30 réponses à ce sujet

[Eain]

I'm ashamed to confess that normal difficulty is... almost too hard for me. And I have no idea why. It's not like I haven't beaten extremely difficult games before and it seems absurd to me that I'm having this much trouble with what should be regarded as the standard difficulty setting.

I've read about guys completing solo runs with their warrior on nightmare difficulty and its just beyond me how this is at all possible. I run a full party of four in my normal difficulty playthrough and I get slaughtered in almost every encounter. Here's what troubles me:

- Damage. There is no real efficient method for me to deal with damage, since there's no healers. I only just left Lothering. I think between Ostagar and Lothering I've consumed about 40 lesser health poultices and 10 normal ones spread over my entire party. Normally I have 22 gold available by the time I hit the first camp cutscene to buy the tome of physical technique from Bodahn, but this time I found I only had 15. Then I figured out why: I'd blown a crapload of cash on money for flasks and recipes so that Morrigan could keep supplying the party with potions, aswell as on armor to make sure my crew wouldn't die as easily.

- No tanks. I'm a human noble 2h warrior, so Alistair is supposed to be the tank. Problem is that he dies way too fast, maybe even faster than my main character. So it comes down to choosing between Threaten or actual damage reducing talents. I went with the latter. But that does leave me stuck without an efficient tank and I have no idea how to keep the enemy under control efficiently.

- Archers rip me to shreds. Why is it that Leliana can barely shoot a tin can off a box but these Genlock archers are apparently sending arrows reinforced with titanium through my eyesockets from a distance of a forty meters?

- No real means of CC. Morrigan can cast Horror on people. Whoo. Beyond that there's really nothing at all that I can do. My warrior can use Pommel Strike, Alistair can use Shield Pummel and Shield Bash. But then what? These are only short stuns and mean relatively little when most of the time my enemy has half of his force shooting us from a distance.

- No healers. As I pointed out earlier, without healers I just have to gobble down health pots like a maniac. The moment Morrigan levelled up the first time I gave her Heal, but even then she still can't keep up with the damage my party receives. And it means I can't give her other spells that help with CC either. I suppose on later stages (if I get that far) I simply need to keep either her or Wynne in my party at all times, but that leaves me even more puzzled as to how people manage solo runs to begin with.

Can anyone help me out here? I'm at a complete loss as to why this game is tearing me up so bad. I'm an active player of Bioware RPG's and since KotOR I haven't missed a single one. Yet this game manages to break me. What's going on?

[sinosleep]

Don't fret about not having a healer, it's not at all necessary. My last couple of playthroughs have been without healers on nightmare (sword and board PC, Morrigan (no heals), Sten, Leliana and rogue archer PC, Sten, Alistair, dog) and I made it through just fine.

So, on to damage. You're a 2h warrior, which happens to be my favorite and something I can say I've got plenty of experience with. So here are some questions. Are you running precise striking? If you aren't start. Start and NEVER turn it off. It adds +10 attack which is a huge early on and has a scaling crit chance that makes it handy for the entirety of the game. Have you started down the sunder tree yet? Sunder arms and sunder armor are actually damage dealing talents, even though the description doesn't make it sound like they are. They do 2 swings each time, so that damage adds up. If you don't have them get them. Another thing to keep in mind with 2h warriors is that talents reset attack animations. So if you want to be efficient what you should be doing is timing your talents to cut off the attack animation. For instance, you auto attack, and instead of waiting for the animation to finish, the INSTANT you see either miss or a damage number pop up hit the talent you want to use. This will counteract the 2h warrior's naturally slow attack speed by cutting off the end of the auto attack animation. Also, I'd recommend putting every last point you get into strength. Strength in DA:O gives the same to hit as dex, so warriors in this game don't need to double dip if they are going to be dps warriors. So you don't need dex (your tank will be handling most mobs so defense isn't needed), you don't need will (you'll get massive boosts from items that can be had early on, I wouldn't recommend it if you had to wait till end game but you can get wade's armor, executioner's helm, chasind maul early on), you don't need con (leveling gives you enough health), cunning (you get enough points for coercion from the circle of magi quest) or any other stat I may have forgotten.

