Making a Duelist in Dragon Age: Inquisition

I’ve always loved the style of Rogue that the DA games have allowed us to make; the ones that are not afraid to stand proud and tall in the thick of battle. While (usually) not as tanky as a warrior, the Duelist adds additional survival to the Rogue, to balance against its already great offensive capabilities.

This style of build was at its height in the Awakening expansion for Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) and in Dragon Age 2 (DA2), combined with the Legionnaire Scout subclass in the former and standing on its own two legs in the latter. Alas, this specialization is gone in Dragon Age: Inquisition (DAI), but is the playstyle?

If we are talking about pre-Trespasser, then the answer is probably yes. There are no Rogue skills that really benefit facing your opponent or even support you in the thick of battle. You also have no Guard or Barrier skills, leaving your survivability behind, bleeding out in the gutter. Parry can help you against some attacks, but there are many skills that ignores it. With Trespasser, however, the game changed. The alternate upgrades for skills included a few that altered some key features of the Rogue; most notably Twin Fangs and Poisoned Weapons.

The new skill upgrades and why they work

Twin Fangs got the fantastic upgrade of Unyielding Fangs and Poisoned Weapons got Leeching Poison. These two skills alone make up for two of the biggest deficiencies of the original Rogue in the Duelist archetype.

It is important to note that Unyielding Fangs is not better than Ripping Fangs if you play as a more traditional backstabbing Rogue, so leave it to the Duelists. And the reason it works so well with Duelists is because it fundamentally changes the rules for the skill. Instead of getting a damage bonus and knockdown when you flank someone, Unyielding Fangs gives you those benefits when you don’t flank someone. Together with the skill’s short cooldown (8 seconds), this allows you to stand toe-to-toe with enemies with much better results than before.

Leeching Poison fixed the other major problem for the Duelist; survivability. While Stealth and whatever mobility skill you prefer are the only proactive damage reductions, because not getting hit is the best defense, Leeching Poison makes it so you heal whenever you attack with Poisoned Weapons active. This reduces your reliance on potions and your Mage friends.

Skills to consider

In addition to Twin Fangs and Poisoned Weapons, there are a number of skills that are useful for this build. One of the mandatory ones would be Parry. Unlike Block and Slash from the Two-Handed tree, however, it does require timing without the Patient Defense upgrade (from Trespasser). If you’re having trouble parrying your opponents, consider picking this upgrade up.

The passive skill Evasion and the activated Evade are both worth picking up, because of a boost in survivability and a good mobility skill. Note that you have to pick up the Stealth skill to get these, so use it. While this is a Rogue supposed to be more accustomed to the thick of battle, don’t ignore the strategic benefit of singling out mages and archers among your enemies. And, if you’re worried about the lore implications for your Duelist, consider the DA2 Duelist skill Vendetta and its description:

“Every duelist, even an archer, knows that the most memorable fights happen at close quarters...and that the first strike is the most crucial. To gain that advantage, the rogue vanishes behind a cloud of smoke, then strikes the enemy viciously from behind. This ability can be used from across the battlefield, for few rogues are as capable of moving under stealth as a duelist.”

So do like the proper Duelists and take full advantage of your ability to vanish from an opponent’s view!

A last skill worth having on your bar, before taking specializations into account, is Deathblow. It is one of the best damage skills for the Rogue, effectively working as an execute when an enemy is below 50% health. It also has a short cooldown (8 seconds) and no cooldown if it kills the enemy.

On the passive Sneak Attack: You have to pick this one up to get Deathblow and its sole benefit is for flanking targets. Don’t dismiss the usefulness of this passive, even on this style of Rogue! In essence, this passive makes your Duelist capable of both toe-to-toe combat and ambushing priority targets. It also works well with Deathblow, which is a skill otherwise neutral to whether you’re flanking or not.

Prior to getting enough ability points to get Deathblow, it might be worth having Flank Attack to have an additional damage skill on your bar. It too has a cooldown of 8 seconds. You can always respec once you have enough for Deathblow, at a minor cost.

All these core skills should be possible to pick up by level 10 or so, so what the hell do we do with the rest of our levels?

Specializations

So, with the basis of the build well in place, what should our characters specialize as? Or should we skip subclasses (specializations) altogether? As for the latter, I wouldn’t recommend it, because the subclasses are really powerful, but whatever floats your boat.

Tempest

I told something of a lie before; there is a survivability still for melee Rogues pre-Tespasser; Flask of Frost. But without support for this skill, I still say the Duelist isn’t particularly viable pre-Trespasser.

In general, however, the Tempest is an excellent choice, mechanic wise. Flask of Frost is a great defensive skill and Flask of Fire will give you a massive DPS boost for a short time. Flask of Lightning also have some good uses, as it slows down time around you. And, because their duration is so short and they are mutually exclusive, the Flasks require timing to get full benefit.

On the roleplaying/lore side of things, however, the Tempest is a mess when it comes to being a Duelist. While the Duelist is a methodical and deadly swordsman, the Tempest is something of a maniac. Rushing in, smashing bottles and utilizing the elements to gain the advantage. Kihm, your Tempest trainer, describes the Tempest as a “storm”.

Artificer

Like the Tempest, the Artificer depends on tools beyond your weapons, poisons and stealth. Specifically traps.

