If I put luck on a character, do I then have to loot the chest with that character, or will that work regardless of who in the party loots things?
Yes, you do.
I have to say, the mobs in Driftwood have a heck of a lot of HP/armor and do a lot more damage compared to Fort Joy.
I struggle with the same issue now, that I did in the first one. Where the heck to go? Most of my option are fights that are higher levels than me, or can more or less instant kill me - like the troll that is lower level than me, but one-shots my characters. Gah!
I’ll be a dissenting voice here. Level 16, in what I believe to be Act 3 in this incredibly generic and poorly written story, and I’m bored to tears. The massive Godwoken quest to power up is manifest by two additional bubbles of Source power. Compare that to all the Skyrim shouts, the variety of powers and attacks they gave the player. Yawn.
The combat is nice, reminds me of ToEE with the turn-based order appearing along the top of the screen. Yet not as tactical as ToEE and not as satisfying, and not enough to hold this game together IMO. Too many wild swings in how the same fights can play out, with entire party wipes followed by the same fight ending with nary a scratch.
The open world aspect of this game feels very constrained. The quests are often fucking atrociously designed. I left Act 2 with over a dozen still unfinished and didn’t have a rat’s as* big enough to care about any of them. Crafting is a huge meh. As noted, the scaling of drops is uneven as hell; you level up and feel obliged to run straight back to vendors to see what new goodies have magically appeared in their stores, which leaves the feeling that no drop is special.
How’d you do it? I still had 1 charge on my purge wand from act 1.
After getting an extra bubble of source you can go back and perform the black root ritual again and get a vampiric source skill that you can use to sneak up on them.
I like this game a lot. I think it is better than the first one, which was a great game. My biggest beef is the tedium surrounding inventory management. The vendor/trade UI should have a shared inventory for the whole party and it should use the highest barter in the party for pricing.
I am so underwhelmed with my main, who is a dwarven knight. Weak hits, horrible movement and nothing attacks me because of my high armor so tanking isn’t even doing its job.
Battle stomp is good, but so hard to time it right. Shield throw rarely hits a 2nd enemy and petrify is worthless if they have any armor.
Does it get any better?
Ps: I just started act 2
I think warrior is a bit underwhelming in a vacuum, but it works great with my party as the rogue and summons generally do a pretty good job of keeping things armor down before the warrior steps in with his cc. That’s playing sword and board, though.
The damage output might be much better with a 2 hander and since tanking is almost non-existent in this game unless you use the glass cannon tactic building for 2 handed damage might be better. Since my warrior is undead though I feel I need the shield as healing him is a bit more difficult and that shields up ability can be a life saver for him even more than the others.
Consider adding some utility spells to a knight, like restoration, rain and so on, that isn’t dependent on intelligence. As for mobility, you’ll get Phoenix jump and Blitz, which makes you move around the battlefield easily.
Sadly, two handers are quite weak in this game, compared to say a shield and a one-hander.
After 30 hours with my current character, I’m beginning to understand that to make the game easier, you have to understand the synergies. For instance - For every tough fight, remember to check out weaknesses on enemies, and check if they have physical, or magical armor. Whatever they have the least off, is what you focus on.
Yes. Its a huge step up. When I got to Driftwood, I had never had a character die. I had a bunch of rez scrolls. Now I have like 5 left and have burnt all my mats making more of them. I spent all my money on armor too. I also can’t pick pocket the vendors like I did in Fort Joy.
The mobs have crazy defenses and do crazy damage. I am trying to make my way to the black pits and pissed off the magisters because I didn’t let them murder a family. On of their dudes basic attacks does like 350 damage, twice a round. They each have like 800 armor / magic. Yes some of them are slightly weaker to one or the other, but that is about it.
I can’t even imagine how you make a character that can do that. And the archers who shoot for like 220 per shot, again twice around, nevermind when they use a special power with it. These are not uber bosses, just ‘generic’ magisters.
My main tank, when buffed has like 600 armor and like 800 health or something. So a melee guy whacks me for 700 pts in one round, and then an archer shoots me for like 400 in the same round and I am half dead before I have done anything. Nevermind the casters who only have like 250 physical armor.
I have no idea how your supposed to handle this or what I am doing wrong. I am playing on the adventure level (2nd from the lowest level). I just may have to drop it down to the easiest.
