Best Combat Characters: Vote!

[P_Tigras]

In the toughest battles, which six characters would you want in your party? And why? Also do mention the difficulty level you play at since that may well affect your answer.

[jack1974]

While testing I was using: Loren, Saren/Warrior, Sauzer and in backrow Myrth,Dora & Draco.
Loren for obvious reasons. Saren Warrior because of higher HP and damage. Sauzer because has some very powerful special attacks and good stats even without need to get armors/weapons. On back, Myrth because is the best healer but can also throw some damaging spells, Dora because of Rain of Arrows and Pinning shot, Draco because of the high damage output and the Phantom Form that is quite powerful to protect other party members
I was playing Normal and occasionally in Hard mode.
Before the expansion I was using Ramas instead of Sauzer, because of his natural resistances and high damage with some weapons.

[P_Tigras]

I played the entire game in hard mode. Level for level Loren and Draco were the two toughest characters in my opinion, deadly at both low levels and high. At high levels Ramas was also incredibly impressive as were Apolimesho and Chambara. I liked fighter Saren as both a damage-absorbing tank and a combat medic. Nothing could stand against my main six when they were all together. They killed everything in one or two rounds.

Honorable mentions go to Myrth, Rei and Dora. Myrth is an awesome healer, and in some ways her healing is even better than Saren/Elenor's, but her damage output pales compared to what the other mages can do, especially at high levels. And I could only have six, so she ended up being the medic who I'd swap in if my party was in need of healing in between back to back fights, which the better I got at the game was more and more rare.

Rei is an awesome assassin. Between his high speed and his ability to assassinate things he was incredibly useful at taking out all sorts of enemies before they could attack. Dora is great at taking out squishy back row targets, and like Rei, she always gets the first shot. She's not as great at taking out tough, single targets as Rei, but Rain of Arrows makes her better at multiple targets. Dora and Rei didn't make it into my main six for two basic reasons. First, I don't have to continually go into the inventory to change my mages' weapons to better deal with enemy resistances and weaknesses. I just pick the elemental spell I want during combat and BLAMO! No muss, no fuss. Second, I do have a personal preference for combat mages over thieves. If it were possible for mages to survive in the first row on hard, and there were six mages to choose from, I'd probably have an entire party of mages.

Amukiki was competent and I used him to fill out my front row when Loren, Ramas or fighter Saren couldn't be present.

Mesphit was a really interesting character in combat due to his demonic powers. Of all the thieves, he's the one I liked best in the front row, but keeping him alive when fighting powerful enemies could at times be a challenge. Giving him a shield with resistance to the normal damage type helped a lot, as did maxing out his special demonic ability to attack and heal at the same time.

That leaves Sauzer, Karen and Trouble. These three I had issues with. There was no armor, let alone magical armor, for Trouble so I found that he died far too often on hard. His flaming breath also seemed underpowered. Perhaps it was dependent on his Will score for damage, and since I considered him a fighter, I didn't invest a whole lot of points into will.

I really wanted to use Sauzer, but he did very little damage on the hard level, and I couldn't upgrade his equipment to increase his damage the way I could the other fighters. At most I could give him some good jewelry, but it just wasn't enough to be competitive. On the other hand on my easy level play-through with Thief Elenor, Sauzer sailed through just fine without any problems.

Finally there's Karen who I consider to be fundamentally broken. When playing the hard level she dies almost instantly when placed in the front because she doesn't have access to fighter armor and equipment. Her damage output also doesn't compare, again because of inferior gear. When placed in the back row on the other hand, the one power she has to attack someone in the enemy back row, strike through, is reduced in effectiveness. In the front row all the fighters and Mesphit are better, while in the back row, all the other thieves and mages are better.

[jack1974]

I played the entire game in hard mode. Level for level Loren and Draco were the two toughest characters in my opinion, deadly at both low levels and high. At high levels Ramas was also incredibly impressive as were Apolimesho and Chambara. I liked fighter Saren as both a damage-absorbing tank and a combat medic. Nothing could stand against my main six when they were all together. They killed everything in one or two rounds.

wait, so you were using THREE mages in your ideal team? that's something I've never seen before I think interesting.

Finally there's Karen who I consider to be fundamentally broken. When playing the hard level she dies almost instantly when placed in the front because she doesn't have access to fighter armor and equipment. Her damage output also doesn't compare, again because of inferior gear. When placed in the back row on the other hand, the one power she has to attack someone in the enemy back row, strike through, is reduced in effectiveness. In the front row all the fighters and Mesphit are better, while in the back row, all the other thieves and mages are better.

I'm thinking how to fix her right now. Granting access to heavier armor won't work since she's a thief. I guess she could have some amulet to increase her defense or HP since I think that is the main problem... as always I have fear of breaking the game balance though doing changes like this

[Franka]

I use three mages as well. It makes almost every fight so much simpler.

[jack1974]

Interesting. Probably because I changed this during the expansion so I didn't notice what people were using

[MarSel]

Mages Rule! 3 mages too

[SpectralTime]

Loren is the best fighter in the game. She has the best sword in the game as a piece of unique equipment, and she can dual-wield a second one, which, due to the game engine, gives her better damage output than anyone else, AND her unique skill tree lets her tear through normal enemies like a buzz-saw while buffing her team WHILE remaining good enough at dealing single-target damage to easily snuff bosses. A buffed-up RAMAS can't even begin to reach her BASE level, and his whole gimmick revolves around receiving a massive damage bonus in exchange for a massive defense penalty. I'm glad the game takes away my guilt at using her by keeping her in the party so much, else my anal-retentive side would rib me more for not keeping everyone at EXACTLY the same level.

