Dragon Age Tactics

[HoonDing]

That "dragon" in the Forest Ruins was ridiculous. Orange marked? Even drakes were more tough than her.

[Tigranes]

The high dragon is more difficult than Flemeth, Flemeth was a breeze for me with the lv17 party. It's just the camera angle that screws up anything you try to do at ISO.

 

I'd suggest that revenants are nearly as much a pain. I've dealt with 6-7 so far, including the

random encounter in denerim

, anyone know what you do with this?

[Volourn]

"That "dragon" in the Forest Ruins was ridiculous. Orange marked? Even drakes were more tough than her."

 

You sure it's a 'her'?

[Majek]

If they made no mistake in naming, it's a "her" as all dragons are female. Drakes are male.

[Volourn]

Maybe I read it wrong.. I thought male dragons were still dragons but don't have wings.. the dragon in the ruins cna't fly.. Unless it's just a really young female. I'll reread the codex. Think you are probably right.

[Spider]

So I finally got the game as well and started up with a rogue, playing through the origin during the weekend (and reached level 6). I'm playing on nightmare because it's been my experience that if I play RPGs on anything but the hardest difficulty these days, I'll end up regretting it. And so far it's been good.

 

Now, I have a hard time seeing where all the complaints about the rogue are coming from. For me it plays pretty much exactly like I would expect. It's weak as hell if enemies are engaging it, but if it manages to stay alive, it will dish out some sweet damage. Without the use of abilities my character currently has higher damage output than Alistair. I've just gotten Sten, so I can't compare to him yet and I haven't been in enough fights with dog to do that comparison either. Now, if we add in dual weapon sweep and flurry, the rogue deals a lot more damage than Alistair, probably 2:1. And dual sweep is currently the only AOE effect I have, making it even more valuable. And this is without using poisons overly much (I've only used it once, in fact. On the first ogre).

 

So the rogue plays pretty much like a MMO DPS character would. Frail, but can dish it out with the best of them, if you manage to get it done right. I am adding points in strength though, so currently my main weapon is a decent longsword. I'll need to focus on dex for the upcoming levels though, so we'll see how that changes things.

 

Overly, I find the difficulty to be about right for me. Any fight is lethal if I'm not focused. I'm manually controlling everyone, which is a bit more work than I thought it'd be. Why you can't que things up is beyond me. I'll have to experiment with the tactics eventually, just so that none of my characters will stand still doing nothing. I've had a few party wipes, but I managed to beat the ogre on the first try, with both my character and alistair still standing (the other two had no such luck though).

 

I am wondering about one thing though. Is the effectiveness of frosted weapons really that much worse than flaming weapons? With the flaming one, my characters did +4 damage I think, with the ice, it's just +1. That really affected difficulty.

 

I also echo the frustration at thebad NPC design (from a technical standpoint). I don't think any player would be so unfocused with their spell selection as Morrigan is.

[Gromnir]

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.

 

haven't tried on normal, but we got saves previous to some revanant battles and dragons, and the taunt + force field didn't work so well. used shale as the taunting tank, figuring we could possibly take advantage of it's special defensive aura while held by force field. revanants complete ignored shale in force field. dragons were kinda odd. am assuming that bio made dragons purposeful stoopid to keep 'em from slaughtering every party. dragons evident use the same target prioritizing as does most dragon age enemies: targeting based on party member armour. if dragons genuine attacked mages, am suspecting that the battles would be serious short and ugly. in any event, it seems that while shale is a superior tank to Gromnir's 2-h fighter, enemies is possibly entranced by wade's dragonbone plate... which Gromnir wears.

 

will put allister in our best armour and sees what happens.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

I am wondering about one thing though. Is the effectiveness of frosted weapons really that much worse than flaming weapons? With the flaming one, my characters did +4 damage I think, with the ice, it's just +1. That really affected difficulty.

 

I get the impression that elemental damage really depends on the type of enemy you are fighting - clearly fire-orientated enemies (i.e. ash wraiths and so on) really don't like cold damage. I've also found some good items that add +10% frost damage - put that on Morrigan and start casting Blizzard and you've got some serious artillery.

 

I also echo the frustration at thebad NPC design (from a technical standpoint). I don't think any player would be so unfocused with their spell selection as Morrigan is.

