Morroian wrote...
Yeah mages look to have been nerfed slightly, they'll still be fun to play, more fun given the melee capabilities. I far prefer the DA2 system to the more linear DAO system and we're still spoilt for choice in my planning for my mage characters I'm not going to be able to fully do what I want to do anyway. Plus they have the same number of talents as warrior or rogue, why should mage get more?
I usually only play mages myself, but this time I seriously doubt it. Yes, they are nerfed, and with the lack of friendly fire that will be slightly good for you and much better for the enemy (since they have bad AI and tend to nuke themselves more than you). So if you plan for that, you can try to take advantage at low level. In the demo I ran into the middle of the horde attacking the warrior and nuked myself. That made sure all the enemy got hit.
When you get to higher levels you are going to get eaten alive if they kept all the stunning/overpowering/knocking-down/slapping-you-in-the-face abilities since you no longer have any non-combat skill to prevent spell casing interruptions. I know the demo spells do not take long to cast, but I assume you can still interrupt. If not then prepare to be owned by enemy spell casters on a regular basis since they will truly have infinite mana and probably shorter recharge times.
As for 'upgrades' remember that these will remove one spell from your total list of possible casts. With the relatively long recharge times compared to the manic pace of melee combat, you are going to quickly find yourself hitiing 1-2-3-4-5-6 (with pauses in-between) to keep on auto-fire mode. Sure there are a few upgrades in the warrior and rogue classes, but not nearly as many (though since some were locked out/not included with the demo I cannot be as accurate as I would like to be) wasted slots as the mage. Seriously, fireball that does no fire damage???
With the low hit points you are going to go down fast with this new system (multiple waves of enemies, manic melee, and fast casting times), unless they dumbed down the AI so you are not attacked as much (auto-threat reduction for no reason). So boost Endurance and carry a good stock of liquid heal-me and make sure the rest of the companions are keeping the riff-raff off the mage.
I agree with an eariler post - willpower is useless as mana seemed to never run out. That is the only boost I see to this class, and does not come close to the nerfing that was performed. As was mentioned earlier, they might have severly overpowered some of the higher tier spells to compensate, so it might not be so bad. Considering the super powered Rogue - super leaping between enemies to avoid being hit and teleporting to backstab, or the Warrior that natually hits multiple targets out of the box (and now has massive area of effects themselves), I expect to hear last tier spells are godly.
But as for mage melee? That is almost oxymoronic unless you are an arcane warrior. Play the demo again and take on 4 hurlocks just with melee and see how fast you get eaten (I did). Now imagine that they are not losers anymore - so they have their own talents to use against you, and melee is the last thing you will want to do with a standard mage. In this new system you will always be severly outnumbered (and that was just the first wave). Learning to run away is the first lesson you learn when you join the Circle.
Did they cut the threat rating from the game? I know threaten is still there, but is there any confirmation that there is a threat level? In the demo it seemed that half the enemy went for the mage or the warrior by proximity alone.
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