Why
The current set of official "premade" Decks in the game itself (in the Decks "blade" of the Ability Wheel interface) are actually fairly advanced decks for already max-strength players (in terms of vertical progression) that each take a very long time to unlock because most of them contain several 50 AP "elite" abilities in the outer ring (T2) of the Ability Wheel.
The problem with this set of decks is that they're very misleading to new players. If you dislike figuring out builds for yourself, and you just want to use some premade, you can actually get yourself in trouble by trying to blindly buy up the skills that eventually lead towards one of these premade decks.
So as a helpful resource for new players and especially people who just want to run around and explore and do missions and kill things without struggling with build design, I'm compiling in this page a set of community-contributed decks that work effectively at two different points in your vertical progression from a brand new player to one who is essentially "Skill 10" or "QL 10":
- The T1 decks each comprise only abilities from the inner circle on the Ability Wheel. You will quickly outgrow these and move into…
- The "Early T2" decks incorporate only the cheaper abilities from the outer "T2" circle of the Ability Wheel. At most, there will be one, and only one 34 AP abilties in such decks, and only a handful of 9-21 AP abilities. The point of these decks is to show you ways to start achieving strong advanced synergies quickly, while you are still in the Solomon Island and Egypt zones.
Request for community contributions
I'm starting this page with the few such builds that I've playtested and know are solid performers. However, I don't know all of the good T1 and Early T2 builds, so I urge you to submit your own playtested decks that you feel are strong and useful for teaching new players good build mechanics. To submit your deck for this page, please use the Contact page to submit it to me, and I will include it on this page if you provide enough detail and you meet the criteria for either deck type.
Important: When describing your idea for such good T1 and "early T2" , be sure to ALSO specify the mix of talisman types that best supports the build, and also the mix of secondary glyph stats that supports the build. If you don't know what I mean by these terms, go read my Talisman Mechanics guide. Also be sure to specify the general playstyle and combat rotation of using the deck: which rotations for single targets, which rotations for swarms or unexpected adds, when to use the utility abilities, etc.
T1 Decks - only inner circle abilities
Yokai Triumvirate T1 (Blood/Blade)
I'm posting three closely-related decks in this library, all denoted by the keyword "Triumvirate" because ultimately it revolves around three weapons: Blood, Blade, and Pistol. The T1 form of the deck flows into the two "early T2" forms. Blood is the core weapon of the deck, Blade is the standard 2nd weapon for 90% of most situations, and Pistol is the special-purpose 2nd weapon that has some nice tricks that make it very handy for certain situations. This is the build concept I'll be using at launch and will stick with it until I'm Skill 10 in all three weapons and ready to branch out horizontally into other builds and weapons.
Actives
- ST Builder: Delicate Strike (Blade 1 AP)
- ST Consumers: Dancing Blade (Blade 3 AP) > Exsanguinate (Blood 4 AP)
- AOE Builder: Blade Torrent (Blade 1 AP)
- Utility:
- Healing: Blood Shield (Blood 1 AP)
- Ranged ST Builder: Boiling Blood (Blood 1 AP)
- Panic Mitigation: Martial Discipline (Blade 2 AP)
Passives
- Immortal Spirit (Blade 1 AP): Applies a 5-second HOT on you, (re)triggered every time you penetrate. It essentially stays up full time because this is a Pen-oriented build.
- Perfect Storm (Blade 1 AP): Applies an 8-second Afflicted state and DOT on every target hit by your AOE builder (Blade Torrent). What's not to like?
- Delicate Precision (Blade 1 AP): A constant +10% Penetration Chance for every hit from your main ST builder (Delicate Strike). Penetrating hits are your friend in this build.
- Dark Potency (Blood 2 AP): Increases your Penetration Rating up to +150 as it reacts to every application of the Afflicted state. Note the synergy here with Perfect Storm: if you hit a swarm of 5 targets with one single Blade Torrent, you've just stacked this buff to max.
- Corrupted Blood (Blood 1 AP): Applies an 8-second Afflicted state and DOT when you hit with your ranged ST builder (Boiling Blood).
- Regeneration (Blade 3 AP): Applies a large 6-second HOT on you every time you activate your Panic Mitigation (Martial Discipline).
- Sharp Blade (Blade 4 AP): Passive +10% increase to all damage from your Blade abilities, which compose the bulk of your damage output.
Playstyle
- Pull with Boiling Blood, even if you're just rushing in to attack rather than bringing them to you. If you have 5 full blood resources, pull with Exsanguinate instead. You can pump your blood resources before hand with Blood Shield too.
- As soon as you reach the target, pop your ST blade consumer (Dancing Blade), then one Blade Torrent to apply affliction and one stack of the +Pen Rating buff from Dark Potency, even if its a single target.
