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Everything seems pretty normal for how it is and, due to the number of foes in a single battle, it is very mana-intensive. My characters are all level 19 at this point, and I am just about ready now to enter the Karthal Sewers.
I took on all foes in the desert outside the Crag and between it and the area immediately surrounding Karthal. I also cleared the way to the Alchemist, without yet taking the path deeper into the Wyslin Jungle. I have permission to go on water and use that but have not exhausted it, because some of the foes are beyond my current capacity.
I am playing on Warrior difficulty, so Mana Potion costs are 100, 250, 400, etc.
My style is to conserve mana as much as possible as is yours I presume, using rest whenever possible to replenish. Early in the game I was able to use rest almost exclusively... but starting on the way to the Crag (before Karthal) the Dream guys and their regeneration make for long battles, struggling to stay alive and overwhelm their regeneration. Long battles = Mana potion use... no way to avoid it.
Your focus on Magic Focus skill is right, I believe, and my Masters of Air and Fire are starting to have more critical hits. I have been having the penetrating fire spell, hitting like two next to the party and one behind with like 140 damage, but sometimes one is critical with about 400 damage.
Being a couple levels ahead of you my character's levels of Magic Attribute is in the 50s, except the Runelord at about 70 and the Freemage at 80+. Both the Runelord and Freemage have relic staves requiring expert or greater magic focus. My Shaman and Druid still have Magic Focus of 1, but I use them mainly for Earth realm and the Druid for Light realm during battle.
The skills go like this:
Freemage: Master of Magic Focus, Air and Fire, Expert in Prime for Identify - will not increase.
Started working toward GM levels but will need to do promotion quests to actually get there.
Runelord: Master of Magic Focus, Fire and Light.
Druid, Master of Earth and Light and should be Master of Water, but messed up a little and that is only happening now. I made her Expert of Bow early-on and she does a lot of damage with it as they approach.
Shaman: Master of Earth and Air, Expert in Mace.
Both the Shaman and Freemage use Cyclone and often get critical hits when using Chain Lightning. Both the Runelord and Freemage use the Master level penetrating fire spell (do not remember the name at the moment) and often get critical hits with one of the targets.
The Light Shields are stronger and longer lasting with these focuses. It is usually the Shaman who casts the earth realm Regeneration.
Fire bolts are still exceptionally powerful and often crit.
Mana usage is massive and alarming. Like you, even with an all-magic party I often use melee. Three of the four have Relic Melee weapons... maybe all four, but no. Spear is still at 1 for the Druid. I do have a powerful spear on the Druid, however. The relic Mace is only one handed so damage has actually gone down when I put on the raw Mace relic, but I want to see what it does as it levels.
I do not remember it being different than this the other times. The use of Mana in long battles is crushing for money and if you run out of money and Mana potions at the same time you may as well start the game over.
With the Alchemist I buy the smallest mana potions 25 at a time. They are the most efficient in terms of mana per coin, being 2 coins per mana, while the next higher is 2.5 coins per mana and up from there.
My Shaman has Might around 50 and my Druid has Perception around 50, splitting their level up points between Magic and that about equally, for the secret passages. The Dwarf Runelord has decent Vitality by design (20).
All are experts in Endurance.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I would say mine are comparable and yes the Mana drain is tough from battles, even when conserved as much as possible.
If I would suggest anything it would be to avoid the regenerating Dream guys and Huggers as much as possible. Fortunately, with the dream guys they are never alone because facing 2 at once is almost impossible. With the huggers you might not be so lucky. That area under Karthal is tough and you are taking it on, maybe, a little early, but you were given the quest so I understand. [Edit: It has been a while and I am just going to the sewers now (or maybe some more sea areas first) but I was thinking about it and maybe the thing about the Huggers is mana draining rather than regeneration. If anything that is worse and just like the Moon spiders... almost necessary to kill them before they get close.]
The area outside the Wyslin Jungle has War Panthers, etc., but no regenerating Dream guys. Of course completing as many quests as possible, gaining as many relics as possible and snarfing as much money as possible is desirable. I am not looking forward to the tough battles and Mana drain coming up (the Sewers are my next objective), but plan to do that before finishing off areas like Irisus Sea and water areas outside of Seahaven and other water areas. I did one of those (ships) and the foes were too tough leading to excessive mana potion usage. I won and kept going but...
