Wizardry Wizardry 8 - first time playing

[Piotrovitz]

Hmm, I was thinking of giving Bloodlust to the thief, wouldn't it multiply the damage there even more since he deals more damage than the bard to start with, and doesn't take breaks for playing music? Or are berserk and backstab not multiplicative, or something?

Yeah, that's the usual route, you give bloodlust to either ROG or SAM.
Berserk and backstabbing are multiplicative, but only if the attack type is thrust (this triggers backstab). Bloodlust (and all other swords except rapiers) randomly uses swings and thrusts, so you will randomly dish out either x2 or x3 dmg.

Looking at your party, you don't have many contenders for swords (Mook will have one tailored made just for him), and there are many good ones through the game, so if you are up to build the Bard as a melee, I would give him Bloodlust. Rogue can find a decent rapier in Arnika, which has thrust-only attack mode, so you will have constant 2x dmg that can easily get you through whole mid-game.

I will always propagate the idea of melee tanky Bard, since I verified it on couple of playthoughs and she can be a real monster.

Think about it - you don't have to pump any magic skills, only music, and at the same time you have shitload of one of the most useful spells available via instruments. You don't cast them every round, usually it's an opener with high level Bless or Haste or Armormelt, and the rest is purely situational, like Insanity or Freeze Flesh. Anyway, you won't use instruments every round. This leaves your Bard having lots of time to go on Bloodlust whacking spree. TBH, this probably makes the Bard one of the true hybrids that can both fight and cast spells, without being crippled in any of those areas.

 

[Black]

Isn't berserk always thrust?

 

[Johannes]

Hmm, I was thinking of giving Bloodlust to the thief, wouldn't it multiply the damage there even more since he deals more damage than the bard to start with, and doesn't take breaks for playing music? Or are berserk and backstab not multiplicative, or something?

Yeah, that's the usual route, you give bloodlust to either ROG or SAM.
Berserk and backstabbing are multiplicative, but only if the attack type is thrust (this triggers backstab). Bloodlust (and all other swords except rapiers) randomly uses swings and thrusts, so you will randomly dish out either x2 or x3 dmg.

Ah so it's not multipiicative, just additive. Aka you don't do [base damage] * [berserk bonus] * [backstab bonus] but rather [base damage] * ( [berserk bonus] + [backstab bonus] ). Therefore you get a similar amount of extra damage from giving it to the rogue as another class. Might switch the rogue out for a valkyrie or samurai or something actually, hmm

 

[Darth Canoli]

Mook Fighter
Dracon Rogue
Human Bard
Fairy Bishop (wiz/psi)
Hobbit Gadgeteer
Ranger of some kind, or alchemist

Why not a Wiz/Div Bishop ?
Divinity is way more useful than the psionic school.
Having a Bard and a gadgeteer is like having 2 warriors, they mostly do the same things and their respective shit weights way too much so you might want to pick one or the other.

Ranger uses Alchemy so you could go for ranged/bow/alchemy on level up for a while, a second caster could be interesting if you remove the bard or the gadgeteer though.

If you don't pick a divinity caster, you'll need the Ranger + Vi to heal the party during combat, potions just waste your stronger warriors turns, that's why i always have a dedicated healer, usually a Wiz/Div Bishop and he eventually starts using other magic schools from mid-game.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Wiz/Psi is a better combo, because realms do not overlap that much - if you're out of MP in fire/water/air, you can always resort to psionic blast/insanity/mindflay.

Divinity is useful only if you don't have valk or gadgeteer. As I said earlier, gadgets cover all the most important Divinity spells, so there's no need to waste half of the Bishop skill points there. Also, bear in mind that Bard has instruments that can cast heal all and magic screen, so having both him and gadgie, makes divinity caster useless.

Top tier divinity spells are garbage - what you really need is armorplate and magic screen, plus some luxury ones like superman/guardian angel/resurrection.

If you don't pick a divinity caster, you'll need the Ranger + Vi to heal the party during combat, potions just waste your stronger warriors turns, that's why i always have a dedicated healer, usually a Wiz/Div Bishop and he eventually starts using other magic schools from mid-game.

IMO Wiz/Div bishop has better things to do than casting heals. I'd rather waste a turn with my fighter on chugging healing potion, than waste a chance to cast insanity or freeze flesh.

 

[Black]

Rest All is nice too, and it's div only. Not a must have but helps in prolonged fights.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Wiz/Psi is a better combo, because realms do not overlap that much - if you're out of MP in fire/water/air, you can always resort to psionic blast/insanity/mindflay.

Whatever you do, you'll get out of MP if you don't have 2/3 casters with a high MP regen, Bards and gadgeteers being even worse because they run out of stamina and you need a dedicated stamina healer or drink pots every other turn.

So there's always a choice to make, there's no miracle class, the aim of the game is to find the right combo or make the wrong combo work anyway.

 

[jackofshadows]

Move closely and you'll see the button which will lower the bridge.

 

[Black]

this how's it look on upper level

Are you using some mods?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Weird, first time i see this, did you push the elevator's button to see what happens ?

Yeah, maybe you fucked it up.
There's nothing you need in the locked room thought, the sword is already obsolete by the time you come back and the bow is average too, depending on what qualifies as demons.

Still, there's a risk you introduced other bugs.

 

[Darth Canoli]

You should just restart now, having such a bug halfway would really sucks.

By the way, being 30-40% in a regular playthrough, i find Arnika road quite safe.
It's probably me being used to the game but i find it piss easy on expert after playing Lunastralis and Dodd the Slayer mods.

Or maybe it's my party of four getting twice the xp compared to my usual 8-men parties.

