Dragon Age Tactics

[Enoch]

To get us back to some Tactics discussion, I had a hell of a time with elf leader Baldy McFishhooks last night. First I tried force-fielding him to focus on his helpers (IIRC, 4 walking trees and 2 greater shades), but they were too tough to take down before the FF ended. And he abuses Cone of Cold almost as much as I do! (Misdirection Hex was also a killer against me in that fight.) I eventually beat him on my 3rd try with what turned out to be a somewhat exploitative strategy: put everything into knocking him out first, which unsummoned all his helpers and triggered the "I surrender" cutscene. Had the others not gone away, they almost certainly would've finished me off-- Leliana was already knocked out, Shale was frozen, and Al & my Mage spending half their turns chugging "poultices" just to stay upright.

Edited November 17, 2009 by Enoch

[HoonDing]

^I chose to kill the Lady of the Forest and her wolfies, but I guess the battle would've been the same... surrounded by a lot of mooks. I had a pretty easy time, really... Morrigan cast Sleep & a couple of Cone of Colds (with my tanks shattering), while Wynne tossed a Petrify+Stonefist... then a combined lightning arc and things were pretty much over.

 

But if I had chosen this area as my first after Lothering... I guess it would've been quite challenging.

Edited November 17, 2009 by virumor

[Gromnir]

To get us back to some Tactics discussion, I had a hell of a time with elf leader Baldy McFishhooks last night. First I tried force-fielding him to focus on his helpers (IIRC, 4 walking trees and 2 greater shades), but they were too tough to take down before the FF ended. And he abuses Cone of Cold almost as much as I do! (Misdirection Hex was also a killer against me in that fight.) I eventually beat him on my 3rd try with what turned out to be a somewhat exploitative strategy: put everything into knocking him out first, which unsummoned all his helpers and triggered the "I surrender" cutscene. Had the others not gone away, they almost certainly would've finished me off-- Leliana was already knocked out, Shale was frozen, and Al & my Mage spending half their turns chugging "poultices" just to stay upright.

 

a simple way to make any battle easier: dump the bard.

 

2 mages with force field and cone o' cold would make short work o' that bunch.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Enoch]

a simple way to make any battle easier: dump the bard.

 

2 mages with force field and cone o' cold would make short work o' that bunch.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Already done. My party for Redcliff is Al, Shale, and Wynne.

 

Although, for variety's sake, I haven't been giving Wynne the same bunch of crowd-control spells that my PC has. I've started her down the Lightning line, to give her something more useful to do in the early stages of combat, before her healing becomes necessary. It's probably not an optimal choice, but I wanted to experiment a little.

[HoonDing]

I takes a while for Wynne to get Cone of Cold. Since she starts with Tier 2 Earth spells, might as well give her Petrify (same effect with Stonefist as Cone of Cold) & continue developing her healing spells.

 

In the long run, it might even be useful to give her some Spirit spells like Mana Clash & Spell Shield... to deal with annoying Darkspawn Emissaries.

[Tigranes]

Dwarf Rogue dual-wielding man is working out fine on Hard difficulty. At level 5 with choose-all-your-abilities-not-take-the-retarded-prepicked-bio-ones mod, I have Dirty Fighting, Combat Movement, Below the Belt, Lockpicking I, Stealth I, Dual-Wield Sweep, Flurry and Momentum. What that really boils down to is turn momentum on, go stealth, enter combat, backstab; dirty fighting to stun and backstab; find distracted guys and backstab; if surrounded dual-wield sweep & flurry. Momentum ensures that overall I'm doing as much damage harm as Alistair, if less durable. I assume once I'm out of the origins and the enemies start being more lethal I'll have to care more about survivability, too.

[alanschu]

What abilities do you normally start with as a Dwarf rogue?

 

I actually don't turn momentum on until after I use some abilities, effectively making it "free"

[Tigranes]

Poison-making, combat training, dirty fighting. I didn't take the first one.

[alanschu]

Hmmm, would you find choosing something else over poison making significant?

[Tigranes]

Yes, because I chose Conversation and Stealing with the spare talents (including the one free you get anyway), and that had a direct impact on how I was able to play the character in the Origins. One could argue that a dwarf noble is likely to have basic knowledge in poisons, but the same is true with, say, conversation or even combat tactics.

 

I see no real reason to restrict the player from building the character the way he wants to within the confines of each class, since DA character system is clearly about letting you create specialists within a class.

[Spider]

What a difference a night's sleep make.

 

Yesterday I was having sever problems against gaxkang. He would just paralyze my party to hell and back, and then kill us with fireballs and cone of cold.

 

Yesterday I focused on keeping out of spell range and try to mop up the minions before assaulting him. That was the wrong plan and resulted in a fiery death most of the time. Today I realized I know his tricks, so I sent the most stun resistant party member to trigger him, while the rest was waiting at his destination, and proceeded to lay the smack down on him. In close combat he doesn't throw fireballs... And I don't think I was subjected to a cone of cold either, though there could have been on.

 

Best of all, Alistair didn't get stunned, so I had all my meleers on top of him after a short while. And without him, the skeletons were a fairly simple mop-up job.

