This guide is intended to assist in making character development decisions. This is my opinion, and I don't claim that this is the only viable build. However, I do claim that this build is extremely effective and can easily defeat every enemy in the game.
Before I begin reviewing skills individually, a statement of design philosophy and some perspective.
My goal is to beat the game efficiently. This build is designed to win fights quickly and easily, not to do so with any particular style in mind. The things I value are power and consistency. Power means big numbers. Consistency means there's nothing your enemy can do to prevent you from using your strategy.
With that in mind, I will make the case that the Electric path is by far the best approach to building this character. Specifically that Shock Therapy is the best attack available to this character.
Finally, keep in mind the role of your team-mates. Roald is useless and the best job he can do is distract the enemy. Sometimes he grows a brain and uses a well timed stun or silence, and these are wonderful abilities if only he would use them at the right time more reliably. His damage will never be better than mediocre. Veradux on the other hand is a key player. His healing is the main thing that keeps you alive and you should keep him on defensive or phalanx stance at all times and work primarily on boosting his healing powers (it seems to scale primarily with Strength).
Here is the detailed review of each skill:
Starting Skills
Dark Infusion - This is extremely bad. You may need to use it at the beginning of the came to regen some focus (before you have access to Electric Storm). The damage is totally mediocre and having to deal with giving your enemy free focus is annoying. Using it on yourself is unacceptable except when you have no choice.
Corruption - this actually does very good damage during the early game, before you've developed a better attack. Its not unreasonable to set it up with a Dark Echoes or something. It does however, eat up Focus very quickly and should be dropped when better alternatives are available.
Dark Echoes - This is a reasonable attack but its damage never gets to be particularly good. The best thing about it is the low focus cost and the low cooldown, its a good set-up for stronger Shadow damage abilities. Ultimately you'll stop using this at some point in zone 2 when you switch to full electric and no longer use Shadow attacks.
Placebo - useless. low damage, weak debuff, nothing to see here.
Nerve Shock - same as Placebo. skip it.
Terrify - the damage is mediocre but the heal-over-time is moderately useful. However...Veradux is your healer, you shouldn't need any other healing if you're doing it right.
Free Will - One of the best abilities for the class. Recommend maxing this one. The dispelling abilities are critically useful and the damage shield will bail you out on a regular basis since sometimes Veradux falls a little bit behind. The heal-over-time is just bonus, it isn't the real reason you use this ability but its still nice.
Traumatize- Another extremely good ability and a low point commitment to max it as well, so its quite good. This is good for stalling for time to put hard hitting enemies out of the fight while Veradux catches up on healing. This is also very useful for managing cooldowns and ability durations. For example, you can stun enemies with short duration buffs on them so they miss their window of opportunity. The focus drain component is just gravy, though it is critically useful in the Baron fight.
Destruction - this can only be used on allies, not yourself. neither of your allies has good damage, not even Roald wearing full Strength gear. you're the damage dealer of the party. skip this one.
Betrayal - pure garbage. This only works when its set up ahead of time with Retrograde. If something goes wrong you either wasted two turns or perhaps you even just nailed one of your allies for a large amount. Way too tricky. Way too inconsistent. Leave it alone.
Retrograde - also garbage. way too inconsistent. yes i know this has funny combos with Nightmare and Betrayal and whatever else you can think of. Thats all tricky non-sense and you don't need to waste your time doing that. at 2 points you can also use this on enemies. there are no fights in the game that require you to do so though so you can safely ignore that tactic.
Confinement - this is actually quite useful against enemies that heal alot. however...you can view healing prevented as some form of damage dealt, in the end they're totally equivalent. if you can use the skill points (and slots on your ability wheel) to do more damage than the equivalent healing prevented than you should. i was always able to find a more effective damage increase compared to the healing decrease. damage increase is also generically useful against all enemies, even one that don't heal.
Shock Therapy - This is the best attack the class has. Max this, put 3 copies of it on your ability wheel, zap the crap out of every enemy you see. the 330% instinct co-efficient is superb, basically unmatched. the fact that this is ALSO a buff dispelling ability makes this unparalleled in its level of utility. Simply the best thing going and the focal point of this build.
Salvation - this is an extremely worthwhile buff. once you max this, you should find that Veradux no longer has any problems keeping pace with incoming damage. It also keeps him alive longer and boosts his focus regen. Really you couldn't ask for anything better. This is mandatory and the reason why you can trust Veradux to do all of your healing.
Insecurity - this would be an important skill if we were attempting to use Shadow damage. We're not though, so you can ignore it completely.
