101 réponses à ce sujet

[Lantern]

Dear Bioware,

I have purchased every one of your RPG titles since 1998 and was very excited at the prosspect of playing a synergistic warrior/mage hybrid in your game Dragon Age: Origins. However, as DA: Origins progressed, I quickly realized that the class is not really designed to be such. Don’t get me wrong, the class is arguably the best tank in the game, but certain limitations prevent it from performing the way I think it should play (as a melee/spellcaster hybrid). The following are observations I have made regarding the Arcane Warrior specialization with around 77 hours of recorded in game play time on Hard difficulty.

Problems Summary



[*]Massive armor/Plate is currently the only way to reliably engage in melee effectively.



[*]Massive armor + Combat Magic Fatigue penalty prohibits Arcane Warrior from being a spell casting/melee hybrid and encourages melee tanking disproportionately more than spell casting.



[*]Too many spells require sheathed weapons to cast



[*]Not enough medium armor selections for Arcane Warriors



[*]Arcane Warrior lacks unique active abilities[/list]
Solutions Summary

• Add moderate defensive bonuses to Combat Magic and reduce Combat Magic Fatigue penalty
  
  
  
• Prohibit use of Massive and Heavy armor
  
  
  
• For each talent selected in Arcane Warrior specialization tree, make one school of magic able to be cast with weapons drawn
  
  
  
• Remove Shimmering Shield and add an active offensive melee ability (“Fade Strike”, see below)

The Combat Magic dynamic

Combat Magic
One uses Combat Magic when they are obviously entering combat. But this spell by itself has no damage mitigation. If we were to wear robes, cast combat magic, and enter into a fight, we risk being killed within 5 seconds of sustained attack by an enemy.
Considering our mage-class health pool and physical resistances, we do not have enough survivability (on Hard+) to live beyond a few slaps by the most moderate of enemies. Thus in order to even utilize our combat talents, we are more or less encouraged by the game mechanics to wear heavy/massive armor to play our combat orientated class talents and abilities with any degree of consistency in a melee capacity.

Casting time and buffs
Fights on insane and hard difficulties generally require efficient use of mana, spells, and abilities in order to overcome the odds. Another major barrier to the spellcaster/warrior hybrid ideal is that it generally takes several casts to prepare your arcane warrior for melee. You have to at least cast Combat Magic, but Arcane/Shimmering Shield is recommended and/or various other sustainables such as Miasma/Death Syphon/telekinetic weapons/fire weapon/Rock Armor, etc. When you consider the cool down on Combat Magic, the casting time of Combat Magic and all the other recommended sustainables, it can take precious time to switch from a casting role to an optimum combat role in a fight – time I feel makes the process largely not worth it. Add this to the fact that a majority of DD spells (cone of cold excluded) require weapons to be sheathed to cast, and you have a situation where switching from melee to casting and vice versa doesn’t really functionally work – you are further encouraged by game mechanics to choose a caster or melee role and stick with it for that fight. Either you go into the fight without combat magic and no sustainables so as to preserve your mana pool, or you cast combat magic/sustainables and enter the fight ready for combat.

Taken together
When you combine how the game encourages the use of Heavy or Massive armor in order for us to use our Arcane Warrior abilities effectively, the fact that many spells require weapons to be sheathed, that it generally takes several casts before an arcane warrior is prepared for battle, that combat magic + heavy armor virtually eliminates spell casting while in combat mode (and mostly out of it too), we see that the Arcane Warrior is pushed disproportionately towards a stratified melee role.

The way it should be and recommendations
In my opinion the Arcane Warrior should have greater flexibility between spell casting and melee roles both in and out of combat. Additionally it should have less of an emphasis on the tank role.

Combat Flexibility
In order to facilitate greater combat flexibility, I feel that the Arcane Warrior should be able to cast a school of magic with weapons drawn for each progressive talent of Arcane Warrior it takes. I.E. after specializing in Combat Magic, the Arcane Warrior can cast Creation spells with weapons drawn, after selecting Aura of Might, the Arcane Warrior can cast Spirit spells with weapons drawn, after specializing in Shimmering Shield, the Arcane Warrior can cast Entropy spells with weapons drawn, and after specializing in Fade Shroud, the Arcane Warrior can cast Primal spells with weapons drawn. Note that Entropy and Primal were selected as the last specializations because they are arguably the most powerful spells to be cast with weapons drawn.



