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[Crud]

I keep reading that tempest and assassin are far more powerful than artificer, but it seems to me that even the opportunity knocks passive alone is incredibly powerful, and elemental mines with there status effects are nothing to sneaze at (and fun to watch go off). Anyone have more thoughts on this matter? I'm also looking for fun factor, not just straight dps, and also the freedom to go back and forth between bow and daggers if I so choose.

[BroBear Berbil]

You assume correctly, Opportunity Knocks is amazing as is Hail of Arrows. Novadove lays out the strengths of artificer really well in this thread

 

http://forum.bioware...d-advice/page-3

[Crud]

Ok seems others have thought about this as well, thanks. Still having trouble deciding on a spec but knowing others see the artificer tree as a contender is good to know.

[Draka]

It really depends on your play style and what you consider "fun". For me "fun" and high dps go hand in hand. That excludes the broken focus skill of the tempest combined with the fire flask, that's just plain boring. The thing is that even without abusing Thousand cuts/fire flask, tempest still offers much higher dps than artificer. However, my personal choice is assassin. The dmg of the assassin is just OP and you rely on yourself, rather than your party. Guaranteed crits, MoD boss killer, constant restealth, Hidden blades is just ridiculous, huge passive armor penetration... Basically both tempest and assassin don't really miss the buffs from artificer - they already kill much faster. Of all 3, only assassin doesn't require focus skill to do dmg, both artificer and tempest do. And one more thing - tempest and assassin are good with both daggers and bows so you can respec whenever you want if you get bored. Artificer is pretty useless for daggers, just couple of buffs but both other specs offer much more for daggers anyway. So the choice is yours but I personally would stay away from artificer. It's just slow and boring with only one choice of weapons and frankly tho the focus skill seems really good on paper for long fights such as dragons, assassin and tempest will kill it much faster anyway.

[Matth85]

tempest still offers much higher dps than artifice

 

I am not sold on that one. On what basis? You don't get too many abilities off during a flask, and the dps is chunked up because of it. You do good damage for a ffew seconds, do mediocre damage while waiting for flask to come back up, and stamina to regen.

 

As an artificer you get a passive lowers CD by 0.5 per crit by you and your team. Build your team towards crit(I hear you can reach near 100% crit) and you will fire constantly. The dps seem better at that point. Less burst, but can be sustained during long fights. 

 

Artificer is pretty useless for daggers

 

How come? Only the focus ability seem to be limited to ranged. If you rely on focus ability, you should consider changing your build up anyways. 

The CD reduction seem just as massive for a dw rogue. With stamina-on-crit I can see Deathblow being nearly spammed, leading to some intense damage. 

 

While I do like Assassin, I feel it loses its power once you start to build your team a bit better. The armor penetration is nice on some encounters, granted, but the crit seem wasted if your rogue is built for crit(Which an Artificer rogue would be). That said, my DW rogue is an assassin, and Mark of Death is insane. Popping it, getting a dragon down to 75% in 8 seconds -- mark goes off and the dragon is at 50%. Jump around for 30 seconds and repeat it once more. Dead dragon on Nightmare. It does got a lot of potential with a min/maxed dps team!

[Draka]

On what basis? You don't get too many abilities off during a flask, and the dps is chunked up because of it. You do good damage for a ffew seconds, do mediocre damage while waiting for flask to come back up, and stamina to regen.

 

 

You get two flasks that increase your dmg by a lot. By "few seconds" you mean 10. Apart from dragons nothing else lives longer. And even for them you have the Thousand cuts so they don't live much longer either.

 

Build your team towards crit(I hear you can reach near 100% crit)

 

 

That's delusional unless you plan to run with 3 or 4 rogues, 2 of them artificers and get some ungodly crafting gear which you can't get for all of them unless you dupe mats. On casual/normal I guess it's possible. Good luck playing like that on NM.

 

nearly spammed

 

 

Once again - you're playing a rogue, both tempest and assassin have huge burst, especially the assassin - nothing lives long enough to require spamming the same skill over and over again. My assassin explodes a pride demon in 3 sec. Or a giant in... well, maybe 4. Dragon takes around 2 more MoD rotations. Won't even bother explaining what a tempest does to a dragon, think it's pretty obvious. Tell me again why I should sit there humping low dmg skills while waiting for my party to crit instead of just exploding stuff around in 2-3 sec before my party even has the chance to attack? And how exactly will you make deathblow spammable? You need 16 crits per second from the entire party constantly, or 8 with 2 artificers, how's that gonna happen? Kinda impossible.

