My party composition for release - Tell me what you think!

[Kaladin818]

So if you're like me and just can't wait to play the game, you don't mind another post about build sharing! I intend to play the game on hard, without exploiting stealthing-pulling-ccing-sniping tactics, I feel it would take away the fun for me. However I want to min-max the stats on my heroes. Here's the build:

 

Toughest frontline tank: Fighter

4 might

18 con

2 dex

20 per

14 int

20 res

 

2nd tank: Paladin

5

17

5

17

18

16

 

DPS: Melee Rogue. I don't want to go ranged with him, I feel I'll have more fun micromanaging him to keep him out of trouble.

20

8

18

14

15

3

 

2nd heavy hitter: Druid. I'll play him melee or ranged depending on the magic weapons I have and the situation.

21

9

18

4

18

8

 

Wizard: even though I heard other classes do the wizard's job better (like druid and ciper for aoes and cc), I just can't imagine myself without a wizard in my party...:

18

8

19

6

20

7

 

Priest (of Magran for the ranged accuracy bonus with Arquebus):

19

8

19

6

18

8

 

The idea is to have my fighter a bit ahead my paladin to get the aggro from the strongest mobs, then follow with the paladin for lesser mobs and to avoid having my fighter flanked. My paladin will have the aura which gives the accuracy bonus to close allies, so my rogue will hit the same target as paladin, while the druid will hit mobs on the fighter yet sitll close enough to the paladin to get the aura.

 

I'd like to try the game with the story companions for the dialogues, yet I feel their stats will really not be optimal, especially on hard difficulty...

 

Anyway, share your build!

[Namutree]

A few tips:

 

1: Lower PER on your Rogue and use it to buff INT.

 

2: Lower CON on your wizard and buff PER. Your wizard doesn't need health. If your wizard gets attacked; you made a mistake.

[Kaladin818]

Ok I'll take note of that. I thought it would be nice on the rogue to have a bonus to Interrupt with PER, the class doesn't seem to have so many abilities that would benefit from maxed INT.

[Bazy]

If you really want to min/max a chanter will probably be better tank than a fighter. Your fighter will bring nothing to a fight other than knockdowns. A chanter gets to do all the things a chanter can normally do, with just a slight health tradeoff compared to a fighter. 

 

For your secondary stats I don't know why you seem to prioritize resolve over perception. You might as well get the interrrupt. You are clearly playing as if your backline is not going to get hit so resolve is a dump stat. 

 

That being said, you are very very low on CON. While, in the Backer Beta your backline can avoid damage most of the time, this game is also very punishing. If you make a mistake, or if the game actually includes AI that get do anything to the back line, you are going to have a bad time. But who knows at this point. 

 

Dexterity I'm not sold on. Your casters are not going to be chain casting too often. If they do things are going to die fast anyway. It takes about 40 seconds of combat for 18 dex to really start to outshine 10 dex. 

 

Also, it seems for most fights you are going to be very reliant on your rogue doing most of the damage. You only get 2 camping supplies on hard and you are very caster heavy, with very little auto attack damage for the scrub fights. Though I guess your priest will help with that. 

Edited March 22, 2015 by Bazy

[Namutree]

"Ok I'll take note of that. I thought it would be nice on the rogue to have a bonus to Interrupt with PER, the class doesn't seem to have so many abilities that would benefit from maxed INT."

 

Interrupt builds are underpowered. 

 

Also Blinding Strike & Wounding strike are the Rogue bread and butter. Both Benefit from INT.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Namutree

[Namutree]

It takes about 40 seconds of combat for 18 dex to really start to outshine 10 dex. 

This is simply not true. If you're not wearing armor then DEX can be very helpful. Even in short fights.

 

 

 

That being said, you are very very low on CON. While, in the Backer Beta your backline can avoid damage most of the time, this game is also very punishing. If you make a mistake, or if the game actually includes AI that get do anything to the back line, you are going to have a bad time. But who knows at this point. 

 

CON is one of the weaker attributes and many classes don't really benefit from it since it grants (if buffed) and punishes (if dumped) by percentage depending on your class. 

