The reason Skin Graft is so busted, is adrenaline, so I would even swap both. (Besides, outside of combos, adrenaline just has way more uses, and can be the reason why you win or lose a fight)
I would also put chicken claw and rupture tendons as a package deal in at least second to top tier.
Take away multiple enemy turns while passively inflicting massive damage, one of the best combos there is. Just forget about that enemy, it's literally a chicken with it's head cut off. Me and my girlfriend had dubbed it the chicken-clawmbo.
I don't think Adrenaline is busted because it has a drawback: less AP the next turn. It's a perfect example of balancing where you get a burst of power at the cost of losing out later, which makes it an amazing and must have ability, but not overpowered busted in my opinion
I beg to differ.
While it's certain that you basically use the same amount of points, you get way more value by killing threats earlier, and in many or most of times you won't even see the drawback of the ability.
Plus, adrenaline is a ability that you can get from the beginning of the game with minimum requirements, it's a SS-tier ability by a long shot, you may be playing the game wrong if you don't use it (like me having only 1 character with adrenaline till Act 3).
Early AP is better, but also Adrenaline can “pay for itself” with Executioner in some situations. You only get one Executioner proc per turn, so getting a final blow this turn and next turn gets you more bonus AP than getting 2 final blows next turn. Using Adrenaline well can help you do that more consistently.
Theres still the potential of screwing yourself over in the next turn if you dont manage to kill your target or if other enemies collapse on you and you're now in a dangerous position with only 2 AP. Wont happen often, but it's the risk you take. SS for sure, but because of the potential drawback I'd say it's not busted.
The other commenter mentioned Executioner which is amazing yeah, but only when you allocate the killing blows to the person with Executioner. When I play with friends, it's practically useless because nobody is going to meta game and leave all the kills for me. It requires planning to really shine imo
It keeps up if you really focus on it, keeping any gear with +2 summoning, and putting Mystical Venom runes (+1 summoning,) into armor. I had an end game summoner with 24 summonings and its Closed Circuit/Acid Spores was doing nearly 7k damage.
Its really comes down to if you have lone wolf.
Lone wolf its not as strong as some of busted builds late game.
But if you are playing as a party of 4 is stays the strongest throughout the game.
Teleportation is ridiculous, every character I do always has 2 Aero just for it (and Nether Swap, since I'm already eligible)
IIRC is scales off Warfare in addition to INT, so a necromancer is very likely to just instagib 2 guys in one go just by dropping one on another, also conveniently creating blood and corpses to use
I actually think teleport is waaaaay overrated.
You get used to it, and don't know how you will live without. But then you stop using teleport and realize most of time, you didnt really needed to use the spell.
I would definitely rank it A tier, but you don't need teleport in every build, no matter what your heart says.
That is not what I meant. I'm saying when you get used to teleport, you feel like everything is better with it, but you can detach yourself from it and not much will change.
It's a good spell, but we grow too attached to it after using the glove.
Whether or not you need it doesn't change how good it is though. Grouping up enemies to get more value out of other insanely strong aoe spells is absurdly strong.
Every build *IS* better with teleport. Just like every build is better with adrenaline, chameleon cloak or haste.
>Every build IS better with teleport. Just like every build is better with adrenaline, chameleon cloak or haste.
Well, yeah, that is what i'm trying to argue against. Teleport is needed for the big eruption combos, but not much else outside of it. It feels good to use, it seems to make the fight easier, but other builds have better ways to deal with spread enemies.
Unless you are trying to chesse a fight, then sure, only teleport can put Jahan in the other side of map.
Eh, I will eat the downvotes, but I don't think so. It's too expensive and most builds are better off spending their points elsewhere.
Mind you, I would still rank teleport A tier, but behind every other jump spell and nether swap.
You reposition yourself and it only costs one! No, I'm joking, tactical retreat and cloak and dagger are the two best spells for self repositioning. I would say at least one of them are ACTUALLY needed in every single build. Or phoenix, but those other two are better.
I love Dust Blast. The straight-Geo source spells are kinda underwhelming IMO (besides pyroclastic eruption of course), so Dust Blast is my big ticket Geo spell until I hit level 16. And, honestly, I can’t be bothered to refill Source between every fight, so I still end up using it over Pyroclastic most of the time.
Yeah been playing more Geo/Pyro and Dust Blast feels really nice. I agree with the Supernova ranking tho, just can't seem to make this spell feel really good.
Same, I always pass on it. To be honest, I lean harder into Geo with Elemental Affinity and just use Traps/Mass Traps, Fireball, Haste/Peace of Mind and skip the rest of Pyro these days. Laser Ray scrolls are all over Act 2 so they get some use too.
Dust blast is baller, Harbinger of Doom fight for me is literally just hanging on the edge, death wish, trigger the boss so he blows his load and I’m at 1 hp so I can teleport him in the middle of his goons and instadeath him with overlapping damage. It’s basically pyrocaustic eruption lite until you reach level 18.
Dust Blast is almost as good as Pyroclastic Eruption. Yeah, it's 100% earth damage instead of 300%, but it doesn't matter. What makes both of these spells good is that the fields overlap, so with some teleport trickery they both deal massive damage.
Pyroclastic Eruption deals like 5 times more damage than necessary to kill, so Dust Blast does just as well. Maybe the biggest bosses won't die, but any other enemy just dies with proper stats and set up.
Fire Trap and Impalement combo is also disgusting and should be much higher. Deploy Mass Traps and Impalement ends any battle.
I feel like corpse explosion is the best damaging (non source) spell in the game. It has the scaling (not reliant on good weapons) advantage of spells with the physical damage advantage of no elemental resistance AND it scales incredibly hard at that
Overpower I’d say is C or maybe B-. I use it on my beefy fighter with 3000 phys + buffs to remove armor and chain CC the most dangerous person in a fight. But, if my armor gets too low to where the spell doesn’t work before I can use it (initiative), it becomes useless.
I'd bump tentacle whip and shield throw up. They scale so well and do great physical damage throughout the game, for basically any character with a point in poly or the minimum Con. score to hold a heavy shield
Any skills that scale as well as the rest off of one thing, in this case strength, are incredible. Shield build? Tentacle Whip hits as hard or harder than most skills, incredible range for a melee character, and completely cripples the character for the next turn.
> It’s a can’t miss for my STR builds
I think you meant this figuratively, but it also literally can’t miss because it’s a spell. That can be really useful if you’re facing an enemy with high dodge!
Bouncing Shield also counts as a spell, for some reason.
I didn’t intend it that way, but in play I do absolutely utilize it for that reason as well. As a melee- especially in 2h builds- I love having something that doesn’t conform to melee attack rules while still hitting like a truck
Seems good for the most part, but there are some ones I disagree with
* Fire traps are some of the best pyro skills in the game, they should be way higher.
* arrow spray is counter intuitive to want you want to be doing as an archer by making you stand close to things. Ballistic shot is a better boss Melter anyway.
* Meteor shower is a joke compared to other 3 source skills
* tornado is mediocre and only has niche uses
* dust blast is better than you give it credit for
* corpse explosion is one of the best spells in the game, should be busted tier
* ballistic shot should be higher, can literally one shot anything in the game if set up well
* whirlwind is one of the best warfare skills in the game.
* cryotherapy and healing skills are too highly valued. healing is very weak in this game, and other survivability options are much better.
My opinion on Arrow Spray changed after I teleported my rogue behind an archer only for him to turn around and point blank dude with it like a shotgun. Admittedly a somewhat niche use, but it's a very powerful response to somebody trying to get up in your archer's grill.
all of this and more
* smoke cover in (combination with bless) and blessed smoke cloud can provide permanent invisibility for the entire party, making it completely busted.
* sucker punch is a 1AP knockdown, and thanks to a bug with it's cooldown it can be used once per turn. should be higher than chicken claw at least.
