37 réponses à ce sujet

[mbeckham]

I got an Arcane Warrior Keeper Battlemage and y nearly invincible mode is Combat Magic with Fade Shroud Arcane Shield with Fade Shield and Draining Aura run in and melee everything one at a time don't worry about getting hit cause Draining Aura will keep topping off your health points even through Grabs and Crushing Prisons while doing damage to every enemy in the area.  It's brilliant. The only thing you have to worry about is running out of mana or Curse of Mortality and the Fade Shield even helps on spell resistance. Plus you can always throw a Hand of Winter out if Curse of Mortality is keeping you from healing yourself.  The Fade Shield and Fade Shroud keep you pretty hard to damage even then.  So far I've barely had to chug a potion.  The insane +20 boost from the Legion of the Dead Heraldry doesn't hurt either.

Modifié par mbeckham, 06 avril 2010 - 09:38 .

[TBastian]

Why do people who claim to "like" the Shapeshifter so much happen to be very the ones who are adamant that it's a weak specialization? I've had better luck trying to convince people who actually hate the Shapeshifter to try it out and use it properly, and they've been very happy with the results thus far.
Oh, and there are many things a Shapeshifter can do that an AW can't.

The reason why Shapeshifter does not work well with Arcane Warrior is a very wide and complex topic, but I'll try my best to summarize the important parts. This part is not based on theory.

• The Shapeshifter playstyle favors a focused spellcaster, since it's a utility specialization (it can effectively cover all the shortcomings of a focused mage). Arcane Warrior favors a generalist spellcaster, since spell-spamming is not its forte. The armored mage AW setup is the one exception, which will be discussed in the end. In practice this translates to the Shapeshifter doing something like taking all the Primal spells (to focus on nuking) or taking primal spells + entropy hexes. AW is about apples and oranges - should I take Cold over Fire? Should I take Mana Clash over Glyph of Neutralization?
• The Shapeshifter favors defensive bonuses, since only defensive bonuses are carried over when shifting. An Arcane Warrior will want to focus on offensive bonuses, since it lacks warrior/rogue skills/talents. This is especially true when picking weapons/runes - try making a Shifter/AW yourself and trying to decide whether you should work on improving your forms (defensive items) or your normal attacks (AW) sometime.
• Arcane Warriors favor using lots sustained spells, because sustained spells help improve their combat skills. Shapeshifters may take a few sustained spells, but relying on more than two or three is impractical for a shifter. I barely have time to activate Arcane Armor and Rock Armor after shifting (+Elemental Mastery in Awakenings) after resuming my human form.
• The Shapeshifter's forms are there to complement spellcasting. A Shapeshifter is first and foremost a caster, he simply has the option to shift, bite someone's head off, shift back and resume casting. Or nuke, shift to swarm to finish off survivors and deal with aggro, then shift back. An Arcane Warrior is basically a fighter who can cast a few spells. Shapeshifter: Mana Clash got resisted/dwarf warrior survives nukes and resists disables->shift to Spider/Bear->Overwhelm(focus as needed)->shift back, resume spell-spamming. Arcane Warrior: throws a spell, attack, attack attack, throws a spell, attack, attack, attack, throws a spell, attack, attack, attack...
• There are enough items in the game to keep the Shapeshifter happy without having to aim for anything that has a strength requirement of more than 20 (22 for Awakenings).
• The only thing the AW has to offer the Shapeshifter is the option to use better items with Combat Magic. Unfortunately once you start focusing on improving your forms at the expense of  what the other specializations have to offer - the Keeper's burst damage, Battlemage's perfect synergy with shifter, the Blood Mage's extended casting/disables and the Spirit Healer's powerful defensive/support spells - you just crippled your Shapeshifter.
• Armored caster AW's rely on a late-game set, while the Shapeshifter is functional from the onset. The main virtue of the Armored Caster is his armor rating, however it is possible to make a mage very difficult to kill using only cloth armor (+def set, or +dodge/spell resist Reaper's/First Enchanter's/Imperial set) and Arcane Armor. Finally the armored caster is strictly defensive, while the shifter forms also offer alternative means of killing stuff.

Modifié par TBastian, 07 avril 2010 - 01:07 .

