Bryant Hawke Lives

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Oh yea, Cold-Blooded is awesome. Went broke on buying it, despite me not using any cold (or blood magic) damage. There's a lot of mage stuff that's intended for elemental build, or really, just fire build. I've only seen a handful of items that increase other types than fire&ice of damage. Also, it's annoying how only elemental tree can Brittle opponents for major warrior smashfest. The one bad thing about cold damage is, skeletons (maybe most undead, dunno) have noticable resistance to it. I think i caught a loading screen advice that spirit is the one damage type that halves enemy resistance to it? something along those lines. Shame there's really only 2 spells that use it, one being mediocre, other highly situational and a major hassle. Maybe i'm just bad at this game, but often Walking Bomb hardly seems worth the effort of preping it, so many things can go wrong. At least for most of the battles where you can just stand back and whack em casually till they drop.

Arcane Wall is silly. As you figured out, if you take it, Arcane shield elemental resistances go down to 15% for the caster, the rest of the party get 5%. I'm not sure about defense, but i think it's the same. And it requires reactivating it to start affecting whole party. I thought, screw you guys, i'm keeping full effect for myself so i don't have to spend attribute points on health and keep stacking magic (@85 atm, wohoho) for bigger numbers on the screen

Spoiler

I went to slay the big bad drake yesterday as well. I was level 21 i believe, i just concocted that potion that "ages" you, giving you an extra level. Honestly, this was the first fight i really prepared myself, stocking on everything i could think of. Bought healthpots for the first time for a decent quantity, poison for Isabela, -15% enemy damage weapon coating for Aveline, 3 Might (or whatever they're called, +10%dmg) potions, fire resist gems in sockets until 3 of us had 95%+ fire resi - i left defense gems in Aveline's gear. And i took Heal and Improved heal spell on Hawke... still had to gulp 4 potions to live
I controlled Isabela majority of the fight and she pretty much carried it. The damage

It's absurd the damage rogues (and warriors to multiple targets) do. Maybe it's because i haven't gone Elemental/Primal, but magic seems to me to be more of a support role.
For next run i'm probably taking a rogue, Fenris, Merril with full hp stacking, since you don't need Willpower to wear armor and Anders, to try what it's like to run with a healer.

@omnigodly
Do you control your warrior most of the time and run out of enemy attacks, or do you just stand and take it like a man?

 

The most damage I have seen was completed by my rogue using a combo of special abilities. First Mark of Death on the target, second any ability to disable a target, Hide in Shadow, and finally Assassinate. This typically reduces any enemy life points in half or provides an instant kill. I try to makes sure all of the gear my rogue uses increase critical damage just for that and backstab. I found a way to increase the frequency of using backstab for my rogue.

Since my rogue is a front line fighter I have earned the friendship special ability with Alveine, which helps reduce the damage my PC receives from enemies. Good stuff since my rogue is in the thick of it for all battles.

 

I control my warrior a lot. He's a reaver tank so I generally don't let him take any extra damage than the aoe ability ticking away for 5%/second.

With the reaver abilities and cleave, he also ends up doing quite a bit more damage than isabela (500-700 damage crits sometimes).

 

I miss the counters we had in DA:O for total damage, total kills, most powerful killed etc. It's sort of hard to judge based on the list DPS alone (the DPS listing is a nice addition, don't get me wrong), but there's so much else that determines how much damage a character is actually dishing out. Spells, abilities, critical hits, hit ratio....

It would be nice to have these stats back.

 

*** Isabela/Sebastion Friendship Bug Update ***

Alrighty friends. The infamous Isabela and Sebastion friendship bugs both bit me. I had figured I was -5% attack speed from Isabela, as I had seen her bonus on Hawke one time when she wasn't in my party (the tell-tale sign). And then, even though I hadn't even touched Sebastion in any way for a while, I noticed his bonus on my character when he wasn't in my party. Sure enough, I checked my damage resistance and I was at -10%!!!!!

Okay, it looks like there's hope though, and I wanted to share this with everyone.

To fix damage already done: I downloaded this character editor and reset my character animation speed and damage resistance back to 0.0: http://social.bioware.com/project/1936/?v=discussions#files. It worked like a charm!