On to the tanks. IMO threaten is a waste of stamina. Just go straight for taunt and Alistair will gather threat just fine. Get dex up to 20 ASAP to get shield tactics. This will make Alistair immune to flanking, which is a huge reason why he's getting crushed early in the game. After that I tend to pump str to get into some heavy armor and get shield wall. Until you get get shield wall run shield defense. Something else that I find helps me early on in playthroughs is not defaulting to having Alistair run in, taunt everything, and have every mob on earth on him immediately. He's not ready for that yet, spread the wealth a little. Your 2h warrior can tank a little bit, so if you're fighting a group of 4 and 3 are on Alistair and the other one is on you it's ok. In fact it's good, Alistair's not ready to straight up tank 4 mobs at lothering any way. Also, stun early and often. Take that extra stamina you've got from not using threaten and shield bash someone or better yet shield pummel. Have your 2h warrior pommel strike them. Have your rogue use dirty fighting, mind blast, etc, etc, etc. Whatever stuns you have make use of them.

Archers. Until you get some stuns, bombs, bombs, bombs, and more bombs. Archers tend to cluster together, take advantage of that and toss a couple of acid flasks their way. I always go or archers and mages first.

As for healers, again, they aren't really necessary. You've just got to figure out when you can get away with not chugging a potion. If Alistair is down to 1/4 health and there's only one mob left don't chug a potion, use taunt with your 2h warrior and let him finish the fight. Same goes for every other character.

Modifié par sinosleep, 31 décembre 2009 - 11:59 .

[bas273]

Archers
Get Rapid Shot ASAP and always keep it active. After that, go for Pinning Shot, Crippling Shot, Critical Shot (!) and Arrow of Slaying (!!).
Finally get the remaining archery talents like Scattershot and Master Archer.
In short: all archery talents are useful but you should always go for Rapid Shot and Arrow of Slaying first.
Another great talent is Dirty Fighting. Get it just after Rapid Shot.
Strategy:
Open Leliana's tactic menu. Set her behaviour to "Ranged" and choose a custom set of tactics. For example:
1. Self: Any -> Activate: Rapid Shot
2. Self: Being attacked by a melee attack -> Dirty fighting
3. Enemy: Target is Elite or higher -> Arrow of Slaying
4. Enemy: Target is Elite or higher -> Critical Shot
You can also set some tactics for Pinning Shot and Crippling Shot but I usually activate them myself.
Always keep Leliana at a distance.

Alistair
Dexterity is more important than Constitution because it increases your defense.
You should aim for these attribute values:
Strength: 40-42 (massive armor)
Dexterity: MAX
Willpower: X
Magic: X
Cunning: X
Constitution: 20
IMO Threaten is actually quite useful. It increases hostility for every melee attack and I've never had much problems with my stamina pool.
Some tips:
- Always keep Shield Wall activated
- Get Shield Tactics and Shield Mastery ASAP
- Find some decent gear for Alistair like Blood Dragon Armor, Warden's Commander Armor or Juggernaut Armor
- Champion is a good specialization for him (Warcry)

Modifié par bas273, 31 décembre 2009 - 12:13 .

[sinosleep]

My point about threaten isn't that it can't be useful, it's that it's in no way necessary. As such, it can easily be scrapped for something far more useful, like an extra stun. I never use threaten, and have never had an issue with Alistair holding threat.



Also, rapid shot is only useful until she get's a bow with a rapid aim on it since bows with rapid aim don't get any benefit from rapid shot. I usually go to the forest as soon as I get out of lothering and pick one up from the dalish. They're dirt cheap and will substantially increase dps without getting rid of crits.

[valleyman88]

Eain wrote...
- Archers rip me to shreds. Why is it that Leliana can barely shoot a tin can off a box but these Genlock archers are apparently sending arrows reinforced with titanium through my eyesockets from a distance of a forty meters?

Positioning can help a great deal. Don't charge a group head-on. Instead, pull them around corners. Their archers will follow since they require line of sight and are complete idiots. 

Eain wrote...
- No real means of CC. Morrigan can cast Horror on people. Whoo. Beyond that there's really nothing at all that I can do. My warrior can use Pommel Strike, Alistair can use Shield Pummel and Shield Bash. But then what? These are only short stuns and mean relatively little when most of the time my enemy has half of his force shooting us from a distance.

