29 réponses à ce sujet

[Basher of Glory]

Well, I'm sure, there are plenty of entries spread over the board, but still no search feature...

My problem:
I've read things like "arcane warriors (AW) are ridiculously overpowered..." or "...make Morrigan an AW and let her tank; she won't get hit at all...." and so on.

Well, I gave this class to Morrigan, but since I've done this, I'm annoyed to hell.
Every mob and his mother keep attacking her first. She takes a few hits, is stunned / knocked down / dead.
She wears the chest piece of the dragon armour (DLC) and some other decent stuff, her AI is set to "switch to melee when engaged in melee". She has a good shield and a specific sword only for AW.

Her magic is far over 40, her willpower close to 30. Her CON sucks, it's only 10. This is, because I could give her the AW-class, when she already was level 14.

My conclusion so far: AW is not good, if not skilled properly and specifically for this class.

My own mage is now level 6 and I have only the choice yet to make her shape shifter (NO! NO! NO!) or AW, because I have not unlocked the other two classes.

I don't want to repeat the same fault again, so I ask:
1) Should I boost her CON over her magic and willpower?
2) Should I max AW first before I give her new spells?
3) What weapon would be good for an AW (using the staff as ranged weapon)?
4) What else could be important?

She has cone of cold and fireball, her magic is over 30, so that she could take snowstorm or inferno as next. Further she has stun and could go the line up to mass stun.

Thanks in advance for your replies. Please be specific, even if you think, AW sucks. 

[The Angry One]

The problem with Morrigan is that AW works best with a back up spec. Spirit Healer or Blood Mage.

Shapeshifter just.. bites. Bites on it's own, and bites in any combo.



Secondly... Blood Dragon armour is massive armour, which means mobs will always go after her first and chew her up. Try medium armor + rock shield or w/e it's called.

[Medivan]

Also if you only made Morrigan a AW at 14, that means you don't have the 3rd/4th parts that's Shimmering Shield and the AW upgrade. Those 2 are the big parts that make AW's so nasty.

[Zenocrate]

Are you using sustain spells? I specced my character to AW as soon as I could on my first play through and used rock armor, arcane shield, shimmering shield as soon as I got it, and flame weapon as my sustain spells. Toss on AW tanking gear (full blood dragon, spellweaver, etc...) and most enemies were hitting me for 1-15 damage in melee (leaning more towards 1). For the rest of the game I basically put my party on hold while my AW ran around auto-attacking everything to death. Since I had really high magic, a regular potion would refill 4/5 of my hp. Also, I had taken bad spells like corruption in the beginning so my character was far from the optimal spec. Ofc I could always turn on corruption before running into a big group and never even have to pot. And ser cauthrien hurts like heck if you fight her the first chance you get.

My problems were that I could not keep aggro off my rogues on boss fights, and a relatively high miss rate as a result of low dexterity.

Modifié par Zenocrate, 17 novembre 2009 - 05:37 .

[themaxzero]

Firstly an AW needs to use Shimmering Shield (at 14) otherwise they just end up knockdown fodder.



Remember many of the people talking about how powerful AW are on PCs where Shimmering Shield is bugged (does not end when you run out of mana). AW are far more vulnerable without it up (Shimmering shield also adds a lot to armour). Without that shield running melee AW are basically shield Warriors without Taunt, Shield Wall, Bash, etc.

[emyln]

I'm Level 15 and just picked up AW too. My mage has the entire Entropy line and if I get too free with the spells, I attract aggro, but now, I take a lot less damage. I can wade into combat with mismia on and weaken everyone and if a group comes after me (not bosses) I'm not worried. Although I will say that I still prefer using a staff for combat.

Happy to say that just wearing heavy armor is excellent! And I did the calculations and I lost no attributes, and only 4 spellpower. I don't have AW "on" due to the added fatigue costs but now I have the same armor as Shale.

Also thanks for the tips. Can't wait to get Shimmering Shield.

Modifié par emyln, 17 novembre 2009 - 08:54 .

[Gill Kaiser]

Arcane Warriors, in my experience, work best as a mage who can shift into a warrior at will. IMO you shouldn't be wearing full massive armour, wielding melee weaponry at all times, and trying to nuke as well as swordfight. You should instead focus on unlocking sustainable abilities and getting a large enough mana pool to run as many as possible at the same time. Once you start using shimmering shield, your mana will be drained anyway, so you may as well use the pool for sustained abilities like Death Magic.

With my AW, I used him as a mage until his mana was gone, then shifted to secondary weapons (sword and shield) and activated about 7 sustained abilities. He became practically invulnerable at that stage, but obviously couldn't cast spells.

