warhammer 40k: rogue trader

[majestic]

Haven't read the thread for fear of spoilers, so sorry if that is a bit reduntant as information, but extra turn abilities have a funky (bugged, I guess) interaction with Steady Superiority, the Arch-Militant heoric ability. Even if you just get extra movement points through something like, say, Jae's Move, Move, Move! ability Steady Superiority allows for an attack. Turned my fighting force into Arch-Militants now (i.e. Heinrix, my main character, Abelard and Argenta). Between Heinrix' and Idira's resolve stacking, everyone's rocking Steady Superiority within a turn or two, that's just too good to pass up.

The extra momentum from stacking Word of the Emperor is also really crazy with Jae's Inspire, stacking +damage like there's no tomorrow. Basically that allows my party to stack dodge and parry to crazy levels on my melee characters and extra damage to the point where Argenta kills 200HP enemies in a single turn with one burst, and it stacks up really quickly too.

It's a pity that leaves Abelard a bit in the dust for the time being. I love the ol' bootlicker to bits, but Heinrix has Word of the Emperor, and he's cleansing everything with fire, including himself. Like, uh, literally.

Edited December 24, 2023 by majestic

[kanisatha]

11 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I didn't like the combat in the Witcher either and never finished any game in that series. Still haven't even bothered installing the 3rd game. I don't spend much, if any, time buffing, but I also don't play on harder difficultly levels if I'm not having fun with them. I have no problem turning down the difficulty or just cheating if I have more fun that way.

This is how I played TW3 too. I also hate the whole concept of buffing my character and never do it. And instead I prefer to just lower the difficulty as much as needed to compensate. In TW3 this worked quite fine for most of the game, but started to become a problem towards the end where even at the lowest difficulty not buffing was not working. I still somehow managed to finish the game. But then I tried the first DLC, and it was flatout impossible to get past a certain enemy (the burning mansion) pretty early on without using all manner of buffs. That's when I quit.

[Sarex]

4 hours ago, majestic said:

Haven't read the thread for fear of spoilers, so sorry if that is a bit reduntant as information, but extra turn abilities have a funky (bugged, I guess) interaction with Steady Superiority, the Arch-Militant heoric ability. Even if you just get extra movement points through something like, say, Jae's Move, Move, Move! ability Steady Superiority allows for an attack. Turned my fighting force into Arch-Militants now (i.e. Heinrix, my main character, Abelard and Argenta). Between Heinrix' and Idira's resolve stacking, everyone's rocking Steady Superiority within a turn or two, that's just too good to pass up.

The extra momentum from stacking Word of the Emperor is also really crazy with Jae's Inspire, stacking +damage like there's no tomorrow. Basically that allows my party to stack dodge and parry to crazy levels on my melee characters and extra damage to the point where Argenta kills 200HP enemies in a single turn with one burst, and it stacks up really quickly too.

It's a pity that leaves Abelard a bit in the dust for the time being. I love the ol' bootlicker to bits, but Heinrix has Word of the Emperor, and he's cleansing everything with fire, including himself. Like, uh, literally.

You don't even need to cheese it, Argenta does that with bounty hunter too. My MC has an ability that gives him his one extra turn with 2 AP at the beginning of combat. Use that 2 AP to give Argenta an extra turn (item boost that to giving her 3ap instead of 2), means she can burst attack and then run and gun for one more single shot, then my MC (99% of the time) gets the first turn. I use that turn to buff up Argenta set up tactical zones then buff the tactical zones then give Argenta 2 more ap, now she does a burst that can usually kill all enemies in line (which usually gets her all 3 pray stacks). This gets the momentum over the line to give a heroic to my MC, which in turn I use to immediately give Argenta a full turn where she can attack as long as she has ap. With that full turn I usually get the momentum to get her solider heroic for even more attacks. (and Jae gets a turn whenever someone uses heroic so she can also give another turn to Argenta or even use her heroic to give a full extra turn)

All of this has been done in one Turn, before any enemy even got theirs. This usually cleans up the bulk of any fight if not the whole fight. I am playing on Daring difficulty.

Also I'm pretty sure that I can get more stacks on Argenta with another bounty hunter marking pray, but I have not found an enemy she can't one shot fully buffed (and I think her crit is already close to max).

Edited December 24, 2023 by Sarex

[majestic]

I had Cassia as Grand Strategist for a while, but zone management is so incredibly janky I just respecced.

