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[badkenbad]

16:20 - finished Crestwood power quests, level 12, have enough power to finish the main quest line.

 

We're in the home stretch!

[badkenbad]

Spent some time upgrading my party's equipment a bit, now it's time to finish. I'm level 12 with Tier 2 equipment. Here Lies the Abyss should be okay, but the last few quests in the game will be interesting.

 

I'll be streaming the rest of the Inquisitor's Path quests until I'm done. Drop by and say hi if you like!

 

http://twitch.tv/badkenbad

[badkenbad]

I finished Nimesha the minimalist Nightmare Qunari Tempest Archer last night with the end game save at 23:50.

 

Here Lies the Abyss was mostly uneventful, as I was at or above the minimum required level for all of it. The fear demon fight was challenging, but nobody fell during it, and we even had some potions left over at the end.

 

For What Pride Had Wrought, Nimesha was level 14 and the rest of the party level 13 (recommended level 16-19). That turned out to be less of a problem than I anticipated, thanks to being able to avoid most combat. There are a couple spots in the forest where you must fight red-skull labeled elf assassins, templar marksmen and horrors, and those fights were very hard and time consuming, involving a lot of fallen party members, resurrection and healing potions. I saved my rejuvenation and offense potions for the Calpernia fight. There are a couple of easier brief fights at the start and end of the Temple of Mythal. Combat can be avoided through most of the temple, though, by doing the rituals and siding with the elvhen guardians.

 

The whole party was level 14 by the time we fought Calpernia, but that was still a very challenging fight. She brings in a lot of level 16 demons. I didn't check her level, but based on the punishment she can both dish out and take, I'm pretty sure she was higher than level 16.

 

For The Final Piece, I fought to subdue Mythal's dragon, since I was using the default world state. That fight was very hard, too, with several party members falling.

 

Nimesha was level 15 and the rest of the party was level 14 for the Corypheus fight (recommended level 16-19), and it was brutal. There were a lot of deaths, but I was barely able to make it through with no reloads. At the end, the party was out of potions and Nimesha was the only one standing - thanks largely to the combination of Flask of Lightning and her guard-on-hit masterwork bow.

 

It's possible that a minimalist run could be completed in a much shorter time. I spent a lot of time farming tier 2 materials for gear, which I made much earlier than I really needed it. I was at or well above recommended character levels for most of the game, so standard gear drops and quest rewards really would have sufficed.

 

For Adamant and beyond, though, the best gear you can make is highly recommended. You can farm the tier 3 metal Stormheart in Crestwood, and it is well worth spending the time to do that to craft weapons, tank armor and weapon and armor upgrades. You don't need to make a weapon for your tank, as the Axe of Green Edges from Crestwood is more than sufficient for the rest of the game. You also only need to make one staff (if you are running with two mages), because Tyrdda's staff is effectively a tier 3 level weapon.

 

Anwyay, the point of this whole exercise was to approximate how long the shortest, mostly exploit-free Nightmare run takes, and now I have my answer. I plan on writing up a minimalist walkthrough for the DA Wiki so people who want to plan characters will have a baseline for their character's path. I should stress that I don't think anyone should really attempt a minimalist character for their first experience of the game, because you miss out on a lot of very interesting character development and some of the great side stories in places like the Emerald Graves and Emprise du Lion. A typical character should take much longer than 24 hours - more like 60 or 70, so you can enjoy all the different characters and explore the more interesting areas in the game.

[PapaCharlie9]

What about Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts? Did you speed through that? How did you resolve it?

[badkenbad]

Ah, I didn't really speed through it. I collected all the Halla statues to leave my options open. I also looted a lot of stuff hoping to get some useable gear better than my crafted gear, or maybe some decent accessories, but that didn't happen. I ended up reconciling Celine and Briala, just because I could. The Florianne boss fight was fairly straightforward. Not super easy, but not hard either.

 

Looking back at the saves, altogether the Winter Palace took about an hour. Pretty sure that could go a lot faster, but I didn't really research how to do it quickly.

