125 réponses à ce sujet

[Walina]

I do agree with the author of this topic :



1) Deep roads encounters, mobs were more vicious luring you intro "traps" and golems were strong openements instead at Denerin (final stage) mobs were less "smart" but were a lot more >.<



2) The archedemon was not enough agressive instead of the Dragon of the dragon urn. Archedemon stayed away from my party most of the time and was attacking the army of mages.



3) I think you should give bosses more skills and animations like the first boss of the game at Ostagar.

[ComTrav]

For me:



Best Fight (Challenge): Jarvia

Best Fight (coolness/epicness): Broodmother

Other good encounters: Revenants, Branka (much better then Caridan), Gaxkang



The dragon fights IMO were very straightforward, and I was a little disappointed with them.

I actually liked the statue fight as a change-up gimmick, if only because my AoE-heavy mage who could waltz through room after room was kind of useless in a single-target DPS fight.



The Archdemon fight FELT appropriately climactic with armies and darkspawn all around. I especially liked the Arl Eamon, Kardol, and Irving coming in to help. Challengewise it was a disappointment, but I understand why the 'optional' bosses are harder. Some people view beating the boss as unlocking more story, and some of us like our boss fights really mean.



I don't want a boss fight that takes forever but I do like the fights that required thinking and strategy to take down. Ideally this sort of thing would scale with difficulty level (and not just boss HP and how hard he hits.) A boss should have abilities that catch you off guard, or mess with the set-up your comfortable with. The Revenant's "get over here" ability to pull you into melee range, or Gaxkang's life drain, are good examples of this. An occasional fight that modifies your characters abilities slightly, or forces them outside your usual role, is interesting if well-done.



I admit I'm tempted to learn the toolset to try my hand at it, but my lack of any artistic/graphic design skills may be a problem. (ComTrav's Sphere of Doom! has a nice ring to it, though.)

[KalosCast]

I was pretty unimpressed with the boss fights as well in Dragon Age, though there were a few that I really liked

1) Brood Mother: You can tell that this one is a very good and original boss because everybody's always complaining that their usual strategy doesn't work and demand the forums to beat it for them

2) The High Dragon: wasn't afraid to move around, had an incredibly high lethality towards your characters, and a fair number of abilities that you didn't run into in other parts of the game, requiring you to really think about how to properly take the thing down.



Other than that, yes, as the OP said: most of them were just normal enemies with a ton of health.



There's basically one rule that any game can stick to that will guarantee that players will enjoy their boss fights. It's made for the most interesting encounters in basically every single game I've played, from MMORPGs, to Realtime Strategy, to First Person Shooters, Action/Adventure games... it doesn't matter. There's just one simple rule: Make the enemy play like a player.



That's all you have to do, if you put us up against a "party" of enemies, make the mage spam forcefield, the Damager try to knock out the rogue as fast as possible. Make them use the same bull**** spell combination that we've been using on their mooks for the entire game. If it's a big character, do the same thing, have them try to crowd control as much as possible, have them use a sustained damage ability and then knock us down or stun us just as we're going to try to stunlock it for as long as possible. That's really all there is to it.



One of my favorite bosses in WoW uses Hunter skills and his pet in the same way that decent hunters often do in PvP... and I can't even count how many people loved the Shadow Link encounter on Ocarina of time, especially the fact that its health is directly based on your own is just a nice touch as well. This sort of thing also happens in basic encounters in the second Halo game, enemies will suddenly jump to the side if they catch you pointing a sniper rifle at them, they'll combine plasma pistol bolts (which destroy your shields if fully charged) with heavy fire directly after. It makes encounters more fun if the enemy plays the same way the player would, if given that power, instead of just making them a mook with implausibly high stats.

[Wintermist]

KalosCast wrote...

There's basically one rule that any game can stick to that will guarantee that players will enjoy their boss fights. It's made for the most interesting encounters in basically every single game I've played, from MMORPGs, to Realtime Strategy, to First Person Shooters, Action/Adventure games... it doesn't matter. There's just one simple rule: Make the enemy play like a player.

That's all you have to do, if you put us up against a "party" of enemies, make the mage spam forcefield, the Damager try to knock out the rogue as fast as possible. Make them use the same bull**** spell combination that we've been using on their mooks for the entire game. If it's a big character, do the same thing, have them try to crowd control as much as possible, have them use a sustained damage ability and then knock us down or stun us just as we're going to try to stunlock it for as long as possible. That's really all there is to it.

This is a good reasoning. Make enemies use all their abilities like we ourselves would. Go wild, the mob doesn't want to die. So, design a cool boss with different abilities to suit, and make him use them like you was playing him yourself. This post was quite an eye opener for me, thanks.

[PatT2]

Always with the comparisons to Wow. Some of us do not, nor have we ever, desired to play that game. If we wished for a WoW-like game, we would play Wow. We don't. If you don't like the fact that all games aren't fashioned after Wow, go play Wow. I don't want to just go on raiding parties. I don't mind the conversations. I enjoy the story.



Sometimes you pick up a glass phylactery and it's an ancient Arcane Warrior. Sometimes it's something powerful you're not really ready to fight because you just came from another fight and your healing potions are gone and you can't go back to town....so everyone gets killed but your healer, who resurrects one of you just in time, (not the tank ...lol), and the healer and the rogue battle it out with the deadly demon thing alone. With only a few lesser lyrium potions and a poison or two but no bombs. Because you just came off a battle.



I think it's great it can work that way, getting surprised, and making it out by the skin of your teeth...



All this complaining that it isn't Wow. It isn't. That's the point. If it were, I wouldn't play. Enjoy what it is, offer whatever productive advice you have, and if you want it to be something it was never promised to be, designed by a team that has no history of designing WoW type games, why do you bother us? I tire of these threads... it's Thanksgiving and I'm home sick and alone, only able to eat toast and drink water and pop Tylenol. I'm thankful for this game that is able to take my mind from my aches for a few moments...



Yeah, i was here looking to update a tech support post and probably shouldn't have even looked here. And the way I feel I shouldn't have probably posted...but now that I've clicked this many keys, I am going to. Just don't rain on the parade. You came to it. You didn't have to. You can leave it if you want. If this game isn't what you like to play, why haunt this forum and complain? I think it's very magnanimous of the devs to come here and read and try to take the positive criticisms to improve the product.



but it isn't Wow and doesn't claim to be. So go play Wow if you don't like this. At least there isn't a subscription for this game. I find that there are plenty of surprises and I'm enjoying them. I also enjoy trying to talk my way out of things if possible. There's more to the story than fighting. Sheesh.



I need another tylenol, I think. thanks for a great game, Bioware.

[KalosCast]

PatT2 wrote...

Yet another obligatory anti-WoW rant because it's a cool game to hate.

Way to completely miss the point of all... 2... of the WoW comparisons in this thread.

In fact, my complaint about the boss fights is that they're far too much like WoW bosses, they stupidly wack away at your tank, which is the lowest threat to their survival due to some unrealistic aggro table based around how heavy their pants are.

Modifié par KalosCast, 26 novembre 2009 - 11:52 .

[Looy]

Spider Queen is easily the hardest boss in the game, and probably one of the most interesting. She shoots your squishies with that goddam poison that kills in seconds, making it less of a Tank + Spam healing fight.

[KalosCast]

Looy wrote...

Spider Queen is easily the hardest boss in the game, and probably one of the most interesting. She shoots your squishies with that goddam poison that kills in seconds, making it less of a Tank + Spam healing fight.

I always forget about the Corrupted Spider Queen fight, there's never and buildup to that one so I always dismiss it as another elite mob but yes... she pulls the same moves that you would with an all-spider party. Stun and escape, her adds have a nasty habit of locking characters in a series of Overwhelms, she's not afraid to cheap-shot your weaker party members. Good times.

[taffetta]

The fights I got the most satisfaction from were the ones where there were npcs to keep alive - e.g. Redcliffe undead. After many tries I kept everyone alive in every fight except where they were scripted to die I think (e.g. Ser Otto - tried that lots of ways and he still got a fork in the chest). There is at least one acheivement that unlocks based on keeping people alive I think - can't remember what it was - but I did it because if fit the way I was playing not because it was in anyway necessary. These are obviously not boss fights of course but for me it turned some of the smaller encounters into a big deal and made them more than a hack/stun/slash fest.
The fight I had the most trouble with was Branka as I stupidly ran into that with an all melee party, about 3 potions and didn't feel that Oghren would actually attack Branka so kept him off her. It took forever but finally getting it done made me feel we were awesome as Zevran would have said had he been there.

