The Thread of Manx

[Tigranes]

OK, we really need a Reinhardt thread.

 

I 'saved' him for my third playthrough and as I suspected I'm enjoying him the most of all. He certainly looks like a weird old hobo but he is ridiculously powerful. Wondering how other people have fared with him.

 

In this run I pumped Will like crazy, getting the related talent and also the Agility into Ability DPS talent. Gave up stamina, armor, block, etc in item selection just to get more Will. By Rajani I was at level 9-10 and pushing 100 Will, and killed her in less than 5 minutes on the first try (hardcore). I'm in Stonebridge now at Level 17, and with about 150 Will, Geometry of Annihilation kills literally everything. It took out 80% of the First People chieftain's health in one hit, ending the battle in 30 seconds. It's amusing to come across a big mob, roll in the middle of it, cast GoA - Reinhardt gets killed but then everyone else falls on top of his corpse.

 

Comparatively, electrocute is not as amazing despite maxing the electric damage talent, and Reinhardt is definitely a glass cannon, but it'll be interesting to see how endgame turns out. I should also make better use of defensive stances - hadn't realised how useful they were until I started spamming Volatile Barrier with Anjali.

[Guest]

I did Reinhart my second time through and it was a lot of fun.

 

He ended the game with >400 in Will and was pretty much insta-killing most anything that wasn't a boss.

 

I never even got a chance to play with Electrocute or Creative Destruction, as Geometry of Annihilation quickly became his bread and butter (particularly for bosses and heavily armored bad guys as they tend to move very slowly. Putting points into Temporal Inversion slows them even further resulting in maximized damage over time. Don't even waste your time with Enduring Negation).

 

I highly recommend taking Perpetual Momentum as soon as it is available and play on using Power Spheres for that more than healing.

 

Re: Talents - Adept Spell Casting is very helpful in bringing the Focus cost of his abilities down. Timely Escape comes in helpful, particularly at the end of the game (Reinhert sets 'em up and Anjali knocks 'em down).

 

To be honest, I think Reinhart almost needs to be used in Hardcore to take full advantage of his options. Either that or intentionally gimp him with less-than-top-tier equipment to keep things challenging.

[ShadowScythe]

I used Reinhart in my first and only playthrough so far. He's tonnes of fun. I pushed a lot of stats into Will and Agility and eventually late game loot gave me the stamina boost I needed to get out of glass cannon status. my main tactics were dropping Geometry annihilation at the very start to take out all the trash mobs and then switching to gauntlet stance to lightning strike any powerful mooks/bosses. If the mobs ever came too close I'd drop Clockwork trap. Mirror leap and those streams of magic abilities weren't as useful imo- though I suspect they'll be a lot more helpful in MP for healing the crew.

 

For default attacks I just used entropic magic stance so I could build up focus at range- I never used standard gauntlet attacks cause Reinhart is way too fragile.

[Tigranes]

I'm finding the mirror Reinhardt is actually quite tough - and a couple of times, even resurrected me and my companion (although if everyone dies except the mirror it seems to be game over). Very useful especially for directing the fire of the bosses, so they stay put for GoA.

[ShadowScythe]

Mirror Reinhart revives the player and companions? huh, he's more useful than I thought.

[Alpha]

Old hobo.

 

Good info keep it coming.

[Tigranes]

OK, Reinhardt is officially too good.

 

By endgame I had over 300 will, hitting nearly 400 ability DPS, and effectively beat the first two Jeyne Kassynder battles within 5 minutes. I think I used about three GoAs and teleports, total. If I minmaxed a lot more I could make him even stronger. Going to try and fiddle around in the files to see if I can soup up the difficulty.

[Alpha]

Tigranes, can you share how you did you build him in that playthrough? talents, skills profiency.

Edited June 30, 2011 by Alpha

[Tale]

I'm not really sure how to distribute stats on him. I kind of wing it.

 

I do find that he builds up power ridiculously quick. At level 20 (or is it 21?), I'm putting up perpetual motion and one of the other two defense skills, dropping geometry, then hitting them with creative until I run out of focus. Destroys everything and refills my power. So even if I end up with no focus, I hit another perpetual motion. It's not a nuanced strategy, I'll admit.

[Starwars]

I'm on my third playthrough, using Reinhart this time and I think he feels a bit too powerful. I really like the notion of him using traps and such, and the "spray" abilities are fun to use. Stuff like the Lightning Strike is a good, powerful "meat and potatoes" type of attack. But Geometry of Annihilation in particular is just freaking murder. I wouldn't mind at all if that got hit by the "nerf bat" as it were.

