embrace the mages. learn to love the mages. smurf the chantryOriginally Posted by Pumpkin
embrace the mages. learn to love the mages. smurf the chantry
But I need at least one front of the line person because I archer and now I'm just BURIED IN MAGES
ALSO WHO ROMANCE
did you meet Fenris and Isabela yet?
You gotta meet all the potentials before you decide
Nah not yet
I went archer rogue with my last playthrough, and a very good party composition includes:
- Aveline: you're going to have to get used to seeing her in your party. She's the only and best tank you have and becomes an immovable force with the right skills. Emphasise any defensive talents early in her development. While later on you can experiment with making her more damaging, for the most part she'll have too many sustained defensive abilities to have much active stamina left, and you should really save that small pool for repeated use of taunt. How offensive she can be ultimately depends on how fragile the team behind her is, and the difficulty. I assume you're playing on Casual (like me!) so she can afford to pass up on some defence.
- Anders: Only Bethany and Anders can enter the Creation tree, and Anders is the better healer. Focus on creation first, getting the valuable heal upgrades, before picking up haste, which really ups your damage output. After that, he's more flexible, but going down either elemental or primal is always useful.
- Isabela/Fenris: You haven't obtained them yet, and while I'll try not to avoid gameplay spoilers for them (like what class they are, for example), they are both close-combat fighters. This works well because you have two up-front and two hanging back, which is nice. Having three ranged and Aveline alone at the front can result in your more fragile ranged fighters getting swamped if Aveline can't manage to draw all the aggro.
That's not to say the others aren't useful! But this probably provides the most balanced team for an archer rogue if you're having trouble in combat. Aveline is pretty important though. Having said that, I always play on casual (maaybe normal) so party composition isn't as essential, and I can bring anyone I like to listen to their snarky comments on quests and side-quests. Use that as a guide, but seriously, pick whoever you fancy.
You mentioned what to do with all the mages. The great thing with this game is that they can do very different roles. Anders is best as a healer/damager hybrid, and Bethany is probably about the same as well.
Merrill though can be very useful as a damager/debuffer. Her main 'gimmick' so to speak is her blood magic, which unlocks later on. You can decide whether to opt in or not (I always do because story). If you do decide to go down the blood magic path, dump all of her points in constitution and magic, as willpower becomes effectively meaningless when she's using it. This also means Merrill is very handy for dumping two more sustained abilities, as they take up a percentage of mana, meaning a willpower of 11 is as good as having a willpower of 35. Blood magic uses her health as payment, so dump points in constitution. She can be surprisingly sturdy!
EDIT: Also about bringing whoever you want, that becomes important if you want to better control friendship/rivalry stats. I always befriend my companions. With some... 'harder to please' companions, knowing not to use them really helps!
Anders, Fenris, Merrill, Isabela are your four romance options. All four come with baggage, Anders comes with a special end of the game ~surprise~ which you will either love or hate depending on how you feel about certain game events
If you have the DLC you can also date Sebastian, who also has a ton of baggage (as this is Baggage: The Game), but he's kind of hard to snag. He's a church boy and you can really only get him if you're super churchy back to him and like, don't flirt with anyone else throughout the game or something like that
Thanks for the tips! I dun think I have the DLC though, but oh well.
Is there a good way to get more friendship points outside of plot events?
WHHHHYYYYY.
Sebastian is the most difficult person to romance. He is also the only character available for romance who isn't bisexual. Then again, you're playing as Fem!Hawke, so that shouldn't be an issue.If you have the DLC you can also date Sebastian, who also has a ton of baggage (as this is Baggage: The Game), but he's kind of hard to snag. He's a church boy and you can really only get him if you're super churchy back to him and like, don't flirt with anyone else throughout the game or something like that
Date whoever you feel like! I dated Anders with my Fem!Hawke and Fenris with my Mas!Hawke. I enjoyed both routes pretty much equally.
I want Leliana
Compared to Dragon Age: Origins, the use of gifts have been heavily reduced. As the ever helpful wikia states:
So basically, if Anders is on the friendship path, it'll up friendship. If he's on the rivalry path, it'll up rivalry instead. Pretty simple, but gifts are not an automatic +10 to approval like they were in Origins. Best to keep in mind.Gifts still influence friendship and rivalry, but the number of gifts in the game has been significantly reduced from Dragon Age: Origins. Companions react differently to gifts depending on their friendship/rivalry score. If the player gives a gift to a companion who approves of the gift, they may express gratitude, while a rival may perceive the gift as an insult and tell them to keep it.
The best way to raise approval (or rivalry, if preferred) is through quests. These include the big main quests, but also side-quests and smaller companion quests and cutscenes. I always use a guide, because I am that much of a sellout, but it shouldn't be too difficult to keep everyone happy.
Alrighty, thanks!
Leliana's in a DLC!I want Leliana
Balancing character reputation is kinda rough in this game, for example Anders likes when you support mage freedom, Merrill likes if you're okay with blood magic and demons, Fenris likes if you like the templars, Isabela likes if you're a sarcastic flirt. Varric and Aveline tend to support Doing the Right Thing (TM).
You can still romance people even if you're in a rivalry with someone instead of a friendship, it does sort of change the romance though.
because (SPOILER)the mages are right, smurf the chantry and the templarsWHHHHYYYYY.
As I said, it helps if you switch characters to suit your purposes. Most of this is commonsense like Pike says; if you're doing a mission where you'll be supporting the mages, it helps not to bring Fenris along. Being supportive of blood magic is the most difficult line to hold onto, because a majority of characters disapprove of it, leading to a situation where you either have to piss off Merrill or piss off up to two or three people. But by and large, you can predict what responses you will have to give and adjust accordingly.
The good news is that once you have reached 100% friendship or rivalry, it locks in to that status, meaning anymore changes will not happen. This allows you to not worry about that character disapproving of your actions, for example. Varric and Aveline are fairly easy to max out friendship wise, meaning you can choose not to use them in favour of characters who aren't quite as friendly/angry at you.
There are good benefits for getting 50% friendship or rivalry on a character, as they gain a passive ability at that point that is always useful.
Yeah, I usually use the Dragon Age wiki and look up quests in advance to note any approval changes and plan who to bring to what quest. I can usually successfully 100% everyone in a single playthrough (except Isabela, good Andraste's knickers I have a difficult time maxing her out and I don't know why. Guess I'm not flirty enough??)
It's very easy to Rival Merrill. Then again, just because something is easy doesn't make it right. Friendmanced Merrill for life.
Anders,Merrill and Fenris are easy to read and get to what you want. The rest can be a bit trickier. I have a hard time Rivaling Aveline, for instance.
And Sebastian should be left dead in a ditch somewhere. You get +100 Friendship from me!
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