58 réponses à ce sujet

[Salladdbladd]

Hi there,

long story short i made a Sword Shield Dmg Warrior - The gallant tailor, first take a look at that:

www.tirolgaming.at/vBulletin/attachment.php
www.tirolgaming.at/vBulletin/attachment.php
www.tirolgaming.at/vBulletin/attachment.php

I put all points only in dmg talents. And suprisingly, the 1h shield version does more dmg and holds the ground better than its 2 handed brother.

1. I invested my points into what are my three main attack skills:
Shield Bash, Assault, and Scatter (all fully upgraded) in the Sword and Shield tree, i also get crit immunity.

2. The next important thing is the Vanguard tree:
Get Massacre and Destroyer here and make a full upgrade on Might, which will be always on.
Cleave will give us the burst whenever we need it.

3. Now the Specializations, first Reaver just skill through until you reach Fervor, no extra points in this tree.

4. Second Specialization is Berserker there you want Berserk fully upgraded and the points that you can reach Death Blow, Berserk is the third Aura which is permantently on.

Last but not least get a mage with the heroic aura for extra crit.
So always on are the auras: Berserk, Might

When i use the Cleave and Blood Frenzy ability and make Scatter into a group the dmg is between 3,5k and 6k.
When the dmg buffs are used and i do Assault on a bigger mob he is dead.

My stats at the end where 122sps 35% crit 100% crit dmg.
I tested it on nightmare difficulty in chapter three from Anders until Orsino dead. Insanly good, i think better than most 2h versions.

Here some other screens with numbers:
www.tirolgaming.at/vBulletin/attachment.php
www.tirolgaming.at/vBulletin/attachment.php


For better understanding, the link to the char - slighty different as described for nightmare.
social.bioware.com/697682/&v=bw_games&game=dragonage2_pc&pid=220753009&display=characters&character_id=108427
There you can see my final stats, and the exact talent distribution, as well as the gear.
Here the talents in the builder:
biowarefans.com/dragon-age-2-talent-builder/#wkzjImaVoRcYLATnp1GInpNLtelDEvHF


The nice thing is you can play how ever you like, with the auras the mass atk speed you can easily play without using any skills at all, or if you want the big numbers and get rid of bosses and groups fast you can trigger Cleave and Blood Frenzy and Scatter or Assault the hell out of every opponent.

My Internet is rather bad so i can't upload any vids I would be pleased if someone would perhaps try it out and post a vid of this amazing playstyle.

When i have more time i will do a new complete playthrough and repost all new things that come to my mind.
Thanks for reading and enjoy - The gallant tailor.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step by Step Nightmare Walkthrough

Introduction:
First of all some general things about playing on nightmare difficulty
- Pause is your best friend
- You need to always use every ability of your characters on time and wisely
- I try to give you an intelligent walkthrough so we always do every stuff without fighting first, for example, chests, kodex pages for xp, gear and so on
- It is a huge advantage when you know the quests and the encounters of the quest so that you can develop a good order to do things.
- This is a playthrough with my SnS Dmg Warrior on Nightmare, but the guide could come in handy for every player who wants to go through nightmare.

I will also give you my group setups, the skills i learned and trained and perhaps all the hard lessons I had to learn and why it did or didn't work out.

Begin:
Give your char a kick ass name! My SnS Warrior Lady is called Nightmary, quite the name of the game
I loaded up the story from an old DA:O char designed her, she is so cute and know we are in the game.

The first several fights until you meet Aveline are our time to check things out.
Okay we don't do much dmg, no char in our party. Staff dmg is resisted quite often.
My thought was, as soon as possible we need active abilities, crowd control, dmg and so on.
So I gave my SnS Warrior, shield bash at first and sticked to that tree for a while (shield defence, Assault, Scatter)
Aveline got shield defence first because i thought of the Ogre fight which will be the first challenge.
I gave Bethany a crowd control spell, Horror and it kicks ass so we can take out 1 mob at reasonable times of every fight, especially for the ogre it will be quite nice. Second spell for Bethany was heal we need heal! On your way to the Ogre pick up everything you can as always.

Ogre Fight:
Bethany used horror at the Ogre whenever possible, healed when Aveline or Mary got low, and helped to shot at the smaller Hurlocks. Aveline and Mary first tried to focus down the sorounding mobs. Be careful, avoid the Charge from the Ogre, it is easy to avoid it with every char. Use Shield Bash wisely when you can hit several mobs at a time. Bethanys fireball does also a little bit dmg to the Hurlocks, but be careful not to hit your own chars.
Unfortanetly Aveline tanked the ogre for a little while until she died because of no heal ready. So Bethany and Mary had to do it alone. All other Hurlocks were dead, so it was quite okay for Mary to charge, shield bash the ogre and run for a bit while Bethany shooted him with her staff. When the aggro switched, Bethany kitet until Mary had it back. Long fight, but doable and a bit boring.

