Dragon Age Origins discussion...

[Parmenides]

Just finished the game on hard playing a good alignment mage. Very good game. Gonna start my 2nd game playing evil rogue DW I guess

One thing that bugs me though - no matter what level I am, the mobs will always con even or higher than me aka Oblivion. So, even at later levels a few dogs can beat the hell out of me... not so heroic ;p

For sure, one of my hardest battles was against dogs. I hate that scaling.

To be honest though, it does seem like the game is hardest when you're a low level, fresh after the battle of Ostagar is over. Later levels you do feel more powerful.


Revenants are pretty nasty too. You can force field them for a decent duration, as you kill their minions first. If you have that telekinetic weapon spell, use that. What makes those guys so nasty is that it takes swipes that hurt everyone within swing's distance. I haven't tried ranged tactics, but that would definitely work. Especially if you can keep out of range of his aura. He'll always be chasing someone, and he'll force pull you all. But if you run away while using ranged attacks, I could see that as working.

 

[Ryom]

They did plan to have it in by default, but apparently were having problems with it meeting their level of polish. The mod has these same issues. When your camp changes due to world events, sometimes the chest and everything in it disappears. When it comes back, its empty

That is a ridiculous reason. Putting it in paid DLC just makes them look greedy instead of like idiots. Good game, but I'm feeling the taint of EA on them, no matter what the brass at Bioware says.

 

[Fliff]

This game could use an extra mage party member and even an extra rogue. only 2 mages, 2 rogues and 5 warrior types felt unbalanced. My second playthrough I've been playing a female city elf rogue who hates humans and the chantry, and I plan on doing that move that loses the 2nd mage and will refuse the 1st mage's request because my character doesn't like the idea of a human using her.

At least it would be interesting playing Nightmare with no mages. I'm thinking my party makeup will be me as a rogue, shale for tank, and leliana to help with CC. Any idea's for a 4th member?

 

[Climber]

This game could use an extra mage party member and even an extra rogue. only 2 mages, 2 rogues and 5 warrior types felt unbalanced. My second playthrough I've been playing a female city elf rogue who hates humans and the chantry, and I plan on doing that move that loses the 2nd mage and will refuse the 1st mage's request because my character doesn't like the idea of a human using her.

At least it would be interesting playing Nightmare with no mages. I'm thinking my party makeup will be me as a rogue, shale for tank, and leliana to help with CC. Any idea's for a 4th member?

If your rogue hates the chantry why Liliana then? You can use Shen, the Dog, or The Dwarf dude I forgot his name.

 

[Fliff]

I read something about how you can harden leliana's personality and change her belief with the chantry, so I plan on doing that.

How is dog in the later levels with all landmarks? Dread howl and overwhelm look very useful for CC but he seemed to me like filler for the early levels and just something to ditch when your your party members get enough talents to start pulling their own weight.

 

[Climber]

I read something about how you can harden leliana's personality and change her belief with the chantry, so I plan on doing that.

How is dog in the later levels with all landmarks? Dread howl and overwhelm look very useful for CC but he seemed to me like filler for the early levels and just something to ditch when your your party members get enough talents to start pulling their own weight.

My dog is awesome. I will admit I ditched him for Shale, but that isn't due to any weakness on his part, just Shale seemed cool and going to the Dwarven area I thought I might get some sidequests and stories with him (actually her) and I did.

never knew that about Liliana so I may keep that in mind for another playthrough. I want to take zeveran into Denerim and see if the merchant in town knows him.

 

[Fliff]

Oh yea I just remembered that dog is the same as shale in the sense that you need to just pump str/con and nothing else, that's really convenient.

And I agree that shale is awesome, I think he's the best tank and even better than alistair with all his best equipment. With alistair I had to put his stats all over the place; str for the juggernaut armor req, dex for one of the talent trees, a little cunning for tactics, some willpower to keep his sustained buffs up and have enough to do taunt and another skill, and finally i could put some into constitution. With shale i just did 2 con 1 str for all his levels, and he tanked just as good with almost 100 more hp than alistair. Where alistair failed with morrigan's quest boss and gaxkang the unbound, I could always rely on shale to get the job done.

Speaking of gaxkang, I loved how he reminded me of kangaxx from baldur's gate 2, an optional super tough boss. I remember when I beat kangaxx on hardest difficulty, I nuked the hell out of him and I think I killed him in 5 seconds lol. I miss bg2 mages, their spells were so fun, I'm now getting the urge to play through the whole bg series after this da playthrough.

