There is a lot of conflicting information and advice out there about how to get the most out of your Arcane Warrior. After having finished the game with 2 different Arcane Warriors, 2 different mages, a two-handed warrior and a dual wielding rogue I’d like to add my own 2 cents. 

(Yes, I have way too much free time on my hands currently.) 

This guide will cover everything you need to know, what spells to pick, which quests not to miss, which equipment you should consider and more! This guide assumes you do not use mods which let you use all your spells without sheathing your weapons, nor do you use the weapon set swap exploit to get around this. The reasoning behind this is that Bioware did make two kinds of spells for a reason, playing around that is lame. I also assume that you play on Hard or Nightmare for a challenge. 

1.0 Why Arcane Warrior?

For me, the Mage class is by far the most fun class in the game. You have the widest variety of talents to choose from, far more than the Rogue or Warrior classes. Arcane Warrior adds to this flexibility by also giving you the option of becoming a tank or negating the squishiness of your caster. The downside is that you really need to think about your character beforehand and if you build it well the game becomes much easier, taking away some of the challenge.

2.0 Plan ahead

There are two different styles of Arcane Warriors. The first is a tanking mage, sort of like the Kensai/Mage from BG2, the second is a mage that can equip a much wider variety of items but still uses spells for damage. The first one is often talked about while the second one is relatively obscure. Choosing between these two styles should be your first step as everything else will depend on it.

2.1 The Arcane Warrior tank

This character uses a sword and shield setup with mana regeneration gear to get the most out of sustainable spells that augment his combat prowess. This character will need roughly thirty natural dexterity to get a good hit rate, but more on that later. Casting regular spells is not your main forte because you’ll suffer roughly 90% fatigue with your sustained spells up and these also reduce your available mana and some will even drain mana. This means that casting is usually limited to no more than 1-3 spells per fight. A way around this is to opt for Blood Mage as your second specialization but even then you’ll find that the best non-sustainables are mostly sheathe weapon spells which aren’t practical during combat. 

2.2 The Arcane Warrior caster

Another approach is to keep using a staff to boost your spellpower and for auto attacks but at the same time equip some items with a high strength requirement to gain their unique bonuses or become sturdier. To do this you don’t need to have combat magic active and so you won’t suffer the 50% fatigue a tanking AW will. In my opinion, every regular mage should choose Arcane Warrior as their second specialization because most of the Mage-only gear in this game is sub-par. 

3.0 Starting the Game

So by now you’ve roughly decided what you want to become and it’s time to start a character. 

[i]

A. Gender

This is mostly aesthetic but has some ramifications in the romance department. If you want to romance a specific NPC choose the gender you need. If not, I recommend going with a female PC because mage robes look much better on them and IMO the best chest piece in the game is a robe. Another thing to note is that you will probably be an elf and thus have a smaller body than most others; this fits females better as well. 

B. Race

From a role-playing as well as a power gaming perspective elf is obviously the best choice because Arcane Warriors were elves and both racial bonuses are to important mage stats. If you do not want to be an elf the only other option is human which is not bad for a tank AW because humans are larger and the +1 Dex and +1 Str are useful.

C. Ability point allocation

In general all mages need maxed magic and nothing else. The exception is an AW tank which will need some dexterity and possibly willpower as well. However, as you only need dexterity when you start swinging a sword you should wait putting points into it until then. I know some people disagree with the statement that you should go with an all magic build and say that you should put points in willpower and/or constitution too but except in some specific cases this is misguided advice. Why?

*You get extra health and mana every time you level up, meaning that each time you level you get a hidden +1 boost to willpower and constitution. (Approximately) 

*Willpower and constitution can both be boosted tremendously with the right gear, magic on the other hand cannot. 

*Every offensive spell you cast is harder to resist and does more damage based on your magic score. (Actually it is spellpower but the only stat that boosts this is magic.)

*For AW tanks more magic means more damage and a slight bonus to attack. 

D. Skills

Starting the game you get the first rank of Herbalism for free which is all you’ll ever need if you have an NPC get 4 ranks. At level 1 I would go with either stealing or coercion as money is sparse in the beginning. You’ll eventually want to aim for 4 ranks of Coercion, 4 ranks of Combat Training and 1 rank of stealing, the rest is optional. Now, why these skills? 

Coercion will allow you to get more gold (I’m talking well over a 100 sovereigns here) and more Xp so it is a no-brainer. Combat Training will let you hit more often, regenerate more mana and make it less likely for hits to disrupt your casting. One rank of stealing will spawn Slim Couldry when you go to Denerim; he has 8 very profitable and fun sidequest that will also yield a lot of Xp. Make sure to tell him you are interested in both stealing and sneaking the first time you talk to him though! 

E. Spells (Talents)

This is where it gets tough and controversial as there are so many different spells and sheathing becomes a factor. (Meaning you have to first put your sword away which takes about 2 seconds before your begin casting the spell, this may not sound terrible but it sure is.) You’ll get the first spell in the mage tree, arcane bolt, for free plus 2 other picks of your choice. If you reach level 25 and get all possible tomes in the game you can have a maximum of 35 spell picks, 1 of which must be Arcane Bolt, so plan ahead! For mages that plan to become caster Arcane Warriors  I recommend picking Winter’s Grasp and Flame Blast and working towards Fireball and Cone of Cold as soon as possible. (In that order.) For those who plan on becoming a tank mage this isn’t such a good plan because all of these spells require you to sheathe your sword. I would surely pick Glyph of Paralysis but pick no.2 depends on what tree you aim to develop first. (There are multiple options that are all useful.) 

4.0 Extensive Spell Guide

There are 86 talents associated with spellcasting; the sheer number of them makes it clear that this will be the main part of this guide as well as your character. To make this section more readable and somewhat manageable I will first comment on each group of spells as a whole, (tree) then break it down into the respective talent branches as well as point out the best and worst spells per branch.

A. The Mage Tree

Rating: 5.0

If you plan on using a staff for attacks get all four spells in this branch. Staff Focus adds roughly 15-20 damage per shot which is great and Arcane Mastery gives a passive +5 bonus to spellpower which is close to two level ups worth of points spend on magic. For close combat Arcane Warriors I would go no further then Arcane Shield.

B. The Arcane Warrior Tree

Rating: 5.0

If you only use a staff and cast spells, one rank is enough to be able to equip the good loot. (Sort of like Use Any Item from Throne of Bhaal) Otherwise, get all 4 ranks. 

The only spell that needs some special attention here is Shimmering Shield. As long as you keep this on you are close to invincible, however there are still some attacks that will hurt you badly, such as special attacks by ogres. Also watch out for archers and especially their special shots. The shield also only blocks the damage component of most spells, not their possible other (disabling) effects. And even though your Mental and Physical resistances are set to 100 I found that the special attacks by Sword&Shield warriors will still stun you. A huge blessing is that overwhelm no longer damages you at all. Most important of note is that Shimmering Shield will drain your mana and do so quite fast. Example: my last Arcane Warrior tank had +4 mana regeneration from items and after maybe 30 seconds of fighting her mana was down to next to zero. However, SS never switches off for her because once your mana pool gets very low your mana regeneration rate increases a lot so she was able to keep the shield up at all times. If she wanted to cast a spell in the later stages of a fight she had to quaff a potion or turn on Blood Magic though, so keep that in mind.

C. The Primal Tree

This is where it’s at if you do not need to be concerned about casting with your sword drawn. Otherwise, stay away. This tree has the best damage dealing spells as well as some of the best crowd control. Best of all, and rather uniquely, it has spells that are both at the same time. 

The Fire Branch

Rating: 5.0

Sadly, we start of with one of the best branches in the game. (The rest will have a hard time keeping up.) Here we find the most damaging area of effect spell (AoE) in Inferno, the most damaging weapon boost in Flaming Weapons and the tremendously useful Fireball which can be seen as a poor man’s Blood Wound. You might look at the ice or lightning trees and not see much difference at first glance but what makes fire that much more powerful is that the base damage is much higher and the enemies continue to burn after they leave the AoE. Even Flame Blast is occasionally handy, especially after you’ve got the targeting of Cone shaped spells down. 

The Earth Branch

Rating 2.0

This one is at best mediocre. Stonefist shattering and Petrify don’t work on most bosses and even though neither of them is bad you have to get Earthquake before Petrify and let me tell you; bad spell is bad. It deals no damage and enemies will often resist the knockdown while your own party won’t. Rock Armor is a must have for Arcane Warriors with a sword though!

The Ice Branch

Rating: 5.0

In the same way as fire this branch has good damage and crowd control combined into its spells, although the crowd control element is much stronger and the damage much weaker then fire's. Basically Winter’s Grasp is single target damage+stun, Cone of Cold is close by group damage+stun and Blizzard is long range group damage+stun. What makes Cone of Cold amazing is that even bosses don’t resist the freeze often and the cool down is quite short. Frost weapons is inferior to Flaming Weapons except when enemies are resistant to fire or if you don’t have Flaming Weapons. (Duh)

The Lightning Branch

Rating: 3.0

Lightning has a few things going for it; the damage drains stamina and not many enemies are resistant to it, sadly though this branch lacks any sort of crowd control, making it inferior to both the fire and ice branches. Chain Lightning is also utter garbage because it has a casting time and the damage doesn’t scale with level and is absorbed by armor. If you want to go with lightning anyway I would only go as far as Tempest and get Spell Might and Blizzard too for the fun overkill Storm of the Century combo.

D. The Creation Tree

This tree has some of the worst and best spells in the game. They are all utility/defensive and there is no damage to be found here. Most of them can be cast with your weapon drawn so it is attractive to tanking Arcane Warriors. 

The Heal Branch

Rating: 3.0

All of these spells have their uses and if you want to be a support type character I would recommend them. You won’t really need them for yourself though because with a high magic score pots are more effective. Wynne has this branch mostly maxed out when you meet her, reducing the necessity to get it. Note that Rejuvenate can’t be cast on yourself. 

The Haste Branch

Rating: 3.0

Haste itself is very good, the increased movement speed is a godsend to out-maneuver foes and to shorten walk time between fights. The attack speed boost is a double edged sword, for melee fighters it increases the attack rate at the cost of lowering the attack value by 5, for bow and staff attacks haste actually decreases attack rate! As an Arcane Warrior wielding a sword this spell looks appealing but you need +3 stamina/mana regeneration to offset the drain during combat and this only works at next to zero mana. The same is true for Shimmering Shield and therefore keeping both up for entire fights is only possible with a dedicated build such as my Paladin one below. Unfortunately, the 3 Aura spells that come before haste are crap because the duration is terrible and two of them are sheathe weapons. Wynne has this branch pretty far developed so usually it’s best to just have her cast it. However, haste stacks with itself so if both you and Wynne have it up you’ll get double the walking and attack speed which is incredibly good. (And also decreases your attack by -10) Note that double haste doesn’t stack with swift salve.

The Glyph Branch

Rating: 5.0 

I was tempted to cheat my own rating system and give a 6.0 so that should tell you something about how nice these spells are. Glyph of Paralysis is a tier 1, no line of sight required, weapons drawn paralyze effect that usually works and is involved in the best spell combo in the game… within its own branch! If you first cast a Glyph of Repulsion and then a Glyph of Paralysis on top of it you get a Paralysis Explosion that is everything Mass Paralysis whishes it could be. The paralysis is impossible to resist, requires no line of sight, has no casting time bar, no projectile and lasts long, even on Hard and Nightmare. Glyph of Repulsion is also super handy to block off doors and corridors to cast AoE damage on the other side. Glyph of Warding is nice if you are being hammered by archers. Glyph of Neutralization is only worth it if you don’t have Mana Clash.

The Spellbloom Branch

Rating: 2.0

Spell Wisp is good for caster Arcane Warriors with maxed magic, and Grease is an option (I wouldn’t suggest) if you want to get even more out of your fire branch. The rest is garbage; Spell Bloom should have been sustained to make it good and Stinging Swarm is a tier 4 spell that requires crappy spells to get and even then it does only moderate damage.  

E. The Spirit Tree

Spirit is very hit and miss, although there’s not much you can go wrong with if you ignore the first branch, and there are quite a few notables. I would classify it as a buff/debuff tree that lets you have more control over the way battles evolve. It is also the best place to look for ways to deal with those pesky casters. 

The Magic Branch

Rating:1.0

Not a bad branch on paper but completely outclassed by taking the next branch and/or taking a Templar along. If you can’t get either it is probably worth getting, up until Dispel Magic anyway because that’s the most useful one. If you think Spell Shield is a good way to get spell resistance think again, it drains 110% mana where 100% is the cost of the resisted spell and you can get 60-70% spell resistance from items easily anyway.

The Mana Branch

Rating: 4.0

Mana Clash is uber, it allows you to one-shot kill all mages in the game except for bosses. To reduce the chance of it getting resisted turn Spell Might on beforehand. Speaking of Spell Might, this is also a good spell if you have a high spellpower and it is involved in the Storm of the Century and Advanced Reanimation Combos. Sadly though, the first two spells are nothing special.

The Bomb Branch

Rating: 3.0

Hehehe.. fun! Is it also good? I’d say if you’re a tanking Arcane Warrior then yes, otherwise don’t bother. For Arcane Warriors that tank it can be handy sometimes to turn Death Syphon on when swarmed by weak enemies.

Virulent Walking Bomb is one of the few damaging spells that can be cast with your weapons out and with Shimmering Shield up you are better at taking any collateral damage. It also works well with Glyph of Repulsion or any other CC that you can cast during combat. I’ve never tried the Skeleton but I’m sure it has its uses, especially when soloing. 

The Telekinetic Branch

Rating: 5.0

A lot of people consider this the best branch in the game but I don’t agree. It is very strong but it is less strong on high difficulty and for me it also got less vital as I got better at the game. Still, I do recommend it, just don’t expect the miracles some folks preach. Mind Blast is a must-have for caster-type Arcane Warriors to get away from swarming and to lower hostility. If you use a sword then there’s an upside and a downside; you’ll be standing amidst the enemies anyway but have to sheathe weapons first. Forcefield is ace, instant-cast, works on everything and you can even use it defensively if you don’t mind exploiting the AI. Telekinetic Weapons is a niche spell for heavy armor foes. Crushing Prison is vastly overrated. Bosses resist the stun and the damage is only mediocre, it is good to have and can be cast with weapons drawn but don’t expect it to make the game easy. Note that combining Crushing Prison and Forcefield on the same enemy will result in the useless ‘Shockwave’ combo which destroys both spells so try to avoid doing that.

F. The Entropy Tree

There’s a few gems to be found here, especially for Sword wielding folks. The best buffs and debuffs can be found here as well as some strong crowd control and interesting combo’s. 

The Paralysis Branch

Rating: 3.0 (For Miasma alone)

The worth of this branch depends solely on Miasma. If you want to go for melee you absolutely have to have it, if not, the whole Branch is garbage. Glyph of Paralysis badly outclasses Paralyze. (Projectile, Line of Sight, Tier2 and no combos) Mass Paralysis is garbage as it also requires line of sight, sheathed weapons, has a projectile and a casting bar, a short duration and no combo potential. 

The Hex Branch

Rating: 4.0

This game lacks spells that do massive damage to single targets. However, by combining damaging spells with Hexes it is possible to at least approximate this. Vulnerability, Affliction and Death Hex all fall into this category and for that reason alone are very useful. Misdirection Hex is like a Forcefield that allows you to still damage the enemy afflicted by it, very handy! A warning though; hexes draw a lot of hate to your character and thus are more suitable to Sword&Shield Arcane Warriors. The first and last hex can’t be casted with your sword out though.

The Sleep Branch

Rating: 3.0

Horror and Sleep are decent enough and combine for 200 or so damage on a single target. Disorient is crap and Waking Nightmare comes down to personal preference. All spells require sheathed weapons.

The Death Branch

Rating: 3.0

Drain Life is very good because the damage part is instant-cast and you can combine it with Vulnerability Hex to make the damage reasonable. The downside being that it’s a sheathed weapons spell.  Death Magic is like Death Syphon in that it can occasionally be handy for melee oriented Arcane Warriors. Curse of Mortality is jank and Death Cloud is only worth it if you’re going for the Entropic Death combo with Death Hex.

5.0 Your Second Specialization

There are 3 options to choose from of which one isn’t an option, (Shapeshifter) so that leaves either Spirit Healer or Blood Mage as the best choices. I’ll comment on each.

A. Spirit Healer 

For a tanking Arcane Warrior this specialization offers the best possible passive bonuses; +2 magic and minor health regeneration. It also has the best healing spell available (Group Heal) as first pick. Sadly the other spells are borderline useless; Revive only works when the fight is going badly anyway, Lifeward is like a worse Regeneration and Cleansing Aura drains mana which is a hefty toll. In short I would only go for Spirit Healer if you want to make a Paladin; a character that can take a huge beating but is also busy buffing, healing and reviving comrades. (More on that below.)

B. Blood Mage

The Blood Mage is a natural fit to the Sword&Shield Arcane Warrior’s strengths and weaknesses. You are very hard to damage so casting from health makes sense, furthermore you use sustained spells that lower your available mana, apply penalties to fatigue and even slowly drain mana away. The most important benefit is that casting from health lowers the cost of every spell by 20% and if you have the Blood Ring equipped this becomes 40%, a nice way to offset those fatigue penalties! Oh, and did I mention the spell? You know... Blood Wound! It

is like Crushing Prison, except slightly harder to resist and it effects all enemies in a huge AoE! Blood Sacrifice is occasionally handy but you have to get it for Blood Wound anyway. Blood Control is for those who enjoy charming enemies; I myself don’t so I never get it. All Blood Mage spells can be cast with weapons out btw.

