Best Race + Class combos

Hello been playing for a a few days, and I ditched my standard party for 2 elf warriors 1 human wizard party, been doing fine so far nearing lvl 11, although some lvl 7 stuff was just atrocious.

I'm worried about gimping my team not having a cleric, but I really did not have enough damage on my old cleric to kill anything nor any utility to help my team get card draws or anything substantial beyond +2 heals.

So I'm wondering if I should level up a secondary party to switch characters later on. Which Race+Class combos would you reccomend? any of them slightly more/less useful? My elf wizard was getting obliterated, and my dwarf warrior was always late to the party, while my cleric wasn't contributing much to the outcome of the battle besides tanking a few hits and dealing some weak strikes.

P.S. Save the usual "race doesn't matter comments, it's all about knowing how to use them" that doesn't contribute anything. Thanks!

 

My standard party is Dwarf Warrior, Human Wizard and Human Priest.

The dwarf IS a bit slow, but that's the price you pay for having a tank. He's easier to keep alive, and once he gets in contact with the enemy he doesn't have to walk anywhere. You can have a few Dancing Cuts etc. which are extra moves if you need them. And dwarves have good racial abilities for tanking.

I don't think you can go far wrong with human anything, though, given that you have decent speed and health.

As for the priest, he is a bit all over the map in terms of abilities, but on the other hand he is flexible - a bit of healing, a bit of buffing, a bit of melee.

 

I breezed through the campaign with a dwarf-warrior, human-priest and and elf-wizard. I really never had to repeat a single scenario more than once or twice, and that happened only a bunch of times really.

I agree the meaty tank is nice to have in campaign, especially for later adventures when you need to face multiple hard hitting enemies.

That being said, the items system is so flexible, I imagine you can very well face everything the GM throws at you on almost any sort of team, given you know what you're doing with your cards selection.

I think the 1 of each class approach is the most foolproof, mainly because of how versatile it is. Also, you're going to use all of your items you get from loot if you don't have 2 characters competing in the same slots.

But again, feel free to roll with a team you like. The campaign does a great job of teaching you what different kind of monsters are all about, so that once you get to harder adventures you are sort of prepared and can plan your decks accordingly. Just be sure to read the mission briefing, so that if you are going to face trees you can load up with penetrating and fire attacks, lots of missile blocks and mobility vs imps, chops for swarming enemies etc. etc.

Ultimately every race/class combination has its own pros and cons, I feel they're all pretty much on top of each other. Point is setting up your party in a way each one's individual strenghs play into the others' and also makes up for their weaknesses. I.e. you can pretty much use an elf warrior as a very effective tank if the priest keeps buffing/healing him.

Lots of possibilities.

 

All dwarf, all the time.

Really though, Bandreus has it pretty right - a mixed party will allow you to take advantage of all of your phat loot. Without a priest, you're going to be constantly saying to yourself "Woo, this looks great! Oh, wait... a divine item?"

A slow warrior is a problem early on, but later in the game you'll have a lot more move-attacks and things like Run, Team to help alleviate that problem. Also, bear in mind how HP works: at level 18, there's a 4 HP difference for each step in class and in race. That means that an elf warrior will have 8 fewer HP than a dwarf warrior (two steps down in race) which works out to 32% fewer HP. An elf mage will have 8 fewer HP than a dwarf mage, but since a mage has fewer HP to begin with that's a 47% difference.

So my real advice is: stay away from wimpy elves. But if you have to take one, don't take a mage - they're mostly ranged anyway, so they don't need to move as much.

 

My main team consists of a human warrior, elven mage and dwarven priest.

I like the versatility of my human warrior. He's everywhere I need him to be (usually). My elven mage scoots around and stays out of melee range with lots of move cards and my dwarven priest can take just as much damage as the warrior... and is often the last survivor due to healing & such.

 

I play all combos in racially pure parties and I've never had any desire to double up on any of the classes. I like my elves best because I can give them boots with armor/attacks/blocks and they still outrun my enemies.

 

This seems to be your only problem, and it should go away quickly enough. Damage is dependent on what gear you get; never find any good cleric gear and it's only natural you'd want to consider subbing someone else in. Especially on your first party.
I had the opposite trouble, where my priest was a beast and my warrior was just some dude in a nice pair of boots. But don't worry, that problem eventually goes away.
For your first party, if it works for you and you've got the cards, go with what makes sense to you, definitely.

I'd recommend grabbing anything you don't already have yet. There are a ton of quests at the end of the campaign that require you to "beat with only humans" or "beat with only Wizards". This means that potentially, to complete absolutely everything you're going to need variety, and you're going to want to be comfortable using it. Doing a map that requires all priests was sort of a shock for me the first time I tried it, and if you aren't rolling with one ever then you're going to be especially unfamiliar with how best to use them in tandem when the time comes.
I also find myself oscillating between dwarf and elf wizard a lot, because in some wide open maps my elf will reign supreme with her long distance, but in other more claustrophobic maps the dwarf is more hardy. I've never felt inclined to bring them both at once, however. It's always an either/or sort of thing. Human's racial abilities are great for moving your squishy wizards out of harm's way in an emergency, so this means that it's nice to have a human along, but I'm not too excited over making the wizard itself a human. I'd probably be saving that option for only if I were rolling a three wizard party. This will eventually happen too, because of the quests I mentioned earlier.