 

I'm starting a normal human mage character now, and I'll be recording it for a no-exploit minimalist guide/walkthrough, so no streaming.

[badkenbad]

What about Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts? Did you speed through that? How did you resolve it?

 

You got me curious so I looked up a quick route and tried it myself. It took a little less than a half hour. Maybe the extra 30 minutes is worth it for the chance at better loot, maybe not. In my case, it turned out not.

[xPez]

Would you have saved time if you had skipped the Guardian of Mythal fight with a Keep state and not fought Florianne?

 

Also, how hard/long was the Calpernia fight? Would doing the Samson/Calpernia side quests that let you talk them out of a fight have saved time in the long-run or added it?

 

Congratulations btw, very impressive

[badkenbad]

Definitely would have saved time not fighting the Guardian of Mythal or Florianne. It was kind of dumb of me to fight Florianne anyway, because I had done everything needed to not fight her. That would have only saved maybe 10 minutes though. The Guardian of Mythal fight was maybe 15 minutes, with setup time probably equivalent to the Morrigan-drank-from-the-well or Flemeth/Morrigan/Kieran encounter.

 

Despite how long the Calpernia fight was, the Shrine of Dumat sequence would have taken longer, because it involves a lot of running around and secondary fighting - first in a Val Royeaux apartment, then demons at the shrine itself. Also a war table operation or two, if I remember right.

 

I haven't done Samson's side quest, so I don't know how long that one takes. However, Champions of the Just is a much better choice for a minimalist character because it awards 6 power points (if Barris survives, which he should) rather than the 3 you get for In Hushed Whispers.

 

Regardless of the time, the goal wasn't really to be fast, just minimal questing. I wasn't skipping most dialogue, and I collected a lot of resources and fought a lot of random encounters I could have ignored. For the next game, no-exploit Normal Mage, I'll try skipping all the dialogue and minimizing resource collection. It should go quite a bit faster. I'm still going to loot like a madman, though. I just can't leave those chests unopened.

[PapaCharlie9]

You should be able to cut out at least 8 game hours (of your 23) on the Normal Mage run. The first run, you're making mistakes and figuring out better options. Second run you may still make mistakes, but they won't cost as much time.

 

What's your goal, sub 15 hours game time? That should be achievable.

[badkenbad]

I don't think I can shoot for a specific target time. I don't have a concrete enough plan to do that. It will definitely go a lot faster, especially with no dialogue, but I don't really know enough to quantify it.

[badkenbad]

My normal run is going well. At just over 6 hours, my Human Mage Ivey is level 8, with 62 power, and just finished the Hinterlands power quests. I was able to do a whole lot of easy requisitions. A tier 3 staff schematic dropped in Valammar, so that's pretty nice. I have the party in tier 2 crafted armor with tier 1 materials, and I'm going to stick with that until Adamant, I think - though I will be crafting a couple of those tier 3 staffs with Stormheart from Crestwood. Oh, and a Tier 2 mace schematic dropped from the chest near Cassandra in Haven, so she's been using that from the start.

 

Combat is going much, much quicker on Normal difficulty, especially since the party has really good gear. Ivey is specced for mostly fire, and putting out ridiculous amounts of damage. I'm using Sera, Cass and Solas, and might switch to Dorian when I get him, just to change things up from the last time.

[PapaCharlie9]

My normal run is going well. At just over 6 hours, my Human Mage Ivey is level 8, with 62 power, and just finished the Hinterlands power quests. I was able to do a whole lot of easy requisitions. A tier 3 staff schematic dropped in Valammar, so that's pretty nice. I have the party in tier 2 crafted armor with tier 1 materials, and I'm going to stick with that until Adamant, I think - though I will be crafting a couple of those tier 3 staffs with Stormheart from Crestwood. Oh, and a Tier 2 mace schematic dropped from the chest near Cassandra in Haven, so she's been using that from the start.

 

Combat is going much, much quicker on Normal difficulty, especially since the party has really good gear. Ivey is specced for mostly fire, and putting out ridiculous amounts of damage. I'm using Sera, Cass and Solas, and might switch to Dorian when I get him, just to change things up from the last time.

