71 replies to this topic

[SapphireFire]

I've been trying to decide between elemental and primal. From what's I'm hearing, primal is the better route. The fire spells just haven't been that effective so far. Would you guys suggest investing in full primal or just certain skills?

[Teh Chozen Wun]

I loves me Spirit Healer and Blood Mage, it's total wtfux. He's tanky mage and can deal nice DPS with his primal abilities but he can also turn on spirit healing to revive or heal his team mates. So his team his hard to kill and he is even harder to kill.

[Seloun]

Every primal point is pretty valuable, with the possible exception for Rock Armor:

- Rock Fist provides good single target damage with a relatively short cooldown, and a way to take advantage of Disoriented.
- Chain Lightning lets you take advantage of Stagger (especially AE stagger) with a good damage coefficient.
- Tempest covers a huge area (compare to Firestorm), does decent damage, and most importantly, it mini-stuns most minions for its entire duration.
- Petrify is both excellent single target CC and class combo starter, arguably better than Winter's Grasp.

Primal also has no friendly fire in Nightmare.

Outside of Primal, the spells to look at are Walking Bomb and Horror. Upgraded Horror does excellent damage and is a very strong single target CC. Walking Bomb can be extremely powerful since it's 100% of the dead target's maximum health (this means everything of the same class or below that target typically dies too). Walking Bomb does have friendly fire in Nightmare, unfortunately.

[SapphireFire]

I just took a look at Horror, I hadn't realized how much damage it does, so I'll definitely be taking that once I respec. With chain lightning, do the enemies have to be close together for it to be effective? Right now I only have the first version and it really only works on archers that are standing right next to each other.

I haven't noticed anything about stuns in Tempest's description. How often does it stun? I will probably replace firestorm with it.

Also, has anyone tried out Cone of Cold and Crushing Prison to gauge their effectiveness?

Edited by SapphireFire, 12 March 2011 - 12:39 PM.

[Seloun]

You do really need to upgrade most of the Primal spells for them to be really useful. Chain Lightning gets its CCC, double jump range and +2 targets from the upgrade.

Tempest doesn't have a 'real' stun associated with it (you don't get the 'stunned' messages') but the targets hit by it and other electrical effects have a good chance to go into a stagger animation. Due to the large area, relatively frequent refresh (every 2s when upgraded) and long duration (20s out of 30s), you can effectively control a whole pile of minions with it - and no friendly fire in Nightmare.

[SuicidalBaby]

new mages take the lightning. it wont be enough later on.

dont discount entropy.... you are missing out on some serious lockdown damage. Arishok was over fast.

most of my nightmare spec

sleep upgrade = works on most elites
hex upgrade = uber debuff
horror upgrade = cc dmg
crushing prison upgrade = cc dmg
barrier upgrade = rogue def boss mitigation
heal upgrade = upgrade optional
force - 100 fort & grav
stone armor = you only get staggered with it
stonefist & petrify upgrade = cc + combos
winters & cone upgrade = req
full healthbar lockdown any rogue. winters hits arishok for over 1100. crushing ticks at 220+. fist has peeked @ 800 on combo.nothing lives very long. will finish in spirit for bomb + 25%.

Edited by SuicidialBaby, 12 March 2011 - 03:08 PM.

[Mifune013]

Can you use Death Syphon with Blood Magic? Or is Grave Robber the only way to heal while Blood Magic is activated?

[Stevie 402]

Sterlin22 wrote...

Alright, so because of the fact I have the Black Emporium and can reset my attributes + abilities when ever I want, I tried out all of the trees that deal with damage. Unfortunately, I am only level 9 so I'm unable to go far into the specialization trees, but out of the other trees I found Primal to be the best. I used to run elemental with a few points in arcane and I was only doing about 120 damage as my max ( and this was with the ice spells ). As primal I was hitting as high as 400 with Vital Fury. I found Chain Lightning to be the most devastating of spell of all though, it deals 220 damage to up to 7 enemies ( with the upgrade )! That's 1540 damage with a single spell. I love this tree and I plan on sticking with it.

