42 réponses à ce sujet

[rumination888]

ashwind wrote...

rumination888 wrote...

There was no such thing as "traditional" tanking in DA:O, and no such thing in DA2. Even WoW moved away from stand-in-one-spot-like-an-idiot encounters for a long while now(unless your tank was bad). You just never saw it in DA:O because you could spam your way to victory with heals. You need to actually be active in whatever it is you're doing in DA2.

In DAO My Arcane Warrior stood there and "tanked" most things... but that is besides the point...

Point is - Kill fast enough before you are overwhelm and 2H warriors can kill just as fast as a SnS but has the advantage of killing clustered enemies even faster,

So can every single companion and class in DA:O due to the prevelance of heals.

And where do you get the idea that 2h warriors can kill just as fast? I've been saying it in another thread and I'll say it again here - are you sure you aren't mistaking the capabilities of a two-hander with the capabilities of a vanguard/reaver?

Modifié par rumination888, 18 mars 2011 - 08:07 .

[Graunt]

rumination888 wrote...

ashwind wrote...

rumination888 wrote...

There was no such thing as "traditional" tanking in DA:O, and no such thing in DA2. Even WoW moved away from stand-in-one-spot-like-an-idiot encounters for a long while now(unless your tank was bad). You just never saw it in DA:O because you could spam your way to victory with heals. You need to actually be active in whatever it is you're doing in DA2.

In DAO My Arcane Warrior stood there and "tanked" most things... but that is besides the point...

Point is - Kill fast enough before you are overwhelm and 2H warriors can kill just as fast as a SnS but has the advantage of killing clustered enemies even faster,

So can every single companion and class in DA:O due to the prevelance of heals.

And where do you get the idea that 2h warriors can kill just as fast? I've been saying it in another thread and I'll say it again here - are you sure you aren't mistaking the capabilities of a two-hander with the capabilities of a vanguard/reaver?

A two-handed spec isn't required to have Sabotage as well.  Nice Rock Wraith and Nexus Golem fight regardless.

[rumination888]

Graunt wrote...

A two-handed spec isn't required to have Sabotage as well.  Nice Rock Wraith and Nexus Golem fight regardless.

An SnS spec isn't required either.
(I never had Disorient[because I felt Varric's spec had more priority] in either of the videos incase you're mistaking the damage to be from CCC)

And thank you for the compliment.

[ashwind]

rumination888 wrote...

So can every single companion and class in DA:O due to the prevelance of heals.

And where do you get the idea that 2h warriors can kill just as fast? I've been saying it in another thread and I'll say it again here - are you sure you aren't mistaking the capabilities of a two-hander with the capabilities of a vanguard/reaver?

DAO Nightmare High Dragon solo - most cannot even survive her bite. Sides I do not spam pots or heals. I have like literally thousands of potions of all kinds carried over to Witch Hunt - again not the point.

Exactly - 2H can take Defender/Templar skills the same way SnS can take Vanguard/Reaver skills. Also there are equipments that gives immunity to Stun, Flanking and Critical hits. So - what exactly is it that makes SnS > 2H when it comes to "tanking" by killing faster or taking damage?

I said 2h warrior can kill faster enemy in clusters because all their attacks (even regular) are aoe - and I see a lot of clustered enemies in DA2.

[rumination888]

ashwind wrote...

DAO Nightmare High Dragon solo - most cannot even survive her bite. Sides I do not spam pots or heals. I have like literally thousands of potions of all kinds carried over to Witch Hunt - again not the point.

Exactly - 2H can take Defender/Templar skills the same way SnS can take Vanguard/Reaver skills. Also there are equipments that gives immunity to Stun, Flanking and Critical hits. So - what exactly is it that makes SnS > 2H when it comes to "tanking" by killing faster or taking damage?

I said 2h warrior can kill faster enemy in clusters because all their attacks (even regular) are aoe - and I see a lot of clustered enemies in DA2.

A 2H that takes Defender/Templar skills without any Vanguard skills will suffer the same problem many people seem to have with SnS - ****** poor damage.

Shields themselves add a lot of physical mitigation. Some people reading this might suddenly think, "its only around 10% mitigation. wtf are you smoking? thats not a lot at all", but they need to realize that every percent of armor mitigation is better than the last.

For example, if a two-hander has 60% mitigation and took a 100 damage hit, they'd reduce it down to 40. If an SnS warrior has 70% mitigation and took a 100 damage hit, he'd reduce it down to 30. Thus, the shield warrior took 25% less damage than the two-hander(or the two-hander took 33% more damage, depending on perspective).