Finally at Kirkwall:
Here we are Kirkwall, the city that never sleeps. I just picked up the kodex pages and went straight to the "one year" questline, where I first decided to go with the mercenaries, but guess what i betrayed them and got a nice two gold reward from it. So after that we went straight to the smugglers, and did the job for them. Nicely done.
All the fights in this area where doable no special things here to mention, kited a bit when needed.

After the Year:
Welcome Varrik, now we have your bad ass Bianca in our team. Good thing. First things first, go to Gamlens house and pick up your stuff, youll get several nice items from the chest (Blood Dragon Armor) and a good amount of xp too, so now you should be level 5.
Mary got the skills Assault, Scatter.
Bethany got her heal improved, and got the debuff spell from the entropy tree.
After the visit at Gamlens we walked straight to the Black Emporion and picked up the codex pages and the free stuff.

You gotta do what you gotta do:
After that I began a quite boring part of the chapter one. I walked up every scenery, at the Day, picked up stuff, kodex pages, took quests and so on. No fights going on.
I also gave all indoor places a visit (church, palace, tavern) because there are quite a few chests and kodex pages which give xp.
Pick up Aveline! We need every party member.
In Undercity i did the small quest with the Ashes of Andraste, the rogue there was quite hard hitting, but with horror and the new dmg and cc from Varric and with Aveline, it was doable.
After that I did the "Getting Anders questline" a bit until we meet him at the station.
From there I did the Family quest, my first real encounters in the old Amell Mansion.
Hit pause at the beginning from every fight! Get the CC of, and protect Varric and Bethany with your two SnS Warriors. The last fight in the mansion with the first Mage against us, was suprisingly easy. He got horrored a lot, and his own invincibility gave us the time to deal with all other mobs first, and then rip him apart.
Varric died at the near end of the fight, but the two SnS and Bethany did the job.

Here the quipement and the Status of my main char at this moment:
social.bioware.com/697682/&v=bw_games&game=dragonage2_pc&pid=220753009&display=characters&character_id=116348

Modifié par Salladdbladd, 22 mars 2011 - 12:36 .

[Trapslick]

wouldn't control be a better choice due to lower stamina useage, higher hit rates of normal attacks and the 10% bonus to try and get your crit rate up a bit?

if your using 100% damage shield, cleave, reaver and frenzy (with 1/2 health), your already at 400% damage, you'd think the 10% crit would be more benificial that 10% damage and 25% crit damage

[TalliNV]

What is the shield called and where is it?

[Salladdbladd]

Hey thanks for the constructive answer yes, i think control would also be an option my hitrate is fully 100% so i didn't need the hit rates, but as you said i just don't know exactly which is better 10% more crit or 25% more crit dmg.

[Salladdbladd]

Name: Wardwall
base armor 190
armor: 38
req strength: 27
req constitution: 27
additional properties: 100% basic attack dmg vs melee enemies
act: 3
Location: Finding Nathaniel Quest (Martyr Branch).

[swk3000]

According to the official guide, the property you're talking about doesn't increase damage at all; instead, when an enemy hits you with a melee attack, they instantly take damage equal to what you would deal with a basic attack (pressing A on the 360). This occurs automatically, with no animation.

Also, I once picked up a ring that had this same property in Act 1, so if you're lucky, you don't need to wait until Act 3 to get this going.

[Salladdbladd]

Ah okay so it turned out the dmg output isn't related to the thing on the shield, thats even nicer, so all the dmg the char dishes out with scatter and assault just comes from the talents.

[DeaconK]

Loving the heck out of Sword 'n Board, but I'm doing it on a Rogue, because I've always preferred deft saber/buckler fighters in leather armor who use their shield to -deflect- rather than completely soak.

Obviously I've had to edit out some Rogue abilities (Dual Daggers, Archery and Sabotage) and replace them with Weapon and Shield, Vanguard and Defense. Got around the item requirements by substituting STR with my DEX variable and CON with CUN. While my health and damage resistance are quite low, I now have permanent 80% Defense to Normal and Elite enemies and 75% to Bosses at level 10ish, and my crit rating is sitting pretty at around 60% (note: these values are both assuming full party buffs).

