69 réponses à ce sujet

[Zilod]

with the new forum coping my guide here and taking the chance to make a bit of order into it
the guided is divided in 5 main parts...
- spells (a description of various spells wih pro and cons and some tips)
- tips (some basic tips, targetting, usefull abilities and such)
- spell interaction (spell combos but also good spell interaction)
- specializations (some analysis and suggestions about various specs)
- builds (this will come later too )


--------------------- SPELLS ------------------------
Ok after playing a bit with various spells i tought to put up a small spell guide, of course it is still quite difficult to judge them as my experience is not "intensive" with all the lines and some combos are yet unknown... still this can be usefull for new players to get an idea about various spells and to discuss strategies and combos

Let me also add that i found most schools pretty balanced... almost all lines have pretty good spells that works pretty well in different situations...

MAGE LINE
the basic you learn at the circle, not that good imo, but the bolt come handly in many situations

Magic Bolt
Rating: 3/5
an ok single target spell as a caster you get it for free, usefull to boost a bit your damage... well it comes for free i cant really bash it

Arcane Shield
Rating: 2/5
The defense bonus is not that high, and there are better alternative to it (glyph of warding) imo better to spend the spell slot elsewhere

Staff Focus
Rating: 3/5
staff dmg is not that high but, if you get a staff that turn dmg in elemental dmg you can apply the bonus from gear with +% elemental dmg (thx to Metatrans for pointing that out), such dmg is also modified by hexes, making it possible to get some good numbers out of it, not far from the single target nukes.

Arcane Mastery
Rating: 2/5
spell potence is good... but not for a lv4 spell and not after you got 2 situational skills... also the boost is not that big


PRIMAL
elemental spells... yup, this is the "nuker school" with fire and lighting as the most dmg oriented, ice is more "utility" and earth a more defensive line.

- FIRE LINE -
the most dmg oriented line, not my fav but it get the job done

Flame Blast
Rating: 3/5
Basic dmg spell, effective vs small groups of mobs, with a bit of practice is not hard to position and put enemies on fire, the dmg dot is ok even if nothing exceptional this makes the spell a bit of a waste vs single enemies but ok vs groups, it lack the utiity of cold cone but on counter is a lv1 spell and is pretty cheap too

Flaming Weapons
Rating: 3/5
Fire dmg to weapons? why not... if you are going for the fire this spell is cheap to mantain and provide more dmg for the group... later on, depending by the build and other

Fireball
Rating: 4/5
here the big nuke for fire, good dmg + knockback is a nice combo for one spell, the area of effect is also good but sometimes it can be problematic to use... work the best vs archers and enemies inside rooms, if you plan to use it near the frontline pay a lot of attention to your tank position and "behaviour" (tank running to the far mob when you are castin fireball is bad)... of course dont target a charging enemy directly with it or you will risk to hit your own party, instead always target the ground... this is generally valid for all the friendly or foe aoe spells

Inferno
Rating: 3/5
the highest damage area spell, the damage is nice but... as all area spell you need something to keep ehemies in place to be effective... a good choice if you want to focus on these kind of spells, even if not a spell to justify the purchase of fire line

EARTH LINE
a more defensive oriented line, the first 2 spells are quite good, making it a good line to dabble in, for mages that chose to specialize in it petrify will be a good spell that will serve them well

Rock Armor
Rating: 4/5
a "first level" spell that offers good protection against incoming dmg... use it with Arcane Warrior or a tunic with good armour rating and your char will be noticeably harder to kill... cheap, first level, good protection... good spell to have!

Stonefist
Rating: 3/5
not among my fav spells, usefull vs small guys but not that good vs bigger ones... what makes this spell actually good is the ability to shatter frozen or stoned enemies... a saving throw is required (so it will work mostly on s"white" guys) but still it makes for a pretty usefull combo.

Earthquake
Rating: 1/5
personally i did not find this spell that usefull, many enemies are immune to knockdown and this spell have not much else to offer, there are waaay better crow control spells around

Petrify
Rating: 3/5
this spell is pretty good, stone the enemy and set up for a shatter, the duration is good, the recharge is good too... its only big "drawback" is that is a 4th level spell, still it can be worth to invest in it if you are alredy going to get Stonefist.

- ICE LINE -
this is my fav primal line, the dmg is not as good as fire or shock but... the added CC is invaluable, i suggest to specialize in it as the best spells (Cone of Cold and Blizzard) are the last 2 ones

Winter's Grasp
Rating: 4/5
imo the best single target spell, it is instand and can freeze and for short time, pretty good to interrupt enemy casters, it is also a level 1 spell making it a good choice for the mages looking for single target dmg spells

Frost Weapons
Rating: 3/5
as for fire... added frost dmg for the party... why not... a decent addition for the ice line

Cone of Cold
Rating: 5/5
the dmg is not that good but the freeze effect is pretty nice, my fav cone spell and can save your butt in close combat... also an ideal setup for shatter, not much else to add

Blizzard
Rating: 5/5
this spell is just awesome... really... is the less damaging aoe spell but the freeze is gold, imo one of the best spells in the game and as all aoe dots doesnt even require a clear line of sight... the great thing of Blizzard is that it permit to setup extremely nasty aoe "combos" as, due to freeze and slow, it will keep most enemies in the area, permitting to other area spells to do their work... a room full of enemies? blizzard+inferno/tempest/death cloud and you can play pazaak while they die.

- LIGHTNING LINE -
not a bad line, tempest is a good chice for a secondary aoe dot spell, the first 2 spells are quite ordinary "damage dealers" and the forth is mostly a matter of taste

Lightning
Rating: 2/5
single target spell, not bad damage but imo inferior to winter grasp, works ok for lv 1 but nothing to speak about

Shock
Rating: 2/5
imo the worst cone... not that is bad by itself but fire cone is lv1 and ice cone have the nice CC factor that makes it kinda superior... still a decent close range aoe damage dealers as the fire one.

Tempest
Rating: 4/5
the dmg is good for a level 3 spell, a bit less that inferno (lv 4) and on par with Death Cloud and for half the mana of these spells... a good complement to blizzard

Chain Lightning
Rating: 2/5
dont like this spell that much, the base dmg is quite low, to be effective it need many enemies pretty close and even there the dmg is far from exceptional, on top of that it have a casting time making it a slow and weak spell, the only positive thing is that it is group friendly but overall is a weak and situational spell

CREATION
heals heals heals! and more! this school have some very good lines: heal is a must have at least at 1 (possibly at 3) and glyph offers some flexible and tactical tools. the other lines imo are so and so, they have some good spells but not as solid as the first two

- HEAL LINE -
ok this is a must have, personally i suggest up to healing 3 as Regeneration is a pretty good spell but even mass Rejuvenation can have its uses

Heal
Rating: 5/5
the most usefull spell in game... lv1... heal... lv1... heal... get it asap with all your casters

Rejuvenate
Rating: 2/5
this spell is not bad but personally i will prefer to spend mana for other stuff, can be good to replentish a bit fellow mage but potions works as well and whitout using your precious mana

Regeneration
Rating: 4/5
good lv3 spells, a must have for your healer, use it when your tank start to get dmg, dont await to see him half dead... Regeneration+Heal makes an happy tank

Mass Rejuvenation
Rating: 3/5
this spell seem to work on the caster too... meaning you basically get your mana back , personally i dont think is that "needed" but is an helpfull spell. it can be used to setup Spirit Healer healing aura (more later)

- HEROIC LINE -
i have minor experience with this line as i dont like much the small buffs you need to keep up, so feel free to bash my judgning and comment

Heroic Offense
Rating: 1/5
i'm biased i know... but generally my companions seem to have not many troubles to hit enemies, there are a few guys with high defense but imo is a bit of a waste to invest into it for such mobs, not to say that melee classes alredy have spells to boost their offensive rating

Heroic Aura
Rating: 2/5
boost of distance defence, it can be ok vs archers but generally for ranged enemies there are better options (read CC or aoe dmg)

Heroic Defense
Rating: 2/5
defense in always good and this spell boost it and elemental resistance, can be a decent situational spell to put on your tank but again generally i prefer to prevent enemies to fire than to reduce the damage they do to a single target

Haste
Rating: 4/5
this is a good spell, sad it is at the end of a line that doesnt offer that much (well imo) it also have an high endurance and cost, even if it doesnt seem to drain mana during combat


- GLYPH LINE -
a pretty good line for strategic casters all 4 spells are quite usefull and provide good crowd control tools, expecially in small areas

Glyph of Paralysis
Rating: 4/5
a good spell... is fast and can be used for the aoe paralysis explosion combo (with Glyph of repulsions) best used near doorways or "on top" of big mobs. beware that the combo have a big area of radius

Glyph of Warding
Rating: 3/5
even if the area is not that big (and generally i try to spread my group) the defense bonus is pretty high and can be a pretty usefull spell to help your "back line" or if you find your group in the hearth of the battle

Glyph of Repulsion
Rating: 4/5
veeeery good spells, expecially if used near doorways or other narrow passages, it have many nice applications and works well to keep melee mobs out of your squishies, is also the ideal start for the paralysis explosion combo (just beware friendly fire )

Glyph of Neutralization
Rating: 3/5
a good spells vs casters and pretty effective at what it does, personally i prefer other options vs them but if you are alredy getting Glyph of Repulion i see no reason why you shoul not get this too (well untill you are specializing in Spirit line )

