25 réponses à ce sujet

[Lord Coake]

Help, please.  I'm getitng pasted, here.  My party is my Elfven warrior (dual wield), Oghren the generally useless and thinned skinned, Liliana and Shale the Mighty.

I managed to chug my way through the Broodmother and the long slog afterwards, but that used up most of my poultices. >_<

Modifié par Lord Coake, 20 juillet 2010 - 09:38 .

[Elhanan]

Try sticking Oghren into some heavier armor if some is available. Place Lil into Suppresive fire and keep her clear of battle while using her to drain those Lyrium crystals so Branka cannot use 'em. I like Shale in Stone Heart mode, but the crystals sets may be the more important choice. And I try and take out lesser golems first, leaving the boss for the final tussle.

[CakesOnAPlane]

Try for the golems first I think, if you're lucky it gives you some extra help in the fight. Also make sure you have someone going around using all the lyrium vein things since these heal you and stop Branka healing/using special attacks.

[soteria]

There's a couple videos on this fight if you follow the link in my signature, though I did have a mage PC in them. You might still get some ideas on what you can do. Have Leliana keep Branka's attention and just always run away, using the crystals for healing. Meanwhile, everyone else kills all the golems. When the golems are dead, kill Branka--she's a pushover without all the golems.

[Spell Singer]

It is important to note that branka has some sort of damage over time ability. I don't have a clue where it comes from but that will be what is deadly in the fight. You have to kill the golems as quickly as possibly while using up the lyrium so Branka can't get in some unfun special abilities.



Reduce the difficulty level if you have to as well. Being short in health potions can make this a pain due to the above mentioned damage over time ability. Is Oghren using a maul? That helps a lot. Also Ogrhen's biggest problem is a lack of dexterity so his defense is pathetically low rather than a low armour value. He should be able to destroy the golems rapidly regardless. Set mighty blow for when target is <25% hits.



Send Lilliana to drain the lyrium. Use Shale and Ogrhen to kill her golems and use your character to annoy Branka so she chases you around would be my advice, use your ripost stun to get out of bad situations. I can't see this being a fun encounter though. You have to watch out for her shield bash and assault combination as that will be a near character killer. You may be able to get her to run back and forth between shale and Lilianna if they use their long range abilities...suppressing fire tends to annoy NPCs a lot.



Pause often as well. Good luck.

[Bruno Hslaw]

Stun Branka then knock her out fast (dirty fighting etc) usually works on her from my experience. Get in fast and let the Golems kill one another while you see her off fast IMO. Thats how I did it the last 6 to 8 fights the other times I stood with her.

[soteria]

I really don't recommend just draining the lyrium veins all helter-skelter. Use them to heal your characters (except Oghren, who can't). The danger of Branka using them is vastly overrated by many players--as long as all the golems are dead, none of those abilities are a serious threat if you keep your head.

[Spell Singer]

The time I let her get to a lyrium vien wasn't horrid but it was right annoying. With a mage in the party I would say cast, then use the lyrium vien since it can keep you mana at near maximum. What I have never seen is when she gets to more than 2 of them, one spawned a bunch of Branka's and the other I keep thinking healed her but I could be wrong. I despise this fight frankly. I view the deep roads as the same as the hollywood sewers, and by the time I get here I've had about as much of it as I can take and with limited resources it is even more annoying.



Regardless healing from them given the damage she does seems unlikely to be that useful, if she is actually hitting you need greater and potent health potions to keep up. Her damage over time is more or less 15 hit points per second and seems to last a long time. I can't tell if it is spirit damage (I think it is but again the game doesn't give you information)...it seems some sort of corruption ability. How the target is decided is also a mystery to me.



I start by taking those viens out of the combat equation as fast as possible and still have ended up killing Branka as we both rush for the last one and if nothing else she seems to go after the person doing that which is also a way you can get her of the way while reducing the golem issue. So actually you will be using them to heal sometimes and frankly if you are low on potions then use the person to get first hit by the damage over time ability to do the lyrium vien use to keep them alive so as to not waste their healing ability. If you can kill her fast that is as reasonable an alternative as anything else. But your two golems will go down fast and fighting branka and 3-4 golems will not be fun.



But at the end of the day a lot of this is personal taste. Do whatever suits your style of play best and don't worry about what anyone else (including me) says. There isn't a single correct way to do any encounter in the game.

