Now that the game has been out for almost a month, that we had the time to try out things here and there in different acts, I believe it is time to gather round and think about the perfect build for running the game in tactician as a solo character without any stealth/leaving combat abuse.
The first talent has to be Lone Wolf, but other than that, everything is worth considering.
Try to go with facts and least possible amount of hypothesis (and yet we're to discuss !). Numbers and formulas are always welcome.
I am testing right now a Melee solo char run in tactician.
The build revolves around :
Strength Dual Wielding Memory
Constitution and Perseverance from time to time Intelligence instead of Strength sometimes but I try to get it from gear so I don't have to put points into it
Heavy mobility/positioning potential (eg. Phoenix Dive, NetherSwap, Teleportation, Spread Your Wings)
Heavy AoE melee damage that can be either magic or physical according to how things go (eg. Corps Explosion, Supernova, Flaming tongues, Petrifying Visage)
Sustain (eg Heart of Steel, Living Armor, Magic Armor, Reinforce, Necromancy healing)
As for points, it is Dual Wielding > Pyrokinetic > Warfare > Geomancer. With 3 in Polymorph (for abilities and yet quite strong as Lone Wolf), 2 Necromancy, 2 Hydrosophist, 2 Aerothurge
I like to buff my self a lot, pull the enemies by rushing towards a ranged, let the melee come to me, teleport any other ranged up close, keep my buffs up (such as Vacuum Aura), do few physical damage in the mean time and then release the Kraken upon them all ; key is to survive to that point
I am lvl 12 so far and in act 2 right now, struggling with few fights but all should go well. I will keep you guys posted about my build.
I posted my build elsewhere, my key to sucess is Medusa Head (3 round cc based off magic armour), Necro for lifesteal coupled with living armour and high Geo for earthquake and good phys armour restore. Here's a kinda tough fight:
So, after testing out Grasp of the starved I don't think there is anything damagewise which can beat it and since damage and defense are not directly linked in this game having highest damage just means the better build.
For solo this is especially true, if you can oneshot enemies, you trivialize the game, since less enemies attack you and with Grasp you can one shot a lot of them if they are in one place. I've heard Warfare also scales better than other skills and necro happens to benefit from it.
With level 13 I've had 1,7k on Grasp:
With Level 14 it was already 2k. The other necro skills are not that bad either, especially combined with Skin Graft.
I found your necro warfare build really impressiv. The guy that answered you in the comments of your video made me giggle, one shot the last boss lol ?
Anyway, I will try it out.
My build has almost come to an end and it mostly relies on stacking armor -> jump onto the pack of enemies -> overpower -> armor explosion + whirlwind and rip every enemy.
But necro looks way more fun ! Plus the fact that every necro spells can cost less with the proper talent since you're always standing on blood is cool !
How much hp has the final boss? Idk if I mentioned this in my video, but I got inspired to try necro by another video and there somebody did 307k damage with Grasp at level 21.
Yeah the only reason you equip weapons is for passive boni, which kinda sucks. Skin Graft and the massive damage helps you not needing to autoattack, but it's still sometimes weird.
Oh um, yeah, I am the guy that commented on that video. I also like to play these games with solo chars. Anyhow, I have finished the game twice now solo tactician, the first on a custom undead elf, the 2nd on lohse.
Undead Elf was a Rogue/Stealth build. From that playthrough I learned that Apotheosis+Play Dead+Skin Graft are kinda OP. I avoided using this because it breaks the game, but for reference, if you are curious what I am referring to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDckcdUBziA
I respecced that toon a couple of times to see what endgame is like with different builds and this is what necromancer does to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmrQ-jRAjpQ
This was all before I started going for char optimization, on my 2nd playthrough with lohse my toon was much better optimized. Anyhow, by far the hardest fights for solo are keeping the guy alive in the oil fields in Act 2 and the Consulate fight in A4, here was the consulate on Lohse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfLS3z8ma4
A friend of mine wanted to see how I did various fights, which is why I recorded this stuff.