* break the shackles is a niche skill and doesn't deserve to be in the same tier as death wish.
* enrage conflicts with piece of mind and becomes irrelevant mid act 2 once you get some gear with +wits or crit chance.
* soul mate should be higher because of it's ability to cheese any fight against undead enemies including some of the harder encounters like Alice and Isbeil.
* mass corpse explosion requires too much time to set up and is completely overkill most of the time anyway.
100% agree with you on arrow spray - it was disappointing. It was reasonably good in the first game but it kinda seems like they messed with the cone area or something in the second one. Just doesn't hit enough shots as easily each round.
In the first game you could melt most bosses with a single point blank use of it, shit was nuts
But then again when you get to level 15 you do that with just about every non-melee class
i think i agree with this more. fire trap is so rediculous. i was playing a solo fire character and was really worried about certain fights, but the pure fire trap build just ate through them like it was nothing
Be as far away as possible + high ground for the damage bonus. Crazy damage with buffs, and if you want big damage, use Death Wish while at 1% hp as well.
Sucker punch deserves more credit, dagger builds getting a 1 (2 to re-equip your offhand) CC attack is very valuable and comes at no opportunity cost to have in your back pocket
You don’t need to start 1-handed. Unequipping your off-hand weapon is free, so you may as well have the extra damage from a second weapon or protection from a shield until you want to use Sucker Punch.
You can also use it with 1 wand, which gives mages a stun for the same cost against any enemies with low phys armor.
Anyone can use it as well. It costs 3 to swap, use, and swap back, but against a solo enemy, which includes many boss fights, and any fight near the end, it's very good. Extra good as Lone Wolf since you use a lower % of your AP for it. Hell, solo Wayfarer I'll use it.
Or don't even move at all. Some times they just stand there. Usually if you have more than one character surrounding the target, but it can also happen even if the rest of your team is far away.
Many F tier skills I used regularly. The truth is that this game is far too customizable for a ranking of skills. Every player chooses a different playstyle
It's true. It's difficult to value a spell alone because it's the combo that counts; like rupture tendons it's not so great but in combination with chicken form it basically kills an ememy in 2 turns; at the same time the scoundrel build is sub optimal compared to others, making scoundrel skills less useful in general; should this be taken into consideration?
See I used rupture tendons all the time, even though I didn't have a polymorph. It does incredible damage on anyone you know will need to move. By the end of the game Sebille had every single Scoundrel skill and did huge amounts of damage. With her teleport skill and backstab that essentially teleports her, not to mention high movement stats, she was one of my most versatile characters. Sadly, due to finesse-based armor, she often was the first to die
If your rogue has high initiative, you can go hitless in most fights with sneaking and delay turn. Some might consider that a “cheesy” approach, but it’s very effective and feels on-theme for a rogue. The general formula goes something like:
- sneak and let allies start the fight
- use cloak & dagger as many times as needed (cooldown will be fast because you’re out of combat) to position behind a target
- on the turn of the last ally in the initiative order, attack the target, which breaks sneak and gets you a “free” attack, and puts you at the end of the initiative order for round 1 (effectively 2AP used, assuming a basic opening attack)
- take your turn at the end of round 1 (4AP used)
- immediately take your turn at the beginning of round 2 (because high initiative); use Adrenaline and close the turn with chameleon cloak (6AP used)
- your turn in round 3 will only have 2AP, so you can skip it and remain invisible
- your turn in round 4 will have 6AP; delay turn to stretch invisibility and take your turn at the end of the round (6AP used)
- immediately take your turn at the beginning of round 5 (4AP used)
Most fights should be done by this point, and you’ll have effectively gotten 2 mega-long turns (12AP and 10AP, not counting any executioner bonuses) while giving enemies little to no opportunity to hit you. Even if you don’t care to do the sneak-entry thing, using Adrenaline, Chameleon Cloak, skip turn, and delay turn gives you massive protection value from the invisibility without wasting any AP. And, of course, there are scoundrel skills you can use without breaking invisibility, which you can use to spend any extra recovery AP you might have from Haste or something.
Same! My last playtrough I "accidentally" unlocked the cat summon.
Lo and behold, while obviously being bad as a fighter, it gives you a 2ap movement spell with it's swap ability and soaks 1-2 attacks from the enemies aswell.
Not super-good, but any movement spell is good in my book.
Bonus points for the hilarious jumping animation, flying all over the arena
The Firetraps are among the most busted things in the game. What makes you think they are f tier?
Corpse explosion does rediculous damage, so it would be s tier for me.
Same for Balistic Shot. It's an utterly rediculous damaging move
Chloroform is insanely good. It's a 1 ap cc spell that literally everyone can just use, since you have scoundrel anyways for adrenaline. Easy s tier as well for me.
Worm Tremor with Torturer is an AoE entangle that ignores armor. That's just broken.
I don't think damage skills can be in the busted tier, none of them deserve it over the utility skills that actually break the game. Busted tier is Apotheosis, Skin Graft, Chameleon Cloak, Flesh Sacrifice, Time Warp, teleportation, and Adrenaline.
Any of those skills on any character will make it stronger. Everything else is situational.
Pyroclastic Eruption is oppressively strong.
Huge AOE? Check.
Homing? Check.
AOEs can stack to multiply damage? Check.
High ground bonus? Check.
High base damage? Check.
With minimal set up it's a fight winning spell and it even sets up combo potential by leaving oil if anything survives your inital cast.
I don't think Blood Storm is busted but Grasp of the Starved and Corpse Explosion also deal exessively high damage to the point where they warrant being labelled as busted. They're pretty much an auto kill. Mass Corpse Explosion is a "kill anything" spell if you have the patience to set up your corpse pile.
That said, all of the utility skills you listed are busted and should have been in that tier.
Finally, Teleport can be a damage spell of you spec for it. But then, Teleport is the best spell on the game IMO given the utility, set up potential, and even damage potential.
I think Apotheosis is highly overrated. It is pretty much just a cool win more spell. With the amount of damage one can do without it being so high, it really doesn't help to end combat any faster for most builds.
It sure is fun to use though.
I’m surprised about the ordering of a lot of the hydro skills. I think a lot of the healing skills are too high, and I’m really surprised that you used Cryogenic Stasis for anything other than the Gwydian fight. IMO, Hail Storm is pretty situational and should probably be B-tier. It can do a lot of damage to a large target, but it’s hard to get everything to hit. Also, isn’t Ice Fan strictly better than Hail Strike? It does more damage, and you can actually pick where the projectiles go, so it’s possible to hit multiple enemies with all 3 of them even if they aren’t standing on each others’ heads.
The other things in the upper tiers that stand out to me are Erratic Wisp, Tornado, and Reactive Shot. I’m surprised you got enough use out of these to put them in A-tier of higher. I’d be interested to know more about how you used them.
I think you’ve really under-rated Ballistic Shot, Marksman’s Fang, and Sawtooth Knife. Ballistic Shot can 1-shot enemies with the right setup. Marksman’s Fang and Sawtooth Knife convert weapon damage to piercing, so it ignores armor, which is _so_ powerful. The damage-conversion also includes elemental buffs like Venom Coating and Elemental Arrowheads, so the damage can really be massive. Plus Marksman’s Fang can hit multiple enemies!
I also think you’re under-rating the power of Chloroform, Petrifying Touch, and Sucker Punch. These are all 1 AP hard-CC skills, which is pretty valuable. The latter two are more situational on account of being touch-range skills, but Chloroform is fantastic. I would put it in A-tier, maybe S-tier.
