The Dragon Age is Bloody Hard Thread

[Tim James]

Having read a bunch of complaints about the difficulty, it seems to me that the biggest issue people are having is with inadequate healing, and you seem annoyed that it's a factor in the game at all. Which is fine I guess, even if it makes no sense at all to me.

It's been said about a hundred times now, but I was "chugging" the poultices like crazy until I got Wynne to help a little with upkeep through her heal spell, but mostly from crowd control spells and warrior/rogue stun effects to manage damage.

I don't think you have to read a strategy guide to discover this, it just takes 20+ hours to get to that point in the game. It's gone from challenging-in-a-good-way to micromanagement-in-a-good-way, and may change again for all I know.

[Blackadar]

Stuff

Fair enough, I don't mean to put words in your mouth. My apologies for misunderstanding you.

By the way, for a few levels I too felt that Shale was pretty mandatory because the rest of my party was dropping very quickly. Everyone else could croak and I could keep him alive with one healing spell from my hidden mage and a few healing pots while he beat up 2 or 3 monsters. It was only after I got some decent CC and AOE (which I hadn't concentrated on when selecting skills early in the game) that I found Shale to be entirely unnecessary.

Again, I think the lack of a decent manual can make the first play-through of DA very, very rocky (Shale pun!) because it makes it possible to select classes and skill sets that don't have any synergy. By the way, has anyone posted any of the best combos like those you listed in your post? There are supposedly 10 unique spell combinations, but I only uncovered one in my first run-through. I hate to start another DA thread at this point, but I'd love a breakdown of some tactics that everyone uses without having to wade through 6 or 8 threads.

[Matt Perkins]

Most of us would call that being an asshole, not "joking".

I'm glad your defending him, because he obviously can't handle my vicious insults all on his own.


The point is this...this is a tactical combat system. That involves what armor you wear, what healing you use, what position your characters are in, what AOE control you use, etc, etc.

Brian isn't trying to learn those things, he complaining that they are necessary.... I find much amusement in that.

[Kevin Grey]

I just hate having my good time interrupted by fiddly crap.

That "fiddly crap" is the actual game. I can't imagine playing through the minimum 40 hours it takes just do the main quest if you don't have a genuine interest in the nuances of combat, strategy, skills, etc. That stuff is the backbone of the game.

Given your preferences it sounds like "Casual" is probably the perfect description of the difficulty level you should be using.

[Tim James]

By the way, has anyone posted any of the best combos like those you listed in your post? There are supposedly 10 unique spell combinations, but I only uncovered one in my first run-through. I hate to start another DA thread at this point, but I'd love a breakdown of some tactics that everyone uses without having to wade through 6 or 8 threads.

Part of me wants this to be spoiled because freezing + Stonefist as a game mechanic is almost as fun as flanking World War II machineguns or charging knights into infantry. But I agonize enough over spells that I'll probably hate reading all the ones I can't get to with my limited talent points.

[Kevin Grey]

Again, I think the lack of a decent manual can make the first play-through of DA very, very rocky (Shale pun!) because it makes it possible to select classes and skill sets that don't have any synergy. By the way, has anyone posted any of the best combos like those you listed in your post? There are supposedly 10 unique spell combinations, but I only uncovered one in my first run-through. I hate to start another DA thread at this point, but I'd love a breakdown of some tactics that everyone uses without having to wade through 6 or 8 threads.

I don't know, I think there is a ton of relatively useful info between the manual and the tooltips and codex in game. Not down to the level that stat junkies will want (that stuff should be coming now that the editor exposes it all) but plenty for planning characters and strategies.

I don't think tactics and strategies should be spelled out in the manual (if that is what you are implying)- that's for each player to discover.

[Ben Sones]

Vague descriptions:
The descriptions are mostly good and you will find that many of those abilities that do actually drain your stamina note it, as mentioned earlier in this very thread. HOWEVER, i do wish the descriptions showed the exact stats instead of "increases slightly."