- SUMMON(?) LINE -
a kinda strange line, not a big fan of it but Spellbloom is a nice spell and other ones could have their use

Spell Wisp
Rating: 2/5
bonus to spell potency for some sustained cost... is not bad, but generally i will spend slots in other things, expecially in the early game, still it can be ok to dabble in it when you got your first CC/Healing spells

Grease
Rating: 2/5
slow on small area, not that impressed by it, it can be good for the "ignite combo" but as a stand alone CC it is quite weak

Spellbloom
Rating: 3/5
this is an interesting spell, the mana regeneration seem pretty high and the area of effect is quite large, it can also be used to sustain the health regen aura of spirit healer (with other stuff). sadly is a 3rd level spells... is its effect worth 3 spell slots?... your call

Stinging Swarm
Rating: 1/5
the only damage spell of creation school and... is quite bad... the cost is ok, the damage is ok and eventually can jump on another enemy... still there are better choice to do dmg, if you are alredy going for Spellbloom and have not other damage spells it will be eventually ok to get Stinging Swarm but personally i will save the slot for something else

- SPIRIT -
A good and balanced school that offers a bit of everything, it have some good CC, some good (but tricky) damage spells, a summon spell, good anti caster tools... the anti magic line is imo a bit weak, but the other 3 lines offer some solid spells to specialize or dabble in

ANTI MAGIC LINE
i have not played much with this line, just some fast tests, so feel free to add, i didnt like this line that much, probably only the first 2 spells are kinda worth, but they have pro and cons, personally i will skip this line althogather, expecially as its sister (the mana line) is pretty good to deal with enemy casters

Spell Shield
Rating: 2/5
Even if i rated it a bit low this is an interesting spell... 75% to "absorb" an enemy spell spending mana can be pretty good for a squishy caster... yes a caster whit no mana is an useless one... but a dead caster is even more useless it can be a life saver or totally useless... your call

Dispel Magic
Rating: 2/5
this spell is very situational, there are not many casters ingame, and generally they tend to cast direct damage spells, Dispel Magic can come handly if your tank get a Curse of Mortality but in these (rare) situations you can use magic field too... not to say that generally is better to put enemy mages out of combat fast, rather than to await they start happy casting on you

Anti Magic Ward
Rating: 1/5
to protect a group member (probably the tank) vs enemy spells seem a good thing... sad part that this ward protect him even on friendly spells, imo a faste of mana and spell slot

Anti-Magic Burst
Rating: 1/5
another meh spell imo... not that is bad by itself, but if you permit to an enemy caster to cast a blizzard on you, you are doing something wrong, enemy also seem to like death clouds over blizzards and generally you can just walk away from it before it does some real damage


MANA LINE
enemy casters are probably the most dangerous enemies, it is important to disable them fast and this line delivers!, is it true that you can get good results with less specific CC spells but still it can be worth to spend some spells slots here

Mana Drain
Rating: 2/5
have not much experience with it (so as usuall feel free to bash me ) but i find this spell a bit "problematic" to use, there are not many casters in the game (luckilly) and generally is better to disable them fast rather than use them as mana battery... you can set up a stone or paralisys and leach some mana true but this also come at the beginning of the fight, when you are alredy buisy casting other stuff... not to say you have to keep an eye on your battery if you dont want it to "explode" in your face

Mana Cleanse
Rating: 3/5
level 2 spell with some good use vs casters, casters are nasty and is always a good thing to put them out of the combat fast and this spell delivers... also the mana "sacrifice" is quite low... so... why not to use? true that there are better ways to deal with casters but at lv2 this offer a pretty decent option

Spell Might
Rating: 3/5
we always like magic potency and this spell offer a decent bonus, it also permit to create undead mages that is a good thing, 3rd level is probably a bit high, but the combo and the fact that this imo is a nice line makes it worth

Mana Clash
Rating: 4/5
probably the best anty caster spell, the damage is good, the enemy is out of mana and is aoe too... i tested it a bit and really liked it, good for the difficult fights with multiple wizzies

- DEAD LINE -
An overall good line, good for both dabbling (1st and 2nd spell are quite good) and specialize, probably it requires some finess and is not a "flashy" line but have some solid and versatile spells

Walking Bomb
Rating: 3/5
this spell is extremely interesting, it does a decent dot and the enemy explode when he dies, the overall damage is very good for a 1st level spell, the problem is that it need some practice and control to use it well, the risk in fact is to put it on an incoming mob and to have it explode in the middle of your party (bad thing)... generally better to be used in conjunction with some CC (blizzard, paralysis) or vs archers

Death Syphon
Rating: 4/5
pretty good lv2 spell to keep your mana up in big battles with lot of enemies, expecially at the beginning where potions are not many and you are not yet a blood mage (uops ), can be quite good for frontline arcane warriors as they tend to be in the hearth of battle and to move a lot on the field (not to say they are pretty low on mana due to AW sustained buffs)

Virulent Walking Bomb
Rating: 3/5
a buffed version of Walking Bomb... more damage, chance to infect... the danger for your group is "buffed" too of course, use with caution

Animate Dead
Rating: 5/5
As a circle mage i always asked myself... why is blood magic so forbidden but seem to be ok to put a daemon inside a dead body? mah misteries of the circle anyway this spell is pretty good, it summon a decent tank minion, ok it is not Alistair but still it can help for offtanking and crowd control (just remember to activate his abilities) the minion is healed and buffed by various group spells but note that 1 can have just 1 pet/group (sadly) so it can conflict with other animate dead or ranger summon
(credit to Ferelden Templar for the pet restriction info)

- FORCE LINE -
one of the best line in the game, powerfull and flexible, good CC, added damage, panic buttons, with 2 of the best spells ingame

Mind Blast
Rating: 3/5
an ok 1st level spell, pbaoe stun, it doesnt last long but handly to buy you some time, sure you are not dabbling into this line for this spell but it can come handly

Force Field
Rating: 5/5
one of the best spells ingame, this spell is extremely versatile and can be used bot defensively and offensively, is an instant spell, making a fantastic panic button!. Your tank is low on health? he is about to die?... Force Field him and heal him, a char got hit by curse of mortality and is getting owned by dark spwans? again Force Field!... you spot an enemy mage and your other CC are down or have not much time before he finish his chain lighting? again Force Field...
It also does a combo with Crushing Prison, making a big radius paralysis explosion, atm is bugged as you cant target one of your comrade with Crushing Prison, but still can come handly in some situations

Telekinetic Weapons
Rating: 3/5
again some added dmg vs big armor, not bad, expecially as this spell is in a very good spell line

Crushing Prison
Rating: 5/5
another very good spell is instant as Force Field but enemies are still vulnerable to your attacks making it a veeeeery good anti caster tool. of course it can also be used on normal mobs or for the combos, the only his drawback is the saving thrown as it doesnt seem to land as well as some other CC tools... still one of the best around


ENTROPHY
probably my fav school, it focus heavilly on CC and debuff, it doesnt seem to offer much for the offensive mage, but the first 2 hexes are worth dabbling in even for the most fiery primal nuker, all lines are pretty good with versatile spells and some good combos, death line is probably the less powerfull one, but it have death cloud that is a good aoe dot and can be used for some huge nukes with the combo

- WEAKNESS LINE -
this line is very good for CC... paralysis is a powerfull tool and makes it worth even to dabble into to deal with powerfull enemies

Weakness
Rating: 2/5
small debuff on a single opponent, nothing that dramatic, mana is better spent elsewhere

Paralysis
Rating: 4/5
level 2 spell and a pretty good one, is not as powerfull as Crushing Prison of course, and is not an instant spell (meaning that the "projectile" will need some time to hit the target) but it can come pretty handly in every part of the game and against many enemies... from the grunt to the ogres or nasty casters

Miasma
Rating: 4/5
a pretty decent sustained pb aoe debuff, not that cheap but can come handly in many situations and for the more chaotic battles, expecially when you have not much CC going on

Mass Paralysis
Rating: 4/5
another powerfull spell, the area of effect is pretty decent but sadly this spell have a small casting time, it can be worth to set it up with a sleep spell (that have no casting time), cept of that this is one of the best CC spells in the game

- HEXES -
looking at it it could seem that this line is not that good... well this is an extremely powerfull line if used well with many nice tool to boost both your melee and magical damage not to say to gimp the fools that try to oppose you (muahahaha)

Vulnerability Hex
Rating 4/5
this is the kind of spell that generally is overlooked... dont do that, this thing is a beast if used well... is level 1, is instant and you will see that your nukes will do a lot more damage than usual... of course is better to use it on strong enemies and not on grunts... it also do combo with life and mana drain, not the most powerfull combo around, but always a nice to have.  I see no reasons to skips this spell, as it will greatly boost the damage of all your spells (well untill if you are an healboth in a group of wars )
it also seem that Vuln Hex lowers enemy mental defence something that can come handly while combining spells on a boss or setting up some cc  (thx to Discord)

Affliction Hex
Rating 4/5
as above, fantastic spell for level 2, it also seem to stack with Vulnerability Hex for quite massive damage, it is still instant and aoe, meaning that it works well with various aoe dots

Misdirection Hex
Rating 4/5
this debuff is pretty handly vs strong enemies: it is instant and it will be quite problematic for them to hit you (tanking a reaver with a caster anyone?) and the duration is pretty decent too... the only problem is that, as other hexes, it seem to draw a lot of aggro, so be ready as your tank will have to taunt the mob back on him

Death Hex
Rating 4/5
another good Hex, the damage will go up a lot using it, but again the mob will not like you (tank be ready ) the combo with death cloud is extremely good too, expecially if you stacked affliction and vuln hexes on your target

- NIGHTMARE LINE -
Another fantastic line, full of good CC abilities and a pretty good combo

Disorient
Rating: 1/5
never found this spell that usefull, the effect seem not consistant as is also single target

Horror
Rating: 5/5
a veeery good CC ability, the enemy is "immobilized" by fear making it safe to hit. It also works on everything and seem quite difficult to resist, making it a good choice for all the game. The combo is also very good, doing pretty good damage and with the horror effect stacked for few seconds when sleep break. the only drawback is that it is not an instant hit spell and that the duration is not that long... still pretty awesome for a lv2 spell

Sleep
Rating: 5/5
this spell can be a bit tricky to use, as you have to pay attention to not hit accidentaly a sleeping mob to awake it, still this is one of the best CC skill in the game, the area of effect is pretty huge, it is not instant hit but have not any casting time as most aoe spells meaning that it can be used to set up aoe dots (sleep+blizzard+other aoe spell)... it also set up the sleep+horror combo that is a very good one. It only big drawback is that it doesnt work on all the enemies... but when it does...

