17 réponses à ce sujet

[Tarion Besbald]

Hey everyone,

I just finished my first playthrough on nightmare with a 2-handed warrior. One thing that seemed pretty clear is that Tanks seem pretty useless on nightmare difficulty, dodging attacks and crowd control abilities seem the way to go.

As I see it, the classic approach of "attack - taunt - debuff the boss and soak up his damage while your group goes dps crazy" won't work on nightmare due to the rather rudimentary healing options we have.

Has anyone been able to get a pure tank working for a nightmare group? Which skills did you use? And no, chaincasting taunt/goad + running around in circles screaming "hit me if you can" does not count as a working tank build

[Daniteh]

It would be possible, but it would take some careful consideration on picking your other party members.

Also, you would need to keep the enemies off of your squishier members more actively (obviously)

[Feranel]

I've been tanking sword and board with full SnB tree, one point in taunt, and everything in battlemaster tree for battle synergy and second wind. The key to aggro management on nightmare is to USE YOUR ATTACKS. It's really astonishing how much I can pump out, and take, even when I don't have Shield Wall turned on. At the moment, when I DO have it on, the DR makes knockdowns (from dragons etc) into stumbles, which I'm debating putting the rest of my points into Resilience to try to negate even those, i.e. for dragons, etc.

The real trick is to use your attacks and use second wind to keep up attacking.

I may also go vanguard for Cleave/Claymore instead of resilience.

[Feranel]

But to really reiterate, simply Battle Synergy, and the passives of being full SnB do miles to mitigate damage, Shield Wall is pretty much the rest, it's low cost ( but only use it when you have aggro or are close enough for battle synergy threat xfer to help). It's 25% DR with a 20% chance to make an attack 1 damage.

[Tarion Besbald]

Would you go with 3 ranged groupmates or add in a rogue?

Possible setups would be Anders / Merril / Varric, Anders / Merril / Isabella, Anders / Varric / Isabella, Anders / Varric / Sebastian.

I'll leave Fenris out, 2h warrior ist just too dangerous for anyone to stand near a monster, and that includes the designated tank.

[Feranel]

I kill any melee in my party who comes near me with assault and scatter, I tend to stick with all ranged and sit on choke points.

[Feranel]

I use anders, varric, and merril, and rotate Sebastian for merril when I'm going to be punking blood mages.

[Group Theory]

I'm using a pure tank on Nightmare right now. Holding aggro is somewhat difficult, but the play through is certainly not impossible. This is my party setup:

Hawke - Learned the entire weapon and shield tree (except assualt) and the entire warmonger tree (except tremor). I always have Bravery on, but only initiate Shield Defense/Wall whenever I'm taking ridiculous damage. I also learned Stonewall from the Defender tree (+ its upgrade). That's all I have from the defender tree... the rest of it doesn't look particularly useful. I pump strength and constitution every level up pretty equally. Usually one level up I'll go 2/1, the next I'll go 1/2.

Varric - Uses the Bianca Tree and his unique tree. Alternate attribuite allocation between dexterity and cunning. Along with Aura from Anders, he has a ridiculous critical rate (something like 70%).

Merril - Entropy tree for debuffs and stun, and the primal tree. I use Petrify a lot in conjunction with Varric's Arrow of Slaying (the DA2 equiv.). I also use Chain Lightning in conjunction with Hawke's ability to stagger opponents. I also have the Blood Magic ability with her, but only use it when I'm very low on mana. I only put attribute points in Magic and constitution, I think its something like 2mag/1con every level up.

Anders - Primal tree + creation. I don't use his unique tree much; I just got to the 80% cooldown and thats it. I'll use Glyph of Paralysis just to stun enemies. I use haste frequently, and I always of Aura.

I have trouble holding aggro with my tank when reinforcements pop up around the battlefield, but besides that the play through is not too tough.

Modifié par Group Theory, 15 mars 2011 - 06:27 .

