24 réponses à ce sujet

[Messor8914]

Anyone have some sound advice on how to make him powerful?

[Rukkis4458]

I'm new myself but from what Ive seen you just have to jump in and get your feet wet. Its gonna take a decent amount of time before you know enough to even attempt to min max or anything like that. Play a few different builds on one setting easier than you normally would until you have a feel for the combat system and how everything works.

[Dude1011]

If you really want to dominaite fill up your ice skills, cone of cold and blizzard are amazing CC skills and great to have. Force field is great for a pinch incase someones taking a bit to much damage, horror and sleep and also great ways to keep yourself save.

[brelrande]

here are some links that should be of some help too you.



Magic guide

http://social.biowar...66/index/234008

Spell effects

http://social.biowar.../index/217944/1

[Aerakyl]

The first piece of advice I can give is to put every point into magic. It seems a bit strange, but you really don't need willpower; you can obtain infinite amounts of lyrium dust and flasks, so mana is not an issue. In addition, your magic store increases the potency of poultices, meaning that you can rely on the weakest rank of poultice (aka cheapest rank) and still function quite effectively.



Next, get Cone of Cold. Regardless of what other spells you decide to go for, cone of cold is simply too amazing to pass up. It offers incredible crowd control on a multitude of enemies at once, which can really take the pressure off of any part member. Taking the time to pause and position the spell can allow you to disable entire rooms full of enemies, allowing you to either shatter them with spells like stonefist and crushing prison, heal your team up, or reposition them for a better tactical advantage.



Mind blast is a great "Oh Crap" spell that can allow your mage to escape dangerous situations, or disable foes so you can reposition for a more effective Cone of Cold blast. The next spell in the line, Force Field, is borderline broken, as it renders a target immune to damage but DOES NOT DROP THE THREAT ESTABLISHED BY THAT TARGET (enemies will attack the force field.) This is arguably an exploit, which is why I rarely use the spell in this manner; still, it provides incredible crowd control against ranged foes such as deadly spell casters that you need to disable while you mop up the rest of your enemies. Telekinetic weapons isn't bad either, and crushing prison is again another form of crowd control.



After that, you can pretty much select whatever spells you want and try them out. It's really difficult to build a mage "wrong" because almost all the skills are useful in some way. The diversity of the different spells means that the class offers a lot of replay value in terms of new and exciting ways to approach battles, so it's worth more than one playthrough using that origin story.



Experiment! Have fun! Blow stuff up! Whee!

[Giltspur]

There's more than one way to build a mage that is capable of handling whatever the game will throw at you. In other words, mages are powerful that you don't have to "power game" your mage to be able to destroy everything in the game. So if you have a concept that incorporates some combination of crowd control and nukes, chances are you will be successful.



In my case, I had Morrigan in my party and would often do the following things.



Tell my party to hold. Open up with Blizzard from Morrigan and then Earthquake by my guy. (Or open up with a fireball on some unsuspecting folks to knock them all down first.) Then lay on two tempests (one from morrigan, one from myself) and an inferno (that's me again). And so much for that fight. It's just a soup of elemental doom. If stragglers break through you can cc them or tank them with whatever tank you're using (Alistair or Shale probably).



Another thing I might do is put glyphs of repulsion under my casters feet and watch mobs bounce off of them. Then Morrigan and my guy would break out conal spells (flame blast, cone of cold, shock). Also putting glyphs of repulsion in choke points is fun.



If you can't engage at range because everything is right on you, you can thin the crowd with shatter combos. Start putting some winters grasp, petrify or cone of cold freezes around. Then to proceed to shatter things using Earthfist (Wynne is a second source of this if you have her in your group), Crushing Prison or abilities from other party members guaranteed or highly likely to crit.



But yeah if you know a group is coming, you can just tell your non-mages to take a fight off with hold and destroy everything with aoe and cc.



In situations where there's one troublemaker in a group, you can give him a timeout with Force Field and destroy all of his helpers first.



As for gameplay, I'd say "don't be afraid to pause and reposition" so that you can learn not to damage your party and really let loose with the pain. Positioning my mages so that I could use dangerous spells without causing friendly fire was one of the fun elements of the game for me.

