I'm just starting DAII for the fourth time, and this time I'm determined to side with the Templars in the endgame. (It's one of the two achievements I don't have, along with the one for getting through an entire act without anyone falling unconscious.)
In order to get there without my Hawke being too much of a raging hypocrite, I'd like to do a run where I don't spend all my time hanging out with Anders and/or Merrill. While it's impossible to turn them over to Meredith, it strains my credulity that a stridently pro-Templar Hawke would want an Abomination or a blood mage in her party full time.
I'm wondering, though, how viable it is to play through Act II and Act III without any mage support. I admit I'm very fond of the Heal spell and haven't played without it before, not to mention all the lovely crowd control and AOE damage I'll be missing out on.
If I'm playing without a mage on Nightmare, what tactics, talents and companions would people suggest? My Hawke is a sword-and-board warrior, and I want to bring Isabela since I'm planning to romance her.
Mage-Free Run On Nightmare?
Débuté par
Andraste_Reborn
, juil. 20 2011 04:16
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#2
Posté 20 juillet 2011 - 03:29
mr_afk
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It's definitely viable. A little trickier in terms of an ideal setup.
Focus on disorient CCCs maybe.
I haven't done much theory crafting in a while so this should be fun. Hmm.. ended up spieling even more than usual. Well, hope it helps lol.
I would probably go for party of:
- S&S hawke: Spike Damage + Dps and Tank (via threat management)
- Varric: Dps + Disorient Setup
- Sebastian: Dps + Disorient Setup
- Isabela(?): Suicidal Dps + Spike Damage (when not dead)
The main problem is still going to be melee friendly-fire. If you're bringing isabela along I would rest aside any hopes of been 'unstoppable'. If you build hawke right isabela will be getting one-shotted by your scatters and especially your assaults (gets past the max friendly fire cap).
But with the changes to lacerate she should be able to deal some pretty nice spike damage.
The main idea will be to draw all the enemies towards hawke. This shouldn't be a problem with hawke dealing lots of damage and/or a few (unnecessary) goads/armistices if you want.
This should cluster the enemies such that Varric or sebastian can throw a fatiguing fog and disorient the whole group (confusion could also work).
This allows hawke to happily do a scatter or assault CCC, which should wipe the entire group (hence spike damage).
Against elites you can get Varric or Sebastian to pinning shot (disorient) the enemy and just assault it with hawke. Otherwise, just shield bash them (or pommel strike) and get isabela to twin fangs them (with lacerate on).
Pre-patch I used a non-haste party setup with similar tactics and they worked pretty well. Post-patch it should be even more effective as everything is generally a lot easier.
Anyway, I'll get into some hypothetical builds.
Hawke will change depending on what specialisations you want to be. Here is the essential components to my crit-build however. I'll probably get around to documenting/recording a templar/reaver build, but as it is almost anything will work (though berserk is a little bit wasted).
hawke
- Basically you want your S&S tree: shield bash=stagger, assault and scatter=disorient CCC
- Vanguard tree: upgraded might, massacre=stamina, cleave=nerfed
- Warmonger tree: upgraded bravery=best warrior talent in the game, no joke. It increases your damage by 5% and increases your crit-chance by 3% for every enemy past the first one. Since you're tanking all the enemies you'll be gathering nice big groups; e.g. for 11 enemies you'll have +30% crit chance and +50% damage. With the right gear selection this alone equals ~100% crit chance allowing you to get ~100% extra damage via critical damage.
- Specialisation-wise I'd probably go reaver (even though it's nerfed apart) and templar (because you're going to have a pretty crappy stamina with the bravery sustain (which is the one downside to it).
Gear-wise:
Elemental Weapons - if you don't mind the hassle of gear-swappping mid-fight, using desdemona's and the edge of night allows you to breeze through act 1&2. Act 3 gives you some nice new fire and electricity swords to play with but I haven't tried them out yet. The dlc shield is probably the best shield (due to its damage resistance) so stick with that.
