I am level 10 with 14 ability points and 44 stat points after respect. I currently have 55 strength 41 vitality & 42 speed.
I have Felicities curved blade and the prison shanker equipped to Sonney (100 physical piercing, 2 strength, 2 vitality) & Veradux's original weapon (3spe, 5inst 5str 46 lightning piercing) equipped to him. Roald has joined my party. I have two other weapons to choose from Persecution (two handed 7sp 5in 12st 7vi, but doesn't do as much as sonneys two blades in damage)& frosted light (two handed 5sp 14in 23vi 16phys def)
I have two maxed adrenaline (the boost of attack and healing without mana cost as well as the boost to focus regen I find to be very useful) 2 maxed distrupts. 1 level 2 reform. 1 level 1 break, plus of course leading edge and destroy. Passive skills I have maxed integrity and 1 savagery.
I try to disrupt the knight first so that he can't guard and cause other such spell problems as often, then a mage or two. It usually isn't much use since they can get 50 focus in a turn, but at least it costs them that turn. Which is why I usually wait for disrupting the mages till I am starting to get into trouble.
I adrenaline Veradux so he can heal better (less stops to do his focus attack and more effective heal too) Or his target sometimes if ver is doing good with focus.
The problem is their doom. Once they doom a unit, it usually is toast, even reform only does a little bit (without doom, a adrenaline/reform combo means a full heal, with doom, it barely does 200)
I tried maxing out vitality, integrity, disrupt, getting crystallize (only can get it to level 1, which means two lousy turns) reform, equipping the staff. This was able to punch through even doom(unless there were two) but my stupid allies would wound down one mage till it was near death, it would rehealth. They would attack the next mage,(sometimes stray allie fire would randomly hit it so it would be lower health then the one that just healed itself) Plus often the knight would then guard the mage making things worse, and disrupt usually won't get ride of it. So it would seesaw like this, my allies always focusing on the wrong unit. Crystallization often wouldn't work because they end up attacking it the first round, and it only lasts two rounds with a pretty big cool down time and focus cost. That was a long hard slug where I eventually lost anyway.
Max out crystallise and equip too your action bar twice along with a subversion. I'd go 2 reform and an adrenaline, but you can go 3 reforms. Also go 2 disrupts.
Crystallise the TOP Mage. DO NOT CRYSTALLISE THE BOTTOM MAGE. (The AI will USUALLY cast buffs on the uppermost unit, in this case a guard, regardless if there crystallised or not) Keep the mage and knight with as little mana as possible all the while having Roald and you with your leading strike attacking the mage. Now the key is to hit him with a well timed subversion killing him, from memory he heals when he drops below 500 HP, when he does this subvert him.
You also need to keep the top most mage crystallised untill both other units are dead.
Note: When your crystallising ALWAYS target the top unit.
I told you in my original post that I can't max out crystallise. I can only get 1 rank in it because of my level. Which means it lasts two rounds, including the round it is cast. Which means it doesn't help me survive all that much. It also means with its 70 casting cost, by the time I've recovered from casting it, it is already gone.
Subverting the heal, interesting, my other thought was just hitting him with 600 damage or so. With agile exposure or the theblades and sharp senses. But the problem is that you can get in so much trouble in a single turn, either having to put everything into keeping a unit alive or risking it dying. This happens regularly. So its hard to focus on getting to that point when every turn you have to worry about characters drying.
I would note that from memory, the mage doesn't site below 500 for a around waiting for a attack. The heal and double damage thing happens before you can do anything, so you need to anticipate the unit going below 500, if you think a allie will attack it and bump it below 500, it may miss or use a attack you didn't expect, leaving you with a subversation roald may heal the enemy with on the next turn. And then you have to wait for subversion to come back, and you have a mage hovering at 500 and allies who literally can't wait to attack it.
Also there isn't enough space for all the stuff you suggest without removing leading strike and destroy. Those abilities are necessary to guide allies to attacking the right unit and leading strike is very useful for regaining focus.
I used the blades, vicious strike at max, sharp senses at second level, and maxed out speed. Then I just attacked and attacked with some crystal stunning. The vicious strike with sharp senses did about 440 damage or so. So I had to time my attack right with my allies.
Your tip with targeting the lower mage was very helpful BTW thank you.
