I've been playing on Hard for the better part of the last two days, and I wanted to make some observations after a particularly frustrating battle. I started out on Nightmare, with a 2h warrior, although I swiftly moved to Hard after a few battles. The battles were winnable and I really prefer friendly fire, but the experience was more frustrating than enjoyable. Overall, I've been enjoying the combat so far, but I'm having some issues with several of the different game mechanics.
Caveat for everything I am about to write: none of this is definitive. I am willing--eager even--to be convinced that I am doing something wrong tactically.
Right now, the optimum party for my 2h warrior character seems to be 2 mages and a rogue. Varric's death from afar abilities occassionally allow him to substitute as a mage. If I deviate from this too much, I'm not able to do enough damage or crowd control to consistently win battles.
Recently, a good 50% of my battles end up with one of my characters doing the Benny Hill routine around the room as another character launches attacks at range. I'm not big on this kind of action. It's not very cinematic. Not that everything has to look like a movie. In the promo videos, Hawke trades concussive blows with a monstrous Qunari. They battle back and forth, gaining and losing ground until Hawke finally reaches deep with in himself and uses magic to tear the Qunari apart. If they had promo-ed a video of a Qunari chasing Hawke around and around a table while a dwarf on the balcony threw rocks at them, I suspect that sales figures would have been impacted. I could just stop using this tactic--but I think my win-loss ratio would be badly affected.
I am also finding warriors to be of increasingly marginal utility. Let me describe a typical battle of mine and see if I can explain this in context.
In the inital fight, everything works well. They rush in, toss the enemy around and generally keep them off of the rogues and mages. My 2h warrior goes through the standard-issue enemies like a wolverine in a sushi bar. The rogues and mages can deal with any stragglers, and focus on the lieutenants one-by-one. Okay, the first wave is done. Now, about 6-12 enemies drop from the ceiling, looking very much like the ninjas from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They are dispersed throughout the room. The warrior(s) can generally keep the initial group company while the rogue/mage crowd deals with the newcomers, including at least one boss/elite level enemy who is not focused on beating the crap out of the guy in the armor. But by the end of this battle, I'm tapped. The warrior(s) are low on health, heals and healing potions are all recycling and the enemies are tough enough that warrior abilities aren't going to have much of an impact. At this point, a bunch of enemies come back from their smoke break. The next few moments are largely about keeping the right people alive. If I can do in this last wave without losing my damage dealers, I can generally kill off the remaining boss and cohort by running in and out of doors in a long hallway as contemporary pop/rock music plays. Use of a great dane and/or the Harlem Globetrotters is optional.
After the inital wave, my warriors don't seem to draw much attention. Taunt has a large stamina cost/recharge time, and I find that it diverts the enemies attention for the length of approximately one (1) attack from allies. I can have them go around and attack different stray enemies, but this seems to lose attention at the same rate that it attracts it. That's fine, I don't want Dragon Age to have MMORPG conventinos, but my issue is that on their own, warriors can't kill anything. Yes, they can do in a normal enemy pretty swiftly. But I'm at the point where normal enemies are increasingly rare, and the lieutenant caliber enemies are far more common. Based on my experience, warriors can take one, maybe two of these enemies head to head. That's with the use of abilities. Normal warrior attacks are so ineffectual that you literally cannot tell that they are doing any damage unless you watch the meter very very closely. This is the exact opposite of the enemy. Their melee attacks are usually so dangerous that I don't like having any class next to them for any period of time. On Hard difficulty, I'm finding it increasingly hard to justify sticking a second warrior in that slot. I can make up the loss in durability through tactics and crowd control. I can't make up for the loss in damage. If they were at least survivable, it would be one thing, but even Avaline, who has been built for durability, just cannot stand up to an elite enemy (much less a boss) for a moderate period of time. So if they can't hold attention, can't absorb damage and can't do any damage, what are they good for?
This inability to damage anything makes a lot of abilities of
questionable utility even more questionable. It's nice that I can
increase my damage by 10% for ten seconds. Maybe with enough skill
points I could manage an 80 or even 100% increase. That would be cool,
but 2 times slightly more than zero is still only slightly more than
zero.
There's also something odd going on with melee in general. Ranged damage is far more effective. This is partly because you don't have to run to your next target, but I contend that there's a noticeable difference beyond this. Mage staffs are supposed to do approximately the same amount of damage as two-handed swords going by the numbers in the inventory. (I can't access the game right now, so I may be a little off on this.) I'd estimate that they're at least twice as effective, and probably something along the lines of 4-5 times as effective, even accounting for ease of use in ranged weapons, melee stuns and movement. If this were just Varris, I'd chalk it up to critical hits, but Isabella's standard attacks seem to be relatively puny as well.
It's possible that I've had bad luck with equipment. I certainly can't seem to pick up a weapon that isn't a giant battle-axe. I decided not to use the pre-order/dlc equipment at the start because...well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Also, I didn't like how most of the dlc stuff looked.
The emergency moves (stonewall, evade, mind blast) don't really do much for me. Stonewall is nice for the (literally) 5 seconds that it is in effect. I can at least get a heal in during that period. Evade moves the battle 12 feet to the rear. The enemies go, "Hey that was a pretty sweet move, but I'm going to keep stabbing you now." Mind blast has stunned about one enemy in the many times that I have tried it. Maybe it's a problem with my mind.
If enemy assassins/rogues have any less health than enemy warriors, the difference is eluding me. I suspect that all the time they spend stealthed means that any difference in hitpoints is mitigated.
The Lance Arrow ability seems flawed. It's supposed to hit multiple targets, but if a target isn't on a direct point-to-point line with Varris and the initial target, it doesn't seem like it gets hit. It doesn't seem like the initial target gets hit sometimes to be honest.
I've noticed that on occasion, a very tough enemy dies suddenly and unexpectedly. I don't think this is some kind of multiplier taking effect on a stun, as it's usually in one of my opening scythe moves. Is it a bug? Is it poor understanding of tactics on my part? Hard to say. I find it hard to believe that Bioware designed the system so that named bosses can be one/two-shotted, even under optimal conditions.
I think I've got a few more observations rattling around in my head, but those are the big ones. I might add more later.
Modifié par murgotroid, 10 mars 2011 - 12:26 .
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