by TigerKnee on Tue Nov 29, 2011 3:14 am
Feels more like I'm writing a tier list more than "my most used race" but eh. Maybe my views won't be the most "common"
1) Human/Orc: Which one you pick is based off how aggressively you convert crap glyphs.
Not only does more damage improve your "burst" damage, it also uniquely allows you to regeneration fight, which is only possible if you can out-damage your enemy. Even if you're playing the magic using classes, getting more physical damage will prevent you from being completely 1 dimensional and losing to Iron Golems or something.
2) Gnome: Mana Burn is more annoying than Poison IMO. Great race for playing Thieves and Sorcerer, anyone trying to use Patches, etc...
3) Halfling: Only for "stamina" stages where you have to gruel through a lot of bosses... but not TOO many bosses (like the last naga city.) and probably only for stages that heavily penalizes magic use that I won't want to use Gnomes.
For the two potion races, they're a lot better for experienced players vs newbies, because the former tends to have better judgement on when to use a potion.
4) Dwarf: In the past, useful only for Rogues. After the 80 conversion rate buff, slightly better that I might consider using for Thieves and Paladins. The thing is that more Max HP only helps for Burst Damage, but not as much as getting more damage. Even if you convert aggressively, at best you tend to only get maybe 1 more attack out of your conversions. In a "general" scenario, a Dwarf tends to lose out to most races.
However, Dwarves do have a niche. If you can't even attack an enemy without dying, then it doesn't matter if you have 30 health potions or 300 attack because you're not going to be able to make use of it without attacking. This is most obvious on Rogues but technically if there was ever a dungeon where the stats on monsters are so high that it would kill most other races in 1 hit but not the dwarf... well, yeah. Dude would be tops then.
5) Elf: I actually wanted to make a topic on this race. But I thought my opinion might be a bit unorthodox. This topic will have to do.
Elf is the only race that has a worse conversion rate compared to the alpha. I think I've seen dev opinions that Elf was overpowered in Alpha but maybe I'm imagining things.
I disagree. I mean, you guys created a campaign that forces you to use Elves entirely and the entire time I was thinking "Oh god, I wish I wasn't an Elf Rogue" or something similar for each stage. If Elves were overpowered in Alpha, it's only because Alpha had alpha Orcs, alpha gold giving Goblins and other such "winners" that elves look awesome in comparison.
Now, elves do have their niches. For example, if you're playing a Transmuter, Elves are the fastest way to get enough mana to execute "The Fireball Combo", as I call it. An Elf Bloodmage is probably better than a Gnome because you can't chug down too many potions in one shot and if you're trying to complete a dungeon that a physical class is completely unsuited for (e.g Fighter vs Tower of Goo), then you pretty much pick Elf... or Gnome.
But max MP only really helps if you reach the arbitary number that allows you to cast 3 fireballs instead of 2 (or 4 instead of 3 etc) and the lower conversion rate means it's harder to hit those breakpoint...which makes it sort of like raising max HP in a way. Also, more max MP means more tiles spent regenerating your MP and as of now, fireball slinging as a strategy is a lot worse than physicals because of how many new abilities that just screws it over, like counter fireball, teleport and spawn plants/regenerate etc.
Other than the niche usage on Transmuters like I mentioned, whenever someone beats a new vicious dungeon it's generally not with Elves. They have fallen quite far if you ask me.
6) Goblin: I'm amazed that the conversion rate for this dude is cut down to like almost half the alpha rate but somehow beta Goblin manages to be worse. Why is this the case? Maybe it's because it's MUCH easier to kill higher level dudes in this level and get bonus EXP due to the number of preparations you can bring, whereas that task was rather tough in the alpha version.
Since the level cap is 10 anyway and Goblins don't exactly earn significantly more EXP compared to the other races (you'll be like level 9 when others end at 8, maybe?)
Assassin is about the only class that likes Goblins. Even then I rather play some other race for said class.