34 réponses à ce sujet

[Sharkiza]

I've been having a monstourously hard time playing this game, and I'd really love to be able to enjoy it. I don't mind having to learn a fight by dying a couple times, but there have been some fights were I had to try upwards of 20 times and I barely scrape by luckily on the last attempt.

I'm currently at Jarvia, and I just can't seem to beat her. I pause the game frequently, give all four characters specific instructions (I play most of the fight paused), and I fail every time. My character is a spirit healer, and I took Alistair, Morrigan and Leliana. Morrigan has heal to help out occassionally - or a lot in this fight. I use poultices regularly as well (is this intended?).

I'm playing on normal, and the game just seems uncharacteristically hard on normal. I figure I must be doing something incorrectly, because I doubt BioWare would purposely make much of their game unplayable by making the fights so darn difficult.

So I had been ignoring tiers and only looking at the stats an item has. What's the difference between the tiers and is a tier 7 always better than a lower tier even if the low tier has awesome stats?

Any other suggestions would be wonderful. I'm pretty frustrated at the game right now, and I just don't want to wimp out and set it on easy.

[LynxAQ]

Its hard to help when you are not giving any specifics.



How have you specced your characters? How are they geared? What level are they? What are the exact problems you are having? Are you just dying too quickly? How are you dying, mages getting killed first or Alistair dying first etc.



To answer the Tier question, the main difference between tier items is the amount of Armour they offer, if we are talking about standard gear. In the case of shields, defense is also higher and weopons the damage is higher ofc. For the tank having a high armour is good, for dps / healers, goin for the better stats regardless of tier is usually better.



But yeah, we need more specifics on character developement before I can help.

[Sharkiza]

That's the thing, I've been using low tier armor with good stats instead of the higher tier armor. (I believe we are all around level 13 right now.) I've specced my character mostly in creation and spirit healer, and for the other characters I've always let them auto-level (Is that a bad idea?).



Alistair seems to go down very easily. I have a difficult time healing him on two characters even. Is this all because of the tiers or something else?

[Creature 1]

Sharkiza wrote...

That's the thing, I've been using low tier armor with good stats instead of the higher tier armor. (I believe we are all around level 13 right now.) I've specced my character mostly in creation and spirit healer, and for the other characters I've always let them auto-level (Is that a bad idea?).

Emphatically yes. 

Jarvia is a very hard fight.  I wiped a couple times with my last party.  With my first it wasn't so bad.  I found AoE freezing or stunning spells will decloak her.  When she cloaks she often runs back to her starting position (which is HEAVILY trapped--don't go there), so aiming a cone of cold or blizzard in that direction will reveal her position.  

For armor for Alistair you need the heaviest armor available, unless it's got really killer stats.  Backstabs in this battle will kill you. 

You'll probably want Morrigan with you, especially if you're a healer. 

Sadly, Lel may not be much help.  Do you have Zevran?  He does a lot more damage.  You'll need to micromanage him by moving him behind enemies so he can backstab.  Set a tactic towards the top of his list (under healing orders) to use dirty fighting when attacked.  Set a tactic at the top of the list to always run Momentum. 

Modifié par Creature 1, 02 janvier 2010 - 02:08 .

[LynxAQ]

Auto-level is really bad. You should level your characters up yourself, it will be far better. For example, letting the auto-level thing level Alistair, you will end up with points being spent in willpower etc... which is an utter waste on a tank.



Only advise I can give is, to make sure you are focus targetting. Make sure everybody is killing the same target, and kill the targets in the order of white named -> yellow named -> orange named.



If you have any CC, use it on the assassins in this fight whilst dealing with the crossbowmen. Dont ignore the newly spawned guys in the fight. As soon as the new adds spawn, kill them then go back to killing Jarvia.



Dont let your characters get to low on health before reacting. Try keep them all above 50% at least throughout the fight. If you have taunt on Alistair, use it, so you only have 1 target to heal.



Dont know what else to add with the info you have given.

[Sharkiza]

I'm still confused about the Tier stuff. Alistair's using the Templar Armor right now, which is Tier 3, but I have some higher Tier armor he could wear that doesn't have all the nice stats.



Does the game itself ever go over Tiers or is it supposed to be common sense?

[Sharkiza]

LynxAQ wrote...

Auto-level is really bad. You should level your characters up yourself, it will be far better. For example, letting the auto-level thing level Alistair, you will end up with points being spent in willpower etc... which is an utter waste on a tank.

