41 réponses à ce sujet

[DWSmiley]

Is anyone still around who is thinking of trying this for the first time? If so, my experience may be of interest. I came back to the game a while ago and decided to give this a whirl. It was quite the challenge, up to the point of completing the Broken Circle quest.


The easiest pc by far to solo is a dwarf noble, dual weapon rogue. You can get 30 gp in the Origin (mostly from Lord Dace and the scholar) and double the gold from selling stuff to Gorim later. Plus, dirty fighting + sweep are great for fighting early elites.


Dexterity rules this build, of course. I put 2 points in strength at level 3 to use Ser Garlen’s sword. With Fade and gear boosts, that was all I ever needed. Plus some points in cunning later to open all locks.


To not miss out on any locks or traps, I took the deft hands talents a.s.a.p., so deft hands at level 1 and improved tools at level 4. In between, I took sweep/flurry/momentum and, at the Joining, dw training/finesse. Then duelling, combat stealth, mechanical expertise, coup de grace and device mastery. That was the core build.


Skills were the toughest choice, surprisingly. Combat training 3 a.s.a.p., of course, for momentum. I then took poison making 2, as grenades and concentrated deathroot poison make a big difference early on, herbalism 2, and then coercion 2 to interact successfully when I returned to Orzammar.


Luring is an essential tactic for a vanilla character early on. Don’t believe any claims of being able to take on entire groups in the origin or Ostagar without the benefit of DLC goodies, especially if there are archers. When it is impossible to avoid activating an entire group, ‘tis time to run. For instance, the only tactic that worked versus the four deep stalkers (just before finding Duncan) was to fire an arrow or two while they rushed at me, then sweep, stun the leader and run almost all the way back to the starting point. That left only two mooks in pursuit. In repeated plays this worked every time, while just backing into the nearest corner was suicide.


In the Kocari Wilds, Gazarath can be beaten with perfectly timed sequences of spin, sweep and run away but I lack the hand-eye coordination and eventually gave up on Gaz. For the Tower ogre, fortunately, I could just stand behind the barrels and pincushion it with arrows. Be ready to run, though, if it picks up a boulder!


In Lothering I took the path of least resistance – bribed the bandits, raced through town, lured the darkspawn, and headed to Denerim to cash in with Gorim. I sold him several daggers and reloading got me two of red steel with rune slots. Then to the tavern for distillation agent and back to camp for a GM lightning rune and a Tome. I had earlier purchased the recipes for acid, fire and frost bombs, concentrated deathroot poison and health poultices.


The Dalish camp was next, where I found/bought a set of armor plus stocked up on ingredients. Most of the random encounters while travelling the West Road are doable as long as one remembers to stealth before leaving camp. The darkspawn with an elite and emissary means it is reload time but the dreaded wolf pack does not. There is a spot by the boulders where the wolves can’t get to you, similar to the Tower ogre and the barrels.


Then it was back to Lothering, where the bandits soon learned there was a new sheriff in town!


The Circle Tower was next and it was the last big challenge. For the boss abomination just before entering the Fade, the only tactic that worked for me was to open the door while stealthed and immediately run back into the room across the hall, to avoid activating the skeleton archers.


For Slothy, PEDs were key – incense, poison and swift salve vs. the ogre form and warmth salve vs. the rage demon. I kited the abomination form whenever momentum was on cool down because of its triple strike. I used another incense versus the Shade form and swift salve when I had it down to about half hit points, figuring that should last me through to the end. Then spirit and ice salves vs. the Arcane Horror. Along with several health poultices, that did it.


I reluctantly used my last swift salve vs. the greater rage demon and shades (just before the Harrowing chamber). Then ‘twas time for the Big Bad. I had read on these boards that staying behind Uldred would avoid getting pushed away by his massive attack but it didn’t. I regularly got pushed away and sooner or later Crushing Prison ended it. Out of desperation, I decided to try waiting until Uldred started a massive attack to move behind him and it worked. No getting pushed away and crushed! Maybe I just got really lucky but after so many attempts I didn’t feel like replaying it to find out.


Then it was back to Denerim to cash in and buy paralysis, flame and hale runes. That cemented my BAMF status. Nothing after that was much more challenging than playing a group on nightmare.


