Ultimate MM7 party

[gregz]

One flaw in your argument is that you use bows in the beginning. Obv KKCS is as good (marginally better) with the bows. So that would work anyway, and if the critters come in range you chop their heads off. Swords beat sparks/poison spray - only with shrapmetal at GM dark are the knights surpassed in point blank damage.

It surprises me that you feel that the beginning of the game is easier with mages? At low spellpoints and horrible weapon skills, the beginning is traditionally where the knights are farthest ahead of the mages.
Simply getting lvl 7 M sword takes no time at all and allready you are a good swordfighter while mages cast 5 sparks at the time.
It is usually easier to go through the second time, because you remember the dungeons and quest/trainer locations.. could this be an effect?

Well, a 1st time player would indeed prefer a KKSC party at the beginning. But I define the beginning game as not yet being able to cast invisibility, so that's really only Emerald Isle and Castle Harmondale. Once the party has invisibility, it's easy to use promo quests and others to get fly then dark magic.

You may be right about the '2nd time effect', I'm sure that helped give me a better subjective sense of control and of not being lost.

Also, I managed to do a complete run-through from Nighon to LoTG without needing to port out for mana. I didn't clear everything out, but I made it through OK. So again, mana really isn't a problem for me. Occassionaly I will rest in a corner away from MOBs (none on Wizard Eye map), or I'll port out with Lloyd's, but more often than not this isn't necessary. And turn based combat is something I found myself using selectively, only when the situation called for it. More often than not, I was spamming shrap in real-time.

It's clear to me you have put more hours and done more playthoughs than I have, so I trust you know what you are talking about. One thing I don't see however is the subjective AC argument, mobs didn't tend to hit my Sorc, even though my Cleric had a higher AC. This was definitely true when running past orc packs outsite of harmondale town. For some reason they preferred targetting the cleric.

Personally, I would conclude that KKSC is probably the ultimate 'might' party, whereas SSSC is the ultimate 'magic' party. If the front two knights managed to shield the back two players (SC) like a tank wall in other games (Bard's Tale), I would be far more inclined to give preference to KKSC, but since that's not how the MM7 engine works, I find SSSC to be the best choice for my playstyle.

[Macros the Black]

One thing I don't see however is the subjective AC argument, mobs didn't tend to hit my Sorc, even though my Cleric had a higher AC. This was definitely true when running past orc packs outsite of harmondale town. For some reason they preferred targetting the cleric.

I'm guessing your cleric was a dwarf? Goblins have dwarves as their prefered enemies, and vice versa. Same for humans versus elves. Plus all "evil" kind of creatures like to attack clerics and paladins.

[gregz]

I'm guessing your cleric was a dwarf? Goblins have dwarves as their prefered enemies, and vice versa. Same for humans versus elves. Plus all "evil" kind of creatures like to attack clerics and paladins.

Interesting, and yes cleric was a dwarf.

[Kalle Klovn]

Yes, that would explain it. I do goblin knights and dwarf mages (i find that intellect and accuracy is not as usefull as might and endurance in the first half). Therefore the two mages take the same hits, and knights are targetted by other critters. I guess thats why I couldnt discern the targetting effect. I suppose my team will bicker a bit around the campfire, but it seems more effective.

I totally agree on your reasoning, given your playing style. With invisibility all quests are quite easy, and it can be achieved fast. Getting through promos should be quick, and then you shore up alot of the early problems with mages. I suppose also, that I based my SP argument on my own experience with only S and C. Obv when you have 4 that is alot of SP, so you can afford some shrapnel.
I suppose with this approach, SSSC can be the strongest dark party.

I might try a game with SSSC dark sometime. First I wanna try out the AAAS light team though. It will for sure not be the smoothest run, but I think I will use the approach of invisibilty for a while, and then when the recovery time on the bows drops low, the team will really be awesome. I might multi-loot the dragon on emerald island too, just to make it more painless to reach full potential. I know that is kind of cheating, but at high levels the team is comparable to other normal teams. If there was a late game match-up, the AAAS team would conquer all as far as I can see.

3 GM bows (lvl 30) and 1 blaster would do 327 damage per 5 ticks = 1962 average damage at the speed of a normal weapon strike. AI critters wouldnt even recover, and max get one ranged attack in. If it was possible to match up teams, the only way to win is to get close before the first shot is fired. I expect it to be really satisfying to kill everything the second its in range.

