10 réponses à ce sujet

[FredLC]

hello there.

I begun posting in the forum just a day or two ago, but saw some interesting advice, only mixed with things that spoiled, even if minorly, parts of the game I have not seen yet... So I decided to ask this in a proper custom non spoilery topic.

Background:

I finished vanilla inquisition twice, on normal, first with a warrior, later with a knight enchanter. Begun a third playthrough on hard with a dwarven rogue, but dropped for a nightmare playthrough to get a platinum trophy... So I begun as a Mage again (this time a rift mage).

Defeated the vanilla game, no problem (save those freaking horrors on Crestwood before Skyhold, and the last fight before the fall of Haven - just because the open terrain on the last part of the fight makes controlling the battlefield harder).

My team was Blackwall sword and shield (tank), Sera archer (damage dealer), my rift Mage inquisitor and always two mages. I used Cassandra against rifts, and circled the mages, but always took one, for two in the team. I did this to maximize my use of barrier, and because this way I could always cripple the rifts second waves with my dispels.

Than I downloaded the DLCs. I beaten Jaws of Hakkon with moderate trouble after an adjustment in tactics, than went on to Descent. Halfway through as I post this (just established the second camp), and the horde fight before this almost got me (I was handling well but the very last "boss" wave nearly overwhelmed me, it was close. I thought this fight harder than anything I met in JoH, despite many people arguing that Jaws is harder - my team is fully level 27 btw).

And thus my question. I was thinking about a re-spec of my mages to diminish the emphasis of dispel, as there are no more rifts. However, emissaries do have barriers, and they deal crazy damage, specially alphas.

Is it worth to keep the dispel in my active list, or should I re-spec? I was thinking of shooting for cold damage options.

Regards .

[ottffsse]

In nm with walk softly dispel is a must otherwise you can't take any mages down trust me. You can also dispel buffs from horrors buffed by knights , wraiths and poison status you need it.

Your set up is good I ran that setup and got through low levels envy and haven fight at lvl 5 for achievement.

Use mana surge in both mages and 2 barriers mana surge applies to everyone now.

Your quisi should focus on cc spells like winters grasp upgraded for the 1000% damage, flash fire, and later wall of fire. Later the spec spells. Solas should run dispel and possibly rejuvinating barrier in addition to wg and mana surge.

Sera is good to go with long shot, upgraded leaping shot for insta stealth (she clutched the envy fight for me that way when everyone else was down cause mage envy is a ******). Later get full draw and poison weapons and its heal upgrade. Then the spec powers.

Cass should becset up with shield wall, payback strike with upgrade of your choice, warcry , possibly challenge and shield bash. Get upgrade to shield bash on walk softly as enemies have guard.

With walk softly on you get decent rewards you can sell them and get tier 2 schematics at black emporium to get a good bow for Sera, good staves for quisi and Sola's, and good armour for Cass. That is essential. In a fight have Cass always taunt and keep her barriered especially when she is up against magic attacks. Your set to take on the haven fight.

Even there always retreat up the stairs and try to take on enemies in small groups as otherwise even with proper tactics they will overwhelm you.

This is realistic you can possibly break the game by getting even better schematics from be if you farm but that is time consuming and no fun. Cheers.

Editv: for descent just make sure everyone has really high fire resistance. Then you may not need dispel but it makes fighting the alpha quicker.

[ottffsse]

Specifically for the alpha. Quickest way is just use fire resistant upgrades on everyone, bring blackwall with ttd, and spec Cole as archer for mark of death. Nuke focus fire the alpha really quickly. The mages should be running cold staves and upgraded winters grasp as it is weak to cold.

[PapaCharlie9]

Title ought have SPOILER warning in it, since replies will inevitably spoil DLC stuff.

 

It's hard to make recommendations for a respec without seeing what your current build is, so please post it.

 

I personally think upgraded Dispel is useful, for damage bonus if nothing else. I generally have it in an active slot. If I have a mage in a situation where they can't detonate a status, like Frozen/Chilled, for lack of mana or on cooldown, but they can Dispel, that's what I do for damage bonus. The new toggle also does an analogue of weaken -- that's a bit less useful for Rift Mage, but good for other mage specializations.

 

But, there does come a time when there is an active skill that is more valuable. That's when I replace Dispel. So you might be at that point, but as noted, too hard to tell without seeing your build.

[Forsythia77]

If you are past the Darkspawn and down into the "uncharted abyss" areas, you can probably get away with not having dispell.  I had it on both Dorian and my KE Caitlyn and it helped immeasurably against those Emissaries on NM.  It doesn't help against the Sha-Brytol per se.  But you can use it as a detonator as PapaCharlie9 said. 

[FredLC]

Right, this is my build for my a-team (won't mention actives that are not in the slots):

Inquisitor:

From spirit: barrier + upgrade, peaceful aura, guardian spirit, dispel + upgrade, rejuvenating barrier and strength of spirits
Full inquisitor tree: MotR and aegis fully upgraded
From rift: veil strike + upgrade, stone fist + upgrade, and all the passives;
From cold: winter stillness
From fire: flash fire + upgrade, flashpoint, pyromancer, clean burn
From storm: chain lighting + upgrade, storm bringer and gathering storm

Blackwall:

From vanguard: war cry + upgrade; challenge + upgrade, livid + upgrade, all passives
From w&s: shield wall + upgrade, shield bash + upgrade, payback strike + upgrade, all passives;
From champion: all passives, to the death + upgrade, walking fortress + upgrade

Dorian:

From necromancer: full tree
From cold: winter stillness
From spirit: barrier + upgrade, peaceful aura, guardian spirit, dispel + upgrade, strength of spirits
From fire: flash fire + upgrade, immolate + upgrade, flashpoint, pyromancer, clean burn and chaotic focus

Sera:

From tempest: everything except flask of frost
From subterfuge: all passives, stealth + upgrade, evade, knockout powder + upgrade
From sabotage: looked like it hurt and cheap shot.
From archery: death from above, first blood, , pincushion, long shot + upgrade, explosive shot + upgrade

Ok, that's pretty much it.

