Dragon Age: Tactics

[Gromnir]

shale is dlc. do not assume everybody has dlc. am recalling that aristes didn't know of oghren and shale jnpcs deep into game. is likely he not have stone prisoner.

 

repeat:

 

"It doesn't matter hwo easy/hard the game, those characters got those set ups for a reason even if YOu dislike them."

 

yeah, and the reason is to makes you feel likes you need morrigan and al... 'cause wynne, your other mage option, is a half-arsed heal-bot and al is the only sword and board 'til you hit landsmeet. heck, if you don't have stone prisoner dlc, al is your only traditional jnpc tank option.

 

end repeat

 

look at vol's example o' not needing al and morrigan. he is playing a mage, and he has dlc shale. without even realizing it he proves our point. typical.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Enoch]

Shale is a much, much better tank than Alistair and my PC deals a lot more damage than Alistair.

Shale is effective as such, and is certainly more versatile (I love the ranged abilities). But the lack of a knockdown-avoidance ability hurts, as does the fact that many of Shale's abilities are only available after switching to a non-Tank-focused mode (which takes time and reduces the "threat" level). Al, on the other hand, can get Shield Wall to keep him upright, and can Shield Bash and Overpower whenever he likes. He also benefits from stat-boosting items, runes, etc.

 

Really, I think the best setup is to keep Al (or a Sword 'n Board PC) and Shale in the party. Shale in "Pulverizing Blows" mode is an arguably better DPS-focused fighter than Sten, Oghren, or the Dog.

Her

high hitpoints increase survivability substantially over those guys (although the lack of "Indomitable" still hurts), and the ability to swap elemental damage and resistances out on the fly is very nice.

[SeanM]

I think it depends on your playstyle.

 

On my first playthrough I was heavily reliant on Morrigan to stun groups of enemies and do quick damage. I never really used Wynne.

 

But on the DA forums I would see lots of people talking about how essential Wynne was to their party. And how they wished they had her earlier in the game. I think those people were relying on their fighters to kill everything and had longer battles. Rather than using Morrigan to stun and destroy in quicker battles.

Edited December 17, 2009 by SeanM

[Volourn]

"'cause wynne, your other mage option, is a half-arsed heal-bot "

 

Wrong. Wynne is awesome. Please don't make stuff up.

 

 

"shale is dlc. do not assume everybody has dlc."

 

Anyone who doesn't have Shale dlc has no sympathy from me. The game isn't even 2 months old so I doubt many have bought the game used. All new DA copies get Shale so no excuse.

 

btw, How are those useless rogues going? ROTFLMAO

 

 

"am recalling that aristes didn't know of oghren and shale jnpcs deep into game."

 

This proves nothing.

 

 

You do not need Morrigan or Alistair in your party to beat it. That's the point. Period. They are irrelevant as far as combat goes. No character is required to do well. This is a FACT.

 

REPEAT: How are those useless rogues going?

 

P.S. It's also not like mages are the only class that have stun abiltiies. Heck, archers have scattershot. LMAO

Edited December 17, 2009 by Volourn

[Aristes]

I don't have any DLC. I'm not planning on buying it, even though I am always intrigued when I see folks talk about Shale. I got Oghren very late in the last game and I didn't adventure much with him. I did get a kick out of his 'silent killer' conversation with Leliana.

 

I'm not complaining about anything anyhow. I don't mind taking Alistair with me. I don't even care about taking Morrigan with me most of the time. Let's face it, she's not the first mean and nasty person I've met. In fact, she could be a lot worse. Real life trumps video game in the bitch department.

 

Sure, I would like to have more versatility. I'll probably even experiment with alternate parties. For example, is it feasible to use a combat mage as the main tank? That's an interesting idea in my book. How about one range, two melee dpsers, and a shield bearer? Having more options would be nice, but my gut instinct is that I won't miss the DLC very much. After all, I didn't purchase any for Fallout 3. *shrug* Now, if one of you cowboys convinces me to try the DLC, I might give it a shot, but I have a long standing policy of not buying myself anything this close to Christmas, so I would have to wait until after this run anyhow. What I'm hoping is that they combine a lot of stuff into a complete xpac and then I would find the idea far more tempting.