SnS has an "oh crap" button in the form of Shield Defense(the upgraded form, because unupgraded form sucks). It adds 25% damage resistance to the front, 50% resistance to the back, has a 1 in 5 chance to turn all damage into 1, and it also makes you immune to knockdown(keyword is -down, not -back). You'll suffer 25% damage loss, but since you'll never be knocked down, it'll more than make up for the damage reduction. There isn't a single ability that two-handers have access to that can match that kind of mitigation. Its the only defensive sustain a shield warrior ever needs to tank hard hitting bosses.

(I called Shield Defense an "oh crap" button and not a sustain for a reason(even though it technically is a sustain) Putting it up all the time kills your ability to hold threat when enemies spawn all around the battlefield. You just need to remember to turn it off when you need to quickly get around the battlefield, and turn it on when you're up against a single hard hitting enemy. I noticed people don't do this whenever I watch a video of someone using a shield warrior. They always have it turned on. I suspect this plays a significant factor whenever someone claims their SnS warrior can't hold threat whenever enemies spawn on all sides.)

Anyways, Shield Defense + shield armor is better than anything in the Defender tree. Two-Handers can't make that claim in regards to the Vanguard tree. With that said, I'm not trying to knock on two-handers, but I'm getting a little bit tired of people claiming SnS sucks and that two-handers can do everything better when that is just flat out not true at all.

Although, I gotta hand it to Sabresandiego for socially engineering the forums into worshipping two-handers instead of the real power behind it(Vanguard).

Modifié par rumination888, 18 mars 2011 - 09:26 .

[Graunt]

rumination888 wrote...

Graunt wrote...

A two-handed spec isn't required to have Sabotage as well.  Nice Rock Wraith and Nexus Golem fight regardless.

An SnS spec isn't required either.
(I never had Disorient[because I felt Varric's spec had more priority] in either of the videos incase you're mistaking the damage to be from CCC)

And thank you for the compliment.

So obscure is just that powerful of a survival tool?  I may have to consider it, especially when I rarely find much use at all with his archery tree skills outside of Pinning Shot.  Punishing Lance might be nice, but you have to spend points in a lot of filler, and even then it's very situational when you can actually use it.

[rumination888]

Graunt wrote...

rumination888 wrote...

Graunt wrote...

A two-handed spec isn't required to have Sabotage as well.  Nice Rock Wraith and Nexus Golem fight regardless.

An SnS spec isn't required either.
(I never had Disorient[because I felt Varric's spec had more priority] in either of the videos incase you're mistaking the damage to be from CCC)

And thank you for the compliment.

So obscure is just that powerful of a survival tool?  I may have to consider it, especially when I rarely find much use at all with his archery tree skills outside of Pinning Shot.  Punishing Lance might be nice, but you have to spend points in a lot of filler, and even then it's very situational when you can actually use it.

It FEELS powerful, but unfortunately I don't have any concrete numbers on how much dodge% it gives. Atleast, I'm pretty sure it gives dodge% and not defense%. Everytime my capped defense(80%) rogue was obscured, not a single enemy could touch him and I noticed even enemy abilities would miss a few times, too(for example, the High Dragon's wing buffet). ... but for all I know the dodge% could be as low as 10% and I'm just noticing a lucky random streak when judging how good it is.

With that said, Fatiguing Fog is useful for more than just obscure. It doesn't seem to have any friendly fire, which makes its base effect rather powerful. Although, I think the tooltip is misleading and its actually closer to a -25% attack/movement speed decrease. Regular enemies like to run away from the fog, so if an ally is in the fog, foes are going to run around and not melee as much. It makes an effective barrier, too, as they won't try to cross it. Its an excellent survival tool all around and prevents incoming damage in many different ways.

Modifié par rumination888, 18 mars 2011 - 07:29 .

[Graunt]

I'll admit, I had not really paid that much attention to the vendor weapons simply because I hate buying anything in ACT 1 outside of a single tome, backpacks, companion armors and some respec potions just because of how I screwed myself over on my first playthrough.  Another reason is because the DLC items seemed to be good enough, especially the Razor for a two-handed spec (which also gives 5 attribute points worth of stamina).  I ended up buying the mace and fooling around running damage tests with Cleave + Mighty Blow and Cleave + Assault.  After 20 attempts with each:

1. Assault has a higher average damage for a single target, but it didn't land as many crits and it's also single target only -- although apparently Sunder is bugged and works with one-handed weapons too.

