Arcane Warrior (how does it work!)

[Spike]

I love dao and have played thru and modded it multiple times. recently got the ultimate edition and playing thru again i wanted to do an arcane warrior build for my badass mage :) unfortunately i don't have a clue as to how to build it well, ive tried looking up builds on the web buit they are too complicated for me to understand! derp.... so any help with basics as to skill points, talents, armour and weapons would be awesome! please?

[Winter]

I mostly just set mine up with alot of support style stuuf. AW's and Shapeshifters are really good for making really diverese chracter that can switch roles quickly (like a druid). I normallly take AW with Spirit healer (for the healing role). Along with that I while get alot of crowd control abillities like Force Field or Mind Blast as well as many of the Glyph spells. I use Force Field to to keep high threat targets under control while I beat down weaker enemies, or to defend allies I cannot heal. If I am facing dangerous ranged enemies I will place down a glyph of warding. If an enemy gets to glose I will use mid blast than switch to my mellee weapon to take them down. I generally take massive armour with a staff/greatsword. Staff so I will have more spellpower, greatsword for mellee dps, massive for tanking. I will also take alot of seels that drain or nullify enemy spellcasters mana. Basically I use a versatile, mostly jack of all trades master of none type cvhracrter with AW. However on thing I do focus on is making sure I have control of the battlefield. As for dps spellcasting would keep it fairly simple. Wintersgrasp is a good low cooldown spell that also take a fairlt small amount of mana to cast. As well it does decent damage and has a chance to slow or stun. You can also cast it it without lone of sight, so if you are in a bad situation with ranged apponets you can get behind something that blocks line of si\ght and just spam that.

[Winter]

And that my friends, is my massive wall of text

[Winter]

I should have divided it into paragraphs. derp

[Spike]

thanks thats some good info, do you have problems switching from staff to melee weapons mid fight?

[Segovax]

You can have two weapon sets equipped and selected I/II on the left of the quickbar will swap between them.

I loved AW, can really do a ton of different things with that spec. If you want to focus on close combat with weapons a lot of the auras like Death Siphon are awesome since you're right there amid the pile of bodies already. Otherwise, building a traditional Tank/Mage is easy since your Magic attribute subs for Strength when it comes to armor & weapons, and you can open a fight with grease/fireball and then just chop away if they close in on you without having to do more than click those weapon set buttons and go at it.

[snake75232]

my problem is i have no clue how to build any mage at all

[Saluhmann]

When it comes to attributes, I follow an approximative ratio of 6:3:2:1 for Magic, Willpower, Constitution and dexterity, respectively. For spells, you absolutely need the following: Arcane Shield, Fade Shield, Attunement, Rock Armor, Miasma, Heal, Group Heal, Mana Drain and all the AW spells, obviously. The rest is up to you, but I usually get the whole Healing line, Force Field and Stoic.

For items, go for a Spellweaver and Fade Wall combo and use Wade's Superior Dragonskin Armor Set (the set has a NEGATIVE fatigue modifier; -12%). Same thing as usual for accessories, Lifegiver, Key to the city and The Spellward. I haven't played Awakening in a while, so I can't recommend any items for it, save for the Sentinel armor set and Vigilance.

There you go, the experience of two AW playthroughs in two small paragraphs. I realize it might be too late for you, but hopefuly someone else picks up the class with these tips.