While most crave to keep as many NPCs / faction alive, I hate it so much to travel through most of the neutral / friendly parts of the game (Umpani mountain caves, T'Rang bluff, even cities, where it takes more time to avoid friendlies or wait for them till the move during combats, whether the help me or just are in the way, or retreat)

I wish the game could be completed even after wiping out most factions.

For example, wiping out the bank personnel in Arnika has no impact on the playthrough at all.

So I am hoping, more like having wishful thinking, that I could clean the Umpani tunnels and Marten's Bluff and still reach the "happy" end of the game? (well, probably not for them, tho)

You can complete the game after wiping out the friendly factions. The sticky issue is the Chaos Moliri, but the game still has work-arounds:
* If the Unpani are hostile, you can still get it via the T'Rang quests.
* If the T'Rang are hostile, you can still get it via the Unpani quests.
* If both are hostile, then Z'Ant, I believe, drops the T'Rang-Mook alliance letter, which you can use to get the Chaos Moliri.

There are ways to softlock the game, but killing friendly NPCs (at least those it's possible to attack without strange trickery) is not one of them.

I consider the "Friendly Factions" as such:

Brotherhood of the Ascension: Lord Braffit and the 3 Lay Brothers in the Arnika Temple. Anselm and the 2 Monks defending themselves against the Rapax in the Mountain Wilderness.

Higardi: Everybody in Arnika (Bank Faction is separate, but I lump Llorac and the Bank Guard as part of this faction). There is no need to spill blood to get all of the bank's treasures; Both personal vaults, and the general vault, are accessible by handing Llorac a Key-card, and finding a path from the Arnika Jail, respectively.

Mook: There is Screg and Urq, as well as 6 generic Mook who will attack the party if they grab the Chaos Moliri. There is no need for bloodshed; Just swap the Chaos Moliri for the Fake Astral Dominae that the Dark Savant drops.

Trynnie: These are mostly found in Trynton. Just don't let them push you off of the tree, lest you get a party over (don't EVER play on Ironman).

Umpani: Found mostly in the Umpani Base Camp, and throughout Mt. Gigas. Don't fight enemies around them.

T'Rang: Found mostly around Marten's Bluff, both Upper and Lower. Again, don't fight enemies around them.

Now, for the hostile factions:

Robots/Androids: Not a listed faction, but all are bad/evil except for RFS-81 (though I prefer to repair him, and let him scan the area, as I hate RPCs, with their random stat distribution). Destroy them all, except for RFS-81.

Rynjin: Not a listed faction, but they occupy/control all areas around Bayjin island, including the northern Swamp, and the southern Bayjin Shallows. Kill them all.

Rattkin: The scum of Dominus. These can be divided into Rattkin Razuka and Rattkin Common.
Rattkin Razuka: There are only 3 members of this faction: Rattus Rattus, Milano Calzone, and Don Barlone. Whack them all in that order.
Rattkin Common: These are the Rattkin Breeders, and all other generic Rattkin thugs, goons, snipers, etc. Whack them all as well, to clear out the 6th Bough for the Trynnie.

Rapax: These can be divided into Rapax Common and Rapax Templar.
Rapax Templar are Raven Rapax (T'Rang quest), as well as the Rapax in the Rapax Away Camp.
Rapax Common are every other Rapax you encounter (always hostile).
There is a quest that you can do that will set every Rapax to be friendly to the party, but you must kill that Demoness before she can summon reinforcements. Failing that, kill her, and flee from battle, after freezing said reinforcements.

Silly question:

is there a way around doing the ritual with the rapax queen?

Once I played all-female party, and I got stuck (as rapax queen required male player char to proceed with the ritual)

Now I have one male character, but I still wonder if I can somehow reach ascension peak without succumbing to the needy thirsty rappie.

If you're playing 1.2.4 and you have no male party members (RPCs included), then you can have a female character take part in the ritual. If your only male characters are RPCs, you'll need to dismiss them.

I think you might be able to dodge the issue by killing Al-Sedexus on the first encounter (I think you need to attack her without initiating conversation), though you will still have to do the quest.

To reach ascension peak without doing the ritual, there's a few approaches. Just make sure you don't have multiple artifacts in your inventory at the same tiem.:
* Go there early (before getting the second artifact), then set a portal on Ascension Peak, which you can return to later.
* After getting one artifact, go to the peak and drop it off where it's needed before getting the next. (I'd go for the Destinae Dominus first since that artifact quest is most likely to give you the levels and gear needed to survive on AP; you can also visit rapax territories and even disarm the bomb, as there's no artifact there).
* After getting an artifact, find a safe container and leave it there. (Don't leave any in the Rapax Away Camp; you won't see this if you never have at least 2 artifacts, but if you do, putting artifacts in containers there can cause it to revert to the Wilderness Clearing, making the container (and the artifact(s) in it) inaccessible, and the game unwinnable.)
* From what I hear, the avalanche won't occur unless you talk to Lord Braffit or actually visit AP with 2 artifacts in your possession.

Al-Sedexus will initially talk to the party (Friendly), upon defeating her underling (El-Dorado). She gives you a quest to meet her later, but if you don't do it, you will be harassed constantly by hostile Rapax, trying to trade with Ferro.

Once you "do the deed" with Al-Sedexus, you're then forced to kill her. She is yellow (Neutral). Upon talking to her, she attacks the party, and you're forced to kill her.

Best strategy is a high level party with good magic, so that you can disable her before she summons Rapax reinforcements. For some reason (probably because she is a Demoness), the Rapax don't care if you kill her (ding dong the wicked witch is dead).

