Why do we need mages again?

[◕‿‿◕]

This applies to the other magic classes as well.
All magic is essentially buffs for 5-10 minutes (or even a couple of rounds), summon a monster for a couple of rounds, debuffs that never work and only 5-6 slots per magic level.
There is evocation school but even there are no 200 damage crits given all the sacrifices you have to make.
On the other hand we have a warrior or barbarian who never runs out of anything. Who has so much armor that no enemy can even hit him. You can charge an enemy's mage and he'll die in second. Plus you'll find legendary armor and weapons that no mage can put on. The mage's progression is boring. All you'll get is a new spells and that's it. Warrior classes will get new abilities and permanent buffs (not which last 14 rounds). That's why I choose a warrior class.

[Echo]

Well.. after you get spell penetration, greater spell penetration, spell focus, greater spell focus, elemental focus, greater elemental focus, mythic ascendant element, bespoke gear and caster level 20, you can really start doing medium to high damage several times a day before resting.

That said, you're dead without their buffs.

[mudakonn]

Yeah this game does not have spells like protection from magic weapons, liches with imprisonment and time stop where mentioned warrior could just play windmill never hitting anything but thin air without mages help:)

My Arcanist casts slow - i kinda never see AI casting slow, mostly damage spells. If AI mages would be smarter they go invis, slow, web and that warrior just stands there dead in the water.

[Fistimus Maximus]

amount of fights that magic saved me, that firewind aoe spell thats knocks down aswell as damages think its called sirocco, also fire snake for the hard to hit enemies. not including the must have buffs such as true sight/haste.

[Fistimus Maximus]

Originally posted by mudakonn:

Yeah this game does not have spells like protection from magic weapons, liches with imprisonment and time stop where mentioned warrior could just play windmill never hitting anything but thin air without mages help:)

My Arcanist casts slow - i kinda never see AI casting slow, mostly damage spells. If AI mages would be smarter they go invis, slow, web and that warrior just stands there dead in the water.

ah yes baldurs gate 2 where liches were one of the hardest fights.

[mudakonn]

Originally posted by Fistimus Maximus:

amount of fights that magic saved me, that firewind aoe spell thats knocks down aswell as damages think its called sirocco, also fire snake for the hard to hit enemies. not including the must have buffs such as true sight/haste.

High level spells are very powerful but low mid level is what gives impression that it is useless and WOTR mages i guess are just bricks though tools are there to make encounters low and mid level more complex.

But one must understand that Owlcat has limited resources and programming good AI especially for casters is very difficult. Caster AI needs complex decision tree and maybe in turn based it could excel somewhat better. BG2 had i think strategem mod what made all casters a darn good ones.

In WOTR they just solved it with Uber Baddies who cast LVL 7 and 8 spells. Regular opponents still spam that fireball pretending there was no prot from element spells. No casters use slow, web, pit, grease what are staple low level spells for players

[Echo]

Originally posted by Fistimus Maximus:

amount of fights that magic saved me, that firewind aoe spell thats knocks down aswell as damages think its called sirocco, also fire snake for the hard to hit enemies. not including the must have buffs such as true sight/haste.

Well true, Sirocco was your one stop weapon and CC in Kingmaker, the AI doesn't know what's going on and just walks into it and dies.

Originally posted by mudakonn:

Originally posted by Fistimus Maximus:

amount of fights that magic saved me, that firewind aoe spell thats knocks down aswell as damages think its called sirocco, also fire snake for the hard to hit enemies. not including the must have buffs such as true sight/haste.

High level spells are very powerful but low mid level is what gives impression that it is useless and WOTR mages i guess are just bricks though tools are there to make encounters low and mid level more complex.

But one must understand that Owlcat has limited resources and programming good AI especially for casters is very difficult. Caster AI needs complex decision tree and maybe in turn based it could excel somewhat better. BG2 had i think strategem mod what made all casters a darn good ones.

In WOTR they just solved it with Uber Baddies who cast LVL 7 and 8 spells. Regular opponents still spam that fireball pretending there was no prot from element spells. No casters use slow, web, pit, grease what are staple low level spells for players

I just came here from playing the Ivory tower level in the Worldcrawl mod. Let me tell you the enemy AI in that mod really knows how to use their spells. It's... insane.

