Although there is a thorough sense of balance throughout Dungeon Siege 3, only one character can consistently deal the greatest DPS whether that be in a mob or boss fight. Reinhart was chosen to reflect a mid to late game damage output that is unrivaled and here's how to unlock that potential:

 

Equipment:

Prioritize Agility ALWAYS.

 

Armor: equip blue armor that grants agility. Usually designated by the word Swift, Swiftness, Quickness or the like. Beware that items rank increases throughout the game (indicated by higher price) with despite their colored rarity. Also, armor attributes randomly give a innate bonus to either Stamina, Armor or Block. Meaning two Swift Pants may be the same rank and rarity while granting the same Agility, but one may have more Stamina and the other have more Block. The best is Stamina.

 

Best Weapon: Tesseract of Brutality (or any blue Tesseract with ONLY Doom (Deadly or Brutality). This is because Reinhart attacks MUCH more often than any other character by doing Damage Over Time or ticking. Thus, chance effects happen extremely frequently; especially critcals and doom as well as vampire or any other Chaos Effect. With critcals doing double damage and a Doom score > 200, Reinhart does absurd damage (about 1500/sec).

 

Accessories: Wear Doom granting Rings or Necklaces for more DPS or add Vampire for insane health regeneration. Adding Withering will decrease enemy armor by 20% which subsequently increases your damage by almost that much.

 

Most lethal stance: Entrophy (Lightning Strike in some boss fights.)

 

Strategy:

Using Empowered Geometry of Annihilation (Temporal Inversion proficiency maxed) and empowered Creative Destruction (Entropy's Shackles proficiency maxed) will provide infinite Power (with high agility and the Eureka Moment talent, perma-stun on all non boss mobs (via empowered Creative Destruction), and about 1500 DPS (by critical damage and doom. Empowered Geometry of Annihilation also stuns on first summon. Constantly use your absurd amounts of power to constantly have Healing Circle and Perpetual Momentum on. Spam Barrier shield for invincibility. Always have an illusion summon via Mirror Leap for more DPS, mob distraction and the added effect of amplified damage of the Dynamic Mastery Talent. Using normal Creative Destruction for when you need to gain those 2 Power Spheres needed to get the empowered version of Geometry of Annihilation and Creative Destruction up and providing vast Power. Don't be afraid to dodge or re-position yourself in battle. Use Lightning Strike on lone bosses, especially the final boss.

 

Pro Tip: You can master Creative Destruction extremely quickly by spamming the skill button without holding it down. As long as you press it and hear the spell sound effect, you have gained a use (need 200 for empowerment) and it will cost only 6-7 mana to activate. Build focus using Entropy stance's normal attack and spamming the activation of Creative Destruction. Work with electrocute too, but that is ultimately fruitless because the damage is much lower using electrocute.

-You should dedicate the beginning portion of the game to obtaining Empowered abilities; most importantly, Creative Destruction and Geometry of Annihilation.

 

My End Game Build

 

Proficiency (mostly, in order of leveling):

Lightning Strike (Max Power Surge)

Geometry of Annihilation (Max Temporal Inversion)

Circle of Healing (Max Vector Dampening)

Creative Destruction (Entropy's Shackles)

Perpetual Momentum (Max one or the other)

Barrier Field (Max Angle of Incidence (or the other if you like))

 

Talents:

Genius! (Max)

Dynamic Mastery (4 points)

Entropic Mastery (1 point (to allow Ruin and Restoration to proc)

Quick Thinking (Max) [ASAP]

Eureka Moment (Max) [ASAP]

Ruin and Restoration (Max)

Adept Spell Casting (Max)

 

Statistics at Level 28:

 

Reinhart (Entropy Stance)

 

Hitpoints: 2500

Stamina: 250

Attack: 80

Will: 80

Agility: 348 (435 while standing in Geometry of Annihilation with Temporal Inversion Proficiency maxed)

Attack DPS: 80

Ability DPS: 254

Crit %: 50.72% (63.40% while standing in Geometry of Annihilation with Temporal Inversion Proficiency maxed)

Doom: 288

Armor: 97

Block: 74

 

Greatest Crit: 3200+ with an empowered normal dynamic attack

Empowered Creative Destruction deals about 970 - 1200 damage, 3 times in 2 seconds in a large area around Reinhart. Stuns non-bosses for the entire duration. (spam-able and gains full power)

 

 

I will post screen shots and video when I have properly captured those. Cheers!

