Dragon Age is out

[Master of Ossus]

Is an archer any good to play through or are they broken as well.

Pure archers have very, very high damage output, but IMO they're weaker than mages because mages have all of the telekinetic spells. One nice feature of archers is that it's something you can do with the rogue in the party that's a little more interesting.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

So do any of you guys have verdicts on the best spells / spell progressions for a Mage? I've found playing a Mage substantially more irritating in this regard than playing a warrior (since once you've picked either weapon+shield, weapon+weapon, or two-handed you're pretty much set for talent picking and have more than enough points to get everything you want by the end of the game), and have only been able to discover by trial and error that a great number of the spells I've picked end up being completely useless. Any recommendations?

[Serafine666]

So do any of you guys have verdicts on the best spells / spell progressions for a Mage? I've found playing a Mage substantially more irritating in this regard than playing a warrior (since once you've picked either weapon+shield, weapon+weapon, or two-handed you're pretty much set for talent picking and have more than enough points to get everything you want by the end of the game), and have only been able to discover by trial and error that a great number of the spells I've picked end up being completely useless. Any recommendations?

Well, I judge based upon what spells piss me off the most when used against me and the one at the top of that list is the Entrophy spell line. Vision of Mortality drives me nuts because it acts as a constant health drain and prevents the use of healing. Spirit Prison drives me absolutely insane because it seems like it hits and holds no matter what I do and so I'm sitting there with one of my best smackdown characters locked in place getting constant damage with enemies surrounding him and beating the crap out of him. The Cone of Frost spell is also annoying because it can freeze a bunch of characters in place to be beat on. Overall, I'd say any spells with a good chance of laying a bad (by which I mean healing prevention or something else that makes them unable to attack or defend) status effect on enemies. I've noticed that things like reducing attack/defense don't seem to help you a whole lot.

[SylasGaunt]

Well in the spirit section a personal favorite of a lot of players seems to be Walking Bomb/Virulent Walking bomb.

When you throw it on someone it starts inflicting dot spirit damage, and when the enemy dies they explode in an aoe attack. Virulent is the same except it has a chance to pass the effect on to any enemy caught in the boom.

Cone of Cold + Crushing Prison is a good spell combo for massive damage. IIRC stone fist can serve in this capacity as well.

The fire spells are good for straight damage, igniting grease traps that you've laid or turning the enemy's against them, though you have to watch out that you don't light your own people on fire. The biggest downside to fire spells is that if you set off it's biggest spell expect to be fucking blind until the damn fire tornado goes away because you can't see shit through it.

Sleep + Horror is also supposed to do a lot of nasty spirit damage but I haven't tried it yet.

[Serafina]

Ok, there are bascially three things that a mage can do:
Damage, Healing and Crowd Controll.

Damage: Mages excell at area damage, great against hordes of enemies. However, you can also damage yourself and your party with them.
If you want to go for damage spells, the primal spells (fire, ice and lightning) are your best bet. These trees also provide some support (weapon enhancements), Knockdowns (Fireball) and stuns (or rather, freezes - every ice spell).
You will also want to get Spell Wisp (more spellpower) and Spell Might (trading more mana for more damage).

A good Damage-mage can wipe out whole groups with just a few spells, but will fall dry on mana rather quickly. You will also get a lot of aggro, so Glyph of Repulsion is a good investement.

Healing: Rather simple, there is just one healing-line.
But if you want to be a healer, become a spirit healer - the difference is enormous.
Mana Drain and Death Syphon are interesting additions here, since they will provide you with more mana.

Crowd Controll:
This can be very powerfull if you do it right. However, you need to play it smart to be good with it.
The main lines for this are the "Glyph" Line, the "Force"-line and the "Paralysis"-line.

Glyph of Repuslion will keep weak enemies out of a certain area and knocks them down - very handy and powerfull.
Glyph of Warding is more of a support spell, but gives huge boni against missile attacks.
Glyph of Paralysis stuns only a single enemy, but it can be used as a trap and has a long duration - longer than its cooldown until it is triggered.
Glyph of Neutralisation will drain ALL mana from everyone within its radius, prevent and cancel all spells and surpress all mana regeneration. However, it rarely (if ever) works against boss(orange) enemies.

The best thing about the glyph tree: Cast a Glyph of Repulse and follow it with a Paralyis-- bam, big aoe-stun. Be carefull, it affects friendlies.

Mind Blast is a usefull, cheap area stun. It is very handy if you are attacked, but can also be used offensively. Best thing: It allows no resistances.
Force Field will make it impossible to harm the target, but also make it unable to do anything. Can also be casted on friendlies, good for protecting allies.
Crushing Prison is basically a stun that does damage - often enough to kill the enemy.

