What is a 'Melee Mage'?

Or the type of Iron Fist that should have been Danny Rand in the MCU;

Some of this is going kinda off-topic so gonna put it into spoilers







Why do you feel like you need the mage label? I’m genuinely curious. Because these classes you mention aren’t even remotely mages. DK is just a Reaver with grenades, Paladin is literally Templar and DHs are basically a mix of warrior and rogue. Why do you want to take these playstyles away from Warriors and Rogues? Or do you just want homogenisation of classes? Is there an acctual mage class in a game that fits your imagined melee mage?

I get the aesthetic appeal. We’ve had similar discussion in another thread. I just kind of feel like you want to play a warrior/rogue that is labeled a mage instead of a mage. How would you make the hybrid classes weaker than the pures? Do you enjoy the party based aspect of cRPGs or do you just want to be the one man army? How do you view Templars and Seekers, the two warrior classes that are pretty close to what you're asking without being mages? How about tempests? Would you say Fenris should have been classified as a mage rather than a Warrior?

In my internal brain rule book a magic warrior draws power from an enchanted weapon and uses the weapon to cast simple magic (energy waves, aoe, etc). As a downside these types often have long cool downs, limited charges, or are slightly more squishy than pure warriors though tougher than a mage. They also tend to attack slow. Their damage is bursts of high damage followed by lulls. These are essentially warriors with magical flare.

A warrior mage in the other hand uses a 1 handed weapon and casts magic from the off hand. Where as the magic warrior focuses on short range aoe emanating from the warrior or their weapon, the warrior mage can cast a limited repetoire of spells including some range spells from the gambit of spell types. They tend to not have the aoe potential or glass cannon capabilities of a mage but ideally their spells and melee synergize to give them consistent if less impressive damage than a pure mage and they are less fragile. Their damage is sustained at moderate levels. These are true hybrids.

A witch/warlock mage uses a blade or dagger, dots and debuffs dealing very little damage at the beginning of an encounter but wise use of abilities can synergize over the course of a fight to do increasing amounts of mostly short range spell damage but the blade is required to apply debuffs to power spells. They are less squishy than a pure mage but pretty squishy. These are essentially the mage version of a rogue but technically a rogue relies on ambush/opportunity where as the warlock=witch relies on casting a powerful spell through set up of smaller abilities.

I don't -need- mage label, I would be perfectly fine with it being a specialization or something of warrior or a rogue (preferably rogue, playstyle I'm thinking of would be closer to Rogue), but that doesn't really work in DA universe. So for DA it has to be mage. Or a completely new class

I'm not sure I'd call Death Knights "Reaver with grenades", Blood maybe but not Unholy or Frost. Frost with its dynamic between Obliterate and Howling Blast is the closest to what I'm thinking among their specs. Templars and Seekers are somewhat similar to what I'm looking for (especially in DA where they have their own Eldritch detonator), but the attitudes of the class get in the way for me. I can't say I see the warrior in DH, they are rogues with demon granted magic abilities the way I see them. Eye Beam, Fel Barrage, Impale and Immolation Aura got them a mention (nearly warlock abilities, and warlocks are almost mages )

As for an actual examples, I will give you that that when they do appear, they are generally offshoot of warrior/rogue character than a mage. Whether is it because devs find it easier to add magic flavor to melee rather than force a mage into close range or it's something else, I cannot say. I previously mentioned Elsword in this thread (kinda meh game, but it's cute ). Both of its Knight classes have magic based advanced classes (Magic Knight/Run Slayer and Pyro Knight/Blazing Heart) and all of their mage characters have close ranged advanced classes. I'm afraid I don't really have examples from party based RPGs if only because my experience with them is mostly limited to Bioware games where the closest examples I can offer are Vanguard or close range specced Sentinel (or shotty Infiltrator).
Other examples that work would be Kassadin, Diana, Leona or Evelyn from League of Legends, Assassin Inquisitor advanced class from SW:ToR or Red Mage from FFXIV (though that one is a bit too classic mage for this when building up to their melee combo, they even turn their sword into a staff while casting  )
Pictures!


