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Hey folks,

I'm currently playing with two mages (Jahan, and one of my guys) and two warriors (madora and the other main guy). The more I play the more i understand about the game. I was thinking of giving my warriors a bit of magical skills so they can do something while the enemy is coming closer but I am not sure what kind of magic.

I am aware of the lack of intelligence when warrior-type characters are casting and I am trying to play aroudn this. What are magical schools which can work without a whole lot of intelligence? I have heard that air magic is not too bad but I cannot see the benefits of it. What about watermagic? Another heal spell now and then would be great and you can freeze even more enemies with it. Is witchcraft any good? Thanks guys :)

I think 8 is the minimum intelligence, and you can have 6 easily just with a garment.

If you have a warrior that lacks intelligence, self buffs are more reliable than most offensive and/or crowd control spells (due to %hit chance). But truly, many options are possibles and I wouldn't exclude those spell on principle alone. Boulder Dash (the one that knocks down) is quite effective.

Witchcraft has Oath of Desecration which is a 50% damage buff (8 INT) and Absorb the elements (9 INT) which gives 50% resit more and can put you above the 80% soft cap (so elemental damage starts healing you), Pyro has Wildfire which is a haste buff (8 INT) (Scoundrel also has this buff, for only 4 AP, but higher cooldown and lasts one turn less I believe). All elemental school have elemental shields, which are overpowered. Earth shield requires 9 INT, fire shield 10, and the two others 11. Earth has the 30% hit buff and the armor buff aswell (both 8 INT). Air has invisibility (10 INT) and a 50% physical damage reduction buff (9 INT). Air has teleportation.

Note that your warriors should already have stuff to do while waiting for the ennemy to come closer: they have buffs and long range crowd control spells (not to mention their charge / dive).

All schools are good, and they all have low level spells that are always useful. It's hard to properly advice you due to that. One thing that I haven't tested myself is a warrior with 10 INT and some points invested in the Fire school, to use an "Explode"-type gameplay. I already basically played like that, buffing the warrior's fire resistance with the mages (Fire Shield + Absorb the elements), burning everything near the ennemies and letting the warriors run through this hell; but not with the "Explode" spell.

I take it that I need at least 8 INT on my warriors to use at least some of the spells?

To use them consistently, yes.

If you don't have 8 INT (at least for some spells), your spell will fail sometimes.

I believe each level under the required level removes 10% hit (for buffs and debuffs) and 10% damage (for the damage component).
More intelligence buff by 5% for each supplemental INT, but that's oftentimes useless for pure buffs (you only need 100%).

1. So is it actually worth doing? Both of them now have about 5 Intelligence, I guess it would take a while to get them to 8. In terms of min/maxing (which i wouldn't feel bad about cause the game kicks my ass a fair bit) do you actually give your warriors spells or do you just focus on the warrior talents?

2. Also a general question: What abilities do you focus on with a warrior? Up until now I have focused on strength and constitution. The ability to cast some spells sounds nice though and I would also like some more Ap-Regeneration :D Do you maybe have an idea what your stats should look like around lvl 8? Or can you give me general advice when it is best to focus on other features?

It is absolutely worth doing. My warriors (including Madora) always end up with some magic, most likely witchcraft to further exploit their battle positions (in the middle of the enemy group) to e.g. lower willpower, soulsap or blind. Preparation for the next round or setting the scene for the mages.

Regards,
Thorsten

You can have easily one point in intelligence through garment, and usually another one on collar (STR + INT combo). If you have consistent luck (I would not count on it much), you can also have INT on the body armor, but that one should be changed often to keep up with armor, so it's not likely you will always have INT bonuses on it.

I would not use lower willpower in witchcraft (there's already a man at arms skill for that, which is AOE to boot), nor soulsap (high INT requirement, high AP cost if low witchcraft level, low hit chance).

If your warriors do not end in precarious situation often in battle (near death), and especially if you don't play glass canon, you can stop focusing on constitution and focus speed more (that's where the AP regeneration comes from).

I don't have particular advice to give what is best to focus on, I personally blindly invested all in strength on my warriors, without considering much what's best at the time. I noticed there's huge return for INT (because it lowers cooldowns), but not so much for STR, so I don't know. I need to see for myself first what strength is good for exactly, and if more is always better.

Water also has Water of Life, which is a self-target-only constitution boost for a few turns, and I think it only has an 8 INT requirement as well.

In my opinion, having str or dex heroes using int based skills is only viable for low level buffs i.e. Oath of Desecration, Absorb the Elements, Become Air, but low int will sometimes make these skills fail to be cast when used.

For me I find it worth the risk though, I'm currently playing a scoundrel (dex hero) on hard difficulty and I use skills like:
Oath of Desecration - Witchcraft (int)
Rage - Man-at-Arms (str)
Melee Power Stance - Man-at-Arms (str)
Tactical Retreat - Expert Marksman (dex)

So when I have an opponent knocked down and have the effects of Bully, Oath of Desecration, Rage, Melee Power Stance, and Backstab, I do damage like the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpAMpSCEgQ0

For me, best build for warriors is Man-at-Arms x 5 with the following talents:

- Thick Skin (Armor)
- Picture of Health (Vitality)
- Weather the Storm (Resistance)

Most points should be in Str and Con, and some in speed (if your mage has Wildfire you wont need many points in speed).

Then it depends on whether you are making a tank or dps warrior.

For tank you would use a 1-hand weapon + shield and focus on warcries (eg. inspire, nullify resistance), crushing fist, battering ram and you can get magic skills like fortify, become air, water of life, absorb the elements.

For a dps warrior you would use a 2-hand weapon and focus on skills like Dust Devil, Whirlwind, Flurry, Battering Ram, Melee Stances, Rage.
You could also get the skills for tank but its a waste of AP in my opinion. You can use your mages to CC and then buff the dps warrior and create an ultimate killing machine.

I don't think Rage stacks with Oath of desecration.

The man at arms talent you've mentionned are kinda strong but Weather the Storm doesn't allow your warrior to go over the 80% soft cap in resistance (rubies!), and Thick Skin is something like 25 armor (better to just sacrifice the talent to get armor abilities if not maxed?)?

I think you still get 50% + 50% = 100% dmg boost as opposed to 1.5*1.5 = 225% dmg boost.

I don't think Weather the storm can allow you to exceed the 80% gear cap, but i think elemental shields will allow it. This talent is useful for me because it means I need to focus less on resistances when choosing which gear to use for my character. In my previous game my warrior had 3ooohp, full resistance (80%), and 400-600 dmg output.

At lvl5 Armor Specialist is better than thick skin once your gear armor totals more than 60, but thick skin of 15 armor is an additional 8% damage block out of 53% for an armor rating of 100 and level 19 enemy, say, and about 5% out of 69% for an armor rating of 200 and level 19 enemy. Which I find useful.

proportion blocked = armour rating / (4.5 * (1 + attacker level) + armour rating)

Why would you do 2 backstabs at +25% damage instead of three backstabs? Melee Power Stance is great for 2H weapons when you need damage right away, or if you have high level weapons. For daggers though, that seems like a complete waste to me.

It is a waste, I was just trying to maximize the dmg output number

I was wrong my apologies, Oath of Desecration does nothing if used with Rage, just tested it. My understanding of stack does not conform with the game.