Why does the autolevel do that out of curiousity? I thought it'd know better than I do. 

[Sharkiza]

And sorry if I'm being vague about the information I'm giving. I'm still a newb at this game and I'm not entirely sure what's important to mention and what isn't. >_<

[Creature 1]

If you look at the item stats (hover the cursor over the item in the inventory, make sure the "compare to" dropbox at the bottom of the window shows Alistair so you can match it to his current armor), higher tier items usually give higher armor protection or do higher damage or have a higher critical chance. At this point Templar armor is probably *not* helping you, especially since it provides benefits against spells which are not involved in this battle! Look at what heavy armor you have with you, put whatever armor on him that boosts his armor rating as high as it can go. This will reduce the amount of damage he takes, which will make him live longer and require less healing.

Modifié par Creature 1, 02 janvier 2010 - 02:14 .

[Sharkiza]

Creature 1 wrote...

If you look at the item stats (hover the cursor over the item in the inventory, make sure the "compare to" dropbox at the bottom of the window shows Alistair so you can match it to his current armor), higher tier items usually give higher armor protection or do higher damage or have a higher critical chance. At this point Templar armor is probably *not* helping you, especially since it provides benefits against spells which are not involved in this battle! Look at what heavy armor you have with you, put whatever armor on him that boosts his armor rating as high as it can go. This will reduce the amount of damage he takes, which will make him live longer and require less healing.

Thank you.

I knew I was doing something wrong.

Hopefully now I won't feel like throwing my monitor out the window. XD

[Creature 1]

Sharkiza wrote...
Why does the autolevel do that out of curiousity? I thought it'd know better than I do. 

The devs had a plan for how ideal builds should be made that end out not agreeing with the game mechanics at all.  Unfortunately the best builds are made by concentrating on usually two stats and ignoring the rest completely. 

Your mage should be investing primarily in magic with a little in willpower, *nothing* in the others besides what is needed in cunning to get max coercion.  You should be able to get a lot of points towards cunning in the Mage Tower anyways, so it's best to go there early and not invest in anything but magic/willpower. 

Modifié par Creature 1, 02 janvier 2010 - 02:17 .

[Sharkiza]

Well, at least I've been doing my mage right.



Is there a way to "respec" Alistair or would I have to start over?

[knownastherat]

Tiers basically indicate how "good" an item is. Generally it is best to use the highest Tier available, in your case Alistair using Templar armor there is one which is decent despite not being top Tier for around 27g form a merchant in the Frostback mountain pass.

But Jarvia first. Pretty good advices above, especially about focus targeting. I believe you can out-heal Jarvia granted you will deal with their adds asap. Re-check all available abilities/spells you have in your party and try to use them to your advantage. Also recheck if you have Rock Salve for example and slap it on Alistair if you do. It is not a miracle but will help with reducing damage taken.

edit: Respec Mod: social.bioware.com/project/469/

Modifié par knownastherat, 02 janvier 2010 - 02:21 .

[Creature 1]

Sharkiza wrote...

Well, at least I've been doing my mage right.

Is there a way to "respec" Alistair or would I have to start over?

Yes, there's a respec mod.  His points should get split primarily between strength and dexterity, with the edge to strength until you're able to wear the desired type of armor (38 or 42 strength), then into dexterity.  I put some into constitution as well, maybe up to 20 at the most. 

I looked at your mage on your profile, your stats look pretty good, just a couple extra points in cunning, spell selection not so great!  The healing line is good and glyphs are awesome, but the mage line is just not worth the spent spell points.  If you get the respec mod for Alistair you might respec your mage as well to pick up some more useful spells.  I personally would go up the cold line to cone of cold, I do that with every mage and am thinking about doing the same for Wynn next playthrough as well. 

[Sharkiza]

Mage line? The arcane one?



So which lines should I follow? Glyph, healing, cold, spirit healer...



Is arcane warrior a good subclass to pick, or should I go with shapeshifter instead?

[knownastherat]

Arcane Warrior is the most powerful specialization for mage, Shapeshifter the weakest.



The Hex line is very useful so is for example the one with Mana Clash at the end.

[Sharkiza]

Now if only there was a way to fix my character's giraffe neck.

[Creature 1]

Sharkiza wrote...

Mage line? The arcane one?

So which lines should I follow? Glyph, healing, cold, spirit healer...