 

[KenG10]

How is dog in the later levels with all landmarks?

GAH! So thats what those "uninteresting" landmarks are for? Dog pisses on them and gains experience or something??

 

[Fliff]

When the dog pisses in an area the dog and main character get a buff to just the zone. My bad, I thought it was a permanent buff, I had to recheck.

I don't even think it's that great, I think landmarks are only available in outdoor areas so you won't get the benefit all throughout the game.

 

[Climber]

Speaking of gaxkang, I loved how he reminded me of kangaxx from baldur's gate 2, an optional super tough boss. I remember when I beat kangaxx on hardest difficulty, I nuked the hell out of him and I think I killed him in 5 seconds lol. I miss bg2 mages, their spells were so fun, I'm now getting the urge to play through the whole bg series after this da playthrough.

I'm missing disk 2 of BG. I was looking forward to playing it last year and was pretty bent out of shape that I had lost a disk to one of my all time favorite games. I did find tachyon: the fringe and got me in some great space combat with Bruce Cambell as the voice actor. That was a great game.

 

[Parmenides]

Anyone get dog below 100% friendly? I give him bones and such, but he's already maxed.

Hey, I didn't realize it, (probably common knowledge for you all) but you can give your allies equipment for the final battle. Runes for mages. Just look at the boxes at your camp.

 

[lopoetve]

Any tips for the Revenent in Radcliffe Castle?

I'm playing as a primal / restore mage, level 8, with Alistar, Morrigan, and Liliana with me. He does a "mass pull" to yank me across the courtyard, then one shots me before I can get up. The others then just get rocked no matter what I do

Any tips?

 

[Vertigo528]

Any tips for the Revenent in Radcliffe Castle?

I'm playing as a primal / restore mage, level 8, with Alistar, Morrigan, and Liliana with me. He does a "mass pull" to yank me across the courtyard, then one shots me before I can get up. The others then just get rocked no matter what I do

Any tips?

For Revenants, I put everyone except the tank out of range of any AE effects. Everyone attacks with ranged with two people healing. When the Revenant gets to about 30%, I send the normal melee characters in also to kill him quick. Revenants were easy with this strategy. If the tank gets a little low on HP, he drank a lesser poultice. I couldn't tell if it mattered, but normally I used the tank to position the Revenant with his back to the other attackers.

 

[lopoetve]

ok, I beat him using alistar as the player controlled char - I ahve to admit that I don't follow you for any of that. I only ever really control one character (the PC), and then let the rest do their thing. There doesn't seem to be any logical controls for placing people/managing things like you describe, or any strategy other than "run around and don't die, let the NPCs do their thing", so what am I totally missing? I can't keep moving each character then switching again - they'll start doing their own thing as soon as I switch off of them.

I'll be honest - I don't play these kinds of games much (I either do action RPGs like Diablo, or turn based like the older FF), so I'm playing this one very similar to Diablo - just let things happen and spam spells. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[newster]

Any tips for the Revenent in Radcliffe Castle?

I'm playing as a primal / restore mage, level 8, with Alistar, Morrigan, and Liliana with me. He does a "mass pull" to yank me across the courtyard, then one shots me before I can get up. The others then just get rocked no matter what I do

Any tips?

If you are having trouble with all the archers, you can pull them one by one by hiding behind the stairs. Then for the Revenant, spread your guys out like previously stated, and he will usually chase one party member. If it is not your tank, they won't live long, so kite it back and forth while your guys beat him down.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Any tips for the Revenent in Radcliffe Castle?

I'm playing as a primal / restore mage, level 8, with Alistar, Morrigan, and Liliana with me. He does a "mass pull" to yank me across the courtyard, then one shots me before I can get up. The others then just get rocked no matter what I do

Any tips?

Running the same party about the same level. My mage is primal earth magic mostly + 1 heal spell.

I had a lot of trouble with the first Revenant I encountered in the elven ruins. Got a few characters leveled up and tried again. Still slaughtered. Several times each time.

Settled on this strategy. Don't know if it will work for you (not to Radcliffe yet).

Scattered out.
Acid on blade for Alistair (not sure if this was helping?). Blade has +2 lightning rune on it too. No using shield skills (seems to be immune to all of them). Just Precise Striking, pls threaten to keep Revenant attacking Allistar.

