Funny, the flavor/theme of the artificer is about creating traps but a lot are saying that isn't about traps.
I know! I think they wanted it to be trap related, but missed at some point. There simply isn't room for a trap/control character in a short-combat-action-game like DA:I.
Though I am not complaining. The traps can be used, of course, and it does give you some flavor to just spamming long shot 
IMHO I came to the conclusion that flask of fire is on purpose behaving as it is regarding focus, because that's pretty much the only shining point of Tempest as far as damage goes. Since it's single target focus ability it's not considered broken (and is not on it's own) and is really the major thing standing for a Tempest Rogue.
They added the perceptive trait to couple mobs and bosses specially to prevent an Assassination Rogue from soloing ALL content.
And they missed the mark with artificer and probably this where they should divert their attention to make it actually be about traps - sure keep the dps sustain / stamina regen / cooldown redux whatever, but tie them to traps, to actually make you use what defines the specialization - like for example when a trap is triggered you get cd redux and stamina refunded etc.
It just makes you wonder how comes all mage base trees have something good in them and no matter how you specialize you still are encouraged to pick various stuff from base trees to customize your mage while still getting useful spells and passives depending on flavor, without majorly impacting your performance.
Do the passives from the dual daggers tree work for archers?
Yes they do
Some point on Tempest.
With proper build you can cycle flasks non-stop with correct build.
You have CD reduction from SB , and Flask Master is 25% chance to not put your flask on consumption. You can use few SB during 3 flask cycle, even assuming 25% didnt procd - you got first flask CD reduction (assuming you initiated with lightning or frost) to point where you get one new even FM didnt worked. Assuming that will be your 4th flask.
Add to this FM 25%.
You never out, and do not understimate Fire Flask. It do great damage, pop frozen stuff, rupture multiple enemies in one go after templar stuff.
Tempest is about pulling endless team combos, and you do not know that it seems.
No-one can really spam precision shatterers or ruptures when needed, tank and draw attention while freezing everyone , and Zoom around battlefield in order to spread your PW dot on each single target while backstabbing it.
My Tempest cycle is few nightmares, few ruptures, few shartterings and posion on each single nearby target. Beat that.
Or , as option another means to solo as DW Tempest is play as MP Alchemist played : Stealth, Flank Attack with Skirmisher, PW and Fire Flask. Everything else is upgrade. Perceptives tho is different thing but you got frosties/sleeps for thise. I going to run solo tempest run soon (archer till skyhold tho)
Funny, the flavor/theme of the artificer is about creating traps but a lot are saying that isn't about traps.
You'd think, but actually focusing on Archery abilities and the stamina/critical/cooldown passives makes the Archer Artificer the equivalent of bringing a Gatling gun to a musket battle.
Traps are relegated only to bringing assassins out of stealth.
You'd think, but actually focusing on Archery abilities and the stamina/critical/cooldown passives makes the Archer Artificer the equivalent of bringing a Gatling gun to a musket battle.
Traps are relegated only to bringing assassins out of stealth.
It's a shame that all the best Passives are at the bottom of the Skill Tree then, huh 
Would it be good to play DW Artificer on Nightmare? Or better off to leave Artificer with Varric and go for DW Tempest?
Also, I've added more to the OP. Mainly, the DW Passives on Archers. That seems to be asked a few times.
I opt to try DW artificer this playthrough. I don't think it can match Assassination, but perhaps it can do something? I don't know.
Funny, the flavor/theme of the artificer is about creating traps but a lot are saying that isn't about traps.
Honesty? The Artificer is a relabeled combination of Deft Hands and Bard from Origins. Traps were moved from being a baseline ability to a specialization and Artificer's group passives are effectively just Bard songs.
That's a fair point. Except in this case, they're better as you can have all of them working at the same time.
What are people's thoughts on Throwing Knives in the Poison Skill Tree? With the Looked Like It Hurt Passive and high Crit Chance, this is a good way restoring at least 40 Stamina.
But in terms of damage and utility, is it better than something like Shadow Strike from the Subterfuge tree, which helps reduce cooldown?
@Bombadyl Thanks for answering!
Also, I've added more to the OP. Mainly, the DW Passives on Archers. That seems to be asked a few times.
It seems such a basic question, but I wasn't able to find a definitive answer to it before. (Which probably means it was previously asked in this very thread and I read right past it
@Bombadyl Thanks for answering!
It seems such a basic question, but I wasn't able to find a definitive answer to it before. (Which probably means it was previously asked in this very thread and I read right past it
It works for both Skill Trees - the Archery Passives assist DW Rogues, unless specifically stated that the character has a bow.
Random question - does anyone here knows if 2h sunder and Sabotage sunder stack?
xelander, as far as I know, they do.
Playing as an Archery/Assassin Rogue was a lot of fun. Ended up with guaranteed crits from Stealth, crits that sundered and restored stamina, and kills removing the cooldown on Steal, leading to a glorious build where I was constantly one-shotting enemies while pulling no aggro. Throw on some Legion of the Dead armor and two tanks? I was unstoppable.
Yeah, I'm playing Dwarf Rogue this playthrough and Legion of the Dead is what I'm looking forward to. Should be awesome.
Assassin is a lot of fun because of the DMG factor and some great animations. As PC, it made me feel boss.
What are people's thoughts on Throwing Knives in the Poison Skill Tree?
I was skeptical of throwing knives from the tooltip, but I found it to be the perfect thing for my Tempest rogue because fire flask wants a long-cooldown ability with a quick animation to spam. Throwing Knives not only provides this, but its range also compensates for the lack of safety during fire flask.