 

...But to get it just to switch Alistair for this Shale person? Naw. Not if that's all I get.

 

EDIT: I went back to some link that Gromnir posted and started searching around. Apparently, I already had Stone Cold Pilot or something. All's I can say is that most folks will end up with Alistair because they didn't realize they needed to jump through so many hoops. I know I know. Some of you will turn on me like rabid dogs, but I didn't realize that I had to go and input codes on the damned webpage to get the content that was advertised as free with my game. Nice of them to include it, but I think EA wanted to sell it twice and the way it's set up, I'm sure some sucker will end up paying for that Stone Temple thing even though they already own it. Aw hell! Anyhow, thanks to you guys, I've got it now. Since he posted it in direct response to me, I guess I should thank Gromnir. Anyhow, it's downloading now. I might just use this new JNPC instead. Or I might go the Enoch route and take both. Dunno.

Edited December 17, 2009 by Aristes

[Gromnir]

I don't have any DLC. I'm not planning on buying it, even though I am always intrigued when I see folks talk about Shale.

 

well, vol don't sympathize that you not have access to shale... 'course according to vol, Gromnir thinks that rogues is "useless," and pre-patch mages is balanced. he has many other wacky notions.

 

as between stone prisoner and soldier's peak, we prefer stone prisoner dlc. shale is one o' our favorite jnpcs. the golem gots some good party banter and it's quest is a bit more developed than many o' the other jnpcs. sten's sword is a glorified fed-ex run. the french chick's quest involves an "ambush" and then a confrontation with another snotty french woman. wynne? meet up with a dirty elf in the woods and have a group-hug? on the other hand, shale's quest, while nothing extravagant, does have its own unique dungeon location... and am recalling that you is planning on playing a cunning or dex rogue your second time through, no? is a nice dagger available when you complete shale's quest... +5 to cunning and interrupts spell casting.

 

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/81613

 

there is some manual install instructions for the various dlc. if it don't work, then you lose nothing... won't hurt your game. am honest not sure what copies of da shale is 'posed to be available with. it were original gonna be shipped with all copies, but then got cut... or something along those lines. is possible that maybe you should have shale and not even know it.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 17, 2009 by Gromnir

[Aristes]

That's so weird. You posted that link for me some time ago, but I wasn't at my desktop so I didn't do much with it. When I posted about the DLC just now, I remembered it and did a search and found it. I edited my post while you put in that information for me. This is one of the things I really like about the Obsidian forums. We might bicker or whatnot, but you're a helpful bunch. Anyhow, thanks for the new link, but while you were posting it I went and found your old link. haha

[Gromnir]

Really, I think the best setup is to keep Al (or a Sword 'n Board PC) and Shale in the party. Shale in "Pulverizing Blows" mode is an arguably better DPS-focused fighter than Sten, Oghren, or the Dog.

Her

high hitpoints increase survivability substantially over those guys (although the lack of "Indomitable" still hurts), and the ability to swap elemental damage and resistances out on the fly is very nice.

 

the thing we like most 'bout shale is flexibility. gots ranged attacks and crowd control stuns and we not gotta run back to the developmental disabled dwarf to get enchanting done for shale... simply swap out/in appropriate crystals. am recalling that our strategy for for clearing out most o' the mage tower were shale centric: we would have party hold position while shale would be sent into rooms alone to do its quake routine and then taunt. even on nightmare most enemies would be stunned and severe damaged in the wake o' the quake. the rest o' our party would then move in and heal shale and clean up the pesky mostly-dead abominations, possessed templars or mages. rinse and repeat for 20 rooms. later in game shale could serious add to the overlapping area effect spells we employed to wipe out mobs. morrigan's blizzard were nice but then we would supplement with a rock barrage from shale and wynne's mostly useless earthquake. in such similar situations, al woulda been standing around with a crossbow. never got much use out of the stone aura line (had intended to use in conjunction with forcefield) but that plan never seemed to work when we needed/wanted.

