41 réponses à ce sujet

[capn233]

I don't really like controlling my party members instead of the inquisitor, partly because I figure if I wanted to play such and such class I would have created it in the first place.

 

I looked through old threads and did a search of the internet to see if there was anything that I really missed since the last time.  Mostly just recommendations to either micro them, give them masterworks out the wazzo, or just switch them to bows.

 

There has to be some other piece of the puzzle.  But most of what I try with Cole, for example, just results in some potion chugging, even if he does ok damage.  Granted the last couple times I have used him there was no crafting.

 

Have you built Cole, or others, decently so that they could be left to their own devices mid game?  What build did you use, what was party composition, and how did you set up their tactics / behavior?

[PapaCharlie9]

Sorry, but I gave up. I switched Cole to Archer. I couldn't get Cole to both defend himself and do high damage, it's one or the other. He'll start a combat in Stealth just fine, but I couldn't get him to Flank Attack/Stealth/move to Flank/Flank Attack, like I'd do manually. I couldn't get him to use Evade at all. And he did way too much auto attacking from random angles instead of going into Stealth and moving to flank.

I didn't go so far as to disable Twin Fangs and Shadow Strike, though. It might take that to get him to only do Flank Attack. All I did was make Flank Attack, Stealth and Evade preferred. So don't bother with that, it doesn't work. I switched him before he even got MoD/Assassin skills, so I have no clue how that all fits in, if it does. I have noticed that as an Archer, he uses MoD "incorrectly", letting it time out.

I did read somewhere that the AI will use KO powder reliably, but I never tried it. Also, if you have Twin Fangs or Shadow Strike active, the AI will complete combos when they present themselves. So the AI isn't completely horrible. It's just not very good on the every day 1-2-3 drill.

Modifié par PapaCharlie9, 31 août 2015 - 11:48 .

[capn233]

I have seen him use Evade, although usually to roll out of range.

 

I have tried all settings with Flank Attack.  Not really sure that they AI does much of anything with it when they have many actives.

 

Last run I gave him Parry and set to preferred, but it seemed like he wasn't really using it decently.

 

I don't think I have built them with Shadow Strike.  Nor have I tried KO powder.  He has Knockout Bomb this time, but when I had it active it didn't seem like he used it much.

[Bigdawg13]

Here's a tip I bet you haven't seen. Switch to casual.

[capn233]

Here's a tip I bet you haven't seen. Switch to casual.

 

You are right, I have not in fact seen that one.

[Dabrikishaw]

The best I ever did was Set Stealth and Hidden Blades to preferred and disabled everything else. Cole used that combo well from what I remember.

[cJohnOne]

Don't you get a free stealth with upgraded flank attack?  So I guess there is no way to use Cole as a DW unless you go to casual?

[Drasanil]

I've been trying out Dagger-Cole with Spinning Blades/Hidden Blades/Throwing Blades/Hook&Tackle, along with Varric and Cassandra and my no-barrier-spell Knight Enchanter and it seems to be working well enough. 1% heal from snoufleur skin generally erases any damage he suffers and his own damage output with a pair of 5/4 hidden blades daggers is pretty good.  

[Bhryaen]

I managed to make Cole pretty self-sufficient on Nightmare- even if he's usually the one I find damaged over time. It took gear more than anything. Ultimately he's a melee-range fighter, so I crafted him the best possible T3 medium armor but give him fade-touched silverite in it to get +5 guard with every hit. This mitigates a lot of the melee blows he otherwise ends up suffering. It also means he has to keep hitting in order to keep generating guard, so I also have Spinning Blades preferred. His crafted daggers are both AoE- so more hits- and are infused with Fade-Touched Plush Velvet that gives +5 extra Hidden Blades hits on 10% every hit. This adds even more hits plus dioes some nice damage. (Actually one blade has Fade-Touched Obsidian which gives a 10% chance of Chain Lightning on hit just because it looks cool...) I added the best arms and legs I could as well, most of his armor going to cunning (crit chance) or dexterity (crit damage). A rogue will never have the equivalent armor to a warrior, so you have to up his damage potential, giving him the whole "offense is the best defense" defense. Dead enemies don't hit as hard.

