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It seems like I had some required reading to do.
Not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed. People had been speculating on the game for years and they had come to two consensus:
1.- Parry Bite build. Bite did damage, healed you, gave blood and it was satisfying if slow. Parry was a crazy powerful mechanic that made you basically immune to most attacks and unlocked your bite without having to invest heavily on it. Good because biting required LOTS and LOTS of investment… damage, healing and blood gain of the bite sold separately.
2.- Shadow Damage build. Community seems to agree that the best offensive power is Shadow Mist. It hits hard, knocks opponents out and it’s available pretty soon. The best ultimate is Abyss and they’re both shadow damage, that isn’t so often resisted as blood or melee. Pick some support powers and you’re set! Hit guys with some weapon of choice every now and then.
Now; Shadow Damage actually holds some water. The knockdown plus melee combo was powerful and available from the start. The Bite build… well… it’s fun at first, but repetitive and not so strong as advertised; it requires lot of XP and usage of a slow weapon, and boy, do you HATE fighting crowds with this build. Try parrying when you’re getting surrounded.
There were some infidels, madmen who tried some other builds. Blood Lance apparently was pretty cool and some people favored claw. Claw? Now, that sounded fun.
Yes, tons of people favor Claw; it hits HARD, it stuns… perfect fit for a bite build, right? Wrong. It barely does any stun damage and at most it’s a slightly harder hit than your melee hits to use as a finisher at the end of your combos; yet everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE has decided that going down on claw it’s the best way. I mean, MORE damage, dude; MORE!
I’m here to tell you they’re wrong. They picked the completely wrong path of Claw. Okay, fine; down does MORE DAMAGE, it does stun; it hits really hard. But pray tell, has anyone, ANYONE, noticed that the freaking Cooldown of the top bottom path is half a freaking second??
I’m here to tell you about a build that will show you what true power is. None of that delayed, aimed bombing, just straight up madlad destruction. I’m here to tell you about the Claw eviscerator build.
What does this build bring to the table compared to other ones? Glad you asked:
PROS:
-Arguable, but the most fun gameplay out there. Backing down to wait for stamina to go up? Nope. Have infinite blood, no downtime, go in, go hard and finish your fights in SECONDS, whether it’s against crowds or a boss.
-Powerful and fast. Undeniably powerful. I can’t stress this enough, whether you are against a single tough boy or a bunch of weenies wanting to make your life hard, you’re set. Slice and dice through them spending no resources at all.
-Only one weapon. You only need one weapon to make this work to perfection, it’s unique and you have to embrace a citizen, but until you have it, or if you don’t want to embrace here, there is a replacement that you can get from the start of the game early in Chapter 1. It’s an off-hand. You don’t even need a melee weapon. I am not kidding. Let me say it again: you don’t use melee weapons. At all. You claw and you kill.
-No money needs. You can get this full build with only the money you pick up along the way from quests without breaking a sweat. Killing enemies with your hands is cheap!
CONS:
-Probably not viable for a non-embrace run. I have not tested this myself but you do need some experience to make this build work. You need to be Level 28 to watch it reach full fruition and if that’s only for the last boss, then you’re probably better off trying something else. That said, even the next to last claw upgrade is pretty good.
-There is a weapon you need and you gotta embrace a girl to do it. She is available to Embrace the second you enter the docks. It is strongly recommended you kill her as soon as you reach her.
-Powerful bosses or encounters can feel trivialized. Even if you up the difficulty, everything dies pretty darn fast.
-You have to read all I typed. This will take time. You will never get it back. What are you doing with your life?
Now that that’s out of the way and you know what to expect of this build, let’s get down to business:
Level 1:
You’re a newborn vampire and like most newborns, you don’t get to pick what you get and can use. You will use the rusty, crappy machete and you will like it.
Level 3:
W-wha…? Where is Level 2? There is no Level 2 in this game. You get to pick 2 upgrades and that will get you to Level 3. This will happen sometimes. For Level 2 you pick Autophagy, you have no choice about it. Now for the actual Level 3:
Here is where we get into the meat of the build. Many people claim with good reason that Shadow Mist is the superior pickup for Level 2. They are right. Yup; I’m admitting it, if you can only pick one of the three and you can only use ONE point in them, then that’s right, you would pick Shadow Mist, but we are not only putting one point into it, are we? No, we are are most definitely not. That said, if you’re getting a free do-over once and honestly it isn’t even that expensive to re-spec. If you want the immediate best and nothing else, pick Shadow Mist… but be SURE to return here and Pick Claw.
