Yeah, the one I've been using since forever was a 20 melee damage 12% vampirism rune, but vampirism seems unnecessary on dwarves/humans. Humans are tough to build though, the lack of any innate armor piercing abilities makes him hard to itemize efficiently. I never realized how easy the other two classes had it not really having to worry about armor. Also, another somewhat interesting discovery: %mobility in terms of giving a bonus to stamina regen seems to be capped at 50%. I'm not sure if this applies to walk/run speed as well, but you stop seeing a bonus to your base STA regen though. That means humans are capped at 30/s regen (boostable by pally skill I would imagine), dwarves at 26/s, and elves at 38/s. Can FM confirm if this was intended?
Just got this, and I crashed in the first battle. Using iPhone 5C on 8.3. I just read back a bit, I guess I'm waiting on Apple too.
100 starting cp and 0.5CP/s are the best you can get. I don't think you can roll a double mod that's the same, so +200 cp would be impossible. Or I should say, I haven't rolled one yet at least. Now that you mention it, I actually don't value damage all that much when it comes to equipment. FM confirmed that these +damage mods are a flat addition which is unaffected by skills, which makes it a bit lackluster. I usually go off testing on the mummies in wave 30 for flat damage, or I'll run endless until the 90 armor skeletons show up if I want to test armor piercing. The thing about being higher level is, I value the secondary attributes a lot more... up to a certain extent. For example, my elf uses 2 epic 10 damage, 15 AP, 50% crit scythes (I haven't rolled a better legendary yet, I've invested more time than I care to admit trying to roll one). For a build like this, I value damage mod runes as 50% crit is INSANE and only found on weapons. Crit mods experience diminishing returns, so given my current 50% mod, I'm doing an average of 237.5% base damage. Tacking on a 12% crit rune would only bring me to 270.5% base damage, a ~13.4% increase. Going from 0% to 12% would be going from 100% to 133% base damage, a 33% increase. So is there a best mod? It depends on your other equipment. If you lot of +damage, a crit rune is better. If you have a lot of mods already (ie a scythe), then flat damage is better. I'd love to see a +attack speed rune or something. Another point for the sake of balance, I'd love to see the +undead damage or +goblin damage runes buffed. There's literally no advantage to them than a more general +damage rune. EDIT: Also, I just realized the armor I've been using this whole time has been a rare +96 HP, +53% mobility with a 20 dmg perk. This should NEVER happen. Stats are legendary class, the +20 dmg mod is strictly legendary level only. If I recall correctly, this was forged armor taking legendary stats with rare visuals (I wanted something with fur for the bonus). I just tested forging again, and it keeps the rarity of the "stat" item, so what happened here? I'm unable to reproduce this bug.
I think "best" may be situational in this game, which is great! The best resource rune I have seen is: +100 starting command points and +0.5 command points per second. However, I also have a 35% cheaper bannermen which equates to around 132 in savings and allows you to get bannermen out faster. Not sure how that math works out in the long run. The best flat damage I have seen is: +25 melee damage and +20 DMG
There's also a 15% unit discount mod, which probably works out to even more than 132 CP savings. 100 CP with 15% cp might be the best combination for pure unit production. I believe 100 CP is better than 0.5 CP/s in 99% of scenarios, with the last 1% being irrelevant (ie you already have more CP than you know what to do with). 100 cp is an extra bannerman. If you're maxed on bannerman, 100 cp is a captain, which is 0.5 cp/s. If you already have maxed bannerman and max units, then you don't need more cp I'd like to see 0.5 become 1 cp/s rune. Technically if you're looking for PURE damage, you can roll a +25 melee +25 sword or something, or +25 range +25 bow, etc
I think I have Elves/Dwarves figured out for the most part, at least the melee ones. I'll tackle bow elves/gun dwarves later on when I have the resources (both time and $$$!). Humans are a bit of an enigma to me still. I just hit 99 on my human yesterday and I've been playing with him the past 2 days but I still cannot find a good damaging niche. Anyway you build him, he seems to be a support hero -- the best support class of the three by a mile, but still. However, I will admit that humans are probably the most fun class at level 99, because you get to actually do stuff. Elves run around like Flash, and dwarves seem to kill everything just by looking at them, but humans are much more... human. You buff your friends, you heal your allies, you use spells. Ok so not humans, but wizards. Elves have innate armor piercing plus the ability to hit even blocking enemies. Dwarves have runic curse, which basically means if you can hit them once, you'll never miss again. Humans have... well, nothing. This forces you to invest heavily into finding AP equipment, which is rather difficult. Looking to play him like a normal attacker is ineffective, his other offensive option seems to be spamming Sword Strike. Granted, in practice this is actually amazing because you have unlimited mana with 8 points invested into Mage class to unlock Mana Marker. You also don't have to worry about AP with this build. Moreover, you actually have the highest stamina regen in the game if you max Resolute for mobility, and why wouldn't you? Because you're not right clicking, dual wielding seems ineffective. Sword Strike damage seems to be just based on the damage shown on the stat screen, so wielding a high damage 2 hand sword with a shield seems to do the most damage (I don't know why equipping a shield doesn't trigger the 2-hand penalty, but it doesn't). Also, the mage spells don't do enough damage to justify going a dedicated mage class. You need to be doing 1k+ to hold off the higher level enemies. You've got unlimited mana which means your units constantly have Holy Shields and Vengeance Auras, the latter being a noticeable DPS increase. Should Mana Marker somehow not be enough mana sustain, just run over to your units/bannerman and cast Arcane Magic for easy mana. Oh, and 300 HP heal for everyone. You're literally Oprah. tl;dr: Elf = Flash, dwarf = Terminator, human = Oprah. EDIT: Some new discoveries. Not all perks were created equal. The +X dmg runes are affected by all the % bonuses, the +X melee damage/sword damage/whatever are not. It seems like most of the 700% actives or whatever takes whatever value is shown on the screen (plus applicable bonuses). Please confirm! Knights will do 7*1.3*1.55*base damage with sword strike. Completely unaffected by +sword damage or +melee damage. On a side note, I've figured out the rarity bug. If you re-forge a forged item, it seems to take on the rarity of the "visual" item rather than the stat item. This occurs every other time, in alternating fashion. Perhaps this was intended?
