General Information

Depending on the size of your party, different classes and builds may be more useful or fun than others. Still, it is important to remember that even on the hardest difficulties, almost every playstyle and build is viable once the combat basics are understood. Please feel free to add your party compositions below if they are not there.

Know that taking the lone wolf talent prevents that character from recruiting a companion, lowering the maximum party size by one. This generally increases the difficulty of the game because more enemy attacks are focused on fewer characters. Defense against CC also become much more important.

Things Every Party Wants

• Elemental Damage - usually in the form of spells and/or special arrows.
  • Important throughout the entire game, but most of all in the early game when enemy resistances and the player's physical damage output are lower.
  • Utilize elemental combos effectively (poison + fire, oil + fire, wet + air damage, wet + freeze, etc).
• Physical Damage - usually in the form of weapon auto-attacks and Man-At-Arms/Scoundrel/Expert Marksman skills
  • Most important in the late game when enemy resistances become greater and players find/buy/craft better weapons.
• Crowd Control (CC) - usually in the form of spells and/or special arrows.
  • Many mages can put just one ability point into the schools they don't focus on to gain some useful CC.
  • The enemy can't attack if they are too busy being frozen solid or knocked down!
• Damage Soak/Tank - usually in the form of a heavily armored character or summoned creatures.
  • Charmed enemies also serve this purpose.
• Leadership - many bonuses to all characters who can see the leader.
  • Best on main characters because traits can get you to leadership 6. Best to take on 2 part members to give the bonuses to everyone
• Crafting and blacksmithing - although its possible to do without (and some players do because it can be annoying/time consuming sometimes), there are many benefits to having a crafter in the party
  • Crafting is much more important, but if you have at least one character who equips metal weapons and/or armor, you want blacksmithing too.
• Loremaster - gives important information about enemies
  • Especially important if you haven't played the game before.
  • Important levels: 1 shows elemental and physical resistances, 3 shows bodybuilding and willpower, 5 shows initiative and AP

Four Person Party Compositions

• Two handed warrior, geo/pyro mage, hydro/aero mage, bow ranger
  • Basic party that is able to adapt to many situations due to its wide variety of skills. May become boring to players experienced in RPG games because of the cookie-cutter builds.
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Three Person Party Compositions (aka 1 lone wolf main character)

• Death knight, crossbow ranger, support mage
  • Lone wolf death knight and summons are tanks, support mage for buffs and CC, crossbow ranger as main dps in late game
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Two Person Party Compositions (aka 2 lone wolf main characters)

• Mage, crossbow ranger
  • Mage for CC, summons, and early game elemental damage, ranger for late game physical damage

• Scoundrel/Aero/Witch Dual-Wielder Shadowblade, Hydro/Aero/Witch Mage
  • CC galore: primarily stuns (from aero) with strong opponents debuffed with Drain Will, two summons/charmed enemies tank; once field under control, shadowblade buffed with Oath of Desecration, Melee Power Stance, Rage and 'Bully' talent starts picking off enemies while mage keeps field under control and debuffs the strong foes with Slow Current to trigger bully.
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