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

All of this has been done in one Turn, before any enemy even got theirs. This usually cleans up the bulk of any fight if not the whole fight. I am playing on Daring difficulty.

Dunno, I kinda stumble around where I am not supposed to, I guess. Just came out of Footfall and ran into a voidship full of insane tech priests and servitors. A fight with 12 enemies, 10 of which had 150+ HP and insane armor and deflection who basically one-shot my melee characters. Only pulled through because there was enough full cover and it was possible to abuse Steady Superiority's 0 AP attacks.

Spoiler

The Forgefiend at the end was something else, but Idira dealing 50+ psychic scream damage going three times per round thanks to Jae and Cassia made it possible to kill it before it mowed down everyone.

Guess I should follow the main quest for a while. Not sure my 60HP characters should be in an area with enemies dealing 50 damage per regular hit, but you never really know with Owlcat.

[melkathi]

That voidship is tedious.

Grand Strategist just doesn't seem worth the hassle. It kinda works on a psyker, because you can just put down the zones and then concentrate on psykering about, ignoring the whole grand strategist malarkey.

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I had Cassia as Grand Strategist for a while, but zone management is so incredibly janky I just respecced.

Dunno, I kinda stumble around where I am not supposed to, I guess. Just came out of Footfall and ran into a voidship full of insane tech priests and servitors. A fight with 12 enemies, 10 of which had 150+ HP and insane armor and deflection who basically one-shot my melee characters. Only pulled through because there was enough full cover and it was possible to abuse Steady Superiority's 0 AP attacks.

  Hide contents

The Forgefiend at the end was something else, but Idira dealing 50+ psychic scream damage going three times per round thanks to Jae and Cassia made it possible to kill it before it mowed down everyone.

Guess I should follow the main quest for a while. Not sure my 60HP characters should be in an area with enemies dealing 50 damage per regular hit, but you never really know with Owlcat.

What difficulty are you on, I have cleared a fare bit of planets before coming the second main planet in chapter 2 and I have not faced a battle I had to reload more then once (and those ones were rare). I'm on the forge planet now and am ridiculously overleveled. Maybe I should try some other strategy...

23 minutes ago, melkathi said:

That voidship is tedious.

Grand Strategist just doesn't seem worth the hassle. It kinda works on a psyker, because you can just put down the zones and then concentrate on psykering about, ignoring the whole grand strategist malarkey.

Grand Strategist is ridiculously overpowered. You can buff those zones where one buff doubles the effect of the zone and the other forces the enemies in the zone to reroll their successful saves and auto kills anyone below (2x(int+fel)) wounds.

For reference I oneshot that Forgefiend with one burst attack from Argenta.

edit: The zone are focused on the caster so the position of the zone will depend on where you click in reference to the caster. The skinny zones will always be aligned like part of a circle around the caster. Although I agree it's very tedious to position them.

edit: kind of like this (this is only with the zone buff, so half the buffs)

Just now realized that for some reason it says Cassia for the tactical advantage instead of my MC, she is not even in my party...

Edited December 24, 2023 by Sarex

[majestic]

18 minutes ago, Sarex said:

What difficulty are you on, I have cleared a fare bit of planets before coming the second main planet in chapter 2 and I have not faced a battle I had to reload more then once (and those ones were rare). I'm on the forge planet now and am ridiculously overleveled. Maybe I should try some other strategy...

Daring. 

As far as reloading goes:

Spoiler

Had to reload the (actual) Aurora fight twice to kill the Chaos Marine before the scripted shuttle attack, and the Forgefiend one once because naturally my party was huddled around the tech priest while talking to him, and it just splash damage killed everyone. Spreading the party out before talking to the tech priest fixed the issue, the melee line held long enough to get it down.

I am also very, very far away from dealing 50 damage per shot with any weapon outside of critical hits. Only Idira's souped up psychic scream comes close after getting every willpower buff available. On the other hand, I'm 10 profit factor away from being able to afford that bolter you carry. So, yeah, was probably a bit later in your game than in mine.

[Sarex]

3 minutes ago, majestic said:

I am also very, very far away from dealing 50 damage per shot with any weapon outside of critical hits. Only Idira's souped up psychic scream comes close after getting every willpower buff available. On the other hand, I'm 10 profit factor away from being able to afford that bolter you carry. So, yeah, was probably a bit later in your game than in mine.

