45 réponses à ce sujet

[wanderon]

After completing the game for the first time all the way through last week it occured to me that in every run-through I ever started (and there were lots of them LOL) I ALWAYS sided with the mages at every opportunity - perhaps because I felt sort of compelled to do so what with my sister and father being mages -

In any event I decided to start a new game as a warrior playing as a two-handed Templar/Reaver or Templar/Beserker and to keep all mages out of the party for the most part and to take the typical Templar attitude towards them throughout the game siding with the templars in the end. I did keep Bethany until after we did the Birthright quest but dropped her shortly after that and worked with just Varric & Aveline until Fenris became available.

I'm now well into Act 1 and a bit surprised at how well the party does without the mage artillery and healing options. I am playing on hard and thus far my  only reload came when Fenris got stuck under the stairs in the Tal Vashoth caves and I couldn't get him out .

Comments and suggestions always welcome!

[Sylvanpyxie]

I'm now well into Act 1 and a bit surprised at how well the party does without the mage artillery and healing options.

Combat wise. Mage Damage is quite second rate in Dragon Age II, at least when compared to the insane single damage of Rogues and the constant AoE damage of Warriors, and potions are so easy to come by that i never suffered when playing without Mages.

I'm currently running a Templar Reaver Sword and Shield Warrior through to side with the Templars and, while i sometimes have Merrill around, i don't really *need* a Mage, at least not at the moment. Potions are just so easily available and Sword/Shield offers a lot of protection and control, mobs drop like flies when you have Rogues focusing damage, and control, as well.

Story wise i like having Mages around.. The first time i sided with the Templars, convinced i was never going to do it, was actually during my first play-through. I was playing a Mage and i'd decided she would be a bit naive and innocent.

She started out in Act 1 as a ditsy, kind, charmingly naive little girl. She was siding with Mages on pretty much everything, even agreeing with Merrill that Blood Magic could perhaps be controlled. As the game progressed and she saw more corrupt Mages appearing through-out Kirkwall her opinions began to change.

By the time Act2 was half way through, her opinions had already shifted dramatically, along with my own opinions (as an avid mage supporter i never believed i'd agree with the Templars by the end of the game ).

When Mother Hawke died, she changed drastically. She became aggressive and angry. Her opinion on Mages changed completely and she believed whole-heartedly that they needed to be controlled and the Templars were the only ones who could do it.

She was my first, and favourite, Hawke, she was lost to a broken hard drive. I'm probably going to recreate her after my Warrior run.

Modifié par Sylvanpyxie, 05 août 2012 - 04:25 .

[coldwetn0se]

I actually love doing all melee parties (loved doing that in DAO; Alistair, Zevran, Sten/Shale, and DW Cunning Rogue Warden...FTW!)

In DA2, it is fun to mix it up with Rogues and Warriors (you can still get some of those CCC's that I can't get enough of...weeeeeeee!)

Depending on how I am RPing my particular Hawke at the time, I let the story tend to dictate who I usually bring with me. I still love balanced parties of mage/rogue/warrior (again....CCC's), but love mixing it up. Try a few of the build suggestions for Isabella; she can be a lot of fun to add to your current line up (minus who ever you are replacing her with.)

[Renmiri1]

tehehe.. sometimes i do an all mage party and it rocks

If you are doing a no mage party make sure to take Mithal Favor grenades with you and plenty of those auto revive potions Also using shieldwall and elemental aegis can help against those fireballs

[wanderon]

Well we made it to the Deep Roads and had our first reload of the game at the dragon fight (playing on hard) - but took him down the second time. This is also when I figured out that I had not brought along any of those Mythals Favor potions (revives dead companions) but after checking the wiki - I'm not sure they are available yet anyway looks like not until Act 3.

So far so good using Varrick, Aveline & Fenris with my Female Two-handed Templar Warrior Hawke - IIRC we just leveled to 11 and are about to enter the Primevil Thaig.

We have turned all the rogue mages that survived our encounters over to the Circle (except Bethany Merril & Anders of course). I had planned to turn the magistrates son over to him (since I never did that before) but Fenris talked me into allowing him to kill him so I still don't know what consequences might have occured there.

All in all it's shaping up to be a fun run-through I think (once I get out of those annoying Deep Roads )

[caradoc2000]

wanderon wrote...

This is also when I figured out that I had not brought along any of those Mythals Favor potions (revives dead companions) but after checking the wiki - I'm not sure they are available yet anyway looks like not until Act 3.

The recipe is available in act 2.

Modifié par caradoc2000, 06 août 2012 - 12:00 .

[berelinde]

caradoc2000 wrote...

wanderon wrote...

This is also when I figured out that I had not brought along any of those Mythals Favor potions (revives dead companions) but after checking the wiki - I'm not sure they are available yet anyway looks like not until Act 3.

The recipe is available in act 2.

But you won't have enough resources to craft it until Act 3.

