Tuesday, 22nd November 2016, 17:16 by severen
I have played a number of octopodes. I think we can all agree that they are a quite delicate species. But I have found D1 and D2 to be very very easy on an OpFi (I don't consider this the optimal Op start its just an example, IE is probably overall optimal Op start), I only get scared on D3. Op are delicate but their offense on D1 is very strong and the shield you get as fighter is enough extra defense to put almost any 1v1 heavily in your favor even against adders and worms once you get a level or 2 or 3. The constriction makes you far more accurate and the Op auxiliary attacks proc often and hit hard. You can literally do all of D1 and D2 and kill fast without training any weapon apts at all, just pick up a natively accurate weapon.
Am I missing something? Why is there such a focus on D1? I agree that a Troll's massive starting HP is a huge deal when you are level 1 but you can get to level 3 on D1 pretty easy. I can, pretty often, get a OpFi to level 5 before I am feeling like things are getting serious. This isn't to say that OpFi won't die way too often to an ogre and that you should probably avoid a D3 ogre. But generally my main concern is D3 not D1 or D2. I can understand if someone is purely going for a win streak and I don't really think of the game that way. D3 can basically viciously try to kill you with an evil Grinder + sigimund in one room spawn or whatever and even at this point the massive troll HP is a severe advantage. But frankly I can usually also just leave with that situation with an OpFi due their native stealth bonus from camouflage. I am not arguing that Op should be ranked higher here because they are incredibly delicate in D3+. But that is actually kind of my point, one of the more delicate species actually takes D1&2 pretty easy IMO so D1&2 is therefore a poor basis.
Also I agree with VeryAngryFelid early plate armor is a bit of a trap it trashes your EV but worse it has a pretty bad effect on your already bad offense. Early dungeon things die fast if you actually manage to hit them and none of your defenses are actually all that reliable even with ok scores. This is basically the problem with early ogres, if you get unlucky they can one shot you. My rule of thumb is never melee an ogre if you have less than 35 HP in D5 and earlier (if you can reasonably avoid it and have not injured it significantly and even then maybe not). Doesn't matter if you have 14AC and 6 EV(or vice versa), you can still just plain die due to bad luck. And if that 10AC is plate armor with no skill you will be meleeing that ogre for a good bit longer and risking the one or two shot even more. I don't really consider gargoyles to have a much better start than a human or similar. The small extra AC is nice but the low HP is an issue. Its not until later that a Gr starts making up for it.
I am ok with the speed, HP etc priorities, but I don't fully understand the D1/2 focus. I would argue the better analysis is comparing how they play on D3 at roughly level 5 or so (or actually take the exp apt into acctoun so a DG is much lower level). This varies quite a bit though because a D2 adder is much more dangerous for some than others. Generally I can kill adders fine as an IE with freeze, it slows them and always hits. Also I tend to kill adders very well with octopodes of almost any sort, but many other species/backgrounds it can be very dangerous even for fast species. Maybe for the random background I can see D1 and D2 being more important at least for non-high HP species. But certain backgrounds really should have no real trouble on D1 as long as you avoid pulling 4 things at once, use slings and throwing etc etc.
Also I understand why formicid is low but I, personally, think FoFi is an extremely easy start. Not saying its the best but its pretty solid and reliable and can be incredibly fast.
