Whenever I get an rpg like this I always take days to plan out my party before even starting. So, after reading around on different forums (here, steam, rpg codex, SA etc) for the last week I have come up with my ideas for a party. I would be playing on Hard with only one heal per save crystal, so I want to make a really optimized party. I outlined what I would do with them at creation, their core skill setup, and what remaining skill points could be put into. Please let me know what changes you would make.
Minotaur Barbarian
Headhunter/Aggressive
Max STR/DEX at creation
5 Heavy Weapons
5 Armor (Total 10)
Rest into crit, accuracy, or athletics depending on how he feels at that point.
This guy is pretty set in stone. Just a big beefy bruiser. I skipped Vit with him because the barbarian bonus should be enough and he needs accuracy badly. For traits, I'm not sure of whether Endurance or Aggressive would be more useful - Endurance would be nice to offset his food penalty and give him more carrying capacity, since the rest of the party travels pretty light.
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Insectoid Battlemage
Chitin/Quick
Max VIT/WIL at creation
3 Concentration
3 Water
1 Air
2 Armor
Rest into either 4 Air or 5 Armor depending on if I need more damage or if he's feeling fragile. (Total 12)
Tanky battlemage. This guy I am the least sure of. I like the skill set up - lots of utility and protection magic, with everything from concentration and the freeze bolt. I don't know if the Insectoid traits are that useful long term, and was considering Lizardman for the resist bonus (or Human to finish his spells earlier). As well, I don't know if my 2 in armor to get light armor proficiency will be that worthwhile or if I'll just be using heavy armor with whatever penalties. Finally, do I need to give him some dex for front line survivability or is pure vit/wil better?
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Ratling Rogue
Mutation/Aggressive
Max DEX at creation and split the rest between VIT and WIL
5 light weapons
2 accuracy
5 critical (Total 12)
Rest into athletics
Just a back row attacking rogue. Only thing I am not sure of is whether Ratling or Lizardman would be a better choice for their racial traits. Would it be useful to have a high resist character in the back row? And he doesn't need any Strength due to those dex weapons, right?
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Human Alchemist
Skilled/Fast Learner
Max VIT/WIL at creation
Fire 5
Air 3
Alchemy 4
3 Concentration (Total 15)
My dps mage who also makes potions. Human is because I hopefully want him to have 3 concentration for fire and air shield at some point. Or, I could forget about concentration and make him a Lizardman (along with everyone else?)
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Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think.
Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
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Dr.Disaster
- Posts: 2876
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:48 am
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
Looks pretty good to me.
On the BattleMage you might want to go for Armor 4 and Water 5 so you have a tanky freezer. Better one good magic school than 2 half-backed ones.
On the rogue just keep an eye out for all the dex bases light weapons; most of them are daggers.
Have fun!
On the BattleMage you might want to go for Armor 4 and Water 5 so you have a tanky freezer. Better one good magic school than 2 half-backed ones.
On the rogue just keep an eye out for all the dex bases light weapons; most of them are daggers.
Have fun!
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
I currently play in max difficulty with an optimized party (in my way at least ^^) :
Lizardman barbarian max STR/VIT
Healthy/Martial traning
Heavy Weapon/Armor/Accuracy
I found the + regen @ vit pretty useful and extra life is good.
Human battlemage max VIT/WILL
Human talents
Same as you (i love poison bolt but it's bug for now so...).
I prefer Human to go max skill. I don't like lose evasion so i keep armor but i don't know if it's for the better.
Rattling rogue same except i go mutation/agility and missile weapon/critical/alchimist
Hight resist in the back row is not that useful for me. Don't need STR.
Insectoid wizard max VIT/WILL
Quick/strong will
Fire/Air/Con
+ Will is good for regen (more useful than i thought first)
Hope that will help you
Lizardman barbarian max STR/VIT
Healthy/Martial traning
Heavy Weapon/Armor/Accuracy
I found the + regen @ vit pretty useful and extra life is good.
