48 réponses à ce sujet

[Rhodric78]

I'm on my third play through and have just started as a Human Mage.  I'm not sure what the problem is, but I'm getting my tail kicked!  I've played only melee characters thus far, but always had Morigan or Wynne in my party.  I thought I was pretty prepared.

I've put all points into Magic for now and am level 7. 

Spells:
Winter's Breath
Frost Weapons
Cone of Cold
Heal
Disorient
Horror
Sleep
Waking Nightmare
Walking Bomb

I figured these would give me some good CC and DPS, but I'm having a hard time controlling battles.  I've got Alistair, Sten and Leliana as my group.  Threat management seems to be an issue and both Sten and Alistair are dropping way too quick.  I'm also running low on mana way too quick.  I know this will be solved once I swing by the Mage's Tower.

Can any one offer some advice/help?  Did I choose the wrong spells?  What spells should I be choosing next?

I figured I'd finish the Walking Bomb line, 3 into the Lightning line and grab Force Field.

Thanks for the help!

Modifié par Rhodric78, 07 janvier 2010 - 02:31 .

[Jonnerz]

Take a specialisation in 'Spirit Healer'. Or get Wynne in your party. Have her on revival duty.

[Enkara the Red]

I've put all points into Magic for now and am level 7. 
...

 I'm also running low on mana way too quick.  I know this will be solved once I swing by the Mage's Tower.

Can any one offer some advice/help?  Did I choose the wrong spells?  What spells should I be choosing next?

I figured I'd finish the Walking Bomb line, 3 into the Lightning line and grab Force Field.

Thanks for the help!

Putting a few points into willpower (or equipping an item with a Willpower bonus) is probably a good idea.

[soteria]

You don't need spirit healer. Take two more points in the heal line to get Regeneration; that will help a lot. Your spell selection is actually pretty good. Does Alistair have Taunt? If not, get it for him.

You probably don't have enough abilities to fully leverage Cone of Cold yet, but what you can do is, after the pull, try to lline it up on three of four enemies. Pause, and then set up some auto-crit abilities to shatter them. Overpower for Alistair, Might Blow for Sten, Critical Shot for Leliana. Once you can do that, you can easily remove three or four enemies from the fight in seconds.

Sleep is also a great spell. If you have problems with archers, use sleep and waking nightmare on them--they'll attack each other.

Force field is handy. I like the glyph spells as well; your mileage may vary. Fireball is pretty handy if you don't mind the investment, and Blizzard can make some fights easier if you use it right.

You don't *really* need any points in willpower.  You can just use mana pots, or take the blood mage specialization.  Whether you put 2 points in magic and 1 in willpower every level or 3 points in magic ultimately won't make a huge diference.  Your mage will be playable (and strong) either way.

Modifié par soteria, 07 janvier 2010 - 02:38 .

[Cybercat999]

First 3 frost spells for CoC is good choice. Sleep is great mass CC. Walking bomb is very situational, if you are not careful it can badly hurt your party.
Do you have tactics set on focus fire? There is little point in having so much pts in CC if your melees run around attacking each their own target.

I had frost up to CoC and 3 glyphs as my first spells on this character, I breezed through first levels with her. But you seem to be having trouble with your party overall, not just mage, so some more info about your playstyle/tactics and how did you set your NPCs would be useful.

Modifié par Cybercat999, 07 janvier 2010 - 02:44 .

[knownastherat]

Nothing wrong with your spell picks from where I sit. Actually, your assumptions about CC is on the spot. Since you are on 3rd play-through you, more or less, know the game so basics will not help much I guess.



With proper timing and positioning Cone of Cold by itself can "control" most battles. Sleep at range and for focused fire should also yield results. Mana issues, as you said, will be resolved soon enough, either by Death Syphon or pots. Alistair is tanking/taunting wearing best armor, Sten gets his moments and Leilana is of use even if just a mascot



If you want to breeze through enemy mages Mana Clash is the answer. In the same line Spell Might is not bad sustainable. You might want to get Glyphs (instead?) for the Repulsion + Paralysis combo, then those Walking Bombs. As you said Force Field is powerful, haven't tried Lighting yet so cannot say, though you might wanna consider SH specs asap instead unless you pick up Wynne and/or the Enchantment line for buffs. Earthquake + Indomitable, Hexes + DoTs + AoE, freeze and Crushing Prison ... so many choices and none of them really wrong.

[Cybercat999]

Enkara the Red wrote...

I've put all points into Magic for now and am level 7. 
...

