which Champions

[Nastytang]

So Briv and Miria I`ve picked. for better or for worst.

I need two more Catty,Dark Urge,Tatyana and Spurt?? which ones?

[Jack]

Dark Urge and Rosie

[kab_reg]

Or DU and Tatyana. However, Rosie is also a good choice.

[Hecate]

Rosie is a good DPS, quite powerful since her rework, but she's not in the four OP asked about.

Catti-Brie is less and less a good option. Previously she can be a good always-present support in IWD campaign (through Wulfgar), but Xerophon can take that role too now (with greater potential if you know how to use him).

Dark Urge is a Jack of all trade DPS available everywhere, great to bypass some horrible restrictions.

Tatyana is an average tank but she has a quite useful ability to make spawn extra mobs that can really speed up some stacking abilities or some patrons challenge.

Spurt, I don't really have an opinion about him, he sounds meh (but mine is quite unstuffed).

My personnal order of choice will be:
1. Dark Urge
2. Tatyana
3. Catty-Brie
4. Spurt

[kab_reg]

Originally posted by Hecate:

Spurt, I don't really have an opinion about him, he sounds meh (but mine is quite unstuffed).

HEAVILY overleveled Spurt can buff the party by e1000 (and that's not a typo). For this reason, there are talks that CNE is going to nerf him.

[Hecate]

Okay, quite interresting to read, I'll check him again.

[nth_henchman]

Originally posted by kab_reg:

Originally posted by Hecate:

Spurt, I don't really have an opinion about him, he sounds meh (but mine is quite unstuffed).

HEAVILY overleveled Spurt can buff the party by e1000 (and that's not a typo). For this reason, there are talks that CNE is going to nerf him.

Spurt got a sort of minor nerf a few months ago, level cap on his slot 6 item. Does this still work after that change?

[JC]

Out of those, I use Catti and Tatyana a lot, and i mean a lot. While there are more powerful champions around, They seam to find their way into so many variants, They are both in the highly used category for me.

Catti is very useful for icewind dale because wolfgar has a skill that unlocks her in many variants. Tatyana is the same if you have Naraha, she has a power that lets her and Valentine which is another highly useful hero. Nahara is a very useful speed hero too which i use a ton so she pairs great with Tatyana.

[Hecate]

Yup, I'm checking the item 6 for Spurt is now capped. It can be a nice 1.5e46 boost to his Centipede Net ability, but it's still far from e1000 in total even including all other damage sources.
60 s [base CD] × (1+0.004×(21751−1) [gear]) + (90+30 [feats]) = 5370 s
1.02^5370 = 1.52e46

Is there something else shadowed that can be an abyssal damage boost for him?

PS: It's nonetheless a decent support if you can push him at that level of gear... But before that, the "meh" is really justified, I just pushed him at 1365 ilvl (from close to scratch), he's still very far from impressive at that range: Centipede Net at 7e14% boost, Stunky & Stingy at 3e5% conditionnal boosts, Pack Tactics (10 stacks) 5e9%, that's not really impressive.

[rdkehoe]

Catti is good for Artemis formations where Jim is blocked for whatever reasons. Dark Urge is my #2 DPS, Taty I use rarely, Spurt even more rarely, although I stick him in Kas formations to up the # of evils.

[kab_reg]

Originally posted by nth_henchman:

Spurt got a sort of minor nerf a few months ago, level cap on his slot 6 item. Does this still work after that change?

In this case, probably no. Screenshots with him providing e800+ buffing were from the last year.

[Recondite]

Yeah, Spurt got nerfed hard awhile ago. His scaling is still a bit broken, but unless you're at a point where you're routinely dumping 50k item levels into champs for kicks/testing purposes, that road isn't worth going down - and by that point you don't need him anymore, anyway.

Even at a ratio of 1:1000 item levels, Catti-brie is better than Xerophon (by a large margin) whenever you don't have the time to farm up max stacks in a foreground party, or whenever any of the other CotH are also in the party.

She is also a sticky CDB swap, so unless you're a whale or have an extremely established account, you'll need her for certain tedious variants. Being able to bring her in via Wulfgar in IWD can be very useful if you haven't completed it with all patrons.

Dark Urge doesn't really become effective as a DPS until you've got a wide range of synergistic champs with 6x lvl 3+ legendaries that can be fielded in the most restrictive variants, or unless you can field all or most of the other AA champs alongside him. On my account, he's sitting at 9k ilvls and 6x lvl 10 legendaries, with plenty of good support, and I still only use him when Karlach, Kas, Krux or Wren aren't available - because they're all better DPS apples:apples.

Tatyana is useful for quickly prepping Voronika to maximize the return on Speed Run (especially in variants when you can't field any good Hunters to rapidly spawn favored foes), and Voronika still hasn't been nerfed, so that's something to consider. (Voronika is worth ~e50+ buff even with no ilvls just from maxing her Ultimate Power, great for blowing through certain variants even though it requires hours of foreground ult farming). Tatyana is also a very usable trash-variant tank, and can be a mid-tier buffer IF her buff lands on a usable spot AND you can have her out front taking hits to max Fury/Rage. More value if you have any Strahd variants to push, too.

[JC]

You can always just restart the adventure a few times to get her buff on the spot you want it. I do that quite often. It only takes a min now with the Restart button. It works for DM as well. I used the restart DM to get volo to finish the variant that has DPS restriction. That button made it so much less tedious.

[taniwhat]

Depends on you. DU I'd suggest you do anyway because ...

I usually go for the champions with the least epic slots because it's possible for me to fully fit them out with events now. I've done all the base adventures now so my main team isn't always effective and those off the wall champions that I have fully equipped are becoming useful.

Made an exception for DU this time as I didn't get that feat last time and could this time. And it seems to be quite useful given he's always available. The extra ilvls from the extra chests probably don't help much but I went for that option anyway.

[Nastytang]

thanks everyone

[Hecate]

@Nastygang: You're welcome!

Originally posted by Recondite:

Even at a ratio of 1:1000 item levels, Catti-brie is better than Xerophon (by a large margin) whenever you don't have the time to farm up max stacks in a foreground party, or whenever any of the other CotH are also in the party.

I must admit I hardly see how, out of a well end gear Artemis formation.

A quick test at static area in my Tiamat run:
Xerophon is around ~40 Repeated Imitations stacks (set during course to 1050),
Catti-Brie is at 19 CotH stacks (Regis wasn’t eligible),
Gear ratio is close to 1:125, Xerophon’s average legendary level is 1 ; CB’s is 2.67.

On a static boss, I get that:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3461867433
vs.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3461867455

I get an higher spike for C-B on a static non-boss area (e428), issue is I get a way way higher spike with Xerophon (e458 – with a litlle help from Melf friend (and his weekly buff))), I then swapped Sentry to Taty and I get e477 on next imitation use with Xero.

I don’t know why people focus on Xerophon’s Repeated Imitiations, while his real power creep is into Weak Spot, especially if you can use well geared Melf/Taty (and mine are yet to be capped). Yeah, it can be tedious to find the good area effect for Melf, but the potential is definitely here.

Just as a second test I decided to check how I can get at first area on first Perfect Imitation use. Answer is:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3461867384
With 500 Repeated Imitation stacks, you can get an e170 buff, even more with capped Melf/Taty (but of course all adventures don’t allow to get 1200+ Weak Spot stacks), not a lot of champions can produce an e150+ BUD spike, and then you’ve gear, level upgrades & adaptable buff on top of that as constant buffs.

In fact after that test, I’m starting to think to get back Xerophon on my main team… Poor me.