20 réponses à ce sujet

[Lumikki]

I'm just lower level trying to play in nightmare. I'm at level 8 at the moment. I can usually do many quest fine, but not allways. I seem to have problem with elites mostly and if there is alot of smaller enemies with them, like archers.

I think my tank does fine, she can take few elite hits. But others we just don't seem to have enough fire power to take them down. So, I ask, suggestions how to improve situation. (No blood mage stuff).

Here is about my builds so far as design and done...

Hawke (mage) All above lvl 9 are one lower, because lvl 9 spell is from tome.
Aveline (Tank)
Varric (Archer)
Anders (mage)

I was thinking maybe I should take some debuff talent?

Also I'm not so sure about Glyph of Paralysis stuff, they don't seem to be so good. Oh, Hawke's is upgraded version with extra spell.

EDIT: Okey, I made small changes (lvl 8 spells) and gonna test them..

 - Hawke now don't have Glyph of Paralysis, but insted she has "Hex of Torment" and "Horror"
 - Andress now don't have stonefist, but insted Upgraded Glyph of Paralysis.

Modifié par Lumikki, 19 avril 2011 - 09:15 .

[naughty99]

I've found Hex of Torment / Death Hex is very helpful for mage playthrough on Nightmare.

The spell that seems to save my ass in every battle is Gravitic Ring. Retreat behind a chokepoint and cast Gravitic Ring in the chokepoint to block Assassins and mobs while you wipe them all out with AoE spells.

Pull of the Abyss has not been very helpful IMO. The force is so strong that it ends up pulling enemies out of the Gravitic Ring instead of putting them all in its center.

You also need an arsenal of a few spells that immobilize enemies for when Gravitic Ring expires, such as Glyph of Paralysis, Petrify, Horror. 

In terms of the greatest damage, there is nothing like Assassinate for rogues, but casting Walking Bomb on a high health enemy just before he dies while trapped in Gravitic Ring together with several other high health enemies usually one-shots the entire group. (Successfully killed Brekker and all five of the Coterie Rogues with one shot by using this method).

You might find it helpful to alternate some quests bringing Merril instead of Varric occasionally. In a lot of cases you can bring Varric back to the area later to open locks and traps for XP. This might sound counter-intuitive, but for a few really tough battles in closed environments it has been easier without a tank (3 mages + Varric)

Modifié par naughty99, 18 avril 2011 - 11:42 .

[Nasabe]

Crowd control and Cross class Combos are key in nightmare.

Usually a good rule is to have Petrify and Horror casters available at all times. If an enemy is immune to Petrify, Horror will work. There are very very few enemies who are immune to both.

Glyph of Paralysis is not good unless you upgrade it, Once upgraded stunning 4 mobs for 10sec is pretty good imo.

Problem with your firepower can be due to the lack of CCC capabilities. upgrade Aveline's Shield Bash to stagger and capitalize on that with your mage's Lightning strike. Varric cannot deal huge damage at low-levels just because he doesnt have access to something like Isabela's Explosive Strike.

Again, your best bet is to rely on Shield Bash staggers around that level. Use lightning strike with a mage or Explosive with Isabela.

I would strongly suggest to add Fenris to your party asap. Get his Lyrium Ghost ability as soon as you can and he can stagger everything around him all the time (just need to be careful with friendly fire)

In my experience my mage run on nightmare was easiest. Due do the fact that you have so much flexibility with the party. Few basic tactics for CCC:

Get Fenris' Lyrium Ghost ability asap. He can basically crit 30% of the time without any dexterity or jewelery once that is active. Approach low-level mobs, stagger them and then Lightning strike with your mage.

For Aveline/mage/anders/varric there is also the possibility of upgrading Varric's pinning shot and disorienting enemies. Then you can Stone fist or Spirit bolt once they are disoriented.

So you can:
Pinning Shot (Varric) > Stone fist (hawke/anders)
Shield Bash (Aveline) > Lightning Strike (hawke/anders)
Fatiguing Fog (Varric) > Assault / Scatter (aveline)

Hmm, problem is you have two mages who can Brittle but noone to take advantage of it. You can upgrade Anders' Winter's Grasp and use Varric's Bursting Shot I guess but that is probably the weakest CCC. It'll never hit like Fenris' or Carver's Mighty Blow.

If you are willing to swap party members I would suggest Aveline for front guard, Fenris for rear guard, Varric and mage Hawke with healing/Primal. If you want Anders, Aveline and Hawke to roll together then Isabela will be a better DPS choice than Varric.

