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[ezrafetch]

Not the most popular of Hawkes, but hardly the least powerful. Not the flashiest of Hawkes, but it gets the job done...really well.

Mostly updated for post-1.02/1.03 world.
SH got a bit of a nerf, but at least not as bad as the Warrior nerf LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I. Introduction: Why Spirit Healer?
II. Base Skill Allocation
III. Complementary Skill Allocation
IV. Attribute Point Allocation
V. Companions: Skills, Strategies, Tactics
VI. Leveling Up, Progressions
VII. Equipment
VIII. Extras, credits

You may need to beware of tl;dr as it is long; Ctrl+f (or Apple+f) is your BFF here.

I. Introduction: Why Spirit Healer?

Why build a Spirit Healer Hawke?
The biggest thing is flexibility. Flexibility in party choices, flexibility in skill choices. If you run FM/BM, your party is already decided for you, and your skill set is basically already set into stone from level 1. With Spirit Healer, it's hardly the case. You can go with a traditional 2 Mages, 1 Rogue, 1 Warrior setup, go with a 1 Mage, 2 Rogues, 1 Warrior setup, 1 Mage, 1 Rogue, 2 Warriors setup, or even go 2 Mages, 2 Rogues, or even 3 Mages, 1 Rogue, or 1 Mage and 3 Rogues, and...well, you get the picture.

And there's flexibility in the skill set. You don't have to dump all your skill points into a second spec for "optimization." You can pick up extra trees for damage, CC, or a mixture of the two for a balanced approach. You can take Elemental because nuking is awesome. You can invest in the Creation tree for CC and buffs if you so choose. You can still invest the points into Force Mage or Blood Mage for a mixture of offensive or defensive output. And the best part is that you can respec to fit the needs of a quest or battle. You can respec to make the Deep Roads easier, or respec to make the Qunari fight to end A2 much easier. You can play a traditional DA:O nuker role with Spirit Healer Hawkes; the FM/BM counterparts are unable to completely replicate that experience. Spirit Healer Hawkes get the benefit of flexibility compared to their FM/BM counterparts, which I think is a boon.

Personally, my biggest reason for building a Spirit Healer Hawke is that Anders is a chach-wagon. Meaning that Spirit Healer has a terrible rep in DA2, and it's up to Hawke to change that. Take that as you will.

The fact of the matter is that Hawke is a better Healer than Anders is. Upgraded Group Heal by Hawke outpace's Anders's Aid Allies. Even with Swift Justice, Anders's Aid Allies cooldown is slightly more than Hawke's cooldown for Group Heal, while Hawke's Healing Aura only occupies 30% of the mana while Anders' occupies a whopping 40% of his mana. The only real advantage is that Reviving is slightly faster on the whole with Anders thanks to the Swift Justice cooldown. But the biggest advantage of Hawke over Anders healing is simple: Hawke is durable as a healer, while Anders is not. Anders likes to die in fights, whether it be intermittently drawing aggro for nothing, or waltzing into friendly fire to be a martyr. And if you lose your healer in a fight, the difficulty of the battle increases ten-fold, so why not actually make your healer a good healer?

II. Base Skill Allocation

Obviously, there's Spirit Healer, because you are a Spirit Healer Hawke. The biggest reason to take Spirit Healer is Vitality, that epic +10 Constitution passive, which is a whopping 50 Health. It's nothing to sneeze at, and it could mean the difference between getting offed by an Assassin's backstab or not. The rest of their spells serve their purpose. Facing a little too much heat on the whole? Group Heal. If you lost track of a teammate, leading him/her to get offed, you can simply cast Revival and get them back. Sometimes Revival makes all the difference if you accidentally lose your Warrior, or your extra DPS member of the party. Battles can be moved back from "brutal" to "breeze" thanks to the presence of that lost party member. Second Chance is largely superfluous, but it's a nice touch to not really bother with Injury Kits anymore.

Your Spirit Healer tree should look like this:

Spirit Healer
Healing Aura
Group Heal
   + Unity
Revival
Second Chance
Vitality

The only variation here I could see is dropping Second Chance for a Revival upgrade (i.e. Refusal), but I think if you have to Revive more than once every two minutes...something's wrong with your tactics more than the battle being difficult.

Since you're a healer, it's probably helpful to dip into the Creation tree for Heal. A secondary, on-demand Heal can never hurt your survivability:

Creation
Heal

The next thing is to pick at least one offensive tree. There are two routes to go with this. You can go with either the Primal or Elemental trees.  The Primal tree has a good mix of CCC exploitation, just the right amount of single target lockdown and extra survivability via Rock Armor. Stonefist is great for keeping dudes out of your grill, Tempest is one of the few AoE skills that DOESN'T generate FF, and Petrify is exceptional single-target lockdown. Therefore, I think the Primal tree should look like this:

Primal
Stonefist
Rock Armor
Chain Lightning
   + Chain Reaction
Tempest
   + Strikes Twice
Petrify
   + Dessicate
Galvanism

This is an additional 9 points.  At base, that takes Hawke to 16 points, which in handy-dandy tree format looks like this.

