I'm having trouble picking a class...

[Brad]

...and looking for advice.

(Please keep this positive.)

My playstyle tends to be ranged DPS. I like to have a view of the field. I almost always play archers or mages in games, with mages being far more common. I just like magic, and I assumed mage would be my go-to here.

With the more action-focused combat though, I wasn't sure. So I gave everything a try for a few hours. Enough to try out several skills, though no specializations. That left me totally uncertain what to play.

Comparatively, mage damage seems low and ability use seems infrequent. Mana recharges very slowly, and non-mana spells have long cooldowns (60s). The damage of the ranged staff attack is low, and it also has the drawback of requiring aim. Also, since that attack uses mana and blocking attacks does as well... there are two more things draining your resources and slowing down ability usage. If I focus on dodging to avoid damage, too many enemies rush me and the constant dodging slows down my ability usage. I keep wondering if eventually getting a tank in the party will help with this... so I suppose that's one of my questions.

Warrior was the easiest to play, but least like my own playstyle. The normal damage felt a lot like mage, but with the benefit of durability, defensive abilities, more aim-assisted ranged attacks, and more frequent use of abilities due to shorter cooldowns for non-rage abilities and building rage faster than mana. Seems cool, but it's just too far from how I like to play.

So then there is rogue. I played this as mostly ranged, and found the high-risk high-reward of needing to aim more but doing WAY more damage very appealing. Having melee as a more backup option is fine with me, and I was firing off skills more often. However, I still had the problem of being rushed quite often making my playstyle difficult.

Then there are the specializations. From a skill and class fantasy perspective Mage and Warrior have two each that I find interesting... but rogue doesn't have any.

So now I'm not sure which to pick. For Mage, am I missing something that is limiting my mana regeneration? Is there a point where a companion tank makes rogue and mage ranged playstyles more viable? Are my impressions because of early-game limitations of the classes? Is there anything else I'm missing?

[McLovin]

I am playing a mage lvl 46 and tried a warrior up to lvl 10. And i really think Mage is straight up broken.
Mana is basically unlimited and an absolute non issue. it even regenerates between fights and you start every fight with full mana. from lvl 1 to around lvl 42 i played a lightning spellblade with arcane bombs which was pretty good dps wise but was very very squishy. I switchet to an Ice evoker now and this has even more damage but on the other hand everything is screen wide Perma frozen.

i dont think the other classes can achieve this based on their Ressource system.

[Mr. Slick Rick $ (Fard/Shid)]

Most people are picking the refund class and enjoying it

[Lori37]

I chose mage, really having fun with it :)

[RagingDelirium]

Don't go warrior

[hounddawg]

Play each class to 5 and then decide. I have tried all 3 and am finding warrior my favorite so far. I normally play ranged classes but I started a warrior this morning and am finding him a blast. With a ranged shield throw and swappable two handed or one handed/shield fighting styles he is much more fun than the typical melee. With the dodge and block actions I find I rarely need to pop a potion. I also have a 20 mage and a lvl 7 rogue but think the warrior is the best so far

[Brad]

Originally posted by Tijger:

Originally posted by McLovin:

I am playing a mage lvl 46 and tried a warrior up to lvl 10. And i really think Mage is straight up broken.
Mana is basically unlimited and an absolute non issue. it even regenerates between fights and you start every fight with full mana. from lvl 1 to around lvl 42 i played a lightning spellblade with arcane bombs which was pretty good dps wise but was very very squishy. I switchet to an Ice evoker now and this has even more damage but on the other hand everything is screen wide Perma frozen.

i dont think the other classes can achieve this based on their Ressource system.

Hmmm...my lvl 46 warrior starts with a rage dot fully filled in and it never goes below that one dot if you pick the right choices in the tree so its fair to say other classes also get very powerful :)

Is there is something I'm missing about mana regen? Do tank companions work as viable tanks?

[Limz]

Mage is pretty funny because once you get the staff that allows you to cast by HP you are functionally invulnerable because casting animations lock you out from getting hit or damaged.

[Membi]

Originally posted by Brad:

Originally posted by Tijger:

Hmmm...my lvl 46 warrior starts with a rage dot fully filled in and it never goes below that one dot if you pick the right choices in the tree so its fair to say other classes also get very powerful :)

Is there is something I'm missing about mana regen? Do tank companions work as viable tanks?

You can pick talents that increase your mana. And no, since your companions are essentially an extension of you, the mobs pretty much always go for your character.

