battle tempo
Optimised party for DA2 in nightmare++ difficulty
Débuté par
Sylaar
, juin 10 2011 10:59
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#27
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 05:47
SuicidalBaby
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I was curious about what other parties could be played as a mostly healer anders in the back of the room (i.e not doing much) while the rest of the party does the heavy duty. When actual combat action was needed from Anders, I switched to the most passive companion.
If Anders isnt doing much besides healing, you have a poorly built Anders.
If Anders isnt doing much besides healing, you have a poorly built Anders.
#28
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 06:14
mosesofwar
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AreleX wrote...
battle tempo
Doesn't Battle Tempo = Fervor?
#30
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 06:29
mosesofwar
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YaI guess that would be the Berserker passive. But he seems to have more Templar and Reaver abilities with his resists and spirit pulse.
#31
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 07:32
rumination888
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Sylar:
You're comparing how you built your Fenris with how you built your Aveline. You can't compare characters that way.
The base difference in crit is 30%. No difference in critical damage. The use of Assault, Scatter, and Shield Bash >>> 30% crit. Battle Fervor isn't enough to catch up to SnS's superior base attack speed(not to mention it doesn't kick in until Fenris himself kills a mob). Can the 2H active skills and Veneer of Calm make up the difference? Hard to answer, but I do know Fenris needs more skill points to reach the same power as Aveline.
....nevermind the fact that you build your Fenris as a cunning based warrior, and not as a DPS warrior. Which means, even without half of Aveline's abilities, having her go full strength will completely trump Fenris in damage.(and she still tanks just as well due to the huge armor rating on shields)
And the AI not making closing attacks isn't an opinion. They really don't make closing attacks.
In a game where waves of enemies are the norm, being able to move from enemy to enemy in a flash is a very important tool. (this is off topic, but i get the feeling its also a very underrated, under utilized tool, judging by the amount of people bothered by the waves of enemies)
You're comparing how you built your Fenris with how you built your Aveline. You can't compare characters that way.
The base difference in crit is 30%. No difference in critical damage. The use of Assault, Scatter, and Shield Bash >>> 30% crit. Battle Fervor isn't enough to catch up to SnS's superior base attack speed(not to mention it doesn't kick in until Fenris himself kills a mob). Can the 2H active skills and Veneer of Calm make up the difference? Hard to answer, but I do know Fenris needs more skill points to reach the same power as Aveline.
....nevermind the fact that you build your Fenris as a cunning based warrior, and not as a DPS warrior. Which means, even without half of Aveline's abilities, having her go full strength will completely trump Fenris in damage.(and she still tanks just as well due to the huge armor rating on shields)
And the AI not making closing attacks isn't an opinion. They really don't make closing attacks.
In a game where waves of enemies are the norm, being able to move from enemy to enemy in a flash is a very important tool. (this is off topic, but i get the feeling its also a very underrated, under utilized tool, judging by the amount of people bothered by the waves of enemies)
#32
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 07:56
andraip
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@sylaar
First of all, having 50% crit chance on Fenris is pretty bad, I pass that mark with him long before heading to the Deep Roads, and that of course without Control. Do you have the Item DLC?
With patch 1.03 Sunder got a pretty nerf, now it only has a 20% chance to stagger instead of 50% against normal enemies.
On the other side the patch removed friendly fire from basic attacks, so Sunder won't stagger you companions anymore.
BTW, it's not Inner Reserves that make the Berserker awesome.
And last, there are builds who all enemies are already dead when your Fenris is still waiting to get surrounded by enemies.
P.S. I stopped taking you serious after reading this.
First of all, having 50% crit chance on Fenris is pretty bad, I pass that mark with him long before heading to the Deep Roads, and that of course without Control. Do you have the Item DLC?
With patch 1.03 Sunder got a pretty nerf, now it only has a 20% chance to stagger instead of 50% against normal enemies.
On the other side the patch removed friendly fire from basic attacks, so Sunder won't stagger you companions anymore.
BTW, it's not Inner Reserves that make the Berserker awesome.
And last, there are builds who all enemies are already dead when your Fenris is still waiting to get surrounded by enemies.
P.S. I stopped taking you serious after reading this.
I was curious about what other parties could be played a mostly healer anders in the back of the room (i.e not doing much) while the rest of the party does the heavy duty.
#33
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 07:58
AreleX
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sunder is now bugged and subtracts from your crit-chance thumbs-up glitch style
Modifié par AreleX, 12 juin 2011 - 07:59 .
#34
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 08:03
mr_afk
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I thought it only subtracted 10% once?
I remember reading a summary from luke which said something about how the new mechanics resets your thing each time (allowing retroactive fixes for isabela bugs etc) and somehow removing the 10% passive from sunder..
If I remember correctly, when you first get it you get the 10% crit chance properly but after you reload it drops to zero. If you use a maker's sigh it goes down to -10% but after reloading it resets back to zero.
So if you just consider the sunder ability to not include a bonus to crit chance I think that's whats happening. I can't be bothered finding that post though so I suppose I could be wrong.
oh and sylaar. I would recommend maybe checking out some of the companion guides out there to get a general impression of what the standard 'optimised' practices are. Basically anders has the potential to be one of your highest damage dealing companions so leaving him in a healer/buffer role is....wasteful.
