Marceror’s Third(ish) Runthrough

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Background Info (optional and probably superfluous information)
I have posted recently that I didn’t think I could get through a second run-through of the game, because it was all feeling too similar to my first run-through. My second run-through died pretty early, but I’ve started a 3rd and it is going strong. I’ve come to realize that my REAL issue during my second run-through was that I was constantly disappointed with the NPC rogue options. Rogue characters have always been important to me, and they play a critical role in the DA experience for me. Leliana and Zevran simply aren’t optimized to my tastes, and more, I can put a rogue to best use when I’m controlling it. Because I don’t want to spend an entire game controlling Leliana or Zevran, I guess that I just need to play as the rogue to really enjoy myself.

Now that I realize this, and am playing as a Dwarf commoner rogue (I was a human noble rogue during my first run-through) the game has been sheer bliss for me.

Here’s where my post “really” starts
My current party consists of:
• The Warden – Dwarf commoner rogue, with Assassin and Duelist specializations. This is a two weapon fighting build (2 daggers) with nearly all attribute points going into cunning. With lethality and the second assassin ability, which gives a damage bonus based on cunning, this character’s ability to deal damage is truly extraordinary. His favorite place to be is behind his foe!
• Alistair – Tank and meatshield extraordinaire. I have Alistair in the best armor and shield possible, and maxing out those shield bashing abilities to keep foes on their backs. His damage output doesn’t begin to compare to the rogue’s, but together they make the ultimate melee team.
• Morrigan – A disabler and damage dealer first, optimized for cold damage. She routinely keeps the meleers’ weapons frosted. She has access to all of the crushing prison line of spells. She also serves as a backup healer.
• Wynne – My primary healer (and an amazing one at that). For dealing damage she favors Arcane Bolt, earth spells, and has the ability to go wild with fire spells when the situation calls for it. She routinely keeps the meleers’ weapons flaming. I’m 99% certain I will give her the arcane warrior specialization when she hits level 14. I really want to play with an arcane warrior, so once she has this spec I will put her in nice armor, give her a good sword and shield, and have all of her mana be devoted to healing and a handful of select sustainable spells. I keep hearing how awesome arcane warriors are, so I plan to test this out! If I don’t like the outcome, I can choose to continue using Wynne in her more traditional role.

I am pretty blown away with the performance of this team. It’s not just their damage output that’s impressive, which it is, but with how I have their tactics set up, they can fight for a good, long time without running out of mana/stamina. Everyone is so good at what they do! With 2 healers, I rarely need to use healing potions. I also enjoy the inter party banter I get with this mix of party members.

This party is hands down, way more effective than my original DAO party, which consisted of a comparatively unfocused rogue, Alistair, Sten, and Wynne. I’m rethinking my notion about not picking up Return to Ostagar (which I recently voted that I would not do), and may end up getting it tonight.

I welcome any comments about my party. Do you think specing Wynne to AW is a good idea?

 

You could use a mod to change Leliana's build. It would also allow you to change other NPCs for more replay value. Other than that I don't think you can go wrong with this party.

Dwarf Commoner is a cool origin, I enjoyed it a lot.

 

Looks pretty solid so far.

If you want to make the best out of Morrigan you can increase her strength to be around as high as her magic. Shapeshifters are very powerful when built well, you basically get a character who is a combination of Dog on steroids and a decent mage. If you're content on keeping her as a full time mage though then you might want to give her Blood Mage/Spirit Healer so she at least benefits from some other specialization's talents.

The reason why Arcane Warriors are so famous is because they're very good at soloing. Most of it is just hype, really. Unless you solo. After all how many mages do you know routinely tanks a mob of monsters? If you plan on giving Wynne armors give her Wade's Superior Drakeskin Set, because any other armor would greatly increase her fatigue. This could be devastating to the whole party, who rely on her for healing. The Arcane Warrior is basically a specialization that allows your mage to become an effective defensive-warrior, the polar opposite to the Shapeshifter who turns your mage into an offensive-warrior. You cannot be both warrior and mage, though (turning on the first skill gives you +50 fatigue. Yep, ouchie).
Nevertheless it's still a nice specialization to take as a "bag of tricks", because its third spell (Shimmering Shield) might come in useful if your Wynne ever gets herself in a difficult situation. Shimmering Shield is sustained spell that's just about as costly as Cleansing Aura, but is very powerful (defensively).

 

That's a good point about mods. I chose not to install any mods for my current game, but in a future runthrough a mod to tweak Leliana might be exactly what I'm looking for.

I've now played the human noble, elven mage, and dwarven commoner. Dwarven commoner has by far been the most interesting and enjoyable origin for me.

