omgzed: bruv trolls were fucking crazy in mm8 idk what you on about
Quillithe: Maybe I didn't give them a fair try, but they always look kinda bad compared to knights. You lose GM armsmaster and the utility of repair item and dual wielding for a bunch of health and regen, and I always prefer damage to health.
Trolls might not have quite as much raw damage as a Knight because they don't have GM Armsmaster, but Omgzed is absolutely right about their combat utility. At least Expert Leather to remove the recovery penalty, Master Armsmaster, Master Sword if you want them to dual wield, GM Body Building for crazy high hp, and GM Regeneration for insane hp recovery. Everything else goes into Mace for that paralyze chance. They can even Master Repair Item if you don't want to just pop over to an Adventurer's Guild and have one of the pre-leveled Knights do it for you.
Looking at my end game Troll PC, he was rocking nearly 1100 hp at level 59 and had a 24% chance to paralyze any monster he hit in melee. Nearly 1 in 4 hits would just remove a monster from combat, to be cleaned up at my leisure, regardless of the monster's hp. My end game strategy was to run up to a monster pack and hold A to win.
Quillithe: I always liked Dark Elf for disarm, merchant and the handy utility spell combo they get. While having master elemental magic AND a good set of weapon and armor skills. Also it's easy to get a lvl 50 one once you know where.
I will stick to minotaurs being pretty awkward, they only GM axe and perception of all things, and expert level self magic is really not great. Feels like you're always better with a knight or troll for fighting or a vampire that at least gets master level self and their unique spells. Though vampires were awkward too, they don't really replace a cleric and self magic doesn't stack too well.
I pretty much agree here. I pretty much always have a Dark Elf for Disarm and Merchant (comes with decent combat), Necromancer for GM Elemental and Dark, and Cleric for GM Self and Light. I like to take a dragon for the solid damage and early Fly. Vampires do come with levitate, which is nice for dealing with the indoor lava floors sprinkled around the game; they're decent fighters and Self magic users, but they're only "Nice to have".
I should try a Minotaur sometime to see how it plays out in practice. In spite of lacking both helmet and boots, maybe that Axe is better than I give it credit for. Maybe I'll try a Knight too at some point; I've never bothered with one since they don't bring anything unique to the table except GM Repair, and a quick TP over to Ravenshore or Dagger Wound gets the same effect without using a character slot.