I don’t know how anyone solos warrior builds without DLC goodies. I started a dwarf noble sword & shield but never had a chance against the merc captain in the origin. I could do it with a mage, though, I think. I’d start with winter’s grasp, rock armor and walking bomb, and then the glyphs.

[dainbramage]

As someone who's solo'd all 3 warrior builds...

DN, in my opinion, is the hardest origin. It's the most beneficial afterwards what with the extra money and the Aeducan shield (if you're SnS), but soloing the combat is harder, as the game assumes you to have a 4-member party in the deep roads, as opposed to most others where it's two.

SnS warriors also blow chunks until 2 things happen: you get to level 12, and you get lifegiver. Like up to then for fights that I'd find absolutely trivial with a DW or 2H solo the SnS struggles, and if not dies and needs a reload I'm eating potions the whole way through. At level 12 you get +10 defence, knockdown immunity and 3 of your talents do more damage (overpower is bugged and does less, annoyingly), but you're still pretty useless. Lifegiver actually makes the build viable, and I was kinda surprised to the extent. Enough that I could barely win the provings before lifegiver, but was able to do the jarvia fight (and all of the carta) with no potions, and it wasn't even a reaver build. If I was replaying it I'd make lifegiver the second bought item after Knight-Commander's Plate, whereas I left it to second-last (last being Veshialle, since starfang is nearly as good, espcially at low levels). From level 15ish it was pretty easy going, but the first half or so of the game was a huge pain in the ass sometmes.

As for the merc captain - my SnS could do that OK but used something like 4 lesser poultices You can split up the group if you backtrack a long way. One of the darkspawn ambushes later was harder, but mostly because I'd used most of the potions on the merc captain. Both fights were significantly easier with my 2H though (DW was a duster). If you find Trian impossible you can just change your choices earlier so that you don't have to fight him. Also, uh, good luck doing the DN origin with a mage .

But other fights I couldn't do early which other builds could. The bandits in lothering I had to intimidate, then get back to later once I'd leveled up a couple of times. I couldn't take on either the bounty hunters or Loghain's dude in the frostback mountains immediately after lothering (all 3 were templar spec, and I went for knight-commander's plate first thing), and the second was particularly annoying as it meant no key to the city. And Kitty was also a pain in the ass, even with 50% magic resistance and a greater warmth balm. Gazerath had to be cheesed (you can pincushion it hiding behind the chest where the wolves are). The sloth demon in ogre form is a complete dick since you can't fight it in golem form, at least unless you like dying to chain rams, and SnS needed multiple reloads. Eventually my preferred strategy was to stay in golem form, where you can interrupt a ram with quake and slam (slam being just faster than ram fortunately). If both were on cooldown then back to dwarf form and stun it with pummel, then run until golem skills were back off CD - from there the golem handled all other forms fine. All of those my DW and 2H did fine on (well, DW and 2H needed multiple reloads on the lothering bandits, but they were killable).

A trick for Uldred (if you're not magic resistant) is to run anti-clockwise around him whenever he starts a massive attack. That lets you dodge them all. Alternatively I delayed it until I had spellward for my two-hander, so he just had 84% resistance and resisted his crushing prison attempt.

For warriors, I'd say DW > 2H > SnS in terms of how easy they are to solo. DW warrior was similar to a dex rogue in difficulty, but I had the advantage of knowing where traps are in advance so I could avoid them manually. Without that it might be harder. Magic immunity is great, but mages still are often the most damaging enemy as they don't give a crap about your 140 defence (well, only the DW had that but whatever) or 40 armour, so their consistent 20-30 damage ends up being a lot more than whatever the melee mooks manage to do. For non-DW, archers and two-handers are particularly annoying as sunder and shattering shot get rid of your only means of staying alive, so even the 2H needed a hale rune. DW was very sturdy except when both stunned and sundered/shattering-shotted, or against certain enemies who do 100+ damage per hit and have perfect striking (... bloody Cauthrien).

And of course no DLC items, though later on I gave two exceptions - all characters could wear blood dragon plate lategame, as by that point it's not a significant improvement on Knight-Commander's Plate, and KCP looks horrible on dwarves. And I let my DW use The Edge offhand after she bought The Rose's Thorn - again, it's only a minor improvement on the thorn of the dead gods she would've been using otherwise. Importantly, none were used early game where they significantly reduce the challenge.


