Universal Warhammer Quest 2 (By Perchang)

New Heroes Guide: Ogre, Warpriest, Wardancer

Here's what I have so far from completing the first campaign (Middenland) and doing quite a few sidequests:

Ogre:
Melee only, obviously. 2 attack range with his Clubs comes in handy.
With a clear focus on Crushing damage, the Siegebreaker is just too good (even with its measly 5% critchance).
Piercing & Slashing are secondary inferior options, and at least for me were harder to find. But at least he has all 3 damage types, which is good. Also note that those weapons only have range 1.
Armour preference is for the Gutmaw with its 50% chance to regen 5hp each turn.
Only needs 3 slots to work fine: weapon, armour, Charge. Leaves enough room to play around: I use Weaponmaster, Relentless (+1AP on enemy death; more than one of them stacks), Speed Ring. With 1AP per attack and regaining 1 on each kill, he can waltz through rooms full of chaff pretty much on his own.
Charge gives him great mobility, and he has enough HP to just shrug off almost everything thrown his way: Charging him right into the middle of a room and then going to town on enemies works perfectly well. Added bonus that he acts as a fire magnet.
Aggression is a great choice for a passive skill, boosting his Str by 2 when he moves (which he should anyways).

Warpriest:
Melee-focused, with skills and the Captain's bombs being their only ranged options so far.
Same as Ogre, clear focus on Crushing, with all the Hammers and skills for them and other weapon types not easily available.
Only Slashing weapons I saw so far are the small Handaxe and the huge 2handed Greataxe (4AP).
Their 3 Hammers I've seen so far are inferior to the standard Hammer, with the exception of the one good against Marauders being very much geared for the new Talabec campaign.
UPDATE: Now that I have Weaponsmaster, I switched to the Sigmar's Faith hammer for a bit, and I found it better than the standard Hammer.
If you want someone to use the Helsturm Mace hammer, Warpriests can use it and are an okay choice for it.
The two-handed Warhammer is an option for more damage, but precludes using a shield.
And of course, once you get your hands on a Knuckleduster, they turn into damage monsters.
Piercing damage is a little easier to get, but very much on the low side so far with Dagger, Stiletto, Spear, and the Captain's two Bombs for AoE.
For armour, the best one I found so far is the Holy Armour, directly followed by Armour of Ulric. Which one you use depends on what damage types you face.
For shield, the Griffon Shield is the obvious choice. If you face mostly melee enemies, Sigmar's Glory with 60% Melee Deflect (but 0% Ranged) is great.
If you can find it, definitely give them the Jade Griffon accessory, 50% chance to regen 5hp every turn.
I didn't make much use of their exclusive skills yet. But I can see that a support build to boost your damage dealers is perfectly viable, especially when combined with the Ogre's and Wardancer's high mobility.
For fun, I gave them two Aggression skills for a while, as the Str bonus stacks. This leaves room to replace the second Aggression with something else, e.g. a ranged damage skill, Speedring or another weapon.
Overall, you don't need many slots to make them work well: a weapon or two, armour and shield, a Healing/Curing Potion, and you are all set.

Wardancer:
Also melee only, didn't find any ranged weapons for him yet. Not that he needs them with his excellent mobility thanks to Leap.
Slashing damage is his primary, then Piercing, with Crushing a rarer third.
Lots of Swords on offer for him, with more kinds of damage and AP ranges than you can shake a stick at.
Also, a good class-specific Spear for Piercing, Moondancer (Weaponmaster or "Dance: Storm of Blades" recommended, as it needs 3AP). Crushing is a bit harder with the Staves, but possible as well.
I replaced the Twin Blades with a Shortsword asap: 1 more attack, more damage, and 30% Critchance as opposed to the Twinblades' 0. The Blades' +2Str bonus isn't necessary early on, and later becomes obsolete anyways (as you have better options to boost Str).
Only problem is that he is rather squishy and needs a lot of slots to really work. E.g. Leap is pretty much mandatory, plus Weaponmaster and/or the "Dance: Storm of Blades" skill. Not much room left for armour and different weapons before you hit 6+ slots.
The two "armours" I found so far (Loec's Blessing, Talismanic Tattoos) do not really entice me.
If you need protection from ranged attacks, there's his "Dance: Woven Mist" skill which gives you 30% ranged deflect. For extra durability, combine with the Silver Seal (gives 10% to ranged & melee deflect, cooldown 3, 0AP to use).
However, Loec's Blessing (use Speed not Strength for damage) should synergise well with higher Speed (if you don't use a Speed-based weapon): Blades of Orion add +3 Speed, but don't use Speed for damage.
Speedbased weapons gives us the Dagger and Stiletto for Piercing damage, and Loec's Blades for Slashing. No speed-based Crushing option so far.
UPDATE: Found the "King of the Woods" tattoo, great piece: 10% Slash & 30% Crush resistance, plus you get 1AP and +1 Speed when you open a room.
In addition, there's the "Token of the Hunter King" which sets your Strength to your Speed value: it makes using a Str-based weapon with a Speedbuild a great option. Downside is you need quite a few slots and rather rare/specific equipment to make it work.
Aggression is a great choice for passive skill: just like with the Ogre, you want to move him every turn anyways.
Speedring is another great option, for more Deathblow goodness even when you don't go for a Speedbuild.

