Friendly Fire

[Magenta]

Yowtch! Sometimes knowing something and experiencing it are two different things. I'm playing Veteran difficulty for the first time. I usually play Normal, but well, there's these medals.... And it's always good to expand your horizons from time to time anyway. 

 

I have a Guardian at level 4, with one Fyora at level 6. I got swarmed in Ruined School, so without even thinking, I had the Fyora launch its cone attack. Bad idea. I forgot about friendly fire at higher difficulty levels. At that point, of course, the guardian was in the thick of things and got hit as well. At least I think that's what happened. It was all so fast. Lesson learned. "THINK before launching that aoe attack."  To make matters worse, the little guy then went rogue and started attacking my guardian and it was all over.

 

It's clear I have a lot to learn about veteran combat. My thought in having a creation with an aoe attack was to supplement the guardian's lack of it. But this is not helpful if there are very limited circumstances where you can use it. And it seems the risk of it going rogue is higher than I expected. (The fyora was not badly damaged at the time). So based on risk vs reward, I'm thinking I might want to ditch the fyora until the guardian is high enough level to better control. But that leaves me very few options when I am seriously outnumbered, and with leap ability, the thahds are always going to be in your face.  Or maybe I should keep the fyora, but with lower endurance so it is lower level and thus easier to control? I had bumped the endurance because I was spending a lot of action points healing instead of fighting. Seems getting the right balance is going to take a little more finesse at this level.

 

Am I thinking on the right track here? Or is there something else I haven't thought of? I'll go ahead and try some things, but I'll also welcome any tips or advice.  

[Randomizer]

It takes a little practice, but you do get better with party placement to avoid hitting your own party members. You really do want those AoE attacks because there will be more swarms and with no cool down period you can get more of them in a round. The fyora does less damage per attack than your guardian, but with a few those attacks add up, In the next few zones where you can face swarms you really want them.

 

Having more levels from using all 5 of the top row means more health for your creation, but more importantly a better to hit chance and more damage. The chances of going rogue aren't that great and with more health less likely since the damage taken will be a smaller percentage of total health.

[Magenta]

Thanks! I'll keep my li'l buddy and work on better placement. And maybe visit the shops for more spores to keep him healthier and still have AP for combat.

[alhoon]

7 hours ago, Randomizer said:

It takes a little practice, but you do get better with party placement to avoid hitting your own party members. You really do want those AoE attacks because there will be more swarms and with no cool down period you can get more of them in a round. The fyora does less damage per attack than your guardian, but with a few those attacks add up, In the next few zones where you can face swarms you really want them.

 

Having more levels from using all 5 of the top row means more health for your creation, but more importantly a better to hit chance and more damage. The chances of going rogue aren't that great and with more health less likely since the damage taken will be a smaller percentage of total health.

 

 

I am interested about that: More swarms. 

Are there more swarms in Veteran than in Normal difficulty? In Normal difficulty, I had little trouble isolating foes and more often than not, I could kill them before they attacked my creations from a distance. If the enemies had a bit bigger "aggression" (the range where they notice  you) there would be more swarms. Or if the enemies "random walk" had them more often closer to their buddies. Especially in the wastes with the clawbugs, I would use tactics to isolate the iron clawbugs because each hit from these guys hurt a lot. 

 

I was also thinking of doing a "veteran difficulty" run in a few months or something with a guardian instead of a shaper.
Thinking about it and considering most of the time I spam AoE attacks with my creations willy nilly... I think I would change to ranged creations with a good ranged attack (probably magic) with 1 'replaceable' poor cham (battle) that would be dying every 2 battles or something, that would be in the front to block enemy access to my creations and get the attacks. That way, I would have to rely less on AoE.

Also, I have heard that the "aura" attacks of the roamer and Cryora don't hit friendlies. 

 

Do Crystals and spells from the character affect friendlies as well? I.e. if I hit enemies with daze and crystals, would I affect my creations as well? 

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by alhoon

[Randomizer]

Veteran and torment difficulties mean friendly fire from everything but a roamer's Fiery Wind attack. However I still prefer creations where you can give them a no cool down ability so they cabn spam their attacks.

 

I didn't see this in beta testing, but the current game version, I now see swarms of claw bugs in the Wastes and a few other places they cluster to attack..

[alhoon]

The swarms of clawbugs in the wastes is the reason I haven't got deep in the wastes yet. 

[Magenta]

 

4 hours ago, alhoon said:

The swarms of clawbugs in the wastes is the reason I haven't got deep in the wastes yet. 

 

When you can cast it, Dominate is fun with clawbugs. Charm some of them and watch them duke it out with each other. Brings a smile to my face every time.

Friendly fire is less of an issue when facing fyora or vlish, who like to keep their distance, so it's easier to avoid hitting your own party. It's when you get a bunch of leaping lunatic thahds that all want to get up in your face that make it harder to get in the right spot for an aoe attack. otoh, when they aren't swarming, it's darn accommodating of the thahds to leap right up to the melee guardian so he can dispatch them without needing to chase them down. I suppose that will change when they start doing knockbacks.

 

Don't let my learning curve discourage you. I could kick myself for forgetting about friendly fire. Randomizer gave me some good advice (Thanks!) and I think I'm getting the hang of it. I also learned that even though the guardian is weak at magic, he can still cast Daze. This helps to slow down the swarm, if you cast it before they get to you. I'm up to level 6 now, and my fyora is a lot less likely to go berserk. We'll see how it goes.