In Dragon Age 2, Qunari are well known for their weakness to Cold / Frost. It is the best element to use against them.
Even Wynne in Dragon Age Origins has a banter with Sten where she talks about how cold he must feel because Seheron and Par Vollen are warm.
With that knowledge in mind, I felt secure as a Rift Mage who invested many points into the Winter Tree.
Imagine my shock and horror to find that Qunari are now somehow highly resistant to Fire and Frost for no good reason. It makes sense for them to be resistant to Fire, they have been that way in Dragon Age 2 but why the hell are Qunari suddenly resistant to Frost ?
Fyi, I am playing on Nightmare with Trials. Is Lightning and Spirit the only damage elements that work against them now ? Or can you still make do with Frost and Fire ?
I just finished trespasser on nightmare with trials, and I'll say that a fair good amount of enemies were frozen, burning, and paralyzed. Seems like the agents were more resistant to electric, saarabas were resistant to fire spirit frost, shock troopers were resistant to fire and frost. Couldn't tell what element was resistant the most, but I don't believe there will be a point during the campaign where you won't be able to handle a group of enemies because they are all resistant to one element so you should be good.
Imagine my shock and horror to find that Qunari are now somehow highly resistant to Fire and Frost for no good reason. It makes sense for them to be resistant to Fire, they have been that way in Dragon Age 2 but why the hell are Qunari suddenly resistant to Frost ?
There was no particular reason for them to be weak to frost in Dragon Age 2 other than giving them a weakness to something.
I just finished trespasser on nightmare with trials, and I'll say that a fair good amount of enemies were frozen, burning, and paralyzed. Seems like the agents were more resistant to electric, saarabas were resistant to fire spirit frost, shock troopers were resistant to fire and frost. Couldn't tell what element was resistant the most, but I don't believe there will be a point during the campaign where you won't be able to handle a group of enemies because they are all resistant to one element so you should be good.
I would agree with PawsPause, electric works best. When I played Trespasser I took Vivienne as my only mage, and she mainly used electric talents with a side order of cold. No fire talents were used and I didn't really have any issues (on nightmare). I would imagine cold will do the job alone despite being a little trickier, good luck!
I forgot who but someone found of that lightning bolt and the detonation of lighting bolt does not interfere with rift passives. Also, when you run into elite enemies, I noticed a lot of them having immunity to all of effects including weakness. So in a sense rift passives wont really help and if they do it wont be a huge difference. If you use great bear sigil with amulet of renewal with flash point and clean burn, you should be able to still spam powers to lay waste on enemies. Are you doing solo?
I forgot who but someone found of that lightning bolt and the detonation of lighting bolt does not interfere with rift passives. Also, when you run into elite enemies, I noticed a lot of them having immunity to all of effects including weakness. So in a sense rift passives wont really help and if they do it wont be a huge difference. If you use great bear sigil with amulet of renewal with flash point and clean burn, you should be able to still spam powers to lay waste on enemies. Are you doing solo?
So what was the point of introducing a specialization that is completely built around a single effect and then make a bunch of enemies immune to it ?
I swear the more I play Rift Mage the more I hate it. Fyi, I tried Lightning Bolt and it sucks. The best way to use it is to use Pull of the Abyss followed by Lightning Bolt. So that's a total of 130 mana spent (65 for Pull of the Abyss and 65 for Lightning Bolt) to damage just one target.
I forgot who but someone found of that lightning bolt and the detonation of lighting bolt does not interfere with rift passives. Also, when you run into elite enemies, I noticed a lot of them having immunity to all of effects including weakness. So in a sense rift passives wont really help and if they do it wont be a huge difference. If you use great bear sigil with amulet of renewal with flash point and clean burn, you should be able to still spam powers to lay waste on enemies. Are you doing solo?
It was me who found that out.
As for having enemies immune to weakness, it should be noted that those enemies are also immune to terror and that many elite enemies also come with "barrier breaker".