Note: Nightmare gets a lot easier once you reach beyond level14-15. Then you get access to much better CCC abilities.

Modifié par Nasabe, 18 avril 2011 - 11:12 .

[Nasabe]

I also felt obliged to add a cheap tactic:

Confuse enemy assassins with your Rogue. They tend to forget to stealth =)

[naughty99]

Nasabe wrote...

For Aveline/mage/anders/varric there is also the possibility of upgrading Varric's pinning shot and disorienting enemies. Then you can Stone fist or Spirit bolt once they are disoriented.

So you can:
Pinning Shot (Varric) > Stone fist (hawke/anders)

This is not possible. Disorienting shot is bugged in all release versions of the game (including Patch 1.02) and does not cause Disorient. Hopefully it will be fixed in Patch 1.03.

I have not been able to successfully observe any Pinning Shot effect, either. However, some other forum members have reported observing a brief Pinning Shot effect that is canceled if the target takes any other damage.

The only way to set up Disorient combos with Varric is by upgrading Fatiguing Fog to Overpowering Fog, or by upgrading Confuse.

[mr_afk]

Umm so what are you saying your main problem is? Are you just needing ways to kill them faster?
Basically if you're just having problems with the killing speed Nasabe's advice is pretty solid - though i'm pretty sure that pinning shot disorient is bugged (unless the latest patch fixed it?)

So just to repeat everyone else:
- CCC's are the best way to destroy enemies
- the best/easiest CCC to pull off is the upgraded chain lightning as it does not have ff issues and staggers can easily be made by either aveline (shield bash) or fenris (sunder).
- I would recommend upgrading your warrior's vanguard tree, cleave is amazing (doubles damage for a time) and once upgraded to claymore at level 10 it will help with staggers (40% chance)
- the other CCC you could consider is the brittle CCC with fenris's mighty blow (scythe is probably too likely to kill your own party)
- upgraded archers lance with brittle will provide the largest damage but requires lots of points to be invested as well as having a very large tendency to kill your own party
- the ice line has additional CC benefits as well as making things brittle as frozen enemies will be unable to attack or have their speed greatly reduced
- petrify has always seemed a little weak to me (so never tried it) but from my understanding it only paralyses/brittles one enemy? and provides extra damage resistance to it? just freeze enemies instead
- How do you have an upgraded crushing prison at level 8? But anyway in terms of killing things faster upgraded crushing prisons against staggered enemies should be good (e.g. get aveline to shield bash assassin, crushing prison, everyone can attack assassin while it's stuck there)
- Seems like you already know about the joys of horror. It is great for stopping assassins from stealthing and once upgraded deals a fair amount of damage
- Glyphs of paralysis are good in that you can actually prevent an assassin from backstabbing you (dropping it on them as they appear) or prevent them from escaping into stealth (dropping it on them even as they backflip) unlike most other CC spells which can't seem to target them
- Finally, one thing that everyone always seems to overlook is the power that tempest has; Simply unleash the tempest over the enemies and they will all get zapped and most importantly briefly stunned. This means that the archers in the back won't be shooting you as well as allowing your warriors to run in and unleash some unopposed damage (no friendly fire with lightning spells is amazing)
- As heaps of enemies have weaknesses to lightning, tempest and chain-lightning are pretty much the best spells ever. I think that was one of the only two spell lines I invested in early game (rock-armour, lightning, cold) and that was quite a breeze
- If you have problems in that your early game mage is getting knocked down all the time, consider getting unshakeable. It is probably the best mage ability ever.
-The whole force mage tree is pretty decent. It'll make encounters so much easier when you can pull of the abyss them together, drop a gravitic ring on them (slows them to a stop) then either zap them with lightning (does wonders as they're so close together) or maybe experiment with walking bombs etc.

Hope this helps

[Apathy1989]

naughty99 wrote...

Nasabe wrote...

For Aveline/mage/anders/varric there is also the possibility of upgrading Varric's pinning shot and disorienting enemies. Then you can Stone fist or Spirit bolt once they are disoriented.

So you can:
Pinning Shot (Varric) > Stone fist (hawke/anders)

This is not possible. Disorienting shot is bugged in all release versions of the game (including Patch 1.02) and does not cause Disorient. Hopefully it will be fixed in Patch 1.03.

