191 réponses à ce sujet

[Bigdawg13]

This must be obvious, but how do I use evade to the fullest of its potential? Is is just for getting out of harms way when I see a bear stand up on its hind legs or a two-handed warrior about to strike? Do you also use it for positioning? I think I'm not seeing the full picture..

Yes and yes. I use it to avoid damage (bear rearing up, ice mine, knocked down SnS promoted enemy, etc) and for positioning (leaping to a flanking position, getting out of line of sight, etc).

[Bigdawg13]

I'd really love to see new Mage builds for pre-Skyhold.

[Evelynne]

Nooo, I'm playing with Take it Slow and seeing how much of the Hinterlands, the Storm Coast, the Fallow Mire and the Forbidden Oasis I can clear before being overleveld for In Your Heart Shall burn. Take it Slow is a completionist's dream.

 

The answer is All of Hinterlands, Most of Storm Coast, and all of Fallow Mire. You're level 12 if you used Even Ground.

[Evelynne]

Early Mage, Trials Build

 

Support Fiend

 

Spoiler

This build will require a respecialization amulet:

 

Level 1 and 2: 3 Points

 

Barrier Winter's Grasp Energy Barrage

 

This will set you up to get through the Battle at the Crossroads and unlock the majority of quests in the early Hinterlands.

 

Level 3 and 4: 2 Points

 

Peaceful Aura Dispel

 

This will give you the ability to handle Rifts easily, and eliminate barrier. From here, you should probably go and attempt to get Wrath of Lovias from the Rebel Mage camp in the Hinterlands. Take a Lightning Staff. If you have a Trial reward, Savescum it for Tempest Center as it'll CC for you.

 

Level 5, 6,7 and 8: 4 Points

 

Mana Surge Winter's Ruin Fade Step Frost Step

 

This will give you your first big damage combo. Fade Step through your target, follow up with Winter's Grasp, and Energy Barrage to shatter. Its worth quite a bit of damage. Should have the Operation to get Tyrdda's Staff by now, if you don't no worries, just keep hitting up those Landmarks.

 

Level 9, 10, 11 and 12: 4 Points

 

Lightning Bolt Exploding Bolt Gathering Storm Static Charge

 

We now have Tyrdda's Staff, probably have Storm Coast, Fallow Mire, and Hinterlands 100%'d. We can either... Do our main story now, or we can go to the Forbidden Oasis and continue on to 16.

 

Level 13, 14, 15,and 16: 4 Points

 

Transmute Magic Rejuvenating Barrier Guardian Spirit Energetic Defense

 

We're now at the highest level we can get to prior to Skyhold, congrats -- noliefr. 

[Bigdawg13]

I like that...good support build for Solas.

[Evelynne]

Early Rogue Build

 

THROW EVERYTHING - Baby Artificer

 

This build is mostly Sabotage, you will need a respecialization amulet. Its one gold, you can do it. You can go Dual Wield or Archery, but Archery is the preferred weapon choice (Bow of the Artificer after level 13 man...)

 

Spoiler

Level 1 and 2: 3 Points

 

Archery

 

Spoiler

Death From Above > Leaping Shot > Poisoned Weapons

 

Gives us a good bit of damage, which will later fuel our rampages. But, it also lets us do Crossroads in the Hinterlands without putting more people than Cass in danger's way. Things will be pretty easy, ranging things down from a far is easy, but not representative of how this will spec will play. At all.

 

Dual Wield

 

Spoiler

Dual Fangs > Poisoned Weapons > Stealth

 

Dual Wield is a lot more risky. Pay attention to your barrier status and Stealth when its getting low. You are pretty fragile, and you'll want to spike Solas' Winter's Grasp Targets. When Dual Fangs is on CD, use Poisoned Weapons to keep your DPS up. This is the range we'll be playing in, so get used to the DANGA'!