Edited October 9, 201114 yr by Doctor.Strange

Nice post on Reinhart Manx. I went with a more balanced Reinhart though, and it worked very well. By level 25 I had GoA, the healing spell, Barrier Shield and Lightning Strike fully mastered, but I used mostly GoA and the healing spell in their empowered versions - I have the PC version so you know, using empowered spells in the PC is very unwieldy and may be lethal if you fumble with your keys while surrounded by mobs, so I stuck with what was most useful for me. My critical chance wasn

Those ninjas are so squishy, they just touch my GoA or Creative Destruction, empowered or not, and literary trip over themselves and perish. But yes, they do deal a lot of damage.

 

Despite Reinhart's equipment granting less defensive stats comparatively with other Legionaires, I would never consider him a glass cannon. Actually, I defend that he's the tankiest character in DS3 when built for DPS (double whammy). There is no designated tank class as Bosses are designed to One Hit Kill for the most part and the dodge ability is spam-able and overpowered. But if a player insists on just roughing through battles, then read on...

 

As mention above, infinite power by the Eureka Moment Talent can be used to constantly enable Barrier Shield is active thus protecting Reinhart from any form of damage. Also his tier 3 defensive ability, Perpetual Momentum, renders Reinhart immune to slows and stuns. If that's not enough, then consider using Vampire instead of Doom in the above agility build and you will never ever see your hitpoints drop. Also, his readily available stuns renders mobs unable to deal damage.

 

Though I may sound biased, the truth is clear. Reinhart is paragon of design and utility. Bravo Obsidian, bravo.

Edited October 9, 201114 yr by Doctor.Strange

Treasures of the Sun DLC initial observations:

 

Katarina with as much agility/will/doom you can stack on her is the most underrated build in the world.

 

Heart seeking shot in empowered version = death to everything.

With Thrill of the hunt maxed (5% power per slot regained from critical) you gain 25% of your power back with each critical.

 

You can fire off an empowered shot basically infinitely if done correctly

Wow a developer in here? Thanks for replying and for the insight. I wish I were in your shoes!  I strongly feel that this game is genuinely great and could trump other action RPG title given the chance - a notion I hope to see materialize in the near future! 

 

Crit (and Doom) are essential to mastering this game - and characters that were made to utilize it more will be the best. Katrina is one of those, along with Reinhart. This is largely due to their ability to generate huge amounts of power in short amounts of time due their exclusive talent that restores a % of their power on each and every critical hit.

 

Reinhart, because of his long duration, large AoE and frequently hitting DoT-style abilities, can abuse Doom because it adds a flat amount on to each critical rather than increasing the % damage it deals. Combined with the dozens of ticks from his DoTs and the sheer greater number of criticals being scored, the result is absurd amounts of damage and infinite Power that fuel his empowered abilities and granting 100% up-time on his defensive abilities (so much, that he can even afford to spam Empowered defensive abilities that cost 2 Power spheres - granting the infinite stream of bonuses to his allies as well!). Lastly, Reinhart's core abilities affect huge swaths of the battlefield and require no targeting in ADDITION to lingering long periods of time (namely Geometry of Annihilation). Although his single target damage maybe less than his unparalleled net AoE damage, his battle success is consistent and complete. There is no room for error with power, crit and doom behind Reinhart - as he stands alone atop the legion's heroes. (Some may come in a close second )

Edited June 19, 201312 yr by Doctor.Strange

Thank you for your help!!