17 réponses à ce sujet

[Ardeco]

This is to the community as a whole:

Based on your experience thus far, what types of mage builds (ratio of magic:willpower:others, specilizations, spells) have you found powerful enough to win most encounters in hard difficulty? If you have a build and it has enabled you to do well with the hard difficulty setting, what tactics do you employ? Crowd control (paralyze, etc.), heavy damage, or something entirely different?

I would love to get some feedback on the above questions, as I'd like some ideas for how to build my character in order to play through on hard.

[Mysinera]

Mages are the nukes of the game. You can build one any which way, and still own every mob out there. A good general suggestion though is this. Ice to lock down enemies, stonefist to shatter them. Wards to keep ppl away from you, them walking bomb to wipe out baddies who can't get close. Spirit healer line to bail out your party when you accidently freeze them. Tk weapons to get armor penetration. This will still leave you with about 12 more spells to choose from by level 25.

[Jersey75639]

Crowd control is the main thing you're going to want to prioritize. Depending on how many mages you plan on working with (one, two, three) the exact builds can vary a lot.



If you plan on using more than one mage, try to make their builds complement each other.

[Trefecka]

From my experience using 3 mages, I (strangely enough) find CC to be a tad....overrated. While I DO agree that some is necessary, I find the AOE power of 2 damage spec mage to be enough to overwhelm nearly everything.



For most crowds, i find earthquake + storm of the century is more than enough to slaughter them and leave stragglers weak enough to focus down with staff/winter grasp/lightning bolts. For the times when you begin with mobs surrounding you, I find mind blast + cone of cold gives enough time for Shale to grab agro (usually), and I like poison flasks in those situations to drop their health some for virulent walking bomb to slaughter crowds (interesting enough even on Hard Shale has enough HP to easily survive a bomb @ ground zero...gogo stoneheart resistances).



For boss situations, might have to chug a couple potions but you do so much damage with vunerability hex on them that there are no real problems. Elemental wise, I find lightning is my favorite for damage (since its front loaded compared to fire, and seems to do more damage than cold).



Anyways those are my opinions....so in summary: heavy damage with light crowd control seems to be the best way to go in my experience.

[dannythefool]

I like to have my tank grab aggro if I'm in the middle of a group, then I retreat the other characters, force field the tank, and then I can still wreak havoc with AoE without hitting the tank. That's crowd control too... even though the tank's threaten + taunt does part of it.

[internaty inmortelaty]

arcane warrior build: all arcane warrior skills life drain all healing spells making me and my allies hard to kill.

[BreakSet]

Honestly, just about any build will work for a mage.

If you want to do massive damage, Primal is the way to go.

If you want to heal, Creation and/or Spirit Healer do wonders.

I personally prefer to focus on a Spirit/Entropy hybrid with fully trained Spirit Healer and Blood Magic specializations. My playstyle is geared to crowd control/healer while doing a little damage here and there as I see fit.

If this is of interest to you or anyone, I'll break down the important parts of the build:

STAT DISTRIBUTION

• Willpower>Magic>Other

All of my available stat points went into Willpower after raising my Magic points to the minimum needed for the high level spells I wished to use. This is just my preference. I enjoy having large mana pools unless I am DPSing. It also helps with spells like Spirit Shield that are dependent on mana.


KEY SPIRIT SPELLS

• Spell Shield - This is where the large mana pool proves itself to be the most useful.
• Death Syphon - When this sustained spell is active, every dead body near you gives you a little bit of mana. - This spell is amazing for large group fights.
• Animate Dead - You can raise most dead enemies with this spell and use their abilities, whether they are a warrior, rogue or even mage. This is a GREAT way to attack your enemies while focusing on crowd control.
• Mind Blast - With this spell, you will have no problems when surrounded by enemies. It stuns everyone surrounding you without worries of friendly fire.
• Force Field - This spell has its uses. What it basically does is take whoever you casted it on out of the fight for a short amount of time. They become immune to damage, but can't move. This CAN be casted on enemies, thus making it more useful than most people give it credit for.
• Crushing Prison - This is my favorite single target crowd control spell. It functions just like Force Field, but the target can still take damage. Not just that, but there is a chance that if the enemy is frozen solid or petrified, they can shatter! This spell goes very well with Winter's Grasp in this particular build.

KEY ENTROPY SPELLS

• Paralyze - Pretty self explanatory. If they break free, their movement speed is reduced.
• Mass Paralysis - This is an area of effect spell. The size of the spell is bigger than I thought it would be. You can often paralyze large groups of enemies with this spell. I believe there is a slight casting time for this spell.
• Sleep - This works just like Mass Paralysis, except it puts the enemies in the affected area alseep and I don't think there is a casting time.
• Horror - Puts the enemy in a state of fear. If they are asleep, they cannot resist this spell.

