44 réponses à ce sujet

[IN1]

I'm currently attempting a semi-solo mage run (NM, of course). Semi-solo, because Act I was too much for my nerves (I'm done with hours of kiting after my solo archer playthrough) and even in Act II, I sometimes bring Sebastian along for DISORIENT and Wounding Arrow.

In case someone is curious, my build looks like this circa level 19. 

How does it work? Here's a video of the first part of final Dissent fight (I always do it immediately before Demands of the Qun, as it's the most challenging Act II fight, in my opinion).

Honestly, I have no idea if it's considered a viable mage playstyle, but solo, when I am spell-immune (sky-high Mag + Vain with Torpor's Rune), I find it very effective. I use Voracity and a full set of +X% fire gear available in Act II (Belt of the Primevals, two +4% rings, Dura, +6% mage headgear). For a justification, see below.

Now, some interesting stuff about Crushing Prison spell. It has the highest damage factor of all talents in DA2 (upgraded Crushing Prison is *14.4, while, for example, fully upgraded Assassinate is *10.98). Its insane damage potential is much less evident due to the fact it's a DoT spell. Plus, it's always physical. Now, here's the thing: Crushing Prison still benefits from elemental staves and gear, albeit in a different (very counter-intuitive) manner than the elemental spells do. It's important to note this mechanic is CP-exclusive, other physical spells operate differently.

With elemental spells, everything is clear: if you have, for instance, a +15% spirit damage property on your staff, your Spirit Bolt will deal +15% damage (that's an over-simplification, of course). For CP damage calculations, the game takes into account: your base staff damage; any +X% dmg bonuses on the staff (yes, even if your staff deals physical, and its bonus is spirit); +X% bonuses from gear and passive talents, but only provided they correspond to your staff's element.

Since a soft cap for +X% fire damage bonus is significantly higher than for any other element, the Torch with Rune of Devastation and full fire gear setup is the best option for you in Act III, if you wish to rely on CP damage. For Act II, it is Voracity with fire gear setup.

P. S.: I wish to thank rumination888 for some extremely important addenda and corrigenda on the topic. The original post had some unwarranted generalizations and incorrect conclusions based on unrelated factors affecting testing results. Much appreciated, I could not have done it all right alone.

Modifié par IN1, 11 avril 2011 - 05:42 .

[Jack-Nader]

Interesting. Crushing prison isn't a spell I have dabbled with much. I tried it a while back on boss rogues but they always seemed to glitch out of it. I will have to check it out again.

[IN1]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Crushing Prison has multiple duration penalties (IIRC, x50% for NM difficulty, possibly x50% vs bosses, for a total of 25% duration penalty) that makes it do a tiny fraction (25%?) of its damage vs. bosses on NM.

I tested this on NM vs. Prologue Ogre. Crushing Prison does 1/10 of its total damage per second (a 'tick', as you see the damage number fly once every second), for a (supposed) total of 10 seconds. On the Prologue Ogre (who is likely an lt., not a boss) it had only 3 ticks/lasted about 3 seconds.

Conclusion: Crushing Prison on NM is just Horror's clumsier and bulkier twin brother.

It's a totally different talent with a much higher damage output. No one said you should use it against bosses (Assassins and other low-DR lieutenants are great targets, though). It's your safest way to trigger Walking Bomb without being raped while playing solo. You don't cast Walking Bomb on bosses, right?

[SuicidalBaby]

Occasionally Paralyzing Prison will do all of its damage on a staggered target in a single tick. I have used it on bosses and even had paralyse trigger on a few casts, but it did not last long.

[IN1]

I cannot answer your questions regarding non-solo. As stated, my build was tested only solo/semi-duo.

The greatest advantage of Crushing Prison when soloing is it is a high-damage DoT that can secure kills/trigger Walking Bomb without the annoying need to 'babysit' the target. You are free to do other things in the meantime instead of auto-attacking the target non-stop like an idiot.

Usually I use CP>WB on lieutenant rank enemies. Otherwise, all that damage is wasted, not to mention Walking Bomb off lieutenant hits really hard (refer to the video, that's exactly what I do there).

Modifié par IN1, 10 avril 2011 - 10:15 .

[ezrafetch]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Furthermore, with Walking Bomb/Crushing Prison on a normal enemy, and you presumably focusing your staff auto-attack on it, more often than not the enemy will die before the Crushing Prison duration (even if under penalty, 5 seconds) is finished (especially if you throw in a few more damaging spells in the midst). This is a waste of Crushing Prison's DoT damage potential.