Waking Nightmare
Rating: 4/5
another very good spell in a fantastic line... the spell is an aoe confusion that works on everything, it have not any casting time, even if is not an instant it, and it seem that is a difficult spell to resist. The big drawback is that is kinda chaotic as mobs act randomly... they can stand still, flee away, hit each other or a random guy of your party (that maybe was near him or hit him). if you like to have control on the battlefield with a designated tank this spell can be tricky to use but with a bit of practice it works pretty well. Generally the best thing is to use on ranged mobs or small groups of mobs and let them kill themselves. also if you pay attention and focus your fire it will work well even with your "front line" preventing a lot of damage. It is unresistable if used after sleep, even if personally i dont advice to go for this combo... generally i let sleep expire and then, eventually, use Waking Nightmare

- DEATH LINE -
probably not the best line in entropy but have some interesting spells, the line is pretty balanced, most spells are solid but quite specific in their purpose and in the situations they come handly making them... they can be pretty good with some templates/strategies or be quite useless (even if the death cloud combo is extremely good)

Drain Life
Rating: 3/5
an ok spell for 1st level, can work as a small self heal to save the heal spell for your comrades, decent in combo with Vuln or Affliction hexes. not an awesome spell but it can come handly even if probably, alone, is not worth to dabble in the line

Death Magic
Rating: 3/5
a good spell, even if a bit situational, probably it will work the best with arcane warriors, but sure it can come handly for all the situation when you are in the hearth of the fight

Curse of Mortality
Rating: 2/5
this is a very specialized spell, it is pretty good in what it does but is extremely situational... in fact grunts doesnt heal themselves (at least at normal) using potions and enemies casters are always your priority in combat, making it difficult for them to stay around to heal thing, not to say that the good enemy tanks are quite few... this kinda restrict the use of this spells on a few powerfull mobs that are difficult to mez, have lot of hps and tend to heal themselves... in these situations this spell do its job pretty well, but in the end there are not that many mobs like these.

Death Cloud
Rating: 5/5
ok this is not the best aoe dot spell... it is less damaging than Inferno, it costs more than Tempest and is not as awsome as blizzard... still this spell do its job as a reliable aoe dot and can be used to do an awesome combo...Death Hex + Death Cloud can be fired in 2s and it does a crapload of damage on a single target, it should also be possible to put an hex on a mob alredy inside a death cloud and "activate" the combo resulting in a big nuke... you are not satisfied with the damage? you have just to stack other hexes on the mob and see him go bye bye. Hexes+Death Cloud = mob ownage


ok thats all for the main Schools of magic now lets look briefly at the specializations


SHAPESHIFTER
argh, this specialization is sooo bad, most of the time is a wast of time, stay away from it all the forms are quite weak and you give up all your casting ability for them, not worth at all.. ok if you want to be a shapeshifter for the "cool factor" is a thing... but this is one of the few lines that i find quite useless

Spider Form
Rating: 1/5
the basic form, it have web for some CC, the poison do some ok damage but really... it is not worth the tradeoff... horror, paralysis, glyph of paralysis will work as well as the web

Bear Form
Rating: 1/5
is slow, it does low damage, low armor... stay away

Swarm Form
Rating: 2/5
this form is the only one with some merit, it does a decent pb aoe dmg, the problem is that the defence and armor are too slow and, as when you get hit you lose mana, there is no way to heal you... doing aoe damage will give you lot of aggro so you will be not able to stay in the form for much time and then you are out of mana... (have not tried to use it in conjunction with a force field but.... is it even worth trying that?)

Master Shapeshifter
Rating: 1/5
if various forms where better maybe this skill will be not so useless


ARCANE WARRIOR
what is not the shapeshifet is the arcane warrior... a versatile specialization that permit a lot of flexibility... you can go from the "sturdy caster" to a frontline warrior that dish out some good melee damage... this line is good for both the dabbler who want to get some extra defense and the mage that always read of the heroic wardens who slayed archdeamons with theirs sword

Combat Magic
Rating: 5/5
this skill is the defininf one of the arcane warrior and many others expand its capabilities... is it important to note that you dont need to activate the (very expensive) buff to be able to wear an armor... you can pretty much take just this skill, forget about the buff and go around with a decent armor rating and just "minor" fatigue (well just the one of the armor ). The buff itself is solid and makes you a "real warrior", just remember that magic is still an usefull stat as it boost your war damage/attack and defence

Aura Of Potency
passive skill to boost your war stats, it works only when Combat Magic is active

Shimmering Shield
Rating: 3/5
another buff that boost your armor... this one could be used even not in conjunction with combat magic... the problem is that it drain mana during combat, the boost itself is pretty good but you need to compensate for the drain with other means

Shround of the fade
another passive skill, if you plan to be a frontline warrior no reason to skip it as it gives some nice boosts


- SPIRIT HEALER -
this is a very good specialization both for bonuses and skills but surprisingly the best spells are the first 2 ones making it a line more suited to dabble than to specialize in. Just the first spell is pretty good and by itself is worth the specialization, the other ones depend more by your taste

Group Heal
Rating: 5/5
fantastic heal, a must have on 1 of not 2 group members, as the healing is comparable to standard heal it can replace it if it is not up, this skills works extremely well with in conjunction with blood magic

Awaken
Rating: 4/5
a solid skill even if not necessary... a lot will depend on your group... if you have just 1 mage then better to have this one, if you have 2 mages with some heals then probably you will not use it that much as you are going to win or die regardless of it

Ward of Life
Rating: 3/5
not a bad spell but with Group Heal, Heal and Regeneration you should be alredy ok for most healing, maybe is a single caster group it can be handly if you really want to save potions, but probably better to spend your spell slots elsewhere

Aura of Purification
Rating: 2/5
this spell have the potential to be a fantastic one... its problem is the upkeep in fact it drain a lot of mana during combat, is it possible to sustain it with other spells eventually, but that require some management and a build tought to take advantage of this spell

- BLOOD MAGIC -
this is a very nice specialization, extremely powerfull with its ability to use health rather than healing, is it true, you can use potions or the skill from the DLC but blood magic is the fast easy and powerfull way, that have some pretty good spells too... it works extremely well with spirit healers... draining your comrades health to heal yourself and them healing them immediatly with a group heal. Note that if you decide to take this specialization you are kinda forced to get the first 2 spells, even if all of them are so good that spell slots are well spent in them and to activate the last 3 spells you need to have blood magic active

Blood Magic
Rating: 5/5
The core of this specialization, you use health rather than mana to cast, note that while Blood Magic is active you basically cant be healed by normal mean... this mean you cant use blood magic extrensively when you get it but have to await to get the second spell

Blood Sacrifice
Rating: 5/5
it is just needed to heal yourself and replentish your health pool while using blood magic, it works only on friendly units, not on enemies. It doesnt work on charmed mobs (thx to Trefecka for pointing that out)

Bleeding Wound
Rating: 5/5
this is a very nice aoe spell, the area is not as huge as blizzard or inferno but it doesnt require casting, it does some decent damage and mez you ropponents... think it as a sort of aoe version of Crushing Prison! it doesnt last as the prison but still is imo one of the best spells in game

Blood Control
Rating: 5/5
the big ogre is coming to stomp you what you do?... you take control of him and send him to stomp his friends!, pretty good spell, the duration and recast are good and it works well as a CC skill, it doesnt work on everything and is hard to land on bigger mobs, but still it doest its job very well...

Modifié par Zilod, 26 novembre 2009 - 07:34 .

