Here’s my contrarian party with skill trees at side: Front Row: Gambler 1+3 Alchemist 1+3 Gunmage 1+3 Back Row: Bard 1+2+3 Pherochemist 1+2+3 Blood Mage 1(no points in hemalurgy)+2 Rather than barrier I plan on putting prestige points in hp. Def increases effective hp by X2. Barrier would be by another X2. But there’s no limit to hp prestige points. I changed my Party swapping Alchemist for Cleric and Bloodmage for Rogue

[http://imgur.com/a/SJuKV](http://imgur.com/a/SJuKV) Very high damage single target team comp that attacks very fast, With a extremely tanky front line.

I’m using this one as i learn more about the game Front row: Paladin, Blademaster, Dragonlancer Back row: Bard, Cleric, Berseker I’m the floor 540 doing fine whit all those buffs.

Oh crap i wrote a book.....and it wont save my formatting...???? ::::::party recommendations at the end:::::::::::: Well with this latest patch i really dont know what to recommend any more. So many negatives vs your team + so many buffs for them that basically anything you do you still run the chance of getting 6 dead party members in less than a second at floor 900+. The issue at this point is many fold. #1 debuffs take spots of buffs: this is a HUGE penalty, especially since debuffs now are 500+ of a negative stat, add in that you loose a buff that totals 1k+ and your net loss to damage/survival is generally in the range of 1500-2k stats. When you have 20 debuffs going at once...thats an absurd amount of survival and damage lost. #2 the scaling to monster stats is now ABSURD, even if i wasnt debuffed i couldnt hit the monsters levels of attack talking 40-60k+ attack stats. While that by itself COULD be manageable, the real issue happens when you get a monster(s) with a high scaling abilities(s) as well. @340k hp+shield i literally saw my entire team get one shot in less than a second on a level i was 2-3 hitting just moments before. The higher you go, the worse this gets. #3 defense just doesnt scale for shit, ever. Managing to stack my defense to 15k+(average after debuffs) on one of my main hitters, is still pointless, that is ONLY a 7.5k damage reduction. when a creature can ONE hit me, 7.5k means dick. #4 HP, you CAN through tree get a ton of extra HP, while sacrificing ~30% of your attack power, you could ofc balance this to less but i consider a 30% loss for 3x the HP to be worth it, still doesnt matter. my now 456kHP front line+ 300k shield STILL almost got one shot @ 930, i mean we are talking i had 2k hp left. Oh #5 healing/shielding doesnt scale for shit: i mean before i started using a shield buff i was having a hard time keeping my party full health with two healers, even the change out for a shield buff(which also adds defense) only made a real difference before these last two patches. End of the story? Defenses dont matter, hp doesnt really matter(though it can make SOME difference), but even if your attack scaling kept up with their HP gain(it doesnt even come close since this last patch) you would STILL run into packs that would occasionally one shot you. So your primary goal is going to HAVE to be offence, my next reset i will try scaling my tree's final tier passives to go for the 20% health buffs and put all the rest into damage to see if double the HP for 5-10% of my over all damage works better. Now with all that stated: Most party members because of the above just are not any where close to worth using, ANY party member that provides an additional debuff/damage to you will only guarantee your demise. After testing every class for a good bit in party i will list the ones to stay away from at all costs first.(and why) NEVER USE ----------------------------- Squire: the starting class, nothing about this class is good/scales in any real meaningful way. Deathknight: Any class that hurts itself/party members just guarantees it to be useless late game. Bloodmage: see above, also considering how bad it hurts, much better buffs for no downside in other classes. dragonlancer: Love the books, not this class. end of the day its not the best self buff OR scaling. blademaster: Another rule of thumb, if it only hits one target and DOESNT have a useful party buff, it isnt worth using. druid: probably the best single target dps in the game, but single target gets you killed. If it changes to hit even two enimies later on, this will probably be the go too character. gunmage: just no. oh god no. why did i use this character ever. gambler: NO scaling. MAYBE ---------------------- Knight: useful buffs, meh damage Alchamist: Mainly here in case debuff's on player side get boosted, as is his buffs are probably the weakest archer/mage: so many multi target damage abilities! BUT only scales off of one attack stat, leaving them behind in damage compared to others. Paladin: I use this one, love his buff, but it is rather weak/sporadic in how it casts. Aside from that shields himself rather well. pherochemist: has two decent buffs, BUT since each takes up a buff spot the spd/def buff should be skipped(wastes a stack). Since he has no damage to speak of, he is a maybe. Certainly useful early game, but maybe best replaced floor 900+ with something that scales better. (still 6-9 targets PER cast x 5 before it expires WITH 200-300 attack stats...its an ability that will grant you a SOLID boost in dps, at least until you hit the debuff wall. MUST USE ----------------------- Cleric: two AMAZING abilities, a huge shield buff, which scales better than any other party shielder in the game(but still gets out classed unfortunately later game), also has a decent party buff. It is hard for me to say right now this character would be worth a slot at 2k+ level, at the same time i still cant think of anyone better, you need as much damage soak as possible, and this characters shield buffing goes a long way to provide you a lot. Bard: Best full party buff in the game, regardless of what strategy you are using i dont see this guy not taking up a spot in it. Rouge: I love this dude, his main attack scales off BOTH attack stats, and scales rather well at that, leaving him the #2 damage contender in the game, decent self buff on top of it just means you can expect to be 1-3 shotting most mobs up to ~800 with him alone. Berserker: This is the BEST scaling attacker in the game. his self buff (if managed) wont give any negative defense(or minor amounts) for just HUGE spikes in attack damages. since its a pure self buff he will be casting all stacks on himself, and it is for once not a buff you can beat out with another party buff. generally 100-400 stats more PER buff than any other at same cost invested, meaning once you get to the point you can run 2-4 stacks of this constantly, he is an EASY contender for back row, since he will get less debuffs. On top of this his attack scales off both atk stats at a .5 ratio on either. (which is high) His only real down side being that you HAVE to spend on all 3 skills (left and right attack, then buff) and each is a single target hit does detract SOME from his OPness, the real benefit though comes in the fact that he has a absurdly fast attack naturally, that quickly scales down into the .5 second range off of cdr from tree alone. meaning in the time it takes to cast the rouges attack once, he will hit 4-6 enemies, since his damage is the absurd range, he will (especially when combined with the rouge) allow you to clear levels in 1-2 seconds well into the 1k range.

