Best and worst talents.

[Muntis]

What are the best and worst talents?

P.S what is a good composition for your team

[Czernobog wants to Rage]

Hothead is the best so you don't get Xcom misses at 85% or more To Hit. I prefer The Pawn over Executioner. Opportunist is good on all melee. No other talents seem godly enough to be an 'always include'

[Muntis]

Originally posted by Spawn More Overlords:

Hothead is the best so you don't get Xcom misses at 85% or more To Hit. I prefer The Pawn over Executioner. Opportunist is good on all melee. No other talents seem godly enough to be an 'always include'

Thanks. What about the team comp?

[DarkCobalt]

Opportunist is the best on all melee. If anyone tries to move away from you, you get free hits in! My favorite is The Pawn. SO GOOD for any character. Picture of Health is amazing for Warfare characters. You become a great tank with it.

Far Out Man is a must for ranged characters. I love using it on my support Summoner who can stand in the corner and fire off support spells left and right, along with plopping a giant Minotaur in the middle of an enemy group across the map. Mnemonic is good for support characters too since they'll likely have a huge amount of spells/abilities.

There are a couple purely playstyle-related ones, take these only if you can use them effectively. Lone Wolf is of course situational, only take it if you have a party of 2 or less. Escapist is pretty useless if you're saving right before combat, so only take this if you don't intend on "save scumming". Five-Star Dinner is questionable too, since Potions and Food Effects are pretty minimal but if you want to play like an alchemist, try it out.

IMO, avoid Comeback Kid at all costs. Sometimes you will die, and if your turn isn't next, the enemy AI prioritizes the revived character and kills you anyway. Worthless talent.

There are very few that you should "avoid" per se, it's more or less what suits your character/build the best. Don't worry too much because after Act 1, you can reset your upgrades any time you wish.

[Muntis]

Originally posted by frederickhxu:

Opportunist is the best on all melee. If anyone tries to move away from you, you get free hits in! My favorite is The Pawn. SO GOOD for any character. Picture of Health is amazing for Warfare characters. You become a great tank with it.

Far Out Man is a must for ranged characters. I love using it on my support Summoner who can stand in the corner and fire off support spells left and right, along with plopping a giant Minotaur in the middle of an enemy group across the map. Mnemonic is good for support characters too since they'll likely have a huge amount of spells/abilities.

There are a couple purely playstyle-related ones, take these only if you can use them effectively. Lone Wolf is of course situational, only take it if you have a party of 2 or less. Escapist is pretty useless if you're saving right before combat, so only take this if you don't intend on "save scumming". Five-Star Dinner is questionable too, since Potions and Food Effects are pretty minimal but if you want to play like an alchemist, try it out.

IMO, avoid Comeback Kid at all costs. Sometimes you will die, and if your turn isn't next, the enemy AI prioritizes the revived character and kills you anyway. Worthless talent.

There are very few that you should "avoid" per se, it's more or less what suits your character/build the best. Don't worry too much because after Act 1, you can reset your upgrades any time you wish.

Thanks man!

[Revolucas]

Living Armor is an underrated talent I think. Anytime you heal you replenish Magic Armor. That includes from Necromancy, potions, 100%+ resistances, etc.

[dergefata]

Originally posted by frederickhxu:

Opportunist is the best on all melee.

IMO, avoid Comeback Kid at all costs.

Huh, I would really swap these around. I view Opportunist as a total waste in all builds. It only triggers once per round*, and it only provides a default attack. That tiny bit of extra damage means effectively nothing.

OTOH, unless you're playing on easy, and/or exploiting the economy fiercely to stay in level-appropriate gear, you're often going to be in situations where you get close to death. You'll be bleeding, poisoned, soaked in acid, and on fire plus Necrofire or something. When they tick, instead of dying, Comeback Kid heals you up to get that extra turn to pop a potion (you have Living Armor, right? Of course you do, it's amazing) or hit your other "uh-oh" buttons, and then you don't need to burn a consumable plus an entire turn.

*Haven't played with it for a little, if that has changed maybe it's not totally useless but still would only be mid-tier at best

[Hobocop]

Fun thing to do with Five-Star Diner is take it on an undead character while pumping CON, then using the Necromancer skill Shackles of Pain to eat people to death.

[Gregorovitch]

In retrospect I think The Pawn is an underestimated talent. It works brilliantly for rogues for sure, but I think it may work very well for all characters. AP for AP I think it delivers more damage output and tactical options than Executioner. Executioner is great situationally, but Pawn works all the time, day in day out.

[Stabbey]

The Pawn is the best talent in the game. 5+ meters of free movement each turn is a huge AP saver.

• Guerrilla is complete garbage. It's only useful for an incredibly tedious cheesy solo build.
  
• Ice King and Demon are both pretty crappy.
  
• Comeback Kid is not very good because it restores you to 20% health, which is well within range to be one-shot again, which is extremely likely since the turn-order is round-robin. Unless you have someone ready to heal you as soon as it goes off, you'll just be killed quickly, the AI loves to target weak characters.
  
• Leech heals you for about 5% HP. That's less effective than a food item.

[Alesha The Mage]

* Savage sortilege: wits, two-handed, +20% crit staff, insane spell crits
* Hothead: these extra 10% crit chance
* Executioner, good for everyone with a lot of damage, free 2 AP for killing blow
* Opportunist, good for ant melee
* Pawn: somewhat useful for 4AP builds melee builds, sometimes, but incompatible with Executioner. Better to have some teleport ability.

