696 réponses à ce sujet

[Graunt]

rumination888 wrote...

Nearing the end of Act 2 with my DPS mage, and the only complaint I have is the lack of good staves in Act 2 and 3. A DPS mage needs to exploit elemental weakness to take advantage of their 25/50% mastery bonus. So, there needs to be more staff options than any other weapon, but unfortunately, that isn't the case.

The upgrade to the Staff of Primal Order in Act 2 costs over 100g(which I haven't even accumulated yet and probably wont be able to before I reach act 3), Staff of Parthalan's upgrade requires you to kill a sidequest boss, and I haven't even seen any good electricity or spirit damage staves yet after nearing the end of Act 2.

Sure, doing 150-200 damage per auto-attack with Act 1 staves gets the job done in Act 2, but its nowhere near what it could be if I had the proper staves.

For whatever reason, I was thinking Voracity was in ACT 2, but you don't get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest?  There are a handful of decent staves in ACT 3, primarily for Electricity and one really good one for Spirit that has a 2.5% chance to kill your group.  Then of course Voracity, but it doesn't offer any bonuses to elemental damage.

Err... I'm looking through the guide and it's saying "ACT 3" yet the quest is in ACT 2 and I swore I got it in my last game from ACT 2, so whatever...

Modifié par Graunt, 24 mars 2011 - 06:34 .

[BloodyRaw]

Graunt wrote...

rumination888 wrote...

Nearing the end of Act 2 with my DPS mage, and the only complaint I have is the lack of good staves in Act 2 and 3. A DPS mage needs to exploit elemental weakness to take advantage of their 25/50% mastery bonus. So, there needs to be more staff options than any other weapon, but unfortunately, that isn't the case.

The upgrade to the Staff of Primal Order in Act 2 costs over 100g(which I haven't even accumulated yet and probably wont be able to before I reach act 3), Staff of Parthalan's upgrade requires you to kill a sidequest boss, and I haven't even seen any good electricity or spirit damage staves yet after nearing the end of Act 2.

Sure, doing 150-200 damage per auto-attack with Act 1 staves gets the job done in Act 2, but its nowhere near what it could be if I had the proper staves.

For whatever reason, I was thinking Voracity was in ACT 2, but you don't get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest?  There are a handful of decent staves in ACT 3, primarily for Electricity and one really good one for Spirit that has a 2.5% chance to kill your group.  Then of course Voracity, but it doesn't offer any bonuses to elemental damage.

Err... I'm looking through the guide and it's saying "ACT 3" yet the quest is in ACT 2 and I swore I got it in my last game from ACT 2, so whatever...

 You are right sir, it is in act 2 after you beat the optional boss from the FK quest

[Nomcookie]

Ah, a QQ thread. I thought those got left behind a while back.

[rumination888]

Graunt wrote...

For
whatever reason, I was thinking Voracity was in ACT 2, but you don't
get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest?  There are a handful of
decent staves in ACT 3, primarily for Electricity and one really good
one for Spirit that has a 2.5% chance to kill your group.  Then of
course Voracity, but it doesn't offer any bonuses to elemental damage.

Err...
I'm looking through the guide and it's saying "ACT 3" yet the quest is
in ACT 2 and I swore I got it in my last game from ACT 2, so whatever...[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/uncertain.png[/smilie]

You do get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest. Its what I called the upgrade to the Staff of Pathalon.

Its a fire type, though. I would've liked an upgrade to the Hypnotist's Staff for insect/demon/undead slaying, and an upgrade to the Staff of Primal Order that wasn't so ridiculously expensive.

Modifié par rumination888, 24 mars 2011 - 07:06 .

[Alizamai]

Didnt do your challenge, but i did solo the Arashok. Took me 10 mins coz I had no offensive spells. He couldnt hurt me but... I maxed out my spirit healing and creation spells. Had so many buffs it was laughable. I may start a new character mage and see.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

nicodeemus327 wrote...

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

xMerKuLx wrote...

I couldn't stop laughing at this topic, the challenge doesn't even prove anything and no matter what was said the opener just wouldn't listen, why argue with people that fail at English.

Mages do crap damage. This is the least fun I've ever had playing a mage in any game. Mages in Nightmare just plain suck.

Are you kidding? If you hit elemental weaknesses mages do great damage.

