109 réponses à ce sujet

[sinfulsaint]

There a quite a few good items in the game that have a hefty price tag.  Any thoughts on a good order of purchase? 

For example:

Spellward > Evon's > Lifegiver > Andruil's > Reaper's, Veshialle, etc...

Thanks for your input.

[swk3000]

It really varies on how you're playing. A Solo run character will want the Lifegiver first, while someone with a full party might not ever pick the thing up. My general rule is this:



Lifegiver (optional) --> Andruil's Blessing --> The Spellward --> Evon the Great's Mail.



As for Reaper's Vestments, I'm not big on them. Sure, they're amazing from a defensive standpoint, but I'm an offensive sort of person, and the Tevinter Mage Robes win out every time for me. Reaper's Vestments aren't a bad choice, by any means; they're just not for me.

[mousestalker]

What class of character?

If your PC is a mage then Reapers is very nice.

Veshialle is the best axe, so for a dual wielding warrior or a sword 'n shield typ, that can be a good buy.

Evon's is simply lovely for arcane warriors or secondary tanks.

[sinfulsaint]

I suppose I could have clarified. I'm playing an Arcane Warrior. I started off being the only tank in the party but recently switched to running with Alister as the MT and myself as a dps/tank hybrid with Wynne healing and Leliana there to open chests.

[Ako80]

Thanks for the compliments, glad to see the effort is appreciated!  I haven't played DA for quite some time now and wasn't even aware of new replies to my guide until now so that's why it took a while to respond.  I'll try to answer as many questions as I can.

I own Awakening and have finished it once with an Arcane Warrior. I will not be updating this guide to include Awakening because I didn't like Awakening much. I picked Battle Mage as my 3rd spec and my character was so ridiculously overpowered that I only died once on nightmare, during the final boss fight. I even was drunk when I did that fight btw. Awakenings in general felt like more of the same in a bad way.

Mixing AW into a nuker build gives the option of wearing +50 mana boots and a +2 to all attributes helmet, thats why it's preferable to SH which only gives +2 magic and one somewhat useful but by no means neccesary spell.

I only provide recommendations for the best gear because I'm a power gamer. Getting money in this game isn't that hard if you now where to look and you should be able to buy all the best gear for your PC roughly halfway into the game. If you do not want to pay for additional DLC I can understand that but there are free mods available that provide gear that is the same as those provided by the DLC's. For any type of mage I recommend getting the Tevinter Robes at denerim first because they provide a big boost for just 6 gold and then for casters buy the staff of the magister lords next because it provides a huge boost to spell damage, mana and auto attack damage. For melee mages I'd instead buy the reapers vestments next because it provides the best allround protection.

You can run a lot of sustained spells with the right gear setup. For instance Combat Magic+Haste+Shimmering Shield+Arcane Shield+Rock Armor+Miasma is certainly doable although you won't get much casting done. However you'll be a literally invincible tank with good damage output so there's no need anyway. The key to running that many sustained spells is using King Maric's set from RtO.

Dexterity can't be substituted with Magic for melee builds. Well, you can ofcourse but I wouldn't recommend it at all. Yes, it's only a 0.3 difference to attack per point but this adds up quickly enough and nothing is more frustrating then having your awesome spellsword miss all the time. I had it in the high 40's to low 50's including item bonuses and my char would still miss like 20% of the time. You can indeed make up for this, FI by chaincasting Heroic Offense on the char but that's not my idea of having a good time.

Modifié par Ako80, 23 juillet 2010 - 04:16 .

[chefbobby203]

If you set up another mage in the party to cast heroic offense constantly in their tactics then you really don't have to do anything at all.....

[Lord Elfiian]

Thanks for the guide. Now i just need to complete my 2nd dw rogue playthrough.

[stonehead227]

swk3000 wrote...

stonehead227 wrote...

All of the stuff that is not a Quest Reward is incredibly expensive. Do you think you could release a guide where every item isn't the best in the game.

Alright. If you don't want to spend any money, and don't have any DLC, then you could probably go with the following:

Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage
Weapon: Spellweaver
Shield: Fade Wall
Helm: Duty
Hands: Gloves of Diligence
Plate: Armor of Diligence
Feet: Juggernaut Plate Boots
Belt: Hardy's Belt
Amulet: Lifedrinker or Warden's Oath
Ring 1: Key to the City
Ring 2: Blood Ring

There are three items in the vanilla game that give Combat Health Regen: the Lifegiver, Evon the Great's Mail, and the Armor of Diligence. Evon the Great's Mail and the Lifegiver cost money, however, so the Armor of Diligence is the only choice. Everything else is free, though you'll have to do some work to get them.

This set only gives +1 Combat Health Regen (+0.5 on the PC), so you will have to rely on Blood Sacrifice quite heavily. That means you'll need either a Tank with a lot of Health, or your Rogue will need to be a Ranger.

Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer
Weapon: Spellweaver
Shield: Fade Wall
Helm: Executioner's Helm
Hands: Wade's Superior Dragonscale Gloves
Plate: Wade's Superior Dragonscale Armor
Feet: Wade's Superior Dragonscale Boots
Belt: Belt of the Magister Lords
Amulet: Shaper's Amulet
Ring 1: Key to the City
Ring 2: Ring of Study

With the Spirit Healer, you need to go light on the Sustainables so you can have the Mana to cast spells. This setup gives you +4 Combat Mana Regen and +50 Mana total, so you'll be able to cast more spells and recover Mana more quickly. I went with the Dragonscale armor (the heavy stuff) because it tops out at a whopping +3.5% Fatigue. Fade Wall and the Executioner's Helm add about 8%, so you're looking at a grand total of 11.5% Fatigue for the entire set. Turn on Combat Magic, and that jumps up to 61.5%, which is actually amazing for a set of Heavy Armor.

