How to Finish The Game With Minimum Grinding?
Why grind? Wats ze point?
Because in the late game the lvl 3 enemies are essentially just lvl 1 enemies with 2x hp and damage. So how do your characters get 2x hp and damage? Leveling up to max can only yield you 8-12 damage per hit. Admit it, YOU NEED BETTER GEARS. And you can’t buy them from merchants, you can only expect to obtain epic or legendary gears to drop randomly after the last battle for each mission. (And of course there are achievements that reward you with epic or better gear but that’s way too grindy for me) So you will need maximum damage output from all of your characters to finish missions as quick as possible.
TL; DR
You should pick up party members and skills in the following order:
Pistols>Shotguns>Assault Rifles>Sniper Rifles>Disintegrators
Weapon damage>>Crit chance>Crit strength>Mag size>Weapon range>New support skill>New weapon skill
Vit>Wil>Rfx>Dex>>End
Med strength>Repair strength
Heavy AR>Medium AR>Light AR
Avoid using Baron, Dr.Chandra, Omar, Rose and Bellamy because they lack damage.
Weapon of choice
Assault Rifles
As in every game that involves guns, the AR is versatile and mediocre in every aspect. In Pathway however, characters with AR specializations are just an okay choice because they could fit in every combat situation and have a better-than-nothing skill. Most of the time the AR’s AOE skill can only target 2 enemies, and they are dumb zombies that have the lowest targeting priority. So it’s just your average choice.
Shotguns
SGs have excellent single-target damage that has great potentials. Because of the 20% damage penalty, their AOE skill are not often used, but if you use a heavy-armor-cladding character and hunker down at open spaces (basically taunting), you might be able to amass zombies and find uses for this skill. SGs could be bad against Nazis, though, since some Nazis can outrange shotgunners and you have to stop to reload frequently. Overall still a decent choice.
Pistols
Definitely the best weapon category. Pistols have medium range and damage, and for whatever logic they have the biggest clip. The 2-shot skill is unarguably the most often used skill in the game essentially because it just allow you to damage 2 targets within range regardless of enemies’ positions. And since Nazis tend to find cover and flank players, the 2-shot is almost the only way to damage 2 Nazis at once. Seriously, you almost cannot finish a mission without pistoleros.
Sniper Rifles
For whatever logic again SRs have the lowest damage to balance their superior range and can only damage one enemy per turn. The Overwatch skill covers a large area and interrupts one action for one enemy (either moving, attacking or using skills) but the large area is a drawback because: 1) Melee enemies (dogs and zombies) always move first and trigger the Overwatch shot, which may disrupt your plan. 2) Ranged enemies will either go in to find a better position to flank you, or flee away from you. Meaning their movements are very predictable and you want the Overwatch covering range to be small. SRs also have small clips. Considering the Overwatch can help avoid taking hits, SRs still have some uses, but not being able to consistently 2-shot even lvl2 enemies is painful. I personally don’t like SRs. (Snipers in Pathway may need to empty a full magazine to kill one enemy, LUL)
Disintegrators
Sounds cool and the damage output is incredible. INCREDIBLY LOW. It says “corrosive damage” but it does not bypass armor, or deal extra damage to unarmored units, or leave a DOT. It actually does less damage than labeled damage output. Therefore disintegrators are just weakened ARs. Just don’t use them.
Knives
A last-hitting or 1-shotting only weapon. With the Bleed skill, you can 1-shot most lvl2 enemies and some lvl3 enemies (but of course you need a epic knife or better). There’s only 1 character (Shani) that specializes in knives only, and only being able to use knives puts the character in hot spots quite often.
Grenades
High-damage consumables that does damage in a 3X3 tile. Miguel can easily wipe out up to 4-5 zombies with one move. For other characters it’s better to invest skill points in guns because you still have to deal with scattered Nazis. Grenades are also guaranteed hits so they are also good at finishing off coward Nazis that hide behind covers.
Overall, the weapon rankings should be: Pistols>Shotguns>Assault Rifles>Sniper Rifles>Disintegrators. But of course if somehow you get a legendary disintegrator (still worse than other epic weapons) first, you could ignore the ranking and just bring good ol’ Bellamy on board.
Characters, Skills and Attributes
There are 4 characters that have damage debuffs as well as weapon debuffs because of their “versatility” of weapons: Baron, Dr.Chandra, Omar, Rose. There is absolutely no point in switching weapon type during missions for characters so versatility is just a meaningless bluff for all these characters. And sadly, Bellamy specializes in the trash-tier disintegrators (but if you keep grinding until max level he will catch up), so he’s somehow crippled in damage output, too. Just remember that you should avoid using these 5 characters.
Heavy armors have no penalty whatsoever but have 4-8 times the armor compared to light armors, and the Hunker Down skill is incredibly important as it gives you a solid 75% incoming damage reduction and you can use it to taunt enemies. Low Profile can be unreliable at times and will still get you killed but it’s something, then it’s Sprint. I would say Sprint is somehow useless because the lack of map complexity in Pathway and there’s no superior vantage point. The only use for Sprint is for melee characters to catch up with ranged enemies. Still, light armor wearers are way too squishy for Sprint to compensate.
Why VIT>all? Because VIT is the only attribute that actually buff characters consistently with extra survivability. You can’t rely on RFX to dodge attacks because the probability’s too small. You should try to flank enemies at all times so DEX does not matter that much. WIL does sometimes matter because you can use more skills. About END? Just don’t die. It’s not that hard.
As medkits can revive KO’d teammates, upgrading repair kit strength is way less important than getting medkit heal strength. Only heavy armor wearers should consider upgrading repair kit as they may self-heal and act as tanks for the team.
Other Tips
1) The goal for each turn should be taking minimum damage whilst killing as many as you can.
2) The goal for grinding is to choose the fastest route and get through the last story battle. Don’t go for “?” encounters, they are not worth it.
3) Using medkits and repair kits in battle also gives you 1 willpower point which enables characters like Brunhilda to heal herself and use Hunker Down 2 turns in a row.
4) Cultists’ molotov attack functions like a grenade that ignores cover and evade chances, and it does friendly damage. And because cultists act after zombies but before priestesses, you can use heavy-armor-cladding characters to rush to the melee range within priestesses and hunker down to take advantage.
5) You can S&L by quitting to the main menu and continue adventures and it actually lets you rewind to the beginning of an encounter, so you can choose to avoid the fight, reset enemy spawn locations or simply restart a fight because you took casualties or missed many shots.
