14 réponses à ce sujet

[chaosapiant]

On my next playthough, which will be my 3rd one, I plan to play on hard difficulty.  Is there any general advice or strats or party member advantages I should be aware of?  I'm just now getting the hang of cross-class combos, and setting up tactics to use them.

[mr_afk]

chaosapiant wrote...

On my next playthough, which will be my 3rd one, I plan to play on hard difficulty.  Is there any general advice or strats or party member advantages I should be aware of?  I'm just now getting the hang of cross-class combos, and setting up tactics to use them.

Hard is probably pretty similar to normal with the slight difference in that enemies have more hp, damage and might be a little more annoying in general. I'm probably not the best person to ask because I've never played hard before. haha

I would recommend reading some of the guides/builds out there as they will explain and give examples of the tactics/set-ups that you and your companions can use. (http://social.biowar...5/index/6880399)
In short form,

• if you hadn't already found out, haste is amazing. Get anders set-up to martyr between hastes to get a semi-permanent haste.
• As usual you'll want to target and kill assassins/rogues/mages as fast as possible (though I don't think they steal your potions on hard).
• Um.. I guess lots of the other tactics depend on which class you choose

I can probably give you a few more tips if you tell me which class you're using (anything to procrastinate doing things I should). But if you have already finished it on normal i'm pretty sure you'll do fine on hard.

Modifié par mr_afk, 15 avril 2011 - 04:57 .

[chaosapiant]

I plan to use a mage. I like Anders, but I don't like that depending on your choice on the story, he gets pulled away from you. It makes me not want to depend on him. But, since I'll be a mage, maybe I can "sympathize" with him more and use him.

[nickan1022]

If you aren't on NM and don't have to deal with FF, make sure to take Fenris. If you're playing a mage or mage-sympathizer, just push him down the rivalry path.

Assassins don't steal pots on any mode but NM, so you're good there. Still, kill them as a priority, always. mr-afk's advice about Anders' upgraded haste is solid.

You could also try playing on NM for a few hours and then flip back to Hard and breeze through it. Once you perfect your strats on NM, every other mode is trivial.

[mr_afk]

chaosapiant wrote...

I plan to use a mage. I like Anders, but I don't like that depending on your choice on the story, he gets pulled away from you. It makes me not want to depend on him. But, since I'll be a mage, maybe I can "sympathize" with him more and use him.

How exciting! you can be the guinea pig for my guide I made! haha j/ks. 
But yeah, if you check my signature there's a possible build for you to try out if you like.

With mages there's quite a few builds out there on that list of walkthroughs I originally linked you.
But basically the general principle for mages (assuming you haven't already played one) is to get unshakeable (+100 fortitude) from the force mage specialisation - otherwise you'll find yourself flying around for lots of the game.
Knockdowns/knockbacks probably will occur more than you experienced in normal, especially for a mage (though a rogue has similar problems). There are other possible workarounds (I think vitality +10 constitution can help too) but for a first time mage I would recommend using a force mage.

From there you can do anything you want, whether it be focusing on elemental, primal etc. 
One of the best things about hard (and normal) is that you don't have to worry about friendly fire - so go ahead and load up +%fire items or whatever and drop fireballs onto your companions if you want.
A common strategy (which can get repetitive and boring after a while) is to use pull of the abyss (drags all the enemies together), gravitic ring (slows them to a near halt), then unleash aoe effects on them.
But really, just choose and do whatever you want - using other people's builds gets unsatisfying after a while.

The only other advice I would give is to definately get spells that can CCC. Brittling enemies allows warriors and rogues to kill them really fast, while the staggers from warriors allows you to zap their brains out with chain lightning. I'm not too familiar with the rogue CCCs but I think you can spirit bolt/walking bomb disorientated enemies for the extra omph.

Even if you're playing it on hard be sure to try the tactics from the nightmare guides - they're still quite useful (even though they have to deal with issues of ff). Adapting the tactics for hawke blood mages to merrill etc does help a lot.

nickan1022 wrote...
You could also try playing on NM for a few hours and then flip back to Hard and breeze through it. Once you perfect your strats on NM, every other mode is trivial. 

I agree. It's no fun to play hard when you can play nightmare 

Modifié par mr_afk, 15 avril 2011 - 06:37 .

