Monsters’ Den Geniuses: I Need Your Skills

A little late on this I guess, but I couldn’t resist putting my opinions in on this.

Warrior: In a dungeon crawl these make for a great shield wall, but other than that, I don’t really like the class. I find clerics make for a better damage absorber, and barbarians make a better front line attack. It’s not one I use as a general rule, but here are my opinions on the attacks anyway.
Power attack – The attack boost is not worth the cost of power. I think I’ve used this attack all of once. 1/10
Defiance – While this attack is annoying when an enemy uses it, because I don’t like to have to sit around waiting to be able to attack them, it’s never one that actually seems to have any effect on the battle to me. If I had this skill on a mage, or a barbarian, I might like it, as a way to avoid losing them early in a fight when they’re already beaten up. But on a warrior? with so much armour, by the time they’re that badly injured, the rest of the party is already dead. It just wastes a turn. 1/10
Cleave – As warrior skills go, this one isn’t too bad. I’m gonna be honest, I like area attacks. Trouble is, barbarians have whirlwind. An equivalent attack which is better, and costs less, as I recall. It makes this skill kinda redundant. 5/10
Adrenaline – I guess it’s a nice little attack for long boss battles, legendary monsters, or FoT (Fall of Tellonous), but for general purpose combat, I don’t use it. There’s very little that stuns you anyway, and battles are too short to use it regularly. Plus, you can only use it on your warrior, which instantly makes the damage bonus pretty pointless. 5/10
Resolve – I don’t think I’ve ever used it. I’m old school, I believe a party needs a cleric to function properly anyway, so it’s just useless to me. 0/10
Shield wall – Probably the best attack a warrior has. The only problem being the high power cost. If I could guarantee on being able to use it for, say, five rounds running, I’m sure I’d love it. But at best you can use it twice, then your warrior has to rest. Plus, it’s rubbish against so many enemies, who have area attacks. 6/10
Inspire – If I’m using a warrior in a FoT match, I like this attack, but otherwise, rounds don’t last long enough for it to be useful. Simple as. 5/10
Execute – I try and avoid using potions as much as possible, so I find this to be useless. If it worked against bosses or legendary creatures, I would love it, but their insta-kill immunity makes this basically a pointless attack for me. 1/10
Bloodlust – This is a must have for warriors. Like I said, I like to save my potions, so being able to regenerate a little extra power near the end of battles is useful for me. The only problem being that I maybe use this attack twice in a battle against six opponents, if I’m lucky. A lot of the time, I don’t get to use it at all. 6/10
Overwhelm – I don’t really think much of it. I mean, if you have a rogue in the party, using this after a legendary monster has been crippled can be useful. But the power cost means you only really get to use it once anyway. Even in a boss fight, I don’t really feel it has any use. It’s a skill for one specific instance. 3/10
Leadership – At high levels this rivals shield wall as a warriors most useful skill, but the probability is too low to be any use until eleven levels of upgrading, minimum. 6/10
Armour proficiency – A must have skill for warriors. It becomes useful at around level five, which is unusual for passive skills. 8/10