No, as Sifr said, Fenris is clearly a warrior (a Spirit...well, more like Lyrium...Warrior) because his abilities aren't natural like mage abilities are. I mentioned examples from WoW as fitting because lines of who is and isn't mage are a lot more blurred in Warcraft universe simply because magic is a lot more accessible there (it's something you learn there, not something you're born with)

I suppose my ideal way of this class would encroach on Rogue territory (not really warrior, because warriors are durable and they way I envision it would be pretty squishy with little defense...*splat goes a mage on a swing of a two handed mace* ). I don't want (nor need) them to be a one man army, their kit would be almost entirely offensive with their defense being mostly about not being there when attack hits...you could borrow Fade Cloak from KE for that or a similar ability. If we talk their place in the party, they would occupy similar place to offensively built Knight Enchanter in DAI, except they would not be immortal. Rogues would still rogue (single target murder and lockpicking), mages would still be your heavy ranged artillery (AoE and support) and warriors would still tank and be the muscle of the group. Spellsword would be AoE melee damage dealer who dies in the same amount of hits mage would. So I suppose kind of redundant in a party where you could have another mage or rogue

If we didn't have Templars, I'd say they could have anti-magic spells as well. Although presence of Templars didn't stop mages from having their own anti-mage spells in DAO...

Mage label is necessary in DA because non-mages don't have magic abilities, especially not elemental magic (which is my favorite kind of magic). Otherwise they could be called flame knights, magic knights, magic using rogues or whatever you wish them to be called as long as their abilities and who they are fit the aesthetic. I admit, my concerns are more aesthetic, I was happy enough just giving my Arcane Warrior in DAO couple of melee abilities with console commands, kept them in light armor or robes (when I could find ones not too...robey) and only magic I really used were elemental cones, fireball and mana clash

For me, a melee mage would be some 'point' on the spectrum between a Witcher and a Jedi. But without the OP nature of the jedi.

There are standard ranged and AOE effect spells (damagers, buffs and debuffs), but also spells that specifically augment the sword play of the mage. Something "quen-like" plus mindblast for defence. Something similar to the force power in kotor that enhanced your speed for attack.

I loved Fenris's spec because it made sense in-universe. He's a normal warrior who's imbued with lyrium, and his abilities are like a.... templar/berserker hybrid.

I picked hybrid, but that’s mostly out of a selfish desire to have all my mages capable of casting the big AoEs and CCs.

Since mages usually dominate mass CC, it’s hard for me to justify kitting them for melee combat. Always feels like I’m wasting their abilities turning them into a “tank” that can’t taunt. They survive a lot of punishment, but the punishment is happening because pure defensiveness — without any aggro-pulling abilities — is deadweight. The party isn’t gaining any benefit from Phyllis’s impenetrable magical defenses if none of the enemies are actually trying to hit her.

Not sure what I’d prefer. Giving them melee-specific CC feels like it would suck air out of the warrior’s space of taunts and shield bashes. Making them melee glass cannons who don’t want to draw aggro moves in on rogue or 2H fighter turf.

Though personally, I wouldn’t mind rogues being a little subpar in combat in exchange for unique scouting, lying, and lockpicking abilities. The idea being that a rogue’s job is to avoid combat rather than win it. Then there would be a natural space for melee mages with single-target melee burst.

That Fenris' tattoos resemble Vallaslin (which even Merrill points out), it raises the question of whether the Ancient Elves might have branded some individuals with vallaslin imbued with lyrium, which was the ancient treatise that Danarius was trying to recreate?

If the Inquisitor drank from the Well of Sorrows, similar glowing tattoos briefly appear on their body afterwards, when Mythal asks them to restrain Morrigan and when they're taming the dragon at Mythal's shrine.