Mechanically, this subclass works quite well. Spiked Trap has a strong crowd control component and can be used very effectively in melee range. The passives of the Artificer also work very well.

For roleplaying, this subclass has the problem of being an Artificer. You’re specialized to make traps and mines, not to be a master of melee combat.

Assassin

All three subclasses for the Rogue works for the Duelist on a mechanical level, but the Assassin might be the best for the roleplaying aspect of it. It is still not a Duelist, but it relies mostly on the Rogue’s own skills at arms (Hidden Blades) and singling out enemies for death (Mark of Death).

The passives also work well, with increased damage the more health an enemy loses and a passive armor penetration. The ones affecting Stealth also fit well, due to the aforementioned description for Vendetta. Hidden Blades itself can also work as a substitute for that ability, and Mark of Death can work for Throw the Gauntlet.

Focus skills

If you play this on the Inquisitor, I recommend sticking to Mark of the Rift, at least on Assassins and Artificers. Since this is a Double Daggers build, the Artificer’s Hail of Arrows does literally nothing. The Assassins’ Cloak of Shadows also fall short of the Mark.

The Tempest’s Thousand Cuts, however, can work well. It depends on whether you want a single target or area of effect skill.

If you’re making Cole or Varric into duelists, I’d pick up at 8^th regular skill over a Focus skill. They are, for the most part, going to do more for your party.

Some skills to consider if you have points to spare

If you have maxed out your subclass and your core skills or you want to skip a subclass altogether, these are some things to consider.

Looked like it Hurt & Cheap Shots

A 3 point investment, given the requirement of picking up Caltrops first. Looked like it Hurt will regenerate stamina on all critical hits and Cheap Shots will sunder armor on critical hits. Great with Sneak Attack and a high critical hit chance in general.

Bloodied Prey & Unforgiving Chain

Another 3 point investment, this time in the Dual Daggers tree, since they require Flank Attack to unlock. Bloodied Prey is a good combination with Throatcutter (Assassin passive), as it increases your damage if your target has lost a higher % of health than you. Unforgiving Chains will increase you critical hit chance by 2% for every hit, resetting when you score a crit.

Easy to Miss

Simple threat reduction. Makes enemies less likely to seek you out, letting you engage single enemies more easily. 1 point investment.

Ambush

Another 1 point investment, as you will likely pick up Evade as one of your core skills for this build. It gives you a 50% armor penetration on all attacks from Stealth. With Gaps in the Armor (Assassin passive) and Mark of Doom (upgraded Mark of Death from the Assassin skills) you’re leaving your enemy with a pitiful 5% of their armor to protect them.

The Toxic Combo

Down from the Poisoned Weapons, this requires 4 points. Fighting Dirty, Explosive Toxin, Toxic Cloud and Lost in the Mist.

The things that makes this combo a possible investment are 1) some nice area of effect damage, and 2) stacks of Elusive. The latter of which is the most important.

Lost in the Mist makes your Toxic Cloud, including those spawned from Explosive Toxin, grant all allies up to 3 stacks of Elusive. And each stack of Elusive grants you a free “get out of damage” card. Very useful if you have the points to spare. Also worth putting on your ranged Rogues, because of its group utility.

My Build for Hard

Currently running this archetype on Hard, with the Assassin subclass. My talents look like this:

Sabotage

Poisoned Weapons – Leeching Poison

Double Daggers

Twin Fangs – Unyielding Fangs

Parry

Dance of Death

Sneak Attack

Deathblow – Thrill of Victory

Subterfuge

Stealth

Evasion

Evade

Assassin

Hidden Blades – Overkill

I Was Never Here

Knife in the Shadows

I’m at level 13 on a Human (with 1 Amulet of Power, found in Crestwood). So far this build has been viable, and quite effective, on Hard even without any additional survival added from things like Guard on Hit.

Guard on Hit Masterworks

If you want more survivability, with or without Trespasser, to make this playstyle viable, just pick up some Guard on Hit Masterworks. Fade-Touched Silverite and Fade-Touched Obsidian work well. As an effect, it is so overpowered that it can make any build a survivor, including the Reaver warrior while spamming Dragon Rage.

If you want to play this on Nightmare, a Guard on Hit Masterwork should definitely add whatever survivability you might lack.

Hold Guard/Stormcloak and Imperial Armor - Some thoughts

First off, I'm going to completely ignore the actual in-game stats of the armors. Not only would I say they are rather misleading compared to the designs of the armors(at least when putting similar quality armor up against one another), but they are also primarily used to determine some sort of path for equipment advancement. Instead I intend to look at the actual design of the armors. And on that note...

... I'm also going to overlook the widespread use of bare arms that inexpliably permiates the Nordic and Imperial armor designs. It seems to me that this was likely a result of 1) the developers wanting to showcase the new arm designs, since in Skyrim we can choose how big and muscled arms we have, or 2) the armors were originally designed to allow for clothing underneath, but this feature wasn't implemented, yet the armor design stayed the same. Since both the Imperials and Nords have armor designs in previous games that do not show that much skin, I'm assuming both races would mostly use that.

