The problem with the armor system in DOS 2 is that it makes hardly any sense in principle and it creates way more problems that it solves.
Discouraging mixed sources of damage (which it factually does, it doesn't matter if you can work your way around it) is only the tip of the iceberg. There's also the fact that makes a certain amount of utility skills/spells utterly useless (not "unreliable" as much as literally 100% pointless to even attempt) until a certain threshold of damage has been passed, etc.
Basically it's a system of HP bloat (now in three different flavors!) that favors direct damage dealing above any other strategy. And conversely once that threshold of damage is surpassed the exact opposite becomes true, and some of these crowd controls become 100% reliable.
I mean, sure, you can learn to live with that. We all did.
But holy fucking Christ if it doesn't go straight in the bottom tier among all the countless attempts at "simulating damage mitigation" I've experienced across the years in different rulesets.
I'll also quote an addendum to the above observation that someone else made:
The whole of DOS2 barely makes sense, its rather very video gamey. I still dont understand why its bad if mixed party source of damage is viable, its bad because it is? Going by this logic almost all games are bad, because in most games you are going to come up with a strategy that is the strongest.
Exactly the fact that its unreliable is the whole shtick of the system, its a system that is based on a clear plan, there is no chance and roll system so everything that you are thinking to do will be done, the plan will 100% work, ofcourse this makes it less complex and more one dimensional in that regard but what lifts this up in this case is the varied amount of ways to do it, so you need to bring the armor down, you have multiple spells and ways to deal the damage, you then have multiple spells to control the enemies with CC, and also the enemies can obviously heal, restore armor and remove CC too.
You say there is no strategy and i disagree, dealing damage is the strategy, the way you do it is up to you, you can check the skill tree in the game, there is tons of abilities to use, and you can't just spam one strong one, because there is cooldown on spells and some of them even use source points so that forces the player to engage with the rest of the spells.
From your quote i think i can agree with the flying/teleporting criticism as most enemies use it, so thats a fair point, i can understand someone who doesnt find the armor system appealing or fun, but i dont see how its a bad system after all, maybe its flawed, never said it was perfect but i think it was solid enough, its straight forward and didnt take away from my enjoyment.
I'm prefer the system in Baldur's Gate 3 mind you, but the one in DOS2 was good.
What other turn based
RPGs have better combat in your opinion?
It didn't literally force you, it just made it easier, not saying you can't beat the game with a mixed group tho.
About BG3, honestly i can't remember any strong encounter in act 2, my last one was the spider at lvl 3, i had to use some scrolls/arrows there, but nothing after that, so if you found strong enemies, maybe it's you who is playing badly or wrong?
Yes i know lightning damage deals x2 on wet enemies, but i also lost the count of the amount of attacks my barbarian or monk can deal on a same turn, also they can 1shot pretty much any boss at this point with a couple buffs unless the dice rolls troll me so there's no point for any kind of combo, just use double haste on your 2 melees and blessing and watch them kill everything in a couple turns, the game is this easy even on the highest difficulty.
In most games its easier to specialize in one damage type, it gives you higher number but at the cost of being versatile.
Alright, so here is the thing, i thought you were complaining that the damage was low and enemies have a lot of health, i got that you are having a hard time with it, so now you are telling me its easy for you, i dont get it, whats the issue again?
Barbarian deals a lot of damage but they have to get close + they deal single target most of the time.
Just now i wet a group of enemies and casted chain lighting, 120, 118, 116. Huge numbers i roasted the enemies with it, multiple kills in a single spells, ofcourse its a slot 6 spell so its not available all the time, but with the right set up it can be devastating.
The game gets easier as i level up too, i guess its the result of me doing all side content, well cant complain, every RPG i played i reached the same point, when you do everything you will become OP at some point. I think its still offer a good challenge despite that, but a harder mode for the people who minmax into the strongest possible forms is not a bad idea.