 

The armor penetration is nice on some encounters, granted, but the crit seem wasted if your rogue is built for crit(Which an Artificer rogue would be).

 

 

Ok, let me put it like this. First you build your inquisitor a bit better than your party. Then the party. Next as an assassin you don't need to build for crit rate, but for crit damage since you constantly has guaranteed crits out of stealth and since you 1 shot pretty much everything except dragons or few bosses, you constantly restealth. It's much more easy to build a proper assassin then an entire party to nearly 100% crit (which is pretty impossible). With assassin it is laughable how easy you can get 150-200% crit damage, 100% armor penetration and you already have guaranteed crits. Now you can see where this is going and why assassin dmg is so broken and nothing comes even close to it. (except fire flask/thousand cuts tempest for obvious reasons). I run with a similar numbers, just a little less crit hit dmg because I have also high crit chance 60%+ for stamina regain from sabotage tree. My hidden blades crit for ~4k+ per hit and if anything even thinks of surviving that I'll just explode the MoD on its head. Then go back to stealth and start spamming crits again because of stamina regain that hidden blade was for free. So how exactly ~50-60k+ dmg (that's only my personal dmg, party not included) in 2 sec free of stamina and guaranteed to crit compare to some tiny CD reduction bonus? Artificer dmg is simply far too inferior to tempest and assassin in any way possible, no matter how you look at it, no matter what math you do, artificer always comes far behind both other specs.

[Matth85]

You get two flasks that increase your dmg by a lot. By "few seconds" you mean 10. Apart from dragons nothing else lives longer. And even for them you have the Thousand cuts so they don't live much longer either.

 

 

Unless we speak of abusing the whole "Flask doesn't use focus!"-bug, I disagree. Why would you even need flasks to take out non-boss enemies? They die flat out, even on nightmare.

 

That's delusional unless you plan to run with 3 or 4 rogues, 2 of them artificers and get some ungodly crafting gear which you can't get for all of them unless you dupe mats. On casual/normal I guess it's possible. Good luck playing like that on NM.

 

Not at all. Even so, near 50% crit is easy to reach and you gain immense cd reduction. A perfect team consist of 1 artificer, 1 tempest, 1 tank and 1 support mage.

I must also note, I have never played under Nightmare/hardest difficulty in any game I can. Even then, Nightmare is ****** easy once you understand the AI. Don't assume.

 

Once again - you're playing a rogue, both tempest and assassin have huge burst, especially the assassin - nothing lives long enough to require spamming the same skill over and over again. My assassin explodes a pride demon in 3 sec. Or a giant in... well, maybe 4. Dragon takes around 2 more MoD rotations. Won't even bother explaining what a tempest does to a dragon, think it's pretty obvious. Tell me again why I should sit there humping low dmg skills while waiting for my party to crit instead of just exploding stuff around in 2-3 sec before my party even has the chance to attack? And how exactly will you make deathblow spammable? You need 16 crits per second from the entire party constantly, or 8 with 2 artificers, how's that gonna happen? Kinda impossible.

 

1) If we are speaking high end/min maxed characters -- yes, nothing lives long. A nightmare dragon dies in 15 second flat, no focus, as an artificer. It dies flat out as an assassin as well. Longer as a tempest if you don't use focus. But that's besides the point. Tempest does not offer higher dps than an artificer, just higher burst. Same with Assassin. If you want your rogue to be bursty, then sure -- go for either! But don't sprout out that tempest does better dps. The only basis for that is the bugged focus ability. If you need focus to kill something, you are playing bad anyways.

 

2) Low damage? Artificer Archer hitting 7k-11k each Long shot. You do spam it.

 

3) Waiting for crit? That's why I tell you to build for crit. An artificer with 60%+ crit and Sera with the same. Sera pops flask and pops a milion arrows a second. Then add Solas with energy barrage and high crit, or any other AoE ability: Each crit takes 0.5s of yur CD. There are no waiting required.

 

how's that gonna happen? Kinda impossible.

 

16 crits per 2-3 second? Energy barrage can be up to 8. Your hits in 2-3 seconds will be 6ish crits. Your Tempest Sera will either do a few, or a million, depending if flasks are up. Your tank can get a few crits up. 

Problem solved.

