A-tier:
- Bishop. The best caster. And I disagree that it's a bad choice for beginners. For RPGs beginners maybe, but what the fuck they're doing in Wiz8 anyway?
Hey, I started Wiz8 as relative RPG noob.
I don't have to stress how awesome Bishop is: beside his forte having all the fucking spells in the game his minor features like taking cursed items off in early game and even bonus to artefact skill are extremely useful.
Yeah, except Bishop is lagging really badly behind specialist casters in terms of actual casting to the point of near uselessness at the very beginning, you don't get the points to waste on artifacts skill with 3-4 school Bishop, and the more schools your Bishop is concentrating on, the more they are a dedicated buffmonkey because they just don't have time for anything else in combat. The main advantage is packing 2-4 casters into one party slot, but that doesn't come for free.
Turning undead comes in handy, uncursing less so, unless one of your characters goes for Bloodlust + ranged weapon loadout and needs help switching back after the combat.
- Gadgeteer. I agree that he's obviously the least noob-friendly class in the game.
Gatgeteer is moderately noob friendly (about as good as a hybrid class), just slow to start.
Ninja is extremely noob unfriendly.
More on ranged. Something like a ranger with high ranged combat/eagle eye, triple x-bow and decent bolts is very ok (like most things in Wiz8 are) when out of context, but ranged combat is really meh compared to the sheer power and reliability of melee throughout the game. This is most evident in the early parts of the game of course, but I still remember that time I had mook ranger with your typical larpy ranged/eagle eye+best bow+best arrows setup. When I got the first copy of giant sword I decided to give it to him just to test for lulz and was really appalled how he instantly became more of a presence with literally zero points invested in cc and swords. Outside of some rare and niche scenarios (high dmg, low hp ranged mobs), ranged doesn't really give any extra edge in this game. Almost always you're better off with baiting with using/cancelling walk command to let enemy come to you or just rushing in.
Ranged combat might have some utility for dealing with swarms in the open, especially with Hypnotic Lures, but there aren't that many enemies from which you'd prefer - and be able to! - or be forced to (for example by geometry) keep distance from and swarms are better dealt with using AoE damage/instakill.
That said, I need to do a axe+shield frontline ranger for my next run.
What's the point of non-ranged ranger?
Someone should make a berserker mod - ranger->berserker (minimal/light armour only, heavy weapons, berserk, alchemy, some survivability specials); add some CQB modern weapons and finally decouple classes and close/ranged combat.
Not really and definitely not in the setup I gave. Scouting + potion mixing is a good utility that will help very early.
Alchemist is way better at actual alchemy (both potions and casting), searching can be done by anyone with senses.
What is the point at which gadgie starts contributing? Probably completing lava lamp at Trynton and the noxious fumes pot in Marten's Bluff. That's quite a long period of total suck even when taking an optimal route.
That's the point where gadgie reaches parity with Bard. They can still open locks from the beginning and shoot at the enemies so they are useful from the start, and you can give them modern weapon other than omnigun for them to use until they upgrade the omnigun sufficiently. Plus you can quickly start feeding omnigun with ammo no is able or willing to use.
Nope. Every hybrid in the game has multiple skills to put points into and then there are more details to consider, dw is a bit of handicap early on, most common weapon category is a bit of a trap when going for dw etc. Valkyrie is unique here, because she only needs cc + polearms and then can happily pump divinity asap. For every other hybrid pumping magic means leaving something out.
Yeah, and that's how Valk is an exception among hybrids. And unlike other hybrids Lord doesn't have flavour skills or specials - they are just fighter without berserk and with combat-wise.
And I wouldn't call lord unambiguously worse, because proper dw setup>polearms.
Except dw skill caps out at 100 so profession skill bonus becomes useless.
He also has his little niche of being a go to class for draining cursed weapon builds, although that's obviously a very minor thing.
I think that's actually the major reason to use Lord rather than either Valk or dw Fighter.
Nope. Mage has a bit more hp, better resistances (getting 1-2 shot with aoe magic is the most common cause of death for casters provided you mind positioning and avoid getting buttraeped by melee) and can wear a number of useful items that psionic can't, for example fearie plate.
Zynaryx Plate is psionic-compatible, so are doll armour pieces.
Er, what. That's common consensus. Psionics have one "I really need this shit asap" spell, which is also available for bard. Mage has by far the best balance between buffs, debuffs and damage, starts with two very good, completely unique buffs and freezing spell (unlocked way earlier than the instrument) is probably the best early game spell that can completely turn the tables for noobs. If you have to drop one spell book, dropping psionics is a safe bet. You could make an argument for alchemy, but alchemy has kewl potion mixing.
Mage's early buffs are early. Which means a hybrid can tackle that issue just fine.
That leaves us with two freezing spells aaand that's about it. The rest is generally just damage, the remaining interesting spells are shared with other classes. Ok, you have Asphyxiation, but gadgie can do that.
Meanwhile Psionic has not only Haste and Lure (which can be provided by bard and gadgie respectively). They start with mindstab which does better than usual damage and may drive target insane, get a whole array of mindrape spells inducing insanity and/or damage while being mental domain few things are resistant to. Dips in paralysis and has some funky fire spells, which aren't as good as mage's but happen to be very effective against whatever resists mindrape well in addition to instant death and varied debuffs.
Similarly Alchemist gets all the powerful clouds and Chemical Ali stuff, good earth spells plus potion mixing. Alchemist can also provide elemental, like Mage, but unlike Mage can also mix canned elementals for the entire party.
If anything alchemy and psionics are the most painful schools to drop or relegate to hybrids and other dabblers.
If you know where things are then why why would you need a spell? Just use search, it will be enough pretty much always. There's just that small issue of knowing where hidden items are, which us, non-psychic normies, didn't know the first time.
You don't need Ranger to search. Any character with decent SEN will do and there are spells to buff that. And there is barely a reason not to use search mode almost all the time.
And items are usually hidden in semi-sensible places.
Lol, what are you even talking about. Berserking fighter and backstabbing rogue
Berserking, backstabbing Rogue ('cause Bloodlust sword)...
I like my cheese pungent.
Also Samurai lightning strike with bloodlust (though Giant's sword is also fine).
Valk is a very good class that brings things other classes can't, but pure killing power is not her forte.
The thing is Valk is usually compared to Lord, and the only way for Lord to do anything special offensively is Bloodlust sord.
whenever seeing slow on the spell list so never actually tried it.
Dude, just open up with haste and then do whatever buff/debuff you want - it stays amazing to the very end. Gadgie is obviously much more dmg focused and that's alright too, provided you're fine with chugging potions and casting stamina all the time. Just a reminder that bards are born with sleeping spam and then add bless, insanity and OK aoe soon after. Gadies are just walking around with their dicks in their hands, casting single-target lvl1 spell and opening some lock from time to time, pretty much until you hit the trynton/swamp section. So yeah.