[BewareTheDrow]

It really depends how you want to build your arcane warrior. Mine are an even mix of spellcasting and melee, some people play them as spellcasters in heavy armor, some as warriors with lots of sustained buffs.



I've found that aiming for the medium dragonscale armor from Wade (for the super low fatigue+regen), dual wielding Spellweaver/Dead Thaig Shanker (Shale's DLC), and mixing in combat magic, shimmering shield, rock armor and miasma I end up pretty deadly in spells and melee. I open every fight with heavy crowd control (magic users/yellow/orange enemies) and follow that up with activating my combat buffs and killing whatever looks dangerous.



I ended the game at 42ish dexterity/willpower/magic, 17 cunning, 20 constitution and felt very powerful overall.

[BewareTheDrow]

Gill Kaiser wrote...
Once you start using shimmering shield, your mana will be drained anyway,.

Not necessarily true. Using Wade's Medium Dragonscale (I forget the proper name), Spellweaver, Anduril's something-or-other belt, and the bonus from the 4th arcane warrior ability I had enough combat regen to gain mana while fighting with shimmering shield active, albeit very slowly. If i needed to chain spells for some reason I'd switch out to a staff and drop my buffs/pop a potion though.

[UnAffectedFiddle]

Shimmering Shield is the culprit. Once you nab that it gets silly.

[Basher of Glory]

About the heavy armour, let's see, if I understood this stamina-thing correctly:



Stamina is only used by warriors / rogues, when they use special combat abilities. As an AW, I don't have such abilities, so even the heaviest of all armours wouldn't bother me in this regard, right?



I just promoted my elven caster to AW, but will wait with the AW-skill-line, until I can wear decent armour (my magic is right now at 36).

Just finished Lothering and about to get Shale, so it's a loooong way until I will have drake scales for the "good" armours.



BTW, is there any point to buy helm, boots and gloves of the DLC-chest piece of blood dragon armour other than the bonus for a full set?

[Zilod]

The Angry One wrote...

The problem with Morrigan is that AW works best with a back up spec. Spirit Healer or Blood Mage.
Shapeshifter just.. bites. Bites on it's own, and bites in any combo.

Secondly... Blood Dragon armour is massive armour, which means mobs will always go after her first and chew her up. Try medium armor + rock shield or w/e it's called.

AW works the best with back up and some support but not that well with BM (expecially if you activate the melee buff)

the blood dragon armor is ok, but of course you must have a real tank too with massive armor

now about AW... it depends by how much the op want to become a warrior

if you want to become mostly a warrior who dabble in magic go for all AW skills, remember that probably you will still need a good amount of magic as in theory it will boost your attack rating... and get earth armor it works pretty well to get some massive armor amount (stay away from BM if you are going to do this)

you can also forget about the buff and just wear armor for added protection (sad it is not possible to wear the templar armor  ) this plays mostly as a normal mage but more sturdy the tradeoff is higher mana usage but eventually you can compensate with more will (BM can work ok with it, even if personally i prefer pure caster BMs)

you can eventually just get AW for the 3rd spell that is a nice defensive buff... you play as a normal mage whitout armor or fancy things and BM actually works quite well for this (even if not that sure it is work to spend 3 spell slot for an expensive, but powerfull, buff)


ahh another thing... shapeshifter forms add their stats on top of your current stats, this mean that if you put morry in massive plate when she shift she will have an armor = form armor bonus + armor weared... you can get a good armor rating for that boosting a bit the shifter forms. mind... they are still crap, but if you eventually like shapeshift and gave morry AW you have this option

Modifié par Zilod, 18 novembre 2009 - 12:37 .

[Basher of Glory]

Ok, she's on her way now. I will see, how it will work.

Thanks for all replies

[Elithramir]

I've gone with all 4 AW talents, so all the spells I have up simo are:Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Spell Wisp, Death Magic, Combat Magic (AW), and Shimmering Shield (AW). I have my mage using the Warden Commander's Armor with an axe I believe (because my STR and DEX are low, so there's no advantage for me from using daggers. Spell Wisp is to increase spellpower which in turn augments damage (I tried getting the top Mage talent that increases spellpower, but it was only good for 5 points I believe).



Anyways, running it like this is pretty silly. I can tank most Red/Orange bosses (they look red on my screen) and have to pop some health pots throughout, but at most 10 and the outcome is almost always assured. The couple of times that he has been killed (it's my main, btw) is when fighting critters like Orges or Wild Slyvans, because of their grabbing the character and tossing him around or trapping him and taking constant damage. Otherwise, he's as pretty close to invincible without cheating and turning on God Mode. If it wasn't for the chests that I want unlocked, I could likely finish the game solo (I'm level 16-17 atm).



