Having just now finished my first playthrough of the game, I’m left conflicted. While the last Act is incredibly abrupt I get the distinct feeling I’ve missed a large chunk of content, which is supported by some comments I’ve seen elsewhere regarding getting artifact-hunting quests from the Assassin archon (which I couldn’t get because he refused to support me). I definitely missed some stuff in the second Act, as I was never able to do the Lethian’s Crossing quests.
After siding with the Chorus in the first Act, the Voices mentioned there being problems at the Crossing and the Library. But you’re only allowed to accept one location; either go to the Crossing or go to the Library. I chose the latter and then after returning was given another choice, this time the Crossing or the Blade Grave. This is the point I may have messed up, as after choosing the Blade Grave there was never an option to handle the Crossing situation (permanently locking the Oldwalls area there, meaning I was also prevented from fully exploring the Blade Grave Oldwalls since those have areas that require torchkeys presumably found in the Crossing). I hope it’s not the case that you’re actively prevented from going to all 3 locations in one playthrough, as that would would be a pretty dick move.
Speaking of, I plan to play this at least once more, siding with the Disfavored in Act 1 this time, to see just how much the choices you’re given actually do matter. The results of this playthrough seemed pretty haphazard and chaotic despite consistently siding with one side and even winning Tunon over. I’ll probably put the difficulty on ‘Story’ though, as when playing through on ‘Hard’ the battles weren’t so much hard as just tedious. At least until I hit 13th/14th level and everything just melted; Lantry casting lightning spells and enchanting weapons to launch huge pillars of flame, Sirin doing constant arcane damage and causing fear with her songs, Shadows ripping things up with a greataxe, and then my PC casting disabling Illusion spells and multi-striking with dual-wielded artifacts.
Some things to take note of for the early game:
- Avoid picking any starting magic skill, as the Core Sigils they grant are all found early (Atrophy is just to the left of the entrance of Echocall Crossing, in a hidden cache).
- Choose either Parry or Dodge to focus on, as there are Talents available that let you use one skill (Parry for the Agility tree and Dodge for the Ranged tree) to defend against all attack types.
- The maximum value you can raise an attribute to at level-up is 19.
- Expect to hit at least 13th level.
- The Forge and Library are the two most important upgrades, Forge trumping Library, with the Training Ground coming in third since it produces Hides for the Forge. The Infirmary just lets you make consumables.
- Different trainers can train you to different ranks, the Training Grounds ones being the best at training everything (up to 150) except magic skills. The Infirmary has the best Lore trainer.
- Due to the above, if you want the highest possible Lore rating the Infirmary ends up being the most important Spire upgrade.
- For the best returns, wait to train a skill until just after it’s leveled up (training resets its experience progression).
- You won’t be able to re-visit the Act 1 areas after the Edict is resolved, so make sure to have thoroughly explored them before attacking Ascension Hall.
- The Lethian’s Crossing and Blade Grave Oldwall areas contain some of the most powerful spell accent Sigils.
- You can only betray your chosen alliance at certain key points at the start of quest branches, if you don’t at that time you’re locked into supporting it fully until the end of the branch.
- On the Chorus side for instance, if you don’t attack Jagged Remedy the moment you first meet him you apparently won’t be able to do anything with Ashe’s daughter except kill her or give her to the Voices.
- Extra weapon sets are incredibly useful, as you can use the abilities of any artifacts placed in them without having to actually wield them (and those artifacts also gain renown).
- As long as the character has a valid weapon set in their secondary slots, using a skill that doesn’t match their active set will automatically equip the valid weapons and then switch back to your default set immediately after.