Of course I could have gone back to a previous save and avoided this grief but then I could play the whole thing on easy mode and just cc everything with mages and complete all fights in seconds - my point being I guess that you choose the game you play to a large extent.
Having raided in various MMOs inc, WoW I was pleasantly suprised that the boss fights did seem to be using the kind of staged approach from such games - I wasn't expecting it - although in an easymode sort of way (depending on difficulty level played I guess). In my opinion combat was extremely well implemented for an RPG and I would not want to see resources that are needed for other parts of the game (story, characterisation, graphic design etc.) channeled into creating single player WoW.

[tmp7704]

cipher86 wrote...

My problem is not limited to boss fights.  Combat feels drab and repetitive, yes, but there is more.  Now that I'm going through the game a second time, I'm actually finding more that I dislike about the game than I like (and during my initial impressions, this game would have been a 10).

- (too much combat)
- (boring loot)
- (too large areas)
- (too much dialogue)

That is my largest criticism.  A lot of times this does not feel like a game... perhaps it was not designed to be.  It feels like it was more designed to be long and intentionally "epic", and because of that it does not feel so.

(..)

DA:O would be better if it trimmed the fat - and there is a lot of trimming to be done.

I believe large part of your criticism may stem from being (temporarily) burnt out on the game, having already done it once. You are basically doing an equivalent of watching a movie for the second time right after a first viewing, or immediately re-reading a book -- it is then no surprise a lot of it will feel very repetitive and of the "been there, done that" variety (or lack thereof), and you'll find yourself wishing to fast-forward through bits which are not 100% exciting.

Considering your impression of the game during the first playthrough is said to be very high, it doesn't really make much sense to cut half+ of it. Doubly so given there's complaints raised in other threads to exactly opposite effect -- people are complaining game areas are too small and there's not enough exploration etc. It is hence likely trimming the size of game down would upset a number of players, and so the net result of such work is questionable.

As for the "boss fights" ... i suspect large part of the "it's all boring" reaction you experience now is also a result of being already familiar with them. But this is something that no gimmick and no fight scripts no matter how complicated can really cure. Once you beat it, that's it.

[sparkyclarky24]

i quite enjoyed the boss fights.



You had to work to defeat them succesfully, and were satisfying when you beat them.



i HATE over the top , pathetically hard boss fights.



Bioware hit the nail on the head for boss fights imo.



The only thing that could be different is a longer lead up to the final boss confrontation, to perhaps flesh out the final battle

And the bosses had clearly been given a lot of detail.

so its all good.

[soteria]

I thought Jarvia was a lot harder than Spider Queen, actually.

[Walina]

Too larges areas ? Are you out of your mind ? Only Deep roads maps were bigger than any other areas in the game but they aren't too big, lol! (Mmorpg maps are too bigs >.<)

I wish that most maps will be like Deep roads with the same cleaver monsters in the whole game.

Though I do agree, I will like better loot tables on boss and mini boss.

And hell no there isn't too much dialogs in this game, they necessary to immerge you into the story and world. I just miss sometimes that you can't go deeper in the conversation like with Bann Teagan or the chief Templar at Lothering, they were interesting characters.

I ask also to rethink about the difficulty in the game, in the some balance because I found Deep road hard when I finished helping Dalishing elves, there were a lot ennemies compared of other maps, that's really surprising and  I didn't like it.

Modifié par Walina, 27 novembre 2009 - 12:20 .

[telephasic]

Beechwell wrote...

I think the concept of boss fights as seperate "games" withing the game is a thing of the past (except in MMOs). All fights should be engaging and interesting. No matter if its against a pack of bowmen or against a dragon. And generally I think DA makes a rather good job at that, except that the AI is too easily outmaneuvered.

It's funny, because up until NWN, I never even noticed discrete bosses in Bioware games.  I know there were major combats at the end of most chapters in BG and BGII, but I just thought of them as another encounter which required a bit more thought, and they generally didn't come down to one particular enemy unless it was something like the dragons. 

So far, I've found the best "bosses" to be those which require strategy.  The fight against the desire demon in the fade is great, because your first instinct (to try and take her out as quickly as possible) is the wrong one. 

The worst boss fights are ones like the rage demon at the top of the circle tower.  Uldred just sucked because ultimately he just needed to be hit a whole lot, and by the end your warriors/rogues are out of stamina except for sustained skills, and you're lucky if your mage still has enough mana pots to cast spells.  Long fights against high HP enemies = boring. 

[KalosCast]

telephasic wrote...

The worst boss fights are ones like the rage demon at the top of the circle tower.  Uldred just sucked because ultimately he just needed to be hit a whole lot, and by the end your warriors/rogues are out of stamina except for sustained skills, and you're lucky if your mage still has enough mana pots to cast spells.  Long fights against high HP enemies = boring. 