I have not been able to successfully observe any Pinning Shot effect, either. However, some other forum members have reported observing a brief Pinning Shot effect that is canceled if the target takes any other damage.

The only way to set up Disorient combos with Varric is by upgrading Fatiguing Fog to Overpowering Fog, or by upgrading Confuse.

Indeed.

Scatter effectively takes advantage of fatigued fog clusters, but its a shame that you need to invest so much in the tree to get that flask. If you are sticking to assault and stonefist to exploit disorientation then you tend to only get 1 or two, and miss others. Assault also sometimes will stagger (if avaline is using vanguard like mine), breaking the combo since it combos on the final strike.

If they fixed pinning shot, I would exclusively use that for disorientation combos.

Modifié par Apathy1989, 19 avril 2011 - 12:18 .

[Nasabe]

Well again on the pinning shot.. it is bugged correct, but it works. Just make sure no +damage bonus is on the weapon (elemental weapons talent from the mage tree counts) and it works.

But again, even though it works.. it doesnt work as intended. And it is a hassle to use it effectively for CCC since any kind of damage breaks the Disorient and "Pinned" effect. So your first attack on that particular target needs to be Stone Fist etc.. It is a hassle yup.

I usually Pin the ranged mobs on the edges of the battlefield and make sure noone else targets them, and after I clear some thrash and send my melee after em use Spirit Bolt etc. to start things up.

Although on Nightmare specific humanoids are immune to it.. Just like how Mercenary Assassins are immune to Horror but not to Petrify, and vice versa for Carta... Same goes for pinning shot with various mobs. I should record a vid to prove my point I guess, but it is a very small point since any bow/crossbow with +damage bonus will not work.

But upgraded Petrify is amazing imho. why?

Say you spot a boss:

Petrify (Brittle) + Death Hex (Every hit is Critical) > Mighty Blow (Crit = Stagger) > Explosive Strike while Obscured (Disorient) > Assault + Claymore (Stagger) ... you can keep going.. And that boss will be in a world of pain in 3 sec after it spawned.

Not only does Petrify Brittle, it's duration is not decreased on elites and higher mobs like other Crowd Control effects. It's a must imo.

Modifié par Nasabe, 19 avril 2011 - 01:02 .

[naughty99]

I helped to beta test Patch 1.02, and AFAIK, no one has ever seen the disorient icon last longer than a millisecond on any Disorienting Shot target, even when there was no other damage to the target. By contrast, with Overpowering Fog or upgraded Confuse, the disorient icon lasts long enough to be able to complete CCCs.

Are you certain you have been able to pull off a cross class combo using Disorienting Shot? If so, please try testing this a bit to see if you can reproduce it.

Modifié par naughty99, 19 avril 2011 - 01:04 .

[Nasabe]

naughty99 wrote...

I helped to beta test Patch 1.02, and AFAIK, no one has ever seen the disorient icon last longer than a millisecond on any Disorienting Shot target, even when there was no other damage to the target. By contrast, with Overpowering Fog or upgraded Confuse, the disorient icon lasts long enough to be able to complete CCCs.

Are you certain you have been able to pull off a cross class combo using Disorienting Shot? If so, please try testing this a bit to see if you can reproduce it.

I just tested it on my nightmare run. Act II Lowtown night:

Mob: Dog Lord.

made sure Elemental weapons wasnt active, and no damage runes applied to Bianca. Varric has Pinned the melee Dog Lord and I made him switch to another target right afterwards.. then made Merrill run up and hit it with Spirit Bolt.. voila! it worked.

he did stay pinned for about 5 sec before I hit him. And he was disoriented and CCC was applied after Spirit Bolt.

Tried on the Mabari.. didnt work, but then again the animal wasnt even pinned.

I do not use any tactics and micromanage everything though, many might have let AI control their partymembers and hit the pinned target before they can capitalize on the disorient effect.

update:

it works on invisible sisters on Hightown Act II as well. I'll try on Qunari again since I dont remember which type it doesnt work on. I think its the dwarves who are immune to pinning shot but not sure, we'll see.

Modifié par Nasabe, 19 avril 2011 - 01:23 .

[naughty99]

Very interesting, so the Disorient icon stayed on the target for at least 5 sec or so? Just to confirm, are you using Patch 1.02 and Nightmare mode?

I also don't use tactics, but so far haven't been able to achieve any disorients with Disorienting Shot.

I will try removing the rune from Bianca to test.

Is there any kind of audible sound or animation that confirms when a target is successfully Pinned?