 

Level: 3 and 4: 2 Points

 

Both Weapons

Spoiler

Fighting Dirty > Hook and Tackle

 

Yes. Hook and Tackle as an Archer. Your only Archery attack at this point is Leaping Shot, which works best from Melee Range. Best Gap Closer in the game for a Rogue. Use it.

Level 5, 6, 7, and 8: 4 Points

 

Both Weapons

Spoiler

Beats Walking > Explosive Toxin > Toxic Cloud > Lost in the Mist

 

This is our god combo. The whole reason we're playing THIS IS SABOTAAAAAGE! Explosive Toxin uses Toxic Cloud's upgrade and grants your party Elusive. Basically after this point, you come into exactly what you're playing this for, and you become the Trash Nuker. Hook and Tackle a weak mob in your pile, and start burning him down, before he falls, hit Poisoned Weapons and watch them explode in a nice neat gas that makes your party unhittable. Drop Toxic Cloud out of and in combat to maintain stacks. If you're playing Archery, you'll wanna do this: Hook and Tackle, Toxic Cloud, Leaping Shot, Poisoned Weapons, and repeat as you can. For Dual Wield, you'll want to continue working with your Mage to shatter his frozen targets if he can't. 

 

After this point, you're pretty free to do what you want, but if you're planning to Artificer after Skyhold, continue following this, because you're experiencing the playstyle first hand.

Level 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13: 5 Points

 

Archery

Spoiler

Rolling Draw > First Blood > Strafing Shots > Caltrops > The Upgrade that makes people bleed

 

More help with nuking, and survival. Caltrops is a party asset, plus the bleeding damage goes -under- Guard, so its helpful to have. After your tank Chains up a group, you should dump Caltrops at their feet to keep them from splitting off or getting out of range of the warrior's taunts, Bleeds can Crit, which comes in handy later in the build. Just add Caltrops to your up close and personal rotation and you'll be fine.

Dual Wield

Spoiler

Dance of Death > Sneak Attack > Caltrops > That Upgrade that makes people bleed > Looked Like it Hurt

 

Stamina Management, Critical chance, Caltrops. All good stuff.

Level 14, 15, and 16: 3 Points

 

Both Weapons

Spoiler

(Archery: Looked like it Hurt) > Cheap Shots > Throwing Blade > (Dual Wield: First Blood)

 

Yes, you read that right Dual Wielders, you are taking an Archery Passive. Yes, it works without the Bow. With these final levels, you attain the last bit of Utility you will give to the party, the ability to stack Sunder out of the LISTEN ALL Y'ALL THIS IS SABOTAAAAAGE! You can stack and maintain Sunder on basically anyone you can hit with Throwing Blades, Caltrops' bleed, Toxic Cloud, and even Poisoned Weapons. You will want to stuff your eyes FULL OF CRIT CHANCE, because its what fuels your Sunder, your Stamina, and your ego. You're a rogue after all! Dexterity will give you Crit Chance so don't right it off. 

 

 

Hope this helps

[Matth85]

Allright. So. I just did a few playthrough, and I can say that these builds work just as good as they did before. Most of the new stuff we get are mere optional stuff you can take, but the builds work fine. The only thing I'd change would be:

 

Warrior:

 

1 - Get charging bull and the increased movement upgrade as soon as possible. The guard is still useless, but the movement means quicker moving through the game.

2 - Get the damage upgrade to combat roll. This is a massive dps increase.

3 - Get the Horn of Valor upgrade on the tank, as it gives guard generation for the team. Not huge, but allows the tank to survive longer, and the squishy team members can take one extra hit.

 

The same thing applied as before. Get the purple Vanguard armor in Hinterlands and equip it at level 8, and your tank is never going to die to anything but pure mage casters. 

 

Can't say the tank changed much. I just got the defensive passives, and the AI did a fine job. For the 2h warrior, I noticed a bit of a gameplay change. Instead of being a glorified CC character until Reaver, I was able to do good burst. Charging Bull into combat roll into Mighty Blow into Pommel Strike into Grappling Hook into Combat Roll was generally enough to take down anything but elite enemies or anything with a barrier on, and it allowed me to lock down 1 target for a long time, or two targets for a decent amount of time.

