Seriously!
I'm playing on normal and find my party routinely dying. I'm now trying to save the village of Redcliffe (I don't think thats a spoiler) and just find there are to many enemies.
Whats the secret to staying alive and dishing out a good DPS?
play it like a MMO. have your party stand by, then lure group of enemies out one by one by scouting with your rogue.
or if you are loaded with aoe mage firepower, open a door, unload the aoe.. and laugh.
Or play it on easy, so you don't have to corrupt your soul by "dpsing your tank" to "aggro mobs" and "grind lore."
So, my soul or my masculinity.Originally Posted by mkozlows
I've never played any MMO's except Guild Wars, so I'm a little out of my element.
Start with focus fire and getting lots and lots of potions.
From there, start bitching about how the Tactic AI chooses to ignore your targets.
when does using strategy = corrupting your soul.
I found the first section on top fairly easy, certainly never came close to dying (you did find the oil right?). I did die once or twice on the bottom section, mostly because I let my guys get too spread out. Keep them back, let the militia take the brunt, and concentrate on taking down the skeletons one at a time. Which means either settting up tactics so they all share the same target or just selecting all and clicking from one to the next. Or AOE if you have it, but I didn't then.
I love it when a good rant catches on.
Can't you talk your way out of every single encounter like any serious role playing game? Fucking Bioware!
IMO defending the village has nothing on the battles in the castle. Those kill my inner child and entire party.
One of those was the hardest in the game so far for me. I ended up retreating 3 times back through doors to form choke points so Morrigan with her recently acquired cone of cold could work it's magic.
Course now I have a healer so the dynamic has changed a lot.
Strategy, AI exploits - to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.
Seriously, a few general tips:
- If you don't have a healer, remember to set up a "use poultice" command in everybody's scripts. Actually, it's probably a good idea to have your healer casting heals and everyone uses a poultice as a last resort.
- Until you have some good AoE and/or CC abilities, you'll usually want to focus on one enemy at a time. Usually I try to take down mages first, then melees, then archers. Sometimes I'll tell my ranged units to focus on the mages while my melee units protect them from melee enemies.
- Set up kill zones at chokepoints and lure enemies into them. E.g., place your units on either side of a closed door (so it's harder for ranged units to hit you through it), then open it and ambush enemies as they come through. Maybe have your mage stand in front of the door so s/he can blast enemies with cone attacks.
- AoEs are obviously your friend against mobs. Don't forget about the medieval grenades (acid flasks etc.), especially early on when you don't have many AoE spells.
- For some boss fights (like your first ogre), kiting is still a classic. Have everyone use ranged attacks; whomever the boss chases, have them run around avoiding the boss. If someone else aggros the boss, switch off like tag-team wrestlers. Behold the power of cheese!
Cheesing fights and exploiting AI is very easy in this game. I consider it a trade off for all the times I have died.
And an additional pointer: make this the first item in the tactics list. Remember that characters will go through the tactics list in order, so if you put "use poultice" at the bottom and they find another valid order before they reach it, then they'll go with the other order.
If you want to default to Heal spells first and poultices as a last resort, just set the health bar higher for spells; i.e. have spells fire at Health < 50%, and Poultices fire at Health < 25%.
Cheese tactics are less satisfying than clever tactics, IMHO, though the distinction can get fuzzy. But dying is a lot less satisfying than cheesing, soooo...cheesing FTW.
How big does your party size get in this game? I tend to pause a lot, and just give direct orders to most of my characters. I keep an eye on health/mana and just apply as needed.
The tactics bar seems great, and quite powerful, but perhaps more useful on the console, or if you want to stick to your main character, and let the other party members handle themselves.
Max of four characters plus any summons.
I dunno... having one character distract the ogre while other characters attack him from range doesn't seem like a cheese tactic to me. That's just a... tactic. A pretty good one, actually, given how nasty he is when you get in close. Tactics are all about exploiting weaknesses and playing to your strengths, and in that encounter your key strength is that you outnumber him.
Which is a bummer, as I'd like to take the dog along but can't make it work. I wish the dog didn't count as one of the three companions. He's my pet, dangit.
Why hasn't this been modded yet? I'm curious what the scene is up to.
It's just not very heroic to have one character run in circles while that ogre chases after him and everyone else stands back and shoots the ogre. Effective, but not exactly a "hell yeah!" cinematic moment. EDIT: then again, when I tried the "heroic" approach - Alistair tanks, my rogue stabs from behind, mage and archer flank - I got my ass kicked, so as Columbus learned, maybe the lesson here is "don't be a hero."
I don't think they have released the toolset yet. The link is on that horrible "social" piece of garbage EA should die of ass cancer and rot in hell website, but it links to a 404.
Fair enough, but it's also not very heroic to get pounded into a puddle of red goo. DA isn't a very heroic game, in any event--it's a very "low fantasy" affair. Ask the King about how his love of heroism is working out for him.
Some Bioware guy on the forums said the toolset hasn't been released yet, but it will be soon. I guess they have to sort out of the DLC crap first.
My prediction is that you have to sign up for a separate "bioware builder" account to download the toolset, and that account must be fully integrated with your bioware social account, bioware points account, EA account, EA/pandemic account, gmail account, a certified public accountant, and Count Chocula from the breakfast cereal.
Also it will cost 2400 bioware points, the largest denomination they sell is 2300 points so you have to purchase extra points you can't spend on anything else, and the site will decline your credit card between 7 and 13 times before working and double or triple-charging. When you complain about this they will take your situation very seriously and totally ignore your ass.
Bioware missed a great opportunity to wink at Baldur's Gate 1 and some of these cheese tactics by borrowing from your typical adventure party story when the heroes encounter an insurmountable enemy: have them talk about how it'd be a good idea to distract the ogre while everyone else hits him from far away. Hilarity ensues when they bicker about who should be the bait.
I am having a flashback here. Baldur's Gate I, i was having a hard time with the game, wondering what was a good strategy. I got to see a hints guide in a magazine (it was a time wihout internet...) and i was floored to see how the "strategy" was basically exploting the bad AI with tons of cheese.
So... i suppose this is, truly, the spritiual successor of BG. :P
Playing a mage, and having another healer makes the game much easier, but until I reached that point, it was a huge challenge. I have about 50 potions of health sitting unused on me, plus a great many ingredients. I am looking forward to replaying the game with a rogue to see how much harder it gets.
I have found having 2 mages with the Force Field has been amazingly useful. That is how I passed that first big guy in the tower. I didn't have much troubles with him: Alistar got agro then I FF Alistar and by the time Alistar was free (45?sec later) that thing was pretty much dead. FF can break all kinds of "grab/stun" type attacks. I have used it vs. Shadow Werewolves to great success as well (they have a grab/stun attack too)
Play it like an mmo.
When i was still playing on hardcore, my general tactic would be something like this...
-Player mage fireballs enemy group doing massive damage.
-they all run to him and he kites them around while templar tries to pick them up, rogue does her thing and secondary mage casts the freeze, heals and other crap.
-my player mage semi heals while running around until they get off him, then he tries to fire cone some of the enemies while also healing.
-if stamina on my templar gets low, i rejuv him so he can hold things on him.
Two mage healers for sure makes things easier. Fireball is also godly for the damage (both direct and dot) and the knockdown. Accurate fireballing using overhead view has won me many fights. I can't wait until i get taunt. My player mage is an arcane warrior now though so who cares if they attack him!
Talk about how you're the most badass person in your party, complain that you didn't get enough heals, and then teabag the enemy after you kill them? (Alternately, blame everyone else in the party if you lose)
Why yes, I have been playing with 15 year olds in WoW recently. How can you tell?
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