37 réponses à ce sujet

[MadDemiurg]

For ferelden frostback I would probably go with frost step + winter's grasp + mana surge + EB and frost staff. Might want to respec just for that. Admittedly I've only done it post skyhold which is much easier, so don't take my word on it (I just rushed the story so I was at skyhold at like lvl 9). Pre skyhold is gonna be tough for solo, tbh I would only try that as a tank warrior, but should be doable, just super tedious.

 

CL + dispel do not combo AFAIK, its sleep + dispel, which you need weakness for, so you can't do that before RM.

[Blackstork]

the money that needed for respec amulet are so laughable. Even if you just gather all crap during your hinterlands run and sell it instead of requisition it you will be able to swap builds as socks, if needed - only thing that you do not need such frequent swap - but sometimes swaps are necessay , esp when you switch zone or something. 

 Requisitions also provide limitless milk in form of easy to get t2 masterwork schematics. 

T2 mats aviable (at least leather and metal are) quite early, with metal being the easiest. 

Solo is surely doable on mage. And yes, perhaps as solo SC first would be not best solution, but its great on duo tho. 

Chain lighting actually yes, seems to become more actual on solo.

[FoamingForias]

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.

 

Thanks for clarifying. That makes sense.

[xPez]

I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong with Chaotic Focus.

 

After I unlocked it Fire Mine stopped refilling my barrier after going off, which was quite a big deal as a KE. In the end I grabbed a respec amulet and got the Fade Step upgrade instead, as the side effect of CF threw me off of my normal battle plan.

 

Any tips?

[l3loodpimp]

   Most of peoples swear by static cage because each member of the party hitting the target trigger improve static cage. Yes you have firemine and immolation, but it's not worth spamming spamming because as far as i know, the burning debuff do not stack. I usually roll with 2 mages on my team, and always have one of them with static cage for a nice clean burst of damage.

   Since you're going for a solo run anyway, Static Cage is literally useless because it's a team based spell. 

 

 

   I've never properly tested the mana regen of rift mage, and the whole 30% damage reduction is great. But isn't the aoe fear of necro cheaper (ability point wise) than wall of fire? 

  Plus, you get a pet, and mana and health each time a target dies (not that it really matter against boss fight). And with those point freed from the fire tree you could get rejuvenating barrier, or strengh of the spirit instead.

 

PS: if trash mobs are too hard, sniping them is still an option anyway :/.

[Matth85]

I've never properly tested the mana regen of rift mage, and the whole 30% damage reduction is great. But isn't the aoe fear of necro cheaper (ability point wise) than wall of fire? 

 

Might be - but the mana as a rift mage is insane! You keep casting spell as long as ther enemy got weakness debuff aplied.

 

Plus, you get a pet, and mana and health each time a target die

 

Which is nice on paper -- but given Mage is AoE most things die very close to each other. Meaning by the time you can utilize this, combat is over.

 

I don't know, necromancer seem nice in theory, but half the abilities are not worth picking up and the rest are paling in comparison to Rift Mage.

[xaragon]

Wow ok. I have been tinkering with my rift mage constantly and i have found something really nice in terms of spec. It still needs tweaking but the foundation is there.

 

Usually i would take all of rift with perhaps skipping one of the upgrades, Problem with that is its just too many points. So i had a read through and all the stuff i want is down the left hand side, Mainly the mana regen but also the damage reduction.

 

So i will explain my reasoning, i took veilstrike upgraded thats my opener - Aoe 35 mana weakness applier. From there no more mana regen problems at all.

 

Due to the next one in the tree resortive veil.  Now from here i can pretty much cast all my offensive spells without mana issues and because i dropped alot of points in the rift tree i can take static cage and upgraded fire mine.

 

Its pretty crazy, fights pretty much go veilstrike, static cage immoliate fire mine, barrage, pull of the abyss if i need it- and then whatever procs .

 

Im almost tempted to drop pull and weakening shroud to pick up a few different things not sure what, but with veilstrike and static cage the c/c is pretty damn good anyway.

[xaragon]

Questions what fade touched bonuses do we think are best for mage?

[Matth85]

Questions what fade touched bonuses do we think are best for mage?

Hm... It depends on the situation I guess.

Berserk would work fine, as you shouldn't get hit.

Guard on hit works good, as Energy Barrage is on a low CD and gives 12 x hit per cast.

Hidden Blade is an obvious contester, for the same reason Energy Barrage is good.

[tongz]

Don't have access to my game at the moment, did anyone do any testing on whether ice armor DR is before or after armor? 50% before armor should make any mage ridiculously tanky.

[MadDemiurg]

Berserk is awful even on a mage, especially solo. The one that gives +20% dmg if not hit for 5 seconds is decent though.

 

Hidden blades on hit if you want to break the game.

 

Guard on hit is ok, I've discovered that there actually is a 1% heal on hit mastercraft (snoufler skin), which should be much better imo. That means EB = 12% heal or even 24% heal with static cage I guess. Couple that with ice armor and that would make KE and Champion look squishy.

 

Acually the more I think about it the more it seems that an ice build could actually work on RM. Weakness + Blizzard = constant mana regen, with snoufler skin it's also a health regen and ice armor gives awesome DR. Can make an aggressive close quarter RM build that charges in with fade step, pops up blizzard and proceeds to mess everyone up with stone fist and other damaging skills in his arsenal. Sounds like fun.

 

Walking fortress, Walking bomb and Shield bash procs are not bad, but not on the same level as the stuff above.

 

-20% ability cost is nice, but not so much for RM.

 

For staff, critical crafting is one of the best options (unless you really want to cheese hidden blades).

 

I used to run my main with guard on hit (health on hit would've been better in retrospective, never found it though) and critical crafted staff while Solas got 2x hidden blades and then got kicked out of the party for ruining all the fun.

 

For soloing I would say survivability mastercrafts look more attractive than dps ones. So probably 1% heal on hit for the armor and critical crafting or Walking fortress on hit for the staff.

[Rynas]

Guard on hit is ok, I've discovered that there actually is a 1% heal on hit mastercraft (snoufler skin), which should be much better imo. That means EB = 12% heal or even

24% heal with static cage I guess.

 

That's exactly what I'm trying next.  Going to load up on +Health or +Con, get over 1k health and see what happens.

[Exalus]

- 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.

 

Rift mage is mountains better than necro. 30% weaken, infinite mana as long as you do sustained damage, the best aoe setup in the game that allows aoe deep sleep combos when paired with shock. Though, I think the weaken is bugged in that if you override an existing weaken, the enemy becomes immune to it for a duration but your passives still work but all this means solo is that you dont take the rift spell upgrades for more than a single spell.

 

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.

 

There's not a great reason to get static cage if youre solo at least not until you have pull of the abyss/restorative veil.

 

 

Your core build looks as optimized as you can get at level roughly 12, really its just a question of if you can clear the battle at haven with that build as post skyhold you will access to near limitless mana and 30% from weaken from rift mage. I dont think you can really swap out any of your core for the above listed. Are you taking winter stillness, upgraded fire mine, upgraded firewall and clean burn?

 

 

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.

 

I dont play solo but i always seem to neglect fade step as the tank is so reliable at holding agro but it seems to be one of the most praised spells next to fire mine. didnt know that about winter stillness, thats kind of insane with the existence of clean burn.