Is arcane warrior a good subclass to pick, or should I go with shapeshifter instead?

Do not pick shapeshifter!  If you put points into that with Morrigan maybe you should respec her as well. 

With mages I get stuck with the specializations.  I won't touch shapeshifter with a ten-foot pole, Spirit Healer is a no-brainer, Blood Mage can be extremely useful but I also RP so probably won't use it much.  I usually pick Arcane Warrior for the passive benefits but have never invested all of the points.  I understand they can be godly, though.  

I would delay on tracking up Spirit Healer for the moment.  You have 3/4 glyphs, the last is . . . frustrating.  It disables a mage--until it moves out of the glyph.  It also prevents you from buffing or healing any of your characters that are in the glyph engaging the mage.  If you use Alistair a lot invest in his Templar spec and you'll get Holy Smite, which should help a lot in mage encounters, and skip glyph of neutralization.  Mana Clash is also amazing for enemy mages but requires heavy point investment which you may or may not think it worthwhile with this character.  (I personally think that the mana clash line is best paired with cold and electricity lines, for reasons which may not be clear to you at the moment!)  

Probably I'd suggest going up the cold line to cone of cold.  This will give you a nice moderate-damage single-target spell (Winter's Grasp) and one of the most useful crowd control spells in the game (Cone of Cold).  Cold Weapons is ho-hum but might be nice to turn on in the middle of a combat when you're mana's been run down enough to not lose the reserve mana. 

[Sharkiza]

Wow, thank you for all the help, guys.



I'm going to repsec everyone and make sure to use the highest tier for Alistair.

[Cybercat999]

I had huge problem with Jarvia in my first game too. I had to reload 5-6 times, no fight was that hard for me.

My problem was in letting my party run around and trigger the traps, the place is filled with them. Besides, Jarvia doesnt engage in fight until you kill certain number of her thugs, and if you dont attack her directly. So I put my party on hold at the entrance, focused on taking down everyone else and attack her only when she would come in melee range. The place where she stands out of range is completely surrounded with traps and there is no way you can disable them in combat.

[Creature 1]

Cybercat999 wrote...
The place where she stands out of range is completely surrounded with traps and there is no way you can disable them in combat.

You can, but it has to be a PC that's specced for trap removal.  Neither Zevran nor Leliana can do it.  And the traps are hard to spot, I had to walk around after combat for a few minutes before my character detected all of them. 

[Cybercat999]

Creature 1 wrote...

Cybercat999 wrote...
The place where she stands out of range is completely surrounded with traps and there is no way you can disable them in combat.

You can, but it has to be a PC that's specced for trap removal.  Neither Zevran nor Leliana can do it.  And the traps are hard to spot, I had to walk around after combat for a few minutes before my character detected all of them. 

I dont play rogue much but I noticed that, those traps are very hard to spot and mid combat one has more chance to step on them than disable them. Imo its safer to stay put and kill everything first and then deal with traps later.

[usernamehere]

If this is your first run through the game and you've been using autolevel, then just set the difficulty to Easy and enjoy the story. There is no benefit to upping the difficulty (no extra gold, no extra XP, no extra achievements)

Since you can't experience the whole game in a single run, save the higher difficulty levels for exploring the other classes and races and alternate quest solutions when you are more familiar with the game mechanics.

You can adjust the difficulty at any time and it takes effect immediately. Don't worry about respeccing your characters.

Modifié par usernamehere, 02 janvier 2010 - 09:44 .

[Sharkiza]

Cybercat999 wrote...

I had huge problem with Jarvia in my first game too. I had to reload 5-6 times, no fight was that hard for me.
My
problem was in letting my party run around and trigger the traps, the
place is filled with them. Besides, Jarvia doesnt engage in fight until
you kill certain number of her thugs, and if you dont attack her
directly. So I put my party on hold at the entrance, focused on taking
down everyone else and attack her only when she would come in melee
range. The place where she stands out of range is completely surrounded
with traps and there is no way you can disable them in combat.

Most of my issues with the fight is just Alistair going down too quick. There were some instances where he'd pretty much get two shot by Jarvia.

But I got really far one time and the traps really did me over, especially since I had a hard time pathing my other characters out of the traps. The next time I try it I'll make sure to keep everyone out of that area - even Alistair. He likes to run through them when he's going to the archers in the back. I like your idea of just staying at the entrace of the room.

usernamehere wrote...

