Gromnir

I suspect that many of the high-damage-dealing rogue builds I've seen over on Bio's social site are dependent on both Lethality and the 2nd tier Assassin ability "Exploit Weakness," which boosts backstab damage based on your Cunning score. If you're getting consistent backstabs (via positioning, stealth, Dirty Fighting, Coup de Grace, etc.), it probably gives a better raw damage boost (raw meaning disregarding armor-based reductions) than does investment in Strength or Dex. Edit: Apparently, one of the rogue-specific abilities that you can get in the Wardens Keep DLC also provides a Cunning-based boost to damage. we recognize that you can reach big damage potential from cunning, but you get a damage AND attack boost with strength. our experience with boss characters on hard is that with an attack rating o' 100, Gromnir were missing more than hitting when attacking boss characters. the notion o' sacrificing attack for damage seems... odd. no doubt it looks impressive 'gainst fodder, but who cares if you can backstab a hurlock for 200 points o' damage if you cannot manage to hit a revanant? dunno. the dlc power for rogues, the one that uses cunning, is a pretty damn serious health drain. with specific equipment that super-boosts con the rogue dlc ability may be worth considering, but otherwise... HA! Good Fun!

464 we rechecked, and the french girl somehow gots a "most damage dealt" of 464... no lethality and no master archer. she does have the scattershot and arrow of slaying talents. arrow o' slaying simply converts into an auto critical, right... and supposed, 'ccording to the in-game description, tougher opponents may resist the critical. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

am getting that people views cunning as somewhere between valuable and essential for a rogue, but am simply not seeing where the payoff is. if attack is a function o' str and dex, then stopping at mid-20s for str and 36 for dex results in a serviceable attack score, but hardly boss-worthy. does essential equipment work into these builds... something that significantly boosts attack? is maybe just a gut impression that cunning is good? is some hidden numbers that make cunning invaluable? lord only knows how armour penetration and criticals work... does crits and armour penetration somehow supersede attack scores? am convinced that cunning is useful... am wondering why it is useful. given what little we can see of the rules, str should kick cunning's arse, but people say that ain't the case... and the "why" is usual absent from the explanations. HA! Good Fun!

lack o' transparency makes character building such a crap shoot. HA! Good Fun!

something seems strange with many o' the high cunning builds we has seen for rogues. high cunning may replace str for damage, but not hit v. miss. if you stop at 27 or 28 for str and 36 for dex, won't you end up kinda sucky at hitting the big bads? am recalling that more than a few elite type critters has that seeming persistent weakness aura that lowers attack and defense by 10 points. am aware that there is a couple o' powhaz that allow the rogue to add cunning score to damage, but it seems like many o' the cunning build folks act as f cunning is a replacement for str, and it ain't. also, as we noted earlier, we has seen very few additional cunning based dialogue options... can count on one hand after finishing redcliffe, dalish and mage tower. am looking at numbers and trying to figure out why folks is so enamored with cunning for rogues as we don't see a payoff compared to a high str rogue. HA! Good Fun!

more terrible logic? "why is Congress messing with baseball?" fact that Congress has no business involving themselves in baseball means that baseball is okie dokie? mana and stamina regen is a difficult fix. our 2h fighter were doing near 65 points o' base damage per hit (maybe more) by the end of the game. if there were some way to regen stamina fast and he could use mighty blow or the berserker powers with impunity, the game would become even more broken. am suspecting that one o' the reasons the da mechanics is not transparent is 'cause the biowarians recognize the rules and mechanics as being a mess. fallout 3 had terrible combat mechanics too, which obsidian's josh sawyer has commented on numerous times, but the first time we played through fallout 3 we had no idea that the mechanics were busted, so we were content. with da we can see just enough mechanics to know that stuff is wrong... is not a very coherent system. even so, expecting bio to genuine fix at this point may be unreasonable. is a bit late to go back to the drawing board. on the other hand, fix inventory and rogues is easy. solutions: 1) expand inventory, 2) get rid of rogue and open up rogue abilities to mages and warriors. Gromnir is far more likely to complain 'bout easy fixes that gets ignored than we is to rail 'gainst the biowarians avoiding wholesale redesign of combat mechanics. fix combat tactics? there is an easy fix: remove combat tactics as a skill. see? HA! Good Fun! ps on our second run through the game we just finished up the dalish portion. before we entered the ruins we had over 60 inventory slots open. immediately after entering the final/doggie part o' the ruin we had to back-track all the way to a merchant 'cause our inventory were full. even after having played once we were sure that +60 slots would be enough. it weren't.

some guy is trying to solo as a rogue, and that means something to vol. many people complain 'bout inventory space, but that has no impact on vol-logic. ... the da dog were also far more consistent than vol. HA! Good Fun!

