Dragon Age: Origins

Are you guys using the dex hotfix?

I'm playing my warrior, and was going to make Leliana an archer - I'm debating the hotfix and shortbow, or just keeping it normal and using a longbow while increasing dex

I keep thinking about downloading it. But like.. the Dex Hotfix also increases the damage from enemy archers. And well. Those are already an extreme pain in the butt, so I'm hesitant.

I don't know what it is, so, I guess not.

Why would you use a shortbow over a longbow? I have Leliana as an archer right now, but I don't keep her in my active party. I have all my characters with longbows (except Alistair) because of the range and the speed when compared to a crossbow. Is a shortbow faster than a longbow? I used one for about 2 seconds when I was trying to kill some crap from a distance, and got blown the hell up cause the range on it was so short.

Been thinking of having Leliana with longbow/shortbow instead of longbow/melee, but that might depend on your response. I have only looked at the wiki... haven't bothered looking crap up elsewhere on the interwebs, because I just don't care that much. Asking you, however, is perfectly okay. :)

And while you're here, answering my every question, let me ask you another: wtf is the difference between all the various shield types? Is it just different levels of the different stats? Like a kite shield will have more missile deflection but less defense than a heavy shield of the same level (I just made that up)?

Before the hotfix shortbows and longbows all take half their damage modifier from Dex and half from Str - which basically makes shortbows shitty (they ARE faster, but the range is very short). (I've heard Longbows are full Str, but I think its half and half). Daggers take all of their damage modifier from Str even though the description says otherwise.

If you add in the hotfix then daggers take half from dex and half from str - shortbows take ALL from dex, and Longbows stay the same (for stats).

Further they've increased damage, crit rate, range, attack etc on ranged attacks making ranged much more powerful.

The downside to that is it fixes them for enemies as well - and there are a shitload of enemy archers in the game - so supposedly it makes the game much harder. They say they're eventually going to fix that for easy and normal modes, and just let hard and nightmare get more difficult. I haven't seen the fix yet.

http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/hotfix/dexterity_hotfix_101

I really don't know as far as shields. I haven't broken the game down that much yet. That sounds right though (Kite shields are great vs missile) - maybe heavy does more damage? I really don't know.

Oh, and I've always read that having the fire weapon spell up and the ice weapon spell up at the same time don't stack (and that fire does more?) but I can't really confirm from actual experience. They said the fire and ice had the same numbers in the files, but people reported much bigger numbers from the fire.

So without the hotfix, the Lethality talent does nothing?


I'm 99% certain they stack, but it's hard to tell where the damage is coming from. I know that I was constantly seeing white damage + orange damage (the fire stuff) + blue damage (the ice stuff), and this time around with no Flaming Weapons thing, I only see the blue, and yellow from my lightning runes.

I've been paying more attention to the frost damage, and it varies wildly. Vs undead (or was it shades? I don't remember now) it was only doing +1 damage. Vs some other crap, its been as high as +27. So maybe more things resist frost than resist fire? That would explain why people think it's less damage. If there was anything left to kill from my original save, I'd load it and find out. Maybe I'll use the console to temporarily give someone Flaming Weapons.

PS: Playing a non-mage sucks, because you have to either give Morrigan heals, or use Wynn. I HATE WYNN. HATE!

Yea I'm doing a mage again next.

I think lethality still works - in fact it is better. It would replace the entire bonus from str with cunning. Without the hotfix the full cunning (enough dex to buy the talents only) dagger/dagger is insane damage

That's what I did with Leliana last time, and with my main character this time, except I put a few points into strength to be able to wear the higher tier armors. Leliana was just ridiculous dps once she got enough talents.

I've built Morrigan a bit differently this time, and now she's pretty good damage too. Before, I wasted points on the crappy shapeshifting, and was using her mostly as an EQ enchanter... which is still her main purpose, I guess, but I went for more damage and now she's one-shotting things on a regular basis with Winter's Breath or Grasp or whatever it is called.

I'd like to try Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer and play the whole way through with no companions. Well, no companions once I unlock Arcane Warrior. The thought of trying to do things like... the giant ogre at the top of the Tower of Ishal, for example... without a tank... not fun!

My mage was an arcane warrior/spirit healer

How did it work out? I just made Wynn pick that for her second spec, and I'm curious how the damage is. Would it be worth it to equip her with a two-hand sword for extra damage? Or do you think a staff would be more dps?

Well I didn't parse anything, but it was a bit weird. I never wore armor with it - it just seemed to raise the fatigue too much. Also you lose a lot of spellpower until you get that one awesome sword that gives you a ton of spellpower. I did use it and melee a lot, and it seemed like I did great damage - but I swung slow - I'm not sure how much better it is then the nice steady "can't miss" of the staff.

However, once you max it all out I really liked it. I still didn't wear armor, and would only melee in my spare time (and I think once I got the best staff in the game I just switched to that) - what was really nice was going into the shroud mode or whatever its called. It increased my survivability a ton, and the mana regeneration was awesome. I had a much smaller mana pool then the other mages in my party, but I think it was a good trade off for the defense bonuses and the regen.

I'm not sure if I had it to do again I would do it again, but it was a very fun way to play a mage. I might give the blood mage a shot as I haven't tried that.

I think that Spirit Healer is one of the best specs in the game - every ability is useful - I assume you've played one? I never saw Lifeward working much, but that might have been the pace of the battles. I really liked the other 3 though - the final healing pulse thing took some getting used to, but was amazing once I did (I just kept a ton of potions to consume and keep my mana up). I beat the game with both myself and Wynne as maxed out spirit healers - both with crushing prisons etc - Wynne did most of the healing and I had maxed out fire skills that I loved - I could set an inferno up as a "wall" in areas where enemies kept coming in - or where archers were grouped - and often they would die making it through. People online say you can't do that or you get slaughtered, but I was able too - I think because of the fade shroud so they could shoot arrows at me and it was ok. Basically I could handle a little agro

What a disjointed post.

I did Spirit Healer/Blood Mage, but I only used Blood Magic to cast that aoe stun DoT thing, or the mind control thing, and then turned it off. I never bothered trying to see if I could sustain myself indefinately, or if the healing debuff was too much to handle.

Lifeward went off all the time for me... it seems to go off earlier than I'd like it to. It's like premature ejaculation version of Divine Intervention, with no emeralds required. I set myself to cast it once Alistair falls below 90% health, and in hectic fights, it would go off almost instantly.

I just went to grab Shale for the umpteenth time and decided to see what would happen if I told the demon I didn't make deals with her kind. The little girl ended up dying and I had to break the news to her dad. I turned around and told my husband that I felt a little bad about killing her like that. He said that's how it always goes. I was like ... "what? no. She's lived in all of my other playthroughs."

"What? No, there's no other choice."

"YES, there is. You freak. I reunite her with her dad and she's all 'daddy!!' when I bring her back."

"Oops. I didn't know you could do that."

"I can't believe you killed her."

"I wasn't going to barter with the demon!"

/facepalm

I don't barter with the demon either!

SO MEAN.

When I played through that scenario, I had to load it a few times so that I could save the girl and NOT have her possess her either. In the end, I think I killed the demon and saved the girl.

What is the best rogue chestpiece? The Felon's Coat? I want something that gives cunning :(

"Bann Loren's Lands" just appeared on my map, a yellow (DLC) area, and now Return to Ostagar is available from the starting screen. 400 points to download it.

THANK YOU for the update!