78 réponses à ce sujet

[SuicidalBaby]

IMO you dont need more than +6 to conversion after 14. Using the highest base damage staff that drops for free is what i would recomend.

[Musou1776]

What about not using those blood magic gloves and going full champion with valiance in that? You get better attribute bonus and with 2 rings and sarabas amulet that's 6 conversion. Isn't champ set bonus another 3 magic? Not sure dropping the 5 will is worth it.

[SuicidalBaby]

Willpower on a mage is not the most productive stat. So I don't really pay attention to it.

I prefer the epic(purple) Guantlets that dropped off the High Dragon with +4% cold, +4% fire, 2 rune slots. 27 mag/will requirements.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 29 mars 2011 - 01:00 .

[Gloxgasm]

You have too much CC with not enough damage and killing. There is only 1 fight in Act1 that has 2 assassins (as I remember) that might require dual CC. Why you would need to CC so much other stuff is beyond me.

[Musou1776]

Suicidal, the issue is whether or not +2 more to all attributes plus the champion armor set bonus is better than saving 5 points for magic or con (equals only 1 point just on valiance, plus you miss out on champ set bonus to magic) and another BM conversion point. I think the former looks superior based on the math.

Interested to hear others opinions

[Graunt]

You don't need MAG that high at all, and I don't know why people keep insisting going MAG over CON, especially for a Blood Mage.  This is quite frankly, one of the worst things you can possibly do.  The damage gains are inconsequential compared to the survival/forever mana gains and you always get the largest boost from your weapon, not your MAG score.  You do not need more than 42 MAG period, and the only reason to go beyond that is if you're fine with your health level and you haven't had any issues surviving anything in the game.  

Early on you simply need to meet the requirements for weapons, but initially you can skimp if you have the DLC staves and just go 2 MAG, 1 WIL and then 1/1/1 every other level.  You also do not *need* to keep your willpower high, especially after level 14.  You only need enough to equip better armor (usually this ends up being the Mage specific set, except in the case of ACT 2 where you'll want the Pirate outfit for a while) -- you can also pretty much go with 18 WIL armor for the longest time simply because you'll be making up for it with health/Rock Armor.  You honestly do not need that much armor with a high CON and Assassins ignore it anyway.  Your largest threats in the entire game are Assassins, Blood Mages that do their group sniping and the Qunari Mage, group bomb of death spell.  None of those care about armor.

Your very first purchase item wise should also be the 48g Ring from the Emporium.  Also, while very useful early on, you also do not really need to stock up on as many Blood:Mana items as possible.  The 4:1 from your tree as well as a single ring is more than enough, especially after you get your Improved Sacrifice and have 300++ health.  I also cannot stress enough just how much of a waste of gold Cold-Blooded is unless you're going through the elemental tree already.  It simply has nothing you want other than 30% increased cold damage.  If you are not using Winter's Grasp and Cone of Cold liberally, SAVE YOUR MONEY for The Final Thought!


Besides those points, I think the topic creator did a pretty good job, although I think the spell selection greatly comes down to who else you're bringing along.  Since he's suggesting Force/Blood, I'm assuming Anders will be with you.  Anders is the only one in the group that gets any points into the Arcane tree for me, and it's only to hit the 50% shield, and I pickup Elemental Weapons as a filler.  I have never found Horror to be worth the point at any time in any of my three playthroughs.  The duration is simply too short on Nightmare, and there are a plethora of other ways to interrupt their stealth and potion attempts.

Also, Aveline is so much more than just a Shield Bash-bot.  Claymore is where your money really lies on everything other than bosses.  You pretty much want to build her with a DPS build, only taking the knockback and damage resistance from her specialized tree, and you also want to be as big of a jerk as you can whenever she is around to get her another 10% damage resistance (5% over the friendship).  My Aveline tears it up, and while not as bursty as Fenris, her staggers come quicker to the targets I *want* to hit with a CCC, and she's a terror with a Vague Blade, Assault/Assail.  Yes, getting the real "tanking" abilities in the SnS tree are actually useful, but you don't need them until much later, and the only real tanking skill you need by the end of ACT 1 is Shield Defense for the Rock Wraith to prevent knockdown/knockback since the one in her tree has a level 13 requirement.  Plus this is very useful later on for fights like the High Dragon or anything else that hits really hard.