 I'm also running low on mana way too quick.  I know this will be solved once I swing by the Mage's Tower.

Can any one offer some advice/help?  Did I choose the wrong spells?  What spells should I be choosing next?

I figured I'd finish the Walking Bomb line, 3 into the Lightning line and grab Force Field.

Thanks for the help!

Putting a few points into willpower (or equipping an item with a Willpower bonus) is probably a good idea.

I never put single point in will on my dps mages. Mana pots are not that expensive to make.

[soteria]

I don't use mana pots, and I still say you don't really need much willpower.

[JosieJ]

I've got to agree with everyone else: your spells look fine. Your issue with threat management can be solved by giving Alistair Taunt and setting up his tactics so he'll use it if your mage gets mobbed. Since you're not putting any points in Willpower, you'll be using potions a lot, but that's what they're there for. And even if you only take the first Healing spell, that'll probably help you keep Alistair (and the rest of your party) healthy.

[Rhodric78]

Thanks a ton for the replies!



With regards to "focus fire", I have most of my melee characters attacking their own targets as well as attacking any enemy attacking main character. I thought this would be a good option, but am now realizing how ineffective it is. If my mage gets hit with some ranged attacks, all my melee characters immediately head out in every direction lol. I have yet to slap Taunt on Allistar. I've actually always have used Threaten, but will be using Taunt for this play through.



I think I have a decent understand of CC. I need to remember though that my mage doesn't wear massive armor. Something I think is taking some time to get sue too.



So is the Walking Bomb line a bad idea? I was thinking of using Sleep with Virulent Walking Bomb, as needed or Cone of Cold and VWB. They seemed like fun combos. I LOVE Waking Nightmare.



Is Spell Might worth using other than for Storm of the Century?

[knownastherat]

Rhodric78 wrote...



I think I have a decent understand of CC. I need to remember though that my mage doesn't wear massive armor. Something I think is taking some time to get sue too.

Yes lack of armor, or rather defense, can produce complicated situations, though mages have means of buffing themselves decently even outside Arcane Warrior specialization. Try Glyph of  Warding for example or even Arcane Shield, Heroic Aura or Rock Armour despite it could be argued if mages necessarily need defense. As you said, depends what kind of mage you wanna get used to.


My opinion is that the Virulet/Walking Bomb is powerful and useful. It needs to be set up carefully* unlike some other AoE almost fire-and-forget spells, but casting it on damaged/disabled enemies in packs can be devastating. Attacking Sleeping enemies wakes them up, that is why I said the thing about focus fire. One by one, sleep till I kiss you

No clue about Storm and Spell Might, but it gives substatial bonus to Spell Power which is the attribute for DPS.


edit:* or as single target (boss?) DoT

Modifié par knownastherat, 07 janvier 2010 - 04:13 .

[soteria]

Try using walking bomb on an enemy, and then shattering them. Quick way to do some serious damage.

[Mries]

Whenever I play as being a mage, I will ALWAYS take an other mage with me. If you get Morrigain, make sure you give her the Single Heal power. Perhaps Arcane mage will be more suitable for you?

Good luck!

[tetracycloide]

A good way to manage tactics is to have every DPS train on the tank's target, in this case attack target of Alistair. This way the threat built by threaten, which only works on the target the tank is attacking, is actually being used and there are fewer agro pulls. For my tank I usually set their target manually to whatever I want killed first.



Once you get taunt on Alistair the first tactic for Alistair, after health poltices if you want him to use them, is Enemy: Any -> Taunt. If the tank uses it on every cooldown there will rarely be any threat issues.



I would suggest getting the glyph line through repulsion very soon, between the three glyphs and the spell combo it's among the best CC in the game.

[Br0th3rGr1mm]

Playing a mage, you need to make sure you have a tank to pull agro off you AFTER you cast damage spells.  Do NOT have your tank use TAUNT on their own as they will use it too early (alternately you can set it go off when your PC is being attacked by melee).  It's a bit of a pain to micro manage this, but if you can get all the fighters off you just once during a battle, you can finish it off.

while you don't NEED another healer, it certainly DOES help.  Specing Wynne to have some CC spells as well as healing isn't a bad idea either.  When you start running into groups that have 2 or 3 mages in them you will be glad that 2 characters have Paralyze, Petrify, Crushing Prison or even Force Field (last resort) to stop them from casting.  Also, you sould set your warrior tactics to use thier knockdown skills on any mage in sight (if you don't want to micro manage these).

Modifié par Br0th3rGr1mm, 07 janvier 2010 - 04:56 .

