How do you play your nightmare?

[Mauseleum]

At the moment I am playing nightmare difficulty with a team of Tank Alistar, Ranged DPS/Ranger Leliana plus main character and morrigan as support/dps.

Just got interested wether there are other viable ways to go? I`m doing fine with mine, but share yours! Would be nice to know if this game has as many playstyles as players :)

[ÄmJii]

DW Warrior
Tank Alistar
Archer Leliana
Mage/Healer Wynne

Here's an example how this setup works. I can't remember if I was playing on Hard or Nightmare while I recorded this, but I've definitely gotten through entire Nightmare difficulty with this party:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv-cuwI2puQ

Skip to 1:25 if you don't care sitting through inventory screens and whatnot.

[Mauseleum]

You didnt find archer leliana lacking? I`ve been checking my dps percentages on team, and it shows that for me leliana would do almost as low dps as my tank?

I ve pumped all dex on her besides 22 cunning which i needed for stealth and lockpicking.
Thou the game propably doesnt count the pets dmg, but archer should do way more dmg compared to the tank.

[ÄmJii]

Originally posted by Mauseleum:

I ve pumped all dex on her besides 22 cunning which i needed for stealth and lockpicking.

Well that explains it, DEX focused archer is indeed lacking. For achery you'll want to go with DEX 30-34 (for skills and best longbows) and rest to CUN.

Why CUN?
- Song of Courage scales with CUN score. Higher CUN means bigger bonus to Attack Rating & Damage & Critical Chance
- Furthermore, Song of Courage buffs your ENTIRE party, not just Bard
- Lethality means your CUN replaces STR for damage calculation purposes
- CUN also affect Armor Piercing, higher the better
Basically, lot more synergy with CUN stat.

I recall seeing Leliana hitting for 80+ on Critical Hit (Crit Change somewhere around 22-27% IIRC) towards the end-game. With auto-attacks, without Aim being active.
I'd say that's nothing to sneeze at.

[Mauseleum]

Originally posted by ÄmJii:

Originally posted by Mauseleum:

I ve pumped all dex on her besides 22 cunning which i needed for stealth and lockpicking.

Well that explains it, DEX focused archer is indeed lacking. For achery you'll want to go with DEX 30-34 (for skills and best longbows) and rest to CUN.

First gotta say thanks for answer and i ll be looking into your build suggestion with another playtrough, BUT! I`m just wondering as the ingame tooltip suggest that dex scales with piercing weapon attack dmg.

This should mean that higher DEX = Higher dmg
So after the Dmg is reducted by the armor for X value the dmg should still be rather high?
And its not the dmg only I`m annoyed about, but the fact that it would seem that even though my Dex is high as hell, I`m not hitting the targets, thou I do get the fact that shielded opponents get the extra missile deflection bonus to their defense.

Btw, I liked your theorycrafting in some other discussion about Dex/dodge based tank spec instead of Str/Con, thou I find it lacking againts majority of spells, but will test it out too.

Nice to see a fellow gamer so into this awsome game.

[Mauseleum]

Shamefully I must admit that I`m not using song of courage but song of valor (cuz it indeed would help me with my target hitting problem) because of my team having 2 mages.

[ÄmJii]

Originally posted by Mauseleum:

First gotta say thanks for answer and i ll be looking into your build suggestion with another playtrough, BUT! I`m just wondering as the ingame tooltip suggest that dex scales with piercing weapon attack dmg.
This should mean that higher DEX = Higher dmg

DEX does equal higher dmg for bows, that is correct. If you want to go into details, both Shortbows & Longbows use same formulae for damage calculations: 50% STR & 50% DEX.
With Lethality, that formulae now becomes 50% CUN & 50% DEX. Considering how CUN also affects Armor Piercing, Bard songs and many Rogue abilities it should be easy to figure out why CUN governs DPS much more than DEX.

So after the Dmg is reducted by the armor for X value the dmg should still be rather high?
And its not the dmg only I`m annoyed about, but the fact that it would seem that even though my Dex is high as hell, I`m not hitting the targets, thou I do get the fact that shielded opponents get the extra missile deflection bonus to their defense.

