I've played Dragon Age II, but the combat and leveling is much simpler than compared to Dragon Age: Origins. I'm about to make my first character and I know I want a mage, but nothing beyond that. Any tips on builds or choices in the game would be appreciated.
Newcomer to the "heavy RPG" genre, any tips for creating a Dragon Age: Origins Mage would be appreciated...
Débuté par
IllusiveManJr
, août 13 2012 08:20
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#2
Guest_EntropicAngel_*
Posté 13 août 2012 - 08:50
Guest_EntropicAngel_*
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Well, it's usually pretty basic. Mages are based around two of the stats: Magic and Willpower.
Magic is the "power" of their spells. This seems to translate (I confess I haven't studied it out) to how successful the spells are, in addition to how much damage they do.
Willpower is pretty much the amount of mana available to the mage. Spells cost mana, and certain spells expend a certain amount for a sustained effect (for instance, rock armor costs 40 mana in addition to 5% fatigue but gives an armor increase).
Generally when it comes to spells you can pick what you want, if you're planning on playing the character yourself.
However, a whole 'nother beast is the Arcane Warrior.
The Arcane Warrior is a mage that uses standard weaponry. They don't have access to all of the talents normally associated with those weapons, but they do have a mix of mage talents with those melee weapons.
Now, mages are fairly OP, though they're squishy. They can control large crowds with nice AoE spells like Cone of Cold or Mind Blast, or a few others. Imagine this with the ability to inflict damage like a rogue or warrior.
What I'm saying is, Arcane Warriors are very OP. They can have massive, massive armor bonuses, at the expense of massive fatigue, which won't be a big big problem because you're mostly melee fighting and throwing spells out very rarely.
But back to normal mages, there are a few tactic choices that pretty well define types of mages.
Healer: Just what it seems. There's a whole talent tree related to this, with healing spells, with increase in stamina, mana, or health regeneration, as well as a specialization with very strong healing spells. This mage is not proactive or offensive at all.
Damager: Spells designed purely to inflict damage, and little else. A bolt of lighting, a blast of fire, a cone of cold. The is the most proactive, but I've found that other types work best for me...
Supporter: similar to the healer, but with a basis on defensive buffs for your team. There don't seem to be very very many of these, so I never went this way.
Controller: The mage focused on, you guessed it, controlling crowds. Uses talents like Cone of cold, which freezes outward in a cone from the mage, or mass paralysis, which paralyzes enemies within a certain radius (if they fail a resistance check). I found this one very useful because the mage effectively nullifies most of the enemy, allowing your warriors and rogues to take them out with much less difficulty.
Debilitator: This one uses debuffs. I've found them to be most useful when facing crowds with elite or boss enemies, or enemies that are above my level--but not as much with regular crowds, because the regular crowds simply aren't a problem. However, this has some really great spells to it.
Also, there are spell combinations. You should try to figure these out for yourself, but a couple are:
freezing spell>>critical damage either from an attack (such as a backstab) or a spell like Stonefist or Cruching Prison. This will shatter the enemy, even if they're at full health. Note that this isn't gauranteed to work.
Vulnerability Hex>>Drain Life/Mana spells do more damage (take more health/mana)
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said, but I can't think of it all and I need to go to bed, lol, so let me leave you with one thing:
Depending on what difficulty you played DA ][ at, there likely wasn't friendly-fire for area-of-effect attacks. There IS for Origins, for all difficulties if I'm not mistaken (certainly for Normal and up). This means, if your mage casts cone of cold at a group of enemies that also includes all of your allies, you'll likely freeze them...and be left with just your mage and a few enemy stragglers that you didn't catch. Or, chain lightning (lighting hits a target and spreads outward, growing weaker), a very powerful spell, can catch your characters if they're in the fray. You've got to be careful of this.
Magic is the "power" of their spells. This seems to translate (I confess I haven't studied it out) to how successful the spells are, in addition to how much damage they do.
Willpower is pretty much the amount of mana available to the mage. Spells cost mana, and certain spells expend a certain amount for a sustained effect (for instance, rock armor costs 40 mana in addition to 5% fatigue but gives an armor increase).
