Heretic.  Templars4lyfe.

By the end of the game I actually had all my mages set up in a generally similar fashion, because I really only rolled with 1 mage at a time.  Maybe playing on normal didn't force me to switch much, or run a 2 mage party, but I never had much of a problem or found myself needing to switch for fighting dragons or whatnot.  I never maxed out any single tree for any of my mages.  I just had several key abilities in each category.  Generally, by the end of my first playthrough (~lvl 24), I had my mages specced for better barriers and revival in the spirit tree, immolate and fire mine in the fire tree, the ice versions of those two in the ice tree, and a couple of lightning perks.  Just 2 I think - enough to unlock the passive that causes lighting to randomly strike enemies in combat every 20 seconds or whatever.  The leftover points just got thrown in whatever random perk looked useful from any tree.  I don't remember many of them.  


Dual daggers is the shit for a player controlled character, but I'm not sure if the AI is smart enough to control them properly without you because it's true that they aren't as tanky.  Playing as a rogue I was getting absolutely massive damage levels, well over 10k with some regularity.  But they can't take punishment, so you have to get in, attack, and then get out.  Using items or perks that offer extra flanking damage helps.  I also was wearing a belt that gave me a pretty large health boost for most of the game so I was more survivable.  I think I crafted my armor with extra health too as a rule.  It does take a good 8 levels or so before the way I was playing starts to be effective though; some of the abilities like the grapple are locked behind several other abilities.

But what I generally found most useful in the base dagger tree was the fully upgraded shadow strike that lets you go back into stealth right after using it.  Also the upgraded grapple chain from the trap tree that didn't use any stamina or cooldown.  Combine that with a couple of perks that reduce aggro and give you some stamina for each hit (I forget which trees those were in - I think stealth and dagger), and I found that the best strategy seemed to be to constantly grapple around the battlefield, attacking and using other abilities like the spinning attack where I could from the flank or rear.  Then I'd use shadow strike to get an extra hit and go into stealth at the same time when they started to attack me.  Grapple somewhere else, rinse, repeat.  Poison blades applied whenever possible.  I also used the couple of ranged throwing knife type attacks that you can get (1 though the assassin spec) that allowed me to keep some distance occasionally while still doing massive damage.  But all of that pretty much requires you to micromanage that character.  I rarely switched from my own guy, so it wasn't an issue.  But if you are the type of person who likes to cycle through companions in battle, it would be tougher since you can't stack ability priorities like you could in the first game.

I left them free mainly due to the fact they are essentially slaves the entire series. The templars were just put there to keep them in check after trying to protect the mages from themselves and then started the whole red lyrium abuse and got power hungry. Their destruction is much more rampant than a few mages who go off the deep end IMO. The temples are weaker than the mages and they know it, hence the lyrium they start messing with. I made sure to save this time before I decided to keep them free or basically enslave them mysef. I just figured that it's high time we stop following what the chantry wants and start to let the mages free. Probably will bite me in the ass but hey, that's why it's fun to see all sides lol.

I usually roll with this party:
1 Tank (can be anyone)
1 Sera (archer)
1 Inquisitor (dagger rogue)
1 Mage (anyone)

The mage is mainly there for barrier. Honestly I need to respec him again. I love the crowd control aspects of the frost tree. Spirit/frost with a little bit of fire in there for fun.

Dagger rogue does mega DPS, and the tank is pretty much unkillable in most scenarios when properly specced and set up. Unkillable because he has like 4 abilties to rotate through that all generate guard.

Click To View Spoiler Most problems in life are caused by mages, the templars only exist because of this. Yeah, they sometimes abuse their power, but they need power to keep the mages in check.

Good and bad with all the groups involved, actually.  I've given the wardens the boot both times...freed the mages once, allied with the Templars once.

I keep the wardens around.  They fucked up for sure, but not much more so than the mages allying with Tevinter or Templars taking red lyrium, and the next time a blight comes around they'll be needed.

Click To View Spoiler

LULZ.  I accidentally figured out a way to max out my influence instantly, for free.  Poked around online a bit afterwards and it appears that this is a glitch similar to the dupe bug.  

Influence level 20 ahoy!

Buying and selling the influence books?

Seeing this is on a big sale atm.  Is Deluxe worth it vs regular?

