18 réponses à ce sujet

[Gegliosch]

My goal for this setup is to maintain control over the battlefield, instead of relying on killing things faster than they can kill my party.



Hawke Mage: http://biowarefans.c...VPwQShuGILpjATN
Stats: Magic for gear, rest Con/Will.

The main support mage with buffs, healing and force magic to keep enemies crowded and off my ranged characters. No offensive spells, so theres no need to turn the auras off and because of all the sustained abilities diminishing the mana pool, she'll rack up mana regeneration instead.

Aveline Tank: http://biowarefans.c...SwbdZ1mkR0BDCFs
Stats: Str/Con.

Once enemies are sucked together and mass disoriented by Varric, she's supposed to rack up aggro with Scatter and Assault. If that won't glue them to her I don't know what will. Maybe she could also make good use of the auto counter ring with all the things hitting her. She's got good survival stats by herself, but should she need a little more time in between heals, there's always arcane fortress from Merrill and Hawke and her own stonewall, granting damage immunity for up to 17 seconds.

She's not supposed to kill things in the first place, so stamina reg has to come from bolster and second wind. Again, the sustained abilities keep me from increasing her stamina pool, because half the points will be wasted.

Varric: http://biowarefans.c...LnjxyiruQwSGbdU
Stats: Cun only.

He's my auto attack turret for single targets and supports with his two AoE disorient smoke bombs. Not only will this up Aveline's defense, it should also allow her to rack up aggro. Crits come from stuns and his huge attack speed bonus (50% passive, 50% haste, maybe even some on equipment) should make the power sustained worthwile. With all the stunning and his default weapon, there's no need to put a single point into dex, I'll get his hit rate up via buffs and equipment and improve his critical damage instead.

Why no points into Bianca? Well, I don't wanna play an elemental mage on nightmare because of friendly fire, so the only way to get a single target brittle is petrify/dessicate. However, the 20% damage reduction for the whole party kinda defeats the purpose of increasing damage for archer's lance and the whole combo sucks up 7 points for Varric and 1 for Merrill. Not worth the investment imo. First I wanted to get a fully upgraded pinning shot for more disorient, but then I read it doesn't work on Varric for ps3, so I decided to go for more CC via stuns, which also ups his damage output.

Merrill: http://biowarefans.c...uhGfwSHdUEeDsFv
Stats: Con/Magic.

She's my AoE damage dealer with the usual primal/bloodmage combination and the rest of the sustained buffs. Stagger and disorient are provided and the enemies are gathered up and tanked, she should be fine.



I don't have much time at my disposal and it will take a while until I can test all this myself. What do you think, is there something I missed that will cause problems?

Modifié par Gegliosch, 27 mars 2011 - 02:06 .

[EvilVonBek]

My 2c.

Looks pretty solid, and yup CC is needed on nightmare. Dunno about the no dex thing on varric, but then again my current nightmare run has me as archer.

What I would say is horror on you (no upgrade or healing aura locks it due to damage) and take some of the CC options in entropy if you can. On Merril, I've got her not running anything out of Pariah, maxed out Entropy, upgraded petrify and chain lightning and galvanise and full maxed out arcane along with upgraded dispel and death siphon from spirit.

Varric provides the dps, aveline keeps anything I abyss glued, you do some CC and provide healing/res and merill switches between debuff and damage depending on need and cooldowns( she'll always do something useful if you program the tactics right, and horror is obscenely useful on nightmare since it's a 10s stun with DoT that works on just about everything apart from golems)

[Jman5]

It feels like there isn't really any oomf in your party. For example, I think you could completely do away with Merril's Arcane tree and instead focus on some better better damage skills. Winter's grasp is an excellent spell that requires no pre-reqs to do good damage.

Also, Arcane Shield does not do as much as it says. Elemental resistance on the person is only 15% and 5% on other party members.

With Avaline, I believe you can completely ignore the defender's tree. There is no reason for Avaline to get Resilience when she has Indomitable in her special tech tree.

[Sinophile]

I would say maybe put 2/3 of Varric's points in cunning, and never put cunning past 40. There are very few traps and chests in DA2, making cunning marginally useful at best. To me, it seems as though Varric dies very easily, so you might want to crank up his con as well.

[Stensig]

hm pretty nice build.

[Gegliosch]

Thanks for the comments.

Jman5 wrote...

