DA:I's Nightmare difficult is such bullshit, especially with trials, especially if you're level 15 and trying to spec' your Inquisitor as a Champion but you need to fight through fucking. all. of the Exalted Plains. to get these fucking. quest items. from one of the absolute worst types of enemy in the entire game.
With my first Nightmare playthrough, I wanted to play it safe, so I thought, 'what's safer than playing a tank?' I still died, a lot, but it got pretty fun after I started figuring out how tanks work.
So for my second playthrough, I thought, 'I want to play a support mage'.
Now, the issue is: I didn't find a support build for a mage online.
I didn't want damage, or crowd control, I wanted raw support. I wanted to have one mage who could do Barriers, Dispels, and Revivals and a few basic elemental attacks, so I could bring along the warriors and rogues I neglected on my other playthroughs.
Eventually, that morphed into a personalized build, but it works really well!
My idea of a support involves: Barrier, Dispel, Revival. There are brave and skilled people who can get through the game without Revival, but I'm not one of them. Staying alive is also good, but since I'm controlling the Inquisitor, that's on me. I've played Solas/Vivienne plenty on my playthrough with Verity, so I'm confident in my ability not to kill a mage. Can't say the same about rogues, though.
For that purpose, damage is negligable to me. I literally don't care about damage. I'm fine with doing none. I'd rather support the rest of the team (or play the sole tank).
In addition to that, having the Inquisitor as my dedicated support mage, it frees up a few skill points for the other mages: I can get Vivienne Mind Blast only (instead of MB + Dispel), I can get Dorian something else instead of Revival, and I can do something different for Solas (who always makes a great support, primary or secondary).
Now, onto the build itself:
General
Points spent: 19
Complete by: Mid-game (around level 16-18, depending on Amulets of Power, Inquisition Perks, Race, and your willingness to craft)
What it doesn’t do: good damage, good cc
What it does: support. Very well.
Keep in mind that you'll need a balanced party, because, well - little damage, little cc. You can't solo the game with this either.
The build at its core relies on Barrier as the main spell, a ton of cooldown reduction, and the interaction between Flashpoint + Mana Surge.
The goal is to have another barrier ready when it’s depleted or destroyed, revive/dispel when necessary, mobility, and lean into ‘elemental mage’ concept just enough to grab the good passives and deal a bit of damage to everything.
Ability Trees
The skills necessary to make this work are relatively equally spread out across all basic trees and the specialization, Rift Mage, with the heaviest investment being in the Spirit Tree.
Progression
When you get to Haven, respec. I went for Barrier, Winter's Grasp, and Fadestep, but it wasn't until later that I discovered how amazing Mana Surge is, so I recommend you go Barrier - Winter's Grasp - Mana Surge and then Fadestep.
From there, it depends. I like to make a beeline for Dispel next (easier time dealing with rifts + enemy mages), but after that I go for another damaging skill (Immolate or Chain Lightning), Revival, and the other one.
I usually prefer having Immolate first (damage over time + some cc), but if you’re running Walking Softly right off the bat and keep dying a lot, you might want to go for Revival above either damaging spell. (And balance your party out by letting Solas do the magic damage.)
By then, I spent a point on upgrading Barrier, Elegant Defense, to shorten its cooldown and add a ton of survivability to - well - everyone.
After you've (almost) filled your skill slots, it's time for passives. I recommend either the Flashpoint + Clean Burn combo before going for Stormbringer + Gathering Storm, but depending on how your mana is doing, you can slot in Winter's Stillness at any point.
Depending on your trials set-up and the difficulty you're on, the specialization will come into play sooner or later. I recommend going for it when your cooldowns are shortened enough through FP + CB or SB + GS that you run into the issue of lacking mana to cast your spells. Here, you go for Veilstrike, the Punching Down upgrade, and Restorative Veil.
