Hi all,
Reached lvl 7 and now I want to decide which companions to stick with. Playing as a DW rogue and plan to pick assassin and shadow, going for all out damage. Planning on having Fenris tank since he is more offensive than Aveline. I want to pursue the romance with Merill, so she is a lock. That leaves the 4th sport and I really want to fill this with Isabela. I am worried though about lack of aoe damage, healing and crowd control with Merill as only mage. Is this feasible and if so how should I build Merill? Also advice on using Isabela in this party appreciated, I understand it's quite difficult to make her efficient.
I'm playing on hard. I have to say many of the fights so far have been very challenging with another couple of groups of enemies regularly spawning in when you think you are done. And the Hayder fight was nigh impossible. Have been playing with Fenris/Aveline, Beth and Merril so far.
This party with Merril as only mage viable?
Débuté par
johanp
, août 28 2012 09:17
Retour en haut
#2
Posté 28 août 2012 - 09:49
Renmiri1
-
- Members
- 6 009 messages
It is possible to have a mage free party and finish the game on Nightmare so a 1 mage party can work. You need to study the classes and elemental immunities though.
Modifié par Renmiri1, 28 août 2012 - 09:49 .
#3
Posté 29 août 2012 - 05:04
mr_afk
-
- Members
- 1 605 messages
Haha it's possible to solo the game on nightmare (with any class), so anything is 'viable'.
If this is your first playthrough, I would recommend trying out all the various party combinations, if only for the party banter.
Ideally you would bring Anders and/or Bethany along for haste and heroic aura, but unless you're going for speed runs etc there's no real need. No healing will be a bit of a pain, but you should be able to get by on potions alone.
I personally prefer Aveline to Fenris, especially since you're playing on hard and have no friendly-fire. In DA2, enormous 2H weapons do not necessarily correlate with more damage than S&S - so Aveline can actually deal just as much damage (and actually more spike damage) than Fenris, as well as having considerably more survivability due to her extra damage resistance and armour.
Since you're going shadow you'll be having heaps of disorients, so Aveline's scatter and assault CCCs will be probably more useful than anything Fenris can do. Also, fenris is a douche. haha
Anyway, Isabela can work, but she's best with staggers (lacerate) and it may be hard to divvy up the staggers between her and hawke.
It's hard to give advice for your party setup since you're only level 7 and don't have access to many CCCs. For the early-game, the best thing to do is to drop every point you have into the main attribute (str/mag/dex) to increase your attack rating and base damage - with decent equipment and a dps setup, you shouldn't even need to use abilities.
If you want more info I would recommend checking out some of the guides out there I think suicidalbaby has some 'hands-free' builds for each companion.
If this is your first playthrough, I would recommend trying out all the various party combinations, if only for the party banter.
Ideally you would bring Anders and/or Bethany along for haste and heroic aura, but unless you're going for speed runs etc there's no real need. No healing will be a bit of a pain, but you should be able to get by on potions alone.
I personally prefer Aveline to Fenris, especially since you're playing on hard and have no friendly-fire. In DA2, enormous 2H weapons do not necessarily correlate with more damage than S&S - so Aveline can actually deal just as much damage (and actually more spike damage) than Fenris, as well as having considerably more survivability due to her extra damage resistance and armour.
Since you're going shadow you'll be having heaps of disorients, so Aveline's scatter and assault CCCs will be probably more useful than anything Fenris can do. Also, fenris is a douche. haha
Anyway, Isabela can work, but she's best with staggers (lacerate) and it may be hard to divvy up the staggers between her and hawke.
It's hard to give advice for your party setup since you're only level 7 and don't have access to many CCCs. For the early-game, the best thing to do is to drop every point you have into the main attribute (str/mag/dex) to increase your attack rating and base damage - with decent equipment and a dps setup, you shouldn't even need to use abilities.
If you want more info I would recommend checking out some of the guides out there I think suicidalbaby has some 'hands-free' builds for each companion.
