My detailed thoughts on talents based on my 2 caster/rogue/2H warrior party: Must Haves
Arrow Recovery - If you are an huntsman or someone who uses arrows
Elemental Affinity - Especially if you are a Necromancer Elf, which gives you +2AP at least with Necromancer spells. Otherwise, if you're already flinging some elemental ability, chances are that you are also standing in it
Executioner / Pawn - No downsides for much upsides
Far out Man - Great for 'casters
Lone wolf - For duos
Opportunist - Even most summons have this by default, I don't know why this is not in-built
Picture of Health - If you are investing into warfare, likely means you want more multiplicative HP
Savage Sortilege - Crit for spells? Yes please
Torturer - Close to the bottom of the totem pole but because your characters eventually will apply some sort of status, this seems good to have
Meh - Mostly weak / situational
All Skilled Up / Bigger And Better / Mnemonic- Generic point boosts that have a relatively unimpressive effect
Comeback Kid - Basically avoiding one shots but reloading does somewhat similar job
Duck Duck Goose - Nice to have but not needed even if you are melee. There are a ton of options for movement to bypass attacks of opportunity plus CC'd opponents can't attack you
Elemental Ranger - More damage if you have already used similar sorts of skills? Even better when your party has an elemental theme
Escapist - Just reload
Hothead - Not much downsides, just situational
Leech - Situational 5% tick, can see some use if you bleed or make people bleed
Living Armor - Basically 1.35x for healing spells vs spell damage or something similar
Parry Master - Yay stats. Also, boo boring stats
Stench - The anti melee aggro. Better positioning and ample CC works better
Pet Pal - For flavor
Walk it off - I like this one but it also reduces beneficial statuses by one /shrug
What a rush - Seems ok
Nope Tier
Ambidextrous / Slingshot- You have to be using a good amount of scrolls and grenades, which adds to unfun micromanagement of inventory
Demon / Ice King - Roleplay purpose? Should have been a tag
Morning Person / Unstable - I tend to avoid dying seeing that reviving in general is difficult (limited ress scrolls) and reloading works as a poorer version
Five-Star Diner - Inventory management is a no
Glass Cannon - CC is king, if you have no protection you are screwed
Guerilla - Does not work with invisibility, sneaking in combat takes 4AP
As you can probably tell, I just try to crush either physical armor or magical armor, stunlock enemies to win and reload the fight if I don't so YMMV
Living Armor can be pretty nice if you're going into necromancer. Everytime you hit you gain life, and a portion of that you gain as magic armor too. Can really help to keep stuff like fire from hurting you.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
+2
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I would definitely make Pet Pal a Must. You are missing out on A LOT of content without it.
How does ambidextrous function in relation to scrolls? The wording says that scrolls and grenades lose one AP cost if your off hand is free and there are plenty of scrolls that cost just one AP.
Pet Pal is a must but it's a must for one person out of the party while the rest of the stuff on the list like The Pawn kinda just benefits everybody.
Playing in a large group of people makes Pet Pal more worthwhile just to experience it for yourself but you can let that person give you the highlights and you get to skip out on the soul crushing sadness.
My detailed thoughts on talents based on my 2 caster/rogue/2H warrior party: Must Haves
Torturer - Close to the bottom of the totem pole but because your characters eventually will apply some sort of status, this seems good to have
Torturer only works on damaging status effects, which means bleeds and burns. Useless for most characters, maybe good for scoundrels if it works on rupture? Definitely not a Must Have.
Meh - Mostly weak / situational
Hothead - Not much downsides, just situational
Pet Pal - For flavor
Hothead is great because of the armor system, as long as enemy doesn't do piercing attacks you can easily have this buff active when it matters the most, the first 1-3 rounds of a fight. And Pet Pal is essential for one of your characters, you are missing out on significant portion of the game otherwise.
Nope Tier
<snip>
Yeah, those all suck and should seriously be reworked into something useful. I guess you could leave Glass Cannon as it is, I'm sure somebody out there has managed to make it work. Morning Person could work when you have a necromancer with the rez spell (it doesn't even cost source to use) but that's even more situational and weak than Comeback Kid. Maybe combine them so you auto-rez at 20% health but if somebody rezzes you you do so at full health.
