Your strongest team

[karadoc]

I recently finished a game on "insane ironman" mode, for which I used what I thought would be the absolute strongest team. I wouldn't say I got it completely right, but I can say that it was very powerful, and that the last parts of the game was anticlimatically easy because the team was far too strong to be challenged. I'm interested in what other people think is the strongest team.

Here's an outline of what I picked and why:

"Glullub"

• Lizardman barbarian
• Primary roll: frontline tank and melee damage dealer (Heavy weapons, heavy armour, alchemy).
• Traits: endure elements and fast metabolism
• Starting stats: max vit, split str and dex

Reasoning
The health gain of barbarians is outstanding, and the traits of lizardmen synergise with this health gain (and with armour) to create a very robust character. Glullub is the character most likely to survive from a near team-wipe. That said, the character only really needs heavy weapons and heavy armour - so this is also the character that I choose to train in alchemy (because someone has to do it).

"Niiki"

• Ratling battle-mage
• Primary roll: frontline tank and magic damage dealer. (Air magic, Heavy armor.)
• Traits: mutation and tough
• Starting stats: max vit and wil.

Reasoning
I figure that it's good to have 1 ratling on the team to benefit from the stat gain from cheese. And I figured that a frontline battle mage is probably the class the benefits most from random stat gain... I actually had in mind that they could use bear potions to increase the damage and make better use of str & dex gains... but it turns out that just ordinary spell-casting is generally stronger anyway. In any case, getting stat gain from leveling up and from cheese means that Niiki becomes far stronger than any other battle-mage could.[/list]

"Susan"

• Human alchemist
• Primary roll: backline magic damage dealer. (Fireburst, Fireball, Meteor storm.)
• Traits: skilled and aura
• Starting stats: max vit and wil.

Reasoning
The herb-growing ability of alchemists is very powerful - and almost a necessity when healing crystals do not regenerate. Alchemists aren't very tanky; and so they are better as back-line fighters. Spell casters benefit from the early skill point of humans.

"Murval"

• Minotaur ranger
• Primary roll: backline melee damage dealer. (Light weapons, critical)
• Traits: head hunter and aggressive
• Starting stats: max str and dex

Reasoning
This is by far the strongest late-game damage dealer. The damage bonus from strength and from aggressive is added to weapon damage, and so to maximise damage output we want to get the best possible attack speed. This means duel-wielding light weapons. And since we're duel-wielding, it makes sense to pick the ranger, which gets a multiplicative damage bonus relative to the other classes (this is a far bigger end-game bonus than a barbarian would get from strength gain). The minotaur's initially high strength, aggressive, and head hunter all synergise with the increase attack rate of duel-wielding. And so does the ranger class.

Rough overall strategy
Murval gets 'reach' as soon as possible, then maxes out light weapons, then critical. This character becomes relevant quickly, and devastatingly powerful in the late game. Murval gets to drink most of the +strength potions. At the end of the game Murval had 50 strength. Nothing else came close to the enormous damage output of a backstabbing flurry of slashes from Murval's sickle sword. (again, flurry of slashes maximises the number of times the damage bonus from strength is applied). Murval's equipment should be either +str or +dex.

Glullub gets 1 early point in alchemy to brew basic potions, then maxes heavy weapons, then most of armour, then maxes alchemy for the late-game +stats potions. Glullub equipment of choice is Bane + Meteor armour.

Niiki should max air magic, armor, and concentration on an as-needed basis. Niiki's main attacks are shock and lightning bolt; but she's also in charge of protecting the team with invisibility - so it's nice to be able to get that early on. End-game equipment should be crystal armour & pretty much any orb/staff.

Susan should beeline stats towards getting fireball, then meteor storm. Spell damage is relatively very strong in the early game, and so both Niiki and Susan are the big-hitters for the first half of the game before Murval and Glullub overtake them towards the end-game. Meteor storm can one-shot-kill most enemy when you first get it, which is a pretty comforting ability to have when you suddenly realise that monsters have somehow surrounded you from behind. The main reason Susan is on the team though is for the herb-growing ability. So she should have a box with at least one of each herb type. (As they grow, she can give them to Glullub. She only needs one of each.)