My perception of my game is that it is going very well, but next is trying to fight my way into Karthal (shiver).
Be careful (I am sure you know this) about what spells you buy because, no, you do not have extra money... at Warrior level you are always short, even when you have 20k+.
With the Huggers, when there are two of them attacking from melee range, taking one of the smaller potions does not leave any for spells after draining. It takes each of the 4 taking a 100 mana spell, for them to get off a regeneration, light shield and two fire stream spells, damaging each for about 200 and protecting the party for the next few rounds. They dissipate the rest of the mana from those potions - 1000 worth of potions for one spell each.
Sometimes they hit hard but the party reached level 20 in the process and the alchemist (with me) replaced most of the spent potions immediately (for her usual fee, of course).
The purpose of this follow up note is how powerful the Fire Bolt spell is at this time. About 25% of the time it does like 300 damage (to one foe) and about 140 damage if not a critical hit. When the Fire Steam Spell is used it is like a Fire bolt at each creature in the row closest to the part in that direction. The lower spells seam to crit more... but it is close.
The air spells are not as effective. There is some damage from them, and about 85 as a normal hit if not resisted, but a crit is only about 200 damage (at this time - master but no levels after that, yet).
I really messed up on Water Realm because even the Druid (only one I have going for water) is still 1 skill point away from being able to become Master. Saa, no run is perfect, eh.
My Air-Water freemage got Cyclone and Chainlight and ive seen crits over 700 dmg
FM 2 got implosion
RP got this huge areal fire steam
Now the fights are usually short because of this dmg output.
I went to lost city lv3. there is a room you can enter after pushing this plate on the ground. I cleared it in no time, used 3x 50 MP, 2-3x 100 MP and 2-3x 150 MP potions and reached lv21 in this fight.
But im not sure how to beat the crystal spider, 70 ressistance to every magic school ^^
i took Edwin asap from seahaven (10% exp) before i go out and clear the map. 2nd hireling is usually Spike to find secret passages and every chest has more than 3k gold and items in it.
i´m not sure which weapons i should use with my mages, im not sure if 1 staff or 2 orbs are better. usually 2 slots with 2 items are better stat wise.
Yeah, there is an achievement of reaching level 40 with all characters but I personally believe there is simply not enough experience in the game to do so, even with the DLC that does not add much. If it is possible at all it has to involve Edwin. I am not certain how long it is possible to avoid taking him to that tower. I do not remember from previous games if you have to actually enter the tower to lose him or if that happens automatically when you are next to it.
The spider is tough. I am in no hurry to fight it in this game.
Is that 700 dmg against one foe or total? I am level 21 and the most I have seen is with "Fire Blast", the master level fire spell I was not quite able to remember the name of earlier. I saw it do 465 dmg to one foe (with 100-200 damage to about 5 or 6 others at the same time) just outside of Karthal and it regularly does 300-400 to one foe. Fire Bolt also regularly does 300+, maybe 20% of the time. I have found Fire and Air to be very powerful in this game with Water a close third.
I never got much into using Prime magic, beyond expert for identification, but my sister tells me it is powerful as well.
The base stats are pretty much equivalent. On one side, having 2 items opens 2 more slots for enchantments, so eventually they should become better. On the other side, you only need to get lucky once to find a good staff, whereas you might have to wait longer to complete a pair of orbs. I usually start with staffs but keep the best orb I have in inventory in case I find a second good one.
meanwhile i reached lv31, finished act 3 and im in kerthal now. have 32 stat and 27 skillpoints left and did several 1´300 - 1´450 nukes on elite gardists, shadows and so on.
i did this dmg with firestorm, this 45 mana pyroclasm, chain ligthning and implosion
I play many games like this, but usually never with mages :-D seems that i missed a good magic line.
Magic is very powerful in this game. There is also an achievement for all four hybrids and all four fighter types. The first party I played, when the game first came out was an Elf Swordman and one magic user from each of the three remaining races. Others later have claimed that is the most powerful party (I make no such claim). In other games there are virtues of the other (fighter and hybrid) characters that can be utilized to win in very different ways than a magic party. Even the fighter types can have some magic and at least one has to have high enough magic to open secret doors of that type.
