19 réponses à ce sujet

[ske02938]

After reading up on combos I redid the skill trees of my party to accommodate them, but I have been underwhelmed so far.

 

- When a cross-class combo is successfully carried out the damage that results is not anything extraordinary.

 

- It takes a lot of micromanagement to carry out just one cross-class combo. You have to manually select one character, preform the incapacity effect, and then manually select another character and preform the detonator. You must constantly freeze and unfreeze combat and switch between characters. The AI don’t seem to be proficient at preforming combos on their own. 

 

- Your choice of combos is quite limited. To begin a combo you have to stun/sleep/freeze/paralyse. But to use stun you have to play as a two-handed warrior for Pommel Strike in the Two-Handed tree (the stun from Grappling Chain in the Battlemaster tree doesn’t work). To use sleep you have to be a melee rogue so that you’re comfortable with getting into melee range to use Knockout Powder in the Subterfuge tree (the sleep from Full Draw in the Archery tree isn’t practical to use, since any damage at all will break the sleep effect without delay). My party consists of two mages, a tank warrior and an archer rogue, which means for me only freeze and paralyze can be used to start off combos.

 

- A lot of mobs are immune to combos. That is, they are either immune to stun/sleep/freeze/paralyze or they have cold or electricity resistance, which renders combos that use freeze or paralyze useless. I'm not all that far through the game yet but from what I have seen bosses are immune to everything, which means combos can only be used on trash mobs. And even a large number of trash mobs have some sort of immunity to combos.

 

So in all, it seems to take a lot of luck and effort to successfully pull off a cross-class combo, and when you do all you get is good-but-not-great damage on a non-boss mob. It doesn't seem worth it. I could be wrong though, as I am still only partially through the game (also, this is all based on nightmare).

 

Your thoughts? Thanks.

[Elhanan]

Personally, I do not utilize any Floating text, and use visual cues to see if a combo is viable. Or I use a known primer or detonator ability in the hope of a result, but I do not plan for them.

That said, the use of an upgraded Static Cage seems to be long enough for something to occur, or when I see a frozen opponent on the field, allow the nearest party member to take a shot at a Shatter effect. The end results are effective, and offer some nice visuals, but I have no idea how much damage was actually done.

Note: Entering and appearing w/ Fade Cloak with an incoming Terror being hit by other support fire has great effect.

[teks]

http://forum.bioware...mbat-mechanics/
Go to combos. he has the damage values. yes, worth it.

[actionhero112]

What do you mean "not worth it"? 

 

Some abilities are primers, and you detonate those primers when the status occurs. For it to be "not worth it," there would have to be some advantage to not detonating those combos. There isn't. You can detonate a combo on the last second of the cc, if you're concerned about losing cc effects, but by all means detonate those status afflictions. There is no downside

[Exalus]

Cross combos are insanely powerful for rogues and less so for warriors due to bad game balance. A shatter does 410% weapon damage, thats about as strong as a twin fangs. AI is very good at detonating combos. Cassandra shield bash steals all the time.

 

Combos are the most potent tool in your arsenal pre skyhold where combat is interesting and a challenge. Post skyhold, wrath of the havens + spell purge will decimate anything that is not stun immune.

 

I agree stun is a little too rare and I end up relying on freeze combos 90% of the time.

[ske02938]

What do you mean "not worth it"? 

 

Some abilities are primers, and you detonate those primers when the status occurs. For it to be "not worth it," there would have to be some advantage to not detonating those combos. There isn't. You can detonate a combo on the last second of the cc, if you're concerned about losing cc effects, but by all means detonate those status afflictions. There is no downside

 

The downside is the tedious effort needed to set up the combo during combat. Also, it's putting skill points into incapacitation/detonator abilites needed for the combo that do less damage up front versus abilites that do a lot of damage but aren't used in a combo.

 

Before learning about combos I just selected the abilites that did the most damage by themselves and let the AI spam them while I controlled my own character, a tank warrior. Since learning about combos I redid the skill trees and selected abilites that allow me to set up combos, but I feel like my party kills things far slower, not to mention the tediousness of going back and forth between characters to select the appropriate abilites for the combo. And since combos don't work on bosses it just seems like it's all for naught anyways.