To prevent future damage from this bug: I downloaded this workaround to prevent the bug from recurring going forward: http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2299. It doesn't actually fix the bug, but it changes the modifier to Hawke to 0. So technically you might still have your DR and/or Attack speed reduced, but since it will now be by a factor of 0, it won't actually have any effect on you. There are 2 flavors of this workaround. One will apply the rival bonus to Isabela and Sebastion. The other will make their friendship bonus twice as powerful (effectively transferring the portion of the bonus that was meant for Hawke back to the companion). Choose whatever you prefer and drop it in your override folder!

I hope this helps some folks! I strongly recommend making a backup save game before messing with the character editor, just incase!

I had just completed obtaining my mage Champion armor, and when I went to check the full set bonus, I discovered that I also had this bug present. 45 minutes later I've discovered appropriate workarounds, applied them, and should be able to continue my game without issue. Phew!

---------- Added 1 hours, 20 minutes and 17 seconds later... ----------

I've had a chance to play a bit of the game with these fixes in place. They seem to be working perfectly!

On the other hand, as far as I can tell, I'm not receiving the +5 defense bonus for having the entire Champion armor set. I am receiving the +3 to Magic, however.

 

I'm a good ways into Act III. I've seen a number of old friends from Origins/Awakening. I'll say who in the spoiler, so don't look if you want to be surprised:

Spoiler

In addition to those who have been mentioned earlier in the thread, I've seen King Alistair and Teagan, Leliana, and Nathaniel Howe. There have also been numerous Qunari called Sten, but as it turns out, that's a particular title rather than a name (Qunari don't actually have names), so there's no telling if one of those Sten's was the Sten from Origins.

EDIT: Just bumped into Zevran too!

Despite a few bugs and other imperfections, I really love this game!! I'm actually considering starting over again with a second mage run, doing a much more focused build (probably a primal mage rather than an elemental mage, and perhaps I'll go blood mage for the first time). This Hawke will probably take on the humorous persona, instead of the sensitive persona that I'm using most of the time. Then after that I may go for a rogue Hawke... or take a break for Shogun 2 Total War, before coming back with rogue Hawke.

On another note, there has been some discussion that there aren't many good rogue weapons in the game. I have found some AMAZING daggers and bows in act III.

Look at the stats on this dagger:

Spoiler

The Low Blade
Damage: 44 Nature Damage (81 per second)
Perks: 2 rune slots
Stats:
* +10 critical damage
* +3 attack speed
* 25% chance to reduce attack speed
* 25% chance to reduce movement speed
Requires Dual Weapon; Requires 42 dexterity

 

The Low Blade is the BEST dagger in DAII, seriously. The second best dagger is the Red Jenny dagger that you can purchase in Lowtown. I like using the Right Hand of Carta and the Left Hand of Carta because they go together and provide nice bonuses, but they do not have rune slot or they would be the best from my point of view.

I’m near the end of DAII now. I completed Merrill’s and Varric’s final companion quest. Just one or two more quests and I will be done with the game.

DAII is definitely not DAO by any means; however, it is a really good game. If you are expecting DAII to be exactly like DAO than you will be greatly disappointed and upset. Instead, just play DAII and let the game bring you in to its story. DAII has a very good story but you have to get past the first 6 or so hours to see it develop. As for the interface, yes I prefer how DAO was designed, but DAII was aimed as console gamers since they are more profitable for a software studio than PC gamers. It is unfortunate that Bioware went that way, but it is what it is. It is a great a game, but it won't beat the overall value that DAO offers.

 

I see DA2 as being very similar to DA:O AND very different, at the same time. My main beef, aside from a few bugs, is the reused levels. But I've decided not to let that really bother me, so it's not a huge issue. Otherwise I'm enjoying my runthrough quite a bit.

I do agree though, that in those areas where the game is different, it's best to take this game in as its own thing. Games are always initially much maligned for breaking a formula, but often times, months and years later those changes are praised. The point is, it helps to go in with an open mind.

 

Here are the things I miss from DAO that was removed from DAII, these are not placed in any order of importance.

