53 réponses à ce sujet

[stop_him]

Every specialization is viable. Necromancer is just the worst specialization. Gingerbread cookie is still a cookie, but it's still inferior to oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip.

Indeed. I like oatmeal raisin with walnuts, myself.

[dragonflight288]

Fire being the spell line that gives the Necro a lot of synergy. I do agree that it needs a buff, it just isn't as bad as people think it is. And if people stop thinking of only dps, it would be better thought of.

 

I think of Necromancy like I do some spells in Spirit or Entropy in Origins. Meant for isolating enemies, controlling the field of battle, and allowing your follow up combat to be that much easier. It isn't meant to do a lot of damage quickly like the KE or AoE like Rift Mage. 

 

But it is the best for controlling the field. Matched with wall of flame&fire mine or static cage and large groups of enemies can be isolated, slowed, while Cole, Vivienne, or Varric plow through with the dps. 

 

Heck, Varric with a well-upgraded Bianca and a 2nd tier focus ability and fully upgraded leapshot can practically solo high dragons. On Nightmare. I've seen it done. 

[Bigdoser]

Problem is rift mage does the crowd controlling better along with the weakened stat and the aoe damage. In DAO the spirit and entropy tree could also pump out LOADS of damage if you played it right and it still worked well on bosses. 

 

Necromancer does not work well on bosses, their crowd control is fairly poor compared to rift mage. I swore by spirit and entropy in DAO as someone who was excited for necromancer I am simply just disappointed. 

[ThelLastTruePatriot]

Fire being the spell line that gives the Necro a lot of synergy. I do agree that it needs a buff, it just isn't as bad as people think it is. And if people stop thinking of only dps, it would be better thought of.

I agree, I dunno why all this meticulous min maxing is necessary for a game that is a cakewalk even on it's highest difficulty, all specs are capable of beating nightmare. There are specs which are of course far and above better than others, but no spec in this game is so bad that it can't get you through the content.. I think rogues are a bit overtuned as too often people hold up classes and specs against what rogues can do and everything else pales in comparison. Seems whoever came up with the rogue specs was really on the ball. I wish that love was spread around to the other classes.

[Nic Mercy]

I found my human rift mage build to be ideal for my style of play. It was fun and I felt powerful. My goals were to have mostly short cooldown spells, manageable mana, a way to dish out damage of each element and only 8 active skills primarily (any excess actives would come with points beyond what was planned for). My concept assumes Mark of the Rift as your only Focus ability because a) it's free, B) it's more thematically appropriate for a rift a mage than firestorm, and c) it rounds out the action bar abilities to 8 exactly.

 

The basics with only 13 points early on consist of:

 

Veilstrike (crowd control)

Punching Down (upgrade for Veilstrike - essential to apply weaken)

Stonefist (spirit damage)

Shatterstone (upgrade for Stonefist - essential to apply weaken)

Restorative Veil (passive - essential to keep mana up)

Energy Barrage (I favored using a cold damage staff since I didn't pick any cold spells - great for abusing fade touched procs)

Chain Lightning (electric damage)

Immolate (fire damage)

Flashpoint (crit procs for no cooldown)

Clean Burn (reduced cooldowns)

Barrier (defense)

Peaceful Aura (I actually notice threat without it so I like having it)

Guardian Spirit (emergency life saver)

 

Mark of the Rift (Focus ability - free)

 

Just that build early in the game when you first get the specialization worked very well as a baseline to grow from.

 

The final build looks like this with 22 points.

 

All of the above stuff mentioned plus:

 

Encircling Veil (passive - duration bonus on status effects vs. weaken)

Twisting Veil (passive - damage bonus vs. weaken)

Smothering Veil (passive - stronger weaken)

Pyromancer (passive - longer dots and panic)

Fire Mine (huge fire damage - requires some finesse to maximize - works well as an immediate follow up to Veilstrike)

Wildfire (Immolate upgrade - more damage is good)

Searing Glyph (Fire Mine upgrade - the dot is nice vs chunky boss type foes and dragons not resistant to fire)

Conductive Current (passive - more damage based on mana deficit)

Energy Bombardment (Upgrade for Energy Barrage - resistance debuff)

 

Just this basic set up was all I needed. It played well and felt organic. Now mind you much of my success with this build could be due to gearing but it was effective. I primarily focused on crit chance on my gearing where I could... Cunning was a worthy substitute where applicable. Anything to get the crit rate up. 30% or more is where it feels like its working and 50% was the ideal. Next I focused on Crit Damage. Getting it up to 100% crit damage made everything feel super powerful. The biggest item to make this possible was the schematic for the Seer Staff using mats that buffed crit chance and crit damage. Alternative staves can work to a lesser degree but still function quite well. While I would have preferred to use dragon bone for the base mat of the staff for the highest damage possible I wanted cold damage not fire for Energy Barrage so I used silverite. The loss was not noticed.