Note that in a post-1.02/1.03 world, Chain Lightning is not as good as it used to be, while Tempest is slightly better. Just a note of caution

However, you can also go with Elemental as your primary offensive tree.  This is sweet for those of us that love to nuke the bajeezus out of maps.  CCCs are possible via Brittlemakers Winter's Grasp + Winter's Blast, and Cone of Cold + Deep Freeze.  The best AoE spell in the game, Firestorm + Apocalyptic Firestorm, is also in this tree.  Only thing I can say besides how epic this tree is to be conscious of Friendly Fire.  Or don't be, and just Revive teammates if you accidentally off one of them.  The Elemental Tree should look like this:

Elemental
Winter's Grasp
   + Winter's Blast
Cone of Cold
   + Deep Freeze
Fireball
Pyromancer
Firestorm
   + Apocalyptic Firestorm
Elemental Mastery.

This is another 9 points, which takes Hawke to 16 points total.  See here if you are allergic to blocks of text (I am allergic to some forms of blocks of text, true story).

Regardless of which offensive tree you take (I definitely prefer Elemental), that's the base of the Spirit Healer Hawke, which is theoretically accomplishable at level 13 (Vitality is a lvl13 passive). That obviously leaves you a bunch of skill points left to tinker with...

III. Complementary Skill Allocation

As I said before, past the base 16 there are tons of options for Spirit Healers. For awhile I tried to boil it down to "here's an Offensive build, here's a Defensive build," but it's simply not like that. Sure, there are more offensive builds than others, but there is still plenty of room for adding "defensive" aspects for others; the beauty of the Spirit Healer is that you can largely mix and match some trees...some with a great emphasis, some with less emphasis, but there's still a lot to do. Therefore, I simply want to highlight skills that would be worth taking for a quick dip in a tree, and then highlight the skills worth taking if you plan to venture farther into the tree. Skills for trees that require an emphasis will be in italics, meaning that if it's italicized, maximum effectiveness means investing more heavily into that tree.

Overall, you have approximately another 10-12 points before you reach endgame, so pick and choose which trees you want and allocate your points from there. After I go through these trees, I will suggest perhaps which work best compared to others, but there's opportunity to find the right mix for you as a Spirit Healer.

Elemental
Winter's Grasp
   + Winter's Blast
Cone of Cold
   + Deep Freeze
Fireball
Pyromancer
Firestorm
   + Apocalyptic Firestorm
Elemental Mastery

Elemental Mastery definitely harks back to DA:O and the nukers of yore. This is a highly offensive tree to take, yielding great DPS. With Elemental Mastery, Winter's Grasp and Cone of Cold can set up Brittle CCCs fairly well, while the Fire side of the tree brings considerable DPS to the table (Fireball is not good, but Firestorm does very well here). In 1.03, Fire skills got a buff meaning that Elemental is an even more savory pick, meaning if you didn't take it earlier it's definitely a good pick here. Do keep in mind that on Nightmare, this is the least friendly tree for your teammates. Watch where you place your Cone of Cold and Winter's Grasp, and your Firestorms. However, it's easy to watch your Cone of Colds and Winter's Grasp, but it's not for Firestorm. The cure-all solution for FF with Firestorm is sticking Fire Warding runes in your tank's armor (and whoever you think would get caught in the AoE. You can make your allies almost immune to fire damage, meaning you can Firestorm without abandon. But yes, overall a very offensive tree.

The Elemental tree does occupy 9 points, leaving few left for just supplementary skills and spells. unfortunately for the Elemental tree, it's a "going whole-hog into the tree" sort of deal; there's no "dipping" for a couple skills that makes it worthwhile; the only thing I could see worth dipping in to for Elemental is a 1pt Winter's Grasp.

Primal
Rock Armor
Chain Lightning + Chain Reaction
Stonefist
Tempest + Strikes Twice
Petrify + Dessicate
Galvanism

So if you decided to take Elemental as your primary offensive tree, you can take Primal as extra offensive support.  Stagger exploitation via Chain Lightning + Chain Reaction, and Rock Armor are the essentials of this tree.  Petrify locks down guys and when upgraded sets up Brittle.  Overall, a very good tree.  You will notice that I bolded the "Chain Reaction" upgrade. See immediately below bolded for remarks:

Unfortunately, Primal got a bit of a nerf in 1.03. Chain Lightning is not as good since staggers are A. a lot less prevalent given a metric ton of Warrior nerfs, in addition to a 2x reduction of the CCC damage boost.

Spirit
Spirit Bolt + Spirit Strike
Walking Bomb + Corrosive Walking Bomb
Death Syphon
Dispel Magic + Transmutation
Spirit Mastery

The biggest reason to take the Spirit tree would be the fact that it does Spirit damage and that it makes available the exploitation of Disoriented effects if you choose to pursue those. However, Walking Bomb is kind of finicky and can explode your own teammates too, which is...undesirable. You can stack Spirit Warding runes in the same way you stack Fire Warding runes to minimize Friendly Fire, but it's only worth doing in the end game. You end up wasting a lot of points because Dispel Magic, and Death Syphon are underwhelming. Overall, I would not consider this the best of trees when you consider efficacy of skill points:output, but Spirit damage is pretty useful. You can dip two points into the Spirit tree for Walking Bomb and Spirit Bolt, which is of moderately reasonable use since it cools down so quickly and a good application of Walking Bomb will wipe a room.  Completely.  If you only have a few points laying around, WB is some of the best bang for the buck.  You'll need something to hold enemies in place to get Walking Bomb off safely, which is nicely satisfied with a Creation dip for Glyph of Paralysis + Glyph of Binding.

