Melee mage - viable?

[Snerf]

Been playing around in the BB trying to make a melee-focused mage work. High Str/Con/Dex, taking the deflection spells, accuracy boost spells, dual weilding, etc.

In my limited experience, the lack of pre-buffing combined with the naturally low deflection and accuracy of this class makes it impossible with current balancing. I spend the critical start of fights buffing up and end up still getting stomped while barely being able to hit anything with glancing blows.

Has anyone been able to successfully roll a character like this yet? If so, what was your setup?

Not going to lie - trying to make a PoE equivalent of ADnD fighter/mage

Edited December 4, 2014 by Snerf

[Rumsteak]

It was my understanding that you could make a muscle mage or an intelligent fighter, but those classes would still have the same class role that they would be supposed to do. I.E. casting for a mage or meleeing for a fighter.

 

Not sure that a melee mage could be viable but I may be wrong

[Sheikh]

Mage is magic oriented not melee or ranged oriented.

[Shevek]

Ciphers have good mechanics for gishes I think but I havent tried to melee with them. Chanters are good in melee and with magic as well. I dont think Wizards are the very good at that though.

[Doppelschwert]

High Str/Con/Dex, taking the deflection spells, accuracy boost spells, dual weilding, etc.

 

 I don't know how much you know about the attributes, but I think high Str/Con/Dex is part of the problem. Dex increases your attack speed, but what you'd actually want is Per which increases your chance to hit and maybe also some Int instead of Con as Int increases your Deflection and area of effect. You'll also need armor of course, in case you didn't wear any.

 

You can somehow have a melee wizard, but it should revolve more around using close combat area of effect spells like Fan of Flames or the like instead of weapons. The wizard is built around versatility, so you definitely won't be able to put him on the same level as standard fighting classes just by using buffs on himself. For the rest, see sheveks post - the cipher basically is designed around being the battlemage of the game.

[Sheikh]

So whats versatile about being limited to wearing armor and using close quarters spells?

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Building a gish with the wizard class is not quite as easy as it once was. I find that in making one, I don't assign attribute points much differently than a conventional wizard.

 

Might: Not very important. Keep it at 10.
Dex: Difficult call. It's desirable to minimize your casting and recovery time, but I feel it is ultimately a lesser choice to other stats. I keep it at 10.
Con: Not necessary. I put lower it to 3. Particularly with the low health multiplier, it's more important to avoid damage than endure it. I imagine many would disagree with this.
Per: Maxed. Necessary to do anything, and you need to compensate for the wizard's poor innate accuracy.
Int: Maxed. Deflection is essential.

Res: Maxed. Many of the spells suited to this style have a duration, and keeping from being interrupted is important.

 

For talents, I like Peasant weapon focus primarily to get bonuses with staffs for the Concelhaut's spell. Using reach weapons like staffs and spears doesn't hurt either--even if they are slower. A hatchet and shield works fine for when you need to be more defensive and/or quick as well. Grimiore Slam doesn't seem to be working for me, otherwise I would select it. Talents that improve deflection are advisable. For spell selection, use Spirit Shield, Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Curse of Blackened Sight, Miasma of Dullness, Expose Vulnerabilities, Ironskin, etc. are your bread and butter. Don't bother with Wizard's Double or Mirror Image. Only use Eldritch Aim if you are using fast weapons, like two daggers.

 

With how short durations are and how ineffective most of the self-buffs are, gishing with a Wizard isn't very satisfying right now. Having to recast all of your short-lived protections and enhancements each battle is taxing and inefficient--even with no recovery time from your defensive spells. You're much better off flanking with a reach weapon and casting select debuffs than anything else. Tanking can be done though. Heavy armor with Spirit Shield and Ironskins will allow you to take on the hurt.

[Snerf]

Thanks all, sounds like some great advice. I'll keep playing around and try out some of those suggestions. I agree that ciphers seem better suited for that kind of setup, but still hoped wizards could do okay taking advantage of the variety of self buffs they seem to have all the way up their spell line.

[Doppelschwert]

So whats versatile about being limited to wearing armor and using close quarters spells?