Use all of those, even short stuns help out. Morrigan should also have mind blast when you get her, which is a useful CC spell. Avoiding damage is generally more useful than healing in this game, but it wouldn't hurt to give Morrigan heal for when a partymember is disabled (stunned, grabbed etc.) and can't use pots.

sinosleep wrote...
Also, I'd recommend putting every last point you get into strength.

I disagree with this. Investing a little in willpower will help out greatly, since the 2-handed folk get most of their damage from their abilities (the sunder skills in particular as you mentioned). It's nice to be able to use more than 3 talents before you run out of stamina.

[sinosleep]

valleyman88 wrote...
I disagree with this. Investing a little in willpower will help out greatly, since the 2-handed folk get most of their damage from their abilities (the sunder skills in particular as you mentioned). It's nice to be able to use more than 3 talents before you run out of stamina.

I know this is an endgame number, but at lvl 20 Sten had 355 stamina without a single point invested in willpower. A lot of that stamina comes from items you can get before you're halfway through the game.

Chasind Maul provides +75 stamina + 0.5 stamina regen
Wade's superior heavy dragonscale armor +25 stamina -20% fatigue +2 stamina regen
executioner's helm +25 stamina (or helm of honnleath which is +2 all attributes which results in +15 stamina + beneits to attack/defense/damage)

If you handle your money right (sell only to Gorim since he pays extra if you are a dwarf, particularly a female dwarf and have Leliana steal from EVERYONE) you can get the 150 gold required or the armor and the maul after just doing the sacred ashes, circle tower, and portion of a 3rd quest. That'd put you at less than halfway through the game. The executioner's helm is a mere 5 gold so you could get that early, while helm of honnleath is free. Early on you can also pick up the ageless 2h sword for free which provides +.25 stamina regen.

I know stamina is extremely important for a 2h warrior, but you can get all the stamina you need from items fairly early on. And considering to hit can be an issue early on, I think pumping str to resolve that issue is more important.

Later on deathblow provides a substantial stamina boost (thank you patch 1.02) as well.

Modifié par sinosleep, 31 décembre 2009 - 01:09 .

[Lord Phoebus]

The way the game is designed, spreading your attributes around doesn't pay off. When you have enemies that scale with your character, if you want a strong character you have to out level them. I.e. you need to increase your attack, defence and damage faster than they increase those stats themselves. That means you should spend enough ability points to qualify for equipment/talents and then pump everything into either strength (maxes attack and damage) if you're a warrior, dexterity (maxes defense and attack, and some damage increase as well) if you're a rogue or warrior, cunning (maxes damage and rogue talents) if you're a rogue or magic (maxes spellpower) if you're a mage. There's nothing stopping you from spreading your attributes around and you can split dex and strength while maxing attack, but if you want the game to get easier as you level higher you have to see that your vital combat stats increase faster than the enemy's combat stats.

[battleship potemkin village]

I had the same problem with normal difficulty when I first started playing.



In addition to what everyone else has said, set everyone's behavior to something other than "default" and play around with "tactics".



Use backstab whenever possible.



Also, if they don't already have them, equip everyone with bows in their alternate weapon set and when possible pick off targets at long range one at a time. "Arrow of Slaying" works great in these situations. Thinning the herd will make combat much easier.

[shaktiboy]

Setting up your tactics for each character is key. I've beefed up the Wikia article on tactics to tell you everything you need to know about designing tactics.

Get Wynne in your party ASAP, so go do the Circle Tower quest arc ASAP after you leave Lothering.

[Mr_Raider]

People who say the game is easy and can be soloed are usually on their 2nd or third playthrough. It's much easier not to have your ass handed to you when you know what's behind the door.



Also, a lot of these people are playing on settings that give no friendly fire damage. Finally, the PC patches seriously nerfed some of the stun lock spells.



HAve no fear. I got my butt kicked a dozen times by the revenants in the Brecilian forest, and I'm long time veteran of Baldurs gate/kotor/NWN1/NWN2.



If you are on PC, I suggest getting the respec mod. It allows you to configure your party members to be more complementary to you (dumb rogue doesn't pick locks?). You can also revisit your talent/spell choices as needed.

