Intro - Some Insight Into Basic Mechanics & Other Useful Stuff

In this guide, we’ll swiftly go through the best builds of the game, briefly explaining how and why do they work. First we’ll go through the full party builds, then we’ll go through the Lone Wolf builds. They're the thing that was changed the most in the Definitive Edition so let's start that.Previously, Wolves were OP and IMBA, easily dealing 3-4x as much damage as your average full party character would do. That's per one wolf – two wolves supplied you with two parties' worth of damage. And I'm not overstating. Now, however, they've lost from 30% to 50% of their overall damage output, depending on the build, and suddenly became pretty fair. So it's much less about curbstomping your path through the game and much more about tactical choices.On tactician mode (this guide is adapted for that, obviously – anything below is way too easy) all your full party members are pretty much glass cannons, with sole exception of full-Con builds. And even those aren't really that tanky. So full party play heavily relies on hit & run, divide and conquer and heavy control approaches. Thanks to ability to take the literal Glass Cannon, it will now easily outdamage the Lone Wolf team. However, any mistake would lead to swift and inevitable wipe-out.Wolves, on the other hand, are killing the enemies much more slowly. Their damage output also became more conditional – wolf mages, for example, are forced to depend on the High Ground usage and that's not always possible. However, unlike the full squad, they can be actually tanky. It's their natural state – while their overall health pool is pretty similar to that of a proper party, it's much more dense in its concentration. So any percentage-based healing you apply becomes god-tier. And, in this patch, Five Star Diner is actually a five star perk. So where your average squad would melt, your wolf will just munch some fries and move on.So that's the distinction between these approaches. Keep in mind that Wolves are also smoother to play – the armor system of this game makes your armor scores to be super-important, however, they're absolutely gear-dependent. Meaning that every two level-ups you'll have to be fully replacing your party's gear and, believe me, this is a huge freaking chore. Which does get old fast. Having to do this for half as much people is much more pleasant. Same goes for alchemy and crafting – full squad burns through that stuff just way too swiftly, meaning more busy time for you.On the other hand, having more people means having more stories ongoing. I guess you'll have to choose what's more important for you.Now let's discuss certain important basics. Governing stat and weapon skills provide their damage bonus as the initial multiplier. Warfare, Scoundrel, Huntsman and all the magical skills provide their bonus damage as the secondary multiplier. This means weapon skills to be somewhat weak in most cases – max limit for the governing stat is 40, that's +150% basic damage in total (30x5% – don't forget that the initial 10 points of the stat don't count). With an additional +50% from weapon skill, the overall output is 300%. Secondary multiplier, on the other hand, just amplifies that initial bonus by its value. So if we take +150% basic and then multiply the resulting 250% by x1.5, we get 375%. So don't be surprised when most huntsmen builds will ignore Ranged Weapons in favor of Warfare – warfare just gives them more damage.Damage bonuses from skill growth is the most important part of the skills. It never takes more than 3 skill tiers to access a certain ability and from the earliest game you’ll just have lots of various +1 Ability equipment. And all of it stacks. So don’t be surprised that we’re not taking that many skillful abilities – why pay anything when you will get everything you need for free? Your damage output heavily relies on amplification so, if you spread yourself thin, you’ll just make everything go much harder for you than it should be. Focus on your build’s main idea while getting all side-effects from your trinkets.Huntsman works with the spell damage. It also is added in the same layer as critical damage. That’s a bit hard to explain, but if you have 50% Huntsman bonus and do a basic critical, it won’t be (your damage X 1.5 x 1.5). It will be (your damage X (1 + 0.5 + 0.5)). Which is why we’re not doing 7/7/7 builds with Warfare, Huntsman and Scoundrel (triple multiplication is so much better than double).Stat-wise, your average distribution will be 4:1. 4 to the main stat, 1 to Memory. That's for the full party members. Once you feel like you have enough Memory (it depends on your personal preference), just max out the main stat. Rest can be put into Secondary one – that’s Constitution or Wits, depending on what does the character need.Lone wolves instead go for the 2:2:1:1. That's main damage stat : constitution : wits : memory. And they probably won't need more than 2-3 points invested in memory. By the end of the game, they'll have their main stat & Con maxed out and they'll have almost full Wits in addition to that. That means that all LW builds will be relying on criticals to dish out the necessary volumes of damage.You’ll probably finish the game at level 20 – that’s 41 attribute points, 21 ability points and 6 talents. Talents are pretty scarce in this game so these choices matter a lot.