37 réponses à ce sujet

[Rhys Cordelle]

I'm trying to play as a solo mage on hard and it's bloody hard! Just getting through the sentries and darkstalkers in the origin story was tough, and now I'm in the Kocari Wilds and getting absolutely wasted by darkspawn.

So far I have Arcane Bolt, Winters Breath, Glyph of Paralysis, Mindblast (I think that's what it's called? The one that leads to forcefield etc.) And Arcane Shield, which I figured would be useful to help reduce damage and because I want to get to the one that empowers my staff damage.

Planning to get forcefield, crushing prison, the sleep line, maybe glyph of repulsion, and of course more direct damage spells.

I really want to make this work and I know it can be done, but I'm seriously struggling. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

[Rainen89]

Get arcane warrior (Brecillian forest unlock) and profit. Stack magic get mana clash / Blood wound / Forcefield Glyph of repulsion Mass paralysis Tempest and Blizzard.

[Rhys Cordelle]

Does it HAVE to be done with arcane warrior? I'd prefer not to take it if I can.



Blood Magic for sure though.

[Tonya777]

Arcane Warrior = Invincible after lvl 16

[Rainen89]

Spirit healer then, but I dunno how you'll pull off some boss fights as a squishy mage.

[Aracid]

I do well with specializing with fire and electricity, with combined explosions of those elements enemies tend to die quickly. Including a healing spell + something that stuns like mind blast would be good to add with that too, since there will be a lot of friendly fire and enemies attacking you since you're dealing the most damage. For going against Drakes/Dragons, the frost elements are best.

[Rainen89]

See if you're not doing arcane warrior you'll need/want to become a master at paralysis explosion very quickly. Get sleep for humanoids as well, it won't work on demons/others but for the assassins that are omnipresent towards the end it's nice to avoid close fire or wind up time.

[castaftw]

Rainen89 wrote...

Spirit healer then, but I dunno how you'll pull off some boss fights as a squishy mage.

Misderection hex... makes most boss encounters easy. Doesnt work on abilities though, like shield bash and the like. Vulnerability hex aint bad either for increased damage. You better take some other cc's also to make up for the cooldown or resists. Petrify, crushing prison, cone of cold or paralyze, there are others of course, your choice really.

I found as a soloing mage that walking bomb is extremely effective if used right, and it has a very low mana cost. Combined with aoe slows, stuns, knockdown disables it can wipe out a lot of enemies with less mana use than the high tier spells or spell combos. I absolutely recommend taking the second tier talent also, death siphon or whatever its called, gives mana from corpses which is needed in the long fights with hordes of enemies.

Arcane warrior is pretty good, but im the kinda guy who likes throwing spell after spell instead of auto attacking and found it pretty boring to say the least. You also dont have much hp as arcane warrior or mage in general so when a boss actually hits the arcane warrior he willl hurt. You could of course make a boosted con mage, but then you will lack magic/willpower, again it is a preference of playstyle, but dont expect to cast off many spells while wearing heavy/massive armor with arcane warrior activated.

[Demeter78]

For soloing mage CC, timings and DPS is the key.

High Spell power is essential for spells to hit.

What about spells..

One single-target DD spell is available - Arcane bold.

3 points spent at Winter's Grasp - -> Cone of Cold are obvious.

Another 3 points might be spent on Rock Armor -> Stonefist to break frozen enemies in pieces

Then Drain Life comes handy to not spend precious time on dedicated heal.

These 7 points gave basic CC and enough DD to kill most enemies.



What about CC:

Mind Blast (1 point) is obvious but it can be replaced with Sleep (3 points).

Waking Nightmare is nice to have after Sleep but it does not last long to let enemies damage each-other badly.

Vulnerability Hex -> Misdirection Hex can be a lifesaver.



Anything else is optional...

Heal necessity depends on the play style. I dont use it.

Spell Wisp might worth spending 1 point.

Arcane Shield->Staff Focus->Arcane Mastery is doubtfull. 3 point.

Blizzard is nice but chances to use it rare.

Fireball is fun and is a good opener.



Speccing in Spirit healer is useless while soloing as well as Shapeshifter.

So take Arcane Warrior and Blood Mage.

[Rhys Cordelle]

Thanks, that's great advice.

[Demeter78]

I was wrong. There is smartier approach.
Look at the picture:
http://img46.imagesh...91206160330.jpg

[Timortis]

You don't need arcane warrior to solo but you wasted a talent on Arcane Shield. If you're getting hit, you'll die regardless, it isn't going to help. At the low levels, I mostly went like this:

Pull mob by damaging one of them with Winter's Grasp and Arcane Bolt, you need to target a non-yellow one and get his health low but not kill him. Then when they close up on you, Mind Blast, reposition for a Cone of Cold that gets them all, Cone of Cold, Walking Bomb on the one you hurt before, run away, Winter's Grasp and/or Arcane Bolt on the one with the bomb to make him explode and take all the others with him.

