22 réponses à ce sujet

[StealthReborn--]

I'm playing a archer/rogue this time around and was thinking of having Cassandra (Tank), Dorian (healer), and Vivienne (all around magic) accompany me this this time around. I don't like Blackwall and for other spoiler reasons I won't mention. Anyway, would the above mentioned be viable? I don't wanna facepalm myself. Looking for a challenge but not an experience that'll make it unbearable and want to give up. So I'm hoping the picks mentioned above would be fine? Opinions? Thanks!

[Firky]

IMO, just make your PC as good at dealing damage as Varric ASAP.

 

I used Blackwall and all of the purple tree with taunting and stuff, then Shield Wall and he drew ALL the aggro. I'm sure you can do the same with Cassandra. I used her sometimes, with the green tree, shield bash etc. But, you could consider making her purple, I'm sure.

 

Then just do combos with everyone else.

 

Edit: PS. I found the beginning difficult with a mage PC, and I suspect mage might be the easiest nightmare choice for the opening. Does an archer have any early options for incapacitating enemies? Also, there were a few encounters that I mixed my party up for. Like, there was one with a million undead, so I took Iron Bull instead and found it much easier. Why lock in your party if you don't necessarily need to?

[Nefla]

Vivienne with her KE abilities then random other people (not rogues)

[Duelist]

Depends what you're after really.

As a rogue yourself, consider Varric.
Set Long Shot to preferred and as you rack up crits, Opportunity Knocks allows him to spam it almost continuously and you get Hail Of Arrows for making short work of dragons or bosses.

As mages go, Solas is the best since AI sucks at using Vivienne properly and Necromancer is underwhelming IMO.

[KaiserShep]

As mages go, Solas is the best since AI sucks at using Vivienne properly and Necromancer is underwhelming IMO.

 

Yeah, Dorian easily has the worst spec of the 3 I think, and I'm really disappointed in Vivienne's AI, since a KE companion should be able to shrug off a lot of damage, but she never really does it properly. Since my own PC is a KE herself, I just don't bother, but then, a Knight-Enchanter Inquisitor can just use anybody and still come out on top, since it can easily solo a lot of enemies.

 

But anyway, I agree about Solas. I found him to be more useful than the other mages a lot of the time. I only use Cassandra and I found her to be an effective tank, though I'm not totally sold on her specialization.

[Duelist]

Yeah, Dorian easily has the worst spec of the 3 I think, and I'm really disappointed in Vivienne's AI, since a KE companion should be able to shrug off a lot of damage, but she never really does it properly. Since my own PC is a KE herself, I just don't bother, but then, a Knight-Enchanter Inquisitor can just use anybody and still come out on top, since it can easily solo a lot of enemies.

But anyway, I agree about Solas. I found him to be more useful than the other mages a lot of the time. I only use Cassandra and I found her to be an effective tank, though I'm not totally sold on her specialization.

Yeah, Templar is kinda weird.

It's good for clearing rifts, a bit meh the rest of the time although Wrath Of Heaven is good for setting up combos for my Assassin.

[caradoc2000]

a Knight-Enchanter Inquisitor can just use anybody and still come out on top, since it can easily solo a lot of enemies.

They really should have limited KE autobarrier to spirit blade only. That way you would at least have been vulnerable to ranged attacks while you close in on enemy. Instead any damage dealt gives you barrier, combined with the slow decay passive it is just ridiculous.

[Firky]

PS. I was just playing the DLC tonight and decided to take Cassandra. She doesn't have the purple tree. Must be Blackwall's. That totally got me through nightmare.

 

Edit: No. She does have it. It's the Vanguard tree.

[PhroXenGold]

Play with whoever you think is the most interesting, all the NPCs are perfectly viable.

 

That's not to say there aren't some builds that are less effective. For example, if you're intending to just control the Inquisitor and leave the rest of you party predominantly under the AI's control, melee damage dealers aren't great (they tend to end up dead very quickly when left to their own devices), but there's no reason whatsoever why you can't just respec Bull to use weapon/shield style and Cole to archery if you happen to like those characters.

[KaiserShep]

Yeah, Templar is kinda weird.

It's good for clearing rifts, a bit meh the rest of the time although Wrath Of Heaven is good for setting up combos for my Assassin.

 

I really wish that Cassandra had more specialized Seeker abilities reflected in gameplay, but I understand why they went with a basic Templar spec. Still, her being an obligatory companion would make it a bit easier to implement.

 

They really should have limited KE autobarrier to spirit blade only. That way you would at least have been vulnerable to ranged attacks while you close in on enemy. Instead any damage dealt gives you barrier, combined with the slow decay passive it is just ridiculous.

 

Yeah, personally I can't really complain and love KE anyway, but few enemies present any meaningful challenge after a while, and I'll have to live without the Jaws of Hakkon to really get a feel for anything stronger than what the vanilla game has to offer.

[Firky]

Play with whoever you think is the most interesting, all the NPCs are perfectly viable.