[HoonDing]

It seems it's possible to 'overload' the teleporters by sending a party member to each. Then simply swarm and kick his undead behind.

 

The arcane horror in the Elven ruins isn't Gaxkang, though.

[Spider]

Ok, I just assumed since the name was thrown around just before. He only teleported once for me, in all my attempts. So if he was supposed to jump around more, thankfully I didn't have to deal with that.

[Enoch]

Question: Has anybody done any weapon switching based on the type of enemy they're facing? Of course, I do switch out Shale's crystals and, to a lesser extent, my wizards' staves based on damage type resistances. But I've never done any melee weapon switching.

 

The game mentions differences between Swords, Maces, and Axes-- variations in base damage, crit chance, and armor penetration. But I really don't pay a whole lot of attention to the changes in the damage numbers that my bashers put out. My guess is that the effects are all pretty minor-- nothing on the level of D&D's "skeletons take half damage from swords" setup. So I've just been sticking with the best weapons I have, augmented with the best enchantments I can find. Has anybody found that it's worthwhile to swap a sword for a mace when taking on certain foes?

[Monte Carlo]

^ I've found the same thing, my only real weapon swaps are bow to melee weapon.

 

I've got Sten with a maul and a two-handed sword but really I only swap them over to enjoy the combat animations to be honest.

 

I now have the meteor ore 'Superman' sword - the goofiest looking sword ever but powerful.

 

Cheers

MC

[Majek]

I haven't used blunt weapons yet. Except the other day when i was dreaming about DA. But there my main char was using the lvl3 Lunar staff from Ninja Gaiden II. I even imagined how it'd look like to slay a dragon with it ... erm ... nvrmnd.

 

I hear Mauls are the best AP weapons but i never paid much attention to what armor them enemy has.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Majek

[HoonDing]

So I've just been sticking with the best weapons I have, augmented with the best enchantments I can find. Has anybody found that it's worthwhile to swap a sword for a mace when taking on certain foes?

I just let Morrigan toggle Telekinetic Weapons when fighting power-armoured boyscouts. That's about it.

 

I've been fighting with the same axe for 7 levels or so, only yesterday I got a great sword from Gangkax's corpse.

[Enoch]

FYI, someone on Bio's "social site" has delved into the toolset to look at actual spell effects.

 

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/47/index/217944/1

[Gromnir]

our weapon swaps, so far, has been of 2 flavors:

 

ranged v. melee

 

enchantment configurations

 

the ranged v. melee should be obvious... those area effect spells makes ranged weapons more useful.

 

enchantments, on the other hand... am finding that is sometimes nice to have a darkspawn killer v. a undead weapon... am still trying to figure out the resistances o' various categories 'cause the numbers is hard to decipher, but various weapons and enchantments seems particular geared towards undead and darkspawn, so we switch on the fly as needed.

 

armour penetration? am knowing it exists in game, but is no noticeable effect so is tough to make choices based on such.... heck, am still trying to figure out hits v. misses. according to our heroic statistics, our warrior has been hitting 79% of time. am pretty sure that number has not changed all the way through game, which seems... unlikely.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Oner]

I used the secondary weapon slots as extra inventory.

[Purkake]

I used the secondary weapon slots as extra inventory.

 

Me too!

Edited November 18, 2009 by Purkake

[Monte Carlo]

^ Talk about damned by faint praise!

 

Gromnir's point about archery is well made - it only really makes sense once you get multiple, stacking AoE spells - like my fun with Virulent Walking Bomb... have found new giggles to be had with it when summoning your new undead minion (i.e. using him as the trigger device for the VWB). The rogue and mage working almost permanently in tandem, with the rogue providing close protection for the mage in melee and using archery to pick off boss monster in mob suffering from AoE spell damage seems to work for me.

[HoonDing]

Two questions:

 

1) How is Overwhelm resisted? Do I need 100% physical resistance or something?

 

2) How is Web resisted? Do I again need 100% physical resistance?

 

It's getting ridiculous, really.

 

FYI, someone on Bio's "social site" has delved into the toolset to look at actual spell effects.

 

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/47/index/217944/1

 

If only that information was put in the manual... it suddenly turns out Lightning spells... SUCK.

Edited November 18, 2009 by virumor

[Oner]

Two questions:

 

1) How is Overwhelm resisted? Do I need 100% physical resistance or something?

Stun the bastard or healspam.

 

You messed up there bud.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Oner

[Gromnir]

something we noticed last night...

 

Gromnir didn't take petrify for wynne, 'cause it seemed like less pay-off than cone of cold. however, we bought those arcane talent boosting books and played around with a saved game we had just before meeting the crimson oars mercenaries. is only 4 potential baddies, but 2 gots yellow lettering for their naming. yellow name enemies almost never shatter when Gromnir crit hits 'em while frozen. however, the petrified crimson oar leader shattered each time we replayed... am supposing that combined with death hex, such a combination could be lethal to all but a few critters in the game. am doubting it works on revanants, but we will test this eve.

 

HA! Good Fun!