23 réponses à ce sujet

[saskia]

i could use some hlp on how to set up merril so she will work fine, i just adore her<3 and would like to have her around on the advenute but i cant really set her up so she works proberly
so any guide on skill- tactic and so on would be a huge help. I cant really find any guides under that sticky  5 start topic about merrill

[Relix28]

*sigh* Did you even look for it?

All three of Arelex's guides have info on tactics and builds for Merrill.

[saskia]

yes i look for it if we are talking about the same topic i read it as a guide for human player

[cJohnOne]

Well I can't handle turning on and off bloodmage stuff so I just build her to be a regular mage. I think I give her 125 hit points plus 2 to 1 magic to willpower. I aways get stoneskin and the rest of Primal tree. plus elemental if I have time. I welcome input as to what I'm doing wrong here by the way!

[ussnorway]

If you are playing as warrior (nightmare) then this Merril is my pick... scroll down to see her tactics setup.

[mr_afk]

it would help if you told us your party setup..
also, are you playing on nightmare or is friendly fire not a problem? And do you have any weird objections to her using bloodmagic?
Additionally, equipment (such as the item pack dlcs etc) may affect the effectiveness of certain spells.

The optimal 'damager' setup partially involves firing off and setting up as many CCCs as possible. With a balanced party on nightmare (e.g. 1 rogue, 1 warrior, 2 mages), the primal tree is great to focus on as it provides stagger and disorient CCCs, sets up brittles, gives no friendly fire, and complements the +%lightning she gets from her ring etc (item dlc).
Fully upgrading this tree is a solid option for merrill, especially if she's using bloodmagic to hold sustains.

The rest of the spell allocations will largely depend on what you want.

The elemental tree is one of the most powerful trees for damager mages. The main issue with it is the tendency for that 'power' to completely destroy your own party. However, on lower difficulties there's nothing stopping you from dropping firestorms on anything that moves. The elemental tree provides two abilities that can brittle enemies (only one can be safely used on nightmare) and firestorms which can be all you need (making the game slightly boring). This is probably the best/most fun tree to go into with a fully ranged triple mage party. Dropping triple firestorms on enemies trapped in a gravitic ring is oddly satisfying (and complete overkill).

If you were to use a walking bomb setup and didn't want to give it to anders/bethany/hawke then you could give it to her; the spirit bolt provides a nice disorient CCC in any case. I personally prefer giving walking bombs to mage hawke and manually controlling it, although if you don't need to worry about friendly fire that won't be such an issue. I wouldn't bother going much further into the spirit tree for a blood-mage merrill though, death syphon is wasted and spirit mastery probably will not be worth the investment.

With staggers more free flowing (e.g. warrior hawke/2 warrior party) you could focus on the arcane tree. This works particularly well with a reaver hawke as the barrier can be used to safely maintain hawke's health at a low level for longer (maximising your blood frenzy). Crushing prison is one of the highest damage CCCs and provides CC as well- but it does take quite an investment and is only single target.

Entropy can be used as a 1-3 point wonder (hex of torment, upgraded horror) or with a more solid investment to get death hex. Death hex will enable warriors and mages in your party to dish out heaps of damage, but for rogues the 100% critical chance is mostly unnecessary. I personally wouldn't go that deep into this tree as most of the talents are pretty terrible.

Finally, Merrill's tree will largely depend on whether you want to go into the blood magic side of things. Blood magic is probably the most cost-effective thing for merrill as she gets a nice ~3-1 ratio from her friendship bonus (and more from her ring etc). This means that if you are planning on finishing fights quickly you can focus more on her damage rather than her mana pool.
Her Wounds of the Past spell is pretty average imo, although it doesn't hurt i suppose. It seems to have a really long casting animation while only dealing average damage.
Depending on how many sustains you're willing to load up on (i.e. if you're willing to go over 100% mana) wrath of the elvhen coupled with ensnare can help slow down any shades etc who get past to merrill somewhat adding to her survivability.


And there you have it, a somewhat long-winded spiel about merrills different trees...
Anyway, just to finish up, i'll give you an example build when you tell me your hawke's class/preferable companion selection

[saskia]

ok thx for the suggestion so far. I play as 2h warior is use i play on either normal or hard so far ( iam new to it) i dosent have a team i use all the time like to swihc between my companions, but normal i have merrill ( becuase i think she so funny) and the a rogue and bethany. I have that dlc the black "store" so i can use those reset potions. So far i think i am not gonna use her blood magic because it am a bit tirred of have to turn it on/off myself
i think i am gonna use varric moore that pretty think Isabella dies a lot i think. So my team is proberly gonna be me 2h warrior+ varric and merril and perharps Anders so i got some heal

[AreleX]

use merrill builds in signature for corresponding class

[Brother Juniper]

mr_afk wrote: "(i.e. if you're willing to go over 100% mana)"
You can go over 100% mana on sustains? I didn't know that, how do you do it?

If you get tired of turning blood magic off and on, you can set up tactics to do it for you. AreleX guides show you how.

[mr_afk]

as long as you don't land on the magic '100% sustained' you can go over the 100% cap. e.g. activating something that is 20% from 90%.

and yeah, just use tactics. i think that certain combinations of sustains don't work so well through, even using tactics (e.g. sometimes you can't activate bloodmagic when you have more than 70% already sustained or something, meaning you have to deactivate something before activating it...it's pretty stupid).

something like this should work- but yeah, use arelex's- it covers merrill pretty well

self:hp>50% deactivate bloodmagic
self:hp>25% use health potion
etc.
self: hp<=75% activate bloodmagic

Modifié par mr_afk, 26 octobre 2011 - 11:36 .