Cleric: I mentioned already, but clerics are essential to any party. I think what I like about them most is that they can be diverse. On the one hand, you can make a great shield wall with them, while alternatively you can dress them in light armour with high speed and power, stick them to the back rows and have a great ranged unit. Oh, also, they heal? Pretty neat. I’ve played games with groups made up of only clerics, and had no problems, other than the lack of diversity with weapons they experience.
Heal – Useful starting ability, and later when you have a good level of benediction it’s good in long battles. Really useful in FoT for removing curses and damage reduction, but only with reasonable levels of benediction. Sometimes it can still be quicker to kill a team member, then revive them instead though. I think it’s the only attack where I find it useful at the beginning and end of the game, but kinda rubbish in the middle. 7/10
Smite – Great attack for a backrow cleric, especially against undead. But useless for the more common front line cleric. I have mixed feelings about it, I suppose. 5/10
Holy light – Must have against the undead, and always useful against larger groups. When fighting legendary monsters, if there’s no rogue in the party, this can be useful as a starting move for a cleric too. In smaller battles it’s dead weight, I suppose. Also, it bugs me when I have an attack I use once in a battle taking up an inventory space. 8/10
Heal all – I think this is probably my favourite cleric ability. The only thing that bothers me about it is that you can’t get benediction with it. But apart from that, I can’t fault it. 9/10
Anoint – I don’t really use this one much. I mean, I can see how it could be useful, it’s just not for me. If I have a back row cleric that’s faster than a mage I have, it’s makes lightning storm a first turn killer, but other than that, it’s not great. 5/10
Revive – I don’t really have a habit of losing team members. On the rare occasions I do, I have more than enough revive potions to bring them back. In the really late game Legendary Monster battles, I’ll occasionally equip this attack just as a safeguard, and I consider it an essential for FoT (I always have at least two characters that can undo death in my party for that mode), but as a general rule, if you’re letting your team members die during battle and can’t wait until after the battle to bring them back, you’re really doing something wrong.
Litany of pain – Great on a back row cleric, but useless on the front row. I mean, it’s a good area attack, but you want your area attacks landed straight away to soften up the enemy, before you pick them off. With a heavily armoured cleric, by the time it reaches their turn either half your opponents are dead, or your guys need some serious healing. It bugs me a little that it doesn’t get wrath, and that it has no bonus damage to undead, too. 5/10
Purify – I just have no use for this attack. I mean, if I’m healing poison I just use heal or heal all. And if you’re getting enough party members cursed for this to be better than benediction, for gods’ sake, get a mage. 1/10
Shield of faith – I’ve only ever used this on clerics with really low intelligence and really high endurance, and even then only when there was another cleric in the party. Usually, it just makes more sense to heal yourself. 1/10
Fervour – I can take it or leave it. Sure, sometimes it’s nice to deal a little extra damage from the front rows. Kinda pricey though. Maybe if it did extra damage to undead I’d like it more. 4/10
Wrath – Great for a back row cleric, but it’s pretty much useless for the first ten levels. 7/10
Benediction – A must have for FoT, and for any longer battles. If you’re using it in shorter battles though, seriously think about restructuring your party. 8/10

Mage: I almost always have a mage in the party. Generally, with pretty awesome power regeneration. One of my favourite units.
Freeze – I don’t use this much at the beginning of the game, but later it can be useful once you have enough power regeneration to make it effectively free. Also, it’s good once you work your stun up a little. It’s a generally good attack. 7/10
Fireball – The main advantage of this attack is that, for an area attack, it’s cheap. The main disadvantage is that nine times out of then, I can’t use it to its’ full potential without frying my own guys. It has its’ place, I guess, and it makes a good starting ability. 6/10
Electrical storm – I noticed I’m not the only person that likes this one. Let’s face it, it’s the most powerful attack in the game, when used right. But at the same time, it’s one you need to be tactical with. There’s been many a time when I’ve been up against a party of four, and I’ve spent ten minutes debating whether I wanted to open with that attack and have to refill my stamina somehow, or save my stamina at the risk of taking heavier damage. I think the fact that I can say that about the best attack in the game really shows that nothing is overpowered. 9/10
Cosmic Prison – I can see why people might like this, but it’s not for me. Why would I want to armour my opponents? That’s crazy talk. 0/10
Invisibility – Again, I can see how this could be useful, but it’s not for me. I tend to take care of my mages too much to need it. 0/10
Arcane Armour – In long battles, and in FoT, this is great. For general use, not so much. If I have a conjurer in the party, I don’t use it. Mostly I just get this late in the game. 4/10
Flickering Flames – I don’t use this in a dungeon crawl. Ever. I do in FoT though. It just gives that extra kick. Especially against wraiths. Although I generally take them out with a blast of magic before that becomes a problem. Still, it’s saved my ass on more than one occasion. Damage reflect works best on gargoyles, but I never get to use this against them because they’re not in FoT, and in dungeon crawls it would use up four turns to guarantee them attacking someone with it on, by which point the battle’s basically over anyway. 5/10
Ensorcelled blade – Very occasionally, I’ll start a new game with an unusual selection of characters just for shits and giggles. When I do, generally one of the things I do is arm a mage with a sword and give them this attack. These games usually last until around the third floor, when I get bored with how useless a mage is with a sword. I’m sorry, in theory it could be really good, but in practice, this attack takes too much power. If it was cheap, it would make a front line mage a really fun thing, but let’s face it, it’s nothing other than a risky damage multiplier. 0/10
Incinerate – Yeah, see, now, I like the whole cheap double damage thing, but if I’m putting my mage on the front line, I want to see something a bit more interesting than this. Give it a 50% lethality or some interesting effect, and we’ll talk. 0/10
Power siphon – I can get why this may be less popular, but I love it. But then again, I like it because of my playing style; Once I’ve only a single opponent left, I use power siphon to keep their attacks weak while healing and/or resting my team mates, so I don’t have to worry about low levels in the next fight. Also, when you’re faced with multiple neophites, it’s a good way of stopping them from summoning (they require 100% energy to summon). Its’ only problem is the cost. If you have enough power to use it, you don’t need it, except to keep your opponents’ power low. 9/10
Spell mastery – I love this skill, but it hates me. It only ever kicks in when I use low cost attacks, or right at the end of a battle, right before I use a healing spot. It’s going to get my recommendation, but could we make it a little less of a jerk next time? 9/10
Shielding – I like not taking damage and all, but with my mages, I find my biggest problem is keeping their energy levels up, so I generally don’t get this ’till really late in the game. 4/10