To be quite honest, though, refusing to buy any equipment is crippling your choices. The Blood Mage would seriously benefit from having the Lifegiver, and the Spirit Healer wouldn't mind having the Spellward at all. And the Andruil's Blessing would help both builds out, as well.

I understand getting the money up for those items can take a while, but they're well worth the investment. Besides, why would you use sub-par equipment anyway? Unless you think it's a great challenge to deliberately cripple yourself, but if that's the case, then why not just run through the entire game nude and try to take everything out with your fists?

Yeah but the money can be the difference between Reaper's Vestments and Tevinter which could give Morrigan the Staff of the Magister's.  Obviously you should buy Andruil's Blessing and Lifegiver.  But you can easily go more cheaply.

[Pudstar_Inc]

Thanks Ako80, your guide helped me a lot since I am a newbie when it comes to the mage class. My only question is that if I had never played on Hard or Nightmare, roughly how easy would I find it if I used the Nuker build?

[GulfWarVet]

After the GOA and Witch hunt DLC some major new items have come into the picture. Whtas the thoughts on the Mage ones as they seem rather powerful compared to the Warrior and rogue classe items.

[init]

hi i was wondering if sash of forbidden secrets ( from golems of amgarrak DLC) is better than andruil's blessing)

i have marics + cailan shield, dragonscale set, spellward, key of the city, life giver.
AW + BM

[BelgarathMTH]

I keep the mod installed that undoes weapon sheathing. I find that rule to be kind of ridiculous and contrary to what the specialty is supposed to be. You pay enough penalty through the very high fatigue and sustained mana cost.

[Register]

 Reviving thread, for UE and Goty players :happy:.


    One other thing you want to consider, while you DONT have those items the guy posted. 

Well actually 2 things, for early Arcane warriors.  And yeah i know it says stamina but for those who didnt know, on a mage it "transforms" to mana.

1. Eamons shield= +25 mana, the next shield with a bonus like this is miles away......

2. Nug crusher +100 mana to your pool.  yes not a staff but 100 mana can be useful early in the game especially if you have some buffs on.

[Bhryaen]

This little guide has been exceptionally helpful to me as a newer player- so glad it was devised and presented as it was. Plenty of questions have been nagging at me about spells I've chosen or not, good to get an effective appraisal on them all. Also I got AW at Lv16 and haven't made use of it at all (except once during the Ostagar ogre fight where it was useless lol) because I quickly discovered that one can't be a tank and a spellcaster simultaneously: I was casting nearly every spell in my slots during every fight and suddenly found I could only cast 3! What mage casts only 3 spells?! hehe Now I see that my previous spell-building has precluded a tanking option, but at least it makes sense now...

One aspect I haven't seen addressed is when to become an AW. Does this mean making a straight shot into the Brecilian Forest/ Ruins right away or is there some other way to acquire AW? How soon in the game/ what level do most people go for AW?

Modifié par Bhryaen, 28 février 2012 - 01:32 .

[naiges]

[quote]Ako80 wrote...

[quote]Update on Feb. 2
-Big expansion of the build section in general, I also made some changes to the Templar build.
-Added a 'Missing Info' section.
-Minor layout improvements (hopefully anyway) [/quote]


There is a lot of conflicting information and advice out there about how to get the most out of your Arcane Warrior. After having finished the game with 2 different Arcane Warriors, 2 different mages, a two-handed warrior and a dual wielding rogue I’d like to add my own 2 cents.
(Yes, I have way too much free time on my hands currently.)

This guide will cover everything you need to know, what spells to pick, which quests not to miss, which equipment you should consider and more! This guide assumes you do not use mods which let you use all your spells without sheathing your weapons, nor do you use the weapon set swap exploit to get around this. The reasoning behind this is that Bioware did make two kinds of spells for a reason, playing around that is lame. I also assume that you play on Hard or Nightmare for a challenge.


1.0 Why Arcane Warrior?
For me, the Mage class is by far the most fun class in the game. You have the widest variety of talents to choose from, far more than the Rogue or Warrior classes. Arcane Warrior adds to this flexibility by also giving you the option of becoming a tank or negating the squishiness of your caster. The downside is that you really need to think about your character beforehand and if you build it well the game becomes much easier, taking away some of the challenge.


2.0 Plan ahead
There are two different styles of Arcane Warriors. The first is a tanking mage, sort of like the Kensai/Mage from BG2, the second is a mage that can equip a much wider variety of items but still uses spells for damage. The first one is often talked about while the second one is relatively obscure. Choosing between these two styles should be your first step as everything else will depend on it.


2.1 The Arcane Warrior tank
This character uses a sword and shield setup with mana regeneration gear to get the most out of sustainable spells that augment his combat prowess. This character will need roughly thirty natural dexterity to get a good hit rate, but more on that later. Casting regular spells is not your main forte because you’ll suffer roughly 90% fatigue with your sustained spells up and these also reduce your available mana and some will even drain mana. This means that casting is usually limited to no more than 1-3 spells per fight. A way around this is to opt for Blood Mage as your second specialization but even then you’ll find that the best non-sustainables are mostly sheathe weapon spells which aren’t practical during combat.


