82 replies to this topic

[Scoze]

So I've put in about 5 hours into the game so far, I've been doing a lot of side exploring and I'm currently at the part where you have to earn 50 sovereign to go on the Deep Roads expedition but before I go any further, I was wondering what is the best combination of mages/warriors/rogues for my party? My party currently consists of Me, Bethany, Anders, and Isabella. My Hawke is a male warrior by the way. I swapped out Isabella for Varric because it seemed that Hawke might have a romantic relationship with her in the future so I wanted to explore that but should I have kept Varric in? I'm kinda nooby to the whole rpg genre and just beat DA: O a little under a month ago but I like having two mages in my party so is that good or bad? I'm sure there will be new characters that come along later in the game so you can suggest the best party for when I meet those new characters but please do not spoil anything about who those characters are in relation to the story.  Any thoughtful suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[imperialus1]

Generally speaking I like to wander about with two melee guys, and two ranged. My "go to" party is Me (a Dual Wielding rogue) Varric for the ranged archery, for the second melee type I'll alternate between Aveline and Fernis depending on my mood (and if I plan on getting touchy feeley with mages, or breaking the law respectively) and either Anders or Merill for magic support. Merill's lack of healing hurts, but she can sure hammer out the damage.

[TheOneAndOni]

As far as I know, having a character in your party has very little effect on your ability to romance them; there are incidental opportunities for friendship gain, but the bulk of that is done through the companion quests and associated conversations.

As for the rest, there is nothing wrong with the party you described. Especially on normal, you can pretty much roll with the characters that you like best and do just fine.

[Jkol1]

There are a number of important roles a party should have filled:

Tank, Heals, Single Target and Aoe damagers, crowd control (eg stun, petrify),
Lockpicking, buffing allies and debuffing opponents.

If you and your party members can fill most or all of these roles then you are on the right path.
There are some people that prefer specific npcs but the talent choices give you flexibility in most areas.

[Heathenism]

I usually try to have 1 tank, 1 rogue, 1 healer, and 1 damage. I'm currently using myself as a dual wield rogue, Aveline for a tank, Anders for healing, and Merrill for damage. It seems to be a pretty well balanced party.

[KodiakAsh]

1. I like a meat shield, usually a warrior of some type. Anything will work really because. So basically you got Hero/Carver/Aveline/Fenris.

2. I always keep a rogue in the party for Goad so the warrior can hold aggro. This works well even if they don't have taunt. So for here you got Hero/Varric/Sebastian/Isabella.

3. Anders. Unfortunately he's just the best at the healing role no two ways around it short of the Hero. You can slide the difficulty down and won't need a healer if you want as well, or slide it up and take someone with moderate healing.


Personally on my Mage play through I've gone through with Fenris, Anders, and Isabella. I replace as needed in various roles if the companions have to go on something, such as Verric and Carver for the Deeproads, or Sebastian for Isabella on his missions, etc. I built as Lighting/Earth/Force predominately so far and will later go into Ice or more Hexes and such (since Frost isn't super uber like it was in Origins).

It's all preference, but when you got some giant dragon running around the screen it's nice to have them focused on a single target.

[Nazo]

Honestly, I've found that on Normal difficulty, I don't really *need* a healer around. The heal spell has a long cool-down so it's not like you'll be keeping the party alive with it. It can be useful for a few particularly hard fights if you want to save on potions (in which case just bring Anders, his panacea spells are very handy), but sometimes I have a whim to wander around with Isabella, Merrill and Varric and my warrior Hawke and I do just fine.

Dual mages work well too. Merrill and Bethany can lay down giant swathes of AOE damage that basically pulverizes ... everything. My warrior keeps the enemies in target area and they nuke away.

Edit: The convos and character growth tends to happen in each character's home base as well (so far! Only just started the deep roads) so don't sweat who to take. Mix it up to hear different little comments, bring along who you like to play with.

Probably the biggest issue is friendship/rivalry. If you are aiming for, say, Fenris Friendship, you probably want to take him on mage-hunting missions and not be merciful. I've just been choosing what comes naturally and about half my party is strongly rivalry, a few like me a lot and some (annoyingly) oscillate and thus get no bonuses at all.