She can also laugh off Walking Bombs as well as Fire Elementals with the various shields + runes.  If you're wanting to make money, putting the runes of Fortune into the companion armor yeilds more gains.

Tactics:
I change mine up from time to time, especially if it's a fight where I don't want companions just using abilities on any random enemy at any random time, but the easiest, hands free "survival" one I use is this:

Self: Health < 75% - use current condition for next tactic
Aveline: Health > 50% - use current condition for next tactic
Aveline: Any - Sacrifice
Aveline: Health < 50% - Heal
Self: Health < 25% - deactivate Blood Magic
Self: Health < 25% - Heal
Self: health < 25% - use healing potion
Ally: Health < 50% - Heal

I have it setup this way since I'm not the primary healer, and it's to take advantage of Sacrifice first and foremost, as a backup healer at other times.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 03:15 .

[Prismo]

Graunt wrote...

You don't need MAG that high at all, and I don't know why people keep insisting going MAG over CON, especially for a Blood Mage.  This is quite frankly, one of the worst things you can possibly do.  The damage gains are inconsequential compared to the survival/forever mana gains and you always get the largest boost from your weapon, not your MAG score.  You do not need more than 42 MAG period, and the only reason to go beyond that is if you're fine with your health level and you haven't had any issues surviving anything in the game.

I've seen you post that before, but I have to disagree, I didn't have trouble surviving through the game and my health was around 200 at 14 and 320 when I finished, and since every two points on magic is one extra damage I have an extra 14 spell damage than if I had stopped at 42. I don't really see the down side.

Graunt wrote...

Early on you simply need to meet the requirements for weapons, but initially you can skimp if you have the DLC staves and just go 2 MAG, 1 WIL and then 1/1/1 every other level.  You also do not *need* to keep your willpower high, especially after level 14.  You only need enough to equip better armor (usually this ends up being the Mage specific set, except in the case of ACT 2 where you'll want the Pirate outfit for a while) -- you can also pretty much go with 18 WIL armor for the longest time simply because you'll be making up for it with health/Rock Armor.  You honestly do not need that much armor with a high CON and Assassins ignore it anyway.  Your largest threats in the entire game are Assassins, Blood Mages that do their group sniping and the Qunari Mage, group bomb of death spell.  None of those care about armor.

Your very first purchase item wise should also be the 48g Ring from the
Emporium.  Also, while very useful early on, you also do not really need
to stock up on as many Blood:Mana items as possible.  The 4:1 from your
tree as well as a single ring is more than enough, especially after you
get your Improved Sacrifice and have 300++ health.  I also cannot
stress enough just how much of a waste of gold Cold-Blooded is unless
you're going through the elemental tree already.  It simply has nothing
you want other than 30% increased cold damage.  If you are not using Winter's Grasp and Cone of Cold liberally, SAVE YOUR MONEY for The Final Thought!

I mainly boost my will to 26 in Act II because I picked up The Hands of Fate at the beginning of the act, I'm not sure if it is advisable but then again you and I also disagree on the amount of Blood:Mana items that are necessary, but I can see why you advocate 4:1 being enough seeing the con you suggest. You're right about Cold-Blooded and that is the reason I didn't buy it but I also didn't exactly play the game that frugally and figured if you can afford it, why not, it would be nice to have at the very least for the horde of Qunari.

Gloxgasm wrote...

You have too much CC with not enough
damage and killing. There is only 1 fight in Act1 that has 2 assassins
(as I remember) that might require dual CC. Why you would need to CC so
much other stuff is beyond me.

That is just where you and I disagree my friend. In my opinion there is no such thing as "too much CC".

Modifié par Chazzwazza, 29 mars 2011 - 03:20 .

