Wizardry Just started a new Wizardry 8 run...

[uaciaut]

Am i the only one who thinks some spellbooks are bad in design? Reffering to some elemental spells from divinty in particular:
Fire: you get 2 fire spells, one level 1 (light), one level 6 (lightning); how the fuck are you supposed to train fire then? Just gain high enough wizardry to be able to learn lightning and then spam it every fight at pl 1?
Earth: you get 3 spells total, one of which is level 7 and the rest low level (though at least you can spam armorplate and hope you raise earth a little on your own).

 

[TigerKnee]

I don't think you're the only one, no.

Divinity and Psionic are the two that I believe have huge issues for single-casters. Bishops and Hybrids can use them fine... but oh well, that's Wiz 8 for you.

 

[DraQ]

Just grind savescumming on a flock of those little shits till it drops.

Sorry, I no longer play non-ironman Wiz8.
I have already beaten it a handful of times and it simply doesn't get to truly shine if you can reload at will.

(I do intend to scum Don Barlone, though - I have never experienced Faerie Ninja with CoC.)

Wizardry enhancements

If you go modded the problem with there only being two offhand swords, both of weeaboo kind, no longer exists.

Kind of disappointed on the overall package of the Samurai though tbh. I mean you forfeit quite a bit of frontline melee damage

Isn't that the case with any melee class but fighter and rogue?

Overall samurai gets to combine critical strike skill with most %kill gear while dual wielding save for Faerie ninja. So I think maximizing number of attacks per turn and crit chance is the way to go with samurai.

Am i the only one who thinks some spellbooks are bad in design? Reffering to some elemental spells from divinty in particular:
Fire: you get 2 fire spells, one level 1 (light), one level 6 (lightning); how the fuck are you supposed to train fire then? Just gain high enough wizardry to be able to learn lightning and then spam it every fight at pl 1?
Earth: you get 3 spells total, one of which is level 7 and the rest low level (though at least you can spam armorplate and hope you raise earth a little on your own).

You can spam light to pump up fire magic or simply consider some spells in some books "bishop spells" that are only worthwhile for characters using multiple schools.
Earth is ok, you have Armorplate and you'll probably be using Web even late in game (it rocks against all sorts of Savant's creations).

Overall I'd move or duplicate ring of fire to Divinity.
Maybe duplicate blinding flash too.

And giving Bloodlust to a Samurai is MADNESS waiting to happen. Lightning Strike 8 blows with Berserk, butchering everything.

Also, you get an extra swing with Bloodlust.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Hence Lightning Strike is doubled. Rather than 4 swings, as is usual for a low level character, you get 8.

 

[uaciaut]

Isn't that the case with any melee class but fighter and rogue?

Overall samurai gets to combine critical strike skill with most %kill gear while dual wielding save for Faerie ninja. So I think maximizing number of attacks per turn and crit chance is the way to go with samurai.

Samurai get (imo) weaker weapons than either faerie ninjas and staff monks and they have less defensive stats as well (since stealth is really effective on them). The only counterpart to this is the lightning strike thing but RNG make it pretty bad overall imo. They're still a great class on their own accord though, don't get me wrong.

So wrt swords it's Muramasa > Fang > Bushido or?

 

[DraQ]

Isn't that the case with any melee class but fighter and rogue?

Overall samurai gets to combine critical strike skill with most %kill gear while dual wielding save for Faerie ninja. So I think maximizing number of attacks per turn and crit chance is the way to go with samurai.

Samurai get (imo) weaker weapons than either faerie ninjas and staff monks and they have less defensive stats as well (since stealth is really effective on them). The only counterpart to this is the lightning strike thing but RNG make it pretty bad overall imo. They're still a great class on their own accord though, don't get me wrong.

So wrt swords it's Muramasa > Fang > Bushido or?

Muramasa (*IF* it appears) is pretty much the top of the line for samurai, with hefty bonuses, nice damage and 15% kill, along with leaving offhand free from secondary weapon.
A good alternative would be *Light* *Sword* with horrendous damage, massive bonuses, 2x damage against Savant's droids and 10% kill, but it almost never drops.

Fang is a good guaranteed sword - nice damage, 10% kill, +10 str.

Bushido blade may be a welcome replacement for whatever you're swinging, especially with 5% kill to make it worth considering.

OTOH you might be swinging Bloodlust at this point and it gives berserk attacks (2x damage for 10-26 effective damage range), an extra attack (doubling it again at least until you'd start getting extra attacks with normal sword) giving additional critical hit opportunity, +5 sword skill and massive +6 ini (no to hit bonus, though and berserk attacks already impair hitting/penetration, also cursed and nomnomming a lot of stamina).

