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Heh, seems I finished my hard run just in time then.

Hard mode was..interesting in that I found chapter 1 on hard absolutely brutal (I actually had to buy potions in town...the humilation), got easier in the subsequent chapters despite some iffy moments and by the 4th chapter I had done a bit of grinding in preparation for Fost but seemed to have got carried away... Fost didn't last long against a well geared lvl18 loren and hardest fight turned out to be the 1v1 with amukiki vs saren (and by hardest i mean i actually had to go reload my save to unequip the guy and even put the game difficulty on easy just for that fight >< And even then it was a close close fight)

Updated character impressions:

Amukiki: I was asked before if I thought he needed buffing. Having put him through his paces in hard, I can answer he likely doesn't, the guy tanked hard mode like a champ. All his defensive abilities pulled their weight and even started to appreciate battlecry for its high chances of hitting and low energy cost. Just a shame most tough enemies are immune to fear, but was useful in battles vs orcs.
By the end of the game I had him decked out in great if cumbersome armor and he was just a living brick wall. Which worked against me when saren had to 1v1 the guy but well, thank goodness for being able to change difficulty in game ><

Loren: As awesome as ever. Only real difference is this time I grinded my loren and she was well geared in this game, ended up hacking Fost to pieces.

Draco: The only times I tried using him was in chapter 1 and he just got slaughtered, doing little damage and contributing little. Guess in hard he might need to be developped before he starts pulling his weight but in this game I ignored him.

Myrth: Officially best mage in the game as far as I'm concerned. Cheap aoe magic attacks (draco and apo's equivalent aoe spells cost an arm and a leg and are 3rd level) and heals in 1 half naked package that's easy on the eye, if she had stuns too then you wouldn't need any other mages, ever.

Apolimesho: It's all about that paralysis spell with him. 1st and 2nd levels of elemental magic are decent enough but for his 3rd level of spellcasting, shares the same problem as Draco in that Myrth casts the same aoe spells for much cheaper (sure it hits a little weaker, but myrth's spells hits all enemies from the very 1st lvl for a measly 20 mana, whereas equivalent spells from draco and apo cost 75 mana). Used him more as a support mage this game around and proved fairly useful. He is troll incarnate when facing bosses who ain't immune to paralysis (drakes) just as in normal.
Took cure and clarity to reinforce his support role, but whilst cure proved to be awesome and better imo then saren's neutralize (cures 1 status effect regardless of how long it lasts) but didn't find clarity as viable due to long delay casting it. Found it more efficient to go for saren's energy restore skill, you get massive delay too but at least energy/mana is instantly refilled.

Karen: I used her like a big noob this time tbh :\ Found a better spear so placed her on the frontlines (back row was taken anyways) and she had a tendency to die very quickly in most fights (then again, that's why I made saren take life 2, might aswell be using it). Problem is despite placing her up front, I stuck to picking skills from the left side of her tree, which in retrospect would go better with an archer/ranged karen then a frontline one, who would likely be better off with that whirlwind attack.
Never the less, she remained extremely valued party member for her speediness and the always awesome focus target (max leveled of course, 45% more damage on an enemy for 7 turns is beastly), though break leg and that other ability where she targets an enemy for a % of their hp all saw great use.

Ramas: It was a big relief to finally get this guy in chap 1, I needed someone else to be upfront with loren during those tough early parts of the game. Stopped using him when I had all team members though, so will likely make a concentrated effort to use ramas in next playthrough.

Dora:Ignored her this game, so will be using her in the next.

Rei:Whenever I had free space in the backrow, I'd use rei. Was mainly to gauge him for use in future playthroughs and liked his performance. Fatality is fast becoming one of my fav skills, having a very suitable sound effect and a high chance of trigering. Didn't reach fatality lvl3 though as Rei only went up to lvl13 in this game :\
Guy was doing some nice damage with the master crossbow too, next playthrough will likely use both rei and dora and see how they compare.

Thief Saren: I used him as a mage really. Didn't like the thief skills so concentrated 100% on the hero skills, picking at least the 1st lvl of each. Only skill I didn't use so much was elemental ward but that's cos I picked it late in the game in chap 4 and by that time, my team was well geared enough to not really mind demon elementals, but otherwise the hero skillset remains as useful as ever.
Main problem I found with thief saren is he takes up a valuable backrow space, so isn't as easy to fit in teams as warrior saren was. Then again compared to warrior saren, thief saren being so speedy means more regular hero ability casting and long cooldown abilities like energy restore become more viable when cast by ninja saren.

