... and now I'm posting a synthesis of the tactics of my mostly melee based party, and the rationale behind it (I'm open to suggestions and improvement that don't depart from a 3 melee + 1 mage party..)
The idea is that there is at anytime two different enemy targeted by two pairs: one pair engaging the highest ranking enemy and the other one engaging the lowest ranking enemy. Each pair is composed of a character taking the blows and the other one either aiding or dishing most of the damages.
Aveline selects the highest ranking enemy and keeps its threat while my rogue hawke dishes the damage to Aveline's target.
Similarly Fenris attacks the lowest ranking opponents and keeps their threat while Anders dishes damage on Fenris's targets.
Aveline and Fenris use basic attacks to avoid friendly fire but they focus more on sustainables while Hawke and Anders focus more on talents / spell.
The only character that needs a bit of constitution is Aveline who takes 25% of the party's damage via Battle synergy and an additional 60% of Hawke's damage via upgraded bodyguard and the friendship passive.
None of the characters need much mana/ stamina thanks to the double upgraded rally (Fenris and Aveline)
Additionally Aveline runs Control (in order to get a high attack against a high ranking opponent) and Fenris runs the upgraded Might (to make the most of his high crit chance and to buff Hawke when his fires the upgraded Rally)
Both Aveline and Fenris run elemental aegis which is awesome (40% elemental resistance accross the board)
Both fire Cleave and rally (Actually Claymore for Fenris); Fenris fires rally when Hawke (or Aveline) is low on stamina (bestowing the damage boost to the party and Hawke in particular) while Aveline triggers rally when Anders (or Fenris) is low on stamina.
Additionally Fenris runs Lyrium ghost and fires Taunt when Anders is attacked (and if the taunt is not enough Fenris engages the enemy attacking Anders before engaging the lowest ranking opponent)
Melee rogue Hawke has a pure damage oriented in your face (no bs like evade etc) glass canon build since Aveline takes away both threat and damage via her sustainables.
She assassinate the enemy made brittle by Anders, then run Armistice on anders when he's attacked, Then fires back to back when Anders is attacked by a melee attack, then throws the gauntlet to the enemy attacking Anders, then vendetta, backstab, basic attacks the enemy attacking anders (the rationale is that if Armistice fails, either the enemy comes to hawke, either hawkes teleports next to the enemy which is on Fenris's turf, not Aveline's where hawke is most of the time)
When Anders is safe, Hawkes Marks of Death Aveline's target, then vendetta, backstab (to get close in) Aveline's target, then twin Fangs.
Then, after all the talents have been launched, Hawke activates parry and fires the upgraded throw the gauntlet for a buffed basic attack combat with Aveline's target (which takes a bit of weight from Aveline's shoulders thanks to the Enemy damage -25% debuff)
What about Anders?
He's running Heroic Aura and elemental weapons,
He uses Heal, Haste on Fenris's target , chain reaction on Fenris's target, stonefist on low armor rating enemy, tempest on Fenris being attacked by melee attack, dessicate on Aveline's target, then martyr to reduce the cooldowns.
He does all that under justice, but switches to Panacea when being attacked, low health or when 2 allies are below 50% health.
Then he fires Aid allies and if necessary heals himself, then activates rock armor.
To sum up the battle dynamic is the following:
-2 battlefields: one with the boss against Aveline and hawke, another with the minions against Fenris helped by Anders.
-2 steps choregraphy:
when Anders is not attacked he's on Vengeance and Hawke unleashes her best aggressive talents against the boss
when Anders is attacked (despite Fenris's taunt and Hawke's armistice..) he switches to Panacea and heals the party while Fenris and Hawke drop their reaspective targets and come to rescue Anders.
-2 CCCs: Fenris's targets are staggered/ chain reactioned while Aveline's target is brittled / assassinated. I didn't upgrade the Vendetta because Mark of Death is enough and my boss enemy is shaken, not stirred ( I meant Brittled, not Staggered!) For the occasional non-brittable boss Assassinate is not status conditional.
-2 ways to counter enemy's attack: Aveline soaks up the damage from the boss with her resistance passives and high con whilst Fenris defends against basic attacks with a high defense which allows him to avoid most of the basic attacks.
Anders evades the attacks (or uses rock armor) and Hawke doesn't get any threat because:
-either Hawke is within 10m of Aveline and gives her half of the threat
-either Hawke is defending Anders and everything dies quickly enough for her not to keep the threat.