 

I got most of this from a YouTuber who did something similar and was demonstrating killing dragons in 8 sec using both Cole and Sera outfitted as dual-wield rogues. Sera espeically has an advantage with her alchemy.because she can disable opponents, leaving them open to easy hit streaks.

[capn233]

I think the 5 Guard Silverite is a myth.

I've been trying out Dagger-Cole with Spinning Blades/Hidden Blades/Throwing Blades/Hook&Tackle,

Interesting. I haven't ever tried Hook and Tackle on an AI character.

[PapaCharlie9]

You know, it might have been KO Bomb instead of KO Powder I read about, now that you mention it.

I think the 5 Guard Silverite is a myth.

Dude, you are going to hate on me so much. You know I'm doing a no-crafting run, right? Well, I was in EdL and out of habit mined a Silverite node and ... FT Gain Guard 5x. It wasn't the first try (hard habit to break), but wasn't more than the 10th node of any type that I'd mined this whole PT.

I also keep getting drops of FT Plush Fustian, the good kind. I think I have 3 now. So sick. I want a golden nug that allows me to transfer mats to other PTs!

[Forsythia77]

I think the 5 Guard Silverite is a myth.

Interesting. I haven't ever tried Hook and Tackle on an AI character.

 

In my last game (as a DW rogue of all things), I got fade touched silverite twice.  TWICE.  It was a magical unicorn. 

[capn233]

I have done 6 campaigns and have gotten 5 guard on hit Silverite 0 times.  I got the chain lightning one multiple times though.

 

***

 

I had some time to try some stuff with Cole again, and here are a few observations.  I mainly just stood around and ordered the squad to attack so I could pay attention to what he did exactly.

 

Lady Jocasta's Revenge - I was in a no crafting game, and picked this up so I gave it to Cole.  That actually may have made the biggest difference since it has heal on hit.  Base damage isn't great for off-hand calcs though.

 

Hidden Blades - Lots of hits and good damage.  The bad news is he will end up trying to use it on targets moving laterally to him resulting in wasting time missing with it.  If he is already very close he doesn't miss though.  More of an issue if you give an attack command on an enemy that hasn't seen you yet.

 

Flank Attack - he definitely uses it once upgraded.  I need to test if he uses it without the upgrade, even though it is pretty bad that way.  Bad news is the damage may suck since it is off-hand x 2.  Also, if he has enough passives he should be able to go into stealth fairly regularly by himself.

 

Knockout Bomb - uses this pretty well with a couple exceptions.  He will try to use it on sleep immune targets like Pride demons and sometimes he throws it right at tower shield guys (where it bounces off).  Works pretty decently when the other melee is Cassandra so she can detonate for nightmare with Spell Purge.  I think I will probably make sure he has this or Powder from now on.

 

Twin Fangs - he uses it as a combo detonator fairly reliably, but stamina cost is kind of high.  I think I will get it early and then turn it off for...

 

Deathblow - it seems like he goes to this fairly frequently when a bunch of talents are set to active.  Probably helps that it can potentially have no cd.

 

Evade - He does ok with this.  Probably something I will keep getting early, and leave on preferred.  One of the gripes I have with evasion powers is that when dragons do strafing runs, none of the AI characters will attempt to dodge.

 

MoD - I would leave it off, although if really lazy, turn it on for dragon fights.

 

The trick is getting the passives.  He probably needs to get both stamina regen passives, and then AP / sunder passives.  Lot easier around 20 or so than say 15.  Maybe I will try something like this around mid teens. Rogue - Assassin

 

I will need to retry Parry and maybe take a look at Spinning Blades.

