I'm not disagreeing with you about the Infinity Helm, but it's only equipable by Fighters, Lords, Valkyries, Rangers, and Samurai. None of these classes are full casters, so the SP regeneration sort of makes up for the hybrid's lack of Piety (and spell points)? My guess is that Ninja and Monks have Stealth, so don't need that item.

From what I am familiar with, the Mook Ranger has horrible Piety (25), and with it, horrible spell points, so the SP regeneration would help make up for it, the developers were thinking?

This is where we come full circle. Flamestryke (RIP), had an Iron Will Party, where all six characters unlocked, and maxed, it. The problem is, that not all races have good Piety. In particular, Humans have good Piety (and everything else), so I figured, why not try it?

My all-Human IW party fell short, because the non-casters didn't get 100 resist all (95 to all, but close). This means that, to get 100 resist all, they would have to cast Element/Soul Shield. Fail.

This is when I discovered that Humans have the best stat spread, and it never ended.

Once you have decent realm skills (I think that's what matters here), the effect of piety on SP is quite small. Thing is, you need 3 points of piety to get the bonus that 1 point in the corresponding realm skill would get you. (Your highest spellbook skill has as much of an impact as piety; any other spellbook skills you happen to have (via class change, being a bishop, or that one rare helmet with +10 Psionics) have reduced impact.) Hence, unless you've been neglecting magic skills, this isn't really a factor (and is why I don't think increasing piety is worth it except if you want Iron Will).

Here's the math here:
* 25 base resist
* +10 for Cloak of Many Colors (35)
* +20 for 2 Rings Pro Magic (55)
* +20 for 100 Iron Will (75)
* +10 for 100 in each realm skill (85)
* +35 for Magic Screen (120)

So, you can do it, with 20 points to spare. Yes, this uses the cloak slot and both accessory slots, but it works, and you don't need everything on this list to be perfect (so you might be able to get rid of 1 or both of these rings).

Note that single-class alchemists can't get the realm skill bonus for the mental realm, and therefore you might consider making that alchemist an elf or giving them a Helm of Brilliance or Serenity.

Note that all the items mentioned, except the helmets, are buyable. Of those helmets, there are 2 fixed Helms of Brilliance and 1 Helm of Serenity (which has the added bonus of being a quest item, so anybody can equip it, and you're going to need to have someone wear it).

I'm still reminded of Wizardry 1-5, where humans have terrible piety, and are still only average at everything else (no exceptional stats).

Level three is most typical. Four and two occur at about the same frequency. Then again, I always do the pagoda crabs right away and must just be very efficient in my movements. I always map everything before Gregor. I go to the barrels, jump off the water fall, and take the elevator to the rodent before ever approaching the roach. I just don't kill the nearby set roaches first, because if you don't take them down quick, they'll run off and bring Gregor into the fight.

Why wouldn't one create a faerie ninja? They have most of the same weaknesses. The biggest issue is probably the loss of better polearms. But, faster magic regeneration on a class that only can equip one very specific magic regen item is not nothing. Worth noting that a ranged only ninja is a viable option, and fae are not much worse than any other race when it comes to range. A fast throwing ninja can make it easier for everyone else to land shots. It doesn't take that long to get a nice stack of poison and doom darts. That demands two important things: do you really want a throwing expert in a game where throwing weapons are so-so, and CoC muddles throwing! I still like not throwing ninjas, they have interesting uses. I squander that and just want a spear-wielding trap-disarmer. That, and I like weakest L&T, for the same reasons I play on expert. (Rogue is most questionable candidate for extended disarmer, but bard or gadge could always SoD b/w plus str equipment.)

Warriors getting more item regen does make sense. They do have the worse natural regen, after all. Sure, one could "fix" that with class changing. Now maybe it shouldn't have been an infinite source, but without it, the bo samurai starts to look a lot less attractive. Another line of thinking involves whether stealth precluding infinity was the right decision. But, it is more likely due to might to magic, and "suffer" the ninja. There are no bad classes in Wiz8, only bad players. But, ninjas were probably most useful in Crusaders—due to Bradley's class changing mechanics and Crusaders's length and optional bosses making super-turbo ultra-munchkinism... worthwhile? Most Wiz-likes tend to have questionable ninjas. Honestly feels like some sort of joke or moral or something.

Likewise, infinity helm doesn't obsolete other classes. Specialists are very strong: fast and easy. They also have low stat requirements. And bishop is best class, but it isn't op. Without infinity helm, maybe caster penalty shouldn't make warriors have to cast in fizzle late game.

Piety is basically the least important factor. Spells known is the most important, but book skills are a factor, and that is what hurts hybrids, and the ninja.

