Samurai only useful for providing Wizardry school Buff spells in Wiz8.
Gadgeteer's gadgets get VERY good later on, but they definitely aren't great early on. Give them good ammo and use them as status ailments delivery service
Fighters don't need any additional abilities when they are able to dish out 400+ damage in a single turn. Other classed can do their job, but when it comes to killin' a fighter's efficiency is unmatched.The fighter starts off good, but becomes MEH as the other classes kind of move into their own growth spurts. The fighter just stays the same mostly in what he can and cannot do. Kind of a bummer really. Would have been great for the fighter to get some additional abilities.
They are boring, but they do the ultimate damage as far as my wiz8 experience go. Especially a lizardman fighter, who gets his strength and endurance to 100 at level 7/8. Though i don't know how he holds up to rogue. Relatively recently i played a solo rogue and he became fucking invincible somewhere about level 12-15. while hitting hard criticals on dual wield with 2 attacks and 2 swings with both hands, even better later with 3.Yeah, but fighters are ultimately a Meh class. Boring.
if your curious enough to invest time in to those early versions
{and the computer set-up sometimes required}
you could vicariously experience these via CRPG Addict's blog
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http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-5-wizardry-proving-grounds-of-mad.html
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He does pretty good job of illustrating what these games were like.
I crossed quite a few early games off my to-play one-day list due to his write ups {Added a few to re-play or blind-play too}
Huge time saver - but possible spoilers if your on the fence about a particular game.
I recently started playing Wiz8 for the first time. I avoided Wizardry games before because I wanted to finish JA2 first since I tried to get into it 3 times. JA2 is a good game but fighting soldiers, capturing cities, training militia, resting, ordering stuff online, carrying stuff over and over again gets repetitive with nothing to make it less bland besides fighting worms and tigers.
I rolled a Drake fighter, a Felpur samurai, a human priestess, a human gadgeteer, a Mook psionic and a Faerie mage. So far the drake is just great, he has high damage (especially when berserking) and his breath attack makes it easier to deal with groups, priestess is a rather meh first-line warrior but her spells and especially the prayer ability (free spell) are very useful, mage is nuking hard like she should. I have my doubts about psionic, right now he provided some support with his debuffs but is generally inferior to the mage, I took him mostly because I had nobody with high senses and psionics rely on senses, he also provides support with mythology and communication since they they rely on senses and inteligence and are his class abilities. Gadgeteer is meh, he provides ranges support and deals with locks but I didn't find anything that would let his engineering ability shine, I'm still in the monastery though. Now, there is Samurai. I took him mostly because it's exotic to have samurai in traditional wRPG. He's basically useless. Everything he does is standing in front row taking damage, ant dealing mediocre (compared to fighter's) damage, he didn't use his trademark lightning strike even once. Does he get better after getting spells or later? I'm thinking about starting the game with some other caster-hybrid. I'm paricularly interested with a Dwarf monk, the manual advertised him as being a great tank due to combining both dwarf's and monk's defence bonuses. Is it worth it?
Dracon Rogue with Bloodlust + Thieves Dagger.Rogues are nuts with Bloodlust (whatever the Always Berserk Sword was called) because it lets them stack Berserk bonus damage + "Backstab" damage
Bwuh? Level scaling, man.Btw, did anyone tried to enter Arnika with low level party and try to kill the 20 or smth level savant minions that spawn there?
I think 6 would be hard on my eyes, but 7 looks quite gorgeous (apart from close up portraits with tiles).I would really want to play old wiz games, but can't get past the grafixx that are too dated even for me. I can bear with any isometric game no matter how ugly, but having only colored squares and numbers on screen is too much. :graphicwhore: :imershun:
Uh..? Have you never experienced this? After i found out that mobs level scale in wiz8 i was usually trying to pass the route from monastery to arnika with maximally low lever party as i knew that monsters would spawn according to my level, which means a lot of trouble if you have aprox level 8 party at that point (which you usually have).Bwuh? Level scaling, man.
I fuckin love Wizardry.
And you know what, I don't care how good the old games are, my fav is still 8 because it was the first one I played.
I would really want to play old wiz games, but can't get past the grafixx that are too dated even for me. I can bear with any isometric game no matter how ugly, but having only colored squares and numbers on screen is too much. :graphicwhore: :imershun:
The PSX versions have PC ports, and there are language fan patches for both. I didn't play any of the games to completion that way but dicked around with them, and IMO it's the best way to play the game now. All of the modern stuff (new graphics, automap, etc) is modular so you can play as close to the original as you want, or add some of the new features. IIRC the gameplay and design is identical to original Apple and to DOS, except the stat reductions are I think more reasonable.As mentionned earlier in the thread, try the PSX remakes. If you want to play Wizardry 1 to 5, it's either the Ultimate Wizardry Archives versions for the original feel or the PSX remakes for a modern update.