---

Anyway, as I said, the team was very strong and well balanced throughout the game. The balance of skills meant that I got a combination of fire, lightning, and melee damage very early on, which make for a versatile early game team; and for the late game, the damage stacking on the backline Minotaur more than made up for the fact that spell damage doesn't scale well into the late game. Those magma giants basically died from two backstab flurries.

I think Murval is pretty much perfect, and I'd have that same character on any team I was trying to win with. I think Glullub is well-tuned as well, and although he wasn't as deadly, he was a good reliable team-member. The other two, while very good, I think could probably be improved. They just didn't have that same level of synergy as melee characters. If bear-form was better then I think Niiki would be a real winner... but in any case, I was happy to have the two spell casters on my team.

[any6]

My current optimized team is a balanced team:
mino barb > skulls + strength
ratling knight > mutation + strength
lizardman alchimist ranged > endure elements + dex
insectoid battle mage > armor + wp > mainly invis and meteor shower

This team uses all possible food, mutations and skulls for maximum stat gains.
On all characters I put everything in strength and dex for carrying capacity, evasion and accuracy.
This team also uses every full set bonus optimally.

Survival traits make the early game way easier. In the late game, stat traits are not so important anymore. Even 9 strength from skulls is actually a minor bonus.
Meanwhile 10 armor and 25% elemental reduction remains useful. From melee, my frontline takes almost no damage. My backline is almost 100% elemental immune. I can facetank and survive almost any mob including the final boss.

I could probably build a much better team by exploiting 1 class/race combo but that doesn't interest me as much. This team is strong because it fits my playstyle. No fiddling with weapon abilities, maximum use of interesting race mechanics. Can survive mistakes from tile dancing.

[Ronkoteus]

My party is probably not the strongest, but is quite well balanced throughout the whole game and most importantly is fun to play.

- Insectoid Barbarian:
Starting stats: +5 Str, +5 Dex
Traits: Chitin Armor, Quick
5 Throwing
5 Armor
3 Dodge
2 Critical
Pretty straight forward dual thrower tank. Dodge is for attack speed increase, not so much for evasion. Most Dex potions went to him at the beginning to get the accuracy high enough. Accuracy skill is not really required.

- Insectoid Battle Mage:
Starting stats: +5 Dex, +5 Vit
Traits: Chitin Armor, Quick
3 Light Weapon
3 Concentration
5 Armor
3 Dodge
1 Critical
A tank that uses utility spells to increase party survival especially in ambushes. Key spells being Forcefield and Shield. In difficult encounters, when enemies need to be eliminated fast, she gulps Bear Form and Speed potion while dual wielding the fastest daggers in the game: basic Dagger and Venom Edge. Light Weapons 3 lets her attack with both bear claws. Bear claw does not count original weapon's damage or accuracy bonus but still uses it's attack speed. So dual wielding the fastest possible weapons gives the best possible damage output. In easier and in one on one encounters, bear form is not needed and damage is done with other Dex weapons. She has also gulped few Dex potions to get accuracy up a bit.

- Lizardman Alchemist
Starting stats: +5 Dex, + 5 Vit
Traits: Endure Elements, Aggressive
5 Alchemy
5 Missile Weapons
3 Critical
1 Accuracy
1 Air
She is the potions (Dexterity, Bear Form, Shield, Speed, Healing and Energy) and Freeze Bomb factory. Other recipes are not really useful. Each created potion being put in good use by party members. When she's not throwing bombs she uses bow for decent damage. That 1 point in Air is for the best bow in the game.

- Human Battle Mage
Starting stats: +5 Vit, +5 Will
Traits: Skilled, Fast Learner
4 Concentration
5 Water
3 Earth
3 Fire
1 Air
Elemental shield provider and utility caster. He makes the elemental encounters much less painful throughout the game and is also source of freeze (though less reliable) when Alchemist is firing her bow. He is also the secondary Forcefield caster when the front line Battle Mage is wreaking havoc in Bear Form.