 

shale combines some of the best attributes of a tank and a mage... and it is having amusing banters.

 

aristes,

 

no need to thank us re: dlc. bio/ea really didn't make dlc easy for folks. am glad you finally managed to get it working.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Volourn]

"well, vol don't sympathize that you not have access to shale"

 

Because, it's free. Unless you stole the game or live in some far out silly country which is irrelevant anyways. It's not Warden's Keep which is only free for the garbage online purchase. Which is why I haven't bothered with that trash.

 

Shale is an okay character, but she is basically one note. But, yeah, her quest is definitely more developed than others.

[Aristes]

I'm actually having an easier time on Nightmare than I did on hard. Probably because I know the battles? I mean, I'm early, so it will get harder. Still, I pack a lot less punch than my mage did, but I can get the baddies herded up and slaughtered like fat cows in a meat packing and cannery.

 

I'm only now getting ready to go the

tower in Ostagar. I find it funny that my mage had to earn the dog, wheras my human rogue started with a dog. The PC, the dog, and the PC's hot middle age mama all rampaged on the bad guys. Funny as hell to hear mommy taunt the bad guys as she crushed their skulls with a mace. Awesome! I still like the weirded out fade scenes for the mage, but I think the rogue origin goes faster. Overall, I like the mage one most, but I wouldn't if it didn't include the fade. I don't have to decide on my end stats yet. After all, rogues do need some strength, dex, and cunning no matter what you end up pumping in the end.

 

 

A lot of fun in Rogue town. And I can pick my own damned locks and disable traps.

[Gromnir]

the one thing we will concede 'bout the dex rogue is that it is the most straightforward rogue build:

 

 

pump dex. with a 14 str you will eventually be able to wear armours that require str 20 (+4 for fade and a couple points for a ring or whatever). a 22 cunning is all you genuine need if you want tier 4 stealth... and you get 5 freebie cunning points in the fade. dump virtual everything into dex (maybe go to 25 willpower?) and you end up with a very nasty dw dagger fighter who can open all but a handful of chests and disarm nearly every trap.

 

Gromnir still prefers swords and str as swords and str equipment is more readily available early in game (not have to wait to get good like the cunning build), but with the edge being an early grab freebie, the dex rogue is a serious contender, particularly as there is less muss & fuss distributing ability points. by the time you finish ostegar you pretty much need only ever put points into dex for the rest o' the game.

 

duelist seems like the better initial specialization as the first duelist talent will boost your attack by 10... have an effective attack score over 100 by level 9 or 10.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 17, 2009 by Gromnir

[Monte Carlo]

Am playing on hard, currently doing all the little Lothering sub-quests. By stat-dumping STR I got Critical Strike for my 2H warrior at level 6, by level 8 will be wearing the Dragon Armour. This makes life much easier. I'm also finding hard not so... hard. Having said that, it's early days.

 

The middle row of 2H talents (mighty swing etc) seem pointless at low levels - the top row is teh win. I'm going to swap Morrigan out for Wynne for some quests to see how the melee-heavy with buffing party build works out, am also going to give Shale and Imoen-Chick a proper try out.

 

Cheers

MC

[Aristes]

I actually thought hard was perfect. I don't think that Nightmare is too terribly tough so much as I just think it does bad things to the mechanics. I mean, control is horribly nerfed. Well, a lot of the fun of combat is using control and the like. Nightmare doesn't make battles more complex as I reckon. It makes it simpler.

 

I think I might actually slip the game down to normal at this point. I'd like to see, under regular circumstances, what some of these spells and abilities do. I think hard was good because it could be tough on the player. I know some of the battles were really tough on me. On the other hand, you could still count on control lasting a decent amount of time. On nightmare, you accidently catch one of your folks in a cone of cold and one of the bad guys resists and the ones who do get frozen are thawed waaaaay before your guy.

