MM8 Help

[Tress]

Doesn't help much, if you're lone elf.

Slow and blind are still there to pretty much disable any mob that you have at least some distance advantage to. Also there are wands with paralysis spell I think, which could be used for any more or less hard fight.

[tolich]

I prefer Acid Burst. BTW, aren't they immune to Earth Magic?

[Tress]

I prefer Acid Burst. BTW, aren't they immune to Earth Magic?

Possibly yes, always used dark grasp instead by that point, so never thought on that tbh. As for elf that makes it bit more difficult, although not by much.

[FunnyRoger]

Does quest log update like at all? Go do this and that and then come back to me. Quest log never update when i have done anything, so i have to keep it in my head when i have done quest and go after reward? Its not that hard when you got few quests, but when there are many i can see it turning into problem.

[zib]

The strongest party light or dark in MM7 is Knight + Cleric + Sorcerer + Anything

Gotta disagree. This team is "half-assed", because light = might, and dark = magic, so can't be the strongest. Dark is useless to weapon based damage dealers, and light is not very useful to casters.
For me it's Light : AAAC then KKKC/S, and dark obviously any mix of S and C (like SSSS, SSSC and so on :p).

GM is simply too strong relative to other classes.

Yeap. That's why I said there are cookie cutter builds in this game, if you want to enjoy it on replays you have to take the decision of using other classes or combinations (or restrictions) on purpose which opens a new dimension of strategy and enjoyment.
The GM thingy for me is especially true for armsmaster (the skill has everything including recovery!), and bow in the special case of archers, and light/dark for magic. I have no real problem being stuck with elemental or clerical mastery "only", maybe missing beacons and enhanced spray, GM prot from magic (I'm not missing GM regeneration, because it's overpowered maybe even OP at master level. I wish this spell was GM = Master + group effect).

Disarm isn't particularly important it is more of an annoyance.

Totally agree ! I never had problems with traps except sometimes with low sorcerers who lack HP. You can always shop for nice +disarm items, if really needed you can hire NPCs (like burglar). In my SSSS low level game I had to shop for a telekinesis scroll to open a critical chest (for golem parts), but that's all.

in 6, [...] Shrapmetal and Dragon breath keep getting stronger and scale very well. Druids always feel pretty weak late. Solo I can see a druid, but in a standard party...meh.

Yeap, always back to the point I'm trying to emphasize : we are taking "weaker" classes on purpose.
As for the druid, he is a great paradox : he gets enhanced MP, but he can't use the MP hungry schools (in mm6 dark DD spells cost like 2x their price in mm7) so it feels a bit pointless (someone said he's a powercure spammer, I like this description). However in 6 the fire realm is a bit more useful with its shrapnel-blast-like spell (fire blast?), while in 7 I just ignore it usually. Well, of course its damage is not physical like shrapnel sadly.
Overall elemental makes more sense than in 7 (besides utility spells).

I actually don't like a single DD nuke. Incinerate and Implosion never feels reliable enough. When around half of the attacks do 20 damage, it gets frustrating.

Totally agree again! If I'm at long range, I'm throwing area of effect spells at the mobs. If I'm at close range, then I'm using my most damaging spells, and those are the shrapnel-like ones (shrapmetal, poison spray, sparks, fire blast). So overall I have no use for single DD nukes, except in very rare situations in which case I just usually cheese around in real-time .

Might and Magic is throwing REAL DICE to calc its damage, it's not 1-6 or 1-15 like displayed in the game. And the low dice spells have more dice, making their damage more reliable. When you add numbers from dice, the more dice you have, the closest to a gaussian you get.
So don't get fooled by, say, incinerate (let's assume 12 fire) : it's 15+1-15 so the potential max damage is 195 but you have like 1% chance to do more than 145 and the average is around 115 with the majority of values within +-20 of that average.
Fire blast is (4 + 1-3x12)x7 so 28 + 84d3, you could expect a max of 280 (which is already way higher than incinerate) but the central limit theorem makes it so you have like 1% chance to do more than say ... 208+ish, with an average around 198 and the majority of values within +-10 of that average.
So as you can see it's more damaging AND more reliable.
And not only that, but maybe the resistance mechanism adds even more to the reliability (you can see the mechanism on Grayface's page), I guess the mob gets a chance to resist for every fragment/blast instead of just once so it gives the final damage further consistency.

[Arret]

Well we agree on a lot, so I'll just address this:

Gotta disagree. This team is "half-assed", because light = might, and dark = magic, so can't be the strongest. Dark is useless to weapon based damage dealers, and light is not very useful to casters.
For me it's Light : AAAC then KKKC/S, and dark obviously any mix of S and C (like SSSS, SSSC and so on :p).

On dark those are definitely the best parties late (and are very close to KCSS or KCCS), but you have to get there. The party is pretty weak early, especially in places where bows aren't particularly useful (Barrows, Haunted Mansion, Tunnels to Nighon). I've played both and bringing a Knight just makes it easier. Being able to get to 70 damage per attack that early is great. If nothing else you can use the Knight's extra hp with Shared Life healing until you get Power Cure.

On Light I completely disagree. Especially KPCS is a paralyze spamming wonder. Having this combined with triple destroy undead makes The Pit trivial. With 3 paralyze casters you can just run through the Tunnels to Eeofol, occasionally using Lloyd's Beacon to mana up when necessary.

This is without the obvious, that not having either Protection from Magic and Town Portal/Fly is annoying. Not having GM enchant item makes all knights much weaker because you lose about 10 armsmaster skill. I played AAAC and honestly didn't think much of it. By the time you can crank bow up to match the power of a Knight, you already have Blasters (and a 0 recovery time anyway). Until then, the poor armsmaster, lack of sword skill, and weak Bodybuilding makes it feel subpar.