Paralyze and Mass Paralyze are bascially stuns and self-explanatory.


I would NOT focus on a single job - every mage profits from having at least the "Heal"-Spell and Mind-Blast is a powerfull defense.

Suggested builds for level 10 (assuming three extra points, so 14 total points):

AoE-Build:
Whole Ice-Line, whole Electric-Line.
Glyph 1-3, Hex 1-3,
Gives you a very powerfull offense plus a decent defense once the enemies swarm on you.
You should add Mage-powers and Spellmight later.

Support-Build:
All Healing Spells, Spirit Healer 1-2
Heroic Offense+Aura, All Glyphs, Mana Drain, Mana Cleanse
Powerfull Healin&Protection.
Add Spellmight with the next free point, or go for Spellbloom instead (swapping out the Mana Drain+Cleanse spells) - depening on wether you want powerfull healing or more mana.

Crowd Controll Build:
All Glyphs, All Force-Spells, All Paralsis-Spells, Spell Wisp, Grease
You can Stun a LOT of enemies repeately.
Get Spellbloom for additional mana.

Mix-Build:
All Frost-Spells, All Glphys, All Healing Spells, Mind Blast, Force Field

[wautd]

God I love those slow-mo finishing moves on ogres

[Imperial Overlord]

There's lots of cool shit you can do with mages. The lockdowns (stunning, freezing, force fielding, etcetera) are probably the most effective. I find force fielding/petrifying/whatever a miniboss and then beating on his minions while he's out of the fight and then ganging up four to one on his ass once he's free is very effective.

[Vympel]

The onyl way I could beat Captain Janeway was with Wynne's petrify. I love those kinds of spells.

It did piss me off that it was Alistair, not me, who performed the finishing blow though.

[Stofsk]

Spoilers dude

[wautd]

I've now cleared the Elven forest and entered the underground werewolf tombs. So far it's easy as fuck compared to the stuff that got trown against me in Redcliffe, Mage Tower and Denerim. Either my party has become a well oiled killing machine or I started of with the most difficult chapters to begin with.

Ok, when I say easy as fuck, that does not include the part where you can disturb a tombstone in some ruin. I couldn't complete that yet even on easy.

Oh and, dragon hoards? yes please!

[Xon]

That Dragon hoard has one or the best bow in the game in it. Still sucks but.

[Aeolus]

What difficulty are you on NOT to use a healer? Other then casual you are chum bait for most battles given they swarm and then cut down unless you're the mage delivering AoE or the Rogue doing mass stuns. Especially given you can't see how the Bard's Mass Stun, The duelist superior 100% crit strike or any other talents can help.

And if you're not seeing that they are easily 10 items in the game that cost 100+ gold, and you will never reach it regardless is not a problem even if you are a penny pinching motherfucker, you are not getting the arguement. The point is why go that route. Why even try to get gold from every mission if you can never reach said items, because you won't get them from being the goody two shoes. In fact by end game I would amazed if the skinflint would be at 1000G let alone the 1500+ one needs to acquire the extra junk.

And some of the best items are only bought. In fact the best Rogue armor, best mage staff, best spell resist neckpiece, and a few other one time best only slot items are only purchased at the 100+ level. Usually you are limited to maybe a few at the end.

On Normal a dedicated healer is a great bonus but not absolutely needed. A simple heal spell given to Morrigan or yourself (if a mage) can get you far if you are careful. Now going after a Dragon or Flemeth then yeah bring Wynn

[Serafina]

Especially since Wynn has a plot-unique spell which heals here, restores mana AND boosts mana regen and spellpower.

Quite handy, but with a long cooldown and a debuff after use.

[Aeolus]

Sleep + Horror is also supposed to do a lot of nasty spirit damage but I haven't tried it yet.

That combo will one shot almost any basic mob. I have never seen a non boss mage survive a single shot of that.

[Vympel]

Spoilers dude

You don't need to kill Flemeth. Sorry.

And Alistair landing the finishing blow isn't a plot point, it just depends on how combat goes.

[dragon]

God I love those slow-mo finishing moves on ogres

Even better is the slow-mo finishing move Alistar got on the high dragon outside the shrine with the healing ashes.

Question though as mana pool regen is limited is spellbloom worth it to pick up I have 3 casters in my party?

Started over and this time I'm trying to go evil mage route but the choices for that are kind of limited. Is blood mage any good?

