Hi everybody!
I just bought Xulima and wanted to ask you what kind of party you choose? I have to admit to be unsure about my own selection. I'm playing with Gaulen/Arcane Soldier/Soldier/Mage/Cleric/Thief at the moment, mainly to have enough "specialists" in my party. I also tried the Divine Summoner once, but I'm not sure if I want to keep him.
Is the bard a must for the game? And do you prefer Soldier or Barbarian?
I'm happy to hear your thoughts,
Cheers!

Well, I just started the game myself and just created my first party. It consists of a Barbarian, Soldier, Summoner, Cleric, and Mage. Does anyone else with more experience in this game have any imput?

There's some very good guides over on Steam, that haven't made their way to GameFaqs or here (yet).

My party is up to level 25-ish now, and it consists of the explorer, a paladin, and a soldier on the front line (in that order, so that the paladin's auras affect everyone), and three mages on the back line.

Because I have three mages, I've experimented with different combat spells. The most useful so far have been these; they are worth getting to level five:

- Earth Arrow (cheap, reliable damage, unlike Sparks can hit back line units)
- Blizzard (lowish damage but hits everything, can freeze, very efficient against large enemy parties, especially the army parties)
- Lightning (lots of single-target damage, stuns)
- Meteor (heaviest single-target spell yet)

Flames (hits two units in a column) and Fireball (hits three units in a row) are somewhat useful, but if I did it again, I probably wouldn't invest in them; they're a little too specialized. Icy Shards, Icy Touch, and Shocking Touch didn't seem that useful, either. Shocking Touch's stun has occasionally let me slow down an enemy long enough for another unit to finish it, but I'd prefer to use Lightning if I have the power points.

I haven't tried Hammer of the Destroyer; Meteor just seems better all around. I also haven't tried the utility spells for generating light, putting out flames and poison clouds, or melting ice; just doing damage seems to be effective so far, and I don't have spare skill points. I'm curious about the generating gold from loot spell, but it costs a lot of skill points.

The paladin's divine attack spell was worth waiting for, by the way; it's a solid attack, always hits, goes against divine resistance, and does tremendous damage to undead.

That's an insteresting feedback about spells, thank you. I pretty much have the same experience.
Earth Arrow > Sparks (wasted points here). In general earth spells are good because most bosses have elemental resistance.
Blizzard is so convenient. I hated the wasps so much until I got this.
I still like Flames - useful against back row archers or mages. Not a must have, but I felt ike I needed a DoT at this point, and it does the trick.
I recommand you buy at least the Destroy flames spell, some areas have plenty of flames and it's really annoying to get damages like that. You ca keep it at lvl 1, so it's quite cheap actually. I never bought the Gold spell either. I have mercantilism which gives more gold. Andeven without it, it's not like you have to give up loot if you can't carry it, just deal with the malus until your next trip to town. Was never a problem to me.

But the real question is : how are you surviving without a cleric ? oO
I had to heal a lot for any difficult fight. And even not so difficult ones. And the Cleanse Disease I got at level 24 saved me thousands of gold. Pally has it at lvl 40 I think. And I don't talk abou the Cure Curse later on ? Pally doesn't even have this. I feel ike you went for the difficult mode without one...

The theory is that you kill the enemy before he can inflict serious damage. Has mostly worked so far. :)

Also, the Paladin has a nice Aura of Healing which I use occasionally in a big fight. Every now and then I do get in a boss fight where I have to break out potions/scrolls, but that's been rare.

Haven't been cursed much yet; maybe I'll regret not being able to clear that myself later, though. Disease has been rare, too (is that the same as sick?).

I did finally pick up the flame-clearing spell, by the way.

About the diseases (= sickness), here's how it looked on my front row just before I got the spell to clean my team (lvl 24). Crippling. And expensive to cure. THAT is a good enough reason for me to recommand everybody go with a Ceric...

But if you say it's doable, then congrats ! Give us some feedback later, I'm curious to see how it goes.

Ouch! Where did you get hit with all that? Most of those I haven't seen yet.

Yotem's horn is supposed to cure sick. I saved a couple of them and sold the rest (not counting the Yotem horn quest)... Maybe I should have saved more....

I'm running with a very different party (Explorer/Paladin/Cleric front, Mage/Thief/Summoner back), currently at L22, and I found a different spell distribution worked better for me. I kept Earth Arrow low (to keep the point cost down, so I can fall back on it when PP runs a bit low) but agree it's very useful all-around. One Earth Arrow=1 dead Poison Wasp, no misses. :) Meteor is also great but has high PP costs; with only one mage, this is a real consideration.

