I posted this in the Spoilers area, should have posted it here, I think.
What Fade Touched materials do you use for the various classes you play? Which ones do you use for your armor, staff and weapons?
What are your top three? What ones are useless? And what fade materials would you like to see them add?
The most common one for me to use is Fade Touched Obsidian (on hit gain 3 guard), mainly because I can easily farm it from the chest behind a locked door in Redcliffe. I would just swing by Redcliffe on my way to any other area in the world.
Other than that, it would just largely depend on what I happened to pick up since I didn't like to run around simply trying to farm mats. That said, the Hidden Blades mats were probably my favorite overall, especially on dagger rogue, stacking several different levels (Plush Fustian Velvet, Ring Velvet), and I spent some time trying to get the PFV before crafting my last dagger in that game.
When I did my archer run, I was getting tired of crafting and just threw on whatever I had. I know one of my bows had the chance for walking bomb, and was a pseudo Punched By The Maker.
Heal on Hit (Snofleur) is pretty good for ranged party members. Or the damage bonuses for not getting hit (Vargesht Scales, etc). Damage bonus for multiple enemies (Bloodstone), Horn of Valor (Snofleur) are pretty decent on melee.
Fade touched Nevarrite is under rated and relatively easy to get. On kill- enemy explodes for 75% weapon damage- great for a Rogue or even a non-Necro Mage. It's a nice (albeit not as good) substitute for Walking Bomb.
Also- Fade Touched Hardened Gurn Hide (from The Hissing Waste) is great if you are playing a ranged character- 30% damage bonus if not touched for 5 seconds. Beastly.
There are many different FTM that I did not even know about. After I download mod which increases the probability of picking up FTM, for some time all I did is craft crazy combinations and it was fun. But if you play on nightmare or just want to be very effective you got only 3 choices, heal on hit+guard on hit+walking fortress. Yesterday I was testing my party on hakkon dlc and still the enemy managed completely destroy my party, it was little...annoying.
Regular mobs hits like you but have health three-four time bigger then you, I wonder what the devs were thinking. You can slap wherever you want on your armor and you still going to die.
I posted this in the Spoilers area, should have posted it here, I think.
What Fade Touched materials do you use for the various classes you play? Which ones do you use for your armor, staff and weapons?
What are your top three? What ones are useless? And what fade materials would you like to see them add?
When I did my nightmare play through on my reaver I used 1% life on hit and the % of damage taken healed/or hidden blades. The 1% max life is great to counter the Reaver health cost of skills. On my Rogues I use Hidden blades x5 and x4 so I get 20% proc rate on it combined with Guard x5 on hit. I used Spinning blades which hits 9 times and there gives ton of guard and also procs ton of hidden blades, which in turn gives ton of guard making the rogues pretty much never die.
I have even used this strategy on my currenty playthrough on my 3 rogues all DW and solas party comp. USing this I have been able to kill every dragon on nightmare in less then 8 seconds, most in like 2-5 seconds.
I see a lot of people swearing by guard on hit, which I readily admit is pretty sweat buff. But one thing to keep in mind, especially if you're playing on higher difficulties. Is that with out warrior passives maximum guard is capped at 25% of your maximum health. Meaning that most mages and rogues will only average about 150-175 guard at a full bar.
If you're choosing between between snoufleur skin and silverite for mages and archers, because you want an offensive buff with your second fade-touched slot, I can tell your from personal experience you're pretty much always better off with 1% heal on hit over 5 guard on hit. I used to put obsidian/silverite on Varric on all the time until I played nightmare, where even with the silverite he'd have a nasty habit of quaffing potions against anything tougher than a standard encounter, switching over to heal on hit made him much more survivable and saved me plenty of potions/travelling to camp time in the long run.
I haven't actually ever been able to get the 5 guard on hit Silverite in any of my runs. That included one half an hour farm session in Emprise. Subsequently, I stopped caring about it, and my current run is no-crafting anyway (not having to pick up mats is somewhat liberating).
I am not sure I swear by guard on hit, but the Fade Touched Obsidian is pretty easy to stockpile if you are willing to exploit the chest mechanics. You can pick up one guaranteed each time you visit Redcliffe after you get Deft Hands.
On NM, the 3x variant works decently for me. I consider it more of a buffer to health pot use and something that might cause friendlies to require an extra hit to kill them. It is all relative to enemy target and armor rating though. Ideally the tank would be drawing aggro such that the ranged units shouldn't require a defensive masterwork to begin with. Of course the taunts are usually less than ideal, and the guard is is good for the stray hits they take, especially because with decent rate of fire it will regenerate rapidly.