[Graunt]

Chazzwazza wrote...
I've seen you post that before, but I have to disagree, I didn't have trouble surviving through the game and my health was around 200 at 14 and 320 when I finished, and since every two points on magic is one extra damage I have an extra 14 spell damage than if I had stopped at 42. I don't really see the down side.

Like I said, if you're fine with your survivability, then you should raise it further, but it's not your primary focus outside of meeting staff requirements.  I also tend to err on the side of caution simply because of how many of the fights end up with me soloing everything thanks to the beyond horrible companion AI.  The logic routines just collide with one another and half of the time they just stand around because if you put them on hold and an enemy is close, their routine is screaming "RUN AWAY", but since they can't, they simply won't do ANYTHING at all.  If you let them free roam, Anders will continually run up into melee (why the hell does he do this?) for absolutely no reason at all, and end up dying from an Assault/Scatter and most of the time Varric simply dies before I even know he's being attacked.

When I have that much extra health, I'm going to not only have more mana, but simply be able to survive most of anything.  Whereas if I had slightly more damage, the outcome isn't the same at all since our damage spells are on such long cooldowns anyway and most of it comes down to CC + staff attacks.  There are a handful of enemies in the game that will one-shot you, or at least kill you in under three seconds if you aren't immediately aware when you're sitting at lower than 300 health.  Your real damage comes from staggers, but even with the staggers, you'll usually have to cast another spell to finish off many of the harder enemies anyway -- having 14 - 20 more damage x 600%/900% won't change that much.  There's really no "right" way to go with MAG vs CON other than how comfortable the player is on Nightmare.  I don't feel excessive MAG is worth it over the CON, but if you have no problems surviving, then you may find the incremental MAG gains superior.

I mainly boost my will to 26 in Act II because I picked up The Hands of Fate at the beginning of the act, I'm not sure if it is advisable but then again you and I also disagree on the amount of Blood:Mana items that are necessary, but I can see why you advocate 4:1 being enough seeing the con you suggest. You're right about Cold-Blooded and that is the reason I didn't buy it but I also didn't exactly play the game that frugally and figured if you can afford it, why not, it would be nice to have at the very least for the horde of Qunari.

Right, it's useful against Qunari, but you could always just have two 35+ cold damage staves + Elemental Weapons + Anders with Winter's Grasp/Cone of Cold.  Qunari really were not an issue at all with just that setup, and for whatever reason, I'm always short on cash going into ACT 3 anyway.  By the time my current game ended, I had 86g left after buying The Final Thought + a single ring.  Most everything else were backpacks, companion armors and runes.  

As far as CC goes, I cannot stress enough just how utterly and completely awesome Rune of Paralyzation is.  I've seen it frequently used in videos, but never thought it would be that great, but it truly is.  Not only does this keep Anders alive more than usual, it also works on some of the most annoying enemies in the game.  Having the upgraded Winter's Grasp does this as well.  Both of those are much better options than Horror.  The only skill point that Hawke should be spending in Entropy is for Tormenting.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 03:38 .

[Graunt]

As far as Walking Bomb goes, I never feel like it's worth the two points on Hawke pretty much...ever. Since it doesn't scale off of your MAG score anyway, it's better for Anders to pickup for a measly two skill points so that he can at least contribute something for killing, and especially because I simply haven't found enough scenarios to make it more worthwhile on Hawke over other, more necessary abilities.

You already have 9 points devoted to Primal, at least 1 point (I end up with 2) in Creation, 6 in Blood (Grave/One are not needed period), 1 Point in Entropy, and a minimum of 4 into Force. Even then, many are saying that Pull is what really helps you use this spell, so that's another 1-2 in Force, yet I still haven't found enough situations to make it worth it.  On my current playthrough, I ended up sitting on 3 skill points for the longest time trying to think of what would truly be useful, or what I've been missing and there really wasn't anything left.  I could have gone for the 10s Haste, but who wants just that if they can't have the 20s version?   I could have put 3 into Elemental, but felt I had enough CC by that point, so I decided to just dump three into Spirit just to take advantage of the 33% (+4%) Spirit damage of my staff, and in the off chance dropping two WB would matter.  So far, the only thing I've used is Spirit Bolt.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 03:51 .