2. Mighty Blow has a (barely) lower average damage, except when you only count crits, but the difference is minimal.

3. One thing that seems to be overlooked here however is that when you're running from target to target (such as in your Nexus fight), you're essentially playing the "Vanguard" style and your burst is less, unless you're staying on targets for a few seconds more than just to land a special attack.  It doesn't matter if the weapons have the same listed "DPS", their swing speeds are different, so the slower weapon is always going to win if you're only landing one regular hit in between specials before moving on.  While one-handed weapons can hit multiple enemies per regular swing as well, their reach isn't nearly as good and they can't hit as many.  Again, pointless if we're talking about single target only.

4. It seems like this kind of build suffers more in the beginning due to having such a low stamina level and starts getting good around level  8.

5. I'm not really sure why there's so much hate for Aveline when the only thing she's missing until level 14+ is Blood Frenzy.  She also has access to easier to reach damage protection, a rivalry damage protection, easier to reach knockdown + stun immunity and then Bodyguard.  There's also not really any reason to use her if you wanted to be in charge of the "tank" in the first place anyway other than the gimmicky 20% health damage sponge with bodyguard.

Modifié par Graunt, 18 mars 2011 - 10:18 .

[Sabresandiego]

My guide is called the Ultimate Vanguard, not the ultimate 2 hander. Vanguard is the warriors best tree whether you use 1h or 2h. I chose 2h for fun factor, but its apparent by ruminations videos that 1h and shield is also very effective. I am wondering how quickly enemies are going down in the video you posted rumination, are you optimizing your party to use the element that your enemies are weakest to? I pretty much just recorded my videos as I played the game, so many times I am fighting enemies with suboptimal elements or weapons so they die slower but the speed at which you are killing enemies almost seems like its not on nightmare (even though it is).

In the nexus golem video the rage demons seem to die ridiculously easy, and you hold aggro amazingly well. In the rock wraith video you killed the profane with 2 autoattacks on nightmare. How is that possible? Nevermind I guess it is possible, you are using cold elemental weapons and have a pretty optimized party here. I am guessing cold staffs, and maybe cold runes? Not being knocked back by the ball is a huge boon.

1h and 2h damage is roughly the same on a single target. Where 2h shines is hitting multiple targets. The amount of damage you are taking with a shield is incredibly abysmal in your videos. Your videos also highlight how effective using cold is against rock wraith and the demons.

My 2h nightmare playthrough was easy enough, I might do a sword and shield playthrough as well after seeing these videos.

Modifié par Sabresandiego, 18 mars 2011 - 10:39 .

[Soilborn88]

They just do.

Have a bigger hit area, more AoE skills, more damage. The new combat system pretty much destroyed the tanking role for the most part.

In Origins 2-handed warriors had a lot less defense and attacked much slower. SnS warriors had a lot more defense and attacked faster.

The fact that the warrior can swing a giant ass sword around like it's a styrofoam ball bat makes SnS uterlly useless.

Maybe SnS would be more useful if the only req for armor was strength. Because now 2-handed warriors will have just as much health. I perosnally think constitution should have affected fortitude not strengh, this would promote more SnS builds.

[Graunt]

Sabresandiego wrote...

My guide is called the Ultimate Vanguard, not the ultimate 2 hander. Vanguard is the warriors best tree whether you use 1h or 2h. I chose 2h for fun factor, but its apparent by ruminations videos that 1h and shield is also very effective. I am wondering how quickly enemies are going down in the video you posted rumination, are you optimizing your party to use the element that your enemies are weakest to? I pretty much just recorded my videos as I played the game, so many times I am fighting enemies with suboptimal elements or weapons so they die slower but the speed at which you are killing enemies almost seems like its not on nightmare (even though it is).

In the nexus golem video the rage demons seem to die ridiculously easy, and you hold aggro amazingly well. In the rock wraith video you killed the profane with 2 autoattacks on nightmare. How is that possible? Nevermind I guess it is possible, you are using cold elemental weapons and have a pretty optimized party here. I am guessing cold staffs, and maybe cold runes? Not being knocked back by the ball is a huge boon.

1h and 2h damage is roughly the same on a single target. Where 2h shines is hitting multiple targets. The amount of damage you are taking with a shield is incredibly abysmal in your videos. Your videos also highlight how effective using cold is against rock wraith and the demons.

My 2h nightmare playthrough was easy enough, I might do a sword and shield playthrough as well after seeing these videos.

Profanes/Rock Wraith are very weak against Spirit as well.  Regardless, even though the SnS does really well in the videos shown, I have to wonder how effective it is for the majority of the game that consists of trash wave after trash wave.  I just can't see it being comparable for overall mass killing speed which is probably at least 85% of the game.  It's also less mobile.  Things look very different if your Hawke is a Mage, but then the Mage also has to respec for the Rock Wraith, which is beyond stupid.

