96 réponses à ce sujet

[Cstriker01]

Okay, I'm playing on hard right, and I'm not very far in. Just did the ambush quest for Aveline right after getting into Kirkwall (one year has passed). It feels like maybe my ability choices are lack luster or maybe mages are not good this go around. here's what I got:

Fireball
Winters Grasp
Cone of Cold
Mind Blast

I'm planning to grab:
Walking bomb
Horror
Weakness hex...or whatever it's called.
Firestorm
Crushing Prison
Elemental Weapons
Aracane Defense...or whatever it's called.

For specialization, I either wanna go deep force or blood mage for things like hemorhage or the +100 fortitude.
Should I have grabbed different starting abilities that have CC? Or should I be rerolling?

[Barhador]

I've personally found the elemental tree weak compared to primal. You get 600% on staggered with chain lightning and 200% on disoriented with stonefist. Tempest is a bit weak, but still useful.

If you want to play a blood mage you can either play an all-out BM with full defence sustainables (meaning you won't go out of blood magic mode), or use it when your mana gets dry.

Modifié par Barhador, 13 mars 2011 - 03:45 .

[Colma]

They aren't as good this time around. They're still a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but Fenris' or any 2h warrior's damage output will put you to absolute shame for the entire game regardless of your build.

That said, I'm still playing one on nightmare and using a shutdown build rather than a nuker.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Cstriker01 wrote...

Okay, I'm playing on hard right, and I'm not very far in. Just did the ambush quest for Aveline right after getting into Kirkwall (one year has passed). It feels like maybe my ability choices are lack luster or maybe mages are not good this go around. here's what I got:

Fireball
Winters Grasp
Cone of Cold
Mind Blast

With this as a starting point, I'd recommend picking up the mastery for the mana regen, upgrades to nab brittle and backing up your team with two-handers and archers. While elemental isn't the strongest tree for dealing damage in terms of sheer numbers, the fireballs are steady, consistent damage, while the cold spells applying brittle will enable a sharp increase in team damage output if you are able to capitalize on it.

[termokanden]

That's why I always like to bring elemental mages. BRITTLE is very useful.

I'm going for a mage playthrough next and I plan on using the synergies as much as I can. I doubt I can top my archer's damage output, but I can definitely set up combos and support the party better.

[Cstriker01]

I think I may take one spell in Primal now, just grabbing chain lightning with the upgrade since I really don't want anything else in that tree. That should up my damage big time and allow me to max stagger effects.

Is it worth it to just get Chain Lightning with out the mastery at the end? Will it still be an effective spell?

[Utoryo]

Pyromancer boosts basic staff damage, Firestorm+Upgrade with Pyromancer and Mastery does an incredible amount of damage, and Cone of Cold+Upgrade with Mastery allows you to brittle many targets at the same time, which combos very well with the Rogue Archer's Shattering Shot ability (AoE +600% damage vs Brittle). So personally, I think it's a really good tree

Modifié par Utoryo, 13 mars 2011 - 06:44 .

[bigrussmooney]

I agree with your outlook on the elemental mage, but try using one at a higher level. I had neglected to manually play Bethany very much until I took her into the Deep Roads, then I began using her myself and absolutely loved her. I do have my own mage but he's only like level 4 and he's my evil character. I wanna level him up and do a combo of healing/elemental. I wish I had access to Ander's healing abilities that are in his friend/rival tree.

[Barhador]

Cstriker01 wrote...

I think I may take one spell in Primal now, just grabbing chain lightning with the upgrade since I really don't want anything else in that tree. That should up my damage big time and allow me to max stagger effects.

Is it worth it to just get Chain Lightning with out the mastery at the end? Will it still be an effective spell?

If you are playing on Nightmare, definitely. There is no FF when you use it.

[RPGamer13]

If you buy a Maker's Breath, it refunds even the one ability point used for each class' starting talent if you don't like the one they force on you.

[candyrehab]

Yes I've notice that mage is rather week, even at maximum level, kinda dissapointing, but it's fun to use spells in combo with party member, so it's kinda even-out.