[Prismo]

Graunt wrote...

As far as CC goes, I cannot stress enough just how utterly and completely awesome Rune of Paralyzation is.  I've seen it frequently used in videos, but never thought it would be that great, but it truly is.  Not only does this keep Anders alive more than usual, it also works on some of the most annoying enemies in the game.  Having the upgraded Winter's Grasp does this as well.  Both of those are much better options than Horror.  The only skill point that Hawke should be spending in Entropy is for Tormenting.

I honestly dismissed Glyph of Paralysis so early that I forgot all about it, looking at it again I am kind of kicking myself. Then again it is impossible for anyone to talk me out of Horror, I love that spell, it saved me many a time and basically works on everything guaranteed, I also had no trouble with it's duration on Nightmare, maybe I was just killing whatever I cast it on too quickly to notice but I didn't think it had its duration cut any more than Petrify, relatively speaking.

[Graunt]

Chazzwazza wrote...

Graunt wrote...

As far as CC goes, I cannot stress enough just how utterly and completely awesome Rune of Paralyzation is.  I've seen it frequently used in videos, but never thought it would be that great, but it truly is.  Not only does this keep Anders alive more than usual, it also works on some of the most annoying enemies in the game.  Having the upgraded Winter's Grasp does this as well.  Both of those are much better options than Horror.  The only skill point that Hawke should be spending in Entropy is for Tormenting.

I honestly dismissed Glyph of Paralysis so early that I forgot all about it, looking at it again I am kind of kicking myself. Then again it is impossible for anyone to talk me out of Horror, I love that spell, it saved me many a time and basically works on everything guaranteed, I also had no trouble with it's duration on Nightmare, maybe I was just killing whatever I cast it on too quickly to notice but I didn't think it had its duration cut any more than Petrify, relatively speaking.

Whenever you attack something that has Horror on it, it seems to instantly break.  The same is not true at all with Petrify, and on top of that, on enemies you're not damaging, Petrify seems to always last it's full duration, while Horror lasts around 5s on most "Normal" and above enemies.  For Mages and Assassins I can see why Horror is useful, yet I have Shield Bash, Stone Fist, Gravitic, Fist of the Maker, Telekinetic Burst (works fine on Mages) and especially Petrify.  Adding Horror just takes away from my actual damage abilities.

If I were playing as a Warrior or Rogue Hawke, then I would certainly see a point for Merrill getting it -- just not as a Mage Hawke.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 03:59 .

[Prismo]

Graunt wrote...

As far as Walking Bomb goes, I never feel like it's worth the two points on Hawke pretty much...ever. Since it doesn't scale off of your MAG score anyway, it's better for Anders to pickup for a measly two skill points so that he can at least contribute something for killing, and especially because I simply haven't found enough scenarios to make it more worthwhile on Hawke over other, more necessary abilities.

You already have 9 points devoted to Primal, at least 1 point (I end up with 2) in Creation, 6 in Blood (Grave/One are not needed period), 1 Point in Entropy, and a minimum of 4 into Force. Even then, many are saying that Pull is what really helps you use this spell, so that's another 1-2 in Force, yet I still haven't found enough situations to make it worth it.  On my current playthrough, I ended up sitting on 3 skill points for the longest time trying to think of what would truly be useful, or what I've been missing and there really wasn't anything left.  I could have gone for the 10s Haste, but who wants just that if they can't have the 20s version?   I could have put 3 into Elemental, but felt I had enough CC by that point, so I decided to just dump three into Spirit just to take advantage of the 33% (+4%) Spirit damage of my staff, and in the off chance dropping two WB would matter.  So far, the only thing I've used is Spirit Bolt.

Yeah, I've seen people advocate Pull of the Abyss. I don't like it, enemies just end up flying all over the place. I find my best strategy for Walking Bomb is to lay Gravitic in front of a group that is charging at you, watch them run into it, pick a guy, focus fire on him and cast Walking Bomb on him. With my gear I have a clean +40% spirit damage, plus I really like spirit bolt so Walking Bomb is a no brainer for my Hawke.

