Respect the MM8 Troll

[Xfing]

Many say that the Troll is a badly designed class. I'm going to point out why this is just wrong:

- He's an alternative to the Knight that can dish out almost as much damage yet much sturdier
- Can easily get 100 in Armor Class, GM Leather being at 20 being all he needs. Lower AC than the Knight is compensated by higher HP
- Masters the Sword, which means that with 20 in Mace and in Armsmaster, Breaker in the right hand and Snake in the left, can become amazing at debilitating opponents, paralyzing on every fifth strike and slowing on every single one. In addition to getting 100+ damage in melee.
- Just as good as the knight at repairing items at M level 10
- Has just as much HP as the overpowered MM7 Knight with GM BB, surpasses even the Dragon who has a higher natural HP growth but no GM in BB
- Can make the staff a viable offensive and defensive option.
- With GM in Regeneration can heal quite nicely over time even without food


Overall, I like the Troll a lot. He's not only good at soaking up damage, but also second only to the Knight at dishing it out. His skills synergize really well too, and e's definitely a better choice than a Minotaur,almost in every regard. What do you think about the Troll?

[Bloax]

Trolls are definitely far superior to the (very underwhelming) minotaurs, yeah.
I'm really disappointed in how regeneration works though - I had expected higher skill levels to increase the frequency of the heals, but they don't. (Only mastery levels do something, and that is increase the amount healed in one go.)

[Arret]

As a solo, the troll is fine. As a party member the knight outclasses the troll for one reason: GM armsmaster

He's an alternative to the Knight that can dish out almost as much damage yet much sturdier

Wait what? What kind of troll is doing anything near 200 per attack? Enchanted items of armsmaster skill plus Terminus makes the knight destroy everything. This is before the main problem of the troll which is that you really can't get the weapon speed down that much. I tend to have 40 armsmaster skill for my knights (20-25 skill +16 item and maybe+artifacts). A properly geared knight has 2-4 times as much DPS due to the compounding effect of recovery time plus the extra damage increase from equivalent armsmaster (not to mention at that point they almost never miss). 40 recovery 200 damage versus 70 recovery 130 damage.
Dragons always churn out the damage (due to it being unresistable), and even vampires do as much damage at comparable gear levels due to recovery time. This is even ignoring things like Dark Elven archery or Necromancer shrapmetal spam.

- Can easily get 100 in Armor Class, GM Leather being at 20 being all he needs. Lower AC than the Knight is compensated by higher HP

Normal power cure spam will take care of any problems the knight runs into, and a knight does have a LOT more AC.

- Masters the Sword, which means that with 20 in Mace and in Armsmaster, Breaker in the right hand and Snake in the left, can become amazing at debilitating opponents, paralyzing on every fifth strike and slowing on every single one. In addition to getting 100+ damage in melee.

Obviously the knight gets the sword too. Paralyzing is really nice, but killing them much faster is better when they come in waves such as the elemental planes.

- Just as good as the knight at repairing items at M level 10

Meh, not something worth choosing a class over.

- Has just as much HP as the overpowered MM7 Knight with GM BB, surpasses even the Dragon who has a higher natural HP growth but no GM in BB

Yes, and that also means a troll takes longer to heal back to full during combat.

- Can make the staff a viable offensive and defensive option.

The staff is garbage and always will be. The miniscule amount of AC is weak and knights get the GM spear/sword AC bonus anyway. No matter what you try, sword+mace will always be better than a staff.

- With GM in Regeneration can heal quite nicely over time even without food

Very rarely is the knight the one that needs healing. Casting power cure to heal your necromancer (as well as the Cleric) takes care of the problem.