For the Nordic Hold armors, we have a few things of note. With the exception of Haafingar, all the Hold Guards use Fur Gloves and Fur Boots (or just the boots, for whatever reason, in Whiterun. I'm guessing oversight), all Hold Guards uses the same full helm and there are two main designs for how the body armor is constructed. Both types use chainmail shirts, but one design uses a gambeson and the other uses scale armor. Eastmarch/Stormcloak, Hjaalmarch, the Pale and the Reach uses gambeson, while Haafingar, Whiterun, Falkreath, the Rift and Winterhld uses scale.

On a side note here, it seems odd that they wear the gambeson on the outside of the armor. I think this is another stylistic choice, more than anything, to let the player see the armor combination. This is also a problem with the Imperial Studded Armor.

Now, are these armors good? I would say mostly yes.

Something that is important to note is that a lot of "historically accurate tests" of chainmail armor are not historically accurate at all and, often, don't even construct the parameters of the test correctly. Taking a subpar piece of chainmail (explaining that one in a bit) and putting it against something hard and immobile does not produce accurate results as for how effective these armors were. You need something to simulate the reaction from a human body to being attacked in such a fashion to begin with. Second point is that you need to test it with gambeson underneath, because that is how it was used, which also improves it quite a bit.

The most problematic flaw in many of these tests is that they don't construct proper chainmail, but a subpar version. Now, I'm no expert, so I don't know of any professional terms for these different types of chainmail, but the layman names for the main types seem to be "butted" and "riveted". Butted chainmail would be this waste of metal, time and effort, where about 2/3 of the rings have a significant structural flaw; it isn't a full ring. This makes it very weak, since most of the armor have a structural defect, and makes it weak to piercing by arrows, spears and such.

Riveted chainmail, on the other hand, would be this; what the metal, time and effort of the butted version should've gone into making in the first place. In this type of chainmail, the structural problem is solved by riveting the rings, making it far, far stronger. Now, these pictures themselves are not meant to be historical examples or anything, just a general idea of how the rings in each style look like. For historical riveted chainmail, it could look something like this, though i think there were several styles.

Main point, "proper" chainmail was much better than a lot of "historically accurate tests" show. So if you see a test, keep these things in mind.

Another point is that, if it was that bad, it wouldn't be used. If it doesn't save your life against a modeicum of piercing power, the elite warriors would get the smiths to make something better. Yet the chainmail remained in use for a long time.

Gambesons (often called "padded armor" in many RPGs like Pillars of Eternity) is also usually misrepresented. While nowhere near as good as chainmail, it is a decent armor that could stop some types of arrows and cuts and thrusts. And, of course, scaled armor is another layer of metal armor, though that would probably be rather heavy to wear.

In short? The Hold Guards and Stormcloaks in Skyrim would be pretty well protected. Not good equipment compared to the standard issue plate armors of the Legion in the 3rd Era, but, then again, the Legion armor by the time of Skyrim also wouldn't compare to that either. So let's look at the Legion armors.

Getting one thing out of the way right away; the heavy Imperial armor that seemingly is reserved for officers of the Legion is the best armor in use by soldiers we see during the civil war questline. But it is also rather rare and only one non-officer is seen wearing it (Hadvar if you sided with him in the intro) unless the player (who can wear whatever they like during the questline) also uses one. From this, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the Imperial Light Armor and Studded Armor are the most common armors in use in the Legion in 4E201. So how does those compare?

The Imperial Light Armor would be the least defensive armor in use during this civil war. It is leather and could charitably be compared to gambeson in usefulness, meaning it would be outclassed significantly by the armor worn by all Hold Guards and Stormcloaks. And since the Jarls and Stormcloaks can keep their soldiers with proper chainmail, I'm going to be charitable to the Legion and assume the studded armor is the "default" Legionnaire armor. Otherwise, I don't see how they'd not be massacred when engaging the Stormcloaks, given the profound advantage chainmail would give them. Especially since the Legion mostly uses one-handed swords, which are strongly disfavored against metal armor. So I'm taking Belrand's word for it mainly being armor for scouts.

Imperial Studded Armor looks like Imperial Light Armor with a bit of chainmail added around the shoulder and neck areas, which would barely make it more useful than regular Imperial Light Armor. As such, I'm going to work off the assumption that there is a chainmail shirt underneath the leather. And, as such, you could expect it to perform very similarly to the chainmail/gambeson combination used by Hold Guards and Stormcloaks, though probably worse than the chainmail/scaled combination.

In the end? The Haafingar Guards would be the best outfitted among the guards, because their chainmail/scale combination, steel bracers and boots. Most Legionnaires compare pretty much one for one with Stormcloaks in terms of equipment and Legion officers are the best protected soldiers in the war.

The Morrowind Mage Guide

The question for anyone who begins to play Morrowind is obviously; how can I be a truly badass mage? Well, I have the answers as to how and I will share the simple steps required for you to make the most badass mage you can.

Step 1: Racial Choice

The 10 races available in Morrowind can be classified by their attributes, starting skills and passives into the somewhat simplified Warrior, Thief, Mage and Jack-of-all-Trades categories, though it is important to remember that none of these determine what a race can do if you want to go for something unusual.

The Warrior races are Nord, Orc and Redguard. The Thief races are Argonian, Bosmer and Khajiit. The Mage races are Altmer and Breton. And the JoaT races are Dunmer and Imperial.