To Summarize: Level 2: Autophagy I, Level 3: Claw I.
Level 4:
Coagulation I.
There are not many choices here, but if you’re planning on going with my build from the start, you will pick Coagulation. It’s a fantastic pickup and it is a one-point wonder! You only put one point into it and it will serve you well the rest of the game. Coagulation is an active that will paralyze and stun your target. We should probably start getting into how the build works:
You will change to the Scythe the first chance you get. It does far more damage than the crappy machete, and there is no off-hand you want… yet. The only enemies so far are Skals. They are slow and easy to predict and parry; after that you will suck their blood. You will use this blood to do a click-click CLAW combo for pretty decent damage. You can do that every time you go in, standing back and letting them come to you to drain their sweet, sweet blood.
Coagulation will allow you to paralyze them to give them another one-two with the scythe, but believe me, it will get better soon.
You can stagger enemies with your melee attacks, off-hand attacks and powers; but after you stagger them once or twice they become immune to it for a few seconds depending on the enemy class. Coagulation ‘resets’ them, so you can hit and hit, staggering them, claw them, coagulate their ass (there is also blood in the ass) and hit, hit, before backing off. It costs nothing and it does good damage.
Level 5:
Blood Barrier I.
Yup. Not many people like this one. You will, though; and you will LOVE IT. This thing is so OVERPOWERED it’s not even funny! For now, it’s basically a second charge of Coagulation. You hit them, reset them, then you use this thing so you can attack through THEIR attack and keep going.
I know what you’re thinking. So many attacks, so little stamina! Why, you’re right! The scythe suddenly seems to be too costly for the damage it does, which is why you will equip the bone-saw you find just lying around at the Pembroke hospital, just conveniently next to your main haven there. For an off-hand, you can only have a crappy stake for now.
Stunning takes more and more effort each time, which is why you will only do it once or twice on each enemy. The stun-health of the enemies is so low that it’s easily achievable at this stage of the game. You can still use all your combos and stun your enemies when you’re about to finish them to keep getting that sweet, sweet blood for claws… or for heals, if you’re bad at the game. Nah, just kidding. Or am I?
Seriously, though; don’t let Skals overwhelm you. Even if you Coagulate and Barrier up, you’ll get overwhelmed. Pick them up one by one and be careful.
Blood Barrier II.
Here is where it starts getting interesting! You can roam around the hospital and complete some side-quest that will quickly give you enough experience to get this puppy. Don’t chew out more that you can swallow, though. At this point of the game, TWO freaking charges of immunity are incredible. Do you remember having problems with crowds? Just pop this in and go in; just ignore them and kill one of their friends. It’s up for every fight you will have. It’s still not GREAT, but it’s not bad, you will agree.
Okay, something else that we gotta talk about before we move any further:
How many people are you embracing? Right now you’re being told to go to some creepy basement and you’re about to find a useful off-hand weapon and a boss-fight. Before you go in you might want to make a choice. Are you doing a non-embrace run? If you are you might want to reconsider this build. It does require some feedings if you want to use it other than at the very end of the game.
How many are you embracing, then? All of them? Or are you just going to let all districts get to critical without letting them get hostile? WHATEVER that choice is, consider this:
With your mesmerism, you can hypnotize and eat a few citizens already; let’s call them stabby guy and handsome. That’s a lot of experience!
Oh, I know what you’re saying. No! Don’t do it! You can only embrace so many before the District health starts going to crap and you are using the LEAST valuable members of the society for valuable kills later on. Wait until your Mesmerism levels up and you can get juicer targets! Wrong.
There is a Level cap in this game. Level 50. No matter how much experience you gather, you won’t get past it. Level determines how much damage you make to enemies and how much they do back to you. Accounting for story-related quests, there is enough experience in the game to make it to Level 50 twice over; getting all possible powers (that you DON’T need) and still have a comfortable lee-way of a few tens of thousand XP points remaining, but only if you embrace EVERYONE at max HP. Do you want to do that?
This 2k XP you can get right now are quite significant. If you want to make it to Level 50 without embracing all citizens, it’s possible if you min-max and pick your kills, and in that case you probably don’t want to kill anyone just yet, but if you are thinking about letting the district fall someday, then absolutely get them. It’s fine; you won’t reach critical health just yet. Kill at your heart’s content after doing their quests and getting all the hints.
My recommendation is: you can embrace 5 people at Pembroke and still easily have enough leeway by healing all citizens every night by doing your rounds; and since for this build you don’t really need merchants, you can let the hospital go to hell, honestly. Embrace Clay Cox and Thomas Elwood after getting all the hints, then leave the district alone for a while.
