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[Waltzingbear]

This is an overview or a crude sort of guide trying to provide a general idea on how to effectively utilize Anders as a main support/healer mage, and this is where the main focus in this article goes to. I touch on a few aspects of making him a damage dealer but some of the points here may not be optimal to building him as such.

*Most of the theory-crafting in this article is based on my personal experience and logical deduction. It’s likely that I may have overlooked some important point or may have not experienced something that would in a different scenario lead to a different application; this is also why I can’t cover absolutely everything.

Everything in this article is open to discussion and if the above is indeed the case please, do tell.


Why Anders specifically? Well I think that a lot of people don’t understand how to properly rotate between his abilities to experience the full potential that he can offer to the party or how just by having him in the party with the right setup a heavy non-magical party can become so much more powerful.

I’ve seen a lot of people asking for how to set up Anders’ abilities or tactics and while a few posts responded with the same points I make, I don’t feel that it has been properly emphasized and from the videos I’ve seen, some people don’t understand that Martyr can be used as a very strong tool even if Anders’ sole role is to heal and buff.  These questions could only be fully answered by an approach with a more complete overview, as the one I’m making now.

*I’ve seen other companions who are poorly understood as well (Aveline for one) and I might do a similar thing if the need occurs.


Okay, shall we?

Me, Myself and Justice:

As you’ve probably noticed already (SPOILER) Anders would be the only mage with the Creation tree available for the majority of the game, meaning that if you have the kind of party that uses mages to leverage rogues and warriors and not the other way around or you just want any healing at all Anders is your man (wait that didn’t come up right). He also has his own unique abilities allowing him to boost his damage and be turned into a very formidable damage dealer (albeit a very delicate one).

Now Anders’ specialization tree provides just the kind of abilities you’d want your support/healer mage to have, which makes the perfect companion if only it wasn’t wrapped with an annoying, whiny blondie with a stick up his donkey. 


Vengeance:

*Currently there is a bug that allows the AI to use Martyr and Aid Allies even in Panacea or Vengeance respectively (can’t self-heal in Vengeance though). It might be worth to just stay in Panacea and use Martyr but I don’t play like that. If you really want to squeeze the juice out of this don’t set up Panacea before Aid Allies in the tactics. I won’t deny that it makes him more powerful than he should be.

♦ PANACEA - Panacea is unimpressive by itself (0.5% of health pool per sec). It reserves 40% of mana and provides the platform for Aid Allies and Regroup.

♦ AID ALLIES - Heals party for 30%. 50s CD.

♦ VENGEANCE – Can’t self-heal. Anders- does 10% more dmg, takes 50% more dmg. Reserves 20%. Allows the use of Martyr.

♦ MARTYR - Takes 5% health returns 5% mana and Removes 10% of every ability on cooldown per use. ~2sec cast time.

♦ SWIFT JUSTICE – A passive 20% cooldown reduction for all spells. Doesn’t affect Martyr’s efficiency.

♦ (*) BLOOD OF MY ENEMY – Potentially a very powerful ability. Every killing blow by Anders will regenerate 10%/20%/30% of his health if enemy is ranked Critter/Normal/Elite respectively. Only works with Vengeance active. Affected normally by healing increase items.

I don’t use it. Anders as he’s built right now in my party does not have any real damage capabilities and the chance of him being the one to actually score the killing blow is real slim. This ability is mainly for building Anders as a damage dealer and allows him to use Martyr to regen mana, reduce the cooldown of harmful spells like Chain Lightning and also self-heal, all without deactivating Vengeance. If you use him as a damage dealer you probably also took the extra +10% damage upgrade and this can turn him into a killing machine. Feel free to experiment with that. I might test this myself and change my party a little to try building Anders in this sort of way and neglect Panacea and Aid Allies in favor of a greater damage output.


Creation:

♦ HEAL – Heals.

♦ HEROIC AURA – Party wide bonus: 15% attack, 10% damage, 8% defense, 10% critical chance.

♦ HASTE – Party wide 50% attack speed increase. Lasts 20 sec. Cooldown: 60sec.

