ELEX - The Cleric Faction

Anyway, none of those are typical followers, intended to stay with you through the game. The game isn't balanced around their presence. The few times they're there, they make content significantly easier.

It seemed necessary during my playthrough of G2, at least when I was hunting dragons in the valley. Without Biff I probably wouldn't have been able to finish the game.

But I'd be fine with companions who could die. The reason they don't do it is because while Biff is just a throwaway mercenary type character with a few funny lines, the more important characters in Risen and on will have too much story content to just kill off like that.
 
It seemed necessary during my playthrough of G2, at least when I was hunting dragons in the valley. Without Biff I probably wouldn't have been able to finish the game.

Right, the final two dragons (fire and ice), can be pretty tough. I recommend using a summon demon scroll for each instead of Biff if you play it again, as they're significantly stronger than Biff. :)
 
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Right, the final two dragons (fire and ice), can be pretty tough. I recommend using a summon demon scroll for each instead of Biff if you play it again, as they're significantly stronger than Biff. :)

Two steps ahead of you as that's what I did. :) After I learned the Summon Demon spell the rest of the game was pretty much a cinch. Biff did help a huge amount for most of the Valley of Mines section though. I was playing a Mage and not spec'd too well, so take that into consideration too.

I started the game wanting to be a ranger with some melee skills, then decided to become a Mage. One of the drawbacks ended up being I never had enough magic power to cast spells like Shrink Monster, etc.. But I managed to finish the game with that dang demon alone pretty much. :)
 
I started the game wanting to be a ranger with some melee skills, then decided to become a Mage. One of the drawbacks ended up being I never had enough magic power to cast spells like Shrink Monster, etc.. But I managed to finish the game with that dang demon alone pretty much. :)

Yeah, G2 NotR is exceptionally hard without something resembling a pre-planned, "correct" build. For example it's entirely possible to actually have lower damage than the ice dragon health regeneration rate..
 
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Yeah, G2 NotR is exceptionally hard without something resembling a pre-planned, "correct" build. For example it's entirely possible to actually have lower damage than the ice dragon health regeneration rate..

True. I was stumped at a few of those dragon encounters because of that. Couldn't figure out how I was going to deal enough damage to beat them. I ended up using a Demon on the Ice Dragon and a Shrink Monster scroll on the Fire Dragon. I had to use Biff AND the other guy on the Swamp Dragon, and I don't recall the last dragon being difficult as that was the last one I went after and knew enough tricks on how to beat them by then.

It was pretty neat to figure that stuff out though. The game definitely presented some "puzzles" in the combat as well. The last areas I pretty much breezed with my Demon summoning skills, although the placement of enemies in the last areas made things a bit tricky. My Demon would like to spawn above or below me a level. :)
 
True. I was stumped at a few of those dragon encounters because of that. Couldn't figure out how I was going to deal enough damage to beat them. I ended up using a Demon on the Ice Dragon and a Shrink Monster scroll on the Fire Dragon. I had to use Biff AND the other guy on the Swamp Dragon, and I don't recall the last dragon being difficult as that was the last one I went after and knew enough tricks on how to beat them by then.

It's easy to get the dragons mixed up. For the record:

Valley of Mines
1st: Swamp dragon, where Rod and Cipher can help you out. They can pretty much kill it on their own, you just need to dodge the fire.
2nd: Stone dragon, in the castle ruins. Gorn helps you clear lizards, but stops across the bridge.
3rd: Fire dragon, at the top of the mountain. Lots of lizards on the way up. Mountain looks like a volcano despite not being one.
4th: Ice dragon in what used to be the New Camp. By far the toughest of the lot in the Valley of Mines. I strongly recommend a demon on this one (scroll, costs a little gold and virtually no mana to cast; don't have to be mage).

Final island
5th: Fire dragon, on par with the previous fire dragon. Only difficulty at this point is the fact that he tends to bug out, so his knock-back-fire-thing will send the hero through the ground and instantly kill him.
6th: Undead dragon, toughest enemy in the game by a landslide in terms of stats, but still pretty easy with a few summon demon scrolls (he'll likely kill the first demon, so bring 3-4 scrolls to be sure).
 
