Wantless: Fear Hit Damage Build

Decided to create a second guide, sharing my main build for this game. The build features fear hit damage as its main damage source. With a focus on clearing rooms on turn one, though that won’t be achievable until roughly mid to late game.

I’ll be dividing my guide into several sections to cover what mind tree perks to choose and important synapses to collect followed by how to use the build in different parts of the game. I categorize the different parts as follows:

• Early Game – From the beginning at Tier I patients to the the beginning of Tier III patients or until you reach Frontier. Frontier is where you get a key synapse to the build and helps the grind by speeding up the average time per run.
• Mid Game – I would say this covers most Tier III to Tier IV and nearing the end of the story. At this point I would slowly expect to be clearing rooms in one turn especially as the locations become Tier IV-only locations.
• Late Game – At this point this would include the last few towns as well as the story wrap up. From here on it’s just fine tuning damage and buffs. In general you should be able to clear rooms in one turn, including boss fights. On average runs are under 5 minutes.

The guide is still be rough around the edges, but I will be modifying it as I have time to hopefully improve clarity and ease of use.

The core perks required for this build to work well are the following (in the order of priority):

1. Self-Knowledge – Restore +1 AP when enemy is killed while Isolated (No enemy adjacent to you)
2. Elegance – Restores +1 AP for any entity death. (With the exception of impulses)
3. Pragmatism – Reduces your cooldowns by 1 when an entity dies from fear damage.

The first two are absolutely necessary to improve AP management and to make it possible to keep using Cruel-Tri Perputation (the unique 3/0 Efficiency Synapse) to sweep rooms in one turn. It also enables the AP/turn modifier on damage synapse to become more effective. Before getting those two perks, it is best not to try and spend too much AP in a turn.

Pragmatism is fantastic for cutting down the cooldown for mobility and utility skills, and is the main reason why the build is fear focused. Though the mobility skills become less useful, once you get to a point where haste allows you to move 9 tiles for 1 AP.

By the time you get all three of the core perks, you likely will want to start focusing on more utility based big node perks like:

• Electism – Adds an effect slot for all your skills, and reduces the minimum cooldown for synapse by 1. This is VERY useful, allowing you to add up effects into a single skill instead of two separate skills. Though of course you’ll need to watch your discipline.
• Self-Destruction – Increases the buff/debuff from Berserk by 50%. Helps Berserk become more relevant before any synapse modifiers. This is important as the build transitions from simply using sharpen to include berserk.
• Vision – Adds +1 range. Around this point haste can be used to increase mobility, but not enough yet to offset the usefulness of +1 range.
• Resourcefulness – For the trinket slot. Getting the ones closest to what you have already unlocked is good. Gear also starts becoming more relevant.
• Introversion – Gives 3 HP per 100 discipline. Nice to have for more HP, as the goal is to slowly shift to using Blood Burst.
• Patience – Gives 50 HP per unique positive effect on allies. Again useful to have to slowly increase the max HP pool for blood burst.

There is less of a strict order at this point, but I would likely pick up Electism followed by whatever is close to what I’ve already unlocked. Electism opens up a lot more flexibility for skills.

At late game, there’s a bit more flexibility in terms of what to get first, but I would likely aim for at least following perks:

• Commitment – Doubles the Efficiency Synapse’s power bonus. At this point higher AP’s should really be part of your skill set. For example, buffs and single target damage skills should have 6-8 AP. The doubled bonus helps make higher AP synapse more useful.
• Resourcefulness – To unlock the remaining trinket slots. There are four in total.

Another easy way to boost damage is to aim for the following three perks and create a self affliction skill:

• Masochism – Gaining effect power/stack every time damage is taken. Easily triggered with wound/fragilize and walking around.
• Self-Disgust – Causes you to swell (Increased damage/HP) whenever you are debuffed and allows friendly fire. Again easily triggered using weak afflictions like poison, wound, fragilize, or hyper-empathy.
• Violence – Increased damage and damage resistance whenever pain damage is observed. Synergizes well with the previous two perks.