My play-order was along the lines of:

Denerim to sell + get shield (except DW, who was a commoner) --> Back to Lothering --> Frostback (KCP + KttC) --> Brecilian outskirts (crafting ingredients, and my SnS was lucky enough to find the Axameter encounter here) --> Honnleath --> Circle Tower --> Denerim (for money) --> etc

Modifié par dainbramage, 17 janvier 2013 - 09:07 .

[Ferretinabun]

Well all I can say is bravo to you both! I tried a vanilla solo nightmare runthrough and it kicked my ass from here to Kirkwall.

I went with DW rogue (to get the lovely XP from traps and chests) Dwarf (magic resist) commoner (I'd heard the noble origin was ridiculously hard for the reasons dainbramage mentioned, despite its obvious benefits. Besides, that was the one origin I'd never done a playthrough with). I was determined to fight all the enemies I could, even the optional ones so I could say I'd fully beaten the game rather than just sneaked through it, and I wouldn't use exploits like hiding behind the barrels when fighting the ogre in the Tower of Ishal. Initially I even wanted to keep luring to a minimum, but that soon went out the window the moment I actually jumped into battle and got turned into a hairy dwarf pincushion.

And I have to say the game absolutely dragged - in every sense of the word. I had to do every single encounter at least a dozen times, often more. The whole Stealth - backstab - Dirty Fighting - backstab - run away - repeat thing got boring before I'd even finished the origin story, but it was the only tactic that seemed to do any good. I did realise the importance of traps (Lothering bandits) grenades (Ogre) and poisons, though this was usually with hindsight telling myself "I wish I'd picked up more of these."

I did everything in Lothering as soon as I arrived there and then headed to the Circle Tower. It was there that I finally got permanently stuck - there's a room where several templars are worshipping a desire demon and she sets them on you. It's an optional room, and I eventually cracked it, but then you have to enter the central chamber with your first abomination as well as a few other assorted enemies (Stealth is ended by the act of opening the door to it), and I just couldn't do it.

Maybe if I gave it another 50 goes I could get through, but I realised I just wasn't having fun. I was just painfully struggling to level up to the point where I could START having fun. I realise I should probably stick religiously to one of the nightmare solo guides on here which tell you in which precise order to visit various locations to get which loot, but again it feels more exploity and difficult to RP (start this level, but only until you get loot X, then leave and start this level until you get loot Z...).

It does gall me slightly that I'm not in Club Nightmare Solo. I suppose I could slacken the rules slightly (DLC equipment allowed, exploits allowed...) or I could go for a different class (I've heard Mage is easier than you might think. Warrior seems too much like rogue without Stealth and the XP for traps and chests) but for the moment I've just got no urge for it, so I'll just tip my hat to you both.

[dainbramage]

The XP from chests and traps isn't particularly important - I finished at level 23 with my warriors, and I didn't bother with most of the companion quests (did morrigan's because it's so easy to get and complete, shale's if I wanted cadash stompers, alistair if I wanted him hardened for story reasons... that was about it). And if it really bugs you you can run through areas again with Leliana to open chests and disarm traps. Or use a lockpicking cheat (lock bash mod is more "authentic" but chests with quest items inside are invulnerable, irritatingly) and ignore the traps. Or buy elfroot and give it to the dalish emissary for xp you missed out on (really if you want your mind to it you can get to level 25 as soon as you finish the brecilian forest without cheats, though that's obviously hugely exploitative). Etc.

I should also add that I definitely used exploits where I had to. I mean I'd read that the ogre was soloable with dual-weapon sweep or grenades, but screw that. I used the barrel trick on every playthrough. My SnS had to split up packs usually into no more than 3 at a time or he'd die, so that's a lot of luring. Elsewhere it might be kill the ranged guys ASAP then stand in a corridor where only one thing can get at me at a time, or luring archers with line of sight to make them close virtually to melee because I'm hiding behind a column.

It also gets easier the more you play. If you gave up halfway through the circle tower you were probably nearly all the way to the lip where it becomes significantly easier.

Modifié par dainbramage, 17 janvier 2013 - 01:30 .

[Ferretinabun]

Hmmm... Now you've planted the idea in my head again. I don't have the stomach for a rogue or warrior, but perhaps a caster mage... Lots of crowd control from the Frost tree and glyphs, Walking bombs and fireballs, get some use out of Animate Dead, and of course a few anti-magic spells for the casters... Hmmm...


