Mage Damage

[Mr. Midnight]

I'm at LVL 20... am I doing something wrong as a mage? I'm on normal difficultly and here's how fights go. Use 1 spell and specials, dodge around forever as all the enemies chase me and wait for the spell cool down, use them again, more dodging. I can rarely even get a staff shot off if there are two ranged as the shooting animation is so slow you get hit constantly anytime you stop for 1 second to get a shot off. I don't feel like I'm doing near enough damage and all of the stupid giant crates hold cool items for everyone but me. My companions never hold aggro. Are the other classes combat more fun, less repetitive, and do they have more options than 4 spell slots?

[Jellydrake]

Early game is rough for a mage once you hit level 30/40, it really opens up. You generally are the target of aggro. You might consider bringing Davrin or others with Taunt talents or you might make sure that your selected abilities have synergy with your companion's.
Make sure you have something that applies and detonates their abilities (or make sure they can combo off each other). Generally speaking, I was an Evoker for most of the game but once I hit the end game and realized that dagger and orb is much faster at damaging and mana regen/ability cooldown.

Mid-game I made sure that big boss fights I brought two people with healing support (Usually Harding and Lucanis because they combo off me and each other so whatever position I was in when their cooldowns reset I could use them). I was taking on the corruption bosses about ten levels under but I couldn't finish the big bad dragon until level 45 or so)

You might also consider investing some enchantments FOR mana and mana regen if you're having issues. There are also runes for the dagger that can reset your cooldowns.

With my enchantments and gear I am constantly in a cycle of spamming the base missile spell along with the two Crow spells and the Crow Ultimate and comboing off of Lucanis because the Crow Force Rush thing explodes one of his abilities.

[zarvoxbe]

I'm glad to see that someone is bringing up the problems of the mage class. And yes the other classes (especially the warrior) are better for combat. At least they don't have to worry about enemies who are often resistant to the element of their staff or orb, since warriors mainly deal physical damage. Added to this is the fact that the firing animation of staff projectiles is often cancelled out by walls or other obstacles if the mage is in a confined space. The same applies to the magic shield, which is destroyed after one or two impacts, whereas the warrior shield is not destroyed and can be quickly reused. I've played a warrior game and it's much easier to fight. As far as I'm concerned, the devs don't really want us to play as mages, given all the advantages of warriors.

[Jellydrake]

Originally posted by zarvoxbe:

I'm glad to see that someone is bringing up the problems of the mage class. And yes the other classes (especially the warrior) are better for combat. At least they don't have to worry about enemies who are often resistant to the element of their staff or orb, since warriors mainly deal physical damage. Added to this is the fact that the firing animation of staff projectiles is often cancelled out by walls or other obstacles if the mage is in a confined space. The same applies to the magic shield, which is destroyed after one or two impacts, whereas the warrior shield is not destroyed and can be quickly reused. I've played a warrior game and it's much easier to fight. As far as I'm concerned, the devs don't really want us to play as mages, given all the advantages of warriors.

I legit never once successfully used the shield.

But game got 100% times easier when I got the Mythal Dagger unique. It's no physical damage but 360 total damage (80 in each element) which pairs VERY nicely with element boosting enchantments. My staff is only chosen for its effects so something that explodes extra damage when shield/armor/barrier is broken or something with mana regen. I only ever use it in dragon fights and to destroy blight cysts.

[Water Shaper John]

I completed one go on hardest difficulty as evoker mage, and it wasn't easy, but after 50 houres i learned well when to block with shield and when to dodge(some attacks wont reach you, or you can avoid them just moving). People here are right that till lvl 35-40 you will struggle, but then it might be even too easy. I do second go with spell blade, i am lvl 30 and it's harder than evoker, but maybe because of my preferences.

[StimJunky]

Honestly, the mage gameplay is rather dumb. I'm playing on Underdog difficult and some fights I'm literally spamming dodge non-stop for 5-10 seconds because of enemies are chaining their heavy attacks one after the other. This the result of EA moving away from the tactical CRPG roots of the franchise in DA:O and moving towards a brain-dead button masher action game with each subsequent version of the game. What we have in this iteration is probably the most dumbed down version of combat one could do and it just does not fit a ranged class very well. Others have said they're just copy+pasting the AC:Valhalla combat and I can see the similarities.

When I'm not dodge spamming I'm spamming the X and Y buttons. This works for melee classes but I'm not playing a spellcaster to just spam light/heavy attack chains. If i wanted that playstyle I'd play a melee character.

I loathe the consoleification EA has been forcing into DA since EA acquired BioWare. It's led a marked decrease in the quality of the product.

[sergeantawesome]

I just finished this game with the rogue and felt a similar issue at the beginning. I think leveling in this game is slow at first, but eventually it gets to a point where everything becomes much easier. I also started a new game with the mage and am finding it to be somewhat clunky and not very friendly in combat. It feels somewhat out of place in this game compared to the rogue.