[Zilod]

--------------------- SOME GENERAL TIPS --------------------

KNOW THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR SPELLS
this is the first thing, try to be as much open minded as possible and consider all the stats of various spells, learn what spells can do and what are their limits... if with sleep enemies wake up when they get hit, that doesnt mean it is a crap CC spell, a blizzard is not just an aoe dot, is a spell with a chance to freeze and slow down the ones inside it, a fireball is not just a nuke, is a nuke with knockdown
Knowing well your spells is essential for the good caster, dont be shy to experiment a bit and to try out new things, you will be surprised by the results

AWARNESS AND STRATEGY
is it important to have a good idea about the battlefield and the enemies around you, so dont just rush in the combat when you see a black spwan... pause the game and use TAB to get the name of various enemies, your strategy depends by the enemy you are facing... if you see a yellow or an orange name you know what will give the most problems to your tank, if you see a mage you found your first target.
remember disable the mages asap, this doesnt mean that you have necessary to kill him immediatly... it means you have to prevent him from casting... CC or various spells that remove mana work well for that, when you did that you can decide what to kill first

NATURAL ABILITY
dont know the name in english the ability that show dots on the map... take it with at least 1 member of your party, a pair of ranks is generally enought to get the job done. it is very helpfull to have an idea about the mob disposition in a closed room so you can prepare some strategy even before the battle start (of course you dont know what is inside, but you know of eventual mobs behind corners or in small niches and that can come handly in aoe placing and have an idea of the enemies numbers

SPACING AND POSITIONING
spacing a bit your group is generally a good thing, this depends by the situation, your setup, your spells and more, but generally is not a bad idea, expecially if you have 2 casters who can draw aggro... is bad to have both caster knocked down by an ogre rock as they will both get interrupted and will be not able to act for few seconds, a bit of spacing can prevent that

it can also be worth to build a front and a back line...many mobs have melee pbae stuns or attacks, keeping your mages a bit safe in the back is generally a good idea.

of course this is not always true... if you have AOE buffs, or you are surrounded it can be worth to do the opposite stay packed and use a glyph to protect yourself or an aoe, or just to make the tank get aggro (and then moving back with your casters )

the important thing is to make a choice about your positioning and dont let the "fate" decide for you (well at least in the difficult fights )

BOWS
give a bow to all your melee, generally it is not that worth to give 2 set of weapons to your melee classes you always have the sword of uberness full of runes that is better than a good mace... so it end up with yor melee not using their "secondary weapon slot"... give them a bow, even crappy, in some situations is a good option to have

MANA AND POTIONS
dont be shy to go around with potions, always have some of them for the tought fight, generally you dont need the expensive high end potions, even the minor ones can do the trick and permit to win a difficult fight, craft them if necessay (they are cheap and lyrum powder can be found in abundance in some markets, and they can save your butt

same can be said for health potion, just remember that generally a caster get more health from potions than warriors (due to higher magic rating) this mean that in some situations it can be work to heal yourself using a potion and to save the heal spell for the tank rather than to do the opposite... it depends by the situation of course but keep that in consideration when you make your choices


GET THE BEST FROM YOUR AOE

PLACING AOE SPELLS
the first advice is to not target foes with aoe spells, place them on the ground, if you pay attention you will see that enemies "light up" when you they are inside your virtual aoe circle, this makes aoe placement (be it a cc, an aoe dot or a nuke) quite easy. same can be said for cones... if you pay some attention is easy to avoid to hit accidentally your tank. a fireball or a blizzard are not just spells to be cast on enemies far away, you can throw a fireball in the middle of an empty room to hit the enemies in front of your tank

Be also aware that all aoe spells need some time to hit, some of them (as blizzard for example) have a casting time, others have no casting time but they fire a "proyectile" that will require a few sec to travel to the enemy mobs. this is something you have to consider as in such time an enemy caster can try to run away from your group if hes too near, or various melee fighters will charge your tank. With a bit of experience you should be able to judge where they will be when the spell will hit

in certain situations it can be worth to place the spell on a mob... this generally happens in large areas with many melee mobs spread around  and with your chosen spell that have not a big area of effect (as waking horror or mass paralysis) consider that generally mobs have a similar speed and tend to "close up" on your group.. if you are using an aoe spell in such situation you will generally be sure to hit all the highlighted mobs when it will hit, as the area will move with the targetted mob.
Of course it will be possible to do that even cluclating their movement as i said earlier, but if you are using a small area, party safe, aoe is faster and more effective to do that

PLACING AOE DOTS
Storms and cluds are fantastic  spells but they need some accuracy in placing, be aware that enemies generally dont stand just still inside them gettin hit... archers will move in corners to get out of the aoe, melee will charge your group (that generally is out of the aoe too), this mean that, if you are firing a storm inside a room is better to try to cover the biggest area in the room, and to pay a bit more attention to the corner in front of the door where your group is (or archers will all go there and will happy shot at your group while your aoe dot is wasted elsewhere

another important thing of aoe dots is that they generally dont require line of sight, if you know there are mobs inside a room with an open doon you dont need to show up at the door and "say hello" to your enemies to fire it, you can pretty much stay outside, behind a corner and whipe the whole room whitout them even knowing you where there... it is also important to prevent them to get out of the room of course but more of this later...

PLACING CONES
cones follow the same rules of general aoe, but are a bit more tricky to "deploy" as they are close range, as usual remember to place them on an area and not a mob, highligtning only the enemies if possible... and dont forget that you can move before firing them... you can take some distance with your caster to have a bigger area of effect, you can move a bit your tank to get in a better position, if you are using a mez you can even call your tank back and go happy firing cones if you dont want to fry him
As usual remember to try to "shape" the field as much as possible, and this is expecially true if you want to use cones as they have a small and "restricted" area of effect

PLACING GLYPH OF REPULSION
this is a little fantastic spell, the duration is very good and work on many grunts and most casters, there 2 main ways to place it... in doorways or "neck bottles" (to preven enemies to reach your group, or on top of your chars, to prevent mobs to come close... you can pretty much protect all your group if you stay close.

There is also another less common way in placing... and that is near walls (or even better corners) to get an enemy stuck.... the glyph in fact push the enemy toward the nearest border but if the border is near a wall the mob will not get out of the glyph range, the poor guy will fall down and when he will stand up he will be again inside the glyph area making him fall again. Of course this placing is situational but, with a bit of practice, is it possible to actually mez even yellow mobs, getting them "stuck" between the wall and the gliph, they just have to be vuln to knockback and the trick is done

Modifié par Zilod, 19 novembre 2009 - 01:05 .

[Zilod]

-------------------- SPELL INTERACTION ----------------

SPELL COMBOS

there are 10 spell combos, i alredy spoke earlier of them a bit now lets see them more in detail
Grease Fire: grease+area fire spell -
this imo is not a good combo, the damage is not that good and you lose the grease mino CC component, this mean that generally the enemies will just run away suffering just minor damage... you can eventually set it up to an area near the front line but personally i'm not that sure that is worth

Flame Quencher: Grease Fire + Blizzard
more a sideffect than a combo and not that usefull too... i prefer to stay on a grease fire rather than a blizzard

Storm of the Century: Spell Might + Blizzard + Tempest
this spell is a bit "tricky" the area of effect is much bigger than the one of blizzard of tempest, the dmg is way higher (around 2x dmg of the combined spells i think) but you loose the freezing and slow capability of blizzard... is it worth? your call... if you can take advantage on its huge area of effect or you can put it in a room where mobs cant exit, or on big archer groups it can be worth... if not blizzard+another aoe probably is still better

Shattering: Freeze or Petrify + Stone Fist or  Crushing Prisong or a critical hit
this is a pretty good spell to take out pesky minions a cone of cold is all you need and with a bit of group management you can eventually take out a few minions with it (using melee crits too), still beware that it requires a saving throw to work so yellow and orange mobs can (easilly) resist to it... (i dont suggest to waste a crushing prison on it as this spell is more usefull as CC+dmg vs nasty mobs)

Paralysis Explosion: Glyph of Repulsion + Glyph of Paralysis
this combo is gold, the area is big and the effect have a good duration and is not easy to resist. always use repulsion to set it up or you risk to use the paralysis glyph, you can have 2 casters perform it (one with repulsion one with paralysis) to make it an "instant spell" considering that glyph of paralysis is a lv1 spell (and is alredy pretty usefull as is it) it can be a good investiment even for a caster that focus on other lines/schools of magic

Shockwave: Force Field + Crushing Prison
another interesting combo... you can use it on an enemy minion to try to freeze a group, as the imprisoned creature will be free it is better to not use this combo on a strong opponent, also beware that the radius is pretty big and you can risk to get caught in it.
this combo can also be used to free a comrade "stuck" in Crushing Prison... again beware to the Shockwave range as you can risk to free the guy but to paralyze all your group... it can still be worth if most enemies are inside the combo area (as if anyway if everyone is paralyzed doesnt change much ) maybe to free a caster that can start to setup some nice stuff... if not is always good to use it on your tank in the front line (if he get it by crushing prison of course) this way you can move your group away and free him paralizing mobs around him

Advanced Reanimation: Spell Might + Reanimation
this is a nice combo to have as you get a better equipped and stronger skelethon, to keep it active you dont even need to keep Spell Might up if you have not much mana (as in the beginning) . as said the skele will generally be stronger and with more skills, as usual the type of undead you will get will depend on the mob you are going to use... use on an archer centric mob to get an archer undead, on a mage or an emissary to get a mage pet (that is pretty nice ) the only "problem" is that when you zone it disappears (sadly) and it can be a bit "silly" to lose it climbing stairs inside a building or entering into a small house

Nightmare: Sleep + Horror
a very good combo... cast horror on a sleeping mob and it will get some big spirit damage and be "stunned" for a few seconds too, if complemented well with hexes it can easilly do 200-300 dmg, not bad at all the only drawback is that horror is (sadly) a short range spell so, in some situations, it can be risky to "close up" with your mage