This party has survived most encounters without much trouble and has still been interesting to play (i.e. not uber powerful, not required to farm xp or do save/loading on difficult battles). Of course proper skill progression is required to get most out of the party throughout the whole game. E.g. Human Battle Mage started with 1 Concentration, 1 Earth, 1 Water and progressed his skills first for Poison shield, then Forcefield, then Ice Shield shield and finally Fire Shield etc. This way right elemental shield is available when it is most needed in the game.

[TinyZu]

I wouldn't call this an amazing team, but I like how it's weird yet gets the job done reasonably fast.

Ratling Rogue:
- Stats: +5000 dex, +3 vit, +2 will because pointlessly balanced stats.
- Traits: Aggressive and Mutation.
- Skills: L. weapons 5, crits 5, accuracy 3, dodge 3 because I like stupid stuff - this cooldown perk for example.
Show the dex gear some love. If you know where it is, you can get it relatively easily. Dual wield all the dudes into oblivion. The nice thing about Mutation here is that only Strength is worthless to get. Really squishy though given the low health and rogue armor.

Insectoid Battlemage:
- Stats: +5 str, +3 dex, +2 vit even though it should be +5 dex, really.
- Traits: Quick and Martial Training.
- Skills: H. weapons 5, crits 3, accuracy 5, dodge 3, concentration 2 because same reason as above, also stormseed orb because it's silly, also skill books.
No, it's not a Fighter. Yes, that's kinda daft. So squishy again, even with a staff and the shield spell, but you get slightly more mileage out of Bane in the late game with the higher energy pool. Making the really slow weapons faster with Quick is also nice since you can speed up fights considerably by baiting enemies into getting their butts in gear.

Minotaur Barbarian:
- Stats: +5 str, +4 dex, +1 will because 15 energy looks so miserable, I can't bear it.
- Traits: Aggressive and Head Hunter.
- Skills: Throwing 5, crits 5, accuracy 5, whatever 1.
That's - yeah. I got nothing. It's too good to pass up.

Human Alchemist:
- Stats: +5 vit, +5 will
- Traits: Skilled and Fast Learner because I'm impatient.
- Skills: Alchemy 5, concentration 3, fire 5, air 3, water 1. I could get air 4 instead of con 2, but I don't really care about the zap-o-matic.
Get Invisibility early, good old Meteor Storm to bust through the desert and those bloody insects, craft all the dex potions to intoxicate your rat. It's kinda funny. By doing this, my rat has over 100 accuracy and 60 evasion. End game armor is still better, but screw it. :T

[Azel]

It's been a year since I started LoG 2, and I've tried just about every group combination possible (all for funsies). And after all this time, I still feel that my original Walking Dead party is the strongest: http://grimrock.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8181

Any time I import them in to a playthrough of any Mod, it's like having God Mode enabled regardless of the difficulty setting. Starting this group from scratch in the Mod yields the same success. But that's expected, I suppose, since it takes advantage of Alchemy, the best magic in the game, and the high Barbarian DPS.

My second strongest team would be:

1) Front-line Fighter (Heavy Weapons)
2) Front-line Knight (Heavy weapons)
3) 2nd Row Barbarian (light weapons - Strength)
4) 2nd Row Alchemist (alchemy + magic)

But then... are we talking about Mods or the main Grimrock 2 Campaign? That makes a difference in choice.

[Drakkan]

It's been a year since I started LoG 2, and I've tried just about every group combination possible (all for funsies). And after all this time, I still feel that my original Walking Dead party is the strongest: http://grimrock.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8181

Any time I import them in to a playthrough of any Mod, it's like having God Mode enabled regardless of the difficulty setting. Starting this group from scratch in the Mod yields the same success. But that's expected, I suppose, since it takes advantage of Alchemy, the best magic in the game, and the high Barbarian DPS.