Looks like modding will start soon so tempted.

Since I set sera to dual blades and I now have cole, would it matter to have him now be the archer instead or should I just respec sera to archer and leave him as daggers? Shouldn't matter right?

Doesn't really matter.  Storyline-wise she's used both bow and blade; self-taught archer.  I have her as archer and cole with blades <<shrugs>>  Just depends on what you want them to know.  

Yeah.  I decided I needed the cash for something else so I decided to sell back the book.  But then I still got the influence from it.  Welp.

If I was my first time playing through the game I wouldn't game the system.  But this is time number 2 and the game is long enough as it is, so fuck it.

Story wise, the way you meet and interact with them show her as an archer and him as a stealthy dual wield rogue. But yeah, you can spec them however you want.  I think you could even turn Varric into a dual wield guy if you wanted to.

I never take Varric anywhere. Bianca is a useless ass weapon, at least initially so I just quit using him all together

They did fix the skill point glitch though right?

Also, what's in the box in Val Royeaux for 10k?

The only glitches I know about are the influence glitch and the item duping glitch.  What was the skill point glitch?

eta: the box supposedly gives you a "war nug" mount.  I haven't bought it yet because I rarely ride horses.  Now with all my newfound cash,  I might.

Nah. They're still in. They splinter from the main group.



 

Now that you mention it, I do recall something about Weiss-something or another being the main base for wardens and that somebody goes to report to them after the GW questline is over.  I'm not deep enough down the DA lore rabbit hole to know what percentage of Wardens would have been in the Inquisition's AO.  Seems like a significant amount though, and even if there are a bunch somewhere else the events of the game must still be a significant hit to their numbers and power.

Surviving wardens go to Weiss; along with the champion (in my case; left Stroud in the fade); unless you choose to let them stay; Wardens/Templars/etc are found in each of the kingdoms with the exceptions of Tevinter and the Qun folks; you only banished the ones in Orlesia.  And, considering you can keep Blackwall (who was affected by the call little to not at all), there is indication that not all Wardens were affected..therefore, there are wardens in the surrounding regions, still.

They seem to have expanded a bit, lore wise, since in the previous DAs wardens were never numerous (hell, in origins you are a warden and only one of 2, or 3, involved with stopping the blight) in any given area...although, with Corypheus sending out a false call; that might explain why so many came to the Orlais region.  Previous DAs only mentioned Weiss as the HQ, maybe a couple hints at other fortresses; this one added a primary fortress (Adamant) and a couple minor ones (both abandoned) indicating that there may be more to the Wardens.  Might find out more as DLC gets released.  Or, the next DA.

Well, regarding blackwall, Click To View Spoiler

This isn't necessarily directed at you just trying to make it a bit clearer. Weishaupt is the Warden HQ. There are still many wardens alive at the end of the war room missions, but not enough for them to be a combat effective force. These survivors are the ones that splinter from the control Weishaupt and go their own way. There were only a few wardens in DA:O because of the revolt they led centuries earlier and Ferelden had been wary of them. Other regions had many wardens (I wanna say they said hundreds or over a thousand in each).





 

Who sells the higher tier crafting items? I unlocked the inquisition perks up to "only the finest" and can't find out where the items are stocked

Are you talking about schematics or crafting material?

Just the materials. I unlocked the rogue and mage schematics from the inquisition perks and that was a huge waste.

The materials are even a bigger waste.

Yeah I am wondering where to find schematics too. I unlocked some sort of upgrade that is supposed to make Merchants have better schematics.

The schematics just showed up in the underkeep. They were shitty though and they might even be level capped based on when you unlock the perk which really sucks. If not, check the shops in Val Royeaux and in redcliff

So I bit and pulled the trigger on this.

It's not half bad and it really does look like teams are pulling apart the game files to start getting a handle on how to create custom mods woot.  2h Quanri Warrior for now.  Looking foward to a DW sword Warrior once that gets modded in hehe.

I'm not sure how I feel about the perk system in general.  The 4 that give you more special dialogue options were useful and gave parts of the story more flavor, so that was fine.  And there were some others that were useful too like having more inventory space or health potions. But for the most part, a lot of the perks seemed like they just existed for the sake of existing.  The trading perks were pretty useless, the schematics you could get were worse than what I already had, etc.  And why would I spend points on "a collection of tier 1 herbs" anyway?

