Giant's Mental Vulns come to mind.

Dwarf/Arial/Felar water vulns vs their strengths etc.

I think looking at racial vulns specifically/only is too narrow of a focus.

But, broadly, there are basically two strategies with legacy choices.

1) Build on a strength, or

2) Look at your weaknesses and/or situations you have no answer for. Pick two and cover them. (Unfortunately, you have more than two weaknesses.)

Successful characters have been built on each, but I suspect the second approach would suit your style as a player better. I would just have less the specific mindset of "what are my racial vulns" and more of the mindset of "What kinds of fights can't I win?"

For example if you were playing cloud sword/pole, I might look at the holy/unholy vuln and pick Forsaken or the mental vuln and pick Fortress or the disease vuln and pick something like maybe Riddle (and none of those would be bad choices), but I also might look at that character and say something like: "Well, the only lagging move I have from my specs is legsweep, so if I can't bash or trip someone and I really need to slow their commands down I'm in trouble." and consider Landslide to shore that up, or I might say something like "There are a bunch of fights I don't think I can win, but Enigma can get me out of most of them quickly/safely", or I might say something like "I really need to keep my STR max to flurry people down, maybe Riddle will help me shrug off -STR affects long enough to throw that killing shot."

You just explained it. So much tactics that go into choosing legacies, much less specs.

You strive to find the perfect balance between covering weaknesses and improving strengths (or in the case of HPM, creating new ones). I know whenever I play a villager I have to choose Riddle for example. It's just sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo important for a village warrior.

Well, to that point, it's probably the most customizable class in terms of different but viable builds.

At least for the stat loss, even as a villager. When you rock +20 str and +14 dex, maledictions are just wasted enemy commands.

Not to mention that as a berserker you have the maledict reset button after a certain rank. I am pretty confident that forcing a maledictor to cycle maledicts twice is enough time to dirt nap them with big damage.

The problem with bloodthirst vs anything is that you often have to kill them right there. If they can flee and heal, you will probably die. And even if you manage to kill them, you will often die to his/her allies because you can't really go anywhere while thirsting. It's damned fun though.

And also, bleeding from dagger specs and the like are just brutal for a rager without thick veined edge. That's actually why I took it with Djabree - happened once or twice that I bled to death from like 600 hps.

Both of which will save your life.

Yeah, I never take riddle because I'm worried about a boneshatter. I take Riddle so I can make it back to the village alive after I got impaled on the Island fighting Nexuns at the Inners and I'm disrupted too.

Does nothing with spell/commune maledictions.

If it results in something that makes you bleed or breaks your bones it's of help. If it's something like Weaken that merely reduces your strength without being described as causing direct physical trauma in the process it's not.

So it's not useful for most most spells but some that are on theme like Disrupt Bone are fair game.

Then I stand corrected and offer my heartfelt apologies to TMNS. ####er. Pig ####er. Dead pig ####er.

It's not Pig ####er. It's Chicken ####er.

Meow do you remember?

rtb

So you don't get that disrupt bone for -9 -9 for 12 hrs on top of all the other ####.

Important facts to answer your question include but are not limited to.

1.) Is your goal to kill (high pkill count), fight(mix it up with a wide variety of opponents), or survive(never die)?
2.) Do you have knowledge of ways to offset your weaknesses without consuming edges/legacies/specs (like being good at running or knowing high end gear)
3.) What is the current landscape of other active builds (don't need to cover a mental vuln if nobody is playing a bard for instance)

But I would say, fight and mix it up with a wide variety and let's get rid of cabals since that adds a big variable.

I left specs up to the user since I covered a wide range.

But narrow it down to giants. Better to cover weaknesses or compound on strengths?

It depends on your playstyle, what kind of other chars are around and so on. Play the character to legacies and think what you want to do. The answer depends on the situation your character is in. Play the character and decide what you want to do. There is no absolute right answer to your question.

As for giants, there are three giant races, one of which has no vulnerabilities, while two are vulnerable to mental. None of the other vulns are shared within the races.

What edges, Legacies and cabal would you pick?

Crashing and avalanche. Stone iron shoulders responste edge Ehren soul/lord sword mace spec Empire. If I could War Master or Emperor.

