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[mr_afk]

Welcome Traveller, 
This guide will lead you through the intricacies of DA2 combat, starting at the basics so you can have a sound basis for utterly facerolling any encounter on any difficulty.


Contents
 - Fun Facts (FAQ)
 - General Principles   
 - CCCs
 - Choosing a class
   + Abilities
   + Attributes
 - Companions
   + Party Synergies
   + Tactics
 - Specific Builds

FUN FACTS (aka FAQ when some questions actually get asked)

 - What do you do when one of your team dies?
When a team member dies you can either choose to complete the encounter with your remaining companions or revive them. During the longer fights reviving companions can make a considerable difference.

Reviving companions can either be done via a spirit healer (hawke) casting revival or anders casting regroup or using the mythal's favour flask. Alternatively you could just reload a save and prevent your team from dying this time round.

After a companion gets dead they will gain an injury when they are wake up after combat or are revived. Injuries take up a portion of your health pool, sort of like a sustain but without the plus side. You can fix injuries with injury kits and elfroot potions.

 - and how do you prevent this?!
Somewhat like real life you can (somewhat) prevent dying by not getting injured in the first place and by getting healed when you do. However, unlike real life healing can be found in spells and potions.

The mage creation tree contains a 'heal' which hawke (mage), bethany, and anders have access to. Spirit healers (Hawke and Anders) have access to an additional 'group heal'.
Health potions, elfroot potions and restorative potions will heal your health. Lifeward potions can be used to automatically revive characters.
Setting Health Poultice and healing tactics can reduce the pressure of needing to pay attention to your companions hp. Spells and potions have reasonably long cooldowns however, so you shouldn't rely totally on getting healed.

Reducing damage can be done through armour, defence, elemental resistance, magic resistance, damage resistance, and good combat strategies (details further down).
Armour will reduce the amount of damage from physical sources, elemental resistance will protect against elemental damage, damage resistance reduces overall damage and good combat strategies will mean enemies die faster- and been dead has been known to reduce damage output.

Your armour-rating is a percentage score of how much physical damage reduction your current armour-score provides. Increasing your armour-score by equipping good armour is important as higher levelled enemies are more powerful and will be able to get through more armour. This is seen by a reduced armour-rating (percentage) as you level up.
Resistances can be increased by certain abilities, equipment and runes.
Equipping elemental warding runes and/or certain sustains can be useful during fights involving elemental damage, e.g. dragons and the ARW. 
Damage resistance reduces damage from all sources and adds greatly to durability. While damage resistance from equipment is usually restricted to high-end gear, abilties like stone-wall and barrier can provide 100% damage resistance for limited amounts of time. Such abilities can provide the extra few seconds needed to get in a heal or potion and can prevent the near-dead from dying. This also can be set into tactics.

 - What are runes and how to I get some?
Firstly you need to speak to Worthy in Hightown. He'll deal you in on the runes. From then on you can either get your runes from him or order it from home.

Runes basically are magical items which can convey special properties to your weapons and armour. And as such, they come in two types, weapon runes and armour runes. The magnitude of the effect they convey will depend on the quality (item level) of your weapon. Better armour and weapons will gain greater bonuses from runes. In order to make runes you need to have the rune recipe and the crafting materials.
You will find rune recipes scattered all over the place:


Weapon Runes
Rune of Impact: Adds physical damage - Wilmod's Camp during Enemies Among Us (Act 1)
Rune of Fire: Adds fire damage - Dark Foundry during The First Sacrifice (Act 1)
Rune of Frost: Adds cold damage - Lirene's Fereldan Imports (Lowtown) (Act 1-2)
Rune of Lightning: Adds lightning damage - The Blooming Rose (Hightown) or Top of Sundermount (Act 1)
Rune of Nature: Adds nature damage - Master Ilen's Shop (Sundermount) (Act 2)
Rune of Spirit: Adds spirit damage - Brekker's Hideout during Inside Job (Act 2)
Rune of Striking: Increases critical chance - DuPuis Estate during Prime Suspect (Act 2)
Rune of Devastation: Gives +10% damage - Sewer Passage after Evelina during On The Loose (Act 3)
Primeval Lyrium Rune: Increases attack-speed (obtained by destroying the lyrium piece during Haunted) (Act 3)
Sandal's Special Rune: Chance for knock-back (obtained by talking to Sandal) (Act 2)


Armour Runes
Rune of Protection: Increase armour - Given to you by Worthy (Act 1)
Rune of Defense: Increases defence - Skeleton on Wounded Coast (Act 2 or 3)
Torpor's Barrier Rune: Increases magic resistance (obtained by making a deal with torpor) (Act 2)
Rune of Valiance: +2 attributes - Sundermount, near the Varterral Hunting Ground (Act 3)
Rune of Fortune: Increases the amount of money picked up - Black Emporium (Act 1-3)
Rune of Fire Warding: Increases fire resistance - Bottom of Wounded Coast (Act 1)
Rune of Frost Warding: Increases cold resistance - Crate in Sanctuary during Enemies Among Us (Act 1)
Rune of Lightning Warding: Increases electricity resistance - Mage Goods (Gallows) (Act 1)
Rune of Nature Warding: Increases nature resistance - Smuggler's Cut during Blackpowder Courtesy (Act 2)
Rune of Spirit Warding: Increases spirit resistance - Mage Goods (Act 2)


Once you obtain a rune you can get Sandal to "enchantment" them into your weapons and armour. During Act 1 Sandal is in Hightown with the Deep Roads Expedition team and from Act 2 onwards he resides in your estate.