 

For fade touched mats I went with 1% heal on hit for the staff and 5guard on hit for my armor. This essentially gave me the ability to heal myself (particularly well with energy barrage) and shield myself (again energy barrage shines) which made my mage incredibly sturdy in the face of any foe. It's sort of like being a bootleg KE but as a ranged nuker rather than melee. Other procs I tried included the 10% chance of 5 Hidden Blades hits and essence of perfection on my staff for more raw damage, but neither felt particularly necessary at that point. I already had lots of damage by then. Gaining the ability to self heal and self guard seemed more worthwhile since it gave me abilities I didn't possess. The self heal can be gotten fairly early as there are snoufleurs in the exalted plains to farm the 1% heal mat and you can always use lower grade guard on hit mats until you're high enough for EDL to farm silverite.

 

I'm sure some of the things I DIDN'T pick stand out as strange to some people. Pull of the Abyss for example. I see the strategic use of it... but the combat is so fast paced it hardly seems efficient to wait for it to pull things in to clump up aoe when I can Veilstrike 2 to 3 guys and lay a Fire Mine on them and toss an Immolate at them before they ever stand up... most minion level mobs are dead or near dead after that alone. Pull of the Abyss just seems too slow and superfluous. I can already keep weaken up permanently with just Veilstrike and Stonefist. My warriors are specced to have passives like Crippling Blows (applies weaken) and Maker's Will (applies weaken) which just makes Abyss even less necessary. Maybe on nightmare its needed but Hard and Normal definitely not.

[Biotic Flash Kick]

I found my human rift mage build to be ideal for my style of play. It was fun and I felt powerful. My goals were to have mostly short cooldown spells, manageable mana, a way to dish out damage of each element and only 8 active skills primarily (any excess actives would come with points beyond what was planned for). My concept assumes Mark of the Rift as your only Focus ability because a) it's free, it's more thematically appropriate for a rift a mage than firestorm, and c) it rounds out the action bar abilities to 8 exactly.

 

The basics with only 13 points early on consist of:

 

Veilstrike (crowd control) BUGGED

Punching Down (upgrade for Veilstrike - essential to apply weaken) BUGGED

Stonefist (spirit damage)

Shatterstone (upgrade for Stonefist - essential to apply weaken) BUGGED

Restorative Veil (passive - essential to keep mana up) BUGGED

Energy Barrage (I favored using a cold damage staff since I didn't pick any cold spells - great for abusing fade touched procs)

Chain Lightning (electric damage)

Immolate (fire damage) No Detonation

Flashpoint (crit procs for no cooldown)

Clean Burn (reduced cooldowns)

Barrier (defense)

Peaceful Aura (I actually notice threat without it so I like having it)

Guardian Spirit (emergency life saver)

 

Mark of the Rift (Focus ability - free)

 

Just that build early in the game when you first get the specialization worked very well as a baseline to grow from.

 

The final build looks like this with 22 points.

 

All of the above stuff mentioned plus:

 

Encircling Veil (passive - duration bonus on status effects vs. weaken) BUGGED

Twisting Veil (passive - damage bonus vs. weaken) BUGGED

Smothering Veil (passive - stronger weaken) BUGGED

Pyromancer (passive - longer dots and panic)

Fire Mine (huge fire damage - requires some finesse to maximize - works well as an immediate follow up to Veilstrike)

Wildfire (Immolate upgrade - more damage is good)

Searing Glyph (Fire Mine upgrade - the dot is nice vs chunky boss type foes and dragons not resistant to fire)

Conductive Current (passive - more damage based on mana deficit) Bugged capped at 20%

Energy Bombardment (Upgrade for Energy Barrage - resistance debuff)

 

Just this basic set up was all I needed. It played well and felt organic. Now mind you much of my success with this build could be due to gearing but it was effective. I primarily focused on crit chance on my gearing where I could... Cunning was a worthy substitute where applicable. Anything to get the crit rate up. 30% or more is where it feels like its working and 50% was the ideal. Next I focused on Crit Damage. Getting it up to 100% crit damage made everything feel super powerful. The biggest item to make this possible was the schematic for the Seer Staff using mats that buffed crit chance and crit damage. Alternative staves can work to a lesser degree but still function quite well. While I would have preferred to use dragon bone for the base mat of the staff for the highest damage possible I wanted cold damage not fire for Energy Barrage so I used silverite. The loss was not noticed.