[PapaCharlie9]

Good info! If I gave the impression that he doesn't use Flank Attack, I'll clarify: he does use it. I just couldn't get him to repeatedly use it in a Stealth/move/Flank Attack loop. He always inserts some auto attacks out of stealth and not flanking, which just seems silly.

A heal on hit buff makes a lot of sense. Ideally, an Assassin should never take physical damage, but even with manual micro, the ideal isn't always achieved, so some fast way to recover health is a good idea. Stamina regen as well. I also try to put the best cooldown amulet I have on my rogue.

I hadn't considered big boss fights, like dragons. I was only talking about ordinary mobs pre-Skyhold. I don't think I'd ever take a DW to a dragon fight anymore.

[capn233]

Well the reason I wanted to look at Flank Attack was because the last time I took him out, I didn't really notice him using it.  So I wanted to see what he did with it.  In general I agree that he doesn't chain things in the best order, that is basically true of all the AI on autopilot though.

 

I did wonder if it might be worthwhile to try him with only right side of Dagger, turning off Fangs when Deathblow is acquired, and just let him run that, Evade, Stealth, Hidden Blades and KO bomb.  Or maybe I have it all wrong with Deathblow and should stop at the passives on that side.

 

Another alternative may be Shadow Strike as the detonator.  I should probably look at that.

 

I fought Kaltenzahn and then Hivernal with Cass, Cole and Solas.  And actually Cole wasn't too horrible with nearly everything set to on.  And MoD is sort of like free damage, but probably is most reliable if you do it manually.  The main problem for autopilot on dragon fights is the wing flap attack.  What is really annoying is when a party member will dodge out of the safety zone and start taking damage.  There really isn't much excuse for that.

[Shevy]

I always use Cole as archer because the AI lacks good positioning and therefore Cole is drinking up most of the potions in completely random fights.

 

My choice for dw is always Sera. Set non-upgraded Flask of Frost, upgraded Flask of Lightening and upgraded Stealth as preferred. She used +5 guard, 1% heal on hit and 5 seconds Walking Fortress as masterworks. The offense is lacking to some extent of course, but it works pretty well on nm without her killing the potion stock.

[capn233]

Yeah, Sera with frost flask seems like maybe she could be more durable than Cole with daggers.

 

I was looking back at the mechanics thread at the abilities and the number of bugs and abilities that do not work correctly, and the amount for rogues is pretty staggering.  Some I remembered, but some I had forgotten, or not noticed.  The original post is a little out of date so not sure if some actually were fixed:

 

Deathblow - no cooldown on kill even without upgrade.  Second strike costs 50 stamina (in action mode).

 

Parry - restores 35 stamina on successful counter (net 25 gain).

 

Shadow Strike - "undamaged" bonus not applied when attacking from stealth

 

Cheap Shot - 20% sunder for 12 seconds (instead of listed 6)

 

Throwing blades - 5 hits, 20% sunder for 8 seconds.  First hit on target does not benefit from sunder, and second on same will not either (third or more do).  Upgrade does nothing (this is definitely still the case in MP)

 

KO Bomb - upgrade does nothing

 

Flask of Lightning - Quicksilver upgrade only works if character is player controlled (forgot this one, I got it on Sera the last two games but didn't pay attention to see if she was faster).

 

***

 

I am in a new game I started yesterday and might try out Sera as a dagger rogue in the Hinterlands spec'd mainly into Subterfuge and see what happens.  I don't think overall the cooldown reduction with upgraded Shadow Strike will be helpful relative to faster base cd on Twin Fangs.  Any thoughts?

[PapaCharlie9]

I am in a new game I started yesterday and might try out Sera as a dagger rogue in the Hinterlands spec'd mainly into Subterfuge and see what happens.  I don't think overall the cooldown reduction with upgraded Shadow Strike will be helpful relative to faster base cd on Twin Fangs.  Any thoughts?

