Talents - info, recommended [SPOILERS POSSIBLE]
What are you recommended talents? Please let me know.Here is some of the info I have collected from my experience from the game, it might not be 100% accurate, but it's a foundation for discussion, please correct me if you find it different.Number of talent points:UPDATE: ReaperX's table has been updated (it had been quoted here)New updated talents chartPossible additional tokens:Lady of The LakeGives 1 Silver TokenIf you complete Ripple Quest at Chapter IV without taking on side, you will be given a Silver Token.Zeugl VigorGives 1 Gold and 1 SilverFrightener’s VisonGives 1 BronzeHellhound’s SoulGives1 SilverKoshchey’s CoreGives 1 GoldStriga’s UrgeGives 1 Silver, 1 BronzeSome of these are given based on your decisions in the game.Talents Stacking?No, the talent bonuses are not cumulative.Take Crushing Blow as an example; there are two levels of this talent, Crushing Blow I, and Crushing Blow II.Crushing Blow I – The bonus damage only applies to the first chain of attacks.Crushing Blow II – Once you have successfully chained on to the second set of combos, the Crushing Blow II damage bonus apples to these attacks.Absolute essential skills in my view are:Strength level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.They all add + Damage, + Parry, +Vitality and Resistances on Knockdown and Bleeding, which applies to you everyday combat.Dexterity level 1,2,3,4,5.They all add +Attack, + Doge, + Parry, resistances on Blind and Incineration, absolute essentials, ensure a greater chance of your attacks to land with all the damage you have developed from STR.Stamina level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.They add resistances and Endurance regeneration; this gives you a lot more option in combat with Signs, that’s tactically more damage, more protection and more control.Beside the benefit of Endurance regeneration, more importantly to me, Endurance adds resistances on two deadly conditions, which are Stun and Pain, resistance to them are highly valuable.More on Endurance, for example, there will be situations in the game where enemies have stunning abilities, my tactic is to: Hit a little, Arad, hit a little, Arad, hit a little, Arad and repeat. This will prevent them from knock, stun or blind you. Of course, you can do the same in other combat situations.Debatable essential skills?Intelligence level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.The intelligence levels could be debatable to take all of the levels form 1 to 5, though I personally see the value in Sign from mid game. The Intelligence abilities add Intensity, reduce endurance cost, and make all the sign effects last longer.I have taken most of them (only about 4 Silver one left which I did not take), and this allows me to do about 200+ damage per Igni Sign at a Greater Brother, and I can do a few on a roll (though when I do that to Drowners, they don’t die straight away, does the damage based on the amount of their health? If you know please let me know).Together with Endurance, you are allowed a lot of Sign options.Signs:Personal rated Signs are: Arad and Igni.Arad as mention above, allows you a lot of control over your targets, also provide a lot of opportunities to finish tougher target in one blow, with the hit-stun-hit-stun method, it allows a healthier life style.However, I do not find the need to take it beyond the Bronze level even though it’s so useful. At higher level, it seems it will simply reinforce what it is already doing, because:The cost of Arad sign is quite low, and with my development with INT and STAM, if I really want to stun the target , I can repeat casting Arad until I see the result.IgniDamage and muti uses ability, with further development, your Igni damage increase, Incineration last longer, and with nice added ability such as Fear and Pain. Since the angel of Igni covers quite wide at 135 degree at Brozen level 2, and 315 degree at second silver level, you are doing a lot of damage to a large area you are covering.I have defeated AJ with 90% damage coming from Igni before, just repeated the Igni sign whenever I am up from it’s knocking, while I was down, I just kept him burning. Please see to this video at 4:00 of this video:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5bx0pZF_sAt level 3, you may add Fear to your target, and at 4, Pain; this is an ideal crowd control spell, but for its damage alone, I would use it for one to one combat. Not to mention it provides a push back to all those effected.YrdenA very fun way in killing your target, however, I have not found it’s life saving value yet (please let me know how you use yours), sometimes it