46 réponses à ce sujet

[BlackEmperor]

Each character has certain plot item gifts that you can learn about in conversations with them. Other than trial and error, I don't know how you'd find out who prefers what. I know the codex entry for the companion updates to note what kind of gifts that companion likes, but I don't think it's until after you give them one of their preferred gifts. I'd recommend a gift guide, personally.

[TBastian]

As things are Shapeshifter is basically a hit-or-miss spec, you either like it or don't. The thing is while changing forms does have a casting time, shifting out doesn't - this means changing forms should be a tactical thing instead of something you do out of desperation, since you can shift out and resume your magely duties instantly if you wanted.

Trial and error is the norm, yeah. Some of the gifts are easy to figure out if you've played through the game at least once, like Morrigan's or Dog's. I'd save Oghren's for Awakenings though.

[Squidmaster]

Random aside - should I give Alistair cunning so he can get more tactics skills? I have him at the first level and at level 10 or so it doesn't feel like enough.

[termokanden]

It's really not worth it if you ask me. Others might disagree, but I think particularly with NPCs you don't have many points to waste. Cunning barely does anything to improve his combat ability.

I prefer to build Alistair as a damage dealing tank. It's perfectly viable to up his strength a lot.

But if you want him to be a better tank, you could give him just enough strength for the best armor and then focus on dex for defense.

[Squidmaster]

I am also curious about his stamina. How many passives should I try to run at once? I am running 2 defensive ones and that barely gives me enough to taunt and maybe get one move off before he's out. He has 3 total to choose from, including the one offensive one to increase accuracy.

Oh, and is there any merit to not accepting rewards?  So far I have had a number of opportunities to try to bargain for more, or to not accept a reward.  It is in character to do so but it seems that I get nothing for my efforts in terms of the people liking me more or anything along those lines.

Modifié par Squidmaster, 18 octobre 2011 - 02:18 .

[TBastian]

Cunning is nice, but by the time you have points to spare for it Alistair should already be a functional tanker anyway. Getting cunning anytime before that is a no-no.

You don't need to give Alistair a lot of tactics, it's not like he'll be able to spam skills at that level. If you have willpower points or if you're using armors with +stamina then just have him spam Shield Bash on the nearest enemy, since Shield Bash is more of a "free" disable instead of a main disable (like Glyphs, Crushing Prison, etc). If you have more willpower to spare, add in more "nearest enemy" tactics. Getting him to use a critical hit skill on a frozen/petrified target is tricky, but doable (target:held/immobile works iirc). The rest of his tactics should be devoted to activating sustaineds, and you really only need Shield Defense. If you prefer Shield Wall against bosses then save a set of tactics for that (its what that function is for, a shame not many use it). Make a point to choose which targets each of your party members should go for, there's nothing more annoying than having Alistair use Holy Smite on a Shriek because the game somehow classifies it as a "mage"-type monster.

Not accepting rewards usually ends up with you taking home a token reward of somesort, which may or may not be as useful as the other rewards. If the opportunity to bargain for better rewards presents itself I suggest you take it, very rarely do NPC's comment on these matters. (I can remember only one in particular, and it involves Morrigan and a certain merchant in Lothering)

Modifié par TBastian, 18 octobre 2011 - 05:54 .

[Squidmaster]

I see. I suppose they get more tactics by themselves as time goes on as well.

How far should I take Leliana's lockpicking if I build her as a cunning bard? The mechanics guide suggests 3 would suffice, but that could mean I miss a ton of chests between now and then, right? Same question for stealing.

[termokanden]

I always give her 4 points so I can open everything as soon as possible. I also like to use Leliana as ranged support. For that she needs quite a bit of extra dex to use the best bows, and she also need some strength to wear better armor.

I would grab the 4 points early and not worry more about it. If you have a min-max powergamer somewhere inside you who's not happy about maybe wasting 1 point, there's always Awakening where you can buy a book to respec.

Modifié par termokanden, 18 octobre 2011 - 10:32 .