My mage hawke is a damager and I love the primal spell tree along with the force mage spec. Force mage has a spell that will severly slow down enemies which is very handy when dealing with back stabbing rogues and angry blood mages. Plus TK blast on low level enemies means flying enemies.  Fist of the maker is also a good stun spell for a large group.

[Dawnhorn]

Does Walking Bomb/Virulent Bomb hit friendlies on nightmare?

Quick edit:  I use a strong heal build on nightmare for buffing teammates and healing everyone.  Heavy SH tree, creation for heals and auras, arcane for group shield, force mage for +100 fort, and then Rock Armor.

Edited by Dawnhorn, 12 March 2011 - 07:14 PM.

[Cstriker01]

I'm at the same point. Restarted once already because I'm not sure what to grab for powers. I kind of lean towards being a necromancer so Ice and walking bomb appeal to me. Primal looks like it would be awesome...but the spell effects are lack-luster in comparison with fire and ice in elemental.

Is elemental still viable in comparison with primal? I'm leaning towards elemental since Firestorm actually does more damage over time then tempest.

[Tinik]

Help me find my way

My first chose was Elemental Mage but i don't know which specialization choose after i like to use/launch many spell. I was think about Spirit path (drain MP and HP from the corpse) but i'm not sure :|

Critic Dmg are just for the meele combat or in the magery too?

[The72John]

Lol...I didn't realize that people max/min'd this much in a single player game.

Why not play a build that you enjoy, rather than looking for the "best"? Ignore people who tell you that if you don't include "X" you're an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. Finding creative ways to solve problems is one of the best things about single-player games like this, where your spec doesn't affect everyone else's experience.

Personally, I'm far enough into Force to get the Fortitude passive, maxed out in Elemental with the exception of specialized Winter's Grasp, and have taken everything in Spirit with the exception of Dispel Magic. I've got probably five levels left (and maybe at least one ability tome or potion?) which I may use to pick up a few utility talents. I'm having a great time with it, which is really all that matters.

[Domitrix]

My first mage playthrough (On normal) was heavy elemental and force mage with a smattering of Arcane. Force Mage was... absolutely awesome, pulling people into the center of firestorm and fireballs, packing them tight for upgraded cone of cold's...

I haven't done primal yet really, mostly because the graphic for rock armor is... really bad imho. I am going to try a heavy blood mage spec but mostly... I just don't know where the talent points would come from. A large chunk of Blood Mage seems pointless or of limited worth so... not really sure yet. I do like the idea of just a smattering of blood mage to run your sustains and then cast freely with health tho. Might have to give that a shot.

As for people who knock firestorm I found it to be a bread and butter spell for me. It staggers things it hits so acts as CC itself and does nice damage overall. While it's still raining fireballs I can cast other stuff or just default attack (Which does AMAZINGLY good damage surprisingly).

[iLogic]

I assume most of these questions are geared towards nightmare. On any other difficulty just set tactics to enemy nearby ---> chain cast AOE.

[Valtauran]

Seloun wrote...

Every primal point is pretty valuable, with the possible exception for Rock Armor:

- Rock Fist provides good single target damage with a relatively short cooldown, and a way to take advantage of Disoriented.
- Chain Lightning lets you take advantage of Stagger (especially AE stagger) with a good damage coefficient.
- Tempest covers a huge area (compare to Firestorm), does decent damage, and most importantly, it mini-stuns most minions for its entire duration.
- Petrify is both excellent single target CC and class combo starter, arguably better than Winter's Grasp.

Primal also has no friendly fire in Nightmare.

Outside of Primal, the spells to look at are Walking Bomb and Horror. Upgraded Horror does excellent damage and is a very strong single target CC. Walking Bomb can be extremely powerful since it's 100% of the dead target's maximum health (this means everything of the same class or below that target typically dies too). Walking Bomb does have friendly fire in Nightmare, unfortunately.

