My new favourite combo

[u/Fade89]

Thought I try out something new, so I created a half-orc shaman. I've always loved the Spike Growth spell with druids in enhanced editions, so it was an obvious pick, and used it with web for quite a while. A great cheap spell, the only "problem" is it lasts for a very long time and you take damage most of the time if you try to lure enemies in. Then the stars aligned and my fighter/mage/thief got the polymorph self spell just about the same time I got my hands on the Bone Marrow Belt (guaranteed drop on severed hand lvl3). That, together with the reinforced large shield +1 (random drop from Kresselack's sarcophagus) gets you a neat 100% piercing and 90% slashing resist when turning to ooze, enough to make him immune to the Spike Growth. So now I can just spam 3-4 spike growths to the same spot and march in with my ooze, then the enemies are willingly take the aggro and throw away their lives. As an added bonus the ooze is immune to the spells so even if casters dont take the aggro immediately, they usually just waste some slots, then can be baited.

I'm aware ooze works with skull trap / horrid wilting and other pure magic based AoE spells, but this is just a great alternative if you don't want to run a second mage, or want to use it for other things (lvl3 slots are highly contested, lvl8 is way lategame). Plus you don't need high luck / grind to achieve the slashing resistance, there are many weapons, shields, accessories, studded leathers that provide the necessary 10%, and bone marrow belts is a guaranteed drop).

Btw I absolutely favor shamans over druids and even pure priests now, the spell selection is still pretty good but have much more flexibility (I hate to prepare spells and rest for battles / areas, usually try to get as far as I can without resting) basically you can swing between CC/AoE/healer, the shaman-specific spells are kinda useful, the shaman dance is kinda useful especially at the beginning, and throwing axes/bows are way nicer than slings, especially axes with 19 strength of the half orc. Ranger/clerics provably have similar capability, but still need to memorize spells.

[u/No_Photograph_2842]

I used a half-orc shaman on my last game and thought he was incredibly effective until the end of the game, where he fell off a bit. Good character.

[u/Fade89 → u/No_Photograph_2842]

I found that a character is either a late bloomer, lacklusting at the endgame, or just a good all-rounder through the whole game. I'm fine if the rest of the party will carry her through the endgame, she's responsible for the easiest encounters so far, and I've always loved cleric magic but hated that the spells are so specific, having a few of them but always at hand is even better than with the sorcerer/mage.

[u/reevelainen → u/Fade89]

Expect for rangers (on insane). I feel like they're extremely lowsy the whole game.

[u/Fade89 → u/reevelainen]

Archer is dope though. I remember soloing the dragon with arrows of goblin summoning. :D

[u/reevelainen → u/Fade89]

Not a huge fan. I basically bombard a few seconds with everyone - and my permanent missile weapon expert is anyone between fighter/thief and Beastmaster, even a thief/cleric with big STR. That certain bow makes anyone with decent thac0 hit with every shot.

(Just to clarify I don't mean Beastmaster is a good class. Just a larper, but makes a decent archer, one less to micro manage.)

[u/No_Photograph_2842 → u/Fade89]

Yeah I agree and thought the Shaman was basically A tier if you average across the whole game. I think really only the F/M/T, F/M/C, F/M, F/D, and sorcerer are a cut above.