Im @lvl 1278, using next setup: Front row: Cleric(speed), Dragon(speed), Rogue(skill) Back Row: Phero(speed), Bard(speed), Gun(attack)

Cleric – alchemist – druid berserker – bard – mage cleric full shield specced and mage full on cd+damage spec

@darkvision1 I kinda disagree with some of your choices of useless / must have… The gunmage is the 3rd best damage dealer, the dragonlancer makes sure you level faster, the bard is probably the best class before level 500 but not needed at level 1000+. You kinda can use him instead of the Alchemist, but his partybuff probably gives your other damage dealers less damage boost than an alchemist as foruth damage dealer. Currently my Levels are around 1700 (I only play about 6-8 hours a day so I could have been at 5-6k if played more often) and I use: Rogue → Best damage dealer with a doubleslash of ~4.5m / sec. Uses 3 orc banners Berserker → Second best damage dealer but way worse than the rogue with 2 \* ~ 1.2 m / sec. Uses orc banner + Tombstone + Speed / XP shard Dragonlancer → does no damage to speak of but with his exp/buff he levels the fastest. He gets ~70% extra exp. Uses 3 items with ~ 4k speed + 42% exp (Total exp ~300%). I switch him around with the lowest level character after every Prestige to average out my levels. Cleric → Well his barrier-skill is basically obligatory else you would die at lv 1800 enemies. Uses 3 items with ~ 4k skill, 2 with +42% exp and one with + 42% skill power Alchemist → Buffs / Debuffs are useless but does ~1.1 m damage / sec which means he is still the 4th best damage dealer. Uses 3 items with ~ 4k skill, one with 42% exp, one with 42% skill power, one with 18k max power Gunmage → Third best damage dealer with ~ 1.8 m damage / sec. His Spray and Pray is usefull but you should prevent to level up the first skill, because the attack debuff is worse than the speed buff. Uses the same items than the alchemist but with attack instead of skill power I think the party I use provides the fastest leveling with a good combination out of exp gain and damage dealing.

