Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General You can build good mages that can outdo 2H Melee

People believe the game is unbalanced. When you understand the damage formula's, you can actually build good mages and archers that can out perform 2 handed warrior.

This requires a bit of understanding of the formula for damage. So here goes.

There are 3 groups of numbers that are multiplied togeather, as follows:

1: Stats & dual wield / single handed / ranged. Since stats are the easiest to get, this is the worst place to put anything but stats. 2 hander melee is an exception, because it also contributes to crit. Bottom line: Don't put anything here but stats. 2 hander is the only useful weapon skill.

2: Elemental damage: This category only has one thing in it. Elemental damage from your chosen spell school (hydro, pyro , etc.). Warfare is the elemental damage for physical. It should probably be renamed "Physical".

3: Crit + High ground bonus. To stack crit, you need to either backstab, or have lots of + crit chance gear. This is the second best place to put points. Either scoundrel (and stack + crit gear to at least 80%) or go for Huntsman and be on high ground.


So here are the two badass caster builds.

Max Element (like pyro), Max Huntsman and cast from high ground

or

Max Element (like pyro), Max Scoundrel and stack + crit chance gear & Take Savage Sortilege.

I get what your saying. I think that in this game, there are so many variables, it's really easy to make hybrids work. The armor system is not your typical % chance system. Which I love, I already have plenty of games like that.

The thing about the combat abilities is that they have a lot of variables. I think because of that, the game takes time to really explore. Some people may not want to spend the time on this game. As it is pretty long for a majority of players.

My party set up is similar to what your examples were. They are as follows:
1. Necro Rogue- High damage, healing from necromancy
2. Summoning Cleric- High Int, Enough strength to wear heavier armor, hydro, geo, wand & shield
3. Ranger- high damage, skills to teleport to high ground, and geo skills if needed
4. Polymorph Warrior- med damage tank, warfare, polymorph, scrolls and grenadier

And they all have skills in various skill trees so it's easy to change their builds to test new things out as I level up. Thank you magic mirror, lol

Also, there is a huge variety of skills around level 11. I just started using source skills and it is super fun.

I agree. You don't need to min-max. But people keep saying 2 handed war is the only thing you CAN min max, and that simply isn't true.

Your examples:

1. Necro Rogue- High damage, healing from necromancy
Stats X Crit, no elemental multiplier. Means you are doing about 1/2 the damage you could be doing if you went Rogue & Warfare.

2. Summoning Cleric- High Int, Enough strength to wear heavier armor, hydro, geo, wand & shield
Summoning are solid. They are on the weaker end of the spectrum of damage, but they allow you to pick whatever you want to go with it.

3. Ranger- high damage, skills to teleport to high ground, and geo skills if needed
Ranger + geo also is missing warfare, so you are doing about 1/2 damage.

4. Polymorph Warrior- med damage tank, warfare, polymorph, scrolls and grenadier

A few ponts in poly I think is good for *anyone* Particularly warrior for tentacle lash etc. Just make sure you are stacking + crit gear. If you aren't going for 2 hander, your second set of points should be in scoundrel, or you are losing about 1/3 damage.

When was this ever debated? It's pretty established that Rangers are the most dominant physical class for the majority of the game. By far.

Regardless, your post didn't offer any actual insight as to why you believe "good mages" can outdo two-handed melee; besides, they can't. All you did was list semi-useful information on where to place stats to actually deal damage at all with a Mage. Problem is, the people who know there's an issue already did this.

Also, true hybrids don't work in this game at all. Having 1-2 points invested in a school that grants buffs, heals or any other non scaling ability isn't really a hybrid. You cannot divide your attributes unless you want to have a character who is crummy at multiple things, where those parts as a whole do not make them comparable to a more focused build.

It's also nothing but a detriment trying to play a character that mixes both elemental damage as well as physical. It really doesn't accomplish anything because of the way the armor system works. You need to be all physical or all elemental per character, or at worst, a Mage with Bouncing Shield in a group that also has at least two physical. Summoners are pretty much the only exception to this rule, but they work better in a group that's either all elemental, or one that has two physical and at least one other that's elemental.

Also, of the two Mage builds you listed at the bottom, the second is much better than the first. Huntsman is good, but it's not that good, especially when there are so many fights where you can't even take advantage of it, either because there is simply no good spots or your spells don't curve to hit. Crit/Scoundrel is the build to use for damage, but having at least a few in Huntsman is a good idea. Rank two at least for Tactical Retreat, and this will give you a 30% bonus when elevated.

I am currently runing similar level up paterns for my battlemage and wayfarer.

Because I have a battlemage,I have to divert 8 points from Huntsman to Warfare (3),Polymorph (3), Aero(2) whilist keeping Pyro at 10.
Also I was wondering if you could expand your opinion on the notion that a good mage should have access to 2 elements that combo very well (like geo+pyro) to get the most damage.

Pyro/Geo are pretty much the only two schools that combo well with each other. Hydro/Aero did really well in the previous game, but they are much worse in this. It's basically about mixing effects to cause chain reactions or explosions. Toss a Geo spell that does earth damage and leaves oil such a Fossil Strike or Impalement, then hit them with a fire spell. The fire spell will deal its damage and also extra by igniting the oil, causing an explosion that deals damage and potentially burning the enemies over a few turns if it ended up doing enough damage to strip their magical armor. You can also ignite poison similarly.

Geo also has the added benefit of being able to either Slow or Cripple enemies as well, so you don't even really need to max it to see a real benefit. The debuffs and explosion damage are good enough that you can have something like 10 Pyro and only 5 in Geo if you wanted. To really deal damage, you need to max Pyromancy, but then you're screwed against fire resistant or immune enemies.

Resistances and elemental damage not scaling with weapons is the primary reason Mages aren't all that good other than from Summoning right now. They can deal damage, but they just don't deal good damage compared to what the physical classes are capable of.

Makes me wonder if any of that is remotely true.

I have doubts.

Cause warfare increases all physical damage done, and that's huge.
There is nothing that can increase magic damage in the same way.
+ you need to waste trait on Savage Sortilege.

Warfare is just OP.
Two handed weapon STR build obliterates everything in D:OS 2.

I already said during EA that the the armor system kind of killed the viability of hydro/aero-combination. Hydro and aero was always low on damage but strong on CC. The armor system favors damage over CC because it nullifies CC. Nobody really cares about electified water now, because the damage is low and it will never 'explode'.

Warfare IS the elemental damage for physical. The formula puts warfare in the exact same spot as the elemental damage for your mage.

The problem isn't that warfare is over powered. The problem is that people aren't taking high ground and putting points in Huntsman.

The real problem is that weapons increase the damage of all physical attacks on top of what they get from Warfare, Scoundrel, Huntsman and Weapon Masteries. Mages do not scale with weapons and on top of that have to deal with a bunch of resists throughout the game. Physical doesn't have anything comparable to worry about.

Huntsman has nothing to do with the argument at all either. It's useful, and some don't realize that it affects spells, but then many do know, and it doesn't change how weak elemental damage is aside from a few late game and source hungry spells. The more damaging skills are too AP hungry too, and Elemental Affinity isn't the answer.

Park a Ranger and a Mage with the same Huntsman rank on a ledge after level 17. The Ranger will be auto attacking up to 3000+ non crit (My level 21 non crit auto attacks for 1900 on the ground). That's not even counting Ballistic Shot which can crit for close to 8K near the end of the game. Meanwhile, a Mage might be wanding for 150 - 200 unless they are launching higher AP costing, and longer cooldown spells that will crit for up to 3K on a nice day.