 - Which runes should I use?
The best weapon rune is the primeval lyrium rune. The large increases to attack-speed makes your damage output jump up by a lot. The only problem is that there is only one of them. This means that the primeval rune should be reserved for your best end-game weapon, whether that be an evolving weapon (useful if you reach higher levels) or one of the uniques (useful if you don't have as high a character level).

The second best rune is the rune of devastation. Luckily you can make as many as you want, so you should idealy dump one of these runes into all the weapons you and your companions use. Unfortunately, this rune is only available in act 3 and has some rather exotic ingredients that you'll have to hunt down.

For the majority of the game you will only have access to elemental runes and runes of striking. Runes of striking will be superior in almost every case- the increase to critical chance does more than the extra bit of tag on damage. However, pre-runes of striking you might as well use the basic elemental runes. Every bit of damage counts.


The best armour runes will depend on the fight you're facing. Generally speaking it's nice to have a rune of valiance (+2 all attributes) but like the rune of devastion this is only available late-game. This means that it's a choice between armour, defence, elemental resistance and money. Depending on your priorities, it's usually recommended to equip appropiate elemental resistances for certain fights and leave in runes of fortune/whatever for other occassions.

All dragon and rage demon fights are a lot easier with Runes of fire warding
The Ancient Rock Wraith and Qunari fights are easier with Runes of lightning warding
Fights with lots of abominations are easier with Runes of spirit warding


 - How do I make money?
Making money is a generally a happy by-product of doing lots of quests and fighting lots of fights (and digging through their corpses). However, there are a few things you can do to increase the amount of gold you have.

The main method you should consider is using Runes of Fortune. They increase the amount of coin you pick up from containers and dead things (not the amount that drops) and will make quite a large difference over the course of the game.  Equipping gear with 'enemies drop better equipment' properties will improve the value of the random items generated when you enter a new zone.

These methods and how to get started fast are detailed in SuicidalBaby's Money Guide.

Selling potions/draughts/injury kits can also help although in practice I found that it only gives you ~10-20g by the end of act 2. The drop-rate for potions etc is based on the number of potions in your inventory- the less you have the more likely they will drop.  The extent of this increased potion drop chance varies between difficulties; For casual potions will continue dropping until ~10. At nightmare this is ~3. 

This leads into the last thing you can do to have more money. Be thrifty (or an utter miser, depending on how you look at it). If you reserve your money for more essential items (e.g. upgrades, tomes and useful unique gear) and not spend it on weapons/gear/potions that will be useful for only a few levels you should be mostly fine money-wise. This is especially true for potions since unless you should get all you need from drops - if you don't it probably means that your party isn't fighting as effectively as it should be (and you're in the right place to learn how to fix it!)
It also means that you might not buy all your companions gifts unless you're a really nice person, in which case good on you!


 - What do the shops sell and what should I buy (Part One)?
In general there isn't much need to buy weapons and armour as the item-drops you get will most of what you need. However, it is important to consider backpacks, companion armour upgrades, and stat boosting tomes as they do not carry across the acts so you only have one chance to buy them.

Backpacks increase inventory space by 10 and are worthwhile investments if you don't fancy having to clear your inventory as often.
In Act 1 there is one at Apparel Shop (Lowtown) and one at Robes by Jean Luc (Hightown).
In Act 2 there is one at Mage Goods (Gallows) and another one at Robes by Jean Luc.
In Act 3 there is yet another at Robes by Jean Luc.

Companion armour upgrades are found scattered around Kirkwall. 
Aveline gets her armour from the Armour Merchant Shop (Lowtown) in Act 1 and Act 2.
Varric gets his armour from the Apparel Shop (Lowtown) in Act 1 and from Shady Merchandise (Docks) in Act 2.
Anders gets an upgrade from Mage Goods (Gallows) and Lirene's Fereldan Imports (Lowtown) in Act 2.
Isabela gets a Rigid Boning from the Apparel Shop (Lowtown) and an upgrade from Robes by Jean Luc (Hightown) in Act 2.
Fenris gets his upgrades from Shady Merchandise (Docks) and Robes by Jean Luc (Hightown) in Act 2. 
Merrill gets her upgrades from Master Ilen's Shop (Sundermount) and Robes by Jean Luc (Hightown) in Act 2.
Sebastian gets his upgrades from the Armour Shop (Gallows) and Oalf's Armoury Shop (Hightown) in Act 2.

It isn't necessary to upgrade all your companions, check the full list at the wikia to ensure that you don't miss any for the companions you use.