[*]
Remove the ability to wear Heavy and Plate armor, boost Combat Magic to include defense/armor bonus
“The best” commonly accepted Arcane Warrior build currently involves some kind of fatigue reduced massive armor set. I.E. Warden Commander’s Set, Cailan’s Armor Set, and/or Wade’s Superior Dragonbone Plate. Yet with any of these armors combined with Combat Magic + Fade Shroud and/or Shimmering Shield, and/or Arcane Shield/Miasma/Glyph of Warding/Rock Armor, you have a tank that is far more effective than a Shield and Sword Warrior in the tanking role. I think this is more than a little ridiculous and totally against the concept of a spell caster/warrior hybrid. Rather, I think it would be much more appropriate to reducethe fatigue of Combat Magic to around 25% from 50%. Additionally, I would like to see Combat Magic grant an armor bonus (spellpower*.2 5, or ~7.5 armor @ 40 magic), physical resistance bonus (spellpower*.5, or ~15 physical resistance @ 40 magic), and defense bonus (spellpower*.65, or ~19.5 defense @ 40 magic) in addition to its current strength/attack bonuses. Including some defensive attributes into Combat Magic will somewhat compensate for the loss of Heavy/Massive armor in addition to reducing the amount of spell casting needed to get the Arcane Warrior into a combat ready mode (not absolutely essential to cast arcane shield/rock armor/shimmering shield/etc).

Include Arcane Warrior specific medium armors (ideally that look more “arcane” and less like a muddy football uniform from the early 20th century)
Dragon Age Origins currently has a woeful lack of medium armor choices. Include medium armor that has bonuses geared towards the arcane warrior: I.E. any combination of spellpower, combat mana/stamina regen, +physical resistance, fatigue reduction, +healing effects, +willpower/magic, +armor).





[*]

Remove Shimmering Shield and replace with an “active” combat orientated ability
After boosting Combat Magic, we can afford to remove Shimmering Shield and replace it with an ability that will add some excitement to the “auto-cane warrior” and prevent watching our hero mindlessly auto attacking enemies. I would suggest adding an offensive ability that also disrupts enemies to augment survivability. I would call it something like “Fade Strike” where the Arcane Warrior makes a charge up attack similar to that of “Slam” (Shale), if the hit connects, the target is drained of stamina/mana while the hero is drained of a proportional amount of mana, the target takes damage proportional to the stamina/mana lost that is in-line with “Killing Blow” (Shale), and a short duration/small area stun takes effect. This would give the Arcane Warrior a unique and relatively powerful attack to add to a sorely missing combat element of an otherwise fairly bland skill tree.

I think the changes highlighted above would go a long way in making the arcane warrior more in-line with a spellcasting/melee hybrid rather than the lumbering, massively armored, auto attacking tank it is encouraged to be by current game mechanics.  The changes I propose strike a balance between boosting and reducing the Arcane Warrior’s current abilities (notably armor), but I think give greater flexibility and style to the class.

Modifié par Lantern, 12 février 2010 - 07:54 .

[Critical_Error]

While I love the AW class, having played it twice, I dont feel that the problem is that they tank too well, but rather they cast too poorly. Sure, they can handle a beating more than a SnB warrior with equal gear, but one thing they cant match is the agro of a warrior. Honestly, Taunt is probably the most useful spell as it allows you to do anything you want to a whole group of enemies. For my AW's to do that to a group of enemies I need to seriously micro manage, and even then it is hard. I will say that this doesnt apply to single target threat as a Death Hex is amazing and super snappy agro. But in general, AW have more tank, but way less agro management.



