How best to use potions and food?

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Because there is no pause function in the game, this means i cannot buff every character before a fight because by the time i get to the 3rd or 4th guy, my first characters buff and run out! Would be really nice if there was a way to put buffs on every character at once but alas, there isn't.

Using food and potions in a fight takes a precious 2AP from your turn and unless it is a healing pot, it just isn't worth gaining +1 finesse or whatever! High resistance potions are ok i guess but most enemies do different attacks anyways.

How to you guys manage pots and food?

[Chaoslink]

I only use food out of combat to temporarily meet stat check requirements like eating pumpkin soup for the +2 wits if I can’t spot something. Otherwise I don’t really use food. Potions are good though. The resistance ones and some of the special ones like strong will. I tend to only use healing potions as nukes on undead characters by shackling an enemy and drinking a potion that deals immense damage to myself. With five star, you can kill the trolls in act two with just one turn worth this way.

Specific fights like the scarecrows in act two are countered entirely by the proper resistance potion. Otherwise you get resist all potions.

[Omertoso]

I don't know with keyboard controls, but if I'm only using one kind of potion/food for everyone in the party, with a controller it's super fast. No turns wasted.

There's a good few defensive potions:
- Potion of strong-will: immunity to lots of mental debuffs, including silenced and blinded. Of course, doesn't really help much when you're terrified, need to use it before that happens.
- Potion of nimble-tumble: 50% evasion may not seem like much, but if you use it when you are expecting to take some hits, there's a very good chance a part of them will miss. Of course, it's luck-based, but you will certainly get results if you use it often.
- Resist all potions: enough said, really. I always buy all Trumpets of Death from crafting vendors and resist all potions from potion vendors in case I want to do something funny in Arx. Single element resistance potions are good for fights where you are expecting mostly that kind of damage.

Of course, once you take the Five-star diner talent, almost all potions become VERY powerful, and foods become a great way to heal. Sure, +1 Finesse potions will only become +2, but then you'll start finding +3, +11 potions. Hoo boy!

Not to mention medium resist all potion becomes 100% resistance to all elements, and potion of nimble tumble will give 100% evasion.

Certain encounters where the enemies have a tendency to very quickly take care of your party greatly benefit from all of these defensive potions. Nimble-tumble is the odd one out in that regard, though; don't rely on it to avoid damage.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

I only use food out of combat to temporarily meet stat check requirements like eating pumpkin soup for the +2 wits if I can’t spot something. Otherwise I don’t really use food. Potions are good though. The resistance ones and some of the special ones like strong will. I tend to only use healing potions as nukes on undead characters by shackling an enemy and drinking a potion that deals immense damage to myself. With five star, you can kill the trolls in act two with just one turn worth this way.

Specific fights like the scarecrows in act two are countered entirely by the proper resistance potion. Otherwise you get resist all potions.

Interesting, never thought about hurting myself after the shackle necro ability. I guess to learn what resistances needed for a fight, you gotta take some dmg first right?

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Originally posted by Foreigner:

I don't know with keyboard controls, but if I'm only using one kind of potion/food for everyone in the party, with a controller it's super fast. No turns wasted.

There's a good few defensive potions:
- Potion of strong-will: immunity to lots of mental debuffs, including silenced and blinded. Of course, doesn't really help much when you're terrified, need to use it before that happens.
- Potion of nimble-tumble: 50% evasion may not seem like much, but if you use it when you are expecting to take some hits, there's a very good chance a part of them will miss. Of course, it's luck-based, but you will certainly get results if you use it often.
- Resist all potions: enough said, really. I always buy all Trumpets of Death from crafting vendors and resist all potions from potion vendors in case I want to do something funny in Arx. Single element resistance potions are good for fights where you are expecting mostly that kind of damage.

Of course, once you take the Five-star diner talent, almost all potions become VERY powerful, and foods become a great way to heal. Sure, +1 Finesse potions will only become +2, but then you'll start finding +3, +11 potions. Hoo boy!

Not to mention medium resist all potion becomes 100% resistance to all elements, and potion of nimble tumble will give 100% evasion.

Certain encounters where the enemies have a tendency to very quickly take care of your party greatly benefit from all of these defensive potions. Nimble-tumble is the odd one out in that regard, though; don't rely on it to avoid damage.