AoE isn't a valid arguement either when most enemies only come in pairs.



The funny thing is too, people just love to parrot how OP Two-Handed builds are when they are the third strongest of the physical builds until Act 4. Being able to land a huge hit every now and then doesn't matter over the course of a fight compared to what Rogues and especially Rangers are doing.

What does your mage do when faced with an oponent that has elemental imunity versus the element your mage specializez in?What does your pyromancer do vs a fire imune oponent?



Could you also compare dual wield wand vs bow and crossbow, please?

It's actually not quite as bad as the figures above, but it's still comparably weak. At 55 INT, 15 in Pyro and two lvl 21 fire wands, (wands scale with the school of the same element) the main hand was hitting for 550 average and the off hand 300 non crit. Wands crit without the Savage Sortilege talent too. With more optimized gear, you could probably get better results, but the difference won't be huge. There's also not really any reason to compare bows to crossbows. Crossbows always do more damage and have a closer damage range (meaning their min - max damage is much less spread out like how the bow is). You get a -1 movement penalty, but it doesn't matter at all.

Sheet damage is only 1106 - 1344 too. It's 70% - 80% higher on the Ranger and Rogue. This is without investing any into the actual Dual Wield Mastery, but I have no idea why you would even do that with a Mage since it's going to raise your damage less on average than the other alternatives.

Here, not optimal build, use math. (12-13k hits)

Fane, Lone Wolf
260% crit. multiplier from weapon
19k hp
skin graft, tactical retreat, glitter dust, clear mind, uncanny evasion, teleport, battle stomp, crippling blow, whirlwind, challenge, overpower

Kraken needs 3 hits on tactician, and that's not OP... what else do you need?
I merely sharing my user experience and not blabbing.

Use reading. I said Act 4, which clearly that build is, and you're also using Lone Wolf, which is known to grossly inflate stats. Also, you don't even need to bother with the Kraken when a Rogue can take out Braccus in one turn and everything else along with him.

BRB doing the same thing on my Ranger.

Well, no problems with killing Braccus in first turn here too, Kraken was just for achievement and like the strongest mob in the game for comparison.
And why you mentioned Rogue, when it has weaker hits?
All pluses are in mobility and backstab (single targer), but that's really it.

Five minute rush job with the gear on hand:



Warriors, especially non Anathema, one-hit-wonders aren't really comparable to what Rangers do the majority of the game. They only creep up near the end of the game and even then are still worse off.

My only point is that even if Warriors can eventually one-shot bosses, it's not exclusive to them, and they also start doing it later than the other physical builds. People sure love to fixate on Two-Handed Warriors for some reason though.

Non Summoner Mages on the other hand are at the bottom of the barrel all the way through.

Warfare is multiplicative, Huntsman is additive. Warfare is factually better in every regard for physical builds.

A pity there is no char export to arena mode.
Initiative would play big role there
I'm doing "for honor", guess damage stat will be better than this.
Comparing to damage - maybe, but really no need in this.
Classic glass cannon, but speed and suitability - lacking.

Thread is about mages

I wouldn't use the exact build in that screenshot, because the mobility does suck pretty bad, but it's less needed on a Ranger anyway. My Rogue is sitting at 11.9m (I think the game rounds up, not down, so it would be 12m).



It is, but it's still good to highlight what the other classes are capable of, when Mages can't do this. Well, I keep saying "Mages", but specifically elemental damage based casters.

The real path to power with a "Mage" is Summoner 10 (while using bows + FIN until about half way through Act 2, then respec to INT and spells) > Element 10+ > dumping the rest into a mix of Scoundrel/Huntsman and as high of a critical hit chance you can get. A group of four of those would be a close second, if not tied with a group of four Rangers for a while, and also have an easier time through most of Tactician.

Trying to focus on elemental damage first is just asking for a masochistic playthrough.



Fairly sure Warfare, Huntsman and Scoundrel are all multiplicative. It's the Weapon Masteries that are additive. Of those three however, Warfare capping first is always the best option.

I agree. I like the armor system, but it needs be slightly less central to strategy.

Sanctuary, you make a lot of good and sensible points but yet you dismiss a bit too liberally some crucial things that make mages very good and at the least more than viable. I wont deny physical > elemental because I can't be certain about Ranger, but I've dabbled with rogue & warrior enough to know how strong they're and what they can't do that mages can. I also believe than a mixed damage group is WAY better than a pure physical one (and than an pure elemental, of course).

1) They can control terrain way better than physical character.

2) They have WAY more powerful AoE damage than physical, and sometimes very easy to setup too (Hello Aero ?)

3) They have elemental affinity which IS a big factor, I wonder why you're dismissing this so easily ? It makes for insane burst potential and/or utility. I dont think physical have that kind of option.

4) Synergy between physical & elemental build are powerful. Some targets are way easier to deal with in a certain way (pure physical, elemental, one specific element etc), and if you have a mixed group, you can take advantage of this.

Your target is more sensible to elemental and your warrior looks helpless ? Not really, use them skills to enable yours mages (Phoenix Dive on your Pyro, Flay skin / Medusa Head / Oily blob).

Your target has a lot of resist / magic armor and your mage feels sad ? Enable your warrior / rogue ! Haste, PoM, Firebrand, Encourage, Teleport target at the feets of your Knight, block terrain to isolate the target, slow/cripple other targets etc. You can even use Boucing Shield for a more straightforward physical support.

5) I'm not even talking about summoner here because you already said they're good. The inner versatility of the school makes it very solid in almost all case.


Again I cant be sure about Ranger because I have yet to play one despite having already more than 150 hours on that game.

It's not. My first group was (Two-Handed after a restart, when realising how bad sword and shield is in this game) Warrior, Ranger, Pyro/Geo/65% crit/Scoundrel caster with a Summoner/Geo/Hydro/Poly group. They struggled during the earliest levels, but then as soon as Ifran's BFG was unlocked, it got drastically easier. Other than Fireball and Searing Daggers, caster damage is pretty bad until Act 2 in general, even with combinations. The key to this team even working was the Summoner too since it could either have a physical Incarnate, or an elemental one. To add insult to injury, the Incarnate will do more damage with Fireball and Epidemic of Fire than what an elemental caster, that's focused purely on Pyromancy can do at the same level for a long while. Epidemic also costs less to cast this way than if the character tried casting it...

Slow and Cripple were useful against melee, but that's about the extent of manipulation that mattered. Teleport has too long of a cooldown to be reliable, and Netherswap never seemed to work at all the way I needed it to.



And this doesn't matter in the slightest. A dead enemy doesn't reach you anyway.



Arrow Storm says they don't. Barrage and Ricochet are also comparable to Fireball. Thunderstorm, Hail Storm and Meteor Shower are the most damaging AoE spells Mages get, and they are AP/Source hogs. Plus, does it even matter? Most encounters have enemies that are spread out and they come in pairs. They only group up to take advantage of much of anything other than Thunderstorm when fights drag on aside from a few, very specific encounters.



Insane "burst damage" that requires spending extra AP to setup in the first place. It's not efficient until the fights start dragging out. Elemental Arrows (especially on an Elf) will actually add more burst damage at the start for 1 AP.



Nope, nope, nope. My second playthrough was 2x Rangers, 1x Rogue, 1x Summoner/Ranger (who would have been better off as a more focused Ranger most of the time. Biggest issue is finding three near equivalent bows every few levels) and they blew through high physical/low magic armor faster than what my caster was able to do to low magic all throughout the entire game. Split damage can work fine, but it's still much worse than an all physical group, even against higher physical armor.



