Game:

Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

Duration: 6:58

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This series of videos shows the Hero (mage) from my second Dragon Age: Origins playthrough on Nightmare Difficulty, near the end of her build to be the ultimate Solo/Party tank.

Briefly, there are two popular combinations of Arcane Warrior: AW+Spirit Healer, which is a durable party buff/healing spellcaster/tank, or AW+Blood Mage, which combines durability and superior damage-dealing capacity against living enemies.

Between the two, the Arcane Warrior+Spirit Healer is the more versatile. With the right choice of attribute points, spells and gear, this super-tank can take a ton of punishment and still stay alive forever while healing everyone. The biggest headache for most players has always been the ability to maintain Shimmering Shield infinitely. Shimmering Shield drains 10 mana/second, but provides such a great set of bonuses: +15 armor, almost maxing out physical and mental resistance, and maxes out all elemental resistances, that it's worth it. An AW who can sustain a whole series of buffs and maintain Shimmering Shield forever, with Spirit Healer spells, would be the invincible party tank/healer.

And this video shows such a Hero in action. The start shows her attribute point allocations and gear, all carefully chosen to provide the best armor, health/mana regeneration and bonuses with minimum Fatigue. Note that Evon the Great's Mail, when mixed with Wade's Superior Dragonscale Gloves and Boots, provides the Armor Set bonus - reducing her fatigue to 5%, effectively giving her super-heavy armor and durability whilst being able to cast spells as if wearing no armor at all! When using her staff, Final Reason, this mage is one tough cookie to bring down even as she launches deadly magical bolts and unleashes a storm of spells (visible from her extended quickbar, at the bottom of the screen). Switching to the sword-and-shield combination pushes her Fatigue up a bit to 11% (video time 00:30).

All in all, her mana regeneration is as follows:
Evon the Great's Mail - 1 point/second
Wade's Superior Dragonscale Gloves - 0.5 points/second
Wade's Superior Dragonscale Boots - 0.5 points/second
Duncan's Sword - 2 points/second (from Return to Ostagar DLC)
Andruil's Blessing - 2 points/second
The Wicked Oath - 1 point/second
Improved Combat Training (skill) - 0.5 points/second
Fade Shroud (talent, active with Combat magic) - 1 point/second
Base mana regen - 1 points/second
Total = 9.5 points/second
However, the fact that she can maintain Shimmering Shield without any drop in mana (video time 02:56 onwards) suggests that it's rounded up to 10/second.

In other words, Shimmering Shield not active = awesome Mana regen of 10/second, which makes throwing a continuous barrage of spells easy. Need to max out resistances and armor? Simply turn Shimmering Shield on, and it can be maintained forever! This Hero can outlast any foe.

Now, if one wishes to throw in a Bard's Song of Courage, or Spellbloom, or use Lyrium Potions, that makes it even easier to keep the Shield up and keep casting spells.

This video also demonstrates exactly how a solo Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer can duel Gaxkang and win...without using any other buffs/potions at all, or even pausing the game! And bear in mind that this build wasn't even specially made to beat Gaxkang; there are specific talents (Curse of Mortality, Mana Clash) that make this battle a lot easier, but here I illustrate just the basic choices and tactics to create the ultimate Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer.

Gaxkang's Arcane Horror form hurls a lot of spells that can end even an AW quickly, thanks to Dispel Magic, Curse of Mortality and such. And that's where my last spell choice, Spell Shield, comes in. It uses the mage's mana pool to fend off most of Gaxkang's spells that would slaughter even a Shimmering-Shielded AW, making this mage almost impossible to kill by enemy mage or physical attacks. Simply, I maintain Spell Shield to deflect the deadliest spells Gaxkang has, and when he starts using that form's direct-damage attacks, Drain and Spirit Blast, which deal Spirit damage and act as if fired from a mage's staff (and thus, cannot be resisted - but can be reduced by maxing out Spirit Resistance), Shimmering Shield renders this mage almost impervious to those.

Gaxkang switches to his Revenant form and slashes away. No luck there. Armor of 63 with all sustainables on (video time 03:00) and an insane Health Regeneration rate leaves Gaxkang outmatched.

Soon, Gaxkang is down and I get the Fade Wall. Woohoo! With that shield, the Hero's unbuffed mana regen is now 11 points/second...enough to maintain Shimmering Shield/Cleansing Aura indefinitely and still regenerate mana.

(Note: It is possible to get higher Armor by using Bergen's Honor and Wade's Superior Dragonbone Plate Set or Warden Commander Plate, but the armor is only +2 points higher than my setup, at a cost of 21% more baseline fatigue!)

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