EDIT: Maybe a Shapeshifter solo run. I wonder if anyone's done that...

Modifié par Ferretinabun, 17 janvier 2013 - 09:28 .

[DWSmiley]

@dainbramage
They’ll never see the dwarf spells coming! 

Interesting to learn that golem form works well vs. Slothy. I had presumed it better to stick with my daggers, chemicals and defense.

I figured dw would be the “easiest” warrior build but having done dw rogue, I wanted more different. I’m impressed you beat the merc captain with a s&s. It seemed hopeless even with the poultices, as his attacks are faster and do more damage. But I only tried a few times, so perhaps I will go again.

Does a hale rune help a 2H much? I thought it only helped resist knockdowns and reduce time stunned/webbed/overwhelmed, some of which the 2H is immune to. Did you let companions craft poultices and grenades for your warriors?
 
@Ferret

Hi! I remember hijacking your solo thread from many moons ago. I solo’d every possible character back then but with all the DLC goodies – and was mighty proud of myself for it.

With the boss abomination in the Tower, it seemed that stealth would last briefly when I opened the door, so if I immediately ran into the room behind me, the skeleton archers stayed put. Then I only had to deal with the boss and a two-handed mook.  I left the desire demon and templars until after the Fade.  Grenades were a big help.

For a mage, it should be little different soloing without the goodies. The vital spells are cold, glyphs, hexes, spell shield, mind blast, force field, WB and its big brother. And rock armor to reduce reloads. Some shapeshifting on top of that could be fun. I remember my biggest worry was Gaxkang, but ‘twas routine. Misdirection hex and force field vs. the revenant form, spellward and spell shield vs. the arcane horror.  EDIT: Also, I found swift salve surprisingly useful, especially vs. ogres.  It helped me get far enough away to cast more spells.

Modifié par DWSmiley, 18 janvier 2013 - 12:27 .

[dainbramage]

Hale on the 2H was for sunder armour, shattering shot and web. Especially the first two, as armour is the only means of staying alive, and if it drops by 20 then an imminent death is virtually guaranteed. Helping out with spiders was a bonus but not too major, as even with 100 physical res web still hit about half the time. The other reason was what else am I going to do with that rune slot? I had 100% spell resistance with 2 runes, the third could've been a hale or a whopping +5 damage (well, +4 thanks to the universal resistance bonus on nightmare) on autoattacks only.

I let other party members craft, however the only playthrough that needed crafted poultices and grenades was the SnS. 2H and DW both found more poultices than were used, and didn't need grenades after the circle tower, or at least more than I found. The DW finished with something like 26 acid flasks in the inventory.

For merc captain I managed to lure him away from the rest of the pack by running nearly to the crossroads and fought 1v1 (the rest might have been busy killing my other party members maybe? I'm not sure. With lucky pummels, overpowers and bashes you can keep him disabled enough to win. They were set to passive/tactics disabled though, so no fighting back). Then after he died healed because I was out of combat, then took the rest of the pack on after separating the crossbowdwarves from the melee mooks. Can't remember how I did it with 2H as that was ages ago.

For the other sloth forms, after killing the ogre I used arcane horror briefly to heal myself and nuke the rage demon, then it was golem all the way. And as I found out, golem form is even workable against the ogre.

Modifié par dainbramage, 18 janvier 2013 - 01:17 .

[dainbramage]

Oh, one thing I forgot before, which helps a lot when soloing, especially at low levels.

When autoattacking, you can completely cancel out the backswing of an animation. As soon as the damage is dealt, move a tiny bit then attack again, i.e.tap W then right-click. Especially as a 2H or SnS this lets you attack much faster, and if you're a rogue, you can tell if an attack is going to miss because you do the usual attack animation rather than the backstab, so you can cancel it right away and start a new attack.

[DWSmiley]

Ah, that would make a big difference, thanks. It seems kind of exploitative but then so is standing behind the Barrels of Invincibility in the Tower of Ishal.

[Ferretinabun]

Ugh, you guys!! Look what you made me do. You actually made me go back and give my solo rogue one last shot.

Astonishingly I finally (!) got past the abomination (lured a few of the skellies and then lined the corridor with traps - hope I won't regret using them all here) and made it into the Fade and level 8. I now finally have Combat Stealth and Herbalism, so I can mix myself some healing potions.

