I have completed the game with all classes now and find the experience very different in terms of gameplay. Sadly though the fun factor is also very different.
Mage:
Mage is very fun, it is an incredibly active class with acces to heavy aoe and crowd control. I actually managed to solo the game on nightmare with this class and it was all a matter of timing crowd controls and launcing heavy damage. Boss fights could be pretty nasty even with arcane warrior spec, especially if they had knockdown effects, even so it was doable.
Warrior (Shield):
Best tank in the game without a doubt, but he can't do anything on his own vs. a large crowd of mobs besides killing them one at a time. He is very fun to play against bosses and single targets because all of his active abilities is single target, damage wise he sucks though and is only really good for disabling single targets.
Warrior (2-handed):
Heavy hitter, but a very very slow one at that. With this class you need to get the hang of the auto attack routine and use your special abilities in between to do decent damage. In my playthrough on nightmare I played as a tank and a 2-handed warrior is decent at that because of two handed swing and indominable, but he is not better than the shield warrior and will fall really fast if he gets too crowded especially with backstabbers around. In terms of fun it was higher than the shield warrior because you could drop single targets really fast and still provide some aoe damage when crowded.
Warrior (Dual Wield):
I love the dual wield tech tree it provides you with a lot of active and fun abilities and with sufficient stamina you can actually deal out some serious damage. Forget about tanking though you will drop in no time provided you can't kill the mobs fast enough. The dual wield warrior will rely more on his abilities than the rogue, because the rogue does more damage with his backstabs. The DW warrior is less useful vs. big bad bosses who can aoe knockdown, because he has no defense against that.
Warrior (Archer):
Was very boring, scattershot and arrow of slaying are fun abilities, but the archer warrior is vastly inferior to the archer rogue so I see no point in this build really.
Rogue (Melee):
Backstabs are fun! This class is the one I had the most damage with, single target at least, provided you go for the right stats. I took dex and str to use the abilities and items I wanted and then maxed out cunning because with rogues lethality talent you get the same damage as you get for str/dex but with more armor penetration also. With tainted blade (soldiers peak) your damage gets so high its actually kind of ridiculous. Backstabbing with momentum of course is very effective and if you get coup de grace, dirty fighting, riposte and some stunning poison you can also drop non-flankable targets fast too. Only weak point of this class is knockdown bosses like the dragon, the rogue can't really take the damage he no doubt will recieve so unless you play very smart he will be dead in moments.
Rogue (Archer):
Also a very fun build, provided you spec smart. Again I took only dex and str for requirements and then maxed out cunning because lethality works for ranged weapons also. I would recommend going bard on this one because a very high cunning gives insane bonuses to this specialization. A very solid class all round with very good damage and never really in any kind of trouble.
classes lineup
Débuté par
castaftw
, déc. 17 2009 09:49
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#2
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 04:46
CID-78
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you should divide the mage into the diffrent spellschools.
#3
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 05:17
castaftw
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yea well actually mage is a little more free to spec whatever he wants without getting gimped. A lot of spells may have different names but the purpose of them are the same, aoe damage, single target damage, crowd control and so on.. you could make a pure elemental mage or entropy or whatever, but my advice is just to take the spells you feel are most effective at what you want to do.
I can name a few spells that are very effective:
Cone of cold obviously, even though some mobs are immune to cold, they still have to make a resist check not to be frozen. Combine with Stone fist ofc.. the freezing effect works on all mobs in the game as far as I know, as long as they dont resist.
Fireball: Lots of damage and a cc knockdown, remember not to target yourself, but place the edge just away from your character so that mobs still in melee with you will get hit. Best opening spell also imo.
Misdirection Hex: Priceless vs hard hitting mobs, has a decent duration compared to fx crushing prison, which most bosses just ignore entirely.
If you want to solo mage ignore all spells with a cast timer... you will most likely never have time for that.
