Archers/Mages over Melee?

Let's compare my current party's damage abilities (bear in mind, however, that everyone in my party has a primary and a secondary class, so there is some capacity for everyone in the party to switch to a more effective form of attack in situations where it might be necessary; most of them, in fact, have some skill level in every class, even if they haven't developed two of them very much at all).

I have all the NPCs in my party or in the inn, but for the purposes of this comparison, I'm going to give just my primary party members (the ones I keep in the party most of the time, apart from the need for someone else to activate and fulfill secondary quests), who are the strongest and highest level (since the others stay in the inn most of the time).

So, my own character (PC), Aceria Rubra, Dryad, Über Level = 96, Primary Class = Nature Mage (Level 96), Secondary Class = Combat Mage (Level 46).

The NPCs in the party:

Eva, Human, Über Level = 96, Primary Class = Melée Fighter (Level 93), Secondary Class = Nature Mage (Level 85), thus she is a Fist of Stone.

Lothar, Half-Giant, Über Level = 96, Primary Class = Combat Mage (Level 94), Secondary Class = Melée Fighter (Level 78).

Yoren Glitterdelve, Dwarf, Über Level = 96, Primary Class = Melée Fighter (Level 92), Secondary Class = Nature Mage (Level 84), thus he is a Fist of Stone.

Taar, Dryad, Über Level = 96, Primary Class = Nature Mage (Level 95), Secondary Class = Ranger (Level 77).

Amren, Elf, Über Level = 96, Primary Class = Ranger (Level 91), Secondary Class = Combat Mage (Level 86), thus he is a Blood Assassin.

I will compare the damage each of these can do with their Primary Classes only, since that is fairer (and since that's the way they are currently outfitted, and few of them carry extra gear around in case they want to switch to their Secondary Class; only Lothar carries both Combat Mage and Melée Fighter helms, armors, gloves, and boots, although some carry additional amulets and/or rings for such purposes; since Mage Armors generally have crap AR, and since the Combat Mage in a party is frequently targeted by opponents, he often needs the better AR provided by Melée Armor and may switch his gear if the opponent/opponents is/are too tough).

Also for purposes of fairness, let me note that each party member has the best armor for their class available at their level (although sometimes that means they may be wearing an armor that is designed for their Secondary Class, rather than their Primary Class). Of course, the highest AR isn't always the best armor; it depends on the other bonuses on the armor, but usually I have them in an armor that has an AR that is pretty close to the best available at their level (it's just that when choosing between different armors, sometimes the non-armor bonuses have to be taken into consideration and weighed against a higher AR to see if those non-armor bonuses are more advantageous than a higher AR). As such, I'll note each character's AR as well as the damage he/she does.

And because Health and Mana figure into a more complete picture, I'll provide the information on those ratings as well for each character.

I suppose I should also provide INT, DEX, and STR scores (which I will supply) and Resistances (which I won't supply, although they have to be taken into consideration as well for a complete picture, but I don't want to be typing all night, and I think the above figures should settle the case without going into all that extra detail).

Each character also has the best weapon available for his/her Primary Class equipped (at the moment), which may or may not provide the maximum damage he/she could do at his/her level, but as with the armor, other bonuses must be considered (including speed of attack with the weapon in question).

Of course those whose Primary Class is one or the other type of Mage will have a spell selected, and the damage that will be given for those characters will be the damage each does with that particular spell.

Note that I am using only Elys DS2BW Succubus Modlet (as part of the Elys DS2BW Succubus Manager), so there aren't a lot of extra (modded) armors, weapons, etc involved in how these characters deal damage, etc.