0
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Pet Pal is a must but it's a must for one person out of the party while the rest of the stuff on the list like The Pawn kinda just benefits everybody.
Playing in a large group of people makes Pet Pal more worthwhile just to experience it for yourself but you can let that person give you the highlights and you get to skip out on the soul crushing sadness.
Everyone else can also just listen in to the Pet Pal convos if they want to, I think.
Pet Pal is a must but it's a must for one person out of the party while the rest of the stuff on the list like The Pawn kinda just benefits everybody.
Playing in a large group of people makes Pet Pal more worthwhile just to experience it for yourself but you can let that person give you the highlights and you get to skip out on the soul crushing sadness.
Everyone else can also just listen in to the Pet Pal convos if they want to, I think.
I hope not. because that would be the most amazing thing for multiplayer. One person is talking to a squirrel, and everyone else just hears "chip, chipchip" from both sides
Pet Pal is a must but it's a must for one person out of the party while the rest of the stuff on the list like The Pawn kinda just benefits everybody.
Playing in a large group of people makes Pet Pal more worthwhile just to experience it for yourself but you can let that person give you the highlights and you get to skip out on the soul crushing sadness.
Everyone else can also just listen in to the Pet Pal convos if they want to, I think.
I hope not. because that would be the most amazing thing for multiplayer. One person is talking to a squirrel, and everyone else just hears "chip, chipchip" from both sides
I would definitely love some DLC for this game that adds more all-game combat content. It definitely feels like they could easily add more stuff for fun.
Also a few things really do need some changes, like spears are kind of pointless to have right now. 2-handed finesse weapons, but they can barely use any of the scoundrel skills, and there's not really any point in going finesse instead of strength otherwise. If you're gonna go 2-handed weapon build you probably want the str weapons since they're so vastly more common to run into.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
0
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited October 2017
Unstable, Picture of Health, and 10+ Warfare is hilarious. It's physical damage, so it scales with Warfare.
Duck Duck Goose + Pawn seems like a no brainer for a dual wielding dagger scoundrel. You need to backstab every turn.
Because of the armor system, spell damage seems pretty useless. My casters have all been summoners/buff bots. If you really need to cast spells, you can make spell damage incarnates/totems and do nearly the same damage as a dedicated caster anyway. More than likely, you are looking to support your melee characters and get blood incarnates and want to use your ap to support with teleport, haste, healing, mage armor, fortify, totems, etc. And the incarnates do shit tons of damage + can knockdown enemies.
With that said, the spell crit and the elemental ranger talent are pretty useless. That just isn't how mages are working.
furbat on
+1
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
I finally managed to get through the prison part of Fort Joy, holy crap this game is hard on Tactician when you don't have any gear. Pretty much every fight with magisters ended up with me limping away with 2+ dead party members, and I had to burn through every consumable scroll, makeshift arrow and combustible barrel along the way.
I haven't had much issue without Duck Duck Goose on my scoundrel. The Pawn gives plenty of movement to get behind something and combined with the two level one teleports available it's pretty free. And it's only if you leave melee range, you can slip around an enemy and never trigger the attack.
butts
+1
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I find that my Dual-Wielding Rogue uses DDG the most as she slithers around and through the enemy ranks to hit their bowmen cleverly hiding in the back. I also like it for Fane to allow him to move unscathed away from whichever mouth-breather is trying to tear him up.
Duck Duck Goose + Pawn seems like a no brainer for a dual wielding dagger scoundrel. You need to backstab every turn.
Because of the armor system, spell damage seems pretty useless. My casters have all been summoners/buff bots. If you really need to cast spells, you can make spell damage incarnates/totems and do nearly the same damage as a dedicated caster anyway. More than likely, you are looking to support your melee characters and get blood incarnates and want to use your ap to support with teleport, haste, healing, mage armor, fortify, totems, etc. And the incarnates do shit tons of damage + can knockdown enemies.
With that said, the spell crit and the elemental ranger talent are pretty useless. That just isn't how mages are working.
Damaging spells have their place. Fighter type NCPs tend to have a bucket load of physical armor but relatively little magical. Casters have an easier time getting to the gooey center so they can start applying status effects.