It feels like there isn't really any oomf in your party. For example, I think you could completely do away with Merril's Arcane tree and instead focus on some better better damage skills. Winter's grasp is an excellent spell that requires no pre-reqs to do good damage.

Also, Arcane Shield does not do as much as it says. Elemental resistance on the person is only 15% and 5% on other party members.

With Avaline, I believe you can completely ignore the defender's tree. There is no reason for Avaline to get Resilience when she has Indomitable in her special tech tree.

The points in Arcane are pretty much optional for Merrill, but I'm not quite sure if Winter's Grasp would make much of a difference. Compared to the primal spells with AoE-stagger every 10 seconds and perma-AoE-disorient, wouldn't it be a rather sad addition? I have nothing to take advantage of brittle.

If anything I'd pick crushing prison for some more single target damage, but I feel like the defensive abilities just fit the theme a bit better. If everything works as intended, it shouldn't matter how much damage I deal, as long as I can keep everything under control and my tank healed up. That's what makes it fun for me, I'll go on a berserker rampage or play a DW rogue on a different walkthrough for the huge numbers 

As for the defender tree, you can't go wrong with 5% damage reduction on a tank. Indomitable only prevents knockdown, but she can still be knocked back and I don't wanna waste an equipment slot to prevent that, when I have no better alternative for the 2 points spent anyway. I could get the upgrades for second wind, but I doubt I will need them.

I would say maybe put 2/3 of Varric's points in cunning, and never put cunning past 40. There are very few traps and chests in DA2, making cunning marginally useful at best. To me, it seems as though Varric dies very easily, so you might want to crank up his con as well.

Cunning increases the crit damage by 1%. Considering that he should crit over 90% of the time, that's almost a 1% increase in damage for every single point of cunning. What's not to like?

I agree that he's squishy, but that's what Aveline and Hawke are for. If they can't keep the enemies around Aveline and away from my ranged characters, the build failed anyway and the problems are elsewhere.

[kotli]

If you run into trouble with agro you could always drop something from Varric (maybe evade) and get armistice and goad instead as set up right he can then 1) give anyone 100% treat ruduction and 2) send any mobs from any hero to Avaline.

IMO this is better than evade for your group anyway as it bunches them all up for Merrill & Aveline's AOE madness (all shield skills are cone shaped AOEs).

Modifié par kotli, 25 mars 2011 - 12:47 .

[Gegliosch]

EvilVonBek wrote...

My 2c.

Looks pretty solid, and yup CC is needed on nightmare. Dunno about the no dex thing on varric, but then again my current nightmare run has me as archer.

What I would say is horror on you (no upgrade or healing aura locks it due to damage) and take some of the CC options in entropy if you can. On Merril, I've got her not running anything out of Pariah, maxed out Entropy, upgraded petrify and chain lightning and galvanise and full maxed out arcane along with upgraded dispel and death siphon from spirit.

Varric provides the dps, aveline keeps anything I abyss glued, you do some CC and provide healing/res and merill switches between debuff and damage depending on need and cooldowns( she'll always do something useful if you program the tactics right, and horror is obscenely useful on nightmare since it's a 10s stun with DoT that works on just about everything apart from golems)

I agree that Horror seems like a good alternative to something like telekinetic blast, which I probably won't use much anyway. I didn't know the game only considers it offensive when I get the upgrade. Great synergy with Varric too.

Besides the primal tree, Merrill is free to choose whatever you like. I prefer blood magic, because it combines two stats, lets me get the remaining sustains without drawback and last but not least, I wanna see Stone's Throw on Aveline used like a potion
Nothing of that is vital for the build though.

[Gegliosch]

kotli wrote...

If you run into trouble with agro you could always drop something from Varric (maybe evade) and get armistice and goad instead as set up right he can then 1) give anyone 100% treat ruduction and 2) send any mobs from any hero to Avaline.

IMO this is better than evade for your group anyway as it bunches them all up for Merrill & Aveline's AOE madness (all shield skills are cone shaped AOEs).

Good point, but I read these talents don't work on consoles. Otherwise they would be clearly better.

[Morocius]

I don't understand why you'd max con for hawke though with your philosophy about Varric especially since you'll have 2 (imp) barriers sure you'll get less mana with all the sustained abbilities but con feels pretty much wasted in that reasoning.

Personaly not a big fan of bravery+upgrades i'd opt for cleave+claymore as those are always usefull and open a better synergy for CCC, don't get me wrong shield slam is nice but the positioning needs to be very good.