2.2 The Arcane Warrior caster
Another approach is to keep using a staff to boost your spellpower and for auto attacks but at the same time equip some items with a high strength requirement to gain their unique bonuses or become sturdier. To do this you don’t need to have combat magic active and so you won’t suffer the 50% fatigue a tanking AW will. In my opinion, every regular mage should choose Arcane Warrior as their second specialization because most of the Mage-only gear in this game is sub-par.


3.0 Starting the Game
So by now you’ve roughly decided what you want to become and it’s time to start a character.

A. Gender
This is mostly aesthetic but has some ramifications in the romance department. If you want to romance a specific NPC choose the gender you need. If not, I recommend going with a female PC because mage robes look much better on them and IMO the best chest piece in the game is a robe. Another thing to note is that you will probably be an elf and thus have a smaller body than most others; this fits females better as well.

B. Race
From a role-playing as well as a power gaming perspective elf is obviously the best choice because Arcane Warriors were elves and both racial bonuses are to important mage stats. If you do not want to be an elf the only other option is human which is not bad for a tank AW because humans are larger and the +1 Dex and +1 Str are useful.

C. Ability point allocation
In general all mages need maxed magic and nothing else. The exception is an AW tank which will need some dexterity and possibly willpower as well. However, as you only need dexterity when you start swinging a sword you should wait putting points into it until then. I know some people disagree with the statement that you should go with an all magic build and say that you should put points in willpower and/or constitution too but except in some specific cases this is misguided advice. Why?

*You get extra health and mana every time you level up, meaning that each time you level you get a hidden +1 boost to willpower and constitution. (Approximately)

*Willpower and constitution can both be boosted tremendously with the right gear, magic on the other hand cannot.

*Every offensive spell you cast is harder to resist and does more damage based on your magic score. (Actually it is spellpower but the only stat that boosts this is magic.)

*For AW tanks more magic means more damage and a slight bonus to attack.

D. Skills
Starting the game you get the first rank of Herbalism for free which is all you’ll ever need if you have an NPC get 4 ranks. At level 1 I would go with either stealing or coercion as money is sparse in the beginning. You’ll eventually want to aim for 4 ranks of Coercion, 4 ranks of Combat Training and 1 rank of stealing, the rest is optional. Now, why these skills?
Coercion will allow you to get more gold (I’m talking well over a 100 sovereigns here) and more Xp so it is a no-brainer. Combat Training will let you hit more often, regenerate more mana and make it less likely for hits to disrupt your casting. One rank of stealing will spawn Slim Couldry when you go to Denerim; he has 8 very profitable and fun sidequest that will also yield a lot of Xp. Make sure to tell him you are interested in both stealing and sneaking the first time you talk to him though!

E. Spells (Talents)
This is where it gets tough and controversial as there are so many different spells and sheathing becomes a factor. (Meaning you have to first put your sword away which takes about 2 seconds before your begin casting the spell, this may not sound terrible but it sure is.) You’ll get the first spell in the mage tree, arcane bolt, for free plus 2 other picks of your choice. If you reach level 25 and get all possible tomes in the game you can have a maximum of 35 spell picks, 1 of which must be Arcane Bolt, so plan ahead! For mages that plan to become caster Arcane Warriors  I recommend picking Winter’s Grasp and Flame Blast and working towards Fireball and Cone of Cold as soon as possible. (In that order.) For those who plan on becoming a tank mage this isn’t such a good plan because all of these spells require you to sheathe your sword. I would surely pick Glyph of Paralysis but pick no.2 depends on what tree you aim to develop first. (There are multiple options that are all useful.)


4.0 Extensive Spell Guide
There are 86 talents associated with spellcasting; the sheer number of them makes it clear that this will be the main part of this guide as well as your character. To make this section more readable and somewhat manageable I will first comment on each group of spells as a whole, (tree) then break it down into the respective talent branches as well as point out the best and worst spells per branch.

A. The Mage Tree
Rating: 5.0
If you plan on using a staff for attacks get all four spells in this branch. Staff Focus adds roughly 15-20 damage per shot which is great and Arcane Mastery gives a passive +5 bonus to spellpower which is close to two level ups worth of points spend on magic. For close combat Arcane Warriors I would go no further then Arcane Shield.


B. The Arcane Warrior Tree
Rating: 5.0
If you only use a staff and cast spells, one rank is enough to be able to equip the good loot. (Sort of like Use Any Item from Throne of Bhaal) Otherwise, get all 4 ranks.

The only spell that needs some special attention here is Shimmering Shield. As long as you keep this on you are close to invincible, however there are still some attacks that will hurt you badly, such as special attacks by ogres. Also watch out for archers and especially their special shots. The shield also only blocks the damage component of most spells, not their possible other (disabling) effects. And even though your Mental and Physical resistances are set to 100 I found that the special attacks by Sword&Shield warriors will still stun you. A huge blessing is that overwhelm no longer damages you at all. Most important of note is that Shimmering Shield will drain your mana and do so quite fast. Example: my last Arcane Warrior tank had +4 mana regeneration from items and after maybe 30 seconds of fighting her mana was down to next to zero. However, SS never switches off for her because once your mana pool gets very low your mana regeneration rate increases a lot so she was able to keep the shield up at all times. If she wanted to cast a spell in the later stages of a fight she had to quaff a potion or turn on Blood Magic though, so keep that in mind.