Now I've just got the Sloth Demon to get past - and even then there's Uldred. And I've got to do it all with no traps, no flasks/grenades, no tasty DLC equipment, but about 50 lesser health pots. There goes my weekend...

Modifié par Ferretinabun, 18 janvier 2013 - 01:08 .

[Ferretinabun]

Actually, I've been poring over a few nightmare solo guides and it seems my rogue is less than optimal. For one thing, The Dwarf Noble origin apparently does make things considerably easier, giving you enough gold for two Grandmaster runes which alone make the Circle considerably easier, apparently. Then there's the fact that I'm level 8 and still not got Momentum - and won't have the opportunity to get it until level 10 either since I only have 2 Combat Training (unless of course I can trip the Old Tegrin encounter with a spare 12 gold in my pocket for a Tome of Skill and Sundry, but that's a sharp pain in the wallet).

Still, I've come this far...

[DWSmiley]

True that. 30 gp up front is huge and the noble origin was not as tough as the Circle Tower. Good luck!

[dainbramage]

Woah damn, no momentum? That's definitely doing it hard mode. For pretty much anything that duel wields your first 4 talents want to be dual weapon training then momentum. Semi-ditto on combat training, I'm always hurting for attack early so I want the +6 attack and +1 armour even if I'm not getting any 4th tier talents.

The early 25 gp isn't as important. If you really want some GM runes before the tower you can get a bunch of money in denerim.


EDIT: Oh, and I felt compelled to start a DW rogue. Up to lothering now. So far it feels weaker than 2H or DW warriors, but stronger than a SnS. I suspect that might change once I get combat stealth, but right now fights aren't very different to if I was doing them as a warrior. And enemy SnS users already have bloody shield tactics (and I'm only level 7, like seriously guys). Urgh.

EDIT 2: Finished lothering with 35 sovereigns as a human noble, didn't sell any DLC items or exploit traps are a girl's best friend. Enough for a backpack and both GM runes at first camp, even without the DN money. Easy . Though now I just need a tier 5 dagger to actually put them in...

EDIT 3: Has anyone been able to do the encounter with an alpha, emissary and 4 archers with a ton of traps at a low level? The stupid game keeps trying to give it to me as soon as I leave lothering and as far as I can tell there's no way for it to even be a tiny bit close.

Modifié par dainbramage, 19 janvier 2013 - 06:08 .

[DWSmiley]

35 gp seemed high until I remembered anything any npc is wearing is fair game to be sold.  I made a note to myself to save my prison duds next time so Alistair at least doesn't have to stand around in camp in his skivvies!  The price-gouging merchant in Lothering is pretty good at upgrading daggers to tier 5 once your pc is level 7.

The alpha/emissary/archers is the only impossible world encounter early on, imo (other than the rare one with a boss shade and three elites).  There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.  When the game gets stuck on generating the same world encounter, I found the only way to change it was to select a different destination.  Annoying, but you could go to the Dalish camp, for instance, without affecting the levels in the Brecilian forest areas.

[dainbramage]

I did honnleath before the circle tower. Kitty was an absolute pain in the ass. No combat stealth or magic resistance mean that her spells are *going* to land, and with my measly 5 mental and 15 physical resistances there's not much chance of resisting horror or freeze. Plus she's immune to stun, so I have no way of disabling her. Eventually after about a trillion reloads she only cast horror (which I thankfully resisted, I think the only time out of about 15) and weakness, and attacked a lot, and I could just autoattack her down. About that point I realized I couldn't even equip helm of honnleath until the fade bonuses, so argh. I did get Olaf's cheese knife though, which was a suitable tier 5 for my runes. And the harvest festival ring, of course.

Did circle tower up to the fade, except for the desire demon + templar, and blood mage + templars immediately before it. Killed sloth demon - hand to hand against ogre (despite managing before with my SnS, I could't time slam to interrupt ram), then golem against everything else.

I've seen claims that getting mouse form gives a rogue all 4 stealth talents. Never been able to reproduce this myself though.

[DWSmiley]

dainbramage wrote...

