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[capn233]

Went City Elf.  The origin was simpler than the first time I did it (as a rogue) with Soris just standing around.  I started it wearing Dalish Promise Ring, Lion's Paw and Guildmaster Belt, but took them off halfway through to see how much a difference no DLC stuff would make.  In this origin I am not sure it was much different except less waiting out of combat for health regen.

 

At Ostagar I ended up not destroying or selling the DLC items, and I also did not strip the companions to steal their stuff.  Let them just hang out, but sold off what I could and bought a back pack and stocked up on poultices and bombs.  I did borrow Davith's longbow though.

 

The wild's were relatively straightforward, but this was with breaking up the groups of enemies.  For the ambush with many rogues, I used an acid flask.  Really the most irritating and tedious part was Gazarath by far.  I also ended up wasting two acid flasks and 2 or 3 health pots plus a couple lesser health pots, and one deathroot extract which was nearly worthless.

 

By the end of the Wilds I had my own T2 chainmail, and then took Jory's old boots and gloves.  Sold off other things I had accumulated, tried to restock on bombs and poultices, got another backpack, and then bought the rock salve recipe and concentrated deathroot recipe.  I didn't have T2 poison making so I couldn't craft more bombs then that.

 

The tower was more slow push divide and conquer.  The first room took a couple tries, but the worst part for me was the room after the ballistas where it seemed all the genlocks in the room would immediately run after me when I opened the door.  The only way I was finally able to get it was to run way back around through the narrow room with two doors to split them up a bit.

 

Other than that, the first room of the third floor was somewhat similar in that it was easy to aggro too many at once.  Used a fire bomb on the hurlocks from the three rooms after the kennel after kiting them back to the previous door.  The ogre I cheesed after using my last acid flask to aggro it on me so as to ensure it ignored the party.

 

Since I had healed the mabari, I got that encounter before Lothering.  I ended up using my last grenade on them (soulrot), which I couldn't resist doing since I hit all of them except one with it.  Then did my poor man's warrior backstabs on the hurlocks as they had all surrounded the hound.  Used deathroot extract, which seemed to actually stun the alpha a few times.

 

It was late by then and I ran into the highwaymen.  Had plenty of poisons to choose from but no grenades.  At this point I was wondering how poor my overall strategy had been since I couldn't come up with any way to actually beat them.  After I tried kiting them around the overturned wagons, hit the ramp and got the Lothering cutscene.  I didn't know you could just run past them.  I didn't want to cheese it like that, and tried it another few times, but it seemed like a completely losing proposition so eventually I just intimidated them to pay me 20 silvers and went to bed.

 

Ishal and these guys made me really miss being a mage for AOE powers.

 

Anyway, here are my current stats and gear.  I was going mostly dex early, while trying to slowly build strength for armor requirements.  I may have gone too slow though.

 

Level 6

Str 18

Dex 29

Will 12

Mag 12

Cun 10

Con 13

 

Enchanted Dagger T2 (+4 Attack) / Dagger T1

Thane Helmet +3 defense

Tier 2 Chainmail Set

Fencer's Cinch (+4 Attack)

 

Armor 8

Defense 72

Attack 89

 

Powers were roughly in this order

Dual Weapon Training + DW Sweep + Flurry

Momentum

Powerful

Dual Striking

Riposte

Cripple

Dual Weapon Finesse

 

Skills

Coercion 1, Traps 1, Poison 1, Combat 3

 

I have T3 Heavy Chainmail in inventory but need 4 more strength to actually wear it.  Which means not until next level if I use the exploit with the strength buff mace.  This is part of why I wonder if my leveling was poor, but I haven't solod with any character start to finish and usually make short work of the highway bandits with the full party.  Not sure if the chainmail would make the difference with higher armor or not given their penchant for stunning me anyway.  More grenades would have been nice.

 

May be academic at this point, I don't really want to run through the tower again, but what would have been the best strategy to be able to take down the bandits the first time you meet them?  Or is it usually not practical anyway?

[Mike3207]

This might help a bit-dual wield solo warrior on Nightmare with Berserker/Reaver-I think:

 

"Was harder than soloing with a Rogue, as most would imagine. Fights that start of as ambushes  were especially problematic without stealth. There was a different difficulty curve compared to the Rogue, which starts of very hard and gets easier and easier with levels, especially after you get combat stealth.

I have Stone Prisoner but not Warden's Keep. Starting off, it's similar in difficulty to the Rogue. At level 7, you can have enough strength to wear Blood Dragon Armor, at which point I was still in Lothering. That makes a big difference and almost feels like cheating. At around level 12-13, monsters catch back up to you gear-wise and you don't feel so durable as when you were first able to wear Blood Dragon. At this level, you also really feel the lack of spell resistance, since you can't just sneak up on a caster and take him out before he can do anything with stuns and backstabs.

By around level 15-16 I was able to acquire enough spell resistance gear to not fear casters as much anymore and my attack and damage became such that I could 2 shot weaker mobs with 1 Sunder and things started to become easier. From there on, it was a smooth ride and things only got better. "

 

On the second hand, that might be a 2h build-but you get the idea.  DWW are about as much damage as possible-right from the start. Once you get a significant level of damage, you can focus a bit more on dex,.

[capn233]

^Yeah I think I saw that post.  I don't have Blood Dragon armor, not sure how you can even get it any more.

