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Thread: You're playing the wrong race

  1. #1
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    Default You're playing the wrong race

    This thread is borne out of a couple of discussions that I've had in other threads about the different races in ADOM and their relative merits. Rather than derail other threads with my racist ranting, I thought I'd just make a single thread to deal with the topic.

    Okay, for starters, there are a number of different things that a given race combines with your class to add to your character. In particular, you have racial skills, starting stats, starting equipment, lifespan, regeneration rates, shopkeeper prices, deity favored items, leveling rate, alignment special stuff (e.g. acid spit). Most of these overlap with class, but race usually has at least a big of effect as class. My feeling is that people, in general, place too much emphasis on skills and, for a certain contingent of people, lifespan, rather than some other factors that are, IMHO, much more important. While using your race to pick up some skills that your class is lacking, choosing this to the exclusion of these other factors can lead to some poor R/C combinations. Dwarves in particular tend to be underrated for their lack of great skills, despite their many other strengths, while dark elves tend to be overrated because they give good skills, despite their many other weaknesses.

    My general philosophy is that the "best" race for a given class is the one that maximizes your chance of winning. If you are playing random characters, or are roleplaying, or are choosing particular combinations to challenge yourself, or just hate short people for some reason, that's great. Have fun. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what is optimal for winning the game.

    For the record, here are the top 3 best racial choices for every class (I'm also going to treat HE and GE as the same race... the only real difference is starting alignment, which is a very minor effect):


    The breakdown is basically:
    Best overall: Drakes. They're especially good for the weaker classes (eg. mindcrafters) that don't really have much going for them in the early game. Drake's high toughness + acid spit + extra food helps propel these guys through the early game, and drakeling's usually bad starting gear doesn't really matter because these classes have bad starting gear anyway. Drakes don't make the best casters due to Low Le and Ma, but they're a top 3 pick for just about every other class.
    Runner up: Hurthlings. Hurthlings have a great skillset and good stats, they level quickly and get an extra talent to hit Heir gifts for classes like thieves and bards or for extra missile power/speed/earlier TH for other classes. Like Drakelings, they play best on classes with relatively poor starts normally, being able to take advantage of early missiles and decent to get them through the early game. They aren't the best for the really powerful melee classes or the caster classes, but they are great for almost all of the others. Dwarves round out the top three. They don't have the best skillset, but they make decent casters thanks to high Le, and typically have the best starting gear of any race, which, combined with high To, makes them absolute tanks. For the people who really care about lifespan, Dwarf is the best compromise between lifespan and durability. GE/HE are generally the top caster choice, but are outperformed across the board for basically every other class.

    The worst race is, of course, Ratling, which don't seem to play well at anything. Yes, detect item status is nice, and their toughness is decent, but their skillset is otherwise really marginal, their equipment is average-to-poor, their stats are average, and their lifespan is pretty short. Humans are only slightly better. I like them for druids, and I think that they're actually an underrated choice for barbarians, having the best non-heir starting weapon of any R/C, and a starting luck bonus. Other than those, they're really too average to be outstanding at anything. Most of the other races have a few classes that they're decent at, but either have some glaring flaw that makes them terrible at others (eg. troll leveling, mist elf HP) or are just too mediocre across the board to really be that great (gnomes).

    Bottom line: With few exceptions, don't play humans, rats, mist elves or gnomes if you want to win games. Play drakelings, hurthlings, and dwarves if you do. Play GE if you like casters, but you knew that already.
    Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.

  2. #2
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    My view as someone who prefers to play semi or noncasters, mainly as random race (and rerolling troll/mistelf).
    I value find weakness VERY high (darkelf/orc), while high learning is certainly nice it can be boosted later.
    To contradict what I just wrote I quite like humans for the unusual combo of high learning+food preservation.
    Drakelings are just awesome.
    I probably haven't played enough dwarf ("makes a note of that").

    I have a problem with the weak races that have crappy gear, elves are np when they get elven chain.
    I rarely have any success with Ratlings, hurthlings, gnomes and elves in clothing. (recent ratling barb was an exception so is my current human bard).
    In the case of hurthling it also comes with a low strength, however archery is not to be underestimated.
    Gnomes get a bit messy with the places I want to be at certain lvls during midgame, otoh gnomes come to think of it are probably best for extra precrowns thanks to fast lvls.
    One reason is that I prefer going smc/ud first which isn't very forgiving on low pv starts.

    Dwarves have a very nice early statline but the racial skills are not good.
    (should probably play a dwarf caster in the near future)

  3. #3
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    Hi Jelly! I like your list.

