Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Melee are severely underpowered

I'm running a Fighter, Rogue, Ranger and Wizard. In a large, large majority of encounters, my Fighter and Rogue do almost nothing. This is partially due to how terrain and positioning is so important in this game, and partially due to the fact that they have no benefits to all their cons.

Cons:
* Have to use AP to get into position to even begin attacking
* Have to avoid ground effects, which quite often cover the battlefield.
* Can't re-position mid fight easily, due to status effect ticks and attacks of opportunity.
* Provide little utility, mostly only bring damage.

Pros:
* ???
* Backstab?

I'm not one to whine or complain, but from a purely objective point of view it seems to me that melee have lots of downsides, but no upside. They don't get a defensive bonus of any sort, they don't do more damage than ranged (quite frequently less), it makes me ask myself why even have any melee?

If you compare a Fighter to a Wizard for example, take a look at what they bring. Mine are both level 6 and my Wizard has 12 spells. She can attack without moving, from range, has an insane amount of utility (heals, Teleport, Midnight Oil, Haste, Fortify, etc), can do massive AoE damage with Boulder Bash or Small Fireball, can CC, dispel fire (Rain)...

What can my Fighter do? Well she can hold a shield, and cure once a fight, and provide knock downs, and take a few hits more than my Wizard. Aside from the shield and some tankyness, my Wizard can do all that and tons more *plus* gets all the benefits of being ranged. She doesn't have to reposition due to effects, 90% of the time, she doesn't need to waste AP to get in range.

In terms of balance in a game like this, it's never going to be perfect, but I don't think the gap should be this large. This isn't even getting into the fact that the best way to engage a lot of mobs at once is to funnel them, which leaves your melee doing nothing while you pelt mobs from range as they sit in your oil and burn, or get electrocuted, etc. I'm fairly certain I could roll 4 Wizards and Hard would be an absolute joke. Melee need some benefits, or bonuses, or utility, or something.

At least right now, my Melee people are on par with my ranger and caster. They do a lot of damage when they get near someone.

So they do the same damage as a caster... except they have to spend AP to get in range, have 1/4 the utility, are susceptible to mob effects (like explosions on death, or poison on hit, etc), ground effects, and can't reposition as easily?

That really just proves my point. Take the fight that takes place in the hideout, early on in the game around level 6. If your melee rush in there, they get hammered by 6 mobs at once, can't avoid the dog death explosions, and can't escape (without Ranger/Scoundrel). I just did this fight 4 times with all 4 of my characters attacking, and every time the melee did next to nothing. I leave them back, effectively doing nothing the entire fight, and my Wizard/Ranger duo everything in 4 turns. This shouldn't be the case.

This topic again?

Seriously...

We already had like a 7-8 page topic on this.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=508556&page=1

Melee are weak because you play them poorly. Play them right and they can kill bosses in 1-3 hits later on.

It's almost as if I don't read every single topic on this (or any). Forums are for discussion, things will be discussed more than one time, topics don't get discussed once and then never touched on again.



Feel free to elaborate on how to play them properly, or list all the benefits to bringing melee over a caster.

Erm, no.

What they mean is you are meant to read the thread you've duplicated and then tell the other forum users if you have any questions that were not previously answered.

Otherwise it wastes time for everyone else.

I didn't see the other thread, because like I said I don't read everything that is posted here every day. What I'm posting here are my thoughts on a subject as the starting point for a discussion. Turns out something similar was already discussed.

There are going to be multiple posts regarding the same things, always. It's fine to refer someone elsewhere, but that doesn't delete the current thread or further this particular discussion. If you feel you've discussed this topic enough, then don't post.

I was just explaining why another user was exasperated at seeing another thread on the same topic.

Personally, when I need advice on a game, I search the forums for appropriate topics and read them before creating any new threads.

The people who posted before are less likely to reply to you here because they already gave input to the community.

I'm sure walk-throughs, character creation and play advice pages will be forthcoming as it is early days. Until then, I recommend searching the forums because you'll learn more.

Yeah, that's fine. In this case I'm not looking for advice, I'm looking to discuss some specific points. I don't like to bump dead threads though, if people don't want to address my specific concerns in this thread because they felt they just went over it all, all the power to them.

EDIT:

Thing is I'm not really looking for advice on how to play the game, or how to utilize melee. I'm trying to get at the objective imbalance between melee vs. caster, which has nothing to do with in game utilization or skill.

People that think that rogues are underpowered haven't played one, or have missed their build.

Because this is easily the most powerful setup in the game.
Sneaking lv5 + backstab + guerilla >>>>> mages
At level 5 a rogue can do 500+ damages (on HARD diff) on a single target and remain invisible until his next turn.

I haven't test, but I think a 4 rogue party can be very fun and very effective (like finishing every fight in less than 4 turns without taking any damages).

The only melee I've enjoyed so far is mage/rogue jack of all trades.

You need minimum 8 int, 8 dex to make it work, so you'll suffer a bit when it comes to speed.

The main issue with hybrids though, is CD getting reduced by int/dex/str plus those all improve abilities in other dramatic ways. You're strongly encouraged to stack one stat over another.

There's also the trouble of getting the right talents, it's hard to spread that thin. Backstab is mandatory of course, and you may want to get both know-it-all and bigger and better to make up for needing 8 in both dex and int. Bully is also very strong with backstab and your access to midnight oil. It's rough trying to prioritize.

The main pro of this build is versatility though. With 8 int you still get a ton of spells that don't need more than that, and you can buff yourself up to be a more powerful melee presence than a pure rogue would IMO, for a duration at least.