This happened just now (lvl27), the voidship fight with the forgefiend was a while ago. There is another bolter (Imperial Pride) that does the same damage it's just missing the 10% additional chance to hit, you can get it in footfall after the quarantine zone unlocks, so fairly early in the game. (I'm still on chapter 2 btw :D)

[majestic]

Help, Chaos is animating my weapons.

[Sarex]

Even more funny when enemies t-pose move during cutscenes.

[Raithe]

Have to admit, I had Argenta doing mega damage by the end of the game. Nearly always starting combat with full momentum, being able to do the Heroic bit that then allows one extra attack every turn until the end of combat, throw in the use of the Wild Shot ability, and she was doing about 5 auto-burst attacks in a round and getting criticals on most of them.

Ended up having to use Toybox to kick start Ulfar's quest properly and ran through that. Then finished off the game.

The ending slides were a bit weird, some of them didn't seem to connect to others, and some referred to same characters with different things going on. Plus you had lots of the WH40k grimness in a "yes, you did a happy thing, that of course results in horrible death in 5 years" type of results.

[Sarex]

I explored the last system on the map that is available and am now going to finish chapter 2, or at least go to last of the 3 planets.

[Sarex]

Muhahahaha! This was without Argentas cull the blood which would probably get it to 200. Although when I mouse over the enemy it shows 450-500 dmg and some of the buff don't match their tooltip when looking at the logs.

I would guess that every additional buff has a roll of min and max value it can add.

edit: BTW you can submit the planet scans more that once to Opticon-22 for more profit.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Sarex

[uuuhhii]

12 hours ago, Sarex said:

Muhahahaha! This was without Argentas cull the blood which would probably get it to 200. Although when I mouse over the enemy it shows 450-500 dmg and some of the buff don't match their tooltip when looking at the logs.

I would guess that every additional buff has a roll of min and max value it can add.

edit: BTW you can submit the planet scans more that once to Opticon-22 for more profit.

how much hp a great unclean have in this game

would be funny is they die in one turn too

[melkathi]

Mine did in the miniature game.

Lascanon to the face will do that...

[Sarex]

Latest patch broke companion interaction. You cannot talk to any companion that is currently in your party.

nvm, seems to be fixed by going to a different map.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Sarex

[majestic]

Jae's Inspire! is fun, unless the fight is going badly she stacks 50 or so Tactical Superiority per round. I also switched Argenta to the Heavy Bolter sold by the Drusians now that I could... it takes a turn to produce higher overall damage numbers than you would get with the regular bolter because the per shot damage is smaller, but afterwards it just takes off and becomes completely ludicrous, especially with Arch-Militant's Steady Superiority upgrade that allows her to use both archetypes' Heroic Acts in a single combat.

Screenshot taken from a very short fight against a Chaos Marine and four Bloodletters.

Firearm Mastery's rate of fire bonus seems to be calculated off the weapon's base rate of fire and added afterwards. It does not get doubled by Rapid Fire which makes me a sad majestic, but it's not like it is necessary. Needless to say that this, combined with all the extra attacks, stacks Argenta's Fired Up to ludicrous degrees. Add Critical Versatility and Daring Approach's 100% crit rate, and... yeah. Woof.  

Blessed Bolter Casing makes her a better sniper than any of the snipers. I've gotten used to the silly zone placing and it has become quite fun. The Rear zone buffs weapons that would normally not have overpenetration, doubly fun with Locust Stratagem. Using Cassia as Grand Strategist is quite fun, designating zones on the map and moving enemies into groupings with her Navigator powers (Mastery of Time stacks her Willpower to infinity) and then just fire into the group with an 18 shot burst capable of overpenetration.

Edited December 29, 2023 by majestic

[melkathi]

Single shot bolter rounds not missing is silly fun. Argenta can see your toe? Boom! Headshot!

[Sarex]

@majestic Camaraderie is stupid for dmg too. If you are not worried about your party getting wiped, you can just stack all of them around Argenta for the bonus damage.