[soteria]

Chain Lightning's combo with stagger seems to deal a lot more damage more reliably than CoC or winter's grasp do. Also, winter's grasp will cause FF and freeze nearby party members on nightmare, which is annoying as heck. Bioware: please, make spells AOE or don't. Don't make me feel like I'm playing Russian roullette with my spells.

[themaxzero]

On hard the two go to combos are Stagger + Chain Lightning and Disorientate + Walking Bomb. Neither take a lot of effort to get.

Modifié par themaxzero, 13 mars 2011 - 07:33 .

[Cstriker01]

Well then, I will grab Chain lightning only with upgrade, go deep elemental, and then for CC and utility what not i will go:

Torment Hex
Horror
Walking Bomb
Spirit Bolt
Defense of some kind (arcane defense probably)
Crushing Prison
and deep BM or FM

[Graunt]

Barhador wrote...

I've personally found the elemental tree weak compared to primal. You get 600% on staggered with chain lightning and 200% on disoriented with stonefist. Tempest is a bit weak, but still useful.

If you want to play a blood mage you can either play an all-out BM with full defence sustainables (meaning you won't go out of blood magic mode), or use it when your mana gets dry.

I've found the strongest tree by far to be Primal, especially on Nightmare, and Tempest is actually a godsend, especially with Strikes Twice and when you also use Gravitic from Force.  I do however think Mages are greatly pigeonholed in Nightmare and actually I  hate playing a Mage on that difficulty because of it.  It's also bad because you have to respec just for the ACT 1 end boss.

On Nightmare if you want to do any reliable damage you:

1. Can't pick up the extremely good spells like Walking Bomb.  Sure, it's situationally stellar, but without very specific setups it's not worth it.  Yet on any difficulty below Nightmare it's one of the best spells in the entire game.

2. Pretty much forced to go Primal due to no FF, the random Tempest stun (and because of the way it works, the threat is minimal compared to other area of effect spells), the stagger bonus on Chain Lightning is just insane, Stone Fist is a solid DD that is also a "get the hell off me" move, and Rock Armor is...Rock Armor.  Then there's also Petrify for Assassins.

3. Elemental is mostly garbage on any difficulty, except for Cone of Cold, but it's not worth dumping all of the points into the tree just for that, and it's impossibly hard to use on Nightmare.

4. Blood Mages get the shaft big time when it comes to armor, and you're forced to either go with much less CON, or simply ignore upgrading armor altogether.  One of their "gimmick" spells is so random that it shouldn't even be in the game thanks to it being able to gib half of your party unless you run away.  It would be different if you could actually direct where a slave goes, but you can't.

5. The requirements in the Spirit Healer/Anders trees just for Panacea are insane and any Mage that wants to heal gets triple penalized with long cooldowns, high aura cost and the inability to cast over half of the Mage spells.

6. Entropy is not worth using beyond a single point unless you're going for Death Hex, and even then only if you have a second Mage.

7.  The only worthwhile trees are Primal, Force (only for two abilities, and even then the points feel wasted just to get them), Creation and to a lesser extent Spirit (it's one of the best on anything below Nightmare).

Mages in general just feel very lackluster and a chore if you want to play Nightmare.  If you're not playing Nightmare though, the game is too easy.  Where's the balance?

Modifié par Graunt, 13 mars 2011 - 08:54 .

[themaxzero]

Graunt wrote...

Barhador wrote...

I've personally found the elemental tree weak compared to primal. You get 600% on staggered with chain lightning and 200% on disoriented with stonefist. Tempest is a bit weak, but still useful.

If you want to play a blood mage you can either play an all-out BM with full defence sustainables (meaning you won't go out of blood magic mode), or use it when your mana gets dry.

I've found the strongest tree by far to be Primal, especially on Nightmare, and Tempest is actually a godsend, especially with Strikes Twice and when you also use Gravitic from Force.  I do however think Mages are greatly pigeonholed in Nightmare and actually I  hate playing a Mage on that difficulty because of it.  It's also bad because you have to respec just for the ACT 1 end boss.

On Nightmare if you want to do any reliable damage you:

1. Can't pick up the extremely good spells like Walking Bomb.  Sure, it's situationally stellar, but without very specific setups it's not worth it.  Yet on any difficulty below Nightmare it's one of the best spells in the entire game.