Improved Drain: Vulnerability Hex + Drain Life or Drain Mana
so and so combo imo, is not that is bad but again more a side effect than something to look to set up... anyway you should place a Vuln Hex on strong mobs and to drain more life is indeed usefull if things go bad and heals are down, cept for that nothing much to say... the mana version imo is just useless, as said above is better to kill enemy casters fast rather than to use them as mana batteries

Entropic Death: Death Hex + Death Cloud
this is a pretty good combo as the nuke is pretty big... if set up right (no reason not to do that) you can get pretty nice numbers... there are not many spells with the potential to do 600+ dmg in quite short time, just beware that Hexes are aggro magnets and some mobs dispel them asap, for this reason is it better to set this spell with a CC (and other hexes to boost dmg) and then fire the death cloud.
You should also be able to activate it putting a Death Hex on an enemy inside a death Cloud, of course in this way there is not much risk that he will dispell the hex before you fire your Cloud


SPELL INTERACTION
Combos is not the only way to make spells "interact", a very good thing of DAO is that there are many kind of CC spells and spells with various "side effects" this make it possible to do interesting combinations to obtain a certain effect or get the best from a certain spell

BOOSING DAMAGE: HEX LINE
the first 2 Hexes are a cheap and effective way to boost your magical damage, these spells seem to be generally overlooked, but they are actually pretty good, every damage spell have some recast time so you cant just cast a fireball every second... so why not to maximize your damage before to fire it?
Hexes are instant spells, pretty hard to resist, and can make all your dmg spells (and the ones of friendly mages) count more... use them

SETTING UP SPELLS: CC WONDERS
you can get some fantastic results with various spells but sometimes is it difficult to set up them properly, a death cloud deal a lot of damage but mobs will get out of it pretty fast... so how to get the best out of it?... a Plague Bomb can deal massive damage but how to not kill all your group with it?... well that is when you set up spells and you execute your own "combo"

CC is a very efficent way to set up spells, the mezzed mob stay there, doesnt move around and is an ideal catalyst for all the nasty things you want to put on him, he will not dispell hexes or (or course) get too close to your party... a group of paralyzed mobs cant get out of an area with storm of the century and will die in no time... to set up spells correctly will make the game way easier, expecially for the more difficult encoutners... lets see a bit in detail

SLEEP: an ideal starter
Sleep is a fantastic spell to set up most of the combos, it is fast to execute, have a very large area and is one of the least resisted spells, not to say it is also quite cheap to cast... it can be used both for single target combos or area ones, and you dont rick to hit accidentally your comrades with it.

so i said about how uber aoe dots can be... but most of the time mobs run away and you need few seconds to cast them... here an example of aoe setup using sleep
sleep -> blizzard -> death cloud
sleep will "freeze in place" all the mobs in the same area of your aoes (as they have same radius), the fact that mobs will awake on dmg is not a big as you are using blizzard that doesnt deal that much dmg compared to other aoe dots but have good CC components freezing and slowing mobs inside the area.
This "combo" is generally enought to wipe rooms of enemies with impunity

you can use sleep even as a starer for mass paralysis... the aoe paralysis in fact is a very good group friendly spell but have some casting time, making it difficult to execute on the hearth of the battle
sleep -> mass paralysis
do the job... you start with sleep mezzing all the mobs around you (of course you have to stop to hit them too) and then "upgrade" it with mass paralysis to hit them with impunity

something like that can also work for other spells as walking plague bomb, a powerfull but dangerous spell and as you are there you can add some res debuff hexes to maximize the damage of all mobs in the area of explosion, remember that hexes doesnt cause dmg so mobs will not wake up using them
sleep -> affliction hex -> horror -> walking plague bomb -> finish mob
sleep will keep all the mobs standing still in the area, hex will boost the dmg, horror will deal a considerable amount of dmg (with the combo) and make the mob standing still... walking plague bomb will finish him while your caster move away

of course something like that can be made with other CC too, the glyph paralysis combo works extremely well too, but as is not group friendly is not always possible to use it... here a good example for paralysis explosion è storm of the century
glyph of repulsion + glyph of paralysis (better from 2 chars) -> blizzard + tempest (with spell might)
this is an overkill combo and in the end quite fast to set it up, the paralysis area is quite large and storm of century will cover it no prob dealing massive damage to helpless enemies

you can also set up single target spells or CCs... for example, we said that caster mobs tend to dispel the hexes on them, this many times prevent the use of entropic death combo... here how to resolve
sleep (or a single target CC) -> hex of vulnerability -> hex of affliction -> hex of death -> death cloud
and the mob will go boom

want to add some more damage?
sleep -> hex of vuln -> hex of affliction -> hex of death -> horror -> death cloud
2 maximized combo vs an helpless mob, you basically need the first CC to hit him and you will deal 800-1k dmg at the end of the "combo" i used it to instapop the poor loghain in the 1vs1 duel poor guy

of course there are other ways to set up spells, glyph of repulsion is another pretty good one... glyph at door, and then you can unload everything you want... from plague bomb to various aoe dots

there are also other ways to make spells interact to cover their weak points or to sustain them for example, it is kinda possible to keep a SH aura up using mass refresh+flourish, same for the 3rd spell in arcane warrior

there are many combinations to make various spells more effective, these are just some example to give a few ideas and "research" your own fav "combos"

Modifié par Zilod, 21 novembre 2009 - 09:25 .

[Zilod]

------ SPECIALIZATIONS ------

of course the circle of mages is not going to teach you all the "dirty tricks" of magic or the uber powers of blood magic (or templars will get mad at them) but that doesnt mean that around the world you can learn exotic, powerfull if not forgotten "schools" of magic... lets give a look at them



-------- SHAPESHIFTER --------
ok when i was speaking about powerfull magic school i was not referring to it, the real reason why this school of magic is "ignored" by the circle is because it is crap ... ok i bet that young students who makes holes in the wall with fire wands to take a peek at the female dormitory will love this school but let's face it... on the battlefield it have not much to offer.

all the forms are quite weak and you give up all your magic capability and sustained spell to become a critter that a ranger can just summon (O_o) so stay away from it untill for RP purpose

for the guys who (regardless of my advice ) chose it here are sometips...
- remember that swarm do group friendly base aoe attack, try to take advantage of it, but beware the aggro, if the tank will not taunt enemies you will find yourself back in normal form (whitout mana and with mobs stomping on you) in no time.
- the form stas are added on top of yours... this means that if you wear massive armor and have a good armor rating the critter will have that armor + bonus from critter... is not that hard to reach tankesque armor/hps so, if you want to play a shifter keep this in mind.

if you want to be a shifter (and play with forms) imo there are 2 routes... shifter+AW or to build it as a war... the first point of AW will permit you to use magic to wear massive armor... this way you are able to end as a "decent" critter whitout to sacrify to much when you are out of the form... the problem of this is that buffs doesnt carry on when you shapeshift so you will do kinda pitfull dmg as magic will not replace anymore str for melee dmg bonus.

another way (but never tried) to build a shifter will be to focus on str/const... this mean that as a mage you will be crap but well.. at least your shifted form should be not that bad, you will probably end with decent armor and dmg... note that it will still be quite crappy as you end up with a sort of gimped warrior but well...

in the end this is a crap specialization to stay away from, a total waste of spell points... sad that shapeshifter is not as good as the forms you get in the fade during mage quest, if shifter forms where so versatile and fun (not to say whitout requiring few seconds to polymorph) as in its current state is useless (hope devs will fix it in future )



-------- SPIRIT HEALER --------
ok now things get more interesting.... spirit healer is the only "specialization" that doesnt impact too much on the way you play your mage, is basically a second healing line and a must have for dedicated healers (be them pc or npcs).
Generally is enought to spend 1 or 2 points to get the best of it as the last 2 spells are kinda situational, still note that the aura is capable to heal wounds and can be eventually supported by mana regen equip/spells

spirit healers combo extremely well with BM to create uber healers or just to keep your living mana potions (your comrades ) alive before/after you siphon them... dont forget that group heal works on the blood mage too, this mean that the spell cost is actually lower as some of the health spent is going to get restored by it

SH is also good with arcane warrior, you can end up with a solid backup healer and is ideal for a pally/cleric themed characters

in the end a very good spec, it doesnt change the way you play your chars and have not many counters... you also just need 1-2 points to get the best of the line and the last 2 spells, even if situational, are still usefull


 -------- BLOOD MAGE --------
here comes the power!, bloodmagic is probably my fav school (so beware that i'm very biased), the first 2 spells are functional to blood magic use (blood magic mode and blood sacrifice) the last 2 are extremely good spells

as said BM is good but beware that it change a bit the way you play the char... a BM need more management and a bit more finesse, to keep casting you kinda need to cycle various spells inside the blood sacrifice downtime and the cost should be near the mana you get back with blood sacrifice (100 hps) this is not a biggie in normal conditions and with a good controll of the field but... too much fatigue and you can find yourself low on health in no time and of course a mob stomping you is going to reduce that 100hps you have for "free casting" drammatically

is also important to chose who to syphon... dont let the AI decide for you.... the best thing is generally to use the hps from a char in the back line or eventually a rog who can disengage with hide, to leech the tank in the heart of the battle is never a good idea, even if his hps at that point are still high... this is also why SH makes a good complement to the BM spec, for its ability to heal the whole party giving you more options for your blood sacrifice.
speaking of blood sacrifice and companions remember that shale is immune to it as he have no blood.