I remember reading a summary from luke which said something about how the new mechanics resets your thing each time (allowing retroactive fixes for isabela bugs etc) and somehow removing the 10% passive from sunder..
If I remember correctly, when you first get it you get the 10% crit chance properly but after you reload it drops to zero. If you use a maker's sigh it goes down to -10% but after reloading it resets back to zero.
So if you just consider the sunder ability to not include a bonus to crit chance I think that's whats happening. I can't be bothered finding that post though so I suppose I could be wrong.
oh and sylaar. I would recommend maybe checking out some of the companion guides out there to get a general impression of what the standard 'optimised' practices are. Basically anders has the potential to be one of your highest damage dealing companions so leaving him in a healer/buffer role is....wasteful.
Modifié par mr_afk, 12 juin 2011 - 08:10 .
#35
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 09:17
andraip
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Dude, this is definetly not thumbs-up style, it's thumbs-down style.AreleX wrote...
sunder is now bugged and subtracts from your crit-chance thumbs-up glitch style
I just can't get rid of that picture:
jkEA: Why do you fixed all those bugs with patch 1.02? We never gonna ruin the franchise that way!
BioWare: Stop worrying, we really worked hard to add some new ones with 1.03, that's why we took so long btw.
EDIT: to stay on topic.
Hint: Ignore tha Panacea part of Anders personal tree, go for the Vengeance part instead. Martyr = less cooldown + more mana = more spells to cast = more kills = more hp to fuel martyr.
Modifié par andraip, 12 juin 2011 - 09:28 .
#36
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 09:27
Sylaar
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Suicidal baby wrote:
If Anders isnt doing much besides healing, you have a poorly built Anders.
I was not emphasizing Anders lack of usefuleness, just making a point about an alternative playstyle which consist of chosing to control the less "active" companion to see how the tactics do on their own.
My Anders was not really idle, switching between Justice mostly for Chain reaction, Tempest and Dessicate (and standard healing), and Panacea when needed, which was usually quite late in the battle. When in Justice and on cooldown, instead of a basic attack he was using Martyr for which my controlling him added little value.
mosesofwar wrote:
YaI guess that would be the Berserker passive. But he seems to have more Templar and Reaver abilities with his resists and spirit pulse.
That's true but I didn't use the spirit pulse because of the FF.
You're right that he has not so much of a berseker in terms of talents;
My point was that its fighting style emphasizes speed (via battle tempo) and increasing damage (via Cleave) while using standard attack, which is probably a good overall description of the Berseker specialisation: a DPS boost via the D and the S instead of emphasizing direct damage dealing talents.
rumination 88 wrote:
The base difference in crit is 30%. No difference in critical damage. The use of Assault, Scatter, and Shield Bash >>> 30% crit. Battle Fervor isn't enough to catch up to SnS's superior base attack speed(not to mention it doesn't kick in until Fenris himself kills a mob). Can the 2H active skills and Veneer of Calm make up the difference? Hard to answer, but I do know Fenris needs more skill points to reach the same power as Aveline.
My point about the critical damage was that Fenris is the only warrior in the party, including hawke, to get a +20% critical chance from a sustainable or passive, including warrior hawke. If we compare Fenris and Aveline on basic attacks, SnS frequency is indeed higher than 2H, but the wider arc of 2H (1/3 instead of 1/4) would need a frequency 1/3 higher for SnS to compensate.. Let's say Aveline dishes damage to two enemies simultanously , Fenris would be able to dish damage to yet a third one..
So for the sake of comparaison let's put aside 2H / SnS;
The other factors of comparaison are the personal specialisation and the specific armor.
About the armor it seems that Fenris has 3 rune slots and Aveline 1 which could probably make up for a difference in armor if it was not for the shield that adds extra armor to Aveline. Both can equip the rune of valiance and both have an atack bonus.
About the personnal specialisation it looks like Fenris has the best offensive tree unless someone here maintains that Immovable and retaliation are great.
rumination 88 wrote:
...nevermind the fact that you build your Fenris as a cunning based warrior, and not as a DPS warrior. Which means, even without half of Aveline's abilities, having her go full strength will completely trump Fenris in damage.(and she still tanks just as well due to the huge armor rating on shields)
Now let's finish the comparaison by factoring in the attribute points distribution;
If we compare a pure strength allocation I don't see how Aveline could have a higher damage output for an offensive build.
If we allocate a few points to constitution for Aveline, and the same to cuning for Fenris, the latter will have a higher damage output because of the extra critical damage.
By the way sorry for the disgression but I've not seen it written anywhere but the real DPS calculation should factor in the average critical damage: real average DPS = DPS * (1+critical chance*critical damage) (and the damage increase factor from critical works for offensive abilities that don't automatically land a critical like Vendetta for instance)
An example: Fenris can get 50% critical chance without increasing dexterity, and with Muscle gets at least 75% critical damage which increase the damage output by close to 40% (this is comparable to the damage boost you get by equiping the Primeval rune on the Cerebrant which adds 40% speed)
We could call that an Average DPS, or ADPS (It's exactly an average in the statistical sense); The same way DPS is necessary to compare weapons with different speeds (for which damage only is insufficient), ADPS is necessary to compare weapons/ builds with different critical chance / damage.
The rogue DPS is higher than a warrior (with a comparable level / build) but the rogue ADPS is even higher for instance.