Modifié par naughty99, 19 avril 2011 - 01:30 .

[Nasabe]

Yup 1.02 Nightmare. No mods installed.

for example if you apply a fire rune to Bianca, the target will get pinned and the effect will show for a split second. Then the +fire damage will kick in and cancel everything. Clearly a bug.

But if it doesnt have any additional damage it works as intended. For example with sebastian's Starkhaven bow this bug is easy to observe. You hit the target.. then a second later a green smoke pops up indicating the +nature damage applied. It should add at the exact same time of the base damage is applied but it doesnt.

Ahh getting to technical. It is safe to say Pinning shot is bugged, but one can make it work without altering any files etc. Just make sure your ranged weapon doesnt have any damage bonuses.

Edit: The animation is the same as your own character getting caught in a trap. It's like they are trying to pull their leg out of something. Same animation as DAO. I've seen some assassins just stand there without any animation though. I can say 90% of the time if the target is humanoid the animation shows.

Modifié par Nasabe, 19 avril 2011 - 01:37 .

[mjharper]

As a recent convert to the glories of Fatiguing Fog, I'd like to point out that although the talent investment is heavy (though you can pick up Confuse on the way), it is totally worth it.

The fog covers a decent area in any case (6m), but as well as disorientating enemies (-50% defense) it slows their movement and attack speeds by 50%, it obscures any team members in it's radius (+50% defense). Believe me, that's an awful lot of keeping your tank alive, and it's FF safe, unlike Confuse.

[Lumikki]

Okey thanks for all advice. I try to upgrade some talents/spells before level 10, so I can do some ccc.

Yes, I'm only at level 8 so, I don't have all talents what is show in the plan, above 8 where just plan what I could take. Also because tome I did take at level 8 too, Hawke got two spell in level 8. (Horror and Hex). I usually end to be level 10, close to 11 when Deep Road start.

When I play knock backs aren't really big issue. Sure I get spell interrupts from archers, but my 3 ranger attacker can take care of it.

I think my little issue has been like. If I have to take care the rangers with my range attackers, some elite assassin keeps to be alive alot longer. If I try to control it more, it can cause aggro shift to my rangers. I did not ask help because I would have major issue with playing, but more like what I could do better. So thanks, I try to get ccc's working.

It seems that Hex of Torment and Horror is helping little bit dealing the elites. At leat Meere when down pretty fast..

Modifié par Lumikki, 19 avril 2011 - 06:24 .

[Haplose]

mjharper wrote...

As a recent convert to the glories of Fatiguing Fog, I'd like to point out that although the talent investment is heavy (though you can pick up Confuse on the way), it is totally worth it.

(...) it obscures any team members in it's radius (+50% defense).

Actually that's 20% attack evade chance.

[naughty99]

I have found that with a Mage Hawke, once you get to level 15 or so, a number of battles are easier on Nightmare with 3 mages + Varric and no tank. You miss out on Stagger CCCs, but you are able to do massive, continuous ranged damage.

(If you have Gravitic Ring and a few other immobilizing spells in your collective arsenal)

Modifié par naughty99, 19 avril 2011 - 02:37 .

[ent1]

The key to low level success on Nightmare is overpowered promotional weapons -- Hayder's Razor, Staff of Parthalan, Arlathan Replica bow, etc. Good builds come later.

[Mocker22]

For a mage Fenris is amazing (ironically). My last play through by level 10 he had 50-60% chance to crit(meaning stagger from Sunder) AND Cleave's upgrade has 40% chance stagger. Give Fenris 5-10 seconds and EVERYONE is staggered. Unleash Chain Lightning and laugh as baddies explode. Later on Paralzing Hemorhge just makes it straight unfair, and Fist of the Maker is alrite for when your other big CCCs are on cooldown.

Its a shame Fenris is such a whiny little *beep*, with mage-issues, because he pairs PERFECTLY with any mage. For added overpoweredness have Anders with you with Cain Lightning and Crushing Prison upgraded.

[Lumikki]

Just quick question, how you redo (respect) the companions or Hawkes talents?

Modifié par Lumikki, 21 avril 2011 - 07:17 .

[naughty99]

you have to buy a Maker's Sigh potion from the Black Emporium

[Lumikki]

naughty99 wrote...

you have to buy a Maker's Sigh potion from the Black Emporium

Okey, Thanks. I don't have Black Emporium DLC, so that's it. I ques, I have to then replay my characters.