What's your favorite and unliked Classes, builds, playstyles and why?

Kakost

Well-known member
Joined
06/12/2022
Messages
417
So, just to clarify, the purpose of this thread is not just to share likes/dislikes in builds, but rather to try to give some insights into how to play each style and improve their games.

I hope my own examples can show what I mean:


 Mages
My first love, I'll never forget you.

Elementalist+Staff: that remains my most dearest and beloved style, and also the one I find the easiest to play from beggining to end of the game; I can play Elementalist/Staff Mage on IM with a hand tied behind my back. And the reasons are fairly simple, at the very early game, the spells are devastating to groups of enemies, usually easily dispathcing every single one with a single area spell.
Mid to late game it gets a bit trickier, and you'll relly more on your high damage Staff, but the spells are still a great source of damage.

To master this style, all you need to do is to ALWAYS bravely "run for cover". Instead of attacking enemies head on, ALWAYS place your character safety as your number 1 priority. When an enemy charges, dont try shooting speels or hitting with the staff, instead make sure to position Griss in front of all.

After you are safely behind Griss, preferably at 180 degrees between her and the critters, since your attacks will aggro them towards you but if you're perfectly 180 degrees they wont be able to move past her, once you're in the perfect position, THEN you start attacking.

And, if you end up on panick mode, just spam spells while running.

Summoner: not much to my liking. Granted, I only used the Iron Golem, not the Iron + Fire Golem combination (or Iron+Fire+Ice), but still this is a style that didnt suit me at all. Early game I find supbar, the little Imp is nice but is rather squish.

In fact... Now that Im thinking about it, I know what my problem is with this build.

Two problems in fact: Mana and Cooldown.

Explaining: the summons really take some big mana. And yes, they are strong, but too exposed. Which means, they die all the time, which means you have to re-summon them all the time (or summon another type), which means they do eat a lot of mana.

Surprisingly, a lot more than the Elementalist! Yes, this seems paradoxical, since the Elementalist is seem as the "Bzzzz!" Mage, but the truth is that, with the Elementalist, you'll only ever use your spells when you NEED to, while with the Summoner you ALWAYS need to have your bodyguard at your side, which means the Summoner drains A LOT more.

And besides that, the CDs for the summons are veeeeeeery long - so you'll either have to have 2 or 3 different summons and/or scrolls or you have to be a good runner.

In essence, since I learned all too well how to perfectly position my Elementalist so bravely behind Griss, the Summoner is basically a worse type of Mage for my personal style.

Wand vs Staff: another old discussion, with the consensus that Wand is more defensive while Staff is more offensive. While this is true, the math actually says that Staff only surpasses Wand in damage from Int 5+.

Still, I prefer Staff even at early game, since my entire playstyle is predicted upon positioning, and the Wands' pushback effect actually messes that up pretty badly. I tried IM with Wand only to find out my game utterly ruined because of that.

And what's more, since - once again - Elementalist is all about positioning, the slow effect of the Staff is a lifesaver on several occasions upon which you didnt managed to get that 100% perfect position at the heat of battle, and it also gives you the needed help in case you need to bravely run away.

Wand or Staff are NOT builds by themselves, they are actually complements of the Elementalist and Summoner. So, the options are Elementalist/Wand, Elementalist/Staff, Summoner/Wand or Summoner/Staff, thus my favorite is the Elementalist+Staff
Post automatically merged:    

Arcane/Death Knight

Death Knight is not particularly good, being too restricted upon death damage. Arcane Knights are very good, albeit somewhat hard to play on some instances. STR and END as primary stats, with Combustion being the bread and butter of their thing, and Disintegration as the secondary skill to use against bosses. Pretty solid build overall and pretty easy and straightforward to use. They have much much less mana than a "traditional" mage, and Combustion drains a lot of juice, so you wont use it that often.

A quick note: I also found that both Combustion and Disintegrate are also amazing additions for the Elementalist. Plus, because the Elementalist has a lot more mana than the Mage Knights, those spells are a lot more spammable, and the Elementalist also is safer, playing from behind.
The Knights offset this with a vastly larger HP pool
Post automatically merged:    

 Rogues
Love 'em

Meele Rogue: I love the concept of it, but I cant for the sake of my life properly play it. And the reason being is that, to play a good Meele Rogue, you gotta be good at Assassinate, and I absolutely SUCK at that.

