50 réponses à ce sujet

[soteria]

A while back we had a discussion (http://social.biowar...66/index/721139) about the efficacy of using a warrior archer as a tank for the group.  I finally got around to starting that run with the warrior archer tanking, and will be reporting my experiences here.

Early impressions:  I hate starting as a warrior, seeing all the traps, locked chests, and persuasion checks that I have to just leave.  I'm pretty sure a rogue could have gained around half a level in experience from chests and traps in the Dalish origin and Ostagar, plus a bow from the merchant in camp.  Combat was pretty easy all the way through the origin story and Ostagar, though.  My warrior still wasn't ready to tank by the time I got to the ogre, so I ended up taunting and hiding behind the barrels.

In Lothering, I finally had Master Archer, AoS, and taunt, but still didn't meet the strength requirements to wear heavy armor.  Even at 105 defense, I still felt pretty squishy.  I ended up letting the party split the damage in the beginning of each fight and taunting when people reached around 50% health.  Honnleath went pretty smoothly, until I got to Kitty, who kicked my butt with a cone of cold and 4 rage demons doing their flame thingy.

Next, I headed to Orzammar for the key to the city.  By this time I was wearing heavy armor; level 8 with around 17 armor and 107 defense in defensive fire mode.  Unfortunately, I found that the enemies were too strong for me to stick around and pick up Oghren/Cadash Stompers as I hoped.  AoS failed consistently, and no one, to include my PC, was capable of standing for more than about 10 seconds in melee.  I don't want to blame this on the build; I think it was the lack of a mage.  After a lot of deaths, I finally got in, got the key, failed miserably to get Ageless (best attempt was ~35%, overwhelm blows), and left to start RtO.

My group has been pretty fluid.  Alistair has been redirected toward the DW tree, and is starting to make himself useful.  Sten is probably my second greatest source of damage, after my PC.  Leliana comes along anywhere I need to open locks.  Dog subs in and out, and Shale has proven to be pretty worthless so far.  The rock mastery aura grants 5% ranged crit, but it's not enough to make up for the lack of other useful abilities so far.  I'm definitely missing the presence of a mage.  I find I'm killing much more slowly than my previous run, I think because I have no dw rogue, and, again, no mage.

I want to give the build a fair shake, and I'm having a hard time right now deciding if my struggles are from the build or the lack of a mage.  Maybe I need to do a similar run with a s&s warrior tanking.  Typically I'll open a fight with AoS, and then focus someone else down as they run in.  Then it's taunt, defensive fire, and start attacking the archers to keep them from attacking the squishy warriors.  Unfortunately, when I'm using defensive fire at I think my damage is about on par with a s&s warrior.

Additioanlly, I'm still pretty stamina starved, even with Song of Valor.  That should get better when I get Deathblow, but if I go for that I'll have to put off the Scattershot line longer.  For skills, I haven't had the chance to pick up trapmaking yet, but I think those will make a big difference in typical battles.  Flasks are huge, of course.  It really sucks that ranged weapons can't use runes or poisons.

I don't have any screenshots or video to link yet, but I'll try to get some video up so the experts can tell me what I need to do differently.  I don't have a lot of experience building an archer, and certainly not an archer tank, so I'm open to suggestions.

Modifié par soteria, 01 février 2010 - 09:53 .

[JosieJ]

Is there any particular reason why you're not using a mage? I know you don't in your normal runs, but why not use one to test this build? Or are you comparing this build to a mageless rogue archer run?

[soteria]

Ugh, edited OP for formatting.



Well, my previous run was "no healer," meaning I brought Morrigan and just gave her CC/damage spells. I had planned all along that my next run would be mageless, for a challenge. Then we got into the discussion about how viable a warrior archer would be at tanking, and I said I'd try it. So I combined the two runs for the sake of efficiency.



Yes, the original discussion was rogue archer vs warrior archer, but what I wanted to test specifically was how viable the tanking aspect of the warrior variant was. Maybe it would be more fair for me to bring Morrigan along, and build her like I did last time when Alistair was tanking. For now, I'd like to stay on this course.