OTHER KEY SPELLS

• Spirit Healer Specialization - Group heal is a life saver. Revival is great for emergencies. You probably won't be using Life Ward and Cleansing Aura outside of boss fights, but they're still good to have.
• Winter's Grasp - This is the only Primal spell that I have. My main reason for choosing it is that it does damage along with the chance to freeze single targets in place. It is also very useful when combined with Crushing Prison (see above)
• Blood Mage Specialization - Blood Magic is useful in the rare event that you run out of mana. With the Revival spell seen above, you may have no fear of Blood Sacrifice backfiring.=, though I rarely use this spell. This spec doesn't prove itself until you use Blood Wound and Blood Control. Blood Wound is an AoE that does both damage and stun multiple enemies. Blood Control makes the target an ally of the caster unless it passes a mental resistance check. If the target resists, it instead takes great damage from the manipulation of its blood.
• Heal - This is the only Creation spell that I have. You don't even need it, actually. It is just good to have an instant heal spell.

tl;dr - I've found Spirit/Entropy to be a most effective and entertaining build for my 2nd playthough of the game. It is good if you do not want to AoE spam, but would rather lock down all enemies and take them out one by one.

Modifié par BreakSet, 13 novembre 2009 - 08:07 .

[Tonya777]

Well I don't know if I have the best mage in the world or anything but



I've just gone with the elemental + entropy spells plus heal & revive and it seems to work pretty well



I haven't been FORCED to drop to easy mode like I was as my rogue , I actually don't know if I even want to finish the game with this character this time



I will probably do every single quest in the whole world and get to lvl 25 and THEN finish the game this time lol

[Tonya777]

I had no idea mind blast did that , I should get it some time

[Malanthor]

I have fireball, cone of cold, stone fist, sleep, force field, glyph of repulsion, heal, group heal from spirit healer spec, arcane mastery (im lazy and like to autoattack with mage staff from time to time and the 33% damage increase is nice arcane mastery gives a little +magic so its ok too but overall its not a big deal can use points elsewhere) thats 22 points spent and up til 10 more points to spend at lvl 25 with all bonuses, so id suggest to pick whatever that have your fancy, could increase the earth and force lines by 2 points each and get the last tier abbilities there and then grab blizzard or inferno or sumthing for some more aoe dps. /shrugs whatever you choose really there are no best combination here, depends how you play your mage/mages.
When you have a base of the better abbilities in mage lines for either dps or cc, or both you can add in whatever you want.

Modifié par Self Controll, 13 novembre 2009 - 08:23 .

[Sornin]

Like another person said, the build on your mage depends on other characteristics of your party, most importantly how many other mages you have.

If you have only one mage (the bare minimum for combat to be fair and fun, in my opinion), then you likely want to make him or her focused entirely on crowd control and healing. Spirit Healer combined with either Arcane Warrior or Blood Mage is the best choice for specializations.

The key spells are Heal, Group Heal, Revival, Sleep, Paralyze, Mass Paralysis, Cone of Cold, and Blizzard. There are lots of other great picks, but those are the ones I rely on most (well, not Revival, but it is nice to have when you mess up and do not want to reload).

If you have two mages you have far more flexibility and as long as one can heal and do crowd control the other can pretty much do anything. I usually double up on the crowd control and healing and have them differ on the damage spells they have, usually with one going heavily into Spirit for more CC and anti-magic and the other going into Entropy for more debuffing.

If you go with the full three mages, the final mage can master Primal and be a damage dealer.

[themaxzero]

Once you unlock Arcane Warrior and Spirit Healer from previous playthroughs you can make much better mages.

For me the best mage is a caster mage but uses 1 point in Arcane Warrior to wear certain armour.

The Red Dragon Plate is a good starting piece. That plus Stone Skin spell should put you close to 40 armour by lvl 8. Which makes you almost unkillable at that level with melee attacks at the cost of only 20% or so fatigue.

Later on when you kill the High Dragon, get Wade to make you Heavy or medium Dragon plate armour (NOT massive). This armour has huge amounts of -% fatigue. By the end of the game you can have as much armour as your best tank with 10-15% fatigue (depending on armour made). Having an armoured Mage really allows you a lot more freedom when casting spells. You can be much more aggresive with your casting because its not such a big deal when a enemy or two attacks you. I find it just makes the group much more solid overall.

Spells wanted:

The whole Force line (Force field and Crushing Field). Get these early. Crushing field does not need line of sight so you can use it to assassinate people you have detected by not seen it.

1 point in glyph and heal. Heals and a easy stun. At 14 one point for Spirit Healer to get AoE heal. It really helps a lot of certain fights.

2 points in Paralysis is nice too (ranged stun 30 second CD),

Primal wise, Frost is a good first choice but keep in mind Morrigan starts half way done there already. For a bit of variety you can go fire or Lightning since there are some enemies are highly resistant (or immune) to cold and double stacking Blizzard there is useless. I actually like Fire mainly because no one else in the party has any points in that direction. Both Fire Ball and Inferno are EXTREMELY powerful.

