Can Shale ever be as good of a tank as Allistair?

[MineralsMan]

Can Shale ever be as good of a tank as Allistair? I've played multiple times and it Shale just seems to get very underwhelming at the later levels? For instance I usually get Allistair in Cailan's Armor + Cailan's sword/shield and he seems to be exponentially better as a tank? Or am I playing Shale wrong?

I'm tempted to use Shale for this playthrough because I'm running Morrigan + Wynn + Main as a Mage ... so Shale can swap out of tank-mode for things like Earthquake without worrying about friendly fire.

Once I hit level 14, I plan to make my Mage a full druid (2x mod specializations), keep Wynn a healer w/ some fire spells, and re-spec Morrigan into a Lich (mod) + Blood Mage. My last playthrough I used the mod Ranger Summons Revised and I have to say that Steel Golem you can summon is everything Shale should have been but isn't.

ps- Something I've wondered about: When you're doing Blackstone missions like getting the stolen guild supplies, hunting down desserters, etc ... you're actually doing the dirty work for that guy who wants to overthrow his father right? All those people you hunt are innocents?

[ADEC Inc]

If you install mods that fix the many bugs surrounding Shale's abilities, she can do alright. Otherwise, not too impressive.

They're not exactly innocent, but whether they're deserving of death is up to you. The major theme of the game is Grey Wardens making morally grey choices to defeat the Blight.

[frostyshad]

Lol? Shale if far more better than Alister. She is better than any character in the game, exception probably some full skilled mages with devastating arsenal. She have over 100 HP advantage over Alister in the late game and powerful aura which cannot be interrupted lol... Which increasing her survivalability even more. The golem is simply overpowered, the only weakness of which is magic, but you can use Large Fire Crystals against those who using fireballs and so on...

How in the name of the hell itself the miserable Blackstone mercenaries connected 'to the guy who want overthrow his father'?

P. S. I am playing only on the maximum difficutly settings so I don't know about lower difficulties, maybe there Alister is better than Shale.

[AlexMBrennan]

How in the name of the hell itself the miserable Blackstone mercenaries connected 'to the guy who want overthrow his father'?

Well when you talk to them they will respond with "I will not listen to a pawn of Taoran" which suggests that these contracts are part of his attempted coup.

[New Moon On Monday]

Shale can tank at least as well as Allistair, but not as good as Sten or Oghren.

Shale can dish out some significant damage when aided by Vulnerability Hex or Affliction Hex (with Haste on top, of course).

[frostyshad]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

Shale can tank at least as well as Allistair, but not as good as Sten or Oghren.

Of course not. Shale is better 'tank' than Sten and Ogren altogether: [Rock Mastery] — [Hurl] then [Stoneheart] — [Bellow] then [Stone Aura]; in Stone Aura Shale cannot be Overwhelmed, very unlikely will be chewed by Dragon or grasped by Ogre and beaten to the hell, in addition mana regen aura which no any tank have... And your Sten or Ogren may be easily eaten by a simple Giant Spider — Game Over in 50% of cases...

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Well when you talk to them they will respond with "I will not listen to a pawn of Taoran" which suggests that these contracts are part of his attempted coup.

What you talking about Mr. AlexMBrennan? Maybe I have missed something, who is Taoran and what connection he have to those stupid Blackstone irregulars?

[ADEC Inc]

Overwhelm can be interrupted at least a dozen different ways. There's no reason to ever just let them be mauled by it.

[frostyshad]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

Overwhelm can be interrupted at least a dozen different ways. There's no reason to ever just let them be mauled by it.

Yes its can, but on Nightmare difficulty its Game Over in probably half of such happens. Grabbing, chewing by dragon, overhelming by spiders is making tank unable to use his abilities, in addition unable to use any healing potions (which is total doom), and in battles like against those giant spider in Deep Roads once my char was chewed by spiders three times in a row no count of her wagon of Physical Resistance making a lot of harsh words in my mind...
To disrupt Overwhelm is not so easily, the stun from "Mind Blast" will no work for an example as far as I remember, will work "Stone Fist" or "Shield Bash" (but with large dragons can be a problems in this case) but not "Overpower" (warriors), and all those abilities that interrupting Overwhelming has a large repelish times so two Overwhelming in a row is usually means instant Game Over.