1) You don’t have your pick of race – I like being able to select my own race
2) Hawke does not receive the racial bonus towards his or her ability like in DAO
3) Weapon Restrictions - Warriors are limited to two weapon styles and not four – Why can’t a warrior use a Bow or two weapons– how lame is that…Rogues can’t use a sword and shield and mages can only use staves.
4) Skills are removed – Pick pocketing in DAO provided some nice FREE loot and having Persuasion/Intimidate provided more dialogue options
5) Talents/Spells – Some skills and talents now require upgrades to reach the level of effectives that they had in DAO.
6) Mana/Stamina Usage – I find myself running out of Stamina or Mana very quickly compared to DAO and using potions to restore it more often than in DAO
7) Specialization – Instead of being able to pick from four we only have three
8) Talent/Spell Tree – The new setup of the talent tree is easier to find and locate specific spells – however, instead of all Talents/Spells in one nice easy to get to column I have to scroll through a variety of groupings before I able to review and select the talent required for a level up


What I like about DAII
1) Story – it is different, but in a good way. Instead of trying to save the world you are playing a character that is doing his or her best to survive after the last blight and make a name for him or her self. Definitely a good change of pace compared to the last DAO story.
2) Combat has been greatly improved – console users can now direct there companions to a specific spot for attack, to drink a potion, what ability to use or who to attack in one set of command instead of running through each companion.
3) Now I can level up the character ability without leveling up the talent/spell
4) Dog does not count as a companion – One extra NPC to assist in a fight


If Bioware is smart, Bioware would find a way to combine the good of both games and make DAIII with those changes and continue on with the idea/story Bioware

 

Understood, options are generally preferred. At the same time, if we had been given the amount of options we had in Origins we wouldn’t have had a fully voiced Hawke and such a focused story. As is the case with most decisions, they come with good and bad. I tend to play humans, so didn’t mind this decision overmuch. At least I still get to travel with Dwarves and Elves in my party.

Meh. They aren’t racial options, so the idea of a racial bonus seems somewhat redundant.

I hear you. I’m of mixed opinion on this. One the one hand it better differentiates classes, and makes a better rock-paper-scissor scenario. On the other hand, why in the hell shouldn’t a warrior be able to dual wield, or use a bow? It’s a very “gamey” decision Bioware made on this one.

I miss this to some extent also. On the other hand, I do appreciate in some ways the ways in which crafting has been streamlined. I found it to be too much of a time sink in Origins, personally. It's a lot less time consuming this time around.

Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. Spells now also don’t harm party members, so the greater investment to unlock their full power seems reasonable. I also find this an interesting way to increase the viability of early spells/talents over the course of the game.

With my mage I’m having the opposite experience. I’ve been pumping willpower up to 32 in order to use the best mage equipment. Even with elemental weapons and arcane shield sustained at all times, it is VERY rare that I go low on mana. Only the longest battles result in me using a mana potion (I’ve used like 2 or 3 so far in my entire game).

Stamina does seem to run out faster for warriors and rogues, especially if they don’t put some points into willpower. That said, there are GREAT abilities for warriors that restore stamina, and since gaining those for Aveline and Fenris, stamina hasn’t been an issue at all.

Rogues have some options also. I’ve gotten Varric to a place where he maintains his stamina pretty well. If you’re having a problem some pumping of willpower and adjusting of tactics may be helpful. It doesn’t always pay to have every ability available… focus on your core few and upgrade them to maximum effect. Getting passive abilities is also a good idea.

We only had 3 when Origins was released, and didn’t obtain the 4th until the Awakenings expansion. So there’s still hope to see another added with an expansion.

There are things I like about the new approach and things I don’t. I do agree that in some ways it feels clunkier when trying to plan out your character, because you can’t see everything at once. It’s click into this tree. Go back to the overview page, and click into that tree. Rinse and repeat. It looks cool and everything, but with so many skills/spells to choose from, it becomes a little impractical.

One thing that became rather draining in Origins for me was the overwhelming lack of hope. Everything was so dire, and you had just a fool’s hope that you could overcome the Blight. If you didn’t, the Darkspawn would effectively take over the world. That situation becomes a serious bummer over a 60+ hour game.

In DA2, the story a lot lighter in comparison. For a change, the universe isn’t hanging in the balance. This is easier to digest. I also appreciate some of the storytelling changes that Bioware used. They took some chances and overall, the result was something really cool.

For Dragon Age 3, I hope for something in between Origins and DA2. I can appreciate that Bioware wanted to make warriors and rogues a bit flashier than what they were in Origins – which is to say, very realistic fighters and not very flashy at all. At the same time, I think they went a little too far in the other direction. Warriors that move into combat at super human speed and cause enemies to explode when they attack is just over the top. I guess since Varric is telling the tale, maybe this represents some of his embellishment. Okay, fine. But for the next title, how about a little more restraint from Bioware….