Modifié par Graunt, 18 mars 2011 - 11:27 .

[Sabresandiego]

Graunt wrote...

Sabresandiego wrote...

My guide is called the Ultimate Vanguard, not the ultimate 2 hander. Vanguard is the warriors best tree whether you use 1h or 2h. I chose 2h for fun factor, but its apparent by ruminations videos that 1h and shield is also very effective. I am wondering how quickly enemies are going down in the video you posted rumination, are you optimizing your party to use the element that your enemies are weakest to? I pretty much just recorded my videos as I played the game, so many times I am fighting enemies with suboptimal elements or weapons so they die slower but the speed at which you are killing enemies almost seems like its not on nightmare (even though it is).

In the nexus golem video the rage demons seem to die ridiculously easy, and you hold aggro amazingly well. In the rock wraith video you killed the profane with 2 autoattacks on nightmare. How is that possible? Nevermind I guess it is possible, you are using cold elemental weapons and have a pretty optimized party here. I am guessing cold staffs, and maybe cold runes? Not being knocked back by the ball is a huge boon.

1h and 2h damage is roughly the same on a single target. Where 2h shines is hitting multiple targets. The amount of damage you are taking with a shield is incredibly abysmal in your videos. Your videos also highlight how effective using cold is against rock wraith and the demons.

My 2h nightmare playthrough was easy enough, I might do a sword and shield playthrough as well after seeing these videos.

Profanes/Rock Wraith are very weak against Spirit as well.  Regardless, even though the SnS does really well in the videos shown, I have to wonder how effective it is for the majority of the game that consists of trash wave after trash wave.  I just can't see it being comparable for overall mass killing speed which is probably at least 85% of the game.  It's also less mobile.  Things look very different if your Hawke is a Mage, but then the Mage also has to respec for the Rock Wraith, which is beyond stupid.

If you notice in his videos he is clicking on skills and abilities instead of using hotkeys, and pausing repeatedly yet seems to get through some of the difficult encounters the game has with ease and at a high rate of speed. He doesnt even bother positioning his companions in better spots most of the time and completely leaves them to the AI. It just appears that hes doing less and achieving more with his character.

The main causes of this I believe are that he is using cold damage against cold weak enemies, and because of resillience preventing him from being stagerred and knocked around (both fights are before you can get the ring of the eteched twins). It also looks like sword and shield may have higher single target damage because of assault, then a two hander. The speed at which he is dropping elites seems fast even for an optimal party with everything into cold.

[Graunt]

Sabresandiego wrote...
If you notice in his videos he is clicking on skills and abilities instead of using hotkeys, and pausing repeatedly yet seems to get through some of the difficult encounters the game has with ease and at a high rate of speed. He doesnt even bother positioning his companions in better spots most of the time and completely leaves them to the AI. It just appears that hes doing less and achieving more with his character.

The main causes of this I believe are that he is using cold damage against cold weak enemies, and because of resillience preventing him from being stagerred and knocked around (both fights are before you can get the ring of the eteched twins). It also looks like sword and shield may have higher single target damage because of assault, then a two hander. The speed at which he is dropping elites seems fast even for an optimal party with everything into cold.

I don't know what exactly you're trying to say here, or maybe you're just misunderstanding what I said?  No doubt he does excellent in those two fights, but those two fights are nothing like what you face during most of the game (which consists of countless trash enemies.  

In the Nexus fight in particular, the enemies were in very small clusters of 1-3 spread around the room and he could bounce between them.  This is also where a two-handed build loses ground (which I mentioned a while back) because there aren't enough enemies to take advantage of your strengths.  The vast majority of the time however, you'll be able to hit multiple enemies with Mighty Blow/Scythe and very large amounts with Whirlwind.  Not only do two-handed weapons naturally have a larger reach, you can make them even farther.

The difference may be much smaller than I'm thinking it is, but the lack of Scythe just makes it feel much slower.  I am definitely going to try playing this eventually though to see.  One thing that seems very apparent from this though is that you can have a build that not only does extremely well against elites/bosses/demons etc, it does consistently good damage in general and you don't need to respec, nor do you have to build a group that babysits you.

Modifié par Graunt, 19 mars 2011 - 02:47 .

[Guilebrush]

rumination888 wrote...

Watch this video of the Nexus Golem fight and tell me, honestly, that two-handers can tank better than SnS warriors.

