Dragon Age: Tactics

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yeah, the human noble is a bit men in tights, but I enjoyed monstering the guards playing poker and bedding the elf servant wench. I felt suitably arrogant and to the manor born actually.

 

Obviously, I would also liked to have had the option to cut pater's throat, the inheritance dontcha know?

 

However, having cast myself as an amoral gentleman thief, I was upset that nobody in Castle Cousland, not even dear mama (who, in her leather get-up, gave me a bit of an Oedipus complex) mentioned my sechewing of the martial, soldierly career path in favour of lock-picking, murder and sneaking. Not even a little aside.

 

Oh well.

[Gromnir]

^ Yeah, the human noble is a bit men in tights, but I enjoyed monstering the guards playing poker and bedding the elf servant wench. I felt suitably arrogant and to the manor born actually.

 

Obviously, I would also liked to have had the option to cut pater's throat, the inheritance dontcha know?

 

However, having cast myself as an amoral gentleman thief, I was upset that nobody in Castle Cousland, not even dear mama (who, in her leather get-up, gave me a bit of an Oedipus complex) mentioned my sechewing of the martial, soldierly career path in favour of lock-picking, murder and sneaking. Not even a little aside.

 

Oh well.

 

 

the problem is that least originally the rogue weren't gonna be a rogue. were all kinda community suggestions regarding the third class. rogue were gonna be a jack-of-all-trades kinda thing. the rogue, in final incarnation still isn't Necessarily a scheming, murdering, sneaker. the class May be a lightly armoured flanking fighter or a duelist as the specialization suggests. 'course, if only the rogue can take thiefy skills, then thief it shall be, no? the thing is, we suspect that the human noble origin were developed before bio settled on making their 3rd class a thief rather than a jack-of-all trades or skill user, ranger or bard... or any o' the other similarly stoopid suggestions we saw.

 

one o' the only intelligent things vol has said in the past month since da were released were that rogues is unnecessary... and the only reason we thinks it is an intelligent observation is 'cause he agrees with Gromnir. is simply no need for a rogue class. open up the thiefy skills and talents to warrior and mage and you got a superior game with more character-build variety.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yes, a warm fuzzy consensus has indeed been achieved.

[Volourn]

"Yes, a warm fuzzy consensus has indeed been achieved. "

 

here; but not at the BIO baords. I posted my DA2 suggestions there, and I was basically flamed non stop by a bunch of crybabies because I dared to suggest to remolval of the holy rogue. Seriously, if they had done it here, they probably would have had their posts edited. One dink even accused me of bashing BIO, and being a BIO hater because by me having the GALL to give my DA suggestions, I was basically saying BIO sucked and were incapable. ROTFLMAOATWTKKUYADYTPPP

[Monte Carlo]

^ well, Vol, that serves you right for posting over there in the first place. I mean, here it's lively but at least you are allowed to bash what you like when you like.

 

Typical Bio board banter:

 

Unsuspecting Poster: I'm a bit disappointed by the DLC.

 

Bio Forum Regulars: TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! I've just sent Bio details of my bank account - they can freely access it if they create three new eye tints for elves!

 

---

 

Unsuspecting Poster: That puzzle in The Gauntlet is a bit tough, can anybody help please?

 

Bio Forum Regulars: TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! In my day we sat and suffered for hours with a pen and pencil to solve puzzles like that, and we were grateful! Bugger of back to WoW*! TROLL!

 

---

 

Unsuspecting Poster: I'm finding the Rogue a bit gimpy.

 

Bio Forum Regulars: TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! I have solo'd the game on NIGHTMARE FIVE TIMES with all my skill points spent on survival and potion brewing! Bugger off back to WoW! TROLL!

 

Then, so as to add some proper top cover, a (junior) Bio dev will pop in with a one-line post to tell The Inquisition how their unquestioning love makes them feel even fuzzier.

 

Tell me it ain't so. I'm embedded there with a proper alt.account and it ain't pretty.

 

Cheers

MC

[entrerix]

to be honest, this is the only forum i've ever joined where the people werent all total douchebags

[Tigranes]

Be that as it may, let's move on from inter-forum commentary, it's dangerous territory.