In 1.03, however, Walking Bomb got a major nerf. It only deals 50% as opposed to 100% of health, which makes it pretty much useless. Meaning an already struggling tree struggles even more. It could only really work if you're good about AoEs and you want to try to get as many folks under 50% before WB goes off, but that's too much work when you may as well finish dudes under 50% using easier means. However, with finagling, some Blood Spatter chain explosions and/or DISORIENT, WB can be used with reasonably pre-patch effectiveness.

For WB tactics, refer to the VIII. Extras, credits portion of the guide.

Arcane
Elemental Weapons

You will notice for this tree I only really consider Elemental Weapons. It's moreover to indicate that this tree is largely unnecessary for Spirit Healer Hawkes. The only thing really worth taking is Elemental Weapons, but it's easier to occupy another Mage's mana with it. If you're the only mage, then taking Elemental Weapons would be good. Otherwise, the rest of the skills are lackluster. For companions, it's a reasonable tree to dip into, but for Hawke it's merely a "meh" tree since you have much better uses for your skill points.

Entropy
Hex of Torment
Horror + Despair

This is a 1pt wonder tree with Hex of Torment. Death Hex is largely superfluous but could help maintain boss/single-target DPS. Horror (with or without Despair) aids in single-target lockdown, but the length of the spell is reduced drastically on the guys you really want to lock down, unlike Petrify, so it's optional. You don't exactly need this tree either since companion points can also be spent here.

Creation
Glyph of Paralysis + Glyph of Binding
Heroic Aura + Valiant Aura
Haste + Great Haste
Greater Healing

This is, as you can see, a very very defensive/support oriented tree. Glyph of Paralysis upgraded will lock down a few targets, which can work in a pinch to save your hide. Further into the tree, Haste and Heroic Aura will contribute to overall party success, but it eats up mana through sustains like a champ, so you won’t likely be having all the cake to yourself. That doesn’t mean you’re not ensuring victory, however...you’re the one running behind the scenes guaranteeing success, which is nothing to scoff at.

In 1.03, however, the Haste bug has been fixed. And given the revelation that multiple Hastes will stack, it becomes entirely palatable to run Anders + Hawke and run double Haste to end battles in no time at all. It's pretty gross and I think Haste is pretty essential to 1.03 Hawke, which is why it's bolded. The same principle applies to Valiant Aura, though it mostly provides damage increases rather than attack speed increases.

Force Mage
Fist of the Maker + Maker’s Hammer + Maker’s Fury
Unshakeable
Telekinetic Burst
Gravitic Ring
Pull of the Abyss + Pull of the Void

This is an offensively minded CC tree. Unshakable is bolded because it's really optional. You shouldn't have knockback problems in a post-1.02/1.03 world but if you keep running into them, you can pick it up (also, Black Silk Gauntlets from the Mage Pack will make Unshakable redundant at level 13). You can also get Gravitic Ring and Pull of the Abyss, which are enormous CC. Telekinetic Burst is unfortunately a wasted point. Since Spirit Healer Hawkes have a tad less offensive capabilities than their FM/BM counterparts, I think a fully upgraded Fist of the Maker is viable since it becomes super-spammable, though a somewhat subpar option. This is a strong tree for spending a lot of points in.

Blood Mage
Blood Magic + Bloodlust
Blood Sacrifice
Hemorrhage
Grave Robber + One Foot In
Blood Slave + Blood Spatter

You will notice that I italicized all the skills in the tree. Why? Because as a Spirit Healer, while Blood Mage skills help, you don’t NEED them. You can just pick up the specialization for the hefty +25 life bonus and be done with it and invest your actual skill points in another tree. But you could also invest 1pt for Blood Magic, which gives you an extra mana pool to work with, hence why it’s bolded (i.e. it’s a second option for dipping into this tree). That being said, if you want to invest heavily in the tree, there’s a good reason for it since post-patch, Grave Robber + One Foot In and Blood Slave + Blood Spatter (the new Walking Bomb)  received major buffs, making them useful.
--------------
The most common tree combinations for Spirit Healers are:
1. Elemental/Creation/Force, which post-1.02/1.03 is the best combination to me
2. Elemental/Primal/Blood Magic (credit goes to rumination888 here and here for video proof that Elemental doesn’t suck in NM, making this [and Spirit Healers in general] a viable option)
3. Elemental/Force Mage/Primal
4. Primal/Force Mage/Creation

IV. Attribute Point Allocation

How to allocate Attribute Points?  I think it's pretty simple, but there is a variation worth exploring:

Strength: Base
Dexterity: Base
Magic: 42 after gear, rest after that
Cunning: Base
Willpower: 18-24 after gear (i.e. just enough for gear, more to taste)
Constitution: Enough for 250-350 health, to taste after gear, more if you really want to.

If you gun for a hefty life total (i.e. 300+), it will actually allow you to off-tank, which is hilarious.  After that, you can pump more magic for an additional boost to your spells.  If you have the Item pack DLC, you should have the Black Silk Gauntlets which makes getting by with a smaller health pool more bearable.

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And yes, look to the next post.  The guide continues there.

Modificata da ezrafetch, 22 giugno 2011 - 06:44 .