Overdrive - this is broken and bugged and totally malfunctioning. don't waste your time. even if it worked as advertise, you simply don't need to accept a life-loss penalty to get good damage. this is never a good trade-off. the risk/reward calculus fails on this one.
High Voltage - less damage than Shock Therapy without the dispel, and in fact it buffs your enemy. Super Awful. 1 point for pre-requisite advancement but never use this.
Tenacity - its very powerful but its usefulness is totally related to whether or not you're actually dying. You can use this as a place to dump extra skill points but if you're doing things correctly you'll kill so fast that the extra survivability of this ability isn't especially important. I usually just put 1 point in here.
Epiphany - this is an actually good Shadow damage ability but its so far down the tree and requires so many points wasted in other garbage abilities that I can't justify building around this.
Electron Charge - same as High Voltage. less damage and overall just worse than Shock Therapy. don't bother.
Electrical Storm - another core ability of this build. it does respectable damage (though noticeably less than Shock Therapy) but ITS TOTALLY FREE and it regens 40 focus. Max it, love it, lean on it, it drives the build.
Charged Blood - the damage passive that makes this build truly deadly. max it, no explanation should be necessary. this is what makes your crits gigantic.
Wraith Form - this is a very powerful ability but strictly speaking you don't need it. I use it because the Speed increase is gigantic and usually gives you 4 turns in a row of guaranteed massive crits. that kind of burst damage is devastating and most opponents can't withstand it. the focus regen from this is convenient but not that important since you've got Electrical Storm.
Nightmare - more tricky garbage. you can try to use this as a finisher or you can try to combine this with Retrograde and hit yourself with it, but in either case thats an inconsistent situation and you don't ever need this. Skip it.
Haunt - re-spec and get this 2/2 for the Baron fight. thats the only time in the whole game you need this. skip it otherwise.
Psychopath Form - this is exceptionally powerful but requires you to be invested in garbage like Betrayal, Retrograde, and Overdrive. If you could get this without having to take Garbage it would be ridiculously awesome. As is this is like the consolation prize for playing a bad build. It doesn't make up for the weakness of the rest of the Shadow Damage stuff.
Shock Coma - this is cute and mildly useful. Its versatile, as you can use it to crowd control an enemy for a long time or to recover your own stuff. However...you have better options for both crowd control and recover so really this is second rate at either task and thus should not be used.
Ultimatum - pure trash.
Sacrifice - this is funny. sometimes you might REALLY want to just eat Roald. ultimately though you may as well keep him around to absorb hits and save yourself the wasted skill points and ability wheel slot.
Implosion - i've yet to find a situation where this would matter. waste of points/slots. another one of those tricky Shadow abilities that requires way too much set up.
So if you've stayed with me this whole time, thanks for reading. I hope you found this useful. Before I finish I'll leave you with my most typical equipment choices and ability load-outs.
Ability Wheel Load-Out 1. Shock Therapy 2. Shock Therapy 3. Shock Therapy 4. Electric Storm 5. Traumatize 6. Free Will 7. Salvation 8. Wraith Form
Equipment Choices Primary Stats: Instinct and Lightning Piercing Secondary Stats: Vitality and Speed Tertiary Stats: whatever miscellaneous defense you can find
the Electric Armor set from Zone 4 (the Tunnel) is actually extremely useful. You can equip it starting at level 18 and is good enough to last through the end-game. If you're especially lucky you'll find a really good weapon with high Lightning Piercing like Poseidon's Trident (or whatever its called).
With this build its typical to crit for 3500+ with your Shock Therapy. More or less depending on buffs/debuffs and the Lightning Defense level of your opponent.
In Wraith Form you can go on Offensive kill streaks where you unload 4 attacks in a row for a total of about 14,000 damage in 4 turns (3 Shock Therapy crits, and 1 Electric Storm crit). This is enough damage to blow away any regular enemy in the game. Only bosses can survive a round of this. Bosses usually die in the 2nd round of Wraith Form though.