With all that said, here are the statistics:

Aceria Rubra
NatMag 96
Health 1859
Mana 7559
STR 104
DEX 111
INT 768
AR 485
MinDam 8604
MaxDam 10515

Eva
Melée 93
Health 2681
Mana 2149
STR 324
DEX 178
INT 261
AR 703
MinDam 483
MaxDam 1192

Lothar
ComMag 94
Health 2710
Mana 3624
STR 230
DEX 109
INT 501
AR 409
MinDam 1197
MaxDam 1995

Yoren
Melée 92
Health 2800
Mana 1443
STR 434
DEX 105
INT 253
AR 608
MinDam 252
MaxDam 613

Taar
NatMag 95
Health 2196
Mana 3520
STR 104
DEX 340
INT 482
AR 353
MinDam 3794
MaxDam 4638

Amren
Ranged 91
Health 2940
Mana 3148
STR 234
DEX 634
INT 351
AR 399
MinDam 339
MaxDam 565

I suspect Lothar might be able to do more damage with his spells if I had all of his jewelry geared toward INT and Mana and Combat Magic Damage, and if I had his Combat Magic Specialties as high as I have his Melée Specialties. Also, there are some Unique items that I do not have duplicates for, or else Taar would do more damage with her spells (like Aceria Rubra does). Eva and Yoren have some differences due to different Sets and Unique items, and since Eva is dual-wielding and Yoren is using a two-handed weapon.

However, I think it is apparent from these figures that Nature Mages ordinarily do far more damage than anyone else in one turn (where "one turn" = "one attack, whether that means one non-debuff/non-curse Primary Class spell cast, one 2-handed weapon swung, two dual-wield weapons swung, one arrow shot, or one thrown weapon hurled"), although it may take them a bit longer to cast a spell than it takes a dual-wielding Melée Fighter or a Ranger with a throwing shiv or longbow to supply that damage.

The real advantage to Rangers is their speed. The main advantage to Mages is the amount of damage they do. Both have the advantage of being able to stand back and deal damage before the enemy gets to them.

The real advantage of Melée Fighters is their armor rating (i.e., they can be the "tanks," armored fighting vehicles, albeit without the advantage of a ranged artillery attack).

If you wanted to compare damage per second, it probably evens out pretty well over, say, 10-20 seconds or so, although the Ranger is going to get "first blood" in most encounters (even counting short-casting-time spells like the "Drown" curse), unless the party is surprised (and that "first blood" means that, in terms of the first second of the battle, the Ranger usually does more damage than anyone else, since nobody else has usually done any damage yet).

So I'm not sure why you think that Melée Fighters do more damage than anyone else, unless you just aren't outfitting your Rangers and Mages for optimum damage at their level, or have never gotten them beyond the lowest class skill levels. As you can see from my own party statistics, the highest level (96) Nature Mage does an amazing amount of damage (8604-10515) compared to the highest level (93) Melée Fighter (483-1192), and while the one Primary Class Ranger (level 91) in the party appears to do little damage (339-565) compared to those two, he does that damage with the double advantage of distance and a speed that is usually faster than anyone else's attacks (even when using a "slow" weapon).

Oh, yeah, and for Lothar, the Min/Max should be multiplied by 3, since the spell he has selected is Greater Skull Spray (or maybe Master Skull Spray, I forget which he has at the moment), and damage is per skull, so his 1197-1995 damage is really 3591-5985 (if all three skulls happen to hit the same opponent).

Well, to be honest, I haven't yet gotten a party beyond level 10 or so ( :blush: ), because I play ironman on hard level. And I don't have LoS, just vanilla DS ( :blush: :blush: :blush: ). So do melee chars start out strong and lose steam as archers/mages get better gear/levels? Or does LoA bring in new balance factors to tone down melee?

Thanks for the thorough comparison BTW!

Also, I'm surprised that you have viable multiclass characters. How do you manage to get around the stat deficiency? Lothar for example, probably has really terrible str for his level because of the uberlevel restrictions, how do you ever have him survive on the front lines?

Remember in DS2 monsters have certain weaknesses. If everyone attacks their weak link the battles are short-lived.

Oh, stuff and doublestuff! You're talking about DS1 and I'm talking about DS2 (2.3, with the BW expansion). I should have paid attention to what forum you posted in. Sorry about that.

Yes, in unmodded vanilla DS1, Mages got the short end of the stick, in more ways than one, but unless I'm very much mistaken, the Combat Mage spell "Cyclone of Fire" provides the most damage in unmodded DS1 (and I could be mistaken here, because it has been a while since I played DS1 or DS1LoA, but I don't recall a Wing Staff or Dragon Wing Sword, the two most devastating unmodified Melée weapons I remember, dealing out that kind of damage).

