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[Alpha-Bromega]

Just started my second playthrough with a human mage on nightmare. My first was a Human noble rogue on casual, and that was pretty hard compared to playing a mage so far. Granted, 50 hours of playing with a super nerfed (patch plz) archer made me very resourceful and rely heavily on gambits, but people aren't kidding on how the mage is a gamebreaker.

 

[bulovski]

Ugh still can't beat the archdemon. Whats the best way to defeat him? The best I got was 25% left and got pwned.

Try this - it worked for me like a charm after a few frustrating rounds.

Spoiler

The first stage of the fight when the dragon is on the main platform and no enemies are coming, don't call in your own troops. Go to town on the dragon - just keep your distance and pummel him. In the second stage, when the dragon is unreachable in melee try calling in ranged troops, and get yourself to the ballista. Use those - they do a good amount of damage. You might want to save them if they are getting thinned out. For the last part, go right across the other end of the roof to the other ballista, calling in all the troops you can. Just use the ballista to take the demon down. Surprisingly, if you manage to clear out the enemy horde around your platform and there's some time for the next wave, they will hang out in the distance. Quite possibly a bug that they are not attacking because of the distance.

 

[koji]

Fighting this bitch dwarf and the golems is so tough!

Take the Golems out first! Put your tank on Branka, after you killed the Golem adds (seriously, do this ASAP, forget about Branka at first) go for all the lyrium veins with your healer or archer or whatever.

Ugh still can't beat the archdemon. Whats the best way to defeat him? The best I got was 25% left and got pwned.

As been mentioned here before, when she goes out of range on that "middle part" use the

Spoiler

ballistas

+ if you still can, summon the Dalish army as early possible in the fight

 

[Ashodin]

WTF at people

Spoiler

using the ballistas

on the final fight - I just

Spoiler

waited out the boss coming back from his vantage point, killing loads of enemies while waiting. I had no idea you could use the ballistas or even call in people!

 

[Footos22]

Yep, I never knew there were ballistas either
Dalish elves made that fight a piece of cake, I never even broke a sweat. Then again i did have 400 lesser health potions set to hp<50% on every party member. But never even used 50 of them. He went down so fast on normal.

 

[The Last Wizard]

First PS3 Dragon Age owner to (ONLY IF YOU NEED IT)

Spoiler

PM gets a Shale code

 

[jasonng]

I'm finishing up my first runthrough and I must've missed something regarding the Human Noble origin :

Spoiler

Do you ever find out what happens to your brother?

 

[darkpaladinmfc]

I'm finishing up my first runthrough and I must've missed something regarding the Human Noble origin :

Spoiler

Do you ever find out what happens to your brother?

Spoiler

I did at the very end, you may not depending on what ending you choose.

 

[mattso]

so Ive been avoiding playing since that title update messed up character specializations on the 360. Is that fixed yet? I'm really close to finishing my 1st playthrough and want to start my next one.

 

[BuckRobotron]

It seems so, I got the Arcane Warrior on my quick second playthrough and it has held this time. And Bard stayed there until I activated it for my rogue elf. In contrast first playthrough, AW never stuck, nor did the Shapeshifter I activated early in my first game via Morrigan.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Playing on PC. Just beat the

Spoiler

minotaur

so I'm still fairly early. So far, I only have Alistair as a full-blown party member. I'm playing the combat with tons of pausing, practically playing it like a turn-based SRPG. I'm finding it extremely challenging, but fun.

Any tips on getting a good party going? My main is a mage, and I plan on using Morrigan (I played it a bit on PS3 earlier so I know how she plays) as well to have 2 mages in tandem. I was thinking of rounding it off with a tank character and an archer maybe? Any recommendations for a good tank? I know the dog is good, but I'd rather use a human character.

Are archers good, or am I better off with two tanks? Is there a really good archer that isn't an elf (for some reason I dislike elf characters), preferably female?

How about a character that can use both bows and melee effectively?

And what's the deal with Rogues? Am I missing out on good loot if I can't open chests, or is it pretty much just crap to fill my inventory?

Sorry for the deluge of questions- I'm just really finding the combat tough and I want to try and maximize my potential in that regard.