My second strongest team would be:

1) Front-line Fighter (Heavy Weapons)
2) Front-line Knight (Heavy weapons)
3) 2nd Row Barbarian (light weapons - Strength)
4) 2nd Row Alchemist (alchemy + magic)

But then... are we talking about Mods or the main Grimrock 2 Campaign? That makes a difference in choice.

also depends on which difficulty you are playing. Playing knight on the hard was for me almost baseless as he was dead as soon as any other character

[Azel]

In which game? Surely not the main campaign. On your Mod though I believe it, it's pretty difficult even on normal lol

[minmay]

My optimized party for Isle of Nex would probably be:
1.
Minotaur - highest strength and head hunter
Barbarian - strength provides bigger damage increase than rogue
Stat points: 5 str, 5 dex - both stats help with damage (dexterity because of accuracy) and the other two don't, so this is obvious
Traits: Aggressive, Head Hunter - rage is better than aggressive if you can be bothered to keep your health under 20%; I can't
Skills: start with light weapons/critical 1, train light weapons to 5, then critical to 5, then accuracy, then dodge 3 - getting critical 3/5 earlier is a little better for damage in a narrow level range, but hurts your damage in the levels before that, and you need light weapons for the weapons anyway. Accuracy helps damage more than dodge 3.
Rationale: highest damage character available.
Other notes: all strength/rage/bear form potions would go to this champion, endgame weapons are cutlass+bone blade (sickle sword is worse than either with good str). All tomes of knowledge would go to this character.

2.
Ratling - highest dex, cheese stats (20 cheeses in the game). You could pick lizardman if you are bad at the game and get hit a lot, but you are reducing your damage because of lower stats (lizardman has no good racial trait, and only 8 turtle eggs in the game). Insectoid (12 horned fruits) might be better because of the attack speed, but then you lose 4 dexterity at the start and more at successive levels. Replacing with human for the faster skills is also reasonable.
Rogue - highest damage for non-strength weapons
Stat points: 5 dex, the other 5 points literally don't matter as they won't help with your damage, unless you put 5 into str in which case they give +0.5 damage to the starting branch that you replace almost immediately.
Traits: Aggressive, plus either Agile or Mutation - Mutation eventually becomes strictly better but when depends on luck. If you went with insectoid then you would take quick instead of agile, and human would probably use both skilled and fast learner.
Skills: start with light weapons/critical 1, then critical to 3, then light weapons to 5, then critical to 5, then probably dodge 3, then accuracy - maybe it's better for damage to get 1 or 2 points of accuracy before dodge 3, but your natural accuracy is really high so I think dodge 3 is better, I haven't run the numbers on this though.
Rationale: first party member is already using all the skulls and the best str light weapons; dex light weapons have better stats than str light weapons, and rage/bear form potions are irrelevant now because they're already always going to the first champion, optimally.
Other notes: all dex potions and racial food would go to this champion, and all crystal flowers would be used on dex potions (this character has faster attacks than the barbarian so a dex potion is a bigger party damage boost than a str potion). Endgame weapons are moonblade + fist dagger (serpent blade is worse than either with good dex).

3.
Insectoid or human - see above. We are no longer interested in dex weapons. I prefer insectoid here by a bit, as skill points start to mean very little after the first 7.
Barbarian - highest strength, again. Exception: if you are specifically interested in rushing for and using the scythe, then Fighter could be better, but the scythe special is so unstable that I don't think it's worth it (plus you lose a lot of time to resting for energy), and of course you get less damage from the scythe's non-special attack.
Stat points: 5 str, 5 dex - obvious again
Traits: Aggressive, Quick - quick is a much bigger damage boost than Muscular except at the very start of the game.
Skills: start with heavy weapons/accuracy 1, then accuracy to 2, then heavy weapons to 5, then critical to 5, then accuracy, then dodge 3
Rationale: Isle of Nex forces you to play with the mouse, which is an inherently imprecise and clumsy input device, and I get crappy framerates often, which stops me from using 6 light weapons at once properly (particularly since only 4 can be on the same row). The 4 on the top row is no problem but at this point, and with the best light weapons already consumed by the first two champions, heavy weapons actually end up giving a better damage boost. This is only because of input difficulty, if I were using xinput or something to bind attacks to keyboard keys, then going with light weapons on this character would be unambiguously better and by a large margin. Not being able to do much at level 1 is unimportant. Minotaur's extra strength (now that we have no skulls) does not compare favorably to Quick, unless you are going to use Rage but I've already covered why I don't want to do that.
Other notes: Endgame weapon is either meteor hammer or scythe. Offhand doesn't matter. Racial food would go to this member over member 4, but not member 2.

