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I was a little disappointed with Head Shot. I thought it was gonna do a crit and then 10% the target's health, but it just reduces max health (add a "max" before the HP in the description). Mind you this has a niche against healing heavy opponents, but it's worse than a normal shot otherwise. Significantly greater (nearly double) delay, and a SP cost, for 25% more damage. Actually less than that since she might crit the normal shot anyway.

I'm not really sure I'll use it against healers either. It would have to take some healers who literally can't run out of mana or a very tanky frontrow.

Yes hopefully will do some battles like that in the third act

Pull says the target will be paralyzed for up to 2 turns. I thought that when you changed the resistance system so that it reduces duration, you made paralysis last a minimum of 2 turns anyway? Since a paralysis that lasts 1 turn might as well last 0. Shouldn't it say it just lasts 2 turns?

Also, Spinning Strike. No big opinion here actually, but I tried it for Krimm's flashback. It is a skill one might easily compare to Wreak Havoc, and compare them I shall. Firstly, it does nearly the same damage: 200+100+100=400 vs 3x125=375. No complaints there. However Wreak Havoc needs a center target or it sucks. If the enemy has a two man front row, you can usually expect that they will not be using the center spot. That means Wreak Havoc can only hit one guy (200%), whereas Spinning Strike still hits both (250%). Spinning Strike is however a bit less exciting beyond its damage (bleed vs. chance of weakening). Just observations so far.

What I think would make for cooler design would be if you would use Wreak Havoc for the bleed and Spinning Strike in between. Right now, there isn't much incentive to do that, unless the 5 SP difference really matters that much to you. As demonstrated though, they do almost the same damage, so just cutting the delay a little on Spinning Strike would create this situation. What if it had say 10 delay?

yayswords wrote:Pull says the target will be paralyzed for up to 2 turns. I thought that when you changed the resistance system so that it reduces duration, you made paralysis last a minimum of 2 turns anyway? Since a paralysis that lasts 1 turn might as well last 0. Shouldn't it say it just lasts 2 turns?

Ah yes true. I think I can add "up to 3" and then based on resistances could last less. Will change it.

yayswords wrote: What I think would make for cooler design would be if you would use Wreak Havoc for the bleed and Spinning Strike in between. Right now, there isn't much incentive to do that, unless the 5 SP difference really matters that much to you. As demonstrated though, they do almost the same damage, so just cutting the delay a little on Spinning Strike would create this situation. What if it had say 10 delay?

Yes I wanted it to be different from Wreak Havok so that could have some use, like you said. Otherwise I suspect that people would just use the most powerful one Reducing the delay is a good idea, will do it.

Has anyone else tested hunter's Barrage now that we have more enemies? I'm not sure if it's any more useful in NM-mode Act2 than it was in Act1, but that's possibly because I didn't have AOE-spells on my mage, just nukes. So my mage and hunter didn't really work in concert and the multihit hit hunter was too weak...I mean that the enemy healers would just buff everybody's HP back up after that.

Take aim is neat at least with the easy difficulty. With NM, the cost is often a tad too high (30SP) as I can't afford to "spam" that many attribute points to Will, plus I like my first attacks to be fast so that those pesky buggers won't have decimated half of my grew before I can take the first actual swing.

Krimm's Kick seems balanced now (v.0.8.18) ; slowly going through my second campaign in NM-mode and I can't flatline certain enemies anymore with it. Ok, I might be a bit sad inside about that, but hey, it's NM-mode, so I should not have been able to do that during the first run, either.

I think Hunter Take Aim + Barrage combo should be deadly, since the bonus should apply to that skill. So you first mark the whole backrow, then use barrage to deal massive damage to it. I think I tried and was rather powerful

Hmm. I'll have to try that combo again in NM. The waiting time after take-aim might've killed me the last time. It's really "fun" to be prepared to deliver some mighty blows and then just as you are ready to shoot, some spearman skewers you. Oops.

Further proof of the awesomeness of Riley's ghost form .. well and that turtling energize, too: I know I said in the other thread that I wouldn't try this , but I tried it anyway, and I beat Riley's flashback in NM through fighting all the guards using those two skills (and the occasional magic sparks) . No "cheating" aka reloads during the quest needed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are 7 battles before the boss? You have 4 special potions, so 3 battles need to be done with normal potions only and with the help of the one full heal one gets from leveling during the quest. I did the first battle and the first after the level up w/o specials and the last battle before boss, because by that time I was all out. Funny thing is that you'll get another level up *after* the boss, but of course that's no use.

Between-battles-stats before the level up: And between-battles-stats after the level-up:
At the beginning of the boss fight I had 4 HP potions and 7 SP potions left. The boss himself is a bit of a bore: with ghost form and energize stacked up 2-3 times again and again, you can basically turtle yourself through it all by just hitting him with magic bolts and once his HP drops somewhere between 100-200, toss a couple of those SP potions in and bring him down with magic sparks. So yeah, ghost form is amazing.

I know all this will soon be obsolete... once the quest is changed... but I just wanted tell it's doable, if one is crazy enough. Like me. :D

Well the only upcoming change for that quest is that when you fail an "heroic opportunity" you aren't immediately dead, but you can still fight against guards without any heal bonus. In case you haven't noticed on each battle you're healed by 25%

Well, that little change makes all the difference. Now, if one doesn't want to risk the whole quest failing, it's either reloading until you avoid the fight or fight them all. To have that possibility to not fail the quest if a stunt goes sour will make me risk those tougher fights and also will give an opportunity to save some of those potions. Yeah, I noticed some heal, just didn't know how much it was and forgot to ask. Thanks for the percentage, now I can scheme better later.

You mentioned Invincible in the update. I have taken it with one party, but not used it. 50SP for one of the neanderthal classes without any kind of regen is a massive cost. Mostly I have felt there's no need for a supertanky front row in act 2. It worked in act 1 because I could leave only Vaelis there and make him a pointy-eared fortress. So problem one is I don't see a situation that calls for such a powerful measure - if I could even be sure they would target the ranger - but check problem two. You have the formulas. Compare it to simply using Defend.

Invincible
Reduces physical damage taken by 75%
Costs 50 SP
Requires a shield
Requires a skill point

Defend
Increases defense by 50%. Surely less than 75% damage reduction, but what about the increased chance for blocking attacks etc? Just how much worse is it?
Lowers duration of debuffs, in particular stagger (this part is useful even if you don't get attacked)
Costs nothing
Requires nothing

I did not include the delays, but we can mention those too. A tanky character is not always happy about being fast. If he's fast, it means he has to act more often, even if only to reuse Defend. That means he is gonna lose his buffs faster and I have to rebuff him. In particular if one of them is a self-buff (Vaelis' Avoidance) that is a concern. I don't mean to make this post about that though, because it's an issue for the Loren 2 global timer system to fix.

At present I don't really have any suggestions for how to change Invincible though. Or well, how about... this is a total replacement.

Shield Slam
Hits enemy for base attack damage, greatly increasing its anger value and causing its next attack to target the ranger. Requires a shield.

Is it even doable?