Technically, you don't need the Helm of Serenity to beat the game.

The way I see it, it does make sense for them to get more HP and Stamina regen, since those are the stats that a fighter-type would be expected to specialize in.

What *doesn't* make much sense to me, on the other hand, is giving them more *SP* regen, as fighters and hybrids are not supposed to be as good at casting as full casters! It just doesn't make sense to do that sort of thing. The poor casting of hybrids is countered by the fact that they're much better than full casters in terms of equipment and fighting ability; we don't need them to be better at casting as well! Also keep in mind that, unlike full casters, hybrids can usefully contribute to fights without casting spells or being built in a way that may seem less conventional.

Honestly, if the game were properly balanced in terms of SP regen availability, there wouldn't be any class that regenerates SP faster than a fairy mage. In fact, the game tells the player that fairies should get the fastest SP regen, yet that ends up not being true once you can afford Robes of Rejuvenation.
These days, I find that I'm pretty comfortable going with *no* L&T, except from items. (I actually think that they over-weighted that skill when balancing classes, as the presence of that skill seems to be the only reason ninjas level up more slowly than other hybrids.)

Incidentally, I find that I prefer to limit the party's melee capability, as melee combat tends to be so powerful that it makes other options feel meaningless much of the time, and ends boss fights too early. Hence, I prefer not to use any Fighters (unless I'm planning to dismiss the character when I'm still at single digit levels), and to favor full casters over hybrids. (My current party idea would have only one hybrid, a token Valkyrie; everyone else is a full caster.)
Trying to beat the game without feels like an exploit, however.

Not to mention that, if you want to avoid killing non-hostile NPCs, I believe you need the Helm, as Marten's Ghost won't give you the Destinae Dominus otherwise. That is, unless there's some glitch I don't know about that lets you skip the DD entirely.

Are you sure? I did the Iron Will (IW), party many times, in my head, as a 6 person, Human-only party.

Humans start with 25 resist all.
+ 25 resist all from Iron Will maxed (50).
+35 resist all from power level 7 Magic Screen (85).
+10 resist all from Cloak of Many Colors (95).

This is the only guaranteed part.

Only casters, and not the Alchemy Mental realm, get +10 to their realm resistances.

So, some are left out in the cold.

Thank you for bringing up the Ring Pro Magic. Not everybody wants to equip it, as it offers nothing extra. This comes at the opportunity cost of not having the Bard's Ring of the Road, the Gadgeteer's Tinker's Carryall Bracers, Amulet of Healing, etc.

I digress. If you want subpar miscellaneous equipment, and subpar stats as a whole (there is an opportunity cost for this), then, by all means create an IW party.

Creating a Fairie Ninja is a random occurance, while almost nobody would think to create, if not for the Cane of Corpus, which is an 80% drop (Kryptonite to IronMan parties). That is such a cheap mechanic, as it makes no sense.

The Infinity Helm sort of makes sense, if you view it like this:

The Fighter, Lord, Valkyrie, Ranger, and Samurai have to fight out in the open, with limited magic, and would benefit from said item's SP regeneration (and Stamina regeneration).

The Ninja and Monk have Stealth, and have no need for such high-end items.

Meanwhile, the casters have full caster level upon casting (unlike the hybrids' -4 caster level). I guess it's a balancing issue, I'm not disagreeing with anybody.

I'm thinking of going full resists only on some party members, and having those characters be able to cure others. Not everyone needs to use the same build.

In the case of the Alchemist (and anyone else, but Alchemist is the most interesting case here), you can get some extra Mental resistance by raising Intelligence high enough; every 2 points past 80 gives you an extra point of mental resist, and it happens that the expert skill, while it doesn't help resistance, is something you'll want on the character anyway.

For Fighter, Lord, and Valkyrie, the Golden Breastplate adds another +15 to all resistances. For those classes plus Samurai and Ranger, the Infinity Helm adds another 5.

So, the only classes left out are Rogue, Bard, and Gadgeteer. As long as you have someone else to cure statuses, those characters should be fine. (Keep in mind that, to reliably cure status ailments, the Bard needs to be level 24 with at least 107 Music; you did find that Puck's cap, right?)

That 4 Bishop + 2 others party I had in mind is something like this:
* Elf Bishop, int/pie. Full caster, also gets good resists. Probably wiz/div, later learning psi than alc.
* Felpurr Bishop, int/spd. Probably similar choice of spells. (Definitely want healing to take advantage of high speed if playing phased combat mode.)
* Elf (?) Bishop, int/sen. Likely a psionic focus, but also a good Artifacts user, and may be my Communications user. Less focused on magic than the others.
* Dwarf Bishop, str/int (tentative). Front line bishop, using mace and shield. Out of the bishops, this has the least focus on magic.
* Gnome (?) Priest, str/int (or int/pie?). Gets important spells sooner, most notably Armorplate/Magic Screen.
* Dracon Valkyrie, str/int (but raise sen to 31 at creation). Doesn't need Iron Will for high late-game resistances. Int helps some skills improve at less terrible rates, and of course eventually an expert skill.

