Yeah, I'm having doubts about blood magic the more I look at it. On one hand, with the upgrade, ring of ruin and Cold-blooded, that's 1 health providing 5 mana. On the other, I have to spend points in willpower to get my hands on any decent robes, and I still haven't tracked down Neophyte robes or any others providing a bonus to blood magic- alternatively, I'd go with the Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness for the elemental bonuses.
And yeah, unshakable should be a priority since I'll probably be drawing significant aggro.
Edit: well, at level 17, respeccing would allow me 18 abilities (so most of what I want) and enough points for 35 magic (for Cold-blooded), 32 willpower (for robes of unblemished cleanliness- though after cold-blooded, I won't be able to afford them until well into Act III), and 23 con, which translates to 165 health. I guess I'd have to be conservative with the use of blood magic. Not sure if it's worth it. May bank on how useful sacrifice and grave robber are.
Well, don't forget about Runes of Valiance. That's 7 points, so you only need to get it up to 25. The trick of temporarily reaching a stat requirement with other gear, equipping the desired piece, and then taking off the other stuff also works, so any +willpower crap you can find will also help put you over the hump. Have you done act 2 yet?
Taking the demon's deal in the fade can earn you +6 stat points, and reading the Fell Grimoire in the Xebenkeck quest will give you another 2. As a blood mage, doing either shouldn't fuck with your roleplaying overmuch.
Well, don't forget about Runes of Valiance. That's 7 points, so you only need to get it up to 25. The trick of temporarily reaching a stat requirement with other gear, equipping the desired piece, and then taking off the other stuff also works, so any +willpower crap you can find will also help put you over the hump. Have you done act 2 yet?
Taking the demon's deal in the fade can earn you +6 stat points, and reading the Fell Grimoire in the Xebenkeck quest will give you another 2. As a blood mage, doing either shouldn't fuck with your roleplaying overmuch.
Well, my roleplaying has been kind of fucked. I'm a largely virtuous anti-mage mage- usually pleasant and peaceful, except when dealing with mages or, in many cases, demons. Already gave up the points from the fade, but will be taking advantage of the Fell Grimoire to utility's sake. Still in act II- the respeccing was largely due to frustration with the Gauntlet in the Abandoned Thaig. All I have left is that quest and a couple minor side quests.
I only have 130 gold so I'll be buying Cold-Blooded, then saving for the Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness- so it'll be a while before I'm optimized. Really wishing DAwiki's coverage were a bit more exhaustive, since this playthrough is the one where I start obsessive metagaming.
Well, don't forget about Runes of Valiance. That's 7 points, so you only need to get it up to 25. The trick of temporarily reaching a stat requirement with other gear, equipping the desired piece, and then taking off the other stuff also works, so any +willpower crap you can find will also help put you over the hump. Have you done act 2 yet?
Taking the demon's deal in the fade can earn you +6 stat points, and reading the Fell Grimoire in the Xebenkeck quest will give you another 2. As a blood mage, doing either shouldn't fuck with your roleplaying overmuch.
Well, my roleplaying has been kind of fucked. I'm a largely virtuous anti-mage mage- usually pleasant and peaceful, except when dealing with mages or, in many cases, demons. Already gave up the points from the fade, but will be taking advantage of the Fell Grimoire to utility's sake. Still in act II- the respeccing was largely due to frustration with the Gauntlet in the Abandoned Thaig. All I have left is that quest and a couple minor side quests.
I only have 130 gold so I'll be buying Cold-Blooded, then saving for the Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness- so it'll be a while before I'm optimized. Really wishing DAwiki's coverage were a bit more exhaustive, since this playthrough is the one where I start obsessive metagaming.
You can also opt for Voracity and grab the Robes sooner.
Modifed engine. And you know what? I'd say that with the texture packs, DA2 would probably be a better looking game than ME2/3. If it weren't for the art design. Making everything out of incredibly low res brown polygons, Really?
was pretty terrible. How many "olol I'm totes insane" moments did we need? In act 2 my character made another comment like "not another loony...", so obviously the writers knew they were hitting that cliche pretty hard already, but they just kept coming.
I sided with the mages, and Orsino decides to resort to blood magic to defeat the templars... completely validating her position, the fuckwit, and then what happens? There are no templars around at the time, so it's up to me to kill him. His last ditch defensive effort is to go crazy and try to kill the people defending him. Brilliant.
