42 réponses à ce sujet

[corey_russell]

DWSmiley wrote...

Ah, ok. I no longer use pulling, not that there's anything wrong with it, nor armies. Though everyone should side with Branka at least once if only to see the awesomeness of an army of four iron golems.

Hmm, I've used the golems a few times but to be honest I was not impressed. I needed help in my battle vs. the general in the Market District - all the golems were slain, I had to use dwarves to finish the job. Although to be fair, any melee army I summon takes casualties at that fight, and often at least 5.

[corey_russell]

 Coreduo (Human S&S Warrior) and Charlie (Dog) Update 10:
Deep Roads continued...

Coreduo and Charlie made it to the Dead Trenches. They encountered a bridge filled with darkspawn, they tried to clear as many as they could together, and if overwhelmed retreat to the legion of the dead, and repeat. This worked well, and oddly the duo seemed to do better than my parties (probably because there no squishy mages or rogues, heh). We do eventually clear the bridge.

We get into another big battle as these genlock archers lure us into an ambush with some Rhino creature, hurlocks and an emissary and yet more genlock archers. Coreduo took a fireball, and so equipped the fire-resistance armor for Charlie. Together they took down all the opposition well and successfully.

Coreduo and Charlie cleared two more rooms of enemies, mainly to get the legion of the dead armor pieces for Alistair (since I must have him for the Landsmeet). A third room of enemies is still no match for the duo...the duo goes down a tunnel and sees some hurlocks, 2 corrupted spiders and an emissary...charge! The emissary retreats, and more corrupted spiders appear! Uh oh (yep reload).

This particular segment often even makes my full parties reload. So new tactic -- we show ourselves...then immediately retreat to a farther back passageway. Only two corrupted spiders and the two hurlocks follow, Ok no problem. The duo charges the emissary again and this time the pesky mage goes down, as does his pets...

We do NOT fight the spear-master (or whatever he's called) -- I do not need his bow and its a waste of resources to fight him and his minions...plus can't open the chests anyways.

Next up was the bridge with the 8 shrieks..VERY frustrating battle...the shrieks kept hiding themselves forcing ourselves to switch targets, which meant the battle went much longer than necessary otherwise - the duo did prevail without too much trouble, nevertheless, just very slow...

For the undead room, we didn't fight first, we looted the Legion of the Dead chest piece - which meant we only had to fight 4 of them, rested to full HP/endurance and charged the remaining enemies. Charlie tried to kill the emissary but got stunned by a skeleton and other problems...Charlie eventually did succeed, but not before the emissary got a curse of mortality off - Charlie ran FAR away back the way we came until it wore off, healed and killed the single skeleton foolish enough to follow. Coreduo kept the rest of the skeletons busy during all this time, and once Charlie's skeleton was dead, he came up and helped Coreduo finish off the survivors.

Coreduo did NOT go up the passageway leading to the corrupted spiders and the two emissaries...only real reason would be to loot the chests, but since Coreduo can't, it's just a waste of resources...

Next up was the two elite Ogres...Coreduo got grabbed (of course), but Charlie managed to disloge Coreduo out of the ogre's hands with a charge. Then Coreduo got grabbed by the OTHER ogre (just wasn't his day I guess)...fortunately Charlie got a critical in and killed the ogre before it could kill Coreduo.

After obtaining the legion of the dead helm and key to the broodmother's area, was time to fight a mass of undead. The duo did fine, just took quite a while to burn all of the enemies down.

Time for Broodmother herself...a VERY LONG battle. The duo stood on that ground that the tentacles can't reach. Charlie waited patiently while Coreduo got to work with his bow. I did have some magical arrows, so used them to speed up the kill...Charlie's help was quite welcome vs. the shrieks...and then after much time the Broodmother gave up the ghost. Coreduo has some salves that gave minor nature resistance so used that to try to minimize damage from the spits. Lots of poutlices gulped down but the duo was prepared for that.

