90 réponses à ce sujet

[soteria]

Most people probably don't need these at this point, but for those who are interested, I took some time and put together "how to" videos for some of the harder encounters in the game.  You can read a strategy, but some of us just learn better from seeing something done than reading about it.  Plus, I think it's always interesting to see how someone else plays.

These videos were all done on nightmare mode.  I don't use any mods, just patch 1.02.  To make the strategies more relevant, I didn't use any potions either, so anyone who does use potions should find the fights even easier.  None of my characters have what you would really call a "power build."  I didn't max magic, and in most cases tried to avoid the most powerful spells.  Overall my goal was to restrict myself enough to show how these fights are possible whatever your playstyle or situation might be.


~~Battles~~

Entrance to the Tower of Ishal

Ogre from the Tower of Ishal

Battle for Redcliffe while keeping most of the villagers alive.

High Dragon

Revenant

The Sloth Demon in the Fade.

Jarvia

Corrupted Spider Queen

Broodmother.  Alternate kill with grenades by x-president.

Rotating statue with four faces/spirits by x-president.

Branka / Caridin w/o a tank

Caladrius, final boss of elven alienage.

Witness Gaxxkang, the Unbound!

Ser Cauthrien, without leaving the room or cheesing force field.

The Archdemon

~~Awakening Battles~~

The Mother.

~~Puzzles~~

Flaming Squares Puzzle. This is the puzzle "Kitty" asks you to do in Honnleath.  Credit for this goes to mikeon314. 

The Gauntlet Bridge Puzzle.  How-to in less than a minute.  Credit for this goes to ISellSigals.


~~Spells and Abilities~~

Spell Combos.  Credit for this goes to Carsomyr80.  He didn't do it quite like I would have done it, but he does go into a lot of detail on the sidebar, and covers all the spell combos.

And, again, Spell Combos, this time by me.

This one is on using chokepoints tactically.

The video was by request, the "Caravan Down" encounter on the world map.  See this thread for the (rather bizarre) discussion.

In this thread, x-president covers shapeshifting.  Videos on the third and fourth pages.

~~Other~~

No healers, no potions playthrough on nightmare:  Miscellaneous fights + Ser Cauthrien
No mages, archer tank, nightmare:  Same as above.  Ser Cauthrien.

If anyone has a suggestion for how I could do the videos better (I'm sorry, I know my voice is quiet), feel free to comment.  I do edit these for length and quality.  If you have a request for a specific fight, let me know.  Also, alternative strategies or tips are welcome. 

Finally, visit my new Dragon Age 2 thread for DA2 content.

Modifié par soteria, 10 mars 2011 - 11:33 .

[termokanden]

Well the high dragon and revenant tactics are the exact same ones I use, even down to the most of the mage spells used.

Jarvia: I totally cheesed this one with my two mages, so I don't really have anything meaningful to add. I would Blood Wound and Cone of Cold, that was pretty much it. Well I did get Shale to taunt Jarvia.

Spider Queen: Never actually found this boss fight very hard for some reason. Even without my two mages. Most important thing here is really just keeping the spiders off your healer, and you should be fine.

I wouldn't mind seeing you beat (edit: beat not beet  ) Ser Cauthrien without leaving the room. I plan to do the same next time I'm there, but I find the first few seconds to be very difficult. They can kill one or two of my characters before I can even react.

Broodmother is another fight that would be very interesting, as a lot of people have trouble with it.

The videos were quite clear by the way, so good job on that.

Modifié par termokanden, 06 janvier 2010 - 12:04 .

[soteria]

Thanks. My strategy for Cauthrien, I think, will be to bring Morrigan as well, and try to sleep/blood wound all the archers right from the get-go. If I can get those spells off, I think I can do it. Blood wound + fireball is pretty close to killing most white enemies, but I imagine the mages (and Cauthrien herself) will make it harder. Hopefully I have time to make it to her in a timely fashion.

I think the Jarvia and Spider Queen videos are a lot more interesting, just because the fights are so much more dynamic.  The spider queen is difficult if you don't pause--you have to be good with hotkeys and have a good reaction time to deal with spider adds dropping down and the poison spit.  I wanted a nice clean kill with clearly reproduceable results without pausing, same as the other videos, but eventually settled for letting someone die.