I don't think any talents are "Must Have's" in this game given how you can literally get out of combat and go respec if things are going shitty for you. Escapist just makes it that much easier to do so.
As for enemy placement I haven't had much trouble with the sign-posting that it seems others are having. I did manage to do the harbor fight two levels below (after realizing that I was getting hit for like 300 an attack when just before my physical armor was barely being sliced off) but most encounters have been level appropriate.
He wound up in jail(didn't bribe enough). I broke out once, to see what building I was in, then took the rest of the team there. Managed to convince the magister to leave, but Ifan can't leave his cell without gaining fugitive status.
Is there a way to clear him? I'm hoping one of these investigation missions will help. I could easily get him out and leave him outside town,
but he's my best trader and has pet pal, not to mention his personal mission.
He wound up in jail(didn't bribe enough). I broke out once, to see what building I was in, then took the rest of the team there. Managed to convince the magister to leave, but Ifan can't leave his cell without gaining fugitive status.
Is there a way to clear him? I'm hoping one of these investigation missions will help. I could easily get him out and leave him outside town,
but he's my best trader and has pet pal, not to mention his personal mission.
That status has a duration. It's not short but just sit there for half a minute or whatever and leave.
He wound up in jail(didn't bribe enough). I broke out once, to see what building I was in, then took the rest of the team there. Managed to convince the magister to leave, but Ifan can't leave his cell without gaining fugitive status.
Is there a way to clear him? I'm hoping one of these investigation missions will help. I could easily get him out and leave him outside town,
but he's my best trader and has pet pal, not to mention his personal mission.
To prevent that:
Just use Fane's mask. Also I do not believe you can actually bride the Magister.
How does persuasion work in this game? I have persuasion 3 on my main character in Act 2, but I'm noticing I can no longer actually persuade anybody. Is it a roll? If I reload and try a zillion times, is there a chance I get it?
How does persuasion work in this game? I have persuasion 3 on my main character in Act 2, but I'm noticing I can no longer actually persuade anybody. Is it a roll? If I reload and try a zillion times, is there a chance I get it?
it's a combination of the persuasion stat and combat stat. Dont have high enough persuasion, it fails. Dont have high enough combat stat, it fails. At least that's my experience. it's not a great system. But I dont think there's any variance.
How does persuasion work in this game? I have persuasion 3 on my main character in Act 2, but I'm noticing I can no longer actually persuade anybody. Is it a roll? If I reload and try a zillion times, is there a chance I get it?
I finally managed to get through the prison part of Fort Joy, holy crap this game is hard on Tactician when you don't have any gear. Pretty much every fight with magisters ended up with me limping away with 2+ dead party members, and I had to burn through every consumable scroll, makeshift arrow and combustible barrel along the way.
I feel that there's a large jump in stats in between some levels which is sometimes frustrating because you have to switch out your gear. A nice unique weapon you find now is often pretty bad 2 levels later. Then again, this is mostly just me hording all the gold and not spending any on vendors.
If you haven't been, invest in merchants you'll be purchasing from a lot. They all have a gold to attitude ratio (Gratiana is like 1-1 for example, most are way worse, like 100-1) that's somewhat unique to them but if you end up buying a lot of stuff from them over the course of the time spent in that area, it'll pay itself back fast. I think I get 44% with five bartering and max attitude. Gold hasn't been much of an issue in a long time.
And as soon as I'm done and moving on to the next area you better believe I am robbing everyone blind.
Was absolutely brutal the first time I walked in and started the fight. Each of them puts out 100+ damage a turn and there was no way I could keep my team alive.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I finally managed to get through the prison part of Fort Joy, holy crap this game is hard on Tactician when you don't have any gear. Pretty much every fight with magisters ended up with me limping away with 2+ dead party members, and I had to burn through every consumable scroll, makeshift arrow and combustible barrel along the way.
I feel that there's a large jump in stats in between some levels which is sometimes frustrating because you have to switch out your gear. A nice unique weapon you find now is often pretty bad 2 levels later. Then again, this is mostly just me hording all the gold and not spending any on vendors.
I just finished Act III and those huge jumps in stats between levels mean that if you finish everything in Act II then Act III is a cakewalk. Whether that is bad or good is up to you, of course.
