Grimrock

After finishing the game, I'm thinking:

- I went with an axe fighter, unarmed fighter, dagger rogue and a fire mage. The unarmed fighter kicked the least amount of ass throughout the game, by far. The daggers rogue absolutely rocked (with Flurry skill and Assassin's Dagger, best weapon in the game, he was a killing machine), the axe minotaur hit like truck - when he actually managed to hit something. And the fire mage with Greater Fireball hit as hard as the minotaur, only he never missed and attacked twice as fast.

So for the next playthrough I'm gonna probably go with a full-on evasion assassin, a classic heavy fighter (this time with swords, there aren't many good axes) and two mages - one fire and one air. That'd be probably the most powerful composition from what I've seen.

Your tips?

I agree. Though you might need to replace the fire for ice, depending on whether or not you want the utility of freezing people in place. (Happens around 50-75% of the time I'd say)

Air is extremely useful, tis my main damage dealer.

I'm only on level 9, but still. I run with Sword Fighter (Pretty good damage, when he hits), Unarmed Rogue (abysmal and I regret it greatly), Air Mage, and Ice Mage. My mages are really the true thing holding me up (both insectoid), my minotaur just misses far too much, and hits far too slow to be worth much in a fight.

Personally, my next run will probably be 4 mages, just so much damage... (And not one of each element, Earth is useless. I'll probably run 2 Air 1 Fire 1 Ice, simply because I know what pain in the ass mobs resist certain elements, and I don't wanna stack that type, lol)

i think 4 mages will give you a great start for any battle, but proove to be too cumbersome for the long ones.
you can prepare 4 powerful spells and launch them right away. that should kill most weak to mediocre enemies almost instantly.
the tough ones will leave you at a disadvantage because there will be too much idle time while you prepare the next spells.
unless you go for hit&run... prepare while you run.

the dagger rogue gave me the best result.. he was so powerful and hard to hit that i actually spent alot of time soloing with him when everyone else was dead...
pressing on instead of going back to the life crystal... and in the latter half the fights were even faster than with my whole party, because there was no idle time.

the minotaur fighter wasn't doing such a great job. lower damage output than my rogue and recieving more damage.

towards the end she got better with the most powerful equipment and some additional DEX.

the mages did good damage, but ran out of energy alot and were very fragile.
without any remaining energy, all that was left for them to do was toss weak throwing weapons around for a meager 1-10 points of damage per hit.

Don't forget missle weapons. They do kick ass badly! True not like a mage but you dont need to whack the runes the whole time

I've ran into situations where mobs just keep on coming, sometimes from many directions simultaneously. My best survivor is evasion rogue, warrior is OK but mages get absolutely raped the moment someone starts poking at them. Maybe the staff skill helps with survival though.

Got a Minotaur Fighter, Human Rogue frontline, Lizard Rogue with bow, Insectoid Mage fire/ice.

It was pretty interesting to see how they would scale at very, very different rate. Some being almost useless at the start, but ending up being the most badass, while some others would be okay at start and meh later on.

Upon beating the game :

Minotaur Fighter (13):
19 Armor
30 Sword ( almost that 33 special abilities! )

- Minotaur Fighter stayed quite constant throughout the game. Slow but hard hitting, misses would hurt especially when they would chain. When I got The Dismantler, he became a killing machine. I chose to put the Hardstone bracelet ( more attack power at the cost of a slower recvery rate ) on him to benefit from the big numbers. A very good mix of high HP and good offense. I regret going so far into the Armor talent, though : heavy armor were, imo, overrated. The Chitin Set would have been far, far enough. Everything else I could have ditched into Sword. Oh, and I found 4 skulls for the Headhunter perk. I think there are 5.