Okay, now back to discuss the build:
Level 8:
Claws II.
“Hey!” I can hear you saying, “you skipped another level, you bloody illiterate!” or some other British insult. That is right. Getting Blood Barrier II will get you to Level 8 skipping 7. It’s quite an investment; and this one is another very expensive one.
By now, you should have picked the Liston Knife next to the dead body in the morgue shortly before reaching the boss. The Liston Knife is an excellent weapon that you will be using for a while. I do not blame you on the slightest if you exit the morgue, go upgrade it and come back, because the base Liston Knife is not even worth equipping. When you do upgrade it, go full blood abortion, nothing else is worth it to you; I’m really serious on this one. If you have any money, you can buy some parts off Milton to upgrade it with; it doesn’t matter if the District health isn’t the best; you won’t need money for much longer anyone; just stick to buying the tiny handle parts and find the rest looting around and dumpster-diving; who said that being a vampire wasn’t glamorous?
Once you have the Level 3 Liston Knife and Claws II, oh, boy; are you set!! Claws II is quite an upgrade; not necessarily the damage but the cost. You can do now FIVE claws before running out of steam. You will notice that they stagger your opponents quite a lot, and that’s good. We like that. Add a claw at the end of your one-two hit combo with your bone-saw, that you also should have been upgrading – but NOT, and I repeat NOT, spending any money on – with whatever’s lying around.
You’ll do what you have been doing until now, just a little bit better. For the upgrades of the saw, go straight damage. When you want blood from now on, you use your off-hand; Coagulation works beautifully with it. Absorb, Absorb, Coagulate; absorb, absorb. You’re full of blood, now! If you use your barrier before this, you can ignore how many enemies are around you before going in. The build is starting to take shape! You’ll be an eviscerator before you know it, old chap. Claw kills guard, too; so you can break guards with it and there is nothing any enemy in the game can do about it.
Level 9:
Autophagy II.
Yes, you probably will get hit unless you’re a God or came to this game after playing Dark Souls, Bloodborne or what-have-you. You still want healing, is the point. Autophagy II is GREAT because the cost is very cheap for what it heals; a lot of bang for your buck. You can leave this at Level II for the rest of the game and you will be pleased for it; it honestly doesn’t get much better when you upgrade it; 200 health for 10 measly blood is quite enough to get you going until the very late game, honestly.
Level 11:
Abyss I.
Claws II was so expensive that it nearly leveled you up, and with Autophagy you skipped another level again. You are now faced with a choice of 3 ultimates and chances are you want to pick one of them up. You will pick Abyss; not because of the damage or the shadow resistance or yadda-yadda; you have enough damage in your build as it is; you have so much you will not know what to do with it. Abyss, paired up with Coagulation, will be another one-point wonder you will not invest anything else in and you want it only to stun your enemies for a bit after your barrier is down and Coagulate is on Cooldown.
If you embraced the suggested guys, you will use this on that wolfie on the sewers that you will wail-on beautifully on. Poor guy. His stagger resistance is above average and he’s quite fast. Against these ‘heavy’ enemies, what you do for now is melee-claw; Coagulate. Melee-claw. Put barrier on and get that Liston-knife to recover blood with your immunity, laughing at it, finish with a claw. When that’s done, Abyss this mofo and claw it to death while it’s stunned. It never stood a chance. Oh? It’s still alive? Well, better get that Lupara to use and use that ammo you are never going to use for anything else anyway. You win! Congrats!
Level 12:
Claws UP III.
Here it is. The defining choice of this build. This is what separates the true alpha vampires from the rest. Are you an alpha vampire? Then pick up Claw UUUUUUUPPPPPP III, if you dare. And save up for it. It’s freaking expensive.
Things are going to change immediately after having it. Now, it doesn’t hit as hard as the bottom tree; I know you will feel tempted to go for so much more damage right away. I know what you are thinking: “I can just keep meeleing down threats and finishing with a claw!” Nope. That’s now how it’s going to go. Not this playthrough, this playthrough you’re going to eviscerate everything in your way with your bare hands.
The thing about the UP path for the Claw it’s its reduced Cooldown. You will notice it’s 1.5 secs; but you will also absorb some blood if you land the hit, it’s honestly not that big of a deal right now; but even that small difference in the Cooldown will quickly add-up; not so much right now but you will see. Oh, you will SEE, you skeptic non-believer. Just you wait!
