37 réponses à ce sujet

[Matth85]

Soo... I must admit. Over 9 playthroughs, most semi-completed, I have only been a mage once. Now, however, I plan to run through DA:O, DA2 and DA I as a mage. Though the minmaxer in me is having an issue: What is the best pre-specialization mage build? What's the best core build? Fire Mine? Static Cage? Blizzard? How about Mana Regen? Barrier Uptime?

 

From  my testing it was Fire Mine, but I see people swear on Static Cage. Which confuses me. 50% per weapon damage isn't more than 40ish damage per attack early. I can see it being powerful with, say, Flask of Lightning. But before that, I am not sure. I decided to do some tests, and I can't seem to find the great damage in Static Cage. 

 

Example: Weapon Damage, electricity 66. 81 magic, 19 willpower, 46% attack

 

Average auto attack: 100 damage. 

 

Average Energy Barrage shot: 100 

Average Static Cage damage: 40

 

Average Fire Mine direct Damage: 2000

Average Fire Mine DoT Damage: 200

 

So. In terms of cost, Fire mine gives me 102 damage per mana and can be done every 27 second, whilst a combo of Static Cage + Energy Barrage gives me 14 damage per mana and can be done every 32 second. 

 

Am I missing something here? I honestly do not see the selling point of Static Cage unless we are late-game and got 2 mages casting energy barrage and a tempest using Flask of Lightning. 

 

----------------------

 

Further on. I was looking at Revjunating Barrier in the Spirit tree. 35% magic regeneration. How significant is that? Staying at low health mean Guardian Spirit will pop every 60 second, with a duration of 10(or so?). Then there is barrier every 24 second, lasting for 10 as well. Giving a good 14 second no barrier on the cast, and 50 from the passive. The upgrade to Barrier + a CD amulet reduce them further. I can see a solid uptime on barrier, meaning a solid uptime on the 35% mana.

 

Winter's Stillness: Does the cooldown reduction work? If so, is it 50%?

 

Theoretically, if one eaches high uptime on barrier and get winters stillness, would Ice Armor + Blizzard prove to me a decent survivability method? Is the damage reduction before or after armor? hm...

 

Fire Wall. What's the selling point? I've tried it. I didn't find it interesting. Fire mine does more damage, and the panic seemed.. mediocre. 

 

 

Looking around, I can't shake off the feeling building for Fire Mine is optimal. However, I want a second, or tertiary, opinion on this! have anybody successful ran a static cage build early? Or perhaps ran heavy into Frost? Or Played with mana regeneration?

I'll do some testing myself, but hoping some of the magquisitors around here got better insight on this!

 

 

Matth

[Rynas]

I think that goes for the Fire tree in general, best mana efficiency and DPS overall.  But I think this is counterbalanced by the lack of CC and the fact that many enemies seem to be resistant to fire.  Static Cage is primarily about CC and Static Charge is a CC ability, Winter's Grasp/Blizzard/Ice Mine too.  At least, that's what it looks like the designers intended.

[Basheda]

I depends on many factors. Solo/Group and if you grouped which party members. Fire Mine is an fine spell and I try to get it on any mage. An KE do not need many skillpoints in his specialication tree so he can get Fire Mine and Static Cage both. An RM need some more points and has access to Pull of the Abyss, so I tend to skill him Fire Mine and Pull.

 

The real power of Static Cage is the CC component and, if you use an party, the possibilty to use cross class combos. I think that KE is the strongest Solo spec and I think also that KE Inferno/Storm is the ideal endgame solo spec. Its not the boring spirit blade swinger. You will not use spirit blade at all if you have access to Inferno/Storm and a little bit of frost.

 

My skillorder for my KE was like this. I used him with an party but plan an second solo run if I'm done with the warrior.

 

Keyskills are bolded.