The bigger problem is that CM has 50% fatigue. That is friggin huge. It means that you cant really cast spells without popping in and out. On top of that you have huge mana suckers that you really need like SS. Also, as you mentioned, most of the appeal of AW is that you dont have to remain confined to robes, but those armor sets that are more battle-mage like also have huge fatigue. Right now with CM up and some passives Im at around 80% fatigue. This basically means that I can blow my load once and Im done all fight magic wise. Sure I have BM, but at times it is too risky to use. Id want something done to allow more casting without going OOM so fast.



Should note that currently AWs are pretty focused on SS. This is a huge mana hog, but also a long CD. So you want to manage mana so that you never turn it off, because if you do then you lose sufficient defense to allow you to safely use BM, which in turn makes it so you dont have fuel for spells, which in turn makes you lose agro.

[Mabari Owns High Dragon]

I have also played through the class twice (Normal and Hard) and I found that you are correct on their spell casting. Being a mage, you normally don't raise dexterity and I miss alot of swings from that. What about some spells to make up for it? If your a mage you should technically be able to both cast and slash effectively. However, I see why Bioware put such a restriction on it. You could just stand there and blast the heck out of everything in sight while being a big walking shielded death bomb. However, only spells that overpower the Arcane Warrior should be limited I believe.



As for the armor, I don't see any problem with that. Sure the armor adds so much fatigue to your guy but isn't it your choice what armor you wear? If you wanted something light shouldn't you choose Waynes Drakeskin armor or similar? I do think the encumbrance from the armor is a little much though. I totaled the armor I'm wearing and it adds up to 70% yet it says 103% on my character page, weird.



Unique active abilities I agree with. I would like some that dealt more with melee damage performed by the mage. Shimmering shield and the second spell should be replaced.

[TBastian]

Actually, I think this would be the price of the AW's power. There is simply no other other mage specialization that could fare so well in an all out melee (or a solo), and no other specialization relies heavily on the sustained spells. There's already a nuker specialization, a healer specialization, and debilitator specialization. All the niches are practically filled.

What you are actually asking for is a fighter/mage hybrid. No longer a pure mage.

Modifié par TBastian, 12 février 2010 - 03:21 .

[Lantern]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Mabari Owns High Dragon: I understand why Bioware wanted to prevent a walking shielded death bomb. But that is exactly what it IS now. Properly specialized, the Arcane Warrior is a giant meat shield. That's exactly why I don't think it's appropriate for it to be able to wear Heavy and Massive armor. Instead I think it should have greater spell casting potential than it currently has now.

TBastian: Are you saying that it's appropriate for a *mage* base class to fill the role as tank given that other roles have already been filled? Given your logic it would seem Rogue's should also have a tanking specialization. I disagree, I feel that it breaks sensible game design to have a Mage tanking better than well... a tank. It just seems redundant. What I *do* think is needed is a mage that can also fight reasonably well in melee without completely sacrificing its ability to be a mage.

Modifié par Lantern, 12 février 2010 - 03:37 .

[TBastian]

TBastian: Given your logic, are you saying that it's appropriate for a *mage* base class to fill the role as tank? Given your logic it would seem Rogue's should also have a tanking specialization. I disagree, I feel that it breaks sensible game design to have a Mage tanking better than well... a tank. It just seems redundant. What I *do* think is needed is a mage that can also fight reasonably well in melee without completely sacrificing its ability to be a mage.

Do not misunderstand my logic. I am saying that a mage who can tank is the best candidate for using the sustained spells. Or would you rather have your healer carry them? Your nuker? Your debilitator, so he's constantly using Blood Magic while attracting all the aggro in the area at the same time?

Edit: 
And what you are indeed asking for is a fighter/mage hybrid. No longer a pure mage. I'm not saying what you're asking for is wrong (a fighter-mage hybrid), I'm saying you're asking for the wrong thing (turning the AW into one).

Modifié par TBastian, 12 février 2010 - 03:51 .

[Zecele]

AW's are multi-ability dependent. I borked my first one bad by just going straight spelllpower and equipping massive armor but my second one I put my willpower up to a base of 30 and went with wade's dragonscale instead of bone. Man what a difference. I run rock armor, arcane shield, miasma, and tele weapons and still have a real decent mana pool at level 11. The dragonscale armor makes a big difference with fatigue.

