Okay, specializations and the way they’re dealt with changed quite a lot over the course of the Dragon Age series. In the first game, most of the party members came with their own spec already unlocked, and it was strongly tied to their backstory and character arc. Wynne was a Spirit Healer because she was fused with a spirit of Faith, Morrigan was a Shapeshifter because Flemeth, etc. In order to unlock those specs for your main character, you needed to earn enough approval (or in Morrigan’s case, lack thereof for some reason) for them to willingly teach you the basics. How exactly you teach someone to use powers that you only obtained via spiritual fusion is beyond me, but I digress. At least this way the specs were generally lore-friendly and the way you obtained them was relatively well-explained... until you hit level 14 and you could literally turn Wynne into a Blood Mage at will. Hm. Fast-foward to DA2, and each party member has a completely personalized specialization. Fenris’ was based on his lyrium powers, Merrill had Dalish plant magic and blood magic, Isabela was a swashbuckling duelist, etc. So far a good decision, but then the game series took a step BACKWARDS about the main character’s own specializations. You don’t need to be taught by anyone, you just suddenly... know Blood Magic at level 7. No side-quest, no letter, no notification, you just have it now. Anders became a switch-on White Mage or Glass Cannon via spirit fusion and corruption, but Hawke apparently can be EVEN BETTER at the White Maging without any contact with any spirit of any form. And the story just... rolls with it without mentioning it. You’d think Fenris would be royally pissed off with a Blood Mage Hawke, and it does paint HAWKE in DAI later as a raging hypocrite, but still, let’s move on. In DA:I we go back to specializations being non-personalized for party members, but still having MOST of them connect to their backstories somehow. Cassandra has Seeker powers, which are very similar to Templar powers, and there actually are side-quests to OBTAIN those specs for your Inquisitor. So far so good, right? Except in some cases it feels like they just gave some specs to the characters for its own sake, or just so you could try them out via your squadmates before you committed to them. I mean, Sera being a Tempest covered in alchemical mayhem comes completely out of the left field and there’s no story telling just WHY she went for that. As if her savant-level archery wasn’t bad enough. Bull said he’s not a Reaver himself (meaning he never drank dragon blood to get powers), but still made himself fight like one. Uhh... okay, how does one teach themself to summon ethereal dragon claws that consume one’s own life essence, and to vampirize enemies on the spot for some Wolverine-level regeneration? Seems like a serious reach... And Dorian with the Necromancy? Sure, the man is against blood magic in general, and the Focus skill is related to Time Magic, but... why not give him just time-based spells like Haste, Slow, or even frigging Disruptor Field? The story says he studied TIME MAGIC, there is no corpse puppeteering in his resume, and he has no ties to the Mortalitasi. What the fuck? I think it’s a spec-based “pair the spares” kind of deal, if that makes any sense, and you’re not supposed to think too much into it, but it still kinda bugs me. Sure, it’s convenient for the Inquisitor to have access to the same specs as everyone else in his Inner Circle (snrk...!) because not only can you try them out before deciding which one to irreversibly pick, but also gives you a good understanding of each spec for you to form your team and strategies. SO as to not be one who rambles about a problem without giving a suggestion of how to solve it, here’s my pitch: Bring back the personalized snowflake specs from DA2. Dorian gets super unique time magic (the scale of which is not enough for him to find it overly dangerous), Bull gets berserker-like skills WITHOUT the Kyuubi claws and cannibalism (maybe some damage backlash because Qunari are “tough as old leather”), and Sera gets some silly trick archery, with pies and bees and whatnot, because I don’t really see her touching anything remotely magical with a ten-mile-long stick. Let the Inquisitor get their own selection of specs, so that they feel more like their own special asset to the team rather than just a copy of someone you left at Skyhold. BUT still make the main character WORK for that spec and have their access to the knowledge neatly explained. Also, make the party members’ unique specs simple enough for the AI to handle, because I’m quite sick of Bull killing himself with his own blood-consumming attacks and Sera wasting perfectly good Flasks of Fire when all her juicy attacks are on cooldown. Just saying. TL;DR: Bring back DA2′s personalized specializations for party members, but keep the player’s specs separate and still requiring at least a side-quest to unlock, because flavor and lore-friendliness.