[Addai]

Mries wrote...

Whenever I play as being a mage, I will ALWAYS take an other mage with me. If you get Morrigain, make sure you give her the Single Heal power. Perhaps Arcane mage will be more suitable for you?
Good luck!

+2 to this.  I found most battles ridiculously easy with my PC mage and Morrigan.  I planned to have her with me most of the time, so I chose her spells to compliment mine (like Grease + Fireball).
Most of the time the warriors could sit back and buff their nails, maybe pick up a few stragglers, before you know it we all go back to the camp for a beer.

[Jack-Nader]

I don't like your spell choice, TBH. Let me rephrase that, your spell choice is good BUT it is obvious to me that you have picked these spells at the wrong time in the game.

As a mage your first priority is to disable and rain death asap. You do not have armor and your defense is horrid so you really only have 2 viable options available to you..

Option 1) Increase your defense with spells and try to support your party - This is an "ok" option until you consider that the mage can actually do more damage than your entire party combined.

Option 2) Turn your mage into a walking tactical nuke. Pondering any work from the great generals of the past will teach you offense is your best defense. This is the option I always choose.

Spell choice..

The first enemies you fight are in the fade so you need to pick spells that are in the offensive and defensive class. The first spell on the list that truly fits this description is "winters grasp." You are actually rewarded in the fade for taking it as it does double damage to wraith wisps. If we examine the spell list further we notice that there are 4 more spells in the game that fit this description. These spells are Fireball, Rock fist, Cone of cold and Crushing prison. They are to be considered priority spells, however the order that you take them in is crucial.

The first area where your mage is lacking is range. Obviously you have poor defense so the best solution is to keep the enemy away from you. The best spell to flesh out this hole is "fireball" as it is an AOE medium ranged spell that knocks back the enemy. Shoot for this spell first.

The next spell to shoot for is rock fist. Rock fist is an underrated spell but it is one of the more useful CC spells. It can be used to shatter enemies or it can be used to cue ball hostiles away from you, out of glyph of repulsion zones or into the path of AOE spells.

Cone of cold is your next stop. You pick it last because it has the shortest range.
Cone of cold works wonders when you combine it with walking bomb and then a trigger spell like rock fist or crushing prison.

You can aim for Crushing prison later on. I generally skip this spell for my main mage but always grab it for wynn or morigan.

From here on your next priority spell becomes walking bomb. This is to be used to explode any hostile trapped in your cone of cold and also as a DOT boss killer.

Location is your next deciding factor with spell picks..

Redcliffe -> glyph of repulsion, inferno, (heal on morigan)
Denerim -> No special spell picks required
Brecilian forest -> glyph of repulsion, mana clash, misdirection (on morrigan / wynn,) vulnerability/affliction hex ( on mirrigan / wynn)
Mage tower -> Mana clash, spell shield (if solo), forcefield ( if solo)
Urn of sacren ashes -> mana clash, glyph of repulsion

Obviously for attributes you do not need anything other than Magic. I would suggest you make a brief stop in denerim first to acquire gold for tomes. Then hit the mage tower. This way you will not have to waste points in cunning as the fade stats flesh out this requirement.

Pick up Final reason as a staff as fireball will be doing most of your damage, staff of the magister lords will replace it late game. Reapers vestments are pehaps the best robes, The tevinter robes are quite good initially.

Modifié par Jack-Nader, 07 janvier 2010 - 07:34 .

[soteria]

Playing a mage, you need to make sure you have a tank to pull agro off you AFTER you cast damage spells. Do NOT have your tank use TAUNT on their own as they will use it too early (alternately you can set it go off when your PC is being attacked by melee). It's a bit of a pain to micro manage this, but if you can get all the fighters off you just once during a battle, you can finish it off.

This is false. Taunt is not like taunt in WoW, like (I assume) you're thinking. It just applies a large (300) amount of threat to the target.



Jack-Nader, raining death from afar is only one way to play a mage. Obviously his mage isn't built for that, but it doesn't mean he needs to redirect his build. Arguably, yes, the mage can do more damage than everyone else, but some people would consider nuking the entire battlefield with large aoe spells a boring way to play.

[Cybercat999]

Rhodric78 wrote...
So is the Walking Bomb line a bad idea? I was thinking of using Sleep with Virulent Walking Bomb, as needed or Cone of Cold and VWB. They seemed like fun combos. I LOVE Waking Nightmare.