[aznricepuff]

I found combos to be absolutely essential pre-skyhold on Nightmare. Yes, they take a lot of micro to set up but I've never really minded that; I obsessively micromanage my party in almost every fight anyway.

 

Post-skyhold they are less valuable since it's around that time that crafting really comes into its own, you get access to the really good abilities for your class, and not to mention specializations.

 

However, certain combos are still great for burst damage. Shatter + Twin Fangs does about 50% more damage than Twin Fangs alone (possibly more against heavily armored targets or targets that are weak to cold), for example. And Wrath of Heaven + Spell Purge makes every rift fight a triviality: a 2H templar can easily see damage numbers >3000 off the combo - it's like hitting a stealthed+crit+flanking Twin Fangs except on every stunnable enemy in a huge AoE.

[Exalus]

The downside is the tedious effort needed to set up the combo during combat. Also, it's putting skill points into incapacitation/detonator abilites needed for the combo that do less damage up front versus abilites that do a lot of damage but aren't used in a combo.

 

Before learning about combos I just selected the abilites that did the most damage by themselves and let the AI spam them while I controlled my own character, a tank warrior. Since learning about combos I redid the skill trees and selected abilites that allow me to set up combos, but I feel like my party kills things far slower, not to mention the tediousness of going back and forth between characters to select the appropriate abilites for the combo. And since combos don't work on bosses it just seems like it's all for naught anyways.

Your damage output is limited by your stamina and mana regen. Regardless of how many abilities you have you can only use so many within a given time frame.

 

Combos allow you to do more damage (bursting down dangerous archers/mages) within that time frame while also lessening damage received through the CC, its a win win. I think the issue is lack of CC in the game more than effort to perform the combo. Bosses account for maybe 5% of the total combat of the game, probably less. 

 

I would say the most powerful use of combos pre skyhold is:

winter's grasp/ice mine+ twin fangs/deathblow(500% dmg) or longshot (360% dmg)

pommel strike + dispel (1200% dmg)

sleep powder + mightblow/whirlmind (280% total dot dmg)

 

In all cases, mightblow/whirlwind is inferior to rogue detonators in terms of damage multiplier but is somewhat offset by 2h weapons having huge base physical damage and the ability to multi-detonate. 

[actionhero112]

The downside is the tedious effort needed to set up the combo during combat. Also, it's putting skill points into incapacitation/detonator abilites needed for the combo that do less damage up front versus abilites that do a lot of damage but aren't used in a combo.

 

Before learning about combos I just selected the abilites that did the most damage by themselves and let the AI spam them while I controlled my own character, a tank warrior. Since learning about combos I redid the skill trees and selected abilites that allow me to set up combos, but I feel like my party kills things far slower, not to mention the tediousness of going back and forth between characters to select the appropriate abilites for the combo. And since combos don't work on bosses it just seems like it's all for naught anyways.

How is it tedious to set up? You just use an ability and then use another ability on the enemy afflicted by the status condition. It's two steps. Detonator abilities are among the best around, so it's not as if it's a bad investment skill point wise either. 

 

If you see an enemy afflicted with status by your team member, use a detonator ability. If those abilities are on cooldown, just attack anyways. 

 

Don't go out of your way for primer abilities, and don't go out of your way to use knockout powder on everyone if you're an archer rogue. Just let them happen authentically. In fact the ai will detonate combos by themselves due to how their programmed. 

[teks]

OP, you have a lot of good points. The boss immunity, and small number of primers are valid points. The biggest problem is that you say they take too much effort, when there is hardly any effort involved in combos what-so-ever. Its just a sweet and hefty damage bonus that is really pretty hard to miss. Giving the AI a few primer skills works great. The window of opportunity you have is long, and all you gotta do is hit the enemy with a detonator skill. Boom! On the other side, if you use a few primers, the AI will try to detonate them all on their own.
The AI won't automatically detonate sleep though, but sleep has a nice long duration, and they don't break sleep with auto attacks either, so just hit tac and tell them to break it at your hearts desire.