[ezrafetch]

V. Companions: Skills, Strategies, Tactics


In the process of post-1.02/1.03 apocalyptic overhaul

Fortunately for Spirit Healer Hawkes, your party is infinitely flexible.  Run whoever you want!  Generally, there is another consensus that the most efficient party consists of Merrill, Anders, and Varric (yes, regardless of class).  I’m only going to go in depth with that party setup, since I’m assuming most people just want the most efficient route.  I can produce other party member skills/strategies/tactics on demand, though.

Why Anders? Because he has a second Haste. That's about it. Half of the world hates him with a passion, but because of Haste he becomes invaluable. Stacking two Hastes is a world-ender, no lie.

Why Merrill? Because she's a Mage who can bring tons of AoE to the table.

Why Varric? Chest hair. No, just kidding. He has the best single-target DPS in the game. He is a beast.

No tank? The reason why is simple: thanks to 1.02/1.03 changes, you don't need a tank because damage is king. You don't need a tank if you're killing them so fast. While it was a rare and masochistic exercise in the past, 1.02/1.03 exacerbated that and made it so you really don't need it. In addition, a tank's secondary role as a CCC setup man suffered extremely with the Sunder bug, the Cleave nerf, and the general nerf of Warriors. You deal much more damage just dropping bombs on people's heads.

The typical setup would therefore be Anders, Merrill, Varric.  Therefore:

Anders
Elemental
Winter’s Grasp
   + Winter’s Blast
Cone of Cold
Fireball
Pyromancer
Firestorm
   + Apocalyptic Firestorm
Elemental Mastery

Spirit
Spirit Bolt
   + Spirit Strike
Walking Bomb
   + Corrosive Walking Bomb

Creation
Heal
Glyph of Paralysis
   + Glyph of Binding
Heroic Aura
Haste
   + Greater Haste

Vengeance
Vengeance
   + Wrath
Martyr
Swift Justice
Blood of My Enemy

Tactics forthcoming

Merrill
Elemental
Winter’s Grasp
  + Winter’s Blast
Cone of Cold
Fireball
Pyromancer
Firestorm
   + Apocalyptic Firestorm
Elemental Mastery

Primal
Stonefist
Petrify
   + Dessicate
Rock Armor
Chain Lightning
Tempest
   + Strikes Twice
Galvanism

Arcane
Elemental Weapons

Entropy
Hex of Torment

Dalish Pariah
Blood of the First
Wounds of the Past
   + Deep Wounds
Wrath of the Elvhen
   + Loss of the Dales

Tactics upcoming

Varric
Bianca
Bursting Arrow
   + Shattering Arrow
   + Smoking Arrow
Pinning Shot
   + Disorienting Shot
Archer’s Lance
   + Punishing Lance

Specialist
Speed

Scoundrel
Blindside
Back-to-Back
Brand

Subterfuge
Evade
Chameleon’s Breath
   + Chameleon’s Cloud

Marksman
Rhyming Triplet
   + Nameless Graces
Bianca’s Song
   + Embellishment
Well-Oiled
Kickback + Backlash
Overtime

Tactics forthcoming

SPECIAL! ARISHOK STRATEGY!
1. Equip a cold staff.
2. Turn on Healing Aura.
3. Tank the Arishok.
4. Use Gravitic Ring/Glyph of Paralysis/Petrify to get extra shots in.  Cast Heal if you get really careless (I only needed to once or twice)
5. Laugh.
6. Feel bad for the Arishok.
7. Rinse and Repeat until dead (it will be a long while before he dies, though), because he can't damage you fast enough to counteract Healing Aura.

VI. Leveling Up, Progressions

Hawke
I'm going to speak very generally since Spirit Healer builds can drastically vary.  But obviously pick up the good spells when you need to.  Also, I'm going to assume you have the Black Emporium DLC for Maker's Sigh access, because the road will be super crappy if you have to do it without respecs...

Through Lothering, I'd pick up Winter's Grasp and Fireball. The ogre used to suck a bunch, but he doesn't suck terribly anymore.

Through Act 1, I focuse on the Elemental tree and picked up my first specialization.  As you max out your primary offensive tree, drop points into your first spec, it doesn't really matter which it is. If you want to slide into Healer as soon as possible, obviously go ahead and take Spirit Healer. If you're managing without it just fine, then I'd select your other planned spec first.

In Act 2, finish your first specialization and start your second emphasis tree, whether it be your second specialization or another offensive tree.  As I usually do, I respec here at level 14 to dive into the build I want (eliminate some chaff you need to get through Act 1).

In Act 3, put the finishing touches on your Spirit Healer Hawke.  By now, you should be steamrolling.  No ifs, ands, or buts.

Companions
Generally, their unique trees are really good so get cracking on those ASAP.  The only exception is Aveline, and you want her to get through the Vanguard tree ASAP for the Cleave upgrade, and Varric for Brand. Otherwise, fill in the skills you need in between the levels where you unlock unique tree skills.

VII. Equipment

Generally, you can get through Act 1 entirely with trash robes, the Staff of Parlathan (DLC), and the Magister's Scythe (the Black Emporium, Act 1).  I wore the Smuggler's robes until I realized the trash robes I picked up near the end of Act 1 had double the Armor, so I figured it was time to switch.  You can pick up trash staves to make sure you have a staff for every elemental weakness.  Saving up your gold is important, especially in Act 1.  One thing to buy though is Enchanted Silverite Chain Belt, that thing can last until the endgame.

