15 réponses à ce sujet

[Sir Elliot]

Fellow adventurers,

I recently completed a solo-nightmare-rogue playthrough (was a blast, though very challenging for the most part).

And I've been considering how such a playthrough make work for a shapeshifter mage.

My question is this:

Would a solo-nightmare-mage work as a shapeshifter relying almost entirely on flying swarm (with master shapeshifter), if I did the following:

1) Took Arcane Warrior as my 2nd spec (the first talent allows the wearing of armor with magic being used as the check, the 4th talent provides small mana regen while in combat)
2) With the exception of the magic I need for armor, pumping almost everything else into dexterity
3) Wore the best plate armor I could manage, along with wielding a good sword and shield

From my brief testing it appears that armor applies while in swarm form, and your defense is not a fixed number in swarm form, but is based on your dex.

The goal would be to make a swarm that is essentially unhitable by almost all enemies, and when hit the heavy armor would obviously come into play.

I know that ShapeShifter is underpowered as a spec, but I'm trying to find a way to make it a viable and useful spec. 

I look forward to your replies.

[natetk]

I was thinking of that myself. Of course I was thinking of enough str for best armor, and all the rest into con. I never even thought of using arcane warrior so you could just use magic instead of str. Plus, I didn't think of dex and swarm which would probably be more survivable then the bear or spider.

[Loetek]

i was thinking of this myself but using the bearskarn... And i think bioware is going to make shapeshifter a more usable ability with the next patch... mostly by making it a instant cast.

[Sir Elliot]

Bumping this for further discussion.

[vhatever]

I was going to try something similar. I wanted to try to make a mage and solo nightmare without ever having to rely on force field abuse.



Not gonna work though.

[vhatever]

Loetek wrote...

i was thinking of this myself but using the bearskarn... And i think bioware is going to make shapeshifter a more usable ability with the next patch... mostly by making it a instant cast.

On nightmare, SOLO? What?

[Boltar Stormbringer]

You will want to make sure that your AW/SS is wearing armor with high fire resistance since the one great downfall to the swarm form is fire damage.

[Sir Elliot]

So I did a little thanksgiving day testing on this by using the XP bug in Ostagar.



Needless to say, even on nightmare at lvl 14 the high dex was not enough to make the build work because the damage output is just too lacking. Against even weak mobs it just took too long to kill them, and even then they were punishing.



Also, too many things knock you out of swarm form. Any cut scene, any dialog decision, etc. And then the cooldown restarts.

[Tonya777]

This is an interesting idea but I see no reason why you have to do it solo?



It could be interesting to try to make a shapeshifter not be a P.O.S one way or the other

[Loetek]

I think b4 its even viable we should look at what Bioware offers in the first patch. Might change quite a bit with shapeshifter.

[Recycled Human]

Dude, major kudo's for the attempt. I saw the title and was like, I gotta say good luck to that guy!

[Schyzm]

the easiest way to solo as a shapeshifter would probably be to get the shapeshifter talents but not use them.

[Tonya777]

Loetek wrote...

I think b4 its even viable we should look at what Bioware offers in the first patch. Might change quite a bit with shapeshifter.

What patch? Is there any news on it yet?

I wish shapeshifter didn't suck so much it would be nice if they would make it better

[GarethPierce]

vhatever wrote...

I was going to try something similar. I wanted to try to make a mage and solo nightmare without ever having to rely on force field abuse.

Not gonna work though.

I've seen you make some really impressive posts about solo rogue and whatnot... but solo nightmare mage is still pretty easy without ever touching force field or the tempest/EQ/Blizzo/Inferno type nukes; so many control options its silly, whether you go CoC, Fireball, Sleep, Blood Wound, AW tanking, etc.

[ITSSEXYTIME]

The major issue with shapeshifting is that the spider/bear melee damage is incredibly poor as it doesn't scale high enough to be useful on a Mage that doesn't pump up strength.



Question though: wouldn't it make more sense to pump up Willpower for extra mana considering the swarm form loses mana instead of health?

[Kesshi]

ITSSEXYTIME wrote...

The major issue with shapeshifting is that the spider/bear melee damage is incredibly poor as it doesn't scale high enough to be useful on a Mage that doesn't pump up strength.

Question though: wouldn't it make more sense to pump up Willpower for extra mana considering the swarm form loses mana instead of health?

No.  Each point of Dex contributes to your overall physical defenses, making you take less damage and thus lasting longer in swarm form.  This makes Dex greatly superior to Wil for about 90% of the time.  The other 10% of the time there will be 1 of 2 situation:

1) You are fighting things which don't do physical damage.
--- Since Dex only negates physical damage, having more "life" via Will here will be superior.

2)  You are fighting things which already do 1 damage to you.
--- If things already only do 1 damage, more "life" via Will here will outweigh the extra dodge (if any?) from Dex.  (Warning: Pure speculation here, I have not run the numbers.)

I'm currently toying around with a mistake of a character which I decided to continue playing out of curiousity; a Strength based Shifter/AW.  She currently has 42 Base Strength.*  It's amusing to pop her into Bear Form.  Bear Form currently has 45 armor and 78 defense.  For comparison sake, flying swarm has 35 armor and 76 defense.  And regular Mage mode with buffs (No Haste) has 42 armor and 99 defense withOUT Shimmering Shield.  Add Shimmering, and you get 57 armor and 99 defense, with bonus to dodge from Fade Shourd, and the ability to cast spells, and I think I'll call mode the best.  Also I should note that she's only level 19, and this was my first character, so I may have missed a few stats in the Fade.

*Base stats are:  42 20 30 23 19 21 at level 19.