The "Walking Dead" Party

[Azel]

Hello! Just here looking to post something after all the reading, theorycrafting, a initial long hours of playing through this exciting installment of Grimrock.

So theorycrafting is fun but between some initial play-through’s and the great experience of beating the original Grimrock game there are some solid observations players can make when looking to create as close to a “most powerful group ever” setup as the game allows.

First let’s look at what we know about Grimrock after beating the first version:

Walking! To love this game is to love walking. To find every secret means walking up to every wall and looking for a hidden switch. To effectively kill the hardest enemies while minimizing damage you have to walk to kite them or walk to dodge them; often times literally walking in circles til everything is dead. To keep your party from starving you have to walk around looking for food. If you decide to use Throwing Weapons, after you’re done attacking you have to walk to pick them up.

Getting through doors or across a hallway? Walking on to switches, walking off of switches, walking to dodge projectiles, walking to catch projectiles, walking in to a teleporter, walking away from a teleporter, walking to avoid a ledge, walking to fall in to a ledge.

The final boss? Killing the Undying involved right-clicking a bazooka while walking as hard and fast as your fingers allowed. The right-clicking was easy, the walking was… lets say, remarkable.

The other thing of note… Eating. I always hated when games made me “feed” my party to survive (Betrayal in Antara anyone??) – but Legend of Grimrock somehow made this tolerable. I not only ate all the damn time, but I even carried food from level-to-level as “backup reserves.”

So, the major actions that were predominant, incessant, yet yielding little results in way of Character Progression: Walking and Eating. That was Grimrock Part 1.

Now lets look at a few basic observations about Grimrock Part 2:
1) Theorycrafting and initial play-through’s reveal that Throwing Weapons (especially in the hands of a Barbarian) are close to over-powered. We also know (from Part 1) that using these weapons means lots of walking – to pick them all up after each and every fight.

2) The current consensus is that Alchemy is the key to “god mode” in Grimrock 2. If you have at least 2 Alchemists (neither of them needs to spec in Alchemy) then you will “grow” enough ingredients to have as close to an infinite supply of health and mana potions as possible (hence the god mode). But how does growing work? Lots of walking (growth rates are measured in steps taken).

3) There is a farmer class that the community “thought” was only good for making the game harder to play, but after a few weeks of putting farmers to good use we find that they can be power-leveled early and (depending on Traits you picked at character creation) can become an awesome power-house; especially if you let them specialize in Alchemy. Gameplay research tells us that between fishing and 1 or 2 specific game areas, we have a virtually endless supply of food gathering; thus, power-leveling potential for Farmers. The catch? Lots of walking and lots of eating.

4) There is a new "stat potion" that can be made when you specialize in the Alchemy skill. Multiple Alchemists means an increased rate of growing stat potion ingredients; which means lots of walking yields lots of stat potions for your entire party (more god mode).

With the right party, we can center our tactics solely around walking and eating , and this time the result means… the strongest group of playable characters. Subjective but bear with me.

A few more things to note:
1) For melee, as of today, light weapons and dual-wielding is nice, but the 2-handed Scythe with Crit Chance is the over-powered option.

2) While Evade was over-powered in Part 1 of the game, in Grimrock 2 Evade is almost useless (some people don’t even care if they have negative Evade values) in place of high Protection.

3) Magic is still amazing, and Meteor Shower dominates all.

4) Bomb throwing is back in a big way, and there is currently no cool-down timer for them (and can be thrown directly from inventory) – which makes for amazing area DPS if you somehow manage to make lots of them all the time. Alchemy?

5) Earth magic is still horrible.

With all that in mind, the characters centered on Walking and Eating (Walking Dead Party) should go as follows:

Fontline 1: Minotaur Barbarian with Throwing Weapons
Frontline 2: Minotaur Alchemist with Large Weapons
Backrow 1: Lizard Alchemist (pure magic caster – Fire, Air, Water).
Backrow 2: Human Farmer (Alchemy level 5)

Races can be switched out of course and effectiveness is maintained. I would say that Human as a Farmer is necessary because of the Experience Increase and initial trait skill (for Alchemy). We want the Alchemists to simply grow the ingredients that the Farmer cooks. Plenty of growing will occur with all the walking needed to get those Throwing Weapons and make food runs; a farmer can hit level 5 Alchemy in the first hour or two of the game.

Large weapons are currently better than Light. We give up the “stun lock” ability of high-level dual-wielding for a “quick death” that comes from a Scyth/Crit combo. Lizards are great casters due to high metabolism and “resist all” against elements. Energy pools become almost irrelevant due to the infinite supply of Energy potions provided by dual-Alchemists. This puts my favorite Insectoids out of the race for Casting, since the Lizards metabolism basically acts as our DPS (coupled with mass Energy potions).