Optimised party for DA2 in nightmare++ difficulty
Débuté par
Sylaar
, juin 10 2011 10:59
Retour en haut
#52
Posté 15 juin 2011 - 11:05
andraip
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sylaar wrote
The damage including average critical damage for a connecting attack is then (7+DEX/2)*(DEX/100 *(0.5 + CUN/100
This only calculates the average critical damage, and you also forgot that the first 10 attribute point don't count. My bet goes for something like this:
(7 + (DEX - 10)/2 + (7 + (DEX - 10)/2 * ((DEX - 10)/100) * 0.5 + (CUN -10)/100)))
As for your build:
I think Assassin/Shadow would be better then Assassin/Duelist, you would gain a + 50% crit damage passive, and another + 50% crit damage when obscured (with can be an permanent effect). Also I think that Fenris rally should trigger when your stamina is low, you will want the + 25% crit damage before using your great spike damage talents (Assassinate, Twin Fangs and Merciless Strike) and after you used them your stamina will be low, thus the rally will trigger after you used these talents. Also Hawke doesn't need the stamina regen bonus from rally, seriosly, with follow-through he will regain the same amount of stamina in 3 hits (2% * 3) as with rally (6% over the time).
#53
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 07:53
Sylaar
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You're right about substracting 10 to DEX and CUN and tha't what I did; most of what I wrote here is fast written from memory hence a few mistakes.. This way I can check if some people are following! ( I'm afraid it's only you left now )
In my formula you replace DEX by DEX-10, CUN by CUN-10 and it becomes (after correcting the missing 1 on the right factor:
(7+DEX/2)*(1+ MIN(DEX/100, 1) *(0.5 + CUN/100)) (it would be easier to write in LaTex!)
which is equal to your formula if you add a left parenthesis on the left of 0.5 .
I also capped the critical chance to 100%.
As for my build:
I rejected the shadow build because I don't need stealth, because almost noone is going to engage my hawke (efficient threat management) , and if they did, she would take only 15% of the damage anyway. And I use most of the duelist tree. Inconspicous and decoy where not useful for my rogue. Aveline was my decoy!
But you're right, +100% critical damage when obscured is a tempting option; besides it gives more versatility to hawke as a potential archer because comparatively duelist is not archer friendly( but to be honest playing this party was so trivial that I didn't have to use a bow even when it would have been the better choice)
Still, Vendetta, even without the upgrade, is great and helps whizing accross the battlefield.
Throw the gauntlet upgraded is a good threat redirector / debuffer for basic attacks against high ranking opponent when your other talents are in cooldown.
Fenris rally: it's a bit like triggering chain reaction only on staggered: it may be counterproductive since it will trigger less often, and most of the time one of the enemy surrounding fenris will be staggered anyway and take the hit.
Fenris rally and Aveline rally are triggered respectively when each spell/ talent based character needs it.
I also added each other (Fenris for Aveline and Aveline foe Fenris) in order to avoid the deadlock when neither has enough stamina to trigger rally.
In a nutshell I prefer to tradeoff the most damaging spike damage for having my party never short of mana/stamina.
What I could do is the following: have Anders trigger Dessicate when Hawke is short on mana so that simultanously Fenris will trigger upgraded rally with Might..
About merciless strike: I used it but non optimally since with the tactics alone I'm not sure how many basics attacks have landed before it triggers. But since it's a low stamina talent it probably triggers before the other talents when stamina just start to replenish after having been emptied which would allow a few basic attacks.
Upgraded rally replenishes 60% of the max stamina in a few seconds; but if you say that follow through is enough why not. actually at one point I had both.(Beside there is the mana regen by kill in the assassin tree)
The thing is my hawke kills things quickly only when defending anders (I assume that the higher ranking enemy is not a wimp) which doesnt happen all the time since:
-chain reaction will probably kill staggered low rank enemies surrounding Fenris
-the one that are not killed took more damage from Fenris so he keeps more threat than Anders.
(Anders only attacks enemies already engaged by Fenris to avoid building up more threat)
Against the boss I don't think follow through and the Assassinate tree passive are enough for mana regen in the sense that he will probably do on the overall more basic attacks, less talent based attacks than if rally had been triggered when he was short on stamina. ( how long does it take for basic attacks to replenish 60% of the mana with follow through? Haste could help here)
Beside if the boss cannot be made brittle I cannot use enemy brittle: rally for Fenris.
In this case how do I synchronise Fenris's Rally with Hawke's spike damage talents?
In my formula you replace DEX by DEX-10, CUN by CUN-10 and it becomes (after correcting the missing 1 on the right factor:
(7+DEX/2)*(1+ MIN(DEX/100, 1) *(0.5 + CUN/100)) (it would be easier to write in LaTex!)
which is equal to your formula if you add a left parenthesis on the left of 0.5 .
I also capped the critical chance to 100%.
As for my build:
I rejected the shadow build because I don't need stealth, because almost noone is going to engage my hawke (efficient threat management) , and if they did, she would take only 15% of the damage anyway. And I use most of the duelist tree. Inconspicous and decoy where not useful for my rogue. Aveline was my decoy!
But you're right, +100% critical damage when obscured is a tempting option; besides it gives more versatility to hawke as a potential archer because comparatively duelist is not archer friendly( but to be honest playing this party was so trivial that I didn't have to use a bow even when it would have been the better choice)
Still, Vendetta, even without the upgrade, is great and helps whizing accross the battlefield.
