What sort of strategy works when you're moving from the Casual difficulty to Normal. I'm finding I'm losing health really quickly and I frequently get party members knocked out. I'm really going through health potions quickly and I have to move the harder boss fights back to Casdual to survive. I'm just looking for any tips to make the transition.
Casual to Normal
Débuté par
Mike3207
, juil. 30 2011 06:05
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#2
Posté 30 juillet 2011 - 09:27
gandanlin
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If your team is getting knocked down it may help to increase physical resistance with hale runes. Indomitable and Shield Wall can also help prevent knockdowns, if I remember correctly.
I find that early in the game it is somewhat more difficult than later on. It takes a while to get good armor and weapons and build up the skills and talents to a point where good damage is being done.
Maybe also try changing tactics. Too aggressive a style may not always work. I switch tactics to hit and run when the going gets really tough.
I find that early in the game it is somewhat more difficult than later on. It takes a while to get good armor and weapons and build up the skills and talents to a point where good damage is being done.
Maybe also try changing tactics. Too aggressive a style may not always work. I switch tactics to hit and run when the going gets really tough.
Modifié par gandanlin, 30 juillet 2011 - 09:27 .
#3
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 03:37
sami jo
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Edit: Holy macaroly...I wrote quite the wall of text. 
Sorry. I just remember being incredibly frustrated as I died over and over during my first playthrough.
Bumping the dexterity of anyone in melee combat will help a lot. They can't get knocked down or damaged if they can't be hit. I barely don't even bother increasing the constitution on anyone but Shale anymore, and I play on nightmare.
The consoles are a bit harder than the PC (targeting isn't as well implemented and you don't have the ability to pause and issue orders to everyone at the same time), but pausing is still your friend.
Use your tactics. Set everyone to use potions when their health is low. Set mages and archers to ranged or even cautious behavior so they won't plop themselves in the middle of a mob. Give every mage at least the basic heal spell to use in a pinch.
Use ranged characters to control how many bad guys are around your melee fighters. AoE spells, suppressive fire and the like can make your life a whole lot easier. Giving rogues the ranger specialization so that you have an extra body to throw in the fight can be a big help when you are still getting the hang of things. I often dual spec my rogues so that they can start the fight from afar with the bow and whittle down the bad guys before they can reach my party.
Position your party so that it is harder for them to be surrounded. Tunnelling the bad guys through halls/doorways/rows of traps/etc. means that there will be fewer to deal with at any one time. Position your rogues so that they can backstab easily. They will do a whole lot more damage. Use archers and mages to take out opposing mages quickly.
Choose talents, abilities and spells carefully. If you are chugging a ton of potions, it's going to be a lot cheaper and easier if you can make them yourself (and you can sell the high level ones for a small fortune). I tend to make my rogues all dex/cun with the Lethality talent that allows them to substitute cunning for strength in calculating damage. They can't be hit and they do a ton of damage (and they have a very high hit rate if they are dual wield). Give your tanks the taunt ability so that they can pull the attention in a fight away from the more fragile characters. Arrow of slaying for high level archers does a huge amount of damage and is great against high level enemies. Pinning shot can help with crown management, keeping single, high level, enemies away for a bit while you clear out the lower level folks.
Certain spells can give you a huge advantage. Cone of cold will freeze enemies almost 100% of the time. Paralyze and crushing prison are also pretty handy at stopping enemies from doing damage to you. The glyphs can be awfully useful, particularly the glyph of repulsion. It will quite handily keep most enemies away from the more fragile characters as long as they are standing in it. Fireball, particularly when combined with grease (cast grease then set the grease on fire), is a great way to clear a room from the doorway. Stinging swarm can be ridiculously useful at whittling down large groups of low level enemies. The swarm will jump from one to the next after they die until the spell ends.
Every class has access to party buff abilities. Rogues have the bardic tree. Warriors have the Champion tree. Mages have primarily the spirit spells. Haste is my personal favorite. Everyone becomes harder to hit and they do more damage. Don't discount the low level elemental spells like frost and flame weapons. The little bit of added damage really does add up.
