Dragon Age

[SurfD]

If you're feeling extra sassy, do Leliana's Song before anything so you get that DLC's leather chest piece out the gate.

So how exactly does that work? Each DLC pack comes with special weapons / armor that once you unlock, you get for free on any new character you start or import or whatever into a new game?

[Sky]

See, I wouldn't recommend 2h warrior as the first class because it is SO fucked over by their idiotic stamina system. You can do one special and then ... whee, autoattack. And you swing *slow*.

Maybe being a 2h paladin-wannabe is why I never finished DA:O? I pretty much always go 2h warrior for a first playthrough of any game. I should probably change that up since I don't go back and play through games any more...

[Sjofn]

If you're feeling extra sassy, do Leliana's Song before anything so you get that DLC's leather chest piece out the gate.

So how exactly does that work? Each DLC pack comes with special weapons / armor that once you unlock, you get for free on any new character you start or import or whatever into a new game?

The DLCs that aren't wedged into Origins have loot associated with them that will just drop into your inventory forever after, yeah. The golem one has a mace that you can sell for a FUCKTON of money, but I dunno if you can really do that one cold. Leliana's Song, you play Leliana, which would probably be more fun if you actually knew who the fuck she was, so that's another reason in the "wait 'til later" column I guess.

And yeah, Sky, my first character was a 2h warrior too, I wound up starting up a rogue when I was about halfway through the 2h warrior's run and finished with that before going back and finishing on the warrior, because 2h warrior is just not very fun until you finally get some stuff with +stamina on it.


EDIT: Flipside of that, 2h warriors are fucking HILARIOUS in Awakenings.

[Morat20]

I'm doing a 2H warrior now. Until I got him into some better armor, he was a bit of a wimpy bitch -- and Alastair couldn't pull aggro off for fuck.

On the other hand, I gave him poisons and when he hits, people feel it. He just hits very slowly. Stamina really isn't that bad of a problem (regen belt + putting points into willpower) but if you have several persistent things up, it eats it up pretty badly. (Not quite as bad as a bard/ranger).

I just handled Connor, and listening to Alastair bitch about the whole blood magic thing was hilarious. Sadly, there was no options for "Hell, Alastair, you didn't like the woman anyways!" and "Dude, I had him executed after. What are you so upset about?"

[Paelos]

I'm making an elemental mage while rolling with Morrigan as entropy and Wynn healing. Alister is the tank. Morrigan thinks we're all a bunch of goody-two-shoes crazies who help kittens. I have to keep giving her gifts to keep her from running off.

[Sjofn]

Maybe she's allergic to kittens, ever think of that? You people are really so insensitive. She'll have a sinus headache for days!

[Paelos]

Maybe she's allergic to kittens, ever think of that? You people are really so insensitive. She'll have a sinus headache for days!

She'll get over it after we murder her mother.

[Reg]

Yeah most of the "Morrigan disapproves" stuff happens early on. Do her quest and give her one or two of her special gifts and she'll be your devoted friend/lover for the rest of the game.

[Lantyssa]

I've never had a problem with Morrigan.  I'm not sure how y'all manage to upset her so much.

[Paelos]

I've never had a problem with Morrigan.  I'm not sure how y'all manage to upset her so much.

She doesn't like helping, even if it's for mercenary purposes.

[Ingmar]

For the bigger -rep hits with Morrigan there's often an option to (persuade) it down to a very minor hit.

[Yegolev]

I did not have any trouble with Morrigan running away, even when I started poking her.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I've never had an issue with Morrigan either. We're always BFFs by the end of the game. And I'm a HUGE helper of kittens!

[NowhereMan]

Yeah, I decided to start off with a 2h warrior and spent far more time in battles controlling other party members because half my stamina was used with activated abilities so after 3 specials I was doing auto-attack. That and warrior abilities were generally simple enough that it was far more reliable leaving my main and the other warrior under the AI control and keeping an eye on my rogue while mostly playing as Wynne. I've not got a huge problem with treating the combat portion as separate from the role-playing part of the game so it didn't bother me hugely though I could see having identified more with my character if I'd actually been fighting as him as well. Wasn't any kind of deal breaker though and I made it all the way through, need to actually steam through with another playthrough at some point but seeing all the possible starting stories and remembering where all these people had ended up on my playthrough was pretty awesome.

