Game: Dragon Age Origins

[itadakimasu]

I got Dragon Age : Origins the other day. I've put 4-5 hours into it and it is pretty good. Being an ex-WoW player, I can't help but notice that it's so extremely similar.

They had a deal on EA for digital downloads. I got Dragon Age, and FIFA 2010 for my big bro for $40 total.

[Penner]

I started playing Dragon Age: Origins today aswell, and so far its pretty fun, getting some Baldurs Gate vibes from it ^_^

[itadakimasu]

i actually got into the first major part of dragon age last night, and it was pretty fun.

I found out the hard way about fire magic and friendly fire lol. but setting 2 of your party members on fire along w\ 6 or so dark spawn could be worth it!

[Xelbair]

Try using cone of cold - its one of most imbalanced spells in this game(hi chance of freeze and lasts approx for whole cooldown)

[Ryllharu]

Try using cone of cold - its one of most imbalanced spells in this game

Works on High Dragons too when they're busy crunching on Allister. Mass Paralysis is worse though. The duration is a lot longer, and enemies actually use it.

[KrayZ33]

maxxing out morrigans glyph and entropy tree in addition to the cold tree will allow you to control... well, everything
it really doesn't matter how many enemy's you'll encounter

half of them will attack each other because of that confuse spell, the other half will be frozen
and well everyone of them will be paralyzed or knocked back half of the time.
especially when you use the glyph-spell combo, it paralyzes ur own heroes too though.

200% crowd control :P

just get ur assassin ready to stab any yellow's or orange's and ur second mage (if you got one) to do the rest with inferno or tempest.

no tank required ^^


another fun tactic I like to use is taunt + forecefield and using mass-effect spells
-> tempest/inferno/blizzard/scattershot

works very good with a reaver-wariior (doesn't have to be a tank)


btw: steam offers Torchligh for ~8$
I wonder if it's worth a buy.. the game looks and sounds good (reminds me of diablo)

[Archangel]

Someone give me some tips here

I'm a elfen mage, if i choose blood magic will that come to bite me in the ass later on? Being evil and all. I was thinking of being a magic swordsman just because it sounds that cool

[Ryllharu]

I'm a elfen mage, if i choose blood magic will that come to bite me in the ass later on? Being evil and all. I was thinking of being a magic swordsman just because it sounds that cool

Some the best abilities for mages are just in the regular set. I took specializations for the stat bumps rather than the abilities mostly.

- Spirit Healer is good for the Ally Heal spell and possibly the resurrect in a pinch

- Shapeshifter is good for one thing. Maxing out so the Bear form gets Overwhelm. Best anti-mage and high-level humanoid boss skill in the game. Pins them down and as the Bearskarn form, does a ton of damage. Aside from that, the rest is useless. Swarm if you're feeling lazy and need some health (again, need to max out).

- Arcane Warrior is only good for making a mage tank. That said, it makes one hell of a tank. Allister was doing the work, so I had no need for it either.

- Blood mage I have never taken, so I can't comment on it. I made Morrigan take it for the stat bumps, but don't take any abilities from it, since as I said above, the primary school abilities are so good. It gives you a crowd control (which KrayZ33 pointed out that there are better ones in Entropy and Glyphs) and mostly mana replenishment.

[KrayZ33]

bloodmage + arcane warrior is probably one of the best things you can do

you don't lose health (being an arcane warrior makes you nearly invincible at the end of the game ^^)
and bloodmagic will allow you to cast spells, because as an arcane warrior 80~90% of your Mana-ressources will be used by passiv abilities, hence you have a really weak mana-pool.. the bloodmagic tree will help you to leech lifeforce instead of Mana when using spells

be advised if you use a sword, your character will sheath the weapon when it tries to cast a spell

there are only a few exceptions,
like
arcane bolt.
the whole spirit-spells tree
death-cloud + curse-tree
chain-lightning + inferno.
I believe the glyphes will work too without the weapon to be sheathed..

So my suggestion is to spend ~80% or even more of your points in "Magic" and
go for "Flaming Weapons" and "inferno" in the fire tree (flaming weapons will add a helluva lot fire dmg if you spend enough points in the Magic attribute... trust me
you'll probably recieve a +30fire dmg bonus or even more very early which will allow you to kill normal enemys *very* quickly.

together with Rock-Armor and Arcane Shield which will provide a great deal of defense and armor (2 different things) and the Arcane-Warriors "Fade Shroud " skill u'll barely get hit

the bad thing however is -> you might have problems getting the attention of multiple enemies at the same times so you will either need a *real* tank OR a mage with a lot of crowd-controll abilities.

btw there is a nice mod
http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14

feel free to try out speccs or spells or (the reason why I think this Mod is really helpfull)
to respecc your party...
It's really annoying if you play a tank yourself and want to play with Alistair in your party.

[darkshadow]

Maybe you guys need to make a dragon age: origins topic?

[Penner]

Currently playing a Mage and i just recently got the Arcane Warrior specialization, only thing i'm trying now is whats best, Dual wield, Sword and Board or 2-handers.. atm i'm testing 2handers because dual wield wasnt as awesome as i wanted it to be, since u can't get the talent to wield fullsized swords in the offhand as a mage u have to use a dagger as offhand, and they require dexterity, which i'm not going to waste stats on as a mage.