♦ ELEMENTAL WEAPONS – Isn’t in the Creation tree but can be taken at any time. 10% increase to every basic attack plus the ability to change staves to match enemies’ resistance is too good to pass by for one point investment and 10% mana reserve.

(*) If you have BARRIER in your spell book I can see how it can become an extra tool for damage management, setting a tactic for it like [ally- being attacked + health < 50% ] under the healing spells in priority. I just don’t use it at the moment.


Getting started:

The first thing you probably want to get to is Haste coupled with Heroic Aura and Heal. At level 11 or 12 you should already have all of the basic setup: upgraded Haste, upgraded Heroic Aura, Heal, Panacea, Aid Allies, Vengeance, Martyr and Swift Justice.


Let’s tango:

Panacea reserves 40% of Anders’ mana. Add to that Heroic Aura and Elemental Weapons and you’d end up with only 30% of available mana. That’s why I don’t use Rock Armor and that’s why you never want to enter battle with Panacea on. Only use Panacea before Aid Allies and disable it manually at the end of the fight if Anders didn’t.

Be mindful that Anders takes 50% more damage in Vengeance so consider disabling it or setting a tactic to it (if you have the space) if he’s getting beaten. It has a cooldown though before you can activate it again and being locked out of the ability to use Martyr until Vengeance is ready again could hurt like a sun on the beach (when you didn’t use sunscreen). I use Aveline’s Bodyguard ability on him which transfers 50% of the damage and Armistice if a melee attacks him.

Now to the real point of this topic. With the proper use of Martyr and with Swift Justice Anders can chip off a very substantial volume of abilities’ cooldown, making the use availability of abilities such as Heal and Haste much more rapid. He also restores a portion of his mana with each use, meaning that theoretically he can keep doing the same thing the entire day.

This is essentially what you want Anders to do and will be expressed in the tactics as well:

• Use Haste whenever it’s ready
• Heal if someone needs healing
• Use specific abilities such as certain buffs or CCC spells
• Use Martyr as much as possible until health level is starting to get low and then:
• Disable Vengeance and self-heal.

Haste lasts for 20 seconds. Each Martyr uses 5% of health. If you use Haste and continuously use Martyr thereafter it will take 6 uses in 12 seconds for Haste to become ready again and will consume 30% of Anders’ health; which means that if you use 50% health as a threshold for self healing you would get the first 40 seconds of the fight with Haste active with a small lag between the next one.

After Anders drops under 50% health he would activate Panacea and use Aid Allies. The Reason for that is that someone else is probably hurt as well and Heal is under constant use. When Vengeance is ready again he will activate it and start the same process again.

♦ Aveline’s prime ability Bodyguard when fully upgraded will
transfer 50% of the damage taken to Aveline herself; this includes the
damage Anders suffers from Martyr. This means that Anders can keep using
Martyr twice as long as normal before having to resort to self-healing. I don’t think I need to emphasize how much this boosts his powers.


Tactics:

Set his Behavior to Ranged. He will move out of danger and away from enemies.

• Emergency heals (or shielding) along with Haste go first.

• You want your Sustainable abilities and the tactics for the Vengeance/Panacea rotation to go before all the rest.

• Heals in wanted order and other random spells come afterwards. Consider that each spell Anders casts is one less Martyr to be used so spamming non-upgraded Spirit Bolt for example might have a negative effect.

• Martyr goes last or it will be used before everything else.

(*) This issue didn’t occur up until the High Dragon encounter where high party-wide damage is just inevitable- when Anders is taking a lot of damage he will switch to Panacea much earlier and will burn mana faster than usual. As his main way of regaining mana is to sacrifice his own health he could find himself with an empty mana pool while his HP is below 50%. This could cause him to stand in place without any action just because the tactics are not set to such a situation. To counter that it’s best to add a tactic for him to use a mana potion if his mana is below 10% or set a similar tactic for your warrior to use Rally. I used the latter one with Aveline.