Generally when it comes to spells you can pick what you want, if you're planning on playing the character yourself.
However, a whole 'nother beast is the Arcane Warrior.
The Arcane Warrior is a mage that uses standard weaponry. They don't have access to all of the talents normally associated with those weapons, but they do have a mix of mage talents with those melee weapons.
Now, mages are fairly OP, though they're squishy. They can control large crowds with nice AoE spells like Cone of Cold or Mind Blast, or a few others. Imagine this with the ability to inflict damage like a rogue or warrior.
What I'm saying is, Arcane Warriors are very OP. They can have massive, massive armor bonuses, at the expense of massive fatigue, which won't be a big big problem because you're mostly melee fighting and throwing spells out very rarely.
But back to normal mages, there are a few tactic choices that pretty well define types of mages.
Healer: Just what it seems. There's a whole talent tree related to this, with healing spells, with increase in stamina, mana, or health regeneration, as well as a specialization with very strong healing spells. This mage is not proactive or offensive at all.
Damager: Spells designed purely to inflict damage, and little else. A bolt of lighting, a blast of fire, a cone of cold. The is the most proactive, but I've found that other types work best for me...
Supporter: similar to the healer, but with a basis on defensive buffs for your team. There don't seem to be very very many of these, so I never went this way.
Controller: The mage focused on, you guessed it, controlling crowds. Uses talents like Cone of cold, which freezes outward in a cone from the mage, or mass paralysis, which paralyzes enemies within a certain radius (if they fail a resistance check). I found this one very useful because the mage effectively nullifies most of the enemy, allowing your warriors and rogues to take them out with much less difficulty.
Debilitator: This one uses debuffs. I've found them to be most useful when facing crowds with elite or boss enemies, or enemies that are above my level--but not as much with regular crowds, because the regular crowds simply aren't a problem. However, this has some really great spells to it.
Also, there are spell combinations. You should try to figure these out for yourself, but a couple are:
freezing spell>>critical damage either from an attack (such as a backstab) or a spell like Stonefist or Cruching Prison. This will shatter the enemy, even if they're at full health. Note that this isn't gauranteed to work.
Vulnerability Hex>>Drain Life/Mana spells do more damage (take more health/mana)
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said, but I can't think of it all and I need to go to bed, lol, so let me leave you with one thing:
Depending on what difficulty you played DA ][ at, there likely wasn't friendly-fire for area-of-effect attacks. There IS for Origins, for all difficulties if I'm not mistaken (certainly for Normal and up). This means, if your mage casts cone of cold at a group of enemies that also includes all of your allies, you'll likely freeze them...and be left with just your mage and a few enemy stragglers that you didn't catch. Or, chain lightning (lighting hits a target and spreads outward, growing weaker), a very powerful spell, can catch your characters if they're in the fray. You've got to be careful of this.
Modifié par EntropicAngel, 13 août 2012 - 08:57 .
#3
Posté 13 août 2012 - 10:16
IllusiveManJr
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EntropicAngel gets the Cerberus "poster of the month" award. Thanks for all the tips.
#4
Posté 13 août 2012 - 07:18
Doriath
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Not much I can add but, don't take two bad spells to get a good one. A spell towards the end of a line might be great but consider how many ability points you're burning to reach it.
Some spells that fit well for any caster.
fireball
cone of cold
flame weapons/frost weapons
heal
walking bomb
mind blast
force field
crushing prison
vulnerability hex
misdirection hex
paralyze
group heal
Some spells that fit well for any caster.
fireball
cone of cold
flame weapons/frost weapons
heal
walking bomb
mind blast
force field
crushing prison
vulnerability hex
misdirection hex
paralyze
group heal
Modifié par chrisnabal, 13 août 2012 - 07:33 .
#5
Posté 14 août 2012 - 03:37
Lemina Ausa
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EntropicAngel wrote...
Or, chain lightning (lighting hits a target and spreads outward, growing weaker), a very powerful spell, can catch your characters if they're in the fray. You've got to be careful of this.
I found it to do very little damage for the time it takes to cast it, actually (except 1 part in dust town in an enclosed building, the lightning seemed to bounce off the walls and hit repeatedly). I respeced out of it in awakenings.