You’ve ‘unlocked’ a new combo consisting in claw, melee, off-hand, claw. It’s pretty damaging and barely costs anything. You can use Blood Barrier before and you don’t have to land it all on the same guy; you can kill one or two Priwen Guards if you’ve been keeping on on XP with this combo.
More than this unlock, there is something fare more significant: You are probably reaching Whitechapel. There is this vendor called Barrett Lewis; quite the gentleman! He cucks his friends, sells stuff, beautiful voice; just the best guy. You are going to learn to love this guy:
First, start getting the health of the district up; as high up as you can by healing and meeting all citizens. There will be one missing and that’s okay; you won’t get into Mason’s (the blind guy) house and that’s fine, even if he’s sick and doesn’t let you sanitize the place. Once the district health is as high as it can go, you can finally start buying good tiny handle parts (the blue ones) out of Mr. Lewis. Once his stock is out, go back to sleep and buy more. No, seriously. Do it. Stockpile those up! You are gong to upgrade your Liston Knife until you get it perfect. You won’t have any Aluminum parts for the last upgrade and that is OKAY. It’s fine; you just upgrades the off-hand weapon as much as you will need it. Don’t neglect the health of Pembroke while you’re doing this. Whitechapel is rich in medicine supplies out of killing random baddies and finding handy stuff on trashcans; don’t sell anything and recycle everything, you will have enough ingredients to craft medicine for days; which is free XP to boot. It’s still significant in this part of the game.
Once you have upgraded your Liston Knife, you can… indulge but I would recommend not do it just yet. Wait until you Mesmerism 2.
Level 14:
Blood Barrier DOWN III.
We skipped a level again. Claw is expensive… and there are so many new citizens! Surely a bite won’t hurt… it will. Patience, friend. Patience!
Blood Barrier leveling up is quite significant. The choice between up and down should be quite obvious. Why would you want to reduce the utility of it for some damage? We pick down here for THREE freaking charges of ignoring the enemy. This is incredibly significant. Chances are for the 5 second duration you won’t even get hit that many times; you’re basically immune for 5 seconds to wreck having as you please and honestly Blood Barrier is a huge reason why this build works as nicely as it does.
The Cooldown is so low you can use it on every fight, it costs nothing and it’s quick to be cast, you can even cast it between Claws while you wait for the Cooldown. When you have it up you can melee and claw and absorb blood with total impunity. It’s such a powerful defensive feature that you have noticed we have NOT picked up any health upgrades. This is why. You don’t need them. You’re immune to damage, boy-o. Between this and Coagulation you can ignore a crowd to focus on one way or maybe even two then recuperate blood spent on Claws on the last guy, Abyss it if it’s a though guy. Against single-target they can’t do crap. Your tools of crowd control are too much for one single guy, even bosses. This is the whole reason you’re an eviscerator: you go all in and have very little downtime; doing damage almost all of the time.
Level 15:
Blood Capacity I
Blood Capacity I
Blood Capacity II
Blood Capacity II
You may have noticed we’re breaking the norm here. Don’t bother sleeping until you get enough for the upgrades, if you’re not leveling up or grinding for stuff to buy – KEEP getting those handles at each chance – then there is no point.
We went for Blood Capacity because we’re preparing for the next Claw upgrade, where you will want as much blood as you can have, and far more importantly, we are just filling the void left between the actually significant upgrades that is SOMEWHAT useful to our build. Believe me, upgrading Abyss won’t do anything for you. It’s a waste of XP.
You should be close to deciding the fate of Nurse Crane; and that’s a choice I will leave to you. While she’s the best vendor for medical supplies, I never once needed them and found the 6XP she offered at this stage of the game far too enticing to let pass, but you can be the judge. She is the reason we didn’t embrace anyone when we first made it to Whitechapel. Once she dies everyone will get sick and you will need to work extra hard to keep the District health back up. Once the crisis is averted and your Mesmerize is Level 2, you can partake in a few more lavishing meals as you see fit. I would still recommend leaving Whitechapel alone for now, but NOT Pembroke.
There is this soldier called Newton; his boyfriend is that guy you rescued from the sewers. He’s gotta go, man. He’s just GOTTA go. Why? He’s worth 2k XP which are very good right about now, his boyfriend won’t miss him too much (won’t go missing or anything) and far more importantly, will be nice enough to let you inherit his sword after he dies. Newton’s Saber, upgraded, can be a nice addition to your arsenal for a few levels until it becomes obsolete. Go for damage and Stamina reduction.
Physical Prowess I.
Physical Prowess I.
Physical Prowess II.
