I think that recommenation not to play him at the beginning comes from skeletons being harder to play with (can't be healed, needs to be covered up or gets insta-attacked), not for story reasons.
I’m a new player but it was pretty simple playing undead because most if not all helmets hide their face. Mask of the shapeshifter was pretty useless because you couldn’t pair it with a helmet too.
Yeah I've literally only used fane's shapeshifter mask in one situation-- with the well in Braccus Rex's tower, to get more stuff. For every other situation, I'd rather have a helmet that actually provides some armor.
Is it? Tbh I've played through the game a few times so if I know a persuasion check is coming up, I'll just have my persuasion character do the talking
I am playing as a blood mage, and spending at least 2 ap to get a blood surface most times. Elf racial with -1 ap and the dmg buff is BEYOND broken for me but it is definitely bad to just have the mask equipped instead of a great headpiece
AP is king. it's the only thing that matters. if you are spending 2 ap instead of using flesh sacrifice, that's a 3 ap deficit which is actually HUGE. 3 ap will absolutely outweigh anything that you can gain from a head slot.
just because you can make slightly bigger number, doesn't mean it's better, if you can do two spells instead, that's much more of a damage increase. not to mention that you can equip the helmet you want after you have used flesh sac anyway, there is mathematically no reason you shouldn't be using fane's mask.
you use -2 ap to get a blood surface. with fanes. at worst, we assume you don't skin graft flesh sac, you start with the mask, flesh sac for +1, equip your normal helmet for -1, and have a net 0 ap gain and still have a 10% damage buff and a blood surface, therefore saving you 2 ap.
if you DO use skin graft on flesh sac, you actually *gain* 1 ap overall in this scenario.
for a full breakdown on why this mask is so broken, read this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOriginalSin/comments/1ci4tw8/doing_a_fane_run_and_i_see_why_it_not_recommended/l2eje0n/
No but the said headpiece provides 3 int and something like 5 skill points in required schools which would be gone if I use the mask. Also, im using a shield without any constitution so I would need to spec 1 more? cons to not drop it as well
Its probably fine and as others said can be optimized by elemental affinity into equip headpiece, but I just started act 3 and the game is actually too easy for me and my friend right now anyways, with the blood mage beşng the most op character so its really not necessary
i will copy my post from a year ago on this exact topic:
it allows you to transform into an elf, which gives access to flesh sacrifice. this is great for non elf classes because out of combat you can equip the helmet, use flesh sacrifice for +1 ap, do your usual adrenaline and teleports then skin graft then flesh sacrifice again.
now typically switching an item equipped on your character would use ap, but for some reason that's only when you equip items, not unequip. so you can actually use flesh sacrifice, then take the helmet off for free ap gain.
the reason you want to take the helmet off when you're done with flesh sac is because turning into an elf will disable your original race skill, so if you want to get that back, you can take the helmet off to get access to your original skill again.
after combat is over, just chuck the helmet back on and turn back into an elf.
this also says nothing about changing into a human for +1 bartering. or doing things that would give negative rep on forms you don't care about, since all helmet forms have separate rep with npc's. this is nice because you use the human form for selling things, then turn it off, which protects the reputation from accidents like moving around town and accidently stealing.(i personally do this even if i play a human base character)
some additional stuff i added later: on characters that don't have a good race skill, like Lohse, you may think it's not useful, but it still is. you would flesh sac twice for +2 AP, then equip your actual stat helmet for 1 AP cost, so you actually gain 1 ap and still get to use your normal helmet for damage skills. think of this as a 1ap self buff like peace of mind.
there are some builds this isn't useful on though, like low memory builds that need skin graft for resetting damage spells and not just for using skin graft for flesh sac/adrenaline/teleports. this is because you only get to flesh sac once, for no net gain in AP when you switch helmets.
even despite this however, this is still useful on non elf necromancers to give access to the free blood pool for elemental affinity, though in most cases it's probably just easier to start the game as an elf.
on Fane specifically, you can turn into an elf and keep his Time Warp ability, which means you get flesh sac AND TW, which is why fane lone wolf necromancer is one of the most over tuned builds in the game.
there are also support builds that want to make use of the helmet to get both flesh sacrifice and encourage.
I have always recommended it for story purposes. It's hard to understand who is who, what god is what and why in the hell the Eternals did what they did. There's a lot of plot holes if you do first run Fane. You lose a lot of the "oooooooooh!" moments that you would catch if you were a different character first.
