13 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

 It seems to me that both new Awakening Mage specializations are based on caster-centered AoEs. 

Everything Keeper does seems to be based on generating a plant circle around the Keeper (which even roots the Keeper in place) and further talents in the line simply add damage/effects to people in the circle. 

Battlemage spells in turn seem to be based on blasting enemies that are near the battlemage, who by the very name it seems is supposed to be in the center of melee. 

It's just interesting because neither specialization really benefits much the ranged caster who wants to keep enemies at a great distance. You have to get "up close & personal" with your enemies to make much use of either the Keeper spec or the Battlemage spec. Either they have to be charging towards you and you use these caster-centered AoEs as defense, or you have to be charging towards them, and using these as offense. 

In general, it seems both would synergize best with an Arcane Warrior, although apparently once again s/he needs to sheath their sword in order to use these new talents. A Shapeshifter still wouldn't be able to activate them in Shapeshifted form. 

As far as the warrior specializations; Spirit Warrior is an interesting spec and seems to synergize well with Templar. The Fade Burst is an interesting ability, but seems most effective against Fade-based creatures, such as demons or undead. I never found much use for the Guardian spec; it just seems to be the "carebear" class whose focus is on protecting and shielding others (not one's own self, so much). 

And as far as the rogue specializations; Legionnaire Scout seems to mostly turn the rogue into a warrior-rogue, more of a hardy melee fighter than a sneak-dex fighter. Shadow on the other hand obviously enhances your stealth rogue. The Decoy ability is kind of funny. It spawns a "blue circle" skeleton that just sits there and does nothing, except, of course, draw enemy hostility. 

[Hahren]

What I did with the Keeper was occasionally turn on the root mode, and leave the mage parked with line of sight. They could then cast spells at range, but they had a nice surprise should someone come close. You can also run in cast the sustained, and nail a bunch of targets with thornblades. That did around 300+ damage. It's a bit clunky, but I liked it.



Battlemage is pretty interesting. You know a lot of the new mage spells are also mage centered AoE sustained abilities. You can run in with the arcane and elemental sustaineds on for really simple damage. The damage per tick isn't super high, but I found I wasn't using as much mana. My 2h warrior could easily cut down large groups making some spells a waste of time to cast.



Spirit Warrior was interesting. The ability to turn weapon damage into an alternate type was pretty handy at times. It made it more worth while to use weapons other than the Chasind Great Maul (one of the sweet benefits of that weapon being it's high armor penetration).



I like the Guardian specialization in concept. I would have much rather seen those types of party buffs in Origins. I did use the first talent when Carapace was on cool down. I didn't find much need to buff my team mates with protection as Air of Insolence generates ridiculous amounts of threat.



Legionnaire Scout was fun. It was easier to create an in-your-face rogue that didn't rely on backstabs (kinda nice for npc's... less babysitting). I have not tried Shadow, but I plan to this play through.

[AuraofMana]

The thing about the new Mage specializations is that their spells are all heavy AOE intensive, and the kick is that none of them have friendly fire. This alone makes them amazing, as a lot of the good AOE spells have friendly fire attached, which means throwing them around won't make your melee NPC's very happy.

Blood Wound + Draining Aura clears out an entire room in seconds. Facerolling just got even easier!

[Spartansfan8888]

Keeper was nice against shrieks... who for some reason ALWAYS go for the mage no matter how many times I use taunt/threaten/air of insolence. Makes them take longer to get to the mage, then when they do pop them with thornblades...

[TBastian]

The Keeper is the mage who doesn't want things near him/her and prefers ranged combat. That "circle" slows down anything that tries to attack the mage and the Keeper skills either knock them back/keep them in place. An unmentioned effect of the Keeper's One With Nature is that it also makes your mage immune to knockdown and knockback, although not Grab/Overwhelm.
You don't need to use the Keeper skills, in the same way that you don't need to change forms as a Shapeshifter unnecessarily. In fact the three cone spells can potentially do as much damage as Nature's Vengeance because Thorn Blades/Nature's Vengeance do physical damage ie you can only boost them via +spellpower items. The three cone spells also have a maximum cooldown of 15 seconds, while Nature's Vengeance has a cooldown of 1 minute ie the three cone spells can do 4x more damage than Nature's Vengeance over 60 seconds.