That’s it! Until they patch this game to make major balance adjustments, the Walking Dead Party is the way to go in terms of bulldozing your way to the end while enjoying every new game aspect Part 2 has to offer. Highest DPS, highest survivability, highest character levels, highest character stats. All because of walking and eating.

Hope you found this useful, or at least mildly entertaining. Fin.

[sapientCrow]

quite entertaining and knowledgeable...
I reached this basic assumption by my third playthrough.
my second playthough I chose 2 alchemists instead of mage type classes and ended the game with something like 30 or so crafted stat potions.
That is when I knew Alchemist was just WOW!
Of course they were smart in making each new duplication stack in a new slot. I was immediately thinking of some ways to... when I saw the dupe process in action.

My final awesome mode party was 3 alchemists though (I added another in place of your farmer)
Even though I could not super power a character as fast at the start with the abundance of food the stat potions made up for it. (Approximate:45 by end)

I chose 1 Ratling which I think is a must given the disproportionate amount of cheese everywhere compared to fruit and eggs.
Ratling and Barbarian potentially Minotaur Head Hunter shine with amazing stat increases.
Add in the stat potions and that is some serious power at both end and mid game.

A Barbarian Minotaur with Head Hunter and throwing is ridiculous
I also came to the same conclusion on the Lizardman (Fast Metabolism and Endure Elements are amazing)
And Alchemists well... really can not say enough there. I was almost going to make a 4 Alchemist party but I wanted at least one with super high damage output due to strength.

[Azel]

Very fun indeed. Yeah once you add a 3rd Alchemist to the party, all bets are off and the fun factor increases. I was very tempted to make my farmer a Ratling with Mutation, but I prefer to have that "control" over stat increases so human fit my personal preferences a bit better. However, I had not considered the "cheese" factor (har har) which I think, as you stated, makes the Ratling top choice. Good stuff!

[xiombargdei]

Fontline 1: Minotaur Barbarian with Throwing Weapons
Frontline 2: Minotaur Alchemist with Large Weapons
Backrow 1: Lizard Alchemist (pure magic caster – Fire, Air, Water).
Backrow 2: Human Farmer (Alchemy level 5)

Can you please detail which skills you pick at character creation, and which skills you pick afterwards ?

[Jirodyne]

I would also like to point out that you are also a god. While you stand in one place, time stands still with it. Only when you rest to heal, and when you walk, does time actually move forward. Try it when you are outside during Sunset or Sunrise. When you stop, nothing happens, but as soon as you move a step, the world gets brighter or darker slightly. Then a little more as you step again, then again. YOU control time, YOU are a god.

[Azel]

For character creation...

Mino Barb: Skills = Throwing Weapons and Accuracy; Traits = Head Hunter and Aggressive

Mino Alchemist: Skills = Heavy Weapons and Accuracy; Traits = Aggressive and Weapon Specialization

Lizard Alchemist: Pure Caster, Skills = Fire and Cocentration; Traits = Endure Elements and Fast Metabolism

Human Farmer: Support Caster, Skill = Alchemy (we get one Skill Point from the Trait "Skilled"); Traits = Skilled and Fast Learner

Alternatively, you can make a Ratling Farmer with the Traits: Mutation and "any" other trait you wish. Be sure to feed your Lizard all the eggs and your Rat all the cheese!

I am actually planning on restarting tonight with a Ratling Farmer instead of the Human Farmer, so nothing to report yet on final allocation of skills. However, the key here is that you can pretty much mix and match Skills and some of the Traits to your leisure and still enjoy the full benefits of this approach to "god mode" adventure group. For example, you can switch out Heavy Weapons for Light Weapons and take the "stun lock" approach from dual wielding; or you can let your Farmer take on Missiles or Firearms.

Decent breathing room for full effectiveness with the general "Walking Dead" approach.

[Azel]

I would also like to point out that you are also a god. While you stand in one place, time stands still with it. Only when you rest to heal, and when you walk, does time actually move forward. Try it when you are outside during Sunset or Sunrise. When you stop, nothing happens, but as soon as you move a step, the world gets brighter or darker slightly. Then a little more as you step again, then again. YOU control time, YOU are a god.

lol and it makes perfect sense that in Grimrock you control Time by... Walking.

[thufir]

I would also like to point out that you are also a god. While you stand in one place, time stands still with it. Only when you rest to heal, and when you walk, does time actually move forward. Try it when you are outside during Sunset or Sunrise. When you stop, nothing happens, but as soon as you move a step, the world gets brighter or darker slightly. Then a little more as you step again, then again. YOU control time, YOU are a god.

lol and it makes perfect sense that in Grimrock you control Time by... Walking.

I don't think this is actually true. Time just moves very slowly when you are standing still. But when you are in the Bane puzzle,

SpoilerShow

you will find that the timed platforms *do* open and shut properly with the passage of time even if you do nothing but stand there. But you have to stand there a long long time.