It wouldn't matter if it did, since any time gained is wasted three times over by the horrible Twin Fangs target acquisition, even when controlling manually.

[Shevy]

Deathblow is still bugged. Second attack costs additional 50 stamina and it prevents restoration of 50 stamina on kill. With the false timing (killing the mob with the second strike) you are sitting there with 0 stamina.  That's why I try to kill mobs with the first strike of DB. Luckily, with >15k per strike in the endgame its pretty controllable. My favourite non-spec. rogue damage ability is spinning blades. Aoe, 9 hits and a lot of HP and/or guard if masterworked.

With upgraded Flask of Lightening and +5 guard & heal on hit Sera restores her HP and guard very rapidly.

[capn233]

DB is sort of down the tree, it might work for later AI rogue builds especially with some sort of stamina buffs.  I might try to look at how the AI uses it more closely, whether or not it is saving it for targets at less than 50% health, even though that isn't necessary.

 

With regard to Twin Fangs and tracking, it seems to me like the AI mostly tries to use it as a combo detonator when set simply to enabled, so it is usually attacking immobile frozen targets.

 

Later today I am going to try and mess around with Level 5-ish builds and see if I can get anywhere.  Might be too few points to determine much of anything, except for actives in isolation.  I would be the most satisfied if I could put together decent performance without much in the way of masterworks.

[Bigdawg13]

Deathblow is still bugged. Second attack costs additional 50 stamina and it prevents restoration of 50 stamina on kill. With the false timing (killing the mob with the second strike) you are sitting there with 0 stamina.  That's why I try to kill mobs with the first strike of DB. Luckily, with >15k per strike in the endgame its pretty controllable. My favourite non-spec. rogue damage ability is spinning blades. Aoe, 9 hits and a lot of HP and/or guard if masterworked.

With upgraded Flask of Lightening and +5 guard & heal on hit Sera restores her HP and guard very rapidly.

 

I don't even want to guess how long it would take me to farm the +5 guard AND heal on hit fade-touched materials.  Considering last farm run for heal-on-hit took me over 1200 snowfleur and I have never seen +5 guard on hit, I think I'll be playing Dragon Age 4 before I am able to work that combo out.

[Shevy]

Well, there is a rift in JoH that gives one +5 guard masterwork that can be farmed by leaving one item behind and switch zone +reload.

Other option is to go for the 164 damage version of http://dragonage.wik...ki/Savage_Thornfrom JoH.

Without JoH it's a pain in the ***, of course.

[capn233]

I wasted some time in the Hinterlands.  Tried out a couple things on Sera.  Started at the Crossroads and headed through the tunnel to the area on the way to Witchwood.  I had already taken the Templar Camp before going to Val Royeaux which may have actually resulted in some strange spawn behavior here.  The game dumped something like 7 sword guys and several mages on me at once after dealing with a few enemies near the exit of the tunnel. Cass, Solas, Inq(SnS) rounded out the squad. +Upgraded, *Preferred

 

Sera Level 5, 6 points. Thief Daggers ~ 40ish damage. 5% AP Ring, 5% Flanking Ring, Follow Cassandra

 

Build 1

 

Flank Attack+, Twin Fangs

Stealth+* -> Evasion -> Evade+*

 

Since points are scarce, I chose between Evade and Parry.  I wanted the latter for stamina, but figured Evade had more utility overall.  In this area with a lot of enemies and ice mine spam, she spent a lot of time evading, probably too much.  But against melee enemies, she was only adequate, and would have to auto attack frequently to restore stamina.  She used Twin Fangs about as much as possible, set on "enabled," even when no combos were possible.

