50 réponses à ce sujet

[Selea]

But in my experience - my first (abandoned) run through was with a KE - it was Spirit Blade that allowed you to keep said barrier up at all times. Three hits or so would give you full barrier nine times out of ten. From what I can gather, regular auto attacks won't build it up at anywhere near that speed, given that the amount obtained it based on the damage your attacks do. In theory, this allows the class to remain very powerful, but also removes some of the cheapness. Hence the topic. I just wanted to hear other's opinions. 

Frankly speaking, there's no way out of the gameplay "spam SB, cast one/two spells, spam SB" on a KE at higher difficulties since the increased mana regen is tied to being in melee and when you are in melee you will get aggro so you need a short casting and spammable skill to keep the barrier up when this happens. This gives both the time and space to do some powerful combos, but you naturally cannot do them all the time as a RM can because 1) you have to keep up the barrier and combos are too slow for it, 2) you don't have enough mana regen anyway (as a RM) to do those combos continuously and to do them you need to be in melee and in the meantime you need to stay alive with enemies aggroing you.

You can naturally play a KE as a normal mage, going in melee only in certain circumstances, but when you are outside melee then you are exactly like a non specced mage (even worse because some of your skills are tied to a melee context) with the same mana regen problems that don't enable you to use combos effectively.

[MadDemiurg]

KE is not "strong" in comparison to other mage specs (to not to talk in general), it is just immortal given a skill that has no drawbacks at all on its use. This broken skill is NOT Fade Cloak (it is a powerful spell but the CD and range means you cannot use it in a way to make the build broken in itself) but Fade Shield.

Why don't you try to play a KE without Fade Shield and see if it's really Fade Cloak that makes the spec invincible? Let's see: the first time you go in melee to do Fade Cloak you get destroyed 1-2 seconds after doing it in nightmare (2-3 people aggroing on you - and they will given the huge burst damage - and pounding on you as a mage means death almost immediately without a regenerating barrier). Really powerful, how not... Fade Cloak is so powerful only because with the damage out of it you immediately regenerate all of your barrier (plus you can keep it up either with SB or other spells) so you can easily take the aggro after. By itself is nothing at all.

Ok I'm a little bit tired arguing bout KE damage so let's do the math shall we?

 

SB is 300% WD spammable attack with huge bonus vs guard and barriers, but let's discount these for convenience purposes. Apart from the fact its not 300% since it also benefits from runes unlike pretty much all other spells. Max base dmg on qunari mage is smth like 100. Max spirit rune is 25. Runes against specific enemies are 50. This is 25-50% dps increase meaning 375-450% WD actual dps. Ok, let's not count situations with specific enemies. That still makes SB 375% WD skill at worst and it's aoe.

 

SB allows you to keep up high casting rate, so assuming 1 cast/second all your cooldowns are halved. That means fade cloak cd is 6s, discounting any other cdr you might have. It gives you 2s of invulnerability, so you are invulnerable 33% of the time. Now that it also provides knockback you are pretty much invulnerable against a lot of melee all the time since they spend  the other 4s on the floor.

 

I agree that you need some means to keep up barrier or guard. You need that and/or and aggro dump to be viable in melee in this game, no matter the class. If fortifying blast on mind blast worked you could use it instead of fade shield though and that would also solve most of the aggro issues. This would also be a more fun way to play the spec. i would maybe even buff mind blast actually, while nerfing fade shield.

 

Ok, back to dps calc. 6s fade cloak means it gives about 166% WD dps when spammed (up to 200% with cdr amulet). SInce its activated instantly it's free dps, you can spam all your other spells simultaneously.  Let's count even without cdr, we get 541% (aoe) wd from spamming fade cloak and SB alone. You still have a lot of mana to spend though. Even spamming these two skills you're already competitive with say artificier archer spamming longshot at 800% WD / sec (1600% from full draw is very situational and all archer abilities take a fair time to cast) outside of focus given that you're also aoe (so hitting at  least 2 enemies you dish out more damage). This also beats say EB + Static cage without mastercrafts and party synergy since EB is 800(1400 with cage) WD that you can NOT spam every second.

 

In terms of mana KE is the only spec that has 100% barrier uptime WITHOUT the need to spend 50 mana for casting barrier meaning it always benefits from 35% mana regen. Also when played in a risky manner (you need guard on hit for that) you get A LOT of free spells and CC from mana surge. No other spec can use mana surge as efficiently.

