26 réponses à ce sujet

[swk3000]

With the new ability toggles, and the changed mechanic for Spirit Blade, I'm kind of lost on how to run the Knight Enchanter. I never got around to completing the game, so I recently started working on doing so, but with the new mechanics, I'm not sure what to do. I know the usual stuff: Chaotic Focus makes Fire Spells great, Fade Step is great for closing distance, etc., but I'm having trouble making a coherent build out of it all. Honestly, I was having trouble with it before (I had no real idea what I wanted to use as my main 7-8 abilities), but now I'm just completely lost.

Also, gear. I intended to use the Wrath of Lovias schematic (I think that's it; it's the one with 20 Leather Offense slots from the Black Emporium) with a Hilted Grip and a Dragon Blade to push Crit Chance up as high as I can get, but then there's the Ring of Doubt that makes that Crit-stacking a moot point, so I'm not even sure what to do. And then there's armor: at one time, one of the Rogue armors was BiS for all offense-oriented classes due to it's higher Crit chance boost, but I want my Mage to wear Light Armor, so I'm not sure what to wear, and with the DLCs, I'm not even sure what the best armor is anymore. Especially because most of the Light Armor schematics are all defensive, and I'm generally not impressed with the effects of armors that have Utility slots (though that could just be due to lack of decent materials at the point in the game that I'm at).

The fact is, I'm just lost, and would appreciate some help getting a coherent Knight Enchanter build figured out.

[actionhero112]

Ring of Doubt has it's own, separate cooldown, and while interesting as a way to redirect aggro, isn't very good for augmenting your dps as a knight enchanter who still tends to prefer to be on the move, constantly attacking to restore their barrier. 

 

I prefer Andraste's Sacrifice, which allows you to do the thing holding back the KE from tanking from the very beginning, hold group aggro. It also boosts your mana restoration rate and lowers your cds as well, both of which are moderately beneficial. 

 

As far as armor goes, I prefer the Superior Battlemage Armor Schematic, slotted with avaar cotton in its cloth utility and ice dragon hide in it's leather utility, giving you the highest dexterity bonus in the game for armor. (It gives you something like 47 dexterity with optimal upgrades, ridiculous). For the helm I still tend to lean towards the Mask of the Grand Duchess on non Qunari and the Cretahl Vitaar on Qunari. 

 

I personally run the Masterwork Archon Staff Blade and the Hilted Staff Grip, on my Staff of the Lovias.

 

So basically my full build is:

 

Staff of the Lovias (Upgraded with Masterwork Archon and Hilted Staff Grip) You can do dragon staff blade. Won't make that much of a difference

Mask of the Grand Duchess if you're a human or elf, Cretahl Vitaar if you're a qunari. Arishok and the Jaws of Hakkon Vitaar works fine until you get it

Superior Battlemage Armor (Upgraded with Battlemage Armor Arms and Legs) Slotted with Avaar Cotton and Ice Dragon Hide in their respective utilities.

Andraste's Sacrifice (Necklace)

x2 Superior Ring of Critical Damage

Superb belt of healing. There are a couple belts I like that increase damage at the cost of health, but I haven't done enough testing on them to recommend them. 

 

I run Fire Mine  - Spirit Blade  - Fade Cloak - Immolate - Fade Step - Chain Lightning - Energy Barrage - Barrier/Mark of the Rift

 

I use the Fade Touched Plustian Velvet (Hidden Blade 5 hits) and Fade Touched Everite (Heal 25% of Damage taken over 10 seconds) I heavily recommend both. 

 

I also have an attack % build for mages if you're interested in a non crit build. 

 

Mage - Inferno

 

My full build at 27

[swk3000]

Andraste's Sacrifice intrigued me the moment I saw it, but I wasn't sure if it would be a bad idea to have that much attention coming at you without something like Ice Armor. Not only that, but as far as I'm aware, it's only available for purchase at the Winter Palace, so it's not something you can pick up earlier, when it would be more useful. Very annoying, honestly.

[actionhero112]

Andraste's Sacrifice intrigued me the moment I saw it, but I wasn't sure if it would be a bad idea to have that much attention coming at you without something like Ice Armor. Not only that, but as far as I'm aware, it's only available for purchase at the Winter Palace, so it's not something you can pick up earlier, when it would be more useful. Very annoying, honestly.

You can also find it in the emerald graves in the back of the mansion.

 

Superior Dexterity Amulet is also good tho.

 

I ran through the Hakkon DLC and the Descent DLC, as well as the Trespasser DLC (The latter with all trials on) with the Andraste's sacrifice. I didn't have much trouble. That's not even me bragging, mechanically I'm not even good at this game. 