 

To do all the quests you'll need three each of Human Warriors, Dwarf Priests, and Elf Wizards.

 

Woah thanks everyone for answering, I'm surprised by the poll results so far, human clerics/warriors are kind of a trend lately huh? Sadly I haven't had a chance to level new characters since I'm so busy, and the little time I get to play I try to spend it clearing the higher level scenarios.

I'm reconsidering the dwarves and stacking them with charge moves or move attacks, but those are usually weak and suceptible to armored enemies (at my level of course). So maybe 2 dwarf wizards and 1 dwarf cleric could work? Sadly I don't think I'll ever get enough time to level all those characters for the race specific quests.

 

You can enlist level 10 adventurers for a 100g fee later on in the game, so I wouldn't worry about leveling up a whole army of additional characters from scratch just yet

 

Yes, just pick one party and play to the end. There's only one quest (of many) that requires elf mages, one quest that requires dwarven priests, etc. Don't worry about that right now.

Regarding your proposed party of two mages and a priest: I don't think this is going to work very well for you. Yes it depends a bit on your equipment, but warriors are generally the big damage dealers. Mages mostly do battlefield manipulation, priests mostly do buffs and healing. You can mess with this some, but a mage is never going to have the same damage potential as a warrior.

 

The main problem I can see with warrior-less parties is how to deal with large packs of enemies. You'll often be outnumbered, especially further in the campaign. Generally speaking, wizards are great at disabling enemies completely, but only a few at a time still. They can certainly deal some serious punishment, but they really are at a disadvantage if the enemy can close-in too easily.

That being said, you might still make it work. I'm thinking about a good arsenal of crowd control spells (telekinesis, cone of cold, etc.), firewalls, acid spry, stone walls (especially useful to cut some enemies out of a fight while you deal with the others), etc. Magma + fire/electric/arcane spells should be enough to take out all but the most resilient enemies out in a matter of 1-2 turns.

Not sure if your priest can tank enough dmg in the instance you need to soak up lots of hits to keep the wizards safe. Fitting one of your mages as an hybrid caster/melee-capable might be an idea (bash is available on quite a few staves and you can get some decent armor from both boots and robes). Later on when more powerful items are available, backstep and other similar cards can help your frail wizards stay alive longer.

I can't really suggest much more than these generic ideas, as I have 0 experience with no-warrior parties in campaign. Let us know how it works for you

 

I don't understand how people play with dwarves - they are too slow. I tried a dwarven warrior and had to give up on him.

 

You use lots of mobility cards. Step attacks will make up for a dwarven warrior's slowness quite nicely. Team moves are also great. And it's not like other mobility-improving cards aren't in the game. Charge is a popular choice for dwarves. But also things like Rushing Aura. Lots of different ways you can deal with it.

 

Elven Wizards seem to be much more effective in MP than they are during the campaign. In some scenarios, it seems almost impossible to keep your wizard completely out of harms way, and there are plenty of monsters that can 2 shot the elf before you can escape. Human or dwarf wizard seem to be better suited for the campaign.

 

My current party for both Single and Multi is an Elven Warrior, Human Priest, Dwarf Wizard. This assures that everyone is at the same HP, and the Dwarf Wizard doesn't need as much mobility to do his damage. He also gets access to multiple charges, which not only give him great mobility on-demand, but also can go on for 5 surprise damage when people least expect it.

My Elf Warrior is particularly sticky - Has Slippery and a ton of step cards, Sprint and other things that can take him across the battlefield in a single turn.

My Human Priest is mostly a Nimbus Monkey, but I've given her some heavy-hitting weapons so that she can sit and swing just in case I get unlucky and someone takes my Warrior out first turn. It's been working excruciatingly well thusfar, with a few exceptions later in the campaign.

 

Funny, I'd always considered the opposite to be the case. The AI is dumb, so keeping keeping dangerous foes distracted from your wizard is usually easy. Ranged foes might take a pot shot or two, but there's almost always some cover (or you can create your own, because wizard) to wait behind until it's safe to dash wherever - and that's when you don't want to draw the magical fire to your Resistant Hide anyway.

By comparison, bringing an elf wizard into PvP is pretty much the equivalent of screaming: "Hello! Victory point pinata, right here. How badly do you want to gain a round-one figure advantage? Look at my sexy, suggestive hit point total. I AM THE SOFT TARGET. IT IS ME."

 

While elf wizards look oh-so gankable in MP, my experience is that good players will put them out in seemingly vulnerable positions only to land a cone of cold on my chasing party and lay down lava at my feet as they laugh and dance away. Maybe I should stop playing as dwarves so often....

While I agree that the human opponents can chase your wizard more intelligently than the AI, some single player maps seem extremely hard to avoid getting your wiz surrounded due to numbers.

 

The day I will find some decent Arrogant Armor items will make me a very very happy dwarf

 

Like the Bern's Untouchable Mail I got from my first MP epic chest the other day? *giggles*