Crit-Gear - This is going to be expensive, so unless you cheat (like Arelex) you're going to have to be really really stingy and load up on runes of fortune.
The hard part is act 2. You'll want to get the etched ring of the twins and the puzzle ring of the black fox (~80g each). I managed to scrape enough during my mage playthrough but easily got enough for my warrior. Weird.
In Act 3 you get stacks of money so it isn't quite as much a problem. Get the seven deadly cinch and nine-fingered eddie's lucky talisman.
If you get all that gear (and maybe a few runes of striking during act 2) you'll have the critical chance and critical damage that makes this a crit-warrior setup. This is because...
Attribute-wise:
You're going to go 100% into strength. Unless you're doing a berserker build of course. But what I mean to say is, don't put any points into dex or cunning because the likelihood is that you won't need it. Unless you reach really high base damage levels it's going to be better to increase base damage by 0.5 rather than crit chance or crit damage.
This means that all the critical stuff comes from gear.
Here is an example of a pre-patch crit-warrior. Reaver is pretty nerfed now so it won't be quite as good but should suffice:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=hTfXhn0KzCg
Varric
- All you really want is to increase his dps via his personal tree, speed/precision and blindside and allow him to setup hawke to deal some epic damage
- Brand: Godly. The +25% crit chance = 100% crit chance in hawkes case, which allows all that pent up critical damage to be unleashed.
- Fatiguing Fog, Pinning shot, Confusion = Disorient yadidah. Fatiguing fog is particularly good in that it helps protect hawke (via slowing enemies) and confusion is alright for getting some heat off hawke, though it may make hawke get..confused for a bit.
Attribute-wise:
Either Varric or Isabela or Sebastian will have to be your lock-picker, and for either one pumping cunning instead of dex is going to reduce their damage. It doesn't really make that much of a difference though. But I would recommend no constitution or willpower and going all into dex (/cun for locks).
Sebastian will basically be a copy of Varric. I don't even know why he's there. Any mage would be infinitely better but hey, I suppose extra disorients and brands alongside decent dps can't hurt.
Isabela
Note that I'm not too sure about this. I still can't quite get her to not die which isn't helpful. But basically the major useful things to consider are increasing her dps (speed, personal tree), giving her some spike damage (explosive strike and twin fangs) and trying to give her some survivability (good luck with that haha).
Anyway, the main interesting thing is lacerate. It doubles the damage of whatever she does to staggered opponents. That means that she'll be absolutely devastating against the enemies you shield bash or stagger via cleave (which is neerrffed). This can be done pretty easily via tactics, e.g. enemy elite or higher-use for next --> enemy staggered-twin fangs.
good luck figuring out how to not waste explosive strikes though.
I think that you may have some luck with threat management to keep her alive. With so many rogues you should be able to get some goad/armistice along with isabela's stealth/evade/back-to-back, which may help her survive a little longer..
And there you have it. My quasi-guide-like spiel for the day.
p.s. disregard the ability orders. i was just using it to quickly select what could be potentially useful in this party setup.
Focus on disorient CCCs maybe.
I haven't done much theory crafting in a while so this should be fun. Hmm.. ended up spieling even more than usual. Well, hope it helps lol.
I would probably go for party of:
- S&S hawke: Spike Damage + Dps and Tank (via threat management)
- Varric: Dps + Disorient Setup
- Sebastian: Dps + Disorient Setup
- Isabela(?): Suicidal Dps + Spike Damage (when not dead)
The main problem is still going to be melee friendly-fire. If you're bringing isabela along I would rest aside any hopes of been 'unstoppable'. If you build hawke right isabela will be getting one-shotted by your scatters and especially your assaults (gets past the max friendly fire cap).
But with the changes to lacerate she should be able to deal some pretty nice spike damage.
The main idea will be to draw all the enemies towards hawke. This shouldn't be a problem with hawke dealing lots of damage and/or a few (unnecessary) goads/armistices if you want.