To be fair with Rift Mages, the trials find ways to screw each of the mage specializations to the point equipment becomes more important than any passives you may acquire.
So what was the point of introducing a specialization that is completely built around a single effect and then make a bunch of enemies immune to it ?
I swear the more I play Rift Mage the more I hate it. Fyi, I tried Lightning Bolt and it sucks. The best way to use it is to use Pull of the Abyss followed by Lightning Bolt. So that's a total of 130 mana spent (65 for Pull of the Abyss and 65 for Lightning Bolt) to damage just one target.
If you use Shaken Veil then that mana should be instantly replenished after the attack, besides that you can follow up with Stonefist to cause a discharge combo.
As for having enemies immune to weakness, it should be noted that those enemies are also immune to terror and that many elite enemies also come with "barrier breaker".
To be fair with Rift Mages, the trials find ways to screw each of the mage specializations to the point equipment becomes more important than any passives you may acquire.
If you use Shaken Veil then that mana should be instantly replenished after the attack, besides that you can follow up with Stonefist to cause a discharge combo.
All very true but here's where the problem starts coming in.
Necromancer only has one passive dedicated to a status effect. The rest is damage boost, health & mana restoration, and second life dying passive. Furthermore, Walking Bomb and Spirit Mark works on all enemies because they do Spirit Damage Over Time and as such is only resisted by those who are immune or resistant to Spirit Damage. There's not many of those enemies around.
Knight Enchanter has passive dedicated to barriers and mana regeneration instead of having passives dedicated to a status effect. Additionally, Spirit Blade and Fade Cloak both work on almost all the enemies.
Now we come to Rift Mage. The specialization is dedicated entirely to the Weakness effect and crowd control is resisted by many elite and boss enemies. Only Stonefist works reliably.
In many ways, Rift Mage reminds of the Adept class in Mass Effect 3. Good on mooks, bad on everything else and can be resisted easily (or in Mass Effect 3's case, easily dodged).
I mean for my Necromancer Trespasser run, I used these abilities:-
Fade Step
Energy Barrage
Ice Mine
Spirit Mark
Fire Mine
Walking Bomb
Static Cage
Barrier
and it works beautifully. The video below reflects my Necromancer Trespasser experience.
Ultimately Trespasser exposed what I have been saying about Rift Mage for so long - It is entirely dependent on Weakness whereas Necromancer is not very dependent on Horror and Knight Enchanter is not dependent on Disruption Field but it does depend too much on Barrier. Necromancer depends on death which is perfectly fine because you kill lots of enemies in the game.
As a Rift Mage you genuinely have nothing to fall back on when Weakness fails to work whereas you can fall back on spell damage, health & mana recovery and second life as a Necromancer. The same goes for Knight Enchanter as well - They are too dependent on Barrier and when you have enemies that counter Barrier, which you do have in Nightmare + Trials, it starts going wonky.
Ultimately, playing Trespasser made me love Necromancer even more - It is a very diverse specialization, not a one trick pony which is what Rift Mage and Knight Enchanter are. Rift Mage = Weakness Mage & Knight Enchanter = Barrier Mage. You cannot say that Necromancer = Terror Mage because Necromancer = Death Mage. As a Death Mage you can choose to terrify or draw energy from the dead or boost your damage or have a second chance of life.
Heck, even Spirit Mark can work well in a boss fight. Watch this:-
So what was the point of introducing a specialization that is completely built around a single effect and then make a bunch of enemies immune to it ?
You're talking about KE and the Barrier Breaker Trait, right?
Point is, as Blood Mage Reaver said, every solo specialization got pwned by Trespasser/Trials. Solo rogues or warriors can't break through promoted magical barriers, or have a really hard time with promoted enemies with infinite barrier regen. Why shouldn't mages also feel the pain?
Embrace it. It's a good thing. It forces you to rethink loadouts and builds, to adapt to new circumstances.