Modifié par soteria, 06 janvier 2010 - 12:10 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

I feel a bit left out that I didn't get that killing blow on the high dragon (only my PC mage and Wynne survived the fight). That's a nice one.

With Jarvia, I like to drop an AoE DoT (like Inferno or Blizzard) over the areas where the summoned help will appear, so it immediately takes ongoing damage upon arrival.  Since the summoning is predictable (based on Jarvia's health level) you can plan ahead with long-casting-time spells like Inferno.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 06 janvier 2010 - 12:31 .

[soteria]

Bioware really did a good job on the killing blows for the dragons--they're especially epic with poisoned weapons, imo. It felt great seeing that on my first high dragon kill, with just my rogue PC and Morrigan alive.



For dropping those AOE spells, do you feel like they restrict your movement? Blizzard has such a large radius... maybe you can drop it behind the wall there and still have it affect the archers?

[soteria]

Before I make the next few videos, I have a few questions about how I'm doing them... in High Dragon and Revenant videos I left the background sound on and talked over it. In the other two I disabled background sound--which is better?



Would it be better if I used text to explain the fight instead of narrating?



Would it be better if I paused more frequently? Personally I get annoyed when I watch a video when someone is pausing with any frequency (even if it's myself!). Maybe others feel differently.

[Vaeliorin]

My only real comment, based upon what I take to be your goal, would be that you might want to avoid using specialization specific abilities in future videos (or if you remake any of these.) I noticed you using Blood Wound in both the Jarvia fight and the Spider Queen fight, and obviously Blood Wound is one of the more powerful (or potentially overpowered) spells in the game.

[soteria]

I can do that. Half the reason I use Blood Wound is I don't have to
pause to avoid hitting my party, so it's not really a big
deal--fireball would accomplish the same purpose in most instances. 

Using
abilities like that occassionally doesn't really bother me too much, as
long as it stays in the realm of showing tactical use of a good ability
and not the cornerstone of my strategy.  If I can find the saved game, maybe I'll redo the Spider Queen using different spells for one of the waves of spiders.

Modifié par soteria, 06 janvier 2010 - 03:35 .

[soteria]

Broodmother: Watch

Updated OP as well. I ended up pausing a lot more than usual in this one, because of all the targetting changes involved.

Modifié par soteria, 06 janvier 2010 - 08:35 .

[soteria]

Updated OP with Branka: Watch.

[Sylvius the Mad]

soteria wrote...

For dropping those AOE spells, do you feel like they restrict your movement? Blizzard has such a large radius... maybe you can drop it behind the wall there and still have it affect the archers?

I don't find moving around during the Jarvia fight to be very useful (unless you're down to one-on-one, and then moving around buys time for cooldowns - the first time I beat Jarvia the only party member who survived was Morrigan, so she'd run around until Cone of Cold recharged and then fire it behind her (because that's where the Assassins and Jarvia would be, even if they were stealthed).  The room has good sightlines from your party's starting position, so unless you're using a lot of melee combat there's no need to go anywhere.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 07 janvier 2010 - 10:21 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

For the Broodmother, I think you're just making it more difficult for yourself by ever using melee. Just stand on the rocks at the back and attack exclusively with ranged weapons. Shale's good for that, because hurling a boulder is a good way to do significant damage to all the tentacles at once when they first appear (and if you're on the rocks, they can't hit you, so there's no downside to hitting them).



For the Anvil fight, you mentioned that fighting Caridin is basically the same, but you had Shale in your party. The first time I reached that part of the game, I sided with Branka only to see Shale join Caridin, thus removing my tank from my party and forcing me to fight an extra golem. I'd love some tips on that fight, because I was never able to defeat it.

[soteria]

I can see that with Jarvia--I typically run with a mixed group of two melee and ranged, and my first character was a dw rogue, so I kinda learned the fight from a melee perspective rather than ranged. If your ranged damage is weak, it's a frustrating fight if you don't deal with the traps somehow.



For Broodmother, I actually agree that an all ranged group is superior--you don't even have to worry about the tentacles. I did it this way to show that it's possible to beat with melee, but is much easier with ranged.



Anvil fight... that sounds like an interesting challenge. I had a similar experience, except Shale wasn't my tank so it was only a minor loss. Maybe I'll attempt Caridin without a tank as a challenge over the weekend. I'm not sure I can do it without potions, but we'll see.

