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Like act 1, exploring is useful. you should find that rescue of meister is easy, for example, and having done that, you have the town to clear up (however you decide to do that, there are 3 or 4 quests in town that are worth some effort, like the murderer (killing magisters) on the loose..) and some not far away stuff (kid on the bridge? random voidwoken near where you came out? entry and exit of town if you are a magister killer? Magister headquarters (regardless of your approach to magisters)? ... all that should dump you out seeking the first of the source masters... which may have a hard boss fight but loads of loot and killing along the way all on level (hint, the dwarf is supposed to be your first one from difficulty curve approach).
if you are level 9ish and didn't leave too early, look to your builds if you struggle.
if you are below level 8, see if you have a save and can go back to act 1 to wrap up. If you can't you may need really good gear or cheesy tactics to catch up.
Clear the coast and jump across the bridge to rescue the bridgekeeper, head west into Driftwood, clear everything in Driftwood, Head West into Canyons and clear, enter Wreckers Cave on the west cliffs and clear. Then head back into Driftwood to wrap up, move towards Graveyard over the bridge in the east and clear everything. Next head North of Driftwood and do what you can in the fields there. You might be able to take on the bridge troll just north of Driftwood and the fight with some bears on the other side of the bridge. Then head into the southeast part of the map and clear the blackpits area, cave included. Next go through Cloisterwood (NW), possibly avoiding any terrifying things there, Then move into the NNE lumbermill area, then NE Paradise Downs. Last area is Bloodmoon Isle.
Its not perfect, but that's roughly where the level trend takes you. Typically you'll be moving from the southern areas into the central areas then the northern areas.
However, zone isn't everything. A massive part of this game's difficulty comes from your team comp and their builds. Act one doesn't have huge stat scaling, but act two is where this starts to come into play more. Good/Poor stat investment can make or break a build. There's also plenty of things the game wouldn't tell you that really help. For instance, did you know that the Warfare skill will offer you more damage scaling than your relevant weapon skill? Archers, Rogues, even Necromages all want Warfare above all else. There's other things like CON being a nearly wasted investment, builds with split attributes like STR and INT for a battlemage being absolutely awful and the defensive skills like leadership or retribution typically not being worth investing.
If you want help in this regard, just state each character's class(or overall role ie: healer, tank, that sort of thing), their attributes, their skills and their talents. Alternatively you can screenshot the character pages for attributes and skills and list their talents. Then we can help you tune your squad to play at their best. Do note, I typically try to keep your overall setup intact and just tune your stats to make you the most effective you can be. However, some builds like sword and board tank are just very lacking in this game and are often best respecced into something else entirely. You also might have poor balance between magic and physical damage that could be respecced. So I'll often recommend an alternate build that might be entirely different than what you picked simply because that build only makes things harder for you in the end.
Note, if you're struggling and feeling like you need to beef up your defenses more (like you seem to feel given your comments on armor) I can guarantee you that it is far more effective to beef up on your reckless aggressiveness instead. To give you an idea, back when I'd theorycraft new ideas for teams, I'd always look at my damage per turn. Every turn after the first I'd reduce the total amount by 20% until the 6th turn where all damage is valued at 0%. This is because getting damage out early is key to winning. You want to break armors and CC enemies ASAP, so if your damage doesn't really come out until later turns, you're just increasing the amount of damage your party will take and ultimately giving them the favor. You really have to play aggressive in this game. Turtling will make things significantly harder.
Also, Thievery. That's how you get by when it comes to gold. Barter really doesn't come into its prime until later act two/early act three. Thievery can net you an idle pile of 2.5 million gold if you really break it.
I've done all the 'do-able' quests I could find in act 2 i.e magister ghost in the tavern, boy on the bridge & his mother, 1st arena fight, cured the cursed cow , diseased phoenix chicken , dwarven trader murdered by his apprentice at the troll bridge etc. etc. The cloister wood monstrosity , blackpits fights, lumber mill wolves fight, sick woman in the basement and wreckers cave are all far too tough for my party at present.
As far as stat investment goes I've definitely made some mistakes due to lack of knowledge on the game, but I hadn't thought they were too severe to recover from; though perhaps I was wrong. I might post more detail if it helps tomorrow, but averaged out I'm sitting at about 500hp/200-250 magic armour and 160-250 physical armour for each party member. Typical average damage from melee or magic is 60-140
By comparison the foes I'm facing are typically around 800 health and 375 - 850 magic armour and similarly superior physical armour as well, not to mention as I said they normally outnumber me and often hit 170-200+ damage per attack :( often their health may be far lower but they'll have a massive amount of magic armour; or alternatively all-round stats only slightly higher than mine but superior numbers and spells with large area of effect and high damage + high chance of knock down/curse/decay etc.