[TBastian]

Doing the first part of the Elven Treaty quest improves Leliana significantly (basically everything up until the ruins, minus the revenants). Since your're RPing this may not be an option though. The first part of the treaty gives you a few +cunning goodies (like a ring from the crazy Blood Mage iirc), the dalish leathers set (gives Leliana a much needed boost to dex), a good bow (reward from the elven blacksmith) and Andraste's Grace (boosts your reputation with Leliana, which in turn boosts her cunning). I usually max Leliana's lockpick also, you will miss a few locked chests if you don't (you can return later, if you don't mind the hassle).
Stealing is an optional skill (there is a quest associated with it, but the game only checks your PC for the skill iirc). But if you plan on getting it, I'd max it asap. There's no point stealing past mid-game, unless you plan on buying all the strongest items in the game.

Modifié par TBastian, 18 octobre 2011 - 10:58 .

[G-four]

One piece of advice. Their is a mod which places ravens throughtout the world and in your camp. These ravens carry a vial of respecialization. This way you can play around with different builds for you and your party-members.

[Squidmaster]

I haven't added any mods yet. I should probably investigate that, in case there are any "must haves" out there. I don't want to go mod wild but if I can get stuff that fixes bugs then game on. A respecialization option might be alright as well.

I am at least short-term regretting my choice to court and use Morrigan. At this stage she seems to add very little to the party, and she hates basically anything I do to help anyone. Am I realistically going to be able to max out her reputation without having to turn down quest after quest, or be a tool to townsfolk, which would not be in character?

Wynn at this point seems to be a much, much better character. Perhaps it is just that she came with a focus that works, but I found many fights in the elven lands to be many times easier if I had her on board as opposed to Morrigan.

[TBastian]

Morrigan's stats/skills starts off just about as unfocused as Leliana's, so it really depends on how you've built her. I usually have her get Force Field, Heal and Cone of Cold (in that order) and just like that she's pretty much set for anything until mid-game (level 12's, around the time some people start Ogrimmar). Sometimes I get her forms, a few defensive spells or more nukes, depending on what the party needs.
Maxing Morrigan's rep is easy, you'll find lots of trinkets to give to her during your adventures. As long as you stay away from dialogue choices that would really infuriate her (things that would decrease her rep by 8 or more) you'll be fine.

Wynne is a tad more focused and comes with both Heal and Group Heal, so she's functional from the outset. Your party's skills/talents would explain why you find her more useful than Morrigan, Wynne's focus never really worked that well for my own parties (my playstyle is much more aggressive).

Modifié par TBastian, 20 octobre 2011 - 11:54 .

[Squidmaster]

I'll keep the rep situation in mind. She routinely loses 3-5 points multiple times per area so far. I have her at +41 or something by giving her every gift that doesn't fit for someone else, but that only nets me 1 or 6 points at this point.

I have Morrigan built 3 points into lightning so I can blast an area with cold from my main character and lightning from her. I also now have sleep, but am dealing with undead so it is currently getting me nothing. I took forcefield last level and I have plans to take 2 points in the healing tree next. The thing that I love about Wynn is that she seems not to run out of mana AND lets my main guy keep casting. Maybe what I need to do is to make more lyrium potions with Morrigan's 3 points in Herbalism and go that route.

The thing that is getting me somewhat at this early-ish juncture is that my general damage is super low once the mana is gone.  My main guy can't even hurt undead at all, in fact.

I have recently had some awesome success with the cold/lightning combo in indoor areas where I can block the door with glyph of repulsion.  Is there a way I can prevent people from running into the affected area without using "hold", which seems to turn off AI?  My tank is particularly problematic in these situations.  If I set him to "defensive" he won't really attack without babysitting, but if he's aggressive he tries to kill himself.

Modifié par Squidmaster, 21 octobre 2011 - 12:53 .

[TBastian]

Making a DPS mage is not as simple as taking a single line of spells, and having to juggle two mages may be complicating things for you. Since Wynn seems to be working best for you I'd stick with her until your own character becomes more powerful. Btw you can't mass produce Lyrium potions until you're around halfway through the Ogrimmar treaty, only the merchant there sells infinite Lyrium potion ingredients iirc.

