Mages are so misused in KoA... (kind of a long one)

[Golden Squidward]

A realization struck me today while running some tests on a few different builds; particularly, that mages are sort of poorly utilized in KoA.

Hear me out.

Let me start off by saying I am not stating that mages are not powerful. They're probably the most powerful builds in the game. That I'm not contesting. Rather, instead, mages seem to be damaged by the fact their focus is specifically on elemental damage, unlike Might and Finesse builds, which focus on melee/ranged attacks respectively. Melee and ranged are two of the three damage types; the third being magic.

So, why do I think this hurts Sorcery builds? Primarily because it strictly limits sorcery builds to the three elemental damage types; fire, ice, and lightning. As cool as elemental damage is, these damage types are also super-limited to the Sorcery tree, with few exceptions, in ways that might and finesse builds don't necesserily suffer.

I ran some tests, just to see something, using a character wielding a Chaos Staff enchanted to deal fire damage. I ran a few tests, each one against the same exact group of enemies near a specific location, utilizing the same exact Chaos Staff.

To start, one of the tests I ran involved a character with no talent investments whatsoever.
This character's damage output on the first strike - 199.

I ran tests first to compare an Archmage (with all the bells and whistles) and a Warlord (who is not built to use staves).

Archmage with the staff mastery, +fire elemental damage boosting talents.
Damage output of first strike - 456

Warlord without the staff mastery, no fire elemental damage boosting talents.
Damage output of first strike - 399

Now, this is kind of weird. With all the elemental buffs Archmage is receiving, I feel like it should be way outdamaging the Warlord and while it definitely does do more damage, it's only 57 more damage. This seems awfully close considering the Warlord is not built to use staves, though the obvious explanation is that this is likely because staves qualify as a melee weapon, which might destinies benefit from. Useful information for a battlemage build perhaps.

Bearing this in mind, I ran a test on a Sorcery build without any staff buffs. Because I was trying to avoid unlocking any elemental damage buffs to avoid corrupting the results, I couldn't upgrade it to an Archmage, losing out on a 5% damage buff. I'm no expert at math, so I don't know how exactly that effects this build, but I assume that at most it means it loses out on around 15 points of damage? In any case, here was the result.

Sorcerer with no staff mastery, no elemental damage buffs.
Damage output of first strike - 288

So, a Sorcerer who is not specced into staff mastery or elemental damage boosts deals significantly less damage with a staff than a Warlord who is also missing those same buffs. This reinforces the "melee weapon" concept for staves, so it's not unexpected that it be weaker, but what's surprising is that it's so much weaker that the sorcerer's damage with a staff is weaker than the warlord's.

So, I ran one more test on a warlord, with only the staff mastery (but no elemental buffs).
Damage output of the first strike - 498.

So, let's compare, with the strongest damage output to the weakest.

Warlord (mastery, no buffs) - Damage of first strike = 498
Archmage (mastery, buffs) - Damage of first strike = 456
Warlord (no mastery, no buffs) - Damage of first strike = 399
Sorcerer (no mastery, no buffs) - Damage of first strike = 288
No Destiny (no mastery, no buffs) - Damage of first strike = 199

So, what's the take-away? Simply put, a Warlord with no mastery in staves is almost as effective as an Archmage who is so-skilled and has all elemental buffs at their use - the Warlord excels beyond the Archmage at these weapons' use if they possess just staff mastery with none of the buffs.

I can only assume that the finesse builds gain similar (if not the same) benefits towards the use of sceptres.

So, what is the take-away here?

Simply put, a sorcery playstyle is a bit more limited than might and finesse. With might builds, you can expect your melee weapons to get some kind of buff, regardless to what kind of melee weapon you're using. With finesse builds, your ranged weapons typically see some kind of boost in power, and your crit damage typically goes up for eveyrthing. With sorcery builds, you see boosts in elemental power - that only benefit spells from the sorcery tree. You also do more damage with elemental weapons, but the damage from those weapons is usually outclassed by either of the other two build archetypes.

Now, if you're playing a pure sorcerer, I suppose that's not much of a hangup, as you're getting that sweet DPS from striking fulls with lightning and dropping meteors on everyone. But what if you want to dip into other talent trees?

Having done some testing on an Archmage who can use both Quake and Shadow Flare (both upgraded to deal extra damage) I can tell you.... yeah, unless you're trying to challenge yourself, you'll probably want to stick to your elemental spells.

Sorcery, then, becomes an extremely specialized sort of master, able to only excel at damage from elemental spells, few of which exist outside of the Sorcery talent tree (might need to run tests on the ice mines later). While Might and Finesse can dip outside of their talent pools and expect decent, if not amazing results, a Sorcerer cannot expect the same benefits from magic abilities from other talent pools.

