20 réponses à ce sujet

[MuhidinSaid]

So i've booted this game up again for the first time in years, trying hard mode because normal was actually too incredibly dull and easy for me, and it was ok for awhile, i easily trudged thru the origin story and the korcari wilds, but as early as ostagar and the tower of ishal i found myself really struggling on some of the fights. Ranged enemies in particular spread out through the map and traps became my bane, i'd usually get through the fights with one or two characters dying but i made it. I even did the game in the suggested difficulty order, so far I've done circle tower and redcliffe, and I've noticed my biggest problem is that my elven mage just does too much damage and attracts far too much aggro and dies too quickly. I make use of cc such as cone of cold, glyph of repulsion, etc, but even it isn't enough. I do what I can to make sure zevran is using poisons and backstabbing and have shield wall with alistair up. The gear is good, at least for me and alistair, wynne and zevran are perhaps maybe lacking a bit but they're ok. I forget but I believe I'm level 12*or 13, i forget). I've done all the side quests and even Shale's dlc, but i still don't seem up to par.

 

I can't get alistair or shale to taunt off her quickly, and wynne/morrigan usually expend too much mana to really be of too much help in long fights without chugging down several lyrium potions. What am I doing wrong? I'm at the Brecilian forest now and the difficulty has really been turned up a notch, I'm dying in almost every fight, the werewolves are brutal, the revenant even more so. Despite that i've managed to make it into the lower ruins section and I think I've finally gotten in way over my head. I have a blood mage who is specced into the nature, frost, and mana schools, zevran, wynne and alistair are in my party. I'm starting to run low on health potions. I'm playing on a 360 so tactically I'm at a disadvantage compared to pc players, I'm at the elven ritual fight with the greater shades and the elven spirit mage and even with cc I find myself getting clobbered.

 

What would a good strategy be, play this akin to an mmo? Let alistair get a decent amount of aggro, have my two dps focus fire on the adds? Wynne strictly on healing mode? I've messed around with their tactics to establish more of a cohesive group. I'm really enjoying this game, I spare no expense on potions, poisons and gear, but I feel like I'm missing something. Should I come back with a different group? Invest some money into traps? So far as I know the Brecilian forest SHOULD be the easiest zone after circle tower and redcliffe, right? I can't see myself faring any better in denerim, orzammar, or haven.

 

Any tips, combat guide videos for the console(and not for pc) would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Elhanan]

Personally, I forget about Aggro, and avoid the use of AoE spells and Talents on Tactics; use them manually to avoid Friendly Fire or Combo accidents.

One could activate Spell Might temporarily, and use Mana Clash against the Demons and the Mage; then deactivate Spell Might. Note: using Spell Might to cast some buffs before the fight may also be helpful, as they may remain higher even after deactivation.

Paralysis Explosion combo can be useful, but use caution with application. Place the Glyph of Repulsion on the Mage, then overlay a Glyph of Paralysis.

Keeping your Mages back using Ranged Tactics can be helpful, and I pretty much keep Alistair in Shield Wall all the time, too.

[Muspade]

Bring healing - 1 or 2 mages.

Learn "Force field" - 1 or 2 mages.

 

Learn cone of cold, possibly one of the best crowd control abilities in the game. 

Bring one warrior capable of taunting.

Run into a pack of mobs > Taunt > Forcefield the taunter > Slowly pick off your foes.

Works most of the time.

[Dutchess]

I wouldn't really bother with Mana Clash, honestly. Most mages can be knocked on their ass someway and then killed quickly, and the magical bosses tend to resist the spell (I had to try like five times on Gaxkang before it hurt him). It takes too long to reach as well. *rereads* Apparently you already have that ability? In that case use it on mages immediately.

 

You have cone of cold, so that's great. Use it as often as you can and freeze as many enemies as possible each time. Then try to shatter them. This can be achieved by dealing a critical hit. Have Wynne use stonefist on one, let Zevran do flurry from behind on another, and use shield bash with Alistair (not 100% certain if I named the right ability. Check the description to see if it deals a critical hit). 

 

If your taunt cooldown it too long, set the tactics of your other characters to defend your mage, especially Alistair. Enemy --> attacking main character --> shield pummel for Alistair, for instance. Use as many stuns and knock downs as possible to keep damage off your mage. Focus the attacks of your party on one enemy at the time to bring them down quickly. 

 

Deactivate some of the buffs in Wynne's tactics if she runs out of mana too quickly so she has more energy left to heal your party. 

 

You mentioned traps giving you problems. Rogues need high cunning or points in lockpicking to disarm them, so Zevran starts at a disadvantage on that front. If he does have points in lockpicking already by now, you can have him go in stealth and disarm all the traps before your party storms forward for battle. 

