[Megathread] Dragon Age 3

[Nazrark]

I agree to some extent. I think the base game gear is quite well tuned for the gameplay, but it just is not very interesting and diverse. There are some amazing pieces merchant sell though. I remember some ring you can buy, I think, in Wonders of Thedas in Denerim - it costs a fortune, more than 100 gold, as I recall, but it makes mages gods. But from what you usually find in quests - yes, that gear is pretty weak.

Awakening, however, is exactly the opposite. The gear you can find there, especially weapons...

The Sword and Board combo that turned my Warrior into an unstoppable killing machine. Two drops from one of the bosses and I was set for the entire expansion.

[Faldric]

The Sword and Board combo that turned my Warrior into an unstoppable killing machine. Two drops from one of the bosses and I was set for the entire expansion.

If you mean Kallak and Partha, they are ok, the sword has strange stats. It is more the talent trees that make any warrior unstoppable. It is like the enemies stay on Origins Level and you scale to the heavens. In Awakening Sword/Shield warriors can solo anything, they block almost every hit. The talents gained in Awakening are just unbalanced. Carapace alone can reduce any physical damage to 0 with about 100 constitutation, which is easily achievable.

[May90]

Carapace alone can reduce any physical damage to 0 with about 100 constitutation, which is easily achievable.

Carapace was nearly a cheat. I don't remember Oghren's health drop anywhere below 80% after he learned Carapace, even in the final battle.

In Dragon Age 2, there also was a very strong tanking ability: Immovable. Damage resistance goes up as you get damaged, and, when you have about 15% HP left, you become nearly invincible. I remember in Hybris battle Aveline taking beating from Hybris himself, 2 Rage Demons and about 10 Shades simultaneously (on Nightmare, of course), and her health bar barely moved - one potion in a minute was more than enough to keep her happy. Side effect is that movement speed goes so low that the tank essentially gets stuck in one place, but what does it matter if he/she cannot die no matter what?

[Faldric]

Carapace was nearly a cheat. I don't remember Oghren's health drop anywhere below 80% after he learned Carapace, even in the final battle.

In Dragon Age 2, there also was a very strong tanking ability: Immovable. Damage resistance goes up as you get damaged, and, when you have about 15% HP left, you become nearly invincible. I remember in Hybris battle Aveline taking beating from Hybris himself, 2 Rage Demons and about 10 Shades simultaneously (on Nightmare, of course), and her health bar barely moved - one potion in a minute was more than enough to keep her happy. Side effect is that movement speed goes so low that the tank essentially gets stuck in one place, but what does it matter if he/she cannot die no matter what?

Yeah that ability was unbalanced as well. It is a single player so slight op abilities or combinations are ok and can actually be fun to find them. But currently they are just to easy to find or are not slightly op but just broken. I hate it when I think of a build that might be strong and discover godmode by accident. I play games for the challenge because that requires to actually think about choices, equipment, skills and so on. But if you can achieve god mode by just picking a single talent everyone would get it just destroys the game for me. Sure, I could just not use the talent. But I want to be challenged by the game, not by some artificial barriers I put on myself.

Here is hoping that they actually spend some time balancing this time.

- - - Updated - - -

I put this under a huge RUMOR sign:

Seems like their web designer messed up and the remaining speccs are:
Mage: Knight Enchanter, Necromancer, Rift Mage
Warrior: Champion, Reaver, Templar
Rogue: Artificier, Assassin, Tempest.

They just made my decsion for a mage specialisation a lot harder.

[May90]

I hate it when I think of a build that might be strong and discover godmode by accident.

I immediately remembered KotoR. In my first 3 playthroughs I thought that Speed was just a nice ability allowing you to move faster. On my 4th playthrough I decided to play a DEX-based Jedi Guardian: nice defense and low damage output, or so I thought. When I reached level 15 or so, I couldn't find any forces I would want to spend my points on: I had everything I needed. So I decided to take Speed, just to check it out. So, I use it and suddenly notice that it gives 2 attacks per round instead of 1. By level 3 Speed, it is basically 4 times more damage per round - yes, you don't deal criticals, but I never focused on them anyway. Now, with Power Attack it is 8 additional damage per attack, which basicall negates the damage penalty for STR being lower in DEX-based builds.

