Dragon Age: Origins. Lets talk tactics!

[atol]

What difficulty are you guys playing on? I'm on hard and it's not too bad. I can't see myself playing too well on nightmare, but I think hard is the perfect difficulty for me. I haven't played normal, but I'd assume it'd be a cakewalk.

Also, though it may not logically seem it, dog is a good ally. His strength is about equal to a well equipped two-hander. If you've got all the best gear for every slot for a regular NPC, they'd outperform dog. Otherwise, stick with dog if you want a well-rounded melee tank/dps.

 

[TPiddy]

I'm playing on normal and I was getting my ass kicked a lot until I rescued the Mage's tower. I run with Wynne as a Healer, Alistair as a Sword + Shield Templar, and Shale as the fucking badass that he is.

I'm an elven mage with mostly natural magic. I typically start a battle by casting Cone of Cold on a group of enemies and then Lightning Shocking the same group. I have Petrify for harder foes. Since giving Alistair the Blood Dragon Armor and Starfang he is almost as good as Shale in terms of being a tank.

We did get bested by a Revenant recently, but me dying is a rarity now as most of my spells are for crowd control. I think we'll be even better once I finish Wynne's Regret.

 

[gRiM_rEaPeRsco]

What difficulty ypu playing it on? i tried normal but i couldnt get past the bandits outside of the 1st town

 

[jakegold1472]

best setup (for me anyway)

Warden: Dual-Weild Rogue/Assassin/Duelist

Lelina: Archer/Bard/Ranger

Wynne: Spirit Healer/Blood Mage (uses Lel's summons for Blood magic)

Alistair: (tank) Templar/Champion (him plus ranger lel and wynne = three support chars)

OPTIONAL Ogren w/ templar spec instead of Al as dwarf magic resistance is better w/ templar

NOTE: you may replace warden w/ Zevran and use your Char as any of the other three roles.

I prefer two rogues my warden as a stealth dex=cun DW and Lel as a lock-picking dex rogue.

 

[WolfThomas]

I played an Arcane Warrior (it was really broken) as the main tank and mage (but he had good melee damage too), with Leliana as a DPS Archer Bard/Ranger with her blight wolf providing additional DPS and her bard songs giving buffs, Wynne was an Spirit Healer keeping them all alive and damage mage (mainly ice, glyphs and the spirit damage/draining class) and I respeced Alistair (mod) into a DPS dual weapons. I played that group out of roleplaying necessity too, as I was good.

I spent most of the time flipping through my mages, I liked to use cone of cold to freeze enemies then spells and criticals to shatter them. Kept two hastes running, miasma and bunch of other things. Mana regen was a ***** for my main PC but by the end of the game he had enough items to not only sustain countless buffs but to bring it back quickly.

My team in Awakening was retardedly powerful, Anders was a spirit healer/blood mage and my main character had the battle mage training, he'd haste a round the map surrounded by a swirling hurricane of elemental damage, he wouldn't even need to hit them.

Even now and then I'd like to kite all the enemies, use storm of the century, glyph of repulsion a narrow passageway and flee to safety. It was very bitchy.

 

[LittleBlondeGoth]

I'll state here at the start that I played DA:O on a PlayStation rather than a PC, but I'm one of those OCD people who micro-manage fights regardless. This is what I did:

My best / favourite / canon runthrough of the game was where I was a melee specced Rogue. Dual wield, Duelist and Assassin skillsets. I never found Leliana's archery to be all that good apart from in one or two specialised fights where getting too close was a bad idea. Rogue suits my personal playstyle the best, and it means I always have someone in my party to unlock chests and have decent coercion.

Alistair was my tank and comedy sidekick. It's what he's set up for, you get him right at the start, so it just seemed a logical choice. Though I think there's mods for the PC where you can reset everyone's skills, I never had that option. Get him into massive armour as quickly as possible by piling points into STR, then I went with a mix of DEX and CON for him.

The last two spots tended to go to Wynne and Morrigan, one mage for heals and buffs, the other specced for all-out damage. Having said this, I gave both of them Paralysis, and I think both had Crushing Prison as well. One also had Mass Paralysis. Crowd control was invaluable to me - it allowed me to command the more complex fights a lot better and limit the amount of incoming damage to my team.

No-one else really got much of a look in. Dog was useless. Leilana only handy on occasion. Zev wasn't bad, but I already had the DW DPS spot, and the other tanks just weren't Alistair.

Tactics wise, I set everyone to attack Alistairs' target, so the whole party concentrated on one mob at a time. General fights, I'd let him pick his own targets, and manually adjust if there was a magic user or mini boss that needed taking out first. My mages would demolish whatever he was fighting, and I'd often manually control my rogue, getting her to take out any extra threats.

But as people have already said, there is no one 'proper way' to set up your builds. Playstyles vary - my other half loves playing a sword and board tank, but I just don't have the patience for it. I did find though, that after a few hours playing, I leanred what spells were really handy and that I ought to have gone for from the start (back to that crowd control doohickey).

Also, Walking Bomb is the most fun ever.

 

[Weaver]

So, anyone else notice this thread is from 2009?

 

[Kaim89]

For normal fights I used Alistair as tank, myself as melee rogue, Morrigan for healing and offdps, and the other mage I can't recall her name.

For dragon/demon encounters: Alistair tanking, me ranged dps, Cleric girl for healing, and Zevran for ranged dps. Always worked well to keep everyone on range.