 

I'm nearly done with the deep roads on Nightmare and with a copious number of potions, bombs and poisons it's going pretty well. Lots of char deaths though, when I'm not careful.

[HoonDing]

"Yes, a warm fuzzy consensus has indeed been achieved. "

 

here; but not at the BIO baords. I posted my DA2 suggestions there, and I was basically flamed non stop by a bunch of crybabies because I dared to suggest to remolval of the holy rogue. Seriously, if they had done it here, they probably would have had their posts edited. One dink even accused me of bashing BIO, and being a BIO hater because by me having the GALL to give my DA suggestions, I was basically saying BIO sucked and were incapable. ROTFLMAOATWTKKUYADYTPPP

Link, pretty please?

[Oner]

Link, pretty please?

+1

[Aristes]

Give the guy a break. Tig just told everyone to cool their heals about the draconian Bioware board.

[~Di]

From what I've read over on the Bioboards, the lockpicking formula is the same as the persuasion formula: 4 tiers of difficulty at 25, 50, 75, & 100. The formula for your ability is (Cunning - 10) + 25*(ranks in the governing Skill).

 

So you can still unlock anything if you take all 4 skill ranks, but with a Cunning of 35 you only need to take 3.

 

No, you can't. My rogue had all 4 skill ranks and Cunning of 28-30 (I don't recall which), and there were locks that she didn't have the skill to pick. Which annoyed me no end!

[Tigranes]

Be that as it may, let's move on from inter-forum commentary, it's dangerous territory. original.gif

 

lrn2readplzkthx

 

And yes, that formula does look suspicious. I swear that on 4 skill ranks I still needed to up Cunning above ~25 to get some locks.

[cronicler]

Then again, sometimes you get a lock that is too hard (like the chests in oil barrel shop and the recruits home in redcliffe) you go away, level up your skill and come back only to find a dagger or a single mushroom in the chest. I wish the chests had "somethings" in them. Just 3 or 4 pieces of general low cost junk would be better than another dagger. Seriously.

[jaguars4ever]

Be that as it may, let's move on from inter-forum commentary, it's dangerous territory.

TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! In my day we could flame a bi0weenie back to the fiery depths of hell from whence they came! Now we can't even look at them the wrong way without getting banned or molested with Dave Gaider's beard clippings!

[Enoch]

OK. Melee Rogue Construction Research

 

(Cobbled together from http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_Wiki , http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/ , Google, and some BioBoards threads)

 

Caveat: This is all calculated without any Soldier's Peak special items/abilities.

 

Attributes

 

STR:

Prerequisite for Armor (20 gets you best light armor; heavier armor has heavier fatigue)

Prerequisite for non-dagger melee weapons (31 STR for best longswords)

Increases Attack (0.5/point)

Increases Damage (1/point with most melee, 0.5/point with daggers)

Boosts Intimidation (eq. to 1 rank of Coercion per 25 points over 10 (@35, 60, 85))

 

DEX:

Prerequisite for Roguey and DW Talents (36 gets you all)

Prerequisite for Daggers (30 for all) and Bows (34 for all)

Increases Attack (1/point)

Increases Damage for Daggers (0.5/point) and Bows (1/point)

Increases Defense (1/point)

 

CUN:

Prerequisite for lots of Roguey Talents and Skills (22 gets you everything)

Increases Armor Penetration (0.14/point)

With Lethality, takes the place of STR for damage calculation (1/point for non-daggers, 0.5/point for daggers)

With Exploit Weakness (2nd-tier Assassin ability), adds damage to all Backstabs (Presumably, not to non-backstab criticals??) (0.17/point)

Boosts Lockpicking and Trap-Disarming. (NOTE: my previous post on this was WRONG. Formula is (10*ranks in skill) + (CUN-10), with the toughest checks at 60.)

Boosts Persuasion (as STR for Intimidation)

 

Weapons

Weapons have different ability modifiers, which are applied to the STR/DEX damage adjustments above. Daggers are 0.85 (so each pt of STR or DEX really only increases damage by 0.425); Longswords (ignoring axes & maces for the moment) are 1.0.