For spell slinging Arcane Warriors the Blood Mage specialization is probably the best too because Blood Wound is very good in conjunction with any massive AoE damage spell like Inferno. If you can keep coming up with fodder to use for Blood Sacrifice you can also eliminate the constant lyrium potion quaffing to spam more spells. The best way to do this is to take a ranger with an upgraded bear pet along. It has 500 hit points so you can pretty much drain it all day long. The life drinker amulet can only be equipped by Blood Mages and is worth considering for a high spellpower build.

6.0 Three Specific Builds

I’m going to provide you with three quite different builds to demonstrate how you can get the most out of the focus you have chosen for your character. I’m also going to assume that you have, or are willing to get, easily accessible downloadable content and play at hard or nightmare difficulty. Both melee builds use a Sword&Shield setup, why sword and shield and not dual weapon or two-handed you might ask? Well, dual wielding without the talents is kind of unimpressive and two-handed weapons are too slow for a character that isn’t guaranteed to hit with them. Luckily, there are some really good shields in the game and the best sword for an Arcane Warrior is one handed anyway. Archers are quite a threat to you so that missile deflection bonus a shield provides is great too! 

What I try to accomplish by suggesting these builds is to give a sense of where you can take your Arcane Warrior, how you fill in the details and which spells you choose is up to you, so except for the most important sustained spells I won’t go into that at all.

The equipment I recommend was chosen according to these criteria:

-Items that give +X to all abilities, because all abilities but cunning are very important to you.

-Items that give a dodge bonus and/or a chance to avoid missiles.

-Items that give spell resistance, because you don’t want to have your sustained spells dispelled.

-Items that give a major boost to Magic, Willpower or Constitution because these are your prime stats.

-Items that give a bonus to attack.

A. Spellsword

This is my favorite melee build and is similar to how you play this type of character in D&D games. This character is hard to hit, be it with magic, arrows or melee attacks. However, when hit the damage sustained is relatively high. Equipping a staff in the second slot and opting to go caster only for some fights is perfectly viable for this character, making it the most flexible of the three. (Note that wearing a robe and a helmet looks like crap so get the no helmet hack.)

Female Elven Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage

30 natural dexterity (including Fade and AW bonus)

All other points go into magic.

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Combat Magic, Shimmering Shield and Miasma.

Equipment:

*Sword: Spellweaver with Grandmaster paralyze and Grandmaster Dweomer runes.

*Shield: Fade Wall

*Weapon set no.2: Staff of the Magister Lord

*Head: Helm of Honneleath

*Neck: The Spellward

*Chest: Reaper’s Vestments

*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing

*Wrists: Gloves of the Legion

*Hands: Lifegiver with Key to the City (Swap Key to the City with Blood Ring for heavy casting.)

*Feet: Cailan’s Greaves

This setup offers you: 

6 Strength = +3 attack

6 Dexterity = +3 attack and +6 defense

11 Willpower + 25 mana = 80 mana

11 Magic = 11 spellpower, more melee damage, minor to hit bonus

22 Constitution = 110 health 

+40% chance to dodge attacks 

70% magic resistance

24 armor at a very low fatigue cost

+4 Mana Regeneration 

Big health regeneration

Tactics:

Grabbing some aggro is uasally fine for the Spellsword but you can still be torn apart by mobs and high damage special attacks so it's not always best to use this character as your main tank or grap a lot of aggro with spells. You are very well suited to starting fights as an offensive caster and switching to melee later on. Enemy mages don't stand a chance against the Spellword, because she can use her high power Mana Clash to deal with non-boss casters and hack the bosses to pieces in Melee because of high alround resistances. 

Party:

The spellsword is so flexible and versatile that I would highly recommend it for soloing. Still, most people use a party of four so here's some advice on that. Taking a regular tank along such as Alistair would be handy. A two-Hander would also work because you would have less trouble versus special attack bosses such as dragons because of Indomitable. Having Leliana along as an Archer Ranger/Bard build is also recommened for pet sacrificing and ranged spike damage. Morrigan as a true caster would give you a lot of mage power if you'd like to have that.

B. Paladin

An alternative to the Spellsword is this character which focuses more on tanking by using heavier armor and utilizes a larger mana pool for healing and buffing himself and his friends. This character also gets a bigger bonus to mana regeneration from equipment and so can choose to have another sustained spell that drains mana active at all times. 

Male Human Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer

30 natural dexterity (including Fade and AW bonus, add 5 points if Haste is frequently used) 

35-40 natural willpower (including Fade bonus)

All other points into Magic

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Shimmering Shield, Miasma and Haste or Cleansing Aura.

Equipment:

*Sword: Maric's Blade with Grandmaster Paralyze, Grandmaster Lightning and Grandmaster Fire runes.

*Shield: Cailan's Shield

*Weapon set no.2: Spellweaver with Grandmaster Dweomer and Master Dweomer runes and Fade Wall for fighting Casters. 

*Head: Bergen’s Honor (Substitute with Helm of Honneleath if not available.)

*Neck: The Spellward

*Chest: Evon the Great’s Mail (this armor counts as Wade’s superior dragonscale armor if equipped with the rest of the set.)

*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing

*Wrists: Wade’s superior dragonscale gloves

*Hands: Lifegiver with Key to the City 

*Feet: Wade’s superior dragonscale boots

 This setup offers you: 

4 Strength = +2 to hit bonus

4 Dexterity = +2 to hit bonus and 4 defense

9 Willpower  = 45 mana

4 Magic = 4 spellpower, more melee damage, slight to hit bonus

14 Constitution = 70 health 

+20% chance to dodge attacks 

+34% magic resistance (62% magic resistance if weapon set no.2 is held)

35 armor at a very low fatigue cost

+9.75 (!) Mana Regeneration

Big health regeneration

Tactics:

The Paladin is a support character but not one that likes to stay back or hide. The support it provides comes from both being a damage soaker and healer/buffer at the same time. What you want to do during battles is grab aggro with spells like Crushing Prison, any Hexes, Cleansing Aura or Virulent Bomb so monsters will mostly ignore your other casters and rogues. Mass rejuvenate and Group Heal are some of your best spells to keep yourself and your friends alive. Keep in mind that a short while after casting Mass Rejuvenate you will actually have more mana than before casting it, this will be very handy to minimize the need for mana potion chaining. 

Your sustained spells are your main forte, you can run more than any other build and they improve your own combat prowess as wel as those of your team. A party supported by Miasma, Haste and Cleansing Aura is truly a force to be reckoned with. 

Party:

Haste and Cleansing Aura are best suited to support melee attackers and preferably ones with a slow attack. Either Oghren or Sten will get a huge boost out of Haste and your ability to draw aggro off of them. Alistair as a Sword & Shield warrior is a good choice if you want another tank that stays alive, and you can boost his moderate damage output a lot. Leliana as an archer won't work if you go for Haste so have her dual wield or take Zevran, but make sure to have a Bard in your team because their songs can negate the attack penalty from Haste. As for mages, anyone will do fine but it might be fun overkill to build Wynne in much the same way as your own char for double Haste. 

C. Nuker

The third path focuses on spellcasting and never wades into melee, opting to use the Arcane Warrior only to equip better gear. You won’t be as flexible as either of the above builds but what you get in return is raw power. You are frail as a puppy so use your spells to keep the bad guys away.

Female Elven Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage

All points into Magic

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield and Blood Magic.

Equipment:

*Staff: Staff of the Magister Lords

*Weapon set no.2: Magister's Staff (Does fire damage, for when the enemy is immune to cold damage.)

*Head: Helm of Honneleath

*Neck: The Spellward (or Lifedrinker if you are really spellpower hungry.)

*Chest: Reaper’s Vestments

*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing

*Wrists: +20% damage gloves, type of your choice

*Hands: Lifegiver with Blood Ring

*Feet: Warden Commander’s Boots (Get them early and do not upgrade as the extra fatigue isn’t worth it.)

This setup offers you:

4 dexterity = 4 defense

15 willpower + 50 mana = 125 mana

4 magic + 13 spellpower = 17 spellpower

20 constitution = 100 health

20% chance to dodge attacks

+46% magic resistance

22 armor at a very low fatigue cost

+4 mana regeneration

Big health regeneration

Tactics:

Glyphs are your best way to avoid getting hit and making sure the enemy takes big damage from your spells. Make heavy use of Paralysis Explosion and use glyph of Repulsion/Warding on yourself to avoid melee and missile attacks. Make use of the fact that some spells do not require a line of sight to start fights from a safe distance. Optimize use of bloodmagic's short cooldown timer by chaining a series of spells from health, turning of Bloodmagic and drinking a health pot or healing yourself, then start chaining spells from mana and when the timer reloads immidiately turn Bloodmagic on again for another chain.

Party:

You want avoid direct attacks so be careful with using spells that grab aggro and take fighters along to keep aggro off you. If you only want a single fighter take a tank because when your melee fighter goes down, you'll go down too. Caster mages are very micro management heavy so I recommend a rogue archer (instead of a backstabber) to avoid a micro management nightmare. Once again, Leliana as an archer Ranger/Bard is probably best. 

6.0 Relevant Quests

Warning: Spoiler Heavy!

A. Ostagar

Buy a backpack from the quartermaster both before and after you head into the wilds, they are dirt cheap and will save you some annoyances.

B. Camp

Be sure to save up all the money you can get before you leave Lothering and go to camp the first time. Thirty sovereigns is what I’d aim for but 22,5 is the minimum. Buy the Tome of Arcane Knowledge and, if you feel like it, backpack from the dwarves at camp. When you return later on, anything that you bought will respawn.

C. Connor’s Fade

Talk to the Demon instead of attacking her, first ask for arcane knowledge to unlock the Blood Mage specialization, after you have it (or on later playtroughs) ask for an increase in talents to get a spell tome. 

D. The 

Circle

 Tower

We Arcane Warriors need every single ability point we can get because they’re all useful, especially so if you use a sword. So write down your stats before entering the fade and check to see if you got all the upgrades before leaving.

E. Warden’s Keep 

This is the only place where you can get a good shield right of the bat. Unfortunately it takes killing Sophia roughly 100 times to get it to drop if you aren’t lucky or unlucky. The armor set she drops is also very handy for the first part of the game and for low strength characters. If you don’t need it for either of that it can even be sold at a merchant and bought back after leaving the area to upgrade the set to a higher tier material. (But the fatigue will increase as well!)

F. Return to Ostagar

I know for sure that Cailan’s Armor set is scalable by selling so it would make sense that if you go here early you get Greaves that have a low fatigue penalty. I haven’t tested this yet though. Note that you can get a very good sword and very good boots here so equipment wise it's probably worth buying. 

7.0 Useful links

To see which spells require weapon sheathing to cast go to http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Arcane_Warrior_Spellcasting

To get rid of helmets visit http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=202 and install the mod.

If you want to look at a particular item in the game or maybe even all items Gamebanshee has a very nice database: http://www.gamebanshee.com/dragonageorigins/equipment.php

8.0 Missing Info

Here I will post updated requests for help with completing this guide.

Currently I'd like to know:

-The amount of mana drained per second by Haste, Shimmering Shield and Cleansing Aura.

-Confirmation on which versions of Dragon Age have Duncan's Sword as +4 mana regeneration.

-Why you still get stunned by shield pummels with 100% mental and physical resist.

9.0 Conclusion

This guide was made as an attempt to collect the various data floating around the internet on Arcane Warriors and make it available in one place. It is also heavily influenced by my own experiences while playing Dragon Age. Ofcourse the guide is at this point no way complete but I'm hoping others will fill in the gaps so please comment, disagree, agree and expand on what I have so far. (The name of the topic is rather obnoxious but that's all just marketing. I hope it was at least a somewhat enjoyable or enlightening read. 

Rogue mechanics explained

 I tend to play rogues in every game that lets me, and DA is no exception. But like many others I was disappointed at the lack of documentation about stealing, lockpicking, and other gameplay mechanics. So I looked through the code and game files using the toolset to figure them out. Here are the results.

I posted most of this stuff at one point or another in the old forums, but since that forum is gone and not archived despite official statements to the contrary, I figured it'd be nice to have it all in one place here. All the info here is for the PC version; I can't promise it's the same on consoles.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: Stealth

II: Stealing

III: Lockpicking

IV: Traps

V: Coercion

I: STEALTH

This information comes from skill_stealth.nss, sys_stealth_h.nss, and rules_core.nss.

Your success at entering stealth seems to be deterministic (i.e. not random) and obeys a simple algorithm. Consult the following table to see whether fortune smiles upon you today:

http://i46.tinypic.com/10r7rwi.jpg

For clarity's sake, I'll also write out the algorithm below. Go through the steps below 

in order

 to figure out whether you can stealth or not:

Step 1: Am I in combat? If not, SUCCESS.

Step 2: Are there no enemies within 20m? If not, SUCCESS.

Step 3: Do I have Combat Stealth? If not, FAIL.

Step 4: Is my stealth rank greater than the rank of the highest ranked creature within perception range? If not, FAIL.

Step 5: SUCCESS

"Stealth rank" is the number of points you have in the stealth tree. Combat Stealth is rank 3 and Master Stealth is rank 4. For stealth purposes, "Creature rank" is 1 for whites, 2 for yellows, 3 for bosses, and 4 for 1337 bosses. 

Notice that cunning appears to play no part in determining whether you can enter stealth or not.

What happens if you get damaged while stealthed (e.g. by a trap)? If you only have stealth rank 1 or 2, you automatically break stealth. If you have stealth rank 3, you have a 0.01 * [player level] chance of staying stealthed (e.g. a level 18 rogue has an 18% chance). If you have stealth rank 4, you have a 0.02 * [player level] chance of staying stealthed (e.g. a level 18 rogue has a 36% chance). 

I haven't been able to figure out what is your chance of staying cloaked while laying traps. This seems to be nondeterministic; sometimes it fails, but when I reload and try again it works. It's possible that this chance is affected by cunning, but I can't find the code anywhere.

II: STEALING

This information comes from skill_stealing.nss.

When attempting to steal, the game calculates a thief score (T) and a victim score (V) and compares the two. If T > V, the attempt is a success; otherwise it's a failure. The thief score depends on the player's cunning, ranks in Stealing, and his ranks in Stealth (if he is stealthed). The victim score depends on the victim's mental resistance, rank, whether or not either actor is in combat, and the difference between the thief's level and the victim's level.

The formula for thief score is:

T = (cunning - 10) + 5 * [ranks in stealing] + 5 * [points in stealth if stealthed]

As you can see, each point in Stealing or Stealth is worth 5 points in cunning. One point in Stealth is worth a rank in Stealing if (but only if) you attempt to steal while stealthed. If you're not stealthed, obviously, your points in Stealth don't contribute to your thief score. Be warned that attempting to steal will break your stealth, even if you're succcesful. Further, you need Stealing IV to attempt to steal in combat.

Oh, one more thing: T is randomized to within 80-120% of the value above before being compared to V. That's why stealing is non-deterministic.

The formula for victim score is:

V = [mental resistance] + [creature rank bonus] + 2 * [victim's level - thief level (this can be negative)] + 10 (if thief or victim are in combat)

The rank bonus is 0-5 for white creatures, 10 for yellows, 20 for bosses, and 40 for elite bosses.

AN EXAMPLE

Let's go through an example to see how this works in practice. Suppose we are a level 12 model citizen trying to steal from a level 10 yellow NPC with 20 mental resistance outside combat. The victim's score is:

V = 20 + 10 + 2 * (10-12) = 26

In order to guarantee success, we would need a thief score of 27 / 0.8 = 34 (rounded up to the nearest integer). How can we obtain a T of 34? There are many ways:

* Stealing I, cunning 39

* Stealing I, Stealth I, cunning 34

* Stealing I, Stealth III, cunning 24

* Stealing IV, cunning 24

Etc. You can run through some hypotheticals yourself to see how this works. I don't know the stats of every NPC, so please don't ask me how much mental resistance the Reverend Mother has (you monster).

III: LOCKPICKING

This information comes from placeable_h.nss and GetDisableDeviceLevel() in core_h.nss.

Whenever you attempt to unlock a chest or door, the game calculates a lockpicking score (L) and compares it to the lock difficulty (D). If L >= D, the attempt is a success; otherwise it fails. Unlike stealing, there is no random element in lockpicking.

The lockpicking score is simple to compute:

L = (cunning - 10) + 10 * [lockpicking rank]

Your lockpicking rank is the number of points you have in the Deft Hands tree. If you have Deft Hands alone, your rank is 1; if you have Device Mastery, your rank is 4. As you can see, each point in the Deft Hands/lockpicking tree is worth 10 points of cunning. Notice that you can actually open locks without any points in the lockpicking tree if your cunning is high enough (I confirmed this in-game).

If you successfully pick a lock, you'll gain XP equal to D (with a minimum of 5). Thanks Sheffsteel for the observation.

