Some short noob questions

[Embryoyo®]

So i'm currently on 2BC and i don't really get a lot of concepts in this game. Was completing 0BC on my first run with brutality after not playing the game for 2 years or something like that, then after some time more or less being lucky i completed 1BC with the heavy crossbow which i absolutely hate and now i'm stuck at 2BC and don't seem to progress even a little bit. Started to use shields on my 2BC runs being quite happy with them. So now:

Do Brutality builds with shields make sense?

What's generally the best build for noobs like me?

What are good survival weapons? The only one i really liked so far is the giant killer, absolutely hate the heavy crossbow.

It seems random to me whether or not enemies stagger when i hit them, why?

I'm going for the giant killer, a shield, the powerfull grenade and either the ice armor or wave of denial. For mutations the Ygdar Orus (the freaking heart), Necromancy and dead inside. Anything wrong with this build?

Thanks a lot. I appreciate any tips you can give me.

[Tzuede]

Honestly those are actually intermediate questions.

I'm still trying to do runs on 0BC to get enough cells to unlock items and upgrades.

Honestly, It feels like I have the most fun with the Quick Bow, Heavy Artillery Bow and the Throwing Knives.

Then again the most costly thing is upgrading the (Dad?) of the little smith dude. For percentages on finding better ++ and leveled items.

It seems like there are some combos that never spawn right no matter how many times you re-roll modifiers.. aka you go through a run only to find that everything has an oil spread and you don't have or can find a single gadget, trap, skill or weapon that can do fire/ignite damage.

I can say that the "Stagger" you mention is really specific electric whip / force lighting in water always gives a nice stagger.. but mostly that chance on Stun from doing a ground pound or finding an item with the right stat or situation is the issue. aka Spartan Boots are only useful if you get them next to a wall.

I don't like shields but I understand shields are needed if you want to clear a boss with zero damage. The shield does the stagger only if you counter at the perfect moment. (Personally I would gladly trade losing Ice shot for an Ice Wall that either throws them upward or they run into for a stagger.)

Why the infantry grenade or powerful grenade doesn't light enemies on fire if coated in oil is beyond me.

[Fel]

Even when you don't use it to block or parry at all a shield can be very helpful since it prevents hits for a short duration after you took a hit.
For brutality builds that are generally about jumping right in melee, sometimes against multiple enemies it means that you can't be suddenly burst down by 2-3 enemies that attack at the same time.

For new players ranged and traps tends to work fairly well because you can avoid being under attack for the majority of the run, turret-type traps can also act as decoys that get attacked instead of you.
This is a slow and methodical approach so it tends to make the runs tak quite a bit longer than for example a brutality build focused on pure damage so it isn't necessarily for everyone, and you still need to know how to avoid damage with bosses, especially the hand of the king since the arena is very small.

Survival weapons tend to be weird but my favourite is the nerves of steel because once you understand the timing for that bow it deals an insane amount of crit damage, plus it is very easy to get the blueprint when you know where it is.
Other than that, ice bow and frost blast are ice weapons which is great for crowd control, shovel has a strong knockback and it can "parry" bombs

The stagger is not random, it is based on the damage inflicted (by direct hits, not damage over time) but it is a bit complex so I'll direct you to the wiki that has an indepth explanation on how it works:
https://deadcells.gamepedia.com/Mechanics#Breach



For mutations it really depends on your priorities and play style, usually you want to get rid of the revive heart once you get a bit better at the game because it opens up more possibilities.
If you use the powers frequently, getting a mutation that reduces the cooldown is usually a good idea (killer instinct from brutality mutations in your case probably).

Dead inside is also more of a mutation intended for 4BC where infection starts to kick in.
Instead it is usually a good thing to take a mutation that increases your damage or helps you control enemies.
Combo, melee or open wounds from the brutality mutations tend to help quite a bit (melee doesn't add to your damage but slowing down enemies with your melee attack helps your survival quite a bit in most cases).

Necromancy can be quite strong with a survival build but it is highly dependent on your survival stat so with a brutality build it tends to not be all that helpful.

Similarly for your gear, you tend to want to focus mainly on one stat.
It's not that wave of denial is a bad power but without the right stat it is only a crowd control power, and without mutations to reduce cooldown it's not even all that great at crowd control.

In general even if you pick a shield you want the rest of the gear to be focusing on one stat and most of your stat scrolls to go towards that stat.
This greatly increases your damage output and in the majority of cases offense is the best defense in this game.
Of course you still want to learn how to dodge, parry and use the terrain to avoid damage as much as possible but is you can defeat enemies before they can attack you tend to survive longer than with a build made around the idea of face-tanking hits.

[Embryoyo®]

@Tzuede I like the quickbow and throwing knives a lot aswell, although in situations where enemies are crowded they're kinda useless. Loved to have the throwing knives as a second weapon though.

