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[Cursed Feanor]

Unofficial Dragon age tactics guide

Tactics in Dragon age is a quite hot topic. Many praise them, many despise them and never take advantage of what they have to offer. As a veteran player of Final Fantasy 12, which uses a similar system, I was thrilled to see this idea appear in Dragon age. However I was quickly bummed by what seemed like a broken system at first try and didn't bother to use it until later in the game, when I decided to investigate further, knowing how great it could be based on my experience in FF12.

That's when I figured out many points that are never explained in-game, in the user guide or even online. I decided to create this guide to share them as clearly as possible so that some other fellow players can better understand and finally enjoy using the tactics in Dragon age. It turns out indeed that they are usable and quite useful when understood correctly. There are nevertheless some points that seem to me like missteps from developpers, so I also give my humble suggestions on the matter. Hopefully some of them will be addressed in future patches...

I'm willing to maintain this thread with your ideas if I missed anything and I see some interest from the community. As you can imagine, discovering all those concepts was a long and hard process, so I hope you find this useful!

=== Basic concepts ===

• Some very basic concepts are noted on the in-game codex #255. A few of them are explained differently on this list.
• Open tactics screen by typing '\\\\' or hitting the target shape icon on top of the screen.
• Select the character you wish to setup using the top left field.
• Make sure to select a proper behavior on the top right. They are all precisely described on mouse-over. For exemple, selecting 'Agressive' for warriors or 'Ranged' for archers might be a good idea.
• Left-hand side gives conditions that are checked. Right-hand side gives their corresponding actions. Think of it as follows : IF 'condition' is met during gameplay, THEN 'action' is executed.
• Tactics will be activated in ascending numerical order, which is from top to bottom on the tactics screen. If the first 'condition' is met, the first 'action' is executed and none of the following 'conditions' will even be checked. If the first 'condition' is NOT met, the second 'condition' is checked... and so on.
• You can select predetermined presets on the left to give you an idea of what a particular member can do.
• You can save your custom presets for quick setup using the bottom right button. Note that presets are character dependent!

=== Important particularities of Dragon age system ===
[*]Selected party members tactics are DISABLED. This is probably a cause of frustration for many and is not necessarily easy to realize... You should therefor avoid selecting entire party (using '=') since it will prevent any tactics from working. Use instead main character based tactics (ex.: Enemy: target of main character -> attack) and select only your leader to basically control the entire party indirectly through tactics.[*]Hold status (activated by pressing 'h') is useful for hard battles where you want to micro-manage everything, but for normal battles where you can easily rely on tactics, it should be avoided. That is because characters will fall on an IDLE STATE if a tactics 'condition' is met, while the corresponding 'action' cannot be done because the character is out of reach. Since it cannot move to a better position and execute the action due to the hold state, it simply does nothing![*]Tactics will only be activated during a state of combat (with combat music and combat stance). It wont work if no enemies are around. So make sure you don't have tactics like "Enemy: nearest visible -> attack" set before sustained buffs or the like, otherwise it will be difficult for them to be activated when needed. There seems to be occasionnal exceptions to this rule, for exemple with the Heal spell, which is sometimes activated outside combat...
[*]Rangers pets tactics screen can only be accessed at the moment they are summoned, by double-clicking the "1 tactics slot acquired" icon at the bottom left of the screen. Note that their tactics setting need to be remade each time they are summoned with currently no way to make them persistent. Saving their presets is useless.[*]Already activated sustained buffs (ex.: Flaming weapons), which appear with flashing yellow border on the bottom quickbar, will NOT be recast by tactics even if their 'condition' is met. For exemple a character that dies during a battle and raised afterward will no longer have the buff and this wont cause the tactic to be executed (if it was set by another character). Manual desactivation of the ability is needed.[/list]
=== Suggestions to developpers ===
[*]Merely selecting characters should not disable their entire tactics. Only selected (forced) actions should override the tactics system and only for the duration of said actions. This is how it works in FF12 and I believe it is a much better way to proceed since we cannot deselect everyone at once in Dragon age, which means at least one character's tactics are disabled at all time.
[*]Rangers pets tactics screen should be accessible at all time while they are summoned.[*]Rangers pets should not be dismissed on each area transition.
[*]A tactic's 'condition' should not be met if it's 'action' cannot be executed due to hold state. Switch to something like : if ('condition' && ((hold && 'no movement required') || (!hold))) {'action'}.
[*]Allow personal and party abilities to be cast through tactics out of battles.[/list]

Disclaimer : Just about all the information presented here was deduced through a long analysis process in-game and should be accurate as of version 1.01. Some errors might have slipped in, so please keep me informed if you find any.

Modifié par Cursed Feanor, 18 novembre 2009 - 09:35 .

[Denlath Vestor]

Cursed Feanor wrote...

[*]Hold status (activated by pressing 'h') is useful for hard battles where you want to micro-manage everything, but for normal battles where you can easily rely on tactics, it should be avoided. That is because characters will fall on an IDLE STATE if a tactics 'condition' is met, while the corresponding 'action' cannot be done because the character is out of reach. Since it cannot move to a better position and execute the action due to the hold state, it simply does nothing!

