I finally finished the Freedom Isles, my character is level 15 and I have 5700 leadership. 11 Attack, 22 Defense, 10 Intellect, which I feel is pretty good at my level. Sleem is level 22 and Zerock is level 17. I let my underground blades get a little out of control, it costs 37 rage (although it pretty much wipes entire armies off the board).
I am finding that I made some choices that I regret concerning my character. First, I took Rockfall when I should have skipped it, and I even upgraded it once because my other choice was to increase the stone wall's life to 300 (and increase the cost by 5 rage). Two wasted levels probably won't make a big difference in the long run though.
In the skill tree I took 3/3 Glory which in retrospect was too expensive for what you get. 500 leadership sounds like a lot when you're level 8, but at the higher levels, the leadership bonus from a level up dwarfs that. I would have preferred to have spent the might runes towards onslaught so dragons don't tear me a new one on the first turn. I have had serious problems getting might runes in my game, although magic runes are abundant so it's not that big a deal. If I find enough might runes to get what I need by the time I'm fighting big stacks of dragons, then it will probably turn out to be nothing.
In the mind tree I have 2 Order, 3 Distortion, and 2 Chaos, and I'm not really sure what to do with my mind runes from here. I would like to get the last 2 points of concentration, not that I need the mana but it does make all the fights easier if I had it. I have fire rain and ice snake as my primary damage spells, but I regret using the magic crystals on Ice Snake because the damage is awful for a Paladin and the freeze effect isn't high enough. It probably won't matter, but we'll see. I still haven't found Hypnotize, Phantom, Phoenix, Sacrifice and a few other useful spells.
I feel like Paladins need to be very careful about spending their mind runes because everything in that skill tree is so expensive, so I can't really afford to make a mistake. I need to decide to either go for the spell damage skill at the bottom of the tree, or get concentration and extra mana. I'll probably hold onto them until I reach a point in the game that I can't continue.
Going back to Darion was fun, the abandoned castle was a breeze, the undead castle in the marsh was challenging but not frustrating. I beat the gorgon in the arena which was a real pain due to her incredible initiative. I am now regretting not leaving more enemies alive in Greenwort, I have 2 arena battles to go and no one to build rage off of. I guess potions will have to do, but it's much easier to drag out an easy fight than it is to use the few consumables that the game provides. I have only found 2 rage potions in the entire game so far. I haven't tried the level 15 fight. I'm sure I could win, but probably not without losses. The archmage's staff is also best left for later.
As awesome as royal thorns are, they are becoming quite a liability against enemy heroes. Their fire vulnerability ruins me when the opponent has alchemists, dragons, fireball or flaming arrow. Since I don't have sacrifice or time back I have to reload the fight if I lose one. They're still great for 90% of the fights in the game, but I really need to find a replacement soon. I will be heading into the mines tonight, so we'll see what they have to offer.