You'd be surprised how much difference that Armor Piercing really makes. I don't have the exact statistics, but from what I recall some top-end enemies have roughly 20 Armor. With no AP, that usually soaks up at least half of your arrow damage (assuming you went with DEX heavy archer) which does make a significant difference.

Attack Rating tends to be a problem for any archer, in fact DEX heavy archer will have BETTER chances at hitting targets than CUN based archer.
However you can reach feasible Attack Rating with proper gear and buffs:
- If you pick Duelist as your archers 2nd spec, you can activate Dueling sustainable for extra +10 Attack.
- On top of that you can also use Champions Rally -aura for another +10 Attack (with Motivate -passive).
- Mage spell "Heroic Offense" also raises Attack Rating for 20 seconds. With 25 sec cooldown, you're looking at 80% uptime.

If you still keep missing targets you can activate Aim -sustainable for further Attack bonus on top of 2x Crit Chance... but at the expense attack speed. Still, it's better to shoot arrows at 1/2 or 1/3 rate than missing your shots completely.

Basically, there's plenty of ways to raise Attack Rating besides your DEX score.

Btw, I liked your theorycrafting in some other discussion about Dex/dodge based tank spec instead of Str/Con, thou I find it lacking againts majority of spells, but will test it out too.

This is bit off-topic, but I'll just go ahead and mention it's not hard to max out Spell Resistance. Knight Commander's Plate & The Spellward amulet together gives Alistar 70% (or 80% to Dwarf Templar) Spell Resistance, toss in few Dweomer Runes and some random SR item and you're sitting at 100% or very close to it.


EDIT: Might as well include this

Originally posted by Mauseleum:

Shamefully I must admit that I`m not using song of courage but song of valor (cuz it indeed would help me with my target hitting problem) because of my team having 2 mages.

Have both your mages cast Rejuvenate on each other, problem solved.

Song of Valor might not be as useful as you'd think:
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Song_of_Valor

[Mauseleum]

Attack Rating tends to be a problem for any archer, in fact DEX heavy archer will have BETTER chances at hitting targets than CUN based archer.

This is the thing I`ve been wanting to hear as it seems everyone is praising archer even though it seems to fall behind DW/2hand Warr and Rogue in matters of seconds.

DEX does equal higher dmg for bows, that is correct. If you want to go into details, both Shortbows & Longbows use same formulae for damage calculations: 50% STR & 50% DEX.
With Lethality, that formulae now becomes 50% CUN & 50% DEX. Considering how CUN also affects Armor Piercing, Bard songs and many Rogue abilities it should be easy to figure out why CUN governs DPS much more than DEX.

Information outdated? 15 minutes ago I tested wether my dps changes after I pick the Lethality skill.

I took the dps stats on notepad and played for one fight, just to be sure, but the dmg wasnt altered at all. That is atleast on the character screen, which should have had some kind of a change, for the difference between my STR and CUN is 9 points.

EDIT: Taking that back! It indeed does work, some prob with the comp i suppose. Started updating the dmg when I reloaded the games and placed the skillpoint other times.

Have both your mages cast Rejuvenate on each other, problem solved.

Song of Valor might not be as useful as you'd think:
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Song_of_Valor

I have been using both, Rejuvinating each of the mages and Song of Valor and I am still having slight mana problems, though nothing unhandleable.

[Simple Man]

Lotta wrongs in here.

This is the thing I`ve been wanting to hear as it seems everyone is praising archer even though it seems to fall behind DW/2hand Warr and Rogue in matters of seconds.

Cun archer doesn't lag behind anyone except a mage. Maybe. Even then, i don't think so.

For a few reasons:

1. Archers do not suffer AT ALL from lack of attack. A duelist / bard Archer gets +15 attack from "aim" (repeater gloves counter aims decreased attack rate), +10 attack from "Dueling", and another 8 10 12 from song of courage, the added benefit depends on cunning. I have a hit rate of about 91%. Archers just don't miss shots unless they are being debuffed heavily.

2. Both song of courage and tainted blade (soldiers peak talent, companions do not have it) are based on cunning, so an archers damage does not "peak", like a dw warrior, or even a 2H, it keeps increasing as long as you keep pumping points into cunning. After fully geared, all a warrior gets is those 3 STR points to get a little bit extra. On the current playthrough with tainted blade and song of courage the tooltip reads 86.7 damage.