Whoa! Inspiring Video, is it at all possible to spec and set up tactics to turn Aveline into even half this brutal a killing machine without too much human input? I can just imagine how much crazier it would get with a reliable source of Disorients for the Assualts and Scatters. Again great work, very impressive.

[rumination888]

Sabresandiego wrote...

My guide is called the Ultimate Vanguard, not the ultimate 2 hander. Vanguard is the warriors best tree whether you use 1h or 2h. I chose 2h for fun factor, but its apparent by ruminations videos that 1h and shield is also very effective. I am wondering how quickly enemies are going down in the video you posted rumination, are you optimizing your party to use the element that your enemies are weakest to? I pretty much just recorded my videos as I played the game, so many times I am fighting enemies with suboptimal elements or weapons so they die slower but the speed at which you are killing enemies almost seems like its not on nightmare (even though it is).

In the nexus golem video the rage demons seem to die ridiculously easy, and you hold aggro amazingly well. In the rock wraith video you killed the profane with 2 autoattacks on nightmare. How is that possible? Nevermind I guess it is possible, you are using cold elemental weapons and have a pretty optimized party here. I am guessing cold staffs, and maybe cold runes? Not being knocked back by the ball is a huge boon.

1h and 2h damage is roughly the same on a single target. Where 2h shines is hitting multiple targets. The amount of damage you are taking with a shield is incredibly abysmal in your videos. Your videos also highlight how effective using cold is against rock wraith and the demons.

My 2h nightmare playthrough was easy enough, I might do a sword and shield playthrough as well after seeing these videos.

My party members were using physical/spirit staves in the rock wraith fight, and 2 spirit staves in the golem nexus fight. The cold damage you're seeing is from winter's grasp, from both Merill and Anders.
I'm not optimizing my party with their specs or equipment(fadeshear is pretty abysmal), but I am optimizing their tactics for boss encounters(rock wraith, high dragon, etc).
For the Rock Wraith, I turned Chain Lightning off on Anders, Horror off on Merrill, and made sure Anders only turned Haste on when there are 3 or more enemies up, and probably a few other tweaks I'm forgetting.

I watched your video of the Rock Wraith. We both killed profanes in 2-3 hits with Cleave up. It looks like you have more stamina than me? I assume you put extra points into willpower, whereas I put those points into strength? I had 42 strength in that video.
Shield skills barely use any stamina. Base willpower is all a 1H needs for trash and elite mobs, and they can just pop 2-3 stamina pots against bosses.

I took a video of the nexus golem fight because people kept saying shield tanks cant hold aggro when enemies appear on all sides. That fight had the most waves I could think of.
I took a video of the rock wraith fight because people kept saying shield tanks can't deal any damage. That was the longest fight I could think of.(and apparently, because I ended the fight too quickly as a 1H, some people on youtube are accusing me of hacking... /sigh)

Modifié par rumination888, 19 mars 2011 - 04:02 .

[Graunt]

rumination888 wrote...
I had 42 strength in that video.

What are you using that requires that much strength so early, or are you using it primarily for the fortitude?  Damage seems to increase trivially per strength and the weapons are where the majority of the actual damage comes from.  Also, do you pick up Second Wind?  I see you had Bolster, but I never see Second Wind on your bar.  

I also notice you said "no heals were used", but isn't that what damage prevention essentially is?  Paralyzing Rune and Arcane Fortress and Fog are preventing damage you would have had to heal up anyway without them.

Modifié par Graunt, 19 mars 2011 - 04:10 .

[rumination888]

Graunt wrote...

rumination888 wrote...
I had 42 strength in that video.

What are you using that requires that much strength so early, or are you using it primarily for the fortitude?  Damage seems to increase trivially per strength and the weapons are where the majority of the actual damage comes from.  Also, do you pick up Second Wind?  I see you had Bolster, but I never see Second Wind on your bar.  

I also notice you said "no heals were used", but isn't that what damage prevention essentially is?  Paralyzing Rune and Arcane Fortress and Fog are preventing damage you would have had to heal up anyway without them.

I agree with you, the damage increase is trivial per point of strength.
You gain +1 damage(damage, not DPS) every 2 strength.
Read what I said veeeery carefully.

And yes, you're right about the heals, but look at everyone complaining about the lack of heals in the game. You might have noticed that I replaced heals with increased mitigation, CC, and debuffs(from a rogue, too!), but I'm sure other people are still having a hard time grasping the concept of what a heal truly means.

[Torintinhammer]

Just wondering where the venacular S&S comes from. I am used to them being referred to as S&B (sword and board).

A lot depends on your playstyle and party. Either one can be effective.