As a pyro I am constantly melting dudes in Act 2. I don't see how or why magic damage would be pointless. Our Tactician Mode runthrough has 3 players. I'm a pyro/necro mage. Buddy is a scoundrel/poly dual wielding rogue. Last friend is a warfare hydro aero tank/support character. We have rough patches but typically as a result of not gearing correctly. With good equipment and decent planning most encounters are just taking out the trash.
I finally managed to get through the prison part of Fort Joy, holy crap this game is hard on Tactician when you don't have any gear. Pretty much every fight with magisters ended up with me limping away with 2+ dead party members, and I had to burn through every consumable scroll, makeshift arrow and combustible barrel along the way.
I feel that there's a large jump in stats in between some levels which is sometimes frustrating because you have to switch out your gear. A nice unique weapon you find now is often pretty bad 2 levels later. Then again, this is mostly just me hording all the gold and not spending any on vendors.
I just finished Act III and those huge jumps in stats between levels mean that if you finish everything in Act II then Act III is a cakewalk. Whether that is bad or good is up to you, of course.
act ii needs less villainous NPC's, really. I wouldn't be quite so high level if reaper's coast had a few less packs of scumbags to come at my hero-tagged ifan and crew.
I finally managed to get through the prison part of Fort Joy, holy crap this game is hard on Tactician when you don't have any gear. Pretty much every fight with magisters ended up with me limping away with 2+ dead party members, and I had to burn through every consumable scroll, makeshift arrow and combustible barrel along the way.
I feel that there's a large jump in stats in between some levels which is sometimes frustrating because you have to switch out your gear. A nice unique weapon you find now is often pretty bad 2 levels later. Then again, this is mostly just me hording all the gold and not spending any on vendors.
I just finished Act III and those huge jumps in stats between levels mean that if you finish everything in Act II then Act III is a cakewalk. Whether that is bad or good is up to you, of course.
act ii needs less villainous NPC's, really. I wouldn't be quite so high level if reaper's coast had a few less packs of scumbags to come at my hero-tagged ifan and crew.
It is really helping my finances. I feel waaaay less bad about stealing the living shit out of people in most of Act 2. In act 1 there were a lot of vendors that I refused to steal from, because I mean, they're largely just poor bastards with collars trying to survive like the rest of it.
But in Act 2 it seems half the vendors start the conversation by being outrageously racist towards half my party, at which point I go "sure" while Beast and his Thievery 5 takes whatever the shiniest things they have are.
I finally managed to get through the prison part of Fort Joy, holy crap this game is hard on Tactician when you don't have any gear. Pretty much every fight with magisters ended up with me limping away with 2+ dead party members, and I had to burn through every consumable scroll, makeshift arrow and combustible barrel along the way.
I feel that there's a large jump in stats in between some levels which is sometimes frustrating because you have to switch out your gear. A nice unique weapon you find now is often pretty bad 2 levels later. Then again, this is mostly just me hording all the gold and not spending any on vendors.
I just finished Act III and those huge jumps in stats between levels mean that if you finish everything in Act II then Act III is a cakewalk. Whether that is bad or good is up to you, of course.
act ii needs less villainous NPC's, really. I wouldn't be quite so high level if reaper's coast had a few less packs of scumbags to come at my hero-tagged ifan and crew.
You may not want to turn on Ghost Vision after fighting Roost, because you won't enjoy learning what he's been doing in there.
If you haven't been, invest in merchants you'll be purchasing from a lot. They all have a gold to attitude ratio (Gratiana is like 1-1 for example, most are way worse, like 100-1) that's somewhat unique to them but if you end up buying a lot of stuff from them over the course of the time spent in that area, it'll pay itself back fast. I think I get 44% with five bartering and max attitude. Gold hasn't been much of an issue in a long time.
And as soon as I'm done and moving on to the next area you better believe I am robbing everyone blind.
Shit.. before I
took boat to the Lady's Vengence
I should have gone back to the fort and fucking rob-murdered everyone. Eat my shit, Griff.
As a pyro I am constantly melting dudes in Act 2. I don't see how or why magic damage would be pointless. Our Tactician Mode runthrough has 3 players. I'm a pyro/necro mage. Buddy is a scoundrel/poly dual wielding rogue. Last friend is a warfare hydro aero tank/support character. We have rough patches but typically as a result of not gearing correctly. With good equipment and decent planning most encounters are just taking out the trash.