Great! But how high does your lockpicking score have to be to pick every pickable lock in the game? Unfortunately I don't have the time or know-how to inspect every lock in the toolset to find a maximum value for D. However, there is a big hint in traps.xls, which contains a sheet called lock_difficulty with the following table:

1 Auto Success

10 Simple

20 Very Easy

30 Easy

40 Medium

50 Hard

60 Very Hard

10000 Impossible

So I would tentatively suggest that you need a lockpicking score of 60 to pick every lock that can be picked. You can achieve a lockpicking score of 60 by getting Device Mastery + 30 cunning, or Mech. Expertise + 40 cunning, etc. Of course, some locks will still require keys or event triggers to open. 

Some people have finished the game with a lockpicking score of 60 and said this was enough to open everything. One person on the old forums said he was unable to open a chest with a lockpicking score of 64, but I don't know the circumstances. I would appreciate feedback from more people about whether 60 is enough for everything.

IV: TRAPS

This information comes from sys_traps_h.nss, placeable_h.nss, and GetDisableDeviceLevel() in core_h.nss.

Trap disarming is just like lockpicking; the game calculates a disarm score using the exact same formula it uses to calculate your lockpicking score. It then compares this to the trap's disarm difficulty. If your disarm score >= the disarm difficulty, the trap is succesfully disarmed; otherwise it is not. There's one exception: you can always succesfully disarm your own traps.

As with lockpicking, if you succesfully disarm a trap you'll gain XP equal to the trap's disarm difficulty (down to a minimum of 5).

Trap detection works like this: the game periodically checks for hidden enemy traps within a spherical volume with radius 10m + 1m per lockpicking rank (at Device Mastery this is a 14m radius). Note that the trap-making skill apparently does NOT increase your detection radius, despite what the tooltip says. For each hidden enemy trap within that volume, the game checks the player's disarm score (see paragraph above for how to calculate it) against the trap's detection difficulty. If this score >= the trap's detection difficulty, the player detects it; otherwise the player does not.

Minor note: for detection purposes only, the player gets a +10 bonus to his disarm score if he is under the effect EFFECT_TYPE_TRAP_DETECTION_BONUS. I have no idea what, if anything, grants this effect. It doesn't seem like the trap-making skills or lockpicking talents grant this effect, nor do any other spells or talents. Maybe it's just unused.

Notice that a trap's detection difficulty and disarm difficulty are different variables. This explains why you can sometimes detect a trap but fail to disarm it.

How difficult are traps to disarm or detect? Again, traps.xls gives us a hint. It has a sheet called trap_difficulty that contains a table identical to the one copied above for locks. So I would tentatively say that a disarm/lockpicking score of 60 will enable you to detect and disarm every trap that can be detected and disarmed. Again, player feedback would be appreciated.

V: COERCION

The information here comes from UT_SkillCheck() in utility_h.nss. Credit goes to Codrus0 for finding it!

The coercion formula is simple to state. Every rank in Coercion gives you 25 "coercion points." Every point in cunning above 10 (for Persuade checks) or in strength above 10 (for intimidate checks) gives you 1 coercion point. The most difficult coercion checks require 100 coercion points to pass. Coercion checks are deterministic.

This means that Coercion 4 should be sufficient by itself to pass every Persuade or Intimidate check without any investment in cunning or strength. Coercion 3 is sufficient if you have at least 35 cunning or strength, as appropriate. And so on.

RECENT UPDATES: 

* Second specialization is now left open to the player. I had previously assumed it would be Duelist, but this was unreasonable since Ranger and Bard are both strong.

* These calculations are accurate for the 1.02 patch (which is the same as 1.01 with the dex hotfix as far as the DPS calcs are concerned).

Warning, wall of text incoming. Skip down to sections III and IV for the tl;dr version, but I recommend checking out the gameplay mechanics stuff if you're interested. I'll keep this guide updated as we discover mistakes and gear improvements.

This is a continuation of a thread over at the now-baleeted daforums.bioware.com (used to be at

http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=706563&forum=135

). We were discussing various DW rogue builds and discovered some interesting things about gameplay mechanics along the way. I made a spreadsheet and did some DPS calculations for four different DW builds, with the results summarized below. For those who didn't follow the original thread, I'll repeat the pertinent gameplay mechanic information below in section I.

DISCLAIMERS:

 this is pure theorycrafting. We were just trying to come up with the highest-DPS endgame DW builds we could think of, so we assume optimal stat allocation and access to the best gear. This may not be realistic for everyone. I may run some figures with less expensive gear in the future (equipment suggestions welcome!) 

This is not a guide for how to build the "best" rogue.

 DPS is not everything to everyone. The calculations don't quantify utility or fun factor or anything like that. I just hope this is a helpful starting point for people planning their own rogues.

PLATFORM: all of my analysis assumes PC version 1.02 (or 1.01 with the dex hotfix).

NOTE FOR READERS OF THE OLD THREAD: The numbers here are slightly different from the last ones I posted in the old thread. That's because 

I lowered the level from 22 to 18 (at level 22 the game is almost over) and remembered to account for the bonus damage rogues get per level up.

 I've made too many fixes and improvements to list

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: Gameplay mechanics

II: Stats and gear

III: DPS chart

IV: Conclusions

I. GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

A. DAMAGE FORMULA

I pieced together the damage formula as best I could using the toolset to view the source code. Those of you following along at home can look at core_h.nss and combat_damage_h.nss to see whether I got things right.

At an abstract level, the formula for expected damage on a backstab looks like this:

C * (AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O - A

C is the critical hit/backstab modifier,

W is the weapon's base damage,

R is the weapon's damage range multiplier. The game randomizes your weapon's damage between W and W * R. For daggers and longswords, R is 1.5; for axes it's 1.4. For example, a dagger with a listed base damage of 6.4 will actually do between 6.4 and 1.5 * 6.4 = 9.6 damage. Thus the expected weapon damage will be AVERAGE(W, W * R).

X is the attribute modifier (e.g. 1.10 for axes, 0.425 for daggers), 

Y is the number of relevant attribute points above 10 in each relevant attribute.

O is all other sources of bonus damage, and

A is the target's armor minus the attacker's armor penetration, floored at 0. Note that the game randomizes armor to between 70-100% of its "list value" in the damage calculation, but I don't account for this for technical reasons (calculating the expected armor value in Excel is beyond my puny spreadsheet skillz). This error is not large.

C defaults to 1.5 but can be raised up to 3.5 by gear. (Thanks gorboth for pointing out that the cap is 3.5, not 2!)

Why is the bonus damage from attributes multiplied by 0.375? Because, when dual-wielding, the game randomizes your attribute damage bonus to between 25-50% of its list value before throwing it in the damage calcs. This is one source of random variation in damage output. Thus your expected attribute damage bonus will be only 37.5% of its list value. (For every other weapon style besides dual-wielding, the random factor is between 50-75% of list value.)

Here is a list of all the sources of bonus damage that I accounted for (everything that goes into O):

* Exploit Weakness, which adds an expected (0.52/3) * (cunning-10) bonus damage to each backstab. Thanks Twenynge for correcting me on this (I'd prevoiusly thought it was 0.2 * (cunning-10)).

* Tainted Blood, which adds 5 + 0.2 * (cunning-10) bonus damage 

* Bonus damage from gear, including runes and bonus damage on offhand weapons (offhand bonuses seem to contribute to mainhand attacks)

* Bonus damage from levelling (for rogues this is 0.2 damage per level)

Party buffs are NOT accounted for because the variations are endless.

Here is a list of everything that goes into the target's armor, A:

* Target's nominal armor value

* Armor penetration from the weapon

* Bonus AP from gear, including bonus AP from offhand weapons (offhand bonuses seem to contribute to mainhand attacks)

* Cunning's AP bonus of (cunning-10)/7

B: DUAL WIELD ATTACK TIMING

I did a bunch of video capture experiments to determine that attack timing for dual wield weapons works as follows:

Step 1: for each weapon you're wielding, start with 1.5s and substract that weapon's speed modifier (see [[

http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/items/weapons

 for the modifiers). Thus for daggers this value will be 1.0s and for axes it will be 1.4s. The 1.5s starting point comes from the base attack interval for the dual-wield style, as defined in core_h.nss, and verified by my in-game testing.

Step 2: Average the two numbers above and call the result T. This is your attack interval.

Whether backstabbing or attacking from the front, you will alternate hands every T seconds. Don't believe the backstab animation, which looks like it's attacking with the mainhand only. Also, when backstabbing, it appears that the mainhand runes trigger (or have a chance to trigger) on every attack, even when the offhand should be attacking. Offhand runes never trigger. I can only assume this is a bug.

Because your attack speed is the average of your two hands, the DPS-conscious rogue with a fullsize weapon in her mainhand will usually want to use a dagger in her offhand, to speed up her attacks. This also saves her attribute points that would have gone to dex for DW Mastery.

Haste and Momentum reduce T by 25% and 30%, respectively, at the END of the attack timing calculation. Thus I ignore them for purposes of the DPS calculations, since they'll affect all builds by the same proportion.

II: STATS AND GEAR

I'll assume a level 18 human assassin who has completed the Fade (second specialization left up to player choice). This gives us the following base stats:

Str: 10 + 1 (human) + 4 (fade) = 15

Dex: 10 + 4 (rogue) + 1 (human) + 2 (assassin) + 4 (fade) = 21

Cun: 10 + 4 (rogue) + 1 (human) + 5 (fade) = 20

A level 18 character has 56 attribute points from levelups, plus 4 from tomes, for a total of 60 discretionary attribute points.

This analysis considers several possible builds, named for their weapon combo and the stat to pump:

* Axe/dagger str

* Axe/dagger cun

* Dagger/dagger dex

* Dagger/dagger cun

* Longsword/dagger str

* Longsword/dagger cun

* Axe/longsword str

* Axe/longsword cun

All gear selections are DPS-maximizing as far as we can collectively determine. Suggestions welcome! 

Why not maces?  They swing slower than axes and longswords, do not have a higher attribute multiplier to compensate, and have a smaller damage range multiplier to boot.  Most importantly, the best unique maces are not as good as the best unique axes and longswords. 

I assume that all builds will want to get Momentum ASAP, before going to the Fade or choosing specs, just because it's so powerful throughout the game. (You can get it in the origin stories if you beeline for it.) This means the axe/dagger and longsword/dagger builds will overinvest in dex somewhat. I also assume all builds will want Master Stealth at some point because stealthing is so useful for backstabbers, so they will need a natural cunning of 22, although this can wait until after the Fade.

I also assume that all builds will use Exploit Weakness, Tainted Blade, and three grandmaster elemental damage runes in their mainhand weapon.

The non-str rogues can get away with somewhat fewer points in str, if you are willing to wait until you have +str items before meeting your gear requirements. I assume that these rogues will want to meet their gear reqs ASAP so I've erred on the side of overinvesting in str. (Thanks vicariouscheese for reminding me of this.)

Note: the attack rating calculations don't include the flanking bonus. Rogues with Combat Movement get up to +20 attack by flanking their target, depending on their angle (I think the maximum bonus is given when you're directly behind the target).

A: AXE/DAGGER STR

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 49 = 64

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 dam., 8 AP, +30% crit damage, +3 damage, +2 dex)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit. damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dawn Ring (+4 str, -1 cun)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 64 + 13 = 77

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Cun: 22 + 5 = 27

Unbuffed attack rating: 113.5 (55 base + 47.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

B: AXE/DAGGER CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 11 = 26 (to wear Warden Commander's Armor ASAP; our gear will help us meet the str req for Veshialle.)

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 40 = 60

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 dam., 8 AP, +30% crit damage, +3 damage, +2 dex)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander's Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit. damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 26 + 8 = 34

Cun: 60 + 9 = 69

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Unbuffed attack rating: 92 (55 base + 26 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

C: DAGGER/DAGGER DEX

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 5 = 20 (to wear T7 light armor early)

Dex: 21 + 53 = 74

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Offhand: Thorn of the Dead Gods (6 dam, 7 AP, +3 damage, +3 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Felon's Coat (+6 dex, +9 defense)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: Cadash Stompers or Silverhammer's Tackmasters (+2 dex) (Cadash has extra mods of minor benefit but also increases hostility)

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Harvest Festival Ring (+2 str, +2 dex, +4 attack)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 20 + 8 = 28

Dex: 74 + 18 = 92

Cun: 22 + 6 = 28

Unbuffed attack rating: 120 (55 base + 50 attribs + 4 gear + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 164 (50 base + 18 leveling + 82 dex + 9 gear + 5 DW finesse)

Note on alternative offhand daggers

. Edge has slightly higher DPS than Thorn of the Dead Gods against enemies with less than about 14 armor, but is only available to players who bought Dragon Age before Nov. 30, 2009. The difference is about 1-2 points.

D: DAGGER/DAGGER CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 5 (to wear T7 light armor early)

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 46 = 66

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Offhand: Thorn of the Dead Gods (6 dam, 7 AP, +3 damage, +3 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Felon's Coat (+6 dex, +9 defense)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: Cadash Stompers or Silverhammer's Tackmasters (+2 dex) (Cadash has extra mods of minor benefit but also increases hostility)

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, 2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: nothing improves DPS

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 20 + 5 = 25

Dex: 30 + 16 = 46

Cun: 66 + 9 = 75

Unbuffed attack rating: 91.5 (55 base + 25.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 118 (50 base + 18 leveling + 36 dex + 9 gear + 5 DW finesse)

Note on alternative offhand daggers

. There are a number of good offhand choices. You may wish to use something besides Thorn of the Dead Gods under some circumstances:

* Edge has slightly higher DPS against low-armor enemies (enemies with less than 21 armor), but is only available to players who purchased Dragon Age before Nov. 30, 2009. The difference is about 1-2 points.

* Fang has slightly higher DPS against all enemies (about 1-2 points) but is only available to city elf rogues late in the game.

* Dead Thaig Shanker has slightly less DPS (about 2 points) but has attractive non-DPS bonuses.

E: LONGSWORD/DAGGER STR

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 49 = 64

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, 2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dawn Ring (+4 str, -1 cun)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 64 + 11 = 75

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Cun: 22 +5 = 27

Unbuffed attack rating: 112.5 (55 base + 46.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

F: LONGSWORD/DAGGER CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 11 = 26 (to wear Warden Commander's Armor ASAP; our gear will help us meet the str req for Starfang.)

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 40 = 60

* Mainhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander's Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 26 + 6 = 32

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Cun: 60 + 9 = 69

Unbuffed attack rating: 91 (55 base + 25 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

G: AXE/LONGSWORD STR

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 41 = 56

Dex: 21 + 17 = 38 (natural 36 dex for DW Mastery. If you want to dual-wield full-sized weapons before the Fade, you'll need to sink an additional 4 points in dex)

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander armor (+15% crit damage

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit. damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dawn Ring (+4 str, -1 cun)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 56 + 13 = 69

Dex: 38 + 6 = 44

Cun: 22 + 5 = 27

Unbuffed attack rating: 112.5 (55 base + 46.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 107 (50 base + 18 leveling + 34 dex + 5 DW finesse)

H: AXE/LONGSWORD CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 11 = 26 (to wear Warden Commander's Armor ASAP; our gear will help us meet the str reqs for Veshialle and Starfang)

Dex: 21 + 17 = 38 (see explanatory note in build G above)

Cun: 20 + 32 = 52

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander's Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 26 + 8 = 34

Dex: 38 + 6 = 44

Cun: 52 + 9 = 61

Unbuffed attack rating: 95 (55 base + 29 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 107 (50 base + 18 leveling + 34 dex + 5 DW finesse)

III: DPS CHART

Here is a DPS chart showing the expected DPS of each of the builds above, against a target with 0 armor, 10 armor, and 30 armor.

For convenience, I'll restate my assumptions here. I assume the following:

* The damage formula and attack timing explained in section I

* The gear and stat allocations of section II, including the assumption that the mainhand weapon has three elemental damage runes

* Use of Exploit Weakness and Tainted Blood

* NO use of Momentum, since it affects all builds by the same proportion. Just add 43% to all the figures above to get the DPS with Momentum (and no other speed buffs). Thank Murrdoch for correcting an error in this line.

* No party buffs because there are too many factors to account for

* No elemental resists on the target

* 100% hit rate. Unfortunately I cannot calculate the hit rate of each build without knowing the average monster defense rating. However attack rating is quite easy to boost with party buffs. Anecdotally, some people have said they've achieved quite high hit rates with cunning builds.

Mage:

SPELLS

This guide assumes you or your party member are playing a caster, meaning that you activate spells during a battle, preferably without enemies whacking you in the face. If you find yourself always buffeted by uncontrolled melee attackers, you'll want either to the above listed Guide to Arcane Warriors or turn up the brightness on your monitor.

In general, it helps your party to have two or three crowd controls and two or three single-target controls. Taunt, courtesy of your tank, can count as a crowd control of sorts, and single-target controls can come with paralysis runes, traps, and certain poisons. Don't like paralysis, traps, or poisons? Fine; I rarely use them, as I play mage-heavy parties. Don't want a tank? Fine; you can get by without one. But your need for other controls then increases, so bear that in mind when reading the highly dubious ratings I've assigned.

The Mage Tree

, 4 of 5 stars

This line adds significantly to staff damage, worth considering for any party member who makes frequent use of the default attack (my builds of Wynne often fit this category, as I give her few active abilities beyond healing), and close-combat mages will want Arcane Shield.

Even otherwise, the line is worth considering. Arcane Mastery's +5 spellpower equals nearly two levels of attribute points in Magic, a bonus outdone only with the new spells from Awakening.

