31 réponses à ce sujet

[Stardusk78]

I think I saw something but advice would be welcome.

[Atmosfear3]

Unless you are playing on Nightmare and even if you are, going for damage and CC is sometimes the better route. Healing isn't all that important if you control your party well and once you hit Act 2 you can revive your party using Mythal's Favor grenades.

[ezrafetch]

My signature contains a link to my Spirit Healer guide.  I'd check it out; hopefully it'll be able to help you out some.  You can definitely, definitely run Spirit Healer and not end up as the village idiot.  I'd actually suggest SH in all instances where you want to run offensive trees with FF in them because you will (and I repeat, you will) off your teammates with Firestorms, Cones of Cold, Winter's Grasps, Walking Bomb (if you so choose), and the like.

Though if you really want to avoid FF, then yeah, maybe look towards something else since it doesn't seem like you want to really sit back a whole lot and control the battlefield via lockdown skills and buffs/debuffs.  You'd probably want to run FM/BM, and in that case I'd check out AreleX or SuicidalBaby's guides, they're much better BM players than I am...I'm too much of the Wynne type (until I "accidentally" nuke my companions to death, that is :innocent:)

[Stardusk78]

ezrafetch wrote...

My signature contains a link to my Spirit Healer guide.  I'd check it out; hopefully it'll be able to help you out some.  You can definitely, definitely run Spirit Healer and not end up as the village idiot.  I'd actually suggest SH in all instances where you want to run offensive trees with FF in them because you will (and I repeat, you will) off your teammates with Firestorms, Cones of Cold, Winter's Grasps, Walking Bomb (if you so choose), and the like.

Though if you really want to avoid FF, then yeah, maybe look towards something else since it doesn't seem like you want to really sit back a whole lot and control the battlefield via lockdown skills and buffs/debuffs.  You'd probably want to run FM/BM, and in that case I'd check out AreleX or SuicidalBaby's guides, they're much better BM players than I am...I'm too much of the Wynne type (until I "accidentally" nuke my companions to death, that is :innocent:)

I am enjoying the role; I use a mod to give healing aura a much wider radius so it helps make the role of Spirit Healer better. I use Merrill as my DPS mage, Fenris as a Pseudo-Tank and Varric for Brittle combos etc via Merrill.

I have one point in Blood Mage as well, which is my 2nd spec. Enjoying it, just wish  I wasn't limited to non-offensive spells...

[IanPolaris]

OP,

The first good rule of thumb to being a viciously effective SH/BM (which is my favorite combo...I think FM/BM is overrated) is that Healing Aura has a ridiculously short cooldown time, it's radius is bugged anyway (so you often aren't helping your party by having it up anyway), and (if bloodmage) you don't need the mana anyway.

That means you can build like a standard offensive bloodmage (I'd recommend Primal over Elemental esp if going Nightmare) witth perhaps some Party Support such as Heroic Aura, Arcane Shield (avoid Haste...it's bugged), Elemetal Weapon Ect.

Set it up so that Bloodmagic + Buffs is 90% of your mana (not 100% but 90%) BEFORE you including Healing Aura.  Healing Aura is unique in that it supposedly takes 30% of your mana reserve, but you can activate it as long as you have any non-zero mana reserve left....so you set yourself up with 90% sustains including bloodmagic and then flip Healing Aura on and off again as needed.

You will take six and only six SH spells (and they are all the SH spells you will ever need or want). 

1. Healing Aura
2. Group Heal
3. Revive
4. Improved Group Heal (take the increased heal option)
5. Immunity to Injuries
6. +10 Constitution (really helps with bloodmagic) and +100 regen

Your SH/BM (take SH First) will be a BEAST that will have at least as many (if not more) hit points than your warriors and will have such a huge regenation rate, that he's almost impossible to kill (and ironically hard to interrupt too).  Sit back, blast away, and revive your party like the rag dolls they are as needed.....

-Polaris

Edit PS:  You are NOT limited to non-offensive spells with this combo.  Healing Aura will be down most of the time (you don't need it).  Simply activate it when necessary...it has a very short cooldown so you lose almost nothing by doing so.