If you have some elemental damage on your melee character's weapons to chip at magic armor, and pay attention to which enemies have more of which armor (spoiler, melee npcs have shit magic armor and vice versa), your caster characters absolutely have a vital role in boiling npc tanks inside their tin pants.
Do you get to choose what npcs from the boat that you get in your party or are you suppose to end up with all of them? I picked the rogue as my main character (The elf with the mark on her face), and encountered fane(undead guy) and the red prince on the island starting area. I kinda didnt want the prince at first if it was random or something.
Do you get to choose what npcs from the boat that you get in your party or are you suppose to end up with all of them? I picked the rogue as my main character (The elf with the mark on her face), and encountered fane(undead guy) and the red prince on the island starting area. I kinda didnt want the prince at first if it was random or something.
Yes, you can speak with them all and choose the characters you want in your party.
ETA: No, you don't end up with all of them. If you're playing alone, you can pick 3 of them for your party.
emutheelf on
Current Game Rotation: Life is Strange, Super Mario Odyssey, Spelunky
Do you get to choose what npcs from the boat that you get in your party or are you suppose to end up with all of them? I picked the rogue as my main character (The elf with the mark on her face), and encountered fane(undead guy) and the red prince on the island starting area. I kinda didnt want the prince at first if it was random or something.
If you accidentally end up inviting someone along, you can always take all their equipment and then talk to them and ask them to part ways.
Hey wanna hang out? Gimme all your stuff. Now fucking get lost.
Posts
Must Haves
Arrow Recovery - If you are an huntsman or someone who uses arrows
Elemental Affinity - Especially if you are a Necromancer Elf, which gives you +2AP at least with Necromancer spells. Otherwise, if you're already flinging some elemental ability, chances are that you are also standing in it
Executioner / Pawn - No downsides for much upsides
Far out Man - Great for 'casters
Lone wolf - For duos
Opportunist - Even most summons have this by default, I don't know why this is not in-built
Picture of Health - If you are investing into warfare, likely means you want more multiplicative HP
Savage Sortilege - Crit for spells? Yes please
Torturer - Close to the bottom of the totem pole but because your characters eventually will apply some sort of status, this seems good to have
Meh - Mostly weak / situational
All Skilled Up / Bigger And Better / Mnemonic- Generic point boosts that have a relatively unimpressive effect
Comeback Kid - Basically avoiding one shots but reloading does somewhat similar job
Duck Duck Goose - Nice to have but not needed even if you are melee. There are a ton of options for movement to bypass attacks of opportunity plus CC'd opponents can't attack you
Elemental Ranger - More damage if you have already used similar sorts of skills? Even better when your party has an elemental theme
Escapist - Just reload
Hothead - Not much downsides, just situational
Leech - Situational 5% tick, can see some use if you bleed or make people bleed
Living Armor - Basically 1.35x for healing spells vs spell damage or something similar
Parry Master - Yay stats. Also, boo boring stats
Stench - The anti melee aggro. Better positioning and ample CC works better
Pet Pal - For flavor
Walk it off - I like this one but it also reduces beneficial statuses by one /shrug
What a rush - Seems ok
Nope Tier
Ambidextrous / Slingshot- You have to be using a good amount of scrolls and grenades, which adds to unfun micromanagement of inventory
Demon / Ice King - Roleplay purpose? Should have been a tag
Morning Person / Unstable - I tend to avoid dying seeing that reviving in general is difficult (limited ress scrolls) and reloading works as a poorer version
Five-Star Diner - Inventory management is a no
Glass Cannon - CC is king, if you have no protection you are screwed
Guerilla - Does not work with invisibility, sneaking in combat takes 4AP
As you can probably tell, I just try to crush either physical armor or magical armor, stunlock enemies to win and reload the fight if I don't so YMMV
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
Not just content, but quest XP
Playing in a large group of people makes Pet Pal more worthwhile just to experience it for yourself but you can let that person give you the highlights and you get to skip out on the soul crushing sadness.
Torturer only works on damaging status effects, which means bleeds and burns. Useless for most characters, maybe good for scoundrels if it works on rupture? Definitely not a Must Have.