I can name a few spells that are very effective:
Cone of cold obviously, even though some mobs are immune to cold, they still have to make a resist check not to be frozen. Combine with Stone fist ofc.. the freezing effect works on all mobs in the game as far as I know, as long as they dont resist.
Fireball: Lots of damage and a cc knockdown, remember not to target yourself, but place the edge just away from your character so that mobs still in melee with you will get hit. Best opening spell also imo.
Misdirection Hex: Priceless vs hard hitting mobs, has a decent duration compared to fx crushing prison, which most bosses just ignore entirely.
If you want to solo mage ignore all spells with a cast timer... you will most likely never have time for that.
#4
Guest_Jack-Nader_*
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 08:06
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I'll agree with most of what you said with the exception of the dual wield warrior.
The best weapons in the game are Daggers. There are two reasons for this, fastest swing speed of all weapons and also high armor penetration. All you need to do to make the optimal dual wield warrior is pile just enough points into strength to wear the armor you want and the rest you put into dexterity. This is the most efficient build because dexterity and strength both add damage and attack to daggers. Secondly your defense will be huge allowing you to survive considerably longer than indomitable two-handers or even sword and shield. Berserker rage and bravery will boost your damage to a minimum of 50 on each hand. Next you pick up momentum, dual striking and the standard dual wielding line.
If you want to turn your dual wield warrior into a damage powerhouse you need only bring 1 mage with the flaming weapons spell and vulnerability hex. In terms of REAL raw damage (say vs. sir cauthrian at the landsmeet) this is ~ 80 from dual striking ~ 20 from elemental damage and 36 from flaming weapons spell for a total of 136 damage per swing. You will be doing roughly 170 damage with vulnerability hex. The dagger speed will mean you are able to strike 3 times every 2 seconds and you cannot miss because every attribute point spent increased your attack score. You should be able to kill sir cauthrian in under 6 seconds on nightmare.
I have done extensive testing on the damage difference between dual wield rogues and dual wield warriors and I can safely say that the warrior wins hands down. The critical damage from a rogue cannot compete with the above build. Infect as a rogue you are better off running dual striking and not bothering to backstab or critical hit unless there is an opportunity to shatter enemies.
Rogues also suffer 2 additional penalties that the warrior does not. The first is that in order to use all the dual wielding talents you must sacrifice cunning/dexterity for willpower or choose the assassin class and wait till level 16 to pick up feast of the fallen. The other issue is that your defense and attack score start to lose steam the higher your level gets. This is because cunning only boosts damage output and not attack score or defense. If you were able to reach level 30 as a rogue or warrior the difference between the classes will become obvious.
The best weapons in the game are Daggers. There are two reasons for this, fastest swing speed of all weapons and also high armor penetration. All you need to do to make the optimal dual wield warrior is pile just enough points into strength to wear the armor you want and the rest you put into dexterity. This is the most efficient build because dexterity and strength both add damage and attack to daggers. Secondly your defense will be huge allowing you to survive considerably longer than indomitable two-handers or even sword and shield. Berserker rage and bravery will boost your damage to a minimum of 50 on each hand. Next you pick up momentum, dual striking and the standard dual wielding line.
If you want to turn your dual wield warrior into a damage powerhouse you need only bring 1 mage with the flaming weapons spell and vulnerability hex. In terms of REAL raw damage (say vs. sir cauthrian at the landsmeet) this is ~ 80 from dual striking ~ 20 from elemental damage and 36 from flaming weapons spell for a total of 136 damage per swing. You will be doing roughly 170 damage with vulnerability hex. The dagger speed will mean you are able to strike 3 times every 2 seconds and you cannot miss because every attribute point spent increased your attack score. You should be able to kill sir cauthrian in under 6 seconds on nightmare.
I have done extensive testing on the damage difference between dual wield rogues and dual wield warriors and I can safely say that the warrior wins hands down. The critical damage from a rogue cannot compete with the above build. Infect as a rogue you are better off running dual striking and not bothering to backstab or critical hit unless there is an opportunity to shatter enemies.
