-
- Forums
- Chatrooms
- Gallery
- Gameplay Videos
- Upload
- Articles
- Mod Reviews
- Shop SP: Games, Movies, Books
|
|
Origins | Ostagar | Lothering | Circle Tower | Warden's Keep (DLC) | Return to Ostagar (DLC) | Stone Prisoner (DLC) | Brecilian Forest | Redcliffe | The Urn of Sacred Ashes | Orzammar | Deep Roads | Denerim | Final Onslaught |
Character Development | Equipping Characters | Combat Guidelines |
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES
Here is where I offer some advice on attribute increases and talent choices with each level up. I start with advice on the attribute increases.
Attribute Increases
1. Strength
Strength is important to the extent that the armor you may want a character to wear will often require a minimum Strength score. How about beyond that? It depends on the character. Strength is meaningless for any Mage, since spell effectiveness is tied to the Magic score. This also includes the Arcane Warrior. The reason is that Combat Magic allows an Arcane Warrior to call upon Magic instead of Strength for things like donning armor or weapons, and damage scored on a successful hit.
Strength is also meaningless for a properly built Rogue, as the Lethality talent (and possibly Exploit Weakness as well) will allow a Rogue to use Cunning to increase weapon damage instead.
As for Warriors, it depends. A shield based warrior or dual-wielding warrior are better suited for tanking roles, since their fighting styles can confer defense bonuses. This is to say that they can get surrounded by a lot of enemies and withstand the onslaught relatively unscathed. For such a build it is often better to increase Dexterity to increase both attack and defense simultaneously. Strength should not be entirely neglected though, as Strength will improve the chances of shield-based talents like Overpower and Bash stunning their targets or knocking them off their feet.
Two-handed warriors are kind of write-offs as tanks since they'll get hit more often on account of lower defense scores. Two-handed warriors really should not be relied upon as a sole tank. They should really be thought of as somebody who hits hard from the side while the tank holds up the monsters. Their effectiveness lies in taking down foes in as few swings as possible. Thus for somebody like Sten or Oghren I don't bother with Dexterity and prefer Strength, an attribute that simultaneously increases both attack bonus and damage.
2. Dexterity
Dexterity is a choice attribute for many character builds, simply because for both Warriors and Rogues it simultaneously increases both attack and defense. This is true of Warriors and Rogues who use Dual-Weapon styles, and Warriors who use shields. For Warriors who use two-handed weapons, see my comments above on strength.
3. Constitution
Raises hit points by 5 each point. It is very often preferable to build up defense rating, as in better to minimize the number of times you get hit.
4. Cunning
For Warriors it usually has no usefulness beyond Master Combat Training and Master Combat Tactics. Same with Mages. It is a key attribute choice for many Rogue builds, since it can affect finding and disarming traps, pickpocketing, and damage after the Lethality talent is obtained.
5. Magic
Its importance to Mages is obvious since it increases Spellpower. That it might increase the effectiveness of a Health Poultice should not be enough to convince anyone to have Warriors or Rogues spend points on Magic that are far better spent elsewhere.
6. Willpower
This really boils down to how you want to deal with the question of Stamina, and there's more than one answer. The answers are tied to whether stamina regeneration is crucial to the effectiveness of your character.
If your character is reliant on activated talents, then your available stamina is a key consideration. Such a character may well consider adding some points to Willpower in order to enlarge your available stamina pool. Of course there are stamina regenerating items, as well abilities that recoup stamina like Death Blow and Feast of the Fallen. I thus consider Willpower as having some importance for Mages. I also consider it important for a Shield-wielding warrior who consistently wants to use his shield to knock his opponents off their feet, or a two-handed warrior who wants to use damage increasing talents or other talents like Two-Handed Sweep.
It is in my view a different story for a character build that proves effective with the right mix of sustained and passive talents. If such a character is already effective, even in the absence of using any activated talents, then stamina is not so pressing a concern and you can let the character run on auto-pilot. A good Rogue build can be designed in precisely such a way. Willpower can then be safely ignored.
7. Attribute Gimping?
This is a fairly frequent debate in various Dragon Age forums. Do you pour all of your increases into one attribute with each level up? Or do you spread them out? The argument for concentrating on one attribute is that it makes that character spectacularly effective in situations that call upon that attribute, so much so that it more than compensates for any perceived shortcomings involved with not increasing other attributes. Thus spreading it around is deemed to gimp a character that could be so much more effective by concentrating it in the attribute that matters most. The argument for spreading it around is that single attribute concentration compromises the character's versatility thus leading to a different kind of gimping. Sure, attribute concentration can lead to spectacular performance in some areas. But situations that call upon another attributes may sometimes be unavoidable, thus supporting the argument that concentration could compromise the characters' effectiveness in other areas. I'll illustrate my point of view in this debate.