Obviously, the best races for spellcasters are Altmer and Breton… but if you want to make the best magician you can, you should avoid those races. Ideally you should pick a race with the lowest possible score of Intelligence, which is the primary Mage stat. And the additional magicka multiplier the Altmer and Breton have are useless racial passives.

My recommendation are the Warrior races, perhaps especially Nords with their incredibly useful passive resistances to Frost and Shock. This is because you’ll have a good starting value in Strength and Endurance, which will give you more carrying capacity and health.

Step 2: Class

The first rule is simple; do not pick a mage class. You don’t need the magic skills. If you’re picking from the pre-made classes, the Warrior, Barbarian and Knight are excellent options if you want survivability and general badassery. Or you can pick one focusing on Marksman or Sneak. Anything to give you an edge while you build up your magic power.

If you make a custom class, the only – and I mean ONLY – magic skill worth having on your character is Enchant. Leaves the rest out of your class.

Step 3: Birthsign

“Ah,” I hear you saying. “This is where we start to pick magic stuff, because you’re thinking we’ll exploit the limitless training and grinding option to master our magic skills.”

Nope, all wrong. The magician (or more accurately Battlemage/Nightblade sort of thing, depending on your choice of combat or stealth) I’m building for you does not need to increase their magic skills at all.

Morrowind have some truly powerful birthsigns. And some absolute garbage ones. For this character, you should pick something that fills out your character, depending on racial choice and class attribute bonuses. Attribute bonuses are great here.

For example, take a Nord Barbarian. He has good values in Strength, Endurance and Speed, but low Agility. So the Lover with its +25 Agility is an excellent choice here. Or an Argonian Barbarian, who has low Endurance, so the Lady is a great choice.

Do not pick the Mage or the Apprentice. Their primary benefit is additional magicka, which you will not need. You can pick the Atronach for the passive chance to absorb magic directed at you, however, with no drawback. As you will not use magic, you will not be harmed by the additional limits on magicka regeneration.

Step 4: Enchanted Items

Enchanted items are the true power behind spellcasting in Morrowind. There is just no competition between Spells and Cast When Used items. Here are the main reasons, in no particular order.

Chance of failure. Spells can fail to work, though this usually stops being a problem shortly after beginning the game. Enchanted items, however, do not even have a chance to fail.

Independent resources. Each enchanted item has its own magicka pool to draw from, unlike regular spells, which all share.

Regenerating magicka. While your characters magicka does not regenerate just by the passage of time, your enchanted items do. And most items regenerate reasonably fast. A simple “Restore 10 Health” item will almost always be ready to go, which is incredibly powerful early in the game.

Instant cast time. Spells in Morrowind have 2-3 second cast animations. Enchanted items are instant and without animation. So you can cast several fireballs with an item in the time it takes for a “real” mage to do it once.

Custom Enchantments and Soul Gems. You can make custom items containing spells (though you have to know the effects, but you can just buy any spell for that) that can have very significant magicka reserves. The soul of a Golden Saint, for example, have an impressive 400 charge, while your normal max magicka is 100, plus any additional magicka multipliers.

Conclusion

The best mages in Morrowind are not the mages, but the Warriors, Barbarians, Assassins and Thieves who carry around a fine selection of enchanted items. 

Let's review Skyrim for real

With the release of the Special Edition for Skyrim, I think it is about time I did a real review of Skyrim and its DLC content. The Good, the Bad, the Subjective and so forth.

So, to repeat a question I asked in my Fallout 4 review, where does one even start with an entity like Skyrim? It’s individual merits as a game? It’s relation to the previous installments of the Elder Scrolls series? Or that it seems to have ushered in an age of Open World games?

Well, the last option I will probably skip, because I don’t really care that much about the impact it had on the games industry. The other two options are more interesting, for me anyway.

To note, I will try to keep this review spoiler free, but I may slip up a time or two.

The Opening

Now, I said I would try to avoid spoiling anything, but, in my defense, the opening of the game is not a spoiler. It’s the fucking opening of the game.

One of the problems discussing the opening has to do with the Dragon attacking Helgen, because there is a real argument to be had about whether or not it should have been included. The pro side could say that establishing the Dragons as a threat this early in the game helps set the stage for the Main Questline. The ones against it could argue that it spoils the surprise for the rest of the game. Me, I don’t mind that it is there.

But what happens during the intro sequence is not as interesting as what happens at the end of it. I, and a lot of others, had a problem with just how involved you got with the fight against the Lord of Destruction in the intro to Oblivion, because the whole “help me save the world” thing is dumped on your lap immediately. So does this happen in Skyrim?

To put it simply, no, it doesn’t. You can start that storyline if you follow Ralof or Hadvar to Riverwood, but the gameworld opens before you get there, and they will give you a line about how the two of you should probably split up. So you’re free to fuck off to Falkreath or something if you want to avoid the Main Questline.

The opening in Skyrim establishes more than Morrowind’s do, but whether this is good or bad is up to personal taste. There was something kinda funny about being a prisoner pardoned by Emperor Uriel Septim VII on the condition that you’d report to one of his Blade agents. Only for you then to go off the rails, forget the whole thing and probably sell the package you were to deliver to random merchant X, without the Blades and Imperial Legion coming after you. Makes you wonder what the Emperor was thinking. It is also implied, or outright stated, that he has done this before, so maybe he hopes to turn Vvardenfell into Australia.