If you want to cheese pretty much every encounter in the game with mages or demons....get mana clash. The first 2 spells in the line are useless admittedly, spell might is so so, but being able to obliterate pretty much every mage and demon in a huge area is very helpful......to the point that it is extremely overpowered.
#6
Posté 14 août 2012 - 09:57
termokanden
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Chain Lightning is indeed mediocre in our hands, but somehow it always seems scary when enemy mages are using it.
By the way, Storm of the Century is also extremely overpowered. You can actually kill enemies without them being able to detect you simply because of the range of the attack. Oh and it does crazy damage too. But beware, the cheese factor is high in this one.
By the way, Storm of the Century is also extremely overpowered. You can actually kill enemies without them being able to detect you simply because of the range of the attack. Oh and it does crazy damage too. But beware, the cheese factor is high in this one.
#7
Posté 15 août 2012 - 05:59
Ferretinabun
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Well, looks like it's pretty much all been said. Just a couple of minor points...
- To correct, there is no friendly fire on Casual, and on Normal it only delievers 50% damage.
- You have much more freedom to merely pick the spells you like with a mage than you do with Warrior/Rogue builds where planned-out min/max builds are preferred. This makes a mage a good choice for a first-time gamer as you can't go too far wrong.
- That said, it is helpful to pick a role for yourself (Damage dealer/Crowd controller/Buff-and-heal-bot). Suitable spells for each will be scattered over the schools.
- Level 4 spells are more powerful than level 1 spells. So a better spend of 8 spell points would be to max out two spell trees, rather than to grab 8 level one spells. That said, a level 4 spell is not necessarily worth getting if the spells before it are trash.
- There is no excuse for any mage not to get Heal. Ever. It'll pay for itself 1000 times over. Get it. Now.
- To correct, there is no friendly fire on Casual, and on Normal it only delievers 50% damage.
- You have much more freedom to merely pick the spells you like with a mage than you do with Warrior/Rogue builds where planned-out min/max builds are preferred. This makes a mage a good choice for a first-time gamer as you can't go too far wrong.
- That said, it is helpful to pick a role for yourself (Damage dealer/Crowd controller/Buff-and-heal-bot). Suitable spells for each will be scattered over the schools.
- Level 4 spells are more powerful than level 1 spells. So a better spend of 8 spell points would be to max out two spell trees, rather than to grab 8 level one spells. That said, a level 4 spell is not necessarily worth getting if the spells before it are trash.
- There is no excuse for any mage not to get Heal. Ever. It'll pay for itself 1000 times over. Get it. Now.
Modifié par Ferretinabun, 15 août 2012 - 06:01 .
#8
Posté 16 août 2012 - 05:37
Celeb
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You should consider checking this:
http://dragonage.wik...ll_combinations .
Paralysis Explosion is one of the best combinations. Note that Storm of the Century, while being powerful spell, has huge range (which might be deadly to everyone including Your party) and requires 10 spells (4 from Cold tree, 3 from Lightning tree, 3 from Mana Alteration tree). Paralysis Explosion requires only 3 spells and is great crowd control spell. It allows melee fighters to do more than standing and waiting for enemies to come out from Storm of the Century.
Anyways my tips of making builds:
Damaging mage:
Specialization:
Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage is imo good specialization combination for aggresive mages. It allows to tank and deal damage. Although be careful with blood magic, You can kill Yourself. Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer is fine too, but If You need healing just use potions or Heal spell.
Spells:
Primal spells: Fireball, Blizzard, Tempest (+Rock Armor if You want to tank more). 10/11 points.
Spirit spells: Spell Might, Mana Clash, Telekinetic Weapons, Crushing Prison. 8 points.
Entropy spells: Misdirection Hex, Death Hex. 4 points.
Arcane Warrior spells: all of them. 4 points.
Blood Mage spells: All or first three. Fourth spell, Blood Control, requires You to be at 16th level. That means You will be far in game and possibly won't need to make friends with white enemies/yellow enemies. I don't even know if it works well on red enemies (didn't try it on these, sorry). 3/4 points.
Conclusion:
29/31 points. Doable to get all mentioned spells.