Human Melee Rogue (14) :
12 Assassination
33 Daggers
24 Dodge

- Very high evasion rating thanks to the full Lurker set + Dodge made the frontline Rogue the best Physical "tank". Try to hit her, monsters! On the offense side, I thought she was always a bit... Low, actually, even with the Assassin's dagger. Not before I reached Flurry ( 33 daggers ) did I actually think high of her. Yeah, she was recovering quickly and could land a few more blows than her Minotaur pal, but still. But I chose to go Dodge instead of assassination, so, it was my fault. That being said, reaching at least 31 in assassination would have been the perfect situation. Quicker attacks, more crits. And while she was highly vulnerable to magic, she was, again, very potent in not taking dmages from Physical

Lizardman Ranged Rogue (13) :
4 Assassination
50 Missile Weapons

- I wanted to have a range Rogue, 'cause I love bows and stuff. I didn't put any talent point on him actually, before I had, like, 20 or more... Because I couldn't find a bow! Thrown Weapons are very nice, especially when you know you can equip a Spear + thrown and rock from the back row. I was getting used to this setup when I found the first bow, and I wasn't very impressed. Arrows are scarce thoughout the game ( I ended up with 22 arrows and 23 crossbow quarrels ), making the bow a hard way to go, needing to keep the inventory screen open so that I could switch to Spear/Thrown when I ran out of arrows.
But I stubbornly stayed on the Missile path, and I think I was right. In the end, when I found out how to enchant the arrows, he became a very potent damage dealer - numbers weren't high, but he was able to shot quicker than the melee rogue, all the while playing hide and seek with some of the most annoying monsters.
He started pretty useless and annoying to micro manage, but he rose to a very nice place mid-game, and was able to retire a happy (lizard)man at the end of the game.

Insectoid Mage (13) :
3 Earth Magic ( changed my mind after initially starting Earth, also first spell you find in the game... When you don't know them yet! )
20 Fire Magic
24 Ice Magic
10 Spellcraft ( quick cast recovery )

Heh, Mages are probably the slowest to start the journey, when you don't know the spells.
But they are the bulk of the party once you know the most important. Frostbolt was pretty my bread and butter as soon as I learnt it. Chance to freeze along nice damage, what else? And with 10 spellcraft to cast more frequently, as well as being able to enchant arrows and quarrels, I just couldn't have done it without my Beetle. Too bad I couldn't reach the improved Fireball in time, I guess this would have been overkill. Oh, and since he could wore Orbs, I put two in his hands ( Orb of Radiance and Zandhul's Orb ). Couldn't find a staff improving what I was casting, so I could as well go with 2 orbs, especialy when one of them gives free light!
So the mage had a very difficult start, and rose slowly to success, but he was just key to victory.

So, tl:dr :
Mino fighter was a berserk, hitting hard and slow and taking punishment,
Rogue melee was perfect vs physical fights thanks to dodge at the expense of damage I found quite lower than expected,
Rogue range was hard and slow to gear but he showed great prowess later on,
Mage was the jack of all trade ( I even put the alchemy set on him :p ), hitting hard, freezing, enchanting, protecting.

I go with an Armor / Mace Minotauren Warrior and Unarmed / Athletics Minotauren on front and an Ice magic / Spellcraft Insectoid Mage with an Throwing / Assa / Dagger Human Rogue on the back. Fights are quite easy.

CV77 wrote:The unarmed fighter kicked the least amount of ass throughout the game, by far.

Woah, my unarmed minotauren warrior hits like truck. Also with high health (close to 200) and good evasion gear he can take quite some beating with no problems.

He currently has 92 Attackpower with having a chance to do double dmg or even a more devastating attack because of the 50 skill.

So i have to say you should at least have one unarmed figher or rogue on the front lines for the most powerful group.

I found my maces to be pretty weak due to several "upgrades" almost being offset by low accuracy. There was an Ice Hammer I found was very nice, but it didn't get that much uses out of it so I found it so late.

In reaction to all things said:

1. Magic - Earth is useless although the Poison Shield does come in handy now and then and the Poison Bolt with Shaman Staff is not bad either. But probably not worth the points. Ice is great with the freezing perk but Fire has the Fire Shield which is very useful for the fights with the ubiquitous flaming knights and then there's the orb amplifying the strength of your fire spells. Greater Fireball with the orb equipped deals the highest AoE damage of all spells. Never used Air but saw some ppl writing it's great. But again, no amplifying orb or staff Invisibility sounds useful though.

2. So unarmed fighter is probably viable but only with maxed strength and all available amplifiers. So Minotaur (highest strength) with max points in Unarmed, the Fist Fighter perk and the +6 gloves.

3. Never go with axes or maces for your heavy fighter. There are no decent axes (I have never found the damn Norja so I don't know the stats) and the good mace weapons are extremely heavy, slow and inaccurate. On the other hand the swords are plentiful and awesome (The Dismantler is the second best weapon in the game after the Assassin's Dagger).