jefklakscodex/content/articles/wizardry8-classes.md

image	date	title	tags	aliases
/games/pc/wizardry-8/wiz8.jpg	2008-04-30	Wizardry 8: Classes Guide	Wizardry8	/articles/guides/wizardry8-classes/

### The Bishop

Race

Best Races:

• Fairy: best INT & SPE. Downside: low PIE and almost no weapons/armor usable. (go for sprite daggers if you want close-combat)
• Elf: good INT, PIE & DEX. Downside: less than fairies but you'll be able to use better armor & weapons (use staffs, maces & shield - you need AC - or throwing)
• Other good races: gnome, human. Mook for SEN + DEX.

Controlling attributes:

• Intelligence (max ASAP for power cast & keep on pumping this power skill!)
• Piety (handy Iron Will power skill, but not necessary. You'll need this for priest spells e.d.)
• Speed (Very much needed for protection spells + 4 Armor Class when maxed)
• Dexterity (Psionic controlling attribute, don't raise too high)
• Senses (Psionic controlling attribute, don't raise too much at all)

Controlling skills:

• Every wizardry book (wizardry, psionics, divinity, alchemy)
• Artifacts (don't put too many points, instead practice by mixing potions & identifying!)
• a Ranged skill when your magic points has run out: throwing & sling (don't put too much) or if you like, try to go for the staff & wand skill. just practice trough combat, that'll do. If you are going for the Elf, you'll want the MACE skill + some shield. Very nice AC bonus, and a good weapon.

Training the different skills is very difficult. You should at least try to cast a variety of spells in combat. Start with a protective spell, use some healing, cast insanity and start throwing rocks. This makes use of all 4 realms much better. Another tip: use 1 level of rogue (they level quite fast, you'll need 1000 XP instead of 1600 as specialist class) and train stealth - a lot-. Every 10 points in the skill allows you to increase your AC by 1. Or, if you like to train a lot, you'll need to do the following:

the key thing to keep in mind is that many spells go into several different books (e.g. healing falls under divinity, alchemy and psionics) and when you cast a spell the book that has a chance to increase is whichever book has the HIGHEST skill at the time you cast the spell. So if you want to use a spell to increase wizardry, and that spell also happens to be under alchemy, you want to make sure that when you are ready to power-skill it your wizardry is higher than your alchemy.

The best way to train all four books in my experience is to use knock knock for wizardry (I've never found another good spell for wizardry). Since you cannot also use knock knock for alchemy, you should use healing (cure light condition e.d. for your water realm: gas chamber room in monastery) for alchemy. It would be a waste to use healing for divinity since divine traps works so nicely there (charm works too but is slower). Finally, that leaves mindread/charm for psionics. Of course, the more realms you increase the better.

Alchemy can also be increased by mixing potions, especially when you are in a location where you can buy the ingredients. This may even be faster than healing after you reach skill level 40 and can mix cure disease. At skill level 50 mixing renewal really boosts alchemy quickly. Split every newly mixed potion and try to identify it to boost your artifacts skill. You'll also want to cast identify (buy a book from Anna at the fish store in Arnika) to raise your divinity.

Some recipes:

• light heal + poison redux / bless (req 15)
• light heal + mod heal (req 15)
• mod heal + mod stamina (req 20)
• cure disease + heavy heal (MONEY MAKER!) (req 40)
• sneeze powder + flash powder (req 50)

The Monk

Races

Best Race:

• Elf: good starting INT, PIE, DEX. Ok SEN but low VIT
• Felpurr: Very good SPE, good DEX/SEN. Lower INT/PIE
• Human: overall everything OK.

