I just saw part 2 of the expansion come out, so I loaded up the game in the first time since part 1 of the expansion and what do I see but a new thing called spell mastery.

Turns out this is a MASSIVE nerf to all spellcasters.
Instead of being able to cast all level 1, 2 and 3 spells once per enounter you now get ONE spell from each of those levels as a once per encounter.
I can't believe anyone thought this was fair or reasonable; it's absolute shit!

These three levels of abilities were like fighters being able to use their per encounter abilities; now wizards, druids and clerics are completely screwed over for any longterm playability.
Going on a long trek into a large dungeon like Od Nua's ? well now you need to rest EVERY SINGLE LEVEL.

Most of the changes they made to PoE were really good, like the ui improvements and longer range for wizard spells, so they arn't in melee anymore.
I cannot believe this shit.....

I have to play more to test it, but yeah my first impression is they went too far nerfing high level spell casters. They obviously want to force more use of the camping mechanics.

I think that must be it.
It was a shit thing to do though.

Well it's not really if you select right spells. For lvl 15, that's 4 spells per encounter - if you choose your arsenal correctly, you won't ever need more than that. I believe the goal here was to prevent stuff like lvl12 druids pretty much permanently stunlocking pretty much any beast you come across ever.

but that sounds fun!

It is, about first 3 times you do it. Then it just gets horribly dull.

Eh different definition of fun, I love being horribly overpowered.

Well, some of the biggest criticism of PoE was twofold:
a) It's too easy
b) A lot of consists of doing the same thing over and over again

This sort of deals with both when it comes to mages. Still, if repeating the same spell for every remotely similar encounter and then not being challenged in any way is fun for you, I suppose the game just regressed massively :-P

Me too, once I have earned it. :) Yup this nerf sucks bad!

After playing most of the expansion now, the Spell Mastery change hasn't made much difference with my play style.

I think I might be more annoyed with it if I was using a Priest, but with a Druid and Wizard it hasn't really bothered me.