Post by Pug the Mage in Thoughts and Impressions

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Fishing poles. I had one awesome run, then nothing afterwards the few times i tried to farm runes.

Digging up a map - exactly that. dig every square. plop down a 3x in the middle to sleep after traveling to/fro to drop off the crystal you make and collect runes while you do it.

Shovels, Fishing poles, pick-axes etc, will be in your /recipes, and if they aren't of the right material for you, then craft what you can to level them up. And if there's ever a recipe you don't know, then you need to find it by chance.. or obtain it with the help of staff from settlement buildings.

I understood what you said about the elementals. I'd just never cast one. But I like your new explanation of they work from the caster's perspective so much .. i just stuck it into the notes for the rune.

Again, aside from being able to help carry things, only ranged Mercs staying out of melee have been any help at all. I've gotten a lot more out of Moose and Grizzly since it takes just getting stuck in a font once or twice before you wind up with them nakedly running into melee.. i've had big equipment losses misjudging their staying power and only the beasts have anything close to the Gatekeeper's resilience. As one, it took just a few refined bits of iron before i could farm ruins without having to pay much attention , never loosing anyone.. until my young grizzly died while helping me conquer the first den.

Its not that i don't like them at all, I've hired every last one i've found and have them hanging out, parked at the tavern. My extra pets and domestic animals at the stables :)

Completing a Den gave me a title - which the next level merc wanted to see before joining up. At that time you're not worried about finding enough loot to hire or equip them with and might be a bit more conscious about how you spend your shards.

There's no 'where exactly' in the land. Things spawn, you find them, beat them and fewer things of that type spawn where that was. I can't explain it, but the map contents is always a surprise while you will also always find some landmark, like a castle or fortress just by wandering around. Some things are very rare, but not castles. They seem to start maybe 15..20km from settlements, e.g. 1.5 maps 'over' in any direction you'll run into one eventually. Sometimes even 2 or three no closer than perhaps 8 squares from another.

A good exploration strategy might be to set your compass to the nearest settlement you know about and then to walk to there and back, this way you'll see the map as it really is. say you want to go NW to another settlement. "X" relica and start NW right away. the next time, walk W 3 steps, then go NW.. it never winds up working perfectly, because you'll get distracted by things you find, but you can cover/check the entire space for landmarks that way.

DeathMageThirteen4 years ago (3 edits) (+1)

Ah, right, that makes sense. My strategy is kind of the opposite, since I play squishy mage characters that need to stay out of melee at all costs, and therefore want allies to tank for me, while you're running a defensive melee character that prefers ranged support. Anyway, thanks; I'll keep you updated if I have any success!

Edit: Gah, I just realized that my description of the Elemental spell needs verification, as I never actually tried to cast it without targeting anything... If I get the rune again, I'll experiment and give you my results.

Update #1: I have Insight at GODLIKE again with three pieces of Crystal gear (It's quite easy, given that Scholars essentially have base Great insight with their Enlightenment ability, and am looking to up my Resilience and hopefully Charm as well. It seems that I cannot in fact craft all the recipes I know with all tiers of materials (the compatible recipes, of course)- you mentioned something about leveling up recipes?

Also, the Crystal Ingot crafting tip was much appreciated- I don't think I would have ever gotten this much Crystal otherwise, and it's a huge boost to a mage.

Anyway, DeathMage out!

Update #2: Ran into the Arcane Researcher, traded away all my shards. Got, among other things, a Rune of Elementals! Will post my trial results after I find a good spell combination. Also, is Slowness good on a long-ranged spell?

DeathMageThirteen4 years ago(+1)

Hey, hope you don't mind me continuing to post my FARA experiences- don't feel obligated to respond immediately, it's just fun for me to share these things with someone. Anyway, dead again at 2,500 points- was battling a few enemies, including a Heroic Dark Servant, a few hundred miles from Relica with a Heroic Mortician mercenary that I was lucky enough to pick up in a nearby town. The fight was going pretty well until the Darkness Meteors hit (I was careless and didn't realize I was standing in the impact radius)...

I never did get to making my Elemental spell, because I had been waiting for a good self-buffing Effector rune. Sorry about that, looks like you'll have to wait a bit for my verification on how the Elemental spell works. (If you're confused about what I'm talking about, read my edit to my other post.)

So, a few new things I've discovered:

Morticians make amazing mercenaries, at least for a caster, with their Fervent Embalming ability, or, as I like to think of it, Raise Dead- you'll be shielded behind your ever-present undead army, and they decay slowly enough for your entourage to grow over time if you keep killing enemies- they don't count toward party limit, but I'm not sure if there's a maximum number of undead a Mortician can control. I was a bit dubious at first when I saw my new mercenary was an Insight-heavy class, since I was looking for someone to keep me out of melee, not another caster, but this was far more effective- instead of one new ally to tank for me, I got several! They do decent damage, too. (Honestly, I'd be in favor of Mortician just being renamed to Necromancer, because that's the impression it gives as of now, and it feels weird to call them a "mortician" (since when did undertakers get magical abilities? There's got to be some normal morticians... Also, Necromancer sounds more impressive to me.)