 

I've found that enemies tend to attack the first character they see, and with your mage in front that tends to be her. If enemies jump on you from the start you can try controlling Alistair so he is at the front of the party and draws aggro first. 

 

As the poster above me mentioned, force field is a very useful ability. Using it on a warrior after taunt can backfire if your mage really does enough damage to make enemies angry, though. I often use it on the strongest enemy present (for instance revenant) so I have some time to take down the lower ranks.

[KaiserShep]

I'd say Leliana is the better option for dealing with traps, considering that she comes to the party much sooner.

[MuhidinSaid]

Personally, I forget about Aggro, and avoid the use of AoE spells and Talents on Tactics; use them manually to avoid Friendly Fire or Combo accidents.

One could activate Spell Might temporarily, and use Mana Clash against the Demons and the Mage; then deactivate Spell Might. Note: using Spell Might to cast some buffs before the fight may also be helpful, as they may remain higher even after deactivation.

Paralysis Explosion combo can be useful, but use caution with application. Place the Glyph of Repulsion on the Mage, then overlay a Glyph of Paralysis.

Keeping your Mages back using Ranged Tactics can be helpful, and I pretty much keep Alistair in Shield Wall all the time, too.

 

I use spell might in conjunction with blood magic and it works really well, but the aggro problem is huge, my mage does so much damage she just gets picked off in two seconds. I'll fiddle with the tactics some more to make sure my tank, healer, and dps do everything they can to peel adds, taunt, heal,etc keep her alive.

 

I unfortunately don't have mana clash yet, I'm one step away from it. I've been using mana drain and mana cleanse at the beginning of fights but it doesn't seem to slow enemy casters down much. I always make sure to glyph one enemy but easily my biggest mistake is not setting Wynne's tactics to heal only, she expends so much mana dpsing and buffing us, and I'm becoming increasingly liberal with my use of health and lyrium pots. Alistair's gear is good for his level and I've specced him to be a tank(shield wall, threaten, stuns) but he is just way too squishy, Shale however is practically indestructible even outside of tank mode.

 

I've maxed out the frost tree but unfortunately blizzard seems to be quite useless, it kills and ccs me as quickly as it does my enemies.

 

Will make sure to strictly set aoe spells to manual use, I've become pretty adept at aiming cone of cold without freezing my allies though.

[MuhidinSaid]

Bring healing - 1 or 2 mages.

Learn "Force field" - 1 or 2 mages.

 

Learn cone of cold, possibly one of the best crowd control abilities in the game. 

Bring one warrior capable of taunting.

Run into a pack of mobs > Taunt > Forcefield the taunter > Slowly pick off your foes.

Works most of the time.

I have either wynne or morrigan healing with me offhealing, and I make use of cone of cold at every opportunity, don't have forcefield yet, my biggest mistake with alistair is purchasing the threat sustained buff but not the activated threaten ability so he can aggro enemies immediately.

 

Another mistake I do is not having my party hammer down one enemy at a time, but I'm still not sure whether or not to focus on the stronger or weaker ones first. The weaker ones are more numerous and the stronger ones do more damage the longer they're alive. I also tend to frequently have either myself or party members break cc on cced targets,which is frustrating.

[MuhidinSaid]

I wouldn't really bother with Mana Clash, honestly. Most mages can be knocked on their ass someway and then killed quickly, and the magical bosses tend to resist the spell (I had to try like five times on Gaxkang before it hurt him). It takes too long to reach as well. *rereads* Apparently you already have that ability? In that case use it on mages immediately.

 

You have cone of cold, so that's great. Use it as often as you can and freeze as many enemies as possible each time. Then try to shatter them. This can be achieved by dealing a critical hit. Have Wynne use stonefist on one, let Zevran do flurry from behind on another, and use shield bash with Alistair (not 100% certain if I named the right ability. Check the description to see if it deals a critical hit). 

 

If your taunt cooldown it too long, set the tactics of your other characters to defend your mage, especially Alistair. Enemy --> attacking main character --> shield pummel for Alistair, for instance. Use as many stuns and knock downs as possible to keep damage off your mage. Focus the attacks of your party on one enemy at the time to bring them down quickly. 

 

Deactivate some of the buffs in Wynne's tactics if she runs out of mana too quickly so she has more energy left to heal your party. 

 

You mentioned traps giving you problems. Rogues need high cunning or points in lockpicking to disarm them, so Zevran starts at a disadvantage on that front. If he does have points in lockpicking already by now, you can have him go in stealth and disarm all the traps before your party storms forward for battle. 

 

I've found that enemies tend to attack the first character they see, and with your mage in front that tends to be her. If enemies jump on you from the start you can try controlling Alistair so he is at the front of the party and draws aggro first. 

