I managed to take that bug and make it unique... I somehow seem to get 77 damage instead of 1 sometimes. Special snowflake status confirmed.
Nice video but am I the only one who likes to sit back or stay at a distance when I am playing as a caster mage ? If you want to get up close the might as well be a Knight Enchanter since they get a steady 50% bonus mana regeneration in close to medium range ?
First, great music! I find that I either love or hate the soundtracks for your videos, there's no in-between.
Pro tip: disable the damage number display on self/party for test videos. Then we know all the numbers on screen are damage given.
You weren't "burned" by too many 1 damage fire mines. It is kind of a shame that the 1 damage bug messes up what would otherwise be an awesome tactic: freeze them in place with Chilling Array, then blast them with Fire Array. No idea what the 77 is all about, never seen that before.
But I dunno, I might prefer Searing Glyph for that combo anyway. And I just couldn't live without Pull of the Abyss. I'd have to drop Fade Step, I guess. Or maybe Energy Barrage, but that would hurt, leaving only Stonefist for direct damage. If only Veilstrike also did Dispel! That would be awesome.
Hehe, yeah, my musical tastes are somewhat odd 
Good point about the damage numbers, would never have thought of that!
I really wanted a way to fit in Winter's Ruin, that move is amazing, but the damned 8 skill limit....
I agree regarding Searing Glyph actually, but the thing with Flaming Array is that I don't have to position it, it's a "fire and forget" type of move. Yes, my laziness knows no bounds....
I absolutely loved PotA in DA2, and I love it here in theory, but I've had a long and chequered history with that ability. My main issue with it while soloing is that while it's great for moving enemies where I want them (there are several times in that video alone where i have to reposition myself because of cowardly archers, where with PotA I could have just dragged them back), I ended up preferring veilstrike partially for the low mana cost and low cooldown weakness spread, but the main draw was the CC. I'm not a huge fan of how PotA slowly pulls enemies to a point but they stay upright and keep firing at you. If PotA worked like the DA2 version, I would take it over veilstrike without a doubt.
My issue with it with a team is that I play with FF, so the time honoured PotA + Fire Mine combo basically killed Cassandra more times than anything else in my first rift mage playthrough back when the game came out.
Probably a case of me needing to "git gud" with PotA. There are obvious advantages to it, and if I had time I'd try messing around with it more, but alas, I'm already pushing my procrastination to the limits. 
Nice video but am I the only one who likes to sit back or stay at a distance when I am playing as a caster mage ? If you want to get up close the might as well be a Knight Enchanter since they get a steady 50% bonus mana regeneration in close to medium range ?
Actually, I think most people would advocate staying at range, especially with a team of 4; I'm a bit of a hipster like that, I actually posted a CQC rift mage build back in early 2015. 
The advantage of playing at close range in soloing is that I get to use ice mine to freeze the enemies, and to give me ice armour. That's not really needed with 3 companions to soak up aggro and damage, but as you saw in that vid, ring of doubt is so buggy that I think it's the perfect embodiment of the game as a whole.
I like to think that the thing that differentiates this from a KE is that the RM can constantly detonate combos, whether from frozen enemies via ice mine, or from paralyzed enemies via static charge, and then using veilstrike to send the shocked enemies to sleep, which preps them for a rupture or nightmare. Overall, combo damage isn't particularly great and of no use on elite, promoted or boss enemies, but it does cause bullet time which makes me feel awesome.
Actually, I think most people would advocate staying at range, especially with a team of 4; I'm a bit of a hipster like that, I actually posted a CQC rift mage build back in early 2015.
The advantage of playing at close range in soloing is that I get to use ice mine to freeze the enemies, and to give me ice armour. That's not really needed with 3 companions to soak up aggro and damage, but as you saw in that vid, ring of doubt is so buggy that I think it's the perfect embodiment of the game as a whole.
I like to think that the thing that differentiates this from a KE is that the RM can constantly detonate combos, whether from frozen enemies via ice mine, or from paralyzed enemies via static charge, and then using veilstrike to send the shocked enemies to sleep, which preps them for a rupture or nightmare. Overall, combo damage isn't particularly great and of no use on elite, promoted or boss enemies, but it does cause bullet time which makes me feel awesome.
For Rift Mage, here's how I play them:-
I alternate between Veilstrike, Dispel and Energy Barrage depending on the situation.
The reason I use Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade is because of how powerful it can get with the Rift Mage. Let us do some maths.
Basic Blizzard - Does 75% damage per second in an area of 8 meters, costs 5 mana per second, chills enemies, grants Ice Armor if you are within it.
Blizzard with Ice Storm - Does 150% damage per second (due to a bonus 75% damage upgrade) in an area of 8 meters, costs 5 mana per second, chills and freezes enemies, grants Ice Armor if you are within it.
