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[Sylaar]

Sorry for the wall of text.

I tried to design an effective build that would also exploit CCC as much as possible and provide many other synergies.

The first step is to find four companions (without the champion) that would allow a lot of different CCC.

Then I tried to find "weakest link" among the four companions chosen whose exclusion from the party would benefit the most to the team.

It's not too tedious to consider all the possible cases since so many of them can be excluded by a few logical arguments:

-first we need at least a warrior, a rogue and a mage to inflict each of the three effects (respectively stagger, disorient and brittle)

-Then we need to double one of those classes (since we need a fourth companion)

 

a) choosing the warrior

We have to chose between a sword a shield (Aveline) and a 2H warrior (Fenris)

The S&S ability tree creates staggers via abilities and detonates disoriented enemies whilst the 2H ability tree allows Fenris to create staggers via his high critical chance and to detonate brittles via abilities.

I think that for CCC the S&S tree is better because it's the only tree that consistently allows detonating groups of disoriented target walking bomb detonated by upgraded spirit bolt or upgraded stone fist is less reliable).

And also the archery tree is a better detonator of brittle since it can do at range.

So let's chose Aveline.

 

b ) choosing the rogue

We have to chose between an archer (Varric and Sebastian) or a 2W (isabella).

I prefer the archer because as said previously, it's the most efficient brittle detonator whereas the 2W tree is a less efficient solution for exploiting staggers than upgraded chain lightning for mages or hemorrhage or fist of the maker for Hawke.

Between Varric and Sebastian most people would chose Varric on the basis of a higher DPS than Sebastian but I disagree with that choice.

Indeed, assuming that Varric has a higher DPS (mostly because he's a faster shooter), Sebastian equipped with his specific dlc gear is more durable than varric and his decoy is very useful to drop threat outside of the party.

And being durable is very important for a CCC party because each of the companions is (almost) indispensable to set a certain combo. For instance only Sebastian can detonate brittle in this party.

But also Sebastian has more synergy with the rest of the party because of his wounding arrow debuff which can reduce damage resistance of targets by up to 45% (which by the way also offset Varric’s speed advantage).

I assume Sebastian is equipped with one of his bow that levels up (the fire bow is arguably better than Bianca because elemental damage resistance of enemies tend to be lower than physical resistance which is armor).

So I choose Sebastian.

 

c) choosing the mage

I choose Merril because she’s a better offensive mage and I’m interested in CCC. Anders can do CCC as well but is more of a healer.

 

d) choosing the fourth companion.

I don’t want another warrior to compete with Aveline for Aggro. Beside I can detonate brittle already with my archer.

Do I want another rogue?

Not Isabella because she would get killed if I use a nuke ability like firestorm. 

Having both Varric and Sebastian focusing fire is one of the quickest ways to dispatch elite enemies.

But on the other hand, on the higher levels their abilities will be very similar which creates redundancy instead of synergy.

So I chose a mage: Anders (and isn’t a healer providing synergy?)

 

e) choosing the champion

Now that we have Aveline, Sebastian, Merril and Anders, which one of those should be replaced the most advantageously with Hawke?

Aveline? No, she’s an excellent tank thanks to her damage resistance, and warrior specialization I think are not that great.

Sebastian? He’s great as an elite killer, I don’t think that archer Hawke is a great improvement for CCC.

It makes also more sense for Hawke to replace one of the two mages because Hawke has two specialization trees unlike companions, and the really powerful CCC abilities are not in the specializations.

If I chose a warrior or rogue Hawke he would have less abilities outside of his specialization but I would not have that problem with two mages because even if mage Hawke has more specialization abilities the other mage can have more abilities from the main trees.

Shall Hawke replace Merril or Anders? It depends on Hawke’s specialization.

Do I want a BM Healer, BM FM or FM Healer?

In other words which specialization is the less rewarding?

I think it’s Force Mage because most of the effect that can be achieved with FM abilities can also be done with other spells or abilities.

For example you can prevent group of enemies from coming towards you with Gravitic ring, but also with Firestorm or upgraded rain of arrows. The telekinetic burst can be replaced with a glyph of repulsion or a mind blast.