[PapaCharlie9]

IQ:

• Definitely drop all the Lightning skills. -- Alternatively, replace all with just Energy Barrage if you have a non-lightning staff and Conductive Current, though there is some dispute about whether it is working or not
• Get Pull of the Abyss and upgrade it from Rift -- this is one of the best CC skills (Veilstrike is the other) and is the best way to set up a Fire Mine for multiple victims.
• Replace Winter's Stillness with Mana Surge, for reasons discussed above.
• Replace Flashfire with Immolate (much more versatile attack skill) and spend any spare points on the track towards Fire Mine.
• Dump Strength of Spirits and recover all of the points spent in that branch, possibly even drop Guardian Spirit, unless you get fatally wounded alot. Spend those points in Fire.
• Once you get Fire Mine, new points can go back towards Strength of Spirits if you really want it, but by that level, you won't need it.

 

As an alternative, you could drop all of Fire and put all those points into Winter instead. With Stonefist, you don't really need Fire Mine or even Immolate. There's something to be said to go cold with Winter's Chill, Frost Step (particularly if you chronically run out of mana), Ice Mine and Blizzard. Ice Mine is probably overkill, since you can Veilstrike for self-defense, but if you want to use Veilstrike as an offensive ranged attack, it would be handy to have Chilling Array for local defense. Cold is a bit redundant with RM's superior CC, but it might be fun to set up self-combos by freezing everything in sight and then Stonefisting them.

 

Disclosure: I've played the RM/Fire build mentioned above, but I have not played the RM/Winter build alternative. That's all theoretical for me.

 

Dorian is a bit of an IQ clone. If you go Winter, you can have Dorian be Pyro. Try to have complementary mage builds, rather than duplicate.

 

Sera should have Leaping Shot and Poison Weapons. I wouldn't spend any points in Subterfuge, but that's just how I play non-Assassin Archers. If you have spare points, go deeper in Sabotage.

 

Everything else looks okay. IMO.

[FredLC]

Thanks, made some changes, but my very next encounter was with non-darkspawn, than I went to work, so I don't have basis of comparison yet.

Anyway, I feel I might be stronger against groups now, and that Sera truly improved (I realized I was using the subterfuge actives much less than enough to justify keeping them).

[Fullmetall21]

IQ:

• Definitely drop all the Lightning skills. -- Alternatively, replace all with just Energy Barrage if you have a non-lightning staff and Conductive Current, though there is some dispute about whether it is working or not
• Get Pull of the Abyss and upgrade it from Rift -- this is one of the best CC skills (Veilstrike is the other) and is the best way to set up a Fire Mine for multiple victims.
• Replace Winter's Stillness with Mana Surge, for reasons discussed above.
• Replace Flashfire with Immolate (much more versatile attack skill) and spend any spare points on the track towards Fire Mine.
• Dump Strength of Spirits and recover all of the points spent in that branch, possibly even drop Guardian Spirit, unless you get fatally wounded alot. Spend those points in Fire.
• Once you get Fire Mine, new points can go back towards Strength of Spirits if you really want it, but by that level, you won't need it.

 

As an alternative, you could drop all of Fire and put all those points into Winter instead. With Stonefist, you don't really need Fire Mine or even Immolate. There's something to be said to go cold with Winter's Chill, Frost Step (particularly if you chronically run out of mana), Ice Mine and Blizzard. Ice Mine is probably overkill, since you can Veilstrike for self-defense, but if you want to use Veilstrike as an offensive ranged attack, it would be handy to have Chilling Array for local defense. Cold is a bit redundant with RM's superior CC, but it might be fun to set up self-combos by freezing everything in sight and then Stonefisting them.

 

Disclosure: I've played the RM/Fire build mentioned above, but I have not played the RM/Winter build alternative. That's all theoretical for me.

 

Dorian is a bit of an IQ clone. If you go Winter, you can have Dorian be Pyro. Try to have complementary mage builds, rather than duplicate.

 

Sera should have Leaping Shot and Poison Weapons. I wouldn't spend any points in Subterfuge, but that's just how I play non-Assassin Archers. If you have spare points, go deeper in Sabotage.

 

Everything else looks okay. IMO.

I have one question about the Rift/Fire mage build, when you come across fire resistant enemies how do you deal with them? Stonefist alone doesn't seem to do that much damage, do you use a frost staff with Energy Barrage? Also is Ring of Doubt a good ring for a rift mage?

[PapaCharlie9]

I have one question about the Rift/Fire mage build, when you come across fire resistant enemies how do you deal with them? Stonefist alone doesn't seem to do that much damage, do you use a frost staff with Energy Barrage? Also is Ring of Doubt a good ring for a rift mage?

Stonefist does plenty of damage, plus with cooldown passives and buffs you can cast it more frequently, plus with upgrade it can weaken. Don't underestimate the value of weaken, it's like temporarily dropping the difficulty from Nightmare to Normal.  Plus, if one of my companions freezes the target, Stonefist will detonate for Shatter.

 

But yes, what I generally do is wield a frost staff and just auto attack until Stonefist is back up. Actually I Veilstrike first, then Stonefist, then auto attack, then repeat. 

 

I haven't used Ring of Doubt myself yet, so don't have an opinion.

[Elhanan]

I would recommend losing the Focus boost for another desired selection. No Spoilers, but this may be desirable....