Loads of questions (might get spoiler replies)

[Crenshinibon]

Keep in mind that the paralysis effect achieved from the glyphs affects your party too, should they be in the area of effect.

The swarm isn't as good as it sounds in my opinion. You do small damage and high resistances, but you lose your mana when hit, which is a lot more than you'd expect. I didn't use any of her forms altogether.

As for Spirit Healer/Blood Mage, note that you can NEVER heal yourself for a large amount of health while Blood Magic is active. The best you can do is heal a party member and then drain their health.

I'm currently replaying the game as a rogue and will take the assassin specialization next level. For this one however, 90% of my ability points will go into cunning.

Also, has anyone tried the re-spec mod? If so, can people comment on it?

[GawainBS]

I'm using the respec mod, and I love it. No bugs so far for me.

[Scottg]

Keep in mind that the paralysis effect achieved from the glyphs affects your party too, should they be in the area of effect.

The swarm isn't as good as it sounds in my opinion. You do small damage and high resistances, but you lose your mana when hit, which is a lot more than you'd expect. I didn't use any of her forms altogether.

As for Spirit Healer/Blood Mage, note that you can NEVER heal yourself for a large amount of health while Blood Magic is active. The best you can do is heal a party member and then drain their health.

I'm familiar with the glyph combo - it's the duration I find critical, the use (generally avoiding party members) isn't too difficult.

I'll have a way of increasing damage by then - Death Hex. As for Mana regen for Morrigan - Death Syhpon, plus I don't think she will be hit much with the swarm and all the AW goodies.

I'm not into the Blood Mage for the 1st or 2nd "spell"s, just the 3rd and 4th. This brings up an interesting question however - Is the 1st "spell" Blood Magic required to be active to use the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th spells?

[Crenshinibon]

Having used all those spells, I have to say that Death Hex is okay a single target spell, but is often resisted and largely unnecessary, especially if you consider the fact that you're using four points in that tree. I recommend Miasma instead. It's a sustained aura that reduces the enemy's defense and attack.

You can't have ANY sustained spells active when you shapeshift. They all deactivate when you do. The Shapeshifter has absolutely NO synergy with any of the mage classes, except maybe blood mage, but there are better ways to go. Also, Death Syphon isn't that good. You only get like twenty to forty mana per corpse. You can instead spend some three or four gold and a point in herbalism and get about ninety nine lesser lyrium potions.

The first is a must, since it lets you use health instead of mana. The second is also great since you receive double the life you take from your ally. The third spell is the best one. Essentially it's like an area of effect crushing prison. The last one isn't that good. You can control a creature for a bit, it doesn't count as a member of your party (you can even control orange creatures sometimes), but the AI on it is pretty bad. Sometimes it will stand around, sometimes it will help. I don't recommend it. It doesn't provide enough return.

Blood Magic needs to be active to use any of the specialization's spells.

GawainBS: I'll give it a try then. Thanks.

[Scottg]

Ugg.. looks like I have a bit of back-tracking to do. No auras (from that character) while shape-shifted, pretty much sucks. (..makes the AW specilization and the Death Sypon spell irrelevant.) Thanks for the "heads-up".

Death Hex is often resisted? I've found that the others in that line are almost never resisted (..actually I've *never* seen this occur). I was counting on a Stinging Swarm/Death Hex for my single opponent "combo". I've not seen Stinging Swarm ever be resisted either. Of course it could be that they won't work together, any ideas on this?

I've seen the effects of Miasma from Revenants - nasty bit of evil. I think I might go through on another game as an AW with it.. sort of a DIY Revenant.

Thanks for the info on the Blood Mage as well!

EDIT, I've now seen Stinging Swarm resisted (once). It could just be that the level of my Magic attribute (and thereby Spellpower) is high when compared to the opponents I've dealt with so far.