 

There is no relevant penalty for dumping CON on a mage for example.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Namutree

[Bazy]

 

It takes about 40 seconds of combat for 18 dex to really start to outshine 10 dex. 

This is simply not true. If you're not wearing armor then DEX can be very helpful. Even in short fights.

What? On casters? On most fights he is not going to be chain casting. Even if he does you get 1 extra cast every 5 casts. "short fights" won't even last that long. If they are "long" cast times of 6 seconds it would take even longer. With 2 camping supplies I highly doubt he wants to be blowing his spells so quickly on the vast majority of fights. 

 

 

 

That being said, you are very very low on CON. While, in the Backer Beta your backline can avoid damage most of the time, this game is also very punishing. If you make a mistake, or if the game actually includes AI that get do anything to the back line, you are going to have a bad time. But who knows at this point. 

 

CON is one of the weaker attributes and many classes don't really benefit from it since it grants (if buffed) and punishes (if dumped) by percentage depending on your class. 

 

There is no relevant penalty for dumping CON on a mage for example.

 

 

Nothing I said contradicts this. All I said is we have no idea what kind of aoe damage will be in the game. And he is banking on there being almost none. 

 

a 4th level wizard with 3 con has 1/2 the endurance of a the BB wizard at level 4. As squishy as wizards are 48 endurance compared to 84 is massive. A stone beetle will 1 shot him if he happens to be too close to the party when the lightning goes off. He has plenty of damage already. Putting the points in Con instead of dex at least give him some wiggle room in case **** happens. 

Edited March 22, 2015 by Bazy

[Kaladin818]

If you really want to min/max a chanter will probably be better tank than a fighter. Your fighter will bring nothing to a fight other than knockdowns. A chanter gets to do all the things a chanter can normally do, with just a slight health tradeoff compared to a fighter. 

 

For your secondary stats I don't know why you seem to prioritize resolve over perception. You might as well get the interrrupt. You are clearly playing as if your backline is not going to get hit so resolve is a dump stat. 

 

That being said, you are very very low on CON. While, in the Backer Beta your backline can avoid damage most of the time, this game is also very punishing. If you make a mistake, or if the game actually includes AI that get do anything to the back line, you are going to have a bad time. But who knows at this point. 

 

Dexterity I'm not sold on. Your casters are not going to be chain casting too often. If they do things are going to die fast anyway. It takes about 40 seconds of combat for 18 dex to really start to outshine 10 dex. 

 

Also, it seems for most fights you are going to be very reliant on your rogue doing most of the damage. You only get 2 camping supplies on hard and you are very caster heavy, with very little auto attack damage for the scrub fights. Though I guess your priest will help with that. 

 

For some reason I don't really like the chanter, but I'll have to try. I feel the +2 engagement on the fighter is useful to prevent enemies from going on my weaker backline, and his modal gives quite a good Deflection too. At higher levels, he gets aoe knockdown and other defense boosting abilities that make him hard to replace as main tank. Besides, if a chanter was my main tank, I'd have to lower his defensive stats a bit to raise INT I guess. I'm looking at his higher lvl invocations though right now, and I might just pick chanter instead of paladin as my 2nd tank (which already had 18 INT in my build). Being able to summon a drake (3rd level invocation) definitely sounds good.

 

For the secondary stats, I prioritize resolve over perception because of the bonus to concentration. Some mobs seem to go behind your tanks whatever you do, such as Specters if I remember the name well, so I figured concentration would help.

 

I'll have to think things over about the rest of your post. Going chanter instead of paladin would help with the dmg, but I'm having trouble setting stats for him. Will a lower Might on the chanter also lower the power of his buffs to allies or of his summons? I want him to be tanky, but if I want him powerful I'd need to compromize on his tankiness to improve his Might. Another problem is that the chanter got low endurance and health (according to what it says at char creation), while the paladin got high... How's that for a chanter? :

 

10

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3

18

14

18

 

I don't mind his offensive spells doing less damage, I'd pick him more for his buffs and summons. Should I lower Con (since he gains lower hp/end per lvl up anyway) to raise Might? Maybe 15 might and 10 con?

