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[Sarcastic Tasha]

Going from normal to hard didn't really seem like a very big deal. By the time I'd moved on to playing on hard I'd improved enough that the change in difficulty wasn't really noticeable. So I figure its time to move on to nightmare, but by the Creators its killing me. I'm playing as a mage and I've already started killing my own team with walking bomb (maybe I'll not bother with that power) so I daren't think what will happen with spells like firestorm. So any tips on how to clear groups of enemies without killing my squad?


Thanks in advance,

Natasha

[Wiseman4380]

Upgraded Barrier shields a party member from any damage, allowing your tank to stay in the Firestorm, and stay close to the Walking Bomb without taking any damage. Stonewall in the Defender tree works as well. When using walking bomb, usually just manually move my tank away at the last second, or use Evade if my Rogue is nearby. Another option is to get Gravitic Ring in the Force Mage tree and use it on a group at a distance. Then just use Hold Position and launch the attack.
If all else fails, stick to single target spells and use lightning for AoE -- Chain Lightning and Tempest wont hit your companions.

[RurouniSaiya-jin]

 Wiseman pretty much covered everything I could think of. For more information on the Gravitic Ring approach, be sure to check out AreleX's Elemental Force/Blood Mage guide. There are plenty of videos demonstrating how Gravitic Ring and Pull of the Abyss from the Force Mage tree can be used to get the most out of your AOE spells. Also, as a mage on Nightmare, you should keep in mind that certain enemies are immune to certain elements. Consult the enemy resistance sticky at the top of the forum for the full breakdown. 

AreleX's Guide

Modifié par RurouniSaiya-jin, 04 juin 2012 - 12:52 .

[mr_afk]

If you want to drop lots of aoes on enemies (without friendly-fire) your best bet post-patch is to stick to an all-ranged party. 3 mages + 1 rogue means that any group of enemies you trap in the pull of abyss + grav ring combo can get triple firestorms dropped on them. If you're keen to blow things up with walking bombs you can also use varric/sebastian to disorient enemies with fatiguing fog/pinning shot and potentially provide the spike damage the explode them.

The other alternative is to use runes of warding which can bring up any melee character's fire/spirit resistance to 95% such that they won't die quite as easily from friendly-fire, but by end-game, a firestorm from a dps-oriented mage will still probably end up killing/knocking around a melee character. They also well be affected by the friendly-fire from grav ring, which reduces the effectiveness of any melee character.

The duration of barrier and stonewall will not be enough to protect your tank from the full duration of a firestorm, but potentially if you want to use Aveline to trigger walking bombs you could manually cast barrier on her just before she does an assault/scatter CCC.

There isn't really that much need for a warrior/tank in a post-patch mage playthrough since mages can maintain ridiculous levels of crowd control and staggers were nerfed quite hard (in frequency and in power of stagger CCCs). Firestorms were further buffed and are by far the most powerful spell post-patch (although haemorrhage/chain lightning are still decent), so focusing on clustering and crowd control and dropping aoes on enemies as well as popping off some disorient and brittle CCCs is probably the optimal way to run.

[mr_afk]

Here's my crit-mage setup which pretty much goes through the ranged setup I just described as well as the method to get the maximum damage output possible for a hawke mage.

[Sarcastic Tasha]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm getting the feeling Isabela is going to be pretty much useless in this playthrough (shame, she's fun to have around). Oh well I'll still have Merrill, my favourite companion.

[SuicidalBaby]

Sarcastic Tasha wrote...

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm getting the feeling Isabella is going to be pretty much useless in this play through (shame, she's fun to have around). Oh well I'll still have Merrill, my favorite companion.

There are hands free builds for each companion designed for nightmare in the Compendium link in my signature.
Isabella's build and tactics are exceptional and would suggest them to anyone.

IMO, skip the damage prevention spells and go with standard healing and all ranged characters.

If you want to bring melee, switch your mages to the primal tree and just the cold spells from elemental.  Arcane works well with any warrior with just Elemental Weapons, Mind Blast, Crushing Prison (upgraded)

Avaline with Pommel Strike and Blow with Shield Bash works extremely well with 2 mages with upgraded chain lightning and crushing prisons.  You can even add Isabella with Explosive Strike and not have any issues.

I would also suggest you make use of my tactics guide as it was designed and thoroughly tested under Nightmare conditions.

GL with your run.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 04 juin 2012 - 01:00 .

[Wiseman4380]

mr_afk wrote...

The duration of barrier and stonewall will not be enough to protect your tank from the full duration of a firestorm

Ah thats true. My bad.  I obviously never tried the Firestorem/Barrier technique, but it does work well for Walking Bomb.

[JohnWildt]

In all honesty I don't remember how medium/hard was. I pretty much only played nightmare except the demo, but nightmare really isn't all that. The problem is that some skills are better left unlearned (fireball, corpse explosion).
Just make sure to put points in constitution and make custom tactics for everyone (you will have to micro manage, that's just how it is).
Remove any unsafe AoE (especially miasmic flask! this will last longer on you than on the enemies).

Things you don't have to micro, like single target cross class combos, should be set up properly, but don't waste them on low rank enemies.
example:
Varric: Enemy rank elite or higher -> Use pinning shot
Merrill: Enemy status=DISORIENT -> Cast stonefist

Merrill + Varric/Seb is a good combo since they can use the Petrify + Archers Lance combo as well as the combo above, but remember, Archer's Lance is NOT unsafe (you will teamkill with it, many many times unless manually used). Better micro that one. Still, setting Merrill to petrify highest rank enemy is always a good idea.