Ranger: I have really mixed feelings about rangers. On the one hand, they have some attacks I love, on the other hand, they have some attacks which I’ve never used.
Pierce – It’s a great attack to start out with, but it quickly becomes redundant. The main problem is that it really relies on your enemies lining up, which doesn’t happen much in small groups, and in larger groups I prefer hail of arrows. 4/10
Natures balm – Great for use in FoT and boss battles, but other than that, I don’t really use it. If you want to go really far in FoT, the best thing you can do is get a ranger, put all your points into intelligence, and give everyone a blast of that right from the beginning. It’s more important than bringing people back from the dead. 5/10
Healing Lore – Remember I mentioned making a party of unusually positioned characters? Yeah, I use a ranger as a front row healer. Yeah, they aren’t very good. The healing effect is just too weak. It’s useful to have a spare healer in the later game just in case, but I really don’t use it much. 2/10
Hunters’ prowess – Against creatures of the deep, this is a great attack. If you’ve got bonuses to lethality, it’s also pretty good. Nine times out of ten? I don’t use it. It’s better than most attacks that are essentially low damage enhancement, but none of them are awfully good. 4/10
Hail of arrows – Essential against large groups, or in FoT for rangers. As area attacks go though? It’s not great. It costs as much as electrical storm, and basically has a 66.5% accuracy. It does have the advantage of effectively guaranteeing to do some damage to everyone (there’s an 11.2225% chance of missing both shots on a target, if my math is right), but I don’t recall there ever being a time when that was a useful trait. 8/10
Pin – Ranged attack, with 100% chance to stun and does damage? Love it. On the other hand, you’re better of equipping a rogue with a ranged weapon and having them use cripple. It does more damage, and reduces your opponents speed to zero. Still, pin is a pretty damned good attack, if slightly overpriced (I would drop the cost back to 35 power, personally). 8/10
Force of nature – As with healing lore, this is good if you want to make an unusual party for shits and giggles, but otherwise, it’s pretty useless. Seeing as there’s four ranger skills that require a ranged weapon, all of which are reasonably good attacks, and only the one that requires a melee weapon, it’s not really worth it. Although if you could change between weapons mid battle, it may become useful against a minotaur. As is though, it’s only really useful against opponents with obscenely high armour; Gargoyles and wraiths, and nothing else as I recall. 3/10
Envenomed Arrow – It’s an okay attack if you have a ranger anyway, but when compared to the rogues’ poison attack it seems kinda useless. I mean, it costs more power, and can only be used with ranged weapons. Plus, rogues get the additional passive poisoning ability. 7/10
Focus – I don’t really use this, on accounts of how I try and rest up at the end of each battle, so I always have full power bars at the beginning of the next fight anyway. I can see how it could be useful if you have low power regeneration and are in a long battle, I just don’t let myself get into a position where that’s a problem. 2/10
Swiftness – I just have no use for this. Speed is really useful on the first round of a fight, but after that becomes unimportant in my eyes. It’s little use in FoT too, as battles are just as likely to start with people with middling or low speed, due to its’ run on nature. If speed also had an effect on how often you were to attack, this would make it an attack worth using. But as a general rule, I don’t want to waste an attack making me attack sooner. 1/10
Creature Lore – I adore this attack. It’s the one thing that makes hail of arrows really worth it, you can take an opponent of six and instantly make them all as weak as kittens, once you have this cranked right up. I always forget that it works, and it’s always a lovely surprise when I see the words flash across the screen. 9/10
Vitality – Until it’s really high it’s not much use, but once you’ve got it up it really makes those more difficult dungeons feel a lot safer. 7/10