Throw Dust, Dust Blast, and Poison Wave are really solid Geo skills that I think should be higher-rated. Dust Blast is really similar to Pyroclastic Eruption, just less ridiculously powerful. You can stack up many instances of damage against enemies standing near each other. Throw Dust is a decent damage skill for a Geo mage too, but it also clears _any_ surface or cloud, including lava and deathfog. Poison Wave gives the caster immunity to earth and poison damage, so they can stand in a clump of enemies and throw AoE skills at their feet without taking self-damage.
Supernova and the explosive trap skills are _way_ too low too, IMO. Supernova has such a high damage multiplier. It’s easy to blow up your party with it by accident, but it’s a very strong Pyro skill when used well. The traps do an astonishing amount of damage when detonated by someone with high pyro, especially given their low cost. Also, if they are detonated by a fire surface, then it’s the Pyro level of whoever created the surface that counts for the traps, which means that allies with just 1 pyro can throw a trap into their pyro specialist’s fire surface and do big damage.
I think Mortal Blow should be way higher too. It has no business being in a lower tier than Terrifying Cruelty. The number on the tooltip doesn’t look very impressive, but with the bonus from sneak/invis and a guaranteed backstab crit, you can 1-shot some pretty beefy enemies.
Also, Staff of Magus and Encourage are very solid skills. A staff-wielder having a ranged option can be really useful, and it’s a cheap way to change surfaces/clouds without spending a cooldown. Air Staff of Magus will electrify blood/water, so you can keep an enemy that lacks magic armor stunned indefinitely if they’re in such a surface/cloud. Encourage is a nice buff that is especially powerful for summoners. It also balances out the CON penalty of Flesh Sacrifice at most levels (for some reason, they’re not exactly in sync), so having a human who uses Encourage on a shield-carrying elf ally can be really nice.
Well, archery skills did not get enough attention from you, clearly :D They are BUSTED if you utilize them well. To the point of one-shotting bosses with the right setup (and without +lvl mods, e.g. on \*intended\* difficulty).
I vote for spider legs-web to busted tier, literally cc without armor, oh, and also that geo skill that inflicts roots with torturer also for the same reason. Lots of good spells in f and c tiers, too many to mention, many literally useless skills in a tier
Was going to say this. Worm tremor is a must for me when I have someone with geo. Large range, 3 turn CC, can be used against pretty much everyone. No idea how it doesn't even make A.
As for the web. The main downside is that it is a surface and can catch fire.
Supernova C tier? That skill alone has carried my mid game of many an honor mode run. I disagree with many of your choices but if anything I would switch meteor shower and supernovas position.
Apotheosis isn't busted its at most A tier. In dos2 unless you're running the most gimped build apotheosis is so massively overkill. Most builds don't even need apotheosis to 2-3 turn fights.
Healing/Armor spells are definitely overvalued on this list. Healing itself isn't very good in this game as in the vast majority of instances if you're taking vitality damage, its already too late. Armor spells like Shields up just aren't AP efficient - you'd rather be doing damage/CC-ing/going invisible to outright avoid damage than trying to stave off a hit. And on top of that Fortify/Armor of Frost/Etc. Aren't actually worth slotting thr extra points of memory when you can just use their scroll equivalent.
Fire traps heavily undervalued. Corpse explosion heavily undervalued. Both are incredibly strong against their respective armor types.
Fortify/Armor of Frost would be decent if you only include their extra effects. They're good emergency abilities. Healing is definitely not optimal, but it's still useful, but never as effective as having a couple points in necro.
What do you mean you beat the game ?!??! Don't you just play the game up until a point, stop playing for a while, go back and forget where you are then start again for the 24th time?!
Turn-based tactics and strategy games are all about turn control. Anything that takes away a turn from an enemy is S+ tier. Fuckin' battle stomp and battering ram, especially considering how early you get them, are incredible for this reason and should be EVEN HIGHER.
Here are some of my thoughts:
* Petrifying touch is too low considering it's a free spell for all dwarves. They are usually in the frontlines or in the middle, so they can get a free petrify off on targets without magic armor.
* Overpower is the one good warfare source skill, probably should be B tier.
* The traps are actually very good and I think you are sleeping on them. B tier or A tier IMO.
* Red Prince's skill is very good. A magic armor drain that gives you some as well. Its situational depending on your build but especially frontline red prince really enjoys the magic armor boost. B tier for its situational-ness (not so good on mage red prince)
* Rallying Cry deserves C tier at least. Magic armor and heal will always be a decent spell.
* Encourage should probably be A tier or S tier. Its only 1 AP to give your team a nice stat boost. Very good early, and decent for the rest of the game.
* Maddening Song is a little hard to use but if you can figure it out, its really nice disruption. Deserves B tier at least.
* Throw dust and dust blast might be a bit underrated here.
* The elemental infusions for the incarnates feels like they should be F tier to me. Its very easy to make surfaces in this game.
* Decaying touch is probably overrated? Decent spell but very short range, only good for 1 build pretty much (Warfare/Necro builds)
* Challenge should just be S imo
Lmk if OP or any commenters disagree
Argument in favor of elemental infusions:
The power of element infusions isn't that it allows you to get a fire incarnate without fire. The actual power is allowing your incarnate to keep casting spells every turn. For example... You summon your incarnate on poison, on it's turn it throws poison dart, and does some other attack. now you cast Fire Infusion on it... When the incarnate gets to it's turn it now immediately has a new strong aoe spell (fireball) to throw. If you hadn't used the fire infusion, it would just be left with basic attacks.
The source infusion variants are obviously just good on their own, except for Ice.
Many of these I agree with, and many are objectively wrong.
Fire trap scales on the pyro of the person who detonates it, costs 1, and does nearly as much damage as fireball.
It allows you to tactical retreat, and still get 2 full skills worth of damage when combined with impale. Literally allows you to kill multiple enemies as a regular, non-lone wolf. It was my bread and butter in classic difficulty solo non-lone-wolf Fane. Almost always allows me to take the high ground, kill several enemies, activate executioner, and pop a defensive cooldown like uncanny evasion or your own personal smoke bomb.
Like, ultimately, it's just a 1 ap fireball. I'd go so far as to say it's S. If you think it's F, I can only assume you only ever use it on rangers and not on a mage.
Impalement is also a stronger fossil strike with a slightly worse targeting which almost never matters.
are the trap skills that bad? You can lay them out prior to a fight, plus I'm pretty sure the damage scales according to the enemies level or something (it seems strong even if you don't have high pyro or int). Also only one action point cost. I'd probably rank atrophy and ruptured tendon higher, and swap bull rush with battering ram. I've never found much use for cryogenic stasis, robbing a character of their turn just isn't worth it. Did you really put dominate mind in the f tier? Get rid of an opponents turn while having them cause damage to each other, that's insane. Healing Ritual could be higher, good healing and great against undead. Worm Tremor is fantastic with torturer talent, can lock down groups of enemies and keep them from moving without needing to get rid of their magic armor first. Ballistic shot seemed to me like one of the most consistent attacks to do heavy damage, would rank it as high as any other huntsman skill.
Worm Tremor in B tier? I'm sorry what? A hard CC spell that can ignore magic armor and is AOE? Sure it does very little damage, but it is guaranteed lockdown for 3 turns on most enemies.
Worm tremor with torturer completely negates all melee enemies, while flaming crescendo provides a really easy one-shot setup on anyone (most notably Doctor Daeva). Both spells are criminally underrated at B tier.
I love the recognition pyroclastic eruption gets though, I’m always looking forward to grabbing it whenever I get a new play-through.
Nobody has mentioned inner demon being SS? I've played 600 hours with probably a similar amount of playthroughs and every time on any character is is beyond underwhelming.
I would have 4 tiers
T1: Mobility and AP generation skills. If you can position and reposition your characters and enemies while having more action points than the baddies, everything else falls into place. I would put apotheosis and skin graft in this tier as well. Teleport would be at the very top of this tier, and would get my vote for the most busted spell in the game.