[soteria]

IIRC, the veins have three or four effects. They can heal her, or they spawn three images of her that can be easily killed, or they cause meteor-looking things to fall down and leave burning patches on the ground. She only starts to use them once she gets down to around 2/3 health, and if you station someone by the nearest vein and use it first, she'll stop. I have to disagree that you need greater health potions to keep up with her damage, unless you have a character with no business standing toe-to-toe with a boss in the first place.

[Elhanan]

soteria wrote...

I really don't recommend just draining the lyrium veins all helter-skelter. Use them to heal your characters (except Oghren, who can't)....*SNIP*.

Good advice! Those veins can help Lil and the Warden a great deal, or restore mana if you find a mage in your pack.

[chefbobby203]

I've never had much of an issue with this fight, but I usually side with branka to make golems for my army. I take it she is much harder than Caridin? I find him to be a wimp if I just taunt him with my warrior and take the little golems out 1 by 1

[DWSmiley]

Shale can provide some good crowd control until you drop a few of the golems, especially earthen grasp.

[beancounter501]

Branka has never given me any troubles. I always pound the crap out of the golems first and then switch to Branka. Standard tactics for any boss.



Also, remember that the golems have high armor - so have Leliana hit a Shattering Shot or have Oghren hit Sunder Armor before sending your dual weld in. This area is probably one of the few that Dual Weld Warriors really suck in. The high AR will just destroy your damage unless you get some way to reduce their armor.

[balmung03]

This is why I always keep a mage in my party; Force Field first, take care of the adds, and then paralyze, proceed to pound boss into oblivion.

Since you don't have a mage, it'll be more difficult. Stoneheart or Shattering Blows mode for Shale are the two best for boss fights unless you have lots of range characters (in which case Rock Mastery is good). If you want, control Shale, and keep using Taunt/Bellow/Stone Roar to draw Branka around in circles, and keep your other characters busy with the golems (using tactics helps a lot, for instance having your party always aim for the enemy with the lowest health so they'll never target Branka until all the adds are dead). Since Oghren almost always seems to die really quickly when I use him, I'd suggest using the Legion of the Dead armor on him. The only drawback here is that it's massive armor and will draw more threat, but that's why you have Shale pulling as much aggro with his abilities as you can. If Leliana is specced for range (as she should be) and has Arrow of Slaying, use that on Branka whenever the cooldown finishes (1 min cooldown). That should work fairly well.

[Lord Coake]

Eat steel and die, *****!



It's not often I get a sense of exaltation from a video game, but the Dead Trenches has pulled it off. Twice. First was the Broodmother, which dropped Shale, Oghren, Keia (my character) only to get the last sliver of her health taken down by a stupendous crit -complete with slowmo animation- from Liliana, who I had pull a Gray Iron longsword out of desperation.  All the heavy hitters, and it's the sweet, fiery vixen lover girl that pull victory from the jaws of abject defeat. Lil had one hit point left. That girl's getting some duelist levels.

She came through again with Branka. After a massive slugfest, all the golems are down (friendlies, too), Oghren bit the dust in the first thirty seconds, and my warrior got chain-stunned to death. Shale finished off the enemy golems and pounded Branka hard, but fell just inches away from a Lyrium vein before she could heal, after a earthshaking rampage against the insane dwarf wench.  Ancestors, I love that smartassed golem.

Enter Liliana.  Last woman standing and a fragile hope of victory in her elegant but strong hands.  Hitting, running, shooting, using dirty fighting and pinning shot. Dashing from vein to vein, struggling to stay healed when suddenly -slow mo- slash, slash, thrust, and Branka drops.  Lil took down about a quarter of Branka's health while she was bleeding, had a cracked skull, a broken arm and was coughing blood.

I wanted to jump up and cheer. Screw it, I did jump up and cheer.  Started the fight completely out of poultices, and ended with my favorite little Bard standing proud and victorious. Made sure to kiss Lil good and well by the campfire after lovingly tending her wounds.  Yes, Lil.  That settles it indeed.  C'mere, you!

Hell, forget just Duelist, she's earned a spot in the Wardens if she's up for it, in my book.  Get her badass cred immortalized.

Long live the bard.   And awesome job on the Deep Roads in general, Bioware.  The entire zone actually feels like theres a war on.  Especially in one of my favorite scenes, that being the Dwarven Legionaires on one side of the bridge, and a horde of Darkspawn on the other.  The Legion of the Dead rocks this gamers world.