And is this a giant? Wouldn't avalance be negated by most classes using spells/subs and potions?

Depends if you gang a lot I don't. Yes its a giant and even more so that is why you want mace spec too. Even if they can avoid your bashing you have cranial and your goal would be to outdamage everyone. If you know some basic preps you can easily outdamage most classes. Imperial tactics also helps. About half the classes in game have a way to avoid bash but it isn't always up too. You can also get potions to change your size too. They enlarge you enlarge they shrink themselves you do the same. Mace also for boneshatter for mages.


basicly how you will fight will vary. Non prepped warriors bash bash bash flurry.

Shamans cranial cranial cranial cranial. flurry

Assassins boneshatter bash bash bash or cranial cranial cranial. flurry


Invokers if you can outdamage them just cranial them or get one invoker shield and bash them to death. also flurry

Shapeshifters depend on what kind and how much hp they have. but boneshatter cranial cranial flurry

Conjurers if they have a demon/angel bash bash bash flurry if you can outdamage them. Archon/devil I have no clue.

Rangers bash bash bash bash. flurry


Orcs cranial cranial cranial. maybe a boneshatter.

Thieves bash bash bash bash flurry

Transmuters boneshatter cranial cranial cranial. If they slow soften and decal you...flee quaff. These can be hard.

Bard bash bash bash bash flurry

Paladin bash bash bash bash flurry

Druid cranial cranial cranial.

Necromancer Cranial or bash depends if wraithform is up..and if you can outdamage their zombies. if bash....bash bash bash flurry

Results may vary on this but that is a basic way of doing it...if any see anything wrong with this please add.

Run down the list of classes and have a crude win and survive strategy. Then match that list up against what I expect to see (if I suck vs necromancers but don't expect to see many in my lifetime it's not much of a consideration).

It is also a good tool to look at combos side by side if you just make a simple spreadsheet and helps to highlight trends you might not notice before like, crap I really have a general vulnerability to maledictors. For someone less experienced this could be more of a challenge (not enough experience with how your stuff works or a different classes does to formulate a plan to deal with them) but it then becomes a decent tool to identify your knowledge gaps to address.


This would be my list for a svirf village axe/hand berserker.
Class-Kill-Survive
Assassin - Stand at area border in wild and spam pincer - Don't heal in village, Always be moving.

Anti-Paladin - Attack aggresively to try and get unprepped, lots of pincer, hook pre-40 - Use thirst selectively to avoid getting slept be wary of them summoning mobs, stay away from balator/galadon

Bard - Get vuln hitting axes (not something I normally bother with honestly) and try to pile on damage before echos lands - Don't stay in a fight once echos lands if they are over 50% hp, avoid getting slept, if the fantasia of illusion song lands full retreat and evade mode.

Berserker - Weaponbreaker, dirt kick, vital + whirl, seal with pincer - When HP drops below 40% become much more conservative if they are using hit/run/heal tactics, if they use non orc slaves use thirst very early try to stun out orc or slave to make fight one on one. against shig-ru don't use straight line roads when retreating.

Conjurer - Hit hard hit often, against archon users open on the archon then onslaugh the conjurer if he was hoping for early sanc, keep the fights mobile - Kill the elemental, stun conjurer and kill off servitors, use underwater to mess with elemental morale/negate gaunt and tess.

Druid - remove weapons with maledicts (vital/whirl) or weaponbreaker/shield cleave, if holding non metal axes follow with pincer if not crushing blow/pummel - Don't let them rope a dope by pressing too hard when they are healing, make sure I have plenty of mv's going into the fight to avoid entangle trap.

Healer - Big damage, break weapon and shield, stun and let sanc drop then initiate with pincer - Stun and walk away, use certain trappish areas if they have a tendency to gate randomly.

Invoker - call blood, pincer or crushing blow depending on major shield - Don't get ganged in sand

Necro - Pincer;flee;pincer to avoid o all rescue spam - don't get slept, don't go toe to toe with full army when I can't seperate the necro from them.

Paladin - Weaponbreaker/shield cleave if they don't have defiance, stun wait out sanc open with pincer, rope a dope - dirt kick/stun be mindful of call lightning when deciding to retreat.

and the list goes on, you get the idea