[Mosesandstick]

I think the easiest way to get along with Morrigan is to give her a few gifts and sexing her (until she gets cold feet and falls for you).

[Yegolev]

I suppose it was because I whipped out the dick at the first opportunity.  She's been so very lonely in the swamps.

[Paelos]

I suppose it was because I whipped out the dick at the first opportunity.  She's been so very lonely in the swamps.

Classy. 

[FatuousTwat]

I suppose it was because I whipped out the dick at the first opportunity.  She's been so very lonely in the swamps.

Classy. 

'Tis cold in her tent, she's all alone bro.

[rk47]

  Could be good. Could be bad. But I don't really understand what they're talking about and how they do the VA.

[Merusk]

Wrong thread! 

Basically they're saying that the VA read each line in 3 different tones of voice.  What your first selection is chooses which tone & attitude your Hawke uses for each following line of dialogue.  If you keep using that option, Hawke will only speak in that tone.  So a Hawke who'd been picking greens all the time would be using the Helpful tone to deliver Authoritative lines later if you choose them.  Not sure if that'll come across well.

[Strazos]

It will sound like he's trying to kill you with kindness?

[Paelos]

It does make sense to have the lines stack. One of the things I've always hated is how you're still offered the same options later in the game even if you're been heading down a line the entire time. Granted there should be ways to work back to neutral, but "Rob them blind and skullfuck their corpses" shouldn't be an option for a character that just donated all his quest rewards to the orphans after heroically convincing the warlords to stop fighting because murder is wrong.

[Morat20]

I had bumped up the difficulty, and I'm occasionally getting hammered with my 2H warrior. Especially when I';m dealing with floods of mooks. Partly because Alastair sucks as a tank.

I finished Redcliff, but other than grabbing Shale, I haven't done anything else. I'm rolling with Leliana, Me as a 2H warrior, Morrigan (who I finally broke down and gave a rank of heal to) and Alastair.

Alastair can't hold aggro, I spend half my time on Morrigan aiming Cone of Cold and wishing I had the big AoE blizzard (no big AoE's for her yet, mostly going Entropy) -- force cage is the next I'm grabbing, because I like isolating bosses. Still, if you can land a Vulnerability Hex on a boss, it's nice -- espeically to slam Drain Life on. She keeps pulling aggro.

I tried Zevran, and I had to switch back because he kept dying. Leliana is a real pain for Evil Runthrough, but she's an archer and can stand back and really harass people. (Plus I plan to make her ranger, I think). Zevran's already got too much crap in dual-wield to swap.

I've chosen Templar, and am trying to decide between the other three for when I hit my second specialization. My biggest problem is people dying and me not having the recipe for the second-level health potions, so I'm blowing through the low-level ones. (Plus the freakin' stunlocks).

Oddly, the hardest battle to date has been that 'caravan' side quest, simply because it's eight million mooks. I finally beat it by running around with morrigan and cone of colding lines of them and letting the peasants beat up on the icicles.

I can't decide if I'm doing a 2h warrior wrong, or if I just need to grab replace Morrigan with Wynne, or add more heals to Morrigan, or find the next level of health potions. (I'm at level 9, IIRC).

[Lantyssa]

Warriors and Rogues suck.  You're not doing anything wrong.  They are really, really, really underpowered relative to what you fight, while mages are crazy powerful.  It's possible to do it, and with time your melee people can do well, it's just a tougher road.  Wynn makes for a better healer than Morrigan, but I used Morrigan all the time anyways.

There are mods which let you reset henchmen skill so you can use the people you like, but not have to deal with their poor pre-set skill choices.

[Morat20]

I'm on 360. There are no mods. There is only...pain.

Perhaps I shouldn't have done my first playthrough with a mage, where my solution to every problem was to drop four types of massive AoE on everything and then loot the corpses.

