(Spoilers) Party Optimization

[Oxbridge]

Hello,

Can anyone tell me what you have found to be the most optimized way to develop your companions in terms of attributes, skills, specializations, etc. AND I want the City Elf's Coercion, but I'm hesistant in choosing Rogue as my class because it seems really complicated, any advice for a player who's only done one playthrough and still can't determine what's the most ideal? Thanks!

[!RJ_Truth]

Coercion can apply to anyone. The only benefit a Rogue gives you is the ability to open chests early in the game that you wouldn't be able to open otherwise.

That being said, I typically play as a mage, but I have played as every possible way at some point. I always pump 1 coercion right out of the gate no matter who I'm playing as because it's needed.

As far as the other skills are concerned the main ones to concern yourself with are Trap Making, Survival, Herbalism and Poison. To complete all the quests in Lothering you need all 4. Keep this in mind though. You do not personally need to have any of them to use them. Only a party member has to have it. Before I get into that, maybe I should explain how I setup my party.

I always setup my party with 2 Mages, a Rogue and a Warrior. Utilizing the party setup you can then disperse your skills accordingly. Alistair, Sten, Oghren get Survival, Leliana and Zevran will get Trap Making. Morrigan and Wynne will get Poison and I'll take on Herbalism, which playing as a mage, you start off with the first tier Herbalism anyway, so your starting skill point goes to Coercion. I only need the first tier in any of them to be able to complete Lothering, so I ensure I have each party member learn the first tier of each of those 4 as their first skill.

As you have probably figured out already, once you complete any one of the areas Lothering becomes inaccessible. However, you can go to other areas first that don't lock you in. I actually avoid the Circle and Redcliffe until after I've completed everything in Lothering because you're practically locked in to completing them, but if you plan right, it won't be needed.

By time I'm done with Lothering, my party consists of Alistair, Leliana, Morrigan and me as the 2nd mage and we each have one skill that each differs from the next spreading the skills out across the party as a whole.

Once Lothering is complete I believe the only other thing that requires any of those skills is healing the halla, which requires tier 2 Survival, so that should be done before you head to the Brecilian Outskirts or before you finish there anyway. Other than that, those skills aren't really needed. You may need to pump up Herbalism a bit for the sick lady in Orzammar, but it's not that high of a priority and there's plenty enough time to hit tier 2 Herbalism before you meet her.

Besides those, I pump Coercion to tier 3 as quickly as possible. Being a mage you'll need more of that skill sooner than you would as a rogue considering rogue's are generally higher in cunning, so beyond the 1 Herbalism, I pump Coercion to Tier 3 as soon as I can. I might add in the 2nd tier herbalism after hitting tier 3 coercion, but the dwarf can die for all I care, so if I don't hit it, I don't hit it. After Coercion, combat training is the next most important for your character which I'll start on after hitting tier 3 coercion, but at some point you will want to be fully maxed in Coercion.

I will also have the Rogue's pump stealing after their initial stats to get you through Lothering.

Combat Tactics really isn't needed at all. You end up getting extra tactics slots just by playing the game. I've found them to be quite useless. Although I have gone in and changed tactics. Such as, I never want my mages casting cone of code or blizzard indiscriminately. I'll cast it where I want it and when I want it or else they could damage party members on accident. Damage your own party member who is near death already by allowing the AI to do it and you're down one party member, so I am sure to go in and change the tactics to not cast friendly fire spells. That goes for anything that can produce friendly fire damage mage or otherwise.

As far as Stats are concerned.

Warriors - Pump strength and willpower 2 to 1 (Willpower = Stamina)
Rogues - Pump Dexterity and Cunning 2 to 1 (Dexterity is like Strength for a rogue, Cunning = easier to unlock chests and disarm traps)
Mages - Pump Magic and Willpower 2 to 1 (Willpower = Mana)

There are a lot of guides out there that will say to just pump magic on your mages, but I find this not to be good at all if you're a mage. You'll end up with a mage who can land some pretty powerful hits, but constantly runs out of mana well before the battle is over. You're better off pumping Magic twice to every 1 willpower and you'll be able to hang in the battle for a lot longer before you run out of mana. High magic is important, but so is staying in the battle.

You will get to a point where you can quit pumping cunning on your Rogues. It's been a while since I've played Origins (currently playing through Inquisition again), so I don't recall off the top of my head what that number is, but it is when you have the ability to unlock the toughest chests and disarm the toughest traps. You'll run into them in the Deep Roads and varioius places in Denerim the most, so it's a ways into the game, but pumping 2 to 1 will get you there or pretty close before you need it. Unless you start off in Orzammar, then you may run into chests you can't open. I'm thinking that is somewhere around 20 cunning that will get you opening all and disarming all without issue.

Like mana, you need to keep your warrior's Stamina up, so pumping 2 strength to 1 stamina will help keep their Stamina up to par and keep them in the fight.

Every now and then you may have to adjust how you're pumping your stats. This could be because you have a spell or talent that needs a higher stat or a weapon that requires a higher stat. It's okay to deviate from the 2 to 1 ratio to meet the demands elsewhere. It's more of a guide than a hard truth. It's worked well for me for many many years.

There might be something I haven't covered so if you have any other questions, just ask.

[Oxbridge]

Thanks for the good info! What about specializations for all party members? Also, which party members do you believe give the best comments during the story, assuming its important to have a good roleplaying time?

[!RJ_Truth]

Originally posted by Oxbridge:

Thanks for the good info! What about specializations for all party members? Also, which party members do you believe give the best comments during the story, assuming its important to have a good roleplaying time?

