160 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr_Raider]

Cybercat999 wrote...

I was wondering who will mention Mana Clash finally. Its so much I-win button it should be nerfed

But it's a heavy investment for a single abiility. The cost to benefit ratio is debatable for any thing but the purest mages. I tend to give it to wynne or Morrigan, and not the PC.

[ChaoticBroth]

Best:



5) Telekinetic Weapons. I really like armor penetration. It's damn useful, and I don't like having to consider elemental modifiers either.



4) Mind Blast - I think an AoE Stun is useful. Don't you?



3) Blood Wound - What's better than an AoE Stun? An AoE ability that leaves your enemies to have spasms on the battlefield.



2) Storm of the Century - Even though this requires a combo, I usually start off with Blizzard, which means AoE KD and moderate damage while I cast Tempest. Pretty good.



1) Virulent Walking Bomb. The only thing better than SotC is when all the enemies explode nicely.



Worst:



5) The entire anti-magic line. There really aren't enough mages in-game to actually make investment into this a benefit.



4) Heroic Offense - Usually, any target you want to cast it on has a good attack rating. Why bother?



3) Chain Lightning. For a fourth-tier spell, it's pathetic. Really.



2) Petrify - Far too much investment to be of any actual use, and CoC is only one step to one of the best AoE spells.



1) The entire Shapeshifting line. 'Nuff said.

[Cybercat999]

Mr_Raider wrote...

Cybercat999 wrote...

I was wondering who will mention Mana Clash finally. Its so much I-win button it should be nerfed

But it's a heavy investment for a single abiility. The cost to benefit ratio is debatable for any thing but the purest mages. I tend to give it to wynne or Morrigan, and not the PC.

Indeed. Its the only offensive spell my otherwise pure healing Morrigan has.

[tetracycloide]

ChaoticBroth wrote...

Best:

5) Telekinetic Weapons. I really like armor penetration. It's damn useful, and I don't like having to consider elemental modifiers either.

Even though it requires a second or third spell cast to work, either of the elemental weapon enchantments is more damage than telekinetic weapons when mixed with affliction hex, much less affliction hex and vulnerability hex on the same target.  The two can combine for 100% more damage at 100 spellpower.  So while, yes, the AP enchant is more raw damage, assuming all the AP counts that is, it is raw damage that's unmodified by anything while the elemental damages are all increased by resistance reduction.

[Nirvana_Dest]

I find myself playing Morrigan more and more in my battles against the dark spawn. The following combination of spells works rather well.

1. Sleep - locks down a huge area very well with almost a 99% hit rate.

2. Waking Nightmare - follow up for any mobs that awaken or fail to be put to sleep

3. Blizzard - Nothing like waking up and being locked into a nightmare of freezing to death.

An alternate followup if you happen to be a blood mage is Blood Wound which does a horrific amount of AOE damage!

Another interesting combination and especially useful at a choke point is: Drop a glyph of paralyze, then drop a glyph of repulsion on top of it. The resulting chaotic explosion will paralyze everything in a pretty large radius. be mindful of friendly fire though!

Also, once again in the Blood Mage school, "Blood Control"! I've managed to mind control elite bosses with this which is something I was astonished to discover.

Standard opening for Morrigan when confronted with only one "yellow" or higher opponent:

1. Crushing Prison

2. Vulnerability Hex

Allow the tanks to attack, if the tanks are swarmed drop sleep and waking nightmare.

Once you have prison on any mage threats its usually possible to kill them with just that unless its a elite. If you have other threats such as a Hurlock or Genlock Alpha use a Invulnerbaility Shield to take them out of the battle completely. Its true you can't hit them, but they are also locked down, can't move or cast and are out of the combat for quite awhile. Its a very nice single target CC and gives you breathing room if you need it.

Aside from my first tun through, I don't use Wynn at all and none of my mages have any heal spells.  Granted the only difficultty I play is normal but I find heal pots to be more than adequate to keep everyone up.  I am planning to start a new avitar and get Wynn early on and convert her to a blend mage.  While I have a heavy commitment to crowd control, I prefer my mages to also have serious DPS abilities.

Modifié par Nirvana_Dest, 09 janvier 2010 - 04:39 .

[coldhearts]

I started out with a shatter party. Starts out with cone of cold, use over power on two enemies frozen which shatters them. Then use two Stonefists from wynne and morrigan shatters two additional enemies. And then petrify any remaining enemy and then use another overpower/normal attack.



Also add to that sleep, blizzard, and waking nightmare, paralysis, mass paralysis and suddenly mobs don't matter.

[Koralis]

guru7892 wrote...
2 Virulent Walking Bomb - rarely works well

This spell is... well.. da bomb.   You just need the right spells and situations to use it.

