26 réponses à ce sujet

[Thunderfudge]

Hi, I'm planning on making a mage to become an Arcane Warrior at Level 7, and a Blood Mage at Level 14.
I have pretty much no clue on where to spend attribute points. If someone could give me a guide on what my Attribute points should be by Level 7, Level 14, and Level 25 that would be great. Thanks.

Edit: By the way, I'de prefer a set guide (with set numbers for the points) rather than one that just has "recommendations".

Modifié par Thunderfudge, 08 février 2010 - 07:46 .

[Lord Phoebus]

Every point into magic until it hits 60, then every point into dex until it hits 30 (50 if you aren't going to get miasma or heroic offense) and then every other point into magic.

[Thunderfudge]

Don't I need Willpower so I have mana left after all the sustainables, and Constitution if I'm a Blood Mage?

Also, I'll be getting Miasma, but not Heroic Offense.

[Lord Phoebus]

Thunderfudge wrote...

Don't I need Willpower so I have mana left after all the sustainables, and Constitution if I'm a Blood Mage?
Also, I'll be getting Miasma, but not Heroic Offense.

No, you'll get enough from leveling up and +stamina and +health equipment.  You'll even have enough regen to be able to keep Shimmering Shield up.

I made this build using:
The Libertarian's Cowl
Evon the Great's Mail
Gloves of Diligence
Magus War Boots
Lifegiver
Blood Ring
Magister's Shield
Spellweaver
Fade Wall or Howe's Shield

I had enough mana to keep up Rock Armor, Arcane Shield, Frost Weapons, Combat Magic, Shimmering Shield and  Miasma and enough mana regen to keep Shimmering Shield from falling.

[Matheau]

Arcane Warrior is probably the toughest class to give decent attribute recommendations beyond don't invest in Strength. Your second specialization, spell list, and intended use will all change where you want to focus.



For example, if you want a back line support Spirit Healer/Arcane Warrior that can take a few hits, then Dexterity isn't a priority and you may want to invest in Willpower. On the other hand, if you are making a front line fighter Blood Mage/Arcane Warrior that principally relies on sustainables, then Willpower is not a good investment.

[Mr_Raider]

For an Aw/BM, I recommend natural willpower of 30, con 20, and the rest in magic. If you have trouble hitting stuff, consider 20 in dex. 30 is only needed if you dual wield daggers, amd 50 dex is overkill by any standard.



For the first several levels, I suggest bumping willpower to 20 and the rest in magic. Once you get the fade bonuses, you can decide if you need more dex and or will. Don't put anything in dex beyond 20 until after you get all your buff spells (combat magic, AW2, and miasma, war cry and song of courage from companions).



20 in con is plenty, since you should save up for the lifegiver ring.



Willpower is the big debate. The problem is that if your run four sustainables you may have only 100 mana left. You won't get enough mana regen items until you can buy the best gear, and kill a dragon! That means level 16-20. This makes the first 16 levels pretty annoying. I always recommend 30 willpower for combat heavy AW's. I stand by my recommendation despite what others say. If you can't cast, the game is just boring.

[mosspit]

Adding to above. Add magic to 42 first to give flexibility in armour selection. After than go either dex or willpower. Frankly speaking keep both below 30. Manapool is increased every lvlup and def/atk can be supplemented by spell buffs. If you HAVE to add, you need to add them early to mid game to maxmise the gains. After which, pump magic.

I am currently running a solo nm AW on pure mag. Stats allocation is not really unforgiving.

[Lord Phoebus]

Mr_Raider wrote...

For an Aw/BM, I recommend natural willpower of 30, con 20, and the rest in magic. If you have trouble hitting stuff, consider 20 in dex. 30 is only needed if you dual wield daggers, amd 50 dex is overkill by any standard.
 

I disagree, it depends on what you want to do with your AW, if you want to melee and want a higher than 80% hit rate you need to put some stuff in dex or be prepared to continuously cast heroic offense on yourself.  If you want to be a primary melee character with some spells (e.g. a paladin/cleric type character who heals and buffs the party and otherwise melees) then you don't need much magic (since buffs don't really scale all that much with spellpower) and you do need a good attack so increasing dex once you have enough magic, is what you want to do.  An AW with 60+magic, Combat Magic and Aura of Glory has a 75 attack before adding in Dex and Strength benefits.  With Miasma that's an effective 85.  You're not going to hit anything with that attack.  With heroic offense it increases by 1 +1/10 spellpower to 100 (assuming you have a 60 magic).  You can hit with that value but you'll have trouble with high defense enemies (archers and dual wielding bosses).  A 30 dex gives you another +10 to hit (95 attack without heroic offence), +20 defence and a 50 gives you a +20 to hit (105 attack without heroic offence), +40 to defence.

If you just want to cast spells, then just take combat magic and put every ability point into magic.

I've never found the need to put any points into willpower, you aren't going to cast spells with your sustained abilities up, you'll cast, then put up your sustainables as you run out of mana.  Besides if you want to use shimmering shield, you won't have any mana to cast with even if you put every point into willpower since you'll need the low mana increased regen to balance the -10 mana drain on that ability.  The only way you can cast with that ability up is to use a lyrium potion or switch to blood magic and then switch back. 

