Dragon Age: Origins

[Harrison]

I like the dog and Alistair too. He keeps biting him and Alistair keeps taunting him.

Plus, he keeps bringing me some pretty sweet items.

[Ginzburgh]

My buddy just beat it @ 28 hours and he did very little side questing. So if you're going straight at the main quest, that's how long it should take.

I'm so backed up on games right now.

I have to finsish borderlands
Assassins Creed 2
Uncharted 2
The two new God of War remakes for PS3
Demon Souls

[Arlos]

Finally got this. Probably made a mistake by going to the Daelish area first. There's some optional encounters in that forest that just absolutely kick my ass. I've been running with my main character (sword & board fighter), Morrigan, Sten and the rogue chick. I keep contemplating getting rid of Sten for the dog or allistair, though.

-Arlos

[Jay]

Thinking about picking this up myself. What other game is it like?

[Durothil Skyreaver]

I restarted as a mage. I'm going to go the Arcane Warrior route when i get him up. It is so much easier at the beginning if you are a mage. The AI is still killing me more than anything, stupid NPC's

[Tikker]

Thinking about picking this up myself. What other game is it like?

it's mass effect with swords and magic

the AI/tactics isn't nearly as intuitive, but they may end up being a lot more flexible and less hands off as I figure them out

they seem to be kinda set up like firewall rules (or if/then perhaps)

[Harrison]

Yeah, closer to if/then.

[Ginzburgh]

the AI/tactics isn't nearly as intuitive, but they may end up being a lot more flexible and less hands off as I figure them out

The tactics are probably the most important part of the game. If you don't set up proper tactics, they'll just stand back and regular attack. If you have the right combination of skills set up in your tactics menu, your team will demolish.

[Tikker]

toss out some of yours then

I've honestly not spent a lot of time looking at them, i'm still mostly trying to figure out how to play my main guy before I worry about the others (but perhaps if I have the others able to kickass I can concentrate more on myself not sucking)

[Harrison]

I still can't get my party to do anywhere near as much damage as I do.

I do something stupid like 60% of my party's damage myself.

[Ginzburgh]

toss out some of yours then

There are too many variables that go into it for me to share mine with you.

We'd have to have the same party
The same gear
The same skills
The same stats

Just put all your sustained abilities on your second set of hot buttons for each character (if you have one that overwrites the other, just hotkey the better of the two). And before you're about to battle, toggle through everyone and make sure all of their sustained abilities are active. Don't waste your tactics on sustained abilities, just instant abilities.

Then go into tactics, make sure Wynn is healing your main tank when he hits 50% health and other party members at 75% health. And set your main tank to drink a pot at 25% health in the event he's taking big damage and you're waiting for Wynn's heal to refresh.

Then just set all the tactics for everyone else to assist your main tank using their best attack abilities. If you want an off tank, you can assign that tactic too.

I play a ranger but usually run into battle using Alistar, the first thing I do when I run in is blow my AE taunt so everything is on him, then I switch to my ranger and plug away with my arrows. I'm a master ranger so I have the l33t pets that do huge damage.

Setting up the tactics is just like setting up a raid in WoW or EQ, everyone has their own job. It's actually easier than WoW or EQ because you have total control and your party will do EXACTLY what you tell them to do. So you're removing the element of the moron behind the keyboard who didn't listen and kills everyone.

[Ginzburgh]

And there also has to be some mid battle toggling. When the battle is going on, I toggle between Wynne and my Ranger most. Wynne for group heals, revives (resurrect) and Glyphs.

[Lyion]

This game is more akin to Baldurs Gate and Black Isle games, than Mass Effect.

The trick to this game is pause, and pause often. Setup what your players are doing. Use pots often. Move people around.

Once you get Morrigan, the first time she levels get her heal. Then have her AI first spot cast that heal at anyone under 75%.

Your tank needs to get taunt asafp. Threaten is sucky. Taunt is very good.

After getting heal, if your main character is not a mage, then get Morrigan all the way up the Ice Tree as quick as possible. It's by far the least resisted and easiest to use. After that, electricity is nice.

I'm at level 15 so my strats are going to be a bit different. I'm running a tank (I swap out all three for fun), Leliana as my rogue with archery high and bard maxed, and my Blood/AW mage.

I generally start fights from range and launch fireball to start which has a nice knockdown, then follow it up with Tempest and Inferno from my mages. I keep my party together via hold, to help aggro. When the rushers reach, I use the AE taunt to gather them on my warrior. The last bard ability is a prox AE stun. I use that when they are near my mages, so they generally take no damage. Inferno and Tempest roast any ranged/casters.