[AreleX]

'pretty well'

understatement of the millenium

[saskia]

ok thx i have made some changes to merrill from you advise she seems to work better now thx-_-
its seems that a lots of the guides are based on "this build if you use that and that other companion with that build"
is there perhaprs a more generel build for varic and sebastian with will work, that can be use idenpendent from what else i use companions and build they have, since i have always either varric or sebastain i my party and i like to change around alot in what companions i use
and last question from all i can read about varric and sebastian everybody says that varric is better why is that?

[AreleX]

personal tree

[Wissenschaft]

AreleX wrote...

personal tree

To expand on that, Varric's personal tree gives him large buffs to his attack speed which turns him into a machine gun.

[Asch Lavigne]

Is it better to load Merrill up with HP increasing accessories or BM -> MP ones? Or a combo of both?

[Wissenschaft]

Load Merrill up with blood magic bonus items. You need as many as u can get to make blood magic worth it.

[Relix28]

It's best to load her up with +% elemental gear and crit chance/damage accessories. BM conversion items are fine too, but they do not provide nearly as much as they used to before the nerf patch and as such they are not as essential as they used to be.

Here are some accessories of choice for Merrill.

If you have item packs, obviously equip the two Merrill specific accessories listed below and never take them off.

dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Inner_Eye
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Sylaise's_Favor


If you don't have the item packs, you can use any combination of items listed below, or use them in combination with the two dlc items.

dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Ring_of_Ruin
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Awakened's_Might
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dirthamen's_Secret
dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Sylvanwood_Ring_(ring)
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dura's_Blue_Flame
dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Talisman_of_Saarebas
dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Belt_of_the_Primevals
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Master_Wyvern_Hunter's_Belt
dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Deep_Green
dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Ring_of_the_Ferryman
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Orsino's_Signet_Ring
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Rivani_Seer's_Brand

Legacy items:
- Smite (+fire/electricity/spirit damage)
- The Graven Circle (+ crit damage)
- Bloodstained Girdle (+ crit chance)

- generic +% elemental and/or BM conversion items found throughout the game (random loot from enemy drops or bought in various shops like Hubert's, trinkets emporium, mage's goods, etc...)


These are the best items to increase her damage output (wich are the best kind for this game IMO), and are far more effective than any +health item you can find. You can of course equip +health items, if you wish to have super high HP for Merrill, but that will only result in lower overall dps, wich in turn results in longer fights with Merrill loosing more HP than necessary. So you are not actually gaining much with +health items, especially compared to what you are potentially loosing out on.

Modifié par Relix28, 28 octobre 2011 - 12:44 .

[andraip]

Regarding Varric vs Sebastian

Sebastian can outdamage Varric.
Sebastian has access to better weapons (including elemental weapons (Spirit (depending on DAO), Nature (MotA DLC) and Fire (Item Pack 1 + vanilla game)), also his physical weapon (Item DLC 2) is better then Bianca).
Under the effect of Haste the attack speed difference is highly diminished.

[ussnorway]

andraip wrote...

Regarding Varric vs Sebastian

Sebastian can outdamage Varric.
Sebastian has access to better weapons (including elemental weapons (Spirit (depending on DAO), Nature (MotA DLC) and Fire (Item Pack 1 + vanilla game)), also his physical weapon (Item DLC 2) is better then Bianca).
Under the effect of Haste the attack speed difference is highly diminished.

If you want Anders or Zevran on your side for the final battle then Varric is better than Sebastian.

[mr_afk]

which bow deals spirit damage?

[jbblue05]

mr_afk wrote...

which bow deals spirit damage?

Side with the werewolves in DAO, then do Changing one's nature quest in DA2, the bow is called The Trepanner's Gift

Modifié par jbblue05, 30 octobre 2011 - 12:29 .

[mr_afk]

Oh wow, thanks. Too bad I've never sided with the werewolves before (even though I played origins countless times).

That might be useful against ARW (although its base damage is pretty terrible). Can't really see it coming close to the aralthan replica bow in any other regards, even if it is elemental..

Modifié par mr_afk, 30 octobre 2011 - 12:44 .

[andraip]

mr_afk wrote...

which bow deals spirit damage?

As jbblue05 said the bow is called The Trepanner's Gift, it has 53 spirit damage, +5% crit chance and +12% spirit damage. It should be quite usefull against spirit weaks in Act 1 and 2 (in Act 3 the base damage of your fire bow should be high enough, besides you will have then access to the Ferrymans Ring and RoUC).

As I recall you have to kill the Dalish clan, and not only side with the Werewolfes (killing Zathrian).

[Relix28]

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Trepanner's_Gift

This one. But it's only available, if you sided with the Warevolves in Origins, or, if you choose the "No Compromise" pre-built history. You can also add it via GFF editor, if you wish to have the bow, despite not siding with the Warevolves in DAO (that's what I did for my Archer playthroughs).

The bow is actually pretty darn awesome, and it makes every templar encounter in Act 1 look like a complete joke lol. It becomes obsolete somewhere in late Act 2 (~lvl.19), but it's a blast to use until then. Personally, I really liked that spirit "paralyze" effect that gets forced upon enemies, if you hit them hard enough.

EDIT: Ninja'd. 

Modifié par Relix28, 30 octobre 2011 - 12:58 .