The Sinister Design Forums

What are your favorate classes in TPA2? Why?

Psy Fighter is top: they have the greatest area attacks dealing maximum damage for the enemy.
Assassin: if trained up, great against potent enemies towards the end of the game, also very mobile, so can be used to mop up loose ends in battle.
Spearman: choosing between non-Psy units, he is the best to do the tank job, higher health, greater damage and has a semi-ranged attack to compliment the arsenal.

Shadow Guardian is neat, but comes late in the game, by which time I already have a full, well trained team, so he's releatively weak in comparison, plus the Psy Fighter will have the same attacks, and they're unlocked already.
The healers are useful, but they're support units, really, and their role is secondary in battle. Shadowlings, Spriggats, Spirits- all great flying units, and can do fair damage if need be, but they're mostly used, by me, for "massing" effects, tackling the enemy with numbers.

Until late in the game, I found the Psy Fighter as kinda useless without a Spirit Transfering PsP.  His attacks cost alot of PsP, so after a few attacks, he is stuck with only mind blast.

That's true, but then there is balance to be found- before he has enough PsP, one can use a Spririt to back a Psy Fighter up, plus allow the Psy Fighter to use Vengeance/Feedback combo instead, then start using elemental attacks when the fighter has enough PsP.

I like assassins because they are highly mobile, so they can get a lot of extra backstab damage. On the downside, they can also be the most exposed units.

i play by the way of the assasin because there fast and decently strong and they can play real smart

Mine are Frost Spriggat (my name is enough), then Psy Healers (I like their solid state sheil and static sheild), then Shadowling Healers (if Craig remakes TRPG2, he should make Festus learn Shadowport like these healers).

The first time I played TPA2 I used just a team of assasains and using 2 shadowlings in the battles where you need a non-physical attacker and it worked great.

Quote from: yogc on April 01, 2010, 08:24:31 PM
I like assassins because they are highly mobile, so they can get a lot of extra backstab damage. On the downside, they can also be the most exposed units.

Anything higher than a normal difficulty, I found the assassin almost impossible to use without him dieing.

When friendly fire was on, I found the non-healing psys as very difficult to use.  Psy Assassins, Shadow Guardians, and Spriggats all had large area attacks that would end up hurting my own teammates.


My three were the Spearman, Shadowling Healer, and Red Spriggat.
Spearman: The combantion between range and melee attacks made him a good combination with both swordsmen and bowmen.  With a swordsmen, the spearman can use Spear Throw to finish a unit off from behind a swordsmen.  With a bowmen, the spearman can take the enemy hit, while the bowman strikes.
Shadowling Healer: This moblie healer can easily move around the battlefield trying to heal wounded teammates.  With its mind blast, this Healer can also make a finishing blow when necessary.
Red Spriggat:  Fire Breath 2 was one of the most useful attacks in the game.

My top 3 are the psy fighter, the frost spriggat and the psy healer.

I agree with KZ that the psy fighter is top.
I usually like to have a Spriggat: Fire/Frost Breath 2 is quite useful.
Having a healer surely makes things easier for us. A psy healer comes early in the game.

Other than this, I also use a spearman as a tank and the spirit as a support unit to the psy fighter (and the healer, if necessary). The assassin and the shadowling guardian are also useful.

I usually play with friendly fire on and I disagree that the non-healing psys are difficult to use. I usually have a psy fighter with light affinity that uses light bomb in the beginning of the fight (to soften the opposition) and then he uses either light blast or mind blast during the rest of the fight.

I've played many battles with a three-man team: myself, a Psy Fighter with the floating-orb (Azure, possibly?), a Shadowling Healer, and a Spirit.  All three were flying units with a good mobility.  The Psy Fighter and the Spirit did major damage, being ground into offensive powerhouses, with the Spirit occasionally transferring PsP, and the Healer healed and occasionally threw in a Mind Blast as well.

I haven't played this game, but I like Spriggats and Shadowlings, especially the Guardians. I like Spiggats because they, if properly trained, could be superior in every way to Shadowlings, but since there is no Shadow Spriggat, they can't be trained to be superior in every way to Shadowlings. The Spriggats are the damage dealer unit variety, and the Shadowling Guardian is also a heavy damage dealer, plus I just prefer Spriggats and Shadowlings to humans. Sorry race, but humans are just overrated nowadays :D, I'd say that because we are allowed everything, shadow, ice, fire, light, and we are usually superior to the other races, we have higher mobility, more strength, what don't we have?

There are Dark Spriggats, Duskling.  And Humans don't always have higher mobility- to be fair, you'd have to compare human player characters vs. Shadowling/Spriggat player characters, in which all humans save TRPG2Main + Green Orb and Arman get pwned.  We have more strength because of the swordsman, bowmen, assassin- i.e. physical classes.  What don't we have? The ability to fly.

Duskling, kindly do elaborate on the statement that Spriggats are better than Shadowlings? What stats reflect this? For instance, speed is roughly the same, health is actually better for Shadowlings (both non-healing and healer versions), Shadow Guardian's attack has greater area damage and equivalent range to those of Spriggats with Elemenatl Breath 2. The only thing they don't really have is a Healer with a good offensive attack (Red Spriggat Healers deal 9 with Fire Breath, if memory serves me right, which is better than 6 for Shadowling Healer's Mind Blast) and the Dark Spriggat can slow the target down to 2 steps per turn.

Personally, I play with friendly fire off (though I do admit it is a tad unfair), mainly due to force of habit, than anything else.

From the voting it seems like the Bowman and a Swordsman are not really that popular. Does anyone use them extensively?  I prefer Spearmen to Swordsmen due to their initial high health and their ability to mix up melee with ranged/"area" attacks.

