35 réponses à ce sujet

[Bayonet Hipshot]

So how viable is Rift Mage after the first 2 patches ?

 

I heard that the application of "Weakened" is bugged. 

 

If that is true, it sort of nerfs the specialization, no ?

 

Just curious to see how people have been playing with the specialization. 

[Selea]

Luckily it seems that the weakened bug is only tied to the UI or at most to the damage reduction but for mana regen (that's the most important part) it works fine. Many people are playing a Rift mage spec spamming spells all day long so at last for mana regen it works fine, of this you can be sure.

However it is not yet established if it is just an UI bug or there's something more (as no damage reduction being applied if you hit weakened foes with weakness a second time).

The short answer to your question, apart all this, is: Rift is the best spec for what it concerns nuking and damage for a mage, by far. The second is Necro but it doesn't come close just because of the lack of the same insane mana regen. But it is also right it is so as it is the spec that's the most difficult to acquire (Necro comes practically by itself just playing and KE is really easy to get the materials of; compare this with Way of the Rift that requires you to go to an area that's moderately difficult if you go at level 9 - the earliest you can - and you even have to open an access via the War Table and so it is quite understandable that it should be better than the others).

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Luckily it seems that the weakened bug is only tied to the UI or at most to the damage reduction but for mana regen (that's the most important part) it works fine. Many people are playing a Rift mage spec spamming spells all day long so at last for mana regen it works fine, of this you can be sure.

However it is not yet established if it is just an UI bug or there's something more (as no damage reduction being applied if you hit weakened foes with weakness a second time).

The short answer to your question, apart all this, is: Rift is the best spec for what it concerns nuking and damage for a mage, by far. The second is Necro but it doesn't come close just because of the lack of the same insane mana regen. But it is also right it is so as it is the spec that's the most difficult to acquire (Necro comes practically by itself just playing and KE is really easy to get the materials of; compare this with Way of the Rift that requires you to go to an area that's moderately difficult if you go at level 9 - the earliest you can - and you even have to open an access via the War Table and so it is quite understandable that it should be better than the others).

 

Good to know.

 

By the way, the Gathering Storm passive and Stormbringer passive works.

 

For Gathering Storm, the description is misleading. It says "Each basic attack shortens your active cooldown time".  By "each basic attack" they mean each cycle of staff attack.

 

Mage basic attack with a staff has a cycle. You swish left, swish right and it ends with you striking the staff to the ground. Gathering Storm triggers only when the basic cycle of attack is complete, not when you auto-attack every time.

 

From what I gather, each staff swipe is classified as auto attack and a cycle of auto attack becomes a basic attack.

 

So a cycle of auto attack with Gathering Storm = 0.5 second cooldown reduction. Not each auto attack. 

 

Most probably what players have been doing is testing each auto attack as opposed to a cycle of auto attacks that make up a basic attack and expecting a 0.5 second cooldown reduction. That would be an insane passive if that is how it worked. 

 

Stormbringer works but the cooldown is 15 seconds so it is not easy to see and most battles are usually over within 15 minutes, hence the misconception that it is bugged. 

[Selea]

That Stormbringer wasn't bugged I already did know but that thing about Gathering Storm is interesting. If it works in cycles then it makes sense (albeit the tooltip could have been clearer on that point since it is difficult to understand that's the case from it; "each basic attack" in english language usually means just that: each basic attack, not each final attack).

As for "insane passive", well, Clean Burn tied with a Rift Mage with permanent mana is already an "insane" passive, and Flashpoint tied with an high critical build + Barrage (really easy to achieve) is in the same way "insane", and since we are here how not to talk of the "insanely insane" passive par excellence: Fade Shield, that's as broken as broken a skill can be. So "insane passive" means little given the context and it could have been easily just the case as there are other passive skills that are on par or either more "insane" than Gathering Storm working on all basic attacks as the tooltip says.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

That Stormbringer wasn't bugged I already did know but that thing about Gathering Storm is interesting. If it works in cycles then it makes sense (albeit the tooltip could have been clearer on that point since it is difficult to understand that's the case from it).

 

Yep. The skill descriptions this time around are poor, to say the least, not just for mages but for other classes as well.  

 

I decided to test out Gathering Storm in a different manner after thinking about how overpowered it would be if each staff auto attack gave 0.5 second cooldown reduction because mages' staff auto attack is really fast. 

 

Then I found out that when you complete a cycle of auto-attack, from the basic left-right staff swipe ending with staff strike to the ground, that's when Gathering Storm triggers.

 

Which then makes picking the left side passives of the Storm Tree a much more sensible thing for a Rift Mage as opposed to the right side passives of the Storm tree. Simply because Rift Mage regenerates mana so quickly that Conductive Current would be pointless most of the time and Rift Mages should not be in melee range anyway so Static Charge is pointless as well. Plus, the right side passives gives +3 Magic & +3 Constitution, the left side gives +3 Magic & +3 Willpower. Willpower is everything to mages in this game. 