Arcane Bolt

 (required. 5/5 if you're a glass-half-full person, 1/5 if you hate being told what to do.) A decent damage dealer, and, along with Winter's Grasp, my most frequent single-target attack.

Arcane Shield

 4/5 if you use it; not essential for casters (as opposed to Arcane Warriors). Gains utility even for casters in Awakening, as discuseed in that section. Small fatigue cost.

Staff Focus

 4/5, respectable damage boost. I won't typically list combat numbers here, since those can be found in the Wiki, but a 33% increase helps for a frequently used ability.

Arcane Mastery

 4/5 Why not 5/5? If this were second in the line, fine. Whether it's worth three slots for a caster is up to you.

The Primal Tree

 5/5

Casters will want at least Fire or Cold from here, possibly both. The other two branches depend on playstyle, as I'll note.

The Fire Branch

 5/5

Flame Blast

 5/5. Highest damage cone. Good synergy with Cone of Cold, as it allows damage to the same targets held.

Flaming Weapons

 4/5 Best of the weapons spells for general use, but not essential.

Fireball 

5/5 Great opener, remains useful throughout the game.

Inferno 

4/5 High damage. Whether the big AoE spells are useful to you depends on play style. I tend not to use them, finding I can generally move faster without them, but they offer a chance for safe, tactical attacks, and many players love them. Inferno (and other large AoE spells) can be stacked in an area by Quick-Saving and reloading.

The Earth Branch

 2/5

Rock Armor

 2/5 A helpful addition for a mage in melee, but not so helpful that you, caster/not-AW, should be getting hit. That's Alistair's job.

Stonefist 

2/5 Fun for shattering, but that can be done without Talents.

Earthquake 

1/5 Immunity to the effect is common enough to reduce its utility. Weak damage.

Petrify 

3/5 Not a bad spell, but no better than other holds available earlier, in better lines.

The Ice Branch

 5/5

Great crowd control with a bit of damage.

Winter's Grasp

 5/5 While the freeze effect sees more resistance in later stages, the damage remains good, and at early levels, it's outstanding.

Frost Weapons

 3/5 Flaming Weapons is better except for the fire-resistant. Use this against demons and mattresses.

Cone of Cold

 5/5 The stun effect works on bosses better than any other hold (save the Paralysis Explosion combo) and it recharges quickly. Those of you returning from before Patch 1.02 will see its duration has been shortened, but the spell remains great.

Blizzard 

4/5 - As with Inferno, the utility of any big AoE spell depends on play style, but if you like it, this offers a good balance of control and damage.

The Lightning Branch

 3/5

This line is about the Storm of the Century combo. Yes, the spells are rarely resisted and they drain mana, but the damage is lower than the other lines.

Lightning 

2/5 If you get the line, this is a decent single-target attack while Winter's Grasp recharges (same damage as Arcane Bolt, shorter range).

Shock 

2/5 Weakest of the cone spells, but the Cone of Cold hold lasts long enough that you can cast Flame Blast, then Shock.

Tempest 

3/5 Rating this is hard, since its appeal is really in the Storm of the Century combo. It is worth it? If you like big AoE spells, sure. It does great damage and goes through walls, and you can move your party to safety while it wreaks havoc. But you can move as fast or faster with spells cast up close.

Chain Lightining

 1/5 Takes 2 seconds to cast, doesn't scale, and the damage is absorbed by armor. Looks cool, until you try it, the Mouse Trap Game of spells.

The Creation Tree

 4/5

Hard to rate this one, as it has both dogs and gems.

The Heal Branch

 4/5, for Heal alone

Heal 

5/5 Useful even if you go no further. Can be used to save NPC's, often helpful to have on more than one mage.

Rejuvenate 

3/5 Decent, but often unnecessary, or when needed, insufficient.

Regeneration 

3/5 Over-time delivery makes this less useful than Heal, but it is more efficient.

Mass Rejuvenation

 3/5 Even more limited use than Rejuvenate, though efficient if needed by more than one party member

The Haste Branch

3/5

Heroic Offense

 2/5 Most of your party members can hit without it

Heroic Aura

 2/5 for highly limited applications

Heroic Defense

 2/5 Would be useful with a longer duration

Haste 

4/5 It isn't perfect. It lowers melee attack value and ranged attack rate. Cost the equivalent of +3 regen to maintain. Leave it for Wynne. Then leave Wynne.

The Glyph Branch

 5/5

Again, play styles vary, as do needs. In my most recent playthrough, I used Glyphs nearly every battle for the first two-thirds of the game, then rarely as I built other spells. If you want them, they sure work.

Glyph of... Paralysis

 5/5 Works often, easier to obtain than Paralyze (though slower to recharge). Finishes the Paralysis Explosion combo, which is an instant-cast, no-resist, AoE hold.

...

Warding 

4/5 Useful when under ranged fire or bunched.

...

Repulsion 

5/5 Great in doorways and other choke points. Place this first for Paralysis Explosion, or skip the combo and let this last and last.

...

Neutralization 

4/5 A poor man's Mana Clash, if you want to skip the Mana line. Doesn't damage, and it can drain you if you walk into it, but it effectively muzzles enemy mages.

The Summoning Branch

2/5

I know, I know.. Spell Wisp increases Spell Might, and Spellbloom boosts mana regen. But...

Spell Wisp

 2/5 Takes 30 mana to sustain and gives a +6 bonus to spellpower. So allocate 6 points on magic and spent your talent point elsewhere. Yes, yes, you can chain buff to double its effectiveness, but really, don't you have darkspawn to kill?

Grease 

2/5 Other AoEs offer damage or full holds.

Spellbloom 

2/5 As with Rejuvenate, it can help, but it often falls under either unnecessary or insufficient.

Stinging Swarm

 3/5 Fun, and a fair mage-hassler, but underwhelming damage.

The Spirit Tree

4/5, but pick carefully

The Magic Branch

 1/5

Spell Shield 

1/5 Huge mana cost for little effect

Dispel Magic

 3/5 Best of the line, but obviated by Templars. You do like Templars, yes?

Anti-Magic Ward 

1/5 Ten seconds?

Anti-Magic Burst 

2/5. The Templar equivalent, too late.

The Mana Branch

4/5

I often skip this, which is all about Mana Clash, to make room elswhere, but most players love the line. Spell Might is a useful addition, but not a game-changer.

Mana Drain 

1/5 Not worth getting on its own, and outdone by Mana Clash

Mana Cleanse

 1/5 Are we there yet?

Spell Might

 3/5 Useful, but again, not so useful that it would be worth getting, even with Storm of the Century, if not for...

Mana Clash

 5/5 With this, you can hit a mage hard enough to make his ancestors wince. Is it worth it? Up to you.

The Bomb Branch

 4/5Playstyle preference again. I love this line. Even on Hard, I use Walking Bomb like crazy; my guys can take it. On Nightmare, the friendly fire damage makes me more cautious, but it's still great against archers.

Walking Bomb

 5/5 You can get just this, if you like. Explosion aside, also a fine boss-damage spell.

Death Syphon

 3/5 Limited effect, but useful.

Virulent Walking Bomb

 4/5 Dedicated bombers will want this. Good fun. Dangerous to your party on Hard and Nightmare.

Animate Dead 

4/5 See the guide and notes in the very first post above. This is a highly useful spell, even without Spell Might, if you like having a party pet, but not everyone does.

The Telekinetic Branch

 4/5, for the first one or two spells

If you read a spell guide written prior to Patch 1.02, it'll gush about this line. Since then, Force Field and especially Crushing Prison lost a lot of utility, though they still have their places.

Mind Blast 

4/5 Excellent spell for setting under Tactics and 'Surrounded By...'

Force Field

 3/5 A tank under Force Field no longer holds threat, but at least he or she is safe, and the spell works with fair frequency on bosses.

Telekinetic Weapons

 2/5 Good against armor. Turn it on for golems.

Crushing Prison

 3/5 Now more of a damage spell with a hold than the reverse. Often resisted.

The Entropy Tree

 3/5

The Debilitation Branch

 2/5

Weakness 

2/5 Decent, but like the rest of this line, outclassed by alternatives.

Paralyze 

3/5 A fine spell, but outdone by Glyph of Paralysis, except in cooldown time. Often resisted.

Miasma 

2/5 Useful for an Arcane Warrior, however.

Mass Paralysis

 2/5 Slow cast, short life.

Hexes 

5/5

Another playstyle preference. If you don't like them, I won't tell.

Vulnerability 

5/5 Use it early and often.

Affliction 

4/5 Great for clusters.

Misdirection 

4/5 An excellent defensive hex, even against bosses.

Death Hex

 4/5 Situational, and probably less useful than the first three, but still decent.

The Sleep Branch

4/5

The strength of this rating comes from the high utility of Sleep.

Disorient 

1/5 Take it off your quickbar before someone sees it.

Horror 

4/5 Fine on its own, great damage with Sleep.

Sleep 

5/5 A great opener. High effectiveness, good area, fast cast.

Waking Nightmare

 3/5 Not bad but entirely optional, either for topping Sleep or on its own. Much smaller area of effect than Sleep.

The Draining Branch

3/5

Drain Life

 4/5 Good damage, especially with Vulnerability Hex, and a fine place to put a spare point.

Death Magic

 3/5 As with Death Syphon, limited effect but still useful.

Curse of Mortalit

y 2/5 Yes, it hurts when its on you, but the effect is slow, and you kill faster than your enemies, don't you?

Death Cloud

 3/5 Not bad, but not worth the line unless you want the Entropic Death combo.

Power of Blood

(Warden's Keep DLC)

Dark Sustanance

 (required, and great!). Time-consuming, but welcome.

Bloody Grasp 

(required) Good single-target damage, great against darkspawn. Alistair would be happy to help you get rid of that pesky icon.

Specializations

Arcane Warrior: get the whole line, unless choosing the first only for the armor.

Shapeshifter: see the first post. If going this way, you need the whole line.

Spirit Healer: Group Heal is so good and so mana-efficient, it's perfectly viable to get just that first spell, and I often do. Utility builds, like I choose for Wynne, might want the full line.

Blood Mage: get the first three. The fourth is fine if you want a pet mixed with control, but I find I either don't want one or prefer the consistency of Animate Dead. Blood Wound, the third spell, is arguably the most effective spell in Origins: rarely resisted, fast-cast, large area, good damage, low cost. Don't make Jowan angry.

AWAKENING SPELLS

There aren't many guides to these for three reasons: Awakening came out a year after DAO and that's half a lifetime in game terms, respec'ing is easy (thanks to Herren's Manual of Focus), and the spells are so blindingly powerful that the choices matter less than they do in the original campaign. By the time you start, you can already kill everything you encounter, and by the time you end, you can... kill everything even faster.

Still, there are a few. 

Aura's nuking guide

 is quite good. I disagree on some choices - I like the Death line, Fire line, and Heal but I don't like the Earth line or Summoning line, and I doubt the worth of Crushing Prison - but it's still useful. Her thoughts on Keeper and Battlemage for AoE are spot-on.

For 

Anders and Velanna

, Bartlebyfinch has a good analysis.

For an AW, see 

Skimbass's guide 

or this 

favoring the Keeper specialization. 

THE SPELLS

The Attunement Tree

, 4 of 5 stars

Useful for any mage build.

Fade Shield

 If you use Arcane Shield often, 5/5: this adds 15% dodge and spell resistance, for relatively little fatigue. If you don't use Arcane Shield, this is of little value, though it gives enough of a boost to make situational use possible. Note that even caster builds may find themselves running into mobs more than usual, thanks the the excellent Hand of Winter and Keeper spells, so shields expand their value.

Elemental Mastery

 3/5 Adds 15% element damage. The cap in Awakening has been moved from 30% to 50%. 5/5 for distance casters.

Attunement 

5/5 +10 Magic & Will, +2 Mana regen. Far exceeds Arcane Mastery.

Time Spiral

 4/5 Another hard one to rate: stellar for players making use of a few spells with long cooldowns, epecially when mitigating its 120 mana cost with Blood Magic (an 'Improves Blood Magic' item helps greatly). But for others, the 3 min cooldown makes it highly situational.

The Field Tree

 3 of 5 stars

Decent spells, but high mana cost and outclassed by the alternatives.

Repulsion Field

 2/5 Drains 20 mana per knockback, which as the Wiki notes, comes in pulses that won't stop a stealthed attack. Can't be used with Arcane Field.

Invigorate

 3/5 - 20% Fatigue penalty cancelled by 20% bonus. Mana Regen penalty of 10%. 2 mages with this provide each other with a nice fatigue reduction, but the fatigue reduction cap remains at -25%.

Arcane Field

 3/5 Fine damage (roughly 60 Spirit dmg at 85 Spellpower. Efficient at 15 mana per). But the pulse is slow and distance casters get less from it than Arcane Warriors. Drains mana even when using Blood Magic.

Mystical Negation 

3/5 Costs 10% fatigue and the 5s cast means it's best up before a fight. Then it takes 30 mana per dispell, usually worthwhile. If it were earlier in the tree or in a stronger line, 4/5.

The Battlemage Tre

e

 5/5

The first three spells are great for any mage, casters and Arcane Warriors alike.

Draining Aura 

3/5. 4/5 for an Arcane Warrior, 3/5 for a close-combat caster or a Keeper with One with Nature), 2/5 for a distance caster. Popular, and high damage, but it drains a significant 30 mana per target with each pulse, even with Blood Magic on. Does roughly 80 Spirit Damage per 90 Spellpower every 5 secs.

Hand of Winter

 5/5 like Cone of Cold, with a burst pattern that does more damage and only to enemies.

Stoic

 5/5 50% of damage taken becomes mana. All passive bonuses are nice, so in evaluating them, it's not enough to simply say 'Everyone loves more health/mana/damage/cake/whatever.' The degree of the bonus matters, and this is significant.

Elemental Chaos

4/5. Powerful, if costly. 10% Fatigue, 140 upkeep, -20 Mana Regen means a heavy cost. Does 40 damage/ 2 sec tick at 120 Spellpower. Again, a great spell for a close-combat mage or Arcane Warrior, less so for a distance caster. Roughly the same DoT as Draining Aura and a bit more mana efficient, but for a single tick, Draining Aura does more.

The Keeper Tree

5/5

Exceptionally powerful.

One With Nature

 3/5. Not much on its own - 15ish nature damage at 80 spellpower - but enables the excellent other abilities.

Thornblades

 5/5 Great damage (170ish at 80 spellpower) goes through armor, useful knockback.

Replenishment

4/5, 5/5 with Blood Magic, which gets 90% of the bonus. The 20% return on Keeper damage is significant, thanks to the huge damage of the other Keeper spells, and the Health regen of +20 takes you up to the cap. Compared with Death Magic, the health returned is lower, but the regen rate is a great boost.

Nature's Vengeance

5/5 Roughly twice the damage of Thornblades, at not quite twice the mana. Insane.

A Highly Unscientific Field Test

     Skip to the end if you just want the conclusion.

I cleared the dungeon room in Vigil's Keep a few times each with the various new Awakening spells, then did the same in a later room of Childer Grubs.

Using Repulsion Field and Draining Aura emptied my mana before either fight was done. That was true of Repulsion Field and two casts of Hand of Winter (but no Draining Aura), but simply two casts of HoW alone was enough to kill the skellys, leaving half my mana (with Time Spiral to speed things up).

Using Draining Aura and Hand of Winter (but not Repulsion Field) killed all the skellys, with very little mana remaining. 5 seconds. Using Draining Aura against the Grubs, I ran out of mana before the fight was done, whether or not I used Spell Might.

I killed all the Grubs using just Elemental Chaos. At roughly 100 spellpower, Elemental Chaos did about 35 pts every 2 secs, while Draining Aura did roughly 90 every 5: roughly the same. However, Elemental Chaos left me with about a quarter of my mana left.

With no sustainables on, I cleared the room in half a dozen casts, using Cone of Cold, Walking Bomb, Hand of Winter, and Flame Blast, plus two staff attacks. Three-quarters of my mana left, 15 seconds.

With Elemental Mastery on and the same approach, it took 10 seconds - saving the staff attacks - and used half my mana.

There is a lot of conflicting information and advice out there about how to get the most out of your Arcane Warrior. After having finished the game with 2 different Arcane Warriors, 2 different mages, a two-handed warrior and a dual wielding rogue I’d like to add my own 2 cents. 

(Yes, I have way too much free time on my hands currently.) 

This guide will cover everything you need to know, what spells to pick, which quests not to miss, which equipment you should consider and more! This guide assumes you do not use mods which let you use all your spells without sheathing your weapons, nor do you use the weapon set swap exploit to get around this. The reasoning behind this is that Bioware did make two kinds of spells for a reason, playing around that is lame. I also assume that you play on Hard or Nightmare for a challenge. 

1.0 Why Arcane Warrior?

For me, the Mage class is by far the most fun class in the game. You have the widest variety of talents to choose from, far more than the Rogue or Warrior classes. Arcane Warrior adds to this flexibility by also giving you the option of becoming a tank or negating the squishiness of your caster. The downside is that you really need to think about your character beforehand and if you build it well the game becomes much easier, taking away some of the challenge.

2.0 Plan ahead

There are two different styles of Arcane Warriors. The first is a tanking mage, sort of like the Kensai/Mage from BG2, the second is a mage that can equip a much wider variety of items but still uses spells for damage. The first one is often talked about while the second one is relatively obscure. Choosing between these two styles should be your first step as everything else will depend on it.

