Grimrock

Hello, I'm mrgrins.

I am in the process of routing a speedrun for LoG. A speedrun for those who don't know is a playthrough of a game that strives for the fastest completion.

What I would like the LoG community to help me with is my party setup. I need a party that does the most damage quickly at the lowest levels.

Right now i have a party of a human fighter, Minotaur fighter/tank, a human rouge assassin and a bug fire/ice mage. This party is the one used in the current record posted on SDA.

Here are some of my questions.

1-The record is done on version v.1.1.3 of the game and may differ from the current one. Are there any major nerfs/buffs to the current version of the game i should be aware of?

2-Would air instead of ice be better in terms of DPS? Ice has some advantages such as freezing the enemy with frostbolt and the ranged ice spike attack. I can't remember offhand if there are early level ranged air attacks.

3-Would two human fighters be better then a minotaur?

4-I have heard unarmed combat can be very good, is that a possibility or does that take many levels to make it viable.

Here are some of the stipulations.

Ranged weapon attacks are not an option, The gear to gather is to far out of the way and the possibility of losing arrows/knifes to enemies running off throws that out.

The current strategy involves Leveling the front two characters to heavy armor proficiency and then human fighter gets maces and Minotaur gets the sword he was using. This is because by the time i have heavy armor proficiency I am more then half way done and there is an easy low level mace grab.

Invis is not really a good option because by the time i level to it i am almost done with the game.

Any input or ideas are appreciated thanks!

mrgrins wrote:1-The record is done on version v.1.1.3 of the game and may differ from the current one. Are there any major nerfs/buffs to the current version of the game i should be aware of?

Can't recall one

mrgrins wrote:2-Would air instead of ice be better in terms of DPS? Ice has some advantages such as freezing the enemy with frostbolt and the ranged ice spike attack. I can't remember offhand if there are early level ranged air attacks.

Air magic does more damage but also requires more mana.
Lightning Bolt requires air magic 14 so if you want an early ranged magic attack stay with Ice.

mrgrins wrote:3-Would two human fighters be better then a minotaur?

In terms of damage two human fighters are better than a single minotaur fighter

k, seriouly:
In terms of damage two human fighters do not beat one human and one minotaur fighter.
If damage is what you're looking for go double minotaur.

mrgrins wrote:4-I have heard unarmed combat can be very good, is that a possibility or does that take many levels to make it viable.

Yep. it is quite good.

mrgrins wrote:Ranged weapon attacks are not an option, The gear to gather is to far out of the way and the possibility of losing arrows/knifes to enemies running off throws that out.

Once a rogue learned "Volley" or "Double Throw" (32 points) his ranged weapons offer the highest DPS rate in the game. Without skill tomes this is done by 7 level up's.

Then again: why skip on Toorum when you're looking for speed?

Hey thanks for the reply,


Heres an update,

Tried experemental party of two human fighters a rouge and mage.

one unarmed fighter with the brawler i think its called +6 unarmed attack power +aggression. The other was normal, aggression plus healthy i think as the stats.

Decided to keep ice on the mage because i think in the run i get 7 or 8 if im lucky blood drop blossoms so more mana cost will probbly wipe me out.

During play I found that indeed unarmed is worth it. The hits are less damage but the reload for the fist is so much faster its worth it. I have not timed it out yet but it sure felt faster when i was ripping through the spiders. The added bonus is the other human can use the swords so i do not need to bother with the crappy axe/stone axe thing in the beginning.

I also figured out that i am around level 5 when i hit the slimes/fire mage guys and thats when i need the most dps. I only gather 1 skill tome in the run and I think now i will use it on the unarmed guy to level his armor faster. Tonight I will use the experemental party again and time out a few levels to see if its indeed faster.

mrgrins wrote:The added bonus is the other human can use the swords so i do not need to bother with the crappy axe/stone axe thing in the beginning.

Swords is a skill that any fighter can learn. DPS-wise humans have no advantage here over other races.
In fact minotaurs are always at least 2.5 damage per attack ahead of all others.

My gut is telling me there is some room for more optimisation.

1. My gut is telling me that you're better off just having 2 minotaurs on the front row for the extra strength / damage.

2. Unless there is a specific reason to have both a Rogue and a Mage (which there may be!), then one will be a better 'back row-er' than the other. Therefore, two of that class would be better? I don't know which though! Having two schools of magic could be useful, but all that spellcasting takes some clicking and then you have to worry about Mana. Rogues would let you have 4 attacks to cycle through, but if they don't do much damage until a decent level, is it worth the trade off?

Also, you may have touched on this. But Toorum moves fast... That's gotta be a consideration!?

I actually did toy with the idea of two back-row rouges and might be worth a look. right now i'm routed to get two daggers, the second of which has a life steal bonus which is pretty sweet.

I will try another party tonight with two Minotaur to see how that plays out.

The unarmed worked well in the early levels I feel it fell off a bit once i hit hunting grounds, but if all goes well i'll only be fighting one or two blue dinos. Really after hunting grounds I am only forced to fight some firemans and the bugs/green crocs that end up in my way.

So far the major run killers are the spiders, hunting grounds, and the caverns. With the hunting grounds by far being the worst. In fact, baiting out the steel dudes and waking the last guy is super easy by comparison.

About Toorum. I think that's going to be a different race for a different day. I don't want to switch over after almost finishing a route for the regular game.

as an aside if anyone is interested to watch I do stream at twitch.tv/mrgrins. I do play other games also so don't be upset if i'm not playing LoG .

Thanks for the responses friends.