Is it just me, or is Dietrich just a giant target?

[Nukehouse247]

I take on the 3 other main crew members on every job I can take them on.

I appreciate each and every one of them in their own way.

Unfortunately, I'd have to admit that Dietrich is my least favorite one (in terms of combat, not story).

Every time I set him up during a battle, he turns out to be a sitting target, absorbing every enemy move that they get. Whether he's all the way in the back, or actually doing something. For example, during this one mission I just did, almost all of the enemies will look right past 3 of us to take him out. It's like this on most missions I do. Sometimes I'll even resort to just having him out of sight in order to keep him from dying. Considering his heath drops to 0 insanely fast.

Is it just me? Or is he like this in a lot of playthroughs. It's no big deal in my opinion, nothing game changing. I'm just curious if this is some weird game mechanic.

[Apocalypse]

He is my precius buff bot, keeping the aim buff on everyone else, healing and keeping haste ap on one of the party is more than enough utility. And he can do this without trouble from the backlines.

Besides that: "Geek the mage first."
So yeah, he is the prima target for many enemies.

[jbridso]

I found that running a Gunbunny out in the open will draw and negate most attacks (unless a weaker target is also out of cover). However, if 2 party memebers are within 3 tiles of each other they will draw every grenade possible.

You just have to give the AI what appears to be a more desireable target.

[Nukehouse247]

On missions where death is an option. I admit that he is a somewhat useful suicide buff character.

And yeah, any 2 crew members near each other, and the grenades never stop.

The AI in this game appears to actually be good. Not a problem. But good.

[Logid]

Well, it's not to be a devil's advocate but Diretrich is one of my favourite members of the crew when hell breaks lose, by far XD.

As pointed above his primary role is keep the other members buffed and heal, but that's a critical role and he can fill it really well (i really recomend buy him some spells though; i usually take Armor II and Blur II). He also have a free earth summon each run (free cover for everyone) and may use the summoning points in the missions.

The dragonslayer is also good, but obiously you cannot fight like six-pack because the grenades will ruin your day but if you position Dire out of sight form the enemies but near enough of some of your crew to give him the bonus it works. Also in the late game when he get the buffed dragonslayer (5 reduction damage LOL), you may cast armor plus dragonslayer and put him in the vanguard, he will have 10 armour plus 5 damage reduction, that's hard to pierce, and if after that he buffed himself with aim he become decent to fight using the throwing weapons.

I think he's quite well rounded.

[LordBlaze916]

In my humble opinion Dietrich is the most powerful of your 3 starter companions, due to how OP magic is in this game. This is especially true at higher difficulty levels, as the effectiveness of Glory/Eiger is neutered by their low hit%. Dietrich is the squishiest teammate, yes, but if you start of every battle using his dragonslayer totem and park him behind the best cover available there shouldn't be any issues keeping him alive. As long as you're swapping out his less useful spells with the good stuff like Blind, Armor, Strip Armor and Lightning barrier, Dietrich is invaluable to the team.

[Nukehouse247]

Just to be clear, I'm not saying he's bad. It seems like people think that I'm saying that Deitrich is useless, which he is far from. Granted, I don't agree that he's the most valuable crew member (just my opinion, everyone plays the game differently). I personally had Eiger be the second most useful, far behind myself :P and I always used the three main crew members for dialogue options and just to make the game feel more... real. I'm just saying what I'm literally saying... he appears to be a standing target. And to the guy who said that AI like to take out magic based enemies first, that makes sense. Since, you'll usually be trying to take out whoever can heal your enemies and summon spirits.

[YontEvnKnow]

They like to take him out first because he has the lowest defences. Or at least that is how it feels to me. This is made up for by his possibly having higher armor(unless you skip it), and his dragonslayer buff. Personally i just take blitz for his aim/armor debuff once he gets it. Ultimatly your main characters build will determine who your worst companion to take will be.