[Tonya777]

If your playing on casual or normal , teach him Virulent walking bomb and he will become the supreme overlord of destruction

[brelrande]

bit of a newbie question here what does "cc" refer too ?

thanks

[Giltspur]

CC is crowd control. What people count as crowd control varies from game to game. Stuns, freezes and fears are crowd control because they take away a mob's (an enemy's) ability to do anything. Things that slow or root an enemy in place can also be considered crowd control.

Paralysis, Mass Paralysis, Glyph of Paralysis, Glyph of Repulsion, Paralysis Explosion (Glyph of Paralysis + Glyph of Replusion), Horror, Sleep, Force Field, Crushing Prison, Earthquake, Cone of Cold, Blizzard, Petrify and to a lesser extent Winter's Touch are some spells you can use to control and generally impair your opponent's mobility and actions.

Modifié par Giltspur, 03 décembre 2009 - 04:48 .

[brelrande]

Giltspur wrote...

CC is crowd control. What people count as crowd control varies from game to game. Stuns, freezes and fears are crowd control because they take away a mob's (an enemy's) ability to do anything. Things that slow or root an enemy in place can also be considered crowd control.

Paralysis, Mass Paralysis, Glyph of Paralysis, Glyph of Repulsion, Paralysis Explosion (Glyph of Paralysis + Glyph of Replusion), Horror, Sleep, Force Field, Crushing Prison, Earthquake, Cone of Cold, Blizzard, Petrify and to a lesser extent Winter's Touch are some spells you can use to control and generally impair your opponent's mobility and actions.

uh excellent thank you very much

[Tonya777]

Oh I didn't mention why only get Virulent walking bomb if on normal or lower



Cause its VERY strong and on hard/nightmare friendly fire turns on and it WILL kill your whole party along with the enemies lol

[Draconus Kahn]

I don't know about playing mage on Hard or Nightmare, but I have one to lv18 on normal. I based it on the model character off the strategy guide minus raise dead and plus mind blast (if you go shapeshifter at 14 or before then, you NEED this spell). Grease+fireball or inferno is badass if you can root the enemies in place long enough. (inferno+blizzard+tempest FTW too )


My main tactic is a little dangerous so you NEED a solid tank with both threaten AND taunt. (on xbox 360) Have everyone hold positions while you control the tank for a pull. Pull the mobs back to your "ambush point". (there is some degree of urgency on this next step) 2: Cut line of sight with your pulled mobs asap (especially if there are ranged mobs and mages in the group of mobs). 3: switch to your mage (s) grease+earthquake/blizzard then hit inferno and/or fireball to knock everything on their collective arses lol. 4: at this point there are a few things you can do. Since I play on normal on console I just send in my tank and dps members to mop things up. Make sure you deal with any ranged or mages FIRST in any fight, especially mages lol. They can ruin a good fight fast. CC them or take them out first.
Anyway, at this point it's mop up time, throw a walking bomb on a half health straggler close to another mob (on normal only... if FF is turned on at hard or above or you're on PC, walking bomb is best on a cluster of ranged enemies after an area CC like mass-paralysis. Just tell your party to hold position and change to ranged weapons if they are your last mobs). Make sure your tank has a tactic farely close to the top of the tier (3 on the list if you're using self any: threaten, self any: shield wall like me) like this: self: surounded by at least two enemies: use ability: taunt. As long as all of the CC'ed mobs are in the cluster that were earthquaked/area CC'ed with the grease exc.. The tank should pull all the threat back. Be prepared for the unexpected though. I miss alot of ranged stragglers on console ( I REALLY wish BioWare had included the tactical view in this version!). Keep a CC skill handy for things that can and do go wrong. Just remember: DON'T let this game defeat you. It is pretty intuitive, trust me. I have spent some nights ripping my hair out at it and it really isn't that hard to deal with on most occassions (well mostly lol).

1: Enemies have Line of sight. Without it they cannot cast spells or pelt you with arrows. So if your mage takes hits get your offtank or tank on the mob asap and cut line of sight in the case of ranged mobs. if melee, just run up to the tank, switch to control the tank and target + taunt queue while paused.