Liliana at range with arrows (many shots missing though)

Morrigan spamming Vuln. Hex, Cone of Cold. Winter's Grasp also once in a while.

PC heals Alistair only. Toss a lightning bolt once in a while (best bang for mana dmg vs Revenant).

Priority 1 is to keep using Cone of Cold on him. Keep him frozen as much as possible. Use Winter's Grasp once in a while if Allistair is taking some damage and Cof C is recharging. Keeps him from doing the Pull. Keep his ass frozen!

Magic-intensive though. Needs a handful of mana potions, most likely, unless you have some of the mana boosting skills.

 

[Cyrilix]

ok, I beat him using alistar as the player controlled char - I ahve to admit that I don't follow you for any of that. I only ever really control one character (the PC), and then let the rest do their thing. There doesn't seem to be any logical controls for placing people/managing things like you describe, or any strategy other than "run around and don't die, let the NPCs do their thing", so what am I totally missing? I can't keep moving each character then switching again - they'll start doing their own thing as soon as I switch off of them.

I'll be honest - I don't play these kinds of games much (I either do action RPGs like Diablo, or turn based like the older FF), so I'm playing this one very similar to Diablo - just let things happen and spam spells. Is there something I'm missing?

You know, all your party members have skills, right? You can control their use, their timing, and of course, you want to position party members so that as many as possible are behind the target for a +15 to +20 flanking bonus (attack / critical chance). If all you've done is control a single character without ever touching the other characters, then I'm surprised you've survived this far, unless you've configured appropriate tactics.

 

[GreenMonkey]

You know, all your party members have skills, right? You can control their use, their timing, and of course, you want to position party members so that as many as possible are behind the target for a +15 to +20 flanking bonus (attack / critical chance). If all you've done is control a single character without ever touching the other characters, then I'm surprised you've survived this far, unless you've configured appropriate tactics.

Maybe he's not pausing? lopoetve, are you pausing to issue commands to people? It doesn't sound like it.

 

[Climber]

ok, I beat him using alistar as the player controlled char - I ahve to admit that I don't follow you for any of that. I only ever really control one character (the PC), and then let the rest do their thing. There doesn't seem to be any logical controls for placing people/managing things like you describe, or any strategy other than "run around and don't die, let the NPCs do their thing", so what am I totally missing? I can't keep moving each character then switching again - they'll start doing their own thing as soon as I switch off of them.

I'll be honest - I don't play these kinds of games much (I either do action RPGs like Diablo, or turn based like the older FF), so I'm playing this one very similar to Diablo - just let things happen and spam spells. Is there something I'm missing?

tactics. Do you have them set up? If not then start exploring and tinkering around with them.

 

[snaggletooth]

Sounds to me like he wasn't pausing.

Revenants are tough but there are a variety of different strategies that will work.

Vulnerability Hex + Winter's Grasp + Crushing Prison is a wicked combo that works well for big damage. Substitute Stonefist for Crushing Prison if you don't have that awesome, awesome, awesome spell.

 

[kledar586]

damn I need vulnerability hex cause my spells bounce off the stupid revs, thanks.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

Any tips for the Revenent in Radcliffe Castle?

I'm playing as a primal / restore mage, level 8, with Alistar, Morrigan, and Liliana with me. He does a "mass pull" to yank me across the courtyard, then one shots me before I can get up. The others then just get rocked no matter what I do

Any tips?

Open the gate and let the knights in

 

[lopoetve]

Maybe he's not pausing? lopoetve, are you pausing to issue commands to people? It doesn't sound like it.

other than my main, no - I haven't seen the point to it yet, their tactics tend to work ok (And yes, I did fiddle those, mostly to give the tanks the ability to use healing salves on themselves) .

 

[lopoetve]

You know, all your party members have skills, right? You can control their use, their timing, and of course, you want to position party members so that as many as possible are behind the target for a +15 to +20 flanking bonus (attack / critical chance). If all you've done is control a single character without ever touching the other characters, then I'm surprised you've survived this far, unless you've configured appropriate tactics.

ok, that's just it though - how the hell do you position them?

I spent a lot of time working on the tactics, and on owning with the right set of spells as the PC - fireball + cone of cold and the like. The others die a lot, but I figured that's how things worked in this game.

I'm basically playing it like diablo.

 

[Stiler]

You need to setup your tactics.