 

For fade touched mats I went with 1% heal on hit for the staff and 5guard on hit for my armor. This essentially gave me the ability to heal myself (particularly well with energy barrage) and shield myself (again energy barrage shines) which made my mage incredibly sturdy in the face of any foe. It's sort of like being a bootleg KE but as a ranged nuker rather than melee. Other procs I tried included the 10% chance of 5 Hidden Blades hits and essence of perfection on my staff for more raw damage, but neither felt particularly necessary at that point. I already had lots of damage by then. Gaining the ability to self heal and self guard seemed more worthwhile since it gave me abilities I didn't possess. The self heal can be gotten fairly early as there are snoufleurs in the exalted plains to farm the 1% heal mat and you can always use lower grade guard on hit mats until you're high enough for EDL to farm silverite.

 

I'm sure some of the things I DIDN'T pick stand out as strange to some people. Pull of the Abyss for example. I see the strategic use of it... but the combat is so fast paced it hardly seems efficient to wait for it to pull things in to clump up aoe when I can Veilstrike 2 to 3 guys and lay a Fire Mine on them and toss an Immolate at them before they ever stand up... most minion level mobs are dead or near dead after that alone. Pull of the Abyss just seems too slow and superfluous. I can already keep weaken up permanently with just Veilstrike and Stonefist. My warriors are specced to have passives like Crippling Blows (applies weaken) and Maker's Will (applies weaken) which just makes Abyss even less necessary. Maybe on nightmare its needed but Hard and Normal definitely not.

well if half that shi+ wasn't bugged and accurately worked it would be impressive 

until then its bugged for me on two systems along with necro

 

might as well roll vanillia/no spec or KE/easy mode

[hyacinth macaw]

The Rift Mage is supposed to play more of a support role than a damage-dishing role anyway. If you play a Rift Mage, I would suggest having Vivienne tag along in the party most of the time.

[Nic Mercy]

well if half that shi+ wasn't bugged and accurately worked it would be impressive 

until then its bugged for me on two systems along with necro

 

might as well roll vanillia/no spec or KE/easy mode

 

Well as far as I know everything in the build I put together works as expected. My mana doesn't run dry due to weaken being up consistently and things are destroyed in short order. I would have taken Gathering Storm (passive - reduces cooldowns when using basic attacks) but that is apparently bugged. I specifically chose things that I knew worked as expected and it plays quite well. I am not dissatisfied with my rift mage in the least.

 

The Rift Mage is supposed to play more of a support role than a damage-dishing role anyway. If you play a Rift Mage, I would suggest having Vivienne tag along in the party most of the time.

 I find Vivienne unnecessary. She benchwarms most of the time in my game. As a rift mage I see no issue dealing out significant damage. My only "support" is applying weaken debuffs and knocking things down with Veilstrike or Stonefist and tossing out the occasional Barrier if I don't have Solas or Dorian along. It really all depends on how you build and more importantly GEAR the character. With the right gear any spec mage can be a high survivability massive damage dealer.

[hyacinth macaw]

I'll clarify. Right now I'm playing a vanilla no-spec mage because I really wanted to give Necromancer a try but the general consensus seems to be that it's buggy as hell. I'm heavily specced in the Storm and Inferno trees. I typically bring Solas along for the synergy his Rift Mage specialization provides.

 

If you want to make a Rift Mage, here's a build that could be quite interesting. If you have the upgraded version of Static Cage, enemies that haplessly run into the cage after you place it on the ground get caught in it. Pull of the Abyss will literally suck enemies into the cage. Stick a Fire Mine in the cage for extra hilarity. Rift Mage/Inferno/Storm would be a lot of fun. Grab barrier for the extra protection and dip into the Winter tree for Winter's Grasp (a nice reliable CC) and Winter Stillness.

 

As much as people complain about Pull of the Abyss, I find it very useful for getting enemies into a nice, neat cluster.

[Biotic Flash Kick]

lucky you

its bugged for me on 2 consoles :/ 

 

looks like im gunna have to torrent this **** 

[Nic Mercy]

My issue with Pull of the Abyss isn't its performance. It works just fine for me... it's just... too slow. I can kill faster with other abilities that require far less set up.

[Biotic Flash Kick]

plus it launches the surviving enemies at the rift mage after it's over 

[sergel02]

My issue with Pull of the Abyss isn't its performance. It works just fine for me... it's just... too slow. I can kill faster with other abilities that require far less set up.

