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[10DayWu]

Darth_Shizz wrote...

Asherett wrote...

Darth_Shizz wrote...
What's wrong with casting spells before activating sustainables? 0_o

Well... I had just assumed that since sustained spells "reserved" a set amount of mana, there was no further drain except the fatigue the sustainable inflicted. Given this assumption I couldn't see any reason whatsoever not to have all sustainables up from the get-go, since you'd only waste time activating them later and the reserved mana would be the same anyway. Apparently there is additionally some kind of hidden "drains mana per second" stat that I didn't know about. Both the manual and ingame info is extremely vague on this point, I think. Can anyone clarify exactly how sustainables work?

Spell Wisp seems like a very smart sustainable to have up at all times to me (you wouldn't want to cast spells before you have it up at least), or am I mistaken here too?

As far as I know, the only affect a sustainable has on stamina/mana pool, is reducing its roof. On top of that, it'll add x% to fatigue. Thing is, they cost nothing to activate. On top of that, they don't tend to reset the swing timer, so unless you're a dual-wielding AW or heavily hasted, chances are you'll lose out on no attacks. At least this is how my 2h warrior works out.

Darth is right... I have a mana pool of 400 and with all of my sustained abilities switched on (Arcane Shield, Shimmering Shield, Combat Magic, Miasma, Rock Armor, and Telekenetic Weapons) and heavy/massive armor on, I've got a kiddie pool of mana left. What little there is gets used up quickly due to the extreme fatigue penalty on spell cost.

Because sustained don't cost anything to cast you'll want to burn most of your mana before throwing on your sustained abilities if you want to get the most bang out of your available pool, then hop into the fray. AW just wasn't built to give you all of cloth mage's abilities and all of a beastly warrior's abilities all at the same time without penalty, but you can sorta switch back and forth. Small price to pay considering that you're next to unstoppable as a well spec'ed AW. I beat down the High Dragon with just me, Wynn, and a handfull of lesser lyrium potions at level 13. I'm sure there are many here with more impressive stories than that, but I'm playing on Nightmare difficulty with no tank and not having any problem crushing everything in sight... I also have a pretty severe case of OCD when it comes to character planning, and that tends to suck some of the life out of the game... and the challenge. 

[Nooneyouknow13]

Dark83 wrote...

Uh. You guys do realize that Combat Magic is +50% fatigue? That's 7 extra for Arcane Bolt, 25 extra for Stinging Swarm, 10 extra for Lightning.
This is just the +50% from Combat Magic alone. Not even with boots or gloves on.

And amusingly, that leaves Arcane Bolt still spammable.

[konfeta]

I used Combat Training 2, Rejuvination, Spell Bloom, Bard Song, Dark Sustenance, equipment with mana regen. That gave me more than enough mana for almost every encounter in the game except a select few boss fights with enemy waves. Though, the Death Syphon spell can take care of that.



But my mage wasn't AW and used no sustainables regularly except Spell Might and Spell Wisp; and Wynne provided Spellbloom/Rejuvination.

[Lord Phoebus]

The main advantage to the higher damage over more mana/stamina is killing faster. The bottleneck isn't so much running out of mana as it is waiting for cooldowns. If you have 50% of your mana left after your opening salvo, you're no better off than the mage with no mana left until your cooldowns are over. But if the mage with no mana left has killed twice as many oppenents as you did in that salvo, your party is in better shape during that cooldown period. Ideally you want enough mana to be able to cast your opening barrage without running out of mana, and after that you want the rest in spellpower so those spells hurt more.



The analysis so far also doesn't take into account the effect of hexes and Spell Might on that damage. It can quickly become a 1 for 1 bonus to damage with spellpower when you've got Spell Might up and have hit your target with a Vulnerability and Affliction Hex.