Myrth is the best magician in the game. She has great heals, high-damage status-effect-inflicting spells that ALSO target all enemies at once and, unlike every other magic user in the game, their higher-level multi-target versions scale UP in power and damage rather than down. All magic users kick all kinds of butt, but Myrth is the best one.

And... well, I'm going to be blunt and add an extra category. Karen is the worst party member in the game. I like her as a character, but her skills are weaksauce, ESPECIALLY compared to the Fighters, and unlike Thief!Main Character, she doesn't make up for it with heals and buffs. Also unlike Thief!Main Character, she can't really camp on the already-crowded and high-competition back row like the other ranged thieves since her character-specific weapons (spears) require her to be up front, and until the expansion there simply WEREN'T any good spears in the game. In fact, I think she didn't even get a good spear in the expansion, just a pendant. I had to give up on roleplaying Soren returning to the Amazon city to mount a heroic defense for roleplaying purposes because, between being forced to use only her and a far-too-weak-for-the-level Breza, I found the fight flat out unwinnable for the mostly-buff-and-heals-centric Main Character. I love the character, her story, and the special mission in the expansion, and I try to give her the same time on the field as everyone else, but she's CLEARLY the weakest party member... and the Rogues are already the weakest class, save for their elemental attacks, status-effects, high speed, and back-field sniping, and of the four Karen can only do the first as well as other Rogues.

She'd have worked better as a Fighter, is what I'm saying, where she could take advantage of better armor and better class-specific skills. That, or give her a special character-specific Skill tree that buffs up her passive dodge ability to the point where she can hang out on the front row without dying. And, of course, better base damage. Again, she is completely outclassed in every way by every competitor.

[P_Tigras]

SpectralTime, I completely agree on Karen, but I disagree on Ramas and partially disagree on Myrth. Ramas's 40 base damage with Zeal's blade (Death Knight 2H Sword) is nearly a match for Loren's base damage of 24 (Hawk Blade) + 22 (Sword 'Glyph')=46. Ramas also has the single most damaging power in the game, Mighty Blow III, which does 400% damage to a single staggered opponent. Loren's Knockdown III only does 200% damage in comparison, although Knockdown III is a lot easier to get, and isn't restricted to staggered opponents. Furthermore, while Loren's Wide Slash III does 100% to the enemy's front row, Ramas's Crushing Blow III does 125%, and while Loren's Wide Slash doesn't cause any negative effects, Ramas's Crushing Blow causes weakness.

The biggest issue I have with Ramas is that I consider his Rage and Berserk skill trees useless. Unfortunately they both need to be max'd out to get Mighty Blow III. All of my individual skill point investments with Loren are useful, while with Ramas I need to buy some useless powers and sacrifice the ability to attain lower level useful powers just so I can have both of his best powers at the end game, Crushing Blow III and Mighty Blow III. Once he has those two he's virtually a match for Loren. Furthermore he and Loren make a great pair because she generally goes first and always staggers everything she hits which sets the bad guys up for Ramas's Mighty Blow III which after Loren's first hit, will kill pretty much anything. Given that both Crushing Blow III and Mighty Blow III are very expensive powers in terms of skill prerequisites, you need to plan out your skill point expenditures for Ramas carefully and play the game to a high level if you want them both. Loren on the other hand is extremely effective at all levels and a misspent skill point here or there isn't as big of a deal.

Myrth is arguably the best healer in the game, even better than Saren when you need to heal multiple characters in the same row simultaneously, but when it comes to damage she's fourth of four. At low levels she's useful because she's the first mage to be able to damage all of your enemies simultaneously, but her damage arc goes from 100% to 125% to 150%, while Draco's and Apolimesho's go from 300% to 250% to 200%. They can thus not only do more damage to an entire party of enemies, 200% vs 150%, they can also magnify their efforts to increase the damage on a single row to 250% or a single individual to 300% for even more devastation, which Myrth can't do. Draco is best of all because of the splash damage his 1st tier spells do. And all too often I prefer the devastation of Draco's 1st tier spells over anyone else's 3rd tier spells. I consider Apolimesho the least useful mage early on, but in the late game I consider him second only to Draco in terms of sheer devastation. Chambara's damage isn't as good as Draco's or Apolimesho's, but it's still better than Myrth's, and while she never gains the ability to damage a second row of opponents the way the other mages do, she makes up for it to some extent by being able to do dark damage against which a lot of things are particularly vulnerable.

No arguments on Karen. She can't compete with the fighters for a front row spot, nor can she compete with the mages and other thieves for a position in the highly competitive back row either. While I too love interacting with her as a character, I never take her along on fights if I can help it. Her fight with Grob was the single most challenging battle of the game on the hard level because poor Saren/Elenor has to carry that fight since Brisa is useless and Karen can't really carry her own weight. And given that most of us seem to spend all of Saren/Elenor's skill points on healing, that is definitely a challenge indeed.

[jack1974]

Thanks for the discussion, is very interesting to me as game creator, so will try to avoid same mistakes in future RPGs
Fixing Karen: I am trying buffing up her Focus Target skill. I increased it so it gives 100%-150%-200% attack bonus. You still waste one turn to set it on a target, but after that, she does a considerable amount of damage, almost as Loren. The Focus Target works also for long range weapons, so she is effective also in backrow with a good bow. The only other thing to fix to make her a good party member (or even a VERY good) now would be more HP or more defense. The way the game was designed, you can't have "custom HP" since is dependent only on class+Strength values. So I'm thinking how to do it. But now she is already more powerful. Will upload a new version to test when I am satisfied by the changes