[Crunchy in milk]

Originally Posted by TimovieMan

How realistic is the blood in this? Actually realistic or over the top gory?

There's very little blood shown, a small spray which disappears quickly. The gore mostly comes from the gratuitous deathblows. If your attack will produce damage in excess of a targets remaining health by a big margin you'll get a 'cinematic' death blow animation of running your weapon through someone or kicking our their legs and stabbing them on the ground, or spinning like a top cleaving their head off.

There are deathblow animations for many different enemy types, animals are not spared with you breaking their backs or opening their throats. There are deathblows for stealthy characters. If you attack from stealth behind your target you cut their throat. If you attack from stealth around a corner you might surprise! gut them.

There are even some which occur entirely in first person, most frequently lodging your weapon in their skull then yanking it out.

So no, not quite the level of blood that Dragon Age 2 had (Which has since been patched out by Bioware), but more gruesome and in line with Dragon Age Origins which also had deathblows.

Is the game harder or easier when playing as a mage? And how about as a melee tank? Allround I mean, not just the first levels.

My question basically boils down to: how well balanced is the combat system?

For the most part Mages can cruise on the Destruction skill alone provided you focus on it. It requires good, careful aim because friendly fire is on. A chain lightning spell or frost storm can wipe out your companions just as easily as an enemy. If its a big battle with lots of allies you can quickly turn everyone hostile because you caused too much 'friendly' damage.

Your mana pool is really small though, you are always looking for means to 'cheapen' the cost of your spells by items and skill upgrades.

Because you spend so much of your time levelling your magic, you really can't afford the same kind of armour training as a melee character. You certainly don't have as much hit points either. Anything other than basic mobs can two hit kill you if they land a melee blow when you don't have some Alteration protection or a ward active.

Melee characters can take a few blows but you're also wise to dump points into stamina which fuels your special attacks. You can knock everyone around with shield blows and charges, power attack to break enemy blocks and to deal big damage. Nearly every enemy (and you) can be staggered, disarmed, flanked and knocked over.

Each weapon has a different attack style, varying speed and effect. Swords are quick with long reach and can critical, maces are slow but cut through armour, axes are clumsy but they deal bleeding (persistent) damage. Two handed weapons are crummy at blocking but deal super damage if you manage to land a blow.

The hardest for me to manage is dual wielding. It requires mental ambidexterity, with mouse1 swinging the right hand, and mouse2 the left hand, timing the attacks is a confusing nightmare. Enemies who dual wield are damage powerhouses that need to be dealt with first.

I think mages have the upper hand because the AI is programmed to focus on melee attackers (followers) and summoned creatures first, leaving you the breathing space to destroy everything. Its worth getting the 'Impact' perk in the destruction tree to knock back enemies when dual casting spells.