So has anyone had more time than me to try out the balance changes? There's a lot to go through, but my experience is very limited and largely based on tooltips.

* Bleeding damage and Scoundrel in general look a lot stronger than before.
* Backstab is more UI-friendly
* Dual-wielding (not compatible with the One-Hand skill) looks... usable maybe? At early levels, you spend 5 AP to do less damage than a 3AP wand attack. The return on skill point investment looks significant, though, to the extent of being an all-or-nothing point sink. Double backstab lets you put more eggs in one basket, which is important for stealth tactics. Double wands looks like it may also be good, but I don't know how it compares to Staff with 2H skill outside of the obvious consumable spell charges. Are staves obsolete? If not, what do the niches look like for dual-wand vs staff? Is it a simple matter of Staff with 0 skill points being better than wand + shield with 0 skill points?

* Dual-wielding - is 2H still going to be vastly superior for dealing with armor?

* Archery - looks sort of better than before? Not sure, memory is foggy.

* Tiered skills - probably not a huge deal, but in theory, you used to be able to pick up assorted high-level skills with a single skill point. In practice, I think the penalties used to be a little rough anyway if you tried it, but long-term skills like summons tended to be worth it regardless. Not an unfair change though.

* Avatar of XYZ - seems like a pretty "spellswordy" thing to have. IIRC they're not self-only spells, so support-mage builds should also be more dynamic thanks to this sort of thing.

* Chill Wind and other assorted garbage skills look better now.

* Tactical mode - reports sound promising so far.

Anyway, here's hoping that I don't end up spamming Midnight Oil/Flare all day. I mean, it's sometimes fun, but there's more to life than hazard-kiting all the things.




Bad news -

* It's still easy to move when you are attempting to target a spell or basic attack due to cursor movements or simply due to idle animations. The somewhat slow movement animation makes it that much more painful to watch.
* Crafting recipes can be learned, but they have to be completed first. You don't get to "learn" something just by reading the book, so you still have to run to the wiki to have a chance.
* Camera control is still a pain. No edge-of-screen scrolling. All keyboard.

You can turn on edge scrolling in options.

So far I've noticed that effects tend to miss more then their percentages would indicate. That or I'm just unlucky. But I haven't really tried out anything new, I knew what worked in DOS so I've stuck to that so far.

Every time I use Encourage I get "Failed to apply". It still seems to be working on the other party members but not for my main character. I don't remember getting anything like that in DOS.

Ugh, tactical pauses to deal with DOT after battle is badly needed. I just wasted a resurrection scroll because I couldn't move out of the fire fast enough without bringing the rest of the party into the fire. Yes, you can unlink, but the UI for that is sluggish to the point where SOMEONE was going to die one way or another...

Dual-wielding - You need to level this skill at least twice right away if you use it at all. You pay the full AP cost of each hand's attack, -1AP total with one skill level, and -2AP total with two skill levels. One-handers typically cost 3AP per attack, so paying 4 instead of 5 for two attacks is a much better deal. Since there's a damage penalty on top of having to always fill *two* gear slots with competitive gear, it takes a lot to keep two attacks relevant compared to a straightforward 2H weapon. Wands at least have 100% hit rate and tend to cause various environmental triggers, which can be pretty crazy - sometimes causing both shock and burn for 4 AP.

The synergy between dual-wielding and either Wand or the 1H skill is very weak. Your off-hand weapon does NOT receive any bonus from the 1H or Wand skill. One-pointing is fairly cheap when you can spare it, and levels from gear are welcome. But if you go with dual wands, go ahead and divest in Wand and another skill and pump dual-wielding to 2.

Restoration is still overwhelmingly good. Hydro remains a one-point wonder for the early game.

Is it my imagination, or did Midnight Oil get a significant radius increase? Holy lake of fire, Batman!

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that boulders are filled with grease? It's handy and all that, but a rework just to make the skill just not feel so weird was in order. Didn't happen.