Can't beat Jarvia, kinda stuck

[Turbo Nozomix]

I've tried this 2 dozen times. I was slicing through the mobs throughout the Carta Hideout with ease, like they were nothing. Now I'm at the bossfight against Jarvia, and there's no way I can beat her right now. I've tried all kinds of different tactics. And I'm going through health poultices rapidly and can't even use them fast enough to stay alive because of the cooldown period.

I'm playing on Hard difficulty and my party is level 14, except for the main character, who is level 15.

When Jarvia comes out of her stealth mode and starts stabbing someone, she often completely kills them in a couple of seconds, even when they had almost-full health.

I think the difficulty must be gimped, because I haven't had a fight this seemingly impossible before.

I'm thinking I'll have to leave the area for now and find some place where I can level up a bit before coming back here. That sucks, though, because it was a long way in here, and to find another place to level up might require me going somewhere else on the map. And I'm not even sure if there is someplace I can take on mobs to level up against because I've cleared out most quests and locations on the map.

[no1schmo]

There's nothing saying you can't go do part of the quest in the Bracilian forest or something to get some levels. The difficulty is set weird in this game because of the choices you have. You may also need to play with your runes or buy some better gear.

[AbedsBrother]

You could lower the difficulty. If you think Jarvia is bad, wait until you get to the final boss of the Deep Roads.

[LukanGamer]

ya just lower difficulty if you really don't want to come back to it later

[Ilja]

Jarvia is annoying at first glance, but she is just a practice dummy for later events of the game.

Dealing with her is all about threat management. Not just creating threat, but how to clear it. High Stealth and spells like Mind Blast can make the combat very easy. These talents clear the threat from characters, leaving Jarvia to find the only available target, who should be highl on defensive.

Jarvia is very resistant to stunning talents, but not immune to them. Every stun you can throw at her gives you some unchallenged bonus strikes.

My previous group included:
- Human Noble: Assassin/Duelist
- Alistair: Templar/Champion
- Leliana: Bard/Assassin
- Wynne: Spirit Healer/Arcane warrior.

If you stumble here at level 15, then you already have secondary specializations active and that should make the combat trivial.

Example of the group tactics. I will put this in spoiler, in case someone really does not want to read it.


We stood by the door. No point of running forward. Leliana and MC spend as much time in Stealth than possible. Wynne is set only to heal and revive stamina. Otherwise she blasts mind blast, when ever Jarvia is around. Alistair uses all the talents available to generate as much threat he can, to lock Jarvia in combat with him.

Jarvia appears. She gets mind blasted, marked by Assassin skills and heavily back stabbed. Alistair locks her in to combat. If she moves to another target, then either she gets mind blasted again, or stunned by rogue talents. Mind blast comes immediately after, if it is available. If only to make sure that she does not go after Wynne.

We either kill Jarvia on first encounter, or she retreats back. We do not follow. Everyone - even Alistair - move to ranged weapons and we start sniping of her cronies. At some point Jarvia disappears again. Wynne makes sure that everyone is at top health and then we repeat the previous process. Either Jarvia dies on spot, or retreats back. And we keep sniping her cronies again.

Can you do that with every group? Pretty much, as far as you pay attention to talents that clear threat.

Morrigan should have spell or two to accomplish that. Zevran is already an assassin and should have ways to clear threat from himself at this level.

Any rogue or mage MC should have talents or spells to clear the threat. If MC is warrior, then retreat and pick more suitable companions to this battle. Gear up and use your threat generating talents to lock Jarvia in single combat, while others focus on clearing their threats when ever Jarvia turns around - or in case of Mind Blast, when ever possible, if mage isn't focusing on healing someone.

I press the notion that Jarvia is a practice dummy. Even if you would beat her with other tactics, I strongly recommend looking more in to threat mechanisms. Otherwise a certain points in later game can get very frustrating.

[Turbo Nozomix]

In another attempt, I had a fluke round where everything went relatively well and I managed to complete the fight with 2 party members dead and 13 health poultices used.

Originally posted by AbedsBrother:

You could lower the difficulty. If you think Jarvia is bad, wait until you get to the final boss of the Deep Roads.

Apparently, the difficulty of the Jarvia bossfight scales depending on what level your character is when they enter Carta Hideout. But that on its own doesn't explain why the fight was so difficult when I got to her. I think that something about the scaling didn't turn out as intended.

I watched a bunch of youtube videos showing the fight, and in none of them did it look anywhere near as difficult as it was in my game. In fact, in all the videos I watched, the fight appeared to be a piece of cake with minimal party management involved - much less than I was employing.