Korcari Wilds and the tower of Ishal were a breeze using this strat at the low levels for me.

Modifié par Timortis, 07 décembre 2009 - 12:11 .

[Lord Niah]

I soloed many tough melee opponents and encounters with just cone of cold and glyphs. I soloed Sloth demon at about level 13 without using any of the forms. I used cone of cold to kite him in his melee forms and mana clash when he was in his spell casting forms.

But there are some opponents that will rip you to shreds if you try kiting. The dragon in Brecilian ruins comes to mind. How do you beat him without tanking? I know he can be beat if you have arcane warrior and just use it for the defense. No need to wear massive armor and swing a sword. Just use your staff and wear some lighter drakescale armor.


[edit]

Arcane shield also seems kind of good.  If you have that up with some plus defense gear and stand on a glyph of warding, you will be unhitable by many mobs in the game.  How is that not needed?

Modifié par Lord Niah, 07 décembre 2009 - 04:40 .

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

My NM solo caster mage is level 13/ He completed the Brecilian ruins and Redcliff Undead swarms against Redcliff. For the dragon in the ruins, He just used cone of cold when possilbe and the other damage spells and drank potions as necessary. Oh, misdirection against any melee opponent is good.  And, some running to reposition while waiting for colldowns.

He has gone all magic for attrbutes and has bought the 3 arcane talent books. Here are his skills:

Arcane Bolt
 First 3 glyphs
All Cold line
First 2 lightning line
Heal-- this one he  probably should not have taken
Spell Shield-- It helps already starting the battle with some spell protection. I make sure it is on for area transitions.
First 3 hexes
The Waking Nightmare line
The 2 Power of Blood spells from the Warden's Keep DLC

For skils, so far he has:
All 4 combat line
First Herbalism
First Coersion.

He hasn't bought any skil books yet. He is about 20 gold short of getting the Staff of the Magister.

He has chosen Blood Mage for his first speciality but has not invested in any of the talents.

He'll probably use the next 2 picks to get dispel and anti-magic to round out his spell defense. at level 15.

Where he goes beyond that is undecided.

Modifié par Grumpy Old Wizard, 20 décembre 2009 - 10:36 .

[AiTenshi1]

You can also got through the Death Magic chain with Walking Bomb and Virulent Walking Bomb. Or just stick with the elemental chain as some people have said. If the latter, I think you should start with the fire chain at least to Fireball. Probably get Spirit Wisp and Grease for crowd control (and combine with Fireball of course for AoE).



I'm only playing magi, but I haven't tried solo. Still, I only play Hard or Nightmare and am always the one doing the genuine damage and killing. The other characters are mostly along for the ride, especially at lower levels where the Tactics just are not there to create any decent AI choices.



There are different strategies suggested here, but you'll have to choose one that fits your play style.

[Jestert]

have you tried the "bomb" and kite technique? Alpha strike the mob(fireball), then place a walking bomb on a mob then kit him and his buddy around until he dies and taking couple of his buddies with him.

Modifié par Jestert, 20 décembre 2009 - 10:47 .

[Timortis]

I'm soloing with a Mage on Nightmare now, Spirit Healer/Bloodmage pure caster. It was extremely smooth, no boss fight or random encounter gave me trouble until level 17, but now I'm getting my ass kicked over and over by Branka and her golems. It's incredibly tough, tried it maybe 40 times, even killed her once but got killed by one of the remaining golems before I could heal.

I've got it down to where I get her alone, and get her almost dead, then she kills me. It's driving me crazy. What makes it so difficult is that if she hits me, she can kill me in 3-4 hits, and she resists a lot of spells, so my CC is not always reliable to keep her off of me. I'm only one level away from getting Blood Wound, that probably would have made  this fight so much smoother. Arrrgh!../../../images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png

Modifié par Timortis, 20 décembre 2009 - 11:44 .

[Rainen89]

Blood wound won't do much for you there, as golems are immune to it and it seldom works on bosses. What's your spell resist? I used paralysis explosion to get out of that one. The golems die easily enough, then branka just needs to be kited til mind blast is off cooldown glyphs etc.

[Timortis]

Yaaay! I did it. I tried one more time after I posted this and got her this time. I knew I was close!!!! ../../../images/forum/emoticons/wizard.png

Good point on the blood wound not working on Golems, I forgot about that. Anyway, she's dead!