Clearly you don't read enough Worldnetdaily. this is Gromnir's first experience with worldnetdaily. "We're a bisexual nation living in denial, all because of a bunch of nerds

good is far less important than popular. Gromnir absolutely loathes crpg romances. they is tacky little tangential quests that suffer from insipid dialogues and immature scenarios that has our principles eventually bumping nasties as the culmination o' a mini-drama. is same formula we has seen in past... but with da, bio added gifts. huzzah. nevertheless, regardless o' Gromnir's personal take on game romances, we concede their popularity and the inevitable inclusion o' such material from this point forward. the fact that bio romances is avoidable makes them tolerable for Gromnir. 'course, having the romances be complete tangential to critical path is arguably what keeps 'em from being noteworthy. kinda ironic. try to come up with an example o' a great (or even good) romance story that were complete incidental and extraneous to the main storyline. books? movies? plays? we can't think o' any such examples. HA! Good Fun!

clown. again, the rogue is effective, but Pointless. biowarians try to create synthetic usefulness by limiting thiefy skills to one class... take away a couple o' combat trees and replace with rogue talents. is dumb. is bad design. is pointless... and for some reason you still ain't getting it. "You sound like the people who said a bunch of spells in BG2 were useless. They aren't. Just ebcause YOU don't find them useful (cause you didn't figure them out), doesn't mean they were useless." whatever. you compare bg ogres to da ogres as if the comparison is meaningful. you identify that some people is trying to solo as rogues as if that is significant o' anything. your mage dies in last battle and somehow you use an an indicator that mages ain't as powerful as some suggest. etc. is like a laundry list o' silliness. really, how does you manage to work/use a computer and play these games? we got more insight from the da dog than from over 12,000 vol posts. as for inventory... *shrug* using vol rationale (HA!) mathew rorie is an idiot and obvious tig is a fool, and even alan finally concedes that he had inventory issues for a considerable portion o' his first play through (bio concedes that most people only play once), and he didn't even use frost bombs 'n such... so we guess he were a dolt too. am recalling hearing that the reason the chest were added to soldier's peak is from all the press feedback regarding lack o' inventory. one o' the first developer mods available were the camp chest. vol is the guy using fact that some people is trying to solo as rogues as indicative of relative mage power, so he obvious ain't averse to using what other people is doing/experiencing in da as probative. this just gets more and more ridiculous... really. "The same goes for the class discussion. " well, that is conclusory, no? alan's previous defense o' rogue bloat were based on the belief that people would be overwhelmed by too many choices if not for creating a third class. *chuckle* and am still gonna call bs on some o' the da spells being anything other than sucky, but that has been discussed to death. in a couple of months you can come back to boards and poll people... ask 'em what spells they would give their da mage. am betting those spell lists gots more in common than they gots varriation, and some spells will be unlikely to show up on any lists at all. but heck, no doubt there is somebody out there who actually found a way to make each spell useful... 'course if a spell is disproportionately less useful than all similar tiered spells it is still sucky in our book. HA! Good Fun!

1) where did we say you should be able to find everything the first time through? heck, tig, who not think inventory were limited, had to use an inventory increase mod if he were wanting to take advantage of traps n' such. gosh, the biowarians put grenades and poisons and elemental coatings in game, but a player who wants to use 'em is sever hampered by the initial and early inventory limit. am also wondering how many people okie dokie with inventory has soldier's peak. soldier's peak is dlc, not core. that extra chest makes a big difference in inventory management. in any event, our point were that to use a relative obscure backpack purchase to show that there is no backpack shortage is intellectually dishonest... we certainly were not criticizing the lack o' player omniscience. would think that were obvious, but you do tend to miss the obvious. speaking of which... 2) show where Gromnir said that rogues is sucky we said that rogues is pointless... they is an example o' developer bloat. Gromnir specific noted that when we played through the dwarf noble origin, through ostagar, our rogue were effective. didn't change fact that we sees 'em as pointless. can't find your own arse and now you is misrepresenting Gromnir statements? stick to telling us how all spells in da and bg2 is non-sucky and how mages ain't disproportionate powerful in da. HA! Good Fun!

how many folks without meta-knowledge knew that you could get 2 cheap(er) backpacks in ostegar? in any event, your second sentence does seem to weaken the strength of your first sentence observation, no? HA! Good Fun!