I find this to be kind of sad, because I feel like the sorcery builds would have been considerably more interesting if they focused on magic damage, rather than simply elemental damage; sure, your staves, chakrams, and wands wouldn't be hitting quite so hard, but your spells could potentially be doing more damage, and that damage could be spread out between different talent pools, allowing you to use abilities like Quake and Shadow Flare with much of the same power and might you can expect from Tempest and Mark of Flame.

This, in turn, somewhat hinders sorcery hybrid builds, who can't really benefit from the spells in the other talent trees, even though those talent trees can still see plenty of benefit from arcane weaponry, which seems to be the major focus for such builds, which may not even be a great trade-off considering that a straight of Warlord can probably do more damage with arcane weapons by just having their respective weapon mastery than any hybrid build can accomplish with that plus the elemental damage boosting talents.

Really, sorcery should have probably placed more emphasis on magic damage, rather than elemental damage; it would have made them more versatile as a class, and allowed them to draw more benefit from spells from other talent trees, similar to how might builds can benefit heavily from non-might-based melee weapons. I'd have to run tests to see if finesse builds gain the same benefit from the wand. Might throw that in as an edit later.

I hope you enjoyed the read and found it educational, in so far as a guy with too much free time ranting about a 10+ year old game can be considered "educational."

[no1schmo]

Eh, again, if you really look at it, what would this change? Ice mines are already affected, while lunge, harpoon, and smoke bomb, are all not really meant to be damage dealers. Shadow Flare is only slightly more of a damage dealer, it's more for stagger and causing bleed. Quake is the only move that isn't top-level that exists specifically to do direct damage that would really be more useful in a hybrid class. I don't count the DLC because you can't say the original dev team made a mistake just because an entirely new company added new things. Your idea is probably a good idea to consider in the sequel that will likely never be made (although, hey, Dragon's Dogma 2 is in development, so you never know), I just don't think it would really change hardly anything enough right now to really offer "new ways to play." Unless you made the damage boosts just broken, I guess, and smoke bomb becomes more like a grenade.

I personally think a mage doing more damage throwing a harpoon or smoke bomb is as silly as a fighter doing just as much damage as a mage with a magic staff. But that is subjective, of course.

And for the record, I never claimed you said mages were under-powered; I quoted you as saying mages are "poorly utilized", which you said verbatim in your opening post. I don't really disagree with your general idea, in theory, but I also feel like it's like saying a car is "poorly designed" because the door handle is stupid.

[Golden Squidward]

And yet you use mana to throw those spears and smoke bombs. Weird, right? You use mana to use those abilities, they are enhanced by items and consumables that increase "magic" damage, armor and weapons that increase "magic" damage tend to do so through components that follow magic-themed naming conventions...

Truth is, it's entirely fair to assume that the Devs were just lazy and didn't bother differentiating between magic abilities and physical abilities.

And yet, the Warrior owns *ALL* "melee" damage, and the Ranger owns *ALL* ranged damage - in both cases, regardless of rather or not it would make sense for them to own said damage. Mages are the odd duck out, as they do not own all magic damage.

You can argue it's a question of semantics, and yet it's semantics which selectively chooses to restrict only *one* of the three playstyles into an extremely narrow path.

Quake does not benefit from melee damage increases; I know, I've tested it (both a Warlord and an Archmage I tested with the ability with did 146 damage on the first hit. In both cases, only the potion increased its damage up to 255).

If they were going to restrict mages in such a way, why not restrict other classes similarly? Warriors do increased physical damage instead of melee damage, while Rogues do increased piecing/poison damage instead of ranged damage? (Rogues already do do increased piercing damage, but they could be made to do *more* piercing damage at the cost of losing the damage dealt by ranged weapons).

I suspect because they wanted the classes to have *some* synergy with each other.

In the case of mages, they also wanted synergy - but they focused it entirely buffing the powers of elemental weapons. Weapons which, as a spell caster, you'll not likely use very often. Meanwhile, a Warrior and Rogue character who wants to dip into Sorcery can spice up their playstyle a good bit.

Your comment about raining down meteors made it sound like you were saying I was complaining about the mage not being strong enough. Doesn't help that I find it annoying that once you're an archmage that you really have no reason (other than personal challenge) to ever use any spell other than Meteor or Tempest again (unless you botched the use of Tempest between Meteor recharge times and accidentally threw a Shock Bolt instead and have to resort to casting Elemental Wrath or the ice spell to fill the time until one of the two spells recharge).

[Hex: Depression]

This all seems reasonable to me - considering how fast Sorcery builds can output various attacks, the modular way they can use them, how wide the AOE is - they would just be completely overpowered compared to the other two trees if they also did similar or more damage.

