So, my brother and I have been playing Hunted (loving it) with him playing E'lara and me play Caddoc. We're playing on normal difficulty and every now and then we get wiped but for the most part we manage to muddle thru. We just wrapped up the first chapter.

Now, as a Caddoc player, I wanna do my best with him and I have to admit, I'm struggling a bit. Perhaps I'm relying too much on sword and board and not mixing it up with his spells enough? Some of the spells seem glitched too. Sometimes I dash into an enemy and they don't even blink and my Wind of Wrath doesn't seem to hurt them when I smash them into the ground. Melee-wise, it's more of a button mash session and I hope the enemy falls quicker than I do. Perhaps Caddoc is meant to be played more subtlety?

Any tips to improve my game would be welcome.

Cadoc is the tank for the most part. Don't expect to be out damaging E'lara for most battles. The key is to battle charge each other, which you may not have unlocked yet. Once the battle charging begins you will two shot most regular enemies. As far as the dash, I've seen some people use it from too far away and having the dash end right before they reach the enemy. Thats one possiblity, also, its really only a first strike stunner. Not really a powerful attack to one shot someone with. And the Wind of Wrath is to be used to make enemies vulnerable to E'lar's arrows. When you have 3 people or more around you use that and she will be able to wipe them all out. Remember to hold the button down, I believe it lasts as long as you hold your spell button down and have mana.

But in all, Cadoc is your shield, he's the guy that get all the attention while E'lar works her bow. The real skill in using Cadoc is not dying. If you can keep Cadoc alive, your team is unstoppable. If Cadoc goes down for 3 seconds then E'lar gets all the attention and will surely drop unless whoever playing her has master the dodge manuevers.

I've found that Caddoc is much more effective (when not battle charged by your ally anyway) if you block and patiently wait for openings. A lot of opponents will do a double attack so I usually start attacking after their 2 swings. A few opponents (like the nasty ones that dual wield axes can perform a fairly long offensive chain though so just takes a bit of getting used to the different opponent types). Hammering away at an opponent's shield is not too effective at all. He's actually quite good at blocking and I find myself simply holding down the right mouse button while I'm attacking with the left, although sometimes I need to then release the right mouse button and press it again to resume blocking.

The wind (levitating) move does seem to be more for E'lara's benefit as it holds enemies stationary and with the right trains they take additional damage from archery. I've been paying around with Caddoc's charge move and find it can be pretty effective at the end of an attack chain. Admittedly I didn't use this too much early on, but I've been mostly playing Caddoc in Chapter 4 whereas I played E'lara a lot more early on. Caddoc does seem like a bit of a late bloomer but once you get some of the higher dmg melee weapons I am tearing stuff to shreds and getting tons of execution chances (due to the talent/bonus factor). There does seem to be some period of invulnerability when doing executions so I try and use that to my advantage as well.

I find myself getting my clocked cleaned a lot. Is there anyway to toughen this guy up? I'm always asking for help and on the floor, shields need to be twice what they are if you need them so much - even then they will be half of what you need. And why for God's sake would the tank be able to get two magic potions before two health potions?
And I would love to see more RPG elements, like being able to choose what you can make better, attacking, defense, that sort of thing.

I had a few rough patches earlier on with Caddoc and yeah the earlier shields can break a fair bit and I found myself shieldless a few times which is not a good situation to be in . While his other weapon 'spells' are decent, I found myself almost exclusively using his Charge spell which is just incredible at pulverizing enemies/smashing their shields to bits (which can be good or bad if you need a new shield ). There is also an unlockable talent that improves your shield strength. I think the potion unlocks are from doing certain things (can't quite recall atm) so I don't think it's a guarantee that you will unlock 2 mana potions before 2 health potions. Regardless, the Weapon "Spells" are just as useful for Caddoc as they are E'lara.

His other 2 weapon spells (the whirlwind/levitate and his "rage" one) are okay, but I think you will find his charge spell much more satisfying for making Caddoc a badass. Once you get to rank 3 of that charge, you can seriously lay down the pain. Don't use it to charge across the battlefield, but sprint/roll/block your way relatively near to your enemies then turn them to pulp with a charge . Early on I tried to play conservative with the mana use but the enemies seem to drop the potions quite a bit, encouraging their use.

The battle charge spells are nice for buffing your ally and situationally useful on certain fights, but one problem with using them with Caddoc is he is supposed to be up close and in the thick of things and when you cast those spells you put away your weapon and shield which leaves you extremely vulnerable.

I'd also recommend practicing your blocking and paying attention to how many attacks your enemies do before leaving themselves open. They will frequently double attack (some perform rather lengthy attack chains) and trying to squeeze off an attack may do some damage to your enemy but you will also lose a good chunk of health as well.

Thanks for all the advice everyone.

I think the key to Caddoc is definitely learning how to block/use the shield properly. Caddoc isn't as DPS intensive as E'lara is at first so you can't just run in a swing your weapon and expect to win every time. Learn the enemies moves and be ready to block. Also, you don't have to rely on just sword and board. Good use of Caddoc's spells and abilities is also key. Sigil of Pain is good to soften (or outright kill) some of your enemies. Drop it and then retreat a few step and let them walk right into it. The fireball spell (I forget the name at the moment) is great against bunched up or really tough enemies.

The way I play Caddoc is to:

A: Always Battle Charge Elara before and during an intense fight. This way you maximize her killing potential.
B: Shield AND Dodge to save yourself from being completely defenseless in a fight. Nothing is worse then having no shield and getting stunlocked by duel-wielding shiny baddies.
C: Heavy use of the Ground AoE Spell (especially against the crawler bugs, but also when getting groups of melee attacking you) and the Fireball Spell vs. Archers as you close the gap.
D: Try and target your smash or rage (or whatever it's called) attack for shielded or glowing enemies - if around. However, always always always use it on something as soon as it's available.