[Selea]

Yeah, the right side of the Lightning tree is more for KE. In fact I never take it with Rift while for KE (if I take the spec, a thing I did only once to try it and I got bored pretty fast even when playing it as a normal mage with melee potential) it is better than the left side.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Yeah, the right side of the Lightning tree is more for KE. In fact I never take it with Rift while for KE (if I take the spec, a thing I did only once to try it and I got bored pretty fast even when playing it as a normal mage with melee potential) it is better than the left side.

 

The thing is that you have to skip Energy Barrage and pick Chain Lightning since I want Static Cage. So how ? 

[Selea]

The thing is that you have to skip Energy Barrage and pick Chain Lightning since I want Static Cage. So how ? 

You don't need to skip on Barrage. Just pick also Chain Lightning but don't use it (as I always do). 1 "wasted" skill (that's not really wasted since real wasted skills are only redundant ones that don't serve to reach the ones you need) is nothing in the end.

[konfeta]

So a cycle of auto attack with Gathering Storm = 0.5 second cooldown reduction. Not each auto attack.

That is remarkably garbage. By far the worst CDR passive in the if its the way it is intended work, especially when you need to interrupt the cycle to cast a spell. If Conductive Current calculates on cast rather than spell hit, it's at least useful when opening with something like Pull + Fire mine.

 

Luckily it seems that the weakened bug is only tied to the UI or at most to the damage reduction but for mana regen (that's the most important part) it works fine.

I want to believe this, but every time I encountered the weakened bug, mana restoration dropped like a rock.

[Selea]

I want to believe this, but every time I encountered the weakened bug, mana restoration dropped like a rock.

There was a thread about this and testings have been made. The conclusion was that it seemed to work fine for what it concerns mana regen. Naturally testing a thing like this is very difficult so it can be that in certain cases mana regen indeed stops. 

Sadly for a mistake I lost my Rift Mage playthrough so I couldn't test it properly myself. I'm on the road to making one new so I will be able to do so.

In any case let's hope that Bioware will correct these skill bugs as there are many other ones; however if the weakened bug really stops mana regen (even if only on some circumstances) it is surely one of the worsts.

[konfeta]

What's Solas then, chopped liver?

 

Anyway, I just went to Hissing Wastes, found a random rift, blasted a demon with weakness (everything works), blasted it with weakness again before the first one expired, and presto - after the first application expired no further weakness could be applied and all mana regeneration stopped.

[Swin]

Mana regen definitely stopped for me when testing it with Solas yesterday. I took him and attacked a bronto solo, I cast abilities that cause weakness until I got the bug and then watched my mana bar after each attack. Since you gain 10% mana each time you do damage it's very easy to notice the difference. This indicates that it's not just a UI bug. I've also done testing of damage (received and dealt from the passive) and again there seems to be no change after casting an ability that 'should' apply weakness but wont.

[Capeo]

What's Solas then, chopped liver?

Anyway, I just went to Hissing Wastes, found a random rift, blasted a demon with weakness (everything works), blasted it with weakness again before the first one expired, and presto - after the first application expired no further weakness could be applied and all mana regeneration stopped.

Does the bug only kick in if you cast a weakness spell while the prior one is still active? In other words if you let the first one expire you're okay? Or is it basically you get your first one and you're done?

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Does the bug only kick in if you cast a weakness spell while the prior one is still active? In other words if you let the first one expire you're okay? Or is it basically you get your first one and you're done?

Yes...If you cast another weakness spell when there is a weakness spell on already...Then it does not work....

[Capeo]

Yes...If you cast another weakness spell when there is a weakness spell on already...Then it does not work....

Well, at least I can work around that. I was wondering why I'd open a fight with ridiculous mana regen then it would just drop off. There's so many ability bugs in this game right now.

Another question. Cass has the passive that gives everyone in the party a chance to cause weakness. Does that screw me if it procs? Or is it only if I apply the weakness. Cause I'll respec her out of that if it's going to mess up my regen. Because while the regen is working it is beastly. And the whole point of my crit build.

[konfeta]

It screws you. I actually specced Cass out of it for that exact reason.

 

Was no biggie, doing that freed up points for me to reach the +35% damage buff in Battlemaster tree sooner.

[Selea]

Mana regen definitely stopped for me when testing it with Solas yesterday. I took him and attacked a bronto solo, I cast abilities that cause weakness until I got the bug and then watched my mana bar after each attack. Since you gain 10% mana each time you do damage it's very easy to notice the difference. This indicates that it's not just a UI bug. I've also done testing of damage (received and dealt from the passive) and again there seems to be no change after casting an ability that 'should' apply weakness but wont.

How did you test it however? Because you must notice that if an enemy is shocked and you apply a skill that cause weakness then it will try to apply a combo (shocked + weakened = asleep) first of all and hence the weakened status will get removed. This means that if you attack an enemy that is immune to sleep (as the bronto) it will try to apply the asleep combo but since the enemy is immune to it then it will just remove the weakness. Yes, it is annoying but it is really NOT the repeated weakened status that creates the glitch but the combo not firing and removing the previous effect.