The sheer cost of everything has meant I've never quite been able to focus on what I need to buff the team up . I've tried to prioritise but the cost of good armour balancing magic + physical, good weapons and good spells is just vastly more money than I've ever had.
Still, you have the fish factory basement to explore, the guy hiding in a barrel there and possibly the figherman and his ring to do.
As for stats, yeah, it can matter a ton. Aside from equipping shields, CON is basically a wasted point for instance. Have too much of that and you're gonna be hurting just because you won't have the damage to CC things before they start hitting that HP.
thievery can get you lots of money
if you have ranged characters, you can snipe magister in blackpits from a ridge near healers hut
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2815541496
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2815541507
a low level but high rarity item is worse that a high level but low rarity item. Armor is very important.
Bartering doesn't do THAT much to prices. Lucky charm finds you items for free.
At the bottom of The Lady Vengeance (your ship) is a respeccing mirror. Use it to smooth over decisions you made earlier that you regret.
As others have said, it sounds like you should head to wreckers cave now. Southwest region of reapers coast.
I didnt want to respec as it feels a bit too much like cheating, but I recognise I'll probably have to due to my prior lack of knowledge. Many thanks for all the tips though!
Cheers
Also sorry quick side note question, I feel like I'm missing something here; how come CON is a bad choice? unless I'm being thick I assume we're talking constitution , which is max health? I was under the impression that would be pretty essential , given its the final barrier before death. If not constitution, what should I prioritise more? Unless I'm completely missing something in which case my apologies.
P.S Thank you for your first large post, just re-read and there is some critical stuff there I didnt know. Much appreciated.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727500
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727516
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727532
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727548
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727566
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727583
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2820727608
If your HP is being hit, you're already losing. You start to spam heals and armor restore spells, burning AP that could be used to stop that damage in the first place and the enemy will overpower your ability to heal. AP economy is paramount and if you're losing AP economy to defensive play, you're far more likely to be overwhelmed and defeated. This is why players use invisibility with their last AP point, so the enemy can't hurt you until the next turn, where you're likely going to CC them.
Your attributes are pretty all over the place. You don't have any spells on your bar that use intelligence, so why the 4 points in there? You have just 12 memory, meaning two invested points only. I'd usually recommend leaving act 1 with 5 on non-mages and 18 on mages. You should be using "spells" over auto attacks most of the time. You have a random finesse point, that can go into Strength alongside all those Intelligence points. You might be able to justify one or two points for alternate armor types, but usually its fine to just focus the single armor type. CON, if you insist on keeping the shield, dump every point of CON aside from what is needed to equip the shield into Strength. You want damage.
For his skills... First off, never have more than one weapon skill. Its literally impossible to use them both simultaneously and skill points are valuable, too much to waste on occasional weapon swaps. Second... Don't invest weapon skills. Dump all 6 of those points into Warfare. It scales your damage more than anything. Defensive skills take too many points to really be worthwhile. Instead, you should consider things like Polymorph to learn Tentacle lash, Chicken Claw, Bull Rush. A point dip in Scoundrel helps keep your movement up and is great for Adrenaline, for quick busts of AP you might need to get one last CC effect off and keep an enemy locked down. Necro is also a good investment as the passive lifesteal combined with the Living Armor talent can help keep your magic armor intact. It isn't much, but can be the difference between absorbing a shock effect and losing a turn or not.
There's also Pyro/Hydro/Geo/Aero for the support and utility spells there. Aero has the dodge spell, which is excellent. Geo had physical armor buffs and oil effects for countering enemy dodge. Hydro has healing and magic armor restores and buffs, as well as ive effects that you can use to cause slipping to enemies (craft nails in your boots to become immune yourself). Pyro has the more aggressive buffs from Haste and Peace of Mind.
You don't want to split into all of these, but 2-3 will definitely help. This character lacks damage to help get CC off and lacks skill splits and memory to have any other useful spells to help your team.
Again, you're a dagger user. You have no reason to invest into Intelligence or Strength. These points are doing nothing for you. Always consider your stat investments from the mentality of "Is this going to help me on every one of my attacks?", because if the answer is No, then you probably shouldn't invest it. Con is redundant here as well. You should be using Flesh Sacrifice literally every time you can cast it. You're already going to be burning your HP to nothing that way anyway, investing CON to mitigate that isn't productive. Instead, look for spells like Uncanny Dodge, Chameleon Cloak or the Dodge Aura to keep yourself safe. Also, More memory. Need more memory. I'd say minimum 16 here, probably more, I'll get to why below.