@ryu82 i agree, keep in mind that was written pre two patches ago, and the second to latest patch changed a ton of stuff blance wise, making some good choices into mid-late game bad ones, and vice versa. on top of it alch/gunmage scale better than i had figured since i didnt take into account the “all” aspect of their abilities, greatly lowering my estimation of their damage output. They are in fact top tier, and the best two over all dps’es in the game. Their main down side being that vs 1-3 targets their damage IS much more limited, but thats what the rogue/mage is for ;) I was thinking of redoing it, but since its a patch away from being all invalidated again, and i dont feel like doing it every day i will instead just give some “current” general advice. Cleric – is hands down the best party character in the game, it will easily(when using SKL items) shield your entire party to double their hit points. it is a MUST character past 1k. gunmage/alchamist – the top two damage dealers to a full group, they are by far and away the highest dps in the game when calcing vs 6 mobs. Since the tool tip doesnt take this into account, and some people are dumb enough not to think of it right away(like me) its worth mentioning that their dps is 6 times(max) lower than its optimal output. even averaging it to 3 hit (since sometimes rogue etc will kill critters before their ability goes off) its still absurdly high dps. rogue – the 3rd best dps in the game, also imo a must in parties, especially for taking on 1-3 creatures at the end of a level. It is murder face. Mage/archer – behind rogue in dps, and depending on what level prestige etc one is better than the other, but generally not by miles. berzerker – clearly better than archer until around floor 1500-1700, but starts getting out scaled around then. still a viable choice though, but you will loose dps with this over archer. Supports – past 1k-1500 the stat increase is just so small that they arnt worth while. buffs are (unless they get buffed) dead at this point. you are better off with a DPS character in mid game than ANY support BUT cleric. cleric is a 100% must use. other multi targets or single target DPS’s – they either dont scale well enough, hit too slow, or hit too few creatures to be useful in mid-late game. Especially true of characters like druid that are balanced around their self buffing, since buff’s tend to be a hill of beans compared to a mountain of stats late game it means even his “big” single target damage in early game isnt coming even close to the multi target dps of even the weakest scaler in that area. as for exp based play on say dragonlancer – i personally think this is a bad idea, and im rather sure the math would back me up. you are giving up a HUGE DPS slot, which means a higher level farmed(more exp/gold per hour) for all 6 characters vs one at 300%. You are also slowing down what floors you can get to, and max level of items for more dps, for a minor to negative over all gain to exp. By this i mean taking 300% on one character(doesnt matter if you are switching it around to average it out, it actually makes it easier to make the point) thats 50% extra exp to each character (over time) for a net party dps loss of 15-20%. that 15-20% dps should still equate out into at least 10% more experience per hour, if not higher. Meaning for a 40% “max” buff to exp you have lost out on the same amount of extra gold to be spent prestiging, better tier items, and floor levels. Oh and levels dont matter nearly as much as you seem to think, though they are rather nice, they arnt essential to fast advancement with the right party. my party is all level 1705 and clearing 200 floors over its level, and i havent actually stopped to farm for items till recently, meaning they are semi-under geared on top of it.

About the 40% extra exp. Well I think it is still worth it. I have some items with exp+, so lets say with the dragon lancer I level about 25% faster at average than without him. That means level 2400-2500 instead of level 2000. Even if I could only kill enemies with the same level instead of being 200 levels lower would still mean, I can farm 200 levels higher than without the dragon lancer.

> *Originally posted by **[Ryu82](/forums/32365/topics/615682?page=1#posts-10310647):*** > > About the 40% extra exp. > Well I think it is still worth it. I have some items with exp+, so lets say with the dragon lancer I level about 25% faster at average than without him. That means level 2400-2500 instead of level 2000. > Even if I could only kill enemies with the same level instead of being 200 levels lower would still mean, I can farm 200 levels higher than without the dragon lancer. You dont seem to get it, when i started you were WELL ahead of me in floors(i remember seeing you on scores before i even hit them)…im now 1100 floors over you and still climbing(fast). Any person around my floor level is higher character level(at least that i have talked too). Sure prestige helps, but better gear and more party dps is more important than exp. especially when you consider that what im killing is worth 2.5x-3x in exp and gold to what you are killing. Im not saying you cant do it, just saying that recommending it as a “viable” strategy for advancement doesnt hold up.

Front row: Blademaster Knight Dragonlancer Back row: Cleric Archer Mage Dmg isn’t super high but its a never die team.

Front : Rogue 1/3, Paladin 1/3, Bard 2/3 Back : Gunmage 1/3, Cleric 1/2, Zerker 1/2/3 I like this build as it puts rogue up front who gains def from 3rd ability, Paladin as a front liner to absorb damage and stay alive while maybe healing the cleric if she dies, Bard coz if he dies it doesn’t matter. Gunmage for pure AD, zerker for hybrid, cleric AP in the back for heals and shields.