Aside from +5 guard on hit, it depends on the class and skills imo.
For my DW rogue I use Horn of Valour Rank 3 because it has around 70% uptime and nets a sweet boost in damage and armor. Combined with the purple dagger from JoH with +5 guard and a crafted dagger with 15% poisoning on hit for the offhand. Especially with the larger mob groups in the Descent the poison rocked. I skilled the poison passives and because the masterwork can also trigger the poison cloud on kill it destroyed the enemy packs. (poison dot ticks with ~300 damage, poison cloud on kill with ~500). Hidden Blades on DW isn't that great. It just does around 1k crit damage per blade. My autohit crits are around 1,6-1,8k. So, I prefer percent damage boosts.
On my Twohand Reaver (yeah, it was a false choice back in the day to choose Reaver) Hidden Blades are a killer because of 85% crit chance and all the bonus effects Twohander gets on crit.
For my KE/Lightning mage I prefer Heal on Hit and guard.
I see a lot of people swearing by guard on hit, which I readily admit is pretty sweat buff. But one thing to keep in mind, especially if you're playing on higher difficulties. Is that with out warrior passives maximum guard is capped at 25% of your maximum health. Meaning that most mages and rogues will only average about 150-175 guard at a full bar.
If you're choosing between between snoufleur skin and silverite for mages and archers, because you want an offensive buff with your second fade-touched slot, I can tell your from personal experience you're pretty much always better off with 1% heal on hit over 5 guard on hit. I used to put obsidian/silverite on Varric on all the time until I played nightmare, where even with the silverite he'd have a nasty habit of quaffing potions against anything tougher than a standard encounter, switching over to heal on hit made him much more survivable and saved me plenty of potions/travelling to camp time in the long run.
I use 3 DW rogues and Solas on my nightmare playthrough and I have not even found anything a bit challenging, I been using Hidden bladesx4 and x5 with guardx5. Even though like you said you don't have that much guard, I was able to finish all content without any challenges on nightmare, even with no tank, and 3 dual wielding rogues. I killed every dragon, boss etc.. in just few seconds and regular encounters well are just joke.
That being said I think 1% life might be great also , but guard is definitely good enough for nightmare and provides resistance to being staggered and knocked down. Would love it if they would add anothe difficulty, but my next playthrough on nightmare will be solo for fun.
I use 3 DW rogues and Solas on my nightmare playthrough and I have not even found anything a bit challenging, I been using Hidden bladesx4 and x5 with guardx5. Even though like you said you don't have that much guard, I was able to finish all content without any challenges on nightmare, even with no tank, and 3 dual wielding rogues. I killed every dragon, boss etc.. in just few seconds and regular encounters well are just joke.
Never really had problems on nightmare (Varric, Cass and Solas, team support specialisations!), and that's with leaving my party on auto-pilot most of the way through. Barring the occasions when I wanted to make use of their focus abilities of course. I was mostly just annoyed Varric would get himself in trouble sometimes (mostly against dragons and fade rifts) and use up potions.
Never really had problems on nightmare (Varric, Cass and Solas, team support specialisations!), and that's with leaving my party on auto-pilot most of the way through. Barring the occasions when I wanted to make use of their focus abilities of course. I was mostly just annoyed Varric would get himself in trouble sometimes (mostly against dragons and fade rifts) and use up potions.
Yea I would have to say that sounds about right. Nightmare is pretty easy, would be nice if they would add new difficulty for fun. As long are your about 3 levels under any rift,dragon you can just destroy it in few seconds on Nightmare.
Never really had problems on nightmare (Varric, Cass and Solas, team support specialisations!), and that's with leaving my party on auto-pilot most of the way through. Barring the occasions when I wanted to make use of their focus abilities of course. I was mostly just annoyed Varric would get himself in trouble sometimes (mostly against dragons and fade rifts) and use up potions.
Like I said try jaws of hakkon, very challenging.
Like I said try jaws of hakkon, very challenging.
I originally played game before hakkon and on my 2nd playthrough with Jaws of Hakkon out I played on nightmare , never turning it down for the achievement. I use 3 rogues, myself as assassin, cole and sera. All DW, and Solas, and honestly that might been the best composition I have used yet. I say best for me, as Your kill speed will be utterly insane and you will never wipe to anything if setup correctly. I mean even Jaws of Hakkon was super easy, taking out rifts 3-4 levels higher.
