13 réponses à ce sujet

[Viltris]

I've heard so much talk about how mages are overpowered, but try as I might, I just can't seem to break them like everyone else has.

How do you drop the AOE spells without hitting your own party members while your at it? Mind Blast, move your tanks out of the way, and then drop the spell on stunned enemies before it expires? Carefully target the AOE spells so that the enemies are just within the blast zone but your tanks are outside of it? Or do you just sacrifice the tank and kill them off while obliterating the enemies? (That last option sounds terrible, to be honest.)

I've heard good things about Chain Lightning and Cone of Cold. And Spell Shield I've been told is a really good defensive spell. Maybe I should give those spells a try. Any other broken spells that I should be aware of?

Also, generally about 10 seconds into a fight, either all the enemies have been murdered by spamming Stonefist, Arcane Bolt, and a Might Blow from my tank, or else my tank is now taking loads of damage and the mage switches to full-time healing duty to keep the tank from dying. Maybe I should get a second mage to keep up the magical onslaught? Or maybe I should find a way to make lots of healing pots so I can rely on those for healing instead of magic?

And yes, I am aware that abusing mages will make the game way too easy. But being the powergamer I am, I need to get this out of my system before I move on to more difficult parties like the 4x Warrior party or the 3x Rogue (and maybe a Warrior for support) party.

[Pyrate_d]

one thing you can do is taunt everyone with your warrior, force field him, and then use AOE spells on him



this is a borderline exploit as far as I'm concerned, it really makes the game trivial

[Pyrate_d]

you can also you stuff like oil slick and scatter shot to stun large groups of enemies without them even getting into melee, and then use a fireball

[chainek]

Beef up your tank. Get the enhanced shield abilities (middle sword and shield tree) and make sure they are active. If your tank can take a beating, you can take a break on continuously casting and let some other characters have their own glory.



As for AOE spells.. i'm still trying to work this out myself.

[SheffSteel]

Cone of cold (and the similarly shaped fire and lightning versions) are quite easy to aim safely, assuming you pause the game.

Option 1: Stand your mage just behind the front line, between two fighters. Make sure everyone is using Hold Position. When you're reasy to cast, just aim between the fighters, which is very very easy since the target zone is narrow at the near end.

Option 2:Move your mage to one side of the fighters, and cast along the enemy front line.

Option 3: Just about any attack of opportunity you can think of, during a big fight. As long as none of your characters light up, you're good to go.

[Hammersmithblues]

AoE spells...

Survival allows you to see mobs on the radar.

You open the door, drop 2-3 mass AoE spells in the room as fast as possible and let them die.  Blizzard is a good opener and it randomly freezes mobs, Tempest for DPS, and earthquake to keep them inside the storm.

But you need the skill to see the mobs in order to do this effectively.

Burdock

Modifié par Hammersmithblues, 17 novembre 2009 - 07:38 .

[NetBeansAndJava]

Here's a trick for aoe that will work for indoor environments:

1) walk up to the threshold of the door to the next room where enemies are
2) zoom all the way out with your camera
3) move the camera to the room w/ enemies
4) cast slowing or cc aoe (blizzard, earthquake, sleep...) in the room
5) cast dps aoe (blizzard, tempest, inferno...)

Now all the enemies will be trying to get out of the room, but will be probably taken out before they reach the exit. If they do, just stand there w/ cone of cold ready and get them as they escape.

Melee cleans up the leftovers.

The advantage of this is that the enemies won't see you while you're casting b/c you're in the other room.  You can even do this with the door closed... which I advise b/c some enemies are too dumb to even open the door

Modifié par NetBeansAndJava, 17 novembre 2009 - 07:42 .

[felix4200]

Pyrate_d wrote...

one thing you can do is taunt everyone with your warrior, force field him, and then use AOE spells on him

this is a borderline exploit as far as I'm concerned, it really makes the game trivial

It quite clearly is an exploit, no borderline about it. However exploits are not really bad in a single player game, you can use it or not as you like.

Not entering the room is a nice way to make sure you won't get hit by duration aoe. If you use blizzard f.ex. the mobs will have a hard time getting out of the area.

With instant AoE like fireball or cone of cold, place the marker carefully and make sure non of your chars is moving forward.

[Schyzm]

felix4200 wrote...

Pyrate_d wrote...

one thing you can do is taunt everyone with your warrior, force field him, and then use AOE spells on him

this is a borderline exploit as far as I'm concerned, it really makes the game trivial

It quite clearly is an exploit, no borderline about it. However exploits are not really bad in a single player game, you can use it or not as you like.

Not entering the room is a nice way to make sure you won't get hit by duration aoe. If you use blizzard f.ex. the mobs will have a hard time getting out of the area.

