Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Mages: Over powered?

Today I came up with a thought, one that I don't recall was ever brought up before. My question is, "Is mage over powered, should it be as weak as ranged and melee?"

So for Ranged and Melee, With the exception of getting 8 int and constitution for my warrior, he has gotten everything in strength. I also use this guy as my "fire mage" which actually does more damage. Yes 15 STR vs. 8 INT and INT wins.

My ranger has 8 constitutions and the rest in Dex and Perception. If I'd give my grandmother a crossbow and let her get good and drunk on her champagne, AND take her classes off of her. She would still hit the target!

Yes, Melee and Range apparently do more damage per second. The key element is if they can actually hit the bloody target. Where as the mages, they ALWAYS hit the target. Now for a few examples.

I will use my warrior (with 8 INT) to set the ground on fire for an immaculate priest. Then I'll use one of my mages to drop a boulder on the priest. The boulder bash has a chance to cause knock down AND causes poison damage. The poison will then have an explosive effect when it interacts with the fire and thus causes fire damage and more burning damage. The priest at this point went from 80% HP to anywhere from 10% to a pile of ash.

Then we get shock and freeze. These two alone can keep the enemies from ever attacking in a battle. Also dropping someone while frozen seems to do a lot of damage as well. So in turn, they don't fight back very often. While frozen, my archer and warrior can hit them, though do about 50% of the damage.

So now looking at weapons, warrior and archers get weapons that might cause stun, freeze and/or knockdown damage. If your lucky to get a legendary weapon that gives 10-15% on each, your doing great. That is if you can, once again, hit the bloody target!

So one way I found to greatly increase your chance of hitting a target is to surround it. So here I go again with the mages summoning monsters to support my blind warrior and archer.

Of course I've found these problems to all go away with easy mode. My warrior and archer start off with a 75% of higher chance of hitting a target as opposed to the 20% I was in the Dark Forest on normal difficulty.

As for my prior gameplay in the other Divinity Games, I've found using a bow to be great on early levels. In those games I mostly did a battle mage build, I put far more into strength then in intelligence though.

In the end, I really wish we got a chance to beta test the whole game. It is quite clear that the beta testers that got to the studio were mages or these problems would have been fixed. I know there are a few that claim all of us that complain about warriors and archers don't know how to play. Problem is there are a lot of us complaining about it which means that it is a real problem that needs to be fixed.

Because you only have 15 str. And bless yourself. Or knock them down using ram. It's OP if you have high enough STR.
Again. You only have 15 str.

Edit: and divine light too. And hmm?? Invest in some cheap 3 AP cc. But honestly for trash mobs just divine light and ram. Oh and nullify resistance it's super duper OP.

You're saying 2 mages can do more than 1 warrior... I agree.

But what if you used 1 mage + 1 warrior? Mage casts Oath of Desecration on warrior, and then casts Mass Slow on a group of enemies.
Warrior walks into the group of enemies and Whirlwinds. They are all dead because Oath + Bully + Whirlwind = massive damage.

If you only have a 20% chance of hitting enemies then you're doing something very wrong. Your main attribute is too low, or they're debuffing you, or something.

@ OP There is no easy mode mate.

The methods you describe on the above require a lot of CC and team work to win a single battle.

So pad yourself in the back for discovering how useful a mage is in this game : D

Well it's very simple to answer: Is the game still fun? If it is, then a mage is not over-powered.

I play with a mage in my party and the game is still fun, so for me, they're not over-powered in that way. When I've come across mage bad-guys I still have fun, so they're not over-powered there either for me.

What about mages is resulting in them ruining your fun?

You mention hit chance, but this can't be the only reason can it? Non-mage characters still have plenty of skills that give a guarenteed hit so just use them instead if you have a problem. Or you can use buffs/debuffs to modify the hit chances.

Other people seem to be fine with the hit chances, so maybe it's there's a PBKAC rather than with mages?

