30 réponses à ce sujet

[Mysinera]

I am not new to the game, but so far have only played a few rogues and a warrior. It's time to try the mage out. Looking at the specializations, i am at a loss on the arcane warrior. So, whats the point?

If a mage has low hp, no melee talents, and armor kills mana regen, how is havaing an arcane warrior a bonus for me? So, hopefully someone can give me some understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and party role.

[Ginnerben]

I'm pretty sure Arcane Warrior is considered imba good. Arcane Warrior turns your Mage into someone who hits like a Warrior, takes damage like Warrior, casts spells like a Mage and doesn't die.

[Viltris]

From what I've been told, an arcane warrior is actually better than a regular warrior. I've been told (but haven't verified for myself) that sustained abilities don't actually require any mana--they just reduce your max mana. So you can spam spells until your empty, turn on all your combat-related sustained abilities (Combat, Rock Armor, Arcane Shield, Frost/Flaming Weapons, etc), run into the melee and smash face.



Apparently, the only thing arcane warriors can't do very well is draw aggro.



Also, arcane warriors are very important if you're playing the Rogue + 3 mages party.

[Zhauric]

I'm rather new to Arcane Warrior myself as my mage only gained it a little while ago so haven't messed with it in too many encounters. But I have to say it helped me out a lot last night against the Carta. My entire group was gone and I was the only one left standing. I had to deal with about 3 mobs plus the boss and was able to make it with a few potions. My mana was spent so I just turned on arcane shield and rock armor and went toe to toe as an AW and outlasted them. If I had tried that before AW I would have been a puddle on the floor and the mobs would have been asking for a mop.

[T0rin3]

Arcane Warrior has the best defensive capabilities in the game, and actually you don't really even use heavy armor.

It deals decent damage (although not as good as well specced warrior or rogue or casting mage), has decent armor, great defense, very high spell resistance and lots of sustained magic to buff your defense and offense. If played right, you don't have much mana left to cast spells often, but you do have some, and later in the game you regen mana pretty fast.

The point of Arcane Warrior is mainly survivability and flexibility. But they don't make good tanks because they have no aggro draw ability and won't really use heavy armor to draw aggro either.

Modifié par T0rin3, 18 novembre 2009 - 08:03 .

[Flamesz]

Massive, MASSIVE MEATSHIELD.

[Rolenka]

Frost Weapons, Shock Weapons, Flame Weapons, Telekinetic Weapons. It's go time!



Add that healing aura from Spirit Healer for even more fun.

[1Parmenides]

Survivability, Flexibility. Run in and hack some nice damage after your mana runs out. Play and enjoy it while you can for a limited time! Grab the Blood mage to boot! With all the people complaining about the overpowering BM/AW combo, Bioware is likely to seriously nerf it next patch. (Personally I hope they don't)... if they do any nerfing, I hope the nerf the potion usage of the BM/AW.

Modifié par 1Parmenides, 18 novembre 2009 - 08:26 .

[T0rin3]

Rolenka wrote...

Frost Weapons, Shock Weapons, Flame Weapons, Telekinetic Weapons. It's go time!

You don't get 4 mages, and there is no Shock Weapons ability.

Add that healing aura from Spirit Healer for even more fun.

No, not really, because it drains mana. It sucks.

[JamesX]

It is because the job is bugged. Someone mentioned that the shimmering field doesn't turn itself off when you are out of mana...

Bioware needs to code in that running out of mana terminates all sustained abilities even those that takes no mana as upkeep.

[TSAdmiral]

Isn't one of the downsides fatigue? That heavy armor means you use up a lot more mana casting spells.

[Riot Inducer]

TSAdmiral wrote...

Isn't one of the downsides fatigue? That heavy armor means you use up a lot more mana casting spells.

true, it's best to get yourself armor with a set bonus that reduces the fatigue penalty

[Fredericol]

Rolenka wrote...

Frost Weapons, Shock Weapons, Flame Weapons, Telekinetic Weapons. It's go time!

Add that healing aura from Spirit Healer for even more fun.

Healing aura doesn't heal the caster, nor remove their injuries... fyi

It also drains mana like crazy

Modifié par Fredericol, 18 novembre 2009 - 08:44 .

