18 réponses à ce sujet

[Last Darkness]

Challenge - Build a Effective Shapeshifter/Blood Mage


Can it be done? GO!

Try to post ideas from the different perspective you can take. IE Heavy Shapeshifting, Heavy Blood Magic or a Mix.

[Last Darkness]

Hahha no takers?

[MindYerBeak]

Shapeshifting is a waste of time from what I've read. You only need the first 2 spells for a Blood Mage, unless you want to kill your buddies.

If you have a Ranger in your team you could use his pet to restore your health. A bear would be best.

Modifié par MindYerBeak, 23 juin 2010 - 01:05 .

[beancounter501]

Never played a shifter - but from what I read it seems that it relies on normal mage spells plus shifting for melee occasionaly. I can see why that is strong, even though I hate giving up spells for a few special shifted talents. I would rather play an AW then a SS. But then even in D&D I liked the Cleric more then the Druid type character.



Now, Blood Mage is all about casting. I can see casting Blood Control then Blood Wound and then shifting for a melee attack.



As for the build - again I think several of the the pro Shape Shifter people here on the forums has always recommend max magic. Except a few builds that went heavy strength - in which case I would argue you should be playing a warrior not a mage!



Even though you may be able to burn all your mana, then turn on blood magic and burn some health and then shift into the Bear for a health recharge. LOL, but what is left standing after a minute or two of casting and melee!

[Last Darkness]

^Sound Advice Beancounter501



I thought it would be intresting to see if you could combine the two "forbinddenish" specialtys which have practicaly no synergy whatever and make a effective build. Too many shapeshifter things on this board rely/intend you to be in Bear form always it seems.

I have a idea game mechanic and role play wise of wouldnt it be intresting to play a Necro-Shifter kind of character?



I was thinking of going Heavy Spirit Tree, and Glyphs and such. basic premise is to lay down some spells first maybe liek virulent walking bomb+Stinging Swarm then Shapeshift and charge into melee and such.

[crawfs]

challenge denied

[TBastian]

Beancounter has the right of it. That doesn't mean that the combination is weak, individually the Shapeshifter and the Blood Mage are quite powerful. but there just isn't a way to use them together. By the time the Shifter or Blood Mage side of your character is done the other doesn't have anything left to do anymore.



I've played a Spirit-heavy Blood Mage/Shapeshifter, it doesn't work as ideally you think. The thing about cast-and-forget nukes is that they're unpredictable. Virulent Walking Bomb also draws about as much aggro as Taunt, and you really wouldn't want to be anywhere near it when it explodes. Entropy would be your best bet as BM/SS.

[MindYerBeak]

There's a Shapeshifter Mod available which allows you to become a Revenant amongst other things. Sounds interesting.

[Last Darkness]

TBastian wrote...

Beancounter has the right of it. That doesn't mean that the combination is weak, individually the Shapeshifter and the Blood Mage are quite powerful. but there just isn't a way to use them together. By the time the Shifter or Blood Mage side of your character is done the other doesn't have anything left to do anymore.

I've played a Spirit-heavy Blood Mage/Shapeshifter, it doesn't work as ideally you think. The thing about cast-and-forget nukes is that they're unpredictable. Virulent Walking Bomb also draws about as much aggro as Taunt, and you really wouldn't want to be anywhere near it when it explodes. Entropy would be your best bet as BM/SS.

Not nessarsarily a Nightmare difficulty game. The idea would be to drop those fire and forget nukes that move around like virulent walking bomb and swarm for example, pop into bear and be tankable/melee dps.
Its all Theory crafting though.

Care to elaborate your experinces Tbastian? I know your very knowledgeable about Shapeshifter.

[TBastian]

What I know is based off the combined efforts of the guy who made Shapeshifting 101 and x-president, the guy who made the str build guide. And lots of playtesting.

Virulent WB is unpredictable. It can out-aggro Taunt, and when that happens your party is in danger. You can cast Crushing Prison/Blood Wound on your target, but that doesn't guarantee that VWB's explosion is optimized unless you have a sacrificial tanker to keep enemy mobs in place. Alistair died a lot in that game. You're also screwed if VWB gets resisted. Stinging Swarm is a good spell, but not good enough by itself.
It doesn't matter whether  you're shifted or not - VWB's explosion damage is not something you want to tank. Ever. The darn thing does physical damage.

The spells I took were almost all the spirit spells, Stinging Swarm, and the Hex/Life drain spells. I would use Morrigan to cast Blizzard, then I would use VWB and Stinging Swarm. Alistair would be waiting for enemy mobs with Taunt, and I would use Force Field on him. Morrigan would be behind Alistair to cast Cone of Cold if VWB out-aggros Taunt. Sometimes VWB would go off unexpectedly, knocking down Alistair but most times things went well. I  got my Tactician achievement using this setup.
This mage had stat points all over the place. He had points in willpower, con, cunning and magic. Most went to magic. His gear was defense-oriented, I got that right at least, but his forms' stats were still subpar. It wasn't a bad build, but not exactly "powerful". Interestingly, his forms were about as effective as a Shapeshifter with 1 str/1 magic. I pointed this out to x-president, and this is the reason why we came to the conclusion there are only two types of Shapeshifter builds (stat-wise): pure/semi-pure magic, and 2 str/1 magic or higher. I abandoned the latter after it became unfeasible in Awakenings.

