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^^And since I don't do the heals-focused strategy as well as yayswords does, I do aim for aggressive builds. They hit hard but get tired easily in the long run (eg many consec quests w/o proper heals.)

Yes I checked and Hunter's attack was 137 while Vaelis was 117, despite him having his epic items. So perhaps the big damage is OK, since seems really Hunter in this build has crazy stats. For now I only change the delay then, not the SP since could have too much impact on act 1 indeed (and I don't want to do that!).

I was delighted to notice that Anathema causes some upfront damage. Could that be in the tooltip?

Yes going to add it now!

To begin, I'd like to say that this is not a complaint on NM difficulty being too hard. This is just to post an observation and maybe to share an experience.

So, due to some over-poweredness-issues in the upcoming Act 3, a couple of Hunter's skills got a bit more delay. Due to Riley's Slumber being so powerful, its SP cost went up. So here I am, in Acts 1 and 2, with three of the skills I rely heavily on in my battle strategy when playing with Hunter/Ranger combo... tweaked, shall we say. The increases in Hunter's skill delays were small, but oh do they show. Also Riley's SP economics have changed... Energize gives +10 net SP gain after three rounds... doing two Energize spells used to give one 20SP Slumber hit, but that is not the case anymore. So I stare and I stare as my Hunter is standing still after strong hits and Riley needs more turns to repower up his Slumber.... and in the meanwhile Galanna Battlemages speed up everybody and their grandmother and cast BrambleCoats on everything including the pigeons flying by......

But tactics are interesting... What is almost useless in one area, might just be the cat's meow somewhere else. As I struggle with the Galanna mobsters, with some juicy internal curses flinging around in my brain, along with serious tempations to go back and doodle something that's both completely non-canon and even more completely un-uploadable to any server, I shiver and dread the Ants quest ahead.... A bit later, there I stand, with 3/5 of my heroes almost beaten to pulp to begin with, with only Riley standing fully charged up after a level up and I oooh, so sweet, I encounter 3 Ant Soldiers and 2 Ant Workers. Oh joy. (That's what Shea said.) With thoughts not suited for typing, I cringe after the first 50secs of the fight as Krimm, Vaelis and Shea (ranger) all lie KO. ... And then, Riley and Althea kill all the Ants. Yes, it was a looooooong fight, but they did it.

Thank you Galanna mercs, for being such a pain. This ant fight would've never felt so good if you hadn't.

For your strategy - no healers, if I remember well, apart for Ranger's heal - this act is probably tough because you have no way to resurrect besides potions, when Jariel enters party in ACT3 is different, wouldn't say easier but more versatile for sure.

I can't help but feel you made life harder for the wrong player

Okay, Anathema is pretty full of problems...

1) It's only usable on staggered targets, but that's not in the description.
2) If used on a back row target, nothing happens.
3) The debuff causes a pitiful 4 HP/turn damage. When my druid nukes the same target (Yeldin), I get 29/turn. The magic difference is not that large (104 druid, 91 Rowinda), and it's 4/turn on other targets as well.

On a side note, Yeldin does nothing on his first turn - in the wave with guards, not the illusion wave.

Okay Anathema needs work
Also I think at this point I'll upgrade Yeldin to the new AI without making him much harder (well, I'll try ).

My homework has inspired me to make the following suggestion for a battlefield effect.

Physicist's Presence
All damage predictions are made assuming no air resistance.