[Kalle Klovn]

Hey guys,

I just finished the game with my AAAS team. Thanks to Macros for pointing out that bows have the highest damage potential possible of all weapons. As predicted it was not the most efficient team to complete the game, but it was insanely powerfull late game. I also used invisbility alot, and doing so the game was actually farly painless. Invisible sneaking around until all the key quests where complete. With a max focus on bows, it was actually pretty good at around level 40. After that it keeps up with AM when it comes to damage, but the huge advantage is that it keeps lowering recovery down to 5, when it is 6 times faster (!) than swords. In the time it took a knight in the KKSC party to take one swing at 250 damage, an archer in the AAAS party at the same level (~90) dealt 780 damage.. ranged (!) (These numbers are theoretical damage though, in practice it varies depending on the defense of the creatures of course).


After roughly level 70, the archers reached 5 recovery using bows of darkness (swift and vampiric). At around level 90 the bow skill was high enough (skill level 40) to use any bow, and still have 5 in recovery. At this point I used griffin bows with "of acid", "thunderbolts" and the artifact "ulysses" for absolute maximum damage. The sorcerer specialized in light magic, so DotG pushed stats with more than 300, giving speeds of 500+ (max). I also had three bows "of carnage" with exploding fireballs as an option. This is off the scale powerfull against almost all creatures, except for red dragons - and in the arena they are the only creatures you fight at level 100+.

Getting to these levels are actually not very time consuming. The arena is very effective at boosting levels, once the team is strong enough to easily deal with the creatures spawned at their level. Spending about 1 hour real time will give you around 30 levels worth of exp.


It is pretty cool to see the wall of arrows, as well as ice shards from the ulysses, completely anihilate everything. I uploaded a video to youtube showing a match at the arena when the team was at level 100:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVdd_wd698

Sorry about the window screen, its my first screen video and upload, so dont really know how to do it.

[gregz]

Nice work, looks like AAAS is the ultimate endgame powerplayer party.

[BoardGuest808888]

I used monk, monk, cleric/paladin, sorcerer.

Dunno if this be the most powerful or not. Depends on what playstyle you'd like.

Of course, I also used Hammerhands all the time, the ultimate damage buff available.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Of course, I also used Hammerhands all the time, the ultimate damage buff available.

It doesn't work like the description says. It only adds a few points of body damage (the skill level in body magic, to be exact).

[NCR85]

I've just played through a game of CCCS Dark side. The first 75% of the game are a breeze thanks to the overkill of healing and the decent defensive abilities of Clerics. Bless + Heroism + fire weapon enchantment turn the clerics' otherwise unimpressive maces into damage dealing workhorses (that is, the Clerics do fine offensively; no need for fancy shenanigans). Late game, it barely requires explaining why this party is good. A constant barrage of Shrapmetal casts at your fingertips, without the awkward HP and Armor Class deficiency of a 4 sorc party.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

A constant barrage of Shrapmetal casts at your fingertips, without the awkward HP and Armor Class deficiency of a 4 sorc party.

I recently finished a SSSC game, dark path then light path.

Dark path: Talk about easy mode. With 4 party members blasting shrapmetals, the lich's low HP was irrelevant - everything in front of me simply DIES instantly.

Then I tried that SSSC party again at the light/dark junction to play light.
The numerous necro/vampire/lich infested dungeons were a cakewalk thanks to Destroy Undead. 3X incinerate + light bolt took care of the necros.
When fighting outside, it was easy enough - a matter of casting Sun Ray, meteor shower or Star Burst.

The rest was much harder - especially inside the devil's place, since I had only one sorcerer learn Earth Magic for Rock Blast. Clearing out Titans Stronghold took a while.
Lincoln was a pain. I buffed the robots so their lasers fire light/dark projectile (unresistable), normally they dealt earth elemental damage.

[NCR85]

Dark path: Talk about easy mode. With 4 party members blasting shrapmetals, the lich's low HP was irrelevant - everything in front of me simply DIES instantly.

I imagine that if you assign Soulleech to the quick cast of one (or more) of your four characters the healing effect will make you practically invincible no matter what your HP level. Still, I've been in a few Arena fights in which the HP difference made a crucial difference, especially when those robots were involved. Could just be because I was too lazy to buff my elemental resistances, though.

