27 réponses à ce sujet

[egervari]

I'm playing as a level 10 mage so far and I have morrigan in my party. I'm having trouble decided what to do with my 8 skill points I have stored up.

The thing is, Morrigan's spell selection is just so god awful to start with. The developers really wanted her to be some kind of debilitator and a nuker hybrid... but they didn't seem to focus on anything. The fact that she has shapeshifting makes me think, "What the hell?!"

Because of this weird split, I think it's going to be hard to make two mages that fulfill a roll, and I'll probably have things split around the both of them.

For my main, I was thinking for my first 20 skill points that I'd go crushing prison line, mana clash line, heal line, spirit healer line and blood mage. I guess I could go 3 more points in tempest because I know I'll have more than 20 points.

For Morrigan, I can go just 1 heal spell, 4 blood magic, max out the cold line (and get storm of century), max out of the mass paralysis line, and get sleep. I dunno how many points she's going to have left after that.

Thoughts? Is this going to work? Should I get the glyphs? Anything I'm missing?

[DWSmiley]

Her starting spells are very good, actually. Winter's grasp is the best tier one spell in the game. Mind blast is good crowd control - have her run in, stun all the beasties and run back. The hex enhances winter's grasp, drain life and lighnting. Horror is good crowd control early and good damage later combined with sleep. She can melee well, too, early on by shapeshifting while equipped with Ser Jory's balanced greatsword.



Here is a list I like for additional spells:

heal (possibly from a tome at first camp)

cone of cold

sleep

glyph of paralysis

glyph of warding

glyph of repulsion

force field

group heal

affliction hex

misdirection hex

death hex



Cone of cold is great in itself and sets up shatter. Sleep is great crowd control, just make sure the rest of the party focuses on one target to not wake up others. The glyphs have many uses. Force field and hexes are great vs. bosses and I particularly like them vs. revenants.

[termokanden]

I've spent much time playing mages. I completely agree that Morrigan has just about the worst spell selection imaginable when you get her. She has some basic good spells, but she doesn't go anywhere with it. You must generally get to tier 3 spells before it gets fun.

Here are my recommendations anyway (some overlapping with yours):

1. Spirit Healer is by far the best specialization. You should have at least one in your party.

2. Blood Wound is awesome, so one Blood Mage doesn't hurt. Blood Control is not so fantastic I think.

3. One mage with Mana Clash. You only need one.

4. All hexes are incredibly useful, but you should have Vulnerability Hex at least. Very good to use before trying to nuke down a boss or elite for example.

5. Glyphs are awesome and I recommend one mage taking the first 3. Repulsion can block a doorway for example while you AoE everyone inside. Paralysis Explosion is also quite handy.

6. Force Field is a must, but you only need one.

7. 3 points in fire and cold is a good choice for any mage.

8. Storm of the Century is a beast, but it's so heavy on the friendly fire that it makes fights very boring. Powerful in the extreme, and yet I don't recommend it.

9. Virulent Walking Bomb is easy to disregard, but it's an absolute beast. Highly recommended.

Your choices are also good. For example Mass Paralysis and Sleep are good, though I never really needed them after all the CC from Fireball, glyphs, Cone of Cold and Blood Wound.

Modifié par termokanden, 25 août 2010 - 10:20 .

[DWSmiley]

Mana clash and blood wound are very powerful, so much so that I stopped using them.

[egervari]

Thanks for the replies.



This is what I'm primarily worried about. Because I've never played a blood mage before (I just had Wynn in my last party only), I have no idea what spells are going to be redundant or obsolete. So I want to choose wisely.



Well, if the hexes are actually good, then I can get those on Morrigan she's got them started.



I'm a little worried I'm not going to have enough skill points between the two. I guess I could just respec Morrigan, and then I'll have plenty, but I wanted to try and do this legitly as was designed.



I'll play around. Hopefully I figure something out.



I terms of will power, do I need any?

[termokanden]

I'm pretty sure you should have enough talent points by the end of the game. I had most of these with just one mage by the end of my game (think I reached level 23 or 24).

As for willpower, it's my personal opinion that it's a waste of points. Magic increases your chance for spells to work, and it increases their effect. Furthermore, it increases mana gained from potions. Willpower just gives you a small amount of mana per point.

