Dragon Age

[tmp]

Hell, it could be the fact that I haven't upgraded armor in a long time too. The fatigue thing irritates me.

Some of the armour types when inspected will tell you they "make abilities less expensive to use" or something to this effect. What they mean by that is, if you wear all three pieces from this particular set, the character is given considerably smaller fatigue penalty than you'd expect to get from the individual pieces combined.

[Sky]

I guess that's one thing I can be thankful about with the console version. It loads pretty fast.

Don't listen to Sly, he's on a 486 or something. It loads fine on my 2 1/2yr old pc.

Redcliffe is also where I started playing more conservatively (as of last night). Body pulling with my 2h tank main so far.

I still hate when wolves/etc put you to the ground with overpower. Sure, it can be countered, but it's cheesy for an otherwise mediocre critter level mob. Last night in Redcliffe, got jumped by three Mabari, mage working CC on the two white mobs while the other three worked on the yellow. One of the whites broke the freeze and jumped on the mage, killing her before anyone could knock him off of her. 

2h tank main + alistair is starting to get good at level 9 as we crawl up the skill trees. I'm putting points hard into sword&board, just got the passive where he can ignore flanking, and his survivability went through the roof. And yeah, upgrading armor helps, I ran the Warden's Keep scenario and that stuff is nice.

[stray]

I guess that's one thing I can be thankful about with the console version. It loads pretty fast.

Don't listen to Sly, he's on a 486 or something. It loads fine on my 2 1/2yr old pc.

Well, the console version has some bugs too. Just not performance ones. Weird audio glitches that make me have to quit and reboot.. shit like that.

I must say that I generally have a bad experience with Bioware. My copy of NWN2 is virtually unplayed, for example.. no matter how up-to-spec I was, that shit ran like ass. I remember KotoR 2 barely being much better.

[Rasix]

NWN2 ran like ass for me, it didn't matter that the game was ugly as hell and I was well above recommended specs. NWN2 isn't Bioware, however.  Neither is KOTOR2.    

Mage origin story just got interesting.  Shall I be naughty?

Edit: Oh, and I finished it with my rogue.  Having a templar in full Juggernaut armor and my rogue in full Wade's superior drakeskin made the last fight somewhat trivial.  Both of those characters were just defensive superstars at the end. Funny enough, Morrigan was my squishiest character, even the bard held up under fire better.  Fight I had the most trouble with was the intro to Fork Drakon.  That many elites at once, especially the mages using curse of mortality, was a little brutal.

[Nonentity]

Oh yeah.

FUCK CURSE OF MORTALITY.

That is all.

[Rasix]

Is there any goddamn counter to that if you don't have a templar?

[jakonovski]

Oh for fuck's sake, what is wrong with developers these days? Their games always, always break down at some point.

[jakonovski]

Oh yeah, and you can't even get out of the area. Wooooo! Great job Bioware, make a fight that needs certain specialization and when the player goes in without the proper setup, don't let him out anymore. I really have to quit gaming, I can't stand these cretins that call themselves game developers anymore.

[Thrawn]

Is there any goddamn counter to that if you don't have a templar?

I had both my spellcasters learn the dispel magic line of spells.

[AutomaticZen]

Oh yeah, and you can't even get out of the area. Wooooo! Great job Bioware, make a fight that needs certain specialization and when the player goes in without the proper setup, don't let him out anymore. I really have to quit gaming, I can't stand these cretins that call themselves game developers anymore.

If it's a boss fight, didn't it autosave right before it?

[jakonovski]

If it's a boss fight, didn't it autosave right before it?

The door closes one or two hours of gameplay earlier.

[Montague]

Oh yeah, and you can't even get out of the area. Wooooo! Great job Bioware, make a fight that needs certain specialization and when the player goes in without the proper setup, don't let him out anymore. I really have to quit gaming, I can't stand these cretins that call themselves game developers anymore.

If it's a boss fight, didn't it autosave right before it?

What I've taken to doing is not going anywhere without Wynne and Morrigan. Group Heal + Cone of Cold solves a lot of problems. It's to the point that I don't even bring a rogue - if I see a lot of locked chests I'll sub in Leilana after the area is cleared and pick the stuff up.

[Zetor]

Can you forcefield the character with curse of mortality / does it protect against damage from the dot?

[Montague]

Can you forcefield the character with curse of mortality / does it protect against damage from the dot?

Yes. Also using Force Field on a character affected by Crushing Prison (the CC - Dot spell) will remove the effect, alllow the character to move normally and cause an AOE knockback.

[Slyfeind]

Oh yeah, and you can't even get out of the area. Wooooo! Great job Bioware, make a fight that needs certain specialization and when the player goes in without the proper setup, don't let him out anymore. I really have to quit gaming, I can't stand these cretins that call themselves game developers anymore.