[Labadal]

Spam Geometry of Annahilation (or whatever it is called) with high agility and will. Add some momentum to build up your focus regen per attack. increase the beige/brown upgrade for GoA. It was doing 1000+ damage on crits. Spam that, dodge dodge, attack, then use GoA and start over again. Armor, block and stamina are not needed for Reinhart.

[LadyCrimson]

Hehe...haven't played him but when I got him as companion late game, where you could use all the points at once, I gave him all the awesome gear I'd been saving and took him with me for a short while. I barely had to do anything, even as AI he killed everything for me. It was actually kinda boring, so I switched back to Lucas as comp..

 

He's definitely the chr. I'm using for my 3rd run.

[Kenti]

As my friend affectionately calls it "Death Cog" (Geometry of Annihilation) rules all. Especially when you get the traits that add a touch of healing to the whole process.

 

It's Focus-expensive, but it pretty much annihilates anything if you teleport around it while people try and close in on you.

 

Mirror Leap is very important early on though to give you a bit more protection against inherent squishiness you'll have if you're going after high-Will. And you need high Will because then your mirror image and Death Cog pretty much annihilate anything in your path.

[toastification]

It's not a nuanced strategy, I'll admit.

The sad thing is you are over complicating it. Empowered Geometry of Annihilation spam creates a self-sustaining loop of stun, stupid damage, and unlimited power as long as you have about 20% crit rate. The only reason to even use other skills by that point is because you can effectively stack Charged status from a lightning spell and the debuff from Creative Destruction to speed up the killing process.

 

Though, in Reinhart's defense, every character becomes faceroll easy towards the end. The ability to spam your skills infinitely is too strong, and Focus/Power generation is too easy as it is in the game right now. They should tone it way down.

[3mka]

A bit of thread Necro here but...

 

I tried using Manx with without using or with minimum use of GoA. The primary skills were mirror leap and lightning strike.

 

I find the that for the most part you would need to be more active than with GOA. Mirror Manx can't kill everyone. However I noted that he was extremely useful in boss fights particularly those who enjoy throwing around unblockable projectiles. Mirror Manx tends to target the bosses first and will usually get in their faces thus occasionally blocking any projectile that they throw. If you maxed out his damage reflect it gets even better as now they're unblockables only damage themselves. This was really telling during the Maru-Yatum fight where after summoning Mirror Manx I watched huge chunks of his health disappearing once Mirror Manx was in his face. I previously had a difficult time against him in previous play throughs with Lucas and Katarina, Mirror Manx just trivializes him.

 

Mirror Manx won't work on all bosses though, the third Jeyne Kassynder fight was especially difficult because of her teleport abilities and I relied more on timing my own teleports and throwing lightning strikes at her. Although Empowered Mirror Manx allowed me to get several free hits in at the start (which she will ignore later on). Mirror Manx was not as effective against the last boss either and I relied again on lightning strike.

 

That's another thing actually, Empowered Mirror Leap is used very differently and serves as a great distraction since it attracts aggro from nearby enemies leaving you free to do whatever you want. (not all the time though, enemies will sometimes ignore it and I'm not sure how or why that happens)

 

Another thing about this ability though is that I can't seem to reliably make Rheinhart Mirror Leap to where I want him to go. All in all its a pretty good combination of skills and Rheinhart doesn't really need GOA to be effective.

[swavek]

Are there actually any items that offer both a bonus to Will and Attack? Folks are recommending that Manx's will be pumped up, but every decent item that offers a bonus to will has little to no attack bonus. Sacrificing attack for will isn't all that good, right? Both stats are calculated into Ability damage, right?

[3mka]

I think most determined weapons raise will and attack although the latter not by much. There's a unique weapon near the end, the orbis bellum which raises all of Rheinhart's major offensive stats (will, attack, agility) but that's somewhere near the end. Rheinhart has a talent which up to 50% of his agility can go to his ability DPS. You can try finding Fierce x of quickness or Swift x of Rage clothing and armor items instead. Determined x of rage stuff might show up but I haven't seen it yet.

 

Attack does go into ability DPS also but not by much I think. Will is really the stat which raises it. I don't think there will be a situation where you're direct damage abilities do less damage than your standard attack. In Rheinhart's case you should rely more on his abilities to do damage and just use his standard attack to refill his Focus.

 

That being said you're free to concentrate on a Rheinhart that relies more on standard attack with situational use of his abilities. He does have abilities that are useful for more than just DPSing i.e. Mirror Manx distracts, slowdown by his clockwork trap or by GoA, companion (and self) healing by creative destruction, etc.