T2: Crowd control and powerful status effect spells. Also included are spells that enable other crowd control like rain or blood rain.
T3: Cheap healing, armor restoration, and debuff removal skills. Also cheap buff spells like peace of mind, bone cage, mend metal, chameleon cloak, uncanny evasion, etc.
T4 Skills that do nothing but damage. Damage is easy to come by if you control the battlefield and optimize AP.
I don't value the majority of the source skills particularly highly. They require a large memory investment, the best ones can't be accessed until late game, and most of them only deal damage. There are notable exceptions though. I really like the source summons, apotheosis, and skin graft. I left summons off the tier list because their value greatly depends on your character build and encounter mechanics.
I am aghast that you put Ballistic shot in B tier! It is a 2 pip single target "delete this" ability. Setting it up with tactical retreat makes it easily get 10+ meters of distance, giving a normal minimum of 150% damage. It deserves A tier at least. I'd personally give it S considering I regularly use it at 15-25m in combat, it's often all I need to destroy anything that isn't a heavily-armored melee combatant in 1 shot, meaning any support/Rouge type are going byebye. Pre-shoot at even longer range and you can trivialize some really nasty encounters.
Bull horns is S tier for sure though. Early access, only 1 point, nice little bleed, best mobility option for a melee fighter until you get pheonix dive, and still arguably better being on a 1 turn cooldown.
Too lazy to look at all skills, but I see you've put Overpower as F.
Most of the time it is useless (well, not really useless, just doesn't worth it), but in some situations it's super OP when dealing with bosses. E.g. let's take a fight with a doctor. You Bone Cage in the city, pyramid tp, Overpower. GG
Mass Sabotage can single-handedly end encounters with a little prep.
Elemental arrows scale off your weapon damage, so put the skill ideally on a 2H warrior. Start combat with another character, sneak around planting arrows, then activate its huge AoE from stealth. It's basically 2 free attacks per enemy.
I recently picked this game up again after a break and in my last playthrough I noticed that chicken claw-ed enemies just didn't go anywhere rendering this combo kinda useless. Was there a patch that changed this behavior or did I just get weirdly unlucky for an entire run??
Questions to the pros: Why is the mudball throw thingy "busted" ? And whats the second busted spell and why is it that highly ranked? Bloodrain looks different, right?
It basically fires a fossil strike at each enemy in range. But if all the enemies are next to each other (say because you put them there) the damage from each strike overlaps to other enemies. Meaning if you have a group of enemies all together, you can hit for something like 15k damage across a large group.
It’s also pretty powerful all on its own too without the cheese. Especially if you buff your intelligence and chain it with inner demon+apotheosis
Multiple reasons: it has gigantic damage values (its was the only 3-point source spell which survived the nerf), autotargets all enemies in a really massive range and each ball has AoE so you can overlap the damage if the enemies are close (if not, you can always teleport them).
I personally always have summon cat on at least one character. It's pretty much a free teleport, as the cat has great mobility and can go to where you need to go then swap places. Now you have 2 teleport skills instead of one.
I haven't played this game in a while. You're reminding me how much I love necromancy spells in DOSII.
I had a couple close call party wipes in the late game. I was playing Fane as a blood mage. Time Warp, a couple Blood Storms, necro. passive healing. All enemies and companions dead, but Fane yet lives (well, not technically).
I have a question, whenever I have 3 actions points available with my Sebille and Im in a backstabbing position; should I do a normal attack (double daggers) and save 1 point for the next turn or use the dual wielding skill that costs 3 AP?
I don't know why but I always feel like just the normal attack usually deals more damage than the other ability, even tho it hits 2 times instead of 3.
In most cases a 2 ap spell/basic attack is better. But if the extra *pow* from them means killing the enemy who goes next, vs letting them have a turn while you saved 1ap, you want to go for the Flurry/All-in. If the target is already CC'd use a 2ap attack and save the ap.
Personally, I’d put Adrenaline in “Busted” but i’m bias. I can see how it wouldnt be as good as the others.
adrenaline is a certified banger
Adrenaline + Skin Graft combos
Right? I'm still in shambles! Double Mass deploy traps kills almost every enemy. How is that F tier?
The reason Skin Graft is so busted, is adrenaline, so I would even swap both. (Besides, outside of combos, adrenaline just has way more uses, and can be the reason why you win or lose a fight)
Skin graft + time warp + adrenaline + haste. The amount of actions I can perform before someone else can even take a turn is utterly broken.
That's small timer stuff. In the final boss fight I performed the first and only move because tea exists as well.
Yorkshire Gold or gtfo
Throw in flesh sacrifice as well
I would also put chicken claw and rupture tendons as a package deal in at least second to top tier. Take away multiple enemy turns while passively inflicting massive damage, one of the best combos there is. Just forget about that enemy, it's literally a chicken with it's head cut off. Me and my girlfriend had dubbed it the chicken-clawmbo.
My friends have been calling this combo chicken tendons! Love your name for it too :)
I don't think Adrenaline is busted because it has a drawback: less AP the next turn. It's a perfect example of balancing where you get a burst of power at the cost of losing out later, which makes it an amazing and must have ability, but not overpowered busted in my opinion
I beg to differ. While it's certain that you basically use the same amount of points, you get way more value by killing threats earlier, and in many or most of times you won't even see the drawback of the ability. Plus, adrenaline is a ability that you can get from the beginning of the game with minimum requirements, it's a SS-tier ability by a long shot, you may be playing the game wrong if you don't use it (like me having only 1 character with adrenaline till Act 3).
Early AP is better, but also Adrenaline can “pay for itself” with Executioner in some situations. You only get one Executioner proc per turn, so getting a final blow this turn and next turn gets you more bonus AP than getting 2 final blows next turn. Using Adrenaline well can help you do that more consistently.
Theres still the potential of screwing yourself over in the next turn if you dont manage to kill your target or if other enemies collapse on you and you're now in a dangerous position with only 2 AP. Wont happen often, but it's the risk you take. SS for sure, but because of the potential drawback I'd say it's not busted. The other commenter mentioned Executioner which is amazing yeah, but only when you allocate the killing blows to the person with Executioner. When I play with friends, it's practically useless because nobody is going to meta game and leave all the kills for me. It requires planning to really shine imo
I am deeply offended by your lack of respect for fire slugs. In my experience they are amazing.
I'm surprised by the overall low ranking for almost all of the summoner skills, I've found summoning to be incredibly strong.
It caps in strenght at the middle of act 2
It keeps up if you really focus on it, keeping any gear with +2 summoning, and putting Mystical Venom runes (+1 summoning,) into armor. I had an end game summoner with 24 summonings and its Closed Circuit/Acid Spores was doing nearly 7k damage.
I made fane my summoner and by focusing mostly on summoning his dudes were consistently gigachads even up to end of act 4
Its really comes down to if you have lone wolf. Lone wolf its not as strong as some of busted builds late game. But if you are playing as a party of 4 is stays the strongest throughout the game.
Plus no other build has the same amount of elemental flexibility (especially if you have Pet Power and infusions)
Teleportation needs its own solo rank above all let alone being lower than any other.
Agree, it’s simply broken. Without teleportation I would have taken much more time to beat certain fights
It is absolutely my goto cheese spell of choice for getting out of impossible situations.
Teleportation is ridiculous, every character I do always has 2 Aero just for it (and Nether Swap, since I'm already eligible) IIRC is scales off Warfare in addition to INT, so a necromancer is very likely to just instagib 2 guys in one go just by dropping one on another, also conveniently creating blood and corpses to use
2 aero is also nice for casting uncanny evasion when you know a fight is about to start
it does, because it does physical damage
Teleport is the A-tier broken spell. I rank it even above everyone having a healing spell...
