51 réponses à ce sujet

[CosmicGnosis]

Based on some brief research, it appears that the Inferno tree is strongly recommended for Knight-Enchanters. But what about Storm, Winter, and Spirit? I like Chain Lightning, Energy Barrage, Winter's Grasp, Fade Step, and Winter Stillness, but there aren't that many points left after investing in the majority of the Inferno tree and all of the Knight-Enchanter tree. I've never tried out Dispel; is that a great spell? 

 

So what are your suggestions? I'd like to be well-rounded, but that may not be practical.

[DomeWing333]

First of all, it helps to be a Qunari as the damage boost you get from their vitaars benefit KEs greatly. You can do fine without being one though.

 

In terms of skills, the key ones to get for an optimal KE are:

• Spirit Blade, Combat Clarity, Fade Shield, Knight Protector, Fade Cloak + Decloaking Blast from the Knight-Enchanter Tree
• Immolate, Flashpoint, and Clean Burn from the Inferno Tree
• Energy Barrage and Conductive Current from the Storm Tree
• Fade Step from the Winter Tree

That's 12 skill points, which you should have around the time you get your specialization. After that, it's up to how you want to supplement your team.

• If you want even more survivability and some utility, take Guardian Spirit, Winter's Grasp, Mana Surge, Winter Stillness, Ice Mine, and Ice Armor
• If you want to double down on fire damage, grab Chaotic Focus, Pyromancer, Fire Mine + Searing Glyph, and upgrade your Immolate with Wildfire
• If you want team support, add Barrier, Peaceful Aura, Dispel, and Revival and/or Resurgence
• Or, for a little bit of everything and great elemental coverage, get Static Charge and Static Cage + Lightning Cage

Other useful things to get are the Spirit Blade upgrade, Fade Step upgrade, and Veiled Riposte.

[actionhero112]

I run this build.

 

Spirit Blade - Fade Step - Fade Cloak - Fire Mine - Dispel - Static Cage - Energy Barrage - Wall of Fire/Mark of the Rift 

 

Spirit Blade because of it's fantastic damage dealing potential and that it reduces the long cooldowns of Static Cage and Fire Mine considerably. Risk being that you accidentally use your flashpoint charges on Spirit Blade instead of an actual ability. 

 

Fade Step because mobility

 

Fade Cloak because it's a status cleanse (you can use it while knocked down to immediately get back up, similar to payback strike), it does high damage and you can use it while spirit blading.

 

Fire Mine because high damage

 

Dispel because of the damage buff, low cooldown and damage it brings as a reliable eldrich detonator.

 

Static Cage because I prefer not to carry it on Solas. 

 

Energy Barrage because high damage and reliable masterwork procing (as well as reliable flashpoint procing at lower levels.)

 

Wall of Fire is great if you don't have it on anyone else, it's fantastic cc. Otherwise mark of the rift is ok.

[PapaCharlie9]

First of all, it helps to be a Qunari as the damage boost you get from their vitaars benefit KEs greatly. You can do fine without being one though.

 

In terms of skills, the key ones to get for an optimal KE are:

• Spirit Blade, Combat Clarity, Fade Shield, Knight Protector, Fade Cloak + Decloaking Blast from the Knight-Enchanter Tree
• Immolate, Flashpoint, and Clean Burn from the Inferno Tree
• Energy Barrage and Conductive Current from the Storm Tree
• Fade Step from the Winter Tree

That's 12 skill points, which you should have around the time you get your specialization. After that, it's up to how you want to supplement your team.

• If you want even more survivability and some utility, take Guardian Spirit, Winter's Grasp, Mana Surge, Winter Stillness, Ice Mine, and Ice Armor
• If you want to double down on fire damage, grab Chaotic Focus, Pyromancer, Fire Mine + Searing Glyph, and upgrade your Immolate with Wildfire
• If you want team support, add Barrier, Peaceful Aura, Dispel, and Revival and/or Resurgence
• Or, for a little bit of everything and great elemental coverage, get Static Charge and Static Cage + Lightning Cage

Other useful things to get are the Spirit Blade upgrade, Fade Step upgrade, and Veiled Riposte.

This, though I favor getting the Barrier buffs and Dispel from the Spirit Tree over the Storm stuff first. Plus Frost Step.