Human battlemage max VIT/WILL
Human talents
Same as you (i love poison bolt but it's bug for now so...).
I prefer Human to go max skill. I don't like lose evasion so i keep armor but i don't know if it's for the better.
Rattling rogue same except i go mutation/agility and missile weapon/critical/alchimist
Hight resist in the back row is not that useful for me. Don't need STR.
Insectoid wizard max VIT/WILL
Quick/strong will
Fire/Air/Con
+ Will is good for regen (more useful than i thought first)
Hope that will help you
SpoilerShow
i have lizardman/insectoid/rattling for food speciality they have 
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
Minotaur Barbarian
I don't know that you'll necessarily need that 5th rank of Armor. Even if you get up to 100 Protection, that's only 5 more points. You might consider the possibility of leaving that point off, in exchange for another point elsewhere (like Accuracy or Athletics). Personally, I like either Toughness or Martial Training over aggressive on this guy. He'll be hitting hard enough with Barbarian strength, Headhunter, and Heavy weapons. But that's just me.
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Insectoid Battlemage
Seems alright. Water/Air is a powerhouse. Cooldown Reduction might not help as much as it would on a melee guy, where you just have to click once. But then, more freeze is more freeze, so it's kinda a wash
. Between the Battlemage trait, Insectoid, and armor, this guy should be really competitive with his protections.
I would take him up to Light Armor and then leave him for a bit, to get a feel for things. If he's having trouble staying up in every fight, I might consider either moving to Armor 4 or dropping some points into Athletics, depending on the gear available to you at the time.
I also really like Dr.Disaster's suggestion of Water5 here.
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Ratling Rogue
Seems fine. Light weapons are kinda split. Some are strength, some are dex. I like Aggressive on this guy, with your dual wielding.
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Human Alchemist
Seems fine.
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You might also consider Dodge3 on your Minotaur or Rogue for more damage output. It'll be more noticeable on the Minotaur, as some bigger heavy weapons might have natural cooldowns of over 5 seconds.
I don't know that you'll necessarily need that 5th rank of Armor. Even if you get up to 100 Protection, that's only 5 more points. You might consider the possibility of leaving that point off, in exchange for another point elsewhere (like Accuracy or Athletics). Personally, I like either Toughness or Martial Training over aggressive on this guy. He'll be hitting hard enough with Barbarian strength, Headhunter, and Heavy weapons. But that's just me.
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Insectoid Battlemage
Seems alright. Water/Air is a powerhouse. Cooldown Reduction might not help as much as it would on a melee guy, where you just have to click once. But then, more freeze is more freeze, so it's kinda a wash
. Between the Battlemage trait, Insectoid, and armor, this guy should be really competitive with his protections. I would take him up to Light Armor and then leave him for a bit, to get a feel for things. If he's having trouble staying up in every fight, I might consider either moving to Armor 4 or dropping some points into Athletics, depending on the gear available to you at the time.
I also really like Dr.Disaster's suggestion of Water5 here.
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Ratling Rogue
Seems fine. Light weapons are kinda split. Some are strength, some are dex. I like Aggressive on this guy, with your dual wielding.
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Human Alchemist
Seems fine.
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You might also consider Dodge3 on your Minotaur or Rogue for more damage output. It'll be more noticeable on the Minotaur, as some bigger heavy weapons might have natural cooldowns of over 5 seconds.
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
I'm near the end of the game and here are some tips based on what I've learned with an all-human party (all characters have Fast Learner). I would like to point out that these tips are based on your race and classes choices. I'm assuming that you indeed want to roll with a mixed race group consisted of 1 minotaur, 1 insectoid, 1 ratling and 1 human. If this is indeed true, here are my tips:
Barbarian
Heavy Armor vs Light Armor: Heavy armors tend to give high protection, and extra health. Light armors tend to give decent protection, and extra evasion. That being said, the best armor pieces for barbarians are +STR light armors. If I knew this back at the character creation, I wouldn't specialize my barbarian in heavy armor. By not investing so much in armor, I can get an extra 2 to 3 free points to invest somewhere else.