Anyone here nerdy enough to corroborate / refute this formula?
If Anders isnt doing much besides healing, you have a poorly built Anders.
I was not emphasizing Anders lack of usefuleness, just making a point about an alternative playstyle which consist of chosing to control the less "active" companion to see how the tactics do on their own.
My Anders was not really idle, switching between Justice mostly for Chain reaction, Tempest and Dessicate (and standard healing), and Panacea when needed, which was usually quite late in the battle. When in Justice and on cooldown, instead of a basic attack he was using Martyr for which my controlling him added little value.
mosesofwar wrote:
YaI guess that would be the Berserker passive. But he seems to have more Templar and Reaver abilities with his resists and spirit pulse.
That's true but I didn't use the spirit pulse because of the FF.
You're right that he has not so much of a berseker in terms of talents;
My point was that its fighting style emphasizes speed (via battle tempo) and increasing damage (via Cleave) while using standard attack, which is probably a good overall description of the Berseker specialisation: a DPS boost via the D and the S instead of emphasizing direct damage dealing talents.
rumination 88 wrote:
The base difference in crit is 30%. No difference in critical damage. The use of Assault, Scatter, and Shield Bash >>> 30% crit. Battle Fervor isn't enough to catch up to SnS's superior base attack speed(not to mention it doesn't kick in until Fenris himself kills a mob). Can the 2H active skills and Veneer of Calm make up the difference? Hard to answer, but I do know Fenris needs more skill points to reach the same power as Aveline.
My point about the critical damage was that Fenris is the only warrior in the party, including hawke, to get a +20% critical chance from a sustainable or passive, including warrior hawke. If we compare Fenris and Aveline on basic attacks, SnS frequency is indeed higher than 2H, but the wider arc of 2H (1/3 instead of 1/4) would need a frequency 1/3 higher for SnS to compensate.. Let's say Aveline dishes damage to two enemies simultanously , Fenris would be able to dish damage to yet a third one..
So for the sake of comparaison let's put aside 2H / SnS;
The other factors of comparaison are the personal specialisation and the specific armor.
About the armor it seems that Fenris has 3 rune slots and Aveline 1 which could probably make up for a difference in armor if it was not for the shield that adds extra armor to Aveline. Both can equip the rune of valiance and both have an atack bonus.
About the personnal specialisation it looks like Fenris has the best offensive tree unless someone here maintains that Immovable and retaliation are great.
rumination 88 wrote:
...nevermind the fact that you build your Fenris as a cunning based warrior, and not as a DPS warrior. Which means, even without half of Aveline's abilities, having her go full strength will completely trump Fenris in damage.(and she still tanks just as well due to the huge armor rating on shields)
Now let's finish the comparaison by factoring in the attribute points distribution;
If we compare a pure strength allocation I don't see how Aveline could have a higher damage output for an offensive build.
If we allocate a few points to constitution for Aveline, and the same to cuning for Fenris, the latter will have a higher damage output because of the extra critical damage.
By the way sorry for the disgression but I've not seen it written anywhere but the real DPS calculation should factor in the average critical damage: real average DPS = DPS * (1+critical chance*critical damage) (and the damage increase factor from critical works for offensive abilities that don't automatically land a critical like Vendetta for instance)
An example: Fenris can get 50% critical chance without increasing dexterity, and with Muscle gets at least 75% critical damage which increase the damage output by close to 40% (this is comparable to the damage boost you get by equiping the Primeval rune on the Cerebrant which adds 40% speed)
We could call that an Average DPS, or ADPS (It's exactly an average in the statistical sense); The same way DPS is necessary to compare weapons with different speeds (for which damage only is insufficient), ADPS is necessary to compare weapons/ builds with different critical chance / damage.
The rogue DPS is higher than a warrior (with a comparable level / build) but the rogue ADPS is even higher for instance.
Anyone here nerdy enough to corroborate / refute this formula?
#37
Posté 12 juin 2011 - 09:58
andraip
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@ sylaar
I think anyone who posted in this thread knows what ADPS is...
FYI, think on a shield that gives you +100% damage against enemies attacking in melee...
I think anyone who posted in this thread knows what ADPS is...
Who said that you should spend some points into CON for Aveline??? FYI, 2 points into STR will always be better then 2 points into CUN. At least in a reallistic build. Again + damage > + survivability. The faster you kill something the less damage it will infict on you, AND the higher your damage the higher the chance that you will inflict a knockback effect on your opponent and so reducing his damage output. Less damage received = less survivability needed.If we compare a pure strength allocation I don't see how Aveline could have a higher damage output for an offensive build.
If we allocate a few points to constitution for Aveline, and the same to cuning for Fenris, the latter will have a higher damage output because of the extra critical damage.
FYI, think on a shield that gives you +100% damage against enemies attacking in melee...
Modifié par andraip, 12 juin 2011 - 10:00 .
#38
Posté 13 juin 2011 - 01:18
SuicidalBaby
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Remove "Optimised" from the topic title and you have yourself a true statement, otherwise you're wrong. The numbers dont work out in realtime or with the current bugs.
If you care to prove us wrong, do a set of speed videos displaying your "Optimized" group. If you can't produce comparible times, this coversation is over and the title would need to be modified to reflect what most of us believe this thread to be.
