195 réponses à ce sujet

[Jack-Nader]

oh.. healing aura is bugged??? That explains my first play through as a mage!. I would get backstabbed and suddenly instantly heal. It was cool because I was immortal.. heh hehe. Last playthrough this did not occur tho. Probably because I barely used healing aura.

[mr_afk]

tonnactus wrote...

I dont know...
With fire and spirit resist runes it seems easy...(combined with retreating out of the room where the demons would ambush your party)
Only the revenant,who deals physical damage was actually dangerous.

Well I wouldn't know because I'm greedy and only use runes of fortunes (and valiance later on). haha
I stayed in the room and recall lots and lots of enemies spawning at the same time. I somehow managed to pull through after some frantic rushing around with my warrior trying to rescue my suicidal companions (story of my life) but it definately wasn't the easiest fight I had done. I'm thinking that it should be easier this round if I just load up on electricity staves/spells and prepare properly for it. Might try a speed run...

Jack-Nader wrote...

oh.. healing aura is bugged??? That explains my first play through as a mage!. I would get backstabbed and suddenly instantly heal. It was cool because I was immortal.. heh hehe. Last playthrough this did not occur tho. Probably because I barely used healing aura.

Haha yeah, that would make things easier wouldn't it?
I remember reading about some guy who did the arishok duel just using staff attacks. He was complaining about how the arishok's dps was so low he never got injured. 
I just can't imagine someone sitting there for half an hour pressing A continuously. hahaha

Then again, supposedly a good spirit healer build can achieve similar things without exploiting the bug so I dunno. 

Modifié par mr_afk, 24 avril 2011 - 01:35 .

[tonnactus]

mr_afk wrote...


Well I wouldn't know because I'm greedy and only use runes of fortunes (and valiance later on). haha
I stayed in the room and recall lots and lots of enemies spawning at the same time. I somehow managed to pull through after some frantic rushing around with my warrior trying to rescue my suicidal companions (story of my life) but it definately wasn't the easiest fight I had done. I'm thinking that it should be easier this round if I just load up on electricity staves/spells and prepare properly for it. Might try a speed run...
. 

Rages demons(the biggest threat) becomes jokes with 100 percent fire resistence(they deal zero damage this way).It trivializes the whole fight.

Modifié par tonnactus, 24 avril 2011 - 01:54 .

[Jack-Nader]

huh??? I tried fire runes and they still did damage. Are you playing on nightmare?

[tonnactus]

Jack-Nader wrote...

huh??? I tried fire runes and they still did damage. Are you playing on nightmare?

Yes.Aveline,with elemental aegis and fire/spirit runes,beeing attacked by rage demons take zero damage.(immune is displayed everytime they attacked)
The same is true for the mabari.(who had 100 percent fire resistence too)

Modifié par tonnactus, 24 avril 2011 - 06:25 .

[DW2511]

Here are some late game armoured/tank mage builds that I have tried out in Act 3:

Common talents in all builds:

BM-Blood Magic, Sacrifice
SH-Healing Aura, Group Heal, Unity, Revival, Refusal, Vitality(Refusal can be swapped with any other SH talent except Vitality)
CREATION-Heal, Heroic Aura, Valiant Aura, Haste, Great Haste
ARCANE-Elemental Weapons
PRIMAL-Rock Armor


These builds rely on leaving WIL untouched and intead pumping STR to 32(with at least one +1 attr
item), and purchasing the Helm of a 1000 Battles at the start of Act 3. In summary, your Armor rating with Rock Armor on will hover around 75-80% and with the Ho1000B's 14% dmg res that means Normals and Lts will not harm you at all with physical damage. Ho1000B also makes you immune to crits, pretty handy to say the least. Plus you buff your party and heal them as well. Your Fortitude is around 40 with a hp pool between 300 and 350, so no knockbacks even without Unshakeable.

Here we go:

1. ELEMENTAL/PRIMAL GRANITE CANNON

PRIMAL-2*Chain, Stonefist, 2*Petrify (2* signifies the skill and its upgrade)
ELEM-All except the FB upgrade

STR 31, MAG 64, CON 23+10(Vitality)

This is your basic nuker but with the survivability of a tank. Hence , granite cannon.



2. LOCKDOWN ARTIST


BM-Grim Sacrifice, 2*Hemorrage, Bloodlust
CREATION-2*Glyph of Paralysis
ENTROPY-Horror, Hex of Torment
PRIMAL-2*Chain, Stonefist,2*Petrify

STR 31, MAG 54, CON 43

This one walks around the battlefield paralyzing at will and waits for a STAGGER to cast Chain or Hemorrage. CC rivals a FM.

Note* Will post 2 more when Real-Barca permits,hehe.

[mr_afk]

Cool, I'll post up a summary of those builds under the armoured mage build. A little later anyway - busy blowing things up in-game. haha

So what armour did you have besides the helm of a thousand battles? Were there any decent unique warrior armour pieces out there or did you just use generic/random drops?
Cos i'm still not completely convinced it's worth it to get that much strength just for immunity to critical hits (because generally when you play mage you don't really want to be getting hit too often) - the knockback resistance can easily be achieved by either the etched ring, unshakeable, or that new dlc glove. But I suppose if you optimised and did adequate prebuffing (+1 does NOT count haha) it might be doable..