Full inventory pretty much by this point. I figured the duo would probably need some more basic poultices with the likely beating they will be taking with Branka and the golems, so went to Dalish Camp and Denerim to craft 99 more...

Once I entered Anvil of the Void, Oghren forced his way into the group...the trio did Ok at first, but then some genlock archers ran past our line...Coreduo chased them down and killed them, but now the party is vastly seperated...Coreduo returned only to find Oghren dieing to a crushing prison...drats should have stayed together, as Coreduo could have dispelled it if he were close enough, Oghren falls.

Coreduo now concentrates his efforts vs the elite ogre, but things aren't going well..there's an emissary in the mix still, and many archers as well as maybe 5 melees...this isn't working so Coreduo tries to retreat as his health is getting low. Charlie tries to follow his master but is knocked unconscious. Coreduo somehow manages to slay the ogre, the 5 melees and finally the emissary, whose staff was doing most of the damage to Coreduo. Unfortunately Coreduo's friends aren't awake yet as he's still in combat, and he has a lot of work ahead of him...



After a long slog, and a great many poultices consumed the last off the genlocks and hurlocks are slain and Coerduo's friends awake. Hopefully won't have many more epice battles like that...Corey_Russell's hands were getting sore from the constant use...forcing me to take a break so thought I would post progress so far.

Modifié par corey_russell, 30 janvier 2013 - 05:08 .

[sylvanaerie]

corey_russell wrote...

DWSmiley wrote...

Ah, ok. I no longer use pulling, not that there's anything wrong with it, nor armies. Though everyone should side with Branka at least once if only to see the awesomeness of an army of four iron golems.

Hmm, I've used the golems a few times but to be honest I was not impressed. I needed help in my battle vs. the general in the Market District - all the golems were slain, I had to use dwarves to finish the job. Although to be fair, any melee army I summon takes casualties at that fight, and often at least 5.

I'm able to go without the army in most of the fights in denerim except the courtyard at Fort Draken (with two young dragons being the worst to drop down on my warden and those three elites on the steps), the fight in the alienage (that caster hurts) and the archdemon fight (just too many added to just ignore as I go for the dragon). 

I did once try though to make it through Denerim without losing any of the army but some of them are really stupid, taking damage and just standing there while being pummeled (Redcliffe warriors are bad for that).  I usually use the dwarves, they seem hardier and do more damage than just bunching up and ignoring the fight.  And the elves in the fight at Fort Drakon courtyard (they shoot most of the lesser darkspawn and then pelt the elites with arrows while my warden and crew do the rest). 

I usually play on "Normal" as any harder would get me killed.  I'm not the best at playing video games.

[corey_russell]

If I were ever to do an entire run without needing to reload due to a wipe of the party, then I would take that as a clue it's time to up the difficulty. However, for any given run, I've had to reload a number of times, so I haven't reach that point yet, so I too play on normal.

[corey_russell]

 Coreduo (Human S&S Warrior) and Charlie (dog) Update 11

Coreduo, Charlie and Ogren finished Caridan's traps quite easily -- in fact they did better than when I have full parties even. By the way, I don't know if this is important, but that trap with the device with the faces that spit some sort of attack on the party...the way I did it was to concentrate the party's talents on a single undead - once dead, I activate an anvil, then we back off a considerable distance and just "wait" (entire party is selected, so no AI during this). I use lesser health potions during this if needed. Eventually the undead disappear, the face rotates and new undead spawn. I again concentrate talents on one undead and repeat the cycle. This technique always seems to work well.

When I got to Branka I realized something - no one in my party will mind if I secure the Anvil of the Void. While meta-gaming wise Anvil and Harrowmont are a bad ending in the end, my character just doensn't trust Bhelen and that's that. Also, fighting Bhelen and his Deshyrs might give me a level (which it did). Therefore we fought Caridan. I had Oghren assist the Warden, while Charlie went around and quickly used up all the lyrium vents, then Charlie assisted. I had Coreduo focus on the lesser golems, then finally Caridan himself. Fighting Caridan definitely seems easier than fighting Branka, though his loot is a lot worse in my opinion.