[Xfing]

As a solo, the troll is fine. As a party member the knight outclasses the troll for one reason: GM armsmaster

Wait what? What kind of troll is doing anything near 200 per attack? Enchanted items of armsmaster skill plus Terminus makes the knight destroy everything. This is before the main problem of the troll which is that you really can't get the weapon speed down that much. I tend to have 40 armsmaster skill for my knights (20-25 skill +16 item and maybe+artifacts). A properly geared knight has 2-4 times as much DPS due to the compounding effect of recovery time plus the extra damage increase from equivalent armsmaster (not to mention at that point they almost never miss). 40 recovery 200 damage versus 70 recovery 130 damage.
Dragons always churn out the damage (due to it being unresistable), and even vampires do as much damage at comparable gear levels due to recovery time. This is even ignoring things like Dark Elven archery or Necromancer shrapmetal spam.

Nah-uh! Where are you getting thse figures from? My Troll currently has Armsmaster at level 23 plus one item taht jacks it up like 8 points or something, and his compound standby recovery time is 38. That's right, 38. With Day of the Gods and no hasting effects at all it comes down to 31. This means that I only need to find better Armsmaster gear and the recovery rate will be at minimum. Would be a bit harder to do with a Minotaur, but still feasible I think, due to the fact that both the Axe skill and Armsmaster reduce recovery time.

[Konfuzius]

I was about to write why Knights are simply better than trolls but Arret said the main points.

Also, when you got a cleric in your party, Regeneration is nothing more than a "nice to have" skill. Oh yeah and the Regeneration spell is almost as great.

Oh and did you EVER had two "Of Darkness" swords/spears?
This and high armsmaster skill will obliterate anything, everywhere. Name the enemy, it will get killed and you probably restore some health on top of that too.

Oh, your other party members are almost death? Cast Shared Life and keep killing.

Also, if you like trolls why don't you simply modify the class and give the troll some more perks?
Once, I really made a cool solo with a GM Armsmaster Minotaur (still very balanced imo since you can't use feet and head armor).

[Pope_Amole]

Yeah, trolls are as good as the knights, and it's all about which one suits your party needs better. Sure, the knight, depending on their build, will have about 40-60 extra damage per hit, but the troll can easily compensate for it with 20-30% to stun and paralyze the foe (which negates the incoming damage considerably) and several hundreds (at least - the main choice for the troll is whether to go mace 30 or mace 20 bodybuilding 20, I think) of extra HPs (which can be turned into damage with the pain reflection spell).

It's all about which you prefer more. Also, I think trolls work better when massed, simply because multiple paralyzation chances synergize really well with each other. 3 trolls (though it's hard to build them up properly without using the party creation mod) + lich + cleric is a really good whackamole party.

And many of the knight's benefits that are listed here are somewhat overhyped - high attack and armour bonuses are not that valuable because of the quirky combat formula that this game uses, and huge recovery bonus is lost because your attacks are capped at 30 anyways and it's way too easy to reach that mark for almost any kind of party.

[Variol]

The game's so easy that you have to solo. The Troll is a good choice for it.

[Xfing]

The game's so easy that you have to solo. The Troll is a good choice for it.

I play with Survival's Spawn mod right now, doubles monster strength (but not unique monsters, strangely) and increases spawns 2x-5x. Gives the game the much needed difficulty, and you finish it around level 150 with every character.

[Variol]

The game's so easy that you have to solo. The Troll is a good choice for it.

I play with Survival's Spawn mod right now, doubles monster strength (but not unique monsters, strangely) and increases spawns 2x-5x. Gives the game the much needed difficulty, and you finish it around level 150 with every character.

Linkerouny please!

[Bloax]

Here it is, just rename it to EnglishT.lod and put it into the /Data/ folder and you should be good to go.
The same thing also exists for MM7. (This one is properly named though.)

[namad]

trolls rock, who said trolls didn't?


easy mode for mm8 is like a troll/dragon/dragon/dragon/dragon party

[Xfing]

Too bad wielding a sword in your left hand has a broken formula. But I've already made a thread about that. If that's fixed, Trolls could easily attain damage outputs around ~110 coupled with paralysis and for example slowing... they would be the ultimate debilitators.

[BoardGuest808888]

At best a troll is a replacement for knight. But it offers not that much different gameplay/advantage to worth the effort all the time. The only thing good with troll is the promotion to war troll requires no fight at all is perhaps the easiest one.