2.1 The Arcane Warrior tank

This character uses a sword and shield setup with mana regeneration gear to get the most out of sustainable spells that augment his combat prowess. This character will need roughly thirty natural dexterity to get a good hit rate, but more on that later. Casting regular spells is not your main forte because you’ll suffer roughly 90% fatigue with your sustained spells up and these also reduce your available mana and some will even drain mana. This means that casting is usually limited to no more than 1-3 spells per fight. A way around this is to opt for Blood Mage as your second specialization but even then you’ll find that the best non-sustainables are mostly sheathe weapon spells which aren’t practical during combat. 

2.2 The Arcane Warrior caster

Another approach is to keep using a staff to boost your spellpower and for auto attacks but at the same time equip some items with a high strength requirement to gain their unique bonuses or become sturdier. To do this you don’t need to have combat magic active and so you won’t suffer the 50% fatigue a tanking AW will. In my opinion, every regular mage should choose Arcane Warrior as their second specialization because most of the Mage-only gear in this game is sub-par. 

3.0 Starting the Game

So by now you’ve roughly decided what you want to become and it’s time to start a character. 

[i]

A. Gender

This is mostly aesthetic but has some ramifications in the romance department. If you want to romance a specific NPC choose the gender you need. If not, I recommend going with a female PC because mage robes look much better on them and IMO the best chest piece in the game is a robe. Another thing to note is that you will probably be an elf and thus have a smaller body than most others; this fits females better as well. 

B. Race

From a role-playing as well as a power gaming perspective elf is obviously the best choice because Arcane Warriors were elves and both racial bonuses are to important mage stats. If you do not want to be an elf the only other option is human which is not bad for a tank AW because humans are larger and the +1 Dex and +1 Str are useful.

C. Ability point allocation

In general all mages need maxed magic and nothing else. The exception is an AW tank which will need some dexterity and possibly willpower as well. However, as you only need dexterity when you start swinging a sword you should wait putting points into it until then. I know some people disagree with the statement that you should go with an all magic build and say that you should put points in willpower and/or constitution too but except in some specific cases this is misguided advice. Why?

*You get extra health and mana every time you level up, meaning that each time you level you get a hidden +1 boost to willpower and constitution. (Approximately) 

*Willpower and constitution can both be boosted tremendously with the right gear, magic on the other hand cannot. 

*Every offensive spell you cast is harder to resist and does more damage based on your magic score. (Actually it is spellpower but the only stat that boosts this is magic.)

*For AW tanks more magic means more damage and a slight bonus to attack. 

D. Skills

Starting the game you get the first rank of Herbalism for free which is all you’ll ever need if you have an NPC get 4 ranks. At level 1 I would go with either stealing or coercion as money is sparse in the beginning. You’ll eventually want to aim for 4 ranks of Coercion, 4 ranks of Combat Training and 1 rank of stealing, the rest is optional. Now, why these skills? 

Coercion will allow you to get more gold (I’m talking well over a 100 sovereigns here) and more Xp so it is a no-brainer. Combat Training will let you hit more often, regenerate more mana and make it less likely for hits to disrupt your casting. One rank of stealing will spawn Slim Couldry when you go to Denerim; he has 8 very profitable and fun sidequest that will also yield a lot of Xp. Make sure to tell him you are interested in both stealing and sneaking the first time you talk to him though! 

E. Spells (Talents)

This is where it gets tough and controversial as there are so many different spells and sheathing becomes a factor. (Meaning you have to first put your sword away which takes about 2 seconds before your begin casting the spell, this may not sound terrible but it sure is.) You’ll get the first spell in the mage tree, arcane bolt, for free plus 2 other picks of your choice. If you reach level 25 and get all possible tomes in the game you can have a maximum of 35 spell picks, 1 of which must be Arcane Bolt, so plan ahead! For mages that plan to become caster Arcane Warriors  I recommend picking Winter’s Grasp and Flame Blast and working towards Fireball and Cone of Cold as soon as possible. (In that order.) For those who plan on becoming a tank mage this isn’t such a good plan because all of these spells require you to sheathe your sword. I would surely pick Glyph of Paralysis but pick no.2 depends on what tree you aim to develop first. (There are multiple options that are all useful.) 

4.0 Extensive Spell Guide

There are 86 talents associated with spellcasting; the sheer number of them makes it clear that this will be the main part of this guide as well as your character. To make this section more readable and somewhat manageable I will first comment on each group of spells as a whole, (tree) then break it down into the respective talent branches as well as point out the best and worst spells per branch.

A. The Mage Tree

Rating: 5.0

If you plan on using a staff for attacks get all four spells in this branch. Staff Focus adds roughly 15-20 damage per shot which is great and Arcane Mastery gives a passive +5 bonus to spellpower which is close to two level ups worth of points spend on magic. For close combat Arcane Warriors I would go no further then Arcane Shield.

B. The Arcane Warrior Tree

Rating: 5.0

If you only use a staff and cast spells, one rank is enough to be able to equip the good loot. (Sort of like Use Any Item from Throne of Bhaal) Otherwise, get all 4 ranks. 

The only spell that needs some special attention here is Shimmering Shield. As long as you keep this on you are close to invincible, however there are still some attacks that will hurt you badly, such as special attacks by ogres. Also watch out for archers and especially their special shots. The shield also only blocks the damage component of most spells, not their possible other (disabling) effects. And even though your Mental and Physical resistances are set to 100 I found that the special attacks by Sword&Shield warriors will still stun you. A huge blessing is that overwhelm no longer damages you at all. Most important of note is that Shimmering Shield will drain your mana and do so quite fast. Example: my last Arcane Warrior tank had +4 mana regeneration from items and after maybe 30 seconds of fighting her mana was down to next to zero. However, SS never switches off for her because once your mana pool gets very low your mana regeneration rate increases a lot so she was able to keep the shield up at all times. If she wanted to cast a spell in the later stages of a fight she had to quaff a potion or turn on Blood Magic though, so keep that in mind.

C. The Primal Tree

This is where it’s at if you do not need to be concerned about casting with your sword drawn. Otherwise, stay away. This tree has the best damage dealing spells as well as some of the best crowd control. Best of all, and rather uniquely, it has spells that are both at the same time. 

The Fire Branch

Rating: 5.0

Sadly, we start of with one of the best branches in the game. (The rest will have a hard time keeping up.) Here we find the most damaging area of effect spell (AoE) in Inferno, the most damaging weapon boost in Flaming Weapons and the tremendously useful Fireball which can be seen as a poor man’s Blood Wound. You might look at the ice or lightning trees and not see much difference at first glance but what makes fire that much more powerful is that the base damage is much higher and the enemies continue to burn after they leave the AoE. Even Flame Blast is occasionally handy, especially after you’ve got the targeting of Cone shaped spells down. 

The Earth Branch

Rating 2.0

This one is at best mediocre. Stonefist shattering and Petrify don’t work on most bosses and even though neither of them is bad you have to get Earthquake before Petrify and let me tell you; bad spell is bad. It deals no damage and enemies will often resist the knockdown while your own party won’t. Rock Armor is a must have for Arcane Warriors with a sword though!

The Ice Branch

Rating: 5.0

In the same way as fire this branch has good damage and crowd control combined into its spells, although the crowd control element is much stronger and the damage much weaker then fire's. Basically Winter’s Grasp is single target damage+stun, Cone of Cold is close by group damage+stun and Blizzard is long range group damage+stun. What makes Cone of Cold amazing is that even bosses don’t resist the freeze often and the cool down is quite short. Frost weapons is inferior to Flaming Weapons except when enemies are resistant to fire or if you don’t have Flaming Weapons. (Duh)

The Lightning Branch

Rating: 3.0

Lightning has a few things going for it; the damage drains stamina and not many enemies are resistant to it, sadly though this branch lacks any sort of crowd control, making it inferior to both the fire and ice branches. Chain Lightning is also utter garbage because it has a casting time and the damage doesn’t scale with level and is absorbed by armor. If you want to go with lightning anyway I would only go as far as Tempest and get Spell Might and Blizzard too for the fun overkill Storm of the Century combo.

D. The Creation Tree

This tree has some of the worst and best spells in the game. They are all utility/defensive and there is no damage to be found here. Most of them can be cast with your weapon drawn so it is attractive to tanking Arcane Warriors. 

The Heal Branch

Rating: 3.0

All of these spells have their uses and if you want to be a support type character I would recommend them. You won’t really need them for yourself though because with a high magic score pots are more effective. Wynne has this branch mostly maxed out when you meet her, reducing the necessity to get it. Note that Rejuvenate can’t be cast on yourself. 

The Haste Branch

Rating: 3.0

Haste itself is very good, the increased movement speed is a godsend to out-maneuver foes and to shorten walk time between fights. The attack speed boost is a double edged sword, for melee fighters it increases the attack rate at the cost of lowering the attack value by 5, for bow and staff attacks haste actually decreases attack rate! As an Arcane Warrior wielding a sword this spell looks appealing but you need +3 stamina/mana regeneration to offset the drain during combat and this only works at next to zero mana. The same is true for Shimmering Shield and therefore keeping both up for entire fights is only possible with a dedicated build such as my Paladin one below. Unfortunately, the 3 Aura spells that come before haste are crap because the duration is terrible and two of them are sheathe weapons. Wynne has this branch pretty far developed so usually it’s best to just have her cast it. However, haste stacks with itself so if both you and Wynne have it up you’ll get double the walking and attack speed which is incredibly good. (And also decreases your attack by -10) Note that double haste doesn’t stack with swift salve.

The Glyph Branch

Rating: 5.0 

I was tempted to cheat my own rating system and give a 6.0 so that should tell you something about how nice these spells are. Glyph of Paralysis is a tier 1, no line of sight required, weapons drawn paralyze effect that usually works and is involved in the best spell combo in the game… within its own branch! If you first cast a Glyph of Repulsion and then a Glyph of Paralysis on top of it you get a Paralysis Explosion that is everything Mass Paralysis whishes it could be. The paralysis is impossible to resist, requires no line of sight, has no casting time bar, no projectile and lasts long, even on Hard and Nightmare. Glyph of Repulsion is also super handy to block off doors and corridors to cast AoE damage on the other side. Glyph of Warding is nice if you are being hammered by archers. Glyph of Neutralization is only worth it if you don’t have Mana Clash.

The Spellbloom Branch

Rating: 2.0

Spell Wisp is good for caster Arcane Warriors with maxed magic, and Grease is an option (I wouldn’t suggest) if you want to get even more out of your fire branch. The rest is garbage; Spell Bloom should have been sustained to make it good and Stinging Swarm is a tier 4 spell that requires crappy spells to get and even then it does only moderate damage.  

E. The Spirit Tree

Spirit is very hit and miss, although there’s not much you can go wrong with if you ignore the first branch, and there are quite a few notables. I would classify it as a buff/debuff tree that lets you have more control over the way battles evolve. It is also the best place to look for ways to deal with those pesky casters. 

The Magic Branch

Rating:1.0

Not a bad branch on paper but completely outclassed by taking the next branch and/or taking a Templar along. If you can’t get either it is probably worth getting, up until Dispel Magic anyway because that’s the most useful one. If you think Spell Shield is a good way to get spell resistance think again, it drains 110% mana where 100% is the cost of the resisted spell and you can get 60-70% spell resistance from items easily anyway.

The Mana Branch

Rating: 4.0

Mana Clash is uber, it allows you to one-shot kill all mages in the game except for bosses. To reduce the chance of it getting resisted turn Spell Might on beforehand. Speaking of Spell Might, this is also a good spell if you have a high spellpower and it is involved in the Storm of the Century and Advanced Reanimation Combos. Sadly though, the first two spells are nothing special.

The Bomb Branch

Rating: 3.0

Hehehe.. fun! Is it also good? I’d say if you’re a tanking Arcane Warrior then yes, otherwise don’t bother. For Arcane Warriors that tank it can be handy sometimes to turn Death Syphon on when swarmed by weak enemies.

Virulent Walking Bomb is one of the few damaging spells that can be cast with your weapons out and with Shimmering Shield up you are better at taking any collateral damage. It also works well with Glyph of Repulsion or any other CC that you can cast during combat. I’ve never tried the Skeleton but I’m sure it has its uses, especially when soloing. 

The Telekinetic Branch

Rating: 5.0

A lot of people consider this the best branch in the game but I don’t agree. It is very strong but it is less strong on high difficulty and for me it also got less vital as I got better at the game. Still, I do recommend it, just don’t expect the miracles some folks preach. Mind Blast is a must-have for caster-type Arcane Warriors to get away from swarming and to lower hostility. If you use a sword then there’s an upside and a downside; you’ll be standing amidst the enemies anyway but have to sheathe weapons first. Forcefield is ace, instant-cast, works on everything and you can even use it defensively if you don’t mind exploiting the AI. Telekinetic Weapons is a niche spell for heavy armor foes. Crushing Prison is vastly overrated. Bosses resist the stun and the damage is only mediocre, it is good to have and can be cast with weapons drawn but don’t expect it to make the game easy. Note that combining Crushing Prison and Forcefield on the same enemy will result in the useless ‘Shockwave’ combo which destroys both spells so try to avoid doing that.

F. The Entropy Tree

There’s a few gems to be found here, especially for Sword wielding folks. The best buffs and debuffs can be found here as well as some strong crowd control and interesting combo’s. 

The Paralysis Branch

Rating: 3.0 (For Miasma alone)

The worth of this branch depends solely on Miasma. If you want to go for melee you absolutely have to have it, if not, the whole Branch is garbage. Glyph of Paralysis badly outclasses Paralyze. (Projectile, Line of Sight, Tier2 and no combos) Mass Paralysis is garbage as it also requires line of sight, sheathed weapons, has a projectile and a casting bar, a short duration and no combo potential. 

The Hex Branch

Rating: 4.0

This game lacks spells that do massive damage to single targets. However, by combining damaging spells with Hexes it is possible to at least approximate this. Vulnerability, Affliction and Death Hex all fall into this category and for that reason alone are very useful. Misdirection Hex is like a Forcefield that allows you to still damage the enemy afflicted by it, very handy! A warning though; hexes draw a lot of hate to your character and thus are more suitable to Sword&Shield Arcane Warriors. The first and last hex can’t be casted with your sword out though.

The Sleep Branch

Rating: 3.0

Horror and Sleep are decent enough and combine for 200 or so damage on a single target. Disorient is crap and Waking Nightmare comes down to personal preference. All spells require sheathed weapons.

The Death Branch

Rating: 3.0

Drain Life is very good because the damage part is instant-cast and you can combine it with Vulnerability Hex to make the damage reasonable. The downside being that it’s a sheathed weapons spell.  Death Magic is like Death Syphon in that it can occasionally be handy for melee oriented Arcane Warriors. Curse of Mortality is jank and Death Cloud is only worth it if you’re going for the Entropic Death combo with Death Hex.

5.0 Your Second Specialization

There are 3 options to choose from of which one isn’t an option, (Shapeshifter) so that leaves either Spirit Healer or Blood Mage as the best choices. I’ll comment on each.

A. Spirit Healer 

For a tanking Arcane Warrior this specialization offers the best possible passive bonuses; +2 magic and minor health regeneration. It also has the best healing spell available (Group Heal) as first pick. Sadly the other spells are borderline useless; Revive only works when the fight is going badly anyway, Lifeward is like a worse Regeneration and Cleansing Aura drains mana which is a hefty toll. In short I would only go for Spirit Healer if you want to make a Paladin; a character that can take a huge beating but is also busy buffing, healing and reviving comrades. (More on that below.)

B. Blood Mage

The Blood Mage is a natural fit to the Sword&Shield Arcane Warrior’s strengths and weaknesses. You are very hard to damage so casting from health makes sense, furthermore you use sustained spells that lower your available mana, apply penalties to fatigue and even slowly drain mana away. The most important benefit is that casting from health lowers the cost of every spell by 20% and if you have the Blood Ring equipped this becomes 40%, a nice way to offset those fatigue penalties! Oh, and did I mention the spell? You know... Blood Wound! It

is like Crushing Prison, except slightly harder to resist and it effects all enemies in a huge AoE! Blood Sacrifice is occasionally handy but you have to get it for Blood Wound anyway. Blood Control is for those who enjoy charming enemies; I myself don’t so I never get it. All Blood Mage spells can be cast with weapons out btw.

For spell slinging Arcane Warriors the Blood Mage specialization is probably the best too because Blood Wound is very good in conjunction with any massive AoE damage spell like Inferno. If you can keep coming up with fodder to use for Blood Sacrifice you can also eliminate the constant lyrium potion quaffing to spam more spells. The best way to do this is to take a ranger with an upgraded bear pet along. It has 500 hit points so you can pretty much drain it all day long. The life drinker amulet can only be equipped by Blood Mages and is worth considering for a high spellpower build.

6.0 Three Specific Builds

I’m going to provide you with three quite different builds to demonstrate how you can get the most out of the focus you have chosen for your character. I’m also going to assume that you have, or are willing to get, easily accessible downloadable content and play at hard or nightmare difficulty. Both melee builds use a Sword&Shield setup, why sword and shield and not dual weapon or two-handed you might ask? Well, dual wielding without the talents is kind of unimpressive and two-handed weapons are too slow for a character that isn’t guaranteed to hit with them. Luckily, there are some really good shields in the game and the best sword for an Arcane Warrior is one handed anyway. Archers are quite a threat to you so that missile deflection bonus a shield provides is great too! 

