Based on Talents, which class is the most “powerful”?

[But Wait There's More]

I have often asked myself this as I played the game, as there are certain talents that I have always felt were more useful or all around worth pursuing faster than some of the other ones. So as a nerdy engineer, I decided to make a grading scale for all of the talents available in this game (***Disclaimer*** This scoring scale is VERY subjective based on my experience playing through this game. But I have beaten the game as every class, so feel I am trying to be fairly subjective.)

My scale is simple. I rank each talent from a 1 to a 4, with one being the lowest, and a 4 being the highest. I ignore Nightmare Mode, as each class has this so that makes it a wash. I therefore give it a rank of 0.

So how does my ranking flesh out? Well here are my scorings, starting with the 4s, down to the 1s.

All Stars – The 4s
• Beast Mastery – Getting pets is awesome, and having them fill in as meat shields in a time of trouble can be very useful. Dealing with keeping them all fed and happy can be a pain, but Level 3 beast mastery is a very powerful talent
• Commerce – Let’s face it…knowing the value of every item (except for unidentified armor and weapons) is very useful. This is especially great for identifying unique weapons, bags of holding, etc. This is especially nice for utilizing crafting and identifying skills at the shops, for the cheapest price possible
• Weapon Knowledge – Like commerce, this one is great, especially if you are trying to make money from flipping weapons at the shops. It also helps for carrying stuff around, as you can drop the junky weapons instead of lugging it to a shop for identifying


The Runners Up – The 3s
• Battle Magery – I almost made this one a 2, but for a magic caster without awesome intelligence and wisdom (18+) then failure rates can matter
• Dual Wielding – This skill is really good, especially later in the game when you have two good weapons and some decent armor. I call this the “lawnmower” skill…cut them all down!
• Dweomery – I love this skill, as it is a passive skill that just keeps plugging along in the background as you run around doing your thing. I love making enchanted armor of dweomery (for classes without this skill), and never worry about not having it running
• Literacy – This is a great early game skill for trying to find a lucky find of a good spellbook, and trying to get it learned. Later on it isn’t that useful (you have typically identified most everything by then) but still it’s good
• Shield Parry – Not getting critical hit is nice. Just saying…
• Weapon Precision – Extra critical hits are also nice, especially if you have the dual wielding talent
• Wizardry – If you focus primarily as a spell caster and not a warrior, this comes in handy, especially coupled with a nice ring of magic regeneration


The Honorable Mentions –The 2s
• Animal Forms – Can be an interesting toy to play around with, and changing forms can help aid in saving your life in a pinch, but not much use other than that
• Courage – If you want some extra hit points, just play as a Barbarian, or better yet, get some blessed potions of holy wine!
• First Aid – I always used to think this skill was awesome when I first started playing, but when you are in battle getting beat down, you don’t have hit to generate, no matter what your skill is
• Fury – I think it would be a better skill if you didn’t have to wait until you were below a quarter of your hit points
• Gastronomy – If you run out of food all the time (or are stuck with a cursed ring of hunger!) then this is nice. Also helpful if you have a herd of followers
• Inspiration – This is nice in principle, but to overcome lack of this skill, just get more pets!
• Magic Precision – Extra magic critical hits are nice, but it isn’t as nice as weapon attack critical hits. Casting is not as fast as melee fighting
• Mighty Blows – Can be handy with a long weapon (two handed longsword) to keep enemies at bay and out of harms range, but it doesn’t come into play too often
• Silence – Surprise attacks are nice, but this only comes into play on the first hit more often than not (absence of sleep, etc.)


The Benchwarmers – The 1s
• Acrobatics – Running away sucks. You know why? Because all of the enemies just keep following, no matter how far away you get. This just leads to swarm deaths
• Larceny – I have never had much luck stealing things. So what’s the point? Just get a water nymph mesmerized (or as a pet) and tell her to steal stuff. Much easier (albeit she can’t steal from shops)
• Mycology – Mushrooms are pretty sparse, so this skill has limited use
• Storytelling – Why waste your points on this skill? Just mesmerize a bunch of mobs and bum rush everything!
• Trapping – Again, if you get this skill high enough, you should have enough firepower to just kill things.