3. Scattershot. With scattershot, and the damage before mentioned, im going to hit EVERYONE thats in that room, corridor, bridge, whatever. Everyone. So just after i used scattershot its everyone else thats lagging behind in the damage department. The DW can whirlwind and sweep and its all but a fraction of what the archer just achieved. From there, lets say theres a lieutenant (yellow named mob), just Arrow of Slaying the guy for 400 or 500 damage, and, yet again, anyone else is so far behind what you just did in terms of shear damage, its not even funny.

Archers also do not need to waste time moving around chasing their target, they are constantly shooting, a warrior (any variant) or even a melee rogue, need to chase their target around, which effectively makes them lose time and even more dps to an Archer.

So yea, built and geared properly, rogue archer is THE DPSer. Can also solo, since you can achieve enough defence and spell resistance to not even get hit most the time, so its irrelevant if you pull aggro with all your dps or not. I've done melee rogues, 2H warriors, DW, mage, and Archer. The latter is simply #1 for damage and control.

@ topic, Alistair as tank, leliana archer, i as archer, and morrigan healer. At the start of the fight both archers use scattershot....

The end :P

[Cacaw!]

you can do whatever you like as long as the party is balanced. Nowadays i make my party based on whether i am good or evil. So always 2 tanks, 1 rogue and 1 mage. Or 2 tanks, 2 mages

[ÄmJii]

Welp, just finished yet another Nightmare run, Mage protagonist + Morrigan + Alistar + Leliana.

Took a screenshot of Leliana's "Heroic Accomplishments":
http://imgur.com/7mLU9AE

And here's her stats just before Archdemon:
http://imgur.com/FzIXGVO (base CUN 43, +16 from gear)

I didn't fire a single Arrow of Slaying nor Critical Shot, 90% of the shots were just plain auto-attacks. Granted, I was using DLC bow Sorrows of Arlathan soon as she got the DEX to wield it, but Far Song or Marjolaine's Recurve won't fall too far behind either. Neither does Tier 4 Whitewood Bow.

I probably could have reached bigger Hit% with bit of micromanagement, most of those missed shots came from early game (where archers struggle to hit anything) but past mid-game I'd say her Hit% hovered somewhere around 80-85%
If I had the chance to max out Stealth sooner that'd buffed her damage output much further (if you attack whle in Stealth you'll auto-crit, assuming you hit the target).

All in all, rogue archers are completely Nightmare-viable even if their DPS doesn't match dualwield rogues (but there's also considerably less micromanagement involved). Due to how "passive" role archers tend to have, Rogue Archers can focus more on Rogue class abilities (lockpicking, trap disarming, pickpocketing etc.) and Bard songs which benefits the whole party.
Can't pass up the extra loot & EXP from picking locks and traps ya know!

[Simple Man]

Originally posted by ÄmJii:

http://imgur.com/7mLU9AE

All in all, rogue archers are completely Nightmare-viable even if their DPS doesn't match dualwield rogues

hm, no. I'll disagree with that. The screenshot is the main reason folks think Archers lag behind others, because you use the companions to test it out, or so it seems.

Archer main character:

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3318333028560277823/FD2FC233336E0148A0399C3EA640900B22EA3052/

The only thing that can hit harder is a mage with mana clash and on very specific situations. And then theres Scattershot, that hits everything in a room. When you hit say 10 mobs, 6 for 70, and with 35% crit chance, crit 4 for 120 you just did 900 damage. Arrow of slaying (minus elites, like revenants, where it does about half), does an average of 400 dmg (im sure i'll be able to do far more than those 446 as i level too).

Archer also has no downtime, you are standing in one place doing damage, clearing out enemies.