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It's easy to get the dragons mixed up. For the record:

Valley of Mines
1st: Swamp dragon, where Rod and Cipher can help you out. They can pretty much kill it on their own, you just need to dodge the fire.
2nd: Stone dragon, in the castle ruins. Gorn helps you clear lizards, but stops across the bridge.
3rd: Fire dragon, at the top of the mountain. Lots of lizards on the way up. Mountain looks like a volcano despite not being one.
4th: Ice dragon in what used to be the New Camp. By far the toughest of the lot in the Valley of Mines. I strongly recommend a demon on this one (scroll, costs a little gold and virtually no mana to cast; don't have to be mage).

Final island
5th: Fire dragon, on par with the previous fire dragon. Only difficulty at this point is the fact that he tends to bug out, so his knock-back-fire-thing will send the hero through the ground and instantly kill him.
6th: Undead dragon, toughest enemy in the game by a landslide in terms of stats, but still pretty easy with a few summon demon scrolls (he'll likely kill the first demon, so bring 3-4 scrolls to be sure).

Either Rod or Cipher died before reaching the Swamp Dragon, so I had to recruit Biff to help the other guy who still survived.

Otherwise, yeah, I agree with your assessment. Once I discovered Shrink Monster worked on dragons they became easier. And the Demon pretty much insta-kills everything. :) The Undead Dragon required me summoning the Demon a bunch of times. I learned the Summon Demon spell though and didn't need scrolls. Once I saw how powerful that thing was I had to learn the spell. :) And Breath of Death / Holy Missile just seemed weak/not too useful for my playstyle.
 
Either Rod or Cipher died before reaching the Swamp Dragon, so I had to recruit Biff to help the other guy who still survived.

Otherwise, yeah, I agree with your assessment. Once I discovered Shrink Monster worked on dragons they became easier. And the Demon pretty much insta-kills everything. :) The Undead Dragon required me summoning the Demon a bunch of times. I learned the Summon Demon spell though and didn't need scrolls. Once I saw how powerful that thing was I had to learn the spell. :) And Breath of Death / Holy Missile just seemed weak/not too useful for my playstyle.

Yeah, they're not particularly strong. Generally speaking, spells are rarely worth it in terms of damage, given their high mana cost. It's a bit of a shame really.
 
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Yeah, they're not particularly strong. Generally speaking, spells are rarely worth it in terms of damage, given their high mana cost. It's a bit of a shame really.

Breath of Death seemed to work well against Trolls, but I didn't have enough magic to kill them in one bar and would have to hide and drink a potion. But Demons kill Trolls easily too so there's no real point.

Breath of Death also seemed to miss a lot of the time too. And I'm guessing Holy Missile is mostly for fighting undead because it rarely did any damage to the enemies I'd hit with it…

Fire Rain seems like a way better investment. Fire Rain and Summon Demon as learned spells and you could probably kill Innos himself. :D

Edit - I do recall Breath of Death also seeming to instakill some enemies, possibly Lizards? But it was hit or miss. I couldn't really figure out if I was doing something wrong or if it was just a dice roll as to if it hit or not...
 
Breath of Death seemed to work well against Trolls, but I didn't have enough magic to kill them in one bar and would have to hide and drink a potion. But Demons kill Trolls easily too so there's no real point.

Breath of Death also seemed to miss a lot of the time too. And I'm guessing Holy Missile is mostly for fighting undead because it rarely did any damage to the enemies I'd hit with it…

Fire Rain seems like a way better investment. Fire Rain and Summon Demon as learned spells and you could probably kill Innos himself. :D
Holy Missile only deals damage to creatures of Beliar. Orcs and Undead, mostly. However, draining the entire mana bar just to kill one orc is a bit silly.

I also prefer demon/rain of fire, even though they can only cast once (twice if you really max your mana), as they'll at least pack a real punch. The weird thing is that you can get rain of fire/summon demon scrolls that cost almost no mana to cast, so if you bring a few of those to the final boss, any character (not just mages) can kill him with a few spells.
 
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Fluent,

I just took a look at some of your gothic 2 lets play episodes. I noticed that unfortunately you didn't learn fire rain and it made things quite painfull for you. It is the most powerfull sixth circle spell. Fire rain makes the last area or the valley of mine almost like a walk in the park. Also some of the runes you learned were unfortunately wrong choises. And like you said, your character was too much a generalist. Lack of mana was obvious.

