163 réponses à ce sujet

[Jack-Nader]

I've completed the prologue with all three classes.  I am now a good chunk of the way through act I with Hawke Mage.  The first thing to strike me was the apparent lack of knockbacks and knockdowns.  I actually decided to play a good chunk of the prologue bare naked just to get a good handle on the difference.   The comparison between 1.02 and 1.03 is quite large.  Nightmare now feels orders of magnitude easiers due to this change alone.  As per usual, my party members are all settup as glass cannons.  I haven't been using rock armor or equipping the usual health apparel.  Both are quite unecessary at this point in time.  I don't envisage needing constitution at all. 

The second thing that struck me was the lack of hitpoints on the ogre.  What a difference!  Usually I have a single mage draw his agro while my other two party members attack the hurlocks.  Generally all the hurlocks are dead well before I kill the ogre.  Not this time.  I actually had to stop attacking the ogre right at the start of the fight because he was being killed far too quickly.  The next boss I ran into was freidrich.   This guy in the past has always been a bit of a pain to kill.  He does seroius damage and always knocks my party members for six.  Not anymore!  He is like a cute kitten trying to attack a ball of string.  I'm not sure if I like the HP reduction on these elite/boss characters.  I think ithey've been nerfed a bit too hard in the HP department.  I really hope they get harder as the game progresses.

Mage completed the prologue the easiest followed closely by the warrior class, then rogue.  Nothing has really changed here.  Mage has always been strongest out of the gates.

The reduction in secondary armor requirements is nice.  It opens the
door to a broad range of build types.  I think AFK's critical mage is a
viable option now.

Next thing I decided to test was varric's upgraded brand.  I have to say, +25% critical chance is real ass kicker especially when paired with upgraded heroic aura.  The bone pit lesser dragons and the boss dragon battles were over before they had really begun.  The boss dragon was easily a sub 30 second fight.

I cleared the wounded coast without much difficulty.  The Saerebas seemed to react quicker than usual although  I'm probably imaging it.  I found it hard to lock him down at first.  The Lieutenant got absolutely demolished by brand.  The hitpoint caps on these guys isn't even noticeable at this point in time.

The first major battle I tested was tranquility.  I recorded several sub 20 second speed runs.  This battle is now a cake walk.  The Lieutenant and in particular the assassin are completely destroyed by the changes to fireball/firestorm.  Firstorm and fireball both easily destealth the assassin.  He doesn't even have a chance to move.

I will add more thoughts later when i've experienced more of the game.

Modifié par Jack-Nader, 03 juin 2011 - 05:04 .

[BY-TOR STORMDRAGON]

I never needed either Patch (X-Box) as both severly screwed up the game that mysteriously has run flawlessly for 4 playthroughs. So I downloaded them to try on a 2nd chapter save, and the enemies are lighting up like a x-mas tree (instead of red dots) and the speed is significantly reduced, although damage from my hig-level character still slaughters everything in sight. I also noticed, my mage and other friend "tactics" rarely fired, whily typically defensive tactics remained on in danger areas. No longer the case.
So...screw that...I hope it helped the game for everyone else. Just one Q? Who Beta-tested this nightmare? Will new manufactured game disks have these 'repairs'?

Have fun...DLC I await!!!

Modifié par BY-TOR STORMDRAGON, 03 juin 2011 - 05:21 .

[mr_afk]

Yeah, I'm trying out a DW and the shadow spec makes it so overpowered from the very beginning.
I mean, 126% crit dmg on a pure dex rogue is ridiculous - and that easily goes up to 176% via stealth/decoy.

Knockbacks aren't an issue either which helps.

Anyway, my crit-mage build was pretty viable from before- the only armour worth equipping was the stalker's boar hide which had such low requirements that my mage met them simply by +attribute items.

I'm thinking that this patch made the game less balanced and easier than anything. oh well, at least I get to see big numbers

[Jack-Nader]

The boar hides costs less than 3 attribute points to equip now with prebuff.

Modifié par Jack-Nader, 03 juin 2011 - 06:00 .

[Darqion]

I only played the prologue with a 2 hander warrior but yeah what a difference. The ogre fell like it was nothing. i think it was only 2 cooldowns before everything was dead, and i didnt even need to dodge any of his attacks because he was dead before it became a problem..

Freidrich was also not that hard anymore. Still sucks that bethany is still stuck being totally useless with her fire staff, but overall the fight was quite easy this time around.