Attributes:
About 40/45 points into Magic. Few points in Willpower so You can actually cast one or two spells without Blood Magic (let's say 15/20 points). Rest can be spent on Constitution so You won't kill Yourself from using Blood Magic. Some points CAN be spent on Dexterity if You don't like missing. Strenght is not needed because Magic is literally Your strenght. I don't see point in spending points in Cunning.
Other option: You can give up on Fireball to get really good Miasma spell from Entropy spells. You will lack AOE damaging spells for a while though.
Supportive mage (Spirit Healer/Blood Mage):
Specialization:
Spirit Healer is self-explanatory. Blood Mage has one incredibly good crowd control+damaging spell and Blood Magic helps with mana problems.
Spells:
Primal spells: Frost Weapons, Cone of Cold / Flaming Weapons, Fireball. First set gives more crowd control, second deals more damage. Worth noting: Flaming Weapons is a better buff. 3 points.
Creation spells: Heal, Rejuvenate, Regeneration, Haste, Glyph of Paralysis, Glyph of Repulsion, Glyph of Neutralization. 11 points.
Entropy spells: Misdirection Hex, Death Hex, Drain Life. 5 points.
Spirit Healer spells: All of them or first three. Fourth spell, Cleansing Aura, is tricky. While being decent heal it drains insane amount of mana. To solve mana problem You have two options. 1: Spend more points on Willpower. 2: Gather mana and stamina regen items. Second option is a common solution to Arcane Warrior's Shimmering Shield which drains mana in the same fashion as Spirit Healer's Cleansing Aura. 3/4 points.
Blood Mage spells: All of first three. 3/4 points.
Conclusion:
25/27 points. It leaves You with decent amount of points to spend. With Paralysis Explosion, Blood Wound and Fireball/Cone of Cold You have good enough crowd control. Hexes help with bosses. So You can spend rest points on more Primal spells or Spirit spells.
Attributes:
Give points in Magic and Willpower evenly (or just spend more in one which You need more). When You will be getting closer to getting Blood Mage consider spending points in Constitution. Strenght, Dexterity and Cunning aren't needed.
Supportive mage (Spirit Healer/Arcane Warrior):
Specialization:
This specialization combination gives opportunity to not only help with CC or debuff spells but also to kill something with sharp objects. One disadvantage though. This build relies on sustained spells. It means two things: Your mana pool will be low and Templars will be di*** to You with antimagic taking off all these spells.
Spells:
Primal spells: Frost Weapons, Cone of Cold / Flaming Weapons, Fireball. Same as Spirit Healer/Blood Mage. Buffs for weapons and CC spells are always welcome. Taking more points into this is a waste because of limited mana pool. 3 points.
Creation Spells:
Heal, Rejuvenate, Regeneration, Haste, Glyph of Paralysis, Glyph of Repulsion, Glyph of Neutralization. 11 points.
Entropy spells: Miasma, Misdirection Hex, Death Hex. Didn't use Mass Paralysis because of having Paralysis Explosion but using it seems viable. 7/8 points.
Spirit Healer spells: Three of them. With both Cleansing Aura and Shimmering Shield activated Your mana will disappear before You will have chance to say 'oh fu**, what is going on with my mana?'. You CAN take Cleansing Aura but it isn't worth all work with mana management. 3 points.
Arcane Warrior spells: All of them. Feed that line like a hungry mabari (joke stolen from somebody else, sorry). 4 points.
Conclusion:
28/29 points. These leaves You with a few points (if any). Do what You want with them.
Attributes:
It's easy. Magic and Willpower only. A lot of Willpower actually. Again, some points CAN be spent in Dexterity if You don't like missing.
And to make it clear. These aren't strict rules how You should build Your character. These are guidelines. To underline it, let me quote Barbossa:
'And thirdly, the Code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules'.
P.S.: Should anyone thinks about copying my mage (Celebrin)... he is based on Damaging Mage but he used exploit with tomes to get more spell points. Hence so many spells (28+7 from specializations at 25lv). I can be wrong but I think there are 31 spell points You can get in the game (+1 starting Magic Missile). 24 from leveling, 5 from tomes and 2 starting ones.
