How not to suck at combat

[Tigranes]

People had been complaining - and I thought this included you, maybe not - that they were having trouble with lack of SP or beating certain fights. So I was making the point that often, you don't need to pump your weapon skill or even your defence skill so high. If you find you have plenty of SP and it makes life easy for you, obviously there's no problem there (and I feel like SPs are way too plentiful these days, especially over the last couple months).

 

[Jaedar]

In general, stopping at 8 for offensive skills seems pretty manageable for just about every fight (bring grenades and/or bolas for dudes with high defense). In my experience, high defence seems better than high offense, but of course, you should have some of both.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

People had been complaining - and I thought this included you, maybe not - that they were having trouble with lack of SP or beating certain fights. So I was making the point that often, you don't need to pump your weapon skill or even your defence skill so high. If you find you have plenty of SP and it makes life easy for you, obviously there's no problem there (and I feel like SPs are way too plentiful these days, especially over the last couple months).

No, it's very true for the Teron/Starting. I had some troubles at major battles and your advice of spreading to other support skills is good.
The thing is, reaching Maadoran with a combat build, you don't need to hold back. With all the nice loot a combat build should not have any troubles at that point. Especially because your defence becomes really good. It's just a matter of playstyle then.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

7 Sword? You only need 5 for almost every fight if you have Dreamweaver, including Zamedi demon. Possibly knock it up for Agathoth. Swords are an underwhelming skill, but Dreamweaver makes it very powerful. The merchant dagger at start of Maadoran can do a similar boost for dagger characters.

First of all, you can't isolate 5 points in sword skill on its own when all of DEX (for swords), PER (universal), background (IG can get +15 to THC for example) also factor into your attack rating/THC. Depends on other factors as well such as what options do other skills you invested in provide you in that particular fight (say you have 6 Lore for the Demon fight) and/or your patience as a player in terms how much you're willing to reload before RNG swings into your favor.

That said, most of the time 5 in swords ain't gonna cut it against a non-weakened Agatoth, even backed up with high alchemy and/or crafting skill.

I keep saying don't overlevel your weapon skills, BTW, because that can help you make your character stronger - those points can go to civil skills, CS, or alchemy/crafting. Often I see people pointlessly overlevel their weapon/defense when, sometimes, investing some of that SP on alchemy or crafting would make them better combatants.

That's the thing though, you can invest into your two main combat stats (offense+defense) quite a bit and still have enough to put into Crafting/Alchemy at the very least even as a low INT char. It opens up in Maadoran especially but even in Teron 4 in Alchemy/Crafting is more than enough and you can put the rest into weapon skill+defensive skill.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

If you fight that Ordu guy in Ordu camp, you need 10 sword, or legs hit to lower his dodge is something like 15%, not very manageable.

Or you can, you know, use a net (which are plentiful in the game, just need to check all the merchants) and lower his defense and THC by 30.

 

[Eyestabber]

You don't even need to level crafting, because you'll get 2 amazing daggers in the mid game and in the late game in Maadoran.

The Arbiter and...?

 

[Commissar Draco]

Put some points in daggers if you are sword bearer the synergy is too nice to ignore it... and of course if your INT is high enough you can be trained so many times that something like 7-8 sword + 3-4 Dagger + Dreamweaver + Eagle Eye Stimulant allows you to cut squid man into nice little slices... Pump Dodge or Block as high as you can instead.

 

[Urbanolo]

The Arbiter and...?

Blue steel upgraded dagger from Basil the merchant quest extension

 

[Eyestabber]

Blue steel upgraded dagger from Basil the merchant quest extension

Ah yeah, that. I keep forgetting because my last 2 playtroughs involved blowing up Maadoran xD (Daratan Praetor and "Burn it!" cheevo).

 

[Jaedar]

The Arbiter and...?

The meteor dagger?

 

[Darth Roxor]

I just want to add one thing here.

How not to suck at combat: get a trident.

Albert Tokaj, the master of the ancient lore of psychiatry, had much less trubble killing the Zamedi daemon (in fact, no trouble at all) than Commander Boreale, hammer clubberer extraordinaire. This was somewhat hilarious.

 

[Eyestabber]

I just want to add one thing here.

How not to suck at combat: get a trident.

Albert Tokaj, the master of the ancient lore of psychiatry, had much less trubble killing the Zamedi daemon (in fact, no trouble at all) than Commander Boreale, hammer clubberer extraordinaire. This was somewhat hilarious.

The demon is NOT immune to the spear knockback passive? Cool. I wonder if big A is...

Another tip for the Zamedi demon is to wear armor with high vs CS. I suggest Reinforced Ordu (50 base, can go 70 with Craft 8).

 

[Darth Roxor]

The demon is NOT immune to the spear knockback passive?

Yeah.

Oh, speaking of the knockback passive, I like how retarded the AI is in dis gaem regarding it - even if an enemy dodges the spear interrupt, he'll still act as if he lost some AP in the process. I keep seeing this all the time - a dude approaches me through 3 tiles and attacks me. Next turn he approaches me through 3 tiles again, spear interrupt triggers, he dodges, and doesn't attack me anymore. It's the same with AoOs. A bowman dodges your aoo and moves one tile, he'll shoot you. If the aoo hits him, though, he'll move one tile and end turn again.

Is dis working as intended, Vault Dweller

Another tip for the Zamedi demon is to wear armor with high vs CS. I suggest Reinforced Ordu (50 base, can go 70 with Craft 8).

Doesn't work, he's a cheeky haxx0r luckerfag kunt, always sneaks in plenty of crits even if you have vs cs 85. Maybe if you had that and CS 10 or so yourself, but otherwise...

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Doesn't work, he's a cheeky haxx0r luckerfag kunt, always sneaks in plenty of crits even if you have vs cs 85. Maybe if you had that and CS 10 or so yourself, but otherwise...

I thought CS skill protecting you from enemy criticals is outdated description? Doesn't show up in inventory vsCS anyway.

 

[Eyestabber]

I thought CS skill protecting you from enemy criticals is outdated description? Doesn't show up in inventory vsCS anyway.

It is. VD confirmed it. Armor and shields are the only source of vsCS atm.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I thought CS skill protecting you from enemy criticals is outdated description? Doesn't show up in inventory vsCS anyway.

my whole life is a lie

 

[Eyestabber]

That pic cracks me up every time.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Just use cheat engine to give you max stats and skills since its clearly the best way to play this game.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

my whole life is a lie

Spoiler

BLUE STEEL ARROWS!!!!

 

[ZagorTeNej]

The demon is NOT immune to the spear knockback passive? Cool. I wonder if big A is...

He isn't but you have to use Hasta, larger spears are useless because if you retreat two tiles (which they need for the passive to trigger) he'll start throwing poisoned darts (or whatever the fuck they are) at you or use his mind rape attack (though that happens rarely as long as you have enough HP left not to be killed by it outright), he won't charge at you to get jabbed.

Hasta is definitely one of the most effective weapons against him:

Spoiler

Of course it's advisable to use Bolas against him, with high enough CS (and few points in throwing, they add to CS when using nets and bolas) you'll be able to lower his defense near completely for 3 rounds which means he usually won't even be able to close in on you (you'll jab him constantly) so you can just safely use hit and run (given that he doesn't have opportunity attacks for some reason) or the usual go for his arms/head.