26 réponses à ce sujet

[cJohnOne]

So can I get 1 point in magic two points in Constutution?  Or  1 point magic, 1 point willpower and 1 point constitution?

[Running_Blind]

Depends on what you're doing, spells still gain power through magic and the quality of your staff, but booth require investing in your magic stat.

If you went purely CC and healing you wouldn't need a very high magic stat.

[godlike13]

It all depends. More magic = more spell power. Though as its get up there its spell power benefits become less marginal, but does still equate to higher spell and staff damage.

Its all about finding a comfortable level for ur play style. If ur not doing enough damage, go magic. If ur dieing too quickly, or ur Mage is Blood Mage focused, go Con. If u find ur mana bar getting depleted too often, go Will.

Modifié par godlike13, 02 avril 2011 - 09:53 .

[Foefaller]

Running_Blind wrote...

Depends on what you're doing, spells still gain power through magic and the quality of your staff, but booth require investing in your magic stat.

If you went purely CC and healing you wouldn't need a very high magic stat.

Not 100% true, while the CC stuff most people think about, spells that list a %chance to stun/sleep/freeze/etc (like Horror) or the reduced movement and attack speed (such as CoC) are pretty much unaffected by magic, any spell that has/depends on force to stun or interrupt a target (which is half the Force Mage tree + Mind Blast and Glyph or Repultion, along with pretty much every damaging spell) does take magic in account for it's effectivness.

This is because the amount of Force a spell (or any ability, for that matter) has is based on how much damage the spell does (or your base damage, for spells that do not do damage like Mind Blast and Pull of the Abyss) As an example, if a basic Fireball spell does 65 damage with a 2x elemental force, then the amount of pushing power (or in the case of Fireball, light-on fire power) is 130. With the upgrade, it becomes 260.

But then again, if you don't carry about any of that, the I belive the highest Magic stat you need to equip everything mage-related in the game is only 31, so take or ignore this as you will.

Modifié par Foefaller, 02 avril 2011 - 10:09 .

[Atmosfear3]

Running_Blind wrote...

Depends on what you're doing, spells still gain power through magic and the quality of your staff, but booth require investing in your magic stat.

If you went purely CC and healing you wouldn't need a very high magic stat.

Gross, who wants to play a Hawke with no damage spells. How can you be a hero when you're not even the one doing the damage? 

[Gegliosch]

Because Spirit Healer/Force Mage/Creation is a solid support combination. You are basically immortal with all the life reg and slap enemies around the battle field, which is very satisfying. Plus you have the combination of Haste and Gravitic Ring, I call it the time warp

It's hilarious watching your party going berserk on a bunch of enemies, frozen in time.

[Running_Blind]

Foefaller wrote...

Running_Blind wrote...

Depends on what you're doing, spells still gain power through magic and the quality of your staff, but booth require investing in your magic stat.

If you went purely CC and healing you wouldn't need a very high magic stat.

Not 100% true, while the CC stuff most people think about, spells that list a %chance to stun/sleep/freeze/etc (like Horror) or the reduced movement and attack speed (such as CoC) are pretty much unaffected by magic, any spell that has/depends on force to stun or interrupt a target (which is half the Force Mage tree + Mind Blast and Glyph or Repultion, along with pretty much every damaging spell) does take magic in account for it's effectivness.

That's in the manual, it's a given.

[cJohnOne]

hmmm... it seems like there should be people out there who have already done these builds, the 1, 2 constitution build and the 1,1,1 build. If you could share your experiences that would help me out a bit!

[Lumikki]

mm.. I have put points magic and will. Until "will" is 32 then I put everyting in magic. I never put any point to constitution, why would I? It's just health, that something what my mage has absolute no need. I ques you could need it, if you would be blood mage, but my characters never are because lore.

Modifié par Lumikki, 05 avril 2011 - 08:54 .

[Ruben Thomas]

Well constitution is only useful as a mage when you're getting hit, and you shouldn't be getting hit much at all as a mage. I played through normal as a mage never putting a point in constitution and with poor gearing, and I barely ever died. Might be useful on hard or nightmare though, and it's a very important attribute if you plan on going blood mage.

You need willpower to use the better mage gear, it's also a needed stat if you're not going blood mage, I went 2:1 magic and willpower in my normal playthrough and did great.

If you want to be a purely offensive mage, you can go 1:1:1 magic, dexterity and cunning. And wear rogue gear instead of mage gear, I tried it out for kicks for a while and it works great. Rogue gear looks tons better in my opinion too.

For blood mage apparently you should go magic and willpower until you have enough willpower to use the best mage gear with a rune of valiance, the you juice the **** out of constitution afterwards.

[Morocius]

For blood mage apparently you should go magic and willpower until you have enough willpower to use the best mage gear with a rune of valiance, the you juice the **** out of constitution afterwards.

I wonder since you can get quite a few blood mage items which give an additional mana point for a health point, not sure which would be better max magic and go for those items or  keep pumping con, offensive wise atleast.

I prefer some Con on my mages so they can atleast survive a few hits so i can finish of a rogue or some such while they take a couple of arrows.