They really aren't good at all. Nothing gives you damage specifics, which makes it really hard to make skill choices. Is Shock better, worse, or the same as Flame Blast? No way to know short of taking it. Actually, to be more specific, there's no way to know short of taking both. How much does Rock Armor add to your armor? How much does Arcane Shield add to your defense? How much does Frost Weapons add to weapon damage? How does it differ from Flame Weapons? What sort of attack penalty does Sunder Arms actually apply? These things are not inconsequential trivialities--they are the key to making sound tactical decisions, and what's more, informed choices when selecting skills. In a game that last 50+ hours, having to make permanent, non-respeccable skill choices blindly is not a good thing.

You are 100% wrong on bad design decisions. Just wrong. Abilities that reserve stamina/mana are meant to replace having to recast buffs every 10 minutes and are done very well, giving the big advantage of a buff spell a real cost that you can feel. Abilities that have an ongoing cost (there aren't many of them, so have you even used one?) are powerful abilities that aren't meant to be toggled on all of the time. Use some thought to using them!

It IS a bad design decision. The mana/stamina reserve costs, not to mention the extra fatigue penalties, are steep enough already without also making you afraid to spend what mana/stamina you have left, for fear of inadvertently switching off a long-cooldown ability that you just spent a third of your mana bar to activate. And skills like Indomitable and Shield Wall really do need to be turned on all the time, if you are tanking.

[Matt Perkins]

And skills like Indomitable and Shield Wall really do need to be turned on all the time, if you are tanking.

Can't you just make that the first thing in the tactics slot? I think it's my first or second option for Alistair (Shield Wall). He ALWAYS has it on.

[idrisz]

Can't you just make that the first thing in the tactics slot? I think it's my first or second option for Alistair (Shield Wall). He ALWAYS has it on.

yeah just put all your must have on in the first few slots

like Self Any - turn this shit on!!!!

Also weird thing about tactic is that when you recruit new members, their tactic slots are all set to custom, you need to change them to
archer for lileanna or scrapper for zev manually before they are actually useful.

another weird thing about Tanking tactic for Allistair is that he only use skills on mob either hp > 90% or 75% which means he wouldn't use any skills for most of the boss fights. you should probably change it to closest enemies or Hp > 20% or 10%.

[Ben Sones]

Can't you just make that the first thing in the tactics slot? I think it's my first or second option for Alistair (Shield Wall). He ALWAYS has it on.

I don't use Tactics. But it doesn't matter anyway, because turning the ability on is not the problem. I already have them turned on, typically before combat begins. The problem is that the game turns them off. Then they are on cooldown while stun-happy foes are ass-raping you, and it doesn't matter how many Tactics slots you devote to turning them on again, because you can't. ;)

[Dan_Theman]

I don't use Tactics. But it doesn't matter anyway, because turning the ability on is not the problem. I already have them turned on, typically before combat begins. The problem is that the game turns them off. Then they are on cooldown while stun-happy foes are ass-raping you, and it doesn't matter how many Tactics slots you devote to turning them on again, because you can't. ;)

I'm not sure how or why the game would turn those abilities off in your case, but you do have the option of using tactics *just* for those abilities to sidestep any issues like what you're experiencing.

As suggested, do the <self> - <any> on the left, and <shield wall> on the right. For the next tactic, also doe <self> - <any> on the left and then do <indomitable> on the right. For however many more tactic slots you have left, select <clear>. Now he should keep that on while being directed to attack/use other abilities by you.

[Mordrak]

They really aren't good at all. Nothing gives you damage specifics, which makes it really hard to make skill choices. Is Shock better, worse, or the same as Flame Blast? No way to know short of taking it. Actually, to be more specific, there's no way to know short of taking both. How much does Rock Armor add to your armor? How much does Arcane Shield add to your defense? How much does Frost Weapons add to weapon damage? How does it differ from Flame Weapons? What sort of attack penalty does Sunder Arms actually apply? These things are not inconsequential trivialities--they are the key to making sound tactical decisions, and what's more, informed choices when selecting skills. In a game that last 50+ hours, having to make permanent, non-respeccable skill choices blindly is not a good thing.