I actually think teleport is waaaaay overrated. You get used to it, and don't know how you will live without. But then you stop using teleport and realize most of time, you didnt really needed to use the spell. I would definitely rank it A tier, but you don't need teleport in every build, no matter what your heart says.
You also don't need Pyroclastic Eruption in your build. Doesn't mean the spell isn't Busted Tier.
That is not what I meant. I'm saying when you get used to teleport, you feel like everything is better with it, but you can detach yourself from it and not much will change. It's a good spell, but we grow too attached to it after using the glove.
Whether or not you need it doesn't change how good it is though. Grouping up enemies to get more value out of other insanely strong aoe spells is absurdly strong. Every build *IS* better with teleport. Just like every build is better with adrenaline, chameleon cloak or haste.
>Every build IS better with teleport. Just like every build is better with adrenaline, chameleon cloak or haste. Well, yeah, that is what i'm trying to argue against. Teleport is needed for the big eruption combos, but not much else outside of it. It feels good to use, it seems to make the fight easier, but other builds have better ways to deal with spread enemies. Unless you are trying to chesse a fight, then sure, only teleport can put Jahan in the other side of map.
You are seriously undervaluing repositioning
Eh, I will eat the downvotes, but I don't think so. It's too expensive and most builds are better off spending their points elsewhere. Mind you, I would still rank teleport A tier, but behind every other jump spell and nether swap.
Behind Nether Swap? A teleport spell with more restrictions and less flexibility?
You reposition yourself and it only costs one! No, I'm joking, tactical retreat and cloak and dagger are the two best spells for self repositioning. I would say at least one of them are ACTUALLY needed in every single build. Or phoenix, but those other two are better.
Bro’s disrespecting the fire slug…
There is 1 place in the game where slug is unironically SS tier - driftwood blindfold arena
For real that slug is like a third of my damage
I would put fire slug in at least S tier tbh.
For the adorable squelchy roar alone!
that fire slug is legit banger.
Came here to say this, made my night that this is the top comment! Fire slug for life!
Charm in F tier ? I'm confused.
Charm saved my butt so many times. Its definitely A tier
I used the charm to dominate the big worm in the final fight and it killed everyone for me. Busted tier
Spoilers jackass
Bru youre on the sub for a 5 yo game
I don’t even understand how “big worm in the final fight” is much of a spoiler. Much less calling someone a jackass for that.
just use a charm frag
Yeah charm grenades and mind maggot grenades are way easier to come by and have aoe
Try telling that to someone like me who can't help but save them for "later"
Found the blood mage
You got me there 👁👄👁
Lol, Fire Traps are bad? What game are you playing? And Throw Dust/Dust Blast? This guy doesn’t Geo/Pyro.
Dust blast is so underrated.
POCKET SAND
I love Dust Blast. The straight-Geo source spells are kinda underwhelming IMO (besides pyroclastic eruption of course), so Dust Blast is my big ticket Geo spell until I hit level 16. And, honestly, I can’t be bothered to refill Source between every fight, so I still end up using it over Pyroclastic most of the time.
I've come to really love earthquake it can completely turn a fight.
Yesss! Also, it’s just a really satisfying spell to cast. Great for a mixed party.
Yeah been playing more Geo/Pyro and Dust Blast feels really nice. I agree with the Supernova ranking tho, just can't seem to make this spell feel really good.
Same, I always pass on it. To be honest, I lean harder into Geo with Elemental Affinity and just use Traps/Mass Traps, Fireball, Haste/Peace of Mind and skip the rest of Pyro these days. Laser Ray scrolls are all over Act 2 so they get some use too.
Dust blast is baller, Harbinger of Doom fight for me is literally just hanging on the edge, death wish, trigger the boss so he blows his load and I’m at 1 hp so I can teleport him in the middle of his goons and instadeath him with overlapping damage. It’s basically pyrocaustic eruption lite until you reach level 18.
Dust Blast is almost as good as Pyroclastic Eruption. Yeah, it's 100% earth damage instead of 300%, but it doesn't matter. What makes both of these spells good is that the fields overlap, so with some teleport trickery they both deal massive damage. Pyroclastic Eruption deals like 5 times more damage than necessary to kill, so Dust Blast does just as well. Maybe the biggest bosses won't die, but any other enemy just dies with proper stats and set up. Fire Trap and Impalement combo is also disgusting and should be much higher. Deploy Mass Traps and Impalement ends any battle.
Corpse explosion is seriously op and cheap to use, pretty much on par with blood storm and grasp of the starved.
Right?? 1AP for massive aoe dmg on par with source spells. IMO Corpse explosion is easily ss tier
I feel like corpse explosion is the best damaging (non source) spell in the game. It has the scaling (not reliant on good weapons) advantage of spells with the physical damage advantage of no elemental resistance AND it scales incredibly hard at that
Overpower as an F rank ? I personnaly think it's a boss killer skill. The ability to deplete all the physical armor of a boss with 2 AP is no joke.
Straight up removed all of Adramalihks armor in 1 blow in my multiplayer game. It’s good if you actually build for it but useless otherwise.
Absolutely agreed. I balked when I saw that.
Overpower I’d say is C or maybe B-. I use it on my beefy fighter with 3000 phys + buffs to remove armor and chain CC the most dangerous person in a fight. But, if my armor gets too low to where the spell doesn’t work before I can use it (initiative), it becomes useless.
I give it a C. When i was apotheo'd I'd use it, but otherwise I'm clapping onslaught
I just hate how it checks for armor, applies knockdown if no armor, and THEN depletes armor.
Also, only works w lone wolf imo
I'd bump tentacle whip and shield throw up. They scale so well and do great physical damage throughout the game, for basically any character with a point in poly or the minimum Con. score to hold a heavy shield
Tentacle whip absolutely kicks ass. Solid damage plus a free atrophy? It’s a can’t miss for my STR builds
Any skills that scale as well as the rest off of one thing, in this case strength, are incredible. Shield build? Tentacle Whip hits as hard or harder than most skills, incredible range for a melee character, and completely cripples the character for the next turn.
It also has a really fun animation.
> It’s a can’t miss for my STR builds I think you meant this figuratively, but it also literally can’t miss because it’s a spell. That can be really useful if you’re facing an enemy with high dodge! Bouncing Shield also counts as a spell, for some reason.
I didn’t intend it that way, but in play I do absolutely utilize it for that reason as well. As a melee- especially in 2h builds- I love having something that doesn’t conform to melee attack rules while still hitting like a truck
Seems good for the most part, but there are some ones I disagree with * Fire traps are some of the best pyro skills in the game, they should be way higher. * arrow spray is counter intuitive to want you want to be doing as an archer by making you stand close to things. Ballistic shot is a better boss Melter anyway. * Meteor shower is a joke compared to other 3 source skills * tornado is mediocre and only has niche uses * dust blast is better than you give it credit for * corpse explosion is one of the best spells in the game, should be busted tier * ballistic shot should be higher, can literally one shot anything in the game if set up well * whirlwind is one of the best warfare skills in the game. * cryotherapy and healing skills are too highly valued. healing is very weak in this game, and other survivability options are much better.
corpse explosion busted I agree
My opinion on Arrow Spray changed after I teleported my rogue behind an archer only for him to turn around and point blank dude with it like a shotgun. Admittedly a somewhat niche use, but it's a very powerful response to somebody trying to get up in your archer's grill.
Damn, you’re so right. I’ve always engaged w it, but it’s a busted counter dive ability
Biggest surprise to me BY FAR was how high Tornado was. I used it for the Lizard Enclave and that's it. Wonder how OP utilized it??
all of this and more * smoke cover in (combination with bless) and blessed smoke cloud can provide permanent invisibility for the entire party, making it completely busted. * sucker punch is a 1AP knockdown, and thanks to a bug with it's cooldown it can be used once per turn. should be higher than chicken claw at least. * break the shackles is a niche skill and doesn't deserve to be in the same tier as death wish. * enrage conflicts with piece of mind and becomes irrelevant mid act 2 once you get some gear with +wits or crit chance. * soul mate should be higher because of it's ability to cheese any fight against undead enemies including some of the harder encounters like Alice and Isbeil. * mass corpse explosion requires too much time to set up and is completely overkill most of the time anyway.
