DA:O Mageplay questions

Dragon Age: Origins

crpgnut

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Okay, I got my new pc and DAO last night and started an elven mage. I went through the origin story and I sided with the guy who likes the girl. As we played through the small dungeon area, I noticed that mana regenerates very quickly. Have those who've played through a lot further in the game, noticed much requirement for willpower? Do you need lots of mana in prolonged battles, or could you get by with less willpower and focus almost exclusively on the magic stat? I don't want to waste my limited points. I could choose magic only for the first 5-6 levels and see how that works out, but I wanted to hear other opinions.

I had zero trouble getting my DLC and I love that I can just buy all the stuff that comes out from within the game. I can see myself spending $100 on this game, but that's fine with me as long as I'm enjoying myself.
 
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Warning: The origin stories are way, way, easier than the rest of the game. You do start using up most of your mana later on, yes. I put all my mage's points into willpower and magic, but let more experienced players rather council you on the exact optimum build. Luckily you do have those Lyrium potions you can use to replenish magica with.

Congrats on your new PC, and on starting the game! :)
 
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Thanks, Rivian. I played through DA Journeys and it was pretty important to have a high willpower for the mages. I was hoping to skimp on it a bit but it sounds like that'd be a bad idea. In my first few level ups, I took the lightning path and that was working pretty well. I would use mind blast to briefly stun folks then move my guy so that he could catch multiple creatures with the lightning ball spell. Then I'd use the single target lightning spell to take out the toughest creature. It worked okay.
 
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I just have them even. Most other classes have to concentrate on 3 or even 4 stats, while mages only really need 2, so one level I put 2 magic 1 willpower, the next level I put 1 magic 2 willpower. You'll need the mana always, as the good activated spells (like fire or cold weapons, etc) will take a chunk from your pool.
 
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You can easily chew through all your resources in a battle, despite the regen. It doesn't regenerate during combat itself, so you enter each encounter with a fixed amount of capability. Bigger fights (which is a lot of them) often leave me exhausted of almost everything. Short version - you want to increase Willpower.
 
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Next question, once I get a party does my mage need persuasion or coercion skills? I'm hoping that whoever is best in the party automatically speaks if one of those skills is needed.
 
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Get cunning, it is important for a mage. Drop at least one point into the coercion skillset, it will help, but others are more important to build up. Complete at least one or more spell chains, but have a variety between you and any other casters in your party. I found having Heal was extremely useful when I didn't have Wynne (which is most of the time). Keeping someone alive can mean the difference between winning and losing.
 
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Next question, once I get a party does my mage need persuasion or coercion skills? I'm hoping that whoever is best in the party automatically speaks if one of those skills is needed.

There is no "persuasion" skill. There is only "coercion" skill and only your character can get it. It is not available to other party members. So you have to take it.

In conversation you get "intimidate" and "persuade" options and they work like below,

intimidate = Function(coercion_skill, strength)
persuade = Function(coercion_skill, cunning)

No idea on the exact nature of the "Function" but more strength you have the better you will be at intimidating and more cunning you have the better you are at persuading.

Say you have 1000 (unlikely) cunning but only first rank in coercion_skill, you may fail many persuade checks since you fail coercion_skill check. Same applies for intimidate checks.

So you will also need pass the coercion_skill check, so get rank 4 ASAP.

Hope that helps
 
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Well, having a lot of mana isn´t really that helpful if you don´t have an arsenal of effective spells.
And since most of the best spells have magic requirements, I´d say putting points there should be a priority in the first parts of the game. At least say, 2 points to magic and 1 point to willpower upon level up till you get magic to mid 30´s.
 
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Thanks, Deepo! I was wondering if that'd be a viable strategy.

I've just played through the mage origin twice. Does anyone know if I can meet my buddy Joran or help the initiate Lily escape later in the game? That'd be cool. I liked the loyalty to friends play better so that's the game I'm going to continue. I'm not much in favor of the current regime of chantry-controlled mages!
 
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Thanks, Deepo! I was wondering if that'd be a viable strategy.

I've just played through the mage origin twice. Does anyone know if I can meet my buddy Joran or help the initiate Lily escape later in the game? That'd be cool. I liked the loyalty to friends play better so that's the game I'm going to continue. I'm not much in favor of the current regime of chantry-controlled mages!

You'll meet Joran again :)

As for your question about intimidate/persuade, I consciously decided not to invest in it. Since my strength (for intimidate) and cunning (for persuade) are too low as a mage, I just go without any diplomacy affected lines on conversations. I'll play again when I finish my mage run, and when I do I'll be the meanest motherf.... dwarf there is, so he'll have all the intimidate options I'm not seeing now :)
 
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That's probably going to be my route too. I really don't want to waste my mage on talky-talky options. He's the crowd control specialist. I'll probably play a city elf thief/persuasion character next.
 
