72 réponses à ce sujet

[Ceribaen]

I had no problems with either Branka's fight, or the Broodmother fight... party consisting of main (rogue with full rogue/assassin talents and the top and bottom row dw talents - no whirlwhind though), ohgren, shale (stoneheart active), and wynne.



In broodmother - just forcefield broodmother and focus fire tentacles. The other adds you just deal with as they spawn as well. Took her down first try, mostly used a bow with my rogue until near the end - but I did keep mark of death up every time it activated. Got a cool slow mo animation from Ohgren when he landed the killing blow too.



In Branka - force field on Branka, focus fire on a golem that one of the ally golems is attacking, then focus fire on the other one - this way they stay alive. Just follow their targets while keeping Branka force fielded. (I may also have stacked a paralysis/repulsion rune on the back of the room as well to try to paralyze the back two enemy golems at first).



The fights I had the most trouble with were Flemeth (took many tries, I think I ended up doing it with alastair, zevran, rogue main and wynne... though alastair and wynne were the only survivors and it consumed many health pots). The other being the high dragon - until I just had everyone use bows on it, and it just targetted alastair and flame spit him repeatedly (while he had like 80% fire resistance). Wynne just stayed way out of range and did nothing but heal. Leliana (archery focus) and my main just used their bows and did most of the damage.

[Thunderfox]

Branka is def hardest boss in the game IMO, but doable. It just takes a lot of trial and error

[gotthammer]

Forumtroll wrote...

Branka? The hardest part of the game is the part just before Fort Drakon. That parts a **** especially if you are high level and the Emissaries know Curse of Mortality. Even more so if the Alphas know Arrow of Slaying.

You mean at the entrance of Drakon itself?
Yeah.
Tho' you could 'pick off' the Emissaries and Alphas (one at a time, if I recall correctly) if you stay out of 'aggro range' using arrows or basic magic, then hit them with individual (i.e., non-AoE) spells when they close in or something.
It's kinda weird, as that felt kind of like a 'loophole tactic', but after multiple loads in that area, it was good enough for me.

[JaylaClark]

What I've ended up doing, oddly enough, is stepping out of the Dwarf missions specifically to do what I genuinely didn't know you could do.

I mean, I should have at least suspected that there was a better source of elfroot, than the one I was using (i.e. random chance), and I should have suspected the source.  I mean, it's in the name!

That's it, though.  I'm such a slave to the guides that Prima and Brady write that I have to do them in the order they set out.  Whereas if I'd hit the Forest second instead of last ... I'm still kicking myself.  I think I have enough health poultices to reactivate the 'use when you need 'em' tactic, even.

Which is good, because I've decided that what my previous party really was missing was a tank.  I swapped Oghren in for Alistair, when I should've swapped out Leliana instead.  She's ALL range in my configuration, with just a few dual-wielding basics on top of that, which is all well and good when one has a tank to pull the aggro and take the heat.  Oghren, it's been said, is not good tank material.

As for me, Miss Dual-Wielding Damage Dealer... I think I've got enough resistance to double-team the golems one at a time while Alistair pulls Branka and doesn't die, hopefully.  But I might try sniping from a distance with a bow, she's got decent Dex (of course).

[ComTrav]

The trick with the two golem pulls is to not let you hit your whole party at the beginning with the double rockthrow. I found it useful to scout ahead with my toughest character to absorb the hits.
It's funny the entrance to Fort Drakon came up in this thread, the golems you get for siding with Branka made it substantially easier =).

Modifié par ComTrav, 27 novembre 2009 - 03:56 .

[The Angry One]

Heh, siding with Branka in turn gives you the easier fight against Optimus Prime Caradin.

Who says the "bad" options aren't rewarding?

[Daerdor]

I needed several reloads but finally managed it on Hard.

My party consisted of PC (sword/shield warrior), Shale, Oghren and Morrigan.

The trick I applied was to draw the enemy golems to the friendly ones (for some reason the friendly ones don't seem to go out and attack, you need to bring the enemies to them). This keeps them busy so you can concentrate on Branka.