#4
Posté 30 août 2012 - 05:08
johanp
-
- Members
- 6 messages
Thanks afk, very useful feedback. I will definitely give Aveline another try. I had her for most of the game and although shes very durable i found her doing very little damage. Also im worried about lack of aoe. But will give another try. Especially since im very partial for primal spells and will max out that tree for Merril, and it seems that S&S has a better deal with pummel setting up for chain lightning.
Playing with Aveline also has the perk of getting Hawke to team up with 3 females, which is right up his ally
So the friendly fire issue makes me sad. I have always played bioware rpgs on hard because it fells like the most correct setting, especially because avoiding friendly fire feels cheesy. I could have sworn i was hit by both friendly cone of cold and fireball, but perhaps i was thinking about origins. Now i have to consider playing on nightmare... So are you saying that Aveline is more prone to friendly fire than Fenris?
I will heed your advice and give everybody a spin, although i dont care much for Anders (besides he died in the keep in Awakening... ) or Varric. I prefer to stick with one party.
Playing with Aveline also has the perk of getting Hawke to team up with 3 females, which is right up his ally
So the friendly fire issue makes me sad. I have always played bioware rpgs on hard because it fells like the most correct setting, especially because avoiding friendly fire feels cheesy. I could have sworn i was hit by both friendly cone of cold and fireball, but perhaps i was thinking about origins. Now i have to consider playing on nightmare... So are you saying that Aveline is more prone to friendly fire than Fenris?
I will heed your advice and give everybody a spin, although i dont care much for Anders (besides he died in the keep in Awakening... ) or Varric. I prefer to stick with one party.
#5
Posté 30 août 2012 - 09:03
mitthrawuodo
-
- Members
- 536 messages
I was a DW rogue and finished quite easily with Anders, Merril and Varric and only occasionally brought along others - or was forced to - for boss fights (high dragon) but if you spec Merril down the blood mage route and give her loads of sustains she can fill as a tank (high con. and defensive spells)
#6
Posté 31 août 2012 - 04:18
mr_afk
-
- Members
- 1 605 messages
If you need her to have more damage, put more points into strength. I used a full-strength build with her - but that might be a little bit extreme.
Ideally you should mostly get Aveline to stagger elites (shield bash/pommel strike) and get hawke or isabela to use spike damage on those staggered enemies (to benefit from lacerate). It doubles the damage you deal, so effectively you can double assassinate/twin fangs/explosive strike that unlucky bastard. Chain lightning is still decent and there's no harm zapping staggered enemies as well.
For aoe, what you can try is getting isabela to use fatiguing fog/confusion on clusters of enemies (probably surrounding aveline if she's managing threat properly). This will disorientate the group of enemies and allow Aveline to make them all explode with scatter/assault. If that's not enough aoe, get merrill to walking bomb disorientated enemies before Aveline explodes them - so you get an even bigger aoe of death.
yeah, if you're looking for the challenge of friendly fire you'll have to go nightmare. Post-patch nightmare isn't too bad as long as you use a dps build (high damage, low health). Tanking on nightmare is a nightmare haha.
Fenris does a lot more friendly-fire than Aveline if you allow him to use his abilities. It's rather easy to turn him into an auto-attacking buffer though, since his spike damage is rather low anyway (anda almost impossible to CCC). Aveline's scatter and assault CCCs are really powerful but tend to cause a lot of friendly fire - and without those abilities she's not too useful outside tanking.
Ideally you should mostly get Aveline to stagger elites (shield bash/pommel strike) and get hawke or isabela to use spike damage on those staggered enemies (to benefit from lacerate). It doubles the damage you deal, so effectively you can double assassinate/twin fangs/explosive strike that unlucky bastard. Chain lightning is still decent and there's no harm zapping staggered enemies as well.
For aoe, what you can try is getting isabela to use fatiguing fog/confusion on clusters of enemies (probably surrounding aveline if she's managing threat properly). This will disorientate the group of enemies and allow Aveline to make them all explode with scatter/assault. If that's not enough aoe, get merrill to walking bomb disorientated enemies before Aveline explodes them - so you get an even bigger aoe of death.
yeah, if you're looking for the challenge of friendly fire you'll have to go nightmare. Post-patch nightmare isn't too bad as long as you use a dps build (high damage, low health). Tanking on nightmare is a nightmare haha.
