926 réponses à ce sujet

[Lekwid]

Killing the Ogre took like 4 secs with the mage. I was pretty surprised. They're gonna be a powerhouse.

[Icy Magebane]

4Aces, that post was way too negative. Did you even read all the skill descriptions? I agree that mages were nerfed to an extent, but the fact is that if the party works as a single entity, the spellcaster who relies on damage dealing isn't going down that fast. There are several rogue skills that redirect threat, there are stun and paralyze effects for all classes, warriors have a broader range of taunt mechanics... and let's not forget buffs and debuffs. You can slow enemies, lower their attack rating, boost the attack rating of allies... hell, there's even +50% damage reduction spells. Maybe this system isn't ideal for your play style, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it seem.

Modifié par Icy Magebane, 25 février 2011 - 02:07 .

[Vicious]

Blood magic is no longer TEH EVIL.

[Morroian]

4Aces wrote...

But as for mage melee?  That is almost oxymoronic unless you are an arcane warrior.  Play the demo again and take on 4 hurlocks just with melee and see how fast you get eaten (I did).  Now imagine that they are not losers anymore - so they have their own talents to use against you, and melee is the last thing you will want to do with a standard mage.  In this new system you will always be severly outnumbered (and that was just the first wave).  Learning to run away is the first lesson you learn when you join the Circle.

We will have to spec a melee mage as in put points into strength and con to use armour. AW was a pure tank without anything in the way of melee talents. I think we should be able to spec mages to make a more enjoyable melee mage experience in DA2. As for waltzing into the middle of hurlocks, I did, cast mind blast.................. and survived. Standard attacks are not as powerful as they were in DAO its the talents that really hurt.

[Eclipse_9990]

Vicious wrote...

Blood magic is no longer TEH EVIL.

It never was. People just thought it was evil because you had to learn it from a demon in origins, and because "ooh it uses the blood!".

[Addai]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...
Yep, fewer and weaker spells. Many spells were weakened and then an "upgrade" is offered to make them have a similar effect to what they had in DA:O. For examle, Cone of Cold does not freeze without the "upgrade." Fireball seems to be somewhat weaker too.

I don't think they're weaker, just different.  Fireball had a large AoE in Origins but did about as much damage as the new, smaller one does now as far as I can see, and it's now the first step in the line.  I would trade the new Fireball for that useless cone of flame or whatever we had as the first slot in Origins.  And Firestorm is much more useful and powerful than Inferno.

I was worried about nerfing, but other than Heal becoming practically useless, I didn't feel any sense of futility like I did with the 2H warrior.

Modifié par Addai67, 25 février 2011 - 02:38 .

[4Aces]

Icy Magebane wrote...

4Aces, that post was way too negative. Did you even read all the skill descriptions? I agree that mages were nerfed to an extent, but the fact is that if the party works as a single entity, the spellcaster who relies on damage dealing isn't going down that fast. There are several rogue skills that redirect threat, there are stun and paralyze effects for all classes, warriors have a broader range of taunt mechanics... and let's not forget buffs and debuffs. You can slow enemies, lower their attack rating, boost the attack rating of allies... hell, there's even +50% damage reduction spells. Maybe this system isn't ideal for your play style, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it seem.

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying - I was refering to the people saying that they were going to use their mage in melee based on the demo.  They would go down very quickly in a real battle.  I did not study all the rogue skills so I did not see the threat redirection.  How the heck does that work?!

I was comparing it direcly to the other classes.  Perhaps you should take a look at them, and then realize that the enemy is based on them as well.  So you will be facing the darkspawn equiavlents of warrior and rogue, so having either one of them as the primary character (barring some great top tier spells) will be much more effective and therfore desirable for people to play.  You seem to think that I was unduely negative, but I was just comparing what I saw in both text descriptiong and effectiveness on the battlefield. 

My rogue was just as good as the mage at low levels, and was better at high (when the mage was turned into a pincushuion by a few bolter).  The warrior was the master at all levels with better abilities, taking much less damage, and having faster, more successful stun attacks.  Sure it is a part affair, so having a healing mage as 'backup' is a good idea.  Wasting the main character on one is not what I had in mind.  Also remember that you cannot change the armor on companions (runes possibly but not the really good stuff anymore).  So mage seems to be much less appealing in DA2 though if you only ever play them, that is fine.  Just spend a bit to raise your health and do not act surprised if they go down faster than in DAO.  At least they cut the injury kits.


@addal67 - Fireball does not do nearly as much damage nor does it set people on fire (duration damage) as the standard.  I used cone of fire all the time since it not only did immediate damage, but stacked the duration damage on top.  So cone of cold to freeze, cone of fire to light them up, and a fireball just as they begin to thaw which not only knociks them down but gives them a second set of duration fire damage.  If they were still alive then a cone of electricity and just about everyone is down, and the rest will soon be (as they burn X 2).  It was low level and worked very well.  Now we have to buy burning for our fire.

