69 réponses à ce sujet

[Lisa767]

Thanks for VERY interesting thoughts. Good post Zilod.

[PhlaagoRexor]

Ok.. time to shed some light on the scaling of some spells with higher spellpower

I have a level 25 pure magic spirithealer/bloodmage focused on maximal spellpower.

I had some fun doing the bloodring quests in orzammar on nightmare (solo, the group with the arcane warrior in it was a real horror.. used a save just before with 6 spellpoints unused to try out different things)

My mage had about 250ish hitpoints and just under 350 mana with equipment.
buffed spellpower 162 (can get 172 with shales stone aura active). (chainbuffing spellwisp+spellmight and recasting them one by one)
at this level some spells proved extremely powerful.

Heroic defense: 26% resist all, +52 defense
arcane defense: +26 defense
in conclusion, if you have 162 spellpower you get about 162% bonus to some buff spells from their normal values (i compared with wynne casting at around 40 spellpower)

now some spells dont scale like this:
glyph of warding has the same defense bonus regardless of spellpower, perhaps its the duration that scales instead?

Also, a note one the arcane mastery line.
all spells there can be useful for a pure caster mage (especially a pure magic one)
my staff damage is around 60 with no +% damage gear to cold (morrigan wears all cold gear i have)
this damage always hits, even against the arcane warrior when his anti-magic ward is up and nothing else can touch him.
it also scales with affliction hex and vulnerability hex (and they stack too).
downside to staff damage is that the best staff in the game uses cold, alot of the good staves do that.. which is a bummer against some of the harder monsters (like revenants), so you pretty much have to get the torch of ember on the weaponswitch to have a fire staff if you want a useful default attack still.

My build that I used in that fight:

blood magic: no points
spirit healer: group heal.
mage: arcane bolt, arcane defense, staff focus, arcane mastery
power of blood (the usual 2 free spells from wardens keep.. i never use them though)
primal: full fire,
nothing in earth,
winters grasp,
full lightning (relying on morrigan to help with big combos)
creation: nothing in heal line
heroic offense, heroic aura, heroic defense,
glyph of paralysis, glyph of warding, glyph of repulsion
spell wisp
spirit: spellshield, dispel magic, anti-magic ward (must have against the group with the arcane warrior if you are alone)
manadrain, mana cleanse, spell might, mana clash
walking bomb
mind blast, force field
entropy: only vulnerability hex and affliction hex in this group.

If i had to redo this character.. and i might do that sometime, I would only pick a few spells differently. Off the top of my head i think i would not take these 3: walking bomb, inferno, chain lightning and use those 3 spells to get full cold line instead (for the storm)
walking bomb is a very cool spell with awesome animation and sound and strong effect, but the area of the blast is very small and its hard to use it properly, inferno is a great spell and I would hate to lose that one, but chain lightining is *COMPLETELY USELESS* at high levels =)
(it seems chain lightning gets reduced by armor or something because the damage im getting against some enemies are single digits.. and shock against those same enemies does 10x more at least)


So, why bother going for maximum spellpower over everything else?
answer: 1811 damage with 1 manaclash =) (predeced by paralysis explosion and liberal use of affliction hex + vulnerability hex from both the main and morrigan.. spellpower boosted by shales stone aura)
it will be fun to see if i can get it higher now that i have the blood ring too.

Modifié par PhlaagoRexor, 20 novembre 2009 - 06:44 .

[metatrans]

SomeoneStoleMyName wrote...

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 duration is 20 seconds base, the cooldown is 10 seconds. thats not at all a pitiful duration. it means its possible to have it active at all times on up to 2 different party members, but realistically only one needs it. the argument against its mana cost is legitimate. you may decide that other effects are a better use of the 40 mana every 20 seconds. however, i find this spell useful. the damage it prevents is significantly more than the 40 mana worth of healing spells. 

the effects are not small. the elemental resists are a base of +10% with an additional 1% for every 10 spellpower. this is nice but not extremely good. thats not the bonus i'm particularly interested in though. the one I use the spell for is the defense bonus which is very high. +25 base with an additional +1 for every 2.5 spellpower. my mages have 60+ spellpower so this is adding about +50 to my defense score. thats a massive bonus. its sufficiently high that my tank ends up with a buffed defense score of over 150, which makes mobs whiff against him like 75% of the time. 