[Graunt]

Chazzwazza wrote...

Graunt wrote...

As far as Walking Bomb goes, I never feel like it's worth the two points on Hawke pretty much...ever. Since it doesn't scale off of your MAG score anyway, it's better for Anders to pickup for a measly two skill points so that he can at least contribute something for killing, and especially because I simply haven't found enough scenarios to make it more worthwhile on Hawke over other, more necessary abilities.

You already have 9 points devoted to Primal, at least 1 point (I end up with 2) in Creation, 6 in Blood (Grave/One are not needed period), 1 Point in Entropy, and a minimum of 4 into Force. Even then, many are saying that Pull is what really helps you use this spell, so that's another 1-2 in Force, yet I still haven't found enough situations to make it worth it.  On my current playthrough, I ended up sitting on 3 skill points for the longest time trying to think of what would truly be useful, or what I've been missing and there really wasn't anything left.  I could have gone for the 10s Haste, but who wants just that if they can't have the 20s version?   I could have put 3 into Elemental, but felt I had enough CC by that point, so I decided to just dump three into Spirit just to take advantage of the 33% (+4%) Spirit damage of my staff, and in the off chance dropping two WB would matter.  So far, the only thing I've used is Spirit Bolt.

Yeah, I've seen people advocate Pull of the Abyss. I don't like it, enemies just end up flying all over the place. I find my best strategy for Walking Bomb is to lay Gravitic in front of a group that is charging at you, watch them run into it, pick a guy, focus fire on him and cast Walking Bomb on him. With my gear I have a clean +40% spirit damage, plus I really like spirit bolt so Walking Bomb is a no brainer for my Hawke.

I'm just not convinced with WB on Hawke, and it would probably be helpful if people who think it's the best spell you can get could actually list how many places it's truly made any kind of difference at all.  The one fight in the entire game that was made significantly easier was the end of ACT 2 fight with the Arishok.  I would have just duelled him, but I guess he did not respect me all that much.  I think where it may actually be worth it is if you ended up with Corrosive, have 30% - 40% +spirit  and you have Varric using Fatiguing Fog to disorient.  Still, what could I possibly give up in this build?:

biowarefans.com/dragon-age-2-talent-builder/#mSihuGrPQwH1cYawVPQhurteElBCv

Maker's Hammer maybe, Pull probably, but most of those were level 22+ picks.  I already had Anders with it anyway and it never found much use.  Hell, I pretty much filled out the Spirit tree with Anders and most of that was really a complete waste.  Dispel was rarely ever used for anything and the 25% increased damage to Spirit Bolt just wasn't really making any difference for him, especially since I pretty much used him as my elemental weakness dispenser anyway and would just equip whatever staff he could of whatever element.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 04:17 .

[Roxlimn]

Chain Reaction would have about 220+ damage at the same Staff and Mag that would net a 140 Fist of the Maker. CR's combo damage is about 1320 with a +500% bonus, and Fist's is 1260 with a +800% bonus.

The damage is comparable between the two, so it's useful to have Maker's Hammer around for extra damage dealing, so long as you have Staggers to exploit. Fist also obviously lifts and slams enemies into the ground, producing about 2 or 3 seconds of movement stoppage. Combined with even a modest Telekinetic Burst, the two of them can produce about 6 seconds of control over multiple enemies every 10 seconds or so - a 60% damage mitigation combination.

The real money in Telekinetic Burst is enemy positioning - placing enemies further together or further apart can be encounter-deciding. Adding Pull to the two further increases location control and soft control.

A bunch of melee Normals can be rendered useless for an impressively long period of time before or after Gravitic Ring with judicious use of Force abilities.  Of course, all the Force abilities are area effects, so they can be used to reveal enemy Rogues who've gone Stealthy.

Modifié par Roxlimn, 29 mars 2011 - 04:28 .

[godlike13]

Graunt wrote...

Chazzwazza wrote...

Graunt wrote...

