Best upgrades for Caelus?

[Agent Chieftain]

In what order should I be grabbing upgrades for him?

[Tamiore]

In practical terms, I'd say:
+20% movement speed
+40% attack damage (can one-shot executives now)
+0.2 attack AOE
+15% armor (the one on the way to +70% damage)
+70% attack damage

At this point you can one-shot harpies, so it's all good.

[Vambran]

Attack speed / Reload Speed / AOE. And grab one Damage upgrade. You can two shot harpies before they get close to you and everything else you just AOE mow down really fast. Any HP / MOVE / ARMOR is waste IMO.

[Evilsod]

I grabbed +20% speed, +25% loading speed, +25% loading speed, +0.2 effect radius and just picked up +40% attack damage.

I think you need 20% speed, without it his base speed is just too low. Chubbies and any sizeable horde will take you an eternity to kite out.
The 2 loading speeds... I'm torn. They are kinda nice but on Gamma I REALLY felt the lack of attack damage to not 1 shot Executives. Also it took me too long to hit an effect radius node.
That thing makes such a massive difference.

If I could re-do it I'd probably go with something like Tamiore said, then go for the 25/25/0.2.

[snuggleform]

I'd do

1) attack damage +40% (allows one shotting executives)

2) effect radius (very handy for clumps of mobs, and we're traveling towards +70% damage)

3) protection III (going for +70% damage)

4) +70% damage (one shot harpies now, if you took the northern route you will already be at the harpies hero mission)

5) dex 1

6) dex 2

7) reflexes 1

8 ) dex 2

9) up to you, he's essentially reached max dps potential at this point. You might take movement speed just to make him not quite as pokey as usual.

[SteveRaptor]

I went for:

40% Speed
50% Hp
0.4 Effect radius
1 Range+Vision
40% damage
40% Attack speed

Worked great for me.

[Quineloe]

Caelus base damage is 50, I don't see how adding 40% allows you to 1-shot an 80hp target.

[Crukih]

Because some of the damage comes from his aoe eve on single targets.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Quineloe:

Caelus base damage is 50, I don't see how adding 40% allows you to 1-shot an 80hp target.

There is a hidden bonus damage, a number of other posters and I have confirmed it. He does 20-30 more damage than is listed on his sheet to single targets.

[Quineloe]

I see. So not only do hero missions punish exploration, they also punish knowing basic math.

I only got the +70% skill and now I'm that super lovely situation that Caelus deals 75 damage on AOE on infected executives. Which basically means AOE clearing them isn't possible. Which causes physical pain in hero missions now.

[snuggleform]

The other odd thing we've noted is that the +attack speed has "increasing" or "multiplicative" returns, the more you get, the higher number of attacks that you get than the individual upgrades would suggest.

[SteveRaptor]

Also want to mention that on both my campaigns (Played with both heroes) Loading speed proved to be not worth investing in.
Even when maxed, animation cancelling is a lot faster.
Attack speed seems to be far more valuable and has visible results.

[Captain Australia]

Is there an undeniable benefit in choosing one hero over another in Apocalypse difficulty ?

I chose Calliope figuring that there's a sheer amount of kiting involved, and that the germanic looking S&M guy would get swamped even if he is tankier and does more damage.

Any arguments for one over t'other ?

[Evilsod]

I think it comes down to how much clicking you want to do honestly.

Caleus sucks ass without his effect radius upgrade as so many shots don't kill multiple but he can pick apart hordes reasonably well with well placed shots.

Calliope is trigger happy spam and isn't quite as effective versus grouped up hordes but is far better against multiple split infected.

[ZERO]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

In practical terms, I'd say:
+20% movement speed
+40% attack damage (can one-shot executives now)
+0.2 attack AOE
+15% armor (the one on the way to +70% damage)
+70% attack damage

At this point you can one-shot harpies, so it's all good.

i agree with this, i chose attack speed upgrades and regreted it. if i was to play again this would be the route i take.

Edit: but i did finish the campaign with said attack speed upgrades so not too bad.