Also there is great synergy between BM and healer for obvious reasons. The +10 constitution bonus in the healer specialization is amazing.

So I chose BM Healer Hawke, and he will replace Anders because a second healer is redundant.

 

My party is Aveline, Merril, Sebastian and BM healer hawke.

What are the possible combos?

Aveline creates staggers (with the W&S and warmonger trees)

And detonates disoriented with the W&S tree.

Sebastian creates disoriented with the Sabotage tree (and upgraded pinning shot) and detonates brittle with the archery tree.

Merril creates brittle with the elemental and primal tree, and detonates stagger and disoriented with the primal tree.

Hawke detonates disoriented with the upgraded spirit bolt and staggered with the upgraded crushing prison and hemorrhage.

 

When you have that many combo setting them manually can be cumbersome: efficient tactics are a great help and will be the subject of my next post (specific tactics for that party and thoses combos)

[Sylaar]

I tried to explain the logic behind my choice of party selected for CCC. I hope the post was expressed clearly enough, I can give tips to less experience players and receive advice from more experienced ones.

 

That being said this choice of party can be so powerful that in nightmare, without potions, I didn't need to control a character, the tactics were doing most of the work, I could win a battles with the whole party naked (no gear equiped) and the for the Orsino battle I had to control Sebastian and do nothing otherwise the battle would finish too quickly and the end of battle animation would not appear.

 

If you want to quickly finish dragon age 2 before inquisition arrive, you can try this party and the tactics described in the next topic.

 

I'll describe in a few line how to allocate attribute points and gear to this party:

 

attribute point: in general for each class on a geared up character allocate point to the main stat (strength for a warrior, dex for a rogue etc) until a sweetspot on the attack level when it increases more slowly with each point. (this level tends to be attack between 93% and 98%)

 

Then for Aveline and Sebastian put some willpower so that they can fire a few (but not all) of their active abilities in a row even with their main sustainable talent active (for instance precision for Sebastian). Blood mage hawke still need enough willpower to put on some pieces of mage armor. Merril needs no willpower.

Sebastian needs 29 cunning at the last act to open master chest or disarm master trap with a bonus gear.

Then all the rest goes to constitution. Indeed for a CCC party survival of all team member is more important than achieving the highest DPS possible of team member individually, including hawke. The result is an incredible survivability for this party, specially for a blood mage healer Hawke that can resuscitate his party and gets the 10 constitution bonus and all the healing spells from healer and BM combined.

 

The gear (not all but only the main ones that make a difference):

 

weapon:

Sebastian has his two DLC bows.

Merril: freedom's promise staff

Mage hawke: malcolm's honor

Aveline: the edge of night, fadeshear and glandivalis against sprit resistant enemy, and courage shield.

 

armor for hawke:

apostate's mask

aldenon's vestments

stalwart threads

 

accessories:

specific dlc for the party (eg chevalier's banded pride for aveline..)

ring of the ferryman for Merril

puzzle ring of the black fox for Sebastian

 

runes:

devastation on all weapons, primeval on Sebastian for 40% speed increase on his fire bow. indeed speed synergises very well for the rogues (they get mana each time they strike or fire a bow) and Sebastian particularly well because of his specialty tree that depends on the number of shots in a chain.

vitality rune on the smallest piece of armor (then maker's sigh to reallocate attribute points). Everything else rune of protection except aveline;

A rival Aveline properly geared up can get more than 50% damage resistance and 40% without any sustainable or effect active.

That means 90% magic resistant, so no need for a cold or electricity rune.

She's just 45% resistant to spirit therefore a spirit resistance rune on her shield should be enough and on her armor more than enough.

On the shield you can put the vitality rune and a fire resistance rune. On the other shield put a nature resistance rune for the few occasions when she is exposed to nature damage.

with 60% armor on top of her 50% damage resistance physical damage won't affect her too much.

[Sylaar]

erratum. I meant: A rival Aveline properly geared up can get more than 50% damage resistance and 40% magic without any sustainable or effect active.

That means 90% resistant against magic (damage resistant is factored in also against magic), so no need for a cold or electricity rune.