 

[xuerebx]

Yeah I run away whenever I see an enemy with more than 200 Hp. I'm getting used to the system now, can identify weaknesses in my skill or spell choices and it's becoming really fun now.

HP bloat is not the only danger - later on you can encounter spellcasters that can fuck your team up in a few rounds if you don't have magic screen/element shield/soul shield up and running.
If I may just give you a tiny bit of a advice - once you get to Swamp (next stop after Trynton) and see pack of Rynjins - run the fuck away.

I just got to the swamps now, and I heeded your advice on encountering a pack of Rynjins.

Also Arnika road wasn't so tough, thought it would be harder. I do travel away from the roads though to avoid some combat.

Also, fireball > every other attack! (For now at least)

 

[Darth Canoli]

I just got to the swamps now, and I heeded your advice on encountering a pack of Rynjins.

Also Arnika road wasn't so tough, thought it would be harder. I do travel away from the roads though to avoid some combat.

Also, fireball > every other attack! (For now at least)

It's fake news, at low level, they're easily manageable with extended range weapons.
Freeze works quite well if you can cast it successfully at level 5/6.

At higher level, Rynjins overlords are something else but magic protections + eventually freeze works very well.
Then again, extended weapons rule against strong enemies with an extended range.

Soon, you'll meet nightmares in the swamp ...

 

[Piotrovitz]

Aren't Rynjin mainly resistant to water spells?
As far as I remember, I rolled through Bayjin mainly throwing high level fireballs and firebombs left and right, ring of fire was also handy.

Anyway, I got too cocky on my ironman run, and got half of my party wiped on arnika-trynton road by - wait for embaressment - packs of Picuses.

Thought I'd nuke them from afar with fireball and fumes, but it turned out there were couple of bigger variants of them (lvl 10 I think), which can cause blindness with their attacks.
One turn, they all closed in and surrounded my party and it all went downhill.

Could've survive this in the end, but having no money for res powders (it's like 2k each?) after spending 10k on thieves dagger closed the deal. Of fucking well :d

 

[Piotrovitz]

Then again, extended weapons rule against strong enemies with an extended range.

Have to disagree - extended weapons (Mook sword aside) are usually way weaker, and it's always better to close in, so your FGT/ROG/SAM can whack the shit out of such mobs.

 

[xuerebx]

My rogue sometimes deals damage 4x in a row, and then goes for another round at the end of the round - like him more than my samurai. Plus he's harder to hit.

I may need to invest in freeze flesh though as I skipped it for other spells.

Also, gadgeteer is pretty cool. I have 2 in my party including Madras and they're not too bad (lightning rod deals better damage then their omnigun).

 

[Incendax]

All this Priest and Divinity hate makes me want to play a 6 Priest Expert game just for the luls.

Hrrrm. What weapon distribution should I take, 2 Flail, 4 Staff?

 

[Piotrovitz]

I'd go for 3 maces and 3 staves - there're a couple of nice maces you could use for your front row tanks, plus there's vampire chain and cat o' nine, which can both be used from backrow if necessary.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Have to disagree - extended weapons (Mook sword aside) are usually way weaker, and it's always better to close in, so your FGT/ROG/SAM can whack the shit out of such mobs.

And that's why you're afraid of Rynjins ...
Meanwhile, with weaker extended weapons for everyone, you cast your buffs + freeze and shoot from afar letting them come to you and then you whack them without loosing a turn.

Because A good party of those can kill a couple of your guys with their multiple attacks if you lost a turn closing in.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Let's say you even have i.e one Valk and Vi, how would you imagine the rest of the party handling tough mobs using extended weapons?

Your melees (FGT/SAM/ROG/LOR) staves/polearms skill is probably the same as they have started with, meaning abysmal. Not to mention you would have to carry with you shitload of spears and staves, just for such fights.

Unless by extented weapons you mean ranged ones. Can't comprehend this either, as most of the mobs in Wiz 8 close in so fast, that you can usually fire 1 or 2 arrows, which wouldn't help you shit.

I cannot seem to find this anywhere, but I'm pretty sure that Rynjins have high water res, meaning your freeze would barely land on anyone.

 

[xuerebx]

If you keep using a buff, do the effects stack? Say the bard's 'force field generator'.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Nope, it can only renew the buff. Bard with high music skill will cast haste on reliably high level anyway, providing substantial boost to speed - you won't need any more than that, since probably most of your party members will go first the next turn, and melees get an extra swings.

Stacking buffs would lead to comical situations, imaging casting superman multiple times on one fighter - that would broke the game completely.

EDIT: I thought you were asking about rousing drums instrument. Force field generator is a gadgeteer stuff that casts armorplate, but the effect is the same - it does not stack.

 

[xuerebx]

Nope, it can only renew the buff. Bard with high music skill will cast haste on reliably high level anyway, providing substantial boost to speed - you won't need any more than that, since probably most of your party members will go first the next turn, and melees get an extra swings.

Stacking buffs would lead to comical situations, imaging casting superman multiple times on one fighter - that would broke the game completely.

EDIT: I thought you were asking about rousing drums instrument. Force field generator is a gadgeteer stuff that casts armorplate, but the effect is the same - it does not stack.

Apologies I quickly edited my post but you had already replied. In any case, that answers my question - thanks!

 

[xuerebx]

Since I use a samurai, a bard and a rogue on the front line using melee weapons, and a valk behind them using polearms, I don't think I should recruit RFS-81 right? It can only attack using bare hands, so if not on the front-line I guess the monk would be mostly useless?

 

[DraQ]

With right formation you can put up to 9 characters on the frontline.

Note that you can have only 8 characters total in the party.