I use a swordsman as a tank, with the other units helping out, but I don't train him that much since I just use him to gain money for WHEEE! units- er, I mean flying units.  Once I get the Shadowling Healer, Spirit and Azure Orb, I pretty much don't use any other units, except maybe the Assassin, who makes up for non-flyingness in mobility.

Why does no one like the Spirit?

Quote from: KZ on June 24, 2010, 10:16:42 AM
Duskling, kindly do elaborate on the statement that Spriggats are better than Shadowlings?

I'm sorry, but please read carefully, KZ. I stated that they could, if properly trained be better in every way than Shadowlings. Though I just like Spriggats better overall may also have a part in it. Also, the Shadowling Guardian is a good teammate either way, the Spriggats are probably cheaper(?).

So you're saying at the same level of stats, the Spriggats are better? Or that they unlock better attacks? Spriggats have about equal mobility but they can't learn Shadowport.  They have smaller area attacks and less PsP.  In fact, the only advantages they have are a) higher health and b) Spriggats (as a race) are not restricted to one element, although each individual is.

Alright, you guys got me, I just like Spriggats better, plus, as I said, they are ost likely cheaper than Shadowling Guardians. They are better than regular
Shadowlings, but not the Guardians. Since Psy Assassin Shadowlings can't learn Dark Vortex.

Quote from: Duskling on June 25, 2010, 12:47:54 AM
they could, if properly trained be better in every way than Shadowlings

I was very much aware of what you wrote, but for a fair comparison one has to use the same stats. And, I would like to note that Bromtaghon's point about higher health for Spriggats is also debatable, as Red Spriggats have lower health than Shadowling Soldiers, and the Guardians and Healers have comparable, if not higher health than the Dark Spriggat. Point about elemental restriction is a good one, though that does seem to be the only significant advantage for them to hold. And the difference in cost is quite minimal in comparison to how much money/time is saved by playing through all the leagues with Shadowlings only over Spriggats only team.

@KZ
Enemies
Shadowling Guardian: 80
Dark Spriggat: 75
Shadowling Healer: 70
Frost Spriggat Healer: 60
Red Spriggat Healer: 50
Shadowling Soldier: 45
Frost Spriggat: 45
Red Spriggat: 38

Teammates
Shadowling Guardian: 30 + 2D
Frost Spriggat: 20 + 2D
Red Spriggat: 16 + 2D
Shadowling Assassin: 14 + 2D
Shadowling Healer: 10 + 2D

So, as enemies Shadowlings have higher health overall, but as teammates Spriggats have higher health than Shadowlings (save for the Guardians) at the same Psy Defence level.

Thanks for the stats, Bromtaghon.

I tend to think it in terms of enemies, however the Guardian is still above the others, and the Shadowling Assassin is pretty close to Red Spriggat in health, so I would still say that it is not a clear-cut advantage to the Spriggats even in this respect.

Still, in light of the above, I would like to note that I use both classes, as sometimes having variety in elemental attacks can be an advantage on certain maps (I ussually go for one red, one frost and one shadowling).

If Spriggats aren't exactly better than Shadowlings, aren't they cheaper? If they are, that would be the advantage: Spriggats are cheaper than Shadowling Guardians, but stronger than Shadowling Assassins.

They are slightly cheaper, but the prize difference is rather small- within the 100-200 gold range. Which, given how much gold you can get from slaying an enemy in battle, the number of tries required to beat the battle, the number of turns and general time taken to beat the battle to gain money, might not, in the end, be profitable at all. For instance, I can save up quite a bit of gold by bying only Swordsmen, but then I'll have a much tougher time, even if I invest the leftover gold, beating higher league battles than if I invetsed all that gold in, say, Spriggats, who have several advantages, including higher mobility and elemental resistances.

Though, for "proper" comparison one would have to start with 2 teams, one filled with Spriggats, one with Shadowlings, take the difference in gold required to buy the two teams and invest it into the cheaper team. Then, see what stats the team produces in terms of attack, health and defense (the way to invest would be to try and level up the differences in the attack stats, such that when the team goes onto the battlefield, the attack stats are more similar to each other). Then one can analyse the difference in stats at same Psy attack and defense levels, see which unit is more effective, then see how much gold is required to get the weaker teammate to the same level as the other one. Then compare all the invariable stats, then  try to compare all the variable stats in terms of either gold invested or unit stats with same basic levels. Then try out a couple of battles of different difficulties to see which team is, overall, more efficient. (For instance, taking on Dark Spriggats with Spriggats has advantage of dealing more damage with Heat and Cold attacks, but the disadvatnage is that the teammates will be slowed down and will recieve the full blast from Dark Breath, unlike Shadowlings, who can get Shadow resistance, but would deal only half the damage to Dark Spriggats. In this situation, I'd probably say stick to Shadowlings, because, at least, your teammates will not be slowed down, whilst them taking to kill a Dark Spriggat twice as long will be balanced by them recieving only half the damage. )

MEH!! i relly like psy fighter, cuz of their enormous elemental area attacks, and massive damage , if u train ur atks a lot. If u train psy power quite a lot, , you can often instakill large groups of enemies, something that no other class can do quite as effectively.

If you train your attacks a lot, of course they do lots of damage.  As for area attacks- they generally do less damage, but if you train (grind) your character enough, then yes, you can more efficiently destroy large amounts of enemies than any other class.

From when the demo was online, I enjoyed using the Psy Fighter (a big given), Shadowling Guardian (They wear bone masks. What isn't there to love?) and the Spirit (I used physical resistance a lot. It was handy)

I chose Psy Fighter, Shadow Guardain, and Red Spriggat in that order.

[spoiler]I also like White Spriggats, Spearmen, and Shadowling Healers[spoiler]I dislike Healers and Swordsmen, Also Archers and Spirits[/spoiler][/spoiler]