OK now that this is clear, I added up the points for each character class, based on the talents they had. I was a little surprised by the results. Without further ado, here they are:

24 Vandal
23 Huntress
23 Knight
23 Sorceress
22 Valkyrie
22 White Witch
22 Wizard
21 Barbarian
21 Huntsman
21 Sorcerer
20 Druid
20 Rogue
19 Bard
19 Druidess
18 Bardess
17 Thief

I was interested by these results. I tend to agree with them, but was surprised that the Vandal came out on top. I am curious to see how people rank the talents, and I know there will be differences of opinions from me!

PS. This ignores worshipped dieties, and other innate class skills/hinderances. This is purely based on Talents.

[!Supreme Grand Wizard Yoodiv]

I mostly agree with the list of skill rankings, but you can't fairly ignore the other aspects of the classes, like how Vandal can only wear large armor, and the MASSIVELY influential prayers.

2 major things that influenced the following decision:
-Magic in this game is very DIFFICULT. You need to have the right spells, and enough mana, which is rare, or you're resorting to pets/melee, in which case you might as well focus on melee and be self-sufficient. And don't even get me STARTED on carrying capacity.
-Pets are a huge pain in the ass. Yes they're good as meat shields, but the maintenance, especially if you're carting many around, is astronomical. I only keep a few dogs and any interesting rarities usually.

I always play Valkyrie, and I even usually take the same talents. Primary reason:

Being able to ID things is the best. Scrolls/potions/gems, as time goes on, you'll eventually learn what they all are, but the only thing you keep getting as a mystery, is weapons/armor. Dog to curse-test, and just wear uncursed armor to see how good it is. Weapons, you gotta have the skill. If you want to use Dweomery, you ought to have Gastronomy 3 too, otherwise it'll be uselessly IDing food for you all the time. All of these are available to Valkyrie, plus the amazing dual-wielding.

Pros:
-The only class with all 3 of Dual-Wielding, Weapon Knowledge, Dweomery. Gastronomy too.
-The best prayers set (Fenrir, Thor, healing, and bonus bow skill)
-17 Str/16 Dex/15 Con assuming you ditch brains and have charisma 11-12
-dog pet will curse-test items for you, and usually isn't suicidal.

Cons:
-I wish commerce was available, with low charisma and no commerce, I always have money trouble early-game.
-dog can't climb ladders
-You start with garbage gear and skills, but in the grand scheme of things, everyone does. This allows you to focus on whatever good gear the game gives you, making for a different play experience every game.
-if you end up with a good spell, you probably can't learn/cast it.
-all your mana is going to waste

I may have to look at other classes since Dweomery has recently become less valuable to me, but Dual Wielding and Weapon Knowledge and Gastronomy are indispensable.

[Joki the Disco Bandit]

I've often wished that Fury operated on a percentage basis, e.g. If the damage you would take amounts to X% of your HP or more, it has a chance to trigger Fury. X could be 20%, 25% or thereabouts, whatever number kept things interesting. The lower your total HP got the more likely it would become that it would trigger Fury.

As it is I only take points in it with over-levelled characters who have points to burn.

Regarding your ranking/tally of characters I find it to be sort of "all over the place" in comparison with how I've experienced playing. My best score is as a Thief, if I remember correctly. And Bard/Bardess aren't far behind.

For the skills I agree that Beast Mastery and Commerce are the cream of the crop. My personal #3 is Weapon/Magic Precision, though. I couldn't care less about Weapon Knowledge in most games. Gimme critical hits, every time.

[Waz]

Good analysis - nice and mathematical!

It's been a while since I last mentioned it, so I'll note again that neither the classes nor the talents are intended to be balanced (ie. equal to each other). Choice of either will make your first win easier to achieve, though it does depend on your play style (and of course luck). But of course, who wants to win only one way? Nightmare Mode is the extreme example.

[But Wait There's More]

Thanks Waz. You are right that playing style and luck play MAJOR roles in how a game goes. Just to test my "assessment", I started playing games as the Vandal, as it has been a while since I tried to play through with her. Needless to say, I have probably played 30 games, and keep getting smoked. My normal playing style is to head to the gnomish mines, conquer them (if possible) and then chug away on blessed holy wine, all while getting rich selling gems.