[fantasypisces]

You did nightmare with no healing? I would love to know how (and for solo people as well) there are about a dozen fights I can think of right off the top of my head that I don't know how you finish without healing.



But anyway, OP don't fret, I was terrible at normal too in the beginning. But now I am running around with a three 2h warrior group (+1mage) on hard/nightmare and not having much trouble. But that is because I have done a couple play-throughs and learned the fights and what I have to do.

[stribies]

On my first playthrough, wynne was a lifesaver. A healer had to be in my group at all times since I didn't exactly know what was an optimal build for most characters. But I can tell you that the game is far more exciting when it's challenging. I died countless amounts of times on my first playthrough and I can't exactly complain since the difficulty adds a strategic aspect to the combat.



One thing that helped me a great deal was to pull the mobs through the walls with blizzard or some other form of aoe to split the groups up. This makes most large pulls pretty easy to deal with no matter how many mobs are ahead of you.

[whitecloud197]

Eain,



Im in my first 5 hrs of ever playing this game, On normal, and like you im getting slaughtered a lot lol.



Im a Mage, Ive got 1 scout and 2 warriors in my party, im having trouble with figuring out the best tactics for them all, but im sure trial and error will finally get it figured out.



Well...back to the game Ive got lots of learning to do

[Grackula]

Agree with Stribes re Blizzard.
I am still on my first playthrough and had the same feelings you did regarding getting pummeled with no healer, etc.

With Morrigan maxing out the Cold Line of spells really changes the game. You get:
1. cold weapons - instantly adds more damage to all melee
2. Cone of Cold - freeze multiple targets? YES!
3. Blizzard - this is usually the first thing i cast if i see a group of mobs ahead. the spell is great.
4. Winter's grasp - don't underestimate the first spell in the tree. it is a decent stun tactic

I
usually try to gang up on 1 mob at a time (morrigan freezes or sleeps
the rest) so that I can get the numbers of enemies down ASAP.

Also,
ALWAYS take out the mages first whenever possible. I've been sending my
non-sneaky rogue in to take out mages. this seems to be working fairly
well. mages go down quick to a stun and a few backstabs.

Modifié par Grackula, 31 décembre 2009 - 08:00 .

[Grackula]

also, pause and micro-manage works well for me. I can then determine if my party is all attacking the proper mobs. Sometimes they are all scatterbrained and all attacking different ones or someone decides to run in a crazy direction, etc.

[AiTenshi1]

You do not need to adhere to the stereotypical party of "tank, healer, ranged dps" etc. I finished the game with all female party (mage PC and the three women) on Nightmare with no problem. Play as you wish to play; the game allows it, more or less.



Don't forget that anything that enemies can do, you can also do. For example, enemy archers may try to pick you off from long range, but you can do the same thing, of course.



This also applies to specific equipment. For example, mage staves have a range, and the mid to high end ones are long range, so they are actually very useful coupled with archers in your party. Same thing with Arcane Bolt - it's a long range spell while most other spells are medium or short range.



Your strategy and needs depend on your play style. I do not agree with some of the advice offered here because I preferred ranged play style, but others may prefer melee and thus need different approaches.



You will need lots of potions... or at least doing so makes things much more straightforward even from a roleplay viewpoint. Keep a good stock of lesser health poultices (I usually stay between 100-200) as well as lesser lyrium, plus a good stock of the raw materials to make both. Note that playing a mage oriented party requires much more lyrium while playing a warrior/rogue oriented party requires more health (in general, at least, due to all the mages using lyrium to continuously recharge their mana pools). You'll need more flasks, of course, since they are used for many different things, including poisons.



Oh, and never buy weapon or armor upgrades from merchants until near the end of the game! Money is very scarce and you need it to buy potion supplies (and focus on only the potions you need, not everything). Assuming you don't use mods or exploits, of course. Anyway, the weapons and armor you can pick up as loot are as good as anything you can buy except for high end equipment, so you really do not need to buy such things.



After you get Dog, have him go out to find interesting things near Lothering. Repeat until he finds an arcane "piece of wood" that can be used as a mage's staff. This is a mid level staff and can be used for quite some time by any mage.



Always do all the side quests: Chantry job board, Blackstone Irregulars, Mage's Consortium, and other random quests here and there.