[DW2511]

You get set up pretty early in Act3. Cuirass of the Centurion from Danarius, Gauntlets of Ser Maura from the Resolutionists and I bought some boots from Master Ilen, can't remember the name. Random drops for Warrior gear in Act 3 beat every elite mage gear in pure armor rating. Rune slots are an issue, but you get 4 from the Helm and Gauntlets alone.

It's not just critical hit immunity. Only bosses and Elites with basic Elem/Spirit damage can hurt you. Anything else, you can take it like a tank.

Vitality gives you 10 free attr points, put them on magic and you'll see no major difference to a regular mage. WIL is totally useless for a pure BM anyway, apart from gear reqs, so those 18 points with the addition of Vitality create only a 8 handicap in magic . So, in effect your glass cannon trades 8 points in Mag to become a semi-tank. I think it's worth it.

[mr_afk]

Hmm.. fair enough. I'll add all that info into the guide. Sounds like a pretty solid build (pun may have been intended).

But in terms of damage it's not just sacrificing 8 or 18 points. What the main difference in damage potential that is been lost is all the +%elemental damage if you go robes or all the +%critical damage/chance if you go rogue armour. I think that generally speaking for a dps mage/glass cannon, you'll pretty much have to get the robes of unblemished cleanliness in order to have competitive damage. I might see if I can find an alternate build which can skip it, but it'll probably be pretty tough.

Well thanks again for the info! I'm sure someone will find it useful in making the ultimate tank/cleric mage.

Modifié par mr_afk, 27 avril 2011 - 08:28 .

[Irish Porkchopp]

mr_afk: I've been thinking about your ideas, and I decided to make up a spreadhseet of my own to try to wrap my head around the viability of crit mage. In this case I decided to include the Attack score, because I believe that it can't be ignored. Even with Hex of Torment, because that is single target, and can't be up all the time as it is.

Anyway, this turned out to be more complex than I anticipated (I started out trying to derived the relationship between Magic, Attack, and Attack %- ugh) but I've gotten to a pretty good jumping off point. I gave up on trying to get an equation, and instead copied the values directly from the game. This takes a long time, so i only have values for a L15 mage so far. When I have time I'll do this for other levels, uness someone can give me the formulas.

My spreadsheet shows every possible combination of attribute points spread between the three damage affecting stats for a mage- Magic, Cunning, and Dexterity. It then calculate the base damage against normal enemies for every combination, and finds the maximum damage value, and displays the combo for that value.

As is right now, it is for a completely naked mage, no weapon, armor, or items,against normal rank enemies, with no spell effects included. Like I said, it is still in the early stages. Also, it does not currently account for points being put into willpower of constitution. It is pretty limited at this point, but when I have time (ugh) I'm going to expand it capabilities.

I'm doing this mostly for my own interest, but I thought it would be nice to share my findings or see if anyone else is interested.

So here are my initial findings for a level 15, completely naked mage. This mage has 50 attribute points (3 for each level and 5 from tomes/elixers whatever)

The maximum average damage per attack (not hit) came out to 30.25. This value is reached when there is 47 points in Magic, 0 points in cunning, and 3 in dexterity.
Total stats:
Magic: 60
Cunning: 12
Dexterity: 14

Just in playing around with it, i noticed that any additional attribute that could be gained at lvl15 (items or tomes or whatever) would go directly into dex to maximize damage. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I don't want to furthur bore anyone. I plan to play around with this some more, and put together a 'real' build to see how to maximize damage.

Disclaimer: I may be completely wrong about everything.

EDIT: Does anyone have a good item set for a lvl15 mage?  thanks.

Modifié par Irish Porkchopp, 27 avril 2011 - 10:22 .

[DW2511]

mr_afk wrote...

Hmm.. fair enough. I'll add that all that info into the guide. Sounds like a pretty solid build (pun may have been intended).

But in terms of damage it's not just sacrificing 8 or 18 points. What the main difference in damage potential that is been lost is all the +%elemental damage if you go robes or all the +%critical damage/chance if you go rogue armour. I think that generally speaking for a dps mage/glass cannon, you'll pretty much have to get the robes of unblemished cleanliness in order to have competitive damage. I might see if I can find an alternate build which can skip it, but it'll probably be pretty tough.

Well thanks again for the info! I'm sure someone will find it useful in making the ultimate tank/cleric mage.

I agree, but i see it like this: You trade 20-30% maximum elemental/electricity damage for a 500% increase in survivability, and that's not an exaggeration. Plus, if you measure DPS as one should, total damage mage does from beginning to end of fight divided by the duration of said fight in seconds, you'll realise that all that time you usually spend running away from melee/trying to freeze pesky archers just to give you a reprieve is now spent on uninterrupted casting, basic attacks and free mobility on the battlefield. Thus, total damage increases and 'Metric DPS' does too. It's the 'Moneyball' of casting,hehe.

[Lemen]

Irish Porkchopp wrote...

The maximum average damage per attack (not hit) came out to 30.25. This value is reached when there is 47 points in Magic, 0 points in cunning, and 3 in dexterity.
Total stats:
Magic: 60
Cunning: 12
Dexterity: 14

Just in playing around with it, i noticed that any additional attribute that could be gained at lvl15 (items or tomes or whatever) would go directly into dex to maximize damage. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I don't want to furthur bore anyone. I plan to play around with this some more, and put together a 'real' build to see how to maximize damage.

Those results seem odd, since each point in magic increases base dmg by 0.5, and each point in dex increases dps by roughly 0.5%. With base damage that low, magic should be much more effective than dex. What formula for damage did you use?