Feel free to post your videos of your mage tearing up nightmare. So far no one has done so. I finished my NM mage playthrough with a mage yesterday and was very unimpressed. For some reason the profile is not updated with his final equipment/spells.

Anyways, I'm not trying to discourage anyone from playing a mage, merely putting in my observations from Nightmare play.

[Graunt]

rumination888 wrote...

Graunt wrote...

For
whatever reason, I was thinking Voracity was in ACT 2, but you don't
get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest?  There are a handful of
decent staves in ACT 3, primarily for Electricity and one really good
one for Spirit that has a 2.5% chance to kill your group.  Then of
course Voracity, but it doesn't offer any bonuses to elemental damage.

Err...
I'm looking through the guide and it's saying "ACT 3" yet the quest is
in ACT 2 and I swore I got it in my last game from ACT 2, so whatever...[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/uncertain.png[/smilie]

You do get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest. Its what I called the upgrade to the Staff of Pathalon.

Its a fire type, though. I would've liked an upgrade to the Hypnotist's Staff for insect/demon/undead slaying, and an upgrade to the Staff of Primal Order that wasn't so ridiculously expensive.

What is your build like, and how pain free has the progress been for you?  I'm assuming you have at least 8 into the Elemental tree, but are you using Firestorm (it's a given you use Winter's Grasp and Cold of Cone where applicable) at all, and if so, did you pickup much Force past Unshakable as well?  Does most of your damage come from your staff, or are you casting a lot, and what other trees did your Hawke dip in to?  Are you using anything offensive with Anders other than possibly Winter's Grasp?

I'm currently on my third Mage playthrough and I'm seeing if I can get any use out of the Elemental tree for Anders this time around.  Up until about 1/3 of the way through Act 2, he really didn't have anything offensive more than Winter's Blast/Cone of Cold, but I wanted to see about implementing more burst on top of Gravitic instead of just doing the same double Tempest (which works great...).  This time around, Assassins are even easier than ever before simply because I have a bit more burst now with Winter's Grasp.  This should also help make the group a little more well-rounded to go against Lightning Immunes (although ironically, the worst of the bunch are immune to Fire as well...).

I also never really bothered with Elemental Weapons all that much until I used it in my respec for the Rock Wraith in my previous game, but I've been using it this entire playthrough. I like it, although I doubt I'd die if I never had to pick it just to get the 50% shield.  I also can't tell if the element buff can actually cause elemental effects, or if what I keep seeing is just from the staff itself.  I've been seeing a lot more staggers and frozen enemies than I had in my previous games.

My goal had been to have a build that worked decently enough through the majority of ACT 1 without the need to respec for the Rock Wraith, and then power up more through ACT 2.  So far, my current build path has given me zero issues, and I've literally only suffered two deaths so far (thanks Assault killing the meleeing Anders!).

Modifié par Graunt, 24 mars 2011 - 07:45 .

[rumination888]

Graunt wrote...
<snip>

Elemental is a very underrated tree on Nightmare. Its not something I'd pick up and let the AI use, but its great if you directly control it.

I always give Merril and Anders Winters Grasp on my playthroughs, only because it has some serious debuffing power for a single point.

In terms of difficulty, Act 1 was a breeze except against the ship captains. I had to swap out Carver and Varric for Aveline and Merril, at which point the captains became a joke. Even the Rock Wraith was a joke(700 damage Winter's Grasp... yeeeeaaaa)

As for everything else you asked, I think a video is better than a lengthy reply:
www.youtube.com/watch

Modifié par rumination888, 24 mars 2011 - 10:38 .

[SuicidalBaby]

ty for posting that video

[Gaidren]

Mages aren't for damage, outside of big CCCs (Chain Lightning vs. Stagger, anyone?).

Mages are for buffing, and crowd control.

My Aveline kicks ridiculous behind, largely because she has Haste up often + Heroic Aura + Elemental Weapons etc.

Chaining Petrify + Horror on some tough elite you want to ignore until his friends are dead is amazing.

I maybe need to give the Elemental tree another look. WG and CoC both sound like solid spells.  It's just hard to ignore the Primal tree, and Horror is fantastic for a single point.  I guess I could go less deep into Primal, but upgraded Petrify + Archer's Lance is AMAZING.

Modifié par Gaidren, 24 mars 2011 - 02:26 .

[Ahglock]

nicodeemus327 wrote...