For short fights, you will not run out (well you might in the beginning). For long fights, just bring some incredibly cheap lesser lyrium potions and you won't have a problem. Think it costs a couple of gold to make a hundred of them. Remember, even willpower mages will use them in long fights, and amusingly they get less mana out of them.

Let me say it even more clearly. I played through the entire game without spending a single point in willpower, and I'm glad I didn't, because I never had mana problems.

Modifié par termokanden, 25 août 2010 - 10:50 .

[DWSmiley]

egervari wrote...

I terms of will power, do I need any?

No and that's not up for debate.  

Put points there if you prefer not min/maxing but you definitely get more mileage from putting them in magic.  Your spells will do more damage and be resisted less often.  Gear and lyrium pots provide plenty of mana.  Or get staff mastery and some good gloves and do quite decent damage with the staff while waiting for mana to regenerate.

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

termokanden wrote...

I've spent much time playing mages. I completely agree that Morrigan has just about the worst spell selection imaginable when you get her. She has some basic good spells, but she doesn't go anywhere with it. You must generally get to tier 3 spells before it gets fun.

Here are my recommendations anyway (some overlapping with yours):

1. Spirit Healer is by far the best specialization. You should have at least one in your party.

2. Blood Wound is awesome, so one Blood Mage doesn't hurt. Blood Control is not so fantastic I think.

3. One mage with Mana Clash. You only need one.

4. All hexes are incredibly useful, but you should have Vulnerability Hex at least. Very good to use before trying to nuke down a boss or elite for example.

5. Glyphs are awesome and I recommend one mage taking the first 3. Repulsion can block a doorway for example while you AoE everyone inside. Paralysis Explosion is also quite handy.

6. Force Field is a must, but you only need one.

7. 3 points in fire and cold is a good choice for any mage.

8. Storm of the Century is a beast, but it's so heavy on the friendly fire that it makes fights very boring. Powerful in the extreme, and yet I don't recommend it.

9. Virulent Walking Bomb is easy to disregard, but it's an absolute beast. Highly recommended.

Your choices are also good. For example Mass Paralysis and Sleep are good, though I never really needed them after all the CC from Fireball, glyphs, Cone of Cold and Blood Wound.

1. I disagree about Spirit Healer. Group Heal is very situational and the rest are very lackluster. Regeneration is a beast after you get 50 spellpower it really starts to shine. It is twice as efficent as Heal and nearly three times as efficient as Group Heal. The only time Group Heal is ever the most efficient spell is when all four party members are wounded.

2. I think Blood Mage is the best fit for her second specilization from a lore or rp point of view and usefulness.  I would agree only invest three points in it though for Blood Wound. A combination of Virtulent Walking Bomb->Blood Wound->Fireball will kill any small radius unless it is a boss, and that is only nine spells invested.

3. Mana Clash makes some fights easy even on nightmare. I agree it is awesome. Mana Clash on a boss like Uldred or Gaxkhang makes life easy especially if you spam Mana Drain after it. Even on nightmare this tactic works, and just wrecks bosses like that. Uldred wll never get to cast a spell due ot having no mana making the fight laughable even on Nightmare.

4. Yeah Hexs own. and they stack!  I often find myself only using them on yellows+ remember to put the aoe hex(Affliction?) on the target your going to kill last, but a Vulnerability Hex->Crushing Prison followed by any other spell will kill any yellow without them ever casting.

5. Glyphs are awesome Paralysis Explosion is probably the most OP spell in the game. I avoid using it because to me it makes the game to easy. An AOE CC that doesn't require LOS. It is fun, but after a while it got to good for me and kind of boring.

6. Force Field is golden, but after you get established amount of skills and levels. I believe it comes less and less useful. It can always be used to abuse the AI and make your tank invinceable, but I find that kind of cheesy. It is useful, but if you play well you will never notice not having it. Even at the start of the game I never miss it even on nightmare. I don't grab the Telekensis line anymore. They are useful spells and simple to use, but once you learn how to use other spells they are quite easily replaced. The only spell I dearly missed was Telekentic Weapons for the High Dragon and Revenants.

