Here is my long-ass post on gog.com when I completed MM2 for the first time, only a year ago, before I joined rpgcodex
My party was created from scratch. Used the 6 old default classes, plus 2 hirelings of the new classes (Barb and Ninja.).
The hires were not that expensive, and since they didn't need spell points I only needed to pay them when I needed to rest in a wild area outside of a city, or inside a dungeon... otherwise I dismiss them to the inn. Healing them in temple is free.
The hirelings level far slower than regular characters. My regular were Lv75, but they finished the game at Lv59.
They cap their fee at 50000 gold, and once you're really powerful, 50K is pocket change.
I first tentatively "completed" the Square Lake dungeon at level 50,but since I thought I needed to defeat the 66 devil kings, I fought them and had to escape. So, I grinded up to Lev 75. Grinding to lv75 was actually quite fast (ancient dragon and Cat from Hell work best), it was enchanting all my equipment to level 28 that was a bore.
- To beat the (optional!) 66 devil kings, I used 1 max HP potion for each char, and 1 skill potion for each char (2 for my hirelings)
Once in battle, Power Shield, multiple castings of Heroism, and Holy bonus (200+).
My characters all had good AC so they traded places a lot , so once they all lowered to very low HP, and about half the devils were killed, my cleric cast Divine Intervention. Only works once per fight.
My Sorcerer was useless after he cast Power Shield, devil kings resisted all my offensive spells, so he ended up in the front row many times.
I barely made it through, I was out of MP and all chars were very low HP at the end of the fight. WHEW!
Power Shield = best spell in the game. Reduces ALL DAMAGE, of any kind, by half.
--------My random observations-----
- That one Jester character that gives you HP according to your endurance was done ASAP, ... yes you need 1 million on each character, but he didn't actually take the money. Didn't work on hirelings since they don't carry gold.
- That one time 1000HP from Dragon Dominion was a must, of course. The Ancient Dragon was a complete pushover with the help of Power Shield and my enchanted silver armor/helms/shields. My sorcerer was lucky to have found an Energy Whip for energy protection.
- Don't waste your time with the meager HP bonuses of the various castles that exclude races... use the one in Dragon Dominion that gives 25HP one time per dungeon visit instead, no restrictions on moon phases/races! The only required fight is one lone armored dragon and he ain't that tough.
- Unless you wanna beat the game on year 1, don't waste too much time with the hard to reach +10 stat boosts of the various dungeons that limit to 59... wait instead for day 140 to abuse the Circus, since it goes up to 100, no fights whatsoever, only need teleport and lloyd's beacon (that you place right at the well). Fly to B2, Fly to D3, 2 teleports to old man, lloyd beacon to E3's well, rinse and repeat.
Then, the next year, the way to go about it smartly is to use stat trades wells (+3 / -5) in castles repeatedly RIGHT BEFORE day 140, then use the circus again to quickly raise those lowered stats back to 100. Easy, effective.
Speaking of castle stat trades wells: they can be used as many times as you want per visit, no need to even leave the castle. Don't be greedy though, end game equipment can already boost many stats by 50+ points.
- Archers seem to have an innate, undocumented, hidden damage bonus with bows. She always outdamaged my Knight (when he was in the back row) and they both had Ancient Bows, even though the knight gets more attacks per round!
- Ninja's special attack, "critical", seems to works identically to the thief's "backstab", except it's 4x damage instead of 2x. It does not "assassinate" ie instant death. It works more than one time per fight, not necessarily at the first attack like the manual says. Still, 2000 dmg on a devil king was nice.
- Around level 30, there ceased to be any exp requirement difference between the Knight/Cleric/Thief and Paladin/Archer/Sorcerer. The real level gap developing was between my 6 chars and the hirelings.
Thanks for reading. I had fun!
