Yeah graphics seem weird sometimes I'll notice everything is blurry as shit but only once in a while. Regardless though, still looks better than 10+ years old games of the same genre and still isn't very relevant. Finished act1 twice(well I rerolled in the last dungeon, first group was pretty shitty/weak so I made a stronger one), game is pretty fun, not sure how much content there is but enjoying it so far. Balance seems completely fucked though, some stuff is a lot stronger than other stuff for apparently no reason.
For example as far as I could tell from all my different builds, a dual wielding dagger RANGER is actually the best melee class. Guess you could make a Blade Dancer too but I went ranger cause you lose a bunch of stuff like GM medium/endurance and expert earth magic+mysticism for GM DW. But really anything with daggers and dual wielding, the damage is ridiculous, because the enchantments on magic items do flat damage so when you do 5attacks a turn, well it adds up to retarded damage(and that's only with expert dagger, at GM you get 2more attacks, I say 5 cause I found a dagger that has +1attack per turn on it).
Spell wise I tried a few spells but the earth magic aoe is pretty much the strongest, at least for trash(bosses are immune to the dot so it sucks). It reduces avoidance, does good damage albeit over time and costs very little mana. I could spec fireball but other than the fact it's ranged I don't see a point since damage isn't that high and mana cost is like twice as much.
On the ranged part, ranged seems complete fucking shit with the way they designed the game. In Grimrock, you actually position your team in a square and your back row can use ranged weapons on shit, but it also means they're exposed if enemies are behind you. In this well everyone is in melee range all the time almost, so making an archer is a massive waste of time unless you do a full ranged setup with mages doing roots and shit. My first group had a full leveled bow char and the damage wasn't even good.
yeah, I didnt really want to get into builds, etc. let people play what they wanted.
but my first party was human fighter, dwarf scout, human mage, elf druid.
I was kindof expecting a grimrock front row/back row. which is not the case.
This makes melee tanks kindof pointless. Their are skills to taunt, to protect your casters. but they are melee, cost alot of mana, and single target. and do nothing vs cleaves, etc. all around kindof shitty.
I also quickly noted my scout, was doing far far more melee dps then ranged dps. unless I forced my mages to was mana on roots, as you noted. Since, you have to use melee weapons in melee.
At the same time, investing 1 point in a ranged weapon for everyone is also kindof a good thing. its just 1 point. and gives your mages an option for ranged attacks when oom, or when you dont want to waste 20 mana for that fireball vs some chump.
my mage was focusing on air magic. and its aoe was dealing WAY more damage then the earth magic poison. the evade is nice sure. And fireballs damage is pretty good point for point as well.
you may have been a bit thrown off, by the fact tooltips update with damage increases.
so like lets say that earth root starts off with 20 damage for 15 mana at 1 talent point. and fireball starts at 40 damage for 20 mana at 1 talent point.
you seemed to like earth so were investing points in earth. at 10 talent points, your earth skills are getting 5% damage per talent point, so your earth root will read 30 damage for 15 mana. vs your fireball still at 1 talent point. so maybe that was throwing you off? By the end of act one, yeah my mages lighting bolt was like 60-90 or something for 15 mana. with a 46 damage fireball..
edit: oh, looking in game now. tooltip for ranged attacks has changed. its just a 50% damage penalty now?