I'm going to be upfront and say I hate the armour system of DOS2. I found the combat of DOS1 was far more exciting than in DOS2 for this reason. Magic damage feels completely useless in comparison to just running a full physical damage party, so the excellent party diversity in DOS1 is wrecked in my eyes.
For whatever reason, it seems that RNG has been shunned in this game, but it was the balancing factor. Every single fight feels the same now - charge down enemies armour and then chain CC them.
First of all; I do agree with hating the armour system. For different reasons, though. Felt the same with mages when I just started out, but that changed almost entirely by now. Mages pack a shitload of AoE, compared to phys' chars and there's usually enough targets with low magic/high phys, that it adds another layer of strategy to split up your dmg to maximise it. Except those fights where your mage is just utterly useless because everything is immune to whatever element he's using. **** those fights. But that doesn't have anything to do with armor.
RNG can feel very cheap at times, so I'm not sad to see it go. Having a 98% chance to CC an enemy, which would win you the fight, but if you miss you're dead and lose your honour mode game is a rather shitty situation. It makes fights far more drawn out (and usually not-fun), if you don't want to risk your save on a stroke of luck. The issue is that the armour system comes with it's own share of problems. Namely the chain CC. Then again, that was also a thing (read: problem, hence there being a mod that stops that) in Original Sin:EE, albeit not the the same extreme extent.
As suggested in another thread, reducing the amount of available hard CC and adding more steps to it (like it currently is for mages with chilled->frozen), would already go a long way, without differing too far from the current system.
Magic has several handicaps, the worst probably that it is much harder to boost your magic damage. For physical you mainly need a better weapon/shield for a huge boost, magic damage mostly relies on level.
Magic might have a lot of damage, but enemies are mostly spread out widely, so you need to prepare first to really use AoE effectively. It ist much easier to just focus the enemies down one by one and put them into a 'doom zone', where you will knock them down every turn until they are dead.
And yes, every fight pretty much feels the same, which is why my friend and I stopped playing in Act 2.
There are a few spells later on ( 2 source spells, which are geo/aero respectively, and 2 non-source spells, geo/aero again), who can cover quite a bit of the area fights happen in, so you either you're able to hit most enemies outright, or by simply standing in a strategic position which leads to enemies getting closer to each other as they approach you. Aero also gives you access to teleport, which makes things even easier. The source spells usually lead to fights lasting a single round or 2 max, from the fights I've seen so far. At the point I'm currently, we have the problem that the friend I'm playing with currently plays 2 melee characters and is severely frustrated that he barely gets to do anything in fights.
But getting back to topic, yes, magic has a couple of problems. Nothing to do with the armour system, though. That has it's own problems, namely chain CC. The rest of it is "fine". Not great by a long shot, but fine. In terms of mages vs the armour system, I'm more frustrated by rarely having enemies being weak the the element I'm using, compared to the amount of fights every enemy has 50%+ resistance to whatever element I'm using and being basically useless.
i think that the major problem is that the CCs are too easy to stunlock basically turning the character's armor into its real health(no armor-> CC to death)
Disadvantages of magic compared to physical: - much higher chances of friendly fire/turning the battle field into a enviromental effect hazard - Warfare boosts all kind of physical damage, magic needs either to skill every tree seperatly or use polymorph for more intelligence (though at some point int will be maxed anyway) - magic has two layer cc, physical one layer - enemies have magical resistances or even immunity, physical resistances got removed, dodge aura probably the only big deal there to counter physical - magic damage depends mainly on level, physical damage can be heavily and quick boosted by better equipment - low damage, high cc elements like water and air are handicapped the most by the armor system - because of the armor system enviromental effects lost a lot of their threat potential and got turned more into nuisance
I wouldn't necessarily call friendly fire as a disadvantage... ;p But yea, agreed on pretty much most points. -Don't think the first point is as much of a problem with magic, but more with Warfare AoE not hitting allies. Also, Necrofire. -The Warfare scaling is it's own problem, in my opinion, but that would stray a bit too far from topic I think. -While it's technically a disadvatage, the biggest problem with the current armour system (chain-CC) would be somewhat reduced if they simply applied multi-layer cc for physical as well... -Yup, pretty much fully agree on resistances. Though it has to be said, that elemental weaknesses are also a thing, they're simply too rare to outweigh the downside of resistances/immunities. Dodge isn't that big of a problem either for phys, because alot of status effects reduce chance to dodge. And to a much bigger extend that the puny -resistances from burning/shocked etc. Also, it's quite rare. And mostly a single enemie giving an aura, so just remove that one from the fight quickly and you're fine. -environmental effects themselves are too weak, to be relevant in fights that are over in a 2-3 turns max. If fights are somewhat more drawn out (like act 1 fights) I feel like they are in a mostly fine position. Would be nice if they applied their effects through magic armor, but then again, would be nice if fire/poison and the soft CC would do that regardless, for things like reduced resistances...
- Friendly Fire means, that you need to be wary about when and where to use a skill. It is a handicap, there are only few instances, where you would wish for friendly fire, so in general it is a disadvantage.
- The point is, dodge is the only way to counter physicals and there are a lot of ways to solve this issue. Don't think there are many things to handly immunities. I think, there are a few enemies with physical resistance, can't remember properly. So in the end in most fights physical damage has in general no limitations.
- Damage was never the main 'advantage' of enviromental effects, except if you want to blow stuff up (fire/poison). In D:OS1 one they were good make enemies to be more likely to get stunned or set on fire, but as mentioned yourself, this part is mostly eliminated thanks to the armor system.
Overall the combat is heavily balanced against magic damage and in favor of physical, but this is sadly the case since start of EA and got even worse over time.
-I wasn't exactly serious in my comment regarding friendly fire. It's just that in my games with friends, we usually try to kill each other "by accident" as much as we try to kill enemies. :p Also, I'm the type of player who prefers having to think where to aim my skills, as to not hit allies. Especially in a strategy game. But yea, it's technically a disadvatange compared to physical. Just one I don't mind at all. -As for dodge, that was pretty much what I meant, yup. As for ways of handling immunities, besides status effects reducing resistances (which is way too low to be relevant and doesn't work through armour, except for wet), there's also Flay Skin from polymorph. But yea, not a whole lot overall. -For environmental effects, my point still stands, I'd say. Somewhat. If fights were more drawn out and not over within a few turns (also lots of movement abilities that let's enemies avoid surfaces), the damage would definitely add up and reduce the magic armour enough to be able to CC enemies. Also, in regards to CC-surfaces I think only electrified water/blood/etc is affected by magic armour? Ice and Oil both ignore it anyways. Well, also decay, but that's usually not an issue I think.
Also, I wasn't planning on arguing that magic is as good as physical. Sorry if it came of like that. Just that it's not as bad as people sometimes seem to think. Or rather, that it's main problem isn't the armour system. And the reverse, that the main problem of the armour system isn't it's impact on mages.