This alone was worth me reading the whole post. It finally explained one of the biggest sources of frustration for me in combat! I don't mind micromanaging, I just didn't understand why they weren't doing what I told them to do in the Tactics screen!

[Kleep]

Great guide!!! With the more melee centric group I am currently running I am finding it harder to control every single thing they do. Thanks for making this! Be sure to add this to the wiki if you haven't.

[l2dbanewb]

Here's the tactics I have setup for Morrigan. I modded to allow extra tactics slots. I broke up the sections to make it a bit easier to read. You can replace Enemy: Any -> Attack with Enemy: Lowest Health -> Attack for a more focus fire approach. Or Enemy: Nearest -> attack for melee.



1)Self: health < 50% -> use smallest health potion

2)Ally: health < 50% -> Heal

3)Ally: health < 75% -> Regenerate

4)Allistor: health < 50% -> jump to 23

5)Self: being attacked by melee -> Glyph of Paralysis

6)Self: being attacked by melee -> Mind Blast

7)Enemy: clustered 3 or more -> jump to 28

8)Self: being attacked by melee -> Jump to 21

9)Self: mana > 50% -> jump to 11

10)Enemy: Any -> attack



Conditional statements:



11)Self: Any -> Deactivate Mode: morph into spider

12)Enemy: Rank Elite or higher -> jump to 17

13)Enemy: Any -> Winter's Grasp

14)Ally: being attacked in melee -> Glyph of Warding

15)Ally: Stamina or mana < 10% -> Rejuvenate

16)Enemy: Any -> Attack



17)Enemy: Any -> Hex of Weakness (lowers resists)

18)Enemy: Any -> Winter's Grasp

19)Enemy: Any -> Siphon Life (This does double damage when enemy hexed)

20)Enemy: Any -> Attack



21)Self: mana < 10% -> Activate Mode: morph into spider

22)Enemy: Any -> attack



23)Sten: health < 75% -> jump to 25

24)Enemy: Any -> attack



25)Self: health < 75% -> Group Heal

26)Lilliana: health < 75% -> Group Heal

27)Enemy: Any -> attack



28)Enemy: at close to medium range -> jump to 30

29)Enemy: Any -> attack



30)Enemy: Any -> Sleep

31)Enemy: under effect: Sleep -> jump to 33

32)Enemy: Any -> attack



33)Self: mana > 50% -> jump to 36

34)Enemy: Target of Alistar -> attack

35)Enemy: Any -> attack



36)Enemy: under effect: sleep -> Horror

37)Enemy: under effect: sleep -> Waking Nightmare

38)Enemy: Any -> attack

[Azarvakhsh]

Ah, so that's how you setup a group heal! Very help, indeed! Is there a mod for extra tactic slots, I so want more?

[Ryukahn]

Thanks for the heads up about it going in order of rank. I had heals on Morrigan ranked low, and she'd never heal even when the conditions are met (Wynne is main healer, but sometimes you need 2 heals going). Now I know to put stuff that I want activated immediately if the condition is met, but that condition might not happen very often, at the top of the list. I wish there was a condition for when 2 or more are below or at a certain percent, you'd do X. That way I could set up Group Heal.

[Ryukahn]

Oh, and to add to what I posted, I think the game has way too few tactics slots, not to mention how insane it is to have us spend skill points to receive one additional tactics slot per point spent.

[Cursed Feanor]

Ryukahn wrote...

Oh, and to add to what I posted, I think the game has way too few tactics slots, not to mention how insane it is to have us spend skill points to receive one additional tactics slot per point spent.

I have not tried this personnally, but you might want to take a look there :

http://www.fileplane...actic-Slots-Mod


Glad I could help some of you guys! Seems typing all this was worth it! I've posted a section of my guide on the Tactics wiki as was suggested, thanks for the idea.

[Cirellion_Malevar]

Cursed Feanor wrote...


[*]Selected party members tactics are DISABLED. This is probably a cause of frustration for many and is not necessarily easy to realize... You should therefor avoid selecting entire party (using '=') since it will prevent any tactics from working. Use instead main character based tactics (ex.: Enemy: target of main character -> attack) and select only your leader to basically control the entire party indirectly through tactics.

THANK YOU!!!  I kept wondering why my tactics selections weren't kicking in, and why my party members would sometimes just stop fighting in the middle of battles, even when I didn't have the hold status active.

[Cursed Feanor]

no prob, I was so annoyed about it myself that I just HAD to figure out what was wrong... this particular point is as close to a bug as you can get! I really hope they change this in an upcoming patch.



by the way, does anyone know who I should contact to pass my suggestions and hopefully be heard by the right guys from Bioware?

[jopezu]

to address "there's no quick way to deselect", the default F1-F4 keys selects a single member, so, remapping your tank's key to something quicker is a decent attempt.

[Belechannas]

Man, I wish I had read this post a couple hours ago, before I fought Flemeth for the first time. It really explains the problems I was having.



