Punch Mage : How Do?

[Prototype00]

So I'm ready to leap back into Tyranny after the DLC, and I want to do so as a Punch Mage.

From what I understand after doing the reading/watching YouTube tutorials it goes mostly like this:

1. Unarmed, natch.
2. Light/no armor to decrease autoattack speed
3. Magic Ability tree most of the way to get the Imbue Elemental abilities.
4. Strength tree to get the autoattack buffs for unarmed.
5. Max Finesse and Vitality and put what is left in Strength
6. Buff unarmed further with spells (but which ones? Volcanic weapon I've heard...)

Optional:

1. Dump Quickness (you autoattack, abilities are not so great for you) and Resolve.
2. Pick up Tier 0 abilities for Thrust, one of your few abilities.

Am I missing anything? I've tried the chassis of the build but the early going is not great due to the piddly damage I'm doing.

 

[Jean-Luc]

I played with an unarmed mage on hard with a much less "power hungry" build mostly focusing on the martial arts theme.

Basically took every ability that felt punchy or kicky. Also invested a lot in lore and fire/emotion spells to go with the whole Chorus theme. Maxed finesse, almost nothing in vitality and near maxed resolve since it's also defensive and prolongs the duration of all your stuns, knockdowns, DoTs, etc. As you see I took that armor penetration stance since that's kinda the weakness of unarmed.

For me at least going so far down the magic tree for the imbues would have ruined the "punch" part of punch mage since I'd have to sacrifice so many fighting abilities and you don't really need the magic tree to be a good mage. Going for the imbues might have been more powerful but I was more than fine with this and it was a really fun character.

I guess the unarmed basic attack is pretty weak early on until you get better gloves and just get better in general but feel free to use your offensive magic, thrust (power tree upgrade gives it more armor pen) or abilities like lightning strike and you'll be fine. Furthermore, since the player character gets so many activated abilities you almost never have time to use the basic "auto-attack" so it's barely of consequence.

In any case I'm pretty sure you'll do fine just pushing on with your current build, just give it time.

 

[Franconian]

So I'm ready to leap back into Tyranny after the DLC, and I want to do so as a Punch Mage.

From what I understand after doing the reading/watching YouTube tutorials it goes mostly like this:

1. Unarmed, natch.
2. Light/no armor to decrease autoattack speed
3. Magic Ability tree most of the way to get the Imbue Elemental abilities.
4. Strength tree to get the autoattack buffs for unarmed.
5. Max Finesse and Vitality and put what is left in Strength
6. Buff unarmed further with spells (but which ones? Volcanic weapon I've heard...)

Optional:

1. Dump Quickness (you autoattack, abilities are not so great for you) and Resolve.
2. Pick up Tier 0 abilities for Thrust, one of your few abilities.

Am I missing anything? I've tried the chassis of the build but the early going is not great due to the piddly damage I'm doing.

The important thing are your attack skills. Use them without pause. Another thing are enemies which have high physical damage reduction due to armor or skills like bastion. Use magic for these and you should be fine.

 

[Prototype00]

The important thing are your attack skills. Use them without pause. Another thing are enemies which have high physical damage reduction due to armor or skills like bastion. Use magic for these and you should be fine.

The thing is, with the Imbue build for unarmed, there actually aren't all that many active activated abilities. You have Thrust, Smash and the Palm Strike and that's about it. The real damage supposedly (haven't played it yet) comes from buffing your autoattack sky high. (Since Unarmed Autoattack is the fastest in the game)