25 réponses à ce sujet

[Mocker22]

Like a lot of people for all of my DA2 playthroughs I simply accept Anders as neccesary, but he is really on my nerves. He has a ******-poor attitude most of the time, seems whiny, and is a ****ing terrorist. He really can be a great all-around mage also.

I'm wondering who has specifically tried a No-Anders playthrough, except for his personal quests. What group did you feel worked well?

I'm really not into playing a Sprirt Healer just to compensate for the lack of Anders. What do you guys think, is this gonna work out ok with 1 or 0 of the Heal spell? Keep in mind I'm definetly NOT one of the l33t people who go "pffftt, I scoff at nightmare." To me its still difficult with even optimized group setups.

P.S. I'm still pissy that Merrill doesn't get Creation. For one it forces Anders on you, and Creation just seems so Elfy. Perhaps they felt it would overpower her?

[frustratemyself]

With no Anders you would lose Haste and Heroic Aura unless you play mage Hawke and put some points into the Creation tree. It might push you into a bit more of a support role which can get a bit boring (for me anyway).

Anders also has quicker spell cool downs than Hawke & Merrill due to his Vengeance abilities. I always keep Anders around but build him as a nuker, ignoring the Panacea abilities and giving him only Heal/Greater Heal. I also play like Wile E Cyote half the time and still manage to make it through on nm so see how you go.

Merrill not having access to the Creation tree can be looked at from a story perspective (if you wanna go down that dark nerdy path) in that she's a blood mage. They're not really healers. But like Bethany not having access to Primal tree, it is annoying.

[Ryzaki]

If you use Anders for healing that can easily be replaced by healpotions and Mythal's Flasks. (automatic revive of everyone in it's radius).

That's how I got by.

[Ruben Thomas]

Do you all play on Nightmare or something? On my Normal playthrough I only used Anders on quests where he has something interesting to say or I can gain Rivalry/Friendship points with him like I do with all my companions. Aside from that I never used Heal, and I never even upgraded Anders' healing abilities.

But I guess for Hard or Nightmare he's really useful? Since everybody is always using him in a sort of permanent party. Or is it just because everybody is so used to the idea of having to have a healer in their party because of MMOs, and other party based games where healing is necessary?

[mr_afk]

it's mainly for heroic aura and haste.

heroic aura gives a party-wide +10% damage and +10% crit chance (so >+5% damage depending on your critical damage). it also gives an attack bonus which is useful early game and against bosses (if it increases the attack cap).
haste gives a party-wide +50% attack speed. This means +50% damage in general (autoattacks). Via his personal tree (swift justice + martyr) he can maintain haste permanently.
(On lower difficulties haste may be bugged reducing his effectiveness.)

with just haste and heroic aura anders increases the party damage output by a lot.
so when you consider that on top of that anders has one of the greatest damage outputs out of all the companions you see why most people prefer to use him (even though he is a bit of a douche).... He gets +30% damage from his personal tree, ridiculously fast cooldowns and as a mage can take advantage of elemental weaknesses and setup/perform CCCs easier.

the healing aspect isn't very necessary when all the enemies die before they can do any damage.

Modifié par mr_afk, 15 août 2011 - 04:51 .

[Mocker22]

What is he more common Anders sec anyways. Personal tree, and creation of course, then primal or elemental?

[Ryzaki]

If you're on PC you can give Merrill the creation tree (or simply use the exploit to give her Anders' Heroic Aura/heal and Haste spell.)

[Ruben Thomas]

Brock22 wrote...

What is he more common Anders sec anyways. Personal tree, and creation of course, then primal or elemental?

Personally I go Elemental because everytime he casts Fireball he says "Suck on a Fireball!". Though Primal is arguably the stronger skill tree, I think Elemental fits Anders better and it's in my humble opinion a better support tree because you have an easier time causing BRITTLE and Elemental's BRITTLE doesn't come with an enemy armor buff.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

If you play on the PC, there's mods that allow you to open up all spell trees for all companions, thus giving merril acces to creation, healing, maybe even spirit healer.

If you're on a console, you're a bit screwed though. Given the insane cooldowns on health potions, and even other's spells, you really need a healer on the higher difficulties. Potions just don't cut it in alot of the endless wave battles.

