Why Not Bring a Mage?

[Darklord]

Well done!

Daniel.

[oodyboo]

If you weenies are so concerned that a ranged rogue might do more damage than a Mage, then simply use rogues. Nobody is making you use a mage.

Quit complaining about it and let the real adventurers enjoy playing a well designed class in a well designed game in which player skill matters far more than character stats and armor. It's really pretty funny to hear all these whines about power gaming nearly irrelevant stats. I'd bet most of your collective inability to understand excellent gaming stems from being carried in games like WoW as Trash Gear-Nazis who stand in fire while they whine about my choice of gems and then explode into fits of rage when I stop healing you.

There's plenty of gear for mages, they are very fun to play and are an excellent class. And even though they may have less spells than you are used to in other games, in Grimrock they are the most versatile class.

I too am a power gamer, so I understand the need for comments and balancing of classes/stats/etc, but don't shit on my mages because your rogues are stupid easy.

[Saice]

Nice well thought out response full of logical points there oodbyboo.

Not really sure where you the the idea anyone is shitting on mages or that anyone is standing in the fire yelling at their healer.

But if plenty of mage gear you mean 1 hat and 2 cloaks for armor then oh yes scores of mage gear. And lets not forget the top teir mage weapon is geared towards a fire mage. It is not bad of others be there is few other items at end game for a focused mage the other being earth and does not compare much to the fire orb. While all the melee weapon skills each has there own end game item.

And I've already pointed out my stance on mages. That I am not saying they need all that much of a change and that they can indeed be end game power houses.

But thank you for the wonderfully insulting addition to the topic at hand.

[krayzkrok]

The fact there's so much disagreement about which classes work best should tell you all you need to know, that all classes are viable if you know how to develop and use them, and all classes can be terrible if you don't. Of course not all classes are exactly equal, that would be boring and pointless. My experience was that my mage was fairly useless until I got a couple of decent spells under my belt, at which point he became the most valuable member of the party. He's currently nearly 3 levels higher than everyone else (I'm on dungeon level 10) as he's the only reason I'm still alive frankly. He's a praying mantis so we've all agreed to pitch in and keep him well away from any females for at least a year if we escape.

I'm sure when I replay I'll try a different approach.

[Spathi]

Yep, the game (if you think items) seems to be designed for the default party and for different members to be strong at different times.

minotaur in light armor with lots of strength and vitality was doing 150 damage in one hit by level 5, and by the end of level six was not missing much. Needs all vitality and as much strength as can be snuck in.

mage does xx damage to all creatures in front of you. has higher dps than rouge until energy runs out and he can buy time.

rouge not as great as people say, still 40 damage for me, I used arrows a lot, just to level him up. Only play it a bit every few weekends so have not got his damage stats up yet I suppose.

fighter starts off strong, then becomes weak, and is a bit better later in heavy Armour with some better swords

SpoilerShow

All chars can survive the fighters challenge, with the mage freezing the guy behind at the start.. do a turn, then use the fighter with a fire sword, the mage with bombs, and the minotaurs mace to pound to the switch, arrows to finish off any life left. As the mage can only take 3 hits it depends on a little evasion luck, but it is easy. No real Armour needed on back row, just the evasion stuff and some cloaks etc

Maybe a group of rouges with armor gimped for damage is powerful, but that would involve micro management (swapping slots), and would be pretty boring. The only character that tanks without the need to swap or hold special magic weapons is the minotaur.

[NakedGranny]

Maybe a group of rouges with armor gimped for damage is powerful, but that would involve micro management (swapping slots), and would be pretty boring. The only character that tanks without the need to swap or hold special magic weapons is the minotaur.

um. you really should check out a high Dex Human Fighter with the Lurker set and Swords. superior tank and uses the best weapon in the game to deal more damage than anything but a backstabbing Dagger Rogue. characters' ability to tank is not governed by their race. the reason Minotaurs are popular is that they have good stats and the Head Hunter Trait available. this does not affect their ability to tank in any positive way because the max Dex a Minotaur can achieve is 12 (+2 from a Trait if you waste one of your Trait slots for it). basically, Minotaurs make the worst tanks in the game but the best damage dealers.

"worst" is a purely comparative term, though, because they can still achieve perfectly functional Evasion and Protection scores with the appropriate mix of equipment and the Evasive Trait.

[Sabatasso]

in Grimrock they are the most versatile class.

I'd like you to back up that claim with some cold hard facts. Can they tank? Turns out Rogue is really the most verantile class... they can tank, melee DPS and Ranged DPS, while Mages can do Ranged DMG and Resistance buffs, But it sounded so good when you said it...

I too am a power gamer, so I understand the need for comments and balancing of classes/stats/etc, but don't shit on my mages because your rogues are stupid easy.

