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Hannibal, don't take it wrong, but what is the difference between "grinding" on a lock and the method you described here?
I agree to your other points. Only the level split between specialists (like Fighter) and elite (like Bishop) starts at L12. Before that the bishop is 0..1 levels behind his fighter cousins. Then it grows to 2..3, as you state correctly.
1. The actual grind to raise all 4 spell schools is less than many imagine, due to the "artificial turn reset" that happens from loading.
Basically, whenever you cast any buff, it comes with a turn counter, whether in combat or out of combat. If you cast that same buff again before a turn passes, it won't count for skill development. In combat, this is a non-issue - one combat turn is the same as one buff turn.
Out of combat, a certain period of time has to pass before a "turn" is taken. However...by saving and loading the game, the turn counter for all active buffs is artificially reset. If you had 80 turns when you save, you'll still have 80 turns when you load, but the game "forgets" that a turn was still active, and you can cast the buff again right away for skill points.
With this method, and a Mana Stone to restore SP (which is a potential chest item in He'Li's bar if you plan beforehand), you can very quickly grind the skills out by casting all available buffs, quick-saving, quick-loading, and using Mana Stones as needed until 1 charge is left, then sell it and buy back (I use He'Li for this, as she is available early and doesn't extort you, at least until later...) ;) This process can be done very early, and is even a little less grindy if you get the Brilliant Helm (which is also available early).
Occasionally, so much loading in a short period of time can cause the game to crash. To avoid this, talk to an NPC occasionally. In my experience this greatly reduces my crashes, for some reason.
2. I also keep Alchemy as my highest spell school. The Light spell makes keeping it at #1 very easy, as it can be cast at max power level for only 7 SP, and be cast back-to-back using the above method. From there, I keep Psionics at #2 (because Charm takes less SP than Mindread), and after that, it really doesn't matter, as both Divinity and Wizardry get buffs that are exclusive to their school.
3. I've played bishops both with and without Power Cast. It is without a doubt a useful skill to have. However...every playthrough I've gotten it, I've regretted it, for a few reasons:
I start all my encounters tactically. That means they are all started in advance by me, and the first turn consists of either disabling the enemies with Insanity/Freeze All/etc., moving into melee range to shorten the fight, or getting a free round of obliteration by using cone/all target spells. This means that battles are shorter, which means that the extra turns of buffs/debuffs are usually not relevant.
The extra damage is nice, but by the very end of the game Power Cast is less noticeable when enemies start having 200+ resistances.
While it is still useful, to get there you have put 100 into Intelligence, which is the real deal-breaker for me. Intelligence has a very minor effect on the success of spells, so the real value I see in it is raising skills more quickly. However...the game gives you Brilliant Helms, which can be equipped by all races and classes, and adds +20 Intelligence. There's also a fountain for another +5 Intelligence. Both of these are available in the early game. And...with the above method, the grind is really not so bad (at least for me). So I have found much better success putting the points into other areas. But yes, this is from the point of view of someone who doesn't mind the grind, but for those that do, I totally see the viability of Intelligence, and more power to you.
4. Mind Stab is the only spell I take from level-up on a bishop, because it's not available in game. I save all of my other picks. Bishops are tied at needing the highest experience to go up a level, so even with grinding out the skills they will still be behind other casters because it will take them longer to get the higher level spells. So I like to get all the most important Lv. 6 and Lv. 7 spells as soon as possible to close that gap. That being said, there are still some amazing spells that are not Lv. 6 and Lv. 7, so early bishops can still have plenty to do.
I don't consider resting and recasting grinding knock-knock on a lock. After a combat I want my SP back, so a new combat can't take you off guard. In wiz8 resting is fast & safe so it's a good method to pump realm skills on any casting character. If someone consider this grinding, it's fine. In the end, if you put effort every character will max his skills. The difference is just mid or late game.
In expert mode the chance of success of any disable is multiplied by 0.4 I guess. The chance for the AI is x1.4. The formula was somewhere in this forum. Disables are only useful early game and against low level enemies which you don't need to disable anyway. This game compared to Wiz7 is so easy that if you want some kind of challenge you have to play on expert. But expert mode is trash, the only thing it does is punishing the player. I wish they had make expert mode something like increased monsters, or high leveled ones, but sadly it's not. It's the opposite of Wiz7 where you can nuclear-blast your way to victory. In this game the way to go is to melee everything with the best weapons you fiind until everything is dead. This is why I consider a bishop a good character, to cast support spells you don't need specialists.