[Requiesta De Silencia]

I just played through the first 6 years of the game without anders. After that I used him once and begged Merril to come back. I have the heal spell but I rarely use it (potions just seem to work way better and are abundant) and being a blood mage I rarely need healing (graverobbing upgraded means as long as there're enemies, I get to eat).

So yes I'm in the middle of a playthrough without the whiny little lamb

[Avilia]

I often play without him and I'm the worst player in the world. I don't play on nightmare but I have tried the one under that. To be fair if I'm a mage I spec Spirit Healer but only out of habit. I have played sans-Anders with a warrior and rogue character.

I find if you have enough damage going out, the lack of heals isn't a problem. As has been said pots and such can carry you through.

Modifié par Avilia, 16 août 2011 - 12:01 .

[frustratemyself]

Brock22 wrote...

What is he more common Anders sec anyways. Personal tree, and creation of course, then primal or elemental?

If you play on nm Primal is a bit safer for Anders than Elemental as there is no friendly fire involved there. Anders has a serious case of stupid and disobedient and is very likely to drop a Firestorm on your head in a fit of pique. You could then go Elemental with mage Hawke. More fun when directly controlled and you can drop nukes exactly where you want them.

The Vengeance side of Anders' personal tree is very good, Creation, Primal and Spirit if you want a Walking Bomb set up. Have a look at Arelex's guides as they have companion builds (including tactics) with some very beastly Anders set ups.

[Eudaemonium]

I have to admit, I like playing a mage so I hardly ever use Anders at all. My first Nightmare run was a Force-Mage/Spirit Healer with a party of Aveline, Fenris and Sebastian (I do not recommend that one, though - for a start, Varric is better, secondly the fights took forever because I had no idea what I was doing [but damn, beating that Ancient Rock Wraith after an hour and ten minutes of painstaking epic struggle at one in the morning felt very rewarding]).

Honestly, I find an absence of Anders tricky unless I have a Spirit Healer Hawke, but I quite like playing the Jack-of-All-Trades Mage (Some Elemental, Primal, Creation, Force Mage, Spirit Healer, maybe with Elemental Weapons on top).

[mr_afk]

what's wrong with having a mage hawke as well as anders?

it makes me sad to think about all the people missing out on the joys of dual haste

[SuicidalBaby]

Isn't haste still broken on the lower difficulties?

[mr_afk]

Yeah.. i think you're right. I think it's time for everyone to switch to nightmare

Also, maybe that would shift the optimal builds away from even using haste for mage hawkes. Once your haste starts to last 2seconds it's not really worth it. I wonder when they're planning on patching it.

Seems a little silly to leave such a major bug there for lower difficulties when the majority of people play on them and there's obviously the tools/know-how to fix it out there already.

Modifié par mr_afk, 16 août 2011 - 02:52 .

[Tyrium]

I really need to change the way I play Anders, apparently. I've always ignored the creation (other than heal) and vengeance side of him ... I spec him healer/elemental, I'm going to have to look into this haste thing... (though I use a mod that removes all healing from the vengeance tree and gives him spirit healer, since SH is more powerful than panacea etc. Didn't want to lose access to the vengeance talents though).

As for the OP - what classes do you like to play? What specialisations? that'd help answer the question.

[Mocker22]

Bioware really should do very small fixes on maybe a weekly basis. Fix Sunder damn you all!!!!!

The funny thing is I actually like Anders when I am a mage hawke. Personally without 2 mages I just can't decide what to take/give up. Anders and a mage hawke also have some good storyline synergy imo. Elemental/force/blood hawke + creation/personal/primal anders is beastly.

Mr_afk your crit mage build actually inspired a new playthrough for me. Going to use most of the spell suggestions in that guide and use a very vanilla primal anders build to compliment it. I was likely going to use Varric and Aveline, but that is such a common group setup for me. I'm thinking of using Isabella(crazy right?) and basically just forgoing any brittle CCCs. My biggest worry for this atm is keeping Isabela alive and no getting smacked by the spirirt bombs or firestorms. Think its possible or am I just setting myself up for misery?