Did you even read a single post in the whole thread?

[pongsifu]

Well they can also cast invisibility to help you avoid combat and ice magic provides the only "stun" ability in the game, but yeah, I'd say rogues are more versatile.

[oodyboo]

I'd like you to back up that claim with some cold hard facts. Can they tank? Turns out Rogue is really the most verantile class... they can tank, melee DPS and Ranged DPS, while Mages can do Ranged DMG and Resistance buffs, But it sounded so good when you said it...

I'm not talking about the potential different ways to build the character, but rather the variety involved with playing a given character. Mages are the most versatile because they can do more than simply instant attacks, which is all the other classes will ever do.

Fighters and Rogues can be specialized into one of the roles you mentioned, but in the end of the day the only thing you will ever do with them is click their instant attack button. Whether they are ranged or melee or "tanking", there is no difference in how you play them.

Let's say you have 2 ranged rogues in the back, one backstabbing with Reach, and another shooting a bow. Regardless of how you build them, you will simply click the same attack button throughout the entire game. As you progress through the game, the only change is the picture of the weapon you click on and the damage numbers increasing with your skill. Same goes for Fighters. There's basically one character action for fighters and rogues throughout the entire game (attack). A single rogue or a single fighter has no variety throughout the whole game.

A single mage on the other hand will typically learn three different combat spells (or more if you generalize), and can also attack with any mundane weapon that a fighter/rogue can use (not very well, but my two mages often throw objects to tag weaker monsters for exp). They also will usually learn light/darkness and maybe some other spells like invisibility. This gives them more than the single option of clicking "attack."

Therefore a typical mage will have at least two different viable actions throughout the game (damage and resistance spells as you pointed out) whereas fighters and rogues will never do anything but click their attack button, regardless of which weapon/skill/build you choose.

In addition, dependent on which spell skills you pick, spell options and the way you cast them are different. Casting frostbolt is different from Casting fireball whereas attacking with a dagger is no different than attacking with a sword. Also casting the low level damage spells and the higher level ones is different. (Ice shards vs Frostbolt)

Anyone in the front row can be considered a "tank" regardless of their class, but getting hit by monsters is a passive action and getting hit less often or for less damage doesn't relate to the variety I speak.

To sum it up:

Possible actions for a typical mage:
1) click attack with weapon/fists
2) cast one of the 8? damage spells
3) cast one of 4 resist spells
4) cast one of 2-3? utility spells

Possible actions for any fighter or rogue:
1) click attack with weapon/fists

Edit: PS I do understand that Rogues are the most viable class for playing in both front and back rows and make excellent overall warriors due to their high dex, (essentially the same as your comment on their being the most viable class for different roles), but I am looking at variety in terms of gameplay/interface. Roles can be considered on different levels.

[King Semos]

I'd like you to back up that claim with some cold hard facts. Can they tank? Turns out Rogue is really the most verantile class... they can tank, melee DPS and Ranged DPS, while Mages can do Ranged DMG and Resistance buffs, But it sounded so good when you said it...

***edit. I believe they can, read my full post.




Mages are extremely good. Extremely. I say that for many reasons. I've played almost 70 hours of this game and have tried a lot of different builds and a lot of different group combinations. I'll give you guys an example of my best Mage thus far, he is an Insectoid Fire Mage. His fireballs hit for usually around 150-320'ish and at level 13 it takes about 8 of them to use up all my energy. The big trade off of being a Fire Mage is that you can't hurt Uggardians. But with his Circle of Protection and Fire Shield spell my party had an extra +60 fire resistance to deal with those monsters. Making all of them have 100 fire resist, except one who had 86. Jiub's resistances were all very strong, excluding Shock. When fighting things that did shock damage I always had a few potions handy, no problems.


Here is Jiub in all his glory. He is 32 Fire / 22 Spellcraft.

SpoilerShow

The Orb of Radiance has an increased casting speed buff, though it does not display this in my game. With the 50% faster casting from Spellcraft he literally casts 1 Fireball every second if I chose to do so.

I'm in the process of remaking him as a different kind of Mage, so far he is proving very useful.

SpoilerShow

I stayed true and went Insectoid because well, lets face it. They make the best Mages . He just hit level 6, and the group has just started level 4 The Archives. He is 3 Earth Magic / 2 Spellcraft / 23 Staff Defence. He has Natural Armor and Healthy traits. Hey, who says Mages have the least gear, I'm about to add shields and Light armor to my list of potential Mage gear.. I have confidence he will persist to be durable during the mid and later game.

I can see why some chose Rogues over Mages, but I personally think the Mage is far more valuable. Besides, I bring a Rogue anyway.