• Spirit Blade, Combat Clarity, Fade Shield, Knight Protector, Fade Cloak + Decloaking Blast from the Knight-Enchanter Tree
• Immolate, Flashpoint, and Clean Burn from the Inferno Tree
• Barrier, Peaceful Aura, Dispel, Rejuvenating Barrier
• Fade Step/Frost Step from the Winter Tree

[Forsythia77]

I almost always take Dorian with me as my second mage and he auto specs into fire to compliment my preference for winter.  My preference is to get myself ice mine and winter's grasp and upgrade those two, as well as immolate and fire mine from the fire tree and upgrade them. I used fade step early in my nightmare run, but used it less and less the further I got into the game and by the end not at all (to be fair I was one of the few people who was not a big fan of fade step).  Then I get stuff from the spirit tree - guardian spirit, dispell (necessary to kill demons before they spawn).  I find I didn't really use revive very often.  Generally I had Dorian with it and let him revive people if he felt the need.  I would usually just walk up to the downed member and press x.  Saved the mana and took about the same amount of time.  After that if I can get some of the passives on the ice and fire trees like ice armor and the one that speeds mana regen I'd spend the points on that.  This is on top of maxing out the KE tree. 

[jgwhiteus]

Yeah, because my K-E is usually served as a melee attacker I always had a second mage in the party whom I re-specced to serve more support functions, and to give any useful spells I couldn't fit on my K-E build. So I didn't bother getting Dispel and gave it to my second mage (and I pretty much only used it to kill spawning Fade demons, though maybe it's more useful for a K-E in Nightmare where every mage seems to put up Barriers).

 

I also felt like the skill paths I went down were dictated more by the passives I wanted to get (with a focus on bringing down cooldown times and raising barrier strength and spell damage) rather than the usefulness of the active skills, since many of them are similar to one another or inflict similar types of damage. Also, remember you're going to be limited to eight active abilities, and four slots will be taken up by staples like Spirit Blade, Fade/Frost Step, Barrier, and a Focus ability (maybe).

 

But feel free to experiment with different skills and find what suits your playstyle, then re-spec if you want to try something different since it's cheap. Like, I tried using Fade Cloak / Decloaking Blast for a bit but found I never really used it, so I re-specced and used those skill points on something else.

[CosmicGnosis]

If I'm going to be using Spirit Blade quite often, is Winter Stillness really worth it? It seems like I'll rarely ever be standing still long enough to get the mana regeneration bonus.

[draken-heart]

It really depends on what you want:

• a support build would utilize a lot of barrier casting and revivals.
• A powerhouse would utilize the fire tree for faster barriers and near immortality.
• A balanced build may utilize the storm tree and the spirit tree.

[CosmicGnosis]

Is Level 20 or 21 about the highest I can expect in a normal playthrough? As a human, I also get an extra ability point. Something weird is going on with Amulets of Power right now, so I might not be able to count on those. I'm trying to gather enough points to prepare for my build.

[swk3000]

If I'm going to be using Spirit Blade quite often, is Winter Stillness really worth it? It seems like I'll rarely ever be standing still long enough to get the mana regeneration bonus.

I'd say Winter Stillness is worth it, if only for the versatility. Having it means you can work more effectively at range when circumstances call for it. I personally don't see it being used all the time, but if I'm trying to take out a Despair Demon or one of the guys with the Two-handed Mauls in the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, having the option to stay back instead of having to get into melee range is pretty nice.

[Forsythia77]

Is Level 20 or 21 about the highest I can expect in a normal playthrough? As a human, I also get an extra ability point. Something weird is going on with Amulets of Power right now, so I might not be able to count on those. I'm trying to gather enough points to prepare for my build.

I've gotten to level 24 on all of my play throughs across all four difficulties on my PS4.  I've seen people get higher,  but I honestly don't know how!  This is with me doing all the war table quests, fetch quests and whatnot. 

[Tharkun]

Winter's Stillness and Combat clarity don't work together.  So only take one of those.  Knight Enchanters are the only Mage spec that gets good use of Chaotic Focus due to Fade Shield keeping barrier up all the time.  Chaotic Focus is one of the largest +damage boosts available to a mage.  +2% per active barrier percentage and time of cast to Fire Mine and Immolate, the cost is 1/2 of your current barrier.  

