GF2-I: Agent Woes

[Hyperion703]

Maybe it's me (likely), but are any other agents struggling around levels 7-10? Progress has slowed to a crawl ultimately as a result of not having more than one creation at any given time. Any more than that, and I find myself having to return to town after every fight to re-up on my meager essence. And that's usually a single Fyora since it's difficult to justify spending the high costs on shaping skills when I have more efficient alternatives in magic. 

 

Then there's the related issue of Wyk. He likes to nullify me. Since agents are heavily magic-based, it essentially forces me to retreat for a few turns to let it wear off, then return. Repeat ad nauseum (or until I run out of healing potions.) Tedious is an understatement.

 

Basically, In a game where it seems success is largely dependent on the quality and quantity of shaped creations, agents kind of get the short end of the stick. I read somewhere that the developer wanted to to further encourage Shapers and spawned monster allies in this installment. But it feels increasingly like choosing the Shaper class (or, at least, not the Agent) is not just encouraged, but required.

 

Any agents having luck and can give some pointers? I'd appreciate it.

 

 

 

[alhoon]

Hello. Agents are considered the most difficult class and they need special playstyle. I don't play agents but others will tell you. 

What I wanted to contribute here is: What difficulty do you play at? Have you tried to recruit NPCs to join your party? 

[Mechalibur]

Curing pods remove null field. I also would recommend having 2 creations on agent by that level (you can invest in essence mastery if you're constantly low).

 

But there's no reason to fight that drayk at that level, it's a difficult encounter. Remember you can right click to see enemy levels to determine if maybe you should save a fight for later.

Edited April 2 by Mechalibur

[Aoslare]

Playing as a Shaper definitely isn't required.  Agents are very good.  They just require a different approach.

 

With a Shaper you can charge ahead using brute force, and defeat enemies by overwhelming power.  Agents will always be worse at that than Shapers.  They can become spellcasting machines, though, and not having a big party (potentially even playing solo) gives them some extra tactical options.  Be careful how you enter rooms with big fights; find ways to position yourself (stealth can help) so you don't face everything all at once.  Often, you can use status effects (Daze is huge, early on; Airshock is amazing later) to disable extra enemies and pick them off one by one.

 

Wyx is a very hard fight for early in the game, and is not intended to be fought that early.  Class has nothing to do with it.  On higher difficulty levels you essentially can't.

 

Re-upping on essence is annoying wasted time, since you can (almost) always just leave and do it without penalty, I agree.  For that reason, you might consider the shift-D code "rechargeme" to be less of a cheat and more of a timesaver.  YMMV.

[Randomizer]

Wyx is hard to fight because at that level you rarely can hit and he resists most negative effects like slow and stun.

 

Agents can get through the game as a solo, so you shouldn't have that essence problem. As Slarti said, you have to play him differently with approaching slowly to pick off foes and not jump into battle. Take advantage of daze and later dominate to reduce your active foes in a fight. Use some crystals and wands to damage foes before hitting them with a spell. Also when you have essence you can buff yourself before engaging in a fight since it's easier for an agent to have it last longer.

[Hyperion703]

15 hours ago, alhoon said:

What difficulty do you play at?

I was attempting to play on veteran, but turned it back down to normal. 

 

15 hours ago, alhoon said:

Have you tried to recruit NPCs to join your party? 

Not really. I've used a couple before, but they were really wimpy. I felt cutting them loose before going into a real fight and getting them killed was good discretion. I read that Nora is pretty good. I'll go see f she's still around...

 

Thanks for the pointers.

[Mechalibur]

Just a heads-up, it's Zora, not Nora. Nora is the guardian in the warrens, she won't join you.

 

Edit: But I think the main takeaway should have been "do the fight later" 

Edited April 3 by Mechalibur

[Hyperion703]

14 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

Curing pods remove null field. I also would recommend having 2 creations on agent by that level (you can invest in essence mastery if you're constantly low).

Two creations? Hmm... I just made two Fyoras with the following upgrades: 1 Magical Skill, 2 Endurance, Cone of Fire, and Innate Haste. I have 27/59 essence left to play with. After -7 from buffing my party before combat, I'm at 20 essence. It goes quick. Is that normal?

 

I think there are some curing pods around somewhere I can buy. I'll go look.

 

14 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

 

But there's no reason to fight that drayk at that level, it's a difficult encounter. Remember you can right click to see enemy levels to determine if maybe you should save a fight for later.

Ah, it's one of those. I kinda wondered. I guess adding monsters of differing levels in lower level areas adds to the 'open world' feel. But, it can be confusing, too. I'll return in a few levels. Thanks.