It seems extremely profitable to travel further from Relica once your equipment and allies are up to it- enemies were regularly dropping Obsidian and better equipment, which was a significant upgrade over my current gear. Also, I never actually completed it (I was on my way when I had that unfortunate encounter with a meteor) but I received a quest to retrieve a piece of equipment (an Arcanium Bracelet, to be precise) from a Dungeon, in exchange for a Grand Chest, which at least sounded quite impressive (I've never opened one before, what are the contents like?) I also did a few quests for the Jade Circle, although I never got into good enough standing to receive any traits. A bit strangely, I received two quests to jailbreak someone from another Jade Circle castle, upon which I had to escape before the rest of the castle started trying to kill me, but which overall improved my standing with the Jade Circle upon completion. (Internal disputes, perhaps? It would seem to fit with their description...)

I had a bit of trouble with certain elementally-attuned enemies after I infused my staff, as it changes your attack type from "arcane" to "infused element". I'm considering making an elementally themed set of spells next game, to get full use out of the Curse rune- judging from this, I'm guessing an Arrow spell would be mandatory?

Also, any advice on spellcrafting? I'm having a hard time figuring out which effector runes would work best with which stabilizers. Certain runes seem obviously better than others (Silence versus Stupidity, anyone?) but others are a bit harder to figure out. I've shunned the attribute-decreasing runes so far, as they seem to be of rather narrow use (except possibly the Vulnerability rune, but I'm not sure how much that actually affects the stat in question) and am of nearly the same mind on the attribute-increasing runes (Enlightenment is the only one that might be of use while spellcasting, but I already get that as a Scholar- considering using Fortitude, perhaps? Again, depends on the extent of the improvement.) Anyway, any idea of what spells+effector runes I might want as a caster (3 spellslots)? I see you recommend a Rejuvenation rune on one of your spells ("your" in the generic sense) but I'm not sure if, for example, it would work better on a spell that's cast often (attack spells) or one that's cast more rarely (status-effect spells) given that I don't know how long Rejuvenation actually lasts.

I built the Tavern and the Warehouse this run, although the former was mostly useless due to the Shady Gambler promptly blocking the entrance (I was contemplating just murdering him, although it would be a bit awkward to do that in front of everyone) and the latter was mostly useless due to not having completed another Warehouse before my death. I definitely see how both could have been useful, though.

If you're robbed sleeping outside, it appears that you're not actually guaranteed to get back everything the thief stole when you kill them? My Obsidian Scepter was still missing, which hurt.

Anyway, up to 5,000 points now (I cheated with /unlockclasses earlier because I was interested in the Spellthief, but I'm strictly playing unlocked classes now)! Having fun and will post the next update when I have time!

Xarli4 years ago(+1)

Hey! a little bit late on the response, sorry haha

Yup, I agree with mortician being a good class to have as a mercenary:) you can also carry around corpses and drop them when you need them, as husks will decay after a few minutes.

About runes and spellcrafting... it all depends in what's your strategy for your run, in your case (3 spell-slot, caster class) I would go for:

(X/Y) Shield of Rejuvenation: X and Y being the elements you want to focus on. Self-castable spells will always trigger their effects, so they are good to buff yourself before a battle or to heal after one. Also, the shield spell boost all of your attunements, which is good if you are looking to make the most out of your elemental effects, attunement also (maybe?) boost your elemental damage but I haven't tested that yet. The Rejuvenation lasts for about 6 turns with Average charm, probably increased with spell quality too
(X/Y) Curse/Field of Vulnerability: Curse if you prefer going for single target damage, Fields if you prefer AoE. The good thing about vulnerability is that apart from increasing physical damage taken, it also increases the duration of other debuffs.
(X/Y) Barrage of Poison/Blinding: Barrage spells won't trigger elemental effects, but they will benefit from the bonus damage from curse and fields, and at higher spell quality the AoE is huuuge. The effect will be longer due to the vulnerability, Poison is good if you don't have another way to inflict Poison to counter healing enemies (i.e an Earth Staff), but you could change it to Bleeding for enemies who dash a lot. If you want to go for a more defensive effector, Blinding is one of the best for that.

It's advisable o diversify your spells' elements, just in case you find a strong enemy resistant to the attunement you are trying to go for, the arrows spell are also good for that, as you said.

In my experience,stat-buffing effector runes are stronger early in the game, when the bonus stats are pretty noticeable (probably even better than a single masterwork piece of equipment) , and they are amazing if you are going for high reputation with the Radiant Hand to get the traits that makes buffs better, they fall off later into the game when you reach Godlike in your needed stats, though they could be good to suplement your weaknesses. You are correct about stat-debuffs being a little situational, my advice here is figuring what type of enemies you are struggling against the most and then deciding if you want some stat debuff to counter them, keep in mind that High Resilience enemies will make your debuffs almost useless, so it's good to have vulnerability just to decrease a little more their thoughness.

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