EDIT: I don't agree with this point anymore. Read my second post for an update information.
Accuracy: All non-spellcasters need several points in Accuracy, even if they are in the front row. If you don't invest in accuracy, you'll miss to much, lowering your Damage Per Second. If you followed my advice, you would invest these extra points from Armor into Accuracy. You need at least 1 point invested in Accuracy right in the beginning of the game due to your Minotaur race choice (negative 2 accuracy).
For the first 5 levels, I would invest 1 point in HW, 2 points in Accuracy, and 2 points in Armor (Light Armor specialization).
Critical and Athletics: You need at least 1 point in Critical in order to wield one of the best Heavy Weapons in the game. There is at least another HW that needs 2 points in Critical, but it has worse damage per swing than the previous one. You don't need to invest points in Athletics because you already have high Hit Points. Since Critical isn't a priority and you need points in HW, focus on it later.
Rogue
DEX vs STR weapons: DEX is the way to go for melee rogues. If you want to use Light Weapons based on STR, pick another barbarian.
Willpower and Charge Attacks: Your rogue doesn't need any points in Willpower. After a certain point in the game, when everyone has at least decent gear, your rogue will focus on dealing fast attacks with daggers instead of Charge Attacks. Daggers have low cooldown, and there is very small room for using their special attacks, which aren't very good due to the nature of DEX progression for melee users and their naturally lower damage per swing compared to heavy weapons, unless you don't mind compromising the DPS of the party. Since you have TWO spellcasters in your group, and your rogue has TWO weapon slots, it'll be pretty much impossible to add Charge Attacks to your rogue arsenal.
Athletics: Besides the initial 5 points in Vitality, characters in the back row don't need to invest in armor, evasion or health. They are better focused on dealing damage (rogues, barbarians, fighters) and/or utillity/crowd control (alchemist, spellcasters).
The Role of the melee rogue in your group: Do you want high damage attacks? Good, pick another class (fighter or barbarian), invest in heavy weapons, accuracy and critical. Wait, am I saying that the melee rogues are bad? No, but I found that while their quick attacks are quite fun, their BEST way to deal damage is through backstabbing.
Backstabbing: The melee rogue's main strength. There is at least one spell that will help you to position your group in order to have a higher chance of backstabbing your enemy. You also want to carry Frost Bombs with him. If you don't to add these options to your arsenal or find backstabbing too difficulty, turn your rogue into a ranged character specialized in missile weapons.
Wizard and Battlemage
Concentration: You'll want this. Badly. 3 points is enough.
Alchemy: With only 4 points invested, you won't be able to brew at least one potion and you'll miss the last trait, which means less Frost Bombs (less backstabbing).
1 vs 2 spellcasters: This is entirely up to you. I'm pretty sure there are some people running groups with 2 battlemages and 2 wizards. For me, I've learned that 1 human wizard with Fast Learner can learn ALL the spells in the game as long you give him at least TWO +skill tomes and the +25% XP necklace found along the game .
Barbarian
Heavy Armor vs Light Armor: Heavy armors tend to give high protection, and extra health. Light armors tend to give decent protection, and extra evasion. That being said, the best armor pieces for barbarians are +STR light armors. If I knew this back at the character creation, I wouldn't specialize my barbarian in heavy armor. By not investing so much in armor, I can get an extra 2 to 3 free points to invest somewhere else.
EDIT: I don't agree with this point anymore. Read my second post for an update information.
Accuracy: All non-spellcasters need several points in Accuracy, even if they are in the front row. If you don't invest in accuracy, you'll miss to much, lowering your Damage Per Second. If you followed my advice, you would invest these extra points from Armor into Accuracy. You need at least 1 point invested in Accuracy right in the beginning of the game due to your Minotaur race choice (negative 2 accuracy).