And by the way, the reason why attack is usually neglected is partly because it adds a lot of complexity, and partly because most of your damage should come from spells anyway (which always hit).

[mr_afk]

@Irish Porkchopp wrote...
whoops, I can't believe I didn't see this until now. must have been more tired than I thought last night...
anyway, good job in trying to figure out all these mechanics, it's can be quite a lot of effort huh?

If you're trying to calculate attackscores (I did for a little bit) maybe these values may be of interest to you. I think it's too complicated for me so i'll leave it to the experts. I think that it shouldn't make too much difference if your base stat is high enough, and from all the calculations I've done so far, optimising for damage whether it be dps or critical damage usually calls for very high levels anyway (so attack isn't such an issue for my glass cannon builds).

What makes these calculations even harder is the way the equipment is one of the most important parts in a crit mage build. Using 'naked' characters, the base critical damage and critical chance will be quite low. This favours pumping purely the base stat until damage reaches ~100 (which is actually impossible to reach). I'm not sure which formulas you used but generally using a itemless character favours a pure magic build.

When you also consider the impact of equipment - e.g. increased critical damage and critical chance, the calcs will eventually start to favour pumping dexterity - as increased critical damage makes the damage potential from increased critical chance higher. However, this only occurs at very high base and critical damages.

If you followed my calcs, at around level 14 a critical mage due to the item properties associated with rogue gear, will produce a higher dps and critical damage not including elemental damage. This is the major point in the comparison between builds. A +%elemental robe-wearing pure magic mage will probably outperform a +%critical armour-wearing mage in terms of whatever element it specialises in (e.g. fire). The advantage in the crit mage build is that physical spells (which can be some of the highest damage dealing) as well as all the elemental spells will benefit.

So when comparing mage-builds you probably want to factor in the equipment. It makes things a lot harder, as you have to research the ideal equipment sets to compare, but it's the only way really. Btw, if you haven't seen this before, you might be interested in this calculator I made. It's not very professional and I couldn't be bothered testing it that much but I think it works. So it may allow you to dump stats in and get 'in 100 hits' values faster..

What you might be interested in (i know I am) is the new dlc staff that came in:
Malcolm's Honor:
Spirit Damage
+3 to all attributes
+13% crit chance
+10 Stamina/mana regen
Improves with level up
+damage vs demons and undead

That +13 crit chance will greatly favour a build with high critical dmg (actual critical damage, not just the %). The +3 attributes are also pretty useful. This means that potentially, a build which focuses more on pure dps/critical damage as opposed to elemental modified damage might be able to utilise this staff better. I know i'm having a blast with it. Only slightly annoying thing is it seems that demons/shades which are immune to spirit are also immune to that extra damage <_<

Haha anyway, good luck with all your calcs. I'll probably do a little more number crunching tonight - I'll post it up if you're interested. I'm going to optimise several of my party members for a Xebenkeck and Nexus Golem speed run. Not sure if i'll be able to pull it off though, glass cannon builds are a little hit-and-miss when it comes to the longer tougher fights - because one mistake and then you're almost dead. Ofcourse if you do it right you watch everything unfold perfectly really fast. ahh how exciting. Anyway, i'm compiling a bit of video material so you can see the crit-mage build in action soon!

Irish Porkchopp wrote...
EDIT: Does anyone have a good item set for a lvl15 mage?  thanks.

At ~level 15 my mage still had most of the gear from act 1 actually..
Cap of the Antivian King, Stalkers Boar Hide, Bloody Butcher's Gloves and Lowtown Stompers.
They have the higher critical damage/chance than most/all the act 2 armour (there's one rogue armour chestpiece called the chestguard of the scoundrel which looks pretty cool but only has 13% crit damage as opposed to 12% crit damage 5% crit chance.) Once I hit act 3 or I revisit my calcs I'll consider prebuffing willpower to equip the robe of unblemished cleanliness. Though I'm tempted to skip it and get eddies lucky talisman instead...
Oh and i'll probably wear that new dlc headpiece as it has +10% damage to pretty much everything.

As for a non-crit mage build I would probably say the best Act 2 gear would be +%~15 fire damage robes, and ~5% from boots, helm, and gloves? so approx 25-30% fire damage. So it wouldn't  affect your calcs much besides the willpower requirement and the damage modifier in the end.

Edit: Also, I inputed your values into my calculator:
Excluding attack - Your build with 4 dex and 1 cunning will give ~3138.96 dmg in 100 hits, 30.25 base
Excluding attack - A full magic build with those 5 points into magic gives ~3325 dmg in 100 hits, 33.25 base
(this is based off the fact that the basic 'unequipped' staff must have 5.75 dmg to give your results)
Anyway, this shows that you'd probably be better off not pumping any dex or cun and putting it all into magic if you're planning on running around naked at level 15. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/lol.png[/smilie]

Modifié par mr_afk, 28 avril 2011 - 09:56 .

[Irish Porkchopp]

Lemen wrote...

Irish Porkchopp wrote...

The maximum average damage per attack (not hit) came out to 30.25. This value is reached when there is 47 points in Magic, 0 points in cunning, and 3 in dexterity.
Total stats:
Magic: 60
Cunning: 12
Dexterity: 14
 

Those results seem odd, since each point in magic increases base dmg by 0.5, and each point in dex increases dps by roughly 0.5%. With base damage that low, magic should be much more effective than dex. What formula for damage did you use?