[Zilod]

@TBastian



probably is easyer to convince people who dont like shapeshifting because they had not high expectation about the spec, my main in nwn was a shifter and had lot of fun with it, was not the strongest class in the game but was flexible and fun to use



your view of AW is the one for "all war" aw, not all aws are like that, aw also shine in defensive role, you can just grab aw1 to wear a good armor (aw3 if you want shimmering shield) and pretty much forget about hammering the opponents with swords and club



a defensive aw could be as spam friendly as a normal mage, no one force you to activate the first power and you can get good armor set that gives lot of protection with very low fatigue, for example evon bp+wade sup heavy have 3% fatigue and with armor and shimmering shield and some + armor items you can reach 70 armor, the set also gives +2 mana regen and +evade chance so pretty good for a defensive mage... and if it happen to go toe to toe... well you always have to option to put out sns and put aw1 buff up



so it is not that one spec is offensive oriented the other is defensive, it depends how aw is played as it can cover both roles pretty well and give acces to some interesting equip with massive mana regen (as rto swond and shield set)



is not even that true that AW rely only of late game sets, blood dragon bp is pretty good to boost defence and its fatigue is acceptable, it can be used with cloth boots and gloves to keep the fatigue down, rto armor set is also not a bad one and it come at lv7-8 and even evon+wade in the end is not that much late game as you can get it about halfway in the game



also i'm not saying that shifter cant works in such situations, but 2s casting is a lot of time, overwhelm is good but you have to transform, get close (and the bear is slow as hell) better to fire a cc or pop a potion and fire a cc if you are low on mana, and this is for general mage.



if there was not the casting time and there where more variation in various forms i will be with you but in this state it can work for some things but most of the time a non shaped mage will be more efficent



(ps for awakening cant comment as i have not it... if there is more viable via other spec combos or better equip thats a step in the right direction, but in origin i'm very sceptical about the efficency of the spec)

[TBastian]

Actually people who hate Shapeshifter do so because they expect the forms to outdamage their 200+ damage per swing fighters. Shifters will never be able to do that, but used properly at least they can come close. People who claim to "like" the Shapeshifter expect it to work according to how they think it should work, which is why they find it difficult to accept the spec for what it is. Not all of them are this way, but many are.

People who take AW only for Shimmering Shield are usually out for a build they can enjoy, which is not necessarily an optimized one. I can respect that, but we were originally discussing the merits of an optimized AW or Shifter.

That is a armored caster AW. I already discussed that in the last part of my previous post, it's a heavily defensive build. You can still make a very, very tough mage using just cloth armor though.
The Shapeshifter is still quite powerful in Origins, although not as simple to use.

Modifié par TBastian, 07 avril 2010 - 07:15 .

[Shade of Wolf]

Zilod wrote...

shape shift can be fun and to make it works AW (or high str) is kinda needed, but sadly is a very bad spec that gimp your char rather than to boost it
as said you loose all your sust buffs, you cant cast anymore and even as an "emergency button" if you draw mobs attention is rather useless due to the long cast time (by the time an unarmored mage turns into a bear or something he is alredy dead)
on top of that all the forms are rather pointless, dont give enought armor to be really viable as a tank/melee, dont give enought dmg to be usefull as dps, all they have is ovewhelm and you need to spend 4 points to get it and to give up all the uberness of a mage to become a "gimped dog" doesnt seem that good to me
the only interesting form is imo the swarm but have the problem that it consume mana and you cant replentish it, there is not a fast mana heal, you cant use potions so, if you dont pay attention you end up changing back into mage in no time with 0 mana as the form is frail even vs attacks it should be immune (arrows killing a swarm?)

i'm quite harsh with shifter, but thats because i really like the concept, i enjoyed a lot the old nwn shifter and hoped it was something similar to that rather than this crap... the final joke is that even the morph abilities in the fade as waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than shifter and they are more similar to what a shifter had to be... a versatile spec able to deal with most situations using its various forms... /end rant

I have to admit when I heard about shapeshifter I thought there would be like 20 different shapes....lol

[Shade of Wolf]

TBastian wrote...

Every build works 'great', but not on every difficulty. It's just a fact that the shapeshifter is the worst mage spec available, just read trough some of the threads about it.

It only proves what they know.
The Shapeshifter is indeed a very powerful specialization, but it just loses much of its usefulness when paired with AW.

shape shift can be fun and to make it works AW (or high str) is kinda needed, but sadly is a very bad spec that gimp your char rather than to boost it

I assume you only got that from other threads. Well, many people in boards have been known to say the darndest things about stuff they know little about.

as said you loose all your sust buffs, you cant cast anymore and even as an "emergency button" if you draw mobs attention is rather useless due to the long cast time (by the time an unarmored mage turns into a bear or something he is alredy dead)

