SkeleTony said:
HAHA...you will find out differently. Guardian Angel has very limited use and later in the game it is so useless that casting it to protect against the monsters you will face woul;d be a serious waste of an action.
I have to disagree. Guardian angel also prevents your character from being KO'd, paralyzed, sleeped, and other things from physical attacks. During higher levels when you're facing opponents that have dibilitating physical attacks, I use guardian angel to keep my tanks concious and fighting though, you're right it doesn't last long against high level opponents. It doesn't affect spells, so you can still be paralyzed by a spell thrown at you but can't be paralyzed by a creature with a paralyze attack while it's up.
For rangers, I thought they'd be useful, I found they weren't. Their ability to find hidden items while running would be good if there were any worthy items to be found. You usually find bullets, and the places any hidden items of significance can be found are usually in obvious places. Like, around desks, boxes, in offices/guard rooms and bookshelves have detect secrets up and walk with your party and low and behold you'll find any note worthy hidden items without the need of a ranger.
The gadgeteer I don't like either. They can't cast portals, their stamina drains like there's no tomorrow, some battles just seemed like I was constantly having a Bishop cast stamina on the gadgeteer every couple rounds when the Bishop would be better off casting other things. Also, my gadgeteer shined only at the end of the game. I felt like they slowed me down for 90% of the game, and finally accelerated the other 10%. Most of the game I was beating myself for having picked it.
As for Alchemist vs. Mage, my vote is the Alchemist. They can mix potions & bombs you sell for insane profit and they have healing spells, and many of the mage & alchemist spells overlap, plus an alchemist can cast spells while silenced. To me, that gives them the edge but they lack freezing type spells the mage has. I personally feel the Bishop is the most powerful magic class, and I like hybrid melee better than pure just because I find them more fun. My favorites being the Monk and Samurai. Monks also get I think 12 attacks/round at high levels each having the chance to critical kill or KO your opponent, they get damage reduction, opponents often choose not to attack the monk (presumably they can't see them with a high stealth and choose instead to "defend"), and monks can heal, portal, and cast insanity but can't summon an elemental or wear the crazy good eq in the game. The Samurai can wear some crazy EQ in the game, they have access to portal as well and a slew of freeze spells, and can cast summon elemental (very powerful). But, don't have access to stealth nor can heal. My next favorites are the Valkyrie, polearm is useful for its extended range and being able to come back from the dead fully healed to fight fresh is awesome and also the ninja. Ninjas have stealth, summon elemental, can mix potions for $, and can heal themselves and critical so I should like them better than a Samurai but I don't.
I personally always play with 2 elf bishops (I always had to resurrect faerie bishops because they can't wear hardly anything and always die). Followed by 4 of the same class of hybrids, I don't like to mix & match. I'm currently playing 4 monks and 2 bishops another game is 4 samurai and 2 bishops, my last is 4 Ninja and 2 bishops. With the monks I wanted to see what 48 attacks/round each having the chance to critical or KO is like. With the 4 Samurai I wanted to see what it's like with 6 elementals, 6 freeze spells/round, and being able to wear the best EQ and use lightning strike & critical to see what how it goes. The 4 ninja + 2 bishops I want to see if the ninja stealth is better than the armor a Samurai can wear or if the enemy will choose to go after elementals instead of the stealthed Ninja, also Ninja's can cast spells while silenced. As you can see, replayability is pretty high. There's really no winners or losers, there's only proper or improper character development. When you play, if you pick 2 bishops like I always do make sure they're added first in the top two positions. Those spots "move first", so if you want to bless your party and cast itching skin on the enemy with your bishops in that place they will cast those spells first and then your melee characters get a chance to swing having been pumped and your opponents dibilitated. With them added last and on the bottom, your melee players swing first unpumped and opponents non-dibilitated and then your bishops cast their bless & itching skin after the fact. Anyway, that's my $0.02