But, at the end of the day, the player in Skyrim is in Helgen when it is attacked by a Dragon (yes, I know who the big, black and bad dragon is, but I’m not naming it) and may or may not get involved in the mess that follows.

The story

Yes, with a lower case s. Apparently. I think the main storyline of Skyrim has some good ideas, but it is not as fleshed out or paced as well as I would hope. Still, not too bad a timepasser.

It does, however, seem to reward those who already know some stuff about the Nordic religion over those who don’t.

Setting

This is where most of the effort seems to have been put, at least when it comes to writing. Between the books, NPC dialogue, visual storytelling and drawing on the lore established in the previous games, Skyrim does quite a nice job establishing the setting. If one has a keen eye and ear for details, there is a lot to learn. And many things are not so simple as they originally appear. Religion, for example, or the civil war. Whatever you do, always remember that people and books talking about the civil war are biased or even outright lying. It is a good idea to gather as much information as you can and compare.

I really don’t want to go into too much detail about this though, because I think it is best experienced.

Guilds

There are four major factions in Skyrim, apart from the civil war questline; the Companions, the College of Winterhold, the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood.

I am glad to see the guilds being shaken up a bit since Oblivion, and I hope they do more with that in the future. With the Mages Guild having fallen apart and the Fighters Guild apparently not having a presence in Skyrim at this time, it opened for other perspectives, which is nice. I also like that the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood start in a less-than-stellar place, to reflect how things have changed for them.

However, it is important to say that the guild questlines are like the Main Quest in one important aspect; they have good ideas, but aren’t paced that well. I still consider them enjoyable, but in the interest of fairness and objectivity I will grant that point.

Freedom

Something I’ve ranted on quite a bit with Fallout New Vegas is that almost everything is tied to the Main Quest. Well, this is not the case in Skyrim. The option to skip everything regarding the main questline is there.

Now, there are some quests that are affected by this, of course. If you don’t advance long enough into the main questline, Dragons and Shouts are not enabled, and there are a few quests that are triggered after certain Main Quests are done. You are also unable to complete the civil war questline without doing the first stages of the Main Quest. If you don’t mind being unable to do these things, however, it is entirely optional.

The Levelling stuff

Talking about the stuff related to your character is where most of the comparisons to older games tend to take place. I think it is the simplest thing to compare between the games too.

One of the things that made many fans scream betrayal was the removal of attributes and classes, and I sort of understand why. They are so common in RPGs that they are expected to make an appearance in one way or another, and, more importantly, they were part of previous games in the series, so they were expected to make an appearance here too.

I think the knee-jerk reaction to their removal did a lot to sour the system from the word “go” for a lot of players. That is not to imply that Skyrim’s character system is some masterpiece, because it isn’t, but I don’t think it gets a fair consideration by a lot of fans of the older games. Nor do I think the attribute and class system of the older games gets the scrutiny it deserves in a lot of cases.

I touched on this in the my post about classes between Morrowind and Skyrim specifically, but I think it bears repeating. The attributes in Morrowind and Oblivion have way to high starting values compared to their max values. Even if you start with the low value of an attribute, 30, that is a meagre 5-7 levels (4 with grinding) behind someone starting with 50, in a game that goes to about level 50 (Oblivion) or 70 (Morrowind), and you get those levels returned to you in other attributes. You also increase attributes too often, in that you must increase 3 every time you level up. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this leads to a lot of blandly stated characters after a few levels.

There is also the matter of class skills and non-class skills not being differentiated in any way that affect their usefulness and make them unique.

But this is a review about Skyrim, so how does Skyrim do levelling? With the removal of classes and attributes, surely a lot must’ve changed. Eh, not really. Well, it does change in some aspects, of course, but the basic idea of picking a skill and getting to work to level up remains the same. You just aren’t forced to make that decision on the fly with little to no knowledge of how those skills will actually play out, like the previous games.

The attributes being removed and perks being added, however, does have a lot more gameplay impact. Or so people like to say.

If I am being real, I have a hard time seeing what the system in Skyrim is lacking compared to the older ones, beyond the specific implementation. Everything the attributes did remains in the game, they have just been worked into different perks, base stats or mechanics.

Take for instance willpower. In Morrowind it gave stamina (or fatigue as it was called, but I will just say stamina for simplicity) and a chance to resist certain types of magic. In Oblivion it gave stamina and increased your magicka regeneration. In Skyrim, you have magic resistance worked into the Alteration perk-tree and magicka regeneration in the Restoration perk-tree. Stamina is increased as a base-stat, and also happens to give some carry-weight if you do. Meaning that the stamina base stat also covers the non-damage elements of the strength attribute from previous game.

And there are things like this for everything. Damage is covered by perks in said weapon type, less staggering is a heavy armor trait, more health, stamina and magic is covered by the base-stats. Movement speed, which many points to as being removed, was worked into the sprint mechanic. If you have a high stamina, you can sprint a lot and therefor you can move very fast across the land. Similar thing happened with Hand-to-Hand, though to a lesser extent. You can increase your Hand-to-Hand damage in the heavy armor perk-tree, though sadly there are no power attacks to unlock for it.

