The tactics/AI system is starting to piss me off. The mages have so many spells that are worthwhile, the pitiful few tactics slots you get aren't enough. I'/m winding up just having them all gang rape my target, since I can't seem to get them to fight on their own well enough.

My guys tend to just fucking stand there half the time any other way =/ I don't want automated combat like in FF12, but having a functioning script would be nice, or add more fucking tactics slots.

Spoiler

Dog = best character ever so far. Laughed my ass off with all the scenes in the camp, and the little bastard keeps finding quality pieces of stuff for me, 2 mage staffs better then anything I could of bought. He might not be as damaging, but I hate taking him out of my party.

Sten kicked Alistair out of the party quickly. Alistair's whining about Duncan got on my nerves, that and the attitude he gave me about asking about his templar past.

Morrigan and Leliana's bickering over my cock is lulzy, I killed Morrigan in front of Leliana, shortly afterwards they were bickering about a competition for me, lol

 

I fucking HATE the goddamn Urn of sacred ashes quest. I'm ready to fucking rage quit.

Spoiler

You have to fight your own party, but they have what seems like 3x your health and almost no spell recharge time. I've literally been hit by my own fireball spell 5 times within a minute! It's fucking aggravating!

Has ANYONE beaten this part? I swear to fucking god it's impossible. I tried WITH A FUCKING TRAINER, and I couldn't kill them! I killed 3 of them, and then zevran kept respawning no matter what the fuck I did.

 

Spoiler

Gave Leliana dual weapons, a long sword and a nice dagger, dumped two points into dual wield, and the bitch is a BEAST now

Course, it might have more to do with I'm on easy, these packs of werewolves are hard enough as is, on normal I'd be wiped out. Game could use a difficulty tweak. And friendly fire prevented me from using half my magic, thank god it gets rid of it on easy, the lightning storm spell would never get used if it hurt my allies as well.

 

You can take it out on normal too, I wasn't hitting my friends with it.

Decided to go as a "tree" elf rogue. Their story is not as awesome as a magi though, so I kind of miss it.

 

John,

Spoiler

The trick to beating the urn quest is simple enough - make sure to enter with a party which can counter itself. I had Morrigan, Leliana, Alistair and my PC. My PC is a rogue, so I quickly tear Leilana to shreds. Next is Morrigan. Without Morrigan and Leliana to support, the melee wall is easily kept under check. Use Morrigan to heal.

It all depends upon your party's set up, but you should obviously focus on getting rid of enemy healers. If you can, splurge on poisons and bombs, these often turn a difficult fight in your favor.

Currently nearing the end... level 19, took out the bosses

Spoiler

Flemeth, Great Blue Dragon and Sloth Demon

pretty easily... but Gaxkang - god if you run into anyone by that name, run for your life.

Also, friendly fire is very easy to manage. You just need to micro your mage and pause the game at the right moment, you can usually hit 2-3 enemies and not scratch your allies, 4 or 5 if you're lucky.

Well with cone AOEs anyway - circular AOEs are impossible to manage, and if you want to use them, you're going to need to have your party down potions of magic resistance, or be willing to spam group heal while you do it. There are only a few areas in the game where you can make use of the large, powerful AOEs and not hurt your allies.

The best mage specs I've seen are either arcane warrior (with blood mage second spec and lots of passive auras) or mass CC (petrify, cone of cold, sleep, paralysis ward, etc.)... they're generally easier to manage than AOE, since CC doesn't friendly fire. Oh, and there's healing of course.

Anyway, I've played around with all the specs now, I'd say assassin/duelist are best for rogue (ranger is okay, allows you to summon pets), Bard's fine on Leliana.

Templar + Reaver or Heroic are the best combination for a defensive warrior. Reaver and Berserker for 2h.

 

If you have persuade you can get it from her without playing the game, other than that I've seen books for other specs, maybe duelist has one too.

You could also try reloading and playing until you win, even if you've moved on once you unlock once it's permenant across all saves.

 

Chime you can definitely use your big primal aoes of doom. What you do is dangle bait for monsters make sure monsters chase faaaar away as possible. Then let loose your aoe, and either let the bait die or forcefield it.

Poor alistair... I think I've killed him about 100+ times already. Good thing I've got herbalism for the injury kits >.<

SpellMight + Blizzard + Tempest == Storm of century spell combo of doooooom

 

Im a bit
I managed to kill Wynne, I had no idea who she was but apparantly she's an uberuseful healer. Sigh.

And fyi, every single specialization path has its own book and its own quest. So quest = free + EXP I guess, while book = cash to unlock. Level 7 and 14 give you 1 specialization point. Look around Denerim especially, and in camp.

Mages, go for Arcane Warrior and Spiritual Healer. Shapeshifting is a fool's path, as I discovered. A fool's path.

And @ Midknight - I've found that basically micromanaging Morrigan (my only mage) works something like this:
Tactics slot her to use Cone of Cold on grouped enemies, and Lightning/Shock on everything else
Drain Life if she's injured
Heal if any ally is below 50% health
Tempest on top of me if I'm below 50% health

Then I assigned all her other useful spells (fire cone attack etc etc) onto her assigned buttons (Im on 360 here) and made sure I could just flick to her and then just pop one off as needed, befopre flicking back to myself.

Works pretty damn well.

