Dragon Age: blood mage

Just fiddling around with DAO on my second runthrough. (Finished it first time with a Dwarf commoner rogue). I decided to play a powermad elf mage and decided to try to become a blood mage. Finally found a trainer (of sorts). Man, what a letdown. What a lame set of abilities they have.

I agree! I felt it was like that will all of the so-called profession or whatever the hell they were. Big Deal, you get 4 extra powers or buffs and it adds some extra dialoge options. I had a hard time bonding with any of the characters I created. 3 playthroughs with one of each class. Still loved the game and enjoyed the story and the excellent companions(loved the banter between them too ) but never felt like I was "in" the game with them :(

yup... the professions are pathetic and add little to the already shallow class system, just as i had expected when they first announced it. i mean, wow, 4 skills, and half of them useless. it's almost like a freaking insult.

but say, you should do a bit of research on specs before you roll for a new character. would save you alot of time.

all vanilla cIasses are quite powerful, and specializations don't really help much except for spice things up.

Champion, and Templar from the warrior pool and duelist and ranger from the rogue are quite nice.

mage pool is weaker, but Spirit Healer is really the only specialization that can make great difference in tough battles.

I agree! I felt it was like that will all of the so-called profession or whatever the hell they were. Big Deal, you get 4 extra powers or buffs and it adds some extra dialoge options. I had a hard time bonding with any of the characters I created. 3 playthroughs with one of each class. Still loved the game and enjoyed the story and the excellent companions(loved the banter between them too ) but never felt like I was "in" the game with them :(

chrisito

Depends on the profession. I found the assassin specialization great. Interesting and enjoyable perks. Blood mage just seems like such a letdown. It really kind of shoehorns you into using only entropy spells in order to make any use of the buffs at all. There's just not a lot of variety at all. Oh well.

...4 skills, and half of them useless. it's almost like a freaking insult.

Jinroh_basic

talking about useless, it's not just specializations, it's all those "enemy fell and stamina restore" talents! most of them are the last ones of a talent line...because there's no stamina potion in the game?

there's a mod adding stamina potion to the game; even without it though, those top talents are useless since we can pump ST and DEX to the 50 range: all warrior and rogue talents are simply bonus, the raw power and finess are godly enough to slash through everything in the game.

Just fiddling around with DAO on my second runthrough. (Finished it first time with a Dwarf commoner rogue). I decided to play a powermad elf mage and decided to try to become a blood mage. Finally found a trainer (of sorts). Man, what a letdown. What a lame set of abilities they have.

bogaty

Maybe, but it's not fun and there's no variety to it. It just becomes an exercise in repetition. I'm having more fun playing as an archer because they're pretty much useless and it ramps the challenge up.

Maybe, but it's not fun and there's no variety to it. It just becomes an exercise in repetition. I'm having more fun playing as an archer because they're pretty much useless and it ramps the challenge up.

bogaty

actually, a primary archer party may be very difficult to play with in the beginning since arrows and bolts are rather expensive, and enemy archers don't drop those like in other RPGs.

however though, if you need to play underpowered parties on purpose to make the game more challenging, it's time to move on to other games. or at least, try solo on nightmare first.

I decided to play a powermad elf mage and decided to try to become a blood mage. Finally found a trainer (of sorts). Man, what a letdown. What a lame set of abilities they have.

bogaty

Blood Mage / Arcane Warrior is a very powerful combination, I am just discovering it in my most recent playthrough. Although blood magic uses your life to cast spells, sustained spells like death magic, spell wisp, etc use your mana reserves and not your health so if you build your character right to have lots of life you can gain a greater reserve. Combine that with added defense provided by the Arcane Warriors, and once your life starts to get low you can switch out of blood magic mode and cast force field until your healer heals you.

Blood magic does require a pretty specific build and you need to have a strong party to back you up, from my experience they require a very specific build. Keep in mind too that your first time playing through and getting blood magic you will probably lose Wynne, so you will need a backup healer (default:Morrigan)

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that your fatigue affects the cost of spells if you are using health instead of mana but I'm not 100% sure on this.

Indeed, Spirit Healer / Blood Mage combo is quite powerful although it might seem out of place. If you play it right you will never need pots, just switch between healing and draining yourself and party members. This can require alot of micro management though.

Spirit healer / blood mage or Arcane warrior / blood mage is hands down the 2 most powerful class specialisations in the game. As a SH/BM you will have unlimited "mana" and the best CC / damage dealer in game (stuning and bleeding that last for 23489723874 years? hell ye!) and have great heals!

As a AW/BM you will run around in plate god mode killing people while doing 100dmg hits on them and taking 1dmg hits. And you have the Best CC / damage dealer in the game...