UPDATE: I just wrote up my ideal setups to work towards to, here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=4085407&postcount=765 .

 

UPDATE on Warpriest boost skills

I just found a great use for the Warpriest's boosting skills: Killfeeding to new Heroes.
I replaced my Ogre with one with better stat total, and needed to get him back up to speed from level 5 (old one was 10 already).
More or less for fun, I loaded my Warpriests with 2 Divine Blessings (target gets +1-3 Str & +1-3 Dex for this turn) and a Scourge of Chaos (+3Str for all Heroes in a 3x3 area for this turn).
Helped a lot with feeding my Ogre kills: While I didn't need it for chaff, whenever I faced something big like a Minotaur I could either go all-out and boost him to 10 Str, or cycle and have him boosted almost continuously.
He cleaned the whole last Middenland story dungeon on his own without breaking a sweat, while the other 3 watched the show from the sidelines.

In hindsight, I regret selling my excess Divine Blessings and Chaos Scourges. With 3-5 of each, I could have constantly boosted my Ogre out the wazoo

 

Thank you for the extensive insights.

 

I haven't found 'Dance: Storm of Blades' yet - what does it do?

And what is the difference between 'Token of the Hunter King' and 'Loec's Blessing'? I was confused because the latter seems to do what the former does (i.e. use spd instead of str for attack), plus some armour, for several hundred gold less.

 

@Roger: My pleasure
I had stuff like this already written out for all the other classes as well, but cannot find it anymore, must have thrown away the paper sheets by accident rewrite will take a bit.

@roscola:
Sorry, still can't post pics from my iPad, so written description for the Bladestorm:
"Passive ability. When a new room is discovered (i.e. you open a door), attacks cost 1 AP less for two turns."
--> Basically, a more limited version of Weaponsmaster (all attacks -1AP). But one of my Wardancers came with it, and I didn't have Weaponsmaster yet at that point.

Loec's Blessing vs. Hunter King Token:
The Token SETS your Strength to the same value your Speed is. Example: You have 1 Str, but 10 Spd. Equip the Token, and your Str will be boosted to 10. But, if you have Str 10 and Spd 1, you lose as your Str is set down to 1 as well.
I didn't experiment yet if, when you increase your Speed during battle, your Str increases as well. Will report back when I get around to it.

The Blessing does something else:
Unless stated otherwise (e.g. in the weapon description), ALL attacks use Strength to calculate damage.
Loec's Blessing (and others like it) use your Speed stat value instead of Strength in the damage formula. Which is:
(Warrior Strength + A random value between weapon damage min and weapon damage max) . The resulting value is then divided over the number of attacks of the weapon.

Example: You have 2 Strength and 4 Speed, your weapon does 5-10 damage and 2 attacks. Let's say we roll an 8 for damage.
With Strength, you will do (2+8)/2=5 damage per attack that hits.
Now, with Speed, you instead do (4+8)/2=6 damage per hit.

Also note that higher Speed also increases your chance for Deathblows (free extra attacks), which is extremely useful in all situations. And the reason why dedicated Speedbuilds (you can do that with e.g. the Dwarven Slayer or Greatsword to great effect) work so well

 

Yep that’s the one.
It’s perfect with the golden armour (the one that makes you immune to fire).