C. The Primal Tree
This is where it’s at if you do not need to be concerned about casting with your sword drawn. Otherwise, stay away. This tree has the best damage dealing spells as well as some of the best crowd control. Best of all, and rather uniquely, it has spells that are both at the same time.

The Fire Branch
Rating: 5.0
Sadly, we start of with one of the best branches in the game. (The rest will have a hard time keeping up.) Here we find the most damaging area of effect spell (AoE) in Inferno, the most damaging weapon boost in Flaming Weapons and the tremendously useful Fireball which can be seen as a poor man’s Blood Wound. You might look at the ice or lightning trees and not see much difference at first glance but what makes fire that much more powerful is that the base damage is much higher and the enemies continue to burn after they leave the AoE. Even Flame Blast is occasionally handy, especially after you’ve got the targeting of Cone shaped spells down.

The Earth Branch
Rating 2.0
This one is at best mediocre. Stonefist shattering and Petrify don’t work on most bosses and even though neither of them is bad you have to get Earthquake before Petrify and let me tell you; bad spell is bad. It deals no damage and enemies will often resist the knockdown while your own party won’t. Rock Armor is a must have for Arcane Warriors with a sword though!

The Ice Branch
Rating: 5.0
In the same way as fire this branch has good damage and crowd control combined into its spells, although the crowd control element is much stronger and the damage much weaker then fire's. Basically Winter’s Grasp is single target damage+stun, Cone of Cold is close by group damage+stun and Blizzard is long range group damage+stun. What makes Cone of Cold amazing is that even bosses don’t resist the freeze often and the cool down is quite short. Frost weapons is inferior to Flaming Weapons except when enemies are resistant to fire or if you don’t have Flaming Weapons. (Duh)

The Lightning Branch
Rating: 3.0
Lightning has a few things going for it; the damage drains stamina and not many enemies are resistant to it, sadly though this branch lacks any sort of crowd control, making it inferior to both the fire and ice branches. Chain Lightning is also utter garbage because it has a casting time and the damage doesn’t scale with level and is absorbed by armor. If you want to go with lightning anyway I would only go as far as Tempest and get Spell Might and Blizzard too for the fun overkill Storm of the Century combo.


D. The Creation Tree
This tree has some of the worst and best spells in the game. They are all utility/defensive and there is no damage to be found here. Most of them can be cast with your weapon drawn so it is attractive to tanking Arcane Warriors.

The Heal Branch
Rating: 3.0
All of these spells have their uses and if you want to be a support type character I would recommend them. You won’t really need them for yourself though because with a high magic score pots are more effective. Wynne has this branch mostly maxed out when you meet her, reducing the necessity to get it. Note that Rejuvenate can’t be cast on yourself.

The Haste Branch
Rating: 3.0
Haste itself is very good, the increased movement speed is a godsend to out-maneuver foes and to shorten walk time between fights. The attack speed boost is a double edged sword, for melee fighters it increases the attack rate at the cost of lowering the attack value by 5, for bow and staff attacks haste actually decreases attack rate! As an Arcane Warrior wielding a sword this spell looks appealing but you need +3 stamina/mana regeneration to offset the drain during combat and this only works at next to zero mana. The same is true for Shimmering Shield and therefore keeping both up for entire fights is only possible with a dedicated build such as my Paladin one below. Unfortunately, the 3 Aura spells that come before haste are crap because the duration is terrible and two of them are sheathe weapons. Wynne has this branch pretty far developed so usually it’s best to just have her cast it. However, haste stacks with itself so if both you and Wynne have it up you’ll get double the walking and attack speed which is incredibly good. (And also decreases your attack by -10) Note that double haste doesn’t stack with swift salve.

The Glyph Branch
Rating: 5.0
I was tempted to cheat my own rating system and give a 6.0 so that should tell you something about how nice these spells are. Glyph of Paralysis is a tier 1, no line of sight required, weapons drawn paralyze effect that usually works and is involved in the best spell combo in the game… within its own branch! If you first cast a Glyph of Repulsion and then a Glyph of Paralysis on top of it you get a Paralysis Explosion that is everything Mass Paralysis whishes it could be. The paralysis is impossible to resist, requires no line of sight, has no casting time bar, no projectile and lasts long, even on Hard and Nightmare. Glyph of Repulsion is also super handy to block off doors and corridors to cast AoE damage on the other side. Glyph of Warding is nice if you are being hammered by archers. Glyph of Neutralization is only worth it if you don’t have Mana Clash.

The Spellbloom Branch
Rating: 2.0
Spell Wisp is good for caster Arcane Warriors with maxed magic, and Grease is an option (I wouldn’t suggest) if you want to get even more out of your fire branch. The rest is garbage; Spell Bloom should have been sustained to make it good and Stinging Swarm is a tier 4 spell that requires crappy spells to get and even then it does only moderate damage.  


E. The Spirit Tree
Spirit is very hit and miss, although there’s not much you can go wrong with if you ignore the first branch, and there are quite a few notables. I would classify it as a buff/debuff tree that lets you have more control over the way battles evolve. It is also the best place to look for ways to deal with those pesky casters.

The Magic Branch
Rating:1.0
Not a bad branch on paper but completely outclassed by taking the next branch and/or taking a Templar along. If you can’t get either it is probably worth getting, up until Dispel Magic anyway because that’s the most useful one. If you think Spell Shield is a good way to get spell resistance think again, it drains 110% mana where 100% is the cost of the resisted spell and you can get 60-70% spell resistance from items easily anyway.