Rogue: I’m not sure why I like the rogue so much, but I rarely make a party without one. Which is unusual, because apart from that, I tend far more towards characters with area attacks. I guess it’s just nice to know that, while you have people softening up the enemy, you’ve also got someone that can finish them off quickly.
Poison – It’s cheap, and effectively doubles the effect of your attack. And with longer battles, it just keeps going. The only real problem I have with it, apart from the obvious annoyance that it isn’t an area attack, is that being poison instead of a simple improved attack is that I can attack someone on the front row, poison them to death, but still not be able to attack someone on the back row until they take a turn. Which, is the way it should work, and one of those limitations that makes the game challenging. It just drives me crazy. 8/10
Pierce defenses – It’s useful against bosses and gargoyles because of the armour piercing, but for general purpose I don’t really use it. You get a better result from poisoning, even on enemies with fairly high poison resistance. It’s a good, cheap attack for use against long bosses with heavy armour though. 8/10
Sneak attack – Same problem as before with these simple damage multipliers, the damage doesn’t justify the power usage. 0/10
Flash powder – I’ve never got such a good blinding effect off anything else, so i tend to use this going up against legendary monsters and any bosses with really good accuracy. The lack of damage done is enough to put me off using it for general purpose though, although if I’m fighting greenskins, I’ll often equip it just to make doubley sure I can heal up during the end fight. Greenskins have terrible accuracy, especially savages. This reduces their accuracy to 15%, which makes me feel pretty safe. 7/10
Create opening – This is basically a damage multiplier, with a lower chance of hitting. If you compare it to poison, even without increasing your intelligence, poison with do the same damage as your weapon again from poison after a couple of levels, so you get a 95% chance of scoring that damage. This does, in effect, around 175% of the damage of a regular attack (obviously this assumes your allies attacks average the same as yours, although actually rogues have a pretty high attack when they use a dagger), with a 90.25% chance of hitting. Plus another 4.75% chance to do regular damage. So basically, it’s gonna do less damage, and cost more power. You are hedging your bets on your other characters doing more regular attack damage than you can manage. Which, for a character who relies on simple attacks like that, is not what you want to be doing.1/10
Hide – I suppose it is logically speaking a useful attack, but I’ve just never really got into it. I suppose I just prefer to spread the damage between my characters and not show favouritism. 7/10
sap strength – I like this against legendary monsters, and it comes in handy against cultists sometimes, but it’s not one of my favourites. It just costs too much. 6/10
Thiefs’ luck – Any fight which is gonna last a long time, this is a must have. FoT is much less frustrating if you have this, too. Usually though, it’s quicker just to go straight for it. 5/10
Coup de grace – I like the idea of this attack, but I’ve honestly never had a chance to use it. Maybe if I focused more on getting stunning attacks or something. But whatever. 0/10
Cripple – Essential for rogues. Slows, stuns, and does damage too. Plus, it’s cheap. Always a good sign. Especially good on a rogue, seeing as they generally go first out of everything, it gives you the chance to remove a really dangerous opponent before they have a chance to attack. 9/10
Poisoncraft – Love it. It seems useful at whatever level, whether it’s just pushing that damage up just enough to kill off that greebler you can’t quite kill in one hit, or tearing holes in a legendary creature at higher levels. 9/10
Elusiveness – See hide. 0/10