- Now commence with either your ST builder (Delicate Strike) or your AOE builder (Blade Torrent) as needed.
- Once you see 5 resources, pop your ST Blade consumer (Dancing Blade) again, followed immediately by your ST Blood consumer (Exsanguinate).
- Repeat the build > consume > consume cycle, popping self-heals with Blood Shield to keep yourself above 50% health, and if you drop too close to 50%, pop your panic mitigation (Martial Discipline).
Note that both of your ST consumers are Focus subtypes, which are multi-hit attacks. Later, you'll be able to find some interesting passives that will react to Focus attacks and do nice things.
Gearing
You should read my Talisman Mechanics guide to fully understand the following description.
At this early stage, you don't need to be very finicky about your talismans, or the secondary glyphs stats, especially at first. If you can afford to be choosy about the talismans you wear, shoot for a 60/40 mix of DPS/Healing talismans, and try to avoid wearing Tanking talismans. And really, the secondary stats don't matter much at this early stage.
Early T2 Decks - only early, cheaper T2 abilities
Yokai Triumvirate early T2 Standard (Blood/Blade)
This deck is a natural evolution from the Yokai Triumvirate T1 deck, and you will build a useful variation of this deck in the Yokai Triumvirate early T2 Special (Blood/Pistol). You will find this deck suitable for 95% of your needs, swapping to the pistol variant as needed for special situations, or just for variety in playstyle and combat animations. The main thing to keep in mind at this point is to start investing SP into your Pistol Skill too when you are ready to start buying the abilities for this deck. It's very important to keep your Blade, Blood, and Pistol at the same skill level at all times. Prioritize Blade first, then Blood next, then Pistol third, and then repeat starting with Blade again. It's important to keep Pistol close to Blade/Blood because if your skill with any given weapon is too low, you'll get too many glancing hits, and the main thing you want Pistol for will not be applied if you glance with it.
Actives
- ST Builder: Delicate Strike (Blade 1 AP)
- ST Consumers: Dancing Blade (Blade 3 AP) > Exsanguinate (Blood 4 AP)
- AOE Builder: Blade Torrent (Blade 1 AP)
- Utility:
- Healing: Blood Shield (Blood 1 AP) PLUS The Scarlet Arts (Blood 16 AP)
- Reflective Absorb Shield: Exquisite Corpse (Blood 27 AP)
Passives
- Immortal Spirit (Blade 1 AP): Applies a 5-second HOT on you, (re)triggered every time you penetrate. It essentially stays up full time because this is a Pen-oriented build.
- Perfect Storm (Blade 1 AP): Applies an 8-second Afflicted state and DOT on every target hit by your AOE builder (Blade Torrent). What's not to like?
- Delicate Precision (Blade 1 AP): A constant +10% Penetration Chance for every hit from your main ST builder (Delicate Strike). Penetrating hits are your friend in this build. This passive is why I keep Delicate Strike as my main ST builder, instead of using the 9AP Grass Cutter instead, which does more damage to Afflicted targets. I feel the +10% Pen chance on every builder far outweighs the extra damage potential of Grass Cutter.
- Dark Potency (Blood 2 AP): Increases your Penetration Rating up to +150 as it reacts to every application of the Afflicted state. Note the synergy here with Perfect Storm: if you hit a swarm of 5 targets with one single Blade Torrent, you've just stacked this buff to max.
- Fatal Flourish (Blade 9 AP): Increases your Penetration Rating up to +300 as it reacts to every application of the Afflicted state. As with Dark Potency, note the synergy here with Perfect Storm.
- Incision (Blade 16 AP): Applies the Afflicted state every time you penetrate. Do you see the circular reinforcement here between this passive and both Dark Potency and Fatal Flourish? Yes….. Yes….. Perma-affliction plus a total of +450 Penetration Rating, which is probably hitting a slope of dimishing returns. You are a maxed-out Penetration monster. With this setup, you won't need any +Penetration Rating on your gear, so you can load up with as much +Hit Rating and +Crit Rating as you can fit.
- YOUR CHOICE: This last Passive slot is reserved for any of a variety of really strong passives that react either to a Penetrating Hit, or to a Focus attack. For example:
- Mitigating Factor (Shotgun 34 AP): Increases both your Physical Protection and Magical Protection up to +150 when you penetrate. Think about it: that's like a 150 point heal every single time you are hit!
- Five Times A Charm (Blood 16 AP): Every 5th penetrating hit, you stun the target for 3 seconds and apply the Impaired state, which your teammates might be able to do something useful with. Even if not, a stun every 5 Pens is pretty nice mitigation overall.
- Donor (Blood 12 AP): Every penetration puts an independent (and stacking) absorb shield on your defensive target that is about 150% larger than the shield applied by Blood Shield.