The Mana Branch
Rating: 4.0
Mana Clash is uber, it allows you to one-shot kill all mages in the game except for bosses. To reduce the chance of it getting resisted turn Spell Might on beforehand. Speaking of Spell Might, this is also a good spell if you have a high spellpower and it is involved in the Storm of the Century and Advanced Reanimation Combos. Sadly though, the first two spells are nothing special.

The Bomb Branch
Rating: 3.0
Hehehe.. fun! Is it also good? I’d say if you’re a tanking Arcane Warrior then yes, otherwise don’t bother. For Arcane Warriors that tank it can be handy sometimes to turn Death Syphon on when swarmed by weak enemies.
Virulent Walking Bomb is one of the few damaging spells that can be cast with your weapons out and with Shimmering Shield up you are better at taking any collateral damage. It also works well with Glyph of Repulsion or any other CC that you can cast during combat. I’ve never tried the Skeleton but I’m sure it has its uses, especially when soloing.

The Telekinetic Branch
Rating: 5.0
A lot of people consider this the best branch in the game but I don’t agree. It is very strong but it is less strong on high difficulty and for me it also got less vital as I got better at the game. Still, I do recommend it, just don’t expect the miracles some folks preach. Mind Blast is a must-have for caster-type Arcane Warriors to get away from swarming and to lower hostility. If you use a sword then there’s an upside and a downside; you’ll be standing amidst the enemies anyway but have to sheathe weapons first. Forcefield is ace, instant-cast, works on everything and you can even use it defensively if you don’t mind exploiting the AI. Telekinetic Weapons is a niche spell for heavy armor foes. Crushing Prison is vastly overrated. Bosses resist the stun and the damage is only mediocre, it is good to have and can be cast with weapons drawn but don’t expect it to make the game easy. Note that combining Crushing Prison and Forcefield on the same enemy will result in the useless ‘Shockwave’ combo which destroys both spells so try to avoid doing that.


F. The Entropy Tree
There’s a few gems to be found here, especially for Sword wielding folks. The best buffs and debuffs can be found here as well as some strong crowd control and interesting combo’s.

The Paralysis Branch
Rating: 3.0 (For Miasma alone)
The worth of this branch depends solely on Miasma. If you want to go for melee you absolutely have to have it, if not, the whole Branch is garbage. Glyph of Paralysis badly outclasses Paralyze. (Projectile, Line of Sight, Tier2 and no combos) Mass Paralysis is garbage as it also requires line of sight, sheathed weapons, has a projectile and a casting bar, a short duration and no combo potential.

The Hex Branch
Rating: 4.0
This game lacks spells that do massive damage to single targets. However, by combining damaging spells with Hexes it is possible to at least approximate this. Vulnerability, Affliction and Death Hex all fall into this category and for that reason alone are very useful. Misdirection Hex is like a Forcefield that allows you to still damage the enemy afflicted by it, very handy! A warning though; hexes draw a lot of hate to your character and thus are more suitable to Sword&Shield Arcane Warriors. The first and last hex can’t be casted with your sword out though.

The Sleep Branch
Rating: 3.0
Horror and Sleep are decent enough and combine for 200 or so damage on a single target. Disorient is crap and Waking Nightmare comes down to personal preference. All spells require sheathed weapons.

The Death Branch
Rating: 3.0
Drain Life is very good because the damage part is instant-cast and you can combine it with Vulnerability Hex to make the damage reasonable. The downside being that it’s a sheathed weapons spell.  Death Magic is like Death Syphon in that it can occasionally be handy for melee oriented Arcane Warriors. Curse of Mortality is jank and Death Cloud is only worth it if you’re going for the Entropic Death combo with Death Hex.


5.0 Your Second Specialization
There are 3 options to choose from of which one isn’t an option, (Shapeshifter) so that leaves either Spirit Healer or Blood Mage as the best choices. I’ll comment on each.

A. Spirit Healer
For a tanking Arcane Warrior this specialization offers the best possible passive bonuses; +2 magic and minor health regeneration. It also has the best healing spell available (Group Heal) as first pick. Sadly the other spells are borderline useless; Revive only works when the fight is going badly anyway, Lifeward is like a worse Regeneration and Cleansing Aura drains mana which is a hefty toll. In short I would only go for Spirit Healer if you want to make a Paladin; a character that can take a huge beating but is also busy buffing, healing and reviving comrades. (More on that below.)

B. Blood Mage
The Blood Mage is a natural fit to the Sword&Shield Arcane Warrior’s strengths and weaknesses. You are very hard to damage so casting from health makes sense, furthermore you use sustained spells that lower your available mana, apply penalties to fatigue and even slowly drain mana away. The most important benefit is that casting from health lowers the cost of every spell by 20% and if you have the Blood Ring equipped this becomes 40%, a nice way to offset those fatigue penalties! Oh, and did I mention the spell? You know... Blood Wound! It
is like Crushing Prison, except slightly harder to resist and it effects all enemies in a huge AoE! Blood Sacrifice is occasionally handy but you have to get it for Blood Wound anyway. Blood Control is for those who enjoy charming enemies; I myself don’t so I never get it. All Blood Mage spells can be cast with weapons out btw.