[Logid]

Yes, that's granted. The geek the mage first was quite present when they designed the AI, and I like it because it make a lot of sense. You have to be very careful with his possitioning early because as you will be using all his AP to buff his teammates, he won't be that resistent. As said above, either head to the best cover avaliable or keep him out of LOS while in LOS with your team to being able to cast buffs. If you still find challenging to keep him alive take in count that there is a lot of resources to your disposal to increase his durability (Armor spells, Smoke grenades/Fog spell, Blur, Bliss, his summon's buffs (cover, dodge, BOD...).

And of course, it doesn't matter how badly you think you need that buff, just don't leave him in the open (unless you had set up a crazy combo like Armor 10 + Dragonslayer + bliss + cover summon spell) or he will be food.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by lordb916:

In my humble opinion Dietrich is the most powerful of your 3 starter companions, due to how OP magic is in this game. This is especially true at higher difficulty levels, as the effectiveness of Glory/Eiger is neutered by their low hit%. Dietrich is the squishiest teammate, yes, but if you start of every battle using his dragonslayer totem and park him behind the best cover available there shouldn't be any issues keeping him alive. As long as you're swapping out his less useful spells with the good stuff like Blind, Armor, Strip Armor and Lightning barrier, Dietrich is invaluable to the team.

Eiger low percentage hit? If you position her far enough away of the enemies her sniper rifle might be the only weapon in the game that does not profit much from Dietrichs Aim buffs.

For Glory the issue is easily solved by that mentioned Aim buff *g*

[LordBlaze916]

Originally posted by Apocalypse:

Originally posted by lordb916:

In my humble opinion Dietrich is the most powerful of your 3 starter companions, due to how OP magic is in this game. This is especially true at higher difficulty levels, as the effectiveness of Glory/Eiger is neutered by their low hit%. Dietrich is the squishiest teammate, yes, but if you start of every battle using his dragonslayer totem and park him behind the best cover available there shouldn't be any issues keeping him alive. As long as you're swapping out his less useful spells with the good stuff like Blind, Armor, Strip Armor and Lightning barrier, Dietrich is invaluable to the team.

Eiger low percentage hit? If you position her far enough away of the enemies her sniper rifle might be the only weapon in the game that does not profit much from Dietrichs Aim buffs.

For Glory the issue is easily solved by that mentioned Aim buff *g*

Re: Eiger. That depends on the level. I'd say a good 30-40% of battles in DF take place in rooms too small to utilize Eiger's sniper rifle.

[Vepar]

Originally posted by lordb916:

Re: Eiger. That depends on the level. I'd say a good 30-40% of battles in DF take place in rooms too small to utilize Eiger's sniper rifle.

She's still good with a shotgun, and after her mission, when she gets the custom rifle, she's got all the ranges covered.

Shotgun - short
Rifle - medium/long
Sniper - long

She's very versatile, and that's why i perfer her over Glory... Glory can dish out pretty sick punishment though, but she's not as versatile as Eiger. All glory is good at is close combat and later, stripping armor. I never used her pistol, she's horrible with it.

[Nukehouse247]

I also preferred Eigar over Glory. Only difference is that I used Glory's pistol. Even upgraded it wasn't that great, but I guess it got the job done. It did some damage..

[Reianor]

Originally posted by lordb916:

Re: Eiger. That depends on the level. I'd say a good 30-40% of battles in DF take place in rooms too small to utilize Eiger's sniper rifle.

Yeah right... well over 70% if you ask me.
You're probably comparing her SR with her shotgun in terms of accuracy right? Well, don't forget there are other weapons out there.
SR range is to high to be preferred over AR for the vast majority of dragonfall.

That said, she IS the most capable damage dealer out of the "team" (main excluded) just keep lending her AR every run and you'll see.

Originally posted by Vepar:

She's still good with a shotgun, and after her mission, when she gets the custom rifle, she's got all the ranges covered.

On "her mission" she gets a grenade. Her only "custom rifle" afaik is a level upgrade. Which IMHO is useless. Her SR abilities, for lack of a better term, suck. I strongly recommend focusing her progression on shotgun. Especially seeing how DF rarely gives you ranges where her SR gets better accuaracy then the AR you lend her.

Originally posted by Vepar:

She's very versatile, and that's why i perfer her over Glory... Glory can dish out pretty sick punishment though, but she's not as versatile as Eiger. All glory is good at is close combat and later, stripping armor. I never used her pistol, she's horrible with it.

What difficulty were you playing on? On very hard Glory has terrible accuracy usually below 50% (unless buffed). Plus, her armor stripping sucks compared to a wizard or even a normal unarmed fighter. She's equally horrible with BOTH her pistol and her claws. The main difference here is that her heavily customised pistols are actually decent weapons (too bad she can't use them properly) while her claws just outright suck.

That said, Glory is more versatile then Eiger, not the other way around. All Eiger is good for is shooting baddies from far cover. Yes, she's great at it, but that's ALL she does. Glory on the other hand can heal, shoot (that extra AP per round really makes a difference early on, especially combined with aim), and mele (Her mele damage is laughable at late game stages, where everything is armored, but at least she can knock bad guys out of cover). Worst case scenario - she's a mobile target that you can easily move in and out of the thick of action to control the pressure around the team.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by lordb916:

Originally posted by Apocalypse:

Eiger low percentage hit? If you position her far enough away of the enemies her sniper rifle might be the only weapon in the game that does not profit much from Dietrichs Aim buffs.

For Glory the issue is easily solved by that mentioned Aim buff *g*

Re: Eiger. That depends on the level. I'd say a good 30-40% of battles in DF take place in rooms too small to utilize Eiger's sniper rifle.

And i would say that 80% of those you can place Eiger one or even two rooms in the back and lure the enemies into her line of sight with the rest of the team. She simply can kill targets off before they are in engagment range to her team.

[Vepar]

Originally posted by Reianor:

On "her mission" she gets a grenade. Her only "custom rifle" afaik is a level upgrade. Which IMHO is useless. Her SR abilities, for lack of a better term, suck. I strongly recommend focusing her progression on shotgun. Especially seeing how DF rarely gives you ranges where her SR gets better accuaracy then the AR you lend her.

Nope, she can either have the granade or a custom rifle that can fire tracer shots (like mark target).

If you want the granade, let her slit the guy's throat, and if you want the rifle give the guy that BTL chip and let him slot it. She will say something like, "sweeten the deal and it's yours", and he'll reveal that he has a rifle stashed in the vent. At that point you can either kill him, let her kill him, or give him the chip, the end result will be the same - the guy explodes, except you'll get a different reward.

Originally posted by Reianor:

What difficulty were you playing on? On very hard Glory has terrible accuracy usually below 50% (unless buffed). Plus, her armor stripping sucks compared to a wizard or even a normal unarmed fighter. She's equally horrible with BOTH her pistol and her claws. The main difference here is that her heavily customised pistols are actually decent weapons (too bad she can't use them properly) while her claws just outright suck.

That said, Glory is more versatile then Eiger, not the other way around. All Eiger is good for is shooting baddies from far cover. Yes, she's great at it, but that's ALL she does. Glory on the other hand can heal, shoot (that extra AP per round really makes a difference early on, especially combined with aim), and mele (Her mele damage is laughable at late game stages, where everything is armored, but at least she can knock bad guys out of cover). Worst case scenario - she's a mobile target that you can easily move in and out of the thick of action to control the pressure around the team.

I'm on normal Difficulty, of course at higher ones it's gonna be different, but on normal she's ok. She does need constantly being buffed with Aim, but so does everyone. She's not so good at armor stripping as mages, true, but she's not supposed to be, and that ability comes only later in the game. Claws do tend to miss sometimes, but everyone misses sometimes, or a lot of times, depending on luck and tactics... I had a completely different experience with her pistol. Low damage, misses a lot and well. The only thing she's good at is close range and healing.

Eiger is good from afar, from close, and after you get the rifle, from every range you want, she has granades, and you can swap her granades for healing kits if you want to. Later she gets the reflex trigger which makes her even more tough, and i don't know what task glory is better at really...

I'm not hating on Glory, i just didn't seem to find a use for her in my playstyle... :/