Thanks for the feedback, guys. As for background, I am on gardening leave and have been caning this game like an absolute fiend - 171H clocked so far. I have finished the game three times now - first time with a standard non-synergised party of four on Classic, second time with a Lone Wolf physical duo on Classic and third time with a different Lone Wolf physical duo on Tactician. Also tried and dropped a couple of other builds. I much prefer Lone Wolf because for me it turns combat from tedious to fun.
I am currently playing a Lone Wolf wizard duo and have just encountered Mordus. With my physical teams I would just cut him down in the first round of combat and that is that. With my mages, this is simply not possible because I lack the direct damage and his resists are way too high.
Mordus phase 1:
https://i.imgur.com/k8zrgQk.pngOn turn 2 he goes into phase 2 in which he has 945 physical armour, 504 magical armour and 5,628 health:
https://i.imgur.com/XbzCtz1.pngHis resistances also get boosted so that he is not only immune to poison but also earth and his fire res gets a boost, putting him at 60% for fire and air:
https://i.imgur.com/048h8RM.pngMy Laser Ray does 103 damage to him:
https://i.imgur.com/6y8ourf.pngOn top of that, he has Perseverance in both phases, meaning that he restores magical armour off your CC. The earth and poison immunities mean that the caster adds literally wand him to heal him back up if he takes any damage.
What the fuck? Who thought this was good design by any stretch of imagination? Elemental damage is already stretched across various schools, meaning that you cannot really focus on more than two without tradeoffs. One of my wizards is Geo/Pyro, meaning that he is essentially locked out of the fight as far as the main boss is concerned (he can deal with the adds). The other one is Hydro/Aero. These spells do some damage to him but obviously the cooldowns are too long for the damage to be meaningful. Why would you just lock certain builds out of fights altogether?
Look, I appreciate that nothing is unbeatable in this game and the reason I love this game is because of the freedom of approach it provides. My builds are not perfectly optimised. I could go back to the ship and reallocate some skill points, buy some more skill books, upgrade some gear, get another level or two and then return and beat his face in (by the way, good job on the voice actor, Mordus is one of my favourite characters in the game). However, I should not need to do this. The difficulty of this fight is simply brutal by contrast to anything that comes before and after it. It is, flat out, a very poorly designed encounter.
@Sanctuary - broadly agree with you on most points and appreciate the comments. However, I know that I can invest points in other schools for more mobility. The point that I am making is that the physical classes do not need to do dilute their builds for these tools. All physical classes use Warfare, which provides flat out the most outrageous amount of mobility in the game. Combine this with Scoundrel or Huntsman and you really are spoilt for choice.
Also, I am not suggesting that physical should be nerfed to make magical more viable. Rather, independently, physical is simply too powerful and trivialises any challenge. You should not have to artificially increase the difficulty by playing a sub-optimal build.
