Wizardry Just started a new Wizardry 8 run...

[Xi]

Finally made vampire chain, but it is not nearly as cool as the cane of corpus. But for shits and giggles it was worth it. If I could do a second play through I would use a Bishop to level 20 then Samurai the rest of the way. That would be ungodly powerful given the gear available. However, that added power is really just overkill since my current fairy ninja is not struggling at all. My best XP for a single fight so far, I think, was something in the low 2 Million range. Good times ;P

Edit:

Making a full ranged group would be fun too. 6 Rangers that never use anything but bows. Lol, that'd be sick. You go into combat and immediately destroy anything in your way, like a machine gun. Prob have a couple of char's dual class for portal and some other useful spells, then all ranger.

 

[King Crispy]

NO SPOILERS PLEASE

 

[hoverdog]

Dark Savant dies

 

[DraQ]

Finally made vampire chain, but it is not nearly as cool as the cane of corpus. But for shits and giggles it was worth it. If I could do a second play through I would use a Bishop to level 20 then Samurai the rest of the way. That would be ungodly powerful given the gear available. However, that added power is really just overkill since my current fairy ninja is not struggling at all. My best XP for a single fight so far, I think, was something in the low 2 Million range. Good times ;P

Edit:

Making a full ranged group would be fun too. 6 Rangers that never use anything but bows. Lol, that'd be sick. You go into combat and immediately destroy anything in your way, like a machine gun. Prob have a couple of char's dual class for portal and some other useful spells, then all ranger.

Put 1-2 gadgeteers there.

Also, Rangers can into portal at high level.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yeah, gadgeteer is made of suck at the beginning, but long term he's a more viable ranged fighter than ninja and ranger. Also ranged combat is kinda meh in Wiz8, ammo weight alone would drag you down in a party like that.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Gadgeteer is damn good.

 

[King Crispy]

I'm pretty amazed at all the bard instruments I keep finding, though. If it weren't for the coolness factor in surprising yourself with what you can combine with gadgets to make, I'd say the bard might be the better class to play.

 

[Xi]

I ended up making 4 rangers, 1 gadgeteer, and 1 bishop. The monstary was a joke. They steam rolled everything, killing most pacts before they could enter melee range. This also means I can have 6 different portals. That's pretty epic ;P

In terms of ammo weight, it doesn't seem like much of an issue. I plan on pumping all of their strengths to 100 after dex/speed. I can pack 100 arrows on each character and then 600 more in party pack. It's a lot of weight, but nothing that can't be managed. After all, I just solo fairy ninjad. That required pretty extreme weight management.

Plus, I can use those two wrist items (+40 strength) on my gadgeteer and add quite a bit of muscle to the party.

 

[DraQ]

I ended up making 4 rangers, 1 gadgeteer, and 1 bishop. (...) This also means I can have 6 different portals.

Gadgeteers cannot into portals.

 

[Shadenuat]

Hybrids cannot into portal in the beginning of the game which I also find sucks. Reason I prefer Psionic/Alchemist combo for a regular party. All ranged party is't bad though, I played one with 2 rangers, both with blunderbusses, gadgeteer, ninja with returning shuriken and someone else I don't remember exactly who. A party who does't have to go all up front certainly has it's advantages in Wiz8.

 

[Gregz]

I ended up making 4 rangers, 1 gadgeteer, and 1 bishop. The monstary was a joke. They steam rolled everything, killing most pacts before they could enter melee range. This also means I can have 6 different portals. That's pretty epic ;P

In terms of ammo weight, it doesn't seem like much of an issue. I plan on pumping all of their strengths to 100 after dex/speed. I can pack 100 arrows on each character and then 600 more in party pack. It's a lot of weight, but nothing that can't be managed. After all, I just solo fairy ninjad. That required pretty extreme weight management.

Plus, I can use those two wrist items (+40 strength) on my gadgeteer and add quite a bit of muscle to the party.

How is your ranger party doing? Anything you would change? It looks pretty fun, I might give it a try.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I ended up making 4 rangers, 1 gadgeteer, and 1 bishop. The monstary was a joke. They steam rolled everything, killing most pacts before they could enter melee range. This also means I can have 6 different portals. That's pretty epic ;P

In terms of ammo weight, it doesn't seem like much of an issue. I plan on pumping all of their strengths to 100 after dex/speed. I can pack 100 arrows on each character and then 600 more in party pack. It's a lot of weight, but nothing that can't be managed. After all, I just solo fairy ninjad. That required pretty extreme weight management.

Plus, I can use those two wrist items (+40 strength) on my gadgeteer and add quite a bit of muscle to the party.

You just did the beginning of the game. After a while (especially if do dex/spd builds) the ranged characters start eating through ammo like crazy, you'll need tons of high-end arrows, stones (these especially weigh a lot) and thrown weapons. It will be a huge problem, believe me.

Also, ranged combat in Wiz8 sucks in general compared to melee. I was reassured about that during my last completed playthrough when I had a Mook ranger. I larped him as a 100% bow user, it was all fine and dandy until I found the Giant's Sword and gave it to him as a backup just for the lulz. It quickly turned out that he started being a better fighter using it despite having 0 skill points in cc and swords...

 

[DraQ]

Well, with such party I would make as many double, and then triple shot x-bows as possible. Make one of the rangers modern weapons guy, then fill the rest of the slots with bows.

Then again, this is a party without missile shield, magic screen, soul shield and enchanted blade.

