Grimrock

N'Zembwa wrote:Does the plus 1 bonus strength / level up, fill the 15% damage gap up from rogue

It probably depends on what you're killing and whether you go for backstabs or not. With backstab a level 10 rogue could be hitting for well over 200 damage with a single attack in which case the +15% is a massive bonus. But without backstab and against a beefy enemy with lots of protection, that 15% might be trivial because the total damage is so low to begin with. The nice thing about the Barb's bonus is that it's a consistent flat amount of damage. Dual wield penalty is not really worth worrying about because it only affects the weapon's base damage. Most of the barb's damage will come from strength anyway so it's not a big factor. At the end of the day a backstab from a Barb will still inflict massive damage.

It's a moot point though because even if you build a high evasion Dex-based Rogue (which you absolutely should), do you know what the damage output will be once your rogue is lying dead on the floor? Zero. Meanwhile the Barb will still be standing there cracking skulls. He's simply far better at not dying which is a pretty important skill.

Kontossis wrote:

Jirodyne wrote:You guys are also forgetting one other thing. If your standing still, tanking an enemy face to face, the Barb would be better because of higher health and normal dmg. However, if your a person that likes to kite around enemies, and get behind them, a Rogue only needs 3 points in Light Weapon and 3 Points in Crit to be able to double backstab an enemy for triple dmg with each weapon. Add in 2 points in Acc, and he can do that from the backrow too. A Barb trying to do backstab tripple dmg would need 5 points in Light Weapons, and 5 points in Crit too, 4 points more than the Rogue that can put 2 points in Acc, and 2 points anywhere else.

? I'm not sure what you're getting at. A barb can dual wield with 3 points in Light weapons and backstab with 3 points in critical. A rogue's class bonus is that the dual wield penalty is 25% vs the usual 40% and that's all as the 1% crit chance per level is with missile weapons. You would put 5 in light weapons anyways to increase your damage as a rogue.

Exactly. It's tempting to make a mental connection between Rogues and backstabs and make the fallacy that only they can do it, but they don't actually gain any special advantage for it. Barbs do it equally well.

Rogue is better early-mid game whilst weapon damage is important, Barbarian is better once he gets to high levels and has high enough strength to outshine weapon damages.

Funnily enough though, the actual best dual-wielder is an alchemist.

Jad wrote:Rogue is better early-mid game whilst weapon damage is important, Barbarian is better once he gets to high levels and has high enough strength to outshine weapon damages.

Early game your rogue will be so squishy that even though his damage is higher, he'll be less useful in the end because he'll drop in a few attacks. By the time your rogue found gear or gained levels enough to gain some survivability he'll have fallen behind a barb.

Funnily enough though, the actual best dual-wielder is an alchemist.

Explain. If you're referring to rage or bear potions, then what you should say is that the best dual-wielder is a barb supported by an alchemist.

sergregor wrote:Early game your rogue will be so squishy that even though his damage is higher, he'll be less useful in the end because he'll drop in a few attacks. By the time your rogue found gear or gained levels enough to gain some survivability he'll have fallen behind a barb.

Why would a dual-wielding character be on the frontline anyways. I assumed he was just wondering which does more damage. A frontline character will have to max armor skills and be using a shield if they want to actually tank something for more than a few seconds anyways (hard difficulty).

sergregor wrote:Explain. If you're referring to rage or bear potions, then what you should say is that the best dual-wielder is a barb supported by an alchemist.

You're right that a barb would do more damage here, but it's not really sustainable for him (energy pool too low). Alchemist though has a good enough energy pool and can mass out tons and tons of mana potions. An alchemist equipped with +energy items and whom maxed out his willpower can easily spend the vast majority of the game in bear form. Just one bear potion lasts me ~3-4 minutes and I can duplicate them + have enough mana potions to sustain it essentially forever.

Jad wrote:

sergregor wrote:Early game your rogue will be so squishy that even though his damage is higher, he'll be less useful in the end because he'll drop in a few attacks. By the time your rogue found gear or gained levels enough to gain some survivability he'll have fallen behind a barb.

Why would a dual-wielding character be on the frontline anyways. I assumed he was just wondering which does more damage. A frontline character will have to max armor skills and be using a shield if they want to actually tank something for more than a few seconds anyways (hard difficulty).

Yeah I guess that makes sense. For me I don't think it'd be worth it, I'd prefer the back row to be one spellcaster and one alchemist while the front row can do all the physical damage. But that's just me. Haven't tried hard mode yet, does a shield really make that big of a difference that it's worth taking over a second weapon? Evasion strikes me as being very weak in this game.

sergregor wrote:Explain. If you're referring to rage or bear potions, then what you should say is that the best dual-wielder is a barb supported by an alchemist.

You're right that a barb would do more damage here, but it's not really sustainable for him (energy pool too low). Alchemist though has a good enough energy pool and can mass out tons and tons of mana potions. An alchemist equipped with +energy items and whom maxed out his willpower can easily spend the vast majority of the game in bear form. Just one bear potion lasts me ~3-4 minutes and I can duplicate them + have enough mana potions to sustain it essentially forever.

Haha, I see. Still though, why not use 1 alch and 1 battle mage? The latter can cast spells when he's NOT a bear, but he can also have a huge energy pool for bear shenanigans when necessary.

sergregor wrote:Haha, I see. Still though, why not use 1 alch and 1 battle mage? The latter can cast spells when he's NOT a bear, but he can also have a huge energy pool for bear shenanigans when necessary.

Battle Mage will only have 1 more mana per level than an Alchemist, insignificant compared to what you can get from the extra potions. Alchemist can cast spells pretty much just as well as a Battle Mage, better even when you factor in the additional permanent +stat potions he can make. I played the Alchemist as a caster up until the point when spells started to fall off and I could reliably keep bear form on. This transition only requires a very small investment of 3 points in light weapons to be at full strength, so it's quite easy to go from mage to melee powerhouse. I generally have no need of casting spells after that point in the game since the damage I do in bear form is far higher than spellcasting and far more mana efficient.