Throw the gauntlet upgraded is a good threat redirector / debuffer for basic attacks against high ranking opponent when your other talents are in cooldown.
Fenris rally: it's a bit like triggering chain reaction only on staggered: it may be counterproductive since it will trigger less often, and most of the time one of the enemy surrounding fenris will be staggered anyway and take the hit.
Fenris rally and Aveline rally are triggered respectively when each spell/ talent based character needs it.
I also added each other (Fenris for Aveline and Aveline foe Fenris) in order to avoid the deadlock when neither has enough stamina to trigger rally.
In a nutshell I prefer to tradeoff the most damaging spike damage for having my party never short of mana/stamina.
What I could do is the following: have Anders trigger Dessicate when Hawke is short on mana so that simultanously Fenris will trigger upgraded rally with Might..
About merciless strike: I used it but non optimally since with the tactics alone I'm not sure how many basics attacks have landed before it triggers. But since it's a low stamina talent it probably triggers before the other talents when stamina just start to replenish after having been emptied which would allow a few basic attacks.
Upgraded rally replenishes 60% of the max stamina in a few seconds; but if you say that follow through is enough why not. actually at one point I had both.(Beside there is the mana regen by kill in the assassin tree)
The thing is my hawke kills things quickly only when defending anders (I assume that the higher ranking enemy is not a wimp) which doesnt happen all the time since:
-chain reaction will probably kill staggered low rank enemies surrounding Fenris
-the one that are not killed took more damage from Fenris so he keeps more threat than Anders.
(Anders only attacks enemies already engaged by Fenris to avoid building up more threat)
Against the boss I don't think follow through and the Assassinate tree passive are enough for mana regen in the sense that he will probably do on the overall more basic attacks, less talent based attacks than if rally had been triggered when he was short on stamina. ( how long does it take for basic attacks to replenish 60% of the mana with follow through? Haste could help here)
Beside if the boss cannot be made brittle I cannot use enemy brittle: rally for Fenris.
In this case how do I synchronise Fenris's Rally with Hawke's spike damage talents?
#54
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 11:16
mr_afk
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Sylaar wrote...
(I'm open to suggestions and improvement that don't depart from a 3 melee + 1 mage party..)
Hawke (Shadow Assassin)
Role: Spike Damager + Dps + Setup Disorient CCCs
Strategy: Attribute-wise, everything into damage. By using the mixture of threat reduction+obscuring (e.g. stealth/decoy) hawke should aim at dishing out loads of damage to distracted enemies as well as spike damaging elites. Spike damage is aided by BRITTLE from Anders (assassinate CCC) and staggers from Aveline (explosive strike CCC). Via disorientating criticals, hawke should be able to create disorientate statuses. Alternatively (once you have free ability points) hawke could use fatiguing fogs.
Aveline (Elemental Warrior)
Role: Spike damager + Dps + Setup Stagger CCCs
Strategy: By simply getting damage resistance abilities+Shields (Courage) Aveline should be pretty durable. This enables her to be left in a full strength build and still take some damage. Based on the enemies she's facing she should alternate between desdemona's, edge of night, and that fire one I keep forgetting the name of. She should mainly be using the S&S tree for scatter and assault. In addition, getting upgraded control+bravery should be considered (if her stamina can take it) to increase her crit chance. Put runes of striking in her weapons when possible. Basically all she should be doing is shield bashing (and pommel striking if you want) enemy bosses/elites. This grants the guaranteed stagger for hawke or anders to use. After that, based on whether a disoriented enemy is elite or she is facing a clustered group of enemies (e.g. tactics=surrounded by 4 or more) she should preform Assault CCCs and/or Scatter CCCs when possible. Since she won't have much life to spare, don't bother with any of that bodyguard crap.
Anders (Mage)
Role: Buffer + Dps + Brittle Setup + All round CCCs
Strategy: Basically you'll want to put close to every point into magic - with maybe some into willpower if you're really struggling for mana. The first and foremost thing that Anders should provide is heroic aura and haste. Using martyr and swift justice get him to maintain perma-haste. With the changes to elemental resistance (which I'll get to later) there's not much point using a walking bomb setup. So all Anders should be doing is getting upgraded chain lightning and stone fist (for stagger and disorient CCCs) then elemental mastery (upgraded ice and fire lines) and maybe petrify. The only healing ability you should get him is blood of my enemy (to heal himself) and an unupgraded heal to heal companions as the general idea is to complete fights before requiring a heal.