[swk3000]

That's good to know.


Question: do you have something you replace Fire Mine with if you know you're going to be facing an enemy that is resistant to fire? Or do you just power through with Chain Lightning and Energy Barrage?

EDIT: and do the new upgrade toggles change anything for your build, do you think? Seems the Fire Array would be a great choice, for example (apparently it also removes the primer time, but the Mines can only be placed next to you, which is fine for a Knight Enchanter).

[actionhero112]

That's good to know.


Question: do you have something you replace Fire Mine with if you know you're going to be facing an enemy that is resistant to fire? Or do you just power through with Chain Lightning and Energy Barrage?

I just powered through it. 

 

Though with trials on in the last dlc there were promoted enemies with 3 resistances (Fire, Electric and Ice). 

 

It's just what I had success with. You can run whatever you want. Though if you're going spirit blade I recommend a multihit ability, because it charges the blade faster. 

The great thing about the toggles is that it really opens up the trees in terms of builds. You can really design a character for a specific purpose.

[PapaCharlie9]

I run Fire Mine  - Spirit Blade  - Fade Cloak - Immolate - Fade Step - Chain Lightning - Energy Barrage - Barrier/Mark of the Rift

Mine is similar, but I take Barrier and Resurgence always, and drop Immolate:

Fire Mine/Searing Glyph (with all relevant Fire passives) - SB/no upgrade - Fade Cloak/Decloaking Blast - Fade Step/Frost Step - CL/Arcing Surge - EB/no upgrade - Barrier/Energetic Defense - Resurgence

Frost Step is effective against Fire Resistant enemies. Plus I generally carry a Lightning or Ice staff. I don't have the Light Saber staff yet.

I might switch Fire Mine to the 3 mine upgrade. I tend to use it offensively rather than defensively, so not sure the new toggle is worth it.

[actionhero112]

Mine is similar, but I take Barrier and Resurgence always, and drop Immolate:

Fire Mine (with all relevant Fire passives) - SB - Fade Cloak/upgrades - Fade Step/Chill Step - CL - EB - Barrier - Resurgence

Chill Step is effective against Fire Resistant enemies. Plus I generally carry a Lightning or Ice staff. I don't have the Light Saber staff yet.

I'm not actually sure that with Firey Array toggled that Fire Mine works with chaotic focus anymore.

 

Prior to taking array I was hitting for around 15-20k on Fire Mine, but now I'm only hitting around 10k. It's still worth it, because more mines are cast and they prime instantly, but I took immolate because I know it works with chaotic focus. 

 

I'd actually like another's input on it, because maybe it's just my game you know? 

[PapaCharlie9]

I'm not actually sure that with Firey Array toggled that Fire Mine works with chaotic focus anymore.
 
Prior to taking array I was hitting for around 15-20k on Fire Mine, but now I'm only hitting around 10k. It's still worth it, because more mines are cast and they prime instantly, but I took immolate because I know it works with chaotic focus. 
 
I'd actually like another's input on it, because maybe it's just my game you know?

I'll have to do a test.

What about upgrades for other skills? I edited my post while you were replying and added in all the upgrades I usually run with. I'm pretty old school, only Energetic Barrier seems like the better default choice.

[actionhero112]

I'll have to do a test.

What about upgrades for other skills? I edited my post while you were replying and added in all the upgrades I usually run with. I'm pretty old school, only Energetic Barrier seems like the better default choice.

 

I don't even take the barrier upgrade on the KE personally. I think it's super useful on classes without on demand CDR, but the KE has that in spades. The issue is usually do I spend this mana blowing up enemies, or protecting my allies. 

 

As for Firey Array you get to do stuff like this

 

Small location spoiler for trespasser.

Spoiler

Because it instantly primes, it's now much more reliable to land on re-positioning targets. And multiple mines can hit multiple times. So even though I'm only hitting around 2/3's of what I normally would without chaotic focus, there is a chance that the AoE of the mines will overlap and I'll get 1 and 1/3 of what I normally get. So I'm very happy with Firey Array. Though I can understand to sticking with searing glyph.

 

I also take Frost Step, Decloaking Blast, Defending Blade, Arcing Surge. EB no Upgrade and Barrier no upgrade. 

 

EDIT: I also take consuming fire on immolate.

[Rynas]

Haha, yeah I was going to talk about using the new Flaming Array in that same location.  Nice of them to bunch up like that.  It takes some time to get used to it, but it's so insane that I'm almost expecting a nerf.