They also arbitrarily gated some abilities behind perks that I really don't think should have been.  Why do they make my rogue spend a point on lockpicking so that I can pick about a half dozen doors in the world that for whatever reason the devs just decided should be harder to open?  Same with the tier 2 and 3 focus/rift mark abilities.  It seems like they could have more easily and elegantly gated this stuff behind player levels or in the already existing skill tree rather than basically making another one.

ETA: I too am excited for the mod possibilities, as long as EA doesn't decide to come in and shut down everyone's fun.

Anyone go through on nightmare yet? I am about halfway through the hard difficulty and already at level 18 due to increased enemies about. It was tough but after I got the knight enchanter for my mage character its getting really easy, that and I am so over-leveled from completing everything. In the story, I have not even gone to emprise du lion, forbidden oasis or the ballroom in the main story yet. Kinda wish I would have just started on nightmare for the second time instead of the small jump from normal to hard difficulty but I think I would be tempted to do the skill point and influence glitch.

I would do it if they patched in a new game + mode.  As it stands, I'm closing out my second completionist playthrough and don't think I've got a third in me, at least until some major DLC comes out.  The grinding through levels and areas, while enjoyable or at least not terrible for the first two times, won't be as fun the third time around.  It's not the difficulty level that gets me; I just don't have the patience to deal with another completionist run so soon to the others.  And while glitching the system for crafting and skill points helped to take down some of the time involved in this second run, it still gets tedious.  What I'd like is for bioware to give us NG+ so that I can go in at level 20 or whatever and just plow through the important story lines and not have to deal with the extra 40 hours of grind.

I never had problems with feeling overwhelmed or burned out from the Mass Effect games, but the difference there was that a full completionist run of one of the games could be done in as little as 35 hours.  There were fewer quests, fewer conversations to be had, fewer places to go, etc.  Here, you are looking at 60ish hours bare minimum, and that's probably not even doing all the sidequests.  So while I still think Inquisition is my personal game of the year, after I'm done with run #2 I'm going to take a break from it until some DLC comes out.

The latest update got rid of the crafting material dupe exploit.

Fucking really?  That's been in the series for quite a while, I thought.

I feel like the devs did on purpose to stick it to all the players complaining about them taking so long to fix major
bugs- "you want bugs fixed? How bout this bug fixed-bitches!"

At least they added a walk toggle

I didn't use Vivienne much. I actually rotated the mages. The Tevinter dude was my favorite to hang with, no homo.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Bump for single player DLC news:

Jaws of Hakkon

Available tomorrow (3/24) on xbone and PC; unknown release date on PS4 and old gen consoles.  Also no word on price as of yet.

tag

What is the price?

Jaws of Hakkon?  It's 14.99.  


I started it the other night (PC).  So far, it's given me 1 large new world with 22 regions, and some new war table things.  I haven't explored it all yet, but based on the map so far I'd say it's probably as big as the Emerald Graves or the hinterlands.  Seems to be better laid out and with less fluff than the hinterlands though.  Quests so far have been interesting; haven't done many yet.  Companions, NPCs, and player character all have new dialogue.  New weapons and armor with better stats, higher level enemies, new loot and crafting materials, etc.  They have also apparently removed the soft level cap of ~24; I'm at level 27 or so now.  There might be other changes too, but it's hard to tell what came with the DLC and what came in free patches - until this came out I hadn't played since January.  You can color your armor now, for example.

Overall, if you liked the base game, this is more of that.  Doesn't seem to continue the main story (and the DLC is available to start prior to the main endgame), but the side story it has seems like it does impact the world and story, and it's fleshed out and meaty so far from what I've played.  Is it worth $15?  Probably, if you liked the base game.  I'm having fun with it, anyway.  So far it's not must-have DLC like Citadel was for Mass Effect 3, but it's still a fun bit of content.

I am going to wait until I can get the DLC for a reduced price. I just got past the "Grand Ball" in the main storyline so I have time.

It's pretty rare for EA to sell DLC for less than usual, but it might happen down the road.

But I would at least wait until you get done with the main game.  Everything about this DLC, including the enemy levels, feels like post-game DLC.  Even at level 24, there was an enemy I walked up on early on in the DLC that absolutely wrecked my shit.