Yeah, endurance bosses are the absolute worst kind of fights, especially Uldred since you can prevent him from getting any adds through the entire fight by just clicking a button when a mage starts to glow. He'll just stupidly whack away at whoever has the heaviest pants while the rest of your party smashes him to the ground.

[soteria]

telephasic wrote...

Beechwell wrote...

I think the concept of boss fights as seperate "games" withing the game is a thing of the past (except in MMOs). All fights should be engaging and interesting. No matter if its against a pack of bowmen or against a dragon. And generally I think DA makes a rather good job at that, except that the AI is too easily outmaneuvered.

It's funny, because up until NWN, I never even noticed discrete bosses in Bioware games.  I know there were major combats at the end of most chapters in BG and BGII, but I just thought of them as another encounter which required a bit more thought, and they generally didn't come down to one particular enemy unless it was something like the dragons. 

So far, I've found the best "bosses" to be those which require strategy.  The fight against the desire demon in the fade is great, because your first instinct (to try and take her out as quickly as possible) is the wrong one. 

The worst boss fights are ones like the rage demon at the top of the circle tower.  Uldred just sucked because ultimately he just needed to be hit a whole lot, and by the end your warriors/rogues are out of stamina except for sustained skills, and you're lucky if your mage still has enough mana pots to cast spells.  Long fights against high HP enemies = boring. 

Uldred was boring, and fairly easy.  It was *kinda* cool because of the setting and the item use, but really he fought like a dumbed-down ogre, and after the initial enemies die it's really just a question of whether you can keep your tank alive long enough to kill him.

[cipher86]

PatT2 wrote...
All this complaining that it isn't Wow.

There's only been two posts asking for bosses like WoW, the rest of the posts about WoW are exactly like this.  We aren't asking for WoW bosses - not exactly.  Just more thought out, more personalized bosses.

You know what was cool about Rubicante in Final Fantasy IV?  He healed you fully (HP and MP) before you fought him each time.  Then he had his own moveset you had to look out for.  But the fact that he healed you before you fought him was totally epic.

You know what was cool about Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time?  Playing a game of catch with that magical bolt he threw at you.  It was an easy fight, but it was pretty damn epic.

You know what was cool about the Big Daddies in Bioshock?  That up until you became really OP (towards the end of the game), each one was pretty much a boss fight.  There were two different kinds with their own distinct look and moveset, and they were always in a different environment, meaning you had to keep on your toes and utilize all your weapons to full effectiveness if you wanted to bring them down early on.  Up until you're eight hours in the game, each Big Daddy encounter was absolutely epic.

None of the battles in Dragon Age gave me this feeling.

Modifié par cipher86, 27 novembre 2009 - 01:28 .

[TimelordDC]

The boss fights are definitely underwhelming. I can understand if the main quests' boss fights had to be kept at a level that could be completed by the average gamer without too much reloading but not the optional side quests!!!

The Revenants -> every one of them could have been given different abilities based on their backgrounds in the codex (the entries would need some expanding, of course, in that case)
Gaxkang -> A mage of his power doesn't know that mages are way powerful than melee? He is such a cakewalk for mages.
The Juggernaut Armor quest -> Why re-use Revenants? (though the fights were better because of the minions)
Flemeth -> Why a dragon again? And one that doesn't use any interesting abilities like the High Dragon? That was a great chance to have a super-mage against your entire party with some specialized spells maybe.
Desire Demons -> I get the fact that they are a bit skimpily clad but to have 3 boss fights and 2 of them in DLCs? C'mon!
(...and what's with the DLCs handing out items that are way overpowered compared to the regular game? So much so, that the Helm of Honnleath is pretty much an end-game item? )

The side-quests give a great chance to have some well-constructed boss fights. And to those who are against constructed fights, many of the mob fights in the game are hand-constructed -> which is probably why they are better/more difficult than the average boss fight.
For example, we hardly ever see mages casting anything except from the Primal lines or Crushing Prison/Curse of Mortality. How about setting them up to use Mana Clash or Mana Drain? How about them having separate spells or abilities?
How about using high-level rogues with Combat Stealth/Evasion/Momentum?
How about using elite units in tandem as a boss fight? That would give a great opportunity to set up team work benefits for the bosses too?
The Revenant had a cool 'Pull' ability that it used against mages/ranged fighters a couple of times but that's in the 14 fights across 2 playthroughs.