So we get to Ozzamar, crown Harrowmont, mop up Bhelen and his lackeys, leave the Chamber of Assemblies and finally we can boot out Oghren. It's time to go to Denerim to prepare for the Landsmeet, so we do.

First order of business was trying to rescue the queen. Coreduo kept his disguise as long as possible, then battled the enemies in Howe's dungeon. Oddly enough, the most difficult battle was NOT Howe and his minions, but rather the archers and Marbarris. Even the initial battle with the 4 archers doing scattershot was much more difficult than Howe, surprisngly. Anyways back the Marbarris, Coreduo went down and Charlie had to take down 4 marbarris himself - Charlie gulped down a massive amount of heal potions, but he did pull through for the team on our first attempt.

The next group of melees and the mage, Coreduo charged in the room and opened with Holy Smite while Charlie opened with overwhelm on the mage. This finished the mage quickly and the duo finished the rest with no problem, if a bit slow. The first room with the tortured noble son on the rack was no problem - key was to concentrate talents on the elite jailor first. The 2nd set of jailors require about 4 reloads -- I didn't notice the first time that one of the Jailors was an elite. What finally worked was luring the enemies down the hallway -- all still came but two archers, then the duo concentrated talents on the elite jailor - once he went down, the duo succeeded in finishing the rest. It should be noted that Coreduo uses deathroot poison all the time whenever fighting 3 or more enemies.

Ok finally time for Howe himself. I thought about pulling or pressing the attack, and decided I wanted to try to press the attack first. Namely, overwhelm and holy smite on the nearest mage, and once he goes down finish the other mage quick as possible. This worked much better than I could have hoped. The duo then whittled down the two minor melees then Howe himself. Lots of healing, but we had lots of potions (and finished with many left over), so the result was sure. Howe goes down...

We head back to Queen Anora. Initially tried to fight Ser Cauthrien by luring her to a side room, but it just didn't work - I would have needed a great many more greater health potions, which I can't make. So before fight was even over reloaded and just surrendered instead.

This meant I was prisoner at Fort Drakken. Unfortunately Charlie wasn't imprisoned so my "man and dog" group couldn't be formed. So instead did the next best thing, Alistair and Charlie since Alistair is Templar like Coreduo. Also Coreduo's persuasion stinks, so I don't think he could get out on his own (be easy with max coercion like I would have in normal runs).

Alistair and Charlie did well in their battles - Alistair doesn't quite have the HP of Coreduo, but he does seem to have more endurance. Once they freed Coreduo, it was of course no problem to do the remaining fight to leave the Fort.

I talked to Anora once I got back to Arl of Redcliffe's Estate, but just said I would support Alistair - arrangements with Anora are pointless, as she will go back on them since I have to duel (and kill) Loghain personally (in case it isn't clear, the reason I have to kill Loghain is to avoid more party members -- it's rather pointless to spare him anyways, since I'm just going to be Coreduo and Charlie the entire time). I have no persuasion to speak of, so Anora and Alistair is out. I talked to the nobles I helped in the Gnawed Noble tavern, stood in front of the entrance of the Alienage, and saved here. My hands were hurting, so thought I better take a break for the night.

Coreduo is level 16 at this point.

Modifié par corey_russell, 31 janvier 2013 - 07:03 .

[corey_russell]

I just ran into an old post that might be important for this run. According to this post if you have no rogue you game ends there. Leliana died in Lothering and Zevram was slain. Does anyone know if this post is still true for 1.04? Does my run end tonight? (I'm headed to the Alienage when I get home from work).

Modifié par corey_russell, 01 février 2013 - 12:01 .