Blizzard is sometimes useful, but my Arcane Summoner specializes in summoning Nalaet's Herald for heals and Taliet's Herald for extra range and cold spells, so I mostly let the herald take care of Blizzard for me. I found that Icy Shards is actually quite useful for me with high-hit-point opponents, because stacking the every-round bleed damage off of that and the Thief's shurikens adds up quickly to shorten fights, and I have a more squishy party.

Sparks and Flames: I used Sparks until I got Flames, and then maxed Flames out. Early on, not much is really resistant to fire except Fire Archers. Flames was spectacular against large Askary parties in the early going, and the best damage against the mobile trees. I agree that Fireball doesn't feel as effective, partly because you're hitting more resistant enemies by the time you get it.

I haven't found a need for the light spell, either, but one point into End of Flames is worth it for convenience, as Gabby2 mentioned.

Most of the spells seem useful; I think the bigger consideration is picking which ones to try to max out and sticking to the plan. Only being allowed to add one point to any skill per level is one of the most difficult parts of the whole game IMO.

I hadn't considered using Flames as a single-target spell; nice. I can see where bleeding from Icy Shards would help in certain situations, too.

I agree that only getting to put one point into a skill every level up makes things interesting. :)

One aspect of my party I hadn't mentioned is that the Paladin and Soldier are mace/hammer specialists. With that plus Lightning from two mages, we do a lot of stun, and most enemy parties get few, if any, attacks. Stun-locking is good. :)

We're up to level 30-ish now; still doing well. I haven't gotten past the three-demon party blocking the way north (I think) in the firelands, and my soldier isn't strong enough yet to take on the Arena Champion, but she took out most of the other contestants (the last few were really hard, but stun-locking did the job).

Everything else lately has been straightforward. The problem for me at the moment is figuring out the Tower of Time door puzzle. :)

Oh, and Thunderstorm is a good spell. Three heavy lightning hits with added stun. I'm thinking I'll get it on a couple mages.

As it happens, I finished the Tower of Time door puzzle last night at L23. (I moved on to there after deciding that the fire-pit region was still a bit beyond me, and I needed another level or two before I could get those last Yotums guarding the westernmost temple). So far I've found the monsters around Varaskel much easier, except for the tomb boss.

The statue puzzle is the most time-consuming part of the whole Tower, mostly because the clues and the statue descriptions conflict with each other a little. The Tower itself was no big deal.

I'm impressed you've got Gaulen as DPS. :) He's been little more than a meat shield for me, since I've put most of his points into utility skills (gotta get that herb-gathering skill maxed! :).

I've been curious about the Bard; thanks for the description. I like that there are lots of ways to win. :)

Right now I'm not sure I found all the clues; there are more statues than the clues I have would suggest.

My party is now level 52-ish. I still have one prince and (I think) three titans to kill, and I think four or five temples left to do. Still need to finish clearing the firelands.

My current analysis:

- Lightning and Thunderstorm are the most useful mid-to-late game spells, due to good damage and stun at a reasonable mana price point. Lords of Thunder is impressive, but too expensive at level five (200PP!). I haven't tried the ice meteor spell for this reason. It's scary when the demons use it on me, but there's no way to sustain the spell in a long fight.
- Frostball at level one is an exceedingly useful spell against the toughest demon parties. At level five, it's too expensive to be sustainable (and I regret doing that on one mage). It won't affect the blue demon mage, but in my experience, the nastiest are the heaviest melee demons, and this reliably freezes them. Three mages with Frostball can mostly keep them from attacking while my front line damages them.
- Meteor is still a good backup for enemies that have high elemental resistance. The Meteor Shower spell was interesting, but Thunderstorm has just been better (stunning is better than wounding against most enemies).
- The Paladin's mass elemental resistance, mass divine armor, and aura of protection have been useful against the heavy demon parties.
- I tried the power absorption spell, but it doesn't ever seem to run enemy mages dry. A potion is a more useful way to get back significant mana (I needed the 200 potions in the big fights; you just don't get enough from the spell). Big elixers are good, too.
- The most important attribute is Speed, by far. You get a lot more turns in a fight, and that makes a huge difference (not to mention the evasion and initiative). In every level up I'd recommend using one of the two points on speed.
- Constitution is the second most important stat for a mage, more important than Energy. A mage needs to be able to take big hits and survive long enough to take a potion. Three hundred hit points has been enough so far.
- If the enemy can't attack you, you don't have to worry about diseases or curses. So far the really big enemies don't seem to do those kinds of attacks (with the exception of the heavy melee demons, but they can be frozen/stunned).
- I gave all the resistance bonuses from herbs to the mages, on the theory that they don't have as many hit points, so they needed the protection more than the front line guys (who are at six hundred hit points).