Of course, none of this means someone has to like the implementation of said system. That remains subjective. However, I do think it is unfair to claim that Skyrim removed the effects of the attributes when they simply worked them into a new system. And given that it has both magicka regen and magic resistance, it worked both versions of willpower in, rather than just one of them.

One thing I fail to see the objections to, however, is that Skyrim allows for more specialization than Morrowind and Oblivion. Like I pointed to before, class skills and non-class skills behave the same way, as long as they have the same skill level. This is not the case with Skyrim.

Well, okay, there are no “class skills” for Skyrim, but we do have perks and perk-trees to allow us to pick the skills we like and want to get better at. And the simple fact at the end of the day is that the perks do more to differentiate the skills your character is supposedly defined by than the classes ever did. It also allows for fundamentally similar characters to level very differently, which really wasn’t possible with the attributes in previous games without intentionally picking suboptimal stats. And, hey, I can pick suboptimal base stats and perks in Skyrim too, so the previous systems doesn’t get bonus points for that.

However, as I alluded to earlier, I don’t think the levelling system in Skyrim is a masterpiece. The baseline mechanics seem to mostly be fine, but a lot of the perks are very basic and uninspired (like the attributes were). I still think the result is leagues above how it used to be, but I do hope they continue to experiment with the model. Which I think they will do. Fallout 4 shows, if nothing else, that they aren’t afraid to try new things with the character systems.

Characterstyles – Combat, Stealth and Magic

Combat, as far as mechanics go, have improved nicely. In addition to the improvements made between Morrowind and Oblivion, where the Dice-Roll model was replaced and player interaction was increased to allow for “power attacks” and active blocking, Skyrim also adds the option to bash an opponent, have the Dual Hand system and sprint.

The general idea behind the system as it currently works is that the player decides what to do and the character decides how effective that action is. And I think this works nicely.

Now, I know that there are many who do not like this level of player interaction, and that’s fine. But that is a decision BGS made regarding the series with Oblivion, so I will judge it on that. I will not judge it for not being a Dice-Roll system, for the same reason I won’t judge Pillars of Eternity for having a Dice-Roll system. It is simply not the thing the game tries to be.

I’ve seen some argue that the Dice-Roll model is “more complex” or “deeper”, but I have no idea what they are on about. I really do think any such evaluation has to be made on a system by system basis, not in principle.

People have made the argument that Morrowind’s combat is deeper though, and I know those people are talking out of an orifice more appropriately used in hardcore pornography.

I really do not see how having the damage of a weapon mostly static, then determining the effectiveness by how often you’re able to hit is “deeper” than having the accuracy static and the effectiveness determined by how high the damage gets. I don’t see how a chance to have a block trigger is “more complex” than deciding whether or not you want to block and have the character determine how that turns out.

Someone would probably talk something about the chance to dodge attacks, but that is actually present in Skyrim. The 100 skill level perk in the Light Armor skill gives you a chance to dodge incoming physical attacks. It is not readily available from the get-go, but you can’t say it isn’t there.

Stealth is alright in Skyrim. The NPCs seem smarter about it than in Oblivion and the Sneak skill have been revamped to give the player a bigger chance of actually killing someone from stealth. One of the problems with previous games was that a lot of enemies simply had too much health to allow for a proper stealth kill. High sneak also unlocks the ability to do a silent roll and pressure plates won’t trigger if you walk on them.

Magic, on the other hands, is more of a mixed bag. Mechanically, it has improved from previous games, benefiting from the Dual Hand system and perk trees nicely. However, there is a limited selection of spells available, and many of the old spell effects like Weakness to [Element/Magic], Fortify [Skill/Stat] and Damage [Health/Magicka/Stamina] (elemental damage is still in magic, however) are now exclusively found in potions.

Looking back, I think they wanted to remove a lot of the redundancy in the system by doing this. That said, Skyrim’s spell list still seems a bit short. That’s not to say there haven’t been some improvements. Wards, the passive perks, different secondary effects for fire/frost/shock, necromancy spells, spells to take control over other people’s summons, rune and cloak spells does offer some variety unavailable in previous titles. But the selection of spells seems underwhelming.

Graphics

Don’t come to me for that, go look at some screenshots or gameplay videos. I’m sure there’ll be some out there by now.

DLC

There are 3 DLCs for Skyrim; Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn. They all come with the Special Edition, so you have no reason to not pick them up. But I can say a few words on them anyway.

Dawnguard is a questline that adds a number of location to the Skyrim mainland, not unlike the Knights of the Nine for Oblivion. It introduces a new vampire form available to the player and rebalances werewolves.

Hearthfire is a small DLC that adds 3 locations where one can build homes, though it is important to remember that this is not settlement building in the Fallout 4 style. But they are nice little settlements regardless. It also adds the option of adopting homeless children if one has a home for them.

Dragonborn is the largest of the three and takes place on Solstheim, an island north-east of Skyrim’s mainland. This is the same location as Morrowind’s Bloodmoon DLC and people who played that will see how much the island has changed in the 200 years since we went there. It has, like many BGS DLCs, some of the best story and setting elements. Highly recommended to spend some time on the island.

Conclusion

I could write a lot more on Skyrim, but it’d mostly be in spoiler-territory. The TL;DR is that I do recommend Skyrim.

