Dragon Age: Origins is going to own me

[keg in kc]

Damn you, BioWare.

[Frazod]

One thing I'll say about Dragon Age - it's far more challenging that any of its BioWare predecessors. You HAVE to play your supporting characters carefully or you WILL die. I didn't really have that mindset going in, but I've sure as hell got it now. Playing this game definitely makes one a better gamer.

[KcFanInGA]

Any advice on whether or not it's better to hold your party in one place? I saw the comman in the ring menu, but will it help my archer from running into the fray and whipping out her blades? Any tips are appreciated. I haven't lost my whole party in a battle yet on normal, so I am doing decent, just want to get more strategic.

[Basileus777]

Originally Posted by KcFanInGA

Any advice on whether or not it's better to hold your party in one place? I saw the comman in the ring menu, but will it help my archer from running into the fray and whipping out her blades? Any tips are appreciated. I haven't lost my whole party in a battle yet on normal, so I am doing decent, just want to get more strategic.

If you want your archer to stop using melee attacks, go into the tactics menu and select ranged as the AI behavior on the menu on the right side of the screen.

[allen_kcCard]

Yeesh getting my ass handed to me on the mountaintop of the ruined temple.

[Sully]

I'm so bad at this. The blood Mage leader and his gang are killing me within 15 seconds. What the hell do I do?

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by Sully

I'm so bad at this. The blood Mage leader and his gang are killing me within 15 seconds. What the hell do I do?

i'm not that great at it either but something that really helps me is the tactic screen.

get into that and understand how it works ... you can set it up so your members auto-buff as soon as they seen an enemy. there is also a person you might have in your group can has a taunt ability that i have set up so that person will taunt any enemy that attacks my mage. Another member will auto AOE stun when they are surrounded by more than 2 enemies.

also when they say RANGE, they mean RAAAAAAAAAANGE. You can attack from seriously far away. Use that to divide and conquer groups of bad guys.

Use a ranger guy to sneak up alone and agro the group of baddies and while they all chase him you can have your main group attack 1 or 2 and pull them away and kill them while your ranger guy runs away.

also stun,freeze and disorient are invaluable to give you some extra time.

also spam that pause button!! Don't give an order while everyone is still fighting ... pause it first. That extra time can help turn the tide.

also make sure you have a melee guy already engaged on the target before your mage/rangers attacks them to keep them from stealing agro away. A safe mage/ranger is a productive mage/ranger.

just some ideas

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Laz

wow ... pwned

advice about radcliffe please

Spoiler!

any secret to winning the war at Radcliffe? I handle the initial barrier fight just fine but when they take you down to the secondary attack by the lake the stream of zombie guys seems never ending. i'm level 7 btw

Spoiler!

I just did that. Once all the militia died on the lower level I trained all the zombies back up to the top, so the knights could help clear them. Then I went back down and killed the ones that didn't follow and the new ones.

I don't know if it's even possible to keep the mayor and militia alive. Bad enough keeping my own guys standing on that part.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Laz

also when they say RANGE, they mean RAAAAAAAAAANGE. You can attack from seriously far away. Use that to divide and conquer groups of bad guys.

Use a ranger guy to sneak up alone and agro the group of baddies and while they all chase him you can have your main group attack 1 or 2 and pull them away and kill them while your ranger guy runs away.

Don't overthink it. You can usually pull individuals from a group from range. They don't seem to be tied to each other, not usually. Or they are, but don't all come at once for some reason. of you pull from far enough away. You'll know you're at the spot when you can see them light up red when you tab, and the combat music starts, but you're not close enough that they can see you and attack. That's where you want to pull from with your bow.

also stun,freeze and disorient are invaluable to give you some extra time.

There's a ton of options. Horror works well, as well as paralyze and/or glyph of paralysis. And both sleep and petrify are great. Petrify and frozen enemies can be shattered with critical hits, which can make groups manageable in no time. I've probably cast cone of cold more than any other spell, although now that I'm higher level and have most of the primal tree filled out, I'm mixing and matching a lot more, and really brutalizing stuff. My new favorite is casting tempest and then following it immediately with fireball. I can't wait to try inferno and blizzard.

