So Dragon Age: Origins is rather fun so far

[VentilatorOfDoom]

The top tier templar ability is kinda like manaclash, just weaker. Early on, before subsequent patches nerfed it, enemy templars, like the ones you have to fight in the mage tower, could one shot your party mages with it. Then they nerfed it and now it's just lose a bit HP and be stunned for a few sec.

 

[DalekFlay]

Reading that, why wouldn't someone want to take it (other than "I realize this will make it too easy")?

It's hard to design your mage at level one around obtaining a level 10+ ability you don't even know if you'll need, no matter how good it sounds. A "normal" playthrough would have you weigh the entire trees and what kind of mage you want to be and give you low odds of selecting that your first game, not even knowing how dangerous mage's are in the game. I'm not saying a nerf in a patch wouldn't be a good idea, it probably would, I'm just saying it's only known as this go-to skill to get every playthrough because google tells people it is.

Also mages are equally fun to deal with via paralyze and commanding the entire team to focus fire on them first. That's how I deal with them, and have never felt the need to go for mana clash instead. The goal is the same either way: take them out first.

 

[Elfberserker]

I thought it was bit odd that the mana clash wasn't high templar level ability.
I mean for ffs these guys are designed to fight mages and mages themselves are superior in same goddammed field.

DA:O had mages being so much stronger than other classes that it was a joke. Now, lorewise it sort of makes sense- mages are /dangerous/. The issue is that lorewise, mages are also limited by things like Lyrium addiction and so on.

Mechanic-wise, mages got the overpowerdness but none of the drawbacks.

The top tier templar ability is kinda like manaclash, just weaker. Early on, before subsequent patches nerfed it, enemy templars, like the ones you have to fight in the mage tower, could one shot your party mages with it. Then they nerfed it and now it's just lose a bit HP and be stunned for a few sec.

So some faggots complained that anti-mage warriors are actually *gasp* effective against mages?
I mean mages have already plenty of good stuff even without manaclash, while templars get some nifty armor and few weak anti-magic abilities.

I know that lorewise mages are doom cannons, but templars should be actually effective againsts mages.
By effective I mean as mages piss into their pants effective and only most powerful or cocky like flemeth or morrigan aren't terrified of them. Hell even lorewise most mages are scared of templars.

Bioware


Edit: Not to mention templars are enemy only in one fucking locatition in the whole game while mages pop up everywhere.
Yes I am butthurt about anti-mage warriors sucking dicks yet again.

 

[DalekFlay]

Best way to stop mages is to prevent them from casting until you kill them or incapacitate them, so a proper designer would have made Templars with mage-stunning openers in mind.

 

[Arkeus]

Best way to stop mages is to prevent them from casting until you kill them or incapacitate them, so a proper designer would have made Templars with mage-stunning openers in mind.

That, or effective "zones of interdictions", where mages can't cast for a while.

 

[Delterius]

Best way to stop mages is to prevent them from casting until you kill them or incapacitate them, so a proper designer would have made Templars with mage-stunning openers in mind.

They have those in DAO though I think only two templars have the aoe stun, one in the Mage Tower and another in a optional arena in Orzammar.

 

[Volourn]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[DalekFlay]

Best way to stop mages is to prevent them from casting until you kill them or incapacitate them, so a proper designer would have made Templars with mage-stunning openers in mind.

That, or effective "zones of interdictions", where mages can't cast for a while.

Right. Even an "immune to magic for 5 seconds" thing would have given you time to run a templar in, shield bash the mage, then bring everyone else in. As it is you have to use your caster to run in and paralyze or petrify the mage, then run everyone else in. Templars are useless except for canceling effects, as far as I remember. Alistair is useless in general really, except as a damage sponge. And you even have to babysit him because he never taunts at the right time and will use all his stamina up so you can't switch to him and taunt on the fly.

 

[Roguey]

It's hard to design your mage at level one around obtaining a level 10+ ability you don't even know if you'll need, no matter how good it sounds. A "normal" playthrough would have you weigh the entire trees and what kind of mage you want to be and give you low odds of selecting that your first game, not even knowing how dangerous mage's are in the game. I'm not saying a nerf in a patch wouldn't be a good idea, it probably would, I'm just saying it's only known as this go-to skill to get every playthrough because google tells people it is.

I knew to get that spell without having to rely on any outside-information. Something that makes mages completely ineffective and also does a bunch of damage to them? Come on.

So some faggots complained that anti-mage warriors are actually *gasp* effective against mages?
I mean mages have already plenty of good stuff even without manaclash, while templars get some nifty armor and few weak anti-magic abilities.

I know that lorewise mages are doom cannons, but templars should be actually effective againsts mages.
By effective I mean as mages piss into their pants effective and only most powerful or cocky like flemeth or morrigan aren't terrified of them. Hell even lorewise most mages are scared of templars.

Bioware


Edit: Not to mention templars are enemy only in one fucking locatition in the whole game while mages pop up everywhere.
Yes I am butthurt about anti-mage warriors sucking dicks yet again.

I played through DA:O unpatched and never had a mage one-shotted by templars (possibly because I went to the tower first and holy smite is a level 15 ability so they wouldn't be high enough to have it) but any unavoidable ability that can one-shot anyone is shit design.

