164 réponses à ce sujet

[KallDay]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

Useless : Isabella (in nightmare, she never survive). She gets slapped around.

varric's personal tree > Isabella's personal tree      ....by like 100x.

Isabella update: Just started act 2 at level 13. With a couple pieces of +Defense gear and Heroic Aura running, Isabella has hit the 80% Defense cap against normals. With Savvy running, she hits the 80% cap vs lieutenants, and is in the sixties or higher against bosses (depending on number of surrounding enemies). With survivability now approaching Aveline's, suddenly Isabella is bringing sexy back, and promising to send a certain fat fugly dwarf to warm the bench as the party's subpar rogue.

[Mister_Shepard]

Isabella has her uses if you're not a rogue. She could be the stealthy type and backstab enemies with +120% damage if you've acquired the ability in the Scoundrel tree. Rogues do a really good job at cleaning the battlefield if you're careful. I don't see how people find her useless. Your companions are used at different situations and if Isabella is the one getting tossed around then you've probably chose the wrong person for the job.

I think all of them have their uses so I honestly don't think any of them are useless. My favorites are Merrill and Aveline. Aveline is an excellent tank and Merrill can make the toughest enemies seem less difficult because of her entropy spells.

[Agent_Dark_]

KallDay wrote...
Isabella update: Just started act 2 at level 13. With a couple pieces of +Defense gear and Heroic Aura running, Isabella has hit the 80% Defense cap against normals. With Savvy running, she hits the 80% cap vs lieutenants, and is in the sixties or higher against bosses (depending on number of surrounding enemies). With survivability now approaching Aveline's, suddenly Isabella is bringing sexy back, and promising to send a certain fat fugly dwarf to warm the bench as the party's subpar rogue.

is some points in strength or fortitude worth it for Isabella or just pump up the cunning/defence?  annoying as hell how the squishy characters get smacked around all over the place at least early in the game.

[KallDay]

Agent_Dark_ wrote...

is some points in strength or fortitude worth it for Isabella or just pump up the cunning/defence?  annoying as hell how the squishy characters get smacked around all over the place at least early in the game.

Honestly I wouldn't put a single point into Str for Isabella or put on Fortitude gear. Tried the Fortitude route with around 8 pts. worth (it's hard to find early on), but it simply wasn't enough to keep her from getting stunlocked. So, I recommend keeping her Cunning and Dex as high as possible, with a few points into Will if you want to use more abilities before quaffing a stam potion.

With decent aggro management, Izzy shouldn't really be getting targeted by attacks, but sometimes that is hard to avoid, especially with "ANOTHER WAVE" of enemies parachuting onto the battlefield at odd angles. The high Defense percentage from Cunning and her Sea Legs talent is there for just those occasions, so you can run her back onto the right side of the tank.

[Boss Fog]

Useful: Aveline, Anders, Merril
Aveline speaks for herself. Her specialization tree is pure win. Spend points to jack up her dmg resistance and she'll rarely drop.

Anders needs serious protection in order to be useful I would say, such as glyph of paralysis AND repulsion both upgraded. He gets stunlocked more than anyone on my team but if he's left alone he is spectacular.

Merril is an absolute beast if built properly, jack up her constitution and she can actually off tank a small group of mobs; ESPECIALLLY if she has Rock armor and galvanize. I've never seen a single mob knock her down or back.

Modifié par TelvanniWarlord, 12 mars 2011 - 07:34 .

[dmacleod66]

My favorite Usefuls- Avaline, merril, varric.
Limited usefulness- fenris
Useless- Isabela

[Graunt]

StilRH wrote...

I've found good use for all characters so far - but it would depend on your character's class and specs really. Getting the most use from Aveline (tank) and Anders (heal) so far. Merrill (though I love spirit and primal trees, not too hot on her unique talents yet) and Fenris (again 2h warr is pretty stong but no good synergy with my main character and not so hot on his unique tree).

Fenris' unique tree is phenomenal...it's pretty much a who's who of the best two-handed DPS specializations, and it also has a weaker version of the end Templar tree skill.