[RPJer001]

Since you already know what spawns in each encounter, it should be easy. Check out any of the guides on this forum for specific build advice. Most are for Nightmare and will work just as well on Hard.

By far the easiest CCC to get is the stagger + chain lightning one. Chain lightning is a great spell regardless and you only need 3 points in primal to get the upgraded version. You will want your warrior(s) in the party to beeline for upgraded cleave as soon as possible. This will create more staggers than you can take advantage of.

The other CCCs are Disorient and Brittle which are harder to get to and happen a lot less frequently. There are lots of rogue talents I pick up before talents that cause Disorient and even then, it is mostly non elites that become disoriented while a warrior with cleave will often stagger elites (and the SnS warrior can stagger bosses). Once you do start getting Disorients and Brittles, make sure to update your tactics to exploit them. Note that the talents, like Twin Fangs, that get the CCC bonuses from Disoreint or Brittle are often talents you want to spam rather than hold back for CCC opportunities. In tactics, just set them so that the party member will first choose to use the talent for CCC opportunities but will then use it regardless. Example: If enemy status = DISORIENTED, activate stone fist; followed by nearest visible enemy, activate stone fist

One last thing that I have not seen much of on the forum is that if you go with a SnS in your party, focus early on the offensive talents and get to cleave asap. Pick up defensive talents later if you want. In my past games, if I had Aveline in the party, she was defensive oriented. My current game is a SnS warrior and I quickly found out how much more effective an offensive oriented one is. I do not even have taunt on him and have not once activated shield defense--just do not need it since the party kills things so quickly and I can move Hawke over to enemies that have aggro on squishy party members--this is on nightmare difficulty.

[chaosapiant]

How much harder is NM than hard? I really miss the normal difficulty of DA:O. I LIKE friendly fire, and I like having to account for it when strategizing, but with the waves of high-health bar enemies, it seems like friendly fire would be more an unnecessary nuisance than a strategic challenge.

[mr_afk]

chaosapiant wrote...

How much harder is NM than hard? I really miss the normal difficulty of DA:O. I LIKE friendly fire, and I like having to account for it when strategizing, but with the waves of high-health bar enemies, it seems like friendly fire would be more an unnecessary nuisance than a strategic challenge.

It's not that different (note that I have never played hard so am obviously making sh*t up haha).
Basically the main differences are the party limitations as you really don't want too many melee attackers (melee attacks, esp. 2h swords do friendly fire and can one-shot companions) and tactics - you'll have to set them up properly or your companions will do stupid things.
Oh and prepare for some frustration when an ally runs into your spell and dies.
All you really need to do to get through nightmare is to have a well built hawke and companions + good tactics. Bit of a redundant point really, but what i'm saying is that there is nothing that special about playing on nightmare - it just means that you're probably a little masochistic and don't mind large amounts of reloads/rage. It does make for funny connections between party members - i'm pretty sure hawke and carver have been taking turns to kill each other throughout my current playthrough.

I think there was a thread on this i think, i'll try find it

Here you go: http://social.biowar...-6988028-1.html

Modifié par mr_afk, 15 avril 2011 - 07:07 .

[nickan1022]

chaosapiant wrote...

How much harder is NM than hard? I really miss the normal difficulty of DA:O. I LIKE friendly fire, and I like having to account for it when strategizing, but with the waves of high-health bar enemies, it seems like friendly fire would be more an unnecessary nuisance than a strategic challenge.

Agreed.  Friendly fire makes the game's combat that much more immersive.  It makes sense that a giant explosion hits everyone in range.  It makes sense that swinging a 6ft sword in a crowd hits in an arc in front of you.  These things pull you in and make the experience more difficult and enjoyable.

The difference between Nightmare and Hard is not trivial.  I started out on NM at first, and couldn't get past the ogre in the prologue.  Even on hard, I was like, wtf?  So I played NM for a while and thought, well, this sucks.  I don't want to make each of the next 300+ encounters into 30-60m micro-managed events.  I switched it to hard and played through until about the middle of Act II.  Then, I started reading more about tactics, looking at builds, and I realized that I was struggling because I wasn't using CCCs or tactics correctly, and that those things made a HUGE difference in managing the difficulty.  I restarted, gritted my teeth, and set basic focus fire tactics and such on my prologue characters.  Suddenly, fights that were really tough were managable on NM.  I was able to deal with the encounters without a lot of micro-management because the tactics were allowing characters to work together pretty seamlessly.  The battles became enjoyable.