From my experience, rogue handles the early game better than other builds, so for "easy" solo gameplay I would play as Fane, with a rogue until you gain access to 3 source point spells and can cast grasp of the starved, at which point I would respec to necro. (Probably around level 10ish.) I played Lohse in the 2nd playthrough just for her story, not for optimization really. Once you gain Apotheosis, it is GG.
Respecced into ur build and tried it on lvl 16. It is very strong and another proof that physical dmg is superior to elemental dmg, regardless of armour really. However Grasp seems to be bugged. Mine has a max dmg of 3.1k, and with a crit modifier of 175% ive had it crit for 13k. It doesn't add up :P
Hm, I already wondered why the guy I had the idea from did 300k with Grasp when his skill says 15k.
For me until now the damage added up, the 7,5k in the vid was because of crit + Death Wish, but maybe it's only bugged at higher levels.
And yeah the phys armour is not the biggest deal as I initially thought, but the fact there are no phys resistances, only dodging which doesn't help vs skills.
Hm, I already wondered why the guy I had the idea from did 300k with Grasp when his skill says 15k.
For me until now the damage added up, the 7,5k in the vid was because of crit + Death Wish, but maybe it's only bugged at higher levels.
And yeah the phys armour is not the biggest deal as I initially thought, but the fact there are no phys resistances, only dodging which doesn't help vs skills.
Exactly, and sum mobs such as Alice have really nasty resists
The witch in Act 1 and Mordus also have some 100%s (fire and earth) so yeah it just keeps happening that one of your elements don't work and ofc you could just switch your element before every fight with such an enemy but since that requires meta knowledge it is really annoying and having to respec everytime is not fun either.
The witch in Act 1 and Mordus also have some 100%s (fire and earth) so yeah it just keeps happening that one of your elements don't work and ofc you could just switch your element before every fight with such an enemy but since that requires meta knowledge it is really annoying and having to respec everytime is not fun either.
Agreed. This is what sadly makes phys strictly better than elemental damage, since phys doesn't have all that added fluff to deal with.
The witch in Act 1 and Mordus also have some 100%s (fire and earth) so yeah it just keeps happening that one of your elements don't work and ofc you could just switch your element before every fight with such an enemy but since that requires meta knowledge it is really annoying and having to respec everytime is not fun either.
Aye, me and my pal fought Mordus for probably 11 turns+ on our two mages while my solo spear warrior killed Mordus in 2 turns.
Alice steamrolled our two mages, then i went and specced into ur build and i one shotted her, lol.
So, for soloing, pick physical dmg and a few defensive abilities such as chameleon cloak and uncanny evasion and ur golden.
Victors build would work great with Sebille, Elemental affinity would be awesome with flesh sacrifice. As we are focusing on increasing physical dmg but have gimped melee power cuz we rock INT id also put a few points in Geo. Fortify+Bonecage+heart of steel - shackles of pain+Reactive armour is just nasty. As we are already picking up hydro for blood rain and scoundrel for adrenaline and crit dmg Vampriric hunger is 5 points in necro for 2 turns for just 1 AP cost. If we add living armour talent to this we will have great magic armour regen while we deal dmg.
Lethal dmg, strong physical protection and great magic armour leeching. I'm thinking i might restart my solo playthrough now with all this in mind.
Yeah Geo is a really good skill to invest, because of Heart of Steel (even tho it is a poly skill). This being a regen skill that still gives you a massive boost to your pool unlike the magic armour skills. Still if you properly min max you have no room for more than 2 Geo, because of Scoundrel. (I only started going it after I maxed Warfare, because my Int is now getting close to the cap and I can start going Wits).
