41 réponses à ce sujet

[GrdianKnight]

Ok so I dont know if this has been discussed yet or not as I tend to spend more time playing then reading the forums, but while making another go at DAO and finding myself wrapped in it yet again, I decided to experiment with lesser used spells (at least for me). I decided mana clash sounded like a pretty handy spell and wanted to see how effective it was. My first surprise came when I saw it was an aoe spell. The second came when I cast it and didnt have to move. BOOM! Right through the wall in front of me. Now the second surprise coupled with the third and I dont know which took hold first. But right after the instant cast, I watched the exp numbers scroll up and the enemy mage drop to the floor. My jaw dropped and I couldnt stop laughing for a good 5 minutes. I've always had trouble with mages, and my usual solution was the crushing prison, pound them down and move on to others. Mana clash is almost always an instant kill, and in areas with several mages, it really makes an unfair fight in my favor. I just wanted to throw this out there for those who have not tried it, no mage should be without it in my opinion.

[taine]

Yeah, Mana Clash is a pretty overpowered spell. Fortunately Bioware "Fixed" it by making it crash the game half the time now in v1.03 ><

[GrdianKnight]

Really? I haven't had a crash yet because of it, knock on wood.

[yasuraka.hakkyou]

yes, its ridiculous. one of the crowning moments of awesome for my mage was when she one-shotted a red-rank mage and another yellow mage, which made that fight completely silly.

[CybAnt1]

It's so powerful a spell it tears apart the very fabric of existence. 

Your game has no choice but to crash because it's essentially causing all of Thedas to vanish. 

 

[taine]

Actually it just seems to crash the game when you interrupt an instant-cast spell. Not 100% sure on that though.



Also the ripping apart of existence and stuff. Doing thousands of damage to Gaxkang is funny.

[GrdianKnight]

Haha, I wonder if that explains the error code I'm getting about accessing my online profile

[Frolk]

I have heard much of this mana clash, but I haven't yet built any of my characters or companions to use it. This will be remedied in a future playthrough, assuming it doesn't get nerfed in the next patch.

[Big Mikey Mike]

I make a point of not using Mana Clash anymore - it makes caster enemies trivial, which ruins the fun and the challenge for me. I must admit it was nice seeing 500 damage fly up from one spell though.

[Crippledcarny]

500 is pretty weak for a mana clash.

[miltos33]

It is a great spell but it comes at a huge cost because you have to take 3 crap spells to reach it.

[Wholetyouinhere]

 Mana clash is the sort of spell that really makes you question their play testing focus. I know they're busy looking for game-crashing/compromising bugs and interface/graphical/audio errors, but c'mon. This spell completely trivializes an entire class of enemies. Would it have been so hard to tack on a simple note. "Doesn't break anything... other than the difficulty curve, challenge, and fun factor."

Same thing happens in every RPG, honestly. Your average, experienced gamer could spend half an hour with a mob/spell/level editor and tell you exactly what abilities need to be toned down/up. Why doesn't it seem like anyone at Bioware did this?

[CybAnt1]

miltos33 wrote...

It is a great spell but it comes at a huge cost because you have to take 3 crap spells to reach it.

I agree, it's a bit like taking wisp, spellbloom, and grease to get stinging swarm .... 

Which is why, thanks to mods, I don't have to. :innocent:

Yes, I know, mages are ridiculously overpowered, and allowing them to choose their spells in any order would make the situation worse (everyone would be grabbing spells like manaclash at lvl 1), but, as I think I've opined on other subjects, this may not be the best solution to a real problem, which still isn't being corrected, but anyway. 

So I circumvent it.

[Johnson45]

I hear so much about Mana Clash, but never tried it. I'm on my first playthrough as a mage now, and I don't want to waste points to get to it. Besides I'm having so much fun with the glyph of paralysis - glyph of repulsion combination (KABOOM).

[0mar]

Mana clash is hilarious. Glyph of neutralization is the same thing, except you have to stab them in the face before you can loot the body.

