30 réponses à ce sujet

[Thine Enemy]

Mages--out of all the classes--are the most difficult for me to counter without mana clash. Their powers are powerful and their refusing to die is annoying. What I'm trying to do is avoid using mana clash as much as possible as the my game crashes quite a few times when doing so. I also want to know what are good strategies to take on a power mage without mana clash. Also, Curse of Mortality...

Spell shield I find works out a bit, but I can never find a good time to spend points in that for some reason. -_-"

[digi_ronin]

Yes, Enemy mages are always at the top of your threat list. They can easily wipe a party with 3-4 spells when left alone - and to make matters worse, DAO mages are both healers and damage dealers. Any experienced roleplayer knows that this is a potentially gamebreaking mix.

Due to the 'healer' part, the standard anti-mage strategy of the RPG world (gun them down fast because they have little to no health) does not work. If you are lucky, the damage will interrupt their casting - but some DAOhealing spells are almost instant-cast, so you're usually in for a long fight even when you try to nuke them.

Instead, your goal must be to keep them from casting anything at all. Which is quite possible via stun/freeze/petrify/sleep. However, melee charas are unsuited for this. The time it takes you to run towards the mage is enough for him to cast one, even two spells. Which can already be the end of you.

Simply put: At the beginning of combat, you definitely need a shutdown skills that works at range.

If you have a mage in your party, there are plenty of such spells available (Petrify, Forcefield, CrushingPrison, Paralyze, Sleep, ParalyzingGlyph...). Cast any of these at the enemy mage as your first action. CrushingPrison and Paralyze are best because they are instant and leave the mage open to damage. Next-best pick is Sleep or Petrify, but both have a dangerous delay until they take effect. Forcefield is fast and great, but it makes the mage immune to damage, so you will need to wait until it wears off.

For other classes it's a bit more difficult. A rogue's Scattershot can be a stand-in, but its no where near as fast or long-lasting as the mage spells. After getting knocked down by it, the mage will get up again. At that point you already need a melee standing on his toes to stun him, which can be tricky. For warriors... well, I hardly play warriors, so I don't know if they have a ranged shutdown/knockdown.

[Thine Enemy]

Yes. In my playthrough so far, I have learned that locking down a mage and preventing it to cast spells is a good way to counter it. Once a mage starts casting spells, heavy damage is most likely to happen upon your party. Whenever I enter a battle, my number one rule is to eliminate mages with extreme prejudice. Use whatever means to A: Lock down/stun the mage and B: kill it quickly.

One of my favorite party members for this is the dog, especially when he has learned the Overwhelm ability and has very high strength--eliminates mages without fail (from what I've seen out of all the times he has overwhelmed mages). He has helped out very nicely against certain powerful blood mages later in the game.

Mages--despite being a mage myself--are my most hated opponents in Dragon Age. Equaled to wolves/werewolves. Second are archers.

Modifié par Thine Enemy, 29 avril 2011 - 06:24 .

[Arthur Cousland]

Mages aren't too much of a threat to anyone with high magic defense. You could cheat and go templar, or just equip a bunch of dweomer runes, the spellward amulet, or get the juggernaut armor set.  There's also a handy ring in the Wonders of Theadas that boosts elemental resistances each by 20%.

Is your mage an arcane warrior? Shimmering shield is a great defense against magic as well, along with the previously mentioned anti-magic gear.

Since Alistair is a templar, you could just send him in and let him take the mages focus on him. With the proper gear, he'll survive. Just keep him on aggressive behavior, and make sure he goes for the mages.

Modifié par Arthur Cousland, 29 avril 2011 - 02:57 .

[Gregor55]

Crushing prison stops them from casting and has an instant effect over distance. Force field also does, but has the disadvantage that you can't kill them whilst they are trapped. It's best to hex therm first I find.

