Shock Trooper

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Author	Topic: Shock Trooper
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, December 7 2006 17:36 Profile Homepage #25 It occurs to me that if you want to do the numbers, it might be useful for Synergy to post the endgame stats of his Infiltrator and Slar to work out how many skill points it'd take to make a Servile with equivalent skills. If it turns out that the Servile can in fact get the same skill profile at lower cost, well, that sort of settles the debate right there. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Synergy Shaper Member # 6292	written Thursday, December 7 2006 18:05 Profile #26 That could be done. I'd have to dredge up my save file and reinstall the game, though, and it hardly seems worth the bother for what seems so intuitive and obvious to me. 16-24 magic level ups and 7 melee level ups are in consideration for each build, which wants to be powerful in both magic and melee. One build does magic cheaper and one does melee cheaper. Which is more cost-effective overall? Isn't this glaring? It's also not as simple as final tallies. One has to consider the full arc of the game, how strong, competent, and capable you are at each stage, and also where those points come from. Having more and stronger magic sooner in the arc of the game is not readily quantifiable, but experientially makes a significant difference and I contend is more of an advantage than having stronger melee early. You get more free boosts to Strength and melee related skills than magic overall, both from canisters and gear, I'd say. I don't know about other people, but game strategy which relies on endless swapping of gloves and boots in every battle to be able to cast the appropriate magic at the appropriate moment, well, kind of sucks, and detracts from one's sense of potency and capability. I didn't have to do that at all with the Infiltrator who wore some great battle and strength-boosting gear and was therefore affordably able to become quite strong and potent with a sword and armor-capacity as well. The experience through the arc of the game was having more at my disposal at each stage to have more options for dealing with situations as an Infiltrator than a Servile. This would be a lot of work to quantify mathematically somehow, but I've played through the game enough times to simply feel the difference cheap/strong magic over anything else makes ultimately. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • NR Items • The Lonely Celt Posts: 2009 \| Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Thursday, December 7 2006 18:18 Profile Homepage #27 quote: Originally written by Synergy67: quote: Originally written by Slartel Runeaxe: In my comparison, I suggested FAR less than getting to 9 in melee, missile, and parry. I actually suggested getting to 4 in strength, 7 in melee, 0 in missile, and 0 in parry. You just made my point. With the Servile, you select making battle skills your cheapest investment, and then don't capitalize on that advantage much at all. What a waste of the Servile's discount advantage. Magic wants the most investment, and with magic cheapest, you get the most efficient use of skill point cost. Except that you don't. We neglected to mention Quick Action in the above comparison, which is obviously essential to melee. My comparison was meant to be conservative, as I said; a more generous investment in melee skills would obviously favor the Servile more. But even with that minimal investment, if you want both melee and magic skills, the Servile was better by the numbers. You are right that I don't feel the need to use the most discounted category as much as possible. I feel the need to use the best category as much as possible. And you are right that magic deserves more attention than melee for almost any character, including the Servile build we are discussing. That does NOT automatically mean you're better off getting the magic discount. If you could take the Servile's starting stats with the Infiltrator's skill costs, there's no question that would be even better. But the Servile's starting stats (combined with the melee discount) end up making more of a difference in terms of skill points than the Infiltrator's magic discount. quote: Here's the picture as the experience. As an Infiltrator, you start out with more and better magic ability... You DO NOT start out with more and better magic ability. Well, the Infiltrator gets one point in Spellcraft, and one in Mental Magic, so it's minutely better. But getting up to 5 points in a category costs about 7 for a Servile vs about 4 for an Infiltrator. That's hardly prohibitive for a Servile. You start with 15 skill points and will be at level 4 or 5 before you even have the chance to buy any spells that need skill boosting. The spells in Illya don't require very high magic stats either, so you're likely to hit level 15 or 20 before you require higher magic stats. The Servile might well boost ahead of time, anyway. quote: It is useful to have Daze alone work better