I did honnleath before the circle tower. Kitty was an absolute pain in the ass. No combat stealth or magic resistance mean that her spells are *going* to land, and with my measly 5 mental and 15 physical resistances there's not much chance of resisting horror or freeze. Plus she's immune to stun, so I have no way of disabling her. Eventually after about a trillion reloads she only cast horror (which I thankfully resisted, I think the only time out of about 15) and weakness, and attacked a lot, and I could just autoattack her down. About that point I realized I couldn't even equip helm of honnleath until the fade bonuses, so argh. I did get Olaf's cheese knife though, which was a suitable tier 5 for my runes. And the harvest festival ring, of course.

Yep, that's why I did Honnleath second.  With a Master and Expert Dweomer rune, plus Seal of Rat Red, it's not mission near-impossible.

Did circle tower up to the fade, except for the desire demon + templar, and blood mage + templars immediately before it. Killed sloth demon - hand to hand against ogre (despite managing before with my SnS, I could't time slam to interrupt ram), then golem against everything else.

I've seen claims that getting mouse form gives a rogue all 4 stealth talents. Never been able to reproduce this myself though.

Was that to try to get a breather vs. Slothy?  I read in a solo guide ages ago that it was best to stay in normal form vs. Sloth and it became ingrained for me.  But I'm going to try Ser Golem next time.

[dainbramage]

Nah, I just couldn't win either fight so I figured I'd try again with an extra level and the fade stat bonuses. I did the blood mage fight and won with low hp, then promptly stepped on the claw trap at the door and died, so that was my quitting point for the day.

Golem against ogre is a bad idea because it takes so absurdly long to fall down and get back up again, it's fine against everything else though. If you want to minimize potion use you can switch to arcane horror when your hp get low, cast regeneration, switch to normal (or burning man), run for 10 seconds to heal yourself, then back to golem. But just golem and the lyrium is usually enough without having to transform.

Modifié par dainbramage, 20 janvier 2013 - 11:23 .

[Ferretinabun]

Odd. Golem against the ogre seems to work fairly well for me. Hurl is the only talent which seems to do a considerable amount of damage. Hurl, Slam, then stun with Quake/Dirty Fighting and run away, rinse, repeat.

[dainbramage]

Killed Uldred. Nearly ran out of poultices though, I didn't craft or buy any to bring in. All in all I'd say the circle tower was significantly harder than with a warrior. I'm used to having 20+ armour going in there with a warrior, which is enough to reduce most attacks to near 0. The rogue only had 9, and not nearly enough defence to be unhittable, or even difficult to hit. Plus my hp pool is much shallower, so spellcasters hurt. A lot.

This is a good character though, so Wynne got to live, just had her on hold/passive/disabled tactics the whole time. Unfortunately it also means I let the random mages live. And ****ing Petra kept casting fireball when I try to kill Shah Wyrd. GOD DAMN IT PETRA IT'S IMMUNE TO FIRE AND I'M NOT. Eventually I just let it kill all the mages before I went after it. Not so good now, but... whatever.

Went to Orzammar. Got the bounty hunters hostile, then stealthed and picked off the mage from outside of her casting range. The others all died hand-to-hand pretty easily. Similar story for Irminrek, just used the same strategy I've always done with warriors. Focus mage ASAP, then back between 2 tents where the others can only get at me one-at-a-time. Stealth helps take the mage out, but not huge as he always opens up with support spells anyway. Anyhow, now get me a key to the city, and a bunch of gold from the lyrium quest. Not sure what my first expensive item should be.

Modifié par dainbramage, 21 janvier 2013 - 05:35 .

[DWSmiley]

Grey Wardens do whatever it takes, right?

My first try I went straight to the Tower and got squashed. So I reloaded to Lothering and went to the Dalish camp. +10 defense from a set of Dalish armor made a difference, not to mention lots of elfroot.

As nice as Spellward is, it's benefits are more situational than Lifegiver's. Unless, of course, you want to take out the blood mage lair early.

[dainbramage]

Good catch on the dalish. I think I'll definitely swap it for the studded leather I'm currently using (lol...), until I can use the felon's coat.

Just had the random encounter with 3 archers on a ledge, and a few melee guys in the way. First one I've really found easier with a rogue than a warrior. The inevitable shattering + scattershots really screwed my warriors, but with stealth it's super easy.

EDIT: Oh, and I did go with lifegiver. 30% spell resistance isn't enough to be reliable anyway, so I figure there's not really any point going with spellward until I've also got enough dweomer runes to make it useful. And I've already done the circle tower, so most of the unstunnable spellcasters are behind me.