It was obvious after the first attempt that I needed to rely on ranged damage, so I turned "Hold" mode on and positioned my character, Wynne and Leliana at range in an arc around Flemeth, and tried to have Alistair tank. I had to *constantly* keep reselecting him and telling him to attack manually, because she does a knockback like every two seconds. I eventually changed his tactics to be simply "Enemy: Nearest visible -> Attack" and he would still stand 3 feet from her and not attack. I'm now certain this was because of Hold mode being on. *smacks head*



The other point about Select All effectively disabling all tactics is another explanation for my frequent frustration. Sometimes the AI seems to react very nicely; other times toons just sit there and don't heal or attack when they should, and I'm now also virtually certain that having them all selected is probably why. What I expected was that the character I am controlling (i.e. the one whose quickbar is on my screen) wouldn't use tactics.



Anyway, great post - very helpful.

[mad_cat_prime]

I have that 25 Tactics Slot mod and it is very nice. I think everyone should start out with a lot of slots. Not every class needs them, but very awesome. One thing I do with Morrigan, as a method of control. I had this modded, but I think Frozen and Paralyze are the same thing, so when she uses Ice magic, not everytime will the target be frozen. When the target is frozen, I then tell her to use fire magic. I want her to use it, but not that often as it hurts my other people. I want to see if I can find a way to tell my other party members if a target is frozen, run away, and if still alive afterwards, come back. I also have Morrigan use Drain Life and the one where you drain energy from dead bodies with using healing spell and potions. I also have her use a mana potion at <50% Mana. I have noticed with <25% it is never used, same with Health Potions.

[Delta_Echo]

are there any other threads that discuss tactic slot setup like this?

[Etienne the Destroyer]

Delta_Echo wrote...

are there any other threads that discuss tactic slot setup like this?

I second that.

[PacManiac]

This was great help!

[UniversalCypher]

l2dbanewb wrote...

Here's the tactics I have setup for Morrigan. I modded to allow extra tactics slots. I broke up the sections to make it a bit easier to read. You can replace Enemy: Any -> Attack with Enemy: Lowest Health -> Attack for a more focus fire approach. Or Enemy: Nearest -> attack for melee.<br />
<br />
1)Self: health < 50% -> use smallest health potion<br />
2)Ally: health < 50% -> Heal<br />
3)Ally: health < 75% -> Regenerate<br />
4)Allistor: health < 50% -> jump to 23<br />
5)Self: being attacked by melee -> Glyph of Paralysis <br />
6)Self: being attacked by melee -> Mind Blast<br />
7)Enemy: clustered 3 or more -> jump to 28<br />
8)Self: being attacked by melee -> Jump to 21<br />
9)Self: mana > 50% -> jump to 11<br />
10)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
Conditional statements:<br />
<br />
11)Self: Any -> Deactivate Mode: morph into spider<br />
12)Enemy: Rank Elite or higher -> jump to 17<br />
13)Enemy: Any -> Winter's Grasp<br />
14)Ally: being attacked in melee -> Glyph of Warding<br />
15)Ally: Stamina or mana < 10% -> Rejuvenate <br />
16)Enemy: Any -> Attack<br />
<br />
17)Enemy: Any -> Hex of Weakness (lowers resists)<br />
18)Enemy: Any -> Winter's Grasp<br />
19)Enemy: Any -> Siphon Life (This does double damage when enemy hexed)<br />
20)Enemy: Any -> Attack<br />
<br />
21)Self: mana < 10% -> Activate Mode: morph into spider<br />
22)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
23)Sten: health < 75% -> jump to 25<br />
24)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
25)Self: health < 75% -> Group Heal<br />
26)Lilliana: health < 75% -> Group Heal<br />
27)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
28)Enemy: at close to medium range -> jump to 30<br />
29)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
30)Enemy: Any -> Sleep<br />
31)Enemy: under effect: Sleep -> jump to 33<br />
32)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
33)Self: mana > 50% -> jump to 36<br />
34)Enemy: Target of Alistar -> attack<br />
35)Enemy: Any -> attack<br />
<br />
36)Enemy: under effect: sleep -> Horror<br />
37)Enemy: under effect: sleep -> Waking Nightmare<br />
38)Enemy: Any -> attack

im wondering how long this took you to build. i can appreciate the maticulous condition checks..but is it really needed? if you can make a video, i'd really like to see that tactic in motion. i usually build mine around conditions that affect the entire party - in terms of one party member does one thing, and it sets a chain of actions in motion that are carried out by the rest of the party. its usually based around crowd control and erasing primary targets, though i live myself enough freedom according to the skill-sets used to improvise if i need to. i rarely hot-bar any skills i have in tactics - only the real important ones..

-UC

[IKEAboy2006]

This is fantastic advice on tactics.

I'm working with the vanilla game, so no tactics mods for me. I feel like... it's maybe cheating a bit to mod the game and give myself extra tactics slots (even though I want them badly). The link above to the tactic slots mod sounds like it gives you 25 slots, but I notice you have 38+ slots! Are you using another form of mod for this?

Thanks again for sharing your hard work and knowledge.