Enjoy!

[Zeluna]

As a Master Shape Shifter Morrigan's "bear" form is a very very good tanking form and kills stuff fast combined with the Arcane Warrior talents. Do not underestimate her tanking ability in the Deep Roads she is amazing in this mode.

[Archonsg]

The current Character I am playing I have massive armor on, I just spec it as a sustained buff nut, armed him oddly enough dual weilding Starfang (grandmaster paralyze, fire and lightning) and a dagger with Grandmaster Ice and Hale. Essentially, the tactic I use is he opens with a CC spell, either with Crushing Prison / Paralyse / Glpyh of Paralysis, supported by Wynne or Morrigan casting Sleep / Prison / Paralysis and have everyone atacking the SAME target other then the ones already "CCed" (Crowd Controled) and just wade knee deep into a river of blood.

With creative use of spells and party combos such as Alister or Shale (Especially Shale using Bellow then Stone Roar) taunting then putting on force field on the tank to soak up damage and keep the UGB focused on just one person while the rest of the party strategically place themselvs behind the UBG and just wail away taking little to no damge at all. Well most of the time. Still, using this tactic I was able to kill Flemmeth and the High Dragon easily with no death to the party at all (playing on Normal...haven't tried hard or the harder difficulties yet).

Think of AWs as Aura Palladins, or at least I do and you won't go far wrong. I currently have mine running Telekenetic wepons, Combat Magic, Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, MIasma and Shimmering Shield and between Shale and my AW (armor 59, defense 73 at lvl 17), most things just flail about uselessly doing little damage.

Modifié par Archonsg, 18 novembre 2009 - 05:11 .

[Prof_Wagstaff]

They mean Arcane Warrior is overpowered for a PC, but in reality mages are just overpowerd in Dragon Age, doesn't matter which one. Compare to an Archer. Archery has low damage, long activation, long recharge, all single target. Mage attacks are high damage, instant activation usually, they stun,freeze, sleep, confuse, affect multiple targets, and if they do have a long activation they do AoE damage for a long time.

There is no comparison actually. It's as though Archery skill and Mage skills are from different games.

That said, armor is useless without hitpoints and some strength is necessary to avoid being knocked down all the time. So, to utilize Arcane Warrior well you will need to trim your Magic stat for points in Constitution and Strength. You get better survivability at range and better damage in single target melee, but lower magic ability.

[Dwazgull]

I stopped playing my AW because tbh it was sad easy. Played on hard on a PC.
Points were spend in Wilpower and Magic (enough willpower to keep my buffs running, around 8 and switching buffs when needed). Wearing Blood armor and wielding 2H starfang I just auto attack through the mobs. With a bard by my side for even more buffs. At level 14 I critted for 100+ KD's are not a problem, had enough agro with my healing from dead mobs. If the 1st mob fell, I did not even need healing anymore.
Tanked High Dragon without a sweat, Wynne did not even had to drink. Normal mobs do 1 damage. Only problem is dispell, if that happens your HP goes down fast, but not that fast which Wynne can not heal. Was fun to see how OP it is and kill 10 mobs solo, but not fun enough to continu. A tad boring for me.

So put points in WIL and MAG, something like 1:2 till you have enough WIL to have all your buffs running. Spec for all the buffs and just auto attack. CON, DEX and STR are not needed, at least not for me.

Modifié par Dwazgull, 18 novembre 2009 - 06:30 .

[Basher of Glory]

Well, I seem to have problems, still.

I tried it again with Morrigan, who has the shimmering shield now.

When the battle starts, she could cast one or two spells, but then her mana is gone.

I realize, that the shield needs mana, but as far as I can see it right now, it renders her useless as spellcaster, right?

OTOH she hits quite impressive against lowbies, but once an enemy is "yellow" she hits for zero. How can I counter this? She has battle training III, but AFAIR I never spent a single point for DEX. Does she need it for better hitting? I've read, that a high STR respectively magic does the same job, because this is not AD&D, but to see her just cutting the thin air, when an enemy is a bit stronger is not good.

[Basher of Glory]

Well, I seem to have problems, still.

I tried it again with Morrigan, who has the shimmering shield now.

When the battle starts, she could cast one or two spells, but then her mana is gone.

I realize, that the shield needs mana, but as far as I can see it right now, it renders her useless as spellcaster, right?