I really have to disagree with this. The fact is most of those comparisons aren't really worth making. I don't really think in terms of DPS comparisons while playing this game, nor is it necessary. It's not like you're laying out encounters in a spreadsheet to maximize DPS like a raid encounter. On top of that you get all of your mana back after each fight to basically start a fresh.

Your question is basically how much of Y does X do? The answer is always a significant portion of Y unless it's a particularly resistant enemy to Y. The reason the answer is always a significant amount is because the number of spells and abilities is so limited.

Is Arcane Armor worth it? Well.. does your mage find themselves in melee a lot?

Is one spell more powerful than another? Well... what tier is it in? Are the fire weapons worth it? Are you primarily a weapon oriented group with only one mage?

It's about what abilities you need due to how your strategies play out that matters more than specific amounts of DPS, hold length, etc.

That said, I don't think it'd be that much of a problem to have numbers, but depending how it's calculated... that could take away from the atmosphere of the game where people pay too close attention to numbers, when for the most part... numbers don't really matter in Dragon Age, which is a testament to its quality design.

It IS a bad design decision. The mana/stamina reserve costs, not to mention the extra fatigue penalties, are steep enough already without also making you afraid to spend what mana/stamina you have left, for fear of inadvertently switching off a long-cooldown ability that you just spent a third of your mana bar to activate. And skills like Indomitable and Shield Wall really do need to be turned on all the time, if you are tanking.

My tank uses a two hander and he rarely uses Indomitable. *shrugs*

[Brian Rucker]

After stepping away and taking a breath I'm sorting out why I'm actually getting mad about this.

1) I feel stupid. Why can't I figure out how to make this work without resorting to cheating? For me, visiting threads for spoilers in a single player game is cheating. So I'm a little pissed off at the game, and myself, for even having to do this. It's not something I usually need to do and I play some fairly hairy games.

2) I feel let down. The setting, the characters and the world are wonderful. There's just so much detail and feeling in the execution of Dragon Age: Origin that I could move right in and settle down. It's immersive as hell. Revolutionary, for me at least, to enjoy a narrative heavy game this much. Then I find the gameplay is just D&D+. D&D isn't immersive. It's entirely contrived and artificial. I've spent my life as a gamer and a roleplayer putting as much distance between myself and +4 Bracers of Bracing as possible.

I want combat to feel like combat and magic to feel like magic. I don't get the warm fuzzies when healing potions, tanks, dps, cc and all the rest of the MMO glossary of shame comes into it. I'll tolerate it with MMOs because, well, that's where my friends hang out and I can get my RP on, on the side at least.

I can't even say DA didn't live up to my expectations in terms of gameplay because I didn't have any. I wasn't really following it. Honestly. With a name like Dragon Age did they expect people to take it seriously? It sounded generic so I'd assumed it would be. But reading some articles got me more intrigued and playing the, first couple of days, blew my mind with the great concepts and writing.

But the more the gameplay elbowed its way, rather forcefully, onto the stage the more I instinctively resisted. I just didn't want to play that way and I guess I was in a bit of denial about the obvious. Of course this was going to be D&D/WoWish. A rich, believable, setting married to rusty, implausible, gameplay just didn't make sense. It really deserves better...

[Blackadar]

I really have to disagree with this....

Is Arcane Armor worth it? Well.. does your mage find themselves in melee a lot?

Now see, I have to disagree with you and I'll use the same example. BTW, I'm assuming you're speaking of Arcane Shield.

Here's the entire tooltip: The caster generates protective sheath that helps divert incoming attacks, gaining a bonus to defense while this mode is active.

Is that a 10% damage reduction? 50%? 100%? Does it absorb 25 health? 150 health?

Reading that tool tip, I have no idea how effective that spell is. And is it any better than Rock Armor which according to the tool tip does the following: The caster's skin becomes as hard as stone, granting a bonus to armor for as long as this mode is active?