having 2 mages does not decrease potion usage as mages end up using lyrium potions... net reduction on potion usage is zero. conversely, you could have morrigane and wynne sit back going pew-pew with their staves until mana regenerates enough to cast... anything. is no doubt a very fun way to play da. ask vol for inventory tips. apparently you is a serious yutz if you need more than 80 inventory slots. perhaps it is a kanadian thing as alan also claims that the base inventory allocation never felt limiting. *snort* with a useful rogue character in our party we even have more need for inventory slots... deathroot and frost rocks... plus the actual frost bombs and concentrated deathroot stuff. thank goodness we don't use traps. HA! Good Fun!

our problem with rogues ain't 'bout power disparity. we played through dwarf noble rogue and human noble warrior almost simultaneous... and the rogue were pretty effective. our current rogue is also effective. 'course, the question that comes to mind when we play rogue is: why? why even have a rogue class. take a da warrior... now subtract 2h talents and sword and board talents. to make up for the subtraction, add some thiefy talents. why? what is purpose? make the thief abilities open and available to mage and warrior and you has effective removed the need for a rogue class. you also would get more interesting and diverse warrior and mage builds by doing so. also, the da jnpc rogues... suck. part of this is bioware's doing with their crappy initial builds for the rogues. the other problem is that rogues would seem to benefit from a more careful spread of attribute points, and the jnpcs have fewer ability points than a pc rogue. late in the game, when the mages is spamming area effect spells, then the french girl becomes a valuable party mate. before that non-specific point she were a combat liability. and zeveran... why? no lock pick, so he is a solid, but unexceptional light warrior. unless Gromnir is playing a tank pc, we cannot seem to find room for him. so, why? is not that rogues is ineffective... is that they is unnecessary. as for combat tactics as a purchasable SKILL... ... single dumbest aspect of da... and that is saying something. is a nice game, but there is some head-scratchers related to rules, mechanics, and story. even so, there is no bigger mystery than combat tactics as a skill. am honest curious to hear the rationale that led to the inclusion o' combat tactics, 'cause Gromnir is complete baffled by the result. heck, while Gromnir thinks that 5 and 7 gold sovereign backpack space is kinda ridiculous, at least we can understand how and why bio bent us over with their backpack scheme. am not getting combat tactics. "We need one more skill. Does anyone have any ideas? Anyone?" perhaps there were another one of those silly community contests we didn't hear about: create the final da skill. cartography maybe came in second... have map not fully functional 'less you buy ranks in cartography skill. maybe the da doctors lost a bet. dunno. HA! Good Fun!

You have 8 or so characters (4 if you don't want to change party after exploring just to pickpocket) with 22/2-3 skill points to burn. Giving one of them pickpocketing is no big deal. unless you respec, chances are that most o' the character's skill points is spent before you recruit 'em. for instance, if you happen to think that it would be insane to give wynne four tiers of combat tactics, then you may be out of luck. sure, combat training is kinda like d&d concentration, but combat tactics? it is also preferable to have more than 1 character get at least 2 or 3 levels o' herbalism, 'cause you never know when you is gonna need a couple extra potions. with only 1 character proficient at herbalism you default gotta keep that character in your party at all times, no? warriors and rogues all pretty much gotta fill out the combat training skill if they want top-tier combat talents, and we thinks it is kinda a no-brainer to give all non-mages at least 1 level o' posion. etc. thus, the number o' functionally available skill points is not so large as you make it seem to be... but yeah, our first time through the game we didn't feel like we were sacrificing anything by giving the french girl 3 tiers o' picking of pockets... 'cause the only reason we had for bringing her out of camp were to do thiefy stuff likes picking pockets and opening locked chests.... and disarming the infrequent trap we had failed to trip. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that the best pickpocket score we had were very early in the game... in lothering. got a tier 6 or 7 crossbow. oddly enough, we couldn't sell the crossbow for very much, so we kept it for the sentimental value. ah, good times. with 3 tiers o' pickpocket skill we had the french girl stealing from peoples and critters with the yellow names... and we typically got a shiny amethyst or topaz for our efforts. at that point we stopped wasting gameplay hours on picking-of-pockets. HA! Good Fun!

