Dragon Age Tactics

[Volourn]

If they were neccessary, then one would need them in your party. But, you don't. It's a draw as they're unneeded in both. Cool thing about majority of games is no 'class' is absolutely needed.

 

"trap disarming was pretty important in bg."

 

Nope. Didn't need it.

Edited November 25, 2009 by Volourn

[Pidesco]

Thieves are a lot more helpful in BG than in DA, though.

[alanschu]

I felt that rogues were needed in my party. I have never been able to proceed through either game without one, mostly because I find myself getting frustrated enough to not want to continue without one.

 

You say it's possible and that's fair, but in my experience it wasn't. Not within my tolerance levels anyway.

[entrerix]

"trap disarming was pretty important in bg."

 

Nope. Didn't need it.

 

 

in my copy of baldurs gate a fireball (or lightning bolt) trap could and would wipe out my whole party (or at least the mage/s). so i needed to disarm those traps or i'd be dead. I don't know what happened in your copy of the game...

Edited November 25, 2009 by entrerix

[Gromnir]

"with a party of two and utilizing the D&D rules, such a thing were impossible. having genuine lethal traps when your 2-man party might be absent a thief would be resulting in more than a little player frustration."

 

Never needed a rogue in BG2 and that was a 6 character party. In fact, i have never played a D&D game where you needed any class let alone a thief.

 

 

"is some sucky da spells, regardless of what vol believes"

 

Never thoughtr you'd be so ignorant. I didn't say there were NO useless spells. In fact, I named an entire line of spells that I find 'useless'. Just remember, a spell YOU find useless may not be so 'useless' to someone else. Just like BG2, or any other RPG with spells. Or heck, same with non spell talents/skills.

 

Also, there was some rather dangerous traps in NWN - just as many as in any IE game. My perfect strategy for an IE game trap - run through it. R00fles!

 

 

am really beginning to believe that you are brain damaged.

 

"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."

 

Gromnir identifies that there is many sucky spells. virumor points out a few such spells is prerequisites for other better spells, but that not make 'em any less sucky. and now you seems to admit that there is some lame spells in da, in spite of the previous "they aren't" observation. and yeah, there were a bunch o' sucky spells in bg2. why you think most sorcerer builds for bg2 looks the same? nobody in their right mind adds detect illusion or infravision to their limited sorcerer bg2 spell list... 'cept vol?

 

you like pie.

 

whatever.

 

"i agree with a lot of what gromnir is saying here, but i should add that the respec mod takes a lot of the awful guesswork out of the equation. "

 

respec is not part of the game. is a mod. as Gromnir has noted before, the respec mod alters game difficulty far more than does the difficulty slider. some o' the game developer choices for jnpc character skills and talents is absolute mind boggling, but that is how developers supposed balanced, so for the moment that is how we will play... though our level o' tolerance decreases when we see multiple jnpcs with with 4 tiers of freaking combat tactics skill.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tigranes]

You can get by with find traps / knock spells, elemental resistance, etc. It's a completely irrelevant point though. what's important is that in BG the rogue, for various reasons, was an iimportant part of a party that pulled its weight. Arguably, they do too in Dragon Age, but it's much easier to get by without one.

[Volourn]

"I don't know what happened in your copy of the game... "

 

Ran over the trap, took damage, thend rank a healing potion/cast a healing spell. The damage was irrelevant, and was not intimidating.

 

This idea that rogues (or any class) is needed is simply not true.

 

 

"am really beginning to believe that you are brain damaged."

 

Is that the best you got, Mr. Butthurt?

Edited November 26, 2009 by Volourn

[Gromnir]

"am really beginning to believe that you are brain damaged."

 

Is that the best you got, Mr. Butthurt?

 

by andraste's saggy bosom you is a nutter. weren't 'posed to be "best," but a genuine observation. other than somebody who is willful obtuse we cannot imagine anybody that would contradict themselves so frequent... or suggest that bg2 infravision spell were anything other than the suck.

 

btw, 'cause somebody asked we will list some of the spells we think us craptacular... am sure we can come up with more if we reflect, but Gromnir gotta get his turkey ready for tomorrow.

 

-regeneration

[alanschu]

I think a lot of it might just come down to application. I haven't used all the spells, but I actually found spells like Death Siphon/Death Magic (mostly Death Siphon though as I liked the mana regen), and found Earthquake to be quite useful at CC, and was a spell I routinely had Wynne cast in my first playthrough. She also kept Spell Wisp on, but I agree that the Mechanics made me wonder if it was worth the mana cost. I also liked to combo drain life after vulnerability hex, and it works really well if you've gone Arcane Warrior and is a decent damage spell as blood mage (though the healing you get from it is mitigated by having Blood Magic active). Though it's usually my "other spells are on cool down" damage spell. The reason why I like it is because sure, I can drink a potion, but this lets me still hurt a target while healing myself.

