What class is the most powerful?[G5]

[Kurian]

Hail. I'm starting up my third playthrough of Geneforge 5 soon, and wanted to know from an outside source as to what the most powerful class there is to play on Torment with. I've played the game on Easy with a Shock Trooper, and killed the game with the guide that was written by Master Akrovan. The second time I played on normal, and went with a Lifecrafter (the shaper graphics are bland and ugly), and hyper-focused on Magic Shaping, and got excellent results (I don't think you can get an Eyebeast like in the older games though. I only ever found two Gazer canisters). So now I want to try to challenge myself. I'm tempted to go for a Guardian so I can whack everything in sight with a big stick (that's what she said lol) and have a few monsters to clean up after. Parry and Quick Actions also seem to be really good edges that the magic-based classes can compete with. So any advise? Thanks!

[A less presumptuous name.]

For total power, I would go with a shaper/lifecrafter. I would focus on battle and have some fire or magic for support. Mental magic will really help on torment.

 

And the canisters to get the Ur-Drakon and Eyebeast can only be found in

Click to reveal..

Inner Gazaki-Uss

yes, it's stupid that only loyalists can get these, but hey, that's life.

[Lilith]

The Lifecrafter and Sorceress are the most powerful classes, depending on how much you like using mental magic. An army of creations will always put out much, much more damage than any single character.

[Slawbug]

What Thuryl said. In G4 the parameters were a little different and there was in argument to be made for singleton Serviles and Agents, but in G5, parameters for creations are so generous it's an open-and-shut case.

[Marak]

To leapfrog on Thuryl's post, it's better to get your Intellect (and thus, your Essence pool) up as high as you can, as soon as you can. You also want a fair number of points in your chosen Shaping School and a couple points in the other Schools regardless of which one is your "main" School.

 

The reason is that, as Thuryl said, having 7 Creations with no stat boosts and 2 Intellect will still be far more dangerous and deadly than 2 or 3 Creations with massively boosted stats (trust me, I tried the "2-3 boosted Creations" route, and it's nothing special). Putting a few points in every school allows you to make virtually any Creation to keep your army as diverse as possible: you want to be supplementing your main attack type with stuff like Poison and Acid and Ice Damage and Curses and Stunning Attacks.

 

Also recommended: make your Shaper/Lifecrafter the last person in your Party and make sure your Formation puts him/her as far back as possible. If you do it right, your PC will rarely (if ever) take hits from anything, which minimizes (or eliminates) the need to put points in things like Endurance and the wearing of heavy armor (which then requires Strength).

[A less presumptuous name.]

Also, keep a good bit of essence free (especially later in the game), and boost your blessing magic so that, with items, you can cast most if not all of the blessing spells.

 

I like to cast speed, war blessing, shields, and healing aura. With good buffs and healing, a big army can take out anything that stands in its path.

[Alorael at Large]

It's very often not worth giving creations stat boosts beyond the two intelligence necessary for manual control. Levels and base type contribute well enough.

 

—Alorael, who isn't sure diversity is necessary. Battle Shaping became immensely powerful in G5. You can get by with beatings, acid, and poison quite nicely.

[Slawbug]

Diversity isn't really necessary.

 

The only time boosting creation stats is useful is with cheap creations that you level up to make useful throughout the game. Really the only creation you can do this with effectively is the cryoa.

[Marak]

While not strictly necessary, I still find it fun to throw in a Cryora or a Vlish into my mix of face-stabbing Clawbugs with their Battle Alpha spokesperson. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

 

Re: Master1

 

Yes, excellent advice. If you blow your entire Essence pool on creations and don't have any left over for Healing and Curing spells, Recovery Aura, Haste, War Blessing, and/or Protection when the going gets tough, you can find yourself in a lot of trouble.

[Kurian]

thanks for the tips although I already do those things regularly. i'm no newbie

 

Iudex Machina & Thurly = ooic, what would you say is an order for the most powerful characters? i haven't tried the sorrcerross just yet, i keep seeing her as a flimsy agent. would you say its better to play her as a Agent class then? Or a medicore shaper? because I'm having a hard time seeing why she's more powerful. if I want to go the magic-using route, then wouldn't it be better to be an Agent? And if i want to be a Shaper, i would think i should pick, you know, a shaper.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Kurian

thanks for the tips although I already do those things regularly. i'm no newbie

Iudex Machina & Thurly = ooic, what would you say is an order for the most powerful characters? i haven't tried the sorrcerross just yet, i keep seeing her as a flimsy agent. would you say its better to play her as a Agent class then? Or a medicore shaper? because I'm having a hard time seeing why she's more powerful. if I want to go the magic-using route, then wouldn't it be better to be an Agent?