Even on this Nightmare difficulty playthrough, the Jarvia fight appears to be an absolute piece of cake:

Timestamp 47:50
https://youtu.be/Dq5R7uFLNOI?t=2871

The mobs lose their health to hits like around 5x or more faster than they did in my fight, and the player character's lose their health around 5x more slowly than they did in my fight.

In my game, Jarvia could KO Morrigan in a single attack. And in the odd chance that mind blast succeeded on her, it'd last for maybe 1.5 seconds, which in a best-case scenario will afford a single attack on her per party member, which would barely affect her health bar.

Originally posted by Ilja:

Jarvia is annoying at first glance, but she is just a practice dummy for later events of the game.

Dealing with her is all about threat management. Not just creating threat, but how to clear it. High Stealth and spells like Mind Blast can make the combat very easy. These talents clear the threat from characters, leaving Jarvia to find the only available target, who should be highl on defensive.

In many, many re-attempts at the fight, I used mind blast, crushing prison, horror, sleep, walking nightmare on her. But a good 9 out of 10 times she just resisted them. So, I found it to be a waste to spend the time and mana trying to cast those on her.

The other mobs in the room often resisted those spells, too. There was maybe a 50% chance, or less, that they would successfully work on them.

Jarvia is very resistant to stunning talents, but not immune to them. Every stun you can throw at her gives you some unchallenged bonus strikes.

My previous group included:
- Human Noble: Assassin/Duelist
- Alistair: Templar/Champion
- Leliana: Bard/Assassin
- Wynne: Spirit Healer/Arcane warrior.

If you stumble here at level 15, then you already have secondary specializations active and that should make the combat trivial.

Example of the group tactics. I will put this in spoiler, in case someone really does not want to read it.


We stood by the door. No point of running forward. Leliana and MC spend as much time in Stealth than possible. Wynne is set only to heal and revive stamina. Otherwise she blasts mind blast, when ever Jarvia is around. Alistair uses all the talents available to generate as much threat he can, to lock Jarvia in combat with him.

Jarvia appears. She gets mind blasted, marked by Assassin skills and heavily back stabbed. Alistair locks her in to combat. If she moves to another target, then either she gets mind blasted again, or stunned by rogue talents. Mind blast comes immediately after, if it is available. If only to make sure that she does not go after Wynne.

We either kill Jarvia on first encounter, or she retreats back. We do not follow. Everyone - even Alistair - move to ranged weapons and we start sniping of her cronies. At some point Jarvia disappears again. Wynne makes sure that everyone is at top health and then we repeat the previous process. Either Jarvia dies on spot, or retreats back. And we keep sniping her cronies again.

Can you do that with every group? Pretty much, as far as you pay attention to talents that clear threat.

Morrigan should have spell or two to accomplish that. Zevran is already an assassin and should have ways to clear threat from himself at this level.

Any rogue or mage MC should have talents or spells to clear the threat. If MC is warrior, then retreat and pick more suitable companions to this battle. Gear up and use your threat generating talents to lock Jarvia in single combat, while others focus on clearing their threats when ever Jarvia turns around - or in case of Mind Blast, when ever possible, if mage isn't focusing on healing someone.

I press the notion that Jarvia is a practice dummy. Even if you would beat her with other tactics, I strongly recommend looking more in to threat mechanisms. Otherwise a certain points in later game can get very frustrating.

Since I can't find a single video showing the fight to be anything like what I encountered, and since the tactics you mentioned I tried (as well as others I read up about online), I think it's clear that the difficulty scaling for this fight was broken in my game and it was treating the fight as if I was a much higher level than I actually was.

The fights in the videos I watched were indeed trivial - even the Nightmare difficulty one. Heck the main player character in that one just roams the room on their own not even managing their other party members, and they even walk into multiple traps and take barely any damage and just laugh it off and continue to explore the room while the rest of their party is left unsupervised to auto-fight the battle.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Turbo Nozomix:

Since I can't find a single video showing the fight to be anything like what I encountered, and since the tactics you mentioned I tried (as well as others I read up about online), I think it's clear that the difficulty scaling for this fight was broken in my game and it was treating the fight as if I was a much higher level than I actually was.

That is certainly possible. I don't know how that would have happened, but it is always plausible that something in the save file got messed up. I have never encountered that problem myself, but game is old and has few issues. I can pretty much name all the spots where it has a high level of crashing, or getting otherwise messed. The Dwarven city is pretty much the most unstable area in the game.

Originally posted by Turbo Nozomix:

The fights in the videos I watched were indeed trivial - even the Nightmare difficulty one. Heck the main player character in that one just roams the room on their own not even managing their other party members, and they even walk into multiple traps and take barely any damage and just laugh it off and continue to explore the room while the rest of their party is left unsupervised to auto-fight the battle.

