I'm playing a Mage, level 12, and got Cass, Dorian and Varric in my party actually ... but about Varric, it seems Bianca is not as good as other Crossbows i'm collecting until now, so i'm thinking of testing Sera in his place
Varric skilled in Archery and Poison things
Sera skilled in Archery as well and Subterfuge
Which one do you like the most?
I play on Nightmare difficulty and I play around with Varric since he may or may not have some party buffs? But until you find some masterwork Bianca parts, he's kind of a filler character for me. I love Sera on the other hand with her Tempest Pots.
NOT USING EXPLOITS, tempest is still a fun build to use. Ice Pot helps with her survivability, if a character goes down, pop a Lightning Pot to slow time for yourself and Raise them up, and Fire Pot Spam on your abilities is hilarious. I use her as a dagger/dagger since my party comp is all melee and it just helps that all the mobs come to us, get picked up by the tank, while the dps knock em all down. I love it.
Again its all up to you though and how you like to play, but I rarely have to micro-manage my party with Sera.
Varric's Artificer tree has two party wide buffs among his passives. One grants everybody +10% damage and +10% status effect duration. The other grants everybody +5% critical hit chance.
I'm playing as an archer myself and I use Varric, Cass and Solas in my party.
Both me and Varric are Artificers, and that party wide +10% critical chance gives me and Varric close to 50% critical chance (even more if I use a Balanced Sniper bow (25% critical chance daaaamn!). Gives really nice numbers to Full Draw and other extremely damaging abilities.
I concur with Duelist_76
the higher your party's Crit chance, the stronger varric is.
Sera's lightning flask is independent until your party's crit chance is so high, varric will overtake sera's damage
also, the longer the fight, the overall damage output will place varric higher than sera due to consistency in rate of fire
I didn't use any of their specializations to be honest as they both looked underwhelming, so they were virtually identical to me. Just pick whoever you like the most! Personally I went with Sera since I like her more, and it's also more fun to use that new epic bow you just found rather then head to town and craft. It's really up to personal taste though. You can also respec Cole into an Archer.
I doesn't matter. I still haven't forgiven Varric for his suicidal behavior in DA2.
Don't forget that dead DPS = no dps. Sera has higher survivability with her ice pots and has the same escape mechanisms available to her for invis that Varric does.
Altogether it should come down to flavor and how you want to fight. I find commanding ranged a hassle and with Lightning Flash, Sera practically gets another free pass to escape, personal dps burst cooldown, and/or utility to raise someone in an emergency since everyone is standing still for so long.
But.. the chest here.. how can you not bring the chest hair!?
Sera is on another league DPS wise. Give her Flask of Lightning, lots of buffs and a good bow and let the AI itself do the magic. And we are not even talking about infinite Focus here. Just let the AI roll.
If you are playing on Nightmare you want Sera.
Some people might prefer Varric though. But the OP asked about DPS, so DPS it is.
It depends.
Does the fight end in seconds? Sera it is.
Does the fight last longer? Varric it is.
With some crit, and the right passives, Varric will chain his abilities constantly. The damage is sustained and pretty impressive. Of course, the amusement factor of seeing Sera shoot a million arrows in a few seconds is also worth a point in my book.
But, i digress. Chest hair. Storyteller. Short dwarf. 'tis all I can say!
I can't for the life of me decide between varric and sera for my rogue spot on my KE mage. Ive got blackwall and solas for the PoTA I can take advantage of. But when it comes to the rogue slot, I just can't make up my mind.
I'm gonna have them both archer (goes without saying with varric obviously) but as far as which one will benefit my specific party better, anyone have any input? I've tried both quite extensively and still no consensus, they both have good uses and awesome situational abilities.
