(7/7) I haven't watched a lot of your run, so I am just telling you what I do at this point, but from what I've seen, you struggle a lot to survive and I just wanted to let you know that you don't need to sacrifice any damage to to have a tougher frontline, and that there's no reason to put 5 points into accuracy or any amount of points into two separate damage skills.

Any counterarguments or investigative questions please shoot. I'm not able to give all of my thoughts in this short of a reply, so I've undoubtedly skipped over some things or failed to explain myself enough.

(6/7) In the catacombs you're able to fight the higher level enemies quite capably, as long as you plan ahead and know what's coming. Xorul is also very easy since there's a healing crystal around to do multiple attempts, and all it takes is one good Bane power attack to put him at one hit. I then go to herders den and actually farm enemies for a little bit. I only cheese one level tops from this but it is worth mentioning. This all combines to make the ruins of desarune - archives - lexiconary - and sewers a complete joke, and then I'm sitting at level 12 or 13, absolutely overpowered and easily able to march into the pyramid of Umas and grab the claymore before running over the rest of the game.

(5/7) ...mine deals very similar damage but has a lot more survivability, as well as access to high level alchemy sooner. As the late game comes, the differences become greater, the gap in tankiness widens and the damage is similar. by level 13 I have two frontline characters with over 300 hp, ~120 and ~145 casual protection, one with 40+ evasion, very high damage (high accuracy claymore w/multiple power attacks +10% cdr, and a mage with around 300 energy able to cast Firestorm). Then two backrow characters who deal very high damage, with high crit on Bane user and dual wielder. Your pathing through the game could also be more optimized. I go to the flooded dungeon at level 2 without much trouble, I go to wormbound catacombs and grab the ridiculously good equipment in there pretty early, you just have to be careful of the cemetery zombie ambush - on insane ironman i use a healing crystal to save scum that part as it's the most difficult part of the game.

(4/7) Running a Minotaur in the back row makes a lot of sense due to dual wielding and strength working so well together. However, the difference in damage between a Minotaur with 21-29 (8 skulls) strength & aggressive, and a human with 15 strength is a difference of ~7-14 damage per hit, with dual wielding doubling this. Now 5-9 bonus damage at the start of the game is nice, and that improves over the game, but remember that the human will get his power spike much faster, and the differences in party composition mean that I gain access to high level alchemy 45% quicker, sacrificing 20-25% damage on my light weapons guy, for 5 skill points on my mage and expedited access to high level alchemy and specifically rage potions, something that dwarfs that damage gap during boss fights. Your party, compared to my proposed party, deals more damage at the beginning of the game, but by the time we start getting equipment,

(3/7) For my frontline, I use the same setup as you but I don't level up critical since i don't have Bane, I just get 2 armor and 1 concentration early on, then i go for 3 heavy weapons before 2 more points in armor, since you don't get much heavy armor until midgame, then I get 5 heavy weapons, 2 concentration, and finally 3 dodge by level 13. Using light weapons on your back row in the early-mid game while they are stronger than heavy weapons, and then transitioning to heavy weapons once the mid to late game rolls around and the claymore becomes available is a really badass strategy to me, but it's simply not worth it given the sacrifice your mage makes in order to sustain it. Comparing it to my strategy, you're giving up 5 points on your mage for more total damage early on. You're also exacerbating the situation by using lizard man over a human, so you're even slower in that transition than you would be.

(2/7) They both get 2 accuracy from party leader, light weapons guy gets two piece rogue while heavy weapons guy gets one early on, and that switches once I find Bane. I get alchemy 5 by level 10, something that comes very fast since that guy will be using the spirit mirror pendant from level 2 since I rush for it early, giving me 45% total bonus experience. My heavy weapons alchemist gets heavy weapons 5 by level 6, then goes into dodge for 10% cdr by level 9, uses bracelet of Tirin for 15% more cdr, giving him 36 accuracy and enough energy to use multiple Bane power attacks due to being able to wear energy boosting equipment without penalties, and the alchemist class giving +45 energy at lvl 9, effectively making him the best possible user of Bane especially since he can level up critical and/or concentration after 9.

(1/7) Ok, so first of all, your skillpoint allocations were kind of ridiculous. As a front line, you're characters are much weaker than they should be. I understand putting points into damage, but you are sacrificing a lofty amount of protection and evasion on your knight specifically. Also, your battle mage has 5 points in alchemy, which is rather hilarious considering the 5 points you invested into 2 different weapon categories on one of your actual alchemists. When I play this game, I run identical classes to you, but I have 2 humans in the back row instead of lizard man Minotaur. I do this because they start the game with skilled and fast learner so they power spike quicker. They both get 5 points in dexterity and accuracy 2 at lvl 2, one of them goes light weapons and alchemy, the other goes heavy weapons and critical at game start.

It's okay to make mistakes. This walkthrough wasn't meant to be perfect at all. If you know some major trick that I missed, you can write about it. Why not?

Just letting you know, this playthrough is fine, but there are a mountain of errors and non-optimal choices made in the meta-gaming aspect. I'm not going to write them all right now, since this was posted 8 years ago, let me know if you're curious about what I know.

Thanks!
Already learned a few new things