96 réponses à ce sujet

[Parrk]

Combining imp mind blast and the force tree makes your virtually untouchable. The thing with mages is that it is difficult to spec for both groups and bosses.

As force-elemental I can take a group of ten mobs and toss them around the map for long amounts of time, what I cannot do is burn down a boss without kiting for a bit.

Force spec is an amazing addition though. It may seem lacklustre due to most of the spells not having direct damage components, but when you add the AOE elements from elemental and other schools, force becomes teh hand of God. you jsut grab big groups of mobs and wad them into a tight ball then use firestorm.

Maker's fist has such a short cd that it is ready to use again before your other CC spells' stun effects have worn off.

Couple that with the power of imp mindblast (37.5x elemental force with force school passive), on short cd and you have completely trivialized the threat of non-boss melee mobs(to include shades and abominations....that's pretty huge).

Modifié par Parrk, 13 mars 2011 - 09:56 .

[Altima Darkspells]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...


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.

I consider the mana regen rate to be about the worst reason to pick up mastery.  The increased to damage--which helps overcoming enemies' fortitude to knock them around with Firestorm/ball--and the bonuses to brittle chances are far better reasons.

Of course, I abuse an upgraded Rally with an upgraded Second Wind as part of my "Never Run Out of Mana Ever" tactics.  +600 mana/stamina regeneration for the whole party is just fantastic, and the upgrade to Second Wind has it coming out even faster.

Though I suppose the Elemental/Primal choice comes down to the rest of your party.  If you're warrior heavy, I'd say go with Primal for taking advantage of Stagger (and boy, do Warriors know how to stagger!).  If going rogue heavy, brittle is pretty good.

I look forward to using a mage Hawke that goes for both trees.

It's a shame Spell Combos were taken out of the game, because a fully upgraded (with mastery) version of Firestorm and Tempest is just fantastic.

[We Tigers]

Graunt wrote...
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.

Is Horror nullified on Nightmare?  I've only played normal so far, but upgraded Horror's stun-any-enemy + tons of spirirt damage per second absolutely seems worth a small investment in Entropy.

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.

Curious about this.  I haven't tried walking bomb yet--I built an elemental/force mage, and am kinda bored with the always-decent-but-never-great elemental spells--and am thinking about respeccing for a focus on Spirit.  Merrill's handling Primal/Entropy at the moment.  Is it the potential for friendly fire that makes it unusable on Nightmare?

[Altima Darkspells]

We Tigers wrote...

Is Horror nullified on Nightmare?  I've only played normal so far, but upgraded Horror's stun-any-enemy + tons of spirirt damage per second absolutely seems worth a small investment in Entropy.

Curious about this.  I haven't tried walking bomb yet--I built an elemental/force mage, and am kinda bored with the always-decent-but-never-great elemental spells--and am thinking about respeccing for a focus on Spirit.  Merrill's handling Primal/Entropy at the moment.  Is it the potential for friendly fire that makes it unusable on Nightmare?

Horror has its duration drastically reduced on Nightmare to the point where some creatures are affected for a second (which is still enough to interrupt spells, I suppose).

As for Walking Bomb, simply, yes.  When it goes off, it does a portion of the creature's maximum HP in damage.  Critters in Nightmare have a lot of HP.  Bosses even more.  You'll quite literally kill any of your characters around them.

[soteria]

@We Tigers: Horror works great on NM. Graunt is heavily underselling the entire tree.

I imagine one problem with Spirit is FF. Walking Bomb is probably going to one shot whoever is in range when it goes off. The other problem is immunities. Spirit is sold as the tree that you can use to bypass enemy resistances and such, but a lot of enemies are actually immune to it on NM. Other trees typically have spells using different elements, but a mage heavily invested into Spirit would be useless in some fights on NM.

[Graunt]

We Tigers wrote...

Graunt wrote...
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.

Is Horror nullified on Nightmare?  I've only played normal so far, but upgraded Horror's stun-any-enemy + tons of spirirt damage per second absolutely seems worth a small investment in Entropy.

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.

