27 réponses à ce sujet

[Azayat]

I have Cassandra set up as S&B Templar and I'm pretty happy with it other than the fact she seems to die a bit easily (which I guess is sort of OK because of the Templar passive and Vivienne revive) but I still feel she could do with being a bit tougher.

I love the Templar tree, I have that maxed out and all 4 skills on my panel so I'm not changing that. But I wonder if I can optimise somewhere else. Most of my other points are in the S&S tree apart from one in War Cry.

Is that the best way to get nice and tanky or should I be going deeper into the Vanguard tree instead?

[Matth85]

For tanking you should:

- Get all the passives in the SnS tree.

- Get both taunts, upgrade warcry + 20% armor in Canguard

The rest is rather optional. You could go deeper into Vanguard for Guard, if you want.

 

Generally, you need to get good gear if you notice Cass dies. You want as much armor as possible, and as much Melee/Ranged/Magic defense% as possible. Once you reach the 50%-point, you never take more than 1 damage regardless of hit. My cassandra, at level 21, never dies. She never takes more than 1 health. It's quite amusing to see!

[brazen_nl]

For tanking you should:

- Get all the passives in the SnS tree.

- Get both taunts, upgrade warcry + 20% armor in Canguard

The rest is rather optional. You could go deeper into Vanguard for Guard, if you want.

 

Don't forgot Shield Wall (W&S) and Unbowed + upgrade (Vanguard), which also gives you 20% guard per enemy. In Tactics, set Shield Wall to preferred.

[Azayat]

How much armor is "good"? The numbers don't look too big, she's currently wearing 144 armor at level 16. My inquisitor is wearing about the same and I haven't found any heavy armor with higher numbers... But at the same time Varic is wearing medium with a rating of 165. Makes no sense, unless the numbers mean different things between medium and heavy.

[Matth85]

Armor Rating

 

Reduces damage by X points when attacked by melee or ranged physical attacks.

X = 1 (MP); 2 (Nightmare) (will test Casual, Normal and Hard soon)

Applies before Melee/Ranged Defense %.

Some enemies may possess armor penetration properties.

Note: for enemies' armor rating, 1 armor only decreases their physical damage taken by 1 point even on Nightmare.

 

From the Attributes Theorycrafting Thread.

 

So 144 armor means you mitigate 288 damage, unless the enemy got armor penetration.

My level 11 Blackwall got 18% melee defense, he got passive for 20% defense and he got 189 armor. 

The Fereldren Frostback is a level 12 high Dragon. He hits my Blackwall for 1 damage, regardless of attack. 

 

My level 21 Cassandra got 300 armor and 50% melee defense, 20% defense% from passive. Only the level 23 High Dragon hit harder than 1 on her.

 

[Azayat]

Yeah... I need to find better gear...

[Matth85]

I believe Tier 2 gear gives about 200 armor, while Tier 3 gives 280-300 armor.

You find Tier 3 schematics and materials at the Lion( something..). The enemies are level 16-20 there(Excluding the level 23 High Dragon)

[Azayat]

My main has masterwork crafted T2 heavy armor with 150 armor, but that's just the coat. I guess adding helm and other bits it might approach 200. I'm planning on exploring that Emprise du Lyon (I assume that's what you meant) soon-ish.

[Molohk]

- Get all the passives in the SnS tree.

 

For Cass, it's all about the passives. I got all the passives in SnS, then most defensive passives in Vanguard. For actives, shield wall is too good to pass but that's about it. Set Cass' AI to defend:herself, tactics to shield wall priority. You can also set a mage's AI to defend:cass with barrier priority in tactics, and then she's never going to die unless she's horribly under leveled for the fight.

 

Some of my secondary choice abilities: I like shield bash for the knockdown effect (combos!) and walking fortress in case I get over-ambitious with my enemies' level. I specced into Rally, and it's a nice ability to pop early in a fight to quickly get full guard (on all your party members!).

 

Edit: To be specific, the Vanguard passives I recommend: trust the steel, untouchable defense, and if you can spare the points get cutting words.

[xelander]

Charging Bull upgraded + War Cry upgraded, both set to preferred. Everything from the Templar tree (get Wrath of Heavens and Spell Purge combo ASAP).

