Dragon Age 2 - Here be spoilers.

[Merusk]

Nope, I was already doing that before I tried the attack speed thing.  Aggro is apparently based off DPS and Armor from what I've read.  Well, 1h warrs do shitty, shitty dps, particularly when up against a rogue with the Blindside ability and 30% haste.  Hey look, WoW problem. 

I finally just kited the fucker.  I figured if Varric is going to pull all the aggro, may as well make use of it. The warriors whittled it down eventually and I was able to dps every time it tried to breathe on me.

[tmp]

Aveline can't seem to keep up aggro at all.  It's all based on DPS, and even with the best possible 1h sword (the Unlockable that levels up) she's only tagging shit for 9 a hit.  When Varric is hitting things for 60+ and Merrill does the same with her staff that's just not going to cut it at all.   I'm beginning to wonder if it's a bug of some sort.

Isn't the taunt ability said to transfer 100% existing aggro on the person who uses it? So if you had the dps shoot all their large wads right at the front and then use the taunt to have that aggro heap slapped on the tank, it should take them a while to outrun it again... long enough to fire another taunt to clear their slates again and get even more ahead, hopefully.

[Sjofn]

Rogues have an aggro dump that I don't think Varric has by default, you might want to buy that.

And oh my God you guys I love LadyHawke and I love the "your tone changes based on your choices" thing and I am finally a convert to the voiced protagonist.

[Strazos]

Yeah, voiced hero is definitely a plus. Liking the game enough so far, though I wish my video card was a bit more robust re: High-res textures.

[tmp]

A helpful tip if you're playing a warrior:

I'm having some trouble with the game, in that I started as a male Warrior, and I'm (unintentionally) cheating.  Every time I unequip a shield, the Armor stat only decreases by 3, and when I re-equip it it's increasing by the full value of the shield.

The consequence to this is that I now have over 1,000 armor rating in my beginner armor.  Before you tell me Save/Quit/Retry, I've done everything I can do on my end.

not sure how well that's replicable (edit: possible it only affects Xbox version) but may come handy  

[Lantyssa]

And oh my God you guys I love LadyHawke and I love the "your tone changes based on your choices" thing and I am finally a convert to the voiced protagonist.

Welcome my sister.  We have been waiting for you.

[Sjofn]

The tone change and the derpy-doo icons go a long way to making it feel a lot more natural, I hardly ever roll my eyes thinking "nooooo, that's not how she would say that argh." Also no prick score is a big plus.

[Strazos]

I find myself picking a hell of a lot of sarcastic responses.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, my LADYHAWKE is a gigantic snarky bitch. I think my first MANHAWKE will try very hard to be Mr. Olive Branch, but we'll see how successful I am. I also should probably look up who the male-male love interest is to find out of he's super gay, like all my male Wardens (except one, and even he slept with Zevran, because who DOESN'T sleep with Zevran? Communists, that's who!).

[Mazakiel]

Yeah, my LADYHAWKE is a gigantic snarky bitch. I think my first MANHAWKE will try very hard to be Mr. Olive Branch, but we'll see how successful I am. I also should probably look up who the male-male love interest is to find out of he's super gay, like all my male Wardens (except one, and even he slept with Zevran, because who DOESN'T sleep with Zevran? Communists, that's who!).

On the subject of love interests, I think every one of the romanceable NPCs may swing both ways.  That, or they've set it up to where you can try to go after any of them but get shot down.  My ManHawke has had the option to flirt with both of the male options. 

[caladein]

Nope, I was already doing that before I tried the attack speed thing.  Aggro is apparently based off DPS and Armor from what I've read.  Well, 1h warrs do shitty, shitty dps, particularly when up against a rogue with the Blindside ability and 30% haste.  Hey look, WoW problem. 

Is your tank having threat issues on hard stuff or with packs?  I think I drop a third of my hit chance on bosses compared to against normal enemies.  Probably just best to ride taunts and specials in the former case.  Unlike DA1, you don't get rid of the damage reduction from being in Shield Defense later on and if you're running sustainers from Defender as well, you probably can't take much advantage of the stuff from Vanguard like Cleave and Might.

In addition to Rogue's Evade (in the blue tree) which Sjofn mentioned, Mages have Mind Blast (purple-ish tree, same as the one with Arcane Shield/Elemental Weapons) which is their threat dump.  Also like WoW, DPS Warrior's only threat dump is falling over dead.