Fenris (Buffer/Giant Douchebag)
Role: I hate fenris. I truly do. But if we really must include him in the party (and we must because Isabela is terrible) then I guess we'll have to try do. So that been said; Buffer + Auto-attack Dps
Strategy: Attribute-wise you may have to pump some con as fenris is a fragile little sh**. Mainly focus on strength as you want to eke out every bit of damage possible. What fenris should do is focus on auto-attack damage (using self buffs like cleave etc) to avoid friendly-fire. Additionally, he should get upgraded might and upgraded rally. This provides a very useful +25% crit damage to the whole party- which will be helpful for hawke, aveline, and himself (not so much anders). Getting second-wind may be useful in reducing the amount of willpower needed (as he's a easily fatigued little sh**). There isn't much else I'd use him for other than maybe dealing with crowds of normals and saying stupid things about his tattoos.
Overall
IN addition to those specific CCC interactions, what you should aim at is getting your party immune to fire such that Anders can drop firestorms and maybe tempests on top of everyones head. If possible try get hawke and fenris also immune to spirit such that Aveline doesn't kill everyone so often. If that's not possible, don't use scatter. It seriously seeks out the nearest ally.
And there you have it, a dps-setup for 3melee+1ranged.
p.s. About people following this thread.. I think most of us just don't see the point in saying anything. You seem pretty happy with your build and won't change (no matter how many people say it's not the 'optimal build' you seem to think); and there's nothing wrong with that! It's just that there's not much point debating over it if there's nothing to debate about.
Modifié par mr_afk, 16 juin 2011 - 11:24 .
#55
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 11:45
andraip
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In my formula I didn't just replace DEX by DEX-10, CUN by CUN-10, I also added (7 + (DEX - 10)/2 + (7 + (DEX - 10)/2 * ((DEX - 10)/100) * (0.5 + (CUN -10)/100))), since your formula only calculates the average critical damage bonus.
However you dont need to put DEX and CUN into it. BASE_DAMAGE + BASE_DAMAGE * CRIT_CHANCE * CRIT_DAMAGE should work. The attribute screen shows you those values, and it also includes weapon bonusses or bonusses form talents.
Rally (+Unite) does not regenerate 60% of stamina, it regenerates 6% over the duration of the effect. The Rally Description string is wrong. Peter Thomas stated it here 2 months ago.
If you say that Hawke basicly never gets engaged in combat, then why are you using Bodyguard on him? Wouldn't be Fenris the better choice? Since it also would nitigate the danger of an assassin killing Fenris.
You could also use STAGGER (Shield Bash has 100% chance on inflicting it) for your spike damage talents. With Upgraded Lacerate it inflicts the damage dealt again in DOT, this way you can go around the hp lost cap for bosses (20% on single hit) and lieutenants (40% on single hit).
However you dont need to put DEX and CUN into it. BASE_DAMAGE + BASE_DAMAGE * CRIT_CHANCE * CRIT_DAMAGE should work. The attribute screen shows you those values, and it also includes weapon bonusses or bonusses form talents.
Rally (+Unite) does not regenerate 60% of stamina, it regenerates 6% over the duration of the effect. The Rally Description string is wrong. Peter Thomas stated it here 2 months ago.
If you say that Hawke basicly never gets engaged in combat, then why are you using Bodyguard on him? Wouldn't be Fenris the better choice? Since it also would nitigate the danger of an assassin killing Fenris.
You could also use STAGGER (Shield Bash has 100% chance on inflicting it) for your spike damage talents. With Upgraded Lacerate it inflicts the damage dealt again in DOT, this way you can go around the hp lost cap for bosses (20% on single hit) and lieutenants (40% on single hit).
#56
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 12:13
andraip
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@mr_afk the blade is named Sataareth, but what about Glandivalis? I think it would be useful too.
About Aveline, since you will want Indomitable and Thick Skin anyway you can also get the immovable upgrade unstopable, +8% damage resistace against -2% attack speed and movement speed with each hit she takes seems a fair deal in some situations (however rare there might be)
About Aveline, since you will want Indomitable and Thick Skin anyway you can also get the immovable upgrade unstopable, +8% damage resistace against -2% attack speed and movement speed with each hit she takes seems a fair deal in some situations (however rare there might be)
#57
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 08:15
Sylaar
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to andraip:
I agree with you on the formula; when I corrrected it I added 1 as in :
Average Damage= Based damage * ( 100%+ average critical damage % bonus)
CUN is a part of the crit damage calculation, but if you want to optimize the allocation of a number K of points between CUN and DEX you can reduce the optimization to one variable since CUN= K - DEX
If I read Peter Thomas from Bioware:
Rally Stamina Regeneration Bonus - +2% for 10s
Unite Stamina Regeneration Bonus - additional +4% for 10s
I think it's additive and it lasts 10 seconds and 100 points means 1% of the max mana/ stamina per seconds therefore the total should be 10*( 4%+2%)= 60% over 10s on top of the normal mana/stamina regen rate.
Why use bodyguard even though my hawke doesn't attract threat?
It's a failsafe for instance when an enemy mage nukes the area around hawkes or when hawkes gets targeted by an assassin.