     Behavior – Ranged

1)    Ally: Health < 25% ► Heal
2)    Ally: Health < 25% ►Activate: Panacea
3)    Ally: Health < 25% ►Aid Allies
4)    Self: Any ► Haste
5)    Self: Any ► Activate: Heroic Aura
6)    Self: Any ► Activate: Elemental Weapons
7)    Self: At least two party members below 50% health ► Activate: Panacea
8)    Self: At least two party members below 50% health ► Aid Allies
9)    Self: Health < 50% ► Activate: Panacea
10)  Self: Health < 50% ► Aid Allies
11)  Self: Health >= 50% ► Activate: Vengeance
12)  Aveline: Health < 50% ► Heal
13)  Self: Health < 50% ► Heal
14)  Hawke: Health < 50% ► Heal
15)  Enemy: Clustered with at least two enemies ► Glyph of Paralysis
16)  (*) Self: Mana or stamina < 10% ► Use: Mana potion
17)  Self: Health <25% ► Use: Health potion
18)  Self: Health >= 50% ► Martyr


Attributes:

Constitution- Anders is a softy; with the 50% damage increase he will, well, take 50% more damage. Adding a bit of health every level or so is advised, at least if you play Nightmare, until about 20 Con.- exceeding that would provide more health than he actually needs.

Magic- as a support/healer he doesn’t require a lot of magic. Keeping it somewhat balanced with willpower is best.

Willpower- willpower is great for Anders. With his mana return through Martyr, keeping a high mana pool will mean that there won’t be a situation where he can’t cast a spell because of the lack of mana.


Equipment:

Since Anders has no real problem with mana regen, using +mana regen items is not advised. He would gain more from the same aspect if you increase his mana pool; so those items could be useful.

Any way to make Anders less squishy is welcomed because he takes a lot of damage in Vengeance. Adding health is always good.

The absolutely best items that you can give Anders are +healing increase. You just can’t have too many of them. Even if Heal will always over-heal, Aid Allies would become more powerful.

On a side note I always keep at least three kinds of staves.

*I’m sorry if someone wants a Best-in list. I can’t account for all of the items and upgrades even if I wanted to. This is more about using him properly. If someone can though I’d be glad to add it.



This is about it. I wrapped this up with a video of Anders healing using only the AI.

                                                  ----------------------------------------------------

This is me demonstrating Anders’ healing capabilities in what I think is the most healing intensive fight, the High Dragon. This is not an optimal playthrough for me; I didn’t use CCC with Anders and Varric and I rushed it so it wouldn’t be too boring to watch. Pay attention to the healing and the Haste uptime not the damage output. This is all about the AI healing. (*I didn’t spec into Greater Heal.)



I don’t control him or give him orders in this playthrough except when I
was caught in a bad situation between two dragons, and not intervening
would have meant a certain death.

I had to make a few adaptations to the tactics specifically for that encounter however, raising the self-heal threshold to 75% up from 50%:
Self: Health < 75% ► Activate: Panacea
Self: Health < 75% ► Aid Allies
Self: Health >= 75% ► Activate: Vengeance
Self: Health >= 75% ► Martyr

This fight is a great opportunity to utilize Blood of My Enemy if you have it. Killing four small dragonlings will bring his health right up.

[SuicidalBaby]

you dirty, dirty bear

nice work

like it or not, your in the compendium

i still hate panacea

*edit: WTF! high dragon fireballs seek on consoles and not pc?!?!

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 30 mars 2011 - 04:15 .

[Waltzingbear]

No they do. I have dissected a dragonling (wasn't easy- they tend to explode when you touch them) and detected a chip inside its brain. Apparently they will aim their laser eyes on you guiding the fireballs into party members. Once all small dragonlings are dead however the fireballs will stop being target-seeking. The High Dragon sometimes keep hanging up on the cliff even though all the dragonlings were defeated giving you a free shot at him while being able to dodge his attacks.

[SuicidalBaby]

hrm they follow me all day

[Bozorgmehr]

Great info Waltzingbear! I never thought to use Martyr the way you do, thanks for that.

Too bad you loose almost all tactic slots just to have Anders heal and (de)activate sustains, but you made sure he can use those abilities more often which is always welcome.

I've experimented with his tactics myself and (although it will depend on the party) giving him a couple of offensive/CC/CCC spells worked very well for my 2H Hawke. All (non-boss) fights were over in seconds, Anders never had to use his Healer spells (only Heal for Hawke occasionally, no Panacea). He had to heal all the time without those offensive spells.