[Feranel]

Bravery is a really fun AoE tank talent, but I've found I like the threat and damage transfer of Battle Synergy better, I don't have trouble picking up adds, and if I do, 25% of the damage goes to me, so Anders' healing aura makes up for it.

[Graunt]

Feranel wrote...

But to really reiterate, simply Battle Synergy, and the passives of being full SnB do miles to mitigate damage, Shield Wall is pretty much the rest, it's low cost ( but only use it when you have aggro or are close enough for battle synergy threat xfer to help). It's 25% DR with a 20% chance to make an attack 1 damage.

Battle Synergy looks better on paper than it is in practice, on Nightmare at least, especially if you aren't using much, if any melee at all.  The range on it says 10m, but in Dragon Age "m" = "foot" because that's exactly how small of a distance it is.  It's almost never up, and as much as I hate having to use threat abilities on a damage class, Goad > the threat transfer.  

After not really finding any value in pretty much any of the real "tanking" trees except for knockback/knockdown immunities, I picked up Shield Bash and the improved version (controlled staggers) and that's it from the SnS tree, picked up the requirements for Claymore (40% chance to stagger normal enemies per swing) and also Second Wind.  Aveline pretty much never runs out of stamina, everything is pretty much staggered each fight now and with two Mages with the improved Chain Lightning...rooms explode quickly.  Not so hot against the lightning immunes though, and Archers don't seem to really have much use for stagger either, but for at least 90% of the game, it's crazy.

What sucks though, is that you pretty much have to respec for the ACT 1 end boss.  Stonewall makes that fight so easy compared to without it.  If I was going to play a SnS Hawke, I'd definitely dump points into Reaver and Templar, although I really don't see the point in doing that over just going two-handed.

BTW, Claymore > anything else in the game for threat as far as auras/buffs are concerned. 100% damage for 15s with a 20s cooldown.  You're only waiting 5s after it ends to get it back up, and with Second Wind (as long as you're putting *some* points into WIL every few levels), it's always active and you can still taunt and Shield Bash when they are up too.  Later on you can get Assail/Massacre and go crazy.

Modifié par Graunt, 15 mars 2011 - 09:06 .

[Feranel]

You're probably right on Synergy, I'm probably not gaining the benefit as often as I think I am. I will say I notice a difference between having a shield and the anti flanking anti crit talents and not. Assault is pure butter though. I will be focusing on Cleave/Claymore next, possibly Templar for anullment. You use Might or Control?

[Atmosfear3]

I don't understand why Battle Synergy and Healing Aura has a limited range to begin with. That design concept really confuses me.

[CitizenSnips]

Feranel wrote...

You're probably right on Synergy, I'm probably not gaining the benefit as often as I think I am. I will say I notice a difference between having a shield and the anti flanking anti crit talents and not. Assault is pure butter though. I will be focusing on Cleave/Claymore next, possibly Templar for anullment. You use Might or Control?

One of my biggest problems with nightmare is how unfriendly it is to having a party with more than one person in melee, so if you are using Battle Synergy anyone more than a few yards away won't be within range. If you are going to tank and don't have anyone you plan to have in melee, you might as well choose Bravery.

[Feranel]

mushoops86anjyl wrote...

Feranel wrote...

You're probably right on Synergy, I'm probably not gaining the benefit as often as I think I am. I will say I notice a difference between having a shield and the anti flanking anti crit talents and not. Assault is pure butter though. I will be focusing on Cleave/Claymore next, possibly Templar for anullment. You use Might or Control?

One of my biggest problems with nightmare is how unfriendly it is to having a party with more than one person in melee, so if you are using Battle Synergy anyone more than a few yards away won't be within range. If you are going to tank and don't have anyone you plan to have in melee, you might as well choose Bravery.

TBH, I think I'm not even going to take that, as it's wasted points on Single Target.

