16 réponses à ce sujet

[m.harmless]

I currently playing a Mage character focused primarily on crowd control with a to a lesser extent damage dealing and a little bit of support.

Until level 6 I got the following spells:

Arcane Bolt

Winter's Grasp
Frost Weapons
Cone of Cold

Mind Blast
Force Field
Telekinetic Weapons
Crushing Prison

Heal


Now I'm undecided what to learn next and I would welcome suggestions/thoughts/input from those of you who have more experience playing mages.


I know that I'd like to have the Blood Mage spells later on, but I haven't unlocked them yet, and the really good ones require level 14 and 16 anyway. So what to pick until then?

I was thinking of taking either the Sleep or the Paralyse Line for more crowd control (especially AoE stun) without the risk of friendly fire.

The Sleep Line seemed especially appealing because of Waking Nightmare, although I was wondering whether there are enemies who are immune to sleep / horror / waking nightmare. (It seemed to me that demons were never affect by sleep, might be others as well).

The Glyphs also seemed interesting. Does anyone know if Paralysis Explosion can be resisted or if it paralyses automatically?

Then there's the Walking Bomb/Animate dead tree which seems like fun with high damage potential, albeit dangerous because of the friendly fire aspect of exploding enemies. I was also wondering if Death Syphon us worth the upkeep costs and how long Animate Dead lasts (fixed duration/until end of combat/...)?


I'm also unsure what to pick as my other specialisation. Spirit Healer seems the most useful one, if only for Group Heal.


Anyway, as I said, any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Creature 1]

Glyph line. Definitely. Except maybe not the last one, depending on what other tactics you plan on using for enemy mages.



I don't think I've seen paralysis explosion resisted, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.



My dumbest combat mistake was glyph of repulsion on my mage followed by panic and glyph of paralysis on a hurlock alpha attacking said mage. Thirty seconds later the darkspawn archers had killed my party and I was still banging my head on my desk. Yeah, be careful.



Sleep is nice but rather low duration, and your allies are prone to waking multiple enemies in fits of stupid. Additionally, you can really only cause massive spirit damage to one target because the cooldown takes so long they wake up before you're ready to cast again.



Haven't used the death spells, I've heard death siphon is not that great.

[Cybercat999]

Glyphs definitely. First 3 are a must.

Sleep line is much better than Paralysis, maybe it depends on what difficulty you play, on nightmare Paralysis gets resisted too much too often.

Blood Wound - best CC/dps spell imo.

Animate Dead is meh, could be more useful if it wouldnt reset at every zoning.



Be careful with PE, sometimes the first glyph seems to wear off yet its still active though you cant see it, drop second one and poof. Besides PE have a lot wider range than each glyph by itself, be careful not to get caught in it.

[m.harmless]

thank you both for your input.



ok, so paralysis explosion is prone to friendly fire, I presume? good to know.

[soteria]

Yes, it is, but as an above poster said, it seems to work every time, even on bosses who would normally resist repulsion and or paralysis glyphs by themselves.



Blizzard is also a great control spell, in addition to doing good damage. Pretty much casting it on a group of archers takes them out of the fight. Fireball and stonefist with their knockdowns can help with CC as well. Earthquake and Petrify I haven't played with enough to comment on their viability, although Earthquake does work well with a 2h warrior with Indomitable active.

[Sarielle]

m.harmless wrote...

thank you both for your input.

ok, so paralysis explosion is prone to friendly fire, I presume? good to know.

Yeah, I made the mistake of thinking that since none of my allies or I were standing on Repulsion that the stun wouldn't hit us...but it did. It's got a pretty big range. Still, that can be SUPER useful if done from range.

[m.harmless]

After some testing and reloading I decided to go for the glyphs. And I can see where the warnings come from. Even though I was forewarned I managed to 3 out of 4 party members paralysed once. Hurray for Alistair for saving the day all by himself... ^^



Although I still don't quite understand how that happend. At the beginning of the battle I used a glyph of paralysis on one of the enemies. Later on in the battle (that glyph had worn off by then) I wanted to use glyph of warding on Alistair and thereby set off a paralysis explosion. My guess is that I accidently used the wrong glyph spell, but even if I did, the paralysis glyph was already triggered and the paralysis had worn off. Strange...



I'm still unsure what to take next. I'm level 9 now and I want to start taking the blood mage spells starting at level 12 so I have 2 openings before that.