If i keep Varric I'll prob still ignore Brittle. Don't think I'll have the points available to get all the way up to Elemental mastery. Its a shame to give up the Archer's lance combo though. I love CCCs that you can execute completely at range.

Modifié par Brock22, 16 août 2011 - 11:12 .

[Symji]

I never use Anders at all, not even for his quest. He should be either a tranquil or dead in my playthrough, as I turned him over to the chantry in awakening. I really don't like him. At all. When he turns out to be a nutbar I was like "I totally saw that coming from a mile away." Maybe this time he'll stay gone.

[mr_afk]

Brittles actually won't be a waste with a crit build/rogues in party.
Brittles have a +50% critical damage modifier associated with them. This means that a crit mage (especially paired with brand) will get a +50% damage modifier against a frozen/petrified enemy (crowd controlled) which won't disappear like after one archer's lance. Brittling enemies is a good way to make the enemy much more fragile such that hasted autoattacking or spells will kill it really fast even without CCCs.

Additionally, brittles can double as good times to get Isabela to use her spike damage talents (the other times been staggers for lacerate). Talents like twin fangs auto-crit and thus get a nice free damage bonus even from early game.

I think Isabela will be mainly tough to use due to friendly fire from forcemage talents. It means that when you block the enemies from reaching you you are also blocking isabela from reaching them.
It also means that common strategies like pull of abyss-->grav ring will be limiting your damage to three party members. (or two. Who was the fourth party member you were intending to take?)

But yeah, until you get some warding runes into her firestorms are liable to kill her very fast. Maybe you could skip elemental mastery (and skip the firestorms) and focus more on the primal tree. It's definitely not as powerful, but dropping firestorms on anything and everything that moves gets boring. Spirit bombs are probably less of an issue as if she is near full health it'll just hit the damage cap. But yeah, even still you'll probably want to walking bomb clusters where isabela isn't attacking.

But I suppose it'll be an interesting challenge if you really want to do it. She's not optimal but she can be alright I suppose. Maybe getting her to use back-to-back before nuking the area could work. :/

Modifié par mr_afk, 17 août 2011 - 12:11 .

[Mocker22]

I think I'm gonna just stick with our fav lil dwaarf. Much easier. I am determined to do a playthrough soon that optimizes a isabela setup though. It'll have to be a group designed around non-aoe tactics I think.

Thats good too know about the Brittles. Ithink my biggest problem was getting enough points. Varric could get archers lance without giving up too much but my mage would have to give up a double haste i order to fill out the cold spells in elemental.

[Andraste_Reborn]

I recently completed a Nightmare run with no mages during Act II and Act III, outside of Anders' first personal quest and both of Merrill's. My Hawke was strongly pro-Templar, so she wasn't comfortable working with a blood mage or an Abomination. Kicked Anders to the curb after he killed Ella.

Hawke was a sword-and-board Warrior, and her standard group consisted of Varric, Sebastian and Isabela. With so many rogues it was relatively easy to keep most of the threat on Hawke and have the other three tear down enemies quickly. (Isabela had more survivability than you would think! Keeping her Defence at the 80% cap seemed to help.) It's challenging but feasible to get by without any magic at all. I think after achieving that, I'd find getting by without Anders and the Creation tree relatively simple.

[Asch Lavigne]

After my first playthrough I never use Anders except on his quests. I too really hate the DA2 Anders. I generally play as a 2 Hander so I use Bethany even though she only has the basic heal spell for Act 1 and then at the end of Act 3, otherwise Im popping health potions or dumming down the difficulty when necessary. I have a tough time every now and then but Im only playing on the normal difficulty setting.

Ive also killed him at the end of every playthrough except one and yeah, they better not pull a Leliana and resurrect him after this.

Modifié par Asch Lavigne, 18 août 2011 - 01:46 .

[The Baconer]

The only time Anders is ever in my party is during his personal quests. I almost always play a mage (nuker) so I'd rather have another warrior for DPS than two mages. I don't even need his healing when I've got mounds and mounds of elfroot potions anyway.

[Corker]

My first playthrough was mostly three rogues (Hawke, Varric, Isabela) and Merrill. I swapped Aveline in for things like the High Dragon fight when a tank was really helpful and used a whole lot of potions and Mythal's Touch. Anders only came out for his personal quests.