And then the ending cutscene just said that there were rebellions everywhere, and all my friends split up and nobody knows where anyone is. Well, great, that's a really satisfying ending. I'm glad I spent all that time trying to defend Kirkwall to be told in the epilogue that I ran off into the night and hid.
All the bossfights were pretty bullshit, and the last ones were no different. Tell everyone to autoattack boss, wait. Most bosses are immune to most of my mage's spells, so they just sit back debuffing and autoattacking, my tank regenerates health faster than she can be hurt, so the whole fight is ten minutes of nothing really happening.
In fact, every fight was pretty much bullshit. Either a couple of spells won the fight for me in seconds, in which case why even bother having a fight there, or wave upon wave of enemies spawned in, and each wave can be quickly and easily killed but sometimes all my spells are on cooldown and a mage or rogue gets hurt, and it becomes a really boring battle of attrition. Combat reminds me of the change from ME1 to ME2: the first was a bit too slow, but otherwise interesting, the second is the same 5 second-long battle repeated hundreds of times throughout the game. Once you've finished the prologue you've seen everything worth seeing.
Was there a single gameplay element in this that wasn't in BG or KotOR? This felt more like a Total Conversion mod of KotOR than a new game. Run down narrow corridor, talk to person with icon above head, receive quest to travel down a narrow corridor and kill a mob, return, repeat.
Why was I still getting mouldy scarves and pieces of silver past the point of no return? So damn pointless.
I've played all of Bioware's older games, up to and including Mass Effect 1 around 5 or more times each. I finished Dragon Age twice, Mass Effect 2 once, and it took me over a month to finish Dragon Age 2, and I've already uninstalled it. Their games just keep getting more mindless and bland, which I think is pretty sad because they used to be among my favourites.
tl;dr I thought the whole thing was pretty boring and uninteresting. I had to play it in short spurts because any more than an hour and I got bored and irritable.
I enjoyed it more than you did, but have the same complaints. It just felt like a 'lazy' game. So little was fleshed out, there was so little you could do to influence anything, and the final battle occurs in pretty much the same way regardless of what you do. There's also the whole 'you can only put armor on your own guy' thing, which means you get this nice piece as a quest reward and it's useless.
The final two battles were fun, as was the duel with the high dragon because they were finally against different people in different settings. I swear if another group of bandits set up camp in the same darn warehouse I was just going to leave them there.
The ending was very bad though. Totally inexcusable. On the level of the joke star wars episode 2 ending 'Settled these trade negotions be, or are they!!!"
I was sure they were at least going to namedrop the big threat, or cut away to show us anything of what was going on.
because it certainly stands out over the other mage specializations
You mean compared to the best healing tree in the game and a specialisation which, literally, renders any enemy in the game (apart from roughly 6 bosses) completely useless for 20s spans at a time?
Give the force tree a whirl. It's so open to abuse and general asshattery...you'll thank me afterwards. I solo'd half the uber desire demon optional boss with that skill on hard (2 rage demons, 1 revenant, some aboms).
it was decent, but it certainly wasn't as good as Assassin or even Duelist
Yeah, you're right, Mages are worse at damage and aggro control than the class that is designed around heavy single target damage and aggro control.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
I really wish Warrior armor was varied in DA2, it seems that the best armor has been a version of plate mail. For a time there was an Elven armor that was different, but compared to Rogues (and I guess Mages), a lack of variety.
it was decent, but it certainly wasn't as good as Assassin or even Duelist
Yeah, you're right, Mages are worse at damage and aggro control than the class that is designed around heavy single target damage and aggro control.
it's not so much what they do as it is that those trees are very quality dense
the only talent in assassin that isn't totally amazing is the one that gives you stamina when you kill, and duelist has a lot of good stuff too
compare these to force mage which has decent abilities all around, but only gravitic ring and unshakeable are really great; and blood mage, which also has pretty good stuff but at the cost of needing specific blood magic boosting equipment and having only limited forms of healing
I really wish Warrior armor was varied in DA2, it seems that the best armor has been a version of plate mail. For a time there was an Elven armor that was different, but compared to Rogues (and I guess Mages), a lack of variety.