Edited by Nazo, 10 March 2011 - 09:39 PM.

[mirmidion00]

So far the most fun I've had is:
Hawke as an elemental/force mage.
Merril split between primal and dalish pariah.
Aveline as her rather set role as the greatest tank ever.
Varric for lockpicking.

Honestly on normal you just get everything to attack Aveline and then AoE the ever-living snot out of it. On Hawke I put on point into heal and that has been more than enough when potions can't do the job.

[Celtic Latino]

So far I'm about 10+ hours into the game, I generally use:

Hawke: DPS Mage (Primal and Force Mage tree)
Aveline: Tank
Fenris: Melee DPS, after I got Sebastian I respeced him to a Tank
Anders: Healing/Support
Sebastian: Ranged DPS (replaced Aveline after I got into Act 2)

Aveline and Fenris are extremely useful party members, both are good at tanking if you spec (and respec) them right, and Fenris also makes for a fantastic melee dps character. Anders is good but sometimes his healing doesn't always come in time unless you take control of him (and that stupid cooldown doesn't help). I just like Sebastian for his presence, haven't found him terribly useful but indeed more useful than Varric.

[Clonedzero]

for pure min-max reasons?

i'd say
Hawke - DPS role regardless of class.
Aveline - tank
Anders - dedicated healer.

last slot depending on class i'd say if you're a rogue, then use merril as ranged damage and crowd control, otherwise use Varric as ranged damage and crowd control.

however,

my main party for most of the game ended up being

Me- mage hawke. 95% specced as pure offense blow you up style, but still had heal and would use it all the time.
Aveline/Carver - as my tanks, yes Carver did fantastic as my tank for awhile, i switched to aveline because her personality grew on me
Merril - i went heavy into entropy for lots of debuffs and crowd control which was great, then a ton in primal for more blow up stuff power. (she was too cute not to use lol)
Varric / isabella - felt obligated to keep a rogue in the group to pick locks, but i used both equally really, isabella killed stuff better but varric was more useful in the crowd control market so i leaned more towards Varric.

for some of the harder fights i used anders as a dedicated healer instead of merril though. i pretty much completely ignored fenris kinda on accident honestly, i just forgot about him and it stopped giving me quests to interact with him after awhile so i completely forgot about the poor neglected elf boy lol

[nubbers666]

i go for mage,varric,Isabella or another mage, and ferris but i only choose him becuase of his hatered for mages

[Wissenschaft]

My party consist of 1 offensive tank - 2 DPS glass cannons - and a mage for spell support

I like to use Fenris, Isabela. Anders with myself as an assassin/shadow rogue.

Basic tactic is for Fenris to run around crushing grunts while keeping argo while my rouges focus down a boss. Anders provides support magic like heal, heroic aura, haste as well as attack spells that cause brittle so I can deal massive damage with my archer and fighter.

[Jarlaxlecq]

my problem is always triming the group down to 4, i'd like to take

Hawke (tank)
Isabella (single target dps)
Bethany (aoe DPS)
Varric (aoe dps + misdirector)
Anders (healer)

i guess the easiest place to trim would be Varric but hes just a cool npc i'd hate to loose him.

[Nphect]

I went a fairly different route from most people and it worked out for me minus taking 15 minutes to setup tactics for certain bosses.

Hawke - Elemental / Force Mage (Spirit Healer / Force)
Varric - Ranged dps
Aveline - Tank
Sebastian - Ranged dps (switch out for whomever if you don't have the DLC)

Being able to isolate my tank and keep my party at max range served well for almost every fight, and I only "wiped" once during the game. Granted, I don't recommend this build if you plan on playing on any difficulty past Normal. I was careless and really just enjoyed big crits.

[EscherEnigma]

As a mage!Hawke, my line-up is usually...

Brute: Aveline, Fenris or Carver
Rogue: Isabella or Varric
other Mage: Anders or Merrill

Until I got my second specialization and took up spirit healer I pretty much never used Merrill as there just wasn't enough healing to go around. But other then that, it's pretty stable. Also, as I (think) I'm nearing the end of the game I can vary further from my "ideal" without too much trouble since my main character is just getting better at filling any combat role needed (though I still have to keep a rogue just for locks).