 

1. Winter Magic
- Fade Step
- Winter's Grasp + Winters Chill (the upgrade can be postponed)
- Manage Surge

2. Knight Enchanter
- Spirit Blade
- Combat Clarity
- Fade Shield
- Knight Protector (can be postponed)

3. Spirit Magic :
- Barrier

4. Inferno Magic :
- Immolate + Wildfire
- Clean Burn
- Pyromancer
- Chaotic Focus
- Fire Mine + Searing Glyph

5. More Spirit Magic :
- Peaceful Aura
- Dispel
- Rejuvenating Barrier

6. Storm Magic :
- Energy Barrage
- Conductive Current
- Static Charge
- Static Cage + Lighning Cage
 
Leftover Points to Winter/Storm passives...

 

Mapped skills are:

Fade Step

Barrier

Energy Barrage

Winter's Grasp

Fire Mine

Static Cage

Free Slot -> Use Dispel/Immolate or whats fit best for the situation.

Mark of the Rift

 

Energy Barrage damage type adapt to your staff damage, so you will always have at least 2 spells of each damage type where the enemies are weak. The passives reduce/eliminate spell CD and mana cost .... The result is an endless stream of fire and storm spells. Winters Crasp has the lowest priority if you want to deal damage except against fire resistant/cold vulnerable enemies or you want the instant splash damage or the CC.

[MadDemiurg]

Rejuvenating barrier is awesome for KE since you have 100% barrier uptime without the need to cast it. Furthermore, chaotic focus doubles your fire damage if you have full barrier which you do as KE. So yeah, KE deals waaay more damage then people give it credit for, Proper KE tactics have been posted here multiple times yet ppl still go with this "KE has low damage" nonsense. KE is the highest damage mage spec vs non fire resistant mobs and still decent vs resistant ones. Fire mine is indeed the most damaging ability in terms of cost/damage ratio, unless you run into fire resistant enemies.

 

In terms of pre spec I would get the spec ASAP (so level 8-9) unless you intentionally want to challenge yourself this way.

 

Energy barrage and static cage are very abusable with on hit procs since you get 24 chances to proc on EB + cage and abusable in party situations as well, esp if you stack several static cages. Also, you can significantly drop enemy resist with multiple EB if you have flashpoint. However this is lategame stuff, Earlygame EB is very bad at meager 800% WD per 50 mana. Cage is mostly good for CC at the early stages.

 

Core earlygame mage spells are immolate (up to 1900% aoe weapon damage fully upgraded if you count in the DoT for 35 mana) and Chain Lightning (1500% WD total if at least 2 enemies present for 50 mana, also provides a shock defuff - more damage for your next spell). Upgraded fade step is a nice source of cold damage as well as survivability tool.

 

Wall of fire is the best CC spell in the game apart from PoTA. Essentially it allows to indefinitely reapply CC to enemies when positioned properly. I'm not sure it's possible to solo as a mage pre spec without it. Static cage + Wall of fire is even more hilarious, but you need 2 mages for this. Essentially everything gets panicked and tries to leave the cage only to get pulled back and paralyzed, all while taking fire and electricity damage (which you can then detonate with an ability of your choice, long shot usually)

 

So, my earlygame build (in order):

 

1. Barrier

2. immolate

3. immolate +

4. Fade step

5. Fade step +

6. Chain lightning

7. Chain lightning +

8. Winter stillness

9. Flashpoint

10. Clean Burn

11. Wall of fire

12. Winter's grasp

 

Then you usually get the spec. You can get fire mine instead of CL but it is less spammable (you need to count in high cd ealygame since you don't have the tools to spam spells yet) and more prone to efficiency drop vs fire resist. This build is not optimized to fight ferelden frostback since I did that after i got the spec @ level 10. That dragon is one of the rare cases when EB with frost staff is somewhat decent (Properly used fade step is free and deals more damage though).. If you don't play solo (leveling order above is not for solo btw, although the skill set works) You can take static cage on the 2nd mage for Wall of fire + Static cage hilarity.

 

Winter stillness reduces cooldowns by ~30% (tested empirically). It is not broken by fade step (lol), but is broken by EB. It is useless until you have at least a couple of low cd spells to spam. immolate + CL fill the bill.