This is all the stamina you will need for the rest of the game; you might as well get it while it’s still useful for something. Soon enough you will forget you had a Stamina bar.
Level 17:
Body Condition I.
Body Condition I.
Body Condition II.
Body Condition II.
The only reason we are getting these are because we have a floating level and have literally nothing else to buy that’s worth it. They’re cheap, too. You honestly don’t need them but they’re better than the alternative.
Instead of talking about it, we have to discuss a very important step in your build. You should be arriving to the docks about now; you should also be buying those tiny handles like CRAZY and you get a new merchant where to get those from, lovely Mrs. Crook; she doesn’t even resent us for killing his man; hell, she found a replacement already!
There is this woman you will meet as soon as you can; you should rush the hell out to her the second you step a foot into the docks. Her name is Giselle Paxton, close to where you would meet your next story objective. Ignore everything, focus on this woman; learn everything about her and eavesdrop on her. Grind her to max XP and by the time you’re done you will realize how satisfying it would be to kill this one. She is not very nice, is she? But don’t let appearances fool you, she’s about to become your favorite gal, quite soon. Lady Ashbury doesn’t have a thing on lovely Giselle, here. Once you eat her you will get tasty, tasty XP, true; but she will have the best and only weapon you will need for the rest of the game; this early! Giselle’s Dagger.
Go and upgrade Giselle’s Dagger; whatever it takes. You won’t need money for the rest of the game, I promise. Sell all parts for guns, whatever; UPGRADE IT to full. You won’t have Aluminum parts yet but the rest is fair game. This is the best way to absorb blood in the game; a whooping 28 blood per strike. HOLY COW! You will find a use for that soon enough, believe me. Don’t pick anything but blood absorption, or I will find you and I will laugh at you.
Now find all your other off-hand weapons, guns included, and kiss them goodbye. You may as well sell them if you want; they’re useless now. All you will ever need is Giselle’s Dagger.
You think embracing her is a bad idea? After she dies, the next night her sister will become a Skal you can find by the pier, and by killing her you will earn MORE experience points of what she would be worth even eating her with full hints unlocked. Giselle is the gift that keeps on giving! If you’re going to embrace anyone, make it Giselle; just make sure that you keep the district healed because if you plan to eat the pillar of the docks – no spoilers, now – then you should definitely keep their health up.
Level 18.
Claws UP IV.
Oh, boy. OH, BOY! Where do I even BEGIN?? This is what you were waiting for! This is why we made all those choices? See that sword in your main-hand? You do? Throw it away! You don’t need that or any stinking main-hand weapon for the rest of the game! Click? Unbind it. Who would even need to ever left-click? We’re over that. That’s so 1998. We, the Alphas, we press 2 instead.
This is the most important difference you will notice. Nothing you will be ever be the same. You have no idea.
One second Cooldown makes all the difference in the world. This unlocks your most devastating and powerful combo yet: Claw, off-hand, claw, off-hand, claw-off hand… to infinity. That’s it. That’s your main source of damage now that you can do after you fire your Blood Shield to dispose of either single threats or a crowd that you simply don’t feel like having them exist anymore. Your damage will go through the roof all of sudden. Honestly, even if it’s a non-embrace run; you can sit on this point for a long, long time and be fine with it.
Even if melee-weapons EVENTUALLY reach this point, they are not as fast as Claw, they don’t stagger like claw, and they cost STAMINA, because you’re getting a refund on the blood you’re spending, you can keep this up forever. Use your Coagulate, Blood Barrier and Abyss to make sure your enemies stay put and well-behaved while you eviscerate them. Claw also comes with a dash so you can activate it for a fair distance.
This is the true highlight of it all; what you worked so hard for. Even if enemies resist blood, you will tear though them like butter. Brawlers or beasts will both fall in 2-3 seconds each; bosses will last a little longer; some may even survive to see your full combo!
Level 20:
Blood Barrier DOWN IV.
Yes, Claws was quite expensive. You skipped a level again and buying it was quite a pain. It was sure worth it, wasn’t it? How do you like slicing and dicing everything in a blur of red leaving no survivors? Finishing fights so fast! Aren’t we?
Hopefully by now you’ve realized the importance and power of Blood Barrier enough to get this rank. The problem it had before was that in the 5 seconds it lasted, you won’t get attacked 3 times unless you’re against a really though enemy or multitudes of them. With an increased duration, now this is as good as it will get.
You probably also realized that this power has some weaknesses, namely damage-over-time mechanics like fire that eat through it like it was not even there. You also probably realized what guys to maul with your claws and at the start of the fight and when to activate this goodie to have free blood and free damage for the rest of your un-life.