Barbarian: I find barbarians to be the best balanced unit. Strong attacks (the strongest, in a lot of instances), reasonable area attacks, reasonable speed, medium armour, they’re really useful.
Reckless fury – This attack is basically useless. The drop in armour is far too great, unless you’re using armour enhancing skills or potions. It’s certainly not worth losing a turn to set up. 1/10
Charge – One of the few attacks that makes where you position your characters truly important, but one of my favourites. It just bugs me that it has the stunning effect, it always ends up completely wasted; I use the attack like an execution most of the time. 9/10
Dismember – Great against Legendary Monsters with really high attacks, but otherwise I don’t really care for it. I don’t even use it. I prefer pulverise. 6/10
Pulverise – I like this attack against legendary monsters, and as a slightly better regula attack, but it costs too much. 7/10
Jostle – I can see why it would be useful, but for it to be useful you’d really need an extra turn immediately afterwards. 1/10
Boast – Love boast. It’s effectively a cheap ranged attack. the speed reduction can be a nice sweetener too. 9/10
Whirlwind – Without a doubt, my favourite thing about barbarians. It’s a decent area attack, although it does always strike me as odd that it costs more than electrical storm, despite hitting less targets and doing less damage to some. I figured this was to make up for the fact that, as a barbarians attack is bound to be higher due to the use of the greataxe, it would therefore do more damage and thus cost more. I guess this is true. When I use electrical storm, it weakens everyone up, but when I use whirlwind it always kills at least two enemies. Still, it’s pretty pricey (the only attacks that cost more are revive, summon soul and execute). 9/10
Enrage – I guess this makes up for the large cost of the barbarians attacks, but I’m not a fan. You’re better off flooding your opponents with weak regular attacks until you’ve built up enough power again. 1/10
Intimidate – Like I said before, I don’t like to show favouritism. Besides, it seems rather contradictory, considering that other abilities the barbarian has rely on it taking damage. 0/10
Last stand – While I think this would be a great attack for a roleplay, I’ve never been in a position where this seemed useful. Usually, if I’ve reached that low health, I am first of all running low on power, and second of all fighting something with insta-kill immunity. Which basically makes this an expensive damage multiplier. 1/10
Brutality – It’s basically just a passive damage multiplier that requires a whole lot of upgrading to be any use. I mean, you have to wait twenty-five levels for it to give you what is effectively an extra 25% damage to each attack. Sure, you kind of expect it to be fairly low from a passive enhancement, but that seems like a lot to me. Still, it comes in handy a lot in later levels. 7/10
Vengeance – Like brutality, only I personally find it to be more powerful. I mean, they only really kick in against really tough enemies, in which case, chances are I’m taking damage every turn, often more than once. Which means at its’ worst, I’m effectively gaining an extra 22.5% damage on average, but I’m usually exceeding that due to the extra chance of getting vengeance from the extra attacks. 8/10