If you care to prove us wrong, do a set of speed videos displaying your "Optimized" group. If you can't produce comparible times, this coversation is over and the title would need to be modified to reflect what most of us believe this thread to be.
Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 13 juin 2011 - 01:20 .
#39
Posté 13 juin 2011 - 08:05
tivadar27
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Fenris... Cunning... Huh? Every time I've tried to play with Fenris, he's gone and made my life miserable by being a horrible tank, and a pretty much subpar damage dealer. I've had luck with essentially three class combos (based on what class I want to try out):
Rogue (Archer) Hawke, Varric, Anders, Aveline
Warrior (S+S) Hawke, Varric, Anders, Bethany
Mage Hawke, Varric, Anders, Aveline
Notice the thing these have in common? Yep, that's Varric and Anders. By far the two best characters in the game (Varric's sustained and Anders' Martyr). After that, Aveline basically gets 25% damage resist from her personal tree by spending a grand total of 2 skill points. That leaves her a lot of room to work with in terms of what to do with her. Bethany is the other option for double haste. When she's not around though, you have to use Merril, who I've found to be a bit subpar.
TBH, I never tried the "no tank" approach, though I'd imagine it works fairly well. As for a traditional-type party, one of those three is probably the best.
Rogue (Archer) Hawke, Varric, Anders, Aveline
Warrior (S+S) Hawke, Varric, Anders, Bethany
Mage Hawke, Varric, Anders, Aveline
Notice the thing these have in common? Yep, that's Varric and Anders. By far the two best characters in the game (Varric's sustained and Anders' Martyr). After that, Aveline basically gets 25% damage resist from her personal tree by spending a grand total of 2 skill points. That leaves her a lot of room to work with in terms of what to do with her. Bethany is the other option for double haste. When she's not around though, you have to use Merril, who I've found to be a bit subpar.
TBH, I never tried the "no tank" approach, though I'd imagine it works fairly well. As for a traditional-type party, one of those three is probably the best.
#40
Posté 13 juin 2011 - 10:54
Sylaar
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I'll try to answer the posts that croped up since the last post from rumination888;
andraip: you say you can get a higher critical chance than 50% for Fenris without increasing dex; interesting, actually you confirm my point about Fenris gaining from emphasing criticals.
They probably nerfed sunder because they rightfully thought it too powerful. My comments refer to the pre-patch game mechanics (I'm not even sure I want to install this patch anymore!)
You're right about inner reserve, it's just the icing on the Berseker's cake.
You say you stopped taking me seriously after the Anders comment; I justified its context in my previous comment. I really don't think my Anders didn't pull its fair share.
Same comment for mr_afk.
Andrai, thank for you advice on Anders; that's what I did mostly but eventually you get enough point to invest in Panacea anyway. I only used it when al least two characters were under 50% health.
andraip wrote:
I think anyone who posted in this thread knows what ADPS is...
I'm not so sure about that. Everyone take the crit into account, but I doubt everyone actually does the calculation. Similarly I doubt everyone resolved the 3rd degree equation that tells you when your rogue should start to invest its attribute points in cunning instead of dexterity. Just saying.
andraip wrote:
Who said that you should spend some points into CON for Aveline??? FYI, 2 points into STR will always be better then 2 points into CUN. At least in a reallistic build. Again + damage > + survivability. The faster you kill something the less damage it will infict on you, AND the higher your damage the higher the chance that you will inflict a knockback effect on your opponent and so reducing his damage output. Less damage received = less survivability needed.
If your Aveline fights the boss, it will probably last long enough that a bit of constitution comes in handy even with her resistance boost passive.
suicidal baby wrote:
Remove "Optimised" from the topic title and you have yourself a true statement, otherwise you're wrong. The numbers dont work out in realtime or with the current bugs.
If you care to prove us wrong, do a set of speed videos displaying your "Optimized" group. If you can't produce comparible times, this coversation is over and the title would need to be modified to reflect what most of us believe this thread to be.
I agree that I could change it to "mostly melee based party" to avoid further misunderstanding.
Still I was refering to a constrained optimisation: Nightmare++ was as I explained nightmare without using consumables, active direction of a character, and I should probably add without using the "peel the onion" tactic of retreating in the next room / use of choke points (this need a bit of micromanagement).
The optimised party for theses conditions is possibly not the same that you would get for just nightmare: it emphasizes a bit of survivability and finely tuned custom tactics. But I didn't claim to have the optimised party for these constraints either; It's just that each time I changed a companion in the party (for companion quests) the quality of the party dropped drastically and I was obliged to actively control the characters.
It shows that, in a way, it was optimised in part because of the synergy (in optimisation you can find a local optimum as well..).
I 've never recorded a game video; but for instance Ser Varnell was a piece of cake; The toughest fights were for instance with a the rock wraith which favors ranged party, before my Anders had Panacea.
After the Pancea tree the cooldown for the team healing / resurecting spell is so much reduced by Martyr and Swift Justice that the party becomes simply invicible. The last fights against Orsino, Meredith and the gate guardians were a total joke.
to tivadar27:
I suggested that Fenris worked well with a bit of cunning to enphasize both defense and crit damage.
I already assessed the increase in damage due to criticals for Fenris.