[soteria]

Ok, had some free time and did a few more.

Ser Cauthrien, The Archdemon and Witness Gaxxkang!

Syvious, I'll probably try to do Caridin without a tank tomorrow.

Modifié par soteria, 09 janvier 2010 - 09:06 .

[Ensgnblack]

Any chance of posting on the Redcliffe battle?  I cannot seem to get anyone down at the bottm to survive.

Thanks.

[Ginasue]

On the broodmother, I did something else. I got behind her, up on one of the ramps. Put the rest of my party on hold basicly, and then took my archer down to within range of her. Used the bow and kept kept firing away. Wynne was behind me, healing me as needed. When the darkspaw would show up, would run backup to the rest of the group, we would kill them, then back down with bow, and firing away at her.

[Latuya]

I did the Caridan fight with 2 mages, the dwarf, and Shale... so when Shale left I was pretty squishy. I did find it doable, it just required extensive use of potions and lyrium veins. The up side was I have no idea if Caridan uses the lyrium veins or not since they were all gone by the time i got to him. I put the dwarf on Caridan, used my PC mage to kill the golems while Wynne kept the dwarf up. After the golems were all down it was a pretty straightforward fight.

[tetracycloide]

I don't mean to be completely snarky, perhaps a little but not totally, but I'm not sure precasting for paralysis explosion really counts as being less cheesey than leaving the room or force field. Not having to cast twice at the start of the fight. Plus the cooldown on repulsion was refreshed between when it was precast and when the actual fight started at 14 secs in 2 glyphs are cast and 2 glyphs are on cooldown, at 21 seconds there are still 2 glyphs cast but now there's only one on cooldown and repulsion's cooldown is up. Since the duration is less than the cooldown this means a glyph was cast, then a save, then a load, refreshing the cooldown and leaving the glyph up. Perhaps this was unintentional.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Caridin does use the Lyrium veins. He's tough enough without letting him get a complete heal.

For Gaxkang, he has as much as 3000 mana, so I'm not confident mana drains (like magebane poison) are that effective.  I'd just go with extra damage.

As you say, Mana Clash does render him trivial.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 11 janvier 2010 - 10:10 .

[soteria]

Ensgnblack, I'm thinking about it. I started a new playthrough with a rogue this time, doing some of the earlier fights. I'm currently debating when I want to do Redcliffe.

Ginasue, that sounds interesting. I wouldn't have thought you could get a line of sight on her from back there--I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

Latuya, I ended up doing basically the same thing, except I don't think Morrigan's spells are nearly as helpful as Wynne's in that fight.

A couple new videos... the Ogre from the Tower of Ishal. Sylvius, I finally did Caridin. It's not pretty, but there you have it.

Also, I replaced the link for the Ser Cauthrien fight with a video that's more in line with the others I've made. Only one mage, and a cleaner kill. More importantly, I realized that I had been benefiting from rally stacking--150 defense instead of 100. Oops. The new one.

tetracycloide, that happens when you reload. As you might imagine, it took me a number of tries, so I just precast everything to save time. I certainly wasn't intentionally trying to take advantage of the refreshed cooldown. Watching the new video I guess I do cast repulsion before paralysis cooled off, but it wasn't anything I couldn't have done by casting repulsion, waiting, and then going in.

Is pre-casting the glyphs cheesy? I didn't really think so, since they're basically traps you can throw at range. A glyph isn't overtly hostile, like, say, precasting inferno into the room. It does give an edge, but it doesn't trivialize the fight like force field or leaving the room.  Honestly, I think this falls more in the line of clever preparation than cheesiness, but I'm willing to adjust.

Maybe I'll get up the gumption to do it a 3rd time without the glyphs precast.  All I would do differently is suck it up and take a couple shots in the chin before I get blood wound off.  Assuming I make it through the first five seconds it would actually be an easier fight, because blood wound takes care of the whole room and paralysis explosion has no travel time (easier to chain CC with it).   Additionally, starting with blood wound means I would be able to use it a second time on all the archers.

Sylvius, I don't remember from the tooltip, but for some reason I thought magebane poison drained mana and did damage.  No?

Modifié par soteria, 11 janvier 2010 - 11:23 .

