Mages (spoiler warning)

Originally Posted by Maylander
I am very interested in trying out the three mage thing however, or reading a first hand impression from someone here who has. I'd also be interested in knowing exactly what specs and combinations they use to defeat Revenants and similar (generally, I find rogues, both archers and dual wielders, almost mandatory when defeating Revenants, due to their high physical damage).

I started out with the intention of creating an "Air Mage", sort of like Storm from X-Men or the Avatar from The Last Airbender. This meant lightning from the primal tree, telekinesis from the spirit tree, haste from creation etc.

Once I got Morrigan and Wynne, however, I decided to keep them because I like mages and I realized that some of my choices would have been redundant, so I decided to go full spirit. I never really used the "raise undead" path, but the aura thing was very nice. I have no points in fire because I don't like fire.

The most powerful spell combo is probably Storm of the Century. This takes a regular blizzard plus an augmented (spell power from the spirit tree) lightning storm or vice versa, i.e. lightning storm followed by augmented blizzard. This is also a good example of mage synergy, basically it worked like this:

- Shale runs forward and becomes a fortress
- Morrigan starts casting Blizzard at maximum range (this is important)
- 1-2 seconds later my mage starts casting an augmented Lightning Storm from the same position, overlapping Morrigans target area
- Wynne casts Grease and/or Earth Quake so that the enemies don't come near, single targets are hold in place with Petrify

Storm of the Century has a radius twice the size of a normal lightning storm or blizzard, which is just inside the maximum range for those two spells, so you have to be careful. It's deadly if you get caught in it, doing about 70 points of damage to everyone each tick (as a comparison, lightning storm does 18, blizzard 9). My mage usually casts spell ward on Shale so she can get back to the group safely, force field if it looks really bad.


If you really want to min/max my spell choices for each character are not optimal. I chose to keep them in character. A more practical approach would have been to give each mage a different part in all those spell combos so that they all hit at pretty much the same time. For example, the spell ward for shale could have come from Morrigan, because she's free by the time my own mage finishes his spell. Spell combos are usually created within one branch. Another example is hex of death and death cloud. If only Morrigan is casting those it takes a long time. If Morrigan could start casting death cloud while another mage puts up the hex, it would be much faster.

Another useful combo is freezing opponents and then shattering them, although I assume that works well with any class combination that can provide critical hits on demand. Crushing prison from my mage, stone fist from Wynne, Shale had two talents as well. Morrigan didn't, which was too bad.


Revenants were difficult, yes. Don't have much to offer on those though. Freezing and hex'ing was important, but it was also necessary to slow down the spell casting a bit, lest you overnuke.

Anyway, I attached a screenshot of my skill choices. I'm sure there are other or better ways to make three mages work together. I increased magic only to meet the requirements, all the rest went into willpower, which is important if you have lots of sustained spells active.


Some comments on some spells:

- the healing aura from the spirit healer path is very powerful, because it also heals all allies in range that are not in your party. But in combat it drains your mana like no tomorrow. I only used it in the final fight, but then two times at once (Wynne and myself) to great effect. Had to drink a mana potion every few seconds.

- Death Syphon is very useful as well to replenish mana, particularly if you use lots of sustained spells

- I'm not sure if the weapon augmenting skills were all that useful, given that I only had one melee in the party (Shale). Their effect would have been better with three melees or so.

Ugh, now you've got me biting my own hand off that I didn't go mage like I almost did… I don't want to replay, but all those spells… all those combo's…

I really, really, really wish I could just change my warrior into a mage right now. I also really, really wish one can take 5 or 6 party members at a time…

Well, I was missing out on things too. All locked doors and chests stayed locked. I never saw one of those decapitations you melees seem to be fond of (saw the first one with my new dwarven warrior recently). Good, interesting weapons or armor? No such things for mages, they got the short end of the stick. Also no persuasion or intimidation, I figured it wasn't going to work well anyway, lacking both in cunning and strength, so I went with combat training and survival. Whenever I tried to persuade someone they would pat me on the back or simply laugh at me.

So … don't fret. All is fine.

Hmm - Thanks for the consolation, but…

…then you get Arcane Warrior… .

Originally Posted by Arhu
Storm of the Century has a radius twice the size of a normal lightning storm or blizzard, which is just outside the maximum range for those two spells, so you have to be careful.

Yeah, my party ended its journey 4 seconds after Wynne and Morrigan discovered that combo .

Originally Posted by Arhu
Also no persuasion or intimidation, I figured it wasn't going to work well anyway, lacking both in cunning and strength, so I went with combat training and survival. Whenever I tried to persuade someone they would pat me on the back or simply laugh at me.

I only had about 20+ cunning and that was enough to beat all the persuasion checks. The thing is I never spent a single point in it. Most of the points came from Mages tower and gear.

I knew that Storm of the Century was good, but I had no idea it was *that* good! What kind of damage does it do? Electrical? Nature? What color are the ticks? Here's a way to take advantage of that: Equip shale with two crystals of the corresponding school (i.e nature if the storm does nature damage) - she'll be almost immune to nature damage then (think she gets 70-80% reduction or so). She can litteraly tank people while standing in the storm.

