11 réponses à ce sujet

[Quething]

Does anyone use it? Ever?

In DA:O this was a great spell and saved my life more times than I can count. In DA2 it's basically been a throwaway point on my way to Death Cloud (which admittedly is no Chain Lightning itself, but is at least fun). Even with the duration modded out to 15s to match Torment, I haven't found a situation where it seems worth the time spent casting it, much less the mana. It almost seems like the "no crits" aspect would help against assassins, but you can't hit them with it during their immunity animation and if you tap them with it before they stealth it'll wear off before the backstab. If Shackling Hex could add BRITTLE or something I could see the merit, but as-is...

Has anyone found any great success with this spell? I hate having it and never using it, I'd love to find at least one place where it had a noticable effect.

[SuicidalBaby]

Source: NM Blood Mage Compendium

Pretty much any PC Hawke...  (scroll way down)


Merrill :
Suggested Group: Any
Synopsis:
This petite pixie packs a powerful punch. Producing profound performance, this tintilating tart toweringly triumphs over the trivial trials tempted to travel toward her. This build will not begin to shine on its own till the middle of act 2. However, it will increase overall group dps when you need it to with elite or higher targets until then.

Attributes :
All points into magic
Points into Con = patch 1.03 Blood Conversion
I would respec her as soon as possible in order to gain additional wasted attributes and abilities.

Build :

1. Chain Lightning
2. Rock Armor
3. Chain Reaction
4. Winter's Grasp
5. Hex of Torment
6. Horror
7. Despair
8. Misdirection Hex
9. Shackling Hex
10. Death Hex
11. Blood of the First
12. Wrath of the Elvhen
13. Loss of the Dales
14. Arlathan's Grace
15. Wounds of the Past
16. Deep Wounds
17. Ensnare
18. Stonefist
19. Petrify
20. Desicate
21. Tempest
22. Galvanism
23. Elemental Weapons
+24. get some more

Tactics :

self: hp: <50%: deactivate: Blood of the First
self: hp: <25%: Health Poultice
enemy: STAGGERED: Chain Lightning
enemy: elite or higher: Hex of Torment
enemy: elite or higher: Winter's Grasp
enemy: elite or higher: Horror
enemy: attacking Varric: Stonefist
enemy: attacking Hawke: use current conditon for next tactic
enemy: normal or higher: Misdirection Hex ------- or Anders.
enemy: elite or higher: Petrify
self: surrounded by 3 enemies: Ensnare
enemy: clustered with 3 enemies: Tempest
enemy: clustered with 3 enemies: Wounds of the Past
self: any: activate: Rock Armor
self: any: activate: Elemental Weapons
self: any: activate: Wrath of the Elvhan
self: hp: >75%: activate: Blood of the First

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 11 août 2011 - 04:20 .

[mr_afk]

an amazing alliterative answer. although aren't approaches allowing annoying adversaries appropriate..acknowledgement aspired?

(i.e. should there be conditions ensuring that misdirection hexes aren't wasted on critters/almost dead enemies? and is that even possible?)

Modifié par mr_afk, 11 août 2011 - 03:46 .

[AreleX]

mr afk is the worst linguist

[SuicidalBaby]

cunningly edited.


answer acknowledges adversary abilities appropriately, already! A.o.k?


edit: fixed attributes to match 1.03

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 11 août 2011 - 04:21 .

[Quething]

So kind of just toss it off at random when available as an incidental incoming DPS reduction, then?

Fair enough for Merril, but do you find the same use helpful or worth the time as an entropy-specced Hawke who you're actually behind the wheel of? Mostly, what I'm finding is that I'll be lining up Fireballs or dropping Gravitic Rings for Walking Bomb or whatever, and see a mage pop out of nowhere and go "ok, quick Horror" and go back to my primary focus. I've never been in a situation where I think "ok, quick Misdirection Hex." It just doesn't seem like it benefits enough to distract from the more important work Mage!Hawke is doing.

[SuicidalBaby]

Hawke should almost never full spec entropy. that tree is left to Merrill for specific reasons.

Its not a spec that is widely respected. It's viable sure, a lot of specs are viable if you know the game well enough. To me, mages behave better under tactics than under Human control. Force mage being the sole exception. Warriors are the worst under tactics, and even then it's not that bad with the right set-up. Rogues can function near as well as mages but lack that jump to target ability which is a huge dps drain, unless using a bow.

The fundamental difference is that there are better spells that Hawke has access to that Merrill does not. Those spells are exceptionally better than anything beyond the first tier Entropy spells. Full Entropy, in my mind, is a for fun spec under Hawke when it goes past Horror/HoT. It's not to be taken seriously, especially on Nightmare. The cloud is a joke even before the difficulty reductions and the ridiculous cast time.

Merrill benefits from the tree because she is a support mage and nothing more.  Her core trait is durability under fire. Sure, she makes the most out of Primal and staff element damage through her Blood Magic, but she will never out damage anyone who isn't a warrior.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 11 août 2011 - 05:30 .

[ripstrawberry]

I don't use it. It's really just a required point to death cloud and death cloud ain't really that awesome as the only thing of worth there is the DOT and the -25% dmg reduction. Maybe if you're playing on a level 50 game like I usually do these days you can give it a whirl, otherwise I suggest you stop at upgraded horror and hex of torment. There are better spells in other trees, even for Merrill IMO.

[mr_afk]

certainly considered completely covert. so sly- such subtle sneakiness.

lol language/linguistics lies low among awesome artfulness, Arelex.

(I don't think that really made sense. But it has lots of alliterations so it's all good)

Modifié par mr_afk, 11 août 2011 - 05:45 .

[SuicidalBaby]

ripstrawberry wrote...

I don't use it. It's really just a required point to death cloud and death cloud ain't really that awesome as the only thing of worth there is the DOT and the -25% dmg reduction. Maybe if you're playing on a level 50 game like I usually do these days you can give it a whirl, otherwise I suggest you stop at upgraded horror and hex of torment. There are better spells in other trees, even for Merrill IMO.

that build was designed for 1.02 before the damage caps.  It is still effective, but I would probably take the back half of the entropy that it took for death hex and just get another Walking Bomb set going.  Most likely on any petrified targets, so Merrill would be self-sufficent.

[Quething]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

Hawke should almost never full spec entropy. that tree is left to Merrill for specific reasons.

Its not a spec that is widely respected. It's viable sure, a lot of specs are viable if you know the game well enough. To me, mages behave better under tactics than under Human control. Force mage being the sole exception. Warriors are the worst under tactics, and even then it's not that bad with the right set-up. Rogues can function near as well as mages but lack that jump to target ability which is a huge dps drain, unless using a bow.

The fundamental difference is that there are better spells that Hawke has access to that Merrill does not. Those spells are exceptionally better than anything beyond the first tier Entropy spells. Full Entropy, in my mind, is a for fun spec under Hawke when it goes past Horror/HoT. It's not to be taken seriously, especially on Nightmare. The cloud is a joke even before the difficulty reductions and the ridiculous cast time.

Merrill benefits from the tree because she is a support mage and nothing more.  Her core trait is durability under fire. Sure, she makes the most out of Primal and staff element damage through her Blood Magic, but she will never out damage anyone who isn't a warrior.

Well, sure, but I'm not going for optimal. As you say, I know the game well enough to make it viable; I'm good enough now that I peroidically find myself checking to make sure I'm still on Nightmare, and any particular facerolling beyond that is surplus to my gaming needs. Optimal party composition or talent builds are at this point much less interesting to me than trying out specs I haven't already explored and catering to my Hawke's personality. And this particular Hawke happens to be the subtle manipulator and support type with a talent for the Entropy school, which I've never really played with outside of Merrill before. Thus, interesting.

The objective here is to make the most viable character within those parameters, not the most viable character period. If there's no real way to do that with Misdirection Hex as anything beyond a mandatory wasted point on my way to the genuinely desirable (again, within those parameters) Death Cloud, so be it; I was just curious as to whether there was a possibility for it not to be that I wasn't seeing.

Modifié par Quething, 11 août 2011 - 09:29 .

[SuicidalBaby]

then drop a single point in it to progress the tree and use it when you cant get to someone to save them, all other cooldowns are running, or on non-rogue elites/bosses during the outset of the encounter.