[zib]

Yes, taking the gameplay itself into consideration before "late game" obviously changes the thing quite a bit
For instance, some of the parties I mentioned are tedious and not fun at all (tried them all).
My SSSS run was like this, well probably mostly because I stayed at level 1 for a long while to spice the thing a bit. Shopping for the right items (scrolls :p) and running around was fun, though. Before the rise of the Dark power mwahaha!

I agree, Paralyze is powerful (too bad it does not work well in mm6, just like slow), my personal taste is I dont like it too much because it's basically a death sentence. Played a party a bit like your KPCS (KPMS) and tried to do a paralyze build with the Pal and mace, wasn't really convinced but it was quite some fun. Btw, do you know what the stun effect from mace skill does exactly?

About TP/Fly : NPCs if needed, GM enchant: shop in the right places as the poor's replacements or loot or grab some ore in Nighon's volcano (just giving ideas if someone not knowing about all this reads the forum :p).

AAAC is something I actually enjoyed playing ! It was really a quick playthrough, because everything was so easy from the start. You even have elemental mastery for convenience. Slow can do wonders provided you have it at expert (normal is too short). You don't have swords, but the spears are just incredible even with no skill invested so I felt suprisingly powerful even in melee in the early game (for some reason, promotion? skill? I went to Avlee very early and got very nice spears there). I levelled twice in my game : once to level 15 when I was done with a lot of things and waiting for the Judge, and the second time to 50+ for the endgame fun. At level 15 I was able to clean everything easily (including Eofol), basically the damned cleric with light and body makes everyone almost invincible, haha. Much easier and smoother than my Knight playthrough! As for blasters, sure, but they don't shoot twice, their skill does not add to damage, mine are capped to 5 in real time, and... I don't like 'em
The sad thing about AAAC is your heroism from hour of power feels kinda wasted, though, but oh well.

Voila, let's consider this post as a bit of feedback about a few teams in case someone wanted it before trying.

[Tress]

I agree, Paralyze is powerful (too bad it does not work well in mm6, just like slow), my personal taste is I dont like it too much because it's basically a death sentence. Played a party a bit like your KPCS (KPMS) and tried to do a paralyze build with the Pal and mace, wasn't really convinced but it was quite some fun. Btw, do you know what the stun effect from mace skill does exactly?

On mm6 it wasn't all that much used due to mana cost and it's reduced efficiency, on 7/8 however it is I win button. First playthroughs I basically spamed it making game trivial, only finding problematic when I encountered Light immune enemy(I.E Tolberti, well Celeste guards are immune as well but normally you dont fight them.) On subsequent games I purposefully avoid ever using it due to it's cheesy nature. Imo to be balanced spell it should :
1) cost more
2) be effective only on single target at time
3) last less time.
4) Have chance to cancel out if damaged.
5) Have reduced efficiency (duration chance to awaken) on stronger mobs. however there shouldn't be immune mobs and it should always be applied if casted.

This is without the obvious, that not having either Protection from Magic and Town Portal/Fly is annoying. Not having GM enchant item makes all knights much weaker because you lose about 10 armsmaster skill. I played AAAC and honestly didn't think much of it. By the time you can crank bow up to match the power of a Knight, you already have Blasters (and a 0 recovery time anyway). Until then, the poor armsmaster, lack of sword skill, and weak Bodybuilding makes it feel subpar.

If you have healer in team, then hit point pool is not that much of an issue, preservation and (specially mm7, mm8 is extremely nerfed) regeneration makes teams almost invincible. Town portal/beacon/fly of course is obvious problem, however those are things that playing without could be more interesting. Those 3 spells should be much more limited in first place, like being able to use once per day or so. GM enncaht on other hand - 1) irrc item bonuses dont stack so getting one armaster item is possible anyway without help of enchant. 2) Enchant gives random item, so it is save/load game, which is sort of exploiting 3) You can always use pink ore which is very common to get very good items using same method.

Yeap, always back to the point I'm trying to emphasize : we are taking "weaker" classes on purpose.

Personally I always find that gimping my power to increase difficulty is somehow bad way to make game more harder. After all if I want to lift something more heavy I add extra weight rather than break my arm. It feels wrong, and there is some sense of something not being right if playing by artificially making game harder.

Does quest log update like at all? Go do this and that and then come back to me. Quest log never update when i have done anything, so i have to keep it in my head when i have done quest and go after reward? Its not that hard when you got few quests, but when there are many i can see it turning into problem.

Normally it should always update once quest is turned in. Unless there is something really bugged.

[FunnyRoger]

Normally it should always update once quest is turned in. Unless there is something really bugged.

No it does that, but what i mean is, when for example i get quest "go clear that cave!", I go and clear it never updates to "cave is cleared now go back to quest giver", i have to run back to quest giver and pray that I actually did clear cave, if no its another trip back to cave. And also quest log description is very poor, like 2-3 sentences..

[Tress]

No it does that, but what i mean is, when for example i get quest "go clear that cave!", I go and clear it never updates to "cave is cleared now go back to quest giver", i have to run back to quest giver and pray that I actually did clear cave, if no its another trip back to cave. And also quest log description is very poor, like 2-3 sentences..

Well to be fair there is only handful of quests where you cant tell you completed it, also at least for some quests you get barely noticeable sound effect and notice on log text line (where damage values ar displayed etc) that it was last mob or something along lines.
Only quest that really made me run and load back several times was dwarf saving on mm7, then again I think last dwarf gave notice that it was last of them , still it took me some time.