EDIT: I was wrong with 31 spell points. I forgot about two. One can be received for joining Grey Wardens and another for completing one of the main quests. Thanks to jhood_shsu for pointing that out.
http://dragonage.wik...ll_combinations .
Paralysis Explosion is one of the best combinations. Note that Storm of the Century, while being powerful spell, has huge range (which might be deadly to everyone including Your party) and requires 10 spells (4 from Cold tree, 3 from Lightning tree, 3 from Mana Alteration tree). Paralysis Explosion requires only 3 spells and is great crowd control spell. It allows melee fighters to do more than standing and waiting for enemies to come out from Storm of the Century.
Anyways my tips of making builds:
Damaging mage:
Specialization:
Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage is imo good specialization combination for aggresive mages. It allows to tank and deal damage. Although be careful with blood magic, You can kill Yourself. Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer is fine too, but If You need healing just use potions or Heal spell.
Spells:
Primal spells: Fireball, Blizzard, Tempest (+Rock Armor if You want to tank more). 10/11 points.
Spirit spells: Spell Might, Mana Clash, Telekinetic Weapons, Crushing Prison. 8 points.
Entropy spells: Misdirection Hex, Death Hex. 4 points.
Arcane Warrior spells: all of them. 4 points.
Blood Mage spells: All or first three. Fourth spell, Blood Control, requires You to be at 16th level. That means You will be far in game and possibly won't need to make friends with white enemies/yellow enemies. I don't even know if it works well on red enemies (didn't try it on these, sorry). 3/4 points.
Conclusion:
29/31 points. Doable to get all mentioned spells.
Attributes:
About 40/45 points into Magic. Few points in Willpower so You can actually cast one or two spells without Blood Magic (let's say 15/20 points). Rest can be spent on Constitution so You won't kill Yourself from using Blood Magic. Some points CAN be spent on Dexterity if You don't like missing. Strenght is not needed because Magic is literally Your strenght. I don't see point in spending points in Cunning.
Other option: You can give up on Fireball to get really good Miasma spell from Entropy spells. You will lack AOE damaging spells for a while though.
Supportive mage (Spirit Healer/Blood Mage):
Specialization:
Spirit Healer is self-explanatory. Blood Mage has one incredibly good crowd control+damaging spell and Blood Magic helps with mana problems.
Spells:
Primal spells: Frost Weapons, Cone of Cold / Flaming Weapons, Fireball. First set gives more crowd control, second deals more damage. Worth noting: Flaming Weapons is a better buff. 3 points.
Creation spells: Heal, Rejuvenate, Regeneration, Haste, Glyph of Paralysis, Glyph of Repulsion, Glyph of Neutralization. 11 points.
Entropy spells: Misdirection Hex, Death Hex, Drain Life. 5 points.
Spirit Healer spells: All of them or first three. Fourth spell, Cleansing Aura, is tricky. While being decent heal it drains insane amount of mana. To solve mana problem You have two options. 1: Spend more points on Willpower. 2: Gather mana and stamina regen items. Second option is a common solution to Arcane Warrior's Shimmering Shield which drains mana in the same fashion as Spirit Healer's Cleansing Aura. 3/4 points.
Blood Mage spells: All of first three. 3/4 points.
Conclusion:
25/27 points. It leaves You with decent amount of points to spend. With Paralysis Explosion, Blood Wound and Fireball/Cone of Cold You have good enough crowd control. Hexes help with bosses. So You can spend rest points on more Primal spells or Spirit spells.
Attributes:
Give points in Magic and Willpower evenly (or just spend more in one which You need more). When You will be getting closer to getting Blood Mage consider spending points in Constitution. Strenght, Dexterity and Cunning aren't needed.
Supportive mage (Spirit Healer/Arcane Warrior):
Specialization:
This specialization combination gives opportunity to not only help with CC or debuff spells but also to kill something with sharp objects. One disadvantage though. This build relies on sustained spells. It means two things: Your mana pool will be low and Templars will be di*** to You with antimagic taking off all these spells.
Spells:
Primal spells: Frost Weapons, Cone of Cold / Flaming Weapons, Fireball. Same as Spirit Healer/Blood Mage. Buffs for weapons and CC spells are always welcome. Taking more points into this is a waste because of limited mana pool. 3 points.