Tomes are awesome. Here's the list of all tomes, bought and otherwise:
In Act 1 you get a Tome of Technique (+1 ability) from Hubert's Fine Goods (Hightown) and Avernus's Experimental Draught (+2 Attributes) from the Dark Epiphany quest (if you imported a save Origins with Warden's Keep having spared Avernus).
In Act 2 you can buy a Greater Tome of the Mortal Vessel (+2 Attributes) from Trinkets Emporium (Lowtown) and a Tome of Technique (+1 ability) from Master Ilen's Shop (Sundermount).
During the Night Terrors quest you have the chance to obtain up to 10 attributes. You get one from catching a book and another three from doing two puzzles. You get the other six trading away your innocence.
You also get the recipe for the Elixir of Heroism (+1 Bonus Level) from a corpse found just after the Carta fight during the Demands of the Qun questline.
In Act 3 you can get an Arcane Tome of the Mortal Vessel (+3 Attributes) from Korval's Blades (Hightown)

From Act 1 you can get a Greater Tome of the Mortal Vessel (+2 Attributes) and two elixirs (one +1 ability for mages and one for non-mages) from Crafting Materials if you have The Black Emporium. These tomes will not disappear between acts (but won't reappear either).


 - What do the item stars and colour mean?
Before we get on with shopping, here's a quick explanation as to what you're finding and buying.
There are two types of items: Randomly generated generic items and unique items which can always be found there. 

Items are assigned an item-level and a quality/rarity rank. The item-level is seen through its star-rating, where the number of stars relates to the difference between the item's level and your character's level. As you level up the difference will decrease and the star rating will drop.

The item-rank is denoted by its colour. From lowest to highest rank/rarity:

    Low quality equipment with no additional effects. Base rank for weapons and armor.
    Decent quality equipment with one or two stat/skill properties. Base rank for accessories.
    High quality equipment with three or four stat/skill properties.
    Unique equipment, usually one-of-a-kind equipment with some sort of history behind them.
    Equipment from a downloadable content.


- What do the shops sell and what should I buy (Part Two)?
Both unique gear and generic gear have their uses. For warrior and rogues it is usually preferable to equip unique weapons and armour while mages may find having staves of a greater variety of elemental type useful and gear which fits the elements they are more focused in.

While you usually can get by on item-drops alone (which are a good source for useful uniques and generics), here is a short list of some of the more useful unique items that may be worth buying:

Act 1
Enchanted Silverite Chain Belt: +1 to all attributes - Bonny Lem's Wares (Disused Passage)
Amulet of Serenity: +8%healing - Formari Herbalist (Gallows)
The Fallen Star: +1 to all attributes, +1% xp gain, +7% damage resistance -  The Black Emporium

Staff of Primal Order: Best cold staff - Bonny Lem's Wares
Desdemona's Blade: Nature Longsword - The Black Emporium
The Anderfel Cleaver: Fire Greataxe - The Black Emporium
Arlathan Replica Bow: Best Bow (non-dlc) - The Black Emporium
Thrice-Bound: Bonus to Lockpicking and Disarm Traps - Weaponsmithy (Lowtown)

Act 2
Poisonwood Locket: +12% nature damage - Bonny Lem's Wares
Etched Ring of the Twins: +9% critical damage, +2 strength, immunity to knockback - Nexus Golem's Wares
Puzzle Ring of the Black Fox: +9% critical chance, +2 dexterity, +2 cunning, bonus to lockpicking - Bonny Lem's Wares

Cold-Blooded: Cold Staff - Magnus's Wares (Wounded Coast)
The Heavens' Answer: Best Bow (non-dlc) - Bonny Lem's Wares

Stealth Boots (rogue only): +21% critical damage, +2 all attributes - The Black Emporium
King Something the Forgotten's Armour: +5% attack speed, +3 constitution, +20% damage resistance, immunity to stun

Act 3
Seven Deadly Cinch: +9% critical damage - Magnus's Wares (Wounded Coast)
The Belt of Promise: +3 dexterity, +3 cunning, +1% xp gain, +10% damage resistance - The Black Emporium
Four-Fingered Eddie's Lucky Talisman: +8% critical chance, +4% attack speed, +2 dex, +2 cunning - Bonny Lem's Wares 
Dull Brass Amulet: +1 all attributes, immunity to flanking - The Black Emporium
Ring of the Ferryman: +24% fire & electricity, immunity to stun - Magnus's Wares
Ring of No Wishes: +1 all attributes, immunity to critical hits, immunity to stun - The Black Emporium
Bardin's Folly: +3% attack speed, +6% physical damage, +2 strength - Nexus Golem's Wares

The Final Thought: Highest base damage nature staff - The Black Emporium
Blade of a Thousand Battles: Good Physical Damage Longsword - The Black Emporium
Sundering: Electrical Maul - Nexus Golem's Wares
Absolution: Best non-elemental bow - Nexus Golem's Wares

Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness: +24% fire, cold, electricity, nature damage, +28% healing, +2 all attributes

For all classes generic gear can be useful for increasing elemental damage (more info in the specific builds section):

Jean-Luc (Hightown): +fire apparel, +fire accessories.
Hubert (Hightown): +fire apparel, +fire accessories.
Trinkets (Lowtown): +fire accessories.
Apparel (Lowtown): +fire apparel.
Shady Merchant (Docks): +cold apparel.
Bonny Lem (Disused Passage): +cold accessories.
Formari Herbalist (Gallows): +spirit accessories.
Mage Goods (Gallows): +spirit apparel, +spirit accessories.
Craftmaster (Sundermount): +fire apparel, +fire accessories, +nature accessories.
Magnus' Wares (Wounded Coast): +fire accessories.
Nexus Golem (Recently Discovered Passage): +fire accessories.
Bodahn (Hightown/Deep Roads, Act I): +electricity accessories. 

