734 réponses à ce sujet

[AreleX]

the empress' point is actually the 2h sword i've been using in my videos. it's the strongest phys damage sword in the game by a highway mile, but it is, in the end, still phys damage.

it's really up to you: do you want to rip through trash faster, or shred bosses/templars faster?

if a: put it in the empress' point
if b: put it in bloom or the celebrant (i think that's the spirit one, i don't remember)

[mesmerizedish]

Yes, the Celebrant is spirit. My Julia had it at the end of the game.

[AreleX]

The unsung hero of the tactics and companions is Merrill's Tempest.

Quick lesson?

Enemy: Target between short and medium range - Tempest

Not only will this stun melee trash that gets in their face, it will also near-guarantee that none of your squishy friends get backstabbed. Why?

When an Elite + enemy is hit by Firestorm or Tempest, since this patch (or last patch,  can't remember which), they have a behavior setting like your companion's 'Ranged' one, where it forces them to flee a harmful AoE attack. Assassins, even stealthed, will move out of range of the Tempest, and this can burn their entire stealth duration.

Upgraded Tempest hits every 2s and stays active a hell of a long time. With this, the aformentioned enemy behavior above, the reduced elemental force required to take Assassins out of stealth, and the fact that it can CC melee trash before they swarm Merrill and Anders, Tempest is 160% the ******, and a great way to keep your mage/archer friends safe. edit: You can see this in action in the second-to-last clip in my Isabela 2.0 video. Watch the Raider Assassin closely.

long story short: i am pure krogan, you should be in awe

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

Yes, the Celebrant is spirit. My Julia had it at the end of the game.

thank you, my dear!

Modifié par AreleX, 18 juin 2011 - 06:15 .

[Relix28]

AreleX wrote...

the empress' point is actually the 2h sword i've been using in my videos. it's the strongest phys damage sword in the game by a highway mile, but it is, in the end, still phys damage.

it's really up to you: do you want to rip through trash faster, or shred bosses/templars faster?

if a: put it in the empress' point
if b: put it in bloom or the celebrant (i think that's the spirit one, i don't remember)

Thank you for your input. I will reconsider this, though I will most likely go for the Empress's point, just to see how fast you can slash  through mobs. And I will add Bethany at the end of the game to add another Haste to the party. Btw, is there a limit to attack speed at a certain point (cap)? Because, if there isn't, you could potentially achieve +200% speed bonus, with Bethany and Anders in your party.

[AreleX]

not to my knowledge

in the 1/1000000 chance i actually play the game all the way through, i will add a bethany build

[AreleX]

i'm a genius

i still hate sns

panacea is butt

i'll probably do rogue first, and i will probably do a build for each combo, so i can slightly ignore how shadow/assassin is even more retarded now. everything is done there, i just need to copy it, which i have no motivation to do.

there's another walking bomb team, but i don't think people can handle all that juice, and i don't need more of them whining at me than i already have. i think i'll just strip it down and make it normal/boring.

[AreleX]

in not-so-related news:

everyone buy a 360 and a copy of dungeon siege 3 this tuesday, and you can play with his amazingness on xbox live

dirty inferiority complex having pc players need not apply

(though i still love you, i guess)

[Kymberly]

I'm confused about something.

I'm playing on Hard, with almost exactly the same spells as you are on your Low Level videos, but my killing is about 3 times slower then yours. I can't figure out what's wrong, except maybe my tactics aren't set right..

Also, I'm barely getting enough cash for the Expedition, because of the 2 tomes you need to buy, and several maker's sigh potions to respec all your companions. And the money trick barely seems to help.

Perhaps it's just easier to play the game on the 360..

[AreleX]

this **** again? really? don't you pc players get tired of making excuses for yourselves, instead of figuring out what you're doing wrong?

[Kymberly]

Fuinris wrote...

I used SuicidalBaby's fast rune of fortune crafting guide and got enough money ways before the end of act I. And I'm playing on PC.