[kildorn]

There is also a brutal modifier on the defense version of Bravery (+def, +resist damage per person nearby) that auto transfers 25% of all threat gains to the warrior.

The only fight issues I have right now are either placement related (deep roads boss was a pain in the butt due to having to micromanage where my party is standing), or excessively long fights that burn mana and stamina to dust. Like the "Barracks" style encounter that's one boss and like 5 waves of 10ish adds at a time.

[kildorn]

This is dragon #3 so there's apparently a ton of the fuckers.  I haven't even run into the Achieve dragon yet. ( )  But yeah, like DA1 tanks she's got persistent abilities that suck down tons of stamina.  (Turn the Blade and Shield Defense) If she turns on Immovable she gets enough stam for 1 taunt.  Turn off the abilities and she loses 25% damage mitigation and a lot of defense.   I'm going to try stacking attack speed and phys attack gear on her this time and see how it goes.

I'm beginning to think that Varric's nice, but his level-up weapon is going to cause lots of problems going forward. It's at 66dps right now and the best dropped 2h weapon I've found is 40.  No way he can do anything BUT pull aggro.  Might just have to trip into town and try respeccing things.

There's a 15s cooldown +stam clicky in .. warbringer? I think that's the tree that I basically sink all my warrior points into. group +stam regen clicky, group +def/threat transfer, +stam clicky for the tank. She runs around with like, 70% of her stam in reserve, but manages to have fewer stam issues than Varric.

I want to know why my main character's mage has about 40% more mana than Merrill, though. It's not gear, since all I'm wearing is +regen.

[Velorath]

Also no prick score is a big plus.

Yeah, with no morality meter I find myself generally being nice to my companions and being a smartass to everyone else.  I've also got more moral flexibility to be a greedy amoral prick a lot of the time, but not veer off completely down the heartless monster path.

[Ingmar]

This game is so, so good. Writing team deserves many raises.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, my LADYHAWKE is a gigantic snarky bitch. I think my first MANHAWKE will try very hard to be Mr. Olive Branch, but we'll see how successful I am. I also should probably look up who the male-male love interest is to find out of he's super gay, like all my male Wardens (except one, and even he slept with Zevran, because who DOESN'T sleep with Zevran? Communists, that's who!).

On the subject of love interests, I think every one of the romanceable NPCs may swing both ways.  That, or they've set it up to where you can try to go after any of them but get shot down.  My ManHawke has had the option to flirt with both of the male options. 

I think you may be right. I even got a completely different (positive) reaction from Anders when I said I thought he was hot as MANHAWKE. Buuut, that might've been because I was a mage, not because I was a man. Who knows! 

[FatuousTwat]

This game is so, so good. Writing team deserves many raises.

I'm hearing a ton of varied responses... Some people hate it, some people love it.

The consensus here seems to be pretty positive.

[tmp]

I even got a completely different (positive) reaction from Anders when I said I thought he was hot as MANHAWKE. Buuut, that might've been because I was a mage, not because I was a man. Who knows! 

[Merusk]

I'm not quite sure what Ave's problem is, as it's only on Dragons.  She just can't keep aggro and they throw off Taunt with "resist" messages every time I toss it out there.  (I turned on Numbers and messages to see wtf was going on after my 3rd fail on the dragon.)   Like I said, though, I've managed to work out that MOARDPS is a viable solution, plus no need for a healer while doing so.  All's good for now.

Mid post addition:  I just read the official forums and saw a few "tanks can't hold aggro" threads in the build forum.  Apparently stuns (not staggers) wipe all aggro.  Well, my original Hawke build  was using the pommel stun like a mofo, as was Ave. I won't be doing that again. (I respeced him after the Dragon when I found an axe that required 30 str but I was at 26.)

Also, a few posts indicated she doesn't seem to use taunt as often as she should without micromanagement, even with tactics set up.

I want to know why my main character's mage has about 40% more mana than Merrill, though. It's not gear, since all I'm wearing is +regen.

Took me a little while before I figured this one out as she was always going OOM on me.   Merrill isn't supposed to be using mana, she's a blood mage but you have to buy the ability for her from her tree.