Aren’t you glad you picked this build? What you would be doing right now otherwise? BITING people for what, 1k measly damage? ♥♥♥♥♥, please; with this build you fart and you do 1k damage without meaning to. Or you could be going melee, depending on a stamina bar; ugh… remember what it was worrying about stamina? Of course you don’t, it might as well be infinite as far as you’re concerned.
Level 21:
Blood Capacity III.
Blood Capacity III.
What some people consider the toughest boss in the game follows. She’s not that impressive for this build but you might as well prepare. We have a long way to go before we level up to get the final Claw upgrade, so we have to pick some stuff along the way that’s not exactly optimal. Right now, working on your Blood Capacity is a good idea. Why? Because you don’t need Stamina anymore other than for running and you’re immune to damage over half the time so you don’t need health or healing, either. Believe me, Autophagy is fine at Level II like you left it; it’s not a strict upgrade until very, very late.
Blood Capacity will let you spam more claws even if you miss some.
Level 22:
Blood Capacity IV.
Blood Capacity IV.
Might as well finish what we started. At this point, if you’ve been doing your homework you will decide what to do with the delicious pillar of the Docks. I’m gonna be honest here; he leaves us no choice. If you only SPARE him, the guy will kill and you will have to return to end him but with noticeably less XP value on him. If you HEAL him you will spend XP to do it and he’s not even a vendor that’s worth jack. Are you seriously going to give this guy your XP? You need those! For Claws! Eat him. Him, the sisters for your dagger and him will keep the district just stable if you keep everyone healed. After that you will get an ominous warning of a thing that’s following you. DON’T go to the graveyard just yet; let’s… indulge.
For Whitechapel and The Docks our options are limited if you ate the pillars. We don’t want the health of the district to go too low now. With the new Mesmerism level 3, we can safely have Richard Nithercott and Seymour Fishburn. Despite being in relationships with other characters they don’t affect them in any significant way; some may even be happier. About Whitechapel, you are going to have to make another choice. You can either have Thelma Crawford or Pippa and Milton. If you have Thelma now you can have Rakesh later; which is what I would recommend. If you have Pippa and Milton you’re really pushing the District to its limits right at this moment and probably Rakesh would be a little too much. You can also leave Thelma alone and have Rakesh and Beatrice Goswick later; which is okay but not mandatory.
Alternatively, depending on what ending you’re aiming for, you may decide to embrace no one. You already embraced Giselle which was the only one you really needed and you may not want to be full evil; just be sure to know that you’re fighting what many refer as the toughest one there is; if you’re going to indulge at any time, it would be a great moment right about now.
Level 23:
Blood Capacity V.
Another filler to Level up. Not that significant, honestly. Remember: More levels=less damage received, more damage dealt. Level is everything now that you have basically all the powers you wanted.
Level 24:
Blood Barrier DOWN V.
This should be the absolute maximum you can reach before that fight at the graveyard, if you do everything with the utmost care, all side-quests, eating the right people. You can still mix-max a few things, like skipping on the small-fries earlier having a tougher sewer fight and now getting to kill someone worth more XP; or getting JUST shy of having the districts on Critical but not Hostile.
Either way, this is not that much of an upgrade. The increased duration and reduced Cooldown is quite welcome but not much is honestly going to change. 5 to 8 seconds is far more noticeable than 8 to 10. It’s still the best thing you can grab by far.
Blood Capacity V.
What we want here is something that’s useful but not too expensive because the next level is an important one. It will make a lot of sense why we want as much blood as we can get.
You also probably already had the ‘toughest fight’ in the game and you probably thought it was no biggie. I mean; sure, the exploding blood plants are cool and all… but I have immunity!!
You jump in, you claw the boss, use Coagulate, use Abyss… done. Just remember to kill the priest before the boss eats it and heals a bunch of health from it.
If you do a certain amount of evil before that fight, a citizen from a future district will die. You won’t miss them other than for story-related reason; in truth they’re not that big of a deal. I told you, you hardly need all citizens to reach max Level. You’re FINE. It was worth it.
Level 26:
Claws UP V.
This is it; the moment of truth. Saving up to this point will be hard, and if you want to eat a few more citizens no one will blame you or judge you for it. Honestly, for this upgrade, letting a District go to hell is not even that high of a price. Once you get Mesmerism 4 you can let a few Mesmerism 5 citizens die to the hostility of the district; believe me, it’s okay. You’ll have enough XP later. This is only if you’re going full evil, though. To the goodies, saving up for this will be all the much harder.
