Dragon Age:Origins and a question

A lot of the 'The Mages are OP!!!' proclaimers are just being silly. I've noticed that Dragon Age works in the opposite manner of most Fantasy RPGs in that the mages start out the strongest and then grow weaker over time, whereas the physical combatants start out the weakest and grow stronger over time. By the end game, I had trouble deciding where I was going to put Morrigan's ability points, knowing that I would never use most of the spells, and Morrigan's only real purpose was to stun things and perform crowd control. My rogue main was doing all the damage (45% of party damage, to be exact, compared to Morrigan (the one party member who was in the active team at all times) who only had 13%).

Some of the naysayers are betraying that they haven't finished the game, as well. One person said that "I would have a full team of mages if I didn't need a warrior to run around shattering things / if some enemies weren't immune to the cone of cold", despite the fact that it is impossible to have four mages on your team, even if you rolled one yourself. Also, I didn't come across anything that could resist cone of cold.

It could be argued that my rogue was OP by the end of the game. For huge battles, the developers decided to give the Darkspawn very low HP (About 20-30, I'm guessing) when they were amassed in huge quantities. In one scene in particular, I remember slaying twelve of them with Dual Weapon Sweep.

I came across a humorous random event today. It involves Superman's origin story.

 

lucky SOB! I'm on my 3rd play through and still haven't gotten that random encounter

EDIT: Solo rogue archer on nightmare mode

 

I'm currently running a Dwarven dual-wielder. Anyone have advice on how to kill the Ogre in the signal tower? I've tried twice, and been positively raped. It's me, the tower guard, the circle mage, and Alstair.

...I forget the exact name... Tower of Ishal?

 

That Ogre is a BITCH. My preferred tactics below.

Spoiler

Alistair is your tank (unless you've taken that role yourself, in which case two-hand that boy), and should be the first man into the fight if you can manage it. If you're playing a mage or a rogue/warrior with an archery fetish, pepper it from afar with projectiles. If you're a dual-wielder or a two-hander, let it focus on Alistair and clobber it from behind. Be ready to flee at a moment's notice. If you're the tank, never, ever back off.

Even if you're not a mage, you should have a mage with you anyway - Winter's Grasp is your friend in this fight. Spam it, spam it like you've never spammed before! ANYTHING that slows it down for even a short time will save your arse here.

If it grabs someone, Alistair or a sword+board warrior can usually free them with Shield Bash. Grabbing a person is probably it's meanest trick, so have Shield Bash ready at all times. If it grabs your Shield Basher... well, they're fucked.

Be prepared to flick from person to person at a second's notice. Be constantly aware of what's going on. Have healing items on standby, and if you can cast healing spells, alternate between them and Winter's Grasp. Keeping your HP up and your characters free of the doom grip is essential to survive this fight.

This is by far the nastiest boss I've encountered so far simply because you're so limited in options, but this technique has not failed me yet.

 

Circle Mage should be spamming paralyze.

 

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I'm pretty sure you need the "Warden's Keep" DLC in order to get it.

Spoiler

And I'n my opinion Flemeth is the hardest boss. But the most difficult fight was after you had saved the Queen. The fight I have skipped.

 

Hmm, it is true that I got the random event not long after I installed the DLC.

 

I have the Warden's Keep installed but still haven't gotten the encounter. Or the

Spoiler

Jowan's Intention

random encounter even though I have the quest for it.

Ogre fight tactics:

Spoiler

First make everyone in your party's first tactic Self - Health <25% Use least powerful health poultice to take care of their own healing.

Buffing your party through flaming/frost/telekinetic weapons will greatly increase your dps. Use as many debuffs as possible such as weakness, below the belt, sunder arms, shattering shot, anything! As long as you save stamina for only debuffs and a shield bash/stun/winter's grasp when he grabs somebody then he should go down without too much of an issue.

 

If you have the dog, it's an amazing early-game DPS dealer, too.

 

Winter's Grasp is the one thing that saved me against the Ogre.

Spoiler

I'd freeze him for a few seconds while Alistair and the others pounded on him. That would buy time to let my magic missle (don't remember the name of it) and Horror spells recharge. Big problems, though when the Ogre would start resisting my spells. And if he came after me right away, I'd have Alistair use Threaten and keep a constant watch on his hp and manually heal him with poultices.

 

Well, you're supposed to lose that fight.

Re: your opinion of the hardest boss: She is just one boss. That makes her vulnerable to all the usual methods of keeping her stunlocked.

Regardless of what you're doing, this holds true in this game: Big solo bosses are easy to keep stunlocked. Now, the archdemon is a threat, partly because his flunkies just keep coming, and he can bomb them too.

 

They do, but only for elite/boss monsters, and only occasionally.

Many mage spells are quite powerful - like Crushing Prison, which require no casting delay. If used on a low CON character without good spirit resistance it means death unless you have a Templar nearby to ready dispel it. The developers realized that, and made elite/boss immune or highly resistant to it, and even if it hits it will have a very short duration.

Looks like Cone of Cold's freezing chance slipped under the radar... as you can freeze a dragon pretty much every cast.

You must have Warden's Keep DLC to trigger that one.

 

Actually, all the characters have a quest line involved with them when you increase their approval. Morrigan's involves killing the boss Wobbler mentions.

Archdemon wasn't that hard.

Spoiler

Morrigan never failed to freeze him. Also, I still had ALL my soldiers, so I just summoned the Dwarven Army. Only traumatic part was watching the leader of the Legion of the Dead be crushed in the Archdemon's jaws.

 

I think Morrigan's might be triggered by an item rather than approval. I'd like to know, though.

Spoiler

I gave her the Black Grimoire which triggered a dialogue scene. At that point, her approval with me was straight up neutral. After the gift, it went up 10 points, but remained neutral. The next time I went to camp, it went straight to the dialgue scene again with her where she propositioned me to kill Flemeth. I'm wondering if it was the Grimoire that unlocked her quest, or if that 10 point hike was enough. If her approval with me was too low to begin with, would the gift have triggered her quest, I wonder? If so, I also wonder the other members' quests are item-triggered if not approval-triggered?

 

No. You mustn't. I don't have it and I just got the encounter.

Spoiler

On my second play through. Decided to take the persuasion talent this time and it just paid off big time. Did the mission for the shady lyrium dealer in Dust Town and came out of it with 59 more gold than I started with. Also, convinced the werewolves to slaughter the Dalish. Not sure which was more satisfying.

 

At level 4 persuasion and 30 or so cunning, only one heavily armed slaver refused to buckle to my persuasion attempts. Everybody else would go for the most outlandish suggestions ever.

 

I wound up beating the ogre. Finally. Immediately afterwards, I decided I was done playing a warrior, and have made myself a rogue. Basically an identical character, except I chose the Rich Dwarf background. I was going to do a city-elf, but I wanted to play a female (since normally I don't), and the female elves are ugly.

 

You preffered the female dwarf to the city-elf?