Modifié par IanPolaris, 23 avril 2011 - 06:07 .

[Stardusk78]

IanPolaris wrote...

OP,

The first good rule of thumb to being a viciously effective SH/BM (which is my favorite combo...I think FM/BM is overrated) is that Healing Aura has a ridiculously short cooldown time, it's radius is bugged anyway (so you often aren't helping your party by having it up anyway), and (if bloodmage) you don't need the mana anyway.

That means you can build like a standard offensive bloodmage (I'd recommend Primal over Elemental esp if going Nightmare) witth perhaps some Party Support such as Heroic Aura, Arcane Shield (avoid Haste...it's bugged), Elemetal Weapon Ect.

Set it up so that Bloodmagic + Buffs is 90% of your mana (not 100% but 90%) BEFORE you including Healing Aura.  Healing Aura is unique in that it supposedly takes 30% of your mana reserve, but you can activate it as long as you have any non-zero mana reserve left....so you set yourself up with 90% sustains including bloodmagic and then flip Healing Aura on and off again as needed.

You will take six and only six SH spells (and they are all the SH spells you will ever need or want). 

1. Healing Aura
2. Group Heal
3. Revive
4. Improved Group Heal (take the increased heal option)
5. Immunity to Injuries
6. +10 Constitution (really helps with bloodmagic) and +100 regen

Your SH/BM (take SH First) will be a BEAST that will have at least as many (if not more) hit points than your warriors and will have such a huge regenation rate, that he's almost impossible to kill (and ironically hard to interrupt too).  Sit back, blast away, and revive your party like the rag dolls they are as needed.....

-Polaris

Edit PS:  You are NOT limited to non-offensive spells with this combo.  Healing Aura will be down most of the time (you don't need it).  Simply activate it when necessary...it has a very short cooldown so you lose almost nothing by doing so.

I use a mod which increases healing aura's effectiveness to 40m, making it very helpful, which is why I don't want to skimp on it...

[p95h]

There's a bit of discussion about spirit healer builds on previous threads. It really depends on how you perceive your character's role when in combat. Do you want to damage, support or do a mixture. Your build should reflect your preferences.

Personally, I like a damage/support hybrid build. One that works for me is as follows:



It leans heavily on support with spirit damage done through staff, and walking bomb. The spirit syphon ability allows one to conserve mana really well, so that willpower points are not quite as necessary and can be put into magic attribute for higher base DPS. (at level 26, my mage has 84 magic, and 42 willpower - which is minimum willpower to use staves such as Orsino's staff of Violation). Stone Fist and Magic Dispel are great at disrupting opposing mages while also doing dmg. Upgraded, Magic Dispel also will do spirit dmg to opponents.

In any case, I've found it to be a very workable build. Do note, that the Revive abilities of the Spirit Healer tree are not upgraded (I found it much easier to revive, then do a quick group heal, which allows 2 points to be allocated to other magic skills).

The creation tree is useful for upgraded haste (couple that with a Primeval Lyrium rune in a spirit based staff, and you get excellent damage)

Btw, the patch 1.02 fixed the healing aura bug. So it ought to work as intended now, in regards to some of the advice posted above.

Lastly, put all your toggle sustains in one area of your action bar, so that you can toggle healing aura (or any others) on or off at will. Healing aura cooldown is very short, so you can put it up when needed, and toggle off to do damage.

Modifié par p95h, 23 avril 2011 - 08:21 .

[Bones40]

p95h wrote...

...and 42 willpower - which is minimum willpower to use staves such as Orsino's staff of Violation)

I don't think that's accurate.  On my BM with zero points in Willpower (just the starting 12 or whatever) I can use Violation and any other staff in the game.  Pretty sure there's only a Magic requirement on staves.

[Stuffy38]

I've found myself frustrated with Spirit healer, only due to lack of targettable heals - you only have two, being Heal (Creation) and Group Heal. In the end I agree with the advice listed above, where you nuke the crap out of stuff and drop into heal mode when necessary.
Found the Aura from Spirit Healer not particularly noticeable even with both upgrades.
I do think that the spirit healer should have a spell which removes injuries without having to have the target KO'ed.
In conclusion I would get the few talents mentioned in IanPolaris' post above, and concentrate on one school of damage (in my case I chose Primal).

