31 réponses à ce sujet

[nuculerman]

Earthquake is the least effective CC spell in the game.  It's a wonder since CoC is so broken at CC.  you'd think they'd at least give earth the better CC considering it has abysmal damage.  But Blizzard is 10x more effective than earthquake and CoC is 3000x more effective than petrify.  Just... why?

I'm playing the Ser Cautheon fight, and I understand if it's supposed to be unwinnable and all so you make spells work less, but that's just not the case.  It's just earthquake that's massively terrible at ever doing anything.  I'm on nightmare and Morrigan can sleep the entire freaking room.  Maybe one person will resist.  Meanwhile, Wynne tries to cast earthquake on one mob of white archers to keep them CC'ed for longer and not a single one of them ever falls down.  Ever.

So for all those modders out there, can someone please nerf CoC and make earthquake suck less?  I'd rather like to play a CC only mage with Earth and spirit line dressed in yellow tevinter robes just because it looks cool.  But Entropy>>Spirit and Earth<<<<< every other elemental sequence.  If you try and sacrifice DPS for better CC in this game all that happens is you end up with vastly inferior CC and terrible DPS (as a mage). 

[Sharog]

there are quite some mods that modify spell coefficents, and all of the balance mods start with nerving coc, do some search and u find some, with earthquake though, yeh the physical chance check is pretty low for this one. then again it is a Tier 2 spell.

[nuculerman]

I haven't seen any that mod earthquake. And it's a tier three spell. The same as Tempest, CoC and Fireball, all of which are vastly superior spells.

[Chragen]

I find earthquake to be a great spell. It is design to do one thing which is to stop enemies from running away and it does that great.



Besides, the game is easy enough as it is so might as well use only the weak spell to add some challenge.

[Sharog]

just a hunch, that earthquake only knocks mobs down that "moves" within the range of the spell, i remember if u just standing still inside Grease u wont fall down either, it might be just that. correct me if im wrong.

[nuculerman]

Chragen wrote...

I find earthquake to be a great spell. It is design to do one thing which is to stop enemies from running away and it does that great.

Besides, the game is easy enough as it is so might as well use only the weak spell to add some challenge.

We're clearly playing a different game then.  It only does that for 50% of white enemies for me and 0% of yellow enemies.  It just doesn't work.  Accept on my party, naturally.

The earth line is completely useless, and the other elemental lines are way overpowered.  I'm just asking for some balance.  Actually, the lightning line works like it should.  You get really good DPS and no CC.  But Fire and Ice give you really good DPS and decent CC.  I'd be happy if Earth gave you really good CC and crappy DPS, but instead you get decent CC and crappy DPS.  Mainly, you get a single target CC and a knockdown attack.  I should also mention that whirlwind with my DW warrior shatters more often than stone fist.  In fact my DW warrior shatters 2 to 3 enemies at once more often than Wynne shatters one enemy.

[nuculerman]

Sharog wrote...

just a hunch, that earthquake only knocks mobs down that "moves" within the range of the spell, i remember if u just standing still inside Grease u wont fall down either, it might be just that. correct me if im wrong.

Well that would make a lot of sense for the archers but the mage and Ser Cautheon still moved just fine.  Given, I wouldn't expect her to fall down, but the Mage at least should have.  Even once.

[JJM152]

nuculerman wrote...

Sharog wrote...

just a hunch, that earthquake only knocks mobs down that "moves" within the range of the spell, i remember if u just standing still inside Grease u wont fall down either, it might be just that. correct me if im wrong.

Well that would make a lot of sense for the archers but the mage and Ser Cautheon still moved just fine.  Given, I wouldn't expect her to fall down, but the Mage at least should have.  Even once.

I wouldn't use Ser Cauthian as an example. She has outrageous physical resist because you're not supposed to win that fight. 

That being said, Earthquake is actually an excellent spell if you know how to use it. Like in conjunction with a couple of warriors who are running their Indomitable toggle (hint - they are immune to the knock down, but the enemies aren't).

[Loc'n'lol]

I tried to use it a few times on my first playthrough, since Wynne came with it. I'll never pick it up again. It's worthless. "Ok, so maybe if you're lucky, some of the enemies in the AOE will fall on their ass, then stand up and proceed to go straight for your mage."

[nuculerman]

JJM152 wrote...

nuculerman wrote...