The ultimate goal is to kill Ser Cauthrien without leaving the room or using any potions with this group. I've taken to using that fight as a benchmark.

[JosieJ]

I remember that rogue-vs-warrior archer discussion. I just wondered if you had a previous mageless rogue archer run you were using as a benchmark.

[soteria]

No, I don't. This is the first PC archer I've played--two dual wield rogues, a s&s warrior, and a mage is all I've done. Two dw rogues because the first one didn't count since I didn't know what I was doing and used two full-sized weapons. Unfortunately it does mean I'm a bit in the dark for how hard a mageless run *should* be.

[Timortis]

You're going to have a hard time against Ser Cauth with no Mages if you don't leave the room. How are you going to CC all the archers? Double War Cry + Scattershot + 2H Sweep? I'm not sure it would be enough.

[dkjestrup]

This should be interesting.... Timortis, I think if soteria could get some sleeping gas traps down it should be possible, but it would be very difficult. Maybe have Leliana and the PC Scattershot at once, have Sten + Dog run in and Dread Howl + 2h Sweep, while Leliana and the PC set up the traps. With lures you could eventually get all the enemies together, for easy CCing. Problem will be surviving the scattershots.

[Timortis]

Well, with traps you could kill the entire room at once if you wanted to, so I didn't consider those but using a couple of SG traps just where Ser Cauth spawns is an option, I've done that before to let me run out of the room without getting Scattershotted.

[dkjestrup]

Yeah, well you wouldn't want to spam traps everywhere, that just makes it too easy (like that guy doing a rogue solo on youtube who just spammed traps for the Ogre form sloth demon, killed it in like a second).



But maybe a SG trap here, a lure trap there, would make it possible.

[soteria]

Well, pre-trapping the room is out for obvious reasons. I haven't messed around with trapping in combat much, so that will be a possibility I'd have to explore.



My plan for killing her hasn't fully come together, but it involves killing 8/10 archers and the mage in the first 5 seconds. Just don't ask how. Sure, this is borderline impossible, but if I can pull it off... viva la gloria, right?

[dkjestrup]

Lol. I wasn't suggesting pre-combat, that's definitely cheap.



You could use Holy Smite with a Templar, considering it's a long-range knockdown? You'll likely have to use every stun you have.

[Timortis]

The problem is that the archers are too spread out to kill 10 in 5 seconds with melee AoE. How many grenades does it take to kill them?

[soteria]

4, IIRC. My tentative plan is actually more finesse than brute force. I said the 5 seconds thing tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure if/how it will work, but the way I understand Scattershot is it branches off hitting all targets behind the original target. If I can taunt the archers with my archer tank, and have him back in the corner, hopefully he can eat all the stuns while the rest of the group quickly annihilates one group of archers. I'm not sure if I can get that to work in practice, but that's my tentative plan.

That's a long way off, though, and it's a little intimidating to consider doing since currently I struggle to kill a group of 4 hurlocks and 3 blight wolves, and I'm nowhere near having the skills and talents to handle that situation.  I'm a little concerned about getting all the talents I need on Alistair and Leliana--ideally Leli will have maxed ranger talents, three in Bard, plus Scattershot, AoS, and Lethality.  Alistair ideally needs maxed Champion, Templar, and Whirlwind, which he'll just barely be able to do by level 20. 

For now I'll focus on getting the money for Evon the Great's Mail, Andruil's Blessing, and Far Song.

Modifié par soteria, 01 février 2010 - 11:35 .

[Timortis]

No Scattershot hits all targets in a radius AFAIK.

[dkjestrup]

So soteria is screwed?

[soteria]

Hahah. Well, I might be back to killing half the room in 5 seconds or less, but I'll figure something out. And that's a long way off.