[IanPolaris]

The advice I posted with Healing Aura is current to mod 1.02. You can get up to 120% sustains as long as healing aura is last.

-Polaris

[ezrafetch]

Bones40 wrote...

I don't think that's accurate. On my BM with zero points in Willpower (just the starting 12 or whatever) I can use Violation and any other staff in the game. Pretty sure there's only a Magic requirement on staves.

You are correct. 42 Magic, as far as I recall, is the max requirement for staves, and the only requirement thereof. Willpower is only needed for robes, and the max there is 32 (Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness).

Modifié par ezrafetch, 24 avril 2011 - 05:07 .

[AreleX]

How, exactly, is FM/BM overrated? Considering that the need for healing can be rendered almost wholly obsolete by simply killing things fast enough/locking them down well enough, I don't understand how one reaches this conclusion.

I'm not trying to start anything, or s**tting on anyone's choice of class/playing the game, I'm honestly curious; can a Spirit Healer do things with the ease and speed that I can as FM/BM?

<- confused.

Modifié par AreleX, 24 avril 2011 - 05:18 .

[ezrafetch]

AreleX wrote...

How, exactly, is FM/BM overrated? Considering that the need for healing can be rendered almost wholly obsolete by simply killing things fast enough/locking them down well enough, I don't understand how one reaches this conclusion.

I'm not trying to start anything, or s**tting on anyone's choice of class/playing the game, I'm honestly curious; can a Spirit Healer do things with the ease and speed that I can as FM/BM?

<- confused.

I'm not going to say that FM/BM is overrated (because quite frankly it's not overrated at all) but rumination888 has proved constantly that a Elemental/Primal/SH can be just as effective as a FM/BM. 

Fact of the matter is, any mage's fast kill speeds are mostly due to the Elemental tree (i.e. various offense-oriented trees) rather than the spec choices one makes for their mage.  If I wasn't so bad at no-pause I'd probably have videos up (come to think of it, should probably order that hard/software soon) .

And as I (rumination888 too for that matter) have said elsewhere, SH is prime if you end up nuking your teammates a lot.  It happens to me.  A LOT.

edit: For example, Varric loves to run in Firestorms.  I forget that Aveline is in the radius of my Firestorm.  I want to get a ton of people with a Cone of Cold but Aveline is in the way.  The possibilities are endless! And then I heal them afterwards and apologize profusely. :innocent:

Modifié par ezrafetch, 24 avril 2011 - 05:36 .

[AreleX]

ezrafetch wrote...

I'm not going to say that FM/BM is overrated (because quite frankly it's not overrated at all) but rumination888 has proved constantly that a Elemental/Primal/SH can be just as effective as a FM/BM. 

Fact of the matter is, any mage's fast kill speeds are mostly due to the Elemental tree (i.e. various offense-oriented trees) rather than the spec choices one makes for their mage.  If I wasn't so bad at no-pause I'd probably have videos up (come to think of it, should probably order that hard/software soon) .

And as I (rumination888 too for that matter) have said elsewhere, SH is prime if you end up nuking your teammates a lot.  It happens to me.  A LOT.

edit: For example, Varric loves to run in Firestorms.  I forget that Aveline is in the radius of my Firestorm.  I want to get a ton of people with a Cone of Cold but Aveline is in the way.  The possibilities are endless! And then I heal them afterwards and apologize profusely. :innocent:

So Spirit Healer is for people who don't have good control of their rudders?



P.S - don't be a Wynne type, I hate Wynne. Please?

Modifié par AreleX, 24 avril 2011 - 06:13 .

[IanPolaris]

AreleX wrote...

How, exactly, is FM/BM overrated? Considering that the need for healing can be rendered almost wholly obsolete by simply killing things fast enough/locking them down well enough, I don't understand how one reaches this conclusion.