Not sure i like these changes much. Once i dip into CCC levels i can see how much i am bothered by the damage cap on the bossy guys, but i already know thats a change i am not going to like, even if the fights are still a breeze. I`m just a sucker for big numbers

[Jack-Nader]

Here is an update guys. I am now playing through act I as a rogue. I decided to take the shadow class at level 7 instead of the usual assassin class. The +50% passive is amazing. The next thing I tested was lacerate. I am not sure if this ability is bugged but often I am witnessing it dump all its damage instantly instead of over 5 seconds. This maybe because I am instantly killing everything with twin fangs. I tested also twin fangs against the talvashoth commander and to my amazement I took 80% of his health off. Then I realised that ALL attacks (twin fangs, assassinate, vendetta, explosive strike count as two attacks.) This means that the dreaded 40% cap is a complete NON ISSUE.

[mr_afk]

Wait till you get the +50% from obscure. Obscure is ridiculously easy to get as well.

[Darqion]

I`m gonna finish prologue with mage and rogue now too so i can get a feel for the change on this lvl. So far i dont think anyone experienced nightmare getting any harder

[mokponobi]

Have to agree with Jack-Nader, NM seems a lot easier to me as well playing as a mage, I mean if I drop a firestorm every enemy is dead including lieutenants (take that 40% cap), and I can drop 3 firestorms with my all range party...I feel like I'm cheating.

[Darqion]

Firestorm was always strong though.. not sure how they changed that, but a buff would be kinda overkill.

I finished the pre with all classes now and the mage was by far the easiest. The Freidrich fight with the mage was kind of a laugh.. could keep most of them locked down a bit, and when you are the mage you find a cold staff so you can actually do auto attack damage

[DA Trap Star]

So NM is easier now with Patch 3, thats very dissapointing to hear.
I thought they said they were trying to make NM mode harder not easier.

I felt nightmare mode was too easy in the last patch, especially if you use elemental weapons.

[Jack-Nader]

NM isn't just easier. It is an absolute pushover.

[Huntress]

Played with 2h warrior and I have found out few of the mobs are very low health points but they just don't die! gosh.. I keep everyone hitting on them but it takes like 10 seconds before they die.

I am not saying is the patch, but this never happen to me before, I always play as mage or Rogue, is probably my noob arse with warriors, arg I dont like 2h warriors..

[rumination888]

Jack-Nader wrote...

Here is an update guys. I am now playing through act I as a rogue. I decided to take the shadow class at level 7 instead of the usual assassin class. The +50% passive is amazing. The next thing I tested was lacerate. I am not sure if this ability is bugged but often I am witnessing it dump all its damage instantly instead of over 5 seconds. This maybe because I am instantly killing everything with twin fangs. I tested also twin fangs against the talvashoth commander and to my amazement I took 80% of his health off. Then I realised that ALL attacks (twin fangs, assassinate, vendetta, explosive strike count as two attacks.) This means that the dreaded 40% cap is a complete NON ISSUE.

Lacerate comes in two ticks. The first tick is instant, the second comes in after a few seconds. The upgraded version does 1.35x your damage, so each tick does 0.67x damage.

[Banky77]

Jack-Nader wrote...

Then I realised that ALL attacks (twin fangs, assassinate, vendetta, explosive strike count as two attacks.) This means that the dreaded 40% cap is a complete NON ISSUE.

Absolutely. If you hit the staggered Rock Wraith with Assassinate and Twin Fangs while he's resting, you'll skip the entire second phase. Which was actually the hardest of all four. It's a 3-4 minute fight now on Nightmare, even with a non optimized party. Probably even faster if it was possible to kill him in 40 seconds before the patch ;-)
It's still fun though.

Modifié par Banky77, 03 juin 2011 - 03:33 .

[Luke Barrett]

The patch greatly changed the scaling of hp/force in enemies as they level so it's definitely going to seem a lot easier at the start - this is to give you a chance to acclimatize yourself to the game; since you're all experts already this makes it seem almost trivial.

Now, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any points made, just saying that you need to get a bit further in to the game before you can make any definitive statement with the new system.

[Gloatie]

Banky77 wrote...

Jack-Nader wrote...

Then I realised that ALL attacks (twin fangs, assassinate, vendetta, explosive strike count as two attacks.) This means that the dreaded 40% cap is a complete NON ISSUE.

Absolutely. If you hit the staggered Rock Wraith with Assassinate and Twin Fangs while he's resting, you'll skip the entire second phase. Which was actually the hardest of all four. It's a 3-4 minute fight now on Nightmare, even with a non optimized party. Probably even faster if it was possible to kill him in 40 seconds before the patch ;-)
It's still fun though.