[GoodFella146]

Strongly disagree.  I very much rely on these to place a lot of damage.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Be a Rift Mage and you do not have to worry about setting up anything because combos will just happen naturally. 

[sinosleep]

As has been mentioned, the ai is VERY combo happy and will do most of the work for you. At absolute worse you'll be doing half the work, but often times your party will both set up and set off combos all by their lonesome. 

[Reman]

Combo's a waste of time? 

 

......   I don't even......

[OrionAnderson]

I play Nightmare (I assume most of us on the forum do, but I figured I'd specify). I haven't found it necessary to use combos extensively, but they're helpful and worth spending a small amount of effort. OP, it sounds like you have a strange party layout that just doesn't happen to combo effectively. That's not necessarily a problem if you're doing well, but it is unusual. In most cases I have found that the AI is actually pretty good at this. A lot of my combos happen by accident. 

 

All my mages learn Winter's Grasp because I need it to unlock my mana passives. Once you upgrade it it's a really good spell, so I generally set it as the preferred attack. When my warrior inquisitor goes to use mighty swing, I often find that the AI freezes my target during the wind-up.  Occasionally I deliberately save mighty swing until I see the freeze come down, or use a mobility skill to jump on the target my mages have set up. My archer rogue has an even easier time. After I open the fight with Long Shot, it usually isn't better than auto-attack, so I just save it until I see a combo to pop. Most of my mages have Immolate so I can get the critical passive. Immolate detonates, so whenever I pommel strike something there's a decent chance that somebody randomly immolates them. Dispel Magic also detonates. If you allow the AI to cast it they spam it like crazy, although I usually disable it. Also, sleep isn't just for melee rogues. Assassin-archers or panic-archers learn sleep on the way to their passives, and they can use it for self defense. 

 

That said, it's totally fine not to use the "combo system". Knockdown, Panic, and Weakness don't technically create combos, but you can use cross-class passives to build around them. For instance, think about playing a 2-handed warrior with battlemaster abilities. You would do bonus damage to knocked down enemies with every attack, and massive damage with mighty blow. Solas could use veilstrike and stonefist to set that up. Solas gets a ton of bonuses against weakened enemies. You can give your warrior the ability to weaken enemies on crits. Varric can give your whole team bonus crit chance so that weakness comes up more often, or Cassandra can add weaken chance directly. There's also a panic combo, though it's not as good. Dorian makes panicked enemies take more damage from everything. Any rogue can take a passive that gives automatic crits against panicked enemies, although it's best for Cole or the Inquisitor. You can stack those passives with a crit damage weapon to deal massive damage in one attack. Dorian can have up to 3 panics by himself, but if you need more you can also put War Horn on your tank. If you're using these kinds of "combos" you probably don't need to use the official system in addition.

[UEG Donkey]

I don't engage tac cam at all any more I do use tactics and hold position though here are a few combos you don't have to set up Solas prefer winters grasp and veil strike he will combo on his own. Have cole prefer knockout bomb and use your warrior to whirlwind and combo several enemies. You can also put static cage on prefer and start whirlwind. i prefer rouge play style but as a warrior you don't Ever have to switch off the inquisitor.

[DomeWing333]

I'm still on patch 2 so my 2H detonators still aren't fixed yet, but I still find myself going for combos whenever I can just because the slowdown looks cool.

[Navasha]

Honestly, unless they create a new harder difficulty level, I don't see the need for them.   I am sure they activate accidentally from time to time, but I have never purposefully attempt to trigger one.    I am already gimping my own playthroughs by never acquiring focus abilities and not using potions other than healing.     Extra damage bonus events is another that should be removed.  

[Gigamantis]

It Depends.  Early on for a DW Rogue combos are your bread and butter; they become the difference between your enemy dying in a single rotation and the enemy turning around with half his health left and one-shotting you. 

 

If you're comboing as a Mage or SnS warrior though the damage likely isn't very impressive for all the setup; especially early on. 

[SpazzticZeal]

Yes it's worth it especially on the harder game modes. It takes a matter of like 3 seconds to switch between characters to set one up.