Source: Generic +X% elemental dmg gear

Modifié par mr_afk, 22 août 2011 - 07:34 .

[mr_afk]

GENERAL PRINICPLES

The old adage "offence is the best defence" is particularly prominent in DA2 combat. The ideal method to every fight is to have enough damage such that you kill enemies before they can deal damage to you. 
Unlikely as it may seem, having less defensive 'tanking' and more offensive 'killing' works wonders - such that you won't have to resort to pulling techniques and fights will be over before you know it. 

While it isn't that complicated, there is an art to heavy dps steamrolling.
 - Prioritising Targets
 - Crowd Control (CC)
 - Threat Management
 - Damage

Crowd Control
A relatively simple concept, crowd control just involves disabling the enemies. CCs can almost permanently keep certain enemies out of the fight and unable to avoid any damage you want to inflict. This limits the damage that your party recieves such that certain fights may be over without any of your party getting injured.

Threat Management
Especially in damage-centric parties it is important to direct the enemy attention away from more fragile party members and towards those that can take it.

Damage
Arguably the most important part, building your party to deal large damage and have damage synergy allows you to kill enemies so fast that crowd control and threat management is hardly needed.
While I'll get to the details of optimising damage output, the most important aspect of DA2 to consider is that ofcross-class combos (CCC).
This consists of a party member setting up a 'status' which can be exploited by another class. Using certain abilities warriors set up staggers, rogues set up disorients, and mages brittle enemies. CCCs deal considerably more damage than usual.

CROWD CONTROL (CC)

There are several important strategies to grasp relating to crowd control. 
All attacks and abilities have some CC potential relating to force. An example of this could be a stone fist knocking over an enemy. That knocked down enemy is effectively out of the fight for a second or two. 

However, several abilities can stun, slow, or paralyse enemies for several seconds. These abilities have much superior CC potential, keeping enemies out of the fight long enough to kill them (and keep them out of the fight more permanently). This leads to the idea of priotising your CCs. 

Elite enemies such as assassins, rage demons and even commanders are responsible for dishing out the most hurt to your party. This means that they should be the target of your more powerful CCs. 
Targetting elites can be done through tactics.


These are the main CCs (refer to the crowd control section of this thread for the full list):

Mages
 - Winter's grasp: Freezes and/or Slows
 - Cone of Cold: Ditto.
 - Petrify: Paralyse (15seconds)
 - Crushing Prison: Paralyse (10seconds)
 - Glyph of Paralysis: Paralyse (10seconds). Can paralyse groups.
 - Horror: Stun (10seconds) 
 - Spirit Bolt: Force Effect
 - Stonefist: Force Effect

Force Mage
 - Gravitic Ring: Slow (20 seconds). Slows enemies to a complete stop based on distance from epicentre.
 
Warriors
 - Pommel Strike: Stun (8seconds)
 - Shield Bash: Force Effect

Rogues
 - Pinning shot: Pinning (10seconds)

It is wise to invest in at least some of these abilities to reduce the enemy damage output and make fights easier for yourself. Why take damage when you don't need to?

THREAT MANAGEMENT

Unfortunately you won't always be able to crowd control every enemy. When enemies are attacking your party you want them to leave your fragile members alone and focus on your stronger party members.

Generally speaking the order of characters to face the threat ideally will be your dog, your warrior, then your hawke. 
 - The dog can tank a surprising amount of damage and holds threat like a champion. 
 - Warriors innately are more durable than other classes. With the exception of fenris (who is a big sissy), warrior hawke and Aveline will be able to take lots of damage without even pumping any constitution.
 - The player controlled character (which I assume to be generally hawke) will be the best in a team of four fragile companions. Controlling a character allows you to dodge attacks much more effectively as well as use crowd control/damage abilities the most effectively.

In order to direct enemies towards your designated 'tank' ....

*yawn* I'll get back to this later. I'm going to take a break. I'm no way near as dedicated as Suicidal [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/lol.png[/smilie]


figure One: CCC Triangle. Alternatively check out the wikia

I'll go into more detail in a bit.

Modifié par mr_afk, 22 août 2011 - 02:02 .

[mr_afk]

Choosing a class
In the world of Dragon Age there are three types of people. Hawke, people that need killing, and people that need killing. Hawke's class will be the largest determinant of how those people get killed.


Warrior - "..fight like a spartan"
A warrior hawke can choose to take up a sword and shield (S&S) or a big unwieldy lump of steel (2H). 
There are several important things you should know about Warriors.
S&S warriors are NOT always tanks and 2H warriors are NOT superior damage-wise. Infact, in terms of dps they are very similar with the only real differences been the abilities in the weapon tree and the equipment available.

By choosing a warrior you are choosing to be the target of enemy attacks. Out of all the classes DA2 warriors pick up the most threat and find losing it the hardest. This isn't necessarily a bad thing however.
In addition to been the most durable, warriors have the advantage of having area of effect (aoe) damage. This means that unlike rogues and mages, warriors will actually deal more damage when attacking groups of enemies as they will be hitting multiple targets at once.