- 12 Gouge (Shotgun 12 AP): Applies up to a 30% debuff to the target's damage output, and the Weakened state when you penetrate an afflicted target (which will happen very often). So with this as your 7th passive, you can essentially keep a target both Afflicted and Weakened full time!
- Sharpshooter (Assault Rifle 12 AP): Increases your Hit Rating up to +150 when you penetrate. More Hit Rating is always good, as it trickles down to a lot of different stats in a positive way.
- Cutting Thoughts (Chaos 12 AP): Every 5 hits in a row that do not glance will trigger 3 additional magic hits for roughly the same total amount as your ST builder attacks.
- Increased Focus (Pistol 12 AP): A passive +5% Crit Chance for every Focus hit. Both of your ST consumers are Focus subtypes, so this is a pretty large increased Crit Chance on every hit from every hit from those multi-hit attacks.
Playstyle
- Pull with Exsanguinate if you need to fight at a specific location away from patrols or potential adds. Just pump your blood resources before hand with Blood Shield before pulling. Or just rush in and to hell with it, but it's usually good to pop your Reflective Absorb shield (Exquisite Corpse) if you have at least two blood resources active. ^.^
- As soon as you reach the target, pop your ST blade consumer (Dancing Blade), then one Blade Torrent to apply affliction and one stack of the +Pen Rating buff from Dark Potency, even if its a single target.
- Now commence with either your ST builder (Delicate Strike) or your AOE builder (Blade Torrent) as needed.
- After you have two blood resources, refresh your Reflective Absorb Shield (Exquisite Corpse), because it is a cornerstone of this deck and should always be running nearly full time through every fight. You'll see. ^.^
- Once you see 5 blade resources, pop your ST Blade consumer (Dancing Blade) again, followed closely afterward by your ST Blood consumer (Exsanguinate) as soon as you have 5 blood resources.
- Repeat the build > consume > consume cycle, keeping Exquisite Corpse up full time, and if that alone isn't keeping your health above 70-80 percent, then when you next get to to 5 blood resources, pop The Scarlet Arts for a really big heal to supplement.
You should find you use Blood Shield mainly for pumping blood resources before a fight (to pull with Exsanguinate), or when you're in panic mode and using it to stay alive while running away (or while waiting for a partner to acquire your target's hate), using it to fuel as many The Scarlet Arts and Exquisite Corpses as needed to survive a temporary onslaught.
Gearing
You should read my Talisman Mechanics guide to fully understand the following description.
Talisman Types:
- If you're still wearing Green talismans, you want a 60/40 mix of DPS/Healing talismans, give or take 5% either way. You could even go as low as 30% Healing, with 70% DPS. Try to avoid Tanking talismans, because you don't need a high HP pool when you've got decent self-healing.
- If you're wearing mostly Blue/Purple talismans, you want a 30/40/30 mix of Tanking/DPS/Healing talismans, give or take 5% either way on the ratio of DPS to Healing. (But don't drop below 30% on the Tanking talismans).
Secondary Glyph Stats:
- Use Accurate Glyphs on your weapons to ensure a small amount of pure +Hit Rating.
- On your talismans, try not to stack up any +Penetration Rating, because the build itself will generate enough Penetration Rating that you'll be hitting the point of diminishing returns.
- Try to pack as much +Crit Rating as possible, because this will increase your chances for the most damaging types of hits (Critical + Penetrating).
- Don't bother with +Block or +Evade, because this build's mitigation revolves around fast DPS burndown plus strong self-healing.
- Some +Physical Protection and +Magical Protection is always prudent, as is some +Defense Rating, but prioritize +Crit Rating to be at least 60% of the total amount of secondary glyph stats across all 7 talismans (or more), with the other 40% (or less) being devoted to primarily Protection and Defense.
Yokai Triumvirate early T2 Special (Blood/Pistol)
This deck is a special-use variant of the Yokai Triumvirate early T2 Standard (Blood/Blade). Or you can use it just when you're bored of fighting with a Blade and want something a wee bit different. What makes this variant extremely useful is the unique ability of Pistol's 1 AP passive Magnum, which makes the basic 1 AP builder The Business apply a 50% debuff to the target's ability to heal itself and to any self-barriers it uses (and also applies the Weakened state). You will find some situations where these two Pistol abilities are literally the only way to beat certain foes unless you are way overgeared for them. So, since we need to replace Blades with Pistols just to get this very useful trick, we might as well see what other Pistol abilities are synergistic with the basic Penetration- and multi-hit nature of the build overall.