 

Qunari is the best mage race by a long shot if you min max. Best staff is 78 damage. Best vitaar I found is 19 damage + bunch of nice offensive boosts on top. You get the drift.

[Rynas]

So vitaars actually do work on base damage and get multiplied with abilities?  Has anyone tested this?  19 damage is huge for a staff.

[MadDemiurg]

I've finished the game with qunari mage and the answer for your questions is yes. Qunari mage deals 25% more damage on average.

[Rynas]

That's a huge bonus...!

[xaragon]

MY thoughts playing as a duo in nightmare.

 

- Static cage

+ fantastic in a group setting,

+ combo's really well.

+ great crowd control.

 

- Lots of enemies are immune

- needs to be combo'd to work effectively.

 

Unless you are geared to make it work, i too find fire mine more effective.

 

Fire wall, Its very underrated its not about the damage its about the control. Its another tool to stop people hitting you in the face. It works on most enemies from bears to pride demons to rage demons.

 

I currently am running an archer/tempest and a fire specced mage on night mare and the combos with firewall are immense.

Think auto critting during flask of lighting, auto critting during thousand cuts.

 

All of this made possible by panic and the rogue talent mercy killing( i think thats what its called)

 

Frost mages

 

I have tried using a duo of frost/rift mages, a frost/rift mage and a fire mage.

 

The problem with frost overall is its damage its just too low, the whole tree is more about control. 

 

Im not sure if damage resistances stack i would hope so, i was trying to make the most of the 50% from ice armour and the 30% from rift.

 

The problem i found it was just to hard to maitain, i couldn't take the enemies down even combo'ing shatters, cycling freezes and knockdowns eventually cooldowns would get the better of me.

 

I think there is a really good spec in there I'm just not sure what it is. It needs someone to make the most of the freezes that does ridiculous damage to make up for the lack of damage from frost.

 

Winters stillness- the problem with it is standing still for 3 seconds unless you have a tank which i don't you have to be moving rendering it fairly useless.

 

Mana surge- i have said this before its underrated and awesome. if freezes everyone around it and it makes your next spell cost no mana. Its manditory if you are not playing with a tank.

 

[Matth85]

To put it in perspective: My goal is to play solo, nightmare, and not go KE. I'll go Rift Mage for the mana regen and weakness. Whilst I got a lot of builds, I need to get myself an efficient mix of damage, survivability and CC to get through. My build was simple, but I wanted to make sure:

 

2 points into Spirit for Barrier and Guardian Spirit. Together it will allow me to survive a lot. I should not be under 10% more than once every 60 second anyways!

Get Fire mine and upgrade it. I was wondering whether I should also grab Fire Wall and upgrade immolate -- which is why I question mana regeneration. I don't get the mana to spam all the skills unless I am able to increase my regeneration!

I was also looking at Blizzard in the frost tree. It will freeze enemies, and the Ice Armor gives me 50% defense on cold/frozen enemies. Seems like a good combo, though I have yet to test it!

Otherwise I am going to pray for a masterwork Tier 2 staff asap, so I can get guard on hit. 3-5 guard on hit means Energy Barrage becomes a nice source of defense!

Though on a solo play I will be skipping Static Cage. At least until I get Rift Mage. It simply seem.. inefficient. 

 

I am trying to see if there is some synergy between skills I have yet to find. A little something I can do to get ahead. Hm... 

[xaragon]

To put it in perspective: My goal is to play solo, nightmare, and not go KE. I'll go Rift Mage for the mana regen and weakness. Whilst I got a lot of builds, I need to get myself an efficient mix of damage, survivability and CC to get through. My build was simple, but I wanted to make sure:

 

2 points into Spirit for Barrier and Guardian Spirit. Together it will allow me to survive a lot. I should not be under 10% more than once every 60 second anyways!

Get Fire mine and upgrade it. I was wondering whether I should also grab Fire Wall and upgrade immolate -- which is why I question mana regeneration. I don't get the mana to spam all the skills unless I am able to increase my regeneration!