[nicodeemus327]

Just make sure your mages are hitting the elemental weaknesses of baddies and you'll be fine. This means you'll have to keep around two staves of every element.

[SlamminHams]

 The one great thing about Aveline is that three points in her Specialty tree basically solidifies her tankiness (Indomitable being a dump point).  For the most part, points in Defender are overkill, especially with Rally being broken.  Bravery is a supbar sustainable, especially if you want it for threat.  The problem doesn't necessarily lie within Bravery, but how encounters work in this game, with the constant waves and whatnot.  For my money, you're better off dumping points into Vanguard for threat, and you get the bonus of her dealing more damage.  As Kate Reed would say, win win (sue me, I just got done watching the Fairly Legal marathon).

Power is an ability I would otherwise love, if not for stuns reseting aggro.  I'd much rather get Speed, especially since Varric doesn't need help in the +Attack department, due to Bianca's Song.  Speed just puts another feather in his +Speed cap.

The range buff on the Healing Aura is crap.  Presumably, you're only getting it because of the point requirements on the great Passive and the +50 HP regen aura upgrade.  I'd recommend the Second Chance passive, since the +2m buff is trash and this way you make a bit more coin for being able to sell all your Injury Kits.

[Gegliosch]

I don't understand why you'd max con for hawke though with your philosophy about Varric especially since you'll have 2 (imp) barriers sure you'll get less mana with all the sustained abbilities but con feels pretty much wasted in that reasoning.

That's right, I'll probably add more points in willpower if I find myself out of mana at times.


So the general opinion is that Vanguard can replace Bravery for aggro management? After all this means my tank has to deal almost the same damage as Varric and Merrill despite shield defense reducing it by 25%. If that's true I might aswell use 3 tanks 

[Jman5]

Well it seems like you can set yourself up to do some big damage from Aveline if you grab vanguard skills. So Pull of the abyss, then fatiguing fog to AOE disorient, finish up with Aveline's Scatter or Assault.

Shield Defense can be something you activate in specific fights like boss encounters that requires serious tanking. You already have so many support and disabler spells that you should not be worried about her survivability.

Modifié par Jman5, 25 mars 2011 - 09:04 .

[Gegliosch]

Ok, so I'm not yet convinced I can do without Bravery for keeping aggro 100% of the time, but I see that I have to waste 3 points in defender in order to get access to Resilience and Adamant, which is bad. So how does this look:

http://biowarefans.c...QPSwBDFsbdZ1mkR

Just to double check that, without Resilience I will need knockback resistance from gear, right?

[EvilVonBek]

Yup, think Twins ring does it. Act 2 bonny lems.

And armistice and goad are working fine for me on 360, maybe just a PS3 glitch now?

[Tomomi]

Hi Gegliosch,

I am reading through your post and I have a few questions. I used to play a generic tank, healer, dps setup like you on Nightmare as a typical RPG or MMORPG setup. It did not work too well for me because of the nature of DA2. Mobs pop out in different corners mid fight, making Aveline running to grab them (and risk losing hate on the current mobs). CC in DA2 lasts too short, with too long Cool down. Heal spells have long cool down as well. And Nightmare has this stupid "knock-down/stun/knock-back" lock that would implicate anyone without high Strength.

So the big question is, how do you survive all these? I know your build has tons of CC, which is nice. But they ought to run out pretty fast considering you don't kill mobs that fast on Nightmare mode. At one point you may end up with 10 mobs scattered around the room. And I don't mean simple skeletons or thugs, but maybe Shade, Revenant, Rage Demon, running all over. How do you deal with all these after all CC abilities are on cool down. Not to mention Healing in DA2 is so much more limited comparing to DA:O due to very long Cooldowns.

Second question is how do Armistice and Goad work? The descriptions are not that clear. Armistice, does it just drop aggro of the targeted companion like Mindblast? Varric use "Armistice" on Merrill and mobs run away from her? And worse is "Goad", the description states "... incites all enemies in an area ....", which area? Is it the area around the rogue? or the area around the tank that Varric targets? I want Varric to run to Anders/Merrill rescue by getting close to them and use "Goad" targeting on the tank. So far I have no indication how well it works. I am playing on PC.

Currently I put my mage on hold and playing 2h Warrior on Nightmare mode. Imho, 2h Warrior on Nightmare is rather a cheat by itself. I always have Anders and Merrill and sub in any 4th person fitting the battle. My strat relies heavily on warrior 90% on the role of tank/dps and the mages merely work as combo finisher and Arcane Shield casters. It's rather sad because this setup is completely wrapped around the warrior.