For the first 5 levels, I would invest 1 point in HW, 2 points in Accuracy, and 2 points in Armor (Light Armor specialization).
Critical and Athletics: You need at least 1 point in Critical in order to wield one of the best Heavy Weapons in the game. There is at least another HW that needs 2 points in Critical, but it has worse damage per swing than the previous one. You don't need to invest points in Athletics because you already have high Hit Points. Since Critical isn't a priority and you need points in HW, focus on it later.
Rogue
DEX vs STR weapons: DEX is the way to go for melee rogues. If you want to use Light Weapons based on STR, pick another barbarian.
Willpower and Charge Attacks: Your rogue doesn't need any points in Willpower. After a certain point in the game, when everyone has at least decent gear, your rogue will focus on dealing fast attacks with daggers instead of Charge Attacks. Daggers have low cooldown, and there is very small room for using their special attacks, which aren't very good due to the nature of DEX progression for melee users and their naturally lower damage per swing compared to heavy weapons, unless you don't mind compromising the DPS of the party. Since you have TWO spellcasters in your group, and your rogue has TWO weapon slots, it'll be pretty much impossible to add Charge Attacks to your rogue arsenal.
Athletics: Besides the initial 5 points in Vitality, characters in the back row don't need to invest in armor, evasion or health. They are better focused on dealing damage (rogues, barbarians, fighters) and/or utillity/crowd control (alchemist, spellcasters).
The Role of the melee rogue in your group: Do you want high damage attacks? Good, pick another class (fighter or barbarian), invest in heavy weapons, accuracy and critical. Wait, am I saying that the melee rogues are bad? No, but I found that while their quick attacks are quite fun, their BEST way to deal damage is through backstabbing.
Backstabbing: The melee rogue's main strength. There is at least one spell that will help you to position your group in order to have a higher chance of backstabbing your enemy. You also want to carry Frost Bombs with him. If you don't to add these options to your arsenal or find backstabbing too difficulty, turn your rogue into a ranged character specialized in missile weapons.
Wizard and Battlemage
Concentration: You'll want this. Badly. 3 points is enough.
Alchemy: With only 4 points invested, you won't be able to brew at least one potion and you'll miss the last trait, which means less Frost Bombs (less backstabbing).
1 vs 2 spellcasters: This is entirely up to you. I'm pretty sure there are some people running groups with 2 battlemages and 2 wizards. For me, I've learned that 1 human wizard with Fast Learner can learn ALL the spells in the game as long you give him at least TWO +skill tomes and the +25% XP necklace found along the game .
Last edited by Fred1 on Sat Oct 25, 2014 10:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
The party I found to be optimal is 4 lizardmen with the endure elements trait. Just that decision right there makes you extremely resistant to elemental damage - the most dangerous damage of the game that hits your whole party. Nearly all the most difficult fights and all of the most dangerous enemies involve elemental damage in some form. Other races only offer minor stat increases that become negligible by the mid-game.
You will be doing ~100 damage and have ~50 protection and ~200 hp by mid game (way more later), but will be unlikely to have resistance 50 - certainly not on all your guys, and elemental damage damages everyone at once. Lizardmen have this from the get-go.
Looking at the relative benefits, 10 or so extra strength from a minotaur or a bit more energy/hp pales in comparison with the lizardmen's ability to survive those tough encounters. You can laugh in the face of elementals and stare down the Master!
Other races can get you moderate benefits; a lizardmen party can stop the biggest threat in the game from being much of a threat at all.
You also don't really need much magic. The damage starts out good, but scales really badly. You do want a mage for forcefields for when you are surrounded though, and casting light. Freeze is handy, but unreliable.
Regarding weapons, heavy weapons are the way to go, on everyone. There are plenty of "epic-level" heavy weapons to equip 4 characters, and heavy weapons with their slow but powerful hits complement combat dancing extremely well. You just can't afford to stand toe-to-toe with powerful enemies to get those dual wield hits in, and backstabbing can't be achieved reliably, especially in the toughest fights. If you could get all your hits in (and better light weapons were available), dual wielding would be great, but that's just not the case.