Generally, no. But some waves will be really tough to beat (like those with the goblin snipers) without armor. I find a pure berzerker to be not all that good (though fun and challenging), at least not until you have access to all the skills.
Thanks What about runic curse? I've put one point into it but i don't know if investing more is a waste or not
Runes have less weight than in H&C1, they are less powerful. But we have armors/shields/weapons so there are a lot of combinations. The max CP known is +100 starting CP. Although, it is a waste of a slot for longer modes, I only use it for a fast outpost defending. As in H&C1, in the long term discounts and more CP income are better, since it's quite easy to get to 999.
A few pages back in the forum we had some hot discussions about that. When update comes, you can reset your skill points for just 30 crystals, so try both with or without and compare. My little berserker has 0 armor. The same can be applied to Vampirism for berserker, a matter of taste/experience in battle. For instance, our mathematician have just said that dwarves don't need Vampirism. For my build is a basic. It is complemented to certain dwarf skills (not only Bloodlust). In the end many combinations and builds are possible and that's one of the bests parts in the game, customization
Yes, cannot agree more. goblin/undead bonus damage should be higher. Seems those are only good in certain waves or levels that are goblin/undead based. Would love to see Orc bonus damage, though. Btw, Critical Of the Day was 8300 damage to a regular goblin warrior, stacking some goblin bonuses
Agreed on the specialty damage vs generic. Should be like the -10% unit vs -35% specific unit runes... Should be a decent step up to specialize in one enemy (not as much obviously) The really interesting thing is the +dmg vs +melee/wep skill runes. That makes sense and explains why trying 2h hammer mixed with the 2h hammer rune felt so underwhelming. And ya, rune crafting sucks. It's absurdly hard to get a decent double stat rune, probably too hard since I agree with the others and it's not as game-breaking here as it was in h&c1. On the bright side, I REALLY like the progression item rewards and their increased rarity weighting. I get a lot of epics and legendaries from outpost defends and treasure hunting, comparatively. Whatever the bug is that what mentioned, I hope it doesn't mean a decrease in legendary drops at endgame. I think that helps legit players, which should always be encouraged
That brings up another point actually: people talking about stacking damage mods and whatnot. I've heard theorycraft on things like double damage rune + dmg on armor + leg wep etc etc, but in reality 98% of players won't have that setup. Getting a damage mod on the RIGHT set of armor is hard, and that pales in comparison to getting a dbl dmg rune. Then you have to stack the right mods on the right weapon type... Math is against people here, and while it's all possible, it's far from probable. I've spent probably 7-10hours rerolling gear and I still don't have anything resembling a near-perfect set. I think it's important to keep in mind while talking about class balance that getting these kinds of possible mods on gear is highly improbable.
Yup. I really wish you could pay a few more crystals and get at least a specific weapon type. "hey, mr. Blacksmith!" ~"hello, what will it be today?" "I need a bow, please" ~"whoops, made a sword" ~"whoops, made a spear" ~"whoops, made a mace" ~"whoops, made a sword again" ~"Made a crossbow, will that work?" "Sigh, no..." ~"whoops, made a rifle" ~"whoops, made a machine gun" ~"whoops, made a scythe" ~"whoops, made another sword" ~"whoops, made a spear again" ~"whoops, made a hammer" ~"whoops, made a magic staff" ~"whoops, made a machine gun" ~"whoops, made a double bladed sword-staff thing" ~"whoops, made a spear again" ~"Aha! A bow! Damn, I'm good."
FM mentioned that they were going to address that, and it's easily my biggest headache. Even if they just made rolling weapons linked to race it'd be a huge help. let elves roll the bows and a specific 1h wep, let dwarves roll maces/axes and guns, let humans roll swords/scythes & staves. Trying to roll 2h hammers right now, and all I see is swords and axes. it's enough to drive a man bonkers.
What are your favorite researches? I know some are tailored towards the type of campaign but are there any automatics you always choose?
If anyone is still under wave 22 or so, could you please keep an eye on when the Giant is unlocked? Would be much appreciated.