[StimJunky]

Originally posted by Settings:

Originally posted by StimJunky:

I loathe the consoleification EA has been forcing into DA since EA acquired BioWare. It's led a marked decrease in the quality of the product.

Honestly it happens more often than not. Publishers want to sell to consoles because capitalism but doing so requires a lot of dumbing down of systems to make it work on a console with a simple controller so instead of finding a creative way to work for both (Like BG3) they just make everything super simple.

I get the financial motivations behind it. Console is a much bigger market and if they can make the game multiplatform they just sell more units. But, this is directly at odds with the entire vision for the game set out by BioWare when they made Origins. It was to be a spiritual successor to BG2 with rich, tactical combat and where one's choices mattered to the story.

So, while I get the purely capitalistic motivations for this behavior I just hate practice of big publishers buying up studios that has become popular and successful for their own unique creativity and then insidiously changing the the company over time by dumbing down the products they make in order to make them palatable for mass consumption.

[Mr. Midnight]

Originally posted by Water Shaper John:

I completed one go on hardest difficulty as evoker mage, and it wasn't easy, but after 50 houres i learned well when to block with shield and when to dodge(some attacks wont reach you, or you can avoid them just moving). People here are right that till lvl 35-40 you will struggle, but then it might be even too easy. I do second go with spell blade, i am lvl 30 and it's harder than evoker, but maybe because of my preferences.

Ok I will switch over to spell blade and give it a go!

[bob.hodgkins]

Spell blade rocks!

[Jellydrake]

Originally posted by StimJunky:

Originally posted by Settings:

Honestly it happens more often than not. Publishers want to sell to consoles because capitalism but doing so requires a lot of dumbing down of systems to make it work on a console with a simple controller so instead of finding a creative way to work for both (Like BG3) they just make everything super simple.

I get the financial motivations behind it. Console is a much bigger market and if they can make the game multiplatform they just sell more units. But, this is directly at odds with the entire vision for the game set out by BioWare when they made Origins. It was to be a spiritual successor to BG2 with rich, tactical combat and where one's choices mattered to the story.

So, while I get the purely capitalistic motivations for this behavior I just hate practice of big publishers buying up studios that has become popular and successful for their own unique creativity and then insidiously changing the the company over time by dumbing down the products they make in order to make them palatable for mass consumption.

Maybe next title they should do what Larian did with BG3 and just make the console players jump through wheel interactions.

[Jellydrake]

Originally posted by Datahre:

Originally posted by Mr. Midnight:

I'm at LVL 20... am I doing something wrong as a mage? I'm on normal difficultly and here's how fights go. Use 1 spell and specials, dodge around forever as all the enemies chase me and wait for the spell cool down, use them again, more dodging. I can rarely even get a staff shot off if there are two ranged as the shooting animation is so slow you get hit constantly anytime you stop for 1 second to get a shot off. I don't feel like I'm doing near enough damage and all of the stupid giant crates hold cool items for everyone but me. My companions never hold aggro. Are the other classes combat more fun, less repetitive, and do they have more options than 4 spell slots?

Warrior has multiple skills without cooldown, but requesting some rage.

You can increase max rage and increase rage refill, you still need hit with weapon and attack to refill rage, but you can add some rage refill with time, get rage when you are hit, and other boost. Result is in many combats, I can chain use skills and do some sword fighting. And some skills as Whirlwind are totally adapted to sword combats.

No warrior hasn't more spell slots, but with companions it's 10 spells slot, and there are many different attack:
- Light or Heavy attack
- Jump + Light Attack or Heavy Attack
- Sprint + Light Attack or Heavy Attack
- Roll + Light Attack or Heavy Attack
- Charged Light or Heavy Attack.
- Charged Attack chained with a second attack. Probably for both Light and Heavy.
- Chain 3 attacks and last is special but frankly that one is a bit fake, it's rare you can do it and that it's useful if you do.
- Parry that is named perfect defense in game.
- Movements obviously, dodge and sprint included.

That's another thing, combat for a mage gets much easier as you unlock those combos with the light, light, heavy or the light, light, shift+light. The dagger and orb has got some fun combos that are a lot easier to pull off than the staff.

[LoVeSuns]

Played evoker ice staff mage on underdog and did not have this issue. Game felt too easy mostly actually, wish I could've changed to Nightmare.

The only problems I had were with bosses like dragons who were ice-resistant because it just neuters the hell out of your damage. For them I would switch to the fire spells you get from the start. Lots of the cast have time slow (or taunt, but time slow seems far superior for mages for CC). There are abilities which decrease cooldowns and later on a rune that resets your companions CDs. And you're also just completely immune during casting which is kind of ridiculous.

[Boltergeist]

If you can get the leech armour and unique mourn watch staff you basically become invincible as mages, add the quickened belt and ammy and you just can slam down one spell after another

[Mr. Midnight]

So you all were right, switching to the sword and ball is much more fun and effective. Plus leveling up a couple factions worked wonders for upgrades.