Well, if you Walking Bomb + Crushing Prison combo and the enemy dies before Prison's full damage goes up, the Walking Bomb still goes off and you still have a dead group of enemies, no? Inefficient maximization of Prison's full damage perhaps, but a dead group of enemies is still a dead group of enemies.

@IN1: Good to know about the staves. I figured Torch of Falon'Din with the best gear would be the best staff, but it also means that the Final Thought becomes a lot better than anticipated because you can stack +Fire% and get the bonus therein. You could theoretically just run Torch+Final Thought as your two main staves and not have to worry too much about toting around 4-5 staves at once: I haven't experimented with that (avoided Final Thought, I think 152S or whatever it costs is simply outrageous) but I would still naturally guess that elemental weakness bonuses >>>>>>> +Damage% gear.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 10 avril 2011 - 10:15 .

[Darchon_]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think you missed it so:

Since you have done several "unconventional" builds, with the weapons that don't specify class, could you give me suggestions for abusing the void hammer on a mage?


On Topic:
Since you're going into the sprit tree, do you see think going full out to abuse disorient CCCs is worth it (getting Varric to go heavy into the sabotage tree)
I managed to get a pretty nice upgraded walking bomb on a group of disoriented enemies. but it's far more rare than getting a chair reaction on a bunch of staggers

Modifié par Darchon_, 10 avril 2011 - 10:24 .

[IN1]

ezrafetch wrote...

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Furthermore, with Walking Bomb/Crushing Prison on a normal enemy, and you presumably focusing your staff auto-attack on it, more often than not the enemy will die before the Crushing Prison duration (even if under penalty, 5 seconds) is finished (especially if you throw in a few more damaging spells in the midst). This is a waste of Crushing Prison's DoT damage potential.

Well, if you Walking Bomb + Crushing Prison combo and the enemy dies before Prison's full damage goes up, the Walking Bomb still goes off and you still have a dead group of enemies, no? Inefficient maximization of Prison's full damage perhaps, but a dead group of enemies is still a dead group of enemies.

@IN1: Good to know about the staves. I figured Torch of Falon'Din with the best gear would be the best staff, but it also means that the Final Thought becomes a lot better than anticipated because you can stack +Fire% and get the bonus therein. You could theoretically just run Torch+Final Thought as your two main staves and not have to worry too much about toting around 4-5 staves at once: I haven't experimented with that (avoided Final Thought, I think 152S or whatever it costs is simply outrageous) but I would still naturally guess that elemental weakness bonuses >>>>>>> +Damage% gear.

Maybe my notes weren't clear enough... Sorry for that. In the context of physical spells, the Torch will be affected by its own property (+16% fire) and by any +fire gear, since it's a fire staff. Final Thought, on the other hand, will be affected ONLY by its own properties (+33% nature & spirit) and by any +physical damage gear you will be able to equip, as it's a physical staff. In other words, Torch outperforms Thought by a huge margin. 

Once again, I'm talking about physical damage spells only.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

For physical
spells, the game takes into account: your base staff damage; any +X% dmg bonuses on the staff (yes, even if your staff deals physical, and its bonus is spirit); +X% bonuses from gear and passive talents, but only provided they correspond to your staff's element; 'ignores target's armor' property.

Since
a soft cap for +X% fire damage bonus is significantly higher than for
any other element, the Torch with Rune of Devastation and full fire gear
setup is the best option for you in Act III, if you rely on physical
damage spells. For Act II, it is Voracity with fire gear setup. For Act I
it is, surprisingly, Magister's Scythe. True, it's physical and its
base damage is crappy, but it outperforms most Act II and even some Act
III staves due to its 'ignores target's armor' property being
transferred to physical damage spells.

Interesting. So that would be the best set up to maximize Fist of the Maker as well, and Fist ignores armor.

[IN1]

Darchon_ wrote...

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think you missed it so:

Since you have done several "unconventional" builds, with the weapons that don't specify class, could you give me suggestions for abusing the void hammer on a mage?

Haven't seen your post, sorry.

About Void's Hammer on a mage. As far as I'm concerned, it's sort of hard to abuse it. When equipped by a mage, it's a low damage physical staff with melee range. Does it sound appealing?

[IN1]

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote...