Remember that with wands, not only do you have plenty of positioning options in how you fight since your spells and one of your main weapons can be ranged, but nearly everything is AOE and on top of that, induce status effects. Almost every attack form available to the sorcery tree can cause enemies to be slowed/panicked/stunned and that is the real main advantage. They can nuke entire fields, push off enemies that have completely surrounded them effortlessly, and blink out of the way when all else fails. They also get a minion that is fantastic at drawing aggro.

I would trade minor amounts of damage for extreme battlefield control any day, seems pretty powerful to me. If you account for the AOE, you'll probably find that the mages will greatly outstrip everyone else in terms of damage against groups of enemies, which is pretty classic as far as RPG magic is concerned - wizards have decent damage output for 1 on 1 but excel at cleaning up large groups.

[no1schmo]

But again man, what restriction? That they don't do a tiny bit more damage with skills that already do very little damage? Like, I don't really get it. All you're saying is that there's some internal logic break, and I agree with you. But what you're suggesting wouldn't really do anything for mages alone, and would only give slight boosts to hybrid classes. It's not going to change the usefulness of certain abilities except MAYBE Quake, it's not going to lead to new playstyles or tactics, it would just make lunge and smoke bomb and harpoon do .2% of an enemy's life bar instead of .1% or whatever. Yay.

[Golden Squidward]

Originalmente postado por Capitalist Nightmare:

This all seems reasonable to me - considering how fast Sorcery builds can output various attacks, the modular way they can use them, how wide the AOE is - they would just be completely overpowered compared to the other two trees if they also did similar or more damage.

Warriors can use any melee weapon from Finesse and Sorcery trees with close to the same level of effectiveness as someone specializing in those trees do *before* they start triggering a bunch of their buffs. The same is true for Rogues, who can use envenomed edge and blade honing on any bladed weapon, which allows them to buff the strength of longswords, greatswords, and chakrams.

I do not see how making a mage do more damage with non-sorcery spells would make them anymore OP than they already are, especially given the concept of replacing "elemental damage" with "magic damage" would subsequently weaken their damage from weapons in exchange for empowering damage with spells. The only spells that would be made stronger that sorcerers normally get access to would be the Faer Gorta, the shield orbs, and the Echoes of Fate.

Originalmente postado por Capitalist Nightmare:

Remember that with wands, not only do you have plenty of positioning options in how you fight since your spells and one of your main weapons can be ranged, but nearly everything is AOE and on top of that, induce status effects. Almost every attack form available to the sorcery tree can cause enemies to be slowed/panicked/stunned and that is the real main advantage.

The thing is, you're defending the mechanics I'm criticizing with mechanics derived from the ones I am criticizing. I am criticizing sorcerer builds for being entirely focused on elemental damage, and you're defending it by saying "well, they also do elemental debuffs." You're not so much arguing against my point, as you are making something that is already extremely limiting sound even more limited than it already did.

Originalmente postado por Capitalist Nightmare:

They can nuke entire fields, push off enemies that have completely surrounded them effortlessly, and blink out of the way when all else fails. They also get a minion that is fantastic at drawing aggro.

That's not really arguing against my point. Again, you're just making it sound more and more boring than I already thought it was.

Originalmente postado por Capitalist Nightmare:

I would trade minor amounts of damage for extreme battlefield control any day, seems pretty powerful to me. If you account for the AOE, you'll probably find that the mages will greatly outstrip everyone else in terms of damage against groups of enemies, which is pretty classic as far as RPG magic is concerned - wizards have decent damage output for 1 on 1 but excel at cleaning up large groups.

I don't think you understand my criticism. You're not trading "minor amounts of damage" - mages are overpowered. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

My criticism is that they are extremely bland and monotonous and, unlike the Fighters who own melee combat, and the Rangers who own ranged combat, they do not have ownership of magic combat, and instead are delegated to elemental damage, which means that unless you're focusing on a weapons build, you have absolutely *NO* reason to spec into any skills or abilities outside of the Sorcery tree (except for maybe the skill that increases elemental defense in the Might tree).

It doesn't help I also find the "fire/ice/lightning" limited mages to be rather boring to begin with. Mages are far more interesting to play when they can do so much more than that. Problem is, until they make a sequel, I don't see that happening, and even then, THQ can be hit-and-miss when it comes to things like this.

[Golden Squidward]

Originalmente postado por no1schmo:

But again man, what restriction? That they don't do a tiny bit more damage with skills that already do very little damage? Like, I don't really get it. All you're saying is that there's some internal logic break, and I agree with you. But what you're suggesting wouldn't really do anything for mages alone, and would only give slight boosts to hybrid classes. It's not going to change the usefulness of certain abilities except MAYBE Quake, it's not going to lead to new playstyles or tactics, it would just make lunge and smoke bomb and harpoon do .2% of an enemy's life bar instead of .1% or whatever. Yay.

