Party composition advice?

[e11]

So I've finished that little prologue kerfuffle with Mr. Tentacles, and I've come across the Red Prince. Now, apparently, I have to decide classes.

I'm playing Loshe, as a knight. Going by traditional RPG logic I'll need a healer, a magic blaster and someone with finesse.

So... make the prince a blaster, the elf slave lady a rogue or ranger, and either the male human or the dwarf a cleric?

Will I screw myself over with some other composition?

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

IMO Red Prince as Fire Battlemage, Sebille as Rogue or Ranger or Enchanter, Ifan as buff summoner ( I usually make Lohse a summoner) or Ranger/summoner.

Building a Cleric is a weird one, Sebille should make full use of it thanks to flesh sacrifice.

[e11]

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

Building a Cleric is a weird one

What?

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by e11:

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

Building a Cleric is a weird one

What?

Cleric makes no sense, it uses necromancy and hydro. You will just heal with hydro, sometimes use spells for cc( wont work if you have a fire mage as burning characters cant be frozen). Necro is for blood rain and blood sucker to heal, or use decay + blood rain + blood suck to deal damage. Its a weird character to branch out, uses a lot of AP which is why I recommend elf + elemental affinity for the best synergy possible. At least int scales with necro spells and hydro spells.

You can make it a buffer/healer I guess, but imo summoner fills that role better. You don't want a character not dealing damage. And a summoner can use glass cannon to buff/heal and summon every turn easily thus doing damage with totems and incarnate.

[joakim]

Ill give you my setup.

Fane: Air and hydropolist - Good against fire enemies, can stun, freeze and heal and have attacks that deal a lot of damage.

Sebille - necromancer and summoning (scoundrel) - can summon totems, incarnates for enemies to focus on instead of you, can heal, dominate mind, and lots of other things to bring chaos to the battlefield.

Beast - Warfare and Polymorph - I use beast for close range battles with heavy axe attacks and being able to fly away if things get to hairy. Oh and polymorph has terrain transfusion which you defintatly will need later in game!

Red prince - Warfare and Pyrokinetic - Deals alot of fire damage and is strong up close too.

[Chaoslink]

Traditional RPG logic doesn't work as well here as you might think. You don't want a "tank" or "healer" so much as 4 damage dealers with mixed in support abilities. You also want even damage types so if you have a mage, you want another magic based class. 2 physical, 2 magic.

[SenMithrarin85]

if you take two mages, do not use the default fire/earth and water/air "classes" as they'll basically step on each other. if you do want all 4 elements, then you'll want to replace on of them per mage at some point. example being earth/water and air/fire instead. this way they combo off of each other which helps with AP and doesn't make them conflict too much.

geo and pyro though can be a big pain since magic in this game hurts friendlies too. setting fire to the battlefield can be annoying if the enemies end up cursing it afterwards (though bless can counter this, you won't get it until a fair way into act 1)

I found its best to take 2 enchanters in your first playthrough as they'll support each other in stripping armour and both air and water get spells that ignore friendlies.

also do not mix physical and magic on the same character. the armour system says no to this. magic on a melee character should be utility spells only, so damage is a none issue.

[RASTIL]

Honestly most fun i had was warrior, shadowblade, ranger and wizard

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by RASTIL:

Honestly most fun i had was warrior, shadowblade, ranger and wizard

Without a second source of magic damage, that example suffers from a 3/1 split issue. At least on tactician, your wizard would be borderline useless without a second source to rip magic armor.

[Xyron]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by RASTIL:

Honestly most fun i had was warrior, shadowblade, ranger and wizard

Without a second source of magic damage, that example suffers from a 3/1 split issue. At least on tactician, your wizard would be borderline useless without a second source to rip magic armor.

Technically you can build warrior for intelligence and use a staff to deal magic damage.
I doubt it's particularly viable but it's an option.

[Dixon Sider]

Originally posted by Xyron:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Without a second source of magic damage, that example suffers from a 3/1 split issue. At least on tactician, your wizard would be borderline useless without a second source to rip magic armor.

Technically you can build warrior for intelligence and use a staff to deal magic damage.
I doubt it's particularly viable but it's an option.

