26 réponses à ce sujet

[capn233]

It is about the time for me to choose a specialization in my current mage game and I am not sure which one I should pick.  I am doing a run without crafting, FF on, fwiw.

 

Originally I just planned to do Necromancer and take some passives like Death Siphon and Power of the Dead and stay more focused on vanilla abilities and trees, but now I am not sure if I really want to do that, play a "real" necromancer, or just go RM for the mana bonanza and Stone Fist.

 

Also, in some old threads people claimed that Necro was better for damage against large targets.  I imagine for this to be true you need to stack a bunch of DOTs.  How much tangible advantage is there over RM spamming SF + elemental spells?

 

Lastly, for Venatori tomes, you can pick them up in various maps, not just Exalted Plains correct?  I think I remember getting a bunch in Hissing Wastes in my last game.  I saw people claim that it could drop from "One Less Venatori" in the Hinterlands, but I kept killing one of the mages over and over and it never dropped.

[caradoc2000]

Lastly, for Venatori tomes, you can pick them up in various maps, not just Exalted Plains correct?  I think I remember getting a bunch in Hissing Wastes in my last game.  I saw people claim that it could drop from "One Less Venatori" in the Hinterlands, but I kept killing one of the mages over and over and it never dropped.

All specialization quest items can be dropped by any enemy of the appropriate type.

[Kantr]

The venatori tomes are easiest found in the exalted plains. Where there are 3 groups of rifters. Otherwise you have to hunt for the rest

[Bigdawg13]

Necromancer has 3 dots that all do spirit damage.  Spirit damage, as you know, is not often resisted outside of DLCs.  Rift mage is notorious as being the AoE king.  The only ability they have that does spirit damage is stone fist, which really does great damage against groups. 

 

I think both are great.  Personally necromancers are harder to play because guardian spirit won't protect you if you have simulacrum.  On the other hand if you get lucky with a staff drop that has +1% heal on hit then you can never die.  Rift mages are fun, but I hate how weakness interacts with shock.  I hate how sometimes my mana regen won't work, and I am so sick of PotA animation I could scream.  Not to mention I'd rather have Lightning Cage over PotA.  

[Drasanil]

Biggest draw back for a no-crafting necromancer is that Deathward, the only 1% heal on hit staff, has mediocre DPS. I'd be tempted to craft at least once, just to remedy that situation. Apart for that necromancer seems way more fun for a player mage, Rift mage generally feels too passive/support oriented for my tastes so I leave it to Solas. 

[Bigdawg13]

Perhaps a limited crafting.  Like only craft something with equal to or less than the maximum damage stave you possess naturally.  Perhaps sell off the one you had or something like that.  Insist it does the same damage type, with same base damage.  I recognize this violates the no-crafting; however, the passives are bugged.  Guardian spirit will not save you, and there is no way to get walking bomb (the best skill the necromancer has) without picking up Simulacrum.

[Dabrikishaw]

Since you're going on a "No Crafting" run I'd say pick Rift Mage. 

[capn233]

Yeah I was starting to have second thoughts on Necro since it would be harder to utilize Simulacrum for self res.  Then I was considering a practically vanilla mage just with the left side of Necro tree.  At that point I started to wonder if it would even be worth going that direction over RM or no specialization.

 

edit:  They changed Walking Bomb so the DOT could crit in MP.  Did that change make it to SP? (I don't remember if they did that in patch or weekly balance change / server override).

[Dabrikishaw]

When I last played Necromancer with 100% Critical Chance, I didn't see any of my DoTs crit in single player.

[capn233]

I went ahead and just took Rift Mage.  I couldn't get any Venatori to drop a tome except for the three specific ones on Exalted Plains.

 

Now I will need to find some decent gear and decide how fast I want to go through the game.  It feels like I am leveled way up since I am 13 already (hit 12 right as I was dropped into Skyhold the first time).

[ottffsse]

well the necro spec is easy to get there is the one book next to Dorian in skyhold and three skulls on the storm coast.

Defensively best none crafted staff in game would be scepter of razikale in frostbite basin. Or the armor and staff in the descent. I think you can get a whopping 15% fade cloak on hit between the armor and razikale. After those two there will be no major difference between crafted and none crafted gear. Actually the base damage of the dlc staves is superior to anything crafted.
Necro dots only crit in mp.

[Drasanil]

well the necro spec is easy to get there is the one book next to Dorian in skyhold and three skulls on the storm coast.

 

More often than not I end getting three skulls in the course of just going through the hinterlands. Those apostates seems to have a rather high drop rate for them, not that I'm complaining. 

[capn233]

The previous run I got one Nevarran skull and then was overwhelmed with Venatori tomes at some point.  I don't remember what level.  Wisp Essence is another one where I may accumulate one or two, except on the run where I wanted to be a KE of course.

 

I wonder how low the drop rate is for these specialization crafting items, and if it is affected by player level.