Some spell advice: Fire works wonders against undead, and everything else except dragons. Simply turning on Flame Weapon can significantly increase all melee DPS against undead. Lightning is nice for dealing with clustered enemy groups, but is by no means a powerful spell line all by itself - ideally this is a line only dedicated nuker builds should take, imo. Cold is one of the stand-alone spell lines, powerful because of the freeze/shatter effect. You can't use Rejuvenate (2nd Heal line spell) on the caster btw, and both Rejuvenate and Mass Rejuvenation are only worth it if you consider these spells on the scale of the entire party - casting these spells for the sake of one or two casters (unless one of these casters is a true nuker) is not worth it.

Nope, but at least you're a PC user, console users have to learn to deal with this manually. Note that you can still give your party members attack orders while in this mode. Giving everyone ranged weapons and swapping during these situations also work. Note that everyone in DA:O can use ranged weapons, for non-dex characters you even have crossbows.

Modifié par TBastian, 21 octobre 2011 - 04:59 .

[Squidmaster]

Yeah, I don't have a dedicated nuker really, or even a dedicated high damage character necessarily. I built my main character using my druid concept to control and heal. I have a tank with a shield, a rogue who is just starting to get decent dps talents after maxing out the utility for chests, and Morrigan, who is all over the place. I could see her rounding out into a pretty solid control/dps character in a few levels. Hopefully having 2 hybrid mages instead of 1 of each type will get the job done.

That said, I have done pretty well. I had a lot of issues with the Revenants in the elven lands, but I think I went there a little early anyway, kind of by accident. When I took Wynn in for a personal quest the last couple revenants were pretty easy. My main character has about the same healing capability as Wynn now after a crazy night of skillups via books and such that I was not expecting. It remains to be seen how the mana holds out.

To play devil's advocate, I think the overlooked benefit of standard Rejuvenation is that you're trading more than mana. Say Wynn rejuvenates my PC. My character has all the glyphs and a lot of stun/petrify type stuff, so she isn't just trading the mana. She's essentially gaining all those points in talents she doesn't have by proxy. If someone doesn't need healed, why not reassign that mana to someone who can control or shatter or whatever the case may be? The second benefit, particularly for Wynn but for anyone with healer AI is that you can reassign that mana to someone with worse AI, and control that character yourself, which you were doing anyway. My feeling so far is that the healing AI is excellent, while the damage/control AI is very poor. Thus, you transfer mana for the player you are controlling, which is fun.

Speaking of AI, is there a way to check for a player being in or out of combat? I can't find one but it would be really handy. I have some AI options set to activate certain abilities (like Frost Weapons) when mana goes under 10%. I do this for the abilities that I don't use all the time, but don't mind using when they are essentially free. I would love it if I could get the AI to turn them back off for me after combat.

[tyrannosaur56]

just use tactics self mana>=50% deactivate frost weapon or anything you don't want to use.

[Squidmaster]

Excellent, that will do it perfectly.

Is there any need to include activation of sustained abilities that you use all the time?  For example, are those abilities ever turned off before combat and thus be required to immediately activate?  I could save 2 slots each for several characters if I removed those activations.

Modifié par Squidmaster, 22 octobre 2011 - 08:06 .

[tyrannosaur56]

most of the sustain wouldnt be turn off. but just in case,you can use this tactic
self any whichever sustain you want to turn on or off.
for a aw/bm, take note of blood magic tho.tactics should be as followed
self 25%<mana activate blood magic
self 50%<health deactivate blood magic
self 50%<health heal
that will ensure you wouldnt kill yourself. also allow you to use bloodmagic more effectively/

[Squidmaster]

That is a good one.

Say, I am about to get the dragonscale armor for Alistair. Which version should I get? Is the massive worth the extra strength investment?

[termokanden]

I think it is. More armor, and because he gets more strength, he also gets a higher chance to hit and will do a bit more damage.

I never really had to make that choice myself, because I have always used strength-heavy builds for Alistair. With a good weapon he's actually quite the damage dealer even with a sword and shield setup.

[Squidmaster]

Is defense capped at 99? It doesn't seem to report any more than that at the very least. I am also curious if there is any reason I should hold onto the Juggernaut plate now that I have Wade's and Evon the Great's.

[tyrannosaur56]

juggernaut armour have good resistant. if you are going to made morrigan an accomplished shapeshifter, you might want to keep it for her. as for wades and evon, give it to sten or oghren as 2 handed skills need abit of stamina regen and more will to be more effective in spamming skills.