Act 2 you can get through pretty much with the Robes of the Notorious Pirate.  No real purchases needed here.  Buy a random stave or two if you're lacking a particular type of damage, but Allure's Crook [Repentance] will allow you to get by without not having every type of staff.  If you really really want Cold-Blooded, go ahead but there's honestly better uses for gold.  If you find yourself getting stunlocked repeatedly (shouldn't happen often with smart playing, really), then you may want to clear the gauntlet to buy the Etched Ring of the Twins off of the Nexus Golem vendor.  If you have the Item Pack DLC, then Etched Ring of the Twins is unnecessary as Black Silk Gauntlets fulfill the same function.  As you make your way through this act, if you got the Item Pack DLC, start throwing all that stuff on, most if it lasts until the endgame.

Act 3, once again you don't REALLY need to buy anything.  If you only have the core game, the Champion's set is probably the top dog because of the solid all-around bonuses, plus it looks sweet/is canon.  It's also likely better if you're just going with support/CC on your mage.

If you have the DLC, then you can stack Elemental damage very well.  Essential pieces include Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness (Black Emporium DLC, ~140g), Ring of the Ferryman (Magnus's Wares, ~105g).  The rest are things you should have had for awhile: Black Silk Gauntlets, Apostate's Mask aka Apostateface, Orlesian Silk Boots, Enchanted Silverite Chain Belt, Dura's Blue Flame, etc etc.

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ALERT!
With the arrival of the first DLC pack, the mage gets some good toys that basically make it unnecessary to really buy anything outside of the couple pieces of endgame gear (i.e. Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness, Ring of the Ferryman, other various rings and belts), so just slap those on when you're at a high enough level and roll with them as you level up.

-----

Endgame staves:
Torch of Falon'Din [Fire]
[random staves of various elements you're looking for]
Cold-Blooded [Cold: Blood Magic]
Malcolm's Honor [Spirit] (Item Pack DLC)

Generally I run with Torch of Falon'Din with the Primeval Lyrium Rune and another Fire Rune for extra awesome, though Rune of Devastation will be better here (I think I missed the recipe somewhere so I had to make do).  The rest of the staves are just drops, which works out because the majority of your DPS gains are from having the correct element.

Survivability/ease of use setup:
Torch of Falon'Din (Primeval Lyrium Rune + Fire Rune), assorted staves
Hood of the Champion
Gloves of the Champion (Rune of Valiance)
Robes of the Champion (Rune of Protection + Rune of Protection)
Boots of the Champion (Rune of Protection)
Urzara's Tooth [Dura's Blue Flame also works here, it's the better option if you go Elemental]
Enchanted Silverite Chain Belt
Rings will depend on what extra tree you took.  If you went with Elemental, Ring of the Ferryman is key, fill out the rest with +Fire% or +Cold% or +Lightning% damage rings, Ring of No Wishes or the Fallen Star.

Elemental/DPS setup:
Torch of Falon'Din (Primeval Lyrium Rune + Fire Rune), assorted staves
Apostate's Mask (Rune of Protection + Rune of Protection)
Black Silk Gauntlets (Rune of Valiance)
Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness (Rune of Protection + Rune of Protection)
Orlesian Silk Boots (Rune of Protection)
Dura's Blue Flame
Enchanted Silverite Chain Belt
Ring of the Ferryman
additional +Damage% ring, Ring of No Wishes, the Fallen Star, etc.

Notes:
To see which elemental damage types you want by Act, refer to IN1's epic elemental resistance chart/sheet/thread here. 

If you want to see what you can/can't do to torment your foes, refer to IN1's other epic immunities chart/sheet/thread here.

VIII. Extras, credits

If there's anything extra, it'll be here.

Walking Bomb tactics, via the DA BA, AreleX...

AreleX wrote...

copy/paste from my Nuke Mage thread

Updated, better version of Walking Bomb tactics:

Anders/PC Hawke

(Spirit Bolt/Spirit Strike, Walking Bomb/Corrosive Walking Bomb/Virulent Walking Bomb, Glyph of Paralysis/Binding)

Enemy: Paralyzed - Walking Bomb
Enemy: Clustered with at least three enemies - Glyph of Paralysis
Enemy: Paralyzed - Use current condition for next tactic
Enemy: Target of Anders - Spirit Bolt
Enemy: Target of Anders - Attack

Sebastian/Varric

(Fatiguing Fog/Impenetrable Fog/Overpowering Fog)

Enemy: Paralyzed - Fatiguing Fog
Enemy: Paralyzed - Use current condition for next tactic
Enemy: Target of Anders - Attack

use as you see fit

Credit due to rumination888 who pointed out that Fire damage in Nightmare will destroy a good 75% of the trash mobs you meet.
Credit due to IN1 for compiling the epic elemental resistances and the immunities into two handy-dandy threads.
Credit due to everyone here who contributes, and asks the questions.  Can't learn anything new if the questions aren't asked.

May you Mage harder, mage better, mage faster, and mage stronger.

-e.

Modificata da ezrafetch, 23 giugno 2011 - 04:23 .

[Ravenmyste]

ezrafetch wrote...

Reserved for the rest, coming in shortly.  Didn't want to occupy one giant post, which is unhealthy for trying to edit one huge post and searching in a tiny box for a tiny edit.