And you're right, even considering I'm on a Rogue, the damage is noticeably awesome if you have the Stamina to let loose those special attacks. The attack arc may be small, but it's just wide enough to keep three enemies under fire, and the shield dash attack seems to have an incredible amount of Force behind it: I constantly toss Archers around like ragdolls, and others I nudge into a nice, tight AoE killzone.

Two-Handed was OK, but after picking up a sword and shield, I won't be going back to it. There are few things as satisfying as uppercutting a mage, shattering his jaw with your shield as he's about to cast on you.

Modifié par DeaconK, 17 mars 2011 - 03:18 .

[jsamlaw]

What difficulty setting do you play on Salla? Also, I've found that most of the damage from a SnS Warrior comes from his Weapon and Shield skills as opposed to his auto attacks. Wouldn't the Battlemaster Talents be more useful than Beserker? Bolster/Second Wind to keep you good on stamina, and Last Push to reduce the cool down on your talents. My build is roughly the same, but I go with Assail/Besiege and Battlemaster instead of Aura of Pain/Fevor from Reaver Tree and Beserker.

[Salladdbladd]

It was just a playthrough on normal, there no problems whatsoever. Last Push could be indeed an option for berserker. The most dmg comes indeed from the abilities, but the fast autoattacks with the buffs on are quite okay in my optinion.

When i first thought about a build like that i worried a bit about stamina, but it turned out to be okay, i didn't invest much points in stamina and i haven't got the stamina regen talents from battlemaster, but its completly fine, if i run low on stamina i either take a pot, or i just kill a low hp mob and you are back in the game.

I just tried to focus on the max dmg thought, and therefor got berserker as specialization.

[SuicidalBaby]

Ohhhhh so this is a spec for Normal, I understand now.

[SlamminHams]

I was pretty skeptical about SnS initially, but I gave it the go ahead after becoming bored w/ 2H tanking. You seemingly gain a damn large boost in Armor while still dealing a good chunk of damage. You gain nearly 15% effective Damage Reduction from having a Shield alone not to mention the on demand +25% from Shield Defense whenever things get dicey.

For comparative purposes, the best 2H in Act 1 is obtained in the Deep Roads, the Oath Breaker, and it has 43 DPS. The best 1H weapon is bought for 5.5g in the passageway under the Docks, and it has 38 DPS. And I'm pretty sure the Fadeshear outclasses any 2H eventually, which is hilarious in and of itself.

On Nightmare BTW.

Modifié par SlamminHams, 17 mars 2011 - 06:09 .

[Salladdbladd]

I played it on normal, feel free to try out something like that on higher difficulty i think one could get rid of the berserker specialization and go for more def utility and still dish out a lot of dmg with Reaver + Vanguard + Assault and Scatter, ill try that when i am through with my mage.

[Salladdbladd]

Ok so i just tried it out in Nightmare, i made a few fights with a slighty different build, i just got Protection for crit immunity and left out two point in the berserker tree. Dmg is just insane as it was and the fights work pretty nice.

I played nightmare the part from where Anders blasts the church until Orsino dead just to try. Worked pretty decent. My setup is Anders as healer + buffer, Isabella, Merryl for debuffing.

As weapons i use: The Wardwall and The Vague Blade it has three sockets where i put the Sandal atk speed rune, 5% crit and 10% dmg into it.

Here updated character sheet:
social.bioware.com/697682/&v=bw_games&game=dragonage2_pc&pid=220753009&display=characters&character_id=108427

As i stated out i can't say if you can play it through on nightmare with this build. It`s just something i tried out, because of the nice reskill potions

[Lialdia]

Hard difficulty with SnS Warrior Hawke, Aveline, Fenris, Isabella. No dedicated tank (Aveline has Taunt just incase, used it so far only for one boss fight).

I did not go the full Vanguard route yet, as I wanted to test full Templar spec on Hawke, and filled up Aveline's personal tree just for boss fights (so far it's been useful twice, so might re-spec outta it almost entirely).

Act 2, level 18 at the moment and everything has been just a matter of whacking them silly.

[SlamminHams]

Lialdia wrote...

I did not go the full Vanguard route yet

I understand experimenting w/ different trees and such, but Vanguard is possibly the best tree in DA2.  It, for me, completes what would be a rather lackluster class without it.

[jsamlaw]

Vanguard is particularly important for SnS DPS as the base talents aren't as impressive without Cleave/Assail/Might or Control. Templar spec is better suited for pure tanking since the +50% magic resist and silence are great vs. the many mages you'll come across.

