Mechalibur

Nope. Pick them up whenever.

For anyone curious, the following NPCs can charge the Helix Ring: Zakary Learned Pinner Tuldaric Barzahl Stannis Syros Rhakkus Akkat Phariton Interestingly, Easss does not appear to qualify. The ring must be in your inventory. It can store extra charges, so you don't need to spend the stored energy before killing someone else on the list.

Yep, no weird optimization needed for when to increase your skills thankfully. There are a few increases from quests and stuff, but they don't affect skill costs.

Yeah. So a point in Fire Shaping will get you -2 control for fire creations and -1 control for other creations. Control is pretty much a non-issue, I actually wish it was harder to reduce control level since you don't even need to think about it any more.

Missing the Stalkthorn here (requires 2) Daze requires 1, Wrack requires 2, Wrack Wave is 5, and Mass Madness is 6. Requires 4 in healing craft Airshock requires 4, Essence Purge requires 5. Incidentally, Essence Purge only inflicts burning at skill level 2 or higher. You don't get a 15% damage bonus per level, it just increases the damage dice of the lightning effect. Here's another Mutagen-specific reference

Well it's a bit different from battle disciplines in that they don't have a cooldown and require essence to utilize (unless they were different in A5 - I only played the re-remakes) I've actually found Weapon Shaping to be incredibly fun, whereas battle disciplines were pretty whatever to me. Most of the effects are pretty useful - doing stuff like chain lightning + a spray baton gives guardians great AoE options. Essence Lash gives a pretty noticeable damage boost at higher levels and wrack/shock are both excellent against bosses. Lifedrain gives some nice sustain, especially if you combine it with regen, which can be applied before battle and lasts a pretty good duration.

Thanks for the list! I noticed a few things seem copied from your Mutagen version of this and are different in Infestation: It actually costs 1 now (it was free in Mutagen) There are a pair of box mines that are 12 to disarm in Benerii-Uss, but they're pretty easy to cheese (enter combat room, step in the room, step out). Outside of those mines, there's also a check in Benerii-Uss that requires 11 mechanics to open a door. I believe War Blessing now requires 1 Blessing Magic, and Protection requires 2. Requires 6 now. Should be 5 healing craft. I went through leadership checks in the scripts and the highest I could find was 10, although it's possible something was changed since I last checked. I don't think you can join the Obeyers in Infestation 😄

Randomizer made a great resource for changes from the original series here, but I wanted to include a list of content that is different specifically from Mutagen as there are a surprising number of changes and balance tweaks that Spiderweb made. This isn't completely exhaustive (I won't mention stuff like a weapon now has one more damage die), but anything significant should be on here. Main Character Inherent Mental Resist lowered from 75% to 50% Main character can no longer be charmed - if you would be affected by charm you are instead stunned for one round Guardian has lower starting combat skills Main Character starts with 1 rank in Minor Heal, Firebolt, and Create Fyora. These count as one level of training, so trainers can only train you one more time in these skills Equipment Weapons now have an inherent 3% accuracy bonus per weapon level. This massively increases weapon attack accuracy compared to Mutagen. Tranquil Batons now inflict 3 turns of Slow instead of Fear (against bosses, I actually consider this a buff as very few have notable curse resist) Purifying Blade can now eat more canisters (up to 10 total). Rod of Succor now cures conditions in addition to healing. Rod of Battle now gives War Blessing, Shield, and Haste. Swapping weapons in combat now costs 1 AP (used to be free). Small changes to various pieces of equipment. Robes give a bit less magic resist, some equipment that boosts creations now affects different stats (like increasing creation mental resist instead of intelligence), Reaper batons have a higher level. Spells Airshock now deals cold damage instead of energy. Wrack now is a fast spell, but only targets a single enemy. Essence Shield is now a Blessing Magic spell instead of Healing Magic. Mental Magic and Blessing Magic now requires 1 point before learning the entry spell (Daze/War Blessing) instead of 0 like in Mutagen. Creations Leadership now lowers control penalty (first point and every other point appears to lower it by 1). Shaping Skills now lower control by 2 for creations of that type instead of 1. That means increasing a shaping skill will never result in a lower control level. Cockatrice no longer has a control penalty and has higher base hp/level. Flash Shield, Flash Blessing, Vulnerability Field, and Fragility Field (Artila and Vlish abilities) are now fast actions (6 AP) instead of full actions. Increasing a creature's stats now increase them by 2 at a time instead of 1. Enemies Pylons now go into repair mode when dropped to 0 hp and will eventually recover. You *really* aren't supposed to fight them in most situations. Enemies that inflict terror now almost always only inflict 1 or 2 rounds of the debuff. Boss enemies appear to have resistance to damage over time effects (Stuff like Acid, Burning, or Shock will deal closer to 5% damage than 15%). New Content Randomizer covers it better here, but as for the new content compared to Mutagen... New Weapon Shaping system allows weapon-based skills that can be trained, provided you have enough combined melee/missile skills. New tier 4 creations, as well as the Stalkthorn, a battle creation. New spells for each magic skill, totaling 6 spells for each. You can now get 2 levels of training from trainers around the world. Canisters aren't the only means of progression any more. Lots of new equipment. There are some helper NPCs that can join your party. They don't level up and have fixed abilities, but they're extra help. You can dismiss them and they'll return to where you recruited them if you want them back in your party later.

