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Discussion / Re: Ranking characters by in-game use: obscura edition
« on: June 17, 2021, 06:54:56 AM »
The Last Spell:
Characters themselves are randomly generated toons with a punch command. All the skillsets are tied to weapons, so effectively weapons are the characters.
All characters can carry 2 weapons.
Melee:
1H sword: 2/10. Tiny AoEs, weak damage. Momentum is its only trick and other melee weapons do it better.
1H hammer: 7/10. Hit 8 medium damage for 2 AP 1 mana, good the entire game. Any kind of slow spam from traps or other heroes makes the 1 AP opportunistic attack good.
1H axe: 3/10. Much worse accuracy than any other weapon, so bad it misses earlygame enemies regularly. Dreadful starter. Your melee needs to roll +acc on levelup a bunch of times to salvage it mid/late, but if you get those levelups then it brings decent AoE spam.
Dagger: 9/10. Backstab is amazing ST when you can proc it, which is pretty often. Poison daggers is a medium range skill that damages like a good melee one. Stupid high ceiling if you get good levelups/gear drops (multihit, skill range)
2H sword: 6/10. Strong small AoE, can make enormous ST hits with momentum, and a good mobility skill. Crushes the final boss. Can't clear big waves, -1 for no shield.
2H hammer: 4/10. Thoroughly meh. Decent damage, high mana and AP costs, -1 for no shield.
2H axe: 4/10. Above average at chunking big tightly packed balls, doesn't bring much else. -1 for no shield.
Spear: 5/10. Lategame weapon. Its niche is 1per turn big damage hit 7-9, nice for when monsters with actual durability show up in numbers which is last quarter of game. Okay ST momentum hit, high mana and AP costs, -1 for no shield. Bad starter.
Ranged:
Shortbow: 8/10. Rain of arrows is clunky but really hard hitting AoE, hit 4 or 5 usually. Good 1 AP ST attacks, plenty of range.
Longbow: 8/10. Massive range and a 1 AP attack with isolate, for crushing runners and flyers as they try to make a run for your wall gaps. For standard ball killing duties it brings average ST and AoE damage and great range.
1H crossbow: 7/10. In an average playthrough this gives you one decent hit on a ball with blaze then a bunch of mediocre ST ping. Short range. This weapon has the highest ceiling for characters that get lucky with levels and drops, as blaze and the basic attack both scale like crazy with multihit bonuses, blaze with propagation bonuses as well. You get this kind of character maybe 20% of runs.
2H crossbow: 3/10. High tier starter, strong reliable damage when it's just 1 wave and nothing has dodge. Below average accuracy. As attacks start splitting up and enemies get dodge, this thing becomes trash, not below average but unplayable dog shit. All the good attacks are straight line only targeting and medium range so positioning to attack gets very awkward even with high move, and the few attacks you do get off can be a miss on 75 miss on 80 kind of experience.
Pistol: 5/10. Decent 1pt AoE and very strong 1pt ST momentum hit with a movement skill to help out. If you're not proccing that momentum then its damage per AP is really bad. Better late than early.
Rifle: 4/10. Isolate weapon. Goodish late because it can annihilate the strongest monster in a group after other attacks have isolated it. Awful starter and rather slow to find its legs though, because its AoE option is 1pt and pretty weak.
Magic:
Wand: 5/10. Magic missile's pretty good, spam your AoEs first then surgically pick off stragglers. 1AP attack below average but serviceable.
Tome: 7/10. Great range. Chain lightning is a very strong 1pt AoE attack, mana intensive though. 1AP attack average damage. I almost never use fireball.
Scepter: 2/10. Weak damage, horribly short ranges, mediocre sized AoEs. Doesn't bring any kind of niche or time specific power spike.
Staff of power: 3/10. Shortish ranges but not as bad as scepter, mediocre damage and a decent AoE stun. Needs high move to be decent. Bad starter.
Druidic staff: 9/10. AoE slow hit 9 is crushing against early waves of weak slow dudes, they can't push forward at all. Chain poison damage starts decent and scales great into lategame simply because it ignores all 4 forms of defense (block, armor, dodge, res) and those stats scale up a lot on the enemy end. Good range, cheap mana costs but high AP costs.
Orb: 8/10. AoE poison a bit weaker than druidic staff, good for the same reasons. Ranged isolate with average range, you get lots of opportunities to land it.
Characters themselves are randomly generated toons with a punch command. All the skillsets are tied to weapons, so effectively weapons are the characters.
All characters can carry 2 weapons.
Melee:
1H sword: 2/10. Tiny AoEs, weak damage. Momentum is its only trick and other melee weapons do it better.
1H hammer: 7/10. Hit 8 medium damage for 2 AP 1 mana, good the entire game. Any kind of slow spam from traps or other heroes makes the 1 AP opportunistic attack good.
1H axe: 3/10. Much worse accuracy than any other weapon, so bad it misses earlygame enemies regularly. Dreadful starter. Your melee needs to roll +acc on levelup a bunch of times to salvage it mid/late, but if you get those levelups then it brings decent AoE spam.
Dagger: 9/10. Backstab is amazing ST when you can proc it, which is pretty often. Poison daggers is a medium range skill that damages like a good melee one. Stupid high ceiling if you get good levelups/gear drops (multihit, skill range)
2H sword: 6/10. Strong small AoE, can make enormous ST hits with momentum, and a good mobility skill. Crushes the final boss. Can't clear big waves, -1 for no shield.
2H hammer: 4/10. Thoroughly meh. Decent damage, high mana and AP costs, -1 for no shield.
2H axe: 4/10. Above average at chunking big tightly packed balls, doesn't bring much else. -1 for no shield.
Spear: 5/10. Lategame weapon. Its niche is 1per turn big damage hit 7-9, nice for when monsters with actual durability show up in numbers which is last quarter of game. Okay ST momentum hit, high mana and AP costs, -1 for no shield. Bad starter.
Ranged:
Shortbow: 8/10. Rain of arrows is clunky but really hard hitting AoE, hit 4 or 5 usually. Good 1 AP ST attacks, plenty of range.
Longbow: 8/10. Massive range and a 1 AP attack with isolate, for crushing runners and flyers as they try to make a run for your wall gaps. For standard ball killing duties it brings average ST and AoE damage and great range.
1H crossbow: 7/10. In an average playthrough this gives you one decent hit on a ball with blaze then a bunch of mediocre ST ping. Short range. This weapon has the highest ceiling for characters that get lucky with levels and drops, as blaze and the basic attack both scale like crazy with multihit bonuses, blaze with propagation bonuses as well. You get this kind of character maybe 20% of runs.
2H crossbow: 3/10. High tier starter, strong reliable damage when it's just 1 wave and nothing has dodge. Below average accuracy. As attacks start splitting up and enemies get dodge, this thing becomes trash, not below average but unplayable dog shit. All the good attacks are straight line only targeting and medium range so positioning to attack gets very awkward even with high move, and the few attacks you do get off can be a miss on 75 miss on 80 kind of experience.
Pistol: 5/10. Decent 1pt AoE and very strong 1pt ST momentum hit with a movement skill to help out. If you're not proccing that momentum then its damage per AP is really bad. Better late than early.
Rifle: 4/10. Isolate weapon. Goodish late because it can annihilate the strongest monster in a group after other attacks have isolated it. Awful starter and rather slow to find its legs though, because its AoE option is 1pt and pretty weak.
Magic:
Wand: 5/10. Magic missile's pretty good, spam your AoEs first then surgically pick off stragglers. 1AP attack below average but serviceable.
Tome: 7/10. Great range. Chain lightning is a very strong 1pt AoE attack, mana intensive though. 1AP attack average damage. I almost never use fireball.
Scepter: 2/10. Weak damage, horribly short ranges, mediocre sized AoEs. Doesn't bring any kind of niche or time specific power spike.
Staff of power: 3/10. Shortish ranges but not as bad as scepter, mediocre damage and a decent AoE stun. Needs high move to be decent. Bad starter.
Druidic staff: 9/10. AoE slow hit 9 is crushing against early waves of weak slow dudes, they can't push forward at all. Chain poison damage starts decent and scales great into lategame simply because it ignores all 4 forms of defense (block, armor, dodge, res) and those stats scale up a lot on the enemy end. Good range, cheap mana costs but high AP costs.
Orb: 8/10. AoE poison a bit weaker than druidic staff, good for the same reasons. Ranged isolate with average range, you get lots of opportunities to land it.