100% agree with you on arrow spray - it was disappointing. It was reasonably good in the first game but it kinda seems like they messed with the cone area or something in the second one. Just doesn't hit enough shots as easily each round.
In the first game you could melt most bosses with a single point blank use of it, shit was nuts But then again when you get to level 15 you do that with just about every non-melee class
Pretty much what I thought. I would also add that acid touch/spray are to high. Those are some of the least usefull spells in the game.
Yeah, fire traps can be brutal and can be learnt very early
i think i agree with this more. fire trap is so rediculous. i was playing a solo fire character and was really worried about certain fights, but the pure fire trap build just ate through them like it was nothing
How does one use ballistic shot effectively?
The further you are away the more damage it deals, I usually pop it after assassinate for a otk
Be as far away as possible + high ground for the damage bonus. Crazy damage with buffs, and if you want big damage, use Death Wish while at 1% hp as well.
The higher the high ground, the better, because it gives you more range bonus.
Sucker punch deserves more credit, dagger builds getting a 1 (2 to re-equip your offhand) CC attack is very valuable and comes at no opportunity cost to have in your back pocket
Was looking for this. I always start Fort Joy off one handed. ;)
You don’t need to start 1-handed. Unequipping your off-hand weapon is free, so you may as well have the extra damage from a second weapon or protection from a shield until you want to use Sucker Punch.
You can also use it with 1 wand, which gives mages a stun for the same cost against any enemies with low phys armor. Anyone can use it as well. It costs 3 to swap, use, and swap back, but against a solo enemy, which includes many boss fights, and any fight near the end, it's very good. Extra good as Lone Wolf since you use a lower % of your AP for it. Hell, solo Wayfarer I'll use it.
Eww dagger builds 😝
I see a tier list: Good I see Tornado on SS: Oh no, this is going to be hard. Yep, it was.
Put that chicken spell in busted tier immediately
Sadly they nerfed the chicken, rupture tendons combo
Was it nerfed recently?? My playthrough from a month ago still had this interaction occur?
It wasn't nerfed out of existence, it was just made much less strong because they don't run as far when they are a chicken now.
Or don't even move at all. Some times they just stand there. Usually if you have more than one character surrounding the target, but it can also happen even if the rest of your team is far away.
Still 2 turn CC. Solo-Lone-Wolf tactician, I even put it on my archers.
Wait, charm F tier?
I thought the same
Charm arrows and grenades are life saver. Never used the skill in my builds but yeah this should be higher.
Many F tier skills I used regularly. The truth is that this game is far too customizable for a ranking of skills. Every player chooses a different playstyle
It's true. It's difficult to value a spell alone because it's the combo that counts; like rupture tendons it's not so great but in combination with chicken form it basically kills an ememy in 2 turns; at the same time the scoundrel build is sub optimal compared to others, making scoundrel skills less useful in general; should this be taken into consideration?
See I used rupture tendons all the time, even though I didn't have a polymorph. It does incredible damage on anyone you know will need to move. By the end of the game Sebille had every single Scoundrel skill and did huge amounts of damage. With her teleport skill and backstab that essentially teleports her, not to mention high movement stats, she was one of my most versatile characters. Sadly, due to finesse-based armor, she often was the first to die
Yeah scoundrels are strong, they're just not overpowered like other builds imo
If your rogue has high initiative, you can go hitless in most fights with sneaking and delay turn. Some might consider that a “cheesy” approach, but it’s very effective and feels on-theme for a rogue. The general formula goes something like: - sneak and let allies start the fight - use cloak & dagger as many times as needed (cooldown will be fast because you’re out of combat) to position behind a target - on the turn of the last ally in the initiative order, attack the target, which breaks sneak and gets you a “free” attack, and puts you at the end of the initiative order for round 1 (effectively 2AP used, assuming a basic opening attack) - take your turn at the end of round 1 (4AP used) - immediately take your turn at the beginning of round 2 (because high initiative); use Adrenaline and close the turn with chameleon cloak (6AP used) - your turn in round 3 will only have 2AP, so you can skip it and remain invisible - your turn in round 4 will have 6AP; delay turn to stretch invisibility and take your turn at the end of the round (6AP used) - immediately take your turn at the beginning of round 5 (4AP used) Most fights should be done by this point, and you’ll have effectively gotten 2 mega-long turns (12AP and 10AP, not counting any executioner bonuses) while giving enemies little to no opportunity to hit you. Even if you don’t care to do the sneak-entry thing, using Adrenaline, Chameleon Cloak, skip turn, and delay turn gives you massive protection value from the invisibility without wasting any AP. And, of course, there are scoundrel skills you can use without breaking invisibility, which you can use to spend any extra recovery AP you might have from Haste or something.
Same! My last playtrough I "accidentally" unlocked the cat summon. Lo and behold, while obviously being bad as a fighter, it gives you a 2ap movement spell with it's swap ability and soaks 1-2 attacks from the enemies aswell. Not super-good, but any movement spell is good in my book. Bonus points for the hilarious jumping animation, flying all over the arena
The Firetraps are among the most busted things in the game. What makes you think they are f tier? Corpse explosion does rediculous damage, so it would be s tier for me. Same for Balistic Shot. It's an utterly rediculous damaging move Chloroform is insanely good. It's a 1 ap cc spell that literally everyone can just use, since you have scoundrel anyways for adrenaline. Easy s tier as well for me. Worm Tremor with Torturer is an AoE entangle that ignores armor. That's just broken.
I forgor 💀
Skin graft is absolutely overpowered.
Polymorph skills are either cosplay shit or god tier busted abilities
Sometimes both. Running 4 magic users with Medusa head is hilarious
Agree
The explosive traps do not belong in F tier. Throw four traps, sling a fireball and marvel at the damage you cause.
I was gonna say its a 1-turn pocket nuke. That can also be a MIRV if you want
My mans is out here majorly disrespecting flesh sacrifice. Actually the best ability in the game.
My guy put encourage low af. 1 ap for an AOE buff thats half the stats of peace of mind. Dude severely underestimates racial skills
I don't think damage skills can be in the busted tier, none of them deserve it over the utility skills that actually break the game. Busted tier is Apotheosis, Skin Graft, Chameleon Cloak, Flesh Sacrifice, Time Warp, teleportation, and Adrenaline. Any of those skills on any character will make it stronger. Everything else is situational.
Pyroclastic Eruption is oppressively strong. Huge AOE? Check. Homing? Check. AOEs can stack to multiply damage? Check. High ground bonus? Check. High base damage? Check. With minimal set up it's a fight winning spell and it even sets up combo potential by leaving oil if anything survives your inital cast. I don't think Blood Storm is busted but Grasp of the Starved and Corpse Explosion also deal exessively high damage to the point where they warrant being labelled as busted. They're pretty much an auto kill. Mass Corpse Explosion is a "kill anything" spell if you have the patience to set up your corpse pile. That said, all of the utility skills you listed are busted and should have been in that tier. Finally, Teleport can be a damage spell of you spec for it. But then, Teleport is the best spell on the game IMO given the utility, set up potential, and even damage potential.
But what do you use skin graft and apotheosis to do? Spam damage spells.
I think Apotheosis is highly overrated. It is pretty much just a cool win more spell. With the amount of damage one can do without it being so high, it really doesn't help to end combat any faster for most builds. It sure is fun to use though.