- BM and spell costs
this is something that not many people know but blood magic have an inbuilt reduction of spell cost... the health you spend casting a spell is around 2/3 of the mana cost indicated in its tooltip, this mean that the above 100 health points are actually comparable to a 150 mana potion.

on counter of populary belief instead fatigue apply on spell cost... so an AW in war mode with 100% fatigue is going to spend 2x health to cast his spells, so dont belive to ones who say AW+BM is uber because fatigue doesnt apply to health cost, that is not true (test it yourself if you dont belive me )

sustained spells that drain mana (as AW 3, SH aura, spell might and so on) keep draining mana and not health, this makes these spells more suited for a (con focused) BM template... as you are not using mana to cast these spells will stay up longer and will be easier to manage them

- Will vs Con
there is some debate... about usefullness of will for BMs, as BM cast using hps it seem logical to focus on const and keep will for buffs but well... things are a bit more complex than what to appear

personally i think that both ways are viable, it depends a bit by taste and playstyle (i have both con and will bms), first lets see why it can be worth to boost will/mana even for a BM

the big point of blood magic is of course to use health to cast but that doesnt mean you should not or have not to cast using mana. A good amount of mana can be usefull at the start of the fight where the battle is more chaotic and there are more chances to get hit by archers or aoes and can come handly in the situations where you have to get out of bm to get an heal

also remember that blood sacrifice just heals 100hps and, if you try to stay in that range for your spell costs you really dont need that many hps to cast, also if you are forced out of BM mode a good mana pool will permit you to cast more spells and to be more active before to enter again in bm mode

on counter an higher const BM is generally more sturdy and can keep going on for longer time before to be forced to get out of BM mode, he will have a bigger "spell pool" for the more intense parts of the fights and is able to sustain some dmg before to go in "emergency mode"

to summarize we can say that a will oriente bm is more prone to switch between "stances" with a better management of both mana bars, he chose what bar he want to use depending by situation and probably have a bit more sustained spell margin as he is not scared to switch out of bm mode

a con focused bm is a bm that get in bm mode as soon as possible, that is its strong point, i thave more "raw mana" than a will focused mage as with the 2/3 cost ratio 10 points of health are like 15 points of mana, but on the counter he is generally less prone to stance switching as his mana pool can be quite low due to sustained spells

so thers not just 1 way to go... dont listen to people who says that one is god and the other is crap... both work well and have pro and cons, chose what you like the most... want to be a full time BM? probably you will like con centric bm, like to manage your resources? then probably willpower will be more suited to you... and of course you can mix wll and const too

- class Combos
BM+SH pretty good, best healer, solid choice... alredy spoke of it in the SH part so go look at it
BM+AW this can be more tricky as it will depend by the kind of AW you are going to be... i will discuss more about this later


 -------- ARCANE WARRIOR --------
is exotic, is shiney, is powerfull! is the cool mage that every young (female) apprentices in the circle tower dream to date... its the Arcane Warrior!!!! (yarrrrr)

AW is an extremely interesting specialization, and one who can impact a lot on the way you play your caster, it is extremely powerfull but have its cons too and generally have not the same casting capability of a "pure caster", also there are different ways to play an AW but lets see this in more detail

the defining spell of AW is its first level power... it permits to use magic to equip weapons and armors and, when activated, it turns you into a strong melee char, but for a price (named the 50% fatigue cost)

spell 2 and 4 make the lv 1 (active) buff better and lv3 is a powerfull defensive spell... this mean that there are basically 3 ways to play your AW

- 1 Spec, 3 Ways
1) this is sparta! (full war mode)
as said when you activate the 1st level buff you "transform" into a warrior... dmg and attack are based on your magic giving you a pretty good dmg in melee and the lv 2 and 4 powers will make you even better giving you more armor/dmg and evade chance.

a decent AW war have around 60 armor (with rock armor ) making him impervious to most melee dmg and a decent chance to evade attacks both from various defense buffs (if you get them ofc ) and the lv4 power... on counter is easy to get a fatigue of +100%... this mean that you are going to pay all the spells twice the normal cost, making you cast generally less and evenually restricting your spell choice to cheaper spells (leaving the expensive ones to the "real mage" of the group), this doesnt mean you can be a good backup healer/cc or use your power to debuff mobs or to buff your party

2) the mage in shiny armor
a bit less dramatic change than the first option... this is mostly a sturdy mage who retain a good part of his mage powers... the point here is not to use the lv1 buff of AW to not suffer from the additional +50% fatigue. as said you dont need to have the lv1 buff active to equip armor. this gives you a lot of versatility on the equipment to use, there are some nice armors that gives a pretty good armor rating or some nice resists whtout to be as cumbersome as a full set of massive armor.

your armor rating will still be pretty high, and generally your fatigue will still be manageable, eventually you can also compensate the lower melee dmg with a good staff dmg gettin the skill to boost staff dmg and jewels (and/or eventually gloves) to boost staff elemental dmg... this will permit you to save some mana too so yes you will spend more mana to cast but you are not forced to spend it on single nukes to get some good dmg going

if you focus on this mode you dont even necessary need an high magic rating, depending by your spec you can eventually chose to focus more on will or con to compensate for the higher spell cost or for more "utility" (note that i'm not saying that magic is not worth with this, just that you are not forced to "max" it as in the first option if you dont want to)

note that nothing forbid you to switch between mode 1 and 2 if you want and have an equipement suited to both of them

little note about gloves... magic gloves give +20% to elemental dmg (cap is 30% if i remember right) this mean that generally a nuker AW will suffer some dps loss if he will not use them... of course depends by the build, you can focus on just 1 elemental dmg and use rings to boost it... or have not dmg at all but is still something to keep in mind while designing your char.

3) the barrier of wonders
this is basically a normal mage that chose AW for the lv3 buff, that barrier in fact gives you a crapload of resists and is an extremely powerfull defensive spell, the fact that you can even chose some nice helm (mage hoods are generally not that good) or bp is just an added bonus

the fatigue of this mage will be low as for a normal mage and generally the equipement will be similar to a standard mage so gloves to boost dmg, aggro reducing boots and so on, the difference is in the barrier buff that will give him an extremely good defense vs enemy spells

note that as the buff is quite expensive to mantain this approach is probably best used with BM so to keep mana for buffs and hps to cast spells (with low fatigue)

- class Combos
AW+SH... with the option 1 (war mode) you can do a pally themed build, a strong warrior with holy powers to help his comrade, is an effective combo and the only one really good for option 1. with option 2 you end up as a sort of cleric... sturdy healer who can keep the group up whitout to worry too much about various critters around him. option 3 is kinda a normal mage

AW+BM here things get more tricky... there are lot of claims about the uber AW+BM... stronger than a fighter with the same casting potential as a mage... well this is not true, remember that a BM can heal himself just with blood sacrifice and that the heal is for 100 hps. how good is AW+BM mostly depend by the option you chose and how you use it

- option1
imo is quite bad... a frontline warrior in full armor who cant be healed and spend a load of hps everytime he cast is quite a fail in my eyes,,, sure you can cast using hps and pop out of bm mode to get heals but then why not just to boost will and dont risk to kill yourself with spells and get benefit from group heals or a fast healing spell/potion?

- option2
this can work ok, personally i prefer pure bms for sustained more sustained spells, as the hps healed are 100 you have not much room to go mad with casting and even a fatigue of 40% is more than enought to greatly reduce your sustained casting potential. on coutner you are more sturdy if you get some unwelcome aggro having to worry a bit less from archers and loose grunts. (not my fav but can work ok with a good management of fatigue)

- option3
this can work pretty well... one of the focus of BM is to not sustain heavy dmg and various aoe spells are bad for that, the lv3 aw buff works pretty well for that and the fact that yo uare going to cast using your health make it possible to better sustain it.

Modifié par Zilod, 21 novembre 2009 - 03:11 .

[Zilod]

ok here some templates, i kinda like thematic builds so i will try to focus on a role/school to get a fun and effective setup... the templates are around 25 spell points. this doesnt want to be the "gold standard" build or the most powerfull builds ever... as said earlier schools and spell are quite balanced and there are many ways to play a mage from the damage dealer, to the CC, the healer up to the juggeraunt arcane warrior.

these of course are just suggestion for various roles, then is up to you to mix them up, discard a line you dont like in favor of another and so on.

note that i didnt put stat allocation... why? mostly because they vary by personal taste. i find magic more usefull than will (or const). Generally i suggest a 2/1 allocation (2 magic 1 will or const), expecially for a first mage character, but that doesnt mean that other allocations are bad... 3/0 allocation can be good to maximize some builds, even if of course the early game will be a bit harder, while other will prefer to cast more at the cost of less effectiveness

----- THE ELEMENALIST (nuker) -----

Mage: 1 (default)
Primal - Fire: 3
Primal - Earth: 2
Primal - ice: 4
Primal - Elecricity: 3
Creation - Heal 1
Cration - Summon 1
Spirit - Mana 4
Entrophy - Hex - 2

Blood Mage 4
Spirit Healer: 1
or
Blood Mage: 2
Arcane Warrior: 3

SPELL CHOICES
The tipical nuker, with some CC in cone of cold, blizzard and BM 3/4. This is kinda a Frontline Mage as it does a lot of dmg using cones... for the best effect put hexes on the toughtest enemy and then start with cone of cold-electricity-fire.