I was also looking at Blizzard in the frost tree. It will freeze enemies, and the Ice Armor gives me 50% defense on cold/frozen enemies. Seems like a good combo, though I have yet to test it!

Otherwise I am going to pray for a masterwork Tier 2 staff asap, so I can get guard on hit. 3-5 guard on hit means Energy Barrage becomes a nice source of defense!

Though on a solo play I will be skipping Static Cage. At least until I get Rift Mage. It simply seem.. inefficient. 

 

I am trying to see if there is some synergy between skills I have yet to find. A little something I can do to get ahead. Hm... 

You have to get fire wall. You have to get mana surge.

 

Im struggling with mana regen, im at the akward place level 15 where i can kind of go a few different ways.

 

I really miss dispel its the one spell i keep cursing myself for not having.

 

But to get it i have to get peaceful aura which is a total waste for me, and then once i have it it needs to be upgrade so i might as well get rejevenating barrier.

 

Guardian spirit would be nice, so would strength of spirits, and the 4 sec reduction for barrier, but then im nearly fully invested. its hard to know what to get and what not to get.

 

Its the same probelm with rift lots of good stuff but picking it all reduces the points you can spend elsewhere.

[MadDemiurg]

If you want to solo you need wall of fire and frost step imo, while guardian spirit is a luxury you can't afford low lvl. While frost armor is nice, it doesn't work on barrier so it limits its usefulness. A build with heal on hit and frost armor would be very durable but heal on hit is found only on unique items, so no crafting (at least I don't know any masterworks that do that).

[Blackstork]

@xaragon I running duo nightmare with Vivi and my DW rogue. I have more cc and more direct damage on disabled or better panicked targets. Firstly I agree that MK is must but I also have upgraded KP which I use with barrage or dispell. I find having extra spirit essential. And I have fade step upgraded, WG not upgraded, surge and stillness in winter, and shock stuff till static cage upgraded(thru LB, obcourse, more Cc - merrier!) I fight with a lot cc/sustain and have all time foes controlled, I use rogues KP/as and I am pre-skyhold.
I did not tried fire here but I surely will give it a shot, but if you want mixing and alternative to fire you need bit more of spirit than only barrier (dispell and all enhancement passives are essential) and 2 cc on 2nd character in the duo. Its more like CC fest. For post-skyhold I thing I will respect Sola's and have that pull and massive combos up.
In trash fights I barely lose any single HP if I do at all, mainly not. It's like cc>cc>detonation>cc>detonation>barrier>cc>detonation>loot
If needed I may time antivan fire in same location of cage, so cage becomes also quite hot place for guys there.

PS. Damn phone corrections. They raped my post.

[Nathonaws]

"Best" for what? DPS? Supporting? AOE? Crowd Control? It really depends on what you want to do. If you just want to faceroll though, any build with Knight-Enchanter is probably the strongest at the moment.

[Matth85]

"Best" for what? DPS? Supporting? AOE? Crowd Control? It really depends on what you want to do. If you just want to faceroll though, any build with Knight-Enchanter is probably the strongest at the moment.

/Facepalm

[Rynas]

To put it in perspective: My goal is to play solo, nightmare, and not go KE. I'll go Rift Mage for the mana regen and weakness. Whilst I got a lot of builds, I need to get myself an efficient mix of damage, survivability and CC to get through. My build was simple, but I wanted to make sure:

 

2 points into Spirit for Barrier and Guardian Spirit. Together it will allow me to survive a lot. I should not be under 10% more than once every 60 second anyways!

Get Fire mine and upgrade it. I was wondering whether I should also grab Fire Wall and upgrade immolate -- which is why I question mana regeneration. I don't get the mana to spam all the skills unless I am able to increase my regeneration!

I was also looking at Blizzard in the frost tree. It will freeze enemies, and the Ice Armor gives me 50% defense on cold/frozen enemies. Seems like a good combo, though I have yet to test it!

Otherwise I am going to pray for a masterwork Tier 2 staff asap, so I can get guard on hit. 3-5 guard on hit means Energy Barrage becomes a nice source of defense!

