Playing a mage in DA:V seems pointless... Mage Skill Tree Spoiler...

[Loopy]

So I looked it up as I knew there were alot of options in previous entries in the Dragon Age games for mages to choose from. Partly what made them so viable to choose as a class. You felt special. Like being a mage would feel. And with this class being this way when you played a warrior or a rogue, the combat had less options but was alot more gritty imo. I just feel like this game wasn't made for fans of the mage class.

So here you can see how many spells mages get now compared to older games in the series as I wanted to know if the skill tree in DA:V was going to open up more and give more spell options. Sadly not the case. Correct me if any of these numbers are wrong but I quickly looked these up:

So nearly 100 spells in DA:O before specialisations...

Then alot less, 27 spells in DA2 before specialisations...

Then even less 17 spells in DA Inquisition before specialisations...

Now in DA:V there are 8 before specialisations...

After 10 long years, that's really not what I was expecting. I'm enjoying every other aspect of the game I think. Enjoying world design and level smoothness etc.

I completed it once and might try a different faction and class as mage just feels redundant now. Im hoping you can be somewhat evil but I doubt that as I'm writing this.
(UPDATE: The game has no replayability for me, the things that differ between playthroughs arent enough to make me play it again. Never buying a game on release again).

Smh.

The game took away from all the diversity your mages could have with the removal of blood magic as a specialisation and to be used for story purposes instead now.

Back in the dragon age 2 days I used to want to do a playthrough as a tevinter mage. Imagine a game where an origin could have been being a magisters apprentice.

Mostly visually apart from some awkward head turns in game, and repeated animations for the hands when talking it's spot on. Oh and my second rook went Scottish when speaking to Harding just before returning the the ritual site. So little bugs like that should've been mentioned at play testing.

But how did we end up in tevinter with even less magic? 🥴🪄 And how did it take 10 years to get here mage wise.

Imagine:
keeping the 6-8 slots to assign abilities to.

keeping the spells to the amount of them that were in 2 or inquisition.

Re introducing mage spell combos like origins had as there's no real point to a team of mages anymore.

Making Specialisations be diverse again and, they should actually be story changing. Even rogues and warriors should have unique story pathways due to their faction/specialized skills. Why would it have replayability if nothing really changes no matter what you do until the end.

Have played a mage in every game since origins btw.

Feels like the 10 years was spent on making strand based hair mostly.

Just food for thought and I guess to see what other people think, hope everyones well! Let me know if you agree etc.

[Orion Invictus]

First time playing a caster? Casters always get shafted when martials are in the same game.

[Drake Ravenwolf]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

First time playing a caster? Casters always get shafted when martials are in the same game.

Real problem seems to be that the player is always the enemies' focus which makes a ranged class worse off

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Drake Ravenwolf:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

First time playing a caster? Casters always get shafted when martials are in the same game.

Real problem seems to be that the player is always the enemies' focus which makes a ranged class worse off

First time playing a game with companions? This is par for the course, unfortunately. However, since a lot of people prefer the most basic, non-fantastical classes in fantasy games (typically fighters or some other melee class), it gets ignored, as they're built to deal with it.

[candyundfelix]

Originally posted by Drake Ravenwolf:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

First time playing a caster? Casters always get shafted when martials are in the same game.

Real problem seems to be that the player is always the enemies' focus which makes a ranged class worse off

yeah the aggro is a porblem, it more a glassconan. but most of the time there is no enemy left to use that aggro (except for bosses) since you can do a ton of aoe damage

[Loopy]

Yeah they focus on you only most of the time, and have you noticed sometimes if you let your companions get the last hit they just stand there like "no, you kill it"

I've gotta take my heart out of the series I think, and it's a real shame because that was my all time favourite series too.

Sick of the magical game series I love being ruined. Remember what happened to bayonetta 3. They tried to please a trend that people liked the multiverse due to marvel doing it and then ruined the series with it. Same thing happened to suicide squad. Neither of those games needed it but for some reason they think that's what people want. Instead of pleasing people, they ended up damaging their reputations.

Gonna not buy any full price games for a while I think, only buying them if theyre mega discounted. They just aren't worth the money anymore when they going to change what your buying all the time.

[Jamie]

Choices dont matter. Theres 1 ending. Cant be bad. Companions dont matter. They are just there to exist and to say they have companions. Cant talk to companions. Companions dont take agro. Companions do 1 dps. Saying this game is 10/10 or even a 9/10 is gaslighting. straight up. its a 6/10 AT BEST.

[ExiledVaultDwellingBorderlander]

I remember when Bioware games were pause to consider (or not as you like), use Tactics, build teams that COMPLIMENTED each other not just set up "ready made combos" from KoToR1 to DA:O it was about using the characters, not buttonmashing but ME2 started them down the path of copying shooters and DA:I started chasing after the chaIn-combo / Defense-timing fighter games and everything else (like storyline and character development) is just patches of frosting to cover up the... less than appetizing taste for gamers who don't live and die by the buttonmash and it gets spread thinner and thinner every time. When I posted on the DAV reddit that I was hoping to buy an RPG, not a chain-fighter the player response was "Too bad, the DAV fighting information has been out for a while now." This was stated like "the new system is a good thing" like those articles that boasted about DAV nailing the character appearance UI (which I said in my post was a lie but got told my comparisons to the much better ME3 UI were wrong on the reddit). Since I saw only a single detonation used via a paused menu on the OFFICIAL game trailer which at the time I figured was the use of an ability like previous Bioware games,I thought that maybe a we would get a return to familiar game mechanics, but no... instead we get an overpriced and poorly implemented copy of the hoyoverse mechanics trend without the F2P option. It seems like the buttomashers scream the loudest though, so this is what everybody's stuck with regardless of the fact that it was RPG/Tactics/Immersion loving players that contributed to the original games' successes.

[CrazyOdd]

Simple answer, DAV is an ARPG, not a traditional RPG (CRPG?).

You can still play a "spell heavy mage", just need to grab the node before the Death Caller, Channeled Thoughts. Can spam meteor every 2-3 sec, or any other spells not on cooldown.

It reminds me of the Mass Effect combat system, which worked, because most of the damage was from guns...

[wuehlratte]

Playing a mage type is difficult, if you want to enter close combat. I played different classes in DA:O, DA:2 and DA:I and the caster always proved to be a challenge especially early in the game. Later in the game they are quite powerful and were much fun.

Right now, I'm playing a lvl22 caster who specialises on close combat with dagger and orb.
The difference between DA:I and DA:V in combat is that you have to evade or parry far more. It's all about timing and hitting the right button of your controller.

I have to admit that I was a bit frustrated at the beginning as I had not gotten used to the new style of fighting yet and constantly dodging or running away from an enemy used to stress me out a bit, but it (and I) soon got better. Using dagger and orb, evading/dodging enemy attacks and frequently using triple combos (i.e. having both my companions and me attack one foe) has done it for me so far.