So am I, but I don't see it having that much effect. It might be cause I'm not using it on Aveline, thus have to constantly switch out weapons. I'm on the last quest before the expedition and I'm on ~47g ( keep in mind that I did buy 4-5 Maker's Sigh pots and the Physical Elixir as the guide describes )

I mean, I do see it working, but I was expecting a larger effect, since people say they've had about 150g (expedition cost included) at the end of act 1.

[Kymberly]

I'll see if I have an open safe file somewhere at the start of the act, to see if going the SnS version helps.
If not, I'll try the healing potion tactic.

Thanks for the ideas

[Ferretinabun]

AreleX - What can I say but THANK YOU!!!? A kick-ass Isabella? Woo. I'm also getting pretty good with Merrill 2nd time around. Can't believe I gimped her so much on my first playthrough. You're a trooper.

[AreleX]

as promised, hope you enjoy

[ISI-Society]

AreleX:  Belated thanks for the excellent guide.  

To briefly contextualize - I played a 2H warrior for both my first 2 playthoughs of DA2 (normal difficulty).  I'd independantly arrived at a somewhat similar build for a warrior Hawke during my 1st playthough, and then while preparing for my 2nd playthough (to refine/speed my build to help it hit stride prior to deep roads), I discovered yours and realized that I was travelling a path that you (and others) had already blazed quite well.  As time permits, I'll compare my build with yours and see if I have any key differences that others might find helpful. 

As a downpayment here's one tactic I came up with that's sometimes helpful for dealing with elite bosses on normal difficulty - the double arcane fortress barrier tactic.

Basically, the hasted vanguard beserker flanks an elite boss and dukes it out with them solo, while anders and merrill take turns maintaining an arcane fortress on hawke and banging away with their usual CC & DD spells, and varric bangs away with corral and his DD abilities (and armistice on any enemies that the corral misses). if I remember, I typically keyed both barriers to trip off 2 different levels of hawke's stamina ... The higher level one would trip early in the battle, during the first wave of attackers, and the second typically tripped a bit deeper into the fight, at around 25-50% stamina (usually the 2nd wave of attackers) which you could expedite manually by having hawke do a mighty blow and a whirlwind ... and after that, if the battle dragged on long enough, you could reset the pair by either swilling a stamina potion (or getting enough kills to replenish his/her stamina) until the first barrier's stamina conditional was possible again.  After a bit of practice, and familiarity with the build, you learn to play the vanguard beserker's stamina level a bit like a musical instrument ... and this barrier yo-yo key works nicely with that, giving you 10-15 sec of 95% physical dam immunity on demand.

That tactic might be a bit too defensive for nightmare mode (which I'm saving for my 3rd playthough ... this time as a mage), but it works well in normal mode - particularly in the dragon battles in the deep roads and mine massacre mission.  It also worked fairly well in various other engagements throughout the game that have 2 well defined waves.

Modifié par ISI-Society, 24 juin 2011 - 04:41 .

[ISI-Society]

If I recall, another area of difference between my VBR 2H Hawke and yours is that I also tossed a decent number of points into Dex ... more dex means a higher Critical Chance %, which when combined with greater haste and accessory bling generates a helpful increase in exploitable STAGGEREDs, which is more helpful than just base damage alone. It's a suble min-max tweak, but I found it numerically worthwhile at the time ... at least until that stupid Sunder bug screwed things up (my first playthough happened on the unpatched game during the recent outtage, and I didn't discover the sunder bug until after 1.02 came out and I read this forum).

---------

Non-sequitur: here's hoping they come out with a Ver 1.04 that fixes more of the lingering bugs, as well as the borkages introduced by 1.02 and 1.03. 

Modifié par ISI-Society, 24 juin 2011 - 07:06 .

[ISI-Society]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

AreleX wrote...