For spell slinging Arcane Warriors the Blood Mage specialization is probably the best too because Blood Wound is very good in conjunction with any massive AoE damage spell like Inferno. If you can keep coming up with fodder to use for Blood Sacrifice you can also eliminate the constant lyrium potion quaffing to spam more spells. The best way to do this is to take a ranger with an upgraded bear pet along. It has 500 hit points so you can pretty much drain it all day long. The life drinker amulet can only be equipped by Blood Mages and is worth considering for a high spellpower build.


6.0 Three Specific Builds
I’m going to provide you with three quite different builds to demonstrate how you can get the most out of the focus you have chosen for your character. I’m also going to assume that you have, or are willing to get, easily accessible downloadable content and play at hard or nightmare difficulty. Both melee builds use a Sword&Shield setup, why sword and shield and not dual weapon or two-handed you might ask? Well, dual wielding without the talents is kind of unimpressive and two-handed weapons are too slow for a character that isn’t guaranteed to hit with them. Luckily, there are some really good shields in the game and the best sword for an Arcane Warrior is one handed anyway. Archers are quite a threat to you so that missile deflection bonus a shield provides is great too!
What I try to accomplish by suggesting these builds is to give a sense of where you can take your Arcane Warrior, how you fill in the details and which spells you choose is up to you, so except for the most important sustained spells I won’t go into that at all.

The equipment I recommend was chosen according to these criteria:
-Items that give +X to all abilities, because all abilities but cunning are very important to you.
-Items that give a dodge bonus and/or a chance to avoid missiles.
-Items that give spell resistance, because you don’t want to have your sustained spells dispelled.
-Items that give a major boost to Magic, Willpower or Constitution because these are your prime stats.
-Items that give a bonus to attack.


A. Spellsword
This is my favorite melee build and is similar to how you play this type of character in D&D games. This character is hard to hit, be it with magic, arrows or melee attacks. However, when hit the damage sustained is relatively high. Equipping a staff in the second slot and opting to go caster only for some fights is perfectly viable for this character, making it the most flexible of the three. (Note that wearing a robe and a helmet looks like crap so get the no helmet hack.)

Female Elven Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage
30 natural dexterity (including Fade and AW bonus)
All other points go into magic.

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Combat Magic, Shimmering Shield and Miasma.

Equipment:
*Sword: Spellweaver with Grandmaster paralyze and Grandmaster Dweomer runes.
*Shield: Fade Wall
*Weapon set no.2: Staff of the Magister Lord
*Head: Helm of Honneleath
*Neck: The Spellward
*Chest: Reaper’s Vestments
*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing
*Wrists: Gloves of the Legion
*Hands: Lifegiver with Key to the City (Swap Key to the City with Blood Ring for heavy casting.)
*Feet: Cailan’s Greaves

This setup offers you:
6 Strength = +3 attack
6 Dexterity = +3 attack and +6 defense
11 Willpower + 25 mana = 80 mana
11 Magic = 11 spellpower, more melee damage, minor to hit bonus
22 Constitution = 110 health
+40% chance to dodge attacks
70% magic resistance
24 armor at a very low fatigue cost
+4 Mana Regeneration
Big health regeneration

Tactics:
Grabbing some aggro is uasally fine for the Spellsword but you can still be torn apart by mobs and high damage special attacks so it's not always best to use this character as your main tank or grap a lot of aggro with spells. You are very well suited to starting fights as an offensive caster and switching to melee later on. Enemy mages don't stand a chance against the Spellword, because she can use her high power Mana Clash to deal with non-boss casters and hack the bosses to pieces in Melee because of high alround resistances.

Party:
The spellsword is so flexible and versatile that I would highly recommend it for soloing. Still, most people use a party of four so here's some advice on that. Taking a regular tank along such as Alistair would be handy. A two-Hander would also work because you would have less trouble versus special attack bosses such as dragons because of Indomitable. Having Leliana along as an Archer Ranger/Bard build is also recommened for pet sacrificing and ranged spike damage. Morrigan as a true caster would give you a lot of mage power if you'd like to have that.

B. Paladin
An alternative to the Spellsword is this character which focuses more on tanking by using heavier armor and utilizes a larger mana pool for healing and buffing himself and his friends. This character also gets a bigger bonus to mana regeneration from equipment and so can choose to have another sustained spell that drains mana active at all times.

Male Human Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer
30 natural dexterity (including Fade and AW bonus, add 5 points if Haste is frequently used)
35-40 natural willpower (including Fade bonus)
All other points into Magic

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Shimmering Shield, Miasma and Haste or Cleansing Aura.

Equipment:
*Sword: Maric's Blade with Grandmaster Paralyze, Grandmaster Lightning and Grandmaster Fire runes.
*Shield: Cailan's Shield
*Weapon set no.2: Spellweaver with Grandmaster Dweomer and Master Dweomer runes and Fade Wall for fighting Casters.
*Head: Bergen’s Honor (Substitute with Helm of Honneleath if not available.)
*Neck: The Spellward
*Chest: Evon the Great’s Mail (this armor counts as Wade’s superior dragonscale armor if equipped with the rest of the set.)
*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing
*Wrists: Wade’s superior dragonscale gloves
*Hands: Lifegiver with Key to the City
*Feet: Wade’s superior dragonscale boots

