I am playing my first play-through of the game using “The Lazy Pokémon Master Build” by JayNyne. I am absolutely LOVING the game and the build! However, being my first play-thought I feel I might have chosen the wrong faction: Kymon’s Chosen, instead of Deaths Vigil. The gear seems to be better with the other guys but I kinda already devoted myself to the Chosen…
I am playing through on veteran right now, will I have a chance to chose Death’s Vigil on elite?
Will I be able to get max rep with both in the end?
Personally I take both factions.
I pick one in normal then pick the same one in Elite. I max out it’s reputation before picking again in Ultimate. I buy everything from the faction vendor in Elite I want.
Then In Ultimate I pick the other faction and max out its rep. That way I get access to everything I want from both factions.
I do the same thing with the Outcast. In Normal and Elite I side with her givig me access to her Shop. Max out her rep, buy what I want. Then in Ultimate I Side with Black Legion that way I can Farm her.
If you’re planning to play a character to endgame, then nemesis choice should dictate your Ultimate faction choice. Figure out which of Zantarin and Iron Maiden you most want to avoid, and side with them.
For optimal play, you should select the opposite faction for normal and elite, and shop for a storehouse of their augments before switching in ultimate. But that entails a lot more farming work for relatively small character power gains, so you can disregard that bit if you feel like it.
What I’d do if I were you is just stick to Chosen throughout elite and ultimate – consistently staying to the same side. This is not pro advice – it might prevent you from being able to squeeze the smallest of edges to get a BiS augmentation or two endgame for your particular build.
Pro style is side with one faction for veteran and elite, get to revered, purchase all necessary stuff (usually mostly augmentations) for endgame, then betray them and switch sides in ultimate.
Once you switch sides you will never be able to buy stuff from that faction ever again with that character, and you won’t be able to buy stuff with other characters and transfer because the items they sell of interest (besides blueprints whose recipes will become known for all characters once learned) are soulbound.
So to play that way where you betray them in ultimate requires you to stockpile on stuff you know you need in the endgame while you’re still revered with them, since once you switch sides they will be your enemies in all difficulties (your reputation is shared for all difficulty modes with each faction). That requires an absolute clear vision of what your endgame gear will be as well as what nemesis you want to fight as Guurzak suggested, and a player at the stage of asking these questions generally won’t have that idea.
To me that’s too overwhelming when you’re at this stage. It’s easier to just consistently stick to a faction. The loss of a potential handful of augmentations and requiring you to substitute them isn’t going to destroy your build – it might just put it at like 98% efficiency instead of 100% efficiency or something like that – not the end of the world (your attribute distribution is a permanent choice that can have a much greater effect on your endgame efficiency than what faction you side with). It’s better when you start becoming really experienced to start a new character knowing exactly what your endgame goals will be. Until then I think it’s better to just explore and discover and allow yourself to make a few minor mistakes which minorly affect the endgame performance of your build.
For a pet build your most important factions mid-game when it comes to equipment, not augmentations, is Rovers. And fortunately you don’t have to choose sides when it comes to them.
Short term there are pros and cons of each when it comes to some leveling gear. Long term there are only really two (well three) things that I’ve seen matter:
Which Nemesis you want to fight, Iron Maiden is IMO the harder of the two, unless you have high physical resistance
The 7 chaos/vit armor augment sold by Kymons Chosen, if you end up being light on these two resists this can be one of the better armor augments end game.
3 - kinda) There is also an aether/energy regen jewelry augment sold by Order of Deaths vigil that has some uses if you want to near perma channel AAR.
Beyond that everything else is really just short term stuff and won’t make a big difference one way or the other long term.
My 2 cents, for a pet character Kymon’s Chosen is the faction you’ll want eventually. Although you may feel you are missing out on a piece or two of Death’s Vigil armor with pet stats those items are just for leveling and wouldn’t be part of a nem farming kit anyways.