What I try to accomplish by suggesting these builds is to give a sense of where you can take your Arcane Warrior, how you fill in the details and which spells you choose is up to you, so except for the most important sustained spells I won’t go into that at all.

The equipment I recommend was chosen according to these criteria:

-Items that give +X to all abilities, because all abilities but cunning are very important to you.

-Items that give a dodge bonus and/or a chance to avoid missiles.

-Items that give spell resistance, because you don’t want to have your sustained spells dispelled.

-Items that give a major boost to Magic, Willpower or Constitution because these are your prime stats.

-Items that give a bonus to attack.

A. Spellsword

This is my favorite melee build and is similar to how you play this type of character in D&D games. This character is hard to hit, be it with magic, arrows or melee attacks. However, when hit the damage sustained is relatively high. Equipping a staff in the second slot and opting to go caster only for some fights is perfectly viable for this character, making it the most flexible of the three. (Note that wearing a robe and a helmet looks like crap so get the no helmet hack.)

Female Elven Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage

30 natural dexterity (including Fade and AW bonus)

All other points go into magic.

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Combat Magic, Shimmering Shield and Miasma.

Equipment:

*Sword: Spellweaver with Grandmaster paralyze and Grandmaster Dweomer runes.

*Shield: Fade Wall

*Weapon set no.2: Staff of the Magister Lord

*Head: Helm of Honneleath

*Neck: The Spellward

*Chest: Reaper’s Vestments

*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing

*Wrists: Gloves of the Legion

*Hands: Lifegiver with Key to the City (Swap Key to the City with Blood Ring for heavy casting.)

*Feet: Cailan’s Greaves

This setup offers you: 

6 Strength = +3 attack

6 Dexterity = +3 attack and +6 defense

11 Willpower + 25 mana = 80 mana

11 Magic = 11 spellpower, more melee damage, minor to hit bonus

22 Constitution = 110 health 

+40% chance to dodge attacks 

70% magic resistance

24 armor at a very low fatigue cost

+4 Mana Regeneration 

Big health regeneration

Tactics:

Grabbing some aggro is uasally fine for the Spellsword but you can still be torn apart by mobs and high damage special attacks so it's not always best to use this character as your main tank or grap a lot of aggro with spells. You are very well suited to starting fights as an offensive caster and switching to melee later on. Enemy mages don't stand a chance against the Spellword, because she can use her high power Mana Clash to deal with non-boss casters and hack the bosses to pieces in Melee because of high alround resistances. 

Party:

The spellsword is so flexible and versatile that I would highly recommend it for soloing. Still, most people use a party of four so here's some advice on that. Taking a regular tank along such as Alistair would be handy. A two-Hander would also work because you would have less trouble versus special attack bosses such as dragons because of Indomitable. Having Leliana along as an Archer Ranger/Bard build is also recommened for pet sacrificing and ranged spike damage. Morrigan as a true caster would give you a lot of mage power if you'd like to have that.

B. Paladin

An alternative to the Spellsword is this character which focuses more on tanking by using heavier armor and utilizes a larger mana pool for healing and buffing himself and his friends. This character also gets a bigger bonus to mana regeneration from equipment and so can choose to have another sustained spell that drains mana active at all times. 

Male Human Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer

30 natural dexterity (including Fade and AW bonus, add 5 points if Haste is frequently used) 

35-40 natural willpower (including Fade bonus)

All other points into Magic

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield, Rock Armor, Shimmering Shield, Miasma and Haste or Cleansing Aura.

Equipment:

*Sword: Maric's Blade with Grandmaster Paralyze, Grandmaster Lightning and Grandmaster Fire runes.

*Shield: Cailan's Shield

*Weapon set no.2: Spellweaver with Grandmaster Dweomer and Master Dweomer runes and Fade Wall for fighting Casters. 

*Head: Bergen’s Honor (Substitute with Helm of Honneleath if not available.)

*Neck: The Spellward

*Chest: Evon the Great’s Mail (this armor counts as Wade’s superior dragonscale armor if equipped with the rest of the set.)

*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing

*Wrists: Wade’s superior dragonscale gloves

*Hands: Lifegiver with Key to the City 

*Feet: Wade’s superior dragonscale boots

 This setup offers you: 

4 Strength = +2 to hit bonus

4 Dexterity = +2 to hit bonus and 4 defense

9 Willpower  = 45 mana

4 Magic = 4 spellpower, more melee damage, slight to hit bonus

14 Constitution = 70 health 

+20% chance to dodge attacks 

+34% magic resistance (62% magic resistance if weapon set no.2 is held)

35 armor at a very low fatigue cost

+9.75 (!) Mana Regeneration

Big health regeneration

Tactics:

The Paladin is a support character but not one that likes to stay back or hide. The support it provides comes from both being a damage soaker and healer/buffer at the same time. What you want to do during battles is grab aggro with spells like Crushing Prison, any Hexes, Cleansing Aura or Virulent Bomb so monsters will mostly ignore your other casters and rogues. Mass rejuvenate and Group Heal are some of your best spells to keep yourself and your friends alive. Keep in mind that a short while after casting Mass Rejuvenate you will actually have more mana than before casting it, this will be very handy to minimize the need for mana potion chaining. 

Your sustained spells are your main forte, you can run more than any other build and they improve your own combat prowess as wel as those of your team. A party supported by Miasma, Haste and Cleansing Aura is truly a force to be reckoned with. 

Party:

Haste and Cleansing Aura are best suited to support melee attackers and preferably ones with a slow attack. Either Oghren or Sten will get a huge boost out of Haste and your ability to draw aggro off of them. Alistair as a Sword & Shield warrior is a good choice if you want another tank that stays alive, and you can boost his moderate damage output a lot. Leliana as an archer won't work if you go for Haste so have her dual wield or take Zevran, but make sure to have a Bard in your team because their songs can negate the attack penalty from Haste. As for mages, anyone will do fine but it might be fun overkill to build Wynne in much the same way as your own char for double Haste. 

C. Nuker

The third path focuses on spellcasting and never wades into melee, opting to use the Arcane Warrior only to equip better gear. You won’t be as flexible as either of the above builds but what you get in return is raw power. You are frail as a puppy so use your spells to keep the bad guys away.

Female Elven Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage

All points into Magic

Often used sustained spells: Arcane Shield and Blood Magic.

Equipment:

*Staff: Staff of the Magister Lords

*Weapon set no.2: Magister's Staff (Does fire damage, for when the enemy is immune to cold damage.)

*Head: Helm of Honneleath

*Neck: The Spellward (or Lifedrinker if you are really spellpower hungry.)

*Chest: Reaper’s Vestments

*Waist: Andruil’s Blessing

*Wrists: +20% damage gloves, type of your choice

*Hands: Lifegiver with Blood Ring

*Feet: Warden Commander’s Boots (Get them early and do not upgrade as the extra fatigue isn’t worth it.)

This setup offers you:

4 dexterity = 4 defense

15 willpower + 50 mana = 125 mana

4 magic + 13 spellpower = 17 spellpower

20 constitution = 100 health

20% chance to dodge attacks

+46% magic resistance

22 armor at a very low fatigue cost

+4 mana regeneration

Big health regeneration

Tactics:

Glyphs are your best way to avoid getting hit and making sure the enemy takes big damage from your spells. Make heavy use of Paralysis Explosion and use glyph of Repulsion/Warding on yourself to avoid melee and missile attacks. Make use of the fact that some spells do not require a line of sight to start fights from a safe distance. Optimize use of bloodmagic's short cooldown timer by chaining a series of spells from health, turning of Bloodmagic and drinking a health pot or healing yourself, then start chaining spells from mana and when the timer reloads immidiately turn Bloodmagic on again for another chain.

Party:

You want avoid direct attacks so be careful with using spells that grab aggro and take fighters along to keep aggro off you. If you only want a single fighter take a tank because when your melee fighter goes down, you'll go down too. Caster mages are very micro management heavy so I recommend a rogue archer (instead of a backstabber) to avoid a micro management nightmare. Once again, Leliana as an archer Ranger/Bard is probably best. 

6.0 Relevant Quests

Warning: Spoiler Heavy!

A. Ostagar

Buy a backpack from the quartermaster both before and after you head into the wilds, they are dirt cheap and will save you some annoyances.

B. Camp

Be sure to save up all the money you can get before you leave Lothering and go to camp the first time. Thirty sovereigns is what I’d aim for but 22,5 is the minimum. Buy the Tome of Arcane Knowledge and, if you feel like it, backpack from the dwarves at camp. When you return later on, anything that you bought will respawn.

C. Connor’s Fade

Talk to the Demon instead of attacking her, first ask for arcane knowledge to unlock the Blood Mage specialization, after you have it (or on later playtroughs) ask for an increase in talents to get a spell tome. 

D. The 

Circle

 Tower

We Arcane Warriors need every single ability point we can get because they’re all useful, especially so if you use a sword. So write down your stats before entering the fade and check to see if you got all the upgrades before leaving.

E. Warden’s Keep 

This is the only place where you can get a good shield right of the bat. Unfortunately it takes killing Sophia roughly 100 times to get it to drop if you aren’t lucky or unlucky. The armor set she drops is also very handy for the first part of the game and for low strength characters. If you don’t need it for either of that it can even be sold at a merchant and bought back after leaving the area to upgrade the set to a higher tier material. (But the fatigue will increase as well!)

F. Return to Ostagar

I know for sure that Cailan’s Armor set is scalable by selling so it would make sense that if you go here early you get Greaves that have a low fatigue penalty. I haven’t tested this yet though. Note that you can get a very good sword and very good boots here so equipment wise it's probably worth buying. 

7.0 Useful links

To see which spells require weapon sheathing to cast go to http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Arcane_Warrior_Spellcasting

To get rid of helmets visit http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=202 and install the mod.

If you want to look at a particular item in the game or maybe even all items Gamebanshee has a very nice database: http://www.gamebanshee.com/dragonageorigins/equipment.php

8.0 Missing Info

Here I will post updated requests for help with completing this guide.

Currently I'd like to know:

-The amount of mana drained per second by Haste, Shimmering Shield and Cleansing Aura.

-Confirmation on which versions of Dragon Age have Duncan's Sword as +4 mana regeneration.

-Why you still get stunned by shield pummels with 100% mental and physical resist.

9.0 Conclusion

This guide was made as an attempt to collect the various data floating around the internet on Arcane Warriors and make it available in one place. It is also heavily influenced by my own experiences while playing Dragon Age. Ofcourse the guide is at this point no way complete but I'm hoping others will fill in the gaps so please comment, disagree, agree and expand on what I have so far. (The name of the topic is rather obnoxious but that's all just marketing. I hope it was at least a somewhat enjoyable or enlightening read. 

Rogue mechanics explained

 I tend to play rogues in every game that lets me, and DA is no exception. But like many others I was disappointed at the lack of documentation about stealing, lockpicking, and other gameplay mechanics. So I looked through the code and game files using the toolset to figure them out. Here are the results.

I posted most of this stuff at one point or another in the old forums, but since that forum is gone and not archived despite official statements to the contrary, I figured it'd be nice to have it all in one place here. All the info here is for the PC version; I can't promise it's the same on consoles.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: Stealth

II: Stealing

III: Lockpicking

IV: Traps

V: Coercion

I: STEALTH

This information comes from skill_stealth.nss, sys_stealth_h.nss, and rules_core.nss.

Your success at entering stealth seems to be deterministic (i.e. not random) and obeys a simple algorithm. Consult the following table to see whether fortune smiles upon you today:

http://i46.tinypic.com/10r7rwi.jpg

For clarity's sake, I'll also write out the algorithm below. Go through the steps below 

in order

 to figure out whether you can stealth or not:

Step 1: Am I in combat? If not, SUCCESS.

Step 2: Are there no enemies within 20m? If not, SUCCESS.

Step 3: Do I have Combat Stealth? If not, FAIL.

Step 4: Is my stealth rank greater than the rank of the highest ranked creature within perception range? If not, FAIL.

Step 5: SUCCESS

"Stealth rank" is the number of points you have in the stealth tree. Combat Stealth is rank 3 and Master Stealth is rank 4. For stealth purposes, "Creature rank" is 1 for whites, 2 for yellows, 3 for bosses, and 4 for 1337 bosses. 

Notice that cunning appears to play no part in determining whether you can enter stealth or not.

What happens if you get damaged while stealthed (e.g. by a trap)? If you only have stealth rank 1 or 2, you automatically break stealth. If you have stealth rank 3, you have a 0.01 * [player level] chance of staying stealthed (e.g. a level 18 rogue has an 18% chance). If you have stealth rank 4, you have a 0.02 * [player level] chance of staying stealthed (e.g. a level 18 rogue has a 36% chance). 

I haven't been able to figure out what is your chance of staying cloaked while laying traps. This seems to be nondeterministic; sometimes it fails, but when I reload and try again it works. It's possible that this chance is affected by cunning, but I can't find the code anywhere.

II: STEALING

This information comes from skill_stealing.nss.

When attempting to steal, the game calculates a thief score (T) and a victim score (V) and compares the two. If T > V, the attempt is a success; otherwise it's a failure. The thief score depends on the player's cunning, ranks in Stealing, and his ranks in Stealth (if he is stealthed). The victim score depends on the victim's mental resistance, rank, whether or not either actor is in combat, and the difference between the thief's level and the victim's level.

The formula for thief score is:

T = (cunning - 10) + 5 * [ranks in stealing] + 5 * [points in stealth if stealthed]

As you can see, each point in Stealing or Stealth is worth 5 points in cunning. One point in Stealth is worth a rank in Stealing if (but only if) you attempt to steal while stealthed. If you're not stealthed, obviously, your points in Stealth don't contribute to your thief score. Be warned that attempting to steal will break your stealth, even if you're succcesful. Further, you need Stealing IV to attempt to steal in combat.

Oh, one more thing: T is randomized to within 80-120% of the value above before being compared to V. That's why stealing is non-deterministic.

The formula for victim score is:

V = [mental resistance] + [creature rank bonus] + 2 * [victim's level - thief level (this can be negative)] + 10 (if thief or victim are in combat)

The rank bonus is 0-5 for white creatures, 10 for yellows, 20 for bosses, and 40 for elite bosses.

AN EXAMPLE

Let's go through an example to see how this works in practice. Suppose we are a level 12 model citizen trying to steal from a level 10 yellow NPC with 20 mental resistance outside combat. The victim's score is:

V = 20 + 10 + 2 * (10-12) = 26

In order to guarantee success, we would need a thief score of 27 / 0.8 = 34 (rounded up to the nearest integer). How can we obtain a T of 34? There are many ways:

* Stealing I, cunning 39

* Stealing I, Stealth I, cunning 34

* Stealing I, Stealth III, cunning 24

* Stealing IV, cunning 24

Etc. You can run through some hypotheticals yourself to see how this works. I don't know the stats of every NPC, so please don't ask me how much mental resistance the Reverend Mother has (you monster).

III: LOCKPICKING

This information comes from placeable_h.nss and GetDisableDeviceLevel() in core_h.nss.

Whenever you attempt to unlock a chest or door, the game calculates a lockpicking score (L) and compares it to the lock difficulty (D). If L >= D, the attempt is a success; otherwise it fails. Unlike stealing, there is no random element in lockpicking.

The lockpicking score is simple to compute:

L = (cunning - 10) + 10 * [lockpicking rank]

Your lockpicking rank is the number of points you have in the Deft Hands tree. If you have Deft Hands alone, your rank is 1; if you have Device Mastery, your rank is 4. As you can see, each point in the Deft Hands/lockpicking tree is worth 10 points of cunning. Notice that you can actually open locks without any points in the lockpicking tree if your cunning is high enough (I confirmed this in-game).

If you successfully pick a lock, you'll gain XP equal to D (with a minimum of 5). Thanks Sheffsteel for the observation.

Great! But how high does your lockpicking score have to be to pick every pickable lock in the game? Unfortunately I don't have the time or know-how to inspect every lock in the toolset to find a maximum value for D. However, there is a big hint in traps.xls, which contains a sheet called lock_difficulty with the following table:

1 Auto Success

10 Simple

20 Very Easy

30 Easy

40 Medium

50 Hard

60 Very Hard

10000 Impossible

So I would tentatively suggest that you need a lockpicking score of 60 to pick every lock that can be picked. You can achieve a lockpicking score of 60 by getting Device Mastery + 30 cunning, or Mech. Expertise + 40 cunning, etc. Of course, some locks will still require keys or event triggers to open. 

Some people have finished the game with a lockpicking score of 60 and said this was enough to open everything. One person on the old forums said he was unable to open a chest with a lockpicking score of 64, but I don't know the circumstances. I would appreciate feedback from more people about whether 60 is enough for everything.

IV: TRAPS

This information comes from sys_traps_h.nss, placeable_h.nss, and GetDisableDeviceLevel() in core_h.nss.

Trap disarming is just like lockpicking; the game calculates a disarm score using the exact same formula it uses to calculate your lockpicking score. It then compares this to the trap's disarm difficulty. If your disarm score >= the disarm difficulty, the trap is succesfully disarmed; otherwise it is not. There's one exception: you can always succesfully disarm your own traps.

