Forgot to mention, but nope, both were blue. I should have taken screenshots, but I am a newbie with the ipad.
Playing hardcore. Levels 4-5. Get to final dungeon. Total wipe because I had forgotten to give everyone a healing item. First my Mage dies to shaman bolts–there goes the healer. Then I realize that the small provisions my dwarf just used was the only healing thingi had left equipped, having used a scroll earlier. One by one they all die horribly.
Ouch. Wasn’t the final dungeon rated level 5? I haven’t tried it yet, since one of the BrF folks said that my best items definitely weren’t good enough for the last dungeon. Currently fighting Skaven with Waywatcher, Slayer, Ironbreaker at level 6, Grey Wizard at 5, and Archmage and Marauder at 4.
I thought Hunters 2 lost a bit of it’s charm when you realized that the Zealot was the best class. One zealot (with last stand/sadistic) could basically run any map with any gear.
Any similar issues with Warhammer Quest?
Not really, also you take four characters along and you can’t have duplicates so even if one was overpowering, you could only have one. Here’s my rough feeling on the seven characters – keeping in mind that leveling up is actually random, so YMMV:
Marauder – My sense is that most people view him as the strongest. He’s a solid fighter. His berserker ability is a bit of a mixed bag, since sometimes it results in him expending his attack by attacking friendlies around him. I don’t like him. Beware the Alien, the Heretic, the Mutant (is that the wrong game? Anyway, he worships Chaos and therefore is to be avoided).
Dwarf Ironbreaker – He’s the best all around tank, both because of his natural qualities and the equipment available to him. Currently he’s my best fighter in terms of Weapon Skill (WS 6) and while I’ve only got a one-handed weapon on him, he gets 4 very solid attacks in each turn.
Dwarf Trollslayer – Strongest offensive ability now that he’s got his 3rd melee attack. Unfortunately he didn’t get it for me until he hit level 6 (I was worried he was randomly not going to get a 3rd attack, and I was going to be very sad camper). His beserk ability unlike the Marauder does not result in his hitting friendlies or losing a turn. Unfortunately feedback on his ability is poor. I’m never sure if it’s working or not, I think (but am not sure) that it’s working as long as he carries out a Beserk animation (because sometimes instead of doing that he puts out a “Failure” text message) – not sure why Beserk doesn’t get added to his status as other abilities, spells, and effects are marked. [Edit: the folks out at the PocketTactics forum say it’s broken.]
Elvish Waywatcher – Probably my favorite character. Never gets pinned and can have up to two extra movement points compared to the other characters (depending on equipment). Currently has 3 melee attacks and 3 bow attacks – it is possible to equip for 4 bow attacks, although I’ve currently got her set for better defense instead. My main issue with her is that in the end game, her damage output is not as high as I’d like – the Trollslayer sometimes hits up to 30 points damage, and 15-20 is very common. I’ve got the Waywatcher with the Mastercraft Shortbow (which increases too hit) and after taking enemy armor into effect, she only does about 6 damage per arrow against armored bosses. I may have to switch to the Longbow.
Warrior Priest of Sigmar – Unfortunately while he has a different and intersting game mechanic (he can pray for different effects at the start of each turn), in general I think he’s the weakest of the characters. He starts with a very low Weapon Skill (2) which really hurts him a lot. There’s some decent tanking armor out there for him to use, so he can take hits like a front-line fighter, but his damage output is bad. Even when leveled up (currently 5 for me), his prayers are inconsistent even when faith is at its strongest. There are a variety of different interesting Prayer effects, although I do worry that there are a few that are always the best – for example it never hurts to get a extra free turn in!
Grey Wizard – Unfortunately I haven’t gotten an offensive spell on the Grey Wizard since the start of the game – I hear there’s a really good one, I sure hope I get it when I hit level 6. That said, he’s a major healer and once properly leveled and geared up, he has a lot of reserve power, so even when the Winds of Magic fail, he’s can still cast a lot of spells – I think all told, my Grey Wizard has around 20+ power in reserve, not including a few expendable orbs that he carries along. The main downside of the Grey Wizard is he has a tendency to bring a lot of enemies down at inopportune moments because of his Winds of Magic failures.
Archmage – With the spells I’ve gotten on him, he’s a defensive genius with some very, very strong spells including one which increases toughness by 12 and another which greatly decreases enemies’ to hit ability. He’s got good offensive ranged attacks, and he’s actually a pretty good swordsman (although he does lack the tougher armor of the frontline fighters). He seems less prone to bringing disaster on the group (via failure of Winds of Magic) than the Grey Wizard. Unfortunately my Archmage is currently missing a healing spell (although there is one on the random list).
I thought the Winds of Magic were like an environmental trait determined independently of any particular characters.
Ydejin, nice write up on the classes. I would hi-light for folks that there is a lot of variation in what skills your classes will get as they level up, so not all Grey Wizards are equal nor are all Mauraders. Which is a lot of the beauty of the game and why I probably will recreate everyone in a new game soon now that I have “finished” the vanilla game with the starting lot.
