After some stumbling, confusion and getting used to the first floor of the first dungeon, I optimized my party's combat behavior and it's been a smooth ride ever since.
I have a Brawler-Hunter-Fighter-Thief-Mage-Bishop party. Prepping to finish the first dungeon and continue the adventure.
Soon enough you're going to want an alchemist, as crafting is pretty much essential, and so fun and integral to fleshing out the enjoyment of the game that I think one of the few weaknesses of Elminage is tying crafting to a char-class at all, as it pretty much necessitates utilizing the class.
(yes, you saw this correctly, you just saw me actually saying Elminage isn't perfect).
Anyway, so yeah, crafting and enchantment: you can either keep one in town for crafting or take one with you, and putting aside the fact that it's incredibly tedious having to switch in the Alchemist character into your party every time you're going to upgrade, enchant or craft, it's also matter-of-fact that the alchemist spell list is basically the most useful one out of all the spell schools. The alchemist spell school includes spells for repairing broken weapons and armor and other items (enemies can break your equipment, and also some other misc. equipment can break due to reasons, such as Bard instruments); and it also includes absolutely essential spells that speed up your turn order, increase your damage output by increasing the hits-per-swing of your weapon attacks, and most importantly: the alchemist spell list contains the all-important spells that help reduce incoming magic spells, or increase your party's magical effectiveness.
EDIT: As well as Charming and Confusion, and most MOST importantly: PARALYSIS. Paralysis is SUPER DUPER USEFUL. It's a life-saver, useful from the beginning of the game up until the very fucking end.
Since you're using a Hunter, you should know Hunters have a special connection with the alchemy spell school, and when you class change an Alchemist INTO a Hunter, the Hunter will retain all 9/9/9/9/9/etc spell charges (assuming the Alchemist learned them, obviously). This is noteworthy because normally when you class change out of a spell-casting class and into another class you will only retain a maximum of 3 spell charges per spell-level, i.e. 3/3/3/3/etc; however due to the Hunter's affinity with alchemy they will retain the maximum allotment.
This still means you'll have to keep an Alchemist parked in the Bar, and I still think that's incredibly tedious, so basically the TLDR of this is: Bro, you need an Alchemist.
I personally recommend just accepting that you need one in-party (you'll have to have one in your party anyways at some point in order to have SOMEONE learn Alchemy spells before classing them into something else, like back into a Hunter); it cuts back on the tedium of switching him in/out every time you need to craft, enchant or synthesize.
Like I said: Elminage's dependance on tying crafting, enchantment and synthesis to the actual Alchemy class, instead of making it a generic service available in town, is the only real glaring weakness or flaw that in the game's mostly impeccable balancing act. You could argue that since Bishops are the only ones who can Identify that they also fall under this same fate, but unlike crafting/Alchemy, you can get items identified by store owners or barkeeps as a generic service, so you don't
need to have a Bishop; it's merely
convenient, unlike Alchemist spells/crafting which are
essential.
TLDR: make an Alchemist, and when he learns all his spellz turn him back into your Hunter. At least then you'll have access to the Alchemy spell list. You'll still need to make another Alchemist in order to keep him parked in the tavern to upgrade your gear and synthesize items, which is why I recommend just having one in the party at all times as an active member. It's just faster.
TLDR Update: Also the game incentivizes leveling up your Alchemist, i.e. having him be an Active Party member and leveling up, because the higher their level the better they can enchant your gear. Alchemists learn to squeeze more crafting-points out of the same Ores the more powerful they become. You can finish the game with a level 1 Alchemist's limited Ore-squeezing skills, but it will be waaaaaay harder than if you have a high-level Alchemist who, due to being better at squeezing more crafting-points out of your Ores, will be able to access the high-tier enchantments!
Examples of "high tier enchantments" that necessitate high-level Alchemist chars to reasonably access are:
- Enchanting a Main-hand weapon into being equippable into the Sub-hand.
- Kitting out a weapon with up to 3 different Double-Damage Race Targets. (Or more, I think you can squeeze in 4 races with +2 Ores).
- Making a weapon have
infinite range.
- Removing
class/race restrictions on gear. (!!!).
etc. You need very very high-point Ores to access those kinds of enchantments, and the only sane way is by having a high level Alchy.
