Advice For Unchained

[Eranthis]

So I'm trying to break away from playing BW and Pyro and went back to the Unchained again to see how she plays with the following changes in talents. I've been playing around with weapon combos to see what feels right for her build but nothing seems to compliment her way of playing. She lacks a certain reach the other classes have - BW has great knock back potential and Pyro has good buffs for melee speed and crits that can make her untouchable, but it seems like Unchained's benefit is just the higher health pool and I find myself getting hit more often because it's a slog to attack as her. Wanted to ask if anyone had some choice talents and weapons they use that help make her more efficient.

[Tao]

i roll dagger (crit and bcr with attack speed on crit) & bolt staff(reduced heat). with another 30% bcr and crit + attack speed on jewelry. seems ok tbh. using the extra attack speed talent too. can clear hordes well enough in melee or thin them with head shot bolt spam you fast because of degger tech. one shot armor rats with bolt two shot the berserker? or one and a tap with dagger. cw can take 3 or 4 hits only thing i notice it get dicey on tbh. loose heat with blocking is useful and u can block for days if you need to while your team assists. thp with the cleave talent is plentyfull due to the sheer attack speed, dagger stagger can be nice and its second heavy aint to shabby. also use the hp to ult charge talent its a life saver at times but only sometimes xD better to just not blow up.

fire sword i find lack luster on unchaind, sword is nice but nothing special, mace can be good but requires stam to fight hordes push attack light light or u get the over head attack screwing you. flail seems a good middle ground but i find myself getting pinged a lot more than dagger.

thin the horde with bolt clean up with dagger and good movement. and most importantly let the classes that do something better than you do it unless there busy just keep an eye on them and get used to being above 50% charge ideally 80-90% if you dont often get hit twice in close succesion before going melee otherwise your staff is better.

little tip for o ♥♥♥♥ alone moment is gain distance with dagger speed, burn bolts and generate heat. let them hit block to loose all that heat and then get some distance again and repeat. not ideal but can help with CW when there is a few at once all on you. otherwise ignore them and kill the squishy stuff and deal with them more safely if your team hasn't got em yet.

disclaimer im not a pro xD so someone will likely hate on my advice and it may not be *meta*
oh and some of the talents just dont work at all or are completely useless mainly burn on push and burning stuff might explode. never use them they do nothing

[Haplo]

flame thrower staff + flail + quick vent + natural bound ( so u regen that hp lost when u vent on over-charge)

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

Currently I’m switching between a Medic - Crowd controller build (Crowbeak + Flamestorm + Balm). Nukes crowds, staggers everything, hard to touch

and

A high damage, high stagger build with emphasis on burst damage (Mace + fireball staff + flame aura).

Basically, you’ll definitely want to invest in HP > Cooldown and ATKSPD at Overcharge: you’ll always be high charged, but provided your cooldown is at least around 30-40 seconds when you start going nuclear you’ll never have to worry about going down, just swing to your heart’s content. I also invest heavily in Block Venting so in the event you can’t handle the risk, just block vent and focus on repositioning/tanking till your teammates come help.

Oh yeah, and Nat bond as well.

[Eranthis]

Originally posted by Haplo 20th.PzG:

flame thrower staff + flail + quick vent + natural bound ( so u regen that hp lost when u vent on over-charge)

Natural bond is something I should consider. I can avoid damage enough to warrant its use but the damage stacks and usually I'm with teammates who need the health more than me. Flamestorm's a gamble. I'd like to use it more but it isn't ideal for dealing with specials.

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

Originally posted by Eranthis:

Originally posted by Haplo 20th.PzG:

flame thrower staff + flail + quick vent + natural bound ( so u regen that hp lost when u vent on over-charge)

Natural bond is something I should consider. I can avoid damage enough to warrant its use but the damage stacks and usually I'm with teammates who need the health more than me. Flamestorm's a gamble. I'd like to use it more but it isn't ideal for dealing with specials.

Try Vs Infantry and Armor or Skaven and Armor, two point blank shots is enough to down most specials and SVs.