If a fight gets super hairy, Morrigan has sleep and walking nightmare. Generally, if a huge group reaches my party, I'll stop attacking, cast sleep, and then cast walking nightmare which are really a brilliant combination.

Both my casters <main and Morrigan> have heal and regen. I use those often, and the tank is generally topped off. So far, the only encounter to utterly kick my ass was Flementh, because her damage is just so high, and her HPs are obscene.

I really run my group quite similar to an EQ party. Leliana is my EQ bard, with great CC and moderate damage. I run a tank. Morrigan is setup somewhat like a Shaman. My char is setup to do sick DPS and can also heal.

I also run a rogue group, but that requires more strategy and good use of stealth, positioning and more finesse. I love the brute power of the mage group.

[Harrison]

I am seeing a lot of replay value in this. I want to try a melee character next.

[Ginzburgh]

Yep, totally. What Lyion describes is a completly different setup than mine but just as effective at getting the job done. The game has an infinite amount of configurations and the changes to the story lines are awesome based on what race you are playing. They really did a great job making this game.

[Lyion]

My hope is Bioware releases some stellar DLC(downloadable content) addons to enable more play. I'm sure they'll do an expansion.

I bought Soldiers Peak, but I was somewhat disappointed with how short that was. I'm hoping they add continents and other storylines via DLC.

I plan on upping the difficulty session next time through. First time I've done it on normal. I also plan on playing a rogue all the way through.

Right now mage is the easiest by far to work with, except in the dwarven area where it was a pain in the ass early due to some required 1v1 fighting.
The best replay value is just in the first five levels. Each route has it's own starting storyline.. Such as Casteless Dwarf, Noble Human, Mage, etc. All of those are fun to check out,

Oh, doing Morrigan with a dwarf is also a hoot.

[Ginzburgh]

Ha

[Lyion]

Who da Man..

[Harrison]

I highly suggest the respec mod.

I picked some awfully stupid shit when I started, as a mage. (Poison for instance)

[Tikker]

i'm going thru it this time as a rogue

next time I may go tank

[Tossica]

I'm playing through as a warrior now. Will probably try Rogue next time through. I am over 30 hours in and have been working on just about every side quest I'm given.

[Lyion]

The nice thing is due to the amount of companions, it doesn't matter what class you play.

Warrior is tougher since so many of the main guys: Alistair, Sten, Oghren, and others later in the game are the same class, it makes it a tad tougher.

For fun I sometimes run Sten and Oghren with my mage and Leliana in a group. The bard prox AE stun is just godly.. Run into a group, fire it off, and let the 2Handers lay waste. Taunt ensures nobody touches the squishies.

My strats for killing big nasties are all based around two mages. Mages remain much more powerful with a lot more utility than the other classes. The problem you run into is Morrigan and Wynn are the only two mage companions in the game, vs the plethora of warriors. Wynn is the nursing Mom type. Morrigan is the material girl cut throat bitch. What pisses one off, the other will like.

It's why I love this game...

[Ginzburgh]

I'm 34 hours in and just called the lands meet. My buddy says I have about three hours to go. I did as many side quests as I could too.

Still rocking:

Ranger/Archer (me)
Alistar
Oghren
Wynne

[Lyion]

I'm 34 hours in and just called the lands meet. My buddy says I have about three hours to go. I did as many side quests as I could too.

Still rocking:

Ranger/Archer (me)
Alistar
Oghren
Wynne

My only issue is I doubt I could kill the Dragon pictured above with that group, even at level 18.

It was almost trivial with my 2 mage one.

[Ginzburgh]

What do your mages usually hit for? I think the only difference would be, what you would be using for Lyrium pots I would be using for Health pots.

Ogren hits between 65-80
Alistar hits between 45-60 (shield spec) and has a ton of Defense
I'm an archery ranger and hit very fast for 40s (I mean very fast)
My pet hits for 60s
Wynne is a healing machine

With the right amount of pots I can do it no problem.

Plus the guy I work with has a similar setup as me only he uses Sten instead of Ogren and he's an assasination rogue so he doesn't have a pet and he did it at 16. He said it took like 15 minutes though.

I just killed the withertooth with all of her adds without a single death, in less than five minutes and used only one health pot but a few lyrium pots for Wynne. Alistar can take big hits with the shield spec. Also, I don't taunt with Ogren, all taunts come from Alistar and the mobs rarely switch to my other party members. If they go after Wynne, I have a tactic built in for Alistar to assist as soon as she gets hit.