Now Rock Armor may be a level 1 talent and Arcane Armor level 2, but perhaps I'm an elemental mage because I want Earthquake. What kind of difference would Arcane Armor make? Do they stack together, making my mage super-invulnerable?

That's why I'd like to have more info. There's a litany of unanswered questions there and maybe there are answers, but I haven't found 'em. The only way I could find out is to select the spells and then test 'em out. In a game that doesn't allow me to respec, that's a big leap of faith. If I knew more about what they did, I could imagine myself casting both and then running into a room to cast a couple of AOE damage spells and still live to make it out of the room - almost a "mage tank" type of spec, if you will. But I really don't know...though I really would like to know.

[LesJarvis]

the MMO glossary of shame

[...]

rusty, implausible, gameplay just didn't make sense. It really deserves better...

There's absolutely nothing wrong with not enjoying the combat mechanics of DA, but resorting to judgment-laden language like this isn't helping your case. It's really not any different from me saying you're stupid because you can't figure out that healing is important. It's insulting and it adds nothing to the conversation. Don't like it, fine, but leave the baggage at home.

[Mordrak]

After stepping away and taking a breath I'm sorting out why I'm actually getting mad about this.

1) I feel stupid. Why can't I figure out how to make this work without resorting to cheating? For me, visiting threads for spoilers in a single player game is cheating. So I'm a little pissed off at the game, and myself, for even having to do this. It's not something I usually need to do and I play some fairly hairy games.

The game is hard. There's no reason to feel bad about that, which is only compounded for by limited perspective on a console.

2) I feel let down. The setting, the characters and the world are wonderful. There's just so much detail and feeling in the execution of Dragon Age: Origin that I could move right in and settle down. It's immersive as hell. Revolutionary, for me at least, to enjoy a narrative heavy game this much. Then I find the gameplay is just D&D+. D&D isn't immersive. It's entirely contrived and artificial. I've spent my life as a gamer and a roleplayer putting as much distance between myself and +4 Bracers of Bracing as possible.

And this game goes pretty far to distance itself from D&D. Yes, there are allusions, but there's none of the the min maxing non sense, endless lists of quirky spells*, and buffing/debuffing non sense. Everything in Dragon Age is infinitely more straight forward than D&D and most MMOs.

I want combat to feel like combat and magic to feel like magic. I don't get the warm fuzzies when healing potions, tanks, dps, cc and all the rest of the MMO glossary of shame comes into it. I'll tolerate it with MMOs because, well, that's where my friends hang out and I can get my RP on, on the side at least.

Other than the potions (which I think are pretty standard for RPGs in general), I'm throwing around those terms because that's how other people have decided to frame the discussion and they are well understood. You shouldn't have to think about DPS while playing Dragon Age and I didn't until people brought it up here. Tank just means big burly warrior really. He goes in first, takes a few hits so other people can do their thing and then the fight's basically over generally. He throws out maybe one taunt during a fight.

But the more the gameplay elbowed its way, rather forcefully, onto the stage the more I instinctively resisted. I just didn't want to play that way and I guess I was in a bit of denial about the obvious. Of course this was going to be D&D/WoWish. A rich, believable, setting married to rusty, implausible, gameplay just didn't make sense. It really deserves better...

Honestly, it sounds like you're asking for an adventure game, because the gameplay for me isn't MMOish at all (and much more straight forward than D&D). Have you tried switching it to easy for particularly difficult encounters?

*Though, in some respects I like the long quirky lists of spells. It makes magic seem more chaotic and mysterious, it just can be a terrible design if you're concerned with balance.

[peacedog]

That said, I don't think it'd be that much of a problem to have numbers, but depending how it's calculated... that could take away from the atmosphere of the game where people pay too close attention to numbers, when for the most part... numbers don't really matter in Dragon Age, which is a testament to its quality design.

Taking out the numbers from skill effects enhances the atmosphere in a game filled to the brim with numbers? I don't think so.