Some of the more optional perks depending on your preference are:

• Recklessness – Boosts health by 20% at the cost of discipline. Any bit of health can go a long way to boosting Blood Burst damage. This all comes down to if you have spare discipline though.
• Humility – Boosts ranged damage at the cost of dealing no melee damage. It’s not too hard to avoid being in melee range, but I find I occasionally enjoy the flexibility to be up close and personal. Though again there are quite a few perks you would likely grab that encourage staying at a distance anyway.
• Frenzy – Boosts damage per stack and stacks are gained on entity death. Only reason I consider this as optional is because it’s kind of out there and somewhat far from most other perks that you would want. Though definitely a strong perk.

Finally, for the master mind perk:

• Limitless Learning – Boosts damage based on used AP. With this build, you can easily reach max stacks and take advantage of that +150% to all damage.

Here are pictures of my current level 100 mind tree for this build:

This section provides a breakdown of the skills I use at the different stages of the game. Note the images are from a late game save, so they should be used more as a reference as the values will be quite different than early and mid game.

There are primarily Four types of skills I create for the beginning of the game:

• Single Target Damage Skill – Primarily intended for bosses
• Multi-Target Damage Skill – Used for room clearing
• Buff/Heal Skill – Small sustain and damage boost
• Mobility Skill – Absolutely necessary to help get to places for a reduced AP cost.

I usually double up on the mobility skill so that I can make sure I can still move in case one is on cooldown.

Early on Strike is the main source of damage. You can consider putting daze, break or whatever helps you beat bosses on it as well depending on how much discipline is available. Though having only strike does allow the skill to be used even if you are silenced, but silence is typically rare in early game. I also didn’t find discipline too much of an issue at the start of my latest save. At its core it should at a minimum look like the following:

Localized can be swapped out with an ranged single target form. The efficiency synapse is discipline heavy but is required to maintain damage.

Again Strike is still the main if not the only hit damage synapse at this point. If you do get early blood burst, it’s usually not worth using as your HP is likely too abysmally low to even consider it. Again pretty straightforward, I put break on mine since this is the more general purpose damage dealer and meant to clear rooms. It should like something like the following:

Break does need to go before Strike so that the lowered defense takes effect before Strike’s damage calculation. You can swap out the form to any AOE form of your preference, but I enjoyed the flexibility of Aerial.

Again pretty straightforward. Simple inner/heal, though when you get Sharpen I would add that on as well. This skill is meant to transition into a complete buff skill later, but mainly provides sustain for now.

The first dash skill can be maintained, though I would switch to flash the moment you get access to it. The main advantage dash has, is that it can’t be silenced, but again I found silence rarely occurred early on.

At this point I split the buff skill into two skills:

• Damage Buff Skill – Damage booster
• Utility Buff Skill – Utility buffs like dancer

I also change some of the synapse that I use. One major change being a slow transition to blood burst as I get more HP in mid game, and the addition of Drain to my damage skills for sustain.

At this point, I would slowly remove the debuffs from my damage skills expecting to eventually use berserk. If you want to keep the debuff effects, you can always put recuperate on the skill, but it would greatly increase the discipline cost.

Once you have acquired the unique 3/0 efficiency synapse put it on this skill to clear enemies quickly and allow you to sweep rooms in a turn.

With drain, it is no longer necessary to have heal. Instead we want to slowly transition into using berserk. To avoid the berserk silence there are a few solutions: Put recuperate on all your skills (High Discipline Cost), don’t use support effects, or make sure to do skills in a certain order. I tend to use all three methods depending on the skill. At this point, I would work towards leaving out support effects on damage skills, putting recuperate on mobility skills and doing buff skills in a certain order. I like my buffs to be a net 0 AP cost or recover more ap, so if rewind recovers 3 AP, I would use a 3 AP efficiency synapse. Cooldown should also matter less at this point due to Pragmatism, so I would end up with a 3/5 efficiency synapse.

Not all buffs seem to benefit from the efficiency power bonus, so I have this separate skill at 2 AP cost for those effects. Dancer is the main effect here, as it adds yet another AP restored on kill, potentially providing a net AP gain on kills.