Curious about this.  I haven't tried walking bomb yet--I built an elemental/force mage, and am kinda bored with the always-decent-but-never-great elemental spells--and am thinking about respeccing for a focus on Spirit.  Merrill's handling Primal/Entropy at the moment.  Is it the potential for friendly fire that makes it unusable on Nightmare?

Yes, the FF is what makes it bad, but if you have a Mage with Gravitic, it's not *quite as bad*.  Storm of Arrows or whatever it's called is also another "utility" ability that can make it work, although the problem with that is you really want your Rogue to be focus firing down on the bomb target.  One fight in particular though it was phenomenal, problem is...it's just too situational on Nightmare.  

Horror works on Nightmare, but it doesn't ever seem to last 10s.

Force spec is an amazing addition though. It may seem lacklustre due to
most of the spells not having direct damage components, but when you
add the AOE elements from elemental and other schools, force becomes teh
hand of God. you jsut grab big groups of mobs and wad them into a
tight ball then use firestorm.

Force has two good skills: Gravitic and Unshakable.  The rest are entirely filler.

If you go primal, you'll be in for a shock when you face qunari and profane.

I know they were immune to Lightning, but I don't recall them being immune to Stone Fist -- which severly limits you, but the Bone Pit was actually very easy except for one particular non boss enemy that kept semi-wiping my party until I figured out what the hell was going on and where it spawned.  I had also replaced Varric for Merril since he was practically worthless on that fight, and three Mages with cold/spirit staves and two with Spirit Bolt made it almost trivial.  I actually had the commander down to 1/4th health in the first 10 seconds or so just by shooting from the doorway with Merril's hex and everyone unloading.  Then he moved...

Graunt is heavily underselling the entire tree.

No I'm not.  It's simply not worth the points just for Death Hex unless your group revolves around it.  It's also not worth all of the "CC" abilities that are reduced on Nightmare either.  Why misdirect or divert damage either when you could have spent those points in skills to actually kill your target outright?  And have you even watched an enemy affected by Horror?  It lasts all of 5s on Nightmare.

Modifié par Graunt, 13 mars 2011 - 10:31 .

[Trefecka]

The one problem I have with mage is that the majority of the damage spells seem pretty lackluster outside of CCCs. Maybe my expectations are too high, but the majority of the spells I cast are CCs unless I can set up a CCC.

I suppose this might be true with the damage talents for the other classes as well, but the CCC really makes it feel that using any damage spell outside of them is a waste of mana/stamina (unless you need the stun/knockdown).

[Graunt]

Trefecka wrote...

The one problem I have with mage is that the majority of the damage spells seem pretty lackluster outside of CCCs. Maybe my expectations are too high, but the majority of the spells I cast are CCs unless I can set up a CCC.

I suppose this might be true with the damage talents for the other classes as well, but the CCC really makes it feel that using any damage spell outside of them is a waste of mana/stamina (unless you need the stun/knockdown).

Speaking of CCC, has anyone ever even seen Pinning shot disorient?  I upgraded it specifically to buff Spirit Bolt/Walking Bomb and not once has it ever disoriented -- or if it did, the icon never shows up for it, and I'm not about to waste a bunch of skill points just to get a working disorient.  Also, the most reliable CCC in the game that does ridiculous damage is Shield Bash > Chain Lightning.  Prison is pretty good too, but it's also single target, although probably much better on bosses.

Modifié par Graunt, 13 mars 2011 - 10:36 .

[Jman5]

I'm on my second run through, but this time as a mage. I'm not sure why people are saying that mages are weak because I'm wrecking just as hard as I did with my 2handed warrior on normal.

I'm going Primal/Force + Arcane's Crushing Prison. Right now I'm at the early part of Act 2 and the only thing that gave me a headache was that Ancient Rock Wraith boss. (Aside from Fenris one shotting the party in the fade.)

I make heavy use of the pause timer so I can go from spell to spell to spell as quickly as possible. Other than that I really don't micro manage the rest of the party much except when someone is about to die or Varric gets ambushed with the 2nd wave.

As far as attributes go, I put the minimum amount in will, while everything else goes into Magic.

As far as survivability skills go, I have mindblast, heal, unshakable (so glad I got this), and arcane shield with upgrades. I skipped rock armor because I figured arcane shield would be better overall.