[Sidney]

For me the problem with spells is that in all the chaos of battle it is not evident that a given spells worked - I mean the cold and fire spells give great feedback but the horror and disorient I stayed away from because I never got a good feedback they were doing their jobs.

[D_Strider]

A combo I've found to be rather effective is Earthquake + Blizzard. A sleep spell can help set it up if need be, but it's tough for mobs to escape. Even if they pass the knockdown check they have to pass the freeze check, and are slowed down anyway making them have to pass the checks rather often in order to move out of the area. Most of what is caught can be killed with ranged attacks long before the effect ends, and what does escape is at least a bit shaken up.

[PhlaagoRexor]

I must disagree with some spell ratings =)

chain lightning gets 0/5 from me because it does really nothing at high levels.. I wouldnt use it even if it was instant cast.

glyph of paralysis is 5/5 it almost never gets resisted, even when a low spellpower mage casts it.
glyph of repulsion by itself is maybe 3/5 because it almost always gets resisted by ranked melee enemies regardless of your high spellpower but its still a must have for the paralysis explosion in my opinion (just watch out since that one is friendly fire too, and on nightmare the enemy will come out if it about 10 seconds before you do =)

staff focus + arcane mastery gets 3/5 from me... they are useful if you desperately want more power but i could easily find other spells I would like to spend points on.

Fireball gets 5/5 for me, situational use but there are archer groups even in the late game that are weak enough to get killed by 2 fireballs, good aoe + good damage + knockdown + damage over time from burning is very nice.
Inferno gets 4/5 its a pain to keep enemies in its aoe but you can use the glyphs for that of they are not on cooldown... best damage single spell aoe you can get.. and they keep burning a tick or 2 after getting out of the fire.

Blizzard 3-4/5.. seems a waste of mana to cast this alongside inferno (since blizzard gives everyone inside it +50% fire resist)
it could be very useful to cast on your entire party when facing some of the demons with annoying fire auras though, not to mention its part of the best combo in the game.

Lightning tree gets +1 to all your ratings from me since LIGHTNNG DAMAGE DRAINS STAMINA FROM THE TARGET! (Im not trying to be rude I just put that in caps because there is a lot of confusion on that on the forums.. it doesnt drain mana from the target, just stamina... try a shock spell on alistair and see for yourself)
but remember 0/5 for chain lightning... becausethe damage is really horrible at high levels.

Heal line is good for high mana casters, if you are spellpower maximised you will probably do better with just buffs + potions (remember, herbalism lets you craft them yourself cheaply)

Heroic defense gets 4/5 from me and haste gets 1/5 from me.. why? because i rate them on how useful they are for my mage... if I was a warrior and had my party cast them on me I would rate them both at 4/5.

Spell wisp: 4/5 since it scales with spellpower (+12 or 13 spellpower for me) I wouldnt bother with it in the early game though
grease 1/5, tried it on a previous character.. decent crowd control but sadly that effect is removed once you set it on fire, and fire damage from that is too weak to compensate.
spellbloom 1/5 for me.. (low mana because i dont raise willpower so spellbloom is far too weak for me)
stinging swarm 1/5.. horribly weak and to make it worse alot of enemies resist nature damage.


spell shield: 1-2/5 might see some use if i spent lots of points in willpower.. might get it for wynne.
dispel magic: 3/5 not needed for 99% of the game but very handy if the enemy casts curse of mortality on you, if you dont have this one you need to get forcefield to protect the character instead.
anti-magic ward: 3/5 as you said not many casters... but put this up on yourself just as you enter combat (make sure your buffs are already running) and any attempts by hostile casters to dispell your buffs or manaclash you will fail for 10 seconds... duration is very short and if you dont pause the game often to give orders like I do you will probably not find this useful.

spellmight gets 4/5 from me because its a must have for some big combos.. and because power is.... well power is power.
mana clash gets 5/5 from me.. instant kill on enemy casters if they dont resist it... that can be very annoying, if you are a low spellpower mage you might want to skip this one and get glyph of neutralisation instead (havent tried that one, but if its anything like glyph of paralysis in respect to resists it should work better)

telekinetic weapons gets 2/5 from me... the effect is very weak.
you will get twice as much added damage from flame or frost weapons (which can be augmented further by your curses)

crushing prison gets 3/5 from me... on nightmare it often fails to hold really dangerous enemies in place and just does some damage to them over time,, its not funny at all being chased all over the place by an angry ogre alpha.

as for entropy group I would give 5/5 to almost every spell in the first 2 lines except maybe 3/5 for weakness since it is single target and becomes somewhat redundant with all the other curses.
sleep is a no brainer to pick for morrigan but the other spells in the bottom 2 lines dont impress me much.
deathcloud is nice if you want to specialise in this tree.. but i see no reason to limit yourself to 1 school just because there is an achievement for it.
curse of mortality is 1/5.. mostly useless for you since enemies dont carry 99 light healing poultices on them, can be deadly when used against you though.