Anyway, I'll definetly do this at some point, and I'll aim to get all 10 combos available to the party. Tactics will then include:
- Shale being in nature/lighting/cold (whatever damage type the Storm is) while tanking in the storm.
- Shale being in fire gear while tanking in the middle of fire + grease.
- Shale being in spirit gear while tanking in the hex/death field thingymabob.

Basically, just re-equip Shale to get a massive resistance bonus and then rock the house. If you're facing undead, you can't use cold damage, so use fire damage instead and equip Shale with fire resistance. Vice versa against demons, etc.

Anyway, thank you for the input. I'm sure we can find a way to deal with those pesky Revenants - most likely fire based spells (i.e tanking the Revenant while standing in fire + grease), or perhaps spirit/nature. They're practically immune to cold damage (though not to cold effects, for example freezing), so that's out of the question.

Of course, an option is to simply let Shale duke it out. With three mages (healers) on his back, he should be able to do it. I'll definetly give everyone the Spirit Healer subclass, so there should be enough healing to outlast anything.

Edit: Just looked it up, it's Lightning damage. So just equip Shale with two Lightning crystals and he should be able to tank most of it.

Tri-Mage parties are very powerful. I would give everyone Heal, and everyone CoC and Blizzard. Three simultaneous Fireballs would be devastating as well.

Final battle spoiler follows:

Golems

Back to mage questions: I can't decide between entropy and the "hex" line, affliction hex, misdirection hex, and death hex;
OR the line with death magic, curse of mortality and ;and death cloud;
OR tempest, which combined with blizzard (which I already have) can give me storm of the century, I believe. (Or not? What does "augmented" blizzard/tempest mean?)

Can any of you mage-afficcionados possibly help me out here?
Can you suggest any more nice combos? I already use shatter, but I can't seem to be able to make shockwave work. Do the spells have to be cast by two different mages at exactly the same time?

Augmented means that you cast the spell while under the influence of Spell Might: You can cast a normal blizzard and then an augmented tempest, or switch it around. I think you can also cast both spells as augmented but I don't think it increased damage, so I never bothered. My mage does something like 75 points of damage a second when casting this spell. 3 or 4 seconds will kill anything that isn't orange.

Shockwave is forcefield on an enemy and then crushing prison on the same. It basically knocks everyone down except the person targeted by the spells. It also immediately dissipates those spells so the targeted enemy is free again and healthy. It's good to target a white creature close to the higher level enemies. It will knock down yellows and even orange once in a while. Another great combo is glyph of paralysis follow by repulsion? This one causes mass paralysis in a medium-sized area.

Very tough to say. What is shockwave?

I really haven't played the hex and entropy line much.

I've played the force, frost, earth, heal, and glyph lines. All very useful. The glyph line is great for disabling spellcasting and protecting your mages with repulsion plus it's paralyze spell can even paralyze a dragon!!!

Force Field and Crushing Prison have many times been the deciding factors in winning battles.

Ah-hah! So the shockwave thingie only works on an enemy! Here I've been trying to cast it on allies…

Thanks guys! Useful info!

No, it works on whoever you cast it on. If an enemy Emissary casts Crushing Prison on one of your characters, you can cast Force Field on that character to create a shockwave + free the character.

Anyway, for a long time I underestimated the Hex line, but I've come to realize it's exceptionally powerful. The one that lowers resistances will increase spell damage by quite a lot, and the misdirection hex will make sure the enemy pretty much never hits (very nice for ogres, revenants and similar).

Not a huge fan of the death line (death field etc), but lightning is capable of doing decent damage. Of course, Storm of the Century is out of the question unless you have Spell Might as well, lowering the overall usefulness by quite a bit. Also, it's primarily useful if you have two casters:
- 1st caster starts casting Blizzard
- 2nd caster starts casting Tempest with Spell Might activated

As long as they start casting more or less at the same time, Storm will trigger as soon as both casts are over, pretty much killing everything in sight fairly fast. However, if you cast one, then the other, people will move out unless you also cast an earthquake or similar to prevent them from running.

Originally Posted by Maylander
As long as they start casting more or less at the same time, Storm will trigger as soon as both casts are over

Small correction: the augmented spell has to finish slightly after the other spell, otherwise the big storm won't trigger and you only get a normal blizzard and tempest.

Regarding the Entropy line, there's another combo in there. Cast death hex on an enemy followed by a death cloud with him in it and he'll receive massive damage.
For maximum effect you'd want to spread these two lines out to two mages, like for the storm.

Aye, the single target damage it does is pretty massive too, but then you're stuck with this useless AoE afterwards. I'm more a fan of Sleep -> Horror, where the target not only takes a lot of damage, but it's actually feared afterwards.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I'm more a fan of Sleep -> Horror, where the target not only takes a lot of damage, but it's actually feared afterwards.

I used that one with Morrigan alot, but as the secondary. First I'd have her cast Sleep, then trigger the "confusion" spell on the most enemies that would fit in the AoE I could by following up with Waking Nightmare. If there was someone still asleep, I'd gift him with a Horror - two for one.

I've already got sleep - almost as useful as group paralyze; but the nightmare I rather dislike because the confused bunch still hit out at my own party at times.

I'm definitely going to carry on with the hex and entropy lines that I'd already started with anyway. Thanks!

The part I was pointing out was that you can't cast Crushing Prison on your ally, at least without a mod. If an enemy casts it, then that's great. You get shockwave for just the cost of Force Field.