Up front note: This is all personal opinion. where I may like one over another for whatever reason, someone else may love a particular specialization for their own reasons. In the end, it's all personal preference.

You're on your own for comments. It's been way too many years since I actually paid attention to any dialogue. These days I only do conversations when I absolutely have to and only to pump up their abilities based on friendship level, so I cheat and use the wiki guide for the maximum amount of + friendship points as possible. I don't care what they're saying anymore. LOL After 20+ play throughs over 7 years, those things kind of just get thrown to the wind for the actual combat play. Inquisition is a bit different because I'm finding that even though I've played through twice already, there's conversations and character developments that I didn't previously go through, so I still need to pay attention to the dialogue.

Specializations, I can't say what is right for you. I'm not particularly fond of Arcane Warrior unless you're going to go with 3 mages and a rogue. I prefer to keep my mages at a distance whenever possible, so I think Arcane Warrior is a useless specialization. Although I'm sure there's someone who loves it.

I'm also not fond of any of Morrigan's animal transformations. I don't see them helping more than Morrigan with a full complement of Primal spells and certain Entropy and spirit spells.

I can't say that I actually develop the specializations anyway. I think the stat boost they give is more important than what the specialization can do. That is personal opinion though.

Here's that breakdown:

Warrior:
Berserker
+2 Strength +10 Health

Champion
+2 willpower +1 cunning

Reaver
+1 constitution +5 Physical resistance

Templar
+2 Magic +3 mental resistance


Looking at those, I would give my warriors Berserker, Champion or Reaver. I don't see any benefit to being for what a warrior does in becoming a Templar. What does a warrior need with +2 magic? I have no idea. Mental resistance can be a slight help, but not really a go to state that is a must to increase, so Templar is a useless skill in my opinion.

Reaver's Constitution actually adds health, but I'm not sure how much health +1 constitution gives as opposed to Berserker's +10 Health directly applied to the health attribute.

I like any of the 3 really, but Berserker and champion offer the most in stat boost to what a warrior is actually for. The +2 Strength makes for a harder hit and more damage per hit and the +2 willpower increases Stamina.

Rogue:
Assassin
+2 dexterity +2.5 critcal chance (melee only)

Bard
+2 willpower +1 cunning

Duelist
+2 dexterity +1 damage

Ranger
+1 constitution +5 nature resistance


Since Assassin gives +2.5 critical only to melee combat, it's only good for an up close and personal rogue with daggers and I prefer the rogue to stay at a distance and use a bow whenever possible. Zevran is the only one who gets to be an Assassin, but he is already, so you don't have much of a choice in that one.

Ranger is the only specialization that I actually fully develop. If you didn't become a ranger in your first play through. Do it the 2nd time around. Give it to Leliana as her 2nd specializtion. She's a bard anyway, so you'll have to wait till you hit level 14, but the reasons will become obvious when you start using her as a ranger. Where the stat boost isn't much of anything, the Ranger's ability far exceeds any other stat boost in my opinion. If I had a choice in the matter, I would have Leliana be a Duelist and Ranger, but you don't have that option unless you play as a rogue yourself. The ranger's abilities really helps in the tough battles as an extra helping hand. That's all I'll say about that if you haven't already played with a Ranger in your party.

I may, just to have two different rogues make Zev Assassin and Duelist, but these days Duelist gets set by the way side for the Ranger even though it's boosting the right things for increased damage. (more damage comes from the Ranger's abilities than you may realize until you see what it does.)

Mage:
Arcane Warrior
+2 dexterity +5 attack

Blood Mage
+2 constitution +2 spellpower

Shapeshifter
+2 constitution +1 armor

Spirit Healer
+2 magic +0.25/0.5 combat health regeneration

Wynne is already a Spirit Healer and Morrigan is already a shape shifter. so they can each only have 1 more specialization. Blood mage gets +2 to spellpower which is a good boost, but Arcane Warrior does give +5 to attack. I usually make make Wynne an arcane Warrior just for the stat boost, but don't develop it, but Morrigan will also get Spirit Healer developed to the 2nd tier for the Revival spell. Me playing as a mage, I'll give myself Spirit Healer and Arcane Warrior and also give myself Revive, but ignore Arcane Warrior. Revive is just too important to pass up. Having both mages in party with Revive pretty much ensures that if someone dies, they can be brought back mid-battle. It's less likely that you're going to loose both mages at the same time, so one can bring back the other if need be too. None of the others are worth much in my opinion.

In Awakening, it's all a half dozen of one. Any of them will due and I haven't really cared much about who gets what in Awakening. If you want to see the stats for those, just check out the wiki on it.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Classes_and_specializations_(Origins)

[2High2tell]

Really what can I add to Geeks comments., I can only back up what he has said, This is one of my all time favorite games. Played through it 5 or 6 times now. There is no shortage of rouges, mages or warriors in game so picking your toon should be based on preference more then need. For me I always seem to default to rouge as that fits my play-style and I find the lock-picking handy. esp early in game.

There is so many articles that try to tell you what build you should do but again, I think you should let your play-stytle dictate this instead of some guy who may prefer one style over another. I almost never play mages in games so who am I to tell you whether or not you should play a mage.

Even though this game is older it is still better then most games and the balance is very well done. The story line is very good indeed and will very a tad whether or not you have the expansions. I I like Morgan and Alister's bickering the most, but The companions are are better or worse with the expansions as well.

The only other thing I would throw in is to play your first play through relatively mod free. To keep your focus. There is so many really great mods that add many many hours of great game play to the game. If you enjoy this game half as much as I have your in for a great ride. This is my fav. of the series and the story-line is great. Enjoy it .