Any opinions are appreciated.

 

[freddy]

Playing on PC. Just beat the

Spoiler

minotaur

so I'm still fairly early. So far, I only have Alistair as a full-blown party member. I'm playing the combat with tons of pausing, practically playing it like a turn-based SRPG. I'm finding it extremely challenging, but fun.

Any tips on getting a good party going? My main is a mage, and I plan on using Morrigan (I played it a bit on PS3 earlier so I know how she plays) as well to have 2 mages in tandem. I was thinking of rounding it off with a tank character and an archer maybe? Any recommendations for a good tank? I know the dog is good, but I'd rather use a human character.

Are archers good, or am I better off with two tanks? Is there a really good archer that isn't an elf (for some reason I dislike elf characters), preferably female?

How about a character that can use both bows and melee effectively?

And what's the deal with Rogues? Am I missing out on good loot if I can't open chests, or is it pretty much just crap to fill my inventory?

Sorry for the deluge of questions- I'm just really finding the combat tough and I want to try and maximize my potential in that regard.

Any opinions are appreciated.

Head for a drink in the next local tavern you see and you might get all your wishes granted. Alistair is the best tank. Rogues are good with bows and melee if you use tactics effectively. The early chests aren't important.

 

[Ruuppa]

Even the later locked chests are pretty much junk, compared to what you get from elsewhere. Good for a few extra coppers, and sometimes mediocre weapons, but mostly junk. This is one of the reasons why 3 Mages + Tank is such a great option(even if it's not the most interesting one).

 

[Edgeward]

Locked chests usually contains useless loot made only for selling it.

If you need a human tank, Alistair as a sword/shield is your best bet. Quickly invest in taunt and threaten, especially taunt. Archers work well in bosses/dragons since you just want the boss to focus on one person to soak up the damage and give you healer an easier time focusing primarily on just one person.

Still, Shale is the best tank. As he is immune to grabs like a dragon bite or ogre grab. So is dog but doesn't have as great options for elemental resistances.

I find it better to specialize in one thing, so while you can be good at two things, why not be excellent in one thing? Both builds have almost the same approach anyway, high enough dex to use the skills and everything else cunning with some strength to equip the better medium-light armor.

If you're going arcane warrior, I would say archer. If you're sticking as a pure mage, melee is good option. Course you could always go 3 mages and a tank, which will just roll through people.

 

[Borgnine]

I think I bought like 1 thing the entire game and ended up with like 400 gold at the end of the game. I wonder how much time I spent looting every single corpse and container, and picking every single chest.

 

[Ruuppa]

I think I bought like 1 thing the entire game and ended up with like 400 gold at the end of the game. I wonder how much time I spent looting every single corpse and container, and picking every single chest.

How did you manage to amass that much gold? I looted pretty much everything and did almost all the quests, and at most I hit only 170 gold. And I wore the Dwarven Merchant belt for over half of the game to boot.

 

[JumpJeff84]

All good advice, thanks. Might just stick with Alistair as a tank and then do the 3 mage thing.

Who's a good 3rd mage? My main and then Morrigan of course, and then....?

 

[erpg]

The only other mage.

Spoiler

Wynne

 

[DigitalDevil]

Locked chests usually contains useless loot made only for selling it.

I would say this is generally true, but there are many exceptions to that rule. For example, you will not be able to finish the love letters quest unless you have access to a rogue!

 

[Alpha-Bromega]

It's so hard to play this game sometimes. I don't mean the combat either, but the fact that your followers are such self centered bitches. What's that Morrigan? You have something to say too Sten? Oh Alistair, please keep it up I'd love to hear your input.

Don't get me wrong, I love the banter and I love that each follower has their own agenda and that they will agree/disagree with your decisions, but you can't do anything sometimes without someone bitching. Playing it true neutral with a balanced party seems impossible.

 

[Borgnine]

How did you manage to amass that much gold? I looted pretty much everything and did almost all the quests, and at most I hit only 170 gold. And I wore the Dwarven Merchant belt for over half of the game to boot.

Does the difficulty effect the amount of gold you receive looting or selling? I played on casual.