Yikes. I'm almost there myself. What do I need to avoid being cockblocked?

[Montague]

Oh yeah, and you can't even get out of the area. Wooooo! Great job Bioware, make a fight that needs certain specialization and when the player goes in without the proper setup, don't let him out anymore. I really have to quit gaming, I can't stand these cretins that call themselves game developers anymore.

Yikes. I'm almost there myself. What do I need to avoid being cockblocked?

There'll be an autosave before you go into the Anvil. Once you go in, load the autosave and save it again to a permanent save slot.

[Brogarn]

Yikes. I'm almost there myself. What do I need to avoid being cockblocked?

This one was actually the least difficult of the fights. I had three where I had to change the difficulty from normal to easy. It might be 4 as I'm just about to the last fight I think. We'll see. Anyways...

Tank and a healer is what I won with. I sided with the golem. Also...

[Rasix]

Just make a save before you enter the Anvil of Titans area, so if you have to backout and come back later, you can.  I think you could back out after you first talk to Branka, but I don't know.  I'd personally save Orzammar as the last of the four, it's the toughest by far.

As for the fight, it's rough.  Make sure you have someone that can cone of cold/shatter to get rid of some of the lesser golems first.  It took me a few times and I only survived by essentially kiting the boss.

[Ingmar]

Maybe I'm missing something in my party setup. I have me as a warrior (sword and board), Morrigan, Alistair and the frenchy Rogue girl. Alistair seems to die in extremely fast every time. Hell, it could be the fact that I haven't upgraded armor in a long time too. The fatigue thing irritates me.

If you're taking Morrigan around with you and not Wynne, its very very worth it for her to learn a few heals.

Just make a save before you enter the Anvil of Titans area, so if you have to backout and come back later, you can.  I think you could back out after you first talk to Branka, but I don't know.  I'd personally save Orzammar as the last of the four, it's the toughest by far.

As for the fight, it's rough.  Make sure you have someone that can cone of cold/shatter to get rid of some of the lesser golems first.  It took me a few times and I only survived by essentially kiting the boss.

Honestly I'm planning on doing it either first or second on all future playthroughs - you get a companion there and I hate leaving those lying around out there unrecruited for long. If you go there last you get very little input into how he levels.

While Orzammar had some decently tough fights, I still had the most trouble with the Circle - the only fight I had to try more than a couple times was in there*. (Played on Normal.)

*

[Brogarn]

I'd personally save Orzammar as the last of the four, it's the toughest by far.

That's what I unintentionally did. Turns out I got lucky, apparently. Although Broodmother was still too difficult on normal for me. I imagine it would have been a lot easier with a mage. Damn me and my shield warrior ways.

[Job601]

The Glyph of I think Negation, the fourth glyph spell, makes you immune to magic in its area, or makes spellcasters standing in it unable to cast spells.  It's good for all the debuffers towards the end of the game.  By the way, I don't know what build all of you who think arcane warriors are overpowered are using, but my arcane warrior keeps getting one-shot by archers with arrow of slaying.  I eventually reverted him to ranged nuking, but he still got killed by arrows really early in the final battle and I finished it by having Alistair drink lots of "poultices."  As far as the loading times go, they seem to be very short when you start a new game, but loading the same areas towards the end takes forever.   I wonder if that's true on Xbox?  Looking at your inventory takes forever once you're far into the game too, even though it still only has 100 items in it.  It's an obnoxious bug.  I don't get it.  

Does anyone know what the "percent of Dragon Age" completed stat is measuring?  After finishing the game with one character and doing another origin, I'm still only at 49%.  I think I am going to play through again because Morrigan hated me and Leilana bugged out, so despite having her in the party the whole game I never got to do her sidequest and I never had a romance.

[AutomaticZen]

If it's a boss fight, didn't it autosave right before it?

The door closes one or two hours of gameplay earlier.

Ah.  I save obsessively in this game.  If it looks like it'll matter, I drop a save down.  In some dungeons, I save every room, in case I walk through a door and get utterly owned.

[Xurtan]

Fighting the golem at the end of the Anvil of the Void was a pain in the ass. Took me two or three tries with PC Mage, Wynne, Oghren, and Zevran. In the end Og and Zev were dead, Wynne and I were out of mana, and the golem was at 10% health. Wynne kited while I staff bolted him to death.   I really should have got Cone of Cold on at least one of my mages, I guess.

Broodmother, by contrast, was pretty much just a tank and spank. Long fight, cool mob/story, but didn't have a problem with all of the CC I have.