2: This game is pretty generous with CC spell time. I have seen a group stay paralyzed for just under 20sec. That is enough time for three or so spell casts. Earthquake+grease is killer for rooting melee enemies! I love mass paralysis definately something to consider for CC on ranged mobs that bunch up if you have trouble cutting LoS (Line of sight)

Incase all of this was alot to take in here's a run down of things to consider:

1: tank pulls mobs (NEVER a ranged character... Think World of Warcraft dungeon crawling.. I know: Blasphemy eh? lol) It works.. trust me.

2: The guide may tell you to wait till the tank gets threat, but taunt on a group of mobs will take it all back provided you don't attack too much after the taunt.. <.< So anything you do prior to that, go freaken nuts!

3: Know your spells. CC was made as an ace up the sleeve. Use it to root enemies and set them up for massive AOE damage before you send in the melee PC's (Player Characters), or use it in-fight after a pull to weed out the mages and ranged mobs to deal with the bulk of the enemy forces. The latter tactic is dangerous if you can't take care of them quickly enough though, especially if a mage is in the CC'ed bunch. That brings me to the next point...

4: MAGES DIE FIRST!!! I have honestly died on easy fights in three hits from mage AOE damage on normal mode b/c I wasn't paying attention to the mage mobs. Earlier today I fought two mages and 5 or so spiders in Ortan Thaig that annihilated my party twice b/c I was a bit cocky lol. Enemies think the same way a player does. They will try the same tactics. Root/stun, AoE, Death! Why shouldn't you? .

5: I haven't made this point yet, but PLEASE have a mage get "Dispel" spell. When your tank is the main target and an annoying mage at lv18 casts "Curse of Mortality" on your tank, you better have dispel or "Life Ward" won't even save him from death lol. As anyone can tell you, Tank death = party wipe.

6: Protect your tank at all costs. Out of healing spells? Potions go a long way in helping your healer heal, and it only takes a second to queue one up. "Life Ward" the tank incase of stuns and huge drops in HP. if you have a party with another warrior who has taunt, take some heat off your tank in dire cases. Warriors don't need a shield to off tank for a second while the main tank gets some health back or you wait for the timers on healing. Pop a group heal and have the MT (Main tank) pick the threat back up. If you have to revive in a fight, tank gets it asap! So save it for him/her!

7: Everyone but the tank and healer are expendable. If your main character is a mage and dies.. save the revive if your whole party is taking a beating. You can use this time to pop heals instead of saving your pride. Swallow it! lol. I have had to learn this one the hard way as well. I get pissed when my main PC dies, but screw it. Everyone gets experience after the fight... even dead men. The only two characters you need to survive are the tank and healer. So, if if your dpsers die and you just don't have time to revive, get it out of your mind... It just turned into a survival fight. Keep the tank and healer alive and pray lol.

I know alot of these latter pointers are just basics, but I might as well have thrown those in here for good measure anyway. I can't think of anything else right now off the top of my head. Everyone has their own flare on battles, you will find out. Just take these pointers and throw your own twist in there. There is literally dozens of ways to deal with situations, and the basic ways may not always be the best. I have had fights in game that were pure dps fights with no CC, and others that were CC all the time with most of the damage coming from my melee characters. Key is: be flexible so you can adapt. I would say on any dps mage you need at least one AOE (area of effect) CC spell handy. That way, not all of your perverbial eggs are in one basket. Personally, if I am using two mages for healer and dps, both of them have CC spells of different kinds. Mine were mass-paralysis on wynne and grease on my dps mage. You could use blizzard as both CC and damage too or get sleep + waking nightmare.. that's always fun to watch rofl!

I better wrap this up.. I could go on forever, but I think this post is long enough lol. I hope I have given you guys/girls plenty of ideas. I hope this helps. Before I submit this I will say that I have had little chance to shapechange as most of my time was spent casting spells. I would suggest if you want to pelt enemies at a distance, don't obey the prima guide... you will get way more use out of speccing into arcane warrior for the sustained spell and switch to a sword if you absolutely have to go melee for a fight. With a good tank and mind blast you don't need shapeshifting at all. Anyway, have fun everyone. I'll have more mage suggestions and advice as things come up and are tested.

Modifié par Draconus Kahn, 03 décembre 2009 - 08:37 .