This means that positioning is key. Instead of hacking at that one enemy in front of you it may be beneficial to move around such that you can hack at two or three enemies at the same time. This is of particular significance for your abilities. They do lots of damage so you want to deal that damage to as many enemies as possible.

Companions usually fall under the protection of warriors and are ideally left alone by enemies- allowing them to be more fragile and focus more on crowd control and damage. So as a warrior you actually want to maintain enemy threat on you. This can be done through abilities or simply doing enough damage. While this may be considered 'tanking' by some people this doesn't actually require a 'tank' build. Think of it like you're calling more enemies to you so you can kill them and protecting your companions is a happy byproduct.

Warriors gain stamina by killing enemies. The amount is increased by the berserker ability death blow and the vanguard ability massacre helps to ensure that the warrior gets the kill. Alternatively, battlemaster abilities and stamina draughts can help restore stamina. 

CCCs (Warriors) 
Warriors are responsible for staggering enemies. 
This is mainly done via upgrading abilities such as shield bash, pommel strike, and cleave. Other methods include sunder (currently bugged), tremor, and devour. It is worthwhile investing in some of these abilities as CCCs will do wonders to your damage output.

S&S warriors can perform CCCs on disoriented enemies to great effect. Using upgraded scatters and assualts on disoriented enemies will increase your damage up to 6-fold.
2H warriors have brittle CCCs. When using upgraded mighty blows and scythes against brittle enemies you will do up to 3 times the damage.


Abilities (Warriors)
Improving your damage output is usually done through the weapon tree (S&S or 2H), Vanguard, and the specialisations. The weapon trees provide useful spike damage abilties (assault, scatter or mighty blow, scythe and whirlwind) as well as some other useful abilities. Note that on nightmare melee abilities will cause friendly fire.

Weapon and Shield governs the abilities that are used with a single handed weapon and shield equipped. 
Shield defence provides damage resistance in exchange for reduced damage. This may be useful in certain situations but in the loss in damage output usually isn't worth always leaving it on.
Shield bash provides a reliable stagger when upgraded. It also deals large amounts of force which can interrupt enemies.
Assault is one of the highest damage warrior abilties. It deals even more damage when used as a CCC against disoriented enemies.
Scatter is another high damage ability. It deals damage with a considerable radius such that entire groups of enemies can be damaged at once. It also can be used as a disorient CCC once upgraded.
Perception grants immunity to flanking. Flanking refers to how attacks from behind gain additional critical chance and attack. It is possible to get equipment which also conveys this.
Safeguard grants immunity to critical hits. It is possible to get equipment which also conveys this.

Two-Handed is the tree which governs the abilities used with a two handed weapon equipped.
Mighty blow deals considerable spike damage and can be upgraded to deal more damage when used as a CCC against brittle enemies.
Giant's reach increases the weapon reach allowing more enemies to be hit at once.
Sunder gives a chance to stagger on critical hits as well as increasing critical chance. Currently sunder is bugged and does not increase critical chance.
Scythe is a forward charge, rushing through several enemies. It deals reasonable damage which can be upgraded to be used as a brittle CCC.
Whirlwind is an aoe spin attack which damages all the enemies around hawke.

 Vanguard is mainly used for increasing damage via might and cleave as well as ensuring kills via massacre. The destroyer passive is also nice. Overall the tree increases damage by around 85% and gives a chance to stagger so is definitely worth investing in.
Control increases attack and can be upgraded to increase critical chance. With the exception of the very initial levels where attack-ratings are an issue it is generally better to use might.
Might increases damage and can be upgraded to increase critical damage.
Assail increases damage by a tiny amount and increases the force of attacks.
Cleave is one of the more useful self-buffs. It increases damage by quite a bit and can be upgraded to give a stagger chance. This is one of the primary reasons to go into the Vanguard tree.
Destroyer is a passive which reduces enemy damage resistance. It can be useful when dealing with enemies with high damage resistance.
Massacre is a passive which triggers deathblows (instant kills) against almost dead enemies. This guarantees kills which can help with the warrior method of stamina regen.

The specialisations also have some very useful abilities. Reaver gives you increased damage proportional to your health as well as a useful passive which increases attack speed on kill. Berserker also gives increases to attack speed as well as allowing you to use your stamina to add to base damage - i'll get to this in the Attributes section.
Templar has some abilities which can be useful against mages and demons.








,... i'm not an encyclopedia! I'm not even sure what I'm doing now. I'm going to sleep. 


Warmonger gives you access to taunt (threat management), pommel strike (stagger & stun), and bravery among other things. These can be useful in certain builds.
Defender is the main tree for tanking. Abilities like stonewall can block damage and elemental aegis gives helpful protection against elemental damage.
Last but not least, the Battlemaster tree gives stamina regen abilities, rally, and battle synergy. Battle synergy can be helpful with tanking while rally is one of the most powerful party buffs, conveying stamina/mana regen as well as some of the sustains you may have on.

It is important to rememver there is no necessary set of abilities to take. However, optimally you will want to improve your damage output as much as possible.


i'll get back into this soon.