[Corker]

I put my party on hold, dress up a rogue (usually the Warden or Zevran; he's built for this) in Combat Stealth, and send them ahead to scout an area. If there's a mage, take up backstab position behind and hold. Take the rest of the party off hold and target something in the room; as they advance, switch back to your rogue.

You'll see all the enemies start to react as the rest of the party enters the other end of the room. Riposte to stun the mage; a few more backstabs usually does the job. Then sprint like the blazes back to the rest of the group. (Stealth is probably not off of cool down yet.)

Also seconding Dog + Overwhelm. Works great.

ETA: Late-game archers - Arrow of Slaying + Critical Shot takes out a lot, although not IME a boss like Caladrius.

Modifié par Corker, 29 avril 2011 - 07:22 .

[mousestalker]

If you have a templar in your party, Holy Smite will knock the mage (and anyone else around him) out of the fight for a bit.

The best thing to do is what the posters above have suggested and combine them as best you can with the party you have.

For example, Zevran stealths in and gets in position, the rest follow. When the remaining three get aggro, Zevran backstabs out of stealth on the mage. Morrigan uses crushing prison on the mage. Alistair uses Holy smite on the mage and his friends. The rest of the bad guys attack Alistair. Your warden does whatever warden tricks she can.

[Seagloom]

Glyph of Neutralization is a great anti-mage spell. Casting it on an enemy reduces them to staff attacks. They will be immune to magic while standing in the glyph, but remain vulnerable to physical assault. Glyph of Neutralization also doubles as a defensive spell when one of your party members gets tagged by Crushing Prison or Curse of Mortality. Even better, that party member can use a poultice without fear of getting smacked with another spell.

Another option is having a rogue archer like Leliana enter stealth mode, then launching an Arrow of Slaying at the mage. Most mages will not survive that at higher levels if the archer takes Lethality and pumps cunning.

Modifié par Seagloom, 29 avril 2011 - 07:47 .

[Deathwurm]

When pressed for Mana yourself (or for a yellow or lower opponent) I found that Stonefist can often do a nice job of giving you a bit of a breather.

[Thine Enemy]

All useful tips! Thanks!

Some I didn't even think of!

[Zaxares]

There's a few tactics that I use:

1. Have YOUR Mage cast Paralyse or Crushing Prison at the enemy mage. I've NEVER seen a mage successfully resist Paralyse, and Crushing Prison has no resistance check. Then simply pile on the damage while they're incapacitated.

2. If you have Dog in your party, use his Overwhelm ability on the mage. It does a tremendous amount of damage, and on lower settings is enough to kill the enemy mage outright. If he doesn't have it yet, Charge makes a suitable low-level substitute. However, to be on the safe side, have your archer or mage pump a few ranged attacks into him as well.

3. Make a beeline for the mage with your Rogue, then use skills like Dirty Fighting or Riposte to stun them while you hack them to pieces. I find that a Riposte + Flurry combo is usually enough to kill the mage outright, if you have a decent investment in Dexterity and Cunning.

[Thine Enemy]

Zaxares wrote...

There's a few tactics that I use:

1. Have YOUR Mage cast Paralyse or Crushing Prison at the enemy mage. I've NEVER seen a mage successfully resist Paralyse, and Crushing Prison has no resistance check. Then simply pile on the damage while they're incapacitated.

2. If you have Dog in your party, use his Overwhelm ability on the mage. It does a tremendous amount of damage, and on lower settings is enough to kill the enemy mage outright. If he doesn't have it yet, Charge makes a suitable low-level substitute. However, to be on the safe side, have your archer or mage pump a few ranged attacks into him as well.

3. Make a beeline for the mage with your Rogue, then use skills like Dirty Fighting or Riposte to stun them while you hack them to pieces. I find that a Riposte + Flurry combo is usually enough to kill the mage outright, if you have a decent investment in Dexterity and Cunning.

Oooo! I REALLY like these ideas. Since I am not gonna try for Mana Clash, I'm gonna completely forego that spell line and replace it with Crushing Prison. Spell Might is good and all, but really, I've only used it to create advanced skeletons.

[Biotic_Warlock]

curse of mortality. MURDER

also crushing prison does nice work =)

[Dayfax]

In addition to these suggestions, set up the AI tactics to include "Enemy: Nearest Visible Mage > Crushing Prison / Curse of Mortality / Glyph of Neutralization," etc.

This will have your companions cast those spells the second combat starts, autotargeting any mage in the vacinity. Very often they'll lock down the mage before you've even had a chance to pause to issue your own tactics.

[Thine Enemy]

Biotic_Warlock wrote...

curse of mortality. MURDER

also crushing prison does nice work =)

Crushing prison does excellent work!

The fact that I have never used it outside of the Mage's Circle quest baffles my mind. :\\

That's gonna change, though!

I love tactics! It helps me out so much.

[Arthur Cousland]

Any enemy on nightmare seems to have high magic defense. Many times I've had spells like cone of cold, mind blast, and even mana clash get resisted. It really makes things interesting when a hungry ogre is approaching my mage and I'm just hoping that I can get any immobilization spell to stick. I'm not certain about crushing prison, but I'm sure that's no different. That's why mages can never have enough spellpower.

[Biotic_Warlock]

For mages before u even get to 30 magic (no glyph of neut., mana clash, etc)
Just use spell shield for 75% spell resistance... can save your live at the start... tho u would have to have gotten the attention of the mage (walking bomb is good at that)

[Satyricon331]

Biotic_Warlock wrote...
For mages before u even get to 30 magic (no glyph of neut., mana clash, etc)
Just use spell shield for 75% spell resistance... can save your live at the start... tho u would have to have gotten the attention of the mage (walking bomb is good at that)

How do you make the spell shield useful though?  I've taken it on my current playthrough for the first time and it does drain your mana quickly, which isn't good for most mage builds I use (although Arcane Warrior is looking more tempting than usual).

~~~
Anyways, I love this thread.  I usually avoid spells I think are cheesy, with Mana Clash being the prime example, so I've relied on disabling spells.  In my experience, the one(s?) that check mental resistance (Sleep) aren't the way to go against mages, btw.

[Biotic_Warlock]

Spell shield is good if u have a high willpower, as long as u have a healthy supply of mana, it shouldnt be a problem, as the mana taken off is round about the same as the activation for the spell.

[Satyricon331]

Biotic_Warlock wrote...

Spell shield is good if u have a high willpower, as long as u have a healthy supply of mana, it shouldnt be a problem, as the mana taken off is round about the same as the activation for the spell.

I tend to take high willpower since I don't use potions, but even then it's a problem for me.  Is the difference just lyrium potions?

(also, iirc, the mana taken off is the cost of activation + 10)

[digi_ronin]

Satyricon331 wrote...
I tend to take high willpower since I don't use potions, but even then it's a problem for me.  Is the difference just lyrium potions?

As soon as you have more than one mana-draining effect going on, counteracting the drain purely with willpower is very hard. You need huge numbers to cast stuff and fuel constant effects in parallel. You basically have to cripple your Magic stat in favor of Willpower to get this. Which results in rather weak spell effects.

Even BioWare themselves admitted that Lyrium Potions are pretty much inevitable for mages, especially in longer fights... which is one of the reasons why they dropped the initial idea of having a mechanic for a progressing Lyrium addiction in DA. Since you can't go without potions, it would mean every mage chara would necessarily get addicted.

Do I like this potion guzzling? No way. I'm the type who generally hates potions. Also, it takes so much out of the awesomeness feeling of spellcasters when you have to watch them desperately chug down vials in the middle of the fray... which is the reason why I custom-built an item that grants a moderate additional mana influx during combat. It doesn't mean I need no potions at all, but at least my Warden doesn't play like a potion Junkie anymore.

I'm always careful not to screw the balancing of a game - but honestly, without the toolset, things like that would just frustrate me to no end.

Modifié par digi_ronin, 02 mai 2011 - 07:51 .

[Satyricon331]

digi_ronin wrote...
As soon as you have more than one mana-draining effect going on, counteracting the drain purely with willpower is very hard. You need huge numbers to cast stuff and fuel constant effects in parallel. You basically have to cripple your Magic stat in favor of Willpower to get this. Which results in rather weak spell effects.

Even BioWare themselves admitted that Lyrium Potions are pretty much inevitable for mages, especially in longer fights... which is one of the reasons why they dropped the initial idea of having a mechanic for a progressing Lyrium addiction in DA. Since you can't go without potions, it would mean every mage chara would necessarily get addicted.

Do I like this potion guzzling? No way. I'm the type who generally hates potions. Also, it takes so much out of the awesomeness feeling of spellcasters when you have to watch them desperately chug down vials in the middle of the fray... which is the reason why I custom-built an item that grants a moderate additional mana influx during combat. It doesn't mean I need no potions at all, but at least my Warden doesn't play like a potion Junkie anymore.

Lord,DA is an awesome game, no doubt - but without the toolset I really would've dropped it after some weeks.

Interesting!  I never knew that was the reason they didn't make lyrium addicting.

But yeah, it sounds like the Spell Shield isn't suitable for my anti-potion playstyle, which rather confirms my experience so far this playthrough.  I've gone many playthroughs w/o lyrium, btw, but (perhaps largely for that reason) I play on normal, and I'd guess you play on a higher difficulty level since most people do.  

But for the OP, the Shield's probably a good option!  And it isn't cheesy, either.

Modifié par Satyricon331, 02 mai 2011 - 07:53 .

[GSSAGE7]

I find having a rogue stealth up to the mage, then hitting them with dirty fighting, and pummeling it until death usually works. If there's a lot of mages in an area, try and hit as many as possible with Holy Smite, then swoop on them.

[Ridirkulous]

If the mage is of normal rank then you can also try shattering shot. It should knock them down and give a warrior or rogue enough time to close the distance and finish them off. I don't know how well this always works on nightmare though. Pinning shot might also work on normal rank mages but I here the ability is almost always resisted on nightmare. If it works make sure your archer targets a different enemy. Don't attack them again until your warrior or rogue is there to put them down. Many of the other abilities listed here work well too, especially the spells, it's just I know Leliana had quick access to both of those abilities as soon as I recruited her. Besides holy smite has a 15% chance to cause a CTD for me apparently so be prepared when you use it.

The glyph of repulsion can also work wonders too. Mages tend to stay in the back of the enemy ranks so if you pull all the warriors out of a room the mage should be trailing them. Plant the glyph to cut off their path and you can forget about their spells for a while as they have a hard time targeting you without line of sight. You can also then use the glyph of paralysis on top of the glyph of repulsion to create an explosion that will paralyze almost everything for 20 seconds. Just don't get yourself caught in the blast.

However after a while I managed to hate the archer spam more than than any mage. Scattershot is just evil. 

Modifié par Ridirkulous, 03 mai 2011 - 01:59 .

[Thine Enemy]

digi_ronin wrote...

Satyricon331 wrote...
I tend to take high willpower since I don't use potions, but even then it's a problem for me. Is the difference just lyrium potions?

As soon as you have more than one mana-draining effect going on, counteracting the drain purely with willpower is very hard. You need huge numbers to cast stuff and fuel constant effects in parallel. You basically have to cripple your Magic stat in favor of Willpower to get this. Which results in rather weak spell effects.

Even BioWare themselves admitted that Lyrium Potions are pretty much inevitable for mages, especially in longer fights... which is one of the reasons why they dropped the initial idea of having a mechanic for a progressing Lyrium addiction in DA. Since you can't go without potions, it would mean every mage chara would necessarily get addicted.

Do I like this potion guzzling? No way. I'm the type who generally hates potions. Also, it takes so much out of the awesomeness feeling of spellcasters when you have to watch them desperately chug down vials in the middle of the fray... which is the reason why I custom-built an item that grants a moderate additional mana influx during combat. It doesn't mean I need no potions at all, but at least my Warden doesn't play like a potion Junkie anymore.

I'm always careful not to screw the balancing of a game - but honestly, without the toolset, things like that would just frustrate me to no end.

Pretty much why I like the Blood Magic line. When I'm down on mana, I switch to using my health to do the spell-casting as my mana recovers. And if you have some mana regeneration boosting item/clothing such as tevinter mage robes, you can get a decent amount of mana back by the time you need to switch off Blood Magic. If you have the blood ring (or any other item that improves blood magic), it increases the amount of time you have to remain in Blood Magic mode before you need to switch it off and having Blood Sacrifice increases that amount of time even further. By the time you need to switch off then, it would give you a very good amount of mana back. This is one of the reasons why, out of all the nightmare playthroughs as a mage (more than ten, gosh golly), I have probably used less than 6 potions. And it isn't until I have typed this post when I realized that I would've made my life SO MUCH easier had I used potions.

GSSAGE7 wrote...

I find having a rogue stealth up to the mage, then hitting them with dirty fighting, and pummeling it until death usually works. If there's a lot of mages in an area, try and hit as many as possible with Holy Smite, then swoop on them.

To be honest, I should start implementing the use of rogue allies in my playthroughs, especially with that strategy. A lot of my battles were more of the "Charge the Enemy and Hope for the Best" type. It is a miracle that I have survived with that. >_>

Satyricon331 wrote...

Biotic_Warlock wrote...

Spell shield is good if u have a high willpower, as long as u have a healthy supply of mana, it shouldnt be a problem, as the mana taken off is round about the same as the activation for the spell.

I tend to take high willpower since I don't use potions, but even then it's a problem for me. Is the difference just lyrium potions?

(also, iirc, the mana taken off is the cost of activation + 10)

Having a lot of +Mana Regeneration items pretty much lowers the need of Willpower by a good margin.

However, investing some points in Willpower wouldn't hurt, either. Just not a lot. At least don't make it higher than your Magic, that's more important than Willpower. More damaging spell equals more awesome.

My suggestion is invest into Magic until you hit 42 and spend the remainder of your points into whatever else--Willpower if you prefer. I usually have up to thirty something Willpower by the end of the game after investing into magic. Having more Willpower adds more mana, thus allowing for more sustainables while having a good amount of mana left for casting spells.

Ridirkulous wrote...

If the mage is of normal rank then you can also try shattering shot. It should knock them down and give a warrior or rogue enough time to close the distance and finish them off. I don't know how well this always works on nightmare though. Pinning shot might also work on normal rank mages but I here the ability is almost always resisted on nightmare. If it works make sure your archer targets a different enemy. Don't attack them again until your warrior or rogue is there to put them down. Many of the other abilities listed here work well too, especially the spells, it's just I know Leliana had quick access to both of those abilities as soon as I recruited her. Besides holy smite has a 15% chance to cause a CTD for me apparently so be prepared when you use it.

The glyph of repulsion can also work wonders too. Mages tend to stay in the back of the enemy ranks so if you pull all the warriors out of a room the mage should be trailing them. Plant the glyph to cut off their path and you can forget about their spells for a while as they have a hard time targeting you without line of sight. You can also then use the glyph of paralysis on top of the glyph of repulsion to create an explosion that will paralyze almost everything for 20 seconds. Just don't get yourself caught in the blast.

However after a while I managed to hate the archer spam more than than any mage. Scattershot is just evil. {smilie}

Yes, I hate archers, as well...

That's why--just as I do mages--I eliminate them with extreme prejudice!

Modifié par Thine Enemy, 03 mai 2011 - 09:00 .