[corey_russell]

Coreduo and Charlie - NOT the FINAL Update

Apparently that post above is NOT accurate. Coreduo and Charlie easily got access to the Hospice. However once in the apartments they ran into a door where you must have a key to get through. Apparently I DO have the key though as it let continue so my game is NOT over! Will post update once I get somewhere...good thing as ...Leliana never made it out of Lothering, and Zevram was slain for his ambush. This is NOT the Final Screenshot...yay for thoroughness.

Modifié par corey_russell, 01 février 2013 - 01:19 .

[Jeffonl1]

I think you can loot the key from the elf guard outside... or bribe him

[DWSmiley]

Good grief, how did you dig that up? I was mistaken. You get the key from either the Tevinter mages or the elf guard at the hospice.

[corey_russell]

 Coreduo (level 17 Human S&S Warrior) and Charlie (Dog): Update 12

The duo does well against the riff-raff in the Alienage. The first major challenge was that elite bow-woman with the traps, archers with scattershot and many melees. Several reloads, but died repeatedly. Before Chalie dies he opened a door to a small room...maybe this is our salvation? So the attempt that works, the duo goes immediately to the side room...we still got almost everyone but two archers, but apparently that was enough help. Too many archers, Charlie was slain. Coreduo had to all the work himself - Coreduo was saving some grenades, he used a number of them, figured it was OK to use on his own position since he can heal himself...below is a screenshot of this mess...



Coreduo does prevail...was worried about this fight nice to get past.

We eventually get to Claudius (the blood-mage slaver boss) - Charlie opens with overwhelm on Claudius, Coreduo opens with Holy Smite, deathroot poison, and shield pummel. Throughout the entire fight the duo only attacks Claudius. Too many archers again, Charlie goes down after a little while. Coreduo basically just made sure to keep his health up and press the attack. Claudius was more dangerous to his own men than Coreduo, as he kept sacrificing his men for more magic and health. Eventually, however, he ran out of health and was slain.

Coreduo reports to Arl Eamon and Alistair forced himself into the group for the Landsmeet. First, though, we had to deal with Ser Cauthrien. This went EXTREMELY well...the trio just concentrated their talents on Ser Cauthrien and her health actually fell reasonably fast...once she was down, the remaining enemies had no chance at all. Should be noted I have about 250 or so health poultices, with ability to make about 400 lessers if needed.

Finally we get to the Landsmeet. Anora backstabbed us (no surprise there...)...it made it a draw, with no coercion skill to speak of. Loghain tried to arrest Coreduo, but the trio again concentrated all talents and attacks on Loghain only - ignoring everyone else, even the mages. Alistair had poison skill so with both him and Coreduo using deathroot poison, it was quite useful. Took a while again, but we forced the revered mother to put a stop to the brawl.

Time for the one-on-one duel with Loghain. I forgot to try to have Charlie be Alistair's champion but oh well. Coreduo dueled Loghain, and Loghain managed to avoid many attacks...but Coreduo has mountains of poultices, Loghain doesn't so the result was sure, if a bit slow. Loghain was slain (so he couldn't join our small group...)

After talking to Alistair back at Eamon's estate in Denerim, Coreduo only lost -6 faction for putting an unhardened Alistair on the throne, not too bad, considering.

I will be doing the dark ritual IF I can leave Morrigan at Denerim's gate...if I cannot, then will reload and not do the ritual (e.g, trying to be Coreduo and Charlie only for the end).

[corey_russell]

Coreduo (Human S&S Warrior) and Charlie (Dog) Update 13:

Just a brief note. We secured the initial staging area near the gates. I forgotten that Morrigan has some tactics that fire off fireballs at medium/long range enemies so there was a bit of friendly fire...however it did seem to speed up the kills.

The #1 talent for the Warden here though is holy smite, as it slays many 1 HP grunts in a single blow, which also sped things up. Interestingly, there a bit less lag than usual, presumably because I have a much smaller complement of companions.