 

Spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate?
Not so much. The game play is more of a mix of Kotor and NWN.

There are are few problems that hold the game back for me.

The story is kinda similar to Mass Effect, join Grey wardens instead of Spectre and an ancient evil, but that's minor.

The variety of enemies is pretty low, you'll find a larger variety just playing the underdark chapter of BG2.

I kinda wish skills had to be used a bit more strategically. Right now you just have mass effects cool down time and stamina/magic limit. I was just hoping for more of the old once a spell is used it's gone for the day.

The scenery is awesome. Going down into third person view and looking around the frozen religious temple was great. The underground dwarven tunnels was great but made me wish they had implemented a system for shadows instead of the ever present light that comes from nowhere yet lights any and all corners.

The side quests are also lacking in comparison to BG2. Any huge quest you find will be directly related to the plot. No strongholds to build up.

The conversations with your party are fun, same style as Kotor.
What was really great is that conversations between party members is actually affected by your relationship with the party members and what quests you have done.

That said most of my complaints are minor ones.
Bioware still hasn't surpassed BG2 or Planescape: Torment yet but DA:O is still great.

 

The specs of blood that stay on your characters looked good at first, now they annoy me, particularity how they stay even after cut scenes.

 

^they annoyed me from the beginning

I mean you look like a serial killer trying to sweet talk someone while you and they are covered in blood.

 

Mhm, I think you look more like somebody who was painting a ceiling.....but failed hard.

Idk why anybody would want a red ceiling.

 

Specialty locations:

Spoiler

Duelist: Can't find book. I think you can only learn it from that woman at the pearl.
Berserker: Dwarven vendor in Denerim market place.
Spirit Healer: Tranquil Proprietor in Wonders of Thedas, Denerim.
Shapeshift: Dalish camp.
Blood Mage: Desire Demon during the Redcliff quest-line.
Arcane Warrior: Ruins related to Dalish questline, break a phylactery and accept memories of a spirit.
Ranger: Book only. In your camp vendor.
Bard: Leliana can teach you only.
Assassin: Zevran can teach you only.
Templar: Camp vendor.
Reaver: Evil ending for Urn quest.
Chmapion: Good ending for Urn (cure Arl).

 

What you can do is go to a previous save and/or character. Learn the duelist spec, then it will be unlocked on all your accounts/saves.

 

That's interesting. Didn't know that.

Beat the final boss. Everyone should post their endings when they're done.

Spoiler

Character: Agitha, Female Rogue
Ending Results: Alistair on the throne, Anora in the tower, Loghain dead. Did the dark ritual with Morrigan and survived the final battle. Morrigan becomes a hermit and disappears. Appointed Shianni as Arl of the Alienage for Elves' rights. Orzammar erupts into civil war again, anvil of void's technology is rediscovered. Dalish elves set up camp next to humans and the new leader of the Dalish promotes peace (I killed off the guy who created the curse). Arl's kid has no mother and is 'acting strange'. Tower of Magi returns to normal. Dwarf girl goes to study with Mages and creates a new field of magic. Chantry acknowledges the Urn as the real ashes of the prophet and everyone goes there to pilgrimage.

Zevran decides he will stop by and visit the PC from time to time, but must keep his distance to stay away from the Crows. Oghren says he'll stick around in Fereldin. Sten says he will go home but owes a debt. Leliana says she's got the hots for PC and says she wouldn't mind moving in. Alistair has accepted his role as king and seems to take it well enough. WarDog is of course pleased. Wynne does whatever.

Flemmeth is 'dead' as far as I know.

I had Morrigan, Leliana, and War Dog at 100 friendship, Zevran and Alistair at 85, Wynne at 70, Sten, Oghren at 50.

I don't really think any of my choices early on in the game had any impact on the ending. There were a few minor ones, but honestly all the big story twists ocurred at the climax, once you were locked into the final few dungeons. There weren't any choices you could make prior to that, that would really shape anything. It's fine, but not much different than the rest of Bioware's stuff.

I'm actually kind of disappointed. This game isn't quite as 'dark' as they suggest. Sure, there are a few moments where it's unquestionably dark, but it won't be as nearly as morbid as ME2 is shaping up to be.

 

So just finished Orzimaar, yes I know I'm more than likely spelling that wrong, this has spoilers for the main quest line in Orzimaar so don't read it if you don't want to know.

Spoiler

I have to say that was a tough choice at the Anvil of the Void deciding whether or not to smash it, I ended up choosing to smash it and used persuasion to avoid any serious hit with Morrigan, anyone who didn't care to tell me what the upsides to not smashing it are?

Also most importantly of all that I discovered from Caridin

Shale was a woman

Shale was a dwarf woman

Shale was Shayle of House Kadash a "proud dwarven woman" of the Kadash Taigh.

.....HAHAHAHAHA thats just too fucking funny.

 

Okay, so I'm doing a new play through as a rogue and I decided to stop deluding myself and put the difficulty on easy, because even now the tactics of the game (not the script, the actual way to go in and win) elude me and I'm more in it for the story than anything else atm.

I'll admit, my opinion of the game is rising and once I got past some of the monotonous stuff, the storyline really started pulling me in and I found that I blew the three hours before work in front of my PC.

Does anybody know how the loot section works? Is it like KOTOR when everything is scripted in a place or is there randomization between each game?