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[392] Enemy casters need to be more threatening


PrimeJunta

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You needed one scroll to humilate a lich in BG2. Or breach/dispel to handle 99% of other mage encounters unless you had SCS installed.

 

I agree about melee Gish being a tad underwhelming though. But I did beat the backer beta with zero deaths (or knockouts) on the player character in Path of the Damned with a spell protections focused mage a couple builds back and was still second in kills to 2her BB fighter.. so the tankiness is there in a way.

Edited by PIP-Clownboy
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And therefore, it is perfectly fine that in P:E all you need is vanilla ranged weapons. Is that what you're saying?

 

We  have only seen a small portion of the game so it's premature to say either way. 

 

But the fact remains that most of the mage encounters were a complete joke in BG2 without mods. 

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I can only judge by what's in the BB, and what I know about the mechanics. Based on that, mages have no defense against a ranged firearms volley.

 

Whether mage encounters in BG2 were a joke or not is entirely immaterial. Or do you think P:E should replicate BG2's flaws as well as its strengths?

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I can only judge by what's in the BB, and what I know about the mechanics. Based on that, mages have no defense against a ranged firearms volley.

 

Whether mage encounters in BG2 were a joke or not is entirely immaterial. Or do you think P:E should replicate BG2's flaws as well as its strengths?

 

You brought up BG2 in your OP. 

 

What I have seen in the BB beta is bad AI targeting/decision making. But you're kidding yourself if you think mass 'ranged volley' wasn't an effective Mage killer in the BG series. 

 

Though, that one boss caster in the Sawyer stream looked quite beefy and the amount of initial adds prevented ranged firearms volley to open the fight.

 

In general though, I feel the POE is way too easy on Hard. I'll be playing on Path of Damned regardless, but by all means increase the difficulty Obsid. I'm masochistic like that.

Edited by PIP-Clownboy
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I can only judge by what's in the BB, and what I know about the mechanics. Based on that, mages have no defense against a ranged firearms volley.

 

Whether mage encounters in BG2 were a joke or not is entirely immaterial. Or do you think P:E should replicate BG2's flaws as well as its strengths?

In BG2 mages could not be assaulted first unless you had a good rogue or invisibility spell. Also defensive spells were faster than weapon attacks in initiative combat of combat round.

They just need to give defensive spells of power equal to IE games Mirror Image to mages in PoE and remove stupid bigger line on sight of player characters.

 

It was shown in PoE stream when Josh was standing half a room away from enemy units that ignored him until he attacked first. He was not even using stealth.

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What I have seen in the BB beta is bad AI targeting/decision making. But you're kidding yourself if you think mass 'ranged volley' wasn't an effective Mage killer in the BG series.

In BG1 it is. In BG2 with spell triggers and contigencies it's not, if you don't get those down first.

 

Though, that one boss caster in the Sawyer stream looked quite beefy and the amount of initial adds prevented ranged firearms volley to open the fight.

 

In general though, I feel the POE is way too easy on Hard. I'll be playing on Path of Damned regardless, but by all means increase the difficulty Obsid. I'm masochistic like that.

I bet my dad can beat up your dad though.

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What I have seen in the BB beta is bad AI targeting/decision making. But you're kidding yourself if you think mass 'ranged volley' wasn't an effective Mage killer in the BG series.

In BG1 it is. In BG2 with spell triggers and contigencies it's not, if you don't get those down first.

 

Though, that one boss caster in the Sawyer stream looked quite beefy and the amount of initial adds prevented ranged firearms volley to open the fight.

 

In general though, I feel the POE is way too easy on Hard. I'll be playing on Path of Damned regardless, but by all means increase the difficulty Obsid. I'm masochistic like that.

I bet my dad can beat up your dad though.

 

 

Those are absolutely trivial to deal with unless you have difficulty mods that enable prebuffing installed. Even then, you can easily merc the majority of mages in seconds mass ranged or insta gib with stealth. 

 

Doubtful. Dad never struggled with vanilla BG2 mage encounters either.

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Do you prefer that they have no defenses against such things at all, like in P:E now?

 

Depends on the encounter design of the rest of the game. The claim you're making is based on playing small of % non-crit path part of the game and your argument is basically 'because BG2'. Comparing BG1 would be more intellectually honest and you already admitted ranged focus fire wrecked Mages there.

 

But if you're asking if I want spell triggers/contingencies -- sure do. In BG2 though, gen pop mages didn't use them until SCS came around as far I can remember. 

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I wasn't making an argument; I was expressing a preference -- that mages be more of a potent threat than they are in BB392. Since you appear to agree, what exactly do your have your panties in a wad about again?

 

Level 5 mages shouldn't be able to shrug off 5-6 dudes shooting them with a gun. If the rest of the encounter allows your group to do that unhindered than that's bad encounter design/AI targeting and not really mages being a non-threat problem. 

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Already gave you example in the Sawyer stream, which you ignored. His party would have been wrecked by skirmishers if he tried to open with all guns.

Right, so you prefer mages to be less threatening than other creatures in an encounter. That's what I thought. Thank you.

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Mages should be like every other class as far as the threat they represent.

 

As far as I can tell, they are.

 

It is hard to make that switch in thinking, though. I'm so accustomed to prioritizing mages and archers, because they tend to be the classes you can't afford to ignore. In PE, they're more balanced, and the fights I've been in thus far have been based more on the whole encounter, and less on the individuals within the encounter.

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Havent mages been pretty much neutered? Down from nukers to "mob control" or something like that. Are there any enemy Ciphers / Chanters in the enemy BB parties (I cant remember)? They are probably much more dangerous anyway.

On the contrary, it's the mob control stuff that's been neutered. They're pretty much grenadiers only.

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While BG2 spell battles are out, the enemy mages in 392 are kind of disappointing. If you're rocking firearms, they're chunked in the opening. Arcane Veil also does not protect against firearms, and I don't think there's any "opening move" currently in the game that would defend a mage from that. Pelting the mage with arrows has much the same effect, only takes a little longer. They're just too fragile and too easy to interrupt.

 

Which is kind of amusing given all the bellyaching over 'muscle wizards' a while back, actually.

 

Something should be done to make enemy spellcasters more dangerous. They oughtn't be that easy to neutralize.

 

I agree and I wish the wizards were a bit better/more dangerous overall.

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