[Brian Rucker]

Yeah, but easy is so unchallenging I don't get any satisfaction at all from that. I'm going to settle in and try harder to get around my biases here. I really want to like the game. We'll see if that's enough.

[MikeJ]

Is that a 10% damage reduction? 50%? 100%? Does it absorb 25 health? 150 health?

It says it gives you a bonus to defense, which in DA means you are harder to hit. It's not a percentage damage reduction and it doesn't absorb damage (where did you get these ideas?) I agree that they should say how much defense it would add, but keep in mind that this does scale with spell power.

Reading that tool tip, I have no idea how effective that spell is. And is it any better than Rock Armor which according to the tool tip does the following: The caster's skin becomes as hard as stone, granting a bonus to armor for as long as this mode is active?

Rock Armor gives a bonus to armor. Armor subtracts damage from each hit. So they really do different things. Arcane armor is better for big, relatively inaccurate hits, Rock armour is better for many small, relatively accurate hits.

Do they stack together, making my mage super-invulnerable?

They don't affect the same stat, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't stack.

[Mordrak]

Taking out the numbers from skill effects enhances the atmosphere in a game filled to the brim with numbers? I don't think so.

Filled to the brim with numbers? o.O Yeah, if you're going to compare it to God of War... sure. Could it be even more simplified? Ya, it could be Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or My First RPG, but it's pretty bare bones right now while still retaining the expected basics for RPGs (item and character progression).

Rock Armor gives a bonus to armor. Armor subtracts damage from each hit. So they really do different things. Arcane armor is better for big, relatively inaccurate hits, Rock armour is better for many small, relatively accurate hits.

Yeah, I haven't looked too closely at those spells--I went down the mage line not for the armor but the willpower and staff buffs--, but so far the game's given me all the information I need to make decisions.

[shang]

That sounds fun. I will do a mage if/when I play again so I wouldn't mind trying three mages just to have a lot of spells at my disposal.

I'm playing with 3 mages + warrior at the moment and it's lots of fun. All the mages are specced differently so I have a huge variety of spells to play with. My main is an Arcane Warrior so he doubles up as a second tank when needed.

It sometimes irks me that I don't have a lockpicker with me, but I don't really need the extra loot to do well at the moment (and mages aren't as equipment-dependent anyway).

[Blackadar]

It says it gives you a bonus to defense, which in DA means you are harder to hit. It's not a percentage damage reduction and it doesn't absorb damage (where did you get these ideas?) I agree that they should say how much defense it would add, but keep in mind that this does scale with spell power.

Rock Armor gives a bonus to armor. Armor subtracts damage from each hit. So they really do different things. Arcane armor is better for big, relatively inaccurate hits, Rock armour is better for many small, relatively accurate hits.

They don't affect the same stat, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't stack.

Right, but I think you get the point. I think we'll find that the possibilities in DA are very varied, with combinations of skills that even the developers didn't foresee (and this is a good thing), but you can see why some more detail would make it easier to "experiment with confidence".

[Mordrak]

Yeah, but easy is so unchallenging I don't get any satisfaction at all from that. I'm going to settle in and try harder to get around my biases here. I really want to like the game. We'll see if that's enough.

Yeah, it does sound like it could use an in between easy and normal difficulty setting. And by no means am I saying the game is easy at normal, it isn't. I just think people are applying MMO nomenclature because that's what they are familiar with and gives everyone at least a starting point for understanding each other and I think the framework for the battle system is pretty intuitive.

[Juffo-Wup]

I really have to disagree with this. The fact is most of those comparisons aren't really worth making. I don't really think in terms of DPS comparisons while playing this game, nor is it necessary. It's not like you're laying out encounters in a spreadsheet to maximize DPS like a raid encounter. On top of that you get all of your mana back after each fight to basically start a fresh.

Your question is basically how much of Y does X do? The answer is always a significant portion of Y unless it's a particularly resistant enemy to Y. The reason the answer is always a significant amount is because the number of spells and abilities is so limited.

Is Arcane Armor worth it? Well.. does your mage find themselves in melee a lot?