If this is your first run through the game and you've been using autolevel, then just set the difficulty to Easy and enjoy the story. There is no benefit to upping the difficulty (no extra gold, no extra XP, no extra achievements)

Since you can't experience the whole game in a single run, save the higher difficulty levels for exploring the other classes and races and alternate quest solutions when you are more familiar with the game mechanics.

You can adjust the difficulty at any time and it takes effect immediately. Don't worry about respeccing your characters.

That's a very good suggestion - I like the way you explained it! I didn't want to "wimp out" and set it on easy, but I'm more interested in the game for the story than anything.

I just finished reading an article in game informer about how the difficulty between the PC version and the console version is staggering. Apparently there is no friendly fire on normal in the console version, and they "streamlined" the console version so pausing wasn't a necessity. I wonder if everyone on other forums calling people bad for having a hard time with the game is playing on the console?
My praise to anyone that played the PC version on normal without any difficulty! I'm just a little nublet, I guess.

Modifié par Sharkiza, 03 janvier 2010 - 12:14 .

[Suron]

yah, I don't think I've EVER run into a game where auto-level works well...only time I've used it is if it's a character I don't use and don't like..though even then I usually still tailor them myself.

Willpower isn't a waste on tanks...as it gives more stamina for toggles/attacks but it's just above magic in usefulness.

I say respec them with the mod linked. But MAKE SURE you give each character their base starting class...as it's cheese not too..and in all cases totally betrays the characters entire theme.

so respec..give Morrigan Shapeshifter with one point in spider..DO NOT TOUCH ANY MORE..give Alistair Templar...Leli Bard..etc..

Tanks you want Str and Dex first...42 Str minimum to wear heaviest armor and 26 Dex to max out the sword/shield abilities. typically I put Cun/Will at about 20..same with Stamina.just cause I like the pretty number..Magic I usually even out the number (12, 14, 16 etc) and leave it low as it's not very useful (only really affects amount healed by a health poultice..though I believe one or two Templar skills are affected by it..but not enough to make it a primary stat)

Crowd Control spells are your best friends next to heal...cone of cold is godly...mind blast for a quick cast stun when mage is getting agro..etc.

get Alistairs sword/shield up..but get Threaten and Taunt..keep threaten on at all times along with his defense toggle (Shield Wall ftw asap) and keep Taunt on a quick button that's easy to hit..and USE IT at the start..run him in manually if you must and fire it off as mobs are around him (even if they're running past)

Leliana sadly is the least useful of yer group but not useless...archery can be great but takes some knowledge on building...when you respec her make her DW instead if you want..she's a monster...

if you're going to go the two mage route what you're doing sounds pretty good other then the auto-level of Morrigan...Spirit Healer is great...with both of you with the Heal spell..pick one of you to be the dedicated healer to go further down the spirit heal tree first...split yer rolls up...for instance have yer caster spirit healer with some other utility/support spells...telekinetic weapons is great for added armor-penetration (I'd argue the best of the weapon spell affect toggles.) Then have say Morrigan go more down a crowd control line..or damage..mind blast is great...paralyze....force field is good to lock-down a single target for some breathing room (though remember it doesn't work so well on elite/boss+ mobs..it doesn't freeze em) the hex line is good get cone of cold..fireball (but watch your party..it's a good opener) etc...the "big" AoE's aren't that great unless you get the drop on the mobs and hold your party out of them..though casting a blizzard/storm/inferno right after mass-paralyze is good...just keep party back..etc...split your roles as casters..dont' have both go down similar paths if you're going to be using both in the party..again..make one an offensive type with heal backup and one a healer with cc/utility backup..etc. Pump your magic up primarily and Willpower secondary (though some argue that since you can get unlimited lyrium potions later that willpower isn't as useful because you can chug em like a drunken mule)

Tactics...set those yourself. remember what you set at the TOP of the list takes priority over lower numbers....one thing poeple mess up on is setting an Enemy X -> Attack tactic...but if it's not at the BOTTOM of the tactics list anything under it NEVER TRIGGERS as long as there's an enemy for them to attack. Set your Ally/Self -> heals at the top...ORDER MATTERS in tactics.  and remember the top right of tactics screen is a drop-down box a lot seem to miss also...Default is ok..I typically set melee to Aggressive and if you keep Leliana an archer or make an archer yourself ALWAYS SET THAT TO RANGED.

Modifié par Suron, 03 janvier 2010 - 05:11 .