Sharog wrote...

just a hunch, that earthquake only knocks mobs down that "moves" within the range of the spell, i remember if u just standing still inside Grease u wont fall down either, it might be just that. correct me if im wrong.

Well that would make a lot of sense for the archers but the mage and Ser Cautheon still moved just fine.  Given, I wouldn't expect her to fall down, but the Mage at least should have.  Even once.

I wouldn't use Ser Cauthian as an example. She has outrageous physical resist because you're not supposed to win that fight. 

That being said, Earthquake is actually an excellent spell if you know how to use it. Like in conjunction with a couple of warriors who are running their Indomitable toggle (hint - they are immune to the knock down, but the enemies aren't).

Considering my post was only a few sentences, I'd expect you could manage to read it.  I'm not using Cauthian as an example.  I would expect her to resist it.  But the mage does too.  Every single time.

As for a couple warriors running their indomitable toggle...sure... because I so often play with two two handed warriors especially since they're the weakest class in the game by a factor of two.  Even if I did do that, it wouldn't help me, considering more than half the NPCs in the game have a high enough physical resist to resist earthquake.  Meanwhile even Ser Cautheon fell to Cone of Cold ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME.

For the record, after three tries, I beat her on nightmare.  How did I do it?  By not using earthquake.  The same way I beat the rest of the game.  Earthquake is useless.  As for your indomitable trick, want to know something 2000x more effective with two handers running around?  Cone of Cold.  Cone of Cold, mighty blow, mighty blow, critical strike, critical strike... four instant kills.  So, again, regardless of how much you love earthquake, if you're trying to claim it's better than ANY OTHER CC SPELL IN THE GAME, you're talking BS.  CoC can keep a group of enemies perma frozen with just one mage.  Fireball and Blood Wound can do the same thing by themselves if you're willing to run around a little bit while they recharge.  Earthquake can't even properly CC a group to begin with, let alone PERMANENTLY take them out of battle like half of the other CC abilities.

[Adria Teksuni]

Bah, I hate the Earth spell string. Ignore it every time.

[Matthew Young CT]

im surprised you have issues with it actually knocking critters down. i find the much bigger problem is enemies ever making their resists. what kind of spellpower do you have?

[nuculerman]

Matthew Young CT wrote...

im surprised you have issues with it actually knocking critters down. i find the much bigger problem is enemies ever making their resists. what kind of spellpower do you have?

I had Earthquake on my bloodmage/spirit healer build and his magic was at 55 by the end of the game (level 18). Wynne's is currently at 40 and she has Earthquake.  Don't ask me why I bothered giving her the earth line.  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

Then again, Stone Fist is a great ability as a knockdown.  Stone Fist is the only reason I beat Ser Cautheon on nightmare.  She could one shot every single party member of mine that I had brought except for my PC since he had 36 armor and 90 something defense.  Wynne, Lelianna and Morrigan on the other hand went down to one sunder arms attack and any critical hit.  Once I realized this Wynne just stonefisted (yeah, I know that sounds dirty) Ser Cautheon whenever my hero lost aggro.  It knocked her down every single time.  Wynne for the win.

[Matthew Young CT]

only 45/30 spellpower for main/wynne? well not much surprise then that they were saving.

i think stonefist doesnt have a save. it rly should.

[konfeta]

It can be resisted. Pretty much a save.

[nuculerman]

Matthew Young CT wrote...

only 45/30 spellpower for main/wynne? well not much surprise then that they were saving.
i think stonefist doesnt have a save. it rly should.

Morrigan's magic is at 40 and CoC is resisted maybe 1% of the time, so I really fail to see your point.  I don't like abusing pots and since wynne and my PC were healers I cared more about mana pool (so willpower and const) than I did about spellpower.

So sure, my spellpower was low but that's completely irrelevant. Even with that spellpower bloodwound, CoC, Fireball, grease, glyff of repulsion, glyff of paralysis, the combination of those two... All of those are almost never resisted.  So, again, whether or not you want to argue Earthquake works "well," in your personal opinion, the fact remains it works far less often and effectively than EVERY OTHER CC SPELL.  And considering it's only job is to CC, that's kind of ridiculous.

[Loc'n'lol]

nuculerman wrote...

Morrigan's magic is at 40 and CoC is resisted maybe 1% of the time, so I really fail to see your point. 

Cone of cold doesn't allow a physical or mental resistance check (which is part of the reason why it's broken, the others being long duration and short cooldown). It is subject to magical resist, though, like any other spell.