 

I ended up reloading right before the highway bandits and added on Mark of Vigilance (+6), Edge, Dalish Promise Ring, and Guildmaster Belt (forgot Lion's Paw) and then fought the highwaymen.  With the extra damage, defense and dodge I could get the leader to surrender pretty quickly. 

 

Reloaded my other save in Lothering (after intimidating him to give me 20 silver, no DLC gear equipped), went to the jerk merchant and bought a couple grenades (acid flask and fire bomb).  Turned the highwaymen hostile by opening a crate, and then dropped the two grenades on them.  That weakened them enough that it was straightforward to finish the fight with the setup in my first post.  Made the guy give me all his money, but then made them pay for their crimes.

 

The rest of Lothering was also relatively straightforward, and oddly the fight where you get swarmed with the refugees was easier with one person than a full team since you can go in the corner and fight basically one at a time.

 

I went to Denerim next to do a couple things and get some gold.  I kicked the mercs out of the taverns and also cleared the bandits in the three spots.  That took some potions and a few traps, as well as poisons.  The fight against Cristoff and his men was amusing in that the guard Sgt was the only friendly to survive, but he basically tanked everything, making that one fairly easy.

 

I couldn't really decide where to go next.  I ended up at Lake Callenhad docks and decided to call it a night.  Maybe I could sneak into Orzammar, but I am not sure how much of a pain it will be to kill Logain's men since they will be above my level.  I did take Templar, but I won't have enough strength for KCP for a while (currently in Heavy Chainmail set you get from bandit guy in Lothering).

 

Also although I was going more dex, I ended up equipping Oathkeeper in main hand for the Denerim bits.  It seemed like it was a little better than two Enchanted Daggers at this stage.  But the plan is to end up dagger / dagger.

[capn233]

Couldn't seem to do much damage to Loghain's men at the Orzammar gates, so I went to Honnleath instead.  The main part of the mission was straightforward, if tedious.  Kitty was a bad fight.  I used the "reload a bunch of times until she uses bad spells" strategy.  And parked myself on the steps to limit the number of rage demons that could hit me at once.

 

Then I went to Orzammar with Helm of Honnleath, Harvest Ring, and Olaf's Cheese Knife.  I ended up buying a red steel dagger from the merchant outside to get a little more damage, and was able to beat Loghain's men by using a spot near the surface dwarf where only one could engage at once, and the mage managed to just hit intervening objects.  Still took too many potions.  Went into Orzammar and collected quests, turned in some nugs, and eventually got Key to the City.  The only fight I did was the dust town thugs en route to KttC.  It was another case of backing into a small spot to limit fire.

 

Went back to the merchant outside and bought Knight Commander Plate (was nowhere near strength req yet), then went to the circle tower.  Looking at strength numbers I just needed to go 3 in strength at the next level, then fade (4) and current gear (4) would allow me to get to 39 and equip it.  Turned in some shrooms at the docks for a little coin, and then tried to stock up on grenades from the templar merchant.  I also decided to let Leliana tag along on Hold / Passive since Wynne was going to as well, so I wouldn't have to go through the whole tower twice for chests.  Unfortunately I forgot to accept the Places of Power quest, so I need to go back anyway, and I ended up skipping the Revenant and didn't do Watchguard of the Reaching either.  Also I messed up Leliana's skills and gave her poison 2 instead of stealing 3, so I couldn't steal from the Trickster or Arl of Forshadow.  Oh well.

 

The most annoying fights were the desire demon / templar encounters.  The first has a zillion templars with her.  I backed away from the door and used three grenades to kill the templars, then killed the DD.  The one right before Sloth where you talk to her was somewhat similar, but I dropped the grenades on her, the templar and a corpse, three (or maybe it was four, I used all remaining) grenades killed the DD and then it was mop up.  The first couple times I tried it without using as many grenades but couldn't because I would get CC'd too much.  So I decided to just spam 'nades and that worked.  Equipped his Templar armor, and Ancient Elven Boots to replace T3 Heavy Chainmail of each, killed the mage and friends, and then went to see Sloth and go into the Fade.

 

The Fade is solo no matter what, so it wasn't much different than usual, although I had better gear than usual here.  I follow the same order as in the wiki, and after getting the last strength bonus I put on KCP.

 

The Sloth fight took me a few tries.  The ogre form was really annoying v my golem, but that wasn't really the problem.  The next few forms were also easy.  The arcane horror form beat me twice though because I was out of stamina from running Momentum in normal form against the previous one.  I switched it up a little, and beat it in golem form where I had attacks available to interrupt his casting.

 

Used the Litany in the room with the rage demon and shades, as well as my last warmth balm.  Then it was time for Uldred.  Drank a lot of potions and tried to keep spirit balm up.  I tried to fight him near the edge so I wouldn't get thrown too far, but also tried to circle around him when he would do massive attack.  I used the Litany to prevent aboms from showing up.

 

I will probably do Redcliffe next.  As far as stats, I will probably pump mostly dex from here on out, but need to recheck cunning.  I should have enough strength for Evon's / Wade's Superior Hvy Dragonscale (one less than KCP).  I might try to get enough gold for tome of skill and sundry so that Morrigan can make me "infinite gold" at level 9, but maybe I will just put that off till 12.

[capn233]

I did Loghain's Push, then went to Redcliffe, but I mistakenly didn't enter with Alistair so I missed his family dialogue.

 

I prepared the town, about as well as possible although I took Lloyd's tavern and didn't get him to fight.