Holy Smite isn't listed anywhere in the balance section of the patch notes so I dunno. Maybe that was just a part of "Certain battles were not scaling properly, resulting in excessively difficult fights. They now scale as intended."

 

[Nikaido]

I also picked manaclash during my playthrough without relying on external information. Even if you were not going for manaclash itself, it's only one more point to add to a line that screams "MUST HAVE". Anyone who has experience with RPGs would pick Spell Might in a heartbeat. Going full nuke derp is the way to go with most magic systems along with debuff. The fact that this game has lyrium potions to recharge your mana also makes the drawbacks of Spell Might moot.

 

[Volourn]

Meh. I have NEVER used mana clash.

 

[Akratus]

I bought Darklands and Wizardry 6 in a recent steam sale.

I couldn't. . . I'm too weak. I'm too much of a newfag. .

I'm sentencing myself to Dragon Age Origins as punishment.

 

[DalekFlay]

I can't play Darklands either. Try Wizardry 8.

Also buy it on GOG you asshole.

 

[Raghar]

I'm sentencing myself to Dragon Age Origins as punishment.

Play AoW2:SM as a punishment. Don't be scared, you can do it.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Whenever I get the urge to replay DA:O, I just play Baldur's Gate 2 instead. I end up being grateful later on.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I thought it was bit odd that the mana clash wasn't high templar level ability.
I mean for ffs these guys are designed to fight mages and mages themselves are superior in same goddammed field.

DA:O had mages being so much stronger than other classes that it was a joke. Now, lorewise it sort of makes sense- mages are /dangerous/. The issue is that lorewise, mages are also limited by things like Lyrium addiction and so on.

Mechanic-wise, mages got the overpowerdness but none of the drawbacks.

The top tier templar ability is kinda like manaclash, just weaker. Early on, before subsequent patches nerfed it, enemy templars, like the ones you have to fight in the mage tower, could one shot your party mages with it. Then they nerfed it and now it's just lose a bit HP and be stunned for a few sec.

So some faggots complained that anti-mage warriors are actually *gasp* effective against mages?
I mean mages have already plenty of good stuff even without manaclash, while templars get some nifty armor and few weak anti-magic abilities.

I know that lorewise mages are doom cannons, but templars should be actually effective againsts mages.
By effective I mean as mages piss into their pants effective and only most powerful or cocky like flemeth or morrigan aren't terrified of them. Hell even lorewise most mages are scared of templars.

Bioware


Edit: Not to mention templars are enemy only in one fucking locatition in the whole game while mages pop up everywhere.
Yes I am butthurt about anti-mage warriors sucking dicks yet again.

And in BG2, despite the much-vaunted (and justifiably so) mage focus of the combat, fighters, paladins, monks and barbarians all had incredibly effective anti-mage kits or anti-mage builds (the speed bonus, resistances and save-or-die/stun made barbarians and monks great mage-killers even without specialised kits).

Hell, you could probably throw thieves in there too, given that the game encourages you to dual or multi them, and a thief-fighter is a terrific mage-killer too (though, unlike the other mage-killers, it isn't effective against the major mage boss fights - but that just emphasises how powerful the other anti-mage builds were, that in a mage-dominated game they could still be strong counters to Irenicus).

 

[Revenant]

So, today I fired up this game and played an hour or so somewhat seriously for the first time in years, and I was amazed that the decline progressed so much during that time so that it seemed almost a hardcore RPG to me now (though the fact that I have been forcing myself to play Twitcher 2 lately might have contributed). Overhead camera, party-based combat, non-voiced blank slate protagonist, and actual fucking SKILLS THAT MATTER during combat! Seriously, I was amazed to remember that in this game you actually can't just click anywhere and succeed (at least on the Hard difficulty). Where is a single game like that by a major publisher in this decade, I ask you? WHERE? And I remember I was skeptical about DA:O when it was released, boy did those standards drop over the years

Good thing I haven't played the expansion and most of the DLCs back in the day. Now I have some lellelel OLD-SCHOOL RPG experience to look forward to.

 

[Kefka1134]

Wel that's because Origins is kinda fun, not as good as NWN though.

 

[Revenant]

NWN, the first one? Are you serious? Lack of party based combat alone makes NWN inferior to DA:O, not mentioning one of the most boring campaigns ever seen in a CRPG. Ugly engine with character models looking like Samogitians doesn't help either.

NWN2, on the other hand, really seems as the "spiritual prequel" to DA:O. However, lack of fully voiced dialogue (yeah, I like not having to read stuff, I'd read a goddamn book if I wanted to read a story) and by this point extremely tired Forgotten Realms setting makes me prefer DA:O again.

 

[a Goat]

yeah, I like not having to read stuff, I'd read a goddamn book if I wanted to read a story

 

[Revenant]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/long-winded-dialogues-suck.104116/

 

[a Goat]

There's a difference between long winded dialogues and "hurr full voice over is incline when it's me who defines incline".

There were probably more posts about why VO sucks for RPG's than I can count so I'm not really willing to repeat all those points.

Either way your a dumbfuck and you're mother is shit.

 

[Revenant]

Sheep get slaughtered.

 

[a Goat]

Sheep get slaughtered.

You too.

 

[Kefka1134]

NWN, the first one? Are you serious?

Not really, actually I meant to say neither NWN or DA:O were super exciting.