Conjurer: So I’m gonna be honest. In a dungeon crawl, conjurers are useless. On the otherhand, FoT, they are incredible. The main problem they face in a dungeon crawl is that summonings don’t last longer than one battle. As such, while they’re useful when pitted against a really powerful enemy, most of the time they’re just dead weight. FoT though, your summonings last forever, making a conjurer unexpendable.
Dire wolf – They’re over-priced, and truly, truly useless. They seem to be particularly vulnerable to poison from my experience, meaning that the minute you come up against a shaman, lich, or similar spell caster, they’re instantly worthless. Also useless against deep creatures for the same reason. 1/10
Wall of shadows – If they were cheaper, I’d think they were great. Nothing better than being able to curse your enemies, remove curses, and draw fire from your valued soldiers at the same time. I wouldn’t use them unless the price was severely dropped though. I’m thinking somewhere in the region of 10 power each. 2/10
Manasprite/bloodsprite – In theory they’re great, but I just don’t see it being useful unless there’s more than six spaces. In a small fight, they’re effectively a one shot wonder, and in a large one, they just take too long to ‘reload’ to be any use singularly. I mean, I suppose I could kill them after each use, but that just seems like I’m wasting a unit I could be using for attacking (my conjurer, duh). 1/10
Wargolem – This is the only summoning I actually consider useful. They actually have enough health to last a few turns on their own, and their attack is usable. I don’t use their other ability, ever. It seems like a waist to me, when I could be using them as an expendable form of attack. Beef them up a bit with Eldritch Aegis and a rangers’ natures’ balm, and you have a fairly self-sufficient little soldier right there. 5/10
Vortex – The trouble with vortex is that it doesn’t do nearly enough damage. It’s little better than a regular attack.
…
Actually, that’s not the only trouble with it.
The displacement it causes is almost pointless. Sure, it can spare one of your more injured members some damage on occasion, but its’ most obvious use, knocking front row soldiers to the back rows, thus forcing them to cease attacking, doesn’t work. I’ve never come across a single enemy that worked on, much to my utter disgust. Further more, it then stops me from attacking them with melee weapons, because there’s a vortex in front of them. With a name like vortex, I was expecting an attack that would cost all my power, and probably some of my life, but would rip shreads out of multiple enemies. Or an attack similar to last stand, that could only be used at low health, but would give you an insta-kill on all the enemies infront of you (with the obvious exception of those with insta-kill immunity). In actual fact, it’s just a really small damage multiplier against crowded enemies, and a liability when used wrong. This was the only part of the game that I felt truly disappointed with (apart from the fact that the campaigns weren’t longer. But I would have felt that way if they went on for a hundred levels). 0/10
Banish – A must have against cultists. Having an inexpensive way to instantly kill an enemy is amazing, no question. It just annoys me slightly that I have no use for it against anyone else. Infact, there’s only two units in the entire game that cause need for it. 8/10
Refresh energies – Nine times out of ten, once my conjurer has summoned some creatures, I don’t have a lot for him to spend his power on. Eldritch Aegis is kinda one of those things that you get once, and vortex is useless. Other than that, your skills are mostly summoning different creatures. Banish can only be used in specific and rare circumstances, as can be said for call soul. All that leaves is your regular attack. As such, I feel bad, leaving them with so much power. Unfortunately, there’s no way to transfer this power, which I would love to do with them, so I often end up making the clerics’ job easier and healing up the summonings simply so I’m not wasting the power I’m generating. The main benefit being, it removes curses. Without this skill, you’re better off banishing your own summonings, and re-summoning them straight after when they get cursed. It bugs me that this can’t be used on other allies though. As I said before, I would love for a way to give my allies extra power. 8/10
Eldritch Aegis – Of everything a conjurer has, this is probably the most useful in a dungeon crawl. Mainly, because I’m not a big fan of heavy armour, so a 15% boost right at the beginning makes a lot of difference to me. But really its’ best use, like with every other skill a conjurer has, is in FoT. Use it once, then you don’t have to use it again until someone dies. We’re talking a good fifty rounds there, no trouble, if you play well. I would probably think this was good enough to use in a dungeon crawl regularly, maybe enough to make a conjurer a regular member of my party, if we were looking at a larger armour buff. Really, I’m thinking in the area of 25% upwards to even consider it. 9/10
Call soul – Like with revive, if you’re using this in a regular dungeon crawl, you’re doing something wrong. In FoT though, it’s vital. Personally, I prefer it to revive, on the basis that, when I lose a character, it’s generally in the heat of battle. I want them back instantly, but with revive, the low health they have means you lose them again before you get a chance to heal them up. With call soul, sure, they’re stuck on regular attacks for a few turns, but after that, but at least they’re straight back into the Fight, right when I need them most. 7/10
Augment strength – No matter what I do, my summonings seem to have rubbish attacks. It has occurred to me that it’s possible their strength is linked to the summoners’ strength, but I don’t think the reason is particularly important. The point is, even with augmented strength, they’re weak as kittens. Kittens with leukemia. In a wet burlap sack. Which you drowned them in. After they were miscarried. Then dropped in a shreader. Then spread on toast and served to the vicar when he came round for tea last Sunday. Why would you even want to feed a holy man kittens, you sick, perverted person?
Sorry, I’m digressing. The point is, even with this whacked up full, Wargolems can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Sure, if you’ve got some ability points you’re not using, this is as good a place to dump them as any. Just don’t go putting your hopes in it. 4/10
Augment health – Okay, so I like Wargolems, which probably suggests to you that I like a good expendable shield wall. Guess what! You’re right. And what could be more useful for a shield wall than a bunch of bonus health? Once you have Wargolems, banish, refresh energies, Eldritch Aegis and Call soul, this is what you want to start putting points in. 8/10

Okay, so that should give you an idea of what I think of each attack. Just as a last little bonus, I’ll give you the lineups I’ve found most successful, just so you can see how I’m using them, and get an idea of what kind of strategy each attack suits.

