Party Composition - Races

[Slawbug]

Now that I'm finally in all 3 areas, I'm curious what other people have found useful here.  Probably most people just take 1 of each, but some seem better than others.

 

I was somehow expecting Mindsteal to cost 3 energy, maybe because the Haven cultural abilities are so expensive.  But at 1, it's really a steal.  1 energy to cancel 3 attacks against you, and get 3 outgoing attacks instead?  That's pretty good.

 

I've been running around with 3 Ukats for a while and it's pretty clear that the passive Bloodletting ability does stack with multiple characters.  I think it's multiplicative, but you can still get up to just about a 50/50 chance of attacks causing 1 turn of bleeding.  Bleed damage depends on enemy level, which seems to track quite closely with player level.  So Bleed damage is going to range from 3 to maybe 14 over the course of the game.  Stacking Bleed is definitely fun, but even the endgame value is like 20-30% of an endgame hit.  Cut it in half for the odds, that's an extra 12% or so damage per attack... with three Ukats and 6 skill points into those passives.  Admittedly it's 12% for the whole party, but I'm still not convinced this is that fantastic.  With a single Ukat, that's 2 skill points for a passive 4-5% damage boost to the whole party.

 

I think I like the Vol better?  Or at least, I will when the bug gets fixed.  It's hard to say without knowing for sure how evasion works.  If that 10% really means 1 in 10 attacks, it definitely smells better than the Ukat power.

 

One consideration for the Ukat: Bleed isn't affected by armor.  On the flip side, it doesn't work at all on some enemies, like ghosts, and that seems to include a lot of enemies that have heavy armor, where otherwise it would be very useful...

 

Right now I think I'm leaning Vol/Vol/Ahriel.  Which is a pity, because the Ukat are a lot less obnoxious 😛

[TriRodent]

During the beta, I ran with one of each (because it never occurred to me that I could double/triple up on one...sigh).  Currently (at L10ish) I'm running one Vol and two Ukat (all three with their passive traits maxed, one Ukat with the steel darts, the other's with normal skills) just because the bleeding stacks really well throughout the party.  On fights against those that do bleed, it's impressive just how fast the monsters get bleeding stacked on them without using the melee ability for bleeding.

 

Not sure where I'm going from here with everyone, it's nice just playing without trying to break everything...

[Randomizer]

I've seen occasionally using an attack ability that causes bleeding and having the passive bleeding ability can sometimes give bleeding 2. It happens often enough to be useful. However there are items that can give it to a character without needing an Utak recruit.

 

I thought bleeding damage increased with party level and reached 13 per level in effect with a cap of 5 bleeding. Having it on monsters with 1000+ health does steady damage to wear them down since poison does less per round.

 

I used one of each land since it takes a while to find items that will remove mental attacks and items for bloodletting take up the places of more useful items.

 

I really liked evasion since it removes all damage when it works and with support abilities and a few augments you can get it near 50%.

 

You can play with the original party even on torment, but it can be harder. It requires more augments for mental resistance and less reliance on getting bleeding damage.

[Mechalibur]

I ran one of each, not for optimization reasons, but to play around with different builds. Since all the characters level up at the same rate, it could be feasible to have a large enough roster where you can bring different characters on different missions based on their strengths. For example, you don't really need charm or bleed abilities when fighting the undead.

 

I made my warrior-type character Ukat. It worked pretty well because it gave him two ranged options without requiring him to spend 2AP to switch to a bow. Bloodletting seemed decent, especially against some Vol enemies that have extremely high armor. My character was able to get up to 4 bleed stacks in a single attack: 1 for using Temptation, 1 for the Bloodletting charm, 1 for Vicious Attacks cultural ability, and 1 for the Brutal Blow skill (the bleed one, I think that's what it's called?). Very unlikely to happen of course, but it was fun when it did.

 

My Vol character mostly specialized in support. I usually like to conserve Energy on my support character for maximum healing potential, so having a passive evasion aura worked out pretty nicely. I didn't really experiment with the other two abilities - the game has enough AoE where a single target evasion increase didn't seem too useful.