Also the full combo with bonecage isn't always worth it, because often you can start an encounter with Heart of Steel, Fortify + Reactive Armor, the damage on this is high enough to oneshot an enemy group standing close to each other, now you have corpses and can cast Bonecage for much more armor, use Blood rain and Grasp (Executioner will provide 4 AP back), use Adrenaline and if you have to either Skin Grasp or depending on the number of enemies kill some single targets first with your single necro skills (2 ap each from executioner again) and then Skin Grasp for reset of all cds. Shackles looks good on paper but afaik you need to remove phys armour first for it to apply (I might be wrong never tested it) but most times you will just kill people including their phys armour...
Shackles of pain is a good spell. Enemies will try to avoid hurting you so they do not hurt their friend. Executioner only ever gives u back 2AP per turn no matter how many you kill. And yeah 2 Geo is enough.
It is worth noting that if you do not start the game as an elf, it is worth using the helm of the shapeshifter for the elf racial bonus. It combos really nicely with elemental affinity with necro spells by reducing your skill costs by 1 and it also increases your damage+gives 1 AP. Simply put, elf is OP, nothing competes with an elf.
If you start as fane you can do some pretty insane combos with time warp+elf racial+necro spells. Anyhow, the "core" of the build is Apotheosis+Adrenaline+Blood Storm+Grasp+Skin Graft. You can then tweak it to your own personal preference by adding/removing as many utility abilities as you like.
For example you could do something like:
Turn 1: Apotheosis+Flesh Sacrifice+Time Warp+Blood Storm. Turn 2 (Timewarped): Grasp of the Starved+Adrenaline+Cloak and Dagger to nearest enemy+Thick of the Fight+Skin Graft+Blood Sacrifice+Adrenaline+Blood Storm+Grasp of the Starved
You will still have 2 AP left at the end of that turn to do whatever you want with and this is assuming you don't have executioner and gain more AP in the process. This is also assuming you somehow don't kill everything during turn 1 with just Blood Storm.
If you don't have Apotheosis yet, it does somewhat complicate things, but you could still do the following:
Turn 1: Flesh Sacrifice+Blood Storm+Cloak and dagger to nearest dead enemy+Source Vampirism+Time Warp. Turn 2: Magic Armour+Fortify+Teleport an enemy of choice outside of blood storm into it+?
You have a lot of AP left in the 2nd turn and can do a lot of stuff with it.
Shackles of pain is a good spell. Enemies will try to avoid hurting you so they do not hurt their friend. Executioner only ever gives u back 2AP per turn no matter how many you kill. And yeah 2 Geo is enough.
I never questioned how good Shackles is, I just wondered if you even can apply shackles if the enemy has phys armor left? Because the way late game necro works (even at level 15 it seems like it) you will hardly ever remove the enemies armour and not kill them in the process, especially if you start out with reactive Armour and Grasp. You might have a situation where an enemy has enough hp to not be killed by a next abilitiy (or all are on cd) and you then use shackles and ignore that enemy. (But yeah all of this depends on whether applying shackles is actually stopped by armour.
I know that executioner gives 2 ap even on multiple enemies, but I assumed you would kill at least 2 enemies with Reactive + Grasp that's why I said 4 AP after using both.
Shackles of pain is a good spell. Enemies will try to avoid hurting you so they do not hurt their friend. Executioner only ever gives u back 2AP per turn no matter how many you kill. And yeah 2 Geo is enough.
I never questioned how good Shackles is, I just wondered if you even can apply shackles if the enemy has phys armor left? Because the way late game necro works (even at level 15 it seems like it) you will hardly ever remove the enemies armour and not kill them in the process, especially if you start out with reactive Armour and Grasp. You might have a situation where an enemy has enough hp to not be killed by a next abilitiy (or all are on cd) and you then use shackles and ignore that enemy. (But yeah all of this depends on whether applying shackles is actually stopped by armour.
I know that executioner gives 2 ap even on multiple enemies, but I assumed you would kill at least 2 enemies with Reactive + Grasp that's why I said 4 AP after using both.
You cannot apply shackles to enemies with phys armour.