Alternatively I could use it on the other squeashee: Anders with the added synergy that Martyr would cost less than 2.5% of his health (similar synergy with a blood mage). But Anders is happy to stay relatively safe on the edge of the battlefield and still able to cast his spells.
Why not Fenris? because he is less exposed to the highest ranking enemy and thus less likely to be engaged by a talent/ spell. Beside he has elemental aegis and higher armor than Hawke in that case.
Why concentrating the damage on Aveline? Because this way I can get away with casting a simple (but upgraded) heal instead of a collective heal which would make Anders witch to Panacea.
About staggering the boss; I think brittle has a higher damage multiplier with assassinate and I think it's complex to inflict two different status to the same target; hence the usefulness of the dichotomy Fenris/Aveline for target selection.
I don't think that Shield bash has a higher chance to stagger the enemy than dessicate to brittle an enemy (both have a 100% chance for a normal enemy and a lower chance for higher rank unless the enemy is immune) but you could argue that shield bash can be fired more often than dessicate. Still the ratio of both frequencies is probably lower than the ratio of damage bewteen upgraded assassinate and upgraded vendetta for instance.
I didn't know there was a 20% cap (of mac CON) for a single attack damage on a boss. A brittle / assassinate might get close to that. I don't like sustainables on my talent based rogue other than Parry when his mana is depleted.
I think lacerate could be more useful against minions if there was not chain reaction to do it in one cast.
About Glandivalis: it was my default choice until two days ago when I installed the pack with the edge of night which is even better.
I never used Immovable as I think this ability is subpar and my Aveline was not swarmed by enemies anyway.
I agree with you on the formula; when I corrrected it I added 1 as in :
Average Damage= Based damage * ( 100%+ average critical damage % bonus)
CUN is a part of the crit damage calculation, but if you want to optimize the allocation of a number K of points between CUN and DEX you can reduce the optimization to one variable since CUN= K - DEX
If I read Peter Thomas from Bioware:
Rally Stamina Regeneration Bonus - +2% for 10s
Unite Stamina Regeneration Bonus - additional +4% for 10s
I think it's additive and it lasts 10 seconds and 100 points means 1% of the max mana/ stamina per seconds therefore the total should be 10*( 4%+2%)= 60% over 10s on top of the normal mana/stamina regen rate.
Why use bodyguard even though my hawke doesn't attract threat?
It's a failsafe for instance when an enemy mage nukes the area around hawkes or when hawkes gets targeted by an assassin.
Alternatively I could use it on the other squeashee: Anders with the added synergy that Martyr would cost less than 2.5% of his health (similar synergy with a blood mage). But Anders is happy to stay relatively safe on the edge of the battlefield and still able to cast his spells.
Why not Fenris? because he is less exposed to the highest ranking enemy and thus less likely to be engaged by a talent/ spell. Beside he has elemental aegis and higher armor than Hawke in that case.
Why concentrating the damage on Aveline? Because this way I can get away with casting a simple (but upgraded) heal instead of a collective heal which would make Anders witch to Panacea.
About staggering the boss; I think brittle has a higher damage multiplier with assassinate and I think it's complex to inflict two different status to the same target; hence the usefulness of the dichotomy Fenris/Aveline for target selection.
I don't think that Shield bash has a higher chance to stagger the enemy than dessicate to brittle an enemy (both have a 100% chance for a normal enemy and a lower chance for higher rank unless the enemy is immune) but you could argue that shield bash can be fired more often than dessicate. Still the ratio of both frequencies is probably lower than the ratio of damage bewteen upgraded assassinate and upgraded vendetta for instance.
I didn't know there was a 20% cap (of mac CON) for a single attack damage on a boss. A brittle / assassinate might get close to that. I don't like sustainables on my talent based rogue other than Parry when his mana is depleted.
I think lacerate could be more useful against minions if there was not chain reaction to do it in one cast.
About Glandivalis: it was my default choice until two days ago when I installed the pack with the edge of night which is even better.
I never used Immovable as I think this ability is subpar and my Aveline was not swarmed by enemies anyway.
#58
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 08:39
Sylaar
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To mr afk;
First let's answer in kind to your challenge picture and provide some comic relief:
webkit-fake-url://A56321E5-7CA0-4057-92EF-54C2C43A9565/morpheus.jpg
... and:
webkit-fake-url://3B5F7BD7-17FF-4101-9C0D-91DDF1238185/Dr-Sheldon-Cooper-The-Guy-the-big-bang-theory-8053333-750-600.jpg
First let's answer in kind to your challenge picture and provide some comic relief:
webkit-fake-url://A56321E5-7CA0-4057-92EF-54C2C43A9565/morpheus.jpg... and:
webkit-fake-url://3B5F7BD7-17FF-4101-9C0D-91DDF1238185/Dr-Sheldon-Cooper-The-Guy-the-big-bang-theory-8053333-750-600.jpg
#59
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 10:03
Sylaar
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... to mr afk again:
about your rogue hawke:
explosive stike is nice but is the kind of ability that you don't want to trigger in tactics since you don't know how many basic attacks have been launched previously,
I tried fatiguing fog but:
1) it doesn't deal damage
2) pre patch it disoriented the allies as well
Beside, if Aveline staggers, she will probably cause FF as well which is better avoided by running on pure tactics on nightmare.