I used Morrigan to cast several hexes and cold spells on Branka. This caused Branka to go after her so I kept repositionning Morrigan while my other party members were hitting Branka.

Important here is to micro-manage and check your warrior's targets to make sure they hit the 'real' Branka.

In the end ... only Morrigan survived and there was still one yellow status golem with half health remaining ... With some luck she did the job

So far this was one of the hardest fights for me, harder than the High Dragon or Gaxkang. But as always the feeling of relief you get after completing such a battle together with the ear-to-ear grin on my face makes it worthwile

Modifié par Daerdor, 27 novembre 2009 - 12:42 .

[Duck and Cover]

Caradin is easier, fight him.



But if you must... I found taking out the golems (with as much friendly golem help as you can get) first was easiest. Then concentrate on Branka. Just alternate between heals and healing pots. Eventually your mage may run out of mana, but you have lyrium, so that helps.



as for the above post this wasn't nearly as hard as the high dragon, or the other "dragon" that Morrigan asks you to kill. Or that chick that comes to arrest you (although I only later found out it's better to be put in prison)

[Elsmallo]

I did it by killing all the golems first, trying to keep my two golem allies alive in the process. The key is to make sure Branka isn't able to target one of your characters at a time - keep her distracted if possible and if not RUN AWAY FROM HER! This cowardly tactic saved me many times in the game. They can't get you if you are running round and round the room -- but your mage/ranged fighters sure as hell can!

[JaylaClark]

What finally worked for me:

1.  Party consists of Alistair wearing the Legion armor.  And, Wynne and a dwarf and myself but that seems to be the significant factor.  38 Strength, 28 Dex, 20 Con, full shield talents, and I forget which ring boosts strength and attack but that was there too.  Branka must've coated her sword with depleted uranium to get what damage she was getting, and it was still pretty easy to see the right time to heal up.

2.  Wynne's job was to horde lyrium veins and occasionally flash-freeze golems outside the friendly-fire line.  (She has the full ice tree but when I tried blizzard ... don't try blizzard.  Trust me.  Knocking friendlies down != happy times.)

3.  I went to the trouble of doing as much of the Dalish quest as I needed to get my warrioress another level.  Seriously.  But it was mainly because I felt silly to go and find the elves purely for their bountiful elfroot.

4.  When it came time for entering the no-turning-back area, I had 15 Greater Health Poultices, 40 Health Poultices and ... er, 2 Lessers.  I think.  I do remember I ended with 10, 14 and 0, with a probably-not-surprising amount of them used on Wynne.  (As someone told me, possibly in this thread, healers draw just a bit too much aggro, and I chose not to have anyone take up Leliana's 'protect-the-healer' role, so Wynne kind of had a bit more trouble than her healing could keep up with.)

5.  I swear, it felt like it took forever to get to the two-warriors-in-front, one-in-back, stabby-stabby-killy-killy circle of death (plus a ressurect of Oghren and the only injury kit I've used on non-Wynne people since I got Healing Aura), and considering I think I used about three gold in the making of the health poultices we needed in the fight, it wasn't cheap.  But I did it, and once the insufferable ale-drinker was surrounded, Riposte-Shield Pummel-Mighty Swing and rinse and repeat, and it was over.

I'll admit, though, I didn't win this by really changing my tactics.  I'm a hit-em-with-a-right, hit-em-with-a-bigger-right type of fighter, and I'm just not that good at doing anything else.  But with a little adjustment, and enough potions, I managed to make my style work for this.  Lord only knows how it'll go when I finally run a rogue this far... but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

[Cursek]

I had a toon stuck in your position, and it REALLY pissed me off. But what I did was:



Kill all the golems first. No matter what class you are, getting shaken by Smash spam is just ****ing annoying, and unwelcome dps.



Use the Lyrium veins! That was an extreme juggle for me, since if you hurt branka enough, she'll use'm herself, but if you take a continuous ass whooping at low health, she'll finish you off the moment you stop to grab one.