 

End-game I aquired an amulet that healed me when somebody died near me, and I had a ring that gave me speed when under half health. Along with reaver specialization, I was able to do monster damage WITHOUT spamming and playing that god awful boring playstyle.

 

Rogue:

 

1 - The new Evade is neat. It's pretty good for a dw rogue to quickly go from target to target.

2 - Going for Poison is a valid build as well now. Can't say I like it, but it's there.

3 - The new upgrade to Longshot is a straight forward "GO GET IT!", right after getting Full Draw.

 

Can't say I noticed a different in playstyle. I still prefer the stealthy approach and killing priority targets. I did end up taking poison, though, as it allowed me to heal up. Especially useful when on trials and health potions are rather useless!

For my Archer I also didn't see much of a difference in playstyle.

 

Mage:

 

1 - Frost is a lot more valid. In fact, I drop most of the lightning tree. Frost Mine + Fade Step into Fire Mine(upgraded) into Winters Grasp(upgraded) does some monster damage!

2 - The upgrade to Fade Step also makes casting more spells viable.

 

What can I say. I specced the support mage a bit different. I go hard into the spirit tree for just about everything, then frost for the CC, then fire for passives and lastly whatever specialization is available. For an offensive mage I went much the same, although the playstyle did change a bit. Instead of being in the background and shotting, I often rush into melee range, place my fire runes and Frost runes, then fade step out. More dangerous, but the clear-time is just about three times as fast as any other!

 

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I am now going to attempt, and record, a 100% pre-skyhold run using a DW rogue on Nightmare with all trials (FF off. I don't see the joy in that one). Up to and including Killing Ferelden Frostback before I get the Templars or Mages. 

 

To be fair, some of these new changes are neat, but not game breaking (Well, some are. dat combat roll tho!). It allows for new builds; but that does not ruin older builds. What I did notice, coming back after not playing since release, was all the new unique items that both balanced out certain parts, and broke others.

 

If anybody actually got any good builds with any good concepts around them, or find any faults with the builds I got, I'd love to hear it and do some changes to optimize it. 

 

(I will edit the main post soon, to get the new changes added.)

[Snifferoni]

@ Matth85: btw - whats the name of ur youtube-channel?

[zeypher]

I'm seeing this now too.  I'm thinking the SnS tree should dip down to get Horn of Valor with +guard upgrade and skip all but Warcry in Vanguard.  Hell maybe not even warcry.  Payback strike taunts and you have grappling chain to get single targets to you.

Necro but yea this is what i have seen in my latest playthrough. S&S doesnt need war cry as payback strike does excellent taunting. Livid is slightly overrated as it sounds powerful but then you factor in its point cost its low range. If one needs more damage horn of valor with the other toggle for 30% more damage and armor.

 

This is not to say livid is bad as it has some excellent redeeming features. It gets you out of knockdowns etc, its casting is fast a lot faster than the horns and its provides damage reduction which is worthwhile for a reaver/ 2 handed warriors and it has no stamina cost.

 

So if one runs two warriors in a party with AI providing the horn of valor then livid is a decent option. But if you are the solo warrior then the horn has higher priority.

[Bigdawg13]

I'm a bit rusty, but for early game, what is the best way to remove lots of guard on promoted elites?

[Valerius]

I'm a bit rusty, but for early game, what is the best way to remove lots of guard on promoted elites?

An upgraded shield bash is pretty easy to get to in the talent tree and does incredible damage against guard. At least that's the fastest thing I can remember.

[PapaCharlie9]

I'm a bit rusty, but for early game, what is the best way to remove lots of guard on promoted elites?

