I had read on here a lot that hybrid builds are not very good. And it seems logical since attribute points are at a premium in this game and hybrid characters are dependent on more attributes.
On my first playthrough, I ended up rolling a fighter who was meant to just have some low-level utility skills from different areas. Stuff like Tactical Retreat or Teleportation that are effective even if you do not have points in the relevant attribute.
Ultimately, though, this fighter turned into something different, a full-fledged battlemage who is essentially the best in my party at every single role you could have. It is pretty insane actually:
- He is the best melee damage dealer, with Oath of Desecration, Rage, Bless (if necessarily; usually it is not) and the strength to wield the best two-handed weapons I have found. I have also put Guerrilla on him and a point of sneak (as well as +4 from equipment), so he can deal insane sneak attack damage as well).
- He is the best tank by far because he can wear the best armor in the game (including plate armor with insane resists if I want to be cheesy), has the highest HP due to Picture of Health, has Leech, and has elemental armor spells (which I have found super good, especially if I'm not being cheesy with elemental resists), Become Air, Fortify, Absorb the Elements, etc. If I REALLY want to tank, I can use a great shield. And since my battlemage can deal tons of damage with spells, this is not necessarily a bad idea since your damage won't necessarily go down much.
- He is my most effective healer. He heals for a little less than Jahan does. For instance, he is healing 50 fewer health per turn with Strong Regenerate. And he has a small AP penalty on Restore. However, he also has Cure Wounds. More importantly, I feel more comfortable with him as a healer than I do with a mage as a healer because he is so hard to kill. The last thing you want is your best healer dying and Jahan is more likely to die (though the game has gotten easy enough that no one dies anymore).
- He arguably deals the most damage with spells. This is an interesting one. He obviously has lower intelligence than a dedicated mage. So his base damage on spells is lower. But he has Rage for an extra 50% damage. So despite only having 14 intelligence with all his equipment on, he does about 15% more damage with the same spells as my mage with 21 intelligence does. Importantly, he also has lower/nullify resistances to help deal much more spell damage. Furthermore, he can much more easily make use of some short-range, high-damage spells that mages may find hard to use, such as Explode.
He does have longer cooldowns, but with 14 intelligence, tons of spells have a 1 turn cooldown anyways and since he uses melee a fair bit too, cooldowns aren't really much of a problem. He does, of course, have less of a chance of applying effects like burning and poisoning, which can make some difference. And he is missing most of the super high level damage spells that require level 5 in an ability (though he does have a 5 in Aerotheurge), but those are a bit underwhelming and you get them so late that they aren't useful for long. So overall, it is pretty close regarding whether he does more spell damage than my damage-dealing mage. There are factors going both ways. And I should note that I have given my mage more +INT items than my battlemage, so I am actually skewing it against the battlemage some.
- He is my best summoner. He has enough in every magic ability to summon the best summon that school has to offer and every summon has a 1 or 2 turn cooldown. So he is essentially as good a summoner as possible.
- He is arguably my most effective character at crowd control, largely due to touch spells. As a melee character who is tough to kill, he is able to apply the touch spells without feeling dangerously close to battle or wasting AP closing in when he would not otherwise have done so. And the touch spells are low level spells, so he has a really high chance of success anyways, comparably high or higher than the mages on their more ranged CC options. They are also low AP, so he can apply a few of them in a given turn, if need be, which compares evenly with the mages having higher AP spells that can possibly CC multiple enemies. And they are super low cooldown, so he can use them basically as much as he wants. He has Drain Willpower/Divine Light for enemies with high saving throws. He also can use Rain + Shocking Touch for a super high success chance and since he has Lighting Rod, he is not in danger of being stunned standing in water. Of course he also has Crushing Fist and Battering Ram for knockdowns, as well as the uber effective Blind. Other characters are good at CC too, but honestly, my battlemage really might be the most effective one in my party.
- He is my best debuffer. I basically find that three debuffing skills are really worth it: Nullify Resistances, Mass Weakness, and Drain Willpower. Early on Midnight Oil was good too. I imagine Mass Slow might be worth it too, but I never did find a spellbook for it. Anyways, my battlemage is the only character with all three of those big debuffs. And Drain Willpower has no saving throw and he has a 1 turn cooldown on it, so he is as effective as possible with it. Yes, he is less likely to succeed at Mass Weakness than a dedicated mage, but he is still quite effective with it. Overall, I'd give him the nod for best debuffer in my party.
- This is specific to my party since I have no rogue or ranger, but he is also my best scout/thief. He had Walk in Shadows early on to steal stuff in Cyseal and now has Invisbility (i.e. >100% success rate now, so it's slightly more convenient). Meanwhile, he also has a 5 in sneak, so he is best at scouting out enemies (and unleashing a pretty vicious sneak attack to start a battle). And, while I have not put points in perception for him, he is rocking a few +PER items that have unexpectedly made him the best at seeing traps.
And note that this is all without Lone Wolf or abuse of the Teller of Secrets. With those, I imagine you could become impossibly powerful quite quickly. It is also without almost any use of crafting or even buying a ton of gear. I am mostly just using what I have found (though I have a set of gear with insane resists for lolz). As it is, I am currently soloing through the last stages of the game with this character and not really having any trouble, though it is on normal mode. For a non-LW character, I think that's pretty good.
TL;DR: Battlemages can be super good at everything, all at once.
Last edited by lessthanjake; 12/08/14 08:58 AM.