Modifié par Tomomi, 27 mars 2011 - 08:02 .

[Gegliosch]

Tomomi wrote...

Hi Gegliosch,

I am reading through your post and I have a few questions. I used to play a generic tank, healer, dps setup like you on Nightmare as a typical RPG or MMORPG setup. It did not work too well for me because of the nature of DA2. Mobs pop out in different corners mid fight, making Aveline running to grab them (and risk losing hate on the current mobs). CC in DA2 lasts too short, with too long Cool down. Heal spells have long cool down as well. And Nightmare has this stupid "knock-down/stun/knock-back" lock that would implicate anyone without high Strength.

So the big question is, how do you survive all these? I know your build has tons of CC, which is nice. But they ought to run out pretty fast considering you don't kill mobs that fast on Nightmare mode. At one point you may end up with 10 mobs scattered around the room. And I don't mean simple skeletons or thugs, but maybe Shade, Revenant, Rage Demon, running all over. How do you deal with all these after all CC abilities are on cool down. Not to mention Healing in DA2 is so much more limited comparing to DA:O due to very long Cooldowns.

Second question is how do Armistice and Goad work? The descriptions are not that clear. Armistice, does it just drop aggro of the targeted companion like Mindblast? Varric use "Armistice" on Merrill and mobs run away from her? And worse is "Goad", the description states "... incites all enemies in an area ....", which area? Is it the area around the rogue? or the area around the tank that Varric targets? I want Varric to run to Anders/Merrill rescue by getting close to them and use "Goad" targeting on the tank. So far I have no indication how well it works. I am playing on PC.

Currently I put my mage on hold and playing 2h Warrior on Nightmare mode. Imho, 2h Warrior on Nightmare is rather a cheat by itself. I always have Anders and Merrill and sub in any 4th person fitting the battle. My strat relies heavily on warrior 90% on the role of tank/dps and the mages merely work as combo finisher and Arcane Shield casters. It's rather sad because this setup is completely wrapped around the warrior.

My answer is probably going to disappoint you, as I didn't play on nightmare yet at all. The purpose of this topic was to ask for opinions on the viability of such a party.

That said, I can tell you how I intend to gain control over spawning mobs on the back/side of your ranged characters. You probably can't get around switching the position of your tank and ranged party members in this case. With Varrics Back-to-Back and Merrills Stone's Throw this shouldn't be much of a problem. Warp in, gather the enemies running after you with Pull of the Abyss and Gravitic Ring (awesome spell, it's basically a paralyze in it's centre of effect) and your tank should have plenty of time to pick up the enemies crawling towards your party.

The only character that has to enter the safety zone of your tank by foot is Hawke, but without offensive spells she shouldn't draw too much attention and with all the buffs, health generation and force magic assistance, she should be fine. Note that Hawke and Aveline are both immune to knockdown and knockback effects, so there's only Merril and Verric to worry about.

I haven't experimented with armistice and goad myself, but from the description I take it that armistice will drop aggro of enemies around a chosen character, which is probably not that useful, if the attacking enemies are ranged. I expect goad to be an AoE spell that let's you choose an ally to redirect aggro of mobs to. However, I read that on consoles you can't choose a target for goad, which makes it rather pointless and more of a russian roulette spell and armistice is very situational, while also being suspected not to work properly.



One more thing: I noticed that the talent builder doesn't quite match the in-game reality in terms of "points spent" requirements in Varrics Biographer tree. I could pick up Well-Oiled and Embellishment with only two points spent so far. Maybe the friendship/rivalry skills count as a point spent. Can anybody confirm this?

By the way, I adjusted the links on the first page according to the suggestions made.

Modifié par Gegliosch, 27 mars 2011 - 02:02 .

[Morocius]

Gegliosch wrote...

Ok, so I'm not yet convinced I can do without Bravery for keeping aggro 100% of the time, but I see that I have to waste 3 points in defender in order to get access to Resilience and Adamant, which is bad. So how does this look:

http://biowarefans.c...QPSwBDFsbdZ1mkR

Just to double check that, without Resilience I will need knockback resistance from gear, right?

Keep in mind shield defense turns off the combat leap thingy making it harder to manouver also it does drop damage by 25% i generally only use it for heavy hitters.  Maybe it's more my playstyle but i do suggest you atleast try it out with cleave.