Even if their functions are different, both seem far too similar in design not to be linked in some fashion?

I hope my barrage of questions didn't scare you too much. I simply wanted to understand your point of view better. I realized after it may have come off as a bit hostile

I think I have a better image of what you're after now and I think in a perfect world we'd get two melee mage specializations, a clericy support type as one and the sort of arcane duelist you want as the other (and then ofc tempest for rogues and templar for warriors, both of which also sort of fit the archetype). And on top of those also vastly improved grenades and traps that aren't nearly as limited as the ones in DAI and give everyone "spells".


As it happens I too am a massive fan of magical rogues and tend to go for them in the few games I could (Shadowblade in DoS, Mesmer in GW2, Nightblade in ESO). I still wouldn't give mages the acctual weapon trees of rogues, unless they were limited by stats like in Divinity: Original Sin but I wouldn't mind the mage specialization trees having some mage exclusive weapon skills like for example a stab that made the enemy into a living tesla coil, or mages even having their own weapon trees.

I think GW2 Weaver might be quite close to your idea of a melee mage but I admit I haven't played the game since before the spec came out

Thinking about it more, I think the highest thing on my wishlist was the rogues-as-noncombat-specialists part. I disliked the mage/warrior wallbashing and veilfire lighting stuff, because I’d rather see lockpicking be its own thing, and for rogues to objectively be worse in combat... unless they plan ahead.

My ideal would be that mages take up the squishy DPS mantle (with some assists from 2H warriors), while rogues secure a win through stealth, better equipment from locked chests, Origins-style persistent traps, and other trickery. But if they actually get tied up in a fair fight, they’d be strictly inferior to mages and warriors. They’re rogues — fair fights aren’t their specialty.

That opens up this whole niche of out-of-combat “combat” for rogues to fill. Sometimes successfully sneaking past a fight is more fun than actually doing it. Or spending the time, money, and advance scouting to craft a huge raft of traps for a dragon to land on. In Inquisition that kind of stuff wasn’t really an option. Sneaking past fights required a lot of unfun soloing. The Origins rubber-band teleporting was a little silly, however it meant I could take full advantage of stealth without running around with a lone rogue and no banter. Plus, in DA:I, traps were a strictly combat skill, with grenades being the main consumable equipment, so there was less ability to plot ambushes. I’d like to see out-of-combat abilities on the exact same tree as combat abilities, so I have to make the tradeoff on whether my character is better at fighting or dancing around the fights.

I say all this as someone who quite enjoyed the rogue combat in Inquisition. I’d be completely fine with giving all the glass cannon damage to the mages, in exchange for rogues filling a stronger non-combat role. It allows for a much wider variety of styles, including the ability to authentically roleplay more bookish or pacifist characters.

Those are pretty good ideas for rogues overall and it would put nice distinction between them and warriors (whereas there's actually very little difference atm). Concept of winning fight before they even started is something definitely lacking from DA2 onwards. Though one question, do you see this working if we keep moving towards more action than strategic combat? And how do you see it work?

If we go forward with this thinking, stealth mechanics would definitely have to be improved from what they were in DAO. I don't think it would work with limited duration stealth on cooldown from DA2/I, but that could be remade into combat restealth akin to Vanish in WoW.

This could use more thinking (and probably a new/different thread )

Yeah I feel like why some people think all mage/blade hybrids would be either OP or boring is because a lot of their implementations in games tend to be mechanically/ideologically muddy. So us melee mage enthusiasts need to remind people creativity and clever mechanics are possible!

 I like them all I used to like pure mages but then I modded Skyrim to have a better Bloodskal blade similar to the moonlight great sword from Dark Souls and abilities kind of like the Spirit Warrior from DAOA and now I am obsessed with mages who use swords if they are done elegantly. It’s so much more fun than tossing magic globs to be in the thick of things shooting sparkly magic while slicing people up.