Guide for Beginners/Basics?

[Endarire]

EDIT: I made a more comprehensive beginner guide and game manual to explain a lot of what the game should tell you more clearly! Check the Steam Guides section for details! Enjoy!

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Greetings, all!

Beyond the guides already on Steam, is there a guide specifically for this game's beginners or basics? Topics would preferably include:

-Ideal party compositions (Dreamer/Monk/Shaman/Hermit? Warrior/Monk/Shaman/Hermit?)
-What starting gift to pick (AIRSHIP!)
-What to get for easiest/quickest game progression
-Newbie mistakes (misallocating artifacts, letting Monks use dirks...)
-Formulas for how each stat (ATK/DEF/INT/SPD) contributes to battle
-How Hermit healing bonuses work
-A recommendation to read other guides
-And probably more!

This is something I had planned, but I realized I didn't know enough about the game to make a fair newbie guide to my liking. What about the veterans of this game?

[qwefg2]

ideal party - varies person by person
Starting gift - anything but the artifacts. Key of time for late game pow or airship for ease and ancher steal... unless doing dreamer solo run
Easiest path? - not dying. There is no easy path.
Formulas? - attack - pow. def = armor. int = casting power spd = SPEED!
hermit - fast person who can be used as a healer in magic due to mana + speed + heavy armor. Bonus only applies to items and thats early game bonus. Only a little amount of hp is given even when using non-healing items.
Recommendations - guides section mostly map, class, and artifact guide to understand what the artifact gives before wasting it on someone who isn't suited for it.

Also status afflictions tend to be useless when cast on enemy, but deadly when cast on you.

[PizzaSHARK]

Dreamer/Monk/Explorer/Shaman has been my most successful party by far. Feed +Attack elixirs to the monk, feed +Speed potions to the Explorer, stuff +Intelligence potions in the Shaman, and do whatever with the others. I usually give the HP and Defense potions to the Monk as well since they're rather squishy. You can give MP potions to the Explorer or Shaman if you want, but their MP growth is usually enough that it's not necessary and I've fed most of them to the Dreamer so he can cast field skills, cure poison, etc more frequently.

Give the Explorer most of your healing skills, one of your rez skills, and maybe some buff/debuff skills or maybe a nuke or two (I've given him the AOE anti-undead spells.) Give the Shaman all the nukes. Load up the Dreamer with buffs and debuffs, field skills, and maybe some of the status cures, particularly ones that don't demand an immediate response (like poison.)

Warriors don't seem to have any purpose because they have 0 MP growth and all of the field skills etc require small amounts of MP to use. They have quite a lot more HP growth than Dreamers, and gain DEF natively, but you get a lot of that stuff from equipment anyway. They don't do squat for damage past the early sections of the game.

Hermits likewise seem to be pretty pointless. Tons of Speed, but their INT/MP growth is lousy, which makes them poor choices for healers (just feed Explorers the speed potions you find and they'll go first vs most enemies anyway.)

As for easiest path? I'd head northeast to Greenvale. You can take the artifact to get an early healing spell, or poison the wine to get an easy 5000g from the thieves. Might want to buy a healing water since it can be useful to avoid a fight in a later quest. Head west from Greenvale to the mine, loot the chests, and make sure to grab the Traveler's Sword from the guy there. Don't go downstairs yet, you'll get owned. The Traveler's Sword is WAY better than any other weapon your tank will have for a little while, so don't return it yet.

Head over to Fortress and Forren and do some exploring in those nearby areas. I'd recommend looking to get everything from Wind's cave (east of Forren) as soon as possible. You can turn the Gray Sword into the Flame Sword if you don't mind missing out on the 2nd level Fire element nuke skill, and that sword will kick the crap out of most any other you'll get for a while, and also allow you to go turn in the Traveler's Sword to get access to the 1st level Lightning element nuke (which is also AOE!) By time you're strong enough to survive in the lower levels of Wind's cave, you can probably go most anywhere you need to go in the early areas of the game. If you find yourself with a lot of extra money (like 20k+), you can get access to some pretty good gear for your tank in Wingun like platemail, a longsword, knight shield, enchanted helm, etc. Not much there for the lighter party members, though.

Be sure to go back and get the Death's Path artifact from the second floor of the mines west of Greenvale, it'll make a lot of the longer dungeons less of a pain to work your way through.

[Endarire]

Thankee!

I went Warrior/Dreamer/Shaman/Hermit since I needed a tank, magical DPS, and healing. My friend and I have played this game together locally and she wanted the Dreamer/Shaman combo because she thought it was interesting. The Dreamer has felt like a character without a firm identity for this party so far. The Hermit has been -very- handy at healing the party with healing spells and Med Herbs. It's how we got through a large part of the Ice Cave @level 13ish.

And the Airship makes this game into my favorite part of the old-school RPGs: Sequence breaking and traveling to high-end areas because they're there and I want to be there!

I've not tried bows nor guns, but I've heard mixed results. What do you advise regarding them?

[Endarire]

Also, why feed +Speed Elixirs to the Explorer? I thought the point was to win fights sooner with DPS.

[mooncalf477]

The Explorer is a strong choice for healer, and you generally want the healer to outspeed the enemies, and his gun is very damaging.

[Endarire]

How are guns especially useful? I tried a Dreamer with a Colossus Rifle at the very endgame and found it to be too little DPS for the Swamp King. I had to reload, which cost me a turn, and I've preferred the spammability of melee weapons.

What am I missing here? How to make guns and bows useful?

[Endarire]

I beat the game with Warrior/Dreamer/Shaman/Hermit. The Hermit was the weakest link of the group due to super low MP. Healing items stop being useful compared to healing spells - even with a Hermit - past about level 18. Swamp King was unpleasant due to low MP and having to choose carefully my healing options.

I plan to try Warrior (Tank)/Warrior (Damage)/Shaman (Offensive)/Shaman (Healing) for a speedrun. I'm currently convinced that's the best overall party due to being able to wear elemental resistance armor and shields, high damage weapons, and have plenty of INT and MP for spells.