Enemy: Target between short and medium range - Tempest

Not only will this stun melee trash that gets in their face, it will also near-guarantee that none of your squishy friends get backstabbed. Why?

When an Elite + enemy is hit by Firestorm or Tempest, since this patch (or last patch,  can't remember which), they have a behavior setting like your companion's 'Ranged' one, where it forces them to flee a harmful AoE attack. Assassins, even stealthed, will move out of range of the Tempest, and this can burn their entire stealth duration.

Upgraded Tempest hits every 2s and stays active a hell of a long time. With this, the aformentioned enemy behavior above, the reduced elemental force required to take Assassins out of stealth, and the fact that it can CC melee trash before they swarm Merrill and Anders, Tempest is 160% the ******, and a great way to keep your mage/archer friends safe. edit: You can see this in action in the second-to-last clip in my Isabela 2.0 video. Watch the Raider Assassin closely.

This is pure brilliance. I'm impressed to see you are still improving and discovering new effective tactics!

Also, nice to see you give SnS the love it deserves. :-)

As well as forgoing on Panacea altogether. Always thought that branch of Vengeance is crap. o_O

Looking forward to seeing your updated Mage and Rogue builds! Perhaps you can finally share your expert opinions on a Shadow Rogue?

NICE.

I routinely spammed a combo during my 2 playthus of DAO that I called "Tesla's Fury" ... simultaneous Tempest+Firestorm, which was great all-purpose AOE CC combo for erecting potent kill zones on bridges and confined spaces, which you could then anchor by parking your tank in the middle of with some serious immunity bling.  It ultimately got me the blightqueller trophy too.

Agreed on Panacea being not as useful as desired in DA2.  Even with decent automation, I only had ONE regroup trip off during two full playthoughs (during the fight with the high dragon in mine massacre in act 3), and only 2 aid allies spells tripped off during the same stretch, even with the most generous 2 allies <50% conditional (they should have made the numbers for both user-enterable, IMO).  Then again, I was playing on normal difficulty, so I'll defer to those with ample nightmare experience.  The bottom line is that if half your party goes down, chances are high that you're simply going to reload and replay anyway, so why squander precious slots on talents that are only partially effective at preventing that ?

Instead of wasting the slots on Panacea+aid+regroup, I found it more helpful to finesse in some more subtle forms of indirect healing, such as having plenty of regenerative bling and people who can trip a "Rally" talent, Transmuting enemy buffs into healing (dispell upgrade), and being sharp with tactics and combat pacing, so that no individual supporting character too much damage (ex: allies that are hurting would get tossed an armistice or a barrier, to clear their threat or buy them enough time to heal/regen a bit).  It also pays to be stingy with, but not ignorant of, poultices.  My anders, for instance, never once used his heal talent on himself in my 2nd playthough ... his heal was reserved exclusively for his 3 allies, and only hawke and anders were permitted to use healing potions at HP<25% (I'd tweak those lines to enable poultices for everyone on quests anders wasn't present on, and sometimes up to to 50% to improve cooldown time).  I'd reinforce that tweak by equipping anders with bling that boosted his 'healing by', and hawke with bling that boosted his 'healing received' (which I believe also boosts healing from devour).  The overall result was better response time Healing, and with the threat table stacked heavily towards the VBR Hawke, 80%+ of most heals went to hawke anyway.   It's all about tactics tuning.

Modifié par ISI-Society, 24 juin 2011 - 07:00 .

[AreleX]

panacea is garb, healing in general is a waste, you should focus on pure damage. that way, you don't need to heal, because everything will be dead. with this build, you have everything you need to deal that damage.

as for elites, disorient + assault, or hex + brand + focus fire is all you need

[AreleX]

understatement of the century

[SirValeq]

Your new tactics for Merrill have her activate more sustains than she can handle (for 110% I think).

[AreleX]

so long as you do not hit EXACTLY 100%, you are unrestricted.

[SirValeq]

Now we know your secret... You're not the best, you're just an exploiter!