 

The first part was simple enough, used the oil, and everyone lived.  The part in front of the chantry was a debacle.  Everyone died and it didn't seem like there was anything I could do about it.  My first goal was to try and at least save the named party members (just Thomas and Murdock), but it wasn't really even close.  The silver lining was that all their gear ended up netting me 13 gold.  Is it even possible to save the whole town in a solo as a melee with no heal?  I have never done Redcliffe very late, but read that they eventually get Scattershot if you are leveled up enough.

 

I ended up redoing the fight in the courtyard with the Revenant because the first time I opened the gates and let the knights in, but wanted to redo it completely solo.  For that time, I went up the steps and off to the side and it turned out the Revenant parked himself on the steps while I fought the undead guys, who could only funnel near me a couple at a time.  Eventually the Revenant could finally get up there when 2 or 3 undead were left.  But it wasn't so bad, needed a couple health lesser pots.

 

I ended up losing my 100% of party damage since I sent Morrigan into the Fade to kill the demon.  Initially I was somewhat concerned since I haven't really been equipping the squad with upgraded items, so she had her starting staff and gear, although I had put the boots from the alienage on her for some reason.  Fortunately Morrigan was powerful enough to get through it with CoC, Walking Bomb, VHex and Lightning basically.

 

Picked up Boots of Diligence from Owen for the armor buff, then did a couple side missions.  Specifically False Accusations, Brothers and Sons, Caravan Down, Unintended Consequences.  I also got the random encounter with the mages and the darkspawn horde (simple, mages nuke a lot of them), and the really annoying one with the emissary and the alpha in the field of a zillion traps.

 

I also ran into Tegrin and bought the tome and gave myself stealing to unlock Slim Courdry instead of spending it on Morrigan to unlock Herbalism 4 right before I could unlock it anyway when she would hit 12.  Went to Denerim and got the rest of the guild supplies for the Derserter quest, and did the first three stealing quests.

 

Then I triggered Leliana's personal quest.  The ambush was actually pretty annoying, especially because I tried not to let Leliana help at all, but she seems to be the initial target and took a couple hits no matter what.  For fighting Marjolaine, "clever use of game mechanics" was used so I didn't have to fight all of them at once (just back into the first room).  I like how Marjolaine punched me for 37 ish damage a hit even with 32 armor.  Deathroot extract for some stuns was helpful, but fighting her one on one needed some lesser health pots and a health pot.

[capn233]

Took care of the Revenant in the Circle Tower, and did Watchguard of the Reaching, which I had skipped.  One of the npc mages blew himself up with a fireball, which was pretty great.  Ended up triggering Wynne's road encounter by taking her with me along the road, which was sort of annoying actually due to all the archers.  Fought the Kaidan Fe Mercs, which was actually pretty easy because I went around further to the left (by the pond) and they ran at me 1 by 1.

 

Then I got into the lyrium business briefly with 57 gold for materials (I bought the recipe a day or so ago for potent pots).  I ended up using profits to by Spellward, Lifegiver and a GM Hale rune.  Also had Morrigan make 10 lesser pots to turn in to the guy in Redcliffe.  Triggered Sten's personal quest and took care of that during this time to cut down on duplicate travel.

 

At Level 13 gear looked like this:

 

Dragonbone Dagger - GM Hale, Flame +3, Lightning +2

Olaf's Cheese Knife - +8 Spell Resist, +6 Spell Resist

Helm of Honnleath

Heavy Chainmail gloves T4

Knight Commander's Plate - 40% Spell Resist

Boots of Diligence

Spellward - 30% Spell Resist

Key to the City - 4% spell resist

Lifegiver

 

Stats at 13

 

Str - 37 (33+4)

Dex - 47 (43+4)

Will - 30 (16+14)

Mag - 20 (14+6)

Cun - 19 (15+4)

Con - 29 (15+14)

 

Armor 34
Def 93

Att 107

Spell Resist 88%

Physical Resistance 70

 

Then I did the Urn of Sacred Ashes, which was pretty simple for the most part given the stats.  Hit 14 in the temple and took Berserker, so another 2 strength and 3 more dex, and +8 damage.  The spell resist bumped up another 4% when I picked up Ancient Elven Gloves for 92% total.  Resisting or dodging most everything in the mission was pretty funny.  Unfortunately, can't resist the overwhelms, and fighting the drakes I had to use a couple health pots.  Otherwise didn't need them, even though I did get stunned various times by dirty fighting and shield pummel, but for most of the encounters I tried not to get surrounded beforehand.  Did get surrounded a couple times, but health regen trumped little 1 damage per hit melee attacks.  Kolgrim and friends weren't really much of a problem, especially since the first mage used Cone of Cold and only accomplished freezing one of Kolgrim's lackeys.

 

I'd like to get some decent weapons, and have been tempted to throw on Edge for the longest time.  But I also haven't decided if I am going to go with multiple weapon sets for damage / paralyze or max spell resist, or just use one with max spell resist, hale and paralyze.  With 5 run setup, I could go 3 dweomer runes, Gm Hale, and one Paralyze.  For 100% spell resist, need 3 dweomer's no matter level, since 2 GM at 10% would leave me at 98%.  Of course I could try to just bring spirit salve / balm around with less than 100%.  Haven't decided.

[capn233]

Might as well continue my blog.

 

Went to Redcliffe to cure the Arl.  Got my extra talent point, learned about Alistair's family.  Then headed to Denerim.  Met Alistair's Family, commissioned drake armor at Wade's, got a rune from Genitivi.