 

And lastly I had a mage-type Ahriel character. She made extensive use of the Mindsteal spell when applicable. It's crazy strong when applicable against the enemy, and seems to work with Curse duration (at least, I've seen it last 4 rounds instead of 3 on occasion.) A single point in Free Mind is also incredible since it doesn't use up the whole turn. Not sure if you'd ever need more than 1 point in it, though. Radiance is kind of tricky to evaluate, but from what I can tell it seems to even work on the Ahriel character if they get affected my a mental ability.

 

Since we're on the topic of cultural abilities, what's the deal with the first two Haven Prince(ss) abilities? They seem to be more expensive versions of the support tree abilities. I guess because they're cultural, you can get them earlier, but early game you're going to be dealing with a really small energy pool, so it seems like kind of a waste. The aura seems decent, although I'm not sure what the exact bonus is.

[Slawbug]

Yeah, I had the same thoughts about the main PC's cultural abilities.  That said, I also find the level 2 combat AoE a lot better than either of the Ukat active abilities.

 

Not sure how frequently the Haven aura improves, but it starts out at +1/+2 damage (lv 1/lv 2), and rises from there.  I'm at level 8 now and sometime recently it went up to +2/+4.

[Mechalibur]

Whirlwind is usually better, yeah. Still, sometimes the enemies are in a cone shape area (often on the first turn or so when they're still approaching). Optimization-wise, though, yeah they're probably one of the weaker choices, but not by so much it should be a major issue.

 

I just checked my game, too. At level 19, the bonus seems to be 3/6, which is pretty decent. I didn't realize it also affects the main character, so that's a bonus!

[Simulated Knave]

The Haven Prince's powers are both more powerful than the support tree powers. They have longer duration/heal more (at least in my experience). My Support character will heal for 17 where the Haven Prince heals for 30+.

[Owenmoz]

Yeah end game haven abilities really do out shadow every support ability bc its the only that can heal near 100% life on top of curing any effect. Its really pricey and i tend to keep my character from using any abilities unless its weaker enemies. The battle frenzy does last longer which pays off in longer fights. But u can take it or leave it tbh. 

 

About the races in general i do want to say that ahriel grew on me. Even if i only really use radiance its rly useful in that fear attacks as well as charm attacks are way less effective. And the vol.... I never really find an excuse to use their abilities. Particularly since its the support character and like im gonna need that energy elsewhere. If it was like a group buff at a fraction of  its power it would be much more appealing to me.  Ukat is like. My fave both skill set wise and personality. Even if i love the entire arhiel concept. 

[Slawbug]

3 hours ago, Simulated Knave said:

The Haven Prince's powers are both more powerful than the support tree powers. They have longer duration/heal more (at least in my experience). My Support character will heal for 17 where the Haven Prince heals for 30+.

Whaddaya know, you're right!  Where L = character level

 

Restoring Rain rolls Ld2 + 5

Haven's Mercy rolls Ld5 + 8

Both get a 10% bonus per skill point in the skill

 

Also, though this is unlikely to matter, Restoring Rain cures 3 or 6 turns of status, while Haven's Mercy cures 10 or 15 turns (per skill pts)

 

Battle Frenzy lasts 1 turn + 4 turns per skill point in the skill

Haven's Might lasts 5 turns + 4 turns per skill point in the skill

 

 

 

[Simulated Knave]

I'm always right. That's some beautiful math you've done there.

 

The in-game descriptions definitely need some updating - it says they're the same and they're very much not.

[Mechalibur]

6 hours ago, Queen's Vlish said:

Also, though this is unlikely to matter, Restoring Rain cures 3 or 6 turns of status, while Haven's Mercy cures 10 or 15 turns (per skill pts)

 

Actually, that seems super relevant. I've had plenty of fights where my characters have 16+ turns of status effects. This is especially common against scorpions, spiders, and snakes.

[Slawbug]

I think it's 6 (or whatever) turns of each status instance, not 6 turns total.  Could be wrong, haven't had a chance to test yet due to lack of statuses thus far.