For me I prefer specializations with minors like teleport that are really really nice. So usually something like ranger/rouge/warrior with aero/witch. As for mages I prefer the witchcraft/geomancer schools as they tend to scale well into late game with a point into fireball and teleport.
A favorite of mine is Lyralei the Ranger, it's a marksman/scoundrel build with aero tacked on. The focus of the build is mobility , versatility, and assassination. The build works well in the early game where you can whittle down poisonous zombies at range but yet still close in for eliminating key targets. It gives a ranged hero two extremely useful skills at the start of the game: teleport, invisibility, and fast track. Invisibility is just so useful early game to sneak around, setup barrels, and steal, fast track amplifies your ranged damage output, and teleport is useful in general.
Come mid-late game with tactical retreat and smoke and dagger you are virtually everywhere and in the worst case you can teleport someone to you, with backstab you can kill off key targets quickly and escape. Also since scoundrel and ranger are both DEX based nothing is lost from a ranger>assassin transition except for some weapon skills. The other thing is the charm, combined with witchcraft support and melee abilities you can lower enemy willpower to the point of charming them, even in late game. I don't really bother leveling weapon skills much, since Tenebrium makes it kinda useless; a big pet peeve BTW Larian games. I tend to use her to craft since as games go rangers are more about control, assassins burst damage, but neither of them are sustained DPS.
For my second character I prefer the Aerie the Archmage, it's a multi-caster build specializing in witchcraft/geomancer. The gist of the build is to diversify at the start and grab the few good spells from all the schools. I personally prefer to start with teleport, spider, and heal (why heal? Cuz I don't like Johan). The spider is a great early summon, the heal eliminates the need for Johan, and the teleport is good on anyone. You should try to get fireball, fire elemental , oil, oath of desecration and rain by level 4 since they are so useful in the early game Especially vs the first witch boss. Furthermore a simple oil and oath of desecration worth 6 ap total is enough to give 2 50% bonuses on a character with bully at the early game, add backstab and guerrilla on top of that and your hitting for 150%*150%*200%*200% at the lowest level possible. Come mid to late game your geomancer/withcraft skills are really the only one that scale, sure you can lower resistances but that's very chancy.
All my characters have bully, a 50% increase in damage is too good to pass up for something that is so easy to setup.
I tend to put leadership on my melees: the rationale being that since leaders don't get the initiative bonuses you would want them to go last so that your team has the time to buff up and such.
Crafting is a must. doesn't matter where but you can get warriors with near immunity by mid game given crafted and upgraded gear. A ruby armor+gloves+a warrior with weather the storm gets around 25%+30%+30% resistance to elemental and poison damage.
Also I tend to get some points in lucky charm, the rationale being that since resources are limited and since you can swap equipment before looting you can easily get a high level in lucky charm to boost the total amount of resources you get in a game. A bit tedious to swap equipment every time you loot but we hoarders/power gamers love it. Is it necessary? No, but it is good ol' corrupting fun of gambling and it's raising your maximum potential resources.
Personality-wise I tend to give Lyralei pragmatic, cautious, and renegade and Aerie the righteous , romantic, and bold. Why? the skills work well to augment the crafter/rouge plus it seems thematic to team up the idealistic and righteous bookworm with the street-wise, selfish, but forgiving rouge.
Last edited by Jack177; 09/11/14 02:19 AM.