[KalosCast]

It's a really good class, but an exceptionally boring one because aside from activating one or two passives, you really just auto-attack without much ability to play around with aggro, making you a worthless tank too.

[Raisthlin Arckon]

JamesX wrote...

It is because the job is bugged. Someone mentioned that the shimmering field doesn't turn itself off when you are out of mana...
Bioware needs to code in that running out of mana terminates all sustained abilities even those that takes no mana as upkeep.

its not a bug. thats the way it is supposed to work. Some sustainables spells also drain mana quickly in combat which means as soon as you enter combat they drain x amount of mana every tick. But your RESERVED mana needed for the spell to be effective as already been taken from your mana pool so the spell is up and running. The mana drain effect is simply the downside of those spells which are quite powerful (haste and shimmering shield for exemple). The drain effect is simply a penalty for activating those powerful spells and not spells that need mana to be active since you already RESERVED mana from your pool to turn them off. Please read the manual....

Modifié par Raisthlin Arckon, 18 novembre 2009 - 08:50 .

[Raisthlin Arckon]

KalosCast wrote...

It's a really good class, but an exceptionally boring one because aside from activating one or two passives, you really just auto-attack without much ability to play around with aggro, making you a worthless tank too.

1 or 2 passive ?

I have 6 passive running on my arcane warrior with blood dragon armor which means almost 100% fatigue and i can still cast any spells i want. Storm of the century combos for exemple which requires heavy mana.

If you dont know what your talking about please dont say anything stupid...

[Bilhelm]

Just got the AW spec and first Combat Magic skill yesterday so not very familiar with it yet. The first thing I noticed is that my Magic attribute counts as Strength for equipping armor and weapons. I was able to equip some nice stuff that had been sitting in my bags waiting for Alastair to level up. For my playstyle it's great because I can Cone of Cold and AoE much easier from the front lines. I used to waste a lot of mana with single-target offensive spells. Now my weapon hits hard. My usual group (Alastair, Wynne, and Leliana) was really missing some tankage...so I'm liking AW right now!

[Raisthlin Arckon]

Bilhelm wrote...

Just got the AW spec and first Combat Magic skill yesterday so not very familiar with it yet. The first thing I noticed is that my Magic attribute counts as Strength for equipping armor and weapons. I was able to equip some nice stuff that had been sitting in my bags waiting for Alastair to level up. For my playstyle it's great because I can Cone of Cold and AoE much easier from the front lines. I used to waste a lot of mana with single-target offensive spells. Now my weapon hits hard. My usual group (Alastair, Wynne, and Leliana) was really missing some tankage...so I'm liking AW right now!

you can easily get 60-70 armor rating with your arcane warrior which means all foes only do 1 damages to you. Its quite fun indeed

[Belendir]

What about stats, where do you spent your points aside from magic? Some say con, some say willpower. Im level 12 now and spent most of my points in magic and wil, but tbh with all my auras and buffs theres just not enough mana to cast a lot of spells, i have barely enough to shield my tank if things get ugly but thats about it. Most of the time I feel like a retribution paladin, turn on autoattack and go to sleep...



I went with a build similar to this:



http://social.biowar...20/index/164126



Going to respecc via the mod I guess

[Haexpane]

Mysinera wrote...

I am not new to the game, but so far have only played a few rogues and a warrior. It's time to try the mage out. Looking at the specializations, i am at a loss on the arcane warrior. So, whats the point?

If a mage has low hp, no melee talents, and armor kills mana regen, how is havaing an arcane warrior a bonus for me? So, hopefully someone can give me some understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and party role.

Well you don't need HPs to tank effectively in DAO, since AW rarely get hit that hard, you don't need CON up that much.

My *real* tank only has like 25 con, Alistair only has like 18... barely any difference in terms of tanking ability

Basically an AW has all of the abilities of a mage STACKED w/ warrior abilities.  A warrior can never stack or even obtain mage abilities... so in 99% of scenarious AW > real tank.

Massive armor has innate taunting, so you dont need the taunt skill.  And you can focuss all your stats in Magic and Willpower. 

Essentially there is no real downside to AW.  No "weaknesses" to speak of.  That's one of the reasons so many people object to any balance or patch, they like overpowered toons they can brag about.