You will miss out on a lot of polymorph. Poly is probably the best skill tree, but it doesnt "demand" STR. Just for a good majority of its better skills. Theres always transmutation and forced exchange that anyone can take advantage of

[iRaged]

Originally posted by e11:

So I've finished that little prologue kerfuffle with Mr. Tentacles, and I've come across the Red Prince. Now, apparently, I have to decide classes.

I'm playing Loshe, as a knight. Going by traditional RPG logic I'll need a healer, a magic blaster and someone with finesse.

So... make the prince a blaster, the elf slave lady a rogue or ranger, and either the male human or the dwarf a cleric?

Will I screw myself over with some other composition?

I read some of the statements above and some people said cleric was ♥♥♥♥, and they are so wrong its not even funny.

The purpose of a cleric is to transition into a pure necromancer. You can build an early game cleric sniper with Sebille. Here's what you do:

1. Get teleport gloves on Sebille
2. Go to any area where you see enemies.
3. Place your party in a safe area where you can teleport the outermost NPC to initiate a fight.
4. Bedroll Pre buff, blood rain pre buff if you have it
5. Teleport the enemy next to sebille
6. Cast Flesh Sacrifice -> Mosquito Swarm -> Decaying Touch -> Blood Sucker -> Restoration.
7. Run party away and the battle will end.
8. Rinse and repeat

This will delete anything early game. Cleric's healing spells should be used as offense after decaying touch.

In terms of optimal party, my favorite is:
2 hand knight that is primarily warfare (I use Fane)
1 handed Juggernaut which is warfare and geo (I use Beast/Lohse)
Necromancer <-- must be elf cuz Flesh Sac is godly (Sebille)
1 Ranger (Ifan)

Necro is by far my favorite class. Using corpse explosion is so fun.

If you want to breeze through ♥♥♥♥, steal skill books early game. If you want a challenge, don't steal anything.

With regards to party comp, I suggest going Pure Phys or Pure Magic early game. Once you are about to leave Fort Joy Island, go steal a bunch of skillbooks then when you are on the boat, just respec at no loss at all.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by iRaged:

Originally posted by e11:

So I've finished that little prologue kerfuffle with Mr. Tentacles, and I've come across the Red Prince. Now, apparently, I have to decide classes.

I'm playing Loshe, as a knight. Going by traditional RPG logic I'll need a healer, a magic blaster and someone with finesse.

So... make the prince a blaster, the elf slave lady a rogue or ranger, and either the male human or the dwarf a cleric?

Will I screw myself over with some other composition?

I read some of the statements above and some people said cleric was ♥♥♥♥, and they are so wrong its not even funny.

The purpose of a cleric is to transition into a pure necromancer. You can build an early game cleric sniper with Sebille.

That makes no sense, a cleric is a healer and a buffer, usually a character with a mace and shield and is adept at dealing with the undead.

You can make a dark cleric with necromancy but it wouldn't be a cleric now would it? Also a cleric using bows? Extremely anti immersive, might as well be a wayfarer with hydro instead of geo. I'm not saying you cant do it since in this game mixing things is almost a must, but the default cleric in this game makes no sense and the things you said don't fall into the cleric category.

The only reason the cleric has necromancy is because of the synergy from decay + heal and the supportive spells. I highly doubt it's purpose was to transition to a pure necromancer.

[Le Libertine]

It's not that big a deal, people here are over-thinking it. Just follow the simple rules to combine your skills with their attributes (intelligence for magic dam, finesse for ranged & daggers etc, Strength for big weapons) and you'll be fine. I used a balanced party composition of my own builds, and I'm quite certain there were plenty inefficiencies, but I didn't have problems with battles.

My mages never used their weapons (wands). I only gave them wands for the attributes. I also gave them shields in-off hand, which provide huge phys/magic armour, and good phys damage if necessary with shield throw. All my chars had options to do either phys or magic damage.

Don't forget you can re-roll all your characters (even voices and appearances) and also 'purchase' new NPCs.

I used the following:

Main - Elf. Hydro/Aero
Ifan: Necro/summoner
Lohse: Ranged hunter and Pyro
Red Prince: Scoundrel & warfare with a dabble in poison

Between hydro & necro + ranged bandage there was plenty of heals. Plus drop a source orb in armour and anyone can have mass heal. Then of course food & pots. So don't stress over a cleric, there's plenty of heal opportunities.