I know it's tough to script them but even providing different abilities that are used randomly in different fights should provide some variability in the fights.
Also, having multi-elite-unit boss battles will also be good if you can have them work as a team -> just like the player would.
The optional fights needn't be toned town, even in Normal mode, for the average player. They should be fights that reward the person who takes the pains to defeat that boss. And make the rewards worthwhile!!
...and please, make sure future DLC teams play the game to get an idea of the difficulty/item level in the game.

[cipher86]

TimelordDC wrote...

(...and what's with the DLCs handing out items that are way overpowered compared to the regular game? So much so, that the Helm of Honnleath is pretty much an end-game item? )

This is why I'm putting off playing the DLC addons until I have reached the point of no return.  It's also why I threw away the DLC items you start off with.  They cause a drastic imbalance.  Would have been better if each item had a short quest involved, or at least were placed in the Bodahn's shop like some of the other DLC, though even those could have used a higher price tag.

Modifié par cipher86, 27 novembre 2009 - 01:39 .

[Varenus Luckmann]

I found the boss battles.. adequate. Some battles that I'd call a boss battle (Stanley Woo apparen't doesn't agree) did feel a bit gimmicky, but that's all well and good in my book. Just because something is gimmicky doesn't automaticly make it bad.

Some boss fights (notably all the dragons, for starters) felt ridiculously easy. It was mostly "go up, smack it until it stops moving, loot, have cake". They simply should've had more moves and more randomness to them. After your.. I have no idea.. fifth fight or run through the game, it'd be great to see one of those dragons pull something completely unexpected out of their hats.

Stanley Woo wrote...
what does a boss fight "feel" like? How do we make them equally difficult for everyone, and how can we measure that? What makes you the baseline measurement rather than someone who finds them too difficult?

[...]

Do we really have to care? Can't you just make them absurdly hard for everyone? Good players will rejoice and the bad players.. well.. they'll whine about the difficulty of a game regardless.

:happy:

[Varenus Luckmann]

TimelordDC wrote...

The boss fights are definitely underwhelming. I can understand if the main quests' boss fights had to be kept at a level that could be completed by the average gamer without too much reloading but not the optional side quests!!!

The Revenants -> every one of them could have been given different abilities based on their backgrounds in the codex (the entries would need some expanding, of course, in that case)
Gaxkang -> A mage of his power doesn't know that mages are way powerful than melee? He is such a cakewalk for mages.
The Juggernaut Armor quest -> Why re-use Revenants? (though the fights were better because of the minions)
Flemeth -> Why a dragon again? And one that doesn't use any interesting abilities like the High Dragon? That was a great chance to have a super-mage against your entire party with some specialized spells maybe.
Desire Demons -> I get the fact that they are a bit skimpily clad but to have 3 boss fights and 2 of them in DLCs? C'mon!
(...and what's with the DLCs handing out items that are way overpowered compared to the regular game? So much so, that the Helm of Honnleath is pretty much an end-game item? )

The side-quests give a great chance to have some well-constructed boss fights. And to those who are against constructed fights, many of the mob fights in the game are hand-constructed -> which is probably why they are better/more difficult than the average boss fight.
For example, we hardly ever see mages casting anything except from the Primal lines or Crushing Prison/Curse of Mortality. How about setting them up to use Mana Clash or Mana Drain? How about them having separate spells or abilities?
How about using high-level rogues with Combat Stealth/Evasion/Momentum?
How about using elite units in tandem as a boss fight? That would give a great opportunity to set up team work benefits for the bosses too?
The Revenant had a cool 'Pull' ability that it used against mages/ranged fighters a couple of times but that's in the 14 fights across 2 playthroughs.

I know it's tough to script them but even providing different abilities that are used randomly in different fights should provide some variability in the fights.
Also, having multi-elite-unit boss battles will also be good if you can have them work as a team -> just like the player would.
The optional fights needn't be toned town, even in Normal mode, for the average player. They should be fights that reward the person who takes the pains to defeat that boss. And make the rewards worthwhile!!
...and please, make sure future DLC teams play the game to get an idea of the difficulty/item level in the game.

Even if I would've tried to be more eloquent in my speech, I completely agree with this guy on virtually all accounts.

I'd just like to point out that there are high-level rogues that use combat stealth. But yeah - different abilities for different characters, even if they're of the same kind of enemy (Revenants, Dragons, etc) would be a great start. I get it - Flemeth is a dragon. But Flemeth is also her own person. Why does she use the same kind of attacks as the High Dragon, in the same manner?