About the defense: if Fenris's defense is 60% and the enemy's attack is 60% I'm not sure that the enemy can land a single hit with a basic attack. If you have Fenris attack the minions which have a low attack and mostly use basic attack, he becomes surprisingly durable even when surrounded. Fenris is IMHO a natural tank / damage dealer for the normal rank and critter enemies whereas Aveline can handle the higher ranking enemy with maybe a bit of constitution.
If you specialise the tank (one for high rank and the other for low ranking opponents), you can give them a more offensive build: more strength instead of con, more offensive talent trees like Vangard etc.
Tank is a function only; if the synergy in the party is good it doesn't mean necessarily a strongly defensive build.
When I configure a companion I try to estimate his attack / defense score against the expected rank of the enemy
My Fenris only needs 100% attack against normal and gets like 60% defense. He just needs enough constitution to survive a backstab.
The parties you suggest are based on a warrior + 3 ranged which is a bit the easy solution to avoid FF on nightmare. Still you need either a good threat management or to kill thing quickly enough that they don't get to your squeashies. I'm not sure you can accomplish that without breaking the rules I suggested for Nightmare++ (I bet for instance that you put your warrior in a choke point to protect your range which is needs a bit of micromanagement from your part.)
To be honest Varric has indeed incredible buffs in his Marksman tree and nice talents; but I find the archery tree subpar compared to the DW one and I don't find him much synergy within the party and find his fighting style a bit boring..
If he's such a badass (even whithout using the archery tree) I should probably add as a condition for Nightmare++ not to use Varric to make it extra challenging..
About Bettany and the double haste: I never tried that because I thought I read somewhere they made it unstackable in DA2 but a previous poster mentioned it.
Does it mean Mage hawke, Anders and Bettany can get a combined +150% speed? That should be corrected in the patch!!
andraip: you say you can get a higher critical chance than 50% for Fenris without increasing dex; interesting, actually you confirm my point about Fenris gaining from emphasing criticals.
They probably nerfed sunder because they rightfully thought it too powerful. My comments refer to the pre-patch game mechanics (I'm not even sure I want to install this patch anymore!)
You're right about inner reserve, it's just the icing on the Berseker's cake.
You say you stopped taking me seriously after the Anders comment; I justified its context in my previous comment. I really don't think my Anders didn't pull its fair share.
Same comment for mr_afk.
Andrai, thank for you advice on Anders; that's what I did mostly but eventually you get enough point to invest in Panacea anyway. I only used it when al least two characters were under 50% health.
andraip wrote:
I think anyone who posted in this thread knows what ADPS is...
I'm not so sure about that. Everyone take the crit into account, but I doubt everyone actually does the calculation. Similarly I doubt everyone resolved the 3rd degree equation that tells you when your rogue should start to invest its attribute points in cunning instead of dexterity. Just saying.
andraip wrote:
Who said that you should spend some points into CON for Aveline??? FYI, 2 points into STR will always be better then 2 points into CUN. At least in a reallistic build. Again + damage > + survivability. The faster you kill something the less damage it will infict on you, AND the higher your damage the higher the chance that you will inflict a knockback effect on your opponent and so reducing his damage output. Less damage received = less survivability needed.
If your Aveline fights the boss, it will probably last long enough that a bit of constitution comes in handy even with her resistance boost passive.
suicidal baby wrote:
Remove "Optimised" from the topic title and you have yourself a true statement, otherwise you're wrong. The numbers dont work out in realtime or with the current bugs.
If you care to prove us wrong, do a set of speed videos displaying your "Optimized" group. If you can't produce comparible times, this coversation is over and the title would need to be modified to reflect what most of us believe this thread to be.
I agree that I could change it to "mostly melee based party" to avoid further misunderstanding.
Still I was refering to a constrained optimisation: Nightmare++ was as I explained nightmare without using consumables, active direction of a character, and I should probably add without using the "peel the onion" tactic of retreating in the next room / use of choke points (this need a bit of micromanagement).
The optimised party for theses conditions is possibly not the same that you would get for just nightmare: it emphasizes a bit of survivability and finely tuned custom tactics. But I didn't claim to have the optimised party for these constraints either; It's just that each time I changed a companion in the party (for companion quests) the quality of the party dropped drastically and I was obliged to actively control the characters.
It shows that, in a way, it was optimised in part because of the synergy (in optimisation you can find a local optimum as well..).
I 've never recorded a game video; but for instance Ser Varnell was a piece of cake; The toughest fights were for instance with a the rock wraith which favors ranged party, before my Anders had Panacea.
After the Pancea tree the cooldown for the team healing / resurecting spell is so much reduced by Martyr and Swift Justice that the party becomes simply invicible. The last fights against Orsino, Meredith and the gate guardians were a total joke.
to tivadar27:
I suggested that Fenris worked well with a bit of cunning to enphasize both defense and crit damage.
I already assessed the increase in damage due to criticals for Fenris.
About the defense: if Fenris's defense is 60% and the enemy's attack is 60% I'm not sure that the enemy can land a single hit with a basic attack. If you have Fenris attack the minions which have a low attack and mostly use basic attack, he becomes surprisingly durable even when surrounded. Fenris is IMHO a natural tank / damage dealer for the normal rank and critter enemies whereas Aveline can handle the higher ranking enemy with maybe a bit of constitution.
If you specialise the tank (one for high rank and the other for low ranking opponents), you can give them a more offensive build: more strength instead of con, more offensive talent trees like Vangard etc.