 

Then the plan was to work through Orzammar enough to get to the Ambassador, as well as get some more gold.  Went to see Harromont's fighters and return the love letters for a profit, while Leliana tried to steal from various people.  Next went to Aeducan Thaig.  92% spell resistance as above.  The first emissary (in the tunnel area) only casted stupid things, and I killed him easily.  For the next section in the open space with some pillars and crates (near an asunder bag), I lured out some melee enemies, then hit a lesser spirit balm and charged towards the emissary.  This emissary I know likes to do crushing prison / curse of mortality combo.  He either didn't because I got too close before he saw me, or I might of missed seeing one that just was resisted, but I got rid of his little warding glyph with Cleanse Area and stabbed him.  Finished off the rest of the mooks.

Then I ran into the tunnel with another emissary before spirit balm wore off.  He tried crushing prison, which was resisted, then cast a paralysis glyph near one of the archers for whatever reason.  Killed him, killed the archers.  Then pacifist Leliana (who was tagging along in stealth) opened a couple of the crates for me in the open area, and I waded through the deepstalkers towards Lord Dace.  I just left after talking to him instead of exploring the rest.

 

Talked to the guy in the tavern, then met Bhelen.  Killed the Ambassador and his men without issue, then did Caged in Stone.  Overwhelm took me down to low health, and burned a health pot sadly.  Accepted Precious Metal, Leliana stole back 20 of the initial 40, then to the Tower.  Got 60 for it from Godwin, then blackmailed him for 8.  Triggered Wynne's second road encounter on the way back to Orzammar.  Intimidated Rogek for 20.  Now I was rich and so I bought Rose's Thorn.  Then it was to camp where I ended up moving the above runes to Edge and Rose's Thorn (+8, +8 spell resist in Edge; 25 Physical Resist, Paralyze, 6% spell resist in Thorn).

 

Next I decided to try and kill Flemmeth.  While not exactly hugely difficult, it was tedious, slow and expensive.  I ended up spending a greater warmth balm, lesser warmth balm, two swift salves (might have been a waste), and something like 4 health pots, and some token deathroot extracts for the hell of it.  The paralysis rune paralyzed her exactly 0 times in the entire fight.   Would have made more sense if I did this fight later with more paralysis runes and or damage runes as well as higher armor rating.  Basically it was stab her leg a couple times and she would either kick me away or just jump spin around, requiring repositioning, etc.

 

Since I was somewhat disappointed in the damage output, I decided I wanted to drop the spell resist runes when I wasn't up against mages, and just drop the Hale rune for another paralysis.  The plan was to finish Crows and try to get a 3 rune Crow Dagger to hold 3 spell resist runes.  On my way back to Denerim I took care of Desperate Haven and one whole refugee lived.

 

In Denerim I stole the silver from Howe, then took care of Howe's men in the last Trial of Crow's, and went to the deserted building for Last Request.  Then back to the market and bought the 16 gold paralysis rune from Wonder's of Thedas.  Sold Zevran's Crow Dagger to Cesar, then used space-magic to turn it into dragonbone and bought it back.  Also turned another one in his stock into dragonbone as well, and bought it, although I eventually decided against a "full set" of anti-magic daggers due to more rune cost.

 

So one Crow Dagger I loaded with 8, 8 and 6 spell resist runes, then Edge got a paralysis and flame, while Rose's Thorn got paralysis, lightning and flame.  I wasn't sure if it was worth stacking paralysis in the same dagger for higher chance on one hit, or lower chance every hit.  But then I took this setup to Brecillian Forest.  This was an easy choice here anyway since there aren't many magic enemies to begin with.  I did not fight the hermit.  I only equipped the Crow dagger for 2 of them:  The spirit after the ritual (she's listed as a shade I think), then Zathrien.  I ranged down the Arcane Horror with a bow since I don't know how to keep him from jumping around.  The last was a skeleton mage supporting a Revenant (W forest grave), who I just hit with Holy Smite before stabbing him without worrying about his spells.

 

Most of the forest is straightforward.  Ogres and Shadow Wolves were the only relatively dangerous enemies.  Zathrien was laughable with 100% spell resist and as a Templar since I cheesed him like this:  Cleanse Area -> Holy Smite -> stab stab -> the end.

 

I had to use a couple health pots for overwhelms, and I used swift salves against Revenants.

 

Other than that, did Dalish side missions, launched arrow for Favors side quest, and managed to get killed in the random encounter leaving the ruins.  The one where there are archers on the ledge and the melee units rushing you.  With like 2 guys left I was low on health and thought I could regen enough to beat the last guys without a health pot at all, but turned out to be wrong.  When I reloaded I got the encounter with a bunch of spiders, which was pretty simple, albeit annoying with webs.

[Mike3207]

I've enjoyed your blog of sorts. I'll admit I have one of my own-a shapeshifter thread in which I have most of the posts. 

 

I'm assuming you're on one of the harder difficulties, and the reason for the high dexterity is to avoid being hit in your solo campaign. Normally a dual wield warrior is about DPS, and you'd be pumping strength to maximize your damage being dealt. Never mind, I just saw you're dual wielding daggers.

[capn233]

I've enjoyed your blog of sorts. I'll admit I have one of my own-a shapeshifter thread in which I have most of the posts. 