Haste will probably wipe me out when I add that one to the mix so I might need to weigh out that vs miasma.

AW's really need some melee abilities though.  Like you said "auto-cane" warrior .

Modifié par Zecele, 12 février 2010 - 03:02 .

[Matheau]

The class not working the way you expect it to work does not mean it is broken. Arcane Warrior seems intentionally designed to force you to make trade-offs. Heavy sustained spell usage just happens to be the easiest way to build it, but you could make it just as casting oriented as any mage at the expense of melee abilities.

I mean, the way you describe it makes me think of the D&D Fighter/Wizard which tends to be horribly, horribly broken, especially if the game has the prestige class for it. Once you get to higher levels, you usually end up being better at fighting than actual Fighters as long as you put the buffs up and still have almost as many spells as a Wizard on top of it. Arcane Warrior seems to avoid this issue by forcing you to make a choice.

[Lantern]

Matheau wrote...

I mean, the way you describe it makes me think of the D&D Fighter/Wizard which tends to be horribly, horribly broken, especially if the game has the prestige class for it. Once you get to higher levels, you usually end up being better at fighting than actual Fighters as long as you put the buffs up and still have almost as many spells as a Wizard on top of it. Arcane Warrior seems to avoid this issue by forcing you to make a choice.

Rather than comparing it to another game entirely, look at the suggestions I have made regarding the class and then decide if those changes would make it "broken". Personally I think what I proposed is perfectly balanced.

You mention that there is a choice. There isn't really. Yes you can play a "mage role" as an Arcane Warrior. But in doing so, you don't effectivly use ANY Arcane Warrior abilities - in essence you are just a generic mage. In order to actually use the Arcane Warrior talent specializations, you really need heavy or massive armor. And I find that restricting in addition to being totally opposed to a hybrid spell caster dynamic (which is what the arcane warrior should be imo). 

[Lantern]

TBastian wrote...

TBastian: Given your logic, are you saying that it's appropriate for a *mage* base class to fill the role as tank? Given your logic it would seem Rogue's should also have a tanking specialization. I disagree, I feel that it breaks sensible game design to have a Mage tanking better than well... a tank. It just seems redundant. What I *do* think is needed is a mage that can also fight reasonably well in melee without completely sacrificing its ability to be a mage.

Do not misunderstand my logic. I am saying that a mage who can tank is the best candidate for using the sustained spells. Or would you rather have your healer carry them? Your nuker? Your debilitator, so he's constantly using Blood Magic while attracting all the aggro in the area at the same time?

Edit: 
And what you are indeed asking for is a fighter/mage hybrid. No longer a pure mage. I'm not saying what you're asking for is wrong (a fighter-mage hybrid), I'm saying you're asking for the wrong thing (turning the AW into one).

Do we have to have a class that uses sustained spells exclusivly? Is this necessary to the game dynamic? I think it would be better to allow the Arcane Warrior to use sustained spells and other spells depending on what it wants to emphasize. Currently, sustained spells are THE way to go - I would like more options. Regardless, even with the changes to the class that I proposed, the Arcane Warrior would still benefit the most from sustained spells - so how does this change anything?

[Critical_Error]

I think SS should be nerfed, but made a passive part of Combat Magic. Make it something that scales rather than auto-caps all your defense stats. As of now, I think SS is necessary. Id like to make it still necessary, but less god-like. And the main problem with SS imo is that you cant risk dropping it by casting spells, so you need to cast less to ensure survival.

[dtsazza]

The thing is, you clearly need to make some sacrifices in order to get the combat boosts.  That's undeniable, if you could cast just as well as a vanilla mage while being able to fight like a Fighter, that would be beyond overpowered.