FoT lineup – I like this more than the dungeon crawl, because of its’ simplicity. It’s just pure fighting, no complex decisions about whether it’s better to have 10 poison or 10 regular damage or 10% stun or anything like that. As such, I’ve played it a lot, and think I have the lineup pretty well down to the ground. So, basically, this is how it goes:
One conjurer – Like I said, this is where they really shine, because they give you a full garrison, beef up your armour a bit, and they bring people back to life. With full health. Having banish on standby is quite useful, too. I arm them up with Wargolem, refresh energies, banish, Eldritch Aegis, call soul and as many levels of augment health as I can. Basically the strategy is to summon a couple of wargolems, then slap armour on everyone. After that, you can chill out, refresh some energies occasionally, replace war golems where you need to, call souls and re-summon occasionally, basically it’s a chilled out, simple shooting-fest for most of the battle. Nice simple class to work with.
One Ranger – The trick to FoT is to keep your health going up as much as possible. Well, one of them, anyway. Basically, my ranger gets equipped with Pierce, Natures’ Balm, Hail of Arrows and Pin. Then stick the rest in Creature Law. The technique is to slap Natures’ Balm on everyone, then rest up, using Hail of Arrows to weaken large groups, Pin to avoid damage from faster enemies, an Pierce where-ever you can, and rest in between. Focus on their intelligence, and you can get a really good heal going, which is really useful. Basically, they’re mostly there for the poison resistance. I feel a little bad for them sometimes.
One Cleric – Like I said, no group should be without one. Especially if you’re going to be fighting wave after wave of enemies without a break to heal up between. I equip them with Heal, Smite, Holy Light, Heal All, Revive, and the rest goes to Benediction. Use them to blind the opponent first, then heal up people as needed. With smite as a back up attack, just in case things get really ugly. Curses should be something to focus on removing, minor wounds will be taken care of by health regen.
One Mage – This is where most of my damage is done, everything else is really just spreading the damage out between my other characters. The mage gets Freeze, Fire Ball, Electrical Storm, Power Siphon, Flickering Flame and a bunch of Spell Mastery. I use him to fill everyone with flickering flames, then blast my enemies with an Electrical Storm. Once they’re down, use power siphon to keep them weak while everybody heals up, then finally let them rest while I everyone else finished off the enemy, ready to start the cycle again. The other attacks are really just in case of a change of plan.

And that’s the grand master plan. Really simple, and it seems to work for a hundred levels, no problem. I rarely have time to make it much further than that, but I’ve never come across a point where this technique seems to run out of steam. I forget who said about Woody Gutherie that anyone can make something complex, but it takes a genius to make something simple. But it’s a philosophy I run by.

Dungeon crawl lineup – Both campaign modes and the infinite mode I lump under the one area here. It would be far too complex to tell you everything I do here, so I’m just gonna give you the classes I use, and you can be all smart and smug and work out the majority of the technique from everything above.
Lineup one: Barbarian, Cleric, Mage, Rogue. This is my favourite, and most successful lineup by far.
Lineup two: Four Clerics. This is fun if you balance them well, and you can do some serious damage to the undead. Has a slight flaw with ranged attacks, as they cost a lot of power. Clerics tend to be a little too stretched in a well balanced group, but this gives them the chance to specialise, letting them fulfill so much more potential. The conversations they have between floors is really boring and preachy though.
Lineup three: Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Cleric. Basically a variation on the first lineup. It doesn’t work so well, in my opinion, but may work better for someone else. Warriors aren’t so well balance as barbarians.
Lineup four: Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Rogue. This is the lineup I use when I’m doing whacky stuff generally. Warrior with a crossbow, Mage with a sword, Ranger with a sword, and Rogue with a long bow. I think. My memory isn’t great. It’s a rubbish lineup anyway, but it can be kinda funny. It’s also useful to stretch yourself and use things in weird ways sometimes. I’ll also occasionally swap out the rogue for a Cleric, and use them as a ranged unit. Or swap someone out for a conjurer.

There you go. All fun there. I think that’s about all I use. Hope some of that was useful.

@Particleman, I’ve skim read your plan, and so far, I really like it. Going through it in more detail now, to see if I can help with the gaps a little…