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Best second trait for a spellslinger?


Ghaldring

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Die, stupid riposting chitrachs. Die!

 

Ghaldring, let me recapitulate my point about flexibility. Obviously, when you are "locked on" to a single, massive HP enemy that does not move away from you, poles will *actually* do more damage. I have asserted this from the beginning... However, this situation occurs in a fairly small percentage of the game's battles.

 

In random battles, you usually lose out on at least one shot at the start of the battle and, depending on how many enemies there are, what their scripts are, which PCs they end up targetting, and other considerations (like body placement to protect weaker characters) you may either miss out on further attacks with a pole, or you may have to start attacking an enemy that wasn't your first choice to take down first, simply because it's in the right location.

 

And some bosses move around erratically, even teleporting; against those bosses poles are about as inefficient as you can get.

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Originally Posted By: Slarty
And some bosses move around erratically, even teleporting; against those bosses poles are about as inefficient as you can get.


Funnily enough, this very fact is actually a good reason to have at least one pole fighter. It's possible to get some bosses, such as the Whirling Thrasher, stuck in a loop where they're perpetually running away from your fighter and toward your archer, but not making it all the way there because moving away from your fighter is slowing them down. Basically, there are quite a large number of situations where you want enemies to be within melee range of at least one character.
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Originally Posted By: Slarty
That doesn't require a pole fighter, though, just a character who closes to melee range. As I recall, you were the one advocating a tank who just uses bows, right?


No, I'm pretty sure that was you. Pole or sword users make better tanks because of Parry, and because it's easier to get battle disciplines for them.
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Slarty:

Quote:

Ghaldring, let me recapitulate my point about flexibility. Obviously, when you are "locked on" to a single, massive HP enemy that does not move away from you, poles will *actually* do more damage. I have asserted this from the beginning... However, this situation occurs in a fairly small percentage of the game's battles.

 

I don't agree that this occurs in a 'small percentage' of the game battles. But even if this were true, some of the most pivotal battles (ie. boss battles and battles you can't avoid) involve a single boss character who locks onto your melee fighter, and never let's go.

 

You're also forgetting that many enemies move first, meaning that they get up close and personal to hit you. Ergo. You'll be able to strike twice in round 1 with either a bow or melee.

 

Quote:

In random battles, you usually lose out on at least one shot at the start of the battle

 

'Usually'. And the same happens with bows as well, although admittedly not to the same degree as melee. But even when I incorporated that into my calculations, pole weapons still came out in front!

 

Quote:

and, depending on how many enemies there are, what their scripts are, which PCs they end up targetting, and other considerations (like body placement to protect weaker characters) you may either miss out on further attacks with a pole, or you may have to start attacking an enemy that wasn't your first choice to take down first, simply because it's in the right location.

 

But I have found that such a dilemma happens infrequently. You're also forgetting that the same can (and does) indeed happen for archery.

 

Quote:

And some bosses move around erratically, even teleporting; against those bosses poles are about as inefficient as you can get.

 

First you claim that single high HP boss battles consist of "a fairly small percentage of the game's battles.", and then bring up the phenomenom of teleporting bosses, which is even rarer? But even then, there's no guarantee you're going to hit a teleporting boss with your archery.

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Originally Posted By: Thuryl
Originally Posted By: Slarty
That doesn't require a pole fighter, though, just a character who closes to melee range. As I recall, you were the one advocating a tank who just uses bows, right?


No, I'm pretty sure that was you. Pole or sword users make better tanks because of Parry, and because it's easier to get battle disciplines for them.


Whether you parry an attack is independent of what weapon you are wielding. Your point about battle disciplines is right on, though. A lack of battle disciplines for my archers is precisely what has been killing them. I'm up to Azure and I'm still stuck with leg sweep. Bah.
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Ghaldring: fair enough about the certain pivotal, tough battles not working that way.

 

However, if the enemies usually move first in random battles, you're missing out on a significant tactical opportunity to get first strikes through clever use of terrain, and what passes for stealth.

 

Edit: Thuryl, it wasn't you, it was Alorael -- my bad.

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Originally Posted By: Slarty
However, if the enemies usually move first in random battles, you're missing out on a significant tactical opportunity to get first strikes through clever use of terrain, and what passes for stealth.


What's that got to do with the price of fish? It's easy enough to give a melee/pole fighter first strike with a moderate investment in Quick Action and possibly Quick Strike.
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Slarty:

Quote:

Ghaldring: fair enough about the certain pivotal, tough battles not working that way.

 

Yes, I can certainly see where you are coming from. You are more likely to hit your opponent with a bow than a melee weapon acrss the couse of the game. But I think you're overestimating the average extra damage you obtain from this.