[GJIG]

Highest DPS

On the basis of throwing bombs all the time? I actually don't think bombs have such massive damage, and there's a very human limit on how many bombs you can throw at a time from the inventory.
Seems to me like the highest damage just comes from 4 Heavy Weapons Guys with Meteor Hammer, Bane, Ancient Claymore and Scythe. Not highest DPS as such, some light weapon combos would yield higher theoretical DPS over some of these weapons, but when you consider armor and the fact that cooldowns matter much less than you would think (due to movement and human micro limitations), high bulk damage tends to result in the best real DPS.

highest survivability

Insectoid Battlemage, Chitin Armor, Natural armor, shield potion/spell, full armor skill. 150 protection with lategame armor + 100% immunity to an element when necessary for at least 1 character by having a mage cast an element shield + equipping the corresponding 50% res necklace/ring. Most of the situations where mistakes will kill you quickly involve melee damage, so taking 1 dmg from all melee hits is pretty sweet.

Earth magic is still horrible.

Only 2 points necessary for a ranged spell as opposed to 4 in every other school of magic. And poison is the most used element by enemies so poison shield has its uses. Not that I'd ever invest in any school of magic except Air. Far as I'm concerned mages exist for Invisibility and possibly Forcefield, you want damage you go heavy weapons. And elemental resistance isn't that big of a deal, most of the situations where you'll get hurt by magic are low-risk, i.e. an elemental that will hit you once then disappear out of existence, as opposed to melee creatures who'll just keep killing you until you're dead.

Magic is still amazing, and Meteor Shower dominates all.

I prefer single-touch runes, takes so long cast Meteor Shower and it limits your movement (if you actually want to hit with all balls). Not to mention touch runes work better vs stacks of enemies.

I'm interested in why you think throwing weapons are overpowered. They seem almost exactly balanced to me, from the standpoint where light weapons are underpowered, throwing is balanced and heavy weapons are overpowered (4 endgame viable heavy weapons when light has zero endgame viable weapons). I get that +4 dmg from aggressive and +9 str from skulls will give you almost 30 extra damage when double-throwing, but I'd rather have headhunter on my Scythe user and the ultimate bulk damage of throwing axes isn't really all that much.

It's a neat minmax build where you essentially beat the game by grinding. Not my cup of tea though, seeing as you don't really need to grind that much. I beat the game on Ironman Hard and had 50 health potions and 10 resurrection potions left by the end of the game*, without a single alchemist, so walking for ingredients, walking for food --- it's probably a good way of guaranteeing you'll beat the game no matter what, but it's a bit too slow I think, seeing as the game can be beaten without it.

*The key for doing this is to never get hit. Personally, the optimum fun I've found in this game is just to go ridiculously heavy on making yourself a glass-cannon and learning to dance the sidestep dance like a pro.

Edit: I just realized you might be making the "highest X" claims based on the theoretically infinite amount of stat potions you'll be able to make. If so, good job. You've figured out how to effortlessly beat Grimrock 2, provided "roughly an infinity of time spent walking" doesn't count as "effort". But I guess that's the point of this topic and I'm just dense. With max stats possible you'll probably get the highest DPS just by picking the weapons with the lowest cooldowns or having everyone go double-throwing.

[Azel]

Highest DPS from the Party overall, not just 1 character. Survivability comes from the benefits of dual Alchemists (tons of Skill Potions, Heals pots, Energy pots).

The idea is at the "party level" not just 1 individual character. You could easily replace the Mino Alchemist with an Insect Alchemist to get Chitin Armor for added survivability at the cost of high attack (but I wouldn't do that since survivability comes from virtually endless heal potions via dual Alchemists). An Insect Battlemage does have higher survivability individually, but again that is just 1 character whereas the idea is to plan for the whole group. Running 2 Alchemists gives constant Heal Potions rendering the need for an Insect Battlemage a bit useless.

Bombs are great "added" DPS because they have no cooldown, but the DPS of the group overall is what shines here. Meteor takes some time but when you have the ability to constantly "freeze" enemies with Frost Bombs and your Mage Farmer, casting time/difficulty becomes a non-issue.

The game itself can be beaten with any group, even a solo Farmer. This isn't about beating the game but taking full advantage of the new features while working towards that "god mode" many gamers tend to love. As for grinding... it's an RPG.

The key here is that while working towards "never getting hit" you also end up so strong that, "who cares if you get hit."

As far as your thoughts on effort, I never claimed that this was "effortless" so not sure why you made that a point. Everything requires effort, even buying and installing the game. I began by making it clear that to love "Grimrock is to love Walking." In your case you can avoid most effort altogether and beat the game even faster by downloading a Trainer Program if you like.

The great thing about this party is being able to Import them in to Mod's (or use this approach in future Mod's of the game). But that's for people who make the effort to build and play them. To each their own.