This should cluster the enemies such that Varric or sebastian can throw a fatiguing fog and disorient the whole group (confusion could also work).
This allows hawke to happily do a scatter or assault CCC, which should wipe the entire group (hence spike damage).
Against elites you can get Varric or Sebastian to pinning shot (disorient) the enemy and just assault it with hawke. Otherwise, just shield bash them (or pommel strike) and get isabela to twin fangs them (with lacerate on).
Pre-patch I used a non-haste party setup with similar tactics and they worked pretty well. Post-patch it should be even more effective as everything is generally a lot easier.
Anyway, I'll get into some hypothetical builds.
Hawke will change depending on what specialisations you want to be. Here is the essential components to my crit-build however. I'll probably get around to documenting/recording a templar/reaver build, but as it is almost anything will work (though berserk is a little bit wasted).
hawke
- Basically you want your S&S tree: shield bash=stagger, assault and scatter=disorient CCC
- Vanguard tree: upgraded might, massacre=stamina, cleave=nerfed
- Warmonger tree: upgraded bravery=best warrior talent in the game, no joke. It increases your damage by 5% and increases your crit-chance by 3% for every enemy past the first one. Since you're tanking all the enemies you'll be gathering nice big groups; e.g. for 11 enemies you'll have +30% crit chance and +50% damage. With the right gear selection this alone equals ~100% crit chance allowing you to get ~100% extra damage via critical damage.
- Specialisation-wise I'd probably go reaver (even though it's nerfed apart) and templar (because you're going to have a pretty crappy stamina with the bravery sustain (which is the one downside to it).
Gear-wise:
Elemental Weapons - if you don't mind the hassle of gear-swappping mid-fight, using desdemona's and the edge of night allows you to breeze through act 1&2. Act 3 gives you some nice new fire and electricity swords to play with but I haven't tried them out yet. The dlc shield is probably the best shield (due to its damage resistance) so stick with that.
Crit-Gear - This is going to be expensive, so unless you cheat (like Arelex) you're going to have to be really really stingy and load up on runes of fortune.
The hard part is act 2. You'll want to get the etched ring of the twins and the puzzle ring of the black fox (~80g each). I managed to scrape enough during my mage playthrough but easily got enough for my warrior. Weird.
In Act 3 you get stacks of money so it isn't quite as much a problem. Get the seven deadly cinch and nine-fingered eddie's lucky talisman.
If you get all that gear (and maybe a few runes of striking during act 2) you'll have the critical chance and critical damage that makes this a crit-warrior setup. This is because...
Attribute-wise:
You're going to go 100% into strength. Unless you're doing a berserker build of course. But what I mean to say is, don't put any points into dex or cunning because the likelihood is that you won't need it. Unless you reach really high base damage levels it's going to be better to increase base damage by 0.5 rather than crit chance or crit damage.
This means that all the critical stuff comes from gear.
Here is an example of a pre-patch crit-warrior. Reaver is pretty nerfed now so it won't be quite as good but should suffice:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=hTfXhn0KzCg
Varric
- All you really want is to increase his dps via his personal tree, speed/precision and blindside and allow him to setup hawke to deal some epic damage
- Brand: Godly. The +25% crit chance = 100% crit chance in hawkes case, which allows all that pent up critical damage to be unleashed.
- Fatiguing Fog, Pinning shot, Confusion = Disorient yadidah. Fatiguing fog is particularly good in that it helps protect hawke (via slowing enemies) and confusion is alright for getting some heat off hawke, though it may make hawke get..confused for a bit.
Attribute-wise:
Either Varric or Isabela or Sebastian will have to be your lock-picker, and for either one pumping cunning instead of dex is going to reduce their damage. It doesn't really make that much of a difference though. But I would recommend no constitution or willpower and going all into dex (/cun for locks).
Sebastian will basically be a copy of Varric. I don't even know why he's there. Any mage would be infinitely better but hey, I suppose extra disorients and brands alongside decent dps can't hurt.
