oh never bothered much with the arcane warrior because if you get a weapon out over a wand it takes longer to cast spells because you put the weapon away.
i assume the bug is fixed by now?
Most spells that you would want to use as an AW do not require you to sheathe your weapon (blood wound, crushing prison, flaming/frost/telekinetic weapons, force field, miasma, etc.).
The general idea of the build is that it is extremely sturdy with all the mage's buffs combined with a shield and heavy armour and AW's bonuses, it has immense crowd control with the Blood Wound (similar to Crushing Prison, but aoe and third the cooldown) and does very considerable melee damage on top of that. BM synergises perfectly with AW because your high fatigue will lead to high manacosts, and with Blood Magic you can use your hp to cast spells without any hesitation, since there is virtually nothing capable of hurting you anyway.
I remember I had such huge expectations for DA:O. Not a bad game, it had absolute nothing to do with BG. The mediocre NWN was more of a spiritual successor to BG.
It was designed for multiplayer party play, was it not? Though I agree that this was the most disappointing aspect of the single-player campaigns. I'm not much for solo runs.
@Nihilus How so? You didn't even have a party in NWN.
Indeed. NwN2 was more of a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine games than NwN1. The OC was more like BG. Exploration, full and varied party with romances and vanilla DnD. Mask of the Betrayer was more like Planescape Torment. Epic play and weird but interesting companions. Storm of Zehir was like Icewind Dale. Instead of snow, you get a tropical jungle, exploration, make your party and survival.
And the multiplayer is still awesome. New roleplay servers are being made and the BGTSCC server is almost full at all times still.
Then add a more powerful if complex toolset, tons of modules, tons of mods with races or classes.
NwN2 suffers from some bugs still and an unoptimized engine but offers so, so much. It's like a rough gem, like Temple of Elemental Evil.
@Nihilus How so? You didn't even have a party in NWN.
I guess it is mostly that NWN took place in Forgotten Realms, while DA:O had its own brand universe, which I didn't care for much. When you have references of Athkatla in NWN, and of Luskan in BG, you feel some connection (at least I did). The party play aspect was more a technical than a "spritiual" thing to me.
It's not about some names being the same, it's the feeling that two games take place in the same universe. NWN was mediocre, but it convinced me that it took place in the same universe. Now of course it was never claimed DA:O would take place in Forgotten Realms, but I thought it might have a similar atmosphere to BG, which it didn't. The only thing that made me think of BG in DA:O was "Gather your party and venture forth?" prompt in area borders.
Generally game developers mean "plays similarly" by spiritual successor, not "takes place in the same universe". Look at Tides of Numenera and Pillars of Eternity.
When it comes to DA:O similarities or differences with respect to the Baldur's Gate series, it really depends on what you look at. The top-down view with a tactical focus is BG-ish, but the lack of class variety is not (it's more like DND 3.5 than 2.0). The party banter and NPC development is also more BG-like.
Anyway, after one playthrough of DA:O (dual wielding rogue), I was convinced that the two-handed weaponeers were gimped in this game, as the ones that appear in the NPC role were basically in a race to drop from low HP after every fight. Eventually, I played a two-hander dwarf warrior, and he became nigh unstoppable.
When it comes to DA:O similarities or differences with respect to the Baldur's Gate series, it really depends on what you look at. The top-down view with a tactical focus is BG-ish, but the lack of class variety is not (it's more like DND 3.5 than 2.0). The party banter and NPC development is also more BG-like.
Anyway, after one playthrough of DA:O (dual wielding rogue), I was convinced that the two-handed weaponeers were gimped in this game, as the ones that appear in the NPC role were basically in a race to drop from low HP after every fight. Eventually, I played a two-hander dwarf warrior, and he became nigh unstoppable.
Well, considering that Specializations basically give you all the class variety of BG, I'd say it's still basically there.
But, yeah, two-handed enemies are laughable, but that's because they're not popping cooldowns that stun, knock people down, and crit for hundreds of damage. It gets even more hilarious in Awakening, where you can get a modal ability that adds a small knockdown shockwave to all your attacks, and an active that lets you wade through enemies smashing them out of your way.
just finished DA2 and didnt like. 70% of time you are in loadings and cutscenes/dialogs. Too easy (i played solo, so i imagine that party play is a walk). Also theres about 5 scenarios that repeat for the entire game... the team was lazy to design levels. And what i most dislike: the entire game was in a city! no far away dungeons, crypts, keeps, forests, nothing... just a city... i didnt feel i was playing a rpg game.
When it comes to DA:O similarities or differences with respect to the Baldur's Gate series, it really depends on what you look at. The top-down view with a tactical focus is BG-ish, but the lack of class variety is not (it's more like DND 3.5 than 2.0). The party banter and NPC development is also more BG-like.
Anyway, after one playthrough of DA:O (dual wielding rogue), I was convinced that the two-handed weaponeers were gimped in this game, as the ones that appear in the NPC role were basically in a race to drop from low HP after every fight. Eventually, I played a two-hander dwarf warrior, and he became nigh unstoppable.
Comments
The general idea of the build is that it is extremely sturdy with all the mage's buffs combined with a shield and heavy armour and AW's bonuses, it has immense crowd control with the Blood Wound (similar to Crushing Prison, but aoe and third the cooldown) and does very considerable melee damage on top of that. BM synergises perfectly with AW because your high fatigue will lead to high manacosts, and with Blood Magic you can use your hp to cast spells without any hesitation, since there is virtually nothing capable of hurting you anyway.
Marry BG2
Kill DA2
Though I agree that this was the most disappointing aspect of the single-player campaigns. I'm not much for solo runs.
The OC was more like BG. Exploration, full and varied party with romances and vanilla DnD.
Mask of the Betrayer was more like Planescape Torment. Epic play and weird but interesting companions.
Storm of Zehir was like Icewind Dale. Instead of snow, you get a tropical jungle, exploration, make your party and survival.
And the multiplayer is still awesome. New roleplay servers are being made and the BGTSCC server is almost full at all times still.
Then add a more powerful if complex toolset, tons of modules, tons of mods with races or classes.
NwN2 suffers from some bugs still and an unoptimized engine but offers so, so much.
It's like a rough gem, like Temple of Elemental Evil.
Anyway, after one playthrough of DA:O (dual wielding rogue), I was convinced that the two-handed weaponeers were gimped in this game, as the ones that appear in the NPC role were basically in a race to drop from low HP after every fight. Eventually, I played a two-hander dwarf warrior, and he became nigh unstoppable.
But, yeah, two-handed enemies are laughable, but that's because they're not popping cooldowns that stun, knock people down, and crit for hundreds of damage. It gets even more hilarious in Awakening, where you can get a modal ability that adds a small knockdown shockwave to all your attacks, and an active that lets you wade through enemies smashing them out of your way.
And what i most dislike: the entire game was in a city! no far away dungeons, crypts, keeps, forests, nothing... just a city... i didnt feel i was playing a rpg game.
>lack of class variety