There are some seriously underestimated skills in the Scoundrel set (armstice and goad) as well as duelist/swashbuckler. With these you can easily toy around with the enemies and you can leave that annoying Aveline in the barracks opening up for someone more fun (in this case, more fun is either more DPS or heal if you can stand Anders' whining (I can't, so I use Fenris or Isabella instead, heal is for wusses and poor people))

[mr_afk]

Uhh you shouldn't need to micro manage anything besides maybe if you're too lazy to set some decent tactics for walking bomb. just watch any of the no-pause vids and you'll see everything working on tactics alone.

Fireball is somewhat terrible, but it's necessary for bigger and better things - namely firestorm. it isn't necessary to use firestorms if you want to be different, but they are simply the most powerful spell in the game and a setup based around them is probably the most efficient.
Walking bomb is amazing if you use it right since it deals a ridiculous amount of aoe damage when used as a CCC on a elite/boss. It's somewhat unnecessary but is a whole load of fun and can greatly shorten fights.

I would also say that putting points into constitution is unnecessary (and non-optimal) for any hawke and the majority of companions - with maybe the exception for merrill's blood magic. You definitely shouldn't need to rely too much on constitution with a force mage in the party.

Yeah, targeting elites via tactics is a good way to avoid wasting abilities on the basic plebs. Another way to set CCCs to target elites is to simply link the tactics like this -
Enemy: rank elite or higher: use current condition for next tactic
Enemy: disoriented: stonefist
This means that if you use an aoe disorient (e.g. fatiguing fog) your mages will still target only elites. Check suicidal's tactics guides for more in-depth explanations.


@Sarcastic Tasha - If you're interested in bringing isabela I would recommend perhaps bringing Aveline along as well - since using her as a tank/body guard gives isabela a lot more survivability and a stagger machine is great to get the most out of lacerate. Just set the tactics so Aveline pommel strikes/shield bashes elites and Isabela twin fangs/explosive strikes the staggered elites for double damage (or 6x in the case of a explosive strike).

Not too sure how best to setup your mage hawke/who ever else you bring, since friendly-fire will make most of the force mage/elemental abilities a pain to use. Focusing on primal, spirit, arcane, and maybe bloodmage will be the way to go I guess.

[Sarcastic Tasha]

Thanks for all the advice its been really helpful. Using Isabela hasn't actually been as problematic as I expected though I've not picked up many spells that have friendly fire (I dumped walking bomb, might pick it up later). I've mostly been taking Merrill, Isabela and Aveline. I've been using Varric sometimes but he keeps killing Hawke with bursting arrow, I swear its like he's doing it on purpose, gonna have to take it off the tactics. I'm really not looking forward to fighting enemies that are immune to electricity though since I'm relying pretty heavily on chain lightning and tempest.

Another question. Is it best to spend my gold and get the 50g off the dodgy dwarf or is it best to use your own gold for the expedition? I was thinking about spending some money to get some extra attribute and skill points but I wasn't sure if I should or not.

[SuicidalBaby]

I've been using Varric sometimes but he keeps killing Hawke with bursting arrow, I swear its like he's doing it on purpose, gonna have to take it off the tactics.

dont use it with melee in the group.

I'm really not looking forward to fighting enemies that are immune to electricity though since I'm relying pretty heavily on chain lightning and tempest.

Just turn off those attacks in the tactics list so they do not waste that mana during those encounters.  Youll be fine.

Another question. Is it best to spend my gold and get the 50g off the dodgy dwarf or is it best to use your own gold for the expedition? I was thinking about spending some money to get some extra attribute and skill points but I wasn't sure if I should or not.

I've determined that the difference between taking Dougal's offer or refusing it basically a +1 to the random chance of finding higher level items during the Deep Roads Expidition if you refuse his offer.  This affects random creature drops, including the ARW, and the random loot in the chests during the chapter.  Over all this is not really worth counting on as most drops are predetermined and the gain you may get from random drops would be negated as soon as Act 2 started.  You also gain an additional encounter by taking his offer, so more xp in act 2.

Do not buy extra attribute points, only get the additional ability point books.

[JohnWildt]

Yes I feel your pain regarding the electricity resistance. Pretty much forced to respec in act 2 because of all the Qunari.

If you do bring Isabella, there are some seriously good skills you should consider. Give her the skill 'Rush'. It is not subject to friendly fire, and it is really good for keeping enemies away from your squishies. Armistice is also incredibly useful. And of course upgraded confusion (AoE disorient)

A side note; I recently respec'd Merril, to get the 100% brittle on freeze passive (pretty much maxing out elemental), and my god it was totally worth it, even though I lost all utility because I had to put almost all points in Elemental and don't even have a spare point for a sustained mode besides blood magic (mind you she is only lvl12 atm). I freeze as many as I can with cone of cold (which has 100% brittle against frozen), and line up varric for that perfect archer's lance that hits them all, and it will instakill just about anything. Incredibly satisfying. Archer's Lance is the new mana clash. I don't miss primal at all. But I do miss barrier, but I will pick that one up soon enough.