Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Game Balance : Melee is terrible

Yep lives will not be lost. Ideally though you'd love a pristine game exp if that were an option. If you want to find the holes in the current setup, you can be very powerful from what I've experienced and some people love that over true grit balancing.

The Problem is not what do you need but what can you get.
More Strength equals more Power.
+ Maximum you can skill is 15.
So you have 2-5 dont know exactly how many Stat Points you can spend somewhere else while having maximum power.

So instead of doing something useful you are wasting 7 AP to summon a limited creature which dies easily (maybe earth or ice elementals are better) and deals little damage.

Can get a lot more out of those 7 AP...

I do see from time to time summons going down in a round, but that is the focus of a few baddies. But I've seen them last several rounds. It's defense to the mages, overall it was always a winning proposition for me.

Depends on your Party. If you play without Lonewolf aka 4 Characters they arent as usefull.
But with 2 they are mighty because they eat all the CC as i already said.
Also Summons are not the Topic here.
The Topic is Melee and there is still no Reason why one should think its too weak except when he plays One handed + Shield which still sucks but Two Handed is extremly powerfull.

Consensus = general opinion


There a lot of contributors in this thread advocating melee

Maybe you should try out a Mage class and compare?

Nearly everyone consisting of two or three of you geniuses who dont know which game they are playing. two or three of you who are so incompetent and incapable of adjusting the basic tactics or figuring out this is a classless game - and whose pathetic asses get handed back to you by superior Ai - so much that you cant figure out anything but complain how the game is badly designed ahahaha... :lol:




No, on the other hand you had many different players telling you and those other few dumbasses how and why you are wrong, but you are so pathetic that you think willfully denying explanations and outright lying about who said what is going to win you and argument.


Can be. Depends on the player. For you it is not because youre dumb.

The games Ai is smarter then you.

:lol:





Whhhat?

:lol:

You're right, the game isn't necessarily competitive, though with some of the dialog options and role-playing elements I don't think you necessarily need to play completely cooperatively either.

So why does it matter if the game is unbalanced? At least part of the fun of any RPG that allows character customization is creatively experimenting with abilities, stats, gear and play styles to find effective combinations. Not all of it, for sure, there's still fun to be had by taking part in the story, reading dialogue, etc, but I think by making these kinds of choices easy and obvious as a game developer you do end up taking some of the fun out of your game.

Consider an imaginary strategy game, let's say it's single player so balance again isn't REALLY a problem since it's just for your own enjoyment anyway. Let's say in this hypothetical RTS there are dozens of units with potentially interesting uses, but there is one unit that is cheap, builds quickly, has insane health, damage, and range. It can be used for anti-air, detects stealth, and moves quickly. It's really the only unit you need, and try as you might to find one you don't have a reason to build anything else. Hopefully you can see how that would suck some of the fun out of the game; the game strategy has now been simplified to the point of being well... pointless.

Simply I would argue that mages in Divinity are currently that unit, and although you could potentially create a viable party without them and deliberately handicap yourself, doing so would mean that I as a player am challenging myself rather than the game challenging me.

Yeah if someone works = balanced nice Logic.
So we have one guy saying one hand+ Shield is good because it works.
One or more who think Melee sucks and others who think Melee is good but One Hand + Shield is subpar.
But guess what. Even only Fists would work.
It just takes more time. Its not as efficient as taking a Weapon. As is One Handed.
But whatever since you think this game is hard ( which i would wish it was ) we should stop arguing.

Also im playing a Mage and my Friend a Warrior.
We see Pros and Cons of both.

Warrior can rush in and take alot more Damage thanks to his Traits. Getting > 100 on every Magic Resistance is easy und non Elemental Damage is a Joke. Worst Case Fortify and he is immum to everything.
Also Melees have ALOT of Singletarget Damage. 5-10 times the amount a Mage has and dont forget:
Mages cant miss but we also cant Crit. I have Leadership -> He gets Hit und Crit + Blessing and worst Case Precision Stance = 100% HitChance + 10-15% Crit.
As a Mage i have alot of Aoe and also my Summon who tanks CC for us. ( I summon it close to me so Melees dont hit it but Archers and Mages do ).
I have way more AoE thats right but way less Single Target Damage.
If one Target is really squishy -> Fireball + Poison Cloud = Death yes but the Melee can also One Hit him. If someone has alot of Life the Melee comes and kills him easily.
CC wise we are quite equal. He can stun and Knockdown so can I.