Sounds simple, but like this game, it doesn't always go to plan! :)

Hence the reason I love this game so much. I never get sick of playing it. Frustrated, yes! But sick, no!

[Rat Scabies]

Sorceress by far, she demolishes entire problems, when all other classes would die.
Hard as ♥♥♥♥ to play.

[Icedfate]

every character I play, I always take a single level of gastronomy.
otherwise, I find that I often struggle in the beginning to get food.
it's also good for identifying the fruit juice and the booze potions.
you don't need any more of it though, unless you want to see the food freshness.

there are a couple of characters that don't get gastronomy and I've beaten the game without gastronomy, but that 1 point makes a big difference.


also, trapping talent, I think only the thief gets that and nobody else does, but that talent is really great early on. I always put a single point into it as early as possible because it reveals all the traps in the dungeon. and considering that the thief is also one of the ones that does not get gastronomy, I can basically use the point that would have gone into gastronomy and put it into trapping.


if you are going melee and your class has the shield mastery, I would rank that as a "4" (top priority), because the enemies crit A LOT, I dunno what the crit rate is, but it's certainly much more than the usual 5% you might see in a game like D&D. I see the enemie crit me like, between 25-50% of the time , so mastering the shield could be interpreted as a permanent 50% average damage reduction.

dual wielding, I never take, because it doesn't "feel" any faster. when I use it, my character still seems to only get 1 attack in, in between the enemy attacks. the only difference I see is that my caracter alternates hands; this could be my imagination, I admit I don't see what's happening behind the scenes.
but another big reason I don't take dual wielding is because if I need to zap a wand or drink a potion, if I'm dual wielding, I lose a lot of time because it makes the character first unequip the offhand weapon, then equip the wand, then zap the wand, then unequip the wand, then reequip the offhand weapon and I've had enemies run up and hit me 6 or 7 times when I do this.
while good old classic sword and board style just lets me zap the wand in a single round of combat and the enemy only gets to take a couple of steps or 1 attack.
and thirdly, if you go dual wielding, you can't get the crit protection which means you WILL get critically hit. . . A LOT, and always at the worst possible time.


aside from that, I do agree

beast mastery anyone with beast mastery, max it out so you can summon the battle liches and the dragons to get much needed materials.

weapon knowledge , anyone who has it, I'll put in 2 points as soon as possible and then max it out at level 10

except commerce would have a value of 3 to me, I might put 1 or 2 points in, but it's not a priority, eventually, even wthout commerce, I'll end up with so much money, I can't even carry it, I get encumbered and have to store it in a chest.


I never take battle magery or literacy because, if you're playing a spellcaster, you ought to be starting with at least 16-18 intelligence anyway and the robes are just as good because they provide a bonus to mana regeneration.
I guess literacy would help read those annoying cursed books but it's not worth taking points away from other talents IMO


dweomery talent...sucks/ it takes waaaaay too long to identify anything. it takes like, 4 times longer than the amulet. also, its super annoying because it insists on identifying ALL the cursed/blessed statuses first, before detecting the enchantment levels and if you pick ANYTHING new up, it resets the timer
(and there was one freak accident this one time, I cast an identify spell to identify the very last item I had in my inventory and at that exact moment, the dweomery kicked in and identified it and I no longer had anything left in my inventory to identify and the game locked up in an loop and I had to force quit, luckily, I did not lose my game though because it auosaved but yeah, that turned me off of dweomery forever. . .)
I will sometimes use the amulet in the gnome mines after I clear it, to ID all the gnome outfits but only if I don't have spells because all that waiting makes you forget your spells.