Well, this was the upgrade we were meaning to get from the start, the big one. With a 0.5 sec Cooldown that refunds its cost, and with Giselle Dagger, you can use Claw, Claw, dagger combo that will cost ZERO blood when landed. Yes; zero, and you did over a thousand damage in ONE SECOND; and there is no Cooldown, you can and you should do it right again and again using your Blood Barrier to not worry about a thing, just going willy-nilly in a storm of blood insta-killing whatever’s in your way. They never stood a chance! Clawing even bosses at this point will be done in SECONDS; none will last long and some may not even resist your full combo of using your main Cooldowns.
A piece of warning around this point: You will find Skals doing ‘poison’ damage, and you remember no doubt what happens to your barrier when you face fire: if goes ‘puff!’. It’s the same thing. You have to prioritize killing those Skals, thankfully you can Claw twice a second with a cool, new animation only this build can get, USING BOTH HANDS. The second claw with your right hand has a deceptively large Area of Effect and you will often hit more than one enemy if they’re close enough. Kill these awful things so you can barrier safely and finish fights in a flash like always.
With these claws, you can machine-claw until you run out of blood, then recover it with your dagger in a few seconds with your barrier up. The claws will stagger most enemies, dash to them, and kill them. That’s why we wanted max blood. Your damage is insane now. Congratulations.
Level 28:
Coagulation II
Coagulation DOWN III
What can I say? We skipped a level again. Claws were just that freaking expensive, but they are completely worth it. How do you like being an eviscerator? Honestly, the build is done. After this, anything goes. Get anything you want.
My recommendation, however, would be to get Coagulation. It was a nice one-point wonder that carried us through the whole game and now’s a good time to get some more. We’re picking the down path because we’re the fast guys killing everything before they have a chance to react, who has time to wait around for 10 seconds? The down path will also give you enough health to keep clawing so you don’t waste time even daggering. Win-win.
Level 29:
Coagulation DOWN IV
Coagulation DOWN V.
Might as well complete that tree. The logic is the same.
Level 30:
Body Condition III.
Body Condition III.
Honestly? Once you’re Level 30 you’re set. You set up. You don’t NEED any more levels but they’re nice to have. You will reach this very close to the end of the game if you killed no one; but killing the last enemies at Level 30, even with this build, will be a little slow. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still be attacking like a storm even against blood-resistant enemies but they’re going to take time to go down.
Might as well pick the stats, it won’t hurt. We’ll start with health.
Level 31:
Body Condition IV.
Body Condition IV.
I’m saying health but it could easily be anything else. The longer you’re alive, the more damage you can do. You have enough in your repertoire to last for days, so leveling your ultimate is honestly worthless as all you want it for is so your enemy is stuck for a few seconds while you wail on them or steal blood back up. You definitely not want stamina, though. You will notice how little it does.
Level 32:
Body Condition V.
Body Condition.
Might as well end what we started. With this you have Maximum health. Honestly? The build is done. Go kill stuff.
Level 33:
Autophagy DOWN III
Autophagy DOWN IV
Autophagy DOWN V
Before we end, just a discussion. There is NO POINT in getting this upgrade before you upgrade your health. The down path offers too much health at once and thus you need to have a bigger health bar to make use of it.
In theory, Autophagy UP is amazing and what this build wants, the problem is that it’s either bugged or not working as advertised. A healing over-time to put on you while you suffer the damage-over-time from those plagued zombies and fire-starters to effectively pre-heal would be NICE and welcome; the problem is that Autophagy UP only gives what is basically Autophagy II but costing 50% more. Why? I have NO idea. Down is the only choice, not because it’s better but because that’s what’s left.
With this on your action bar, even if you royally screw up you will be able to be back up in the fight in no time.
Because of the increased cost, it’s honestly not worth to get this until you have enough for Level 5. Even for how much it heals, it still doesn’t outdo the efficiency of the cost of Autophagy Level II and there is a point to be made to just let it be Level II for the rest of the game.
Level 35:
Abyss II
Abyss III
We skipped a Level because getting Autophagy II-V takes that much, and it’s NOT WORTH IT to get it before, as I explained before. Now that you have more health and healing that you will honestly ever need all that’s left is Stamina and Ultimate. You don’t need Stamina; at all. You use blood to attack and you get blood easily; might as well grab the damage for when you face bosses. 1K more damage every 100 seconds for like 20k experience? What a ripoff… you do that in less than a second clawing…
Level 36:
Abyss IV
At this point don’t sleep unless you know you’re going to level up; Level=power. I’m just telling you what to get to level up.
