Btw,
DraQ, didn't have time to reply earlier.
Valk may not be OP in absolute sense but she dfinitely is when compared to Lord, and they basically occupy identical niche in terms of their role in a party - both are heavy frontline tank/healer hybrids. Thanks to easier point management and better specials Valk easily outshines Lord in both aspects. Now, if Valks are better divine casters than lords (because they only need to worry about polearms, divinity and CC, sometimes putting points into realms instead instead of having 2w and additional weapon skill to worry about) and still have some point if you neglect magic (because with lord you will be better off using fighter in such case), then waht purpose do the lords serve?
Like I said – Lords can deal heavy dmg with added status ailments with greater ease and are, in my experience, better offensively while Valkyrie is a better tank.
I can't really agree.
Valks are heavy hitters right from Arnika Road and if you're lucky, right from Lower Monastery (Pike/Halberd), then there is no way but up - in Arnika they can pick up lance (with neat 4% kill) or fauchard, both of which deal heavy damage, and then they can buy Stun Rod - which is effectively an end-game weapon - at Marten's Bluff. Obtaining Draed Spear is only question of trip to Bela, which isn't that risky.
OTOH Fang requires one to be able to beat Sorceress, 2 Death Lords and their full entourage of casters. Then there are mummies for dessert. Diamond Eyes is easier, but it still requires penetrating deep into Mountain Wilderness and beating shit out of Death Lord and some undead heads.
Before that the best you can hope for is Bloodlust. If you want maces, then you will have to do with offhand hammer for an awfully long time. Stiletto is nice, but it doesn't do much damage and Lord doesn't have critical strike to boost instakill chance further.
Now, there are some problems with that. Valks generally only need two skills to shine in melee - polearm and close combat. You can dedicate your Valk fully to melee and you will still have leftover points each level - might as well pump dvinity or ranged weapon.
Now, dedicating your Lord to melee will require investment in 3 skills, and that's assuming you will fuck swords and dual wield maces. But then you effectively have 2w fighter who can't rage. Hurpdedurp.
If you want more than maces, or want to rage, you'll need 4 skills to pump religiously. This will give you an edge when using Bloodlust and many fine late game swords, and bloodlust gives you ability to rage as well. The thing is you're still ending up with a somewhat stunted fighter depending on particular weapon to rage, Bloodlust is in demand, so if you have Rogue, Samurai or even Bard, you might want to think twice before giving it to Lord. Rogue will backstab while berserking dealing better damage, Samurai doesn't necessarily need to 2w, extra swing gives them more opportunities to crit, and wizardry has nifty offensive spells compensating for lack of ranged weapon, while Bard has beefing-up class exclussive gear and can always play instruments while not in melee.
Oh, so you want Divinity? Well, 5 skills. Kiss your reasonable rate of development goodbye.
Now back to Valk. Early in game you don't get many attacks anyway and polearms hit pretty hard, so this creates good offensive potential (and even maximizing melee prowess Valk can still pump Divinity like a good little hybrid). Many Polearms have hefty bonus to polearm skill, which together with class bonus improves Valks hitting power even further. Polearms have better range allowing Valk to support flanks with heavy hitting power without moving. Two easily obtained polearms are of endgame class and cause crippling status ailments in addition to being extended and having skill bonus. They are also uncursed which is important for class without good offensive magic.
So valks hit better than Lords and don't tank worse than them either, all that without forfeiting hybrid or ranged capability.
Incidentally, this renders
I simply do not agree that you can’t have two characters with similar characteristic where one is better offensively and other defensively.
invalid.
Let me explain. The way I see it:
1. Divinity is the most vital school period. It has two best spells in the game (armorplate and magic screen) and both of them are divinity unique. Following that are a shitton of various buff and healing spells. And divinity is the perfect school for hybrid – it raises nicely through actual use without herp derp skill grindan which is something I openly detest in games, it starts with spells that are both useful and are a good way to raise skills (healing and stamina), it remains useful throughout the game, you don’t need high intelligence and powercast for it to be good, you get awesome spells quite early on. Like I said, divinity and a hybrid are a match made in heaven. And yes, I know – many of divinity spells are available through gadgets and instruments so that is something to consider when planning a party (just note that many gadgets are available quite late into the game).
Again, I don't agree. First, Divinity isn't that vital.
Stamina is a shitty spell, because it only restores minute amounts of stamina. It's helpful when one of your frontliners has passed out and every little bit helps, but not really great. It's also shared by alchemists. Heal is good, but then it can also be cast by psions and alchemists.