 

There's a terrible exploit I don't know if folks have noticed. You can often pick off one or two enemies by shooting at them from a distance. Your sniper ranged folks with really good bows or a mage can do it easy. So, you hit one guy and then kite him back a ways. Once you separate him and maybe a buddy who came along, you dispatch them and repeat. I think of it as a bug. It just seems silly that his friends don't notice that he's taking arrows in the ear but won't come with him to find out from where. I don't really mind exploiting it, though, since most of the tougher battles stick you in a confined area where that's impossible anyhow. I will say that this bug almost makes up for my party approaching some of these battles by just walking up and standing around like idiots in front of an armed group of people who are clearly hostile.

[HoonDing]

There's a terrible exploit I don't know if folks have noticed. You can often pick off one or two enemies by shooting at them from a distance. Your sniper ranged folks with really good bows or a mage can do it easy. So, you hit one guy and then kite him back a ways. Once you separate him and maybe a buddy who came along, you dispatch them and repeat. I think of it as a bug. It just seems silly that his friends don't notice that he's taking arrows in the ear but won't come with him to find out from where. I don't really mind exploiting it, though, since most of the tougher battles stick you in a confined area where that's impossible anyhow. I will say that this bug almost makes up for my party approaching some of these battles by just walking up and standing around like idiots in front of an armed group of people who are clearly hostile.

That exploit is why it is possible for people to solo the game on Nightmare. It's simply bad AI.

 

In Divinity 2 or Drakensang stuff like this doesn't work, attack one enemy and the entire group comes looking for your blood. But a nice thing about Divinity 2 is rangers get a special stealth skill that allows them to lure enemies away one by one without aggroing an entire group.

[Aristes]

Yeah, I've seen this AI exploit in other games. In fact, I could do it in Mask of the Betrayer. I just couldn't do it so consistently. I mean, if you have to take advantage of things like that in order to complete the game, it just seems like it would take forever to accomplish. I don't put that down because I firmly believe folks should have fun in the manner of their choosing, but it's not for me. That's why I'm toying with the idea of switching it down to a lower setting. It's great to prove your mettle, and physical endurance as the case may be, but that's just not my motivation.

 

I mostly enjoy group tactics. I guess, if I want to solo somewhere along the line, I'd toy with an evasion build rogue, a two handed warrior, or an arcane mage. In fact, with a good number of pots, I think an arcane mage would be a feasible solo build. Of course, not having tried any of it, I would have to say that this is all blind speculation.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yeah, my 2H warrior has a spare bow he plinks away at the bag guys with, I have low DEX and no archery talents and I can still get off three or four arrows at 10-14 damage before drawing my sword. In fact, a crossbow / 2H warrior with one tier of archery talent is a viable little build for sniping before closing for melee. Might try it out.

 

Hard is quite enjoyable, I have to think about battles a lot more, those bandit groups in Lothering were a bit more of a challenge and Idiot Al is carrying a boat-load of injuries. Ha!

[Aristes]

Getting on towards the end of the Mage Tower. You know, t here were plenty of things that I missed the first time. It's so weird that a little foreknowledge makes everything so much easier. I sitll like the game. Shale does a great job tanking. I have Shale, Morrigan, and Wynne in my party. I've always been fond of magic in these games, so I find it hard to completely turn my back on it. I got to Wynne soon enough that I have a lot of room to decide her talent spread. I don't really care about any of the talents for other folks at this point. I can take the rest as they come. I'm thinking of taking Sten instead of Wynne. I'll have to see.

 

I'm currently in the

fade

, so the end of the Mage Tower is close.

[Nepenthe]

Some more tactical thoughts, now that I've joined the ranks (albeit in conscripted in the PS3 Alienage)...

 

Third playthrough with a fairly unoptimised rogue dual wielder. Had to check I hadn't accidenttally knocked the difficulty to easiest. Momentum, Riposte and Coup de Grace is just painfully good.

 

Tactical problem with the system is that all characters (except mages) are one trick ponies. Game design problem is that the pony has been picked for you in advance, and, in the case of Wynne, the character's been forced even further into a role than would have been necessary. Another possibility on my current, third playthrough is that I'm working along the lines they want, and not forcing characters into different roles from the ones Bio wanted (not making Morrigan a straight blaster from the decidedly crowd control role she has, not making leliana a dual wielder...) - and it's a lot easier.