So, with DEX-based build, force Speed and Power Attack you basically get:
- Damage per attack almost as high as with STR-based build (the best damaging build possible)
- 4x damage compared to "base"
- Insane defense which lets you avoid most of the attack, even in the final boss battle

This breaks the game completely, you become an unstoppable juggernaut and can solo the entire game by just spamming Power Attach and force Speed. Now, there are ways to make the game more challenging, such as playing a force-based build (Jedi Consular). But, as you said:

Sure, I could just not use the talent. But I want to be challenged by the game, not by some artificial barriers I put on myself.

So, I considered KotoR to be quite easy even before this "discovery", but now I just consider it the easiest Bioware game ever (maybe except for SWTOR, but it doesn't really count). There is only a very little challenge if you do power leveling and don't level above level 2 before reaching Dantooine (although there is little point doing this since the game is too easy even without power leveling) - beating Bendak Starkiller, those final guys on Vulcar base and the Sith-forcemaster is quite a feat. But, beyond that, the entire game is a steamroll. Even Malak: you just need to take 1 point in Force Drain and drain all the bodies before attacking Malak - then you can kill him in a few seconds.

---

Fortunately, at least, in the base game of Dragon Age: Origins such overpowered builds are few. Arcane Warrior is god, but, beside that, pretty much every build requires, at least, some kind of positioning and party control. Awakening was mostly disappointing for me exactly because there were so many omnipotent builds - even my Archer that struggled in Origins before reaching level 18 and still being quite tricky to play by the end, she just rolled through the expansion 1-2-shotting everything.

[Gallahadd]

I put this under a huge RUMOR sign:

Seems like their web designer messed up and the remaining speccs are:
Mage: Knight Enchanter, Necromancer, Rift Mage
Warrior: Champion, Reaver, Templar
Rogue: Artificier, Assassin, Tempest.

They just made my decsion for a mage specialisation a lot harder.

That's a rumour I've heard a lot of times, so it's starting to seem pretty likely.

Champion is the warrior tank spec... Templar is a tanky anti mage spec... Do you think warriors will have two, or even three tank specs?

Really? My decision for what to spec to take for my mage has never been easier . Knight enchanter is basically Arcane Warrior 2.0, so fingers crossed it'll keep the awesome battlemage feel, but not be CRAZY op, leading to awesomesauce. Plus the name is fucking RAD...

Hmm... So warriors have Champion and possibly Templar if they choose to be tanky, Mages have Knight Enchanter, which if it's anything like Arcane Warrior will be super tanky. Anyone else thinking Tempest will be a tanky rogue spec? Maybe based of the old Duelist spec, but reworked to be more... Good .

Can it be Oct 7th already?

[Deleted]

Tempest is highly unlikely to be a tank.
Sustained damage and high speed perhaps, while assassin goes for burst and crits.

Artificer... makes gadgets and tanks because smiths tend to be tanky as fuck in any universe?

[zealo]

Champion is the warrior tank spec... Templar is a tanky anti mage spec... Do you think warriors will have two, or even three tank specs?

Unlikely but its possible. Id be very disappointed in Bioware if the warrior class do not have at least 1 damage focused spec.

[Deleted]

Unlikely but its possible. Id be very disappointed in Bioware if the warrior class do not have at least 1 damage focused spec.

Surely Reaver must be damage focused.
Templar... specialist? Their version of Artificer/Enchanter.
Get a whole bag of goodies but they need certain criteria and cant just be fired off unlike the other specs.

Two demons stand in your way.
Reaver/Champion goes for it, kill ademon and heads on to the next. It goes as expected.
Templar goes for it, uses an ability to seal the demons abilities and take less damage during the fight. He will either have to wait for the long cd to deplete or just go for the next demon when he is without that ability and thus is weakened.

[Gamevizier]

guys there's something that caught my mind while watching the DA:I trailer. will DA:I have the same party capacity or will they reduce it to ME's 3 man party?

in the trailer there's a scene where 3 people are walking on the edge of a cliff or something like that. which got me thinking maybe BW is trying to follow the ME pattern which is lame ofc, if anything they should make it a 5man party.

[zealo]

guys there's something that caught my mind. will DA:I have the same party capacity or will they reduce it to ME's 3 man party?

DA:I will have 4 man squads including the player character in those 4, meaning you can bring 3 companions with you.

[Deleted]

Just preordered the deluxe edition from Amazon and then I realized how long it still is till October and now I am a sad panda . Anyway the idea of an Arcane Warrior revival sounds too good to be true and causes my hype meter to climb to the roof (also seeing the bonuses from the deluxe edition like the Halla caused my hype meter to increase by OVER 9000)

Gonna be a busy autumn this year in terms of console games. Destiny on September 9, DA:I only a month later, also "The Crew" and other stuff. There´s to hope that Halo 5 and especially ME4 get released in 2015 because otherwise I might die because of too many great games. ME is unlikely as fuck in 2014 but Halo 5 had some rumors about a late 2014 release.

