Tips?

[omegakaoz]

I was playing on normal as a sword and shield tank Human Noble, I managed to train up to be a templar from Alistair but I feel like my party is potion guzzling too much to sustain them. I do have Wynne as our group healer but I feel that her Mana has been burning through too.

[ADEC Inc]

Adjust Wynne's tactics to stop her constantly casting spells like Rejuvenate and Regeneration. She'll burn up her mana very quickly on those because she isn't selective enough about when to use them. You can probably turn off her Rock Armor while you're at it since it doesn't benefit her that much.

[boiling pie]

The best remedy against taking too much damage is good combat-tactics. Kill them quickly before the can do much harm. Prioritize enemies; focus to kill the most dangerous enemy first, or try to at least neutralize him/her. Make sure that only the tank draws enemy aggression. Things like that.

[ADEC Inc]

If another character is attacked, you can put a stop to it pretty quickly with Mind Blast or Dirty Fighting. Cone of Cold works wonders too. Enemy mages should always be hit with a Mana Clash as soon as possible, or at least a Winter's Grasp. Later in the game, enemy archers become a threat with their Scattershot, so freeze them until you can get someone over there to kill them. When fighting ogres or dragons, reserve Dirty Fighting to cancel their grab attacks.

[BimboGooch]

I saw someone say something about tactics.
If you play on nightmare, I just suggest only having at least 1 tactic on per person. So they always attack anything, that way when youre not paying attention to someone they will at least attack and not stop. I only have very few abilities on tactics to be casted. Ones that are passives that you have to cast every single time you go into fight. I have those on tactics. And then ones that you would have to use to buff someone at the start of a fight, Usually I try to put those to auto cast. Other wise for the most part, I am constantly pausing to cast a spell on someone.

[Luck-E-lynx]

Originally posted by omegakaoz:

I was playing on normal as a sword and shield tank Human Noble, I managed to train up to be a templar from Alistair but I feel like my party is potion guzzling too much to sustain them. I do have Wynne as our group healer but I feel that her Mana has been burning through too.

You can make pretty much unlimited potions with herbalism, and a few key shops.

If you are really in a pinch, and money is really tight. I recommend going double mage in party for a while. Even if Morrigan only throws out the occasional heal along with her damage and control spells. it can still help having a second mana bar with the potential to heal when Wynne gets low.

[Luck-E-lynx]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

Adjust Wynne's tactics to stop her constantly casting spells like Rejuvenate and Regeneration.

Regeneration is a good heal over time late game when your tank has defensive staying power to benefit from it without falling, and your mage has a bigger mana pool to work with. Early game when your tank falls before getting much benefit it can be not as good.

[ADEC Inc]

Regardless of where you are in the game, Wynne's default tactics cause her to spam those spells whenever they're off cooldown, which wastes most of her mana pool. They should be used manually instead, or set to a health threshold on the target.

[Evil Masses]

More CC and 1-2 shot combos.

[New Moon On Monday]

Resist the urge to charge into battle when you spot an enemy. It exposes your melee characters to ranged attacks while closing, they risk setting off traps, and puts them in a position where they can be quickly overwhelmed with numbers.

Often the best move is to immediately back up as soon as you spot enemies, preferably behind cover if available, and make them come to you. They won't be able to swarm you so easily, and you can soften them up with your ranged attacks, they are less likely to bring along nearby friends and sometimes won't even send their whole group.

Don't forget that a Rogue can scout out enemies with Stealth.

[redwitch]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

Resist the urge to charge into battle when you spot an enemy. It exposes your melee characters to ranged attacks while closing, they risk setting off traps, and puts them in a position where they can be quickly overwhelmed with numbers.

Often the best move is to immediately back up as soon as you spot enemies, preferably behind cover if available, and make them come to you. They won't be able to swarm you so easily, and you can soften them up with your ranged attacks, they are less likely to bring along nearby friends and sometimes won't even send their whole group.