OTOH she hits quite impressive against lowbies, but once an enemy is "yellow" she hits for zero. How can I counter this? She has battle training III, but AFAIR I never spent a single point for DEX. Does she need it for better hitting? I've read, that a high STR respectively magic does the same job, because this is not AD&D, but to see her just cutting the thin air, when an enemy is a bit stronger is not good.

[DrekorSilverfang]

Baher of Glory wrote...

Well, I seem to have problems, still.
I tried it again with Morrigan, who has the shimmering shield now.
When the battle starts, she could cast one or two spells, but then her mana is gone.
I realize, that the shield needs mana, but as far as I can see it right now, it renders her useless as spellcaster, right?
OTOH she hits quite impressive against lowbies, but once an enemy is "yellow" she hits for zero. How can I counter this? She has battle training III, but AFAIR I never spent a single point for DEX. Does she need it for better hitting? I've read, that a high STR respectively magic does the same job, because this is not AD&D, but to see her just cutting the thin air, when an enemy is a bit stronger is not good.

There are many ways to play an AW; most commonly is to stack as many sustained spells as your mana pool will support and then just melee everything never stopping to cast a single spell(you won't have the mana anyways). These types of builds are free to use whatever armor they want usually massive and can easily support dual wield builds that put out some decent damage.

My personal favorite is using lighter armor(I use repears, imperial weavers and ancient elven gloves) as well as +spell resist and +dodge and I am just as durable but I can also get by with only 50% of my mana to sustained spells and this allows me to pop out of combat magic and cast an inferno right on top of myself and use death syphon to regain mana to keep casting inferno on myself until everything is dead. You can also use virulent walking bomb and force field yourself, that's good times.

If you're hitting for 0 you must have practically no spellpower, your spellpower is what adds to damage(magic adds more spellpower) and you should also be using a weapon buff(fire, ice or telekinetic). I like adding in some points to dex for a little extra +attack and def as you don't have the best hit rates as an AW, although you can use other stuff like miasma to debuff peoples defence.

[Jacks-Up]

Gill Kaiser wrote...

Arcane Warriors, in my experience, work best as a mage who can shift into a warrior at will. IMO you shouldn't be wearing full massive armour, wielding melee weaponry at all times, and trying to nuke as well as swordfight. You should instead focus on unlocking sustainable abilities and getting a large enough mana pool to run as many as possible at the same time. Once you start using shimmering shield, your mana will be drained anyway, so you may as well use the pool for sustained abilities like Death Magic.
With my AW, I used him as a mage until his mana was gone, then shifted to secondary weapons (sword and shield) and activated about 7 sustained abilities. He became practically invulnerable at that stage, but obviously couldn't cast spells.

Only if you want to tank if you have a tank you can switch to medium armor for more spells and still take a few hits.

[Basher of Glory]

DrekorSilverfang wrote...

If you're hitting for 0 you must have practically no spellpower, your spellpower is what adds to damage(magic adds more spellpower) and you should also be using a weapon buff(fire, ice or telekinetic). I like adding in some points to dex for a little extra +attack and def as you don't have the best hit rates as an AW, although you can use other stuff like miasma to debuff peoples defence.

No, I expressed myelf wrong. I don't hit for "zero damage", I meant that I don't hit the enemy

The same with my current main, who is an AW, too. She is only level 10 right now and I hardly let her go into melee, but when I do - e.g. against stunned or frozen mobs - she mostly cuts the air instead of the enemy.

She has magic 40, wears the armour form the DLC-castle, but had very low DEX (11), so I spent some points there. I hope, this will make sense in the long run.

[Dwazgull]

Baher of Glory wrote...
No, I expressed myelf wrong. I don't hit for "zero damage", I meant that I don't hit the enemy

The same with my current main, who is an AW, too. She is only level 10 right now and I hardly let her go into melee, but when I do - e.g. against stunned or frozen mobs - she mostly cuts the air instead of the enemy.

She has magic 40, wears the armour form the DLC-castle, but had very low DEX (11), so I spent some points there. I hope, this will make sense in the long run.

Yes, you need either put points in DEX or find some items which have +attack or +DEX. If you get the starfang 2hander, you have oomh +8 attack. With some other items you can get easily to a point where you have enough power to "not" miss that often without spending points in DEX.

Also you can find a head piece with +2 to all attributes. Doing Mage tower will get you a few points in DEX.

You did not wasted points in DEX. The few points extra in either DEX or Magic won't make a huge difference

[Spyndel]

[del]double post.

Modifié par Spyndel, 20 novembre 2009 - 12:19 .