Mages are not overpowered in my opinion, the way I see it is that mages start of by being "better" then melee classes and the ranger due to those classes being more gear dependent. However when properly building those classes and either crafting or finding gear they will slowly overtake the caster classes. Also act I consists mainly out of undead further decreasing the damage potential of non blunt melee users and especially rangers.

Mages are extremely versatile and with a build that offers them enough starting ap/turn ap they can wreak havoc and cc a lot of enemies. However a well build melee character does not have the same need for cc as with enogh resistances and points or gear that has improved bodybuilding willpower he will be a juggernaut. From my perspective I feel actually the opposite is more true, after level 14 from my point of view the archer and melee are becoming rambo and terminator, there is little or no need to CC as the melee character chances of dying to elemental damage is 0%, if not actually healing him. If you make him the sword and board type of melee his block chances can be high enough to survive a round on hard difficulty even when he goes last or close to last. A well build ranger/archer has so much ways of going out of sight or escaping combat that any melee type of charcter should never be able to get near it.

Mages can get the same results but have to make use of there more versatile skills, from an rpg point of view mages have never been the damage dealers, but have allways been the combat controller. D:OS actually does a great job of portraying that.

And in terms of being "overpowered" it also depends on a lot of talent choises, leech, zombie, lonewolf+glass cannon can make any build so overpowered that if it was possible you could solo the game even on hard if really needed.

So my conclusion is that in terms "classes" being "overpowered" I would say that I think it is fairly balanced however if had to pick sides my choise for most "overpowered" type of character would go to the class that combines the best of both worlds: Battlemage. Depending on the talents you grab, your character will be anything from immortal to very hard to kill.



So from the fact that a lot of people complain you derive that the balance issue is real, you could also derive that a lot of people are not building them well. We live in a world where people that complain are given to much attention, you make it sound as if it is a fact and now the game developers "owe" you and they have to fix it.

I will admit that building an archer that is unkillable is hard however I can link you builds that aslong as you have them in range and they dont have you in range you will be as good as unkillable and as far as a melee build goes, leech, lonewolf, glasscannon, poh, wts. As I mentioned before if really needed you could solo the game with it. There will be a point in the game where you block 65%+ attacks, have 150%+resistances a chance to hit that with a bless included will never be below 100%. Any physical piercing or slashing attack will heal you... you will have bodybuilding and willpower of 8-9. Not to mention that by that time you will probably have a scroll of anything you could need in the case a spell gets through your saving throws.

I am not trying to prove or say that melee is more overpowered then other classes, just simply trying to point out that mages are in my opinion not any more or less overpowered then other "classes". and the fact that many people think that melee/ranger is weak doesn't mean they actually are weak.

Just to give an example of this type of statement: Not to long ago it was said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq said that they did not have them.
Then a lot of people were pointing out that they were sure that Iraq would have them, and they asked to show Iraq those weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq told the other country and its allies it was impossible to show them something they did not have.
A war waged and after the war had ended they never found any weapons of mass destruction despite of a lot of people saying that they were sure that Iraq would have those.

Just because a lot of people feel the same way about a certain subject/topic does not make sure that is also true.

With kind regards,

Rashar.

First thing, what is "CC"? Ive never heard of this acronym before.

2nd, I'm not doing anything wrong. Right after Cyseal (as I've complained many times before) the % hit chance for warriors and archers goes down drastically to the point where they are useless. The last monster I fought in the Cyseal maps was Bracuss REX. He was at 90% hit chance. Once I entered Luculla Forest, the hit chance with into the low 70s.

So how did the last monster in Cyseal go from 90% to the first monster in Luculla Forest to 70%? The answer is that Larian has screwed up with the balancing. My warrior has actually become a tank meat shield and I position him between a mage and monster to protect the mage from being hit. I don't expect him to actually hit anything with his weapon unless I can freeze or stun the monster.

In ACT 1, my party wouldn't have survived at all without a warrior to take down the undead and now he's honestly just a waste. This screwed up balancing has made the game a "miserable waste of my time". That I don't tell people who ask me about D:OS, I just tell them there are some game breaking bugs at the moment so give them [Larian] a month or two to update the game and then go get it.