[Eranthis]

Originally posted by desu_plan:

i roll dagger (crit and bcr with attack speed on crit) & bolt staff(reduced heat). with another 30% bcr and crit + attack speed on jewelry. seems ok tbh. using the extra attack speed talent too. can clear hordes well enough in melee or thin them with head shot bolt spam you fast because of degger tech. one shot armor rats with bolt two shot the berserker? or one and a tap with dagger. cw can take 3 or 4 hits only thing i notice it get dicey on tbh. loose heat with blocking is useful and u can block for days if you need to while your team assists. thp with the cleave talent is plentyfull due to the sheer attack speed, dagger stagger can be nice and its second heavy aint to shabby. also use the hp to ult charge talent its a life saver at times but only sometimes xD better to just not blow up.

fire sword i find lack luster on unchaind, sword is nice but nothing special, mace can be good but requires stam to fight hordes push attack light light or u get the over head attack screwing you. flail seems a good middle ground but i find myself getting pinged a lot more than dagger.

thin the horde with bolt clean up with dagger and good movement. and most importantly let the classes that do something better than you do it unless there busy just keep an eye on them and get used to being above 50% charge ideally 80-90% if you dont often get hit twice in close succesion before going melee otherwise your staff is better.

little tip for o ♥♥♥♥ alone moment is gain distance with dagger speed, burn bolts and generate heat. let them hit block to loose all that heat and then get some distance again and repeat. not ideal but can help with CW when there is a few at once all on you. otherwise ignore them and kill the squishy stuff and deal with them more safely if your team hasn't got em yet.

disclaimer im not a pro xD so someone will likely hate on my advice and it may not be *meta*
oh and some of the talents just dont work at all or are completely useless mainly burn on push and burning stuff might explode. never use them they do nothing

My main issue with bolt staff as Unchained is that it's hard to get good charged bolts when you play so closely to enemies in melee. It's much better w/ BW since you can keep your distance and gain buffs for charging faster. Plus teammates are additional obstacles you have to avoid with bolts. I def see Dagger being favored a lot with her class. I just find it hard to really take out elites with the charged strikes. Mace has been working for me as of now - You mostly just need to make sure you sweep against stragglers first that try to sidestep you before plowing into the masses (Beam accompanied).

[Lu2]

unchained is tank mainly. now almost on par with iron breaker with abbadon talent

[Neptune Towers]

Originally posted by Eranthis:

So I'm trying to break away from playing BW and Pyro and went back to the Unchained again to see how she plays with the following changes in talents. I've been playing around with weapon combos to see what feels right for her build but nothing seems to compliment her way of playing. She lacks a certain reach the other classes have - BW has great knock back potential and Pyro has good buffs for melee speed and crits that can make her untouchable, but it seems like Unchained's benefit is just the higher health pool and I find myself getting hit more often because it's a slog to attack as her. Wanted to ask if anyone had some choice talents and weapons they use that help make her more efficient.

I just roll a flame sword + conflagration staff and smash/burn everything.

[Lain]

i just roll unchained with sword mainly but flail/mace are fun and either beam/fireball staff
sword i use stamina & block reduction + swift slaying
staffs power vs infantry & chaos + usually barrage
necklace w/ health block reduction + barkskin
charm w/ power vs inf & skaven + proxy
trinket: depends but doesnt really matter what the props are there

i like sword cause its a flexible weapon, it has decently good horde clear ability that is much easier in all situations than what most of her other weapons do
its ap and elite damge is averag-ish. it still does great headshot damage. not crowbill though. but unchained gets extra power from heat and that, so it makes up for it

remain at high heat to have the talent to increase attack speed
use the talent that makes venting deal almost zero damage
manage-watch your heat. careful of getting triple+ tapped by enemies so you dont blow up. thats her risk really.
if you struggle generating temp health use boon of Shalya whatever its called on necklace
more heat more power

[Deja Vu]

UC is a role changer, moving up and down the scale between Mad DPS and Mad Tank, depending on where you manage your heat level at. Got some trash to cut through? Heat up and mow them down. Got something hammering you? Cool down and don't sweat the big hits anymore. The key to playing her is basically to know when to swap to staff and heat up or vent. Don't forget you can dodge with a staff in your hands.

I run Dagger+Bolt because dagger scales really well with the melee bonus (the extra cleave makes it murder hordes) and I love the dodge. Sword or Flail are also excellent choices. A popular build but one I don't personally like is Fireball+Crowbill, staff for AOE crowbill for serious single target dps. It works great, I just find Crowbill too limiting.

UC is very versatile and works with almost any build. If you master the overheat dance you'll be able to run any weapon combo you want.

[miscellaneous unc]

Longsword (Attack speed on crit) Attack speed, crit/block cost reduction
Bolt staff
Barkskin amulet

[DotNL]

Flail with fireball or beam staff really rocks on her. One of the most versatile careers and maybe the best carry for legend games imo.

[Eranthis]

Managed to find a build I genuinely like so far.
Crowbill and Beamstaff have been a great combo. The speed buff per overcharge always enhances melee but the added shotgun blasts allows enough stagger among crowds to avoid being hit. Interchange between light attacks, a push attack and shotgun to clear hordes. It's not ideal with gaining temp health but that's why I usually roll with Bomb Balm. Conduit has helped in tight situations by allowing easier venting and spamming shotgun blasts when hordes had me backed into corners. I also use enfeebling flames to reduce the damage taken by the occasional mob hits which activates with every other beam staff blast.