Valammar? I thought that this was minimalist. Where do you draw the line on what quests to do?

[badkenbad]

Valammar gives 5 power (3 for "Deep Trouble" and 2 for "The Vault of Valammar"). Also, the guy guarding the key to Valammar drops T2 masterwork armor for my tank.

 

I do quests that give power (and rifts and requisitions) until I have all the power I need, then just the Inquisitor's Path.

 

Right now, at 8:14 (ready to do Champions of the Just, and level 9), I have 78 power points and only need 17 more. Crestwood gives 21, so I won't even need to do all the power quests in Crestwood! Apart from the difficulty, the main difference this run is that I've done more requisitions, since ore is everywhere and very quick to pick up on the way while doing quests.

 

I have some pretty big time savers coming up compared to my Nightmare character. I can run through Champions of the Just without looting or fighting most of the way because I don't really need any drops in there, since I'm way over level for it. I have practiced a quick path through Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts. Also, I can let Morrigan use the Well of Sorrows so i don't need to fight the Guardian of Mythal.

 

I think Calpernia and Corypheus are still going to be painful.

[badkenbad]

Did a lot of Inquisitioning today!

 

It's looking good for a sub-15 hour, maybe even sub 14 hour finish. I'm at 12:42, level 13, and only have What Pride Had Wrought and the rest to do. I do need to close a couple of rifts, as I didn't do all rifts in Crestwood, and I missed a few points in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts due to my perk picks and speed. Champions of the Just + In Your Heart Shall Burn took less than an hour. Crestwood took about an hour even though I skipped several quests, because I wasted time gathering Obsidian to fill a requisition instead of closing a fade rift like I should have. Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts took about 20 minutes this time, and Adamant + the Fade was less than an hour.

 

I spent a little time before Adamant running around and crafting upgrades, so the gear I have now should do fine for the rest of the game. Honestly I think I can get by with a lot less crafting, because combat is still going very fast. With Tyrdda's staff and my T2 armor/T2 upgrades, my mage can cast upgraded static cage and fire mine and nuke most groups of enemies by himself in the time it takes a fire mine to arm.

[badkenbad]

All done! End game save time: 14:03

 

So, sub-14 hours is definitely doable, and probably sub-13, actually, since I felt that I did too much crafting in this run. The Corypheus fight was the only real difficult one. For some reason Cory's dragon was REALLY tough - he kept putting up full guard. I could have used some guard damage bonus gear. Overall, it's probably best to just run with loot drops through the early game and then craft the best T2 I could afford just before Adamant and run with that the rest of the way.

 

I recorded the whole thing, and I may edit the load times and upload the lot of it to YouTube, though it's not all that exciting to watch, since all the dialogue is skipped. I will at least write up an outline of what I've learned - something that's a little easier to read than that spreadsheet.

 

I'll be taking a break from minimalist characters for a while and do something else. Maybe I'll do a full Dragon Age series run, maybe some other game from the huge pile in my Steam library.

[PapaCharlie9]

Nice job! Yeah, 14 hours might be a bit much to sit through -- though watching the speed runners miss jumps a dozen times or do 20 requisitions in a row isn't all that engrossing either.

 

So the benchmark to beat for Normal no glitch is 14 hours. I might try to beat that someday. If I can put off Witcher 3 a bit longer ...

[badkenbad]

Just for grins, and because I can't help myself, I started another Nightmare no-exploits run a few days ago. Just finished it with a final time of 14:56. The extra time over the Normal difficulty run was simply due to fights taking longer. I did about the same amount of requisitions, only in the Hinterlands this time, but I did almost no farming for crafting materials and very little crafting. I went with what dropped, and didn't craft anything until late in the game - weapons before Adamant and armor before the Arbor Wilds. I bought what tier 2 materials I needed at the Black Emporium. I didn't need to craft any staffs nor a tank weapon thanks to drops.

 

The Calpernia fight wasn't too tough, but Corypheus was, of course, a bastard. Still, upgraded Static Cage + upgraded Fire Mine boosted by Chaotic Focus is a killer combo.