Speaking of “finish”… (Pause for spoiler-ish stuff)
What is the deal with the Idol mission? It has some crazy gimmicks (the, um inventory adjustment area had me sweating bullets on every WoM roll) and a fair bit of nail biting in general as the difficulty of the enemies is significantly higher than any quest before it. Yet, it had such an empty feeling once I cleared it. Minimal narration, the quest location staying active, and experience the equivalent of killing a few rats in the first quest. I guess they are leaving it open ended for DLC, but that was pretty limp. For what it is worth, I squeaked by with level 6 guys with (as far as I could find) utterly top end gear farmed out from the mastercrafted gear vendors in all of the towns. While my game is a normal game, I never had a character die, but in the last fight I had at least two guys become incapacitated every turn for way more turns than I was comfortable with. Also there seem to be a few achievements that I am pretty sure should be unlocked, but for some reason aren’t.
All and all a very well spent $5, and now it is time to decide if it is DLC time or if it is time to unlock the full game of State of Decay.
It is. That said, it is fairly tempting to think of it as tied to the Wizard as he gets direct benefit out of any result other than a failure. I know who I blamed when an ambush occurs…
Can I know whether the Reikland expansion is just a totally different area which levels from 1-6 or does it extend the adventure for higher levels? I’ve got a party of 5-ish to 6 and I am wondering whether to hold off on the purchase until I finish the first vanilla runthrough.
Ydejin will know for sure, but I believe the Skaven stuff is meant to be played in parallel and is 1-6. I only kept the experience separate so that it would be new when I wanted to restart and see what skills I pulled on a second playthrough.
Hmm - the game is great but it’s starting to be very much rinse and repeat, with the exception being when the Winds rolls are bad (I had 3 consecutive bad rolls, with one starting out with 3 Shamans waaaaay on the other side of the room, behind a mass of mobs). I had hoped for the Skaven pack to bring something new.
I’m also confused by the Chaos Armour thing. I’ve had one of thing Chaos Armour off like 7 hits in a row.
A quick question - I just got this, and was wondering if the DLC and the other characters are must-haves?
I’d say no. I found it very addictive and satisfying, as these things go, with just the base game; I played that way through level five or so and got to the final dungeon, where I wiped on hardcore mode and started over. Then I bought the DLC, and am just now getting familiar with the new warriors. You definitely do not need the DLC to have a lot of fun, especially with the randomization of abilities.
One thing that I did not pay attentione to at first, is that if you are selectively doing sidequests for specific rewards offered, verify what class or classes the rewards are for. I have a two pieces of equipment that I was all excited to get until I realized they were class specific for the Archmage and Trollslayer, which are two of the 3 classes available as DLC. Other than that, I have had just as much fun with the base game.
I’ve been enjoying this quite a lot. I picked up the Skaven expansion after I’d finished everything but the Idol of Mork, and I think every crash bug I’ve had has been in the Skaven area. It might have crashed once (maybe twice) before that, but it’s been happening nearly every dungeon in Reikland. So, you know, heads up if you’re planning on getting it.
I haven’t picked up any of the other classes, but when the next region comes out I’ll probably get some or all of them and start a fresh party. I haven’t had the best luck with my Ironbreaker or my Grey Wizard. Up until level 5, my Ironbreaker was lagging horribly behind everyone else. Fortunately, one of the few useful spells that my Grey Wizard got (no damage beyond the initial, mostly just healing) was Blade of Night, which lets you grant any character two melee attacks. With that I was able to control who was doing the majority of damage, which seems to be the governing factor for XP, so I was able to keep the Marauder from hogging 60% of the XP in every dungeon.
I’m sure it depends on how your leveling/drops go, but my Marauder was absolutely a beast. In particular, his skill that let him get a reaction swing when enemies spawn was probably responsible for at least 5 kills per dungeon. The key to getting use out of it is to make him the designated vanguard who reveals the new room. Most rooms will spawn a guy within melee range of the door. And whenever the Winds of Magic do you wrong, it seems to spawn an enemy next to every party member, so he’ll always have something to whack in that case as well. For large parts of the game, my objective was to give the other characters maximum chances to get XP so they could keep pace with the Marauder. If I hadn’t held back with him, he would have slaughtered practically everything.
I didn’t try it right at the start and briefly popped in at around level 2-3ish. The white random dungeons are supposed to be scaled to your parties level on both sides. My impression was that the low-level Skaven monsters are actually much tougher than their Orc/Goblin equivalent. For example the StormSkaven which is one of their standard fodder monsters actually take 20 hits and have good armor. There are some Clanrats with only 6 hits, but in general, I think probably a level 1 party will have a bit of trouble with Reikland. However past that level, you should be fine – a bit tougher, but not outrageously so.
I don’t know if the two sides integrate that well. You can quickly jump from one to the other, but I believe you always jump to the starting village of the other side. The Skaven do provide a nice break from beating on Orcs though.
They’re fun, but I wouldn’t say their must-haves. If you finish the main story line and still want more, then purchasing the Skaven Expansion and new heroes is a good route – it would have worked better if there had been 4 DLC heroes instead of 3 though.
This. It’s like, hmm, one of you clowns gets to stay and play with the new guys. Eeny, meeny, miney–oh, who am I kidding, it’s the Wayfinder, because there are no other ranged classes and, frankly, you rock.
+1
I’ve definitely run three melee + wizard parties, but it just doesn’t work as well as two melee + ranged + wizard because so much fighting takes place in two person-wide corridors.
And two or three bow shots a turn are invaluable for thinning the herd.