Basic builds & gameplay tips

[Nivarian99]

I am going to try this! Have got MB1, will make it 2, get combustion and see what happens for a lark!

 

[Gr8Scott]

My hope and desire is for this to be a community project. I'm not an expert in any class. Many players here have nuance and experience that I don't. So contribute, discuss, fight (politely!), and I'll include what I can.

If you would like to contribute, then here is the basic format:

Build Name
Typical playstyle:
Critical basic skills:
Helpful basic skills:
Critical advance skills:
Helpful advance skills:
Trait priority:
Helpful tips:
Common variations:

@Neponde Wow. Ambitious and extremely helpful idea for what build options are helpful! Thank you.

I had been considering writing up a cleric guide with 3 options: Summoner, Caster, & Paladin. I thought the guide would be great for primary and secondary skills (and optional advantageous skills like Gate). I'd be glad to help with Cleric write ups. Real life has prevented my EK ambitions until now. But I must confess I don't know how/if the current chat descriptions (Duelest, The 3, Immortal Cleric, etc) match at all with my personal skills based descriptions.

Ambitious and helpful. Add some sarcasm and you are the Tremadan's Construct of the forum. Which is way better than being the Swamp Donkey of chat ;-)

 

[Neponde]

@Neponde

I had been considering writing up a cleric guide with 3 options: Summoner, Caster, & Paladin. I thought the guide would be great for primary and secondary skills (and optional advantageous skills like Gate). I'd be glad to help with Cleric write ups. ... But I must confess I don't know how/if the current chat descriptions (Duelest, The 3, Immortal Cleric, etc) match at all with my personal skills based descriptions.

Sounds like a great idea.
Don't worry about matching descriptions. I just tossed those tags out for a beginning: one warrior guild based cleric (heavyhand, duel), and one based on joining the church of Three.

I'm hoping to provide a minimum of between 2 and 4 guides for each class. Your 3 sound like a great start. They may be tweaked or upgraded based on community feedback, as long as you are okay with that.

Thanks for the compliments and encouragement!

 

[Kakost]

Don't forget combustion. They are coming in to be killed anyways.

Oh yes, absolutely, I just thought about that. I was just trying to keep on the theme of "Thunder Wizard".

Perhaps we should call it "Nuclear Wizard" or "Radiation Mage" instead? Lol.

"If you touch me, you'll die. Im radioactive baby"

 

[Nivarian99]

I used Stealth 1 in Archer, esp useful along with Spint to get things like Wrymslayer earlier than normal. Not worth a skill point?

 

[Kakost]

I had been considering writing up a cleric guide with 3 options: Summoner, Caster, & Paladin.

Wow, I never thought about doing a Summoner Cleric. Im not sure it's feasible thou. Let me think:
- Summon Dire Wolf 3 (6 skill points)
- Summoner 3 (bought on Icemist, 4 skill points) - to summon a lvl 16 Dire Wolf
- Battle Prayer 3 (Church of the Three, 6 skill points) as auxiliary skill
- Nivaria's Barrier 2 (Prerequisite of Battle Prayer, 2 skill points)
So, that's 18 skill points, not to mention Heal and Intervention which are almost mandatory to any Cleric build.
Ok, it's doable. Im not sure about how truly effective that would be, but it's doable. Im also not sure about how truly helpful Battle Prayer would be - sure it gives a bonus to both attack and defense to self, companion and wolf, thus making it the more interesting to have due to having an extra member in the party, but those bonuses are rather small.

I think this build might be subpar when compared to the Summoner Mage, because the Mage have 3 possible summons (well, actually 4, because in truth the little Imp is absolutely amazing at the SPOILER place), which allows the Summoner Mage to play heavily upon the Elemental damage of critters, while the Wolf cannot do the same.
Also, the Summoner Mage is ranged and has a ton of damage from Staff, so they can play a very safe game, while the Cleric is meele.
Another pro for the Mage is that their Summoner skill amplifies ALL of their 4 summon skills, while the Cleric will only have 1, which means that those 4 skill points on Summoner 3 amplifies 4 skills for the Mage, but only 1 for the Cleric.

On the bright side of things, the Cleric heal can heal the wolf, and Battle Prayer can buff it up; Im just not sure if that's enough to place it on the same lvl as the Summoner Mage.

Alternatively, the Cleric could also use Beast Master (that one skill you get from the Varannari), as a replacement in situations that your Summon Spirit Wolf skill is on cooldown, but it takes quite some time for you to be able to reach the area of the Varannari and to be able to have the reputation to learn it, but it's doable nonetheless.

Overall, it seems an interesting as a concept, I would say that it's probably doable, I would have to test how truly effective Battle Prayer would be to it and if it is truly a build on par of the others, more "vanilla" ones.

I believe it is playable and possibly fun regardless, even if it's a little weaker when compared to others.

I thought the guide would be great for primary and secondary skills (and optional advantageous skills like Gate). I'd be glad to help with Cleric write ups. Real life has prevented my EK ambitions until now. But I must confess I don't know how/if the current chat descriptions (Duelest, The 3, Immortal Cleric, etc) match at all with my personal skills based descriptions.

As far as I know, the 2 "basic" builds for Cleric are the ones from Warrior's guild ("Paladin", Duelist, Heavy Hand, that sort of stuff) and the one from the Church of the Three ("Priest", normal cleric adv skills).

"Immortal Cleric" is just having the Intervention skill - which you should always have under ANY Cleric build.

Im not sure that "Immortal Cleric" is a specific build (since it's just a single skill)

 

[Neponde]

I used Stealth 1 in Archer, esp useful along with Spint to get things like Wrymslayer earlier than normal. Not worth a skill point?

