80 réponses à ce sujet

[Gaidren]

Jack-Nader wrote...
Arcane shield is a spell that mages never need.  It only bumps your defense up to the level of a warrior. "Glyph of repulsion" is a far more usefull spell and is vastly superior in damage mitigation.
Staff focus increases your staff weapon damage by 1/3rd however if your in a position where you are routinely using a staff you are doing something very wrong.
Arcane Mastery gives a spellpower bonus of 5.  A 4th tier talent that only increase spellpower by 5???

QFT.

This sums it up better than I was able to, thanks!

[Staylost]

Great list, very funny!



I think it is awesome.



Sure, it is only generally correct, but that is part of what makes it so fun.



Thanks for the fun!



I'm not sure why many people are so angry, but if this helps them let off steam, I guess more power to them.

[shaktiboy]

Re surviving without Arcane Bolt... Ever looked at Morrigan's default build? Winter's Grasp + Lightning (the two rank 1 spells in cold and lightning), used alternately, are quite powerful basic attacks. Far better than Arcane bolt alone. Set them both to Target > Any in tactics for Morrigan and enjoy.

[AsheraII]

Jack-Nader wrote...

The "Mage" line of spells has no real use.  I would agree with the OP and say Don't bother

Arcane bolt is a straight damage spell with no standout special effects.  It gets resisted alot and it has a slow flight speed.  Offensive mages need to maximize the amount of units they damage with any given cast and there are far better ways to do this than by spaming arcane bolt.

However, it's also a CHEAP attack manawise, and fills the gaps in straight damage nicely while other spells are on cooldown. It is the one straight damage spell you can use continuously without going OOM or having to use one lyrium potion after another, it's cheap enough to always be able to squeeze it in instead of doing nothing, waiting for your other cooldowns to expire.

Arcane shield is a spell that mages never need.  It only bumps your defense up to the level of a warrior. "Glyph of repulsion" is a far more usefull spell and is vastly superior in damage mitigation.

Arcane Shield is targeted onyourself, while the Glyph is targetted on an area, so moving your mage is out of question if you want to benefit from your glyph. The glyph also doesn't affect missile damage, and costs more mana to activate than the shield, though the shield is a sustained buff, so those 30 mana won't become available again.

Staff focus increases your staff weapon damage by 1/3rd however if your in a position where you are routinely using a staff you are doing something very wrong.

It depends on the situation, but while fighting bosses, hell yes I use staff. Especially in a 3-mage party, I'm not interrested in bringing tons of lyrium potions, nor in watchng my mages do absolutely nothing because their spells are all on cooldown.

Arcane Mastery gives a spellpower bonus of 5.  A 4th tier talent that only increase spellpower by 5???

Yes, but you get that spellpower for a talent, not from attribute points or gear. And this talent affects the damage and healing output of EVERY other spell you learn. It's basically a level and a half extra spellpower. If I wished to not use my attribute points for magic, but for constitution, cunning or dexterity instead, then here I gained some freedom for my attributepoints through using my talents.

And to finish all this: I'm working on my achievements for magic schools. Yes, I know there is a mod to CHEAT my way into those, but I find that utterly lame and feel there is absolutely no achievement in that, so I do it manually, by doing more than 1 playthrough. The Mage talents and spells give me just that "bit of everything" to balance out the weak sides of the seperate schools, and keep a versatile and useful character.

So overall, the Mage talents are definitely useful, especially if you're focussing on schools and want to play more or less cheat free.

[Lord Phoebus]

I find insect swarm very useful and crushing prison to be crap as of 1.02. Insect swarm +VWB against an elite who's been hit with vulnerability and affliction hex is pretty nasty.



Petrify is also really nice since it's a physical resist instead of a mental resist, so it works against bosses who resist your other stuns, of course you need to take the horrible Earthquake to get it so it might not be worth it unless you're an AW and want Rock Armor (or you're wearing the Reaper's Vestments). Stone Fist is pretty handy too since it can shatter and it can interrupt an overwhelm or a grab. I'd say the 1st earth spell is good if you're going to for armor (mediocre otherwise), the second is good, the third is **** and the 4th is good.