The same goes for all re-used bosses.

And yes, I also completely agree on the DLC issues. Going to Honnleath straight out of Lothering to get a helmet that you stick on your toon for the entire full span of the game is just wrong. The same goes for the Warden Commander armor in Soldier's Peak. I'd also like to see DLC fully integrated into the game, not something that's just slapped on as soon as you log in. Having a quest saying "You should go here, there is a merchant there that wants to give you a quest!" after arriving in Ostagar is just.. annoying as hell.

DLCs should be handled like regular quests. Add an NPC in a town somewhere that I can just happen upon, like any other quest. Make it pop up as a random encounter while travelling. Something like that. NOT as a psychic message from the maker straight into my skull and onto my Journal.

[tmp7704]

TimelordDC wrote...

How about using high-level rogues with Combat Stealth/Evasion/Momentum?

You didn't fight Jarvia with her sending pairs of exactly this sort of rogues at you, or that boss-level assasin guy with bunch of apprentices, with one of the apprentices left not in stealth as seemingly pushover bait, right before the archdemon showdown?

[soteria]

I started just selling the blood dragon armor. Having it annoys me because it means I can start the game with what is arguably the best warrior set available, and it takes the fun out of finding and getting better gear.

[Levnikmoore]

I agree with a lot of the posts here, making the bosses a little more complicated without drowning them in 8 phase battles is good. Jarvia (Battle stealthing to run to her traps), Revenants (Stay in melee and eat their aoe or keep running away and causing them to cast Pull), and the Spider Queen ("Stealthing" away to launch the poison nukes at your more vulnerable characters with fairly weak adds) were some of my favorite bosses.

The Dragons were one of the more frustrating. Hell, the first time I killed Flemeth both my melee died damn quick so I just stood at range with my character (Mage) killing her while Wynne kept her alive.

The comment that some tactics/spells should be avoidable is great. The idea of using a boss's abilities against them is very cool. Like an ogre missing a charge and being stunned for a second, or a golem going through the long Hurl sequence only to hit nothing. Also having bosses that cause you to choose a lesser of two evils is good imo. The Revenant can be tackled with melee and some heavy heals, basically brute force the fight, or take a more tactical approach and put a pile of books or rocks between your ranged people and the boss to stay at range and keep damage low - good. Dragon fights where standing in melee is suicide and eating fireballs at range is perfectly ok - not fun. Possibly have the dragon take off and land right next to your ranged characters, make dragon fireballs more beefy, make some sort of decision there besides Stay Away, Whack Away.


TL;DR:
Keep it simple, but make your players REACT to something. Be it traps, a dual-tactic to a boss (Think Revenants), environment (Like a blood mage getting desparate and knocking the ceiling down on you), hell, even fire on the ground makes a boss fight feel more "epic"

Otherwise, you have a no-melee fest against something with an abnormally high health.

Modifié par Levnikmoore, 27 novembre 2009 - 02:36 .

[Niten Ryu]

Boss fights, like just about all encounters in Dragon Age are either difficult or very easy, based on your group and your level. My first run was on hard difficulty, 2 rogues, 2 warriors untill Mage Tower and most part it was brutal. After Mage Tower I got Wynne and went with 2 rogues, 1 warrior and mage as healer (I avoided nukes or AoE spells). Game was difficult (boss encounters included) untill level 12. I killed High Dragon at that level and then difficulty went down the more levels I got.



My second run is with mage and I've used 2 mage, Sten and Alistair whole time on nightmare difficulty. Game is several times easier then my previous run, no matter the if it's trash mobs or boss fights. Mages have huge arseal to beat mobs in many different ways. Even simple spell like Misdirection Hex eliminate all difficulty on signle mob encounters. Someone suggested that Ser Cauthrien would be difficulty boss. Actually no, as that Misdirection Hex makes her really weak. I killed her 2 times. First on queen rescue mission (trick is to kill all but 1 add and then let add to kill your party, you'll get to do prison escape and game assume that Ser Cauthrien survived.. even when I decapitated her. Funny bug). and then just before the Landsmeet. Yes, you do get 2 swords (not that I need to use 'em).



Those who did the WoW raiding, no matter if they did it casually or hardcore, have REALLY big advantage on boss fights. Because of WoWs popularity, it's now impossible to design encounters that worst players could win and at the same time could challenge better players.