 

The non-warrior warrior Zevran and the complete overlap of Sten and Oghren still baffle me. It's too bad that I relly like to play offensive melee characters, as it means that basically half the team would need to be forced into another role than the one they have been designed to excel in (and looking at the specialisations on Sten and Oghren, I use the term excel loosely).

 

Still, I've had tons of fun with the game - especially the console version - as I've been bedridden for a month.

[Aristes]

Well, keep telling us what you think as you progress. I've not wanted to update here because there wasn't any participation and I hate being the only person posting in a thread.

[SeanM]

On my current playthrough I used Wynne instead of Morrigan. It is the first time I used the Glyphs and the Heroic line of buffs. Glyph of repulsion helps with crowd control. It can knock back normal enemies. Glyph of warding gives +30 defence and Heroic defence gives +20-30 defence.

 

It is also the first time I focused on usng Momentum with my Rogue. It looks fantastic when he is backstabbing. Dirty fighting, riposte, deathroot poison, and paralyse runes gives frequent stuns. Coup de grace means instant backstabs against stunned opponents.

 

My first playthrough I was using cone of cold. I was mainly using my rogue to do critical hits to instantly shatter normal enemies. So I actually neglected the momentum line of talents.

[Nepenthe]

Well, keep telling us what you think as you progress. I've not wanted to update here because there wasn't any participation and I hate being the only person posting in a thread.

 

There's really not much to it. The console environment pretty much locks you into the single character for most of the time, which kind of limits the tactical aspect of the game. With the controls I have, I wouldn't dream of even trying to play on anything harder than the console 'normal' difficulty (reduced friendly fire - no damage but effects like freeze and knockdown still hit). So far the only battle where I've used Baldur's Gatesque levels of combat micro-management is

Ser Cauthrien at Arl of Denerim's

. Even there, it was more a question of blizzard+waking nightmare+ cone of cold on the mooks and everything else - Ali, archer Leliana and a 2h-offtank Warden - on the Boss.

 

The warrior roling is painfully clear. We have tanks (blade and board), dps (dual wield - but inferior to the rogue version of the same) and the hybrid offtank (2h). Yet, probably due to the reeally slow hit rate of 2h tanks, apart from the

archdemon

all the big kills I did wound up going to the sword n' boarder...

 

My - obviously unpatched - mage playthrough was sort of reduced to comboing cone of cold and stonefist along with snap fireballs (short casting time, ok damage, knockdown - excellent spell to give some thinking time and soften up a bit). If I do another one, I need to seriously rethink the way I build a mage - especially if I have two in the party.

 

Sorry if there's a lot of typos in my posts at the moment - I'm confined to my laptop and it's throwing regular fits, moving the parser all around while I'm typing

[jaguars4ever]

The ultimate tactic that has faithfully served me well from BG to NwN, from VtM:R to KotOR, from Drakensang to DA, from the birth of Baby Jesus to the death of Dave Gaider's beard clippings is...

 

...

 

...

 

...wait for it...

 

...

 

*drum roll*

 

...

 

...Jag's Group Pummel!

 

Now also available for women! Simply highlight every thug in your murderous group and concentrate their anti-social lynching on one hapless individual until they've been properly beaten into a bloody pulp. What then you say? Rinse and repeat, of course!

 

Now with Jag's money back guarantee, you'll never need another tactic ever!

 

Remember kids, try this at home!

Edited December 26, 2009 by jaguars4ever

[Nepenthe]

Oh yeah - the ONE place where I might actually bother to use traps,

Redcliffe defense

, the traps apparently magically disappear between the day and night times (along with the area movement the engine does to make it night)

 

Also managed to get the 'save everybody at

Redcliffe village

' reward this time around. I think it was Wynne's cleansing aura more than my leet

undead-hunting

skills, but this being the console version I don't have a clue what goes outside my field of vision, including whether the friendly mooks count as allies for the purpose of cleansing aura affecting them.