The whole point of Keeper though is to keep your caster mage alive and kill everything around him/her should he/she draw aggro. As previously mentioned drawing aggro is inevitable even for a defensive mage , and when that happens that's when you turn on One With Nature and you make use of that massive burst damage/health regen, which btw works normally on Blood Mages. For general combat though you'll want to stick to your spells.

Modifié par TBastian, 25 mars 2010 - 01:25 .

[AuraofMana]

The problem is you can just run up to the mob with Keeper spells, use them all in quick succession, and everything drops or are near death. The aspect of using it to keep things away from you is not used commonly. Plus, saving those spells for solely that situation is a waste as you can do so with spells like Mind Blast and Glyph of Repulsion. In fact, the third tree in the Mage class talent provide some spells to avoid people getting near you.

Man I hope someone comes out with enhanced difficulty mod for Awakening, this game is ridiculously easy and you don't even need to use half of your abilities...

[TBastian]

The problem is you can just run up to the mob with Keeper spells, use them all in quick succession, and everything drops or are near death. The aspect of using it to keep things away from you is not used commonly.

Still, it's there. Once you feel bored of running up to mobs you can use it that way. Then you switch back to running up to mobs if they're really annoying you.

Man I hope someone comes out with enhanced difficulty mod for Awakening, this game is ridiculously easy and you don't even need to use half of your abilities...

At the very least it needs a difficulty boost of around 2 levels above the current nightmare. Once even console players start complaining that the game is too easy then the issue is really serious.

[Takrandro]

I had fun with all the new specializations, but mainly the mage ones, since i have an AW/Bloodmage, battlemage was the way to go, i did spec Anders as Keeper and liked it alot, since the aura does damage to all enemies that enter it its great for when u get ambushed from both sides, and as said, great against those annoying shrieks!

of the new class talents, i have't tried out the 3rd mage tree, since those are all sustained abilites, and i had already eneugh of those..



thats 1 thing that did catch my eye, Loads of sustainable abilites who drain mana/stamina fast, making them only useful for rare occasions....

And yes, the game needs to get harder and i would LOVE to have the new classes available in the Origins Campaign! couse thats where they would be most fun to try out!

[ChaoticBroth]

Spirit Warrior makes playing a DW war really simple. You can just auto attack, and spam use Unending Flurry on most bosses. Fade Burst seems like another Holy Smite, so I never touched it after using it once in the Blackmarsh. The fun thing is hitting things with Peon's Plight or Massacre with Beyond the Veil on. AoE Spirit Damage that instantly kills regular mobs is kinda overpowered, IMO.

[AuraofMana]

At the very least it needs a difficulty boost of around 2 levels above the current nightmare. Once even console players start complaining that the game is too easy then the issue is really serious.

LOL.

Can't get myself to play Awakening again, don't want to play anything other than a Mage now, and I already played the Mage through twice

[Takrandro]

Ye, we need a CO-OP mode in this game, or just simple multiplayer, couse all these classes are way to much fun for just singleplayer.....

[nuculerman]

I disagree entirely. Battlemage, keeper, bloodmage build is an ideal aoe ranged dos build. I've been soloing nightmare with a pure elemental mage of that build. The fact is that ranged aoe dps mages had more than enough spells to take down enemies from afar. What they lacked was the ability to finish the job when those few stubborn enemies resisted their earthquake, repulsion glyph and fireballs. Between hand of winter, elemental chaos, keeper spells, and repulsion field, that's no longer a problem. I'm upset because once again, shapeshifter gets shafted. Both specializations just enhance the already over powered builds of the game.

[Takrandro]

@Nuculerman, thats couse they are the most popular,and while they could revamp the whole shapeshifter class, i don't think its worth the trouble,unless they make a spec that u can only get when u also have shapeshifter or they allow u to cast spells in animal shapes. besides, it would be cooler if u could shift into a werewolf or something.

[AuraofMana]

I didn't even take primal spells for damage and I can nuke everything down within seconds. I just use Blood Wound and Draining Aura. That's two spells. I don't even use Cone of Cold anymore as things die so fast. This feels like playing a Summon Necromancer on D2 all over again. Walk in room, use Curse, summons rape everything while you stand there. Everything dies without you spending much effort.