all mage party viable in hard mode?

[scmnz]

tempted to try doing this... has anyone else done this? do you think its possible to do well with this?

[Kwibus]

I was thinking about playing with just 2 mages. I'm sure 4 mages is doable. Sure you might die sometimes, but it should be possible.

[Hissssa]

Now the one disappointing thing you need to know is that you can only cast 1 element shield at a time, which I think is bogus.

4 mages will make the fighter challenge impossible but you can beat the rest of the game.

[Empyrean]

I wouldn't try it.

You could probably win, but it would be a lot harder than using a party with at least two physical attackers. The spellcasting interface really restricts your damage output from multiple mages.

[Darklord]

Go for it!

You may find it hard, but the challenge will be fun!

Just to mention at least one person here has beat the game with a single mage on hard!

Daniel.

[Hissssa]

Actually 4 mages won't be as hard as you think and here is why:

Range damage is safe from counter attack against the majority of enemies you face. If you already beat the game once on hard you kinda remember where all the sticky points are located.

4 mages with pre cast runes is actually pretty high damage wise. Now then the "reload" might be troublesome at first but once you get the ice mage to level 25 he starts freezing a lot more often and the freeze lasts a lot longer.

Honestly I wouldn't bother with 4 mages as Earth is really kinda lame in functionality. If you took 3 mages and a fighter it would be a lot more interesting (or rogue if you prefer). You could beat the fighter challenge with 3 mages and one other class. Just use the air mage to recast invisibility and heal between bursts of damage. You might need to beat it late, but you could do it that way.

[Disasterrific]

I think very viable - you're only issue is that there's

SpoilerShow

not enough good wizard gear to fully equip one mage, let a lone all 4.

You would have huge damage on first attack... I think it's definitely fun to have more than 1 mage (my first run was fire/earth and air), I don't see why people are so down on them. Maybe ranged rogues do more damage (although I don't really believe this), but are they fun to play?

[jerrymouse]

I'm on my 5th playthrough with unarmed minotaur fighter (head hunter) and 3 mages (air/fire/frost). So far so good (I'm on lvl6). Most of the foes die instantly (fireball/shockbolt/frostbolt + attack).

[Disasterrific]

lol, how would 4 ice mages work?

[Brude]

I'm running a small variation of this now: Fighter, Fire, Frost, and Air.

As everyone suspected, early on you're not do much fighting the monsters as you are the interface. Until each caster gets their ranged nuke, it takes a bit to kill some monsters.

And if you ever have to fight 2-3 monsters in rapid succession (eg, the spider level), you're pretty much out of luck. You'll blow the first guy to pieces, the second guy will go down easily .. then the third guy will wipe your party because one of your frontline is dead, the other is poisoned, and nobody has any energy left to cast. The Fire mage in front will take a whopping 2 hits before dying (the other guys in my party just roll their eyes when he drops; I think they're getting used to carrying his corpse around).

I imagine this is easier once you get to levels that give you more room to maneuver, and the mages have more energy.

Blowing a mob apart in 2-3 casts is fun, but deaths and multiple party wipes are not. So yeah, it's workable even from an early level but running back to the crystal & multiple reloads feels a little cheesy.

YMMV.