[caradoc2000]

It only requires two glitterdust.

[berelinde]

caradoc2000 wrote...

It only requires two glitterdust.

You're right, but it would still have been unavailable for the Deep Roads dragon fight. You can only get 1 glitterdust in Act 1. The others are available later, along with the recipe.

[wanderon]

According to the wiki the potions don't show up for sale at the Black Emporium until act 3 either - they also mention availablity at the Hanging Man in Act 3 - I think I know what that means but I don't think I've ever chosen the quest option that would lead to them being available there.

That said my point in bringing it up was that if they weren't even available in Act 1 then I wasn't such dummy for not having them along...LOL

[coldwetn0se]

You can find the recipe for Mythal's Favor in Act 2 (if you wish to know where it is, I am more than happy to tell you, but I will wait for your request....don't want to needlessly spoil anything.). You should find enough ingredients for it also during that act, then you can make it anytime you wish.

Not sure if you have set Varric up to Disorient (upgraded Fatiguing Fog, upgraded Pinning Shot....), but if so, Aveline is GREAT for taking advantage of that (check her Shield Tree for the skills that exploit Disorients). Nice easy CCC's.

[Renmiri1]

Both the potion and the grenades are available on Act 2 for sure. I have used them

The grenades are not available for sale on Black Emporium but the potions are.


** waves at coldwetn0se 

Modifié par Renmiri1, 06 août 2012 - 05:53 .

[wanderon]

Well we made it out of the Deep Roads altho we had to reload the final battle and I dropped the difficulty back to Normal when we replayed it as this battle and the end battle of Legacy are probably my two least favorite and/or most annoying to me in the entire game and I didn't want to do it more than twice! .

Ramped back up to hard as we began Act 2 and several of the larger battles we encountered were considerably more challenging than earlier (which is a good thing). The combination Revenent / Arcane horror in Sebastions quest  and one of the bounty hunting mage batttles required a reload (but no reduction of difficulty level),
 
In both cases it was the demons/fade creatures that gave us the most trouble perhaps due to our lack of mage power altho Hawkes new found Templar powers were helpful when they were not resisted - especially the silence option - to silence a mage when not one but as many as 3 warriors are beating on them spells almost certain death altho it did not seem to work most of the time on fade creatures but the smite was useful and to a lesser degree the cleanse.

It has been good fun so far and the bonus has been several new quests I had not seen before as well as doing old quests in a different manner. I am starting to wonder if I inadvertantly took Izzie out of the action - I didn't do anything with her in Act 1 and she is not at the Hanged Man now -  

[Renmiri1]

That last straw battle wit the rage demon and two mages will be hard and if you side with templars you will have to cut through mages to get to the gallows so make sure you stock up well on potions and grenades at Act 3.

[wanderon]

Well we made some more progress but....

The Bartran battle turned into another reload - in fact we very nearly did not make it through the last battle with the crazed guards when both Hawke and Fenris went down (still no mythals favor yet) - that left Aveline and Varrick to handle several guards and a commander that were left on the feild and then another group showed up just to keep it interesting  -

it took a very very long time with Varrick playing hit and run and Aveline tanking but doing minimal damage (sheild defense dropping it down) and both of them using grenades and sucking down health and stamina potions - finally succeeding only to have the party die relatively quickly in the Bartrand battle mostly to his "assasination" ability or whatever that massive damage of his is.

Then to add insult to injury I had not remembered to save since we walked in the door and got to do the whole building all over again...

Not being a card carrying member of the "reload until you get lucky" school of play I was very tempted to turn the difficulty down to normal before the second attempt but I stayed my hand and this time kept closer track of the battlefield and the minions went down rather quickly with no deaths on the good guys this time around.

It appeared the Bartrand battle might go south again as Hawke fell relatively early but then when all the guards were gone and Bartrand was alone & "disappeared" prior to another one of his backstabs the game didn't see any battle happening and ressurected Hawke before Bartrand re-appeared - we took full advantage and surrounded him and beat him down rather quickly this time and glitch or not we took the win...

Now I am about to toss a coin to determine whether I go ahead and try the Varnell battle (which scares the crap out of me) or whether to back off it and go find some more glitterdust to make mythal favors potions before we head down there...

[wanderon]

Well it turned out I put off the Varnell decision too late -( I had entered the area before having second thoughts and was unable to exit -) so we went onward - I toyed with choosing the option to kill the Qunari but in the end I attacked Varnell and surprisingly enough we actually beat him and Varrick was the only one to fall in battle. 

That said it took some doing - I hate the way those reinforcements keep showing up just as it looks like you are finally gaining control of the mobs and might have a shot at winning

Hawke has now added the Reaver and we just finished Prime Suspect and are now in the holding caves for Fenris quest (and looking forward to grabbing the glitterdust there for our Mythal Favor potions - )

This is turning out quite well - challenging enough to keep my adrenaline up in the tougher battles and yet I can count the reloads on one hand so far with at least one finger left over !