 

I'm assuming you're on one of the harder difficulties, and the reason for the high dexterity is to avoid being hit in your solo campaign. Normally a dual wield warrior is about DPS, and you'd be pumping strength to maximize your damage being dealt. Never mind, I just saw you're dual wielding daggers.

 

Yeah, it is on nightmare and that is why I want to get as much dex as possible rather than going more strength.  And going dex basically made up my weapon choice for me as dual dagger.  My current defense is something like 107 IIRC.  So it isn't amazing yet, but it is noticeable.

 

Early game when strength and dex were relatively close to one another I did run a sword in main hand, but that was partly because I didn't have 2 good daggers, and the borrowed longsword had an attack bonus.

[capn233]

Guess I have a couple days worth with which to comment.

 

Took Wynne to see Anerin.  Then put her on hold and fought the maleficar for Thy Brother's Killer.  Trivial given 100% spell resist.

 

Then I started traveling to and from the forest just to get the River Crossing random encounter I had failed the day before, as well as round up materials to make a bunch of poisons, swift salves, and some health pots so I wouldn't have to worry about it again.  I had enough gold to buy Andruil's Blessing, so picked it up when I went to the Circle Tower.  Replaced the damage rune in Edge with another paralyze rune for two in offhand, one in main hand.

 

Ran into the "dalish recruited" random encounter first, and saved one whole elf.  When I finally got the River Crossing it was easy enough with just a deathroot extract because I took out all the melee first instead of trying to rush the archers as I did in the previous attempt.  And Andruil's probably helped.

 

High Dragon was next.  I was Level 17.  I didn't have any more Greater Warmth Balms so I used lesser.  In total I spent 2 Lesser Warmth Balms, 3 Swift Salves, 2 Concentrated Crow's Poisons, and 3 health pots.  These dragon fights were pretty tedious (not as bad as Gazarath of course), but at least with more paralyze runes I was able to actually paralyze this dragon several times unlike when I fought Flemmeth.  It would have been better to wear different armor for higher rating and maybe fire resistance, but I hadn't really purchased any for myself since KCP and Boots of Diligence, and I had forgotten about the Gloves of Diligence in the Shaparate.

 

The Carta quest was next.  Ran it with Edge in offhand the whole time for more damage since there are only lone mages who largely use mediocre spells, and I could just Holy Smite them all and stab them.  This character was drastically better than my last 2H for this quest, even conceding that the 2H wasn't exactly built for a solo.  The Jarvia fight in particular was relatively simple, and a lot easier than the 2H since I had much higher defense and also slightly better armor rating than my 2H had.  I spent 2 Concentrated Crow's Poisons and one health pot.  When I was fighting the last yellow carta rogue and Jarvia, I had been hit with Mark of Death, and then Jarvia ended up knocking me down, and I hit the pot to ensure I wouldn't have to redo it.

 

Reporting to Bhelen, I was promoted to Level 18.  Stats at this point were:

 

Str 41 (33)

Dex 65 (58)

Will 16 (32)

Mag 22 (14)

Cun 22 (15)

Con 31 (15)

 

Attack 118

Defense 111

Armor 35

 

I remembered to take Leliana into the Shaperate's to unlock the Gloves of Diligence, which I planned to use in Ortan Thaig.  Also eventually I planned to get the GM Dweomer rune from Cesar to throw in my anti-magic Crow Dagger for 26% total spell resist allowing me to make Diligence my standard gloves over Ancient Elven.  I had been trying to avoid swapping a lot of items around most of the game, which was why I ran with so much spell resistance most of the time, and as I said before it was the Flemmeth fight where I decided I wanted more damage for most encounters and so I purchased the dedicated anti-magic dagger.  Holy Smite, obtained a few levels before, was allowing me to deal with lone mages relatively simply without needing full spell resist anyway.

 

So the Deep Roads.  Caradin's Cross was pretty simple.  The few emissaries are alone with regular mooks, so I could just Holy Smite them and I didn't bother switching from Edge in offhand the whole map.  The only encounter in this map that is notable is near where the Drifter's Cache is eventually found that has a group of shrieks and an ogre.  Triggering both the Shrieks and the Ogre makes for a very irritating fight with this character unless you like getting chain rammed while all the Shrieks wale on you.  I reloaded it so I didn't have to burn the health pots from my first attempt (even though I had 10 greater, 60 something regular, and 50 something lesser) and killed the shrieks first, then the ogre.  The Revenant for Black Vials is no match for a late game DW character.

 

After getting Thorn of the Dead Gods, I exited Caridin's to Camp so that Sandal could throw my old GM Hale run and a Fire rune into it, which I planned to equip for the spider queen fight.  Then it was back to Ortan Thaig.  After the first spider encounter where they webbed me 1000 times, I decided to try TotDG as my offhand for all of Ortan, until the bridge anyway.  It actually worked pretty well since it is relatively similar to Edge.

 

At the bridge into the last section, I swapped to the Crow Dagger (8-8-6 dweomer) for full spell resist.  I had aggro'd two spiders with a bow onto the bridge, so in the end I didn't need full spell resist for this emissary.  However, for the second one it was helpful since you get ambushed by spiders when you approach him.  I ended up hitting him with Holy Smite, and tried to retreat around a rock a bit, which is when all the spiders started using overwhelm.  I ended up using a health pot and also spent a nature salve to try and deal with poison and the emissary's staff attacks.  After finally killing the spiders, the emissary is simple.