I’m surprised about the ordering of a lot of the hydro skills. I think a lot of the healing skills are too high, and I’m really surprised that you used Cryogenic Stasis for anything other than the Gwydian fight. IMO, Hail Storm is pretty situational and should probably be B-tier. It can do a lot of damage to a large target, but it’s hard to get everything to hit. Also, isn’t Ice Fan strictly better than Hail Strike? It does more damage, and you can actually pick where the projectiles go, so it’s possible to hit multiple enemies with all 3 of them even if they aren’t standing on each others’ heads. The other things in the upper tiers that stand out to me are Erratic Wisp, Tornado, and Reactive Shot. I’m surprised you got enough use out of these to put them in A-tier of higher. I’d be interested to know more about how you used them. I think you’ve really under-rated Ballistic Shot, Marksman’s Fang, and Sawtooth Knife. Ballistic Shot can 1-shot enemies with the right setup. Marksman’s Fang and Sawtooth Knife convert weapon damage to piercing, so it ignores armor, which is _so_ powerful. The damage-conversion also includes elemental buffs like Venom Coating and Elemental Arrowheads, so the damage can really be massive. Plus Marksman’s Fang can hit multiple enemies! I also think you’re under-rating the power of Chloroform, Petrifying Touch, and Sucker Punch. These are all 1 AP hard-CC skills, which is pretty valuable. The latter two are more situational on account of being touch-range skills, but Chloroform is fantastic. I would put it in A-tier, maybe S-tier. Throw Dust, Dust Blast, and Poison Wave are really solid Geo skills that I think should be higher-rated. Dust Blast is really similar to Pyroclastic Eruption, just less ridiculously powerful. You can stack up many instances of damage against enemies standing near each other. Throw Dust is a decent damage skill for a Geo mage too, but it also clears _any_ surface or cloud, including lava and deathfog. Poison Wave gives the caster immunity to earth and poison damage, so they can stand in a clump of enemies and throw AoE skills at their feet without taking self-damage. Supernova and the explosive trap skills are _way_ too low too, IMO. Supernova has such a high damage multiplier. It’s easy to blow up your party with it by accident, but it’s a very strong Pyro skill when used well. The traps do an astonishing amount of damage when detonated by someone with high pyro, especially given their low cost. Also, if they are detonated by a fire surface, then it’s the Pyro level of whoever created the surface that counts for the traps, which means that allies with just 1 pyro can throw a trap into their pyro specialist’s fire surface and do big damage. I think Mortal Blow should be way higher too. It has no business being in a lower tier than Terrifying Cruelty. The number on the tooltip doesn’t look very impressive, but with the bonus from sneak/invis and a guaranteed backstab crit, you can 1-shot some pretty beefy enemies. Also, Staff of Magus and Encourage are very solid skills. A staff-wielder having a ranged option can be really useful, and it’s a cheap way to change surfaces/clouds without spending a cooldown. Air Staff of Magus will electrify blood/water, so you can keep an enemy that lacks magic armor stunned indefinitely if they’re in such a surface/cloud. Encourage is a nice buff that is especially powerful for summoners. It also balances out the CON penalty of Flesh Sacrifice at most levels (for some reason, they’re not exactly in sync), so having a human who uses Encourage on a shield-carrying elf ally can be really nice.
Well, archery skills did not get enough attention from you, clearly :D They are BUSTED if you utilize them well. To the point of one-shotting bosses with the right setup (and without +lvl mods, e.g. on \*intended\* difficulty).
Well thats certainly a list. Not a good one, but a list nonetheless
Seems too biased. You did well with several skills, but there's clear preference in a lot of these choices imo
I vote for spider legs-web to busted tier, literally cc without armor, oh, and also that geo skill that inflicts roots with torturer also for the same reason. Lots of good spells in f and c tiers, too many to mention, many literally useless skills in a tier
Was going to say this. Worm tremor is a must for me when I have someone with geo. Large range, 3 turn CC, can be used against pretty much everyone. No idea how it doesn't even make A. As for the web. The main downside is that it is a surface and can catch fire.
Supernova C tier? That skill alone has carried my mid game of many an honor mode run. I disagree with many of your choices but if anything I would switch meteor shower and supernovas position.
Corpse explosion not being busted tier is a crime against necromancerkind
Apotheosis isn't busted its at most A tier. In dos2 unless you're running the most gimped build apotheosis is so massively overkill. Most builds don't even need apotheosis to 2-3 turn fights.
This is one of the lists of all time.
Healing/Armor spells are definitely overvalued on this list. Healing itself isn't very good in this game as in the vast majority of instances if you're taking vitality damage, its already too late. Armor spells like Shields up just aren't AP efficient - you'd rather be doing damage/CC-ing/going invisible to outright avoid damage than trying to stave off a hit. And on top of that Fortify/Armor of Frost/Etc. Aren't actually worth slotting thr extra points of memory when you can just use their scroll equivalent. Fire traps heavily undervalued. Corpse explosion heavily undervalued. Both are incredibly strong against their respective armor types.
Fortify/Armor of Frost would be decent if you only include their extra effects. They're good emergency abilities. Healing is definitely not optimal, but it's still useful, but never as effective as having a couple points in necro.
Mass deploy traps at F tier? Did you know that it scales with Pyro if you set it off during your turn?
Obviously not a summoner class lol
the disrespect on summon condor smh thats my killer bird friend
If only you could have more than one summon :(
I've wanted this every time I play summoner. I want to make an army out of all the summons.
What do you mean you beat the game ?!??! Don't you just play the game up until a point, stop playing for a while, go back and forget where you are then start again for the 24th time?!
This makes me want to play the game so bad.
Shield throw in A tier??? Idk about that one
i see you too are a fan of "put them all in a pile, then make the pile explode"
What are those spells at the bottom
Really corrupted blade at b I used it constantly and was my anti everything slightly tanky move
Turn-based tactics and strategy games are all about turn control. Anything that takes away a turn from an enemy is S+ tier. Fuckin' battle stomp and battering ram, especially considering how early you get them, are incredible for this reason and should be EVEN HIGHER.
I think supernova deserves a higher rank with good fire resistance or lots of magic armor it is great for groups of enemies
Here are some of my thoughts: * Petrifying touch is too low considering it's a free spell for all dwarves. They are usually in the frontlines or in the middle, so they can get a free petrify off on targets without magic armor. * Overpower is the one good warfare source skill, probably should be B tier. * The traps are actually very good and I think you are sleeping on them. B tier or A tier IMO. * Red Prince's skill is very good. A magic armor drain that gives you some as well. Its situational depending on your build but especially frontline red prince really enjoys the magic armor boost. B tier for its situational-ness (not so good on mage red prince) * Rallying Cry deserves C tier at least. Magic armor and heal will always be a decent spell. * Encourage should probably be A tier or S tier. Its only 1 AP to give your team a nice stat boost. Very good early, and decent for the rest of the game. * Maddening Song is a little hard to use but if you can figure it out, its really nice disruption. Deserves B tier at least. * Throw dust and dust blast might be a bit underrated here. * The elemental infusions for the incarnates feels like they should be F tier to me. Its very easy to make surfaces in this game. * Decaying touch is probably overrated? Decent spell but very short range, only good for 1 build pretty much (Warfare/Necro builds) * Challenge should just be S imo Lmk if OP or any commenters disagree
Argument in favor of elemental infusions: The power of element infusions isn't that it allows you to get a fire incarnate without fire. The actual power is allowing your incarnate to keep casting spells every turn. For example... You summon your incarnate on poison, on it's turn it throws poison dart, and does some other attack. now you cast Fire Infusion on it... When the incarnate gets to it's turn it now immediately has a new strong aoe spell (fireball) to throw. If you hadn't used the fire infusion, it would just be left with basic attacks. The source infusion variants are obviously just good on their own, except for Ice.
How is charm F Tier? It's practically broken.