Yeah so many Rift mages swear on that spell, but I found it very situational and lackluster. It doesn't last long enough to really group them together long enough to be of much use, when you could take static cage's upgrade if that's what you wanted. 

 

You could get the upgrade which will give you mana, then static cage+ and maybe fire mine or energy barrage. Does a lot for sure, but seems repetitive to me personally. Ended up having more fun chucking stonefist. 

[Nic Mercy]

Yeah so many Rift mages swear on that spell, but I found it very situational and lackluster. It doesn't last long enough to really group them together long enough to be of much use, when you could take static cage's upgrade if that's what you wanted. 

 

You could get the upgrade which will give you mana, then static cage+ and maybe fire mine or energy barrage. Does a lot for sure, but seems repetitive to me personally. Ended up having more fun chucking stonefist. 

 

Pull of the Abyss might have been more worthwhile if we faced much larger groups of enemies where aoes could really shine. Unfortunately we face at most what? 4 or 5 enemies at any one time for most of the game? Often spread so far apart that PotA won't catch them all anyways? The only place I can think of pull of the abyss really excelling is during the invasion of haven with red templar waves... of course you dont have a specialization at that point so... missed opportunity for usefulness? Then there's the fact that the aoes we do have aren't particularly large.

[hyacinth macaw]

Pull of the Abyss might have been more worthwhile if we faced much larger groups of enemies where aoes could really shine. Unfortunately we face at most what? 4 or 5 enemies at any one time for most of the game? Often spread so far apart that PotA won't catch them all anyways? The only place I can think of pull of the abyss really excelling is during the invasion of haven with red templar waves... of course you dont have a specialization at that point so... missed opportunity for usefulness? Then there's the fact that the aoes we do have aren't particularly large.

 

It is quite situational, yeah. I usually use Blackwall to round everyone up before I drop a PoA. Obviously this doesn't really work on archers, but they should be burned down first and foremost anyway.

[sergel02]

It is quite situational, yeah. I usually use Blackwall to round everyone up before I drop a PoA. Obviously this doesn't really work on archers, but they should be burned down first and foremost anyway.

 

 

Pull of the Abyss might have been more worthwhile if we faced much larger groups of enemies where aoes could really shine. Unfortunately we face at most what? 4 or 5 enemies at any one time for most of the game? Often spread so far apart that PotA won't catch them all anyways? The only place I can think of pull of the abyss really excelling is during the invasion of haven with red templar waves... of course you dont have a specialization at that point so... missed opportunity for usefulness? Then there's the fact that the aoes we do have aren't particularly large.

Basically. Was doing a bunch of spec testing over which one I like most (side note: probably stick with KE. I like the blend of melee and ranged. The combat clarity bug is annoying. Dunno what's with all the mana bugs). 

Did my testing mainly in Western Approach. There can be TONS of mob groups, but spread far enough you never engage more than 5 at most. Usually 3. Not really worth PotA for that imo. Not sure why so many seem to swear by it. Archers are probably most affected but yeah, you wanna burn them down fast anyway. 

 

Man would that have been useful during the Haven battle. 

[Gaz83]

Currently playing my first proper Rift Mage. Impressed. Nay, very impressed. 

 

You have insane amounts of crowd control, a seemingly endless magic pool and - best of all - the class just feels right, story wise. 

[ottffsse]

Pyro[necro]mancer is great

 

walls of fire.

one of the few classes that can make use of flashfire 

 

toss in a static cage around scared enemies

or DoT with walking bomb [<3333] and wall of fire in static cage

watch the numbers collide

 

This. Though I used the regular Fire Mine instead most of the time, with barrier and flashfire that is a consistent aprox. 10K damage x2 within a short ammount of time, on groups of three enemies or bosses. I solo'ed NM with necro it is quite doable. Would however love if the spec would have a better mana/ life regen passiv (leech) and walking bomb fixed. Walking bomb is great otherwise because you can explode it and knock everything down. between that, chain lightning and horror you have enough control to disable groups. If you are really worried that fire mine hits just stay on it with the enemies till the last moment then fade step out and clean them up, this saves mana. That one first level fire spell which when upgraded sends a single target into panik for like 16 seconds is good too, way better than immolate. But yes, the spec requires more thought and work than the others and hopefully the bugs will be fixed, will check the new patch if that has been solved.

[termokanden]

Allow me to defend Pull of the Abyss. It's always useful for getting the most out of your Fire Mine, but it has other uses. On nightmare, I often use it when I manage to pull aggro with my mage. Just pull any melee attackers away from yourself and let the tank take over.