Actives
- ST Builder: The Business (Pistol 1 AP)
- ST Consumers: Shootout (Pistol 1 AP) > Exsanguinate (Blood 4 AP)
- AOE Builder: Killer Flow (Pistol 9 AP)
- Utility:
- Healing: Blood Shield (Blood 1 AP) PLUS The Scarlet Arts (Blood 16 AP)
- Reflective Absorb Shield: Exquisite Corpse (Blood 27 AP)
Passives
- Immortal Spirit (Blade 1 AP): Applies a 5-second HOT on you, (re)triggered every time you penetrate. It essentially stays up full time because this is a Pen-oriented build.
- Magnum (Pistol 1 AP): Debuffs the target's ability to heal itself or use barriers on itself up to 50%, and also applies the Weakened state. The key here is to keep the debuff stacked to 9 or 10 at all times. This passive is the cornerstone of this particular deck.
- 12 Gouge (Shotgun 12 AP): Applies up to a 30% debuff to the target's damage output, and the Weakened state when you penetrate an afflicted target (which will happen very often). So with this as your 7th passive, you can essentially keep a target both Afflicted and Weakened full time! This was a "your choice" for the 7th passive slot in the Standard (Blood/Blade) version of this deck, but since the primary purpose of this special Blood/Pistol variant is to debuff, this particular passive becomes a first-class part of this variant.
- * Dark Potency (Blood 2 AP): Increases your Penetration Rating up to +150 as it reacts to every application of the Afflicted state. Note the synergy here with Perfect Storm: if you hit a swarm of 5 targets with one single Blade Torrent, you've just stacked this buff to max.
- Fatal Flourish (Blade 9 AP): Increases your Penetration Rating up to +300 as it reacts to every application of the Afflicted state. As with Dark Potency, note the synergy here with Perfect Storm.
- Incision (Blade 16 AP): Applies the Afflicted state every time you penetrate. Do you see the circular reinforcement here between this passive and both Dark Potency and Fatal Flourish? Yes….. Yes….. Perma-affliction plus a total of +450 Penetration Rating, which is probably hitting a slope of dimishing returns. You are a maxed-out Penetration monster. With this setup, you won't need any +Penetration Rating on your gear, so you can load up with as much +Hit Rating and +Crit Rating as you can fit.
- YOUR CHOICE: This last Passive slot is reserved for any of a variety of really strong passives that react either to a Penetrating Hit, or to a Focus attack. For example:
- Mitigating Factor (Shotgun 34 AP): Increases both your Physical Protection and Magical Protection up to +150 when you penetrate. Think about it: that's like a 150 point heal every single time you are hit!
- Five Times A Charm (Blood 16 AP): Every 5th penetrating hit, you stun the target for 3 seconds and apply the Impaired state, which your teammates might be able to do something useful with. Even if not, a stun every 5 Pens is pretty nice mitigation overall.
- Donor (Blood 12 AP): Every penetration puts an independent (and stacking) absorb shield on your defensive target that is about 150% larger than the shield applied by Blood Shield.
- Sharpshooter (Assault Rifle 12 AP): Increases your Hit Rating up to +150 when you penetrate. More Hit Rating is always good, as it trickles down to a lot of different stats in a positive way.
- Cutting Thoughts (Chaos 12 AP): Every 5 hits in a row that do not glance will trigger 3 additional magic hits for roughly the same total amount as your ST builder attacks.
- Increased Focus (Pistol 12 AP): A passive +5% Crit Chance for every Focus hit. Both of your ST consumers are Focus subtypes, so this is a pretty large increased Crit Chance on every hit from every hit from those multi-hit attacks.
Playstyle
- Pull with Exsanguinate if you need to fight at a specific location away from patrols or potential adds. Just pump your blood resources before hand with Blood Shield before pulling. Or just rush in and to hell with it, but it's usually good to pop your Reflective Absorb shield (Exquisite Corpse) if you have at least two blood resources active. ^.^
- As soon as you reach the target, commence with either your ST builder (The Business) or your AOE builder (Killer Flow) as needed.
- After you have two blood resources, refresh your Reflective Absorb Shield (Exquisite Corpse), because it is a cornerstone of this deck and should always be running nearly full time through every fight.
- Once you see 5 Pistol resources, pop your ST Pistol consumer (Shootout), followed closely afterward by your ST Blood consumer (Exsanguinate) as soon as you have 5 blood resources.
- Repeat the build > consume > consume cycle, keeping Exquisite Corpse up full time, and if that alone isn't keeping your health above 70-80 percent, then when you next get to to 5 blood resources, pop The Scarlet Arts for a really big heal to supplement.
You should find you use Blood Shield mainly for pumping blood resources before a fight (to pull with Exsanguinate), or when you're in panic mode and using it to stay alive while running away (or while waiting for a partner to acquire your target's hate), using it to fuel as many The Scarlet Arts and Exquisite Corpses as needed to survive a temporary onslaught.
Gearing
Gearing for this special Blood/Pistol variant is exactly the same as for the Yokai Triumvirate early T2 Standard (Blood/Blade).