…where we return to Arnika with our bounty and Silver, the Mook ranger, gets invited over to the Mook embassy for a night (of scientific scrabble orgies probably, judging from Mook character), we also speak to a spaceship called Callisto – and we begin our way to Trynton.
Featuring many fights against plants like Acidvines and Crimson Poppies, as well as all sorts of Higardi Rogues. Such Loot (the Rogues), so money 😉
Have fun watching!
Happy Gaming,
Immanuel-Can
Our last party member will be a Gadgeteer: She has close to no damage in the early game but reigns supreme late with a rain of bullets. And everything can be used as a bullet at that time. The Gadgeteer has a gun which levels up with her and in the late game can use almost anything you find as a projectile. A shame we don’t find pianos in Wizardry 8, but still… In addition to that, the gun gets lots of special effects like blind or kill.
So you will have a real monster late game. Unfortunately, she doesn’t provide much damage in the earlier stages. But the topic she provides until then is utility: Lots of it. You can build gadgets en masse with the gadgeteer – all kinds of strange items. Which is tons of fun and will give you e.g.: a Jack in The Box for fear effects or, my favourite – a machine giving you a sort of a “radar” buff which is very good to avoid – or enter – encounters. And then she can pick locks – which is extremely useful throughout the game. So she does have a Jack in The Box but she is a Jack of All Trades for everything else – except DPS, which comes very late, but then with BOOM!
The Gadgeteer uses her gun as the main source of damage – which is a modern weapon. The gun won’t get a bonus from Strength, so we’ll have a slightly different build for the gadgeteer.
Senses (For the Eagle Eye Armor Penetration goodness) > Speed (more attacks) > Dexterity (more to-hit) > Vitality (more Stamina, and of course HP).
We will use a Hobbit again for her excellent combat stats – the low Strength and Piety don’t interest us. And she will get a stamina regen item of the early ones – so we will be quickly up to speed again after a fight.
Her skills are pretty straightforward: Engineering (her special skill), Modern Weapon (her key skill) and Locks and Traps (so useful). Once Modern Weapon has a high skill (like 50-something) it makes sense to raise Ranged Combat instead as it will level to max without the need to put points into it. Our bullet rain can begin!
And apart from all that stuff she has grown up as a scientist-gone-adventurer. A mechanical genius meets Indiana Jones. A tough girl not afraid of dangerous experiments to reach her goals. As a mix of Marie Curie and the dangerous May Day.
Don’t mess with her. Until you want to be soaked. By a rain of bullets!
This is the final member of the cast, the mysterious number 6.
See you next time for the beginning of our journey and more – real – videos 🙂
Happy gaming,
Immanuel-Can
Who doesn’t want some music? Some use Spotify, some use Pandora, some use Apple Music or Google Play. We won’t. We shun all these wimps. We choose a bard: The prime difference being that what on earth can you kill with Spotify et al.? Nothing. What can you kill with a Wizardry 8 Bard? Quite some things! And you get her music for free.
Our Bard will also be a melee combatant, but with nice buffs and some area DPS at the beginning. Bards are getting quite nice items, that will help with their lower range of combat skills and weapons. And we will make use of the many instruments lying around practically everywhere in Wizardry 8.
Building the melee bard is practically doing the same thing we already did with Monk / Samurai / Valkyrie: Rising Strength > Speed > Dexterity > Vitality. But there is a difference this time. We are going to use a Lizard-Woman for the job. Why? We won’t ever need magic and Lizards have pretty sexy combat stats (very high Vitality and Strength) – so, no bonus points at the start. But pretty nice numbers all around:
We will have to get rid of the negative points first before we can put some points into the precious melee stats. But that’s no problem as our bard is built to fit nicely into a party where Conan would be just one of the guys, you know.
For skills, we are going to put points into Music, Communication and Artifacts. The good combat skills will have to be earned by practice and our nice attributes. Artifacts is pretty helpful for early identification of items, Music is the core skill of the Bard – his instruments – and communication will help massively with shop prices. Something that helps really much in the beginning. Less farming needed for more items. Go, my charming Iguanodon!
Iguanodon? You already knew that’s the guy from the featured image. They are rumored to having sung songs as one of the fewer dinosaur species. What a nice Lizard-Girl in the choir:
Kindly, I will leave for today. We will meet again soon though, presenting our 6th member of the infamous party.
Happy gaming!
Immanuel-Can
You could guess I only want a divine character as a healer. Or for the precious buffs. Resurrections. No – DPS is also great for the Valkyrie, especially to bridge the midgame. But also because she is specialized in Polearms. And there are some pretty good polearm weapons late in the game.
As with the previous melee characters (Monk and Samurai) our ability priority will be Strength (melee damage and armor penetration final skill) > Speed (number of attacks and initiative) > Dexterity (to hit and AC) > Vitality (hit points in melee are never bad).
You can always argue that Senses or Intelligence are listed under combat skills but they only make you learn the skills a little faster – their endgame final skills (unlocked after you reach 100 Senses or Intelligence) are pretty much useless for a melee character, so we are ignoring these on purpose.
So let’s make our girl strong, quick and dextrous – who wouldn’t want such a bodyguard girlfriend? (especially as a stereotypical nerd 😀 )
And she’s a dwarf, too. The damage resistance is always cool for a melee character and the piety won’t hurt for some nice extra heals (piety raises spellpoints and stamina).
Combat skills are pretty straightforward, too: Polearm and Close Combat. We won’t need more. For some ranged damage, if we really happen to get two Tripleshot Crossbows, we’ll put the rest of the points into them (Level 5 upwards these points will go into spellcasting).
Her name is gonna be Brunhilda after her famous namesake from the Nibelungenlied whose combat skills were so legendary that she could even wrestle with the uber-strong Dragon Slayer Siegfried.
Yes, another aggressive character. But what are you going to do in combat? Bake bread and pick flowers?
Better pick up some kills. Yes Madam. She won’t have a problem with that.
See you soon for party member 5! Happy gaming,
Immanuel-Can
After having built the core style components of our team (SHREDDER THEM!), let’s go to a class you definitely do want in your party. The ranger. He can scout automatically which is a big bonus and has high quality of life. I’d recommend the ranger to every new player’s party of Wizardry 8 just because you will not have to turn “Scouting” on and off. And even if you know the location of every hidden item it’s still really tedious if you don’t have a ranger.
So, take one. There’s no doubt: He’s useful. He can heal a bit, and teleport too in high levels. Can mix potions with his alchemy skill.
And he does tons of damage in the late game, and is still pretty OK early. If you build him right.
In order to achieve a non-balanced offensive ranger with high ranged damage, we are going to buy points in the following priority: Senses (for the final skill Eagle Eye, recommended for late game ranged damage) > Strength (for additional ranged damage and the eventual melee encounter) > Speed (for additional attacks) > Dexterity (for better to-hit and a quality of life Armor Class final skill later).
One of the best, if not the best ranger is a Mook: He has most bonus points, and is even one size category larger than the other choices, so he will have access to a nice late game sword: The Giant’s Sword, with extended range – furthering his DPS role even if the enemies come close.
The skill category is pretty straightforward: We want him to kill with ranged weapons – bows. A crossbow, and hopefully a tripleshot crossbow later will be our favored weapon. Additional points are spent for scouting, so we won’t miss items.
For his Gorillalike looks, I have baptised our furry ranger Silverback, in short: Silver. Whatever comes his way, he will drop them like flies.
Bonus points for recognizing the Statue up above I used as a featured image 🙂
Happy gaming! See you,
Immanuel-Can