My melee rogue tho:

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3318333028560399447/41492F074C6F6C188B2AE046796EE368AB1D84BF/

(both just as geared, despite 3 lvl diff)

Far less damage, way too much downtime (chasing mobs around, looking to backstab/stun/paralyze, even with 15% chance from concentrated deathroots, 6 paralyze runes trying to proc + our stun skills, its still not as often as it needs to be for max damage), very weak AOE (because sweep or whirlwind ith low damage weapons like daggers does pretty poorly), and no physical resistance to speak of, to keep him in one place doing the damage he can do. So for example, at a dragon fight like flemeth or High Dragon, the melee rogue does close to nothing, as he gets chewed on, hit with dragons back legs, hit with the tail, and stuns/paralyzes have close to 0 duration even when they proc. (In regular fights, mobs can stun you, bash you, its all one big hassle, and large periods of time where you do 0 damage, just laying on the floor.)

The Archer tho, is sitting way back there, firing non stop just dealing crits after crits, dragon dies within 20 30 seconds.

Until i did an archer, i honestly did not know what they were capable of. Had never even read what defensive fire did, in a proper manner. Now i find myself pumping 140 defense into my char, becoming invulnerable, doing all this aoe and single target damage, its just, way, way up there in comparison to anything thats not a mage. And even then, id put him in number one as far as dps goes, because a mage can't AOE without killing his companions so its not very viable unless you're soloing the game, while scattershot, if anything, on top of the massive damage, keeps everyone safe(r) since it also stuns the target(s), Grey Warden style.

[Excommunicatus]

Honestly, Nightmare never seemed to me to be about party builds (provided it's a well-rounded group to your playstyle liking, and you don't make any horrific mistakes in stats and skills when leveling), but far more about how you encounter the enemies.

If you blunder into full rooms of enemies and fight them all at once, you may have some trouble. If you utilize careful pulling and positioning techniques to split up groups and fight those splits in advantageous positions, Nightmare is mostly still a walk in the park. Any old-school MMO vets (pre-WoW era) probably already know what I'm talking about - the pulling and positioning practices pioneered in EQ and EQ2 apply beautifully to DA:O.

May not be the edge-of-your-seat excitement in the danger of blustering in, but for many there's great fun in consistently executing flawless strategy to simplify your wins - outsmarting the enemy.

[Simple Man]

You don't really need to pull like that, as if it was some hardcore dungeon :P

The only place i can fathom, i wouldn't really dare diving right into, would be deserted building in denerim, in this large hall where there are 3 mages, 2 regular and a lieutenant. Last room too, with the boss, just a regular and boss mage there, but boss wrecks my tooshie if im not careful.

They just dish out sooooo much damage, debuffs, all sorts of bads, its crazy. Most of everywhere else, granted that you have some experience with MMOs, you won't even pause, or use potions in fights. But then again, the game is so much more than just fights, its not that big of an issue.

[samuricex]

I'm always just looking for different ways to play, just playing high DPS over and over gets boring. In my current playthrough I'm actually playing a Healer. The fights take a little longer, but there is a different kind of fun in playing a healer instead of a "do as much damage as you can" character.

I'm currently using Alistar as my tank, but I'm going to switch him out and try running Morrigan as an Arcane Warrior tank and see how that works out. It probably won't work too well without taunts so I'll probably just have her running around as my melee DPS. Third is Leliana, getting replaced by Morrigan if tanking doesn't work. And Shale is currently my fourth, I'm running him as my ranged unit this game.

[Mauseleum]

People use some specific pattern in going around the map because I tend to have too much problems if i try to go from Redcliff to a) Brecillian forest b) Frostback mountains.

Usually I tend to go to after Redcliff -> Denerim -> Magetower -> Brecillian -> Frostback

Atleast this is how I HAVE to play at nightmare. Maybe I`m doing something wrong for I dont have too much options on routes.

Brecillian Forest = Dragon at the werewolf cave means that whole team wipes because tank cant sustain.
Frostback Mountains = I cant even win the first encourter there for the tank cant aggro/tank well enough after redcliff.

Sounds like some people are having an easy run with Nightmare... I find that odd
(and somewhat unbeleavable) for there are so many difficulty spikes on missions which usually make me turn around to other place. Even thou I use almost all the tricks from the book like pulling, massive amounts of cc, isolating and so on.
The normal comments I get from friends trying to go trough Nightmare is that they gave up on some encounters and whiched the difficulty on some occasions.