My Wizardry Class Review
Greenberg and Woodhead
Wizardry 1
Fighter - can be rolled up quickly, lack of requirements lets you have freedom to use bonus stats on things like Vitaliy and Luck. Lack of spell access doesn't matter when endgame levels are like 13-15
Mage - Mages are your oxygen meter. They spend most fights spamming parry to end their turn quickly but as soon as Man in Robes shows up, it's time for them to nuke on sight - waiting multiple rounds to find out whether its a Mage or Ninja is not acceptable. Later Mages allow you to teleport which turns the game upside down since now you can go as far as possible and leave instead of turning back as soon as your mages are half out of spells to handle the "way out" fights.
Cleric - Silence is actually pretty accurate in the wizardry series which is important with how ruthless enemy spellcasters are. Healing is obviously pseudo manadatory on 1 charather. Status condition cures are his biggest difficulty with the limited slots and how lethal each and every one of them is.
Thief - The poster child of mandatory deadweight - Playing with traps might not sound THAT bad if you are used to late 90s Renaisance RPGs, but your low HP charathers can be instant gibbed, the status oriented traps can probbably only be cured 2-3 times per dungeon visit (you'll have 6-8 slots at the very end of playthrough) and most dreaded of all, forgetting spells - It's a bit of an open secret that all trips to Floor 6+ have one cast of Malor hoarded for the express purpose of leaving and being forced to leave manually is the ultimate delayed death sentence.
Samurai - I think of it as a Mage that actually gets HP... it does learn spells slower, but Mages are getting 1 hit killed by enemy spellcasters on higher floors anyway, so as many times as you are angry at yourself for using them you are thankful.
Lord - Clerics can already wear armor and get high HP, but it does let them get attacks per round - if you could use wiz8 type formations they'd be great, but you often simply don't have open slots for them to actually use their upside. Also the low final level means... the wait till you learn cure poison/ressurect is PRETTY noticable. Best upside is that Clerics "mostly" use their magic for post-battle healing up so a Lord in theory makes better use of time than them.
Ninja - Will take a full hour to roll up... But outrageously godlike. 2 Attacks per round from level 1, 50% behead cap, The many bonuses that having all 17s gives you, AND there is no "Eastern" requirement on your equipment so they can roll around in full plate armor just like the other martials. Ninjas technically have thief abilities but I don't recomend this given the high lethality of traps. Taking a real thief on another charather in a party with a Ninja is hardly a weakness though.
Bishop - Horribly slow spellcaster due to the even odd mage/cleric progression. In Jap wizardies you are often encouraged to bring this dead weight along (similiar to the Thief in this game) because of not being allowed to sell unidentifed equipment... but thankfully we don't have that problem in the English originals.
Wizardry 2
This game requires the most leveling of the original games (19-23 final level) so Samurai and Lords are really well off. The other thing of note is the Knight of Diamond equipment, hopefully only one charather gets the full set, but there's almost no reason NOT to get your full frontline the first 1-2 pieces. So the martial class love might as well extend even to basic Fighters. Low HP backrow charathers are more prone to getting nuked by spells as well.
Wizardry 3
More or less back to he Wizardry 1 Standard since you finish this at lowish level again 12-14. Tries to encourage multiple parties with the Good Party / Evil Party locked areas, but hopefuly you just do good first and kill some friendly monsters. Features a decent amount of key items, but unlike Bradley games they can be "used" while unidentified, so you still don't need a Bishop. Samurai/Lord feel weaker than Wiz 2 due to lack of levels, but certainly aren't bad.
David W Bradley
Wizardry 5
Same Classes as Wiz 1-3 but you need a LOT of levels like in Wiz 2, so Samurai/Lord get a bonus for their long haul potential again. Ninjas have requirements lowered to half 15s half 16s, but now have to use katana/ninja robes only so they are held back a tiny bit compared to before. Both Theifs and Ninjas have a new hide mechanic that lets them attack from backrow, but isn't that important. Thieves also have the new utility of diving in pools of water.(You can do it with other classes if you enjoy 60% instant death) This is also the only game I ever use a Bishop in because it has a huge amount of key items that MUST be identified before use, cost a fortune if done in the town, and often even come in sets of 4 because of the "4 elemental" design of the dungeon.
