JackEKnoff

Would this be considered optimal stat allocation for an G5 agent (assuming best artifacts)? 20 battle magic, 6 Blessing magic, 30 mental magic, 30 sc, and 4 healing craft, (including artifact bonuses)?

First off, I didn't know what to call this thread because I have a few questions, so I figured I'd name it after the most important question: Should I get the Firesteel Greaves for a little more spell power, or the Black Iron Greaves for more initiative. I don't plan on leveling dex at all but I want to be able to act before all enemies. Will this be possible without the black iron greaves, or will I need to get them to act before all my enemies? The rest of my questions will be listed below to keep this post somewhat organized. Can I still join the Trakovites if I told Agent Micheline where the haven is? Should I train in blessing magic from Sage Quothe? I've already managed to get everything else trained, and I'm wondering if I'll be short on gold in Chapter 3 if I get those 2 points in blessing magic. Either way, I want it high enough for essence blade. How high should I train my intelligence, magic stats, and healing craft for the optimal build? This last part is just me seeking approval on my current strategy for bosses/tanky enemies. I believe its quite effective (on hard mode). I managed to shred the drake in the western shadow road with this. First I cast wrack, and over the next few turns, I apply lightning aura, acid spray, and searer for maximum damage per turn. From there I daze or dominate the minions and cast ice spray to apply extra damage. In this case, I dominated the drayk so he would kill the shades. Anyway, let me know what you think of the strategy and please respond to any questions you can answer.

I was hoping Skynet or Earl Bradley would've come close to taking AM's throne on the rankings. I think Michael Scott would be pretty high up there if you put him in the list.

I've decided to pick the agent this time around. A little redundant considering I recently played an agent in G1 and G3 but the new spells will hopefully keep it interesting. I'm debating on investing a bit into melee weapons to deal with unbound. If I recall correctly, the unbound are fairly weak in melee in contrast to their fearsome breath attack. Also, which creation type should I put a point in to make creations when needed. I was thinking charged thahds because everyone on strategy central adores them. I think I remember taking out the unbound using multiple glaahks with relative ease, so that makes me consider magical creations. Let me know what you think.

Patches from Dark Souls A bonewheel Shaper Rawal Mufasa Skynet Pol Pot Chief Keef An average 4chan user Hitler Jigsaw Gaius Marius John Wick Michael Scott Bugs Moran Alex Jones Thanos Earl Bradley

Makes sense. So would it make more sense to play an infiltrator for extra spell energy or an agent for extra resistances? Also, I was wondering, is mental magic any less effective in G5 than it was in G4? Side note: I use the free version of Grammarly to point out punctuation errors I frequently make. It seems the alert snuck into my previous post, and now I can't edit the comment to remove it. Any suggestions?

Quoted: So... it's not that they're "too weak", it's that they are not fun to play which is downright damning by itself since this is a game. That IMO is much more important than questions of balance. Back to JackEnOff: Shaper is better in hard because... magic is better. You also don't have to divert as much to strength as you won't wear as heavy armor. Still, if you plan to go with "Creation army with PC minor support" perhaps you could try a Shocktrooper for the slightly extra challenge ... although if the Shocktrooper is more boring to play that would be a problem. I cannot in good conscience suggest you to play a class that will be boring. I'm probably not going to play a shocktrooper after all the bad things I've heard. It seems interesting, but I wouldn't want to bore myself if what you say is true. What exactly makes it boring? Quoted: Random question: While Servile is better as fighter/mage, would it be viable to have an Infiltrator Fighter/mage build? Without much mental magic and only temporary creations when needed that is? For G4 the infiltrator is probably better. You can get the gloves of savagery early on, and you can get combat training in the fens. The only magic trainer that I know of only trains spellcraft. Assuming you'll use mental magic, and want charm to be effective at end-game, you'll want 30 to 40 combined mental magic and spellcraft, which would be easier to achieve on an infiltrator. At 16 mm and 15 sp (gear and charm bonuses included) I couldn't reliably charm most end game creations. Mass madness was more effective but still lacking. Without mental magic, it wouldn't make much sense to be a melee infiltrator. If melee was your main damage type you wouldn't need to invest in battle magic, and if you don't use mental magic then blessing magic would be the only school left, which would make picking the servile more optimal for that playstyle since blessing magic doesn't require much investment. Please note that everything I just said was observed in my previous run through G4 and you may disagree with some things.

We the jury, find the defendant [Shocktrooper] guilty on the charge of being underpowered and mundane. She will be sentenced to 2 years of replaying the inner shaper crypt from G1. Seriously though, you guys must really dislike the shocktrooper. I spent a bit of time reading through G5 strategy central and I found maybe one post that praised the shocktrooper; point taken. Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with it being slightly underpowered but I plan to play on hard or torment this time around. Now Im debating on the traditional shaper, or the agent/infiltrator. In one thread I think Damp Annals mentioned there was a difference between the agent and infiltrator. Something about extra resistances. I loaded up one of each on G5 and found that the infiltrator had more spell energy to start off with, but I didn't see any difference in the resistances. Enlighten me.