Example:  Conjunction with Cone of Cold.   Cast VWB on target.  They all charge you.  When they get close, cast Cone of Cold to freeze the bunched up group.  Multi-select your group, make them back away, then turn around and blast a lightning bolt, etc to finish him off.  The explosion will possibly take out the group.... the damage taken scales based on distance.  The closer they are to each other, the more damage they take.  If you take out the one, and that kills the second, they'll all die.

I used this to get my Heavy Hitter achievement.  Mind Blast can also be used, it's just riskier since you have a smaller time window to finish off the bomb.


Also, VWB is a good damage over time spell even if you don't expect to blow them up.  I use it on bosses strictly as a damage source.



You left out Sleep and Mass Paralysis on your list of top spells... Sleep is a faster cast, Mass Paralysis lets you damage them without breaking the spell.  Both awesome though.

[Koralis]

scyld wrote...

I'm playing on Hard, and I sort of agree with you. I've used Force Field to eek out a win when I would have otherwise wiped, but I probably could have gotten by without it on a future attempt. I personally try to minimize its use as much as possible.

When I got it, I restricted its used to
1)  Lock down a boss while I deal with minions
2)  Cast on my mage to prevent my death

I never used it as cheese.  The cheese is never neccessary.

5. Arcane Bolt - Standard moderate damage spell. Nothing else to it. All primal spells beat this in nuke-potential... but it's understandable as a free spell. 

Except that it has a lower cooldown and smaller mana cost than Stonefist or Winter's Grasp. I wonder how much damage it does compared to these two spells, especially considering that it has no secondary effects like they do. I will have to pay attention to this next time I play.

It does the same damage as Lightning Bolt, only without the side effect.  It's a very effective blasting spell due to the cooldown and low cost.

1. Vulnerability Hex: Maybe this is decent, but none of us have any idea what the base spell resistances of enemies are. Who knows if this is effective? I really can't tell.

Is also increases damage.  I use vulnerability hex to maximize both my spell damage AND Shale's attacks.  If you use Shale, it's a pretty huge increase in damage... I make sure that VH is on before I let Shale use his Slam on bosses.

[Edelwolf]

BEST

1. force field - take NPC out of combat, or protect PC from getting crushed/mauled/etc, or combine with aggro to make the AI waste it's attacks.

2. glyph of paralyis - cheap rank1 ability that turns an enemy into a punchbag, or combine with repulsion to do this to everyone.

3. glyph of repulsion - protect a squishy, or trap hostiles in a room/corridor and then cast storms

4. sleep - take many in a large area out of the fight, or follow-up with nightmare so they attack eachother

5. cone of cold - shattering whites is always good, but this thing also helps interupting boss attacks and it's pretty reliable, if short duration.

[stillnotking]

There are some really clueless posts in this thread.

Heroic Offense is 10 + (0.1 * SP) to Attack and is very inexpensive. Set it as a tactic and it improves melee DPS hit chance by at least 10%. This is not trivial, especially in the early game. Heroic Defense is 10 + (0.2 * SP) to Defense and 10 + (0.1 * SP) to all resistances. Again, not trivial, especially early on. But the real winner is Heroic Aura, which gives a flat +30 Missile Deflection and is a godsend versus groups of archers. All 3 are prerequisites for Haste, which is the best buff in the game, giving a whopping 25% bonus to melee and 20% ranged attack speed and also increasing run speed! Anyone who thinks Haste is a bad buff is simply nuts. Unless your group has 3 mages, it's awesome.

Flaming/Frost/Telekinetic Weapons are mana-efficient DPS for melee-heavy groups, though admittedly expensive to maintain if you leave them on all the time. Biggest problem with them is that you run into too many resistant enemies (e.g. all undead are immune to cold damage). They are still worthwhile spells, though not as good as the Heroic Offense line.

All of the Hexes are insanely powerful when used correctly. Misdirection Hex trivializes many, many boss encounters, and Affliction Hex + any AOE efficiently annihilates groups.

Regeneration will save you many, many health and lyrium potions. It is the most mana-efficient heal in the game.
AOE spells are less useful than any of the above. Fireball's damage is so low that if you can kill things with it, they weren't a threat anyway. Static AOEs require very precise placement that usually isn't possible, and don't do a huge amount of damage anyway unless you combo them. Haste on a rogue + 2 warriors will do more DPS than any single AOE, for less mana.

The only spells I would call legitimately "bad" are the Shapeshifting spells (well, OK, they're decent in Lothering but after that they suck) and two of the three prereqs to Mana Clash. Mana Clash itself, however, is so OP that it's probably worth three points. Group Heal is not very good, since group-wide damage is almost always preventable with good positioning, but it can be useful to have another heal to rotate CDs.

