12 réponses à ce sujet

[GilgameshX]

I've seen a lot of inferno type mage builds, is it worth going down the winter tree other then the first passive? I was thinking of making a winter/lightning styled build with a rift mage.

[VilniusNastavnik]

To be honest.. yes, yes it is worth is. I only take fire for immolate and the passives. Frost and lightning is my main trees with Rift magic.
 

Here is my advice on playing as a mage.

 

ONLY take barrier if you are going to be the only mage in your party. The only time you would really need it is on nightmare after you get the focus ability when you have those mobs in the tunnel where you cannot actually duck behind something to doge their attacks.. even then it is not needed if you get the ability off fast enough.

I recommend bringing a second mage with you to keep barriers up and focus on DPS yourself. Unless of course you enjoy being the supporter/debuffer/controller for your party.

Here is my advice on a Rift mage.. Build and all..

Spoiler

My advice.. ignore Pull of the abyss entirely. There are very few times when it is actually useful over veilstrike. You do not often get mobbed by a **** load of enemies that you actually need it. 

My build is as follows. 

Fire (5)
Immolate+ Wildfire
Flashpoint
Pyromancer
Cleanburn

Frost (6 - 7)
Fade Step + Frost step
Winter's Grasp + Winter's Chill
Mana Surge (Optional - You really should not have enemies getting to you anyway)
Winter Stillness
Frost Mastery

Storm (8)
Energy Barrage + Energy Bombardment
Chain Lightning + Arcing Surge
StormBringer
Conductive
Gathering Storm
Static Charge

Inquisitor
Mark of the Rift

Rift (8)
Veilstrike + Punching down
Stonefist + Shatterstone
Smothering Veil
Restorative Veil
Encircling Veil
Twisting Veil

8 abilities, 8 ability slots. 4 elements.. fire, frost, lightning and spirit damage. Bring a support mage with you say Dorian or Viv.. I prefer Dorian.
I spec Dorian in complete necro tree, complete barrier tree and throw the rest around the other elements for the passives and immunity mitigation.

Total ability points, 28.. this is easy to obtain at the end of the game.. or sooner if you chose to use the amulet of power exploit in crestwood or cheatengine.. but I do not recommend using cheat engine unless you want to add schematics to bypass the god aweful grind.

For my weapon..

Seer staff, Hilted staff grip, Masterwork Archon staff blade.
Everite for T3 lightning damage, Superb Spirit rune.

Great bear hide in all offense leather slots, dragon webbing in offense cloth slots.. Everite in offense metal slots.

Outcome..
14% attack, 35% crit chance, 42% crit damage. I prefer to add a fade touched item.. in this case.. snoufleur skin for 1% health on hit.

If you want to use a masterwork item.. 
16% attack, 39% crit chance, 47% crit damage.

If you do not care for crit damage as it is only going to boost when you get a crit.. swap dragon webbing for plush fustian velvet or King's willow weave for an attack boost.

Your staff then becomes:
35% attack, 35% crit chance. 

If you want to use a masterwork item.. 
40% attack, 39% crit chance. 

For accessories.. 
Superb amulet of cunning for +5 crit chance bringing your non masterwork staff to 40% crit chance
Superb belt of health.. focus when it gets patched.. more focus.. more focus ability usage.
Superb ring of attack (10%) and superb ring of critical damage (20%).. Have not found a crit chance ring.

Armor, what ever you want. Superior skirmisher helmet with cunning items added will give another what.. 9% crit chance.. If you play with helmets off you won't notice how ridiculous it looks. 

I use Dalish scout armor playing as a female elf.. I like the merrill look.

So.. Dalish scout armor.. T3 236 defence non MW..

Base material: Snoufleur skin
35% Ranged resistance (craggy skin or lurker scales.. I prefer lurker scales for colouring)
12% magic resistance (Evernit wool for the green colouring of merril's armor. 14% is max so meh)
Fade touched everite Heal 25% of damage taken over 10 seconds. though you can pick what you wish. +5 guard on hit silverite is also good.. but if you already have snuefleur skin on your weapon. I'd go with something else.. either a spell proc, defence or utility boost

[GilgameshX]

I'm going on Hard difficulty, and my main is a dd tempest. Do I need a barrier mage? I've been debating the usefulness of one. Would it help with my survivability or am I better off just leaving Dorian pyro/necro for more dps?

 

I'm running Black as my tank and Soras as my rift mage. Interesting, yeah my build looks very similar the only difference is that there is a great emphasis in fire, but lightning will be part of it.

 

And what're you grinding for? The schematics? Are those enemy drops? I've never understand how that works.

