New player needs help

[BelialRus]

Hey guys, Im new to beta and I missed a lot of discussion, can you fill me in on some things:

 

- Many spells dont have any effect or have very little, some abilities dont seem to work at all

Examples: lvl 1 burning hands deal 30-50 damage per use, but "minor missles" deal about 2 dmg each. Lvl 2 necrotic lance deal like 2 dot per round, fireballs deals 10-20 damage for me (all cast by the same mage). Is this a beta thing or monster resistance etc? Lvl 3 "fear" spell doesnt seem to work

 

- Often , when I try to use ability it just wont start, my character keeps on using his basic atack. This is a bug? How can I tell when I can cast spells/abilities and when I cannot?

- Where can I see which "afflictions" (weakened, sickened etc) enemies have and what these affllictions do?

 

- Any way to see how much damage abilities deal?

 

- What are good attributes for each class? It seems sometimes its good to have high STR on mages :/

 

- My 19 DEX mage casts same spells slower than my 12 DEX mage. What kind of attributes affect cast speed?

 

- Sometimes there is huge cooldown after using a spell/ability , sometimes almost no cooldown, what does it depend on?

 

- BB Wizard has 3 lvl 3 spells , PC only gets 1. What's the deal?

 

Is there some kind of lists of good/bad spells/abilities in this build? General tips on building characters? 

I know D&D ruleset well, but this game is very confusing and counter-intuitive

 

 

[Karkarov]

I will try to throw you a bone on some of these...

1: Spell effects.  Spells still have to hit just like everything else so a spell can graze, some armors and enemies even have DR (damage reduction) versus some spell types.  So yes it is very possible for a spell on one cast to be bad ass, then cast it again and it does almost nothing.  It is also possible for a spell that is on paper the better damage dealer do less damage than a spell that looks weaker on paper due to resistances etc.

 

2: Yes this happens sometimes.  Make sure your caster is not in melee or getting hit so they aren't be interrupted.  You also want to be sure not to try inputting multiple commands on one character as I find this sort of screws things up.  Recovery times can be very very long in this game depending on the action and gear in use so getting that one cast off can be very time consuming.

 

3: Just look at the combat log, even if it says what it does on paper in real use it will be different again depending on your roll to hit, the enemies defenses, etc etc.

 

4: All attributes are good for all classes on some level.  If you want to do more damage all classes take might.  If you want to "act" faster all classes would take Dex.  Etc etc.  It is far less about "what is good for my class" in Eternity than it is "what is good for the type of character I am making".

 

5: Different spells may have different recovery times, recovery times don't charge while moving, different armors also have different speed reductions.  So even if one mage has massive dex, if they are also wearing chainmail while the other mage is wearing padded, the guy in padded will probably go first.

 

6: Like I said, different spells, different abilities, dex bonus, armor penalty, did you move, blah blah.

 

7: Are you sure you leveled yourself up all the way?

 

8: Yes many parts of the stat system is counter intuitive.  This game only resembles D&D on paper, the mechanics are completely different.  I would suggest just doing a ton of forum reading.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Karkarov