As with lockpicking, if you succesfully disarm a trap you'll gain XP equal to the trap's disarm difficulty (down to a minimum of 5).

Trap detection works like this: the game periodically checks for hidden enemy traps within a spherical volume with radius 10m + 1m per lockpicking rank (at Device Mastery this is a 14m radius). Note that the trap-making skill apparently does NOT increase your detection radius, despite what the tooltip says. For each hidden enemy trap within that volume, the game checks the player's disarm score (see paragraph above for how to calculate it) against the trap's detection difficulty. If this score >= the trap's detection difficulty, the player detects it; otherwise the player does not.

Minor note: for detection purposes only, the player gets a +10 bonus to his disarm score if he is under the effect EFFECT_TYPE_TRAP_DETECTION_BONUS. I have no idea what, if anything, grants this effect. It doesn't seem like the trap-making skills or lockpicking talents grant this effect, nor do any other spells or talents. Maybe it's just unused.

Notice that a trap's detection difficulty and disarm difficulty are different variables. This explains why you can sometimes detect a trap but fail to disarm it.

How difficult are traps to disarm or detect? Again, traps.xls gives us a hint. It has a sheet called trap_difficulty that contains a table identical to the one copied above for locks. So I would tentatively say that a disarm/lockpicking score of 60 will enable you to detect and disarm every trap that can be detected and disarmed. Again, player feedback would be appreciated.

V: COERCION

The information here comes from UT_SkillCheck() in utility_h.nss. Credit goes to Codrus0 for finding it!

The coercion formula is simple to state. Every rank in Coercion gives you 25 "coercion points." Every point in cunning above 10 (for Persuade checks) or in strength above 10 (for intimidate checks) gives you 1 coercion point. The most difficult coercion checks require 100 coercion points to pass. Coercion checks are deterministic.

This means that Coercion 4 should be sufficient by itself to pass every Persuade or Intimidate check without any investment in cunning or strength. Coercion 3 is sufficient if you have at least 35 cunning or strength, as appropriate. And so on.

RECENT UPDATES: 

* Second specialization is now left open to the player. I had previously assumed it would be Duelist, but this was unreasonable since Ranger and Bard are both strong.

* These calculations are accurate for the 1.02 patch (which is the same as 1.01 with the dex hotfix as far as the DPS calcs are concerned).

Warning, wall of text incoming. Skip down to sections III and IV for the tl;dr version, but I recommend checking out the gameplay mechanics stuff if you're interested. I'll keep this guide updated as we discover mistakes and gear improvements.

This is a continuation of a thread over at the now-baleeted daforums.bioware.com (used to be at

http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=706563&forum=135

). We were discussing various DW rogue builds and discovered some interesting things about gameplay mechanics along the way. I made a spreadsheet and did some DPS calculations for four different DW builds, with the results summarized below. For those who didn't follow the original thread, I'll repeat the pertinent gameplay mechanic information below in section I.

DISCLAIMERS:

 this is pure theorycrafting. We were just trying to come up with the highest-DPS endgame DW builds we could think of, so we assume optimal stat allocation and access to the best gear. This may not be realistic for everyone. I may run some figures with less expensive gear in the future (equipment suggestions welcome!) 

This is not a guide for how to build the "best" rogue.

 DPS is not everything to everyone. The calculations don't quantify utility or fun factor or anything like that. I just hope this is a helpful starting point for people planning their own rogues.

PLATFORM: all of my analysis assumes PC version 1.02 (or 1.01 with the dex hotfix).

NOTE FOR READERS OF THE OLD THREAD: The numbers here are slightly different from the last ones I posted in the old thread. That's because 

I lowered the level from 22 to 18 (at level 22 the game is almost over) and remembered to account for the bonus damage rogues get per level up.

 I've made too many fixes and improvements to list

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: Gameplay mechanics

II: Stats and gear

III: DPS chart

IV: Conclusions

I. GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

A. DAMAGE FORMULA

I pieced together the damage formula as best I could using the toolset to view the source code. Those of you following along at home can look at core_h.nss and combat_damage_h.nss to see whether I got things right.

At an abstract level, the formula for expected damage on a backstab looks like this:

C * (AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O - A

C is the critical hit/backstab modifier,

W is the weapon's base damage,

R is the weapon's damage range multiplier. The game randomizes your weapon's damage between W and W * R. For daggers and longswords, R is 1.5; for axes it's 1.4. For example, a dagger with a listed base damage of 6.4 will actually do between 6.4 and 1.5 * 6.4 = 9.6 damage. Thus the expected weapon damage will be AVERAGE(W, W * R).

X is the attribute modifier (e.g. 1.10 for axes, 0.425 for daggers), 

Y is the number of relevant attribute points above 10 in each relevant attribute.

O is all other sources of bonus damage, and

A is the target's armor minus the attacker's armor penetration, floored at 0. Note that the game randomizes armor to between 70-100% of its "list value" in the damage calculation, but I don't account for this for technical reasons (calculating the expected armor value in Excel is beyond my puny spreadsheet skillz). This error is not large.

C defaults to 1.5 but can be raised up to 3.5 by gear. (Thanks gorboth for pointing out that the cap is 3.5, not 2!)

Why is the bonus damage from attributes multiplied by 0.375? Because, when dual-wielding, the game randomizes your attribute damage bonus to between 25-50% of its list value before throwing it in the damage calcs. This is one source of random variation in damage output. Thus your expected attribute damage bonus will be only 37.5% of its list value. (For every other weapon style besides dual-wielding, the random factor is between 50-75% of list value.)

Here is a list of all the sources of bonus damage that I accounted for (everything that goes into O):

* Exploit Weakness, which adds an expected (0.52/3) * (cunning-10) bonus damage to each backstab. Thanks Twenynge for correcting me on this (I'd prevoiusly thought it was 0.2 * (cunning-10)).

* Tainted Blood, which adds 5 + 0.2 * (cunning-10) bonus damage 

* Bonus damage from gear, including runes and bonus damage on offhand weapons (offhand bonuses seem to contribute to mainhand attacks)

* Bonus damage from levelling (for rogues this is 0.2 damage per level)

Party buffs are NOT accounted for because the variations are endless.

Here is a list of everything that goes into the target's armor, A:

* Target's nominal armor value

* Armor penetration from the weapon

* Bonus AP from gear, including bonus AP from offhand weapons (offhand bonuses seem to contribute to mainhand attacks)

* Cunning's AP bonus of (cunning-10)/7

B: DUAL WIELD ATTACK TIMING

I did a bunch of video capture experiments to determine that attack timing for dual wield weapons works as follows:

Step 1: for each weapon you're wielding, start with 1.5s and substract that weapon's speed modifier (see [[

http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/items/weapons

 for the modifiers). Thus for daggers this value will be 1.0s and for axes it will be 1.4s. The 1.5s starting point comes from the base attack interval for the dual-wield style, as defined in core_h.nss, and verified by my in-game testing.

Step 2: Average the two numbers above and call the result T. This is your attack interval.

Whether backstabbing or attacking from the front, you will alternate hands every T seconds. Don't believe the backstab animation, which looks like it's attacking with the mainhand only. Also, when backstabbing, it appears that the mainhand runes trigger (or have a chance to trigger) on every attack, even when the offhand should be attacking. Offhand runes never trigger. I can only assume this is a bug.

Because your attack speed is the average of your two hands, the DPS-conscious rogue with a fullsize weapon in her mainhand will usually want to use a dagger in her offhand, to speed up her attacks. This also saves her attribute points that would have gone to dex for DW Mastery.

Haste and Momentum reduce T by 25% and 30%, respectively, at the END of the attack timing calculation. Thus I ignore them for purposes of the DPS calculations, since they'll affect all builds by the same proportion.

II: STATS AND GEAR

I'll assume a level 18 human assassin who has completed the Fade (second specialization left up to player choice). This gives us the following base stats:

Str: 10 + 1 (human) + 4 (fade) = 15

Dex: 10 + 4 (rogue) + 1 (human) + 2 (assassin) + 4 (fade) = 21

Cun: 10 + 4 (rogue) + 1 (human) + 5 (fade) = 20

A level 18 character has 56 attribute points from levelups, plus 4 from tomes, for a total of 60 discretionary attribute points.

This analysis considers several possible builds, named for their weapon combo and the stat to pump:

* Axe/dagger str

* Axe/dagger cun

* Dagger/dagger dex

* Dagger/dagger cun

* Longsword/dagger str

* Longsword/dagger cun

* Axe/longsword str

* Axe/longsword cun

All gear selections are DPS-maximizing as far as we can collectively determine. Suggestions welcome! 

Why not maces?  They swing slower than axes and longswords, do not have a higher attribute multiplier to compensate, and have a smaller damage range multiplier to boot.  Most importantly, the best unique maces are not as good as the best unique axes and longswords. 

I assume that all builds will want to get Momentum ASAP, before going to the Fade or choosing specs, just because it's so powerful throughout the game. (You can get it in the origin stories if you beeline for it.) This means the axe/dagger and longsword/dagger builds will overinvest in dex somewhat. I also assume all builds will want Master Stealth at some point because stealthing is so useful for backstabbers, so they will need a natural cunning of 22, although this can wait until after the Fade.

I also assume that all builds will use Exploit Weakness, Tainted Blade, and three grandmaster elemental damage runes in their mainhand weapon.

The non-str rogues can get away with somewhat fewer points in str, if you are willing to wait until you have +str items before meeting your gear requirements. I assume that these rogues will want to meet their gear reqs ASAP so I've erred on the side of overinvesting in str. (Thanks vicariouscheese for reminding me of this.)

Note: the attack rating calculations don't include the flanking bonus. Rogues with Combat Movement get up to +20 attack by flanking their target, depending on their angle (I think the maximum bonus is given when you're directly behind the target).

A: AXE/DAGGER STR

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 49 = 64

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 dam., 8 AP, +30% crit damage, +3 damage, +2 dex)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit. damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dawn Ring (+4 str, -1 cun)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 64 + 13 = 77

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Cun: 22 + 5 = 27

Unbuffed attack rating: 113.5 (55 base + 47.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

B: AXE/DAGGER CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 11 = 26 (to wear Warden Commander's Armor ASAP; our gear will help us meet the str req for Veshialle.)

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 40 = 60

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 dam., 8 AP, +30% crit damage, +3 damage, +2 dex)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander's Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit. damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 26 + 8 = 34

Cun: 60 + 9 = 69

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Unbuffed attack rating: 92 (55 base + 26 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

C: DAGGER/DAGGER DEX

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 5 = 20 (to wear T7 light armor early)

Dex: 21 + 53 = 74

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Offhand: Thorn of the Dead Gods (6 dam, 7 AP, +3 damage, +3 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Felon's Coat (+6 dex, +9 defense)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: Cadash Stompers or Silverhammer's Tackmasters (+2 dex) (Cadash has extra mods of minor benefit but also increases hostility)

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Harvest Festival Ring (+2 str, +2 dex, +4 attack)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 20 + 8 = 28

Dex: 74 + 18 = 92

Cun: 22 + 6 = 28

Unbuffed attack rating: 120 (55 base + 50 attribs + 4 gear + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 164 (50 base + 18 leveling + 82 dex + 9 gear + 5 DW finesse)

Note on alternative offhand daggers

. Edge has slightly higher DPS than Thorn of the Dead Gods against enemies with less than about 14 armor, but is only available to players who bought Dragon Age before Nov. 30, 2009. The difference is about 1-2 points.

D: DAGGER/DAGGER CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 5 (to wear T7 light armor early)

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 46 = 66

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Offhand: Thorn of the Dead Gods (6 dam, 7 AP, +3 damage, +3 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Felon's Coat (+6 dex, +9 defense)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: Cadash Stompers or Silverhammer's Tackmasters (+2 dex) (Cadash has extra mods of minor benefit but also increases hostility)

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, 2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: nothing improves DPS

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 20 + 5 = 25

Dex: 30 + 16 = 46

Cun: 66 + 9 = 75

Unbuffed attack rating: 91.5 (55 base + 25.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 118 (50 base + 18 leveling + 36 dex + 9 gear + 5 DW finesse)

Note on alternative offhand daggers

. There are a number of good offhand choices. You may wish to use something besides Thorn of the Dead Gods under some circumstances:

* Edge has slightly higher DPS against low-armor enemies (enemies with less than 21 armor), but is only available to players who purchased Dragon Age before Nov. 30, 2009. The difference is about 1-2 points.

* Fang has slightly higher DPS against all enemies (about 1-2 points) but is only available to city elf rogues late in the game.

* Dead Thaig Shanker has slightly less DPS (about 2 points) but has attractive non-DPS bonuses.

E: LONGSWORD/DAGGER STR

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 49 = 64

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, 2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dawn Ring (+4 str, -1 cun)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 64 + 11 = 75

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Cun: 22 +5 = 27

Unbuffed attack rating: 112.5 (55 base + 46.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

F: LONGSWORD/DAGGER CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 11 = 26 (to wear Warden Commander's Armor ASAP; our gear will help us meet the str req for Starfang.)

Dex: 21 + 9 = 30

Cun: 20 + 40 = 60

* Mainhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Mainhand: Rose's Thorn (6.4 base damage, 8 AP, +2 dex, +3 damage, +30% crit damage)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander's Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 26 + 6 = 32

Dex: 30 + 8 = 38

Cun: 60 + 9 = 69

Unbuffed attack rating: 91 (55 base + 25 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 101 (50 base + 18 leveling + 28 dex + 5 DW finesse)

G: AXE/LONGSWORD STR

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 41 = 56

Dex: 21 + 17 = 38 (natural 36 dex for DW Mastery. If you want to dual-wield full-sized weapons before the Fade, you'll need to sink an additional 4 points in dex)

Cun: 20 + 2 = 22

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander armor (+15% crit damage

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit. damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dawn Ring (+4 str, -1 cun)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 56 + 13 = 69

Dex: 38 + 6 = 44

Cun: 22 + 5 = 27

Unbuffed attack rating: 112.5 (55 base + 46.5 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 107 (50 base + 18 leveling + 34 dex + 5 DW finesse)

H: AXE/LONGSWORD CUN

This rogue will have pre-gear stats of:

Str: 15 + 11 = 26 (to wear Warden Commander's Armor ASAP; our gear will help us meet the str reqs for Veshialle and Starfang)

Dex: 21 + 17 = 38 (see explanatory note in build G above)

Cun: 20 + 32 = 52

* Mainhand: Veshialle (9.6 base damage, 4.2 AP, +2 str, +10% crit damage, +2 nature damage)

* Offhand: Starfang (11.9 base damage, 4.2 AP, +3 damage, +2.5 AP)

* Helm: Helm of Honnleath (+2 str, +2 dex +2 cun)

* Chest: Warden Commander's Armor (+15% crit damage)

* Gloves: Red Jenny Seekers (+15% crit damage)

* Boots: nothing improves DPS

* Belt: Andruil's Blessing (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Amulet: Heart of Witherfang (+1 str)

* Ring: Key to the City (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 cun)

* Ring: Dusk Ring (+3 cun, -1 str)

Final stats including gear:

Str: 26 + 8 = 34

Dex: 38 + 6 = 44

Cun: 52 + 9 = 61

Unbuffed attack rating: 95 (55 base + 29 attribs + 6 combat training + 5 DW finesse)

Unbuffed defense rating: 107 (50 base + 18 leveling + 34 dex + 5 DW finesse)

III: DPS CHART

Here is a DPS chart showing the expected DPS of each of the builds above, against a target with 0 armor, 10 armor, and 30 armor.

For convenience, I'll restate my assumptions here. I assume the following:

* The damage formula and attack timing explained in section I

* The gear and stat allocations of section II, including the assumption that the mainhand weapon has three elemental damage runes

* Use of Exploit Weakness and Tainted Blood

* NO use of Momentum, since it affects all builds by the same proportion. Just add 43% to all the figures above to get the DPS with Momentum (and no other speed buffs). Thank Murrdoch for correcting an error in this line.

* No party buffs because there are too many factors to account for

* No elemental resists on the target

* 100% hit rate. Unfortunately I cannot calculate the hit rate of each build without knowing the average monster defense rating. However attack rating is quite easy to boost with party buffs. Anecdotally, some people have said they've achieved quite high hit rates with cunning builds.

Mage:

SPELLS

This guide assumes you or your party member are playing a caster, meaning that you activate spells during a battle, preferably without enemies whacking you in the face. If you find yourself always buffeted by uncontrolled melee attackers, you'll want either to the above listed Guide to Arcane Warriors or turn up the brightness on your monitor.

In general, it helps your party to have two or three crowd controls and two or three single-target controls. Taunt, courtesy of your tank, can count as a crowd control of sorts, and single-target controls can come with paralysis runes, traps, and certain poisons. Don't like paralysis, traps, or poisons? Fine; I rarely use them, as I play mage-heavy parties. Don't want a tank? Fine; you can get by without one. But your need for other controls then increases, so bear that in mind when reading the highly dubious ratings I've assigned.

The Mage Tree

, 4 of 5 stars

This line adds significantly to staff damage, worth considering for any party member who makes frequent use of the default attack (my builds of Wynne often fit this category, as I give her few active abilities beyond healing), and close-combat mages will want Arcane Shield.

Even otherwise, the line is worth considering. Arcane Mastery's +5 spellpower equals nearly two levels of attribute points in Magic, a bonus outdone only with the new spells from Awakening.