Meant to respond sooner but I never got around to it. I decided to rush into the next chapter just to get Alwan and Miranda to disband the rebel lynch mob. Once they were gone I lured Grim around a corner and he met a swift end. Koerner and the remaining guards were no match for my absurdly high mental magic skills. Continued towards Northforge with my shiny new sword meeting little resistance along the way. I even managed to kill Miranda and Alwan in their little hiding spot in the power core, although the machinery killed me quite a few times. The only thing I wasn't able to do was the corrupted unbound. Haven't gotten around to the challenge dungeon yet but I'm not looking forward to it considering how much trouble they gave me in previous games. Gazak-Uss was the only one that wasn't hellish to get through. Anyway, big thanks to everyone on this thread for answering my questions and giving me advice for my build. Can't wait to move on to Geneforge 5. I'm thinking of playing an infiltrator or shocktrooper for G5, but I'll probably just make another thread to pester you guys with my mundane questions. 😜

I can't even get close because alwan and all the other shapers form a rebel lynch mob as soon as they see me. I tried charming the guards but they die really quick against all the spellcasters. Is it possible to pick them off one by one?

Sounds good. Any tips for killing Koerner?

Okay. I have a guardian claymore and shaped blade. Should I gcrystal the claymore?

Does anyone have an answer to my question?

Would it be possible to go into the game code and remove the item enhancement? I just got a golden crystal and I'm irritated I used the runed onyx on my oozing blade. I understand it could possibly corrupt my save but I'll make a backup.

Do I increase battle shaping or fire shaping if I want to upgrade my living pants? 😜

Assuming I upgraded spellcraft when it was at the same cost would 15 be a waste by end game?

I know the golden crystal is best but I got the oozing blade really early and figured runed onyx would be useful. Does it even do anything?

So a pure magic infiltrator wouldn't be that good? Also, I got 3 questions based on my where I'm at right now. Could someone reassure me I didn't mess up my oozing blade? I put a runed onyx on it hoping it would slow my opponents, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Should I use the guardian claymore I got from Shaftoe or the shaped blade? Does anyone know what the best sword in the game is?

I thought it was implied. Whoops. And in gf1 my agent was hitting harder with a shaped blade than magic so I can definitely agree on that one. Glad Jeff changed the melee die but he should've gone with a d5/d6 or put in a bunch of d4s to make it effective but with a smaller range. Melee in gf1 was so broken because you could take no damage from an enemy just to get one shot by the same enemy next round. This thread has taught me one thing: Magic almost always wins. Edit: Forgot to ask, how does the servile suddenly make melee viable?

I learned to play like that on my missile agent but it wasn't that fun, especially considering I was only able to do 50ish damage to most end game enemies with 18 dex and 13 mw (with item buffs). Strength was my biggest issue though. It got so annoying having to bring my huge item stash between islands that I looked through all the gf3 threads on the internet trying to find any good strength boosting items. Once I found out about the talisman of might I made a thread a few days ago because I was so desperate to make one. If I remember correctly, they changed the weight system in gf4 so that wouldn't be as much of an issue. I didn't notice the ap penalty for reloading so Jeff might've removed it. Never had to reload a zone for wasting missiles since I stuck with regular and venom thorns through most of the game; because of this, I had 50 acid thorns by the time I started using them frequently. Missiles worked well with mental magic, but I'm fairly confident I could get similar if not better results with melee if I play it right. I found that daze worked really well with swarms once I had 10 ap. I could just apply acid to a different enemy every turn, keep casting daze, and watch my troubles dissolve 😈 Rots were the only enemies where I really needed to use crystals.

On my gf3 run, I ended up hoarding reapers and barely ever used them. The damage is amazing but as you said, they're way too rare to compensate for the lack of damage most other missiles deal. The only real benefit I found to missiles was submission thorns because of the stun, but they still had sub-par damage. Wands and crystals were quite useful but I hoarded most of them until end game and barely got to use them. I was hoping they would've balanced missiles better in gf4 by adding more reapers but from what you said it sounds like they didn't. I'm assuming Jeff bumped up the melee die from a d4 since you said it was optimal in gf4. Looks like melee/magic wins again. Anyway thank you for all the information; You really helped me decide how I'll be playing this time around. 😁

It was a mental magic heavy missile agent, and towards the end of the game I ended up using a lot of energy when dealing with rots to keep them dazed or terrified. I only really ran out on the longer, more drawn out battles like when I was attacked by multiple rots in the Monastery of Tears. Last 2 questions lmao Whats the soft cap for battle magic? What's more viable, melee or missiles? Thank you for helping me 😁

No, I meant spell energy. Haven't played Geneforge 4 in a few years and I was just going off my experience in my recent gf3 missile agent run where I found myself low on SE more often than I'd expect. Before you ask, I pumped intelligence but it seemed I was usually short on SE.

Alright. I was thinking of using melee as a secondary damage type when I run out of spell energy on an infiltrator. Would 15 bm and 15 mm still be useful on an infiltrator, or would it make more sense to pump sc after I reach the spell requirement? Also, would it make sense to get melee skills past 10 for a melee servile? Sorry about all the questions but I'm trying to see which class I'll prefer and it seems you have extensive knowledge of the game