[ToJKa1]

Wholetyouinhere wrote...

This spell completely trivializes an entire class of enemies. Would it have been so hard to tack on a simple note. "Doesn't break anything... other than the difficulty curve, challenge, and fun factor."

This i have to agree with, Mana Clash is like using the "kill" console command in a Bethesda game; cheating. Personally i prefer the Glyph of Neutralization, it disables enemy mages for a while, but if you leave them be they'll be up and casting fireballs in no time.

Make it work on a single target only and have extreme mana cost and/or cooldown time, and i could live with it. As it is now, it makes many fights ridiculously easy compared to what they are without using it.

[Wozearly]

More than one class of enemies, as demons are also susceptible to anti-magic attacks as well as mages.



The most epic attack I've ever made was against a group of 5 blood mages. What should have been a horribly difficult fight was solved by the click of a button and a big 'kaboom'.



Its a gorgeous spell, but it does kinda make templars and magic defence rather pointless.

[diggerthedwarf]

I didn't find Mana Clash nearly as useful in Awakening. Most enemy mages resisted it.

[Nerdage]

Wozearly wrote...

More than one class of enemies, as demons are also susceptible to anti-magic attacks as well as mages.

The most epic attack I've ever made was against a group of 5 blood mages. What should have been a horribly difficult fight was solved by the click of a button and a big 'kaboom'.

Its a gorgeous spell, but it does kinda make templars and magic defence rather pointless.

In the brecilian forest I'm guessing? The only difficult bit of that fight seemed to be casting mana clash before they got a cone of cold off, made for a fun anti-climax.
I used to think it was pretty much cheating but it makes sense really, if mages fuel their spells with mana, an 'element' of which all mages seem to hold an innate reserve, then why would it not be possible to use an opposing caster's mana to harm them? Now I can't justify my mage not learning it.

Modifié par nerdage, 05 avril 2010 - 04:06 .

[mosspit]

Makes you wonder why enemy mages dun use it.

[CybAnt1]

You know, there's a very similar ability in WoW called Mana Burn. Works the same way; drains enemy mana AND causes damage based on the mana drained.



However -- it's single target only, not AoE. Secondly, it neither drains much mana or does much damage. Some complain it's too nerfed. I think they have progressively nerfed it over a series of a few game updates.

[Grimgor79]

Big Mikey Mike wrote...

I make a point of not using Mana Clash anymore - it makes caster enemies trivial, which ruins the fun and the challenge for me. I must admit it was nice seeing 500 damage fly up from one spell though.

 Me too, Mana Clash is just too good. The game is'nt what I would call terribly difficult as it stands, using the Clash makes many battles far too easy.

[taine]

mosspit wrote...

Makes you wonder why enemy mages dun use it.

Because having enemies be able to insta-kill a party member has been out of fashion (with good reason) in game design for the better part of two decades. 

A pretty simple solution to balancing Mana Clash would be to have to take 100% of your mana to cast. It doesn't get resisted enough for that to be a good counter for it.

Modifié par taine, 05 avril 2010 - 04:52 .

[Daewan]

And yet there are so many people who never use it because the first 3 spells in that line suck so bad... so the calculated risk that not everyone will take it is a valid one.

What would be the fun of playing the most overpowered class in all RPGs if you weren't overpowered? The model mage is Gandalf, not Willow. You sacrifice a lot, get ultimate power, and then use it. A lot.

Playtesting isn't supposed to eliminate the entire fun factor of playing a mage. Sure, Mana Clash is overpowered against enemy mages if you have really high magic. It still doesn't help you against Dragon breath.

I think my favorite Mana Clash moment is from Awakenings, when I used it on the only mage I fear in all of Thedas.... Myself.

I swear, I laughed for 10 minutes straight after that. It's a fun and useful spell.

[Sidney]

Mana Clash is overpowered because it means that there is no such thing as a mage fight. Really any mage on mage fight should be a war to see who can cast that spell first and the loser dies.