 

I'm running her as 2h without any passives in SnS. Between her bowling stuff over, stunning everything around her and Solas' PotA, she's very survivable.

[Matth85]

I would recommend against having an AI using Charging Bull. They will keep running until out of stamina, and if you play with FF on; Will knock you down more than anything else.

Guard is not that great. 25% of your max health at 100%? Not much to speak off. 

[Azayat]

I didn't get charging bull on her but I have that on myself and she has the Leaping Slash thing to get into range. She's set to protect me and I can usually combo back and forth across the two characters fine. I have the Wrath/Purge combo on manual (because the AI always uses Purge first...) and today she got a level up and I finally stuck a point in the last passive in SnS.

 

I played part of the main story today but I was over level so it wasn't exactly a challenge. Having said that, I'm pretty sure it was a gear issue because I did craft some new armor with better materials I found and she barely took a shred of damage in the whole mission (about 2 hours of play). I need to try her tanking a Dragon (I currently use Blackwall for that) and play with the tactics set up. I'm worried about making anything on a mage "preferred" in case they just waste all their mana then drink all the Lyrium potions when I'm not looking. I generally take Vivienne with me so I have no issues keeping a good barrier up.

[Realyn]

Charging bull is so bad if used by the AI. It does any of the following;

• Knock enemies out of AoE


• Makes the tank run away from the battle


• Gets used constantly on enemies that don't need to be bull rushed


• Runs off a cliff (yes, that happened to me... Was kind of funny watching Cass commit suicide just moments after the romance scene )

On normal difficulty it doesn't matter much, but on hard/nightmare it is *such* a pain to have mobs knocked out of my double firemine. No, that point is much better spent elsewhere in my opinion.

 

Guard is not that great. 25% of your max health at 100%? Not much to speak off.

 

I wish people would stop using that argument. Guard is amazing. Yes, a single full bar isn't that great, but guard is generated throughout a fight. Over the course of longer fights, you'll have used up far more guard then health. The better your guard generation, the more awesome it becomes. Every time you generate guard, it adds to this supposed 25%. If you only generated a single full bar of guard, that argument would hold any meaning. But because you constantly add guard, it's a meaningless argument.

 

If you generate two bars during a single fight, you'll have mitigated (or can mitigate) damage equal to 50% of your health. That is nothing to sneeze at. Especially since it's a secondary effect on many abilities that you would use anyway and gives perfect leeway between Barrier cooldowns.

 

Try running a tank on higher difficulties without proper guard generation if you think it's  'not much to speak off'...

[Matth85]

I wish people would stop using that argument.

 

Math proves how much it is worth. It's not useless -- but it's not great. Both testing, and math, tells us this. You don't need to believe me -- test it yourself! We got an amazing theorycrafting thread going here. Knowledge is power!

 

Try running a tank on higher difficulties without proper guard generation if you think it's  'not much to speak off'...

 

I run on Nightmare exclusively. Don't assume. 

I have currently 4 playthroughs done.

I min/max.

 

2 bars of guard equals 20%( I believe) guard. 100% guard equals 25% of max hp. Max hp is rarely over 1k, so 250 is max guard. 20% of 250 is 50. 

Enemies hit harder than that at level 3. However, guard becomes increasingly better with higher mitigation. Not because guard is good -- but because it will never break due to armor/defense %. 

 

You can do nightmare without guard. You can't, however, do nightmare where you build only for guard. Guard can be seen as "free" health, but again; only if your mitigation supports it. Guard becomes good at that point not because it is guard, but because armor and % defense are broken.

[Pi2r Epsilon]

Azayat, unless you play on nightmare, in which case you are probably going to be controlling your tank fairly often anyway, there's no reason to go all out with defensive abilities for Cassandra as some people are suggesting in this thread. The damageoutput from enemies just isn't high enough for it to be needed, assuming that you keep her gear up to date, and the AI is bad at using some of them (Shield Wall, Charging Bull, and Bodyguard come to mind as the greatest offenders.)

 

If you are going for a mostly autonomous AI Cassandra as tank, which works fine on normal and hard difficulty, the most important thing is to give her the basic abilities that the AI is competent at using to allow it to do the job without your supervision.