 

O

k, let me put it like this. First you build your inquisitor a bit better than your party. Then the party. Next as an assassin you don't need to build for crit rate, but for crit damage since you constantly has guaranteed crits out of stealth and since you 1 shot pretty much everything except dragons or few bosses, you constantly restealth. It's much more easy to build a proper assassin then an entire party to nearly 100% crit (which is pretty impossible). With assassin it is laughable how easy you can get 150-200% crit damage, 100% armor penetration and you already have guaranteed crits. Now you can see where this is going and why assassin dmg is so broken and nothing comes even close to it. (except fire flask/thousand cuts tempest for obvious reasons). I run with a similar numbers, just a little less crit hit dmg because I have also high crit chance 60%+ for stamina regain from sabotage tree. My hidden blades crit for ~4k+ per hit and if anything even thinks of surviving that I'll just explode the MoD on its head. Then go back to stealth and start spamming crits again because of stamina regain that hidden blade was for free. So how exactly ~50-60k+ dmg (that's only my personal dmg, party not included) in 2 sec free of stamina and guaranteed to crit compare to some tiny CD reduction bonus? Artificer dmg is simply far too inferior to tempest and assassin in any way possible, no matter how you look at it, no matter what math you do, artificer always comes far behind both other specs.

 

 

 I am not saying Assassin is bad. Where did you get that idea? I am merely telling you artificer dps matches both -- just not in burst. For my DW rogue I run Assassin, and it's godly how much damage you can do. However, I do not find tempest to be worth much. You spend more time waiting for CDs to run off than you damage, and outside the focus ability the damage isn't near Assassin or Artificer. 

 

I am pointing out Artificer is better than most people, a la: you, give it credit for. It pulls ahead with an optimal geared team and it rips open anything end-game. No, it's not as bursty as Assassin, but it's sure as hell not worse than Tempest. Flask of Fire is almost nullified due to high crit with Artificer, and flask of lightning doesn't increase your dps -- it just slows down the time for you. Your dps is the same, but the enemies dps is lowered for a second. Not counting the broken focus, I see no reason to say tempest is better than artificer. It's fun -- sure, but better? no. 

 

Have you tried Artificer? Or are you just assuming? Because it does sound like you assume a lot. Which is bad. Never assume. 

[Blackstork]

Tempest have 25% chance to have free flask, and actually party combo capabilities and versatility it offers, as well defence and huge ton of utility, and with damage it can spam using fireflask twin fangs on frozen targets for example, it surpass any other spec.

 

Its about to use alot of chaotic bunch of things efectively together. But it is very damn powerful, if you find how to. All 3 flasks also contribute to great surviliability (Frost Flask have DR and freeze effect, Fire Flask can be used to damage foes while positioning them and being technically invisible. (Flank Attack spam), while Lightning provides fast GTFO option as well immence damage bursts 

Combined with SB situational use it becomes pretty damn good. I thinking to solo  NM Tempest Rogue. (as mixed, start of game as archer, then switch hto DW at some point)

 

In party you are Invaluable, assuming how much team combos you can provide/pull.

 

Tempest is op. Why? Because he can kill stuff without exiting stealth. (on flat terrain tho)

 

I will defenitely will give a shot on solo tempest NM run, archer pre-Skyhold, DW post-Skyhold

[Anelyn77]

The way I see it, is that to get most out of Artificer you NEED to build the whole party for it. You can't actually play the game as you would do normally with other types, because you are highly depending on party composition to make Artificer shine.

 

So if I don't like Sera and I want to play a mage, and I also like Dorian in my party and Cas, Varric will suddenly not look so great anymore. Everyone knows how hard is to get crit % on mages / warriors (I only found 1 single 5% crit ring in my current playthrough, 75% of game areas fully explored, every single chest / sack looted etc).

 

There will always be party reliant combos that while successful may not really be fun (yeah you do it once, but would you do next one same way?). An assassin will always have room in a party, no matter if you go DW or Archery, Mark & Sleep grenade are very good and don't require a specific setup to benefit / include. Fire flask for Tempest isn't about double focus abilities (I don't use it this way, so it won't affect me if they change that part at all), it's for burst with no CD / stamina cost. Lightning Flask is also insane dps.