[DJ0000]

bas273 wrote...
Alistair
Dexterity is more important than Constitution because it increases your defense.

Does the defence increase really outweigh constitution bonus? I wish I knew that before I loaded him with strength and constitution.

[Eain]

Lots of useful replies here guys. Will put all this advice into practice immediately. I'll let you know how it worked out

[wrathofnature]

- Damage. There is no real efficient method for me to deal with damage, since there's no healers. I only just left Lothering. I think between Ostagar and Lothering I've consumed about 40 lesser health poultices and 10 normal ones spread over my entire party. Normally I have 22 gold available by the time I hit the first camp cutscene to buy the tome of physical technique from Bodahn, but this time I found I only had 15. Then I figured out why: I'd blown a crapload of cash on money for flasks and recipes so that Morrigan could keep supplying the party with potions, aswell as on armor to make sure my crew wouldn't die as easily.

Buying armour unless it's the very best game stuff is pointless imo. I mitigate dmg using chokepoints to keep enemies spreadout, use mages to control the fight, have tanks use taunt and stuff to keep stuff on them, etc.

- Archers rip me to shreds. Why is it that Leliana can barely shoot a tin can off a box but these Genlock archers are apparently sending arrows reinforced with titanium through my eyesockets from a distance of a forty meters?

Get out of line of sight. The archers will need to follow you to attack you and you can jump them then.

- No real means of CC. Morrigan can cast Horror on people. Whoo. Beyond that there's really nothing at all that I can do. My warrior can use Pommel Strike, Alistair can use Shield Pummel and Shield Bash. But then what? These are only short stuns and mean relatively little when most of the time my enemy has half of his force shooting us from a distance.

Morrigan has mind blast. Grab cone of cold and sleep to help with CC.

- No healers. As I pointed out earlier, without healers I just have to gobble down health pots like a maniac. The moment Morrigan levelled up the first time I gave her Heal, but even then she still can't keep up with the damage my party receives. And it means I can't give her other spells that help with CC either. I suppose on later stages (if I get that far) I simply need to keep either her or Wynne in my party at all times, but that leaves me even more puzzled as to how people manage solo runs to begin with.

Morrigan should be able to heal by herself fine. Maybe you're positioning is off.

[PatT2]

As for con vs. dex. Yes. It's far better to have higher dex (defense) than con. I almost never put anything into Con. For anyone. That said...I'm having trouble with one specific fight, but I'll start another thread about it.



This is a game where doing it more than once does help. I threw out my first character at the endgame after making all kinds of mistakes. I'm still making mistakes, but not as many and they aren't compounding as badly, so my characters are all making it to the end now.



Bombs are you friend. Poisons are your friends. Acid flasks are your friends. Don't forget you have them. Make sure all your sword-bearing folks have one level of poisons so they can wipe their blades and toss acid flasks or bombs. You only need one person who can make them well...



Same with potions. Make sure one person levels up quickly on potions (preferabley a mage). Since Morrigan starts out with 2 levels, and I get her right away, I take advantage of that.



BUY CRAFTING SUPPLIES FROM LOW COST VENDORS! It bears repeating. If you buy flasks from the guy in camp, you will pay 1.5 silvers each for them. But if you buy them from the bartender at the lake, you will only pay 1.2 . That's 4 for the price of 3. The bartender at the spoiled princess and later, there's an even cheaper vendor inside Orzimar (1 silver each which equals 3 for the price of 2)...one free flask for ever 2 you buy...that adds up fast. All you have to do is save him from thugs, which happens nearly immediately when you enter Orzimar.



You can go broke buying crafting items, or you can be a particular shopper. In Lothering, it depends on how you deal with that outside vendor. But the guy inside the bar (the one who gives you the poison side-quest) is inexpensive. I also agree with whomever said, don't buy recipes for crafting items you don't use all the time. I only buy recipes for things I'll use a lot.



Selling to the Dwarf in Denerim only works to your financial advantage if you're playing a dwarf.



learning how to manage your team/micromanage your team is vital. Truly. letting them do their own thing will get you all wiped.

[Eain]

Aight, so I loaded up a savegame where I just entered Lothering. Gave my warrior Precise Strikes immediately, pretty silly of me to not have done that in the first place. Then I started playing with breaking the enemy's LoS some more, which is actually something that should've come naturally to me having spent 80% of my time in World of Warcraft as a tank. Again, stupid oversight.