If I could do act 1 over again, I would probably focus fire mage and then respec simply because every item I found gave bonus to fire damage.

[soteria]

No I'm not. It's simply not worth the points just for Death Hex unless your group revolves around it. It's also not worth all of the "CC" abilities that are reduced on Nightmare either. Why misdirect or divert damage either when you could have spent those points in skills to actually kill your target outright? And have you even watched an enemy affected by Horror? It lasts all of 5s on Nightmare.

Sure you are. Misdirection Hex is about as good as CC on a dangerous enemy that's hard to stun, and without the downsides of a stun. Sleep is a lot weaker than it was in Origins, but it's still useful to rescue someone who is getting beat on, stopping a string of interrupts. I don't use entropic cloud with my group, but I imagine it would be a fine tool for keeping enemies in a large aoe effect a little longer. Horror's 5s are great when I'm trying to stop an assassin from restealthing--it's just long enough to set up a CCC, which is perfect.

I think the problem is that you're so fixated on playing a certain way and no other that you can't see the value in other spell trees.

[Stalky24]

I think Elemental has bigger damage output then Primal. Winters Grasp is higest dmg dealing spell for mage and you shouldnt forget, you can increase also atk of you weapon. If you sum it all together, you see bigger number for elemental. Too bad Fire part is lacking...

[keginkc]

When you get the primal tree filled out, it's pretty strong. I'm running primal/force on Nightmare right now and haven't had any problems, including with the Qun. Obliterate whole groups of normal mobs with a single chain lightning, for the tougher ones I pull out tempest. If it's something immune, stone fist packs a wallop. And I don't have to worry about killing my own group, which is the real key. I'm not sure which direction I'm going next.

It's been so effective for me that I've run without a healer until I finally picked up Anders right before I hit level 10.

[Sabresandiego]

Yes, mages suck against immune creatures to their spell school. They are also constantly stuck in stupid "animations". Mages are annoying to play for these two reasons, especially the stupidly long animations which you cant move out of.

Primal sucks against lightning immune enemies, thats its flaw. It also sucks against hard bosses like the rock wraith.

[Cosia1]

At the moment I'm using a damage/debuff build which rips threw enemies insanely fast (Playing on hard). Primal tree when maxed mixed with a fairly maxed Entropy tree and Spirit tree is lethal. (My profile currently has this build)

I have also played around with a build that uses Blood mage and Spirit Healer, stacking every defense buff you can get. I have 0 mana but with blood magic you don't need it and the health regen from items and spirit healer is very good, i can tank with ease but the damage output is very, very low.

Mage in my opinion so far is pretty damn strong. Haven't had an issue of being weak in most of my builds i try.

[We Tigers]

keginkc wrote...

When you get the primal tree filled out, it's pretty strong. I'm running primal/force on Nightmare right now and haven't had any problems, including with the Qun. Obliterate whole groups of normal mobs with a single chain lightning, for the tougher ones I pull out tempest. If it's something immune, stone fist packs a wallop. And I don't have to worry about killing my own group, which is the real key. I'm not sure which direction I'm going next.

It's been so effective for me that I've run without a healer until I finally picked up Anders right before I hit level 10.

How is your chain lightning so strong?  I'm playing on normal, and chain lightning is good, but not that good, and this is the lower difficulty.  Are you always staggering groups?  Wish the game UI was clearer on showing staggers, as I never can tell.  Outside of Sunder's chance to stagger, all the stagger options seems to be single shots (pommel blow, shield pummel).

[Graunt]

soteria wrote...

No I'm not. It's simply not worth the points just for Death Hex unless your group revolves around it. It's also not worth all of the "CC" abilities that are reduced on Nightmare either. Why misdirect or divert damage either when you could have spent those points in skills to actually kill your target outright? And have you even watched an enemy affected by Horror? It lasts all of 5s on Nightmare.

Horror's 5s are great when I'm trying to stop an assassin from restealthing--it's just long enough to set up a CCC, which is perfect.

Sure, if you really want to dump the points into the tree just for that when you could already do the same with Petrify, Stone Fist and any other number of abilities that function similarly that are already prerequisits for other skills in that tree.