Once you balance that, it'll be a possible battle, imo. This is also with the mindset that your allies suck and die in 3 sec.

[MatronAdena]

Like I believe I said earlier, Having Wynn, AND Morrigan together is a life saver in any situation. I never leveled Wynn to be a damage dealer, I leveled her to be a healer/buffer first and fore most ( by end game she does have some SOME offense skills but still a healer first and foremost) Morrigan I let her be as she needs, I max out her combat trees, and hexes, I learned on my first play through to not let her " auto level" as the computer likes to boost her shape shifting, which I find pretty useless.

With Morrigan set for dealing damage, and crowed control, you can use cone of cold to limit down the amount of baddies swarming your tanks/melee. This helps too as there is the chance to shatter enemies and that always is nice. She may draw aggro alittle, but normally, hitting the baddies with cone of cold, or sleep or what not lets you get away to a better vantage point.

In REALLY tough fights I tend to take control of her so that I can hold back swarms, or bosses etc, spam hexes, drain life etc, making it easier for my tanks, and safer for Wynn.

With Wynn I don't alter her tactics at all, she wants to cast healing, and buffs naturally, and stay out of the fight as much as possible. With the swamp witch keeping baddies frozen, or knocked out of the fight and your tanks ( or anyone on melee really) doing what they do best, Wynn has little to worry about.

Time to time I wont have morrigan, or May not have wynn in the group, but it's rare that I'm without one of them. If Wynn is missing, I wont have her to heal, but with morrigan and her ability to freeze, and heavily weaken large groups, My extra melee fighter helps finish things off soon enough, and no pots are wasted.

Also the large AEO spells can be cast through walls I noticed, so it's fun to wipe out a group before you even get into that area * lol*

Modifié par MatronAdena, 29 novembre 2009 - 03:28 .

[kasanza]

Best bet is to take out lyrium veins first. Right from the start, have everyone take them out. If Branka attacks a person, just have them kite for a minute. Once all veins are down, whail on her hard.

[danbucks]

I am surprised no one mentioned: Wynne can of course heal NPCs. Works great keeping your 2 helper golems alive (they will be dead otherwise). If they survive the initial onslaught, you need far less healing when they are free to bash on Branka.

[Tulio Alejandro]

I had the same problem, but I figured out that Branka always target Olghren first...so I controled Olghrend and stared running from her all around the battle field jejejejjejejeje. I work, beocuse in the meantime the other allies where fighting the golems and savgin my potions, becouse branka was the one that make me need all the potions in the firs time jejeje....then it came easy.....





Please excuse mi english, is not my mother language.

[errant_knight]

I ended up in that position once. It made for a very exciting fight. Morrigan got killed fairly early, so I had no heal, and I had a very limited mumber of poultices. It ended up with only Alistair standing, fighting all five Branka's. Eventually, the duplicates disappear, and he was only fighting the original who refused to die. He kept chipping away, and running around to the lyrium to heal, looting corpses while fighting in hopes of finding poultices, etc. He almost took her out after a screamingly long, tense battle, but then she brought the roof down and he was crushed by falling rock just as he was about to kill her. Sigh. Reloaded and managed to win the next time through, although it was a squeaker.

Modifié par errant_knight, 24 février 2010 - 06:13 .

[PatT2]

just because I noticed that some people do know, and others apparently aren't aware:



You don't have to be a mage to use the lyrium veins. Dwarves can't use them, but all others can. (Oh, except Branka, who can, but shouldn't be able to as a dwarf. Go figure!)



Buying your flasks from your camp merchant will cost you 1/3 more than buying them from the wine vendor in downtown Orzimar. Camp sells them for 1 50 each, the guy (wine vendor...who you run off the thugs from) will sell them for 1 00. that's 3 for the price of two. That adds up very fast, as they're used for all potions and all poisons and bombs.



Same with distiller agent. Get that from the bartender in Denerim (the one who gives you the "not strictly legal" lines). Everyone already knows where to get elfroot and lyrium dust. But considering the price differential, it does pay to get your flasks and distiller/concentrator agents from someone cheaper than your camp guy. Unless you have gold to burn. I've never had that much gold in this game that I could afford to pay an extra sovereign every time I bought a stack of flasks.