earlier. Very useful. There are times when Battle Magic is very useful when you can't or don't want to run up for melee and a missle isn't very effective. This is all true. However, there's no reason a Servile can't do this practically as well as an Infiltrator. Actually, the last part isn't true. Missile weapons almost exclusively use the exact same attack abilities as spells do. Icy Spray isn't going to work if an Icy Crystal doesn't, and so on. quote: [b]Meanwhile, early in the game, it is ideal for any PC to rapidly ramp up Mechanics to 6 or 8 and Leadership to 6. This makes the majority of the SP early on going into these categories to keep up if you want to play the game most aptly sequentially. This makes it hard as a Servile to keep up in magic since the cheap skill points are only going into the melee ability. Everything else is more expensive and progresses slower and lags. [/b] This is patently false. First of all, a Servile doesn't need to pump melee abilities at all early on. You can, but you don't need to. Second, it will cost a Servile about 10 and 14 respectively to get 6 Leadership and 8 Mechanics. You can get that by level 3. That leaves you with about 30 skill points to use on magic skills, just within Illya Province! The lag in magic skill does not really increase. It is fairly constant. Although the Servile has to pay an extra point every buy, the buys get more expensive for both classes. So the Servile will pretty much always be 2 points behind in any magic skill given the same investment. For Spellcraft it is about 1 point behind since it starts out more expensive for both, but the Infiltrator also gets the bonus point of Spellcraft. quote: My Servile could not boast the same magic ability nor creations capacity and the cheaper melee/battle ability did not compensate for more expensive magic. I believe you 100%. I also believe that you did not use skill points to the same ends for these two characters. quote: I'm ignoring the points of your argument because you are ignoring the simple point of mine, that there is more magic than battle skills you will want to buy in the game, and having cheaper magic is more cost effective than having cheaper battle ability, period. No, I have acknowledged this point from the beginning! Of COURSE magic is more powerful and more important! But that does not automatically make the magic discount the most critical thing. This is why you DO have to do the numbers out. Therefore, I think Thuryl's idea is a good one. Post your stats. Let's have a duel with statistics. ~_~ -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 \| Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Thursday, December 7 2006 18:30 Profile Homepage #28 quote: Originally written by Synergy67: it hardly seems worth the bother for what seems so intuitive and obvious to me. If it doesn't seem worth the bother to prove your point -- particularly when most of that bother falls on somebody else who has to do all the math -- why the heck are you debating this? What's the good in asserting something if you aren't willing to back it up? As Hume said: "Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." quote: 16-24 magic level ups and 7 melee level ups are in consideration for each build, which wants to be powerful in both magic and melee. One build does magic cheaper and one does melee cheaper. Which is more cost-effective overall? Isn't this glaring? What matters more, how many skill points it takes or how many times you have to push the + button? This is glaring propaganda. Incidentally, there are 21-22 magic level ups and 11-15 melee level ups at stake, if we are going by the earlier comparison. quote: It's also not as simple as final tallies. One has to consider the full arc of the game, how strong, competent, and capable you are at each stage, and also where those points come from. Having more and stronger magic sooner in the arc of the game is not readily quantifiable, but experientially makes a significant difference and I contend is more of an advantage than having stronger melee early. I agree that you should consider the whole arc of the game, but the final tally gives a good representation of that. Again, the advantage any class has over any other class in a given skill stays close to constant for any amount of investment beyond zero. quote: I don't know about other people, but game strategy which relies on endless swapping of gloves and boots in every battle to be able to cast the appropriate magic at the appropriate moment, well, kind of sucks... That I whole-heartedly agree with. If you're not willing to substantiate your argument with something beyond "this is how it feels to me," I don't know how you expect anyone to believe it. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 \| Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Synergy Shaper Member # 6292	written Thursday, December 7 2006 18:40 Profile #29 I may bother to dig up my buried Infiltrator, but how are you going to quantify the experience of potency and versatility all through the game arc? How do we address my point about investing mostly in geek techs early on to keep up with Leadership and Mechanic requirements for optimal experience gain and non-retreading of otherwise cleared territory? End stats don't actually speak to a lot of the actual game play stage by stage. How these stats are acquired is also important. You can buy melee/missle/quick action and parry two levels. You can't buy a level of any magic category. Gear like Gloves of Savagery and Legs of the Tyrant alone add a lot to making you a much more powerful fighter. There is not equivalent gear to boost your magic abilities on nearly the same scale, and in particular not across the board. Neither the Servile nor the Infiltrator has a lot of extra points to invest in other things for most of chapter one after the geeky stuff. A servile can't really keep up in magic along with mechanics and leadership the way an infiltrator can. But an infiltrator can still kill most things in probably the same number of sword strokes as a servile in chapter one with minimal additions to melee skill, and they both will be wearing the same defensive armor. So, how's the servile at an advantage in chapter one, for starters? That's 1/5 of the game right off the bat in which the Infiltrator feels more powerful overall and kicks butt plenty fine in both skills, magical and melee. The servile, meanwhile, lags in magic ability by comparison. -S- EDIT: I'm going to email you a jpeg of my final stats as the sub-optimal Infiltrator I played with back in October. I will list the gear she is currently wearing to create these stats. You can look up their stats in my items list. I didn't even have the Gloves of Savagery in this game, which would have made her all the more powerful for melee. Essence-Infused Cape Drakonian Plate Girdle of Succor Puresteel Soulblade Forbidden Band Stability Boots Legs of the Tyrant Gloves of the Hammer Quicksilver Bulwark Talisman of Might Most of this gear is great for making strong melee and defensive ability. Good luck finding gear to give you strong defensive and magic ability. [ Thursday, December 07, 2006 18:56: Message edited by: Synergy67 ] -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • NR Items • The Lonely Celt Posts: 2009 \| Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Thursday, December 7 2006 18:58 Profile Homepage #30 quote: Originally written by Synergy67: I may bother to dig up my buried Infiltrator, but how are you going to quantify the experience of potency and versatility all through the game arc? How do you want to quantify it? If you have backup saves from the middle of the game, use some of those. Or make a new character, iamweak your way to level 20, and add some items from your Synergy List. shrug I have provided evidence in the form of math. You have provided rhetoric and anecdote. What you have provided sounds reasonable, but it's up to you to substantiate it. quote: How do we address my point about investing mostly in geek techs early on to keep up with Leadership and Mechanic requirements for optimal experience gain and non-retreading of otherwise cleared territory? I addressed that point 2 posts above. That's a pretty minor delay at best, for any character. If you disagree, quote me and explain what you disagree with. quote: [b]You can buy melee/missle/quick action and parry two levels. You can't buy a level of any magic category. [/b] But that DOES NOT CHANGE THE NUMBERS AT ALL. All characters can buy those levels, but to reiterate, the effective difference for the same investment in skill points remains relatively constant regardless. (And you can buy Spellcraft, of course.) quote: There is not equivalent gear to boost your magic abilities on nearly the same scale, and in particular not across the board. You stated before that you thought 9 in each magic category was sufficient. If that's the case, it's not too expensive for Infiltrators OR Serviles and there is no need for such gear. quote: So, how's the servile at an advantage in chapter one, for starters? That's 1/5 of the game right off the bat in which the Infiltrator feels more powerful overall and kicks butt plenty fine in both skills, magical and melee. The servile, meanwhile, lags in magic ability by comparison. I'll give you an experiential answer here since you seem to prefer those. The extra HP and Parry skill the servile gets allows him to take more hits than the Infiltrator. Meanwhile, his magic is somewhat weaker, but he has access to all the same spells. There's not any great battle magic available yet, and even on Torment it doesn't take many points in Mental Magic to make Daze effective in chapter 1. So from my experience, he has no real disadvantages vs the Infiltrator, but is hardier and that offers a lot of flexibility in terms of how you approach combat. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 \| Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Delicious Vlish His Mighty Tentacle Member # 627	written Thursday, December 7 2006 19:01 Profile #31 HOGWASH. The servile does not need to pump melee skills. He can neglect his physical stats for the time being. First thing I did with my red wizard project was crank mechanics to twelve and leadership to 8. All of my magic skills got attention too. And spare points were put in to int for more energy. The servile is every bit as good as a caster as the infiltrator. More so even, because of the turtle mage effect. Turtles may be slow, but they last a long time. The servile is to strong. Way to strong. -------------------- If I could make just one wish, I would want a tasty vlish. Geneforge IV. Still no tasty vlish. Posts: 1104 \| Registered: Tuesday, February 12 2002 08:00