I'm going to be following a bit in Graunt's footsteps and going down the Cleave/Claymore line, and I think putting the rest in Templar.  The most difficult thing ATM is dealing with assassins, needing to lock them down and burn them as tanking them is either impossible (they stealth before you can taunt/establish threat) or suicide (you get double/tripple backstabbed by 2 to 3 at the same time).  The controlled lockout of Silence from the Templar, and chaining all SnB Attacks together under the effects of Claymore can effectively kill one before he vanishes, leveling the playing field.  With Last Push, it may be possible to burst several high focus targets down very rapidly.  That combined with having the heaviest armor plus shield, with raw damage, will pretty much net you the threat you need.

[CitizenSnips]

Feranel wrote...

mushoops86anjyl wrote...

Feranel wrote...

You're probably right on Synergy, I'm probably not gaining the benefit as often as I think I am. I will say I notice a difference between having a shield and the anti flanking anti crit talents and not. Assault is pure butter though. I will be focusing on Cleave/Claymore next, possibly Templar for anullment. You use Might or Control?

One of my biggest problems with nightmare is how unfriendly it is to having a party with more than one person in melee, so if you are using Battle Synergy anyone more than a few yards away won't be within range. If you are going to tank and don't have anyone you plan to have in melee, you might as well choose Bravery.

TBH, I think I'm not even going to take that, as it's wasted points on Single Target.

I'm going to be following a bit in Graunt's footsteps and going down the Cleave/Claymore line, and I think putting the rest in Templar.  The most difficult thing ATM is dealing with assassins, needing to lock them down and burn them as tanking them is either impossible (they stealth before you can taunt/establish threat) or suicide (you get double/tripple backstabbed by 2 to 3 at the same time).  The controlled lockout of Silence from the Templar, and chaining all SnB Attacks together under the effects of Claymore can effectively kill one before he vanishes, leveling the playing field.  With Last Push, it may be possible to burst several high focus targets down very rapidly.  That combined with having the heaviest armor plus shield, with raw damage, will pretty much net you the threat you need.

Yea I should have said if you are going to choose between Battle Synergy or Bravery you should choose Bravery. Bravery seems decent on high mob fights and useless on boss type fights with no low consequence adds. Battle Synergy should have been an excellent sustain but it's short range makes it almost useless in nightmare run.

[Tarion Besbald]

Just like Anders' healing aura... most auras with range limitation have ridiculously short range... you don't want to stant that near to your tank because bad things can and will happen

[Graunt]

Feranel wrote...

You're probably right on Synergy, I'm probably not gaining the benefit as often as I think I am. I will say I notice a difference between having a shield and the anti flanking anti crit talents and not. Assault is pure butter though. I will be focusing on Cleave/Claymore next, possibly Templar for anullment. You use Might or Control?

There's a necklace you can buy from the Emporium that prevents flanking. 

15 health, +1 attributes, +1 armor (lol?), flanking immunity.

I use Control.  Not only is it cheaper to keep up, you won't have even a 100% hit chance with it up, and most of your damage from Claymore comes from just auto attacks, so you don't want to miss. 

Modifié par Graunt, 16 mars 2011 - 06:29 .

[Tarion Besbald]

Graunt wrote...

Feranel wrote...

You're probably right on Synergy, I'm probably not gaining the benefit as often as I think I am. I will say I notice a difference between having a shield and the anti flanking anti crit talents and not. Assault is pure butter though. I will be focusing on Cleave/Claymore next, possibly Templar for anullment. You use Might or Control?

There's a necklace you can buy from the Emporium that prevents flanking. 

15 health, +1 attributes, +1 armor (lol?), flanking immunity.

I use Control.  Not only is it cheaper to keep up, you won't have even a 100% hit chance with it up, and most of your damage from Claymore comes from just auto attacks, so you don't want to miss. 

I think you don't miss at all in DA2... what you generate with a "miss" is a glancing blow that will only hit for 1-5 damage or so. That being said, you're absolutely correct - most of your attacks as a warrior will be autoattacks with cleave, so you want them all to hit for maximum damage and not glance.