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Dragon Age
Lise:
Hey guys, I picked up Dragon Age recently and was immediately sucked into the storyline (DA is one of the few games where I'm not annoyed by all the lengthy cut scenes.. the acting is superb). But I am TERRIBLE (not to mention I dislike) having to micromanage party members, though I can see why the game is oriented that way... a lot more room for customization.
So for a person like me, what's the best way to play this game with the least amount of micromanagement? Designating tactics confuses the hell out of me... and I'm afraid I'll screw up my party member's skills/stats. I ideally want to play a Berserker Two-Handed Warrior, and I'm not really inclined on learning all the skills for mages, rogues, etc. though I might replay the game later on as a mage.
Also, what's all this buzz about "hardening" characters? I'm really keen on Alistair (hurr hurr, he's a hunk) and want to pursue the ending where we're married and King/Queen, but I've heard that he needs to be hardened in order to accomplish this.
Damn you life-sucking RPGs!!
est:
Hurr hurr, innuendo.
est:
But seriously, if you search for "Dragon Age hardening" you'll find everything you need. Not sure if it's very useful, but I guess if you want the specific story options it opens up it's useful?
pilsner:
--- Quote from: Lise on 12 Dec 2009, 23:29 ---So for a person like me, what's the best way to play this game with the least amount of micromanagement? Designating tactics confuses the hell out of me... and I'm afraid I'll screw up my party member's skills/stats. I ideally want to play a Berserker Two-Handed Warrior, and I'm not really inclined on learning all the skills for mages, rogues, etc. though I might replay the game later on as a mage.
--- End quote ---
Stats:
I don't recommend using the auto-level which will assign the stats automatically, it doesn't do a very good job. It's actually pretty hard to screw up stats.
Shield Warrior: Dump 2 in dex, 1 in strength until you hit the dex you need for your highest available ability, then 2 in strength, 1 in con. (You may want to put more in strength at the beginning if you are going to put the Dragon armor on your warrior)
2H Warrior: Dump 2 in dex, 1 in strength until you hit the dex you need for your highest available ability, then 3 in strength
Rogue with lockpicking, pickpocketing (e.g. Leliana): Dump 1 in cunning, 2 in dex until you have enough dex for highest available ability, then switch to 2 cunning, 1 dex and make sure you get the ability to use cunning as strength for damage as soon as possible
Roge w/o lockpicking, pickpocketing (e.g. Zevran): 2 in dex, 1 in strength until you hit the dex you need for your highest available ability, then 2 in strength, 1 in dex
Mage: 2 in magic, 1 in willpower
Abilities:
Figure out what each character is going to be and then focus on the skills in that area. For example if you want Alistair to be a tank, focus on getting him all the defensive shield abilities. Getting shield wall asap and keeping it on always will him very tough. Even more important is getting threaten and taunt as soon as possible. If your main character is a 2H warrior, try getting momentum and punisher ASAP, they both do a lot of damage.
For the mage (or mages if you are playing with both), as you have probably gathered from this thread some spells are far, far better than others. Focus on getting:
-- Heal
-- Cone of Cold
-- Fireball
-- Sleep, Mass Paralyze or Blood Wound
on one mage that you always use.
Skills:
The only really important skills are herbalism on Morrigan to level 4, and cunning on your main character to level 4. All the other skills are completely optional. I have found then getting survival to 4 on at least one of your characters is helpful (but definitely not necessary). I didn't run with a rogue in any of my playthroughs so trap detection was useless. As for poisons, they only work in melee, and the good ones are a pain to make so I didn't use them very much.
Tactics:
I found tactics to be more of a pain than anything else and only used them to make sure that certain abilities (e.g. shield wall, threaten, momentum) were always on. That means I was pausing the game every few seconds to reassign my characters. If that doesn't appeal to you I'm sure there are tons of useful tactic scripts online.
Alex C:
The Mind Blast->Force Field->Telekinetic Weapons->Crushing Cage spell line is also really good. It does favor a bit of micro management if you really want to get the most out of it, but at worst it provides some of the strongest crowd control available in the early game. Casting Force Field and Crushing Cage on the same target also has a rather surprising result; everyone around the target will take a tough to resist knockdown as well as damage.
For the most part, I think the biggest risk with spell selection is the possibility that you might end up picking trees that are all late bloomers. For example, I actually really like the Haste, Mass Paralysis and Stinging Swarm spells quite a bit, but investing exclusively in those spell groups just to get the final spell from each would make the early game into a real pain in the ass. There's absolutely nothing wrong with putting off a high end spell for a level if it means that you're getting a one point wonder like Heal, Glyph of Paralysis or Mind Blast in exchange.
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