[Faldric]

I dont think Templar was ever intended to be a "tank" specc. Templars are Mage Hunters, they just got interpreted as tank specc because:
1) Allistair, the tank everybody used, was one.
2) It fitted pretty well because the normal sword/shield specc had nothing to gain aggro or close the gap to mages.
3) It gave magic resistence which was pretty much the only thing that could kill a tank in higher lvls.

I think Guardian will be the defensive specc, reaver the all out offensive, and templar the balanced specc with an edge against magical creatures.

[May90]

Templars were just wrongfully done in previous games, IMO. Templar is supposed to hard counter Mages, but all they can really do is cancel some debuffs - quite a useless specialization, I would say. I always took Champion+Reaver/Berserker in Origins and Guardian for Awakening.

[Faldric]

Templars were just wrongfully done in previous games, IMO. Templar is supposed to hard counter Mages, but all they can really do is cancel some debuffs - quite a useless specialization, I would say. I always took Champion+Reaver/Berserker in Origins and Guardian for Awakening.

The idea was ok, but they were just horribly balanced:
The Manaburn on Autohit does very little, because once you closed the gap the mage gets chainstunned and killed anyway thanks to his low physical strength. He would not be able to use another spell anyway even if he had full mana. The few mobs where mana burn would be ok like bosses are immune to it.
The best thing in the tree is the massive boost to magic resistence, properly skilled warriors are hardly killable without curses on them.
The AOE purge is too costly and removes positive buffs too. Most of the time it does more harm than good.
The final ability is ok to close the gap, but it just lacks in damage for something that should utterly destroy mages. It only does damage if the enemy does not resist....and they resist often considering its a warrior casting....

Considering you can oneshot every mage with mana burst from a mage anyway, there is little in this specc but the very powerfull passive.
I usually still take it for the passive or reaver for more aggro.

[Gallahadd]

Tempest is highly unlikely to be a tank.
Sustained damage and high speed perhaps, while assassin goes for burst and crits.

Artificer... makes gadgets and tanks because smiths tend to be tanky as fuck in any universe?

Yeah true, but I don't think Artifice will be a tanky spec, I'm guessing it'll be the ranged trap/gadget spec, lots of traps, turrets stuff like that. Not 100% focused on range, but certainly more suited for it.

I dont think Templar was ever intended to be a "tank" specc. Templars are Mage Hunters, they just got interpreted as tank specc because:
1) Allistair, the tank everybody used, was one.
2) It fitted pretty well because the normal sword/shield specc had nothing to gain aggro or close the gap to mages.
3) It gave magic resistence which was pretty much the only thing that could kill a tank in higher lvls.

Kinda, but Templar always felt like the "default" tank spec in Origins for me, because Reaver and Beserker were damage dealers, then Champion was Support/buffs. This left Templar as the only real tank spec in my opinion. This changed in Awakening with Guardian, but then reverted in DA2(although Reaver was an awesome offspec for tanks, Devour FTW), so I'm wondering how they'll handle the spec in Inquisition...

[Faldric]

As for Awakening:
Champion, Spirit Warrior and Guardian.

Spirit Warrior and Guardian are both incredible tank speccs. I actually like Spirit Warrior more than guardian as a tank.
The Guardian skills scale with constitution, adding one more thing you should put points in.
But warriors already need dex and str.

Aggro is not really a problem, so guardians spells always felt good on paper but I hardly used them.
Spirit Warrior on the other hand will make the tank stand forever while also turning him into an insane damage dealer.
I would take constant spirit dmg and 50% permanent dodge over some group shields anytime.

[Deleted]

Maybe artificier will fight by using overly annoying dialogue and bribing.

We could use some more politics in dragon age.

[Deleted]

Maybe artificier will fight by using overly annoying dialogue and bribing.

We could use some more politics in dragon age.

Sure like in Skyrim where you could bribe the guards. Imagine your Inquisitor bribing demons or dragons to stop attacking. That would be amazing.

"Oh could you guys please stop attacking my party? That would be awesome"
"Sure we will. If you are looking for us we are in the nearest pub"

[Kaelwryn]

So I want to do another play thru of Origins -> Da2 for the shiggles, and I forgot everything. How do I build 2h warrior again? D: