Is Erik the strongest character?

[MTV]

I'm new to the game and it seems like Erik is insanely powerful with his damage. I just got the 6x times damage on sleeping enemies and he was hitting pretty high numbers, With dual wield and wild side I'm guessing he becomes a demigod that can wreck anything in the game even with buffed enemies?

[Debrel]

Pretty much, yeah

[MTV]

Originally posted by Debrel:

Pretty much, yeah

I might end up removing him from the party if he makes the game too easy. I just beat the Slayer of Sands, It took me several tries to beat him but I didn't have Erics 6x times damage move yet.

[MTV]

Originally posted by Coffee is life:

Ah what? How come he's the strongest? He was freaking useless. I think the hero is the strongest in the sense that his build can do everything.

You must have built him wrong, I used his sleep attack and then I used the move that does 6x times damage to sleeping enemies. He hit for 156 damage. For where I'm at in the game that is a lot of damage for one attack. I don't even have dual wield unlocked yet.

[RADKILLA[420]]

Strange i don't care for ERIC maybe i'll try him another way later on.

[MTV]

Originally posted by Coffee is life:

Originally posted by MTV:

You must have built him wrong, I used his sleep attack and then I used the move that does 6x times damage to sleeping enemies. He hit for 156 damage. For where I'm at in the game that is a lot of damage for one attack. I don't even have dual wield unlocked yet.

Oh I see using cc. I just didn't use those since they rarely work on bosses and you need luck. I didn't want to build him that way.

His sleep and poison move have helped me a lot with bosses. That's how I beat Jarvis and the Slayer of Sands. I did want to try Boomerangs with Erik but they seemed extremely bad in the early game.

[MTV]

I actually don't like Erik as much now. He needs a lot of setup and is kinda fragile. I might like him again when I reach the endgame and can use Duel wield+Duel Wield perk and divide. I'm not high enough level for him to have all 3 skills.

[Koby]

I'm still in Act 1 currently. I'm at the point where Jade and Rab officially joined the party and well Erick & Hero are both level 32.

Erik doing "6x" damage still does less damage than Hero with Cutting Edge, much less Unbridled Blade.

I don't think the 6x is even accurate tbh. because if I do around 80 damage with a normal hit, but then a hit that is suppose to be "6x" as strong only does around 180 damage.

Meanwhile Hero with Cutting Edge is doing around 200 damage and Unbridled Blade hit for around 320 damage.

Though a lot of this is because I actually got the greatsword that was 100k coins at the casino, which gave Hero a massive jump in attack power. However even before that Sword, Hero was still doing around 200 with Unbridled Blade which is still more damage that Erik can do with his 6x. Not to mention Hero doesn't require a previous turn spent giving a status ailment that usually fails more often than it succeeds.

[MTV]

Originally posted by Koby:

I'm still in Act 1 currently. I'm at the point where Jade and Rab officially joined the party and well Erick & Hero are both level 32.

Erik doing "6x" damage still does less damage than Hero with Cutting Edge, much less Unbridled Blade.

I don't think the 6x is even accurate tbh. because if I do around 80 damage with a normal hit, but then a hit that is suppose to be "6x" as strong only does around 180 damage.

Meanwhile Hero with Cutting Edge is doing around 200 damage and Unbridled Blade hit for around 320 damage.

Though a lot of this is because I actually got the greatsword that was 100k coins at the casino, which gave Hero a massive jump in attack power. However even before that Sword, Hero was still doing around 200 with Unbridled Blade which is still more damage that Erik can do with his 6x. Not to mention Hero doesn't require a previous turn spent giving a status ailment that usually fails more often than it succeeds.

Get Divide and he will hit harder. Erik can make 2 clones tripling his attack power but I still feel he needs the duel wield + buffed duel wield perk on top of that. I can see Erik hitting some really high numbers late game. I'm only in the midgame so he feels kinda weak right now but I can see him being a beast once his trees are filled. I'm curious to see what Erik can do with 2 Falcon blades and Divide. He should be able to get 12 attacks in one turn with that setup.

[DaBa]

Yes, Erik has the most single target damage potential, however it can be unreliable. You aren't guaranteed to poison the enemy, so sometimes you require additional turns to get your combo going. Also, if you happen to get CCd when you have divide, you'll lose an additional turn. If a boss clears your buffs, you lose even more time. If you want to make his combo reliable, you need to make him immune to status effects, and then pray you poison the enemy on the first turn.

Is he the strongest? I don't think so. It's mainly due to how much setup his combo requires and that a lot of things can go wrong, some of them you have no influence over. But apart from that, that's really all he has. Single target damage. And if he doesn't pull it off in 3 turns, then all other characters suddenly catch up. I can get similar total damage by spamming sword dance for 4 turns with hero, or using unbridled blade with hendrik, and both of those characters have other useful tools like heals and buffs. Erik has nothing else. His AoE is also terrible, boomerangs are nice early on because they don't require mana, but once you unlock things like gigaslash with hero, or higher tier Boom spells with Veronica, they suddenly become underwhelming.