Hence when you test weakened be sure to not use spells that cause shocked on an enemy.

As I said in the other thread various people tested the thing and all of them reported the mana regeneration still working fine. I don't doubt what you say but many people are not acknowledged about this "shocked + weakened = asleep" thing and if they don't their testing results could be screwed by not knowing it (i.e. they will think the weakness removed by the bug of applying it two times on the same enemy when it's actually not so).

[Swin]

 

How did you test it however? Because you must notice that if an enemy is shocked and you apply a skill that cause weakness then it will try to apply a combo (shocked + weakened = asleep) first of all and hence the weakened status will get removed. This means that if you attack an enemy that is immune to sleep (as the bronto) it will try to apply the asleep combo but since the enemy is immune to it then it will just remove the weakness. Yes, it is annoying but it is really NOT the repeated weakened status that creates the glitch but the combo not firing and removing the previous effect.

Hence when you test weakened be sure to not use spells that cause shocked on an enemy.

As I said in the other thread various people tested the thing and all of them reported the mana regeneration still working fine. I don't doubt what you say but many people are not acknowledged about this "shocked + weakened = asleep" thing and if they don't their testing results could be screwed by not knowing it (i.e. they will think the weakness removed by the bug of applying it two times on the same enemy when it's actually not so).

 

I didn't use any abilities that cause shocked, nor did I use a lightning element staff (I used ice which meant I could do multiple hits without fear of killing it). They also aren't immune to sleep btw, but that was irrelevant to my testing.

 

It was a simple test, I used upgraded veilstrike to apply the initial weakness, then I used stonefist a couple of times until it bugged. After that there was no mana regen, damage bonus nor damage reduction.

[Capeo]

Yeah, I paid a lot of attention in every fight yesterday checking the tac cam statuses constantly and if you apply weakness while something is still weakend it bugs out. Simplest test: go pull of the abyss and upgraded static cage. Your mana will be topped off constantly. Throw a couple stone fists in there and the regen stops. And sleep doesn't override weakness. Even when asleep it still says they're weakened. And I was doing this solo to make sure no other party members abilities were interfering. IF you wait till no enemy is under the weakness effect anymore the regen still works when you reapply it.

So it's kind of workable but still sucks because, one, you have to keep checking the tac cam when you otherwise wouldn't bother and, two, I can't use one of my go to detonators (stone fist) to combo in most instances. Worse, didn't I read immolate is bugged too? In that it doesn't detonate combos like it's supposed too?

[Selea]

And sleep doesn't override weakness. Even when asleep it still says they're weakened. 

It does is sleep is the cause of a combo of shocked + weakened. Sleep is the result and weakened naturally gets removed.

[Capeo]

It does is sleep is the cause of a combo of shocked + weakened. Sleep is the result and weakened naturally gets removed.

I'm going to go test this right now but yesterday I was quite sure I saw sleeping and weakened foes. Let you know in a few.

[Capeo]

It does is sleep is the cause of a combo of shocked + weakened. Sleep is the result and weakened naturally gets removed.

Just tested and you are absolutely right. Sleep replaces both shocked and weakened. Interestingly sleep + stonefist detonates but doesn't apply weakness. At least not on the main target. Veil Strike on the other hand does apply weakness to a sleeping target. Using Barrage as a detonator also seem to reset all status effects. And I didn't run into the bug though I was throwing veil strikes on already weakened targets. So now I'm more confused. Have to test on a single target more.

[Capeo]

Okay, Bronto tests using nothing but weakening attacks plus staff attacks to test regen: it eventually would stop applying weakness and once it did regen would stop. After what it seems would be the duration of the last weakness spell to effect it expires you can once again apply weakness. So yeah, that sucks.

[Swin]

I'm glad someone else has tested and agrees, felt like I was going crazy with people saying mana regen still works after I extensively tested and found it doesn't. In fact I test most abilities due to the number that are broken.

 

It pretty much made rift mage passives and upgrades useless to my first playthrough, I had high hopes since I used Cassandra as a 2h with Crippling Blows (also bugged and actually doesn't apply weakness ever, even after the patch which mentioned a change) and her Templar weakening effect.

 

In regards to shocked + weakness causing sleep, I think it's a bug, or it should be! It's bad enough combos remove status effects, without having others removed. I had to cancel any AI detonators due to this, sometimes you don't want to detonate! LOL.

[goofyomnivore]

Rift Mage is better at open world encounters with lots of little enemies, but KE is way better at bosses. But open world non boss enemies die really fast regardless of spec, so it isn't a large advantage IMO. Both specs can do the op combo of cage+barrage/mine, Rift can do it a bit easier if you apply weakness beforehand, but idk I think KE is better if you are a min/maxer, but Rift Mage is pretty fun with all the options you have.