 

Check out the 'Respec' mod Virumor mentioned, I'm playing with it at the moment and you can start Morrigan up as an excellent Arcane Warrior from day one.

 

Wish I could figure out the rogue - I'm using Zevran and he's useful but not compelling. What skill tree / build are you using for yours? If he's good enough for you on Nightmare he must be good enough for me on normal / Hard (I'm playing Hard for mob battles and down to normal for bosses which is working nicely for me).

 

Cheers

MC

[HoonDing]

haven't tried on normal, but we got saves previous to some revanant battles and dragons, and the taunt + force field didn't work so well. used shale as the taunting tank, figuring we could possibly take advantage of it's special defensive aura while held by force field. revanants complete ignored shale in force field. dragons were kinda odd. am assuming that bio made dragons purposeful stoopid to keep 'em from slaughtering every party. dragons evident use the same target prioritizing as does most dragon age enemies: targeting based on party member armour. if dragons genuine attacked mages, am suspecting that the battles would be serious short and ugly. in any event, it seems that while shale is a superior tank to Gromnir's 2-h fighter, enemies is possibly entranced by wade's dragonbone plate... which Gromnir wears.

 

will put allister in our best armour and sees what happens.

I found High Dragon to be very stupid in the game... but then in DA they're just animals so it's okay I guess. Flemeth seemed to be smarter and switching targets a lot, but I was forced to kill her with two tanks, Wynne (who didn't have Force Field or ice-related spell) & Leliana. With PC mage I reckon it would be easier... I'll have to test on replay with PC mage.

 

Revenants... are just one-man armies.

 

I also echo the frustration at thebad NPC design (from a technical standpoint). I don't think any player would be so unfocused with their spell selection as Morrigan is.

I don't think she's bad, really. She can pretty quickly pick up Cone of Cold, Force Field & Sleep which are the win spells of the game.

Edited November 16, 2009 by virumor

[Spider]

I also echo the frustration at thebad NPC design (from a technical standpoint). I don't think any player would be so unfocused with their spell selection as Morrigan is.

I don't think she's bad, really. She can pretty quickly pick up Cone of Cold, Force Field & Sleep which are the win spells of the game.

 

Not bad, as such. Just horribly unfocused. I'm pretty sure it'll improve once she levels up once or twice though.

 

Wish I could figure out the rogue - I'm using Zevran and he's useful but not compelling. What skill tree / build are you using for yours? If he's good enough for you on Nightmare he must be good enough for me on normal / Hard (I'm playing Hard for mob battles and down to normal for bosses which is working nicely for me).

 

I'm not sure I remember the names. Keep in mind I'm only level 6. But so far I have the dual wield mastery tree, with two points in that. And the dual sweep tree (which is the better one, with sweep and flurry and then momentum). I've thrown two points into lockpicking (I hate not being able to open locks), and currently have Dirty fighting (which I started with) and below the belt. The plan is to go up to Lethality by level 8 (when I can get it). I think I'll skip the middle DW talent tree completely. I will probably invest in stealth instead.

 

I also have the talent tha increases backstab angle.

 

I'm wearing chainmail and using a longsword and a decent dagger. My strength is 18 I think, as is dex. Cunning is in lower 20. But since I need dex 36 by level 12 (for dual wield mastery), it'll be mostly dex from now on.

 

I'm not even sure if the Lethality route is going to be worth it, given I plan on upping strength to get better swords.

 

The key is to be backstabbing all of the time. Move about, do sweep, do flurry, but make sure you're hitting someone in the back. So manual control is essential.

[Majek]

There are plenty of books that give you points so you can fill out the whole DW talent tree. Riposte was my preferred talent until i got Momentum. And daggers only is actually better for rogue ( with the dex fix ), they do more damage than 1 LS + 1 Dag or 2 LS ( once you get Dual-Weapon Mastery ).

[HoonDing]

Is a strength of 22 enough for a rogue? Not sure about weapons, but some pretty nifty armours require 22.

[alanschu]

If you have any strength buffs (I had a trinket that gave +2 to all), 25 strength works well because you get a new set of weapons with 27 strength.

