Late to the Dragon Age party, hot damn do I suck at it.

[adam_grif]

Yeah I know there's was an old thread, but it's like my grandma always used to say; better safe than dabbling in necromancy, even if it's only mostly dead.

I'm horrible at these kinds of games. I have a level 12 mage doing the wood elf part, up to the "boss" (I went with breaking the curse at any cost), and now every time I load up my save I get obliterated by 3 sylvians, 2 great shades and this motherfuckin' elf mage with more hitpoints than he has any right to have. I have no chance at all, I try focus firing the mage but I can't take him out before I get wiped by his cronies. If I try to deal with them first, I get a face full of red hot magic death. If I try to split it I still get owned. Sigh. I could turn the difficulty down to easy, but my ego can't take it.

Aside from the epileptic difficulty curve, it's pretty good. Runs like a dog on my PC as to be expected. Anybody still playing it? It's freakin' long, I'll give it that.

[Edi]

I'm playing it. Haven't gone to the forest yet, been doing other stuff. If you have the glyph path, glyph of repulsion plus glyph of paralysis combine to make a paralysis explosion that freezes everything in its area. If you have full path for the mana drain/mana cleanse/spell might/mana clash, use the last one, it'll wipe out the mage and then you can take care of the others. Use the potions and healing poultices as much as you need.

[Ghost Rider]

I'll say it again. This game is based on Crowd Control.

If you have any access on any characters to stuns or freeze abilities? Use them. You have to watch out the enemy doing the same, but stuns drastically change the tide.

So for that battle? If you have the Cold path or replusion, or sleep spell, or have any of your side characters with stunners...do so. Stun the mage(s), whittle his army down, collect loot. This can be applied to 90% of the game.

[Vympel]

I continued my sword and shield game again recently (I stopped because of ME2), so I could play Return to Ostagar and get ready for the Awakening expansion pack. I never bothered with the game's difficulty, I turned it down to Easy. It was too hard to be enjoyable on Normal.

[fractalsponge1]

Mana Clash will obliterate almost any enemy mage within its AOE, or at the very least render it totally useless for some time. Alternative would be to try to alternate force shield and crushing prison to immobilize and/or damage while you deal with the plants. Also, Cone of Cold is pretty much the best spell in the game, ridiculous CC, AOE freezes almost anything, only 3rd tirer; get it. One option for this room might be run up (relatively small room), CoC, then Force Field AOE stun anything that crowds up, or have your tank Taunt to bleed aggro to let you back off afterwards. Repeat CoC or lock-down spells on the mage and kill the rest normally.

If you have access to two mages (Morrigan and yourself) with a good subset of that, then you can pretty much keep almost any single target locked down indefinitely even at lower levels (Magic score allowing). Frozen enemy + stonefist or crushing prison or melee critical is instant death for most non-bosses. Consider that CoC is AOE, and that's pretty much immediate pwnage for 3 mooks at the beginning of a fight if you have the right setup (2 mages + 2 hander/Alistair, for example). If you have Wynne and spec her appropriately as well, you might as well be invincible.

Potions can be crafted even during a fight; be shameless with it if you need.

[Stark]

Play it like an MMO and it's easy, as GR says.

[Shinova]

Yeah I know there's was an old thread, but it's like my grandma always used to say; better safe than dabbling in necromancy, even if it's only mostly dead.

I'm horrible at these kinds of games. I have a level 12 mage doing the wood elf part, up to the "boss" (I went with breaking the curse at any cost), and now every time I load up my save I get obliterated by 3 sylvians, 2 great shades and this motherfuckin' elf mage with more hitpoints than he has any right to have. I have no chance at all, I try focus firing the mage but I can't take him out before I get wiped by his cronies. If I try to deal with them first, I get a face full of red hot magic death. If I try to split it I still get owned. Sigh. I could turn the difficulty down to easy, but my ego can't take it.

Aside from the epileptic difficulty curve, it's pretty good. Runs like a dog on my PC as to be expected. Anybody still playing it? It's freakin' long, I'll give it that.

If you're at the part and have chosen the dialogue path that I think you have taken, here's the easiest way to beat that part of the quest.


Do you have Alistair? Do you have that one spell in his templar specialization that negates all magic effects in an area? Stand him next to that ally and its minions and use it to free them. They will automatically go after the mage. Just stand your ground against the shades and sylvians until your friends take the mage down.

[Hawkwings]

Repeat after me: Cone of Cold, Stonefist, repeat.

Works even better if you've got two mages with both spells. Don't be afraid to run them around for optimal cone positioning.

And while those spells are recharging, use your melee specialist to do the special moves with an auto-crit. They will smash the mooks to frozen pieces.

[adam_grif]

I have Alastair, the Laconic tall dude, Morrigan and my mage. I have the entire cold path, the entire hex path, but not all that much else. What moves are the autocrits, as you say? Oh and I have the basic healing too. So does morrigan. So far in the game my main strategy has been cone of cold to lock down rushing melee enemies, me+morrigam casting hexes on the biggest target then wasting them with spells while the 2 tanks hold the line.

I've been experimenting with trapping the mooks in a blizzard, but even when I managed to pull it off the mage still wasted us.

Play it like an MMO and it's easy, as GR says.

I don't play any MMO's. My experience with them consists of about 20 minutes of WoW I played in 2005 with a new character.