[mosspit]

Lord Phoebus wrote...

 An AW with 60+magic, Combat Magic and Aura of Glory has a 75 attack before adding in Dex and Strength benefits.  With Miasma that's an effective 85.  You're not going to hit anything with that attack.  With heroic offense it increases by 1 +1/10 spellpower to 100 (assuming you have a 60 magic).  You can hit with that value but you'll have trouble with high defense enemies (archers and dual wielding bosses).  A 30 dex gives you another +10 to hit (95 attack without heroic offence), +20 defence and a 50 gives you a +20 to hit (105 attack without heroic offence), +40 to defence.

Calculation only applies if the comparison is Will vs Dex. You can look at this at a comparison basis.
For Will vs Dex, If all points which went into dex went into will (a hypothetical 15pts). The AW is short of 7.5atk.
For Mag vs Dex. If all points which went into dex went into mag. The AW is short of 4.5atk assuming combat magic is activated with aura of might.
The difference in atk, wrt to char progress, will not change as per above. The difference in def will always be 15.
This gives an idea of the tradeoffs the stat investment will give. Def for dex is good. Atk-wise the difference is not big. But ofc, it depends on how one look at that %hit difference.

[Lord Phoebus]

mosspit wrote...


Calculation only applies if the comparison is Will vs Dex. You can look at this at a comparison basis.
For Will vs Dex, If all points which went into dex went into will (a hypothetical 15pts). The AW is short of 7.5atk.
For Mag vs Dex. If all points which went into dex went into mag. The AW is short of 4.5atk assuming combat magic is activated with aura of might.
The difference in atk, wrt to char progress, will not change as per above. The difference in def will always be 15.
This gives an idea of the tradeoffs the stat investment will give. Def for dex is good. Atk-wise the difference is not big. But ofc, it depends on how one look at that %hit difference.

In the script for combat magic there is a hard cap on the attack bonus from the magic attribute at +10, so once you hit 60 it won't get any better.

[mosspit]

Hmmm I have heard about ppl talking about the cap. I have also heard about it being untrue.
Either way the difference between an AW with 30dex (common recommendation) and one with base dex is still 15dex pts.
The atk difference will still be 4.5atk for mag investment and 7.5atk for will investment regardless of char progress. (Elves has 0.5atk more in the deficit). Unless ofc if dex is increased beyond 30.

Modifié par mosspit, 08 février 2010 - 04:12 .

[DJ0000]

I have played 4 AW/BM's and I have found that the best way to level is no points what-so-ever in willpower, a lot of points into magic (at least 2 pretty much every level), a few into dex (about 23 natural at the end game) and the rest into con.



Most of that is self explanitory but the thing that most would disagree with is no points in willpower. I do this because, with shimmering shield, you will take almost no damage at all so you can run all magic off of your health and all sustainables from mana. I usually have Combat Magic, Shimmering Shield, Spell Might and Flaming Weapons active at all times and it only takes about 40% of my mana pool.



Equpment wise I would go for Warden Commander Armour at the start for the talents cost less to activate bonus and then switch to Dragonbone plate for the mana regen. Lifegiver, Blood Ring, Lifedrinker (for RP reasons, Blood Gorged Amulet would probably be better), and Andruils Blessing. This offers enough mana regen to keep SS up at all times(PS3, mabey not on PC). If it doesn't work on PC try adding Staff of the Magister Lord or Fade Wall/Spellweaver.



I usually start battles with spellcasting and then switch to melee and this build offers equally good spellcasting and melee combat. After all, AW are all about versatility.

[mosspit]

The trick to sustaining shimmering is mana/stamin regen and not a bigger mana pool.

Reason being a bigger manapool will only mean a couple or so more spells that can be cast. Without regen, a bigger mana pool is gonna be empty.

[beancounter501]

Lord Phoebus wrote...


In the script for combat magic there is a hard cap on the attack bonus from the magic attribute at +10, so once you hit 60 it won't get any better.

I am happy to tell you that I am 100% positive you are wrong.

First there is nothing in the script to indicate a cap.  But I decided to test it out.  I modified one of the debug scripts to print the attack value to the debug log.

I used Wynne as a test subject.  She had a Str of 12, Dex of 14, and a Spellpower of 54.  Before I turned on combat magic the log was reporting her attack rating at 64.  After turning on combat magic the attack rating was showing 84.8.  Which is right since combat magic gives a base +5 and aura of might gives +5.

I then off combat magic, turned on Spell Wisp & Spell Might.  That brought by spellpower to 77.  Turning on combat magic brought the attack rating to 89.57.  Again that is exactly what you would expect if there is no cap.

So, there is no cap on spellpower.  And If you are really looking to maximize your to hit rate, get spell wisp and spell might.  Turn them on, activate combat magic and then turn them off.  You should still keep the +5 to hit.

Ok that whole excerise just remind me of my job. 

