23 réponses à ce sujet

[Saresi]

Because every mage should have it.

It is simply too good to pass. When Cassandra, build and equipped as tank, has 800 HP at level 7, but my mages barrier grants 1.500!! temporary HP to five party members - why not have it?

 

As it stands, Spirit´s Barrier is so overpowered, that every Party will have it. I know, it is somewhat meant to be the replacement for the healing-bot of Dragon Age Origns, but at least you could dump your Whyme in favor of (mass produced) healing potions if you played it right.

 

Playing "right" (meaning succeusfully) above medium difficulty does require you to have at least one Barrier casting mage with you all the time. If you want to play without the tactic camera, two don´t do any harm.

 

This is very one dimensional.

[Anelyn77]

Couple thoughts:

 

1st) Barrier instantly starts to decay (ie losing absorb value) so if you don't get instantly hit or use it to block a big hit, most of it's absorb is wasted

2nd) DoT's will chew a barrier damn fast (hard / NM)

3rd) They can be dispelled / purged

4th) You can't have non stop barrier up, there are loads of disables to prevent you from doing that even if you run 3 or 4 mages for some reason (not addressing the KE in particular, but the rest of mage types / specs).

5th) After a point not too far in the game, you can completely drop barrier and rely on guard & tactics & positioning

[TeamLexana]

I don't like Barrier, it drops too fast and is a pain to cast. It can help, so I suggest speccing it, but it's far from op.

 

In the MP, I do love it on the elementalist simply because there is a passive that consumes part of the barrier to strengthen his fire spells, lol.

[Tevinter Soldier]

i don't see it that way at all in fact i specc'd my crew so they generate 3 guard for every hit, 1000000000X more impressive than waiting for barrier to come off cooldown.

 

There's no way i would have finished on hard if i didn't have guard generating on my mages. granted i haven't spec'd a KE yet but without a KE that barrier takes far, far, far too long to get off cool down to be of any use, especially if it get's dispelled.

 

Yes ok i'm not the most skilled player in the world but that's a far point, if me someone who took 4 attempts to beat the final missing because of that god damn dragon took up all my healing potions can't use barrier effectively then it's not OP'd.

 

a skilled gamer i've no doubt could rely on barrier to survive but i really struggled to get through hard mode, if it wasn't for the 3 guard on hit masterworks option there's no way in hell i would have beat the game on hard.

[Saresi]

It is obvious that Guard on Hit, especially coupled with fast attacking staves, is even more OP. Doesn´t make barrier any better. Considering the crappy AI/Tactics, it is the only way to reliably keep squishies a live in nightmare. Granted.

[Back Lot Basher]

How does "Guard on Hit" work?

[Saresi]

It adds X amount of Barrier to the attacking character for each successful autoattack- hit.

[Sevitan7]

Barrier is OP, but kind of a necessary one on higher difficulties, at least until you get better gear. Barrier provides of thousands of extra HP, an essentially acts as temporary invincibility, so it's too good not to take. Barrier solves all your difficulty problems resulting from inherent flaws in combat mechanics.

 

Guard is worthless without good armor/high % resistance since it's just +25% hp when maxed. If you an enemy takes half of you lifebar away with each hit then full guard will let you last an extra hit at best. On the other hand, it's easy for Shield Warriors to receive such high damage resistance it makes Guard useful, but moot.

[Adhin]

Just to throw this out there, but Barrier doesn't use defense, armor, or resistances. That is, the 1500 it gives is taking the full 400+ dmg a hit (this is NM im going off off). It'll drop in 2-3 hits. It's not literally adding 1500 HP to your tanks compared to there 800 (or 1k+ or whatever you manage to get). Also guard, at 'base' is 25% your max HP not counting +Hp items. That is to say it only counts your total HP from base+con. +max HP items gets ignored.

 

Guard for a warrior ultimately has more potential then barrier does. But barrier is an extremely useful supplement. Ignoring Guard because you think guard is acting straight HP then...your probably playing on lower difficulties and that probably works fine. But Barrier dropping almost immediately in NM you start to realize how much more beneficial guard is comparatively.