    I have two questions. What makes humans good druids?

    And, what makes Trolls good Weaponsmiths? I thought Weaponsmiths really needed their class powesr, and that trolls were bad choices cause weak guys get a huge bonus to strength to carry around anvils.

    I was actually planning on a Troll Weaponsmith today but stopped cause I thought it would be a bad idea.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lasher View Post
    Hi Jelly! I like your list.

    I have two questions. What makes humans good druids?
    Couple things. Humans have extra skill increases and high Le, which is helpful to compensate for the fact that druids have terrible skill dice for almost every skill--most racial skills are basically impossible for druids to learn except for the ones that increase really easily. Food preservation is always nice to have, though, it is one of the ones that increases pretty fast and is useful even at a score of 60. Humans actually have the best starting gear for druids: Basically every race is the same, except humans get an extra spellbook. Druids are kind of marginal casters to start with (terrible dice on concentration and literacy), so being something a bit tougher than an elf is nice. I'm not 100% sure that they're the best choice, but I think it's solid, and certainly the best match for human.

    And, what makes Trolls good Weaponsmiths? I thought Weaponsmiths really needed their class powesr, and that trolls were bad choices cause weak guys get a huge bonus to strength to carry around anvils.

    I was actually planning on a Troll Weaponsmith today but stopped cause I thought it would be a bad idea.
    Weaponsmiths really only need level 6 class power to do much smithing (though getting up to 12 is better). Troll smiths have huge St and To, so you can carry a tonne of extra gear around for smelting, and are also pretty powerful right out of the gate even if you never find a forge. They also have mining and gemology if you want to smith higher metal stuff and get some free gems. The way I play smiths is to try to get to a forge as early as possible with as much junk iron as a I can carry to smelt, which normally means a UD run. Trolls are strong enough to pull this type of thing off even without Healing, whereas most other races aren't.

    Hurthlings (and elves) do get a very nice St bonus for playing as a weaponsmith (and hurthlings are my #2 choice), it's true. Their St still isn't stellar though--they have like 17 St instead of 10 maybe, which is still not great for carrying around really big piles of gear.
    Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer View Post
    The worst race is, of course, Ratling, which don't seem to play well at anything. Yes, detect item status is nice, and their toughness is decent, but their skillset is otherwise really marginal, their equipment is average-to-poor, their stats are average, and their lifespan is pretty short. Humans are only slightly better. I like them for druids, and I think that they're actually an underrated choice for barbarians, having the best non-heir starting weapon of any R/C, and a starting luck bonus. Other than those, they're really too average to be outstanding at anything. Most of the other races have a few classes that they're decent at, but either have some glaring flaw that makes them terrible at others (eg. troll leveling, mist elf HP) or are just too mediocre across the board to really be that great (gnomes).

    Bottom line: With few exceptions, don't play humans, rats, mist elves or gnomes if you want to win games. Play drakelings, hurthlings, and dwarves if you do. Play GE if you like casters, but you knew that already.
    I'll take you up on Ratlings, i actually think they are better than Humans because they tend to have very high potential on WI/TO which means with Herbs, you can train them up easily.

    Humans i find just plain terrible.

    FWIW i think gnomes are better than GE for casting. The mana differences are negligible, you get better stats (even learning is ok) and level quicker which hugely helps spellcasting.
    Wins:
    Gnome Assassin / Dwarven Paladin (ULE) / Ratling Duelist (UNE) / High Elf Archer / Gnomish Wizard x ~5 / Gray Elven Wizard (UCG) - Archmage / Gnomish Weaponsmith / Grey Elf Elementalist / Dwarven Priest / Trollish Barbarian / Drakling Farmer / Mist Elf Wizard / Human Beastfighter / Ratling Archer (UNE) / Gnomish Mindcrafter

    Classes Left
    Many!

  6. #6
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    Haha, flameworthy thread title, excellent.

    For chaos knights, youŽll love hurthlings. Chaos knights start with very heavy equipment, just like weaponsmiths, so your starting strength will be good, taking away the main drawback. Drakeling is also great (you might already get spit as a starting corruption but that isn't nearly garantueed; chaos knights benefit greatly from food preservation and high regen), as well as troll because you get extreme starting stats, and again, food pres + regen.

    Duelists play almost the same as monks and I would recommend the same three races.