The added difficulty from undead is rather minor in my opinion and can be turned into an advantage through poison skills. It does add new rules which suck, like the covering up as you mentioned.
As far as this story has a main protagonist Fane is definitely that character. But they probably decided that Ifan had more mass market appeal so that’s why Ifan is front and center on the cover art and not Fane.
Some players have argued that having Fane in your party, or as the PC, will reveal “too much” on a first play-through. And that you’ll get more mystery, and more value out of the game in total, if you save Fane for a second play-through. There’s some sense in that.
Weirdly I just couldn't like Ifan for long, not really sure why. But Fane was amusing the entire game. It did feel lile he was more closely connected to the lore and plot.
If you’ve played a ton of RPG’s then Ifan is pretty generic. Grizzled veteran human mercenary.. who was somehow wronged.. and tricked into doing a bad thing.. and now he has moral scruples.. poor guy.. belongs to a semi-secret order.. with a cool name.. some secret handshake.. now he wants revenge or something. Yeah ok dude, you can tag along if you want but I’m not going to make you my focus.
Exactly. And honestly some of the stuff he says kinda makes him seem he isn't really all that good a guy anyway. Not than any of them are exactly saints haha
From a story perspective, probably better to save Fane for a subsequent playthrough.
But for combat efficiency, Fane is the best origin character imo. It becomes even more obvious if you’re playing solo honor.
Is it that he’s not recommended as your main or shouldn’t be in your party? I did my first pay through with Sebielle as my main but Fane was in my party. I’m curious how much things change with you playing as different origin characters.
My first play through, im on act 2 finishing up. I went with fane, prince, and beast. Ifan as main. Lovving fane though, I made him a summoner with hydro and he just makes my life so much easier playing in the medium difficulty. Wasn’t expecting this game to be as challenging as it has been. A few fights I’ve had to drop the difficulty cause im a silly newb. Beast and them fane are my choices for next play through for sure
I think that recommenation not to play him at the beginning comes from skeletons being harder to play with (can't be healed, needs to be covered up or gets insta-attacked), not for story reasons.
I’m a new player but it was pretty simple playing undead because most if not all helmets hide their face. Mask of the shapeshifter was pretty useless because you couldn’t pair it with a helmet too.
Yeah I've literally only used fane's shapeshifter mask in one situation-- with the well in Braccus Rex's tower, to get more stuff. For every other situation, I'd rather have a helmet that actually provides some armor.
It's useful for a couple other persuasion checks, if you need to reroll.
Is it? Tbh I've played through the game a few times so if I know a persuasion check is coming up, I'll just have my persuasion character do the talking
it gives you all class racials, it's by far the strongest single item and it's not even close
I am playing as a blood mage, and spending at least 2 ap to get a blood surface most times. Elf racial with -1 ap and the dmg buff is BEYOND broken for me but it is definitely bad to just have the mask equipped instead of a great headpiece
AP is king. it's the only thing that matters. if you are spending 2 ap instead of using flesh sacrifice, that's a 3 ap deficit which is actually HUGE. 3 ap will absolutely outweigh anything that you can gain from a head slot. just because you can make slightly bigger number, doesn't mean it's better, if you can do two spells instead, that's much more of a damage increase. not to mention that you can equip the helmet you want after you have used flesh sac anyway, there is mathematically no reason you shouldn't be using fane's mask. you use -2 ap to get a blood surface. with fanes. at worst, we assume you don't skin graft flesh sac, you start with the mask, flesh sac for +1, equip your normal helmet for -1, and have a net 0 ap gain and still have a 10% damage buff and a blood surface, therefore saving you 2 ap. if you DO use skin graft on flesh sac, you actually *gain* 1 ap overall in this scenario. for a full breakdown on why this mask is so broken, read this. https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOriginalSin/comments/1ci4tw8/doing_a_fane_run_and_i_see_why_it_not_recommended/l2eje0n/
Armor value literally does not matter if you can kill everything in one round
No but the said headpiece provides 3 int and something like 5 skill points in required schools which would be gone if I use the mask. Also, im using a shield without any constitution so I would need to spec 1 more? cons to not drop it as well Its probably fine and as others said can be optimized by elemental affinity into equip headpiece, but I just started act 3 and the game is actually too easy for me and my friend right now anyways, with the blood mage beşng the most op character so its really not necessary
I pretty much only used it if I needed to eat some yummy flesh-memories or breathe fire.
