Tag: Guide

#Wizardry8 #TLDR #Tactics 3: #King #Crab and his people :-)

TLDR-tactics-3-kingcrab

When the Monastery continues to spawn opponents, you will encounter higher level challenges and, wandering around, you will meet a first boss:

  • King Crab
    Be sure to have characters with lower than 15/20 hitpoints out of range of this extended range 105 hitpoints tough guy because he can kill them in one round if you’re unlucky. He is waiting for you behind a locked door after a long tunnel at the start of which you can find knock picks. He will be able to hit hard, even double digits sometimes.
    Extended range means if he is as close as possible to your party, he will be able to pass one tactical row to hit the guys in the back. In the example above, he is able to hit everyone in the party, because I moved as close as possible to allow for my effective melee fighters to hit.
    You can lull him to sleep with a bard’s lute from the start and if you get him close to the 30 hp range by melee attacks only, usually his stamina will be too low for him to keep attacking and he will fall unconscious at which point you can club him to death easily.
    Just be sure to unload your full offensive potential on him, and keep your weaklings far away, and you will be fine.
  • Noxious Slime
    The most common upgrade from the Green Slime, these monsters are now ranged opponents and have about 30 hp. They can even nauseate your guys if you’re unlucky.
    Nauseate will give a negative modifier to armor class and sometimes, the character won’t do anything in a round if he or she is nauseated (about 50%, depending on Vitality)
    Don’t waste your time trying to lull these to sleep: At high levels it might work, but just run at them and club them down. They’re pretty easy to hit and die quickly to melee damage.
  • Swarming Roach
    One first upgrade to the standard Roach or Bug, the Swarming Roach is usually numerous. He has the special ability to come in a swarm and to attack in a swarm – as in up to 4-5 of these guys will be able to attack you even if you encounter them in a close doorway.
    Make sure not to meet them in the open in large groups, and kill the small hp ones first (there will be single digit roaches among them). They can be mesmerized by the Bard’s lute or similar spells (Sleep et al.)
  • Seekers (up to Level 5)
    Two-legged reptiles being able to spit spittle at you with the same effects as the attacks from the noxious slime (mostly nauseating). They will attack in larger groups and can shoot over each other which makes them prime candidates to lure them around an edge so the majority of the group won’t see (nor attack) you.
    Unless you’re feeling lucky or confident, don’t just run at a larger group:
    Bring them to a position where you can fight them easily. You have to be patient though. They will camouflage easily, and may come split up in different groups, or surprise you, or even try to surround you in combat.
    They are among the harder opponents of the Monastery for low level characters, so just try to be careful. They’re not hard at all though if your level is sufficient and if you’re used to the tactics to kill them (as described above, but practice makes perfect!)

As you can see: As you level up in Wizardry 8, the opponents become trickier (and the text thus much longer, I hope you don’t mind :-))

Have fun gaming,

good hunting!

See you around,

Immanuel-Can

 

#Wizardry8 #Shredder #Speedrun #4 : We want 6!

…where we are in desperate need of opponents to level our girls up to 6! Who doesn’t want 6?

But when we find them, we’ll find plenty!
Tactics against many ranged opponents in enclosed areas – done easy 🙂

We also encounter a new type of opponents: Seekers – devious two-legged reptiles spitting dangerous spittle at us. And we even meet a party of them (6) which would be pretty dangerous if you’d face them head on. But we… see for yourself! (Or read soon).

Also: Me arguing with myself if it’s already time for Gregor K., the giant bug blocking our progress (it is not… yet!).

Have fun gaming,
see you!

Immanuel-Can

 

#Wizardry8 #TLDR #Tactics 2

Wandering through the Monastery at the start of the game, you will encounter some monsters, mostly harmless but sometimes only harmless if well-treated. And by well-treated I mean mistreated in a violent way.