 This setup offers you:
4 Strength = +2 to hit bonus
4 Dexterity = +2 to hit bonus and 4 defense
9 Willpower  = 45 mana
4 Magic = 4 spellpower, more melee damage, slight to hit bonus
14 Constitution = 70 health
+20% chance to dodge attacks
+34% magic resistance (62% magic resistance if weapon set no.2 is held)
35 armor at a very low fatigue cost
+9.75 (!) Mana Regeneration
Big health regeneration

Tactics:
The Paladin is a support character but not one that likes to stay back or hide. The support it provides comes from both being a damage soaker and healer/buffer at the same time. What you want to do during battles is grab aggro with spells like Crushing Prison, any Hexes, Cleansing Aura or Virulent Bomb so monsters will mostly ignore your other casters and rogues. Mass rejuvenate and Group Heal are some of your best spells to keep yourself and your friends alive. Keep in mind that a short while after casting Mass Rejuvenate you will actually have more mana than before casting it, this will be very handy to minimize the need for mana potion chaining.
Your sustained spells are your main forte, you can run more than any other build and they improve your own combat prowess as wel as those of your team. A party supported by Miasma, Haste and Cleansing Aura is truly a force to be reckoned with.

Party:
Haste and Cleansing Aura are best suited to support melee attackers and preferably ones with a slow attack. Either Oghren or Sten will get a huge boost out of Haste and your ability to draw aggro off of them. Alistair as a Sword & Shield warrior is a good choice if you want another tank that stays alive, and you can boost his moderate damage output a lot. Leliana as an archer won't work if you go for Haste so have her dual wield or take Zevran, but make sure to have a Bard in your team because their songs can negate the attack penalty from Haste. As for mages, anyone will do fine but it might be fun overkill to build Wynne in much the same way as your own char for double Haste.


C. Nuker
The third path focuses on spellcasting and never wades into melee, opting to use the Arcane Warrior only to equip better gear. You won’t be as flexible as either of the above builds but what you get in return is raw power. You are frail as a puppy so use your spells to keep the bad guys away.

Female Elven Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage
All points into Magic
Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield and Blood Magic.

Equipment:
*Staff: Staff of the Magister Lords
*Weapon set no.2: Magister's Staff (Does fire damage, for when the enemy is immune to cold damage.)
*Head: Helm of Honneleath
*Neck: The Spellward (or Lifedrinker if you are really spellpower hungry.)
*Chest: Reaper’s Vestments
*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing
*Wrists: +20% damage gloves, type of your choice
*Hands: Lifegiver with Blood Ring
*Feet: Warden Commander’s Boots (Get them early and do not upgrade as the extra fatigue isn’t worth it.)

This setup offers you:
4 dexterity = 4 defense
15 willpower + 50 mana = 125 mana
4 magic + 13 spellpower = 17 spellpower
20 constitution = 100 health
20% chance to dodge attacks
+46% magic resistance
22 armor at a very low fatigue cost
+4 mana regeneration
Big health regeneration

Tactics:
Glyphs are your best way to avoid getting hit and making sure the enemy takes big damage from your spells. Make heavy use of Paralysis Explosion and use glyph of Repulsion/Warding on yourself to avoid melee and missile attacks. Make use of the fact that some spells do not require a line of sight to start fights from a safe distance. Optimize use of bloodmagic's short cooldown timer by chaining a series of spells from health, turning of Bloodmagic and drinking a health pot or healing yourself, then start chaining spells from mana and when the timer reloads immidiately turn Bloodmagic on again for another chain.

Party:
You want avoid direct attacks so be careful with using spells that grab aggro and take fighters along to keep aggro off you. If you only want a single fighter take a tank because when your melee fighter goes down, you'll go down too. Caster mages are very micro management heavy so I recommend a rogue archer (instead of a backstabber) to avoid a micro management nightmare. Once again, Leliana as an archer Ranger/Bard is probably best.


6.0 Relevant Quests
Warning: Spoiler Heavy!

A. Ostagar
Buy a backpack from the quartermaster both before and after you head into the wilds, they are dirt cheap and will save you some annoyances.

B. Camp
Be sure to save up all the money you can get before you leave Lothering and go to camp the first time. Thirty sovereigns is what I’d aim for but 22,5 is the minimum. Buy the Tome of Arcane Knowledge and, if you feel like it, backpack from the dwarves at camp. When you return later on, anything that you bought will respawn.

C. Connor’s Fade
Talk to the Demon instead of attacking her, first ask for arcane knowledge to unlock the Blood Mage specialization, after you have it (or on later playtroughs) ask for an increase in talents to get a spell tome.

D. The Circle Tower
We Arcane Warriors need every single ability point we can get because they’re all useful, especially so if you use a sword. So write down your stats before entering the fade and check to see if you got all the upgrades before leaving.

E. Warden’s Keep
This is the only place where you can get a good shield right of the bat. Unfortunately it takes killing Sophia roughly 100 times to get it to drop if you aren’t lucky or unlucky. The armor set she drops is also very handy for the first part of the game and for low strength characters. If you don’t need it for either of that it can even be sold at a merchant and bought back after leaving the area to upgrade the set to a higher tier material. (But the fatigue will increase as well!)

[i]F. Return to Ostagar
I know for sure that Cailan’s Armor set is scalable by selling so it would make sense that if you go here early you get Greaves that have a low fatigue penalty. I haven’t tested this yet though. Note that you can get a very good sword and very good boots here so equipment wise it's probably worth buying.