At least one youtuber said they'd be willing to cheat the Ironman rules here.

In pseudo-ironman, where you're not actually playing ironman mode, you just make an exception and reload if the cane doesn't drop. (Such players might also reload in case of glitches, if Z'Ant turns hostile, or for situations like falling off of Trynton.)

In true Ironman (actually playing with the mode set), you can do the following:
* Make sure that Milano is in the same fight as Don, so that the fight doesn't end when Don is killed.
* Kill Don before Milano.
* Check to see what Don drops. If the Cane of Corpus is in the dropped bag, you're good.
* If the Cane of Corpus is *not* dropped, then alt-tab out of the game (or, if on Linux, switch to a virtual console), open task manager, and force kill the task (on Linux, "pkill -9 Wiz8.exe" should work).

This sounds like a lot of work to get around the system. If you don't like inconveniences, how about, just, not playing Ironman Mode?

What a terrible idea, that a Ninja would have to level as slowly as a Bishop, just because they get the Locks and Traps skill (given to Rogues, with a bonus, as well as the Bard and Gadgeteer).

Your multiple-Bishop party will be suffering severely, in terms of slow level ups (as does mine). However, mine has focus. In particular, mine plans to max all four spell books eventually (it better; all these slow level ups aren't for nothing).

The plan is two spellbooks at a time, as the game suggests, with Bishops. Once that is done, you can branch out into a third, and then fourth.

Thanks to level scaling, this isn't as much of a problem as it sounds. Since the party levels up more slowly, the enemies will also grow more slowly, so there won't be any issues unless the party attempts to explore an area with a high minimum level (like the Mountain Wilderness before level 11) or fight a fixed encounter too early.

On the other hand, slower leveling means more chances for skill increases before it's time to level up, and Bishops, more than basically any other class, need those skill increases.

Incidentally, I'm toying with the idea of, instead of the Priest, using either an Alchemist or an Alchemist/Bishop mix. (The mix would be primarily Alchemy/Psionic, aiming to get Ego Whip and maybe Psionic Blast before spending the rest of the game as an Alchemist. After all, the party has 5 other characters who can cast Priest spells.) Could end up as a fronltliner with the Staff of Doom. Might be int/dex, so low str until later. (And adding Bishop means having to put points into Pie and Sen that wouldn't be needed for single-class Alchemist, so there's some trade-offs.)


Hence why pseudo-ironman exists. You play with a self-imposed ironman-style ruleset, but don't actually select the Ironman mode, so you can make an exception if you really need to.

Infinity helm just makes a character better at defending the enemy to death. Faster regeneration doesn't make up for warrior's penalty reducing success chance. And if you need to use that much non-offensive low-level spells, well, you're going far too slow. (Plus, mana stones level artifacts.) What you're mostly getting in needing less rest, which is some of the appeal of a warrior heavy party in most games, no?

Specialists are still better casters, and there's the fighter on the other end. Well, at least three caster-warriors should be able to get the second attack a little faster, and the third attack quicker. (One can rush dread spear, so, that window is narrower for valk, but not narrow enough to make it not a benefit.) Faeries provide a similar benefit, but whatever. I guess parallel thinking is hard.

I find L&T fun, that's why I mention it as my personal reasoning. What I really love is set trap, but not in this game. My theory of the ninja difference is more linked to why thinning spells have a hidden penalty to spell attack strength. The design was to give a twenty-five percent bonus skill to every class, ninja is assassin, and Proving Grounds gave them beheading. Instant death is the signature Wiz-like ninja ability after all. So STC made them like bishops because they were afraid of insta-death being too powerful. Now, I could be wrong. What ninja really excels at is throwing weapons, and it's not as bad as it looks. Just, most monster's don't really make it hard to just cut through, significantly lowering the vaule.

I find spam casting boring because it's too strong... plays all dracon parties. Well, it's better than being bored to death with ten-plus rounds of combat per fight. I wish this game lived up to its potential. Either way, I find the warrior casters much more fun to build, because magic is too strong, but it's more fun to have it. And warriors have a huge growing pain with magic. It's like playing a warrior, in a different game, by using thief instead of fighter. Fun when it works.

It is an exploit!

Faerie ninja makes sense man, come on. Anyway, the CoC exists in Crusaders, that's how people found it so fast. (And many don't like to pay ransoms.)

