Elex 2 Elex 2 - Beginner Hints & Tips (No spoilers please)

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Hello all, I'm planning to go into Elex 2 mostly blind (having not read much about it other than there are factions and a one non-faction option).

I was hoping for some simple beginner hints/tips which hopefully can be spoiler free. I.e. this skill is useless even though it looks nice. Or you can sell everything except for. Maybe some basic tips on combat too if it changed from Elex.
 
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Do NOT drink any stat or attribute potions early on; it would be a waste as increasing them eventually takes more and more skill points, so potions work best when the skill point cost is maxed out.
 
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Do NOT drink any stat or attribute potions early on; it would be a waste as increasing them eventually takes more and more skill points, so potions work best when the skill point cost is maxed out.
Haha, I actually entered the thread to also give a tip, which is the exact opposite:

You can drink any potions right away, there is no reason for saving them.

While it is true, that they cost more and more, this is independent of the boosted stats.
So let's say that usually it you would take 2 Points to increase from 69 to 70, and then 5 to increase it from 70 to 71.
If you drink a potion that increases that stat, it shifts. Meaning now you can increase up to 71 for just 2 points.

There is no reason to save up any drinks, that includes drinks for elex (XP, Attribute Points, Skill Points) as well as Direct stat increases.

Besides of that: The game has respawn of monsters in the wild, and therefore unlimited resources anyways and therefore unlimited character improvements. So there is really no reason to cripple yourself early on by saving up.
 
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And the "having unlimited resources anyways", pretty much makes it your choice on what to do first and later on. You cannot gimp yourself. It's completely up to your gamestyle.
 
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There is not much you can do wrong, so simply play as you feel. You can indeed drink stat or skill potions at any time, there is no reason to save them (they changed that mechanic compared to their earlier games).

I played as a bow fighter, which I always do in all RPGs, where possible, and do not remember any specific caveats. It worked very well even in duels (you can't kill your opponents accidentally with a bow in contrast to Gothic, where you had to make sure to make the last blow with a melee weapon). You might want a blaster as a backup since this is theoretically more effective against machines, but in reality I used it rarely.

Edit: With respect to the question, whether some skills are useless and should not be chosen: That may be the case but I chose my skills purely for role-playing reasons (if it sounded cool, I learned it) and had no negative experience.

As usual it is helpful to get glasses of sensing enemies early on, but replace them by the corresponding skill as soon as possible, in order to change to glasses for object sight, which are very useful for finding resources and important stuff.

Second edit: Didn't we have a similar threat already in the past? Anyway: Another tip: You are able to play on after the end of the main story and can wrap up side quests etc.

Third edit: There is a category called "other items" (or something similar, I play the German version). You can safely sell things out of there. Quest-relevant items may be in that category but are unsellable. You should howver read documents , look at pictures, hear audio logs etc. before selling them. (New items you haven't checked are marked by an asterix, so you can simply make the rule to not sell items, before that asterix is gone by having looked at least once at the item.

Fourth edit: There are some factions which seem to have much fewer skills than some other factions. This has however a reason (which would be a spoiler) and is NO reason, to avoid those factions! All factions and also factionless are completely viable (I tried most variants).
 
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Thank you all :)

Appreciate the help.

I've just arrived at the Fort and I have been doing tons of exploration. It still is one of PB's strengths. I really enjoy it and the vistas are great.

I also saw two berserkers talk about going to "the Crater" then they started running there. I followed them for 10 minutes only to discover what that actually is and why the went there. This is one of the things that makes the game feel alive and what I originally liked about Gothic.

I expect the writing to be shit though, so anything above that is good in my book :D
 
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Thank you all :)

Appreciate the help.

I've just arrived at the Fort and I have been doing tons of exploration. It still is one of PB's strengths. I really enjoy it and the vistas are great.

I also saw two berserkers talk about going to "the Crater" then they started running there. I followed them for 10 minutes only to discover what that actually is and why the went there. This is one of the things that makes the game feel alive and what I originally liked about Gothic.

