So I really liked Dragon Age Origins and this game is a huge improvement in almost every way, but they really dropped the ball I think when it comes to the classes themselves and combat in general. Just a minute ago I was thinking about how bummed out I am playing my Mage because I don't have any really cool abilities or spells and I decided to look at DA:O's spell selection because I didn't have any problem with any of the classes in that game and boy oh boy is there a huge deficit in the number of skills and abilities you can choose from and level up between DA:O and DA:I.

I mean look at these, these are the spells alone for mage, this doesn't include the entire other page of abilities for rogue and warriors...and yet in DA:I we have a few pages with about 8 or so fairly run of the mill spells and abilities and I've re-specced multiple times to try them all out and none of them are even that fun to use or very powerful feeling, unlike the blizzard spell in DA:O, or Inferno or most of the other spells for that matter.

I thought the game looked really fun from the quick look but I'm pretty bored only seven or so hours into my Mage playthrough and I tried all the other classes and those are all just as uninteresting.

How have your guys' and gals' experiences been so far and what do you think about this?

Has anyone ever even made a creation or spirit build? I thought those were useless.

Thus far on normal mode I haven't needed buffs or anything for any of the fights, I don't pause and use the tactical thing either, so no. There's only one or two offensive skills on that tree anyways.

Since we are in here, I can't seem to find anything online, but my favorite thing in DA:O was spell combinations, is that not in the game at all anymore?

I don't believe so, if it is, I haven't noticed anything like it.

Man, I felt like a lot of the spells in DAO were useless. DAI seems to have pared things down to useful stuff, or mostly useful stuff.

I'm playing Rogue and the selection seems pretty good so far. How far down the skill tree have you made it?

Finally, with healing spells gone it seems like the mage is a buffing and support class more than ever.

I've gone all the way down each tree for each of the three classes just to see what all of the abilities do and a lot of them are duplicates and most of them are not very interesting or powerful. One of the things I expect from a game with a skill tree like this is for your final abilities on the tree to be really cool and powerful, but with the Mage, the skills all kind of are the same in a lot of ways. One of the final lightning skills is a circle of lightning that damages people that try to leave it(boring IMO and the AI often just sits in it and doesn't try to leave) and one of the last frost skills is a circle that makes a little blizzard and slowly chills and eventually freezes people if you have both of the perks, and one of the last fire skills is just a wall of fire just like the wall of ice that's mid-way through the frost tree. Two of the schools of magic also have traps that work exactly the same but with a different effect, two of them have walls, several of them have single-target spot damage.

Usefulness aside, it's just not very creative and it's certainly not full of the variety I like in RPG's. None of the skills are especially cool to watch, nor are they especially powerful, none of them are unique, again save for the chain things in warrior/rogue trees.

I mean for Rogue in DA:O you had things like flicker strike, which is similar to a Monk's ability in Diablo 3 where you teleport enemy-to-enemy striking each one, which is cool. Mage had a ton of buffs and heals as well as like frost weapon and things of that nature, spot damage, AOE damage, you had the spell combinations that have been a CRPG staple since the infinity games like casting grease and then fireball to create a big AOE fire. You had stuff like Stinging swarm which was like the locusts skill in Diablo 3, a bunch of bugs deal damage to enemies as it spreads enemy to enemy. You also had necromancy, animate dead and walking bomb(which is in the game as a rogue skill...), you had poison clouds and stuff like that, which again is now a rogue spell, there's even a mind control spell. And again, this is all mage spells, nevermind if you decide to play rogue or warrior, because then you have a whole new list of talents and skills.

I will say, supposedly there are some kind of specializations in the game and I have yet to see those so maybe that'll fix my problem, I have no idea when or if those pop-up though.

EDIT: Apparently you get specializations at level 10 so I'll keep playing and see if those are more fun.

@gamefreak9: If you're referring to things like petrify/stonefist shattering a target, that sort of thing is still here. I'm not sure how widespread it is though. I found a couple skills for Cassandra that play off of incapacitated targets. First combo I "found" (I say found because I didn't really find it, they're spelled out in the skill descriptions) was Winters' Grasp and Long Shot (Solas/Varric) shattering a target.

Yeah I'm really curious to see how the specializations affect the spell list. So far they are kind of uninspired and there doesn't seem to be a lot of variation. Spirit in particular sucks because they took out healing. That being said I don't think the previous games got it right either. Origins had a huge spell list but most of those spells were stupid spells you'd never use. I actually think Rogue and Warrior are an improvement over Origins too.

I thought DA:O's selection was pretty limited (especially in areas like Shapeshifting), so it sucks to hear that. Mods fixed Origins' magic problems, but I'm not sure if Inquisition is gonna be easy to mod.

I feel the perks/skills for a warrior are the worst. Its mostly all defensive stuff. Not enough offensive. I don't play a warrior to defend. I play to smash. I was was really disappointed with the skills so I dropped that character and started over with a mage. I mean a wizard.

@sterling: it's pretty easy to fill up your bar with offensive skills: grappling chain, charging bull, mighty blow, whirlwind, and the earthquake strike are all in my repertoire and I'm only level 8. Pick reaver for your spec and you'll be set.

@epiccyclops: Those are the only ones. And frankly those skills suck. Where is my 60 second rage with 200% damage. Or my knock back into other enemies and daze blow. Where is the death blow skill that makes you stronger the more enemies you kill. Where is precision strike to land a powerful critical. Second wind to double your stamina. There are just too many missing skills for a warrior for it to be any fun for me. To each their own I guess. But warrior class seems the weakest of the bunch in my eyes.

@murgatroyd: yeah but are they as strong? Like I think the minimum extra damage you would get from combining spells was something like five times more damage than regular spells. I remember them being the most fun thing in the game, and in most instances the moment you pull them off is the moment the fight is over.

@gamefreak9 said:

As @murgatroyd, said they moved away from "spell" combos in DA2 and replaced with with "cross-class" combos instead. Essentially each class has a specific status effect that they can inflict on an enemy that can be exploited by specific skills of other classes. Kinda the same thing, but it isn't a combination of two mage spells anymore. For example, my mage using Winter's Grasp to freeze the target followed by a Shield Bash by my warrior or Twin Fangs with my rogue will shatter the target.

I don't think they do quite as much damage as in DA:O, although I've gotten close using my rogue by getting the damage bonus for (attacking from behind + attacking from stealth + combo). That said, because each class now has a "setup" ability as it were, the combos are much easier to pull off and you can pull them off in much quicker succession than in DA:O, so I think it ends up being kind of a wash.

Uh. The specialization trees like necromancer, knight enchanter, and rift Mage add a ton of ne spells, as well as focus and inquisitior skill tree. Keep going Herald. Tip: Fire mine is biggggg dmg