Let's say I'm feeling lazy and want to limit my mico managing to 1 or 2 characters; is Sera or Varric's AI better? How heavily do you invest in artificer / tempest spec tree? (as I will be putting the rest into poison shtuffs and the archery tree)
This thread has been fun reading the different opinions. Sadly they all seem too useful and and knowledgeable for BOTH characters for me to get a general consensus from the replies in this thread thus far xD
the reason why varric is not a killing machine is because he is limited by Bianca whereas sera benefit from crafted high dps bow
it is also delusional to say sera has higher dps.
assuming they both have same Bianca and same gears wearing same accessories, the only difference will be their specialization
comparing specialization, tempest lightning flask and fire glass combo will never out perform artificer's CD refresh and 10% CC, CHD, duration buff to whole party.
also, tempest archer can never out perform hail of arrow.
Sera require more micromanagement to be at her peak. However, she does a fine job of chugging flasks and shooting arrows by herself. The DPS of a tempest is very impressive, and also very amusing to watch. Sera will go berserk when she uses the lightning flask. The dps is strong during those bursts, but rather lacklusting otherwise. She is also easier to gear up. You can craft her bows and upgrade them, or find things as drops. As Varric you are limited to, the otherwise awesome, Bianca. You can get bows with interesting fade-touched effects for Sera, while Varric can't (I believe.. I havn't seen if any of Biancas upgrade can gain these effects).
Varric requires less micromanagement to be optimal, as his dps is not maximized during set intervals (I.E. Sera during flasks). The passive of Artificer is also rather amazing for the group, hosting a damage increase and crit chance increase. His dps is sustained, and very solid, due to the passive that lower his CDs by 0.5s for every crit done by his allies(and himself). If you get him some good crit chance and the 10 stamina per crit in the poison tree, he will chain long shot and explosive shot to no end.
Which one to choose? Depends on your team. If you build a lot of crit chance, Varric goes ahead. If you don't bother with making your whole team a crit-machine, Sera gets better. It also depends on what you want: If you spend long time in fight, Varric is better. If you finish them in seconds, Sera does the best.
Overall I feel it's a marginal difference. Varric for team buffs, chest hair and Bianca. Sera for crazy-chick, super amusing-speedy-attacks-during-flask and higher burst.
At a pure min/max standpoint I do agree, Sera beats out due the ability to equip crafted bows. But tempest versus artificer isn't as one-sided as people keep assuming.
The buffs you gain from Artificer by Varric also boost your dps quite nicely. As a 2 handed Reaver warrior, the damage I do is the bulk of my teams damage. Varrics buffs beats out Seras dps any days.
But, as noted, it's all rather marginal. I pick Varric because I love his character, and I find Sera to be a crazy nutbag of a character(Awesome writing managing that!). On my Artificer archer character I run with Sera as well, which pretty much means I never got any CD on any abilities. It's absurd, to be honest!
Bianca with the right upgrades is nasty. I put dragon upgrades on it and got like +27 dex +27 cun
Hey just to clarify something I saw earlier - One of varrics artificer abilities doesnt give +10% Damage AND +10% Status Duration - It gives +10% to status damage (burning etc) and Status Duration - I mean if i misread that comment or misread the tooltip please let me know
But Ive been using varric alot and he is very easy to setup and self manage apart from the suicidal tendancies of all the ranged companions to bumrush into melee range lol
Sera all the way, Varric crossbow damage is tied to the crossbow damage upgrades while she can use any bow you find. In my case it meant a choice between 100 DPS bow and 54 DPS crossbow - no brainer. Secondly the Tempest Fire (?) potion which allows you to use Full Draw THREE times in a row without cooldowns is more than sweet. Open up with Long shot, Fire Potion, 2x/3x Full Draw ( do it manually ! ) and you are done. I suspect Full Draw is bugged in that regard :/
Varric can cast Long Shots non-stop with maybe a second or two in between them, as long as he and the party have a good critical %. Plus he buffs all the party.
Sera, however, has Flask of Lightning, which makes her throw a ridiculous amount of arrows in a short window. Alternate that with Flask of Fire casting and you get some serious DPS, probably unmatched by anyone other than an Inquisitor Tempest or Assassin.
If the AI was better, I would agree Sera would be better. But... not as it stands.
Also. she looks like a train crashed on her face, and my IQ drops as she speaks. So.. yeah.
Chest Hai-- I mean, Varric!
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