Why solo?
Because it's fun. I always make an effort to solo party RPGs for fun. Plus party micromanagement gets boring.
Why mage?
Mages have the most tools of any class by far to deal with any situation. Facing swarms? AoE. Tough Enemy + Swarms? CC+AoE. Tough Melee? Outtank him with AW. You get the idea.
Why hard difficulty?
Because I usually run a party through a difficulty before trying it solo. Currently I have a nightmare party. I may or may not decide whether I want to try NM solo. If it happens, it will be with a rogue. I am bored of mages after 80++ hours of playing nothing but mage.
What does solo mean?
I followed the following rules:
1) Not allowed to attempt to skip encounters via exploits
2) Not allowed to skip encounters through conversation
3) Have to beat all hard bosses in the game, including the last one completely solo (that means can't use army for the last boss)
What Spec?
My spec is not best, because I don't have respec mod installed. However, it enabled me to solo the game, so I suppose it has its merits. My spec is:
Combat Magic/Aura of Might/Shimmering Shield/Fade Shroud <---------------Arcane Warrior Spells
Blood Magic <------------------- Blood Mage spec
Arcane Bolt/Arcane Shield/Staff Focus (more useful than you think)/Arcane Mastery
Winter's Grasp/Frost Weapons/Cone of Cold/Blizzard
Rock Armor/Stonefist
Spell Wisp
Walking Bomb/Death Syphon/Virulent Walking Bomb/Animate Dead
Mind Blast/Force Field/Telekinetic Weapons/Crushing Prison
How to distribute stats?
I went with:
60% into magic
15% into constitution
10% into willpower
15% into dexterity
TK weapons vs Elemental
I prefer stacking elemental damage. My melee playstyle is sword+board, which means damage is pitiful. Best bet is to put in some grandmaster runes into your weapon and use frost weapons. TK weapons works best with 2h against high armor.
AW is not invincible
Yes, you can die even after level 16. CC, stacking armor reduction abilities, powerful melee abilities (such as Ogre charge or ram) can still hurt you badly. However there are 2 things you should be especially careful of:
1) Crushing Prison - this spell is ridiculous. Capable of killing a mage or rogue without resists by itself and leaving warriors heavily injured. Forget about trying to survive it while getting nuked. The best advice I can give is to use this spell against enemy casters first. Later on with shimmering shield, you can shrug off Crushing Prison's damage - but you'll still die if you have many enemies beating on you. This spell is the only reason I regretted on picking arcane shield.
2) Curse of Mortality - this spell was dismissed by me as useless. Why stop enemy healers when you can CC them? However this spell is truly brutal against someone who needs potions to stay alive. The only way to counter this nasty curse is to run away until it wears off. If you get unlucky and get hit by this spell after crushing prison - it might be reload time.
Learn to pull
in DA:O, mages and archers do not like to move unless they're getting directly attacked. Use it to your advantage to pull melee away from them. Here is an excellent screenshot of how to pull properly. It's a fight regarded by most as the most difficult in the game - even on lower difficulties, however with proper pulling, you can solo it reasonably easily. Notice how I am fighting in a different from the one I was ambushed in?
http://img509.images.../7186/cauth.jpg
Learn to use Caster mode
Some fights are impossible as AW. You MUST use caster mode in those situations. One such example is spider mini boss in the deep roads. The longer you fight, the more damage her poison does. At some point you will die with 75 nature resist faster than potion cooldown. AW does not have the DPS to kill her.
Armor Switching is useful
Unlike in BG2, switching items in combat is possible. This can be used to your advantage in some difficult fights. CC and kill casters, but now there's a powerful melee boss in your face, resisting everything? No problem, switch on melee mode, throw on that Dragon armor and go to town. Truly a lifesaver in some situations
Force Field is useful
Forcefield useless if you can't cheese it on a tank? Wrong. In solo play FF is used as either:
1) Quick CC to take out a dangerous opponent for a few seconds out of the battle
2) CC enemy to wait for crucial cooldowns (such as paralyse, cone of cold)
Use Blood Magic
Blood magic is situationally useful. Sure, it drains HP fast, but you can always toggle off the mode and potion up. Sometimes you MUST throw that one crucial spell, which can save your life (such as crushing prison on a caster) and it's worth lost HPs.
Pictures
Warrior Mode final stats http://img81.imagesh...1/warriorml.jpg
Caster Mode final stats http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/1363/caster.jpg
Heroic Achievements http://img80.imagesh...9779/heroot.jpg
Big Deal img265.imageshack.us/img265/6924/bigdeal.jpg
Conclusion
I hope after reading this, more people will try to beat the game solo as not many perfer this playstyle yet. (in BG2 soloing was very popular). Who needs party anyway?
Modifié par deathwing200, 23 novembre 2009 - 04:31 .
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