Both have their Role and both are balanced. If Enemies were harder. And only if the Mage would be slightly better because of his big Aoe CC Disables and Defensive Spells.
But for now Melees dont have to be more Tanky than they already are -> They can just build Offensive -> The Instakill everything -> Fun

For once I agree with you, these guys who think mage is superior to warrior are pathetic. My Warrior can fuckin solo this game on Hard if he cared.

Its not because you put all your points into strength that you cant put points in magic schools or ranger/rogue stuff. Sure you wont get the msot out of it, but hell you will be stronger than a pure mage or a pure ranger/rogue depending on your spell selection.

I advise to you all to explore the game more before saying melee is weak and other tactical nonsense.

And thats wrong. Mages are not too strong. They are perfectly fine. The Problem is again Lonewolf + Class Cannon = 18 Ap/Turn = much Destruction.
But that is true for every Class.
In out First Playthrough ( Beta ) we played Warrior + Rogue.
Still easy and there was no Lonewolf + Class Cannon.
Only Lone Wolf back then.
Warrior one hits everything that comes close to him and Rogue assasinates everything else + Special Arrows are really fucking strong.
Even a Party of 2 Warriors.
Bull Rush in -> Whirlwind -> Mass Death = GG

Did you even read my Posts?
Nowhere did i say Melee is weak. I always said Melee is close to being OP because it is fucking strong as fuck.
What I said is that One Hand + Shield is subpar to Two Handed.
Nowhere did i say its weak just that Two Handed is stronger.

ITT a lot of people playing the game on normal, believing that because their melee can succeed with heavy mage support that melee itself isn't broken.

Melee isn't broken. /sigh

I agree with the OP. The fact of the matter is STR-based characters get one line (Man-at-Arms) of 16 different active skills. INT-based characters get five spellcasting skill lines for a total of 50+ active skills. That right there tells you spellcasters got much more TLC than melee classes.

MoA skills mostly revolve around dealing direct physical damage, with a bit of status effects, buffs and debuffs thrown in. However all are on long CDs, so most turns are spent whacking a single target. Spellcaster skills run the gambit with multiple forms of direct damage, AOE damage, debuffs, buffs, shields, healing, summons, etc. Not only do they always have various strong CD spells at the ready, they have many good spells on 1-turn CD.

You can argue on the fringes that melee classes with the right build can do a bit more direct damage than spellcasters. But ultimately that is besides the point. What really matters is the variety and depth of options in combat which spellcasters have in spades and melees have comparatively little.

Melee classes may not be broken in the sense that one can't complete the game with one or more in the party. The point is relative to spellcasters they bring little (if not nothing) unique or "must have" to the party that the spellcaster doesn't plus more.

This really reminds me of the class tiers in D&D. T1 are pure spellcasters like Wizard/Druid/Cleric that completely and utterly outshine all other classes. T3/T4 classes like Bard/Barbarian/Rogue can still "do stuff," but when compared to T1/T2 they are pointless to choose unless the upper tiers are restricted by the DM.

Melee don't have to depend on skills to do damage is straightforward to use. Casters depend on their skills and each skill is situational, I.e. You have to watch for elemental affinity, terrain, etc. but seriously, if you think mages are overpowered then make a party of mages, the game lets you I promise

Higher single target damage.
Higher mobility.
Higher mitigation.
More hit points.
Unique Buff.
Unique CC (Fear).
Can critically strike on normal attacks.

Just to name a few.

But yeah, warrior offer "nothing wortwhile".



Pretty meaningless argument considering that you only get 49 skill points but have to pay 15 points to max one skill so at most you can have 3 skills at level 5 and got only 4 points.

With a little investment into Dex you can easily get some abilities from Scoundrel or Expert Marksman like Fast Track or Tactical retreat for even more mobility for example so it is not like there are no options.
Melee/magic hybrids like the premade Nightblade are also viable.

Thank you for supporting my (and OP's) point. The spellcaster's toolbelt is large and varied and always has a tool for the job. Melee's basically get a hammer and must treat every monster as a nail, regardless of how effective that is.

Don't warriors always suck in games mostly anyways? Even in dungeons and dragons they suck. They might be all cool at the start, but once the mage gains a few levels, it's all over. (Esp w/a fighter/mage).

Try your fancy warrior shit when you're being assaulted by a hasted dual wielding whirlwind of death.

But anyways, I had a dream about this thread. Basically, your mage isn't going to do shit against those big multi-boss encounters. You'll be glad that you have a melee tank in the fight, preferably a paladin (aka, healing/buffing/warrior).