22 réponses à ce sujet

[zero_duncan08]

hi, im tryin to build a mage wearing heavy armor with blood mage/spirit healer spec. but im a bit confuse about the attributes,do i need to put a lot on con? or magic? and how much strength do i need to equip the best heavy armor for mage? sorry bout the english ^^

[SuicidalBaby]

are you doing this for looks or for armor rating?

[mr_afk]

If you prebuff you probably can get by with ~25 strength to equip the helm of 1000 battles (32 str/con requirement). Might be able to get even lower than that.

p.s. Say 'looks' or how you hate having to pump any willpower - the 'armour rating' option is a trick!  The armour ratings between each class are pretty much the same. The only difference is the warrior unique items with +dmg resistance (which can be useful) and maybe +%phyiscal and +health properties of more generic warrior gear. 

Modifié par mr_afk, 06 mai 2011 - 04:46 .

[lionalio87]

No way your mage can wear heavy armor. Heavy armor is just for warrior, medium armor for rogue and light armor for mage. If you want to wear heavy armor, upgrade your strength. But mage DOESN'T need strength!!!

[mr_afk]

@lionalio87 Warrior armour can work, it's just a lot of effort for decreased damage and increased survivability. It works on the concept that a bloodmage only needs constitution (in terms of casting). This means that equipping robes is effectively wasting points into willpower -> unless you do really efficient prebuffing and/or use the +%elemental properties of robes.

Pumping strength also increases fortitude which allows the forcemage specialisation (for unshakeable) or items with knockback immunity to be skipped - such that a bloodmage/spirit healer becomes viable. Plus it has the advantage of looking like the stereotypical 'cleric'

[lionalio87]

@mr_afk: I agree that every class in DA2 DOES NEED constitution, but pumping strength for mage, in my opinion, is sucks. If i need fortitude, I will spend times or money to by some items instead of increasing the raw strength

[zero_duncan08]

so what do the both of you think? the thing is i want to build a mage which has the highest survivability and im planning to be the healer of the party cos i dont really want to use anders he's a bit annoying ^^

[zero_duncan08]

mr_afk wrote...

If you prebuff you probably can get by with ~25 strength to equip the helm of 1000 battles (32 str/con requirement). Might be able to get even lower than that.

p.s. Say 'looks' or how you hate having to pump any willpower - the 'armour rating' option is a trick!  The armour ratings between each class are pretty much the same. The only difference is the warrior unique items with +dmg resistance (which can be useful) and maybe +%phyiscal and +health properties of more generic warrior gear. 

Modifié par zero_duncan08, 06 mai 2011 - 05:19 .

[brazen_nl]

Have you checked any of the guides? There isn't one that mentions a mage wearing heavy armor ...

[mr_afk]

@brazen What do you mean? Are you talking about mine? 
Haha to be totally honest my current late-game tank-mage guide sorta blows... (no insult intended to the people who helped me make it). What I mean is that it isn't very detailed yet. The concepts are pretty sound I suppose. 

@zero_duncan I think ezra fetch might have a section on it too- not sure. Either way, his guide on spirit healers will be useful if you're planning on been the healer. Also, my early game build works really well imo (is what I used) so you can try that if you like.

But yeah, for the best survivability a bloodmage/spirit healer with masses of constitution, lots of sustains (e.g. rock armour and maybe arcane shield) and warrior armour with +dmg resistance will be optimal. It'll have pretty terrible damage though unless you're really good at CCCs. And if you're not careful your attack scores will suffer meaning that your basic staff attacks will glancing blow quite often. This would mean that you'll be completely limited to a buffer/healer role which may get boring...

anyway, in addition to buffs and sustains, if you decide to specialise in elemental dmg get some willpower, prebuff and get robes of unblemished cleanliness, ring of ferryman etc. in addition to the helm of 1000 battles,
If you're looking at a more spirit/physical build you might get some +crit chance/dmg items.

And if you still have problems after looking at all the guides go talk to DW2511. He loves his tank builds...

Edit: Forgot to mention - healing aura with really high constitution will give amazing regen rates. There are stories about people having (unbugged) regen rates higher than the arishok's dps...

lionalio87 wrote...

@mr_afk: I agree that every class in DA2 DOES NEED constitution, but pumping strength for mage, in my opinion, is sucks. If i need fortitude, I will spend times or money to by some items instead of increasing the raw strength

What are you talking about, I don't need any constitution! 
Haha I actually think that putting any points into constitution for late-game archers and mages is somewhat wasteful. With all those +attribute items (e.g. valiance rune) you should have plenty for survivability and casting.
I've only recently decided that it might be a better idea to pump some constitution for my mid-game bloodmage. Getting one-shotted or killing my self via spell-casting is a really annoying way to go out haha.

But yeah, it depends on your priorites. With the new dlc, getting knockback immunity becomes a joke. But if you want to use other gloves and rings other than the etched ring of the twins you'll have to either get unshakeable or risk getting knocked-around a lot. 

I agree that to me pumping strength in a mage is wasteful - but if you look at the 14%dmg resistance and immunity to critical hits from the helm of 1000 battles it's almost worth the ~10 or so points you'll have to put into strength if you're looking at an invincible tank mage build.

Modifié par mr_afk, 06 mai 2011 - 06:05 .

[brazen_nl]

mr_afk wrote...

@brazen What do you mean? Are you talking about mine? 

Wasn't aware you used that? 

I know about your crit-mage setup only.

mr_afk wrote...

Haha to be totally honest my current late-game tank-mage guide sorta blows...

Well, that would be my point. 

This is not DA:O anymore.

[mr_afk]

[quote]brazen_nl wrote...
Wasn't aware you used that? 

I know about your crit-mage setup only.
[/quote]

Well, as my first non-exploit experimental build (allure's crook rogue failed quite miserably) I decided to go with an armoured mage to stop knockback issues pre-unshakeable. It worked suprisingly well which lead me to consider writing a guide/sharing that build idea. You know how it is with the hundreds of threads about knockback issues...

In my guide which is linked in my signature it goes through the justification for it. So pretty much as an early-game build an armoured mage (built for dps) will be very competitive or superior damage-wise to a robe-wearing mage as it would have less interrupted spells/attacks and less getting knocked down and beaten to death.

[quote]brazen_nl wrote...
[quote]mr_afk wrote...

Haha to be totally honest my current late-game tank-mage guide sorta blows...[/quote]Well, that would be my point. 

This is not DA:O anymore.
[/quote][/quote]

After unshakeable/getting a knockback immunity item, it seems rather wasteful to continue with an armoured mage build. However, it turned out that there were quite a few ppl out there who used warrior-armoured mages throughout the whole game. Somewhat suprising as there isn't much talk about such builds (and most times it's brought up it is straight away torn down) haha.

So based on their ideas/information I made a quick guide to how to do a late-game tank mage. Based on pure theory I suppose it should work to make a really indestructable mage. It just seems like such a counter-intuitive method to play, as why survive anything when you can just kill things faster? 
My main problem with that section of my guide (besides the typos etc as I haven't edited it yet) is that my information on what to equip is really shoddy. I only know of the helm of 1000 battles - and it seems pretty lame to have a guide that just says 'get this, fullstop'. 

and yeah, I guess I'm slightly biased against such builds so people who don't enjoy playing glass cannons might find such a build to work for them.

Modifié par mr_afk, 07 mai 2011 - 12:58 .

[rumination888]

mr_afk wrote...

In my guide which is linked in my signature it goes through the justification for it. So pretty much as an early-game build an armoured mage (built for dps) will be very competitive or superior damage-wise to a robe-wearing mage as it would have less interrupted spells/attacks and less getting knocked down and beaten to death.

No.

A regular mage that pumps constitution and uses Rock Armor wouldn't be interrupted by physical attacks, either. As long as you wear mage armor equivelent to your level, you should have ~55% physical reduction with unupgraded Rock Armor and no runes of protection.

Warrior armor on a mage is for looks, not effectiveness.

Modifié par rumination888, 07 mai 2011 - 06:39 .

[mr_afk]

Really? So a level 1-8 mage with rock armour won't be knocked back by anything? Especially things like arrows?
Unless by pump constitution you mean to get constitution to really high levels (higher than 19?)

Why is the general consensus out there to get unshakeable as soon as possible if knock-back issues are not a problem? I'll accept that it is perfectly doable to get through those levels without using the blood dragon armour (I managed on my first mage playthrough) but I did experience issues with knockback-locks and struggled a lot more than with my armoured build.

I'll accept that later-game due to the increased constitution etc. (from +attributes) and better CC/threat management it is possible to get by without pumping constitution or equpping some special armour but earlier on unless you're really talented you're going to probably experience knock-back issues.

Modifié par mr_afk, 07 mai 2011 - 06:59 .

[ezrafetch]

mr_afk wrote...

Really? So a level 1-8 mage with rock armour won't be knocked back by anything? Especially things like arrows?
Unless by pump constitution you mean to get constitution to really high levels (higher than 19?)

Why is the general consensus out there to get unshakeable as soon as possible if knock-back issues are not a problem? I'll accept that it is perfectly doable to get through those levels without using the blood dragon armour (I managed on my first mage playthrough) but I did experience issues with knockback-locks and struggled a lot more than with my armoured build.

I'll accept that later-game due to the increased constitution etc. (from +attributes) and better CC/threat management it is possible to get by without pumping constitution or equpping some special armour but earlier on unless you're really talented you're going to probably experience knock-back issues.

Once you put on the low-level DLC armor, which has a really nice armor rating, you don't get knocked back by pretty much anything at all.  Been doing a mage playthrough again and that's been the case.  The general consensus on Unshakable was due the itemization of the core game, I suspect: unless you shelled cash out on Robes (or spent the time to randomly generate a good set), it is relatively difficult to find a not-crap set of robes.  So if you're stuck with the Smuggler's robes, you're definitely going to need Unshakable to not get chainlocked into oblivion.  But since then people have found out gold isn't that hard to come by, so it's not hard to be able to afford even a half-decent set of robes.  And if you have the DLC, well, it's a moot point, that thing will last until lvl15 until you get the next DLC mage robes, and then you upgrade until you get the RoUC, and bam! endgame.

You can also get an indestructable mage pretty easily, just pump some extra Constitution to get to 275+ life, and bam! game over.  My first mage had 330 life, basically he couldn't die unless I purposely played stupidly.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 07 mai 2011 - 07:09 .

[rumination888]

From 1-4 you can't wear warrior armor, so those levels are moot.

From levels 5+, Blood Dragon Armor is tainting your perception. Not only is it the equivelent of a level ~9 piece of armor, but you also gain a helmet from the package.
If you purchase Vestments of the Mystic from the BE(drop 2 runes of fortune on it and you'll recoup the gold spent), you'll gain enough armor not to be pushed back from 5-8. Add a helmet and you can extend that all the way until the Deep Roads.

[mr_afk]

@ezra Hm.. in that case I will withdraw my assertion that the early-game armoured build is the only way for a pre-unshakeable mage to be unshakeable. It still is a viable build though if mana levels aren't a concern (warrior using rally). As in order for a robe-wearing mage to not get knocked around and equip robes they'll probably need to have ~21 willpower and a decent amount of constitution.

This means that the 7 points needed to be placed into strength are matched by the ~6 points needed to put into willpower (and the 6 points into con matched by a similar, if not larger amount).
The only advantage that a robe-wearing mage would have is increased mana, improved bloodmagic (even though you won't be specialised yet), and maybe some +%elemental damage.
Via warrior armour you could get +health and +%physical dmg. Thus it's not too different really.

But looks-wise the robes definitely lose

@rumination88 - the point of the build was to capitalise on that overpowered-ness of the blood dragon armour? It provides much higher armour ratings than anything of its level and also has a handy +1 all attributes.
But yeah, a robe-wearing mage could work I suppose, especially with the new dlc/doing your vestments method 

I respecced out into a rogue-armoured crit-mage build around level 10 so wouldn't know much about the diminishing returns of wearing it past level 9

Modifié par mr_afk, 07 mai 2011 - 07:35 .

[rumination888]

You don't even need to buy Vestments of the Mystic, I was just using that as an example for 100% gauranteed results.
What I typically do is purchase a cheap helmet for ~75s in Hightown(one with a 4% fire bonus). That'll push your physical reduction vs. level 5 enemies well above 60%. Then I just pray for a random robe drop to replace the starting armor.

Modifié par rumination888, 07 mai 2011 - 08:08 .

[DW2511]

And if you still have problems after looking at all the guides go talk to DW2511. He loves his tank builds...

Saw the batsign in the Gotham sky and here I am... lol.

OP, check page 5 of AFK's guide thread for a sample of my builds...

The general consensus is this for a BM/SH Tank:

-Points you would put in WP go to STR. While Armor ratings between Warrior and Mage gear are not that different, it's still 10-15% more with Warrior plate on.

-MAG does not suffer at all. What does suffer is fire/cold/electricity damage due to the lack of enhancing Mage gear. Warrior gear tends to give bonuses to physical dmg , something a physical staff and your phys. dmg spells benefit from. So get Hemorrage, Crushing Prison and Stonefist.

-SH allows you to totally skip Grave Robber. Sacrifice has a 20 sec cooldown and you can patch up your companions right away. This saves you 1 skill point in your build.

-EXAMPLE BUILD:

PRIMAL- Rock Armor, 2*Chain Lgt.
ARCANE- El Weapons, Mind Blast, 2*Cr. Prison
ENTROPY- Hex of Torment, 2*Horror
CREATION- Heal, 2*Heroic Aura, 2*Haste
SH- Heal. Aura, 2*Group Heal, Revival+Refusal, Vitality
BM- 2*BM, 2*Sacrifice, 2*Hemorrage

If you want to be more of a debuffer, drop Haste and Bloodlust and get the first 3 spells from the Entropy tree fully upgraded.

Attributes wise, pump STR to 24-26 by the start of Act 3 and leave it. CON around 33-35 will get you around 300hp when you install Rune of Valiance. Rest goes to MAG.

Armor:

-Helm of 1000 Battles(Emporium, 133 gold).

-Cuirass of the Centurion(Alone quest). When you hit lvl 23 or so, visit Olaf's Armory in Hightown for an Armor with 361 Armor, +52 health, +145 Attack.

-Gauntlets of Ser Maura(Faith quest)

-Boots of the White Spire(Master Ilen, Sundermount)



PS. AFK, if you need more detailed data for your guide just ask.

[lameduckie]

Just curious, when people use an armored mage, do they use Void's hammer instead of a staff?

[mr_afk]

@lameduckie, You have an awesome name.

Back on topic, using the Void's hammer is pretty much cheating/making the game really cheesy so I wouldn't recommend it for anything but role-playing purposes. It would fit into the build quite nicely though making strength less wasteful to pump.

BUt yeah, having zero cool-downs means you can just spam chainlightnings until everything is dead. Bit lame really. But I probably am not the one to say as I don't do armoured builds past act 1

Modifié par mr_afk, 10 mai 2011 - 01:15 .

[lameduckie]

Thanks, I had been thinking about trying an armored mage and was trying to get as much use out of the higher strength as possible.

[mr_afk]

Well, if you already have the strength requirement for it (so no need to respec) you might as well get it for the odd fight in which you wish to whack people and cast rapid fire spells haha. It doesn't cost that much and I suppose it can be fun to muck around with for a while.

It's just that after a while it makes things too easy - much like the dagger and shield rogue.

Well good luck whatever you do