I’ve also been neglecting other upgrades except ED and PD until now (level 16) and, I gotta say, once I got a few cooldown passives, I didn’t feel like I needed them. But, as I said, until recently, I’ve played a raw tank who had no damage output and now I’m playing a raw support with no damage output, so I don’t mind a slow playstyle and slow boss fights.
Spirit Tree
- Barrier: There’s nothing much to be said about this. Barrier is essential for any mage, more so if you’re playing support. Unfortunately, it's 24s cooldown can be impossibly long early on.
- Elegant Defense Upgrade: I prefer this upgrade for a number of reasons. First, cooldown reduction on your most essential spell? Every time it expires? When you’re throwing them out the entire time? It doesn’t get much better. You’ll have them ready before your barrier even runs out. Second, a shorter duration of Barrier synergizes nicely with the passive Mana Surge.
- Peaceful Aura: It’s partly a progression ability, but it’s nice to have early if your tank’s AI messes up the taunt. (Which happened a lot for me.)
- Dispel: It’s essential to deal with the mages early on who are so annoying on Nightmare. It also stops demons from spawning if you use it on a rift. And it can ‘disrupt hostile effects’, such as poison. It also acts as a detonater!
- Rejuvenating Barrier: I’d consider this an essential passive, because it greatly increases your (and your allies) stamina/mana regeneration while they have an active barrier. And who doesn’t like that? It’s nice for archer rogues and other mages especially, because the chances are good you’ll stand cluttered together anyway.
- Revival: Easy choice. It comes at the massive cost of 85 mana, but here’s to hoping you won’t need it often because the AI isn’t stupid enough to position your ranged, squishy characters right in front of the melee enemy. (... It happened. A lot. Also, refer to 'the AI messed up my tank's taunt'.)
(I’m not picking Strength of Spirits because I don’t want the barriers to hold for long due to Mana Surge. It also requires getting MB and I don’t feel like spending a point for that.)
Winter
- Winter’s Grasp: It’s cost-heavy at 65 mana, but freezing is such a good status effect. It lets you detonate an easy combo – ‘shattered’ – and it gets you to Mana Surge.
- Mana Surge: This passive is amazing for defense and adds some cc as well as damage potential. When one of your barriers is destroyed, the enemy who destroyed it gets frozen. And your next ability won’t consume mana/stamina. So, cast a barrier on a melee character and profit! Plus, the secondary effect carries over (to every character the barrier is cast on), which is a nice bonus. I also heard it has a knockback effect, but I haven't paid attention to that yet. For support mages, paired with a well-timed Flashpoint, it means two spells at the cost of one, whether for damage or support! Or, sometimes, expensive spells such as Winter's Grasp or Revival don't cost mana.
- Fade Step: It’s great. Whether you need to position yourself, get away from an enemy or get closer to a rift, or run away … Fade Step does it all.
- Winter Stillness: By standing still – what a mage does, except you’re playing a close-combat Knight-Enchanter – you get a 50 percent mana regen bonus and reduced cooldowns.
Storm
- Chain Lightning: It’s a good ability with a short cooldown that shocks one target. Meaning, it lowers one target’s elemental resistances. And isn’t that fun? It also gets you to Gathering Storm, an amazing passive.
- Stormbringer: It’s alright, I guess. Lightning randomly striking an enemy is a nice gimmick, even if it has a 15 seconds cooldown. It also gives you magic.
- Gathering Storm: Now, this one is good. Each time you do a basic attack – which you’ll do a lot as a support – you shorten your active cooldowns, bringing you closer to spamming barrier for Mana Surge or a spell for Clean Burn.
Inferno
- Immolate: It’s relatively cheap, does damage over time, and it’s a detonator! With the right set-up, you can hit stunned enemies so you can weaken them or shatter frozen enemies.
- Flashpoint: If you crit, your next spell doesn’t have a cooldown. The ability itself has a rather long cooldown at 10 seconds but you only need to stack a crit chance of around 30-40% to make it worth the investment. Until you get to that crit chance, it’s a nice gimmick and gets you to the next passive.