 

On the plus side Barrier total strength is based off your dmg totals. So a high dmg staff with a butt ton of +magic/attack will result in much stronger barriers. But it is by no means a replacement for Guard on your tanks. It just makes building guard easier.

[Sevitan7]

Just to throw this out there, but Barrier doesn't use defense, armor, or resistances. That is, the 1500 it gives is taking the full 400+ dmg a hit (this is NM im going off off). It'll drop in 2-3 hits. It's not literally adding 1500 HP to your tanks compared to there 800 (or 1k+ or whatever you manage to get).

 

 

It doesn't matter and doesn't need to because it adds far more than 1500 HP. My Barrier currently adds 5K hp, without the +50 barrier bonus passive. And with the Barrier Ring, it translates into 10+ seconds of invulnerability even when taking hits.

 

 

Guard for a warrior ultimately has more potential then barrier does. But barrier is an extremely useful supplement. Ignoring Guard because you think guard is acting straight HP then...your probably playing on lower difficulties and that probably works fine. But Barrier dropping almost immediately in NM you start to realize how much more beneficial guard is comparatively. But Barrier dropping almost immediately in NM you start to realize how much more beneficial guard is comparatively.

 

 

It has more potential only in the sense that you can easily reach damage resistance and armor value so high you end up taking very low damage. In which case, both barrier and guard become irrelevant. I have idea what you are doing that barrier drops almost immediately for you on Nightmare or why it's value is so low for you. For me, barrier translates to 10 seconds of invulnerability always. Guard's value is solely dependent on your armor and damage resistance values. If your armor is so good guard doesn't disappear after 1 hit, then guard or not you are in no danger. You need to be in some sort of a sweet spot where incoming damage doesn't overwhelm or isn't completely negated by your armor for it to have noticeable use. And of course, that's not exactly a sweet spot, but a sign you might want to upgrade your armor.

[Draining Dragon]

It's the same issue with Warriors being pigeonholed into sword-and-shield, and Rogues being pigeonholed into archery. Two-handed and dual daggers just suck so badly that you can't use them if you're trying to be serious.

 

My character is a DPS mage, and Dorian, Vivienne, and Solas are all specced for pure Spirit, because there's no way to play without having a barrier mage.

 

They replaced the necessity of a healer with the necessity of a tank and a barrier mage.

 

In fact, the combat system has been reduced to the point that the only viable playstyle is a sword-and-shield warrior tanking while a barrier mage and two other ranged companions stand back and attack from a distance.

[Sevitan7]

It's the same issue with Warriors being pigeonholed into sword-and-shield, and Rogues being pigeonholed into archery. Two-handed and dual daggers just suck so badly that you can't use them if you're trying to be serious.

 

I chalk it up to overall poor mechanics design. Two-Handed warriors can somewhat mitigate this because they have access to better armor/shield passives, which can allow them to function relatively well in melee. But in general, the bizarre armor/damage resistance system where you can go from taking 200 damage a hit to 10 with a single upgrade and terrible "action" elements that come with no invincibility frames, take up a slot and just generally barely work (not to mention do not affect ranged classes), creates a very tedious path for functional game play on higher difficulties.

 

At this point I'm thinking of reinstalling Origins and DA2 because I miss RPG combat mechanics that aren't a complete mess.

[DetcelferVisionary]

It's the same issue with Warriors being pigeonholed into sword-and-shield, and Rogues being pigeonholed into archery. Two-handed and dual daggers just suck so badly that you can't use them if you're trying to be serious.

 

My character is a DPS mage, and Dorian, Vivienne, and Solas are all specced for pure Spirit, because there's no way to play without having a barrier mage.

 

They replaced the necessity of a healer with the necessity of a tank and a barrier mage.

 

In fact, the combat system has been reduced to the point that the only viable playstyle is a sword-and-shield warrior tanking while a barrier mage and two other ranged companions stand back and attack from a distance.

Unfortunately this is true.  Melee rogues would probably be considered if 1) The AI wasn't so horrible using it.  2)  Evasion and dodging abilities were actually good.  Defensively there simply needs to be more defense team synergy with variation possibilities.  As stands there is nothing like that.