My psyco has 681 instinct, just set all points in this attribute. And then all my equip have the highest instict atrribute. Broken Promise (Speed+18, Instinct +54, Vitality +18, Fire Defense+45) Jhonson's Legacy (Speed+5, Instinct+71, Vitality+14, Fire Defense+45) Hallowed Gloves (Speed+7, Instinct+55, Vitality+7) Bite Proof Pants (Speed+22, instinct+36, Vitality+15) Calf Hooks (Speed+8, Instinct+24, Vitality+47) Wrath Of The Council [Two handed weapon(Instinct+152, Ice/Lighting/Poison piercing+81)] And I haven't already unlock zone 7
Dark Infusion, corruption, dark echoes, terrify, psychopath form, epiphany, free will and implosion in your pool, overdrive and tenacity as passive skill it's all you need. And you have still 4 point to use at lv 30 (the max). just go in psychopath, do epiphany, dark infusion, dark infusion, dark echoes and implosion and you enemy's HP bar just go down so quickly (Just bosses resist to this combo, regular enemis die before, at the firs dark infusion). Keep your teammates in relentless (also veradux xD) just see you enemies die. Give to Ronald EmbedRifle 2012 (+411 fire piercing) and see his 2k+ damage (veradux does 100 damage and 1k with electrobolt but who cares, enemies die for my uber DoT caused by epiphany) and it's what you need. At my advise, is the best shadow build.
Sometimes i might have to highly disagree with this post becaz i have some of the moves u say ae garbge nd they help very much, but this is just my opinoin. But the way u described it helped me out alot thx B^)
i really need help on the mayor and guardian cannon, just any help would be nice, just dont say keep on training and you will beat him, i have the skills from this guide and i really need help, so please help!
the baron isint really that hard, all you need to do is have a build that criticals often, and wait for 'holy scars' or 'deep burning' or whatever its called, then bash him, and wait, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE FREE WILL AND SALVATION AT ALL TIMES!!!!!! also, destruction is useful as it upgrades your damage output and reduces damage, and i got posidens fury, with is the trident everyones been drooling over, i got it when i first enterd the tunnle from the cocroach monster, and make sure to keep your instint very high, 90% of psycholigical skills depend upon it, and if you really want to go for dark, make sure to kep your vitality high too, because youll be smacking yourself with dark infuseion for about 50% of your fights to get your focus back.
1: if the word medic is in there name, or if they start to heal or use a shield, kill them quick, they will be a major pain through the fight
2:high hits is good, criticals are better: if you can build your charater so he criticals alot, DO IT
3:not going down in one hit: keep your vitality high, especally when going with the darkness build, because again youll be smacking yourself with dark infuseion to get your focus back alot
4:keep to your element: dont just start buying everything, stick with eather electric or dark untill you beat the game/ get an ass kick build, as then it just dosent matter.
BARON tips: holy scars is your best bet for killing him, dont really hit him unless he has it, spend your time healing and buffing, youll need it, also, again, lots of crits are important.
MAYOR tips: TAKE OUT THE CANNON FIRST!!! if you dont, its going to be one hell of a fight, then just wither away at his hp untill he dies, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE FREE WILL AND SALVATION USE THEM AS MUTCH AS YOU CAN.
The following order of moves will take out any lone enemy eventually (not the 5 hit KO): shock coma (2/3) electrical storm retrograde (2/2) traumatize (2/2) electrical storm traumatize confinement (4/4) shock coma electrical storm
It would take 14 rounds of this, but the enemy is stunned indefinitely. With overdrive, you can do it in 7 rounds, but you'd need to have veradux heal you, or replace the first two electrical storms with free will.
Against the time bomb, you can take it out in 26 turns using nothing but shock coma (2/3), confinement (4/4), and retrograde (2/2). You have to have overdrive turned on for this, so you would want to spend your cool down turns healing. The order here would be: shock coma shock coma retrograde confinement 8 turns of nothing/healing confinement 2 turns of nothing/healing shock coma 1 turn of nothing/healing retrograde 3 turns of nothing/healing confinement shock coma shock coma retrograde
i use alot of pshychological skills, and i got to say, you think like me, smart, eficient, perfect just a few tings i would change, but since this is rather old you probably found this out by now:
so if you wanna use ST (shock therapy) but don't wanna waster focus, you use ST three times and then use electrical storm
another thing i use is this: 1: wraith form 2: sacrefice (Veradux) 3: sacrefice (Ronald) 4: SHOCK THERAPY it crits at +1.000.000 damage
so i wish this has helped you
PLEASE READ THIS: oh and i have a sonny 2 contest and would like evryone to join, even you, transitive i would like evryone to fight me oh and be equiped with a stunning abilitie and\\or lightning defence muahahaHAHAHA stuning abilities: biological: break hydraulic: next to frost in the skill tree phychological: traumatise
i hope this help'd you some more and i wish taht you sign up for my sonny 2 contest PLEASE REPLY ON MY PROFILE IF YES or if you want more pro advice (not saying transitive isn't a pro ^^) BYE!!