- Clean Burn: Every spell you cast shortens your cooldowns. You see where this is going: With a cheap spell like Chain Lightning or Dispel, Winter Stillness, Gathering Storm, and Elegant Defense (along the occasional Mana Surge and Flashpoint), you’ll be able to spam barriers non-stop. Often, in longer fights, it’ll be ready before it has even been destroyed! That is all I want for this build.
Now, my problem was mana. I didn’t restore enough of it. I could go and pick up the Energizing Step Upgrade, find a Tier 3 Masterwork that reduces ability cost, or I could pick up Restorative Veil and make sure I weaken enemies reliably (by giving Solas the necessary skills and taking him along, getting the Veilstrike Upgrade, or by using my detonators on stunned enemies).
Rift Mage
- Veilstrike: Mainly for progression, because it leads to Restorative Veil, but it is a relatively cheap ability.
- Punching Down Upgrade: It adds ‘weaken’ to Veilstrike and reduces the cost to a cute 20 mana, which makes it worthwhile in my mind.
- Restorative Veil: It's another insanely good passive. You get a mana regen bonus when you fight weakened enemies. Now, from what I heard, it’s 10% of the damage you do, and while this build won’t have the insane output to always have max mana, I think it’ll help enough to take care of my problems. Because, some simple math: You deal ~100 damage to a weakened enemy, you get 10 mana. Unless your staff element is resisted, you’re able to reliably do that damage by the time you get to this passive.
Past that:
I recommend picking up more Rift Mage passives, because if you have a reliable way to inflict weaken, why not use them?
You can also pick up other upgrades (I reccomend the Life Ward upgrade for Revival for JoH - you shouldn't have many problems staying alive otherwise) or the passive Guardian Spirit, if you want. Since this is a support build, I don’t think you need to upgrade your damaging spells because damage output doesn't matter. You do enough for the build to work. Plus, you already have enough skills (if you're playing yourself; you shouldn't give an AI too many skills either, but it can probably handle Stonefist in addition to the rest). For everything else, you have your designated DPS and CC.
Playstyle / Tactics
My eight active skills are: Barrier, Dispel, Revival, Fade Step, Winter’s Grasp, Immolate, Chain Lightning, Mark of the Rift / Veilstrike.
If you’re running this on the AI, fave Barrier, Dispel, Revival, and Veilstrike.
If you’re playing it yourself, you want to start each battle with a barrier (for Mana Surge and to get Elegant Defense started). You want to keep an eye out for your allies and when their (or your) barrier runs out, so you can immediately replace it with a new one. Be sure to let it fully run out or be destroyed though, to profit from the passives.
You’ll also want to use Dispel if any of your party members is suffering from any effects (poisoned, burned, chilled, …). Use Revival immediately when needed. Use Fadestep whenever enemies ignore your tank’s taunt, are immune to taunt, or keep focusing you down. It’s also useful for maneuvering, because mages have a long reach and chances are you’ll end up standing too far away to cast an AOE spell sometimes.
Winter’s Grasp, Immolate, and Chain Lightning are your main damage spells. Use them frequently, according to enemy resistances – I recommend using Immolate and Chain Lightning often, whether enemies take much damage from them or not, because they’re relatively cheap and work with Clean Burn to bring down your active cooldowns for each ability you use. Immolate is also great AOE with DOT, and Chain Lightning shocks enemies, which lowers their elemental resistances.
Now, before I got Veilstrike, I had Mark of the rift on my last skill slot. You want to use your focus ability on large, annoying enemy groups or high health enemies such as (mid-)bosses, promoted archers/mages/assassins, dragons, or bears. Veilstrike, especially with the Upgrade, you want to throw out early to weaken enemies so you can regain mana better. It’s also cheap (with the upgrade), so you’ll be able to use it a lot!
I've been thinking a lot about keeping MotR, but it's only occasionally that it's useful, while Veilstrike is always useful, so I'll probably end up replacing it.