 

The guy in my room has talked about Miasma a lot. He seems to like it. It's hard to say how effective it is due to combat mechanics not being obvious.

 

I agree that Shapeshifter was underwhelming. The only time I ever used it was when Morrigan's mana was dropped and I didn't want to use a mana potion. Even then I never got past Spider form. I don't have any real experience with the later abilities in that tree but I wouldn't think they'd be significantly better.

 

 

I think a big difference between us is our willingness to use potions, so I probably appreciated the spells that would regen mana and health a bit more. I typically found myself saving my health potions for Alistair, and in general did not have a whole lot of mana potions so I always saved those for bigger fights. I imagine Death Magic is good for an Arcane Warrior that is tanking, but I liked Death Siphon for draining up bodies to keep spells going with Morrigan.

 

I agree that Drain Mana does not seem like a useful spell (especially if it's not instant like entrerix says). If I'm out of mana I prefer to just staff attack while I regenerate. You'd have to drain a load of mana doing this but I suspect you probably don't.

 

I haven't really paid much attention to the rejuvenation spells, but they don't seem to rejuvenate very much at all the times I did look. I think stamina regen is being looked at in the upcoming patch.

 

I'll take a look at some of the ones I'm less familiar with if I get a chance tomorrow. I'll also see if I can talk with someone about some of these spells like Mana Drain and the regen/rejuv ones.

[Tigranes]

A few of the spells in Gromnir's list are indeed useful in particular situations and warrant their place, but I think there's no denying that some spells are quite near useless.

 

Transparency in terms of what exactly each spell does would probably help in maximising use out of the 'weirder' spells and building up good synergies and synchronisations...

[alanschu]

Like I said I'll have to play around some more. I can't think of any spells that I'd consider "useless" (though rejuv/regen seem the closest) off the top of my head, but I definitely had spells that were my favourites and others that weren't seen to be as useful.

 

There's a lot of spells to choose from and BioWare may have been better served either cutting the spells, or making some of the level ups be passive upgrades (kind of like Virulent Walking Bomb is an upgrade to Walking Bomb. Though the current way has both spells still being castable which someone might find useful).

Edited November 26, 2009 by alanschu

[entrerix]

i've heard miasma is good for tanking arcane warriors. i haven't tried it though so i cant speak to it personally

[Monte Carlo]

There needs to be some gimped spells to reign in the uber-power of mages. I refer you back to my experimental re-specc of Morrigan, which I deleted because it was too easy.

 

And now I've got Volourn on 'ignore' I can say this - the metric to determine the 'difficulty slider' on a game shouldn't be which class you choose - at the moment it's EASY (Mage) NORMAL (Warrior) and HARD (Rogue).

 

Cheers

MC

[HoonDing]

If Tier 4 Shapechange would've been a Dragon form, it could've been worth considering. But I guess that'll be another future mod.

[Majek]

The forms that tier 4 shapechange gives you are quite satisfying. And you can't use the dragon form to play normally only the drakes and smaller. And there's already a mod that gives you that.

[Spider]

And now I've got Volourn on 'ignore' I can say this - the metric to determine the 'difficulty slider' on a game shouldn't be which class you choose - at the moment it's EASY (Mage) NORMAL (Warrior) and HARD (Rogue).

 

Cheers

MC

 

I honestly think that a rogue contributes more in combat than a fighter, as far as DPS is concerned. Since there are good tanks in the game as is (Shale and Alistair), you're going to need a good damage dealer, and the two handers just aren't cutting it. They're just so slow, and almost as fragile as the rogue is (since they wear heavier armor, they get targeted a lot more often, so I'm tempted to say more fragile).

 

Since the rogues in the game are not all that (although I guess Zevran has the potential), I think the game becomes easier if you have the main chracter as a rogue rather than a fighter.

 

Maybe if you make a dual-wield fighter, I suppose. I haven't tried that, but I'm not seeing it. Specifically, you won't get the wonderful assassin talents.

 

But yeah, I can see how playing as a mage would make things even easier. At least if you get blood magic and arcane warrior. I failed to unlock both, afaik, so I can't say for sure.

[HoonDing]

Maybe if you make a dual-wield fighter, I suppose. I haven't tried that, but I'm not seeing it. Specifically, you won't get the wonderful assassin talents.

