On Weapon and Class balance

[andvare]

Oh, I'll admit that the danger from such encounters are very dependent on your gear and to a lesser extent level status and not too hard to recover from during regular gameplay but if you are playing on hard (or even worse, with the evil options on), such moments can make or break your game.
That's why the burst/single swing damage capability takes the first slot for me.
That said, these conclusions are all my own. The beauty of this game is the fact that there isn't a single way to play it, 4 Casters, 2 Gunners & 2 Battalmagus, Solo X, All lizards, BLIR, All Amazons, All Rats... the possibilities are so many.
Heck, just disliking a race's portraits is a strong enough reason to not play it.Who can argue against personal taste?

Feel free to post the next part(s) of your analysis (equipment, classes etc), I'm eager for the follow up

[MostlyHarmless]

in practice i find 2h and throwing weapons better than the rest, although it of course depends on your specific party build and play style. problem with dex based weapons is that there is no dex-rage potion to boost their damage in key fights (nor a dex version of barberian or head hunter as far as I know), and also I find dual wield less effective for my play style because they have less impressive special attacks and get blocked by armor twice (one for each hit). also you lose the benefit of using a shield, which is significant in the case of crystal and meteor armor because you need the shield to complete the set and get the set bonus. pearl shield is also great if you use lots of specials, which I find super effective in boss battles. and even though 2h weapons are slower, you can use that time to cast spells, drink potions, activate crystals (although I really only did that in the Island Master fight).

[MostlyHarmless]

by the way, i'm trying to figure out which makes a better thrower; barberian or rogue? the endgame barb gets about +14 damage bonus from the extra strength on each successful throw while the rogue get +14% crit chance (almost 5 level worth of critical skill), and the endgame weapons would be shuriken and throwing axes. (for race I'm thinking a head hunting minotaur is best for this job).

[themell]

for throwers, barbarian should do more damage. The only way a rogue will do more damage is if each of your throwing attacks do more than 100 points of damage.

As for light weapons, they're really good with invisibility and the 3x backstab damage.