I expect the writing to be shit though, so anything above that is good in my book :D
There seem to be strong opinions about that. Piranha Bytes is know for their "Ruhr-Pott"-Language in the games, which is an area around Cologne, associated with coal workers and whatnot, so there is a lot of swearing and "blunt" language, at least in the German version. To me that's still very "light" compared to something in a more modern setting from the US where every second sentence includes f*** (think Cyberpunk, GTA...).

But even in the German version, some people don't like it, others celebrate the language. I guess I would count myself to the latter. It's rough, but not obscene.

The two people you are following around are somewhat funny but I think they might be some of the worst voice acting (at least in the german version).
If you are at that point, try to join the Berserkers (and just reload after that) the "ceremony" there is quite funny.

But this is actually an interesting topic. The native and more natural German swearing (not by modern "kids" strongly influenced by the US and ghetto language but more like people born in the last century) is quite different to the US swearing. And when US games are localized to German, they usually just translate it 1 to 1, which in German sounds over the top vulgar quite often, while the "natural" swearing like here is somewhat...refreshing. ^^
 
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There seem to be strong opinions about that. Piranha Bytes is know for their "Ruhr-Pott"-Language in the games, which is an area around Cologne, associated with coal workers and whatnot, so there is a lot of swearing and "blunt" language, at least in the German version. To me that's still very "light" compared to something in a more modern setting from the US where every second sentence includes f*** (think Cyberpunk, GTA...).

But even in the German version, some people don't like it, others celebrate the language. I guess I would count myself to the latter. It's rough, but not obscene.

The two people you are following around are somewhat funny but I think they might be some of the worst voice acting (at least in the german version).
If you are at that point, try to join the Berserkers (and just reload after that) the "ceremony" there is quite funny.

But this is actually an interesting topic. The native and more natural German swearing (not by modern "kids" strongly influenced by the US and ghetto language but more like people born in the last century) is quite different to the US swearing. And when US games are localized to German, they usually just translate it 1 to 1, which in German sounds over the top vulgar quite often, while the "natural" swearing like here is somewhat...refreshing. ^^
When I said the writing to be shit I meant the general writing, not about swearing or not.

The story is nothing to write home about. There's a big threat and Jax is again the chosen one to fix everything because reasons. Even though all the factions cooperated in beating back the Albs, they're now back at each other's throats less than 5 years later. Etc.

Then the minor dialogue is also not superb quality.

I don't really care about the swearing unless it's done too much.
 
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Yeah, the swearing ties into that though. One of my viewers is constantly mentioning something like the texts must be written by some teenagers ;)

As mentioned. I think the overall writing is good. There are some aspects where the logic doesnt work out though. Like you get some reputation gains and losses on your companions based on your decisions. Some characters generally make sense, some don't make any sense at all. Like Nasty or Bully. Sometimes you do something "bad" and they are happy, sometimes its the opposite. That feels really random.
Also you might have experienced some "flashbacks" showing scenes from Elex 1. Which is a great idea. But the way they implemented it, is pretty horrible. Sometimes its boring scenes where absolutely nothing happens, other times it's scenes which could have been atmospheric if there was some music, but instead it's just silence. Which feels like watching:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMh9A_4u2ic
 
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Yes, but that's not what I am referring to. The whole premise of Jax being forgotten is entirely flawed.

In Elex 1 every single camp had its own legend which was remembered for years, if not decades.

The Berserkers had Erik Eisenfaust who beat back the Clerics (allegedly) and was remembered as a legend, talked about and his weapons were kept as relics.

Even the Outlaws had Baxter who had been kicked out and still had a following amongst them.

Jax, literally, brought together all factions to defeat the Albs, then single-handedly defeated the Hybrid after killing off several Elexetors and most people don't know who he is 5 years later.

They would have been better off making a whole bunch of people hate him rather than making everyone forget him.

----------------

On topic, @bkrueger thanks for the point on factions. I was wondering why some factions had so few skills.


As I'm planning to go melee, it seems like Morkons have the best skills for that, but is it viable to play melee with other factions ?
 
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Ah, yep, you are totally right with that. Guess I just accepted that point and ignored it early on. ^^

Personally I am playing as neutral and basically skip the additional skills. While that is definitely viable in ranged combat as you can kite and things like that, I imagine that melee is much harder.
Then again I am playing on highest difficulty.
On top of not having the additional skills, I also do not have access to the armor, which...you guessed it, don't matter too much if you are ranged, but for melees they might be must have.