 

I wrote up my approach there for the tank build thread, in case you are interested. It isn't a "best Cassandra tank" build by any means, but it is one that tanks everything on hard without problems when under AI control and lets her use her Templar abilities, which the AI is pretty good at using at the right times.

 

http://forum.bioware...lds/?p=17970474

[Matth85]

If you are going for a mostly autonomous AI Cassandra as tank

 

Works just as well on Nightmare I have yet to take control of my tanks. It simply isn't needed, as they do a decent enough job themself. They do, actually, use taunt very good. Though that's all I will credit the AI for!

[Azayat]

Thanks Pi2r Epsilon, I've settled on something similar except with Shield Bash instead of Payback Strike and Shield Wall instead of Challenge. I've followed the other advice to set shield wall to "preferred" and it seems to be working OK, but I still don't trust her to use Wrath/Purge properly. I'm happy to jump in and do those myself because I like timing that combo manually. I am playing on Normal.

 

What material generates guard on hit? I've just crafted some plate for her with +% melee defense and +% magic defense but her weapon is probably due for an upgrade soon so I want to make sure I get the right bonuses on that.

[Magma_Axis]

The AI can use Shield Wall far better than me

[Magma_Axis]

From the Attributes Theorycrafting Thread.
 
So 144 armor means you mitigate 288 damage, unless the enemy got armor penetration.
My level 11 Blackwall got 18% melee defense, he got passive for 20% defense and he got 189 armor. 
The Fereldren Frostback is a level 12 high Dragon. He hits my Blackwall for 1 damage, regardless of attack. 
 
My level 21 Cassandra got 300 armor and 50% melee defense, 20% defense% from passive. Only the level 23 High Dragon hit harder than 1 on her.

And how can you get 189 armor with tier 2 schematics ? What schematics you use fir armor ? I only have Vanguard coat

[Matth85]

AFAIK: 146 armor from vanguard, 20 from helmet, 24 from shield. Or something similar to that.

Check out this: 

[Pi2r Epsilon]

What material generates guard on hit? I've just crafted some plate for her with +% melee defense and +% magic defense but her weapon is probably due for an upgrade soon so I want to make sure I get the right bonuses on that.

One of the two variants of fade-touched Obsidian has it. That's the first source available in the game.

[Magma_Axis]

AFAIK: 146 armor from vanguard, 20 from helmet, 24 from shield. Or something similar to that.
Check out this:

Where did you get the purple armor and axe ?

And my front armor have bigger number than total armor, but yours is the opposite ?

[Matth85]

And my front armor have bigger number than total armor, but yours is the opposite ? 

 

Afaik, it's the 20% armor passive in Vanguard. I believe it only works for back and side, not front. Though I am uncertain there!

 

I forgot where I got the axe, but it is irrelevant to the video.

The armor is from the Bandit Leader in Hinterlands. He's level 8, and found at the west side of the map.

 

[GhoXen]

Guard is overrated. My tank on Nightmare only "bothers" generating guard because Charging Bull is all around an excellent single-target damage dealing, group damage dealing, CCing, and repositioning ability all in one. Not that the Guard matters. It's not difficult to ensure that your tank takes only 1 damage from most sources. Shield Wall is for deflecting the attacks that can't be mitigated fully, e.g. a dragon's fire ball.

 

The extra survivability is then translated into damage output and damage  reduction for the entire party, using a combination of To the Death and Bodyguard. Initially I thought Counterstrike and Walking Fortress may be useful, but in practice they are very rarey used. Ultimately I decided to stick with Mark of the Rift and replaced Walking Fortress with another active ability.

 

It's not hard to build an immortal tank, as long as you know what abilities to pick and what stats to use. However, a pure AI tank can never contribute more than just survival and minimal support. Direct control of a tank can lead  to greater overall DPS for the whole party than actually controlling one of the DPS.

[Azayat]

I got 192 armour on Tier 2 Vanguard coat by using Dragonbone as the main material. Might have been a bit of a waste but I needed something good and I still have 6 dragons to kill to get enough bone for crafting a Tier 3.