Or simply kill them instead.



Or simply kill them instead.

I started a 4x elemental caster group recently, and they were an absolute nightmare to play compared to the previous two. Easily the least fun I've had with the game, and the only reason I kept going was hoping that there would eventually be some kind of payoff. There wasn't. The mixed group worked better, but that was mostly because of the Ranger and Summoner, while the second, all physical group was a night and day difference, and clearly better than any other combination (not necessarily the builds, but simply being physical).

Then again maybe Ranger are that broken ! Will try with my 3rd playthrough.

I still believe mixed is better than all physical without the Ranger in that equation, especially when I see people talking about how 4 two-handed warrior are the best ever group.

If rangers are the issue, then it's more an issue with them than with elemental damage and mages, imo.

The problem is this game has lots of enemies with elemental resistances and even inmunities, but almost none with physical resistance or super high dodge, so in the long term physical-damaging classes have a easier time. Players can put elemental resistances above his magic armor, but there is no phys resistance, so phys works better against them too. Lots of weapons and skills have cc debufs and so. 1 lvl in geo gets you the slow cc, no armor save, no int required. So rangers, warriors and rogues are going to be much more effective in one to one. Period. No discussion here.

Even so, I like mages, I even made an all-mage party (The summoner uses elemental pets and the warrior uses staffs with warfare to blow that pesky magic armor, switching damage type if neccesary. A pity the shield but...) and it is very fun. There are enemies with low or no magic armor. Lots of CC to mess with the enemies and plenty of fights that require switch skills and damage type and think about who you attack to. I do not even remember have to examine the enemies in my previous playthrough. It was like shot, crush, bomb, all the time. It looks like another game.

You can even switch your damage type using the respec statue in Lady Vengeance to adapt to each dungeon if you like.


Most players know this, but since this is about advices for magic-users...

About stats, do not neglect your wits nor your memory, most skills have long cooldowns and some of the best require 2 slots and source ( even you can use skin graft or apotheosis do not count on it).

Concerning damage vs enemies with no resistance, i concour that fire-geo damage outclasses any other. Pyro is all about raw damage. Fire-geo has the advantage of explode and works well with savage sorcery (plus hothead) and torturer. Geo has very effective effects like entangle, petrify or slow (no armor save) and set surfaces with cc effects with poison and oil. Geo-fire combos does damage and agravated damage with poison and explosions. Also, Epidemic of fire and Pyroclastic are superb when used with apotheosis.

Water-air combos does little damage, but you have the shock-stun to cc enemies and it is easy to create surfaces with rain and bloodrain.
Even I admit that Hydro has his uses, you can use Aero against a burning enemy to shock and stun-lock, but water and blood drowses them. Only few air skills work against fire (like pressure spike). The good thing is that you can use skills like turn oil, poison wave or any fire skill to create clouds and apply fire damage to previous water or ice surfaces and add even more elemental damage (But not viceversa).So, most of the time I use geo-pyro and Aero in top of them, with Hydro only to heal if necessary.

Huntsman, warfare and scoundrel are useful to have, if only for erratic wisp, smoke cover and cleanse wounds. And The Pawn!. Not much use of necromancy, even it is very nice. I use vampiric hunger instead if necessary.

source: http://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Divinity-Original-Sin-2/fO6mOM3.jpg

They are multiplicative in some way, but critdamage starts with a base of 50% and highgrounddamage starts with a base of 20% (I think ... haven't checked). An increase from 0% to 5% has a larger effect than an increase from 50% to 55%.

so when you compare warfare vs huntsman:

10 points in warfare = damage * 1.5 * 1.2 = damage * 1.8
10 points in huntsman = damage * 1 * 1.7 = damage * 1.7

>> warfare is better

also according to this thread critdamagemultiplier and highgroundmultiplier seem to be additive to each other: http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=625206

so the damage formula seems to be:

base damage * (statbonus + weapontalentbonus) * warfarebonus * (critbonus + highgroundbonus)

It most likely is just a problem with ranged + physical, although until the more recent chicken nerf (haven't tried it since), Rogues were equally good taking out a single target at the start of a fight. They just couldn't bounce from target to target as easily until much later, but they could take out bigger single targets in general faster. They also have nothing comparable to Arrow Storm (which can kill 2-5 enemies in one shot).

Rogues are primarily single target. They can use some multihitting attacks like Cripple and Battle Stomp, but those don't take out groups nearly as fast. Whirlwind can be used too, but the range is too short and you have to be behind all of the enemies to really get much out of it.

Warriors are just, ugh...nothing until midway through Act 2 and they don't start pulling their weight until around level 17+. I honestly don't know what would be worse between 4x Warriors and 4x elemental casters. The Warriors would at least have an easier time with CC, especially if they did a Battle Stomp train. It's just that their magic armor would be relatively so low that all it would take is a boss (with their cheating initiative) to launch 2x AoE attacks like they do at the start to strip you, and then chain CC the group before they can even move).

I actually want to do a 4x Rogue group. The most annoying thing will probably be trying to get 8x good daggers though. I might just settle for 2x Rogues and 2x Warriors.

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=628643#Post628643

I'll just leave this mage combo here since I'm not getting much comments on it, I honestly think it's stronger than all other classes in act I in terms of damage, as for later I'll have to find out.

Sigh...



Like I said the last time you posted your "Previously in EA with builds that are no longer valid" post, you can do similar with a Ranger using Chameleon and Sneak.

Except ranger can't match the aoe until ranger gets arrow storm? You keep mentioning ranger, when it's really just reactive shot being buggy and arrow storm being op, the fix is simple, and has nothing to do with mages being weak.

My point is that mage combos can be very effective, almost all the spells in the first combo is available in act 1, and only cost a single ap, where ranger have to spend 2 ap for every shot, or are you saying ranger can do the same kind of aoe damage in act I? It's not like ranger win in terms of single target either when all of the mages' skills are 1 ap cost.

They can't match the AoE if that AoE is hitting more than three targets until Arrow Storm, no, and they also can't use more than two abilities per fight generally that hit multiple enemies. Yet, it doesn't even matter when they can take out 2-3 enemies faster anyway even without the AoE.

Early game with a LW (LOL) Ranger, you can rush to the Houndmaster Crossbow. You could opt to also play as Ifran instead, but this is only a good option through the earliest portion of Act 1 due to the power of his personal crossbow. That falls way behind to what an Elf (without giving up a helm slot) can start doing around level 7-8. Or you could always just duo with Ifran, rush to his bow and then drop him. But I guess that's not really solo, so it doesn't count.

I just find the LW requirement to make such an argument laughable though. You can make any build powerful with LW, and the majority of players are going to want to play the game with four characters, especially in their first playthrough, duo at most. After that? It doesn't really matter much unless you want to experience all that the companions have to offer, which means another four party group most likely. LW isn't a good metric at all for comparing builds. Before gear inflation, some are going to put it to better use than others, but it won't remain static throughout the game.

Your entire foundation rests upon LW. You're basically saying "Mages don't suck, see, you just have to solo completely if you want to do anything with them!".

Yea, and at the end of act I, which is level 8, mage will still stay ahead in terms of damage, you can shoot 3 arrows per turn, against let's say 3 enemies, how long is that gonna take. The gheists on the ship have like 1k + hp each, and let's say even if you can get 100 damage per shot, which is just a random number I made up, that'll still take ages.