    Questions:

    1. I almost never played rangers, why gray elf?
    2. Why orc over drakeling for weaponsmith? Drake adds both food pres and alertness, smiths already have fw?
    Last edited by grobblewobble; 08-25-2015 at 06:47 AM.
    You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer View Post
    The breakdown is basically:
    Best overall: Drakes. They're especially good for the weaker classes (eg. mindcrafters) that don't really have much going for them in the early game. Drake's high toughness + acid spit + extra food helps propel these guys through the early game, and drakeling's usually bad starting gear doesn't really matter because these classes have bad starting gear anyway. Drakes don't make the best casters due to Low Le and Ma, but they're a top 3 pick for just about every other class.
    should also add: they make the TOEF a complete cake walk. Even without herbalism, getting enough spenseweeds is relatively easy, which means you fight the wyrm with 300 speed making him a sitting duck.

    once you get past ToeF you should win 95/100 times.
    Wins:
    Gnome Assassin / Dwarven Paladin (ULE) / Ratling Duelist (UNE) / High Elf Archer / Gnomish Wizard x ~5 / Gray Elven Wizard (UCG) - Archmage / Gnomish Weaponsmith / Grey Elf Elementalist / Dwarven Priest / Trollish Barbarian / Drakling Farmer / Mist Elf Wizard / Human Beastfighter / Ratling Archer (UNE) / Gnomish Mindcrafter

    Classes Left
    Many!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by grobblewobble View Post
    Duelists play almost the same as monks and I would recommend the same three races.
    Do troll duelists work? Duelists seem much more level-dependent than non-unarmed monks, so the slow leveling seems like it would be kind of lame. I guess on the plus side, hitting level 12 later means you can get a pretty high rank out of your preferred weapon.

    1. I almost never played rangers, why gray elf?
    Mostly on starting equipment. Starts with elven chain, bow and arrows. Gives Stealth, which I am always frustrated by rangers not having it to start with. In hindsight, Troll Ranger might actually be a better 3rd choice though... very powerful combination and Rangers have terrible class powers so you aren't missing much there. I actually really like playing Drakeling rangers. I don't know that they're a top pick, but they start with like 30 scurgari, so it's something neat and unusual to play.

    2. Why orc over drakeling for weaponsmith? Drake adds both food pres and alertness, smiths already have fw?
    Orc weaponsmith has an average starting PV of around 8; Drakes have starting PV of 1-2. Orcs have modestly better St and To, which are very important for this class, plus Mining, which is very helpful if you want to smith higher metal gear. Drake is a good choice too, certainly.
    Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.

  9. #9
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    I ran a Ratling Duelist with ease, victory and all. Worth trying out.

  10. #10
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    Hurthlings. Race whose starting equipment for a lot of classes should include pair of crutches instead of melee weapon.
    Because they are too damn weak. Hurthling mindcrafter is a way to win? With like something like 8 strength potential as average roll and starting value of 5? What am i supposed to do with that? Throw rocks until i get my strength to okay in late game where mindcrafters already rock with mindcraft? Oh, right, hurthlings have terrible mana, so not a lot of room to throw GTBs. Bad early, bad late. Yay.

    Same with assassins and fighters. Less 15 St potential for former, somewhat higher than 15 for latter. And they even already have Archery! You're crippling classes that are good in melee combat. And for what? Food preservation, gardening and cooking? For food preservation there are three other races, where you don't have to suck in melee combat. Gardening is only useful if you want to grind a ton of herbs and cooking is a joke skill most of the time.
    For hurthling merchants the way to win is probably to open food booth selling cooked rats. At least thanks to class power they can lift their stock.

    Let's compare them to gnomes. Gnomes level faster than anyone. Gnomes have okay strengnth, decent Dx and To, not bad learning and high mana. So for most of the classes they can get Dx and To to 20+ by herbs.
    Their St on melee clases doesn't shine, but trainable to okayish levels.
    High mana almost guarantees additional talent.
    Lifespan that allows not you cower in fear and equip 'ring of hide me', 'wand of get away from me' and 'arrows of please don't hit me'.
    Gemology & Mining allow you to raise Le if you wish to do so. At least they are most certainly not worse than gardening and cooking.
    So which classes like fast levels(read as: which classes have awesome class powers), Le of up to 25 if they wish, decent Dx,To,Ma and without hard penalty to strength?
    Monks, Assassins, Duelists.
    All spellcasters. Worse Le then elves, but noticebly tougher. Druids get free Le increase, since ants on PC:2 can do all the mining for them for free.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mobius View Post
    I ran a Ratling Duelist with ease, victory and all. Worth trying out.
    To be honest duelists are easy mode on like any race.

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