[Damar Stiehl]

Picking Arcane Warrior doesn't make you a worse mage.



It does, however, make you a better fighter.



Find some armor. Blood Dragon works real well because of the -Fatigue bonus. People also like Juggernaut, and Dragonbone of course rocks.



You don't learn any weapon talents, so it does not matter what weapons you pick for your "warrior" part. You sort of suck with any of them until you get some +Attack bonuses and Dexterity. But sucking with a half-decent sword is still better than rocking with a staff in melee. If you have Warden's Keep and find Starfang, you start rocking dangerous amounts of face with it, thanks to its outrageous +8 Attack bonus.



Remember that you are still a MAGE first and a WARRIOR second. Find yourself a decent staff and equip it into "alternative weapon" slot. Always have your staff selected as your weapon when you walk around, so when fighting starts, you begin with the staff.



In battle, keep Combat Magic off as long as you have mana. Cast like you usually would - as long as you have the mana, you are a mage with the added benefit of wearing more than a glorified bathrobe. Debuff, nuke, freeze to your heart's content, you'll do more damage with spells than you will with your pockey stick.



When you run out of mana, turn on Combat Magic, whatever additional shields and sustained spells you need, and switch to your melee weapon. Sustained spells cost nothing. Start beating people over the head, because by now whatever isn't dead already is probably on top of you and beating YOU over the head.



You should use Combat Magic for hard(er) targets that are magic-resistant, and in general as soon as your mana is gone (and you don't feel like drinking lyrium potions). As long as you have mana, let someone else do the tanking and blast from the back ranks.



Be aware that early in your career you will not be a battle god that everyone is making Arcane Warriors out to be. You need +Attack bonuses to be good at HtH, you need high magic score to wear good armor and wield good weapons, you need -Fatigue bonuses to keep costs manageable and you need ALL Arcane Warrior talents to reach your full potential.



In MMO terms, you can be a good "offtank" due to your general toughness and a bit of a "tankmage" because you are a good caster who is generally tougher than your average thong-wearing wizard.



Finally, don't be too scared of "must sheathe weapons" requirement on some spells. It's annoying, but only delays the cast for a couple seconds. Nothing you can't manage.

[Ninjaphrog]

In some ways...Arcane Warrior is broken and filled with flaws...for example...you're the last person to be an arcane knight...yet NO ONE knows...you can't even tell anyone...hmmm...

You have to sheath your weapon(s) to cast most spells...you could just click / and it will switch your weapon sets...and normally a mage has number II empty...sadly that results in an animation bug which causes you to carry your weapons while in out of combat, or have your weapons sheathed while in combat...

Again...alot more work would've been nice.

Stop being lazy or stop making RPGs you can't finish Bioware...please

[Raisthlin Arckon]

Belendir wrote...

What about stats, where do you spent your points aside from magic? Some say con, some say willpower. Im level 12 now and spent most of my points in magic and wil, but tbh with all my auras and buffs theres just not enough mana to cast a lot of spells, i have barely enough to shield my tank if things get ugly but thats about it. Most of the time I feel like a retribution paladin, turn on autoattack and go to sleep...

I went with a build similar to this:

http://social.biowar...20/index/164126

Going to respecc via the mod I guess

i soloed hard and now going thru nightmare. I spent all my attribut points in magic. Get blood mage specialization as well and you wont need mana anymore aside from turning your sustainables spells on and you wont have any problems casting spells.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Good Arcane Warrior info here:

http://social.biowar...20/index/164126

[Haexpane]

Raisthlin Arckon wrote...

Belendir wrote...

What about stats, where do you spent your points aside from magic? Some say con, some say willpower. Im level 12 now and spent most of my points in magic and wil, but tbh with all my auras and buffs theres just not enough mana to cast a lot of spells, i have barely enough to shield my tank if things get ugly but thats about it. Most of the time I feel like a retribution paladin, turn on autoattack and go to sleep...

I went with a build similar to this:

http://social.biowar...20/index/164126

Going to respecc via the mod I guess

i soloed hard and now going thru nightmare. I spent all my attribut points in magic. Get blood mage specialization as well and you wont need mana anymore aside from turning your sustainables spells on and you wont have any problems casting spells.

I'm still waiting for the trolls to tell us how this is not unbalanced? ROFL