Melee DPS-wise, at the time I had no idea you could use a weapon to boost your DPS. And I had no idea how Overwhelm worked against creatures immune to it. This build's melee hits were not very effective. Against heavily armored characters (eg dwarves)  however the high armor penetration of staves was very useful. It's Overwhelm was another matter. Dog can outdamage its Spider's Overwhelm, but not its Bear's. I only used Spider's Overwhelm as an emergency disable. It Swarm was quite powerful.

If I were to play that build again I go either pure offensive (Primal spells) and be a glass cannon, or I'd play as an Entropy disabler, spamming every disable under the sun + Blood Wound then using Spider/Swarm/Bear, depending on the situation. Unlike the Shapeshifter/Spirit Healer, this build is about killing things/CC-ing them to pieces. Since you cannot use Group Heal/Revive before reshifting, your nukes must finish off your enemies before they kill you and your allies. Your disables must keep them busy until you finish using forms, so you can unshift, recast your spells, and shift back again. I'd take Mana Clash.

If you're confused about which form to use, the Spider deals well with anything vulnerable to nature damage. Use Poison Spit/Overwhelm/Web/Poison Spit in that order. The overall damage + disable time should be enough to kill off most annoyances. That final Web should disable your target in case you need to unshift. Unshift as soon the the Poison Spit projectile leaves your character. Cast your spells after - you should have around 2-3 seconds to spam your spells before your target breaks free. This forms also works well on bosses, if only to disable, as many bosses are immune to nature damage.
The Bear is the boss killer. You'll want to use Rage (+10 str) before Overwhelming a boss (use a staff if it's high armored, any other  weapon otherwise). Then use Slam on it to knock it back if you need to unshift (unshift as soon as the enemy flies away). Caster your spells after, and if you unshifted fast enough you can pop a Fireball just as your target hits the ground after Slam. Note that Slam draws about as much aggro from the target as Taunt.
The Swarm is a nice follow up to Bear, since you can kite just about anything with it (Bear will have aggroed your target). It is immune to ranged weapons (except auto-hit skills and magic damage), ideal for dealing with archers. In case something goes wrong, it's also your panic button. Avoid using its skill unless absolutely necessary. The skill has a mental resistance check (making it useful against most mobs) but it can potentially end Swarm form (costs ~40 mana).
The forms are immune to knockdown. Spider and Bear can be knocked back, although what you'll see is a knockdown animation. Use a warmth Balm if you're fighting something with fire attacks, before using Spider/Swarm. These forms have fire resistance penalties. Swarm is immune to both knockdown and knockback. It can fly over traps without triggering them.

Do not hesistate to use the forms as soon as you can if you're fighting something with knockdown skills (Ogres, werwolves) or if you have to fight something  your human form will not survive (scattered archers with Arrows of Slaying, something with grab/overwhelm). Spamming Overwhelm on enemies immune to it will cause you to spam normal attacks almost on top of each other. There's only one mob I don't use shifting against - Revenants. They AoE if you try and attack them, and you can't tank them unless you have your 40% dodge set.

Modifié par TBastian, 24 juin 2010 - 05:21 .

[Last Darkness]

Thanks for the info, very insightful. It dosnt sound that bad and is definetly something intresting. Better then Arcane Warrior or room nuker mage sitting there being bored lol

[Last Darkness]

Hmmm would it be useful to drop the fire and forget spells then move in Swarm form for more aoe damage?

[Mr_Raider]

Last Darkness wrote...

Hmmm would it be useful to drop the fire and forget spells then move in Swarm form for more aoe damage?

What I found effective was to drop earthquake and move in with swarm form. This is killer on archers, since swarm has high ranged dodge.

[BHRamsay]

I've had some success using Morrie as a Blood Mage. Using my Ranger's animal buddies as raw material never occurred to me so I'll have to try that out see how it plays. Blood Control has a nasty habit of leaving me with some random baddie standing around who will randomly go hostile usually when I'm still healing up from the last battle.



T'would be nice if you could use a BC minion as a mana source. --- but if course if you could do it , it could be done to you.

[swk3000]

It occurs to me that both Shapeshifting and Blood Magic do roughly the same thing: give the Mage an alternative method of doing damage when they run out of Mana. Maybe that's why it's so hard to combine them: you're trying to do the same thing in 2 different ways.

[Addai]

I am currently playing a blood mage/ shapeshifter and have found it one of the more challenging and inefficient combinations in terms of gameplay.  But it could well be I'm doing it wrong.  I find that I often am kicked out of a form due to low mana.  Generally I start out with a fireball or something to that effect and shift into my forms when enemies get close.  It's no fun to be de-shifted when you have a face full of angry whatevers.

Another problem is that if you use any kind of face morph, the shapes will glitch.  I have found this usually when I try to de-shift or when the game forces me out of a shape.  My mage gets stuck in rather embarrassing spots such as this:

[naledgeborn]

Blood Magic, Afliction Hex, Blood Wound, another AoE, then Master Flying Swarm/Divide Swarm for the finisher while simultaneously healing yourself. All I can think of. Of course you need to charge in with a Tank for it to work right.

Modifié par naledgeborn, 15 août 2010 - 05:06 .

[Last Darkness]

Bump



With some Shapeshifter mods this setup starts looking even better.