Currently the balancing aspect is fatigue, and from my perspective this is entirely reasonable.  The thing is, you get the ability to fight pretty well (with your magic ability determining damage and indirectly chance to hit, you can lay the pain down, and everyone knows about the quality of the tank).  And you're right that this hampers spellcasting, but come on; firstly, of course it should since it's got to come at the cost of something.  Secondly, all your spellcasting problems are via temporary aspects you can choose to remove.  Take off that massive plate, turn off Combat Magic and the handful of sustainables and voila, you're still just as effective at pure spellcasting as any other mage.

Hence you get massive utility in that you can cast spells like a classic mage in the encounters where that matters; you can do great mana-independent damage and tanking where that matters, or anywhere in between the two (wear lighter armour and run less sustainables).  The crux of your complaints seems to be that "when I want to switch between the two by putting up my sustainables, it takes me several seconds to turn them all on!"
Well, excuse me if I don't share your opinion that you should be able to act just as well as a fighter and a mage at any given instant with no downsides.

Let me just reiterate that everything that makes your spellcasting worse, you do to yourself in order to make yourself better at combat.  Don't expect to cast spells with abandon while having massive armour, defence and resistances, that would be incredibly broken.  The AW is exceptionally powerful as it is, your proposal would basically remove all its downsides.  Nice... 

Modifié par dtsazza, 12 février 2010 - 10:48 .

[IanPolaris]

Let me just reiterate that everything that makes your spellcasting worse, you do to yourself in order to make yourself better at combat.  Don't expect to cast spells with abandon while having massive armour, defence and resistances, that would be incredibly broken.  The AW is exceptionally powerful as it is, your proposal would basically remove all its downsides.  Nice... 

This is true and your point is well taken.  However, the OP makes a good point too which is why I don't care for the AW/BM despite how powerful it is.  The fact is that when you stick these buffs up, you are no longer a mage.  Instead, you are a warrior that hits hardeder and is harder to hit than a conventional warror but with none of the special tricks that a warrior gets.  Furthermore, while you are indeed hard to hit, you have to use hit points to cast spells which can be a chancy proposition at times.  You also have no way to negate status effects and don't have the superhigh DPS to make up for it (unlike the DPS warrior or rogue).

While it is true that you can "turn this off", that is easier said than done in many cases.  Turning off your combat buffs means you aren't much sturdier than a normal mage (even in heavy armor which also cuts down on your mana) and that eliminates most of the advantage right there of being an arcane warrior....and the OP is right.  Unless you're wearing heavy and/or massive armor as an AW, then you shouldn't be wearing armor at all (Reaper's Robes are as good armorwise as almost any set of medium or lighter armor and gives a Con boost AND doesn't cost fatigue).  If you are wearing reapers robes, when why not go all the way and be a BM/SH stand-alone caster?  [It takes too damn long to switch modes when is said and done especially in the heat of combat.]

-Polaris

P.S.   I guess to close, when talking about AWs, I ask this:  If you want to be a melee based AW, why aren't you playing a warrior instead? [Especially since you can make a warrior completely immune from magic which you can't quite do with any mage]

[Critical_Error]

I think AW should be sturdier than a warrior, but much harder to manage agro. Where a warrior can taunt ftw, a mage has to micro. But where a warrior has to stack tons of items, a mage can use spells to boost effectiveness.



The difference between warrior and mage is not that they want the same abilities. I personally play AW tank because I like the concept of being a tank, but being able to have the variety of spells a mage has. I dont play an offense based mage, but I play a heavly defense; most of my spells are for living and holding monsters off my allies and onto myself. Non AW mages (and some AW mages) focus on the opposite, of heavy offense. It is just my opinion that to get the physical aspects which distinguish the AW, the mage taxes too much of the magic aspect.



After reading this thread and thinking about it, I think a nice change would be to have CM not give a massive fatigue penalty, but rather just have it have a -Damage component. That way you can still fling all your spells, but they will hit for less. Allowing you to offset lower magic damage, by providing higher physical aspects.



Also, to the perosn saying AW would be overpowered...it is a single player game. Godmode is totally tolerable since it does not affect other players. Some players will play the godmode if they like, others will play the worst of the worst for the challenge.