[Nordoki]

Reinhart Manx

 

Reinhart is a mage for the Legion.

 

Reinhart is also a very good character to have. I personally think that the duo of Anjali and Reinhart will guarantee smooth sailing for the entirety of the game. I feel like they are the best two characters in the game. Reinhart's magical abilities complement Anjali's very well. I will get into that a bit later.

 

Reinhart himself is particularly adept at long-range attacks.

 

Pros:

Devastating ranged attacks that annihilate enemy groups

Slow put powerful melee blows.

Cons:

Vulnerable to rushers

[Starwars]

I just completed a Hardcore run with Reinhart, lots of fun.

 

Playing on Hardcore really makes one appreciate the characters and the way they work more IMO, it's much more important to try and learn their intricacies.

 

However, I think it also highlights some problems. I play with keyboard and mouse and while I don't have any problem controlling the game any more (I'm pretty good at it now actually), one thing I consistently have problems with is placing Geometry of Annihilation. Sometimes it seems to place itself on Reinhart, even though I have an enemy targeted (his health bar showing means that he is targetted right?), and sometimes it drops on the enemy.

 

Did you guys use Clockwork Trap a lot? I used it a lot near the start of the game where your arsenal is limited but once you get into the more hectic parts of the game, I found it was pretty hard to place the trap effectively. Geometry of Annihilation is so big that it's bound to get *someone* in there, but I often found that my Clockwork Traps sputtered out because noone wanted to step in them.

 

Mirror Leap really helped out in some fights on Hardcore, had to rely on it quite a bit.

[Sannom]

However, I think it also highlights some problems. I play with keyboard and mouse and while I don't have any problem controlling the game any more (I'm pretty good at it now actually), one thing I consistently have problems with is placing Geometry of Annihilation. Sometimes it seems to place itself on Reinhart, even though I have an enemy targeted (his health bar showing means that he is targetted right?), and sometimes it drops on the enemy.

If it works at all like the Fall from Heaven power of Anjali, you have a little spot of light that indicates where the power will happen, I have a tendency to launch it at the feet of Anjali too by mistake.

[FireMist]

I just completed a Hardcore run with Reinhart, lots of fun.

 

Playing on Hardcore really makes one appreciate the characters and the way they work more IMO, it's much more important to try and learn their intricacies.

 

However, I think it also highlights some problems. I play with keyboard and mouse and while I don't have any problem controlling the game any more (I'm pretty good at it now actually), one thing I consistently have problems with is placing Geometry of Annihilation. Sometimes it seems to place itself on Reinhart, even though I have an enemy targeted (his health bar showing means that he is targetted right?), and sometimes it drops on the enemy.

 

Did you guys use Clockwork Trap a lot? I used it a lot near the start of the game where your arsenal is limited but once you get into the more hectic parts of the game, I found it was pretty hard to place the trap effectively. Geometry of Annihilation is so big that it's bound to get *someone* in there, but I often found that my Clockwork Traps sputtered out because noone wanted to step in them.

 

Mirror Leap really helped out in some fights on Hardcore, had to rely on it quite a bit.

 

I used Clockwork Trap quite often, even in the later stages of the game (improved it with Force Magnification). It costs less focus than Geometry of Annihilation and is quicker to cast, thus reducing the amount of time that Reinhart stays vulnerable to enemy attacks. Just drop it in a cluster of enemies, dodge out of the way and have your partner (preferably Lucas or Anjali) cover your butt. Barrier Shield is useful for this strategy because enemies will hit you at least once. It worked well in fast-paced fights with hordes of enemies that surround you (the Dapper Old Gent battle and one of the battles with Jeyne and her supporters come to mind). Drop a Trap, roll, approach another cluster of mobs and so on. Lots of clockwork traps exploding everywhere, and huge damage output.

Edited September 22, 2011 by FireMist

[Doctor.Strange]

Clockwork trap is fun to use and set up its empowered cast, but ultimately dulls in comparison to Reinhart's other spells in every way. High cast time contributes to high vulnerability time, low net DPS and is basically a novelty spell that distracts from his other abilities.

 

Please see my post below on Reinhart Manx.

http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=58929

Edited October 9, 2011 by Doctor.Strange

[Aserium]

Hey guys, only just started playing. Have only used Reinhart, mainly cause i like to play as mages, When leveling up, whats the links to maximizing the abilities? like the healing and shadow step?