I'm not trying to start anything, or s**tting on anyone's choice of class/playing the game, I'm honestly curious; can a Spirit Healer do things with the ease and speed that I can as FM/BM?

<- confused.

I'll tell you how IMHO it's overrated.  Having played both, the SH/BM is far more survivable and can use his unlimited mana not only to keep casting spells himself, but also keep his party members going even when things go badly.  Because DA2's form of 'difficult encountes" resemble massive waves of WWII Paratroop drops, tactical control of an area of a battlefield is nearly meaningless....as is DPS because you aren't going to have the entire enemy population exposed (usually...this is brutally clear in the very difficult Night Lies mission at the end of Act 1).

The SH/BM has the same basic DPS as the FM/BM but has far greater staying power both for himself and for his part which given the reality of DA2 waves o'enemies seems far more important.

All in my experience and IMHO.

-Polaris

[AreleX]

IanPolaris wrote...

I'll tell you how IMHO it's overrated.  Having played both, the SH/BM is far more survivable and can use his unlimited mana not only to keep casting spells himself, but also keep his party members going even when things go badly.  Because DA2's form of 'difficult encountes" resemble massive waves of WWII Paratroop drops, tactical control of an area of a battlefield is nearly meaningless....as is DPS because you aren't going to have the entire enemy population exposed (usually...this is brutally clear in the very difficult Night Lies mission at the end of Act 1).

The SH/BM has the same basic DPS as the FM/BM but has far greater staying power both for himself and for his part which given the reality of DA2 waves o'enemies seems far more important.

All in my experience and IMHO.

-Polaris

Force Mage - Night Lies

2 potions used total.

Not your cup of tea, that's cool, but calling a class combo overrated when it can:

- Set up HUGE Walking Bomb chains (Watch this video)

- Instantly neutralize Assassins (Watch this video)

- Completely immobilize almost EVERY enemy in the game (Watch this video)

- One shot EVERY Elite off a stagger (Watch this video, or hell, any of my videos)

- Provide you a FREE Etched Ring of the Twins for a single point investment (Unshakable)

- Cluster enemies for nuking (Watch this video)

- Give near-unlimited casting and sustains

is just patently false. Watch any of my videos and tell me that it's overrated. The rationale behind taking Spirit Healer is mitigating the threat to life that taking damage causes, yes? Why do that when you don't even have to let it get to the point? You advocate building staying power through healing damage taken, I advocate staying power through not taking damage at all.

I think both can perform well, don't get me wrong, what I'm saying is that it is FAR from overrated.

Modifié par AreleX, 24 avril 2011 - 06:44 .

[IanPolaris]

If you don't want to crap on my opinions then don't. I played both, and I was underwhelmed. If you want to tell me I'm "doing it wrong:" then please don't bother and bother someone else.

I am not forcing your opinion on me, so please do me the reverse courtesy.

-Polaris

Edit:  In my personal game experience, I dispute most of these including the instant neutralization of enemy assassins at least until very late levels.  I also found Unshakeable to be greatly overrated since most of the monsters that would tend to knock you off your feet do so regardless of unshakable or not (Monstrous Spiders in particular),.

In short, I find IN MY OPINION that being able to outlast a combat is >> than being able to DPS a combat IN the special case of DA2 and they way they do combat.  You disagree.  Leave it at that.

Edit PPS:  Actually the best way I've found to neutralize enemy assassins is irmpoved petrify.

Modifié par IanPolaris, 24 avril 2011 - 07:40 .

[AreleX]

IanPolaris wrote...

If you don't want to crap on my opinions then don't. I played both, and I was underwhelmed. If you want to tell me I'm "doing it wrong:" then please don't bother and bother someone else.

I am not forcing your opinion on me, so please do me the reverse courtesy.

-Polaris

Umm...what?

You have an opinion. I disagree with said opinion. You make a case for your opinion. I make a case for my opinion, and back it up with evidence. I'm not 'crapping' on anything, I'm discussing something with the intent of both parties hopefully walking away from it more knowledgable; you know more about SH, and I consider myself fairly knowledgable about FM/BM.