Some of the very first monsters of our playthrough Videos 1 / 2 / 3 and the tactics to beat them – to give you a good start:

  • Softshell Crab
    Don’t let the party get surrounded by these guys. Quite strong at Level 1-2 (up to 30 hp and sometimes they’ll hit double digits) if you encounter a bunch of them. Go to an edge or flee into a doorway and let them come to you. Then kill them one by one. Some immunity to water spells, like all crabs (Frost etc.).
  • Green Slime
    Probably the most harmless encounter level 1-2. Hitpoints up to 20. Doesn’t hit double digits and pure melee – so try to get them one by one, but low priority target when you encounter multiple different mobs. Some immunity to mental spells, as all slimes (Sleep etc.).
  • Rat
    Very low hitpoints but solid damage. Quite a multitude of them can fit into the middle attack area, so try to kill them fast. High damage per hitpoint, so potentially high priority targets in a mixed encounter. Vulnerable to mental spells (Sleep etc.). Don’t let yourself get surrounded, if possible. Quick.
  • Bat
    Low hitpoints / solid damage. Same as rats, but some immunity to air spells. Vulnerable to mental spells (Sleep etc.). Don’t let yourself get surrounded, if possible. Quick.

Hit them often hit them hard and have fun doing it 😀

See you next time with a Video – happy gaming

Immanuel-Can

#Wizardry8 #Shredder #Speedrun 3

…where the party meets many crabs, bugs and the Mini-Boss “King Crab” and disposes of them in a non-pacifist way.

Adding some tactical finesse and leveling up the girls (+guy).

Discussing item upgrades and who gets which items in our party.

Have fun watching,

Happy Gaming & see you soon!

Immanuel-Can

P.S. Thanks to Wikimedia User Ianare Sevi for the featured Image Crab Picture

#Wizardry8 #TLDR #Tactics 1

In the 2nd Video we learned three things:

You will massively improve the combat abilities of your party if you

  1. Attack the opponent with the lowest hitpoints first (if all opponents are similar)
  2. Maneuver your party into edges or doorways to make the opponents come to you one by one.
  3. Distribute items like healing pots to the people who will most likely need them in the coming combats.

Also, a good start for an optimal tactical structure is this:

tldr1-tactics

Key elements of these tactics:

  • leave the front row open
  • put your melee fighters in the left / middle / right places with the most sturdy ones left and right as they are most exposed
  • put people with long range melee weapons in the middle, as they can attack left / right and middle then – short range melee weapon wielders would only be able to attack the middle then
  • put your sturdy short range melee guys left / right, so they can at least attack on one side + at the middle
  • put your more fragile characters like mages, rangers, or a gadgeteer in the back

See you soon with another video, happy gaming to you!

Immanuel-Can

#Wizardry8 #Playthrough #Video 2: The #Monastery

…where the party experiences a massive slaughtering of lots of rats, bats and slimes in the lower parts of the Monastery (and avoids getting slaughtered – yet) and all of the girls (and the guy) gain massive experience (and thus level up).

Also: A live introduction to basic Wizardry 8 tactics.

It might need some time still as YouTube Servers seem to not react quickly atm. Some re-production will also be done later because of that delay.

Have fun and hopefully see you around!
If you have any suggestions for me to try or to explain – write a comment anywhere on the Thoughtful Gaming pages.

Immanuel-Can

 

 

#Wizardry8 #Gadgeteer : Bullet rain and strange inventions

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.

gadgeteer-hobbit

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!

gadgeteer-combatskills

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.

gadgeteer-character

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

#Wizardry8 – building our #Bard : the day the music(ian) killed

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:

bard-lizardman

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!

bard-combatskills

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:

bard-character

Kindly, I will leave for today. We will meet again soon though, presenting our 6th member of the infamous party.

Happy gaming!

Immanuel-Can

Skyrocketing #Wizardry8 #DPS with a #Dwarven #Valkyrie !

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 😀 )

valkyrie-dwarf

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).

valkyrie-combatskills

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?

valkyrie-character

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

#Wizardry8 : Building an effective #DPS #Ranger

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.

ranger-mook

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.

ranger-combatskills

For his Gorillalike looks, I have baptised our furry ranger Silverback, in short: Silver. Whatever comes his way, he will drop them like flies.

ranger-character

Bonus points for recognizing the Statue up above I used as a featured image 🙂

Happy gaming! See you,

Immanuel-Can

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