87 réponses à ce sujet

[Zalathorm]

Greetings - Has anyone come across any spells, passives, or abilities that are so underwhelming that you wouldn't spec into it?  Please provide a brief explanation why the ability isn't worth speccing into.  Examples: Cooldown too long, cost too high, effects are underwhelming, redundancy, other abilities are better for the same effect.  I'll try to update the OP

 

 

Mage

Horror: AOE too small, synergy issue where mobs run randomly and disperse from possible walking bomb damage

Ice Wall : vrtually useless, it will be a different story if it can freeze enemies. Why Bioware get rid of Cone of Cold i would never know (maybe because it was too good)

Flashfire : high mana cost, only effect 1 enemy, fear doesnt have combo possibility

Blizzard : bugged skill, low damage

Mind blast : useless skill, waste of mana

Lighning bolt : high mana cost, mediocre damage and effect

Gathering Storm : bugged skill, doesnt work at all

Stormbringer : no proc/no visual on proc, useless without gathering storm because long cooldown

 

 

 

Rogue

 

 

 

Warrior

[Magma_Axis]

Ice Wall : vrtually useless, it will be a different story if it can freeze enemies. Why Bioware get rid of Cone of Cold i would never know (maybe because it was too good)

 

Flashfire : high mana cost, only effect 1 enemy, fear doesnt have combo possibility

 

Blizzard : bugged skill, low damage

 

Mind blast : useless skill, waste of mana

 

Lighning bolt : high mana cost, mediocre damage and effect

 

Gathering Storm : bugged skill, doesnt work at all

 

Stormbringer : no proc/no visual on proc, useless without gathering storm because long cooldown

[Gunslinger01101]

Totally agree on lightning bolt. I'd also add the slow field from KE, but people would yell at me, because KE only needs 2 skills to be totally awesome.

[Manki]

Ill add my two cents from an Archer Rogue perspective, at least on Nightmare.

 

Evasion - 5% chance to activate? This is supposed to be one of the rogue's answer to not having guard and right now, it feels like a wasted point.

 

Caltrops - This seems terrible. I actually for a while was using a bow that dropped these occasionally, basically the only time it was ever useful was to kite enemies that I had aggro on over them. One thing however, I think they also break stealth, which is horrible. If they didnt it would be slightly more useful to set up before a strong pull while stealth. Until then, another wasted point.

 

Explosive Shot - This one is maybe not completely right for this list, however the AoE damage from the attack is very low. In addition, with the fire component attached to it, makes it really bad for alot of enemies. The saving grace of this ability is the slight stagger it provides and the only reason to keep it on your bars.

 

Overall I'm pretty happy with the Specialization trees for rogue. If any gripes were to be had it would be with the inability to use most traps effectively as an artificer/Ranged character, but that is a preference thing. The tree is clearly made for melee.

[Sidian]

Mage

Horror: AOE too small, synergy issue where mobs run randomly and disperse from possible walking bomb damage

Ice Wall : vrtually useless, it will be a different story if it can freeze enemies. Why Bioware get rid of Cone of Cold i would never know (maybe because it was too good)

Flashfire : high mana cost, only effect 1 enemy, fear doesnt have combo possibility

Blizzard : bugged skill, low damage

Mind blast : useless skill, waste of mana

Lighning bolt : high mana cost, mediocre damage and effect

Gathering Storm : bugged skill, doesnt work at all

Stormbringer : no proc/no visual on proc, useless without gathering storm because long cooldown

I agree on Horror and Ice Wall (only found 2 situations were Ice Wall would have been usefull in 40 hours of gameplay) - couldn't try Blizzard and Mind Blast.

But i disagree on the others.

Flashfire is almost the best CC in the game in my opinion - with Winter Stillness, you can disable one enemy permanently (until you attack it). Much better than Horror.

Lightning Bolt can be used for combos and the CC effect can be quite good, too, making one enemy defenseless for 6-10 seconds if placed correctly.

Gathering Storm and Stormbringer are not bugged. Stormbringer looks like a Lightning Bolt from Chain Lightning and deals almost the same damage, so it's possible you have overlooked that. Gathering Storm also works, but the effect is quite small - maybe there is a bug when combined with Winter Stillness, reducing the effect.

[DrekorSilverfang]

 

Ice Wall : vrtually useless, it will be a different story if it can freeze enemies. Why Bioware get rid of Cone of Cold i would never know (maybe because it was too good)

 

Disagree with this... it's a great way to keep ice armor up.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

You can add in that the mana cost of horror is way higher than it should be AND that the casting animation is very long. Horror is black sheep of the necromancy tree.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

Also stormbringer has a hard CD. The lightning strike is not affected by reduced CD, making this lackluster skill even worse.