[New Moon On Monday]

While I think that Sten and Oghren are generally the superior tanks- now I can see a little bit of the appeal of bringing Shale along to tank for three other mages. Once Shale has drawn Threat, then there's the possibility of abusing the combination of Stone Aura and Force Field. I don't know whether Force Field prevents using non-damaging abilities like Taunt.

[frostyshad]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

Once Shale has drawn Threat, then there's the possibility of abusing the combination of Stone Aura and Force Field.

And if you using Forcefield why you should care how good tank is? Lol...
Its making char immune, for an example Bard can run into the mob of monsters and then use the stunning song and then Forcefield, monsters will still attacking the bard even without all those 'tank' abilities like Taunt. The 'tanking' in the Forcefield actually can be done by any char, not by tank only.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by frostyshad:

And if you using Forcefield why you should care how good tank is? Lol...
Its making char immune, for an example Bard can run into the mob of monsters and then use the stunning song and then Forcefield, monsters will still attacking the bard even without all those 'tank' abilities like Taunt. The 'tanking' in the Forcefield actually can be done by any char, not by tank only.

Most other characters have better things to do than stand around in a force field. And being immune to damage is only half the trick to tank; the other half is drawing Threat, which is real hard to do without Taunt or dealing out a ton of damage.

[frostyshad]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

Most other characters have better things to do than stand around in a force field.

Yes they have a better things to do like they can die in second if focused by few enemies at once and/or a mage. The point you don't need a tank to draw attention of monsters. For an example five skeletons and Revenant from tomb in Brecilian Forest (a dangerous undead abomination with unreal damage and supernatural pull skill and very annoying slow aura) attacking, I don't know, they attacking a rouge — use a Forcefield on rouge and then hit zombies one-by-one, the skeletons and their master will still attacking the rouge exception the one which you will attack but one zombie is not a problem, then run away from Revenant and wait of Forcefield recharge or use another Forcefield if available and/or if the monster will start to hit somebody else.
With Shale no need of Forcefield (if Heal exist) usually because she is very armored tank with lot of HP and plus overpowered aura.

[ADEC Inc]

Originally posted by frostyshad:

Yes its can, but on Nightmare difficulty its Game Over in probably half of such happens.

No it isn't. At all. You can stop it instantly with freeze, stun, paralyze, Dirty Fighting, among others. There is no place in the game you will see Overwhelm or Grab used often enough that you can't stop it.

[frostyshad]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

No it isn't. At all. You can stop it instantly with freeze, stun, paralyze, Dirty Fighting, among others. There is no place in the game you will see Overwhelm or Grab used often enough that you can't stop it.

No its cannot be stopped, you can check by yourself, not all stun working to stop overwhelming, the spider will stop attack for duration of the stun but the attacked char will be on the ground and no get up, and after stun gone, the for an example spider will continue to chew unfortunate character... As I remembered "Dirty Fighting" is useless in that case same as "Mind Blast". To stop overwhelming with freezing, lol? The freeze is working in one of four cases even on fire demons in Nightmare... And AoE freezing skill will kill your character faster than monsters lol... Before the skill will recharge the tank will be dead as hell.
The only ideal skill to stop overwhelming and grasping (but not a large dragons) is "Stone Fist" — which has a hell of recharge time... Its actually one of the best magic spell in the game.
In general owerhelming, grasping and chewing by spiders, shreiks, ogres, mabaries, wolves, and dragon for an example is kind of very dangerous on Nightmare difficulty and usually ends in Game Over.

[ADEC Inc]

Yeah you're right. Obviously the many times that we've all dealt with Overwhelm we all just died. There couldn't possibly be multiple effective counters used by thousands of players.

[frostyshad]

Originally posted by ADEC Inc:

Yeah you're right. Obviously the many times that we've all dealt with Overwhelm we all just died. There couldn't possibly be multiple effective counters used by thousands of players.

Because most of players not playing on Nightmare, and those who playing usually using Forcefields and AoE magic or something like that, but my game was with kind of straight hand-to-hand long battles by warriors so I know that Grasping, Dragons and Overwhelming is very hard to counter.