2. Pretty much forced to go Primal due to no FF, the random Tempest stun (and because of the way it works, the threat is minimal compared to other area of effect spells), the stagger bonus on Chain Lightning is just insane, Stone Fist is a solid DD that is also a "get the hell off me" move, and Rock Armor is...Rock Armor.  Then there's also Petrify for Assassins.

3. Elemental is mostly garbage on any difficulty, except for Cone of Cold, but it's not worth dumping all of the points into the tree just for that, and it's impossibly hard to use on Nightmare.

4. Blood Mages get the shaft big time when it comes to armor, and you're forced to either go with much less CON, or simply ignore upgrading armor altogether.  One of their "gimmick" spells is so random that it shouldn't even be in the game thanks to it being able to gib half of your party unless you run away.  It would be different if you could actually direct where a slave goes, but you can't.

5. The requirements in the Spirit Healer/Anders trees just for Panacea are insane and any Mage that wants to heal gets triple penalized with long cooldowns, high aura cost and the inability to cast over half of the Mage spells.

6. Entropy is not worth using beyond a single point unless you're going for Death Hex, and even then only if you have a second Mage.

7.  The only worthwhile trees are Primal, Force (only for two abilities, and even then the points feel wasted just to get them), Creation and to a lesser extent Spirit (it's one of the best on anything below Nightmare).

Mages in general just feel very lackluster and a chore if you want to play Nightmare.  If you're not playing Nightmare though, the game is too easy.  Where's the balance?

Mages in DA2 are like Rogues and Warriors in DA1. Limited to only a few trees.

When I consider all the options for Rogues and Warriors, Mages feel pretty dull.

[Sabresandiego]

Primal spirithealer is one of the most powerful classes I have played so far on nightmare. I dont normally play mages, but since I hardly ever use Fenris or Isabella with my Vanguard (due to friendly fire on nightmare) I wanted to try a run with a class that would compliment a mostly melee team so I could experience some of their banter and gameplay. I am currently level 7 as a primal spirithealer and running with Fenris, Varric, and Carver (havent picked up isabella yet).

So far, nothing is stopping my party. Tempest is insanely strong, and I have both carver and fenris set to use stonewall/bulwark whenever they get hit. The way I play is I generally cast all my offensive spells, then turn on panacea and heal until my spells have cooled down, then turn off panacea and cast my offensive spells again. I am annihilating everything.

Typical Combo:

1. Tempest
2. Chain lightning
3. Stonefist
4. Petrify a mage, assassin, or elite
5. Turn on Panacea and stand next to my melee ball, and heal anyone hurt
6. Use basic attacks while staying close to my melee ball
7. Deactivate panacea when primal spells are off cooldown and repeat.

[Graunt]

themaxzero wrote...
Mages in DA2 are like Rogues and Warriors in DA1. Limited to only a few trees.

When I consider all the options for Rogues and Warriors, Mages feel pretty dull.

Warriors are actually much more penalized than you might think.  SnS is pretty much garbage in this just like in the first game due to there being even less snap aggro moves and the cooldown on taunt is just too long.  Sure, you can make Aveline "work" for certain groups, but it's much more micro intensive than simply using a two-handed Warrior (who are much better on pretty much everything).  The downside with the two-handed Warrior is that you need to play on anything below Nightmare just like the Mage unless you want to spend way too much time moving your (all ranged) allies around when they stupidly run up near you.  If you put them on hold, half of the time they don't even attack.

Rogues...I haven't really figured out yet, not enough time spent on them.  So far I'm not impressed with the Archery tree at all.  The damage of the AOE abilities are awful, even upgraded except for the ability that hits in a row -- but even that's not super great until it's upgraded.  They have a lot of very useful utility abilities, yet like Mages, to get the good versions it requires two points minimum, sometimes three for each skill.  For single target Archery still feels "meh", except it's "safe", while dual-wielding has a lot of potential for damage, but also for you dying unless you invest in threat reduction "utility" abilities and stealth.

@Sabre, haha.  I was seriously thinking about going Spirit Healer myself just to use Fenris and because I thought I'd be able to do it better than Anders (already knew how to use Panacea, it's just extremely annoying and just another pointless addition), AND I was also going to stick with Primal too just because it's that good.  I don't know how I would stand next to the melee though on Nightmare, especially if you're having Fenris do anything other than auto attack.