[ezrafetch]

I'm not terribly far, but I have now decided to run

Hawke (archer), Varric, Merrill, Anders. It's actually not half bad. Thought I'd miss the tank, but I don't terribly miss the tank, with Anders around healing like its his job. I tried doing an Awakenings homage with Hawke, Varric, Merrill, Sebastian but it just wasn't good enough. I'm not sure why.

I'm looking forward to doing a mage run though, Spirit Healer to the max.

Edited by ezrafetch, 11 March 2011 - 05:45 AM.

[Scoze]

I haven't done the mission yet where you meet Merril but once I do, should I swap her out for Bethany?

[BattleRaptor]

Mages suck...... thats all you need to know if you intend to play on Nightmare.

Mage+nightmare=about 3 times harder then rouge or warrior.

[Dr_Kuru]

1. 2H hawk Reaver, use devour to heal
2. Varric for ranged, plus after a while he feels like your best friend.
3.Isabela for single target damage....and because I like her attitude.
4.I was using bethany but now usually use aveline.The banter between the rogues and aveline is hilarious.

[Silentmode]

2H warrior Hawke
Isabela
Varric
Bethany or Merrill

I think this is one of the funnest groups to fight with plus these characters have some great banter between each other. I mix in Aveline sometimes as well.

Edited by Silentmode, 11 March 2011 - 07:47 PM.

[Nphect]

BattleRaptor wrote...

Mages suck...... thats all you need to know if you intend to play on Nightmare.

Mage+nightmare=about 3 times harder then rouge or warrior.

Even if you basically replace Anders and insert Hawke as your healer?

I only suggest this because:

A) People prefer to use Sebastian over Anders and people do focus on the personalities over min/maxing
and
Some people don't own the DLC, which means Anders has points spent into things you might not want for your specific setup. I know for a fact I respec my Hawkes once I can to remove unwanted spells such as Mind Blast (Not a fan of it, almost never use it) and being able to focus on certain stats from the start allows for better min/maxing if that's what your aiming for.



Otherwise, playing an offensive-based Mage is usually going to mean death during every fight for the first 10 hours.

Edited by Nphect, 11 March 2011 - 08:03 PM.

[Jarlaxlecq]

Silentmode wrote...

2H warrior Hawke
Isabela
Varric
Bethany or Merrill

I think this is one of the funnest groups to fight with plus these characters have some great banter between each other. I mix in Aveline sometimes as well.

QFT thats how i roll as well , i ended up droping anders from the group because honestly, (i play on hard so i dont know if this applies to nightmare) i just dont feel i need a dedicated healer, i'd rather just go with more dps and maybe teach bethany heal and a few glyphs.

Edited by Jarlaxlecq, 11 March 2011 - 08:25 PM.

[Larry L]

IMO all you need is Fenris. Geez, the guy's a (to quote Mickey) A WRECKING MACHINE !!!! HE EATS LIGHTNING AND CRAPS THUNDER !!!! I mean really though. He's an absolute beat. Sometimes I just like to sit back and watch him level whole mobs. I have him Scythe into groups, hit his pulse, tornado, then mighty blow........"it's over Johnny"

My other 2 members are Isabella programmed as a stealth mage hunter, with my alternate to her being Marric also programmed as a mage hunter. When not hunting mages they are obscuring me and Fenris before they start damaging mobs.

And my support mages are Anders and Beth both programmed the same way with herioc aura and arcane shield always on and healling. And for offensive magic both using ice for damage creating class combos with brittle, Anders' back up damage is lightning and stone fist, Beth's is fire.

[MachDelta]

My favorite party to roll with (so far) has been Hawke (2H warr), Fenris, Isabela, and a mage (usually Merrill). Looooots of damage output, and with tanking split between me and Fenris, the heals don't have to be so fast and furious.

[Marionetten]

Mage Hawke, Fenris, Anders and Varric is what I currently roll with and it's a well-oiled machinery indeed. Mage Hawke is focused on Entropy so he spends most of his time debuffing and locking down opponents. Fenris is... well, a wrecking ball of doom. He's the only close combat fighter in my squad as it's suicidal to have more than one on Nightmare. Anders heals and supports. Varric is just there to look pretty.