[Gromnir]

On 12/24/2023 at 1:53 PM, majestic said:

I am also very, very far away from dealing 50 damage per shot with any weapon outside of critical hits. Only Idira's souped up psychic scream comes close after getting every willpower buff available. On the other hand, I'm 10 profit factor away from being able to afford that bolter you carry. So, yeah, was probably a bit later in your game than in mine.

am only having played chapter 1 material during the beta. similar, with the release o' the second largeish patch, we decided to start playing the game a few days past, so am only having just finished chapter one on daring... and the end boss o' chapter one were a bit o' a surprise as the difficulty were increased substantial from the beta. our feedback is therefore limited to act 1 and starting encounters in chapter 2. 

the thing is, our argenta is regular doing +50 damage. now admitted such is with crits, but our crit chance is 100% almost immediate. am knowing is lore appropriate to have argenta using her bolter, but we have her specd' primarily as a sniper and she is death personified with the longlas and two officers in the party. cassia and our main provide extra turns at the start o' battle near guaranteeing argenta will achieve momentum for a heroic. more important than cover is maximizing the benefits o' argenta's camaraderie.  the extra turns has the side benefit o' buffing cassia's willpower btw, so is win-win. 

in turn 1 o' combat, our argenta typical gets 2x bring it down, her own turn, as well as a near guaranteed finest hour... and if is a whole bunch o' mobs, then 2x finest hours is possible. with the talent which is refunding an ap per kill, argenta ordinarily clears the field after a finest hour. 

obvious we ain't been using zones from grand strategist, save for two battles in footfall, but given our strategy am only anticipating using frontline and rear as party defense is a non issue if you kill everything before the baddies can hurt you. 

...

honest, am thinking o' starting over with a fortress world, ministorum priest, soldier who uses flame weapons, 'cause multiple officers providing an argenta sniper with extra turns is kinda busted op. 

aside, the dialogue is kinda cringey over-the-top, but am thinking it works for 40k. the games workshop created setting is grimdark stacked on grim dark and owlcat is leaning into that abyss with obvious verve. for folks who think kafka is too sunny, owlcat's rogue trader will no doubt be a welcome crucible o' despair. 

gameplay is a bit monotonous thus far, but again, we found an exploitive approach, so is no shock combat is repetitive... the only saving grace being that 'cause our argenta sniper ends combats so quick, we don't need go through the same routine o' buff and debuff for many turns. am suspecting there will be a fair amount o' hypocrisy heard/seen from fans o' this game who nevertheless derided obsidian's lack o' prebuffing in pillars. the pillars system was considerable more dynamic and better balanced than what we see in rogue trader. whatever.  

other folks is more hardcore fans o' 40k than is Gromnir, so we cannot speak to all the lore minutiae the way @Azdeus could, but am thinking owlcat got right the feel o' 40k. looks like 40k. sounds like 40k. is over-the-top grimdark like you expect from 40k. 

also, wotr made obvious to us that much o' the appeal o' their games is linked to their providing options we would personal describe as broken. is an old complaint o' ours, so am not gonna rehash in detail, but am thinking owlcat fans like rogue trader precise because it provides busted powerful and busted weak builds, weapons and abilities. makes the game hardcore or something? dunno, but owlcat knows their audience. is also obvious that psykers get increasing powerful relative to other classes as levels increase, so if you enjoy/expect that old rpg trope, then rogue trader is gonna feel right.

regardless o' our criticisms, and recognizing how owlcat is unlikely to fix even obvious broken content, am suspecting we will play the game at least a couple times... as well as any and all dlc. we like the camp level o' 40k grim and grime. rogue trader is the first and only crpg set in 40k and owlcat got the admitted subjective feels right.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[majestic]

5 hours ago, Gromnir said:

am only having played chapter 1 material during the beta. similar, with the release o' the second largeish patch, we decided to start playing the game a few days past, so am only having just finished chapter one on daring... and the end boss o' chapter one were a bit o' a surprise as the difficulty were increased substantial from the beta. our feedback is therefore limited to act 1 and starting encounters in chapter 2. 

the thing is, our argenta is regular doing +50 damage. now admitted such is with crits, but our crit chance is 100% almost immediate. am knowing is lore appropriate to have argenta using her bolter, but we have her specd' primarily as a sniper and she is death personified with the longlas and two officers in the party. cassia and our main provide extra turns at the start o' battle near guaranteeing argenta will achieve momentum for a heroic. more important than cover is maximizing the benefits o' argenta's camaraderie.  the extra turns has the side benefit o' buffing cassia's willpower btw, so is win-win. 

in turn 1 o' combat, our argenta typical gets 2x bring it down, her own turn, as well as a near guaranteed finest hour... and if is a whole bunch o' mobs, then 2x finest hours is possible. with the talent which is refunding an ap per kill, argenta ordinarily clears the field after a finest hour. 

obvious we ain't been using zones from grand strategist, save for two battles in footfall, but given our strategy am only anticipating using frontline and rear as party defense is a non issue if you kill everything before the baddies can hurt you. 