 

Corrupted Spider Queen is a pain.  First I switched to Gloves of Diligence and Thorn of the Dead Gods so I could have more armor (38 total) and 92 Physical Resistance.  I used a Greater Nature Balm and Concentrated Crow Poison at the start.  The first attempt was a complete disaster since I used the wrong strategy.  After it summoned the first set of minions, I tried to focus them down before engaging the queen.  The reason this was a bad strategy was she hit me with eleventy billion poison spits, and since they all stack, I had a sting of red 7's filling the screen above my character.  So I reloaded before I died.  The next time I decided to always try to engage the queen in melee range whenever she showed up, and use area powers when off cooldown to hit minions.

 

The second strategy worked, but it was still expensive.  I ended up using a fire bomb on an early group of mook spiders, the Greater Nature Balm, Concentrated Crow Poison x 2, a Swift Salve, and 5 Health Pots.  Nearly all of the 5 health pots were in the last group, and I should have probably just grenaded them.  Of course I had gained a bunch of pots from loot and was up to 71 before the fight.

 

Dead Trenches were pretty easy for the most part.  I missed activating Admirable Topsider, so I didn't get the ancient darkspawn, but for the most part I went with Diligence Gloves and Edge offhand, which meant I was at only 74% spell resist.  This was fine since most emissaries here are by themselves.  But many have spiders nearby, so can't just rush them.  For these lone ones, I used Holy Smite to stun them, then pulled the other enemies, dispatched them, then killed the emissary.  There is a part where there are two together backed up by spiders (before Hespith) where it is a good idea to try and pull the spiders even with 100% spell resist since they will all try to overhwelm and taking staff hits is at the same time is annoying.

 

Forge Master section is easiest if you can separate the Forge Master from the Alpha, otherwise there are too many debuffs at once.  I was able to get Forge Master and some mooks to run towards the entrance without aggroing the Alpha and his couple mooks.  Each group is manageable by themselves.

 

Broodmother fight is just about stabbing her until it is over.  I attacked the tentacles first, then the Broodmother-proper though.  When the first set of darkspawn mooks showed up, I did run onto the ramp so could deal with them by themselves though.  I used a Swift Salve, Concentrated Crow's Poison and one health pot.  The health pot was near the end when I had left a couple archers near the entrance and the Broodmother grabbed me twice in a row.  I dispatched the archers after chugging the pot, and then killed the Broodmother.

 

Anvil is simple initially, although the spinning puzzle seemed like it took longer than it should.  The golems in the room with poison were annoying, but I was able to fight one at a time since they weren't all activating.  For the next golem room where two would awaken at once, I ran back to the door to fight them one at a time.

 

Branka fight was annoying largely because it was hard to keep stuff from aggroing on Oghren.  I reloaded it several times until I could actually get him out of danger without him taking a hit.  Then I focused on the golems so I could have less enemies to knock me off my feet.  Even so, this was a really annoying fight.  When Branka's clones showed up, of course one made a bee-line for Oghren, for no apparent reason except to annoy me, and end the end Oghren took some damage.  I don't know a good place to put him so that he doesn't take any damage in this fight, especially when all of Branka's clones show up.  But I also didn't feel like redoing the fight.  In any case, spent 2 Swift Salves, 2 Concentrated Crow's Poisons, 1 Greater Health Pot and 2 Health Pots.  This was in addition to using some Lyrium, which is actually annoying due to animation, and the fact that Branka will run off on her own to do the same thing, so I gave it up by the mid point.

 

Cadash Thaig was next.  It was straightforward.  I was running Edge the whole time.  The emissary managed to use Crushing Prison on me before I hit him with Holy Smite, but I survived it, then preceded to just regen my health while I stabbed him and his friends.  The alpha that likes to use shattering shot and arrow of slaying is dangerous.  The ogre at the end is the most dangerous, at least if you fight it where the shrieks will appear, which I didn't.  I waited for it to walk near the bridge.  Rammed once, then tried to run around and avoid massive attacks, etc.  Shrieks were simple once ogre killed.

 

Finished Dead Drops and turned it in.  Finished False Witness and turned it in.  Started New Ground.  I had a lot of gold (260 actually) so I went to Wade's and bought Evon the Great's Mail, and turned in my last set of drake scales.  I should have bought Evon's a lot earlier and ran it as my standard armor because it made this character invincible in most mundane fights.  It would have been nice for the spider queen and Branka.  Also finally bought the GM Dweomer rune from Cesar and replaced the 6% rune in the anti-magic Crow dagger with it.

 

Went to kill Gaxkang, used Knight Commander with Gloves and Boots of Diligence.  So had 38 armor, but only 74% spell resist.  Opened with Holy Smite, then just used momentum and stabbing, and 1 Concentrated Crow's Poison.  All of his spells were resisted, and he was relatively frequently paralyzed anyway.  Used Holy Smite again as soon as it was off cooldown, and he was dead a few stabs after that.

 

Went to finish off D (had run into his men en route to Gaxkang), and was invincible in Evon's.  Then finished of Black Vials as the Denerim and Orzammar revenants were left, both were simple with current stats and armor.

 

Rescue the Queen was next.  I just stayed in Evon's with Edge and rofl stomped through it.  There aren't many mages, the first lone one only casts BS support spells (cleanse area takes care of them).  I focused the two near Howe first, since they will use Stonefist eventually.  Holy Smite on the first, then stab; Punisher on second, then stab.  They didn't get any decent spells in except a lifeward on a guard, which I cleansed.  Howe was no match with momentum, swift salve, perfect striking, and Concentrated Crow's Poison.