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For what it´s worth, I maxed out coercion with my mage since I didn´t find any other skills crucial for him anyway, put a point into cunning here and there (20 atm), and while I´m not that far into game (level 12), I think I succesfully passed all persuasion checks bar one so far. I also tried an intimidate option recently (with 15 strength) and it worked too and it was pretty worthwile:
Thanks to that I unlocked blood magic specialization without having to do the respective quest in an evil way.
That said, I´m not really sure how significantly different those scenarios really are without the skill.

So, my guess is that if you have maxed coercion, the attribute checks aren´t usually important. Maybe it´s similar to lockipicking - when you have it maxed you are guaranteed to be able open almost everything bar some rare cases when the game requires high cunning too. But I´m really guessing here.


This may be a bit too spoilerish, but since there aren´t that many spellcasting companions available, I think it´s quite useful to know what are their starting talents beforehand if you´re going to play a mage yourself.
Imo it´s not a bad idea to design your mage to sorta fill in the holes - that way you¨ll get most of the magic system and a warrior/mage/mage/mage party is great fun to play from time to time, not to mention powrful, and it´s a very viable combo especially in places where you don´t need a lockpicker.

Anyway, the starting talents of mage rpcs are:
One comes with:
Shapeshifter: Spider Shape
Primal: Winter’s Grasp
Spirit: Mind Blast
Entropy: Vulnerability Hex, Disorient, Horror, Drain Life, Death Magic

The other with:
Mage: Arcane Bolt
Spirit Healer: Group Heal
Primal: Rock Armor, Stonefist
Creation: Heal, Rejuvenate, Regeneration, Heroic Offense, Heroic Aura

For example thy glyph spells are really, really useful, especially in dungeons (glyph of repulsion + inferno ftw).
Ah sorry, got myself carried away a bit, this game is much much better than I expected :).
 
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Yes, for the first 4-5 level, putting all or almost all your points in Magic is a good idea, since you won't have that many spells to draw your initial mana and the magic attribute determine their strenght. but later on, start balancing your stats, as mana never regenerate fast enough in combat situation.

You might also want to try some very powerful spell combo :
- A drain life or drain mana will be twice as effective if it follows a Hex spell on the same target. And since bosses often have good magic resistances, hexing them at the start of a fight is never a bad idea, especially if you have more than one mage in you group.
- Stonefist will shatter a target frozen by cone of cold, even if this ennemy is at 100% health that an instant kill most of the time (at least on non-bosses ones).

And these works whoever launch the first or the second spell… so with two mages you get some nice options to explore there.

Also, while mages usually stay in the rear to be both effective and out of harm, some spells might open a very different yet efficient strategy. The chain 'Mind-blast'/'Force Field'/etc. being a prime exemple. Place the mage almost in the middle or near a group of melee fighters, generally behind your melle "tank" character, stun them with mind-blast to give a very appreciative edge to your melee fighters, then immediately follow with 'Force field' on yourself to increase your own defense, as you won't need to move anyway to follow with other spells. Of course, that might not be a good idea against a boss. You might even send you melle fighter elsewhere and finish the frozen ennemies with some cone/area of effect spells all by yourself.
 
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34 is the max you need in Magic to cast the top spells. I basically got this as quickly as possible with only a very points dropped in other areas.
 
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34 is the max you need in Magic to cast the top spells. I basically got this as quickly as possible with only a very points dropped in other areas.

True, although I just wonder if not developing your magic stat past that point is that good an idea for a mage as, towards the end of the game, enemies might then have a greater chance to resist your hard-learned spells, no?
 
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I like to keep my Willpower at about 3/4 of my Magic. So at 40 Magic, I have about 30 Willpower. You'll still have to use quite a few mana potions, however, as some boss fights are very long.
 
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Silly question… :blush: but, er… does freeze and fire spells cancel one another out? :blush: :rolleyes:
.

…and even more to the point: can I have the sustained "Iced weapons" and the sustained "Flaming weapons" spells on at the same time? (Two seperate mages, but the spells affect the entire party's weapons.)
 
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Silly question… :blush: but, er… does freeze and fire spells cancel one another out? :blush: :rolleyes:
.

…and even more to the point: can I have the sustained "Iced weapons" and the sustained "Flaming weapons" spells on at the same time? (Two seperate mages, but the spells affect the entire party's weapons.)

1 - I don't think so, with my first mage, I used a cone of fire (or whatever it's named) just after Morrigan had freeze some enemies with cone of cold (still active).

2 - That should work too, considering that you can stack rune of fire and cold on the same weapon and add their damage boni.
 
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