You lose all your buffs and yet all of the forms have very high constitution scores. Bear grants you +10 armor. The swarm has a natural dodge, and is immune to normal missiles. Bear can Overwhelm for 300+ damage while disabling a target for 6-8 seconds in Origins, and can hit for 600+ in Awakenings. Spider's Overwhelm does less damage, but it's a reliable disable and Spider already comes with its own nuke and another disable. Overwhelm can also make a Shapeshifter match all but pure DPS warriors/rogues when it comes to dealing damage to something immune to Overwhelm (no, I didn't write that wrong) due to how it works.
So what if you lose all your sustained buffs and ability to cast? The forms are very powerful, and you wouldn't be shifting if your spells could accomplish more given the same situation. What if I've already used up my strongest spells and I'm waiting for the 10 second cooldown? No thanks, I'd rather not auto-attack when I'm surrounded.
The Shapeshifter's human form is a bit tougher than other mages', and if your Shapeshifter is somehow dying too quickly then you simply did not follow through the +2 con, +1 armor bonus. You had the initiative, and you wasted it. Had you aimed for +def gear and Arcane Armor early on you would've had a decent chance of sidestepping attacks even in nightmare. A caster Shifter does not need any other stat besides magic, which is why his gear should focus on keeping him alive. All defensive bonuses are also carried over when shifting - it's basically part of shifter playstyle to use defensive (+def, armor, dodge, etc) gear.

on top of that all the forms are rather pointless, dont give enought armor to be really viable as a tank/melee, dont give enought dmg to be usefull as dps, all they have is ovewhelm and you need to spend 4 points to get it and to give up all the uberness of a mage to become a "gimped dog" doesnt seem that good to me

This only shows how little you know about the specialization. Spider form attacks as fast a dual-wielder, and if you give your mage a weapon (Jory's sword is best, although any basic tier 1 weapon will do) you'll notice that you can outdamage almost everyone with it at low levels. A bear with proper items can tank bosses like the High Dragon quite efficiently (swarm can also do a good job of hold its attention, but only in skilled hands). If your allies are very good DPSers you might not even need a healer. All forms skills ignore magic resistance - Swarm's AoE hits as hard as inferno and is un-resistable (only nature immunity/resistance negates it). Each skill has its own unique property - Slam draws a significant amount of threat, for example. A "gimped dog"? You must have a very weird reason for wanting to keep your shifter in bear/spider/swarm for indefinitely. Especially when shifting back to human form is an instant action.

the only interesting form is imo the swarm but have the problem that it consume mana and you cant replentish it, there is not a fast mana heal, you cant use potions so, if you dont pay attention you end up changing back into mage in no time with 0 mana as the form is frail even vs attacks it should be immune (arrows killing a swarm?)

That's wrong. You can actually regain mana while in Swarm form, you only lose your base mana regeneration. Regeneration from skills and items apply. Auto-attacks can damage the swarm - there are several, like Scattering Shot.
Swarm is a form you use when you find yourself surrounded, possibly after you have just dealt massive damage to everyone in the vicinity. The trick is to not stay still unless you're in Awakenings and took Stoic. Another trick is to fly in circles around a busy party member, using him/her as a barrier.

Finally a man that talk some sense , kudos!

[Shade of Wolf]

Alteri wrote...

No love for spirit healers?

Spirit Healers are good for non-pc characters

[Shade of Wolf]

Maybe all specializations will be expanded in future games, like up to10 spells/abilites per spec?

[miltos33]

Shade of Wolf wrote...

Alteri wrote...

No love for spirit healers?

Spirit Healers are good for non-pc characters

Not really, my Arcane Warrior/Battlemage/Spirit Healer a.k.a. Uber Cleric kicks some real ass.  

[Shade of Wolf]

miltos33 wrote...

Shade of Wolf wrote...

Alteri wrote...

No love for spirit healers?

Spirit Healers are good for non-pc characters

Not really, my Arcane Warrior/Battlemage/Spirit Healer a.k.a. Uber Cleric kicks some real ass.  

Cool, I just thought the PC might wanna get in on the action more rather than have evrybody depending on you.

[Zilod]

Shade of Wolf wrote...

Alteri wrote...

No love for spirit healers?

Spirit Healers are good for non-pc characters

sh is quite good for pcs too as it complements bm pretty well, bm/sh is actually my fav combo for pure mages, even for frontline nukers

[TBastian]

I prefer taking SH for myself. I simply find the the NPC mages too fragile (there's really not enough mage gear to go around if you have three mages).

[Shade of Wolf]

TBastian wrote...

I prefer taking SH for myself. I simply find the the NPC mages too fragile (there's really not enough mage gear to go around if you have three mages).

Not if you make them all Arcane Warriors............PC, Velanna and Anders running armound in Massive Armor....

Modifié par Shade of Wolf, 08 avril 2010 - 09:40 .