Controlling attriubutes:

• Dexterity (You need the AC badly, + #attacks is very nice. Also needed for close combat, stealth & martial arts)
• Speed (See DEX, same + initiative bonuses for insanity-ing your opponent. mwhaha!)
• Senses (Criticall strike, does that sound familiar? and decent amount of ToHIT/AR. + needed for psionics)
• Intelligence (various things like easier developing magical and second most controlling attribute)

Controlling Skills:

• Martial Arts (DEX/SPE based, adds damage and ToHIT/AR for your monk. The true power!)
• Critical Strike (SEN/SPE; Horray, +#Hits from close combat and your stats and we're set!)
• Stealth (DEX/INT; you NEED to have AC. You simply need it - cannot wear any armor except robes...)
• Close Combat (DEX/SEN; secondary skill but always handy to have)
• Psionics (SEN/INT; it's always nice to cast a terrible spell before engaging fist-to-fist with your high speed)
• Eventually throwing (I do not encourage, use your magic instead!) and a staff (the Bo's/Staff of Doom) >> STR based which is not good...

Do you go with a quick, agile Monk, capable of delivering an insane amount of attacks with a chance to critical on each blow landed? (Maximize as fast as possible SPE and DEX. Then go for SEN and INT) The trade-off is that you wont deal much damage per hit. Or do you develop a Monk capable of dishing out incredible amounts of damage with each hit and able to withstand even the mightiest blow from the enemy? The trade-off with this route is that you won't have as many attacks per round when compared to the above setup. (Maximize first DEX, and SPE/STR, go for SEN/INT after that)

Don't forget you are not able to use most weapons and armor in the game, regardless of your race. So, stealth/Dexterity/Speed are indeed VERY important. Also try to keep up your Psionics skill which enables you to mislead the enemy by KOing or casting insanity. Oh yeah, maxed Dexterity unlocks reflexion with increases your Armor Class even more. Wo-hah, a dodging casting instant-killing monk at your service. Spoken about KO: At higher levels (not sure at which level, though), Monks learn the ability to Knock-Out opponents.

You won't see any message, nor see anything on the Character Screen pertaining to it, but you'll see it happen in combat. K.O.ing the opponent is AWESOME. It makes the opponent useless in combat, and allows you to deliver 2 times the damage to them while they're in such a state. This is another reason why you want your Monk's Initiative at high levels. Hit first, KO the opponent, and your other characters can take them down with ease.

Why Wand and Staff? Well, you'll probably come across the awesome Zatoichi Bo sometime during your game. This weapon is only usable by Monks and Samurais. You'll want to give it to your Monk since Samurais can use ranged offensive magic more easily (wizardry = offensive, psionics = mind-driven). This weapon will allow your Monk to hit enemies at extended range. Sometimes during combat, an enemy will be juuuuust outside of Melee range. A nice Zatoichi Bo in a Monk's hands allows him/her to still partake in combat should the situation arise. There are a couple other Bos found in the game, but their power is nowhere near that of the Zatoichi Bo.

Practise psionics with healing, charming and mindreading (last works best, higher INT means faster increasing skill points. You won't need Power Cast)

The Ninja

Races

Best race:

• Felpurr: very good SPE, decent DEX/SEN
• Hobbit: good SEN, DEX and decent SPE, most bonus points.
• Fairy: Very good INT, Ok DEX/SEN. For Cane of Corpus the best weapon (1handled short-range staff, Don Barlone in Trynton)
• Mook: very good DEX, SEN. Downside: Very low SPE & humans of course

Controlling attriubutes:

• Senses (max ASAP for Eagle Eye!)
• Dexterity (max ASAP, controlling attribute for many skills)
• Speed (more hits per round & Initiative for using gadgets)
• Intelligence (controlling attribute for traps & alchemy magic)

As a ninja, you have access to the thrown criticals special skill. It would be wise to invest into throwing stuff like shurikens/slings because you'll be able to archive a nice #hits per round and a good critical strike skill maximizes the chance of instant-killing with every hit. If it doesn't equip a lot of alignment-changing items like KO/Poison/etc because you also automatically penetrate! Keep in mind, ranged user = maxing senses, keeping dex very high. just like the samurai you'll want many hits, hence the speed factor.