Though on a solo play I will be skipping Static Cage. At least until I get Rift Mage. It simply seem.. inefficient. 

 

I am trying to see if there is some synergy between skills I have yet to find. A little something I can do to get ahead. Hm... 

 

I do not know how one can get through In Your Heart Shall Burn as a solo mage, but I'd love to see it done.

 

Rejuvenating Barrier is very noticeable to me on Solas, more than it should be on paper I think.  Maybe it's multiplicative instead of additive.  Anyway, if you want to maximize regen, it's obviously needed.

 

Clean Burn seems like an absolute requirement.  Chaotic Focus might not be a good idea because it's harder to maintain Barrier on a non-KE.

 

Tier 2 staff schematic is purchasable from Val Royeaux, as early as level 5.  Although, it won't have a masterwork slot until after Skyhold, I guess.

 

[Edit] Also, I really don't think damage-per-mana is the most important thing in a solo build.  Imo, CC is much more valuable solo than it is in a group.  There are plenty of hard-hitting enemies who won't die to your initial burst of Fire Mine + whatever else you use to unload your mana.  There are also plenty of fire immunes who you need to kill with less-efficient spells, which will take even longer.

[Keldaur]

I think you this discussion is pretty short sighted. "Best Mage build =/= Biggest DPS on his own".

 

Burst is ussually way more important than substained damage to begin with, and fire mine with fire passives should be ahead on damage than a static cage, and on aoe situations it its pretty good. But since everyone from the party benefits from static cage, and there are plenty of skills that either get a lot of consecutive hits, or abilities that can just turn it into a festival (FoL), and static cage also works as a crowd control tool useful against a lot of stuff, i see no contest there.

 

It's actually easy to calculate, you need 3200% wep damage  to make up for fire mine, if your party skills and synergies aren't there to make up for it, just go fire mine. You have to take into account tho, that the weapon damage varies depending on the weapon of the one that deals the attack, not the mage, so it's in reality less than 3200%, but let's just keep it that way (sidenote: FoL makes up for it, and exceedes it).

 

Hell, the 2 handed warrior early levels are a cakewalk once you get static cage even unupgraded, like spot group, boom, go find next group.

 

My second mage will have fire mine of course (i always play rogue/warrior/mage/mage), and it actually works pretty well with static cage, but of course, if your plan is to SOLO, static cage is obviously not a good choice, but why try to argue about that in the first place.

[Blackstork]

 

 

My second mage will have fire mine of course (i always play rogue/warrior/mage/mage), and it actually works pretty well with static cage, but of course, if your plan is to SOLO, static cage is obviously not a good choice, but why try to argue about that in the first place.

Not sure here. You will need as much control as possible. Static cage and its prerequisite offer that. I can't see a reason it wont be included into solo run kit.

[Matth85]

But since everyone from the party benefits from static cage, and there are plenty of skills that either get a lot of consecutive hits,

A few skill. At 21 it did 40 damage per attack. With that there is only a few combinations to make it a solid damage spell: Flask of Lightning on Sera, Energy Barrage and Leaping Shot. The issue is, all of these are suboptimal early game, except energy barrage. If we don't got this setup up and running, I struggle to see the selling point of the Cage. For CC it is rather costly, and I'd rather take Chain Lightning. No investment cost, cheaper and more direct. 

 

 

High cost(!!)

High CD

Mediocre CC

Good AoE

Low-Mediocre damage

 

Also, if you notice my post(s) and other thread -- I am not looking for general builds, nor am I new to builds in general -- I just haven't gone into depths in mage mechanics, as I have in warrior and rogue. There is a reason I am asking for theorycrafters here. A mage early game got 2 limitations: mana and health. My first issue was mana, which is why I asked about utilizing  the 35% mana regen with barrier up. I am not certain whether the 35% is multiplicative with the 50% in winter's stillness, or if they are additive. 

My second issue was survival, which is why I asked for Blizzard and Ice Armor. Is the 50% defense calculated before, or after armor? Also, how had is it to keep blizzard up?

