What's a good first time class and build?

[Jnx]

I just want a decent time of it. I'm not looking to super min/max, and go all crazy. I'll be playing on normal difficulty, but don't want a frustratingly hard time with it. I have played river of time about a year ago, and liked it. I played a warrior in that game, should I just go with the same, or is there something more preferable in this game?

Furthermore, what are the most important skills to learn on the main character? Should I invest heavily in whatever talking abilities, or lockpicking, or just straight up combat and healing?

[NavFamG]

By all accounts the BattleMage is the easiest class to beat the game with. The problem with that is you have to like playing a mage class, or for anything else an archer, or a fighter.

Best bet is to play with what you're comfortable with. Becuase of character progression if you start as a .... say thief, doesn't mean you have to only do thief things. When I ran my group Dranor (the thief) got boosted into a really good fighter too, so play what you want.

What abilities you take will really depend on what class you start with. In all you'll eventually have a choice of 10 companions. 3 you get fairly early in the game, with the rest coming as you play.

Of your companions at the start, 1 already has healing & plant / animal lore, 1 has magic and 1 thief. Your best bet is not to double up on abilites, but have each character fill a unigue place in your group. Now if you take a healing mage or thief as your hero, than ya boost those points, otherwise fighter is never a bad choice.

Something you can do is create a couple different classes as you can have multiple saves. After completing the base game and the Mod for it, I've gone back and made an archer and a spearman to fool with. Just running around the first area and seeing how classes play out won't take that much time.

A really good source for the game can be found here:

http://www.gamebanshee.com/drakensangthedarkeye/walkthrough/overview-1-avestrue.php

[NavFamG]

Just a bug hint. The game has a problem the farther you play in that the save will become corrupted. So make sure you save, save again and keep saving so you'll always have alts to fall back on if it corrupts. Most accounts show the problem doesn't show up until chapter 8 (which is where it hit me).

[Jnx]

I can't see myself replaying the game for any reason, so that's a no-go on the whole complete it once and try something else. I'll just create a warrior, I guess. I did that in river if time as well, and that worked well I remember. I was more looking for pointers on what specific stats were important, along with what weapon types to spec in.

Thanks for the heads up on the corruption. That sounds super ♥♥♥♥ to be hit with a corrupt save file after 10s of hours worth of gaming. I'll be sure to keep multiple saves.

[NavFamG]

I didn't mean replay the game as a different class, I meant try out a couple to see which would be right for you.

For weapons there's 2 schools of thought; Big 2 handed weapons to beat down the NPC's hit points or weapons that cause wounds (arrows, some swords, spears) as no matter how many hit points are left - 5 wounds kill.

Note: In the base game none of the bosses are wound resistant, but in the add on Mod they all are.

As to stats: High Con & Str let's you raise your VI (hit points) up; the higher the 2 the higher you can get your VI.

- Dex if you're a thief or Charisma + cleverness if magic user

One of the best things to do for Magic Users is to look at their spells, if you click info on them it'll show what area's are looked at for spell success (CH + CL etc...)

Try to get Con & Str up to max as quick as possible and then fill in the rest based on the class you pick; as a fighter I'd say CO & AG next.

[Jnx]

Ah, right ok. So for fighters, I guess to be wound resistant, I need to go sword'n'board, over 2-handed, for a bit more defensive play?

It annoys me I can't remember how I did it in River of Time, but it has been way too long. Thanks for the pointers.

[NavFamG]

Shield will give you that 2nd parry, but with the exception of my mage's secondary weapon set, I had my others all with 2H weapons and trusted in my armor to soak up the blows.

Yes Willpower will help with ignoring the wounds.

[Jnx]

Originally posted by NavFamG:

Shield give you that 2nd parry, but with the exception of my mage's secondary weapon set, I had my others all with 2H weapons and trusted in my armor to soak up the blows.

Yes Willpower will help with ignoring the wounds.

Hm, I was expecting 2-handed just to take on too many hits. It did in River of Time on higher difficulties iirc. Maybe I'll give my main warrior a whirl with 2-handed. Gonna have to think on it. I guess it'll be the same thing as in RoT where there are only a few really good weapons for each weapon type, and it's worth diversifying.

[Jnx]

I decided to start with the soldier class, and just pump points into 2-handed swords, and willpower. I'm undecided if I want to spend points in treat wounds etc yet on my main, so I'm giving it a few hours to decide.

