21 réponses à ce sujet

[MagisterMaximus]

The best wya to test it, is to respec Dorian and Solas, then load them up with Necro and Rift tree. Then take them out and test them, see which one feels better for you. That's what I did.

[Sidney]

Depends on what you want. Both "work" to the extent you can play and finish the game. Both pair with different trees so you might want to respec once you pick a specialization. Are you looking for raw power?

Necro had a lot of dialog associated with it as people questioned your specialization as it is more "forbidden" so I was haooy with both skills and story elements of it.

[MagisterMaximus]

and your conclusion after your testing?

Rift is more geared towards crowd control and weakening.

Necromancy is geared more towards de-buffing and puppet master.

I liked all three for different reasons. I actually ended up choosing Knight Enchanter because I had never played a mage that way before.

[Vortex13]

It sucks that the minion aspect of the Necromancer is so buggy. The AI for your minions is very hit and miss, to the point that speccing into Walking Bomb is really the only way to go. 

 

Which sucks because I wanted to be the puppet master Mage 

 

 

I didn't know about the story elements involved though, is it more content than the other specializations get?

[MagisterMaximus]

Well Rift mage only really has one damge dealing spell (no including the focus one), the rest is pretty much to weaken and make it easy for the rest of your party to deal lots of damge.

Necro has two damage dealing spells, one damges then brings them back as your puppet, the other is Walking bomb who deals loads of damage to tight grouped enemeies.

So if you are more interested in dealing damage to enemies I would suggest Necro.

 

[MagisterMaximus]

What about the mana if i spec into Necro, do i have to spam auto all the time, cause i know rift have alot of mana regen? I guess winter sillnees is a must have in that case

This is a passive in the Necro tree:

Death SiphonEvery time an enemy dies nearby, you regain both health and mana.

 

• Mana Amount: 20
• Health Amount: 10%
• Constitution on Unlock: +3

[Matth85]

Rift mage:

 

- Gives much needed mana. You become a spellslinger. Big increase in dps.

- Gives Weakness. 30% less damage? Enemies hit like noodles.

- Gives Control. Knocking down enemies left and right? And applying weakness? Sounds good!

- Sets up Combos. Set a Fire mine and Pull of the Abyss. As soon as it blows, use Stonefist and immolate. 

*Or set up a Pull of the Abyss with a Frost Mine, then shatter them all. 'dayymm

- Did I mention control? Pull of the Abyss makes it easier to deal with pesky assassins.

- Did I mention mana regen, a mages biggest problem and limitation? Shoot spell as you like it, when you like it.

 

Necromancer in itself is nice, but suffer from what a non-specialization mage suffers from: Lack of mana regen. Also, by itself, Walking Bomb is near useless. It does get better coupled with Solas Pull of the Abyss, but at that point you might as well go Rift mage and have Dorian with you -- you can do more with Rift mage than Solas can.

[MagisterMaximus]

Rift mage:

 

- Gives much needed mana. You become a spellslinger. Big increase in dps.

- Gives Weakness. 30% less damage? Enemies hit like noodles.

- Gives Control. Knocking down enemies left and right? And applying weakness? Sounds good!

- Sets up Combos. Set a Fire mine and Pull of the Abyss. As soon as it blows, use Stonefist and immolate. 

*Or set up a Pull of the Abyss with a Frost Mine, then shatter them all. 'dayymm

- Did I mention control? Pull of the Abyss makes it easier to deal with pesky assassins.

- Did I mention mana regen, a mages biggest problem and limitation? Shoot spell as you like it, when you like it.

 

Necromancer in itself is nice, but suffer from what a non-specialization mage suffers from: Lack of mana regen. Also, by itself, Walking Bomb is near useless. It does get better coupled with Solas Pull of the Abyss, but at that point you might as well go Rift mage and have Dorian with you -- you can do more with Rift mage than Solas can.

There you go. I admit I didn't do in depth testing. I just took the companions out whom had the ability and used it against various enemies. I chose the one that felt interesting to try.

[Matth85]

There you go. I admit I didn't do in depth testing. I just took the companions out whom had the ability and used it against various enemies. I chose the one that felt interesting to try.

 

Necromancer isn't bad, to be fair. Just.. not very well developed. Walking Bomb needs clusters of enemies to be efficient -- there are few of those in DA I. The rasing dead ability is nice, but I hear there are some bugs with it. And the passive to gain mana from dead enemies is.. lacklusting.. If you play a mage efficient, everything dies in AoE at once. Hence you are out of combat by the time you can leech mana and health. Making it.. well.. useless?

