best build for main character?

[𝒮𝓀𝓎𝑒]

hey guys i just want to start the campaign have no idea what to play :/
any good builds out there for main character?

[NeoX]

Just play around a little and have fun. If you want to can have lvl 50 lvl cap instad of vanilla lvl 20 cap. It gives you even more freedome to build out your chars.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/817540/discussions/0/1644290549112204061/

[Accidental Teamplay]

I prefer to think in terms of party composition rather than just Aerev's build. Anyway, what do you want to play? Expressed in terms of a concept, not necessarily as a combination of ability trees.

I'll give you pointers after you answer that. If you just want to be strong throughout the game, shapeshift. If you want to start off okay and be broken later, combat/light.

[𝒮𝓀𝓎𝑒]

Originally posted by Blockpicking is everyone's job:

I prefer to think in terms of party composition rather than just Aerev's build. Anyway, what do you want to play? Expressed in terms of a concept, not necessarily as a combination of ability trees.

I'll give you pointers after you answer that. If you just want to be strong throughout the game, shapeshift. If you want to start off okay and be broken later, combat/light.

i was thinking about something like..

1. Mercenary Demonology/Combat as melee dmg dealer
2. Mercenary Beguilement / Druid or Hunting as melee buffer and debuffer ( light)
3. one of the companions probably a healer
4. For Aerev something like Defense / Light or Necromancy or Druid ( not sure whats better)

[Accidental Teamplay]

Sure, that'll work well. I'd go with necromancy.

[Requiem for Enchantress]

A bit of a necro, but could be useful for other players:

All trees are available on companions, except elementalism - so I would definitely suggest going for it. (non-mercenary party members are hunting-light, druidism-light, warfare-defense, warfare-beguilement and necromancy-demonology). As you can see this roster has two tanks, two healers and a debuffer, but lacks a high-dps mage, so I would suggest going that route.

You will also be able to unlock a third tree (but only for synergies), so calculate with that too.

This game is chock full of interesting caster equipment unlike SF3, and most of it is available early, so dont worry. One thing to keep in mind though is, that there are a lot of very high hp opponents and you will spent most of the game killing elite "bosses" rather than slaughtering hordes of enemies (like in SF3). So bear in mind, that you need single target spells a lot more.

If I would have to single out one tree I would probably suggest Druidism, as it has everything - reasonably strong heal, resistance self-buff, huge AoE damaging spells and if all else fails the ability to turn into a bear and whack em all.

Combos aside, I would rate the trees in this order:

1) Druidism (as stated before)
2) Elementalism (strong aoe control spells, though not as versatile as druidism, if you do not take into account party composition w-o mercenaries, move this at least 1 down)
3) Warfare (very strong passives, especially haste, and the two ultimates are strong, restoring focus and resetting cooldowns works well even with mage characters, warfare however takes ages to actually unlock, so it works properly and is powerful)
4) Demonology (up here just because of the incredibly powerful resist reduction and one of the best passive effects, works well as warfare-demonology meelee combo, summoning a demon is very powerful - but again slow to come online, bear druid works from the start and scales just as well)
5) Defense (better defense than beguilement offers, similar perks to heal, some crowd control and tankiness - good choice if u want a tanky main, but I would say there are better options - all of the above)
6) Light (heal, resurrection, protection, bonus damage - pretty nice tree, but doesn't offer that much apart from healing and related stuff -and there are already two healers to choose from)
7) Necromancy (undead are usually slow and low hp, harvest spell is close range, so unusable for a caster - generally seems to benefit more a melee hero, but there are better trees for that - has just one great debuff, poison ground - is good in combo with plague)
8) Hunting (Sentries and traps are too annoying to set up, otherwise doesnt offer much apart from crit chance and attack speed. Could be good for dual wield, but dual is inferior to other combat styles)
9) Beguilement (very little to do, the auras are rather negligible and the tree is generally very boring)

Some suggestion for fun builds:

Elementalism-druidism-beguilement is especially fun, since you get an incredible amount of strong aoe spells to pick from and you can fry pretty much everything alive. Especially early on incredibly powerful, but scales well into lategame. Given the amount of cooldown reduction, you can pretty much spam any spell you like.