As far as most Useful: probably Anders hands down unless you're playing a Mage yourself and really want to heal.  It doesn't hurt that he has access to the best Mage tree in the game either for Nightmare -- seriously, if you haven't used it, you have no idea how strong Tempest is...especially if you have two Mages with it and Gravitic Ring.

Varric isn't all that great at the lower levels, and I've only been finding him useful for lock picking.  I had to replace him with Merril after countless fails on the Night Lies quest (Nightmare).  Sebastian might be another story.  

I would also say that Aveline is usually "ok", although her threat and damage suck.  Fenris is the better option in many areas.

Most useless under any circumstance: Isabela.

Modifié par Graunt, 12 mars 2011 - 10:09 .

[Feirefiz1972]

I am playing as a mage healer. i use Avaline as tank, Anders as a second healer and Fenris as a damage dealer.
I normaly try to stand in a choke point then switch off movement and pair the 2 mages together with Aveline so they stand in each others healing aura. I use fenris as a damager, this gives me 2 heals, 2 group heals and party ressurections on top of my potions and combined healing aura.
If i found someone completly useless its varric, his only use for me is to detect traps and open locks.

[Jarlan23]

I'm surprised so many of you are saying Isabella. I use her all the time. Does the most DPS by far of anyone else in my party. She was my main DPS when I killed the High Dragon.

[Gaidren]

If i found someone completly useless its varric, his only use for me is to detect traps and open locks.

On a side note, I wonder how useful his trap/lockpicking skills are later on.  I hate putting points into Cunning at the expense of Dex, even taking into account the Assassin ability you can get that makes Cunning buff crits.

I like Varric though....he's got a good combo starter (upgraded Pinning Arrow = Disorient), a good combo finisher (Shattering Arrow vs. Brittle), and a weapon that scales automatically with his level.

The biggest drawback thus far for me with Varric is the slow animation time on some of his abilities.  If somebody is chasing him it is hell to get off a Pinning Arrow/Miasmic Flask.  I'm thinking of picking up Rush to see if that will allow me to create more room for myself though.

[Gaidren]

KallDay wrote...

SuicidialBaby wrote...

Useless : Isabella (in nightmare, she never survive). She gets slapped around.

varric's personal tree > Isabella's personal tree      ....by like 100x.

Isabella update: Just started act 2 at level 13. With a couple pieces of +Defense gear and Heroic Aura running, Isabella has hit the 80% Defense cap against normals. With Savvy running, she hits the 80% cap vs lieutenants, and is in the sixties or higher against bosses (depending on number of surrounding enemies). With survivability now approaching Aveline's, suddenly Isabella is bringing sexy back, and promising to send a certain fat fugly dwarf to warm the bench as the party's subpar rogue.

Are you playing on Nightmare?

I was very curious how well +defense stacking works on Nightmare.....as in Heroic Aura + Improved (party-wide) Arcane Shield + pumping Cunning on tanks/rogues.

I sort of got the impression from some people that on Nightmare you need an Improved Stonewall tank (100% dmg reduction when active) and pro kiting skills with your ranged, and that has been my experience thus far too on Nightmare.  Just wondering if +def stacking is viable too, since it would take a LOT less micromanagement if you were nearly unhittable by most enemies....

[StingingVelvet]

I've been using Varric but am getting sick of him... his talents aren't really that great IMO, though I haven't respec'd him and experimented with alternate routes. The archer tree in general kind of disappoints me.

I haven't used Isabella at all because my Hawke is a duel-wield rogue but I have found a lot of DPS love in those trees. Like I just said in another thread a mass stun attack plus 100% crits when the enemy is stunned + death. Throw in the duelist spec and you can enhance damage against one target, stun them, then crit them constantly for 10 seconds.

[Esbatty]

As a Warrior Hawke I found all my companions had something to offer none of them useless. I did notice Merrill, Isabela, and Fenris would drop quite a bit during boss fights, but other than that I found Varric always held his own and did great crowd control. I'm iffy on Anders just 'cause I didn't feel the real impact of his healing abilities. Aveline was always an effective sword and board user. Other than that as long as I kept updating my group's tactics I rarely got got knocked down to one party member in fights.