Level 37:
Abyss V
And we finish the ultimate. It’s not really that impactful.
Level 38:
Physical Prowess III
You don’t need Stamina during combat. At all. This is only strictly from running to point A to point B (or blinking when you can, it’s faster). That’s all you want this for.
Level 39:
Physical Prowess III
Physical Prowess IV
Physical Prowess IV
And this will get you to Level 39.
Level 40+
You’re done. Finish that Stamina and grab anything, really. All that mattes now is leveling up. You have your abilities well-defined and there is no conceivable way you’re ever going to need anything else. All you want right now is getting enough to Level up, and maybe not even that because if you overdo it you won’t even have the joy to claw things other than bosses because you will one or two-shot everything else with your mighty, fearsome claw.
There is a point to be made to go for the syringes first so you can get blood serum now that the game is almost over and you have not used even one and you might get lazy of daggering so you might as well serum up. It’s free.
Then you can get the rest of the powers to mess around, ammo last. You don’t ever want to switch to guns; you lose too much DPS. Why fire slow bullets when you can do fast claws with no reloading?
Hope you enjoyed playing this build. I found it fun because of the dynamic combat. There is no time to pause. You’re always dashing, always attacking, you don’t use stamina to attack at all, you don’t need resources other than your faithful dagger; it’s FUN!
There is a case to be made to wield a melee weapon late in the game when you’re high level for guys you can one-shot that you don’t want to spend blood on. For those cases, you can simply dagger+claw in quick succession to recover blood while killing them, but if you want you can equip a saw because it attacks faster and kicks reasonably hard. In that case don’t bother with absorption, you already have all you will ever need. Just get damage or stamina-cost reduction.
Oh and FWIW... i was playing a no-embrace run and was doing well, getting distracted and stopped playing temporarily around the time that Jonathan is asked to investigate origins of the pandemic in the high-class district.... so embrasing is not required to do such a build :-)
- Just my 2 cents, from a pure noob at low levels (currently lvl 9 , AFTER wolfie) :
The reason why Barrier is not so popular is that it is simply not great at LOW ( 1 and 2 ) levels. - 5 secs immunity, just to die during the 25 seconds of cooldown.
Probably, because you ran, partly due to the camera, partly due to utter absence
of (Souls) skill, out of stamina. :P
Coagulation, OTOH, is fine; I would prefer lvl 2 here as soon as possible, though.
( 2 secs is barely noticeable, and leaves you in potential danger)
So, my suggestions at the start would rather be: Get 2 Stamina, Health, and Blood levels (for cheap 300 XP each) ASAP, and skip Barrier, until it becomes useful (with the lvl 3 upgrade) .
Far better from a pure survival POV, on low levels.
Coagulation is a combo extender this way. You can hit-hit, claw coagulation, hit-hit, claw. It's even okay from low levels. Two seconds are plenty enough; one second would be okay, honestly.
Blood Barrier not only absorbs the damage, but interrupts the enemy. If they were doing a combo they are temporarily staggered just as if they had attacked a guarding foe. It's another interrupt even at level 1 and when facing one single enemy, it allows you to ham on them.
The way the build is set is so you spend the least amount on XP on getting to the Levels you will need for the upgrades you want. You can put a few levels of stamina and health, but that's a few hundred or even thousands of experience you will always be short on until you catch up to the point I recommend to buy them at; but of of course that's a sacrifice you would have a right to do by yourself. Getting the core abilities (Claw mostly, and Blood Barrier) as soon as they're available and useful is just placed on a higher priority that marginally more health or stamina.
If you don't buy health or stamina, you can afford Blood Barrier II at Level 6 and by then is quite powerful. Two charges of immunity (which also stagger when hit) against mostly slow enemies should and does feel rather broken. You can use it at the start of every fight; it's not like after you ran out you have to wait around for the full cooldown to go on again. Use it once and take as many as you can, after that you have to either rely on other cooldowns or melee and then claw to back down until you're out of blood, knifing otherwise.
Sadly, you still have to dodge with space sometime until you get max barrier; but I did the math for you and you should get it with minimal delay.
If you're into having easier low levels; claw is not honestly great until heavily invested on. You can also just buy the cheap health, stamina and get shadow mist until you reach around Level 14; at which point you can switch back to the build with your free reset.
Man, forgot I wrote this. Sure, I guess it can be a guide. Dunno about screenshots; maybe eventually. Don't think there's time right now to finish a game; high season and all.