 

Build 2

 

FA+ -> Parry+*

Stealth* -> Easy To Miss

 

This was pretty good against melee enemies, but she was much more likely to get ice mined and killed.  Oddly I did see her straight up walk over an ice mine that had already been placed on the ground, which most of the time the AI does not do.  I don't know why pathing gets really dumb some times.  Decided she needed Evade and Parry

 

Build 3

 

FA+ -> Parry*

Stealth* -> Evasion -> Evade*

 

This worked better through the section of mages and melee enemies.  Parry and Evade nominally provide different functions.  This build also had better stamina than the first build since Parry restores 25 net stamina on successful parry.

 

Finishing the rest of the stragglers in this area en route to Redcliff Farms, and then picking up the quests around there promoted the squad to 6.  I also picked up Reinforced Scout Armor with a rating of 96, which gave Sera a greater base rating than myself or Cass.

 

Level 6

 

FA+ -> Parry* -> Twin Fangs

Stealth* -> Evasion -> Evade*

 

Cleaned up a few mooks on the way to one of the watchtower sites, went back to Skyhold briefly for war table, then back to Crossroads.  Went to take on the East Road Bandits, and drop by the artifact site for Solas.

 

In the first Section, Sera looked fine.  For the last section, I was able to kill the retreating melee unit so I could drop a save and redo the final fight as many times as I wanted.  The leader is a 2H warrior, and there are 3 archers.

 

The main problem here is that there is that AI is poor against the 2H enemies.  I tried variations on enabled/preferred/disabled tactics, but the original ones with 0 stamina reserve seemed the best.  Sera never seemed to really want to evade any of the 2H attacks.  As far as Parry goes, I think the AI will only use it if facing the front of the enemy, which is unfortunate in this case.

 

I tried another build with KO powder in this section, but it didn't seem better (it might have been slightly better if micro'd).  In any case, the best result in this section was when I personally grabbed aggro from the 2H guy and just had the team focus down the archers one by one.

 

I stuck with the above and went into Witchwood to clear the apostates.  My main gripe early was that Solas wasted a health pot when he fade stepped over ice mines at the beginning of the woods.  Sera seemed to do surprisingly well in the apostate cave fight until she and Cass were fighting the boss.  Neither her nor Cass seemed to pay attention to the boss's telegraphed AOE attack on the ground, so that wasted a couple more health pots.  By then I finished off the other unit and ran over to chain knockdown the mage.

 

I then took out a rift in the woods, then the rift at Redcliffe's gates.  That one I did a couple times.  The first time was the spawn with terrors and wraiths, and Sera got stuck and team members were all stupid and drank potions.  They are too dumb to evade the ruptures in the ground.  The next attempt was shade spam, which Sera did well against.  I reloaded and got the terror spawn again, and it went fine.

 

Redcliffe Chantry fight was fairly straightforward, and by then the party was Level 7.  I put the next point in Dance of Death, but that was it for the night.  I thought about going Ambush for AP, but I wanted to get to Sneak Attack for more crit.

 

If I get to it today, I will probably try to take the Merc Fortress, although it is mostly 2H warriors, and I don't think there is much to be done with Sera on autopilot with daggers.  I guess one radical solution might be going heavy into Sabotage.  Maybe I will try that for the sake of trying it.

[PapaCharlie9]

Nice. I had wondered if 2H would be a problem for DW on AI, looks like it is.

I'm not sure mages with mine spells are a fair test. There aren't that many mobs with that composition. I'd be more interested in mobs with 2 or more archers. Also, beasts, like a pack of wolves or a bear. Sure, those are avoidable, but it goes to versatility and I also like to farm leather.

[capn233]

I thought about doing the wolves den instead of apostates, but wanted to get a mix of ranged and melee.

 

There are random archers on the way during East Road, and then at the end of it.  I ordered the squad to attack the archers.  Sera is ok against them when combined with a tank since she stays in stealth frequently.  The KO build is decent against multiple mooks, as long as you can switch targets for the AI quickly enough that they don't wake them up.  On complete auto pilot, that didn't happen.  Which is interesting because Cass by herself many times ignores sleeping enemies (at least she did in my RM run except to Spell Purge).