[beancounter501]

I started off playing my current character as a Mage/Fighter Hybrid. But I have switched into a more armored caster role. Fact is you will never be as good at melee as a pure warrior. Sure you can tank well, but a SS will do it better. Same with melee DPS, a dual weld character will be well ahead of your AW. Not only that, but it is dreadfully boring to play. Auto-attack = boring! You can never match a dual weld warrior with perfect striking. Period.

The thing that makes AW(and shapeshifting) completely irrevalant is the limitless mana potions. Why pull out your sword when you can spam cones for 100+ dmg against two/three targets? Seriously, if you want to melee then role a warrior. Otherwise, drink a mana potion and keep pumping out spells.  That is what mages do! 

Edit: to the OP.  Just like any other class in this game, fatigue is the active ability killer.  Forget the heavy/massive armor.  Wear medium/light armor and let your tank draw aggro.

Modifié par beancounter501, 13 février 2010 - 03:40 .

[shree420]

I think a good point that the OP raises is that the AW is built too much on sustainables to make him survive, and that there aren't any magical abilities that specifically help him deal damage. Basically, your AW is channeling magical powers into survivability period. Hence the reliance on sustainables, and the auto-attacking. There's no strategy involved in playing the AW in 'melee mode'.

Which is why it might be better to reduce the survivability angle and improve the damage effects angle. More active abilities, more AW-specific spells.

Give the AW some touch spells like the equivalent of Death Touch/Harm in D&D, which can inflict serious damage, but need you to put your less sturdy AW in harm's way. These could be the perfect Arcane Warrior actives. Maybe add an aura ability etc.

Basically, it's like the D&D Cleric, with the ability to wear some armor and with more survivability, but not enough direct damage dealing and survivability to supersede vanilla warriors. The magical nature of the AW is supposed to be magical enhancement and abilities, not a simple boost to strength and survivability.

dtsazza:

you make good points about there being a balance; but as the OP points out, it's the wrong kind of balance that's struck at present. You can be a walking hulk OR powerful caster, but you must make that decision pre-battle. I think the answer is to remove this extreme binary nature of the build, make it more of an on-the-fly choice. No longer should the AW be near-invincible in Combat Magic with SS, but neither should he lack for spellcasting power(albeit lesser than plain mage) and some actives to deal damage.

Modifié par shree420, 13 février 2010 - 07:21 .

[Spartansfan8888]

I think it would be cool if Arcane Warriors had their own special weapons tree/skills where they used a mage staff like a quarterstaff... it would give them offensive skills and a uniqueness to the class.

[TBastian]

Do we have to have a class that uses sustained spells exclusivly? Is this necessary to the game dynamic? I think it would be better to allow the Arcane Warrior to use sustained spells and other spells depending on what it wants to emphasize. Currently, sustained spells are THE way to go - I would like more options. Regardless, even with the changes to the class that I proposed, the Arcane Warrior would still benefit the most from sustained spells - so how does this change anything?

Because this is what makes it different from the other mage-that-can-fight specialization: the Shapeshifter, who loses all its sustained abilities when it changes forms, forcing it to rely more on active spells. You might want to visit the strategy and tactics section because there have been some very interesting discoveries recently made about the Shapeshifter.

Trying to turn the AW into a fighter-mage won't work. Who's to say it shouldn't be a Warrior specialization who has access to mage specializations then? And if the developers do decide to incorporate fighter-mages, why shouldn't we have other classes like rogue-mages? Why should the other specializations remain to function as they are?
There is a difference between the AW, who can choose to be a tanker or a mage (and never both at once), and a "real" fighter-mage. What is actually being asked for is that a bridge be made between classes, that the entire class system be changed. Every specialization that attempts to do this so far has been heavily restricted - Templars have to deal with having very low stamina, Rangers' pets eats up almost all of its stamina reserves when active, Shapeshifters lose the sustained spells and AW's are discourage from spamming active spells. Perhapsmulit-classes should be incorporated in something like DA:O 2 or the expansion, but not now. Doing so would mean rebalancing/restructuring all the other classes and specializations.

Modifié par TBastian, 13 février 2010 - 10:00 .