The highest amount of shenanigans is achievable by light-warfare as someone said, and then taking evocation. This allows you to scale weapon abilities by weapon attribute AND willpower AND intelligence.

Another fun combo I would suggest is necromancy-druidism-warfare - for the comboing of plague-poison skills. The slowdown addition with the poisonous grounds is pretty neat and later on poison strike with huge bleeding damage is very strong vs inidividual targets.

Finally demonology-warfare is probably the strongest melee. Frenzy, the resistance reduction aura and haste, coupled with the mass drain life works wonders. The drain aura, haste and resist reduction aura also work with shapeshift tribe-eater, if you later take druidism - making you a 3k hp 1k pure damage machine that runs all around, drains life and weakens all resists of enemies close to you by 60 plus.

Have fun.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Mroch:

A bit of a necro, but could be useful for other players:

All trees are available on companions, except elementalism - so I would definitely suggest going for it. (non-mercenary party members are hunting-light, druidism-light, warfare-defense, warfare-beguilement and necromancy-demonology). As you can see this roster has two tanks, two healers and a debuffer, but lacks a high-dps mage, so I would suggest going that route.

You will also be able to unlock a third tree (but only for synergies), so calculate with that too.

This game is chock full of interesting caster equipment unlike SF3, and most of it is available early, so dont worry. One thing to keep in mind though is, that there are a lot of very high hp opponents and you will spent most of the game killing elite "bosses" rather than slaughtering hordes of enemies (like in SF3). So bear in mind, that you need single target spells a lot more.

If I would have to single out one tree I would probably suggest Druidism, as it has everything - reasonably strong heal, resistance self-buff, huge AoE damaging spells and if all else fails the ability to turn into a bear and whack em all.

Combos aside, I would rate the trees in this order:

1) Druidism (as stated before)
2) Elementalism (strong aoe control spells, though not as versatile as druidism, if you do not take into account party composition w-o mercenaries, move this at least 1 down)
3) Warfare (very strong passives, especially haste, and the two ultimates are strong, restoring focus and resetting cooldowns works well even with mage characters, warfare however takes ages to actually unlock, so it works properly and is powerful)
4) Demonology (up here just because of the incredibly powerful resist reduction and one of the best passive effects, works well as warfare-demonology meelee combo, summoning a demon is very powerful - but again slow to come online, bear druid works from the start and scales just as well)
5) Defense (better defense than beguilement offers, similar perks to heal, some crowd control and tankiness - good choice if u want a tanky main, but I would say there are better options - all of the above)
6) Light (heal, resurrection, protection, bonus damage - pretty nice tree, but doesn't offer that much apart from healing and related stuff -and there are already two healers to choose from)
7) Necromancy (undead are usually slow and low hp, harvest spell is close range, so unusable for a caster - generally seems to benefit more a melee hero, but there are better trees for that - has just one great debuff, poison ground - is good in combo with plague)
8) Hunting (Sentries and traps are too annoying to set up, otherwise doesnt offer much apart from crit chance and attack speed. Could be good for dual wield, but dual is inferior to other combat styles)
9) Beguilement (very little to do, the auras are rather negligible and the tree is generally very boring)

Some suggestion for fun builds:

Elementalism-druidism-beguilement is especially fun, since you get an incredible amount of strong aoe spells to pick from and you can fry pretty much everything alive. Especially early on incredibly powerful, but scales well into lategame. Given the amount of cooldown reduction, you can pretty much spam any spell you like.

The highest amount of shenanigans is achievable by light-warfare as someone said, and then taking evocation. This allows you to scale weapon abilities by weapon attribute AND willpower AND intelligence.

Another fun combo I would suggest is necromancy-druidism-warfare - for the comboing of plague-poison skills. The slowdown addition with the poisonous grounds is pretty neat and later on poison strike with huge bleeding damage is very strong vs inidividual targets.

Finally demonology-warfare is probably the strongest melee. Frenzy, the resistance reduction aura and haste, coupled with the mass drain life works wonders. The drain aura, haste and resist reduction aura also work with shapeshift tribe-eater, if you later take druidism - making you a 3k hp 1k pure damage machine that runs all around, drains life and weakens all resists of enemies close to you by 60 plus.

