39 réponses à ce sujet

[Pellegrin]

thisisme8 wrote...

Lot's of people here specialize with the mages as they are "overpowered." I just want to throw in my 2 cents, and here it is: Shapeshifting is bugged. The stat bonuses right now are based off of STR instead of Spellpower, so unless you want to build your mage with all STR (which is actually viable), I'd advise against it and specializing in something else.

I don't know if it's bugged per say. Shapeshifting treats your character like a bear or spider and their damage is based off of strength. However, the base and per level bonus of damage, armor, and other stats is moddable.

I just discovered this myself and will roughly quintuple the per level damage modifier, and possibly look at other stats in the next release of my mod.

[MerinTB]

Some strategies to try with shapeshifting -



Understand what you are facing. If there are lots of archers, then the insect cloud is the way to go - you avoid arrow damage and can use your ability to basically tie up two archers at a time. If there are few enemies but strong ones you want to shift to bear and clobber the weakest ones first. If there's a strong enemy that closing with would be suicide, shift to spider and alternate webbing and spitting poison.

Once you have the full shape shifting line spec'd you get the awesome Overwhelm (like the Dogs) and this is great for taking down mages or tying up human sized creatures as either Bear or Spider (though I recommend an enRaged bear.)



If you are facing a large crowd of enemies you'll want to wait on shape-shifting, though. Toss out some roots or holds, help cut the numbers down with some area effect damage spells, and once you've got it to a more reasonable number of enemies shift forms and charge in - low mana is not an issue for bear or spider, though insects need mana as that acts as their health.



As far as full builds, that is really up to you for what you want to do. I don't really plan the game in this way, but let me try something:



A shape shifter is looking to get into melee, so once you shift forms you no longer have access to spells. Take spells, therefore, that you can cast before changing form at the start of fights. Glyphs are a good idea, or buffs on the party that don't need sustaining (the Heroic spells or stuff like Anti-Magic Ward.)

If the fight has too many enemies and your shape-shifting mage is your only mage, you'll want to do a little crowd control before letting out your inner beast. Sleep and Waking Nightmare are excellent choices for this, and if you are worried about mages then the Mana line with Mana Cleanse and Mana Clash are perfect (you won't need that mana to switch forms, remember?)



A good build, IMO, for a shape shifter would be to focus on Glyphs and the Disorient line quickly. Add the Heroic line of buffs later, as well as the Man line for anti-magery (when the mana line depends on when you plan on going to the Circle as for timing)



You could fool around with the Walking Bomb and Weakness lines, too, for similar planning of fire and forget spells (having an animated dead helping your beast form would be nice - and mass paralysis will in some ways be more effective than Sleep (but I'd argue not more effective than a Sleep/Waking Nightmare combo.)

[Lord Mephisto]

If there is a problem with spells, it is that there are too few.

But, with that said, it is annoying that all mages must be built like a D&D'ish sorcerer. It is annoying to build a new character to be able to check out another set of spells. Of course, I do not play anything else than wizards in D&D, so I am biased.

Still, I'd prefer to split spells away frpm skills and talents. And add more of them. In my opinion, more spells is simply more fun, even if the spells are lame.

[miltos33]

Too many spells??? Considering its linear nature, what this game needs, if anything, is an expansion to introduce more classes, talents, and spells to keep it alive.

[Iramyr]

Spirit tree is awesome. My biggest damage was like 367 with mana clash on some mages = instant death for most mages except red ones but still takes like 1/4 of their health.

[luckyirish.dowd]

I'm glad that a lot of people are taking interest in this thread. It means that there definitely is some difficulty in figuring this all out because I'm getting so many varied responses.



While it's good to get some responses on generalities, like "get one primal chain, an entropy chain, and a spirit chain" to vary damage types and effects, this doesn't tell me which chains are good and WHAT COMBINATIONS WORK WELL TOGETHER. Some combinations like flame blast --> inferno and mana drain -->mana clash and vulerability hex --> death hex may give me a good spread of abilities, each with their own virtues that can be extremely useful, but I'm severly lacking on the dps that I wanted and it is too specific to work out well in 90% of the fights. Likewise, getting lightning, fire, and frost spell chains give me excellent possiblities for dps and some status effects (frozen and knockdown), but those effects can also be dangerous towards my own party (like burning them to death... after knocking them down). So obviously, it would be wise not to get only those abilities.