You mean visually? Dude, there's 5 (maybe 6?) Mage armor visuals. Same for Rogues. I'd be willing to bet either all the classes have exactly the same number of unique armor graphics, or Warriors have more. I haven't done a Warrior run so I don't know.
it was decent, but it certainly wasn't as good as Assassin or even Duelist
Yeah, you're right, Mages are worse at damage and aggro control than the class that is designed around heavy single target damage and aggro control.
it's not so much what they do as it is that those trees are very quality dense
the only talent in assassin that isn't totally amazing is the one that gives you stamina when you kill, and duelist has a lot of good stuff too
compare these to force mage which has decent abilities all around, but only gravitic ring and unshakeable are really great; and blood mage, which also has pretty good stuff but at the cost of needing specific blood magic boosting equipment and having only limited forms of healing
Um. That's actually handy. The worst one is Pinpoint Strikes. It becomes worst as the game progresses and directly conflicts with several other Rogue skills.
I'm going to build the most murderous 2H berserker that I possibly can this time through.
I recommend going with ArelX's Mach 5 Berserker/Vanguard/Reaver build. It's what I based my second playthrough on, and it was so devastatingly fun. Key tips include blowing all of your money on Ring of the Etched Twins, and King Something the Forgotten's Armor for the knockback/stun immunities for act 2 as that guide doesn't help as much with Act 2 stuff.
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
Is the Defender tree necessary for tanking? I believe Aveline's has better passives and you can gear for some of its benefits.
Also...what's the difference between Magic Resistance (Templar tree) and Elemental Aegis? Does it cover elemental damage?
Stonewall, Shield Defense and Immobile. Then as many passives as you want. Elemental Resistance can be socketed into her shield, not necessary to spec into them as well.
Is the Defender tree necessary for tanking? I believe Aveline's has better passives and you can gear for some of its benefits.
Also...what's the difference between Magic Resistance (Templar tree) and Elemental Aegis? Does it cover elemental damage?
Stonewall, Shield Defense and Immobile. Then as many passives as you want. Elemental Resistance can be socketed into her shield, not necessary to spec into them as well.
I was referring more like in Hawke tanking. With all the armor he gets I don't think you really need that many passives. Also SD and Immobile aren't in the Defender tree so I figure it isn't that necessary then?
Is the Defender tree necessary for tanking? I believe Aveline's has better passives and you can gear for some of its benefits.
Also...what's the difference between Magic Resistance (Templar tree) and Elemental Aegis? Does it cover elemental damage?
Stonewall, Shield Defense and Immobile. Then as many passives as you want. Elemental Resistance can be socketed into her shield, not necessary to spec into them as well.
I was referring more like in Hawke tanking. With all the armor he gets I don't think you really need that many passives. Also SD and Immobile aren't in the Defender tree so I figure it isn't that necessary then?
You want the passives. Immunity to flanking, knockback, knockdown, crits and stuns are mega useful (bearing in mind, there are items to duplicate most of those but not at the same time). I don't know if Tank Hawke has access to all of that, but Aveline does.
Is the Defender tree necessary for tanking? I believe Aveline's has better passives and you can gear for some of its benefits.
Also...what's the difference between Magic Resistance (Templar tree) and Elemental Aegis? Does it cover elemental damage?
Stonewall, Shield Defense and Immobile. Then as many passives as you want. Elemental Resistance can be socketed into her shield, not necessary to spec into them as well.
I was referring more like in Hawke tanking. With all the armor he gets I don't think you really need that many passives. Also SD and Immobile aren't in the Defender tree so I figure it isn't that necessary then?
You want the passives. Immunity to flanking, knockback, knockdown, crits and stuns are mega useful (bearing in mind, there are items to duplicate most of those but not at the same time). I don't know if Tank Hawke has access to all of that, but Aveline does.
You can get by with some rings (currently at work so I can't link). I know the Act 2 Nexus Golem Ring has immunity to...stun and criticals? I can't recall.
I might respecc after I'm done with some Act 2 quests to a more defensive role. I tried to adapt the 2h Vanguard Build for SnB+Templar and so far it works great. But I do feel a bit squishy.
etched ring of the twins (the nexus golem ring) just has knockback immunity and some fortitude from the +2 strength in addition to extra crit chance and crit damage
I think he's thinking of that +1 to all attributes ring from the Black Emporium that has both immunity to stun and crits on it.
Either way with my 2h Berserker with the Etched Ring of the Twins and something for stun immunity (King Something's armor) there were only two things in the game that moved me or prevented me from swinging which was the Act 2 duel's impale move, and the High Dragon's wing flap.