Pay close attention to which abilities you are using. Those that give a bonus to damage but hurt defense are great for low level enemies as long as you aren't being mobbed. Switch to defensive skills if you are being mobbed or if you are taking on a high level enemy alone for some reason. If you are doing the mobbing, allow your tanke to go defensive and set the rest of your party to do maximum damage.
Finally, heavy armor is not necessarily a good thing on anyone but a tank. Huge fatigue penalties will make characters pretty ineffective in battle. There is a distinct lack of good medium and light armors in-game (Felon's coat is the only really good light armor in the main campaign, though the Dalish armor if it's at the highest material level is decent). Just make sure that the bump in armor class is worth the bump in fatigue. Using armor sets can really help with that.
Sorry. I just remember being incredibly frustrated as I died over and over during my first playthrough.Bumping the dexterity of anyone in melee combat will help a lot. They can't get knocked down or damaged if they can't be hit. I barely don't even bother increasing the constitution on anyone but Shale anymore, and I play on nightmare.
The consoles are a bit harder than the PC (targeting isn't as well implemented and you don't have the ability to pause and issue orders to everyone at the same time), but pausing is still your friend.
Use your tactics. Set everyone to use potions when their health is low. Set mages and archers to ranged or even cautious behavior so they won't plop themselves in the middle of a mob. Give every mage at least the basic heal spell to use in a pinch.
Use ranged characters to control how many bad guys are around your melee fighters. AoE spells, suppressive fire and the like can make your life a whole lot easier. Giving rogues the ranger specialization so that you have an extra body to throw in the fight can be a big help when you are still getting the hang of things. I often dual spec my rogues so that they can start the fight from afar with the bow and whittle down the bad guys before they can reach my party.
Position your party so that it is harder for them to be surrounded. Tunnelling the bad guys through halls/doorways/rows of traps/etc. means that there will be fewer to deal with at any one time. Position your rogues so that they can backstab easily. They will do a whole lot more damage. Use archers and mages to take out opposing mages quickly.
Choose talents, abilities and spells carefully. If you are chugging a ton of potions, it's going to be a lot cheaper and easier if you can make them yourself (and you can sell the high level ones for a small fortune). I tend to make my rogues all dex/cun with the Lethality talent that allows them to substitute cunning for strength in calculating damage. They can't be hit and they do a ton of damage (and they have a very high hit rate if they are dual wield). Give your tanks the taunt ability so that they can pull the attention in a fight away from the more fragile characters. Arrow of slaying for high level archers does a huge amount of damage and is great against high level enemies. Pinning shot can help with crown management, keeping single, high level, enemies away for a bit while you clear out the lower level folks.
Certain spells can give you a huge advantage. Cone of cold will freeze enemies almost 100% of the time. Paralyze and crushing prison are also pretty handy at stopping enemies from doing damage to you. The glyphs can be awfully useful, particularly the glyph of repulsion. It will quite handily keep most enemies away from the more fragile characters as long as they are standing in it. Fireball, particularly when combined with grease (cast grease then set the grease on fire), is a great way to clear a room from the doorway. Stinging swarm can be ridiculously useful at whittling down large groups of low level enemies. The swarm will jump from one to the next after they die until the spell ends.
Every class has access to party buff abilities. Rogues have the bardic tree. Warriors have the Champion tree. Mages have primarily the spirit spells. Haste is my personal favorite. Everyone becomes harder to hit and they do more damage. Don't discount the low level elemental spells like frost and flame weapons. The little bit of added damage really does add up.
Pay close attention to which abilities you are using. Those that give a bonus to damage but hurt defense are great for low level enemies as long as you aren't being mobbed. Switch to defensive skills if you are being mobbed or if you are taking on a high level enemy alone for some reason. If you are doing the mobbing, allow your tanke to go defensive and set the rest of your party to do maximum damage.