[Sugram84]

if u mean pure ice, then no, weak damage, first ice skill good for freeze & low damage, ice mine, freeze & armor reduction low damage, blizzard low damage &  slows enemy down a bit, skills that u should have in awry build, immolate & fire-mine, fire-mine with upgrade immolate u can upgrade to in future, but its not so important then some, but if u want u can, then something else just gets delayed   

 

rift mage does not need ice at all, tried it & never used the few ice skills i had, only one i used was fade step, mentioned rift mage in case u plan on becoming one

[GilgameshX]

Okay, well what about a barrier mage build? Is it worth making one?

[Sidney]

The problem with barrier Mage is that the value declines as you Invest more points into it because as the game progresses the value of barrier drops - basically skills and equipment should make it obsolete.

[VilniusNastavnik]

Yeah, just give the first 3-4 skills in barrier to dorian or solas and keep yourself as a DPS.

The grind for schematics.. Just about everything in the game is determined by RNG.. you can go entire playthroughs and not get a superior T3 armor set.. or Masterwork T3 weapon. To counter that, people have been farming for hours upon hours of sulevain or valeska's watch (Prob spelt wrong) just to get what they want. I got bored of that after my nightmare playthrough and just said **** it and got cheat engine to add the schematics myself.

[GilgameshX]

How do you farm quests? Just keep on failing them over and over again?

[VilniusNastavnik]

How do you farm quests? Just keep on failing them over and over again?

Who said anything about farming quests. Valeska's watch is a region .. dungeon.. tomb.. thing in emprise du lion and Cradle of Sulevin likewise is a dungeon that you can access after finding the codex for the war table operation in emprise du lion. If you do not take every item out of the chests, they respawn. Hell, every chest in Hinterlands and Emprise du lion can be rerolled by standing next to the chest, saving and loading.. only taking items you want and leaving at least 1 item in the chest.

[teks]

What your explaining is called chest farming, so, you brought it up .

There are many schematics not determined by rng. You are garunteed to find the same masterwork tier 3 weapons at hissing wastes every time. With short list you are garunteed access to tier 3 armor at the same place. With inquisition schematics you are garunteed masterwork tier 2 weapons and armor.
These arent inferior to rng either. These are the best of the best schematics. Those masterwork tier 3 dual daggers. They are the best in the game and can be found at the hissing wastes without even engaging in a single fight.

[Shevy]

Yeah, chest farming is only "necessary" for masterwork weapon upgrades. Weapons, armors and armor upgrades are available with HW tombs, short list perk and some war table missions (Anderfels cleaver, Masterwork Archon Staff, Masterwork Shield).

[JaegerBane]

The problem with barrier Mage is that the value declines as you Invest more points into it because as the game progresses the value of barrier drops - basically skills and equipment should make it obsolete.

+1. When I was messing around the Hinterlands at level 4, it was practically mandatory. By level 12 I actually forgot to place it on Solas's quick bar.

[VilniusNastavnik]

What your explaining is called chest farming, so, you brought it up .

There are many schematics not determined by rng. You are garunteed to find the same masterwork tier 3 weapons at hissing wastes every time. With short list you are garunteed access to tier 3 armor at the same place. With inquisition schematics you are garunteed masterwork tier 2 weapons and armor.
These arent inferior to rng either. These are the best of the best schematics. Those masterwork tier 3 dual daggers. They are the best in the game and can be found at the hissing wastes without even engaging in a single fight.

You asked what the grind was for after I mentioned schematics.. so I naturally thought you were a new player who had no knowledge of the struggle to get the weapon parts.

Inquisition perk armors are honestly inferior. I got them on my first playthrough.. nothing better than T2.. I already had a T3 by that time. It is generally a waste of a perk unless you are a collector.

Sure you get a good bow, sword, armor, axe etc in the hissing wastes.. but What about the Tevinter Longsword or it's grip? Ornate Battleaxe or it's grip and pommel? If you are going for a crit build the MW Serrated Greatsword is utterly useless. 

The only reason you would get the shortlist perk is if you actually can refrain from wanting to set yourself on fire whilst wearing the "armor" variants of the outfits. I cannot stand it so I avoid that perk unless I want to get the staff of the void early on.. but by the time you can actually use it you should have already gotten it from the dragon so really that is another perk that can be ignored except for the upgrade schematics you can get from it. I prefer to grind for Superior Coat or Standard mail variants.. who ever's idea it was to replace the scale mail with a leather hauberk for superior versions on the Battlemaster armor needs to be shot.

If you want a magic resistant build, dwarf, superior magic defence belt, overseer helm, noble shield.. you will see near 80 magic resistance. Sometimes the top gear is not the best depending on what you want. I never go for archon staff because it is inferior to Seer staff.. I prefer critical chance for no cooldown procing.