Too many unusable abilities

[metamag]

Why would you ever upgrade or even use shield pummel, vanguard strike, earthrending strike(that is one sloooow ability for a supposed crowd control) and many other with other characters?

Lucas is best at using 3 abilities: blade dash, wind shear and heroic charge, and I'm not even sure about blade dash once you get wind shear.

2 effective abilities is not much customization, now is it?

 

And you could have done it so much better if you only had given it enough thought.

 

And skills like Trader, it is completely irrelevant since the game is so small in scope..

[Shagsbeard]

This is true in every game since chess. When advancing a pawn, you can choose what ever piece you would like to promote it to, but it's never to your advantage to promote it to rook rather than a queen. I guess that makes chess a horrible game, filled with flaws. Take what ever skills you want... and if you think some are wasted, simply ignore them. Others play by different rulesets... perhaps trying to end the game with the most gold... who knows?

[Sannom]

Shield Bash is an excellent damage dealer in the early game if you double its damage, and it's still very useful against some enemies (Dakkenwyrs, Cyclopses) thanks to the Stun effect. The Empowered ability is also nice against multiple, weak enemies.

 

Blade Dash does more damage than Wind Shear, and it was still the best way to get rid of those pesky two-armed Azunites soldiers : one Blade Dash one side, then another the other side, and no more enemies.

[Tigranes]

I onyl played a little bit with Lucas, but Shield Bash is definitely useful early game - the Dakkenwyrs in particular are a huge challenge for most characters, with Lucas you can sit and stun.

 

Otherwise, I found pretty much every ability for the other 3 characters useful in some way, though some abilities are clearly better (GoA, Heartseeker). What I really thought was lacking was not the abilities, which were great, but the talents - too many of them were "+ to stat", mmore interesting ones with strategic impact like the roll-to-slow/damage would have been nice. Perhaps talents to make Katarina fire faster at the expense of a small amount of damage, or Anjali leave a trail of fire as she walks in fire form doing a bit of damage / burning people.

[GhostofAnakin]

I lived and died by Shield Bash early on with Lucas.

[metamag]

I lived and died by Shield Bash early on with Lucas.

 

I thought it was dodging and rolling, later if you stand still even for 2 seconds you are dead no matter how much armor or stamina you have or block value.

 

And that is another thing, stamina-armor relationship, it is never a good idea to ever choose armor over stamina, armor is completely irrelevant.

[metamag]

Btw, are you invulnerable when in the air when activating vanguard strike? Maybe then it would be usable.

[metamag]

Others play by different rulesets... perhaps trying to end the game with the most gold... who knows?

 

No.

[C2B]

Others play by different rulesets... perhaps trying to end the game with the most gold... who knows?

 

No.

 

Why should it matter if its acknowdleged in the ending narration? Its only a small thing and only very few games do that anyway. People put themselves into a lot of challenges in games since gaming began.

Edited August 2, 2011 by C2B

[3mka]

Blade Dash Retains its usefulness since you can evolve it to do more damage to bleeding enemies. Enemies that Bleed because of something like say... windshear.

 

Vanguard Strike does leave you invulnerable while in the air. It's probably best to evolve it to give back focus for every kill that way it then becomes spammy.

 

Earth Rending seems to work best when empowered actually (only 1 orb). Admittedly it comes out way too slow. I get the most use out of it against the fire aura'ed Azunites.

 

Armor works great with blocking actually. Blocking refills powerorbs faster than ability use. There's a thread in builds and strats that talks about an Anjali build on hardcore that relies on blocking rather than dodging. I tried it out and its very viable except for maybe 1 boss in the middle of the game who seems to use only unblockables and the some of the last bosses with their many-many adds, in these situations I instinctively dodge.

Edited August 2, 2011 by 3mka

[metamag]

Vanguard Strike does leave you invulnerable while in the air. It's probably best to evolve it to give back focus for every kill that way it then becomes spammy.

 

That was very foolish, it just shows that they haven't thought this through, how does it make sense for you to be able to get hit while hovering in the air and how does it make sense to not give any edge to other abilities so they are more or equally useful than other abilities?

 

And you don't need focus from any other ability or skill since you have endless wrath.

[metamag]

Also it is damn annoying when the screen blacks out when Lucas is about to execute someone...you kill people all the time yet when most satisfactory ones come you see zilch!

[leeloodallas]

I've found trader quite useful, actually. My Lucas/Reinhart playthrough was the first where I could actually afford Fitch's armor at endgame

[Tigranes]

Vanguard Strike does leave you invulnerable while in the air. It's probably best to evolve it to give back focus for every kill that way it then becomes spammy.

 

That was very foolish, it just shows that they haven't thought this through, how does it make sense for you to be able to get hit while hovering in the air and how does it make sense to not give any edge to other abilities so they are more or equally useful than other abilities?

 

And you don't need focus from any other ability or skill since you have endless wrath.

 

You realise invulnerable means not able to get hit?

[Sannom]

You realise invulnerable means not able to get hit?

I think the wording confused him/her. We're linguistically wired to expect 'vulnerable' after 'leave'. It's easy to miss the 'in'.

[3mka]

Just to clarify... No you can not get hit while in the air during vanguard strike.

[MonkeyLungs]

I like the abilities. I wish there were more but I felt that the ones that were included were done well.

[Raikiri123]

Well, Blade Dash and Wind Shear is like inseperable. Max out Wounding Gale which make sure that every foe got hit will bleed. Then max out Hemorrhage for Blade Dash that multiply damage on bleeding target. So it's like Wind Shear-Blade Dash, Wind Shear-Blade Dash

Shield Pummel can be used to chain combo when dealing with bosses. I don't know about Vanguard Strife or Earthrending cuz I've not even unlocked them