Disorienting criticals looks like an attractive option especially if it applies regardless of the rank unlike dessicate for instance (?)
Your Aveline:
I think that any member of the party should use an elemental weapon if the enemy at hand is not immune (because the armor is only for physical damage) according to this ranking of preference:
1) enemy is weak to element
2) spirit damage (halves the enemy resistances)
3) cold damage (slows the enemy)
4) any other element
5)physical damage
(last: enemy is immune to element if you're unlucky..)
If was to lazy to change the gear according to the current element (which would make it a proper elemental warrior)
S&S tree is nice but it deals FF and I avoided it like the 2H abilities for Fenris.
How do you know you're not going to scatter Anders?
My own Aveline uses upgraded rally like yours though.
I had control as well, but I don't think the crit chance makes a great difference for Aveline's build unless you emphasize it.
Rune of striking, heroic aura and some gear help to increase the critical chance indeed, but if you don't have a high critical damage as well (like Fenris with Might) it won't get you so far.
Beside I found the rune of striking underwhelming and the rune of devastation more likely to increase average damage even for builds with a high critical damage.
Maybe the stagger CCC to the high ranking target would be better than the brittle ones after all, not because of a higher damage but because of a higher frequency, I don't know. Beside I'm not sure that the staggered is guaranteed like you claim.
About the CCC with disorient: I'm not sur your can consistently juggle with all 3 different status in the same party (stagger, brittle and disorient) whilst avoiding overlaps.
Anders:
Magic is only useful for basic attacks and offensive spell, not for sustainable and buffs like heal or haste, which mitigates the usefulness of putting everything into magic. Actually you could argue that putting the minimum in magic is ok for a creative spell mage..
I agree for heroic aura and haste combined with martyr and swift justice. Same with chain reaction, and blood of my enemy.
Walking bomb is probably the best way to shot oneself badly in the foot so I avoided it even before the patch..
Fenris: First why so much hate? Anders is arguably more annoying! Beside if you don't love him you can try to love to hate him; get a rivalry and get over it..
I agree with auto attack Fenris; I don't understand why your Aveline gets the SnS talents and your Fenris doesn't get the 2H talents though; is it a way to neuter him? ;-)
Ok about the might and rally
And finally; an elemental anders. I was tempted but investing in fire and cold warding runes was too much (I tried to change my whole party to switch from a primal to an elemental Anders; but my party was much less durable under the upgraded firestorm..)
ps: I like a good debate and rational arguments..
I'm not attached to my party per se; my only bias is probably that I favour a synergy based party instead of a collection of badasses optimised independently. I like to see my companion helping each other like a bunch of hippies in a trailer..
Beside for custom tactics and synergy I prefer mele because you can shape the battlefield and move your companions around (the ranged ones don't need to move that much)
about your rogue hawke:
explosive stike is nice but is the kind of ability that you don't want to trigger in tactics since you don't know how many basic attacks have been launched previously,
I tried fatiguing fog but:
1) it doesn't deal damage
2) pre patch it disoriented the allies as well
Beside, if Aveline staggers, she will probably cause FF as well which is better avoided by running on pure tactics on nightmare.
Disorienting criticals looks like an attractive option especially if it applies regardless of the rank unlike dessicate for instance (?)
Your Aveline:
I think that any member of the party should use an elemental weapon if the enemy at hand is not immune (because the armor is only for physical damage) according to this ranking of preference:
1) enemy is weak to element
2) spirit damage (halves the enemy resistances)
3) cold damage (slows the enemy)
4) any other element
5)physical damage
(last: enemy is immune to element if you're unlucky..)
If was to lazy to change the gear according to the current element (which would make it a proper elemental warrior)
S&S tree is nice but it deals FF and I avoided it like the 2H abilities for Fenris.
How do you know you're not going to scatter Anders?
My own Aveline uses upgraded rally like yours though.
I had control as well, but I don't think the crit chance makes a great difference for Aveline's build unless you emphasize it.
Rune of striking, heroic aura and some gear help to increase the critical chance indeed, but if you don't have a high critical damage as well (like Fenris with Might) it won't get you so far.
Beside I found the rune of striking underwhelming and the rune of devastation more likely to increase average damage even for builds with a high critical damage.
Maybe the stagger CCC to the high ranking target would be better than the brittle ones after all, not because of a higher damage but because of a higher frequency, I don't know. Beside I'm not sure that the staggered is guaranteed like you claim.