This is really good to hear.  All the other issues aside, the thing that stuck out to me the most was the interminable boss fights.  I think they are well designed, really. That is quite a thing to say, since it is very rare.  But there was no point in dragging them out once the party got it's act together.

[Mr_Raider]

Luke Barrett wrote...

The patch greatly changed the scaling of hp/force in enemies as they level so it's definitely going to seem a lot easier at the start - this is to give you a chance to acclimatize yourself to the game; since you're all experts already this makes it seem almost trivial.

Now, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any points made, just saying that you need to get a bit further in to the game before you can make any definitive statement with the new system.

Indeed. The small fry get stronger as the game progresses. The Nexus golem merchant fight gave me no end of grief. Until now the strategy was simple, beat down the boss then clean up the mob later, if they didn't already die from collateral damage. Now you need to prioritized who to kill first, and it's not always the boss. It's closer to DAO which was the total opposite, kill the mooks and save the boss for last.

[AreleX]

Banky77 wrote...

Absolutely. If you hit the staggered Rock Wraith with Assassinate and Twin Fangs while he's resting, you'll skip the entire second phase. Which was actually the hardest of all four. It's a 3-4 minute fight now on Nightmare, even with a non optimized party. Probably even faster if it was possible to kill him in 40 seconds before the patch ;-)
It's still fun though.

A big reason why I got 40 seconds is because of Cleave and Sacrificial Frenzy, which have both been nerfed pretty damn hard with the patch. However, having dual Haste actually running the entire duration for all party members should probably offset it.

I think I have a save there, I'll investigate after I very possibly whine about how 2H Warriors were nerfed into obscurity.

[Apathy1989]

To be honest I was rather pissed off by the patch so far, but I've only loaded into my archer Assassin/Shadow.

Usually I can alpha strike pretty much anything with assassinate, but this damage cap at 40% means my role is practically useless. DW I've read are 2 strikes, so they can get 80% damage alpha, but for archers this is a massive penalty.

Merrill is no longer awesome essential member, since CCC has been reduced, blood magic takes 70% mana reserve (so no longer can run elemental weapons as well as other essentials), and rings no longer give major mana-hp conversion benefits.


I think I will just delete that runthrough and start again as a warrior. Archery assassins definetly got screwed.

[AreleX]

omfg i think <20s arw might be possible now

[thendcomes]

Jack-Nader wrote...
 I tested also twin fangs against the talvashoth commander and to my amazement I took 80% of his health off. Then I realised that ALL attacks (twin fangs, assassinate, vendetta, explosive strike count as two attacks.) This means that the dreaded 40% cap is a complete NON ISSUE.

Let me get this straight.  ALL specials by DW rogues, and only DW rogues, are counted as 2 hits and thus have a cap that is twice as high as Mages, Warriors, and archer Rogues.  

This DOES NOT include Lacerate? (which also bypasses the cap, and is only available to a DW rogue)

[AreleX]

muahahaha, going to record now

also yes, each weapon is counted as a separate source of damage. where something like archer's assassinate gets eaten by the cap (since it's one hit), dw rogues can bypass this, since their daggers are hitting independently

[thendcomes]

Well, unless the battles are over so fast anyway that it doesn't matter, the patch has enforced a cap that technically only affects Warriors, Mages, and Archers. Lacerate by itself was enough to bypass the cap and do 94% damage from one strike. Now even without Lacerate, a single strike can do 80%. With Lacerate, you theoretically could do 188% damage if the Lacerate procs per weapon lol.  Talk about overkill.

I wonder if that was intended......

Modifié par thendcomes, 03 juin 2011 - 09:13 .

[SpockLives]

Since this thread is labeled "Patch Thoughts," I'll share mine. I guess at this point I am one of those players you experts would call "casual." Pre-patch, I was struggling with turning the difficulty up from normal to hard. Keep in mind that it isn't simply because I suck at gaming. I've beaten ME1 & 2 and DA:O multiple times on the hardest setting. But DA2 always bothered me because combat seemed unbalanced, and the start of combat too frenetic. Certain encounters always seemed to go very wrong, very fast, and for no apparent reason I could see.

Now with patch 1.03, I feel like the combat has in-fact been balanced. I find certain encounters are simply a good challenge rather than being so difficult and frustrating I wanted to beat my head against the desk. Granted, some of that is because I have a better understanding of the game from reading the excellent guides by people like Suicidalbaby and AreleX. Overall, I think the patch makes the game much better for those of us who aren't in the top 0.001% of DA2 gamers like the guide-makers.  BTW, keep up the excellent work, guide-makers!

Modifié par SpockLives, 03 juin 2011 - 09:50 .