[Batailleuse]

in all honesty,

your gear define most of what you'll play, as simple as that.

some legendary are straight up broken, i found some blade which applied bleed on all hit and gives +6 max stack, just go stab stab in melee and everything will die with tics of dot for 1000+ damage per second, and if you can apply another source of burn/chill/necrosis then ... easy win.

unlocked bows recently applying either burn or necrosis on weakpoint, so play with proper team and you can just troll the game.

early game regardless of class isnt the funniest.

[JrSlacker]

So after putting 80 hours, beating the game on Nightmare as a Mage, and messing with other classes, all of the them suffer from feeling weak early off. Once you start getting particular skills to go with your play style things such as resources and damage start falling into place.

I will say this much, my one gripe with the classes is that they all have a "magic feel" to them. Obviously from previous games you had Templar, but the lore implication was they sucked down lyrium to gain the power.

In my Nightmare playthrough I used corrupted ground and staff charge weak points to melt things. Frost Nova to CC and Spirit Bomb for the healing. And I this was just free balling it not looking at guides or anything.

All in all, play what you find cool. I'm doing a reaper build on my warrior playthrough just because I think it looks fun and cool.

I will add, one thing I'm not huge about with warrior is the Captain America shield throwing.

[Cooptimus Prime]

Originally posted by Brad:

Originally posted by Tijger:

Hmmm...my lvl 46 warrior starts with a rage dot fully filled in and it never goes below that one dot if you pick the right choices in the tree so its fair to say other classes also get very powerful :)

Is there is something I'm missing about mana regen? Do tank companions work as viable tanks?

Several companions (at least 2, maybe 3?) have a taunt ability that can come in handy. My mage tends to rely on control abilities though, primarily Ice.

[Kiya]

Originally posted by JrSlacker:

I will add, one thing I'm not huge about with warrior is the Captain America shield throwing.

Ok, that just made me want to try a warrior.

[Sakura]

The gear makes a difference. Initially the mana costs are not-fun, but some dodging and using the companion instruction to attack can get them off you, as will doing some combos. Somewhere in mid to late game, you start getting more varied options and some of those allow for mana regen in combat, mana regen boosts via enchantment, mana regen on damage under certain circumstances etc...

[Migromul]

research your skilltree. There are some skills, which will easen mana-managment. You need only 2 skillpionts to get 50 addtional mana (after skilling your core-skills), for example.

(alll things I say are assuming, you skill all core skills first, which needs 6 skillpoints.)

If you specialize in spellblade, you can get a skill, which halves the mana-cost of explosion-skills
There are several skills, which will regenerate health and mana after en elimantion (e. g. using the "e"-prombt, when an enemey is fully struggling, You don't acutally need to kill the foe with that afaik...)
Getting advantage of the struggle, which a lot of skills add will help with that.

If you skill to Necromance, the direct access-skill to that speicialication let's you manually regenerate mana (with using block and light attack)
The Necromancy-area (NOT specialication) of your skilltree also has a skill, which will easien your mana-management if you equipe mixed armor-parts. (e. g. not fully light, medium or heavy, but mixed in any combination. This is also the only skill, where you can take some advantage of heavy armor.)

The tiny circle-skills are little advantages, but they still can be VERY important (additonal 50 mana is one of that...)
The normal circle-skills will improve active skills
The hexgon-skills will add attack-combinations-skills. (but a lot of them are defense-skills, which need momentum like perfect dodge or perfect block, e. g. parry.)
And the big diamond-shaped skills are actual active skill for your skilbar.

Each skill has a category (except the ultimate, it seems...):
Explosion, area, length, "hit" (I don't know the english term... in German this is called "Schlag"), projectile and control. And the medium circle skills will improve those skills. Each active skill falls in two of those categories.

Your equipement can also help with mana-management. One of the light armors will give you addional 50 mana, so you can relative easily use 200 mana (e. g. 4 dots.)

Also, don't unterestimate the detnation-combinations. It isn't stated, (maybe the last patch added it) but your core-active-skill will detonate the drained-state, which rogues can provide. On the other hand, rogues can denotate the "overcome" (I don'T know the exact english term... "überwältigt" in German...) state. One of the first active skills (the lightning attack) will prime that. So I suggest to get a rogue-companion as fast as possible. (which you - of course - even don't need to rrecruit first, since Harding is one...)

Your other primer-abiltiy will be "weakened" which fighters can detonate. To get those, you need to invest some skills, though. (either in Necromancy or ice, with ice being accessable faster.)

So having always at least one rogue with you is best, because you can detonate two different primers, then. With a rogue and warrior, you can detonate all 3 primers.)