Not really: I never found the Agent's secondary ability to be much use, since combat skills are generally an inferior way of doing damage compared to magic. Unfortunately, battle magic has also been toned down in G5.

Compared to a Lifecrafter, the Sorceress has slightly more expensive shaping skills (shaping skills don't need to be very high in the first place, and you can still get one skill to a decent level, which is all you need) and 12.5% less essence (which, at worst, means one less creation -- and becomes a non-issue once you have seven War Tralls). In return for these drawbacks, you get advantages in all the magic skills -- the important ones being Mental Magic and Spellcraft.

The default strategy for a Sorceress is to have enough Intelligence and shaping skills to make a full army of relatively cheap creations (Cryoas and Vlish are good for the early game, Drayks for the midgame and War Tralls for the late game), pump Mental Magic and Spellcraft as high as they will go, daze and charm anything that presents a threat to you, and pick off the helpless enemies one by one with your creations. By the later parts of the game, you can charm anything that isn't completely immune to mental magic, even Gazers and the monsters in the challenge area, while still having a solid army of creations. Other classes have serious trouble doing this efficiently. Mental Magic is the most tactically useful kind of magic even if you're mediocre at it; if you're really great at it, it's almost game-breaking. Enemies that are immune to mental magic do pose a problem, but Kratoa Stoneworks and the Okavano Sea Caves are the only really difficult areas where you'll find a lot of mental-immune enemies. In those two cases, you do end up having to fight like a second-rate Lifecrafter, but even a second-rate Lifecrafter is pretty powerful.

Overall, I'd say the Lifecrafter is a slightly easier class to play than the Sorceress, just on the grounds that it's more newbie-friendly and easier to build. The Shock Trooper is a little harder due to its poor magic, which doesn't support its creations very well: you can compensate for a lack of blessing magic with pods and spores, but having weak mental magic hurts. After that comes the Servile, which is potentially quite powerful but tricky to build correctly: you definitely want to have creations, but you don't want to invest too heavily in them. The Infiltrator is in a similar position, but arguably even trickier to build since you can't make it into a tank as easily. Finally, the poor old Warrior doesn't have much going for it.

[Acky]

My two cents. Thuryl's pretty much on ball with everything here. I will say that the Warrior is slightly better then the Agent. He can tank as well as a Servile, have a few creations at his side (dipping in to one of the Lifecrafters main advantages; highly-leveled creations), and with items/artifacts, cast the best blessings, and have access to all the Mental Magic spells (save the last one, Mass Madness, which isn't really that good anymore anyway).

 

While Parry's weak, Quick Action is very good; you can have a second attack almost every time with it at around 15, which isn't at all difficult if you know how to play your skill points right. You can also forge items, which is in fact, a severally underrated strategy. This really isn't an advantage for the Warrior though; anyone can forge. But this is definitely a Shapers game.

 

 

_____

 

 

While we're on the subject, can anyone explain to me why in every game Jeff has made during the last 5 years Combat skills are too weak? Inherently, it can't have the options that Magical tactics have, but that doesn't mean there can't be some sort of skills set up where they have an advantage exclusive to the Warrior. He has no answer to charming an Eyebeat. He doesn't have a counter to an army of seven War Tralls. This is why I was so excited about Battle Disciplines; and so disappointed when they weren't being ported to Geneforge.

 

What I personally think would be unique is some sort of passive skills that Magic Users can't get access too. Maybe a dicapline/skill like "Battle Scream" were enemies run in fear of you going bananas. A catch could be that its an AoE effect, but weaker then casting Terror. Or some sort of "Cleaving Blow", like a few enemies occasionally get. You "spin around", swinging your weapon in every direction, hurting all the enemies with physical damage. Basically, an answer to Acid Shower. Hell, why not have a special attack were you damage an enemy and it bleeds each round - an answer to Acid/Poison/Lightning Aura.

[Hypnotic]

Exlucive to waariors/Guardians/serviles etc would be infair. Even a Physically weak shaper can weild a blade if he/she so chooses. Just make those skills cost a higher skill point level like everything else in the game if you are the wrong class. You said yourself a warrior can have avergae mental magic. So why can't a shaper have average sword skills?