 

I haven't fully explored all the options yet, but current setup is:

 

1) Spirit Blade (Defending Blade): Upgrade is still useful for protecting against casters/archers

2) Fade Cloak (Decloaking Blast): Bread & butter

3) Fade Step (Frost Step): Decent damage (esp. vs fire-immunes) and mobility

4) Fire Mine (Flaming Array): Whoah

5) Barrier: For emergencies

6) Energy Barrage (Energy Bombardment): Single-target (I use an Electricity staff)

7) Dispel

8) Mark of the Rift

 

The new Sigil of the Bear means I have trouble spending even half of my mana with this build.  So I'm thinking of adding something expensive, like Chain Lightning or Static Cage, and maybe switching out Barrier or Dispel.

 

Also, early on in Trespasser you can get a belt that increases Electricity damage by some absurd amount (like 5-10x), including basic attacks, at the cost of half of your health.  That opens up a lot of possibilities...

[Garry Leonard]

I like anbit of a different build.

Spirit valde (amplify): combos well with the next one

Fade cloak (enduring cloak??): since you use all your charges every time you swing you blade fade cloak will last quite some time, and with the next skill will let you always be in touch able.

Fade step (energizing step??): it's basicly infinite mana and gives you that last extra second for fade cloak to come off cool down.

Flash Point/ Clean Burn: these are the point of KE you have a cheap spamable skill that easily procs crits and drops your cool downs. If you use the crit proc with fade step you can stay safer and have even more mana.

Energy barage: needed to max Blade charges instantly. This your easist source of damage to get to.

It's very tank focused and nothing can kill you because you can't be hit. You shields stay full so if something does hit you it'll just munch on your shield, which you regen staying ghost mode all day.

The best part is you stay the center of attention. Meaning the rest of your team is safe from attack and can focus of damage and combos. Just make sure in-between any other ability use. You spam the board to keep you cooldowns dropping, so you can stay in ghost mode.

Items. I haven't looked into trespasser items. Wraith is nice for garenteed crits on cooldowns. Other than that just add more damage. You don't need tanky stats. You tank by being untouchable all fight.

[Jaison1986]

Fire mine is the way to go now for KE. Those 10K damage are out of this world. Just one question. Does Rejuvenating Barrier from the spirit tree stacks if you have two mages on the team with it? Because now I see myself burning mana more then ever, and I don't want to break the pacing.

[swk3000]

Does anyone have any idea how long Fade Cloak lasts if Spirit Blade has no charges? My big issue with it has always been the duration; I don't use Tac Cam, and I'm not good at seeing attacks coming. Not to mention that I'm on a console, and a lot of the time, attack animations lock me in place, so I can't really react in time when I do see something coming. I don't expect that the longer duration of Fade Cloak will change things, but I am interested in how long it's capable of lasting for.

[PapaCharlie9]

I don't even take the barrier upgrade on the KE personally. I think it's super useful on classes without on demand CDR, but the KE has that in spades.

I thought Energetic Barrier was the no-decay for 5 seconds one? In any case, I default to the no-decay one.

But your point about offense/defense is right on. I've been running my KE as the only mage in the party most of the time, so I have to spend some points/slots on team defense. Other than the pre-combat team-wide cast, I generally only cast Barrier on other party members, thanks to Fade Shield.

[PapaCharlie9]

Does Rejuvenating Barrier from the spirit tree stacks if you have two mages on the team with it? Because now I see myself burning mana more then ever, and I don't want to break the pacing.

Before Patch 10 it didn't benefit other party members at all, despite it's description. I believe Patch 10 fixes that, so if you have one Mage who casts Barrier on the whole party, the whole party should have a regen buff. But I seriously doubt that it stacks. I'm thankful just for the bug fix, don't want to get too greedy!

[TheSpookyAce]

Ring of Doubt has it's own, separate cooldown, and while interesting as a way to redirect aggro, isn't very good for augmenting your dps as a knight enchanter who still tends to prefer to be on the move, constantly attacking to restore their barrier. 

 

I prefer Andraste's Sacrifice, which allows you to do the thing holding back the KE from tanking from the very beginning, hold group aggro. It also boosts your mana restoration rate and lowers your cds as well, both of which are moderately beneficial. 

 

As far as armor goes, I prefer the Superior Battlemage Armor Schematic, slotted with avaar cotton in its cloth utility and ice dragon hide in it's leather utility, giving you the highest dexterity bonus in the game for armor. (It gives you something like 47 dexterity with optimal upgrades, ridiculous). For the helm I still tend to lean towards the Mask of the Grand Duchess on non Qunari and the Cretahl Vitaar on Qunari. 

 

I personally run the Masterwork Archon Staff Blade and the Hilted Staff Grip, on my Staff of the Lovias.