You're really needlessly hung up on the Harpoon. No one cares about the Harpoon. This isn't about the Harpoon.

The restriction is that if you're going for a spellcasting build, you've got no incentive to go outside of the Sorcery tree. If you're a melee or range build, you have plenty of incentive to spread around.

Mages should own magic combat. Even if that only translates into two or three spells getting reasonably buffed with them, that's two or three spells more variety than they had before, at the sacrifice of losing the effectiveness of elemental weapons.

Thus, sorcery is restricted into itself. The only way it blends with other builds is when you're making a weapon-oriented build.

[no1schmo]

Originalmente postado por Handsome Squidward:

Originalmente postado por no1schmo:

But again man, what restriction? That they don't do a tiny bit more damage with skills that already do very little damage? Like, I don't really get it. All you're saying is that there's some internal logic break, and I agree with you. But what you're suggesting wouldn't really do anything for mages alone, and would only give slight boosts to hybrid classes. It's not going to change the usefulness of certain abilities except MAYBE Quake, it's not going to lead to new playstyles or tactics, it would just make lunge and smoke bomb and harpoon do .2% of an enemy's life bar instead of .1% or whatever. Yay.

You're really needlessly hung up on the Harpoon. No one cares about the Harpoon. This isn't about the Harpoon.

The restriction is that if you're going for a spellcasting build, you've got no incentive to go outside of the Sorcery tree. If you're a melee or range build, you have plenty of incentive to spread around.

Mages should own magic combat. Even if that only translates into two or three spells getting reasonably buffed with them, that's two or three spells more variety than they had before, at the sacrifice of losing the effectiveness of elemental weapons.

Thus, sorcery is restricted into itself. The only way it blends with other builds is when you're making a weapon-oriented build.

Okay, I'm going to summarize here; you find magic builds OP but boring because all they do is deal elemental death. Okay, I get that. I mean, the whole game is fairly repetitive, no build really gets that many different abilities or strategies, but okay, you find mages boring. Sure. So your solution is to have mage builds get boosted damage to abilities that do almost no damage, resulting in no functional change in the damage done anyway, because...reasons. You say I'm hung up on Harpoon, but that's all you keep going on about; boost Harpoon, Lunge, Smoke Bomb, Shadow Flare, and Quake. Only Shadow Flare and Quake do even decent damage and that falls off after a while; I mostly use Shadow Flare just for the instant bleed and stagger. So your solution is not a solution at all; it doesn't change how anyone plays unless they really are limiting themselves to an extremely specific playstyle for some reason. Any of the basic 7 destinies are unchanged in terms of ideal strategies. No one is going to be like "Ooh, okay, NOW I will do Might/Magic because my Quake is slightly more powerful for slightly longer!"

Your only real point is that it's silly that might characters are good with staves, and finesse characters good with scepters, and I agree. But otherwise, you just want better mages in games. Me too! I'd love to see more RPGs based entirely around magic (I hear the new Harry Potter game is actually not bad, maybe I will try it someday). But except for the very anemic stealth system, this game is pretty much entirely about just dealing damage anyway, via slashing, stabbing, piercing, burning, freezing, shocking, or poisoning; that was their design philosophy, and it's fine. It's not a flaw, it's just a matter of taste that you don't like it as much as you could. Every other class has few abilities and relies mostly on weapons, so it really makes mages the most unique in that they gradually stop using weapons and rely entirely on their abilities, but those are still limited (remember the game was design with only 4 ability slots). You're really just pining for moar, not noticing a problem. Or maybe you're just annoyed that magic hybrids can't rely entirely on magic to the same degree, just replacing meteor with other abilities from other trees, but...that wouldn't make a ton of sense anyway. Might and finesse rely almost entirely on weapons for damage, so of course mixing them with magic would just result in magically-augmented weapon-users, not mages just as good as pure mages, just with different spells. You just want an entirely different combat system for mages; let me know when you find it, and I'll play it too.

[No One You Know]

Let me see if I understand this correctly, you want:
A long distance caster to melee with more damage output than a warrior or rogue build.
Is this correct?
You want a melee mage?
Like forget about Meteor max rank +2 and all the +damage, +critical damage, 100% chance to critical, gear that you can craft and just focus on beating something with a stick that has an elemental effect attached to it?
I can appreciate the amount of work you put into this, but it seems like you may be missing the point on playing a magic caster (PEW PEW PEW, Death falls from the sky and eats all my enemies alive, RAWR).

I don't know, maybe I'm retarded for liking the use of spells and not dirtying my hands with fisticuffs, except for that one side quest which sucks my left nut.

[CrackeR]

Those tests are likely pretty accurate, BUT have you factored in the possibility that some of those higher numbers were the result of a "crit"?
A critical hit would make a substantial result on those test numbers!