[Serafina]

Spellbloom is even worth it with just one mage.

Blood Mages are nasty - Blood Magic allows you to sacrifice health for spellcasting, more than doubling your potential mana pool.
Blood Sacrifice can easily negate the health loss from Blood Magic, and the damage done can be negated with a group heal.
Blood Wound is one of the nastiest spell in the game - area stun with a lot of damage.
Blood Control allows you to take over an enemy - and if it resists, it takes a lot of damage.

The only drawback is that the spells do not work on creatures without blood - but thats pretty much limited to demons and golems.
Since it is the only offensive specialisation, it's quite usefull.
Ironically, it is also a nice spec for Wynne - allowing her to expedent health for more healing.

[charlemagne]

Ironically, it is also a nice spec for Wynne - allowing her to expedent health for more healing.

Yeah, that's somehow an huge oversight. There should be something you have to do first, like corrupt her or something. It's pretty stupid to have her be the Goody McGood type of mage and a bloodmage at the same time.

[Ghost Rider]

Spoilers dude

You don't need to kill Flemeth. Sorry.

And Alistair landing the finishing blow isn't a plot point, it just depends on how combat goes.

He's probably refering to Flemeth . I mean yeah...we all know, but that's rather significant compared to "You're going to kill the big bad Archdemon."

Nevertheless...I wonder who gets kill animations. As a rogue I always did. As the mage/Arcane warrior I did. I wonder about who does and doesn't.

[Ghost Rider]

Ironically, it is also a nice spec for Wynne - allowing her to expedent health for more healing.

Yeah, that's somehow an huge oversight. There should be something you have to do first, like corrupt her or something. It's pretty stupid to have her be the Goody McGood type of mage and a bloodmage at the same time.

Strangely so far the way I did for mine was

Arcane Warrior/Bloodmage with healing for myself. Literally I could shield, armor, and then go happy...and whatever didn't have blood got cut down by the sword.

Mages have by far the most ridiculous fucking combination of specializations.

[charlemagne]

Nevertheless...I wonder who gets kill animations. As a rogue I always did. As the mage/Arcane warrior I did. I wonder about who does and doesn't.

I think whoever lands the final blow gets the animation. I also only saw meele animations, Ogres just drop when a spell or arrow lands the final blow. (When I did the fight against the Ogre in the tower at the very beginning for the first time, I actually reloaded and did it again because one of the Tower Guard guys got the killing animation, and I wanted for my rogue to do it )

[Manus Celer Dei]

However, you also get extra damage from dexterity AND strenght and twice the attack bonus from dexterity - so you can invest heavily into dexterity and have a good defense.

It's important to note that the dex bonus is somewhat broken and not working properly at the moment. A bioware employee released an unofficial hotfix a while ago but it hikes the difficulty up a bit since the dex bonus also gets applied to all the enemies as well.

I think they're trying to figure out a way to balance it properly before they officially patch it.

[White Haven]

I wish they had put in archery/magic finisher animations. Sure, watching my Arcane Warrior Donkey Kong all over a dragon was cool, but it would have been nice to watch a mage pull out some badass finisher-combo that leaves the corpse on fire, or an archer pull back, sight, and then blow an ogre's out of the back of its head.

[Serafina]

However, you also get extra damage from dexterity AND strenght and twice the attack bonus from dexterity - so you can invest heavily into dexterity and have a good defense.

It's important to note that the dex bonus is somewhat broken and not working properly at the moment. A bioware employee released an unofficial hotfix a while ago but it hikes the difficulty up a bit since the dex bonus also gets applied to all the enemies as well.

I think they're trying to figure out a way to balance it properly before they officially patch it.

What's broken about it?
I invested heavily in dexterity (~35 right now on level 17) and hit with damn near every swing.
Spoiler

Oh, and by the way, i actually managed to solo the dragon in the mountains - or rather, Alistair and Leliana died after ~15 seconds and Wynne ran out of mana shortly thereafter and i did not bother with potions.
Arcane Warriors are extremely tough - i just needed a heal from Wynne when the dragon chomped on me.

[Ghost Rider]

I wish they had put in archery/magic finisher animations. Sure, watching my Arcane Warrior Donkey Kong all over a dragon was cool, but it would have been nice to watch a mage pull out some badass finisher-combo that leaves the corpse on fire, or an archer pull back, sight, and then blow an ogre's out of the back of its head.

Yeah, I never noticed Leli ever having any sort of death blow animation. Also sucks that no mage version as well...given you could literally have loads of death depending on what spell you roast the sucker with. Or just plain TK crunch, or anything.