I'm out of ideas here...I've got a relatively good tank/controller/healer/DPS setup here that never failed me - few times it was challenging, but nothing impossible. That is until now. The problem is that my party is completely f*cked when attacked by magic attacks; Even an assassin won't kill them, but a single mage can be enough to wipe out three of my party members at once with an AoE electricity attack. Now how am I supposed to win against this boss? I know how the battle will evolve over time and taking out his minions won't even worry me since they are so weak, yet using an "Assassination" is hardly noticeable on his health bar. My tank won't survive CQC against him even with tons of defensive buffs and healing for more then a minute. Switching difficulty is not an option for me.
That's what I was gonna try next, though I fear that most of the time I get hit by his AoE attacks anyways which can knock me to 50% health easily.
Also, speaking of kiting, anyone else got this problem where party members won't auto attack, even when ordered to? Sometimes Varrick and Bethany will just stand there, starting their attack animation over and over again without ever shooting. They attack one time when ordered to, but then revert back to their "stuck" pattern. Both are set to cautious, by the way.
I'm out of ideas here...I've got a relatively good tank/controller/healer/DPS setup here that never failed me - few times it was challenging, but nothing impossible. That is until now. The problem is that my party is completely f*cked when attacked by magic attacks; Even an assassin won't kill them, but a single mage can be enough to wipe out three of my party members at once with an AoE electricity attack. Now how am I supposed to win against this boss? I know how the battle will evolve over time and taking out his minions won't even worry me since they are so weak, yet using an "Assassination" is hardly noticeable on his health bar. My tank won't survive CQC against him even with tons of defensive buffs and healing for more then a minute. Switching difficulty is not an option for me.
You are supposed to avoid him. Kite like hell.
Your tank should have elemental aegis or a rune of lightning warding, and have one or two healing spells handy, then you'll be fine. The lightning attack is the only one you have to endure. I found having upgraded battle synergy is excellent for maintaining aggro.
Most of your damage should be done by ranged attacks; spirit and cold are the most effective, and will help you take him down significantly quicker.
Posts
And yeah, unshakable should be a priority since I'll probably be drawing significant aggro.
Edit: well, at level 17, respeccing would allow me 18 abilities (so most of what I want) and enough points for 35 magic (for Cold-blooded), 32 willpower (for robes of unblemished cleanliness- though after cold-blooded, I won't be able to afford them until well into Act III), and 23 con, which translates to 165 health. I guess I'd have to be conservative with the use of blood magic. Not sure if it's worth it. May bank on how useful sacrifice and grave robber are.
Well, my roleplaying has been kind of fucked. I'm a largely virtuous anti-mage mage- usually pleasant and peaceful, except when dealing with mages or, in many cases, demons. Already gave up the points from the fade, but will be taking advantage of the Fell Grimoire to utility's sake. Still in act II- the respeccing was largely due to frustration with the Gauntlet in the Abandoned Thaig. All I have left is that quest and a couple minor side quests.
I only have 130 gold so I'll be buying Cold-Blooded, then saving for the Robes of Unblemished Cleanliness- so it'll be a while before I'm optimized. Really wishing DAwiki's coverage were a bit more exhaustive, since this playthrough is the one where I start obsessive metagaming.
You can also opt for Voracity and grab the Robes sooner.
Cold-Blooded has a bunch of stamina boosts, Final Thought has +nature damage
the late-game unique staves mostly seem kind of shitty to me
I think there's gloves in the black emporium that boost blood magic (and willpower, score!)
I'd just get those and use a normal, not $Texas staff like the Torch
I enjoyed it more than you did, but have the same complaints. It just felt like a 'lazy' game. So little was fleshed out, there was so little you could do to influence anything, and the final battle occurs in pretty much the same way regardless of what you do. There's also the whole 'you can only put armor on your own guy' thing, which means you get this nice piece as a quest reward and it's useless.
The final two battles were fun, as was the duel with the high dragon because they were finally against different people in different settings. I swear if another group of bandits set up camp in the same darn warehouse I was just going to leave them there.
The ending was very bad though. Totally inexcusable. On the level of the joke star wars episode 2 ending 'Settled these trade negotions be, or are they!!!"
I was sure they were at least going to namedrop the big threat, or cut away to show us anything of what was going on.
What the hell is going on with Morrigan?
Looks like a body for Clayface.
Some alternate costume pack I put in that sucks and I'm taking out.
...some of you guys actually put points in Hawke's blood magic tree. Such a fail tree.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
because it certainly stands out over the other mage specializations
Force maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage.
Really though, the best Force Mage skill is basically timestop and that's all that really matters.