blocks off people coming at you, it has it’s usefulness at times, but for me it’s more of a fun thing. Such as this: at 2:07 and 3:00 of this video:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5bx0pZF_sQuenI have developed my character mainly to kill, and have yet to find the usefulness of Quen’s protectiveness. There are great suggestions that Quen is useful when you walked into ambush, and Quen would allow you the time to prep yourself, such as drinking the desired potions and selecting the right weapon, or may be even coating it?But since Igni has Fear and Pain effect, as well as a push back on the targets, from my experience I have found all the time I need, thus I still don’t see Quen worth any further investment of talents beyond Bronze (level 1 and 2).AxiiI rely on Igni on crowd control, causes Fear and Pain, from that perspective, I am totally missing out on Axii (Please let me know how you use it).Sword styles:If you had not heavily investing on the Signs, you should be able to take 4 out of 6 sword styles to level 5.Personally I have almost maxed out Strong and Fast Styles on both Steel and Silver, mainly on the more realistic talents which would add damage and attack, secondly the one that increases chance for Bleeding and Pain, and later on, max them.Group Style wise, I have left them at level 3 with both Steel and Silver, I am not so keen on the Group Style because of the following reasons:1) I have some crowd control from Signs, which provides the Fear and Pain effect, allowing me to fight my enemies on average no more than two at a time.2) Later on in the game, with the appropriate investment in Igni and STAM, INT, you can spam Igni if you wish, whatever is left, would usually require Strong Style to kill (This experience is based on Normal and Hard difficulty of 1.1a).3) Group Style is not as accurate as Fast Style, there are times where you would not be able to hit a fast target with it, together with the above reasons, I tend not to invests in a style that only functions as a convenient, but I rather investing in something I would "need" in a challenging situations, such as heavy armoured and quick targets.Video References:Igni - Power and the Pain Effecthttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=c114S-5qOTwIgni - Fear Effecthttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A-QvV_XYnnA:
What are you recommended talents? Please let me know.Here is some of the info I have collected from my experience from the game, it might not be 100% accurate, but it's a foundation for discussion, please correct me if you find it different.Number of talent points:UPDATE: ReaperX's table has been updated (it had been quoted here)New updated talents chartPossible additional tokens:Lady of The LakeGives 1 Silver TokenIf you complete Ripple Quest at Chapter IV without taking on side, you will be given a Silver Token.Zeugl VigorGives 1 Gold and 1 SilverFrightener’s VisonGives 1 BronzeHellhound’s SoulGives1 SilverKoshchey’s CoreGives 1 GoldStriga’s UrgeGives 1 Silver, 1 BronzeSome of these are given based on your decisions in the game.Talents Stacking?No, the talent bonuses are not cumulative.Take Crushing Blow as an example; there are two levels of this talent, Crushing Blow I, and Crushing Blow II.Crushing Blow I – The bonus damage only applies to the first chain of attacks.Crushing Blow II – Once you have successfully chained on to the second set of combos, the Crushing Blow II damage bonus apples to these attacks.Absolute essential skills in my view are:Strength level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.They all add + Damage, + Parry, +Vitality and Resistances on Knockdown and Bleeding, which applies to you everyday combat.Dexterity level 1,2,3,4,5.They all add +Attack, + Doge, + Parry, resistances on Blind and Incineration, absolute essentials, ensure a greater chance of your attacks to land with all the damage you have developed from STR.Stamina level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.They add resistances and Endurance regeneration; this gives you a lot more option in combat with Signs, that’s tactically more damage, more protection and more control.Beside the benefit of Endurance regeneration, more importantly to me, Endurance adds resistances on two deadly conditions, which are Stun and Pain, resistance to them are highly valuable.More on Endurance, for example, there will be situations in the game where enemies have stunning abilities, my tactic is to: Hit a little, Arad, hit a little, Arad, hit a little, Arad and repeat. This will prevent them from knock, stun or blind you. Of course, you can do the same in other combat situations.Debatable