full bleed comps in the ruins and you can't make one work in the Warrens/Weald, you really need to dabble more. FLA is one of few classes I'll grab armfuls of from the Coach as they're one of the top choices from a 'versatility' aspect, Houndmaster being No.1.
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As for Shield Breaker, yes, she's one of the stronger assassins in the mix.
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TLDR Answer for OP - yes, get all the DLC characters. Even the MUS (which is primarily a reskin of an existing class with very few subtle but otherwise unnoticeable differences - but infinitely nicer in terms of sounds and animations).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1610277962
1. Regional Quad-Snake Fight (Ez)
2. Bandits (Ez)
3. Skeletons x2 + Madman + Cultist (Normal)
4. Tri-Skelly Rally Group in Corridoor (Normal)
5. Quad-Spiders (Ez)
6. Cultists x2 + Stealthed Skeletons x2 (Normal)
7. Size-2 Bone Champ + Skeletons (Not ideal)
8. Quad-Skelly Rally Group + Stealthed Skeletons (Bad)
9. Cultists x2 + Skeletons x2 (Normal) (Final)
Various fights had 2x stealthed skeletons - not much of a problem. 6/9 battles with bleedable mobs of any description and longest fight was 6 rounds due to only having RoS to poke Stealthed units, otherwise had to wait. Even quad-skelly rally comps (with only VES/HM projection) still only requires a bit of sustain and give or take 4-6 rounds of poking. A class like FLA doesn't care as he'll just Exang or Redeem for days, or stress heal others.
Don't get me wrong, folks - you'd be better off with a non-bleed comp in ruins compared to the wealth of better-suited alternatives, but that's the point of DD. Having said that, just because it's not the best fit doesn't mean it "Sucks", especially not because a small portion of mobs can't be bled. A Flagellant is still hella strong in that scenario provided he can free another unit (eg. a Healer or Stress-Healer) to fill the gap in that situation. Again, comps. A bleed comp doesn't automatically suck because it has less bleed-viable situations, unless bleeds are the ONLY thing they bring.
Average damage for FLA with one measly CoM damage trinket and some ACC was 7-15 base damage (not including the massive bleeds from either Punish or Exanguinate) with up to 15-20% crit - he was also always 1st or 2nd every round, meaning those he could bleed would get the effect instantly - he's naturally fast after all. Said damage was equal to (or higher) than everyone else, so basically hitting for their damage on average but out-bleeding as well.
...Pathetic damage indeed...
Nightmares are extra content and a speed-ticket to strong trinkets right from the get-go. She's also one of the most competant damage-dealers in the roster, more-so for endless where she's one of the top picks. I don't get the 'sniping' point when she can hit every rank from almost any rank - she's one of the best snipers on the market.
"Output" is only one part of the equation - how they use it is another (see classes like 'Leper' which has some of the best output but a wealth of problems).
As for MUS, I couldn't live without her.
I play the Flag as a passive tank that deals bleed damage and has some nice utility / heal when low HP. But the main selling point is his backline bleed attack. It is a strong bleed, coupled with Houndmaster can deal with it in max 2 turns.
The problem arises when he (quite often) doesn't land the bleed (debuff and bleed are resisted by weald / warrens backline mobs with 60 bleed resist or smth). Then we have a problem because the backline will live 3+ turns dealing enough stress and debuff damage to make it a problem.
I gear him towards max hp / prot / dodge, not damage, because you will get dot's on your other members and Flag wants to transfer those and mark himself. At least that's the way I see it.
He has no armor penetration, and HM mark ain't enough vs high prot - especially The Thing who clears all debuffs when he spawns the aberration crystal. Pretty much in this fight once The Thing gets to 80 armor, is applying the bleeds, your 3-4 crits won't really do much compared to a simple bleed / blight.
So to conclude, when I make a team for a dungeon, I want it to have reliable ways to deal with enemy backline as well as dealing with high prot enemies, and also manage Collector / The Thing if they appear without risking the whole run.
Cheers!
The Collector is sort of a litmus test for nearly any team. Can you kill the Collector with relative ease? Any team that can't is, quite simply, bad, because you're going to run into this guy a lot if you're coming back with your inventory full, which should be every time.
Some good teams aren't great against the Thing, though, which is okay because you can completely avoid the Thing if you don't want to fight it.
I always want to fight the Thing because it's a faster way to get a memory in champion level than to do all the waves up to Sleeper. I am not saying that with a good group grinding in Farmstead is hard, no it's not, it's just boring compared to normal spelunking, because everything is repetitive, there is no mystery (what mobs I will run into next room, what curios await me in next corridor etc) it's just more of the same from a pool of mobs tied to color / setting you are getting for the waves + random dude boss at end.
But pretty much when I send a team in a dungeon I want it to be able to deal with whatever spawns in there, have the best chances to come on top in good shape so that it can continue and complete the quest, and if possible be ready for a new run without needing stress removal in town (obv. if you get some bad diseases from resolve lvl up you take care of it).
I only use the above as it's the only video example I have (old, final CoM run for 300 achievement), yet keep an eye on the bleed stacks and his overall damage - He's doing -5 less damage than "Point Blank Shot"... Using Punish... Which has the second best bleed damage in the game... And people say he has bad damage? There is nothing stopping him from also hitting crit-50 Exanguinates (which actually HAS the best bleed in the game at +9).
In the context of being a bleed-centric hero, his impact damage is amazing. Even a fully Incision-built PD will struggle to compare, and will likely be on par (slightly lower) than Open Vein in terms of impact. It most certainly laughs in the face of a Jester (who does pitiful damage with both of his bleed attacks), and a Hound Master only trumps him due to projection and dog-treats.
His only downside is projection on non-bleedables, yet he can do 20 times more than, say, a Leper could in that scenario, and better than a front-line CRU who can also heal/stress-heal. Back then he could also Punish Rank 3 (which was understandably nerfed as he simply had too many positives and far too few negatives), though his stress-heal was buffed and his heals (while now limited) are still some of the strongest on the market.
I will happily take a FLA to the Ruins, Weald, Cove, Darkest, Court and Farm above a hefty portion of other options - why? Because his damage is fine and he brings a stupid level of usefulness even when he has very few viable targets to bleed, and in the best-case scenario he'll bleed everything into mush. It'd be like saying a PD is bad when against blight-resistant foes. Of course she isn't - she still has BatMed, Double-Stun, Corpse-Clear (Stun) for any rank and can swap to Incision if desperate (which is another underrated skill). FLA is in the same boat but with bleeds. They are more than that one thing they're best at.
90% of my FLA time was spent never taking RoS until CoM came out. You say you took his Mark-Steal ability? Leave it at home - the rest of his kit is far too good to lug that niche ability around. Build him with HP and Prot? Why? He's mechanically tanky as it is - go damage. Maybe then you won't think it's bad when you have a non-self-buffed TankFLA with no damage without bleeds.
Saying his damage is pathetic (when admitting to not building for it) is so far from the truth it makes me cringe.
The class is so good they had to nerf him to stop him being able to solo everything in the game.
I jump at the chance to bring him on piggo and weald runs, and love the fact we actually have more healing options thanks to his presence in the roster (in the early game when you're trying to manage levels so you're left with good Level 2 groups, more healing options means I can keep my Vestals and Occultists from being overused and outleveling the rest).
Flagellant plus Plague Doctor is just silly. Enemy backline? I swear I saw one a moment ago... where'd it go? Must've been my imagination...
I will give him another try using him as a primary DPS as you sugested no worries, as I would really like to bring him when I activate Crimson Court (atm hunting for good lvl 2 recruits, so that I can make them almost lvl 3 before starting that DLC).
My point is that I prefer overall effectiveness rather than specialised comps. I killed every single variant of Bosses (including Vvulf the Brigand and Miller&Sleeper) from normal to champion level using double SB combo, with vestal and Jester/MAA/HM/PD. And it never felt like I had a hard time with this comp in any dungeon vs any type of spawns or random encounters. They always had great damage, great reach, great mobility and survival.
And this to the point where whenever I try to run other comps (not ones invented by me, but generaly accepted awesome comps with good synergy etc) I run into problems that pretty much take away my control - or rather said diminish my control - over the fight, increasing the chances that something goes bad and RNG screws you.
Cheers!