1. My number one worthless power when playing with friendly fire is chain lightning. With most powers, you have to worry about accidently hitting companions. Chain lightning actually hits the character who uses it!
2. Wall of ice -- creates an obstacle, nothing more
3. Mind Blast -- worked well in DA2. Doesn't seem to affect anything in DAI
Just curious as to others opinions. Go beyond mage if you like...
I'm coming into DAI GOTY after having played Origins and DA2. In Origins, some of the powers were buggy, sometimes totally useless without patches. I was wondering if the same applied to DAI.
Ice Mine is pretty useless compared to Fire Mine. Wall of Fire too isn't great. Winter's Grasp is good, but costs way too much mana compared to previous games. Flashfire is utterly useless. Lightning Bolt is fun but costs way too much, like Winter's Grasp.
Lunge and Slash is pretty meh, and so is Earthshaking Strike.
3. Mind Blast -- worked well in DA2. Doesn't seem to affect anything in DAI
That's...odd.
I used Mind Blast in both my playthroughs, and found it worked as advertised, though 'twas admittedly less useful once my mages had their specialisations... but I even had Solas using it to destroy red lyrium deposits (for Varric's personal quest). Now I'm wondering if it was nerfed in the final patch, since I haven't played anything but endgame content with that. /puzzled
That's...odd.
I used Mind Blast in both my playthroughs, and found it worked as advertised, though 'twas admittedly less useful once my mages had their specialisations... but I even had Solas using it to destroy red lyrium deposits (for Varric's personal quest). Now I'm wondering if it was nerfed in the final patch, since I haven't played anything but endgame content with that. /puzzled
It's just underwhelming compared to its previous iterations. In DA:O, it stunned targets, which was extremely useful. In DA2, it knocked them down flat, which was also very useful. But in DA:I, it only staggers enemies, and once your mage is done with the animation, the enemies are done being staggered 
Wall of Ice, Lighting Bolt, and Flashfire are the only spells I find useless for my various playstyles.
Ice Mine is pretty useless compared to Fire Mine.
Wall of Ice, Lighting Bolt, and Flashfire are the only spells I find useless for my various playstyles.
Yeah I was not fond of lightning bolt. Chain lightning is so much better, especially when coupled with an upgraded static cage, so everyone's asses are getting multi-zapped. In Trespasser, it became Death from Zeus when you got that Superb Belt of the Storm Pact.
Yeah I was not fond of lightning bolt. Chain lightning is so much better, especially when coupled with an upgraded static cage, so everyone's asses are getting multi-zapped. In Trespasser, it became Death from Zeus when you got that Superb Belt of the Storm Pact.
Chain lightning is fine when you don't have friendly fire. With friendly fire turned on, not only does hit friendlies next to your intended target, but it also nails the inquisitor who cast the spell! I started my current playthrough (my first with DAI GOTY for PC) on hard but had to back off to normal because I kept zapping myself to death! I like the other powers on the other powers of the storm tree because they can be more precisely aimed at the enemy.
Deja vu. Join the club, new GOTY and PS4 players. We feel your vs DAO pain.
In comparison, true, but not completely useless. The Chilling Array upgrade is awesome, if for no other reason than it enables non-stop Ice Armor. As shown here:
Spoiler
Winter's Grasp with the Winter's Ruin upgrade may cost a lot of mana, but for 900% weapon damage, it's worth it. Sure, you can't spam it every 2 seconds, but you don't really need to. The cost and cooldown is also in line with similar high damage abilities.
No argument about Mind Blast, though. Total waste of skill tree space.
Chilling Array has worked nicely for my Rift Mage run. Guarantied Freeze status for Stonefist shatter combos for building focus faster, good crowd control in general, and a good way to get the most out of Winter's Ruin.
Chain lightning is fine when you don't have friendly fire. With friendly fire turned on, not only does hit friendlies next to your intended target, but it also nails the inquisitor who cast the spell! I started my current playthrough (my first with DAI GOTY for PC) on hard but had to back off to normal because I kept zapping myself to death! I like the other powers on the other powers of the storm tree because they can be more precisely aimed at the enemy.
Never liked friendly fire on games like this, games with retarded AI and crappy spell hit detection, you cant play like that in this game, disable that **** and up your dificulty again, enable some trials etc if you want some more challenge, but disable friendly fire, its a piece of **** mechanic at least in this game, Divinity Original sin and Pillars of eternity made it right.
After DA2 I never want to play with friendly fire on again unless they bring back the massive range and space we had in DAO.
The biggest neft the mages got wasn't so much in firepower as it was in range, in DAO you could bombard enemies from three game screens away so that warriors and rogues simply picked of stragglers who made alive out of the kill field but in DA2 they forced the mages to fight up close were AoE spells meant suicide.
DAI incrased the range again but nowhere near as it was in Origins and the tactical camera still screws up forcing us to fight in first person with a very low artificial ceiling.
After DA2 I never want to play with friendly fire on again unless they bring back the massive range and space we had in DAO.
The biggest neft the mages got wasn't so much in firepower as it was in range, in DAO you could bombard enemies from three game screens away so that warriors and rogues simply picked of stragglers who made alive out of the kill field but in DA2 they forced the mages to fight up close were AoE spells meant suicide.
DAI incrased the range again but nowhere near as it was in Origins and the tactical camera still screws up forcing us to fight in first person with a very low artificial ceiling.
Yeah, i hate when i cast my flame wall in one place and my characters runs to get closer to cast.... like... really??????, really ******? and there are really stupid gliches when you cast on top of something, you will get teleported down or when you cast on one bridge type of thing you will get teleported back and you will not cast at all, HAHAHAHAHA GOTY material indeed.
1. My number one worthless power when playing with friendly fire is chain lightning. With most powers, you have to worry about accidently hitting companions. Chain lightning actually hits the character who uses it!
2. Wall of ice -- creates an obstacle, nothing more
3. Mind Blast -- worked well in DA2. Doesn't seem to affect anything in DAI
Just curious as to others opinions. Go beyond mage if you like...
Mind blast worthless? You wrong.
You know, I was going to concede the point about Mind Blast procs on gear making it slightly less than worthless, but then I realized, I still wouldn't put Mind Blast on gear, since there are better choices. Like Hidden Blades on hit. It's also a detonator, though not AoE, but that is made up for by the fact that even when it is not detonating, it's doing damage. Not true for Mind Blast.
Sure, if you can set up exactly a Rupture against Stunned enemies, all standing right next to you, 1200% is pretty sweet. That's kind of limited, though. In the same way WrathPurge is limited.
I'd rather have multi-purpose procs on gear than one trick ponies like Mind Blast.
Is mind blast the ultimate badasskillthemall spell? No. But it's not worthless. I wouldn’t give it to warrior because its proc chance very low. But for mage, mind blast upgraded with fortifying blast or cleansing blast, can be quite useful. As for hidden blades… I want to see glorious battle not stupid massacre, so I never use hidden blades on weapons or armor. For the same reason I never use leaping shot and many others abilities. But if you struggle in battle, by all means use hidden blades.
Wall of Ice is pretty cool with the new upgrade. Will lock an enemy out of the fight for quite a while.
Friendly fire though, nah. The game really is not designed around it, and as such a lot of spells and abilities do dumb stuff when it's turned on.
I'll add my opinion of how underwhelming Mind Blast is. I don't even use pre-Skyhold anymore, there are just better things to be doing with my mages. I really wouldn't use it as a Fade-Touched material, especially when farmable Fade-Touched mats exist in Jaws of Hakkon.
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