[dkjestrup]

Good luck, you'll need it

[soteria]

Update:





I finished RtO, and headed off to Brecilian Forest for Falon'Din's Reach and Varathorn's Armor. I ignored the Revenants for the time being, just going into the ruins far enough to kill the drake guarding the bow. After, I did the circle tower, which was pretty easy by that point. Abominations are always easy to kill, of course, and I think the Fade is generally easier with a character with high dex/str. Uldred took like two tries.





After the circle tower my next stop was Denerim--my last opportunity to do the back alleys before they got scattershot. Alistair didn't survive the Revenant fight, but it wasn't particularly hard otherwise. I'm currently half-way through the Deserted Warehouse. I'm actually right outside the room we all know and love so well, with the three blood mages and three doors.





The game got MUCH easier after Sten picked up 2h sweep and Alistair got Momentum. I finally picked up Deathblow on my archer, but I haven't seen a huge difference, yet. The problem is that when he's tanking, defensive fire means he rarely gets killing blows. I just got it, though, and I'm still tweaking my play style to leverage it. I need Deathblow to be effective because tanks are typically so low on stamina already.





I've more or less settled on Sten, Leli, Alistair, and my archer. Leliana is still mostly dead weight, but I do need her for locks/traps, so what can you do. She'll be more useful in a few levels, now that she has enough dex for AoS/Scattershot.





I still haven't bought any gear, because I'm working on getting my persuade up high enough to make more money off the lyrium smuggling deal. I only just now have two points in it. Currently level 12 with ~90 defense and 19 armor unbuffed. Sten does a fair bit of tanking since he has massive armor and indomitable to deal with ogres and the like.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Personally, I think pre-trapping the room is genius. Ever since I defeated the final battle in KotOR with nothing but mines, I'm forever looking for places where some pre-combat traps would be helpful.

[DAO Lemon]

Dang I just love threads by soteria/Dkjestup/ and timortis, always provides such intense/Amazing tips and a little bit of a walkthrough for me , keep it coming. *cries*

[JosieJ]

 I definitely recommend Far Song.  Just do a little metagaming and don't enter the room where the blacksmith's daughter is and you can truthfully tell him that you haven't seen her! 

[soteria]

Thanks Fizban. I've usually always saved Owen's daughter, so I've never even seen or used Far Song. Fortunately I haven't done Redcliffe yet, so I can still get it. If I had gone there early I probably would have ruined it. For Felon's Coat/Evon the Great's Mail, you have to do 2 major plot points before they appear; it doesn't have to be the Urn.



Sylvius, I agree in principle that it's the smart way to do it, but if I really wanted to do things the smart way I'd be bringing mages and potions and pulling her out of the room in the first place. It's about a challenge. I mean, I totally killed Irenicus with 7 traps, but I don't think very many people would be interested to know that although I killed Ser Cauthrien with no mages/potions, I set 20 large shrapnel traps around where the archers spawned...



I've captured a few video clips, but I haven't taken the time to review and edit them. I'll post them in the next few days.

[Random70]

soteria wrote...

I've usually always saved Owen's daughter, so I've never even seen or used Far Song. Fortunately I haven't done Redcliffe yet, so I can still get it. If I had gone there early I probably would have ruined it. For Felon's Coat/Evon the Great's Mail, you have to do 2 major plot points before they appear; it doesn't have to be the Urn.

The new blacksmith, however only sells Far Song + vanilla crap (he gives you an OK amulet if you lie to him). From Owen, OTOH you can get shielded dwarven armor, GM Hale rune and Boots of Diligence. As nice as Far Song is, Diligence seems like a nice pair of shoes for what your trying to accomplish.

[soteria]

Hmm. I had planned to use the Cadash Stompers for the additional dex/str and hostility. You're right, though, the Diligence boots (whole set, really) is pretty good for a non-massive set of armor. I guess if I used Diligence on my PC I could give the Cadash Stompers to Alistair or Leli... I'll have to consider this.  Falon'Din's Reach is missing the 10 attack and 3% crit rating, not that I'm short on attack rating.

Modifié par soteria, 03 février 2010 - 03:39 .