Modifié par PhlaagoRexor, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:26 .

[Dussan2]

I like this. I do not agree with everything but I like the thought and unbiased explanation of the spells strengths and weaknesses. You did a good job.

Now. I agree wth Metatrans, Staff focus at the begging before level 10 or so when you haven't got the major staffs yet, is not that big a difference but when you start nailing fools for 30dmg a tick that never misses, it can thin out the heard nicely.

Walking bomb is a breeze to use. The only trick is that you use it on any mob that is at 50% or lower. In fact you should make that a talent. Usually these mobs are all over the dumb meat tank. He can take the blast if they have a shield. Just get ready with a heal.

Earthquake is a waste, for the widespread range this thing has it doesnt' effect the mobs enough for it to be truly useful. Grease is more effective, and you can set it on later on as the fight is fully engaged.

Love Buzz you are dead on about Cone of Cold. Best CC in the game aside from Force Field. While CoC can be resisted to some degree the rapid cooldown make it a must.

And Force Fields should get 7/5. You can use it on just about all the bosses. Taking them out fo the fight while you destroy their adds.

And let me tell you this.  Spell Might + Blizzard + Tempest = death to all.  I am trying to get the Inferno equivelant of this combo to see how that damage stacks up, but my first play through, that spell DESTROYED everything.  I have yet to see a more destructive spell combination.  The DPS is insane.

I am still experimenting with magic,and I fully intend to use the OP well written guide and modify it for my use. Thanks again!

Modifié par Dussan2, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:33 .

[Zilod]

added the specialization part, and changed some spell ratings... gave 3/5 to the buff dmg staff skill and 5/5 to cone of cold (well it deserves it )

ahh a thing about lightning, it actually drain both mana and action, but the bigger mobs seem to have quite high pools and generally their dmg is flat dmg (so not from skills) this generally mean that the drain is not that usefull on grunts (that generally anyway die fast) and on various bosses who have alredy a big pool and will keep hitting like trucks

i also suspect that most "race attacks" as can be ogre charge or dragon chewing have pretty low costs as you can see that such skills on various shifter forms are pretty cheap

Modifié par Zilod, 21 novembre 2009 - 03:27 .

[Jinnth]

Pretty good, just a few notes on metatrans comments about hexes.

I am on my 2nd playtrough on nightmare and boss resistance to hexes seems to be very very little, I can only think of maybe 1 time where my death hex was resisted. I don't see where you got the idea that bosses had a tendancy to resist those.

Misderection hex is generally more effective than buffs for single-enemies(bosses), the chance of critical strike for most enemies is very slim, even with as high as 25% crit chance, we are talking about 3 times less chances of being hit, which is , as far as I know, way more than buffs can get you and 25% is far more than mobs actually have(with 5% crit that's 20 times more likely to miss). Not to mention that some enemies with extremelly good chance to hit who would see little effect from increased defence will be highly affected by this hex. And I am not even taking into consideration that the enemy won't be able to crit with the hex on, reducing it's DPS even further. Situational, but still the most useful way to shutdown a melee boss imo.

Modifié par Jinnth, 21 novembre 2009 - 07:46 .

[metatrans]

i feel like maybe we're playing different games here. are you on console or pc? i'm playing hard/nightmare difficulty on PC and i'm very careful to keep track of resist rates, miss rates, damage per hit, etc. i'm a very detail oriented player. i'm not making this up about the resist rate on yellow and orange named mobs being noticeably high. i don't have exact numbers but rough estimate based on experience is resist rate is somewhere near 25% for orange mobs. thats ridiculously high, since the cooldown and mana cost on the hexes is large.



when the spell sticks its more effective for debuffing one enemy for 20 seconds. fights last longer than 20 seconds. it doesn't always stick. there's more than one enemy in all fights, even boss fights.



therefore, Misdirection Hex does not meet my performance standards.

[Ferelden Templar]

One drawback on Animate Dead - you can't have an Animate Dead partner and Ranger beast at the same time. Only 1 additional companion per party.