So, overal, I don't see how Erik is the strongest character. He does the most damage out of all characters ONLY if you can pull off the whole combo without getting stopped. That often requires setup from other party members, so by himself he'll often be stopped by bad poison rng, CC, or something else. If he can't pull off his combo in time, then his damage stops being impressive, and at that point he's straight up worse than almost everybody else due to having zero utility. The strongest character in the game is obviously Hero, due to having every tool in the box there is, and being really good at all of them. Even if we're talking pure damage, I'd rather use Hendrik or Jade. Hendrik can still dish out stupidly big hits with a two handed weapon, and also has some very useful buffs and healing. Jade simply does ridiculous damage, and also has really good AOE abilities and some CC, unlike Erik.

[Koby]

Originally posted by DaBa:

Also, if you happen to get CCd when you have divide, you'll lose an additional turn.

That often requires setup from other party members, so by himself he'll often be stopped by bad poison rng, CC, or something else.

Jade simply does ridiculous damage, and also has really good AOE abilities and some CC, unlike Erik.

What do you mean by "CC"?

[DaBa]

CC is short for crowd control. In video games this roughly means effects that mess with your character. In this context, I meant statuses like confusion, sleep, paralysis, the ones that would break your combo, or mess with the enemies.

[Aiharne]

Dunno what you mean by implying that Eric is only good with single target or that he HAS to use status effects to be effective, but you're wrong - Dual wielding boomerangs for AoE or swords [falcon sword and it's higher variant in particular] with Divide is excellent in the latter half of the game.

[Koby]

Reading the effect of Divide:
Creates three doppelgangers which will effectively triple the output of any action on the next turn. Only lasts one turn.

Doesn't sound like it would be that impressive on it's own. It's taking 2 turns in order to do the damage of 3 turns.

So better than without of course, but if I were to calculate it, say Erik does 80 dmg with a normal attack dual-wielding knives. 3x that is just 240 damage and it took two turns. Meanwhile Hero is doing 320 damage with Unbridled Blade in one turn.

Now if perhaps Erik's boosts stack, you could poison the enemy on one turn, use Divide on the next turn, and then on your third turn use Victimiser for some extreme damage; but I have no clue if the boosts both stack or what as I haven't gotten Divide yet as I took Erik down the path of Knives and have started on Boomerang stuff now, but I suppose I should swap to Guile and head towards Divide.

Though Dually Deadly sounds like it would be a great boost and put Erik back on the playing field for high DPS later in the game comboing it with all of the other boosts.

If every boost stacked, Dually Deadly with the target poisoned and Divide activated would do a massive wave of damage when using Victimiser.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Aiharne:

Dunno what you mean by implying that Eric is only good with single target or that he HAS to use status effects to be effective, but you're wrong - Dual wielding boomerangs for AoE or swords [falcon sword and it's higher variant in particular] with Divide is excellent in the latter half of the game.

I never said he needs to use statuses to be effective, so don't put words in my mouth. Erik with swords is objectively worse than Hero or Hendrik with swords. Boomerang AoE falls off really hard later in the game when you get access to more powerful AoE on other characters, as I have written in my comment already. So yes, he is only effective when dealing with single targets. And yes, because he can't do anything else useful besides that (heals, buffs, status effects), he is inherently worse and less useful than other characters. Overal, his niche is very specific, he becomes useful in boss fights if you can build your party around keeping Eric alive and maximizing his combo effectiveness. And even if you do that, you're still on mercy of some RNG in order to pull it off.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Koby:

Reading the effect of Divide:
Creates three doppelgangers which will effectively triple the output of any action on the next turn. Only lasts one turn.

Doesn't sound like it would be that impressive on it's own. It's taking 2 turns in order to do the damage of 3 turns.

So better than without of course, but if I were to calculate it, say Erik does 80 dmg with a normal attack dual-wielding knives. 3x that is just 240 damage and it took two turns. Meanwhile Hero is doing 320 damage with Unbridled Blade in one turn.

Now if perhaps Erik's boosts stack, you could poison the enemy on one turn, use Divide on the next turn, and then on your third turn use Victimiser for some extreme damage; but I have no clue if the boosts both stack or what as I haven't gotten Divide yet as I took Erik down the path of Knives and have started on Boomerang stuff now, but I suppose I should swap to Guile and head towards Divide.

Though Dually Deadly sounds like it would be a great boost and put Erik back on the playing field for high DPS later in the game comboing it with all of the other boosts.

If every boost stacked, Dually Deadly with the target poisoned and Divide activated would do a massive wave of damage when using Victimiser.

Late game math works a bit differently. Let's talk max level and best gear. It depends on the enemy, but if you poison the enemy, divide, and use victimiser, you can easily expect to deal 3k-4k damage total with the triple victimiser, and that's without any buffs. Sounds very strong, and it is. However, Hero can deal around 1k damage when using sword dance. So, if you attack for 3 turns, that's also 3k damage, very close to Erik's damage output. If Erik misses his poison on the first turn, then Hero will catch up. Other characters like Jade or Hendrik can also dish out almost as much damage as hero, so after 4 turns they also pretty much catch up to Erik's damage output. And all of those characters have other tools like very good AoE, buggs, heals, status effects. Meanwhile, Erik has none of those. Lategame, Erik is useful for one purpose only, killing bosses fast. If you don't get dumped on by RNG that is.