Creation Spells:
Heal, Rejuvenate, Regeneration, Haste, Glyph of Paralysis, Glyph of Repulsion, Glyph of Neutralization. 11 points.
Entropy spells: Miasma, Misdirection Hex, Death Hex. Didn't use Mass Paralysis because of having Paralysis Explosion but using it seems viable. 7/8 points.
Spirit Healer spells: Three of them. With both Cleansing Aura and Shimmering Shield activated Your mana will disappear before You will have chance to say 'oh fu**, what is going on with my mana?'. You CAN take Cleansing Aura but it isn't worth all work with mana management. 3 points.
Arcane Warrior spells: All of them. Feed that line like a hungry mabari (joke stolen from somebody else, sorry). 4 points.
Conclusion:
28/29 points. These leaves You with a few points (if any). Do what You want with them.
Attributes:
It's easy. Magic and Willpower only. A lot of Willpower actually. Again, some points CAN be spent in Dexterity if You don't like missing.
And to make it clear. These aren't strict rules how You should build Your character. These are guidelines. To underline it, let me quote Barbossa:
'And thirdly, the Code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules'.
P.S.: Should anyone thinks about copying my mage (Celebrin)... he is based on Damaging Mage but he used exploit with tomes to get more spell points. Hence so many spells (28+7 from specializations at 25lv). I can be wrong but I think there are 31 spell points You can get in the game (+1 starting Magic Missile). 24 from leveling, 5 from tomes and 2 starting ones.
EDIT: I was wrong with 31 spell points. I forgot about two. One can be received for joining Grey Wardens and another for completing one of the main quests. Thanks to jhood_shsu for pointing that out.
Modifié par Celeb, 18 août 2012 - 04:35 .
#9
Posté 17 août 2012 - 01:32
jhood_shsu
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Wouldnt it be 33 you get +1 after completing the joining (typically levels up too) and +1 after the sacred ashes. Thats assuming you reach level 25 in DAO.
#10
Posté 17 août 2012 - 03:59
Simbacca
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Still haven't got half way through my first playthrough of Origins though I really want to see the whole story. This thread is making me think I should restart with a mage; maybe it's just my two-handed warrior I'm finding boring.
#11
Posté 17 août 2012 - 04:32
termokanden
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I find 2h warriors great, at least when you reach a certain level.
But it's definitely worth a shot to try a mage if you're bored. Although you can certainly choose to spam the same spells over and over, they are generally more varied.
I would NOT recommend a melee arcane warrior if you're bored though. It works, it's not that. I just gave up out of boredom.
But it's definitely worth a shot to try a mage if you're bored. Although you can certainly choose to spam the same spells over and over, they are generally more varied.
I would NOT recommend a melee arcane warrior if you're bored though. It works, it's not that. I just gave up out of boredom.
#12
Posté 18 août 2012 - 04:29
Celeb
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jhood_shsu wrote...
Wouldnt it be 33 you get +1 after completing the joining (typically levels up too) and +1 after the sacred ashes. Thats assuming you reach level 25 in DAO.
It would be. Good job pointing that out.
#13
Posté 18 août 2012 - 04:31
Celeb
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EDIT: Ops... double post. Sorry.
Modifié par Celeb, 18 août 2012 - 04:33 .
#14
Posté 18 août 2012 - 11:43
jhood_shsu
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have a thing for numbersB)...ironically I hated accounting in school.
#16
Posté 29 août 2012 - 07:01
SerTabris
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I like to mention that Paralysis and especially Force Field work on a lot of things you might not expect them to. Before I started playing the DA series, I expected major bosses at least to be immune to such things, but they often aren't, so give it a try.
#17
Posté 06 septembre 2012 - 04:40
InfiniteAvenger
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Hey, I like the name EntropicAngel. That is really cool and makes me think of my Mage build Spirit Healer using Creation and Entropy spells. Very nice! 
-IA
-IA
#18
Posté 06 septembre 2012 - 06:53
BatmanPWNS
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Go for the fire, electric and rock magic at the very least.