[Thunderfudge]

Thanks for all your help.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

beancounter501 wrote...

So, there is no cap on spellpower.  And If you are really looking to maximize your to hit rate, get spell wisp and spell might.  Turn them on, activate combat magic and then turn them off.  You should still keep the +5 to hit.

Ok that whole excerise just remind me of my job. 

That was a super helpful post.  Thank you for taking the time to do the test & then report your results here.

This also means that Arcane Mastery (+5 Spellpower) would also be helpful ... and give you better returns on Spell Might to boot.

Modifié par Vanderbilt_Grad, 09 février 2010 - 12:56 .

[beancounter501]

Glad to help. Arcane Mastery may be worthwile for the extra damage increase as well. Basically you should equip every item you have to boost your spell power before turning on combat magic. Don't forget that staffs have a nice boost to spell power as well. You will lose the damage increase when you unequip them, but you will keep the to hit bonus.





It took me a while to figure out where the base attack of 64 is coming from but here is the breakdown:



Mage Base Attack: 50

Arcane Warrior Spec: 5

Combat Training 3: 2

Combat Training 4: 4

Strength: 1 (Wynne had a strength of 12)

Dex: 2 (She had a dex of 14)



That gives you a total base attack of 64. It also confirms that the AW draws to hit from strength, dex and magic. So don't ignore gear that increases your strength as well. You will not get the damage, but you will get the to hit.



Lastly the Combat Training skill line is a must have for AW. The third one gives +2 and the last one gives +4 to hit.

[mosspit]

@beancounter: This.... is a WONDERFUL gift! Ahem! i mean thanks.

[-Jaren-]

Great info Bean!

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Hmm. Did some more math.



Spell Mastery = +1 Attack at all levels

Spell Wisp = +1 to +2 Attack, varies as base spellpower rises

Spell Might = +2 to +4 Attack, again varies on base spellpower



Using Beancounter's example above I would expect Wynne w/ 54 Spellpower to get +5.77 base attack by having all 3.



Bean, I thought that Mages had a base attack of 40 & got (Str + Dex)/2 added to that by default. This would give you the same result (64 Attack = 40 + 5 + 2 + 4 + 6 from str + 7 from dex) as you have above.

[beancounter501]

Wynne did not have spell mastery during the tests.



The mage definitely has a base attack of 50, Warriors are 60 and rogues are 55. It is in the classes.2da. Also, all of the attribute modifiers like for strength, dex or magic only look at the value past 10. This goes for to hit, dmg and spell power

[Lakmoots]

beancounter501 wrote...

Lord Phoebus wrote...


In the script for combat magic there is a hard cap on the attack bonus from the magic attribute at +10, so once you hit 60 it won't get any better.

I am happy to tell you that I am 100% positive you are wrong.

First there is nothing in the script to indicate a cap.  But I decided to test it out.  I modified one of the debug scripts to print the attack value to the debug log.

I used Wynne as a test subject.  She had a Str of 12, Dex of 14, and a Spellpower of 54.  Before I turned on combat magic the log was reporting her attack rating at 64.  After turning on combat magic the attack rating was showing 84.8.  Which is right since combat magic gives a base +5 and aura of might gives +5.

I then off combat magic, turned on Spell Wisp & Spell Might.  That brought by spellpower to 77.  Turning on combat magic brought the attack rating to 89.57.  Again that is exactly what you would expect if there is no cap.

So, there is no cap on spellpower.  And If you are really looking to maximize your to hit rate, get spell wisp and spell might.  Turn them on, activate combat magic and then turn them off.  You should still keep the +5 to hit.

Ok that whole excerise just remind me of my job. 

...

Okay, I am a little confused...

Firstly, I wanna thank you for these statistics. I am an old RPG fan, and as I am playing this on a console, I have been frustrated by a lack of stats.

I hope these figures are accurate, but...

I had thought that an active Combat Magic only used spellpower for a damage modifier... yet you suggest that improving spellpower can increase attack rating as well?
 
I had not seen an improvement in my weapon damage when I activated Spell Wisp, and assumed it did not add to the Combat Magic spellpower-damage modifier.

Lastly, and I know this can be wrong, but the icon tool-tip for an active Combat Magic seems to suggest that Aura of Might improves only magic damage and not add to attack, though the talent description says it does.

Also, can you confirm whether the class adds +2 or +1 dex? It always adds +2 dex to mine on a console.

Modifié par Lakmoots, 11 février 2010 - 05:07 .

[Mr_Raider]

Attack is based on spellpower. Damage is based on Magic, not spellpower. Boosting spellpower will affect attack only.



AW spec adds +2 dex

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Combat Magic improves Attack based on Spellpower & damage based on Magic.

You will not see a damage boost from Spell Wisp because it boosts Spellpower.

lol.  ed

Modifié par Vanderbilt_Grad, 11 février 2010 - 12:32 .

[beancounter501]

yhea, I was thinking that Combat Magic used spellpower for damage. But it actually uses your magic score. So Spell Wisp/Might will not boost your damage. Just to hit.