 

I also like to point out it seem you are not speaking off Nightmare. A 2h warrior + static cage early is not efficient. I have tested that myself. The only early combos that would work decent with Static Cage are Leaping Shot, Energy Barrage, and a DW rogue in general. Especially that Spinning Blade-or whatever-ability(The name escapes me now...). 

@Blackstork

Not sure here. You will need as much control as possible. Static cage and its prerequisite offer that. I can't see a reason it wont be included into solo run kit.

 

It's rather heavy to get, which is my issue. Wouldn't Winter's grasp, Fire Wall or Chain Lightning be enough? You certainly don't got the mana to juggle Static Cage with anything else. I'd rather go down Inferno for an early Fire mine, which is the main damage for the majority of the game, followed by Fire Wall for CC. Then either go down and get Static Cage for fire-resistance enemies, or go down Winter for Ice Armor and Blizzard. 

 

----------------------

 

 

Other than that, I still struggle to see the love for Static Cage outside of cheesing end-game(Which is fun). Early game it is way too costly -- especially for solo play. Mid-game Pull of the Abyss gives better CC and sets up for Fire mine better. Late game it's better, but I still don't find it great without the named abilities to work off of it.

 

The things I need so far:

 

Fire mine - Main damage ability. 

Energy Barrage - Main damage ability.

Barrier - Sort of need it to survive rangers 'n stuff!

Guardian Spirit - An "Oh ****!" passive. I should never be low health more than once every minute, so this is awesome!

Chain Lightning - Solid CC.

Winter's Grasp - Another solid(Pun intended) CC.

Fade Step - Core ability. No mana damage and movement spell. 

Fire Wall - Solid CC apparently. Looks like it can stop melee.

Winter's Stillness - While both Energy Barrage and Fire mine moves the character, I need the mana regeneration desperately until I get Rift Mage!

 

Things I am unsure about:

 

Blizzard - It seem useful, but also a bit clunky. Any insight on this?

Ice Armor - Required for Blizzard. Seem useful. I don't know.

Static Cage - Cost 65 mana and won't give me much of a benefit solo. The CC seem decent for melee packs.

Frost mine - Seems like a decent CC altogether. Especially if I ought to kite.

Revjunating Barrier - 35% mana regen with barrier up. If I manage barrier well, I can at least have 10 seconds of 35% more mana regen each fight. Costly... but might be worth it.

 

Quick off topic question:

 

- Does the tier 2 schematic perk from Force give you masterwork schematics? 

- How would a Necromancer play out? I have yet to try one. I doubt I would go with it, as I need everything Rift Mage has to offer.

 

 

Now. I just got to finish getting Far Cry 4 out of my system, and I'll start trying to get through it solo. It should be fun!

[Blackstork]

 

- Does the tier 2 schematic perk from Force give you masterwork schematics? 

 

Yes.

 

Re @Matth85 post:

The thing that i do not have problem with managing mana with proper passives which boost regen and willpower gear.

SC is great CC versus Melees, which i use with antivan fire, if i really need to. I hold antivan fires and mana pots on vivi. 

Also i dislike chain lighting, and lighting bolt is far better imo for locking down targets.  I roing to respec Solas into fire tho and will see how i go with fire. But its either fire or lightning, frost spells i have are too good to pass. Also my build buys maximum sustain and cc for minimum points.

[Matth85]

The thing that i do not have problem with managing mana with proper passives which boost regen and willpower gear.

 

Willpower does not increase mana regen this time around, sadly. Which means we only got 2 passives pre-specialization that increase mana regen; Winter's Stillness and Rebjunating Barrier. 

 

Also i dislike chain lighting, and lighting bolt is far better imo for locking down targets

 

I am not a fan of Chain Lightning myself, but lighting Bolt is just too heavy cost. Though I believe with Winter's grasp, Frost Mine and Fire Wall I won't need Chain Lightning at all.

 

Also my build buys maximum sustain and cc for minimum points.