Rogues also suffer 2 additional penalties that the warrior does not. The first is that in order to use all the dual wielding talents you must sacrifice cunning/dexterity for willpower or choose the assassin class and wait till level 16 to pick up feast of the fallen. The other issue is that your defense and attack score start to lose steam the higher your level gets. This is because cunning only boosts damage output and not attack score or defense. If you were able to reach level 30 as a rogue or warrior the difference between the classes will become obvious.
Modifié par Jack-Nader, 17 décembre 2009 - 08:12 .
#5
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:01
Gecon
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You should NOT play mages in the way of only giving them spells from one spell school. They can be much better than that.CID-78 wrote...
you should divide the mage into the diffrent spellschools.
#6
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:03
Gecon
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You probably meant death hex instead.Jack-Nader wrote...
If you want to turn your dual wield warrior into a damage powerhouse you need only bring 1 mage with the flaming weapons spell and vulnerability hex.
#7
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:07
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Gecon wrote...
You probably meant death hex instead.Jack-Nader wrote...
If you want to turn your dual wield warrior into a damage powerhouse you need only bring 1 mage with the flaming weapons spell and vulnerability hex.
More likely he was referring to the synergy between Flaming weapons and Vulnerability Hex combined, though Death Hex would be good, too, of course.
#8
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:08
Gecon
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The Warrior loses meaningful talents to invest in long before that point, though.Jack-Nader wrote...
I have done extensive testing on the damage difference between dual wield rogues and dual wield warriors and I can safely say that the warrior wins hands down. The critical damage from a rogue cannot compete with the above build. Infect as a rogue you are better off running dual striking and not bothering to backstab or critical hit unless there is an opportunity to shatter enemies.
Rogues also suffer 2 additional penalties that the warrior does not. The first is that in order to use all the dual wielding talents you must sacrifice cunning/dexterity for willpower or choose the assassin class and wait till level 16 to pick up feast of the fallen. The other issue is that your defense and attack score start to lose steam the higher your level gets. This is because cunning only boosts damage output and not attack score or defense. If you were able to reach level 30 as a rogue or warrior the difference between the classes will become obvious.
Which means if Bioware is going to add more class levels, they will have to invent more talents which might change the picture.
Meanwhile a Rogue gets Open Locks, Stealth, more skillpoints and other toys to play with.
#9
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:09
Gecon
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Err the additional damage from Flaming weapons isnt that high, unless I missed something or it gets much better with higher levels ?Muse011 wrote...
More likely he was referring to the synergy between Flaming weapons and Vulnerability Hex combined, though Death Hex would be good, too, of course.
#10
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:10
Muse011
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Gecon wrote...
Err the additional damage from Flaming weapons isnt that high, unless I missed something or it gets much better with higher levels ?Muse011 wrote...
More likely he was referring to the synergy between Flaming weapons and Vulnerability Hex combined, though Death Hex would be good, too, of course.
I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that's what the poster was referring to.
#11
Guest_Jack-Nader_*
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:34
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Yes the weapon damage from flaming weapons is that high. The problem is that people don't create efficient mage builds either. A mage requires only1 attribute. 'MAGIC' Putting points anywhere else is completely unnecessary and also gimps your mage. Magic increases your spellpower. The higher your spellpower the higher the damage bonus from flaming weapons.
Simply take morigan and put every single point into magic. The only must have spells are the entire glyph line. The glyph line will make her unkillable to anything but archers. Take blood magic and then give her the ring and necklace that increase constitution by +22 and she becomes the most powerful character in terms of DPS and crowd control plus she never runs out of mana. The only party buff spell she does for me is flaming weapons. Generally I use her for crowd control or to simply glyph of repulsion a door and then spam AOE spells on the other side. It's ultra cheesy as nothing can get past the glyph and so is stuck to endure your AOE untill death.