Hothead is great because of the armor system, as long as enemy doesn't do piercing attacks you can easily have this buff active when it matters the most, the first 1-3 rounds of a fight. And Pet Pal is essential for one of your characters, you are missing out on significant portion of the game otherwise.
Yeah, those all suck and should seriously be reworked into something useful. I guess you could leave Glass Cannon as it is, I'm sure somebody out there has managed to make it work. Morning Person could work when you have a necromancer with the rez spell (it doesn't even cost source to use) but that's even more situational and weak than Comeback Kid. Maybe combine them so you auto-rez at 20% health but if somebody rezzes you you do so at full health.
Everyone else can also just listen in to the Pet Pal convos if they want to, I think.
Also a few things really do need some changes, like spears are kind of pointless to have right now. 2-handed finesse weapons, but they can barely use any of the scoundrel skills, and there's not really any point in going finesse instead of strength otherwise. If you're gonna go 2-handed weapon build you probably want the str weapons since they're so vastly more common to run into.
Preferably with comeback kid.
Because of the armor system, spell damage seems pretty useless. My casters have all been summoners/buff bots. If you really need to cast spells, you can make spell damage incarnates/totems and do nearly the same damage as a dedicated caster anyway. More than likely, you are looking to support your melee characters and get blood incarnates and want to use your ap to support with teleport, haste, healing, mage armor, fortify, totems, etc. And the incarnates do shit tons of damage + can knockdown enemies.
With that said, the spell crit and the elemental ranger talent are pretty useless. That just isn't how mages are working.
Damaging spells have their place. Fighter type NCPs tend to have a bucket load of physical armor but relatively little magical. Casters have an easier time getting to the gooey center so they can start applying status effects.
As for enemy placement I haven't had much trouble with the sign-posting that it seems others are having. I did manage to do the harbor fight two levels below (after realizing that I was getting hit for like 300 an attack when just before my physical armor was barely being sliced off) but most encounters have been level appropriate.
Is there a way to clear him? I'm hoping one of these investigation missions will help. I could easily get him out and leave him outside town,
but he's my best trader and has pet pal, not to mention his personal mission.
To prevent that:
black magic fuckery
That's what the wiki suggests - some always succeed, some never, some have a check.
I feel that there's a large jump in stats in between some levels which is sometimes frustrating because you have to switch out your gear. A nice unique weapon you find now is often pretty bad 2 levels later. Then again, this is mostly just me hording all the gold and not spending any on vendors.
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
And as soon as I'm done and moving on to the next area you better believe I am robbing everyone blind.
(end of Reaper's Eye boss spoiler)
Was absolutely brutal the first time I walked in and started the fight. Each of them puts out 100+ damage a turn and there was no way I could keep my team alive.
I just finished Act III and those huge jumps in stats between levels mean that if you finish everything in Act II then Act III is a cakewalk. Whether that is bad or good is up to you, of course.
act ii needs less villainous NPC's, really. I wouldn't be quite so high level if reaper's coast had a few less packs of scumbags to come at my hero-tagged ifan and crew.
It is really helping my finances. I feel waaaay less bad about stealing the living shit out of people in most of Act 2. In act 1 there were a lot of vendors that I refused to steal from, because I mean, they're largely just poor bastards with collars trying to survive like the rest of it.
But in Act 2 it seems half the vendors start the conversation by being outrageously racist towards half my party, at which point I go "sure" while Beast and his Thievery 5 takes whatever the shiniest things they have are.
You may not want to turn on Ghost Vision after fighting Roost, because you won't enjoy learning what he's been doing in there.
Shit.. before I
If you have some elemental damage on your melee character's weapons to chip at magic armor, and pay attention to which enemies have more of which armor (spoiler, melee npcs have shit magic armor and vice versa), your caster characters absolutely have a vital role in boiling npc tanks inside their tin pants.
Yes, you can speak with them all and choose the characters you want in your party.
ETA: No, you don't end up with all of them. If you're playing alone, you can pick 3 of them for your party.
If you accidentally end up inviting someone along, you can always take all their equipment and then talk to them and ask them to part ways.
Hey wanna hang out? Gimme all your stuff. Now fucking get lost.