 

Ok, let's add fire mine. it has CD of 24 sec but spell spam brings it to 12 sec alone. If you use flashpoint procs to cast it it's more like 2 fire mines each 12 seconds. Again, that's without any gear. With chaotic focus (which again KE is the only spec that is capable of utilising all the time at full power) it's like 3200% wd spell (+ dot, although it doesn't stack). Doing the math on this will give you another 733% WD per second for total of 1274% wd/sec. Ok, maybe a little bit less since fire mine takes some time to cast unlike fade cloak. All of this is aoe as well... I'm not counting in any damage modifiers like conductive current, but they are also there.

 

Any other mage spec will have a hard time keeping up with this outside of EB + Cage + HB mastercraft abuse (and that one is single target only). 

 

With endgame gear KE is able to dish out ~4 K on SB alone which, given 100% uptime and extra damage from fade cloak mixed in would mean killing Highland ravager in under 60 sec. If you use EB with frost staff on top to get rid of superficial mana even faster. Not as impressive as an assasin in 20 sec using mighty offence tonic and MoD (which are both broken tbh), but still fast enough for all intents and purposes. This is in single target situation where you're at disadvantage since aoe is useless for the most part. Now, against dragons weak to fire or spirit that would be much much faster (enemies weak to frost and immune to fire are the worst type for you).

[Selea]

You still have a lot of mana to spend though. Even spamming these two skills you're already competitive with say artificier archer spamming longshot at 800% WD / sec (1600% from full draw is very situational and all archer abilities take a fair time to cast) outside of focus given that you're also aoe (so hitting at  least 2 enemies you dish out more damage). This also beats say EB + Static cage without mastercrafts and party synergy since EB is 800(1400 with cage) WD that you can NOT spam every second.

 

1) A shame that an 800% LS from Archer Artificer is like 2000% on a mage given the weapon damage (on a DW Twin Fangs something like 3400%)....
2) EB + SC is NOT only the damage from both alone, since they add up, plus with a RM you CAN spam combos every second (SC lasts 8 seconds and you can do all sort of combos while it is active). With a KE you CANNOT (you have not the time even pretending you have the mana) elsewhere you die.
 

 

 

In terms of mana KE is the only spec that has 100% barrier uptime WITHOUT the need to spend 50 mana for casting barrier meaning it always benefits from 35% mana regen. Also when played in a risky manner (you need guard on hit for that) you get A LOT of free spells and CC from mana surge. No other spec can use mana surge as efficiently.

 

 

It still is not close to the mana regen of a RM and anyway you cannot (again) capitulate on it since you NEED time to spam SB to keep the barrier up. You continuously munch your great theorycrafting without minimally considering this point. The time you spend spamming your hilarious 300% WD SB (out a 40 base damage weapon) is all DPS completely and utterly lost in comparison to the burst damage even a RM does in the meantime. If then (since you mentioned it) we consider something like a DW rogue, in those 6 seconds you lose on spamming your hilarious damage skill, she has practically dished out 3 times more damage than you would do in the next two future Fade Cloak combos.

It seems to me you seriously have no idea on how much damage a rogue is capable of, since trying to compare the two is not either worth the time as much as they are apart. In 8 seconds a DW rogue can dish more than 90k damage (without a focus ability). Good luck on doing the same with a KE.
 

Doing the math on this will give you another 733% WD per second for total of 1274% wd/sec. Ok, maybe a little bit less since fire mine takes some time to cast unlike fade cloak. All of this is aoe as well... I'm not counting in any damage modifiers like conductive current, but they are also there.

 

Even pretending 1274%/sec, in rogue terms this means something like 300% WD/sec. Huuuugeee. A single Twin Fangs burst does in half a second 4 times that. Good work!

If you want to compare KE dps at last compare it to RM since at the limit there it comes close (in practice not really but in theorycrafting yes) but with a rogue are you really serious?

 

Not as impressive as an assasin in 20 sec using mighty offence tonic and MoD (which are both broken tbh), but still fast enough for all intents and purposes.

 

Sure. All classes and specs are powerful in this game. Still if we make a classification on total DPS done the KE is not surely on top and probably neither on the top 3. To reach that end you would have to make a super optimized build, and maybe you know that the 20 sec kill was NOT an ultra optimized build. It was a normal one used with skill. Gear used (apart the mighty offence tonic) was neither optimized to kill the dragon as fast as possible and neither a focus abillity was used.