And on my secondary toons (i.e. morrigan and wynne), I've been doing a lot of experimenting with spells I wouldn't normally think to take just to see how effective they are. That was actually how I discovered the effectiveness of sleep, using it on Morrigan. Later on I want to test out the various glyphs with Wynne.

I just got trained for blood mage, so I can start my evil blood witch arcane warrior woman anytime now, just to mix things up from my current goody-two-shoes primal mage.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Spoiler!

I just did that. Once all the militia died on the lower level I trained all the zombies back up to the top, so the knights could help clear them. Then I went back down and killed the ones that didn't follow and the new ones.

I don't know if it's even possible to keep the mayor and militia alive. Bad enough keeping my own guys standing on that part.

good idea about the train thing ... i didn't think about that!!

Thanks.


btw what level did you do it at?


many times i don't level up fast enough and end up doing harder quest at low levels.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Laz

btw what level did you do it at?


many times i don't level up fast enough and end up doing harder quest at low levels.

I did it at 11 or 12, but the game scales. So it's going to be hard regardless of what level you do it. I think that map was designed to be the first one after Lothering, so you're not doing it any earlier than they wanted anybody to do it, but you can do the main quest areas in any order and they'll be appropriately difficult for your level...

(Design level wise, as I recall, the original progression was ostagar-lothering-redcliffe-mage circle-brecilian forest-orzammar-denerim, but the mobs in every area will scale to you unless it's somewhere they really, really don't want you going yet...)

I did stuff out of order and went to the forest after lothering (wanted to train Arcane Warrior), and then the mage tower and now finally redcliffe. But then again there really isn't an order...

There's stuff I've encountered in other places that's equally bad or worse, albeit not of the endless waves variety. Have you fought werewolves yet? Or better yet, revenants?

[Otter]

Is there any talk of this game going online to compete against other players down the road?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Laz

wow ... pwned

advice about radcliffe please

Spoiler!

any secret to winning the war at Radcliffe? I handle the initial barrier fight just fine but when they take you down to the secondary attack by the lake the stream of zombie guys seems never ending. i'm level 7 btw

I assume you mean Redcliffe? Here's how I got through that....

Spoiler!

There's a spot just above the town where there's a long bridge over the water, with a waterfall underneath you. Not the stone bridge, but a wooden plank bridge leading to a house. It's very long and narrow. When you get past the initial wave, and the good guy leads you down to the town, take your entire party across that bridge instead, and make them stay there. Then take your main character down alone, and lead the zombies back up to the bridge. If you do it right, only 3 or 4 zombies will follow you. Then you can take them out in small groups and prevent them from surrounding you, because you're all on the narrow bridge. When you dispatch the group of zombies that followed you, go down and lead another small group up to you. Keep doing that until they're all dead. Usually you have to run down until one of them spots you, and then run back to your group to keep them in small numbers.

Hope that helps. That tactic comes in handy in multiple places...

[Mr. Laz]

I'm beginning to feel underpowered

Spoiler!

now i'm in Redcliffe castle and every room as a full load of zombies and i'm going through healing pots like Agassi does meth. Jeebus. One of my group dies in virtually every room.

either i really suck or i didn't level up enough before getting here. I'm running with:

Main - Regular Mage level 7 (i haven't unlocked any specializations yet)
Sten - Warrior lvl 7
Alistair - Templar lvl 7
Morianna - shifter just turned lvl 8 (spider and now Bear)

too early or just general suckage?

btw - should i have unlocked specializations yet?

[Frazod]

What level are you playing at? Perhaps if you're getting your ass pounded you should drop it down a notch. It's not like anyone's standing over your shoulder taking notes.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by frazod

What level are you playing at? Perhaps if you're getting your ass pounded you should drop it down a notch. It's not like anyone's standing over your shoulder taking notes.

you better not be taking notes of my ass pounding, you perv.




just got ass pounded by a pack of about 15 wolves in a tiny little canyon so none of my guys had room to move. Stupid game spawned the wolves on all sides. A high level wolf(gold name) bit my leg off and laughed while i lay on the ground bleeding to death. That bastard.


I think i like this sadistic POS game