Conventionally we see the strongest spell in the Winter Tree to be Winter's Grasp with Winter's Ruin upgrade. With that upgrade, Winter's Grasp does 1,000% weapon damage to a single chilled or frozen target for a cost of 65 mana.
Here's the amazing part...
Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade can achieve 1050% area of effect damage after 7 seconds and it will cost a total of 35 mana. If we use Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade for 65 mana, it would last for a total of 13 seconds and do 1950% area of effect weapon damage. Plus you get Ice Armor if you are in the spell for the duration.
So clearly Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade is a powerful spell, especially for prolonged fights. The issue many encounter is the lack of mana since if you keep up Blizzard, you can't really cast other spells a lot. This is where Rift Mage and Fade Step come in.
Fade Step with Energizing Step upgrade allows you to recover 25% of your mana per enemy as you pass through them. This allows you to sustain Blizzard for quite a while.Rift Mage has Weakness which can be used to regain mana under the Restorative Veil passive. Now the Restorative Veil mana regeneration does not work with sustained spells but you can recover your mana by using other spells. Spells like Immolate which will have no cooldown if you take the Consuming Fire upgrade or Stonefist which has a low cooldown or Energy Barrage which can trigger Flashpoint easily for double barrages or Fire Mine.
So yeah, Blizzard can be an awesome spell, but only for Rift Mages and it is advised that you bring Fade Step along with some spells that you can spam like Immolate. No need to use Ice Mines.
The damage from all player DoT only ticks once per 2sFor Rift Mage, here's how I play them:-
I alternate between Veilstrike, Dispel and Energy Barrage depending on the situation.
- Veilstrike (Punching Down) / Dispel (Transmute Magic) / Energy Barrage
- Fade Step (Energizing Step)
- Immolate (Consuming Fire)
- Stonefist (Shatterstone)
- Blizzard (Ice Storm)
- Fire Mine (Searing Glyph or Flaming Array)
- Pull of the Abyss (Devouring Veil or Shaken Veil)
- Barrier (Energetic Defense)
The reason I use Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade is because of how powerful it can get with the Rift Mage. Let us do some maths.
Basic Blizzard - Does 75% damage per second in an area of 8 meters, costs 5 mana per second, chills enemies, grants Ice Armor if you are within it.
Blizzard with Ice Storm - Does 150% damage per second (due to a bonus 75% damage upgrade) in an area of 8 meters, costs 5 mana per second, chills and freezes enemies, grants Ice Armor if you are within it.
Conventionally we see the strongest spell in the Winter Tree to be Winter's Grasp with Winter's Ruin upgrade. With that upgrade, Winter's Grasp does 1,000% weapon damage to a single chilled or frozen target for a cost of 65 mana.
Here's the amazing part...
Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade can achieve 1050% area of effect damage after 7 seconds and it will cost a total of 35 mana. If we use Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade for 65 mana, it would last for a total of 13 seconds and do 1950% area of effect weapon damage. Plus you get Ice Armor if you are in the spell for the duration.
So clearly Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade is a powerful spell, especially for prolonged fights. The issue many encounter is the lack of mana since if you keep up Blizzard, you can't really cast other spells a lot. This is where Rift Mage and Fade Step come in.
Fade Step with Energizing Step upgrade allows you to recover 25% of your mana per enemy as you pass through them. This allows you to sustain Blizzard for quite a while.Rift Mage has Weakness which can be used to regain mana under the Restorative Veil passive. Now the Restorative Veil mana regeneration does not work with sustained spells but you can recover your mana by using other spells. Spells like Immolate which will have no cooldown if you take the Consuming Fire upgrade or Stonefist which has a low cooldown or Energy Barrage which can trigger Flashpoint easily for double barrages or Fire Mine.
So yeah, Blizzard can be an awesome spell, but only for Rift Mages and it is advised that you bring Fade Step along with some spells that you can spam like Immolate. No need to use Ice Mines.
The damage from all player DoT only ticks once per 2s
I guess correcting the terrible tooltips wasn't considered needed by bioware at any point.
Still, the damage from Blizzard isn't bad, especially for prolonged fights as you mentioned. And given that the shatter combo damage isn't great either, I'll give blizzard another go at some point since I'm just experimenting with different builds atm, you've sold it to me
Sigh. At this rate I am genuinely considering switching my canon character to a Rogue in this game. An Artificer Archer makes any of the mages, with perhaps the exception of the Knight Enchanter, look weak.
Sigh. At this rate I am genuinely considering switching my canon character to a Rogue in this game. An Artificer Archer makes any of the mages, with perhaps the exception of the Knight Enchanter, look weak.
Well, yeah, rogues are generally insanely powerful in this game. But that's not to say other classes can't be powerful as well. I presume you've been doing well with your build? Just because a mage can't solo the highland ravager in 5s doesn't make everything else rubbish. Seb Alleman's necromancer videos are proof of how powerful a necromancer can be.
