Help for new player with techpriest builds/strats

[FleshWound]

I keep getting stuck with indecisiveness on choosing what missions, what builds and what items to use before missions because some missions are like 50/50 could go either way.

Once of the first tips I read was making an explorator tank and dominus ranged priest so that’s what my builds are so far. I’ve picked up a few other abilities like reduce 2 CP cost, 1 CP per round and 1HP per round. I’ve also got the crit gear for my ranged guy. (And that alone has saved me multiple times) I have a third with not many upgrades. I’ve heard the 1 CP on kill is great but I almost don’t want to spend so much for a tree I won’t go all the way down.

I’m afraid to use any weapons that cost too many CP. Sometimes I’m really struggling for those points, but scanners and mechadendrite are making it a little easier. My most powerful weapons are the volkite blaster and arc scourge but I don’t use the latter.

What are some of the weapons I should be looking out for with my ranged guy and what are some of the best augments to use? My next mission has the Arc Rifle which seems pretty awesome.

[WestRider]

Beyond whichever discipline you decide to go all in on for a given Tech Priest, I like something along the lines of:
Explorator: 3 ranks, arms
Secutor: nothing
Tech-Auxilium: 2 ranks, torso
Lexmechanic: 2-3 ranks, head
Engineseer: 0-3 ranks, maybe legs (but you’re mostly going to use the Dominus ones)
Dominus: 3 ranks, legs
Xenarite: 1 rank, no augments

Everyone should have at least the first rank in Tech-Auxilium, and probably 3 ranks in Explorator, too. Dropping 2 CP from your weapon cost every first turn is a really big deal, and being able to run away without triggering Opportunity Attacks can be a literal lifesaver.

For CP generation, I generally rely on Cognition Mechadendrites pretty heavily, along with the level 3 Lexmechanic Servo-Skull upgrade, to grab all the CP from a given source in one go. Also, the CP generation Canticles are the ones I use most often (along with the +movement ones). Having someone go all in on the Lexmechanic or Tech-Auxilium discipline will help immensely, since their final abilities either fill the Cognition Gauge or let you use a Canticle for free (which can do essentially the same thing), respectively.

It also helps to keep some of your weapons cheaper. I usually go with one cheap/free weapon (generally a Phosphor Blast or Gamma Pistol), and one more powerful one (Plasma Caliver or Incendine Combustor are my go-tos, but if you've got the Heretek gear, the Gauss-Gamma Pistol and Xenarite Pattern Volkite Blaster are also excellent) per Priest. If I'm planning on getting stuck into melee with a given Priest, they get a Power Axe, otherwise an Omnissian Axe.

The Arc Rifle is pretty cool, but it has a really wide potential damage range, and I find it tends to bottom out at the worst possible moments. It can sometimes also be hard to avoid hitting your own dudes with the spread, too. I find the Plasma Caliver to be a nice balance of hard hitting, not too expensive, and capable of hitting multiple targets with minimal collateral damage. The Incendine Combustor has the best ranged physical damage in the game, is surprisingly easy to use precisely, and the Burn damage ignores armour completely, which is really handy sometimes.

My usual third Priest is an all-rounder/Support who eventually goes down the Tech-Auxilium tree all the way. Healing, Shields, Cognition generation, all that sort of thing. That's also the one who usually ends up with the Incendine Combustor as well.

[FleshWound]

Thanks for the advice. The game definitely starts to get easier the further you go with upgrades and gear. I can understand both of the posts you see saying the game is too hard from some players early on and others saying the overall game is too easy. There’s a definitely decline in difficulty as you level and gear up.

I’ll try out a tech-auxilium build on my third or fourth tech priest. Though I don’t really have a serious AoE weapon yet. I’ll get an incendine combustor from Rho soon.

How far does everyone usually go into leveling a single tech priest? I’ve gotten to the point where it’s over 500 to upgrade an ability on my first two. Starting to think I should stop upgrading them and start working more on my third and fourth tech priest.

[FleshWound]

Well, at this point I’m just straight up wrecking everything in one or two rounds.

Great game. Hope they make a sequel with a more gradually difficult beginning and more challenging enemies/tactics for mid-late game. Maybe make it harder for one tech priest to mix and match all of the best abilities so quickly and encourage more specialization.

[Zeth]

Equip all your guys with Cog Ocularis. This makes them untargetable until they attack and is a huge game changer. Single most important equipment.

Tech-Aux is the best tree. Max it on all your remaining Tech-Priests and if possible try to get Bless on all your characters since it stacks. Also grab 1 point in Dominus on all characters, except your Explorer, for the range boost. You should equip your Explorer with two Arch Scourges as well, they count as melee weapons, otherwise he's pretty useless with only one attack.

Then it's up to you on how to build really. I like 3 points in Explorer to ignore Opportunity, 2 points in Xenarite for Heal and crit legs. Going down the entire tree of Lexmechanic is also very good since you get the fill CP bar ability, but that gets very expensive, especially combined with other pickups. Either 1 or 3 points are good cheaper alternatives.

The Lexmech CP on kill ability sounds great on paper, but you get the CP before weapon CP cost is deducted so it's a bit lackluster in practice. I typically start each priest with max CP and tend to finish it at or close to max CP as well, so it was pretty situational for me. Most of the time the CP was just wasted. It's nice to have if you go down the Lexmech tree for the final ability, but probably not something you try and get by itself.

Most rank ups don't really increase the power of a Tech-Priest very much or sometimes at all. So after the early game it's better, in general, to focus on ranking one priest to reach something that gives you a huge power boost and then move on to the next guy instead of trying to rank everyone evenly.

My favorite weapons are the "line" weapons. Eradication Ray in particular was go-to weapon. I had two of those along with an Omnisian Axe on almost all my guys. I also equip everyone with two mechadendrite. Prioritize getting two equipped and then on getting each of them to higher level instead of just getting one at the highest level possible. In the earlier game it was nice to have an Arc Pistol on some of my guys who had the +1 energy damage gloves for 0 CP AOE attacks. Pretty good against Flayed Ones. The 2 CP cost flamer is another nice cheap weapon.

Using Bless, energy damage canticle (use Tech-Aux ability), Tech-Aux CP reduction and then firing Eradication Ray you erase pretty much everything in one shot along that line.

With a setup like this you finish most missions that aren't gated somehow on the first turn. Just delay all your guys so the Enemy wastes their turn and then attack.

[WestRider]

Yeah, the game has a very strong negative difficulty curve. There is a significant sweet spot in the middle where it's nicely challenging, but it can be extremely rough early on, and almost trivial by the end.

I generally level most Tech Priests up to somewhere in the 19-22 ranks range. Other than gun slots, everything else is worth running maxed level equipment in, so I want those augment slots. For the guns, I personally find the improvements of the various options past the Plasma Caliver/Xenarite Volkite/Incendine Combustor to be marginal compared to the extra costs, so I rarely bother.

I find by the time I've unlocked the Cog Occultaris, I don't usually really need it. Even with all the difficulty settings maxed, I could take the hits and heal back up just fine and/or sacrifice Servitors to draw fire. Similarly, I've found the regular offensive potential just fine without the various crit boosts, so I go with the Dominus legs on everyone. I actually particularly like 3 ranks in Dominus on Explorators, because being able to do damage with the Servo Skull helps make up a little for not being able to take anything but Arc Scourges in the gun slots.