Well it's a remake. People have known the general endings for about 20 years now.

I dunno, I think it makes a lot of sense to kill her, and the player certainly has a vested interest - it's not like she's leading the Rebels. You said loyalists shouldn't be able to kill Rahul, but the Rebel equivalent of that is Akari Blaze, right? Not Litalia.

Or at least a way to kill Litalia even if you join the rebels. Like how you can kill Stannis even if you join the Barzites.

You can goad Eass into using the Geneforge in non-Taker playthroughs. He's clearly hesitant to do so, however, because the Geneforge is unfinished, which is why you need a good amount of leadership to get him to do so. There's no guarantee the re-shaped Eass has any long-term stability since either he or you are about to die after he uses it 😄

They made the Geneforge, but they need Tuldaric's research to finish it. The Taker quest line does require stealing Tuldaric's research to progress.

That's more of a Taker tactic than a Shaper one. The biggest weakness of the Shapers is their lack of adaptability. They don't take the Awakened seriously and have many of their forces captured by the Awakened early on in the conflict. They don't have effective answers for an army of flying drakons. They also have Tuldaric designing their defenses - a shaper so brilliant that even the smartest Barzites and Takers can't proceed with their plans until they steal his research. In the Taker ending (and future conflicts in the series), the situation is a lot different. Shaper's homes are being invaded, not just a no-name colony on the fringes. They aren't fighting for supremacy, they're fighting for survival. That isn't the case in the Awakened ending where I imagine many of the shapers being told to reclaim Drypeak aren't particularly motivated to be sent out to fight drakon bomb squads. Wouldn't surprise me if the Awakened increased their forces from defectors or sympathetic individuals living in Shaper lands.

My notes were entirely from a gameplay perspective rather than a moral one. I prefer the G2 Awakened to the G1 version. Their goals are still unrealistic, but they know they need strength to back it up. The Barrier of the Winds gives them enough leverage to, at the very least, secure their freedom, and they don't hesitate to fight back against the Shapers if peace fails. The G1 Awakened really don't have much of a plan at all, although perhaps their naiveté can be attributed to their actual lack of interaction with any Shapers.

Yeah, you can still game the factions. For testing purposes I did a Servants > Barzites > Awakened > Takers run to see how much stuff I could get, but it turns out pretty much all the goodies are on the Barzite side. I'll put some notes in spoilers since I'm getting pretty specific about the backer beta:

I just checked, Randomizer is correct. It may have been different at an earlier point in the beta.

It's kind of weird, really. The quest works differently on 3 levels from the other 2 collectibles. 1. It's faction locked. I'm curious if this is intentional. Gareth actually has dialogue if you're not a Barzite but it's literally impossible to trigger due to him being hostile if you're not a Barzite. The town will also turn hostile if you open the door to Gareth then leave the Barzites, so there's no sneaky way to talk to him while unaligned. 2. The XP isn't level-based. 3. You can turn in any amount. Well, technically you can bypass the iron bar and shaper equipment limits by turning in a huge chunk before you hit the limit, but there is a cutoff point where they won't accept any new deliveries. Gareth has no such point. It also gives a really good value per turn-in, with him giving 40 coins per record (which has a nominal value of 15 coins, translating to a 2.5 coin sell price). Min-maxers are absolutely going to want to join the Barzites at some point regardless of which faction they end with. On top of this quest, they also have 2 unique canisters that can only be accessed if you have the badge, a unique training opportunity for Quick Action, and a charm from a quest only they offer. It's nuts.

Iron Bar and Shaper Equipment XP is level-based, so that's not worth holding onto. Shaper Records, curiously, are not level based and give a flat 10 XP. And I think you can get around 200 of them. Downside is you can't turn them in unless you join the Barzites.

Guardians can absolutely deal with groups. All the shaping paths now have AoE options available (fire is the best, followed by magic, but battle can make use of stalkthorns and rots now which both have AoE potential) and guardians are perfectly fine at shaping to keep it relevant. But even if you don't consider shaping, guardians have access to the allmighty spray baton which works with the new weapon shaping system as well. Spray Baton + Chain Lightning is *devastating* to big groups, and anything left alive is usually either a boss enemy or can be cleaned up by your creations.

Kind of crazy to think how many unique items will be in the G5 remake by the time it rolls around.

You use the portal in the back, not the mirror.

There are so many ways G3 could be improved with the remake treatment. Not sure how much of the story Jeff would be willing to change, though. Most of the improvements in Mutagen and Infestation are gameplay-related rather than story-related.

To be fair, I don't think there was any indication the serviles knew about Thrackerzod's crew. Although how he set up a correspondence with Yu-La on the other side of Sucia, I have no idea.

Did you maybe play the original geneforge 2 and get it mixed up with Mutagen somehow? I'm confused as well.