[MadDemiurg]

My calculations are not theorycrafting, this is my in game experience as well. If you look at base damage daggers and bows aren't that much better than staves tbh. DPS is pointless for abilities. Staves are also 100% AP so that counts for smth as well. (well, assasin can have 75% AP from abilities most of the time, but not all the time). SB is not 300% since it benefits from runes as I've mentioned it's 375-450% wd. Even more in case of vulnerabilities. On average say archer rogue WD is  maybe 50% more potent... not 4 times like you claim. As I said even very suboptimally played KE dishes out more than 5k damage/sec with endgame gear. So if you compare that to the assasin vid everyone likes to show it's like maybe 3 times less damage, the main difference coming from mark of death and mighty offence tonic (which are both extremely OP to be fair). By endgame gear I also do not mean spreadhseet level of optimization, just full t3 crafting with stats that make sense. KE is not top 3 single target dps for sure, 1st 3 spots would be taken by rogues. In aoe situations it is superior though, and its dps is not so hugely behind say archer builds.

 

Now, my point is not to prove that i'm smarter or fight for the cause of all KE in the world to prove their superiority and not even to get KE nerfed. I just don't like seeing false claims from people who didn't even try to play the spec to its fullest. I'm not really interested in arguing with you tbh, believe what you want. I just made my point here so that newcomers reading the thread would be better informed. If believing that KE is low damage makes you feel better I'm happy for you 

[Selea]

My calculations are not theorycrafting, this is my in game experience as well. If you look at base damage daggers and bows aren't that much better than staves tbh. DPS is pointless for abilities.

The best bows do about 100 base damage. The best daggers do about 130 (and there are two of them). The best staves? Half or 1/3 of it, isn't it? So yes, they do much less base damage.
 

Now, my point is not to prove that i'm smarter or fight for the cause of all KE in the world to prove their superiority and not even to get KE nerfed. I just don't like seeing false claims from people who didn't even try to play the spec to its fullest. I'm not really interested in arguing with you tbh, believe what you want. I just made my point here so that newcomers reading the thread would be better informed. If believing that KE is low damage makes you feel better I'm happy for you  

 

 

I've seen many very powerful KE builds around and videos about them and sincerely in no case I've seen your 5k every second on average (actually 10k at once is the best I absolutely seen on any KE video, and that was a rare occurrence out of a crit on a combo). Can you show it with a video? It's not that I don't believe you, it is only that I have never seen it anywhere else (apart on crits and I don't suppose you have a build that 100% crit all the time). 5k/sec means 100k in 20 seconds and I have seen no KE build capable of doing that.

[MadDemiurg]

The best bows do about 100 base damage. The best daggers do about 130 (and there are two of them). The best staves? Half or 1/3 of it, isn't it? So yes, they do much less base damage.
 

I've seen many very powerful KE builds around and videos about them and sincerely in no case I've seen your 5k every use of SB. Can you show it with a video? It's not that I don't believe you, it is only that I have never seen it anywhere else (apart on crits and I don't suppose you have a build that 100% crits).

The best crafted staff is 78 damage. If you play qunari you also get +19 dmg drom vitaar (You can do that as a rogue as well, but the impact for mages Is obviously bigger). I don't think dagger damage is summed for abilities that are not from dw tree (these do 2 hits) I don't have time to make a vid atm but maybe I'll do that on weekend. 100% crit is suboptimal for KE but you can have about 50% crit without much difficulty.

[ThrasherGX]

Selea's numbers are significantly off on dagger and bow base dmg.  A tier 3 masterwork dual blade dagger, w/ dragon mats and crit craft is around 160 ish base dmg.  A masterwork tier 3 bow w/ dragon mats and crit craft is about 200 ish base dmg, so daggers are around twice the base damage and bows are about 2.5 times the base damage of a staff.

 

edit: Math.....

[MadDemiurg]

Well, that's about what I said, archer rogue WD is about 50% better. Actually less, since there's also AP factor. Actually earlygame mage WD often > archer WD because of AP. Armor becomes less of an issue lategame.

