9 réponses à ce sujet

[Ollymandias]

I know that Isabela doesn't have the dps potential of a rogue Hawke, but I am convinced that she can be quite the tidy murderer if she is built right.  At the moment, I am having trouble keeping her alive since she's pretty fragile, though her special tree seems to suggest that she should be put to work as some sort of secondary tank right in the thick of things.  I swear, the minute I leave her alone for ten seconds she gets herself excused from gym with a skinned knee and Anders has to waste his revival power to put her back on the pitch.

Does anyone have tips as to which abilities to take, which stats should have points put into them, and what I shouldn't forget to have set up for her tactics?  Do I really need to watch her every second to make sure she doesn't bite off more than she can handle?

[naughty99]

Even without using any tactics and constantly micromanaging her, I haven't been able to keep Isabella alive very long either on Nightmare, so I gave up trying to bring her along.

[BanditGR]

Ollymandias wrote...
though her special tree seems to suggest that she should be put to work as some sort of secondary tank right in the thick of things.  I swear, the minute I leave her alone for ten seconds she gets herself excused from gym with a skinned knee and Anders has to waste his revival power to put her back on the pitch.

Nah, using her as a tank is foolhardy, if not downright suicidal, especially on Nightmare. Isabella has many "issues" as a rogue. First of all, she is totally restricted to DW (no archery), which means that versus tough melee bosses (eg dragons), she is for the most part, dead weight. Secondly, her special tree is a bastardized version of duelist, lacking an equivalent of probably the only talent that makes duelist worthwile, meaning vendetta. All Hands on Deck is a poor substitute for that. In addition, her attack, critical chance and defense somewhat suck until you get both Experienced Hand and Sea Legs and since you need level 11 for sea legs, up to that point, she isn't really that much useful. Last but not least, when compared to Varric, she is inferior in almost every aspect, especially early on, when she can't really take much punishment and has the potential of being chain knocked to death.

As for a build, well it really depends on the difficulty level. I'd take silent running, upgraded evade and maybe subtlety from subterfuge (for survivability), blindside from scoundrel and perhaps the aggro redirection talents (armistice, goad). Other than that, it's all about the dual weapon tree with maybe the exception of lacerate, Upgraded Twin fangs is decent, damage wise, it's a far cry from rogue Hawke's assasinate of course, but it's the best single target damaging ability you are gonna get. Stat wise, focus on the usual meaning dexterity and cunning, with some constitution whenever possible.

All in all, she is a pain to micro manage on Nightmare (which you have to, if you intend not to use her as a...corpse), slightly annoying on Hard and for the rest of the difficulties, it doesn't matter

Modifié par BanditGR, 18 avril 2011 - 07:27 .

[Gnoster]

I just used Isabella with success on Hardmode (I played a 2-handed warrior).

During my playthrough she had two main purposes:
1) Handle aggro (like most rogues)
2) Protect the mages

I used the following tactics:
- Backstab
- Unforgiving Chain
- Explosive Strike (Upgraded to Merciless Strike)
- Twin Fangs (Upgraded to Reserved Grip)
- Evade
- Chameleon's Breath (Upgraded to Chameleon's Cloud)
- Blindside
- Armistice
- Goad
- Back-to-Back
- Brand
- Across the Bow (Upgraded to Below the Waterline)
- Savvy (Upgraded to Buccaneer's Savvy)
- Experienced Hand
- Sea Legs
- All Hands on Deck (Upgraded to Shore Leave)

The rest I put into upgrades in the aggro abilities and Backstab. I didn't have Lacerate due to the bug, but the new patch should take care of that, so that I would change if bringing her again.

Her main and thus priorities in tactics where standard aggro handling using Goad whenever Anders or Merril where attacked, and Armistice when Anders where attacked. If Anders where attacked and the aggro abilities on cooldown, I had her use Across the Bow and nuke that enemy down.
Chameleon's Breath upgraded is amazing and I had that set at highest priority on use whenever any Ally is attacked, so she would start every fight abscuring the party (really lowers the damage you take).

All in all I found it quite successfull, she seldom died, and even if she was sawrmed by enemies, activating Savvy helped her stay alive until my warrior could come to the rescue. And her party banter with Merril is in my opinion some of the best. Note however, that I have yet to try out Nightmare mode, and when I do, I would not bring her to that playthrough the first time I try out. This is because she would not be able to withstand the AoE damage given by mages and warriors.

I hope the above helps, if you want more specific tactic setup, let me know and I'll post the specifics when I get home and am able to get in game.

[Running_Blind]

Threat management is key and very rarely will I get her to attack an enemy by herself. With a max defense of 80% (which is actually much lower on nightmare) she can still get stun locked to death by even the most basic enemy. Even with her personal tree championing her as some sort of off-tank it's far to dangerous using her as such.

If you've got a SnS warrior, or any warrior if you're playing on hard or lower, they work really well together. If you take Battle Synergy and Hero's Synergy on the warrior and have them attack the same target she'll almost never have more agro than the warrior.
If she does get attacked having these tactics will help:

Self:Attacked by a melee attack Use:Evade
Self:Attacked by any attack Use:Stealth

This way you can spec her almost entirely for DPS.
Also, Aveline's Bodyguard ability is AMAZING for any squishies in your party.

Modifié par Running_Blind, 18 avril 2011 - 06:14 .

[TheAwesomologist]

Isabella won't last long on Nightmare as others have noted. But on hard or lower she's fairly decent, especially with my 2H-Warrior. I mostly ignore her specialty tree and stick with DW, Stealth skills, and aggro management abilities to keep my mages alive. Sadly Varric and Sebastian do those better than she can just by their fighting at range.

[SuicidalBaby]

I have an excellent hands free Isabela guide in the companions section of The Compendium, which was built on nightmare for nightmare.

[Apathy1989]

I don't run with isabela normally, but in an attempt to build her so she was useful in missions where she was forced to come along, I ended up with something like this build:

http://biowarefans.c...zokRc0BDEvFH1Ym

I kept her tactics as tank, with her spamming goad at my 2H warrior and armistice at my mages who were taking too much damage. She was directed to engage enemies who were attacking the mages, or on very low health so could be killed quickly. If surrounded, use stealth. All in all she is ok, but I prefer having only 1 person in melee to avoid hitting eachother and focusing healing efforts.

[naughty99]

Running_Blind wrote...

she can still get stun locked to death by even the most basic enemy.

If you are dead set on bringing Isabella along during your Nightmare playthrough, here is a strategy that works with all the other squishies to avoid knockback lock.

Playing as mage hawke, I have Unshakeable, but I bought the Etched Ring of the Twins, carry it in inventory at all times and I swap it around among all the party members in the event any of them gets knockback locked.

Modifié par naughty99, 18 avril 2011 - 08:58 .

[Running_Blind]

naughty99 wrote...

Running_Blind wrote...

she can still get stun locked to death by even the most basic enemy.

If you are dead set on bringing Isabella along during your Nightmare playthrough, here is a strategy that works with all the other squishies to avoid knockback lock.

Playing as mage hawke, I have Unshakeable, but I bought the Etched Ring of the Twins, carry it in inventory at all times and I swap it around among all the party members in the event any of them gets knockback locked.

Seems a bit cheesey...