I wouldn't put dweomery talent in top priority 3, I would put it in -1(that's negative 1) alongside
storytelling and battle magery and fury.

the amulet of dweomery though, if you find the amulet, I think the amulet is the second best amulet after magical breathing

I also understand why you might have put inspiration as a value of 2, because only 2 characters get it, but those 2 characters that have it...should max it out. pets that do +9 damage with +9 to hit are awesome. especially if you free a prisoner or better yet, a large kobold and give it boots of speed. it's the only time I ever bothered to try and keep the pets alive for the whole game is when I played with inspiration.






from a pure analytical standpoint, your rundown of the classs "seems" sound

but If I were to clasify the character by how easy it is to win with them, I would actually put them more like this


#1 Bard/Bardess (playing these is like plying easy mode)

#2 Hunter/Huntress (bows are the best weapon in the game, this is the only characte I ever managed to beat nightmare mode with)

#3 Knight(good beginner character, well rounded)

#4 Valkyrie (I like her better than knight but she is a challenge at first, focus on the morning star even though it is -2,it's way better than the mace and prioritize shield mastery)

#5 barbarian/vandal (these are my favorite because I'm a loot Ho', but they can actually be difficult to play until you find armor, they get critically hit a lot and their dexterity sucks so they suck with a bow until they get practice)

#6 white witch/wizard (the best spellcasters, they have good starting equipment and easy to use religions)

#7 druid/ess (the sickle is useful for harvesting molds and killing oozes slimes and jellies, pro tip : sickle kills gelatinous cubes in 1 hit)

#8 rogue/thief (another of my favorite classes, I only put them at the bottom because they are one of the most difficult to play, the male doesn't get gastronomy and they both have the monkey which is awesome when it steals but is the most frustrating pet to manage, always jumping around and it won't et anything except apples and pears and it even refuses to eat tose if you cook them into a pie. if you want to keep the monkey all the way to the end, you have to have a method to kill it yourself and then heal it, to reset its hunger meter, otherwise, it WILL starve)

#9 sorceror/ess (the most difficult to play because they don't start with good equipment and their religion causes them to level up much slower and miss out on food opportunities at the beginning of the game, otherwise, they don't play much different from the white mages)

[jshepler]

Originally posted by Femaiden:

dual wielding, I never take, because it doesn't "feel" any faster

At 1 point, no, but it does (to me) at 3. It might have more effect on how much game time passes per swing, which is a bigger deal than just how many hits are done in X amount of time.

It's also another ring-effect slot - enchanted weapon. In fact, you can have 4 ring effects (5 with dual-wielding). Some effects stack, like health regen.

The easiest game I won was with vandal, dual-wiedling spears and double-hasted (boots + spell). Spears have a fast base attack speed to begin with. Add DW3 and 2x haste and it felt like a food processor. Nothing touched her.

[Icedfate]

oh yeah, I did forget to mention that I believe spears are the best melee weapon.
I still think bows are the best weapons overall, but spears are the best in close range.

you do bring up a good point about the rings, however, I still feel that the main reason I don't use dual wielding is because I often use wands throughout the adventure , especially to kill vortexes and if I'm dual wielding, it causes an inordinate amount of time to pas before the wand activates which causes me to get hit several times. even when I'm at max power, I still need the wands for the vortexes.

if the character I am using has the shield parry talent, I will always pick that over dual wielding.
you only really "need" 2-3 rings : teleport control is one of them

hp regen is no longer needed once you find a heal spell
mp regen is no longer needed once you get the Lich cape (which is really easy to get with a blessed monster summoning scroll)

see invisible is useful to find traps
control polymorph is useful too if you don't have a way to reveal traps, but I usually don't need this one since I use magic mapping.

although, I would use teleport control + polymorph control if I don't have any other way to reveal the traps. if I have see invisile, then I don't need polymorph control.

fire resistence is useful, but it is easy to get that innate if you eat red molds. . .

even teleport control is not even necessary, it's more of a convenience than anything.

most runs I end up winning with with only 1-2 ring effects active.

I'll admit that a lot of my strategy relies on finding a priest within the first 1000 feet, which sometimes doesn't happen (one time, I didn't see a single priest until 2900', which made the entire run a salty crawl)

I find that once I get to the priest, the win is 90% guaranteed and the rest of the run becomes
just going through the motions.
the runs that Iose..almost always get lost within the first 500' because I didn't find any good gear and the maths just don't add up in my favor or the game screws me over with like...a possessed weapon spawning at 300' or something or it puts an ogre lair right in my path with no way around it, or a murder of crows swarms me and pecks out my eyes.

the one thing that baffles me is stealth. some runs, with the same character, nothing seems to notice me, while other runs, I'll be playing and feels like everything within a 3 mile radius is just instantly aware of me and comes running at me from 3 floors down, constantly, never even giving me a chance to rest and recover.

