Make Sten Great Again! (how to even use him properly)

[Mist of Majora]

Ok so I've always had a bone to pick with this guy. The game obviously hates him or they wouldn't have made him the only character with only one selectable specialization, and the slow 2h moves that miss all the time are painful to watch. Heck, Jory does a lot better job of connecting his hits than this guy does...

So my question is, with a clean slate via a respec mod, how do I build a proper 2h warrior?

And for further notes, I dress him in light armor for max stamina at his disposal, but he can't seem to match any of my characters (maybe early archer leliana) in damage due to both slow strikes and misses.

[ÄmJii]

IIRC just manually control Sten and spam his abilities. Keep an eye on swing animations, if you use an ability right after hit or miss text popping up, you'll cancel the idle time between attacks.

Sunder Arms/Armor abilities hits twice in quick succession, those things are somewhat spammable along with Mighty Blow. Two-Handed Sweep is also good if you manage to bunch up your foes in tight group.

Still, two-handed Sten doesn't match dual-wielding Warrior in sheer DPS. His usefulness comes from stuns and knockdowns.

[Mist of Majora]

Originally posted by ÄmJii:

IIRC Sunder Arms/Armor abilities hits twice in quick succession, those things are somewhat spammable along with Mighty Blow. Two-Handed Sweep is also good if you manage to bunch up your foes in tight group.

Still, two-handed Sten doesn't match dual-wielding Warrior in sheer DPS. His usefulness comes from stuns and knockdowns.

Thanks for the reply!

It's a shame but I suppose that's something. Some of the abilities you mentioned rely heavily on connecting when it counts (mighty blow especially) and my Sten can't seem to do that reliably- do you build str/dex for Sten or something different? What stat build did you go for?

[dwarfpcfan]

Sten is a slow builder, he really only starts coming into his own late game when you've maxed out his physical stats and reach the third tier of the warrior trees, then you can make him any of the warrior specs and he'll do fine. That said Ogren as a two handed fighter is just better in every way since you can dual spec him to your hearts content.

[Mist of Majora]

Can you guys give me a few examples of skill talents or stat builds to properly build him? I agree that dual wielding Oghren is a beast, and can pretty much do well with anything EXCEPT a 2h build. So I figured this time around, I'd actually make good use of him haha

[ÄmJii]

It's been a while since I played DA:O, but I recall using Precise Striking modal active all the time: The extra +Attack and Crit chance really amps up the DPS, and 2hander swings are so slow you barely even notice the -10% on auto-attacks (I recall P.Strike doesn't slow down Sunder talents).
Besides that, I went with Wade's Dragonskin set (medium-weight armor set) for Fatigue reductions. I invest everything in STR, as it raises both your damage and attack rating (which are most important), with low Fatigue score you don't need to invest in Stamina at all.

I'd go for Reaver spec since Frightening Appearance adds a solid crowd control effect (Horror that scales with your STR). Berserker adds raw damage at the expense of Stamina, which I'm not a fan of.

That said, Leliana can outperform Sten easily with Song of Courage, Stealth talents and auto-attacks. She needs to invest heavily into CUN (because Song of Courage) and I make a habit of using Wynne's Heroic Offense on Leliana all the time to alleviate ranged attack penalties, but she can drop multiple enemies before they even reach a striking distance.