In my experience so far, up to level 10 and now in the caverns near Driftwood, the fights quickly hit a point where you know you are going to win or lose. Usually, I have to get the upper hand fast, as the longer it drags on the worse it gets for me. So many of the enemies have seemingly endless reserves of everything, and some even have to be killed twice, which kinda sucks. But overall I enjoy the combat a lot.
I agree with Olaf, though; the UI needs some work, especially in trading. No reason at all why the game can’t use the best barter skill of the people in the party at the time, or why switching characters to see who has what resets the current trade window. That sort of thing is just dumb. Especially as the game allows you to–and perhaps intends for you to–cheese things heavily like with “magic pockets” sending stuff between characters who might even be miles apart.
Id love to have a key ring too. Or for keys to disappear once they no longer have a use.
I was underwhelmed with my warrior (I made the Red Prince a warrior) at first as well. But now in Act 3 and 4 he is a death-dealing machine and the best character in my party. His armor means he does not get the negative impacts of many debuffs. He ignores most fire, poison and other elements. With charge and phoenix he is mobile enough to get around to anyone. Phoenix Jump is a must-have. With overpower he often can take down mages in one or two hits. I often have him jump to the back and stomp a couple of mages and archers, which makes them fall down.
He is one bad, bad lizard. So yes, it gets better.
Yes, Phoenix Dive is a game-changer for warrior characters.
I die regularly on the easiest difficulty level. In fact i wandered over to a certain place past a certain bridge and encountered a certain character who, with my party at level 10, one-shotted my whole party with a 1000+ damage attack. Frankly if it didn’t actually tell me “easiest” difficulty i wouldn’t be able to distinguish this game from every other game ever made. There is just no way i’m playing at anything other than easiest, i’m already burning through potions/scrolls at a disturbing rate.
I like this game, but it does waste my time. I mean hours will go by and i think i’ll have had one fight. It’s very attractive and dioramic and l do enjoy wandering around. I think the randomness, the janky quests and the difficulty are being seen as positives by reviewers right now - the Ubisofting of gaming, leading you around by the nose from quest to quest where you never have to think about what you’re doing seems like an exhausted game style.
Um… no?
Scott’s two-handed warrior hits for like 1k fairly regularly. 600 is about average. Anything with less than 1k physical armor isn’t going to get to move for at least 2 turns. Assuming they even live that long (they rarely do).
Having a 2nd physical damage dealer makes them even more insane.
I’d say 2 handed warriors are borderline OP. Damage equal to a backstabbing rogue (actually often more since they’re not position dependent at all) with way more health and armor and the ability to AoE knockdown. Not to mention stuff like Cripple or Overwhelm.
They are, however, very weapon reliant (as are all physical damage dealers). Always keep their weapon up to date.
I will agree that for a time there I did feel like my two-handed guy was the weakest in the party, but he came into his own at some point (probably around when I got Pheonix Dive). Being able to reliably knock one or more combatants down is fantastic, and if you play them well, a melee build is just brutal.
Some tips!
Take Executioner - it’s amazing to get another 2 AP so after you kill one foe you can blitz over to another one, or drop a Fortify or a Mend Armor if needed.
Take Picture of Health and focus on Warfare - Warfare gives you the same damage bonuses the weapon skills do, and with Picture of Health you’ll get a big boost in health for each point of Warfare. Right now at level 19 my two-handed build has over 6500 health, and I’m not even trying (he has way more points in STR than CON for example).
Dip into an element - With only a small investment in your skills, you can have access to powerful buff spells like Fortify, Armor of Frost, Haste, or Tactical Retreat (with a few points in Scoundrel). Also elements can be combined with non-element skills (like Warfare) to produce some cool new abilities, and being able to use these will make for greater variety and provide more tactical options.
Equipment is king - keep as many pieces of armor as you can updated so you are ahead of (or on) the difficulty curve. That keeps your armor up, but make sure to keep the ring slots updates too as that’s where most of your magic armor comes from.
As mentioned keep your weapon upgraded at all times. Every level hit vendors as they will sell new stock to reflect your new level, and you want to spend your gold on things in this order:
New Skills
Weapon
Armor
Ifan for me is my two handed guy and he’s (at level 19) probably more reliable than my main Sorcerer/Pyro character (Red Prince).
Thats nice to hear - so far, the fact that two-handers aren’t double the damage of a sword has made my two handed guy at level 10 one that doesnt contribute much in the way of damage. If that changes after that, thats pretty great. Are the numbers on two handed swords double the size of those on swords at your levels or something close by?