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

xMerKuLx wrote...

I couldn't stop laughing at this topic, the challenge doesn't even prove anything and no matter what was said the opener just wouldn't listen, why argue with people that fail at English.

Mages do crap damage. This is the least fun I've ever had playing a mage in any game. Mages in Nightmare just plain suck.

Are you kidding? If you hit elemental weaknesses mages do great damage.

In a system where you have to spec towards elements having to rely upon weaknesses is not a good set up.  I was meaning to ask, is there any way to know a group is vulnerable to a certain element, outside of obeserving increased effects that is?  I have seen immune effects and that just sucks(bad game design IMO unless there are legions of physical immunes I am unaware of), but I have not seen anyone take exceptional damage to my spells yet.  Now maybe if I magically had enough points to diversify my character to multiple elements I might see it since the cool downs are stupid long and I would have nothing better to do than try an get a fire spell in on the group without hitting my team. 

Anyways resistacne/vulnerbale to elements set ups work when the damage is normally in the same ball park and the resistance drops it to low damage and the vulnerable lets you exceed the average damage.  You also need in a system like this to make sure lightning spec people bump into just as many vulns as resistant types(invuln should virtually never happen)  It seems to me the normal mage damage is below the norm, and vulnerabilites jump it above the norm damage.  On top of that invulns and resistants are more common than vulns. 

Still end of the day the mage is very playable on insanity.  He is probably weakest in the same way that the adept is the weakest ME2 class.  Sure with the right spec and very specific strategies you do close to as well as the other classes, but the other classes get there without needed a certain strategy or spec, they just do it how ever they want.  I actually liked it in ME2, it gave each class very different playstyles and levels of mastery.  It added to the replayability of the game quite a bit.  A legion of other issues make that unlikely for me in DA2. 

Modifié par Ahglock, 24 mars 2011 - 05:38 .

[kaiki01]

Bad troller is bad.

[Amioran]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

Amioran wrote...

This naturally said from someone that has the worser mage build I ever seen. You neither took the most powerful CCC spell, and instead decided to go with Spirit Healer, and then you complain about "damage".

Lol!!!!!!  You claim since I did not take blood mage my build sucks? How stupid!!!

If you talk about damage yet you don't take the MOST damaging spell what sense what you say can have?

It would be like talking about rogue damage without taking Assassination or Vendetta. Would that make much sense?

More, blood mages can cast much more than "normal" mages, and if you want to do a build built for damage this is a necessity.

Modifié par Amioran, 24 mars 2011 - 06:02 .

[Amioran]

Graunt wrote...

For whatever reason, I was thinking Voracity was in ACT 2, but you don't get that from the Forbidden Knowledge quest?  There are a handful of decent staves in ACT 3, primarily for Electricity and one really good one for Spirit that has a 2.5% chance to kill your group.  Then of course Voracity, but it doesn't offer any bonuses to elemental damage.

Voracity can be acquired on ACT 2. You can also finish the quest lines on ACT 3, but you don't need to wait (apart if you have trouble with the last fight).

All "Forbidden Knowledge" quest line can be finished in ACT 2, either immediately after you receive the quest (so at beginning, if you spare the girl in Act 1).

Modifié par Amioran, 24 mars 2011 - 06:08 .

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Gaidren wrote...

Mages aren't for damage, outside of big CCCs (Chain Lightning vs. Stagger, anyone?).

Mages are for buffing, and crowd control.

That is not what the official description of the mage says, dude. It is doubtful that many people who love to play mages in games wants to be the sidekick character either. Being a healbot/buffboy is not my idea of fun.

But perhaps the main reason Mages are feared is that they command the
battlefield with incredible area-of-effect damage. Enemies who are not
incapacitated or countered with empowered allies are simply obliterated.
All of the classes in Dragon Age II are masters in their own
discipline, but it’s Mages who truly leave the earth scorched in their
wake.

[Amioran]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

Gaidren wrote...

Mages aren't for damage, outside of big CCCs (Chain Lightning vs. Stagger, anyone?).

Mages are for buffing, and crowd control.

That is not what the official description of the mage says, dude. It is doubtful that many people who love to play mages in games wants to be the sidekick character either. Being a healbot/buffboy is not my idea of fun.

