Tyranny

Tyranny presents a unique challenge in RPGs by making money and time genuinely scarce resources. You won't be able to afford everything and fully train your characters simultaneously. This scarcity extends to spell sigils, which are finite and may not be available for purchase later if missed early on.

Time is also a critical factor. Act I features a strict 8-day limit, though it's manageable with moderate skill. In Acts II and III, time is tied to spire activities like harvesting, researching, and forging, which advance based on quest experience. The limited number of quests means finite opportunities to gather materials (scrolls, ingots, alchemy supplies) and complete research/forging tasks. Focus your research on essential elements for your character build and party composition to avoid running out of time or materials for desired items.

Spire Upgrade Order

Prioritize hiring the weapon-generating specialist in your first spire as soon as possible. This provides a consistent income stream that will likely cover its own cost.

For your second spire, establishing either a library or a forge is recommended. A library is advantageous as research can be initiated without extensive resources, and some artifacts require both library research and forge construction. Starting library research early is beneficial. A forge is valuable for hiring recruits who produce bronze and iron ingots, essential for upgrades and forging items, though the forge itself may be largely inactive for much of Act II.

If you plan to forge cloth or leather artifacts, consider the training upgrade for the hide-producing recruit. Hides are difficult to acquire otherwise and are needed in significant quantities for multiple artifacts and upgrades.

The infirmary is generally the lowest priority. It doesn't offer research and while alchemy supply generation is useful, it's less critical than library research, forging, or hide generation unless you're critically low on specific poisons or potions. However, the infirmary does house a master lore trainer, which can be valuable for enhancing spell power if your lore skill is high.

Alright, let's talk about something super important in Tyranny that you might overlook: Recovery. Basically, after you do anything – an attack, using an ability – your character needs a moment to reset before they can do something else. Think of it as a cooldown, but with a twist: this time only counts if your character is just standing there doing nothing. If you're moving, you can kinda 'outrun' some of that recovery time.

Everyone starts with a base recovery time, which seems to be around 1 second. This is the absolute minimum you'll ever have to wait. Now, here's where it gets interesting: every single piece of armor you slap on, even some basic cloth gear, and any shields you equip, add extra recovery time. Sometimes, this can add up *really* fast! This combined time is your 'unconditional' recovery – the baseline wait time you'll always have, no matter what you do.

On top of that base recovery, each weapon and some abilities have their *own* specific recovery time. When you swing a sword or use a special move, you tack that weapon's or ability's recovery onto your unconditional recovery. That's the total time you're locked out. Spells are a bit different; they don't seem to add their own recovery time. Instead, the 'Total Recovery' you see in their description is usually just your current unconditional recovery. The trade-off? Spells often have much longer 'casting' animations – that's the time from when you click the spell to when it actually goes off – compared to regular attacks or abilities. It might look flashy, but it means you're stuck watching for a while.

Generally, you'll want to keep your recovery time as low as possible. A long recovery time really screws with your ability to react quickly in combat. In Tyranny, recovery times can get up to 7 seconds, which is an eternity compared to games like Pillars of Eternity. Imagine needing to use a taunt *right now* to save a party member, but you've still got 5 or 6 seconds left on your recovery. It's a recipe for disaster!

For your spellcasters and ranged attackers (archers, throwers), keeping recovery low is even more critical. Seriously, consider equipping cloth armor on anyone who's supposed to hang back. Rely on your tanks to draw aggro, use taunts effectively, and don't be afraid to have your squishier characters flee when things get hairy. This strategy not only lets them deal more damage but also makes your casters, especially healers, way more responsive when the action heats up.

Quick Note: As of patch 1.1, if you're dual-wielding weapons, you get a nice 20% recovery bonus when you're actually attacking with those weapons. So, go wild with those sword-and-dagger combos!

Hey there! Let's talk about a really neat defensive mechanic in Tyranny called Deflection. Think of it as your armor's way of saying 'nope' to incoming attacks. Basically, it gives you a percentage chance that any attack aimed at you gets downgraded. So, a critical hit might just become a regular hit, a regular hit could turn into a graze, and a graze might just miss entirely.

Now, some specific items might only mess with one type of downgrading, but the general Deflection you find on armor usually applies to all of them. It's a pretty sweet deal for staying alive.

You might remember that Finesse used to be a huge deal for this, especially back before patch 1.1. It used to add its deflection bonus to each piece of armor you wore, which was pretty wild. Now, it's just a flat bonus, which is a bit more balanced. It's still worth investing in, but honestly, things like Spectral Blur can give you even more deflection these days, and that's saying something!

So, how much does this actually help? If we're talking about a character with no armor facing an enemy with a similar accuracy, you can figure that each point of Deflection you stack will knock off about half a point of net damage in the long run. So, if you see +4% Deflection, that's roughly like getting -2% damage taken over time. Armor can make this effect even more dramatic, but it gives you a decent ballpark to start with.

Here's a cool little quirk: a character with high Deflection can actually do *better* against heavily armored enemies using two-handed weapons than a dedicated tank might. Why? Well, those two-handed weapons can dish out a ton of damage, especially with special abilities. Heavy armor is good at reducing damage, sure, but when Deflection downgrades a massive 50-damage hit down to a 25-damage graze, or even turns it into a complete miss, that can totally outshine the damage reduction from heavy armor (which usually caps out pretty low anyway). The catch, though, is that this damage mitigation relies heavily on luck. So, while it's great for your overall damage taken in the long run, expect some moments where you'll suddenly take a huge chunk of damage all at once.