Thrasher
Wheeee!
If anything, the game was broken with the pre 1.02 versions of those abilities. All 4 of those spells are still excellent in 1.02. It was quite easy to have CoC's duration be longer than its cooldown in 1.01, which is pretty broken. It's still a very, very powerful spell.
Crushing Prison was a long duration CC+DoT that did not break on damage, and instant cast. Toning it down was needed. It's still very powerful, btw, essentially a one-shot kill on white mobs. It's great to take out an enemy Mage. Combined with Overwhelm (Dog) you can immediately eliminate 2 white enemies from each fight.
Force Field was completely broken when used defensively on your tank. I don't know if that exploit still works or not, enemies should not target invulnerable characters. I think they just reduced the duration though, which is still a good thing. It completely removes one character from a fight, that is potentially an enourmously powerful ability, so again, toning it down is a good thing.
Blizzard is still awesome. I love to drop that on groups of archers/mages. Or combine it with Grease in a choke point and force the entire group of enemies to run through it.
This game still needs a lot of balancing. Too many terrible spells, and still several that are overpowering, bordering on totally broken. Mana Clash is still insane. That spell can take all the mana and 75% of the health from some orange bosses. Basically it's an IWIN button versus casters. It should probably be changed to single target, and its damage nerfed by a lot. Just taking away all a caster's mana is huge.
This is a good patch, a good step in the right direction.
If you're finding the game too hard, and found you were relying on abusing the nerfed spells to get by, then I would suggest turning it down to easy until you get the hang of it a bit better. Control seems to be the key to winning in DA. CC is very, very powerful. Control the battlefield, ensure that enemies are focusing on your tanks, keep those tanks healed, and focus your killing efforts on one monster at a time. The key is to eliminate sources of incoming damage so that your tanks can soak up the rest without dying before you can heal them.
Yes, I know those those techniques. I've been playing these kinds of games long enough to know those tactics. But when an enemy spellcaster casts a fireball on your party in a surprise encounter, and then follows up with more damage, before your characters can recover, you're toast.
I'm not interested in experimenting with a new patch on a game in progress. Especailly without more detailed information on it's exact effects. Maybe in a later playthrough.
And I did not abuse the overrpowerful spells. I certainly have had no desire to use the "Force Field" exploit on my tank.
I think everyone should decide on the application of the patch with a clear understanding of the risks. Who knows? It could break games in progress. That has happened more often than not with these kinds of patches to NWN 2, for example.
As a general principle I take the prudent approach and do not apply patches mid-game unless it has been demonstrated without a doubt that it will not break my playthrough in progress.
Last edited: