10 réponses à ce sujet

[sagefic]

Hey,

So I got DA2 on the steam summer sale and am playing on Normal difficulty to start, just to enjoy the story the first time through. But I'm thinking I want to pump up the difficulty and enjoy the mage class a little more. ATM, I'm really digging the idea of a full "4 elements" mage - primal and elemental trees - with focus on being the party damage dealer/crowd control.

So far, I'm bring Anders with me for being healer, buffs, and glyph of paralyzation (which i love against bosses). I <3 aveline, both for being a kick-ass woman and tanking abilities. 4th party member is *usually* varric at this point, but i think i'm using him rather badly.

I'm working my way around the primal and element trees, with emphasis on ice and lightning more. also earth armor, which, though ugly, is helping me take a beating. i tend to run around the battlefield a lot laying hurt on mobs while avi takes on the boss. i've taken force mage as a specialization and mostly just playing with fist of the maker and put a point into the...what is it called - unshakable? <--the do-not-knock-down skill.

I'm finding that

1) i run out of mana like mad with this build. death syphon in da:o was glorious, but it seems wrong here. i read it was bugged, and it certainly has sucked down corpses, taking vital (read, quest-related) loot, with it.  is bloodmage the best way to power a casting-heavy mage short of lyrium potions? or is there some trick or fix to death syphon that i'm missing? i DO tend to stand in the heat of battle, so getting around to scoop up corpse mana is not a problem.

2) i can't tell if its more effective to go for a breadth of spells (all the way down the trees) or make them stronger as soon as possible (Get the upgrade)

3) i like force-mage stuff okay, but i'm wondering if this is going to take away from my plan to lay down the hurt with the 4 elements. i've looked for builds re: this, but mostly have only found comparisons of elemental vs. primal. i like them all, and like to see nature-spells flying, so i want to use both trees.

4) while i wanted the force tree for the unshakable thing, is bloodmagic a better other specialization (don't want to spend much on it) or spirit healer just to have a back-up revive?

alright, random questions, just wondering if anyone had any thoughts or relevant linkys to threads i might have missed. i've been searching these forums, but didn't quite find the answers i was looking for.

thanks in advance!

[AreleX]

if you want blood magic to be any kind of useful as a substitute for a mana pool, you will have to take the tree up to bloodlust, which is something like a 5 or 6 point investment

pull of the abyss and gravitic ring are what you should be in the force mage tree for, the rest is rather worthless (post 1.02/1.03, unshakable is useless as well)

anders shouldn't be relegated to solely support magic, his vengeance tree can make him your best offensive mage

i suppose you could run death syphon, i'm more partial to simply going blood mage, though

the primal tree has lost a lot of its luster post patch, with the nerfs to stagger and chain lightning + the damage cap on lieutenants hurting your petrify -> archer's lance ccc even worse than petrify's damage reduction already did

if you want to go full-on primal + elemental, you are going to force yourself out of speccing into the hawke-only specializations, which is no good. i would give merrill/anders the primal tree and focus on blood magic for hawke

check my mage guide, there's tutorial videos in it too

let me know if you have any more questions

[Apathy1989]

1) Since you are bringing aveline along, I recommend investing in Rally for her. Have her rally whenever you are low on mana, for a massive mana regen. Its a rather overpowered skill.

2) Getting upgraded versions of stonefist and chain lightning is great for exploiting combos. I would even skip petrify and tempest and instead invest in these upgraded. Upgrading ice spells is great for petrify. Fire spells are ok to upgrade, but tend to just be flat damage.

3) Elemental tree is very powerful on difficulties besides nightmare, since at nightmare they all friendly fire. The mastery skill also will make your ice spells brittle constantly, which can be exploited by varric. Primal spells are rather lackluster after 1.03 since Petrify was reduced in time and chain lightning CCC damage was reduced. Its still worth investing in however, but I would keep your priority in elemental. Force mage spells are alright, but you may find that Unshackable is a wasted skill point since after 1.03 you rarely knockback, probably never on normal difficulty.

4) I tend to go with Spirit Healer simply for the +25 mana, and avoid the skills. Blood magic was awesome before 1.03 patch, but now that items give +0.25 mana-hp conversion rather than +1, Blood magic requires a good point investment to make it work.

[cJohnOne]

I like Tempest. It has a huge area of effect and it helps on mobs of critters.

Spirit Healer depends on if it fits your character. I find it useful late game to be able revive if you go on to harder difficulties then the end battle can be done using revive.

[Mr_Raider]

Your most powerful weapon is auto attack. You should find ways to improve auto attack. That means find ways to hold enemies down while you auto-attack, auto attack faster, and do more damage on auto attack. As such, your best spells are haste, glyphs, force mage and the masteries. Primal has saving grace, in that the spell mastery is pretty good. Combined with robes of unblemished claenliness, ring of the ferryman, and a good staff, you can dish out massive damage to demons, which is about half the enemies in the game.

Tempest is also a pretty good spell for crowd control. You can repeatedly stagger mooks, essentially taking them out of the battle.

[frustratemyself]

Force Mage is a good tree to have to help with crowd control, even if I didn't use it properly with my first mage. Pull of the Abyss + Gravitic Ring is a great way of locking down enemies so you can rain doom on them. Pull of the Abyss and TK burst can also be used to pull assassins out of stealth which is worth it for the lolz.

As a couple of people said knockbacks are a non-issue since the last patch but if you're really worried about it and get the item pack dlc there is a pair of mage gloves that make you immune to knockback.

[Erissa Elvirta]

I always follow/refer to AreleX's guide. It's pretty awesome. @AreleX:- Thanks!!

[AreleX]

you are wise as you are beautiful, sir

[PrinceLionheart]

Mr_Raider wrote...

Your most powerful weapon is auto attack. You should find ways to improve auto attack. That means find ways to hold enemies down while you auto-attack, auto attack faster, and do more damage on auto attack.

To add to this, in Act 3 during Varric's final companion quest, make sure to confiscate the shard from him (by then you should have him locked in as a Friend or Rival so it won't be an issue.) Bring it back to Sandal and he can turn it into a special rune that increases your attack rate/speed.

[sagefic]

wow. thanks for all the replies/advice. i'm thinking i'd rather shift focus a little in spells than take blood-mage. so long as i'm playing on an easier difficulty for this playthrough, bloodmage really doesn't fit the RP that this hawke is developing. i think i'll save that for a later, nightmare playthrough.

i actually checked and i was playing pre-patch, so i'm going to have to adjust for the 1.03. thanks again for the advice and links to guides, all!

[Mr_Raider]

Actually blood slave, and walking bomb are two of the best spells below nightmare. The goal on difficulties below nightmare is surround yourself with enemies, than drop damage spells right on top of your head. One walking bomb or exploding slave can wipe out most mobs. If you give Varric disorient through fatiguing fog, you can do double damage with walking bomb. If you run three mages, give all three Tempest and firestorm. You can stack so much damage on top of yourself, you should be able to wipe out most mobs while your party focus fires down the boss/elite.