HINTS for new players

[Bob]

Hey guys. I'm Bob, one of the main beta-testers of the game. I would like to provide some hints.

Targeting enemies: I have noticed, on some gameplay videos, that many players don't know how to make all their party members target mobs, resulting in some party members completely inactive during battle (including tanks). In many fights, I notice the eye-icon is shown on 3 members, which means they are not auto-attacking any mobs. I've played the game for a very long time, and one of the first things I do when starting attacking, is to pause, make sure I've selected my whole party, then right-click on the mob I want to attack (no eye-icon shown at this time), apply abilities, and then un-pause. Of course, there might be moments when I don't want all party members to attack the game mob at once, but I've seen gameplay videos with way too many of those eye-icons on party members, including members in the first row (tanks, protectors etc), that should be constantly bashing mobs. Yes, my healer is also auto-attacking. When he needs to heal, I just apply his ability, perform the heal, but never stops auto-attacking.

My rule of thumb is: If there's an eye-icon on any of my party members portrait, I'll pause the game and fix it. I don't want, and can't afford on higher difficulty levels, any of my party members to be inactive. Some fights are really hard, where every second counts.

As soon as one mob dies (in a group fight), I pause the game, right-click on the next mob I want to attack, not needing to click the 2-sword icon (I hardly use it). Having all party members selected all the time, I don't have to hassle that much.

The only time I use the 2-sword icon is in a situation where I want to target a mob in the back row (for example a mage/healer mob standing behind a tank mob), and it might be difficult to target the mob with the mouse. In those cases I use TAB to toggle to the desired mob, and then click the 2-sword icon to start auto-attacking.

Picking up loot: I've seen too many players left-clicking on loot, and dragging it to the inventory bag on the lower right side of the screen. Waste of time. Just right-click on it, and it'll end up in your inventory automatically.

Added Nov 9, 2015:
Interrupting (with Kick) an enemy's spell: Make sure you interrupt the enemy as late in his casting as possible, because he will cast his next spell as soon as you interrupt him. While he's casting, he's doing you no harm (with a few exceptions), so you'd want him casting as long as possible.

If you find a boss/enemy really hard to beat, save him for later. Explore the rest of the level, kill all the remaining mobs, gain more XP, find more loot etc. You might gain a level, and will stand a better chance of beating that difficult enemy.

[Steven Brattac]

fine advice +

[FreakFire74]

Any advice for combat in general? I find myself killed by the sturdier enemies on level 2. The big eyes and the skeleton general have been very hard battles.. I've just reached the rogue and that guy killed my entire party in mere seconds..

Some of their attacks do up to 60-70 damage. So after two or three blows, I'm gone..

My strategy: I open up combat by shielding my tank with my priest. I take agro with the tank but the shield is gone in no time. During this time I apply condition affects (with the warlock and tank) and use my DPS warrior to do as much damage as possible. Still, no matter what I do, my tank pretty much always is knocked unconscious. After this, if I have done enough damage, the rest of my party kills the enemy just in time, but most of the time, when my tank dies, the rest of the party follows shortly thereafter..

Enemy damage is just pretty high! I'm playing on one level above standard difficulty.

[TripSin]

For the eyes, you can dodge their firebolts.
Edit: I just found out you can just simply side-step if you time it correctly just as they are casting. You can't go too far though or else the monster regenerates/resets.

For the big general guys I think they usually have one attack that does significantly more damage than the rest - an attack that has more cast time than the rest - that I save interrupts for. If interrupt is on CD, then I try to dodge it like above, though it's harder for melee which stick on you.

I'm wishing I had a 2nd interrupt ability.

[Bob]

What's the name of your difficulty setting?

Yes, the game IS very difficult at times. In some fights, you really need to pause a lot, have some luck with crit hits/dodge/parry, and not waste a second being inactive. If you feel you're fighting "perfect" and still die way too easy, lower the difficulty settings. And yes, you can do that without any shame, because the game IS very hard.

Big eyes monsters: I tend to avoid fighting these in narrow corridors. Instead, I like to be able to do some sidestepping, avoiding its fireballs. Perfect would be if I'm in a 2x2 grid room. Some good ol' Dungeon Master combat tactics, you know :)

Combat in general: How to use the Kick interupt ability - don't interupt the enemy in the beginning of his casting. Use it when the enemy is in the very end of casting its spell. The enemy doesn't do any harm WHILE casting, so you'd want to wait until his cast bar is about to end. Doing this will give you a few seconds of "rest", and mathematically will lower the enemy's dps.