[Kaladin818]

a 4th level wizard with 3 con has 1/2 the endurance of a the BB wizard at level 4. As squishy as wizards are 48 endurance compared to 84 is massive. A stone beetle will 1 shot him if he happens to be too close to the party when the lightning goes off. He has plenty of damage already. Putting the points in Con instead of dex at least give him some wiggle room in case **** happens. 

 

 

That convinced me, I'll put some points into Con instead of Dex, but not all, maybe like 4-5 to even things off, and I'll have to rethink a bit my other squishy melee builds, like rogue and druid...

[Namutree]

 

 

Nothing I said contradicts this. All I said is we have no idea what kind of aoe damage will be in the game. And he is banking on there being almost none. 

 

a 4th level wizard with 3 con has 1/2 the endurance of a the BB wizard at level 4. As squishy as wizards are 48 endurance compared to 84 is massive. A stone beetle will 1 shot him if he happens to be too close to the party when the lightning goes off. He has plenty of damage already. Putting the points in Con instead of dex at least give him some wiggle room in case **** happens. 

 

You do realize BB wizard has boots that increase his max endurance by 20 right?

 

Also 48 is more than half of 84.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Namutree

[Bazy]

You do realize BB wizard has boots that increase his max endurance by 20 right?

 

Also 48 is more than half of 84.

True. But I think that shows my point even more. Some low level boots give the wizard +42% endurance if they have low CON. You don't want your gear to have to make up for your stats. I'm guessing a dps wizard would want to be able to use dps boots than to have to rely on +endurance boots to make him survivable. But overall it's a value judgement. Trade off a little dps just in case there happens to be a dragon that does an aoe fire breath. But to each their own. No matter what the wizard is going to be squishy. 

Edited March 22, 2015 by Bazy

[Bazy]

For some reason I don't really like the chanter, but I'll have to try. I feel the +2 engagement on the fighter is useful to prevent enemies from going on my weaker backline, and his modal gives quite a good Deflection too. At higher levels, he gets aoe knockdown and other defense boosting abilities that make him hard to replace as main tank. Besides, if a chanter was my main tank, I'd have to lower his defensive stats a bit to raise INT I guess. I'm looking at his higher lvl invocations though right now, and I might just pick chanter instead of paladin as my 2nd tank (which already had 18 INT in my build). Being able to summon a drake (3rd level invocation) definitely sounds good.

 

For the secondary stats, I prioritize resolve over perception because of the bonus to concentration. Some mobs seem to go behind your tanks whatever you do, such as Specters if I remember the name well, so I figured concentration would help.

 

I'll have to think things over about the rest of your post. Going chanter instead of paladin would help with the dmg, but I'm having trouble setting stats for him. Will a lower Might on the chanter also lower the power of his buffs to allies or of his summons? I want him to be tanky, but if I want him powerful I'd need to compromize on his tankiness to improve his Might. Another problem is that the chanter got low endurance and health (according to what it says at char creation), while the paladin got high... How's that for a chanter? :

 

10

15

3

18

14

18

 

I don't mind his offensive spells doing less damage, I'd pick him more for his buffs and summons. Should I lower Con (since he gains lower hp/end per lvl up anyway) to raise Might? Maybe 15 might and 10 con?

 

 

If you don't like the feel of the chanter don't play it. Fighter/Pally/Chanter all totally viable for tanking. In the end they all have almost equal passive deflection. I think the pally actually get a few more from faith and conviction. But you get a lot of flexibilty with the chanter from his songs. For example, "blunt the edge, dull the point" can reduce all damage done by 10%. A fighter or pally can't even think about doing that. And I'm not even familiar with the total array of possible chants. Also chanters have summons which can soak up a lot of damage and provide flanking bonuses (AND THE PHANTOMS STUN!!!)

 

For chanter stats you can go:

3

18

3

18

18

18

 

You don't have to sacrifice anything important to get intellect. Might is pretty bad on any tank. You are not going to be doing any damage anyway. And Chanter's songs are not affected by might nor are the summoned creatures. This is why I think chanter's are the best tanks specifically because you can get the full class benefit without trading off tankiness. But you are right the chanter does have lower base health than the fighter... so that is a tradeoff. 