Isabela
Note that I'm not too sure about this. I still can't quite get her to not die which isn't helpful. But basically the major useful things to consider are increasing her dps (speed, personal tree), giving her some spike damage (explosive strike and twin fangs) and trying to give her some survivability (good luck with that haha).
Anyway, the main interesting thing is lacerate. It doubles the damage of whatever she does to staggered opponents. That means that she'll be absolutely devastating against the enemies you shield bash or stagger via cleave (which is neerrffed). This can be done pretty easily via tactics, e.g. enemy elite or higher-use for next --> enemy staggered-twin fangs.
good luck figuring out how to not waste explosive strikes though.
I think that you may have some luck with threat management to keep her alive. With so many rogues you should be able to get some goad/armistice along with isabela's stealth/evade/back-to-back, which may help her survive a little longer..
And there you have it. My quasi-guide-like spiel for the day.
p.s. disregard the ability orders. i was just using it to quickly select what could be potentially useful in this party setup.
Modifié par mr_afk, 20 juillet 2011 - 04:01 .
#3
Posté 20 juillet 2011 - 10:29
Apathy1989
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I think it would be tough. I've done it on v1.0 with hard difficulty, but nightmare is something else.
Definitely need varric and sebastian.
Definitely need to play SnS since 2H exploits brittle (no longer available) and is weaker, or use Aveline.
I would recommend Reaver/Templar for resistance to hostile magic and self heal with devour. If playing a rogue, best go a 3rd archer with Assassin/Shadow I expect. With so many rogues you should be able to manage aggro to the tank, constantly be spamming fatigue fog and perma obscure the party.
DW rogues are nice but fairly reliant upon healing or buffing from mages to survive. Also they get in the way of SnS warriors using Scatter, Assault and Shield Bash.
Might consider it cheating, but maybe use console to add archery tree to isabela? SnS Warrior and 3 archers would be my opinion on the best party for this. Isabela will just get in the way on nightmare unless you fancy monitoring her constantly.
Definitely need varric and sebastian.
Definitely need to play SnS since 2H exploits brittle (no longer available) and is weaker, or use Aveline.
I would recommend Reaver/Templar for resistance to hostile magic and self heal with devour. If playing a rogue, best go a 3rd archer with Assassin/Shadow I expect. With so many rogues you should be able to manage aggro to the tank, constantly be spamming fatigue fog and perma obscure the party.
DW rogues are nice but fairly reliant upon healing or buffing from mages to survive. Also they get in the way of SnS warriors using Scatter, Assault and Shield Bash.
Might consider it cheating, but maybe use console to add archery tree to isabela? SnS Warrior and 3 archers would be my opinion on the best party for this. Isabela will just get in the way on nightmare unless you fancy monitoring her constantly.
#4
Posté 23 juillet 2011 - 10:15
Andraste_Reborn
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Thanks for the advice. I'm most of the way through Act I and running with Fenris, Isabela and Varric at the moment. (Will definitely be replacing Fenris with Sebastian ASAP, since having three melee characters is a clusterf ... uh, I mean, less than optimal.) Isabela is proving surprisingly lively as long as I keep an eye on her and don't let her get pounded on by multiple mobs. I've used Bethany a couple of times since getting to Kirkwall, but I'm mostly managing to stay mage-free.
It's an interesting challenge. Most self-imposed restrictions to increase difficulty (using limited numbers of potions, etc.) don't appeal to me, but having a role-playing related reason for this one is encouraging me to stick with it. I'm reloading a bit more often than usual, but it's making me think differently and use methods I hadn't previously investigated. And I'm certainly learning to love Disorient.
It's an interesting challenge. Most self-imposed restrictions to increase difficulty (using limited numbers of potions, etc.) don't appeal to me, but having a role-playing related reason for this one is encouraging me to stick with it. I'm reloading a bit more often than usual, but it's making me think differently and use methods I hadn't previously investigated. And I'm certainly learning to love Disorient.