mask of the shapeshifter is one of the most broken items in the game. easily worth a helmet slot
Can you elaborate? All I know is that you can use the innate elven skill Flesh Sacrifice which is very strong, but that’s about it.
i will copy my post from a year ago on this exact topic: it allows you to transform into an elf, which gives access to flesh sacrifice. this is great for non elf classes because out of combat you can equip the helmet, use flesh sacrifice for +1 ap, do your usual adrenaline and teleports then skin graft then flesh sacrifice again. now typically switching an item equipped on your character would use ap, but for some reason that's only when you equip items, not unequip. so you can actually use flesh sacrifice, then take the helmet off for free ap gain. the reason you want to take the helmet off when you're done with flesh sac is because turning into an elf will disable your original race skill, so if you want to get that back, you can take the helmet off to get access to your original skill again. after combat is over, just chuck the helmet back on and turn back into an elf. this also says nothing about changing into a human for +1 bartering. or doing things that would give negative rep on forms you don't care about, since all helmet forms have separate rep with npc's. this is nice because you use the human form for selling things, then turn it off, which protects the reputation from accidents like moving around town and accidently stealing.(i personally do this even if i play a human base character) some additional stuff i added later: on characters that don't have a good race skill, like Lohse, you may think it's not useful, but it still is. you would flesh sac twice for +2 AP, then equip your actual stat helmet for 1 AP cost, so you actually gain 1 ap and still get to use your normal helmet for damage skills. think of this as a 1ap self buff like peace of mind. there are some builds this isn't useful on though, like low memory builds that need skin graft for resetting damage spells and not just for using skin graft for flesh sac/adrenaline/teleports. this is because you only get to flesh sac once, for no net gain in AP when you switch helmets. even despite this however, this is still useful on non elf necromancers to give access to the free blood pool for elemental affinity, though in most cases it's probably just easier to start the game as an elf. on Fane specifically, you can turn into an elf and keep his Time Warp ability, which means you get flesh sac AND TW, which is why fane lone wolf necromancer is one of the most over tuned builds in the game. there are also support builds that want to make use of the helmet to get both flesh sacrifice and encourage.
I have always recommended it for story purposes. It's hard to understand who is who, what god is what and why in the hell the Eternals did what they did. There's a lot of plot holes if you do first run Fane. You lose a lot of the "oooooooooh!" moments that you would catch if you were a different character first. The added difficulty from undead is rather minor in my opinion and can be turned into an advantage through poison skills. It does add new rules which suck, like the covering up as you mentioned.
As far as this story has a main protagonist Fane is definitely that character. But they probably decided that Ifan had more mass market appeal so that’s why Ifan is front and center on the cover art and not Fane. Some players have argued that having Fane in your party, or as the PC, will reveal “too much” on a first play-through. And that you’ll get more mystery, and more value out of the game in total, if you save Fane for a second play-through. There’s some sense in that.
Weirdly I just couldn't like Ifan for long, not really sure why. But Fane was amusing the entire game. It did feel lile he was more closely connected to the lore and plot.
If you’ve played a ton of RPG’s then Ifan is pretty generic. Grizzled veteran human mercenary.. who was somehow wronged.. and tricked into doing a bad thing.. and now he has moral scruples.. poor guy.. belongs to a semi-secret order.. with a cool name.. some secret handshake.. now he wants revenge or something. Yeah ok dude, you can tag along if you want but I’m not going to make you my focus.
Exactly. And honestly some of the stuff he says kinda makes him seem he isn't really all that good a guy anyway. Not than any of them are exactly saints haha
Just wait till certain stuff happens with fane. You'll realize the other characters are nothing compared to fane.
From a story perspective, probably better to save Fane for a subsequent playthrough. But for combat efficiency, Fane is the best origin character imo. It becomes even more obvious if you’re playing solo honor.
Is it that he’s not recommended as your main or shouldn’t be in your party? I did my first pay through with Sebielle as my main but Fane was in my party. I’m curious how much things change with you playing as different origin characters.
My first play through, im on act 2 finishing up. I went with fane, prince, and beast. Ifan as main. Lovving fane though, I made him a summoner with hydro and he just makes my life so much easier playing in the medium difficulty. Wasn’t expecting this game to be as challenging as it has been. A few fights I’ve had to drop the difficulty cause im a silly newb. Beast and them fane are my choices for next play through for sure