[Zilod]

PC and resists seem very low... how much magic do you have? maybe is more a problem of low magic and are you sure bosses are resisting them and not dispelling them (something that they tend to do if they are able)

on hard atm i'm instapopping orange mage bosses left and right with hexes+mana clah, very few resists

and is true that thers more than 1 enemy but in most fight there always an orange or yellow mob that do considerable dmg, to debuff him (expecially if he is hard to mez) can permit to kill his support whitout to focus too much to keep the tank alive and then to deal with him

is also better if he decides he doesnt like the tank anymore and goes for a nuker or an healer... if you buffed the tank that is not going to help much in this situation while if you debuffed the mob you can have enought time to get it back on the tank

is not about performance both way to are viable as misdirection is extremely effective, and you can pretty much use both of them at same time... 2 different ways to reduce the incoming dmg, both have their pro and cons, is mostly a matter of different taste



ahhh didnt knew about the pet restriction, damn i was so planning to do a pet army thx i will update

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

[TallDarkandSnarky]

Blizzard + Earthquake = Mass Shatter.

'Nuff said.

[Dark83]

Earthquake shatters? Really? My mind is blown!

[Alphakiller]

concerning option 1 for AW + BM...

i've found it to be a personal GOD mode... IF you built it right.

I started the game with the basics that might be useful in combat (means my mage was a short range support for the first 6 levels) but it really paid off when I went AW. from the very start my stat distribution was 2-1 magic/dex, which makes it both easier for the mage to hit and to not be hit, while magic helping increase damage and easily fulfilling any armor requirements. you don't really need any other stats with this build. when I had spare spell slots, I went and got sustained spells... rock armor, arcane shield, and telekinetic weapons all helped. the shield and prison spells I find extremely useful because you don't need to put away your weapon to use them, and they freeze strong enemies while you focus on their minions.

now... I don't even commonly need to use the second blood mage ability. when the time is right, I pop into blood magic, spit out spells 3 and 4 (also don't require you to put away your weapon), turn it off, and let wynne do her thing.

but the thing that makes him god mode? he is almost never hit. i've never seen a tank preform better than him. enemies rarely hit, and when they do, even with magic, damage is dramatically reduced. even his weapon (put a grandmaster paralyze rune) has a chance at debilitation, saving the trouble of going into blood mode.

sometimes i'm put into a tight spot... and I jump into blood mage mode, pop out some mass debilitation or a crushing prison (or both), and my god will run around killing them with massive damage because of huge spellpower from all the magic I've been giving him. the duration of blood wound is about half the recharge time... but that's effectively reducing their army in half because the whole only attacks half the time.

I guess what makes it so good is that the BM works to cover all the weaknesses of the AW by giving him casting power, and the AW covers all the weakness of the BM by being virtually impossible to kill even after several castings, which can be recovered by turning off blood magic and popping a minor poultice

Livegiver the ring and blood dragon plate along with +12 defense mage hat and boots don't hurt either... and spellweaver's bonus to magic is just ridiculous. the elite redcliffe shield helps things further by helping rid of the threat of arrows. i'll have a hard time finding a character more powerful.

Modifié par Alphakiller, 21 novembre 2009 - 12:00 .

[Icid]

With Shale tanking, earthquake is fairly handy because Shale, being a golem, is immune to it. So I'd just get Shale to taunt everything, then cast an earthquake under her and all the mobs were on their butts while all my chars attacked. I also had 3 ranged chars (healer, main char(mage), and archer) so they never ran in and got hit by it.

Once a white falls down to earthquake, it rarely ever manages to get back up. Yellow's rarely fall to it, and orange/red are immune to it (and I believe all knockback/down abilities for that matter).

[metatrans]

Thats an excellent tactic Icid. I've also used it with Two Handed Weapon Warriors with Indomitable. For that matter it would work with any class with a high enough Physical Resistance.

[Ovietski]

I liked this guide so much i decided to give it a bump, nice guide!

(bump)

[Zilod]

Alphakiller wrote...

concerning option 1 for AW + BM...

i've found it to be a personal GOD mode... IF you built it right.