Once line that is ignore a lot is the vulnerability line. The lowering of resistances helps both you spells and staff damage plus the two other debuff spells are very powerful. The crit->hit hit->miss debuff is very useful against power melee bosses (of which there many) and the auto crit debuff is brutal if you have a few melee in your party.

Modifié par themaxzero, 13 novembre 2009 - 11:37 .

[Sotaklas]

don't forget to get mana clash at spirit it's deadly against other mages i managed to hit for 725 when i was 20 but of course it only works against enemies with mana........

and use it when the battle start before the enemie mage use any of his mana the more mana he has the more dmg ....

Modifié par Sotaklas, 13 novembre 2009 - 11:45 .

[Zilod]

there are many good build you can do, depends what you want to do and by your party... how many mages, how many healers? 1 tank? 2 tank? and so on



a build i like is something like



frost line 4 (primal)

heal line 3 (creation)

hex line 4 (entropy)

nightmare line 4 (entropy)

death line 4 (entropy)

Spirit Healer 1 (2 if i have points)

Blood mage 2 ( 4 if i have points)

with a few more points to spare i'll also go for one of these 2 lines

force line 4 (spirit) or paralysis line (entrophy)

and earth line 1 (primal) for some added defence



this is a pretty balanced build more geared toward support but who can dish out good dmg too, it can actually cover many roles... main healer, CC, aoe of doom, even single target nuker if needed



but as said is one of many good builds you can do... it really depends by what you want to play and by your style

[X2-Elijah]

Well.. This is my arcane warrior.

Stats:

Raise magic and willpower equally.. Or maybe keep magic 2-3 points ahead.

Constitution will be enough if you get the extra points in the fade and one-two plus points from equipment. Not a key thing at all.



Spells:

Rock Armour

Heal

Arcane Shield

Arcane Warrior line

Death magic

Frozen Weapons

Cone of Cold

Mind Blast

Telekinetic Weapons

Force Field

Crushing Prison.



Any other at your own choice - there is simply no need for more spells at this point.



How to play:

Treat this as a super-buffed meelee character.



You have to have a one-handed weapon, a decent shield, good armour (Blood dragon armour seems the best), and the following buffs on constantly: Blood magic (to heal you in really large battles - it helps a whole lot and keeps your party healer focused on other people); Combat magic, so you can do some damage, Glimmering shield (arcane warrior 3rd spell), rock armour, arcane shield, either frost weapons or telekinetic weapons.



This way, you should be at near maximum - maximum defense both mentally and physically at 13th-14th level. You do not really cast any spells in this build - you buff up and meelee the heck out of your opponents. If you get decent gear (rings, pendants, enchants), you can easily max out all resistances at 75% as well.



Your damage output will be on par with defensive warriors, and your buffs on weapons will benefit other party members as well.



The best part is the defence on this build - with all buffs active, you will almost never go below 75% health even when swarmed by 7+ opponents (case in point - the party was swarmed with 3 drakes, some 5 or so dragonlings and a number of reavers. All others (offensive Shale, alistair, wynne) died soon - the arcane warrior easily picked them off one by one without using more than 2 lesser health poultices. The defence is so high, you will not die (period). Also, I somehow think this may be the only build viable to solo the game.



As for boss battles, well - the high dragon (at the urn quest) took my character's health (at level 15) down only by 30 points at max. When the dragon grabbed me with her jaws and trashed through the air, I lost less than 20% of my total health - easily cured with lesser health poultice. Suffice to say that the battle itself was a piece of cake (on normal though).



So - yeah. This is, in my opinion, the best mage build out there. It could be augmented with more support spells, or used in conjunction with AoE thingies before battle, but the fact is simple - you get medium-good damage output and superb survivability that far exceeds both Shale and Alistair, both specced defensively.



And you also get to look extremely cool as a warrior that never falls and has stuns and some spells at his disposal as well as a ton of buffs. And a heal.





With proper management and planning - you can achieve this invulnerability as early as level 14, just when you get the 3rd arcane warrior spell.





The only problem is with mages who have dispel magic abilities - if they remove your buffs, you better re-cast them asap. Or just lock them with a stun from Wynne/yourself before they cast their wicked spells. In general, enemy spellcasters are the ones you should go for first-hand, because meelee characters (and archers) can do nothing more than to stun you and do a pitiful 1 1 1 2 1 1 damage (and extremely slowly even at that).

[KristofCoulson]

There's something oddly depressing about an armoured mage being a better warrior than a warrior.

[Haasth]

I personally very much like my current Mage. Which is a creation + blood magic + spirit healing mage. Not made for damaging, but oh-so-useful for crowd control and healing. And is almost always able to cast.

[Flamin Jesus]

KristofCoulson wrote...

There's something oddly depressing about an armoured mage being a better warrior than a warrior.

Brains over brawns, my friend, brains over brawns.

Consider that game designers tend to be nerds, they like to take that lession by heart.