As far as CC goes, I cannot stress enough just how utterly and completely awesome Rune of Paralyzation is.  I've seen it frequently used in videos, but never thought it would be that great, but it truly is.  Not only does this keep Anders alive more than usual, it also works on some of the most annoying enemies in the game.  Having the upgraded Winter's Grasp does this as well.  Both of those are much better options than Horror.  The only skill point that Hawke should be spending in Entropy is for Tormenting.

I honestly dismissed Glyph of Paralysis so early that I forgot all about it, looking at it again I am kind of kicking myself. Then again it is impossible for anyone to talk me out of Horror, I love that spell, it saved me many a time and basically works on everything guaranteed, I also had no trouble with it's duration on Nightmare, maybe I was just killing whatever I cast it on too quickly to notice but I didn't think it had its duration cut any more than Petrify, relatively speaking.

Whenever you attack something that has Horror on it, it seems to instantly break.  The same is not true at all with Petrify, and on top of that, on enemies you're not damaging, Petrify seems to always last it's full duration, while Horror lasts around 5s on most "Normal" and above enemies.  For Mages and Assassins I can see why Horror is useful, yet I have Shield Bash, Stone Fist, Gravitic, Fist of the Maker, Telekinetic Burst (works fine on Mages) and especially Petrify.  Adding Horror just takes away from my actual damage abilities.

If I were playing as a Warrior or Rogue Hawke, then I would certainly see a point for Merrill getting it -- just not as a Mage Hawke.

Doesn't instantly break for me. Horror IMO is fantastic, and has been very reliable in my experience.

Modifié par godlike13, 29 mars 2011 - 04:51 .

[Graunt]

Roxlimn wrote...

Chain Reaction would have about 220+ damage at the same Staff and Mag that would net a 140 Fist of the Maker. CR's combo damage is about 1320 with a +500% bonus, and Fist's is 1260 with a +800% bonus.

The damage is comparable between the two, so it's useful to have Maker's Hammer around for extra damage dealing, so long as you have Staggers to exploit. Fist also obviously lifts and slams enemies into the ground, producing about 2 or 3 seconds of movement stoppage. Combined with even a modest Telekinetic Burst, the two of them can produce about 6 seconds of control over multiple enemies every 10 seconds or so - a 60% damage mitigation combination.

The real money in Telekinetic Burst is enemy positioning - placing enemies further together or further apart can be encounter-deciding. Adding Pull to the two further increases location control and soft control.

A bunch of melee Normals can be rendered useless for an impressively long period of time before or after Gravitic Ring with judicious use of Force abilities.  Of course, all the Force abilities are area effects, so they can be used to reveal enemy Rogues who've gone Stealthy.

I'm not sure where you're getting these numbers from, but CR is 600% and Fist is 900%.  Even with the 900% bonus, it rarely ever beats out CR on most standard units due to it being a Physical spell that gets reduced from armor.  I'm not sure who you're trying to convince either.  I've played a Blood Mage on Nightmare to the end on three seperate occasions, and Fist was the least used stagger abuser by far.  The fact that it can stun enemies has nothing to do with the upgrade when the base spell does that on it's own.

I have however more recently found a use for Pull -- that's actually yet another walkaround the horrendous AI.  You simply pull Aveline out of the center of the Gravitic she just had to zoom in to.

I also just loaded up my post game to check stats and such, and had completely forgotten that I was wearing the Boots of the Void.  Those have 5% Spirit Damage on them as well.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 05:27 .

[SuicidalBaby]

Horror will break on status changes. Simply hitting the affected target isn't going to remove it.

[Graunt]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

Horror will break on status changes. Simply hitting the affected target isn't going to remove it.

I'm not the only person who keeps bringing up the pitifully short duration.  It lasts about as long as a knockdown from a Stone Fist/Shield Bash.  Maybe on the enemies I had been using it on, they were simply going to break regardless of whether or not I touched them, but it ALWAYS ended up being as soon as I hit them it would break.  Does a stagger count as a status change?  If so, then it's even more useless than initially thought.