For physical
spells, the game takes into account: your base staff damage; any +X% dmg bonuses on the staff (yes, even if your staff deals physical, and its bonus is spirit); +X% bonuses from gear and passive talents, but only provided they correspond to your staff's element; 'ignores target's armor' property.

Since
a soft cap for +X% fire damage bonus is significantly higher than for
any other element, the Torch with Rune of Devastation and full fire gear
setup is the best option for you in Act III, if you rely on physical
damage spells. For Act II, it is Voracity with fire gear setup. For Act I
it is, surprisingly, Magister's Scythe. True, it's physical and its
base damage is crappy, but it outperforms most Act II and even some Act
III staves due to its 'ignores target's armor' property being
transferred to physical damage spells.

Interesting. So that would be the best set up to maximize Fist of the Maker as well, and Fist ignores armor.

Yes. All physical spells work like that. Why do they work like that is a different issue. But it's Bioware, so... don't ask, I guess

[ezrafetch]

IN1 wrote...

Maybe my notes weren't clear enough... Sorry for that. In the context of
physical spells, the Torch will be affected by its own property (+16%
fire) and by any +fire gear, since it's a fire staff. Final Thought, on
the other hand, will be affected ONLY by its own properties (+33% nature
& spirit) and by any +physical damage gear you will be able to
equip, as it's a physical staff. In other words, Torch outperforms
Thought by a huge margin.

Once again, I'm talking about physical damage spells only.

I looked through it again, it was mostly reading comprehension fail on my part, whoops.  [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/whistling.png[/smilie]

Good stuff to know, still.  Well, only if I don't encounter more reading comprehension fails...

Modifié par ezrafetch, 10 avril 2011 - 10:33 .

[Darchon_]

IN1 wrote...

Darchon_ wrote...

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think you missed it so:

Since you have done several "unconventional" builds, with the weapons that don't specify class, could you give me suggestions for abusing the void hammer on a mage?

Haven't seen your post, sorry.

About Void's Hammer on a mage. As far as I'm concerned, it's sort of hard to abuse it. When equipped by a mage, it's a low damage physical staff with melee range. Does it sound appealing?

fair enough, although I thought it was able to remove cooldowns on some abilities. I vaguely invision a blood mage with high strength and constitution, getting up in enemy faces while using their health to rapid cast the broken spells. Maybe it won't work, but I can't think of anyone else better to test
(also I'm playing on the PS3 and I don't have a mage who bought it in act 2. Meaning it would take a lot of time to try and set this up, and be a pain in the ass if it fails horribly)

[rumination888]

IN1 wrote...
For Act I it is, surprisingly, Magister's Scythe. True, it's physical and its base damage is crappy, but it outperforms most Act II and even some Act III staves due to its 'ignores target's armor' property being transferred to physical damage spells. 

Show me a min-max vid of Magister's Scythe in Act 1, and I'll show you a min-max(none of my mage videos were min-maxed in the slightest) vid of either Staff of the Primal Order, or Staff of Parthalan in Act 1.

The Mage must either exploit elemental weakness, or rely on the 100% health damage of Walking Bomb to be an effective damage dealer. Magister's Scythe helps neither.

Modifié par rumination888, 10 avril 2011 - 10:54 .

[IN1]

rumination888 wrote...

IN1 wrote...
For Act I it is, surprisingly, Magister's Scythe. True, it's physical and its base damage is crappy, but it outperforms most Act II and even some Act III staves due to its 'ignores target's armor' property being transferred to physical damage spells. 

Show me a min-max vid of Magister's Scythe in Act 1, and I'll show you a min-max(none of my mage videos were min-maxed in the slightest) vid of either Staff of the Primal Order, or Staff of Parthalan in Act 1.

The Mage must either exploit elemental weakness, or rely on the 100% health damage of Walking Bomb to be an effective damage dealer. Magister's Scythe helps neither.

I think I was misinterpreted. Guys, I don't claim Magister's is the best Act I staff, God forbid! 

However, I can assure you it's absolutely the best Act I staff for physical damage spells that do not have a built-in 'target's armor: 0%' property. A rather limited application, I admit But then, my post was about how staff properties affect physical spells, not about which staves are the best.

Modifié par IN1, 10 avril 2011 - 11:04 .

[rumination888]

IN1 wrote...

I think I was misinterpreted. Guys, I don't claim Magister's is the best Act I staff, God forbid! 