Modifié par Timortis, 20 décembre 2009 - 11:59 .

[Rainen89]

Congrats!

[Besetment]

All the people saying Arcane Warrior are just wasting the OP's time. You still need to get to level 7 which is a chore when you fly solo and I really feel the OP's pain because any mob where theres like more than 2 baddies wailing on you at the same time is probably going to kill you. I got through the early part of the game going for Force Field asap which is what you use to take Lieutenants out of the fight. Then you can run far away and deal with the minions with a combination of Winter's Grasp and Arcane Bolt. You will be surprised how many mobs can be exploited this way by pulling 2 or 3 at a time, Force Fielding the most threatening one, Winter's Grasping the next threatening one and then running backwards chucking Arcane Bolts at the last one moving. Anyway the point of the first 7 levels is to guarantee that every fight you walk into is maximum 2 vs 1. Ideally you want every fight to be 1 vs 1 and you need to be able to instantly stop things like Ogres with one spell (Cone of Cold is great for this) because Charge/Knockdown/Charge/Knockdown/Charge/Death is not fun.

Then you back track and deal with the ones you left behind individually. The key skills for me in the first 10 levels or so was:

Arcane Bolt - Run and Shoot skill.
Arcane Shield - Big defense boost that makes alot of hits just whiff completely and helps you to survive if you have to fight 2 vs 1
Force Field - This talent is god. Pick the most threatening baddie and boom. You take him out of the fight and you start running somewhere far away to deal with the others that aggro with it.
Winter's Grasp - CC and great damage early on.
Cone of Cold - even better CC. Great for freezing and running so you can spread mobs nice and thin making it easier to deal with them individually.
Blizzard - the mass freeze on this is amazing for dealing with mobs that just don't want to separate and are too big for you to handle. Denerim Thug gangs in particular because you need to get everything on the ground in these fights (I haven't been able to do the thugs without taking Arcane Warrior just so you know).
Mana Clash - On Nightmare this spell = instant death to most casters of Lieutenant rank and below. It kills those rage abominations instantly (the ones that explode in a fireball) and one shots Genlock/Hurlock Emissaries which makes Deep Roads so much easier to solo you wouldn't believe it.
Sleep - The duration isn't long enough to feel real safe but this is like an instant shutdown for many large mobs that wont separate. Denerim thugs: Blizzard the footsoldiers, Sleep as many of the Archers at the rear as you can and you have a chance.

You will need to do a level plan because you want to shoot for Mana Clash before you hit up Circle Tower and Deep Roads but the 3 prerequisites are more or less unusable at low level so prepare for 3 weak levels. Go for Cone of Cold and Blizzard first once you have Force Field and once you get CC down then focus on ramping up the damage.

I've never tried a solo run with a pure Mage since I took Arcane Warrior at level 7 and the armour + defense sort of helped me to cruise by some fairly brutal fights like the Denerim thugs (which are real rough cuz of the multiple scattershots and the sheer numbers involved. I spread points in Dex and Magic and had high enough defense that I could shrug off enough arrows to clean up all of the thugs with judicious potion spam). If you are not an Arcane Warrior never take the thugs without Blizzard. You will lose.

Modifié par Besetment, 21 décembre 2009 - 12:17 .

[Timortis]

Thanks! I hate this fight, because you have to bring Oghren with you and Shale too if you want to unlock Cadash Thaig, and they get in the way, as if the fight is not chaotic enough when you're solo. I'm glad it's over with.

Modifié par Timortis, 21 décembre 2009 - 12:05 .

[Rainen89]

I hate it due to the lack of CC. Blood wound is my bread and butter when not doing arcane warrior solo. Branka has very sporadic damage as well. I've gone from 60-10% in a few seconds quite often. Kudos on the win, however.

[Besetment]

Blood Wound is great for cheese abuse. Especially in Deep Roads where there are lots of big pop up mobs and narrow corridors. You let them clump together and cast Blood Wound. If 1 or 2 resist it thats fine since you can deal with that. Either way you run away and wait for the effect to wear off, dealing with the straddlers as necessary. Walk back and do it again. You can kill alot of mobs just doing this and sure its cheesy but its better than having to deal with 4+ Corrupted Spiders or 2x Ogres which are just the worst.

Modifié par Besetment, 21 décembre 2009 - 12:14 .

[Rainen89]

Oh make no mistakes I think blood wound is one of the most retardedly OP spells in the game, right up there with mana clash. However, getting hit with crushing prison really sucks when it's only you soloing. (Practically dead.) As does getting overwhelmed/chain webbed repeatedly, it's a single player game so balance be damned.