Fenris does a lot more friendly-fire than Aveline if you allow him to use his abilities. It's rather easy to turn him into an auto-attacking buffer though, since his spike damage is rather low anyway (anda almost impossible to CCC). Aveline's scatter and assault CCCs are really powerful but tend to cause a lot of friendly fire - and without those abilities she's not too useful outside tanking.
#7
Posté 01 septembre 2012 - 06:15
Gallimatia
-
- Members
- 351 messages
Fenris can't tank. He is less durable than Merrill and rogue Hawke and second to Aveline in damage.
#8
Posté 04 septembre 2012 - 06:20
johanp
-
- Members
- 6 messages
So I switched to nightmare and replaced Fenris with Aveline. I also respeced Isabela maxing out the dual weapon chain. We were a much more capable party after this. I was at the point of the bone pit dragon at this point and in my first try with Fenris I got him down to about 50% heath before he destroyed the party. With the new party we took him down quickly without hardly taking any damage. Isabela and Hawke is a great damage dealing pair. The standard combo is shield bash followed by chain lightning and 2 x merciless strike. Then follows 2 x twin fangs against elites. Very powerful.
So it seems that we don't have a problem against single tough foes. Large mobs however are still a problem. I did however realize after a while that tempest doesnt do ff (I got that impression first so I skipped it). Tempest is really huge, great crowd control, stuns and brings out assassins. At least at this level (currently lvl 10) it's really big. Only downside is it's a real aggro magnet. However there are still some problems with really lage mobs (8+). As for walking bomb I get the impression from the forums that it's very hard to use it on nightmare without tedious micromanagement so i think i'll skip that. Fatiguing Fog is very interesting but to get Overpowering Fog with the disorient you need to spend 6(!) talents i sabotage. This is quite expensive for Isabela, I think she needs to invest heavily in her Swashbuckler to get more damage and defense to compensate for her lack of Assassin, Shadow and Duelist.
Next big ff friendly aoe in sight seems to be Wounds of the Past but it requires 4 pts in Dalish Pariah so it will be a while.
One problem with this party is lack of Heroic Aura so I think Precision is a must for both Hawke and Isabela to keep crit chance and attack under control. But it's just one point, so no big deal.
My next focus will be to try to balance Aveline so that she can do a lot of damage without being to fragile. Thinking of going strength heavy and taking Claymore and upgraded Scatter and Assault while keeping Immovable etc for emergencies. Thoughts?
So it seems that we don't have a problem against single tough foes. Large mobs however are still a problem. I did however realize after a while that tempest doesnt do ff (I got that impression first so I skipped it). Tempest is really huge, great crowd control, stuns and brings out assassins. At least at this level (currently lvl 10) it's really big. Only downside is it's a real aggro magnet. However there are still some problems with really lage mobs (8+). As for walking bomb I get the impression from the forums that it's very hard to use it on nightmare without tedious micromanagement so i think i'll skip that. Fatiguing Fog is very interesting but to get Overpowering Fog with the disorient you need to spend 6(!) talents i sabotage. This is quite expensive for Isabela, I think she needs to invest heavily in her Swashbuckler to get more damage and defense to compensate for her lack of Assassin, Shadow and Duelist.
Next big ff friendly aoe in sight seems to be Wounds of the Past but it requires 4 pts in Dalish Pariah so it will be a while.
One problem with this party is lack of Heroic Aura so I think Precision is a must for both Hawke and Isabela to keep crit chance and attack under control. But it's just one point, so no big deal.
My next focus will be to try to balance Aveline so that she can do a lot of damage without being to fragile. Thinking of going strength heavy and taking Claymore and upgraded Scatter and Assault while keeping Immovable etc for emergencies. Thoughts?
#9
Posté 05 septembre 2012 - 04:13
mr_afk
-
- Members
- 1 605 messages
Have you specced hawke into shadow yet?