I haven't been able to come up with a formula yet, so I've just been using numbers that I copied directly from the game.  As you can see, magic is more effective than dex until the magic stat is 60.  At this point, Atk% against normals has been at 100% for several points.  So each addtional point into Magic becomes less effective.  Which is why there are points in dex.  Also, this is just for one level.  Atk% will be different for each level with these stats.

And by the way, the reason why attack is usually neglected is partly because it adds a lot of complexity, and partly because most of your damage should come from spells anyway (which always hit).

Yep, spells always hit.  But mages do a lot of basic attacks as well.  So I'm playing around with the numbers to see how to maximize damage.  Spells benefit from crit chance and crit damage so I'd like to understand those mechanics better.  It might turn out that it doesn't really matter, or just dump all points into magic, or maybe I'll be more confused after all this.  Either way, maybe I'll learn something.

[Irish Porkchopp]

[quote]mr_afk wrote...
A lot of great, helpful thoughts.
[/quote]

That's some good stuff!  I have to get to work right now, but I'll come back to this when I get home.  Thanks for all the help. 

EDIT:
[quote]mr_afk wrote...

@Irish Porkchopp wrote...
whoops, I can't believe I didn't see this until now. must have been more tired than I thought last night...
anyway, good job in trying to figure out all these mechanics, it's can be quite a lot of effort huh?

If you're trying to calculate attackscores (I did for a little bit) maybe these values may be of interest to you. I think it's too complicated for me so i'll leave it to the experts. I think that it shouldn't make too much difference if your base stat is high enough, and from all the calculations I've done so far, optimising for damage whether it be dps or critical damage usually calls for very high levels anyway (so attack isn't such an issue for my glass cannon builds).
[/quote]

My hope in this little exercise was to show that a 100% attack was not needed, then more point could be put into dex or cunning to increase damage.  So far, it is not turning out that way.  But it does look like pumping all possible points into magic might be a little wasteful...some points can be spared possibly. 

[quote]mr_afk wrote...
What makes these calculations even harder is the way the equipment is one of the most important parts in a crit mage build. Using 'naked' characters, the base critical damage and critical chance will be quite low. This favours pumping purely the base stat until damage reaches ~100 (which is actually impossible to reach). I'm not sure which formulas you used but generally using a itemless character favours a pure magic build.
[/quote]

Equipment makes all the difference.  I don't plan on using naked characters  but for simplicity's sake it makes this little experiment easier.  So far I've played around with some +Attack equipment and it doesn't seem as effective as thought it would.  I hoped that boosting attack with equipment would free up points for more dex, but that leaves the base damage too low I guess.  I'll play around some more

[quote]mr_afk wrote...

When you also consider the impact of equipment - e.g. increased critical damage and critical chance, the calcs will eventually start to favour pumping dexterity - as increased critical damage makes the damage potential from increased critical chance higher. However, this only occurs at very high base and critical damages.

If you followed my calcs, at around level 14 a critical mage due to the item properties associated with rogue gear, will produce a higher dps and critical damage not including elemental damage. This is the major point in the comparison between builds. A +%elemental robe-wearing pure magic mage will probably outperform a +%critical armour-wearing mage in terms of whatever element it specialises in (e.g. fire). The advantage in the crit mage build is that physical spells (which can be some of the highest damage dealing) as well as all the elemental spells will benefit.

So when comparing mage-builds you probably want to factor in the equipment. It makes things a lot harder, as you have to research the ideal equipment sets to compare, but it's the only way really. Btw, if you haven't seen this before, you might be interested in this calculator I made. It's not very professional and I couldn't be bothered testing it that much but I think it works. So it may allow you to dump stats in and get 'in 100 hits' values faster..
[/quote]
Hmm, good points.  I have yet to directly compare specialized builds as you have.  But that is in the plan.  We'll see how much patience I have for fooling with all these numbers.  Cool calculator by the way.  I'll play around with that as well.

[quote]mr_afk wrote...

What you might be interested in (i know I am) is the new dlc staff that came in:
Malcolm's Honor:
Spirit Damage
+3 to all attributes
+13% crit chance
+10 Stamina/mana regen
Improves with level up
+damage vs demons and undead

That +13 crit chance will greatly favour a build with high critical dmg (actual critical damage, not just the %). The +3 attributes are also pretty useful. This means that potentially, a build which focuses more on pure dps/critical damage as opposed to elemental modified damage might be able to utilise this staff better. I know i'm having a blast with it. Only slightly annoying thing is it seems that demons/shades which are immune to spirit are also immune to that extra damage 
[/quote]
Definitely interested in that.  +3 to all attributes is huge!  Can't forget the crit chance either.
[quote]mr_afk wrote...

Haha anyway, good luck with all your calcs. I'll probably do a little more number crunching tonight - I'll post it up if you're interested. I'm going to optimise several of my party members for a Xebenkeck and Nexus Golem speed run. Not sure if i'll be able to pull it off though, glass cannon builds are a little hit-and-miss when it comes to the longer tougher fights - because one mistake and then you're almost dead. Ofcourse if you do it right you watch everything unfold perfectly really fast. ahh how exciting. Anyway, i'm compiling a bit of video material so you can see the crit-mage build in action soon!
[/quote]
Always interested in the numbers! (I'm such a nerd about these things)  Can't wait to see your vids.
[quote]mr_afk wrote...