Not sure what the complete stat is measuring. I finished with 51% or so complete, 95% explored. Already finding quests I missed in the Korcari wilds (Epic mob + Chasid signs + Rigby's cache) on my second play through. It didn't help that in my first play through I bloodied the ashes, as such if I went to the party camp Wynne would leave me. I had to avoid the camp for the rest of the game, so couldn't do a good chunk of the companion quests.

[Montague]

Just make a save before you enter the Anvil of Titans area, so if you have to backout and come back later, you can.  I think you could back out after you first talk to Branka, but I don't know.  I'd personally save Orzammar as the last of the four, it's the toughest by far.

As for the fight, it's rough.  Make sure you have someone that can cone of cold/shatter to get rid of some of the lesser golems first.  It took me a few times and I only survived by essentially kiting the boss.

I guess this might be considered cheese, but I had my main character tank the boss, then had Morrigan fireball everybody, and then had Morrigan forcefield herself while the rest of the group mopped up the golems. Unlike WoW, the mobs will continue to aggro if a character is immune.

At this point though, my main character could probably have soloed it. I left the dwarf area for last, and between Shield Wall, Rally, Dragon Plate Armor and ~ 40 CON my main hardly takes any damage.

[caladein]

Since someone brought up spell combinations: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_Combinations

On Morrigan healing, you really only need to pick up Heal out of Creation.  Rejuvenate is awesome if you're running multiple mages but the rest is kind of underwhelming.  In the Spirit Healer tree I wouldn't grab Cleansing Aura as it just eats your mana up.  I imagine it would be useful with Arcane Warrior running sustained spells as you can just wade in and keep your melee party topped off, but even then it'll likely toggle off without your noticing.  Group Heal/Revival are rather obvious and Lifeward might be good if you want to do silly things with Friendly Fire.

[Bunk]

As a comment to those asking about why to visit your camp a couple pages back - going to the camp heals all injuries. Much easier than trying to find a ton of injury kits.

[jakonovski]

I ended up losing three hours of gameplay. Thanks Bioware, you really made my day! 

[Ingmar]

I ended up losing three hours of gameplay. Thanks Bioware, you really made my day! 

What party lineup were you using when you couldn't beat the fight?

[Sky]

To the people having troubles with the golems: do you have a 2h warrior? My main is, and on the way to the 3rd and 4th tier skills, I picked up Shattering Blows that damages golems and constructs. Wasn't too thrilled with wasting a skill point on it, but I guess it'll come in useful eventually.

[caladein]

I ended up losing three hours of gameplay. Thanks Bioware, you really made my day! 

If you're on PC, I would have just runscript pc_immortal or runscript healplayer through the fight instead of doing that.  That said, I save pretty religiously in these games.

To the people having troubles with the golems: do you have a 2h warrior? My main is, and on the way to the 3rd and 4th tier skills, I picked up Shattering Blows that damages golems and constructs. Wasn't too thrilled with wasting a skill point on it, but I guess it'll come in useful eventually.

Sunder Armor is a world of hurt so you'd be picking up Shattering Blows anyway.

[jakonovski]

What party lineup were you using when you couldn't beat the fight?

Duelist Rogue PC, Alistair, Morrigan, Dwarven Douchebag. Normal difficulty.

[Slyfeind]

If you're on PC, I would have just runscript pc_immortal or runscript healplayer through the fight instead of doing that.  That said, I save pretty religiously in these games.

Yeah, ditto. In fact, almost any game I play these days, I run into a point where I have to cheat/godmode to get past it. NWN1 had that final fight, where I didn't bring any heal potions for some stupid reason.

I'm a perpetual saving machine, so I should be fine at that Anvil thing.

[Rasix]

What party lineup were you using when you couldn't beat the fight?

Duelist Rogue PC, Alistair, Morrigan, Dwarven Douchebag. Normal difficulty.

Same lineup as I had.  It was still probably one of the harder fights I've done.  Making sure Branka doesn't gib your mage is almost futile.

[stray]

I would also think you are seriously gimping your DPS with a sword and board + Alistair.

You could also be losing optimal dmg output by not being a homo.  


Seriously though, one should do what's appealing fun.. This is not an mmo where it's pointless to have two sword and board warriors. The group dynamics are a little more free than that. You could be a party of 3 mages and an archer, you could be melee with one cc mage, you could even solo the game with one gimpy archer (good luck tho).

[edit] Ahem, not to mention that tactics opens up new ways of thinking to use two tanks if you want to use Alister. You could have him protect/target certain things he's better at.

[jakonovski]

Same lineup as I had.  It was still probably one of the harder fights I've done.  Making sure Branka doesn't gib your mage is almost futile.

I decided to make the most of my lost time and went to gear up my guys. I did Morrigans plot quest and I'm now scouring through Denerim for some gold to buy a good mace for armor penetration.