I expect a lot of hurtz.

 

[King Crispy]

Holy crap why did I try going into the SE wilderness and banging my head in mega-ffffuuuuu instead of heading to the Mt. Gigas caves?

My guys are all currently level 12-13 and clearly I was in the wrong area. Now anything I come up against in the caves stands no chance and I'm advancing at a nice pace.

Also, man the swamps sure ramped up their difficulty quickly. Some Dreadmares utterly rofl-stomped me before I remembered to head back the the Umpani base instead.

I really hate level scaling.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

I really hate level scaling.

Still better than Oblivion's.

But yeah, swamp's propably the most butthurt-generating area for me, good ol' days, when I entered it for the first time and was overwhelmed by ca. 30 queen ants, frogs and blood drinkers.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ahh, the fucking swamp. Fucking mosquitos beat my ass.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Bumping with question, I finally have some time to replay Wiz8: which of the following parties will be better (not for in a raw power terms)/more fun:

2 bishops (elf+faerie), gadgeteer, monk (going full time staff&wand), valkyrie and rogue (swords+daggers)

OR

2 bishops, gadgeteer, same monk (maybe I'll throw in polearms, dread spear is simply too great imo, hm, hm, hm), dual wielding fighter (maces+swords) and ninja (felpurr, mind you, going for staff of doom)/ranged weapons bard?

I replayed quite a while with lord in the place of valkyrie and he's not worth the effort - 125% dual wielding gives no bonus whatsoever and he's missing the raw damage potential of a fighter. Valkyrie OTOH is far easier to develop and I once ended giving her shield + vampire chain just for the sake of it. Never finished with rogues and fighters though, they seem to peak fairly quickly and so quickly become boring (?).
Anyway, 2 bishops and a gadgeteer are must-haves for any of my parties.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Oh, and what do you think about valkyrie+monk combo, both with spears for mid-game? Dread Spear (easy to obtain and can serve for the whole game) for valk, monk sticking with Stun Rod (INSANE 20% paralyze, stamina drain and spear bonus) until he gets SoD/Zatoichi?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Are you seriously asking people what party will be more fun for you? Anyway, first party will be stronger because of rogue and staff monk, but not like it makes any signficant difference if you know the game already.

 

[cvv]

You absolutely don't need 2 bishops, one is more than enough.
Gadgeteer is fun in the last quarter of the game when your Omnigun is nicely developed and you have enough Impaling Stones but for most of the game he's there just for the ride and his gadgets are heavy, limited and inferior compared to Bard. Also, his blinding ability is very annoying.
It's a waste of potential to train monks for staves IMO, you're missing on an insane damage/crit output when fighting martial. Zatoichi is awesome but in W8 it's found only at the very end, not worth it IMO.
Fighter can berserk which is awesome but can't into magic which sucks. Besides there's an auto-berserk sword available since the beginning-ish, give it to the samurai and you're far better off.

Last time I went with the robot monk, a gadgeteer (will replace with bard next time), a samurai, valkyrie, ninja, bishop and a ranger.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Staff monks generally have a better crit output and other status ailments to boot. You can get SoD quite early and it's one of the better weapons in the game, arguably better than Zatoichi thanks to superior added effects, which is what mostly staff monk is about.

Bard vs Gadgie depends on what you want, gadgie is better support, better offense, great ranged and a late bloomer, bard is status effects, can be shaped into a decent fighter and good instrumens can be obtained earlier.

 

[cvv]

Monk martial combat is better because more hits = more chances to crit. And a well trained monk can hit about 10 times in one round with feet/hands, and 2 times with staff. That said, monk/samurai crit output is a minor bonus, even late game, especially compared to game changers like a ranger with Elven bow and Mystic arrows.

And OMG, gadgie is definitely NOT better support, not with all the sleep, freeze, hex and whatever music instruments that you can find for your bard ages sooner. Yes offense-wise he's better than Bard in late game, just because Medusa stones are beastly. But you can give your bard the wrist rocket and he won't be that far behind. And his high-tier gadgets backfire all the time, even with full blown engineering. And they're heavy. And take way too much stamina. And that's it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Just try monk with Zato/SoD and you'll see that he hits crits way more often, despite less attacks. The percentages you get from bare critical skill seem to be very low.

By support I mean actual support spells, superman mostly.

 

[DraQ]

You absolutely don't need 2 bishops, one is more than enough.

2-school bishop is a class (well, 6 classes) of its own.

For all practical consideration it can be treated as caster-caster hybrid rather than elite class.
2-schooler develops much faster than 4-schooler and can afford to spend spell picks on interesting stuff, which means you can cast valuable spells - you know, the reason you have casters in the first place - much earlier and much better.

If you may want a basic caster, you may also want a 2-school bishop and 2 2-schoolers can cover all spell schools.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Monk martial combat is better because more hits = more chances to crit. And a well trained monk can hit about 10 times in one round with feet/hands, and 2 times with staff.

I don't know, critical hits always seemed to me a little bit too LOLRANDOM than they should be - everything somehow changes for the better when I equip my monk/samurai/RFS/ninja with weapons with kill% on them.

Which reminds me - is non-mook samurai without dual wielding (single weapon, no shield) actually viable? In development difficulty terms he would be somehow close to valkyrie - simply pumping 3 swords/close combat/critical strike and then 3 wizardry/CC/CS. And enchanted wakizashi isn't that great after all.