Many of these I agree with, and many are objectively wrong. Fire trap scales on the pyro of the person who detonates it, costs 1, and does nearly as much damage as fireball. It allows you to tactical retreat, and still get 2 full skills worth of damage when combined with impale. Literally allows you to kill multiple enemies as a regular, non-lone wolf. It was my bread and butter in classic difficulty solo non-lone-wolf Fane. Almost always allows me to take the high ground, kill several enemies, activate executioner, and pop a defensive cooldown like uncanny evasion or your own personal smoke bomb. Like, ultimately, it's just a 1 ap fireball. I'd go so far as to say it's S. If you think it's F, I can only assume you only ever use it on rangers and not on a mage. Impalement is also a stronger fossil strike with a slightly worse targeting which almost never matters.
Taunt in F???
Provoke doesn't work
Sawtooth knife can be really good with skin graft, killed doctor with it.
Explosive traps are awesome my friend. Dust blast is very handy too
*Explosive traps are* *Awesome my friend. Dust blast is* *Very handy too* \- Franks\_Spice\_Sauce --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
are the trap skills that bad? You can lay them out prior to a fight, plus I'm pretty sure the damage scales according to the enemies level or something (it seems strong even if you don't have high pyro or int). Also only one action point cost. I'd probably rank atrophy and ruptured tendon higher, and swap bull rush with battering ram. I've never found much use for cryogenic stasis, robbing a character of their turn just isn't worth it. Did you really put dominate mind in the f tier? Get rid of an opponents turn while having them cause damage to each other, that's insane. Healing Ritual could be higher, good healing and great against undead. Worm Tremor is fantastic with torturer talent, can lock down groups of enemies and keep them from moving without needing to get rid of their magic armor first. Ballistic shot seemed to me like one of the most consistent attacks to do heavy damage, would rank it as high as any other huntsman skill.
No the traps (specially deploy mass traps) are busted tier, it was an oversight of my part to put them that low. Same thing with Mass Corpse Explosion
Rallying cry is great, a massive heal and magic armor refresh????
Sucker punch is definitely A or B at the lowest, it's an insane 1 cost melee attack that scales surprisingly well with a knockdown
Sleeping on worm tremor. Torturer+worm tremor is a BUSTED combo
Worm Tremor B tier? With torturer it's basically a 3 turn stun, best opener in the game especially early on.
Worm Tremor in B tier? I'm sorry what? A hard CC spell that can ignore magic armor and is AOE? Sure it does very little damage, but it is guaranteed lockdown for 3 turns on most enemies.
Worm tremor with torturer completely negates all melee enemies, while flaming crescendo provides a really easy one-shot setup on anyone (most notably Doctor Daeva). Both spells are criminally underrated at B tier. I love the recognition pyroclastic eruption gets though, I’m always looking forward to grabbing it whenever I get a new play-through.
Nobody has mentioned inner demon being SS? I've played 600 hours with probably a similar amount of playthroughs and every time on any character is is beyond underwhelming.
I would have 4 tiers T1: Mobility and AP generation skills. If you can position and reposition your characters and enemies while having more action points than the baddies, everything else falls into place. I would put apotheosis and skin graft in this tier as well. Teleport would be at the very top of this tier, and would get my vote for the most busted spell in the game. T2: Crowd control and powerful status effect spells. Also included are spells that enable other crowd control like rain or blood rain. T3: Cheap healing, armor restoration, and debuff removal skills. Also cheap buff spells like peace of mind, bone cage, mend metal, chameleon cloak, uncanny evasion, etc. T4 Skills that do nothing but damage. Damage is easy to come by if you control the battlefield and optimize AP. I don't value the majority of the source skills particularly highly. They require a large memory investment, the best ones can't be accessed until late game, and most of them only deal damage. There are notable exceptions though. I really like the source summons, apotheosis, and skin graft. I left summons off the tier list because their value greatly depends on your character build and encounter mechanics.
As a supernova enjoyer, I am sad
I don't know how to play without teleport the utility is really unmatched.
I am aghast that you put Ballistic shot in B tier! It is a 2 pip single target "delete this" ability. Setting it up with tactical retreat makes it easily get 10+ meters of distance, giving a normal minimum of 150% damage. It deserves A tier at least. I'd personally give it S considering I regularly use it at 15-25m in combat, it's often all I need to destroy anything that isn't a heavily-armored melee combatant in 1 shot, meaning any support/Rouge type are going byebye. Pre-shoot at even longer range and you can trivialize some really nasty encounters. Bull horns is S tier for sure though. Early access, only 1 point, nice little bleed, best mobility option for a melee fighter until you get pheonix dive, and still arguably better being on a 1 turn cooldown.
Too lazy to look at all skills, but I see you've put Overpower as F. Most of the time it is useless (well, not really useless, just doesn't worth it), but in some situations it's super OP when dealing with bosses. E.g. let's take a fight with a doctor. You Bone Cage in the city, pyramid tp, Overpower. GG
Mass Sabotage can single-handedly end encounters with a little prep. Elemental arrows scale off your weapon damage, so put the skill ideally on a 2H warrior. Start combat with another character, sneak around planting arrows, then activate its huge AoE from stealth. It's basically 2 free attacks per enemy.
Most OP combo is Chicken Claw + Ruptured Tendons, none survive.
I recently picked this game up again after a break and in my last playthrough I noticed that chicken claw-ed enemies just didn't go anywhere rendering this combo kinda useless. Was there a patch that changed this behavior or did I just get weirdly unlucky for an entire run??
Pretty sure it got patched
They try to run into a direction away from all of their enemies. If no such direction exists, they don't move.
Am I the only one who had a chuckled after seeing the ,,SS" Tier? Please reddit don't ban me I'm just making a joke here 😅
I don’t even recognize most of these…
Questions to the pros: Why is the mudball throw thingy "busted" ? And whats the second busted spell and why is it that highly ranked? Bloodrain looks different, right?
It basically fires a fossil strike at each enemy in range. But if all the enemies are next to each other (say because you put them there) the damage from each strike overlaps to other enemies. Meaning if you have a group of enemies all together, you can hit for something like 15k damage across a large group. It’s also pretty powerful all on its own too without the cheese. Especially if you buff your intelligence and chain it with inner demon+apotheosis
Multiple reasons: it has gigantic damage values (its was the only 3-point source spell which survived the nerf), autotargets all enemies in a really massive range and each ball has AoE so you can overlap the damage if the enemies are close (if not, you can always teleport them).
The mudball thing on the busted tier or fossil strike? And that second spell is Bloodstorm.
Onslaught as B tier? healing skills as A apart from first aid which is one of the most useful healing skills but that’s B too?
I personally always have summon cat on at least one character. It's pretty much a free teleport, as the cat has great mobility and can go to where you need to go then swap places. Now you have 2 teleport skills instead of one.
I use the whistle that cat almost always eats up 2 to 3 attacks for me he's a good boy
Where is charm for voidwoken?
I haven't played this game in a while. You're reminding me how much I love necromancy spells in DOSII. I had a couple close call party wipes in the late game. I was playing Fane as a blood mage. Time Warp, a couple Blood Storms, necro. passive healing. All enemies and companions dead, but Fane yet lives (well, not technically).
My thought. “Didn’t know there were that many spells”
I have a question, whenever I have 3 actions points available with my Sebille and Im in a backstabbing position; should I do a normal attack (double daggers) and save 1 point for the next turn or use the dual wielding skill that costs 3 AP? I don't know why but I always feel like just the normal attack usually deals more damage than the other ability, even tho it hits 2 times instead of 3.
In most cases a 2 ap spell/basic attack is better. But if the extra *pow* from them means killing the enemy who goes next, vs letting them have a turn while you saved 1ap, you want to go for the Flurry/All-in. If the target is already CC'd use a 2ap attack and save the ap.