If you play NM, be prepared for enemies that have a lot more health, resistance, and armor.  They also have sneakier AI, with assassins that steal potions and archers that target your squishies first.  Your warriors will friendly-fire your other melee party members, so be careful.  95% of all of knockdowns come from them wandering into me  *just* after I activated Mighty Blow, Scythe, Whirlwind, or Smite.  Be ready to switch between hold positions and free movement.  Experiment a lot and find CCCs that work well for you (Chain Lightning is a great one).  My experience has been that NM mode gets easier over time, because the gear/talent/stat bonuses increase your capability at a faster rate than the difficulty level of the enemies.  So if you do it, stick with it for a couple of Acts and see how it goes.  Read up on builds and tactics and cut out as much micro management as you can.

And give your chars more con.  :innocent:

[chaosapiant]

Is there a good place to go for solid CCC tactic setups? I have the strategy guide, but as shiny as it is, it isn't too informative on CCCs.

[nickan1022]

I use "Enemy: Status: STAGGERED —> Use Ability: Chain Lightning" and "Enemy: Status: DISORIENTED —> Use Ability: Stone Fist" for Merrill. Basically, throw in a tactic that looks for a specific status, then put in the ability that leverages that status for a CCC. For Varric, I toss in "Enemy: Status: STAGGERED —> Use Ability: Kickback". The key is to get the upgraded abilities that set up the statuses, and the upgraded abilities that take advantage of those statuses. The tactics are pretty straightforward from there.

There are lots of possibilities. I don't have a link to a thread where they are summarized (you can search for them), but I'll give you an example I like:

So, for Warrior —> Mage...

My warrior Hawke has upgraded Cleave and Sunder, which means many of his attacks leave opponents staggered. Merrill or Anders follow up with Chain Lightning and vaporize any clustered and staggered targets.

More "tank-ish" warriors like Aveline can do an upgraded Shield Bash, which staggers targets in a frontal arc. Then, same thing, Chain Lightning mows them down.

There's a reverse of this (that I never use because Elemental trees don't work well in NM).

Mage —> Warrior

Mage casts upgraded cone of cold. Targets are made brittle. Warrior follows up with upgraded Scythe or Mighty Blow and shatters the targets into little pieces.

[mr_afk]

chaosapiant wrote...

Is there a good place to go for solid CCC tactic setups? I have the strategy guide, but as shiny as it is, it isn't too informative on CCCs.

Try the wikia, it has loads of solid information which nobody seems to use.
dragonage wiki

For more specific examples go check out each of the types of conditions. It'll show you which abilities cause it and what abilities can take advantage of it. Note that the pinning shot disorient is bugged/doesn't work.
Otherwise you'll find plenty of strategy/tactical suggestions all over these forums.

edit: sorry, for some odd reason I can't link to it properly.
just type cross class combo into the search bar on the side haha.
ahh figured it out, it keeps uncapitalising one of the letters no matter what I do. I hate bbc coding or whatever.
http://dragonage.wik...ss-class_Combos  (where the 'c' for class is capitalised)

Modifié par mr_afk, 16 avril 2011 - 04:08 .

[theangryllama]

I'm doing a hard playthrough atm (got sick of uber assassins on nightmare and didnt want to do a mage with FF and random resists) and loving it. Running around with magehawke, merril, anders and varric and watching things just explode in showers of gravitic ring AoE goodness.

[Paper420]

What everybody else said?

seriously tho ^

[Toastedsnow]

Watch your spawn points, blast down mages and assassins as priority kills, CC lieut auras and you'll be fine. As a mage, you'll definitely want to talent rock armor and that force mage immunity - unshakable I think is the name. CCCs are your best friends, haste is now upgraded from hilariously good to holy bloody hellfire, this is OP.
Oh and LoS is still absolute tripe - archers still manage to hit me THROUGH buildings. It's ceased to irritate me and has become part of the fun.