Modifié par mr_afk, 22 août 2011 - 02:02 .

[mr_afk]

.

[mr_afk]

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[SuicidalBaby]

afk, this was my advice to Arelex a while back before he started doing anything with mages.

basics is more a way of thinking. You have to be aware of your own level of understanding and then think back to the first time you played a mage. How much did you really understand about not just what you are capable of but how to get the most out of the character.

It shouldnt just be about play, but the absolutes.
Staff damage = spell damage
Not crippling the mage by going 1 element
Oh ****! buttons like Horror, Glyph of Paralysis, or moving 2 feet instead of standing there and taking it.
attributes
forethought & purpose to the build, think about what you want to do before you do it
aggression, when to show it and when to wait 3 seconds for situations to happen for the best use of a given spell, see Winters Grasp/Pull of Abyss/Gravitic Ring
preventitive use of spells not thought of, Chain Lightning as cc, pull of abyss/telkinetic blast as companion saver
CCCs & timing
weaknesses

I realize some of that went beyond basics, take what you will from it

This may help you start an outline of what and how you want to cover the direct subject of Novices. I should add that you want to shape the post.

[mr_afk]

thanks! yeah, i'm thinking i'll spend more time going through the basics of what crowd control, threat management is. Probably will have to explain elemental weaknesses too. I'm not too sure about the order to go about things though.

I'm thinking that getting into a description of ideal styles of gameplay for each class could be useful for those who don't know how to use them as effectively as they could.

On the other hand, explaining the idea behind party synergy etc could be more useful...

Any input/suggestions would be greatly appreciated- and if you think i'm forgetting anything tell me and I'll add it in.


I'm going to load heaps of wikia links into it as a not so subtle hint to check the wikia for extra information (saves me having to list the actual formulas etc)

Modifié par mr_afk, 18 août 2011 - 07:38 .

[Darchon_]

I think that rather than a ginormous block of text, you would be better off to create a video like this:
www.youtube.com/watch

Only someone who knows how to play...


It would be good to make 3 videos (1 for each class), going through a fairly involved fight with a mix of critters, normals, and 1-2 elites and showing, step by step the thought process behind what we do by instinct.

That should easily cover the most important basics:
- Elemental Damage/Weaknesses
- Crowd Control
- Cross class Combos
- Party Dynamics
- Priority Targets
- Basic Tactics

This video www.youtube.com/watch is a good start, but I would rather see it spell out the decisions better like the first vid I linked to.

There should be a short writeup for each class and companion to accompany the vids. In it I wouldn't worry too much about ability selection beyond CCCs. Just write a blurb about what each abliity tree is used for and maybe a key talent or two from each. Same with the selection of companions. Just explain what the companion brings to your party, and what sort of things that you want to keep in mind while creating a party. Don't make suggestions on what to pick.

[SuicidalBaby]

You should pick the same fight for each class so that people can see the reletive differences between the play styles..

[Fallstar]

And stick a boss fight in, so people can get used to the mechanics of such fights.

[mr_afk]

sounds like fun! (more than re-writing the wikia. not quite sure what I was trying to do last night).

I'll probably make a compilation rather than one fight or so. This will allow me to jump around and demonstrate specific ideas etc. in a more logical order. It also will allow me to demonstrate more of the combat that can be expected to be seen. Hm I'll see about doing a voice-over if that helps.

I'll get to it tonight (which is in ~10-12 hours).

[ripstrawberry]

Great read so far!

[mr_afk]

Haha thank you.

Btw, I tried recording tutorial fights but I've come to the realisation that I'm not skilled enough to do live commentary and can no longer do pause play as to demonstrate exactly what i'm doing. I think I'm just going to have to do some post-editing (add in pauses and maybe a voice over).

Anyway, which fight(s) do you think I should record? I was recording a xebenkeck fight until I realised that it isn't ideal for demonstrating basic strategies. Everything gets so messy (and I automatically revert to non-pause play and just kill everything). I'm thinking something more open would be good, though the gauntlet is a little too open for my likings.

Maybe one of the random mobs at night will do the trick...

[SuicidalBaby]

Stop. Slow down. Start a new game if you have to. Beginners do not know about Xebenkeck or anything to do with those types of encounters. Save that for later.

What occurs at the beginning of the game?
Everyone gets a small open tutorial on abilities.

What is the next step that isn't explained but requires planning from that point on?
-Planning Group Synergy within the CCC family.
-The basic abilities each class must have. There are 2-3 absolutes for each class in this subject for beginners.
-The worthless abilities beginners should avoid for the entire game even though they look good.
-Prioritizing targets.
-What to do when one of your team dies and how to prevent this.
-Setting Health Poultice tactic. (The game ignores this feature.)
-Shopping around in the areas you have entered.
-Understanding how Shops work. (random generation upon each load of that zone.)
-What items to avoid buying early.
-What items to buy early. (Companion armor upgrades, backpacks, ect.)
-What items to sell early. (@ level 4-10 all poultices except health can be sold without worry on any difficulty.)
-Sandal.
-Rune of Fortune

If you're talking about everything a beginner needs to know, you need to start linking the guides at some point.

Have the right frame of mind. You're talking to novices. Direct your focus to what a novice does not inherently understand at the outset of the game, but will certainly affect the later portions of the game.

