Dragon Age: Inquisition builds

[Barbas]

Please share your most effective builds for the game. I'm looking for something that'll help me cut down on the time it takes to slay dragons, as they're currently the most tedious enemy in the game, but I'd also appreciate advice for good companion and inquisitor builds of any kind. Good combos, quick focus building, that sort of thing. Lots of boom and doom.

Also, is the Mind Blast ability as ineffectual as some online boards are saying? I seem to recall it being rather effective in past iterations.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

It's not my build, but I used this one and it made the combat trivial. I pretty much soloed most of the game on hard mode, and most combats ended in less than ten seconds.

https://youtube.com/watch?ebc=ANyPxKq6PT7PvzTwrjwHM9ov0t0EiM_vjdGcQ5musaOuyalc3VWRVydwbyZ2LClMeXGXy4VhoawchbBYQxpupCG9gRt54h9Kxw&v=oBnlZapGxrE&time_continue=1087

Dunno if he mentions it, but for gearing, stack Crit Chance up to about 55-60%, then stack Crit Damage.

 

[The Madman]

Honestly, I remember the most difficult part of fighting the dragons was just your companions brain dead AI and the lack of ability to easily control them to counteract that. That one lighting dragon in a swamp for example was a nightmare to kill simply because the entire squad would go and get themselves killed whenever the dragon did his aoe attack thing, no matter how hard I tried to micro-manage them.

Eventually I just made my main character super tanky and soloed everything. The dragons don't do enough damage to actually kill a tank character being played decently, so you just run in there like that and slowly whittle it down, hopefully doing as much damage as possible with your companions before they inevitably get themselves killed to speed things up.

Tedious is definitely a good way to describe those fights. That said I have been thinking about replaying the game so it couldn't have been that bad.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

Inquisition's combat system seems to have been designed more for multiplayer than for the single player campaign, because the AI and tactical controls flat out don't work the way they are supposed to like they did in the previous games.

 

[Dansen]

I played as an assassin archer, I used mark of death and then just unload everything on the dragons. The best companion by far is Cassandra, she was my one and only tank and she kicked ass. Just dump all her points into defensive passives and armor building abilities. There were many times when she was the last one standing and I was able to beat encounters with just her.

 

[Potjeslatinist]

It's a party-based game, so you're better off thinking about the most effective party.

I've beaten the game once, on normal, and listen, I died only once (against the Highland Ravager; you know how it goes - suddenly everything turns to shit in that one split-second it could possibly turn to shit).

I used two mages (Vivienne and Dorian), a rogue (my Inquisitor, assassin with bows) and Iron Bull.

The mages alternate barriers, if you time it right, you're always protected. Inbetween they use the most effective elemental magic, I always keep all four kinds of staff.
The rogue pummels the enemy from a distance with arrows, and yes, delicious mark of death.
Iron Bull stands waiting within the barrier - it's important to keep him protected, he does massive damages but also tends to incur a lot. When the enemy gets close, he unleashes utter devastation upon the fools.

I did everything, playthrough took a full 150 hours, and as I said: one death.

Pretty effective.

PS: I should note that I always fight in Tactical Screen. Give me total control or give me death.

 

[LetalisK]

I played as a melee tempest...but I also played when there was still the glitch where with Flask of Fire you didn't lose focus, so infinite Thousand Cuts. Never did complete the game. Next time I'm going to try an archer tempest or assassin. Cassandra will probably be my one meleer because she is a beast and so are mages.

 

[happyninja42]

I can't remember the name of the class, but it's the one for mages that lets you get basically a lightsaber. There is a particular way you can build that, in conjunction with the magic tree that boosted your shield and shield generation.

If you built it right, you were basically unkillable. Every attack you did would restore your shield based on the amount of damage you did on the attack. And if you built your shield up enough, it basically could never go down. Because if they hit your shield, they did damage to themselves, which would help to regenerate your shield. And all the time they are trying this, you are swinging your lightsaber, doing crazy damage....and restoring your shield. If things got hairy, you could go intangible, which with a particular talent would cause you to explode for massive damage when you rematerialize....restoring your shield.

It was stupid easy with that build, even dragon fights. Just hack at their legs, and if you start to get at risk of no shields (which was hardly ever), just intang and go stand inside the dragons leg, boom.

 

[Diablo2000]

I used an Assassin for killing the Dragons, Mark of Death was a huge help for them. I also generally used Sera for her Thousand Cuts, Cassandra as a tank, and Vivianne because she was the only one who had a "Heal Party" ability.

So I use Mark of Death, followed by the rift thing the inquisitor (can't recall the name) have, followed by Thousand Cuts and just like that more than half of the Dragon's health gone.
Then I proceed to fight normally with Cassandra tanking the hits, Sera and the Inquisitor as the main source of damage and Vivianne staying back, using the ocasional spell and just waiting for a good time to use the "Heal All" spell.

There's probably better ways to do it, but that's how I did it anyway...

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Mage Inquisitor - Knight Enchanter specialization, have Energy Barrage and a stave of the type the dragon is weak to and all the basic elemental spells (Winters Grasp, Flashfire, Chain Lightning) and just weave that in-and-out of using Spirit Blade and a Decloaking Blast-enhanced Fade Blast. Bring along Vivianne, Cassandra and anyone else for your third party member (it's a throw up between Solas and a rogue, really, Dorian and Bull are dreadful at killing dragons).

Rogue Inquisitor - Tempest works well for doing huge amounts of damage, since they have a lot of damage cooldowns and their Thousand Cuts Focus ability is really good for shearing chunks out of a Dragons HP. Archery or Dual Blades works well with Tempest too, since you're just alternating the various cooldowns. Could go Artificer, but it's just easier to bring along Varric if you want one of them. Party comp of Cassandra, Vivianne and Solas.

Warrior Inquisitor - It's either Champion specialization or Reaver specialization - Templar is a powerful tree in game due to all the demons you fight, but it's quite useless against dragons. With Champion, go sword and shield/Vanguard, focus on guard generation and defensive abilities (and taunts) and just refuse to die while all your allies deal the damage for you. Good party for this is Vivianne, Varric and Solas.
As a Reaver, it's two-handed weapons and Battlemaster; focus on gear that gives high armour penetration and Guard on Hit, and balance uses of Devour with Dragon-Rage so you don't put yourself into critical-range for the Dragon's various AoE attacks. You'll do a lot of damage, but good god are Reavers squishy. Good party here is Vivianne (listen she's just really good at killing dragons), Cassandra (Blackwall is tankier, but his AI is so much worse) and whatever 3rd party member you please.