Should Rogues concentrate on Dexterity, or Cunning, or both? Everybody's opinion on this will vary. Cunning concentration means more Armor Penetration, and more damage after the Lethality talent is acquired. But not putting points into Dexterity means weaker attack and defense ratings, meaning you land less attacks and get hit more often. The vice versa argument can also be made. Pumping up Dexterity will mean you hit more often and get hit less often, but how much damage will you inflict when you do hit? My preference for Leliana, by way of example, has been to emphasize both, +1 Dexterity and +2 Cunning one level, and then +2 Dexterity and +1 Cunning, the next level, and so on. Maybe she falls a little short on raw damage, and somewhat lower attack and defense ratings. But at the end of the day, I still found she rarely took a scratch, and dished it out quite good as well so that she was still a highly effective melee character in her own right.
Another debate is on the relative value of Magic vs. Willpower for Mages. Arguments for concentrating on Magic are that your spells will blow the monsters away much more quickly, thus eliminating the need for a larger mana pool. If there is a mana problem, just chug down a Lyrium Potion. To put a finer edge on this argument, a higher Magic score will also mean a bigger mana return when you do use a Lyrium Potion. The other argument is that a larger mana pool allows more spells to be cast, and that concentrating too much on Magic means you run out of mana quickly in situations where more is needed. Lyrium potions are not infinite (or at least some people don't like chugging potions regularly). I personally prefer to increase both without a particular concentration, but I admit this might have to do with my own builds. My Arcane Warrior uses a mix of sustained abilities (e.g. Shimmering Shield in particular can be very draining) and activated spells. I thus like to have a large mana pool both to keep up my sustaineds and to have reserves for activated spells when I need it. Wynne in some battles will go into a prolonged sequence of spellcasting that can include crowd-control, healing, buffing, and offensive spells, and still need to chug a potion in order to keep going. I thus like having a larger mana pool for her. This argument is supported by the fact that Wynne can acquire a few abilities that can crank up her Spellpower when it's needed.
Talent Selection
Keep in mind that a lot of the advice here is meant as rough guidelines only, and every talent you take is a judgment call.
1. Your Vision or role for the character
It sounds simple, but what is it that you want your character to do for your party? Damage caster? Crowd-control? More damage and critical hits on physical attacks? Archery? The less and less that a talent falls in with your overall vision for a character, the more dispensable it becomes.
2. Economy
An idea worth considering goes like this ... Suppose that you want a character to perform a certain function. Select, at least in the early stages of the character's development, just enough talents that will allow the character to perform that function effectively. Now that character can move on to talents that allow the performance of other functions. And so on.
3. The Strongest Trees
The very best trees are those where all four talents will have lasting value for your character. In a very real sense, this is the most cost-effective use of your level ups.
4. Pick the Cherry
This is a corollary of the above point. If only the first one or two talents in a tree have real value to you, and the ones after have marginal value, don't be afraid to cherry pick and move on to another tree.
5. Is the Fourth Talent worth it?
On the other hand, is the fourth talent so awesome for you that you're willing to slog through three useless talents to get it? Maybe. This will require a judgment call on your part.
6. Passive Talents are your Friends
Whenever possible keep an eye out for passive talents that will augment your characters' performance. They're always active, and are cost free when it comes to mana or stamina.
7. Choosing the Sustained Talents that really count, and how to manage the stamina fallout
Sustained talents can be awesome, especially when enough of them stack up to make a huge cumulative difference in battle, but there's also no doubt that they add fatigue and cut off a portion of your available mana/stamina pool.
Sometimes it is possible to design a character build that does not depend on activated talents in order to be effective. In such an instance, keep the sustained talents that you want active and let the character run on auto-pilot.
On the other hand, if you want to use both sustained and activated talents, then you need either an enlarged stamina pool, or a method to recoup stamina quickly during a battle. Preferably both. Keep an eye open for items that increase stamina regeneration. Also consider abilities that recoup stamina. Death Blow will recover stamina for a Warrior when landing a killing blow on a monster. Feast of the Fallen will do the same for an Assassin when killing a monster with a backstab. Death Syphon is a sustained ability that will recover mana whenever enemies die within its radius.
Another method is to turn off your sustaineds in order to free up stamina for more activated talent-use, depending on the situation. For example, my Arcane Warrior by default loads up on a LOT of sustained talents to increase his melee combat power. Once in a while though, he may want more mana to set up a Storm of the Century spell combo. He'll leave his Spell Might sustained active but then de-activate his combat-related sustaineds. He waits for his mana pool to go up. He then hits the enemies at a distance with Blizzard then Tempest to kick in the Storm of the Century.
*Note* If you want specific examples of how I employ these guidelines, which talents and attribute increases I chose for my characters, check out my character profile pages, starting with my Grey Warden character named Aldarion.
