Hi all,

I'm in need of some inspiration from the creative among you, veterans especially!

My current party has made it to the teens, but I'm finding that there are some choices I've made and mistakes. In short, not enjoying the group very much.

I'd love suggestions from people on what to make for my next party! I'm not selective, here. I'll try any option, any idea! I'd appreciate if you would include the race, class, and EX skill choice for each of your suggested party members, if you're interested in helping me out. :)

No doubt, I will end up choosing one (or more) of your suggestions. I'm even thinking of using the party/parties for a series of Let's Play videos! Physically disabled and stuck in my room, so it's something to do.

Remember, I'm not averse to classes which are usually less chosen than others. Effective parties are cool, parties you like for other reasons are cool. If your party functions well because you use some special combination of abilities or other tricks, though, please share that!

Thanks a lot. I've been wracking my brain over what to choose, and finally, I've given up in favor of seeking advice. :D

Here are a few ideas to try:

1. A Servant. I would really like to hear people's opinion on the class, but it seems that nobody uses one.

2. A Fairy Brawler. Once you beat the first few dungeons and the game starts to become less linear, there is a quest (involving the dungeon with the big hole) whose reward is a weapon that would be *really* nice for this particular class combination. Also, Fairy and Brawler AC bonuses stack.

3. A Dragonewt with Cruelty. Cruelty will boost damage output at high HP, which is when Dragonewt breath works best. (It's only a 25% boost, unlike Mark of Ruin's 50% boost, but note that Mark of Ruin doesn't work as well with Dragonewt breath (until high levels) because of the 10% current HP loss each round).

4. A character with Mark of Ruin, but note that Servants do not auto-heal characters with Mark of Ruin (though manual healing works).

Note that you *will* want a Mage: At level 13, they usually learn 7th level Mage spells, which includes a *really* nice teleportation spell; once you learn at least one 7th level spell, you can change class and still learn the others.

Strange that you should mention this one in particular, because I was considering a pixie brawler! It seems to have potential, even though some folks are down on it.

I had trouble with creation, though, because I couldn't decide what starting EX skill would be beneficial to the character.

For offense, you could try Cruelty (25% extra damage at full HP) or Mark of Ruin (50% extra damage, but lose 10% of current HP (rounded down, so it can't kill you) every round). If you plan on keeping the character long term, you might prefer Swallow Killer, which isn't that important early, but becomes crucial in the post-game (but note that, later on, it's rather easy to bring new characters up to a decent level).

That sounds reasonable to me! It's one or two characters down, at least. Hah. :)

Anyone else have character/party ideas/requests? Would love to see a full party with class, race, gender, EX skill. Anything which sounds interesting to you.

Went ahead and went with partly crazy, partly fairly standard.

Neutral Human Male Samurai with Mark of Ruin
Neutral Pixie Female Brawler with Swallow Killer
Neutral Male Dragonewt Servant with Hand of Kindness (does impact potions)
Good Gnome Female Cleric with Absolute Barrier
Good Elf Female Mage with Magic Essence
Neutral Hotlet Male Thief with Mysterious Bag

I also have a bishop on standby (for free identifcation on return plus a certain quest), as well as an alchemist. I have a feeling that if I don't switch out for the alchemist, someone will end up multiclassed into one.

Servant was by request. ;) We'll see how that one does.

So far, things are going okay. I started each character with excellent rolls, but at minimum age. Stat changes when leveling are erratic, particularly HP, and the attributes often change to the detriment of the character class. Sometimes, it comes back up the next level. Sometimes not!

Anyway. The party appears to work well enough together. My pixie is the real damage dealer. I am surprised by the effectiveness of the Servant, and he holds his own well in the front row. However, it is admittedly a nuisance to keep his medicine bag stocked.

I do not think Mark of Ruin for the Samurai was worth it. He does do good damage with it, and the HP loss isn't huge, but it's still punishing overall. The samurai "pays the price" for the Mark of Ruin even if he does absolutely nothing in the round. Even if the enemy is defeated fast, before he ever has a turn!

So, it's not a bad party. It's a complicated one, though, in some ways. I do miss the convenience of always having an alchemist and bishop with me, but on the other hand, having pure casters (the cleric and mage) has been very nice for diversity of options.

It may be too late, but I would like to recommend valkyries, they seem to be really OP with the infamous spear dual wielding. When I think about it I am picturing something like this: Mage => Alchemist => Valkyrie (x3) in the back row.

You don't get the dual wielding until later, and the off-hand weapon options for Valkyries are limited. The best one I found is actually cursed, so you have to remove that (and the best main-hand ones don't allow Alchemy and aren't usable by the Devilish race). Also, note that there is no way to make a normally 2-handed spear into an off-hand weapon.

Also, remember that your first party isn't the one you have to use for the entire game; once you reach the underground church, you can easily reach the 3rd and 4th levels and fight Lesser Demons (which call for help) to level up new characters. (Remember that you can selectively have single characters run to prevent them from taking shares of the XP, and that those demons are incapable of waking up if put to sleep.)

I haven't reached the point where you get dual wielding (lvl 26?), but even without it my valkyrie was doing crazy damage and had the highest kill score (all that while being in the backrow). So, I asked myself: what if every character in my backrow was a valkyrie? (after some class changing ofc)

And yes, I know about grinding lesser demons and I was farming them trying to level up new valkyries, but it got really boring after a while. It looks like striking example of bad desing - instead of giving every mob a fair exp value they have created places where player can grind for hours (like hole in the first dungeon) killing weak monsters that give more exp than the super dangerous and annoying ones.