Buy a respec potion in the bazaar and put all her points in Magic and Constitution, then make sure you get Will of the Elhvan and upgrade it to be a health leech.  If you stick all the Blood Mage jewelery and staves you find on her, she'll never have health problems in the swarms of enemies sent at you unless she's focused by 2-3.  I think she's getting 4 'mana' per point of health right now in my game.  The passive gives her a 1% regen per second per enemy hit or something crazy.

Also, 2h wars are a goddamn terror with that last ability in Vanguard.  Holy shit.  Sometimes I'll charge a cluster of archers and they'll all explode, leaving me wish I had another charge ready. 

[Xilren's Twin]

EA is like a quality virus.

Found a post from someone that they fixed this problem by disabling their antivirus and reinstalling.

Heh.
What does DA2 need admin access for, anyways? Or was it a disc version?

Just as an update, this isssue is still unresolved by official support channels.  The actual problem is after the release date check, DA tries to invoke the EA Activation program they use for DRM and that is what cant figure out that it has admin rights.  Its not consistent (my old WinXp machine worked fine), and clearly lots of people are playing, but not on my win7 pc.

And yes, you can get around this by downloading a cracked exe file that has been available from day 1.  Paying customers resorting to cracks to deal with crappy DRM to play something they legitmately paid for; priceless.

[Bunk]

I'm not that far in - only 7th - but I'm enjoying it immensly. I don't mind that Normal mode is a bit on the easy side, because I'm currently picking my party based entirely on personality, which means I have two rogues and two mages. At 60% defense though, I'm finding "tanking" with my main rogue isn't that bad.

Loving the banter, the frolicking discussion had me cracking up. Also was a little suprised when it let me try flirting with Merril with LadyHawke. She didn't shoot me down, but rather she seemed to not understand what I was implying. Was cute.

[tmp]

Also was a little suprised when it let me try flirting with Merril with LadyHawke.

Supposedly it allows more than that.

[Xuri]

I'm disappointed at not being allowed to explore more of the dialogue options before the dialogue is abruptly cut off. Happens all the time; I'm talking to NPC #47 and he has three seemingly interesting dialogue options, neither of which seems like an obvious conversation-killer. I pick one of them, with the intent to do the other two next, but the dialogue ends after the first one. Frustrating.

More frustrating, though, is the fact that every 10-15 minutes the game causes my computer to wander off a cliff, plummeting to a state of near-death where it can seemingly only do one operation per 15 seconds - something which makes it really hard to play the game (though the audio from the game continues without pause or stuttering). This lasts until I alt-tab to windows and then back to the game (or open & close the start menu if playing in windowed mode) - an operation that easily takes 30-40 seconds because of the dumbed down state of my computer.  :(

[Merusk]

Those tricky tricky bastards.  Aveline Spoiler:

[kildorn]

I'm pretty sure she defaults to all pissy, as her role in life is to be the law abiding paragon of justice.. and she spends her evenings slumming around with a pack of what are unabashedly criminals.

And I'll further add to the "my Hawke is the snarkiest bastard in kirkwall" list.

[amiable]

amiable:


Kildorn:  The mines one had me laughing so hard my daughter thought I'd lost my mind.  She's well voiced and written, hands-down my favorite companion.

I running a fem hawke Mage specializing in spirit, with one point in heal.  I dint find dragons particularilly difficult with a lot of pausing and micro.  In general I set up my ranged folks spread out and then have avaline tank.  I focus the littles first and then have avaline circle strafe/ kite the enemies while ranged burns them down.  If a ranged person gets aggro I kite withthem until avaline gets it back.  On big fights I also pop potions like candy.

All characters save tank are specced into single target dps/threat removal.  I bind select all characters to z so I can easily have my group focus on the next target.  Also summon the dog whenever possible.

[Sjofn]

I finished the game (I um. Basically did nothing but play the game since it came out.). I am going to be depressed for weeks. In a good way, kinda. But I felt totally drained by the end, I tell you what.

[Sky]

Sjofn, I want to build a little crpg shrine to you and pray to it for more time to play these games. You play them like I wish I could! I'm jealous.

[Sjofn]

It's a double edged sword! There is all this STUFF I want to DISCUSS and get off my CHEST but I can't yet. 