Tank is a function only; if the synergy in the party is good it doesn't mean necessarily a strongly defensive build.
When I configure a companion I try to estimate his attack / defense score against the expected rank of the enemy
My Fenris only needs 100% attack against normal and gets like 60% defense. He just needs enough constitution to survive a backstab.
The parties you suggest are based on a warrior + 3 ranged which is a bit the easy solution to avoid FF on nightmare. Still you need either a good threat management or to kill thing quickly enough that they don't get to your squeashies. I'm not sure you can accomplish that without breaking the rules I suggested for Nightmare++ (I bet for instance that you put your warrior in a choke point to protect your range which is needs a bit of micromanagement from your part.)
To be honest Varric has indeed incredible buffs in his Marksman tree and nice talents; but I find the archery tree subpar compared to the DW one and I don't find him much synergy within the party and find his fighting style a bit boring..
If he's such a badass (even whithout using the archery tree) I should probably add as a condition for Nightmare++ not to use Varric to make it extra challenging..
About Bettany and the double haste: I never tried that because I thought I read somewhere they made it unstackable in DA2 but a previous poster mentioned it.
Does it mean Mage hawke, Anders and Bettany can get a combined +150% speed? That should be corrected in the patch!!
#41
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 12:05
mr_afk
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Triple haste is impossible because bethany has a little case of dying and carver is useless.
Mage hawke does have an advantage in that you can maintain double haste throughout the game instead of act1 and end of act3.
In terms of calculations...you do realise this is the nerd corner right? haha I think you're underestimating the level we go to while min-maxing. As for your question about rogues, it's simply a matter of pumping dex until your crit chance (including equipment, sustains and passives) gets to ~80-90+% in which case for an assassin it becomes better off to pump cunning. For a non-assassin pump dex until it reaches the cap then move to cunning.
I think the main thing you're missing atm is the whole element of 'if you kill things faster you don't get as injured yourself'. Look at any of the speed runs and you'll see that there hardly is any micromanagement/potions use. Once you've optimised your party for damage having a tank isn't even necessary. The basis for warrior+3 ranged is simply to control threat with your hawke by running around attacking any enemy that gets near your more fragile companions. But think on this, there are plenty of success stories for all-ranged parties (e.g. 3mages+Varric) which obviously don't have a tank.
I think the main problem that most of us have with your setup is that it's so inefficient/unnecessary. DA2 really isn't that complicated. Stack on more damage and you'll need less survivability. Admittedly using three melee companions can make things harder but the principle remains the same. Having a tank or two types of tanks is just weird. You also have to realise that most of us find nightmare too easy hence the resorting to speed runs of 'hard' fights/solo runs etc to keep us entertained, so until you show us a demonstration of just how easy this makes things (record a vid!) we'll probably remain thinking that this isn't the optimised party you seem to think it is.
Mage hawke does have an advantage in that you can maintain double haste throughout the game instead of act1 and end of act3.
In terms of calculations...you do realise this is the nerd corner right? haha I think you're underestimating the level we go to while min-maxing. As for your question about rogues, it's simply a matter of pumping dex until your crit chance (including equipment, sustains and passives) gets to ~80-90+% in which case for an assassin it becomes better off to pump cunning. For a non-assassin pump dex until it reaches the cap then move to cunning.
I think the main thing you're missing atm is the whole element of 'if you kill things faster you don't get as injured yourself'. Look at any of the speed runs and you'll see that there hardly is any micromanagement/potions use. Once you've optimised your party for damage having a tank isn't even necessary. The basis for warrior+3 ranged is simply to control threat with your hawke by running around attacking any enemy that gets near your more fragile companions. But think on this, there are plenty of success stories for all-ranged parties (e.g. 3mages+Varric) which obviously don't have a tank.
I think the main problem that most of us have with your setup is that it's so inefficient/unnecessary. DA2 really isn't that complicated. Stack on more damage and you'll need less survivability. Admittedly using three melee companions can make things harder but the principle remains the same. Having a tank or two types of tanks is just weird. You also have to realise that most of us find nightmare too easy hence the resorting to speed runs of 'hard' fights/solo runs etc to keep us entertained, so until you show us a demonstration of just how easy this makes things (record a vid!) we'll probably remain thinking that this isn't the optimised party you seem to think it is.
Modifié par mr_afk, 14 juin 2011 - 12:07 .
#42
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 01:37
andraip
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@mr_afk
I strongly disagree with you about this
I strongly disagree with you about this
Considering that you will have the Shadow spec, and thus basicly +100 crit damage you only need to go into cunning when you hit the 100% mark, even for an assassin with devious harm, or did you meant to stay ay 80-90+% to fill up the rest with Unforgiving Chain? If yes this wouldn't be viable for Archers.As for your question about rogues, it's simply a matter of pumping dex until your crit chance (including equipment, sustains and passives) gets to ~80-90+% in which case for an assassin it becomes better off to pump cunning. For a non-assassin pump dex until it reaches the cap then move to cunning.
Modifié par andraip, 14 juin 2011 - 01:38 .
#43
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 02:57
rumination888
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/sigh
You want me to ignore SnS/2H when comparing Aveline and Fenris?
Thats like someone ignoring Rogue Hawke's skills and then making the following statement, "Varric does more damage than Rogue Hawke."