Modifié par Graunt, 13 mars 2011 - 09:18 .

[termokanden]

Graunt wrote...

Rogues...I haven't really figured out yet, not enough time spent on them.  So far I'm not impressed with the Archery tree at all.  The damage of the AOE abilities are awful, even upgraded except for the ability that hits in a row -- but even that's not super great until it's upgraded. 

No they're not good until you upgrade them. But they're great once you do. Bursting Arrow does two useful things:
1. Good damage on BRITTLE enemies. So it's good to combine with Cone of Cold for example.
2. Causes the obscured effect. This is useful in itself but great when combined with the Shadow tree so you can start disorienting enemies.

Punishing Lance is insanely powerful if used right. It will one-shot many types of enemies. The tricky part is to line them up correctly. But I've managed to kill ~75% of a huge wave of enemies with one shot just by lining them up correctly.

But really I think archers require Assassin to work well since they basically regen no stamina otherwise. But that tree again contains overpowered abilities like Assassinate (one-shots most enemies and causes obscene damage in any case).

I was disappointed with my archer at first. But now that I combined it with Assassin and Shadow it seems pretty overpowered to me.

But still I think they messed up stamina regen for archers. Against stuff like the Rock Wraith, you pretty much only get stamina back in the phases with adds. And then you're back to autoattacking again. I know it's a boss, but 100% autoattacking is boring.

Modifié par termokanden, 13 mars 2011 - 09:30 .

[kyles3]

Primal's pretty badass. I don't really have the brainpower to juggle all the different party members' abilities for cross-class combos, but chain lightning at the beginning of a fight and tempest to mop up the last wave is a winner every time.

[Sabresandiego]

Yes, my design for fenris is battlemaster/vanguard. He does not use any active abilities which would cause friendly fire at all. His entire source of damage is basic attacks buffed by cleave/assail and his special tree. He only uses stamina for battle synergy, control, lyrium ghost, and stonewall.

Anyone that thinks mages are weak needs to try a primal spirit healer. They are one of the strongest class in the game. I still enjoy my vanguard more in terms of fun factor, but I used to never play mages at all and Im actually enjoying this. I might make a smaller less in depth guide for the primal spirithealer.

Modifié par Sabresandiego, 13 mars 2011 - 09:25 .

[Graunt]

Sabresandiego wrote...

Yes, my design for fenris is battlemaster/vanguard. He does not use any active abilities which would cause friendly fire at all. His entire source of damage is basic attacks buffed by cleave/assail and his special tree. He only uses stamina for battle synergy, control, lyrium ghost, and stonewall.

Anyone that thinks mages are weak needs to try a primal spirit healer. They are one of the strongest class in the game. I still enjoy my vanguard more in terms of fun factor, but I used to never play mages at all and Im actually enjoying this. I might make a smaller less in depth guide for the primal spirithealer.

Not sure if you read my first post, but I already said Primal is really great.  But that's the problem, it's practically the only choice for damage on Nightmare and on top of that has multifunctional skills.  I also wouldn't say that the Spirit Healer tree is "strong".  It has a few nice skills with a very heavy investment.  If you're only using a single Mage for your party, then Primal/Spirit probably is the "best" all around build you can get for Nightmare.  The problem still remains that Mages in general don't have much choice if you actually want Hawke to be one on Nightmare. For below, sure.

[JJDrakken]

Honestly, with Spirit Healer & Ander's Panacea, they should still allow you to cast offensive spells, perhaps at recharge or damage penalty.  Perhaps both, +10% recharge on combat spells, -10% dmg to them, while in those modes.

JJ

[soteria]

No they're not good until you upgrade them. But they're great once you do. Bursting Arrow does two useful things:
1. Good damage on BRITTLE enemies. So it's good to combine with Cone of Cold for example.
2. Causes the obscured effect. This is useful in itself but great when combined with the Shadow tree so you can start disorienting enemies.

But doesn't bursting shot cause FF? What good is it to have an abilitiy that can obscure my allies when I'm also hitting them with damage?