TSW refugee migration

From the descriptions on the website, I don't like any of the factions, but if I'm forced to choose it will probably be Dragon.

Ah, fair enough. Yeah, there are a number of buffs like that. I haven't really used any of them, but I hear some of them are really good (even if you just solo ).

True. Every type of weapon (ranged, melee and magic) build resources differently.

The advantage of ranged weapons is that they build resources on everyone you hit, so if you build five resources on three guys, you could hit all three of them with finishers before worrying about building resources again (and if the first guy dies, those resources remain on everyone else you've build it on). This is, in particular, an advantage for Shotgun because it has at least one very good AoE resource builder (assault rifle and pistols might be less well off).

The advantage of the melee resource system is that you you start most fights with 5 resources, so you can open with a heavy hitter. That's quite nice. The advantage of the magic system is that... uhm... that it uses the melee system except without the melee system's advantages. So. Uh. Yeah.

It's funny because, when I tried melee weapons, I found it extremely limiting that I could only ever have five resources because they were only building on myself.

I guess the main attraction for me, was to blast large groups of zombies with pump action, then stab one of them with a chaos finisher and watch every single one of them die from the ensuing mayhem. I essentially picked shotgun because I liked Pump Action as a basic resource builder. In Kingsmouth where just about everything is hordes of zombies, that's much more efficient (and fun!) than a single-target builder. Admittedly, the frequency of large groups of enemies tend to go down in the next zones, but it remains useful! I found it rare to fight less than two guys at once, anywhere, except for boss fights (and not necessarily even then). And bosses is what I keep the single-target finishers handy for.

If that makes sense.

From an in-character perspective thing, you're not really given much of a choice in who recruit you. The choice you make in chargen is, essentially, which faction gets to forcibly recruit you first. So, in-gamely, there's no assumptions made about how you feel about your faction. The game doesn't expect you to go "yay, I have a bomb in my spine now, hooray!" just because you picked Illuminati.

Of course, you, the player, should be comfortable with your faction choice. And then pick Illuminati.

We get quotes like:

"Heinous sea monsters react the same way to their buddies getting teabagged as everyone else."

"It's like seeing a group of Templars dancing - it's awkward and out of character and signals that something has gone really ******* wrong."

Well when you use a resource skill/power (IE: pump action-shotgun or smash-hammer, there are other powers that build also but those are the first ones you get) you build up 1ea resource.

example on my current build I do 5 pump action shots, after which I then have 5 shotgun and 5 hammer built up for my next 2 chain attacks, which are haymaker and out for a kill; then i go back to my builder. So any builder will "charge a skill"

TSW wiki
http://wiki.crygaia.com/view/Main_Page

Personally, I couldn't stand the Dragon's Nemesis-esque "oh, so our plan failed but we totally saw that coming and planned accordingly" attitude.

And the intro scene didn't help.

Templar get the best deck outfits through. So good, in fact, that I was almost tempted to switch main. Most of the Illuminati deck outfits are really boring (or horribly bad). The Dragon is mostly in-between, with each outfit being either hit or miss (I really like the Martial Artist, but find the Ninja almost hilariously bad).

Welcome to the Dragons, brother. They are the watchers on and most passive by far. They seek to understand the world and shape it for its best interests. They have a self-righteous vibe as well, but not nearly the same.

It's worth noting that this is game is less "Good vs. Evil" and more Praetoria than anything. Everyone is both evil and heroic in their own regards. Very rarely are there enemies that are just flat out evil, mustache twirling villains. You're never the good guys. You're just the better guys than the others.

But we DID plan for that! :P

Nah, the Dragons can take losing on the chin. In fact, losing is information. When something unexpected happens, that helps us to add more nuance to "The Model", our master program that, theoretically, contains all known information on the elements within the world. If something went perfectly to plan, we'd be done and bored with it.

Once in a great while, however, we do, in fact, plan to intense degrees. It's entertaining and power-feeling, but it's not always the norm.

I could give examples, but they're some of my favorite moments of the game.

When facing a zombie invasion, even the Templar come off as good guys!

hey hey hey!

*Ignores the squabbling rabble and goes back to being awesome*

Pistols and assault rifle also work like this (I have a character with both of those skills - although she's using AR/Blood at the moment - also, I wish the Chronicle would update more reliably). I honestly have not found the way firearms resources work to be a problem and I just got to the City of the Sun God. The problem I did run into with pistols was more that I couldn't make them work well with blood, which is why I switched to AR, and I'll be purchasing Elementalism next. The thing about firearms resource spenders is that most of them just spend "all of the resources" on your current target. So, every other shot can be a spender. And as Slaunyeh pointed out, AoE builds up resources on every target hit.

Now, I wonder what about the boss in the amusement park makes elementalism and shotgun combined so terrible? If I could beat him with my rather weak pistols/blood build at the time, I am not sure what would make him intolerable to fight.

I think the Dragon version of the Rogue Agent mission as well as the conclusion of the Dawning of an Endless Night arc make it clear that the Dragons don't always plan for everything. I like how in the Rogue Agent mission, your handler goes from "We arranged all of this in advance, and it is going according to plan" to "everything has changed, we have to revise all of the models."

Speaking of, I also dig the whole premise behind the Dragon version of the rank 10 special assignment (London Underground). Not the most exciting mission, but amusing.

Two of my four characters are Dragons. One each of the other two.

Assault Rifle has the potential to be dangerously cheesy.

It has good AoE, but against single targets it can be really good. Leech is hax.

That test can be found here.

And it tells me that Dragon fits me best.

And this was the most visually entertaining personality test I've ever taken.

My favourite, on the Council of Venice: "And when the guys in capes and chainmail say you're out of touch, you know, ouch."
-- Kirsten Geary, managing to backhand the Council and the Templars, all in one go.

I switched to blood/pistols a while back, and have enjoyed eeking out as much functionality as possible, from them. Granted, it could probably work just as well, or better, with assault rifle or shotgun, but I wanted to use pistols dangit. Seems to work nicely so far.

Especially when you figure out how to turn ground-target AoEs into targeted AoEs.


I think it's more an issue that, this boss is probably the first instance where you have a really tough fight on your hands, and a lot of builds that have been cruising along so far, really have to stop and actually look at what they are doing.

There are a number of instances in the game, that kind of forces you to actually study your builds, and that guy is probably the first such fight. While I'm not a big fan of the solo-instance concept, they can force you to re-evaluate the quality of your build. Which can be healthy (or frustrating, depending on your mindset).

Unless you just happen to accidentally stumble on a build that breezes through everything.

I must say I've hardly touched my rifle. Mostly using Blood Magic because it fits the character theme I'm going for, but I want to get the necromancer deck (though I don't quite fully understand decks yet) and I saw that you needed some AR stuff for it

I'm still quite early on in the game, running around splatting zombies, but so far loving it. I particularly like the investigative/deductive aspect of some of the missions. Plus, luring zombies onto landmines will never get old.

How do you turn ground-target AoEs into targeted AoEs?

That fight isn't really very hard, and I think it's more about where you are relative to the boss at particular times than anything else. I don't see what would make shotgun and elementalism less viable.

How about life-stealing assault rifle attacks? Does that fit your theme?

Yeah, that's one of the best missions.

My only problem with a lot of the investigation is that many things are implied or obfuscated and I tend to think very literally, and this leads to a lot of frustration while dealing with more obscure hints.

My brief explanation of decks: "A tremendously bad idea that eventually rewards a nice outfit." I wouldn't recommend following a deck to anyone.

Maybe that's a bit harsh. Decks, in a nutshell, are build suggestions. The problem I have with them is that decks aren't necessarily good build suggestions, and they aren't newbie build suggestions, because they tend to rely on a significant number of outer-wheel abilities. You will probably be halfway through the game by the time you've completed a deck, and the deck build is unlikely to make much sense before you've completed it, because they tend to rely on specific skill combinations (which is what you usually get from outer-wheel abilities: synergy).

What all decks essentially tell you is: buy every inner-wheel ability in these two weapons. You don't really need a deck to tell you that. What decks should offer, IMHO, are useful low-cost examples of serviceable builds using only inner-wheel skills. Stuff you need when you're new to the game and still trying to make sense of it. You can make perfectly good builds from just the inner-wheel skills - the outer-wheel stuff is really for when you want to specialize in something particular. Decks, as currently implemented, doesn't really help with that.

I unlocked the Bounty Hunter deck solely for the deck outfit.

My fingers remember that better than my brain does. I think you toggle it on by holding shift-ctrl, then release ctrl first. I think that's the right order, but I'd have to be in-game to be sure.

Then, when you use a GTAoE power while having an offensive target, it will place the AoE directly under their feet (or give you an out-of-range error if you're too far away). It has made a tremendous difference for me.

Just be aware that it can toggle off on it's own at random. I've had it persist through area transitions, death, and even different game sessions, but sometimes it has just turned itself off just as I need it.

Yeah, I quite like the look of the Necromancer outfit: Doctor Who crossed with Hannibal Lecter; what's not to like?