With respect to Rift Mage, it is not completely built around a single effect. True, mana regen and damage buffs are dependent on weakness generation, but don't forget CC and ranged spirit damage. No other mage spec has those, certainly not on spammable abilities (default cooldown on Stonefist is 8 secs, compared to 20 secs for Necro Walking Bomb).
It's all about gear. You can gear to compensate for debuffs, like Amulet of Renewal to compensate for loss of mana regen from weakness resistance. If you gear for crit/crit, cooldown reduction, and damage buffs that do not depend on weakness, like Superb Ring of Attack, you should have a less frustrating time with an RM vs. Trespasser. You may get tired of spamming Stonefist, but you can't claim its not effective.
1) CC is not very effective against elite and boss enemies. That is my primary concern since mooks can be wrecked with Flaming Array and Chilling Array spam or Virulent Walking Bomb or by trapping them in a Static Cage and letting your squad finish them off.
2) Necromancer has 2 ranged spirit damage abilities (Spirit Mark and Walking Bomb), Rift Mage has 1 ranged spirit damage ability (Stonefist) and Knight Enchanter has no ranged spirit damage abilities.
3) Using Amulet of Renewal or Andraste's Sacrifice works far better on Necromancer. I mean, the gear you talk about can be applied to Necromancer just fine and it would be even better.
4) All four of Rift Mage's passives are based on Weakness. Mana Regeneration, Status Effects, Enemy Damage Reduction and Damage Bonuses are all based off Weakness. You lose all those against enemies in Trespasser.
1) CC is not very effective against elite and boss enemies. That is my primary concern since mooks can be wrecked with Flaming Array and Chilling Array spam or Virulent Walking Bomb or by trapping them in a Static Cage and letting your squad finish them off.
2) Necromancer has 2 ranged spirit damage abilities (Spirit Mark and Walking Bomb), Rift Mage has 1 ranged spirit damage ability (Stonefist) and Knight Enchanter has no ranged spirit damage abilities.
3) Using Amulet of Renewal or Andraste's Sacrifice works far better on Necromancer. I mean, the gear you talk about can be applied to Necromancer just fine and it would be even better.
4) All four of Rift Mage's passives are based on Weakness. Mana Regeneration, Status Effects, Enemy Damage Reduction and Damage Bonuses are all based off Weakness. You lose all those against enemies in Trespasser.
You are exaggerating, I've played Trespasser with trials but most enemies fell to weakness just fine.
The only bitches I had trouble with were the Librarians but those can be killed with fire.
Trials give promoted enemies random immunities and not a single Qunari Boss appeared immune to weakness for me, you just got some serious bad luck.
Damage wise Walking Bomb beats Stonefist but requires greater micro management and costs more mana, it also doesn't stall enemies about to hit you.
Spirit Mark it's useless on Nightmare, let alone with trials. It takes too long to deal too little damage and enemies rarely die when under it's charm much less bosses.
You also forget that Pull of the Abyss can be toggled into a significantly damaging aoe spell.
Pound for pound the RM and NM are on the same level trading off costs between speed, damage and versatility.
Against Bosses the ultimate Mage will always be the KE who in turn sucks at CC.
I would switch out relevant abilities for DIspel and Energy Barrage when the situation called for it. For example, during the Hakkon boss fight, I switched out Veilstrike and Winter's Grasp with Dispel and Energy Barrage.Yes, I actually used Pull of the Abyss for damage because I preferred to spam Flaming Array and Chilling Array over dragging enemies slowly to one mine at the center of the Pull of the Abyss. Fade Step and Ring of Doubt allowed me to get close enough to perform some mine shenanigans.
Point is, prior to Trespasser and the Qunari, I loved this build. It was very powerful. Then those idiotic oxmen had to go and ruin it. I mean if you look at the build, I have no skill points left for Lightning Bolt.