Fireball is usefull to deal with archers or even to "soften" a bit the incoming grunts, in the midgame it starts to lose a bit of effectiveness but is still a good spell to have and can be used to set up blizzard due to its kd, mana clash is there (with hexes) to nuke mages (even orange ones stacking hexes) into oblivion

this build have access to Storm of the century combo but you will need something to keep mobs in place for better effect (so is a good idea to give some CC to wynn)

SPECIALIZATION
BM4 + SH1 my fav choice, with SH and BM is it kinda possible to keep up spell might for added spellpower, this is also a more caster due to group heal  and make it easyer to cycle blood sacrifice
BM2 (4 asap) + AW3 is a more self defense setup, focused on shimmering shield for very good protection against elemental dmg and a bit more armor, still with mana clash elemental dmg is not a big problem as mages will be dead in no time... if you like a bit more defence this is a good choice too but dont use armors, they will gimp you

EQUIP
this is a nuker and you should use staff to boost your elemental dmg (Magister is probably the best for this template) and gloves for +20% elemental dmg... Remember that +% elemental dmg is stacked at 30%, but as this template will have spell of many different elements it is nice to have more than 1 element capped. in the early game i suggest to cap fire and ice, in late game ice and electricity or spirit (of course you can mix them to suite your taste), if you chose AW the +2 to all stats helm is a nice choice, expecially as the only decent mage hat is in the end game

GROUP SETUP
1 good tank is needed (with taunt) and better to give him some elemental resistance as he will got hit (not always accidentally) quite often by your cones, Ali is the best choice ofc but other tanks can work too. Wyn is a must have as, even if you go SH you are not a real healer, is not essential in most fights as things will die fast but is always nice to have. give her some cc, glyph probably the best choice due to their versatility... sleep/paralysis/force fields are good choices too. For the last spot i suggest Leliana for chests and ranged dmg (as you will use cones it will be better to have a melee rog), if you are not interested in chests then Morry is another good choice or eventually even a second tank or the "multy purpose" Shale


---- VOODOO CHILD (cc/support) ----
Mage - 1
Creation - Heal 3
Creation - Glyph 3
Spirit - Force 4
Entrophy - Hexes: 4
Entrophy - Nightmare: 3
Entrophy - Death: 4

Blood Mage - 4
Spirit Healer - 2

SPELL CHOICES
Curses, dark magic, obscure glyphs, witch healing this fit well a "witch of the wild" build is also a very effective one... BM+Spirit Healer+Healing 3 is the best healing you can get (with leftover points you can even get spirit healer 3 or 4) and the CC capability is at the top with sleep/BM3 (fastest aoe mezzes) glyphs both to block passages or for the combo, force fields (again possible combo). Debuffing is also extremely good with hexes and death line and you can get some dmg too from Crushing Prison, Death Cloud (800+ dmg), Horror Combo (200+dmg) and Entropic Death combo.... only thing really missing is ice (that you can get anyway or just use morry)
Dont go on the front line, stay back, mez, heal, put up combo, not the most flashy mage ofc but a very good choice for people who like to control the battlefield and to play a more supportive role

SPECIALIZATION
SH + BM for sustained casting, with this kind of build you will mezz rooms of enemies and whitout much effort, you can then kinda instapop yellow mobs with entropic death... incoming dmg should a big issue and with SH and Heal3 you can keep the tank alive whitout any problem even while facing elite bosses. (no AW here, as you will be the main healer you will need SH and BM is essential to keep the spell going and adding more CC options)

EQUIP
usual mage equip, note that (if you dont get ice line) all of your dmg will be spiritual one, this mean that you can just focus on it and spell power... gloves +20% spiritual dmg, a ring with +10% spirit dmg and a staff with +spell power (final resolution is probably the best here)... for robe you can go with the +5 spell power one or the (expensive but good ) Reaper if you like a bit more defense.

Sad that, as i know, there is not a decent staff that do spirit dmg, if you find you it could be interesting to get mage 3 for some added staff dmg.

GROUP SETUP
as usual a good tank is needed, note that hexes draw tons of aggro so is extremely important to taunt the mob back after casting hex 3 or 4. Zev is a good chice here as he can be used to unlock chests (if you want) and for backstabbing, Morry is an ideal companion here with her ice line (blizzard+death cloud ftw!), she should be offensively specced with ice4, electricity 3 and something like blague bomb or mana clash for some added boom, if you dont want 2 mages i suggest to get ice on your char and go with a good melee dps or leliana


ok taking a break, later i will add a Necro themed build and a melee oriented AW

Modifié par Zilod, 26 novembre 2009 - 07:47 .

[Unite4Corners]

Well thought out and very helpful! Thank you! Is there a way to "Tag" a post?

[Sean0883]

BRILLIANT!

[Zilod]

thx

hope it will be helpfull



ehm to tag a post?

[TheGreenLion]

A ton of info here, good for those who need/want a more in-depth look at spells and strategies than the tooltips provide. Nice work detailing it all...and now I must rest my eyes for they have been over-worked lol.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

blizzard+inferno/tempest/death cloud and you can play pazaak while they die.

Edit: Also, thanks alot! And very sweet combos you have there. Cant believe i hadnt thought about some of them.

Modifié par SomeoneStoleMyName, 19 novembre 2009 - 11:38 .

[metatrans]

This is a very good post. Lots of high quality information. Some of the finer points on your opinions of the various spells I don’t completely agree with. Here are my thoughts and criticisms.



Staff Focus – this is much better than it seems. Staves benefit from +% damage equipment if you’ve got the right element equipped. The staff focus bonus (which is +33%) stacks multiplicatively with those bonuses. I’ve been able to get staff shots dealing about 50 damage a piece on a mage decked out in full +fire gear (able to stack +60% if you’ve got optimal equip) while using a Torch of Embers staff. That’s such a high level of staff damage that its completely replaced the need to ever use a single target nuke like Winter’s Grasp or Magic Bolt.



Rock Armor – I totally disagree that this spell is any good. Even with slightly higher armor from this buff a mage can never get the level of armor, defense, and health needed to have any survivability against melee attackers. Its pointless to even try to defend yourself with this style of damage reduction. Crowd control and a good tank is all you should ever use. This spell is a waste for all except Arcane Warriors.



Earthquake – This spell is much better than you make it sound. The knockdowns are physical resist checks so they won’t work well against warrior type mobs. However, it works EXCELLENTLY against rogue and mage type mobs. They’ll have a terrible time staying on their feet against an Earthquake which will at minimum screw up their casting/shooting and potentially leave them sitting ducks inside a big AoE spell.



Petrify – I agree with you that its good. Two things that I would also point out. Its got a very low mana cost for a tier 4 spell, something to consider. The other thing is that it’s a physical check so it works amazingly on mages and poorly on warriors.



Heroic Aura – this is extremely good. Its really the only means available for anyone to get the level of arrow resistance that a Shield warrior can get. It’s a godsend against the large archer packs you’ll find in some parts of the game. Your mages will get pincushioned and instagibbed without this spell, but with it they survive easily.



Heroic Defense – this is also extremely good. Only one member of the party needs to have it up at a time, and that’s the tank. Fortunately the cooldown is shorter than duration and the mana cost is low so the tank can be buffed with it at all times. This greatly reduces the healing burden necessary on your tank.



Haste – I’d actually rate this lower than you do. Its mana drain is high so its very hard to keep this active while still casting other spells. Rogues and Dual Wield warriors can just use Momentum instead and get the same effect. I guess this is good with 2 hand warriors, but that’s a pretty niche use in my opinion. Great spell for Arcane Warriors but little else I’d say.



Mass Paralysis – I’d give this a much lower rating. Its mana cost is unbelievably high, it has a large wind up time (which is ok for a damage spell but really a big problem for a crowd control) and its duration is a measly 12 seconds. Its pretty bad in my opinion. Also a giant agro magnet and guarantees your mage is gonna get hammered by whoever is still standing when it wears off.



Misdirection Hex – this is potentially useful for debuffing bosses. Except bosses usually resist it. And its unnecessary: far better and more reliable to buff your tank than try to debuff the boss. Basically this spell is rendered obsolete by game mechanics and Heroic Defense.



Death Hex – this has a very desirable effect and ought to seriously make bosses die fast. Again, the resist problem is what limits the usefulness of this spell. Bosses are level scaled to be player level +2 so the resist rate is favor bad against them.