Spoiler

You are starting out at the bottom of the barrel, with nothing to lose. Joining the Grey Wardens isn't merely a noble pursuit like it is for the others. For the DC, it's basically join the Wardens or life is over for you. This has added an interesting dynamic from an RP perspective, which I have enjoyed a lot. I also like the quandary that I found myself in when returning to Orazammar. I have been generally inclined to side with Harramont, but with my family under Bhelen's care, I don't want to jeopardize that! And what's more, as a member of the casteless, what Bhelen is promising sounds pretty darn good, even if he is a bit of an overly ambitious bastard).

Bhelen isn't king yet. I'm currently searching for Branka in the Deep Roads, so I have yet to learn whether putting him in the throne is the right decision. But it's the path I've decided upon.

 

Some good observations Scythe. I'm not a real big fan of the shapechanger, to be honest. It's not that the abilities aren't good, but I'd rather focus a character in one area. Instead of investing in strength, I'd rather max out magic and willpower to make an uber mage whose spells really hit hard. If I wanted another strong melee person, I'd take one of the NPC warriors.

With regards to the arcane warrior, I've had a chance to test run Wynne in this role a bit. She is currently level 15, and has the first 3 abilities (I purchased a tome to train 1 extra). She does a serviceable in the tank role. I have her using rock armor, arcane shield, combat magic and shimmering shield, while wearing King Cailan’s full set of armor/shield (the -25% fatigue set bonus makes this reasonable). With all of this her armor rating is much higher than even Alistair’s, and her defense rating is reasonably high. Her resistances from shimmering shield are amazing and give her good staying power. She doesn’t always connect with her sword (topsider’s honor), but when she does she dishes out respectable damage.

What I’m noticing though is that when I have her in this mode I have to work twice as hard to keep the party alive during tougher fights, and am back to using lots of healing poultices. With what little mana Wynne has left for healing, regen, etc, she isn’t really quick enough in this configuration due to having to put away her sword and shield before casting. So I have to rely on Morrigan more as a healer, which isn’t what she’s particularly good at.

So as good as Wynne looks donning the full plate of a king, I will likely use her in her traditional caster role more often than not.

 

The Shapeshifter is supposed to be a warrior-mage, which is the only reason why I suggested the build (its consistent with Morrigan's Sacred Ashes trailer persona too). Actually the best build would be to go 2 dex, 2 str, 2 magic every two levels but Morrigan's stats are already unevenly distributed. Its perfectly understandable that you'd want to keep her as a pure mage, though.

Yep, that's the AW. Now just visualize the AW in solo, and the fact that all he has to do is swing his weapon and things die and you'll understand what all the hype is about. Party gameplay is very different though. New players (particularly MMORPG players) tend to equate being good in solo >> all, but being an infinity engine and good ol' BG2 player I've long since outgrown such thinking. They will too, in time. .

 

They're just a bunch of whipper-snappers!

I would have been better served just keeping Wynne focused on her mage abilities, but since I really wanted to experiment with the AW (and I know I'll have little problem finishing the game even with her being less focused) I don't regret investing in this. In fact, I still plan to take the fourth and final spec so I'll be able to see what a fully developed AW plays like.

 

I had a hard time finishing the game as a warrior becuase the rogues the game provides are not that great. Leliana keep on dying and the other rogue who I usually kill is horrible at unlocking chest. In addition, there are so many warrior NPCs there is no real need to have another warrior.

When I played as a Mage I had Leliana as the rogue but level her up as a dual weilding rogue with a few abilities with a bow. I also took the ranger specialization and that helped improve her surviving as the summon would take some of the damage away from her.

Overall though I do have to say the rogue is the best class for a PC. It offers a variety of ways to play the game and I do enjoy how much variety the rogue class offers.

 

If you give Leliana Lethality, Evasion and Feign Death and have her use Song of Courage she can pretty much take care of herself while being able to do a lot of damage. She's built to be an archer though (dex + cunning), so she'll go down quickly if have her fight upfront, especially in early-mid game as her skills are not as fighting-oriented as Zevran's. As Marceror said rogues also need micromanagement if you want them to excel in melee.

 

I might try respecing Leliana to my tastes in a future runthrough, so I can play a different class for my own character and still be happy with my rogue.

Going back to the arcane warrior for a moment, I'm finding that this class is definitely situational. I had Wynne in full Arcane Warrior configuration for the onslaught on Redcliff, when we were getting completely swarmed by undead. She did extremely well and took minimal damage while dishing out some good damage. If I'm going up against other mages, bosses, and some of the other more difficult fights, I'm going to want her in a traditional mage role where she can dish out a continous barrage of spells.

I'm looking forward to seeing how effective she is as an AW once she has a few more levels, and a larger mana pool. She will only get better with experience.

