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[ChairmanPoo]

Characters get more and more stressed the more bad things that happen to them. Once the stress bar is full, they either become heroic or (more frequently) develop some pathological conduct. To remove the latter you have to de-stress them in town either through religious or mundane means (basically you either send them to pray/whatever or to drink their sorrows away)

[Biowraith]

The trauma is depicted via a) textual traits on the character sheet that either give restrictions or debuffs, and b) comments the characters make and the occasional loss of player control over their actions. 

In town highly stressed characters will beg not to be sent back out. 

In the dungeon a character who has 'broken' from maxing their stress will make comments according to the type of failed resolve (Paranoid, Hopeless, Abusive, etc).  I'm not in a position to judge whether the comments could/would be triggering, but if any were I imagine it'd be some of the Hopeless ones, maybe Masochistic or Fearful too (some comments accepting harm/death as inevitable, even welcoming or inviting it).  Sometimes they'll skip their turn or take action of their own accord.  In the case of Hopeless and/or Masochistic (I forget if it's both) they will sometimes injure themselves, which comprises a 2 frame animation accompanied by the usual attack hit sound and damage number floating up.

[nenjin]

The actual statements range from overwrought despair to the absurdly macabre to Alien Movies quotes. The only voiced thing in the game is the narrator.

Re: Occultist vs. Vestal. Vestal can still totally get overwhelmed by AoEs, especially at the beginning. 2 + 5 isn't even enough to cover half of a nasty crit. Occultist heal maxes at 10 to start but there's a lot of variance. He will heal for 0 sometimes, and when he does that two to three times in a fight and maybe adds some bleed, it puts the Vestal's reliability in perspective. They are my favorite support pair at this point though. They compliment each other's short comings nicely. Not sure I'd want them for a boss fight because that's a low damage party, but for general dungeon survival they are teh best. Especially if your Crusader has his stress heal.

Blight sucks because it has no damage component in any application you get. Bleed does though. I don't get the reasoning. If Blight did more damage, were more reliably applied or resisted less often, the fact it does no damage on application would seem more justified. Meanwhile, Bleed works on the majority of guys, has plenty of damage added in with the attack and can be stacked pretty easily until you're doing 5 damage a round, or more. Blight doesn't last longer, hit harder or affect stats in any other way we know about. So, yeah. Make Blight 2 to 3 damage base per stack, or let it last twice as long, and let it do 80% damage on the Plague Doctor's attack like most abilities, and I think it'd be right on par with Bleed. Plague Doctor is the closest thing we have to a pure support character, not because of the quality of her support abilities, but because of the near total lack of damage abilities that are worthwhile. She's also like one of the most vulnerable characters to get moved out of the back ranks. I've had Plague Doctors that can do nothing from the front two ranks. Nothing at all.

In a similar vein, while the Occultist is more obviously useful, his damage pretty much sucks compared to melee. Haven't diddled with his front rank attacks yet, mostly because one of them comes with -5 Torch....which there's no way in hell I'm using that, except in the most dire circumstances.

[Vector]

.

[Stuebi]

The actual statements range from overwrought despair to the absurdly macabre to Alien Movies quotes. The only voiced thing in the game is the narrator.

Re: Occultist vs. Vestal. Vestal can still totally get overwhelmed by AoEs, especially at the beginning. 2 + 5 isn't even enough to cover half of a nasty crit. Occultist heal maxes at 10 to start but there's a lot of variance. He will heal for 0 sometimes, and when he does that two to three times in a fight and maybe adds some bleed, it puts the Vestal's reliability in perspective. They are my favorite support pair at this point though. They compliment each other's short comings nicely. Not sure I'd want them for a boss fight because that's a low damage party, but for general dungeon survival they are teh best. Especially if your Crusader has his stress heal.

Blight sucks because it has no damage component in any application you get. Bleed does though. I don't get the reasoning. If Blight did more damage, were more reliably applied or resisted less often, the fact it does no damage on application would seem more justified. Meanwhile, Bleed works on the majority of guys, has plenty of damage added in with the attack and can be stacked pretty easily until you're doing 5 damage a round, or more. Blight doesn't last longer, hit harder or affect stats in any other way we know about. So, yeah. Make Blight 2 to 3 damage base per stack, or let it last twice as long, and let it do 80% damage on the Plague Doctor's attack like most abilities, and I think it'd be right on par with Bleed. Plague Doctor is the closest thing we have to a pure support character, not because of the quality of her support abilities, but because of the near total lack of damage abilities that are worthwhile. She's also like one of the most vulnerable characters to get moved out of the back ranks. I've had Plague Doctors that can do nothing from the front two ranks. Nothing at all.

In a similar vein, while the Occultist is more obviously useful, his damage pretty much sucks compared to melee. Haven't diddled with his front rank attacks yet, mostly because one of them comes with -5 Torch....which there's no way in hell I'm using that, except in the most dire circumstances.

After fiddling around with her a bit more, I have to revise my previous statement a bit. The Vestal has a reliable groupheal (8 per Round,2 on each character, once you upgrade it) and a pretty decent singletarget (3-5 vanilla). Judgement and Illumination are also great, both able to hit those stupid, debuffing fothermuckers in the back row, and illumination even stuns! She is not bad at first, but witha  few levels and upgrades, she becomes absolutely fantastic.