[Null Gravy]

I usualy find that if I can get to the mid levels then carelessness is the leading cause of death so I would propritize stuff that's good early on when you're weak.

[Manwich]

I think the list is interesting, and offers some perspective.

I also think some of the values are weird.

"Dweomery" - Rank 3 seems a bit high
Your breakdown seems to put a lot of value in the classes that can rely on pets and/or purchase power. Dweomery is an incredibly underpowered spell that takes way too long to get you uesful info. Pets can tell you curse/uncurse status, and a fair percentage of equippable items can get their "function" or enchantment known for free (simpy equipping them or approaching a priest). The info that you can get in this free manner is actually the same prioritization Dweomery gives to the order in which it provies Dweomer on items in your inventory. In fact, the information that may be considered most important is the last bit of information Dweomery will provide you. You'll have to skip your first 3 merchants if you wait for Dweomery to provide you useful info. The 3 rank seems a little overvalued for a talent that takes way too long to get you info that is more easily obtained through other means.

"Dual Wielding" - Rank 3
Just a comment really - I play a lot of Wizard, and I usually end up dual wielding. This in particular because large shields cannot be worn with robes, and because rings can be forged into weapons. My curiosity about this ranking is that if a class that doesn't even have access to the corresponding talent makes good use of the ability that this talent enhances, is it really that much more useful for those classes that have it?

"Commerce" - Rank 4
I don't disagree with this rank, but I find your analysis of why you rank it high odd, and makes me wonder if you rank these according to the "early game" use, the "mid/end game use" or just "this talent is a make or break successful run for any class that has access to it". There aren't many games where I don't have store credit from every vendor in the game. If you have acces to more items than vendors can pay you for, knowing what they cost doens't seem like the benefit here. However, always getting a cheaper rate for identify, blessing, forging is valuable all game long.

[Dopefisher]

The harp of lullabies puts just about anything to sleep, including dragons. Using it with my knight, I got music skill to maximum, and the rest of the game was a breeze. Play harp, kill dragons, repeat. Sorry if I just made the game too easy for everyone. Lol.

[Icedfate]

Originally posted by Dopefisher:

The harp of lullabies puts just about anything to sleep, including dragons. Using it with my knight, I got music skill to maximum, and the rest of the game was a breeze. Play harp, kill dragons, repeat. Sorry if I just made the game too easy for everyone. Lol.

i agree that the harp of lullabyes is OP, but the only problem is that the only weapons you can use with it are thrown weapons...

[NobleBucket]

I'd like to protest the ranking of Animal Forms, for four reasons:
One, the third rank of it gives you intrinsic polymorph control, which saves you a ring slot and is useful if you don't have a ring of polymorph control or don't have a ring slot in your usual polymorphed form.
Two, you can turn into a werewolf with it, which will let you summon swarms of pet wolves without needing to contract lycanthropy.
Three, if you have at least one rank of it, you can activate the "return to human form" ability, which helps combat the effects of lycanthropy and polymorph traps.
Four, polymorphing/Animal Forms has some odd reactions with the "inner light" deity- it counts leveling up in a form other than your own for the purposes of recharging. Thus, you can level up as a level 0 rat (you can do this by letting your swarm of pets kill a monster for you while you watch) and make your inner light think that you haven't used it since you were level 1 (or 0, I forget exactly how it interprets it).

[Icedfate]

well, I didn't know about the intrinsic polymorph control. . .

but the thing with the werewolf, I dunno, I never liked werewolf form because you attack way too slow. you get 1 attack and the enemy gets like 6 on you before you get to attack again.

summoning wolves could be useful, except wolves and dogs are really annoying pets because they can't climb back up ladders with you

[!Supreme Grand Wizard Yoodiv]

Having your dog keep up with you while ascending is "extra work" but it's very easy. Start at the same depth as your dog, climb up to depth+1, climb up to depth+2, then go right back down to depth+1 and your dog will be there. Repeat. You can also get collars of jaunting(teleporting) or floating.

Dogs are the best! Especially the werewolves because when they die you often get meat to turn some other random pet into a werewolf. I don't see them summon wolves too often, but it does happen.