I just read the tempest info and it says nothing about stunning the affected targets....at all.

[Stalky24]

I have been experitating with lots of different builds, including Primal, Elemental, Arcane/Spirit, combining with different specializations (Black Emporium ftw, cheap respects!)

This is build that came far most powerful and resilient (fact is that I am looking for
something Ill try to nightmare solo game, so might wont be best party-wise)

Trick is exploiting Blood Magic.
- With items, 6 points of mana = hp, which means point in 1 con = 30 mana.
- Constitution, paired with Strenght, allows you to wear big plate armors (high defences, hp and atk)
- Strenght gives you Fortitude, which makes Force Mage unncecessary
- Spirit Healer as second option gives you HP regen and Constitution, all you need.
- Staffs need just magic as stat, what makes willpower unnecessary.

So, I am using all my mana for ongoing effects, arcane shield, rock armor, heroic aura, blood magic. I have huge health, extremly high defences and quite high attack (point, that would be
in magic and are in str/con are made up by bonuses of warrior armor) which makes me
resilient, but powerful.

For offense, picked Elemental spells, because of Firestorm and Cone of Cold. Cone of Cold is your best crowd control weapon in mage arsenal. Quite good atk (one-shots small hp mobs), very fast
casting and comfortable spread+stun are very effective. I can kite any amount of meele mobs
as long as I want thanks to this.

As additional spells, you can exploit either Arcane (I have just Shield from it), Spirit (Walking Bomb is a beast, even though its MUCH better for Force Mage), Creational for Sprint/Glyphs or add more offensive options from Primal.

This build seems so far most powerful option I had with mage. I call it "Arcane Warrior of DA2"

Edited by Stalky24, 13 March 2011 - 12:36 AM.

[Valtauran]

Hmmm, if was going to go primal and the CC tree, what companions should i take to take full advantage?

[godlike13]

Stalky24 wrote...
 quite high attack (point, that would be in magic and are in str/con are made up by bonuses of warrior armor) which makes me resilient, but powerful.

How is ur attack high if ur sacrificing points from magic to str/con?

[Stalky24]

godlike13 wrote...

Stalky24 wrote...
 quite high attack (point, that would be in magic and are in str/con are made up by bonuses of warrior armor) which makes me resilient, but powerful.

How is ur attack high if ur sacrificing points from magic to str/con?

my attack isnt as high as if I was pure magic user, however,

- str/con points are basicly willpower points, I tend to have almost as high willpower as I have magic,
distributed that between str/con just to meet requiements of the current tier gear takes just about... 5 points of magic.
- plate armor usually have good attack bonuses, loss from magic is made up by that
- also, I like big hp, so my Con is as big as my magic. If I took the extra 10 points I am over the equipment tier (so I keep just con from Spirit Healer talent) my needs of str are minimal, thus I can have higher magic then normal mage usually has.

Edited by Stalky24, 13 March 2011 - 12:59 AM.

[Mifune013]

Okay, so I understand that with Blood Magic potions and certain healing spells don't work. Which healing spells do work with Blood Magic besides Grave Robber?

[Stalky24]

none. That doesnt stop you to turn BM off, drink potion/use your heal (80% healing, thats just crazy spell ), kite for few seconds and turn BM on.
However, if you have passive hp regen from items and talents, it does heal you during BM

[Mifune013]

What about Sustains that give me HP Regen?

[CitizenSnips]

Primal really is nasty.

[Stalky24]

Btw why use just one?
When I got Champion armor, I wanted to try it out, so I respeced to pure DPSer
and picked both Primal and Elemental. And it creates real mayhem on the field (and basicly
kills anything non-boss) when you cast Tempest and Firestorm. Then just use Force Mage
skills to keep mobs inside the area.

[Ganen]

best overall mage build is full elemental + entropy with force specialization

primal is good just not s good as elemental both dps and CC wise.