My party was able to destroy the Fire Titan while mostly denying him the ability to attack (I think he got in four or five shots). Actually, the Titan was easier for me than the demon party guarding the fire lake. (It's a lot easier to stun-lock a single target.)

My party was similar to Roccandil's, and it worked VERY well. Basically, pretty much any reasonable party will work in the late game, from what I understand, so actually a lot of the variance in parties is how they do at the beginning.

(I finished with the party I will describe on ironman hardcore.)

And mages are BY FAR the best in the early game. At lvl 5 or 6 They do 30 dam and hit every time, while any other char does around 8 damage and misses on avg around 1/4 of the time, which is plenty. One of the hardest things in the game is when you get attacked at low levels by hounds, like at lvl 5 you can get attacked by 2 young cursed hounds.

With 3 mages, you can crush hounds from lvl 3 onward, which is very satisfying. All other fights are not that bad, because you can mostly choose when to do them, between choosing which areas to explore and also with the camo skill (which I basically never use and don't put skill points in, but it is there if you need it).

You mostly only need to max 3 spells for your mages, plus it is very nice to have energy absorption. You can pick up some other spells that those 3, but once you know what the base is, it is easier to pick and choose others as you wish.

Those 3 spells are stone arrow (instead of sparks, the mis-named flame spell, heh), blizzard, and hammer of the destroyer (not meteor). By far the most common spell is Hammer. They key is wounds, not damage. Meteor does the same wounds but more damage for FAR more mana. Mages aren't really there to do damage after stone arrow becomes obsolete.

By focusing on Hammer, your mages actually don't run out of mana. Later in the game, they will be not as strong as your melee guys, but they will totally be fine.

Energy absorb helps give them something to do, and for some enemies that can cure wounds, it lets you drain them totally, like Earth Guardians and some Guardians of Yul and one or two of the titans.

Blizzard is great for some mid-game fights, such as most cursed hound fights, and fights against Khornil's elite guards that you don't need to fight, but that give you tons of experience and gold if you do (and with mages, you can).

You can put 1 point into mass lightning, normal lightning, frostball, a couple of points into brittle armor, but none of that matters too much.

Then I had Gaulen on the left, Barbarian in the middle, Thief with sword on right. Axe for Gaulen, Mace then hammer then Flail for Barb, short sword then claymore then katana at the very end for Thief.

Max learning immediately, nearly max shurikens, keep lockpick and traps at about 3/4 level, do perception with one mage and item identification with another mage. Around when you finish learning, build up immunity. Give mages some armor skill, enough to use light heavy armor (don't ask), a second point in daggers for initiative daggers.

Max herbology and dont pick herbs until then, of course. Ignore exploration. Eventually I took a point of hunting because I found 2 skill books, but you don't need it. Put a few points into envenomed and quick strike, ignore aimed strike. Max those when you are able, but no rush. Max rage after you finish with learning, take some tactics and weapons master but you don't need to try to maximize. I maxed meditation from early on for mages, which was probably correct.

Mages, always and only take con and speed. Melees, always speed, and maybe about half and half agility and str, using your judgement (such as if you want Gaulen to qualify for a big axe, he needs more str, whereas Flails for the barb take a balance with slightly more agility).

Of course, you can do something totally different and make a totally different party, but at least this gives you a sense of something that definitely works from start to finish and is quite fun and satisfying.

Oh, I should have explained, at a certain point, a particular enemy hits a threshold of wounds where it can no longer ever hit you. Before that, it goes through a period where it mostly misses and if it hits, does less dam. Plus it also gets hit easier, and then it hit automatically. With this party, you can get to that wound threshold very reliably. And yet if you hit an enemy that you need to bleed out, you have your thief. And having your barb to stun works great for controlling the pace of various enemies.

This party has great power just when you most need it, around lvl 5 and 6. It is very strong through the 20's and lets you fight both optional hordes of human guards. And it has versatility always. And you will be totally fine with no cleric. Just don't sell your lizard eggs...