Yeah maybe i should apply the food to my hotbar and just spam the number for each char if i am desperate. Thanks for the advice though.

[DrunkPunk]

Originally posted by Lebowski EzRekt U Cri:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

I only use food out of combat to temporarily meet stat check requirements like eating pumpkin soup for the +2 wits if I can’t spot something. Otherwise I don’t really use food. Potions are good though. The resistance ones and some of the special ones like strong will. I tend to only use healing potions as nukes on undead characters by shackling an enemy and drinking a potion that deals immense damage to myself. With five star, you can kill the trolls in act two with just one turn worth this way.

Specific fights like the scarecrows in act two are countered entirely by the proper resistance potion. Otherwise you get resist all potions.

Interesting, never thought about hurting myself after the shackle necro ability. I guess to learn what resistances needed for a fight, you gotta take some dmg first right?

Loremaster will show you the resistances for enemies, if you have it on one character you can examine the enemy with any character. I think you only need one point in it to see resistances, and two to three points can show you other stuff like the enemy talents and how much AP they have/have saved between turns.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Originally posted by DrunkPunk:

Originally posted by Lebowski EzRekt U Cri:

Interesting, never thought about hurting myself after the shackle necro ability. I guess to learn what resistances needed for a fight, you gotta take some dmg first right?

Loremaster will show you the resistances for enemies, if you have it on one character you can examine the enemy with any character. I think you only need one point in it to see resistances, and two to three points can show you other stuff like the enemy talents and how much AP they have/have saved between turns.

Damm, i didn't know this, thanks.

[Gracey Face]

Echoing Foreigner, food and potions are largely useless until you get 5 star diner, once you get 5 star diner the lower tier potions and food are still kind of useless but the higher tier ones become ridiculously strong and the mid tier ones become worth the AP cost.

For example the largest stat potions with 5SD give you +22 to a stat and the best healing food in the game gives you +80% HP and +20% resist all.

It's a shame 5SD doesn't also increase durations, but if it did it would be completely broken.

[Chaoslink]

You don’t need to let them attack you to know. With a high enough loremaster, you can see the skills the enemy has, so in the scarecrow example, they should have a high Geo skill since their spells deal earth damage. Geo is ambiguous since you may need earth or poison resistance against them, but in that case it’s earth damage. The Tactician effect for that fight is a terrify aura that’ll instantly CC your characters if they lose their magic armor. This makes the large earth resistance potion, 75% protection, very useful here. If you combine that with drinking a magic armor potion on a warrior with naturally low magic protection, two AP will make you able to sustain their attacks for a full two turns. Note that buffs wear off when you end your turn. So you can use the delay turn feature to move your turn to the end of the combat round. Doing this allows you to keep the effect for the enemy turns that round. It can be quite effective to use this. For example, if your character goes first and you cast uncanny evasion, you’ll dodge all the enemy attacks that turn. On your second turn you can delay and have the dodge remain for the full second round as well, getting twice the benefit of the ability at the cost of your place in the turn order. You’ll still get your turn in that round at the end however, and if you’re top initiative, you’ll get both turns back to back.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

You don’t need to let them attack you to know. With a high enough loremaster, you can see the skills the enemy has, so in the scarecrow example, they should have a high Geo skill since their spells deal earth damage. Geo is ambiguous since you may need earth or poison resistance against them, but in that case it’s earth damage. The Tactician effect for that fight is a terrify aura that’ll instantly CC your characters if they lose their magic armor. This makes the large earth resistance potion, 75% protection, very useful here. If you combine that with drinking a magic armor potion on a warrior with naturally low magic protection, two AP will make you able to sustain their attacks for a full two turns. Note that buffs wear off when you end your turn. So you can use the delay turn feature to move your turn to the end of the combat round. Doing this allows you to keep the effect for the enemy turns that round. It can be quite effective to use this. For example, if your character goes first and you cast uncanny evasion, you’ll dodge all the enemy attacks that turn. On your second turn you can delay and have the dodge remain for the full second round as well, getting twice the benefit of the ability at the cost of your place in the turn order. You’ll still get your turn in that round at the end however, and if you’re top initiative, you’ll get both turns back to back.

I understand what you are saying, thanks