By the way, who rules Fereldan doesn't seem to be importing properly, the save I KNOW I picked Anora to rule alone still insists Alistair is king. >:(

I need to finish my queenly playthrough of Awakenings, I petered out partway through and never picked it up again, but I want her save to be one of my bases and I feel like if the Warden is still alive, you get more out of it if they did Awakenings too. My life is an endless series of trials! 

[Mosesandstick]

Don't know about you folks, but I can't wait till I get to read all 33 pages of this thread (and the spoilered stuff) in Christmas when I finally buy the game 

[MournelitheCalix]

I am much further in now and I am really begining to dig some of the changes in direction:

Likes:  

1.  The changes to the NPCS are great.  I really like that not everyone likes me for the very first time since Hair'Dalis in BG2.  Fenris for instance is almost completely to "Rival."  Which is a shame because i really like not only his fighting style but also the damage he brings to the table.  I thought I was going to be able to romance Isabella on my first play through; however, she has turned into such a shallow mercenary that I can hardly stomach her pretty face anymore.   Great writing by the devs btw on that one.  I love Anders, Varric, Fenris, Bethany and Merril.  Their bantor is absolutely fantastic.  Also fantastic job Bioware did on allowing the PCs in your party to take over at key events  So Far I have seen really great Dialog options for Bethany and Varric and using their strengths and guile in dialog has really helped me achieve my gameplay objectives.  Great job Devs again companions are feeling like real people.

2.  I love that no tank is needed.  Right now my tankless party is doing great even against bosses.  Combat is more in and out and twitchy.  These are great changes to the overall game.  Healing is also lessened although it hasn't been eliminated entirely.  I don't have to run two mages with healing as one without usually does the job just fine.

3.  I love the feeling of Kirkwall.  Its a really wretched city.  The themes of prejudice, slavery, oppression, helplessness, corruption, and greed really comes through in this game more than any in recent memory.  I would daresay that the city has more personality then either Amn, Sigil, or Baldur's Gate.

4.  Awesome style in storytelling:
5.  Flemeth, enough said without a spoiler tag:  

Dislikes:

1.  Skeletor darkspawn again is an immersion breaker.  I really hate the art direction for the Darkspawn.

2.  Loot system really sucks.  I can't tell you how many times i have found "secret areas" expecting good loot to find locked chests full of trash.

3.  Itemization is terrible and the fact that I can't adjust my companions armor for instance is not an improvement its a giant step backward.  This is especially true when you consider I kept hearing from Isabella lines like, "if we kill them then we keep their stuff."  Then you get nothing but junk and a few silver coins.

4.  Again there are some really big holes.  For instance when I find information I wasn't supposed to have, I can't confront NPC about it even when I try.  Why are these little gems there if I can't confront the NPC on them? Isabella spoiler:
5.  I still feel the need to keep the tab button down to know what I am supposed to interact with.  It is a shame that it is necessary as I think the level design should allow me to discern what is interactable and what is not.  

[Sky]

Don't know about you folks, but I can't wait till I get to read all 33 pages of this thread (and the spoilered stuff) in Christmas when I finally buy the game 

Yeah, it's getting time for me to bow out so spoilertasticness can happen.

[Engels]

Holy cow, Sjofn, I thought my SO was a DA fanatic. I had no idea.

[kildorn]

Sjofn doesn't sleep. Seriously. I wake up at 9ish EST to futz about and get ready for work, and steam says she's still cutting apart dragons to count the rings.

[Sjofn]

Holy cow, Sjofn, I thought my SO was a DA fanatic. I had no idea.

The best part is, Ingmar wasn't sure I'd even finish the first one once.    To be fair, it was the first western RPG I've ever finished (I've only finished one JRPG, and it was more because of PRINCIPLE than anything else. Silly ol' Eternal Sonata.), there's usually some sort of water planet (thanks, KotOR, for helping me name this problem) that makes me rage too hard to keep going. DA:O has two water planets (the Fade section and the Deep Roads) but I enjoyed the characters and writing so much, I found the will to get through it. And also a mod to skip the Fade after I'd done it twice.  

DA2, by the way, has no Water Planet.

It's true, though, I can go long periods of time without sleep. In fact, even though I was really tired during Day Two of my Dragonthon, I had a hard time falling asleep for more than a few hours. Whee, insomnia!


I have to agree with the people who think the new darkspawn design sucks nut. Because it does. They aren't scary, just sort of goofy.