Been playing around with the game a bit on Hard. I've gotten to Act 2 and feel like I have a fairly decent grasp on the combat so far. I've mostly played with my main character, who is a javelin-using damage dealer and tank when he needs to be... Barik, who I've had using two-handers almost exclusively... Verse, who is dual-wielding... and a rotating list of mages casting enhanced spells.
I don't understand all the math of combat (bonuses to damage and accuracy specifically elude me), but my experience has been that Barik absolutely dominates everything, able to tank with ~70 dodge and parry, 19 might, and is without a doubt consistently the best damage dealer on the team. My MC can keep up considering he's sword and board, doing damage from afar with javelins or bottle necking enemies while tanking with obscene parry (100+) and the Duelist talent tree while providing occasional magical support. Verse seems largely lackluster unless she's targeting someone with little to no armor. Which is fine, I suppose, considering she's a rogue, but her consistency and usefulness goes down the drain when dealing with a heavily armored two-hander.
Am I missing something, or does this game heavily favor the use of armor penetrating two-handers over everything else in the game? Magic staves don't appear able to do any damage and magic itself doesn't do very much damage, especially considering spells have cooldowns to deal with. Javelin and bows are occasionally fine, but based on the way the game utilizes accuracy with heavily diminishing returns (affording an advantage or a disadvantage to an attack roll rather than being used in the attack roll), two-handers are significantly better even in the hands of someone without any Finesse. Two-handers a) do more damage to pierce armor b) get a larger bonus from Might to pierce armor c) give consistent access to armor penetration.
Considering the frequency of armored opponents and what an obscene amount of armor they seem to have, there seems to be almost no benefit to dual wielding and little advantage to one-handing unless you sword-and-board for tanking. It almost feels like recovery is pointless compared to how much damage you can do in a single hit because breaching armor is such a significant need in the game. Have people had any success outside of these builds? Again, am I missing something?
Additionally, what's up with the fact that Barik has such a significantly higher amount of experience? He's a full level ahead of Verse, who is a half level ahead of my main character. Even Eb, who was a full level behind MC when I first picked her up, is now only a quarter of a level behind. I get this is tied to the use of skills, but why is my MC not utilizing his as often?
I don't understand all the math of combat (bonuses to damage and accuracy specifically elude me), but my experience has been that Barik absolutely dominates everything, able to tank with ~70 dodge and parry, 19 might, and is without a doubt consistently the best damage dealer on the team. My MC can keep up considering he's sword and board, doing damage from afar with javelins or bottle necking enemies while tanking with obscene parry (100+) and the Duelist talent tree while providing occasional magical support. Verse seems largely lackluster unless she's targeting someone with little to no armor. Which is fine, I suppose, considering she's a rogue, but her consistency and usefulness goes down the drain when dealing with a heavily armored two-hander.
Am I missing something, or does this game heavily favor the use of armor penetrating two-handers over everything else in the game? Magic staves don't appear able to do any damage and magic itself doesn't do very much damage, especially considering spells have cooldowns to deal with. Javelin and bows are occasionally fine, but based on the way the game utilizes accuracy with heavily diminishing returns (affording an advantage or a disadvantage to an attack roll rather than being used in the attack roll), two-handers are significantly better even in the hands of someone without any Finesse. Two-handers a) do more damage to pierce armor b) get a larger bonus from Might to pierce armor c) give consistent access to armor penetration.
Considering the frequency of armored opponents and what an obscene amount of armor they seem to have, there seems to be almost no benefit to dual wielding and little advantage to one-handing unless you sword-and-board for tanking. It almost feels like recovery is pointless compared to how much damage you can do in a single hit because breaching armor is such a significant need in the game. Have people had any success outside of these builds? Again, am I missing something?
Additionally, what's up with the fact that Barik has such a significantly higher amount of experience? He's a full level ahead of Verse, who is a half level ahead of my main character. Even Eb, who was a full level behind MC when I first picked her up, is now only a quarter of a level behind. I get this is tied to the use of skills, but why is my MC not utilizing his as often?