I've been wondering about Arcane Shield myself, more to the point what happens if you're stacking +defence gear. The Magus' Warboots are +12 defence, the Liberterian's Cowl is another +12, First Enchanter Robes are +9 (Robes of Possession are +12 but they're Morrigan only), Buckle of the Winds is +3, Key to the City is a +2 to dex, Magister's Shield is another +6, That's +41 defence, Arcane Shield 10 +1 for every 10 points of spell power. Mages start with a 40 defence, but that's still 91 defence +spellpower/10. If you were specced as an Arcane Warrior it would be a 101 defence +spellpower/10 with combat magic and a 25% miss chance, and you could equip the champion's shield for another +15 defence (116+sp/10). Assuming you went with a 30 dex and 70 spellpower that would be a 143 defence (133 without Combat Magic), nothing but misses against anything but an elite. Certainly would make it easier to use cones and handle aggro against your mage. Of course this is a real fringe build...

[stillnotking]

The Hex line is the most underrated in the game. Death Hex and Vulnerability Hex are incredible DPS boosts for melee DPS and caster DPS respectively, and work on bosses. Misdirection Hex trivializes Revenants and other "mini bosses". The only caveat is that they generate substantial threat, so hopefully your tank can Taunt if need be.

Runner up for most underrated spell is Force Field. A lot of players never realize that the Friendly Fire component of it is actually a bonus.

The healing spells other than the first one are not very good. If I'm using a non-Wynne healer I don't bother getting them. Ditto for the Spirit Healer talents; Revive is the only truly useful one, and later in the game, even it is unlikely to turn a loss into a win.

[bas273]

stillnotking wrote...

The Hex line is the most underrated in the game. Death Hex and Vulnerability Hex are incredible DPS boosts for melee DPS and caster DPS respectively, and work on bosses. Misdirection Hex trivializes Revenants and other "mini bosses". The only caveat is that they generate substantial threat, so hopefully your tank can Taunt if need be.
Runner up for most underrated spell is Force Field. A lot of players never realize that the Friendly Fire component of it is actually a bonus.
The healing spells other than the first one are not very good. If I'm using a non-Wynne healer I don't bother getting them. Ditto for the Spirit Healer talents; Revive is the only truly useful one, and later in the game, even it is unlikely to turn a loss into a win.

I also think many spell combinations are underestimated. I'm pretty sure that there are many people who have completed this game once or twice and didn't even know spell combos exist!

The most underestimated spell would be Virulent Walking Bomb I think. VWB does more damage than Fireball, Blizzard, Tempest... it only requires a bit of planning (Force Field on your Main Tank).

Modifié par bas273, 30 décembre 2009 - 08:52 .

[bas273]

Eirik instantly died when I used Mana Clash on him. In fact, every mage I've encountered so far is easily wiped out with this spell. Same for Genlock/Hurlock Emissaries, Zathrian, Blood Mages...

Modifié par bas273, 30 décembre 2009 - 10:35 .

[Gaidren]

The CoC + VWB + shatter combo sounds really interesting.

[stillnotking]

I haven't messed with VWB much, but honestly I'm not sure I see the point. Hordes of melee attackers are never a problem (with the exception of the wolves in Korcari Wilds, because you have no spells to speak of yet) and there are many ways to deal with them. The difficult fights are either boss fights, or multiple casters/archers spamming stuns and AOEs on you. I don't see VWB being a lot of help with either of those, but maybe I'm wrong.

I'll try it out on my next playthrough and see what I think.

[Gaidren]

I'd think vs. archer clusters that Petrify into VWB into Rockfist sounds better than setting things up with CoC since Petrify has a longer range (although CoC can CC multiple things). I'd agree with stillnotking that anti-melee is far less important than stuff that works wonders vs. bosses/ranged, but Petrify/WVB/Rockfist sounds perfect for taking out an archer cluster.

[swk3000]

Jack-Nader wrote...
Arcane shield costs 30 + 5%.  If you have 100 mana it's spell cost is actually 35.  Glyph of repulsions spell cost is 35.  The difference is that as your mana increases Arcane shield's mana cost also increases.  ie 40 mana cost @ 200 mana.