[Andraste_Reborn]

I think it depends on your play style, party set-up and what difficulty you play on. I'm doing my first run as a two-handed tank so Isabela is completely useless to me and the mages and archers are my best friends. I haven't even recruited Fenris yet, but I can't imagine I'll get much use out of him either. It's far easier for me to have nobody in melee range of my Hawke so she can really cut loose. However, I can see that in a party with a Warrior that's not lethal to anyone standing next to them a dual-wielding rogue could come in handy.

Of those companions I'm using a lot, Merrill is an absolute beast. Her blood mage abilities don't do friendly fire, so they're great on Nightmare, and I've been putting the rest of her points into the Primal tree so she can rain down party-friendly lightning as well. I've found that it pays to respec her so her points are in Constitution rather than Willpower.

[GRX Dragon]

As a DPS-Tank myself -

Most useful: Varric
Most useless: Merrill (In every game I've played, I rarely if ever have any use for mages that aren't main-healers...)

[shembree1]

I would say Varric is useless, as Pinning Shot (one of the staples of the Bianca Tree) hardly ever works. I have been putting points into Dex and Cun on level ups. Varric now at level 10, and Disorient with Pinning Shot never works. Am I doing something wrong?

[sokolov22]

Playing on Nightmare (was doing Hard, but doing Nightmare after respec) in the middle of Act 2.

I am a Mage (Primal/Force Mage).
Merrill (Controller/Buff Bot) - 100% sustained mana use and casting with Blood Magic
Fenris (DPS-Tank) - No Stonewall; in fact, no defensive skills outside of the bonuses from his personal tree
Isabella (DPS-Tank) - Mostly points in Dual Wield, some in Scoundrel and her personal tree

So, on the Isabella debate... I definitely like her better than Varric. Once Varric gets anyone on him, he's pretty much toast, but Isabella as mentioned hits the Defense cap versus Normals without even trying and can actually survive for a bit (45% vs Bosses without Savvy atm). Twin Fang deals ridiculous damage on its own, while Explosive Strike after Fenris' Pommel Strike is also epic; Backstab, Back-to-Back and Across the Bow lets her fly all over the battlefield keeping guys off me so I can rain hell with Chain Lightning, Stonefist and Crushing Prison.

[CitizenSnips]

Universally Useful - Anders and Varric

Useful for my mage - Aveline

Useful for my warrior - Merril

Mostly Useless - Sebastion

Useless - Isabella

[Jangocat]

I'm nearing the end of my first play through in normal mode as rogue Hawke. This is what I've found, though nightmare is another story from what I'm reading.

Most useful Avaline, Merrill, Anders. Best tank, best DPS mage, best healer.

Least useful Fenris. Avaline is a FAR superior tank, it's not even close. Immunity to knockdown and stun, plus stoneskin and that immovable skill. At no point did I ever want a DPS tank over a real tank. DPS tank doesn't even make sense to me to begin with. Tanks tank, leave DPS to the rogues and mages.

I also found Varric to be of limited use. He runs around too much and the archery tree isn't very good. The only time I really needed him was for boss battles where I wanted to keep everyone ranged except Avaline. Against the majority of normal mobs though Isabella seems to do way more DPS then Varric.

I'm sorry to here Isabella has survival problems in nightmare. If that's true and not just poor specing and combat management I'm sure bioware will buff her though.

[bluedevil99]

Well, useful/useless obviously depends on your playstyle, so obviously some people will say Varric is awesome because they like archers and he's the only one. BUT I think there's a way we can do this objectively. I tend to rank companions by how they compare to available builds for Hawke.

By this metric, Aveline and Fenris are awesome. Look at their companion specific skills. Aveline's Guardian tree makes her a better straight up, damage sponge tank than anything you can put together with Hawke's three available specializations. I'd argue Fenris's Lyrium Ghost skill alone makes him better than any 2-hand warrior Hawk build: that +20% crit chance combined with Sunder and other 2H skills is just amazing.

Likewise, Varric is awesome. His companion-specific skill tree far, far outclasses any archer build for Hawke. Puzzlingly, all three available specializations for a rogue Hawke seem better suited to melee/dual weapon rogues.

Anders is pretty good. His companion tree is a sort of a Spirit Healer/Blood mage hybrid (much more so the former, really). The vengeance part of his tree is somewhat unique and gives him a nice damage bonus. The combination of DPS and healing competes well with many Hawke mage builds.