 

Cauthrien was a bit annoying.  I wanted to kill her without a health pot, and did so twice actually, but it seemed too dependent on luck (RNG specifically) with paralyze and which hits are evaded via defense.  It is simple enough to kill her with only one health pot though.  The archers are really damned annoying for this character however, and it takes longer to clear them then to kill Cauthrien.  I used a Concentrated Crow's Poison and Swift Salve vs Cauthrien, and then two acid flasks and a CC Poison for the archers and mage.

 

I actually tried to fight Cauthrien in the room with all the enemies first, but that wasn't practical.  I don't know that it would work without spamming grenades and other potions since you will get stunned a couple times initially before you can get all the way to the spot by the exit door, and then you will probably be hit with debuffs and have to deal with Cauthrien, a couple guards and an archer or two supported by the mage.

[capn233]

End game run consisted of simple parts and a few very annoying encounters.

 

Alienage - Most enemies no match for high level DW warrior running end game gear.  Interestingly the confrontation with the Tevinter elf was probably the trickiest fight in that there are a lot of enemies who surround you, archers hiding behind traps, so I tried to fight in a corner to break LOS with the 3 archers in the "dining room."  Even so, had frequent stuns.  Ended up using a lesser health pot along with a concentrated crow poison.  I had a lot of grenades, and one or two might have made it simpler, but I was hording them for Denerim.

 

Caladrius - switched to 100% spell resist setup which makes this fight relatively straightforward, and makes archers with stun / debuff the worst enemies.  Dispatched the two enemies on the right stairs, then baited the rest to funnel up these stairs.  Caladrius had put a blizzard on the upper balcony area, but all it accomplished was slowing his units as far as I could tell.  Just kept stabbing.

 

Something Wicked - I am only mentioning this because it was annoying to keep Ser Otto alive since he charges head first into rooms and is not very combat effective.  I had either forgotten or didn't realize before that Hold seems to actually apply to him, and that made it simpler to keep his health up once I rediscovered it.  Also it would seem that exiting the building and returning will restore him to full health.

 

Fang - Apparently the "Unobtainable Items Fix" mod I have unlocks the dragonbone version, which is the "console version," and not the usual crappy T4 version you normally get on PC (I had forgotten this mod does that, only played City Elf one other time).  I migrated my dweomer runes from the Crow Dagger to it and used it as my new anti-magic dagger.

 

Blackstone Irregulars - Finished the quest and killed the son.  I went around behind the wagons where the archers couldn't hit me, and killed all the melee units.  Easy enough.  I bought some tomes of skill and sundry as well as a couple tomes of the mortal vessel and bumped up Survival to Rank 3 and got a whole 2 dex points.  Honestly Tomes of the Mortal Vessel seem like gigantic ripoffs, but I still had over 200 gold and nothing else to buy.

 

Landsmeet / Loghain - He knocked me down once, but he was defeated about 5 seconds after that.  Perfect Striking, Crow Poison, Momentum, Swift Salve.  Had 63 SS's so.

 

Tears of Andraste - In the purest solo, I wouldn't be able to complete this mission.  Actually went there entirely by myself first since I forgot that the vault door has to be picked.  I just killed everyone in the house all the way to the vault.  There is a section with 2 mages, but Spell Resist trumps them.  Since everyone I could get to was dead, I went back to get Leliana, then unlocked the vault door.  She hid in stealth and I killed the rest of the guys who showed up.  Then we left.

 

Camp - I went to camp to change runes.  I replaced both GM Flame runes in Rose's Thorn with GM Silverite, and retained GM Lightning.  Then it was off to Redcliffe.  Edge still had 2x Paralyze.

 

Redcliffe - The first really annoying encounter is here.  Ogres supported by an Emissary.  Ran the anti-magic setup, which meant I had no paralyze runes in my weapons.  Riposte and Holy Smite work ok on white ogres, but yellow tends to resist.  I basically needed to bait the ogres back away from the emissary (and his constant ranged nature damage which was bad even with 40% nature resist), and kill the ogres back  up the hill.

 

For yellow ogres my stuns were resisted commonly, and so it is mostly about stabbing as much as possible and hoping for paralyze or stun.  I did end up getting grabbed by the yellow one, but survived and retreated further up the hill for a little health regen.  Then it was mop up.

 

Would have been nice to have higher armor from Evon's, but it wasn't possible to kill the Emissary fast enough with the other setup without getting chain rammed or grabbed by ogres.  I did switch to Evon's and Edge for the castle though.  There are two emissaries who seem oblivious until you attack them, so Holy Smite - Stab works.  Survive stupid attacks from Ogre Alpha, Swift Salve / Poison hope for paralyze procs.

 

Denerim Gates - darkspawn mooks have hardly any health, the most notable thing was hitting Level 23, where I ended the game.  Stats looked like this:

 

Level 23 - Anti-Magic Setup (Fang - KCP)

 

Str 41 (33)

Dex 82 (74)

Will 32 (16)

Mag 22 (14)

Cun 25 (16)

Con 21 (15)

 

Armor - 38

Att / Def - 129 / 128

Phys Res - 75

 

Edge - Evon's changed the following

 

Will 27

Cun 22

Armor - 41

Att / Def - 127 / 128

 

Market District - Switched to anti-magic setup since there is a troll emissary near the start.  So had to fight a bunch of ogres.  From here on out I tried to make sure Swift Salve and Concentrated Crow's Poison were up whenever fighting ogres.  I had 61 Swift Salves at the start of Denerim, so I could spare them.  You can get them to funnel here mostly 1 at a time, and if Riposte and Holy Smite are both off cooldown you have a good chance of stunning a white ogre.  If you try to rush the Emissary early it is easy to get 2 or 3 ogres on you at once and I didn't want that to happen.  But it still did when I got greedy and tried to kill the Emissary before two more ogres got there.  This resulted in a grab, and I had to use a health pot.  This was my last used health pot of the game though.