7. Agreed

8. Agreed it is more of a fluff spell than anything.

9. Agreed


As for willpower it depends on your mage a pure nuker would be just fine with base+fade and going max magic. I would never invest in willpower unless you are going with a heavy sustain using build(Arcane Warrior Tank). Since the base+fade+willpower you get from gear. Is an ample amount for any caster.

Modifié par Jacks Smirking Revenge, 25 août 2010 - 11:27 .

[DWSmiley]

Just be careful with VWB. It can become Virulent Walking Kamikaze and that is not fun at all. It's great for archers, though.

[termokanden]

Jacks Smirking Revenge wrote...

1. I disagree about Spirit Healer. Group Heal is very situational and the rest are very lackluster. Regeneration is a beast after you get 50 spellpower it really starts to shine. It is twice as efficent as Heal and nearly three times as efficient as Group Heal. The only time Group Heal is ever the most efficient spell is when all four party members are wounded.

To clarify. Group Heal is (slightly) more mana efficient than Heal if two party members have taken sufficient damage and clearly surpasses Heal when it's 3 or more. But the point is also just that it's very nice to have two heals because of the cooldown. Furthermore it eliminates the need for micromanagement to clean up after a Fireball for example.

I have to say I don't care much about a 20 mana difference anyway. Group Heal is a better heal than Heal if you have enough mana, and you do. It's even better just on a single target since it scales slightly better with spellpower.

I completely agree about Regeneration by the way. Probably easy to disregard since it's not a quick heal but it's really useful.

6. Force Field is golden, but after you get established amount of skills and levels. I believe it comes less and less useful. It can always be used to abuse the AI and make your tank invinceable, but I find that kind of cheesy. It is useful, but if you play well you will never notice not having it.

It's just very nice as a reaction to Curse of Mortality or a party member getting in trouble. Could be anything. Grab by a dragon or just too many mobs around.

I used the invulnerable tank tactic a bit but I agree that it's a bit too much cheese. This is also the reason I dropped Storm of the Century.

Modifié par termokanden, 25 août 2010 - 11:47 .

[egervari]

Is waking nightmare any good? My Morrigan does have 3 points in the Sleep tree. I could get Waking nightmare. If not that, go with the hexes next? Glyphs? Blizzard?

[termokanden]

It's not bad at all, but I prefer spells that cannot make monsters attack each other. You get no XP if a monster gets the killing blow

But yes it's alright. I just prefer doing what Jack's Smirking Revenge said and setting up combos with VWB, Fireball and Blood Wound. It's absolutely devastating and you don't need more CC.

Modifié par termokanden, 26 août 2010 - 12:27 .

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

http://dragonage.wik...ells_Efficiency



Group heal costs 20 more mana for about 14 more hp that is almost over heal anyways. The key term to determine its effectiveness is "full heal" that rarely happens, so in most cases it is the third most efficient heal unless special situations. Considering the low cooldown or Regeneration and Heal you should never need it anyways, and casting a Regen+Heal is the same mana as a Group Heal.

[termokanden]

Special situations? Maybe so, but then those special situations certainly occur very, very often.

And yet all this talk about efficiency doesn't actually lead you to conclude whether Group Heal is useful or not. Most of the time it's not a matter of efficiency, but healing quickly enough. There, Group Heal is vastly superior to Heal.

I honestly care very little about efficiency in any case, I just don't want people to die. I'm carrying about 300 lesser lyrium potions at the moment, and they cost me next to nothing. Low on mana? Drink a potion.

Modifié par termokanden, 26 août 2010 - 07:31 .

[Lumikki]

Not much to say Morrigan's power as I don't use her anything. I'm mage and Wynne is other. We are both spirit healers and both have many same spells. Like heal, group heal, cone of cold, mind blast and force field. So we both can heal alot and fast, but also control enemies.

So, far what I have played, most dagerours enemies has been spell casters. When they nuke you with fireballs plus some other spells after that, it's gonna hurt. That's why I usually check first if there is spell casting enemies and take them out of picture first. So, in my opinion best way is balance spells, so that you have ability control one strong and multible little enemies, then have enough offensive attack powers kill them, but also enough heals to deal mistakes what you did make.