This is one of the reasons why most of us prefer modding the game, or using mods for the game which others have created -- a bit like "house rules" in a D&D campaign.

In a modded DS1 game, the Solar Beam spell (for Nature Mages) from the DS1 Succubus mod may have given the most damage (and my so far unreleased mod, "Giovanna's Ultimate Destroyer," provides a Destroyer Staff that can kill almost anything in one or two hits when the character is level 150, even when the game/map is set to Hard Elite).

I'll have to look into a similar comparison for DS1 when I finish up my current DS2BW game (although I seldom if ever play DS1 without at least a couple of mods; Zhixalom's Inventory is an absolute necessity). However, with judicious use of buff spells and spells that do automatic damage (like "Shock Armor" and "Shared Pain"), a Mage can hold his/her own, and with the LoA expansion, if you ever get it, there are some additional spells that come in handy in that way, like "Orb of Energy" (which may be a vanilla DS1 spell, but I think it's LoA), as well as some interesting modifiers that allow boots, helm, gloves, and body armor to deal damage back to enemies (so you either edit your MP character's gear or find/buy the appropriate items to maximize your AR and your ability to deal out death and destruction without even raising a finger.

In your second post, you were asking about stat deficiencies for multiclass characters. Even in DS1, there are ways to avoid too much of that interfering with your character's development, but in the case in point, Lothar was originally a Primary Class = Melée Fighter and Secondary Class = Combat Mage, so his STR is far better than you would expect for a character whose Primary Class is Combat Mage. The secret to having a viable multiclass character in DS1 is to not let any one class get too far above the others before switching active weapon/spell. For example, start out using either Nature Magic ("Zap") or Ranged, then when you reach level 2 in that, switch to the other one, then when you reach level 2 in that, switch to Combat Magic, then when you reach level 2 in ComMag, switch to Melée, then switch every level like that, varying the order. I have made several characters into Level 150/150/150/150 "Grand High Siegemistress," with maxed out stats (STR, DEX, and INT all at 160, if I remember the max score correctly). I actually prefer to play a Nature Mage, even in DS1, but I usually wind up with a Grand High Siegemistress in the end.

Snowball effect... but too late.

Please delete this.

Hrm. Maybe I just ought to get DS2! Maybe it will be better balanced!

Well, you should get DS2, yes, and its expansion pack Broken World, but it's almost like apples and oranges (both are "fruits," or in this case "games," but the two are rather different from one another, each with its own pros and cons, each with its own flavor). Many of us prefer DS1 because it is so easily moddable and there are so many opportunities for different character races, game maps, weapons, armors, classes, spells, "siegelets," etc, as well as the infinitely preferable MP map in DS1 (the Utraean Peninsula map). However, DS2 and BW offer undeniably superior graphics, a huge map with tons of challenges (and not just the typical hack and slash of DS1, although there's plenty of that as well), a more well-developed storyline with good background info provided throughout the game in the form of books and conversations, and new gear, as well as "Special Powers."

So don't give up on DS1; in some ways it's much better than DS2. And definitely get LoA as well. But go ahead and get DS2 and BW (you can get both DS2 and BW in the "Dungeon Siege II Deluxe Edition"), because in some ways the DS2 game (and its expansion) is much better than DS1.

the DS1/Loa package gives you access to some really good mods as well
I'm thinking Ultima, Utraea, Hyperborea and Mageworld..

- all great games in their own right, and all built on the DS1 Toolkit

- oh, and Abstraction, a work-in-progress.. :woot:

Yes, in the unmodded game melee characters are very powerful, and easier to play if you're soloing. However, ranged attacks (including ranged magic attacks) have their own merits, the most noteworthy is not having to run up to a target to start attacking. The ability to start attacking quicker is a factor that no number crunching will be able to quantify. Rangers don't have the limited "ammo" that mages do (referring to mana), but the healing / buff casting abilities of mages more than makes up for this extra burden. Basically, I find a well rounded party (including characters of each class) to be quite effective, not to mention practical when considering loot drops...

Also, combat effectiveness is not the only factor here... what each player considers fun is key.