[FreakFire74]

Great advice guys! I'll try to be more mobile! :)

[Elgar]

Great hints, thank you Bob ! :)

You should write a review in the store page of the game and include these hints in it.

[Horrorscope CC97]

Bob, what I found easiest so far was making sure I always clicked the Attack Swords in Battle, which in-line turns into Shield, this puts all of your guys into Auto-Attack, that makes sure they target and using there base weapons, then do your skills, que up to 3. When an enemy dies, the Shield goes back to a Sword and your guys are no longer auto-attacking, so I click it again, they all target and auto-attack... rinse and repeat.

[Rabid Urko]

Good tips, cheers.

[TripSin]

I'd add: Always check to see if the monster you just killed dropped anything. It can be easy to not see items on the floor and you don't want to spend hours like I did, not realizing there was a key dropped I never picked up and so couldn't progress.

I like to change key binds A and D to turning and Q and E to sidestepping. This just feels more natural to me.

Your character portraits will turn orange if they're about to draw aggro. The character portrait will be red if he/she has aggro from something.

You can dodge projectiles. You can also sometimes dodge melee abilities, but it's much harder because melee mobs stick on you like white on rice.

Originally posted by Horrorscope:

Bob, what I found easiest so far was making sure I always clicked the Attack Swords in Battle, which in-line turns into Shield, this puts all of your guys into Auto-Attack, that makes sure they target and using there base weapons, then do your skills, que up to 3. When an enemy dies, the Shield goes back to a Sword and your guys are no longer auto-attacking, so I click it again, they all target and auto-attack... rinse and repeat.

Right-clicking on an enemy will do the same thing as pressing the swords icon.

[WetNose]

Great advice for us starters Bob. This could do with being a sticky.

I'm still having a bit of trouble with this targeting. I just had a fight were I couldn't get my right row to attack, they just stood there like dummies, even with the eye icon showing :)

[Bob]

Make sure you've selected all your 4 party members, by toggling the 4 red-pins icon until all 4 portraits are selected. Then right-click on the enemy, and the eye symbol should disappear, making your whole party attack.

[TripSin]

- Enemy attacks that can be dodged by moving away will have pin-shaped symbols next to the name of the attack. The enemy will stay in place for the attack. You can also dodge projectiles.
- Make sure you don't miss any drops from killed enemies. It can be easy to miss a ring or key and you don't want to end up not being able to progress because you left a key on the ground somewhere without realizing it.
- You actually have to right click an ability to unqueue it. Game menu says backspace, but that doesn't work... for me at least.
- To rearrange your skill bar, you have to have the talent tree window open.
- Maybe this is just me, but I find switching the default bindings of A&D with Q&E so that A&D turn while Q&E sidestep. Just feels way more natural to me.
- Make sure you pay attention to the beginning dialogue that explains what orange/pink/red outlines mean both on the character portraits and on enemies when you hover over a character.
- Hovering over enemies and enemy attacks will give you more information.
- Hidden buttons in walls tend to be at places that seem like dead ends
- Unconscious party members will still get XP. XP is intentionally separated at the start so that characters level up 1 at a time instead of all together at once.

[WetNose]

I'm going to start again, armed with extra knowledge. :)

[windezz]

I actually let the healer stay idle for the first round of auto attack or two, then I start with something less agro heavy like regeneration on the tank, instead of a direct heal. Seems to help with aggro management when there are stacks of mobs who come up to replace to killed mobs at melee range.

I don't let my mage open with nukes either, auto attack until the target is at 60% or so, then I pop the cooldowns and burn it down. If there are archers staying behind two melee mobs, focus one of the melee so that as soon as it goes down, the archers will come within melee range to fill up the spot. They are much easier to kill than something holding a sword and shield.

Haven't gotten too far yet, the talent trees really remind me of WoW, which is amusing since I haven't touched that game in years.

[Bob]

Another hint: Interrupting (kick) an enemy's spell: Make sure you interrupt the enemy as late in his casting as possible. This way, his next spell will be delayed. While he's casting, he's doing you no harm, so you want to let him cast it as long as possible.