The Thalmor - The "unknowable Other" my ass

What struck me as rather stupid one time was when I read an AMA by Michael Kirkbride (MK), former developer for the Elder Scrolls series. He briefly talked about how the Thalmor were the “other”, the one you’re not supposed to understand. That they are "unknowable". And I am thinking to myself “what the fuck is there to understand?”

Going by only the confirmed canon stuff about them, they are a bunch of fascists with an open attitude of non-elves being shit that seeks to rule Tamriel. No great mystery there, really. Hunger for power coupled with racism and imperialistic tendencies. You know, the same things that has been part of pretty much every empire throughout human history. Though I doubt that is what he was thinking about.

Going by the stuff MK added to the Thalmor, they are still not hard to understand. In fact, I can sum them up in one sentence.

“The Thalmor are trying to end the world in their temper tantrum over not getting to be gods.”

For those of you who are connoisseurs of shit stories in RPGs, this probably reminds you of Final Fantasy 10 and Final Fantasy 10-2, where antagonists (Seymor and Meg Ryan) “are trying to end the world in their temper tantrum over people having to suffer.”

An even more apt example would be certain medieval interpretations in Christianity about Satan, where he is an angel who “tries to end the world in his temper tantrum over not getting to be god.”

So, yeah, not seeing what is so hard to understand about them. Being a dick doesn’t make you mysterious. It just makes you a dick.

Just some more Warcraft 3 ramblings

Paladin stuff

Something I quite like about the Orcs, and to an extent the Night Elves and Undead, is that some of their hero units are strictly speaking a more powerful practitioner of what is also a regular unit.

The Far Seer, Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter, Priestess of Elune, Keeper of the Grove,  Lich and Crypt Lord are “powered up” versions of the Shaman, [regular] Tauren, Witch Doctor, Archer, Dryad, Necromancer and Nerubian.

Given the extent, say, a group like the Knights of the Silver Hand is spread in the Alliance at this time in Warcraft history, I find it quite odd that you only see the Paladins as a hero unit. It would have made sense to me to have a “regular” Paladin unit as the tier 3 human melee fighter, a mana based warrior akin to the Druids of the Claw.

I get that some classes, like the Death Knight, wouldn’t make sense to have so common, but Paladins weren’t really uncommon, were they? Even after Arthas destroyed much of the Knights of the Silver Hand there were enough Paladins to have the Scarlet Crusade, the Argent Dawn and the Blood Knights (taking basis in the ones with ties to the Alliance specifically), in addition to the Knights of the Silver Hand living on, albeit diminished.

It would also make sense that more than 2 Paladins (Uther and Arthas) are involved in fighting the undead after the effects of the plague are shown. You first get access to Knights in the Scourge of Lordaron campaign in the Culling mission, when Arthas purges Strathholm. The same mission when he relieves Uther of command and tells the ones with the will to save the land to follow him. Given that Uther is the leader of the Knights of the Silver Hand and he brings forces assigned to him, I would have expected at least some Paladins to stay behind and follow Arthas. Alas, you only see more Paladins when Arthas has already become a Death Knight.

And, like I said, it is not like you couldn’t have “proper” Paladin heroes even with regular Paladin units.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like the Knight unit in W3. I think that having units(Footman and Knight) with high armor and fast attack speed to compensate for lower per-hit damage and hit points is a good way to bring across the different physique of the humans compared to Orcs, Tauren and powerful undead fighters, like the Abomination, in gameplay alone. This way you show that humans have less raw strength to being to the table and has compensated for it by crafting better armor and being faster. I just wish there was a Paladin regular unit for the human armies.

Rebalancing the Paladin and Death Knight heroes

In my previous take on these two, I argued that it would fit thematically to have them be agility heroes because of how human melee units in W3 works and I stand by that. But I do see a problem that could emerge.

The Paladin’s Divine Shield when coupled with a higher attack speed would make it really fucking dangerous. So I’d favor reducing the duration a bit. Or a lot.

The other problem is that I think the way the game restricts Holy Light and Death Coil very unfairly benefits the Death Knight. On most maps, when fighting most of the other factions, the Death Knight will have a very flexible Death Coil option, as it will be able to damage most foes. This is not the case for the Paladin, since most maps and most enemies do not allow for Holy Light to be used offensively. My thinking would be to make both heal allies and hurt enemies, irrespective of whether or not they qualify as undead, demons or living. Basically different animations and names for the same ability. Which is not all that out of place with the Paladin and Death Knight to begin with.

I think this would help the Paladin see more competitive play. The Death Knight already sees a fair bit of competitive play, as far as I could tell (actually quite fun watching 1v1 matches by professionals, it turned out), and I think this is largely because Death Coil is simply more versatile against most enemies.

Also, Agility based Paladin hero with a Holy Light able to damage things strikes me a bit like a Retribution style Paladin, which is my favorite style of Paladin. In principle anyway. Never actually played World of Warcraft myself, though I’ve had friends who did during the Burning Crusade and the Wrath of the Lich King. I dunno. I just like the “being the damage dealer” side of it better.

Samurai Orcs

The Blademaster is one of my favorite heroes in W3, especially Grommash with his unique model. However, I do have to say I dislike the way the Blademaster speaks. I don’t mind their weapon or even the flag-thing their have on their back, but the comically bad stereotypical accent is quite annoying.