[Revolucas]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

In retrospect I think The Pawn is an underestimated talent. It works brilliantly for rogues for sure, but I think it may work very well for all characters. AP for AP I think it delivers more damage output and tactical options than Executioner. Executioner is great situationally, but Pawn works all the time, day in day out.

Yeah, Pawn is a way better choice. Plenty of moments where an enemy turns away and your dagger user has to walk around or walk to adjacent enemies after a kill. The teleport should be saved as a retreat at the end of the turn.

Demon are both pretty crappy.

It's not bad on Pyro under the influence of Leadership resistance bonus. Combine that with Living Armor while you stand in necro fire you'll be practically unkillable.

[Annabells117]

One of my (few) complaints about this game is the lack of great talents. I won't say talents are irrelevant, but they don't seem to make enough difference to warrant the amount of thought that people put into them.

1. Pawn is the best talent in the game. It's not only for rogues. Even ranged and magic-using characters can have cheesy line-of-sight issues and need to move slightly in order to hit with an attack. Pawn lets you adjust and make your attack, hence making it a huge AP-saver and the best talent, IMO. I'm not sure that Far Out Man is still necessary if you have Pawn + movement on at least 1 piece of gear. Far Out Man gives you nothing but a 2m increase in RANGED skills and scrolls which isn't very much. It won't let you cast Chicken Claw from far away. That'd be great, but since it doesn't do that...Pawn.

2. Hothead for 10% crit on everyone but maybe your support character.

3. Picture of Health on your melee/ warfare character.

4. Pet Pal - one of your characters has to have this or you miss out on many quests in the game.

5. Parry Master - +10% to dodge while you dual wield. Good for your dagger rogue.

6. Opportunist - for melee. It feels like something a character should be able to do anyway, but since they can't, you should get it as a talent. If you don't, you're giving up a certain % of dmg on your melee.

7. Elemental Affinity for a caster whose spell rotation will start with a priming elemental spell, like a hydro caster starting with rain, necro starting with blood rain, etc. Suddenly, you can cast 3 offensive spells in a turn instead of 2.

8. Five Star Diner isn't awful. It can help with armor and resistance potions. Without it, they're so weak they're virtually irrelevant unless you spend like 1k gold to make a bg 1. But this talent does allow you to use potions strategically to spend 1 AP instead of 2 for Heart of Steel for example. It can also let you fill your health bar completely, which healers can't do well late in the game.

I would avoid resurrection-related talents like Come Back Kid. Maybe they help in the beginning but later, if you die and come back with 20% health you will just get 1-shotted.

Anna

[Chaoslink]

While we’re all here on the topic of talents, I was thinking of a possible combo that I have yet to try and was interested if anyone knows if it works. Essentially it is using elemental affinity on a scroll, which works the last time I checked, in combination with ambidextrous. If the free off hand AP reduction works with the elemental affinity AP reduction, then it would be possible to use 3AP ability scrolls for only one AP with no cooldown. So scrolls like superconductor (actually easy to craft) could be spammed 3-5 times in just one turn. Obviously something just for difficult fights, but a powerful combo if it works. Has anyone tried this yet?

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Annabells117:

One of my (few) complaints about this game is the lack of great talents. I won't say talents are irrelevant, but they don't seem to make enough difference to warrant the amount of thought that people put into them.

1. Pawn is the best talent in the game. It's not only for rogues. Even ranged and magic-using characters can have cheesy line-of-sight issues and need to move slightly in order to hit with an attack. Pawn lets you adjust and make your attack, hence making it a huge AP-saver and the best talent, IMO. I'm not sure that Far Out Man is still necessary if you have Pawn + movement on at least 1 piece of gear. Far Out Man gives you nothing but a 2m increase in RANGED skills and scrolls which isn't very much. It won't let you cast Chicken Claw from far away. That'd be great, but since it doesn't do that...Pawn.

2. Hothead for 10% crit on everyone but maybe your support character.

3. Picture of Health on your melee/ warfare character.

4. Pet Pal - one of your characters has to have this or you miss out on many quests in the game.

5. Parry Master - +10% to dodge while you dual wield. Good for your dagger rogue.

6. Opportunist - for melee. It feels like something a character should be able to do anyway, but since they can't, you should get it as a talent. If you don't, you're giving up a certain % of dmg on your melee.

7. Elemental Affinity for a caster whose spell rotation will start with a priming elemental spell, like a hydro caster starting with rain, necro starting with blood rain, etc. Suddenly, you can cast 3 offensive spells in a turn instead of 2.

8. Five Star Diner isn't awful. It can help with armor and resistance potions. Without it, they're so weak they're virtually irrelevant unless you spend like 1k gold to make a bg 1. But this talent does allow you to use potions strategically to spend 1 AP instead of 2 for Heart of Steel for example. It can also let you fill your health bar completely, which healers can't do well late in the game.

I would avoid resurrection-related talents like Come Back Kid. Maybe they help in the beginning but later, if you die and come back with 20% health you will just get 1-shotted.

Anna

Agree with most of your claims except Picture of Health. I think raw health is almost a garbage stat in this game, as armor is far more important.