Modifié par stillnotking, 10 janvier 2010 - 02:45 .

[stillnotking]

m14567 wrote...

Affliction hex is not as good as advertised, that is:
2 AOE > 1 AOE + affliction hex
since the damage/mana ratio with affliction hex is poor.

Probably true, but there is also the fact that 2 AOEs might not be possible due to CDs or positioning.

Really AOEs in general are vastly overrated in this game.  You will kill stuff quicker by single-targeting it down in most cases.

[bas273]

stillnotking wrote...

There are some really clueless posts in this thread.

Heroic Offense is 10 + (0.1 * SP) to Attack and is very inexpensive. Set it as a tactic and it improves melee DPS hit chance by at least 10%. This is not trivial, especially in the early game. Heroic Defense is 10 + (0.2 * SP) to Defense and 10 + (0.1 * SP) to all resistances. Again, not trivial, especially early on. But the real winner is Heroic Aura, which gives a flat +30 Missile Deflection and is a godsend versus groups of archers. All 3 are prerequisites for Haste, which is the best buff in the game, giving a whopping 25% bonus to melee and 20% ranged attack speed and also increasing run speed! Anyone who thinks Haste is a bad buff is simply nuts. Unless your group has 3 mages, it's awesome.

Flaming/Frost/Telekinetic Weapons are mana-efficient DPS for melee-heavy groups, though admittedly expensive to maintain if you leave them on all the time. Biggest problem with them is that you run into too many resistant enemies (e.g. all undead are immune to cold damage). They are still worthwhile spells, though not as good as the Heroic Offense line.

All of the Hexes are insanely powerful when used correctly. Misdirection Hex trivializes many, many boss encounters, and Affliction Hex + any AOE efficiently annihilates groups.

Regeneration will save you many, many health and lyrium potions. It is the most mana-efficient heal in the game.
AOE spells are less useful than any of the above. Fireball's damage is so low that if you can kill things with it, they weren't a threat anyway. Static AOEs require very precise placement that usually isn't possible, and don't do a huge amount of damage anyway unless you combo them. Haste on a rogue + 2 warriors will do more DPS than any single AOE, for less mana.

The only spells I would call legitimately "bad" are the Shapeshifting spells (well, OK, they're decent in Lothering but after that they suck) and two of the three prereqs to Mana Clash. Mana Clash itself, however, is so OP that it's probably worth three points. Group Heal is not very good, since group-wide damage is almost always preventable with good positioning, but it can be useful to have another heal to rotate CDs.

Mana Cleanse is quite useless but you need Spell Might for some of the spell combos and Mana Drain can be useful at times when you have no more mana left.
So I disagree that I'm wasting three spells to get Mana Clash but that's just my opinion :innocent:.

And in my experience three mages with AoE spells (Storm of the Century + Glyph of Repulsion + Virulent Walking Bomb....) are far more powerful than any Rogue/Warrior.

AoE spells are the deadliest spells in the game. One mage can do more damage than 4 warriors/rogues.
I can use Storm of the Century + Glyph of Repulsion and they'll all die. Or Cone of Cold + Virulent Walking Bomb + Crushing Prison.

Modifié par bas273, 10 janvier 2010 - 03:12 .

[Azimuth0001]

5 that I use the most:

Spell might

Spell wisp

Cone of Cold

Blizzard

Tempest



5 that I have taken that I never use:

the first 2 in the same line as spell might

inferno (only because I prefer SoTC)

earthquake

chain lightning

[Akimb0]

"Best"



1) Walking Bomb/Virulant Walking Bomb

2) Mind Blast

3) Petrify

4) Paralyze/Mass Paralyze

5) Force Field



"Worst"



Any AoE with friendly fire. I'm being really lazy with my mages at the moment, not letting them self cast any Nukes and not bothering to cast them myself. I love AoE spells with no FF that disable the enemy. Then Virulent Walking Bomb, then just kill one or two to start a chain reaction.

[Cybercat999]

stillnotking wrote...

There are some really clueless posts in this thread.

Heroic Offense is 10 + (0.1 * SP) to Attack and is very inexpensive. Set it as a tactic and it improves melee DPS hit chance by at least 10%. This is not trivial, especially in the early game. Heroic Defense is 10 + (0.2 * SP) to Defense and 10 + (0.1 * SP) to all resistances. Again, not trivial, especially early on. But the real winner is Heroic Aura, which gives a flat +30 Missile Deflection and is a godsend versus groups of archers. All 3 are prerequisites for Haste, which is the best buff in the game, giving a whopping 25% bonus to melee and 20% ranged attack speed and also increasing run speed! Anyone who thinks Haste is a bad buff is simply nuts. Unless your group has 3 mages, it's awesome.