[SlamminHams]

jsamlaw wrote...

Vanguard is particularly important for SnS DPS as the base talents aren't as impressive without Cleave/Assail/Might or Control. Templar spec is better suited for pure tanking since the +50% magic resist and silence are great vs. the many mages you'll come across.

Speaking of Assail, how is it?  I've yet to try it out.  It always looked like a MUCH worse version of Cleave/Claymore for the same cost and a longer CD.

As for Templar Specialization, it's better than Berserker for Damage, but that's mainly because Berserker is horrendously bad.

[Colma]

just an fyi, sunder from the 2 handed tree seems to work when using a sword and shield as well.

[Salladdbladd]

*bump* - discuss

[Jman5]

You have inspired me to try out a sword and board however, I seem to be holding the group down at the moment. Staff of Parthenon and Bianca are crushing me in terms of DPS, but I'm sure things will pick up for me eventually.

Are those damage numbers you're getting from Cross class Combos or just your own abilities?

Modifié par Jman5, 18 mars 2011 - 12:32 .

[Lialdia]

SlamminHams wrote...

Lialdia wrote...

I did not go the full Vanguard route yet

I understand experimenting w/ different trees and such, but Vanguard is possibly the best tree in DA2.  It, for me, completes what would be a rather lackluster class without it.

I have tested the Vanguard tree with 2H Warrior already, though not extensively, I know how powerful it is.

That said, my group does not consist of a healer of any sort, and I did not wish to spam potions all the time. So I have built my current group to survive. Aveline + SnS Warrior Hawke both with immunities to flanking and criticals was a good start.

The main consideration for me was all sorts of dangerous monsters, spellcasters and assassins namely. So Silence (from Templar), upgraded Cleanse for another silence, Pommel Strike on two of the three Warriors I run and one with upgraded Tremor at that. So far I have simply locked down every single assassin or spellcaster and butchered them before they could do anything.
Swarms of monsters has not been a bother with the amount of aoe crowd control at disposal aswell (upgraded Holy Smite, upgraded Tremor, upgraded Scatter, Whirlwind from Fenris, All Hands on Deck and upgraded Rush from Isabela just to name some).

Obviously if you get the items granting you immunity to criticals and flanking, you can skip atleast one ability in the SnS tree aswell. For my setup those items are more important for Fenris, my two other Warriors already have immunities to them through abilities.

With all that said, I do not wish to belittle the Vanguard tree, it is powerful, there is no doubt in that. We are given quite few options on how to play with things, and I wish to experiment with them. Not to mention I do not run the "traditional" parties, as I can not stomach Anders, so I will need some survivability as I will not have a healer ^.^

Modifié par Lialdia, 18 mars 2011 - 01:20 .

[Salladdbladd]

The numbers are just the own dmg you do:
Auras: Berserk, Bravery, Might
Activate: Cleave and Blood Frenzy
Charge into the group and use Scatter

The nice thing about my specc is, high burst when you need it extremly fast auto attacks too.

Modifié par Salladdbladd, 18 mars 2011 - 07:21 .

[SlamminHams]

After two Playthroughs, Bravery and Battle Synergy are pretty much trash.  The point investment, the stamina cost, and the benefits you actually get from them all pretty much pale in comparison to other passives/sustains you could be using.  And then, at least for Bravery, you never actually need any talent in the Warmonger tree, so the prereqs are generally wastes too.

Jman5 wrote...

You have inspired me to try out a sword and board however, I seem to be holding the group down at the moment. Staff of Parthenon and Bianca are crushing me in terms of DPS, but I'm sure things will pick up for me eventually.

Early on, you want to snag the Thudpucker's Fist from the merchant in the Disused Passage under the Docks at night.  It's something like 5.5g.  It is literally the best 1H til midway through Act 2, and you can get it as soon as you encounter a quest that opens the Docks (Meeran, Athenril, Sebastian etc).

However, if you do have Fadeshear, bank it.  It'll becomes the best weapon in the game against any Demons/Undead creatures at the end of the game.

Modifié par SlamminHams, 18 mars 2011 - 10:09 .

[Salladdbladd]

The reason why my build has bravery in it is that you can reach the base of it with only two points, i find it quite okay soon i'll make some more tests in terms of SnS dmg. I also want to state out that i don't have much stamina problems whatsoever, and i have a crapload of Auras and skills to use, just use a pot wisely and kill lower enemies and you are fine with the stamina.