[beancounter501]

I personally think you can roll a gish just fine as is. I also think everyone is really overratting the sustains, The AW really only needs one sustain to be decent in melee - Combat Magic. Everything else is just nice to have. Rock Armor, Arcane Armor, Miasma, Haste, Flame/Frost/Tele Weapons, Shimering Shield are good. But they are not that good. Odds are your regular spells such as Mass Paralyze or Sleep will have more impact on the battle outcome.



Combat Magic hurts your spell casting abilitiy bad enough, but all the other sustains just destroy it. If you are only relying on Combat Magic you can easily switch in and out of melee/spell caster mode. Combat Magic only has a ten second cool down.



I see no problem with opening with a CoC, Shock Cone, Crushing Prison, Sleep, Walking Nightmare and then activate Combat Magic. Then after 5 or 6 melee attacks turn off Combat Magic and spam 4 or five more spells. The developers clearly did not intend for you too cast many spells with Combat Magic active. The notes in the spell script even indicate that the original design had Combat Magic disable spell casting.



And I would have to say that if they took away the massive fatigue penality of Combat Magic the AW would be just too powerful. Might as well open the console and type "KILL".

[mosspit]

Hmm for sustainables it really depends.eg rock armour (coupled with massive armour) is REALLY effective early to mid game. However by the third treaty, it just does not have the same impact as enemies start getting better arm pen and dmg. The only 2 I kept on 24/7s are rock and arcane. Thats only a 10% fatigue increase. An AW just need to avoid spellcast with combat magic on. Towards the end, it doesnt matter. AW shd have sufficient mana and regen to spellcast with CM on.

I actually feel that giving an AW some melee talents like 2handed sweep will be nice. Auto-atk can be pretty boring.

[Macadami]

I'm not sure how you guys are playing your AW's but the couple i've made cast just fine. They are the most overpowered class in the game because they can do both very effectively. I rarely play with all the sustainables on, generally casting alone kills most creatures and I switch to melee to finish them up.



Also i don't stack mine up with massive armor, so maybe that helps a bit on fatigue.

[beancounter501]

Macadami wrote...

I'm not sure how you guys are playing your AW's but the couple i've made cast just fine. They are the most overpowered class in the game because they can do both very effectively. I rarely play with all the sustainables on, generally casting alone kills most creatures and I switch to melee to finish them up.

Also i don't stack mine up with massive armor, so maybe that helps a bit on fatigue.

Exactly, my point.  The sustains with the huge upkeep just crush your spell casting.  Leave them off and drop the massive armor.  Unless you want to be an auto attack bot.  Funny enough, that is the exact same thing I did with my two hand warrior.  And the more I play an AW the more I realize that you do not need the sustains.  Sustains/Massive Armor sucks for active ability classes like a 2 hand warrior/mage.  They are great for a dual weld or SS warrior.

[GeorgeZip]

Some of your points are well taken but I think your playstyle doesn't make best use of the AW.



Massive Armor is absolutely not necessary to melee tough opponents. Heavy Dragon armor is more than enough with Shimmering Shield. Ogres can pick you up and chew on you and you take very little damage. Medium would probably be fine but haven't tried it yet. Before Wade's quest yeah, the choice in armor is pretty limited.



Also I wouldn't recommend trying to activate all your AW skills and sustained ablities at the start of the battle. Activate them before combat, at least the important ones like combat magic and shimmering shield. You're overall mana pool might be at 50 percent but you if you're making an AW, spend more points in willpower so the mana pool is larger.



Putting away the sword to cast is a little annoying but it's a fair trade-off for the amount of toughness an AW has over a regular mage.

[Inquisitor Recon]

This is a shame. I was considering making my mage an Arcane Warrior but the more I read about it the more it looks like it would hinder rather than help my mage.

[BewareTheDrow]

Completely agree with the OP's points. Arcane Warriors strike me as far too little skirmish warrior/mage hybrid and far too much magical brick wall of nightmare soloing gameshark. Playing a 'gish' one expects to be a little on the squishy side, as a mage in melee that makes sense.