 

[blackMamba1187]

Playing on PC. Just beat the

Spoiler

minotaur

so I'm still fairly early. So far, I only have Alistair as a full-blown party member. I'm playing the combat with tons of pausing, practically playing it like a turn-based SRPG. I'm finding it extremely challenging, but fun.

Any tips on getting a good party going? My main is a mage, and I plan on using Morrigan (I played it a bit on PS3 earlier so I know how she plays) as well to have 2 mages in tandem. I was thinking of rounding it off with a tank character and an archer maybe? Any recommendations for a good tank? I know the dog is good, but I'd rather use a human character.

Are archers good, or am I better off with two tanks? Is there a really good archer that isn't an elf (for some reason I dislike elf characters), preferably female?

How about a character that can use both bows and melee effectively?

And what's the deal with Rogues? Am I missing out on good loot if I can't open chests, or is it pretty much just crap to fill my inventory?

Sorry for the deluge of questions- I'm just really finding the combat tough and I want to try and maximize my potential in that regard.

Any opinions are appreciated.

Get mods that add ability to bash chests and/or gain open lock spell abilities.

 

[TouchMyBox]

I think I got the bad ending... It showed my character destroying the shit out of the end boss and then a message popped up saying "dragon age.exe has stopped working"

Maybe I was too mean to Alistair?

Game was a buggy mess overall, I can't believe they shipped a game that has to be restarted every hour thanks to a memory leak or something causing load times to quadruple in length.

 

[Edgeward]

Does the difficulty effect the amount of gold you receive looting or selling? I played on casual.

I want to say it does, as I never could buy any of the better armor or weapons on casual, or even got close to 70 gold. Yet on normal I hit those a couple times.

 

[bill0527]

I got this game for Christmas and I'm about done with it. I apparently don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing.

My first attempt was a Dwarf commoner rogue and I probably put 10 or so hours into him. It started to get real difficult at that point where he would die every single fight. I didn't have a healer and was trying to skate through on healing pots. I didn't have a very balanced party and I was using auto-level up and not picking skills for each character. My other party members were Morrigan, Sten, and Alistair. It got the point where we just got owned every single time and it was frustrating because the last place I saved was right next to a room where I would immediately get bum-rushed and die as soon as I re-loaded.

So I rolled again. This time I went with a human noble and tried to build a balanced party. I was the tank - put all my points into shield and taunting specializations. I used Leilana as my rogue/bard, Morrigan my healer/some damage dealing, and my war dog to round out the party. I paid attention to each characters level up and manually picked the skills I thought would make us balanced. Now we're all about levels 11-12, I've completed about 1 and a half of the main story line and I'm back to the point where I was at with my first character - just getting owned every single fight. I've got Morrigan's tactics set to heal me first when I get less than 50%, but she doesn't always do it. I have to rely on health pots and it takes 10 or more just to get through a fight and I have to chain spam them on myself.

I'm really not feeling the whole tactics set-up for what's supposed to be a real-time game. I'm sure that this is where I'm doing it wrong. I really don't want to have to pause the game to plan out each characters move... that seems a little ridiculous. Why won't these people just do what should benefit the party the most without me having to program some goddamn macro screen?

I guess my options at this point are to bump the difficulty down to easy (I'm playing on normal), or just quit and trade the game in. I've never been so frustrated with a Bioware game before and I've played and beaten all of them since the original KOTOR on Xbox. My experience with this game has got me very worried about Mass Effect 2.

 

[erpg]

That's it. I'm done with this game until I see a patch that fixes the memory leak. Loading into Jarvia's Bandit Camp in Orzammar took 7 minutes. Having to quit every hour in order to keep loads at a reasonable level is too frustrating.

I know I could be having a great experience with DA, but these technical issues are killing me. Mass Effect 2 can't come soon enough, I need a good single player game.

 

[Toki767]

Are you trying to go through Orzammar right away? Cause that part of the story most people say should be saved till later on. Also it'd help to know where you are putting your points in your build.