 

However, my favorite use for PotA is the following: PotA -> Immolate -> Chain Lightning -> Stonefist. Leaves the enemy half-dead and sleep. I use it a lot on ranged groups, and the sleep effect buys me time for my mage and rogue to nuke them before they cause any serious damage.

 

Currently playing my first proper Rift Mage. Impressed. Nay, very impressed. 

 

You have insane amounts of crowd control, a seemingly endless magic pool and - best of all - the class just feels right, story wise. 

Rift mages are amazing even WITH the weakness bug, which is not at all as bad as I thought it would be, particularly because bonus damage and mana regen work even though the target appears not to be affected by weakness. Tested it myself.

 

What's not to like? You can spam spells and crowd control like crazy. You're powerful support and DPS all at once.

[Gaz83]

I've heard mention of this weakness bug, but am unsure exactly on what the bug is meant to be...?

 

If it's meant to hinder the passive that gives you huge mana regeneration, then it's certainly not effecting my lass. Her magic never seems to run out. The only thing stopping total non-stop nuking are cooldowns, and even they tick down fast with investment in other passives. I'm not sure if the enemies are actually weakened though... namely because they're usually dead or dumped on their backsides before they even get close to me. 

[JaegerBane]

Yeah so many Rift mages swear on that spell, but I found it very situational and lackluster. It doesn't last long enough to really group them together long enough to be of much use, when you could take static cage's upgrade if that's what you wanted. 
 
You could get the upgrade which will give you mana, then static cage+ and maybe fire mine or energy barrage. Does a lot for sure, but seems repetitive to me personally. Ended up having more fun chucking stonefist.

This is precisely my issue with the Rift Mage from a gameplay point of view. I was a complete Force Mage fanboy back in the day because you could physically move people to where you wanted them. For a crowd control specialist, the Rift Mage doesn't seem to be able to do the same thing - what little position control they have is restricted to very slow dragging effect. Stonefist is the only spell that has the 'oomph' to live up to Force Mage gameplay and it isn't even really a Telekinesis spell. Not to mention Veilstrike is redundant with Stonefist's upgrade.

[termokanden]

It's not all-powerful, but it's a useful crowd control tool. I don't worry so much about what the force mage used to do, rift mages are very powerful in this one and hardly need more powerful crowd control.

 

Veilstrike with the upgrade is actually somewhat useful, but given that we only have 8 available slots, it's not really worth it.

 

I've heard mention of this weakness bug, but am unsure exactly on what the bug is meant to be...?

 

If it's meant to hinder the passive that gives you huge mana regeneration, then it's certainly not effecting my lass. Her magic never seems to run out. The only thing stopping total non-stop nuking are cooldowns, and even they tick down fast with investment in other passives. I'm not sure if the enemies are actually weakened though... namely because they're usually dead or dumped on their backsides before they even get close to me. 

 

Sometimes mobs will be "immune" to weakness. If you check the tactical cam, you can see that they indeed do not have the "weakness" effect on them, but when you hit them you still get mana back, and from my testing the extra damage vs weakened still works as well. I haven't really analyzed it too much though so I don't really know why, I just know it's not that big of a deal.

 

You also have to be aware that when you use the sleep combo (shocked->rift mage ability->asleep), it consumes the weakness effect (including mana regen and extra damage).

[GoodFella146]

I still haven't found a rift mage build I like.  It hurts a lot with friendly fire on, but then again some noobs think dropping Pull of the Abyss in the middle of their party makes sense....  so whatever.  I like the other two specializations a lot more.

[termokanden]

To be honest, as much as I like rift mage, I wouldn't play one if I had friendly fire turned on. Then again, I wouldn't turn on friendly fire in the first place

[JaegerBane]

It's not all-powerful, but it's a useful crowd control tool. I don't worry so much about what the force mage used to do, rift mages are very powerful in this one and hardly need more powerful crowd control.

I think the difference is that crowd control is technically something any mage can do - perhaps not quite as well, but the Rift Mage isn't so far ahead that it justifies being a totally seperate spec. In any case, the Rift Mage's main bonus is its debuffing and nuking potential, rather than being the crowd control master the Force Mage was. I just wish all the spells were like Stonefist
 

Veilstrike with the upgrade is actually somewhat useful, but given that we only have 8 available slots, it's not really worth it.

That's the kicker. In a situation where you have such an extreme limit on slots, every spell needs to be worth it's weight.. Which, unfortunately, the rift Mage is a bit shaky on.