A) CC builds are MUCH funnier than damage builds to play.
A good damage build for a mage is very powerful. The fact that CC/Support is better for a mage (or better, for the party) in higher difficulties has nothing to do with this.
C) The description is perfectly fine given B.

Modifié par Amioran, 24 mars 2011 - 06:05 .

[Headzinthacloudz]

Wow could you people be any more trolled by the OP...?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Amioran wrote...

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

Amioran wrote...

This naturally said from someone that has the worser mage build I ever seen. You neither took the most powerful CCC spell, and instead decided to go with Spirit Healer, and then you complain about "damage".

Lol!!!!!!  You claim since I did not take blood mage my build sucks? How stupid!!!

If you talk about damage yet you don't take the MOST damaging spell what sense what you say can have?

It would be like talking about rogue damage without taking Assassination or Vendetta. Would that make much sense?

More, blood mages can cast much more than "normal" mages, and if you want to do a build built for damage this is a necessity.

So everything but a blood mage sucks eh? So much for role-playing and so much for balance.

[Amioran]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...
So everything but a blood mage sucks eh? So much for role-playing and so much for balance.

Who ever said it? You are talking about max damage and I told you that BM is actually necessary for that (as are other specs built for the same thing for other classes).

It is YOU, that are talking about damage as it is the only thing a mage should care to do, not me.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Amioran wrote...

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...
So everything but a blood mage sucks eh? So much for role-playing and so much for balance.

Who ever said it? You are talking about max damage and I told you that BM is actually necessary for that (as are other specs built for the same thing for other classes).

It is YOU, that are talking about damage as it is the only thing a mage should care to do, not me.

Please don't make false statements about what I said. I have been arguing that mages should be able to perform as well on nightmare as the other classes and that their damage sucks on nightmare. You made the idiotic statement that because my mage is not a blood mage the build sucks. IT IS THERE IN BLACK AND WHITE FOR ONE AND ALL TO SEE. Oh, I also said nothing about max damage.

You said my build sucks because it did not contain the hemorhage spell. My build is full of damaging spells and crowd control spells. I did not take the fire line. Anders had the fire line. I did not take the glyphs. Anders had the glyphs.

It is ok if you want to backpeddle though.

Modifié par Grumpy Old Wizard, 24 mars 2011 - 06:31 .

[rumination888]

m14567 wrote...

That was pretty good, although the targetting issue with AOE kinda effed you. I switched to using elemental staves vs creature weakness and it certainly works well but it's a bit tedious.

EDIT: Are you gonna post a mage rock wraith vid? I'm curious to see it, especially since you are saying he's a joke.

Yea, that horrendous snap-on targetting is more of a detriment than a benefit.

I wasn't planning on recording the rock wraith fight with my mage. I had the same team setup as my warrior video(I wanted to turn Carver into a Grey Warden). There wasn't anything worth showing.

Although, if I ever get around to it, I might record a video of 3 mages and a rogue for a speed attempt.

[Amioran]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...
Please don't make false statements about what I said. I have been arguing that mages should be able to perform as well on nightmare as the other classes and that their damage sucks on nightmare. You made the idiotic statement that because my mage is not a blood mage the build sucks. IT IS THERE IN BLACK AND WHITE FOR ONE AND ALL TO SEE. Oh, I also said nothing about max damage.

Or you have clearly a problem of comprehension or you want to play smart. In the latter case please avoid it because with me it doesn't work.

You are talking about damage and I reply to a damage build. If I would say that rogue damage is subpar in respect to a warrior, yet my build didn't have the assassin spec or either vendetta what others would say? They would say that my build sucks for what I want it to do and I cannot judge fairly against a good damage warrior build.

It is YOU that are talking about mages sucking for damage, yet you didn't take the specialization done purposedly for it. Same as not taking assassin for rogues, or, at limit, Vendetta. Sure, you can do damage the same, but it is obvious that the damage potential would be much less than otherwise, so if you compare that same damage with other classes' builds done APPOSEDLY for it, you will feel much weaker.

Will that mean that you have to take a route only for damage? Naturally not, but if you talk about COMPARISIONS with other builds done for apposedly for damage (because you are quoting damage done by warriors or rogues done expressedly for THIS purpose) then it's obvious that the comparision must be fair.

It is not difficult to understand, isn't it? So, your "black on white to see" for everyone it is, in reality, just "deep red on black".

Modifié par Amioran, 24 mars 2011 - 06:53 .