With decoy, the dog, and Aveline you shouldn't have too many problems with tanking large mobs. I think you probably just need get some threat management happening.
Hawke can drop threat easily with decoy, stealth, or inconspicuous. This will redirect enemies away to the next thing with the highest threat (ideally the decoy, dog, or Aveline).
Aveline can attract threat to draw enemies away from weaker companions with taunt - it helps if she has a high threat to start off with though (i.e. high dps).
Isabela can drop and redirect threat (for both herself and others) with armistice and goad (as well as using stealth/back-to-back etc). Armistice is good for redirecting melee enemies away from weaker party members while goad can help increase Aveline's threat to redirect ranged enemies towards her.
Merrill's only threat management is mindblast - which isn't too useful really. It stuns enemies which drops everyone's threat to neutral (for that stunned enemy). This means that the enemy will attack the companion that generates the most threat - which often could be merrill once again due to proximity.
Your use of lightning may also be part of the problem and places a greater emphasis on good threat management - it can stun enemies, redirecting enemies away from Aveline etc if she doesn't hold enough threat.
Walking bomb isn't so bad, but it causes massive friendly-fire on nightmare and is hard to trigger/setup without using Hawke or Aveline to trigger it (exposing them to a fair amount of damage). I wouldn't recommend it for a first nightmare-playthrough.
Fatiguing fog is definitely worth it (for a future investment anyway). It slows enemies attacks/movement speed but doesn't hinder your team - so basically it allows you to deal more damage via CCCs while receiving less.
Once you get your crit-chance and attack-rating high enough you will probably be better off switching to speed instead of precision. +10% attack speed is basically a +10% damage bonus (for your basic dps anyway).
Strength heavy and claymore is a good idea. Upgraded scatter and assault will have friendly-fire issues, but if you can manage to keep isabela and hawke out of the way it should be fine. Without heals, I think shield defence might be better than immovable. Immovable increases damage resistance when getting hit which means that she might get killed before it protects her a significant amount.
It's all up to you really, it sounds like you've got things mostly sorted.
With decoy, the dog, and Aveline you shouldn't have too many problems with tanking large mobs. I think you probably just need get some threat management happening.
Hawke can drop threat easily with decoy, stealth, or inconspicuous. This will redirect enemies away to the next thing with the highest threat (ideally the decoy, dog, or Aveline).
Aveline can attract threat to draw enemies away from weaker companions with taunt - it helps if she has a high threat to start off with though (i.e. high dps).
Isabela can drop and redirect threat (for both herself and others) with armistice and goad (as well as using stealth/back-to-back etc). Armistice is good for redirecting melee enemies away from weaker party members while goad can help increase Aveline's threat to redirect ranged enemies towards her.
Merrill's only threat management is mindblast - which isn't too useful really. It stuns enemies which drops everyone's threat to neutral (for that stunned enemy). This means that the enemy will attack the companion that generates the most threat - which often could be merrill once again due to proximity.
Your use of lightning may also be part of the problem and places a greater emphasis on good threat management - it can stun enemies, redirecting enemies away from Aveline etc if she doesn't hold enough threat.
Walking bomb isn't so bad, but it causes massive friendly-fire on nightmare and is hard to trigger/setup without using Hawke or Aveline to trigger it (exposing them to a fair amount of damage). I wouldn't recommend it for a first nightmare-playthrough.
Fatiguing fog is definitely worth it (for a future investment anyway). It slows enemies attacks/movement speed but doesn't hinder your team - so basically it allows you to deal more damage via CCCs while receiving less.
Once you get your crit-chance and attack-rating high enough you will probably be better off switching to speed instead of precision. +10% attack speed is basically a +10% damage bonus (for your basic dps anyway).
Strength heavy and claymore is a good idea. Upgraded scatter and assault will have friendly-fire issues, but if you can manage to keep isabela and hawke out of the way it should be fine. Without heals, I think shield defence might be better than immovable. Immovable increases damage resistance when getting hit which means that she might get killed before it protects her a significant amount.
It's all up to you really, it sounds like you've got things mostly sorted.