Arcane Bolt

 (required. 5/5 if you're a glass-half-full person, 1/5 if you hate being told what to do.) A decent damage dealer, and, along with Winter's Grasp, my most frequent single-target attack.

Arcane Shield

 4/5 if you use it; not essential for casters (as opposed to Arcane Warriors). Gains utility even for casters in Awakening, as discuseed in that section. Small fatigue cost.

Staff Focus

 4/5, respectable damage boost. I won't typically list combat numbers here, since those can be found in the Wiki, but a 33% increase helps for a frequently used ability.

Arcane Mastery

 4/5 Why not 5/5? If this were second in the line, fine. Whether it's worth three slots for a caster is up to you.

The Primal Tree

 5/5

Casters will want at least Fire or Cold from here, possibly both. The other two branches depend on playstyle, as I'll note.

The Fire Branch

 5/5

Flame Blast

 5/5. Highest damage cone. Good synergy with Cone of Cold, as it allows damage to the same targets held.

Flaming Weapons

 4/5 Best of the weapons spells for general use, but not essential.

Fireball 

5/5 Great opener, remains useful throughout the game.

Inferno 

4/5 High damage. Whether the big AoE spells are useful to you depends on play style. I tend not to use them, finding I can generally move faster without them, but they offer a chance for safe, tactical attacks, and many players love them. Inferno (and other large AoE spells) can be stacked in an area by Quick-Saving and reloading.

The Earth Branch

 2/5

Rock Armor

 2/5 A helpful addition for a mage in melee, but not so helpful that you, caster/not-AW, should be getting hit. That's Alistair's job.

Stonefist 

2/5 Fun for shattering, but that can be done without Talents.

Earthquake 

1/5 Immunity to the effect is common enough to reduce its utility. Weak damage.

Petrify 

3/5 Not a bad spell, but no better than other holds available earlier, in better lines.

The Ice Branch

 5/5

Great crowd control with a bit of damage.

Winter's Grasp

 5/5 While the freeze effect sees more resistance in later stages, the damage remains good, and at early levels, it's outstanding.

Frost Weapons

 3/5 Flaming Weapons is better except for the fire-resistant. Use this against demons and mattresses.

Cone of Cold

 5/5 The stun effect works on bosses better than any other hold (save the Paralysis Explosion combo) and it recharges quickly. Those of you returning from before Patch 1.02 will see its duration has been shortened, but the spell remains great.

Blizzard 

4/5 - As with Inferno, the utility of any big AoE spell depends on play style, but if you like it, this offers a good balance of control and damage.

The Lightning Branch

 3/5

This line is about the Storm of the Century combo. Yes, the spells are rarely resisted and they drain mana, but the damage is lower than the other lines.

Lightning 

2/5 If you get the line, this is a decent single-target attack while Winter's Grasp recharges (same damage as Arcane Bolt, shorter range).

Shock 

2/5 Weakest of the cone spells, but the Cone of Cold hold lasts long enough that you can cast Flame Blast, then Shock.

Tempest 

3/5 Rating this is hard, since its appeal is really in the Storm of the Century combo. It is worth it? If you like big AoE spells, sure. It does great damage and goes through walls, and you can move your party to safety while it wreaks havoc. But you can move as fast or faster with spells cast up close.

Chain Lightining

 1/5 Takes 2 seconds to cast, doesn't scale, and the damage is absorbed by armor. Looks cool, until you try it, the Mouse Trap Game of spells.

The Creation Tree

 4/5

Hard to rate this one, as it has both dogs and gems.

The Heal Branch

 4/5, for Heal alone

Heal 

5/5 Useful even if you go no further. Can be used to save NPC's, often helpful to have on more than one mage.

Rejuvenate 

3/5 Decent, but often unnecessary, or when needed, insufficient.

Regeneration 

3/5 Over-time delivery makes this less useful than Heal, but it is more efficient.

Mass Rejuvenation

 3/5 Even more limited use than Rejuvenate, though efficient if needed by more than one party member

The Haste Branch

3/5

Heroic Offense

 2/5 Most of your party members can hit without it

Heroic Aura

 2/5 for highly limited applications

Heroic Defense

 2/5 Would be useful with a longer duration

Haste 

4/5 It isn't perfect. It lowers melee attack value and ranged attack rate. Cost the equivalent of +3 regen to maintain. Leave it for Wynne. Then leave Wynne.

The Glyph Branch

 5/5

Again, play styles vary, as do needs. In my most recent playthrough, I used Glyphs nearly every battle for the first two-thirds of the game, then rarely as I built other spells. If you want them, they sure work.

Glyph of... Paralysis

 5/5 Works often, easier to obtain than Paralyze (though slower to recharge). Finishes the Paralysis Explosion combo, which is an instant-cast, no-resist, AoE hold.

...

Warding 

4/5 Useful when under ranged fire or bunched.

...

Repulsion 

5/5 Great in doorways and other choke points. Place this first for Paralysis Explosion, or skip the combo and let this last and last.

...

Neutralization 

4/5 A poor man's Mana Clash, if you want to skip the Mana line. Doesn't damage, and it can drain you if you walk into it, but it effectively muzzles enemy mages.

The Summoning Branch

2/5

I know, I know.. Spell Wisp increases Spell Might, and Spellbloom boosts mana regen. But...

Spell Wisp

 2/5 Takes 30 mana to sustain and gives a +6 bonus to spellpower. So allocate 6 points on magic and spent your talent point elsewhere. Yes, yes, you can chain buff to double its effectiveness, but really, don't you have darkspawn to kill?

Grease 

2/5 Other AoEs offer damage or full holds.

Spellbloom 

2/5 As with Rejuvenate, it can help, but it often falls under either unnecessary or insufficient.

Stinging Swarm

 3/5 Fun, and a fair mage-hassler, but underwhelming damage.

The Spirit Tree

4/5, but pick carefully

The Magic Branch

 1/5

Spell Shield 

1/5 Huge mana cost for little effect

Dispel Magic

 3/5 Best of the line, but obviated by Templars. You do like Templars, yes?

Anti-Magic Ward 

1/5 Ten seconds?

Anti-Magic Burst 

2/5. The Templar equivalent, too late.

The Mana Branch

4/5

I often skip this, which is all about Mana Clash, to make room elswhere, but most players love the line. Spell Might is a useful addition, but not a game-changer.

Mana Drain 

1/5 Not worth getting on its own, and outdone by Mana Clash

Mana Cleanse

 1/5 Are we there yet?

Spell Might

 3/5 Useful, but again, not so useful that it would be worth getting, even with Storm of the Century, if not for...

Mana Clash

 5/5 With this, you can hit a mage hard enough to make his ancestors wince. Is it worth it? Up to you.

The Bomb Branch

 4/5Playstyle preference again. I love this line. Even on Hard, I use Walking Bomb like crazy; my guys can take it. On Nightmare, the friendly fire damage makes me more cautious, but it's still great against archers.

Walking Bomb

 5/5 You can get just this, if you like. Explosion aside, also a fine boss-damage spell.

Death Syphon

 3/5 Limited effect, but useful.

Virulent Walking Bomb

 4/5 Dedicated bombers will want this. Good fun. Dangerous to your party on Hard and Nightmare.

Animate Dead 

4/5 See the guide and notes in the very first post above. This is a highly useful spell, even without Spell Might, if you like having a party pet, but not everyone does.

The Telekinetic Branch

 4/5, for the first one or two spells

If you read a spell guide written prior to Patch 1.02, it'll gush about this line. Since then, Force Field and especially Crushing Prison lost a lot of utility, though they still have their places.

Mind Blast 

4/5 Excellent spell for setting under Tactics and 'Surrounded By...'

Force Field

 3/5 A tank under Force Field no longer holds threat, but at least he or she is safe, and the spell works with fair frequency on bosses.

Telekinetic Weapons

 2/5 Good against armor. Turn it on for golems.

Crushing Prison

 3/5 Now more of a damage spell with a hold than the reverse. Often resisted.

The Entropy Tree

 3/5

The Debilitation Branch

 2/5

Weakness 

2/5 Decent, but like the rest of this line, outclassed by alternatives.

Paralyze 

3/5 A fine spell, but outdone by Glyph of Paralysis, except in cooldown time. Often resisted.

Miasma 

2/5 Useful for an Arcane Warrior, however.

Mass Paralysis

 2/5 Slow cast, short life.

Hexes 

5/5

Another playstyle preference. If you don't like them, I won't tell.

Vulnerability 

5/5 Use it early and often.

Affliction 

4/5 Great for clusters.

Misdirection 

4/5 An excellent defensive hex, even against bosses.

Death Hex

 4/5 Situational, and probably less useful than the first three, but still decent.

The Sleep Branch

4/5

The strength of this rating comes from the high utility of Sleep.

Disorient 

1/5 Take it off your quickbar before someone sees it.

Horror 

4/5 Fine on its own, great damage with Sleep.

Sleep 

5/5 A great opener. High effectiveness, good area, fast cast.

Waking Nightmare

 3/5 Not bad but entirely optional, either for topping Sleep or on its own. Much smaller area of effect than Sleep.

The Draining Branch

3/5

Drain Life

 4/5 Good damage, especially with Vulnerability Hex, and a fine place to put a spare point.

Death Magic

 3/5 As with Death Syphon, limited effect but still useful.

Curse of Mortalit

y 2/5 Yes, it hurts when its on you, but the effect is slow, and you kill faster than your enemies, don't you?

Death Cloud

 3/5 Not bad, but not worth the line unless you want the Entropic Death combo.

Power of Blood

(Warden's Keep DLC)

Dark Sustanance

 (required, and great!). Time-consuming, but welcome.

Bloody Grasp 

(required) Good single-target damage, great against darkspawn. Alistair would be happy to help you get rid of that pesky icon.

Specializations

Arcane Warrior: get the whole line, unless choosing the first only for the armor.

Shapeshifter: see the first post. If going this way, you need the whole line.

Spirit Healer: Group Heal is so good and so mana-efficient, it's perfectly viable to get just that first spell, and I often do. Utility builds, like I choose for Wynne, might want the full line.

Blood Mage: get the first three. The fourth is fine if you want a pet mixed with control, but I find I either don't want one or prefer the consistency of Animate Dead. Blood Wound, the third spell, is arguably the most effective spell in Origins: rarely resisted, fast-cast, large area, good damage, low cost. Don't make Jowan angry.

AWAKENING SPELLS

There aren't many guides to these for three reasons: Awakening came out a year after DAO and that's half a lifetime in game terms, respec'ing is easy (thanks to Herren's Manual of Focus), and the spells are so blindingly powerful that the choices matter less than they do in the original campaign. By the time you start, you can already kill everything you encounter, and by the time you end, you can... kill everything even faster.

Still, there are a few. 

Aura's nuking guide

 is quite good. I disagree on some choices - I like the Death line, Fire line, and Heal but I don't like the Earth line or Summoning line, and I doubt the worth of Crushing Prison - but it's still useful. Her thoughts on Keeper and Battlemage for AoE are spot-on.

For 

Anders and Velanna

, Bartlebyfinch has a good analysis.

For an AW, see 

Skimbass's guide 

or this 

favoring the Keeper specialization. 

THE SPELLS

The Attunement Tree

, 4 of 5 stars

Useful for any mage build.

Fade Shield

 If you use Arcane Shield often, 5/5: this adds 15% dodge and spell resistance, for relatively little fatigue. If you don't use Arcane Shield, this is of little value, though it gives enough of a boost to make situational use possible. Note that even caster builds may find themselves running into mobs more than usual, thanks the the excellent Hand of Winter and Keeper spells, so shields expand their value.

Elemental Mastery

 3/5 Adds 15% element damage. The cap in Awakening has been moved from 30% to 50%. 5/5 for distance casters.

Attunement 

5/5 +10 Magic & Will, +2 Mana regen. Far exceeds Arcane Mastery.

Time Spiral

 4/5 Another hard one to rate: stellar for players making use of a few spells with long cooldowns, epecially when mitigating its 120 mana cost with Blood Magic (an 'Improves Blood Magic' item helps greatly). But for others, the 3 min cooldown makes it highly situational.

The Field Tree

 3 of 5 stars

Decent spells, but high mana cost and outclassed by the alternatives.

Repulsion Field

 2/5 Drains 20 mana per knockback, which as the Wiki notes, comes in pulses that won't stop a stealthed attack. Can't be used with Arcane Field.

Invigorate

 3/5 - 20% Fatigue penalty cancelled by 20% bonus. Mana Regen penalty of 10%. 2 mages with this provide each other with a nice fatigue reduction, but the fatigue reduction cap remains at -25%.

Arcane Field

 3/5 Fine damage (roughly 60 Spirit dmg at 85 Spellpower. Efficient at 15 mana per). But the pulse is slow and distance casters get less from it than Arcane Warriors. Drains mana even when using Blood Magic.

Mystical Negation 

3/5 Costs 10% fatigue and the 5s cast means it's best up before a fight. Then it takes 30 mana per dispell, usually worthwhile. If it were earlier in the tree or in a stronger line, 4/5.

The Battlemage Tre

e

 5/5

The first three spells are great for any mage, casters and Arcane Warriors alike.

Draining Aura 

3/5. 4/5 for an Arcane Warrior, 3/5 for a close-combat caster or a Keeper with One with Nature), 2/5 for a distance caster. Popular, and high damage, but it drains a significant 30 mana per target with each pulse, even with Blood Magic on. Does roughly 80 Spirit Damage per 90 Spellpower every 5 secs.

Hand of Winter

 5/5 like Cone of Cold, with a burst pattern that does more damage and only to enemies.

Stoic

 5/5 50% of damage taken becomes mana. All passive bonuses are nice, so in evaluating them, it's not enough to simply say 'Everyone loves more health/mana/damage/cake/whatever.' The degree of the bonus matters, and this is significant.

Elemental Chaos

4/5. Powerful, if costly. 10% Fatigue, 140 upkeep, -20 Mana Regen means a heavy cost. Does 40 damage/ 2 sec tick at 120 Spellpower. Again, a great spell for a close-combat mage or Arcane Warrior, less so for a distance caster. Roughly the same DoT as Draining Aura and a bit more mana efficient, but for a single tick, Draining Aura does more.

The Keeper Tree

5/5

Exceptionally powerful.

One With Nature

 3/5. Not much on its own - 15ish nature damage at 80 spellpower - but enables the excellent other abilities.

Thornblades

 5/5 Great damage (170ish at 80 spellpower) goes through armor, useful knockback.

Replenishment

4/5, 5/5 with Blood Magic, which gets 90% of the bonus. The 20% return on Keeper damage is significant, thanks to the huge damage of the other Keeper spells, and the Health regen of +20 takes you up to the cap. Compared with Death Magic, the health returned is lower, but the regen rate is a great boost.

Nature's Vengeance

5/5 Roughly twice the damage of Thornblades, at not quite twice the mana. Insane.

A Highly Unscientific Field Test

     Skip to the end if you just want the conclusion.

I cleared the dungeon room in Vigil's Keep a few times each with the various new Awakening spells, then did the same in a later room of Childer Grubs.

Using Repulsion Field and Draining Aura emptied my mana before either fight was done. That was true of Repulsion Field and two casts of Hand of Winter (but no Draining Aura), but simply two casts of HoW alone was enough to kill the skellys, leaving half my mana (with Time Spiral to speed things up).

Using Draining Aura and Hand of Winter (but not Repulsion Field) killed all the skellys, with very little mana remaining. 5 seconds. Using Draining Aura against the Grubs, I ran out of mana before the fight was done, whether or not I used Spell Might.

I killed all the Grubs using just Elemental Chaos. At roughly 100 spellpower, Elemental Chaos did about 35 pts every 2 secs, while Draining Aura did roughly 90 every 5: roughly the same. However, Elemental Chaos left me with about a quarter of my mana left.

With no sustainables on, I cleared the room in half a dozen casts, using Cone of Cold, Walking Bomb, Hand of Winter, and Flame Blast, plus two staff attacks. Three-quarters of my mana left, 15 seconds.

With Elemental Mastery on and the same approach, it took 10 seconds - saving the staff attacks - and used half my mana.

With One With Nature, Thornblades, and Hand of Winter, I cleared the room in 5 seconds with half my mana left. One with Nature then Nature's Vengeance does even more damage than Thornblades + HoW, for slightly less mana.

This is hardly a conclusive study. The effects depend with gear, level, and above all, type of enemy, but it is enough to see differences in the spells, and I expect that even in other circumstances, Repulsion Field won't prove mana-efficient, and that Draining Aura and Elemental Mastery will both boost damage and speed fights against simple mobs, but they require an eye on mana for sustained fights. Elemental Chaos is more forgiving for mana management, and Hand of Winter is a great spell.

With One With Nature, Thornblades, and Hand of Winter, I cleared the room in 5 seconds with half my mana left. One with Nature then Nature's Vengeance does even more damage than Thornblades + HoW, for slightly less mana.

This is hardly a conclusive study. The effects depend with gear, level, and above all, type of enemy, but it is enough to see differences in the spells, and I expect that even in other circumstances, Repulsion Field won't prove mana-efficient, and that Draining Aura and Elemental Mastery will both boost damage and speed fights against simple mobs, but they require an eye on mana for sustained fights. Elemental Chaos is more forgiving for mana management, and Hand of Winter is a great spell.