according to the heroic accomplishments, leliana, whom we almost never let out of camp, had a max single-hit damage of 438. ... have absolutely no idea when that occurred. her toughest foe killed is listed as an arcane horror, and am not recalling having her along on any dragon fights. our second time through game (on hard again), with a dual wielding rogue and at level 11-12 (after mage tower) did not have an issue with redcliffe... but we easily went through more than 9 lesser lyrium potions during the night battles. we knew the length o' battles and an optimal approach to dealing with combatants. allister and our rogue both had enchantable weapons with expert or journeyman cold iron runes respectively. we had wynne healing, petrifying and mind blasting as necessary, while morrigan were casting force field, cone of cold, winter kiss and heals. now, the first time through we hadn't even had morrigan level-up yet... so she had frost weapons but not cone o' cold, and her best offensive spell were winter kiss. no heal spell. no force field neither. am recalling that mc mentioned he did soldier's peak and stone prisoner early, but assuming you hadn't... few potions and a wizard with few spells... fact that we were a 2h fighter probable made little difference to initial difficulty. after a few minutes o' the night battle at redcliffe, morrigan were reduced to plugging away with her staff.... waiting for mind blast and winter kiss to regen. the brazillian forest? as with most areas, you could inch towards daylight. take 1 battle at a time, heal-up, level-up, and move forward. the the brazilian forest were not containing 20 minute long battles that would consume your entire potion supply in one go. perhaps other folks have a different definition o' "first" as well. on hard, with a 7th level party and a limited potion supply (and 3 lumps o' lyrium in our inventory), am not seeing how redcliffe would be described as easier than the brazilian forest where you could wash-rinse-repeat at your own pace. 'course, if you were playing a mage at redcliffe... a player-built mage is a different beast than morrigan at level 7. have both of 'em in your party for redcliffe at level 7 would be different. HA! Good Fun!

shale were pretty effective for us on hard, but am not sure if that would be the case on nightmare. am also not certain that shale's ability distribution is ideal for higher levels o' difficulty. the big health of shale probable ain't gonna be as much benefit on nightmare difficulty... would be better to have higher armour and defense. dunno. next time, when we play nightmare, we will give it a looksee. HA! Good Fun!

well, 'cause vol saying it makes it so. heck, have noticed that the opposite tends to be true: vol observations has a preternatural tendency to be wrong. for Gromnir there were only 1 tough battle in the brazilian forest ruins, and that were a gimmick battle. took two reloads to figure out gimmick, and then it were easy as the pie you love so much. insomniac thought brazilian were hard, but he were including the optional revenants, which ain't really appropriate for comparing relative difficulty for a low-level party. the Big battle in brazil is tough or easy depending on the spells you has given your mage... which again speaks to the wacky balance o' da more than anything. with force field and cone o' cold, the end battle is somewhere between easy and manageable. regardless, there is a considerable number o' people at bio boards and here who struggled mightily with redcliffe as a first stop... and there is few threads complaining 'bout overall difficulty o' the forest. the following is not directed at the pie-lover: one aspect that makes a considerable difference regarding why redcliffe is so tough early, is lack of lyrium potions. as a new player you has no idea how to get lyrium. after ostegar and lothering, Gromnir had two or three lyrium potions and maybe 8 lesser lyrium potions, with supplies to make a few more. the redcliffe battles is considerably longer than those in the forest, and you is far more likely dependent on potions (which you probable don't have) to complete battles. individual battles in the forest may be tough for some folks, but they is unlikely gonna exhaust potion supply... unless you get greedy and try to wipe out the revenants with a level 7 or 8 party. a party with 1 mage, a paltry stock of potions, and no healing spells, makes the long battles at redcliffe a challenge for a level 7-8 party that don't benefit from meta-knowledge. HA! Good Fun!

agreed. doesn't change the fact that the brazilian forest revenants is optional and the redcliffe one ain't. HA! Good Fun!

the revenants is optional in the forest and forest ruins. the revenant at redcliffe is not optional. HA! Good Fun!

our only helpful advice is supremely unhelpful: reload from before going to redcliffe. am only wondering what kinda sick joke the developers had in mind when they had allistar repeated suggest going to redcliffe as the initial stop after lothering. Gromnir went to the mages tower initially so we could recruit wynne... 'cause we needed a healer badly. 'course we heard all sorta people complaining that going to redcliffe first were a kinda death trap, so we reloaded an earlier saved and did redcliffe right after lothering. ... unless you is playing a mage we would not recommend redcliffe first. HA! Good Fun!

