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Just curious what in your opinion are the best abilities and disciplines for the game: the ones that have worked best, for your character(s).

I decided on melee and 'blood magic' as I was a Tremere. I got to 'Blood Boil', which was quite effective at taking out several tough opponents so I could slash the others. Hacking and lockpicking are also great skills.

Mike

I only played Ventrue (just started a Nosferatu), so i can only tell you something about the Ventrue skills.

Fortitude has saved my ass more then once.

Dominate is realy fun in conversation, and (mass)suicide can realy come in handy in the later part of the game. You will be fighter alot of humans as well as vampires. (against vampires this usually hurts them)

Presence: Havent realy found use for this skill although i didnt get it past lvl3.

I can imagine that Obfuscate can realy come inhandy with my nosferatu character, but i havent advanced enough in the game to be sure.

Celerity is the best in my opinion.

It's not like instakill everyone around you but a lot more fun because it's versatile.
You can use it with melee, ranged and even sneaking...

Currently I only have level 3 and I can already dodge bullets. It's really a great skill for a ranged character because you reload a lot faster and don't get hit yourself (either because you can dodge bullets or because you can outrun melee enemies)
Can't immagine how uber it must be on level 5. Anyone knows what happens? Bullets standing still in the air?

Celerity Level 5

Let me tell you,

I'm playing a Toreador with a Lvl 5 in celerity and it is just fun as hell in a
combat situation.

As a Tremere I can agree with the bloodboil, although bloodsalvo and bloodshield can be very handy with large groups of humans, just because bloodsalvo returns with blood.

Also, I just love Trance, as it makes it easy to set aside a little snack to enjoy after combat.

I only use three disciples with my char:

1. Blood Shield.(reduced damage) My lifesafer. Best skill for a tremere as far as i am concerned.
2.Blood Buff.(buffs physical atributes) Invalueable to open locks and getting the extra edge in boss fights.
3. Suicide (makes one target kill itself) Didn't use that until very late in the game. Failsafe only against humans, and very handy to kill enemies quiet.

suicide, if it didn't kill them would take a pretty nice chunk of damage out of them, and was really useful. i also find myself using posession alot, because it not only eliminates an enemy, but grants you an ally and often leaves you a snack after the fight is over. blood buff is also really useful for the lock picking and such and the damage bonuses to enemies, as well and the strengthening of your ability to feed on the unwilling during combat.

First char - Tremere:
1) Trance/Suicide. This silently killed or stunned any human. If they were stunned, best way to deal with them was to drain them of all their blood.
2) Blood Strike. Used only for "boss" type monsters. This worked almost too well. You could attack your opponent with this Discipline as quickly as you can click the mouse button, as long as you had blood. Because accessing your inventory paused the game, you could unload almost an endless torrent of blood strikes against an opponent. Fighting almost every boss simply involved clicking like mad, reloading on blood (blood packs or the Odius Chalice), and moving from time to time when they got too close.
3) Blood Buff. I used melee weapons when I wanted some excitement or when fighting other vamps. Blood buff is obviously a must.

Second char - Gangrel (still working on it):
1) Protean. Claws. Aggravated damage. Nuff said.
2) Fortitude. While I'm still in Santa Barbara, I have only once taken any damage in any fight.
3) Blood Buff. Rounds out the trifecta.

There doesn't seem to be much that can stop this Gangrel with all of these disciplines active. It'll be interesting to see how things go with tougher opponents (Sabbat, SoL, etc.)

yep Definitly Celerity is the best in Brujah, together with Potence - some great combo, both level 5.
didnt upgrade Presence more than lvl 3 i think it sucks, i just use it for variety and fun

If I could have both Celerity and Fortitude, I wouldn't need anything else. Great for hack'n'slash

The interesting thing is that while I was playing Redemption, I almost never used them, I used Thaumaturgy attacks mostly. For me, that depends of the game engine - VtM:R was a classical CRPG with pausing and all, which enabled planning strategies and tactics. As in Baldur's Gate, I prefer spellcasting.

Bloodlines feels more like a FPS, I just don't have much fun all the time finding this or that discipline to launch on enemies. Spellcasting in FPS engines is clumsy, and even in Jedi Knight I found it easier then in Bloodlines.