About the CCC with disorient: I'm not sur your can consistently juggle with all 3 different status in the same party (stagger, brittle and disorient) whilst avoiding overlaps.
Anders:
Magic is only useful for basic attacks and offensive spell, not for sustainable and buffs like heal or haste, which mitigates the usefulness of putting everything into magic. Actually you could argue that putting the minimum in magic is ok for a creative spell mage..
I agree for heroic aura and haste combined with martyr and swift justice. Same with chain reaction, and blood of my enemy.
Walking bomb is probably the best way to shot oneself badly in the foot so I avoided it even before the patch..
Fenris: First why so much hate? Anders is arguably more annoying! Beside if you don't love him you can try to love to hate him; get a rivalry and get over it..
I agree with auto attack Fenris; I don't understand why your Aveline gets the SnS talents and your Fenris doesn't get the 2H talents though; is it a way to neuter him? ;-)
Ok about the might and rally
And finally; an elemental anders. I was tempted but investing in fire and cold warding runes was too much (I tried to change my whole party to switch from a primal to an elemental Anders; but my party was much less durable under the upgraded firestorm..)
ps: I like a good debate and rational arguments..
I'm not attached to my party per se; my only bias is probably that I favour a synergy based party instead of a collection of badasses optimised independently. I like to see my companion helping each other like a bunch of hippies in a trailer..
Beside for custom tactics and synergy I prefer mele because you can shape the battlefield and move your companions around (the ranged ones don't need to move that much)
#60
Posté 16 juin 2011 - 11:21
andraip
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You're right about rally, my bad.
Shield Bash has 100% chance to inflict stagger on any foe, you can check the dragon age wiki if you want.
About upgraded immovable, it gives you + 8% damage resistance and - 2% attack and movement speed for each hit, and the effect of each hit remains for 5 seconds. Even if she would be hit like 3 times in 5 seconds that would give Aveline + 24% damage resistance, so I guess you don't need to be smarmed. Before 1.03 I would have agreed with you, since it only gave you + 2% each hit, but now with + 8% it seems ok for me.
The idea behind using stagger and Lacerate (Maim) was to avoid the damage cap, if you use a assassinate with brittle and Mark of Death and deal about 40k each dagger on an boss ranked enemy with 50k hp you would only deal 20k damage, even if it show 2 times 40k, however if you use the assassinate on the same enemy without brittle and deal about 10k each dagger you would also deal 20k damage, now if lacerates triggers (100% chance against staggered targets) you would deal 40k damage. However you could also perfectly use Twin Fangs, Explosive Strike or Vendetta against an staggered target.
Shield Bash has 100% chance to inflict stagger on any foe, you can check the dragon age wiki if you want.
About upgraded immovable, it gives you + 8% damage resistance and - 2% attack and movement speed for each hit, and the effect of each hit remains for 5 seconds. Even if she would be hit like 3 times in 5 seconds that would give Aveline + 24% damage resistance, so I guess you don't need to be smarmed. Before 1.03 I would have agreed with you, since it only gave you + 2% each hit, but now with + 8% it seems ok for me.
The idea behind using stagger and Lacerate (Maim) was to avoid the damage cap, if you use a assassinate with brittle and Mark of Death and deal about 40k each dagger on an boss ranked enemy with 50k hp you would only deal 20k damage, even if it show 2 times 40k, however if you use the assassinate on the same enemy without brittle and deal about 10k each dagger you would also deal 20k damage, now if lacerates triggers (100% chance against staggered targets) you would deal 40k damage. However you could also perfectly use Twin Fangs, Explosive Strike or Vendetta against an staggered target.
#61
Posté 17 juin 2011 - 03:35
mr_afk
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- fatiguing fog enables you to slow-down and disorient clustered groups of enemies as well as obscuring your party members who walk into it.
- this has great synergy with Aveline's assaults and scatters.
- disorientating criticals is good at disorientating one enemy but not so good at groups (because there's no aoe damage for rogues). Maybe an archer could use hail of arrows (but we're using DW).
- as I did note, there is a problem with friendly fire with three melees (which is why in itself three melee setups are not optimal.
- This can be largely avoided by simply controlling your hawke well and aiming your disorients away from near fenris/anders (and getting hawke out of there) or potentially making your party members spirit immune (which allows a walking bomb setup to be used).
- Due to the changes in autoattack friendly fire, it is quite safe to have several melee close together as S&S talents (e.g. shield bash/pommel strike) have a small radius. Even scatter isn't that bad if you recognise situations where Aveline is going to use it, so you can move away a little.
- This is only works if you set up the tactics properly and you remember what they are; e.g. you disorient an elite and know that Aveline is going to assault it so you move on to another elite and nobody gets hurt but that elite. Simple.
- Only 2H talents remain dangerous and require microing. Aveline should be fine on tactics.