I think the problem is that you're so fixated on playing a certain way and no other that you can't see the value in other spell trees.

No, the problem is I don't waste skill points for situational abilities that are used on 10% or less of the creatures in the game that also do not contribute anything meaningful for the rest of the tree.  I don't limit myself for not wasting skill points, the game already does that for me.

How is your chain lightning so strong?  I'm playing on normal, and chain lightning is good, but not that good, and this is the lower difficulty.  Are you always staggering groups?  Wish the game UI was clearer on showing staggers, as I never can tell.  Outside of Sunder's chance to stagger, all the stagger options seems to be single shots (pommel blow, shield pummel).

Shield Bash hits more than one enemy, it just hit's in a very narrow area on the sides, but hits in a row.  So you can hit 3-4 enemies with it.  No idea what you mean about the UI though...there's a big spikey shard above the enemies heads.

Modifié par Graunt, 13 mars 2011 - 11:27 .

[We Tigers]

Graunt wrote...
Shield Bash hits more than one enemy, it just hit's in a very narrow area on the sides, but hits in a row.  So you can hit 3-4 enemies with it.  No idea what you mean about the UI though...there's a big spikey shard above the enemies heads.

I guess I haven't honed in on those yet.  With so much information flying around regarding statuses and damage numbers, I must be missing them.  Same thing with disorient; I have Varric use the upgrading Pinning Shot all the time, but I never see anything different indicating disorientation.

[soteria]

Sure, if you really want to dump the points into the tree just for that when you could already do the same with Petrify, Stone Fist and any other number of abilities that function similarly that are already prerequisits for other skills in that tree.

Petrify increases damage resistance and doesn't deal damage. Handy if you can set up a CCC off it, but why choose between them? I have both. Stone Fist works if you're fighting something you can knock down. From what I've seen Horror is the more reliable CC between the two of them.

No, the problem is I don't waste skill points for situational abilities that are used on 10% or less of the creatures in the game that also do not contribute anything meaningful for the rest of the tree. I don't limit myself for not wasting skill points, the game already does that for me.

Lol? Wait, I remember your posting style now. You're the one who thinks we need cutting-edge PCs because that's what you do. I shouldn't be surprised that you think spells that are bad for your setup are bad for everyone.

[Trefecka]

Pinning shot seems to have a really low disorient/pin chance. I've been mainly using it as a damage skill :S

Sorta off topic, but I have a question about bursting arrow's obscure upgrade. Does that have any use at all on nightmare? Afaik obscure is a buff for your party, which means you have to aim the bursting arrow ontop of your party to get the obscure buff right? And since bursting arrow FF's.....has anyone actually experimented with it to see how it works?

[We Tigers]

Trefecka wrote...

Pinning shot seems to have a really low disorient/pin chance. I've been mainly using it as a damage skill :S

That doesn't make sense to me.  The description is "DISORIENT chance: 100% vs. pinned enemies."  With Pinning Shot having an 80% chance to pin normal enemies, you should be disorienting 4 times out of 5, right?  Are your garden-variety mages and assassins--the guys I use it on most--NOT considered normal enemies? 

I guess this makes sense if there are certain enemies that have a particularly high resistance to pinning, or the resist goes up a lot on higher difficulty levels...in which case all these cross-class-combos are awfully confusing and not all that useful.  Wish there was better documentation on this, whether in the manual or in the game.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Sabresandiego wrote...

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.

Your party may be "annihilating" everything in NM (which I doubt) but I know your mage is not annihliating everything. I am playing a primal-force mage in NM. Chain Lightining is ok but tempest is weak.  and stonefist does ony single target damage. So your mage is not contributing that much to party damage. Your two handed warrior (they are gods) and Isabella with her "I backstab everything with one skill" are doing the damage eh?

Oh, petrify does not always work on assassins or other elites or on Act bosses like the Rock Monster.

My mage has no interest in being the party healer.

Mages are very weak compared to warriors and rogues.

Modifié par Grumpy Old Wizard, 14 mars 2011 - 01:27 .

[Graunt]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

Sabresandiego wrote...