Firestorm is random.  That is not better.  It is different.  It has less particles on the screen so there is less lag, so that is good.  But I would not say it is better.  It does not seem to do the same damage that firestorm used to, but being random makes it tricky once again.  I suspect that you need the pyromancer addon (another point gone) to get the full damage that we had with firestorm.  Once we get into the ERFs I am sure someone will do a database analysis of this and we will know for sure.  All I am saying is what I saw between DAO (finished last week) and DA2's demo (played multiple times yesterday). 

I owned the field with the 2HD warrior.  I took the second orgre and many of the Hurlocks by myself - just to see if I could.  In my first playthough I got caught by the potion bug (telling the female templar to drink a heath potion does not always work as her tactics override it) and my mage had to finish it off (about 10% of its health left).  It cost me 5 heath potions and twice I nearly died.  The freezing spells did not last long, and the damage was minimal (I think the staff was better and outright spell damage due to the high rate of fire).  I was actually glad to see the nerfed the ogre since it did not perform the grab & pummel animation or else I would have been mage salsa.  Pommel strike turmps Freezing in both chance to succeed and duration.

Modifié par 4Aces, 25 février 2011 - 02:53 .

[TheCreeper]

Blood Mage, if Nothing else then I like the idea of the Champion the Chantry so needs being the thing they hate most.

[cronosfire]

i wanna be a mage but i dont wanna lose bethany

[Morroian]

4Aces wrote...

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying - I was refering to the people saying that they were going to use their mage in melee based on the demo.  They would go down very quickly in a real battle.  I did not study all the rogue skills so I did not see the threat redirection.  How the heck does that work?!

Through subterfuge.

As for melee mages speaking for myself I will only do it once I can equip armour. I won't be melee focussed until then.

4Aces wrote...
My rogue was just as good as the mage at low levels, and was better at high (when the mage was turned into a pincushuion by a few bolter).  The warrior was the master at all levels with better abilities, taking much less damage, and having faster, more successful stun attacks.  Sure it is a part affair, so having a healing mage as 'backup' is a good idea.  Wasting the main character on one is not what I had in mind.  Also remember that you cannot change the armor on companions (runes possibly but not the really good stuff anymore).  So mage seems to be much less appealing in DA2 though if you only ever play them, that is fine.  Just spend a bit to raise your health and do not act surprised if they go down faster than in DAO.  At least they cut the injury kits.

I don't think anyone is saying make the mage companions into melee mages just Hawke. As for which is more powerful they all have their advantages, rogue is best one on one I thought mages were more effective for AOE than 2H in DAO. And mages are the most fun class to play IMHO.

[4Aces]

Morroian wrote...
Through subterfuge.

If I did not know better I would think you were bring sarcastic.  So what, the rogue slips off and pastse's Stab Me on the warrior?  Or did you mean that they can turn invisible to the enemy so they retarget on someone else (which kind of defeats the whole helping a mage aspect).

[godlike13]

I melee the crap out of that demo. To be Melee focused u just have to spec for it, so rather than just spamming point in just Magic and Will, throw some into Cunning and maybe even a little in Constitution. Doesn't sound too hard. Add rock Armor and Arcane shield to the mix, and i think the Mage can become quite hardy even.

Modifié par godlike13, 25 février 2011 - 03:04 .

[Icy Magebane]

4Aces, check out the Scoundrel tree for Rogues. There's Truce (-100% threat for chosen ally), Goad (+100% threat for chosen ally), plus their upgrades. And as was mentioned, Subterfuge has abilities that cloak allies in fog (I think Obscure = +20% defense?). Also, keep in mind the various party buffs and enemy debuffs... you can probably make a decent melee mage if you really wanted to, but it would rely heavily on less conventional methods than just turning on Combat Magic. All I'm saying is that with careful management of skills, there is no reason to assume that something is automatically impossible, or that one class surpasses the others. That's not my impression so far, at least...

Edited out my idiotic typos...

Modifié par Icy Magebane, 25 février 2011 - 04:06 .

[Archereon]

Lekwid wrote...

Killing the Ogre took like 4 secs with the mage. I was pretty surprised. They're gonna be a powerhouse.

Bioware actually confirmed that mages are supposed to be OP, since that's consistent with lore.

[Addai]

4Aces wrote...

@addal67 - Fireball does not do nearly as much damage nor does it set people on fire (duration damage) as the standard.  I used cone of fire all the time since it not only did immediate damage, but stacked the duration damage on top.  So cone of cold to freeze, cone of fire to light them up, and a fireball just as they begin to thaw which not only knociks them down but gives them a second set of duration fire damage.  If they were still alive then a cone of electricity and just about everyone is down, and the rest will soon be (as they burn X 2).  It was low level and worked very well.  Now we have to buy burning for our fire.