I'm not calling it quits just yet. Though any other company I would have just given up and uninstalled the game about a month ago. Hopefully on Friday we get an update to fix a lot of these issues.

Not to go off-topic, but you did bring it up. Iraq actually kept trying to make the case they had WMD's. They prevented inspectors from entering, they used troop/transport movements and bunkers to make it appear like they had them. Add to that he used poison gas on his own people. Saddam was trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He wanted to appear the big, bad by the surrounding dictators, yet still try to appease the rest of the world. It backfired, and now he's dead. If you're going to tell a story, tell it right.

That's all I'm saying on the matter. You may now return to your previously scheduled discussion.

CC = crowd control
Anything that disables the enemy is crowd control. Knockdown, blind, stun, slow, weakness, etc.

Mages are overpowered. And mages are underpowered. Like every other class in this game. Seriously, these topics are just boring, day after day, "It's stupid, rangers are OP! Totally unbalanced" "OMG guys melee are OP! Why rangers and mages are so useless?!" "Wtf, melee sucks, completely unplayable, while mages are just ridicolously strong!!!"....

This discussion is, and always was, stupid, because in D:OS everything depends on player. Every class can annihilate enemies without problems when player uses it properly, and every class can completely suck, when he doesn't.

You guy must forgive the OP, I think the guy don't understand all his classes.

Here is a test to confirm it.

@ OP. For the sake of the test to be successful, try separate your mage from your 3 companions and use your mage to solo the next fight and tell me if they're overpower.

Write down how many time you able to cast your damage spell with 100% hit rate before you're pound to the ground and left for dead

Solo vs Full Party isn't really a good measure to determine how 'OP' a class is. My solo Mage playthrough can solo his way through the game thanks to Smoke + Sneak + AoE spells (cheese tactics to be sure, but all that Solo vs Full Party amounts to is the tactics).

If you don't want to go off topic then don't reply.

All I said was they did not have weapons of mass destruction and they did not have them, you clearly missing my point, I did not bring it up to start a discussion about it, it was just a reference for applying what people say verus truth.


Now back on topic

I'm not saying that you are doing anything wrong, however if you think a 70% hit chance means they are absolutely useless then we do have different ideas on what useless is. A bless and you are back up to 100%. You can invest more points into str for a melee or dex/per for an archer. grabbing or finding gear further improves those to hit chances.

We also differ on wether or not Larian has screwed up on the to hit balancing, if you want a 100% chance to hit you have the wrong idea about how this works. In all the previous single player computer role playing games (CRPG's) melee/archer never had a 100% chance to hit, baldur's gate, icewind dale, planescape torment, neverwinter nights all use a system to determine if you hit (most known as Thac0) and I'm pretty sure most people who played those games would sign for a 70% chance to hit. Attacking with a 1hander only costs 3AP and with a 70% chance to hit, they can attack twice for 6AP while a mage can cast 1 flare or similiar type of spell. You could also just grab bless to buff your melee/archer or use precision stances for those characters.
Thing is there are so many solutions that if you still can't get your chances to hit above 70% then yes I have to assume that you're doing something different then what I'm doing. You can use knockdowns, stuns. blind to make sure you have a 100% chance to hit, melee can even provide knockdowns in the form of crushing fist and battering ram which are not based on a to hit percentage.

I played the game on hard with just 2 heroes (yes yes I took the cheesy lonewolf route on hard.) one of them being a hybrid battlemage and while I do recall seeing like some 80% chance to hit I never thought of it as unbalanced. If the game was intended to have a 100% chance to hit then other people would ask for the removal of bless, precision stances, they would want a revamp on perception, how block works would become more questionable.

In terms of balancing issues in my opinion the to hit issues are non existent and if they would really want to bring more balance I am pretty sure they will have another look at leech & glass cannon. Not saying they need to or that I want that to happen. There's so many options and solutions that there is something for everyone.