[Sargtlin]

Conjuration is a real game changer in low lvl fights with Grease and Glitterdust.

Necromancy is really useful for debuffing strong enemies with spells that don't allow saves like Enervation and Wave of Exhaustion. Not that strong on low level, but it gets really good at spell level 4 and above.

I have had the best success with a Sorcerer - Overwhelming Mage Illusionist with Arcane bloodline though. I can still one-shot bosses with Phantasmal Killer on level 10/11 on core difficulty. Just try to maximize spell dc's and spell penetration. I am currently at a DC of over 30 which means even a boss with a fortitude save of 20 has over 50% chance of insta-death. With persistent metamagic it should get better soon.

[Mindeveler]

У меня аж жыр с монитора потек.
Casters are essential for buffs if you don't want your warriors to miss with 95% chance at higher difficulties.
Also for all sorts of wards/protections from negative effects.
Finally, when min-maxed with the right build, certain spells such as hellfire ray can deal obscene amounts of damage.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Echo:

Well.. after you get spell penetration, greater spell penetration, spell focus, greater spell focus, elemental focus, greater elemental focus, mythic ascendant element, bespoke gear and caster level 20, you can really start doing medium to high damage several times a day before resting.

OR you'd picked Allied Spellcaster for a whole team, using a correct build and start to one-shot enemies with Searing Ray since ~7-8th level.

[seeker1]

1. Finger of Death, Power World Kill, Death Clutch.
1a. Fine, would be awesome if they worked more often. When they do, it's like Indiana Jones using his gun on the guy with the scimitar.
2. AoEs
2a. Selective metamagic or a certain TB setting and you can stop worrying about friendly fire and learn to love the bomb. I gotta admit at first as with many other things I didn't get things didn't work this way automatically, and was probably doing more damage to my own team than the enemies. There's one or two that are "smart bombs" anyway even without tweaking - notably Controlled Fireball.

Fighters may get Cleave, but if you want to clean the map, you want mages.

[darkholyPL]

Well you need the buffs they bring, on anything normal+. But that aside, they are fun, magic is fun.
Tho I do agree that in this adventure it would be much more fun, if you didn't need to heavily invest to have your stuff even land. Enemies with 30+ or 40+ saves, immunities, resistances ect.. yea, not the best adventure for a non-hyper specialised mage.

[mudakonn]

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

Well you need the buffs they bring, on anything normal+. But that aside, they are fun, magic is fun.
Tho I do agree that in this adventure it would be much more fun, if you didn't need to heavily invest to have your stuff even land. Enemies with 30+ or 40+ saves, immunities, resistances ect.. yea, not the best adventure for a non-hyper specialised mage.

Yes it is true - i first started a sneak party and boy how early was my team just a bunch of schoolboys - sneak immune, critical immune, piercing immune and very early in the game. Though i see nobody complaining about it.

I guess there is no immunities to +15 damage two handed weapon on level 6 apart from DR...

The thing would be different when enemies would have PI trait like in BG2 (physical Immune) DR is basically it but easily circumvented but there is no way to have Adamantine spells you have to blow a mythic ability for element and still worry about DC

[revan1229]

With pets, you can ask why you need warriors....

No class is necessary, but it doesn't sound like you've fully explored what casters can do. Debuffs can work if you build for them, the Abundant Casting line solves slot issues, damage is not in short supply (Empowered Zippy Magic Chain Lightning can clear maps), and they target touch AC. This game does reward specialization, though (more so than Kingmaker), so an Arcane caster trying to do everything will probably feel underwhelming.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by seeker1:

Power World Kill

Eh?
The 9th level spell that only affects a single enemy with 100 HP or less? The spell that you unlock at the point when all enemies have hundreds of HP?

Originally posted by revan1229:

With pets, you can ask why you need warriors....

+1

[corisai]

Originally posted by revan1229:

No class is necessary

Depend on difficulty if you're not cheating (including save scumming like crazy).