However, I can assure you it's absolutely the best Act I staff for physical damage spells that do not have a built-in 'target's armor: 0%' property. A rather limited application, I admit But then, my post was about how staff properties affect physical spells, not about which staves are the best.

Okay, I can agree with that conclusion.

Edit:

No, wait. I retract this statement.

I'm testing Magister's Scythe + Stonefist + 48 Magic vs. Staff of Primal Order + Stonefist + 48 Magic against a Carta Loyalist. The damage seems to be in favor of Staff of the Primal Order.

Does Stonefist have a built in "ignore enemy armor" that isn't shown in the description?

Edit 2:

Did it with Voracity. Voracity completely eclipsed Magister's Scythe when it comes to Stonefist.
Same test with Crushing Prison, same results.
It seems Stonefist and Crushing Prison both have a hidden "ignore enemy armor" modifier.

Edit 3:

Crushing Prison's damage seems to be independant of its other effects. Ignore the spell fx as it has no bearing on its actual damage component. It ticks once every two seconds for 10 seconds on Nightmare against an elite. In other words, its damage component works 100% regardless of target.

Can anyone else confirm?

Modifié par rumination888, 10 avril 2011 - 11:56 .

[rumination888]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

rumination888 wrote...
none of my mage videos were min-maxed in the slightest

Well, your Anders & co vs. Deep Road Dragon video has all your Mages go pure Magic (with very impressive results). Do you think Mages should go pure Magic until, say, level 14, as a general principle? Warrior go pure Strength for a long time, but I'm not so sure about Mages.

Way to bring up another red herring argument. We're obviously talking about mage Hawke in this thread.

[rumination888]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

rumination888 wrote...

Way to bring up another red herring argument. We're obviously talking about mage Hawke in this thread.

Dude, calm down. Why can't I ask about how to build Anders/Merrill in a thread called "Assorted Mage Notes"? Even if this thread is mainly about Mage soloing, would asking about that be so off topic? And even if I'm not allowed, I think it should be the OP/a Moderator who is entitled place such restrictions on me.

Seriously, I'm trying to learn from you (and many others). Why must you be so condescending/antagonizing?

P.S. I wonder what part of the world are you from. The concept of Free Speech seems foreign to you.

Check yourself in the mirror, please.

Well, your Anders & co vs. Deep Road Dragon video has all your Mages go pure Magic

...not to mention that the video was labelled as "Vengeance" and not "Mage".

[SuicidalBaby]

Base damage on SotPO will out weigh the ignore armor property on MSythe for most targets of Stonefist in Act 1 simply because most targets in act 1 lack any serious form of armor level. In a 3 mage set up on a force mage w/ CP & Stonefist it will see some value. But in any other set up an element based mage will be more productive. It doesnt hurt to diversify when rolling with 3 mages.

btw in an unrelated test Stonefist showed different results under MSythe vs SoPar. No resistance marker w/ MSythe.

Considering price point and overall effectiveness, only 1 act vs primal order's 2, I think the choice is clear. But it works for a fun or lazy build in act 1.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 11 avril 2011 - 12:25 .

[rumination888]

I tested Stonefist and CP further with a random 33 physical staff vs. Magister's Scythe.

For auto-attacks against a Carta Loyalist, the Magister's Scythe did more damage.
For Stonefist and Crushing Prison, the random 33 physical staff did more damage.
Stonefist and CP inherently ignores armor.

I've been testing CP with my typical full fire setup as well. I recall a thread where you mentioned a mage might be able to do as much single target damage as a rogue... you wern't kidding. Crushing Prison is pushing out very impressive numbers. Upgraded Stonefist and Fist of the Maker are still blah, but there's some interesting synergy going on with Elemental + Arcane + Blood Mage when you weild a cold or fire staff.

Edit:

Upgraded Horror's description is wrong, too. It works similar to CP. It ticks every 2s for 10s, 5 ticks in total. The damage component is completely seperate from its stun component, just like CP. It'll deal its full damage regardless of target and difficulty. Its full damage over the course of 10s is the number listed(for example, if it says "500 damage every 1s" then it actually does 100 damage every 2s, 5 ticks in total).

Edit 2:

The elemental bonus + staff element thing seems to only affect Crushing Prison, not physical spells in general. Hemmorhage, Stonefist, and Fist of the Maker are still only showing numbers you'd expect at +0% bonus. Same with Stonefist and Fist of the Maker(explains why I still thought they were mediocre).