7.0 Useful links
To see which spells require weapon sheathing to cast go to http://dragonage.wik...or_Spellcasting
To get rid of helmets visit http://www.dragonage...file.php?id=202 and install the mod.
If you want to look at a particular item in the game or maybe even all items Gamebanshee has a very nice database: http://www.gamebansh...s/equipment.php


8.0 Missing Info
Here I will post updated requests for help with completing this guide.

Currently I'd like to know:
-The amount of mana drained per second by Haste, Shimmering Shield and Cleansing Aura.
-Confirmation on which versions of Dragon Age have Duncan's Sword as +4 mana regeneration.
-Why you still get stunned by shield pummels with 100% mental and physical resist.


9.0 Conclusion
This guide was made as an attempt to collect the various data floating around the internet on Arcane Warriors and make it available in one place. It is also heavily influenced by my own experiences while playing Dragon Age. Ofcourse the guide is at this point no way complete but I'm hoping others will fill in the gaps so please comment, disagree, agree and expand on what I have so far. (The name of the topic is rather obnoxious but that's all just marketing. I hope it was at least a somewhat enjoyable or enlightening read.
And remember... rule



What spells do i use for the spellsword?

[WrathHeroes]

Offensive Combat
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kept in secret except for the release of its customization.

[InfiniteAvenger]

GeorgeZip wrote...

A good shield you can get early is Eamon's. It has +25 stamina which I think boosts AW mana pool.

OK... For The Record... ALL +stamina and +mana in DA:O is actually +stamina/mana.  It has always been this way since patch 1.01 or 1.02 I believe.  Originally they were going to be seperate and later they decided to merge them but never (for obvious reasons) went back into the descriptions to adjust all the items in the game.  Just as in DA2 it shows correctly in the descriptions.

I wanted to say this here so as many people as might see it will consciously know this for more ease of play.

I love this game and the world Bioware team creative for us, but there are some information gaps that we all need to work together to overcome.  Enjoy!

-IA

Modifié par InfiniteAvenger, 06 septembre 2012 - 04:09 .

[keeneaow]

Bhryaen wrote...
One aspect I haven't seen addressed is when to become an AW. Does this mean making a straight shot into the Brecilian Forest/ Ruins right away or is there some other way to acquire AW? How soon in the game/ what level do most people go for AW?

Yes, you will unlock AW in the ruins at the end of Bresilian forrest,
though once unlocked you will always have that option at lv 7.

In Bresilian forrest you will encounter at least one Ogre tho, and when you enter the ruins you get a very difficult fight
vs undead just after you see a ghost-boy, so you would want to be higher lv when you do this,
and it get tougher yet if you go to werewolf layer.

It is not a bad idea to go straight to the Mage Tower  after Lothering, and get both extra points & levels

[Bat32391]

I know this thread is extremely old, but is there a guide for how to build an Arcane warrior to kick the Harvester's ass?

Modifié par Bat32391, 18 janvier 2013 - 12:35 .

[dainbramage]

Basically the same as in origins, but add the relevant new toys? So build as you would in origins, with a few differences (as a note, I'd pick spells quite differently to OP, but meh):

You get the attunement and fade shield spells, and battlemage as a new spec. The rest of your extra spell points can go into stuff you couldn't afford in origins.

You also get a bunch of new powerful items. Stormchaser gauntlets, fleet feet, toque of the oblivious, nature's blessing, landsmeet shield, legion of the dead heraldry (if you're into that sort of thing), intensifying or momentum runes. Aaand some stay the same. Veshialle, Andruil's blessing, lifegiver, Evon the Great's Mail.

Then stick every last point into magic, spam regeneration on yourself, and laugh as nothing can hurt you, while slowly beating it to death. Even the harvester can't break down 80 armour and a 100+ spellpower regeneration, backed by infinite mana thanks to stoic. Plus you have the tools to take down the summons quickly with strong nukes like hand of winter and VWB.

Modifié par dainbramage, 18 janvier 2013 - 02:46 .

[Bat32391]

dainbramage wrote...

Basically the same as in origins, but add the relevant new toys? So build as you would in origins, with a few differences (as a note, I'd pick spells quite differently to OP, but meh):

You get the attunement and fade shield spells, and battlemage as a new spec. The rest of your extra spell points can go into stuff you couldn't afford in origins.

You also get a bunch of new powerful items. Stormchaser gauntlets, fleet feet, toque of the oblivious, nature's blessing, landsmeet shield, legion of the dead heraldry (if you're into that sort of thing), intensifying or momentum runes. Aaand some stay the same. Veshialle, Andruil's blessing, lifegiver, Evon the Great's Mail.

Then stick every last point into magic, spam regeneration on yourself, and laugh as nothing can hurt you, while slowly beating it to death. Even the harvester can't break down 80 armour and a 100+ spellpower regeneration, backed by infinite mana thanks to stoic. Plus you have the tools to take down the summons quickly with strong nukes like hand of winter and VWB.

Thanks

[perylousdemon]

I know I'll probably get yelled at for resurrecting this thread, but I just had to say that I've never had so much fun in DA:O as I am on my arcane warrior since finding this guide. I went the paladin route, and I have to say...wow. Being able to solo tough fights (Branka, for instance) after the rest of my party kicks the bucket is great. Thank you so much for this guide. :happy:

Modifié par perylousdemon, 23 décembre 2013 - 04:08 .

[ReadingRambo220]

This guide has been immensely helpful to me. I've started replaying DAO after a long break. I always played warriors or rogues before, now I'm loving arcane warrior.