That's not how the Fatigue component works, actually. If you have no sustained spells active, and you cast Arcane Shield, you lose access to 30 Mana. Period. It doesn't matter how much Mana you have; having only Arcane Shield active only costs 30 Mana.

The Fatigue is added to any spell cast while Arcane Shield is active. So if you had 0% Fatige, then activated Arcane Shield, all spells would use up mana equal to their Base Cost multiplied by 1.05. If you were to cast Virulent Walking Bomb while Arcane Shield was active, it would cost 42 Mana instead of 40.

Fatigue cost on a Sustained spell doesn't affect the spell itself; instead, it adds that amount of Fatigue to your current Fatigue rating, which affects any other spells you cast while that spell is active.

[swk3000]

Your math makes no sense, from a mathematical point of view and from what I understand about the game's mechanics. Yes, 5% of 100 is 5. That's sound. What makes no sense is why you're adding that 5 to the cost of Arcane Shield. If it was a 35 Mana spell, you would end up with 95 mana accessible, not 100. You're going to have to explain, in detail, how you're arriving at a 35 mana cost for a 30 mana spell. Because what you just said is about as clear as mud.

[swk3000]

Oh. I see. You're factoring Fatigue in before you cast. Personally, I find that to be rather unreliable, since there's never any spell with that high of a cost, but I do see where you're coming from. Thanks for explaining it.

[tetracycloide]

Jack-Nader wrote...

Therefore you can see that as your mana pool grows the cost of Arcane shield and any sustainable increases.

However the penalty is applied when the next spell is cast, not when arcane shield is cast which, due to rounding, is relevant.  Taking your example above starting with 130 mana, casting a 30 mana sustain with a 5% penalty, and then deriving the net cost of the systain including the penalty.  If the next spell cast is 95 mana cost then yes, the net cost is ~35, however if the next 8 spells each cost exactly 10 mana the net will actually be 38 mana.  So the question then becomes how many spells will be cast in a given fight and what is the sum of 5% of their mana costs rounded before summing?  Frequently this will be greater than 5% of the remaining mana pool and it could even be less.

Ultimatly, however, the distiction is academic since the only truthful statistic is how many lyrium potions must be consumed to make up the fatigue penalty which, in turn, is actually how much gold is being spent on consumables.  So the real question is, does rock armor save me gold by converting health damage into mana damage, which is what the spell really does.  For an arcane warrior who casts few active spells the answer is probably yes, for other mages the answer is probably no.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 30 décembre 2009 - 05:05 .

[Creature 1]

Jack-Nader wrote...

sigh

Arcane shield costs 30 mana

Say you had 130 mana before you cast. You then cast Arcane shield and you now have a 100 mana pool left. You cannot cast a spell unless you have sufficient mana in your pool to cast it. That is, if you have 100 mana left you can only cast a spell that would cost ~95.2 because...

95.2 + 5% fatigue = 100.

Therefore you can safely say that Arcane Shield actually cost you 34.8 in this situation. Kapeesh?

Now if you have 430 mana pool and you cast arcane shield
430 - 30 = 400 mana left

400/ 1.05 = ~ 381
400 - 381 + 30 = 49
Therefore you can see that as your mana pool grows the cost of Arcane shield and any sustainable increases.

I tend to think that this spell is not worth it, but I think this reasoning is questionable.  What if you need just 100 mana to finish the battle?  In either case you're set.  What if you need 500? In either case you're going to be using some potions--and if you need 500 mana the overall cost due to fatigue is exactly the same whether your mana pool is 100 or 400.  With a large mana pool I'd be more inclined to burn sustained buffs of questionable utility because the cost (in terms of percentage of mana pool tied up) is relatively small. 

I do not know of a single spell that uses so much mana in one cast that the fatigue cost from one sustainable makes it uncastable by a mage with a sensible build.  

The reason not to use it is that it's more economical to pick other spells that provide similar immediate defensive benefits plus opening up lines to more useful spells. 

Modifié par Creature 1, 30 décembre 2009 - 05:05 .