I have wrung out magic leaning parties pretty well but am still exploring the virtues of other types of parties. Some players (not me) claim that Ranged Parties are the strongest, but usually involving two of the characters that can become Grandmaster in either Bow or Crossbow, I do not remember which... I think bow. I do not like to repeat characters, so am going to see what I can do with a one of each hybrid party and a one of each fighter party. I will post something if I do not crash and burn... or maybe even if I do.
Repeat characters can be powerful, especially because the same character can be developed differently to craft a very different character, so I do not mean to criticize at all, it is just not the only way.
Crusader (1 perception and 3 spirit / level, roughly) GM light
Sword dancer (almost all points to destiny)
Runepriest (almost all points to magic) GM earth and fire
Barbarian (almost all points to might)
Party is level 32.
This isn't my first party, and this one has been doing really well until now: fights are easy, I almost never use potions and 9 supplies is much more than enough for any dungeon (I used 5 rests in the Tomb of Thousand Terrors + Dunstan Memory, for instance).
The damage per round is quite high and comes mostly from the sword dancer and the barbarian.
Even though the runepriest has nearly 100 magic and GM fire, his damage is quite mediocre compared to that of the two melee chars. I didn't GM Magical Focus, but I doubt it would make a huge difference.
Magic is powerful indeed, but not when it comes to damage, imo. Most "powerful" magic spells are Expert spells (cast at GM level, for those spells with a variable effect). For instance, with Stoneskin up, my party's armor is 100+/50+/100+/100+. Eagle Eye would probably be great at GM level too.
If I was to replay the game, I would probably replace the Crusader with a Freemage: Purge and Darkness ward (and possibly Terror) would really help with some fights. Only trouble is that the Freemage is so squishy (but this could be mitigated by investing in 2 vitality / level).
Matt, it really does make a huge difference. It is what changes magical damage of 150-200 per target to 150-700. Critical hits happen quite often for a GM of Magical Focus. It is not uncommon to see 2 out of 3 foes hit for 500 damage from a Fire Blast spell. At times, when enemies are stacked up in a certain direction and hitting them with a Fire Blast spell (which penetrates 3 ranks) it can do as much as 2000 damage in a single cast. Yeah, that is uncommon, but 700-800 damage from a single cast is routine.
Even with enemies with resistance it is often the most efficient way (to use magic). Earth magic is seemingly a mostly defensive school, but using it to support two heavy hitting fighter types rather than focusing the character on pure damage seems like a fine party concept and it is apparently working very well for you. Well done.
When using magic for damage (an all magic user party, one of each race, to meet the achievement challenge).usually 2 of the four deliver the damage and the other two cast light shield, regeneration, heal or various cures. The Fire Blast Spell does most of the killing. The point is that even when magic users are doing the killing, they need support, just like your fighters do.
One note on secret passages. I noticed that putting half of the attribute points into the attribute (Might, Perception or Magic) is sufficient to open all secret passages throughout the game. Thus in my party the Shaman splits attribute points between Might and Magic, and the Druid splits attribute points between Perception and Magic, with the Runelord and Freemage putting almost all points into Magic.
At level 33, sword dancer average dpr is 518. However, this number doesn't factor in critical chances. With 40%/31%/31% chances to crit, that's 71% chances to score at least one crit and hence one more sword attack. All in all, average dpr is likely something around 800 (+80 from crit, +140 from possible 4th attack, +28 from 4th attack possible crit). It would be even higher with a Might oriented sword dancer (but this would mean less Evade and a squishier character).
Barbarian's average dpr is quite lower: 356. However, it is quite easy to maintain the barb at low health (main healing is from the Heal spell, not Regeneration).
With 237/572 health, barbarian hits for 305-717 (average: 511)
With 72/572 health, barbarian hits for 398-936 (average: 667)
I'm giving those figures to stress the fact that melee damage is very comparable to what you can get from magic. However, melee has two huge advantages, imo:
1) The damage isn't spread amongst several targets.
2) It doesn't cost any mana.
Still, it's probably true that magic damage out-dpses melee damage, but this comes at the cost of burning through mana potions. Also, there are some situations where magic damage really shines (the crystal spider's explosive cage is much easier to handle if you can cast fire burst, for instance). But all in all, I find melee to be much more efficient: The fights last a bit longer, but it doesn't matter much since chars are quite sturdy. And the mana cost (for supporting the melee chars) is really low (I'm using Poison Cloud/Spray alot: Sword dancer only has 130 or so attack).