Assassinate is wonderful, their absolutely best skill (on top of Backstab of course), however you need to learn the fine art of stop pressing the auto attack buttom in order to press the Backstab skill and then press the auto attack again, only for Assassinate to trigger and insta refresh your Backstab, upon which you have to quicly change your finger from the auto attack back into the Backstab, then back into auto attack, and on and on you go, until nothing that isnt you or your companion moves, and all of that while you're moving and trying to better position yourself, not to mention also triggering Evade in the middle of all of that, with the risk that in the middle of all of that, you may accidentally move out of range and waste your Backstab hitting the air, on which case Assassinate do not trigger.

All of that logistic goes way beyond human capabilities, and I will continue to refuse that any non AI mind is capable of playing this build. And I wont believe anyone telling me otherwise, and if anyone sends me a video proof, I'll have my undeniable proof that Im talking with Chat GPT-4.

Archer: this is a build that I love, not only because it says "Rogue" above it (so I can be happy about playing such a fun class), but also because it has a playstyle that ressembles the Elementalist - meaning, position, position, position, and attack from afar. If you've mastered the art of using dummies - I mean, noble companions - as human shields, the Rogue Archer will be super easy and fun to play.
Obviously, Rapid Fire, Precision Shots, Massive Criticals, Poison - you all know the drill.
Post automatically merged:    

 Warrior

Almost universally considered as the easiest class to begin, I also consider them the most fun kind of warriors I ever played on any RPGs.

1H-Shield vs 2h - I loved my first time with 1H/Shield, very solid build, and now I just started 2H and I gotta say... I love it too.

In either case, Charge is your most basic skill, which you can use to both engage and disengage enemies. Warriors have tons of "crowd control" skills which makes their life oh, so easy.

1H-Shield, particularly with Infantry training is so so durable, and 2H is so good at dispatching big groups. Cleave of course is essential on either one, but put a Whirlwind on your 2H and you'll see him shine.

The only thing I found hard to do with Warriors is to suck with them.
Post automatically merged:    

 Clerics

My least prefered class, not because they are bad or because they are hard to play - quite the opposite actually, Clerics are possibly the strongest and easiest class to play of all.

I just find them... Boring. They just dont have that undefinable "mojo". They only hit 1 foe at a time, their spells arent particularly bananas and they dont have cool kung fu stuff like the warriors that keep moving back and forth like Master Yoda against Palpatine or cool stuff such as the Rogues traps... They are just good at keeping their health healthy, and do a few stuffs that deal more damage to a single foe.

In essence, they are boring for my tastes, albeit easy and powerful.
 
Last edited:

Nivarian99

Member
Joined
09/03/2023
Messages
61
What a lovely post! @Kakost You come up with some of the best posts in the Forum, mate!

I have loved playing Archer Rogue and Mage only for the ranged effect.I hate melee, so havent seriously played the other two classes.

Your ideas on the Staff-Elementalist are interesting, I am sure to give it a try. My initial try-outs with elements were not too great - ended up with mage dying to fireballs more often than enemies! Ice storm bounced off every wrong direction and lightning while great needed everyone to be in an obliging straight line, queueing up to take a beating! So I found everything quite situational, whereas with summons, they could be used in every scenario.

But you've given some good playstyle advice to try out. will do and let you know how I go.

I haven't really completed the game yet, in any of my chars, so can't add much to this discussion. But would love to hear more from you on strategies and playstyles.
 

Kakost

Well-known member
Joined
06/12/2022
Messages
417
What a lovely post! @Kakost You come up with some of the best posts in the Forum, mate!

I have loved playing Archer Rogue and Mage only for the ranged effect.I hate melee, so havent seriously played the other two classes.

Your ideas on the Staff-Elementalist are interesting, I am sure to give it a try. My initial try-outs with elements were not too great - ended up with mage dying to fireballs more often than enemies! Ice storm bounced off every wrong direction and lightning while great needed everyone to be in an obliging straight line, queueing up to take a beating! So I found everything quite situational, whereas with summons, they could be used in every scenario.

But you've given some good playstyle advice to try out. will do and let you know how I go.

I haven't really completed the game yet, in any of my chars, so can't add much to this discussion. But would love to hear more from you on strategies and playstyles.
Fireball is not something you use in the middle of a close quarters fight. I usually use it as an "initiator" - AKA I see an enemy or group of enemies and I start the fight by throwing one before they see me.