[No emaN]

Unchained requires mastery over the Overcharge mechanic. You will always be taking 50% of the damage to your overcharge which is more powerful than you think. Two consecutive hits does a high overcharged Sienna in. To even start Unchained out you have to use her staff to get her melee damage bonus going people who say she's a melee focused career are just wrong. Focusing on just her melee gimps her of her other solid strength yet I've seen some players do just that. Unchained has the best of both worlds with an infinite ammo ranged staff, and much more viable melee weapons. Sure she isn't going to be having the highest DPS with her staff but the DPS on them are still notably worth utilizing.

Once you get to full charge wait a little bit and cast a spell that doesn't charge up overheat while casting, like the bolt staff. Pull out your melee, block/attack do your thing until the bar ticks down a bit cast you can get pretty solid damage with suddenly casting. Risky maneuver but more damage. Though knowing that as long as you have waited for the bar to go a bit down you know that you can take just tank a large hit for 50% to the health bar is pretty amazing. It could possibly save your life from one shots but as I said consecutive hits will do you in.

For Sienna's melee I'd suggest the Mace, even more since it has been buffed. The Mace just has single target, horde control, and just a decent stagger/cleave ratio. The only thing that deters players are just the starts of her combos. It's not like Kruber's 1H Mace, since it's practically backwards. Focusing on the single target armor penetration at the start then the CC attacks. The mace is a hard choice to turn away from once you learn to use it proper, even before the buffs to it. The Crowbill does have more armor damage, but Mace has similar damage with cleave & stagger in which her temp hp talents do benefit more from. The Mace at first wasn't deemed usable because it had a learning curve that was overshadowed by easier to use weapons that can be spammed for more effortlessly. Now is the time to give this weapon a fair chance.

For Talents to keep it brief, Frenzied Flame since attack speed is so meta in this game,

Enhanced Power if you fully utilize both melee & ranged, or Mainstay if you're just focusing melee most of the time.

Defensively, Conduit is the safest bet in this picture. You are able to vent very quickly and you take half damage on that. Offensively this lets you use your ranged a lot more often with much less punishment. Flexible talent that lets you easily control your overheat. Quickly being able to shrug off the hit that almost put you into overcharging.The idea to stay alive is to quickly vent off the hit you just took before you reengage.

If you're not much of a caster then use Dissipate if you don't feel confident in being able to pull out your staff quickly and vent. Safest venting option. Though you have to wait for someone to hit you to remove the overcharge peak during the block.

Numb to Pain I am neither for or against it's decent further dmg mitigation can help you stay alive.

Abandon is the safest bet for yourself, but if you feel confident in your ability of not getting overcharged. Enfeebling Flames to help out with further dmg reduction for just igniting foes.

Bomb Balm always is the safest bet since you are giving everyone temp hp and the more temp hp the more you can cast and vent with if you need to quickly shrug off a near overcharged hit.

Wildfire is fun to take but it's great to take on a low control weapon like Crowbill moderate damage.

Fuel for the Fire if you're one of those min/maxing players for damage.

Remember the greatest weakness of an Unchained is consecutive hits. Conduit allows for us to very quickly toss away the overcharge peak with minimal punishment.

[NoSavy¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Originally posted by Eranthis:

Originally posted by Haplo 20th.PzG:

flame thrower staff + flail + quick vent + natural bound ( so u regen that hp lost when u vent on over-charge)

Natural bond is something I should consider. I can avoid damage enough to warrant its use but the damage stacks and usually I'm with teammates who need the health more than me. Flamestorm's a gamble. I'd like to use it more but it isn't ideal for dealing with specials.

Meh I would get a good THP generator. Reckless not the stagger talent with the exception of the 2H mace. Use boon of shalya. You lose some health with vent and gain plenty of white health for future venting.

For me, Dissipate is the only pick since it is another quick way to vent instantly and block cost reduction to boot. Unchained is melee class + front line. Not casting primarily. You can clear horde waves and trash easy with staff but you want high overcharge for melee buff. Managing OC is important. Abandon again is really the only pick atm. Bomb balm is best bet. THP + good THP generator means venting for days. WIldfire is nice as it adds stagger to your ult. Can now ult monsters off ledges. STill a bit underwhelming imo. But now abandon lets you get your ult up faster and with THP you can have it up fairly often. Fuel is just not a good trade off for melee stacks. IDK THP is always useful and just a better bet. More utility which is good in this game. I would stick with Mainstay for extra melee since UC is melee class. USe barrage for extra dmg.