[Bigdawg13]

How did your Rift Mage playthrough go Cap?  I'm facing this same decision albeit with fewer self-imposed restrictions.  For me it comes down to:

 

Rift Mage

+ good crowd control 

+ impact detonator

+ great mana regen

- shock debuff conflict

 

Necromancer

+ decent crowd control (fear & WB knockdown)

+ multiple spirit damage sources 

- dies frequently due to simulacrum conflict with guardian spirit

- mana starved

 

If weakness did not conflict with shocked, I think Rift Mage would be superior.  Stonefist is a lot of fun.  But as a Rift Mage I feel like dipping into lightning causes mana deficit issues removing the best boon of the whole spec.  So I feel forced to rely on fire.  Couple that with the Rift Mage focus doing fire damage and it can be very frustrating fire a fire-resist enemy.  With the exception of Descent DLC, there are few spirit resistant mobs and that means 3 spirit dots can always be effective.

 

Gah.  This is an eternal debate I have when playing mages.  Rift Mage or Necro.  I'll probably play both for 10+ hours and only decide after accidentally deleting the wrong save.

[PapaCharlie9]

The previous run I got one Nevarran skull and then was overwhelmed with Venatori tomes at some point.  I don't remember what level.  Wisp Essence is another one where I may accumulate one or two, except on the run where I wanted to be a KE of course.

 

I wonder how low the drop rate is for these specialization crafting items, and if it is affected by player level.

I think it's fixed at a very small percentage and has some kind of logic that prevents you from rolling lucky and avoiding the hunt & seek completely. Like if you need 3 wisps, max you can roll lucky is 2.

 

Just based on my experience running the prologue over and over trying to get a wisp essence for a head start on KE (0 out of at least 9 tries).

[capn233]

I am still in it.  I finished Abyss a couple days ago and then went to take Suledin Keep to try and unlock more stores to buy things.

 

With the restrictions, it seems like the game scales more unevenly, or maybe I just don't know what I am doing.

 

For example, I did Wicked Eyes at 13 or so, took Cass, Dorian and Solas and everything was relatively trivial.  So much so that I didn't notice I forgot to equip Cassandra's sword and shield in the first section.  Whoops.

 

I did Adamant at 15 (squad was 14).  Blackwall, Dorian and Solas.  Adamant itself was annoying since I had to constantly swap staves to do decent damage, but except for one room in the fade with 2 Rage demons and a trillion wraiths, just rolled through.  Dual Static Cages and a bunch of Stone Fists and Energy Barrage is pretty good against Nightmare.

 

I went to clear Emprise after that.  Most of it was smooth.  Suledin Keep was annoying though.  The two giants especially.  I think my gear was getting long in the tooth.  Cass's armor was the one you get from Shimmering Mine that is Level 13 restricted.  The two giant encounters are probably my least favorite fights in the game, especially because of the way the level is designed around them with uneven ground.  Imshael seemed to take longer than I expected, but maybe that is because I am used to dropping bees on him.  Also didn't have any great damage abilities against guard and so that took extra time against his Pride form.

 

In any case, I am just messing around trying to get gold and find decent gear.  That is what is annoying in runs without crafting.  The decent items you can buy are pretty expensive relative to the gold you can find without exploits, even if you sell nearly every item and material you find and pick up.  But even if you were to dupe items to make gold fast, you will still wait for something to show up in stores.  I saw a decent masterwork armor for Cass in a store, but didn't have nearly enough gold.  You go to make gold, and when you return it is gone.

 

***

 

As far as actual builds and strategy, Rift Mage is pretty powerful, and I am happy with it.  My actives are Energy Barrage+, Static Cage+, Fire Mine+, Frost Step+, Stone Fist+, Veil Strike, Barrier and Mark of the Rift.  Although I will swap Barrier and Immolate from time to time, I don't really use either very frequently.

 

Usually to start most encounters all I do is go Cage and then start hitting them with whatever I have.  Usually drop a FM and see if Solas can send in a SF for weaken.  Energy Barrage for eldritch detonation and more shocks / procs of cage.  Taking Suledin I didn't have Twisting Veil and my staff was crappy so FM wasn't doing enough damage against RT mooks, just mainly pissing them off.

 

I actually prefer the lightning staff on this character because I like getting a lot of Nightmare or Rupture combos.  I haven't noticed too many problems with mana.  I am not running CL because it is basically unusable with FF on.

 

I tried briefly yesterday running POTA, but I prefer Cage.

 

One of the things that was an issue in Emprise in Suledin and moreso in Sahrnia quarry was that it seemed like Horrors would always want to target me right away, even when I sent in Cass way ahead.  Not sure what their deal is, but I would have to break LOS.  And it was getting irritating, so that is part of why I am even in the Spirit Tree for Guardian Spirit.

 

I also tried to fight Kaltenzahn while I was there (18 inq/17 party), but it looked like it would be extremely tedious with my current weapon setup and the squad I had at the time (Cass, Sera, Solas), so I just didn't bother more than once to see what would happen.

[devSin]

I think it's fixed at a very small percentage and has some kind of logic that prevents you from rolling lucky and avoiding the hunt & seek completely. Like if you need 3 wisps, max you can roll lucky is 2.
 