 

I did the Brecilian forest last on my run, and therefore unlocked Arcane Warrior very late in the game. I immediately gave it to my PC, who of course had a large mana pool due to high Willpower. Frankly I barely noticed the drain on mana. There were only a few spells that I was constantly spamming and I had to wait for their cooldown anyway, so losing a bit of mana didn't really change my strategy. It did mean I could send my mage into the fray and make far better use of the cone spells. I'm guessing the class becomes less situational as you increase your mana pool.

 

Yes, but it also depends heavily on your spell choice. Most AW builds feature lots of buffs and sustained spells, to maximize its tanking potential. This makes it a lot better at soloing and auto-attacking/killing things.

An AW who wants to capitalize on both both casting and fighting (for party play) would want to take spells mostly from the Spirit line (Theurgist). This gives you a lot of very powerful spells suitable for a melee mage, and none of them are really spammable (except Dispel Magic) so you don't have to worry overmuch about fatigue. You also get Spell Shield, which makes use of your mana so you don't lose it all to fatigue, and setups like Virulent Walking Bomb + Anti-Magic Ward (hassle-free room-clearer), Mana Clash and Animate Dead (automatic mage replacement in case you need to fight).

 

I'm pretty sure that my next runthrough will be as a very carefully planned out Arcane Warrior (Dalish, if that's an option). Wynne will remain as a dedicated healer, because currently it just hurts too much when she's tied up with her AW duties, and a nasty foe is putting the hurt on. Leliana will be respec'd to become my ultimate 2 dagger rogue build. And I'll probably stick with Alistair, since I can't imagine not having the other Grey Warden at my side. I actually really like Alistair as a character and a companion.

In my current game I have finally managed to get Leliana to become my lady. While I don't particularly care for the "intimate moments" shown in the game, from an RP perspective (heck, even a non RP perspective) she is quite the prize. In my first runthrough I hooked up with Morrigan, but never managed to make it work with Leliana (I never finished her quest, as I never had her in my party). I've now got the Dwarves, Dalish and Mages ready to back me against the Blight. Connor has been saved, and after spending some time in Denerim I'll head off to search for the Urn of Sacred Ashes.

Making good progress....

 

You can't pick Dalish, sadly. Chasind or Dalish would've nicely supported an apostate mage origin (and would've given us an excuse not to start with Herbalism).

High dragon incoming, heh.

 

That's a bummer that Dalish can't be chosen. For some reason I thought there was a second origin for a mage, other than the circle tower one. Oh well. I can go human mage instead.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the perfect party for this game, for my taste, would have to be:

--Warden (arcane warrior with plenty of good AoE spells, and some healing backup). Would use more as a traditional mage in certain circumstances, so good nuking abilities would be available also. Fire spells would be in the mix. Would strongly consider bloodmage as a secondary spec, since I haven't tried this yet.
--Alistair, his longsword, shield and heavy armor thing
--Leliana -- respec'd to be an uber cunning rogue, exclusive dagger wielder. I'd make her an assassin, and might go ahead and go with Duelist instead of bard.
--Wynne -- healer extraordinaire, with some decent damage spells when not healing. I would likely make her good with cold spells.

Yeah... that's what my next party will be. Must... resist... urge... to restart...!

 

I have to agree with this. I have to resist any urge to restart....I got bored with my Noble Rogue female PC. I have to resist the urge...

NO!!!!

I just restarted earlier this morning and I'm now playing a Dwarf Noble Warrior Sword/Shield style character. Someone please stop my urge again as I may have to play as a Noble Rogue male PC...Or.... a female human noble or a male human warrior noble or a male human mage or a ...

After I finish my current play throughs my next run will be with a dwarf commoner rogue.

 

Both Dwarf origins are really good.

 

Thank the Gods I have two PS3 and two large LCDs. Over the weekend I booted out of my own living room my by my daughter and my niece who wanted to watch programming that was only available in HD and since I only have one HD box I was booted to my bedroom. The only problem with being moved to my bedroom is that I had not yet installed DAO on my PS3 in my bedroom; that PS3 is used mostly for watching movies and loading up family photos. After about an hour of downloading all DLC I was up and playing and restarted once again, not by choice. I started a dwarf noble 2 hand warrior.

 

That's why it's good to be single and selfish.

 

Tell me about it...My colleague long ago warned me about marriage, but I did not heed his advice. LOL.

Now I am married, have 1 child and 6 newphews and 4 neices. My daughter is the only child on my side of the family, so I married into a family that knows how to reproduce. LOL.

I have to say though I am enjoying my Noble 2handed warrior more than the last time I played a 2handed warrior. I guess it is from my prior experience and knowing how to allocate points, skills, and talents at the right time. The other nice feature about this is that I have to acquire all the specializations, so it is like my first time through the game. Only I know how the game ends or how I can make it end.