1) rule of fun. If you enjoy it, go for it.
2) these are basic templates, to be modifies according to preference and style...
3) ... But invisibly does not, in my opinion, add much to the build, other than ease of sneaking into high value equipment (which you could purchase an invisibility potion too) .

Post automatically merged:    23/04/2023

[... Stuff and things ...]

Your spirit wolf does spirit damage, which is an extremely versatile damage type. A summoner cleric, from what I understand, is a blended build which takes advantage of clerics aoe heals + damage. With all the group heals and buffs, then the three of you (wolf, companion, cleric) become a trifecta of pain. Different style than the walking nuclear bomb known as mage, but not worse.

In fact, if memory serves, the current speed run record, and lowest level ironman completion of the game, is currently held by a cleric in this style.

 

[Kakost]

So Neponde, I guess that the third Cleric build could be called "Shaman"... Or just the boring "Cleric Summoner".

I liked the concept. Just give me a second to organize it in the layout format that you are posting to make your job a bit easier

Post automatically merged:    23/04/2023

Build Name - "Shaman" or "Cleric Summoner" (I prefer Shaman)

Typical playstyle: not exactly sure yet how to describe. Meele obviously, Caster, Buffer, Healer, Average Difficulty (I guess those are some good guidelines)

Critical basic skills: Guardian Wolf

Helpful basic skills: Heal Wounds, Intervention, Thelume's Wisdom (functional skill), Nivarian's Barrier 2 (Prerequisite of Battle Prayer), Sacred Fire 3 (Prerequisite of Flames of Faith)
* Maybe Heal and Intervention should go to critical skills?

Critical advance skills: Summoner

Helpful advance skills: Battle Prayer, Flames of Faith, Beast Master

Trait priority: Per (High), Str (mid), End (mid)

Helpful tips:
1) Keep lots of Mana potions on you at all times, since this build is pretty mana intensive
2) Group buffs (Battle Prayer mostly and Flames of Faith secondarily) are very helpful during tough fights
3) Your healing capabilities can be used to great effects to keep your group alive and healthy
4) Beast Master can be used on critical fights upon which you find yourself with your Guardian Wolf skill under cooldown
5) Your summoned beast (either the spirit wolf or the bear) is your best friend. Always keep one by your side.

Common variations: none know so far.

(This is the skeleton of the build, but like always, I'll need some Iron Man testing on it to give a final say about it)

 

[Neponde]

@Kakost that looks like a decent theoretical beginning. As neither of us has very much cleric experience, I'll wait to hear from a more experienced cleric player before I put it into the guide.

Looks like i might need to switch my current run to cleric. I'm comfortable writing and refining guides for the other three classes, as I have played them a fair bit, but not the cleric.

 

[Kakost]

Build Name - Rogue Assassin

Typical playstyle: Moderately Difficult, Meele, Kitting, Offensive, Sneaky

Critical basic skills: Stab, Evasion, Sneak Attack

Helpful basic skills: Invisibility 1, Sprint 1, Trap 1, Kick 1

Critical advance skills: Assassinate

Helpful advance skills: Flurry, Precision Strikes, Massive Criticals, Poison Master, Bloodlust, Body Development (defensive), Magical Training (function)

Trait priority: Agi (High), Str (Mid)

Helpful tips:
1) Throw your companion in front of you, then try to run around the enemies to hit them in the back, to trigger Sneak Attack
2) Stab gives you explosive damage, specially when triggering Sneak Attack (either by attacking out of Invisibility or by striking enemies in the back). Stab is the main source of power for the Assassin Rogue, and their defining skill, which is what you'll use to win most fights
3) Assassinate, particularly maxed out, will allow you to deliver tons of Stabs on a single fight (either against multiple enemies or against a powerful boss), and thus allows you to quickly dispatch anything that crosses your way. Pay close attention to your Stab skill after buying Assassinate in order to use it as often as possible.
4) Evade is probably the best defense skill in the game, and is incredible against multiple enemies. When surrounded by hordes of enemies, use Evade for huge survivability, and finish them off with multiple uses of Stab (thanks to Assassinate).
5) You dont always need to fight your way in. With Rogue, sometimes it's best to use Invisibility+Sprint to get in and get out of your objectives. Invisibility + Sprint + Stab can also be used to devastating effects to kill single lone enemies in a single blow.
6) Invisibility, Sprint and Trap are amazing skills for escaping from rough spots
7) Magical Training is an interesting situational skill to have for Assassins, to allow you to summon golems (or spirit wolves) from scrolls or using paralyze undead from scrolls, for example.
8) Poison Mastery can make your already massive blows even more lethal
9) If you add Precision Strikes, Massive Criticals and Poison Mastery, your Stabs are in for some wild massive damage that can potentially kill even the hardest bosses in very few blows (specially if you trigger Sneak Attack on top of it).
Sometimes you can even kill bosses in a single blow!

Common variations: 1H hitter, switch priorities between Str and Agi for using 1H (non-light) weapons. In this case, Body Development becomes even more attractive.

Post automatically merged:    23/04/2023

@Kakost that looks like a decent theoretical beginning. As neither of us has very much cleric experience, I'll wait to hear from a more experienced cleric player before I put it into the guide.

Looks like i might need to switch my current run to cleric. I'm comfortable writing and refining guides for the other three classes, as I have played them a fair bit, but not the cleric.

Absolutely. If you could be so kind as to try out my theoretical "Shaman Cleric", I would deeply appreciate it, since Im still doing my Assassin play and I plan on doing Death Knight next, so it will take me waaaaaay too much time before I can play test it, so if you could it would be awesome (and I need to do the Mage Barrier too!)

If any experienced Cleric player could give their input, it will be awesome. But I'll definitely try the Shaman out, someday.