I ususally spec Wynn with the full line of glyps as well as her healing talents. That adds another bunch of ways to control the enemies while you're doing this quest. Doing this with 2 mages is the easiest. You can always come back later for your locked chests. If you have 2 mages, both with good crowd control, you don't have to worry about being caught by anyone while sipping up all the lyrium. Crushing prison, paralyze, cone of cold, (paralyze runes in swords), sleep.



First playthroughs are brutal for this section because you don't know. After that, you start spec'ing characters for better crowd control, which is a must in this game. I'm playing a mage this time, and all of us have at least cone of cold, at least 2 mages have the glyph line. I consider mages most important for serious crowd control.



Don't forget bombs. Freeze bombs. Fire bombs. They are your rogue's and warriors friends. Give all warriors one level of poison so they can throw bombs and use poisons on their blades. Big difference.



Yes, those balms do help. Nature balms are great for things that spit poisons (like spiders and deepstalkers) Spirit balms are great for final battle. I've had those balms save me more than once. Some give you back a little health.



Also, in the healing line...I've heard people say that they think that healer spell, the one you cast to keep someone from dying...is a waste. Not so. If someone's health has fallen to less than 10%, it could mean the differentce between resurrecting them and not.



2 mages should be healers. In case your healer dies. And 2nd healer can resurrect 1sh healer. In tough battles, like with ancient darkspawn, this has been a lifesaver.



In 5 playthroughs, I've only seen branka split once. If you play keep-away with the lyrium, she can't.



Crowd control!

[Addai]

JaylaClark wrote...

Which is good, because I've decided that what my previous party really was missing was a tank.  I swapped Oghren in for Alistair, when I should've swapped out Leliana instead.  She's ALL range in my configuration, with just a few dual-wielding basics on top of that, which is all well and good when one has a tank to pull the aggro and take the heat.  Oghren, it's been said, is not good tank material.

As for me, Miss Dual-Wielding Damage Dealer... I think I've got enough resistance to double-team the golems one at a time while Alistair pulls Branka and doesn't die, hopefully.  But I might try sniping from a distance with a bow, she's got decent Dex (of course).

For future reference, Oghren benefits a great deal from a few stamina and resistance boosts.  One you pick up in the Deep Roads- the Rock Knocker helmet, +25 physical resistance.  I always come prepared with a Metashear axe (or, now, the most awesome Nug Crusher) to swap out his default weapon.  Put some Hale runes on it.  Voila, you no longer need to babysit him.   Not vital, but still, it helps.  I also save up his gifts and give them to him before we head into the Deep Roads, which usually gives him a Constitution bonus.  Oghren is a very good tank.

The key to this battle in my mind is having a way to sideline Branka for at least part of the encounter.  For me, that is Force Field, which I cast on her part-way into the battle, when I see her first start to head for a lyrium vein.  This gives us time to finish off most of the golems AND make sure all the lyrium in the room is sucked dry, before she busts loose.  You can also have your mage heal the friendly golems to keep them on their feet longer.

And it can't be said enough- save early, save often.

Modifié par Addai67, 24 février 2010 - 10:31 .

[Nonvita]

Addai67 wrote...

For future reference, Oghren benefits a great deal from a few stamina and resistance boosts.  One you pick up in the Deep Roads- the Rock Knocker helmet, +25 physical resistance.  I always come prepared with a Metashear axe (or, now, the most awesome Nug Crusher) to swap out his default weapon.  Put some Hale runes on it.  Voila, you no longer need to babysit him.   Not vital, but still, it helps.  I also save up his gifts and give them to him before we head into the Deep Roads, which usually gives him a Constitution bonus.  Oghren is a very good tank.

The key to this battle in my mind is having a way to sideline Branka for at least part of the encounter.  For me, that is Force Field, which I cast on her part-way into the battle, when I see her first start to head for a lyrium vein.  This gives us time to finish off most of the golems AND make sure all the lyrium in the room is sucked dry, before she busts loose.  You can also have your mage heal the friendly golems to keep them on their feet longer.