Skills. Again, Warfare. No reason to have Ranged and Dual Wield simultaneously, but all those points should go to Warfare. It scales damage better. Note, Warfare "spells" like Battle Stomp can be used with daggers too. There's no reason Sebille shouldn't be knocking opponents down as well. This is why you want more memory. Have those status effects on hand to deny enemy movement, attacks or any other effectiveness you can steal from them. You have Huntsman and Hydrosophist on her too, might all be from gear, might not. The Huntsman can be justified by picking up Tactical Retreat. Use this to relocate and have the AP refunded on your next turn. Cloak and dagger, that should be on your bar as well. Never use AP to move. Always use a self-teleport or free movement from the talent The Pawn. This goes for Ifan too, Phoenix Dive from Warfare, Tactical Retreat from Huntsman, Cloak and Dagger from Scoundrel or Spread Your Wings from Poly (technically the worst due to increased AP cost, but it is spammable while the wings last).
No reason for defensive skills. Only have what you get from gear.
As you might expect given the last two... He's a mage. You want Intelligence only. No reason for Finesse or Strength here. Four points of Con is fine for using a shield if you choose, otherwise it isn't needed. Memory. You should have at least 18, possibly 20. You should never be using your weapon or its "spell" on this character. Every AP you spend should be reduced by the Elemental Affinity talent and you should be using a spell with a cooldown every action.
For his skills, you're primarily a Pyro/Geo mage. That's fine. There's a point of Scoundrel from gear in there, keep that and invest one if you lose it for Adrenaline. Its a nearly essential skill for everyone. A second point for Cloak and Dagger would be wise too. Again, always self-teleport. No reason for the weapon skills or Defensive skills. Pump up Pyro/Geo more for damage or pick up some secondary skills for utility. Pretty much every skill point on every character should be invested only in that last batch of skills, the ones that teach spells.
You can pick up Huntsman for a little high ground boost and Tactical Retreat, it'll even allow you to craft a Geo and Huntsman book together for Throw Dust. Once you have an extra Source spellbook available from either skill, use it to craft the same combo for the source version Dust Blast. This spell hits four targets with a Throw Dust attack. Note however, Throw Dust is an AoE like Fossil Strike. If you have clumped up enemies or you teleport enemies together, this AoE will overlap and hit enemies multiple times, multiplying your damage considerably. You can delete things instantly this way.
Another good mention is Medusa Head from Polymorph. This is good even for characters like Sebille or Ifan too. It basically instantly petrifies any enemy within a short range of the character, as long as you stay in range. It also gives you an activated spell to increase the range of the effect and have it linger for a turn, even if you walk out of range. Red can use it, or any melee can use it to help Red maintain CC.
Always consider previously mentioned spells like Uncanny Dodge, Fortify and stuff like that to keep yourself alive as well.
So here's another Pyro/Geo mage. Not bad, it'll work well with Red and you can set up Elemental Affinity for them both simultaneously. Might be worth having Ifan pick up Searing Daggers just to toss them at these two before their turn so they can open up with lower AP costs.
Attributes. Same deal here. None of this Strength/Finesse stuff. Just Intelligence. Having a few points is okay if you really want to even their armor values out (or keep that smexy look he has going on, dig that battlemage vibe with the heavy chest armor). However, only use one of the two and keep it minimum only. You're not high enough level for that 14 to make sense. Then its the same routine, Con only if you want to use a shield and more Memory, 18-20.
Now you'll note I haven't mentioned Wits yet. That's a weird one really. If you keep the Sword and Board Ifan, definitely go 50/50 Wits/Strength on him. Make sure he's going first initiative and use him for utility. Teach him a fire and poison spell for setting up Elemental Affinity on your mages, Haste to effectively transfer an AP over and other utility spells to benefit your team. Typically, someone in your team should sacrifice and get something like 18 wits for act two. Pick just one character to take that, then give one 12, another 11 and the last leave at 10. This controls your turn order.
Aside from that stuff, this is pretty much a mimic of Red. Pick some utility skills to pop a few points into, Fill that bottom taskbar with spells and just keep casting. Don't plan to ever actually use your weapons. Believe it or not, the best weapon for some mages can actually be a 2 Handed axe or other weapon. The reason being is that many unique weapons like that which you'll find will come with 20% crit chance built in. With the Savage Sortilege talent to give you spell critical, this can be very impactful. This is another justification for having a bit of Strength, so you can equip such a thing.