 

IMHO the most broken thing in the game is the Rift Mage. It's the best party buffer in game period. AoE weakness - suddenly you take minimal damage. AoE grouping that also prevents cast of skills during the pull - wow now we have plenty of time to get our melee dudes in to do their stuff without worry of stepping on a fire mine or getting frozen mid-way and blown to bits. Lightning Cage the most OP party damage buff in whole DA history. Barrier. Dispel. Instant reposition with fade step so you don't have to micro your mage. Self comboing for AoE Sleep.

 

I think the real challenge is to play NM without a rift mage

[Matth85]

Tempest have 25% chance to have free flask, and actually party combo capabilities and versatility it offers, as well defence and huge ton of utility, and with damage it can spam using fireflask twin fangs on frozen targets for example, it surpass any other spec.

 

Its about to use alot of chaotic bunch of things efectively together. But it is very damn powerful, if you find how to. All 3 flasks also contribute to great surviliability (Frost Flask have DR and freeze effect, Fire Flask can be used to damage foes while positioning them and being technically invisible. (Flank Attack spam), while Lightning provides fast GTFO option as well immence damage bursts 

Combined with SB situational use it becomes pretty damn good. I thinking to solo  NM Tempest Rogue. (as mixed, start of game as archer, then switch hto DW at some point)

 

In party you are Invaluable, assuming how much team combos you can provide/pull.

 

Tempest is op. Why? Because he can kill stuff without exiting stealth. (on flat terrain tho)

 

I will defenitely will give a shot on solo tempest NM run, archer pre-Skyhold, DW post-Skyhold

 

I come back to my original point. Not looking at survivability or versability, which tempest shine at. Flask of Fire is countered by the fact that Artiicers passive means you can have an almost permanent flask of fire active. With enough crit you never run out of stamina, and you spam your abilities. Flask of lightning doesn't actually increase your dps -- it slows down time for you. You do the exact same dps as you did earlier, just that everything else doesn't do anything. Of course, from an outside perspective it would be a dps increase -- but you control your inquisitor, so you don't do more damage, you just do it with everything slowed down.

 

Note: I am not bashing on tempest. I think it's a great specialization and means you can change your playstyle if you do not favor the stealthy approach. I just don't see the selling point of it on your inquisitor. I did try it for 10 hours or so, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. The only dps increase is on Flask of Fire. Artificer with a good setup got that pseudo-permanent flask of fire active. 

 

 

 

I think the real challenge is to play NM without a rift mage

 

 

I think Barrier is more broken. I could live without a Rift Mage. By the time I hit Skyhold my tank rarely takes over 1 damage anyways. But this does lead to an intersting question: Can Nightmare be done without a mage? I ought to try that!

[Blackstork]

The way I see it, is that to get most out of Artificer you NEED to build the whole party for it. You can't actually play the game as you would do normally with other types, because you are highly depending on party composition to make Artificer shine.

 

So if I don't like Sera and I want to play a mage, and I also like Dorian in my party and Cas, Varric will suddenly not look so great anymore. Everyone knows how hard is to get crit % on mages / warriors (I only found 1 single 5% crit ring in my current playthrough, 75% of game areas fully explored, every single chest / sack looted etc).

 

There will always be party reliant combos that while successful may not really be fun (yeah you do it once, but would you do next one same way?). An assassin will always have room in a party, no matter if you go DW or Archery, Mark & Sleep grenade are very good and don't require a specific setup to benefit / include. Fire flask for Tempest isn't about double focus abilities (I don't use it this way, so it won't affect me if they change that part at all), it's for burst with no CD / stamina cost. Lightning Flask is also insane dps.

 

IMHO the most broken thing in the game is the Rift Mage. It's the best party buffer in game period. AoE weakness - suddenly you take minimal damage. AoE grouping that also prevents cast of skills during the pull - wow now we have plenty of time to get our melee dudes in to do their stuff without worry of stepping on a fire mine or getting frozen mid-way and blown to bits. Lightning Cage the most OP party damage buff in whole DA history. Barrier. Dispel. Instant reposition with fade step so you don't have to micro your mage. Self comboing for AoE Sleep.

 

I think the real challenge is to play NM without a rift mage

Agree 100%

And the thing is that Assasin and Tempest are way way better combo with Rift mage than Arty.

Both can pull amazing qty of combos and chain them.

 

Let me remind you: With Mercy Killing any panicked target means you score crits on it. If you templar/rift mage/ogue/assasin  chain nightmares, this renders Crit party bonus of Arty quite obsolete, because your 2 rogues just have crits on constantly panicking targets.

