The sheer irony of the buff mechanics

[Khalid the bear]

i actualy like grimorie inquality of life way. its much easier to read description of spells and compare them per level, than with druids and clerrics. i wish all spells per clas/per level were in cyclopedia

[CriticalFailure]

Personally, I miss long-term buffs that last through several battles, simply because the actual process of buffing is a chore. In practice, this means that I generally buff a lot less in POE than in other games, where I'm able to run around partially buffed most of the time without having to constantly re-apply the buffs (I'm not counting things like paladin and chanter auras here).

 

The OP has a point I more or less agree with, and playstyle and convenience are probably irrelevant to it. I just wanted to say that, in practice, when no-brainers meet tedium... laziness often prevails.

Edited May 6, 2015 by CriticalFailure

[b0rsuk]

Finally, consider the end-game where 1st and 2nd level spells become per-encounter rather than per-rest. In that scenario, there is absolutely no reason not to cast the better 1st and 2nd level buffs literally every non-trivial fight. I thought this was very ironic and more than a little funny: in an effort to get away from the system where casting the same buffs after every rest was a no-brainer, PoE has arrived at a system where casting the same buffs in every encounter is a no-brainer.

 

Unfortunately, true.

What's worse, they went out of their way to make level1 spells pretty good and relevant even in late game. And then, they applied D&D thinking to them ! "Here, you can now cast these spells per encounter, because they're weak." But they are NOT ! You just went out of your way to make them relevant, remember ? Charm Beasts is level1, Hold Beasts is level2. Guess what creatures count as beast ? DRAGONS.

[manageri]

 in an effort to get away from the system where casting the same buffs after every rest was a no-brainer, PoE has arrived at a system where casting the same buffs in every encounter is a no-brainer.

 

But it's not the same because pre-buffing is literally the same exact routine. In combat you may not always wish to buff as your first action, and even when you do, you may not always think the same spell is the one you should cast first. PoE is 6000% better in this regard.

[b0rsuk]

 

 in an effort to get away from the system where casting the same buffs after every rest was a no-brainer, PoE has arrived at a system where casting the same buffs in every encounter is a no-brainer.

 

But it's not the same because pre-buffing is literally the same exact routine. In combat you may not always wish to buff as your first action, and even when you do, you may not always think the same spell is the one you should cast first. PoE is 6000% better in this regard.

 

 

If we rephrase it as:

"Casting all your level1, level2 spells in each non-trivial encounter", it's not really that much better.

[Zwiebelchen]

 

 

 in an effort to get away from the system where casting the same buffs after every rest was a no-brainer, PoE has arrived at a system where casting the same buffs in every encounter is a no-brainer.

 

But it's not the same because pre-buffing is literally the same exact routine. In combat you may not always wish to buff as your first action, and even when you do, you may not always think the same spell is the one you should cast first. PoE is 6000% better in this regard.

 

 

If we rephrase it as:

"Casting all your level1, level2 spells in each non-trivial encounter", it's not really that much better.

 

 

Why not? It's fun!

 

Like, really, why does nobody care about that anymore? Reaching level 9 as a spellcaster is a huge step upwards in class enjoyment. It's in no way overpowered (as the number of spells you can cast in a single battle is not higher) and hard battles won't get easier because of that - but it makes trash encounters so much more enjoyable.

 

I love being able to spam minolettas minor missiles in trash battles.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Nakia]

 

 

 

 in an effort to get away from the system where casting the same buffs after every rest was a no-brainer, PoE has arrived at a system where casting the same buffs in every encounter is a no-brainer.

 

But it's not the same because pre-buffing is literally the same exact routine. In combat you may not always wish to buff as your first action, and even when you do, you may not always think the same spell is the one you should cast first. PoE is 6000% better in this regard.

 

 

If we rephrase it as:

"Casting all your level1, level2 spells in each non-trivial encounter", it's not really that much better.

 

 

Why not? It's fun!

 

Like, really, why does nobody care about that anymore? Reaching level 9 as a spellcaster is a huge step upwards in class enjoyment. It's in no way overpowered (as the number of spells you can cast in a single battle is not higher) and hard battles won't get easier because of that - but it makes trash encounters so much more enjoyable.

 

I love being able to spam minolettas minor missiles in trash battles.

 

So do I.  I prefer the spellcasting system in PoE to that in the IE games.  

[manageri]

If we rephrase it as:

"Casting all your level1, level2 spells in each non-trivial encounter", it's not really that much better.

 

This makes no sense. Casting more spells in combat = same level of boring as pre-buffing? How?

[roller12]

what? the only buff that lasted a long time in IE games was stoneskin, and being non stackable target:self the only thing you could do with it is saving one spellslot, which is pretty much irrelevant in the grande scheme of things.

 

Everything else lasted 1round/level or so, at best 2 minutes by the end of a high level campaign, and many werent even that.

 

The problem with BG etc was the exact opposite, too much prebuff junk for each encounter or accept being gimped. In this game they got rid of prebuffs(good), but introduced a lot of junk micro for each encounter(bad) so at the end, nothing has changed.

 

 

 

edit: BG2 had infinite spells you didnt even had to rest there.

Edited May 13, 2015 by roller12