 

As the poster above me mentioned, force field is a very useful ability. Using it on a warrior after taunt can backfire if your mage really does enough damage to make enemies angry, though. I often use it on the strongest enemy present (for instance revenant) so I have some time to take down the lower ranks.

 

Don't have mana clash yet, but I find that using mana drain and cleanse on casters is far less effective than I'd hoped

 

I often follow up cone of cold with flame blast, I do frequently attempt shatters(stonefist,etc) but it's just not well coordinated, something I will definitely focus on more. Can all abilities do critical hits or merely certain ones?

 

Good idea, Alistair has several excellent stuns I can put to good use, on manual use anyway.

 

Yep, biggest problem with Wynne is that she expends her mana too quickly buffing people and not healing them, I buff her with rejuvenate sometimes to help.

 

Only recently got Zevran, I actually haven't even specced him in stealth or lockpicking, there's no way to reset and respec characters on the console is there? I've heard pc players can do it.

 

Will definitely spec into more cc spells, I use cone of cold and glyph of paralysis to cc enemies and it works great. QUick question though, might sound silly but does attacking a cced character break the cc itself?

[Dutchess]

I'm not 100% certain about all abilities doing critical hits. I don't think so. With characters like Alistair and Sten I'd look at the description and go with an ability that promises a critical hit. Auto attacks can be critical hits as well, but how likely they are depends on the character. Backstabbing rogues will have a much higher chance of doing a critical hit than a sword & shield warrior. 

 

You can't respec characters, no. Only in Awakening. I'm pretty sure Zevran does start with at least one point in stealth, though. You can set up his tactics to always activate stealth so you can at least get one likely critical hit when combat starts. The problem with Zevran is that he is most lethal when he can backstab, which requires manual positioning on console (on PC there's a nice mod that automates that). I can't bring myself to say you should leave him behind, because Zevran is just awesome, and it should be perfectly possible to play the game with him in your party instead of, say, Leliana, but for him to shine he needs micromanaging. You're probably pausing the game often to set up your mage's spells anyway, so might as well guide Zevran to an enemy's flank at the same time. Also make sure he always has momentum activated, because it makes his attack speeds very fast.

 

Attacking a cced character does not break the cc. The cc depends on the spell and probably the enemy's mental and physical resistance as well. Elites tend to break free from stuns and such more quickly. But feel free to hack away at stunned/frozen/knocked down enemies.

[Elhanan]

I use spell might in conjunction with blood magic and it works really well, but the aggro problem is huge, my mage does so much damage she just gets picked off in two seconds. I'll fiddle with the tactics some more to make sure my tank, healer, and dps do everything they can to peel adds, taunt, heal,etc keep her alive.
 
I unfortunately don't have mana clash yet, I'm one step away from it. I've been using mana drain and mana cleanse at the beginning of fights but it doesn't seem to slow enemy casters down much. I always make sure to glyph one enemy but easily my biggest mistake is not setting Wynne's tactics to heal only, she expends so much mana dpsing and buffing us, and I'm becoming increasingly liberal with my use of health and lyrium pots. Alistair's gear is good for his level and I've specced him to be a tank(shield wall, threaten, stuns) but he is just way too squishy, Shale however is practically indestructible even outside of tank mode.
 
I've maxed out the frost tree but unfortunately blizzard seems to be quite useless, it kills and ccs me as quickly as it does my enemies.
 
Will make sure to strictly set aoe spells to manual use, I've become pretty adept at aiming cone of cold without freezing my allies though.

For Mages, I recommend setting If Attacked by Melee, use Glyph of Repulsion on Self in Tactics; save Glyph of Paralysis for manual use only to avoid unwanted Para-Explosions. Other like spells (eg; Mind Blast) are also useful; some like MB are better for being Surrounded by small numbers. Stone Fist is quite handy for Knockdowns on opposing mages and archers, but is also useful at removing a melee irritant if needed.

[luism]

I play on both PC and ps3 and prefer ps3 even though it has no tac cam. I don't use a lot of cc I my set ups I mainly use mind blast and crushing prison on mages. For brecilian werewolves I usually have wynne stone fist wolves off characters who have been over whelmed if no shield bash or other stun is up.

[MuhidinSaid]

Your tips really helped, I meddled with the tactics and my group is far more well-rounded, Alistair is fairly tanky but my mage and wynne still expend way too much mana keeping him up, particularly against revenants, who i've really been struggling against, I just finished nature of the beast, mana clash was a huge help, it pretty much took off 70% of Zarathon's health. The werewolves were a bit tough but I cced one and got my teammates to get a shatter off on two, the rest were easy enough to mop up. I think my one issue is that I'm underleveled, I just finished nature of the beast at 13, despite doing everything in order so far. After lothering I got shale, did circle tower and redcliffe, and then brecilian forest. If I did warden's keep how much xp and gear would I get to make denerim/haven and orzammar more manageable? Alistair and Wynne are lvl 11 but zevran's rounding on 14.

