I have not played this version yet but this build is probably still good:
Use the Mercenary class, increase your PHYS stat, Strike at the part with the least Armor until the enemy dies.
For Camp management, make Raven focus on Foraging and Hunting while Dalena takes care of Woodcutting and Mining.
For Buildings unlock the Outpost first then its leftmost upgrade, then the Talents, the rightmost upgrade. This unlocks the Resident's Talents. Raven's Passive Talent that costs 30 Essence and gives her 5 points to a random stat every day is very good, and the other Talents that increase stats relevent to their current job assignements are also good.
Once you reach the Pantheon, don't worry about the achievements that are hard to get. You will reach the end of the content before you run out of easy Aspects to breed with the 5 turns cooldown. The Bred aspects carry over between saves so you will be able to focus on the harder ones in your next playtrough, when you know the systems better.
New update! It looks like there's mostly changes to existing content rather than new content. I want to review the changelog to decide if I try this update:
- Outfits! Nice? I'm more interested in the systems and gameplay at this point but I'm sure it will improve the immersion for new players.
- Rending Strike: With 5 CHAR this now deals 3 more damage overall. That won't have much of an impact on the CHAR build.
- Dodge: Nice! Effectively paying 0.67 energy to skip a turn was not attractive. The randomness of the attack is also a nice way to promote attacking different parts.
- Red Rivers: This is a nice passive for CHAR builds that use Rending Strike and have lots of energy.
- Legionnaire: This seems interesting, but I'm not sure it will make a significant difference for a FORT build. Adding 1 damage to an ability that costs energy is not much. Exposure, when activated, adds 4 damage to the basic attack and 7.2 damage to Cleave.
- Static Edge: This one seems weird but interesting. Cleave is the most aggressive ability, the best damage-per-energy ability. Making it interrupt armor regen is nice. Tying Shield regen to it seems weird. It's probably a good effect when you get the interrupt.
- Scrap Metal: This one seems like a great buff for Armor Up. I'm not sure if that makes the ability good but it helps save energy for Shield Bash.
- Efficient Mixture: This passive is likely very powerful, but not needed. With Dazzling Display shutting down all non-crit attacks for this turn and the next 3 turns, saving 1 energy lets you Dodge on the last turn and that synergizes with Red River and Rending Strike. However, in my experience CHAR build have plenty of energy and can use Dazzling display and Dodge without needing this passive. This might be useful for a FORT build that wants to outlast their opponent? I'm not sure such a build is interesting to play.
- Enemy changes: good! This probably justifies playing this update for me.
- Wild At Heart: This one feels off. Gaining an effect if Stoic > Wild means you want Raven to have high Stoic and low Wild to get the most out of it.
* Suggestion: Wild at Heart': -10 Stoic, +10 Wild. If Wild is greater than 100, gain +5 Max Wild instead.
- Battle Trance: Nice! getting your Mindful maxed out means you will always drop below the threshold after using it. You can also time it with Train and/or Defend to gain some benefit from it without converting your Wild.
- Catch Up Passive: Yeah, this passive was the easiest and largest way to gain stats for the player. Putting it on par makes the other option more interesting, you can pick it to breed Obsession and not feel bad about it.
- Thorn Mother: I guess that's a good way to balance the Talent points without creating a new Card. A Passive talent point is probably stronger than an Active point since you can benefit from any number of Passives at once but are limited to 1 Ability per turn.
- Skirmish scaling: not much information here. Skirmishes used to be easy for me, lets see if the Merciless option offers a challenge.
- UI and QoL updates: always welcome.
- Patreon bonuses: I like this way of rewarding Patrons, with cosmetic additions and monthly art packs rather than locked in-game content or delayed versions. I guess Aspect of Charity is in-game content with a statistical benefit? It's so small, it doesn't change my opinion that this is a great way to reward Patrons.
In retrospect, what is there in this update for me to test?
- changes to combat abilities and enemy balance
- Skirmish scaling and Resident abilities
Yes, I will try this update, because I have some free time and I also want to test:
- starting with all Aspects bred
- making a primarily FORT combat build
