Quote:
Originally Posted by laffwis
ok thanks for the suggestions, it's obvious that you need intellect and mana as a mage, but i still don't get the part with rage? if you don't invest in rage, you will probably reach 30-40 rage until end game (from my previoius walk throughs) and most of the rage skills only use about 20+ rage.
so actually you need maybe let's say 30 rage to have a little surplus and during battle it will replenish anyway?
or do you mean you want to use potions and fill up the rage before going into battle? then let's say you have maye 50-60 rage and it's full so you can use more powerful skills more often since gaining rage goes slowly?
but then again there are not so many potions to fill up the rage before battle.
i'm not sure if black hole is that usefull, since the max. damage is only about 1100 or something and for that you need - compared to sould drain, which indeed is maybe the best skill IMO - far more rage.
as we're talking about soul drain, to what extend shall one expand that skill? 20 %, 30, or 40 %? for 20 % you only need 5 rage (which means you can for sure use that skill every turn when maxed out; as a mage) and for 30 % 20 rage (maybe only every 2 turns?). i never expanded to 40 % since i think the proportion between damage and needed rage is not effective. but again, if considering the big stacks, maybe it could be worth to expand to 40 %?
could anybody clarify this, please? thanks  |
If you don't touch rage at all, you should still end up with 50-60 rage, assuming you get some rage statutes and buy all the roasted rats.
with the mage, rage will usually NOT replenish at a speed that you can use it consistently, IF you are fighting smart. Rage goes up most when you're trading blows with the enemy. If the point is to use rage to avoid trading blows with the enemy, or eliminate stakcs before trading blows can even occur, you are not going to be building much rage in fights, other than from the fury gathering ability. This is when your max store comes into play. If you go into a fight with near max fury, you can get off a few abilities in the first few turns, pop a fury gather, then use another ability, in the first four turns.
Black hole does max 1500 damage and according to the fan manual, and my experience, scales damage by LEVEL, not morale. Level 5 units receive 50% more damage, meaning max 2250 damage against all level 5 units. It's also worth noting that it does ASTRAL damage, which no unit in the game, including black dragons, can resist. Again, this is invaluable for thinning out stacks without being forced to trade blows.
The money spots for soul drain, in my opinion, are 20% and 40%. You cannot get the first rage cost reduction without moving to at least 20%. And 20% of a stack for 5 rage is well worth the cost. It's a useful ability to have for those moments when your rage is depleted, and you need an offensive ability. On the other hand, I think 40% is much more useful because in practice, when your rage is depleted, you'd rather use the fury gathering ability. 40% also is worth more than 20% twice, since a second 20% attack will not only take a few turns (and prevent you from using other abilities), but also reduce the stack less on each successive use.
Again, however, the key point is that rage is invalualbe on impossible, if properly used in a support role. If you are going to try to kill off all opponents using rage, it's not going to work. But if you use it strategically to stave off enemy advances, protect your own troops, refill your mana coffers, etc. it serves a very important function. But it can't serve that function if you don't have the stats to use it....