[SuicidalBaby]

No, not STAGGER. By status I don't mean the tactic's interpretation, but actual condition of the target. Stunned, frozen, knocked down, reeling, interupted, I think you get my point.  Which one could conclude that Arcane Weapons may be contributing to its cancelation.

Have you ran a stop watch on it?  Which targets are breaking early?  10 seconds goes by pretty fast.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 29 mars 2011 - 05:38 .

[Graunt]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

No, not STAGGER. By status I don't mean the tactic's interpretation, but actual condition of the target. Stunned, frozen, knocked down, reeling, interupted, I think you get my point.

Have you ran a stop watch on it?  Which targets are breaking early?  10 seconds goes by pretty fast.

Not using a stopwatch no, although I've used the spell multiple times in different areas and would simply count: one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand etc and almost nothing would last beyond 5s. Many enemies would break after only 3s, and that's just typical, non elite type units.  If it makes any difference, I do play an instrument, so I have a fairly good grasp on timing.  Glyph of Paralysis beats this hands down simply because it can get multiple units with ease.  The one thing it can't do is interrupt a heal or vanish.

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 05:42 .

[Roxlimn]

I'm not sure where you're getting these numbers from, but CR is 600% and Fist is 900%. Even with the 900% bonus, it rarely ever beats out CR on most standard units due to it being a Physical spell that gets reduced from armor. I'm not sure who you're trying to convince either. I've played a Blood Mage on Nightmare to the end on three seperate occasions, and Fist was the least used stagger abuser by far. The fact that it can stun enemies has nothing to do with the upgrade when the base spell does that on it's own.

Chain Reaction does 600% of base damage - a +500% improvement. Fist of the Maker does 900% damage - a +800% improvement. In every case, each spell does its base 100% minus resistances.

Maker's Hammer is not under competition with Chain Reaction. You get Chain Reaction first unless you're about to go on a Qunari hunt. Then you get Maker's Hammer.

There are 4 Stagger exploits: Paralyzing Prison, Hemorrhage, Chain Reaction, and Maker's Hammer.

Fist of the Maker has the least damage on exploit, and it's physical, but it also has a 10 second cooldown. Chain Reaction has a 20s cooldown and both Paralyzing and Hemorrhage are on 30s cooldowns.

Just from frequency of availability, Fist of the Maker SHOULD be the most used exploit by 100% compare with each individual spell, even compared with Chain Reaction, unless you have an issue with producing Staggers fast enough, or if you have an issue with ally or AoE positioning (which the other Force powers can be used to help).

Also, my Fist of the Maker shows a property saying "Enemy Armor - momentarily 0%." That either means that enemy armor is 0% for Fist, or that Fist produces a short segment where enemy armor is 0%. The latter effect is more awesome, so I suspect that it's the former. I've never had a problem with Maker's Hammer not doing enough damage to super-armored enemies.

Due to the low cooldown and the effect of movement killing and Stun, Fist is my most common Stagger exploit. The extremely low cooldown and attendant effects means that I'm a lot more inclined to use it to exploit just one or two off-Staggers rather that using something on long cooldown like Paralyzing Prison.

Perhaps the reason you spent 80% of the time doing auto-attacks is because you don't cast the spells you have enough?

[SuicidalBaby]

You left out the part where Chain Lightning does double damage on 40% of the enemies in the game.

[Roxlimn]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

You left out the part where Chain Lightning does double damage on 40% of the enemies in the game.

Not really.  I'm not saying that you ought to get Maker's Hammer over Chain Reaction.

[Graunt]

Roxlimn wrote...
Chain Reaction does 600% of base damage - a +500% improvement. Fist of the Maker does 900% damage - a +800% improvement. In every case, each spell does its base 100% minus resistances.

Yes, that's correct with the bonus.  I somehow must have missed the "+".  Also, resistances are why it loses so much except on something like a Mage type unit.  Most Warrior type enemies on Nightmare, especially something like a Templar have very large amounts of physical reduction, while not nearly as many enemies have that much in the way of electrical reduction (Qunari don't count!).