[lastpawn]

Evasion passive, 5%, is worthless. 1/5 or 25% would be nice. Even 10% would be aight.

 

The word is that Bloodied Prey is based on actual health # rather than % -- this would make it worthless.

 

Also, Blessed Blades seems to work only on demons, in a certain AoE, making it rather disappointing.

 

Flank Attack is fantastic when it works. Unfortunately, it does NOT WORK ON UNEVEN TERRAIN. So frustrating.

[Rasande]

I acually like Icewall, it's very usefull on high difficulties to protect your characters from archers and other ranged enemies when there is none, or create choke points.

But i agree with Lightening bolt, it's worthless. Costs way too much mana for little to no effect unless your target is surrounded by enemies, and in that situation i'd rather just use aoe spells.

 

The ressurcet skill in the spirit tree, whatever it's called is pretty much a wasted point aswell.

[swk3000]

Someone mind explaining why Mind Blast is "useless"? Because it has been in both Origins and DA2, and in both cases, the point wasn't it's stun or knockback; the point was it's threat reduction. Mind Blast was what a mage used when they were being targeted by melee enemies to drop threat. However, this was countered by the fact that there was a distance component to threat; if there was no one on an enemy's threat table, they went after the closest target. In order for Mind Blast to work properly, you had to pop it, then move away before the victims recovered.

Now, I haven't taken Mind Blast on my Mage (not sure how many skill points I'm going to have, so I'm concentrating on the core of my build first). Has this game changed how it or the rest of the game works enough to render it useless?

[Blackstork]

Mind blast is early spell which leads further on spirit tree. Its always nice to keep it unless your bar is full and you have better replacement. I find it useful sometimes, and also main use is that it serves as eld. Detonator so is actually "nightmare" spell on any sleeping target. If you run with rogues , main is rogue and esp. If you have Cole, its awesome spell to have on mage.

[Lerrasien]

Ice wall is actually really helpful on Nightmare if you get aggro from archers, you can just throw down the ice wall and they just shoot the wall or run to get line of sight back, not to mention the 50% damage redux from the passive, and you can basically keep it up at all times. Something that is really helpful for it is to also use it to create a bottleneck when fighting a large amount of enemies, especially if you're like me and you like to play 1 tank + 3 ranged (usually 2 mages). I play with Blackwall and then use Icewall and then nothing can get to the back line unless I'm out in the open or something.

[Ganen]

I dont really agree icewall is useless tbh, it may be situational, but it does have pretty powerful uses, usually in tighter areas for blocking waves of enemies and ergo greatly diminish party damage taken, or in open area to help with kiting/ice armor proc or to block off archer attackers.

but I can see how it can be "underwhelming"

[Lerrasien]

Another fun thing you could do with icewall if you wanted to go with three mages for shits and giggles would be to make an ice fortress around your team and create bottlenecks no matter where you go. I can see that being entertaining as well as efficient.

[Maverick827]

Rogue:

 

I was extremely disappointed that Toxic Cloud from the Sabotage tree was not an AoE that you could place at range.  Instead, you just throw a poison AoE around yourself, which is useless for archers.

 

The Full Draw upgrade Stunning Shot is...not bad, but weird.  A 20 second CC is pretty good, but why is my best damage ability also my only crowd control ability?  There's an issue here with resource usage.  It's generally not a good idea to spread damage around.  You either want to AoE or to focus targets down individually.

 

Warrior:

 

Grappling Chain just flat out doesn't work sometimes.  Also, and NPC mage's teleport ability seems to be on a much lower cooldown.

 

It'll Cost You: 15% damage of already-mitigated damage done to my Warrior is such a paltry amount.  Maybe it will help with Dragons or something, but I was not impressed with it for the time that I had it.

 

Mage:

 

Dispel: This is only a nit pick, the spell is actually very good.  But it seems like some enemies just have a Barrier spell on a 3 second cooldown.  Dispelling an enemy barrier usually just leads to them casting a new one.

 

Energy Barrage:  Breaks Winter Stillness for some reason.  Also, it uses your staff elemental type instead of just being electric damage itself, which can come back to bite you.

 

Pretty much all of the Winter tree

[godlike13]

I wouldn't say Lightning Bolt is bad. Its cost is too high, but it can hit pretty hard with its upgrade. Plus it Paralyzes, which sets up one of the better, if not the best combo. 

 

Rogue:

 

Pretty much all of the Winter tree

 

The bottom half. 

[Magma_Axis]

Rogue:

 

I was extremely disappointed that Toxic Cloud from the Sabotage tree was not an AoE that you could place at range.  Instead, you just throw a poison AoE around yourself, which is useless for archers.

