Quick question for readers here : what's your favorite starting profession for you MC, and why?
At first i went with fighter/magician because it's noob-friendly (MC more powerful gives you more room for early mistakes), but then i quickly realised the potential of "breeder", because it just boosts the speed of your power-ramp so much. I've done my "hero" run, 600%, lone wolf etc... for the achivements/unlocks, only have the newest Alt ending stuff to do now. (been playing since version 0.9.X for the record)
And now, since update 0.15 you can choose a focus on breeding or fusing in the farm, and the breeding focus does almost the same as the starting profession. combining the two doesn't give much more, might as well take architect to get the 4th hatchery upgrade slot, so i've experimented a bit more.
And my new happy place is "Soul Reaper". What it does is give you access to four specific crafting recipes, one of which is the starting soul wand, that can rip souls on 1 hp targets. A bit tricky, but you only need to get 10 to get rolling and it's easy to do in early arena fights, or wild fights in low hostility portals if you've taken the "+2 plants" modifier pre-game.
The other crafts are a gene potion, that gives +2 random genes (except MaxLvl), that i'm using to give +10 genes to my breeders, meaning i'm skipping MANY generations of breeding to reach the result i like and that gives me more time in portals/summoning spirits to hunt for specific traits.
The Soul Orb is an accessory slot equipment that offers you +10 mana, +5 MAG power and can empower you 10 times for 0 AP (+50% MAG power in fight for a turn) for -2 LRes.
And the last is a weapon with swing Aoe (full damage on all 3 tiles, unlike cleave), that has very strong stats (+3 STR, +2 MAG, -2 LRes) and an interesting passive : if a target is alive after being hit, kill it and reap its soul if "leftover hp =/< MAG of weapon wielder". If you're breeding right, or with just a bit of equipment, you can start to AoE wipe fights with any magus type unit, and reap tons of souls for your gene potions. Combined with the "telekinetic" trait, easily obtained from Castalia (200 research points), your scythe wielders will effectively hit for "MAG+kill if leftover =/< MAG". The only other weapon coming close to it damage-wise is the spectral sword, but it's a simple weapon still, whereas the scythe can snowball your breeding and equipment at the same time. The weapon itself also hits as "true damage", ignoring armor and resistances.
Soul Reaper isn't a straightforward combat profession for your MC (no stats bonuses), and it's gate-kept by requiring ectoplasm for crafts (easy for Creation once you've found a single specter though). However in good hands, it's going to give you OP units in no time, and reading the "soul collected" in the combat log after a scythe strike is just so satisfying. I've been able to one-shot bosses (250+ health!!!) playing as Evolution with the scythe, it's just that insane, and it changes from the usual "lightning storm" cheese.
How about you people?