I would switch out relevant abilities for DIspel and Energy Barrage when the situation called for it. For example, during the Hakkon boss fight, I switched out Veilstrike and Winter's Grasp with Dispel and Energy Barrage.Yes, I actually used Pull of the Abyss for damage because I preferred to spam Flaming Array and Chilling Array over dragging enemies slowly to one mine at the center of the Pull of the Abyss. Fade Step and Ring of Doubt allowed me to get close enough to perform some mine shenanigans.
Point is, prior to Trespasser and the Qunari, I loved this build. It was very powerful. Then those idiotic oxmen had to go and ruin it. I mean if you look at the build, I have no skill points left for Lightning Bolt.
Rift Mage- Stonefist> Shatterfist> Veilstrike> Restorative Veil> Smothering Veil> Pull of the Abyss> Shaken Veil> Encircling Veil> Twisting Veil
Get some Fade Touched Snoufleaur Skin for your armor and craft a tier 4 fire Encore Staff with maximized attack. Craft a Suberb Rune of Spirit or Corruption.
Wear your best cooldown amulet, the ring of doubt, your best attack ring and a belt which increases your chance to stagger.
The key to staying alive is to couple Restorative Veil with Energizing Step to keep a permanent Ice Storm over the battlefield.
This enables constant Ice Armor with the benefit of mobility to disappear in stealth whenever things get rought, Encore also helps a lot because of all it's random buffs.
As for attack, cast Pull of the Abyss on the Shock Troopers to gather all minions around them then drop the Lightning Bolt followed by a Fire Mine once they group up again.
walking bomb cooldown is no more than 15 seconds not 20 s the last time I checked, and any good necromancer has gathering storm to decrease the cast to 10 seconds on average with the passive + cooldown amulet. And it procs all the time in between off of a masterwork anyways if you enchanted your armor or staff with it.
In the dlc, you should short cold damage as it is the most useless, while lightning followed by spirit is the best. One exception is those qun stalkers which were made specifically to give mages trouble they are immune to spirit and maybe lightning or something else. They are best dealt with flame arrays which you should place around yourself so they explode once the stalker get close. Fade step / fade cloak just in case once those bastards are near to not get hacked down really fast as they dispel your barrier once they uncoack.
Seraabas are killed by lightning (cage + energy barrage from staff).
All the other suckers in the dlc can be frozen, though they do not always take frost damage.
about enemy immunities worst are random elite rage demons in the final fight sometimes: it's like they have natural immunity to fire anyways and sometimes they spawn with added immunity to lightning. And since you are frost light in trespasser that means it sucks.
2) Necromancer has 2 ranged spirit damage abilities (Spirit Mark and Walking Bomb), Rift Mage has 1 ranged spirit damage ability (Stonefist) and Knight Enchanter has no ranged spirit damage abilities.
I meant ranged direct damage. And RM has two, if all we're counting is ranged and spirit, not direct vs. AoE vs DoT.
Rift Mage- Stonefist> Shatterfist> Veilstrike> Restorative Veil> Smothering Veil> Pull of the Abyss> Shaken Veil> Encircling Veil> Twisting Veil
Get some Fade Touched Snoufleaur Skin for your armor and craft a tier 4 fire Encore Staff with maximized attack. Craft a Suberb Rune of Spirit or Corruption.
Wear your best cooldown amulet, the ring of doubt, your best attack ring and a belt which increases your chance to stagger.
The key to staying alive is to couple Restorative Veil with Energizing Step to keep a permanent Ice Storm over the battlefield.
This enables constant Ice Armor with the benefit of mobility to disappear in stealth whenever things get rought, Encore also helps a lot because of all it's random buffs.
As for attack, cast Pull of the Abyss on the Shock Troopers to gather all minions around them then drop the Lightning Bolt followed by a Fire Mine once they group up again.
Does Blizzard with Ice Storm upgrade do enough damage to justify sustaining it ?