 

The implications of Chaotic Focus means that I strongly prefer my Knight-enchanter to be fire focused especially early on.  As more points are available you can fit in other elements easily.  Knight Enchanters also always have spirit damage to fall back on.  Since there is no enemy that resists both spirit AND fire, a knight-enchanter with a fire focus is already setup.

 

This leads me to my 12 point KE build.  I then finish off a few skills (Fade Step, Immolate+) and go for Rejuv Barrier which gives me even more mana regen.

1. Spirit Blade

2. Combat Clarity

3. Fade Shield

4. Fade Cloak

5. Knight Protector

6. Immolate

7. Flashpoint

8. Clean Burn

9. Pyromancer

10. Fire Mine

11. Chaotic Focus

12. Energy Barrage - likely point of choosing KE Spec

13. Fade Step

14. Immolate+

15. Barrier

16. Peaceful Aura

17. Dispel

18. Rejuv Barrier

 

The mana regen at 18 points (likely level 14/15 depending on amulets, inquisition perks, race and patch level) means you can start using Immolate quite a bit. I also have Dispel which I find very useful vs poison, demon spawning, etc. Note I don't have Fade Cloaks upgrade until point 19. Until I kill enough dragons to switch to a dragon bone staff I run with a lightning staff. I like Lightning since the shocked effect includes a -25% fire/cold/lightning resist effect. Everite is also the easiest t3 metal for me to get. This is multiplicative with the damage multiple and so it magnifies Fire mine quite a bit. I play my Knight Enchanter as a mid ranged fighter. He gets in to the mix but doesn't have to step on top of enemy mines to make things go boom. So melee+ range with the option to stay at range when he wants to.

[Tharkun]

Even with P6 you can get the wartable point if you choose the right combination for Orlais's succession, you can get the inquisition perk point and the crestwood amulet point.

 

That means you get level+4 points if non-human and level+5 points if human.

[CosmicGnosis]

Does no one like Disruption Field?

 

Also, what is the general consensus on Immolate?

[jgwhiteus]

Also, what is the general consensus on Immolate?

 

While I acquired it by necessity on the way to getting other skills / passives like Clean Burn, I abandoned it in favor of Fire Mine pretty early on. From what I remember Fire Mine does a lot more damage (1600% weapon damage vs. 300%), has the same AoE range, and its longer cooldown time can be brought down a fair amount with good passive skills. The only downside is you need to anticipate where enemies are going to be when it goes off, but that just requires a little planning (and is pretty fun). 

 

Since you're limited to eight active skills, having both immolate and Fire Mine seems redundant.

[CosmicGnosis]

I really liked Static Cage as a Rift Mage, but it takes up a lot of points for a Knight-Enchanter. Static Cage+Energy Barrage was amazing. Is it worth it for a Knight-Enchanter?

 

 

Edit: My current tentative build plan is the following:

 

Chain Lightning/Upgrade

Energy Barrage

Static Cage/Upgrade

Fire Mine/Upgrade

Fade Step

Spirit Blade

Fade Cloak/Upgrade

Disruption Field/Upgrade

[Digger1967]

My favorite build with the KE - doesn't rely on the powerful spells from one tree or another, but the cheap stuff from all three.  Energy Barrage from the Storm tree, Winters Grasp and Immolate.  By alternating between these three I can pretty much be almost constantly be putting out damage at higher levels.  They all recycle pretty quick and are low mana cost, so not much delay between hammering your enemy with one spell or another.

 

So I throw up a barrier and start pumping out damage, the barrier refreshes and stays up almost indefinitely at higher levels because I'm hitting my enemies enough that they can't tear it down before I can rebuild it.

 

Add in a couple of passives like winter stillness so you regenerate mana faster by standing still.. and you become a real tough cookie really fast.  If you want to see some high damage numbers, take the passive from the fire tree that consumes half your barrier to up the damage on fire spells.  Immolate becomes more like nuclear strike at higher levels that way.  Me I don't like that combo much, I prefer to have a barrier as close to max as possible and keep it there.

 

By using this build you don't get quick kills on the big enemies, but you do get reliable kills.  When I get high enough levels I usually concentrate on the spirit tree and get resurrection going, as it is common for one or two of my party to drop while I'm still going strong and have barely been touched.  It is a surprisingly effective build, and in fact I generally build most of my mages with this same basic philosophy KE or not.