 

Weapons have different speed modifiers. Longswords have -0.1; Daggers have -0.5. I don't know how this really works, but I would guess that it is applied to base of 1.0, so that for every 5 longsword attacks, the dagger gets 9. The base damage ratio between the weapons is pretty close to the reverse of this (best daggers do 6.4; best swords do 11.2). More attacks also means more payout on enchantment runes, but also that enemy Armor factors in more often. Daggers have the advantage in base Crit chance (best is 4.8%, versus 3.2%) and Armor Penetration (8 v. 4).

 

I'm sure that Dual Wielding affects this, but I have no idea how.

 

Combat

All Rogue flanking attacks are Backstabs. With Coup de Grace (3rd tier, min. lev. all attacks on stunned or paralyzed foes are backstabs. All attacks coming out of stealth are either backstabs (melee) or critical hits (ranged). 4th tier Duelist ability makes all regular attacks Criticals "for a moderate duration."

 

Critical Hit v. Backstab is weird. Damage formulae are the same, but Crits are not Backstabs and Backstabs are not Crits. If a blow can be either (e.g., coming out of stealth), I think Backstab takes priority.

 

More notes: Crits shatter; backstabs do not. Ranged weapons cannot backstab, but can crit. Backstabs can only be done with regular attacks, not with activated abilities.

 

Narrative Conclusions

With the Dex Fix now official, I think Dexterity looks like the winner here.

 

Dags v. Swords looks like it's close enough to be a draw to me, with the tiebreaker being that your tank can still use the best swords you find if you go with 2 Daggers. Plus, DW Mastery (for Drizzty fightin) is expensive.

 

So, if you're going daggers, DEX is better to sink points into than STR in pretty much every way, once you have 20 for your armor (much of which can come from

the Fade

.

 

For CUN, you'll get it to 20ish for ability prerequisites. The question is what then? 30 is minimum to handle the hardest locks and traps, and 35 lets you save a skillpoint in coercion. (Both nice, but not necessary.) With Lethality and Exploit Weakness, points in CUN get you more damage than increasing DEX, but those Talents are costly. And DEX retains the advantage in Attack and Defense, such that additonal CUN is probably only worthwhile when you already have a near-100% hit rate against whatever it is you're fighting.

 

Talents I Want:

Stealth: 3 ranks

Devices: 4

DW Sweep: 3 (Momentum is really good)

Dirty Fighting: 3 (for Coup de Grace)

DW Training: Not sure about the true effects of these. 2 tiers, at least, look useful.

Below the Belt: First two tiers don't look particularly useful. What amount of CUN (minus STR) is necessary justify 3 Talents here?

Assassin: 1-2, depending on CUN.

Dual Striking: Has some nice auto-crit attacks, but hardly necessary.

 

Skills I Want:

Combat Training: 3

Poisons: 1 (The reason to spare Zevran)

Trapmaking: 1

Stealing: 1? (Supposedly worthwhile in the Origins and Ostagar. After that, I can use Lel when I want to steal.)

Coercion: 3-4

 

 

So I think I'm going DEX-heavy, with Daggers. I'll eventually get CUN up to either 30 or 35, with equipment. Going for Momentum as early as I can for survivability.

Edited December 10, 2009 by Enoch

[Enoch]

From what I've read over on the Bioboards, the lockpicking formula is the same as the persuasion formula: 4 tiers of difficulty at 25, 50, 75, & 100. The formula for your ability is (Cunning - 10) + 25*(ranks in the governing Skill).

 

So you can still unlock anything if you take all 4 skill ranks, but with a Cunning of 35 you only need to take 3.

 

No, you can't. My rogue had all 4 skill ranks and Cunning of 28-30 (I don't recall which), and there were locks that she didn't have the skill to pick. Which annoyed me no end!

Just to highlight one line from my ridiculously long post:

 

NOTE: my previous post on this was WRONG. Formula is (10*ranks in skill) + (CUN-10), with the toughest checks at 60.

I had confused the Locks formula with the Coercion formula. You need 4 ranks, plus 30 CUN (or maybe 31; not sure if the checks are 'equal to' or 'greater than') to pick all locks.

[Aristes]

Awesome work, Enoch. Rat bastard!