Just based on my experience running the prologue over and over trying to get a wisp essence for a head start on KE (0 out of at least 9 tries).

I don't think there's any logic in there controlling the drops (it's entirely random). I have screens full of some of the different specialization mats (meaning so many stacks that they fill up an entire "page" of the inventory screen).

It's possible the drops are restricted by area or pool (the wisps in the prologue may be special ones that don't drop anything), but I've seen nothing to indicate that there's a check on whether you already have any (or even need any; I wish they'd all stop dropping after you picked a specialization).

[Drasanil]

 

Rift Mage

+ good crowd control 

+ impact detonator

+ great mana regen

- shock debuff conflict

 

Isn't Stone Fist bugged outside of multiplayer? It detonates but doesn't actually do anything.

 

If weakness did not conflict with shocked, I think Rift Mage would be superior.  Stonefist is a lot of fun.  But as a Rift Mage I feel like dipping into lightning causes mana deficit issues removing the best boon of the whole spec.  So I feel forced to rely on fire.  Couple that with the Rift Mage focus doing fire damage and it can be very frustrating fire a fire-resist enemy.  With the exception of Descent DLC, there are few spirit resistant mobs and that means 3 spirit dots can always be effective.

 

Have you considered Rift/Frost mage? On my current playthrough I have Solas set as that and the results aren't half bad and that's with out using pull of the abyss since he had a nasty habit of pulling enemies out of melee. Veilstrike+Blizzard and he never really runs out of mana. A on player controlled character PoTA+Blizzard should yield some decent results. 

[devSin]

Isn't Stone Fist bugged outside of multiplayer? It detonates but doesn't actually do anything.

A couple posts this week suggest that it may be doing damage now, so further testing is needed.

Maybe PapaCharlie9 will volunteer? I don't typically run Stonefist and am too lazy to check.

[capn233]

A couple posts this week suggest that it may be doing damage now, so further testing is needed.

Maybe PapaCharlie9 will volunteer? I don't typically run Stonefist and am too lazy to check.

 

It was patched.  That is why it works in MP (v1.09 and later).

 

I just tested v Level 11 venatori mooks in the Hinterlands.

 

They had 4309 hp to start.  WG would take them to about 4200.  Then SF.  Game reports a couple hundred spirit damage and cold damage.  The hp drop was to 25-2800 (depending on rng and crit I guess).  Since I wasn't running screen capture it was hard to get the exact numbers popping up above the enemies and compare it to hp in tac cam.

 

In any case, the damage is higher than just SF, which against these targets does around 600 spirit damage.

[Bigdawg13]

I keep toying around with Solas (lvl 15) and mana regen feels really bad when I mix in shock-generating abilities. I didn't notice it at first but then went classic Firemine and it was night and day. I hate this weakness bug so much. Sure it generates sleep combos on peons but against sleep immune targets I feel mana starved.

[Exalus]

Rift mage all the way. Pull of the abyss followed by whatever aoe you prefer decimates mobs even on NM with minimal or no crafting. Having 2 rift mages in one party is very synergistic as well.

[capn233]

I keep toying around with Solas (lvl 15) and mana regen feels really bad when I mix in shock-generating abilities. I didn't notice it at first but then went classic Firemine and it was night and day. I hate this weakness bug so much. Sure it generates sleep combos on peons but against sleep immune targets I feel mana starved.

 

I think Level 15 there is a dirth of points for a decent build on RM, but in any case...

 

What build are you talking about in storm?  I have two actives in Storm, EB and Lightning Cage.  EB doesn't necessarily generate shock, and Lightning Cage isn't something I need to apply on a boss necessarily.

 

A cold staff is pretty decent to keep all your bases covered, and it won't shock.

 

One of the main reasons I went Lightning Cage though is because it is a bit more FF friendly than POTA.  Although POTA doesn't damage friendlies, they do seem to be helpless and I haven't noticed them using abilities while getting sucked in.  POTA is a whole lot better than Lightning Cage on some enemies though (like Pride Demons).

 

I do run with Solas most of the time, so that means I have an extra RM.  Also Cass has a chance to weaken.

 

In any case, I don't know that going into the ice tree is all that helpful.  And after you pick up Fire Mine, there isn't much left in the fire tree.  I guess you could go Spirit for Dispel to use as your eldritch.

[Elhanan]

Saw this in another thread; may be of help:

I have just realised that you can buy Venatori Tomes from the Griffon Keep Merchant if you have "The Short List" perk.

[PapaCharlie9]

I don't think there's any logic in there controlling the drops (it's entirely random). I have screens full of some of the different specialization mats (meaning so many stacks that they fill up an entire "page" of the inventory screen).

It's possible the drops are restricted by area or pool (the wisps in the prologue may be special ones that don't drop anything), but I've seen nothing to indicate that there's a check on whether you already have any (or even need any; I wish they'd all stop dropping after you picked a specialization).

Wow, then either I've been rolling very unlucky with RNG, or I'm not fighting the right mobs. Not counting what I needed for my IQs, I don't think I have more than 2 of any specialization item, in 2 1/2 PTs.