Randomizer Law Bringer Member # 6785	written Thursday, December 7 2006 19:27 Profile #32 I have to agree with Delicious Vlish about a servile using battle magic. I didn't increase my mechanics and leadership as much at the start and I held off on increasing combat skills until after train in chapter 3 with no ill effects. I still swap some equipment to do blessing magic when I enter an area. Battle magic makes a servile almost as powerful as an infiltrator. He does have a little less essence and spell energy to play with in combat so you burn through essence pods a little faster. This encourages hit and run tactics to whittle an area down in sections rather than in one trip. For the Poryphra Ruins I did a clump or two or creations each trip leaving just the shapers in the far side for last. Posts: 4643 \| Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00
Delicious Vlish His Mighty Tentacle Member # 627	written Thursday, December 7 2006 19:56 Profile #33 Essence pods? What are those? I just kept casting till I ran out of energy. Then I stabbed stuff. Just because I could. And when I had energy again, I melted stuff with acid, froze it with ice, and burned it in to cinders. I don't need to hit and run with the absurd number of hit points I have. Shoot shoot shoot stab shoot shoot shoot stab. -------------------- If I could make just one wish, I would want a tasty vlish. Geneforge IV. Still no tasty vlish. Posts: 1104 \| Registered: Tuesday, February 12 2002 08:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Thursday, December 7 2006 20:10 Profile Homepage #34 Well, that math was a nightmare. And all for not too much. The total skill points used were almost the same -- 213 vs 215 Inf vs Serv. However, something must have changed since Synergy did his run (in the beta) as the total skill points used are 213, when he only should have had 205. Yes, we accounted for all the items AND charms AND canisters AND boosts from dialogue (like hte Dillame Luck boost). There are a few other quirks -- his mental magic is lower than it should be given the investment shown by the cost to advance in his JPG. Also, there are some skills that were pumped either abnormally high, or neglected altogether, which could push the balance in either diretion. Strength was at an unnecessary 18 with items, which helps the Infiltrator's case, while Quick Action and Parry were ignored altogether, which helps the Servile's case. And Synergy didn't utilize the trainers much in this game. The Infiltrator had 290 HP and 465 Essence; the Servile would have had about 400 HP and 400 Essence. So... it seems the HP and Essence differences may be more significant than the skill differences after all. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 \| Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Thursday, December 7 2006 21:27 Profile Homepage #35 quote: Originally written by Chitrach Exterminator: Well, that math was a nightmare. And all for not too much. The total skill points used were almost the same -- 213 vs 215 Inf vs Serv. A negative result is still a result. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Hume Warrior Member # 5870	written Thursday, December 7 2006 22:25 Profile #36 quote: Originally written by --Slarty: [QUOTE]Originally written by Synergy67: I'll say it agian. For the same investment in magic skills, an Infiltrator only gets 2 more per magic skill plus 2 more in Spellcraft compared to a Servile. The Servile gets larger bonuses to melee stats. The Servile gets 1/3 more HP, while the Infiltrator gets only 1/6 more Essence. Sorry, you are wrong. Servile gets 1/4 more hp and infiltrator gets 1/6 essence and spell points. Considering the amount of int you will invest compared to enduran, an infiltrator is nowhere worse. Posts: 122 \| Registered: Tuesday, May 31 2005 07:00
Storm Apprentice Member # 7734	written Thursday, December 7 2006 22:28 Profile #37 With no claim towards expert, I believe Synergy67 to be correct regarding the Infiltrator, My Infiltrator is currently preparing for the assault on the Shaper Monarch with a Rebel Assault team. I would certainly like more strength; but, that is slow process. Stats aside, standoff weapons and magic work best with a definite eye on strategy. She is currently a double-agent on the Shaper side of the war. [ Thursday, December 07, 2006 22:34: Message edited by: Storm ] -------------------- "Nam et ipsa scientia potestas es" Posts: 3 \| Registered: Monday, December 4 2006 08:00