And no I did not mean death hex. I would never take that spell because critical hits don't register elemental damage or flaming weapon damage. If you cast it it will actually take longer to kill the target than simply dual striking it to bits.
Simply take morigan and put every single point into magic. The only must have spells are the entire glyph line. The glyph line will make her unkillable to anything but archers. Take blood magic and then give her the ring and necklace that increase constitution by +22 and she becomes the most powerful character in terms of DPS and crowd control plus she never runs out of mana. The only party buff spell she does for me is flaming weapons. Generally I use her for crowd control or to simply glyph of repulsion a door and then spam AOE spells on the other side. It's ultra cheesy as nothing can get past the glyph and so is stuck to endure your AOE untill death.
And no I did not mean death hex. I would never take that spell because critical hits don't register elemental damage or flaming weapon damage. If you cast it it will actually take longer to kill the target than simply dual striking it to bits.
#12
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:37
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Jack-Nader wrote...
Simply take morigan and put every single point into magic. The only must have spells are the entire glyph line. The glyph line will make her unkillable to anything but archers. Take blood magic and then give her the ring and necklace that increase constitution by +22 and she becomes the most powerful character in terms of DPS and crowd control plus she never runs out of mana. The only party buff spell she does for me is flaming weapons. Generally I use her for crowd control or to simply glyph of repulsion a door and then spam AOE spells on the other side. It's ultra cheesy as nothing can get past the glyph and so is stuck to endure your AOE untill death.
I'm pretty sure Glyph of Warding also increases defense against ranged arrows by quite a bit, so even against archers it's really good.
Still, it's surprising how many people ignore glyphs because they don't go 'boom'.
#13
Guest_Jack-Nader_*
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 09:47
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Glyphs are the best spell line in the game and the only line I always take. All the other spells are interchangeable. Glyph of repulsion is a barrier around your mage or damaged unit that will cause any enemy entering it to be propelled back and fall on it's ass. Glyph of paralysis is a good boss stunner. Using both glyph of repulsion and paralysis is a very long duration AOE stun that stuns everything in a large radius. Glyph of neutralization is a constant dispeller or a spell caster disabler. This is very usefull because you get crushing prison, misdirection or curse of mortality cast on you alot. Glyph of warding will boost defense of those standing in the ward radius to unhittable levels.
#14
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 10:04
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Jack-Nader wrote...
Glyphs are the best spell line in the game and the only line I always take. All the other spells are interchangeable. Glyph of repulsion is a barrier around your mage or damaged unit that will cause any enemy entering it to be propelled back and fall on it's ass. Glyph of paralysis is a good boss stunner. Using both glyph of repulsion and paralysis is a very long duration AOE stun that stuns everything in a large radius. Glyph of neutralization is a constant dispeller or a spell caster disabler. This is very usefull because you get crushing prison, misdirection or curse of mortality cast on you alot. Glyph of warding will boost defense of those standing in the ward radius to unhittable levels.
Yeah, pretty powerful. The only other line that I'd build up to the 4th tier spells are Mass Paralysis of course (fairly useless if you're solo though unless you get lucky) and Crushing Prison.
I'd go for Mana Clash but the prerequisite spells aren't very good by comparison.
#15
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 10:04
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Yup. I always give the full glyph line to Wynne AND if I'm playing a mage, I take it also. Otherwise I get morrigan working on it. Learned it early on in my first playthrough and glyph of repulsion is the closest thing to 'force throw' in the game. And it is force throw of everything from every direction. I usually use it to protect Wynne in dangerous situations.
Glyph of warding is good cast around your warrior/tank and dps folks. They regain mana/stamina faster. Glyph line is awesome.
Glyph of warding is good cast around your warrior/tank and dps folks. They regain mana/stamina faster. Glyph line is awesome.
#16
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 10:19
castaftw
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Jack-Nader wrote...
I have done extensive testing on the damage difference between dual wield rogues and dual wield warriors and I can safely say that the warrior wins hands down. The critical damage from a rogue cannot compete with the above build. Infect as a rogue you are better off running dual striking and not bothering to backstab or critical hit unless there is an opportunity to shatter enemies.
Rogues also suffer 2 additional penalties that the warrior does not. The first is that in order to use all the dual wielding talents you must sacrifice cunning/dexterity for willpower or choose the assassin class and wait till level 16 to pick up feast of the fallen. The other issue is that your defense and attack score start to lose steam the higher your level gets. This is because cunning only boosts damage output and not attack score or defense. If you were able to reach level 30 as a rogue or warrior the difference between the classes will become obvious.
Have you tried calculations with tainted blade (soldiers peak)? My Rogue were dishing out like 150-200 backstabs endgame with daggers and momentum going and ignoring armor entirely with a maxed out cunning. As in terms of hitting the enemy I didn't have much trouble, but i guess you get a bonus on flanked/stunned targets. You can also cast Heroic offense for like 20 mana if you think you aint hitting anything. I stacked gear with +%dmg on criticals also.
#17
Guest_Jack-Nader_*
Posté 17 décembre 2009 - 11:56
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No I do not have that DLC, unfortunately. It sounds like tainted blade increases critical damage considerably.
This is a screenshot of my dual wield warrior in action
204 Damage per wack on sir cauthrian using a dual striking warrior with flaming weapons, vulnerability hex and telekinetic weapons. Keep in mind that my build is not optimal either. I did not bother to get all the attribute increasing items. Notice that I could increase my damage further using "song of courage."
290 HP, 33 armor, 130 defense and 138 attack.
This is a screenshot of my dual wield warrior in action
204 Damage per wack on sir cauthrian using a dual striking warrior with flaming weapons, vulnerability hex and telekinetic weapons. Keep in mind that my build is not optimal either. I did not bother to get all the attribute increasing items. Notice that I could increase my damage further using "song of courage."
290 HP, 33 armor, 130 defense and 138 attack.
#18
Posté 18 décembre 2009 - 08:19
castaftw
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Impressive damage from flaming weapons, think i might try that out in my next playthrough. But why not have 2 mages, one with flaming and one with cold 
Anyway, just loaded up my old rogue and it seems 1.02 did a number on his damage, still though it is impressive. Btw tainted blade, which is rogue only gives extra damage based on your cunning attribute, another bonus from cunning is that you can persuade anything and open any locks and disarm any traps, at least in the endgame.
This screenshot is with mark of death on and Leliana song of courage, she only had 46 cunning though and i think it is like 4-5 raw damage on the weapons, it does add attack and crit also, but for backstabbers +%crit is useless. Also couldn't bother to figure out this pages screenshot system so heres a link
http://img193.images.../773/renald.jpg
Anyway, just loaded up my old rogue and it seems 1.02 did a number on his damage, still though it is impressive. Btw tainted blade, which is rogue only gives extra damage based on your cunning attribute, another bonus from cunning is that you can persuade anything and open any locks and disarm any traps, at least in the endgame.
This screenshot is with mark of death on and Leliana song of courage, she only had 46 cunning though and i think it is like 4-5 raw damage on the weapons, it does add attack and crit also, but for backstabbers +%crit is useless. Also couldn't bother to figure out this pages screenshot system so heres a link
http://img193.images.../773/renald.jpg
#19
Posté 18 décembre 2009 - 08:26
castaftw
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Btw I read that for DW warriors you could activate precise striking to benefit from the haste spell also. What I mean is having momentum and haste stacking without them cancelling eachother out, worth a try!
#20
Posté 18 décembre 2009 - 08:50
CID-78
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Gecon wrote...
You should NOT play mages in the way of only giving them spells from one spell school. They can be much better than that.CID-78 wrote...
you should divide the mage into the diffrent spellschools.
I know that the ultimate mage is a mix but if you want the achivements you need to put most points into a single spellschool. and it's good to know how well a single spell school will do compare others.
