Done with Azata sorcerer run on Hard. Ended Sorcerer 18/Alchemist 2(taken at lvl 19-20 for cognatogen)
Late game (act5 + threshold) was a cake walk : basically walk into a room, commander wins initiative, cast weird, repeat - Only mobs immune to mind-affecting are Gallus, so I had to quicken Dismisal for them. For the record, I had only 1 spell focus in abjuration, so even without mythics feats and abusing the expanded arsenal bug, you can hit your spells on 95 percent of mobs on hard in the late game if you target their weak saves and debuff a little. Only fight that took more than one round was areelu, because I had to dispell her a couple times and hit a touch of madness on her before I could pass her Phantasmal killer saves. And I didn't even really lean into the expanded arsenal bug (it did gave me like 2-3 DC inevitably but I did avoid taking more mythic spell focus to avoid it stacking too much). And that's also with most of Azata DC boosting stuff being broken (no Will DC on ode to miraculous magic and Believe in yourself give 3-4 less charisma that it should). I don't remember who in this thread said spellcasters were weak but that's riddiculous. That said looking at the immunities accross the game, I felt of all the big immunities Mind-affecting was the most lacking on bosses. All of the end game bosses weren't immune. So I killed, baphomet, deskari, HoI and areelu all of them with P:K/weird which while satisfying feels cheap. I'd love owlcat to mix it up and leave one or two immunities open on each fight (along with have maybe one of them with all immunities) to force strategy switch. But even then immunities matter very little for boss fights since you can get the grandmaster's rod from finnean's quest which makes spells modified by it ignore all immunites. As far as party goes I ran Regill multiclassed into primalist to get pounce, a Bard merc (armored) as main tank that ended being a sidegrade to what I could have done with Seelah, Arue leveled in her base class, Ember leveled in her base class and Sosiel also pure as a domain spam bot. So nothing fancy, no potion archmage, no Oracle Scaled fist charisma double dips or any crazy dip. The craziest thing was my regill build (bloodrager primalist for pounce, guarded stance, mage armor and 1 monk level when I saw the lawful evil monk robe in A4 - Bloodrage being flat damage bonus make it scale really well with regill's high number of attacks) but he never really needed to tank since my MC was controlling the whole battlefield so it was un-necesarry. Really enjoyed the spellcaster experience from start to finish overall and the enemies generally furnished immunity list made it all the more fun as it wasn't possible to rely on a few tricks like you could in kingmaker, at least in the first 4 acts of the game.
Act1 was bad narratively but had cool early game DnD goodness - Act 2-3-4 are really the strong core of the game imo. Act 2 and 3 are more like kingmaker acts which is good and are both really competent midgame acts. act 4 is the perfect mid to late game act, It was my favorite part of the game by far. Good and varied encounters and the best story moments. The city was really cool, and I actually liked the camera gimmick. I was struggling a bit at the start and by the end of the act, I had muscle memory of every camera position for every bridge in the city which I assume was what they were going for. Act 5 was a lot more boring, and I assume the fact that it was such a cakewalk is what ruined it for me because Iz and ivory prison are not terrible dungies. But I did get to feel like powerful Wazzard and a living god so there's that.
Rest restritcions and management layer were worse than kingmaker. The thing I loved about kingdom management in kingmaker is how it was tied to the rest restrictions and how it was always better to be fast and efficient dealing with problems to keep the kingdom going well. Plus the looming threat of the game over, however far fetched, was always a good motivator to keep pushing on thin resources. In wrath they replaced that with corruption, and corruption is both a bit too generous (if you have a good lore:religion guy) and more annoying. It's basically another PoE style supply system. When coruption get too high, high tail it back to drezen rest there and come back. Not many dungeons lock you in, so you are rarely forced to stay and even then the game generously gives ways on cleansing corruption through hand placed interractables in dungeons. Crusade mode is boring and maybe if mage generals weren't so OP you could get into game over scenarios ? I am not sure. Attacking enemy armies aren't numerous or strong enough for that I think. And kingdom stats don't seem to do anything except giving you some better ending slides. So all in all, a downgrade for me.
As far as Azata path, I am not sure I really like the path vibe but it has some good things going for it. The fact that it ties into the devil mythic path is nice and that you lose some spells depending on wether or not you follow the true azata path is also good. The slave market rampage was the highlight there for me. Playing chaotic (which I usually doesn't do ) also was a nice change roleplay wise and quite well fitting for the setting. I didn't really feel pushed into a direction or another except trying to avoid lawful option. The changing nature of Azatas and the chaotic alignment made for a nice freedom in choices. Aivu was cute and mostly fun, but she doesn't offer much mechanically apart from the fact she gets to have dispell magic greater(and she has very high Caster level so she's great at dispelling). She gets a bunch of support spells although she gets them a bit too late. By that time I had that covered by other characters. Superpowers are great although favorable magic was really all I needed. Life bonding frienship is also great in a pinch and probably would make any unfair run a lot easier (even though it didn't help me that much, because by the time I got it, the end of act 4 was nigh and I was already crowd controlling entire screens of enemy in one turn). Mythic level progression is kinda fucked, the game need one more mythic level in the middle of act 3 at least to fix the curve a little bit.
Writing can go from very cringe to serviceable to good in a few minutes, but overall quality is about the same as kingmaker. Companion are alright, warmed up to some of them quite a lot, but nothing earthshattering. Regill is great, Camelia's gimmick is fun, I even warmed to up to Sosiel because he's one of the only good companions who doesn't immediately tell you to give up your powers once iomedae decides to get her ass off her gilded throne. Even the voice acting could be decent at some moments, specifically in the Baphomet encounter in the Midnight Isles.
Overall big mess of a game but a really fun mess. I hope owclat makes more. I haven't decided what run I'll do next either a melee character and another mythic path (I was thinking Primalist Bloorage Lich so do some kind of DR stacking life leaching warrior) or another spell caster run on unfair although I would like to avoid merged spellbooks because I hate the concept (so probably Diviner Trickster or Demon).