There are 4 Stagger exploits: Paralyzing Prison, Hemorrhage, Chain Reaction, and Maker's Hammer.

Just like Fist, Prison seems to get reduced greatly via armor, unless it was simply an issue with spells overlapping, I have yet to actually see a Prison do more on a stagger than it's listed base damage.  Because of that, I felt the spell was a complete waste of a stagger opportunity and on top of that a complete waste of points to reach unless you were already going for Arcane Fortress.  I've never found the need past Barrier for anything in the game.  It would also be a spell a second Mage would have to pickup.  There's simply nowhere near enough spell points for Hawke to get that.

Just from frequency of availability, Fist of the Maker SHOULD be the most used exploit by 100% compare with each individual spell, even compared with Chain Reaction, unless you have an issue with producing Staggers fast enough, or if you have an issue with ally or AoE positioning (which the other Force powers can be used to help).

That's really only applicable with the -5s upgrade.  This also relies on either a) you just standing around never EVER using your staff to attack past the 2nd swing in each routine or letting the AI take control of it and hitting your tank every single time (which isn't too bad if you can hit multiple staggers, but you still need the tank to be >75% health or so before it's "safe").  Saying what is theoretically possible, and what actually ends up happening in a real gameplay scenario are two entirely seperate things.  I also have no idea how you can possibly just let your Warrior run amok.  The AI is not that good, no matter how well you think you setup your tactics.

Also, my Fist of the Maker shows a property saying "Enemy Armor - momentarily 0%." That either means that enemy armor is 0% for Fist, or that Fist produces a short segment where enemy armor is 0%. The latter effect is more awesome, so I suspect that it's the former. I've never had a problem with Maker's Hammer not doing enough damage to super-armored enemies.

I knew you would bring that up, but it appears that the armor penalty only happens during the stun, since stuns are what cause you to have 0% armor anyway.

Perhaps the reason you spent 80% of the time doing auto-attacks is because you don't cast the spells you have enough?

Perhaps I am actually playing the game and not pretending to do things I'm not actually able to do because I'm too busy having to auto correct the rest of my group?

Modifié par Graunt, 29 mars 2011 - 05:57 .

[Roxlimn]

That's really only applicable with the -5s upgrade. This also relies on either a) you just standing around never EVER using your staff to attack past the 2nd swing in each routine or letting the AI take control of it and hitting your tank every single time (which isn't too bad if you can hit multiple staggers, but you still need the tank to be >75% health or so before it's "safe"). Saying what is theoretically possible, and what actually ends up happening in a real gameplay scenario are two entirely seperate things. I also have no idea how you can possibly just let your Warrior run amok. The AI is not that good, no matter how well you think you setup your tactics.

I don't let anyone run amok. I set to Hold on default and manually do everything on Hard and Nightmare. I only rely on Tactics on Normal.

I don't let my Mage do a lot of Staff attacks precisely because the 3rd and 4th animation delay casting. As a matter of fact, my Archer Hawke does a lot of running, too, since moving around is beneficial for a ranged character, and running around doesn't impact speed of attack as long as you click to attack every time the cooldown for attack is down (like micro-ing Marauders in SC2).

As a result, I can always cast Maker's Hammer for whatever use I require for it on the instant (sometimes, I just use it to stop enemy movement in preparation for something else), and I've never hit any friendlies with it.

I knew you would bring that up, but it appears that the armor penalty only happens during the stun, since stuns are what cause you to have 0% armor anyway.

The Stun effect is listed separately. In general, the damage I see from Maker's Hammer is comparable (but noticeably less) with Chain Lightning unless the enemy is either vulnerable or immune to Lightning damage.

Perhaps I am actually playing the game and not pretending to do things I'm not actually able to do because I'm too busy having to auto correct the rest of my group?

I'm not sure what you mean. I don't do a lot of auto-attacks with Mage Hawke. I was under the impression that that was normal. Apparently not, since you have such an issue with the end-attack animation.

My Tactics setups are mostly survival stuff - drinking Elfroot potions and such. Sometimes, I even beat the comp to the task.