[Ravenmyste]

okay something is wrong with the forum i was going to type out why the spirit healer is bad thing{ i made one and it was really bad they really cant use any offensive spells that have upkeep due they will lock out the spirit healer since you need one to heal with spirit healer if you do say spirit healer and the spirit upkeep to use any powers of those 2 classes i had to keep turning of spirit healer's up keep spell when i was attacking and couldnt heal till i switched back so yes the spirit healer tree is bad when you cant have 2 things that you think that would work great with it only to find out you will have the smallest mana pool if you take any other upkeep compared to say hex spec

[Ace Attorney]

Ravenmyste wrote...

okay something is wrong with the forum i was going to type out why the spirit healer is bad thing{ i made one and it was really bad they really cant use any offensive spells that have upkeep due they will lock out the spirit healer since you need one to heal with spirit healer if you do say spirit healer and the spirit upkeep to use any powers of those 2 classes i had to keep turning of spirit healer's up keep spell when i was attacking and couldnt heal till i switched back so yes the spirit healer tree is bad when you cant have 2 things that you think that would work great with it only to find out you will have the smallest mana pool if you take any other upkeep compared to say hex spec

Anders's Panacea acts like Spirit Healer and he works just fine. You just need to learn to use it better.

[ezrafetch]

Ravenmyste wrote...

okay something is wrong with the forum i was going to type out why the spirit healer is bad thing{ i made one and it was really bad they really cant use any offensive spells that have upkeep due they will lock out the spirit healer since you need one to heal with spirit healer if you do say spirit healer and the spirit upkeep to use any powers of those 2 classes i had to keep turning of spirit healer's up keep spell when i was attacking and couldnt heal till i switched back so yes the spirit healer tree is bad when you cant have 2 things that you think that would work great with it only to find out you will have the smallest mana pool if you take any other upkeep compared to say hex spec

It's called...turn off Healing Aura when you want to use attacking spells?  You don't need to run Healing Aura all the time.  That's not the point.  You're a better healer than Anders.  If you're a mage Hawke, you're really the best mage in the party (only exception is being in Blood Magic all the time, which is better on Merrill since she has no Willpower requirements).  You can actually just max out the Creation tree and spend your time casting Haste and Glyphs and not have to turn off the Healing Aura, but few people actually find that fun.

I'm really not sure what you're squabbling about.

Modificata da ezrafetch, 31 marzo 2011 - 08:45 .

[Liliandra Nadiar]

Looking forward to seeing how you set this up. I had a blast with my SH/FM. While I take some exception to the claim that Elemental Weapons is the only useful skill in Arcane, I took everything but Barrier, I will admit that playing on Normal might shade my impressions for higher difficulties.
Never had a remote problem with Mana after I got Will 25 and Primal Mastery, only time the blue went away was a Templar attack Meredeth made at the end of the game. Very liberal in applying Stonefist, Chain Lightning and Tempests all around. As a bonus, aside from Fist, all FM skills could be used with Healing aura on.
And this was before I really looked into Creation spells beyond Heal/Heroic Aura.

[Gaidren]

Healing Aura/Pancrea are horrible, I never keep them on for longer than it takes to cast a Group Heal/Revive type of spell unless my mana is so low that I won't be able to cast anything else afterwards anyways (in which case a bit of free healing is better than doing nothing).

Spirit Healer Hawke feels very powerful to me atm. Hard fights usually come down to staying alive, and having a 50% (when upgraded) party-wide heal is incredible. Immunity to injuries is both useful and convenient too.

[Atmosfear3]

Second Chance is really pointless when you consider injury kits are extremely common, especially if you fall below X number on whatever difficulty you're playing on, and Elfroot Potions not only heal for 80% but also removes injuries as well.

Still, Spirit Healer is a rather underwhelming and completely unnecessary tree for any heavy investment of talent points. The only worthwhile talents from it are Revive, Group Heal, and Vitality. Sadly, Vitality requires a minimum of 5 points which means you'd have a bunch of rather useless upgrades.

I suppose if someone enjoys playing a heavy support mage then SH would be the way to go. Personally, I went Elemental/Force/Primal/Spirit Healer (in that order and only Healing Aura + Group Heal) for greater damage and control. After all if all the enemies on screen are crowd controlled and/or dead, healing won't exactly be a problem.

[Ace Attorney]

Selling Injury kits for profit is a nice perk, hehe.

[Eudaemonium]

This is actually similar to the build I ended up using in Nightmare (first run through the game too), apart from it was worse because I invested too much in Arcane and didn't realise how amazing Gravitic Ring was so I didn't get it (but well, ya live and learn). I had an Aveline, Fenris, Varric team and alternated between exploiting staggers and locking down with Primal skills, and healing (switching in-and-out of healing aura), while using Varric and the warriors to managed threat. In retrospect, I could have built for better CC, but I was running blind so I'll cut myself some slack. I hardly ever play healer-type mages, but found it fun and easy in DA2 and the playthrough was highly enjoyable.

[Apathy1989]

My first mage ended up being a spirit healer. Maxed out on spirit healer tree, force mage tree and creation tree. Some arcane too, and you got an excellent (and practically immortal) healer.

You can use some of the force mage skills while in spirit healer mode, which I maintained all the time.

However I can get why not many people enjoy playing support, you don't really do any damage.

[ezrafetch]

Liliandra Nadiar wrote...