Another thought is that while many braches offer good status effects, not all abilities are equal. Casting a force field and a crushing prison can stop up to 2 people and deal damage to one, but a mass paralysis can stop an entire group though it doesn't do any damage by itself. And since I pick up an extra stun spell on the way, I can use that to paralyze any stragglers, like archers or mages, that aren't in the group. So it MAY be better to get that branch. On the other hand, if I want to wade into battle shortly, a mind blast is a cheap stun on all around me, then cast spells to take out the extra riff raff.



That's why I want people to list ACTUAL chain combinations that they have tried out and have worked along with explaining their playing style to see if it matches more closely with what I want to do. I'm trying to get a nice dps and status blend or, even better, a dps and dps/status blend (crushing prison = paralysis and pain, cone of cold = frozen and pain).



I want to know what chains and specializations people have successfully used together, not just vague theorecticals. Oh, and levels that they got them help as well (if you're willing to type all of that out). It helps to show what spells you see as more important to learn than others.

[Lord Phoebus]

Iramyr wrote...

Spirit tree is awesome. My biggest damage was like 367 with mana clash on some mages = instant death for most mages except red ones but still takes like 1/4 of their health.

Combine that with hexes and spell might and you can get over a thousand on the red ones.

[Darpaek]

Virulent. Walking. Bomb.





Learn Group Heal first, though.

[Zarenthar]

Spec all your mages spirit healer

all of em need AoE heal( one all the way to cleansing aura)
All nukes
Cone of Cold
Fireball( at least 1 deep fire)
Stone Fist( for shatters)
Lightning
Arcane bolt

1 deep Hex
1 Deep Glyph
1 Forcefield / Spell Might

How much CC and AoE you want depends on how much easy you want the game to become. Some ppl enjoy cheezing.

Modifié par Zarenthar, 06 décembre 2009 - 05:29 .

[Lord Phoebus]

For me I find the buffs and heals aren't very useful. Why? Because I have health poultices and it's generally more useful to debuff a tough enemy so that all your allies get bonuses against him as opposed to buffing a single ally. The exceptions would be rock armor, arcane shield, combat magic and shimmering shield which are useful buffs. Actually if rock armor and arcane shield could be cast on your tank instead of being caster only, no one would think the AW was overpowered.

I do find Stone Fist and Petrify to be very useful, you can use it to outright kill a white or a casting yellow. Stonefist can also be used as an interrupt against bosses with grab or enemies with overpower. Petrify seems to be the hardest single target CC spell to resist, I've used it to stop enemies that resisted Force Field and Crushing Prison.

Ice is decidedly the best primal line. Two casters with blizzard can eliminate a room full of enemies with ease. Cone of cold can be used for shatter combos and it has a fast recharge. The ice weapons are the only weak spot in that line.

Mind Blast, Force Field, Telekinetic Weapons, Crushing Prison is also a phenomenal line. Every spell is useful.

You probably should pick up the hexes (at least the first two) and spell might. These can really boost your damage, stacking death hex with an assassin's mark of death on an enemy, is really quick way to bring down the red enemies. Stacking spell might with the hexes (and the gloves, ring and staff that grant a bonus to ice damage) I've been able to get blizzards that do over 100 points of damage per burst.

Beyond those spells you'll need mass CC line (Ice isn't really enough), the glyph line is pretty good but you need to watch out for friendly fire on the combo. Paralysis is good for an AW since you pick up Miasma. All that line is good but mass paralysis takes a while to cast. The sleep/waking nightmare line is also really good, but it doesn't work against all enemies.

With any other spells I would go for a second primal line, probably lightning (which opens up SotC if you need it, is rarely resisted and doesn't unfreeze enemies) or the walking bomb line.

The other line I don't like is the drain life, death cloud line. Deathcloud is a great spell, but I find the other spells in that line pretty weak, not really worth the 4 spells.

Modifié par Lord Phoebus, 06 décembre 2009 - 05:49 .

[Ninomir]

I actually went moslty for Primal and some buffing... it's quite good, good CC. I strat of with Blizzard, then cast Tempest on same spot then Inferno, and since im runing Leliana, Wynn and Alistar only he gets chought in it..But still, Blizzard slows then/freezes them so they cant run Tempest does dmg in the area and Inferno does DoT in case they do run out of the area
then i ususaly cast a Chain Lighting and they down...
And Walking Nightmare is pretty good too...pretty usefull

Modifié par Ninomir, 06 décembre 2009 - 05:55 .

