9 réponses à ce sujet

[djenin]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently playing the game for the second time through. I wanted to completely change up my party and style of playing so i went with this party composition:

Shale
Leliana
Morrigan
my PC (Rogue)

So far i've been enjoying it a lot, rogue offers a completely new perspective on the game for me as i played a mage on my first run through. Shale is really great for taking aggro, a little "too" good it seems with all the aoe stuns and taunt. However, the amount of damage Shale takes seems a lot greater than Alistair ever did. I find myself having to resort to using force field to keep him standing on almost every encounter that involves a lot of melee mobs (or bosses for that matter).

After looking at Shale's stats i noticed his defense is not all that high and his armour value shockingly low, it seems that for tanking he has to rely solely on a large healthpool. Now i have put all the available points into constitution but it doesn't seem to help that much.


Am i missing something here? Are there ways to permanently increase armour/defense values besides crystals and talents? I would rather not use force field so often as i find it kind of cheesy.


I play on nightmare difficulty if that makes any difference, I'm considering respeccing Sten into a tank so i can still have a completely different party than i did on my first run but if there's a way to keep Shale through the entire game that would be great.


Thanks in advance. 

[Vhalis]

Shale starts off with a huge amount of health, that's the trade off for lack of armor. Keep in mind, some of those crystals you find along the way are pretty good with large amounts of resits that you can swap based on enemies you're facing.



While Alistar (in my playthrough) was pretty good (sword/board, templar/champion) it almost felt like "cheating" placing Shale into your group with AE Taunts + stuns.



My next play-through will definitely have a Shale in a tank role, more then anything its going to be different then your classic warrior with a shield. Also, Shale does really well going dps or range dps while your classic sword/board warrior doesn't do much of anything else... well, Templar's expensive AE stun is about it.

[Forumtroll]

Shale also can't block missile attacks. He has no shield. He's basically the druid tank on DA:O. His endgame green crystals have significantly higher armor and even more health on them.

[djenin]

Thanks for the responses.

I figured as much (about the druid tank). I agree about the aggro thing though, it's a little too easy. So with flawless crystals Shale will remain a viable tank, even later in the game?

As it is now, the damage on Shale quickly becomes unhealable. If i don't use forcefield or chain health pots he will go down about halfway a bosses' health with Morrigan running oom leaving my rogue to tank the boss (which is sometimes even successful, amazingly enough).

However i'd like to have my rogue just do what he is best at: backstabbing. So i suppose what i'm asking here is if i should switch to Sten using a sword and board build or will Shale become less and less like a "paper tank" when i get better crystals? I realise there are some nice stats on the flawless crystals, but the damage bosses do will increase as well as i progress into the game.

Modifié par djenin, 22 novembre 2009 - 08:30 .

[Forumtroll]

Well in the final battle you'll resort to Force Field because things will be hitting you, a lot of things will be hitting you.But other wise By the time you reach lvl 15ish he'll be taking less damage. By that time you'll have enough dps from your rogues to not really care who gets hit.

[Sharog]

Shale is particularly effective if u like to rely on mage AOE dps to kill things. since its agro is so much better than a sword/shield tank + good elemental resistance makes him a very useful tank that u just dont care about the friendly dmg.



in end game stats shale's armor matches best geared tank in game, how ever in term of defense, knockdown immunity, spell resistance, party buff, it all fall short. the only merits is that it has quite some health regeneration when geared in green crystals.



so it is generally a good idea to switch it to alistair or loghain once u start the landsmeet.

[Spartansfan8888]

Shale is a monster... he can do anything depending on what sustained ability you have on. Stoneheart makes him pretty much invincible and makes enemies target him, pulverizing blows deals out nice damage, and rock mastery helps your ranged guys plus has aoe stun and knockdown. With fire crystal armor and stoneheart he's the best tank for dragons because they cant pick him up

[demireamer]

Shale makes the best tank.

[Solwen_Polyhymnia]

I think I said this before but I used Shale as my main tank my entire campaign and never had trouble with her.She was able to tank the arch demon even after, I lost Wynne we early in the battle. She did use a rock potion and a greater warmth potion at the beginning of the battle but did not required any reapplication. Theoretically the lack of magic and overall elemental resist is a hole in her armor but it never became a problem for me. I did change her crystal armor if I know we be facing certain element such a room full of fire demon. Through manipulation of her crystal armor you can get very high resist toward one element. I fact I utilized it a few times where there were an army on her and I had my two rogues dumping acid bomb on her without regard to friendly fire.



The one hole she does have that the other tank companion does not have is that she have no stun/knock down protection. So she can end up on her butt or daze a fair percentage of time in certain battles.



She does have certain compensation that the other companion doesn't have though. She get access to two AE stun effect very early on which really add to her ability to get agro on stuff around her and for certain battles give her a breathing space. One of the AE stun also increase her regen which does help her stay on her alive.



Moreover as in her range attack form. she can give the party very nice range attack buff and she has a small AE and a large AE attack damage attack and a small AE root. The large AE attack is like a mage AE rain attack and came in handy against some of those battles where they set up a million archers at a distance sniping at you.



Finally you can swap out the small crystal to customize her attack so you can always target the element that the target is most vulnerable to.



And I really like to dispel the myth that you NEED to use the force field exploit to tank stuff on normal level at the end game. I refuse to use it as it was 1) an obvious oversight by the developer when they let this spell past 2) make all boss fight trivial. Despite not using it and having two "gimpy" rogue in my party I made it through the game with only a few reload. And most of those were due to tactical mistake on my part which I was able to correct on the 2nd run at the battle.



ps I didn't even know the dragon can pick you up. Hey one more point in favor for Shale. I suspect I will really really miss her on my second through this game.

[Eric Finley]

The other way to increase Shale's armour is to use her fourth miode - the one nobody ever mentions (it seems), Stone Aura. When you push this tree all the way, Shale's armour-while-projecting is pretty insane, especially because she's also weakening monsters inside the aura (meaning any melee attack on Shale, for one).



I killed the Archdemon in my first playthrough, as a rogue, simply by leaving Shale in Stone Aura right in the middle of where the mage army unit starts (and mostly stays), and leaving Wynne and Morrigan in there as well to keep my buffs up. Nobody died, and of the NPC mages half survived as well (even though I had no way to order them to keep their butts inside the aura). Nor did I have my mages quaff even one mana potion - the aura's regen boost is also pretty awesome at that point, and I simply didn't need it.



Shale can be a tank; that's Stoneheart mode. But she can also be something for which (AFAIK) there is no "WoW-slang" equivalent. She can be a fortress.