[Blackstork]

I come back to my original point. Not looking at survivability or versability, which tempest shine at. Flask of Fire is countered by the fact that Artiicers passive means you can have an almost permanent flask of fire active. With enough crit you never run out of stamina, and you spam your abilities. Flask of lightning doesn't actually increase your dps -- it slows down time for you. You do the exact same dps as you did earlier, just that everything else doesn't do anything. Of course, from an outside perspective it would be a dps increase -- but you control your inquisitor, so you don't do more damage, you just do it with everything slowed down.

 

Note: I am not bashing on tempest. I think it's a great specialization and means you can change your playstyle if you do not favor the stealthy approach. I just don't see the selling point of it on your inquisitor. I did try it for 10 hours or so, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. The only dps increase is on Flask of Fire. Artificer with a good setup got that pseudo-permanent flask of fire active. 

 

 

 

 

I think Barrier is more broken. I could live without a Rift Mage. By the time I hit Skyhold my tank rarely takes over 1 damage anyways. But this does lead to an intersting question: Can Nightmare be done without a mage? I ought to try that!

Firstly you can do some critical stuff as Arty alone - Tempest could do alone/with dead party very well, and the fact that he can freeze and shatter, spam high damage (you can not spam stuff on Arty) abilities to burst damage or you can kill stuff without leaving sleath mode while being alone and not depending on party crits is huge thing. Lightning is vital because its surviliability. None of Artficier stuff, except of wonky Fallback Plan do not improve his surviliability. I do not say Arty is bad either, but If i go DW rogue, i would not pick arty. It i solely ranged class imo. And it mixes well with Tempest and with Tempest/Rift/Templar Nightmare combo. Since once you have constant supply of panicking targets you have solid suply of crit hits from your fellow rogues.

[Novadove]

in the beginning, tempest can outperform artificer. no doubt about it. even with 3 party members dead, tempest is still strong

 

can't say the same for artificer. in the beginning, artificer is pathetic, especially when all party members have low CC.

 

At higher levels, tempest output remains consistant except the damage output parallels with equipment upgrade.

On the contrary, artificer gains huge performance especially when party members began having better equipment and higher CC.

 

the growth of an artificer has no limit. the only criteria is you cannot solo play.

 

exaggerate a little. if an artificer is allowed to bring 20 party members and all 20 of them crit every hit, all archer abilities will have no cool down while tempest will still be waiting for the skill cool down. you don't need 20 party members, just bring any one that has high Crit Chance to help you.

 

I wana highlight that playing a rogue, don't think about survivability. it's the wrong way to go. stealth is free. remove aggro and ensure survivability.

 

lastly, it is really fun to enter slow time once or twice with flask in the beginning. but it isn't so fun any more after the 100th time. personally, I would even try to avoid slow time because it slows down my gameplay. it's sub consciously haunting me.

 

watching sera lightning flask is 1000% more fun than going into slow time for the 1000th time.

[Matth85]

watching sera lightning flask is 1000% more fun than going into slow time for the 1000th time.

 

Bingo. Besides, the slow down hurts my eyes! It's so strong contrast. It feels like wearing 3d glasses.

When Sera uses it; It's a dps increase.

When you use it; It's a survivability increase.

 

That means the only damage-related perk tempest got, not counting focus, is Flask of Fire. Which by itself is nice; but loses to Artificer when some crit is gained. At that point tempest is the "worst"(marginally) of the 3 specializations in terms of damage.

 

I do not say Arty is bad either, but If i go DW rogue, i would not pick arty. It i solely ranged class imo.

 

I hear people telling me that.. but I don't see why? I must admit, I have yet to test dual wield artificer. That is coming up after I finish my last exam. But why wouldn't it work? Sure, it's worse than Assassination, but why would it be worse than tempest? The CD reduction and stamina regen is about the same as archer, and you attack faster yourself. Wouldn't that mean you can use Twin Fangs and Deathblow that more often? 

 

I just can't see the drawback of melee artificer. I really ought to test it out though!

[Anelyn77]

IMHO the game is faceroll atm and allows for little CC and max DPS - like artificer party setup, because the AI on enemy encounters is very poor. Instead of giving them more options / abilities / spells on higher diffs they just increase HP / armor / damage.