 

[Snuggles]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, it can be a little difficult at times. I think it's would be fine just to bump it down to easy so you can at least finish the game, it makes the fights quick and easy but at least you'll be able to play through the whole story. I did it on my first playthrough about 2/3rds through the game. It wasn't that bad but I didn't want to get stuck. I've been playing as a Mage on normal in my 2nd playthrough, it's a lot better know that I'm decent at the game and playing as the Mage is nice because I can just stand back and snipe/boost my teammates which really helps.

 

[Ventrue]

I got this game for Christmas and I'm about done with it. I apparently don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing.

A) Don't be afraid to turn the difficulty down.
B) You probably should switch characters more. You don't have to plan 'every little move', but it is a tactical combat game where you're expected to coordinate all your party members. Stun vital enemies, get all your characters to attack the same target, manually target cone damage spells to hit a bunch of enemies but not your own guys, etc.

 

[survivor]

Just a question, is it possible to finish the game without getting to level 20? I have been playing on Casual for the majority of time and right now I only have Orzammar left. I haven't looked that much into what I can do after out of fear of spoilers, but are there a lot of quests/fights to gain a lot of XP?

I haven't played in a week, but I think I was around level 16, but I'm fearing the XP requirement jump each level would be too much.

 

[ntropy]

How did you manage to amass that much gold? I looted pretty much everything and did almost all the quests, and at most I hit only 170 gold. And I wore the Dwarven Merchant belt for over half of the game to boot.

did you do the quest with

Spoiler

Rogek in Orzammar? high coercion got me a huge pot o' gold

 

[Snuggles]

I finished at level 19, but I skipped the majority of the sidequests. You can still play DLC missions afterwords, though, so if you're that close you can still have a chance at getting there.

 

[Garl_Vinland]

I've got Morrigan's tactics set to heal me first when I get less than 50%, but she doesn't always do it. I have to rely on health pots and it takes 10 or more just to get through a fight and I have to chain spam them on myself.

I'm really not feeling the whole tactics set-up for what's supposed to be a real-time game. I'm sure that this is where I'm doing it wrong. I really don't want to have to pause the game to plan out each characters move... that seems a little ridiculous. Why won't these people just do what should benefit the party the most without me having to program some goddamn macro screen?

I guess my options at this point are to bump the difficulty down to easy (I'm playing on normal), or just quit and trade the game in. I've never been so frustrated with a Bioware game before and I've played and beaten all of them since the original KOTOR on Xbox. My experience with this game has got me very worried about Mass Effect 2.

First off, u should find the health potion recipe and make lot of potions. The stores have a very limited number of health potions in stock and it got to a point where they didn't even re-stock.

Secondly, Dragon Age is meant to go back to the hardcore RPG roots of Baldur's Gate games where pausing is absolutely essential. It's a party-based RPG and if ur not really feeling the tactical part of it, ur missing the heart of Dragon Age. If you want to get the most of the game i highly recommend mastering the tactical parts of the game. You can't play the game like KOTOR or Mass Effect.

I wouldn't worry about Mass Effect 2. It's going to be more cinematic RPG than a dungeons and dragons type RPG like Dragon Age. Dragon Age is just something special to appeal to the fans of those old Infinity Engine games.

 

[Shrennin]

I haven't checked up on DA for a while because the last time I played I ended up buying and downloading the DLC (Return to Ostagar) and the patch and both were apparently bugged. Has BioWare fixed this yet?

 

[Rufus]

did you do the quest with

Spoiler

Rogek in Orzammar? high coercion got me a huge pot o' gold

You can also steal 20 Gold from him if you have 3 (I think it's three) points in pickpocketing.

 

[Barakov]

Just finished it. Pretty great overall.

Kinda sucks that you can only do dlc after you defeat the last boss. I would've liked do some of the stuff I missed. I really enjoyed the combat in this. Although, it did get pretty hairy in

Spoiler

Denirum, when there waves of darkspawn coming out of what seemed like every nook and cranny.

The choices they forced to make were probably the high point. It definitely made me think "is this really the right decision?" Usually, I play the good guy in games like KoTR and Mass Effect, but some of the people DA: Origins made really easy to be a complete dickhead.

I'm definitely on board with expansion. Also, for anyone that has gotten the two pieces of dlc, are they worth getting?

 

[Rufus]

Kinda sucks that you can only do dlc after you defeat the last boss.