Wizardry 6
Fighter - The easy class requirements means they no longer have a "time saving" niche over the hybirds anymore, arguably one of the worst classes. (equipment availbility is a bit of a saving grace that benefits Valkyrie and Lord just as much)
Mage - Now get half of the long-term buffs in the game. Their damaging magic is either the best per level, or 2MP more effiecent when damage is tied with other classes (important when realistically you are always powercasting spells at 4-6)
Cleric - Don't really heal better than the new Alchemist/Psionics... However they get the other half of the long ter buffs, and both silence and dispel undead are pretty accurate and valuable (even the first undead encountered tend to have on-hit paralyze/posion effects, so their ARE no trash undead). Banish Demon is a 1/10 crapshoot by comparison, but they've already paid for themself by the time you hit lategame. One other downside is Bradley demoting them to wearing Robes instead of Metal Armor, which annoys me.
Thief - kind of nice to start 1 charathar as because the initial skill points speed up the first 3~ areas, however thieveing skill points ACTUALLY work afer reclassing (in comparison to the Ninja thieving in Wiz 1-5) so you reclass off of them and never look back which is a huge relief if used to classic wizardry
Samurai - Eastern equipment requirement is a tiny hindrance since they don't get a midgame powerspike like FIghter/Valk/Lord but having the best spells makes up for it and endgame they're all basically equal at the top.
Lord - Meeting requirments is a little rough, so they have a bit of a "final reclass" stigma compared to Valkyrie, but they are FINE otherwise. Hugely benfit from Lower level cleric spells being the most important compared to classic wizardry.
Ninja - Critical Cap is now reduced to 20% (although additive above this with on-weapon crit) but you reach it at a lower level than classic wizardry since it's based on skill points instead of level X 2. Still a god, doesn't suffer from lack of equipment in early areas like Samurai despite what some people claim, because they can easily outdo the entire party unarmed in the first 3 major areas.
Bishop - Lets you keep stat minimums while reclassing, but otherwise worse than ever, since you can now identify through a specific identify spell, and thus ANY cleric can replace them outright, as well as reclassing making the "multiple spellbooks" gimmick irrelevant.
Alchemist - Blinding Flash basically fully crowd controls all melee opponets for 3/4 of the game, because it takes FOREVER for enemies to get resistance to "light" based status (seperate from the much more common fire resistance). Otherwise they lean toward cleric, with healing/status condition access. Poison/Deadly Poison ARE basically stronger than the Mage equivalent, but are so MP effiecent that even with multiclassing boosts you basically nuke a boss and then go minutes on empty, while the mage can take back to back normal fights almost freely.
Psionic - Absolutely insnae class requirement kind of puts them outside of the multiclass godhood zone the other spellcaster enjoy. It's basically you run a straight psionic the whole way through or nothing. The "majority of resistances for Fire/Cold are either 0,25,50,125% while for Psionic they are 0,25,75,125% which is a bit of a shame. Notable loss compared to the Mage is basically ALL "ghost" type enemies (skeleton undead usually are equally fire/psionic resistant). The Psions benefits are Priest style access to healing/status condition, Silence
Ranger - Basically an Alchemist with Hitpoints. Notable in being way easier to reclass into than other hybrids. Kind of unfairly itemized and worse than Spear users in the backrow in every way.
Monk - Basically a variant Ninja that doesn't get to loot optional fights to get +2/+3 main/side weapons 3/4 into the game. Up to that point they're basically equal though, and even without the powerspike they're still better than a lot of classes in endgame.
Valkyrie - The new fighter, Having 1 Valk for the Valk exclusive Spear and 2nd Valk for the Greatsword that is technically Fighter/Valk/Lord is basically strictly easier and better than going 1 Valk+1Fighter. Strong early, strong late... spells like Dispel Undead / Silence basically work better off of quantity of casts rather than quality of casts and have little downside being used by them (compare to how sad the Samurai's iceballs/nucluear blast are)
Bard - Carries earlygame like no other class can (even Ninja) with his infinite use sleep. Enemies quickly gain resistance to it even 1 area later but since he also gets mage spells (penalized but still better than Bishop/Samurai) and can fully replace a thief this hardly matters. His lategame instruments look bad on paper but at wiz 6's endgame levels a high cast fireball IS still useful.
Wiz 7
Bard gets way better lategame insturments, so he can be MVP earlygame and lategame now. Psionics gain Dazzling Lights, which is basically the most effiecent instant death spell since it cast at level 3 instead of the typical level 5+ of other classes. Samurai itemization is way less endgame biased. Shop placement makes Rangers not have to stay on tier 2 ammo only for 90% of the game. Cane of Corpus exists now. No major shifts in the best-to-worst classes from Wiz 6.
Romero
Wiz 8
Fighter -Buffed into gamebreaking Godhood. Stamina is now a serious problem for other martials, the always on double damage of berserk can only partially be equalled by others, and Fighter's are unholy tanky.