[Magma_Axis]

Is it possible to not use a tank in DA 2 ?

 

In DAO it's very possible because how ridiculously OP mages there.

[Jukaga]

Is it possible to not use a tank in DA 2 ?

 

In DAO it's very possible because how ridiculously OP mages there.

 

DAO solo mode with an arcane warrior, specced to taste either a SH or BM is unstoppable.

[Magma_Axis]

DAO solo mode with an arcane warrior, specced to taste either a SH or BM is unstoppable.

 

I like to open fight with Fireball + Storm of the Century, see how many still lives

[Sevitan7]

Is it possible to not use a tank in DA 2 ?

 

In DAO it's very possible because how ridiculously OP mages there.

 

Edit: Misread the question

 

You can get through both games without aggro management on nightmare.

[octavian1127]

Barrier is necessary cause healing is limited to potions that you have a limited quantity of... If aggro management was possible, it wouldn't even be useful since guard is so much stronger.

[PsychicHammer]

Is it possible to not use a tank in DA 2 ?

In DAO it's very possible because how ridiculously OP mages there.

If you need a dedicated tank in DA2, you're doing it wrong

[ent1]

If you need a dedicated tank in DA2, you're doing it wrong

 

Aveline had her uses, mostly because of her complete knockdown immunity, but the DPS tank was almost always better for stagger mage combo spam. Still a "dedicated tank," just not specced for it. Force mage could obviate a warrior sometimes, as could that slowing smoke that rogues had, but mostly you still needed some kind of tank.

 

As far as barrier being "OP," you might as well say that healing is OP. If you can heal someone to full before they are killed, they might as well not have taken the damage. The thing is that barrier didn't solve anything. It just changed the mechanics in an arbitrary way that did not make things better.

[brazen_nl]

Aveline had her uses, mostly because of her complete knockdown immunity, but the DPS tank was almost always better for stagger mage combo spam. Still a "dedicated tank," just not specced for it. Force mage could obviate a warrior sometimes, as could that slowing smoke that rogues had, but mostly you still needed some kind of tank.

 

3 mages and a rogue, quickest way to clear. Anyway, wrong game.

[GhoXen]

If you gear your tank right, at around level 10-12, your tank will be able to be practically immune to all damage coming from the front (all the time, without relying on any active ability or blocking).

 

Barrier is for weak non-tank peasants.

[Carmen_Willow]

It's the same issue with Warriors being pigeonholed into sword-and-shield, and Rogues being pigeonholed into archery. Two-handed and dual daggers just suck so badly that you can't use them if you're trying to be serious.

 

My character is a DPS mage, and Dorian, Vivienne, and Solas are all specced for pure Spirit, because there's no way to play without having a barrier mage.

 

They replaced the necessity of a healer with the necessity of a tank and a barrier mage.

 

In fact, the combat system has been reduced to the point that the only viable playstyle is a sword-and-shield warrior tanking while a barrier mage and two other ranged companions stand back and attack from a distance.

I've noticed this, and I only play on Normal. The other thing you simply MUST do is give each one of your rogues stealth at the very least.

[Tookah45]

If you need a dedicated tank in DA2, you're doing it wrong

This. 4 mages, PC specs force/blood. Yank, slow, hemorrhage, fireball. GG, next fight. The other party members are just there as free damage.

 

Also, barrier isn't OP. It's necessary. There's a difference. Thousand cuts and oneshotting dragons on NM is OP, but you don't require it to complete the game. Barrier, however, is required on anything above normal. Haven't played anything below hard so I don't know how the scaling outside of that and NM works. If the jump from normal to hard is anything like hard to NM barrier may not be 100% needed below hard. At least not after about level 10.

 

Edit: 

INB4 anyone points out that that's not possible. I always (usually) edited my save file to get rid of that sh*tbag Carver because he's terrible and everyone hates him. It's just as OP with 3 mages. Or 2. Or just PC. Literally all you need to do to win is roll force/blood or zerker/vanguard.