Does Expert mode not give a modifier for the number of enemies? I had thought that was the case.
But giving higher level enemies would be a great idea - I wish that, too. The gap between your level and enemy level does play a pretty huge part.
I'll add as well that I have no qualms with using the above method to cast Freeze All on a group of 8 enemies and reload until it hits 7-8 of them, and reload if it doesn't, even on Expert. This is definitely not for everyone.
@Hannibal, above I was more referring to the "don't use AoE" part of your sentence. And I would never claim that grinding was morally bad. I mean extending a battle just for more casts = more skill increases takes more time (I assume) than working on that lock with Knockknock. If your statement was meant like "casting the status buffs after each rest after each fight gives enough skill increases to play the game effectively", I would totally agree with you.
Expert does sort of have more enemies. If a to-be-spawned enemy group has lower level than the party (plus some), it will always spawn the maximum possible group size.
Anyways, it is 0.6 and 1.4 ;)
Until the final area, magic is still usually my go-to for assault. Tsunami is on speed dial in the rift and castle, and Earthquake is useful even against the late game androids. Even for those instances where I use melee, magic is still an integral part, for buffing, and even for debuffing against enemies' least resisted elements, which is feasible for most enemies in the game.
Although...there is still something very satisfying about using Freeze All on a pack of Rapax and slicing/bashing them to smithereens with the *Light* *Sword* and Diamond Eyes.
Interesting...this explains why on my solo runs I don't seem to see any more enemies than usual on Expert in the Monastery, because I stay at Lv. 1, but later in the game it always seemed like there were more enemies...of course, with RNG it's not easy to tell from just personal experience alone.
A Bishop 2 or 3 levels behind a party filled with Fighters, Rogues and Bards attempting to disable or thin (spells like Quicksand) enemies toward the end of the game is definitely not a demonstration of the potential of magic in this game.
Specialist Casters (with appropriate development) only begin to fully blossom shortly before the peak, and it is fun to flex their awesome power there. Yes, there are some foes that, due to boss-level resistances and being high above the party in level, for which melee is needed or more convenient, but this is a small portion of battles on the peak.
The point is that a party focused on melee (with sufficient magic support), even if weapons designed to be rare, like Light Sword, are not grinded for, is perfectly capable of navigating the peak, but the same can be said for a magic damage party, with merely sufficient physical fighting skills.
One technical point for why this is so has to deal with the effectiveness of spells against high resistance. Resistances that are high but not blocking, for example 125, reduce the effectiveness of spells but (with decent Power Cast level) do not eliminate it. This is counterbalanced by (at about levels 20 and above) level seven spells can be cast at power level 3 and increasing above that as levels increase.
So high resistance reduces the impact while increasing power levels increase it. For the case of magic damage spells the result is increasingly effective spells toward the end of the game (more damage). The effectiveness of disabling or thinning spells is another matter. A spell that could reliably disable 70% of foes was very effective when low resistances allowed that, but toward the end of the game this percentage might be drastically reduced, especially if there is only one or two casters with power cast and even more especially if those casters are Bishops that are two or three levels behind the bulk of the party. The power of magic is very sensitive to the level of the targets relative to the caster level of the caster.
The success of a magic damage spell is measured by how much damage is done, while the success of a disabling or thinning spell, later in the game especially if cast in only some rounds by only one or two power casters, might be far less effective than it was earlier in the game. It was pointed out above, by Sentinalbasch, how Earthquake can remain a major contributor, even for a melee oriented party, but Tsumani, Nuclear Blast, Blizzard, Mind Flay, Lightning and Falling Stars, with sufficient skills and Power Cast, are nearly as effective.
Do not ask me which kind of party is better, because each is so effective that comparison is moot. It is an apples and oranges comparison and a very different gaming experience. Magic (damage) is faster generally, throughout the game, with more average damage per round of combat. Boss foes and groups much higher in level than the party are rare, but magic is only defensive there so the party needs sufficient physical fighting capability, but that does not require Fighters and Light Swords, for those fights, to be more than sufficient for smooth success.
Unlike hybrids doing offensive magic that are severely hampered (even if they are given Power Cast) by the four level penalty in caster level, casters doing melee or range fighting are only limited by a smaller selection of weapons (still allowing some powerful ones) and being pretty much limited to 2 attacks and 2 swings (but those are typically obtained fairly early). Expert Skills such as Power Strike are still easy to include in their design. Given the skills and expert skills there is no penalty for a caster using their weapon for their 2 attacks and 2 swings. So the no penalty for casters exercising well developed fighting skills is not hampered like the hybrid doing offensive magic is, even though the common "wisdom" is the misconception that casters cannot effectively contribute to the party physical fighting capability. The impracticality of giving fighting skills to a caster mainly applies to Bishops, the subject of this thread, because clearly diverting precious attribute and skill points at creation and level-up into a fighting skill would negatively impact their overall magic abilities, while that is simply not true for specialist casters with only one school to develop and a bonus to accelerate and make boosts to that skill at level-up mostly unnecessary.