Founding of Durotar

Quite a fun campaign, which nicely shows the W3 gameplay at work in a more RPGy setting. Too bad there isn’t more stuff like that. One where you could choose your own hero would’ve been nice.

Horribly bad models

Talking about horrible models might be a lost cause with this game, as it’s graphics are not that great. Things are meant to be viewed at a fair distance. So, when a model in this game makes you go “what the fuck happened!?”, you know something is seriously wrong. The generic Far Seer hero appearance is, in my opinion, completely mystifying. How could they have decided that that was the model they wanted to go with?

Eh, whatever. Going to give my opinion on the Thalmor next time. Probably. Should be fun, if brief.

Fuck Tolkien.

A statement that will probably invoke the ire of quite a few, should they ever read this, but one that I am quite certain I will stand behind.

This is not to say that I think Tolkien was not a good author. He was an exceedingly talented and meticulous writer with a dedication to languages that is likely unmatched in recent history. He also deserves credit for starting the trend of creating formally established worlds for fantastical stories. My problem with Tolkien’s works is that I consider them a huge waste of potential.

And let’s dispel one common myth right away: The myth that Tolkien was original. No, he wasn’t. There. Done. Oh, you want to know why? Fine…

First off, his world is very explicitly based on a Catholic world-view. You have this omni-god on top, angels (like the Istari), the Fallen Angel (Morgul/Satan), Jesus-figures(Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn). To name a few. You could go on for quite a while, if you cared to. I don’t.

Secondly he plays a lot on mythological themes that had existed for thousands of years, like elves, dwarves, giants, talking animals, nature being alive, vengeful spirits, shapeshifters, corrupted humans and so on.

Granted, this does not make his writings bad by themselves. But it does mean it is not original. Thus the “he was original” argument in his defense is invalid.

My problems with Tolkien comes from, to begin with, the Catholic-based world he created. I am sorry to say it, but I find it really fucking boring. Make the world as internally consistent as you like, but that will count for naught if I am not the slightest bit interested or intrigued. Fine, his theology regarding an all-powerful(or as close as can be) god makes more sense than the traditional Christian views (which make no sense at all, so good job beating no competition at all), but that does not make it good literature.

This would not have been a problem for the stories themselves if it was just something kinda looming in the background, but it isn’t. Tolkien’s meticulous nature works against him here, as it does tend to play a role in his stories. Most known among these is The Lord of the Rings, which I will largely stick to in this article. Simply because it is the most famous of his works.

For those who have only seen the films, you might be a wee bit surprised, because the LotR films tell a very structured story with few, if any, distracting elements. Yeah, because Peter Jackson and his team knew how to tell that story better than Tolkien did.

Tom Bombadil and the Istari are cases of the world-building fucking with the story, as I see it. The former because the reason why he can’t help solve the One Ring problem is “writing myself out of a corner 101” (he can’t because he “doesn’t care” as a Tolkien-fan I know summed it up as). The latter because they are supposedly so mind numbingly powerful that Sauron isn’t even a threat to them, at which point the “problem of evil”-apologetic Tolkien subscribed to comes into it. That is to say that the Istari (angels) intervening in human affairs would be a misuse of power and would have dire consequences.

And, fine, if it was just Gandalf that was an Istari playing part in this story, I could buy it. But Saruman is an Istari too and one that has already overstepped his boundaries as “guides” for humanity (and elves and dwarves, I guess) by ruling Isengard. And further overstepped his boundaries as he begins to cooperate and compete with Sauron.

It makes no sense to me why Saruman, which is supposedly exceedingly more powerful than Sauron, holds back. He already decided to take his own course apart from his given role, so why not? And this is apart from me thinking that it is really fucking stupid to have so powerful being in the world and story to begin with.

Luckily Peter Jackson and his team saw this tiny, winy flaw at the size of a small country and 1) cut out the 2 chapters or so wasted on Tom Bombadil, and 2) made the Istari less powerful than Sauron. Heck, Gandalf even says he isn’t as powerful as the Witch-King of Angmar, whom is a mortal man with a Ring of Power and slave to Sauron.

Don’t get me wrong, I love world building. I consider it so important that I will rate a stale, shallow game (Morrowind) higher than a game that has actually a resemblance of enjoyable gameplay (Oblivion). But that means good world-building. A work that (mostly, until it turned into an idiot-plot and the world collapsed in on itself towards the end) does have a lot of good world-building is the Lies of Locke Lamora. Even though a lot of that work is just building the world, it was actually interesting to read. I don’t consider Tolkien’s world to be interesting or good. Written meticulously and with extreme dedication, sure, but spending a lot of time and effort on something does not automatically improve something.

The other flaw, besides that I really hate the way Tolkien built and handled his world, is his writing style. Grammatically good and all of that, sure. Still boring as fucking hell, because I don’t have a fetish about how the landscape looks. If you cut out all but the necessary descriptions, I have to wonder how long his writings would actually be. Pretty sure you could cut LotR in half.

Third major flaw is pacing. There is building up to a story and then there is wasting my time. LotR in particular is in the latter category. If Tolkien spent less time on the descriptions and more on, say, exploring the characters and their relationships with one another, maybe I would like it more.

In short, I think that Tolkien is one of the most overrated authors in human history. And that is the last I am going to waste on that for the time being.