[quote]Irish Porkchopp wrote...
EDIT: Does anyone have a good item set for a lvl15 mage?  thanks.[/quote]
At ~level 15 my mage still had most of the gear from act 1 actually..
Cap of the Antivian King, Stalkers Boar Hide, Bloody Butcher's Gloves and Lowtown Stompers.
They have the higher critical damage/chance than most/all the act 2 armour (there's one rogue armour chestpiece called the chestguard of the scoundrel which looks pretty cool but only has 13% crit damage as opposed to 12% crit damage 5% crit chance.) Once I hit act 3 or I revisit my calcs I'll consider prebuffing willpower to equip the robe of unblemished cleanliness. Though I'm tempted to skip it and get eddies lucky talisman instead...
Oh and i'll probably wear that new dlc headpiece as it has +10% damage to pretty much everything.

As for a non-crit mage build I would probably say the best Act 2 gear would be +%~15 fire damage robes, and ~5% from boots, helm, and gloves? so approx 25-30% fire damage. So it wouldn't  affect your calcs much besides the willpower requirement and the damage modifier in the end.


[quote]
Edit: Also, I inputed your values into my calculator:
Excluding attack - Your build with 4 dex and 1 cunning will give ~3138.96 dmg in 100 hits, 30.25 base
Excluding attack - A full magic build with those 5 points into magic gives ~3325 dmg in 100 hits, 33.25 base
(this is based off the fact that the basic 'unequipped' staff must have 5.75 dmg to give your results)
Anyway, this shows that you'd probably be better off not pumping any dex or cun and putting it all into magic if you're planning on running around naked at level 15. 
[/quote][/quote]
[/quote]

Thanks for all the help. I'm too modest to run around naked at any level.

Modifié par Irish Porkchopp, 28 avril 2011 - 09:56 .

[Lemen]

Irish Porkchopp wrote...
I haven't been able to come up with a formula yet, so I've just been using numbers that I copied directly from the game.  As you can see, magic is more effective than dex until the magic stat is 60.  At this point, Atk% against normals has been at 100% for several points.  So each addtional point into Magic becomes less effective.  Which is why there are points in dex.  Also, this is just for one level.  Atk% will be different for each level with these stats.

I don't know the formula for attack and hit chance, but the formula for damage is fairly simple.

Your base damage (the damage you see on the character screen) is given by BaseDmg = StaffDmg + (Magic-10)/2. So if your staff does 30 damage, and you have 50 magic, your base damage is 30 + (50-10)/2 = 50. All spell damage, apart from walking bomb, is a multiple of the base damage (for example, chain lightning does 3.14 * BaseDmg).

To account for critical hits, you have to multiply the damage by the factor (1+CritChance * CritDmg). I. e. if you have 20% crit chance and 60% crit damage, this factor is (1+0.20*0.60) = 1.12.
Your crit chance is (dex-10)% plus any bonus from equipment, and your crit damage is (50+cun-10) % plus bonus from equipment.

What you quickly find from these equations is that, if you don't consider equipment, magic is better than dex for damage until your base damage reaches 100 (which it won't do in a normal playthrough). If you take into account attack as well, magic looks even more favorable.

However, if you consider +crit chance and +crit dmg from equipment, this may favor putting some points in dex and cun if your base damage is already high, but that depends entirely on what equipment you can get.

[mr_afk]

 UPDATE: I've uploaded a compilation of some random act 2 fights. Not as fancy as everybody elses videos but at least the quality is improved from last time haha

I'll be attempting the Gauntlet and Xerberadhsajsakfa soon. Hopefully I'll be able to speed run it properly

Modifié par mr_afk, 28 avril 2011 - 04:17 .

[Irish Porkchopp]

Nice video. That was fun to watch.

[mr_afk]

Here's the nexus golem gauntlet thingy

-------------------
Btw, I gave up on the whole controlling only hawke thing. Fenris is too stupid to do his job without getting himself and everybody else killed. Anyway glad you liked that video, was suprisingly fun to make. I tried to match the clips to the music but my video editing software is really basic so not sure how well I did in that regards.. haha

I managed to get fenris some pretty nice stats though. @ level 17 his doing 98dps, or in other words:
From weapon:
40 physical damage
+16 electricity damage from runes
+11% attackspeed (then another 50% from haste and another 30% everytime he kills something)
+4 electricity, fire and cold damage (so +12 random elemental dmg from three arcane weapons)
+24 dmg vs demons and undead
From stats
51 strength --> 20.5 base damage
11 dex --> 63% crit chance (+10% from anders)
10 cunning --> 85% critical damage (and reduced enemy damage resistance especially against crits from destroyer)
I had to buff up his willpower to 18 (for him to be able to still do stuff given the number of sustains on) and his constitution to 20 so he had reasonable amounts of health (200hp).

Added up all together excluding elemental weaknesses and immunities thats
40+16+12+24+20.5=112.5 base damage
Given his crit chance and damage that gives: 17274.375 in 100 hits (considerably more than my other characters though the 2h attack animation even with the speed boosts may be slower than the basic staff attack so it's hard to compare).
Against shades (weakness to electricity ) thats
40+32+16+24+20.5=132.5 base damage
and 20345.575 damage in 100 hits. So basically shades and desire demons hate fenris. Rage demons also seem to hate him, but mostly because he staggers them and my three mages are set to crushing prison or chain lightning it everytime that happens. Hmm.. i'm not sure how cleave/claymore work but if they double the damage output then that's pretty serious damage potential. He's also got a version of blood frenzy (up to+200% damage proportional to his health). Might be even able to match a 2h hawke (if it weren't for the huge differences in available attributes)

I'm pretty happy with his performance but i might replace merrill for isabela.. hmm

Modifié par mr_afk, 29 avril 2011 - 09:41 .

