Tips & Tricks

General combat tips

Where to trigger combat

Except for special ambush situations, it's your choice how to start combat and you should make use of this freedom.

• Choose carefully where to charge from.
• You gain a bonus to Initiative (+3 to all characters) if you click on the sword icon to trigger combat BEFORE the enemy starts the battle (otherwise the enemy is getting the initiative bonus).
• You may decide to move backwards for a few seconds after monsters see your party, thus stretching the group of enemies a bit or even kiting single enemies away from the group.
• Are there any choke points nearby? Use them to your advantage. It is always good that enemies do not have chances to surround you and attack your casters. When fighting indoors, try to trigger combat in a corridor with your melee / tank roles upfront.

Initiative

Pay attention to Initiative and use delay to reposition your characters in the initiative bar.

• Try to eliminate first enemies that haven´t attacked yet when given the chance.
• Take initiative into account when choosing targets to crowd control (daze, root, stun, etc..).
• When you are about to "wake" a dazed monster, do it with your character that acts inmediately after the monster. That way your whole group will attack it before it gets chances to do anything (this may require to pass on part of your team).

Use AP/MP efficiently

• Where possible, let melee enemies come to you. Don't spend your AP charging, just to give them a full turn of attacks (see hints on Guard below).
• This should be applied to leftover AP/MP after your turn as well. For instance, if you down an enemy with an approaching enemy a square or two behind, consider neither closing nor just standing there but actually using leftover AP/MP to create space, forcing them to waste more of theirs.
• In other situations (e.g. when targeting enemy archers) you may want to close the distance as quickly as possible.

Guard & Dodge

Instead of rushing at an enemy, it's often better to let them come to you and make good use of reaction attacks.

• Use Guard with your melee characters, especially heavy hitters with a two-handed weapon. Position them a few tiles away from the next enemy, ideally such that the incoming monster hasn't enough AP left to attack once it reaches your melee character.
• Dodge might be better with characters that honestly are not going to kill an insect even if they crit, so you may be better dodging with those casters that want to save Willpower.

All on one

As a general rule, focus your fire.

• Don't have your party members all fighting different mobs. Overwhelm one at a time.
• Try to take the opponents you're not currently focused on out of commission for a round or two by using Daze, Root, Stun etc.

Flanking and rear attacks

Hit the enemies where they are most vulnerable. Flanking and rear attacks considerably increase your hit chances and damage output.

• Let your characters work as a team. One pins the enemy, the others go for the sides or even the back if circumstances allow.
• In some situations (e.g. if you can finish an enemy with only one more hit), you may want to do this even if it means giving up an attack. Getting one attack with 90% accuracy and 30% criticals can be better in this case than two attacks with 60% accuracy and 10% criticals.

Attack Focus

You are not limited to do bread & butter every single turn during a combat thanks to attack focus.

• With the heavy hitters you can move and attack, or stand and attack with focus that increases your hit chance.
• You can do the same thing with your archer if a monster needs really to be killed. Sacrifice one of two attacks to make just one with very high percentage.
• If you mix the attack focus with the bonuses from flanking and rear attacks, the tactical flexibility of the game is enormous.

Tactical retreat

Finally, it's not a shame to run. Run with your whole party and buy your archer(s) some extra shots that can really make the difference and minimize the spend of resources (i.e. the Willpower of your casters).