[Selea]

Selea's numbers are significantly off on dagger and bow base dmg.  A tier 3 masterwork dual blade dagger, w/ dragon mats and crit craft is around 160 ish base dmg.  A masterwork tier 3 bow w/ dragon mats and crit craft is about 200 ish base dmg, so daggers are around twice the base damage and bows are about 2.5 times the base damage of a staff.

 

edit: Math.....

I did stay low appositely because not all people in a normal run have access to the best materials and I took this in consideration.

P.S: I didn't know however that bows can reach 200 base damage. The most I've seen is about 160, same as a dagger, actually. Oh well, you always miss something in this game.

[ThrasherGX]

200 is without benefit from qunari vitaar boost, while your counting it for the mage, thats not an equal playing field, esp since not all mages are qunari.  Also, bows are 200 ish vs 78 for staff, so thats about 2.5 as i corrected my number to.  Even daggers are double a staff's damage at 160 ish vs 78. not counting qunari vitaar. thats a lot more then 1.5 in either case.  However you are correct about early game armor pen, since armor scales a lot less then damage does in late game.

[Selea]

Well, that's about what I said, archer rogue WD is about 50% better. Actually less, since there's also AP factor. Actually earlygame mage WD often > archer WD because of AP. Armor becomes less of an issue lategame.

 

Maybe you don't know math because 150-160 is NOT 50% more than 50, usually (as for daggers, two of the main burst abilities of DW rogues hit with both so you must consider this; hence it is not 130 vs 50 but 260 vs 50 - speaking of not optimized damage naturally).
Not AP is compensated by resistances on enemies so on average they pretty are on par (unless you switch staffs all the times, a thing that almost nobody does if not on difficult encounters) on late game.

[ThrasherGX]

I did stay low appositely because not all people in a normal run have access to the best materials and I took this in consideration.

Also, the tier 2 masterwork bow you get from the perk , made with tier 3 mats is 146 base dmg, so still nearly double the dmg of a tier 3 staff with tier 4 mats.  And the endgame comparison was necessecary because 78 dmg on a staff is a 22 slot masterwork staff with tier 4 mats and crit crafted, so its only fair to compare to the same for daggers/bows.

[MadDemiurg]

Well, qunari are the optimal mages if we're doing min maxing here, and obviously % increase is the highest for mages. I also feel that different weapon types have hidden damage multipliers when it comes to abilities... Might need to do some testing with it.

 

Maybe you don't know math because 150-160 is NOT 50% more than 50, usually.
Not AP is compensated by resistances on enemies so on average they pretty are on par (unless you switch staffs all the times, a thing that almost nobody does if not on difficult encounters).

Well, I wasn't comparing with a 50 dmg staff, but to 78 dmg staff with vitaar. I need to check out what the best bow actually is. Resistances are tbh fairly balanced by themselves since all enemies that have a resistance are weak to 1 other element. The only problem here is that frost spells do crappy dmg.

[ThrasherGX]

I haven't done any testing on the subject, but im almost positive the damage multiplier is exactly what the skills state, and again, when discussing relative dmg between classes you cant apply racial benefits to only one of them, and while yes, qunari are the best race for dmg dealing (on any class), race is not relevant to the comparison of two classes damage.  If you insist on that comparison anyway, then max bows are about 220, and max daggers are about 180, so not quite double the staff for the dagger, and about 2.2 times on the bow.  

[MadDemiurg]

I'll come back on ability damage multiplier testing when I have time, doesn't look that simple to me.

 

But ok, about 2x damage discounting the AP issues.

[Gigamantis]

Not when you can kill everything so fast you don't even stand the chance of dying. And to be hinest any non-retard can avoid dying on Nightmare. You die when you play badly.

Rogue/Reaver only kills things that fast when you're in insane crafted end-game gear; and yea, at that point pretty much any class is god-mode.  KE is, or was, immortal the second you got the specialization, regardless of gear; thus trivializing most of the game, not just the very end of it.

 

Immortality is overpowered. 

[Matth85]

Rogue/Reaver only kills things that fast when you're in insane crafted end-game gear;

 

Umm...

no?

[Gigamantis]

Umm...

no?

So, Rogues and Reavers kill things fast enough; and I mean bosses, dragons, etc. for their mortality to not be an issue right out of the box?  I doubt it.  DPS classes are only unstoppable in end-game gear.  Knight Enchanters are immortal once they get the spec.  That's a pretty big distinction that should be acknowledged. 