Awesome write up about characters btw!!!

 

Just completed the first campaign with a level 1 party.
It was a super tense experience that I really recommend, took me about 12 hours.

Onto the second region as we speak.

 

Pitta, I love you bro. I’ve read you’re always upbeat and optimistic posts for long time both in here and BGG. You’re love for GW brings a smile to my face. (No BS, totally true)

I just have to know, do you play things like the newest version of XCOM 2 or Gloomhaven or anything like that?

“Just completed the first compaign with a level 1 party”. Yup. That sums it up. Leveling system is so bad you can just ignore it. Anyone can use any gear, no matter how powerful. <shrug>

My only comment is that the game is ok. I think I understand now. We are playing a pretty version of Hunters 2. Ben/Perchang must have lost the rights to the code for the more complicated systems or something.

The game is neither tactiicle nor strategic in any real way.

There is no true pinning or blocking system for movement.

Ambushes are ok, but they made sense In WHQ when the mobs spawned just out of line of site. Now 5 bats randomly materialize in the middle of the party. ROFL.

Parhfinding is a joke. Mobs routinely light themselves on fire or poison themselves for no reason when they could have moved the same number of squares and not sufffefed DoT damage.

The loot system is horrid. Why are you always looting party members out of the end of mission “loot cards” and base daggers are rewards randomly no matter how tough or simple the dungeon. The random card loot doesn’t scale properly.

Deathblow is the dumbest sh1t I’ve ever seen. I hade a Witch Elf heal a Wardancer with a potion and then deathblow 2x with her ranged staff.... ‘nuff said.

I’m glad you like it. It’s “ok”. But let’s not act like it’s been fixed since release (only the most bare changes were made) and it certainly isn’t darkest dungeon or XCOM 2 War of the Chosen.

I just wish they would have fixed it, rather than just trying to milk out more money. That’s lame.

 

But Toucharcade posted this today: http://toucharcade.com/2018/02/13/warhammer-quest-2-android/

„Overall Warhammer Quest 2 offered exactly what you'd hope for from a sequel, retaining everything that made the first game so good while expanding and improving on the formula. We really loved it in our 5 star review.“

 

Not even TouchArcade can get it right all the time. #

 

They did fix it, the changes and core mechanics simply don’t fit your personal preferences. That’s fine! Not every gameplay mechanic will suite everyone’s taste. However, it’s rather silly to suggest people are somehow mistaken for enjoying something you do not.

 

I'm too old to engage in these type of conversations, I'm genuinely (really) sorry you don't like the game but I'm not here to argue or trying to convince otherwise or anything like that (I know yours was a legit question and dint' want to argue).
I generally find it's a colossal waste of time to go in a specific thread doing long laundry lists about what I don't like and why the devs are wrong at their own game, unless I think it can be constructive and such and feel it's both doable and they have the will/power to do so (but then I generally write them directly, no point in ruining the fun of the others). That's why you rarely read me complaining about something in a game enthusiast forum.
In the end it's just my opinion, valid as much as any other one; I just move over, it's not that I lack games to play.
I did a laundry list of things I would like to have changed in this very thread tough now that you mentioned it, and I'm lucky enough the main points were not only addressed but developed and improved (and you should have seen the mails I sent them!!!).

But yes as you asked (and I do thank you for pointing out games you feel I would enjoy), I played Gloomheaven (first edition, didn't like that much to partecipate in the kickstarter for 2nd edition) and I own both XCOM 2 and Darkest Dungeon (which I prefer among the two, even with the clunky UI on iPad).
They are fine games but I hate with a passion the base management/hamlet building thing.
To me 'more to do', more things (generally translated in 'deeper', even if I don't concur) aren't necessarily better.

Perchang now and Rodeo before hit so far the right spot for my digital dungeon crawling experience, and I like WHQ2 the most.
Madness? Maybe
Fanboysm? Maybe
Blindness? Maybe

Only thing I know is that since 2.0 update I played a total of 22 hours according to my iPhone and iPad battery usage, and I still crave for more...there must be clearly something wrong with me

I know for a fact some friends of mine didn't like the game before 2.0 and now they are playing it till completion of the 3 campaigns.