I'm not sure how long the mage can stay ahead of ranger since the way of the damage scaling is weird, but up until level 10 I believe mage is stronger.

And you don't have to solo, I'm doing it because I feels like it's a challenge, you can have a lone wolf char along with another lone wolf char.

I convinced you that lonewolf mage is stronger than lonewolf anything else in act I at least right?

Nowhere in here are you demonstrating that you outperform a 2h warrior. Click bait. In order for you to outperform a 2h warrior you'd need your spells to cleave (which generally they do, but with long cooldowns) a group of enemies which have > physical armor than their magical armor + resistances + resistances applied against their HP pool. Since in general this never happens you simply cannot outperform a 2h warrior with a mage. You'd also need to be able to first turn CC without lone wolf. This is also something that generally doesn't happen with magi. Likewise you'd need your spells to scale with weapon damage which doesn't happen. People mention 2h poly warriors as OP because ranged attackers cannot use battering ram and battle stomp and rogues don't cleave and generally get slightly worse scaling towards the end game because of dual wield. Basically at the point where 2h will consistently crit and cleave it's better. Let's also not forget about stuff like 'silence' which is generally irrelevant to a physical attacker.

Btw no one said archers are 'underpowered', they're easily the heaviest hitters in the game and can also CC thanks to things like knock-down arrows.

Easily the most options. Stronger than anything else though? I don't know. A Ranger can get through fights without taking any damage at all, but they might take longer (hitting spacebar is hard though).

I didn't even know people thought that 2H melee was the strongest until I read this post, but I guess it makes sense that it's top tier. I always thought top tier was was Ranger or Rogue, and Summoner, with mage close in tier 2. That said, I breezed through the game with two elemental mages(one slightly more focused on buffing support, and my main hitter with glass cannon), with Ifan as Ranger with Glass cannon and execute, and Sebille as rogue. Great comp, and mage hits just as hard as others.

My Geo/Pyro mage(and later added heavy hitting Air spells like chain lightning against earth or fire immune), blew almost every enemy up on the first turn starting from high ground(and this was before I got crits on spells). Rarely did I find enemies that could take both Earth and Fire until later, and by then I had air as well.

My first turn went like this, Mage always going first: Explosive mine+impalement or fireball, or for fire immune: impalement+ fossil. And other combos, depending on the situation. I pretty much always ended my first round with 2 or more enemies dead, or close to dead. The rest was Sebille and Ifan cleaning up the dudes with magic armor. Had some tougher fights endgame when their resistances and armor ramped up, but still got through it relatively easily.

Look up a guy on youtube doing an honor playthrough so far up past episode 70, he also has a similar setup to me, and he wrecks everything with two mages.

Single element mages can do comparable raw damage to physical until you run into resistances. Then suddenly your damage is not so hot or you even heal enemies with it. Unless you're willing to respec for each encounter which I find completely masochistic.

Also, any given elemental school on its own has worse utility than warfare, which has abilities for every occasion. Mages have to use more than 1 element to be viable.

The best elemental lategame mage build I used was actually 5 in all elements and poly + a little bit in scoundrel (with gear of course) + glasscannon. Then you can spam max tier source spells under apotheosis + adrenaline (potentially recharging them with skin graft in the end), and they do way more damage than anything else mage has, even when compared to if you had 10+ in the relevant skill. You also usually have at least some spells that would hurt. Still this is weaker than a maxed physical build that also requires no skill to build or play.

Well, there's plenty of ignorance going on in this thread so I might as well add my own, here are my observations.

Pyro/Geo is actually pretty terrible and it's a choice born out of convenience/ignorance; Pyro consumes Geo and with most spells having a 1AP tax you need Elemental Affinity + The Pawn to pay the tax and you will rarely have a source of Geo that isn't being consumed by Pyro. Plus, too many damn undead so half the school is wasted. So, here's what I end up doing on Tactician:

0 Source: Phoenix Dive -> Flesh Sacrifice -> The Pawn (into Fire) -> Nova -> The Pawn (repositioning into more fire) -> Consider Adrenaline -> Ray -> Consider Medusa ? Medusa Active : Consider Chamelon ? Fireball -> Medusa -> Chamelon : Fireball -> Searing Daggers -> Combust -> Ignite.

Dominate Mind / Teleport can be thrown in there as well.

1 Source: Time Warp -> Flesh Sacrifice -> Medusa / Teleport -> Dive -> Pawn -> Fireball -> Go to 0 Source and start at Nova.

Nova / Ray will generally wipe out magic armor on most targets even if they have resistances. Pre level 20 it's pretty hard for most builds to exceed that output and generally by the end of the turn on the mage you'll have 2-3 targets CC from Medusa's Petrify or whatever else you decide to use.

I would never raw pick Geo as a secondary, I would rather go Summoner before that, but gearing choices will be the factor that swings you in one direction or another -- some times you gotta' go with the bad pick.

It should be blatantly clear that while yes 'Mages' can compete, it takes a lot more effort and pre-planning, and by the end of the game it's all moot anyways as everyone is using Arrow Storm, Meteor, or whatever combined with Shed Skin so they can do it all over again.

The issues with immunity and resistances vary depending on build, but overall I would say it's pretty overstated.

That being said all of Act 2 you'll generally have mages stomp all over the place due to having access to 1-3 Source per fight; chain lightning, summons, and I am sure there are others, tend to shit on everything while melee and ranged have slim to no pickings.

... I'm pretty sure that all optmized characters will have access to Adrenaline, Apotheosis, and Skin Graft at minimum - +10 anything will have enough points for that. The rest comes down to gear available and then you specc accordingly.

A lot of people keep saying this, but it's either from inexperience, or because they only remember very late game and BIG NUMBERS.



You thought right.

Anyway, don't expect elemental casters to get a buff anytime soon when you can do shit like this at the end of Act 1:



Notice the damage on that Fireball. Respeccing to 30 INT and 10 Pyro only gets the caster 81 - 90 damage. Now if you're elevated, you should be doing similar or just over that, but it's still pretty dumb. It gets worse too once Epidemic of Fire is unlocked. Later on the Summoned spells get weaker due to Savage Sortilege and a good crit chance and damage bonus, but that's not for a while.

Alexander did jack before the real boss appeared, and neither did any of his cronies. The only damage I took was from the real boss too from ranged attacks. This is also with my group being completely unoptimized for this fight due to being all FIN with bows and summoning 4x Fire Incarnates. At one point I had twelve fire totems shooting the boss too (they don't do a ton individually, but it adds up).

It will be even dumber when I have each caster focused on a single element each. I'd just go 2x Pyro, 2x Aero, but I'd rather be able to use the Artillery Plant without having to just dump 3 into Geo and then not raising it further. Plus itemization.

Summoning also gets a ridiculously potent instant heal (it's variable, but it often heals for a ton while also refilling magic armor) and Charm. Charm. That's 4x Charms in this group.

Nice. I have to try summoning next it seems hilarious. Yeah I never really tried doing any huge min-maxing, I might start a new game now that I finished and do a lone wolf or completely different comp. Mage was so fun, I'll definitely still use it.

Most of the game I would blow everything up with my Pyro/Geo on the first turn (teleport enemies closer+explosive mine+impalement first turn one-shots or nearly kills almost anything from high ground, and also crits), and never really needed any other element until later(geo is great because poison and earth are two different resists). Always took high ground when I could to start of course. Even if they were immune to one, I still had more than enough from the other element to use. And by the time I ran into enemies that were earth+fire resistant, I had stocked up on some Air.