Controlling skills:

• Critical Strike (this also increases as you use your throwing weapons. Keep highest!)
• Stealth (you can't wear any good armor... You simply need to increase AC)
• Throwing & sling (auto-penetrate + thrown critical = ranged character.)
• Locks & traps (if you don't have a gadgie/bard/rogue, otherwise it's a waste of precious skill points)
• Dual weapons (WARNING: dualing ranged items ALSO needs this skill! read dual section below)
• Pickpocketing is also possible but strongly discouraged since the v1024 patch makes things not worth it.

If you like to go for close-combat, you have access to the Martial Arts skill like the monk.

Other advised close-range weapons are the staff (extended reach, some good usable by the ninja) and of course swords (maybe even dual wielding) because they are also usable by ninjas. Don't use swords if you have another sword-user, you don't have enough STR and not enough stat points to increase close-combat damage! Some maces like cat-o-nine tails and vampire chain are also usable by the ninja. Polearms are better tough, some are ninja-only! Most weapons & armor aren't usable like the monk, so keep your AC as high as possible by maxing out DEX, SPE and the stealth skill. Alchemy (mixing potions is a good way to increase this skill, also heal or knock-knock on the 8-tumbler vault in Arnika) requires DEX/INT, and higher int means faster training and maybe powercast which decreases enemy defense.

The Samurai

Races

Best Race:

• Hobbit: best bonus points; good DEX & SEN
• Felpurr: Best SPE, fairly good DEX & SEN
• Mook: High SEN, DEX. & can wield Giants Sword; KO 30%!!! (2handled) But Very low SPE.
• Dracon: Very good DEX, STR, and Ok SPE. Bonus VIT. Warning: very low SEN!

Controlling attribute:

• Strength (best attribute for adding Attack Rating & to Hit points. Also adds damage, second controlling attribute for many skills)
• Dexterity (controlling attribute for many skills, very good Hit & AR + extra attacks / round >> critical kills++)
• Speed (Initiative - which is not needed -, +AC - which is not needed but handy -, extra attacks - which is VERY needed)
• Senses (half AR & ToHit of STR, Controlling attribute for Critical Strike which is what the sammy is quite all about)
• Intelligence (if you want to cast wizardry spells, and want to do it good.)

Try to maximize STR and eventually INT for the power skills. You don't need to keep SEN over 80 (second controlling for dual plus it only adds half of the points into hit, AR as STR or even DEX does.)... Although it is wise to keep on bumping points into dexterity because it is a controlling attribute for both close combat, your sword skill AND dual weapons!

Controlling Skills:

• Dual weapons (you'll want to hit as many and as often as possible for %kill percentages)
• Critical strike (see above)
• Sword (25% bonus, muramasa blade has 15% kill factor and is samurai only. The ultimate weapon. Some nice off-hand things too, also daggers)
• Close combat -obviously.
• Wizardry when reached lvl5 - try to get power cast because it really helps to weaken enemy resistances...

If you want to work with staffs (some powerful Bo's are only usable by samurai & monks), ignore dual weapons and ignore sword.

If you want a samurai to be effective, you'll likely want to hit as often as possible to instant kill as often as possible. So: use dual swords (highest kill rate), pump dex & spe for #hits, pump sen, int and str secondly for damage, hit e.d. and your magic powers (if the enemy is out of reach). I strongly discourage any use of ranged weapons - just use your spells if you can't reach an enemy! If you really want, you could use a bow (high dex + sen anyway). You can also ignore his magic skills and boost STR some more, but that way you're better off with a regular fighter.

About lightning strike special skill: I do have this feeling, though, that Lightning Strike just MIGHT be dependent on the amount of weight your Samurai is carrying. No, I don't mean whether or not your Samura's carrying load is over the top. I mean, for example, Samurai might Lightning Strike more often if, say, they're carrying only 20% or less of their maximum Carrying Capacity. The reason why I think this may be is because I noticed that I get A LOT more Lightning Strikes in the beginning of the game. The ONLY things different during the beginning are 1)--The enemies are of lower level, and 2)--You're only carrying about 25lbs or so with your Samurai.

Bonus stuff

This is a video a recorded a long time ago showcasing different things in the Wiz8 world.

{{< youtube "btgGjLmhmZQ" >}}