[cJohnOne]

Yeah, I fear asking for the comparative damage numbers for the build. Ha, ha.


I still don't understand why you need dexterity or cunning on a mage here.

[Liliandra Nadiar]

Mages can score criticals now. Dex and Cun effect critical chance and damage. Cunning also boosts Defense score.

[ezrafetch]

Liliandra Nadiar wrote...

Mages can score criticals now. Dex and Cun effect critical chance and damage. Cunning also boosts Defense score.

Yes, but unless you're stacking crit chance/damage gear, a pure Dex/Cun caster won't nearly be as good as the old school Magic builds.  That being said, if you're looking for extra burst damage, once you get your Magic to a comfortable level pumping Dex/Cun isn't a half-bad idea.

[cJohnOne]

How much Willpower do you need? I was thinking 24 willpower but Merrill gets along fine with 17 Willpower.

[ezrafetch]

cJohnOne wrote...

How much Willpower do you need? I was thinking 24 willpower but Merrill gets along fine with 17 Willpower.

Willpower just to the point of gear requirements.  I don't really care for optimization, so I have 29 hard WIllpower points for the Champion set (I guess I picked up 2 Willpower via items, I don't remember where though): between spec bonuses and/or Blood Magic there shouldn't be any mana issues that (at max) one Lyrium potion will solve per fight.  And if you go with the Champion's set, you get a whopping +100 mana, so there's that.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 07 avril 2011 - 09:51 .

[cJohnOne]

Wow that Champion set really screws up my builds. They proably need high magic and willpower.

[cJohnOne]

I looked it up on the wiki, It's 31 magic, 31 willpower. The magic score is low enough but the willpower is pretty high.

[Lumikki]

You can think it as much you like but in end situation is this.

31 will and into magic all the rest points. No other build is better than this.

[cJohnOne]

Anyhow, let's say that a 2, 1 magic, willpower will get you 10 damage points more, Is that significant?

[aethernox]

Well, that 10 points gets multiplied by 4 for the purpose of some abilities, and then that gets multiplied by elemental damage modifiers (say, ring of the ferryman, robes of unblemished cleanliness, mastery abilities), and then that damage gets multiplied by cross-class combos. There are a lot of multipliers involved that turn even small amounts of base damage into relevant damage.

That's not very clear though. Here you go: Chain Lightning has a damage modifier of x3.15. Against staggered enemies, it does 600% damage. Let's consider nothing but our Magic score, upgraded Chain Lightning + Galvanism, and a staggered enemy. Your base damage increased by 1 for every 2 points of magic you have. Then, factor in the Chain Lightning damage multiplier, along with the CCC and Galvanism. 3.15 * 1.25 * 6 * .5 = 11.8125. That number, roughly 12 points of damage, is what each point of Magic adds to Chain Lightning. With other multipliers, obviously, it gets much better. It also affects your accuracy with auto-attacks. I think that it's worth it, at least.

Modifié par aethernox, 08 avril 2011 - 09:42 .

[cJohnOne]

I'll admit it. I don't understand cross class combos. Maybe I will learn a couple of them one of these days.


How much Constitution do you need? What do you need to survive a backstabbing Assassin?

[aethernox]

Cross-class combos are extremely important tools. Chain Lightning isn't even the best example. Paralyzing Hemorrhage, one of the Blood Mage upgrades, does an additional 30.375 damage against staggered targets per point of magic. Both of those spells - Hemorrhage and Chain Lightning- key off of the easiest CCC to exploit, Stagger, so it's reasonable to expect that you'll complete those CCCs each time you cast them.

20-30 constitution is generally sufficient for all mages, aside from Blood Mages. You should get most of these points from your act III runes of valiance, which grant +7 constitution immediately. With proper aggro management, it is possible to safely invest zero points into constitution, but that requires a proper combination of abilities, tactics, and party composition.

[cJohnOne]

I'm still confused on the number of hit points you need. Is 200 a good number?

[jndiii]

The number of hit points you need depends on your difficulty setting and play style. If you're good at avoiding damage, or playing on Casual mode, you can just not put any points in constitution.

The pattern I've been settling on for mages when playing on Hard (I find Nightmare too annoying) is to pump magic up first to meet new staff requirements (32 magic), then willpower to meet the mage armor requirements (32 willpower), then split between magic and constitution thereafter (2 magic, 1 constitution). This late in the game, the extra few points in magic aren't noticeable, due to the high variance of damage and its high dependencies upon elemental resistances and vulnerabilities, but the extra points in constitution are more obviously helpful.

So, to answer the question of the thread, yes, you still need magic, and it is useful, but it isn't like DA:O where you could just put everything into magic and ignore other stats. DA2 is more balanced w/r to attributes, such that only Strength is of no use to a mage. Magic is still the most useful stat, but willpower is needed (mostly for gear), and constitution helps survivability, and both dexterity and cunning can contribute to fun by adding to critical chances, critical hit damage, and the defense percentage. I don't believe dexterity and cunning are as useful as constitution, and of the two, cunning is a bit more useful since it adds to defense, stacking with Arcane Shield.