After this initial victory, Charlie and Coreduo entered Denerim proper -- we had to reload as Coreduo got chomped and Charlie was outgunned. The second time around the duo successfully dealt with the early enemy ogres. Charlie's "charge" ability can dislodge Coreduo if he is getting chomped, which is quite helpful.

When we got near the Chantry, Coreduo crept up very slowly..the duo took down a few ogres, and managed to pull the general all by himself! The duo backed off some more after the initial attacks, but Charlie got aggro and ran around but just couldn't hold together and was knocked out by the general. It was a long slog with the General, ton of potions gulped, but Coreduo managed it. Coreduo immediately replaced the knocker with the corruption - now with a spirit amulet we have, we can get 95% spirit resistance without any balms at all! (though we do have a ton of spirit balms). This did raise Coreduo's defense a bit too, not too high though just about 115.

It was getting late, so decided to save at exit of area. It should be noted that due to lack of gold Coreduo was not able afford even ONE epic item (e.g. like spellward)...most expensive thing he bought has only been the knight commander's plate, though a very good purchase...

[sylvanaerie]

This has been very interesting. Now just have to deal with the caster in the Alienage and the courtyard of the palace/fort drakon. Then the Archdemon.

[corey_russell]

 Coreduo (Human S&S Warrior) and Charlie (Dog) update 14:
Alienage Battle:
This was pretty tough - a lot of resources used here. Holy Smite used whenever possible to wipe out large numbers of the 1 HP grunts. Many times Coreduo was forced to retreat, kill the followers, then return etc. Coreduo got hit with a curse of mortality and had to run all the way back to where he entered the area before it wore off and he could heal himself. Charlie fell about 1/3 the way through the enemies - lot of grenades used when surrounded by non-elites. Amazingly Coreduo managed to engage the mage General 1-on-1 (that is, no one else interfered) - he won pretty cleanly. Just a few more darkspawn left...success! This is the first time doing this without an army for me.

Defense of the Gates:
Alistair, Oghren, Morrigan and Shale handled this extremely easily - I didn't even need to call for army support. And the quatrro only used 6 lesser health potions, not bad at all. I just had Alistair use his bow - he was able to equip the anti undead/beast bow by taking ring of Honnleath from Oghren and giving to Alistair.

Palace Area:
No army used, but was extremely difficult. Many, many times during this engagement, if the duo was getting overwhelmed, they would withdraw a good distance, deal with followers, then return to previous group of enemies and resume battling. Charlie fell unconscious a number of times here. Great amount of resources was used, many health potions (of course) but also grenades were needed and used too. The duo managed to battle just to the plateau that has the entrance to Fort Drakken courtyard - the enemy mages killed the duo - Reload.

Next attempt, Charlie did overwhelm and Coreduo did Holy Smite/Shield Pummel on the enemy elite emissary - much better this time! Charlie still went down, however. Coreduo was again forced to withdraw, slay who followed, and return for survivors to finish them off. This worked however, and finally access to Fort Drakken courtyard has been achieved, and without an army.

Fort Drakken Entrance (Surface):
The duo tried it on their own but were completely overwhelmed. Too many ranged attackers and too many elites. The duo couldn't even make it close. Out of my at least 12 runs I've done, this was the FIRST time I've ever sided with the Templars - decided would try again with their help, to see how they do. Even with their help, was a tough battle. Templars paid a pretty high price themselves, 9/16 after this battle. Charlie went down again...

My next post should be my last post, one way or another.

[corey_russell]

 Coreduo (Human S&S Warrior) and Charlie (Dog) - FINAL Update

Fort Drakken (interior)
As we entered the Fort, we encountered many shrieks and an emissary. The duo handled these well, primarily by not showing themselves to the emissary until the shrieks were all dead.

Another battle - shapeshifters and mass of undead - not too much trouble either by this point.

Room with 3 elite darkspawn melees - we had more trouble that I expected here, in fact Charlie was knocked out even - Coreduo prevailed first attempt, nevertheless.

