Dragon Age Tactics

[entrerix]

True, there's only one mandatory low-level revenant battle, and it's a pain in the arse. I beat him with three party members dead, only Alistair left alive with about 8 health.

 

 

thats what my party looked like after fighting the secret monster

at the door to the basement of circle tower

 

Edited November 13, 2009 by entrerix

[alanschu]

True, there's only one mandatory low-level revenant battle, and it's a pain in the arse. I beat him with three party members dead, only Alistair left alive with about 8 health.

 

 

You can bring in help for that fight though.

 

 

As for overwhelm, I don't think it's technically a "knockdown."

[Majek]

Hmm magebane and soldierbane. Are they really as useful as they sound?

[Deraldin]

Yeah Force Field is a very, very useful ability. There's a combo involving it too

 

Too bad it's gimped on PC as Crushing Prison can't be used on non hostile targets.

 

I haven't played on anything about normal yet so I don't know how effective the stun on Cone of Cold at those levels is. On normal and below however it will freeze anything not orange for about half a second longer than the cooldown on the spell so you can keep entire groups frozen as long as your mana runs out. If you toss in a force field for those enemies that don't freeze properly you can pretty much walk all over most encounters.

[Asol]

True, there's only one mandatory low-level revenant battle, and it's a pain in the arse. I beat him with three party members dead, only Alistair left alive with about 8 health.

 

Its easier when you

raise the gate and the redcliffe knights rush in and help out.

 

 

Finished a rogue play through, damage pretty much revolves around momentum and coup de grace. Ranger spec turned out surprisingly strong, cheap ccer/tank worth 1-4 points;

Won my logain duel on hard, second try with no consumables spider webbed and overwhelmed him while i just auto attacked with momentum up, whoo

 

 

Thinking either a ranger archery build or arcane warrior for a replay now...

Edited November 14, 2009 by Asol

[Monte Carlo]

Been playing around with the bombs you unlock with the poison skill. When Sten had a spare talent point I just put it into poison to enhance his greatsword with venom, but also found that he's a reasonable grenadier... him and Zevran open up with a volley of grenades then enter melee, shock bombs are good for buying time to get in close to backstab.

 

Zevran's high stealth means he's good to start up ambushes, de-stealth, attract mob, bomb them, chop them up.

 

Morrigan now has the Tier 4 ice storm-type spell and Waking Nightmare, am beginning to find AoE spells a bit tricky to manage because the radius on the Tier 4 is so big. Force Field, as has been noted, is becoming a serious win button, enemy mages just stand frozen while we chop up all the fighters then stand around sharpening our knives waiting for it to wear off.

 

The game is deeper than I suspected with strategies to deal with mobs, although bosses are still all about grind in my experience so far. Archery is still meh, you can't get enough archers with a party of four although I suppose it would be interesting to play with three archers and a panzer meat shield with taunt to see if it worked.

 

Have just arrived in the Temple in the Sacred Ashes quest, have 25 hours in and am about 22% through the game. I've sort of settled into a party of PC (Noble warrior, beserker specialisation, sword and shield), Morrigan, Zevran and Sten or Alistair depending on the mission. Next time I'm definitely going to try to play a dwarf rogue (duellist / assassin and I'll play around with traps), so it'll probably be Alistair and Sten or Oghren with Morrigan (Wynne just doesn't have the offensive skill set I like playing with).

 

Cheers

MC

[Guest Slinky]

Morrigan now has the Tier 4 ice storm-type spell and Waking Nightmare, am beginning to find AoE spells a bit tricky to manage because the radius on the Tier 4 is so big.

When you are about to go to a room which is full of people who are in dire need of asswhopping, put glyph of repulsion in the doorway and throw blizzard to the room. That always cheered me up.

[HoonDing]

When you are about to go to a room which is full of people who are in dire need of asswhopping, put glyph of repulsion in the doorway and throw blizzard to the room. That always cheered me up.

For epic lulz, combine Glyph of Paralysis with Glyph of Repulsion.

[Gromnir]

is templar's cleanse area 'posed to be ineffective 'gainst hexes and curses? cleanse is 'posed to remove magic in the area..."dispellable effects." am gonna assume that hexes and curses ain't dispellable? anybody found a way to counter curses and hexes? Gromnir chose templar as one o' his specializations... 'cause we wanted righteous strike and cleanse area. unfortunately, most o' the serious whammy spells coming our way at high levels is hexes, curses... or they is instantaneous with no chance to dispel.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[HoonDing]

is templar's cleanse area 'posed to be ineffective 'gainst hexes and curses? cleanse is 'posed to remove magic in the area..."dispellable effects." am gonna assume that hexes and curses ain't dispellable? anybody found a way to counter curses and hexes? Gromnir chose templar as one o' his specializations... 'cause we wanted righteous strike and cleanse area. unfortunately, most o' the serious whammy spells coming our way at high levels is hexes, curses... or they is instantaneous with no chance to dispel.

 

HA! Good Fun!

I have the impression Cleanse Area removes effects/buffs on enemies only. I encountered a mage with anti-magic shield and a lot of other bruhaha, and Cleanse Area removed everything of him.