essential skills?Intelligence level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.The intelligence levels could be debatable to take all of the levels form 1 to 5, though I personally see the value in Sign from mid game. The Intelligence abilities add Intensity, reduce endurance cost, and make all the sign effects last longer.I have taken most of them (only about 4 Silver one left which I did not take), and this allows me to do about 200+ damage per Igni Sign at a Greater Brother, and I can do a few on a roll (though when I do that to Drowners, they don’t die straight away, does the damage based on the amount of their health? If you know please let me know).Together with Endurance, you are allowed a lot of Sign options.Signs:Personal rated Signs are: Arad and Igni.Arad as mention above, allows you a lot of control over your targets, also provide a lot of opportunities to finish tougher target in one blow, with the hit-stun-hit-stun method, it allows a healthier life style.However, I do not find the need to take it beyond the Bronze level even though it’s so useful. At higher level, it seems it will simply reinforce what it is already doing, because:The cost of Arad sign is quite low, and with my development with INT and STAM, if I really want to stun the target , I can repeat casting Arad until I see the result.IgniDamage and muti uses ability, with further development, your Igni damage increase, Incineration last longer, and with nice added ability such as Fear and Pain. Since the angel of Igni covers quite wide at 135 degree at Brozen level 2, and 315 degree at second silver level, you are doing a lot of damage to a large area you are covering.I have defeated AJ with 90% damage coming from Igni before, just repeated the Igni sign whenever I am up from it’s knocking, while I was down, I just kept him burning. Please see to this video at 4:00 of this video:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5bx0pZF_sAt level 3, you may add Fear to your target, and at 4, Pain; this is an ideal crowd control spell, but for its damage alone, I would use it for one to one combat. Not to mention it provides a push back to all those effected.YrdenA very fun way in killing your target, however, I have not found it’s life saving value yet (please let me know how you use yours), sometimes it blocks off people coming at you, it has it’s usefulness at times, but for me it’s more of a fun thing. Such as this: at 2:07 and 3:00 of this video:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5bx0pZF_sQuenI have developed my character mainly to kill, and have yet to find the usefulness of Quen’s protectiveness. There are great suggestions that Quen is useful when you walked into ambush, and Quen would allow you the time to prep yourself, such as drinking the desired potions and selecting the right weapon, or may be even coating it?But since Igni has Fear and Pain effect, as well as a push back on the targets, from my experience I have found all the time I need, thus I still don’t see Quen worth any further investment of talents beyond Bronze (level 1 and 2).AxiiI rely on Igni on crowd control, causes Fear and Pain, from that perspective, I am totally missing out on Axii (Please let me know how you use it).Sword styles:If you had not heavily investing on the Signs, you should be able to take 4 out of 6 sword styles to level 5.Personally I have almost maxed out Strong and Fast Styles on both Steel and Silver, mainly on the more realistic talents which would add damage and attack, secondly the one that increases chance for Bleeding and Pain, and later on, max them.Group Style wise, I have left them at level 3 with both Steel and Silver, I am not so keen on the Group Style because of the following reasons:1) I have some crowd control from Signs, which provides the Fear and Pain effect, allowing me to fight my enemies on average no more than two at a time.2) Later on in the game, with the appropriate investment in Igni and STAM, INT, you can spam Igni if you wish, whatever is left, would usually require Strong Style to kill (This experience is based on Normal and Hard difficulty of 1.1a).3) Group Style is not as accurate as Fast Style, there are times where you would not be able to hit a fast target with it, together with the above reasons, I tend not to invests in a style that only functions as a convenient, but I rather investing in something I would "need" in a challenging situations, such as heavy armoured and quick targets.Video References:Igni - Power and the Pain Effecthttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=c114S-5qOTwIgni - Fear Effecthttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A-QvV_XYnnA: