18 réponses à ce sujet

[Spartansfan8888]

 This is more a question of preference; but is it worth grabbing spells out of these three trees if you don't intend to grab the last skill in the tree (galvanism, spirit mastery, elemental mastery)? For both mage Hawke and companions I never really did so but I am curious about it. For instance, would chain lightning and tempest plus their upgrades be worth taking without the +25% electricity damage bonus from galvanism?

[andraip]

Yes it is worth,

Rock Armor is a one point wonder, normally I also get Spirit Bolt + Upgrade or Stone Fist + upgrade (or both) for Disoriented CCCs.

It depends on you party setup. If you have an all range party playing as a force mage all your mages should get Firestorm, If you are playing as a Shadow Rogue getting both upgraded Spirit Bolt and upgraded Stone Fist works wonders. If you need Brittles then all your mages should get Petrify + upgrade.

[ussnorway]

Yes, using your example of "chain lightning" A warrior Hawk can run in to a pack and "shield bash" or "Pommel" the largest health... is will Stagger him allowing the full potential of "Chain lightning" to be applied. Lets say your hawk is a two-handed warrior instead of shield, simply go for Petrify as the above poster suggests... then punish that brittle assassin with your "Mighty blows".

To put it another way;
Set up spells like "Cone of cold" do need the mastery (only 20% chance with out it) but damage spells like "Spirit bolt" & "Walking bomb" are devastating even without mastery... assuming you have a rogue that can "Pinning shot" or "Fog" of course.

[Spartansfan8888]

I suppose those would work well because of the no friendly fire. I always used fully upgraded fist of the maker for staggers because of the lower cooldown and it actually does more because the enemy armor is ignored; but putting those points into spirit bolt and chain lightning mean more CCCs.

[Quething]

The "ignores armor" property just brings it up to a par with other spells. All elemental damage ignores armor, which is basically a fancy name for "physical damage resistance" alongside your fire resistance and spirit resistance. Additionally, for any given elemental spell there are enemies that take double damage; no such enemies exist for Maker's.

Winter's Grasp is a decent 1pt dip for any mage, due to the low cooldown and cost, the sheer number of cold-vulnerable enemies in the game, and its safety and utility as a single-target nuke. I'd avoid putting any more points into the tree without going whole hog for the mastery, though.

For the rest? What andraip said.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Between Cold and Electric you have weakness on the vast majority of foes in the game. I love Spirit Bolt, but Winter's Grasp and Chain Lighting both have more utility IMHO. All 3 are reasonable dips.

As mentioned above Rock Armor is great as well.

Personally I find the +10 Mana Regeneration that each of the Masteries give you to be a HUGE benifit. Getting that first mastery seriously extends your mana in many fights and makes potions or Blood Magic less needed. Getting a second Mastery means that most fights you will not run out of Mana.

[ussnorway]

Spirit is “pond for pond” the highest damage type (ignores 50% magic/ damage resistance).

[Spartansfan8888]

Thanks for all the info I think I am well set for the next mage I want to play and also mage companions. Just a couple more questions both relating to the spirit tree:
I've heard spirit damage is special and bypasses armor and halves resistances- what exactly does that mean?
For walking bomb; does the explosion cause more damage to those who are DISORIENTED, or does the person being blown up have to be DISORIENTED to increase damage done?

[andraip]

All elemental damage bypasses armor.

If the damage type is SPIRIT, then, when calculating the damage the DAMAGE and MAGIC resistance of the target is halved, thus increading the actual damage against enemies with high magic resistence or high damage resistence. However this does not affect Spirit resistence.

As for Walking Bomb, the description of the Virulent Walking Bomb upgrade says "Spirit damage: 200% vs. nearby targets upon explosion if victim is DISORIENTED". I understand that that means that the damage is doubled if the guy who has the Walking Bomb effect is disoriented, however I rarely use the spell, so I cannot tell if that is accurate.

[Quething]

My experience of Virulent WB has been that the 200% boost on nearby targets is if said nearby targets are DISORIENTED. Hence the Fatiguing Fog+VWB combo. (Disorienting Shot+VWB a normal in the middle of the group, then Fatiguing Fog the lot, then Spirit Bolt the WB'd target. Nothing will survive.)

[Chun Hei]

Quething wrote...

My experience of Virulent WB has been that the 200% boost on nearby targets is if said nearby targets are DISORIENTED. Hence the Fatiguing Fog+VWB combo. (Disorienting Shot+VWB a normal in the middle of the group, then Fatiguing Fog the lot, then Spirit Bolt the WB'd target. Nothing will survive.)

Wow. That sounds so beautiful. I have been going too easy on my opponents I think.

[nightscrawl]

Spartansfan8888 wrote...

 This is more a question of preference; but is it worth grabbing spells out of these three trees if you don't intend to grab the last skill in the tree (galvanism, spirit mastery, elemental mastery)? For both mage Hawke and companions I never really did so but I am curious about it. For instance, would chain lightning and tempest plus their upgrades be worth taking without the +25% electricity damage bonus from galvanism?

If you are doing the harder modes, you will want to thing of the potential CCCs. You can have Anders get all of his special tree and all of the healing tree and still have several points left over. You can put in 4 in elemental for the frost spells and brittle. Your only goal with putting points in the tree is to make things brittle, not put out damage, so the final talent doesn't matter.

As someone else mentioned, it's all about party setup and the level at which you're playing.

Finally, Marker's Sigh is pretty cheap in Act 2 and 3 when you don't have to be saving money. Experiment with builds!

[ussnorway]

In regards to walking bomb the actual damage type from explosion is physical (pc) so armour eg. On your tank, will help with surviving the blast.

I’ve never noticed any difference (pc) from fog on the blast strength but the Virulet upgrade does make for some truly epic explosions as you start to get chain reactions. Basically pick a target that started with a lot of health but is now ½ way to dieing then have your rogue pin/ fog to disorient BEFORE you cast your bomb.

Modifié par ussnorway, 22 octobre 2011 - 05:00 .

[mr_afk]

um no it's not. it's spirit?

so getting spirit resist will work better (although given that only 95% resist can be attained you still may get blown to pieces). this shouldn't be a problem if you have more hp than the 50% (or whatever) cap on friendly fire. In fact, this can work well for a reaver (if they have the hp/damage resist to survive).

Modifié par mr_afk, 22 octobre 2011 - 06:28 .

[ussnorway]

mr_afk wrote...

um no it's not. it's spirit?

so getting spirit resist will work better (although given that only 95% resist can be attained you still may get blown to pieces). this shouldn't be a problem if you have more hp than the 50% (or whatever) cap on friendly fire. In fact, this can work well for a reaver (if they have the hp/damage resist to survive).

Are you playing on X-Box?

[andraip]

ussnorway wrote...

mr_afk wrote...

um no it's not. it's spirit?

so getting spirit resist will work better (although given that only 95% resist can be attained you still may get blown to pieces). this shouldn't be a problem if you have more hp than the 50% (or whatever) cap on friendly fire. In fact, this can work well for a reaver (if they have the hp/damage resist to survive).

Are you playing on X-Box?

Yes he is.
Walking Bomb does Spirit Damage on all platforms. On PC (dunno the other platforms) the friendly fire damage cap is 75%.

[andraip]

nightscrawl wrote...

If you are doing the harder modes, you will want to thing of the potential CCCs. You can have Anders get all of his special tree and all of the healing tree and still have several points left over. You can put in 4 in elemental for the frost spells and brittle. Your only goal with putting points in the tree is to make things brittle, not put out damage, so the final talent doesn't matter.

As someone else mentioned, it's all about party setup and the level at which you're playing.

Finally, Marker's Sigh is pretty cheap in Act 2 and 3 when you don't have to be saving money. Experiment with builds!

Elemental Mastery actually drasticly increases your chance to Brittle with your Frost Spells.

[Spartansfan8888]

andraip wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

If you are doing the harder modes, you will want to thing of the potential CCCs. You can have Anders get all of his special tree and all of the healing tree and still have several points left over. You can put in 4 in elemental for the frost spells and brittle. Your only goal with putting points in the tree is to make things brittle, not put out damage, so the final talent doesn't matter.

As someone else mentioned, it's all about party setup and the level at which you're playing.

Finally, Marker's Sigh is pretty cheap in Act 2 and 3 when you don't have to be saving money. Experiment with builds!

Elemental Mastery actually drasticly increases your chance to Brittle with your Frost Spells.

One of the reasons why I've always completed the tree in the past if I wanted to use spells from it. From what I'm seeing and trying out though it seems like taking spells from primal and spirit without the mastery talents is actually useful. I'm having fun now as a shadow rogue with disorienting criticals letting Anders and Merril spirit bolt and stonefist away on those CCCs.

[mr_afk]

@andraip - Yep it's probably a 75% cap on xbox as well. brain wasn't working so couldn't really remember at the time haha.

@spartansfan - yeah, completing a tree is mainly useful for the upgrades to brittle chances in regards to spells. If you're using cold spells to brittle enemies then you probably should consider getting mastery. That and if you focus majorly on one element (e.g. the firestorm mage which used to be ever so popular). CCCs will remain powerful without it though.

Extra critical chance and increased elemental damage is also useful for increasing your auto-attacks; and when you're on double haste that's where most of your damage is coming from. But in terms of merrill and anders, I would probably avoid spirit mastery- they simply don't have enough points to spare. Getting galvanism can be useful if you are using primal spells regularly.

Modifié par mr_afk, 23 octobre 2011 - 05:43 .