Don't forget that a Rogue can scout out enemies with Stealth.

yes, that's how I managed to easily defeat even Sir Cauthrien. Just retreated to a room nearby, all of her soldiers except one just stayed there, so I had to confront just her plus one, then I had just to pull the rest one by one or in smaller groups. I find combat in this game just awful, horrible compared to games like Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder. There is no zone of control, enemies just go through and past your frontliners without retailation to your units in the back. You have to resort to such cheesy tactics because otherwise some fights against bigger groups are not winnable. Otherwise it's nor really difficult. Boss fights are even easier than some random fights against bigger groups because of the inability to control crowds effectively. That tactics mechanic just doesn't work, abilities are not triggered or, in the case of the healer, they are spawned uselessly so that she wastes all mana. I just disable everything and do it manually. Overall, besides all the ctds and bugs I've had, I'm not really impressed with this game.

[boiling pie]

Originally posted by redwitch:

yes, that's how I managed to easily defeat even Sir Cauthrien. Just retreated to a room nearby, all of her soldiers except one just stayed there, so I had to confront just her plus one, then I had just to pull the rest one by one or in smaller groups. I find combat in this game just awful, horrible compared to games like Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder. There is no zone of control, enemies just go through and past your frontliners without retailation to your units in the back. You have to resort to such cheesy tactics because otherwise some fights against bigger groups are not winnable. Otherwise it's nor really difficult. Boss fights are even easier than some random fights against bigger groups because of the inability to control crowds effectively. That tactics mechanic just doesn't work, abilities are not triggered or, in the case of the healer, they are spawned uselessly so that she wastes all mana. I just disable everything and do it manually. Overall, besides all the ctds and bugs I've had, I'm not really impressed with this game.

And I find the combat in Pillars of Eternity horrible. Boring and tedious. I much prefer combat in Dragon Age Origins and really missed its tactics menu when playing PoE. Also don't judge Dragon Age as bad because it doesn't use concepts form PoE. The "frontline" concept from PoE is not part of Dragon Age. Instead it expects you to control and direct enemy aggression. It gives you the tools for that.

Crowd control in Dragon Age Origins is easy if you know how; in fact, it's the cornerstone of combat. And if abilities are not triggered or spawned uselessly, then you have not set up tactics correctly or expect it to do something it is not intended for. I recommend to take a closer look at how tactics works, it is very rewarding and fun if it is set up correctly.

[Luck-E-lynx]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

Regardless of where you are in the game, Wynne's default tactics cause her to spam those spells whenever they're off cooldown, which wastes most of her mana pool. They should be used manually instead, or set to a health threshold on the target.

Her default tactics might be wasteful. I wouldn't know as I never use the default ones. Why would I when in a couple minutes I can do a better job setting them up myself?

Alistair (or whomever you have tanking)- Health <90% - Regeneration

Is an example of a better tactic for Regeneration, because even though it has a 5 second cooldown. She will not re-cast it on the same target until the effects wear off (effectively making it a 10 second cooldown spell if she has only one possible target to use it on) and saving you 50% of the mana she would otherwise be using to keep it active on a couple party members.

Once you get 300+ mana, Vessel of Spirit and 50+ Lyrium potions go nuts and have her cast it on anyone.

[New Moon On Monday]

I think the Tactics would be great- if more slots were available.

The problem I have been having is that there is no easy way to have a character choose a target and stick with it. What I want to do is have the character select the target, then decide what ability to use on that target based on the various conditions. However, the Tactics mechanic is set up for the character to choose an ability first, and then look for a target on which to use that ability.

So I don't want my allies using their disabling/debuffing type abilities (e.g. Shield Bash or Sunder Arms) on enemies who are already close to death. So I set a restriction to only use these abilities on enemies with >50% Health. What ends up happening is that those characters never finish off enemies brought to <50% Health; because as soon as the ability is off cooldown, they switch target to a high Health enemy.

I could work around that if I had more slots, by making use of the "Jump to Slot #" feature. But using "Jump to Slot #" uses up all the slots, and leaves no slots to jump to.

[ADEC Inc]

The Advanced Tactics mod solves this. You can choose to specifically use their existing target. I think Dain's Fixes has a module to give you 20 tactics slots, and has many other excellent features besides. Find them on Nexus mods.

[boiling pie]

Health as condition does not change the target, but is only applied to an already existing target: https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Tactics_(Origins)#Targetting
It must be something different which causes the switch to another enemy.