I switch to completely using flash at this point. Also adding in recuperate to avoid berserk’s silence. If you have enough discipline, I would also add rewind so that my mobility skills cost me net 0 AP.

In late game, I simply add a few more utility skills that help trigger mind tree perks (Eg. Violence or Masochism) and modifier boosts (Eg. +% Effect power on targets affected by Regen).
I also add quite a number of effects to the various skills depending on how much discipline I have. Damage skills should be completely reliant on blood burst as the main damage source.

With enough discipline, we should be able to add recuperate to the skill and add effects like shriek or break. Drain and Blood burst should still be on here. I would also upgrade to targeted if it hasn’t already been during mid game.

It’s harder to add recuperate and shriek/break with the unique 3/0 efficiency synapse’s discipline cost. However, with [spoilers]Mantle of the Voiceless[/spoilers] you can switch to other 0 CD efficiency synapses. Though at the same time with the “Single-mindedness” perk it may actually be beneficial to have it at high discipline cost.

This buff skill should have enough AP restored on it using only rewind II so that eventually an 8/5 efficiency synapse can be used on it. I would also add supercharged with the “Supercharges any effect” modifier to instantly boost the buff from Berserk and Sharpen even higher. Haste works well here as it can be boosted to 9 tiles per AP.

Not much change here. I would just add things like regen, thorns, barrier or whatever is required by the Berserk/Sharpen power modifiers. It would also be beneficial to increase the AP restored by Rewind through modifiers too.

This is a very straightforward and cheap skill to make. I use intoxicate, poison, fragilize and wound to trigger three perks in the Mind Tree. Use the weakest effect synapses you have here, it’s only meant as a trigger. Though if you want you can make it strong to also try and take advantage of the +% effect power per 500 missing HP perks.

No change here.

The following are the core synapses used in this build:

• Cruel Tri-Perpetuation (Unique 3/0 Synapse)
• Strike
• Drain
• Blood Burst
• Sharpen
• Berserk
• Recuperate
• Flash
• Rewind
• Supercharge
• Dancer
• Haste
• Targeted
• Precise
• Aerial
• Inner

I have not included the efficiency synapses since that can vary quite a bit, but for early game focus on the 2 AP synapses.

The following is a list of additional synapses to look out for that can be used to synthesize the core synapses used in the build:

• Break
• Mark
• Dash
• Twin
• Shuddering

The following sections cover what modifiers to look out for in the core synapses of the build.

Desirable modifiers differ depending on the skill it’s for: Multi-target or single-target.

• +x% Damage per AP Spent this turn
• +x% Power
• Penetrates x% of the target’s resistance
• +x% Damage per skill cooldown (Late game only or when you start making this skill a 5 CD skill)
• +x% Damage if no enemy is adjacent to you (Isolated)
• Deals x% more damage when hitting a single target
• +x% Damage per distance to the target

• +x% Damage per AP Spent this turn
• +x% Power
• Penetrates x% of the target’s resistance
• +x% Damage if no enemy is adjacent to you (Isolated)
• +x% Damage per distance to the target
• +x% Damage for each time you’ve used this skill in this room.

• +x% Power
• +x% Power on targets affected by X Buff (Don’t take the invisible/concealed ones)

• -x% Discipline Cost

• -x% Discipline Cost
• +1 Skill Range
• +x Skill range when hasted

• +1 AP Restored (This one is a must)
• +1 AP Restored on target affected by X Buff (Don’t take the invisible/concealed ones)
• Excess restored AP is stored as Overcharge

Desirable modifiers differ depending on if it is used as a buff booster or a hit damage booster.

• Supercharged skill costs +1 AP. Increases bonus to x%.
• Supercharged skill costs -x AP, but never less than 1. (This will reduce any ap cost beyond x bonuses or per ap cost bonus)
• Grants 1 Overcharge on expiration.
• Supercharges any effect, not just damage. Reduces bonus from 200% to x%.

• Supercharged skill costs +1 AP. Increases bonus to x%.
• Supercharged skill costs -x AP, but never less than 1. (This will reduce any ap cost beyond x bonuses or per ap cost bonus)
• Grants 1 Overcharge on expiration.