At least simple things like:
1. Have your healer heal an ally when they are <x health.(if you dont' have a heal/healer yet, then put in to use a health potion instead)
2. Have your tank taunt/threaten, etc.
3. Dispell if you or someone is disabled.


There a bunch more smaller things to do, but it depends on your party setup.

 

[lopoetve]

None of the tanks have taunt/etc, I put all their points into actual attacks - things that did damage and kept them alive. I'll look at those next level. No one has dispel either - it's all offensive magic, except heal and stoneskin. My PC is the healer, but I think now that I've gotten Wynne, I'll use he for that instead.

 

[snaggletooth]

damn I need vulnerability hex cause my spells bounce off the stupid revs, thanks.

A lot of them still will, but your chances improve greatly if you hex them first.... assuming the hex itself isn't deflected.

There's no harm in trying again once the cooldown is up. Just make sure you have lots of health poultices/lyrium potions and you should be able to manage to land a magic combo that quarters or thirds his health. Shattering shot helps negate his super high physical defense and a venom coated blade will slow him down so you can run away with a little more certainty.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

If tash won't stick, try malo!

 

[kledar586]

A lot of them still will, but your chances improve greatly if you hex them first.... assuming the hex itself isn't deflected.

There's no harm in trying again once the cooldown is up. Just make sure you have lots of health poultices/lyrium potions and you should be able to manage to land a magic combo that quarters or thirds his health. Shattering shot helps negate his super high physical defense and a venom coated blade will slow him down so you can run away with a little more certainty.

yea I usually like to use the cold/stonefist shatter combo cause both my main and wynne have stonefist but I notice they don't work on the undead or dwarves as much.

Having all kind of trouble with the Jarvair (sp?) whatever her name is in dust town, I think the problem is I'm low on both health and lyrium pots at this point and she's got traps everywhere and summon more rogues to freaking help her....might have to run outside and grab more pots and then come back..yuck yuck. what type of venom slows him down, I really haven't use any of the venom.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

yea I usually like to use the cold/stonefist shatter combo cause both my main and wynne have stonefist but I notice they don't work on the undead or dwarves as much.

Having all kind of trouble with the Jarvair (sp?) whatever her name is in dust town, I think the problem is I'm low on both health and lyrium pots at this point and she's got traps everywhere and summon more rogues to freaking help her....might have to run outside and grab more pots and then come back..yuck yuck. what type of venom slows him down, I really haven't use any of the venom.

SPOILERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Try moving your entire party to the small office type room in the back right hand corner. You will trip 1 trap, get up and run in, that way you will only have to deal with 1-2 enemies at a time if you fight them at the door

 

[bobbydole]

If tash won't stick, try malo!

HA!

 

[WabeWalker]

None of the tanks have taunt/etc, I put all their points into actual attacks - things that did damage and kept them alive. I'll look at those next level. No one has dispel either - it's all offensive magic, except heal and stoneskin. My PC is the healer, but I think now that I've gotten Wynne, I'll use he for that instead.

Your tanks don't have Taunt? And you say that they're focused purely on attacking? Then they're not tanks. Tanks are meant to draw enemies and absorb damage - not dish out massive amounts of damage.

A tank unit is supposed to draw the enemy units - you do this by activating Threat (which stays active), by Taunting (a one-off talent), and by wearing the very best armor. You want your Tank unit to out-DPS your main DPSer and your secondary DPSer individually but not collectively. In other words, individually each DPS unit should be causing less damage-per-second than you tank (so that they don't draw threat), but combined those two units should be out-DPSing your tank.

And by the way, if, during a battle, the enemy is running straight towards your DPSers from the get-go, it means that you're activating too many powerful talents, or that your DPSer is wearing too much armor. Don't out-DPS your tank or else you're going to be fighting people all over the place and rushing around putting out fires.

A typical party will have a Tank, a main DPSer (or maybe an off-tank), a secondary DPSer, and a healer. These people have to work together, not separately as four people fighting in the same fight.

 

[Zicro]

SPOILERS

vs Revenants I like putting my mage and archer close to a tree or a wall and when the revenant starts doing the pull animation i put them behind tree/wall so they just fall down. Oh and vs the other npcs outside the castle door you can just kill first by having your whole group using ranged weapons.

 

[Shalafi]

SPOILER


























































I chose to butcher Connor, has anyone tried any other method? What happened?

 

[Udgnim]

SPOILER

you can sac Connor's mom and have a character go into the fade to kill the demon or save the mage circle and go into the fade without any saccing. assume you already know you can also get Connor's mom to kill him.