And the skills you grab on the way there are hilariously good against basic mobs.
I haven't played the warrior, though, so I don't know how it compares to those
You mean compared to the best healing tree in the game and a specialisation which, literally, renders any enemy in the game (apart from roughly 6 bosses) completely useless for 20s spans at a time?
Give the force tree a whirl. It's so open to abuse and general asshattery...you'll thank me afterwards. I solo'd half the uber desire demon optional boss with that skill on hard (2 rage demons, 1 revenant, some aboms).
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
it's not so much what they do as it is that those trees are very quality dense
the only talent in assassin that isn't totally amazing is the one that gives you stamina when you kill, and duelist has a lot of good stuff too
compare these to force mage which has decent abilities all around, but only gravitic ring and unshakeable are really great; and blood mage, which also has pretty good stuff but at the cost of needing specific blood magic boosting equipment and having only limited forms of healing
You mean visually? Dude, there's 5 (maybe 6?) Mage armor visuals. Same for Rogues. I'd be willing to bet either all the classes have exactly the same number of unique armor graphics, or Warriors have more. I haven't done a Warrior run so I don't know.
Um. That's actually handy. The worst one is Pinpoint Strikes. It becomes worst as the game progresses and directly conflicts with several other Rogue skills.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
I recommend going with ArelX's Mach 5 Berserker/Vanguard/Reaver build. It's what I based my second playthrough on, and it was so devastatingly fun. Key tips include blowing all of your money on Ring of the Etched Twins, and King Something the Forgotten's Armor for the knockback/stun immunities for act 2 as that guide doesn't help as much with Act 2 stuff.
-Z
Resilience in the Defender tree worked for me in the Act 2 duel on my warrior. It only cost 3 points to get, so it wasn't that expensive talent wise.
Also...what's the difference between Magic Resistance (Templar tree) and Elemental Aegis? Does it cover elemental damage?
Stonewall, Shield Defense and Immobile. Then as many passives as you want. Elemental Resistance can be socketed into her shield, not necessary to spec into them as well.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
I was referring more like in Hawke tanking. With all the armor he gets I don't think you really need that many passives. Also SD and Immobile aren't in the Defender tree so I figure it isn't that necessary then?
You want the passives. Immunity to flanking, knockback, knockdown, crits and stuns are mega useful (bearing in mind, there are items to duplicate most of those but not at the same time). I don't know if Tank Hawke has access to all of that, but Aveline does.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
You can get by with some rings (currently at work so I can't link). I know the Act 2 Nexus Golem Ring has immunity to...stun and criticals? I can't recall.
I might respecc after I'm done with some Act 2 quests to a more defensive role. I tried to adapt the 2h Vanguard Build for SnB+Templar and so far it works great. But I do feel a bit squishy.
Either way with my 2h Berserker with the Etched Ring of the Twins and something for stun immunity (King Something's armor) there were only two things in the game that moved me or prevented me from swinging which was the Act 2 duel's impale move, and the High Dragon's wing flap.
I'm out of ideas here...I've got a relatively good tank/controller/healer/DPS setup here that never failed me - few times it was challenging, but nothing impossible. That is until now. The problem is that my party is completely f*cked when attacked by magic attacks; Even an assassin won't kill them, but a single mage can be enough to wipe out three of my party members at once with an AoE electricity attack. Now how am I supposed to win against this boss? I know how the battle will evolve over time and taking out his minions won't even worry me since they are so weak, yet using an "Assassination" is hardly noticeable on his health bar. My tank won't survive CQC against him even with tons of defensive buffs and healing for more then a minute. Switching difficulty is not an option for me.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
That's what I was gonna try next, though I fear that most of the time I get hit by his AoE attacks anyways which can knock me to 50% health easily.
Also, speaking of kiting, anyone else got this problem where party members won't auto attack, even when ordered to? Sometimes Varrick and Bethany will just stand there, starting their attack animation over and over again without ever shooting. They attack one time when ordered to, but then revert back to their "stuck" pattern. Both are set to cautious, by the way.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
You are supposed to avoid him. Kite like hell.
Your tank should have elemental aegis or a rune of lightning warding, and have one or two healing spells handy, then you'll be fine. The lightning attack is the only one you have to endure. I found having upgraded battle synergy is excellent for maintaining aggro.
Most of your damage should be done by ranged attacks; spirit and cold are the most effective, and will help you take him down significantly quicker.