minmay wrote:Backstabbing with two weapons is 6 skill points (3 light weapons + 3 critical). Using Devastate is...6 skill points (5 heavy weapons + 1 critical). If heavy weapons are allowed the latter, light weapons should be allowed the former.
I don't believe we were talking about Devastate. Someone brought up raw DPS between Dual Light vs Heavy, then suddenly someone mentioned backstabbing as a counter to that. But backstabbing requires points in addition to raw DPS. It would be interesting, then, to see a DPS comparison of Dual Backstab vs Devastate.
minmay wrote:I never encountered a significant place in the game where it was necessary to get surrounded or cornered. Do you have a specific example? The only one I can think of is picking up the arquebus and that's not very significant IMO.
Maybe my experience is colored by playing on Hard where monsters move much faster, but I remember many distinct areas in crystal mines and cemeteries where monsters would come out of secret wall passages after a button press, from behind and in front of you in single corridors. In the pyramid, there were many areas where incredibly fast moving snakes are released from multiple areas, not to mention being teleported onto a tile where there is either a snake or a medusa on all 4 sides of you. In the crystal mines there are several areas where spiders literally drop from the ceiling onto the tiles all around you. You can get trapped by earth elementals in a couple places, too, and Light Weapons are especially ineffective against their high protection - same for skeletal crusaders which the game also loves to use the 'hidden button releases monsters ahead and behind the player' trick with. Anyways, there are plenty of places getting cornered is a distinct possibility.
minmay wrote:Vardis wrote:You didn't get cornered in the catacombs with all the ghouls in sort of a big pit? Maybe I went there too early. The ghouls were giving me problems early on, since they attack so fast.
Oh, that pit. I just used invisibility. If you have prior knowledge, you can do it without invisibility by waiting for a hole to open up around the teleporter and the lever that opens it.
I'll admit this part of my argument weakens considerably if you pretend that insanely broken spell/staff doesn't exist. =P
Yeah, not every party will have access to Invisibility. I was very close to running a Knight, Rogue Dual Wielder, Rogue Archer, and Alchemist, who would have had no Concentration skills, and only changed at the last moment to having a Wizard because I liked the real-time rune creating aspect so much in LoG1. Balance of weapons/skills should definitely also take into account what first-time players are likely to experience. A new player won't be bee-lining to the Serpent Dagger and Moonblade immediately, then finishing the rest of the areas off. They'll probably have a Rogue who is stuck with Backbiter and the Dagger for two-thirds of the game, or a Knight who finds the Longsword early on and then just gazes longingly for the majority of the game as the party comes across the Poleaxe, Maul, Ancient Sword, Bane, Ax, Scythe, Sabre, Meteor Hammer, etc, wondering "When do I get something better to use?". There isn't even a Strength equivalent of the Serpent Blade in the game.
For the record, I do not agree with the assertion "Light weapons are rubbish", but they are very limiting to the player who chooses to use them. A Heavy Weapons expert can pick and choose from amongst a veritable armory, carefully deciding what kind of a role he wants to play in combat (Flurries, or High Damage attacks to penetrate armor, dealing elemental damage, sticking one handed and using a shield [Before Skill 5], etc). On the other side, a Light Weapons expert is pretty much told "Do dual wield backstabbing, and don't talk to me until you have 40+ Dex through potions and the Bracelet of Tirin. And why would you want to have a wide selection of weapons available? We already told you that you do backstabbing!"
Vardis wrote:It didn't occur to me to ever try to throw one by hand underwater. I mainly used my bombs as decoration in the hub. Seriously.
lol, yeah, I never thought of that, either. Would have saved me multiple heart attacks after checking for turtles, seeing none around, then suddenly having two of them line up behind me in a water corridor I couldn't escape!