 

The three bread and butter spells, Winters chill, immolate and energy burst.  All low cost, quick recycle, easy damage.  From there I specialize depending on the mage.  But for a KE build.. you become unstoppable pretty quick this way.

[Tharkun]

While I acquired it by necessity on the way to getting other skills / passives like Clean Burn, I abandoned it in favor of Fire Mine pretty early on. From what I remember Fire Mine does a lot more damage (1600% weapon damage vs. 300%), has the same AoE range, and its longer cooldown time can be brought down a fair amount with good passive skills. The only downside is you need to anticipate where enemies are going to be when it goes off, but that just requires a little planning (and is pretty fun). 

 

Since you're limited to eight active skills, having both immolate and Fire Mine seems redundant.

Immolate is a detonator and it works now.  Since it is an eldritch detonator the resulting bonus damage is of type spirit.  This means that I will use immolate a rage demon who has been stunned by Cassandra's wrath of heaven.  That is %1200 bonus spirit damage.  Additionally immolate does 475% weapon damage when upgraded (tool tip is wrong).  It recharges like mad and is very useful in general.

[The Baconer]

If I'm going to be using Spirit Blade quite often, is Winter Stillness really worth it?

 

Nah.

[DomeWing333]

I really liked Static Cage as a Rift Mage, but it takes up a lot of points for a Knight-Enchanter. Static Cage+Energy Barrage was amazing. Is it worth it for a Knight-Enchanter?

 

Edit: My current tentative build plan is the following:

 

Chain Lightning/Upgrade

Energy Barrage

Static Cage/Upgrade

Fire Mine/Upgrade

Fade Step

Spirit Blade

Fade Cloak/Upgrade

Disruption Field/Upgrade

Static Cage + Energy Barrage worked great for my KE. Your mana upkeep won't be anywhere as good as a Rift Mage, though, so you won't be able to just spam high cost spells without a care.

 

As for your tentative build, I'd personally get rid of Disruption Field. The high cost and short range makes it not particularly useful unless you mostly just use Spirit Blade over and over again. Either replace it with Immolate to give yourself another detonator or Barrier for team support. 

[CautionLust]

Immolate is a detonator and it works now.  Since it is an eldritch detonator the resulting bonus damage is of type spirit.  This means that I will use immolate a rage demon who has been stunned by Cassandra's wrath of heaven.  That is %1200 bonus spirit damage.  Additionally immolate does 475% weapon damage when upgraded (tool tip is wrong).  It recharges like mad and is very useful in general.

Immolate is nice however I am a little bit struggling with the shortcut slot. Now I have Fade Step, Fade Cloak, Spirit Blade, Firemine, Energy Barrage, Static Cage, Mark of the rift and Barrier... Not sure which one i should take out.

[goofyomnivore]

Immolate is pretty darn good on Rift Mage, but KE I dunno. Your CDs are very short due to Spirit Blade spam. Fire Mine will have very high uptime. Detonating combos isn't as fluid as Rift Mage either.

 

I personally ran:

 

Spirit Blade, Fade Cloak, MotR, Fire Mine, Energy Barrage, Static Cage, Frost Step, Immolate

 

But I found myself hardly using it. I got some alright combos with Solas casting PotA, Inquis casting Static Cage/Frost Step/Spriit Blade then Immolating all the staggered targets. Trash mobs die so fast regardless tho.

 

I don't really find the point of the Spirit tree at all if you are going KE. The mana regen thingy doesn't work on your "generated barriers" and the barrier boosts were irrelevant since your barrier is constantly decaying. Guardian Spirit is okay, but I saw it pop maybe once post Skyhold. Dispel is better on allies IMO they use it quite well. Mindblast is a de aggro skill and inferior detonator compared to Dispel/Immolate.

 

That 8th skill can be used for whatever. Fire Wall on a Fire Mine could probably do some serious damage to bosses/elite enemies. Disruption field I think is pretty bad personally. Ice Mine is whatever. If you run with 2 or more rogues you might get some serious use out of it. So it pretty much leaves Immolate or Barrier. I think taking Barrier is meh especially if you have an additional mage in your group. Immolate has some minor uses. I'd take it over Barrier on a KE. Since I prefer offense to defense.