I don't think there is ever a need for more than 3 different elements since the enemies normally are immune to only 2 at most? I didn't like hydro much either.

Also pro-tip to anyone who hasn't noticed this: An optimal way for elemental damage is to put only the necessary points in the element to use the skills. The rest should go into polymorph>intelligence to give ALL your elements 5%. Then huntsman for overall high ground, and THEN put points into the individual elements when you're maxed in those.

I think I mentioned it in the other thread, poly isn't always straight up better, if the skill system works the way I think it works.

For example, you are a pyro/geo mage that needs damage in these 2 schools, you have 60 int, 6 pyro, and 6 geo, and you have 4 skill points to spend on a lonewolf character.

Spending the points in pyro/geo, will make the damage for each school rise from 130% to 150%, equivalent to 15.38% more damage.

Spending the points in poly, which gives 8 int, will make the total damage go from, 350% to 390%, result in about 11.43% more damage.

In this case, going full poly is not a superior choice.

... Fireball is also ~1 AP and scales by level, those multipliers are better off on ~2 AP spells. What did you honestly expect from a ~1 AP spell? You've spent 4+ AP to do a little more damage than ~2 AP. Grats?

I'm not really shitting on Summoners, but this kind of comparison is disingenuous to both sides and misses the mark.

What are you talking about? Fireball is 2AP and you aren't just casting a Fireball. You're dumping 4-5 AP into the Incarnate, which then has 4AP to spend that turn. After the first turn you're at an AP advantage. You end up with a pet that also gets a single target ranged attack as well.

Mages that focus on casting elemental spells have the advantage of being able to cast more spells initially, and uh...congrats? That's all they can do, and it's overall less effective until Act 2 when the good stuff unlocks. Even then, they won't be dealing as much damage with the same spell for a while.

Also no idea what you're talking about in regards to the scaling. Fireball scales with INT, Pryo and level when you're casting it. For Summoning, it's just Summoning and level. It's not disingenuous pointing out how when a Mage that focuses on X element first is at a disadvantage. Because they are. Unless you keep dumping into MEM, your slots are finite anyway, and your spells don't exactly have short cooldowns.

Poly is 1:1 with Lonewolf.

Poly is never better unless you're going for utility over damage; you could, in theory, cover the missing DPS by having more tier 2 spells than the specialist. You would also probably have to have a weird order in which you cast your spells because the elements conflict or consume each other.

Either way, you aren't looking at more burst damage but you're more adapted to situations.

Arguably, the contendor for this position would be Summoner. If I could go 10 Pyro / 10 Sum, I would do that over 10 Pyro / 10 Geo because it streamlines everything.

Poly is 1 : 1 with lone wolf sure, but the you get 2 int for each point of poly, which is why I had this comparison.

And you should really go check out the mage combo thread I posted.

It's been mentioned elsewhere, the values have changed over EA, and you'll notice spell scaling reflect the original AP cost. The changes could be correlated with the existence of Elemental Affinity. Thus, fireball behaves like a 1AP action despite having the initial cost of 2AP. Furthermore, if you compare abilities across the board and bring in other factors (resistances, spacing, cool downs, memory, and whatever else) things only make more sense if you reduce spells by .5 or 1AP.

Advantage is solely determined by whatever the current game plan is. If the game plan is to kill things as soon as possible, then you may not have an advantage, you're possibly at a disadvantage or have achieved parity. If you can't kill things instantly and have to do a drawn out fight then you are at an advantage unless the tactical situation changes then you may be at a disadvantage.

In the current meta, most situations would say that you're at a disadvantage.



You can break through almost anyone's magic armor as an elementalist within the first turn in mid to late Act 1 and still have enough AP to CC them depending on your build. That's pretty much parity with everyone else. Your burst damage also exceeds or is the same as everyone else.



There are a few ways to look at it, but the important thing you should note is that fireball's base damage is that of a 1AP skill. Your multipliers are going to be far less effective on a spell that has low base damage.

Your comparisons really don't match up without considering the entire situation.

Alright but where is this math coming from exactly could you explain that? I see you said it's not additive so it's not just straight 5% for every point, which is what I thought, and I guess makes sense that it wouldn't be that way.

I'm not 100% sure on this either, but I think the damage formula works like this.

your base damage * (1 + percentage damage bonus from int) * (1 + percentage damage bonus from skills) * (1 + percentage damage bonus from height)

and 60 int is basically 50 bonus int x 5%, ends up with 250% inc damage, plus the base, 350%.

6 rank in a skill is 6 x 5%, 30% bonus, plus the base damage, 130%.

On anything more than the typical low magic armored melee unit? Is this another strictly Lone Wolf plan? Because it sure as hell doesn't happen at level 8 in a four person group even on Classic. You start with a total of 4 AP, 5 if you're an Elf. You aren't going to be CCing anything, let alone breaking the magic armor of most units at that point on your first turn.

All these posts about balance are nonsense. This game is not designed for min/max characters. It is balanced around 500-1000 damage per turn by level 20. Just because you can do better does not really mean anything and it surely does not add any fun to the game.

You are supposed to create a character that support the story not to figure out maximum killing speed. It is designed to be an RPG. I like freezing stuff with water and ice. I like hitting them with oil then blowing them up... twice in one round. I like teleporting things two football fields away just to see them have to run all the way back (I know I hate it when I get tped). I actually thought that the chicken hamstring thing was hilarious as well and cant believe it was nerfed (talk about taking fun out of a game). You are supposed to have fun. These things are fun. Sure I like smacking things with a huge 2H mace but eventually it gets old so I like to see variation.

Poly is worse numerically than any elemental skill, but on the upside it can boost multiple schools at the same time and it gives you access to skin graft and apotheosis as well as a few other useful skills.



You would be right if talking about explorer or classic. Tactician is supposed to be challenging with a min max party. And good balance is a big pro for players who enjoy the combat system more than RP.

Lots of talk about the formula. I put it in the initial post, but I'll repeat it here.

(primary stat% + weapon skill% - 9) * (elemental skill or warfare% + 1) * (crit multiplier[if you crit]% + high ground% + 1)

maxed out this looks something like "180% * 160% * 170%" for huntsman
or "180% * 160% * 200%" for scoundrel, if you crit.

A third option would be to build for crit gear and put your points into huntsman for highground, which would probably be best

It would look like "180% * 160% * 220%" if you crit, or "180% * 160% *170%" if you don't crit.

These are the same no matter what class you play. The only exception, is that if you go 2 hander, you can put your points into 2 hander instead of scoundrel.

It does up the challenge for average folks. You will note that there really are only a few people on the forum who actually min/max to the point of breaking the game. Most average folks likely think tactician is too hard especially on the 1st run (which is what people should have done if you really wanted a challenge).

Tactician = 500-1000 damage per turn
Normal = low end of tactician
Explorer = no idea... sneeze and they die?

Honestly this is what mods are for. But to expect a dev to produce a game for literally <1% of players is simply not reasonable from a financial perspective. Its better to lose the elites (as many MMO's learned the hard way in the past) than to lose the average. I actually want it harder. The game was too easy and simply not tactical enough even without min/max but I am also an ex-engineer with 2 science degrees who teaches at a university... so to me, Dark Souls was literally a boring snorefest and this game barely breaks the middle ground in terms of difficulty on tactician without any meta-gaming (1st play through).

I don't see a huge problem satisfying all groups of people. I doubt "average folks" could do XCOM legendary ironman, but it exists. Why highest difficulty should be easy for average player? I would also question if it's only 1% of people that find the game too easy. Judging by the forums its way more than that, although forum is obviously not representative. But we don't have any other data.