Also remember that what if you healer is force fielded and can't heal, who's doing the healing then, while it last? That's why Wynne and my mage has so many same spells, because if other is out of picture, other can continue others work.

Wynne is stronger healer, while I'm more damage dealer. If I would have to build Morrigan, I would first asking, do you gonna do manual control or use her as automatic. Because in automatic, all area and cone spells are useless. I don't think npcs know where your own team members are, so there would be way too much friendly fire. So, it's better to have spells what are not affect friendly fire and only have spells what are area effects, when you want manually use them. So, single attacks and party member benefit spells are good for automatic mage.

Modifié par Lumikki, 26 août 2010 - 03:30 .

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

termokanden wrote...

Special situations? Maybe so, but then those special situations certainly occur very, very often.

And yet all this talk about efficiency doesn't actually lead you to conclude whether Group Heal is useful or not. Most of the time it's not a matter of efficiency, but healing quickly enough. There, Group Heal is vastly superior to Heal.

I honestly care very little about efficiency in any case, I just don't want people to die. I'm carrying about 300 lesser lyrium potions at the moment, and they cost me next to nothing. Low on mana? Drink a potion.

Very very often? I can only think of two bosses that would get good use of Group Heal. Flemeth and Broodmother. The mage house in Denerim and Howe's Dungeon would be a good places for it as well. Everything else Regen+Heal is more efficient and effective at healing. Unless your standing bunched up together and walking into traps your group is almost never aoed which is the only time Group Heal is any good. Once again the only time Group Heal is vastly superior to Heal or Regen is when three or four party members are hurt. It has a 20 second cooldown double the mana and only heals a fraction more than heal, and heals only half of regeneration. The only perk it has is it heals multiple people at once instantly, but hardly is it needed unless three or four people are hurt badly at once or under the effect of a dot which almost never happens in my playthroughs on nightmare.

I'm not telling people how to play; I hope I don't sound like that. I'm just explaining why I don't use Group Heal, and in my eyes the only reason to use Group Heal is out of laziness or ignorance on how good Regen and Heal are. If people want to use it go ahead it is your game knock youself out, but Group Heal is the THIRD best heal on the game and is hardly required or a game changer if you understand how to use your spells efficiently some people don't like to min max, or as you said can just spam potions everyone has fun their own way. I like to min max somtimes other times I'm lazy. There is no wrong or right way to play, but there is a best, second best, and worst spell. You get to the same place using any of them however you like, but some are more efficient and effective than the others making your journey much easier.

Also I never use potions they are cheesy on this game to me and my own house rules don't allow them, but everyone has their own house rules, but may I ask if you are carrying that many potions why dont you just make 300 healing potions and just skip whole point of having to heal, and just use mages for dps?

[Lumikki]

Heal is not more efficient than group heal when you can't use it, meaning when heal is reloading, I have had many situation where group heal is good. It's not about how much it heals and how much mana it cost. it's about avalibility. How often you can use it when heal isn't available. Regenaration is good and it heals alot, but it's very slow healing and many times when you take damage it doesn't just come slow ways, but pretty fast.

Modifié par Lumikki, 27 août 2010 - 02:00 .

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

Unless you have a mage in cloth or rogue that isn't dexed out tanking then nothing will ever die in five seconds. If you cast like this Regen->Heal it heals the exact same burst as group heal with about the same animation time, same cost and guess what it is still healing after you finish the animation. Availability? You can cast 12 heal/regens a minute you can only cast 3 group heals a minute.

[ussnorway]

She can do the tannking.

[Addai]

egervari wrote...

I'm playing as a level 10 mage so far and I have morrigan in my party. I'm having trouble decided what to do with my 8 skill points I have stored up.

The thing is, Morrigan's spell selection is just so god awful to start with. The developers really wanted her to be some kind of debilitator and a nuker hybrid... but they didn't seem to focus on anything. The fact that she has shapeshifting makes me think, "What the hell?!"

Morrigan's default setup is very good, apart from shapeshifter which I agree is pretty much useless.  But her other spells are great debuff and crowd control starters.  Mind Blast, Vulnerability Hex + Drain, and Winter's Grasp are some of my favorite spells for a low level mage.