[Hyperion703]

12 hours ago, Slarti said:

 

Re-upping on essence is annoying wasted time, since you can (almost) always just leave and do it without penalty, I agree.  For that reason, you might consider the shift-D code "rechargeme" to be less of a cheat and more of a timesaver.  YMMV.

I like this suggestion. I already blew my achievements by reallocating skill points with 'retrain.' So there's nothing to lose. I was just hoping I'd get to a point soon where I had enough essence and didn't have to. Thanks for the tips.

[Hyperion703]

9 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Agents can get through the game as a solo, so you shouldn't have that essence problem.

I went through Mutagen with a solo agent. I loved it, though iirc it was challenging in the beginning. By mid game, the DPS was fire. Literally. I'm not getting the same bang-for-buck in Infestation. And enemies are living long enough to rush me and get in close. Which is never good. I'll continue using daze as you and others suggested. I'm hoping to get to a level soon where my power and essence capacity start to really ramp up, kinda like in Mutagen. 

 

Thanks for the response. 

[Hyperion703]

15 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

you can invest in essence mastery if you're constantly low

This helped immensely. Thank you!

[Aoslare]

Infestation definitely has some more challenges than Mutagen IMO, and maybe it's easier to wander into hard areas without realizing it.  So don't feel discouraged.  You're thinking about the right questions, and I bet you'll ramp up soon enough!

[TriRodent]

I play almost always as a solo/no creation agent.  If you don't tie up essence in creations, you'll have a lot available for fights to constantly use more powerful spells.  Killing the spawner down in the woods early is essential as that give you air shock (even at L1 it will tear up the early monsters).  My default spell attack is Searer as you can get that to L3 very quickly and will kill most everyone with one hit plus 3-4 rounds (leaving you free to drop Searer on his nearby friends).  You have eight action points, use them.  Use a wand/crystal at first and then a spell. Or if needed, a healing pod and then your spell.  Because you don't have creations, you don't need higher level healing.  I only buy one level in order to cure poison/acid.  Those 4+ skill points are much more useful getting a couple points of battle magic or spell craft. Leadership is quite important too, both for the extra xp from conversations, & recruiting the early NPCs (after the guarded tunnel, it's pretty much pure solo).  Often I stay unaligned.  That let's you go everywhere and talk to everyone (plus you can do the things 'you' want to do rather than missions/assassinations for deeply warped individuals...).

[Val Ritz]

I've had a lot of luck by starting out quasi-pacifist with Agent. Take a lot of levels in diplomancy, kleptomancy, and sneakomancy, let quest rewards and dialogue triggers carry you through the first few levels.

 

Also, rush Drypeak Fields. There's a cloak you can get out there that's amazing in the early levels and gives you access to one of the big bread and butter battle book spells in Airshock.

[Hyperion703]

As I'm nearing level 18, I've changed my mind about agents - they are actually very strong! I haven't needed to cast a creation in about six levels (took TriRodent's advice). I'm soloing and just walking through fights, even bosses. I think most of my struggle came in down to the fact that a) I am extremely pro-Shaper (198 Rep!), so Awakened immediately hated on me, wouldn't let me cross bridges, never traded with me, etc.; and b) I progressed through the Awakened lands straight into Taker lands. No wonder I was struggling - I was trying to fight enemies a handful of levels above me. When I went back through Barzite lands, I rarely got any experience from anything because I was already too high a level. Drypeak, Awakened, Barzite, then Takers. Got it.

 

Some notes (spoilers):

 

 

 

1. Essence Shield is HUGE. This has been the most helpful spell in the game by far. Because my agent is super squishy, it's obligatory.

 

2. Airshock goes hard. Combined with Haste, the Gloves of Spell Mastery, and the Frosted Annulet, I am able to reliably spam two or three 300+ damage Airshocks per turn. Stuff dies.

 

3. Stun seems to be my current weakness. Sometimes two turns of enemy attacks (due to being stunned) are enough to get through my Essence Shield and start in on my meager hp. I carry around a few anti-stun utility accessories to swap out, but sometimes even they aren't enough to stop it. Stun is no fun.
 

 

 

She's a glass cannon right now. I'm going back to Taker lands now to show em what's up. Infernals also on my list.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Hyperion703

[Randomizer]

A little extra strength so you can wear heavy armor with 60 or 70% stun resistance goes a long way to reducing stun chances combined with the Stasis Shield and another item. You can't eliminate stun, but you can make it happen maybe once a fight.