You could do this in Origins as well.

Overall I prefer this approach as well. I would never want to use a companion slot for a dog that provides no banter. This way seems to make a lot more sense, and allows my Mabari to serve as the faithful companion he is meant to be.

Agreed. They have pissed a lot of loyal Origins fans off by pushing the envelope so far in certain regards. I hope they will find a happy medium between Origins and DA2 for the next title, and in so doing create a game that doesn’t alienate so many Origins fans.

 

A few I have to comment on about your post Marceror in response to my post.

Actually in Origins you did have 4 specializations to pick from.

Rogue – Ranger, Bard, Assassin, and Duelist
Warrior – Reaver, Champion, Templar and Berserker
Mage – Arcane Warrior, Blood Mage, Spirit Healer, and Shape Shifter

At level 7 and level 14 you get to select a specialization for a total of 2 for the PC and most NPC also were able to have 2 specializations. It would be nice if you could select one specialization for the NPC in DAII or the NPC 2nd specialization opened up by doing a specific quest.

Excellent point that crafting is a lot better in DAII – it is simplified and makes it easier to make runes, potions, grenades, etc…It saves time and makes crafting more enjoyable.

As for the manna usage – I have Merrill’s willpower set to 42, and she runs out all of the time. She also is equipped with 3 items that increase manna regeneration rate. My rogue doesn’t because his normal attacks are so fast and replenishes the stamina very quickly.

On consoles in DAO when you leveled up the character you had to select a talent or spell along with adding points to the ability, and if you did not do both you could not level up the character.

I wish you could change the armor for all companions, but the actual image we see would not change.

 

Just finished the game! Mixed emotions on the ending. I like where they chose to bring things... probably one of the most important issues facing Thedas.

Spoiler

Meredith's final moments were a bit much for me. It just felt a bit over the top for my taste. The ending made for some interesting battles though, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story progresses from here!

I'll have to find some time to write my formal review, hopefully this week.

@MB, you're absolutely right about the number of specs. As many times as I've played Origins, I can't believe I got that wrong. They say the mind is the first thing to go....

In my game Merril's default tactics have her using a couple of pretty heavy sustained spells, so she doesn't have great mana retention. I don't use her much, but if I did, I'm sure that with some adjustments to her tactics she could do a lot better managing her mana.

Well, Bryant Hawke saved the day. I'm so ready for another go...!

 

Spoiler

She must have taken lessons from Goku and the Ninja Assassin. I know EA had more to do with that fight than Bioware, I can feel it in my bones.

 

Meredith reminds me of Aribeth form NWN1, seriously. Templar vs. Paladin and both wielding a 2handed sword. Both of these characters seem over the top zealots for the order they serve.

I also finished DAII last night. I enjoyed the game overall and may replay it at least one or two more times depending upon the DLCs or expansions that maybe released. The story of the game was good, though not epic. The ending didn’t surprise me one bit. Meredith the Templar reminds me of the Paladin in NWN OC. I swear that Bioware lost it creativity with this game because at times I felt like I was playing BG, NWN1 and DAO all combined into one game.

The cameo appearances of NPCs from DAO were all placed in the same chapter, would of liked to see some of them maybe earlier in the game, but there appearance had no real impact in DAII game or story. The cameo appearance of the appointed king or queen in DAO stated something. I question what was stated, because my Warden in DAO left with Morrigan in the mirror, but the Fereldan king or queen cameo appearance stated they have a meeting with the hero of Fereldan. However, the final video in the game states that the Champion of Kirkwall and the Hero of Fereldan are both missing/gone. If that is the case, than the Hero of Fereldan will not be meeting up with the King or Queen of Fereldan.

As for what I expect to see for DLCs and expansion on DAII; the DLCs and expansion would cover the years that the game skips over. There maybe one DLC for Merrill that will end her quest and maybe finish similar to a DLC in DAO, which would match the ending that was mentioned in DAII for my game.