The reason that I bring this up is that, by doing this, you keep your Friendly faction rating with the Rapax (allowing you to trade with Ferro uninterrupted).

I feel so noobish, played Wiz8 for so many times, since the demo was available. And first now I learn that the ascension peak, just like the clearing (rappax away camp) are triggered by # of artifacts.

Even this time around, when I first met that ratatouille mafia boss, I wasn't strong enough to defeat him, so I was walking around just with chaos moliri stolen from mook base. While in the Rapax Castle, the King and his camp were mentioned, I couldn't reach it. While I vaguely remembered how to get there, I always entered just the wilderness clearing, zero rapax present. I started going nuts... and the trick was not in the quests completed or NPCs encountered, but how many artifacts I have in my possession. And that is no trivia level of information, but pretty essential, as it impacts the main progress in the whole game.
I did look up for partial solutions occasionally, but never read thoroughly through any walkthrough and as a outcome, I ended up missing the most vital information tied to the game completion ^_^

Honestly, I am a true story-quest-line-completionist, the only reason I force myself to follow the quest path is to unlock better enemies.
Which is fabulous in W8, as it pushes ones limits, as on builds, so on tactical combat.
Especially for reason, called out before: enemies can have resistances above 100, while player characters are capped by 100, so while your party succumbs to status effects (paralyze, insanity, K.O., turncoat...) enemies later on do not budge.

So I tried figher-only party (or 5/6 fighters)
hybrid classes
as many enemies, especially on ascension peak, initiate combat early on (long distance), even ranged focused party (Gadgeteer, Ranger - whom I usually took in just for not seeing "cannot search while running", but this time he was the hero and worldsaver)
Now I go for Psionics (but enemies start to get 0 DMG from the most potent spells, and despite Wrist Rocket with good ammo, preferably Medusa Stones and such, can still do the trick, stone ammo is heavy and inventory management as well how to get enough good ammo, is starting to become alarming)

W8 just does not have a way to assemble unbeatable army, heroes what would be invulnerable and also kill enemies on one hit (well, there is critical hit, but instant kill is still very rare... Rangers, whom I expected to insta kill every 50. or at least every 100th enemy, often insta kills only 4-5 enemies during whole gameplay, which is like 5 critical hits over 8000~10000 shots, in some playthroughs possibly even more, due excess farming and I was often using Cosmic Forge to upgrade arrow stacks from 100 to 250, and still refilling them often enough)
Or Gadgeteer, who can later use the Boomerang Shuriken (at least it used to be returning / infinite ammo, last time the boomerang shuriken vanished after first shot :( )

Well, W8 is a legend indeed.

If you want to see something silly with the Rapax Away Camp with artifacts, you could do the following:
* Get two of the artifacts.
* Go to the Rapax Away Camp, and clear out some of the enemies.
* Place the artifacts in a container.
* Save your game in a different slot.
* Load that save, and you'll now be in the Wilderness Clearing.

Don't know what happens if this puts you in mid-air, or what the state of NPCS/enemies in the area ends up.

Also, I'm wondering what happens if you set a portal in the exact spot that the avalanche blocks, and then try to return there once the avalanche has actually happened. I think there might be a few other spots in the game (avalanche trap in Mine Tunnels area, maybe) where this could happen.

Yes the avalanche and rocks at mine tunnes are signgle sided dynamic objects,
based on knowledge also from modding you should be able to walk out of both,
but i never actually tested these 2.
Btw the avalanche raises from below, so i guess if you portal to the spot at AP
while its not raised yet, i may lift you up, or crush you if it raises too fast.
Also, if you portal to AP behind the avalanche spot, you can climb it and assault the spawned Rapax
Regarding AL-Sedex, i always do the 3 pairs of elementals for 2 of the 3 items,
but rarely mate with her, shes not exactly the most tempting. (würg).
If those rare instances, i place the party with the back to a wall, so the spawns will mostly fail to appear,
if they do nevertheless i use only instakill spells to take them out so the faction rating does not suffer,
else going through the demon dating to improve rapax rating makes not much sense.
As a sidenote, friendly Rapax makes no sense anyway,
how can I then satisfy my desire to cause a bloodbath with the sword several times a day in any other way?


It is possible to finish the game with any of the 3 endings if you kill everything that moves or stands on the map,
my "rampage" rules demands it before leaving the location at all.
If you play that way, Burz is the 1st major boss as he can spawn lvl 16 trees :D
Did a couple times, incl in mods, money is useless and projectiles will be pretty rare,
but you can farm armour pearces and mystics from ratkin snipers, also peacemakers sometimes drop from umpani chest etc.
Btw there is a 4th ending if you use the portal glitch to spawn ~40m directly above phoonzang in the pillar at CC


Speaking of projectiles, rangers are one of my fav standard choices, and always play on max difficulty.
Cant confirm the "often insta kills only 4-5 enemies during whole gameplay"
I estimate ~1% crits in early game, often the first when still at lower monastery at lvl 1 or 2
later with mystic arows it goes uoto maybe 3% or so, to a total of 1-2% of the characters kill count.

I believe killing the wrong NPC in the Cosmic Circle could result in the game glitching and not giving you the full ending. This makes the game unwinnable at that point; on the other h and, if you're able to unglitch the game (by getting into an encounter elsewhere), you can at least get the Cobaltine Powerglove.

I did this last game, by somehow having the Dark Savant, Altheides, and the Phantom (later to become Phoonzang), hostile to the party. I was able to grab the Cobaltine Powerglove, after some glitching, and use it against enemies (it has charges, so underwhelming).

I wouldn't worry about the avalanche; The Rapax Prince, Al-Sedexus, your illegitimate daughter with her, and the Dark Savant are dealt with by the party.