[Irish Porkchopp]

I've put 2 different builds into the calculator I put together, and compared them.  They are both at level 15.  The first build is crit mage based on mr_afk's that he posted.  The second is an elemental mage with generic +%fire gear.  In both cases, I look at every possible combination of points in Mag, Dex, and Cun and pick the one with maximum average damage from basic attacks against normal enemies.  Here is a summary of each mage:
edit: made some mathy fixes.  It makes more sense now.
Crit Mage: (Recommended by mr_afk himself)

Hat- Cap of Antivan King (req 20 dex, 20 cun), +1 all attributes, +4%crit chance
hands- Bloody Butcher's (req 18 dex, 18, cun), +1%crit chance, +3%crit dmg
feets- lowtown stompers (req 18 dex, 18 cun), +4% crit dmg, +3%phys dmg
armor- stalkers boar hides(req 18dex, 18cun),  +5%crit chance, +12%crit dmg
neck-pewter pendant of wolves howling, +22 attack, +2% crit chance
finger 1- carved ring of venedahl, +19 attack, +2% crit chance
finger 2 -evras might, + 22 attack, +2% crit dmg
belt- enchanted chain, +1 to all attributes
Staff- Malcolm's Honor(new DLC), Spirit dmg, +3 to all attributes, +13% crit chance (assumed 22 dmg for comparison and I don't know the damage at level 15 for this staff)

Spell effects- 
   Valiant Aura - +15% attack, +10% crit chance
   Spirit Mastery - +5% crit chance, +25% spirit dmg

This build requires 4 additional attribute points in cunning, and 5 in dexterity to equip the Cap o'Antivan King.  When starting with 50 attribute points (3 per lvl, and 5 additional from tomes and such) this leaves 41 to spread around.
The maximum average damage results from this combo:
Magic: 59..............100% Attack vs Normals
Cunning: 21.........82% Critical Damage
Dexterity: 21.........53% Critical Chance
Average Damage per Basic Attack (vs normals): 86.31

Fire Mage:[/b] 

Hat- Generic  +5%fire dmg
hands- Generic  +3%fire dmg
feets- Generic  +5%fire dmg
armor- Generic  (req(21mag, 21 will),+14%fire dmg
neck-Dura's Blue Flame, +23 attack, +10% Fire dmg
finger 1- Generic  +3%fire dmg
finger 2 -Generic  +3%fire dmg
belt- enchanted chain, +1 to all attributes
Staff- Staff of Parthalan, fire dmg, +2 mag, +13% fire (used this for comparison and I don't know the damage of a generic lvl 15 fire staff)

Spell effects- 
   Valiant Aura - +15% attack, +10% crit chance
   Elemental Mastery - +25% fire dmg
   Pyromaner- +25% fire dmg

This build requires 8 additional attribute points in willpower, to equip the generic fire armor.  When starting with 50 attribute points (3 per lvl, and 5 additional from tomes and such) this leaves 42 to spread around.
The maximum average damage results from this combo:
Magic: 57..............100% Attack vs Normals
Cunning: 13.........53% Critical Damage
Dexterity: 13.........13% Critical Chance
Average Damage per Basic Attack (vs normals): 100.80

[/b]First of all - Can somebody double check my maths?  I went over and over the numbers and i don't see any mistakes. (I corrected some suspicious calcs, so i'm pretty sure my earlier naked mage results are slightly off.  This one I think is correct but please check my work.)
edit:Okay, fixed some things, again.  This looks better.

Second of all - Looks like the crit build has slightly higher damage for basic attacks vs normals at lvl 15.  I think the DLC staff put this over the top. edit: Not anymore. Fire mage has higher damage at lvl15, as expected

Thirdly - The calculator chooses the max damage build, so the fire mage build still has points in Dex to increase critical chance.  As expected now!.  Dex is more valuable for both. 

Lastly - Nether build has any points in willpower (other than requirements for fire build) or constitution. That is not exactly realistic for a playthrough.  I may try to account for this later, but for now these are just preliminary results.  Also, I'm not sure the item and armor sets are optimal.  This is hard to test as it can't be easily put into a spreadsheet, and there are too many combinations.  But I think they are realistic builds at this level.(Thanks mr_afk & IN1) 

Finally- I have not included spell damage.  But spells are mutipliers of base damage, they always hit, and they can crit.  So I think something about spell damage can be learned from this little exercise.

In addition- This is only damage against normals.  I'm considering doing the same thing for damage against Leutenants, and maybe bosses as well.  I can probably average the damage numbers together to come up with a max average damage vs all enemies type of thing.  I may get bored of this before that happens.  If there is no real interest in any of this then I'll not waste my time.  edit-Also, I haven't figured enemy resistances or weakness. And i probably won't on this spreadsheet at least.

In conclusion- If you have questions, see any mistakes, or think this is total BS then please let me know...nicely please.  I don't clai to totally understand everything about the mathiness spoken of here.  If you have build ideas that you'd like me to try then post or PM the gear and level and I'll try it out.  (mr_afk: if you'd rather me not clutter your thread then I'll kindly bow out-just let me know-no problem).

Disclaimer- I may be am completely wrong about everything.  I am just enjoying the nerd math and thought I'd share.
Thanks.

