Misc

[Craig234]

In case questions come up... is it generally a good idea to buy living tools? Haven't seen much else to buy.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Craig234

[Craig234]

I noticed the shaper skills say they apply increases to creatures you already have, but increasing the skill didn't change the creature level or hp. But when I made new creatures, it did increase them.

[Randomizer]

There may be enough living tools in the game that you don't need to buy more. It depends upon your mechanics skill level and whether you open highly locked doors that are meant as quest rewards or getting a key for the zone.

[alhoon]

I found it useful to buy a few tools. While they may be enough LT for you to end the game, you will need to remember that door you left locked 5 zones ago. 

[Aoslare]

14 hours ago, Craig234 said:

I noticed the shaper skills say they apply increases to creatures you already have, but increasing the skill didn't change the creature level or hp. But when I made new creatures, it did increase them.

 

It does increase their level (and thus HP), it just takes a few seconds to take effect.

[alhoon]

1 hour ago, Status Crow said:

 

It does increase their level (and thus HP), it just takes a few seconds to take effect.

 

I used to see it immediately. 

[Craig234]

Shaper, level 8, leadership 8, mechanics 3, stealth 0, essence mastery 6, fire shaping 6, where would be good for skill points the next level or 2?

[Mechalibur]

Can never go wrong with more essence mastery

[Randomizer]

On harder difficulties, just keep increasing your main shaping skill to make your creations even more powerful. Really helps in the end where you start missing.

[alhoon]

10 hours ago, Randomizer said:

On harder difficulties, just keep increasing your main shaping skill to make your creations even more powerful. Really helps in the end where you start missing.

 

Aaaaand... keep an eye on how your creations are doing independence-wise. What you really don't want is to suddenly have creations turn on you and joining the enemy at a crucial fight. 

[Aoslare]

Alternate take: you're better off ignoring creation "control" levels entirely.  Having more and stronger creations means you're more likely to kill things before they damage your creations in the first place -- or inflict their own status effects on them.

 

This is especially true on higher difficulties, where your creations will sometimes get one-shot anyway, and where (as Randomizer noted) accuracy is extra relevant.

 

Shaping skill and essence mastery are definitely the two good picks, and you'll eventually increase both, so improve what you want.  I'd probably go shaping skill at this point, as you're going fire shaping and you have more than enough essence to have a good number of fyoras with the key skills (haste + fire breath + ability spam) already.

[Craig234]

What is the balance between points to INT and Essence Mastery?

[Aoslare]

If you're a shaper, there's not really any reason to put points into INT at all.

[Craig234]

Raising essence mastery from 6 to 7 gave me 10 more essence (after I zoned), hm.

[alhoon]

On 11/22/2023 at 7:50 PM, Status Crow said:

If you're a shaper, there's not really any reason to put points into INT at all.

I have found that a bit of intel was useful to give me a bit of extra energy.

 

When I say "a bit of intel" I mean +1 intel at level 7 or 8 or something and that was it. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by alhoon

[Aoslare]

Energy goes up with level anyway, so if all you need is a bit more, you'd get it anyway in short order.

[alhoon]

58 minutes ago, Status Crow said:

Energy goes up with level anyway, so if all you need is a bit more, you'd get it anyway in short order.

 

Well, there's also the "viewpoint" that I came to later: "If you need more energy to get through a zone, then you actually need one more creation or empower your existing creations."

I.e. a Shaper should cast heal and blessings and hug the back. When I was casting staff I actually felt I was not being a proper Shaper. But some times, you want to be there throwing spells that are not firebolt.

Edited November 25, 2023 by alhoon

[Mechalibur]

By energy do you mean spell energy or essence? Because spell energy is so plentiful that the bonus from INT is pretty much pointless in my experience. And if you mean Essence, Intelligence doesn't boost that at all.

 

That being said, I've definitely taken a point of intelligence at higher levels just because it's cheap compared to everything else I've already increased and 5% to all spell effects isn't bad.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Mechalibur

[Aoslare]

If you're a shaper, I would argue that it is actually pretty bad.  You get +5% additive to spell damage (easily outpaced by even a third of a stat point to a creation skill); +5% additive to healing spells (potentially useful, if your heal spells are actually falling short, but that's pretty unlikely); and +5% additive to buff/debuff duration (very meh).

[Mechalibur]

I dunno, I like going pretty magic-heavy as a shaper. Debuff duration is pretty relevant in my experience (high acid and charm duration is neat), airshock is pretty high damage total, so % bonuses to that are helpful in my experience. It's also 5% more to essence shield which can be handy.

 

Not amazing (and certainly not optimal), but I don't think it's completely useless.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Mechalibur

[Aoslare]

Yeah, it's just a question of value for skill points.  It sounds like we agree both that it's not literally worthless and that it's not a great value.

 

I do seem to recall another recent debate  where you said you rely on creations to land acid (so the buff duration won't help there) and that acid dealt 80% of your damage in the toughest fights of the game (so the airshock damage increase won't do much there).

[Mechalibur]

Yeah, that's how I generally survive boss fights if I'm going for magic shaping. If not I'll try to land Searer or use Spray Crystals or something. So yeah, not as helpful in boss fights where my shaper is often spamming heals each turn (which frankly scale too well imo)