 

I don't want to get into a lenghty discussion about whether the wizard actually is versatile as there is another thread dedicated to that, but the way his spellcasting is setup with changeable grimoires, the versatility comes from having access to theoretically every spell in his spell list (you can decide yourself whether thats actually versatile in your eyes or not). With this line of thinking, a wizard should not be able to just get his melee grimoire and put the melee classes to shame, because he can decide to use another grimoire (with cc or debuffs or stuff) which the melee classes can't.

I just wanted to say that the wizard in this game is supposed to be a generalist with the associated disadvantages and not a general specialist as in the IE games on high level.

You can go into melee, but it's still advisable to actually use your magic spells for fighting instead of hitting guys with a weapon for the reasons Mr. Magniloquent pointed out - you can do it, but it's not very effective/fun to use the short duration buffs all the time at this point.

  Edited December 5, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[kat7ra]

From my limited BB experience, and knowledge of the game so far, I'd say the introduction of newly made classes kinda "fill up" those multiclass roles that we sometimes rolled before, while we do have the freedom to make whatever char we want, I do not believe everything is viable.

And even if they implement different classes to fill the fighter/mage roles and such, (paladin is basically that for cleric/fighter anyhow in DnD) they can't fill the roles of Fighter/mage/rogue tripple classed characters that could basically do the job for a whole party, or the mage/fighter power houses, or even the cleric/mage toolbags.

It's a different system, so making the "fighter/mage" might not be viable, and you might have to find other tweaks. But keep on trying! And if you succeed it would be great, I do love my spellblades ^^

[Madscientist]

After reading this I thought about something.

 

In all of my DnD games I used a fighter (or something similar) as my first char. They were good early and you could hire a mage and cleric later.

In PoE I wanted to do it different and start with a caster.

 

In NWN1+2 a cleric with all of his buffs is a better fighter than most fighter classes. So I thought about playing a priest in PoE.

Is a priest usable in melee or is it the healing version of a glass cannon?

 

Just because I want to cast spells does not mean I want to forget how to grap a weapon. Take the blunt end in your hand and put the sharp end into somebody else, not the other way round

[Mr. Magniloquent]

After reading this I thought about something.

 

In all of my DnD games I used a fighter (or something similar) as my first char. They were good early and you could hire a mage and cleric later.

In PoE I wanted to do it different and start with a caster.

 

In NWN1+2 a cleric with all of his buffs is a better fighter than most fighter classes. So I thought about playing a priest in PoE.

Is a priest usable in melee or is it the healing version of a glass cannon?

 

Just because I want to cast spells does not mean I want to forget how to grap a weapon. Take the blunt end in your hand and put the sharp end into somebody else, not the other way round

 

The Priest is very much a "heal bot" in PoE. Their offensive spells incur no friendly fire, but they aren't particularly worthwhile either. Personally, I prefer the per encounter healing/status purge of the Paladin over the cleric. With the full release, I may find encounters to be challenging enough to where I might need healing but that's doubtful. Healing Endurance is ultimately immaterial and a waste of time in PoE so long as one character is left standing when victorious.

[morhilane]

After reading this I thought about something.

 

In all of my DnD games I used a fighter (or something similar) as my first char. They were good early and you could hire a mage and cleric later.

In PoE I wanted to do it different and start with a caster.

 

In NWN1+2 a cleric with all of his buffs is a better fighter than most fighter classes. So I thought about playing a priest in PoE.

Is a priest usable in melee or is it the healing version of a glass cannon?

 

Just because I want to cast spells does not mean I want to forget how to grap a weapon. Take the blunt end in your hand and put the sharp end into somebody else, not the other way round

 

Every class is usable in melee in PoE with the right selection of skills, talents and gear, some are just better at it out of the box than others. In term of casters, it really depends what you want to do. If you want to use a weapon a lot, go Chanter or Cipher. If you want to cast spells a lot go Druids, Priest or Mages. If you want to do healing/buff, go Priest or Chanter. If you want to go offense, go Druids, Mages or Cipher. If you want to go control, go Druids, Mages, Cipher or Priests.

 

The Paladins has a few spell-like abilities too.

[Madscientist]

Thanks

 

I think chanters or ciphers would be the best class for me.