So my current optimal party is 3 lizardmen barbarians (best hp + damage, no contest there).
Two in front with heavy armor (nothing less will do for proper tanking, and you'll still get hit hard), heavy weapons, and a couple of points of accuracy.
One barbarian in the back focusing on pure damage (accuracy, critical, heavy weapons).
The last support member is a lizardman alchemist with 5 in alchemy (near-infinite healing and buffs; resurrection - not a problem), concentration, fire and water magic at 3, and air magic at 1. You have plenty of energy from items, no need for a wizard. Sure, that character will be nothing special, but will free up your other guys to concentrate on being real powerhouses.
Actually, forgoing other schools and giving the alchemist a heavy investment in water for freezing, or simply just 2 in concentration for forcefields and getting heavy weapons with him as well would probably be optimal
If you don't take my advice and get 4 lizardmen, be sure to get the elemental shields as fast as possible on your mage, especially fire and water (poison is painful but bearable, shock damage is rare). Be prepared to burn/freeze as your elemental shields run out in the middle of difficult battles
You will be doing ~100 damage and have ~50 protection and ~200 hp by mid game (way more later), but will be unlikely to have resistance 50 - certainly not on all your guys, and elemental damage damages everyone at once. Lizardmen have this from the get-go.
Looking at the relative benefits, 10 or so extra strength from a minotaur or a bit more energy/hp pales in comparison with the lizardmen's ability to survive those tough encounters. You can laugh in the face of elementals and stare down the Master!
Other races can get you moderate benefits; a lizardmen party can stop the biggest threat in the game from being much of a threat at all.
You also don't really need much magic. The damage starts out good, but scales really badly. You do want a mage for forcefields for when you are surrounded though, and casting light. Freeze is handy, but unreliable.
Regarding weapons, heavy weapons are the way to go, on everyone. There are plenty of "epic-level" heavy weapons to equip 4 characters, and heavy weapons with their slow but powerful hits complement combat dancing extremely well. You just can't afford to stand toe-to-toe with powerful enemies to get those dual wield hits in, and backstabbing can't be achieved reliably, especially in the toughest fights. If you could get all your hits in (and better light weapons were available), dual wielding would be great, but that's just not the case.
So my current optimal party is 3 lizardmen barbarians (best hp + damage, no contest there).
Two in front with heavy armor (nothing less will do for proper tanking, and you'll still get hit hard), heavy weapons, and a couple of points of accuracy.
One barbarian in the back focusing on pure damage (accuracy, critical, heavy weapons).
The last support member is a lizardman alchemist with 5 in alchemy (near-infinite healing and buffs; resurrection - not a problem), concentration, fire and water magic at 3, and air magic at 1. You have plenty of energy from items, no need for a wizard. Sure, that character will be nothing special, but will free up your other guys to concentrate on being real powerhouses.
Actually, forgoing other schools and giving the alchemist a heavy investment in water for freezing, or simply just 2 in concentration for forcefields and getting heavy weapons with him as well would probably be optimal
If you don't take my advice and get 4 lizardmen, be sure to get the elemental shields as fast as possible on your mage, especially fire and water (poison is painful but bearable, shock damage is rare). Be prepared to burn/freeze as your elemental shields run out in the middle of difficult battles
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
Wow, thanks for all your detailed and specific advice. Based on these points, I'll make some changes:
Barbarian
* Hold off on maxing Armor in favor of some early Accuracy and at least 1 point in Critical
Alchemist
* Invest a skill book to max out Alchemy
Rogue
* Give him DEX/VIT only
* I really like the idea of dual wielding dex weapons, but it seems that missile would be more effective. Is dual wielding that poor without consistent backstabbing?
Battlemage
* Instead of getting the Air 4 spell, go for Water 5 and the rest Armor.