Also, 2handers have 1.10 strength bonus, and because Magic = Strength as an AW, u get more damage from that the more Magic u have, which is nice ^_^

EDIT: Good call in making this a separate thread.

[KrayZ33]

there is a little trick if you wish to "abuse" it..

works fine when playing a 2h-rogue
if you make one step forward or backward directly after hitting the enemy, it'll reset the swing timer and allows you to hit more often

however it might only work when you're rogue...critical swings seem to be done faster than normal swings

2h-rogues are fun btw... lvl 12 and spamming crits with ~100dmg ^^
34 str 23dex rest Cunning for the crit-modifier.
and if you spend 4 more points in str it will allow you to wear heavy armor (you don't need stamina anyway because you'll only use deadlystrike, the stun-skill and "under the belt"

[Ryllharu]

there is a little trick if you wish to "abuse" it..

works fine when playing a 2h-rogue
if you make one step forward or backward directly after hitting the enemy, it'll reset the swing timer and allows you to hit more often

however it might only work when you're rogue...critical swings seem to be done faster than normal swings

Is this with or without backstab? I seem to hit a lot faster with my rogue provided I'm backstabbing the hell out of them.

You might want to rethink that stat layout. After the patch, Dex adds damage points too.

[KrayZ33]

i need 34 str for the sword anyway and 23 dex for the "cunning = str modifier" talent

and cunning for the assassin-talent which improves backstab dmg.
that's why I believe cunning is the best stat for a 2h rogue. (and any other rogue using melee-weapons)
and cunning will allow you to make use of the Bard tree at level 14.. which will add a lot of extra damage too

and yes I was talking about backstabs too
criticalstrikes and backstabs are "animated" faster.. they might increase your attackspeed too but you're hitting a fair amount slower when not using the trick
(the spell "Haste" might have the same effect, I might test it soon)

the best thing you can do is to go to orzammar and get the "Ageless" 2h-sword (the sword which weakens nearby darkspawn)
and switch to "Yusaris" from the Tower of Magi when fighting dragons

[Ryllharu]

Wait, are you using a regular sword for two-handed fighting with a rogue? That's all I can think of for needing 34 strength. Twin daggers are insanely faster. I was amazed at how much faster I was attacking once I ditched the regular sword. Especially when backstabbing.

Micromanaging movement of a rogue to that level seems a bit ridiculous. Pairing off two rogues to backstab a target (letting the other one take over once the attention is on you and vice versa) seems like a much more efficient method for my time. Sure you can pause the game whenever you want, but I'd rather spend the time micro-ing the party mage.

Two-handed warriors overall are utterly overrated. Most of them just die because their attacks are so slow. In nearly every time I bring them along, I'd much rather have brought another archer or rogue instead.

[KrayZ33]

I'm using a two-handed sword with a rogue
I don't use 1-handed weapons.

Two-handed warriors overall are utterly overrated. Most of them just die because their attacks are so slow. In nearly every time I bring them along, I'd much rather have brought another archer or rogue instead

that's exactly what I meant to say, when using a rogue with a Two-handed sword you can hit alot faster when backstabbing... after you hit, just take 1 step forward an he will swing again.
Imagine ur Warrior uses "Sunder Armor" *all* the time. thats how fast a rogue will hit with a 2-handed sword when doing that.

hmmm, If I had Fraps or something like that I could make a short video :/

Sure you can pause the game whenever you want, but I'd rather spend the time micro-ing the party mage.

the AI is working just fine for me... sometimes I have to play the tank for taunting enemies, but the healer and the "crowd control mage" is doing just fine with normal tactics.

[Ryllharu]

Ah, a lack of comprehension on my part about the twin weapon fighting versus two-handed sword. Apologies.

the AI is working just fine for me... sometimes I have to play the tank for taunting enemies, but the healer and the "crowd control mage" is doing just fine with normal tactics.

Wynne or any other healer does fine on AI, in fact, I don't think I have ever manually controlled Wynne. With Morrigan or my PC mages, I like to control them most of the time for precision cone attacks and spell combos. The AI either catches me in the crossfire, or misses a target they easily could have caught in it. Why have the AI hit two enemies for you when they could have hit five?

[KrayZ33]

well I don't use cone of cold often anyway (I'm not a fan of friendly fire)
the mass paralysis spells and glyphs are enough for me
I made a video with my rogue btw.. currently uploading it on youtube.
he's currently at lvl 12.

will post it soon

[Archangel]

By the way, what difficulty are you guys playing at?

I'm only at normal and i still get my ass kicked on a regular basis

[Ryllharu]

I play at Normal, but there are still a couple fights I still have problems with and have to drop it down to easy or play so conservatively I feel like I am cheating (like luring a boss halfway down a tunnel).

It took me a while to realize I need to use strategy again in a game and to get a handle on the nuances of the combat system. I have found that trying something completely different will often change the tide of battle completely.

You get ambushed so much in the game that alpha strikes are usually impossible against anything but darkspawn (one thing Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights let you do was attack before forces became hostile). But, you can still use all of your resources. Don't forget crafting and salves, poison, and traps. They can make a hard battle a piece of cake.