I think that saying the game is a waste of time because your melee character has a 70% chane to hit is kinda overreacting, like a kid who doesn't get what he wants. Don't get me wrong I understand what you're saying I just think that instead of yelling that they need to change there screwed up balancing system it might be actually you who needs to change his view on how this generally works in these type of games.

It's not meant to be personal, it is however meant to be clear. I do hope you find the fun again in the games and that melee builds start working for you. (Search for Trendkill on the popular video channel, he just did a playthrough with 2 melee characters on hard and he probably has some videos about it)

With kind regards,

Rashar.

1. You're missing the point.

2. Video or never happen regard to your solo mage.

I know you're lying because without the help from your party, it would be very difficult to level and therefore you'll never able to pull off those cheesy tactic. FYI getting help =/= solo.

3. I'm still interested if you able to provide me with some kind of proof like a video gameplay from level 1 to 5, why? to validate your claims. I even let you play the game on easy.

Ok, so for your challenge, my mages were both able to disable several opponents but of course playing them both solo, they both died. My warrior lasted the longest, but did far less damage. My ranger did the absolute worse though which was unexpected.

Warriors have the best defense, but the shittiest offense due to being unable to hit. Mages are the exact opposite, so they will get cut down. Rangers... wow they are just total shit! Now that one I didn't expect at all. He lasted just a little bit longer then the mages, but couldn't hit for shit just like the warrior.

The good thing is you at least helped me prove that warriors are not the shittiest class in the game, so I hope that makes you feel better. I normally never play as a ranger and specifically had a ranger in my party just to at least experience how they fight. An infant with diarrhea is more dangerous...

How about this groundbreaking idea of put 1 point in geo and let the 2hander bless himself first then engage? How about this thing called "precision stance?" How about some cc for the warrior? Ever think about oath instead of rage when you don't have that many CCs on the 2hander yet?

I'm currently running a "no magic" play through on Hard.
2-handed warrior
rogue
ranger
If you are unable to hit enemies then you're doing something severely wrong.
Remember that any hard cc = 100% chance to hit.
Only a 60% chance to hit the enemy? Knock them down.
In fact, knock them down anyway. If you're not combining knockdown with Bully then you're not playing martial classes correctly. It's essentially a free +50% damage boost, given that you should be cc'ing enemies anyway.

Rangers start off with lower accuracy, but fairly quickly make up the difference. By level 8, my Ranger's accuracy was comparable to my melee classes - from anywhere on the battlefield. Rangers also have boatloads of free utility built into them, including the best cc ability in the game - static cloud arrow. If you aren't using and abusing special arrows then you're essentially ignoring 80% of what makes rangers useful.

Glad I able to help a bit and dirigible advices is even better.

I want to share a little secret of mine (I'm still level 7) but try get a 2h sword for your melee that have 60-110+ damage.

Here is how you have fun with your melee character.

Use the ram skill to quickly flash to your enemy or knock a few down on the way, then use the Dust devil or Whirlwind since they both have a long cool down. The important thing is getting the 50% damage buff from the witch skill and the 30% accuracy stance. NEVER use the default damage stance since you have a %10 miss as your penalty.

I was like "omfg" after seeing 3-4 enemies just exploded when I did the aoe swing.

It was soo awesome.

ps. You might wanna get the teleport skill for your melee too just for the lol's.

"GET OVER HERE!"

You have repeated that now for about three times, yelling something more often does not make it true either. By now I have given you so many solutions that if you still do not understand it, or maybe you just don't want to see it, you're probably better of playing a different game.

I will link to a topic which discusses how to build a ranger, since somehow you have this syndrom that if you can't make it work it's broken.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=539712#Post539712

Looking forward to reading your next post, although by now what you're going to post will not be a secret anymore. But surprise me...

With kind regards,

Rashar.

Really? Because I've seen it mentioned a few times that the stances only work with auto attacks.