I actually planned to make a video to demonstrate that rift mages could put out reasonable damage, to see if there was a solution to the problem from that thread complaining about enemy HP. Obviously it didn't quite work out and my damage was a bit sub-par, but I still think it could be done with a bit of build tweaking and farming the best materials.
And I have to say, pwning everything stupidly fast with an artificer is fun, but actually being challenged, with a risk of dying, was a welcome change of pace with a rift mage.
The thing with Rogues is that they can kill things quickly but they still need assistance from mages or templars or seekers to deal with magic efficiently. If you are not farming crafting materials via reloads or golden nugs, Rogues are balanced, especially on Nightmare with Trials.. They have strong damage against single targets, are versatile but need assistance with magic stuff. Rogues cannot dispel barriers for instance.
Personally, I find myself getting disillusioned with the mage class as I play more and theorycraft more. I am big on the lore and lore wise, mages are supposed to be very powerful but also dangerous due to demons. I mean DAO and DA2 are quite accurate on representing a mage's power and potential. Now in DAI, mages just seem like a bunch of superhero mutants that put out either mediocre or decent crowd control and area of effect damage. All the powerful magics are either locked behind Focus or are only in cutscenes whereas in the previous two games you can cast Firestorm, Group Heal, Haste, etc normally. In previous games, you did not have Vancian-esque spellcasting where you are limited to a specific number of spells because lore doesn't say so but now you have it but there is no justification for it.
The thing with Rogues is that they can kill things quickly but they still need assistance from mages or templars or seekers to deal with magic efficiently. If you are not farming crafting materials via reloads or golden nugs, Rogues are balanced, especially on Nightmare with Trials.. They have strong damage against single targets, are versatile but need assistance with magic stuff. Rogues cannot dispel barriers for instance.
Personally, I find myself getting disillusioned with the mage class as I play more and theorycraft more. I am big on the lore and lore wise, mages are supposed to be very powerful but also dangerous due to demons. I mean DAO and DA2 are quite accurate on representing a mage's power and potential. Now in DAI, mages just seem like a bunch of superhero mutants that put out either mediocre or decent crowd control and area of effect damage. All the powerful magics are either locked behind Focus or are only in cutscenes whereas in the previous two games you can cast Firestorm, Group Heal, Haste, etc normally. In previous games, you did not have Vancian-esque spellcasting where you are limited to a specific number of spells because lore doesn't say so but now you have it but there is no justification for it.
I'm not a huge fan of how PotA slowly pulls enemies to a point but they stay upright and keep firing at you. If PotA worked like the DA2 version, I would take it over veilstrike without a doubt.
My issue with it with a team is that I play with FF, so the time honoured PotA + Fire Mine combo basically killed Cassandra more times than anything else in my first rift mage playthrough back when the game came out.
Probably a case of me needing to "git gud" with PotA.
But without FF how will I teabag my companions?!What you need to do is stop playing with FF.
The reason I can't live without PotA is because it's my poor man's Static Cage. No bonus damage, but it still lets you pile on Energy Barrage, Immolate/Consuming Fire, Caltrops bleed stacking, Toxic Cloud DoT, Antivan fire DoT, Artificer traps, and of course Searing Glyph. I don't know how many times I've put PotA on a mixed bag of mooks and demi-bosses, had the whole party pour damage into it, and had none of the enemies survive ... except for the promoted/resistant ones of course.
I've even used to center it on Blackwall so he can do never-ending 2H Whirlwind, but now Whirlwind has an upgrade that's like a mini-PotA, so I don't do that any more.
All without FF, of course.
But without FF how will I teabag my companions?!
Also, managed to break the deep roads. Twice.
If you had used with Elemental Mines and Toxic Cloud, you would not be stuck in that situation...
But without FF how will I teabag my companions?!
Also, managed to break the deep roads. Twice.
So I played around with the Flaming Array again and noticed that I only got the 1 damage when attacking passive enemies/enemies that were not actively engaging me. Otherwise, once I got an enemy to become hostile and start attacking me I could use Flaming Array right on top of the enemy no problem. Is there any reason why an enemy who isn't actively engaging you in a fight would get only 1 damage?
So I played around with the Flaming Array again and noticed that I only got the 1 damage when attacking passive enemies/enemies that were not actively engaging me. Otherwise, once I got an enemy to become hostile and start attacking me I could use Flaming Array right on top of the enemy no problem. Is there any reason why an enemy who isn't actively engaging you in a fight would get only 1 damage?
Just do what I do and switch to playing Rogues and Warriors. As of a few days ago, I have stopped playing Mage Inquisitors.