I also noticed that around this exact time last year, is when I made my (very similar) post about river of time, and it was you, NavFamG, who gave me feedback along the way. Kinda odd history is repeating itself :)

I finished off the thread by saying I'd probably play TDE sometime next year, and here we are exactly 1 year later. Fancy that...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/33770/discussions/0/2579854400747212749/

[NavFamG]

Hahaha, wow that is kind of odd.

I really liked the Drakensang games so I try to keep an eye on the various forums. As an older game set, not alot watch them so if a new player has questions I'd rather he get an answer than think he's playing a forgotten game.

[Jnx]

I'm now 3 hours into it, running around in the first big city, and I must say I'm bored out of my mind. It is nowhere near as good as River of Time, which makes sense considering it was made before RoT, but I don't know it just doesn't resonate with me. I think I'm gonna pull the plug on it. I keep just remembering how much better things were in RoT every few minutes I play.

It's not that the game is terrible, it's just... boring. I don't know, maybe I'm just not far enough into the game or something, but my backlog is far too big to keep at it, I think. I guess you were right in that you didn't recommend it for me a year ago :)

I'll take the weekend to think on it, but I appreciate the feedback you gave all the same.

[NavFamG]

Things that hurt The Dark Eye, especially in light of playing River of Time first is the game's 'thrust' is the standard 'You Are The Hero', which doesn't really kick in until you've started the Churches Dragon Quests. The murder investigation that starts the game goes by too fast to really be a meaningful story line.

Then of course you have the standard 'do a bunch of ho hum quests' to level up so you can do the Dragon Quests, coupled with the lack of fast travel ports makes TDE seem really boring. Hence the reason for so much speeding up the movement mod threads.

I'd guess half of my total playtime was just traveling to and from quests; coupled with looking for plants to pick and animals to kill adds up to a lot on non-quest game time.

It took me 4 times to finally finish the game. Buying the disk, selling it, buying a new one, selling it, buying another copy, playing until Chap 8 when a fatel bug hit, then picking it back up a year later to finally play it all the way through.

It's a great game, but I think it needs to be looked at like you were playing a face to face session of D&D. Plan on putting 1 or 2 hours into it once a week like you would with a D&D group.

[n1x0r]

Necroing for people to read later. There is a good short rulebook guide here on steam. Helps you build, avoid the bad stuff, and get the good stuff.

Your main characters gets good quest-armor that allows spellcasting, so consider half-mage or full mage. Set includes a shield.

For 3/4th of the game you won't have access to good abilities. Consider only building for the following, which you'll get within the first 1/4th of the game:
Melee: Mighty blow, Feint, Knock down, roundhouse, master parry, Offensive 1, Defensive 1
Ranged: Master crossbowman, Marksman, Power Throw
Defense: Endurance 1, Dodge II, Armor use II, Shield Fighting I
Spammable spell-nuke (Culminato) isn't until last 1/4th either.

Don't be afraid to spend XP on attributes when you have the special abilities above you want. By the time you get the others, you'll get XP so fast you can soon buy them.

---
The game wasn't too challenging as I played a: Elven Fighter (half-mage)
Skills: Willpower (13-15) Max spear, Max Attributio Strength, Max Fastness of body. Balm of healing (4 modifier), 1 point Clarum Purum, 1 point Calm Body Calm Spirit, Dodge III, Armor use III, Endurance III, Feint (most of the game), Mortal blow last 1/4th. Max Strength (increases how high attributio can go, DP, BAV, BPV), Max Agility (increases how high fastness can go, BAV, BPV).

Rest of my points went into Max Vitality (tanking after immune to wounds), Astral energy (to cast fastness of body with +5/+6 modifier, Courage (For RM, BAV, Endurance, AE), and Offensive I (needed for motal blow)

Optional: Ice cold warrior, Psychic Focus, Move as lightning.

Hindsight 20/20 the build would had plenty to spare for shield fighting, so fencing weapons or 1h axe/maces would also have been decent.

Used 3 martial companions that each used saber/2 handed hammer/2 handed swords. Similar builds without spells.
Look at the log (K hotkey) as you cast attributio on them, as its a variable cast when you don't succeed the CH13/CL10 rolls.