Deathbound: Tehkri Haodai's Best Talents

Tehkri Houdai is the first 'mage-type' Essence you'll assimilate in Deathbound, a Soulslike game venture by Trialforge Studio. In Deathbound, you'll take control of four characters or 'Essences' at once, all in one body, and if the HP depletes on any of these characters, you die.

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By Chris Harkin

So, at first, it can be a bit scary actually using Tehkri Houdai, an Essencemancer, in Deathbound since he's so squishy and doesn't get a shield or anything like the default character Therone does. Thankfully, as long as you keep an eye (and an ear) out for the Memory Point interactables out in the world, with even a single Memory Point you can make Tehkri Houdai a whole lot scarier. And, that's not even taking into consideration the fact that this guy is already plenty strong in this game, once you get a handle on the combat.

Memory Points & Talents

What Are They?

First off, what are Memory Points, and what are they used to unlock? Well, in Deathbound there's an overarching skill tree that you'll use to level up different stats, with new sections of the tree becoming available with each new Essence that you obtain.

However, each Essence AKA character also has its own skill tree in the form of its Talents. These are buffs or modifiers for the character you'll activate, with each one costing a single Memory Point for said character. However, single Memory Points are individually tied to the separate Essences, so obtaining multiple for one character in a small span of time is pretty unlikely. So, let's go over which Talents of Tehkri Houdai, in particular, are the best.

Tehkri Houdai's Talents

His Best Talent Options Overall

Name	Effect
Composure	Haodai's Morph Strikes have a 40 percent chance of removing 60 Heat.
Bond Boost	25 percent increased Sync gain for 60 seconds after Overheat Explosion for bound Essences.
Aura of Absorption	Casting buffs removes the beneficial effects of nearby enemies.
Essence Shield	25 percent chance to gain Heat instead of taking damage.
Symbiosis	Killing enemies while buffed grants bonus Sync
Contingency	Buffs last longer with more Heat.
Empathy	When in Synergy or Conflict, spells have a 20 percent chance of not increasing Heat.

Listed above are all 7 of Tehkri's Talents, with all of them being available (as long as you have the Memory Points) to obtain right as he becomes playable. However, in our experience with Deathbound, we found Composure, Empathy, & Symbiosis to be the most beneficial Talents, and here's why:

Composure: 60 Heat is a ton, and you'll be using Morph Strikes constantly in Deathbound. With this, you can basically get Tehkri to full Heat, Dodge Morph, attack once with another Essence, and then Morph Strike with Haodai to almost completely reset his Heat meter, especially with the right Rings and Artefacts equipped
Empathy: The Synergy and Conflict system in Deathbound is by far one of the most creative things this game introduces to the Soulslike genre. You'll want to have as many Synergies and/or Conflicts active as possible, at all times, and as long as there's one that involves Tehkri in it, Empathy is basically always active.
Symbiosis: Tehkri's Corruption Enhancement is something you'll want to be using often with him, as it basically puts the Corruption affliction on the weapons of any Essences you swap to for quite a long time (as long as they use a weapon). However, Haodai didn't seem to benefit much from this buff at all. But, with Symbiosis, you can not only get bonus Sync getting kills with Haodai, but any character with the buff active will also generate bonus Sync.

Outside of these three, most of the other Talents are pretty decent to mediocre. If we had to rank the rest of them from worst to best, it'd probably go something like: Aura of Absorption, Bond Boost, Contingency, and Essence Shield. Overall, Tehkri Haodai's Talents really incentivize players to use him both as a team buffer as well as a general spellcaster who helps with clearing groups of enemies. And, the only difference between the two incentivizations is what Talents you choose first and what Artefacts & Rings you have equipped. As a last little note, any of you who are worried about using any of the gear found in-game related to Heat since Tehkri is the only Heat-user early on, know that you gain more Essences later on that use Heat too, so it's worth investing in these items.

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