Mage Inquisitors have less flexibility, less spells, and less power compared to Mage Wardens and Mage Champions. On the other hand Rogue Inquisitors are just as strong as Rogue Wardens and Rogue Champions. As for Warrior Inquisitors and Warrior Champions, they suffered a downgrade with regards to flexibility when they lost the option to use ranged weapons and dual wielding but overall their damage potential as well as tanking potential and power are still there.
Lastly, Rogues and Warriors in Dragon Age have been getting more magic-ish as the franchise progress. So if you want to have some magicky feel to your character you can go with Tempest or Artificer or Templar or Reaver.
If you had used with Elemental Mines and Toxic Cloud, you would not be stuck in that situation...
This dammed 8 skill limit means there are so many abilities I had to leave out. Winter's Ruin is my favourite of the Trespasser toggles, because the name is so awesome, but couldn't fit it in here .
Yeah, PotA would have been nice there, though it might have just made me glitch out even sooner
What we need is a mod that disables the skill menu lock in combat so we can switch our spells and talents in combat.
What we need is a mod that disables the skill menu lock in combat so we can switch our spells and talents in combat.
Yeah, a lot of the newer mechanics were supposedly put in place to make gameplay "more tactical", but often just felt mildly annoying. For example, not being able to switch staves in combat. Sure, it's not "realistic" to pull out a second staff from out your butt, but then again, I just fired a green spirit fist into a dragon. And the only "tactic" that this provides, in combination with enemy immunities on nightmare, is that you either already know the immunities of the enemies you're facing and have enough high damage abilities of a different element to compensate, or you have to reload and choose the appropriate staff. Pretty meh.
Regarding rift mage damage, I managed to get this build to a point where it's pretty good against hordes of mooks, but the fact that it took 5 minutes to kill the Emissary Alpha is telling. Sure, it could be buffed further if I swapped out the guard on hit and heal on hit masterworks for offensive ones, but without the necromancer's death syphon and with both ring slots taken up, I need some defence from somewhere.
Anyway, I think I'm done with rift mage. Back to The Witcher 3 for me
Yeah, a lot of the newer mechanics were supposedly put in place to make gameplay "more tactical", but often just felt mildly annoying. For example, not being able to switch staves in combat. Sure, it's not "realistic" to pull out a second staff from out your butt, but then again, I just fired a green spirit fist into a dragon. And the only "tactic" that this provides, in combination with enemy immunities on nightmare, is that you either already know the immunities of the enemies you're facing and have enough high damage abilities of a different element to compensate, or you have to reload and choose the appropriate staff. Pretty meh.
Regarding rift mage damage, I managed to get this build to a point where it's pretty good against hordes of mooks, but the fact that it took 5 minutes to kill the Emissary Alpha is telling. Sure, it could be buffed further if I swapped out the guard on hit and heal on hit masterworks for offensive ones, but without the necromancer's death syphon and with both ring slots taken up, I need some defence from somewhere.
Anyway, I think I'm done with rift mage. Back to The Witcher 3 for me
So Necromancer is more damaging than Rift Mage but RIift Mage has more utility ?
Regarding rift mage damage, I managed to get this build to a point where it's pretty good against hordes of mooks, but the fact that it took 5 minutes to kill the Emissary Alpha is telling.
Pretty much, the CC is grear with rift mage. It's satisfying, keeping enemies either knocked down or frozen, and there are only a few enemies which are immune to knockdown and freezing. Oh, and static charge for the occasional paralyse -> discharge combo.So Necromancer is more damaging than Rift Mage but RIift Mage has more utility ?
Nice. No shame in 5 minutes. You beat a fully tricked-out solo Archer Assassin, took him 12 minutes. He had no way to counter regen barrier, lol. Warning: NSFW commentary, but don't mute it, it's ROFL unintentionally funny.https://youtu.be/cBGxgvFJF0UBack to your run. Ring of Doubt saved your ass a few times. Who needs defense if you can just run away for a few seconds? ;)You missed a few Stonefist vs. Frozen combos, but other than that, looked awesome to me. And without PotA. You should get a Special Shipment reward for doing that without PotA. Trial of the Masochist.
Btw, that 77 damage comes from Mark of the Riff buff you get from the Encore Staff. I noticed that when it procs, mages do 77 damage of each element.
I think you've cracked it! Genius!
If you have Dorian in your party choose rift mage because one necromacer is enough and another one is waste of power.dorian is more supporter character because of his passive skills that help him to live more so that he can cast more barriers and supporting spells
I'm not certain that is true as much since all the Trespasser changes- spamming the Fire Mine array, enhanced belts of Storm/Inferno, Ring of Doubt, etc. I'm doing my first play thru right now as a Qunari Necromancer. I'm not sure he isn't more powerful than my KE. Beyond Walking Bomb/Fire Mine/Static Cage- when you are able to turn half the mob you are fighting against into zombies fighting for your side- it's magnificent. I kind of thought I'd be bored playing strictly as a caster- but I'm loving the Necromancer.
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