Finally, heavy armor is not necessarily a good thing on anyone but a tank. Huge fatigue penalties will make characters pretty ineffective in battle. There is a distinct lack of good medium and light armors in-game (Felon's coat is the only really good light armor in the main campaign, though the Dalish armor if it's at the highest material level is decent). Just make sure that the bump in armor class is worth the bump in fatigue. Using armor sets can really help with that.
Modifié par sami jo, 31 juillet 2011 - 03:43 .
#4
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 01:40
Last Darkness
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Build better character builds, make better tactics, control your combat more. Pretty simple.
Keep in mind theres people who plow through Nightmare mode with huge aoe parties or even solo.
*EDIT*
What type of build/class are you playing and your party?
Keep in mind theres people who plow through Nightmare mode with huge aoe parties or even solo.
*EDIT*
What type of build/class are you playing and your party?
Modifié par Last Darkness, 31 juillet 2011 - 01:42 .
#5
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 05:49
CID-78
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Allways have ranged weapon on every character independent if they focus on them. They can allways do some damage before it's time to switch.
Pick out the easy target first while having your tank distract the hard ones, enemies that are dead can't harm you. It takes longer time to kill ranked enemies and during that time weak archers can do some serious harm on your party. and focus on one enemy at a time. hurt enemies still fight back, so instead of having four harmed enemies it's better to have two dead and two unharmed. Limit the enemy number fast so you get the upper hand.
and most important Pick your battle field, the hardest fights is those fought on enemies terms. aka cutscene walk you into obvious ambush.
If you need to use potions in regular fights you must reconsider you tactics and/or your build style. potions should only be need in the tough encounters and bosses. not the standard mob fights.
Pick out the easy target first while having your tank distract the hard ones, enemies that are dead can't harm you. It takes longer time to kill ranked enemies and during that time weak archers can do some serious harm on your party. and focus on one enemy at a time. hurt enemies still fight back, so instead of having four harmed enemies it's better to have two dead and two unharmed. Limit the enemy number fast so you get the upper hand.
and most important Pick your battle field, the hardest fights is those fought on enemies terms. aka cutscene walk you into obvious ambush.
If you need to use potions in regular fights you must reconsider you tactics and/or your build style. potions should only be need in the tough encounters and bosses. not the standard mob fights.
#6
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 06:07
Dandynermite
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Get a blood mage healer with death magic on (this is my PC) and when you are oom turn on Blood magic and carry on, as things die you get healed slightly. I've never had a fight with anything (except the four dragons) that I've needed to use potions on, and I can keep everybody alive, also if your on PC get the respecc mod and plan out your party completely, I've got me healing, Ser Gilmore tanking, and Leliana and Zevran dual wielding, and dog guarding me, considering going onto the next difficulty its so easy
#7
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 06:08
Dandynermite
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Oh and use rangers, my party has 7 people at all times (elf, human, elf, human, mabari, wolf, wolf
#8
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 07:00
Mike3207
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I'd been doing pretty good on Normal till I got to the 3rd Revenant in the Elf mission-the one guarding the Juggernaut Helmet. It wasn't the Revenant who took my party out, it was all the Skeleton Archers with Critical Strike. I did have to go back to Casual for that fight. My party was around level 11-12, so maybe I should have done that one a bit later. I have been doing better since I got Wynne though.I just wish it didn' take Revival so long to recharge though.
#9
Posté 31 juillet 2011 - 07:07
sami jo
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Mike Smith wrote...
I'd been doing pretty good on Normal till I got to the 3rd Revenant in the Elf mission-the one guarding the Juggernaut Helmet. It wasn't the Revenant who took my party out, it was all the Skeleton Archers with Critical Strike. I did have to go back to Casual for that fight. My party was around level 11-12, so maybe I should have done that one a bit later. I have been doing better since I got Wynne though.I just wish it didn' take Revival so long to recharge though.
That is one of the harder fights in the game. If you pre-position your party (particularly ranged folks) away from where the enemies spawn and tell them to hold there while you trigger the seal, it is a good deal easier. That way you aren't surrounded and your ranged folks can focus on the skeletons.
