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Any point to using a slith or nephil?


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When I looked at the race selection, I noticed that the human's benefit, an extra trait every 4 levels, sounds way, way, WAY better than the trait benefits of slith and nephil. Like, that adds up to 7 extra traits, minimum, and together they'd surely do much more to even your raw damage output and defense than the flat race benefits of Slith and Nephil would. Am I wrong? Is there actually a good reason to use Slith or Nephil?

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Sliths and Nephils are not horrible choices if you are going to create a pole or missle user, but a human will be better. Remember though that it's not quite as ridculously unbalanced as it might first appear, since the extra traits you get will be less useful than the top 16 traits you'd select. But yes, it is rather unbalanced. Especially since magic is even more overpowered relative to non-magic users in A:CS than it was in A:EFTP, and sliths and nephils don't get any magic advantages.

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Sliths and Nephils are not horrible choices if you are going to create a pole or missle user, but a human will be better. Remember though that it's not quite as ridculously unbalanced as it might first appear, since the extra traits you get will be less useful than the top 16 traits you'd select. But yes, it is rather unbalanced. Especially since magic is even more overpowered relative to non-magic users in A:CS than it was in A:EFTP, and sliths and nephils don't get any magic advantages.

Oh dear, magic's EVEN MORE powerful than melee now? That because of the Dual Wielding nerf? Well Albus, Diana, Orpheus and Lucille will have to see how that turns out.

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Oh dear, magic's EVEN MORE powerful than melee now? That because of the Dual Wielding nerf? Well Albus, Diana, Orpheus and Lucille will have to see how that turns out.

 

Partly because of Dual Wielding being weakened, partly because the top-tier swords in A2:CS are significantly worse than the top-tier swords in A:EftP.

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Remember though that it's not quite as ridculously unbalanced as it might first appear, since the extra traits you get will be less useful than the top 16 traits you'd select. But yes, it is rather unbalanced.

Unfortunately, the +10% to damage is also less useful than it might first appear, since bonus damage is additive. At the start of the game it may actually be close to +10%, but by the end it will likely increase your character's actual damage by closer to 6-7%.

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Unfortunately, the +10% to damage is also less useful than it might first appear, since bonus damage is additive. At the start of the game it may actually be close to +10%, but by the end it will likely increase your character's actual damage by closer to 6-7%.

Doesn't same thing apply to other bonus damage, including bonus damage from the various traits that grant that?

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Definitely. However, that "diminishing returns" does not affect the bonuses that a number of traits grant. The Parry traits (and the defensive parts of the Luck traits) actually have mildly improving returns if you increase those skills elsewhere. The percentile HP bonus traits provide a constant percent of augmentation. The unique traits like Negotiator, the XP traits, Swordmage, Sage Lore, and Recovery just do their thing, of course. And the skill-point-like traits, like Nimble Fingers, effectively just give you an extra skill point, which can be invested in an increasing or diminishing returns skill.

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So the answer to OP is "certainly not"

I'm not arguing against that - humans are certainly the optimal choice for any character, regardless of specialty - you can't beat 8 extra traits (a better balance might be 3 extra traits for humans - one each at levels 10, 20, and 30). I'm just saying that the imbalance is maybe not quite as extreme as it might at first seem, since the 17th-24th best traits for a given character are not going to be as good as the first 16 you choose.

 

I guess my real point is that sliths and nephils are certainly quite playable, if not optimal, even on torment (although perhaps not as a singleton, I haven't tried that). I know from past threads about A:EFTP that RBD likes to play parties with a variety of character types and roles, so I wanted to be sure RBD wasn't discouraged from trying sliths and nephils, even if they are not the optimal choice.

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I'm not arguing against that - humans are certainly the optimal choice for any character, regardless of specialty - you can't beat 8 extra traits (a better balance might be 3 extra traits for humans - one each at levels 10, 20, and 30). I'm just saying that the imbalance is maybe not quite as extreme as it might at first seem, since the 17th-24th best traits for a given character are not going to be as good as the first 16 you choose.

 

On the other hand, that reasoning is only looking at the endgame: in reality, you're not getting a lump sum of 8 bonus traits when you hit level 30, you're getting them every 4 levels starting at level 2, which means getting a lot of those high-priority traits earlier than you otherwise would. You won't have to start scraping the bottom of the barrel until your level is well into the 20s.

 

Slith and Nephil characters are of course viable -- even on Torment, the game isn't hard enough to require anything close to perfect optimisation -- but humans start to have a clear advantage by level 10 or so. It doesn't help that polearms and missile weapons are two of the weaker build options to begin with.

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The best reason to play with a Slith and Nephil is that you want to. I am willing to pay the penalty and so I am playing with a Human Sword & Shield, Slith Pole Arm, Nephil Priest and Human Mage, I am at level 32 and I am enjoying myself because that is how I want to play. Others want to play with a more optimal party which this time around seems to be something along the lines of a Priest-Tank and three Mages, all human. To each their own.

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I guess my real point is that sliths and nephils are certainly quite playable, if not optimal, even on torment (although perhaps not as a singleton, I haven't tried that). I know from past threads about A:EFTP that RBD likes to play parties with a variety of character types and roles, so I wanted to be sure RBD wasn't discouraged from trying sliths and nephils, even if they are not the optimal choice.

 

Hahaha, thanks for looking out for me, but I already took one look at the racial perks and went "screw it, everyone's human!".

 

I considered having the Diana and Orpheus of game 2 be Slith and Nephil respectively, but honestly I don't really like how they look. I have a bias towards humanoid species a lot of the time, I don't know why. I would've considered it if the perks really suited them, but no, Human all the way.

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