* Change out Quick trait for more armor or energy
* If the rogue uses missile weapons instead of light weapons, freeze won't be as useful, and apparently magic doesn't scale so great. Instead I could go for a heavy weapons + concentration str/dex build on this guy, possibly? I would lose water shield too, though - though it would be less of a problem if everyone was a lizardman. In that case, the alchemist's fewer skill points could be salvaged by giving Alchemy to the rogue instead, since he won't need 2 Accuracy to attack from the back row.
Barbarian
* Hold off on maxing Armor in favor of some early Accuracy and at least 1 point in Critical
Alchemist
* Invest a skill book to max out Alchemy
Rogue
* Give him DEX/VIT only
* I really like the idea of dual wielding dex weapons, but it seems that missile would be more effective. Is dual wielding that poor without consistent backstabbing?
Battlemage
* Instead of getting the Air 4 spell, go for Water 5 and the rest Armor.
* Change out Quick trait for more armor or energy
* If the rogue uses missile weapons instead of light weapons, freeze won't be as useful, and apparently magic doesn't scale so great. Instead I could go for a heavy weapons + concentration str/dex build on this guy, possibly? I would lose water shield too, though - though it would be less of a problem if everyone was a lizardman. In that case, the alchemist's fewer skill points could be salvaged by giving Alchemy to the rogue instead, since he won't need 2 Accuracy to attack from the back row.
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
I did plan out a new lizardman party based off my old one... Not sure whether elemental damage is such a big deal to sacrifice all those nice stats. In particular, I'm worried about the battlemage not being tanky enough against normal monsters. I could give him Fast Metabolism to help with healing, or maybe even on the whole group. I might have gone a bit overboard with accuracy but in game I would just give them points if they were missing a lot.
barbarian
lizardman
enduring elements/martial
STR/DEX
5 heavy
4+ armor
1 crit
3 accuracy
total 13
battlemage
lizardman
str/dex/vit
enduring elements/healthy
5 heavy
2 armor
3+ concentration
3 accuracy
total 13
rogue
lizardman
enduring elements/agile
dex/vit
5 missile
5 crit
4+ alchemy
total 14
alchemist
lizardman
enduring elements/aura
vit/wil
5 fire
3+ air
5 concentration
total 13
barbarian
lizardman
enduring elements/martial
STR/DEX
5 heavy
4+ armor
1 crit
3 accuracy
total 13
battlemage
lizardman
str/dex/vit
enduring elements/healthy
5 heavy
2 armor
3+ concentration
3 accuracy
total 13
rogue
lizardman
enduring elements/agile
dex/vit
5 missile
5 crit
4+ alchemy
total 14
alchemist
lizardman
enduring elements/aura
vit/wil
5 fire
3+ air
5 concentration
total 13
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Dr.Disaster
- Posts: 2876
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:48 am
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
Armor 2 on a front line character is dicey and with a class that cuts equipped armor weight in half it does not even make sense.feathy wrote:battlemage
lizardman
str/dex/vit
enduring elements/healthy
5 heavy
2 armor
3+ concentration
3 accuracy
total 13
You don't need more than Concentration 3 with a character limited to utiliy spells. Without a single combat spell it's also questionable why a Battlemage at all. A knight seems the better choice here.
Re: Planning optimized party - looking for feedback
I've been toying with a 3x lizardman battlemage /1x lizardman alchemist party. It's been going super fast early game not having to deal with crappy accuracy and whatnot. Now that I have freeze on everyone it makes most fights even easier. It seems to be able to overwrite itself and there's no hard limit on how long something can remain frozen. I don't really have to carry equipment at all really either. Having to rest every 3~4 fights is annoying but I prefer that to the sidestep dancing I had to do with my more 'balanced' party. Only one fight so far I can think of I've had to chug energy pots.
We'll see if it holds strong till the late game but at level 8 it's been insanely smooth.
We'll see if it holds strong till the late game but at level 8 it's been insanely smooth.