Men are from Slars

Anybody got a list?

I notice an annoying amount of overlap among the best artifact possibilities. In particular, the +2 AP boots (which seem better than all the other boots for almost any build) overlap ingredients with the best Shaping Stat girdle *and* with the best Creation Stat Up gauntlets. And the best Magic Stat gauntlets overlap with the Spellcraft greaves. Can anybody give a rough approximation of which ingredients are available at what point in the game?

Parry at 2% per point is much weaker than it's ever been. So I fail to see how combat ability makes you more survivable in any way. Certainly it doesn't make your creations more survivable, which is more useful -- isn't it? -- for somebody who's shaping. We need to remember that all the classes are ALMOST EXACTLY IDENTICAL. There are only 2 differences: 1) Skill point costs. Unless you are buying 20 levels of a given skill category, the difference between a "strong" and "average" class for a given category is not significant. Mainly this makes the "weak" categories prohibitive to invest in since even getting to 10 purchased points will cost 30 skill points extra. 2) HP, SP, and Essence. The differences here appear to max out at about 1/3 difference. This is probably most potentially relevant with Essence. Melee weapons, battle magic, and creations all seem to be pretty acceptable methods of attack, so no class should be lacking in offense. Since Parry is so bad, this makes combat skills... not much of a consideration. I'm assuming QA is also at craptasmal A5 levels and not the acceptable G4 level. On the converse, items can now replace shaping and magic skill in the late game. Looking at it this way, here is a concave representation of the classes: Shock Trooper - high HP, high SP, poor magic until late Guardian - high HP, low essence, low SP, poor magic until late Servile - high HP, low essence, low SP, poor shaping until late Agent - poor shaping until late Shaper - high essence, low HP Sorceress - high essence (Note: I am not sure about the Guardian's essence. He starts with 43 while the Warrior starts with 13. I am assuming this is a bug/typo in the flat bonus essence, in which case it is not relevant late game.)

*blinks* Magic heavy Shock Trooper? Best way to dominate the game? Seriously Vlish? I fail to see how that's any better than a standard Sorceress, and that's ignoring the large chunk of the game where you have a huge handicap in magic.

I took down the statistics of all the classes, and I have basic guesses at HP, Essence, and SP math. I think it is well established the magic and shaping complement each other; and magic and combat complement each other; but it combat and shaping skills do not have the same synergy. This would leave us with essentially the same Servile/Infiltrator/Lifecrafter continuum we had in G4, but instead we now have the Sorceress. Compared to an Agent/Infiltrator, the Sorceress gets more HP, more SP, and more essence, and slightly more Int. The only loss is in combat skills. So unless you are going for a combat Agent, the Sorceress is just better. Compared to a Shaper/Lifecrafter, the Sorceress gets more HP, more SP, and slightly less essence. There are minor differences in magic and shaping skills. Since most Shaper builds involve buying more skill points in the Magic category than the Shaping category anyway, and the essence loss can be remedied with a small investment in Int, the Sorceress will get more out of her skill points and therefore is just better. The Servile vs combat oriented Infiltrator question is exactly the same as it was before. The Servile gets more HP while the Infiltrator gets more essence. Differences in skill points used are negligible. So basically, I see three major categories of optimized builds: 1) Combat Oriented Singleton (Servile or Agent/Inf) 2) Magic Oriented Singleton (Sorceress) 3) Shaping Oriented (Sorceress)

Heh. I forgot I still had that in my sig. I'm not sure how much of it makes sense without TM around, but I'm glad you liked it.

This is probably a Normal vs Torment issue. Charm scales up when difficulty scales up, whereas it is the reverse for high-powered attack spells, which are more useful when they kill things in 1-2 turns than in 5-6. I have sworn off Torment! I am playing this game on Normal, even if it doesn't kill me.

*nod* G4 already brought us back to the disposable creations paradigm.

I believe somebody got it open once using an insane investment in defensive stats and buffs, and there was nothing in it.

?

Battle magic ahead of mental magic for agent types, really?

Slar thinks that Nebulan's gimmicks are past their due. That is all.

So what about creations? What is the shaper/sorceress route like? Presumably it is different given all the talk about battle creations.

Interesting! Lots of nerfing, and it's stuff that probably needed to be nerfed. Haste in particular. Lack of super-Haste seems like it makes playing without creations very, very dicey on higher difficulty. You can't heal and attack in the same turn -- usually -- without using up items. You also can't hit-and-run effectively. Combined, this makes having super-strong defenses a necessity. Meanwhile, weaker Parry is bad news for Serviles. I think the days of the Insidious Infiltrator may be gloomier as well. Unless regeneration aura is enough on the HP recovery front, but I am skeptical. Sorceress FTW... right? Beta testers, what am I missing?

Goodbye, spambot.

Learning by practice is even more of a grind though, isn't it?

If it's an even number, you can take cost = (s + x/4 - 0.5) * x where s is the starting cost at 0 and x is the number you are trying to reach.

It's really just simpler to add. 4 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 7 + 7 + 8 + 8 or doubling up, 8 + 10 + 12 + 14 + 16 = 60

It's been a long time since we've had an interesting and relevant poll. *applause*

Where is TM when you need him. Sheesh

*facepalm*

320x240x8bit? I'm not sure what that's supposed to describe, but it certainly doesn't describe any Exile or Avernum game.

Goodbye, cruel thread.

Rest in peace, Amina Blade.

Actually, we know that Drypeak is nestled in the mountains just west of the lower portion of the G4 map. So it isn't NW of Terrestia.