"Also, like BG2, going the rogue route allows you to arguably build the best NPC team (unless you are going uber-mage)." am not sure we agree with the bg2 part (jan or imoen were excellent compliments to our party), but is definite true with da. the two jnpc rogues is built wrong. if you don't use respec (and Gromnir doesn't) then each o' the da rogues has 1/2 the talents and skills one would hope for in a rogue... so only way to get a good rogue is to build your own. rogues also require a greater spread of points across various abilities to be successful... can't just dump into willpower and magic as do mages. str, dex, cunning, and willpower is all very important for most rogue builds, and jnpcs simply not get enough points to be effective. our problem with the rogue is that as a class it is unnecessary. make the rogue talents and abilities general available and lose the "class." separate rogue serves no purpose... other than the wacky "overwhelmed" theory postulated. the problem with the 2h warrior is that it cannot be used as a tank. typical player probable wants to rush through the door first and be the leader both actual and geographic. a 2h warrior IS a warrior after all. is not some pansy rogue or mage, right? unfortunately, the 2h warrior, while very effective, is having much less versatility than the other warrior builds, and is also relative fragile. 2h is a big gun that can do extreme high consistent damage. with indomitable active your 2h warrior won't end up on his back or stunned during fights... is no lost combat rounds during which the 2h is failing to generate any damage. unfortunate, to be building a powerful 2h build you is pumping str and willpower... dex and con is useful, but placing points in these stats rob from the true potential o' the 2h warrior: dealing massive damage on a consistent basis. 2h is best v. high armour boss types, but probable seems like a dog v. mobs... and the mobs make up a majority o' the game... but the bosses is the toughest part o' the game. *shrug* however, as we pointed out earlier, we thinks that the enchantable weapons probable give edge to the dual wielder late in game as a clear best warrior build... and the best weapons seems to be 1-h in any event. best 2h weapon may be starfang. if you kill ser cat, her weapon is very nice, but is only tier 6 with two enchantment slots. the dragonslayer sword is neato, but is only 3 genuine tough dragon battles in game. ageless is ok v. darkspawn. there is one genuine powerful maul available real late in game, but is needed to be purchased, and it ain't cheap... and the best battleaxes simply suck compared to the greatswords. the 1h weapon selection is better, and you can potential equip 2 at once. is a double-whammy. Gromnir ain't a power-fiend who needs the best equipment and build to enjoy the game, but it does seem as if the 1-h weapons is superior, and a dw character can equip 2 of 'em. the way the character menu reads, a +4 to attack from an enchanted dagger in the off hand boosts attack for primary hand weapon as well... and such bonuses stack. 6 potential enchantments 'stead of 3, better selection o' weapons, and stacking effects from weapons gives the dual-wielder a serious advantage. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* this is getting ridiculous. pixel hunting would indeed add 200 hours-- using cursor to actual look at every spot in game would take At Least 200 hours. yutz. use tab is a way to avoid pixel hunting, and the trade-off is the mildly annoying 20-second tab routine. if you can't keep up, then just go back to spewing nonsense 'bout the inevitability o' overpowered mages... who ain't actual overpowered... or something similar. is tough to keep track o' your nonsense. in any event, why? elfroot, deathroot, and lootable corpses is clearly identified, but for some reason bio chose tab function for other stuff. is no challenge. is not fun. is simply an exercise in tedium. again, if search were attached to some skill or ability, then we could see usefulness of tab, but if is simple a mechanical response for the ocd crowd, then it does not improve game and should be corrected in bios next attempt at da. "On Normal that won't even bring a Rev's life down to 3/4s so... yeah." don't try to be reasonable. won't work. HA! Good Fun!

why? doesn't add to gameplay, and the biowarians has already supplied tab to reveal everything. the way we look for stuff is to hold down the tab button. maybe some dope pixel hunts with his cursor and adds 200 hours to game making sure he covered every conceivable spot in game, but Gromnir is not foolish to engage in such nonsense. the biowarians gave us the tab button, but tab only has a very limited range, so we effective gotta tab every few seconds o' gameplay... which we does. to what end? to stretch Gromnir's pinky finger? what is biowarian motivation? in bg2 there were hidden stuff too, but the biowarians made entire map subject to the tab function. we could be on other side of slums and use tab to recognize that there were a hidden object in the wall at the base o' the jansen home. there were no walk-20'-and-tab silliness in bg2. if "Look for stuff" made game more challenging or more fun, we would do so... but there ain't no challenge 'cause tab reveals all. and only vol could thinks 20'-n'-tab is adding to fun. if no challenge and no fun, then from game design pov there is no purpose, so why do it? is a somewhat tedious bit o' repetition... like arguing with vol. HA! Good Fun!