One other thing: Sometimes you might be wondering where to read the note you just found: They are actually popping up in the quest journal.
Overall the quest journal might be the weakest point of the whole game, as the way it sorts stuff by region is just a total mess with no filters or search option whatsoever.

Edit: One other tip: Don't learn any skills which give you discounts or anything like that. Waste of skillpoints early on, you will swim in money at some point anyways, once you start selling all the weapons you found. To be most efficient there...well, I will put it into a spoiler tag.

You have different versions of all weapons. The lowest version is called "damaged" or something like that. And you can combined 3 damaged ones to a functioning one without any additional material and giving the item a value which is more than 3 times as high. So when selling weapons, always combine 3 "damaged" one to a normal one, then sell it. Further upgrades are not needed as they would require additional material and with that its not worth it anymore. Only exception is weapons from skyands. These require additional material even on the first upgrade, which is not worth it. So you can sell these right away.
 
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One other tip: Don't learn any skills which give you discounts or anything like that. Waste of skillpoints early on, you will swim in money at some point anyways, once you start selling all the weapons you found.
I agree, and imo the the skills that give you a small boost to XP gain probably aren't worth it either.
 
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Not a beginner's tip as such, but if you're finding some mob fights hard later on, get Rain of Fire (Berserkers). Requires a decent amount of Int, but basically it's very much OP. Just cast it and run around in evade mode. Everyone dies. If they don't, cast it again.
So, if you're banking on heading in the Berserker mage direction...
 
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Not a beginner's tip as such, but if you're finding some mob fights hard later on, get Rain of Fire (Berserkers). Requires a decent amount of Int, but basically it's very much OP. Just cast it and run around in evade mode. Everyone dies. If they don't, cast it again.
So, if you're banking on heading in the Berserker mage direction...
Thanks, but I'm planning a melee build for now. Maybe in a future run (i.e. when Elex 3 comes out :D)
 
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It is all viable. Even going without a faction is viable this time around, which generally means that factions can't be as significant as they were.
 
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..., which generally means that factions can't be as significant as they were.
A small differentiation:
Story-wise this may be right. Character-strength-wise not. In my first playthrough in Elex One I did all sidequests, which were possible without faction, cleared all enemies from the map and would have been easiliy able to kill the end boss, but the game simply didn't allow me to enter that area. So I had to join a faction for the only reason to overcome this obstacle.

After that experience I was an advocate of the request, to allow factionless in Elex II and I like to believe that I am a small part of the reason, that PB made this now possible. And of course my first playthrough in Elex II was factionless...

By the way, even story-wise the independent group in the heroe's homebase would have been a sufficient neutral faction to justify factionless play even in Elex I.

Did I mention that I hated all the factions in Elex I?
 
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A small differentiation:
Story-wise this may be right. Character-strength-wise not. In my first playthrough in Elex One I did all sidequests, which were possible without faction, cleared all enemies from the map and would have been easiliy able to kill the end boss, but the game simply didn't allow me to enter that area. So I had to join a faction for the only reason to overcome this obstacle.

After that experience I was an advocate of the request, to allow factionless in Elex II and I like to believe that I am a small part of the reason, that PB made this now possible. And of course my first playthrough in Elex II was factionless...

By the way, even story-wise the independent group in the heroe's homebase would have been a sufficient neutral faction to justify factionless play even in Elex I.

Did I mention that I hated all the factions in Elex I?
Yep, pretty much did the same in Elex 1 and was disappointed I had to join one.
Factions in Elex 1 were much more extreme though.
Berserkers as well as Clerics are much less extreme this time.
 
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Yep, pretty much did the same in Elex 1 and was disappointed I had to join one.
Factions in Elex 1 were much more extreme though.
Berserkers as well as Clerics are much less extreme this time.
Even the Morkons in Elex 2 are more likable than the factions in Elex 1...
 
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Even the Morkons in Elex 2 are more likable than the factions in Elex 1...
I've not found their base yet, but as I said, they seem melee-oriented, so unless they're completely and utterly bad, I will probably join them. I think.
 
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