I couldn't care less what you play, so long as you enjoy it, but if you're going to make statements like 'overrated', especially when your opnion might influence the decision of another (the purpose of this thread), how can you not expect people to disagree? I don't understand why you're getting defensive, it's really not that serious, and I didn't intend for it to be taken as such, I just don't want people choosing things based on information that I consider to be faulty. I provided a counterpoint, and the OP is left to take both sides and make a decision.

Modifié par AreleX, 24 avril 2011 - 07:43 .

[IanPolaris]

I said IN MY OPINION the combination was overated and I stated why. You disagreed.

You should have left it at that. Instead you want to prove me wrong. Frankly life's too short and I think you have something to prove and I'm not interested so I bow to your superior play and tactical style.

Good day.

-Polaris

Edit PS:  To the OP, I have found in my personal experience that the combos that make the FM/BM work are difficult to set up in real combat (although they make good you-tube videos) because enemies fall in all around you making it difficult to set up the kill zones.  Not impossible.  Difficult.  Having tried both, I'd rather have the certainty of being able to out-regenerate and out-last the enemies AND give my party the same ability while having the same DPS rather than rely on lockdowns that might work but tend to have longish cooldowns.  Just my take on it.

Modifié par IanPolaris, 24 avril 2011 - 07:47 .

[SuicidalBaby]

LMAO

was that suppose to be the high road?  cause you need to turn around and go back about 30 miles, you missed the turn off.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 24 avril 2011 - 08:04 .

[AreleX]

IanPolaris wrote...

I'm wrong, my feelings are hurt, so I'm taking my ball and going home! Wah!

Damn son, I really didn't mean to get you so riled up. I honestly didn't know it was that serious My bad!

If you're so hurt over having your opinion disputed, maybe a gameplay/build DISCUSSION forum isn't the place for you. It's not about you, it's about the OP having good information to base his decision off of, which I have provided, along with evidence to support my statements.  That's kiiiiind of what I'm known to do around here, try to HELP people, not start pointless, unintentional fights with people who get their egos bruised too easily. I made a point of expressing that I wasn't trying to incite or antagonize, but clearly that was lost upone you.

Get over yourself.

EDIT: Sorry for thread derailment. I will excuse myself now, wynnezrafetch and Stardusk!

Modifié par AreleX, 24 avril 2011 - 07:59 .

[IanPolaris]

AreleX wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

[A completely inaccurate and demeaning misquote was placed here]

Damn son, I really didn't mean to get you so riled up. I honestly didn't know it was that serious My bad!

If you're so hurt over having your opinion disputed, maybe a gameplay/build DISCUSSION forum isn't the place for you. It's not about you, it's about the OP having good information to base his decision off of, which I have provided, along with evidence to support my statements. That's kiiiiind of what I'm known to do around here, try to HELP people, not start pointless, unintentional fights with people who get their egos bruised too easily.

Get over yourself.

Please.  I made an off-hand refernce that I THOUGHT FM/BM was a bit overrated and you were the one that flew off the handle and lept to it's defence...not me.  I never even commented on the FM/BM combo other than I had tried it and wasn't impressed and stuck solely to how to get the best use out of SH which is the topic of THIS thread.

Seems to me that you're the one with the problem, son, not me, especially since I was very careful to delinate what was game fact from what was my personal opinion of it.

-Polaris

Modifié par IanPolaris, 24 avril 2011 - 08:05 .

[IanPolaris]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

LMAO

was that suppose to be the high road?  cause you need to turn around and go back about 30 miles, you missed the turn off.

What justified this snark?  I never said that FM/BM was bad.  It's not the topic of this thread, however.  I made one offhand comment that I THOUGHT it was overrated (you know...opinion....not fact) and others flew off the handle.

-Polaris

[SuicidalBaby]

So counter point is now considered off the handle.  Just want to make sure, so I know when it's ok to have a discussion.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 24 avril 2011 - 08:06 .

[IanPolaris]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

So counter point is now considered off the handle.  Just want to make sure, so I know when it's ok to have a discussion.

It is when it derails the thread. 

-Polaris