 

Ciphers: Interesting concept, but a mage that needs to hit nearby enemies with a weapon in order to cast spells seems strange to me. Usually I want fragile casters to be as far away as possible from enemies.

 

Chanters: Maybe it helps me to overcome my dislike of bards I have learned in BG1. I never touched this class again.

[wpmaura]

i thought wizard and mage shared same primary attribute. might, so you can defiantly have them wield a sword and hit about as hard as a fighter.

[kat7ra]

Thanks

 

I think chanters or ciphers would be the best class for me.

 

Ciphers: Interesting concept, but a mage that needs to hit nearby enemies with a weapon in order to cast spells seems strange to me. Usually I want fragile casters to be as far away as possible from enemies.

 

Chanters: Maybe it helps me to overcome my dislike of bards I have learned in BG1. I never touched this class again.

Pick up BG2

Roll bard

Get to the high level perks

???

Profit!

 

The ability to use ANY item in the game, is kinda silly :D

[rjshae]

Ciphers: Interesting concept, but a mage that needs to hit nearby enemies with a weapon in order to cast spells seems strange to me. Usually I want fragile casters to be as far away as possible from enemies.

 

Really? The existence of supernatural magic spells doesn't seem strange to you, and yet this does? Hmm...

[morhilane]

i thought wizard and mage shared same primary attribute. might, so you can defiantly have them wield a sword and hit about as hard as a fighter.

 

The stat only increase damage dealt, so yes with the same weapon a wizard can hit as hard as a fighter, the problem is that the wizard accuracy is much lower than the Fighter, so you won't hit as often depending of how you are setup. Fighters start with a much better accuracy, but they are ways (talents, one-handed bonus, enchantments) to increase it.

[Shevek]

Thanks

 

I think chanters or ciphers would be the best class for me.

 

Ciphers: Interesting concept, but a mage that needs to hit nearby enemies with a weapon in order to cast spells seems strange to me. Usually I want fragile casters to be as far away as possible from enemies.

 

Chanters: Maybe it helps me to overcome my dislike of bards I have learned in BG1. I never touched this class again.

Ciphers can build up focus with ranged weapons too.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

As a point of interest, the only thing that makes a Cipher preferable to a Wizard for a gish build is that they can replenish their casting resource. The cipher class is all but totally devoid of defensive spells & abilities, which I find makes it risky to take into melee.

[Shevek]

What are you talking about? Cipher gets...

Psychovampiric Shield

Pain Link

Body Attunement

Borrowed Instinct

Tactical Meld

And boatloads of other spells which are great for melee.

 

Edit: Would I make a melee cipher? Probably not (too active) but they are definately not devoid of defensive abilities.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Shevek

[Lord Wafflebum]

In v278 of the beta melee wizard was the only way to play a wizard. There's a huge thread in the beta forums about improving the wizard class, but as of right now (in my opinion, anyway) there is no good build for the wizard. At a minimum the class needs a major balance overhaul. When I start a new beta playthrough I get rid of the wizard and buy a chanter and cipher at the inn.

[Shevek]

With the Wiz, the focus on aoe is crippling since its hard to use effectively and not obliterate your own party. Some aoe is ok but you cant have a class thats built around friendly fire skills. Its a bit unfair that the chanter/cipher get infinite spell casting AND many of their aoe spells ignore friendly targets. Seems to me that the wizards, who work with expendable resources and have limited utility, should be the ones with more aoes that ignore friendlies.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Shevek

[Lord Wafflebum]

@Shevek

 

Hear hear!

[Captain Shrek]

With the Wiz, the focus on aoe is crippling since its hard to use effectively and not obliterate your own party. Some aoe is ok but you cant have a class thats built around friendly fire skills. Its a bit unfair that the chanter/cipher get infinite spell casting AND many of their aoe spells ignore friendly targets. Seems to me that the wizards, who work with expendable resources and have limited utility, should be the ones with more aoes that ignore friendlies.

The bigger problem is not  the friendly fire as much it is creating tactical situations where friendly fire can be avoided. The way the game works right now, we have a problem of not creating scenarios where the enemy can be huddled up in a group. The only time this happens is RIGHT at the start of the combat.

 

Which sucks.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Captain Shrek