[NCR85]

ps.
Its interesting to think about how a Dark spamming party compares to AAAS. Soulleech is potentially the most damage intensive Dark spell and would ultimately KO all red dragons on the screen. Its hard to compete with that no matter how low your recovery rates. I guess against more powerful "theoritical" enemies there would be an interesting contest, though.

[Macros the Black]

Souldrinker is amazing. I was using this in my first party to clear out Eofol, and it basically makes you invincible -- the only problem was when a devil randomly managed to steal away my sorcerer's spell points before it died and fly stopped working, causing me to fall to the earth and get about 5 meteor showers in my face. Ouch.

But yeah, Souldrinker is especially good in combination with Sacrifice and Lloyd's Beacon. Just get two random NPCs in your party (you won't really care about them at this point in the game), fly around casting souldrinker and whenever your sorcerer is about to go out of mana, sacrifice one of the NPC's. When both NPC's are dead, Lloyd's Beacon to get two more.

--

@ Kalle Klovn: sorry I reply so late, I must have overlooked this thread until it was out of sight, but wow. That video of the AAAC party owning dragons in the arena is just amazing. I knew it would be good, but that's just overkill xD

[Panda Tar]

I tried the following party (and went light magic) to effectively complete the game:
Knight
Knight
Cleric
Sorcerer

I personally think that's a fair pick, however I would never take that myself.

Having 2 knights indeed make it a bit faster to take everything down specially because you'll promote two characters at once, boosting enormously your party at once. And knights are...knights!

My chosen ultimate party is usually comprised by these two selections:
MONK/PALADIN
THIEF
CLERIC
SORCERER

PALADIN/KNIGHT
THIEF
CLERIC
ARCHER

Fly will suffice for me when it comes to spells in a general view, so Archer or Sorcerer are somewhat alike in my needs - of course they are different in development. I almost never use Mind or Soul magic, so my Cleric will be only guided to develop Body and Light/Dark. I so love Shrapmetal...

I usually pick one tanker or another. I often prefer picking characters with differences in equipment, so I only have one sword bearer, mace bearer, leather armor uses, shield bearer, etc., but it's not a law.

And I completely agree that ranged attacks do a huge difference. No wonder we can actually kill the red dragon in Emerald Island.

[Mn]

Ultimaye party (if You want to finish game at first level, without trainings):
1. Thief
2. Cleric
3. Mage
4. Mage
This is fastest party to give all promoushens and to complete game without any troubles. Imho, Cleric may be changed to Paladin and Mage to Druid (Never use Monks.Aarchers and Knigts - your party will be weak), but all is in Your hands.

[Bandobras Took]

Yet another person who seems to be under the impression that Knights are weak . . . when I'm on the Lincoln, it's not my Knight I have to keep on healing . . .

[asterix15]

There are many good party combinations.
KKKD, SSSC, KKCS and KKKP are worth a try.

[Arret]

I agree with most of those, but my personal choices are

Light: KKCS (felt like the best damage combo for light) or KPCS 3 paralyze/destroy undead is helpful in clearing most of the pit out while not being completely squishy against the ancient behemoth in the tunnels to Eeofol. On top of that the extra stun from the paladin mace is a nice bonus. If only paladins could get master armsmaster I would try running PPPS which could be a lot of fun (aside from Tolberti).

Dark: KCSS and the knight is mainly there just to eat damage. 3x shrapmetal and everything just dies. I need to get around to trying CSSS.

[Bandobras Took]

I'm still not understanding the Sorceror love.

Really, all a Sorceror brings to the table that other classes don't have is Mass Distortion, Incinerate, Lloyd's Beacon, and Starburst.

Of those, I'd only miss Lloyd's beacon, and will happily trade that in for the extra hit points and better defenses of a Druid. My Cleric can handle the light/dark magic.

Actually, on that note, a Druid makes a far more acceptable backup healer than the Sorceror.

Even Tolberti isn't bad with Paladins, as he's not immune to GM Mace paralyzation. Might need a couple of reloads, though.

[GreatEmerald]

Other classes gain spells way too late in the game and have too low SP to be useful as spellcasters.