I agree with this. Since I set Morrigan to cast all the "Heroics" in particular moment, my entire party survability whooped up noticably.
Haste she drops down in combat since I heard it owerwrites Momentum... is that true? I have Leliana chugging on Swift Salve at will and she pushes 38% party damage (assasin/duelist dual dagger cun/dex with some decent equip). It would be nice if Haste could improve that.

[Akimb0]

Cybercat999 wrote...

stillnotking wrote...

There are some really clueless posts in this thread.

Heroic Offense is 10 + (0.1 * SP) to Attack and is very inexpensive. Set it as a tactic and it improves melee DPS hit chance by at least 10%. This is not trivial, especially in the early game. Heroic Defense is 10 + (0.2 * SP) to Defense and 10 + (0.1 * SP) to all resistances. Again, not trivial, especially early on. But the real winner is Heroic Aura, which gives a flat +30 Missile Deflection and is a godsend versus groups of archers. All 3 are prerequisites for Haste, which is the best buff in the game, giving a whopping 25% bonus to melee and 20% ranged attack speed and also increasing run speed! Anyone who thinks Haste is a bad buff is simply nuts. Unless your group has 3 mages, it's awesome.

I agree with this. Since I set Morrigan to cast all the "Heroics" in particular moment, my entire party survability whooped up noticably.
Haste she drops down in combat since I heard it owerwrites Momentum... is that true? I have Leliana chugging on Swift Salve at will and she pushes 38% party damage (assasin/duelist dual dagger cun/dex with some decent equip). It would be nice if Haste could improve that.

According to the Wikia Haste + Momentum cancel each other out. No overwriting, you just lose the benefit of both. I was under the impression that Haste had a much larger mana drain though, but it's only -1.0.

Modifié par Akimb0, 10 janvier 2010 - 04:08 .

[tetracycloide]

m14567 wrote...

Affliction hex is not as good as advertised, that is:
2 AOE > 1 AOE + affliction hex
since the damage/mana ratio with affliction hex is poor.

Depends on the AoE and the target.  Against undead, for example, affliction hex + inferno is much much greater damage than inferno + blizzard.  Against pretty much any target affliciton hex + spell might + tempest + blizzard is much much greater damage than adding inferno.  Then there's mana clash, which is always better with affliction hex than another AoE.  Cone skills too, sometimes a full fledged AoE is a bad tactical choice and 2 cone spells every 10 seconds is a lot of down time, why not make the most of both cones by casting affliction hex first?  Then there's the time factor.  If you cast 2 AoEs they might kill a target if every pulse hits for the entire duration of both spells but with affliction hex they die faster.

[Cybercat999]

Akimb0 wrote...

Cybercat999 wrote...

stillnotking wrote...

There are some really clueless posts in this thread.

Heroic Offense is 10 + (0.1 * SP) to Attack and is very inexpensive. Set it as a tactic and it improves melee DPS hit chance by at least 10%. This is not trivial, especially in the early game. Heroic Defense is 10 + (0.2 * SP) to Defense and 10 + (0.1 * SP) to all resistances. Again, not trivial, especially early on. But the real winner is Heroic Aura, which gives a flat +30 Missile Deflection and is a godsend versus groups of archers. All 3 are prerequisites for Haste, which is the best buff in the game, giving a whopping 25% bonus to melee and 20% ranged attack speed and also increasing run speed! Anyone who thinks Haste is a bad buff is simply nuts. Unless your group has 3 mages, it's awesome.

I agree with this. Since I set Morrigan to cast all the "Heroics" in particular moment, my entire party survability whooped up noticably.
Haste she drops down in combat since I heard it owerwrites Momentum... is that true? I have Leliana chugging on Swift Salve at will and she pushes 38% party damage (assasin/duelist dual dagger cun/dex with some decent equip). It would be nice if Haste could improve that.

According to the Wikia Haste + Momentum cancel each other out. No overwriting, you just lose the benefit of both. I was under the impression that Haste had a much larger mana drain though, but it's only -1.0.

That is even worse, I am really undecided now. I have 2 mages and 2 melee characters in party and I would sacrifice the damage Alistair does since its not that big anyway for Leliana. Guess I should keep Momentum then and let Haste drop in combat as it is now.

Yes, btw, Haste is very cheap to keep up and I love the run speed.

[beancounter501]

Haste and momentum stack if the character is also running precise striking.

[Cybercat999]

Its for Leliana so no precise striking, its warrior talent sadly.