Haha awesome review of the characters! Based on what you say, I'm thinking if I should buff up Draco and Apolimesho offensive spells a bit...
Just to be sure, you didn't play the new version with the new Fost battle, right? I'd be curious about this one since it requires very different strategy to win this time

Alas no, its previous version so didn't get to try the new Fost fight ><
Hopefully I have a save before the fight or something, if not it will be for next game.

But think a Draco and Apo buff might be in order, especially for the 3rd level spells. Maybe I'm missing something but atm I feel lvl3 elemental spells just ain't worth it. Besides that it takes a significant skill investment, 75 mana is very costly for what it does I reckon.

Sorry but old savegames (before version 0.96) aren't compatible with 0.97
And yes probably their spells need some buffing either in damage or in spell cost, but I'm more inclined in damage. Or perhaps Myrth spells should have a bigger delay since are so powerful. Hmm...

So gonna have to do a new hard playthrough then. Guess nows the time to try the female lead.

Otherwise for buffs/nerfs, more damage for apo and dracos spells would make higher levels more attractive.
For myrth, isn't so much that her spells are powerful (3rd lvl apo and draco spells hit harder and apo is the best single target elemental damage caster) but that the mana costs are comparative cheap and her spells are aoe from lvl1, meaning she can take the 1st lvl of several elemental spells and be more immediately useful to the party due to her versability.

Draco and apo mainly focus on 1 target with their 1st level abilities, then can hit a row at lvl2 but at a hefty mana cost which will see them run dry real fast. The 3rd lvl spell will see them exhausted after 3-4 castings (for a lvl15ish character) for a respectable amount of damage. By comparison, myrth casting just her 1st level spells did 10-20% less damage (cant quite remember if dracos aoe was 110 or 100% of his attack damage vs myrth's 1st lvlspell doing 90% of her damage) but she's barely dipped into her mana reserves whereas the other 2 mages are now running on empty.

Now add in that she's a healer and she remains of use to the party even when facing tough single enemies who have few or no elemental weaknesses (in this situation, apo and draco are out of the fight unless they got support abilities) and you can see why myrth is such an attractive proposition to have in your party at all times on hard difficulty (at least for the way i played xD) and earns that title of "best mage". All the above is purely imo of course and to be taken with some salt.

No I agree with you, though in the new version, I buffed up already Apolimesho Regenerate, so that does 25/50/75hp each turn. Still not at Myrth Level, but does some decent healing. I think perhaps the simplest solution would be to increase slightly Apo/Draco damage, but also reduce the cost since as you said that's the main reason of not using their tier 2/3 skills. Going to do some tweaking now

Just superficially (played on easy, was testing story mostly), I used Myrth more because her spells costed less AND she attacked the most people. Draco could get out 2-3 spells and then he was spent, and battles lasted a bit longer than that. Apolimesho was the same, and he attacked only 1 person with lukewarm results, so he was at the bottom of my list in usefulness. Barely used the paralyze and healing, because my playthroughs weren't hardcore, but just my 2 cents ...

I made a quick change to the skills, if anyone want to try the new tweak, copy the files here:
LorenRPG-0.98/
and replace the one you find in /game subdir. Now Draco and Apolimesho have more firepower, I think that now might be balanced better

jack1974 wrote:I made a quick change to the skills, if anyone want to try the new tweak, copy the files here:
LorenRPG-0.98/
and replace the one you find in /game subdir. Now Draco and Apolimesho have more firepower, I think that now might be balanced better

Awesome! I'm gonna test it now

Edit: Wow, their attacks *are* beefier. What decides how powerful their Magic Bolt is? I was thinking the reason I don't use the magic users much (in general) is because once they run out of SP, their magic bolt isn't that effective so they're not as good as an archer as far as damage goes. Though I don't know how relevant that thought is now that I can do their special magic more often since they seem a lot cheaper. I can't remember how much they were before, but I just cast Fireball I 5 or more times at level 10 and still had about half my SP left. That's a huge improvement, I think.

All mages attack / skills are based on the Magic value, so even the magic bolt