 

I do feel a necromancer Inquisitor can do the most burst dps as long as Solas is near with Pull of the abyss. But on the whole of it, Rift Mage plugs the biggest gap fro mages -- mana. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

It all depends on what you want for your particular character. I will list what I think of each of the mage specializations. 

 

Knight Enchanter

 

It is the most flexible class specialization in the game, bar none. That is not an exaggeration. Plus, I think that this is the true strength of the Knight Enchanter specialization, not the way you can build yourself up to be immortal.  

 

Almost all the other specialization, particularly the other mage specialization, turns you into a one-trick pony. Now, some would argue that such is the nature of specializing yourself but I personally despise being a one-trick pony. 

 

A Knight Enchanter can be built to be a spellcaster-spellsword hybrid. Just pick Spirit Blade, Fade Cloak, Resurgence and couple this with something like Immolate, Winter's Grasp, Energy Barrage, Static Cage, Barrier and you get a very well rounded mage.

 

You have your elemental area of effect spells, you have you spirit blade to allow you to melee or perform projectile deflection should you choose so, you have a cloaking spell that makes you invulnerable or turns you into a bomb of sorts and then you have healing spell.

 

Throw in some passives on top of the Knight Enchanter's passives like Flashpoint, Clean Burn, Chaotic Focus, Winter Stillness, Mana Surge, Conductive Current, Static Charge, Peaceful Aura, Guardian Spirit and Rejuvenating Barrier means you can essentially do everything from having a decent mana regeneration to good spell damage and surviving melee without dying.

 

This is something Rift Mages and Necromancers cannot claim to do. They cannot heal, they cannot melee and they most certainly cannot become invulnerable. As I said, one trick pony. 

 

Additionally, Knight Enchanter is a specialization that has roots in Elven tradition but it has practicality that makes it appeal to every tradition. It is a practical specialization. 

 

The downsides to Knight Enchanter are well, it will not be the ultimate best. It will not be the ultimate nuker, it will not be the ultimate melee but that is to be expected, the downsides of flexibility is the inability to be a true master of specificity. Playing a well balanced Knight Enchanter is like playing the Sentinel class in Mass Effect 3. You can do everything but you are not the best at doing each one of them. 

 

Rift Mage

 

This specialization turns you into a nuker with good amount of crowd control options available. It turns you into a one-trick pony, yes, but it is a good type of one trick pony. With weakness, you get unlimited mana with which you can cast spells all the time and debuff enemies, provided you know how to circumvent some things. 

 

For Rift Mages, the best way forward that I have found is to pick upgraded Stonefist, upgraded Pull Of The Abyss and the passives. Mark Of The Rift is a far superior focus ability compared to Firestorm and upgraded Stonefist and Pull Of The Abyss renders Veilstrike obsolete. 

 

Add this to abilities such as Immolate, Fire Mine, Winter's Grasp, Ice Mine, Chain Lightning and Static Cage and you can nuke pretty much everything in the game there is. Also, theoretically speaking, you can perform all the combos in the game by yourself as a Rift Mage. 

 

Rift Mage also has the privilege of being the scholarly specialization. 
 

The downsides to Rift Mage ?

 

Well, first off we have the Weakness bug. It does not occur all the time and it can be negated but it is a very frustrating bug where your Weakness gets cancelled out and this stop the mana regeneration and the debuff. 

 

Secondly, we have the combo bug. Remember how I said you can theoretically do all the combos in the game. Well the combos themselves are quite bugged as well. Immolate for one does not trigger anything. 

 

Thirdly, we have big bosses. The only spell that works on big boss creatures is Stonefist which means you have to play against big bosses as a traditional nuker. Having said that, bosses are not immune or not resistant to Weakness which means you still get your mana regeneration and 30% debuff against High Dragon and Templar Behemoths are no laughing matter. 

 

Lastly, we have the skill bar. We are stuck with only 8 abilities, 7 if you choose to have Focus ability with you and 6 if you choose to have a Focus ability and Barrier. Rift Mage is a mage specialization that technically gives you unlimited mana but you will be stuck with the same spells since well, Bioware decided that 8 abilities is "choices, strategy & tactics !"...I personally would have preferred to either have 10 ability slots or to have the skill menu just open to us in combat.

 

Necromancer

 

This specialization, in theory offers you crowd control, damage over time, pets and some debuffing capability. Emphasis on the phrase "In theory"

 

In practice however, 2 out of the 3 abilities for Necromancer is downright bad. 

 

Horror is a spell with high amount of mana cost but only a small area of effect and the damage over time upgrade you get with it is not impressive. The spell's AOE should be increased to 5 meters at least or have its mana cost reduced. 

 

Spirit Mark has a decent damage over time but the pets you get in this game are buggy as hell. They won't work properly in combat but they work too well outside combat, its crazy. I had a pet wolf from spirit mark once and in combat, it was crap but out of combat, it was killing random hallas left, right and center. WTF Bioware ?!

 

Which means the only good spell we have is Walking Bomb and it is a damn good spell. However, the amount of passives you have to invest to get it is too damn high. 

 

Then there is Haste, which makes sense for Dorian to have it but why on Earth does the Inquisitor has it. Inquisitor is being taught Necromancy by the Nevarran Mortalitasi, not Dorian. I mean Haste is effective and it work everywhere but I would have preferred an area of effect corpse reanimation spell or something. 

 

As for the passives, Death Siphon is good but only when you fight lots of enemies. In boss fights, it becomes pointless.

 

Simulacrum is great but the duration is too short. Make it 15 seconds as opposed to 10 seconds and I can then see that passive being useful. 

 

The best basic spells that combo well with Necromancer are Inferno spells...Wall of Flames, Fire Mine and Immolate are top choices here...as well as Static Cage...I feel Static Cage is a must to make the Necromancer work properly in its current state. 

 

As for basic passives, Clean Burn, Flashpoint, Pyromancer, Winter Stillness, Conductive Current and Peaceful Aura are the way to go.

 

As it is, the Necromancer specialization is underdeveloped, especially when you compare it side by side with Knight Enchanter. It has potential but the bugs and weird spell costs hold it back. 

 

Conclusion

 

Personally, I would pick between Knight Enchanter or Rift Mage. 

[SonsofNorthWind]

I feel like Spirit Mark should have been a passive - anything you kill is a spirit minion for 15 seconds - and simulacrum should have been your focus - make a copy of yourself that lasts until it dies but can't heal and does % less damage based on focus level. Then you've got a free spot for a place able caltrops type Grasp of the Dead skill.

[Cmpunker13]

Necromancer isn't bad, to be fair. Just.. not very well developed. Walking Bomb needs clusters of enemies to be efficient -- there are few of those in DA I. 

 

Walking Bomb + Static Cage work fine.

[Matth85]

Walking Bomb + Static Cage work fine.

 

There are few times this combo works out, just because there are few times enemies are clumped up. Pull of the Abyss helps with this, of course. But otherwise it isn't as efficient as it potentially could be.

[Klystron]

Walking bomb sort of lurches between meh and spectacular, depending on how the enemies are grouped and things like timing and CC. It's been a lot of fun but I'm getting a little bored with it now, I'm ready to finish my 1st playthrough and try another spec.

 

Thanks for the guide, Tishen.

[TBastian]

I disagree about Rift Mage turning your character into a "one trick pony". Playing a difficult-to-kill mage simply requires a bit more thought and skill in Inquisition, but it can be done even without the abilities you get from Knight Enchanter. Granted, any non-KE mage should never actually try to tank for the group, but when you're able to spam spells like Fade Step/Barrier you'll be surprised just how difficult it actually is to kill a mage. It helps that kiting and hiding behind obstacles actually works in Inquisition, and there's also the fact that certain spells like the mine spells and Ice Wall drive the AI nuts.

Bottomline, there are ways to go about turning your mage into a useful distraction or preventing ranged mobs from overwhelming you without resorting to picking up KE. And considering how potentially useful Dispel is, there are are also ways a mage can be an excellent support character. This is all on top of being a good/decent controller/nuker. Finally, as mentioned, it helps that all Rift Mage abilities you actually want are very accessible. The rest are more specialized, except for one or two other very good abilities buried under the rest. Essentially, Rift Mage gives you great control and mana regen, both potentially valuable for any type of mage.

 

The main thing about Knight Enchanter is that it is the freaking AW and Spirit Healer specs rolled into one. I honestly don't know whose bright idea this combination was, but it would have made a lot more sense to give Knight Enchanter Haste and Necromancer Resurgence. As it is, KE simply makes it easier to for a mage to be "all that" by putting most of the stuff you need under one specialization tree. "Free" access (there's basically no cost, the roads that lead to it are full of good abilities) to Resurgence is particularly unfair. If nothing else, Resurgence should be at the very bottom of that specialization tree and would require all other main KE abilities to be taken first.

 

Necromancer is odd. It's a good tree, it just lacks the OOMPH of the other specializations. There's some crowd control there, potentially high single target damage + a free pet, a dangerous AoE nuke and a decent focus ability. The focus ability, in particular, seems very out of place. Essentially Haste doesn't let you do more damage (at least, not directly) - it mostly prevents stuff from fighting back effectively. Something that fits the KE tree better, imo. It might fit Dorian because of his background with Alexius, but you were supposed to learn about this stuff from the Mortalitasi.