"Your nightmare is our every day."  Kardol's words work so well to put a Warden in her place.  We're specialists that get called up every few centuies to fight a single war and get immortalized as great heroes, while the Legion is doing the same, thanklessly, endlessly, and forever beneath the feet of the Humans and Elves.  All unknown in the dark.

The real heroes of Dragon Age are the Dwarves, as I see it.

Modifié par Lord Coake, 21 juillet 2010 - 07:13 .

[Ken555]

Lyrium Veins and go for the Golems first, Pretty much what everyone else is saying basically.....

[rayzorium]

Lol. Such a badass-sounding finish. I feel cheated; my first victory after several reloads came from my freaking dog getting off an Overwhelm at the very start. I was at least pleased to discover that bosses die as fast as anyone else when they're pinned down by an angry hound.

[Spell Singer]

soteria wrote...

 I have to disagree that you need greater health potions to keep up with her damage, unless you have a character with no business standing toe-to-toe with a boss in the first place.

I'm fairly sure we play the game differently.  But Sten and Oghren both need such potions once and a while to return from 20% hits to 90+% hits and continue the fight and nothing else works for that.  The damage over time ability she has can take 50% of their hit points without difficulty and is not absorbed by armour.  I'd guess it is spirit damage and spirit salve might mitigate it but the lack of a combat log makes such detrminations hard.

Oghren's basic lack of defence means he gets hit near continously for 10-30 hits from Branka, throw in the odd assault which can do 100 hits in a short time.  Sten does better since I've been boosting his dex since level 7 but again 10-30 hits every attack that lands adds up quickly.

The last fight was 2 golems,  Ogrhen, Zevran and a Rogue against her since Morigan suffered from a shield bash-assault combination a bit earlier in the fight while my attention had wandered (or whatever).  Zevran actually did very well but I think that was due to his high defense though why she was fixated on him is beyond my ability to sort out.  But Oghren still used a couple of greater heals and Zevran may have used one plus a couple of lyrium veins or something like that over the course of the total fight.  I try to avoid potion use where I can but this is one where a few of them are necessary.

But your milage in this fight will vary depending on a lot of factors.

[flagondotcom]

rayzorium wrote...

Lol. Such a badass-sounding finish. I feel cheated; my first victory after several reloads came from my freaking dog getting off an Overwhelm at the very start. I was at least pleased to discover that bosses die as fast as anyone else when they're pinned down by an angry hound.

Barkspawn Overwhelm FTW, repeatedly.  Jarvia, Branka, orange-level Blood Mages, they all go splat-snap-glurgity-glurgity.
I just wish there were more abilities for Dog near the endgame.

[DWSmiley]

Lord Coake wrote...

I wanted to jump up and cheer. Screw it, I did jump up and cheer.  Started the fight completely out of poultices, and ended with my favorite little Bard standing proud and victorious. Made sure to kiss Lil good and well by the campfire after lovingly tending her wounds.  Yes, Lil.  That settles it indeed.  C'mere, you!

Great story Lord C!

[soteria]

I'm fairly sure we play the game differently. But Sten and Oghren both need such potions once and a while to return from 20% hits to 90+% hits and continue the fight and nothing else works for that. The damage over time ability she has can take 50% of their hit points without difficulty and is not absorbed by armour. I'd guess it is spirit damage and spirit salve might mitigate it but the lack of a combat log makes such detrminations hard.

We probably do play differently, but I definitely wouldn't use Sten or Oghren to tank Branka. They just aren't very tough, either of them.

[chefbobby203]

In my current run I threw the Effort armor on Oghren for the last part. I still wouldn't try to make him tank the boss in that(since he has no defense to speak of...just armor), but he definitely was good enough to hold his own against a couple elite golems. He actually was doing solid damage with the Maetashear Axe too(and throwing in knockdowns)

[saruman85]

I know this probably doesn't add anything to the discussion, 'cos you want Shale in your party for the dialogue with Caridin, but I have to back balmung up on this one:

Take a mage. Seriously.

Glyph of Paralysis, Cone of Cold, Force Field, Crushing Prison, heck Mind Blast - these will all turn this fight into a cakewalk. What this fight comes down to is crowd control - and no other class in Dragon Age excels at CC like mages do.

Life's just more fun with mages.

Modifié par saruman85, 22 juillet 2010 - 06:57 .