Berserker seems to fit DW warriors really well.

[Oner]

-regeneration

[Spider]

Cleansing Aura is good for one thing. It makes injury kits completely redundant since it removes injuries as well. Don't think I've ever used it during a fight though, just afterwards.

[Oner]

Didn't do it when I tested that effect.

[HoonDing]

It's a bit insane that Earthquake doesn't work on stationary enemies. Put the ground underneath a group of archers at level 7 on the Richter scale and still they are happily using your party as pin cushions.

 

Oh well, awaiting another mod.

[Monte Carlo]

I'm currently playing a dual-wield warrior (Human) and it's a pretty good build - I'm keeping DEX & STR on a par (OK, dex a bit higher) and wearing fairly heavy armour - feats like Punisher (comfortably achievable by level 9/10) are great for finishing off tough boss monsters and dual-weapon sweep is great for post-spell crowd control / putting critters out of their misery. I burn through stamina so have to pick and choose when I use them but my passive DW skills make up for it in that I'm dishing out decent baseline damage anyway.

 

Ironically, he survives longer in combat than my walking panzer sword and shield guy, even when Sten is with me as the only other tank. Go figure. If you put Wynne and Sten together they're not a bad combo - Wynne keeps him (and everybody else) alive whilst Sten can put down large amounts of damage. It's just not optimal.

 

I'd say, having tried out all three, the DW warrior is my fave build - haven't got to DW Mastery yet so I can use two full-size weapons but there are lots of decent daggers anyway.

 

DW Warrior, therefore, has it all - high DPS, survivability and interesting skills that stun / knockdown / lacerate opponents. I've not yet enchanted any weapons beyond +2 electricity, but that will only add to the carnage.

 

Cheers

MC

[alanschu]

I find rogues and warriors a wash, but mages the most powerful by a fair margin.

[Gromnir]

Didn't do it when I tested that effect.

 

it doesn't heal injuries of the caster... which seems more than passing odd. is similar to the templar's aura which don't remove adverse magical effects on the templar using the aura.

 

"Ironically, he survives longer in combat than my walking panzer sword and shield guy, even when Sten is with me as the only other tank. Go figure. If you put Wynne and Sten together they're not a bad combo - Wynne keeps him (and everybody else) alive whilst Sten can put down large amounts of damage. It's just not optimal."

 

2h warriors is less than optimal tanks, but they is fantastic at doing big and consistent damage. we has seen folks complain 'bout the slowness of 2h swings... and indeed, they does "feel" as if your 2h fighter is perpetually under the influence o' some speed reducing effect. nevertheless, the folks who do the math and add up multiple dual-wielder strikes and compare to a single 2h strikes almost always ignore damage resistance. revenants, for example, seems to have very good damage resistance/armour. let us assume your early game dual wielder is doing 20 pts o' damage with main hand and 15 with off-hand. the 2h fighter at such point is easily doing 35-40 pts o' damage. if enemy armour is effective dr of 20, then your dual wielder is pretty much only doing damage on backstabs, and with additional elemental damage... or perhaps with armour penetration, which nobody has yet explained the mechanics of to Gromnir. the dw warrior could get in 100 strikes and he would still be doing 0 base damage. the 2h warrior, on the other hand, is still doing 15 to 20 pts base damage with every strike.

 

'course the trade off is that the 2h warrior has less optimal defenses. if you try to tank with sten, then wynne is constant having to cast heroic aura and heroic defense... and lots of heals. allister, with high dex and average strength has talents that already allows him to wade into combat and absorb punishment.

 

revanants is actual a pretty effective test subject as those phials is in specific locations that may be triggered optional. play around with weapons 'n such and compare zeveran to sten. for much of game it is a big win for sten.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 26, 2009 by Gromnir

[Spider]

That's not how it feels in the game though. doesn't deal much less damage per strike compared to a 2-hander. I'm going by the floating damage points, by the way, not any stats or guesses. And since I strike at least three times when the 2-hander strikes once, it adds up. And the 2-handers keep dying, which adds up even more.

 

But I'm almost always backstabbing with my rogue. Especially when it matters against tougher enemeis. I didn't bring a 2-hander against the revenants, but I didn't miss it either. Shale tanking with rogue backstabbing is all it took. (Except for the first revenant I fought, at redcliffe, which I was somewhat underleveled for).

 

But yeah, I'm comparing a player made character with an npc. So it's a bit unfair. But I don't see how a player made 2-hande will improve over Oghren that much.