Mages are not overpowered in my opinion, the way I see it is that mages start of by being "better" then melee classes and the ranger due to those classes being more gear dependent. However when properly building those classes and either crafting or finding gear they will slowly overtake the caster classes. Also act I consists mainly out of undead further decreasing the damage potential of non blunt melee users and especially rangers.
Mages are extremely versatile and with a build that offers them enough starting ap/turn ap they can wreak havoc and cc a lot of enemies. However a well build melee character does not have the same need for cc as with enogh resistances and points or gear that has improved bodybuilding willpower he will be a juggernaut. From my perspective I feel actually the opposite is more true, after level 14 from my point of view the archer and melee are becoming rambo and terminator, there is little or no need to CC as the melee character chances of dying to elemental damage is 0%, if not actually healing him. If you make him the sword and board type of melee his block chances can be high enough to survive a round on hard difficulty even when he goes last or close to last. A well build ranger/archer has so much ways of going out of sight or escaping combat that any melee type of charcter should never be able to get near it.
Mages can get the same results but have to make use of there more versatile skills, from an rpg point of view mages have never been the damage dealers, but have allways been the combat controller. D:OS actually does a great job of portraying that.
And in terms of being "overpowered" it also depends on a lot of talent choises, leech, zombie, lonewolf+glass cannon can make any build so overpowered that if it was possible you could solo the game even on hard if really needed.
So my conclusion is that in terms "classes" being "overpowered" I would say that I think it is fairly balanced however if had to pick sides my choise for most "overpowered" type of character would go to the class that combines the best of both worlds: Battlemage. Depending on the talents you grab, your character will be anything from immortal to very hard to kill.
I know there are a few that claim all of us that complain about warriors and archers don't know how to play. Problem is there are a lot of us complaining about it which means that it is a real problem that needs to be fixed.
So from the fact that a lot of people complain you derive that the balance issue is real, you could also derive that a lot of people are not building them well. We live in a world where people that complain are given to much attention, you make it sound as if it is a fact and now the game developers "owe" you and they have to fix it.
I will admit that building an archer that is unkillable is hard however I can link you builds that aslong as you have them in range and they dont have you in range you will be as good as unkillable and as far as a melee build goes, leech, lonewolf, glasscannon, poh, wts. As I mentioned before if really needed you could solo the game with it. There will be a point in the game where you block 65%+ attacks, have 150%+resistances a chance to hit that with a bless included will never be below 100%. Any physical piercing or slashing attack will heal you... you will have bodybuilding and willpower of 8-9. Not to mention that by that time you will probably have a scroll of anything you could need in the case a spell gets through your saving throws.
I am not trying to prove or say that melee is more overpowered then other classes, just simply trying to point out that mages are in my opinion not any more or less overpowered then other "classes". and the fact that many people think that melee/ranger is weak doesn't mean they actually are weak.
Just to give an example of this type of statement: Not to long ago it was said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq said that they did not have them.
Then a lot of people were pointing out that they were sure that Iraq would have them, and they asked to show Iraq those weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq told the other country and its allies it was impossible to show them something they did not have.
A war waged and after the war had ended they never found any weapons of mass destruction despite of a lot of people saying that they were sure that Iraq would have those.
Just because a lot of people feel the same way about a certain subject/topic does not make sure that is also true.
With kind regards,
Rashar.