What I do with Morrigan is give her Heal right away and set her tactics to heal ally at 75%.  I realize that is probably wasting some mana but, combined with setting everyone's tactics to take a potion at 50% health, I find that it is a very efficient way to keep everyone on their feet and no need for a Spirit Healer.  Group Heal is useful, and Revival can be a good fallback, but especially if you have two mages in the party, it is better just to kill stuff IMO.

Where I develop Morrigan from there depends a lot on my PC mage build.  Often I will use her as a hex, curse and debuffer and concentrate my own mage on destruction.  I just like blowing stuff up.  I will usually set her tactics to hex my PC's target and put Curse of Mortality on any elites or bosses.  I build up her freeze line and give either her or my PC the glyph line.  Honestly I'd rather have glyphs on my own board since it's easier to control them that way.

I really love Blood Wound.  Combined with a walking bomb, it's pretty much bye-bye.  Another good combo is to lay down a Paralysis Explosion (Glyphs of Paralysis and Repulsion cast on the same spot) and then use one of your big AoE spells.  Death Cloud with a Curse of Mortality on the biggest yellow is pretty impressive here.  I mean, that pretty much makes a fight too easy?  The warriors can just stand around buffing their nails.

I don't much like Sleep or the Paralysis line.*  Paralysis Explosion is much better.  Sleep is often resisted and it just puts off the killing rather than being destructo on its own.  I would rather give her Fireball.


*Edit:  Exception is Miasma for an AW tank, which is great against melee enemies and for pulling threat.

Modifié par Addai67, 27 août 2010 - 02:38 .

[termokanden]

Jacks Smirking Revenge wrote...

I'm not telling people how to play; I hope I don't sound like that. I'm just explaining why I don't use Group Heal, and in my eyes the only reason to use Group Heal is out of laziness or ignorance on how good Regen and Heal are. If people want to use it go ahead it is your game knock youself out, but Group Heal is the THIRD best heal on the game and is hardly required or a game changer if you understand how to use your spells efficiently

You're not telling people how to play, but you are saying people are lazy and/or ignorant if they don't play the game like you do. I find the distinction rather pointless.

Let's look at it from a theoretical angle instead. Group Heal is the best heal if many party members have taken damage. Regeneration is an efficient but not very quick heal, and Heal is a quick single-target heal. They all have their unique roles in the game.

I doubt we're going to agree on how many times enough people in your party will get hurt.

Also I never use potions they are cheesy on this game to me and my own house rules don't allow them, but everyone has their own house rules, but may I ask if you are carrying that many potions why dont you just make 300 healing potions and just skip whole point of having to heal, and just use mages for dps?

Honestly I just found it funny to make 300 of them and never think about mana again. I don't think I've actually used very many. But since you did ask, then there is a good reason to make lesser lyrium potions over anything else. Mages get much more out of potions due to high magic. Lesser healing potions are not very useful and would be very boring to spam. The bigger healing potions are more expensive/annoying to make.

Modifié par termokanden, 27 août 2010 - 07:29 .

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

No I said in my eyes; I even put it in bold to indicate the sentence applying to myself not generalizing. Maybe I should of put "to me" at the end of the comment, but I thought I wouldn't need to since well I put in bold a possessive word. Then I went on to state again the point of conflict that Group Heal is the third best healing spell, and supported my point in the previous paragraph. Now If I said the only reason you people use Group Heal is because you are lazy and ignorant you would be correct.

You are right I doubt we are going to agree on the amount of special situations where Group Heal is actually needed, but everyone plays different and different skill and difficulty levels, but if your min/maxing like what I said earlier. Group Heal isn't even needed except very special situations, but even then regen and heal are so good they can survive those instances if you play well. I also pointed out not everybody plays the style of min/maxing and that using Group Heal isn't going to handicap you, but I did point out that if you want to get the most out of your character it is advisable to skip it because regen and heal can do everything Group Heal does while it can't do anything those spells can half as well.

The potion point was more sarcastic than anything. I found the thought of carrying that many potions very dull and boring to know I'll never run out of mana.