 

I started to second-guess my rune choice in Rose and wondered if it wouldn't have been better to dump all my Paralyze runes in it for 14.26% main hand paralyze chance since I seemed to be stuck running Fang off-hand to resist magic so often.  Of course that would lower damage.  If I had been a rogue I almost certainly would have done that.

 

After killing the Emissary and his ogre group, switched to Edge - Evon's for the General.  Baited ogres first, and then general was no no match for DW with Momentum, Swift Salve, CC poison, Perfect Striking.

 

My 2H was better against the ogres here (carefully baiting them), and I imagine templar-2H would be a lot easier at the beginning.  General was easier with DW though.

 

Alienage - Since the general is a mage / emissary here, I went with anti-magic setup.  Told Shiani et al to stay by their houses (because I wanted Dawn ring for no good reason), then went to the gates.  SS and CCP for ogre, it died fast.  Used a few grenades to one-shot mobs, took out some yellow alphas, then killed the general with Holy Smite, Cleanse Area to erase his glyphs, and stab.  This section was drastically easier with DW-Templar-Zerker then my 2H-Champ-Zerker, but if my 2H was a Templar it would have probably been closer.

 

Gates Battle - Well I didn't know what exactly was the most solo like, but ended up putting my controlled characters on hold, and called in the Dalish to help non-controlled squad members while I sat back and did nothing.   Morrigan, Sten, Zevran, Wynne, and Mr Bojangles tore it up by themselves though.

 

Palace District - Went with Edge - Evon's at the start because I misremembered the enemy layout somewhat.  Anyway, cleared the first ogre and enemy section, then went towards the next set of stairs with an ogre.  Started to kill it and then realized there was an emissary.  He ended up hitting me with Curse of Mortality, and so I used greater spirit balm.  I was able to kill all of the units in the immediate area, most of the trash couldn't hit me anyway, and then waited for the curse to expire, and then my health to regen.  I have the fix pack, so CoM does prevent combat health regen for me.  I switched to the anti-magic equipment for the last part of it.

 

This section has two emissaries and various trash mobs plus an alpha archer or two.  Also shrieks will show up. I used Swift Salve, nature balm and poison, Holy Smite on the first emissary, ran at him and stabbed him to death.  The second decided to sort of help me out by lobbing fireballs which mostly just killed darkspawn mooks.  Shrieks showed up as I was killing the second emissary, and everything was chipping away at my health.  I used Incense of Awareness (had accumulated 3), killed the shrieks, then focused down the alpha as it was the only thing that could actually damage me at anywhere near the rate of my health regen.  Health was really low but you don't need a health pot if most everything doesn't hit you.

 

Drakon Entrance - Back to the anti-magic setup, there are two emissaries.  Since I had a bunch of stuff, I activated Swift Salve, Greater Nature Balm, Greater Warmth Balm, Concentrated Crows, incense of Awareness, then lobbed an acid flask on the archers to the right.  Killed the little dragon, then lobbed a fire bomb on the archers to the front - right, and then went to stab the ones on the left.  I was getting low on health, so charged the Emissary on the left and killed it.  The right emissary couldn't hit me in this spot, so I just went about stabbing everything that couldn't damage me here, despite my low health.  After everything was gone, killed the emissary and went inside.

 

Drakon - Pretty much everything is straightforward for a DW-Templar here.  Conjurer Fight - kill shades, then Holy Smite and stab Conjurer.  Shapeshifter and Emissary - bait group back out door to avoid trap, stab undead with swift salve up, then kill the emissary and shapeshifter.  Switched to Edge - Evon's after that.  For the unnecessary room with a bunch of archers, I just walked into the middle and lobbed two grenades each on two groups of them, then stabbed the rest.  The assassin and his minions were laughable with Swift Salve, Incense of Awareness and Perfect Striking.

 

The only tricky part really is the room with the 2 ogres and the emissary.  I ended up pulling the ogres out of the room to deal with them first.  DW v Ogre is as annoying as ever with rams and potential grabs, but I still had plenty of Swift Salves and Concentrated Crows Poison.  I then used Holy Smite on the emissary and stabbed him.  I am not sure what all this one even casts, he activated Death Magic and put down a glyph when I first entered, and then couldn't do anything when I returned and used HS.

 

This was simpler than the 2H for the most part, but a lot of that had to do with magic resistance.  The exception was the assassin, where higher defense made it easier to just stab it rapidly without much in the way of tactics.

 

Archdemon - Greater Spirit Balm, Greater Nature Balm (for emissaries showing up), Swift Salve, Poison.  Just stab it.  For the most part it couldn't damage me fast enough to beat regen.  It would get me to half health or so but by that time, typically it would fly to a new spot.  After allies show up to distract it a bit it gets even simpler.

 

Used some more grenades on random mobs, had to focus down an emissary and some shrieks.  Used the ballistas at range.