The one thing I do not like about my current Argenta build is the ramp up time. It takes a bit to get really going. I thought battles would last a little longer than they actually do.

Well, takes a bit is probably overstated. My Argenta stacks critical hit damage with every attack (and every stack of Arch-Militant's Versatility), and shooting 30+ bullets in one of her turns while having guaranteed crits means that after the first round even the measly Heavy Bolter base damage deals 50+ damage per hit, and it fires up to 18 times per attack. Still pales in comparison to Mastery of Time, which Cassia should probably pick up really early. Between Mastery of Time and Reveal the Light, Cassia's Lidless Stare can deal 100+ damage to each enemy in its considerable range. If you give her Finest Hour! from the second officer (everyone should have two officers in the group ) everything else becomes slightly irrelevant.

Well, almost everything. Argenta was still the MVP against that one Hellbrute I found on a planet accessible in Chapter 2 (although in all fairness, not having a route there and having to create one with Navigator's Insight should have been a hint).

I thought about giving her Camaraderie too, but right now, the way I play, she just does not stand next to other people all too much.

Edited January 1 by majestic

[Sarex]

33 minutes ago, majestic said:

I thought about giving her Camaraderie too, but right now, the way I play, she just does not stand next to other people all too much.

You should only give her that if you use her for all the damage. I am now starting my fights with the whole team around her. I do wonder if I will get bored of only using her for fights as I have 2 other characters set up to do fine damage too, but sadly 99% of fights don't make it past round one. Hoping that chapter 3 will have some hard fights.

[Sarex]

This is a bug, I think, because I was able to cast furious recital multiple times and it's a once per combat ability. Although I was at max momentum so I don't know if it did anything. Either way my master tactician ended up with 500 stacks of tactical advantage. (I was able to get it to 500 by the end of the fight with the rest of the buffs)

I finally got to use Heinrix

Without any buffs (apart from his own) that is not bad at all, but movement is still a big issue for him to clear fights alone.

Edited January 1 by Sarex

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

This is a bug, I think, because I was able to cast furious recital multiple times and it's a once per combat ability. Although I was at max momentum so I don't know if it did anything. Either way my master tactician ended up with 500 stacks of tactical advantage. (I was able to get it to 500 by the end of the fight with the rest of the buffs)

There are some really strange interactions in combat. It is an Owlcat game, so I expect half of the talents do not work as described.

Mastery of Time, for instance, seems to trigger at the damndest occasions. Cassia basically starts combat with three stacks of it, and I do not know why. Seize the Initiative proccs, and I suppose that counts, but why does it count as three stacks? The willpower bonus she gives out with Reveal the Light starts hyperscaling immediately. Not that I am complaining, but it affects everything else, especially Idira and her psyker buffs, which in turn leads to high resolve and exceptional momentum.

6 hours ago, Sarex said:

You should only give her that if you use her for all the damage. I am now starting my fights with the whole team around her. I do wonder if I will get bored of only using her for fights as I have 2 other characters set up to do fine damage too, but sadly 99% of fights don't make it past round one. Hoping that chapter 3 will have some hard fights.

I found that I am having a little trouble keeping her close to anyone for the effect to be worth it. The heavy bolter's effective range is not great enough, and she's constantly scooting across the battlefield firing at enemies. Focusing all my extra turns on Argenta makes her clear the battlefield, but she does so without being adjacent to anyone just after the first few shots fired.

[Sarex]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

There are some really strange interactions in combat. It is an Owlcat game, so I expect half of the talents do not work as described.

I still don't know why 1 hit from Heinrix did 4 ticks of damage.

3 hours ago, majestic said:

I found that I am having a little trouble keeping her close to anyone for the effect to be worth it. The heavy bolter's effective range is not great enough, and she's constantly scooting across the battlefield firing at enemies. Focusing all my extra turns on Argenta makes her clear the battlefield, but she does so without being adjacent to anyone just after the first few shots fired.

If it's worth anything I think you just need to start the combat with everyone around her. Because I was still getting the bonus after when no one was near her. At least it said so in the logs.

I think most of the bugs I'm having are happening if I save and load during combat, but some times my characters don't get any AP on their turn and that annoys me very much. Now I try to save before the fight whenever I can, unless I'm testing something or going for a high score.