Hey all,
I'm having a lot of fun with the game but everyone should know by now that physical damage parties are often superiour to magic damage parties until mages get their big source skills.
To change this, I think 2 things need to be looked at: Magic resistances on enemies and some usefulness of magic spells.
Sadly once the source skills are picked up, many other magic spells pale in comparison. Another thing I would like to be revised is the scaling throughout the game. In my opinion it should be toned down a littlebit, later on finding gear thats 1 level above you is a huge difference that you can never pass up un-equipping your old items for new ones (especially sad if you found unique gear). On PC we can use mods to fix this and allow upgrading our unique gear or crafting overhaul to upgrade our stuff, but still I think reducing some scaling would go a long way.
A fellow user named "Manithro" has put together a mod on the steam workshop to allow better usage of magic skills by buffing many underused or untertuned spells. Some are very impactful, like the change to "flay skin" to scale with intelligence to be useful for mages. This allows mages to lower magic armor by a lot and make the target weak to all further magic attacks, just what mages need to circumvent high resistance enemies. Another one is "bleed fire" no longer being resisted by magic armor. This reduces fire resistance by 20%, very useful for pyrokinetics. Another really cool addition was to make the Lizard fire breath spell scale with intelligence and the demonic stare skill aswell, to have more synergy on these for mages.
I will now post the changelog of Manithro's mod "better balance" below, so you can get a look at what changes would be possible to make mages more viable:
Skill Changes
Apotheosis: Can no longer be cast outside of combat.
Arrow Spray: Spread decreased from 60° to 50°.
Arrow Storm: Damage Multiplier increased from 50% to 80%. Radius reduced from 5m to 4m to tighten projectile spread.
Bleed Fire: Is no longer resisted by magic armor.
Combat Sneak: AP cost reduced from 4 to 2.
Daggers Drawn: AP cost reduced from 4 to 3.
Fire Whip: Damage Multiplier increased from 120% to 180%.
Flay Skin: Damage Multiplier increased from 100% to 120%. Now scales with INT instead of STR (Side effect - Tooltip displays it as a Summoning skill but is still a Polymorph skill) and scales with "AverageLevelDamage" like Terrify. Cooldown changed from 5 turns to 2. Now appears on traders at level 9 instead of level 16 (price reduced accordingly).
Flesh Sacrifice: No longer provides a 10% damage buff.
Glitter Dust: Now appears on traders at level 9 instead of level 16 (Price reduced accordingly).
Grasp Of The Starved: Damage Multiplier decreased from 300% to 250%. AP cost increased from 2 to 3.
Gurrelia: Damage Multiplier increased from 40% to 80%.
Hail Storm: Damage Multiplier increased from 25% to 40%. Radius reduced from 5m to 4m to tighten projectile spread.
Mend Metal: Range increased from 5m to 13m to match Encourage.
Meteor Shower: Damage Multiplier increased from 25% to 40%. Radius reduced from 5m to 4m to tighten projectile spread.
Mortal Blow: Damage Multiplier increased from 140% to 150%. Stealth Damage Multiplier increased from 200% to 300%. Cooldown reduced from once per combat to 3 turns.
Onslaught: AP cost reduced from 4 to 3.
Reactive Armor: Damage Multiplier increased from 20% to 40%.
Soothing Cold: Range increased from 5m to 13m to match Encourage.
Summoning Combat Ability: Bonuses increased from 10% to 20%. Vanilla displays 5% but is actually 10%.
Mechanics Changes
Fire Surfaces/Clouds: Fire and Necrofire surfaces and clouds additionally inflict Warm.
Enemy Changes
Alice Alisceson: Water Immunity gained upon entering combat on Tactician/Honor Mode replaced with Death Wish.
Dum The Druid: Elemental Immunity gained upon entering combat on Tactician/Honor Mode replaced with Hasted.
Skill Changes
Blinding Squall: Now counts as an Aerothurge spell and recieves proper bonuses from Elemental Affinity.
Rain: Now only applies wet to enemies.
Skill Changes:
Combat Sneak: AP cost reduced from 4 to 1.
Dazing Bolt: Damage Multiplier increased from 120% to 150%.
Deep Freeze: Damage Multiplier increased from 150% to 200%.
Demonic Stare: Now counts as a Summoning skill and as a result scales with Intelligence.
Dragon's Blaze: Now counts as a Pyrokinetic spell and as a result scales with Intelligence. Multiplier increased to 85% but no longer scales with AverageLevelDamage.
Epidemic Of Fire: Damage Multiplier increased from 150% to 200%.
Flay Skin: AP cost reduced from 2 AP to 1 AP. Previous changes still in effect.
Grasp Of The Starved: Returned to vanilla Damage Multiplier and AP cost.
Gurrelia: Damage Multiplier increased from 40% to 100%.
Hail Strike: AP cost reduced from 3 AP to 2 AP.
Ice Fan: AP cost reduced from 3 AP to 2 AP.
Incarnate: Initiative reduced so it doesn't interrupt player characters.
Petrifying Touch: Now counts as a Geomancer spell and as a result scales with Intelligence. Multiplier increased to 85%.
Power Infusion: Grants the incarnate an additional 1 start/recovery/maximum AP.
Ranged Infusion: Grants the incarnate an additional 1 start/recovery/maximum AP.
Searing Daggers: Damage Multiplier increased from 25% to 30%.
Silencing Stare: Damage multiplier increased from 100% to 120%. Now scales with "AverageLevelDamage" like Terrify.
Summoning Combat Ability: Bonuses increased from 10% to 25%. Vanilla displays 5% but is actually 10%.
Combat Ability/Talent Changes
Dual Wield: Dual Wield Combat Ability dodge bonus increased from 1% to 3%.
Leadership: Combat Ability range increased from 8m to 13m. Dodge bonus increased from 2% to 3%. Resistance bonus increased from 3% to 5%.
Magic Schools: Magic School Combat Ability modifiers increased from 5% to 7%.
Skill Changes
Flay Skin: Damage Multiplier increased from 100% to 200%. Previous changes still in effect.
I am using this mod along with "stronger bosses" which makes boss fights a lot tougher by increasing their hp, aswell as "controls are back" which reduces physical and magic armor and applies the values to hitpoints instead, to allow a mixed damage party a quicker way to deal damage.
I know this is is probably not the best way to do this, and with proper setup and spells like death wish anyone can one shot most encounters so why even bother? I would like changes like these to make mixed damage parties more viable, or to have fun with undertuned spells and open up new playstyles, for example a 4 man pyro mage group, maybe coupled with the demon talent (which sadly is undertuned aswell).
Something that could be revised aswell would be the attribute point gain by buff skills like encourage, clear mind, inner demon or apotheosis. Skills like these grant additional attributes, with increasing amounts the higher level you become, so they are not very good early, but basically mandatory late game. In my opinion these should grant only flat bonuses and not scale immensly like everything else lategame.
Tl; Dr: Suggestions from a mod to make mixed damage parties more viable, buff undertuned spells
I am very open to discussion about this, but I hope the Larian devs will take a look at this aswell and maybe think about some possible changes.