 

Dex is also pretty worthless as a chanter because your auto attacks dont matter and your songs are not based on attack speed. 

 

I'm not sold on the +2 engagement. In theory it sounds good, but from my experience you should more than be able to handle everything with 2 tanks because the AI so far has not really shown much proclivity for changing targets.  

 

Concentration is only really important for the deflection. Almost everyone will tell you right now its a dump stat for all non-tanks. 

 

 

IIRC This has a decent discussion on the issue of chanter tanks...

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70802-chanters-phrase-linger-and-intelligence/page-1

Edited March 22, 2015 by Bazy

[Namutree]

 

You do realize BB wizard has boots that increase his max endurance by 20 right?

 

Also 48 is more than half of 84.

True. But I think that shows my point even more. Some low level boots give the wizard +42% endurance if they have low CON. You don't want your gear to have to make up for your stats. I'm guessing a dps wizard would want to be able to use dps boots than to have to rely on +endurance boots to make him survivable. But overall it's a value judgement. Trade off a little dps just in case there happens to be a dragon that does an aoe fire breath. But to each their own. No matter what the wizard is going to be squishy. 

 

It shows your point less since the large endurance gap between the 3 CON wizard and BB Wizard wasn't due to the CON difference but rather the boots.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Namutree

[Striped_Wolf]

Who is going to be the main character?

[Bazy]

 

 

You do realize BB wizard has boots that increase his max endurance by 20 right?

 

Also 48 is more than half of 84.

True. But I think that shows my point even more. Some low level boots give the wizard +42% endurance if they have low CON. You don't want your gear to have to make up for your stats. I'm guessing a dps wizard would want to be able to use dps boots than to have to rely on +endurance boots to make him survivable. But overall it's a value judgement. Trade off a little dps just in case there happens to be a dragon that does an aoe fire breath. But to each their own. No matter what the wizard is going to be squishy. 

 

It shows your point less since the large endurance gap between the 3 CON wizard and BB Wizard wasn't due to the CON difference but rather the boots.

You are confusing two different issues. Me being wrong about the boots only means that CON scaling isn't as good as I represented, not that you don't still need some CON. It bolsters the latter issue. It means the BB wizard only has 64 health!!!! Showing just how important it is to have some CON. And that wizards arguably need it more anyone because of low base health. 

 

Yes CON scaling is not amazing, nobody is arguing otherwise... but it's still important for not getting one shot. The screenshot is an example of random aoe that is possible... If a level 4 wizard was on this fight with low CON he would be one shot....

Edited March 22, 2015 by Bazy

[Namutree]

 

You are confusing two different issues. Me being wrong about the boots only means that CON scaling isn't as good as I represented, not that you don't still need some CON. It bolsters the latter issue. It means the BB wizard only has 64 health!!!! Showing just how important it is to have some CON. And that wizards arguably need it more anyone because of low base health. 

 

Yes CON scaling is not amazing, nobody is arguing otherwise... but it's still important for not getting one shot. The screenshot is an example of random aoe that is possible... If a level 4 wizard was on this fight with low CON he would be one shot....

 

The fact that CON doesn't scale well confirms that it's not worth investing in. That Adra Beetle AoE is also not very big like most enemy AoE attacks and should never hit your wizard. If your wizard is being hit; you're f*cking up. Also since CON doesn't scale well it very well may not even come into play when you are hit.

[portedgoblin]

I would say that having a very low CON is viable since you can just reload if your Wizard gets hit.

[Namutree]

I would say that having a very low CON is viable since you can just reload if your Wizard gets hit.

Why reload? You'd only be knocked out.

 

Also getting hit doesn't ensure a knockout.

 

Again: CON does VERY LITTLE for your wizards survival. Max CON and dumped CON are little different for a mage.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Namutree

[Kaladin818]

Who is going to be the main character?

 

I was going to have my Druid as main character, but since it looks like perception is often used in dialogues, I might use Chanter as main (tank), with these stats proposed by Bazy.

 

3

18

3

18

18

18