 

Just let me remind you the most fun fight in all game as far as boss fights go - Grand Duchess is by far the best scripted one. It's one of the few fights where the enemy is neither here or there, most of times out of melee reach, immune to control, and controls your party (if you clump up you will eat AoE sleeps like no tomorrow). If more encounters were like this, were enemy mages would actually CC some of your group, enemy Archers could put someone to sleep with a full draw or use sleep on your sneaky rogue / tank etc, fear and what not, then it would all be more dynamic and challenging and not the same repetitive boring stuff that you 1 shot everyone before they have a chance to react, or you bunch them up and AoE them to bits.

 

There is so little need for tactics, positioning and proactive play in 90% of encounters that of course whatever party comp has the fastest cleaning time is best. You never pick targets based on what they could do to your party outside of damage potential (that's why peeps kill mages 1st, because of fire mine, and then archers, and lastly the melee dudes).

 

I agree that lightning flask implementation is bad, it should speed up all party and slow the enemies not only your character, so it's actually a benefit to use it for the party instead of just for yourself (atm is like yey I get to do some damage while nobody does a thing).

 

IMHO Assassin archer looks like most fun to me, tempest is best left to Sera in current incarnation.

[Blackstork]

Bingo. Besides, the slow down hurts my eyes! It's so strong contrast. It feels like wearing 3d glasses.
When Sera uses it; It's a dps increase.
When you use it; It's a survivability increase.

That means the only damage-related perk tempest got, not counting focus, is Flask of Fire. Which by itself is nice; but loses to Artificer when some crit is gained. At that point tempest is the "worst"(marginally) of the 3 specializations in terms of damage.

I hear people telling me that.. but I don't see why? I must admit, I have yet to test dual wield artificer. That is coming up after I finish my last exam. But why wouldn't it work? Sure, it's worse than Assassination, but why would it be worse than tempest? The CD reduction and stamina regen is about the same as archer, and you attack faster yourself. Wouldn't that mean you can use Twin Fangs and Deathblow that more often?

I just can't see the drawback of melee artificer. I really ought to test it out though!

Why its worse? Lack of proper melee initiation, lack of survival I ability, lack of cc/ combo power. Why birds are bad at swimming?

[Matth85]

Neither survivability and CC are required as a rogue. Nightmare is not hard.

Even then, you still get as much CC and survivability as an Assassination rogue.

 

So my question still stand. May I ask, have you tried it? Tested it extensively? I am not disagreeing, just not ruling it out just yet!

[Blackstork]

Neither survivability and CC are required as a rogue. Nightmare is not hard.
Even then, you still get as much CC and survivability as an Assassination rogue.

So my question still stand. May I ask, have you tried it? Tested it extensively? I am not disagreeing, just not ruling it out just yet!

I tried respecced varric as melee. It sucks compared to Cole or Quiz.
Its not requied but you can not neglect pros and power it provides and there is big , deciding difference in what you can do and can not. Simply put for DW arty there a lot of "can not" . You may have some nice numbers on papers but not taking circumstances into account and not being able to apply those is big deal. Tempest is unhindered gameplay. You can do stuff and be more aggressive, and arty can not. And that's where big differncies are. And DPs differences. And support/effects. Frost Flask(best freezer in the game) , long status duration and spammable shatterers? Lightning Flask hitting each with pw one in middle of fray without being hit even by ranged? Arty stuff is very different and do not provide fancy effects and do not pull your possibilities in melee range. CC / combos and tactical advantage is much more important than what arty have to bring into melee range. (Lol). I think that people who neglect those opportunistic / cc / combo pros of tempest just do not understand this class and misinterpret it.
Obcourse you do not need boat to cross the river, and wooden plank or swimming could suffice, if you very skilled. But its obvious that boat is much more effective and less risky.
Vulnerability in certain points of battle dictates to you if you can or can not apply your DPs.

[Anelyn77]

IMHO there are 2 types of players, those who seek min-maxing from the moment they created their hero and others who actually like to play the game and explore (since it adds to diversity / replay value of course, I doubt it anyone wants to repeat same go to X to grab that schematic, then unlock Y to harvest tier 2 or 3 from start area, then go back to start and faceroll).