Have fun.

My thanks. I've been putting off Soul Harvest for quite a while because my brain locked up at indecisiveness at what to make the main character, and ideas are appreciated.

[Accidental Teamplay]

Originally posted by Mroch:

The highest amount of shenanigans is achievable by light-warfare as someone said, and then taking evocation. This allows you to scale weapon abilities by weapon attribute AND willpower AND intelligence.

I'm afraid it's not AND, it's OR. Also that wasn't the point of it anyway. It's that the synergy ability is broken at rank 3. No cooldown, no focus cost, ranged, and has no bad targets, only good and better ones. The skill trees themselves make a pretty weak combination.

As for demo/combat, I agree it's a very strong melee build, but going for the auras just takes away the beauty and simplicity of it. What's awesome is that you can get away with only pumping strength and constitution because you barely use focus. You get a sturdy juggernaut: high health, can wear heavy armor, Defy Fate, possibly also Demonic Sacrifice. You will have Demonic Strike which just deletes goons and at rank 2, weakens bosses (because mostly only bosses survive the strike to begin with :P). On top of that, rank 3 Whirlwind will reap armies.

As you hinted, single target is the real deal, and having 1-2 AoE abilities pretty much has that job covered. Therefore, why invest in Eldritch Breath? You will already have weaken for single target through Draining Strike. The aura does actually give a stronger weaken, but that's assuming you commit willpower for it. I legit play demo/combat as 10 strength, 10 constitution, and the remaining 2 points anywhere (probably int/wp). Besides, the Cursed Great Mace, which is an awesome weapon for this build, gives a stronger weaken anyway.

Moving on, the strongest single target build IMO is evocation/necromancy: https://i.imgur.com/urFuRbe.png (yeah, this is a melee build)

However it takes a while to come online (I would put it on a merc and recruit them halfway through the game) and destroying bosses is pretty much all it can do. Oh, and the attributes are fiddly to plan and you need help from the party. The latter is not a downside - I much prefer to plan a strong party than just a strong character - but it adds "specificity" to the situation.

To stay on the topic of evocation, it's actually a pretty meh tree by itself, but it combos so nicely. The perk at the top can buff so many abilities, and so can the skill at the bottom. These skills are integral to getting off that big Blood Harvest, as are they to, for example, creating extra strong shapeshifts: https://steamcommunity.com/app/817540/discussions/0/1643168364658405806/

Also, (but not saying you suggested this) dumping everything into evocation with the intent of being a badass mage is not something I recommend. You can only deal magic damage, and if magic damage sucks, so do you. Also, even when it's good, it still means a lot of spamming Fire Spark, which gets tedious fast. It combos very nicely with demonology, however. Blood Rain + Fireball is a powerful straightforward combo available early, and at rank 2 of each it gets even better. And you get Siphon Blood, which is just awesome. It's raw damage, it heals you, it works on everything. Heartily recommend demonology/evocation for anyone who wants to be a caster; it's powerful and versatile and as an int-based build you get sweet focus regen.

Lastly, I can't let you put beguilement at the bottom and get away with it. The armor aura is alright. The empowerment aura is awesome. And with the right shenanigans you can make bosses useless through Blinding Light: https://steamcommunity.com/app/817540/discussions/0/1643170903500820380/

The only tree I would really trash talk is hunting, but even so, I don't think there's much wrong with the tree. I think bows and crossbows are simply too weak in SH, and so a tree that's mostly about using those will suffer.

[EMDream]

Originally posted by Heazdra, the White:

Finally demonology-warfare is probably the strongest melee. Frenzy, the resistance reduction aura and haste, coupled with the mass drain life works wonders. The drain aura, haste and resist reduction aura also work with shapeshift tribe-eater, if you later take druidism - making you a 3k hp 1k pure damage machine that runs all around, drains life and weakens all resists of enemies close to you by 60 plus.

Have fun.

i'm giving the tribe eater thing a try. fingers crossed seems like fun