Best Classes?

[mafilux]

I've found the ranger to be the best class personally, but I really like the wizard and the paladin also. What are your guys opinion on the best and worst classes?

[mafilux]

Originally posted by Mackenzie:

Confidence and knowledge is key for that campaign.

Something my friends and I are lacking on that campaign. We got our asses kicked pretty quickly lol. Gonna take some practice on that one.

[Intra]

Originally posted by mafilux:

I also found the priest's main attack a little unwieldy because he has to get in so close to make it work, putting him in the line of fire a lot.

Priest is a frustrating class. It's actually a pretty good class, but it's difficult from start to finish.

Your attack dealing 6 damage for when you start is horrific.

Your HP scaling is atrocious.

The mana shield efficiency absolutely screws you before you get at least one upgrade it, because getting hit in hard ONCE will deplete your mana bar.

But, there's some pluses. The attack AOE isn't that bad, you can actually kite with it without spacing out attacks like the Wizard does in the beginning. Your survivability isn't too difficult to keep up with health regen + combo heal while mana shield halves the damage taken. The attack scaling is actually fantastic.

Downsides? Drain Field requires you to be near the field to get an effect, and that's really stupid considering how TINY it is. The heal scales like crap and is hard to aim, so most of your mana will be spent missing mid combat and late game a Paladin will take FOREVER to heal up. The aura actually is pretty decent. It'd be even better if it affected bosses, but whatever. Making mobs hit for half kinda lowers the innate difficulty of Hard mode.

Overall, yeah, it's the worst class end game by far. It still brings decent DPS with auto-attacks and using the beam offensively, but your heals become useless and you offer basically no utility.

Since you probably won't be healing mid-boss fight end game, you don't really need a healer outside of Paladin, yeah. Main reason I play Priest is because of other people's lack of abiltiy to dodge in pubs making it literally impossible to make it to the boss without constantly staying at 0 lives with dead people in the wings.

Otherwise, I'd play a Paladin to get the healing done.

[Zarcos]

Originally posted by Mackenzie:

Aha, it looks like you need more survival practice against the Crystal Lich however. I have now beaten him on hard solo, as all of the classes and even more into detail while using Paladin I found a very brief opening to be able to hit him with a standard slash attack and not dash in or out, though dashing can make it easier I wanted to be dealing damage while having no mana, and so I practiced for the opening. You must be very quick and know your own hit box and the predictability of the orbs exceptionally well to be able to navigate them in the final phase while working your offense. Confidence and knowledge is key for that campaign.

Congrats on doing it with a melee class, I assumed it was possible to beat...if given enough time. But despite the fight taking a long time to beat with a melee class, it is clearly a balancing issue with the ranger and priest and mage/wizard all having a easy time against him. If it litterally comes down to a perfect timing window to even do one attack on him it is clearly in need of a rebalance, imo. Every other boss, including Krilith(sp?) has openings often and can be done in mere minutes if you read the basic pattern, no need to be perfect either.

Edit: Thats not even considering multiplayer, where the orbs are sporadic attacking the closest player, essentially giving you zero perfect openings with a melee class. Which further proves the point it needs a rebalance if it can't be completed in multiplayer without hiccups, cause this is a multiplayer game aswell. Also the random AI aggro changes makes high dmg output enemies a major pain when their are multiple melee classes. I know aggro is based on how close you are to the target, but that isn't always 100% true, there seems to be some delay between switching targets even if another target comes closer, which is why I say random.

[Mackenzie]

All of the non-Paladin classes have respectable offense to be able to pick him off at a relatively safe distance for most of the time during any phase. Regardless of the circumstance, just need the right vendor strategies for each one and some practice against the Crystal Lich. In MP, it can change targets sporadically, but at the same time doesn't always change. The strategy there for me, is to let my teammates finish it off or wait until they die and then use my risky Paladin techniques to finish the job. I feel I've usually done more than enough damage up to that phase to make that call in MP without anyone disagreeing with it. Either way the fight doesn't seem to take me very long at all with my upgrade path for Paladin. You got to remember that using slash attacks only is for when I don't have any Mana left, and only challenged myself to do it without Mana one time. With Mana and precision you can get significantly more attacks in per burst of orbs, and it helps if you use the environment to your advantage on top of that.