So I would say yes, the 2.0 update did changed things, making the game better (for some of us anyway, but I only speak about me).

I understand it's not 'enough better' for you (and surely many others) and I'm genuinely sorry about that as I always am when I'm happy about something (and I do like to write about it, as you noticed) but that won't change the fact it's the dungeon crawling experience I'm having the most fun with since a long time.

 

@cyllwynn & pitta:
Thanks you two for keeping the conversation civilised, very much appreciate it.

Can we all agree that we simply like different things in our games? Just like every other game, not everyone will like WHQ2, nor do you have to.

I only spent 10 hours playing over the last week, but then I dropped almost 20 into FF15PE and several into writing about the new Heroes (and organising/trying to find my stuff about the original ones ) .
However, for me the last update did improve the game as well. I really like the new Heroes. And I'm even slowly warming up to the ambushes, particularly after a nail-biting travel ambush where only 2 of my Mages had to fight a whole bunch of Plaguebearers and got ambushed during that battle 3 times by Nurglings. Barely made it out alive, good times were had by all.

Still need to play more than the first mission of the new Talabec campaign, and really looking forward to it. Taking bets if my squishy all-Mage party will get their butt handed on a silver platter But first they need to grab some more equipment from sidequests, and then I have to re-gear them which could take a while to get it right. Guess I'll write about using Mages next...

 

I tried the 4 mages thing with my Elven Council saveslot.

It’s pure hell.

When you are ambushed by Minotaurs or Marauders you don’t have the time to prepare your spells and cover up, so unless your mages are high level with lot of slots and melee weapons it’s hard as nails.
And marauders hit hard.
I found also freeze spells and weapons mandatory, to slow immediately enemies and trying to prepare to fight back (but using chillwind is difficult in close combat, assuming you have the spell ready...I didn’t find any armor with frost resistance).

In my Elven council party I swapped a Loremaster for a Glade guard and it was more doable.

Have yet to try the Wardancer tough, could be a nice addition in a all elves party.

 

@pitta:
Wardancer is great, quite sure you'll like him.

I am playing with 4 Highelf Mages, so no Freeze or other fancy stuff
Fully agree that it's brutal, most difficult party I came up with so far. I even tried making them all melee right from the start, but gave up on that really quick.
You REALLY don't want to get hit, as pretty much everything can kill you in a hit or two.
However, it is possible to at least complete the Middenland campaign with those guys. Will go straight for Talabec with them (they're all levels 7-10 already), once I'm done with my sidequest rounds to collect more useful equipment.

 

Wow all 4 High Mages!!!
Let me know how they do in Talabecland!!!
Must be truly brutal!!!

I don’t remember if the sword that freeze enemies is Dark Elf only, probably yes.
If not, you should get it ASAP.

 

Chillblade is DE-exclusive, so no luck with that either

 

I was also one who was less than trilled after the shine wore off the initial release between the bugs and the sameness of the characters. I'm happy to say now though, that the expansion classes are different enough that I'm really enjoying a fresh playthrough at the moment, and am looking forward to seeing the new quest area.

One skill issue though is a big exploit with the wardancer and dance: storm of blades. It reduces the AP of attacks by 1 for two turns when a new room is discovered. With a 1AP weapon, that means free attacks. By itself it woudn't mean anything crazy, but leap gives huge mobility so it's possible to run into a room and kill 2-3 beasties then leap to get another 2-3 regardless of their hp or armor (although I imagine it will be tedious vs big monsters). This one definitely needs a fix. Minimum 1AP for any attack?

Oh, and I still strongly believe the level and loot systems are complete garbage Ah well, can't have it all.

 

Spoke too soon about the bugs unfortunately. I just confirmed that the empire captain skill "hold the line" isn't working correctly (that or I don't understand it). I had him run up and activate it when surrounded by a bunch of spiders who were all in base to base contact with him. Then I jumped my wardancer behind them and started to attack with a piercing weapon but still got yellow numbers and only 1-2 damage per hit, same as without this debuff.

Don't they test these things?

 

I am glad that this are the most irrelevant parts for a dungeon crawler/rpg which has a strong focus on character progression.