Is one spell more powerful than another? Well... what tier is it in? Are the fire weapons worth it? Are you primarily a weapon oriented group with only one mage?

It's about what abilities you need due to how your strategies play out that matters more than specific amounts of DPS, hold length, etc.

I disagree. Dragon Age forces you to be very efficient about your character builds in order to survive, especially at higher difficulties. You can't afford to waste points on useless spells or abilities, and they don't seem balanced very well. The difference between a powerful, always useful spell like Fireball and a clunker like Arcane Armor is enormous.

For example, the Tempest spell (and any other spell that does really low DoT in a large area) is a bad investment. It does trivial damage, can be easily avoided by enemies, takes a lot of mana and a long time to cast, and sits at the end of a spell tree (it's not a pre-requisite to anything else). It's a waste of a skill point.

In contrast, the Fireball spell does great damage, casts instantly, stuns, inflicts a DoT, has a decent area of effect, and a low cooldown. It's a great pick.

In general, I've learned that utility spells are not worthwhile in this game. You simply don't have time to cast more than a couple spells before the thugs reach you, and once they reach you you die almost instantly, Arcane Armor or not. The 1-3 spells you get at the beginning of a fight need to win you the battle outright, or you've lost. Stuns, lockdown, and damage are life. That regeneration spell is great. Everything else, not so much.

If the game gave you some stats for some indication at the huge power variance between spells, it'd be much easier to avoid being temporarily screwed by wasting skill points on useless stuff. In the long run it looks like you get enough skill points that one or two bad picks won't gimp a character.

[Munky]

Weirdest thing I've done is take Alistair's sword & board away. He swings a mean two-hander now (me sword & board, Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana). Playing on normal I have to be careful, and occasionally someone bites it in a fight, but I haven't had anything come up that was wtf-worthy. I see that being my comp pretty much for the entire first play-through.

[Tim James]

I agree with Mordrak at least for normal difficulty. I've said before that this feels like a role-playing game where I can look at items, spells, and talents and simply decide what I want to do. Combat also plays like Company of Heroes where soft counters, positioning, and timely use of special abilities are important rather than controlling every game tick like high level Starcraft competition.

At higher difficulty levels you might need to know what's overpowered and get into the nuts and bolts, but other than a few oversights by Bioware I don't seem to mind the obscured details.

I was also worried about the MMO garbage and tanking stuff but I think the Company of Heroes analogy fits well. Must be why I'm enjoying it so much.

[Gendal]

You could have stopped after saying you had Wynne in your party. I think there's a reason she's named that.

It certainly makes fights easier to have one spirit healer in the group but the problem is exacerbated by the eventual unique skill Wynn gains. I wanted to make a new character to replace Wynn for a second playthrough so I could see more of the NPCs, but that extra skill is crazy powerful. On hard mode I imagine it would come in very handy.

I'm curious what people think about the champion specialization.

I picked it for Alistair around level 19 and was surprised how nice the first skill was. An AOE knockdown around him can be a big help in keeping him alive during the most dangerous part of the fight, the start.

Right. Continuous costs that they reserve when you activate them. The mana/stamina that they use is not available for you to spend (ala Titan Quest), and they therefor should not shut off when you spend the mana/stamina that is left over. If they do, then that's a lame mechanic. Those abilities already shave off a huge chunk of your usable mana/stamina; you should at least be able to freely use the rest.

While I am a huge fan of the reservation system, I do think they could have done a better job explaining them. I already brought this up once, but Cleansing Aura is a skill that drains mana in combat but the only way to find that out is to buy the skill, the tooltip says nothing.

Just ran some tests and if I have Haste, Rock Armor, and Cleansing Aura all running then Haste and Cleansing Aura turn off when mana hits zero, but Rock Armor stays on since it doesn't drain mana. If you find a reserve skill turning off make sure it's not one that drains stamina or mana during combat. No easy way to figure out which do however except by testing.

Vague descriptions:
The descriptions are mostly good and you will find that many of those abilities that do actually drain your stamina note it, as mentioned earlier in this very thread. HOWEVER, i do wish the descriptions showed the exact stats instead of "increases slightly."

As pointed out above I think the descriptions are terrible and flat out missing important imformation in some cases. I also have no idea if certain things like 'Chance to avoid missle attacks' stacks, which is why it's a crime when just about every RPG fails to give you an indepth character information screen showing all bonuses and if they are stacking.

Yeah, I'm definitely regretting my choice of a rogue. All the NPCs I've run into are rogues and they're far more interesting than I am. I really should have gone mage. I spend all my time as Morrigan as it is.

I spend most of my time on my main character, a rogue. In some battles I switch to Wynn to better regulate her healing and Morrigan to optimize some debuffing and damage, but for the most part I just make sure the rogue is flanking a target. He rips out crazy damage with just his daggers, more than any two other characters combined as long as he can backstab. Otherwise he is kinda useless in combat on targets you can't get behind.

[Mordrak]

I disagree. Dragon Age forces you to be very efficient about your character builds in order to survive, especially at higher difficulties. You can't afford to waste points on useless spells or abilities, and they don't seem balanced very well. The difference between a powerful, always useful spell like Fireball and a clunker like Arcane Armor is enormous.

For example, the Tempest spell (and any other spell that does really low DoT in a large area) is a bad investment. It does trivial damage, can be easily avoided by enemies, takes a lot of mana and a long time to cast, and sits at the end of a spell tree (it's not a pre-requisite to anything else). It's a waste of a skill point.

In contrast, the Fireball spell does great damage, casts instantly, stuns, inflicts a DoT, has a decent area of effect, and a low cooldown. It's a great pick.

If the game gave some indication at the huge power variance between spells, it'd be much easier to avoid being screwed by wasting skill points on useless stuff.

You know you can buy arcane skill books right? There are several throughout the game and while expensive (~20 gold), it's like getting free levels.

I could get pedantic and say that Fireball isn't always useful and is situational (which is true), but the difference between utility and straight damage is pretty well known in any system.

A good defense is a strong offense. The nuclear bomb anyone? Comparing Arcane Armor and Fireball is comparing apples and oranges.

I haven't used Tempest, but the ice version is pretty useful as it will stun enemies inside it, but I mostly combine those with holds and stuns for maximum effect.

The power of the abilities is really dependent on how you play, but I'll agree "just blow it up" is a straight forward strategy. Heck, I started out as entropy and that's why I took walking bomb. And I still don't have fireball yet btw. :)

[Jag]

I just think people are applying MMO nomenclature because that's what they are familiar with and gives everyone at least a starting point for understanding each other

It's funny. WoW was my first MMO after years and years of CRPGs. I picked up the MMO language easliy because it makes sense when applied to RPGs.

I now think in those terms when playing a traditional SP CRPG (DPS, CC, AOE, etc) even though I don't play MMOs anymore. I think the language is here to stay when discussing RPGs so people should get used to it.

[Tim James]

It's funny. WoW was my first MMO after years and years of CRPGs. I picked up the MMO language easliy because it makes sense when applied to RPGs.

I now think in those terms when playing a traditional SP CRPG (DPS, CC, AOE, etc) even though I don't play MMOs anymore. I think the language is here to stay when discussing RPGs so people should get used to it.

It all makes sense and we've been doing it without the terms for years, except maybe tank/aggro mechanics. I was surprised to see it in DA:O. Wasn't D&D trying to get around this in earlier editions with attacks of opportunity? In turn-based / grid games it was easier to set up a front line as well without enemies just running by you. That's kind of absurd in terms of realism when your demon-slayer can't block a foot soldier from reaching your mage, so I wouldn't count out CRPGs moving to some sort of asynchronous engagement mechanic eventually. I thought MMO mechanics and especially tanking were a result of multiplayer and collision detection issues that we'll be able to move past eventually as long as game designers aren't too lazy or riding a trend (D&D 4E?). I don't really know though, just random thoughts.