[Renmiri1]

Good going! Act 3 will be tougher though IMHO.

[wanderon]

Renmiri1 wrote...

Good going! Act 3 will be tougher though IMHO.

Indeed? -Well we just went through a few tougher battles in Act 2 - went to Sundermount on the bounty hunter quest and the battle at the altar (Crazy Loner) was exceedingly tough - everytime I thought we had it done something else popped up - every party member died over the course the battle altho thanks to Mythals Favor not all at the same time altho some died twice...

The shadow assasins were a particular pain in the patootie as were the arcane horrors with that wicked blue death ray (what is that anyway).

It seems to me that my silence ability may get resisted more often than not with elites altho the Templar stuff is quite helpful overall against minions from the fade and mage types.

I can't really see the reaver effects (blood frenzy) altho I heard they were considerably nerfed in a patch from what they once were -
 the devour is somewhat useful especially while waiting for health potion cool downs

We also did the Tome battle just outside the Dalish camp and that was pretty difficult too altho the good news is we managed to get through both of these without a reload altho we used up a lot of supplies in the process LOL.

Almost done with Act 2 - I suspect I'm going to attempt to duel with the arishok altho I'm uncertain that I will be as succesful with this Hawke as I was with my DW assasin.

[wanderon]

Well it took about 45 minutes but Hawke managed to best the Arishok in a duel (on Hard) with a little help from his faithful hound and quite a number of potions and also by switching about half way through  from Dogs of war to the somewhat overpowered (at current levels) Empress Point .

I am somewhat curious what exactly determines whether an enemy resists an ability or not - is it some sort of dice roll like D&D? The descritption often mentions 100% chance or 50% chance against normal enemies but rarely (or never) give any percentage for higher level foes.

 It seemed that early on in the fight pommel strike was stunning the Arishok the majority of the time while towards the end of the fight it almost never did - are those sneaky devs cheating again?

So it's on to Act 3 but not until Sunday - we did the opening scene and I forgot I was planning to side with the templars and could have started right off by siding with Meriedith instead of claiming they were both wrong but no doubt I'll have plenty of time to choose sides along the way by way of words and deeds.

[berelinde]

You get extra quests by declaring a side early, but that's about it.

[wanderon]

Extra quests are probably a good thing - especially since I am less likely to play another campaign where I side with the Templars vs the mages. 
 
I went back to see if the game made an auto save between beating the Arishok and the Orsino - Merideth confrontation but it did not so the last save I have prior to that is a quicksave before the Arishok fight. Perhaps when I get started again Sunday I'll redo the Arishok fight as a full battle instead of a duel this time and then side with Queen Merideth...

[Icy Magebane]

You seem to already know what you're doing as far as tactics go, but I'll just say that the team of Fenris, Aveline, Varric, and Templar Hawke is probably my favorite. As I'm sure you've realized, there are more than enough options as far as crowd control and CCC go that you don't really need to use mages if you don't want to. Healing is the only real bonus of having one or more mages, but that's easily handled with potions or just not taking a ton of damage in the first place. It all comes down to tactics... until some bloodmage decides to use that one "blood vortex" ability that kills everyone regardless of what you have prepared. That's hit or miss, so don't feel bad if you die immediately when that happens... sometimes the game just does that. But I'm sure you know this already...

[AbsoluteApril]

I'm enjoying reading your progress through the game.
Planning on trying my own PT on hard next time, I'll be dying a lot.
Good luck in Act 3!

[Renmiri1]

Ya, I'm enjoying it too. I sided with templars but brought Merril along so didn't do a true mageless party. Was my hardest Act 3 regardless, without Anders healing. I was so used to not having to resort to Lifeward and Mythal's favor potions, was hard breaking the habit! You seem to be doing good though

[wanderon]

Re: General tactics the one thing I have not been doing but plan to work on a bit is trying to take advantage of the little bit of CCC available with a group like this - I recently added to Varrics tactics instructing him to use upgraded kickback on staggered foes altho with the cool downs there is of course only limited options for using that.

I'm also edging him towards another disorient option but trying to get my warriors in the right place at the right time to take advantage during the heat of battle has been too much for me to handle thus far.

Mostly I pause a lot checking everyone health levels and looking for the current big threat and then assigning someone to take care of it and I stopped letting Hawke run on auto-pilot while I handled Varrick and took over Hawke myself instead - as a templar it's his job to take down the big mage or demon threats while the others run their own show unless I see a need to give them some specific goals.

I'm not big on setting up the tactics screen - I generally use the ones the game supplies just choosing between ranged scrapper defensive etc and adding some basic instructions to suck down a potion before they die .

I've been looking at IN1s elemental and other damage sheets for info but don't know how much of that is only for nightmare and/or if there are other differences for Hard.

One more 12 hour work day then I'm off for 3 days and we'll see how far I can take this group of misfits.