 

Quote:

Saving SP, while convenient, is unnecessary, given that you can almost always just go back to town to restore them (or use a cheat-of-convenience-only to do so). For protracted boss fights there are more than enough energy potions to last the game. This was one of the key points of my spurning the spellcaster traits. If you disagree, then obviously the spellcaster traits are for you, but I think it's a pretty solid argument.

 

So do you mean to tell me that you don't invest any points in Intelligence for your spellcasters? At many points in the game, returning to town isn't an option, and there are a limited amount of energy potions to be found. You could make them, but that waste herbs for Knowledge Brews. You could buy them, but that wastes money for skill points. And like Thuryl, I hate using charged items.

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I also really hate using charged items. I hate having them exist in the first place, really.

 

I raise my spellcasters' Intelligence high enough to put points in Magery, and usually let it sit there. Singletons aside, I find that's plenty. There aren't that many points where returning to town is not an option, really. The answer there is not just to use energy potions but also to conserve SP. Direct damage spells are out except when absolutely necessary, and SP is used mainly for buffs and healing.

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Originally Posted By: Ghaldring
Direct damage spells are almost always necessary, given that almost every monster in the game has some degree of physical resistance. They are the only reliable way to damage things. Smite is an absolute godsend.


If you're patient, it's usually more efficient to beat things to death slowly with physical attacks and use your priests' spell points for healing.

Of course, patience was never one of your virtues.
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Ghaldring, that just isn't true. Some monsters have no physical resistance. Most have between 15 and 30% physical resistance. A very small number have more than that. Direct damage capability is useful (and in some cases necessary) for those, but for the 15-30% group weapon attacks are completely usable. They may do less damage than spells, but that's the trade-off for not using SP! And frankly, they are not likely to do less damage than Firebolt, which is really the only spell cheap enough to use constantly.

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The other side of physical resistance is that very high resistances and immunities are rare. For regular monsters, specific spells will be completely ineffective fairly regularly. By the end of the game you'll be able to trot out some spell that does damage, but you may have to waste your energy doing it.

 

You can also use buffs to up the damage of your physical attacks quite cheaply. Magic gets boosted as well, of course, but you're still spending more energy to throw around icy rain than you would be steadily hacking and slashing.

 

—Alorael, who agrees very strongly with Slarty. He'd be much happier if all magic items with uses refilled every so many turns or days. It's probably his terrible hoarding instinct.

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Originally Posted By: Slarty
And frankly, they are not likely to do less damage than Firebolt, which is really the only spell cheap enough to use constantly.


Not if you have an 8 in magical efficiency! And no, I'm not entirely sure how I did it without any items or invested skill points, but I can figure up to 3 bought in Exodus, plus one from Lark, plus one in the Golem Factory.
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Originally Posted By: Thuryl
Natural Mage and Pure Spirit also give you free Mag Eff.


Hmm . . . Natural Mage neglects to mention that in its description, and it has the same EXP penalty as Pure Spirit, which does mention it. Then again, maybe the latter provides more points of magical efficiency--my character with Natural Mage is the one who has 8 points; my character with Pure Spirit has 11.
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None of the mechanical effects of anything in the game are sufficiently documented in-game. Most are worked out painstakingly by trial and error on these boards, and then Jeff changes the mechanics without warning and sends everyone into immense arguments.

 

—Alorael, who remains dubious about the ease with which one can lob Arcane Blows even with substantial Magical Efficiency. High energy costs are high energy costs.

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Are we even playing the same game?!

 

Slarty:

Quote:

Some monsters have no physical resistance. Most have between 15 and 30% physical resistance.

 

Every monster I've encountered resists physical damage to some degree. Even mages will block a small percentage of physical damage.

 

With most monsters, the physical resistance is very significant. It really exacerbates the poor damage I obtain from bows, which has a 2 hit die and no quick action bonus.

 

For me, Smite is a guaranteed 90 damage, unless the monster has oodles of cold resistance (they rarely do).

 

Thuryl:

Quote:

If you're patient, it's usually more efficient to beat things to death slowly with physical attacks and use your priests' spell points for healing.

 

Of course, patience was never one of your virtues.

 

Patience isn't a virtue when an enemy is outputting 200+ damage a round, and has 4,000 hit points. The longer you take to kill him, the longer he has to kill you. And the AI can be notoriously unpredictable, attacking your frail mages and priests even when you keep them out of the battle.

 

feo:

Quote:

Hmm . . . Natural Mage neglects to mention that in its description, and it has the same EXP penalty as Pure Spirit, which does mention it.

Then again, maybe the latter provides more points of magical efficiency--my character with Natural Mage is the one who has 8 points; my character with Pure Spirit has 11.

 

Pure Spirit: Initial +2 to magical efficiency, and an extra +1 for every 6 levels after that.