Overall my performance improved. I've so far completed Lothering and the Shale questline and have now moved to Denerim to clear up the back alley bandits and the blood mage cult. Unfortunately, this is where it gets rough. I just ran into my Ser Landry and his gang after having refused his duel at the Market District and I got ripped to shreds.



On my first encounter, I died. Reloaded my save and second encounter I managed to get through, though only barely. My party ate through 5 health poultices, 10 lesser ones, Morrigan ate a lesser lyrium poultice and a normal one. Mind blast was used every cooldown, weakness and vulnerability hex were constantly up. I pumped out as much damage as I possibly could, though when all was said and done, Alistair and Morrigan were down and all that was left was my own char at 5% health and Leliana at about 3%.



Was this supposed to be some sort of super tough fight or am I still doing something severely wrong? I simply can't seem to keep up with the damage my party received there. Worst part is that everyone's still running around in rather shoddy gear too so my main char can pop a Pommel Strike and a Sunder Arms, maybe a Mighty Blow, and then his stamina has run out.

[shaktiboy]

Eain wrote...

Aight, so I loaded up a savegame where I just entered Lothering. Gave my warrior Precise Strikes immediately, pretty silly of me to not have done that in the first place. Then I started playing with breaking the enemy's LoS some more, which is actually something that should've come naturally to me having spent 80% of my time in World of Warcraft as a tank. Again, stupid oversight.

Overall my performance improved. I've so far completed Lothering and the Shale questline and have now moved to Denerim to clear up the back alley bandits and the blood mage cult. Unfortunately, this is where it gets rough. I just ran into my Ser Landry and his gang after having refused his duel at the Market District and I got ripped to shreds.

On my first encounter, I died. Reloaded my save and second encounter I managed to get through, though only barely. My party ate through 5 health poultices, 10 lesser ones, Morrigan ate a lesser lyrium poultice and a normal one. Mind blast was used every cooldown, weakness and vulnerability hex were constantly up. I pumped out as much damage as I possibly could, though when all was said and done, Alistair and Morrigan were down and all that was left was my own char at 5% health and Leliana at about 3%.

Was this supposed to be some sort of super tough fight or am I still doing something severely wrong? I simply can't seem to keep up with the damage my party received there. Worst part is that everyone's still running around in rather shoddy gear too so my main char can pop a Pommel Strike and a Sunder Arms, maybe a Mighty Blow, and then his stamina has run out.

You're not meant to go to Denerim until later in the game. Yes, unfortunately Bioware does not make this clear at all. If you go to Denerim at the appropriate point, Ser Landry will be doable if not downright easy.

The preferred order to visit each area based on Bioware's hard-coded challenge scaling for each area is:

Ostagar / Kokari Wilds > Lothering > Mage Tower > Redcliffe Village and Redcliffe Castle > Brecilian Forest > Haven > and then after all this you can hit Denerim or Orzammar in either order you prefer > then Landsmeet and the rest of the game.

As for Stone Prisoner or Warden's Keep, you can and should hit those ASAP after Lothering.

For details see Challenge Scaling on the Wikia site.

Modifié par shaktiboy, 01 janvier 2010 - 03:34 .

[Silensfurtim]

[Eain]

Well, Warden's Keep is something I can go to right away I suppose, but I've been hesitant to do that because of how Warden Commander's Armor scales with level. I'd much rather pick it up when it's Tier 6 or 7 rather than now at level 8, where it'll be tier 3.

EDIT: And thanks for that map

Modifié par Eain, 01 janvier 2010 - 03:24 .

[sinosleep]

While the back alley quests can be rough in Denerim, the chanter's board, blackstone irregulars, and mage's collective quests available there are mostly doable pretty early. Also, don't forget to pick up the Sacred Ashes quest from Denerim early. I always do that quest as early as possible (usually after the mage's tower) to get the drake and dragon scales needed for Wade's Superior Heavy Armor (yeah, I said heavy, that's not a typo. I prefer heavy armor for 2h warriors due to fatigue issues and the fact that an off tank shouldn't require plate any way) since it's such a big stamina boost which a 2h warrior really needs.