A good strategy for fire rain spell.

1. Drink speed potion
2. go near enemies and cast the fire rain. Then run through them. Fire rain instakills everyone (undead, seekers, orcs, lizardmen) expect orc elites which it leaves with little health. Remember the orcs surrounding the castle in valley of mines. Easy experience for a sixth circle mage.
3. Run away (this is easy since you're drinking speed potions) and refill mana
4. Do an other fire rain run or finish the surviours with lightning spells.

Also I think you didn't realize that every 50:th dark mushroom grants you +5 to mana permanently. So you should be eating those yummy mushrooms instead of giving them away. I don't think it would have made an huge difference, but everythings counts a little. Small streams make a river and and so forth. :)
 
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Holy Missile only deals damage to creatures of Beliar. Orcs and Undead, mostly. However, draining the entire mana bar just to kill one orc is a bit silly.

I also prefer demon/rain of fire, even though they can only cast once (twice if you really max your mana), as they'll at least pack a real punch. The weird thing is that you can get rain of fire/summon demon scrolls that cost almost no mana to cast, so if you bring a few of those to the final boss, any character (not just mages) can kill him with a few spells.

True! Fire Rain scrolls were like a Get Out of Jail Free card for me. They were somewhat rare and expensive for awhile but by the end of the game I likely could have stocked up on them pretty easily since each passing chapter adds a bunch more items to vendors.

Shrink Monster to defeat the dragons was fun. Couldn't believe it actually worked! I like RPGs where even the boss monsters may be susceptible to status effects.
 
Fluent,

I just took a look at some of your gothic 2 lets play episodes. I noticed that unfortunately you didn't learn fire rain and it made things quite painfull for you. It is the most powerfull sixth circle spell. Fire rain makes the last area or the valley of mine almost like a walk in the park. Also some of the runes you learned were unfortunately wrong choises. And like you said, your character was too much a generalist. Lack of mana was obvious.

Yeah, I realized that pretty quickly after I had tested Holy Missile / Breath of Death. I already saved though and said screw it and continued anyway.

Fire Rain + Summon Demon definitely seemed like by far the strongest combination.
 
Shrink Monster to defeat the dragons was fun. Couldn't believe it actually worked! I like RPGs where even the boss monsters may be susceptible to status effects.
It used to work on the final boss too, back before NotR. It was hilarious, hehe.

Also, "destroy undead" used to work on the final boss as well, as he is considered undead. Instant kill.

Anyway, I actually like the fact that shrink works on black trolls, dragons etc. Too many games have fancy spells that bosses are immune to, meaning you can basically only use them against fodder that you'd defeat easily anyway.
 
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Breath of Death seemed to work well against Trolls, but I didn't have enough magic to kill them in one bar and would have to hide and drink a potion. But Demons kill Trolls easily too so there's no real point.

Breath of Death also seemed to miss a lot of the time too. And I'm guessing Holy Missile is mostly for fighting undead because it rarely did any damage to the enemies I'd hit with it…

Fire Rain seems like a way better investment. Fire Rain and Summon Demon as learned spells and you could probably kill Innos himself. :D

Edit - I do recall Breath of Death also seeming to instakill some enemies, possibly Lizards? But it was hit or miss. I couldn't really figure out if I was doing something wrong or if it was just a dice roll as to if it hit or not…

Breath of death is not all bad as it does 250 damage, but I think it's range is relatively short. You should be standing in short distance right infront of the enemies. Check out this video (1:25 ->) to see a demonstration of breath of death. :) Playing the game first person can make aiming it slightly more difficult, but thats how the spell is supposed to work. It is not the most reliable spell though.
 
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Breath of death is not all bad as it does 250 damage, but I think it's range is relatively short. You should be standing in short distance right infront of the enemies. Check out this video (1:25 ->) to see a demonstration of breath of death. :) Playing the game first person can make aiming it slightly more difficult, but thats how the spell is supposed to work. It is not the most reliable spell though.

That makes sense then. I probably was too far away when I cast it. It did seem very strong when it hit but I'd say it hit twice out of 10+ times I tried it. :)

I want to say there is a cone or area of effect to it too? I think I recall getting very lucky and a few lizards all died at once when I cast it...
 
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