[BLOOD LORDS]

I feel like everyone is just suprised the mage-tank class works properly.

[Sevitan7]

Knight Enchanters are immortal once they get the spec.

 

To be fair, maybe on normal. On Nightmare you still need a decent high base damage staff in order to both generate barrier and so that it does not disappear after 1 attack.

 

And in the mid game, where gear isn't completely broken, I'd like to nominate the Champion's "To the Death," as the best dragon killing supplement.

[Grondoth]

I feel like everyone is just suprised the mage-tank class works properly.

 

Well, if it was an actual mage tank it'd be different. It has no threat boosters or ways to change AI targeting at all. Instead it has the surviability of a tank and the damage of an offensive mage. Which, well... I guess is the other reading of Mage Tank that isn't couched in MMO terms.

[Selea]

I feel like everyone is just suprised the mage-tank class works properly.

 

It doesn't work "properly" when the mage-tank can tank better 10 times better than a pure tank class, no, especially when this happens not for the ability of the player but just by taking a single early skill.

And for those that still insist that KEs aren't immortal on nightmare I suggest you to do a quick search on Youtube where you will see that people are playing on nightmare solo with just a Tier 1 armor for ALL the game (since they find a particular robe better looking than the others). Let's see if after you will still insist they are killable if you play normally.

If then you are still sure that all is fine I suggest you to do the same with a S&S Champion (that should be the best tank in the game) and see how long you last. 

Bur sure, KEs are perfectly fine and working as intended.

[Matth85]

So, Rogues and Reavers kill things fast enough; and I mean bosses, dragons, etc. for their mortality to not be an issue right out of the box?  I doubt it.  DPS classes are only unstoppable in end-game gear.  Knight Enchanters are immortal once they get the spec.  That's a pretty big distinction that should be acknowledged. 

There is a world of difference between "out of the box" and "end-game gear". 

A tier 2 decked DW rogue can blast a dragon in under a minute.

A tier 3 decked DW rogue can do it alone in 20 seconds.

A tier 3 decked optimized rogue can do it in 5 seconds.

 

Only tier 3 is considered end-game. 

 

A reaver does pretty darn good dps once they get their build done as well. 

 

Note: I am not disagreeing KEs are broken(read, not OP), boring and requires nothing to become immortal. I am merely disagreeing with the claim you need a lot of gear to have a broken (Read, OP) assassin. 

[Alex Vojacek]

I came here just to post on this thread because I am playing the game on Hard Difficulty for an in-depth review for our Latin American Gaming magazine.

 

I have a simple way of putting this.

 

KE with SB is OP,  you can argue to no end, put thousands of numbers but a simple "test" will give you the results.

 

Mission:  Call me Imshel

 

Tried with Sera, Solas and Casandra  (10 times in a row, no luck, the armor on the last Demon is way to tough)

 

Tried with Varric, Casandra and Bull  (15 times in a row,  no luck,  Bull is the first to die, they all have the best armor and weapons I could come out with)

 

Tried with Casandra, Solas and Cole (5 times, no luck,  Cole is useless, just dies in seconds)

 

Tried Ke with Vivienne, Solas and Casandra (1st time, i didn't have to do ANYTHING besides pressing the dam button for Spirit Blade), demon died in less than a minute).

 

So, I came to the to remaining rifts that were opened and I couldn't close them because the Lvl 17 Demons used me for super and gave me nightmares previously...  I killed them all with just Spirit Blade.

 

So, 1 hour after this I came here to find out I was not the only one.

 

Please don't take me wrong, but I'm 60 hours into the game and I am enjoying it a lot, but the feeling of this power for me is soo dam high and I am feeling confident in never choosing KE for my own character and not using Viviene anymore,  I prefer difficulty.

 

So, you can whine and claim with numbers all you want, but Spirit Blade is WAY too overpowered, because i can't be such an imbecile with all the clases and customizations I did and then beat a demon that took me more than 30 tries in the first try with no custom armor and pretty easily without even controlling the other characters.

 

Call me all you want but the simple and logical test of this ability suggest it's not overpowered, it's SUPER OVERPOWERED and I wont use it anymore. I'm actually shocked they did this.

[TheInvoker]

Being immortal isn't overpowered?

 

So Tank/Champion is OP too?? blackwall never dies even if IA controls him