 

So basically my full build is:

 

Staff of the Lovias (Upgraded with Masterwork Archon and Hilted Staff Grip) You can do dragon staff blade. Won't make that much of a difference

Mask of the Grand Duchess if you're a human or elf, Cretahl Vitaar if you're a qunari. Arishok and the Jaws of Hakkon Vitaar works fine until you get it

Superior Battlemage Armor (Upgraded with Battlemage Armor Arms and Legs) Slotted with Avaar Cotton and Ice Dragon Hide in their respective utilities.

Andraste's Sacrifice (Necklace)

x2 Superior Ring of Critical Damage

Superb belt of healing. There are a couple belts I like that increase damage at the cost of health, but I haven't done enough testing on them to recommend them. 

 

I run Fire Mine  - Spirit Blade  - Fade Cloak - Immolate - Fade Step - Chain Lightning - Energy Barrage - Barrier/Mark of the Rift

 

I use the Fade Touched Plustian Velvet (Hidden Blade 5 hits) and Fade Touched Everite (Heal 25% of Damage taken over 10 seconds) I heavily recommend both. 

 

I also have an attack % build for mages if you're interested in a non crit build. 

 

Mage - Inferno

 

My full build at 27

Do you mind sharing your final attack%, critical chance, critical damage of your lvl 27 KE (preferably before trespasser dlc)?

[actionhero112]

Do you mind sharing your final attack%, critical chance, critical damage of your lvl 27 KE (preferably before trespasser dlc)?

Spoiler

 

 

Directly before the Trespasser DLC

[Jaison1986]

Spoiler

 

 

Directly before the Trespasser DLC

 

Wow. how did you got this much critical damage? The best I can get is around 88% with two superb critical rings and a necklace of cunning. What I am missing here? 

[Rynas]

Wow. how did you got this much critical damage? The best I can get is around 88% with two superb critical rings and a necklace of cunning. What I am missing here? 

 

Cloth Offense gets +3.5% crit damage per mat with Dragon Webbing.  Leather Offense can also get +3.5% crit damage (and +2% crit chance).  Wrath of Lovias is all Leather Offense, so you can stack up.  Also I believe he uses armor with Leather Utility, which you can fill with Dex to get like +2% crit damage per mat.

[PapaCharlie9]

Cloth Offense gets +3.5% crit damage per mat with Dragon Webbing.  Leather Offense can also get +3.5% crit damage (and +2% crit chance).  Wrath of Lovias is all Leather Offense, so you can stack up.  Also I believe he uses armor with Leather Utility, which you can fill with Dex to get like +2% crit damage per mat.

Dex +2 is pretty hard to get. +1.75 is a lot easier and really more than enough.

[swk3000]

Sudden question. In the Spirit tree, there's a passive that gives you increased mana regeneration when you have a Barrier. Unfortunately, it's locked behind the Peaceful Aura passive. Since I'm planning on using the Andraste's Sacrifice amulet, reducing my threat seems like a bad idea, so I can't get the upgrade. However, I do usually run a second mage as support, so they could pick it up with no problems. This brings up a few questions.

1. If my support mage has the passive but I don't, can I still get the benefit of it?

2. If so, does Barrier from Fade Shield trigger the benefit, or does the Barrier have to be cast by the mage with the passive?

[PapaCharlie9]

Sudden question. In the Spirit tree, there's a passive that gives you increased mana regeneration when you have a Barrier. Unfortunately, it's locked behind the Peaceful Aura passive. Since I'm planning on using the Andraste's Sacrifice amulet, reducing my threat seems like a bad idea, so I can't get the upgrade. However, I do usually run a second mage as support, so they could pick it up with no problems. This brings up a few questions.

1. If my support mage has the passive but I don't, can I still get the benefit of it?

2. If so, does Barrier from Fade Shield trigger the benefit, or does the Barrier have to be cast by the mage with the passive?

#1 is supposedly fixed as of Patch 10, though I haven't tested it to confirm. It didn't use to work, but now it should be that if a companion casts barrier on you, you get the benefit.

 

#2 if it works at all, it will be as if the wielder of Fade Shield is the caster (that's consistent with other effects, e.g., the thrower of a bee grenade defines the crit/crit of the bees). So, I believe the answer is "the Barrier have to be cast by the mage with the passive".

[Garry Leonard]

Also since your taunting tons. Which makes them hit you the peace aura won't matter so much.

[swk3000]

Also since your taunting tons. Which makes them hit you the peace aura won't matter so much.

True, but I'm worried that if I have Peaceful Aura halving my threat generation, I won't be able to keep threat if the taunt doesn't go off. And I don't know what the chance is for the taunt to go off.