So, I prefer to fight here, and prefer battle-supporting disciplines, which I just activate when I start fighting, leave them on using renew-timer option and forget about them until I need to turn one or more off. This way I can enjoy it - playing, instead of constantly searching the buttons or scrolling the wheel ("where is it... where is it... damn... where is it... the boss... aarrgghh")

Speed = good

Celerity is excellent I just whipped right through the 1st part of the society of leopold outside and they never stood a chance i was just a blur with a grey streak for my sword.

Personally, I favor the domination/thaumaturgy combination of the Tremere. Everything is a few clicks of the mouse-wheel from everything else, so you can purge/strike/suicide/trance/boil etc all over the place. It's quite easy to launch anywhere from 3 to 7 consecutive coordinated attacks in rapid succession while using a ranged weapon to boot. You're a rapid-fire ranged killing machine for whom an armed opposed force of ten is barely a party.

[QUOTE=yrthwyndandfyre]Personally, I favor the domination/thaumaturgy combination of the Tremere. Everything is a few clicks of the mouse-wheel from everything else, so you can purge/strike/suicide/trance/boil etc all over the place. It's quite easy to launch anywhere from 3 to 7 consecutive coordinated attacks in rapid succession while using a ranged weapon to boot. You're a rapid-fire ranged killing machine for whom an armed opposed force of ten is barely a party.[/QUOTE]

Thaumaturgy is a very powerful discipline, particularly when employed against humans. Likewise, dominate is also quite powerful against humans and weak vampires. Quite frankly, I never found either discipline particularly useful in the more serious "boss" type fights, though.

I suppose my vote for most powerful discipline would probably go to celerity. While I find thaumaturgy, dominate, dementation, and animalism more fun to play with, ultimately celerity is just incredibly powerful in the game.

I have yet to play a clan with celerity so I can't really comment on that.

So far my favourite disciplines are:

1 Obfuscate: A true gods gift in stealth missions

2 Dementation: Like Dominate, but more fun!

3 Thaumaturgy: Making people throw up blood and explode is just......neat!

i rarley used magic, except when i tried gangrel and tremre, their respective unique magic (protean and thaumaturgy) rocked! otherwise i just used my favorite skill all the time, stealth, with stealth skill... not only is it effective, it looks beautiful too!
obfuscate is just a waste of blood and exp, dont, with eight in stealth you can walk right infront of someone without them noticing you anyways.

I like a lot of them.

Last time through, as a Toreador, I raised my seduction and persuasion higher
than usual and got some interesting results. I won't go into them because that would turn into spoilers. For discipline, I focused on celerity, which is a great
way to handle the things that are hard to kill. Sometimes it's better to just
run away.

I always go for high sneaking -- at least 8 -- so I almost never need to shoot
a gun and end up with fully-loaded weapons until near the very end.

Having sat in the museum with 3 guards guns drawn within touching distance I can defiantely say that Obfuscate can be very useful.

Also made a few of the stealth quests a case of stroll in grab the goods and stroll out, with an occasional stop for a snack.

[QUOTE=Stuntie]Having sat in the museum with 3 guards guns drawn within touching distance I can defiantely say that Obfuscate can be very useful.

Also made a few of the stealth quests a case of stroll in grab the goods and stroll out, with an occasional stop for a snack.[/QUOTE]

Playing as Nosferatu Obfuscate is practically indispensable. The Dane quest is as good as impossible without it, since you need to get the police report and view of sarcophagus on the deck (unless you cheat), as you are too ugly to pass even for a journalist.
And I concur on the stealth quests.

Tremere - blood boil is fun - somebody blows up and damages those nearby.

Animalism - Nightwing stalker (?) - blood strike and get blood back even if hiding around the corner. nice.

Obfuscate - can you see me? thought not.

Celerity - most all-round useful discipline - in melee you can flip them up in the air and volley them around the arena, taking on a number of decent opponents without fear. with ranged - you shoot fast, reload fast and can dodge your enemies' bullets. you can also run away and hide if you need to.
even at levels 1/2 you get a distinct advantage - by 5 it's like being in The Matrix. bye-bye Agent Smith.

persuasion is important, and research (intelligence/scholarship) for those tomes.
melee and unarmed for close-quarter combat.

celerity
persuasion
melee
research
unarmed