I definitely will try your tactics but I'm afraid there isn't much room for other spells there. You can clear some space by removing Elemental Weapons and H/V Aura - I activate them when Anders joins my party (they are never turned off, so no need to put them in tactics). I do the same with Merril's Rock Armor and Varric's Bianca for example.

BTW is there a mod available to give some extra tactic slots? Would be really nice for Anders.

[Ace Attorney]

Good topic. Nice read.

[Invalidcode]

For Haste I like to:
Enemy->Target of Hawke->Use ability: Haste

Anders will use Haste after you (Hawke) target someone (in real combat usually right before you start attacking), so it saves a sec or two of Haste compare to: Self: Any->Haste.

[Waltzingbear]

Anders is fully specialized in the Elemental tree. I use him to BRITTLE targets and Varric to finish them off using the CCC from the Archery tree.
My rogue DISORIENTs for Aveline and she STAGGERs for me.
These abilities are dangerous with FF unlike Chain-Lightning for example and so I don't use them through the tactics (except maybe for Assault and Explosive Strike- I've learned to stay behind her after DISORIENTing) so that's not a problem for me. I usually pause and micro-manage a lot more.

I wanted to show that even if the only thing he does is healing using Martyr is still superior.
The High dragon is abnormal in that sense because it just requires an exceptional amount of healing if you want to keep up with the damage. That's why I didn't use any offensive spells with Anders. Usually I'm much more aggressive though. I don't rely on healing and I kill much faster.

The main purpose is not necessarily shown in the video, and that is that in a normal combat situation you can keep a pretty much non-ending Haste with Anders while building a very strong party relying on basic attacks.

Modifié par Waltzingbear, 30 mars 2011 - 05:48 .

[nicodeemus327]

I only like to switch on elemental weapons and heroic aura when enough mana has been spent.

I do something like ...
Self: Mana level < 75% -> Activate: Heroic Aura
Self: Mana level >= 75% -> Deactivate: Heroic Aura

I also have them use Spirit Bolt to help get their mana down.

Self: Mana level >= 75% -> Use condition for next tactics
Enemy: Target of Hawke -> Spirit Bolt
Enemy: Target of Hawke -> Attack

If you want you can replace spirit bolt with haste and it will be cast as soon are you start attacking. If otfen drains anders's mana enough so he'll switch over to heroic aura. I don't like it automatically casting haste when anders is lower on mana (say under 50%).

Sometimes I use...

Self: Mana level >=50% Use condition for next tactic
Enemy: Target of Hawke -> Haste

This makes anders cast haste when he actually has started to attack (instead of when he's running up to engage an enemy). And he'll only do it when he has more than 50% mana.

Modifié par nicodeemus327, 30 mars 2011 - 07:01 .

[Apathy1989]

I tend to have anders spamming haste unless his mana gets below 50%. At that point you don't want to find yourself unable to heal.

[RedsaberEQ]

Personally, I always keep Anders with Panacea, Elemental Weapons, Heroic Aura, and Rock Armor.

I roll with the dwarf, Sebastian and my Hawke as a tank who spams Rally and Bolster. I keep everyone bunched up together (on Hold) so everyone gets the Panacea and Battle Syche buff.

With Battle Syche, Hawke generates mass amounts of hate by just standing next to everyone while everyone benefits from the 50% healing regeneration.

It reminds me of the movie 300. Live and die as a unit.

Panacea and Battle Syche does nothing if everyone is scattered.

Modifié par RedsaberEQ, 30 mars 2011 - 10:32 .

[RedsaberEQ]

Apathy1989 wrote...

I tend to have anders spamming haste unless his mana gets below 50%. At that point you don't want to find yourself unable to heal.

If your warrior has Rally, your party should never be out of mana.

[Moonstryder]

Would it be viable to skip Ander's Panacea tree. Just rely on Martyr to speed up the cooldown of heal so that I can have him in primal tree. CR for the stagger of Aveline, and Petrify for Assassinate. I'm learning so if anyone has tried this let me know.