[Gromnir]

is templar's cleanse area 'posed to be ineffective 'gainst hexes and curses? cleanse is 'posed to remove magic in the area..."dispellable effects." am gonna assume that hexes and curses ain't dispellable? anybody found a way to counter curses and hexes? Gromnir chose templar as one o' his specializations... 'cause we wanted righteous strike and cleanse area. unfortunately, most o' the serious whammy spells coming our way at high levels is hexes, curses... or they is instantaneous with no chance to dispel.

 

HA! Good Fun!

I have the impression Cleanse Area removes effects/buffs on enemies only. I encountered a mage with anti-magic shield and a lot of other bruhaha, and Cleanse Area removed everything of him.

 

am pretty sure cleanse area works on own party as we used to remove a cone of cold effect a couple times. perhaps we were simply slow and the freezing effect wore off simultaneous, but it sure seemed to work.will test it next time we play. is one of the few things we can test as friendly fire with cone of cold is possible. regardless, this is yet another example where the in-game description is less than complete. in any event, if cleanse is not 'posed to work on hexes and curses, is there anything that does work?

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 14, 2009 by Gromnir

[Monte Carlo]

^ Grom, have taken Alistair the Templar skill route and those skills do have a friendly fire effect.

 

I'm still relying on Morrigan's force field spell at level 15 to take mages out of the game.

[Gromnir]

^ Grom, have taken Alistair the Templar skill route and those skills do have a friendly fire effect.

 

I'm still relying on Morrigan's force field spell at level 15 to take mages out of the game.

 

2 mages with force field can really supplement control o' the battlefield. does anybody know what factors influence the duration of force fields? some boss creatures can be held via force field for a considerable time, but others...

 

again, as am not understanding the mechanics, we cannot explain the differences.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

^ It is very annoying, I don't know if they have saving throws every 'X' rounds (are there even rounds?) or if there is a duration based on the critter's 'name colour' code (which seems to be the main gauge of how tough the enemy are)?

[HoonDing]

High Magic & Willpower might also affect it, along with critter's physical resistance maybe?

[entrerix]

http://social.bioware.com/project/469/#details

 

 

this is the respec potion, it worked perfectly for me and now im really happy with leliana and morrigan

[Monte Carlo]

Dragons and how to slay them?

 

Discuss.

[Tigranes]

I beat them on Hard with mage PC, Wynne, Sten and Alistair.

 

Basically two tanks slamming it out at angles to each other, while PC stands behind the dragon cone-of-colding regularly to keep its offensive powers to a minimum. Wynne rejuvenates, heals and revives as required. As Gromnir (I think) said, big bosses have so much HP (MMO/Final Fantasy style, in fact) that the only real tactic is to find a stable equilibrium where you don't die and deal decent damage, and keep at it. Obviously lots of health and lyrium potions for backup are necessary.

 

I didn't have force field at that time and I haven't used hexes much in this game, but I imagine they could change things a bit too. It'd be ineresting to see whether they could help any party effectively nullify the dragon's offensive threat.

[Monte Carlo]

Thanks, what level was your party, mine's at 15 on normal, is it feasible or do I wait?

[Oner]

My party was 12-13 last night and I killed a dragon almost without hitch.

Funny thing is, the beast was very resistant to stun, but when Dog's dread howl got her once, she was out for a small eternity (~5-7 seconds).

Anyone tried Paralyze?

Edited November 15, 2009 by Oner

[Tigranes]

Thanks, what level was your party, mine's at 15 on normal, is it feasible or do I wait?

 

17 on hard, and I felt I was over-levelled for it, since I'm still pretty clumsy, so yes, definitely. I wouldn't be surprised to see well-prepared parties defeat it at 12-13 as Oner has (on Hard).

[Oner]

I play on normal with archer Leliana and no tank, not the best example of well prepared.

Edited November 15, 2009 by Oner

[HoonDing]

Dragons and how to slay them?

 

Discuss.

On normal difficulty, one tank taunting all the time (to prevent Dragon from targeting other characters) + Force Fielding the tank while your mages are blasting the Dragon, works. I've tested this tactic five times succesfully against the High Dragon. Against Flemeth, I had to do things the old fashioned way because I couldn't bring Morrigan... it's possible Flemeth is smarter than the High Dragon. I'll have to test it when I'm replaying with a PC mage.

 

Immunity against knockdown is recommended; also stay at the flank of the dragon all the time, to prevent the tank from being grabbed or slapped by the tail. Of course, fire resistance is important... going into battle with Drake scale armour +

unique dragon slaying sword Yusaris

would help too.

Edited November 15, 2009 by virumor

[Majek]

I liked dragon battles, i could finally get rid of all those fire resistance giving consumables.

 

Flemeth might be smarter but there's also that annoying camera angle in her swamp that made battle more difficlut to me, since i tried to keep my ranged attacker as far away as possible. But High dragon is apparently rated higher by the game, it's the most powerful creature i have killed, replacing Flemeth.

 

And to be frank i don't even know what tactics i used to kill either. I do know i didn't have Morrigan along though.

[Monte Carlo]

My party is two tanks, Morrigan and Zevran.

 

I'm thinking of dropping him, just for dragon slaying, for Wynne for a two mage / two warrior lineup. Is there any reason to take a rogue dragon hunting? Telling me Zev has some amusing dialogue would do the trick, I've got some stuff to do in Denerim then I'm back up the mountain to use that horn and summon you-know-who.