It is not bad idea, however you have to be very careful with it. If you run with 3 melee characters in party, they will run at enemy and mingle with them, and there is possibility that the mob carrying the bomb runs directly at you (with them following) and basically wipes you all.
I managed to kill my entire party with WWB at lower levels more than once.
So, you have to be really careful.

Sleep is mass CC, throwing AoE in it is bad idea. If you dont insta kill everything, you will get entire bunch at 10% hp bashing at you. If you use Sleep just pick them one by one.
It is always better idea to kill one mob at the time than just damage a bunch of them, mob at 1% hp still hits on you just as hard as the one with full health.

Modifié par Cybercat999, 07 janvier 2010 - 07:18 .

[Jack-Nader]

Logic dictates that his build does require redirect. He would not have posted for help unless he had exhausted all avenues. I can fully appreciate the trouble he is having. Morrigans default build is quite similar to the way he has his mage speced.



I am currently playing through with a two-hand warrior as I am rather curious about how the Combat Tweak alterations affect the class. I have morrigan, alistair and lilianna all fresh out of lothering and are of their default builds. Morrigan is absolutely terrible. Some may argue that her default build is fine, and indeed it is fine but there is efficiency and then there is inefficiency. Morrigans default build cannot hold a candle to the build I described in the earlier post. The difference is day and night.

[soteria]

No, that's not what logic dictates. He had two problems--Alistair not being able to manage threat, and not being able to keep his warriors alive. Those would be solved by picking up Regeneration/Group heal and giving Alistair Taunt, not by picking up more damage spells. There's nothing wrong with building a mage as a tactical nuker, but it's not remotely necessary. I played with Wynne not having any offensive spells except Cone of Cold and Stone Fist and did just fine. His spells are good.

[Cybercat999]

I am playing with respecced Morrigan, SH with all the healing, rejuvenating, auras and so on, plus I gave her Mana Clash as the only offensive spell.

I took frost until CoC and 3 glyphs as my first ones, then I filled last Spirit line for Crushing Prison, Entropy full line for Nightmare and now I am filling Hexes. I got Bloody Grasp from DLC and combine it with Drain Life, those 2 are enough to kill white enemy.

After I finish with Hex line I am going for Blood Wound. I *might* get Fireball after that but its not mandatory.



With above mage I am playing almost-no-pause-nightmare very successfully, level 13 and 1 injury so far. Granted I might not do so much dps as I would with more offensive/AoE spells but CC combos are godly and I have very good control over my fights.

[tetracycloide]

Br0th3rGr1mm wrote...

Playing a mage, you need to make sure you have a tank to pull agro off you AFTER you cast damage spells.  Do NOT have your tank use TAUNT on their own as they will use it too early (alternately you can set it go off when your PC is being attacked by melee).  It's a bit of a pain to micro manage this, but if you can get all the fighters off you just once during a battle, you can finish it off.

That's not how agro works.  Taunt isn't an ability that automatically puts the tank on the top of the threat list, it's just 400 (or 500 with reaver) flat threat in an AoE.  Ideal usage will always be to taunt on cooldown because that's the highest threat per second.  The only caviat is that, improperly managed, tanks will taunt before everything they need to taunt is in range.  Proper manuvering will usually prevent that.

[Jack-Nader]

Let's talk about taunt. He states that he lacks threat management. Will giving alistair taunt fix this? No, his mage is still going to generate more aggro than Alistair can. This leaves him 2 options



1) Have his mage chill out and become a healer which will solve his aggro problem.

2) Give his mage some grunt.



If he chooses option 1, then taunt will have some effect. Walking bomb becomes his main issue as casting it generates a lot of threat. Sleep/ nightmare synergies well in a melee based party. Glyph line + healing and perhaps haste / flaming weapons / mana clash would allow him to conquer everything the game has to offer.



Option 2)

I've already summed up my view and will not repeat myself..



Both options require a redirection of his build, Option 2 is the more extreme of the two. On top of this he is going to have to give some thought into which play style suits him and adjust accordingly.

[swk3000]

I was using a 'Self: Any -> Taunt' Tactic on Alistair for a while, and noticed it wasn't doing anything because Alistair was using it when no enemies were in range. However, I found a work-around. Basically, change the tactic to 'Enemy at short range -> Taunt'. Since Alistair is a melee fighter, he charges towards the nearest enemy, and when they're close, he hits Taunt. This attracts the attention of all nearby enemies, and significantly increases his ability to keep threat. It gives you all the benefits of the 'Taunt should always be on cooldown' thing, while still managing to have it used in a half-way intelligent (or at least not idiotic) manner.