[m.harmless]

I just thought of something - maybe the enemies used a glyph spell that interefered with mine? I think I was fighting rage demons and shades at that time. Can they cast glyph spells?

[Cybercat999]

Yes, I saw mostly emissaries cast glyphs but I dont think they stack with yours. In all probability the one you think wore off didnt (they tend to linger quite a while though unseen) and you used the wrong one.

Personally I went 3 frost ones, glyphs, full Crushing Prison line, full Sleep. Then I got Drain Life since I like using that one in combo with Bloody Grasp. Then I took full Hex line, its really good on bosses and such.

Oh, forgot to say, my Morrigan is assigned to enemy mages with Mana Clash, so if you dont have another mage that can take over some of your spells, I reccomend that one as early as you can get it.

Modifié par Cybercat999, 09 janvier 2010 - 06:14 .

[m.harmless]

I plan to take at least one other mage along, possible both of them. So I guess I will leave the Sleep Line and the Hexes to Morrigan who already has 3 of those 8 spells.

Is Mana Clash really that essential as a Mage killer? I was thinking about taking the 4th glyph spell for quick mage disabling.

And I think I figured about how my unvoluntary paralysis explosions came to be. Seems like the tactics for my main character were set for "controller" and as soon as I got the glyph spells, the game automatically created 2 new tactic slots for glyph of paralysis (use when ally is clustered with enemies) and glyph of repulsion (use when mana > 75%). I tested this by taking controll of another character during combat and voila my character managed to AI himself into another paralysis explosion. The game apparantely does not take into account whether or not the caster would paralyse himself...

So I have an important question:

I have replaced the tactic slots for  the glyph spells with tactics for other spells. But does that guarantee that my character will never use glyphs without my explicit command or is there a chance he might anyway and I always have to watch out for unwanted glyphs? [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/uncertain.png[/smilie]

Or to phrase the question more generally: do characters use spells/talents that are not assigned in the tactic menu?

[Cybercat999]

Mana Clash is fastest way to deal with mages, if you dont want to be OP then skip it; personally I play how I like and I am happy about not having to think about mages danger. Maybe in my next playthrough if I feel the game is to easy



No, characters never use spells that are not assigned in the tactics menu, you dont have to fear that.

[m.harmless]

I think I'll try Mana Clash with Morrigan or Wynne and get a few "fun" spells for the rest of my free points. I'm tending towards Walking Bomb and Animate Dead. Even if raising the dead is not that great/powerful it seems like it could be fun to have one of the walking dead around



Thanks for the quick reply on the tactics question. That's a relief. Do you by any chance know if it's the same for talents? Because I think while I never saw Wynne use the spells that she doesn't have tactic slots for on her own, I think Alistair uses his talents even when there is no tactic command for them. I might be mistaken though.

[Cybercat999]

No matter what kind of character, they will never use on their own something that is not in tactics menu.

I know what you mean with fun, I thought so too on one of my mages and it was fun..... until I changed the zone and my dead warrior just disappeared, was bit less fun then >.<

[Spartansfan8888]

m.harmless wrote...

I just thought of something - maybe the enemies used a glyph spell that interefered with mine? I think I was fighting rage demons and shades at that time. Can they cast glyph spells?

Yes enemies glyphs can interact with yours.  In fact that's how I discovered paralysis explosion was by trying to paralyze a desire demon who put a repulsion glyph down.

[m.harmless]

Alright, have to watch out for enemy glyphs then.

@cybercat: I can see how that might spoil the fun. What exactly defines a "zone change" if I might ask? Is is everytime the game has to load?

[Cybercat999]

Yes, every time game loads your companion disappears. Same happens with ranger pets. Pretty annoying if you ask me.

Thanks for the info, Spartansfan8888, I never had the chance to see PE caused by anyone but myself, its good to know.

Modifié par Cybercat999, 09 janvier 2010 - 03:25 .

[m.harmless]

Thanks again, everyone.

And for anyone who is annoyed by the pet disapperances - I found and interesting looking mod (look here: dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php or here: social.bioware.com/project/873/)

It seems to be a completely modular collections of various gameplay changes and includes a modification that stops all summoned creatures from disappearing during transitions. Hopefully it also works with the animanted dead. Have yet to try it out.

Modifié par m.harmless, 09 janvier 2010 - 04:51 .