Great topic so far by the way.

I just wanted to add that Dodge is supposed to be the "resist" of physical as you all know but it's very uncommon in the game. Another thing that is important to note imo is that resist can be / go negative and actually boost elemental damage, something that doesn't exist for physical.

Flay skin is an amazing skill that encourages synergy between both type of damage and the game could use more of them, I think.

Really guys please if there is no spoiler tag in the topic plz dont spoil things like "Killed Braccus Rex"... So i guess Braccus Rex is back >_<

Glass Cannon? Adrenaline? Flesh Sacrifice? Most things do not have more than 3k magic armor pre-18 for a fact and you know what? You can possibly chew through 3k with a single crit, otherwise it'll take you two spells.

Dive -> Pawn -> Flesh -> Nova -> Adrenaline -> Ray -> Medusa. Total AP used 4. Total damage exceeds 4k.

Dive -> Pawn -> Flesh -> Nova -> Searing Daggers/Fireball
Total AP used 3. Total damage exceeds 3k.

At level 8? Flesh -> Fireball -> Pawn -> Nova -> Adrenaline -> Searing Daggers -> Medusa. Total damage will be around 290, 340ish if you pre-cast Medusa. If you're on a glass cannon character you can squeeze in Ignite and Combustion for around 85~.

So yeah, regardless, you have a guaranteed CC. You could also just charm the target too. Most things under level 8 don't exceed 300 magic armor. Alexander is one of the few.

I feel like you haven't ran through the game with an 'elemental first and make this as best as I can' mind set to see what the curve and experience is like.

If you base it on the forums, then the number is far below 1% given it has likely sold around 500k copies (I think). There are really only about 5 or 6 people who are actively asking for official changes. You need to remember most folks dont bother with forums and certainly, most are not min/maxers. They just play the game and you will never hear from them. Forums are usually the haven of more hardcore folks with a few comments here and there by people who find the game too hard.

I think tactician is too easy so I turned to mods to make it harder. I think its unwise to ask for more time spent making it harder. There is no point to that. Time is better spent on bugs and new content. We can always make it harder on our own with a little effort and like I said, I think there are enough people complaining that normal is too hard to justify keeping tactician as is. Frankly I think they should stop with the nerfs as well because some of them were damn funny to watch (hamstrung chicken for example).

Will it still work in online co-op if both players installed the same mods?

Dive, as in Phoenix Dive that doesn't even unlock until Act 2 (It might actually unlock at level 8 with the cave vendor, but I stopped checking him on my first playthrough after level 7.5 or so and Gareth always had it *after* the boat fight and never before), while also dumping a point into Scoundrel soley for one ability early game? Or were you actually dumping two points here for Cloak and Dagger, which is what you meant with "Dive"? Crit? Are you serious? You have almost no crit rate early on, and Savage Sortilege isn't a talent you would grab until your 3rd or 4th talent point anyway.

Glass Cannon? LOL. Unless you're also dumping points into WIT early (which means you're going to be doing even less damage), Glass Cannon is a hindrance as much as a help.

When the stars align and RNGesus blesses you then sure, what you're suggesting works. That's just pretty much almost never.

Have you even actually played this version of the game?

As for your last statement, that's pretty much entirely incorrect. I even just stated how I ran a with a group of four elemental casters and it was awful. You don't have unlimited spells, memory slots, talents or stat points to do everything you're suggesting on a single character. Your random "Uh, you can do..." scenariors aren't even practical until much later on.

They're in two separate categories, and you have plenty of crit starting at around 16 or so once you have access to frames.



You don't need that much wit, there are breakpoints, and again the multipliers don't matter as much till later when the base damage has scaled high enough.



So you're saying that you're incapable of dealing 300 magic damage in one round at level 7/8?

Pre-Level 8
2 Geo, 2 in Poly, 1 Scoundrel, X in Pyro.

You need, at minimum, 8 slots. So one point in Memory.

Impalement - ~61-68
Flesh Sacrifice
Fireball - 75-83
-Environmental (double surface proc, once from fireball, once from oil) - 36
Nova - 131-145
Adrenaline
Searing Daggers - 21-23
Medusa Active - 46

So you're saying the above has no chance of CCing anyone? And that it isn't possible at level 8? And that it requires too many points? That's, by the way, a Glass Cannon build. Medusa active could be replaced with a grenade or sleep or whatever you want if you don't want to pre-cast it.

You do realize that Int, while valuable, isn't that big of a deal in the early levels? In order for Int to surpass Glass Cannon with Wits, under many circumstances, you need to first and foremost already have a character who is designated to go first. Second, you need to have enough of an Int difference that 2AP under any circumstance cannot cover the damage difference.

If you look at your own observations you'll notice that pumping Int and dumping a shitload into Pyro doesn't make for that much of a difference early on. Later on, the Int you have will compete or surpass Glass Cannon until you reach the point where you're using Savage Sortilege. Again, though, you only need enough Wits to match certain break points so the difference does grow over the campaign but it isn't linear so depending on where you make comparisons you'll have differences in how much damage the Int difference is leading by.

As for your comments in regards to the other combinations... I think you're just being dishonest. Laser Ray and Phoenix Dive are available at the start of Reaper's Coast. Dive is possibly available at level 8 if you happen to RNG into it. That doesn't really feel like 'until much later'. It's literally two encounters off and a possible respec.

Dive -> Ray + Nova alone will strip most mobs of their Magic Armor, some times you need to throw in a little extra like Searing Daggers / Combust.

You can't just assume that everyone who's not complaining on the forums is satisfied with the difficulty. They just don't bother with the forums. Out of forum posters, a fair number has these complaints. Out of overall audience... well maybe Larian knows if they gather stats like tactician completion rate. I've seen more people complaining about balance on tactician that people complaining that normal is too hard for sure. Besides, why normal being too hard complaints should affect tactician? Make an easier difficulty. Although I find it silly to complain about high difficulty unless you're playing the lowest one or the available ones all are either too easy or too hard for you.

When all else fails, get a staff with at least 1 rune slot and put a physical rune on it. Then respec all your points from Huntsman into Warfare and laugh out loud as your ELEMENTAL STAFF gets hillarious bonuses from warfare towards IT'S TOTAL DAMAGE. You might also want to bump your strenght to 12 and get as many + int plate armours you can find.

Edit:I am upset I can not post a photo of this right now because I can't take screenshots in game for some odd reason.

I have a staff whose base damage is 46-65 fire and with a rune I added 6-7 physical damage,acoording to character page my base damage with these 2 elements is 52-62. My overall damage is 92-113 per attack.
I get +50% damage increase from intel, +30% damage increase from WARFARE (which is at 6) and +15% from Pyro (which is at 3).

Edit:screeeenshoooots

https://docs.google.com/document/d/...Tfl-qqEe7XQI9ZSFOGdsvGWqaLk0dqeh0b4x/pub

Funny how you first started your claims with "midway to late Act 1" when you won't be higher than level 8 at the end of Act 1.

It's pretty clear that you either don't play the game, don't read what is actually being written before spitting out hypotheticals, or you don't even actually believe your own words.

It's been well established by practically everyone other than you for some reason that non Lone Wolf elemental casters aren't in a good place at all early on, and they don't start to feel anything other than weak compared to the other builds until midway through Act 2.

You then proceed to try to explain that everyone is wrong and should just "git gud" and draw out your flowcharts for early game that don't even work for the early game and then backpedal that you meant later on anyway.