 

The problem is as solo, you don't got any leeway. You can't choose between CC and damage -- you need both. If I use 65 mana on Static Cage, I really can't to much more. If I need to auto attack, I am going to eventually die. Fire Mine is very cost efficient for damage, and the fact it won't trigger until walked over does give some leeway in terms of kiting. 

 

Though my biggest issue will be fire-resistant enemies. So I either need to find a hybrid build as a solution for this, or change build every time I meet these enemies. Hm...

[FoamingForias]

 

Example: Weapon Damage, electricity 66. 81 magic, 19 willpower, 46% attack

 

Average auto attack: 100 damage. 

 

Average Energy Barrage shot: 100 

Average Static Cage damage: 40

 

Average Fire Mine direct Damage: 2000

Average Fire Mine DoT Damage: 200

 

So. In terms of cost, Fire mine gives me 102 damage per mana and can be done every 27 second, whilst a combo of Static Cage + Energy Barrage gives me 14 damage per mana and can be done every 32 second. 

 

I apologise if I'm missing something here. I'm not that experienced with theory crafting. However, if your weapon damage is 66.81 modified up to 100, then energy barrage will be doing 66% of that (which conveniently is 66) for each hit. There are 12 hits in Energy Barrage. For each of those 12 hits, Static Cage will throw in 50% weapon damage (which conveniently is 50, if I'm understanding this right).

 

So I'm calculating that as 792 + 600 = 1,392 damage, which seems fairly respectable.

 

It's perfectly possible I'm doing something wrong here or have misunderstood, but that's my understanding of the spells involved, and part of why Barrage plus Static Cage is such a good combination.

[Matth85]

I apologise if I'm missing something here. I'm not that experienced with theory crafting. However, if your weapon damage is 66.81 modified up to 100, then energy barrage will be doing 66% of that (which conveniently is 66) for each hit. There are 12 hits in Energy Barrage. For each of those 12 hits, Static Cage will throw in 50% weapon damage (which conveniently is 50, if I'm understanding this right).

 

So I'm calculating that as 792 + 600 = 1,392 damage, which seems fairly respectable.

 

It's perfectly possible I'm doing something wrong here or have misunderstood, but that's my understanding of the spells involved, and part of why Barrage plus Static Cage is such a good combination.

Energy barrage averaged 100 per hit over a few tests. That means a full barrage equals 1200 damage. 

For each energy barrage hit while in static cage, the enemy take an additional average of 40. So 40x12. 480. 

That means that combo did a total of 1680 damage -- which isn't bad! But it cost 115 mana. 1680/115 = 14,6 damage per mana spent.

On the other hand, Fire Mine did an average of 2000 on burst and 200 per tick afterwards. I forgot how long it ticks, but in total it gave 102 damage per mana. 

 

The biggest issue I can see with a mage is mana. 115 mana is 15 over max mana, which is 4 second of waiting (If I remember correct regarding mana regen per second). That means a full combo equals a full mana bar + 4 second of waiting for some CC and 1680 damage. Whereas a Fire Mine would cost 35 mana and allow for any other spell, or two other spells, to be cast. It could be Energy Barrage, barrier or immolation. 

 

I do see the strength of Static Cage -- on my support mage end-game with a tempest Sera. However, outside of that I can't see the strength in it. My reasoning for asking about it is that I see multiple people telling they faceroll early game with it, and swears by it. Over all my playthrougs, I have yet to feel it be worth my time outside of cheesing damage (At which I just use my Assassin DW rogue anyways). I figured there had to be something I am not getting here!

Obviously, on fire resistance enemies I must either go Static Cage or Blizzard. That is another question I need to find an answer too: How efficient is Blizzard.

 

A lot of things need to be planned before I go ahead and stroll through Nightmare solo I know it can easily be done already -- I just want to do it efficient.

[Blackstork]

Energy barrage averaged 100 per hit over a few tests. That means a full barrage equals 1200 damage. 

For each energy barrage hit while in static cage, the enemy take an additional average of 40. So 40x12. 480. 

That means that combo did a total of 1680 damage -- which isn't bad! But it cost 115 mana. 1680/115 = 14,6 damage per mana spent.