And I don't think the Occultists Damage sucks that bad. Abyssal Artillery deals pretty consistent damage to the back line (And usually, that's where the enemies with really annoying abilities lie). And try out his vulnerability Hex combined with the Bounty Hunter. I tell you, I've blown up Bandit Bloodletters the very first turn with this stuff.

A word of advice for people coming in fresh. Do not, under ANY circumstance, attempt Veteran missions before you have a Party fully on Level 3 and with a decent amount of upgrades. Even disregarding the randomness, they WILL murder you.


A bit more on the radnomness thing. After figuring a few things out (Which Lootitem goes on which interactable, for example. Some of them are...weird, or at least hard to figure out. Took me a while to realize that Bandage+Corpse was a thing) and fiddling around with the skills some more, I can pretty reliably take down the Necromancer Apprentice and get a few guys on Level 3. But that's usually where the game starts to kick me pretty hard. Both the Hag and the Swine Prince are really hard (SP critted me for 46 on the first turn. You what?) and as I said above, the Veteran Missions are REALLY frustrating if you lack a completely decked out team, which mainly depends on how lucky you were in terms of gold and Upgrade-Material. I have no idea why, but getting Portraits seems to be the biggest drag ever. I can practically decorate my walls with Crests (50 currently), but even on missions where it specifically says that there will be Portraits, I get 2, maybe 3.

Basically, either I lack the gold to actually take advantage of the Upgrades, or I have the gold but lack the material to unlock ways to spend it. It would be cool if there was a way to buy a few mats somewhere in the estate. It's infuriating when I lack 1-2 things to upgrade the Guild Hall or Blacksmith.

Lastly, and this may sound whiny and weird, but the turnorder drives me mental. There isnt any indication on who moves when, and it seems completely arbitary at times. Enemies who went last on one turn, go first the very next. Without any Buffs or Debuffs being involved. It's at the point where I stack almost every Meele class with Trinkets that sacrifice Speed for Crit or Damage, because honestly, it doesnt seem to matter at all. It would really up the tactical aspect a bit if you coud actually tell "who moves when".

Also, I think the patched the quirkissue. I didnt get any contradicting ones in my last playtrough, after patching. But I still get some at weird times. Why would I get "manhater" after fighting Pigs and spiders? How do you develop a fear of skeletons while out in the warren?

[TempAcc]

Honestly, I would substitute my plague doctor for an occultist if the occultist's stunning ability could be used from the back rows. I guess I might still use him in party with my vestal, highwayman and crusader. I'm still a bit torn regarding the hellion and the jester though, because I dont care much for damage over time vs just destroying enemies quickly. I suppose I should train some though, since later in the game bigger creeps and minibosses start showing up, so bleeding damage might be great. Otherwise, a merc/highwayman + leper/crusader have been doing most of the damage for me.

Its hard to live without the merc once you get used to him though, due to just how insanely good his flashbang is. Not only does it stun, but it also displaces enemies. So if you use it against the enemy in the furthest back of the enemy group, chances are they'll not only be stunned, but also get moved to the front of the enemies, where they'll die very fast.

[puke]

Lastly, and this may sound whiny and weird, but the turnorder drives me mental. There isnt any indication on who moves when, and it seems completely arbitary at times. Enemies who went last on one turn, go first the very next.

Wow, I had heard that this had some Torchbearer inspiration, and it sounds like that is true.

If they are drawing from the tabletop RPG, the players (or ai in this case) controlling the entire side decides which of its units to act on the side's turn.  The GM advice tells you to do this very thing, essentially using double actions at the end-then-start of rounds to screw the players over.

[nenjin]

I'm guessing that initiative is a die roll + speed. So conceivably your slowest guy can end up acting the fastest if everyone else rolls like shit. But it does result in the unfortunate event of an enemy ending a round and beginning a new one with actions.

[lordcooper]

Blight sucks because it has no damage component in any application you get.

That isn't true.

[nenjin]

Blight sucks because it has no damage component in any application you get.

That isn't true.

K, what ability does it get used with that doesn't result in 1 to 2 damage on strike?

Oh I suppose you mean the Graverobber's Blight Dart? Damage still seems pretty nerfed compared to your average bleed-inflicting attack.

[Zangi]

Blight sucks because it has no damage component in any application you get.

That isn't true.

K, what ability does it get used with that doesn't result in 1 to 2 damage on strike?

Grave Robber's blighter thing does more then 1-2 damage.  Also another surprising one, Plague Doctor's single target blighter does more then 1-2 damage.
If I remember correctly, at level 0, they do 3-4 damage.

[nenjin]

Doesn't really seem to be that consistent. I've gotten crits on Blight Grenade and the Blight Dart for 2 to 3. I think my point still stands that bleed attacks hit way harder on average than your best blight attack, and blight could stand to be buffed because of it.

[Mephansteras]

I'd rather see bleed and blight do different things. Right now they're just different labels on the same basic effect. It'd be better if blight had more of a debuff effect with slight damage and bleed was more damage oriented. It'd make things much more interesting.

[nenjin]

I'd rather see bleed and blight do different things. Right now they're just different labels on the same basic effect. It'd be better if blight had more of a debuff effect with slight damage and bleed was more damage oriented. It'd make things much more interesting.

I don't disagree but I'd be satisfied just with numerical difference that matter for the time being. Bleed as the fast running, stackable damage. Blight as the long running, good base damage DoT.

[Intrinsic]