The duration damage on the fire spells in Origins is very, very weak.  And getting in an enemy's face to cast a weak fire spell on them just pisses them off while hardly singing their hair.

Firestorm is random.  That is not better.  It is different.

I beg to differ.  There were maybe two or three times a game where I could effectively set off Inferno.  When I'd already had a group of enemies paralyzed somewhere- trapped in a room by Glyph of Repulsion or stuck in a Paralysis Explosion.  Otherwise they just run out of it, and then why did I spend all that mana for a pretty fire tornado that is absolutely useless?  Within the casting field, the new Firestorm is much deadlier.

Modifié par Addai67, 25 février 2011 - 03:05 .

[4Aces]

Con I understand, why cunning? I think you missed that they nerfed the abilities from DAO as well. Cunning now only gives damage and attack chance to Rogues, and critical chance to everyone. It would not do very much for your mage unless they also removed the fact that staff weapons do not do critical hits (though I had not considered that until now).

[4Aces]

Oops, I got used to people posting before I was done so I did not mean to dbl post.

Icy Magebane wrote...

4Aces, check out the Scoundrel tree for Rouges.

My god, that makes no sense.  I was joking before when I made a Warhammer comparison, but not anymore.  These are just warhammer type abilites.  Truce?  That should have been a spell for the mage.  How the heck can a Rogue do that...

Thanks for info Magebane!


Anyway, back to topic

@Addai67 - "The duration damage on the fire spells in Origins is very, very weak. 
And getting in an enemy's face to cast a weak fire spell on them just
pisses them off while hardly singing their hair."

Did you miss the initial cone of cold?  It was easy, and I did it hundreds of times.  Cold, Fire, Fireball.  Try it sometime instead of saying it does not work.  They are about 80% dead just from the initial damage, so the two levels of fire takes them out in about 5 seconds.  I am not talking about bosses or colored creatures, just the usuals.

Modifié par 4Aces, 25 février 2011 - 03:17 .

[godlike13]

Cunning now determines defense, and staff weapons do criticals.  Dex gives damage and attack chance to Rogues.

Modifié par godlike13, 25 février 2011 - 03:11 .

[Eclipse_9990]

I can agree that fighting in melee with a mage isnt something you should do all the time. Unless your fighting against archers then it gives you a distinct advantage since enemy archers can't fight in close combat for ****.

[4Aces]

Where does it say cunning does defense? After seeing your previous post I went into the demo and played long enough to get access to the attributes to make sure I had not missed something so critical (no pun intended). It does not say that in my version of the demo.

Modifié par 4Aces, 25 février 2011 - 03:15 .

[Inprea]

From my experience with the demo a healing mage is quite powerful and useful but early on good heavens are they boring! Mind you I'm still going to play a healing mage and in the later missions it did pick up whenever i was controlling enemies and healing.

It seems to me the tactic of putting a repulsion glyph down a hallway and killing the day lights out of those on the other side with ranged is still going to be popular though. Turned that one poor fellows back up into a joke near the end of the demo at the chantry.

Modifié par Inprea, 25 février 2011 - 03:15 .

[4Aces]

I would not count on that with the waves of enemies that teleport in. Some spawn behind you even though there is no way they could get there.

[Addai]

4Aces wrote...

Did you miss the initial cone of cold?  It was easy, and I did it hundreds of times.  Cold, Fire, Fireball.  Try it sometime instead of saying it does not work.  They are about 80% dead just from the initial damage, so the two levels of fire takes them out in about 5 seconds.  I am not talking about bosses or colored creatures, just the usuals.

All you're saying is that the freeze spells were effective, and fireball was a good spell which I agree.  So they kept the freeze spells and kept fireball with a slightly smaller field which also makes it easier to place.  They kept the things that worked and got rid of one that didn't do much of anything.  P.S. When I cast Cone of Cold, I'm not going to follow up with a weak spell.  I'm going to get out of the way and let my melee peeps get Shatters.  Or have my melee mage get her own.  <3

Modifié par Addai67, 25 février 2011 - 03:22 .

[themageguy]

i wonder if the force mage spells do physical or spirit damage? Also does it boost spell damage?

Also, by the blood mage info, im hoping blood sacrifice targets enemies too. Thatd be sweet.

Im still hoping for a demon summon though.

[kaiki01]

Chris Priestly wrote...

Mages

Mages in Dragon Age II deal in raw power, whether sapping, bestowing, or inflicting it. They have incredible tactical potential, a fact underscored by how doggedly they are hunted by the Templars. Versatile and devastating, an apostate mage lives a dangerous life in Kirkwall, but he or she is more than capable of handling the risk posed by the over-tasked authorities.

After all, who doesn't love someone who can summon fire from the sky or the dead from the ground?

What did I miss? Which spell in DA2 allows the raising of the dead?