Well, that doesn't sound right. Do you have link to the video? I would like to see what sort of setup they used, because Jarvia is a tough nut to crack even in Normal difficulty mode, if threat is not being managed during the combat.

[Turbo Nozomix]

Originally posted by Ilja:

Well, that doesn't sound right. Do you have link to the video? I would like to see what sort of setup they used, because Jarvia is a tough nut to crack even in Normal difficulty mode, if threat is not being managed during the combat.

The video is posted in the previous post.

[Ilja]

Ah. Didn't notice, before I got in front of my computer.

[anakinatka]

There is no real level scaling in DA:O, at least not like in other games. Each zone has a lower and upper limit, determined based on your level when you first entered Orzammar, but Jarvia is always somewhere between 11 - 17. So yes, at level 15 you should be able to beat her. However, she's one of the tougher fights in the game. And ...

A lot of the videos you find on youtube are made by seasoned players on their umpteenth playthrough, who min-max their characters and companions from the beginning and know exactly when to go where and how. The one you linked is played on console, where the game is over all a lot easier.

You can also read up specific boss fights on the wiki (i.e. Jarvia (strategy)), where you can see exacty what skills and strategies people have used, at which level, for different builds. Better than getting depressed by youtube :)

If this is your first playthrough, I'd recommend playing on normal or change the difficulty according to encounters (it's a hard game anyways), and enjoy the story. It's an amazing RPG, with a focus on storytelling and choices that matter. Imo, higher difficulties are meant for subsequent playthroughs. If you play the DLCs (Leliana's Song, Witchunt, Darkspawn Chronicles etc.) you get pretty op reward items for some of them, spawning in the inventories of every new character.

[Shinobi]

Try changing tactics. Maybe go in with a rogue first. Or try area damages with two mages or put two super tanks in front or or or. It's a big part of Dragon Age that it needs tactic changes and it is what makes it great. I always crank up difficulty to achieve just that - being forced to think what I do - the victories after feel all the better! Don't give up!

Also. Coming back to a quest later is what I had to do often, playing on high difficulties. There is no shame in that and it is, again, part of what makes the game fantastic, you cannot just walk in everywhere and finish it like that. It needs to be earned.

Good luck.

If you like my approach. There are several good mods out there that make the game more difficult and ennemies smarter. :)

[Turbo Nozomix]

Originally posted by anakinatka:

There is no real level scaling in DA:O, at least not like in other games. Each zone has a lower and upper limit, determined based on your level when you first entered Orzammar, but Jarvia is always somewhere between 11 - 17. So yes, at level 15 you should be able to beat her. However, she's one of the tougher fights in the game. And ...

A lot of the videos you find on youtube are made by seasoned players on their umpteenth playthrough, who min-max their characters and companions from the beginning and know exactly when to go where and how. The one you linked is played on console, where the game is over all a lot easier.

You can also read up specific boss fights on the wiki (i.e. Jarvia (strategy)), where you can see exacty what skills and strategies people have used, at which level, for different builds. Better than getting depressed by youtube :)

If this is your first playthrough, I'd recommend playing on normal or change the difficulty according to encounters (it's a hard game anyways), and enjoy the story. It's an amazing RPG, with a focus on storytelling and choices that matter. Imo, higher difficulties are meant for subsequent playthroughs. If you play the DLCs (Leliana's Song, Witchunt, Darkspawn Chronicles etc.) you get pretty op reward items for some of them, spawning in the inventories of every new character.

It's my second time playing the game. The first time I stopped playing around where I am right now. I haven't had any problem with the difficulty until that Jarvia fight. My characters are pretty tweaked out, too.

Like I mentioned, in the YouTube videos both Jarvia's group took much more damage faster then in my fight, and the player party characters took much less damage than in my fight. Jarvia was able to 1HK my mage - and any time I'd target Jarvia with a spell, 9/10 times it would fail and then Jarvia would become dead-set on coming after my mage. I was using the threaten talent with my tanks.

The YouTube videos generally show minimal tactics and most of the fight is just having the party characters go at them in basic format, while Jarvia's group take damage almost like regular mobs. If my game played like that, it would have been a piece of cake for me. Getting to Jarvia's room in her hideout was a total piece of cake, even too easy. Everything along the way got slaughtered with ease. But just the encounter with Jarvia was the complete opposite situation.

I think that there was a scaling issue happening with that fight.

[dwarfpcfan]

Jarvia fight is not hard, if you have the right tools. And the right tools are mass paralysis and sleep. You can lock the entire room down with that spell and then just pick off every enemy one by one