Suggestion: Conjurer starts with 1 Scroll of Charging

[Werl]

Not much to say here that the title doesn't already: start the Conjurer with a Scroll of Charging. Here's why:

From a Hardcore perspective, Conjurer starts a tad bit weak; you need the Staff of Lightning to help your Knight get kills early (without having to sit there while it rests and/or dies), but (at least for me) you also need the staff to kill gnomes in the Gnomish Mines in order to acquire more staffs to either A) clear the Mines for XP (important for magic classes to level casting/magic stats) and/or B) snag a staff stockpile to bring to upcoming stages (mainly applicable to true skeletons).

Now, you may say: "Just prioritize saving the staff! Rush the Mines and start from there."

To which I say: fair point. However, beauty (or in this case: enjoyment) is in the eye of the beholder. Some players (me) want to fully explore each stage and min-max their little hearts out.

So, I propose a compromise: simply start the Conjurer with a Scroll of Charging. Just one. That way players (me) who want to explore and fight and level their Knight on stages 1-2 can, but not in a way where they can discount the Knight completely. In my experience with cheats, one scroll allows you to stretch the staff barely into the mines, even if you burst down a troll on stage 2.

It also prevents true skeleton players from turning into actual skeletons themselves while waiting for their mana regen/skeleton to rest. So that's a bonus.

Please let me know if I'm missing the obvious strategy for this class and/or Hardcore in general.

Cheers!

[Sly-Scale]

Usually I just pick up rocks, throwing knives, acid flasks, what have you, and chuck them at enemies to supplement my damage. If you can cobble together some uncursed armor and shields, you might also be able to tank rats for your Knight.

And don't forget the darkness: using said rocks to irritate something so they come your way, but you circle around them with a wide path in the dark. It's tricky and not at all reliable -- especially since the devs increased everybody's melee reach and reduced their movement speed -- but you can do it.

Not that I've actually gone Skeleton Conjurer, as I only play Skeleton if I can block all early-game damage. But if I had to go and do it, I'd do it like I do my other playstyles that scrape the bottom of the barrel.

[Werl]

Originally posted by Sly-Scale:

Usually I just pick up rocks, throwing knives, acid flasks, what have you, and chuck them at enemies to supplement my damage. If you can cobble together some uncursed armor and shields, you might also be able to tank rats for your Knight.

And don't forget the darkness: using said rocks to irritate something so they come your way, but you circle around them with a wide path in the dark. It's tricky and not at all reliable -- especially since the devs increased everybody's melee reach and reduced their movement speed -- but you can do it.

Not that I've actually gone Skeleton Conjurer, as I only play Skeleton if I can block all early-game damage. But if I had to go and do it, I'd do it like I do my other playstyles that scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I think it's worth mentioning that Conjurer, from a Hardcore gameplay perspective (and maybe a vanilla perspective, too), is poorly designed. Aside from the obvious "race with 25% mana regeneration as a caster", the Knight and Sentinel lose all level progress on death/re-summoning. One dies but the other lives 75% of the way to a level-up? Guess you're down one crew member until the survivor levels. Or you re-summon and lose all the XP. In addition, the Knight/Sentinel have to not just participate in the kill, but land the killing blow to receive maximum XP. Teammates clearing the level faster than you can do your little Conjurer kiting-song-and-dance? Enjoy leveling up the crew a grand total of zero (0) times.

Whew. Got a little off topic there.

Here's what I'm getting at: getting the maximum levels on the Knight early is very important. Your Knight can't take more than chip damage if you want to level it before it dies and you can re-summon it. How do you prevent that? Bring enemies down to a sliver and let the Knight finish them off. PROBLEM IS, if the enemy aggros on your level 2 Knight, the Knight can't kill it. At all. Not even a rat. So you need to quickly knock the enemy's health down. Which is what the staff is for. But the staff doesn't last long enough. Sure, you can stretch the staff as far as it'll go with some creative baiting and kiting. But what about when there's a troll blocking the path on stage 2, or Algernon or Funny Bones on stage 1? Both are guaranteed Knight death unless you step in, with Algernon being a run killer unless your staff lasts long enough to kill it. There's no room for error. You either book it to the Mines and pray there's no complications, or you break the staff and the run is dead. It's far too binary to allow for any adaptation.

Sorry for the wall of text but your comment gave me some food for thought so I figured I'd elaborate.

[Marksman Max]

I think the Conjurer class in general, while not awfully designed, is another one of those DLC classes that just plays so unbelievably poorly with the race it comes with. Skeletons have 75% reduced magic regeneration, and their signature class is a caster class? It doesn't add up.

Several other races/classes also have this problem, IMO:

- Mechanist is a really cool class, but its insane how unfun this class is if you try to play it as an Automaton, since your crafting resources and your food resources are now the same. Automatons also have boosted magic regen while superheaded, although this essentially does nothing for you as a Mechanist since you rely on tools, not spells.

- Shaman lets you have more innate spells as a Goblin, and its honestly a fun class to play as a Goblin. The problem is how much better Shaman is on any other race; in fact, Goblins are actually the least synergistic race to play Shaman with, since Shaman better mitigates the downsides of the rest of the monster races.

Vampires can eat any and all food and can also swim in water without dying, Skeletons can remove the -75% regen and swim at normal speeds, etc. In fact, the major upsides of Goblins don't even apply while transformed (e.x. leveling Unarmed while you're a Troll doesn't level up the rest of your melee stats), leaving you with just the downsides.

And then there's the fact that all the other races can learn spells. Don't even get me started on how overpowered Vampire Shaman is.

- Accursed is literally just harder on Vampire than it is as a Human, since Humans can eat other food besides blood vials. Its even easier as an Insectoid, since they can literally eat anything with no downsides whatsoever, their hunger bar depletes slower, and you can see exactly where your hunger is at since its also your mana bar.

[agentkido]

Originally posted by Marksman Max:

I think the Conjurer class in general, while not awfully designed, is another one of those DLC classes that just plays so unbelievably poorly with the race it comes with. Skeletons have 75% reduced magic regeneration, and their signature class is a caster class? It doesn't add up.

Several other races/classes also have this problem, IMO:

- Mechanist is a really cool class, but its insane how unfun this class is if you try to play it as an Automaton, since your crafting resources and your food resources are now the same. Automatons also have boosted magic regen while superheaded, although this essentially does nothing for you as a Mechanist since you rely on tools, not spells.

- Shaman lets you have more innate spells as a Goblin, and its honestly a fun class to play as a Goblin. The problem is how much better Shaman is on any other race; in fact, Goblins are actually the least synergistic race to play Shaman with, since Shaman better mitigates the downsides of the rest of the monster races.

Vampires can eat any and all food and can also swim in water without dying, Skeletons can remove the -75% regen and swim at normal speeds, etc. In fact, the major upsides of Goblins don't even apply while transformed (e.x. leveling Unarmed while you're a Troll doesn't level up the rest of your melee stats), leaving you with just the downsides.

And then there's the fact that all the other races can learn spells. Don't even get me started on how overpowered Vampire Shaman is.

- Accursed is literally just harder on Vampire than it is as a Human, since Humans can eat other food besides blood vials. Its even easier as an Insectoid, since they can literally eat anything with no downsides whatsoever, their hunger bar depletes slower, and you can see exactly where your hunger is at since its also your mana bar.

This goes without saying but I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said

On that note we need an actual hunger bar, they can hide it for hardcore but if we're just doing core then there's no reason for it to be invisible.