Fast casters or resilience casters, age old debate for a reason. They're all good.

That's exactly how level rates work. If the whole party is slow, it actually, somewhat, makes the game easier.

The psionic has the best passive. Just a thing I like to state.

What's an exploit? (It seems that this part of your message, and possibly other parts, is missing the context it should have.)

The thing is:
* Physical attacks are boring. You're doing the same thing every round.
* Spells, however, are more interesting. Each caster has a bunch of spells to choose from, and they're useful in different situations. Your mage isn't just choosing to equip Fireball or Whipping Rocks; your mage is choosing, depending on the situation, which of those spells (or any other spell they know) would be more useful in that situation.
* There's also the resource use aspect, where different types of magic use different types of SP, so if you run out of one spell, you might still be able to use some other spell, even if it's not that optimal.
* Don't forget that there's more than just damage spells. There's no weapon, for example, that could be meaningfully compared to the Heal Wounds spell, just to name one example. (Some games actually have weapons like this; Wizardry 8 is not one of them.)

In particular, my Fighter and Rogue are severely being held back by the slow Bishop levelling (probably can level up 2 or 3 times right away), but, due to level scaling, are staying at the same level as the Bishops. Note that taking the levels will help right away, but getting into Arnika, we want to stay at the same level (only triggering similar level fights). I will probably leave the Monastery at level 21, as that's a new breakpoint on what items can spawn in chests (every 5 levels after level 1, better chest items can spawn). Also, at that level, you can cast level 6 and under spells at power level 7 as a full caster, and level 7 spells at power level 4 safely.

Are you doing Human Bishops? With all those stat requirements, the Humans' 10 or 15 attribute point bonus above other races is noticable.

Bishops are the one class that's capable of doing it all: Melee, Ranged, and Magic combat, with a significant level penalty. I will give my Bishops Staves of Doom and Wrist Rockets. They will max Strength, Intelligence, Speed, and Senses, gaining Powerstrike, Powercast, Snakespeed, and Eagle Eye expert skills. This will make them respectable at every form of combat, and able to cast every spell in the game.

I don't think any of the planned Bishops are human, actually. I believe the plan has an Elf, a Felpurr, a Dwarf, and some other race. (Yes, I know that a Dwarf Bishop is an apprentice at the start.)

Given the low HP of Bishops, the Dwarf's high starting Vitality and damage resistance are important for survival in the front line. (A Human Bishop with initial Vitality isn't quite sturdy enough.)


If I'm using two of the same class in the same party, I prefer to give them different builds.

You see, my Bishops have bodyguards, and can be protected in the center formation. They can hit from extended range with their Quarterstaves, training for Staves of Doom. The Fighter and Rogue up front, combined with the Valkyrie and Ranger on the flanks, allows them to train with impunity. I don't think the casters in this game are quite up to par with the other classes, at least on the front lines, in terms of survivability (and if they were, that would mean sacrifices in their magical abilities).

I do have two different builds, a blonde and a brunette, both Human Bishops. This will allow them the highest stat sum, while still being slightly different. One trains Wizardry and Divinity first, and the other trains Alchemy and Psionics first, then they start training their third, and fourth, spellbooks. They will eventually become masters of everything, but the time taken to do so is immense.

I'm thinking that the most important spellbooks depend on the spell level. This, in turn, influenced the order in which I like to raise spellbook skills.

For the single bishop as sole spellcaster case:
* Early on, Wizardry and Divinity are most important. Wizardry can be raised solely with level-up points to reach 15 at level 2, allowing for the important level 2 spells to be learned at level 3; after that, the target is a little below 45 before reaching level 8 (X-Ray is really important; Iceball, which is also good, can wait). Alchemy may need to be 15 to start potion mixing, but isn't otherwise important early; neither is Psionics. (Alchemy is lacking useful unique spells until 4th level, however.)
* For Divinity, the first target is 30 for Armorplate/Enchanted Blade, then 50s for Heal All, then later on 80s for Restoration. (That last target isn't too bad to reach because Heal All helps, and it auto-recasts as power level 1 repeatedly.)
* As you approach the mid levels, you'll want Psionics. The target here is the 50s (or 40s if you get lucky enough to obtain a Helm of Insight; if you want to reroll treasure to acquire it, the Serenity Chest is the easiest one to use, as you don't have to fight any enemies in the Rattkin Tree to get it (though you do need that idol). Ego Whip and Psionic Blast are important spells in the mid to upper teens, and Psionic Blast never becomes useless.
* At high levels, you'll want Alchemy. Target, ideally, is enough to learn Earthquake at level 18' Tsunami can wait. on Novice, you'll want Quicksand as well.