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.

Your party may be "annihilating" everything in NM (which I doubt) but I know your mage is not annihliating everything. I am playing a primal-force mage in NM. Chain Lightining is ok but tempest is weak.  and stonefist does ony single target damage. So your mage is not contributing that much to party damage. Your two handed warrior (they are gods) and Isabella with her "I backstab everything with one skill" are doing the damage eh?

Oh, petrify does not always work on assassins or other elites or on Act bosses like the Rock Monster.

My mage has no interest in being the party healer.

Mages are very weak compared to warriors and rogues.

Mages have a lot of issues, but "being weak" isn't really one of them.  It's strange that you're saying this while playing Primal/Force too, because literally everything was a walk in the park on Nightmare with that combo up until the Rock Wraith.  Then again, I had Anders deep into Primal as well, so YMMV.  

The fact that Tempest doesn't explode everything at once like Inferno might doesn't matter when it also causes most normal enemies to dance around while trying to reach you.  When you have two Tempests going, pretty much everything but the highest health enemies die before they can even hit you.  My largest gripe with the class is that a lot of their "fun" spells can't even be used on Nightmare, and you're pretty much forced to go Primal as your primary.

You're the one who thinks we need cutting-edge PCs because that's what you do.

Yeah, and you're the one who honestly believes anything above $1000 is "cutting edge" or that the price of a monitor shouldn't count.  I also never stated once that anyone else "needed" the same kind of computer I like to have (i.e. midrange for those who are clueless), it isn't my fault some people think they can build a computer for $800 that can run every current game.  Sure, on the lowest setting if you want more than 25fps consistently.

Modifié par Graunt, 14 mars 2011 - 02:01 .

[LumpOfCole]

You shouldn't need to reroll if you have the Black Emporium - the shop there sells respec food.

[keginkc]

We Tigers wrote...

How is your chain lightning so strong?  I'm playing on normal, and chain lightning is good, but not that good, and this is the lower difficulty.  Are you always staggering groups?  Wish the game UI was clearer on showing staggers, as I never can tell.  Outside of Sunder's chance to stagger, all the stagger options seems to be single shots (pommel blow, shield pummel).

Chain lightning has always been that strong, although maybe I was characterizing the mobs incorrectly.  It wipes out groups of weak mobs, the ones with the smallest health.  I always target those immediately.  Normal mobs and higher health mobs I use tempest.  It usually wipes those out without much trouble.  And it tends to...i don't know what the technical term is...shock them, interrupting them.  I believe that's the elemental force part of the equation.

Upgrades to both of those are important as is Galvanism.  Once you have all that, you're pretty darn strong.  Stone fist in particular becomes ridiculously powerful, but I clear lots of mobs myself with chain lightning as well.

Petrify is getting better the higher level that I get, too.  In the last few encounters with pain in the butt mobs like assassins, it's hit without fail.

I haven't experimented much with cross class combos yet.  I know I've hit some at some point because I have the achievement, but I don't have the upgrade to shield bash on Aveline yet. 

I've only played as a mage as a PC, so I can't comment on how it compares if I was playing something else.  But I've never really felt weak or frustrated at any point so far.  I like mages enough that I dropped Carver from my party as soon as I got Merrill (and now Anders) because he was basically doing more damage to Aveline than the enemies were, and if he got more than one of anything on him, he died in about 5 seconds flat.

[soteria]

Yeah, and you're the one who honestly believes anything above $1000 is "cutting edge" or that the price of a monitor shouldn't count. I also never stated once that anyone else "needed" the same kind of computer I like to have (i.e. midrange for those who are clueless), it isn't my fault some people think they can build a computer for $800 that can run every current game. Sure, on the lowest setting if you want more than 25fps consistently.

I'm running on max settings with the hi-res pack at around 40fps, thanks. Well, I did disable anti-aliasing.

Anyway, the point is that you really have a bad habit of denigrating anything that doesn't work within your playstyle. It's like you couldn't get a spell or tree to work and are now determined to convince others that they won't work for them, either. That bothers me because I'd rather see people testing different builds and seeing how spells can be useful rather than trying to find how they're useless.