 

[gregnash]

SPOILER!!!








I actually went the method of sacrificing Isolde to allow Jawon the blood mage send Morrigan into the veil to fight the demon. Interesting concept in the veil, gives a very eerie, RPG on rails type feel but liked the outcome. Eventually you beat the demon for the last time, Isolde is dead, and you move on. Some decent weapons within the castle. I kept Sten and was able to find a very nice Tier 5 Veridium Battle Axe that really upped his game. Other than that I have found shit for good weapons/armor.

 

[gentoo]

you can sac Connor's mom and have a character go into the fade to kill the demon or save the mage circle and go into the fade without any saccing. assume you already know you can also get Connor's mom to kill him.

SPOILER: This is supposedly the place where you can learn the Blood Mage specialization from the desire demon but only if your character is a mage.

 

[J Macker]

Spoiler....

I killed Conner at first and then read up and realized that there are many stat points in the Circle of Mages quest. So I spent some time replaying from an old save. Plus, Alistair doesn't hate me now.

I never did get the bribe offer from the demon though.

 

[lopoetve]

Your tanks don't have Taunt? And you say that they're focused purely on attacking? Then they're not tanks. Tanks are meant to draw enemies and absorb damage - not dish out massive amounts of damage.

A tank unit is supposed to draw the enemy units - you do this by activating Threat (which stays active), by Taunting (a one-off talent), and by wearing the very best armor. You want your Tank unit to out-DPS your main DPSer and your secondary DPSer individually but not collectively. In other words, individually each DPS unit should be causing less damage-per-second than you tank (so that they don't draw threat), but combined those two units should be out-DPSing your tank.

And by the way, if, during a battle, the enemy is running straight towards your DPSers from the get-go, it means that you're activating too many powerful talents, or that your DPSer is wearing too much armor. Don't out-DPS your tank or else you're going to be fighting people all over the place and rushing around putting out fires.

A typical party will have a Tank, a main DPSer (or maybe an off-tank), a secondary DPSer, and a healer. These people have to work together, not separately as four people fighting in the same fight.

I'm not that interactive in the fights. I've only taken skills that lead directly to damage. The faster you kill something, the less time it has to do anything back, I guess is how I was thinking. And taunt/etc are so boring. Needs more flash. Be flashy!

I've approached this game like it was diablo, to be honest I'm not much into the real-time RPG style of games (give me diablo or a classic turn based RPG). I don't think with that much strategy, I just kill things. Same way I approached KOTOR - lightning, lightning, lightning, pick a saber skill done.

I just don't think about the battles that much. It's fireball, cone of cold, fireball, then spam spells till everything dies. If it starts getting bad, pop a health potion, fireball at your feet, back up while everyone stands up, and then cone of cold everything, including your own guys They should recover faster and start beating on the frozen things. If not, fireball them all again and repeat.

Arcade mode, I guess. I got tired of worrying about threat, strategies, etc in WoW. at least it makes sense now. Thanks!

I guess I just find all the strategizing boring. Let me blow something up and move on in the story.

 

[Cyrilix]

ok, that's just it though - how the hell do you position them?

I spent a lot of time working on the tactics, and on owning with the right set of spells as the PC - fireball + cone of cold and the like. The others die a lot, but I figured that's how things worked in this game.

I'm basically playing it like diablo.

To position them, say you have A, B, C, and D (4 party members) fighting bad guy E. If E is attacking A, then move B, C, and D right behind E (facing his back), so every hit they make becomes a backstab. Now what will likely happen is that E, seeing the new threat will turn around and hit B, C, or D (whoever has generated the most threat), leaving A in a convenient backstab position. I think it's best to split them 2 by 2 in terms of positioning if you have 4 melee characters. I don't position my ranged characters in this way because it's too troublesome and not guaranteed to work well. Mind you, this is not necessary. What's mainly important is using the right skills at the right times to keep tough enemies pinned down or disabled.

You say that you only get skills by damage. I say that's not the most tactically sound course of action. Stuns are important, group knockdowns are important. By virtue of fireball / cone of cold, you already have some amount of crowd control, however, if you're shooting a fireball straight into your own party members, then that doesn't really help, since they take damage and get knocked down too. If you really don't care about the fighting, say, it's not fun to you, then you can tone down the difficulty to easy and walk through every battle using auto-attack. No one's watching.