Looking forward to seeing how you set this up. I had a blast with my SH/FM. While I take some
exception to the claim that Elemental Weapons is the only useful skill in Arcane, I took everything but Barrier, I will admit that playing on Normal might shade my impressions for higher difficulties.  Never had a remote problem with Mana after I got Will 25 and Primal Mastery, only time the blue went away was a Templar attack Meredeth made at the end of the game. Very liberal in applying Stonefist, Chain Lightning and Tempests all around. As a bonus, aside from Fist, all FM skills could be used with Healing aura on.
And this was before I really looked into Creation spells beyond Heal/Heroic Aura.

Depends on my mood really, but I like either this SH/FM setup or this Elemental SH/BM setup.  Obviously the SH/FM is more defensively oriented, while the SH/BM setup is much more offense-oriented.

Atmosfear3 wrote...

Second Chance is really pointless when you consider injury kits are extremely common, especially if you fall below X number on whatever difficulty you're playing on, and Elfroot Potions not only heal for 80% but also removes injuries as well.

Still, Spirit Healer is a rather underwhelming and completely unnecessary tree for any heavy investment of talent points. The only worthwhile talents from it are Revive, Group Heal, and Vitality. Sadly, Vitality requires a minimum of 5 points which means you'd have a bunch of rather useless upgrades.

I suppose if someone enjoys playing a heavy support mage then SH would be the way to go. Personally, I went Elemental/Force/Primal/Spirit Healer (in that order and only Healing Aura + Group Heal) for greater damage and control. After all if all the enemies on screen are crowd controlled and/or dead, healing won't exactly be a problem.

Six points into Spirit Healer is not the worst, to me at least: Second Chance is more of a convenience than anything else (you can upgrade Revival instead, which isn't a terrible waste either), and Unity is actually a worthwhile upgrade in my opinion.  So you're only completely and utterly wasting one point into Spirit Healer for the Aura itself.  it's much like Force Mage anyways since Telekinetic Burst is a waste of a point.  Blood Mage is the only one where you don't have to waste points to get the goods (the goods come before the waste - Blood Slave).  Also, I'm of the opinion that a whopping +10 Constitution is totally worth it.

That being said, I know a lot of people hate playing "defensively" and so hate taking Spirit Healer.  But it's much more flexible than FM/BM approaches.  You can do a little bit of everything.  Kind of like the ME2 Sentinel.  Can't die, do a lot of things pretty good.

Modificata da ezrafetch, 31 marzo 2011 - 09:58 .

[Apollo Starflare]

Just posting to say I've bookmarked this to read later. I'm considering playing a spirit healer Hawke for my next playthrough so this could be a brilliant resource for me, thanks for taking the time to write it up.

[Liliandra Nadiar]

ezrafetch wrote...
Six points into Spirit Healer is not the worst, to me at least: Second Chance is more of a convenience than anything else (you can upgrade Revival instead, which isn't a terrible waste either), and Unity is actually a worthwhile upgrade in my opinion.  So you're only completely and utterly wasting one point into Spirit Healer for the Aura itself.  it's much like Force Mage anyways since Telekinetic Burst is a waste of a point.  Blood Mage is the only one where you don't have to waste points to get the goods (the goods come before the waste - Blood Slave).  Also, I'm of the opinion that a whopping +10 Constitution is totally worth it.

That being said, I know a lot of people hate playing "defensively" and so hate taking Spirit Healer.  But it's much more flexible than FM/BM approaches.  You can do a little bit of everything.  Kind of like the ME2 Sentinel.  Can't die, do a lot of things pretty good.

Closest my mage came to being called Defesnively played is in staying out of melee and throwing AoE spells (damaging and non) the moment combat started. My main uses with SH was Vitality for the Con boost, the +25 Mana from specilization selection and the Second Chance perk.

Healing Aura, yes, is a waste, the radius is too small to be useful for the ones that would really need it (melee combatants) without placing the mage in too much danger. The group heal and Revive were on an as needed basis and really, the 'as need' wasn't often.

[rumination888]

Kill all of your party members and enemies with Firestorms and Cone of Cold, then revive them and do it all over again. :innocent:

...no, seriously. I do that all the time.

[dfscott]

rumination888 wrote...

Kill all of your party members and enemies with Firestorms and Cone of Cold, then revive them and do it all over again. :innocent:

...no, seriously. I do that all the time.

I love it!  

[Ravenmyste]

ezrafetch wrote...

Ravenmyste wrote...

okay something is wrong with the forum i was going to type out why the spirit healer is bad thing{ i made one and it was really bad they really cant use any offensive spells that have upkeep due they will lock out the spirit healer since you need one to heal with spirit healer if you do say spirit healer and the spirit upkeep to use any powers of those 2 classes i had to keep turning of spirit healer's up keep spell when i was attacking and couldnt heal till i switched back so yes the spirit healer tree is bad when you cant have 2 things that you think that would work great with it only to find out you will have the smallest mana pool if you take any other upkeep compared to say hex spec

It's called...turn off Healing Aura when you want to use attacking spells?  You don't need to run Healing Aura all the time.  That's not the point.  You're a better healer than Anders.  If you're a mage Hawke, you're really the best mage in the party (only exception is being in Blood Magic all the time, which is better on Merrill since she has no Willpower requirements).  You can actually just max out the Creation tree and spend your time casting Haste and Glyphs and not have to turn off the Healing Aura, but few people actually find that fun.