I bet theres an order of operations bug with CP. Its probably counting the element of your weapon first(similar to warrior/rogue abilities), then changes to physical damage afterwards. Other spells probably change elements before factoring in weapons.

Modifié par rumination888, 11 avril 2011 - 02:50 .

[IN1]

I tested Stonefist and CP further with a random 33 physical staff vs. Magister's Scythe.

For auto-attacks against a Carta Loyalist, the Magister's Scythe did more damage.
For Stonefist and Crushing Prison, the random 33 physical staff did more damage.
Stonefist and CP inherently ignores armor.


Hmmm. That's very, very weird. I'm not jumping to unwarranted conclusions usually.  My testing was quite thorough. Here's my methodology and some results I had written down yesterday.

Tested on Ser Alrik with different staves: upgraded Hex of Torment > upgraded CP. Magister's, with its measly physical base dmg, dealt ~230 per tick. Bassrath-Kata did ~220 per tick. Voracity without fire setup did 230 per tick. Mutiny - 240.

Lower quality staves (that still should have dealt more than Magister's) were pathetic in comparison: Valdesine dealt ~200 per tick, Primal Order dealt ~210 per tick.

However, my testing was done before I became aware of only +X% damage gear corresponding to staff type affecting physical spells mechanic, so maybe my +X% physical dmg gear was still equipped and was a contributing factor. I will revisit my tests later today. 

Anyway, thanks for the very valuable input! I'll update the OP to reflect the real mechanic as soon as I get a bit of time to revisit the tests.

Modifié par IN1, 11 avril 2011 - 04:59 .

[rumination888]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Unupgraded Stonefist does similar amount of damage vs. Ogre Lieutenant
on both staves. In terms of autoattacks, "ignore armor" staff
consistently does around 30% more damage [Note 1].

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Spells such as Stonefist ALWAYS has to hit armor.

...what?

iOnlySignIn wrote...

This can easily be verified if we have a two Mages spells which do similar Physical damage, while one ignores Armor and the other doesn't. Regrettably, we don't; all we have is Stonefist (x4) vs. Hemorrhage (x4.5), but Hemorrhage also ignores Damage Resistance.

You can easily adjust your damage stat until spells have similar numbers.

Easiest would be to grab a warrior with Mighty Blow. Adjust strength so their base damage + weapon is the same as a Mage's base damage. Then compare Mighty Blow vs. Stonefist against a normal rank enemy with high armor resistance(because anything above normal will mess with damage results). Enemies carrying a shield usually have high armor, such as Carta Loyalists.

And if you actually did what I just said, you'd realize Stonefist does ignore armor.

Edit: Wait, wait, wait. Im testing a 22 physical damage staff with +13% fire damage bonus against Hurlock Bolters now(they have 0% armor I think). The Deep Roads is the nearest area I can test the 22 phys staff in. Anyways, the first auto-attack hit(because subsequent hits have different multipliers) has a higher average damage than Magister's Scythe.

Modifié par rumination888, 11 avril 2011 - 05:40 .

[IN1]

Okay, tested with a naked freshly respecialized mage. HoT > CP on Ser Alrik.

1. Yes, the weird elemental damage modifiers application mechanic seems to be CP-exclusive. Maker's Fist behaves differently. Talking about all physical spells was an over-generalization on my part.

2. Yes, as I suspected, my +X% physical gear was equipped during previous tests (well, they were conducted prior to the discovery of how exactly elemental bonuses affect CP damage). With a naked mage, Magister's performs exactly as 24 base physical dmg staff should. My conclusion regarding its 'ignores armor' property being transferrable was incorrect.

I'll update the OP to reflect the recent findings. Thank you for this important addendum.

[aethernox]

iOnlySignIn wrote...
© Hemorrhage is a great spell, particularly against bosses/lieutenants who has Damage Resistance and Armor.

Yup. It's comparable to what Assassinate does for Rogues and what Cleave does for Warriors, in my opinion. It's probably the best Mage spell, since it does everything that you could want a spell to do. Massive damage that nothing resists, in an AoE that isn't affected by friendly fire, plus a crowd-control ability tacked on.

I just can't fathom making a mage who doesn't use Blood Magic. That tree is just so good. At least Spirit Healer/Force Mage is probably mechanically viable, unlike Shadow/Duelist or, to a lesser extent, Berserker/Templar.