• -x% Discipline Cost
• Grants 1 Overcharge on expiration.

• -x% Discipline Cost
• Grants 1 Overcharge on expiration.
• Effect lasts x additional turns

Desirable modifiers depends if it is for the damage or mobility skill.

• +x% Power to Blood Burst effects
• +x% Power to Strike effects
• +x% Power to Break effects
• +x% Power to Shriek effects
• +x% Power to Drain effects
• +x% more effect power when affecting a single target

• +x Skill Range
• +x Skill Range with teleport effect

• +x% Power to Blood Burst effects
• +x% Power to Strike effects
• +x% Power to Break effects
• +x% Power to Shriek effects
• +x% Power to Drain effects
• +x Skill Range

• +x% Power to Sharpen effects
• +x% Power to Berserk effects
• +x% more effect power when affecting a single target

The build doesn’t really require any unique gear to work well. It mainly comes down to the following prioritized list of modifiers:

1. Buff Efficiency
2. Hit Damage Dealt
3. Fear Damage Dealt
4. % Total Discipline
5. % Total Health
6. Ranged Hit Damage Dealt

Early game is tough, but typically consists of using one skill per turn and limiting your AP usage to 2-4. To avoid being overrun, move closer to enemies but don’t attack. Use your mobility skill if you find yourself close to being cornered. Once an enemy is in range use either of your damage skills, ideally killing at least one target instantly. If the enemy is far enough from other enemies or is the last enemy you can spend the extra AP if you are guaranteed the kill. Alternating between mobility and heal skills in cases where you are low on HP. If your mobility skill can reach 4+ tiles it allows you to sneak in a heal as well with little chance of retaliation.

This is where I found the daze on the single target skill useful. The main idea being some debuff that can help stall for time. Typically the early bosses are harder to one hit, unless you really over grind. With break on my aoe, I would be able to alternate between the two attack skills and usually kill the boss before having to daze them a third time. Typically I would open the fight using the following order of my skills:
Turn 1 – Dash/Flash closer to the boss; Buff if I can’t hit the boss
Turn 2 – Daze/Damage the boss
Turn 3 – Hit the boss with my other damage skill

I would then alternate between damage skills or run/heal if I am low on HP.

With the unique 3/0 efficiency synapse, I would slowly challenge myself to finish rooms in one go. If I can’t do that then I would grind some lower tier patients at max depth, and slowly work my way up the patient tiers. Generally, on the first map, I would use my utility buff followed by an awakened damage buff, and then use my multi target skill to work through the enemies. Using my mobility skill to go around. Haste does wonders as well to help reach distant enemies.

If you run out of AP to use the damage skill, I would usually use the remaining AP to run from the remaining enemies which can be quite far if you are hasted. Usually, it would buy enough time for the next turn to come and for the onslaught to continue.

Daze may still be used, but if you start using Berserk, then it’s usually best to try to maximize your damage to do at worst 4 hit kills. Typically for mid game I would open the fight using the following order of my skills:
Turn 1 – Buff and move closer to the boss
Turn 2 – Use the single target damage skill
Turn 3 – If it’s not dead use the multi target damage skill

With haste or long range mobility skills, it is pretty easy to run and heal or run and attack. So if you fail to kill it in one or two hits, you can hit and run instead. If your skills are on cooldown move one AP worth of tiles at a time.

Same as mid game, I would start off with the following skills:
Self Affliction Skill (Mind Tree Perk Trigger) – This will greatly boost the bonuses from my buffs
Utility Skill – Provides all the buffs required to further boost the bonuses from berserk/rewind/sharpen
Damage Buff Skill – At this point should be boosted by the previous two skills to provide a massive hit damage buff

By opening with buffs, I can easily sweep rooms in one turn by killing everything in one hit using my multi target skill. If there’s any rare/epic/legendary enemy, I usually kill it last if I notice I can’t kill it in one hit. This is due to all the AP/Turn damage boosts, like the master perk Limitless Learning from the mind tree.

For late game, I would open the fight using the following order of my skills:
Turn 1 – Buff sequence, followed by single target damage skill and multi target damage skill

Any longer than that, and you just hit and run.