[tetracycloide]

I don't think pre-casting glyphs is cheesy, it makes sense from a RP perspective at least. Then again, so does running away from an overwhelming force or using force field exactly as it says it can be used in the tooltip. It's a question of perspective really, i'm sure there are some people who think paralysis explosion is cheesy simply because it's so effective.

[soteria]

Ah. I think I understand you. You're saying I'm being inconsistent for doing the one but not the other. Perhaps I should explain why exactly I use the restrictions I do.



In general, I stayed away from potions because of how they trivialize the entire game. If someone asks, "How do I kill the Broodmother? My party is Oghren, a dual wield warrior, Dog, and Morrigan in spider form," someone else will say "Just make 50 health/lyrium potions and spam them as much as you need to." And they'll be right. That would probably work--assuming you're in a place where you have access to potions.



I don't use force field/taunt, because again, it can be the answer to almost every hard fight in the game. Additionally, it causes the enemies to behave in a manner that I see as self-destructive and flat-out stupid, even if the developers feel differently. Realistically, I could have made almost every one of these videos using that exact same strategy, but I don't think using the exact same tactic every fight in the exact same way is particularly helpful to players.



I don't run out of the room here specifically because it makes it a different fight. If the archers and mage followed, I would. Since the AI is so (IMO) idiotic in this case, I stay in the room. Instead, I precast some glyphs. Another reason I'm fine with doing that is that there are very, very few difficult fights where that is possible. It's a tactic that works well specifically for this fight that isn't possible at all in most others.



Finally, I brought it down to one mage because again, any hard fight in the game is trivialized with three mages and a tank, and that sort of setup just isn't very relevant to most people who are having issues.



I realize you probably didn't need a long explanation, but I felt like putting it out there for the sake of clarity.

[Dragon Age1103]

soteria wrote...

Most people probably don't need these at this point, but for those who are interested, I took some time and put together "how to" videos for some of the harder encounters in the game.  You can read a strategy, but some of us just learn better from seeing something done than reading about it.  Plus, I think it's always interesting to see how someone else plays.

These videos were all done on nightmare mode.  I don't use any mods, just patch 1.02.  To make the strategies more relevant, I didn't use any potions either, so anyone who does use potions should find the fights even easier.  None of my characters have what you would really call a "power build."  I didn't max magic, and in most cases tried to avoid the most powerful spells.  Overall my goal was to restrict myself enough to show how these fights are possible whatever your playstyle or situation might be.

Ogre from the Tower of Ishal

High Dragon

Revenant

Jarvia

Corrupted Spider Queen

Broodmother

Branka / Caridin w/o a tank

Witness Gaxxkang, the Unbound!

Ser Cauthrien, without leaving the room or cheesing force field.

The Archdemon

If anyone has a suggestion for how I could do the videos better (I'm sorry, I know my voice is quiet), feel free to comment.  I do edit these for length and quality.

In the works:  Battle for Redcliffe; possibly random encounter with wolves or street thugs in Denerim.  If there is interest, I may also do something on spell combos, setting up tactics, and similar topics.  If you have a request for a specific fight, let me know.  Also, alternative strategies or tips are welcome. 

    Can't believe I just now found this! lol. i don't have much difficulty issues with the game but I am interested in spell combos since I am yet to play a caster if you haven't already made a video.
    This is a great post & I hope a lot of people appreciate what you have doen, I do. I can link this to my freinds who might start to play DA:O.
  Thanks a lot for the post!!!

[Ingahootz]

You might want to also mention what level you are and give a general idea of the type of equipment you're using for each fight. It might be tedious to do that at the start of the video, but after reading these boards for a while I've found that most people's problems with fights in this game are equipment based and how they've built their characters (usually not min/maxing them).



For example... having a healer with Staff of the Magister Lord, Andruil's Blessing, Tevinter Mage Robes, and the Libertarian's Cowl can pretty much trivialize every fight in the game. I'm not sure if you use these items on your mage in any of the fights, but if you do you might want to mention it.

[knownastherat]

There is a difference between trivializing (which can only mean using the most efficient/effective approach) and just beating an encounter.

My opinion is that if some players are having problems beating a boss or winning a fight it is not because they did not min/max and/or do not have + X gear, but it is mainly because they do not know the game (mechanics) enough and/or are not using what they have on hand (terrain, pots, abilities/spells, timing, .. ) to the fullest.

Modifié par knownastherat, 13 janvier 2010 - 03:58 .