 

Natural Mage: Initial +1 to magical efficiency, and an extra +1 for every ten levels after that.

 

So Priests get significantly more magical efficiency. But...

 

1. Natural Mage also mitigates the encumbrance penalty in regards to spell casting.

 

2. One point of 'mage spell' statistic costs more than one point of 'priest spell' statistic.

 

This is why Natural Mage has the same Exp penalty as Pure Spirit.

 

The question you have to ask yourself is this: For a Level 30 Priest, is 5 points of blademaster worth 7 points of magical efficiency to a priest?

 

Forget about parry, because:

 

1. The skill points you save on the bonus Priest Spell stat points you gain from Pure Spirit can then be invested towards Parry (and strength to mitigate encumbrance), and you'd still come out ahead (as well as having a small bonus to ranged and melee attacks due to investing in dexterity and strengh respectively).

 

2. To be honest, I don't think +5 to Parry at level 30 is anything to sing about. If your low endurance priest is getting attacked, then he's most likely a goner, 5 Parry or no Parry. I'd rather spend those skill points saved on Priest Spells pumping endurance, or upping the damage on my Smite. Or god forbid, accessing higher level Battle Disciplines via investing in melee/pole.

 

So again, is 5 points of Blademaster worth 7 points of Magical Efficiency? Truth be told, I don't know. If you have Battle Disciplines, then maybe. But you won't get Battle Disciplines (especially Battle Frenzy, the holy grail of Battle Disciplines) until at least Azure, if not later. And even then, it requires a serious cash investment which I don't find entirely practical.

 

On the other hand, right off the bat you're benefitting from Magical Efficiency and the skill points you save on Priest Spells. More Magical Efficiency = More Smite/Divine Fire spells = More damage across the course of the game.

 

So I'm starting to think that Pure Spirit is more appropriate for Priests than Elite Warrior.

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Those free points of Mage Spells and Priest Spells count for a lot. My mage/priest with Divinely Touched and Natural Mage consistently had difficulty keeping his Priest Spells skill high enough to cast all available spells unless I fed him knowledge brews occasionally. I'd say that Natural Mage and Pure Spirit are very much worth it.

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Yes.

 

In regards to skill points, you'd have to invest far more skill points to unlock Blademaster on a Natural Mage Character, than you would on getting up to 17 Mage Spells on a Elite Warrior character.

 

But the thing is, you need 17 points of Mage Spells for a Mage, take a few for equipment. You don't need 5 points of Blademaster for a Mage. If anything, that 5 Blademaster is a luxury that you can do without (similar to the 4 points magic efficiency), and I'd much rather the skill points that I saved due to picking Natural Mage going to somewhere where I want them to go.

 

 

By the way, I just noticed that Slarty previously said:

 

Quote:

They may do less damage than spells, but that's the trade-off for not using SP!

 

But hang on. Weren't you just arguing against Magical Efficiency, since spell points are so easy to replenish? I quote you as having said:

 

Quote:

Saving SP, while convenient, is unnecessary, given that you can almost always just go back to town to restore them (or use a cheat-of-convenience-only to do so). For protracted boss fights there are more than enough energy potions to last the game. This was one of the key points of my spurning the spellcaster traits.

 

If saving SP is unnecessary, why would you care that direct damage spells use so much of it? Sounds like a huge inconsistency in your viewpoint right there.

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Ghaldring -- if your bows have a "2 hit die" meaning a damage range of 1-2 per level of damage, you are using the wrong bows! The good bows have a range of 1-3, just like broadswords. If you use the former, no wonder your damage sucks.

 

You removed the context from the two quotes above, which was very relevant. Saving SP is unnecessary because direct damage is unnecessary. If your team's primary attack is going to be direct damage, you do need to save SP. If it's just one or two mages' strongest attacks, you aren't going to use it in most battles, since it will only increase the total damage output of your team a little bit compared to buffing and using regular attacks for your other members and nephil bow shots from the mages. If your strategy is to use Smite every battle, obviously you need to save SP; and as Alorael mentions if you want to use the strongest spells every battle, even saving SP may prove inadequate.

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Slarty:

Quote:

Ghaldring -- if your bows have a "2 hit die" meaning a damage range of 1-2 per level of damage, you are using the wrong bows! The good bows have a range of 1-3, just like broadswords. If you use the former, no wonder your damage sucks.

 

Argh, I mis-spoke. What I meant is that I am using bows whose hit dice give you an average of 2 damage per stat investment. So 3 hit die.

 

Quote:

Saving SP is unnecessary because direct damage is unnecessary.

 

So the reason you don't need to conserve spell points is because you don't use the mage/priest's expensive attack spells? What an incredible waste, given that direct damage spells easily output more damage than weapons.

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