I made a few runs on 0BC where i would keep all cells and spend them on the forge upgrade after the back bridge boss and then restart, but those upgrades are expensive lol. Also on 0BC the upgrade is capped at like 500 or so i think which is 10% i believe.

With the stagger i meant that sometimes enemies stop their attacks when being hit and sometimes they don't which really ♥♥♥♥♥ up my parry timing.

'Why the infantry grenade or powerful grenade doesn't light enemies on fire if coated in oil is beyond me.' both explode but they don't deal fire dmg, there purpose is to deal quick heavy dmg or rather small but frequent dmg with the infantry grenade.



@Fel didn't knew shields prevent hits after being hit thanks.

Going for range weapons and traps didn't work out very well for me. I noticed heading in straight away and trying to burst down the enemies as fast as possible worked out way better for me than planning and slowly approaching. Also it's way more fun that way.

I will try out the nerves of steel thanks, sounded interesting but i have not unlocked it yet although i got the blueprint. I guess you don't use shields when doing ranged weapon runs though, right?

Thanks for the link!

I'll will try out the mutations you recommended thanks! Was trying to do a survival build for all my runs in 2BC, maybe i'll rather swap back to brutality again. Really liked the melee and killer instinct mutations when i did brutality runs.

'In general even if you pick a shield you want the rest of the gear to be focusing on one stat and most of your stat scrolls to go towards that stat.
This greatly increases your damage output and in the majority of cases offense is the best defense in this game.
Of course you still want to learn how to dodge, parry and use the terrain to avoid damage as much as possible but is you can defeat enemies before they can attack you tend to survive longer than with a build made around the idea of face-tanking hits.'
that's kinda what i tried but i guess going for that exact survival build was the wrong way..

Thanks a lot that was really helpfull!

[Fel]

Survival builds (not face-tanking hits buit building around the survival stat as the main stat) can be incredibly strong but they tend to be very reliant on parries (there is a reason why there are 4 mutations based on parries in the survival ones).

Usually you try to go for strong powers and blind faith, the powers become your main source of damage and you parry attacks to refresh the cooldowns.
A weapon to either crowd control or add more damage on top of all that isn't a bad idea.
Counter attack gives enough bonus damage right after a parry that any weapons works well with it, even if you don't have the stats to boost that weapon itself but if you use it with a survival weapon that next attack becomes a ridiculously strong one.
If you are good at parries, "what doesn't kill me" heals you a lot more than necromancy and it is usable against bosses as well, spite also transform parries into a potent attacking option.


Another fun way to play with survival builds is with crowd control options.
Heart of ice + frostbite + melee for mutations, makes a very potent combo that adds damage to your melee weapon and quickly cuts down the cooldowns of your powers.
Crusher works very well for raw damage when enemies are slowed, frozen or immobilized, ice bomb or root grenades are able to apply the frozen or immobilized effect on enemies, allowing you to potentially swap out the "melee" mutation for something else like necromancy for the healing.


This game has a whole lot of viable builds, even more so with legendary weapons that allow you to have any random weapon scale to your highest stat to mix things that you would usually not be able to mix properly.
The random effects on weapons and powers can also make synergies that go way beyond the basic compatibility.
It ranges from "pierce" on ranged weapons that allow them to hit multiple enemies to inflicting status effects or getting a big boost in damage against enemies with a specific status effect and sometimes you get combos so potent through those that the level of the weapon or the stats it uses become secondary.

And fun is at least as important as efficiency, even if a specific build is extremely strong, if you are not having fun with it it won't be a good one for you, so continue to try things out, figure out what you prefer and build around that, there are enough valid options to do that.

[Embryoyo®]

The build with Heart of ice + frostbite + melee sounds like a lot of fun, but how effective is it against bosses? They become immune to freeze and slow quite fast don't they?

Just did a brutality run with the Impaler and it went waaaay better than it did with my old build. Can't wait to try out the Flawless once i get it. Although i can't really decide on what skills or grenades i want to pick with brutality. Thank you very much for all your help!

[Fel]

I am personally a fan of the magnetic grenade, it is not as strong as other options but it ignores walls.

Knife dance or lacerating aura are great when you jump into enemies directly, fire grenade, cleaver, flamethrower or corrosive cloud are good at inflicting damage over time, oil grenade can greatly improve the potency of fire damage.
Infantry grenade can be used very frequently, cluster grenade inflicts quite a lot of damage over a somewhat large area of flat ground, powerful grenade can be used to push enemies around (if you push a normal enemy off a platform it dies so in the right circumstances it is very strong).
Corrupted power is double-edged but it can allow you to dish a significant amount of damage.
Grappling hook and phaser are not direct damage but they can increase your next attack, phaser coupled with an assassin's dagger is an incredible combo that tends to kill enemies very quickly on top of being something that can be used to avoid getting hit.

Nearly everything brutality-based can be powerful if used properly, the main drawback is that killer instinct only works from kills with melee weapons so you tend to not get as much cooldown reduction if you use powers as your main source of damage.

[Embryoyo®]

thanks a lot again!