Assassin boss with acolytes -- lots of health poultice gulping, but otherwise a rather routine affair. Just kill the trash first, then whittle the boss to nothing.

Two elite ogre and elite emissary battle -- had to reload, this very hard battle, Coreduo could barely get a swing in before being knocked around by one of the ogres. The duo concentrated talents on the emissary, then an ogre. The ogre got to near death and then grabbed Coreduo and killed him...moments later Charlie killed that ogre.

However, there was still one ogre left! And Charlie's talents vs. the ogre are rather useless. I was using the stamina increase armor, but switched to West Hills (+9 defense), also switched to the +8 AC/+2 armor penetration armor for a tad more AC. Lot of poultice gulping, but Charlie managed to slay this final Ogre, and Coreduo woke up.

Final Battle
Coreduo decided he would attempt this battle without an army. His weapon of choice vs. the arch-demon was the Fal'din Reach. Without a powerful healer, Coreduo knew Charlie should keep his distance (party on hold). Basically, it was bow all the way, and if the dragon every got close (which it did a few times), the duo would heal/run. Numerous lesser heal potions gulped by the duo, and spirit balms (which the party had a ton of). Coreduo had 85% spirit resistance.

The battle raged all over the place, but only a single darkspawn even saw Coreduo the entire time and it used its bow - what's interesting is the arch-demon sacrificed it, using something call "Darkspawn detonate" ability, or something like that. It was amusing to watch Arl Eamon and Gregoir approach the arch-demon and grabbed. The following screenshot is Charlie's only contribution to the battle, he used a ballista a few times.


Charlie repeatedly hit the arch-demon and it looked like the demon had zero health but it wasn't dying - switched to Coreduo and a single arrow from him (with me in control) finished the deed.

Coreduo told Alistair he would be Chancellor, but would also search for Morrigan, time-permitting. It was a fun run, and it was nice learning what I could do in Dragon-Age, with less. This run took 68 hours of real time, or there-abouts. Final stats below:

Modifié par corey_russell, 02 février 2013 - 04:23 .

[DWSmiley]

Almost no armies - very nice with a party of two and no legendary gear. Though my mouse hand aches in sympathy with how long some of those battles must have been.

Great trip report. Might I suggest another duo? A blood mage and Sten would be an interesting combo. .

[corey_russell]

DWSmiley wrote...

Almost no armies - very nice with a party of two and no legendary gear. Though my mouse hand aches in sympathy with how long some of those battles must have been.

Great trip report. Might I suggest another duo? A blood mage and Sten would be an interesting combo. .

Thanks for the kudos. I was thinking of doing another duo at some point...however, to do blood mage/Sten, I would have to make the Warden a mage (I haven't even unlocked blood mage yet, though I know how) - I dislike playing mage to be honest, I vastly prefer melee types. That was in fact on every enjoyable part of this run, I didn't need to micromanage any mages.

At the moment was more leaning toward Rogue (Warden) and Alistair. I'm sure that's been done before, but with an ability to loot the chests and do the "Crime Spree" quests, perhaps we won't be hurting for gold as much. I looked at my total gold spent this last run and I only spent 238 gold - Knight Commander's Plate, Dog armors and heal potions were pretty much it (I crafted 2300 potions).

EDIT: But even rogue/Sten could be quite a challenge, as Sten won't be able to access Templar class until level 14. Will have to think about it...being a Templar early was a key feature of this run (came in handy at the mage's tower for sure).

Modifié par corey_russell, 02 février 2013 - 11:51 .

[sylvanaerie]

This was very interesting Corey, thanks for sharing your run, it was a fun read!

[corey_russell]

sylvanaerie wrote...

This was very interesting Corey, thanks for sharing your run, it was a fun read!

You're quite welcome, SylvanAerie. Next time I do a duo run, I will post in a similar format. I've been doing quite a bit of Dragon Age lately, so it will probably be a while before I do so (e.g., for sure won't start the duo run sooner than 3 weeks from now).