As for combos, keep watching for your other party members to stun enemies, so you can chuck a detonater on them to weaken them. For some cc, you can do the Chain Lighting -> Veilstrike that'll make your enemies fall asleep. Add an Eldritch Detonator to the combo and you trigger the 'nightmare' status effect.
Don’t forget to auto-attack, since that also shortens your cooldowns (thanks to Gathering Storm)!
Equipment
Crafting
You can do pretty much anything you want.
If you want to free up a skill slot, you can get a Veilstrike or Chain Lightning Masterwork (remember, Upgrades carry over), which I'm considering for the late game because MotR is that good with an extended focus bar.
Aside from that, you can also go for an 'Abilities Cost Less' Masterwork early to reduce mana cost.
Generally, you'll want to invest into Critical Chance for Flashpoint, but whether through crafting, keeping good loot (I'm currently still using the Fade-Knocker with a +25% crit chance and a Veilstrike Masterwork), or accessories is your call.
A Fade Cloak or Walking Fortress Masterwork might also work well in terms of survivability, since mages are also pretty fast in their attack speed and thus have many chances to trigger them. If you want to be run this build on your sole mage, these two are good options to make sure you die less. If you have another mage who can revive you, you don't necessarily need them.
Guard On Hit is always a good choice if you're looking for safety; a DPS Masterwork (Hidden Blades, Walking Bomb) might also do well, though I personally prefer them on Cole and Dorian respectively (upgrades carry over!) or HB specifically on Vivienne and Varric, since they profit from them with their passives (Fade Shield and Opportunity Knocks).
Another option is the Sigil of the Great Bear (+100% Mana) because you can off-set its penalty (-50% Mana Regen) with Restorative Veil and Winter's Stillness.
As for additional effects: magic resistance. You can get elemental resistances well enough (if you do all of the Shard quests like I do), but mages are still a pain. Technically, you don’t need melee resistance or ranged resistance, but I’ll see how dealing with enemy assassins turns out before I put out my opinion on that.
Accessories
For amulets, I like any that reduce cooldown or speed up mana regeneration early on, or the Enhanced Amulet of Accord (generate less threat) / Enhanced Amulet of Evasion (dodge). You can also get the Superb Cooldown Amulet relatively early (Emerald Graves). In the late game, I’m probably going for the Amulet of Renewal (if I don’t put it on Dorian), Amulet of the Mage, or Master Cooldown Amulet (if I don’t put it on Cole/Sera).
With belts, I like to go for Spirit Resistance early (Wisps are a pain). You can also go for extra health or magic resistance. For the late game … pretty much the same, I guess.
Which rings you can use depends on your luck. You can get the Enhanced Barrier Ring (boost to barrier power) or others of the sort for Winter’s Grasp, Chain Lightning, or Immolate (boosts damage). Otherwise, Barrier/Armor/Guard penetration is always good. So is crit chance (due to Flashpoint). Staggering and Sundering are also good options if you get neither of the others or have already fleshed out your build in all aspects.
Late game, the Ring of Slicing (Emporium) is good if you’re looking for crit chance, or the Ring of Smashing (Guard/Armor Penetration). The Superb Ring of Critical Chance (the Descend) is better used on damagers, imo.
Conclusion
Like many builds, this one has a rather slow start and the early game can be frustrating, but it comes together well and it's a lot of fun to play.
It's also effective on an AI (tested by switching to my tank or damager or second mage); the AI will always give you a new barrier when yours is destroyed/depleted without delay and use the other spells however it sees fit.
All in all, I think this build makes for a solid support mage!
it took about 12 hours of trying, incl. several re-specs, crafting, starting over to change my party, one rage-quit, turning off half my trials (Even Ground, Walk Softly), the weirdest party set-up I've ever run on this difficulty, and Verity having, like, 122 Constitution, but I finally bet JoH on Nightmare 😭