On the other hand, Fire Mine did an average of 2000 on burst and 200 per tick afterwards. I forgot how long it ticks, but in total it gave 102 damage per mana. 

 

The biggest issue I can see with a mage is mana. 115 mana is 15 over max mana, which is 4 second of waiting (If I remember correct regarding mana regen per second). That means a full combo equals a full mana bar + 4 second of waiting for some CC and 1680 damage. Whereas a Fire Mine would cost 35 mana and allow for any other spell, or two other spells, to be cast. It could be Energy Barrage, barrier or immolation. 

 

I do see the strength of Static Cage -- on my support mage end-game with a tempest Sera. However, outside of that I can't see the strength in it. My reasoning for asking about it is that I see multiple people telling they faceroll early game with it, and swears by it. Over all my playthrougs, I have yet to feel it be worth my time outside of cheesing damage (At which I just use my Assassin DW rogue anyways). I figured there had to be something I am not getting here!

Obviously, on fire resistance enemies I must either go Static Cage or Blizzard. That is another question I need to find an answer too: How efficient is Blizzard.

 

A lot of things need to be planned before I go ahead and stroll through Nightmare solo I know it can easily be done already -- I just want to do it efficient.

Well, its un-impossible to use fire and SC at same time -  This is quite costly skill points wise, so that wont come on early game. The point of SC is shock damage, shock effect (correct me if i am wrong), and very predictable area lock, which is awesome versus multiple melees, especially hightly mobile ones.

The path to it also contain very useful spells, but i agree that , at least without passives, the cost is too high. Once you get passives, its cool tho. LB+EB+SC working great with me, esp if you have fire staff so both shocked and burning applied. I do alot of damage this way. I Play duo, so didnt tried it without rogue. Rogue provide discharge/rupture detonations, as well as sleeping effect to detonate with dispell. 

I am sure that my build might need another pass of min-maxing to get thru earlier stages. But i think the combo of EB+LB+SC and Fire stuff + dispell and Barrier + Fade/Frost step could work as more late-pre-skyhold build. 

I also use antivan fire during some encounters, so its another fire component. 

[MadDemiurg]

Mana regen bonuses seem to be multiplicative. Also base mana regen is definitely higher than 15 mana in 4 sec. But it's hard to have constant barrier uptime on non KE and the barrier itself costs 50 mana. I'm not even sure it pays for itself if you use it purely for regen. Mana surge is a very underrated ability which makes the barrier much much more worthwhile since you basically can get its cost back or even more, not counting the cc which is also great. So if you go for rejuvenating barrier make sure you pick mana surge as well. It's a lot of points though, so probably not for earlygame.

 

Static cage helps to faceroll the early game, but not solo. As I've mentioned SC + wall of fire is insane, but you won't have points for that on 1 mage. I would reconsider your position on CL. It's 1500% damage spell as long as there are at least 2 enemies on the field (jump radius is huge with upgrade) + it's the most reliable source of shocked debuff that boosts your damage and is even nicer on RM for obvious reasons.

 

For fire immune enemies you can just do the Stone Fist/PotA -> CL -> Dispel combo which deals solid spirit and lightning damage. No need for blizzard since it's pretty bad damage wise.

 

I would actually avoid PotA on RM until lategame solo since it costs way too much in terms of skillpoints to get there and you'll miss out on damage skills. I'd settle on Stonefist, Veilstrike and Restorative Veil from the spec for the main part of the game.

[Matth85]

I think I need to do some testing on Chain Lightning and the debuff. I have never found it particulary interesting -- but when you say it like that, it certainly looks like it should do well.

In any case, it's a good CC with no investment requirement.

 

My biggest concern is pre-skyhold-fire resistant enemies. In case you didn't know; I do things 100% from beginning to end. This means I kill the Ferelden Frostback at level 11, or 12, before doing the Mage or Templar quest. This means I need a reliable way to damage the dragonlings, which might prove.. difficult. Though Chain Lightning + Dispel + auto attack might me what I need to get me through that.

 

Hm..