Mage - Still get half of the long-term buffs. Weaker damage than previous games,(especially lategame) but there are occasional low HP+high damage monsters like Tanto Wasps and their status effects are good.
Cleric - Get half of the long term buffs. Promoted to medium/leather armors (still worse than classic wiz but at least it's not Bradley robe only). Status prevention/curing is their main niche over direct healing. Can even do more damage with the better hammers/flails than other magic charathers can do with spells.
Thief - Now a Heavy hitting damage dealer (only fighter is better). Traps are a joke in wiz 8 and you don't REALLY need the firepower though.
Samurai - Itemization is worse than ever... and even with his best stuff you can't get outright multiplied damage like fighter/thief. Doesn't cripple you but he's become the Wiz 7 FIghter.
Lord - Regen is cute, but regen via accessories is easy to find in wiz 8 Don't get a +25 free skill to anything useful like Valkyrie does. If you consider Diamond Eyes to be his best weapon you CAN get it earlier than a lot of other people's best weapon Just don't think about what Diamond Eyes used by a Fighter would look like compared to him Low level silence/dispel undead niche not as nice as wiz 6-7 because undead practically don't exist anymore, and silence is irrelevant because enemy spellcaster damage is just as nerfed as your own.
Ninja - Critical Cap is now only 10% (on weapon hit is additive to slightly above this)... The MUCH longer duration of fights make the low HP per level that they've always had actually matter for once. Ninjas are still good despite it all, but nobody is going to say they're even top 5 in wiz 8, other than the specific Cane of Corpus Ninja(not a guaranteed drop/harder fight than endgame to begin with so its a victory lap weapon anyway)
Bishop - Can now pick from all 4 magic types, and being more fully skill based instead of a level+skill based helps... although I still get impatient with learning spells compared to normal magic casters
Alchemist - Blinding Flash now causes enemy to retreat and then come back, which is unholy annoying and I think most people will refuse to use it pretty quickly. Lose their overpowered poison/deadly poison from wiz 6-7. Can now make infinite money and wear medium/leather armor. Actually my favorite spellcaster in lategame because having multiple instant death spells and summon elemental works way better than trying to go through the bloated Rapax/Ascenion Peak HP pools. Even the Sling bonus is useful better specilaization than what Lord gets
Psionic - Damage wise is basically just as good as Mage now, Insanity/Fear immunity come up WAY more often than in Bradley's games, Has Status conditions that still work in lategame areas. Gets the healing and status curing part of Cleric(but not all the long term buffs).. Main downside is that Bard basically has access to their most useful spells.
Ranger - Ranger is either terrible or surprisingly good. It all comes down to whether you use the crappy arrows you find everywhere or stock up exclusively with tier 2-3 arrows in town, which is a lot less tedious than it sounds and can easily last like 15 hours before needing to come back.
Monk - Hurt by the critical cap reduction like the Ninja. Kinda discouraged from using because the best RPC (aka 7/8th party member) happens to be one so using one of your own charathers (1-6) as one is redundant. At the end of the day better than Samurai/Lord
Valkyrie - Wins the itemization jackpot even in a non-linear game (you can get tier 2 no matter which direction you go at the left to Trynton / Right to Umpani crossroad) Same for Lategame where you can get one from a common drop or just buy 1 from Bela. Having +25% polarm skill is useful early and late, the death prevention is useful (you do get heaviest armors and high HP per level anyway)
Bard - The Earlygame God continues this time with BOTH sleep and insanity. Almost replaces clerics for direct healing later. Gets medium/leather armor... Through the miracle of the easily obtained Bloodlust Sword and/or Triple Crossbow they can outdamage Samurai/Lord/Rangers at any stage of the game. Only weakness is that they need a magic charather to spam stamina spells on them.
Gadgeteer - Bard but without autowinning everything on Monastery/Arnika Road(most people you ask will say 70% of the game's difficulty). The Gadgets are kinda annoying on a blindplay compared to bard instruments since they are usually 1 piece in early game aerea + 2nd piece in lategame area. The status condition gadgets are mostly worse than status condition bard stuff, but the healing stuff is equally good (ala replace all magic healing). Like the Bard their unique stuff becomes an afterthought once Bloodlust/Triple Crossbow comes into play. Share the need for a magic charather to spam stamina spells on them.
TLDR
Hybird charathers only Great instead of good in Wiz 2,5,6,7 - Basic Charathers are better in 1,3,8. Hybirds in 1,2,3,5 should be used over your Front low slots only and not your backrow slots. Dark Savant Trilogy Bard is god for some reason that defies the logic of every D&D based CRPG.