#21
Guest_Jack-Nader_*
Posté 18 décembre 2009 - 09:29
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Yes you could certainly do all that and increase your warriors output to around 220 - 250 per hit but you must weight up the PARTY cost of doing so. I never run cold weapons and flame weapons together. What tends to happen is that it splits the elemental damage and you end up doing no more additional damage. Telekinetic weapons is a better buff as it will increase your physical weapon damage. This is also yet another advantage that the warrior has over a rogue. Rogue already has high armor penetration from cunning so the warrior benefits much more from the buff.
Haste I will never run. It is a 4th tier spell that chews mana over time. It weakens the offensive power of your mage considerably and boosts your warriors attack speed slightly. The other 3 spells in the line are useless to this warrior build. It already has rediculous deffence and to hit.
People tend to gimp the mage to boost their warriors damage output. The game is designed around synergy and you need a party that can demolish any situation. I tend to run 1 dual wield cunning rogue, 2 dual wield warriors and 1 spirit healer/blood mage. The only heal spells I take for the mage are heal and group heal. The only sustainable I would run on the mage until you hit bloodmage is flaming weapons. After you get blood mage I would only add spell shield to this. Put every attribute point into "magic."
The dual wield warrior talents are a mixed bag. Most of them actually do ALOT less damage then simply hacking at the enemy. Riposite is pehaps the only really usefull talent. What I tend to do is go straight for dual striking, dual weapon talents, then momentum and then the entire death blow line. I pick up berserker at level 7 and riposte. I then go for templar at lvl 14 for the mental resistence boost and also the holy might stun vs mages and archers. If I get a chance I will run up the arrow of slaying line as it is a very fast mage dispensing talent. Alot of people will choose the champion line but IMO does not synergy as well as the templar class.
The reason I take the rogue is for the extra XP from traps and the "song of courage" buff. Mark of death is icing on the cake vs bosses but it isn't really necessary. I would turn the rogue into a more dex based rogue if I brought along a 2nd mage running telekinetic weapons and add just enough cunning to disable all the traps.
Haste I will never run. It is a 4th tier spell that chews mana over time. It weakens the offensive power of your mage considerably and boosts your warriors attack speed slightly. The other 3 spells in the line are useless to this warrior build. It already has rediculous deffence and to hit.
People tend to gimp the mage to boost their warriors damage output. The game is designed around synergy and you need a party that can demolish any situation. I tend to run 1 dual wield cunning rogue, 2 dual wield warriors and 1 spirit healer/blood mage. The only heal spells I take for the mage are heal and group heal. The only sustainable I would run on the mage until you hit bloodmage is flaming weapons. After you get blood mage I would only add spell shield to this. Put every attribute point into "magic."
The dual wield warrior talents are a mixed bag. Most of them actually do ALOT less damage then simply hacking at the enemy. Riposite is pehaps the only really usefull talent. What I tend to do is go straight for dual striking, dual weapon talents, then momentum and then the entire death blow line. I pick up berserker at level 7 and riposte. I then go for templar at lvl 14 for the mental resistence boost and also the holy might stun vs mages and archers. If I get a chance I will run up the arrow of slaying line as it is a very fast mage dispensing talent. Alot of people will choose the champion line but IMO does not synergy as well as the templar class.
The reason I take the rogue is for the extra XP from traps and the "song of courage" buff. Mark of death is icing on the cake vs bosses but it isn't really necessary. I would turn the rogue into a more dex based rogue if I brought along a 2nd mage running telekinetic weapons and add just enough cunning to disable all the traps.
#22
Posté 18 décembre 2009 - 10:44
castaftw
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Well it is nice to have a party that can handle any situation, but after a lot of playthroughs it does tend to get kind of boring. Healing especially is boring, it is just too effective, so often I just load up a pure melee party and go, makes for some excitement and some carnage 
Alister, Sten/Oghren, Dog and my PC make a brutal party.
Alister, Sten/Oghren, Dog and my PC make a brutal party.