 

Am playing on NM atm, and I have highest crafted armor I could get for Cas, and there is no such thing as her taking only 1 damage (party level 8, doing stuff between hinterlands / stormcoast / oasis / Mire) 1 bear can really put the hurt on her even with barrier & full guard. Not to mention double prowlers in a 4 vs 9 encounter (two 2h mercs, 2 archers, 2 prowlers then 3 mabari joined mid fight in hinterlands levels 8-9) it's just mind blowing since you need to constantly use tac cam to micro your mage and archers (abusing fade step and evasion for fast repositioning to avoid backstabs, which also kills most of your dps as you spend more time moving than shooting stuff) - it was really challenging, chugged loads of potions but succeeded with no deaths (only CC was from Solas freeze at this point in game which was used as desperate peeling instead of setting up for damage hehe, as I build him mainly spirit since he's the only mage).

 

Sure after you get to skyhold and get your specializations, tier 2 gear (soon 3 if you rush to end game areas), it all becomes smoother, but hinterlands on Nightmare with fights at your level or slightly higher with possibility of unplanned adds is really terrifying in low levels.

[Matth85]

IMHO there are 2 types of players, those who seek min-maxing from the moment they created their hero and others who actually like to play the game and explore

 

Not really. I do both. I am a completionist, and I do things as early as I can do them. ( This means I kill the Fereldem Frostback before finishing up Haven). I am also a tctician of heart, and a meta gamer. I min/max, i theorycraft and I explore the whole game. 

 

Cassandra takes a lot of damage until level 8, then she's back to taking 1 damage. All that is requires is a T2 helm + armor, and Paragon Luster (T2 material). Get a nice shield as well, and she's at 200 armor at level 8-9 with 20% melee defense. Heck, Ferelden Frostback doesn't hit my tank over 1 damage, unless s/he turns his/her back to the dragon -- which they tend to do. At which they get hit for 250. 

[Anelyn77]

Well I'm level 8 and am not heading to oasis yet, still got tons to do in hinterlands / stormcoast / mire  

[Matth85]

On my last playthrough I had 140 armor on my level 12 Cassandra. She used the Vanguard armor from the Outlaw keep in Hinterlands (level 8 boss). It can be equipped at 8, or 9. The Ferelden Frostback hit for 1. No more. So with hinterland-exclusive gear, I reached the point that even a High Dragon hits for 1. And thanks to me getting the 30% fire belt in Oasis, his fire attack hit for 1. 

 

Tanks are bordeline broken in DA:I, aha...

[SonsofNorthWind]

Artificer question: given that the release in Throw Everything is staggered into multiple releases, is it possible with Looks Like it Hurt to essentially spam infinite traps as long as you crit on half of them or more and you keep hitting (such as, point blank on a dragon)?  I haven't built for crit gear so I don't have the stamina generator.

 

I've been thinking about a psuedo-melee Artificer as an interim build for 50% crit (before 100% crit takes over) - Hook and Tackle in, Throw Everything, Throwing Blades, Leaping Shot out, repeat.   Just wondering if anyone with solid crit has checked the interaction on Throw Everything and Looks Like it Hurt.

[Doximus]

On my last playthrough I had 140 armor on my level 12 Cassandra. She used the Vanguard armor from the Outlaw keep in Hinterlands (level 8 boss). It can be equipped at 8, or 9. The Ferelden Frostback hit for 1. No more. So with hinterland-exclusive gear, I reached the point that even a High Dragon hits for 1. And thanks to me getting the 30% fire belt in Oasis, his fire attack hit for 1. 

 

Tanks are bordeline broken in DA:I, aha...

Was that on easy difficulty? Cause i just fought Frostback dragon on hard difficulty and he was doing some serious damage.

My gear on the tank is crafted lower t3 - 190ish def with resists etc + fire res potion. Fought him at lvl 13.

[Novadove]

there is a way to face roll nightmare even in hinterland. the only difference is it takes longer than casual to end fights.

Also, no one says you must kill hinterland dragon at lvl 4.

 

it is unfair to say that hinterland in nightmare is hard simply because one has no knowledge of how to overcome it.

 

of cos, it is natural to say nightmare hinterland is hard because we do not know how to go about it.

 

1) you gotta diligently farm chest BEFORE even going to hinterland. I max out my character in crafting at top tier 1 before heading out to hinterland.

2) as an archer with only long shot, you can kill ALL mobs before going into agro because outside 50meters range, all archery skill deals damage WITHOUT aggroing mobs. mobs just stand there and die.

 

it is through understanding the game mechanics that overcomes nightmare, without this, one is just a brute trying hard to head on in nightmare difficulties.

 

I am very sure there are other methods for other class. one just need to find out.