You can also just go with staff samurai. There is no inherent disadvantage in it compared to staff monk - both forfeit their class skill (sword and martial arts respectively) while doing so, both can use Zatoichi Bo and Staff of Doom, and both have critical strike skill to stack with SoD's 15% kill.
IF you can lightning strike regardless of weapon type (someone please confirm or deny), then staff samurai will be even better choice than staff monk, because even occassional lightning strike with SoD will seriously murder shit.
If samurai with stick rubs you wrong for some reason, you can always LARP Miyamoto Musashi (who coincidentally was also pretty much *the* dual wielding katana + wakizashi samurai dude) who was quite known for caving duel opponents' skulls in with a fucking bokken
(after first trolling them by arriving late ).

 

[uaciaut]

Wasn't Musashi known as a master of all weapons or something?

So if i get light sword and muramasa, which one should i go for?

 

[DraQ]

So if i get light sword and muramasa, which one should i go for?

Depends. *Light* *Sword* is generally superior weapon. However, it's also a generic, rather than weeaboo sword (and a light one at that), which means that depending on your party composition you may have many characters in your party capable of putting LS to a good use, while Muramasa is Samurai exclusive. For example if you have fighter or rogue, they may arguably benefit more from LS's massive damage with their berserk/backstab multipliers, combat-oriented bard may also want it (and you can dual class bard to pretty much anything without losing anything but ability to use bard specific gear after you max out music and reach level 18), same with sword wielding lord, to compensate for the lack of hitting power, even sword using ninja will want it (no Muramasa for them), so giving samurai muramasa will give you ability to field both weapons and if your samurai has high critical strike, then you'll be putting this 15% kill to a good use.

Of course you'll miss seeing lightning strike with LS for obscene damage (OUCH!), and arguably Staff of Doom is superior to Muramasa, although it's 2h, cursed and has lesser ini and to-hit bonuses (then again it's also generalist weapon usable by any race/class combination so you can build any melee class with staff skill to use SoD as soon as you can survive getting - and wielding - it).

 

[uaciaut]

My samurai is my only sword wielder at the moment so sacrificing 5% kill chance when i want it to stack so it has a significant proc rate vs more damage that really stacks with itself the longer the fight goes, especially if he gets a LS.

 

[I_am_Ian]

The Staff of Doom also has extended range attack, 25% to paralyze, 10% hex, can cast death cloud and it is always available.

 

[uaciaut]

What are some good places to grind for XP at levels 20-21?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Swamp is decent, Ascension peak as well

 

[I_am_Ian]

Savant berserkers are an easy source of XPs. You can find them in Arnika usually.

 

[theSavant]

Yeah, Ascension Peak can be a funny place for leveling... I once hid behind a corner stone not being in mood for fight, but the mobs waited for me to come out. I took a night of sleep, and they were still waiting, including new ones. After some more sleeps they piled up to an amount I considered the whole wildlife of Ascension Peak was there. Eventually I took the fight and barely won... but levelled up 3 times afterwards (from 20 to 23 or so).

 

[Baron Dupek]

Anyone know questions about "best party build".
I have opposite one - what's the worst build? I remember only one - bishop with more than 3 schools of magic.
I'm just curious and looking for spice to ordinary playthrough.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Well, the classes that I'd consider lower tier are Psionic, Mage, Priest (I omit Alchemist, because it's the only pure caster class that is not made mostly redundant by hybrids and bard/gadgeteer), Ranger and Ninja - so any combination of those. It's not like any of them is downright bad though, you can still develop them to be useful assets and they do have their advantages.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I forgot about alchemist, heard that's cool class but despite mixing potions and some magic, I couldn't find any major aid from him in battles.

 

[Shadenuat]

Psionic has Pandemonium which makes killing hundreds of rapax at the end easy, and he is as useful or even more useful in beginning and midgame as mage, so I'd rate him p. high as class, on par with Alchemist. Alchemist has instant death spells, sure, but they depend on luck and you have to grind to cast them reliably, and his mid game abilities aren't as great. Yeah he can mix shit which makes him a little more useful. If I'd take two specialized casters, I'd probably take psionic and alchemist.
Priest is fine class, good for newbies, and if you want more then wait till priest gets magic screen, and switch to valk or lord - good character (my vote is for Valk of course, you won't get any better baby sitter for party than self resurrecting, stamina regenerating, superman'ed, heavily armored warrior with large mana pool of healing spells and some powerful polearm like staff with ton of status effects on it).
Ranger, mook with giant sword and blunderbuss, also fine.
Ninja is simply a monster if fairy with staff, else it's more of a flavor class. I never managed to create other type of ninja which will make an actual significant impact on party performance, probably requires a lot of planning/grinding whatever. Yeah returning shuriken is nice but samurai and ranger are both good at making death attacks, and ranger can do so reliably with blunderbuss. And monk is a lot cooler in melee than non-fairy ninjas, and has cool utility spells.

