Delicious Vlish

A Shock Trooper can get high parry skills... a Sorceress can not. A Shock Trooper can layeth the smacketh down with a sword. Like the freakishly overpowered Oozing Blade. A Sorceress can not. A Shock Trooper can match the Servile quite well for turtle mage status. It is possible to build a nearly invulnerable toon that will shrug off almost everything, negating the need for a full compliment of auras, haste, etc, all those things that are no longer possible. A Shock Trooper can have a half a dozen high powered creations, cast high level magic with abandon, AND go and stick something with a sword should the situation demand it. Let's face it. Some times, you have to go chunk something. I've found moments where fire, ice, and magical damage didn't do a whole lot of good, and physical damage was the best way to take care of business. A Shock Trooper can get insanely high hit points, wear heavy armor, have high quick action, high parry, can cast defensive buffs, and because of this, stand in the thick of combat with no concern for her own safety and be just fine. She is grossly overpowered for the same reason that Serviles and those with weak shaping skills were overpowered in G4. There are to many items that boost magic to acceptable levels now, leaving a class of character with no real weakness. In G4, a Servile or an Infiltrator could summon any creation in the game with no points added to shaping, and have brutishly powerful creatures. Shaping was diminished as a valuable skill. You could just turtle down and outlast the enemy. Now, the prestige of magic is diminished. You can get all the levels of magic you need entirely through items. You can also shape through items. So you are free to pump combat. The Shock Trooper, as you well know, gets freakishly high levels of energy, in G4, this was mostly useless. Now, this makes her dangerous. Exceptionally so. She can turtle down and not run out of juice for quite some time. She can rain fire down like few others, endure incoming assaults, and not run out of juice like a Servile does in mid battle. If you don't believe me, try it your self. Start off the game with melee and creations, get items to boost magic, and toward the endgame, when magic is needed most, you will have it.

Actually, melee isn't quite as dead as previous games, because of aura nerfing and the abundance of items that boost magic, like a certain something that gives you +3 to all of your magic skills. If you buy 2 levels of training in each of your magic skills, then the +3 from the item, and then get boosts from other items, you can achieve 9 to 10 in mental magic with no points invested, same for blessing magic. This means the Shock Trooper, with her high energy, really becomes a force to be reckoned with. Armed with a baton, a sword, and keeping things like the Captain's Shiv handy, she can clean house, shape, cast important spells, AND melee. All bases covered. Turtle mage servile who can shape from items and the magic heavy shock trooper who can cast from items are probably the best way to dominate the game. The sorceress has a few neat tricks, I might go into those later.

When enemies begin shaping swarms of creations, I find it is most useful to douse them in acid, and then charm them. The very moment you have Charm, you can start taking on the really tough enemies, like the hidden lab under the lake with the shredbugs. Just go in there, douse the serviles and the summons with acid, charm them, and let them fight Mr. Nasty. When the big dumb lizard finally kicks over, you have a few almost dead serviles and maybe a summon or two to clean up. Dominate works too... But to get that to work, you really need to crank it. Charm is better, but you have to make due for a while. Terror is essential for many battles. Not just for the flee effect, but also the paralysis effect. I want stuff to hold still while I pound it, and I want my toon to stay safe. Also, strangely, I found Essence Shackles rather useful.

Mental magic doesn't scale up well? I beg your pardon. Charm is potentially the most powerful spell in the game, and Terror should be used at every chance you get. Cast Acid Shower and then start nailing things with Terror... Cripes... I shouldn't have to explain these things after all this time.

You can't get Rotdhizons. All you can get are the worthless exploding Rots.

Serviles still freakishly over powered, as stated in the opinion thread. With the aura nerfing and change to haste effects, having a Servile with about a thousand hit points, a full complement of magical assaults, and the Oozing Sword for nose to nose diplomacy, you can steamroll everything. Also, War Tralls are now excellent tanks and serviceable attackers. A great companion to the Servile.

In my opinion, now more than ever, the Servile is ridiculously over powered.

Originally Posted By: Nebulan No spoilers people. *Feels a chill as a ripple in the dark abysmal void as another forum approaches from the nether realm.* That is all. Snape kills Dumbledor.

A foundry is a forge. In this game, you forge genes.

**Pushes topic back on track with a gentle tentacle nudge**

**Assumes the 'Feisty Tentacle Slap of Pain' delivery position** What?

If you are really, really good at stealth you can sneak through the Unbound camp, provided it is raining or has suitable bad weather to obstruct the view. Just remember though, the view works both ways. It can be quite startling to suddenly bump into something nasty that you couldn't see a second ago. It is almost as bad as suddenly bumping into one of the Shaper Agents that are constantly hunting you. You know, the ones that cast things like Strong Daze, charms your creations, uses Acid Shower and Aura of Flames like mad, and generally makes your life a living nightmare. At the end of the game you will have about a dozen Agent's Shelters and Agent's Cloaks.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity Don't complete that quest! If you do, the creature attacks you anyway, just as if you had refused. But now it doesn't miss. You also need the focusing crystal to create the pacification pendant. Spellcraft +4 and Mental Magic +4 To good for words.

And he's near sighted. The quest for fine glass he sends you on is ridiculous. An eyebeast needing glasses.

Weather effects. Snow, hail, wind, lightning storm, and dust. Did I miss anything? Dust storms are not kind to eyebeasts I'd imagine.

Just don't go out in thunderstorms.

Yeah, the new weather effects effecting flying creations, what's up with that? For the longest time I couldn't figure out why vlish and wingbolts kept losing action points during snowy or stormy weather. They were struggling against the wind, duh. I think it is awesome when a blizzard is blowing and visibility is reduced to near zero. And during the really bad storms, you can hear the wind howl and you take cold damage. That was neat.

Invading the beaches of the Nodye Coast was a heck of a lot fun. Amphibious assault!

Geneavernum. Doo doo dee doo doo. Doot doot dee doo. Doo doo, dee doo doo, doot doot doot. Geneavernum.

Geneforge VI: Underground Empire.

Originally Posted By: pitchblack Thahads move through gaseous expulsions, too? I never would have guessed. (And that wasn't sarcasm, if it seemed liked it) Only when you put them on roller skates.

Eyebeasts are only a concern to the weak minded. They do have a fault in their design though. All that flatulence required for locomotion causes their eyes to water terribly. No tentacles or hands to wipe them with. You'd be cranky and ill mannered to if your eyes were full of crusty old eye-boogers.

And for feisty tentacle slaps of pain. Of course, being vlish, we could barely tap you, and make you believe that you were just gobsmacked by a battle alpha.

No silly, nipples are for nursing vlishlings. It is the tentacles that fire various rays. Now stop focusing upon my anatomy.

Correct. Shapers who wind up on the wrong end of a political struggle or those who are less then perfect get sent out to the backwater places to rule or govern. Like whatsisname in G3, who had to rule over the swampy island.