 

The Full Draw upgrade Stunning Shot is...not bad, but weird.  A 20 second CC is pretty good, but why is my best damage ability also my only crowd control ability?  There's an issue here with resource usage.  It's generally not a good idea to spread damage around.  You either want to AoE or to focus targets down individually.

 

Warrior:

 

Grappling Chain just flat out doesn't work sometimes.  Also, and NPC mage's teleport ability seems to be on a much lower cooldown.

 

It'll Cost You: 15% damage of already-mitigated damage done to my Warrior is such a paltry amount.  Maybe it will help with Dragons or something, but I was not impressed with it for the time that I had it.

 

Mage:

 

Dispel: This is only a nit pick, the spell is actually very good.  But it seems like some enemies just have a Barrier spell on a 3 second cooldown.  Dispelling an enemy barrier usually just leads to them casting a new one.

 

Energy Barrage:  Breaks Winter Stillness for some reason.  Also, it uses your staff elemental type instead of just being electric damage itself, which can come back to bite you.

 

Pretty much all of the Winter tree

WInter tree upper tree is pretty much definition of "Must Haves"

 

Actually, it's very good that Energy Barrage based on Staff element, that way you can change around to cover enemy weakness (esp with the upgrade that give -24% weakness to staff element)

[zeypher]

blessed blades for templars, its useless

[Wolfgrey666]

The Full Draw CC is actually quite good considering you can follow up for a garenteed crit if you have that passive. So Full Draw , Long Shot dead. As an assassin it's even better as you have Knockout Bomb which has a pretty low cooldown.

 

I agree about Dispel, is crazy useful but it always seems they have barriers on this crazy 3-5 second cooldown. I am a bit jealous of that.

 

I love Flashfire but the only time it is honestly useful is if your a Necromancer or if you have Dorian for Horror/FireWall. For me Horror is amazing because my main right now is a DW Artificer, so i can use it to make them run through my mines again and again.

 

Evade 5% as mentioned is quite possibly the worst passive/skill point you can ever take. I don't know why they even thought it was worthwhile(honestly i think Bioware focused very little on combat and character creation this time around, the AI options show this best, they outright lazy with some of it).

[JaegerBane]

I can't believe anyone is claiming Energy Barrage is useless on the basis that it interrupts winter stillness. That's winter stillness's fault for being so restrictive. By that logic, spirit blade is useless too.

I agree about lightning bolt, dispel and flashfire tho.

[actionhero112]

Ice Wall allows you to use Ice armor with 100% uptime. It's essential for soloing the game on nightmare as a mage. 

 

Dispel is the largest targeted eldrich detonator in the game on an 8 second cooldown. That alone makes it one of the best spells in the entire game. Late games that's essentially a 1-2.5k aoe spell on a extremely low cooldown.

 

Those who say it's not good are obviously delusional. 

[ThelLastTruePatriot]

Disagree with this... it's a great way to keep ice armor up.

 You can use it for that, but I prefer just dropping an ice mine near myself, it stays on the ground longer and of course if an enemy just happens to stumble onto it, even better.

[JaegerBane]

Those who say it's not good are obviously delusional.

Hmmm. Good job no-one is saying that, then.

 
Dispel: This is only a nit pick, the spell is actually very good But it seems like some enemies just have a Barrier spell on a 3 second cooldown.  Dispelling an enemy barrier usually just leads to them casting a new one.
 

[Biotic Flash Kick]

Hmmm. Blessed Blades is a mixed bag. needs some love/buff. 

Line in the sand? this needs a buff. it's never came in handy. especially since you HAVE to take it. 

 

I hate playing mages. so many broken detonators and broken skills :<

Mindblast's upgrade is bugged.

stonefist is bugged. actually for me? rift mage is bugged. no weakness at all ever on any enemy. in or out of tact cam :/

 

lighting is such crap. might as well go energy barrage and just take the right side anyway. 

 

horror is just completely terrible. and with line in the sand gotta take it. both of them are absolute wastes of points.

spirit mark is so gltichy and bugged. 

 

lol flashfire. too expensive. 

 

the top half of winter is so amazing. then it falls off

 

blizzard why are you broken T___T 

 

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as for rogue i love hook and tackle but even with hook and tackle poison cloud is stupid. 

just terrible. 

throwing blades is a waste was well. 

get a masterwork of 4-5 hidden blades save yourself the stamina and wasted points. 

 

evade's upgrade is bugged and thus crap. 

 

caltrops is just bad.

 

some of the tempest passives are bugged so f them too. 

 

assassin's knockout bomb is LoL why.