13 réponses à ce sujet

[Elmara]

 Now I have played mages before so I am aware of the inherent awesomeness of some spells (Crushing Prison)
Nevertheless the point of this post is to gather opinions on a specific build i have in mind for flavor/gameplay. The idea is to lock down a few enemies with spells like Forcefield & Crushing Prison and then go to town with single target spells like Arcane Bold & Winter's Grasp on enemies weakened by Hexes. More of a sniper build really.

So I'm looking at something like:

MageStrength: None Dexterity: None Willpower: 30Magic: MaxCunning: None (16)Constitution: 20

Race = Either

Spells

Arcane Bolt 
Winter's Grasp
Glyph of Paralysis/Walking Bomb (To make a cheap two spell combo of Crushing Prison)  Complete Hex Line
Drain Life (Cause of the Improved Drain Combo)
Complete Spirit Line

Again I know about the great amount of CC out there but I'm a little bored with it and want to try something different this time. 

Which is why, (to my great surprise) I'm actually am going to spec as a Shapeshifter  I got a mod that won't make uber cheap but will improve it a little (Hopefully make it useful cause is looks so cool on paper)

Anyways that's the gist of it, any thoughts?

[Erika T]

I am just building my first mage (I played through the origin ages ago but never progressed with Ostagar. I am liking it more than I thought I would - I really prefer melee though.



So am probably not the best person to offer thoughts, but why in the world would you spec as a shapeshifter? I tried with Morrigan and it really does have its drawbacks and not very effective, also you cannot heal when in another shape. The only time it could work is the fade (fighting mages with magic seems like a tough thing to do for my little level8 mage), but then you have the burning man anyway.



Your willpower/magic combo looks like the way to go... I will do similar.



Have you considered anything from the primal line? I know a lot of people complain about it but the fire line really works against darkspawn, i love inferno (FF beware though). Inferno is perfect in the Deep Roads in the rooms, you can kill everyone in the smaller rooms (survival needed to sense them first) without ever having to fight with your melee fighters.



My plan for my new mage build is the following:



Already have: healing, 2 from fire line and one from colod line, drain life and a couple of others I dont really remember...



Plan is to max out the fire line and to get to crushing prison , the rest Ill make up as I go. Not sure about paralysis spells.



What are your plans for a team to complement the mage?



I was thinking a templar-maxedout - warrior alistair with shield and sword, a strong tank two handed sten and a ranger leliana.

[mousestalker]

Your plan sounds like a good one. I'd love to read updates on how it works for you at various stages, especially if you go the shapeshifter route.

[Erika T]

silly question but what in the world does AOE stand for? I read it everywhere and have no idea what it means.

[mousestalker]

Ninjaed! 

AOE= Area of Effect. Fireball is an aoe spell.

Modifié par mousestalker, 17 décembre 2010 - 11:08 .

[Erika T]

thanks! feeling quite silly now - makes sense

[DWSmiley]

Fireball is AoE and DoT.

[mousestalker]

Erika T wrote...

thanks! feeling quite silly now - makes sense

Don't. If I had a dollar for every gaming term that's been explained to me, I'd own Microsoft.

[Elmara]

@ Glaucon: As much as I love AoE spells (big proponent of both fireball and cone of cold)  getting AoE spells defeats the purpose of the flavor build which is to take down individual targets with individual target spells. I'm only planning on getting walking bomb cause it's a single target spell that might AoE. In fact, even though I'll have mind blast I'll only get it cause it's on the way for Forcefield and Crushing Prison. (amazing spells btw Erika T, I recommend them)

@mousestalker: I'll post updates as I play and yes I will spec as shapeshifter it fits the flavor build best and I want to do something out of the ordinary (i.e. blood mage or arcane warrior). Would I have to make the posts in gameplay, or would simply posting them here do?

[ussnorway]

Shapeshifter is a very powerful mage but some people don't understand it well. Think burly uncultivated sharman, the idea is to pump STR (not magic or will). You end up with a mage that can bully people into doing what he wants (no need for Cunn) and spends most of his time in the thick of the fighting!



Advantages;

Immunity to most forms of crowd control and boss special attacks, earthquake, oil slick & grab… makes fighting dragons and other large bosses a push over.



Can use STR instead of Cunn to play the persuade sub-game…As mentioned above.



High STR gives you lots of armour choices. The lack of magical power is not an issue because you spend most of the time in form. When not in bear, look for armour that increases stamina generation (with or without Spellbloom) to affectivity make your swarm invincible!



Disadvantage;

The game forces you out of form for all cut scenes… very annoying but can be managed with a little care (the blood magic aoe stun helps a lot).



Your spells are not powerful against *bosses… you get the best out of CC spells like earthquake.



* I play on hard where a spell can bounce… ignore this if you play on easy or normal.

[Elmara]

alright, so I've finally gotten to the Archdemon with the mage in question and here's my opinion. with the mod (Shapeshifter plus in case someone is curious) Shapeshifting was a decent part of the character's spell selection but didn't particularly shine the way other spec classes do. Without the mod, forget it. Your better off not wasting the mana.



As for the spell selection for the Spell Sniper Build I had lots of fun. Since all of my spells were single target (cept for Paralysis Explosion) I had to keep shuffling through the enemies rapidly for best performance. Funny enough, even without the blood mage "extra mana as it were" since most of my spells were not very mana demanding, I was more than ok with the reserves I used. Rarely needing a mana potion. I ended up ignoring the hex line for the most part finding that the bonus damage in question was not that significant when I could just throw another cheaper mana spell like Arcane Bolt. The only thing is that you probably will need Glyph of Repulsion to keep you in one piece when the mobs get too close. But that's only if you're soloing.



I had fun with my mage, and I'd recommend that others try their hand at sniper builds (not necessarily shapeshifters)

[SuicidalBaby]

I would suggest using only affliction on one of the minor targets while you bomb some thing in the middle of the pack and focus fire on them. You would get more bang for your mana if you used lightning bolt instead of arcane. Also, there is a clear rotation if you follow the different cooldown timers and animation of the cast it self.
lightning>drain>winters grasp
cast each one while the previous conjuration is active and the animations run together, thus, increasing burst dps on a single target. More if you got the bomb off before hand.

Your build sounds better suited for AW/SH caster set up, not SS. (besides the fact that it does not work anything near what was intended.)

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 20 février 2011 - 11:17 .