I can't imagine many other rogue builds making use of it; archers and DW assassins have better ways to spend their stamina. I could see a cautious DW artificer using it. As for Shadow Strike, I gave up on trying to make it work. Just whiffs most of the time for me.
IMHO I came to the conclusion that flask of fire is on purpose behaving as it is regarding focus, because that's pretty much the only shining point of Tempest as far as damage goes. Since it's single target focus ability it's not considered broken (and is not on it's own) and is really the major thing standing for a Tempest Rogue.
I feel like we're not playing the same game. Tempest made hard mode laughably easy for me. Using the fire flask focus exploit is a quick way to trivialize your experience even further than just being a Tempest already does. Two thirds of every battle, you're in frost or lightning flask (i.e. untouchable), allowing you to get more hits in than any other rogue playstyle offers; there is little more satisfying than seeing 4 enemies die to hidden blades procs simultaneously as time returns to normal. Frost flask not only makes you unkillable, but allows you to crowd control and set up frost combos more effectively than mages; if so inclined, you can even cross-class detonate your own combos. Lightning flask gives you a consistent window of DPS (not to mention the utility for positioning and disrupting rifts); those massive, 360-arcs from enemy greatswords are no longer of any concern because you can freeze time and go to town on his flank. Chugging a +damage tonic (with +100% crit damage upgrade) during lightning flask makes for some easy boss fights.
The one third of the time that you can actually take damage while in fire flask, ALL of your abilities cost no stamina and trigger no cooldowns. To imply that you need a focus ability exploit to make use of it is ridiculous.
You are wrong with your Tempest perspective. You can not spam stuff like he does
I imagine this would work better with a dual wielder than an archer.
Why? Because the best archery skills have long animations. You'll fire two off with a regular fire flask, maybe three with a duration boost.
Assassins have this raw power all the time, while Artificers will get more skills off in the long run with their critical hit cooldowns.
I imagine this would work better with a dual wielder than an archer.
Why? Because the best archery skills have long animations. You'll fire two off with a regular fire flask, maybe three with a duration boost.
Assassins have this raw power all the time, while Artificers will get more skills off in the long run with their critical hit cooldowns.
For sure, no doubt. I stated before that Arty is much better as Archer and Tempest as DW. The Point of DW is move and hit many targets, release combos and be chaos in midst. You must use all 3 bottles.
Archer stands aside, and, really if you can not use even Frost Flask you losing it because its best freeze stuff in the game.
So Articier Archer owns, while DW Tempest >>> much more useful than Arty and less party dependent too.
Ok what I meant is that there are other broken combos w/o a Tempest focus that deal just as much if not more damage. So the overall experience won't really change when you can put a lightning cage with mark hidden blades + HB procs, whirlwind with HB procs + Chain lightning with HB procs + whatever else you want in last slot. It will still kill stuff insanely fast, same as 3 rogues groups will do even w/o thousand cuts. Mark of the Rift on it's own is still great dps (amplified with Lightning Cage ofc), Hail of Arrows is insane, Cloak from rank 2 is HUGE - 50% dmg bonus party wide without any other buffs / debuffs.
So while it will tone down Tempest solo / burst, it won't really change how fast we will slaughter bosses / tough enemies past a certain level / gear tier - IMHO.
Novedove sings the praises of two Artificer archers so she could give better answers but with another party member/s who can pump out crits consistently, I've found Varric a capable damage dealer by virtue of being a crit machine himself and having the ability to spam Full Draw and Long Shot.How good is DW vs Archery? My current inquisitor is a Dwarf and Varric is always in the party so two ranged dwarfs sounds cool and not at the same time. Currently he is an Archer and maybe he'll be an Artificer regardless of weapons (twice the Passives sounds nice).
If it matters I play with Tactical view most of the time.
My only grump about some of the specs with Archery is that their "big" abilities seem to still make your ranged character melee. Which skills in the spec trees actually "adjust" to be ranged despite sounding like melee?
I'm pretty stoked to try a Tempest Archer at some point but I find the thousand cuts move making you rush in to melee a bit jarring personally.
So, out of artificer and assassin, which one pairs better with archery? I really want to go assassin, but have serious doubts about it's range capability. Artificer, on the other hand, looks optimal but a bit boring (spamspamspam) and too party dependent (I like to rotate companions). Which one is better versus regular mobs? Which one is better versus bosses?
Novedove sings the praises of two Artificer archers so she could give better answers but with another party member/s who can pump out crits consistently, I've found Varric a capable damage dealer by virtue of being a crit machine himself and having the ability to spam Full Draw and Long Shot.
While I prefer Assassin and Tempest is crazy, the Artificer is possibly the most underrated spec in game.
As for Archery vs DW, it's a question of personal preference.
Melee Rogue has always been my go to but Archers are pretty solid this time round.
EDIT: Given your preference for Tac Cam, Archery might be more your thing.
There is a glitch with archer for full draw. it's cheap but erm, until bioware fix it, an archer can do 2 full draw one after another. all you need to do is keep pressing the full draw button.
That's double full draw right there as fight opener.
As for 2 artificer, the truth is it is not as efficient as 1 artificer 1 tempest.
due to the fact that AI tempest's lightning flask does not slow player's screen. If all CC are same for varric and sera, your skill CD faster with sera than varric.
However, it still works in typical party set up. assuming you like varric and hate sera, 2 artificer is still highly viable.
The only exception is IF, you bring BOTH sera and varric with 1 mage. (any one will do) then, it straight away put you above any possible combination in terms of damage out put.
the game is simple enough with any party combination. but to get that sense of enjoyment out of every fight in the shortest time, bring as many archer as you can.
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