[Tigranes]

Good stuff, will all go to use for my next playthrough. Looks like a 20STR / 40+Dex / 25+CUN dagger DW for me, going mostly Momentum and saving some talents to be able to use archery as well (important for soloing).

[~Di]

Wow, Enoch, great post. It should be stickied!

[Gromnir]

good breakdown. seems to agree with our own personal observations regarding criticals and back stabs being an either/or proposition. however, as we is likely to continue to use shale as our primary tank, the swords win over daggers for us. the best 1h weapons in the game are swords and we want those in our pc's hands. there is one super dagger in the game, and it is also super expensive... Gromnir can buy lifegiver ring and other stuff by forgoing the dagger. in any event, smart play seems like str or dex... not cunning. cunning is just not worth it as far as we can tell.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Aristes]

Actually, it really does seem to come down to str or dex, in which case I'll probably go dex and cunning just enough to max my lockpicking/dialogue potential. I still think that strength does have the upper hand because it seems to me the base damage will be higher. The fact is, it's hard to see from the numbers Enoch provided. However, I know from experience in other games that crunching the numbers is one thing whereas experience is quite another, and you generally crunch the numbers to test a build and then try it in action.

 

Rogues come into their own either by positioning or opportunity. The rogue caught in a stand-up face to face fight should probably take the weapon that does the most base damage except for opponents with particularly high armor. I don't know if crit immunity exists, but that really lowers the rogue's damage potential. For that reason, the question is what the stat requirements are for taking the talents that maximize your damage potential not only in an ideal scenario, but also taking into account those times that you're losing a lot of damage potential either by taking the time to change positions or because you simply don't want or have the time to worry about positioning and must simply slug it out with someone in front of you. This is almost entirely conjecture on my part since I haven't been using Leliana as a DW rogue and at least half the time I don't even have a rogue in my party. When I do have a rogue, it tends to be in areas I've already visited because I'm going back to open locked chests.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll probably go with what Enoch said and use either a combination of swords and daggers or double daggers simply to allow the shield bearer to have a good one handed weapon. Nevertheless, I think the sword probably still has the basic damage advantage in a good portion of the fights. Hell, even in a fight where the enemies are chumps, you're still going to want a sword because their armor will be negligible and you hold them in such disdain you don't even bother using a lot of special moves. Daggers will be devastating in some fights and simply really good others. I might be reading the numbers wrong, though.

 

Like I said. You can't just rely on numbers. Only testing the theory gets you a real feel for things.

[Monte Carlo]

If confronted by a heavily-armoured boss I -

 

* Go Dirty Fighting - The only critters that seem immunne to this are demons and dragons. Heavily armoured bosses? STUNNED.

 

* Shimmy into back stab - quick attack + dual-weapon sweep does about 100-odd damage

 

* Stealth Up!

 

OK, I might take the odd hit while I'm doing that but whilst stealthed I can use poultices. Also, in that time the rest of the party are with me to help out.

 

Conclusion: Tier 4 Stealth is priceless.

[Aristes]

Yeah, being able to use pots while stealthed sounds pretty damned good! Huzzah!

[HoonDing]

Does stealth work against Dragons? Is there any 'True Seeing' in the game at all?

 

Because if not, a rogue could cheese-kill dragons with traps & bombs alone.

 

If Freeze Bombs can replace Cone of Cold (Sweep shatters enemies, right?) & bomb-throwing doesn't break Tier 4 stealth, the rogue class offers an alternative way of soloing the game.

[Monte Carlo]

Tier 4 Stealth doesn't work on top-end bosses, well I'm a Tier 4 with 40+ cunning and it still fails with a few.

 

That includes dragons. However, I can still get backstab bonuses on them by flanking, unlike D&D where it is nerfed against undead, dragons etc.

 

Traps are a bit ho-hum against dragons, they can help but I've not been able to use trap cheese on them. On mobs and lower-level bosses, yeah, I've set up a circuit of traps that has decimated dozens of mooks.

 

EDIT: Yes, bomb use doesn't de-cloak you from stealth like attacking does. You can abuse it to hell.

Edited December 10, 2009 by Monte Carlo