PS: Awesome video.  Great job in that battle-you made it look easy.  I was diggin' the music too!

edit: corrected some minor math errors.
edit2: corrected some major math errors!  Things make much more sense now.  Sometimes you look over and over at the same thing so much that you don't see the mistake right in front of your eyes.

Modifié par Irish Porkchopp, 30 avril 2011 - 02:44 .

[mr_afk]

Nice calcs. I'll try verify it all.
Woo.. more maths.

The only things you'll probably have to consider is that the staff of parthalan will have a lower base dmg which might skew the results a little, spirit mastery is a little wasteful to get by level 15 (would recommend getting other spells of greater utility first even though that +25% dmg will help a lot for basic staff attacks), and i'm not sure if you included the extra attribute points from the equipment? The +5 compared to +1 all attributes will probably make a large difference. Then again, i've switched out the antivan king cap for some random scary-looking mask (new dlc)

But yeah, i'll see what results I get from that equipment - I normally use ring of resilience and the ring of ruin (+4% spirit) rather than the ones you listed but I do admit that not everyone will have the signature edition or be interested in bloodmage gear (though I don't see how this build would have great synergy with not using bloodmagic). Hm, I can't remember what level I got the belt of primevals (varric's personal quest act2) but it might fit into the elemental mage build better..
Oh well, I'll hit the calcs

[Irish Porkchopp]

mr_afk wrote...

Nice calcs. I'll try verify it all.
Woo.. more maths.

The only things you'll probably have to consider is that the staff of parthalan will have a lower base dmg which might skew the results a little, spirit mastery is a little wasteful to get by level 15 (would recommend getting other spells of greater utility first even though that +25% dmg will help a lot for basic staff attacks), and i'm not sure if you included the extra attribute points from the equipment? The +5 compared to +1 all attributes will probably make a large difference. Then again, i've switched out the antivan king cap for some random scary-looking mask (new dlc)

But yeah, i'll see what results I get from that equipment - I normally use ring of resilience and the ring of ruin (+4% spirit) rather than the ones you listed but I do admit that not everyone will have the signature edition or be interested in bloodmage gear (though I don't see how this build would have great synergy with not using bloodmagic). Hm, I can't remember what level I got the belt of primevals (varric's personal quest act2) but it might fit into the elemental mage build better..
Oh well, I'll hit the calcs

I mostly went for spirit mastery for the 5% crit chance.

Equipment attribute points have been included, yes. 

I'm not that big into blood magic besides taking the spec for the +25 health.  Especially for a crit type build it seems like attribute points would get spread too thin-except maybe late game.  Since attr. points seem to be the most valuable commodity when trying to maximize damage, the more the better.  Hemmorage looks like a pretty sweet ability though. 

[mr_afk]

Okay, I did some quick calcs (they actually were quite fast, I also had lunch which explains the slower response time):
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Edit: Forgot to say, you're always welcome to post in this thread - and about anything really. It doesn't even have to be about all this mathematical gymnastics we seem to be doing all the time. I made this thread with the intention of getting feedback etc as experimental builds require ideas and innovation anyway, so anything is welcome (besides maybe trolling, though that could be fun too )
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Firstly I'm not sure how you're doing your calcs. I'm not sure that mine are completely accurate but my methodology always gives me pure magic as best (at those low levels). I'll explain what I do in a bit. Anyhow, I used the stats of my level 14 mage which I levelled up once (so I've got quite a few more points from tomes/fade included) and used my ring of resilience and ring of ruin. I also excluded the base damage from staffs to keep things even.

The optimum dps setup for my crit-mage was
16 str (+1 from belt, helmet, ring; +3 from from staff) 
21 dex
60 mag
21 cun
18 will
26 con (held it at constant between builds though I'm starting to think that levels this high are wasteful)

I compared it against a pure magic bloodmage/spirit healer (using the +10 con from vitality)
12 str (+1 from belt, ring)
12 dex
65 mag
13 cun
21 will (for robe requirements)
26 con

and a pure magic bloodmage/forcemage
12 str
12 dex
52 mag
13 cun
21 will
26 con


Basically, in terms of average staff attack the crit-mage wins - 34.6 vs 29.25 and 22.34 respectively.
However, given that the pure magic builds are specialised in fire (+105% dmg from equipment and staff), once including the +%elemental (29% spirit vs 105% fire) the average staff attacks were 44.6, 59.96 and 45.79

This means that when comparing a fire staff with similar base damage (and +15% fire dmg) with Malcolm's Staff the elemental mages will have higher dmg staff attacks, though due to the spirit mechanics (halves resistance?) it should be competitive. Due to elemental weakness and the extra damage done to demons etc. the crit-mage armed with malcolm's staff will utterly destroy any undead - though shades are an issue. The higher average unmodified damage will mean that the crit-mage build should outperform the specialised fire mage at all other elemental staffs (unless they switch equipment and stack on loads of +%).

I'm not too sure how spell mechanics work but given the higher unmodified damage, the crit-mage should perform better with spells overall (not including elemental spells like fire and ice) - though if it doesn't crit the build with the highest magic (highest base dmg) will win. I'm thinking that once you reach higher levels and equip things like the etched ring of the twins (+4% crit chance, +9% crit dmg) the crit-mage might be able to outperform other mage builds for act 2.