[Tonya777]

^The players guide SERIOUSLY suggests you pick shapeshifter? THE HELL?! lol XD

[Draconus Kahn]

One last thing lol. 8: flank your enemies. I use a trick where I have the CC/AOE damage going at a choke point in a corridor type area and the tank on one side, while the dps melee is on the other side. When the mobs poor into the room they follow the tank, thereby creating a perfect flanking situation for your melee dps PC. If the mobs are targetting your mage (and often they are if you choose to damage enemies before the tank gets threat), move your mages to the tank's position after the initial spell casts.

[Draconus Kahn]

Tonya777 wrote...

^The players guide SERIOUSLY suggests you pick shapeshifter? THE HELL?! lol XD

YES IT DOES!! The Prima guide is HORRIBLE!!!

[Tonya777]

Do they give an explanation for telling people to do that?!

[Rainen89]

Important spells to have, Mana clash, Ice all four, Lightning 3 (CL is bugged and useless.) Hexes Blood mage / SH or Arcane warrior depending on your preferenve if you make arcane warrior stack magic and solo on nightmare. Get paralysis and after that you're pretty much golden it's just maintenance form there.

[Nullvenom]

A lot of the later spells are amazing, and the resulting spell combinations can be awe inspiring in certain situations. ( Infact I relied so heavily on my first morrigan, than when I ended up fighitng flemmeth, I got my ass handed to me, b/c morrigan wasn't there.)



Sleep, the ice spells, and paralysis spells act as great crowd control. If you make a habit of engagig so your warriors and melee fighters form a defined front, you can have your mage flank and blast the enemy with cone of cold and freeze most of them. allowing your melee fighters to chew through them at leisure.



When you face annoying enemy mages or emissaries, I usually freeze them and have my mages take them out first to make the battle easier. Sleep + horror + 1 or two attack spells can remove any normal enemy mage without reprisal, and very quickly too. The yellow mages don't last so long either. Blizzard saved me many minutes not having to deal with redundant droves of watered down darkspawn grunts. etc.



I've been meaning to experiment with the mass paralysis and an AOE like blizzard; basically pin them, put them in a fridge. lets see how it turns out.

[Rainen89]

Sleep is meh it doesn't work on demons/undead and breaks on damage walking nightmare is good but paralysis explosion > sleep.

[Monkeypasta]

I went into 3 trees: cold, fire and lightning. Also spent some points on lowest Creation line which starts with Grease. Well... I am soooooooooooooo super!

And I wouldn't say you should spend everything on Magic. Some Willpower will make your life really easy. You definitely shouldn't spent anything on STR, DEX or CST.

I also totaly disliked Arcane Mage specality. Looks to me as useless as Shapeshifter. So Blood Mage and the rest one it is.

[XOGHunter246]

i would recommend fireball for knocking back mages too but try not to use if on higher difficulty when like 3 member are in range

[Draconus Kahn]

Prima's explination is like this: Go shapeshifter at 14 so you have a way to defend yourself and a way to do dps when mana is low.. But with both Death Syphon and the Blood skill from the Warden's Keep expansion, I have rarely used it. I have used swarm two times since I unlocked it. But, talent points for defense can better be spent on one point in arcane warrior and one point on mind blast if you are worried about taking hits. It is certainly better than wasting four full points for health regen and very high defense + speed in swarm mode.



Spider is just not worth the dps honestly, and Bear form is great if you have a robe to boost armor like the 12 armor one. Sorry I cannot remember the name of the robe. But remember that most mages pelt enemies from a distance anyway, or at least that is what most of us want; if I might be so bold as to assume here. Most of us agree shapeshifter is pretty useless unless you want to gimp your ranged dps. Plus you could always go arcane warrior and have 10X the dps as shapeshifter could ever put out and do a spell/melee hybrid.

[Ulrik the Slayer]

Just get Herbalism on either yourself or a companion and chug Mana Potions like a maniac.

[Draconus Kahn]

Rainen89 wrote...

Sleep is meh it doesn't work on demons/undead and breaks on damage walking nightmare is good but paralysis explosion > sleep.

I agree, in most situations I have had trouble keeping sleep up on console, and the fact that undead can't sleep is annoying lol. I suppose they had to take something from DnD in that regard lol. Paralysis and explosions are far more deadly in a CC dps mix than anything I have seen so far. Just be careful, since paralysis works on physical resists, make sure your mage has high spell power and gear as well.

[Messor8914]

I wish i had a save topic button that would allow me to read these at anytime. Thanks everyone.