This for example:



Doesn't happen in a single turn before level 8. It doesn't even happen closely after level 8.

Good luck doing even 75 damage with your Fireball at level 7 with only 2-4 in Pyromancy and 20 INT. Supernova doesn't hit remotely that hard either at that level and neither do Searing Daggers. On top of everything else, that entire sequence costs 11 AP without precasting (which again isn't reliable at all due to spacing) and the max you can get with a non Lone Wolf character is 7 AP without Glass Cannon (which is way more risk than reward at that level). You still can only even get 9 AP with Glass Cannon.

Does this include you casting Fireball on top of yourself to take advantage of Elemental Affinity? Or does the "real single turn" happen on the second turn once flames are on the ground and you spend AP to move on top of them? Oh wait, that's right. You have The Pawn, to go along with Elemental Affinity and Glass Cannon by level 7. My bad.

Finally, even if this hypothetical and wholly unreliable and unrealistic sequence works, you have zero left in the tank to do anything for many turns after. This is your proof that everything is fine, and that elemental casters are comparable, if not superior?

OK.

Do us all a favor and go play the game to see that this doesn't work in a non Lone Wolf build. Lone Wolf seems to be the panacea logic behind X build being fine around here, while simultaneously dismissing what other builds can do with it as well. Lone Wolf may as well be an easy mode buff.

But not crossbows and double daggers by a long shot :^)

I'll just begin by saying that this isn't a lonewolf build, and if it was the damage numbers would be a lot higher than that. It appears you really don't know your damage ranges, or really understand AP values. So we'll move on.

Let's address your actual criticism since you're unable to extrapolate basic numbers to match scale to see if my statements are correct, and if they're wrong where the missing values are. So, we'll go with the more conceptual ones.

The main concern is what use is a mage after they've expended all their cool downs? For now, let's disregard moving the goal posts from 'is it even possible' to 'what happens afterwards'. Honestly, the only thing that you can do from there on out is use consumables and attack.

That seems pretty discouraging right? The only way to make this worth it is if every elementalist nabs 1-2 targets either in CC or kills. This also means there will be an upper limit to what you can do in certain situations, and in others you will have to rely on luck to proc certain effects like shocked into stun. However, most situations you'll not really run into that issue; the first mage will expend most of his or her cool downs but the rest of the party should be relatively full in the tank.

When you do face that upper limit and beyond, it's when you resort to using Source powered spells and abilities. Be it chain lightning, or simply Time Warp to use AP to re-position your enemies so that your spells can hit more than 1-2 targets.

Your melee attacks with a staff isn't that far off from a 2H either, but because of how itemization it can be pretty hard to reach parity and more often than not you're behind by 15-20% damage which, depending on your game plan, might be questionable.

So, I saw someone above state that if you add a second element as a rune, you get the multiplier to the WHOLE DAMAGE? This is game altering for so many potential builds, and frankly puts wand attacks as an entirely viable attack method if true. Has anyone tested this? If so I need to overhaul the calculator.

Wand attacks are pretty decent anyway tbh, the thing that makes then inferior to physical is immunities. Otherwise fire + poison wand + venom coating do pretty ridiculous damage, at least early on... until you run into undead... or fire slugs... or... you get it.

You can also poison your staff with an ooze barrel btw, meaning that you can get 3 types of elemental damage with just 1 rune (and you can use venom coating with it as well).

Yeah that was me,I put a physical rune on a fire staff, and I got hilarious results. I have not yet started to mess around with this concept in game editor due to lack of time so I can get concrete results as to how broken this can get.

What I will say is that elemental arrow head can be cast with any weapon equiped (wand included last I checked) so it is possible to abuse this flaw like crazy (especialy if you can get your hands on a +1 to necro and hydro ring so that you can maintain access to rain of blood) to do mix damage with blood infused wands.

http://s347.photobucket.com/user/dr...tlemage%20extravaganza?sort=3&page=1

As we currently understand it, the warfare will affect the physical damage you added with the rune....but it doesn't affect the fire damage. I'll have to play around with this, to see. You could seriously crank out some ridiculous numbers if this works as I think you are implying. What was the fire damage before adding the physical rune?

LOL:

Basic Fire Damage 46-55 (Average 50.5, Round up to 51)
Basic Physical Damage 6-7 (Average 6.5, Round up to 7)

Increase from Int = 50%
More Fire Damage from Pyro = 15%
More phys Damage from Warfare = 30%

Fire portion = 51*1.5*1.15 = 87.975 (Round up to 88)
Phys portion = 7*1.5*1.3 = 13.65 (Round up to 14)

Total Average Damage = 102, it is very close to the tooltip (101.5 average).

If Warfare applies to overall Damage, it would be
Fire portion = 51*1.5*1.45 = 119.625 (Round up to 120)
Phys portion = 7*1.5*1.45 = 15.225 (Round down to 15)

and the total average damage should be closer to 135 instead.


TLDR: Warfare applies to physical portion only.

As far as I am aware, these are all of the negatives of Magic users:

1. Spells don't scale with weapon damage, meaning they will get outpaced @ 40 Int / 10 Pyro vs 40 Fin / 10 Warfare

2. AoEs have friendly fire, whereas Warfare ones do not

3. You need to match up weapon magic type with the combat ability skill line that you've chosen to put points into. In other words, if you get a really good Air wand on your Geo/Pyro, tough luck.

4. Enemies have resistances to magic attacks, but none to physical attacks. While enemies are capable of being weak to certain types of magic, this seems to be uncommon. Even if it were not, this merely introduces inconsistency to combat, and that's not something positive magic user's favor.

5. No Weapon skill line affects staff or spell damage. Whereas a Ranger can go 10 Warfare / 10 Ranged, or a Rogue can go 10 Warfare / 10 Scoundrel, or a Warrior can go 10 Warfare / 10 Two-Handed, etc., each getting more damage out of every point towards every skill they have, a magic user has only the 10 points in single magic skill tree for a single set of skills.

Any others?

Any explicit pros to magic users?

Without the physical rune the numbers on display droped all the way to 80-96. (46-55 weapon damage +50% from intelect +15% from pyro).

Edit:after doing some tests hiting my Sebile who has 23% fire resist

I tryed hiting Sebile with my physical rune enhanced staff so I can check the damage and after a couple of hits I dealt 62 to 74 damage per auto attack with 1 crit of 114 and between 12 to 23 physical damage. I think we can get similar results if we combine magic elemental runes.

Sadly I have yet to come accross any wand with rune slots,but I can confirm that as of 12.10.2017 elemental arrowhead still works with double wand equiped,so if you want to make a double elemental mage,gear with +huntsman is a must have as it grants access to height damage bonus,elemental arrowhead and tactical retreat.

Staff of magus seems to be a good indication of what rune enhanced staves's auto attacks are likely to look like.


Staff counts as two handed weapons,single wand counts as one handed and dual wand counts as dual wielding.

Rayner,please double check your facts before you post something not true again.

I will also give you a free tip,you can cast elemental arrowheads with double wand equiped,so in theory you could set up some nasty combos regardless of the kind of wands you get,just as long as you can create a surfaces that matches your highest elemental school.

This seems overly hostile.

But you really should double check it though.

You're right, we barely avoided a catastrophe. I'll be more careful next time.

Fix your other post too while you're at it.

Wands don't benefit from elemental arrowheads. You can cast it with any weapon equipped and get the buff but the bonus damage is only applied if you have a bow or a crossbow.