 

 

And spider, I recommend skipping the middle Two Weapon tree. It seems more geared to warriors than rogues IMO.

[Monte Carlo]

I built a dwarf commoner rogue, and already having made level 16 (warrior) in another game can see the main problem (for me).

 

Most of my decent skills aren't passive: I feel that I need reasonable STR (for weapons and armour), excellent DEX, excellent CUNNING and, yep, good willpower to power my stamina back up to re-use the activated skills that make the class viable.

 

Dump that on top of my wish to be able to sneak and open locks and you've got a class that is severely hampered by stat-dump spread. You can't make an all-rounded, you have to specialise and it's not floating my boat at all. My dwarf commoner has two-weapon style (flurry) and locks at the moment, I don't think I'm ever gonna find the points for dialogue skills.

 

Warriors? Boatloads of passive skills and easy-to-master skill trees. Mages I don't even need to go there, they rock right out of the box. Rogues? Hmmm, you need to decide whether you are light fighter or support / skill monkey but are gimped inbetween.

 

I'm struggling to warm to the class, to be honest.

[Majek]

But rogues get points more often than warriros or mages.

[Monte Carlo]

What, do they level up quicker?

[Majek]

What, do they level up quicker?

I mean skill points. Every 2 levels.

[HoonDing]

Most of my decent skills aren't passive: I feel that I need reasonable STR (for weapons and armour), excellent DEX, excellent CUNNING and, yep, good willpower to power my stamina back up to re-use the activated skills that make the class viable.

I imagine there are enough free stat buffs in the Mage Tower. Somehow my sword&board got 20 Cunning this way.

 

Another question about rogues: is putting points in Lockpick necessary or is a high cunning enough?

[Majek]

IO think i managed to go through msot of the game with lvl2, but there are some locks that require lv3 or 4. I think there's a few in Mage tower but i'm not really sure.

[Spider]

There are plenty of books that give you points so you can fill out the whole DW talent tree. Riposte was my preferred talent until i got Momentum. And daggers only is actually better for rogue ( with the dex fix ), they do more damage than 1 LS + 1 Dag or 2 LS ( once you get Dual-Weapon Mastery ).

 

Perhaps. But I don't want to add an unofficial fix. Once it gets in a patch, I suppose I'll crya a bit at the inefficient character I've created, but I'll cope until then. But I don't get the maths to add up.

 

Doesn't the dex fix make it so that you get 0.5 per dex point and 0.5 per strength? And when it comes to sword you get 1 point per strength? (or something similar, not sure about the numbers, just the ratio). So 15 strength and 30 dex will give you less damage bonus compared to 30 str and 15 dex. And the swords do more damage to begin with. Of course, when you factor in Lethality, I suppose you could get an improvement with the dex fix, since your cunning is likely to be very high (which is going to be the main issue for the current character I think, I'll need strength which will lead to lower cunning, making lethality less effective).

 

Regardless, I don't see any need to get dex above 36.

[Majek]

I didn't factor lethality in. I just looked at the stats when i had 2 daggers or 1 sword and 1 dagger. With sword and dagger , the dagger in the off hand made less damage than if i paired it with another dagger.

[Oner]

Revenants are becoming a reasonable challenge, though I still don't look forward to round two

at the grave

in the elven forest.

 

As for dragons, for some reason Flemeth changed target to Wynne, and the fight actually became easier. Spit fireballs more often than I'd like, but I still out-healed the damage aaaand no grab.

[HoonDing]

^Some game areas really made me wish there was a Turn Undead spell.

[Monte Carlo]

I'm now in the Deep Roads (er, Underdark meets Mines of Moria) and loving it. The whole Orzammar area and plots are probably some of the best in the game, in fact I wish I'd been a dwarf commoner from the get-go just to see their reaction to my ex-gangsta made good.

 

Tactics-wise, taking Oghren for this quest is a straight swap-out with Sten, I've decided to go for the walking bomb / undead spell path - any good tricks with the walking bombs... I reckon Waking Nightmare / Walking Bomb and a well-positioned arrow might be fun...

[mrmud]

Check out the 'Respec' mod Virumor mentioned, I'm playing with it at the moment and you can start Morrigan up as an excellent Arcane Warrior from day one.

 

What is it that makes arcane warriors good?