That is what I am wondering. Also, from testing and experience, Chilling Array does a good job of proccing Ice Armor.
The damage Blizzard does is key here. If it does not suck on Nightmare with Trials then yeah, I would happily use it.
walking bomb cooldown is no more than 15 seconds not 20 s the last time I checked, and any good necromancer has gathering storm to decrease the cast to 10 seconds on average with the passive + cooldown amulet. And it procs all the time in between off of a masterwork anyways if you enchanted your armor or staff with it.
In the dlc, you should short cold damage as it is the most useless, while lightning followed by spirit is the best. One exception is those qun stalkers which were made specifically to give mages trouble they are immune to spirit and maybe lightning or something else. They are best dealt with flame arrays which you should place around yourself so they explode once the stalker get close. Fade step / fade cloak just in case once those bastards are near to not get hacked down really fast as they dispel your barrier once they uncoack.
Seraabas are killed by lightning (cage + energy barrage from staff).
All the other suckers in the dlc can be frozen, though they do not always take frost damage.
I used Horror in the early stages of the game before I managed to get Wall of Fire for Solas or Dorian or Vivienne and then I stopped using it.
Sometimes if the need arises, I switch out Spirit Mark for Dispel when dealing with enemy mages. I sometimes use Spirit Mark to for boss fights like the Jaws of Hakkon ones because you can kill one of the bruisers and raise them back as a pet, which negates the need to use Confusion Grenade. Also, if the need arises, I use Mark of the Rift which usually replaces Spirit Mark
The best thing I like about this Necromancer build is that I do not have to respec for a specific DLC or what have you. All I need is to swap out abilities on occasion.
about enemy immunities worst are random elite rage demons in the final fight sometimes: it's like they have natural immunity to fire anyways and sometimes they spawn with added immunity to lightning. And since you are frost light in trespasser that means it sucks.
This. Who at Bioware thought that random immunities was a good idea ?
I used Horror in the early stages of the game before I managed to get Wall of Fire for Solas or Dorian or Vivienne and then I stopped using it.
Sometimes if the need arises, I switch out Spirit Mark for Dispel when dealing with enemy mages. I sometimes use Spirit Mark to for boss fights like the Jaws of Hakkon ones because you can kill one of the bruisers and raise them back as a pet, which negates the need to use Confusion Grenade. Also, if the need arises, I use Mark of the Rift which usually replaces Spirit Mark
The best thing I like about this Necromancer build is that I do not have to respec for a specific DLC or what have you. All I need is to swap out abilities on occasion.
This. Who at Bioware thought that random immunities was a good idea ?
Blizzard with upgrade deals 150% damage per second over a 8 meter radius, twice as much as Spirit Mark but with the benefit of being a perpetual ability.
I usually build around de concept of not having to swap abilities besides the focus ones, when I need to use Mark of the Rift I swap it with Lightning Bolt.
Blizzard with upgrade deals 150% damage per second over a 8 meter radius, twice as much as Spirit Mark but with the benefit of being a perpetual ability.
I usually build around the concept of not having to swap abilities besides the focus ones, when I need to use Mark of the Rift I swap it with Lightning Bolt.
Actually our builds are the same except I invested an extra point into Veilstrike since my character is a male human mage so he can have 32 skill points. That and I have points invested in Guardian Spirit as opposed to Chaotic Focus.
I don't mind having swapping out abilities for fights. I mean you only need Dispel for spellcasters or to deal with tough rifts, you only need Veilstrike for mooks and you can use Energy Barrage for everything else.
Actually our builds are the same except I invested an extra point into Veilstrike since my character is a male human mage so he can have 32 skill points. That and I have points invested in Guardian Spirit as opposed to Chaotic Focus.
I don't mind having swapping out abilities for fights. I mean you only need Dispel for spellcasters or to deal with tough rifts, you only need Veilstrike for mooks and you can use Energy Barrage for everything else.
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