Are casters comparable to autoattackers?

[Lauralis]

My biggest gripe with the game was how bad casters felt damage wise compared to auto-attack builds, and i really did enjoy the first bit of the game before that problem became apparent. I was curious if this was fixed yet.

[Luzgan]

Originally posted by Lauralis:

My biggest gripe with the game was how bad casters felt damage wise compared to auto-attack builds, and i really did enjoy the first bit of the game before that problem became apparent. I was curious if this was fixed yet.

For me, after the last balance patch, they are better than they were before. However, playing while using synergies is important for the most destructive combos. But there still might be some glass cannon melee builds that will deal more DMG while sacrificing their survivability. It would also be great if someone else could share their thoughts on the current balance.

[Huxxy]

I'm in my first playthrough so I've been experimenting a bit.

For awhile my strongest character was a combat medic just dual wielding with their abilities being used for heals and synergies.

Then I started using Vasso as an elementalist and that was pretty strong.

I've also been using Benedict as a super tanky build with the enchants the generate threat and deal damage based on your armor. He alone could probably solo a lot, and deals decent damage by just existing.

Through most of it my Engineer character hasn't really been doing too much damage. Tried constructor and inquisitor and now they're a technomancer. Mainly I use them for setting up Charged and stunning, they deal okay damage, but for the most part a lot of it comes down to lowering resistances and utility.

I didn't have a ranger on my team for a long time as those loadouts aren't particularly to my taste, but then I had to bring Sestia along for her mission so I took time to figure out the class, setting it to Tet once that mission was done.

With a high crit build utilizing stealth and marked with two hand crossbows, Tet deals about 200k damage a mission while everyone else is hitting about 1/5 of that. It's more or less an auto-attack build.

[Aeon]

For me auto attackers were way too powerful, on insanity, when equipped with top crafting gear, regardless of class.

Pulling abilities combos was never needed and from a damage point of view not worth the time and extra hustle.

Casters were still useful mostly for defensive purposes.

Engineer and adept pets distract the enemies soaking plenty of damage and their hp / shield healing pets make the group unkillable.

Pets and abilities do decent damage but that damage is never needed, auto attacking ancient wands (and maybe other weapons) melt everything no matter who wields the wands (including guardian warriors)

At some point I got bored and speed through the game on insanity without the need to pause and with characters set on autonomous.

I would love to see the autonomous AI improved from little things like grouping for a buffing rod or standing on buffing glyphs or even an improved cast order for spells, first self buffs then pets that scale with those spell buffs or even casting a defensive pet when a party member could use it and making sure that party member stays in range.

The best offensive spell for me was bounty hunter's mark a large area debuff with a low enough cooldown and long cast range.

[Aeon]

I would love to play a game where I don't have to deal with the micro of battles.
I would level and gear the character, select what skills it has available and then entrust it to the AI to make a good use of it. Most combos are not that complex, buff self, buff ally, protect ally in need, debuff enemy , focus fire enemy, prioritize dmg abilities that synergise with enemy debuff and with echother.

20 years old games are able to adhere to the above ruleset (badly) , a contemporary game properly implement it would make a killing.

[Lauralis]

yeah when i played last, dual wield auto attacking builds just decimated everything else in damage. I really wanted to be a damage oriented technomancer and was sad as the game went on how little damage they were doing.

[Luzgan]

Originally posted by Huxxy:

I'm in my first playthrough so I've been experimenting a bit.

For awhile my strongest character was a combat medic just dual wielding with their abilities being used for heals and synergies.

Then I started using Vasso as an elementalist and that was pretty strong.

I've also been using Benedict as a super tanky build with the enchants the generate threat and deal damage based on your armor. He alone could probably solo a lot, and deals decent damage by just existing.

Through most of it my Engineer character hasn't really been doing too much damage. Tried constructor and inquisitor and now they're a technomancer. Mainly I use them for setting up Charged and stunning, they deal okay damage, but for the most part a lot of it comes down to lowering resistances and utility.

I didn't have a ranger on my team for a long time as those loadouts aren't particularly to my taste, but then I had to bring Sestia along for her mission so I took time to figure out the class, setting it to Tet once that mission was done.

With a high crit build utilizing stealth and marked with two hand crossbows, Tet deals about 200k damage a mission while everyone else is hitting about 1/5 of that. It's more or less an auto-attack build.

Originally posted by Aeon:

For me auto attackers were way too powerful, on insanity, when equipped with top crafting gear, regardless of class.

Pulling abilities combos was never needed and from a damage point of view not worth the time and extra hustle.

Casters were still useful mostly for defensive purposes.

Engineer and adept pets distract the enemies soaking plenty of damage and their hp / shield healing pets make the group unkillable.

Pets and abilities do decent damage but that damage is never needed, auto attacking ancient wands (and maybe other weapons) melt everything no matter who wields the wands (including guardian warriors)

At some point I got bored and speed through the game on insanity without the need to pause and with characters set on autonomous.

I would love to see the autonomous AI improved from little things like grouping for a buffing rod or standing on buffing glyphs or even an improved cast order for spells, first self buffs then pets that scale with those spell buffs or even casting a defensive pet when a party member could use it and making sure that party member stays in range.

The best offensive spell for me was bounty hunter's mark a large area debuff with a low enough cooldown and long cast range.

Originally posted by Aeon:

I would love to play a game where I don't have to deal with the micro of battles.
I would level and gear the character, select what skills it has available and then entrust it to the AI to make a good use of it. Most combos are not that complex, buff self, buff ally, protect ally in need, debuff enemy , focus fire enemy, prioritize dmg abilities that synergise with enemy debuff and with echother.

20 years old games are able to adhere to the above ruleset (badly) , a contemporary game properly implement it would make a killing.

Originally posted by Lauralis:

yeah when i played last, dual wield auto attacking builds just decimated everything else in damage. I really wanted to be a damage oriented technomancer and was sad as the game went on how little damage they were doing.

Thanks for all the feedback. We read it all carefully, so as a thank you, I can tell you that we are now working on our next patch that will bring BIG changes to all of the skills. When I am able to show something, I will definitely make a post about it on our Steam page and Discord.

Also, if you want to help us implement changes, please send us feedback by reporting it in-game. This way, we will be able to look at your game saves and check your auto-attack builds.

[Aeon]

Thanks for being open to feedback :)

[Rainsanctum]

I just finished my second Insane playthrough, with this team comp: Bounty hunter (Malakai), Elementalist (Kaela), summoner, and guardian. Before tier 2 weapons and ranger's access to Augmenting Beacon skill, skill-focused elementalist does a bit higher damage than ranger autoattacker. But after that point, the higher the weapon tier/skill level (especially with ranger's access to 100%crit and 300% crit damage), autoattacker does almost 3 or 4 times higher damage than elementalist. Bounty hunter combined with a sharpshooter second specialization does ridiculous amount of damage (100% crit, 300% crit damage, as well as insane attack speed and weapon damage). Pistols with strip armour feature seems to be the best weapon. With a on-hit cooldown-reducing item, you basically mutiattack 4 enemies all the time. If you give all the dual wielders in the team "armour strip" on their weapons, even the final boss in Insane difficulty dies pretty fast (less than 60secs I think).

My suggestion would be: let the skill damage scale with levels (the skill power on items alone is still not enough to boost its damage). Also, 100% crit should not be attainable, otherwise not only the damage but the on-crit stun might be overpowered.