Ridiculous.
And there's no need calculate average DPS to determine whether or not cunning is better than strength.
All you need to know is that 1 point in your damage attribute adds 0.5 base damage.
1 point in cunning adds 1% critical damage.
Generally speaking, your base damage must be at 50, and your critical chance must to be at 100%(or a combination inbetween) for cunning to be on par with your damage attribute.
So, if your Fenris has 50% critical chance, then you need around 100 base damage for cunning to be better than strength. Tell me: Does your Fenris have 100 base damage?
You want me to ignore SnS/2H when comparing Aveline and Fenris?
Thats like someone ignoring Rogue Hawke's skills and then making the following statement, "Varric does more damage than Rogue Hawke."
Ridiculous.
And there's no need calculate average DPS to determine whether or not cunning is better than strength.
All you need to know is that 1 point in your damage attribute adds 0.5 base damage.
1 point in cunning adds 1% critical damage.
Generally speaking, your base damage must be at 50, and your critical chance must to be at 100%(or a combination inbetween) for cunning to be on par with your damage attribute.
So, if your Fenris has 50% critical chance, then you need around 100 base damage for cunning to be better than strength. Tell me: Does your Fenris have 100 base damage?
Modifié par rumination888, 14 juin 2011 - 02:57 .
#44
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 05:35
mr_afk
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@andraip- yes this was solely referring to DW assassins. archer assassins should aim at 100% crit chance while non-assassins should aim at a pure-dex build.
The idea been that generally speaking your autoattack dps should be enough to kill critters/normals easily and thus talents (which reset the chain) will only be used on elites- in which case the 100%critical chance (twin fangs, explosive strike, assassinate) should be enough to finish them off. Also your chain should fill up really fast making the 10 or so hits with only 80+% crit chance a non-issue.
When you consider that 20% critical chance as been almost permanent you can thus pump less dex and focus more on cunning increasing your overall damage. I mean, this is strictly speaking looking at it in a purely calculation based way. If you used lots of talents (e.g. stealthing/flasks etc) then maybe aiming at 100% crit chance would be the better way to go. You just miss out on some extra damage.
The idea been that generally speaking your autoattack dps should be enough to kill critters/normals easily and thus talents (which reset the chain) will only be used on elites- in which case the 100%critical chance (twin fangs, explosive strike, assassinate) should be enough to finish them off. Also your chain should fill up really fast making the 10 or so hits with only 80+% crit chance a non-issue.
When you consider that 20% critical chance as been almost permanent you can thus pump less dex and focus more on cunning increasing your overall damage. I mean, this is strictly speaking looking at it in a purely calculation based way. If you used lots of talents (e.g. stealthing/flasks etc) then maybe aiming at 100% crit chance would be the better way to go. You just miss out on some extra damage.
#45
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 09:17
foogoo
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Yeah this is my best party as well and my hawke was a dual wield rogue assassin, no tanks. Well I had my mabari hound as a free tank anyway! I also used Bethany instead of Anders in beginning/end which is the same thing. In this game damage is king, I usually solved tanking problems with heal, obscure, stealth, decoy, revive, etc.AreleX wrote...
Yes. So long as you have good tactics for them, and are doing a good job yourself, you can pretty much steamroll just about any part of the game with Anders/Merrill/Varric watching your back.
#46
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 12:14
tivadar27
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rumination888 wrote...
So, if your Fenris has 50% critical chance, then you need around 100 base damage for cunning to be better than strength. Tell me: Does your Fenris have 100 base damage?
This. This is why cunning warrior (Fenris included) doesn't work. Cunning *only* works for rogues because of their high base damage. If you can somehow refute this, then feel free. Otherwise, a cunning-based Fenris is not optimal.
#47
Posté 14 juin 2011 - 09:32
Sylaar
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mr afk wrote:
The basis for warrior+3 ranged is simply to control threat with your hawke by running around attacking any enemy that gets near your more fragile companions.
my criteria for Nightmare++ was to avoid having to run around and let the tactics do it for you instead..
I'm not sure I can record a vid on my PS3; but anyway now the patched is installed and nothing is like before..
The biggest change I noticed is the nerfing of the rune of valiance who only gives a +7 instead of a +2 to all attributes. Anyone thought the rune of valiance far overpowered? And of course Fenris's staggering crits with sunder and claymore.
I agree with andraip about reaching 100% critical before adding to cunning. It may not be optimal in terms of damage but I like not having to do pinpoint strike before a vendetta to be sure it lands a critical. Beside andraip is right about the crit damage at 100% which probably makes it more efficient to increase dex even beyond the 100% critical chance threshold since you still increase base damage. For an assassin it's different since cunning is doubly rewarded for critical damage (2% instead of 1% per pont of cuning with devious harm)
rumination888
In my build I don't do friendly fire so the comparaison between 2H and SnS talents will be about the passives and sustainable; In the SnS tree those are purely defensive. I got mighty blow only to get sunder but didn't use it because of the potential FF.
cuning is inferior to strengh for the warrior damage increase but I used it to make defense higher or close to a normal enemy attack score. With all the sustainables that increase defense you don't need much cuning for that. But if I listen to the choir of "damage is king in DA2" then it's ok if we all build glass canons!.. My level 23 Fenris had 74 base damage
tydvadar
I answer the Fenris / cunning remark above;
My point was that boosting defence instead of con can work if you make your fenris only tackle the lower ranking opponents, who don't use talents but basic attacks with a low attack score. But like I said, if damage is king, yay let's put everything into strength..
