Dragon Age: Origins - Party Thread

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 13th, 2009, 12:50

Well, it could be a party but all the dwarves are naked and getting buggered by lady boys. Your call if you want to join in (but that will be 40 silver please).

Meanwhile, how have people developed their Hero and what is your favourite party group to go with that?

I've gone a fairly unimaginative route for my first run through. I'm a regular Dwarf Warrior, using the heaviest plate I can find (I just abused a few +2 strength items to squeeze into the Dragon Armour), armed with a 1H Sword n Board and a bow for pulls and popping off mages from range. His build is all the shield stuffs so far.

I'll usually take either Alistair or Sten as dps: heavy plate, 2H weps, 2H skills although Al has a sword n board for off tanking occasionally. They seem to pull aggro really easily though, even if they're doing nothing (I'm not sure how the aggro mechanic works).

Third slot really has to be a healer, so that goes to Wynne usually. She also has some great party buffs and useful crowd control with the earthquake. I set up a tactic slot to fire off the rock thing whenever she spots a paralyzed enemy, which will auto shatter anyone frozen.

Final slot I can't decide. Bard bitch for picking locks, she's all bows and arrows but otherwise fairly week (and french). Shale is quite useful but fairly situational. Morrigan is great till she runs out of mana and needs to gorge on potions to last through a fight. And there are plenty of other choices too. Usually ends up being Morrigan though (and then I go back with bard woman to pick all the damn locks later )

Post by **FatherJack** » November 13th, 2009, 14:13

I rotate my party after every dungeon - I just always do that.

Gone with a mage for my main and maxed out the big AoE spells first (Fire, Lightning, Death Cloud), got the basic heal spell, then built up Shapeshifting for when I needed to scrap on my own. At 14 went Arcane Warrior for swords and armour. All-rounder, except for lock picking. Talents into persuasion, mostly. Some bits you have to do on your own, so it's a problem if you rely too much on the team.

Healer is Morrigan (Shapeshifter/Spirit) or Wynne (Spirit/Blood) - both have most of the spells.

Lockpicker has been Leliana (Bard/Ranger) as an archer, but have recently taught it to Zevran (Assasin/Duelist).

One of the others as defender. Made Sten a Berserker, but Alistair seemed to be broken and I couldn't dual-class him.

Have deviated from this occasionally, taking Morrigan and Wynne, leaving Leliana/Zevran as scrappers - takes a while to kill stuff, but you don't die. The L4 rejuvenate all spell on auto-trigger stops them running out of mana - they can cast it on very low mana and get it back quickly.

shot2bits · Post by **shot2bits** » November 13th, 2009, 14:19

ive got a fairly similar setup, part from my dorf is noble!
not got to putting him in massive armour yet think its still all heavy, as for the rest of my group i was taking out alistair untill i got shale, hes much less squishy what with being stone and appears to be quite versatile, mostly i just use him for hitting things hard though as he does alot more damage to alistair.
i then use morrigan for magiks! and a bit of healing, mostly i use her for freezing groups of enemies and picking of ranged enemies with a couple spells
and lastly ive stuck with leliana for lockpicking and robbing everyone blind (and i mean everyone, im sick of watching the pickpocket skill recharge) but lately since i gave her decent weapons and shes got a few more skills if you place her right in a fight she can put out a decent amount of damage or help pick of archers while ma dwarf and shale kill the harder enemies

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » November 13th, 2009, 14:50

As I've got the roguey archery bit covered with my Dalish Elf, I'm at a bit of an impass.

I'm rocking around with Alistair and Morrigan, and generally Leliana because I've just given her duel wielding and have been bumping up her backstab skill.

Having just done the mages tower and earned Wynne I have to say I'm not fond of her too much, Morrigan is fine at heaing generally and using Drain Life keeps her topped up nicely. I still haven't used Sten at all even though he's available.

Akiakaiu · Post by **Akiakaiu** » November 13th, 2009, 16:34

I went the dwarf noble way with the heaviest plate set I can find. Warden DLC plate > Blood Dragon > spoilery armor. I think I pretty much only used those three armor sets the whole game. He's a maxed sword/shield/warrior with the Champion/Berserker spec, I didn't start using the Berserker spec till it was maxed out as I could not afford even worse stamina regen.

As for the rest of the party, I've mainly used the same three people since I've could. Morg, Leliana, and Wynne. Leliana I had at 1st set up as a stabby stabby person till I realized paper should use a bow and set her up as archer/ranged and she lived alot longer after that.

Morg is set up for death all the way with only the heal spell set to go off if any ally reaches 10% health. Wynne is a bastardized healer tactic with alot of them turned off for mana reasons. I mainly have her set up to keep me topped off since my threat skills and pulls mean my dwarf is getting hit 90% of the time so I don't need everyone getting regened at 90%. Mass rejuvenate is a mana saver which I learned way to late in the 1st playthrough hehe.

Shada · Post by **Shada** » November 13th, 2009, 16:45

I'm an entropic shapeshifting mage soon to be a blood mage as well. Kinda wish I'd just gone for all damage spells, entropy is quite shit as it's all about weakening stuff so other people can do the killing. Shapeshifting is also shit as the forms are weaker than regular form, with it only getting better later on when you get access to the upgraded versions.

Also I seem to have a habit of driving away every potential new party member - I've refused about three potential recruits and I've almost completely driven away Alistair. Pretty soon it's just going to be me and my dog.

I think I might start again.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 13th, 2009, 17:23

Aki is disturbingly similar to what I'm doing. That mass regen thing is a pro tip, hadn't thought of that one.