One last note:
Only 1 point/level might even be enough for secret passages. With +5 Perception at level 1, then +2/level until level 7 and then +1/level from level 8 to 33, my Crusader has never had any trouble. With fewer points, it should still be ok (with the occasionnal help from Eagle Eye, maybe).
Edit: One more note ;)
Against armored foes, I've been using the barb's shatter armor alot. This is the main reason why I've focused almost exclusively on raising Might for this char (checking my notes, points spread has roughly been 2.67/1/0.33 to might/vitality/spirit). At level 33, shatter armor lowers armor by 33 (!) at the cost of 5 mana.
I am looking forward to the challenges for all 4 hybrids and all 4 fighters. I noticed, from earlier games from these characters that the fighter types seem to have a natural resistance to all forms of damage, or perhaps that is just a consequence of their armor, vitality, etc.
A melee heavy party like yours seems very efficient. I know that a lot of remedies and key spells (like resurrection) are available from vendors and, without massive mana potion purchasing that a magic party spends a huge amount on, there is sufficient money for it. With the quantities limited in some cases, however, it will be interesting to see (for the all four fighter case) whether purchased potions, purchased spells and the little bit of magic those fighter types get will be sufficient for challenges like the crystal spider.
Your information is encouraging for facing those challenges. With hybrids that can GM Bow or Crossbow I have also found them to be incredibly powerful. The arrows or bolts (at that level) do 400-500 damage to a single foe in each rank on that facing, three deep, IIRC.
This game really does capture the spirit of earlier MM games with the exponentially more powerful Grandmaster level over Master over Expert over Novice. Thus focusing skill points to attain those levels pays off.
The emphasis on Spirit, 0.33/4 makes sense also, to have enough mana for the Warfare skill.
Thank you for sharing. Your info is very useful and will impact the strategic design as I attempt the other two (all hybrid characters and all fighter characters) challenges... on warrior difficulty.
Here are a few more comments, related to your answer:
- I don't think that fighter types have some natural resistance to damage, but I may be wrong. Orc, tho, have 20% chances to avoid negative conditions.
- A pure melee party can be Expert in Fire and Earth. This means that the only consumables that you really need are: Dispel magic, Whispering shadows (until you get the dog) and Resurection. And you shouldn't have a huge need for any of these, anyway (except for Resurection maybe, in the endgame, because of retaliation damage).
- The crystal spider should be doable: IIrc, destroying the cages in time was a close call for my party, if I restricted myself to melee damage only. Fire Burst helps alot here, since it hits the cage 4 times. But with no magic and twice the melee damage, you should be fine.
- In fact, 0.33 spirit/level was even a bit too much. Both the sword dancer and the barbarian only had 1 point in warfare until very late in the game. Barbarian used shatter defenses alot (significant boost to melee damage) as well as Challenge on some occasions in the endgame - to lower own's health. Sword dancer used Challenge, just to get the retaliation attack from dodge GM. With 220+ Evade (it would even be 260+ if I was using all of the +Evade relics), she doesn't get hit often. She never used Carnage (!), although she has enough mana to use it once/rest.
One last note about the crusader:
The crusader is a really sturdy char (can easily have 80 armor - 100 with stoneskin - and 85-95 resistances in the endgame... without the use of any +Resist potion or barrel). From an Ironman perspective, this makes him a very great healer. However, his melee damage isn't great at all. In fact, GMing sword looks like a trap (which I fell into). If I was to replay the game with the exact same team, I would probably give him 2 magic+2 spirit/level and completely skip the sword skill (or leave it at Expert, maybe). Vitality is superfluous when you have so much armor, block and resistances (with 135 HPs at level 34, my crusader has very rarely fallen unconscious) and the Sword dancer would be better suited to gain 1 perception/level (+Attack items only give a bonus to the main hand, while perception benefits to both main hand and off hand).
Edit: I just noticed that the crusader and the sword dancer, for some strange reason, don't take any damage/turn when poisoned. The sword dancer should be losing 27 health/turn, but she loses none (she has 67 earth resistance).
Edit2: Did some testing. It seems that, with a high enough earth resistance, you don't take any damage from poison. When my sword dancer has 46 Earth Resistance, she takes 27 damage/turn. But if I raise her resistance to 52, she doesn't take any more damage. Quite strange.