Modifié par SuicidialBaby, 19 août 2011 - 03:52 .

[Darchon_]

SuicidialBaby wrote...

Stop. Slow down. Start a new game if you have to. Beginners do not know about Xebenkeck or anything to do with those types of encounters. Save that for later.

What occurs at the beginning of the game?
Everyone gets a small open tutorial on abilities.

What is the next step that isn't explained but requires planning from that point on?
-Planning Group Synergy within the CCC family.
-The basic abilities each class must have. There are 2-3 absolutes for each class in this subject for beginners.
-The worthless abilities beginners should avoid for the entire game even though they look good.
-Prioritizing targets.
-What to do when one of your team dies and how to prevent this.
-Setting Health Poultice tactic. (The game ignores this feature.)
-Shopping around in the areas you have entered.
-Understanding how Shops work. (random generation upon each load of that zone.)
-What items to avoid buying early.
-What items to buy early. (Companion armor upgrades, backpacks, ect.)
-What items to sell early. (@ level 4-10 all poultices except health can be sold without worry on any difficulty.)
-Sandal.
-Rune of Fortune

If you're talking about everything a beginner needs to know, you need to start linking the guides at some point.

Have the right frame of mind. You're talking to novices. Direct your focus to what a novice does not inherently understand at the outset of the game, but will certainly affect the later portions of the game.

Most of that wouldn't belong in a video. Thats the kind of things that would be in the text portion of the guide.

The video I had in mind is late act 1, maybe saving the unbidden rescue or Shepherding Wolves to the very end of the act (say level 11-12). This gives you a decent selection of abilities that you can use to demonstrate your most important concepts.  You need to be at least level 9-11 to get many of the CCC abilities like Battery or Punishing Lance.

mr_afk: if you want to force yourself to pause and plan your attacks, remove your companion's tactics. That should teach you pretty quickly to pause and assess the situation.

[frustratemyself]

If you really want to go back to basics for combat demo's maybe the fight with the ogre etc in the prologue (with normal Hawke not super Hawke). You've got a mob of different level creatures (critter, normal, elite) and a party with 1 character of each class. Might be a good example for the real newbies which I'm assuming this is aimed at.

Or some of the night time gang fights, the quested ones not the ambushes. Again these usually have a few different level enemies and a mix of ranged & melee fighters. You'd also be at a high enough level ability wise to start showing off some CCC's.

[mr_afk]

Well, I was actually more a less thinking of "beginner's" in terms of the people who never really understood the combat as opposed to people playing it for the first time. Though I suppose there isn't much of a distinction.

My original goal was for a quick guide to teach people how to play effectively such that combat doesn't drag on like a chore and that they faceroll so hard using the builds that they understand and/or come up with themselves such that they are inspired to enjoy the combat element of the game and maybe even up the difficulty. Because while guides are fun to follow and will generally allow performance at a much higher level they also do not necessarily teach the know-how behind why they are doing what they are doing.

But unfortunately, this doesn't seem like it's going to be anywhere near a 'quick' guide. haha
Anyway I'll add a tutorial section addressing those questions before getting into the nitty-gritty details. But making it all too basic will almost be condescending- and nobody likes that.


I was going to do act 1 fights but all my saves for all three classes start from the second act. Gah, looks like i'm going to have to do three new playthroughs. Oh well, I was meaning to get a ~20 sec S&S post-patch ARW speed run just for ****s and giggles (and to beat Arelex).

I'm tempted to just run the tutorial vid mostly with tactics with just some initial pause-play to explain what my companions are doing. I'm just way too used to tactics such that I don't immediately pause and aim CCCs whenever I see a stagger for example. What happens when I don't use tactics is that my companions just do crap all and hawke kills everything single-handedly.


Haha the ogre fight is pretty nasty. I hate it with a passion. Having ridiculously low attack-ratings means that flanking becomes almost necessary if you don't want to sit there for ages glancing them down '1' damage at a time. Also, you don't get one of each class unless you're a rogue. If you're a mage or warrior you get two warriors - both of which do crap all damage and have crap all health.

But yeah, I think i'll probably do some end of act 1 fights and/or beginning of act 2 fights where the CCCs are just starting to surface. And yep, demonstrating the CCC synergy between a balanced party will be ideal.

Modifié par mr_afk, 20 août 2011 - 03:40 .

[atheelogos]

mr_afk wrote...



Figure One: CCC Triangle. Alternatively check out the wikia



I'll go into more detail in a bit.

You forgot the upgrade for pinning shot. Disorienting Shot causes disorient.

Modifié par atheelogos, 20 août 2011 - 01:27 .

[Mocker22]

Mr_afk this is coming along really nicely. If your interesting still in doing some videos, you could check out 2 ME2 videos I loved. Adepting through Insanity, and Engineering the Asylum, by the Average Gatsby They are basically a level 1 to max comentated videos explaining the In's and Out's of those 2 classes. I lved them even after being an expirenced ME2 player.

[mr_afk]

@atheelogos - yeah, that was made pre-patch when disorienting shot was still bugged. i'm planning on updating that with a more...utilitarian design soon. I'll get to it when I start discussing CCCs in detail.