Hex's and stuff are great when used with spell combos (sleep/horror is one it tells you about, the rest I think you need to discover for yourself). I'm experimenting with oil spells combined with paralysis hex and a rogue chucking fire pots to make seas of gooey flame. Far too much fun (and this should be in the tactics thread really).

Post by **FatherJack** » November 18th, 2009, 0:09

Pretty much settled on:
Me: awesome
Morrigan: healing, sleep, lightning and bickering
Leliana: ranger (w. megaspider), bit of stabby, locks, traps and flouncing
Shale: face punching, not dying and avian pest exterminating

Some bits don't let you choose though, but it's fun to hear the others sometimes, like the randy dwarf.

Akiakaiu · Post by **Akiakaiu** » November 18th, 2009, 1:20

Second time through I've gone with the heavy hitters.

Me: City Elf Rogue bow style
Sten: 2 handed ass hander
Odgren: same as above
Shale: double flawless fires unless immune to fire (I carry full sets of all crystals for her.

Works really well, better I think then with mages and healy types. Just have a ton of health pots and set them up to pop them at ~50% Just watch if you pick up some lesser pots, 75% or manual use works then. Set them all to scrapper/aggressive while I sit back and fire off pointy death. By the way, what's everyone's highest single hit? Mine is 454 Arrow of Slaying. I think the 2 handers max with 50~ strength is 170ish.

Spoiler for a Shale quest I missed 1st time through and if you miss it, it's gone forever. This deals with the Dwarf quests in Oz.

Spoiler:

9th edit on this post or so it feels.... With ranger spec, when you call a pet it says you gain tactic slots, can you set pet tactics? If so where?

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 18th, 2009, 7:31

FatherJack wrote:Pretty much settled on:
Me: awesome
Morrigan: healing, sleep, lightning and bickering
Leliana: ranger (w. megaspider), bit of stabby, locks, traps and flouncing
Shale: face punching, not dying and avian pest exterminating

Some bits don't let you choose though, but it's fun to hear the others sometimes, like the randy dwarf.

Yep, that's the party I'm using at the moment, Shale's quake attack is rather useful.

Shada · Post by **Shada** » November 18th, 2009, 11:03

is my game broke or am I missing something, because I have no idea where to get Shale after I get the golem control rod

shot2bits · Post by **shot2bits** » November 18th, 2009, 11:20

Shada wrote:is my game broke or am I missing something, because I have no idea where to get Shale after I get the golem control rod

after you get the rod there should be another town in your world map, think it has the name of it in the journal

Spoiler:

Shada · Post by **Shada** » November 18th, 2009, 12:19

yeah, there's no town. what.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 18th, 2009, 12:31

Did the merchant bloke tell you where it is? You didn't just smash his face in and nick the rod did you?

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » November 18th, 2009, 12:31

Shada wrote:yeah, there's no town. what.

I quick search suggests you could have found a bug. After you get the rod it should open up a village called Honnleath. Which I think is in the West of Ferelden.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 18th, 2009, 14:15

I can see I'm going to have to play it all thorugh again, just to try different party builds. I've settled on me (big faaabulous black dwarf), Alistair, Wynne As Healer, and Bard Bird since not having a lock picker was getting annoying.

I'd love to try it with me being sneaky stabby rogue (and hence no need for a separate lock picker), so I can take Alistair or Sten as dual dps or tank when it's needed, and still have room for a mage (probably just Morrigan with a bit of a heal / frosty mix) and the walking androgenous rock.

Post by **deject** » November 18th, 2009, 14:31

So far my best mix has been me as a DW, lockpicking Rogue, Sten with the 2 handed over-compensating sword, Morrigan (Spec'd for cold/frost spells and healing), and Wynne (mostly healing, some cold spells & Arcane Warrior). Having 2 healers is pretty crucial I think, as when I only had Wynne my party would get overwhelmed a lot easier. Also, swapping Leliana for Morrigan works fairly well if you have some decent bows and some good ammo types (e.g.: Andraste's Arrows which interrupt spellcasting, very handy against Mage/Demon bosses). You can also swap Sten for Shale or Oghren without much trouble, and Alistair can work against Mage enemies in that place, though you'd think he would be more durable considering he has a shield. I stick with Sten though as I have his strength (with equipment) up to about 57.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 18th, 2009, 15:11

I've got the same setup as Friz; myself as a shield fighter, Alistair as 2-h fighter (I figured since he took a pasting every fight anyway he might as well do some damage before he falls over), Lelaini as dual weapon/lock picker, and Wynne as healer support (although she usually runs out of mana after a short time).

Next time I'll be going dwarf rogue maybe, doing the Dust Town starter, and take along Shale and Morrigan because I think they'll probably have some amusing dialogue. I wouldn't mind seeing what I can do with the elf assassin bloke too, but I'll probably end up with Wynne again.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » November 18th, 2009, 15:14

I'm not too sure, but I think dual weapons if you skill up and master it is probably better than mastered shield skills because while you do get slightly less defence (not much as dualing still gives you a bonus) the increased attack damage and two chances to hit per attack is much better.

Need to experiment more.

Post by **HereComesPete** » November 18th, 2009, 17:14

A lot of people are seemingly getting very little joy from Alistair in terms of tanking, but I've got him to the point now where huge mobs struggle to put him down and he's generating constant threat.

I just went through the s/s list and got him that toggle buff that makes his armour stat very high, and then worked around kitting him with the heaviest thickest stuff he could wear. Then I get him to use his threat stuff when surrounded. He rarely needs a heal from anyone and chugs the very occasional health pot.

I guess I just swapped the main char and Alistairs roles because I like my main char to be a hard bastard and able to drop the hammer in a fight.