You've got two hastes, two invisibilities, access to charm and mute, tactical retreat, debuff removals, etc. etc.

I'm not sure it beats a pure mage still, but it beats a pure rogue for me.

TL:DR Embrace the magic for your melee builds.

Why are you making a topic proclaiming melee as "severely underpowered" when your party is level 6? Making sweeping (and incorrect) statements so early seems a little silly.

It's based on what I've seen so far, you're welcome to counter the points I've made with your experiences.



I never said Rogues were underpowered. The title was more meant to be 'Melee are generally underpowered compared to casters', but that is too long.

All the general points you bring up as general pros/cons have already been addressed in the previous thread, that you didn't want to necro.


I do wonder, though, how on earth your particular party of warrior, rogue, ranger, and wizard ends up with your melee doing little.

That setup is pretty much ideal for melee: The wizard to control the terrain so melee isn't hindered, to buff/heal the melee (wildfire, oath of desecration, etc), and to throw in filler attack spells, the melee to carve up enemies, the ranger to kill off those low on health, to apply bullying damage to knocked down targets, and to help control the battlefield with special arrows. (At higher levels also provides luck to everybody and curing of many ailments).

(Take the companion wizard - give him a point in witchcraft and fire magic, and he's good to start his support role. You can also pick up small fireball or other damage spells for him, but much better to concentrate on the water/air spells for direct damage when using melee.)

Not knowing you you have specced your party, I cannot guess how you've ended up with weak melee unless it is because you use your wizard to turn the battlefield into a mess rather than removing the mess. Or perhaps you are investing everything in strength (respective dexterity) for your melee without increasing your speed on the melee characters? I consider 7 the lowest speed value that is fun to play with as melee, and more is better.

Or perhaps you aren't using crafting to increase the damage of your melee and ranged weapons? Do you remember to improve the quality of heavy armour with movement restrictions or do you suffer slowdown and have your men moving like turtles? Did your rogue take one level of marksmanship to get Tactical Retreat? (and did your ranger take one level of scoundrel to get Fast Track?)

As for melee skills, they have two things in common:
1) They are very powerful and martial includes the strongest AOE (both in damage numbers and in having no friendly fire), healing skills, and two of the better party buffs (encourage, inspire) (martial) while rogue singletarget is just amazing.
2) They have very long cooldowns.

As fun as mages are, and they can be very fun due to their sheer versatility and ease of loading up on lots of spells, for hitting things hard it is hard to match up to a buffed warrior or rogue.

There is already a thread for the same question/issue...


And how many hours are you in the game? As someone who is more than 40-50 hours in the game I can just say that you are wrong. Very wrong. Good melee fighter do extremely high damage later in the game if properly supported by the party. It's all a question of party balance...

Making topics based on what you've seen so far when what you've seen so far is a ridiculous minority of the game is excessively silly, but okay.

As for my experience, I'm playing hard, co-op with a friend, I play 2 melee (both 2H--this is our first run, and I didn't know the other companion would also be built for 2H melee, or else I'd have done something else) and they have 2 mages covering all the elements. We enjoy a loving, symbiotic relationship where he will Bless my main (or blind/stun/knockdown enemies, either/or is enough for 100% hit rate) and toss Oath of Desecration on them, I will throw up Power Stance and Rage, and begin laughing hysterically because you begin doing over 100% bonus damage per swing and cannot miss and half the time that enemies try to walk away from you they just fall over dead from attacks of opportunity.

Flurry is crushingly, ridiculously strong with buffs and will shred bosses to pieces. Even before level 10 (which is when you get flurry/rage), I've had Whirlwinds crit for over 700 damage just with Oath/Power Stance. Once you learn Phoenix Dive, mobility stops being as big an issue, or get more armor specialist or just find loot with +movement, or any combination of the 3. Man-at-Arms 5 with the associated trait for it (weather the storm, I think?) turns a lot of magic damage into a complete joke and my main routinely stands in damage zones now because he does not care.

Meanwhile, my friend chain-CCs enemies and occasionally blows them up with some set-up here and there and summons lots of meatshields that happen to do pretty okay damage themselves. Well, there's more to it than that, but I'm not the one playing the mages so I can't quite romanticize it as much.

I guess the worst thing you could say is "but you need a mage to buff you!" but that's not exactly far-fetched in a game with 4 party members.

The tl;dr version is that we are both rather happy with our roles and are both really useful in combat.

If anything, my man-at-arms needs a nerf. He can 1-2 shot mobs and easily take down bosses with flurry.

I like to add that later in the game a melee fight can be pretty much invulnerable against all elements. My melee fighter on level 16 has both resitancies for fire and water above 100% which means that he is healed by water or fire! Air and earth resistancies are at about 90% and poison + tenebrium resistancies are at about 70%. Combined with a high armour class and enough points in body building, willpower he is pretty much the king of the battlefield. He loves standing in AoE fire effects for example and he crushes whole groups of enemies with whirlwind, attacks of opportunity and flurry...

I don't know what you're doing wrong. My melee are absolutely beastly. Mobility isn't an issue with Phoenix Dive and the charge move. Attacks like Flurry just flat out kill an enemy in one attack. My melee does at least 60% more damage than my wizards. I'm running two knights + two wizards, btw. My knights definitely contribute the most damage. Spec them for defense a bit so they can survive some attacks.

I believe you missed the most important pro for melees, especially strength based melees.

They can get TONS of DAMAGE.