Inscription Guide 1.4.9

[bpat]

Removed the mention of Fungus synergy with Healing Infusion, thanks for the correction.

Undead should almost always have two Shielding and two PD with the last slot probably being Heat Beam or a debuffer depending on you class. Injectors are way more important for Undead than for living races because Runes suck aside from Shielding and PD.

I haven't used Tinker classes or Injectors in AoA but I can give a quick rundown for EoR.

Gunslinger: Injector, Injector, Generator, Movement, Heroism. This is the least steam-hungry Tinker class so you only need one Generator. Movement is good for quick reloads.

Saw Butcher: Injector, Injector, Generator, Generator, (Movement). Uses lots of steam and also probably Steam Powered Armour so double Generator is recommended, also Heroism isn't needed because Saw Butcher has tons of defense.

Psyshot: Injector, Injector, Generator, Movement, (Heroism/Movement). Uses a medium amount of steam but late game you only need one good Generator to keep up as long as you don't waste Steam. Movement is essential for quick reloads since Psyshot reloads only one per step.

Edit: You probably don't want five Inscriptions on Psyshot and it's debatable on Saw Butcher.

[visage]

Removed the mention of Fungus synergy with Healing Infusion, thanks for the correction.

At some point you probably want to update the Wyrmic and Oozemancer entries.

Out of curiosity, why don't you have Wyrmics using Wilds?

[St_ranger_er]

Just tested that all resist actually works with sheld rune. As well as psionic mitigation tree mitigates damage to shield.

UPD: And downside of injectors that it is can't be used while sleeping. Same with Wintertide Phial.

[Zeyphor]

Removed the mention of Fungus synergy with Healing Infusion, thanks for the correction.

Undead should almost always have two Shielding and two PD with the last slot probably being Heat Beam or a debuffer depending on you class. Injectors are way more important for Undead than for living races because Runes suck aside from Shielding and PD.

I haven't used Tinker classes or Injectors in AoA but I can give a quick rundown for EoR.

Gunslinger: Injector, Injector, Generator, Movement, Heroism. This is the least steam-hungry Tinker class so you only need one Generator. Movement is good for quick reloads.

Saw Butcher: Injector, Injector, Generator, Generator, Movement. Uses lots of steam and also probably Steam Powered Armour so double Generator is recommended, also Heroism isn't needed because Saw Butcher has tons of defense.

Psyshot: Injector, Injector, Generator, Movement, Heroism/Heroism. Uses a medium amount of steam but late game you only need one good Generator to keep up as long as you don't waste Steam. Movement is essential for quick reloads since Psyshot reloads only one per step.

you do sound like you havent played tinker classes at all bpat
both gunslingers and sawbutchers want double steam generators, otherwise they just run out of steam or can't use one or more steam-draining sustains, one of which are, if applicable, steam-powered armor
also steamsaw attacks and firing steamguns cost steam

furthermore in eor theres only 3 category points, not 4

so, imo

psyshot: injector injector steam generator movement regen/healing/heroism/shield(if undead/teleport
sawbutcher: injector injector generator generator then regen/healing/shield(if undead)/movement/heroism/teleport
gunslinger: same as sawbutcher

[bpat]

Zeyphor I beat EoR Insane with all three so I actually do know what I'm talking about. The one less category point slipped my mind, but it's still best to get five Inscriptions on Gunslinger and it's debatable on Saw Butcher. I don't know how you played Gunslinger but I had no steam issues at all with a single Generator. If you are running out of Steam as Gunslinger you are probably wasting steam with talents when you should be using basic attacks. Having steam problems as Guslinger is like having paradox problems as Paradox Mage, if you drop the mentality that you need to spam talents every turn then suddenly your resource management issues disappear. The only attack talents I used for anything other than AoE were Vital Shot and Saw Shell and it worked great. Heroism gives burst protection and damage boost, Movement prevents stuns and fully reloads, and a second Steam Generator lets you waste steam on offensive talents which increases your damage by a bit. I prefer to play safely so the second Steam Generator doesn't make the cut, especially since the final boss has a tendency to do kill you from max life making Heroism essential.

[btonassse]

Maybe I'm playing this game wrong, but I think magical debuffs are underrated. It's not just Enthropy, which is annoying but not really life-threatening. It's also Hurricane and the dreaded Impending Doom. These status effects have killed my characters countless times.

[Coldbringer]

In the early to mid game two steam generators is kind of necessary I find, as they tend to be low quality, 5 to 10 steam per turn. Once you start getting in the 15 to 20 range going down to 1 becomes feasible with also running steam hogging sustains.

[bpat]

Hurricane is hard countered by Movement Infusion since if you can't be dazed, you can't be Hurricaned. Impending Doom is countered by Movement Infusion to escape and Regeneration (with some healmod, which you should always have) or Shielding. Phase Door shuts both of these down as well. Really the only scary magical statuses ones are Impending Doom and Entropy which aren't threatening if you PD or Movement away. Magical debuff removal can be nice but it's seldom worth the opportunity cost.

Double Steam Generator is excellent early and you should always spend your level 10 category point on one if playing a Tinker class. Later it becomes less necessary as you find better ones and the timing of that nicely coincides with when you start finding lots of good Movement Infusions so the transition is easy.

[bpat]

Edited to add Inscription scaling. Thanks posetcay for finding the scaling numbers for me!

[grobblewobble]

Nice guide. You list endgame sets in great detail, maybe you could add some guidelines for early game and buying order? So for instance, what is the core set for the three starting inscriptions, and which one do you add as 4th.

[bpat]

It's worth noting that the starting Wild is amazing, starting PD is solid, starting Shielding is mediocre, and starting Regeneration is awful. Starting Regeneration and Shielding Runes should usually be replaced as soon as possible, and for Regeneration, it is often worth buying in Last Hope or Angolwen immediately. For three Inscriptions you almost always want Regeneration/Shielding, Movement/Phase Door (buy Movement from Last Hope or Angolwen, even a bad one is nice early), and a filler. The filler is usually Wild, Healing, Regeneration, or Shielding, but Sun. Acid Wave, and Biting Gale are surprisingly good early if you get a high power one. Your fourth and fifth should usually be Movement and Heroism, the order depending on what your character most needs.

[Davion Fuxa]

Heh, you should probably mention starting Healing Infusion most races start with their bpat - you find it in your characters inventory un-inscribed. If playing a non-spellcaster I usually inscribe it early myself until I find some betters inscriptions.

Not sure I agree that the PD is solid early on - it hasn't got a huge amount of resistance to give you when you mis-teleport.

[bpat]

Early PD is a nice panic button since it has only 7 cooldown. The Healing Infusion/Biting Gale Rune you start with in your inventory are bad enough that they aren't worth using after you get pretty much anything else.

[Candesce]

Interesting note for Healing infusions, specific to fungus users:

Fungal Growth's free regen has healing mod applied twice (once for the heal, once for the regen), so combined with being able to make non-infusion heals instant users of the Fungus tree actually have a reason to use them compared to Regen infusions.

Also, unrelatedly: Lightning Rune still isn't a teleport.

[bpat]

You're right about Healing Infusion not triggering Ancestral Life. I checked the code a while back and they are specifically hardcoded not to. I didn't know that Lightning didn't count as a Teleport, so I'll edit that in. Thanks!