 

True the shaper/lifecrafter classes are more powerful but it dosn't mean they need to be cut off from something entierly.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Magic wielders have a large variety of spells they can use. Shapers have a large variety of creations to make. While combat players can use these to some extent, the closest they come to have a specialty is a variety of weapons, all of which the shapers and spell casters can use. I think that, if a variety of melee and missile attacks were made, rather than just the regular click, it would help to balance. Put in a fourth bar per character: stamina. Have it vary with say, strength. Each special attack requires stamina, and the warriors/Guardians/serviles get a bonus to stamina, just as shapers get a bonus to essence.

 

I haven't played more than a tiny bit of an Avernum demo, but I think this is similar to what people were talking about earlier.

[Acky]

Quote:

Exlucive to waariors/Guardians/serviles etc would be infair. Even a Physically weak shaper can weild a blade if he/she so chooses. Just make those skills cost a higher skill point level like everything else in the game if you are the wrong class. You said yourself a warrior can have avergae mental magic. So why can't a shaper have average sword skills?

Exactly. Shapers can wield any sword in the game without penelty. A Warrior can not have an army of Tralls, so in order for the classes to be balenced, he needs something that the Shaper can't have, an answer to the Mental Magic or the Tralls or whatever. He doesn't have anything really good that the other classes can't top.

[Alorael at Large]

A shaper can use any sword in the game without penalty, but they are likely to use it poorly because they're not really optimal for melee. A warrior can have some war tralls, or even an army of them if you really push Intelligence, but that's not what they're for and not what they're best with.

 

Jeff's games have always given all characters the chance to do everything. Rather than removing that and making the classes real classes, why not accept that pure physical fighters are not a good build? It doesn't take much to make warriors good enough with shaping or with mental magic to be quite playable.

 

—Alorael, who also knows exactly why physical combat isn't as strong: linear fighter, quadratic wizard.

[Dantius]

And exponential shaper, the most powerful of all.

[Kurian]

Interesting build Thuryl. maybe i'll try that one time.

 

Quote:

Jeff's games have always given all characters the chance to do everything. Rather than removing that and making the classes real classes, why not accept that pure physical fighters are not a good build? It doesn't take much to make warriors good enough with shaping or with mental magic to be quite playable

 

that's just flat out lazy. combat has been unique in many games; jeff is totally capable of improving combat skills, he just doesn't because he knows those kinds of excuses are enough.

[Upon Mars.]

Are you criticizing Jeff's absolute wisdom?

[Alorael at Large]

Melee combat has been unique and exciting in a very, very few CRPGs. It's not trivial to duplicate.

 

—Alorael, who wasn't trying to make that point with his post anyway. Why assume that physical combat should be sufficient? It seems equally reasonable, given that Geneforge's world clearly places shapers at the pinnacle of military power, to say that shaping and magic should be necessary for a powerful character. Anything else would be contrary to the series's premises.

[Namine]

I usually do best with the Agent. I don't know why, but i have an easier time with them than shapers, maybe its something im doing wrong, but on torment agents seem easier to me. If your doing mental magic at least.

[Shaper Tristan]

i normally use a shaper, although i tend to pump magic and then intelligence.

[Spddin Ignis]

The game was designed for the shaper, so i would have to say shaper is the easiest. I pump up intel, shape my army, steam roll through...win.

[Dakkanor]

on these boards i have heard talk of missile guardians/shapers

and i have found they they both work quite well but ive only tried each a little

[Dantius]

They work because (as I just found out) Reaper Batons have the strongest attack in the entire game, a d12 die. In the later games, the missile weapons are distributed so you get a missile weapon equal to the difficulty of the area- no Submission batons in the Foundry, for example. This is in direct contrast to G1, where you could get a submission baton inside of 10 zones with high enough mech and good stealth.

[Randomizer]

A submission baton was available in Minallah, but someone must have mentioned it to Jeff during beta testing and it was severely downgraded to a regular thorn baton. You still needed to find ammo for it.

 

Missle weapons as a primary attack need lots of dedication to keep the damage level comparable to monster health.

[Dantius]

What was the deal in G5 with missile weapons- either dex no longer affected TH and damage, or wands were no longer given damage bonuses, or both, or some combination of the above, but something happened to make a missile user less effective than in the previous games.