You can do them earlier, too.

 

[biocat]

I have a question about the Awakening expansion, if anyone knows. I bought the digital version of DA:O off ea.com, but I'm back in Japan now and can't access the US store.
Does anyone know if the retail box, or some other digital, version might work with the ea store's digital version?

 

[Ruuppa]

did you do the quest with

Spoiler

Rogek in Orzammar? high coercion got me a huge pot o' gold

I did, blackmailed him and the mage for all they had. That quest was the reason I managed to reach 170 gold. If the pickpocketing was a conversation option, I did it, but if it wasn't, I missed it. Good to know for future runs, though.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I think I got the bad ending... It showed my character destroying the shit out of the end boss and then a message popped up saying "dragon age.exe has stopped working"

Maybe I was too mean to Alistair?

Game was a buggy mess overall, I can't believe they shipped a game that has to be restarted every hour thanks to a memory leak or something causing load times to quadruple in length.

I never had the game crash on me once in my 100+ hours playing it.

I did encounter the memory leak / long load times issue a few times, but only when I was playing for more than 4 or 5 hours at a time. My play sessions were generally shorter than that so I rarely encountered the problem.

I think you are going a bit far calling it a buggy mess. Maybe it was for you, but obviously not everyone experienced the same problems as you.

 

[Ruuppa]

Obviously not everyone experienced the same problems as you.

Except the memory leak. I think that was a universal problem for everyone, although not always as severe. Mine started slowing down after 1 hour or so, forcing a restart after 2.

 

[hylje]

First PS3 Dragon Age owner to (ONLY IF YOU NEED IT)

Spoiler

PM gets a Shale code

PC DLC codes worked for console versions. Would guess it works both ways.

 

[Rufus]

If it's tied to an account and you log into that account from within any version of the game you should have access to the same stuff, yes.

 

[Chris R]

Just started the Landsmeet stuff, hit level 20 today too.

Anyone know if I can use the respec potion to get all the talent achievements? No way I'd play through the game 3 times with a rogue just for the achievement stuff, but I will do two more play through as a warrior and a mage...

 

[witness]

Got this game on thursday (360) and I've played the hell out of it since. Loving the game, got way too hard on normal so I had to bump it down to easy. Playing a human noble warrior, dps 2 hand warrior. I'm level 13 now I believe and I just got finished with

Spoiler

The Fade part in the Mage tower

, completely hated that. Other than that I really love this game, I started up an elf and dwarf, as I plan to play through all the origin stories and beat the game with every class once. Want to get the Warden's Keep and Return to Ostagar (wow that sounds like a royal fuck up what Bioware did with that DLC) and I'm totally going to buy the expansion day 1.

 

[tokkun]

Game was a buggy mess overall, I can't believe they shipped a game that has to be restarted every hour thanks to a memory leak or something causing load times to quadruple in length.

I really have to disagree. Compared to many other PC games I have played in recent years DA was remarkably bug-free. I encountered long loading times, though not to the extent you had, despite playing for 3 or 4-hour stints.

Even so, long load times seem like a pretty minor bug compared to games that crash frequently (The Witcher, Bioshock) or games with quest bugs that do not allow you to proceed (Fallout 3, Oblivion). Actually the only other non-buggy PC game I have bought recently was Mass Effect, also by Bioware.

 

[charsace]

That's it. I'm done with this game until I see a patch that fixes the memory leak. Loading into Jarvia's Bandit Camp in Orzammar took 7 minutes. Having to quit every hour in order to keep loads at a reasonable level is too frustrating.

I know I could be having a great experience with DA, but these technical issues are killing me. Mass Effect 2 can't come soon enough, I need a good single player game.

This only happened to me once.

 

[yencid]

Guys whats the expansion pack going to include? Im quite interested since i got the game not so long ago (30 hours in and in love)

 

[freddy]

Once again, for those having long, long load times, try turning off persistent gore in the game options. It doesn't solve the problem completely but it helps some people a great deal.

 

[ntropy]

i beat

Spoiler

flemeth solo with a mage

at lvl 11 on normal. took about 45 lesser health and 5 lyrium potions. if i had the blizzard spell, it would have required even less