Summary
- Prepare for a character or emotionally-driven playthrough with a sensitive build.
- Embrace the weird, paranormal, and beautiful to get the most out of an emotionally-intelligent cop.
- Listen to the voices that most appeal when developing skills, as the main gameplay loop is hearing what they have to say.
After years of being stuck in hyper-violent fantasy and cyberpunkian worlds, Disco Elysium invites RPG fans into a new kind of experience; one that combines the best of classic RPGs (reactivity, complexity, and exploration) with a deeply human and introspective ludonarrative that is engaging despite its lack of hack-and-slash action, thanks to several groundbreaking design innovations and its excellent writing.
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It should come as no surprise that one of the available builds in Disco Elysium leans heavily on inter and intra-personal skills: the sensitive archetype. While Disco makes just about any playstyle viable, these spoiler-free tips will help sensitive souls throughout their investigation (of both the murder of their dreams and the actual murder case) to get the most out of the game.
Prepare For A Character Or Emotionally-Driven Playthrough
Go Down The Sensitive Route Only If It Resonates
Generally speaking, a sensitive playthrough will appeal to those willing to go along with the ride and who enjoy roleplaying a soulful human being. However, it may frustrate the more result-oriented players. Where an intellectual build brings a constant stream of worldbuilding to the player and a physically-oriented cop brings action and speed to resolve the case, players opting for the pre-made sensitive archetype or some variation will experience Ravachol through the eyes of a hungover mystic, one able to penetrate the soul of others, if nothing else.
In Disco Elysium, the cop’s skills play the role of supporting characters in dialogue. Many skills under the sensitivity umbrella are relevant to police work, with Authority, Esprit De Corps (tapping into the collective hivemind of law enforcement), and Volition (emotional defense) being the most obvious. The sensitive archetype’s core strengths revolve around building connections with other characters and internal soul searching, which can be useful even during a murder investigation.
An Ability Score For Custom Sensitive Builds
The Spirit Is Willing But The Flesh Is Weak
The sensitive archetype or build may offer high morale, protecting the cop from emotional or psychic damage, but players should not neglect the cop’s physical damage allowance, dictated by his Endurance skill. First-time players should avoid having any “terrible” ability scores in physique, motorics, or intellect, and should consider splitting a high ability score between another that compliments sensitivity.
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Motorics is a great companion thanks to its many sensitivity-complementing skills such as Perception, Savoir Faire, or Interfacing. Building Physique may be useful as it buffs the aforementioned Endurance skill, but players should be aware that physique and physique skill caps can be boosted early on with a special borscht. Intellect can be useful, but there are redundant checks between Intellect and Sensitivity skills, meaning that one type will often drown out the other rather than follow up or complement it.
Choosing A Sensitive-Friendly Signature Skill
Using Shivers To Link To The Outside World
While a signature skill only boosts one skill’s level, it also increases the learning cap for all other skills in that ability type. For this reason, Shivers makes an excellent choice. Unlike the other pragmatic physical skills, Shivers is the cop’s true sixth sense. Not only does it give the cop more room to improve Physical skills if needed, but it is surprisingly thematically appropriate for a sensitive-type character, and very useful near the end of the game at high levels.
It will occasionally chime in to deliver a beautifully written description of the movement of the city and beyond, which players of a sensitive inclination will appreciate. Besides Shivers, another excellent candidate is Endurance, especially if the player chooses to dump physique, but Motorics, with Perception, Hand-Eye Coordination, and Savoir Faire, are also fine candidates. As Disco is so people-focused, Intellect’s Drama will help the cop read lies as well as feelings, and Suggestion will help him charm his way to a desired outcome with class, rather than brute strength.
The Best Skills To Nurture For Sensitive Types
Listen To The Voices That Most Appeal
When it comes to suggesting which to develop for a sensitive build, the best advice to players is to simply go with whichever of Disco Elysium‘s skills have the most interesting things to say. Raising skills under any ability group in Disco Elysium is less about gaining success in a particular area (especially when successful rolls can lead to a more boring outcome) and more about hearing from the chosen skill more often, it is especially true with sensitivity skills.
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That being said, the skills that can help the cop become more manipulative are Authority and Suggestion. This type of charming cop with Intellect to spare should put points in Drama to help sort between honesty and lies, and rhetoric in moments of confrontation. The skills that help him “see beyond the veil” are Inland Empire, Empathy, and Esprit de Corps. Motorics’ Perception will help the cop find more objects of interest to ponder over. Those looking to roleplay the “doom seer” should aim to make their Conceptualization as high as possible.
The Best Thoughts And Consumables To Internalize
It’s Not Always Best To Think With The Heart
Disco Elysium‘s default sensitive build completely dumps the intellect ability. As such, “smokes Astra” (cigarettes) become invaluable consumables, as they temporarily boost the cop’s intellect and intellect learning caps, allowing the player to improve these skills beyond their original limits.
Players running a sensitive cop build may be naturally drawn to playing an apocalyptic figure, given the state of Ravachol and the Pale, and doing so will grant a skill that raises the learning cap for Shivers to 6. If the cop is able to pass a Conceptualization check (requiring six points of investment) after recovering his lost ledger and investigates the notion of a “bow collector,” he will gain a gum-related thought that grants +3 Shivers when resolved.
Embrace The Weird, Paranormal, And Beautiful
The Life Of An Emotionally-Attuned Cop Is A Spiritual Journey
Most of the citizens of Ravachol are kinder and more trusting than NPCs encountered in many other detective games, so it is generally good advice not to close the cop’s heart, especially to his investigative partner, Kim. Additionally, Empathy checks are some of the most common in the game, playing the sensitive type can lead to a lot of encouraging successful rolls and useful insights. A sensitive cop should not be afraid to go in deep and embrace strange dialogue choices.
Embracing the weird and paranormal with high Inland Empire investment tends to pay off in unexpected ways. Inland Empire also tends to set up vague, esoteric hints about events to come based on the cop’s intuition, which often pays off down the line. While they can be helpful to players with high real-life intuition, they can often read more like poetry than straightforward deductions and may frustrate logical players on their first run.
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