[Zarcos]

Originally posted by Mackenzie:

The strategy there for me, is to let my teammates finish it off or wait until they die and then use my risky Paladin techniques to finish the job. I feel I've usually done more than enough damage up to that phase to make that call in MP without anyone disagreeing with it.

But you said it yourself..you can't even engage the boss in a party as melee without it being 100% coordinated or everyone else in the party is dead or decides to stay away. It really does need a rebalance to make it possible for the party to attack it together. Theif and paladin are in the same boat. Theif has the grapple engage...which is fine if it is targeting you and you can predict the orb spread, but in a party you can't get close without getting hit. Warlock has no engage and just has to sit back and let mana regen. If the orbs did less dmg or had a longer down time between attacks, it would be a possible endeavor on a consistent basis. It is complete madness the way it currently is haha. These comments are mostly made in reference to the last phase of the fight.

Also using the terrain can be a huge advantage, but he never stays in a good place for long because of the constant teleporting. The few good places for him to stand make it to where his orbs instantly hit the wall essentially gimping the boss fight. I am positive that is what was not intended and they tried to reduce it by making the boss teleport constantly.

[mafilux]

I'm pretty interested in this exchange as I would like to take this campaign on with friends. How are the other classes in these fights? When we tried it earlier our ranger and warlock died long before I did due to spikes reactivating (as wizard). What would you recommend as a trio, or a quartet?

[Mackenzie]

Zarcos that is my bad for not clearly explaining every detail, it has been a while since I played. I can and do engage it during multiplayer as Paladin (we're speaking of the last phase), just left out the part of my strategy when it is chasing another teammate that I often try to force on it every other burst, which often opens a huge opening at the end of its burst and I damage it from the behind opening. There's never a moment I'm not at least trying to deal or avoid damage. This is why I find it much easier during multiplayer.

If you believe it teleports randomly all over the place, I must be fighting a different Crystal Lich or something 'cause I've only noticed the odd teleport to another room. Maybe I'm just killing him more quickly so I see less teleporting, I'm not sure but it hasn't been a problem for me or my teams as far as I can recall. Seeing as there is no timer or rush in Survival once the boss has activated I'd say it's a pretty bad strategy to try and speed kill it when there is no need to. Patience is your friend, but trying to find better strategies than waiting for your mana to replenish is the best part!

As for the environment, it is advantagous enough to leave a several melee attack chain opening even for the impatient warlock stabbing, which even that is surprisingly effective in the right hands. Does not require mana either, mana just speeds it up a bit depending on where you've spent your upgrades.

mafilux I suggest playing as the classes you are best with at first - using no more than one Paladin for team projectile shielding, and if there are no very skilled players, avoid the Paladin altogether. If you're good enough with any of the other classes and aren't trying to rush the boss in some invisible speed running fantasy, you can pick him off quite easily. Use extra lives to practice more daring strategies. Pre-boss fight, make sure everyone has their own crystal they want to mine, don't visit the shop too often as it uses valuable time, and when activating spikes, run straight across the ones that were opened without stopping, you can make it at walking speed easily enough, just run passed enemies.

[Bomjus]

priest hands down. is clear time may be slower than most classes before he gets higher level smite and combos but he can heal and has the highest single target DPS with his beam. now you might say the rangers auto attack is higher dps than the priests beam but the priest can move at full speed while using the beam against bosses making kiting and dodging attacks insanely easy. and with mana shield is one of the tankiest classes in the late game (i survived stepping on a spike lol)

for the people that will counter "this requires the priest to have mana" the priest has the highest mana pool (besides warlock) and highest mana regernation rate in the game. if you dont have to use 50% of your mana healing team mates that get hurt to much you are a force of nature.