I'm hoping that during act 3 (when you can get the robe of unblemished and the ferryman's ring and get crazy +%fire modifiers) that I'll be able to figure out some way to keep up with them...
-------------------------------

Anyway, here's the way I quickly optimise damage:
On excel, have columns arranged like this:
Magic      Base Dmg       Cunning         Crit Dmg%                     Crit Dmg                     Dexterity          Crit Chance         
    x              (x-10)/2               y             50+(y-10)+mod      Dmg+(Dmg*Crit Dmg%)          z                   (z-10)+mod 

in 100 hits = Base Dmg*(100-Crit Chance) + Crit Dmg*Crit Chance
If you want, in 100 hits/100 = average staff attack dmg

I usually don't bother with all those formulas and just dump in a few values/one formula and drag it down.
Okay, to optimise just hold cunning at bottom possible (cunning has been proved to be useless relative to dex and mag), and arrange it from x=lowest magic possible and z=highest dexterity possible, working down the list until it's x=highest magic possible and z=lowest dexterity possible.

From what I can tell, until higher levels and better equipment (act 3) you should be pretty safe in going full magic with minimum required dexterity. When I swapped out my antivan cap for the mask I found that it was better dmg-wise to reduce my dex and cunning to ~18 which was the minimum required for the rest of my armour.

Not sure if any of that made sense but hope it helps.
But yeah, from what I can tell, a crit-mage setup will be very competitive build (if not better) than a fire mage due to it's ability to let out large amounts of spirit damage and spell damage - and the ability to retain most its damage when switching staves for vulnerabilities/except when facing f*&king shades! haha


p.s. Haemorrhage is the bomb! Pretty much my favourite spell ever. When coupled with staggers you can explode whole groups/bosses really fast. Physical spells like that are what this build is aimed at afterall. I'm considering changing the name of my build as I have pretty much only specialised in bloodmagic/forcemage/phyiscal and spirit damage spells (only elemental dmg from lightning). I could call it.... hm I'll have to think about that one.

Modifié par mr_afk, 30 avril 2011 - 06:52 .

[Irish Porkchopp]

ok mr_afk: After I posted I looked back at my felt because I felt something was wrong.  (And I was secretly hoping the crit build would be better).  I was going over your maths, and comparing to mine.  I discovered three things:1) We both have a roundabout way of reaching the answer.  2) Those roundabout ways are not the same. 3) I had a major mistake in my damage formula!. 

I fixed my earlier post and you should see that our numbers now jive a little better.

Now my calcs show the 0 base damage crit mage with 45.9 average damage, and the fire mage with 52.6 average damage.  The difference are probably due to the fact I am actively rounding to the nearest whole number in many cases to match in-game numbers, and also because we have a different number of attribute points to start.  So I feel better about this even though I'm little sad that the crit mage is not on top. Ah well. 

Thanks for your help in figuring this out!  I feel much better about these numbers now.

I have to say I'm little disappointed so far that Bioware didn't build more flexibity into the classes at this level.  But that is a discussion for another time.  I'm still holding out hope that a crit mage can compete at higher levels! 

[DW2511]

Hey guys, after I tested my own Tank mage builds and seeing that people in this thread seem to prefer crit damage over survivability, I figured why not find a way to combine those two in a single build? How about getting almost 100% crit damage during half your time on the battlefield, 75% armor, 80% evade, 20% in all resistances, 300 hp, +100 health regen, 14% dmg res, 50% magic res? Impossible? Behold the DEATH HEX-ELEMENTAL SHIELD-CUNNING combo.

If you are willing to step away from pure nuking for a minute and instead rely on STAGGER dmg and critical staff attacks to generate offense all the while being untouchable and perform the healer/debilitator/cc/buffer role with maximum efficiency, this is the build for you.


PRIMAL- Rock Armor , 2*Chain Lightning
ARCANE- Elem. Wp, Arc. Shield, Elem. Shield.
ENTROPY- 2*Horror, 2*Misd. Hex, 2*Hex of Torment
CREATION- Heal, 2*Heroic Aura
SH- Heal Aura, 2*Group Heal, Revival, Refusal, Vitality
BM- BM, Sacrifice, Grave Robber OR Grim Sacrifice, 2*Hemorrage

You have 3 points left. You can go for the obvious 2*Haste + Bloodlust or any other skill that suits you:

-Glyphs
-Cr. Prison for extra STAGGER dmg
-Petrify
-Death Cloud( cast before/after Death Hex, keeps a boss debilitated 75% of the time a fight lasts)
-Walking Bomb
-Blood Slave
-Tempest
etc

End game attributes should look like this:

41 STR( min 32 to wear the Helm of 1000 Battles and the Gauntlets of Ser Maura, if you find a way to prebuff STR using an ACT 2 Boots item, do so and save up to 6-7 points)
40MAG(not as low as it seems. STAGGER dmg is still through the roof, and that's what you're counting on. Attack values with NO +Att items are still 90/75/60, good enough for your crits to land consistently. You can get it near 100 if you invest in items.
50 CUN (good for 90% crit dmg. Items or the Tiger's Tail shoot it above 100%)
41 CON (300 hp with Urzara's Tooth alone)


Basic strategy is have Death Hex mapped, cast it on your enemy of choice, obliterate him with staff attacks for 15 seconds(dmg= basic staff dmg*(1,9 + 0,25) per hit GUARANTEED), then spend the next 15 seconds roaming the field for STAGGERS, lockdowns, healing and hasting. Rinse and repeat.

I have an alternate build that focuses on Rogue gear and a DEX/CUN investment. If you're interested I'll post that as well.