 

That's not to say there aren't some builds that are less effective. For example, if you're intending to just control the Inquisitor and leave the rest of you party predominantly under the AI's control, melee damage dealers aren't great (they tend to end up dead very quickly when left to their own devices), but there's no reason whatsoever why you can't just respec Bull to use weapon/shield style and Cole to archery if you happen to like those characters.

 

I never found a good way to play with Iron Bull, either to build him or how to build a party around him. But I always kept him 2H. He would seem weird with a shield, somehow.

[KaiserShep]

I could never really think of a good reason to take Iron Bull on most quests before anyone else. He was essentially my dragon hunting guy, and even then, it was mostly just a roleplaying gesture because I haven't really gotten the hang of making him do this effectively, whereas Sera and an ice or fire-heavy mage were top notch for me.

[Firky]

How did you use him against dragons? I tried once. He just kept dying really quickly. I love block and slash, but it takes all his stamina, then he's a kitten.

I really just needed Blackwall constantly taunting and blocking.

[Alan Drifter13]

For general purposes, Cassandra isn't a very bad tank (since you don't want to use Blackwall), and since you are an archer yourself, you only need one mage (as they said above, Solas is a good option). The final companion could be Vivienne, or in the late game you may want to bring a DW rogue (Cole, if you didn't change the initial setting) for dealing wit enemies faster. If you set stealth and evade to favorite he won't die so quickly.

 

For killing dragons you definitely need to bring Cole along for Mark of Death, unless, of course, your inquisitor is an assasin.

[Forsythia77]

How did you use him against dragons? I tried once. He just kept dying really quickly. I love block and slash, but it takes all his stamina, then he's a kitten.

I really just needed Blackwall constantly taunting and blocking.

Bull is really a delicate fleur.  He is much better if you give him a weapon or armor with fade touched silverite/obsidian/onyx that generate 5, 3 or 2 guard on hit respectively.  You might also give him armor with fade touched items that generate unbowed (porphirite - the orangey stuff in the Emerald Graves - I may be spelling it incorrectly).  I had this on my battle mage on my nightmare run (and guard on hit on her staff) and it was magical.  She was a magical tank.  LOL.  Even if you tank him up by specing him heavily within the Vanguard tree he still has a propensity to die.  Some of that is due to his Reaver abilities.

[PhroXenGold]

Bull is really a delicate fleur.  He is much better if you give him a weapon or armor with fade touched silverite/obsidian/onyx that generate 5, 3 or 2 guard on hit respectively.  You might also give him armor with fade touched items that generate unbowed (porphirite - the orangey stuff in the Emerald Graves - I may be spelling it incorrectly).  I had this on my battle mage on my nightmare run (and guard on hit on her staff) and it was magical.  She was a magical tank.  LOL.  Even if you tank him up by specing him heavily within the Vanguard tree he still has a propensity to die.  Some of that is due to his Reaver abilities.

 

From my experience, this is less a problem with Bull, and more a problem with 2-handed warriors in general. They're not that survivable unless either you micromanage them, or go champion (and even then, the AI isn't great at keeping them alive). I tried Cass as a 2h-er, and she died much the same as Bull does.

[StealthReborn--]

For general purposes, Cassandra isn't a very bad tank (since you don't want to use Blackwall), and since you are an archer yourself, you only need one mage (as they said above, Solas is a good option). The final companion could be Vivienne, or in the late game you may want to bring a DW rogue (Cole, if you didn't change the initial setting) for dealing wit enemies faster. If you set stealth and evade to favorite he won't die so quickly.

 

For killing dragons you definitely need to bring Cole along for Mark of Death, unless, of course, your inquisitor is an assasin.

 

Yeah Solas just rubs me the wrong way. He seems like a "party crasher" if you will. I really only want to have companions with me that I find enjoyable to be around. I like Cassandra and she'll be my romance in this nightmare playthrough, also she did pretty well on my first run. Dorian is pretty funny/interesting and from what I've just read on other sites to gather more information, he's a pretty good healer. Archery (which my character is) seems to be head to head with mage in terms of DPS and just did a mage last playthrough. I'd use Iron Bull as another "tank-ish" companion but apparently he doesn't last very long.

 

So I was thinking of using Vivienne for KE and spec her into some freeze spells to freeze/slow down the enemies and allow my companions to do more damage while they're frozen/heal while we get the chance.

[Duelist]

How did you use him against dragons? I tried once. He just kept dying really quickly. I love block and slash, but it takes all his stamina, then he's a kitten.

I really just needed Blackwall constantly taunting and blocking.

I just bring Bull for Horn of Valour in dragon fights.
Buffing your rogues' killing power is about all he's good for in dragon fights.

Outside of that, I use him as an auto attack not with abnormally high crit chance for a warrior and AI does OK with him.

The Flow Of Battle passive and reasonable crit chance will allow him to keep his guard up (War Cry) and restore his health (Devour).

Set Combat Roll, War Cry, Block And Slash and Devour to preferred.

[Alan Drifter13]

Yeah Solas just rubs me the wrong way. He seems like a "party crasher" if you will. I really only want to have companions with me that I find enjoyable to be around. I like Cassandra and she'll be my romance in this nightmare playthrough, also she did pretty well on my first run. Dorian is pretty funny/interesting and from what I've just read on other sites to gather more information, he's a pretty good healer. Archery (which my character is) seems to be head to head with mage in terms of DPS and just did a mage last playthrough. I'd use Iron Bull as another "tank-ish" companion but apparently he doesn't last very long.

 

So I was thinking of using Vivienne for KE and spec her into some freeze spells to freeze/slow down the enemies and allow my companions to do more damage while they're frozen/heal while we get the chance.

 

Sounds good. Freeze + your archer's long shot (for the cross-class combo) is a good way to quickly reduce the health of at least 1 enemy right at the beginning of the fight. If you freeze 2 enemies Cass can blow the other one with shield bash. And yes, Dorian is definitely a funny companion to have around.

[Forsythia77]

From my experience, this is less a problem with Bull, and more a problem with 2-handed warriors in general. They're not that survivable unless either you micromanage them, or go champion (and even then, the AI isn't great at keeping them alive). I tried Cass as a 2h-er, and she died much the same as Bull does.

 

Huh.  That's kind of fascinating!  Do you think it's just a function of the AI not being able to properly handle a 2 hander? I didn't take Bull around much on my nightmare run.  I generally switched between Cass and Blackwall.  I find even on easier difficulties that Bull (and Cole, but dagger rogues are always squishy) is the character I have to micromanage the most, at least until I get him some guard on hit on top of filling out the vanguard tree.

 

I've decided to go 2H on this play through with my Qunari, but I'm also not playing it on nightmare this time around.  After that normal feels way way easy. Since it's not my favorite class to play I figured I go easy.

[PhroXenGold]

Huh.  That's kind of fascinating!  Do you think it's just a function of the AI not being able to properly handle a 2 hander? I didn't take Bull around much on my nightmare run.  I generally switched between Cass and Blackwall.  I find even on easier difficulties that Bull (and Cole, but dagger rogues are always squishy) is the character I have to micromanage the most, at least until I get him some guard on hit on top of filling out the vanguard tree.

 

I've decided to go 2H on this play through with my Qunari, but I'm also not playing it on nightmare this time around.  After that normal feels way way easy. Since it's not my favorite class to play I figured I go easy.

 

In general, I'd say it's because the AI is bad at avoiding damage when in melee. Particularly against anything with an AoE attack, but even against those foes without them, they aren't good at either avoiding attacks, mitigating damage or even ensuring the tank has aggro. As a SnB character, they can keep Shield Wall up, along with the extra survivability passives, so it doesn't matter (and indeed, taking damage is rather the point). With a 2-hander though (and a melee rogue even more so - I wouldn't even consider allowing the AI to look after Cole [unless he's respeced to an archer of course] on hard let alone nightmare), even with some of the more defensive skills, you still don't have the easy survivability that a SnB character can get  - you can still be vary suvivable, witness a 2h champion who can maintain ridiculous uptime on the invulnerability skill, but it's not the kind of "hold Shield Wall and laugh" strategy that the AI can deal with.

 

It was quite noticable when I played my 2h champion (on hard), the difference in party survivability between my usual play of me controlling the Inquisitor and the AI controlling Cass to reversing this. I couldn't improve Cass' survivability much over what the AI could do, but it was nowhere nearly as capable of surviving as Inky as I was.

[aliastasia]

I did a KE nightmare run, used mostly Cass, Vivienne and alternated between Dorian and Solas 
If you're playing as a rogue, you have yourself and Dorian as back-end damage dealers, and then Cass and Vivienne as tanks and front-end damage dealers - also - only difference I noticed with nightmare, was that just like ME, it's a matter of more guard, so make sure you have guard-stripping skills and abilities with you. 
In addition, the first thing I usually do when hitting Skyhold, is to open the Hissing Wastes to get Nevarrite and Volcanic Aurum, and farm it, so I can build the strongest armours (bar dragonbone) and weapons. I usually also open  the Exalted Plains, and do the Dalish quests to open their store - that one and the one in the hissing wastes have really good equipment, and it will set you up nicely for a Nightmare run.

Someone mentioned lack of a purple tree - That's the Vanguard tree, iirc, and all Warrior Class characters have access to it, and you use it (well, I do) to build guard, also on twohand-characters.

[exboomer]

Yeah, Dorian easily has the worst spec of the 3 I think, and I'm really disappointed in Vivienne's AI, since a KE companion should be able to shrug off a lot of damage, but she never really does it properly. Since my own PC is a KE herself, I just don't bother, but then, a Knight-Enchanter Inquisitor can just use anybody and still come out on top, since it can easily solo a lot of enemies.

 

But anyway, I agree about Solas. I found him to be more useful than the other mages a lot of the time. I only use Cassandra and I found her to be an effective tank, though I'm not totally sold on her specialization.

I prefer Dorian to Solas and Vivienne. I think his Necromancer abilities are the best of the 3 NPC's but I never use Tac Cam mode so maybe that is the difference.