That been said, warfare bonus to wand damage is of dubious value since the majority of your damage is still elemental and you're also wasting a rune slot for a damage type that won't affect magical armor, probably not something you want. If anything, it means you want to put in a 2nd elemental rune and then maxing 2 magic schools becomes pretty viable for weapon damage. It would still be an inferior approach to boosting crits for spell damage though.

The only case where I can see physical rune on wand/staff useful is if you're doing some kind of int based necromancer and boosting warfare.

The builds benefitting from this the most however would probably again be physical though, since if putting say a water rune makes hydro affect physical weapon damage then warfare/hydro would be pretty viable and boosting hydro would be more efficient than boosting crits.

You're just better off using a 2H or some other weapon and doing a weapon swap when your Necromancy spells are on cool down; you can't justify slotting a 3 Rune Staff with anything other than Int which is elemental. With a physical weapon you can slot it with either Wits or Strength and it'll be fine.

Losing 9+ int so you can do mediocre physical damage when you can just use some AP to convert doesn't really add up.

That being said though, I guess you could pick up a Crossbow as a Pyromancer and just use fire arrows all day long when your spells are on cool down or use it in lieu of a staff. Nevermind, the tool tips lie.

You only need 1 physical rune though. The remaining 2 can be elemental.

Yeah but the damage will be very uneven.Also I would like to point out that spears are still a thing in this game. With points spread between int and fin, the hydro/warfare companion/avatar could jugle between a very exotic arsenal of wands,staves,spears,bows and crossbows....and I think we just made Finesse Cleric a thing now for mixed damage parties and full physical parties.

Geo/Warfare on a full undead party could also be a hilarious setup provided you are not fighting undead or voidwoken which are immune to the spells covered by Geomancy,because Geomancy covers 2 elements (oil and poison)



Did you do elemental fire arrows using a crossbow with a fire rune in it?

Can anyone tell me if this is normal for this community? Or are these two just abnormally pretentious?

Show a video of this working. Seriously. You write in such a way that makes it look like you're faking having more knowledge on the actual mechanics than you actually do, and you keep dancing around giving real answers to the questions asked, or claims made.

I will gladly eat a bucket of crow if proven wrong, but I've spent enough time with the game to know that the things you keep suggesting simply do not work; or at least they don't work during the periods you're claiming that they do. It's like you're a data analyst telling a field agent how to do their job, because the manual and spreadsheets tell you how it should work, not how it actually does in real time.

Your whole "I could show you, but then I'd have to kill you" spiel doesn't really cut it.

Regarding Elemental Arrows: they scale with the school of the matching element. Problem is, they don't scale with INT and scale decently using FIN instead. Similarly with the various arrows that are non physical (poison cloud/shock arrow etc). So using a bow with an elemental caster won't really do anything for you over simply using a wand, other than for physical use only. You'd still be better off simply using Bouncing Shield instead, even with the two turn cooldown.

The community is generally very friendly and usually requires little intervention, thankfully; it would be nice if everyone remembered to be polite.

I don't get how you can claim you have done due diligence when you're saying that my proposal requires Lonewolf when Lonewolf would at least do 25% more damage.

It's even funnier when you consider that you wrote earlier about having a character with 30 int and 10 pyro and barely doing ~100 damage and then spoke with such authority on understanding how scaling works...

If you walked backwards from those values and looked at the order of spells being used combined with the bare minimums listed out by me earlier in the conversation you could easily extrapolate what kind of gear I had and roughly about what Int and Pyro values I had.

Furthermore, you have this funny belief that spending time with the game automatically means you know how things work.

I am going to give you a chance to walk back and do exactly as I suggested. Hint: Lonewolves deal more damage than what I am doing which is basic shit... but you wouldn't know that. If you still want a video then I'll definitely want something back in return for wasting my time when you could have just ran the numbers (or, you know, play the game). In the mean time, I'll leave this as a teaser:

It's not going to hit remotely close to what you need to be competitive with say typical rangers. Though if you were referring to why I struck out my previous statement it was because the tool tip for Fire Arrows (not elemental arrows, I mean the actual consumable) stated it was going to do 380ish - 450ish damage and instead yielded... 187 to 187*2 on a target with 0 resists. Hence, the tool tips lie.

You're ultimately better off with just using warfare skills with a staff or using warfare points with a two hander as your alternate.

You still haven't looked at my combo guide? There are 2 problems with your setup, first your setup doesn't take advantage of height damage bonus, second, medusa scale off str instead of int.

Bring up summoner in how viable mage is is just stupid.

Summoner may as well stay as one of their own style, side by side with physic and mage simply because how idiotic OP it is. 14+ summon do 500+ damage on one hit, EVEN bigger with their own surface skill, and even bigger with SOURCE buff.

I think the reason mage so weak in this game is because you can run SUMMONER so freaking easy and still have point for a mage. And that's why pure mage get nerfed so hard (not even scale with weapon which is retardo) for fear of Mage summoner become too OP.

And pls, can you guys not keep comparing how your "Lone Wolf" is so OP? It is basically easy mode for tactician.

You know I can just spec into glass cannon, dump all wit stats into int and memory, and it'd end up with the same result right? This is level 8, Lonewolf's impact isn't even huge yet, you need to accept fact.

I'll give you credit where it's due, your original post was why I went back and played through the game with an elementalist but since I like character interaction I will never pick Lonewolf.

There are a ton of things wrong with my setup; I am not using time skip, I am not scumming gear to maximize my damage, I am not using barrels, I am not scumming for perfect skills, no mines, nothing.

I'm keeping this as simple as possible with as few external modifiers as possible which means no high ground, no prebuffs outside of Medusa.

Also, yes I realize it scales off of strength but the radius for Medusa is just as big as Ignite's radius and it's guaranteed CC - yes, you could use ANYTHING and I mentioned that earlier, if you're left with 2AP you can pretty much use any guaranteed CC that you want be it Dominate Mind, Terrify, Medusa, Charm grenade.

In this case, Medusa was enough to strip off the last bit of armor and provide CC. Simple as that.

And finally, you're using a lonewolf combo, and I am using a glass cannon. So my damage is NOWHERE near that - look at Impalement, I might get 150 even with high ground bonus? Notice that my Impalement is hitting for not even half of yours. So your set up really doesn't make sense for this, you need extra damage from somewhere and the next biggest thing is Nova.

Who is doing that?

My impalement hits harder is because I'm using death wish and you are not. I'm not sure how you could've missed that.

I'd demonstrate this with a glass cannon build but sadly the mirror is available after this fight.

Take my Impalement of 71 and do the math for high ground, plus death wish with a 30% damage bonus. I do not think you will reach 200.

I'll just leave this here, it's a shame that death wish isn't restricted to mages.

Again.

Your death wish bonus is at 30% when you're using Impalement against Alexander.

Run through the math as a Glass Cannon character and you'll have a pretty big deficit.

...You realize I healed from necromancy during the combo right?

The reason I started off my exhibit with Round 1 is so you have full transparency and I already stated my method and what was being used.

However, you started off at round 2, and I have no insight on what health you're at. On your exhibit A, I see a vitality gain of 36.

So what I have to do is to guess the amount of health you have, figure out what you did round one, and then factor in Lonewolf and guess out your build and then compare it to the control which is my glass cannon build to figure out the difference.

Kind of unfair, but deserved I suppose.

But whatever, I did forget about using Death Wish though and at that point your criticisms weren't even applicable because it was out of scope part and the round 2 start is a dead give away that I missed - oops.

GG me.