@Brock - Thanks! Hm, I'm not sure if I'll have the time to record the whole game. If I get around to a new playthrough I'll record fights at key points. I'd rather try to explain what needs to be explained a little more concisely than explaining each and every step one fight after another. But I think that an early game (from lothering) could be useful. I could discuss the idea of attack-rating and why it's important to get precision, control and heroic aura as early as possible. :/

We'll see.

[Mocker22]

Ya i wouldn't think to do the entire game on vdeo. OMG that wuld take forever. Thse vdeos stood out to me because the author seemed very good at giving concise information and showcasing how key class abilities worked. I.E. the best way to use an abilitity and how it combos with others.

On another note this thread really got me thinking about the early levels. I don't think anyone has ever really explored a guide to the start of the game on Nightmare.For me the hardes art of nightmare is getting up to level 7-9 depending on the class. By that point you start to fil out your characters a bit more, get good CC options, and a lot of the early, great CCCs start comin around by level 6-8. Warrior isn't so bad for me, especially since the DLC item packs, but man getting a mage up to level10(Grav Ring yay!) is such a PITA. Lately instead of respecing at level 5 and starting towards my build, I've tried waiting until level 9-10 to use my first Maker's Sigh. It's allowed me to just pick a ton of 1 point wonders (Horror, Heal, Heroic Aura, Winter's Grasp) that can make the early fights more managable. This was brought on by me foolishly trying to sec Elemental rght out of the gates on a nightmare mage. ugghhh.

P.S. **** the ogre on nightmare, that is some tough stuff man. Do you prefer to go all out on Ogre-boy first, or kite him while slaying all adds.

[mr_afk]

Hmm mages are pretty powerful if you just use the dlc staves (staff of parthalan, apostates courage, malcolm's honour) and buy the staff of primal order (bonny lem) as early as possible. If you choose the right spells and use staves which get elemental weaknesses you can completely decimate most early game fights.

With any class, once you reach ~level 7 and have anders on your team you are pretty much capable of wiping any fight really easily via dual haste. But yeah, before that it's usually just relying on basic dps. I'll go kick up a new mage and record some early nightmare gameplay for you.

It's a little bit late atm so I might have to do any video processing etc tmr. I'm not pro enough to do live commentary (pausing on xbox isn't quite as easy as pc) so I think it'll have to be a voice over added in later if anything.


Also, new CCC diagram!

[Mocker22]

Really awesome work dude. I'm not sure why mages give me such fits. Any advice for low level survivability? I do have all the dlc staves and what not. My last attempt to start a mage did go a lot better then before but it's still a bit of a pain.

Side note - what do you recomend for the third point that Haste requires. Maybe just ugrade heal? Anders will be the main guy for heroic aura and glyph of para.

This topic has got my brain running. Normally most effort is focused into endgame builds and gear.
When do you think it's possible to switch over to a pure ranged group? When dual haste is achieved?

[AreleX]

mr_afk wrote...

I was going to do act 1 fights but all my saves for all three classes start from the second act. Gah, looks like i'm going to have to do three new playthroughs. Oh well, I was meaning to get a ~20 sec S&S post-patch ARW speed run just for ****s and giggles (and to beat Arelex).

i'll tell you right now that the strategy to do it is so far beyond your feeble brain that you'll be lucky to break 30, and this is like 2-3 months after it was done

otherwise good work

[mr_afk]

Here's an unedited version of the destruction of lothering. I was going to do a voice-over but decided I should probably try studying for a change haha.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=R8ybU4tm69s
skip to 8:10 if you just want to see the ogre fight.
I'll explain anything you have questions about.

Anyway, the best thing for survivability is still killing things faster. There's no point trying to pump up constitution instead of magic, especially now that post-patch has killed knock-back.
Rock armour could be useful if you are struggling but in general just prioritising targets and dealing adequate damage is all you need. You want to target elites like assassins first. Secondly try kill off archers. Anything else you can just manually avoid their attacks.

The main important issue is to pump up your attack-rating as fast as possible. You start off with horrible attack-rating such that almost every hit glances. Thus pumping the base attribute and using attack-boosting sustains is almost essential. Speccing your mage with heroic aura and your rogue with precision is a must and I usually also get my warriors to use control until their attack-ratings improve.

I usually get hawke to hold sustains (as the vengeance sustain takes up so much) but yes, for the other haste I would get an improved heal. I don't really use glyphs. Not my thing really.

As for a pure ranged group, I would probably say it's safer to wait till you get gravitic ring and pull of the abyss in addition to dual haste (i.e. improved crowd control) and even then it could be tough for certain fights. You'll probably have issues with the lowtown at night fights (sharp's archers or whatever) as archers will kill off ranged characters pretty fast (if your dog or tank doesn't pick up enough threat). I would probably just keep Aveline in the party through most of the act.


Haha it doesn't look that complicated from your video. I'm guessing you had your hastes sync'd to your hawke's hp and you just did the usual almost dead reaver hawke using sacrificial frenzy+cleave+dual haste against a ARW that has been branded and hexed. I'm supposing you must have linked those to the ARW's health or something? or maybe something else more exotic. :/

Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't get a disorient CCC off with pinning shot. I would have thought that would be nice.