Mage is the only class in game I don't like, as well as Lord.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I forgot about alchemist, heard that's cool class but despite mixing potions and some magic, I couldn't find any major aid from him in battles.

Alchemist has offensive spells that are actually useful and not covered by instruments/gadgets so if you want them cast at high dice then you need one. Another good thing about him is that he also can be a throwing specialist and that's a nice combo as he is mixing stuff and throwing benefits from dex which is also boosting alchemy. Generally I'm not to fond of this class flavor wise, but I'd pick as the best of pure casters.

 

[uaciaut]

I have opposite one - what's the worst build? I remember only one - bishop with more than 3 schools of magic.

How is that the worst class, that's among the best classes in the game if properly looked after.
Also don't get why people would tend to think ninjas are a bad class, though i haven't played non-faerie ninja so far so idk, their leveling rate seems too big for what they offer though (they're labeled as elite but behave as any other hybrid imo).

Rangers are pretty much the worst class out there imo.

 

[cvv]

Rangers are pretty much the worst class out there imo.

Rangers with high-level bows and arrows are absolute meat grinders. They crit like half their shots, which is a godsend in this HP bloatfest of a game.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Also don't get why people would tend to think ninjas are a bad class

It's not bad per se, it's the worst when it comes to being cost effective though. Also needs a lot of savescumming and other cheese for most effective builds.

Rangers are pretty much the worst class out there imo.

Yeah, that would be my pick too, perhaps challenged by the priest.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Thing to keep in mind with Samurai (and hybrid classes generally) is that Wiz8 gives you a lot of scope for variation in what your hybrid focuses on. You can focus almost entirely on melee and use him as a critical strike frontliner, or train your casting as a mage-fighter.

Thing is....regardless of which option you take, you're wasting a character if he just sits there doing nothing while the enemies are out of range. From memory, he can't use the best guns, but I don't recall how he goes with ranged weapons so I can't really comment on whether that's a good option. But all your frontline guys should be taking actions every combat turn (outside of the kind of 'boss fights' or difficult areas where you're trying to conserve mana) whether that's your hybrids casting or your fighter shooting his blunderbuss. Guns and similar 'ranged weapons for non-rangers' start out really weak, but once you get decent skill in them the ability to send a full party volley while enemies are still closing range makes a huge difference to combat effectiveness.

Taking the time to train your ranged weapons and casting matters for all front-liners, but hybrids can end up really weak if you neglect it. I always use my hybrid classes to maintain buffs, cast light...all the routine low-level casting....to keep their casting skills ticking along. My dedicated casters are usually casting enough in combat, and maintaining higher-lvl buffs, so I don't need to worry about consciously training them. If you work your casting so that the samurai is genuine mage-fighter, he'll be almost as good as if you focused entirely on his melee (in fact, you could have just as much melee focus and train his casting while enemies are out of range, or keeping your buffs up between combats) and he'll be able to bring another crowd control option to the table. I find that particularly useful as direct damage spells tend to be a waste unless you already have 2 casters on crowd control, so where you've got masses of low hp enemies (fucking plants/insects) it helps to have a hybrid that can fill a crowd control spot and free up a dedicated caster for AoE damage.

Obviously from that mentality the samurai is bringing flexibility to the table instead of matching the fighter for damage - but with decent casting ability you aren't giving away combat effectiveness either.

 

[TigerKnee]

Ninjas are like the easiest class to **** up builds. That's why they're considered bad. Assuming you know how to optimally build a ninja (hint: Ignore spellcasting and "thievery" skills, have someone else do that instead), you get an... okay-ish class.

(Unless you play a fairy, who is basically a gimmick build that's dead weight until you get the CoC, in that case he becomes one of the more powerful characters in the game... which I still feel is kind of lame and one-dimensional and who would build a fairy ninja in the first place if no one ever told you that over the internet?)

Ninjas really don't deserve their elite status, only Bishops do because of their unique ability of learning from all spellbooks.

 

[Lhynn]

I remember soloing this thing till i hit a place were i needed another party member to keep going because of some mechanism.