[Bomjus]

Originally posted by mafilux:

I'm pretty interested in this exchange as I would like to take this campaign on with friends. How are the other classes in these fights? When we tried it earlier our ranger and warlock died long before I did due to spikes reactivating (as wizard). What would you recommend as a trio, or a quartet?

on hard i think the only NECESSARY classes are ranger and priest. obviously any class can work or else the game wouldnt be fair to all classes. but priest for healing the ranger and boss fights with beam and then the ranger for good clear time with combos, boss fights, and destroying turrets/plants without any danger. considering how easily the ranger can start a combo chain you could just do 3 rangers and 1 priest. i would say 4 rangers but if one of them gets damaged the other 3 players would have to purposefully let him get a combo chain to heal and most players are kill greedy. plus im biased to priest.

[Zarcos]

@Bomjus The priest is a good class..it was actually the first class I beat the game with way back when. However, the single target dmg on bosses is almost nothing when compared to what the combo nova does. It can maybe...maybe..kill the boss a few seconds faster than with say the ranger with the worst single target dmg in the game. The difference in the time it takes to kill bosses is almost nothing between all the classes because of combo nova. The priest really only shines when trying to attack the minibosses or the blue orb towers. Though if you plan it right with any class, you can get combo nova and instant kill the blue orb towers and minibosses, which isn't that difficult once you know what your doing.

On another note, since bosses die in seconds with combo nova, the theif with it's burst dmg from throwing knives can actually kill bosses the fastest...lol though not by much XD

[Mackenzie]

Agreed, he's definitely not the best at much besides maybe healing, but he's definitely tailored to single target playing it safe type of skirmishes. Nice to see you're getting comfortable with him though Bomjus, handling one of the harder classes to master is commendable.

[Intra]

I feel like the main difficulty of playing Priest is Mana Shield screwing you over in the beginning of the game. Other than that, it's not a very hard class. Your beam kiting easily deals with plants / mandragoras, you can solo most of the minibosses fairly easily, you play fairly safe, and your health is larger than it appears because of Mana Shield halving all the damage. It feels hardest in the beginning but by the end it's pretty easy with regen ticking and playing from relative safety.

In fact, when I'm playing Warlock and Paladin I feel like the game is much harder. Both are basically paralyzed when they attack so you have to time your attacks to plants / Mandragoras or you will get screwed unlike Rangers / Priests / Thiefs, Paladin can't block mini-boss projectiles so if you don't have a combo going so you can hopefully insta-gib them then you basically move in, swing twice, GTFO and repeat. Overall I feel like Paladin isn't particularly easy and neither is Warlock. When you're mobbing with Nova, sura, Paladin is pretty easy, and Warlock gets the best AOE Lightning Storm BS in the entire game. But early to early mid it's kinda rough.

[hipshot]

Playing priest, I focus on mana then beam, only.
I never ever do smite, if I can choose mana or beam, range/damage.

[Mackenzie]

Roughly the same here, hipshot. I don't even use the defense vendor for most classes since I play on Hard most of the time and don't intend on taking much if any damage, so mana shield would only be a liability for me.

[Intra]

Originally posted by Mackenzie:

mana shield would only be a liability for me.

Mana Shield is already a liability in that it takes away a ton of your mana when you get hit. That's why I think at least one point is worth.

I mean, some 500-ish gold to reduce the mana penalty from taking a single hit is pretty nice. It's basically a mana upgrade unless you play literally perfect the entire game...

Originally posted by hipshot:

Playing priest, I focus on mana then beam, only.
I never ever do smite, if I can choose mana or beam, range/damage.

Also, if you don't upgrade attack, I assume you skip combo as well? Or do you just wait until you get your 2nd ability late game?

...and are we talking groups or solo here