My Dracon Bard was an insane damage dealer with Bloodlust (Dracon, duh!) and was great with the instruments too.
TBH I consider Dracon bards/gadgeteers to be a bit of waste of special ability (not questioning their general power).
Now, Dracon rogue with Bloodlust (backstab and berserk stack, and there is ini bonus, swd bonus and extra swing), Thieves Dagger and focus on damage, with breath attack backed up by thrown bombs as means of ranged attack and crowd control can become rather brutal.
Fortunately I do a back-up save of the game everytime I quit (yeah I'm a fag)
Well, you do have to admit it isn't quite the regular ironman experience if you rely on backup when beaten legitimately (as opposed to falling through faulty geometry and crushing yourself or getting launched into the air by faulty collision and landing in the middle of a group you'd rather avoid).
I always find the bard class pretty boring when compared to gadgeteer. Yes, it is extremely useful, but somehow putting the gadgets together and upgrading omnigun with all the status-inflicting abilities wins it for me. Also the high-level armorplate you can get pretty early on is awesome.
I think gadgeteer and bard classes are simply very different despite their superficial similarity.
Bards are very flexible - yes, their main role is playing instruments, but other than that they can be party's locksmiths, pickpockets, ranged combatants or close combat specialists, first or second liners and excel at any of those roles.
Gadgeteers, OTOH are very focused - they are their gadgets first and omnigun second. You won't put them on the first line (unless you badly need yet another meatshield), you won't give them any cursed weapon, they are generally stuck in their role. The only decision you make with gadgeteer is whether they will be party's locksmith or not.
The only problem with gadgeteers is gadget distribution - Bard starts with Poet's Lute, which isn't bad if used wisely and not in conjunction with AoE or ranged attacks and possibly a weapon. Gadgeteer starts with
ugly paperweight omnigun Mk.1, and bag of stones that aren't even equipped. Yay.
By the middle of Road to Arnika your bard will have three instruments and will likely be party's prominent, if not outright primary buffer, AoE damage person and crowd disabler in addition to becoming semi-proficient with ranged or melee weapon of choice. At the same point your gadgeteer will have some shitty early model of omnigun and lightning rod.
Gadgeteer generally won't become truly useful before Trynton (Lava Lamp), by which time your bard will be able inflict mass slowness and insanity in addition to his AoE, buffs, and mass sleep.
Also it would be cool if there was some more recipes, especially mutually exclusive ones (more gadgets using item only obtainable once) and recipes for items usable by other party members (as it already works with multishot crossbows), maybe even make some gadgets weapons (microwave blaster). There are also items already in game that would work better as gadgets, especially if you had to assemble them first (flamethrower anyone?).
Finally, it would be neat if Gadgeteer randomly produced small quantites of ammo for one of the modern weapons equipped by party members.
This is just about my first blobber, and maybe that's the thing. Without getting into which is 'better' overall, in terms of tactical options, and feeling like I need to consider various different abilities I can use, etc., I think IE games do a very good job; then there's games like King's Bounty / HOMM / Age of Wonders, Knights of the Chalice, etc. So that's the kind of stuff I'm comparing it to, which maybe isn't fair, but as far as I can see the main point of Wizardry 8 is combat, so...
I find these comparisons pretty strange, none of the games you mention stand out in the tactics department that much, with the notable exception of KotC. Perhaps it stems from the fact that you did not meet the more murderous, status-inflicting enemies yet. When it comes to blobbers, I think only Etrian Odyssey games compare to Wizardry when it comes to tactical fights with builds/skills/items to consider.
Also this.
While don't find Wiz8 all that tactical, it certainly requires more thought in this regard than most RPGs. Also, playing it on ironman, where you have to manage fights gone sour and their consequences certainly adds to tactics.
Wizardries are just... well, endearing. The more you play them, the more they grow on you. Six different party members with their voice "personalities" that slowly improve in their skills, and you see them grow from measly newbies to munchkin powerhouses.
This. This is the main allure of Wiz8 for me apart from making your party, then butchering shit with it.
Wiz8 won't improve drastically since Arnika, I'd say gameplay quality stays even until the end with some fun spikes
Gameplay maybe, but Arnika is definitely not the most interesting location in game. It's pretty typical human town, while many other locations are, well, pretty wild and diverse.
Why pseudo?
) , then pound the body of stoned wizards without dying too much myself.