EDIT 2: Did Redcliffe village. Lloyd died but meh, it's not like I'd use his ring, and you get 3 sovereigns out of it anyway from Bella. The suits of armour fight in the castle is ridiculous as a rogue though. 6x rally is bad enough... I can't hit anything (and in the rare occasion that I do, I can't flank which means I get precisely 4 seconds worth of backstabs - riposte is yet to hit) and my defence is useless. Add mass knockdown from war cry and shield bash and... ugh.

Yet another EDIT: Found a solution for the suits. Let Ser Perth in, and used his guys to split the suits into 2 groups. With only 3 rallies they're manageable

Modifié par dainbramage, 22 janvier 2013 - 04:37 .

[DWSmiley]

I've never taken money from Bella.  She is just too awesome a kisser. 

The suits can be handled alone.  Grenades quickly reduce at least 3 of them to near death. I'm a broken record on my flasky friends but they turned around several tough fights for me.  I never bothered with the shock and soulrot recipes.  Three types are enough, though I saved any I found of the other two for the showdown with Cauthrien.

[dainbramage]

DWSmiley wrote...

I've never taken money from Bella.  She is just too awesome a kisser. 

Nah, it's independent of the kiss. If you take the tavern from Lloyd then he dies, Bella says that she found his stash of money and that it's yours now as you're the owner. It's literally the first time I've seen it as I'm usually a perfectionist and don't want anyone in Redcliffe to die (solos exempted, but in the previous ones Lloyd never died).

EDIT: And I guess I didn't have enough grenades then. I only have acid flasks at the moment so I can only throw one at a time.

Modifié par dainbramage, 22 janvier 2013 - 01:25 .

[dainbramage]

This seems like it's turned into my solo adventure blog, but hey whatever.

Killed Connor to finish Redcliffe, then did RtO and Warden's Keep. Return to Ostagar was pretty easy, though the final ogre's grab was a one-hit-kill so needed a couple of reloads. Connor + Warden's Keep kept the usual theme of desire demons being a pain in the ass, but a freeze salve and a couple of potions later they were both dead, even though I spent like 80% of each fight disabled. Also bought The Rose's Thorn with the money I'd made. Having upgraded to that and Duncan's Dagger (replacing Beastman's and Olaf's cheese knife...) I killed me some cultists. Kolgrim was nice enough to drop me a GM dweomer rune, so there's 4% more for the eventual spell resistance set. I'm not a dwarf so 100% will be impossible without the cinch, so I guess each bit closer helps. Stopped at the start of the gauntlet.

Despite Naked Fury's guide saying the drake fights are hard, they were fine. First 3 were easy, you can easily position yourself so that only one can get at you. The two next to the arcane warrior are a bit harder, as you can't easily hide in a corner. But with a bit of playing ring around the rosie you can keep only one attacking you (importantly, overwhelm is survivable but if the other one adds rake or a fire breath it's lights out).

At 158 defence currently (level 17). So I'm basically unhittable unless stunned, in which case I still go down very fast. In that regard the rogue feels a lot weaker than a DW warrior, who also had 400+ hp and 41 armour on top of 150+ defence. Taking on more than two mages at once can also be interesting as I can't simply stealth in and kill them. I guess another weakness compared to warriors. As a final note, ash wraiths are annoying, they seem to have 100+ defence as I still have trouble hitting them. However, despite me still missing regularly, the game claims that I have a 100% hit rate (...and it was below 90% when I started playing today. I have no idea how the game calculates this, but it doesn't seem to be very accurate...)


EDIT: Difficulty comparison again, so far I'd say

DW war > dex rogue > 2H war >> SnS war from best to worst

Modifié par dainbramage, 23 janvier 2013 - 02:06 .

[DWSmiley]

Blog away!

The alpha ogre's grab is survivable with Felon's Coat and near full health if you use a rock salve when it starts to grab. Ditto the Broodmother. Rock salve applies instantly, unlike a health poultice which has a drinking animation.

Those two drakes were a real pain. I tried standing at a bottleneck but rake would knock me back, always followed by overwhelm it seemed, and both of them would be on me. I finally discovered a nook in the north wall where only one get get at you.

The game seems to forget older hit data at some point, though that is not likely the explanation as I doubt the game keeps a chronological record. Maybe there is a max to the numerator and denominator and the numerator catches up.