With instant AoE like fireball or cone of cold, place the marker carefully and make sure non of your chars is moving forward.

there's no way that's an exploit.  forcefielding your allies is one of the most obvious uses for the ability.  it takes about 3 seconds to figure out that you're gna forcefield them when they're in danger, and about 3 more seconds to realize they might get forcefielded while aoe is going on.

again this is practically the most obvious use for forcefield after JUST READING THE DESCRIPTION.  if the most obvious use for an ability gets to be classed as an exploit, combat is meaningless.

[Unbroken Lineage]

Yeah, it's clearly intended to function that way. I played that way on my first character, but didn't enjoy it. Now my Mage PC just CC/debuffs for my frontline, and combat has become way more situational and way more fun than spamming two skills. IMO.

[SonsofNorthWind]

My current mage's standard routines:



Opener, enemies unaware: Paralysis Explosion -> Inferno -> Earthquake -> Fireball if people look like they are going to emerge.

Opener, enemies aware: Fireball -> Earthquake -> Inferno -> Glyph of Repulsion on closest edge of Inferno.

Scrum options: Glyphs 1-3, Heal, Petrify/Stonefist.



Get comfortable with the Hold All command and the Defender behavioral option.



If you aren't flanking, it's usually pretty easy to aim a Fireball so that it tags enemies but not your own guys - while many prefer CoC for this, I don't care for the flanking requirements. You can also throw an Earthquake or Inferno down behind your guys such that no one is in it, then position a Glyph of Repulsion and knock the enemies back into it.



You may also enjoy playing Shale and maxing out the Stoneheart and Rock Mastery lines asap. It's a harsh day for your enemies when even your tank can contribute powerful ranged AoE / CC to your alpha strike before morphing into the most effective hate sink in the game. He's also a pretty nice target for Blood Sacrifice, if it comes to that.

[emyln]

If you prefer not to bother with Friendly Fire, try the entropy line. Sleep, Walking Nightmare, Mass Paralyze, All AOE spells that stun/hold enemies. Miasmia will weaken everyone in range and make them easier to hit.



Getting the entire Entropy line + Mind Crush gives you very excellent crowd control spells and you'll never worry about having one on cooldown.

[TheNecroFiend]

Schyzm wrote...

felix4200 wrote...

Pyrate_d wrote...

one thing you can do is taunt everyone with your warrior, force field him, and then use AOE spells on him

this is a borderline exploit as far as I'm concerned, it really makes the game trivial

It quite clearly is an exploit, no borderline about it. However exploits are not really bad in a single player game, you can use it or not as you like.

Not entering the room is a nice way to make sure you won't get hit by duration aoe. If you use blizzard f.ex. the mobs will have a hard time getting out of the area.

With instant AoE like fireball or cone of cold, place the marker carefully and make sure non of your chars is moving forward.

there's no way that's an exploit.  forcefielding your allies is one of the most obvious uses for the ability.  it takes about 3 seconds to figure out that you're gna forcefield them when they're in danger, and about 3 more seconds to realize they might get forcefielded while aoe is going on.

again this is practically the most obvious use for forcefield after JUST READING THE DESCRIPTION.  if the most obvious use for an ability gets to be classed as an exploit, combat is meaningless.

It's an exploit because it takes advantage of poor AI. Attacking a forcefield tank like lemmings as the squishies drop A0E after AoE on you is moronic.

[Schyzm]

TheNecroFiend wrote...

Schyzm wrote...

felix4200 wrote...

Pyrate_d wrote...

one thing you can do is taunt everyone with your warrior, force field him, and then use AOE spells on him

this is a borderline exploit as far as I'm concerned, it really makes the game trivial

It quite clearly is an exploit, no borderline about it. However exploits are not really bad in a single player game, you can use it or not as you like.

Not entering the room is a nice way to make sure you won't get hit by duration aoe. If you use blizzard f.ex. the mobs will have a hard time getting out of the area.

With instant AoE like fireball or cone of cold, place the marker carefully and make sure non of your chars is moving forward.

there's no way that's an exploit.  forcefielding your allies is one of the most obvious uses for the ability.  it takes about 3 seconds to figure out that you're gna forcefield them when they're in danger, and about 3 more seconds to realize they might get forcefielded while aoe is going on.

again this is practically the most obvious use for forcefield after JUST READING THE DESCRIPTION.  if the most obvious use for an ability gets to be classed as an exploit, combat is meaningless.

It's an exploit because it takes advantage of poor AI. Attacking a forcefield tank like lemmings as the squishies drop A0E after AoE on you is moronic.

then I would posit that the designers are awful.  because that's practically the most obvious use of the damn spell.  exploit implies some scurious individual using some roundabout method not capable of being accurately foreseen that "breaks the ai."  

like I said prior, if using a spell for its most obvious use is an exploit, then combat is meaningless.