Modifié par Jacks Smirking Revenge, 27 août 2010 - 10:27 .

[termokanden]

Feel free to argue that Group Heal is useless and worse than other healing spells. I claim that is best some of the time. I doubt we'll get much further.

But constantly trying to imply I'm not at your skill level - completely unnecessary and certainly doesn't help you prove your point at all.

Modifié par termokanden, 28 août 2010 - 08:05 .

[egervari]

Jacks Smirking Revenge wrote...

termokanden wrote...

Special situations? Maybe so, but then those special situations certainly occur very, very often.

And yet all this talk about efficiency doesn't actually lead you to conclude whether Group Heal is useful or not. Most of the time it's not a matter of efficiency, but healing quickly enough. There, Group Heal is vastly superior to Heal.

I honestly care very little about efficiency in any case, I just don't want people to die. I'm carrying about 300 lesser lyrium potions at the moment, and they cost me next to nothing. Low on mana? Drink a potion.

Very very often? I can only think of two bosses that would get good use of Group Heal. Flemeth and Broodmother. The mage house in Denerim and Howe's Dungeon would be a good places for it as well. Everything else Regen+Heal is more efficient and effective at healing. Unless your standing bunched up together and walking into traps your group is almost never aoed which is the only time Group Heal is any good. Once again the only time Group Heal is vastly superior to Heal or Regen is when three or four party members are hurt. It has a 20 second cooldown double the mana and only heals a fraction more than heal, and heals only half of regeneration. The only perk it has is it heals multiple people at once instantly, but hardly is it needed unless three or four people are hurt badly at once or under the effect of a dot which almost never happens in my playthroughs on nightmare.

I'm not telling people how to play; I hope I don't sound like that. I'm just explaining why I don't use Group Heal, and in my eyes the only reason to use Group Heal is out of laziness or ignorance on how good Regen and Heal are. If people want to use it go ahead it is your game knock youself out, but Group Heal is the THIRD best heal on the game and is hardly required or a game changer if you understand how to use your spells efficiently some people don't like to min max, or as you said can just spam potions everyone has fun their own way. I like to min max somtimes other times I'm lazy. There is no wrong or right way to play, but there is a best, second best, and worst spell. You get to the same place using any of them however you like, but some are more efficient and effective than the others making your journey much easier.

Also I never use potions they are cheesy on this game to me and my own house rules don't allow them, but everyone has their own house rules, but may I ask if you are carrying that many potions why dont you just make 300 healing potions and just skip whole point of having to heal, and just use mages for dps?

I'm not sure I'd agree with this. I've been playing and I'm almost done my last major chapter, the paragon quest. While I do have 1 spirit healer, I find healing not to be necessary. I believe some of the earlier posts were dead right - blood wound, fireball, and mana clash are extremely effective. if you can double up blood would, you can basically kill 8 or 12 enemies all at once.

Also, friendly fire isn't a problem unless it's cone of cold. Right now, both my tank and Leliana are wearing wade's armors, so fire damage doesn't even do anything... and if the tank takes damage, oh well. He has so much life it doesn't matter.

I basically find fireball's disadvantage to never really come up, and I essentially spam it.

For bosses, I've been casting the hexes, glyphs, crushing prisons, and all of my elemental spells (arcane bolt, winter grasp, fireball, lightning spells, etc.)

This has made the game extremely easy. I find that I never need to use mana potions either, as regenerate spell has been more than enough.

Actually, the tank hasn't really even been needed except for bosses.

Modifié par egervari, 29 août 2010 - 12:08 .

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

Yeah well the point of conflict wasn't that healing was needed or if it wasn't was the usefulness of Spirit Healer and Group Heal. I agree with you I think my first post I even indicate that VWB->Blood Wound->Fireball will pretty much nuke anything, and common sense implies if you have three mages all doing that things are going to die quickly and efficiently. Especially if you add multiple Spellbooms and Mass Rejuvenations the need to use pots will be near null.



I often never play with a a true tank. I build my 1h/Shield warriors to do damage and lots of it I often give them the 2h Sweep line to drop that big aoe at the start of fights for damage and cc then switch to the 1h/shield talents to spam them.