[Bigdawg13]

Immolate is pretty darn good on Rift Mage, but KE I dunno. Your CDs are very short due to Spirit Blade spam. Fire Mine will have very high uptime. Detonating combos isn't as fluid as Rift Mage either.

 

I personally ran:

 

Spirit Blade, Fade Cloak, MotR, Fire Mine, Energy Barrage, Static Cage, Frost Step, Immolate

 

But I found myself hardly using it. I got some alright combos with Solas casting PotA, Inquis casting Static Cage/Frost Step/Spriit Blade then Immolating all the staggered targets. Trash mobs die so fast regardless tho.

 

I don't really find the point of the Spirit tree at all if you are going KE. The mana regen thingy doesn't work on your "generated barriers" and the barrier boosts were irrelevant since your barrier is constantly decaying. Guardian Spirit is okay, but I saw it pop maybe once post Skyhold. Dispel is better on allies IMO they use it quite well. Mindblast is a de aggro skill and inferior detonator compared to Dispel/Immolate.

 

That 8th skill can be used for whatever. Fire Wall on a Fire Mine could probably do some serious damage to bosses/elite enemies. Disruption field I think is pretty bad personally. Ice Mine is whatever. If you run with 2 or more rogues you might get some serious use out of it. So it pretty much leaves Immolate or Barrier. I think taking Barrier is meh especially if you have an additional mage in your group. Immolate has some minor uses. I'd take it over Barrier on a KE. Since I prefer offense to defense.

 

I don't think that's correct.  The mana regen from rejuvenating barriers works if you have a barrier.  It doesn't matter how you got the barrier, only that you have barrier.  Guardian spirit happens quite frequently on nightmare, but I can see it's lack of value on lower difficulties.  Dispel is very valuable up until mid teen levels in reducing rift difficulty, especially pre-skyhold.  However, all of these reflect nightmare difficulty. 

[Digger1967]

Based on some brief research, it appears that the Inferno tree is strongly recommended for Knight-Enchanters. But what about Storm, Winter, and Spirit? I like Chain Lightning, Energy Barrage, Winter's Grasp, Fade Step, and Winter Stillness, but there aren't that many points left after investing in the majority of the Inferno tree and all of the Knight-Enchanter tree. I've never tried out Dispel; is that a great spell? 

 

So what are your suggestions? I'd like to be well-rounded, but that may not be practical.

 

Me I like the three tree combo myself.  For active spells my favorites are Energy Barrage, Winters Grasp and Immolate.   For passives Fade Shield is an absolute must for me.  The combo is falling of a log simple - you throw up a barrier, and then start pumping out damage.  The barrier gets refreshed by the fade Shield passive and stays up pretty much through the entire combat.  It's not the flashy mega damage you get with say a rift mage, but it will allow you to take out even high dragons without ever needing to use a single healing potion.

 

This works great with Winter's stillness, since your barrier stays up and you don't need to move about to avoid damage.  There is also a passive in the spirit tree that allows for faster mana regeneration as long as you have an active barrier, and that can be a real killer to add in at some point as well.  

 

The nice part about this is the versatility - if i choose a staff that does electrical damage, for example, i have all the bases covered.  I can alternate between energy barrage and immolate for targets that have resistance to cold (like despair demons), energy barrage and winters grasp for stuff that has resistance to fire damage (like rage demons), etc - and i never have to change my setup.  Everything I need is right there at my fingertips.

 

I do like dispel for dealing with some of the tougher Rifts, it can come in pretty handy for that.  It's also good against enemy mages but I just don't think you encounter them often enough to really make it that high a priority for that usage.  

[Digger1967]

I don't think that's correct.  The mana regen from rejuvenating barriers works if you have a barrier.  It doesn't matter how you got the barrier, only that you have barrier.  Guardian spirit happens quite frequently on nightmare, but I can see it's lack of value on lower difficulties.  Dispel is very valuable up until mid teen levels in reducing rift difficulty, especially pre-skyhold.  However, all of these reflect nightmare difficulty. 

 

I'd have to look at it to be sure but I'm pretty certain it regens mana or stamina for any character with an active barrier in the party regardless of who cast the barrier.  Much like fade shield will rejuvinate an active barrier for the Inquisitor even if it's cast by another mage.