Truly awesome Divinity spells are Rest All and Heal All, but Heal All comes on both gadget and instrument. Armorplate and Magic Screen come on gadget and instrument respectively.
Second, Divinity sucks for a hybrid. For school to be suitable for hybrid it must mesh well with Hybrid's mundane utility. For example if hybrid is primarily melee combatant then it's good for it to use school that can be used to fuck enemies up at range and preferably prepare them for trouncing - like Wizardry. The problem with Divinity is that it doesn't really come much into use while enemy is further away, and when the enemy is up close it's better to not have to choose between whacking the threat in the face and offsetting damage it causes.
Third, Divinity sucks for class who can be expected to use cursed weapon - like Bloodlust. Valk doesn't really mind offensive limitations of divinity, because she can just whip out crossbow of blunderbuss and shoot distant threat in the face.
Lord with Bloodlust will spend an awful lot of time just twiddling his dick.
Lord without Bloodlust won't be doing that much damage.
2. Wizardry is cool for hybrids. First of all, it’s probably the most balanced school, with a good selection of buffs, debuffs and offensive spells. My two favourite reasons for wizardry love however are: missile shield and enchanted blade. Both awesome, both level two, both not only wizardry unique, but also unavailable through gadgets/instruments. Your samurai gets them early and they are also a great way to raise his skills naturally. You don’t even have to put points in wizardry past 15, you will smoothly advance to 30 and then there are: freezing, knock knock, web and some offense if you wish. Then on lvl 4 you get elemental shield and armormelt and that’s basically all you need.
Notice how it's different from Divinity? Its primary buffs have no alternatives and then it has wide variety of damaging and disabling crowd control. Your samurai won't be bored in ranged combat even when unable to equip ranged weapon.
3. Psionics is where it gets kind of shitty. First of all, this is where you start needing high skill levels and powercast to really put its potential to good use. And you won’t have those. And cold harsh truth is – psionics has only one spell that makes you drool – it’s haste. Yes, haste is awesome so if you don’t have a bard you should consider developing your monk to be able to cast it on a decent level. Still – it’s not vital or anything.
Again, disagreed. Psionics has insanity, hypnotic lure AND haste. Sure, all those have alternatives in form of instruments/gadgets, but that merely puts them on even ground with the best of divinity.
Then psionics have some pretty decent crowd control and you will use identify and find secrets a lot (too bad x-ray isn't psionics, but wizardry).
Finally, hypnotic lure is arguably THE tactical spell in this game.
4. Alchemy is the most offensive school which makes it worst for hybrids (no powercast, low skill levels, late access to higher level spells). Only one unique buff afair and it’s not really that good (single character, used in combat only). Alchemy has its uses of course and you should put some points there at least to get the option to mix light and medium healing potions (or more if you want to cheese money, bleh).
The problem with alchemy is actually similar to the problem with divinity. Alchemy using hybrids either have little to do, or have to choose between casting and fighting, only this time it's aggressive ranged casting and ranged fighting.
Summary:
Offensive magic sucks in this game, everyone knows that. It’s especially true on expert and even more true on iron man. And it’s super-especially true for hybrids. They get spells later, they have low intelligence, they don’t get powercast, they don’t have that many points into magic skills and no bonuses there either.
Actually that's why offensive magic is well suited for hybrids. If you encounter few strong and resistant enemies, you can just murder them personally. If you get swamped by sheer numbers then you have tools to turn the tide by destroying or disabling the enemies.
The problem isn't lord being bad. The problem is that any party with a lord in some slot will work better if you replace the lord with fighter, valk or straight priest.
Now that is just plain bs. A party won’t work better with fighter if you don’t have another divinity caster
Then it's Valk or Priest that will work better.
priest won’t work better if you don’t have other strong melee class etc.
Then it's Valk or Fighter.
I used 'OR' for a reason, you see.
All the characters are replaceable (meaning you can do without them) which makes Wiz character system so great.
No class is essential, but if you want to have more casters in one slot, you can't use any class but bishop, and that gives bishops unique niche regardless of how shitty their specials are.
Same with Bards.
Character wise taking away his alchemy spellbook and lowering the exp requirements to normal hybrid would be enough. However, ninja equipment like thrown weapons and daggers should be made more powerful and more available.
It pisses me to no end that ninjas can't use normal minimal armour and normal weapons. They should be expert assassin opportunists, and yet they refuse to touch anything but specifically weeaboo shit and wear anythig but highly conspicuous pajamas.
Barring a need...