[luckyirish.dowd]

So here's what I'm getting so far: First, the frost chain rocks. It's a must have both of the amount of damage it does and the random freezing effect. Second, the either the mind blast --> crushing prison chain or the disorient --> waking nightmare chain should be taken for crowd control. Mass paralysis isn't as good because it takes time to cast. Third, many, many people seem to like vilulent walking bomb as another damage source, so that seens to be a good choice. Does all of this seem to be the general consensus?



Unlike Lord Phoebus and Ninomir, I generally don't like buffs UNLESS they're sustainable. In battle, I just don't tend to waste the mana casting buffs or debuffs that I could use simple stunning/freezing/paralyzing the enemy and possibly doning damage as well. I also simply forget that I have them since I'm using the limited interface of the concel systems, so an inital spell from the pop up menu and five other spells are typically what I end up using (heal is my sixth spell). Unless if someone gives me a really convicing reason to use these all the time (not just in boss fights) I don't really want to waste the talent points on them.



I also try not to OP my gain by simply downing potions every time I'm injured. That's why I get heal. I would also really like to pick up group heal revive (as a back up incase if my healer gets wacked) and possibly some of the heal chain, but I do not want to be the main healer. Is it even worth it at the expense of attack/ cc magic, or should I pick up only a select few abilities (like heal and group heal), or nothing beyond heal (I will always pick this one up, it's just my style)?



And are spells like spell might and wisp any good at all?. Most spells seem to increase strength with FRACTIONS of spell power, meaning that 10 extra points gets me between 1-10 more damage a hit. So for single hit spells this seems a waste, but for multi-hit, area spells this MAY be a good investment. One person made a great case for not getting arcane mastery; It's a 4th tier spell while wisp is a first tier spell and wisp is already better than it. It seems a waste unless if anyone used their staff extensively at the end of the game, which from the sounds of everything, no one did.



Keep in mind also specializations. If I went for blood with its awesome blood wound and blood control, should I limit myself on cc chains from other schools or are these about as good as other abilities and it's a 50/50 toss up on what I perfer? Are these OP enough to make them must haves?



In general, how many attack chains are good to have for a 2/3dps 1/3 status effect blend? Frost covers both, so does the mind blast chain. Is another really needed for dps? Do I have enough points for a dps and a cc chain (consider the heal chain question above with this)?



I still would like to get the shapeshifter spells, but if I'm never going to using them except for when I'm jocking around, then I would rather say "forget it" and go for something else. Can anyone truly say that they made these work without seeming to force the issue. At least with the other specializations you KNOW that you'll use almost every ability. I don't want to waste the points if it's not worth it.



Man, so many questions! It may seem like it, but I am learning a lot from all of your posts and at least have levels 1-5 planned out in my mind for a good mage that would suit my needs. Now just the other 15 levels... Thanks to everyone for posting so far. I hope that other people reading this are getting their own questions answered as well.

[luckyirish.dowd]

Oh, I forgot to ask. Are glyph spells only single target or are they multi target? I've never quite figured that out because my dwarf warrior runs ahead of the party and through any used against me before my party has a chance to catch up. Also, do they stay around to capture multiple people or do they level as soon as triggered?

[arrrasdgaehjskmszkm]

luckyirish.dowd wrote...

Oh, I forgot to ask. Are glyph spells only single target or are they multi target? I've never quite figured that out because my dwarf warrior runs ahead of the party and through any used against me before my party has a chance to catch up. Also, do they stay around to capture multiple people or do they level as soon as triggered?

 Multi-target. with wide range, you can use it even if there is a battle with a conversation ahead of you. throw your gliphs all over the place without triguering the conversation. Better than traps

[.Raven.rpg]

I have answers for you

You want 2/3 dmg and 1/3 cc

Try my build

It is not OP but it strong



Fire tree

Simple heal

Force field tree

Hex tree

Paralyse tree

Mage tree



Tactic

Flame blast and weakness are your first spells

2.Paralyse

3.Hex

4.fire enchament

5.Fireball

6.second hex

7.Miasma

8.Mass paralasye

9.Misdirection hex

10.Mind blast

11.Force field

12.Death hex

13.Telekenetic weapon

14.Crushing prison

15.Inferno

16.Arcane shield

17.Staff focus

18.Arcane power

19......Whatever you want to use



he is great

Morgana use same spells as me

and we are unstopable