- By having Aveline stagger elites and hawke nearby you can take advantage of lacerate- e.g. a twin fangs will almost always kill anything (as you're in effect doing two twin fangs). If you opt for duelist, vendetta will have its damage multiplied 6times or so.
- Yes, any party member should use elemental weapons but there aren't that many available until act3 for rogues and two handers (meaning that only Aveline and Anders will be truly elemental)
- Once again, runes of devastation are only available act 3. Runes of striking (as opposed to elemental runes) work a lot nicer, especially in a crit-build.
- You don't actually need a high critical damage percentage(%) to deal large criticals. A full strength Aveline will have a reasonably high base damage. Even only an extra 50% will probably be more than your cunning build fenris who doesn't have as high a base damage.
- You don't need cold warding runes. Just don't use cone of cold or only use it while controlling Anders. Once again, as you become more used to the game you'll be able to avoid getting frozen by winter's grasps. Making him an elemental build is mainly based on his dlc amulet. If you don't have that amulet then focusing more on primal could be a good start. But dropping firestorms is a very handy thing to have.
- It is quite easy to have three CCCs running at a time with a three ranged one melee party. I am not so sure for a three melee party, but I think that in practice it should work out fine.
- If you like 'synergised parties' you almost definitely shouldn't be using a three melee setup, but do whatever you want I suppose
- I'm not sure how you 'shape the battlefield' and 'move companions around' without microing/issuing commands. I thought the idea was to leave everything to tactics besides your main character?
- If you like controlling battle fields simply go force mage; that way you can easily cluster enemies, get varric to fog them, get aveline to scatter/assault them while the mages pick off any disorientated enemies then get aveline to stagger elites and either zap them or haemorrhage them. It's quite a simple process. With my forcemage I like using walking bomb (it still does lots of damage but it's not quite as spectacular as it used to be.)
- this has great synergy with Aveline's assaults and scatters.
- disorientating criticals is good at disorientating one enemy but not so good at groups (because there's no aoe damage for rogues). Maybe an archer could use hail of arrows (but we're using DW).
- as I did note, there is a problem with friendly fire with three melees (which is why in itself three melee setups are not optimal.
- This can be largely avoided by simply controlling your hawke well and aiming your disorients away from near fenris/anders (and getting hawke out of there) or potentially making your party members spirit immune (which allows a walking bomb setup to be used).
- Due to the changes in autoattack friendly fire, it is quite safe to have several melee close together as S&S talents (e.g. shield bash/pommel strike) have a small radius. Even scatter isn't that bad if you recognise situations where Aveline is going to use it, so you can move away a little.
- This is only works if you set up the tactics properly and you remember what they are; e.g. you disorient an elite and know that Aveline is going to assault it so you move on to another elite and nobody gets hurt but that elite. Simple.
- Only 2H talents remain dangerous and require microing. Aveline should be fine on tactics.
- By having Aveline stagger elites and hawke nearby you can take advantage of lacerate- e.g. a twin fangs will almost always kill anything (as you're in effect doing two twin fangs). If you opt for duelist, vendetta will have its damage multiplied 6times or so.
- Yes, any party member should use elemental weapons but there aren't that many available until act3 for rogues and two handers (meaning that only Aveline and Anders will be truly elemental)
- Once again, runes of devastation are only available act 3. Runes of striking (as opposed to elemental runes) work a lot nicer, especially in a crit-build.
- You don't actually need a high critical damage percentage(%) to deal large criticals. A full strength Aveline will have a reasonably high base damage. Even only an extra 50% will probably be more than your cunning build fenris who doesn't have as high a base damage.
- You don't need cold warding runes. Just don't use cone of cold or only use it while controlling Anders. Once again, as you become more used to the game you'll be able to avoid getting frozen by winter's grasps. Making him an elemental build is mainly based on his dlc amulet. If you don't have that amulet then focusing more on primal could be a good start. But dropping firestorms is a very handy thing to have.
- It is quite easy to have three CCCs running at a time with a three ranged one melee party. I am not so sure for a three melee party, but I think that in practice it should work out fine.
- If you like 'synergised parties' you almost definitely shouldn't be using a three melee setup, but do whatever you want I suppose
- I'm not sure how you 'shape the battlefield' and 'move companions around' without microing/issuing commands. I thought the idea was to leave everything to tactics besides your main character?
- If you like controlling battle fields simply go force mage; that way you can easily cluster enemies, get varric to fog them, get aveline to scatter/assault them while the mages pick off any disorientated enemies then get aveline to stagger elites and either zap them or haemorrhage them. It's quite a simple process. With my forcemage I like using walking bomb (it still does lots of damage but it's not quite as spectacular as it used to be.)
#62
Posté 17 juin 2011 - 10:02
andraip
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@mr_afk just a question, does disorienting criticals work with rush (with the upgrade that does damage)?