Earthquake allows a physical resistance check to entirely negate the effect, which means, every normal enemy warrior in the game (which there are plenty of) has a pretty decent chance to resist it, unless your magic score is on a godly level (resistance checks are made against the magic score of the caster).

[DragoonKain3]

I use earthquake all the time, and I have no problems with it. It gives you a large AoE, fast cast time, slows the people within it, and knocks down on the first second and every 4 seconds after. It's not great by itself, but very good to keep people in blizzard long enough to freeze them.

I think your problem OP is that you didn't put enough MAG. Only 40? My Wynne had around 70 by that time if I'm not mistaken. Since its a spell in which you either save or its useless, and your Wynne had an abysmal MAG rating, then its no wonder you think its useless.

[LightSabres]

Yes - Earthquake + blizzard = Win!



My PC is a dual wield warrior that is starting to get bored shooting the bow all the time now thanks to that combo...

[Loc'n'lol]

LightSabres wrote...

Yes - Earthquake + blizzard = Win!

Yeah but... you could remove the earthquake part from that and it would still be win...

earthquake + blizzard = Win
blizzard = Win

therefore

earthquake = null, useless crap, bs

[nuculerman]

DragoonKain3 wrote...

I use earthquake all the time, and I have no problems with it. It gives you a large AoE, fast cast time, slows the people within it, and knocks down on the first second and every 4 seconds after. It's not great by itself, but very good to keep people in blizzard long enough to freeze them.
I think your problem OP is that you didn't put enough MAG. Only 40? My Wynne had around 70 by that time if I'm not mistaken. Since its a spell in which you either save or its useless, and your Wynne had an abysmal MAG rating, then its no wonder you think its useless.

 

For my Wynne to have 70 magic at level 16 she'd need to have 18 willpower and 12 Const.  She's a blood mage/healer.  How the hell does that make any sense?  I'm sorry but I don't think Bioware meant all mages to dump every stat point into magic and just carry around 100 mana and healing pots just to ensure that their spells were effective.  I know there's plenty of people that do that but considering there aren't any stamina potions I'd say that's 90% of the reason mages are so broken, so I refuse to do it.  

[nuculerman]

_Loc_N_lol_ wrote...

LightSabres wrote...

Yes - Earthquake + blizzard = Win!

Yeah but... you could remove the earthquake part from that and it would still be win...

earthquake + blizzard = Win
blizzard = Win

therefore

earthquake = null, useless crap, bs

This.  Who casts earthquake to make sure blizzard works?  It already does work.  Far better than earthquake.

[Spell Singer]

The resistance of a typical warrior is not going to be much more than 30. That requires 60 points above 10 (or Str, Dex, Con each 30). Even if you only put one point per level into magic most mages will be able to beat that by the time you are near the end game. But earthquake simply doesn't seem to work at all properly. It only works to draw the ire of all creatures (un) affected by it to the mage. The earth line is good, petrify is very effective spell to stop mages cold, except for earthquake.



I tried it on the wolves one time and not a one fell over. I tried it on the encounter with Ser C. and her merry band, not a one fell over. I tried it on the deaders and not a one fell over...but I think my character did at least once in the attempts I made to use it. I eventually just gave up on it.



It doesn't slow anyone down, it doesn't knock them down (outside of my character), it does not work as it is advertised to work. Its sole effect is to get Wynne killed seconds after she casts it. I've just gotten used to not having a "crowd control" ability in the party.

[Matthew Young CT]

nuculerman wrote...
For my Wynne to have 70 magic at level 16 she'd need to have 18 willpower and 12 Const.  She's a blood mage/healer.  How the hell does that make any sense?  I'm sorry but I don't think Bioware meant all mages to dump every stat point into magic and just carry around 100 mana and healing pots just to ensure that their spells were effective.  I know there's plenty of people that do that but considering there aren't any stamina potions I'd say that's 90% of the reason mages are so broken, so I refuse to do it.  

No, but you should select your talents based on your attributes. Disablers (stuff that requires a save, basically) don't tend to be that good without lots of spellpower. Just as in dnd disablers weren't good unless you buffed your spell dc via +int or whatever. Damage spells scale directly with spellpower, and spells unaffected by spellpower are of course relatively speaking best for a low spellpower mage.

[Matthew Young CT]

I don't know why you'd use quake to keep people in a blizzard. Blizzard is huge and isn't that strong. Use it to keep them in an Inferno