creating a new party

[Infael]

I'm playing Grimrock 1 and almost done with it. The thief has barely contributed, so am thinking of a 2 fighter/2 mage party for Grimrock 2. Does the thief have any use in Grimrock 2?

[minmay]

Rogue and barbarian do the most damage among all the classes (because of strength for the former and reduced dual wielding penalty/increased ranged crit for the latter, when dual wielding already does the most damage). The difference isn't huge though.
Alchemist makes your virtually-infinite supply of herbs literally infinite, in case you enjoy grinding.
Farmer has the fastest leveling but also has a disadvantage of 2 skill points and some hp/energy, so it is pretty much just worse than the other classes in practice.
The other classes aren't notable for anything.

[Drakkan]

in log rogue is just fighter with less HP, but more evasion and accuracy. Thanks to his skill to fight better with two weapons he can be either used as a dual-weapon dmg dealer in first row or even in back-row if you invest few points into accuracy skill, which is quite cool. You can also use rogue as a missile / thrower which is in my opinion quite bad from the start of the game, it got better with good equipment and some crit however.

[any6]

Rogue and barbarian do the most damage among all the classes (because of strength for the former and reduced dual wielding penalty/increased ranged crit for the latter, when dual wielding already does the most damage). The difference isn't huge though.
Alchemist makes your virtually-infinite supply of herbs literally infinite, in case you enjoy grinding.
Farmer has the fastest leveling but also has a disadvantage of 2 skill points and some hp/energy, so it is pretty much just worse than the other classes in practice.
The other classes aren't notable for anything.

I find that short sighted
Sure, rogue and barbarian can be built to be game breakingly OP. If you don't specifically play to exploit balance flaws, most classes bring something to the table.

The knight can be built into an almost invincible character, greatly reducing the need for square dancing.
I personally dislike fighters because I don't use special abilities, but others may appreciate that perk.

The only class that isn't notable for anything is the wizard. Even for casters, willpower is a dump stat and +2 willpower just isn't worth it.

imho.

As for the original question. Rogues have traits pertaining to throwing and dual wielding. Both are extremely strong although throwing is better done with a barbarian.

[Dr.Disaster]

The only class that isn't notable for anything is the wizard. Even for casters, willpower is a dump stat and +2 willpower just isn't worth it.

imho.

I agree that compared to the battle mage the wizard comes along neglected; he should have more energy from the start and on level-ups. Nevertheless less willpower results in both less energy and energy regeneration which results in even less spellcasting; not a good thing for a caster. It's like taking away an archers' arrows.

As for the original question. Rogues have traits pertaining to throwing and dual wielding. Both are extremely strong although throwing is better done with a barbarian.

Here IMO one thing is easy to miss as a new player; it becomes clear after playing a while. In LoG 2 the Rogue needs to make a decision right from the start: to be either a strenght or a dexterity based fighter.
Going with strength means it's either Throwing or dual-wielding strenght-based Light Weapons.
Going with dexterity means it's either Missiles or dual-wielding dexterity-based Light Weapons a.k.a. Daggers.

It's true that a Barbarian's strength gain will result in more throwing damage. Yet i think the Rogue can get even here due to his higher critical hit rate. For example my solo lvl 14 missile rogue has a 34% crit chance.

[any6]

The only class that isn't notable for anything is the wizard. Even for casters, willpower is a dump stat and +2 willpower just isn't worth it.

imho.

I agree that compared to the battle mage the wizard comes along neglected; he should have more energy from the start and on level-ups. Nevertheless less willpower results in both less energy and energy regeneration which results in even less spellcasting; not a good thing for a caster. It's like taking away an archers' arrows.

Not quite. It's like taking away 2 of the arrows. In most battles, an archer gets by with 10 arrows. So removing 2 arrows so he's left with 18 doesn't really limit an archer in any meaningful way.
Comparably, in most battles, 2 meteor showers are all a caster does. My battle mage can blast 6 meteor showers in succession. Potions are in abundance and resting is free.

That limitation exists only in theory.

As for the original question. Rogues have traits pertaining to throwing and dual wielding. Both are extremely strong although throwing is better done with a barbarian.

Here IMO one thing is easy to miss as a new player; it becomes clear after playing a while. In LoG 2 the Rogue needs to make a decision right from the start: to be either a strenght or a dexterity based fighter.
Going with strength means it's either Throwing or dual-wielding strenght-based Light Weapons.
Going with dexterity means it's either Missiles or dual-wielding dexterity-based Light Weapons a.k.a. Daggers.

It's true that a Barbarian's strength gain will result in more throwing damage. Yet i think the Rogue can get even here due to his higher critical hit rate. For example my solo lvl 14 missile rogue has a 34% crit chance.[/quote]
Indeed. Luckily it's not quite as bad as grimrock 1.

The only lackluster class is wizard, it could really use a balance pass imho.

[minmay]

The knight can be built into an almost invincible character, greatly reducing the need for square dancing.

What. Knight gets 1 protection per level. Barbarian gets 20 more HP plus 3 more HP per level compared to knight, and the same amount of energy, combined with more damage. That reduces square dancing way more than 1 protecton per level (and a little evasion if you use bad weapons, I guess). Knight is useless.

I personally dislike fighters because I don't use special abilities, but others may appreciate that perk.

Buildup time for secondary attacks is mostly irrelevant, since they are mostly only useful when you charge them in advance before the fight. Even with fighter, for it to increase your damage/time during a fight instead of decreasing it, you pretty much need to have the rest of the party on cooldown. Compared to the constant damage increases you get from barbarian and rogue, it's pretty unfavourable.

[any6]

The knight can be built into an almost invincible character, greatly reducing the need for square dancing.

What. Knight gets 1 protection per level. Barbarian gets 20 more HP plus 3 more HP per level compared to knight, and the same amount of energy, combined with more damage. That reduces square dancing way more than 1 protecton per level (and a little evasion if you use bad weapons, I guess). Knight is useless.

Damage you don't get is damage you don't have to heal.
Protection is better than raw health in almost all cases.
That makes knight better than barbarian when it comes to defense. A knight in the front line doesn't get damage at all from trash. Against bosses, my knight gets a lot less damage than my barbarian frontliner.

For example, at lvl 11 a knight gets 10 less damage per hit than a barbarian. A barbarian on the contrary has 50 more health. That means that after 5 hits, the knight has the advantage because of damage reduction. The barbarian will need more potions to keep up.

LoG2 has much more zergy fights. Getting hit 5+ times in a single battle happens often enough for this to matter.

imho.

Buildup time for secondary attacks is mostly irrelevant, since they are mostly only useful when you charge them in advance before the fight. Even with fighter, for it to increase your damage/time during a fight instead of decreasing it, you pretty much need to have the rest of the party on cooldown. Compared to the constant damage increases you get from barbarian and rogue, it's pretty unfavourable.

agreed.

[minmay]

If you're getting hit 5+ times in a fight then there is a serious problem with your damage output. The monsters should be dead long before that can happen. I can really only think of 2-3 places in Isle of Nex where you should be taking even 1 hit. But I suppose if you decided to focus on protection instead of something that actually helps end fights faster, that's not surprising.

[AndakRainor]

Depending on the order you visit levels in the main campaign and the difficulty chosen, isn't it possible to face dangerous enemies like the crab for example ? Even in this case, i know that in Grimrock 2 you can always move while fighting, but in Grimrock 1 I remember a trap where a crab (or 2?) was spawned behind you and you had to face tank it (may be it was possible to escape somehow but then I did it the hard way!).

But as in the majority of games, I agree that damage per second builds are over rewarded by the combat designers, and it's a shame really !