Amioran wrote...
True, spirit is a bit of a waste in the line, however 8 points are nothing on the full picture. You can still stack elemental/some primal and FM spells on top of it (and either another spec if you want).
Then, as I said, Death Syphon is actually quite good for a glass cannon-not-Blood Mage if used correctly. So, in reality, you only "waste" the 2 points for the WB upgrades.
...except Death Syphon is a complete waste, especially since there is a 99% chance that you're toting Anders around. Why Death Syphon when you can have Anders Heal/Group Heal? And if you're having mana issues that one Lyrium Potion pernormal fight can't solve (i.e. making Death Syphon actually necessary), there's something wrong with tactics more than anything else (plus, if you burn more than 1 Lyrium Potion in a fight, you just pick more up after the battle anyways). Then you also have to pick up Dispel Magic, which is a complete waste. I don't see how Spirit is worth more than two skill points, and even then they're the last two points I'll spend on either my companions or me.
You would not come on top just because you completely overstepped the vast increased crit chance/crit dmg. Either if you have +134% fire damage vs. 71%, you must include 71%+50% (halven resistance) = 121% (and we are near) + 84%-87% crit chance with about 70% crit damage.
More, you only "waste" two slots for that setup, you can still wear Ferryman, RoUC and the rest if you have the money.
I think it will work nicely. Well, I'm trying it now so we will see...
Well, I off-handedly calculated the 71% incorrectly from IN1's
"Generic +X% Elemental Damage Gear..." thread: it turns out that the max is approximately "generic apparel and accessories +51%." I'm not aware of any endgame unique gear that actually gives +X% Spirit Damage better than randomly generated shoppables.
But let's say I'll give you the +71%. That +71% Spirit setup completely requires shopped randomly-generated gear from the Mage gallows guy (hat, robes, rings, boots, belt, amulet, gloves)? That's as maxed out as you get ONLY stacking Spirit damage. So you're not getting ANY other element bonuses...not to mention any of the other mods that make mage life good. Next, RoUC, Apostateface, Dura's, Ring of the Ferryman and the like only increase Fire, Lightning, and Cold damages (RoUC/Apostateface also carry Nature bonuses which is useless, Dura's doesn't cover Lightning, Ring of the Ferryman doesn't cover Cold); none of the typical Elemental/Primal gear increases Spirit damage. Your other damage would be pretty pitiful if you only stacked Spirit (especially Fire). But if you went for the normal Elemental stack and went for Spirit, your bonus would turn into approximately +90% at the most (say, discarding the extra ring and the amulet slot for +Spirit%), INCLUDING the halved Spirit resist.
Four things from there, then: with only two spells to use Spirit damage, it seems to be simply not worth it. Spirit Bolt is comparatively weak and is single-target only, while Walking Bomb doesn't
need Spirit bonuses, since it works off of enemy HP, a lá Corpse Explosion in D2 (one goes, so goes the rest). In addition, exploiting Spirit-weak enemies, as I have said, is redundant since every Spirit-weak enemy has another elemental weakness that is exploited better thanks to gear stacking (Templars should face the cold, undead face electricity, while darkspawn and mages have too little health to matter). Using the other elements also gives unaccounted for bonuses such as Cold slows + Brittle, Firedancing, and Lightning stuns + Petrify Brittle that are pretty valuable while Spirit does none of that, as far as I'm aware. On top of that, a good 1/4-1/3 of the enemies of the game are Spirit immune. Do you really want to waste 8 points on a tree that is utterly useless vs. 1/4-1/3 of the game? I sure wouldn't enjoy that. Then, there's the fact that CCCs via the Elemental and Primal trees are much, much easier to pull off. DISORIENTED combos are much more difficult to pull off, not to mention the only decent option to set up DISORIENT is highly skill-intensive, meaning you're going to have to make extreme sacrifices on your party rogue to ably fit it in.
Last, you can go with a crit build for a regular Elemental/Primal setup too, you'd end up with only somewhat less critical chance and damage: I'd be extremely surprised if stacking Elemental/Primal didn't come out ahead just because of the sheer amount of gear bonuses. Off the top of my head, you could likely end up with +50% critical chance, +50% critical damage with the elemental stacking to boot.
But...feel free to prove me wrong, I'd like the Spirit line to be worthwhile to prioritize taking for once.
Modifié par ezrafetch, 29 avril 2011 - 07:07 .
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