[Zilod]

thx for the feedback



didnt knew about +elemental dmg that boost staffs too and indeed to get 50dmg shot will be not bad (as it should also be boosted by hexes) generally with my casters i dont relay much on the staff attack but can see it usefull for an healer or a very specialized cc who want to save its mana for when is needed (later i'll up it a bit)



for rock armor... of course alone is not going to do much from the midgame (in earlygame the bonus alone is still usefull), but later on if you go with defensive equip you can get around 30 armor that is not bad at all... sure you are not a tank but the reduction is noticeable and imo quite helpfull (expecially if you go bm) for the eventual archer or grunt that decide to target you... considering is a lv1 spell, is always active and pretty cheap imo is a pretty solid spell



the thing about earthquake is that it is a lv3 cc that works on half the enemies (and who can be bad for your rogs too) is the only CC that, regardless of your magic rating, get easilly resisted by a lot of mobs (probably due to the various invuls in war class and, i suppose, of some mob classes, i see it can be usefull in some situations but imo there are way better options, expecially considering is a lv3



for the heroic spells probably is mostly my taste... if they where sustained i had ranked them much higher but this way they seem to me a bit a waste of time, is it true that i can get a nice protection from archers, but at that point why not to just mez them? it can be worth for groups whitout CC capability or maybe in preparation of a fight but generally i prefer a more "offensive" approach... well i'm planning a creation centric mage for a new run, i will give them a better look



for haste it depends by group composition, with many dual wielders it may be not that usefull (are you sure they dont stack?) but anyway for all the other group members is pretty good and there is only 1 companion with (natural) dual wield... and consider also the speed buff that is not a bad thing to have. the cost is not low and is more suited for buffers and healers but i still think is worth it



for hexes instead i find your comment kinda strange, both in normal and hard runs i never had many problems with hexes i use them all the time with yellow and orange guys and they resist very rarely, Misdirection is actually a beast and the dmg reduction is huge... mind that i go heavy on magic to get good saving throws (and better dmg ) with low magic rating it will probably be more problematic to stack them, but that is true for all the offensive spells... as said so far had no troubles at all hitting with them

[metatrans]

the nice thing about the game is that many different approaches tend to work. i'm giving my opinions based on optimal usage rather than just what works.



some clarifications:



Re: Haste.



Haste and Momentum have limited stacking ability. they are soft-capped by some kind of diminishing returns mechanic built into the game engine. Having both active at once does not simply add the attack speed increase together, its actually a very marginal increase. Momentum alone will give +30% and then haste on top of that will only stack it up to a total of like +33%. so basically you pick one or the other. my position is that Momentum is better since its active on the party members who care about it (backstab rogues and DW warriors) and uses resource that were always intended for DPS (their stamina) rather than resources that might be used for something else (the mage's mana).





Re: Hexes



I find the basic Vulnerability Hex to be very useful and Affliction Hex is at least slightly useful, if for no other reason than to make sure Blizzard really hammers a group dead.



Death Hex would be potentially good but ultimately its just adding damage and its mechanism of adding damage is flawed. The melee DPS that I'm using has a ridiculously high crit rate anyway. Rogues basically have a 100% crit rate while flanking. The tank's melee i don't care much about critting with. Mage Staves can't crit. If I was using a different party i'd like this spell much more. as is, my group can't really use it. Would be good for archers and two handed wars. but my group is Tank War, Rogue, two mages. can't use it.



Misdirection Hex is the one I have the big problem with. The effect is equivalent to raising the defense of your tank, providing your tank has successfully controlled the mob. There's already several very good spells for this. Glyph of Warding and Heroic Defense will both raise tank defense by a large amount with zero risk of the spell being resisted. even if the resist rate is low (and in my experience its not, orange mobs resist it quite alot on hard/nightmare) its still greater than zero and therefore inherently inferior to buffing methods. furthermore its always single target. buffing the tank increases the miss rate of EVERY mob as long as they're all trying to attack the tank. tank buffs just outperform this in every way i can think of.

[Rythuria]

metatrans wrote...

Staff Focus – this is much better than it seems. Staves benefit from +% damage equipment if you’ve got the right element equipped. The staff focus bonus (which is +33%) stacks multiplicatively with those bonuses. I’ve been able to get staff shots dealing about 50 damage a piece on a mage decked out in full +fire gear (able to stack +60% if you’ve got optimal equip) while using a Torch of Embers staff. That’s such a high level of staff damage that its completely replaced the need to ever use a single target nuke like Winter’s Grasp or Magic Bolt.

I'm not 100% certain, but doesn't Vulnerability Hex also affect staff damage? If so you could chuck that on for even more of a boost to staff auto attack.

[Zilod]

vuln hex should boost staff dmg too and i think even shale one (but never tried)



for misdirection i dont agree that much, the debuff seem way more effective than various defense buffs i had my mage tanking a reaper no prob while he had the hex on him for example so the gain is extremely good



and personally i found affliction and vuln as extremely usefull for nuker setups or dual mages groups, they stack on each other givin you some huge dmg boost... you can pretty much instapop orange mages with them+mana clash (1300 dmg nuke ftw) or deal massive dmg with entropic death combo and normal spells... entropic death hits for over 600 dmg and various cones and nukes hits for over 100dmg each... considering how fast and cheap they are is an huge, huge gain for groups with good spell dmg (of course with a group with 2 rogs 1 tank 1 healer they are kinda wasted)

[tranj84cl]

Add formatting like bold words to make that easier to read. Also, I'd say Cone of Cold = 5/5. Best out of the ice line, yes higher than Blizzard. On higher difficulties, unless you're doing stuff like Blizzarding in a room then closing the door, I don't think it's worth it.

[Zilod]

ran some fast tests and can confirm that hexes works for staffs and shale dmg too

i so love cone of cold was very tempted to put it at 5/5 but decided to give "just" 4 because is quite easy to CC the tank or require a bit of positioning (maybe i feared to over rate it as i liked it too much ) but indeed if used right is a fantastic spell to have, both for mages that stay near the "frontline" or as a "panic button"

mmm with bliz so far had not many troubles even at hard, but i have yet to try a nightmare run... (btw closing doors is ebil )


ahhh and you are right, should order it a bit, was even thinking about some colors here and there to not have a grey wall of text but i'm a bit lazy and first want to finish it with the "missing parts", anyway thanks for the feedback

Modifié par Zilod, 20 novembre 2009 - 04:44 .

[Love-Buzz]

Nice guide - but if Blizzard is 5/5, Cone of Cold is 6/5. It freezes revenants that are cold immune, you can shatter things as big as drakes with any crit-hitting warrior skill, the cooldown is retardedly short, and if you have 2 mages with it, alternating cones means some bosses never get to move... even on higher difficulties. The fact that more often than not, it will freeze the archdemon on nightmare (even if only for a few seconds) is silly. If you ever want to trivialize the game, take a 3 mage party with 3 Cones. It's not even fun.



It's damage might be low and it's range isn't too uber, but once you are good at aiming it, you are casting it 95% of the time it is off cooldown, which is only true for a couple spells in the game.



It's only a little less broken than Forcefield abuse, but you will use it even more than you use Forcefield.

[Nodrak]

Backstabs are not auto-crits afaik. A backstab can crit no?

[metatrans]

backstabs can't crit. they do however recieve an automatic 150% damage bonus, which is exactly the same damage bonus a crit gets. they also use a different attack animation.

[Sarevok Anchev]

Well done guys! This is what i needed for planning my second game as a AW.



Only strategy i could add is: Many Emissarys are casting Glyph of Paralyzation under their feet.

So you just need to cast a Glyph of Repulsion under their sorry ass and...



I dunno if the Stun/Sleep/Paralyze effects are THAT helpful on Nightmare, because they wear off much faster. Suggestions?

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

Heroic Defense – this is also extremely good. Only one member of the party needs to have it up at a time, and that’s the tank. Fortunately the cooldown is shorter than duration and the mana cost is low so the tank can be buffed with it at all times. This greatly reduces the healing burden necessary on your tank.

pitifull duration...
pitifull resistance (+10%)
Not sure about the +defense, but it better be huuuuuge for the spell to be worth it, since you have to cast it over and over and over in a fight, the thing is that mana and those casts could be used on heals and damage anyway.

Sooo personally i cant see why you would call heroic defense extremely good.

The entire haste tree only looks good on paper imo.

Its like finding a beautifull girl out on town, you think you are so lucky - then it turns out she has hair on her back. You think "hey, what the hell everyone has flaws..." Then she ties you up. But you think "i like it rough anyway" Thinking its still all good, she throws her skirt away and it turns out its a man. Now its to late and the time to pay has come.

Thats the haste tree. Nice package, everything looks great. Then you find out you didnt need heroic offense at all, the missile deflection could be countered by CCing or nuking the threat away in a second anyway, heroic defense isnt as strong as you thought and need recast constantly, and haste drains your mana so fast you could use up 99 lyrium pots in 10 minutes of fighting.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

I dunno if the Stun/Sleep/Paralyze effects are THAT helpful on Nightmare, because they wear off much faster. Suggestions?

Sleep would still be worth it thanks to its instant cast and horror combo. Mass paralyze has such a long cast time that its not worth it on hard+ imo.

[Siven80]

metatrans wrote...

This is a very good post. Lots of high quality information. Some of the finer points on your opinions of the various spells I don’t completely agree with. Here are my thoughts and criticisms.

Staff Focus – this is much better than it seems. Staves benefit from +% damage equipment if you’ve got the right element equipped. The staff focus bonus (which is +33%) stacks multiplicatively with those bonuses. I’ve been able to get staff shots dealing about 50 damage a piece on a mage decked out in full +fire gear (able to stack +60% if you’ve got optimal equip) while using a Torch of Embers staff. That’s such a high level of staff damage that its completely replaced the need to ever use a single target nuke like Winter’s Grasp or Magic Bolt. 

What element of magic do staffs use? is it staff specific or do +colddamage bonuses on gear change the staff to cold damage?  

Actually now that i think of it im sure ive seen a staff that radiates cold....i assume that will do staff damage in cold?

[Zilod]

it seem to be kinda random, to see if a staff do elemental dmg try to hit the mob and watch at the color of numbers floating above his head... if is white is normal dmg (no bonus from equip or debuff res hexes) if it have a different color then is elemental, on the manual thers the color coding of various elements