> *Originally posted by **[darkvision1](/forums/32365/topics/615682?page=1#posts-10311693):*** > > *Originally posted by **[Ryu82](/forums/32365/topics/615682?page=1#posts-10310647):*** > > > > About the 40% extra exp. > > Well I think it is still worth it. I have some items with exp+, so lets say with the dragon lancer I level about 25% faster at average than without him. That means level 2400-2500 instead of level 2000. > > Even if I could only kill enemies with the same level instead of being 200 levels lower would still mean, I can farm 200 levels higher than without the dragon lancer. > > You dont seem to get it, when i started you were WELL ahead of me in floors(i remember seeing you on scores before i even hit them)…im now 1100 floors over you and still climbing(fast). Any person around my floor level is higher character level(at least that i have talked too). Sure prestige helps, but better gear and more party dps is more important than exp. especially when you consider that what im killing is worth 2.5x-3x in exp and gold to what you are killing. Im not saying you cant do it, just saying that recommending it as a “viable” strategy for advancement doesnt hold up. Like I said I only play 6-8 hours a day. I’m 9-10 hours out of house for work and sleep 7-8 hours a day. I can’t sleep when the pc is on and I usually don’t like to leave it on when I’m out of house because of a needless higher electric bill. So if you have the game open for 24/7, there is no way, you wouldn’t pass me. Your total playtime is probably a lot higher than mine. Btw. I totally underestimated the gambler… At level 2600, his roulette skill gives 12% exp boost with 9 casts, a cooldown of 1.80 and duration of 12.83sec. 90% chance as buff, 10% as debuff. That is at average an exp boost of 570%, so almost twice as much exp for the party. His crapshoot also does 4 times as much damage as one of my berserker axes. So he is kinda a better version of the berserker combined with a better version of the dragonlancer. So I obviously replaced my dragonlancer with a gambler. I also replaced my berserker with the mage, the mage does 3 times as much damage as the berserker did.

Relatively new(Just started today), but I seem to be making pretty solid progress Front lines is Dragonlancer, primarily for the defense debuff(It’s pretty long, on a short CD, and debuffs a fair amount, to all enemies), then a Monk(Who heals about half of what my Cleric does, and doubles his heals back on himself to boot, as well as accounting for about 1/3rd of my DPS), and a Blademaster(Reasonable damage, and she’s got that insane freakin shield skill) Backlines is a Cleric, Bard, and Gunmage. All for rather obvious reasons, I assume. I know the team overloads the healing/debuff/buffs, but I dunno what I’m gonna have to adjust later on…for now, it works really well, taking on dungeons ~100 levels above me slowly, but surely.

Why so few Mages? 2 multicast abilities, and 1 that damage all enemies. Is my favourite.

im using mage too. front line rouge, cleric(which is terrible idea but my gambler just dies too much in front row), mage(back row full =( ) back row alchemist, gambler, gunmage preety much full on dmg build

It might be my party level (~600), but I’m surprised by the complete lack of deathknight use in this thread. It has 2 multi attacks, the main draining health and the other doing a long, strong Def/Spd debuff. The 3rd ability shouldn’t be bought, sure, but the other 2 are really nice. Currently running: Monk Deathknight Rogue Gambler Alchemist Cleric

deathknight blademaster paladin knight beserker cleric 2 healers 2 heavy hitters and 2 debuffers. also nice shield generation on all heros.

been running this setup since the start, currently lvl128 chars Knight / Paladin / Blademaster Gunmage / Bard / Rogue Not sure how i’ll do prestige yet. Healers don’t have much of a job as the shields never drop.

I am at floor 3309 atm with heroes at lvl 1512-1589. 580-608 Prestige on each hero used so far. I run alchemist / rogue / gunmage == Cleric / Mage / Archer.

When does bard start falling off? It’s been a must have for early game so far.

I have never used it so honestly I don’t know, but I think pretty much everything is replacable. In the end since armor is a useless stat you need 1 char that heals / barriers (for me cleric) faster than your heroes get 1hit and you are fine with whatever else.

> *Originally posted by **[adolphjlj123](/forums/32365/topics/615682?page=1#posts-10343372):*** > > When does bard start falling off? It’s been a must have for early game so far. Its not that he is bad, just isnt amazing like at the start, simply coz debuffs get weak in late game. Bard is still very viable thx to his buffs and healing.

> *Originally posted by **[e100860](/forums/32365/topics/615682?page=1#posts-10343143):*** > > I am at floor 3309 atm with heroes at lvl 1512-1589. 580-608 Prestige on each hero used so far. > I run alchemist / rogue / gunmage == Cleric / Mage / Archer. which of your dps heroes is the weakest right now? I’m using almost the same setup, gambler/bard instead of archer/cleric, and I’m thinking about swapping someone for an archer but I’ve never used it so I don’t know how strong it is.

I’m at floor 4112 atm and I am planning to replace archer with another buffer. Archer is since debuffing became useless a while ago the weakest by quite a bit. I’ll prob try bard (perhaps berzerker). It’s almost time for another reset with about 1700 prestige points