4.
Human or insectoid - str/dex/vit/wil no longer matter. It's just preference of quick or more skills. I prefer human here.
Alchemist - infinite potions, and none of the other classes really do anything for spells.
Stat points: doesn't matter, I guess 5 wil for less resting and 5 vit in case you screw up.
Traits: Skilled, Fast Learner - these are the only two traits that do anything useful (except quick if you picked insectoid).
Skills: start with concentration/air/alchemy 1, then concentration to 2, then air to 4, then alchemy to 5, then concentration to 5, then air to 5, then ice to 3 or fire to 5 if you still end up with more points.
Rationale: Alchemist is broken. Force field and invisibility are also broken and better than more damage output at this point. Melee weapons would obviously be better for damage than getting more attack spells, but swapping is a pain in the ass so I'd rather just do this, and sometimes non-bomb ranged is good to have anyway so get lightning bolt. Meteor storm and frostbolt are bad investments but if you are not willing to swap (which describes me) it's not like you have anything else to spend points on.
Other notes: Rushing Isochronos is not nearly as fast as getting the spell castable yourself (you get it at level 4!).



I am completely unimpressed by protection/evasion/resistances/health, I just avoid getting hit. I do only play on hard, mainly because monsters moving faster are actually faster to kill due to how their AI can be manipulated.

[TinyZu]

I am completely unimpressed by protection/evasion/resistances/health, I just avoid getting hit. I do only play on hard, mainly because monsters moving faster are actually faster to kill due to how their AI can be manipulated.

This is eery. It's like we share the same mindset. Even the party is virtually identical to what I was running before I started experimenting. Or maybe that's an indication of the game's relatively small scope. It's a shame. After an 8-month hiatus, I went back to try some dumb stuff like having a ratling knight with super buff evasion. I got so tired of it that I eventually switched from sword n' board to dual-wielding even though the guy wasn't built for it, and it was still working better. That's just depressing. Grimrock 3 balance pls.

[FeMaiden]

probably not the "strongest" but for my insane ironman run, I used 4 human alchemists.
my rationale for using humans was that i could pick fast learner and skilled.

my rationale for alchemists is that I could put a cystal flower in each of their inventory and then walk around to make them multiply.

the 2 front liners both specialized in light weapons, while the back row on the left, did accuracy 2, and then heavy weapons and alchemy. and the bottom right was my spellcaster.

I mroe rationale for why I chose humansl, because I would be making so many stat potions, it makes ratling mutation, lizardman resistance, and minotaur headhunter irrelevant.

I have no ranged weapon users becaus eI find all ranged weapons to be underwhelming compared to having 2 front liners with backstabbing.
the heavy weapons user on the back row was to utilize the power weapons like bane and meteor hammer which do way more damage than a repeater...

this party was more of a gimmick. what I basically had to do was go into keelbreach bog and theres a puzzle with a moving teleporter and you throw a rock behind it so it lands on a pressure plate. In this spot, I could tape down the "W" key and just keep walking forward endlessly.
since the crystal flowers are based on steps taken, every 4500 = a crystal flower spawn in all 4 inventories.

I left it on all night to find dozens of crystal flowers spawned in the morning. my characters had such high stats it was ridiculous.

also combine the fact that strength is added to the weapons in both hands while dual wielding, so I had both frontliners dual wielding strength based light weapons and they both had damage around 50-100 in each hand.


another trick you may or may not know is that you can stack the effects of rage potions. you can drink 15 rage potions in a row and end up with a damage rating over 300-500 for a duration of 15 minutes.
drink a bear form potion on top of this and you can OHKO even the endboss...