 

And again, what level would be good to come back and tackle the brecilian forest revenants? I killed one in the lower ruins for black vials but the one in the werewolf lair proved too much, his aura of weakness and double strike make it difficult for meleers so I put zevran on ranged duty, alistair tanks him alone with wynne buffing him with heroic defense and healing him with my mage healing as well. but my problem is that I'm not doing enough damage to kill him quick enough for my tank and healer to last. Any tips?

 

I'm doing every side quest that's on the way and random encounter quests too, am I ready for denerim or should I head to haven first?

[Elhanan]

I generally play Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep right after Lothering, and Return to Ostegar after 18th lvl or so. If you are under-leveled, be sure to use the various boards for additional quests.

Mana Clash should aid with the lesser demons in the Revenant battles. And perhaps these tips may be of help:

http://dragonage.wik...ant_(strategy)

[MuhidinSaid]

Thanks again,  what behavior presets would you recommend for party members? For my tanks and melee dps I have them on aggressive, ranged dps on ranged, and healers on cautious/defensive.

[Elhanan]

I use Ranged on Mages and archers, and Default on Warriors (cannot recall what is chosen for Zevran).

[TheMadHarridan]

I use ranged for archers and mages and aggressive for everyone else. It usually works well.

I think the only time I ever used cautious was when babysitting my golem during the Harvester battle in GoA. It was not a wise choice on my part. Massive fail. I should have put him on ranged.

[MuhidinSaid]

Yeah I'm really favoring the aggressive approach too. I'm starting to get a feel for all of the characters and playing to their strengths, but I'm having a little trouble with sten, I've outfitted him with medium armor and the 2h yusaris, but he is just so fragile, is he meant to be like that? because even with alistair/shale tanking he goes down way too much, I like to use him to focus dps and offtank, the former he does well despite being very slow, the latter he gets cut to ribbons, I've also been having trouble finding some good rings for him. I'm thinking of mixing up his gear so he has a mix of heavy and medium armor, so the fatigue penalty won't be too bad. I wonder, will I have the same problem when I get oghren? 

 

Also, what's up with arrow of slaying? I use it with leliana during the opening of a fight, but it doesn't crit(or really do any damage so far as I can see), is it bugged? 

 

Your tips have all been really helpful, I just finished denerim(excluding the alienage and the other stuff ofc) and some of the fights(including the blood mage lair) were quite tough. I'm off to haven after doing some open world side quests, now at lvl 14(for some reason zevran is 15 and the other comps are rounding out between 12-13), what should I watch out for? I'm still a little frustrated at how under-leveled I seem to be though, or specifically, my companions. At lvl 16 I plan to go back to brecilian forests and tackle the revenant, can I handle haven? I know the high dragon fight is the endgame( although drakeskin armor on me or my tank will help offset it) but is there anything else to note? 

[MuhidinSaid]

Update, now it almost seems too easy, I'm breezing through everything. Went back to brecilian forest and killed all the revenants fairly easily, got alistair the sweet juggernaut armor and I'm breezing thru haven as well. If I didn't know better I'd say i accidentally turned the difficulty level down. There is one thing though, what's the best way to deal with ranged targets? CC or focus/aoe? They can do some pretty good damage if left unchecked, i.e. scattershot, one random encounter with bandits had me do two reloads, although the hardest battle so far for me has been the blood mage quest in denerim.

[Elhanan]

One encounter that could be a bit more challenging lies in the back streets of Denerim. I do not know what triggers it, but I was caught solo in those alleys by more than a score of Howe's guards as I recall. It took a while to make it out of there, but I dood it!

[MuhidinSaid]

I've fought my way past two different groups of guards through the back streets, it's tough simply because they're so numerous and spread out, with melee and ranged contingents(the latter behind annoying barricades). Trying to get them clustered so you can set up a nice series of aoes is difficult only because you need to survive and avoid friendly fire.

 

I think I've done all of the back alley quests though, the guards(not sure if howes) provided a decent challenge, but I did manage to(admittedly) hobble out of them more or less intact. With the blood mage lair only Shale's health regen kept me going, a few of the fights she soloed. The final fight I did with leliana after my group all died( at least after killing everyone except for the lieutenant lvl bodyguard), i had to kite him with pinning and crippling shot and bombs.

[Thing The Wiz]

Looks like you're getting the hang of hard mode now. You'll soon be ready for nightmare - you'll see a real difference there with friendly fire conséquences.....