I will definitely have to play DAO again as a human mage, since the human mage is related to Hawke. And from there make choices different than my last playthrough and than play DAII as a mage and do the same to see if the story ends up being different. For instance instead of sparing the life of Zeveran, I should kill him to see if he ends up being in DAII, etc…

 

I just started DAO as human mage (druid type), after finishing DAII with mage Hawke. Gone the other way around

I've only used Merril when mandatory for her companion quests and i haven't geared or paid attention to what she was doing, so i don't know how she did with mana. With Hawke however, i only ever put enough points in Willpower to wear gear, so 31 by chapter III. I've never had problems with mana, 0 mana pots used whole game. Major factors include spirit magic with it's % mana drain of corpses, it's final talent with 10 mana regen, Cold-Blooded staff early in chapter II for another 10 (or was it 5) mana regen. I guess i simply didn't have enough spammable spells in chapter 1 to be able to go oom.

I did feel i had to take Willpower for my warriors&rogues. Also, i went into stamina-regeneration ability tree with both Aveline and TheBroodyElf. With those abilities and ~20 willpower they were more or less fine. Isabela and Varric weren't. Constantly out of stamina with approximately same amount of Willpower. I never checked, but Isabela ought to have a huge edge over Varric with her onion-chop attack speed, compared to twang-a-minute of Varric. Unless autoattack stamina gain is calculated per minute and not per single autoattack..?


Oh, and i went to have a bit of fun with Black Emporium respecialization potions. Sorely dissapointed with the buffer/support/healer mage role. Spirit Healer specialization is all but useless with it's 8meter health regeneration aura... unless you're a glutton for punishment and enjoy getting cleaved on the front lines by every single dirty lowtown mugger. There's just the one Heal spell, you put 2 points there and you've done as much as you ever can... not to mention it's a straight %, completely unaffected by Magic attribute. All buff type abilities are a persistent, -% mana sustainable buffs. What fun is that, you only ever activate them once and they're up constantly, making you an autoattacking two-digit mana mage mule with a Heal spell every 40seconds. Woah, the excitement

 

I thought Varric shot pretty fast with bianca talents/sustainables.

Spirit healer was really fun too, my mage became a tank almost instantly when I respecced from blood (+10con, +100health regen all the time). Made a lot of fights crazy easy too .

 

Bryant Hawke was a good warm up, but I missed a whole lot of content and didn't have an optimized build. So now it's time to do a mage runthrough "right."

I'm now well into act I with Marcere Hawke, who is a primal mage first and foremost, rather than an elemental mage. Wow, primal magic is impressive! I'm strongly considering going blood mage later on, but I need to play around with this specialization a bit more before I commit, to make sure I really understand how it works.

I've now upped the difficulty from normal to hard. I also went with a custom appearance with this Hawke and am playing the snarky version. Snarky is infinitely more entertaining than playing Mr. Sensitive.

This time around I'm planning to run with Marcere, Aveline (again), Isabela (I hear the banters between Aveline and Isabela are priceless, so I want to experience these). I will probably eventually add Sebastion as my final team member, but at the moment I've still got Varric.

My game review has been started also, and I should be posting it soon.

 

I found with spirithealer you do NOT keep that ability active. You choose your dmg type for me it was elemental.

You blast yer enemies and if ppl need a heal pop into spirit healer heal em then pop out and blast some more


I took willpower on everyone for more energy or mana then 1 in main stat one in stam, sometimes pass on stam for 2 in main stat.

I utterly hate locked chests, varric had no energy to speak of because you need 40 into cunning to open the highest chests. That is absurd and made him my weakest member.

I know I know I could forgo chests but I shouldnt have to just because of that stupid requirement Not enough lvls to up cunning and dex and willpower. Usually had to do all 3 in cunning


Anyway thats how I played the spirit healer.

Sorry for the rant on the chests

Have fun gents

 

I have Death Syphon on for Merrill and it works well enough for pretty much everything except for solo boss fights.

 

I had Merril using Death Syphon also and it made a big difference. I think that with some careful planning on talents/spells, a modest investment in willpower and some tweaking of tactics you can pretty much get all of your companions to a place where they can maintain their stamina/mana pretty well. Also, don't overlook the usefulness of +mana/stamina items and mana/stamina regen items.

Obviously if you load up too much on the sustainables, you're going to have a problem. If your tactics are set up so that your companions are activating their abilities/spells constantly, you're probably going to have a problem. Simple things like changing a tactic's trigger from something like "Enemy - Any" to "Enemy - Health - >= 50%" can make a big difference. You don't want your guys wasting their abilities on enemies that are nearly dead. The more powerful abilities should generally be reserved for elite and boss level foes. The order of your abilities can potentially make a difference also. Order is akin to a priority level, so your 1st tactic has priority over your second, and so on.