(a reply to FF vs. camera&targeting comment from the other thread)
I think it works just fine… the camera at its furthest back position is pretty wide, and targets highlight and show their names when you are placing an AoE.
- when targeting a farther area with cluster of enemies, it´s often hard to see whether a companion is among highlighted targets or not
- in close quarters camera is often nigh unusable, especially for the purpose of targeting
- it´s mostly impossible to place targeting circle in the exact spot you want it, it keeps on skipping and skipping
- also, you have no exact indicator of area affected by melee AoE abilities
Given that FF damage can easily wipe out a companion in one hit, precise placement is crucial but executing it is often impossible, which leads to spending unhealthy amount of time trying to place AoE´s properly and often being forced to compromise tactics altogether, especially in close quarters.
Also, the game´s action-y behavior in some aspects (fast speed and, more importantly, the way the game determines whether an ability/attack take effect or not) tends to limit your AoE options. Targeting more stationary enemies (like archers) is quite without issues in this regard, but in the case of the more mobile ones, it´s usually the most effective when they´re swarmed around a companion and this option is quite limited with FF on (there are some defensive talents which can to some degree counter FF though) - in the end you´re very likely to waste more AoE´s with FF on than without it.
So basically, playing with FF requires a lot of mostly bad kind of micromanaging.
My personal quasi-solution was extensive use of mages´ primal tree which contains offensive spells that for some reason don´t have FF - that partially defeated the purpose of playing with FF, but at least I could play with other nightmare changes I quite liked. Of course, eventually the horrendous encounter design wore me down and I decided spending much time in combat isn´t worth it anyway
.
I know this is a tactic you can use in many games, but DA2 seems to set up almost all its encounters ASSUMING that you will rush into a room and become surrounded.
Yeah, that´s one of the reasons DA2´s encounter design sucks so hard.