[Shaper Tristan]

in g5 everything has higher health, including you, but weapons attack just stayed the same.

[Hypnotic]

I like Shapers the best. Lifecrafters just arn't mysterious enough. Shapers have their high essence and everything else. Stick with the games strong point and you can't go wrong.

 

Not that an Inflitrator that blasts through things with kill isn't fun. Mental magic rocks!

[La paix]

In my opinion, batons are basically worthless in G5. I tried using them with a Warrior, but my sword was always stronger. I had around 9 Missile Weapons and 6-8 Dexterity, yet a reaper baton failed to do anything better than around 150 ± 15 (I think).

 

Either way, by the time you pick up reaper batons, enemies have too much health to be affected by them. Depending on your build, I think it's better to stick to swords. However, with Shapers, I prefer to use a Submission Baton as my main weapon to stun away some enemies from a distance while my creations do the dirty work. It's especially nice in places like Bennhold's keep where turrets snipe across water at you.

[Dantius]

Actually, Shapers and Agents are by objectivley inferior to Lifecrafters and Infiltrators, who each have 8 more energy than their counterparts.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Be that as it may, Shapers are just so much cooler. In the grand scheme of things, having fun is more important that 8 energy points.

[Dantius]

If there were black Shaper robes, I would never play as anything else. It is one of the three great travesties of the series that there were none.

[Hypnotic]

Techincally most robes are yellow, but the graphics say otherwise. =)

[Spddin Ignis]

I always wished for black and white shaper robes. Besides, Shapers are cooler due to the fact that the aren't canister addicts. i.e. they can control themselves

[The Ratt]

I'm sure there's some way you could mess with the graphics files to make a shaper with black and white robes. You might need a image editor too.

[Hypnotic]

Spddin. Agatha G3. Now look at what you just said.

[Tarson]

I think he ment people have used 50 canisters and have fire nimbus issuses more then shapers. Agatha used a few then a few more going up and up. The best examples are people like Barzahl who take it and knowingly abuse it. Shapers can control themselves but canisters have a powerfull lure to the power-seeking. The numbers are not high of people who turned to canisters after becoming a shaper. Barzahl and Litalia are the most of the group of such people. Pharaton (cant remeber spelling) and that guy in the shaper camp who augments you if your loyal are other good examples of agatha nearly pitiable people who didnt mean to take as many as they did. But im ranting. Agatha couldnt control herself nor could barzahl but for the most part shapers can keep from selfshaping even at the point of death (see alawan). Sorry about the rant.

[Spddin Ignis]

exactly. And most shapers learn control in their abilities more because they practiced and practiced, unlike life crfters who touch a a pool and boom shaping

[Hypnotic]

Shapers can still lose control with exseesive canister use. What were the odds that in G1 the only shaper they picked up was a soon to be canister addict? Canisters are the drugs of Geneforge.

 

Just because someone can control themselves dosn't mean that Canisters don't effect them or arn't as tempting. Most chapers don't use canisters because the Council kept them quite until the Rebellion and nearly all Canisters are in Rebel territory.

 

My origonal comment was more picking up on the fact that Spddin classified all shapers by a single sterotype.

[Avarakadavra]

For the best players,and for me,the best character is Evelyn from Geneforge 5. But all the characters are good if you know how to use them... And class??? I prefer the sorcerers or lifecrafters. They can do some powerful spells and defy any warriwor.

[Hypnotic]

You know you can change their names. Normally people refer to them by their class like Lifecrafter and Warrior and not their defult nane.

 

Yeah, Sorcerers rock. I like doing a warrior occasionally, just so I use Meele once in a while, otherwise Socerrers/

[Lilith]

Consensus agrees with you: Sorceress and Lifecrafter are the most powerful classes.

 

Getting the most out of the Sorceress requires a fairly specialised build: you invest moderately in shaping skills (just enough to make all the creation types you're going to use, plus maybe a few more points in Battle Shaping when you get War Tralls), and heavily in Intelligence, Spellcraft and Mental Magic. The idea is that you pump up your Mental Magic skills until you can reliably daze or charm absolutely any enemy that isn't completely immune, and then use your creation army to wipe them out one by one.

 

A good Lifecrafter build is similar, but with less emphasis on Mental Magic and more on creations. You usually won't be able to charm very resistant enemies like gazers, but the tradeoff is that you'll have more powerful creations of your own. Being able to create level-50 war tralls whenever you need to opens up a lot of tactical options to you.