I'm really not sure what you're squabbling about.

that fact you saying spirit healer is good and i did say turn off go back and reread my post again the thing is some  class trees go together with other tree skills and have offensive spells that dont cripple one play style of a tree like you  tried to say is complete utter bs and to shot off the aura that would cripple you healing and res abilty is bad thing since you need it up to use almost all spells in the healing tree.

 so turniong off and on repeatedly can be come bothersome to manny of us  up keep spells are the fire and forget spells you use at some point when you assume that role and not be crippled into one role  as the saying going.."What do you expect me to heal them to death"  if your team dies  in hard fight you wont last long nightmare level asa spirit healer.

[ezrafetch]

Ravenmyste wrote...

that fact you saying spirit healer is good and i did say turn off go back and reread my post again the thing is some  class trees go together with other tree skills and have offensive spells that dont cripple one play style of a tree like you  tried to say is complete utter bs and to shot off the aura that would cripple you healing and res abilty is bad thing since you need it up to use almost all spells in the healing tree.

 so turniong off and on repeatedly can be come bothersome to manny of us  up keep spells are the fire and forget spells you use at some point when you assume that role and not be crippled into one role  as the saying going.."What do you expect me to heal them to death"  if your team dies  in hard fight you wont last long nightmare level asa spirit healer.

I'm going to be brutally honest here: your lack of general punctuation and proper grammar makes it incredibly difficult to make out what you are even trying to argue.  That being said, if having to simply turn on and off a sustain (i.e. merely toggling one hotkey) gets you all riled up, then you're not even playing the right class: go play a Berserker...no fuss, no muss.  Secondly, after respeccing right at level 14 into Spirit Healer (sacrificed all of FM except for Unshakable to just fill out the SH tree), I have yet to encounter a battle requiring more than one reload, thanks to Group Heal, Heal, and Revival (and to boot I've only had to reload once PERIOD as I didn't expect triple Assassins in one of the Mages's Board quests).  Even with a totally suboptimal Aveline/Varric/Sebastien party for Sebastien's quest, Repentance.  I'm sure if I had just continued on my merry way with heavy FM or BM, I would have had to reload a lot, lot more.  Probably would have gotten beyond frustrated.  And I'm playing on Nightmare.  And I'm playing on 360 which means I run into infinitely more problems trying to tactic on the fly than PC users (i.e. smooth out gameplay) because of UI complexity on the 360s.  If I'm not complaining about having to deal with the Healing Aura toggling on a 360, I fail to see how others can really be that raging towards it.

I also don't see "synergy" issues.  In fact, Spirit Healer synergizes really well with the Blood Mage specialization (i.e. Spirit Healer can fuel Blood Mage), while the majority of the Force Mage skills aren't interfered with by Healing Aura.  And as I have said countless times, Healing Aura is not something that's normally supposed to be meant to constantly on (I did keep it on for the regen bonus when I had to kite a Rage Demon once, however ).  You flick it on when you need to Group Heal or Revive, then you can just shut it off and cast all your spells as you normally would.  There's really no intereference.  The Aura is, 99.9% of the time, just a required mode to be in to use your healing spells.  Small price to pay, really.

I'm really not sure how you can honestly believe that Spirit Healers have low survivability.  The point of Spirit Healer is to have survivability. +Constitution, additional healing and reviving spells...if that doesn't add up to survivability, then I shouldn't be getting a PhD, real talk.

Modificata da ezrafetch, 01 aprile 2011 - 07:09 .

[Prismo]

ezrafetch wrote...

This is an offensively minded CC tree. Fist of the Maker is a reasonable spell, and if you take Force Mage there’s absolutely no reason to take Unshakeable.

I am assuming you meant there is no reason not to take Unshakeable.

Nice Guide, a very interesting read.

[ezrafetch]

Chazzwazza wrote...

I am assuming you meant there is no reason not to take Unshakeable.

Nice Guide, a very interesting read.

Ooft, major lack of thinking there, but that is what I meant.  In fact, FM's best part is Unshakable.  It's been fixed now, though.

Updated with an Attribute Allocation section, I forgot to include that.

Modificata da ezrafetch, 01 aprile 2011 - 06:31 .

[Saelihnne]

It's nice to see something like this for those of us who like to heal our parties. Very thoughtful and well written. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

[mjharper]

Played a Spirit Healer / Blood Mage on my second run through (on Hard). I had both Blood Magic and Healing Aura active at all times, so only used non-offensive spells from Nature and things like Arcane Shield, Mind Blast and Dispel Magic.

I only invested in Strength and Constitution to begin with, then started pumping Magic when I could wear any warrior armour I wanted.

My companions were Varric, Merrill and Fenris; my role was pretty much controlling the battlefield, and I had a blast. In fact, this character was the only one with which I've so far managed to defeat the Arishok in 1 to 1 (had a DW Dualist rogue, and a Berserker Vanguard warrior as well).

And if playing as a Blood Mage / Spirit healer wasn't contradictory enough, this Hawke also sided with the Templars, which REALLY annoyed Anders ;-)

[Ace Attorney]

After watching the Videos on the OP about the SH with Elemental focus and Blood Magic dip I wanna do it with just one point in Blood Magic.

How many Blood Magic items, if any, would you recommend? How many points in Con?

[ezrafetch]

I think you could get away with a 4:1 health:ratio, which means 2 items. I'd say Constitution is taste; obviously if you cast from health, you'll want a bit more, so perhaps 350-400 health would be a good range to be in.