The basis for warrior+3 ranged is simply to control threat with your hawke by running around attacking any enemy that gets near your more fragile companions.
my criteria for Nightmare++ was to avoid having to run around and let the tactics do it for you instead..
I'm not sure I can record a vid on my PS3; but anyway now the patched is installed and nothing is like before..
The biggest change I noticed is the nerfing of the rune of valiance who only gives a +7 instead of a +2 to all attributes. Anyone thought the rune of valiance far overpowered? And of course Fenris's staggering crits with sunder and claymore.
I agree with andraip about reaching 100% critical before adding to cunning. It may not be optimal in terms of damage but I like not having to do pinpoint strike before a vendetta to be sure it lands a critical. Beside andraip is right about the crit damage at 100% which probably makes it more efficient to increase dex even beyond the 100% critical chance threshold since you still increase base damage. For an assassin it's different since cunning is doubly rewarded for critical damage (2% instead of 1% per pont of cuning with devious harm)
rumination888
In my build I don't do friendly fire so the comparaison between 2H and SnS talents will be about the passives and sustainable; In the SnS tree those are purely defensive. I got mighty blow only to get sunder but didn't use it because of the potential FF.
cuning is inferior to strengh for the warrior damage increase but I used it to make defense higher or close to a normal enemy attack score. With all the sustainables that increase defense you don't need much cuning for that. But if I listen to the choir of "damage is king in DA2" then it's ok if we all build glass canons!.. My level 23 Fenris had 74 base damage
tydvadar
I answer the Fenris / cunning remark above;
My point was that boosting defence instead of con can work if you make your fenris only tackle the lower ranking opponents, who don't use talents but basic attacks with a low attack score. But like I said, if damage is king, yay let's put everything into strength..
#48
Posté 15 juin 2011 - 12:31
andraip
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Sylaar wrote...
I agree with andraip about reaching 100% critical before adding to cunning. It may not be optimal in terms of damage but I like not having to do pinpoint strike before a vendetta to be sure it lands a critical. Beside andraip is right about the crit damage at 100% which probably makes it more efficient to increase dex even beyond the 100% critical chance threshold since you still increase base damage. For an assassin it's different since cunning is doubly rewarded for critical damage (2% instead of 1% per pont of cuning with devious harm)
It is optimal in terms of damage.
For a Rogue, considering that you have +30 crit chance trough items and valliant aura (and thus need 70 points into DEX), it is optimal, damage wise, to get 100% crit chance before heading into cunning, when:
For assassins:
- 2 x 30 damage daggers: more then 93 crit damage
- 2 x 35 damage daggers: more then 99 crit damage
- 2 x 40 damage daggers: more then 105 crit damage
- 2 x 30 damage daggers: more then 29 crit damage
- 2 x 35 damage daggers: more then 33 crit damage
- 2 x 40 damage daggers: more then 37 crit damage
If you have the Shadow & Assassin spec you would have base 110 crit damage and 160 when obscured.
Even if you don't have the Shadow spec you should easily get over 100 crit damage with items
For non assassins the 50 base crit damage is more then enough.
As for going into DEX after hitting 100% crit chance:
Assassins should go into DEX instead of CUN when your crit damage multiplier (crit damage + 100) * 4 is higher then your base damage.
For non Assassins it's crit damage multiplier * 2
That means that if you have 130 base damage when you hit the 100% crit chance, you should invest into cunning until you reach 130 * 2 - 100 = 160 crit damage, or 130 * 4 - 100 = 420 crit damage for assassins.
Sidenote: When I say assassins I mean Assassins that have the Devious Harm talent.
#49
Posté 15 juin 2011 - 12:56
andraip
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Sylaar wrote something funny...
the nerfing of the rune of valiance who only gives a +7 instead of a +2 to all attributes.
*no comment*
#50
Posté 15 juin 2011 - 07:35
Sylaar
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andraip, thanks for your thorough analysis of the dex vs cun dilemma (and not so much for the cheeky "no comment" about my rune of valiance typo!)
If I remember correctly, the base damage with a defauth dagger is 7+DEX/2
The damage including average critical damage for a connecting attack is then (7+DEX/2)*(DEX/100 *(0.5 + CUN/100)
Lets assume that you want to allocate a total of K points to either DEX or CUN.
You have to maximize the following equation with x=DEX:
Max x of y=(7+x/2)*(x/100*(0.5+(K-x))) which is a third degree equation that you can try to solve like I did.. Alternatively you can try to use a spreadsheet
If you want to factor in your specific gear buff you just have to change the constants.
If I remember correctly, the base damage with a defauth dagger is 7+DEX/2
The damage including average critical damage for a connecting attack is then (7+DEX/2)*(DEX/100 *(0.5 + CUN/100)
Lets assume that you want to allocate a total of K points to either DEX or CUN.
You have to maximize the following equation with x=DEX:
Max x of y=(7+x/2)*(x/100*(0.5+(K-x))) which is a third degree equation that you can try to solve like I did.. Alternatively you can try to use a spreadsheet
If you want to factor in your specific gear buff you just have to change the constants.
