-combat-
the combat in the game is not strong enough to stand on its own (thats one of the reasons why the end of the game imo... sucked). i created a meleewarrior, what resulted in extremly dull gameplay. due to a bug i couldnt bind weapons to quickkeys (just spells&potions), so my planned bow-melee-combo wasnt possible. there is not much you can do with the warriorskill tree except improving weapon damage and avoiding a bunch of really useless skills like "play dead". i did use some skills of the other 2 trees (like lockpick&pickpocket which you HAVE to get in order to join the thieves gild - bad idea), but most of them werent very interesting either. maybe playing a mage would have been more fun, but i doubt it would have been more effective.
OK I know the original post is older. I rather like the combat in this game. In my opinion a strictly melee charactor is the most dull in any combat game. Simply because the attack is always the same. This game really rewards the player by allowing all 3 charactor types to have access to all spell trees. I have a level 24 warrior that is specializing in sword. Just maxed augment damage, has as many points in augment defense, and posion that level allows. Then he has one point in freeze, curse, leech and elemental hail. Also has a point or 2 in skeletal wall, demonic aid, the spell that commands a summoned creature and resurrect.
This charactor can fight melee style or be a summoner. Needs more points in summoning skills yet but will eventually have enough to max out the key ones.
The original poster also pointed out that the combat was to easy. I found that you can creat your own custom battles by using resurrect and then command summoned creature. Once you can command 5 summoned creatures, you can bring them along to a specific area.
In my case I am stocking the lower level of the cursed abby with elite orcs, lizards, beatles from the dark forest and the tougher zombies. What you do is bring 5 at a time there. Then you cast your skeletal wall and place all 5 skeletons under your command. You have to do this to release the 5 monsters you brought along so they will stay there. Once you leave the area the monsters will revert back to hostile. You can repeat this to bring in as many monsters as your charactor can handle. You could make the battle near impossible this way. There is a bit of a trick when you bring a 2nd batch of monsters to join the 1st group. The 1st group will be hostile but he 2nd group you bring will be under your command and you can't allow the monsters under your command to be killed as then they can no longer be resurected. Thats why the cursed abbey is a good location. The 1st group can go in the room where the engineer was. YOu can leave the 2nd group outside that room so they wont see each other. then leave ans when you return they are all hostile. To get them all in the engineer room, run past the the group outside the room and draw them in and take both groups out there. I also like the music played here so its a good setting.
Each time you kill off this group, you ressurect them afterwards and you can keep doing it and added more monsters to increase difficulty. Plus giant elite orcs can drop gold charms from time to time.
My point is that there is room for creativity in this game. In games that have separate spell trees for each charactor, I find they all get boring because they are repetitive. This game allows the same charactor to use 2 or 3 different strategies.
It was mention that the weapons could not be hot keyed to f1 thru f12. Weapons can be switched at the bottom of the screen, adjacent to where the current spell is displayed. Plus one could pause, then switch to say a bow then resume.
My favorite combat is the orcs at night. I also like the dark forest. I like having to roam around to find a battle. So many games have monsters stacked wall to wall. Having more open spaces helps make things more interesting. Sometimes its fun to just walk around and enjoy the scenery.
