Hi, I have been reading the forum for a while now but this is my first post [img]smile.gif[/img] . I am fairly new to the game and am playing through with my first group - they are all about level 9-11. Its been great so far and I'm really enjoying it but I have a slight problem with my 10th lvl human fighter; he is out-hitting/out-killing the rest of my group by about 10-1. Ever since he got hold of that ?bloodthirster? sword he seems to be berserking 3 or 4 times a round and hitting for about 50 a pop each time giving him a net of about 150-200 damage per round. My other tanks; a felpurr samurai and a human monk are pathetically capable of delivering 30ish damage per round and I'm sure I havent gimped their skills or anything - I know these guys are hybrid-caster types but I read somewhere that you should focus points on their combat abilities before learning casting skills.

Perhaps, I shouldnt complain because it is allowing me to risk taking on some hard mobs as I can pretty much rely on the fighter to take down at least one bad guy (regardless of its hp almost) in a single round.. thing is I didnt really want him to be *that* powerful compared to the sam and the monk - it kinda spoils it in a roleplaying sense... I mean why bother with a samurai or monk? should I just change them both to fighters? (yawn) The only other guy that can touch him for number of kills and overall clobbering power in combat is my mage - and thats purely cos of his high fire and wizardry skills with AE nukes. Aside from those I have two other in my group which are of vague use to me; a bard (for the sleep/insanity) and a priest (for occasional heals and all his buffs)

Its got so bad where I feel I need to improve the other 4's skills and 'catch them up' that I went hunting easy stuff in the swamp and put my fighter on 'defend' mode and the mage put his spellbook away and took out his crappy sling just to give the others a faint chance to build up ther miserable abilities hehe.. I realise I have only reached an early stage of the game so far - but atm my fighter is completely out-ubering everyone in my group and my Monk and Samurai are a bit pissed of about it frankly... can they look forward to a brighter future of damage dealing in later levels or will they always be pathetically tapping out slivers of damage in the imense shadow of the fighters prowess?

My first suggestion is to remove curse with your bishop, take the sword away from the fighter, and give it to the samurai. They can both use swords, and since the fighter can berserk on his own, you'll have two berserkers. As for the monk, just focus on martial arts and be patient. He will get to the point where he's slamming with his fists just fine...

I second Lunaticlords suggestion. If you don't have the remove curse spell, use a scroll.

Bloodlust has two advantages: First, it beserks, doing double damage. But the fighter can berserk with any weapon (if you command him to berserk instead of attack). The drawback of berserk mode is taht you hit less often, but a fighter usually has high fighting skills, so this doesn't matter much.

Second, Bloodlust has an additional swing at each attack. At the moment, you probably have 2 attacks/round for 1 swing each, and get 1 extra swing for each attack. A side effect of this is that it raises the fighting skill much faster, since you make more attacks.

Combined, this weapon would make your samurai 3-4 times as deadly, while your fighter would do only half the current damage. In addition, it would help raising the sword skill of the samurai, which will never use another type of weapon (the fighter will probaly use a mace as secondary weapon later).

To the other characters: Monks get very powerful with hands and feet, but this needs time. You can't just get them better equippement to improve them. But at the end, monks are #3 in raw damage (fighter first, rogue second).

In the end, the fighter will probably be first in number of kills, before the mage. But thanks to their critical hits, monks and samurai will do less raw damage, but score a high number of kills too.

Bard is a very nice addition - first sleep, now shrill sound and insanity, soon haste (which will aid all fighters types) and heal all, late some high-level damage spells. Doesn't do the killes himself, but can help the others a lot.

In the long run, it might seem that your priest is the least useful character. You may consider changing him to a lord or valcury at some point. But once you start facing bitter wings, you'll be glad to have the restoration spell.

Sekrab, hello!

In spite of the fact it is obtainable early and in every game, Bloodlust is one of the best swords in wizardry 8. It gives a 2X damage bonus, extra swing and huge (+6) initiative bonus.

In your party, it will probably be best to give it to the Samurai. I like to give it to the Bard over the Samurai, but only if both are in the front line and actually using their swords. Many players have found that a Samurai with Bloodlust out-kills a fighter by about 50%. The sword is that powerful. The extra swing does benefit the Fighter but I concur with the other posters that it is best in the hands of another (Samurai).

The fighters effectiveness will go down, but that is temporary, because with an uncursed sword you can also develop their ranged capabilities. Ranged capability is important for a Samurai, too (one reason I favor giving BL to a Bard) but at least the Samurai has attack spells that can be somewhat effective in the early and middle game, even without Powercast. A fighter with a cursed weapon can do nothing but throw things from their inventory.

Fighter might seems useless, but after you fully develop his weapon skill and fighting skill and give him a good non curse sword that does good damage. Berserk him and he'll goes 80+ damage per swing. cast superman on him and the damage doubles! so just have patience with him.