Merril is, well, meh. Why she's locked out of creation is beyond me (I used the console to mod this back in). Her companion specific skills are ok, but a properly build Blood Mage Hawke is much better.

Finally, Isabella is pretty bad. Most dual wielding DPS rogue builds for Hawke will far, far outclass Isabella's companion skill tree; really her tree consists of some of the worst skills available in rogue Hawke's specializations.

[Rathys]

mushoops86anjyl wrote...

Universally Useful - Anders and Varric

Useful for my mage - Aveline

Useful for my warrior - Merril

Mostly Useless - Sebastion

Useless - Isabella

Pretty good summary. I would change it a little:

Universally Useful - Anders and Varric

Useful for my mage/rogue  - Aveline and Fenris (On Normal/Hard)

Useful for my warrior - Merril

Mostly Useless - Sebastion

Useless - Isabella

[MachDelta]

Rylor Tormtor wrote...
Yes, Isabella spends more time on her back during combat than she does at the Hanged Man.

I admit, I laughed.


Myself, i'm still trying to figure Isabela out without having to babysit her. She seems to flip back and forth between "obscene damage that draws aggro and gets her killed" to "a second dog - good off tank but not much damage" very quickly. Finding that sweet spot is tough.

[DiLune]

Are you playing on Nightmare?

I was very curious how well +defense stacking works on Nightmare.....as in Heroic Aura + Improved (party-wide) Arcane Shield + pumping Cunning on tanks/rogues.

I sort of got the impression from some people that on Nightmare you need an Improved Stonewall tank (100% dmg reduction when active) and pro kiting skills with your ranged, and that has been my experience thus far too on Nightmare.  Just wondering if +def stacking is viable too, since it would take a LOT less micromanagement if you were nearly unhittable by most enemies....

I'm not playing on Nightmare, just Hard. But my favorite group is me (mage with Spirit Healer/Force mage and full Primal) Merril as an Elementalist/Arcanist, Aveline (of course) and Isabella.

So I do have the Heroic Aura/Arcane Shield going on with cunning pumped up on Aveline and Isabella (as well as con, I'm trying to spread the points in survivability.) It is pretty sick (at least on hard.) The beauty of Isabella is, if a mage enemy shows up, they usually survive two hits, but not her third. Anything without armor is a quick kill for her (so the mage abilities that temporarily reduce someone to 0 Armor have pretty great synergy with her as well.) With a little con and a lot of cunning, she doesn't die very much either.

My most useless so far is Anders. I really don't like his character, and he's pretty redundant. Can't survive like the Con monster merril and I don't need his healing because my people aren't taking that much damage.

[DiLune]

MachDelta wrote...

Rylor Tormtor wrote...
Yes, Isabella spends more time on her back during combat than she does at the Hanged Man.

I admit, I laughed.


Myself, i'm still trying to figure Isabela out without having to babysit her. She seems to flip back and forth between "obscene damage that draws aggro and gets her killed" to "a second dog - good off tank but not much damage" very quickly. Finding that sweet spot is tough.

Make sure you have a couple of the agro dump talents and set her tactics to use them when she is being attacked by melee or ranged. She usually only gets into some trouble if she doesn't have any stam left (so make sure the agro dumps are high up in her tree so she'll use them before the other abilities.)

[sokolov22]

I actually don't have a single aggro dump ability on my Isabella - in fact, I am using Back-to-Back and Across the Bow to PULL aggro when my mages are under fire.

She does dies sometimes, but not before killing a bunch of things - and is not anymore squishy than Fenris is. The thing is whatever she targets dies so fast that she isn't really in danger most of the time, and I primarily have her running around killing the outlying archers and mages. And when she DOES get targeted, she dodges most attacks outright.

As for Fenris, I find him to be a better overall tank than Aveline. He does more damage, and Mighty Blow on a Petrified target deals 300-500 damage now so that target is probably not ignoring him for awhile. He has roughly 60% Defense and 45% Armor for me at the moment. Where he really shines compared to Aveline is Magic Resist (I believe he's 36% for me now).

Modifié par sokolov22, 16 mars 2011 - 06:37 .