I've never had a run with a specialist caster on high levels like 25+. I would appreciate if someone can upload a short video on one of his parties to see how effective is magic late game. The videos i've seen on youtube about magic parties where quite dissapointing and only confirmed what I have seen on my playthroughs.
This is only theory. For example, let's take nuclear blast.
DMG:3-21 PL
At 7PL on average a nuclear blast cast can do (3+21)/2 -> 84dmg to each foe. This is without resistances. You can't increase the DMG of a spell. To do 1000dmg you need 12 monsters. At 0% resistance.
Considering that level 12+ onwards almost all enemies of your level are about 100+ resistances or quite close, the DMG of a spell is greatly reduced. A safe casting of a level 7 spell at 7PL requires level 24. At this stage of the game, most monsters have a huge amount of HP. So it's nothing rare to see a HP pool between 500-1000.
You can have even 6 characters (4 specialists, bard & gadgeteer) at level 24 full casting the better spells you have available. Being very very generous each one of them do 75dmg to each foe. Let's say there are 10 monsters. An average-ish large encounter which is common in some areas.
75*10 -> 750 *6 -> 4500dmg. And this is in an ideal scenario where your spells can pierce through enemy resistances which is well, quite unrealistic.
Let's compare this to a full melee party. Ninja, Samurai, Monk, Valki, 2x Fighters.
Ninja COC, Samurai Sword or Staff, Martial arts Monk, Dread spear Valki, Fighters with whatever good weapon you got.
Each one of this STR/DEX characters have guaranteed 2/3 swings, 2/3 attacks/round. Fighters are at 2x/3x and hybrids at 1x/2x depending on your luck with weapon effects.
Let's take an Excaliber Fighter at 125STR.
Damage: 10-45 base. 27.5 on average. At 125 STR you have 75x2 -> 150% increased base damage, 250% berserking, 350% berserking against disabled enemies. DMG: 35-157. With high power strike the damage will higher than average. A perfect round of this character on average can do 9 hits of 100dmg. With high PS it will be higher, close to 125dmg if not more. So a fighter can do about 1000dmg/round at high levels.
2x fighters -> 2000dmg.
4x hybrids -> Let's say they do 75% dmg of a fighter. 750x4 -> 2800.
A total of 4800dmg. So the magic party is quite close, right? 4500dmg vs 4800. But there is a problem. Your magic caster are never ever going to do 75dmg against each foe. In my experience if you do 30-40dmg to each foe with a dmg spell, you're quite lucky.
So being realistic, if each one of the casters do reliably 30dmg/enemy, it's 30x10 -> 300 *6 -> 1800 damage.
This is why I want to see a video of how powerful are pure casters late game, because in my experience I was quite dissapointed on how magic dmg scales through the game.
Check the formulas, IIRC, both the power level and the mana cost per level are significant. Even against Fire Resistant rank and file Rapax, Nuclear Blast is effective (but of course not as effective as other realms and not Rapax bosses).
As the formulas show resistance of 200 in a realm effectively shuts down magical attacks in that realm for foes at the party level or higher, but are their any non-boss foes near the level of the party that have 200 resistance in all realms?
Please understand that there is no criticism in this. Having played this game a lot you certainly realize that we are learning things to make our parties even more effective all the time, a huge part of the fun of this game. When we play a kind of party a lot we optimize and so most players find the characters and parties they play a lot to be the most powerful ones. That is a very strong tendency easily visible from my perspective of being very familiar with running and finishing the game with MDPs.
I will work on that video if the thread I necro'd does not fully answer.
Magic is very strong in Wizardy 8 in a magic damage focused party (not really what mpnorman10 had but that's another thing). Only very few enemies are highly resistant to it and even those can be taken down, although it is of course more efficient here to resort to physical damage. But as you perfectly showed in your example, all you need for that is one fighter.
It's hard for you to engage 3-4 enemies on close/extended range with a melee party? :) Thanks to your post I discovered just yet the weakness of a melee party. That you have to facehug enemies every round. I wish your post could have illuminated me when I started playing this game.