I started the game with the basics that might be useful in combat (means my mage was a short range support for the first 6 levels) but it really paid off when I went AW. from the very start my stat distribution was 2-1 magic/dex, which makes it both easier for the mage to hit and to not be hit, while magic helping increase damage and easily fulfilling any armor requirements. you don't really need any other stats with this build. when I had spare spell slots, I went and got sustained spells... rock armor, arcane shield, and telekinetic weapons all helped. the shield and prison spells I find extremely useful because you don't need to put away your weapon to use them, and they freeze strong enemies while you focus on their minions.

now... I don't even commonly need to use the second blood mage ability. when the time is right, I pop into blood magic, spit out spells 3 and 4 (also don't require you to put away your weapon), turn it off, and let wynne do her thing.

but the thing that makes him god mode? he is almost never hit. i've never seen a tank preform better than him. enemies rarely hit, and when they do, even with magic, damage is dramatically reduced. even his weapon (put a grandmaster paralyze rune) has a chance at debilitation, saving the trouble of going into blood mode.

sometimes i'm put into a tight spot... and I jump into blood mage mode, pop out some mass debilitation or a crushing prison (or both), and my god will run around killing them with massive damage because of huge spellpower from all the magic I've been giving him. the duration of blood wound is about half the recharge time... but that's effectively reducing their army in half because the whole only attacks half the time.

I guess what makes it so good is that the BM works to cover all the weaknesses of the AW by giving him casting power, and the AW covers all the weakness of the BM by being virtually impossible to kill even after several castings, which can be recovered by turning off blood magic and popping a minor poultice

Livegiver the ring and blood dragon plate along with +12 defense mage hat and boots don't hurt either... and spellweaver's bonus to magic is just ridiculous. the elite redcliffe shield helps things further by helping rid of the threat of arrows. i'll have a hard time finding a character more powerful.

yep AW is pretty good... but you can do pretty much the same whitout BM, imo even better as you can put up spells to aoe drain hps or mana and still receive heals from the group... even with bm you cant really cast that much and more or less you can do the same with non BM build too whitout sacrificing the above spells...

imo the only big benefit from bm in option 1 is to be able to keep shimmering shield buff on and still be able to do some minor/emergency casting... this is pretty good to have, but is also a sort of exploit as shimmering shield is a spell with high mana drain so theorically is supposed to shut down when you are oom

[themaxzero]

Are you sure Cone of Cold + Earthquake = mass shatter?

[Zilod]

themaxzero wrote...


Are you sure Cone of Cold + Earthquake = mass shatter?

btw as far as i know Earthquake doesnt work for shatter, is just an aoe KD

[oghier]

Does anyone know whether Vulnerability Hex reduces the resistance to status effects, specifically Crushing Prison?

[IRICHARDI]

Thank you, great posts!

[metatrans]

oghier wrote...

Does anyone know whether Vulnerability Hex reduces the resistance to status effects, specifically Crushing Prison?

generally it does not. those resist checks are usually made with either Physical Resist or Mental Resist, which are stats based on base attributes (str, dex, con for Physical Resist and magic, will, cunning for Mental Resist). Vulnerability Hex reduces elemental resists (fire, frost, nature, electric, spirit) so it will cause spells/effects that do those damage types to cause more damage. However, it will not make a special effect that checks against Physical or Mental more likely to stick. 

as far as i know the only thing that makes a spell that checks Physical or Mental more likely to stick is by directly increasing your own Spellpower. 

[Jinnth]

metatrans wrote...

i feel like maybe we're playing different games here. are you on console or pc? i'm playing hard/nightmare difficulty on PC and i'm very careful to keep track of resist rates, miss rates, damage per hit, etc. i'm a very detail oriented player. i'm not making this up about the resist rate on yellow and orange named mobs being noticeably high. i don't have exact numbers but rough estimate based on experience is resist rate is somewhere near 25% for orange mobs. thats ridiculously high, since the cooldown and mana cost on the hexes is large.

when the spell sticks its more effective for debuffing one enemy for 20 seconds. fights last longer than 20 seconds. it doesn't always stick. there's more than one enemy in all fights, even boss fights.

therefore, Misdirection Hex does not meet my performance standards.

I play on PC. If your tank has good equipment white mobs should deal close to no damage, so there is usually only 1 or 2 enemies you actually care about in a fight, misdirection can make that enemy useless so you don't have to care about it(you actually don't even have to hold aggro), and in 20 sec... that should be enough to wipe all the weaker mobs while you don't have to care about defending your party. The difference between misdirection hex and just buffs to reduce a boss chance to hit seem to be completly on different scales and buffs are usually just good for white mobs ealier on when they actually deal some damage.

Modifié par Jinnth, 22 novembre 2009 - 07:57 .