Newish player, looking for some advice on synergies.

[Dropdeadfred]

Hey there. I've been playing off and on for awhile, though never really far. I've never beaten the main campaign, to give you an idea of how noob I am.

I've currently got a Chaos mage I'm enjoying. Only level 15, though I'm blowing everything apart right now with just the small amount of synergy I've built into the team with my tiny amount of choices.

Specifically, I'd like to ask about Ottum. At the start, I randomly pulled a Gem of Rend, stuck it on Ottum. I also started with a Gem of Infernal Charge, stuck it on the Mutated Vampire Bat. I've been casting Infernal Charge onto Ottum with great success, though sometimes it looks like Ottum isn't using his trait after the initial attack? Is it because he kills his target, and his two attacks would've gone into that target?

I've equipped Ottum with an artifact that gives him a chance to gain Splash on hit.

I also ended up with a couple Nature creatures and a couple gems of Fury Swipes. They've been amazing to cast onto Ottum as well.

First of all, any suggestions on creatures to go for? Or where to put perk points? So far I've just bought the 3 levels of Pandemonium Presence with an additional 83 perk points unspent.

Also, spell gem enchanting. If I enchant the Gem of Rend with Chance to Attack, will that set off Ottum again, with another 30% chance of Rend being cast, thus another Chance to Attack, etc...? If I give him 3 Gems of Rend, do all of them have a 30% chance to cast? Am I possibly missing something here that could make this even more nuts? I have an Arcane Familiar in the team as well.

Thanks ahead of time. For some reason, I'm really enjoying this play-through right now, compared to before. Maybe it's because of the instant synergy that dropped in my lap? Either way, I'm hooked again :)

[Vagrant]

The Sunclaw Gargoyle is the strongest supporter a Chaos Mage can ask for in early game. It gives you a 7% bonus to Attack per Chaos Spell Gem equipped, per creature (limit 3 per). That's a lot of text, but if you have all Chaos creatures and 3 gems on each, that's a 128% bonus to Attack you start every battle with for free. You can breed it with any Gargoyle plus a Ceaseless Maker, or a Dusktail with a Thunder Salamander. You may also wish to invest in a tank like the Stronghold, which can be bought from Gonfurian, and automatically provokes with Taunt at the end of its turn while taking no extra damage from doing so.

As a Chaos Mage, your life is going to consist of smashing the Attack button many, many times, so put points into Magma Diver and Touch of Chaos to get better dividends off any time you do so. Attack Damage is also not a bad investment.

(cast on attack) Spell Gems with Chance to Attack can indeed loop activations. It's not as nuts as it sounds since both the spell and the attack need to deal damage for this to work, and the chance of getting them to go off in sequence is rather low. That said, against enemy parties at your level, % to Attack and Cast On Attack gem evaporates parties.

[Steelwind]

Originally posted by Vagrant:

The Sunclaw Gargoyle is the strongest supporter a Chaos Mage can ask for in early game. It gives you a 7% bonus to Attack per Chaos Spell Gem equipped, per creature (limit 3 per). That's a lot of text, but if you have all Chaos creatures and 3 gems on each, that's a 128% bonus to Attack you start every battle with for free. You can breed it with any Gargoyle plus a Ceaseless Maker, or a Dusktail with a Thunder Salamander. You may also wish to invest in a tank like the Stronghold, which can be bought from Gonfurian, and automatically provokes with Taunt at the end of its turn while taking no extra damage from doing so.

As a Chaos Mage, your life is going to consist of smashing the Attack button many, many times, so put points into Magma Diver and Touch of Chaos to get better dividends off any time you do so. Attack Damage is also not a bad investment.

(cast on attack) Spell Gems with Chance to Attack can indeed loop activations. It's not as nuts as it sounds since both the spell and the attack need to deal damage for this to work, and the chance of getting them to go off in sequence is rather low. That said, against enemy parties at your level, % to Attack and Cast On Attack gem evaporates parties.

Great info, thanks.

I fiddled with a couple different classes before sticking with Chaos. By far my strongest member is my Ottum now. It has Sweeping Smash on its Artifact and a Mutilate gem slotted. It also has an Infernal Charge slotted with Generous, Mana reduction and Chance to recast on it so anyone can trigger him to attack. In longer fights he usually ends up with Splash and/or Multistrike too. It is like throwing a grenade into the enemy team and since pretty much anyone else can trigger him I am sacrificing spd/Int to up his HP, Att & Def.

He is a crude weapon for now but working on dialing in synergies to boost him even more.

[Vagrant]

It's worth remembering that Speed affects your ability to connect with what you're swinging at, and a small amount is also contributed to your damage output. I wouldn't deliberately lower it, but Int is definitely a dump stat on him. Drop that however you like.

Generally speaking you'll want things that boost your Attack before your damage; stuff like the Sphinx traits are always good, as well as the Sunclaw Gargoyle I mentioned. It's always worth more to kill what you hit than slap a lot of things lightly at once.

[Steelwind]

Good to know. I implemented some of the things you mentioned in your first post and can already tell he will need far less HP and Def now that I have a tank that I am dialing in.

Is there somewhere that breaks down the attributes and what they impact?

[Vagrant]

There's a brief summary in the Library under Creatures, but here's a quick version:

Health: Your Health.
Attack: Affects the damage this creature does when it attacks.
Defense: Damage dealt is lowered by Defense. A percentage of Defense is applied to all damage regardless of source.
Speed: Affects Action Queue order, dodge chance, crit chance, and accuracy. A small percentage of Speed is applied as damage that is not reduced by Defense.

[Steelwind]

Nice, thanks again. I need to browse the library I think. :p

I just wiped his heredity and started over since I was using him to learn the mechanic a bit so he was all hosed up. Started using macros though which helps. My core inventory was lousy since I tended to get on a roll and forget to extract. Now I'm extracting everything that I am running low on.