[Ingmar]

I really didn't experience the 'warrior suck' phenomenon. If anything my warriors have been generally less problematic than my mage, who had a tendency to pull lots of aggro and die, and suffered a lot from monster spell resists, especially on stuff like revenants. Meanwhile shield warrior guy could basically solo anything in the game eventually.

I haven't run through the game as an archer yet, I'm expecting that to be the worst build.

[ajax34i]

Tactics scripts seem to make a huge difference.  I have the tank on "aggressive" and with "if monster attacks x, taunt" tactics, and the other melees on "defensive", with "if enemy is tank's current target, then go nuts with DPS" and "if enemy is attacking anyone else, then use crowd control" tactics.  The mage I have to manually control, because positioning for cone AOE's is too complicated for scripts.  Seems to work a lot better than previous play-throughs, when I didn't have inter-related scripts.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I never felt like my warriors or rogues (especially rogues) sucked, they just had some issues with stamina early on that mages don't deal with. I am pretty sure I die WAY MORE when I'm playing a mage, and that might be part of why I never actually finished a game with one.

Zevran does tend to faceplant a lot when I first get him (he and Alistair are totally my boyfriends so I always use them) but eventually nothing can really hit him to kill him. :P If I remember right, he is pretty invested in stealth (I have that "reset the skills" mod Lanty mentioned, so I am not 100% sure), so if you get him the top rank where he can merrily stealth while in combat, he's basically never die again because you make him poof (har) and the mobs all go "durrrr."

When I no-mage it, I tend to either do Alistair-Zevran-Shale or Alistair-Zevran-Oghren (assuming I have them around, obviously). For some reason Sten always dies a lot more than Oghren, which makes no goddamn sense since I basically spec them the same, but there you have it. My one (1) Leliana romance playthrough I replaced Zevran with Leliana, because I figured I might as well let the crazy bitch tag along. She did not approve of me making out with barmaids. 

[rk47]

Experience with Warriors tend to be bogged down with toggle skills costing a crap load of stams upkeeps, and that's where the combat system kinda sucked.

[Montague]

Tank warriors were awesome. By about level 12 or so only bosses could do significant damage to mine. Heck after 17 his health bar barely moved until the Archdemon

[Morat20]

Tank warriors were awesome. By about level 12 or so only bosses could do significant damage to mine. Heck after 17 his health bar barely moved until the Archdemon

What skills and gear were you using?

Currently I've got a two-hander wearing Warden Commander's armor and with a specialization in Templar (only level 11 or so).  Was thinking champion or reaver for the second....

[Ingmar]

Champion is (imo) far and away the best warrior spec. AE knockdown on war cry eventually is very useful, and rally is a good toggle. As for armor on a 2h warrior, just go for stuff with +stamina and -fatigue if you can for the most part, so the WC armor is a good choice, as is the superior dragonbone plate (later on obviously).

The trick with making the invincible shield warrior is to not ignore dex. Enough strength to wear whatever armor you want, enough con to be able to take a few hits (30ish was fine) and stack dex for the defense bonus, you'll barely get hit later on. Some willpower maybe once you are feeling pretty invincible, to make the fights go faster.

[Sjofn]

I also think Champion is the bee's knees, for all the reasons Ingmar said. Reaver is OK, but I always want a champion in my group, be it me or Alistair (sometimes both of us!).

[rk47]

2 Hand Warrior shd just go for broke and max out STR.

It was ridiculous how easily they destroy mages with Templar plate for 40% Magic Resist (sold outside Orzammar) and DLC Maul (Return to Ostagar)  - Nug Smasher (+100 STAM WTF) 

Sunder Arm for 40-50 dmg per hit, Then Mighty Blow. Target is either dead or stunned. Destroy at will.

My fav 2 hander is Templar / Berserker - Oghren works best with this setup.
Shield Warriors shd just pump 38 STR to wear Blood Dragon ASAP and prioritize Shield Wall over everything else.
You'd be stuck with using one special attack for the first two hours of the game. After Ostagar, you should have sufficient stamina upgrades to do something else.

[Morat20]

I added poisons to my 2-handed warrior. Because it's not enough I have a giant fuck you axe with flame and lightning runes, plus whatever weapon buff the mage puts on. I have to throw a poison on there just to screw with you.