It can also be used when you have an enemy "pinned down" by Griss and safely at distance.

Or, another stance I can also sometimes use it is while Im running away and the enemy is not too close.

It's all a matter of getting used to it, we a bit of practice you can absolutely 100% avoid dying to your own fireballs.

Blizzard is indeed very effective if you learn how to properly bounce it in the right way, but even if you miss it's still very helpful.

The "zap" (lightning) is the primary spell obviously. This one you use when any enemy gets close to meele to fight you, and you use it to quickly finish them off. You dont really need to wait for the stars to be perfectly aligned for that.

The thing with the Elementalist is that your spells are NOT your main weapon or damage source - your staff is. Most 90% of foes you'll kill without using a single spell - just doing 180 degrees with Griss and staffing them to death.

Your spells will serve as "circumstancial control". The Elementalist is in my opinion the strongest build in the game, with the most balanced attributes (both AGI and AWA are useful for extra damage, high INT garantees high Perception, at least 4 in PER grants useful extra mana and a tiny amount of END is massively helpful, with STR being absolutely irrelevant) and besides, the reason this build is so powerful is not because you can use a single spell at a time, but rather because all 3 at once can easily dispatch huge numbers of enemies with easy.

That's the catch thou: you only use those spells when you MUST, rather than willy nilly.

I have to say, after lvl 20+ I did a tiny change to my Elementalist, since it has a similar problem as the Summoner - as enemies get stronger, your spells get less effective (just as the Golems die a lot faster for stronger enemies).

Thus, I did a small reset, and changed Fireball with Combustion and Blizzard with Disintegration and I gotta say, it's a superb combination.

Just like "baseline" Elementalist, I try killing enemies with staff only as much as possible, but when I need that extra Mojo, I initiate with Combustion, which not only deals massive damage but also weakens the critters for all the pain that comes next, and then I either finish them off with my staff alone or I just Zap them into oblivion.

And why Disintegrate you might ask? Simple, for bosses. Disintegrate is that massive follow up damage to put down even the most stubborn critter.

The other great aspect of the Elementalist is the very short cooldowns. You can safely save yourself from tough spots by simply spamming all 3 elements, running away and 5 seconds later you can spam them all, all over again, like an engine of mass destruction.

If you wanna learn how to masterfully use the Elementalist to make it the best build in the game, learn how to position yourself (always 180 degrees behind Griss), master fine art of bravely running away, and when things go bad, spam death and destruction like a madman.

Particularly at early game, you'll feel like a God walking among mortals, with a single spell killing dozens of enemies at once, but even at late game you'll feel very powerful by have that extra "pzaz" to dispatch foes
Post automatically merged:    

As for the Meele, I agree that it's harder and require more skill - like I said, I couldnt play Meele Rogue even if it were to save the world from WW3.

However, I can recommend playing with warrior, and having Charge as your main skill - you dont even need to get Charge above lvl 1, althought you certanly can and it would be very good, but the thing is that Charge is more or less the bread and butter of warriors. Sure, from time to time you'll miss some, but still. Combine it with Whirlwind and it's a super fun game to play. Yes, I still think the Elementalist is stronger and easier to play (once you learn the "trick of the trade"), but warriors are still a lot of fun, relatively easy and very very powerful.

For anyone that is capable of playing Meele Rogue, I tip my hat off. Meele Rogue is INSANELY powerful, capable of easily dispatching even the toughest bosses and is hell of a fun when played right, but sadly I cant do it, and I can only envy those who can
Post automatically merged:    

Haha. I can so relate. Couldn't figure out why I kept dying then finally realized I was killing myself. And dying by my own hands is one reason why I haven't learned explosive traps on any of my rogues.
Yeah, explosive traps is... Probably not the best choice for skills.

Overall, trap is best used for mostly just for the slow effect, so I'd say that anything beyond lvl 1 is a waste, and definitely I wouldnt use explosive traps. Still, traps is one of the funniest knacks of the Rogues, both meele and archer (for Archer is almost mandatory)
 
Last edited:

Nivarian99

Member
Joined
09/03/2023
Messages
61
Overall, trap is best used for mostly just for the slow effect, so I'd say that anything beyond lvl 1 is a waste, and definitely I wouldnt use explosive traps. Still, traps is one of the funniest knacks of the Rogues, both meele and archer (for Archer is almost mandatory)

Oh wow! Trap is mandatory for archer? news to me! i have to get that skill then! I sorta learnt from @Neponde how to use the trap skill as an archer.
 

Kakost

Well-known member
Joined
06/12/2022
Messages
417
Oh wow! Trap is mandatory for archer? news to me! i have to get that skill then! I sorta learnt from @Neponde how to use the trap skill as an archer.
Well lol... It is technically possible to finish the game even with awful builds... Check out the many "Challenges" threads we have in the forum, in each one of those challenges you have to use absolutely awful builds to complete the game following a "theme", to add some roleplay to it.

So yeah, you CAN play Archer without Trap, BUT
But that means playing it in a less than ideal way, it means playing it very very bellow the Min-Max ideal to make your life easier. And it's best to leave the "Challenges" to when you are already an experienced player and you want to purposefully make your own life harder in order to torture yourself for fun.

So, trap is very very useful for Archers, because it's the skill that you use in order to keep enemies away.

The Rogue Archer plays similarly to the Elementalist Mage, it's hit and run tactics, therefore you gotta keep enemies away at all costs, and trap helps tremendously with that.

There's a trick in order to use it thou: you dont just place a trap anywhere, you use it when an enemy is moving towards you and is somewhat close (but not close enough that it can hit you), and you place it and bravely retreat before it gets to you.

Also, you have to retreat in a straight line, to garantee that the critter will step on the trap.

And the beauty of it is that you just need 1 lvl in it; seriously, anything more is a waste. But a single skill point will be a tremendous help.

And, if you become good with Archer, I believe you'll also play Elementalist better, getting used to all the hit and run tactics.

Kick is also good for the Archer, but it's a LOT harder to use, and most likely you'll miss most of the time, because you need to be REALLY close to activate - closer than meele.

Thus, to use Kick I move TOWARDS the critter AFTER it has reached me in meele, which means I get hit once or twice, and then I use Kick.

For this reason I prefer Trap a lot more, but Kick is also a lifesaver from time to time, but it's a lot harder and requires more skill or more "proficiency" to use properly.

Either way, I recommend lvl 1 Trap and lvl 1 Kick for any Archer, or at least lvl 1 Traps if you just cant adapt at all at using Kick
 

Lamar

Member
Joined
29/06/2021
Messages
66
Yeah, explosive traps is... Probably not the best choice for skills

Overall, trap is best used for mostly just for the slow effect, so I'd say that anything beyond lvl 1 is a waste, and definitely I wouldnt use explosive traps. Still, traps is one of the funniest knacks of the Rogues, both meele and archer (for Archer is almost mandatory)
I've played a solo (no companion) trapper/ranger. Trap 3 was required for him. I have a couple posts in "tell us when you gain a level" of that experience. That's when I considered explosive traps but decided I couldn't make it work since I lost the ability to set non explosive traps.

Even with traps 3 I've been unable to defeat the speedy level 16 King Gurguth at level 21. So this may be one of the few instances where explosive traps would have been worth it.
 

Lamar

Member
Joined
29/06/2021
Messages
66
To answer the original post - I've made and played more rogues than all other classes. Not sure why but in other games I'm drawn to rangers. It's the first class I chose back when I downloaded EK several years ago. I ended i up purchasing the full game the next day. I'm fair with a melee rogue and decent with an archer. But I've only finished the game with a warrior and mage, go figure.
 
Last edited:

Kakost

Well-known member
Joined
06/12/2022
Messages
417
Im doing a few tests, trying to pump up my meele rogue game. I gotta say, Im improving... a little... my ability to use multiple stabs (refreshed from Assassinate). It's still awful, but less awful than it used to be

Soon I'll try to go for an IM playthrough with meele rogue, and I'll start a play diary for this personal challenge
 

Commiades

Well-known member
Joined
16/08/2020
Messages
169
I like all of them. I like Cleric the least. I get bored with it. I also find 1-h warrior a bit dull, and staff mages. My favourite are the stabby rogue followed by the 2-h warrior. Archer rogue is fun too, but more challenging (not so good at kiting).

Full sneak attack and stab are awesome. Stun-locking a boss with sneak attack is so satisfying.

Still haven't finished in IM. I get careless. Have a number on the go. Cleric, Summoner Mage, 2-h Warrior, but always end up wanting to use an Assassin Rogue.

The rogue is Level 15 now, maybe this time I'll finish! Going to go aim for STR 5 (6/8) and END 6 (7/8) with Body Development III eventually.
 

Top