There's no magic bullet, which is kind of the point of Trials. You just have to wear them down and not die while you are doing it. I didn't do anything special, didn't gear for more guard penetration or anything like that. I just had a good mix of elemental damage included with physical. Antivan Fire and Bee grenades help. And, of course, higher tier weapons are better than lower tier. Same for mats. Not that I went crazy with either. I think I ran with Tier 2 schematics with one or two loaded with Tier 3 mats for damage, but not the whole party. All before Skyhold.

[Bigdawg13]

There's no magic bullet, which is kind of the point of Trials. You just have to wear them down and not die while you are doing it. I didn't do anything special, didn't gear for more guard penetration or anything like that. I just had a good mix of elemental damage included with physical. Antivan Fire and Bee grenades help. And, of course, higher tier weapons are better than lower tier. Same for mats. Not that I went crazy with either. I think I ran with Tier 2 schematics with one or two loaded with Tier 3 mats for damage, but not the whole party. All before Skyhold.

 

Have to agree to disagree.  Making sure you have dispel is imperative for trials.  Apparently the same is true for Shield Bash.

 

If the point of trials is just to make every fight last longer, then it seems like they are kind of worthless.   I prefer to think of trials forcing more strategy and tactical thinking.

[PapaCharlie9]

Have to agree to disagree.  Making sure you have dispel is imperative for trials.  Apparently the same is true for Shield Bash.
 
If the point of trials is just to make every fight last longer, then it seems like they are kind of worthless.   I prefer to think of trials forcing more strategy and tactical thinking.

I only meant no magic bullet with respect to guard. I completely agree that Dispel/Spell purge is mandatory for Walk Softly.

If you replace "If the point of trials" with "If the point of Walk Softly" (or in my original reply, replace "that's the point of Trials" with "that's the point of Walk Softly"), that's the effective result. Well, actually, it's a polarizing effect. Either you suffer a full party wipe in half a minute, or you wipe out the mob in half a minute, or you spend 20 minutes wearing a promoted enemy down. Walk Softly makes the combat curve non-linear.

The other trials do indeed encourage new tactics and more planning/thinking. Walk Softly, being randomly generated, works against that tactical thinking, IMO. That's why I've turned it off in my current Nightmare run. The intention was good, throw a ringer into the mix to force you to adapt, but it's just so random and spikey that it ends up being more annoying than refreshing. What finally tore it for me was after a long fight, down to the last man standing, I lost, and on reload, the same mob rolled different traits, making them too easy to defeat and depriving me of a rematch. Nothing I learned from the previous defeat applied to the current battle.

[Brother Juniper]

The other trials do indeed encourage new tactics and more planning/thinking. Walk Softly, being randomly generated, works against that tactical thinking, IMO. That's why I've turned it off in my current Nightmare run. The intention was good, throw a ringer into the mix to force you to adapt, but it's just so random and spikey that it ends up being more annoying than refreshing. What finally tore it for me was after a long fight, down to the last man standing, I lost, and on reload, the same mob rolled different traits, making them too easy to defeat and depriving me of a rematch. Nothing I learned from the previous defeat applied to the current battle.

 

This has been my frustration as well. I've come close to turning off Walk Softly so many times, but I don't want to lose the trials rewards since there are only three trials that I have any interest in using. Most of the promoted creatures I kill aren't all that difficult (Nugs, Rams, Druffalo, Fennec - looking for good leather for my rogues early on), so I guess I'll just endure the occasional unbeatable enemy for sake of the rewards.

[Bigdawg13]

You know the worst part of the trials?  When you try to kill a ram in the Hinterlands for it's meat, and only realize after the fight starts it is "promoted".  *sigh*

[Brother Juniper]

You know the worst part of the trials?  When you try to kill a ram in the Hinterlands for it's meat, and only realize after the fight starts it is "promoted".  *sigh*

 

And promoted Druffalo. Killing promoted Druffalo in Haven solo on nightmare can be a pain. I kill a lot of them since their leather is so useful early on.