Yeah, ice shard on a arcane composer has double the stun effect.. To be honest once you start playing with the magic you will find out it is actually pretty powerful. Like an arcan composers mass teleport. Also, even magic damage output is boosted by controlled aggression first round bonus. The game gave me a cowardly shy permanent elemental so I made her a water elemental who basically just casts soothing waters every turn.
If I got a hankering for going overkill, I could get Bree to summon a fire elemental. Since she has a unique Enforcer perk that makes her arcane inclined. I tried to set her up to flame cloak herself. Alas, I could never get it to work properly.
She only shines with flame cloak and enchantments that boost fire and physical damage. Without the cloak she is just a fairly good striker.
Also, since I am supposed to be testing, there is no way, no how. That I would even break a sweat against a boss. With enchantment limits on. The difficulty boosted to at least morph (Demon would only make it last longer, Lilith is insane lol) without them being status immune. There is nothing stopping me from flame cloak, ice shard, ice shard critical damage/stun in the first round.
That being stated, the games ability synergy is there and it works. It is only handicapped by a simplistic battle control function. Like, for instance, the having the control to assign Bree five battle orders. Something like to use a restorative item in her inventory if her hp drops below this threshold. Or to attack the weakest/strongest enemy first. Use this spell at this round. Things like that.
Of course that is all contingent on the player never being given direct control of their allies actions during battle.
You see, and this may be my unique experience with the game. An AI controlled ally will never use a move that has not been placed in their core moves.
You can, of course instruct Bree to move to support by clicking as many buttons as it would require to just pick her actions (choose your actions, click ally target,click command, click support). She will then proceed to cast flame cloak on herself three times (it doesn't stack lol). Okay then. Cool. Bree casts flame cloak on herself three times for round two. Oh yeah. Click ally target: Bree, click command. click attack. Bree attacks with core attack moves.
Kinda irksome tbh.
Stuff like ice shard could be moved to costing three ap so that even if used as a core ability it will not be able to critical for stun in the first round. Unless you set up an ally to also cast it. That way there is teamwork and stuff.
I swear I won't add anything else after this. The battle commands work great for an elemental though. They can't use or learn anything other than the abilities of whatever element they was summoned as.
Bellaney's core moves are only basic strike, seduce, ice shard, and soothing waters. Which can be switched over as the scenario warrants. My wussie water elemental isn't a slouch with the arcane short bow either.
This only applies to your companions as they can have exotic racial moves, multiple magical disciplines and even read lore books for bonus perks. They can be nearly on par with the player character.
I lied, sue me.
I decided to further test the game on the upper ends.
Now let us go 1v4 some imps!!!
Strategy Number 1: Imps have poor arcane abilities making them easily defeatable by lust attacks.
Use fully upgraded teleport and arcane stormcloud to defeat enmasse. Player does not bring health and aura restorative items.
*Discovers Arcane Cloud does not, in fact, work as intended. Lack of restorative items and contingency plan was tragic mistake. Gets raped horribly* Thanks Lilith!
Strategy Number 2: Switches to flash for crowd control and fireballs. Player, also enchants restorative items before hand. This proves to be prudent. Yeah! Take that you little shits! EXPLOSION!
Strategy Number 3: My victories feel increasingly hollow. How am I to ever defeat Lilith If I do not go all the way? Increase difficulty to Lilin. Get smashed on Swamp water. Provoke Imps by wearing cloak shifted to side to expose erect cock. Equip Zweihander to exert dominance.
Trial One. Defeat of one imp. Lost in four rounds. Oddly enough gently gang raped by gang of four female imps. Glorious.
Trial Two. Use lightning orb instead of Zweihander. Victory. Pushed to brink. Drunkenly raped imps. Glorious. The Gods will be pleased. Took pictures with cell phone.