And it can't be said enough- save early, save often.

Agreed, Force Field really is the saving grace in this battle. Keep her out of it long enough to kill off the golems, and she's much easier to take on. I didn't use the lyrium veins on my playthrough, so I don't see that as too big a deal, but if it helps then go for it. Just remember when she splits to only go after the 'real' her (the one with the lowest health). I didn't have a healer for it but got through on very few potions, so it's really just about planning.

[Fishy]

Kordesh wrote...

I seriously want to hit whoever the hell it was thought it would be a good idea to lock you into an area and not let you out of it.

I'm stuck in the final battle with Branka and have absolutely NO way of healing myself thanks to this crap. I have no pultices, can't go back to get more, and I have no healer and even if I did I have no lyrium to keep them healing for more than a second. I tried kiting her around with DoTs once, and then she just turned into freaking FIVE of herself which made it impossible. So now my options are
A: replay about 5 hours of the most obnoxious part of the game I've done yet ,
B: Repeatedly keep kiting her for hours and failing.
C: Cheat (which I refuse to do.
D: Tell the game to screw off and be forever pissed at it because I really wanted to finish it.

FAN FREAKING TASTIC

Hello

Do you have purge? You can unlock the golem by purging their battier(The same can be done against Zavrian)

[errant_knight]

Suprez30 wrote...

Kordesh wrote...

I seriously want to hit whoever the hell it was thought it would be a good idea to lock you into an area and not let you out of it.

I'm stuck in the final battle with Branka and have absolutely NO way of healing myself thanks to this crap. I have no pultices, can't go back to get more, and I have no healer and even if I did I have no lyrium to keep them healing for more than a second. I tried kiting her around with DoTs once, and then she just turned into freaking FIVE of herself which made it impossible. So now my options are
A: replay about 5 hours of the most obnoxious part of the game I've done yet ,
B: Repeatedly keep kiting her for hours and failing.
C: Cheat (which I refuse to do.
D: Tell the game to screw off and be forever pissed at it because I really wanted to finish it.

FAN FREAKING TASTIC

Hello

Do you have purge? You can unlock the golem by purging their battier(The same can be done against Zavrian)

I use Alistair's cleanse area spell to free the werewolves, but I haven't tried it with Caridan. I figured it was a control rod thing and wouldn't work.... So there are ways to free Caridan for the fight?

[ENCHANTMENTSSS]

The Angry One wrote...

Heh, siding with Branka in turn gives you the easier fight against Optimus Prime Caradin.

Who says the "bad" options aren't rewarding?

Haha only if he made that transforming sound... ...

[Thorbecke]

I just ran into this fight myself, without having read anything about it first, with myself (Ranger/Bard), Morrigan, Oghren, and Leliana (Bard/Duelist), and also found myself to be very frustrated with the inability to go back to a place to pick up healing pots, or ingredients. I had just done that to get through the Broodmother fight, so by the time I got through the Gauntlet, my supplies were pitiful (1 health pot, 3 lesser health pots, no mats). What finally worked was switching Leli to Ranged (with Marjolein's Recurve and Andraste's arrows), my Ranger summoning a Bear, and Morrigan Force Fielding Branka right off the bat (if Resisted, immediate reload). Trying to Freeze/Shatter the white golems as quickly as possible, then whittling at the yellow golems, healing the friendly golems (1 survived long enough to help get a couple of blows in against Branka, the other one found itself in the way of one of my Cones of Cold, and was subsequently shattered by Branka, oops :-/) and then Leli ran around collecting Lyrium, Morrigan died fairly quickly, so there went my healing, and CC, but in the end, my Bear had died, replaced with a Wolf, and my Ranger was able to get the final shot in.

Definitely the hardest fight so far (and I'm pretty much done with all the main storyline quests), and the fact that you're forced to replay through the entire Anvil section if you're not stocked up properly is punishing, I agree with the OP.