Modifié par Moonstryder, 31 mars 2011 - 05:26 .

[Liliandra Nadiar]

Good idea, though reviving fallen members mid battle would be a problem. Two potions and/or Mage!Hawke would be the only way.

>.>

Not that it isn't anyway with the glitch that makes them not re-engage combat after coming back up.

[SuicidalBaby]

if you plan for dead party members there will be dead party members

[Waltzingbear]

Moonstryder wrote...

Would it be viable to skip Ander's Panacea tree. Just rely on Martyr to speed up the cooldown of heal so that I can have him in primal tree. CR for the stagger of Aveline, and Petrify for Assassinate. I'm learning so if anyone has tried this let me know.

Let me quote myself again-

♦ (*) BLOOD OF MY ENEMY – Potentially a very powerful ability. Every killing blow by Anders will regenerate 10%/20%/30% of his health if enemy is ranked Critter/Normal/Elite respectively. Only works with Vengeance active. Affected normally by healing increase items.

I don’t use it.
Anders as he’s built right now in my party does not have any real damage capabilities and the chance of him being the one to actually score the  killing blow is real slim. This ability is mainly for building Anders as a damage dealer and allows him to use Martyr to regen mana, reduce the  cooldown of harmful spells like Chain Lightning and also self-heal, all without deactivating Vengeance. If you use him as a damage dealer you probably also took the extra +10% damage upgrade and this can turn him into a killing machine. Feel free to experiment with that.
I might test this myself and change my party a little to try building Anders in this sort of way and neglect Panacea and Aid Allies in favor of a greater damage output.

Modifié par Waltzingbear, 01 avril 2011 - 03:28 .

[Ace Attorney]

Free bump, this deserves more attention.

[Sabotin]

Last time I built him I didn't actually use his tree at all. I went creation, arcane (arcane shield etc) and spirit (corpse sucking and mastery bonus). I'm planning on trying to use his modes a bit more on my next try, if managed good they look like they can be pretty effectinve. Good to already have some reference for it, thanks .

[Att3r0]

there is just one problem with him - his personality is awful ! Yet he is the only option for healer. I pray for DLC witth nice priestes.

overaly very good info..GJ!

[GeorgeZip]

Thanks for this write up! I tried it out and made playing my warrior much more fun. I don't totally understand it, there seems to be alot of redundant tasks but it works

The only thing I changed was to add "deactivate panacea" right before number 11 "activate vengence" so he doesn't run both at the same time. I've seen him do this and it kills the mana pool with his other sustains.

Also around your number 14 I added a general ally heal in case you change party members.

The best part is Anders continues his cycle a little after the battle and his eyes glow. Kind of funny every time I see it.

[sassperella]

I had something similar to this on the Xbox and Anders rarely seems to heal at all at 25% health on allies or himself. I usually end up having to micromanage heals on him or quickly micromanage a potion as he merrily keeps on spamming other stuff even with heals at the top of the tactic tree.

[stjasonl1]

I find barrier very useful for casters using long animation AOE spells while in the middle of a crowd or for tanks when casting Firestorm IMO.

[DW2511]

I'd personally tweak that build to include BomE and Chain Lightning Upgraded. Guaranteed killshots vs staggered enemies and 10-50% health regeneration in a matter of seconds.

[Waltzingbear]

DW2511 wrote...

I'd personally tweak that build to include BomE and Chain Lightning Upgraded. Guaranteed killshots vs staggered enemies and 10-50% health regeneration in a matter of seconds.

I began doing exactly that with intention of updating this topic but after Arrival DLC I find myself returning back to ME2 and playing less DA2. It will still happen soon (I hope).

[DW2511]

Waltzingbear wrote...

DW2511 wrote...

I'd personally tweak that build to include BomE and Chain Lightning Upgraded. Guaranteed killshots vs staggered enemies and 10-50% health regeneration in a matter of seconds.

I began doing exactly that with intention of updating this topic but after Arrival DLC I find myself returning back to ME2 and playing less DA2. It will still happen soon (I hope).

I'm itching for some ME2 myself, after finishing Arrival.

Your Anders tactics are excellent, BTW.