14 réponses à ce sujet

[SuicidalBaby]

Do the Compendium a solid by having a little banter about the worth in you opinion of each of these sustains and its value to a blood mage under Nightmare difficulty.

Arcane Shield
Type: Arcane
Upkeep: 20% of mana
Cooldown: 5s
Description: Defense: +20% The mage conjures a protective aura that deflects incoming attacks for as long as this mode is active.
Upgraded by:
Elemental Shield
Requires: Level 7; 2 points in Arcane
Description: Arcane Shield now absorbs a portion of elemental attacks as well.
Fire resistance: +20%
Cold resistance: +20%
Electricity resistance: +20%
Nature resistance: +20%
Spirit resistance: +20%
Upgraded by:
Arcane Wall
Requires: Level 9; 4 points in Arcane
Description: Arcane Shield's protection now evelops all party members.
(note: Party members only receive 5% from buff.)

As this is one of the most powerful personal buffs there is, I can not dismiss it. However, the percentage of what is actually received by party members deters one from fully upgrading this shield.

Elemental Weapons
Type: Arcane
Upkeep: 10% of mana
Cooldown: 5s
Requires: Level 4
Description: While this spell is active, the caster's staff channels its base elemental power across the entire party, enchanting the weapons of allies to give them additional elemental damage. For example, a mage using a fire staff adds extra fire damage to attacks from all other party members. Bows are affected. Talents that use weapons to deal damage trigger the damage bonus as well.

I doubt the need for discussion on the merits of this ability. However, conversation on the type of damage put forth should be encouraged.

Death Syphon
Type: Spirit
Size: 10m
Upkeep: 20% of mana
Cooldown: 5s
Requires: Level 5
Description: Mana regeneration: 5% per corpse. The mage replenishes vitality by consuming entropic energy from nearby corpses for as long as this mode is active.
Upgraded by:
Death Vortex
Requires: Level 9; 3 points in Spirit
Description: Health regeneration: 5% per corpse, Mana regeneration: +5% per corpse. Death syphon becomes a vortex that wrings nearby corpses dry, renewing the mage's health and restoring even more mana. (note: Death siphon still counts as a "traditional healing" so it doesn't work with blood magic abilities.)

Healing Aura
Type: Spirit Healer
Size: 6m
Activation: 30%
Cooldown: 10s
Requires: Level 7
Description: Health regeneration rate: +50 for all party members. While this mode is active, the mage can use spirit healer spells and becomes a locus for restorative energies, increasing the natural healing of all allies within the aura. However, the mage cannot cast any offensive spell for the duration of the effect.
Upgraded by:
Radiance Requires: Level 11; 4 points in Spirit Healer
Description: Size: +2m Healing Aura now stretches further across the battlefield.
Upgraded by:
Faith
Requires: Level 13; 6 points in Spirit Healer
Description: Health regeneration rate: +50 for all party members. The most powerful spirits are said to be those of Faith itself. by relying on these powerful spirits, the spirit healer learns to make Healing Aura more effective.

Heroic Aura
Type: Creation
Upkeep: 20% of mana
Cooldown: 5s
Requires: Level 3
Description: Attack: +15% for all party members Defense: +8% for all party members
Upgraded by:
Valiant Aura
Requires: Level 7; 2 points in Creation
Description: Heroic Aura gains: Damage: +10% for all party members, Critical chance: +10% for all party members.

[Tomark]

Yeah, you forgot the most important: rock armor.

[SuicidalBaby]

its assumed that is always taken. No real discussion on it necessary.

[Prismo]

Death Syphon doesn't work with Blood Magic.

[termokanden]

Yeah I don't see the point in listing Healing Aura or Death Syphon as sustainables to use with blood magic. Maybe if you switch off blood magic for a bit to heal.

I think upgraded Heroic Aura is a must if nobody else is using it. Elemental Weapons the same. With Rock Armor aren't we at the limit then?

I would switch one to Arcane Shield if I had someone else using Heroic Aura. But I don't think I would get the upgrades.

Modifié par termokanden, 23 mars 2011 - 01:34 .

[SuicidalBaby]

Syphon and Healing Aura are certainly not viable with Blood Magic active. But when its not active, is their application viable or even efficient?

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 23 mars 2011 - 01:41 .

[Tomark]

why would you turn off blood magic?

Rock Armor + Heroic Aura is a must (unless soembody else has it), and i guess you can use elemental weapon to finish it off though it's a bit of a waste of a point.

Same for Arcane Shield, it would only be useful for the elemental res, and even that is not really useful given good rune use.

[termokanden]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

Syphon and Healing Aura are certainly not viable with Blood Magic active. But when its not active, is their application viable or even efficient?

Does Grave Robber use up the corpse? If it does, that conflicts a bit much with Syphon.

I don't see myself using Healing Aura in itself to regen health because it's just far too slow. But if you have that you also have the rest of that tree, and that might be useful in itself. If you do switch out to heal, you might as well use the group heal also.

[SuicidalBaby]

termokanden wrote...
I think upgraded Heroic Aura is a must if nobody else is using it. Elemental Weapons the same. With Rock Armor aren't we at the limit then?

You can, in fact, use all sustains at the same time. Just confirmed. (ps3) How one deals with the moralities of such a thing is something of another matter.

[termokanden]

Sounds like a bug. Well I can't rule out that this is the intended behavior, but it doesn't make sense that a spell requires a certain amount of energy to maintain, but if you have none it's free.

[SuicidalBaby]

For the sake of discussion, lets assume it is a bug and you could only use 100%.
You have 1 other mage in the group. Anders or Merrill. What is your sustained spell priority list? How would you set your group up to use all viable effective sustains?

[DamnThoseDisplayNames]

I myself never used any sustains exept Blood Magic. I prefer to have more spells and stamina at my disposal, and if three archers hit you in Act 1 in Nightmare, shield nor armor would't help anyway. And after that, I learned to not be hit by three archers, and just played smart - i.e. stayed far away from battle. And bumped my health up to 200+.
As companions are morons, both Merrill and Anders would go for Rock Armor.
Merrill also used Elemental Weapons. I prefered cold damage. If went for Crushing Prison, may as well add Arcane Shield (unupgraded).
With Anders, both of those and Heroic Aura are fine. I used his spirit healer abilities manually.

Modifié par DamnThoseDisplayNames, 23 mars 2011 - 03:59 .

[termokanden]

Well I don't value Arcane Shield very highly so I'd probably use Rock Armor, Elemental Weapons and Heroic Aura myself and let Anders have more mana. But if you feel Arcane Shield is necessary, you could move the Aura to Anders.

Merrill is a blood mage herself, so there you can cover all sustainables and let each of your blood mages have Rock Armor and one of them Arcane Shield.

[SuicidalBaby]

bump

[Apathy1989]

I ran rock armor and elemental weapons. Arcane Shield is pretty useless when those points are better spent elsewhere. Never considered Heroic Aura though, its probably a good choice.