I am currently playing as a Reaver with max dps as main, and using cole/serra as DW rogues and Solas. Iv tried other comp's but none come even close to the clear speeds and efficiency of this group. Although I am sure someone has better group comp they use 
The best comp is the one you have the most fun with. For me, it's solo warrior
As for fade touched mats, I've had great success with hidden blades/walking fortress/mind blast throughout Jaws of Hakkon, but at the end of The Descent I was forced to used the 10% masterwork for the added armor, so I had to scrap the mind blast altogether.
Mind blast is really good btw, it's decent passive burst if you have stagger on being hit on your tank. it makes me want to roll a two handed Reaver with it. I like seeing really, really, really huge crits
Like I said try jaws of hakkon, very challenging.
Maybe somewhat challenging? Killed the cheesed-out ice giant, creamed the rift close to camp and cut through the hakkonite ambush on the island with out much trouble while being under-leveled. Will see how the rest of it goes when I get back to my current playthrough.
Would not say challenging, but I really enjoyed that content. Such beautiful landscapes at times and a for me a lovely story.The best comp is the one you have the most fun with. For me, it's solo warrior
As for fade touched mats, I've had great success with hidden blades/walking fortress/mind blast throughout Jaws of Hakkon, but at the end of The Descent I was forced to used the 10% masterwork for the added armor, so I had to scrap the mind blast altogether.
Mind blast is really good btw, it's decent passive burst if you have stagger on being hit on your tank. it makes me want to roll a two handed Reaver with it. I like seeing really, really, really huge crits
Are you playing Solo Warrior on nightmare? I take it your Reaver then? I am doing a Reaver run now on nightmare. I would love to hear how you make your warrior work on nightmare. Could you please tell me more about build/setup if you don't mind. I see some solo nightmare builds that definitely work safely but are little drawn out in gameplay, and I prefer more fast paced action.
I like anything that generates guard on hit for that extra level of protection. I also like hidden blades for everyone. It's ridiculous. For a more defensive set up I like unbowed or walking fortress. For Dorian or a necromancer, the healing ones - the 1% on hit material or 20% healing over x amount of seconds.
I actually don't run with any specialization. I like the added challenge: my goal is to prove that every single warrior can solo this game on the highest difficulty regardless of the specialization. It also rocks my roleplaying boat
You probably wouldn't like to play my builds: I first pick the adequate defense level for the enemy attacks, and only then I try to maximize offensive power. As a result, damage is usually pretty low and fights are very long but always strategically sound and methodical. I see fights as puzzles to solve rather than damage races. It also sets the "minimal" bar for every other solo player to overcome. I like that very much.
And yes, when I can't find another way, I don't hesitate to exploit the hell out of the environment and mechanics of the game, but the objective is always to try and render the enemy powerless first, then kill it, rather than the opposite.
Ah ok. Yea I like the challenge but I would get bored I think
I like killing bosses in just few seconds on nightmare lol. Not sure I can do it with no specialization, but does sound interesting. Good luck to you though and thanks for sharing.
I actually don't run with any specialization. I like the added challenge: my goal is to prove that every single warrior can solo this game on the highest difficulty regardless of the specialization. It also rocks my roleplaying boat
You probably wouldn't like to play my builds: I first pick the adequate defense level for the enemy attacks, and only then I try to maximize offensive power. As a result, damage is usually pretty low and fights are very long but always strategically sound and methodical. I see fights as puzzles to solve rather than damage races. It also sets the "minimal" bar for every other solo player to overcome. I like that very much.
And yes, when I can't find another way, I don't hesitate to exploit the hell out of the environment and mechanics of the game, but the objective is always to try and render the enemy powerless first, then kill it, rather than the opposite.
This is getting way off topic, but I'd be interested in how you handle some of the tougher boss battles post-Skyhold, like the Fear Demon at the end of Abyss, as a solo warrior with no specialization/focus skills on Nightmare. Maybe start a new thread? I just completed that particular battle as a 2H Champion, and it took every resource at hand (potions, grenades), full party, and two focus skills at full 3 bars, and it still was a close run thing. I ran the battle 3 times and ended up with a full party wipe-out 2 out of 3 times.
I would guess allowing Hawke and Stroud to hold most of Nightmare's aggro would make sense.
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