[Coaan]

If you have both cold and the hex tree, there is no way in hell you should ever fail to curb stomp the minions, while having your own party mooks deal with the mage. As I believe several people have posted now - Cone of Cold, Winters grasp. Ad infinitum. If you have to, Kite everything as much as you can. If they are focused on you, have your support mage do some wailing with magic.

If you don't have at least one tank on the mage, he will kill you, it's that simple. You're going to have to choose one of your meleers to beat on Tuvok and one to take the flak from his minions..if nothing else, the mook you choose to take him on will stop him killing the rest of you while you deal with his mooks.

Cold spells are ridiculous damage dealers. You should not have a problem dealing with these bad guys. Cold spell + Death hex = auto crit = Instant death due to shattering. Your freezing ability should also work on Tuvok. (but not the shattering, he's technically a boss.)

Alternatively, have your mages freeze the fuck out of him constantly until your tanks are done mopping up his mooks. They are not hard spawns, it just seems daunting because Tuvok will fuck you up if you don't stop his casting. Keep calm and drown your front line in healing until everything's dead.

You also might want to dump your ego and switch it down to easy if you're having this much of a problem until you have the basic jist of how to use the magic at your command, or at least until you have a firm grasp on what your party can and cannot handle at normal difficulty

Edit 2 - The Tier Four spells are worthless in close quarters in Normal. They hinder/do more damage to you than your opponents. Stick to Tier Three and Tier One cold to dish the damage. They're fast and you can pretty much cycle one after the other for a bit.

[Imperial Overlord]

For the future, you'll also want to push Morrigan up the Mindblast tree to get Force Field (instant boss lockdown while you trash the minions) and Crushing Forcecage (it won't lockdown bosses, but it will lockdown minions (or shatter them if frozen) and does good continuous damage).

[adam_grif]

If you have both cold and the hex tree, there is no way in hell you should ever fail to curb stomp the minions,

Well clearly something has gone wrong then, hasn't it.

As I believe several people have posted now - Cone of Cold, Winters grasp. Ad infinitum.

No shit. That's how I got up to this part of the game. If I hadn't worked that out by now I'd have been stuck in the circle of mages.

If you don't have at least one tank on the mage, he will kill you, it's that simple.

The mage kills my tanks, both of them, whilst only taking ~10% damage. They get frozen and stunned in short order, helplessly pumelled by his magic. Stunned/frozen means I can only heal them with spells, which usually results in my mage getting slaughtered for the crime of momentarily diverting his attention.

My main is the only person with cone of cold, Morrigan has winter's grasp and some hexes but not much else of use. I'll be experimenting with horror later to see if I can stun the mage or something.

[Coaan]

Well clearly something has gone wrong then, hasn't it.

Sure has Scooter.

The mage kills my tanks, both of them, whilst only taking ~10% damage. They get frozen and stunned in short order, helplessly pumelled by his magic. Stunned/frozen means I can only heal them with spells, which usually results in my mage getting slaughtered for the crime of momentarily diverting his attention.

My main is the only person with cone of cold, Morrigan has winter's grasp and some hexes but not much else of use. I'll be experimenting with horror later to see if I can stun the mage or something.

You should have a save right before you went to the hall o' doom. Load it up and try switching out your second tank for Wynne. Petrify on mages is Hi-larious and it should work on Tuvok unless they've changed that in a patch.

You might just have to accept your party is not ideal for the challenge on the field and turn down the difficulty for this fight. There are several fights where if you do not have a certain group makeup, you get turned into wet paste. The Brecilian forest is right up there with Orzamarr's retarded end boss fight.

[adam_grif]

Ung, I finally got it when the mage decided to charge headlong into the middle of a blizzard I had just cast. Still, the only party member that survived was Morrigan. I only just realized that Alastair had six injuries and the laconic dude had 3. Only had one lesser injury kit though. Is there any way of healing them with magic?

The Brecilian forest is right up there with Orzamarr's retarded end boss fight.

Great. That's my next destination.

Load it up and try switching out your second tank for Wynne.

Too late, but as a curiosity, is there any way of doing this without running back to camp or waiting for the occasional prompting from the game?

For the future, you'll also want to push Morrigan up the Mindblast tree to get Force Field (instant boss lockdown while you trash the minions) and Crushing Forcecage (it won't lockdown bosses, but it will lockdown minions (or shatter them if frozen) and does good continuous damage).

Noted. That spell was fucking sick when I had it in spirit form.

[Coaan]

Ung, I finally got it when the mage decided to charge headlong into the middle of a blizzard I had just cast. Still, the only party member that survived was Morrigan. I only just realized that Alastair had six injuries and the laconic dude had 3. Only had one lesser injury kit though. Is there any way of healing them with magic?

There is, you need to unlock the spirit healer specialization and then level it all the way up to tier 4 to get Cleansing Aura. It not only heals your party members constantly until you run out of mana (it's a sustained thing) but it also removes any and all injuries your party members have sustained. Something to keep in mind though, it will not heal your injuries, only your party members.

Or abuse Herbalism and make a fuck ton of injury poultices.

Too late, but as a curiosity, is there any way of doing this without running back to camp or waiting for the occasional prompting from the game?

Non combat prompt is your only way, usually.

[SirNitram]

Huge number of injuries?

Just go to the party camp.

Boom! No more crippling injuries(Does that make sense? No. It happens.).