At about 90 hours in now and some things have become clear while others… less so.
At this point the main quest is completed up to gaining Skyhold, completing Wicked Eye/Hearts (which is a lot less complicated than the message boards lead on), and saving Crestwood. As for the side areas: The Hinterlands, Fallow Mire, Forbidden Oasis, Storm Coast, Western Approach, Exalted Plains, Emerald Graves, and Hissing Wastes are cleared, Crestwood is about half done, and Emprise du Lion is at about 75% done. Roughly.
The controls are just as annoying now as they were in the beginning, with the added annoyance of realizing that the eight visible ability buttons on the GUI are all you get (you unlock more than eight abilities? Too bad; can’t use them) and the companion AI is… not very good. So one easily accessible key has to be assigned to “Attack My Target” to make sure your party members aren’t either standing around doing nothing while an enemy runs around panicked, or standing in front of you staring at you ’cause the nearest enemy (which is attacking you or other party members) is slightly too far away to register as a target (e.g. just out of arm’s reach). They also seem to like dispelling the frozen effect from enemies… for some reason. More minor oddities include a complete absence of Blood Mages and Abominations (an overreaction to DA2‘s response?), as well as Desire Demons (which look to have been replaced by Despair Demons).
Now we come to a more personal complaint: My current PC is a mage. Unlike the first two games, here… mages are quite limited. They can either be support characters or… support characters. The only decently damaging default spell is Fire Mine, which means most of the time you’re going to be trying to Freeze/Paralyze/Panic targets (or casting Barrier) because your damage output is so ridiculously anemic. The only time this isn’t the case is if you’re a highly specialized Knight Enchanter, but that just trades Fire Mine for Spirit Blade. Not exactly an improvement.
The problem here seems to be that rather than scaling with the Magic Attribute, spell damage scales with weapon damage alone (staves don’t have great weapon damage) while Magic just adds a damage bonus. How large a bonus? Not sure, but a piece of armor with +20 Magic increased the damage Flashfire did (with a level 20 character) by… 50 points. Which is practically nothing. There also seems to be diminishing returns, as using a Lyrium Potion (which gives +30 Magic) on top of that increased the damage by another… 10-20 points. You appear to be much better off increasing Critical Chance instead, as you can apparently Crit with magic and doing so seems to give about a 50% damage boost.
Due to the above, and really just in general, not being able to assign your own Attribute points at level-up is bullshit. Now for some random tips:
- Stop messing around in the Hinterlands/Storm Coast/Fallow Mire/Forbidden Oasis when you hit level 7-8, since you’ll want to progress the main questline until you reach Skyhold in order to gain access to your characters’ Specializations (though make sure to resolve the renegade mage/templar quests near the Crossroads before choosing a side in the main quest). Once there, leave and re-enter it to trigger the Wartable Mission that unlocks the Specialization quests. Note that party members will automatically unlock a Specialization, post-Skyhold, the moment you enter an area with them in your party.
- Don’t bother with the Requisition Requests given to you by the quartermaster people in each area. They’re infinite and you’ll get plenty of Power from simply closing Fade Rifts and completing quests.
- Willpower doesn’t increase your Mana/Stamina pool. Nothing beyond direct equipment enchantments, as far as I can tell, can ever increase your pool above 100.
- Rune damage affects spell damage. For example: If you have a Corrupting Rune on your staff, your spells will do more damage to Humanoid/Beast enemies.
- Sometimes characters won’t load and will be missing from where they’re supposed to be. A quick save/load usually fixes it.
- In the Exalted Plains you’ll find an Elf Rune quest by the Dalish Camp that unlocks a bonus area. Do this new area before you hit level 16, as the enemies max out at 15 and the rewards aren’t very impressive.
- Unlock the Emprise du Lion and the Hissing Wastes (the two 20-30 Power areas that appear after getting Skyhold) as soon as possible. The first gives you access to a ton of easily harvestable Tier 3 metals/leather (Dawnstone, Silverite, Everite, Snowfleur Skin), while the second gives you access to some easily accessible Tier 3 metals (Nevarrite, Volcanic Aurum) and the basic Tier 3 armor schematics.
- Your character’s level determines how well you gather metals from Harvest Points. For Tier 3 metals, you have to be 16th level to start getting multiple items from them.
- Do Wicked Hearts/Eyes around the recommended level. A ton of new Wartable Missions get unlocked afterward that will be useful.
- In Wicked Hearts/Eyes, don’t get too caught up in the ‘Court Approval’ mechanic. It’s just a glorified timer for two short sections of the mission, and can easily be raised by turning in a handful of secrets.
- Honestly, you’ll want to do most of the main quests as soon as possible since the rewards don’t scale. The downside to this is that you may miss some dialog related to events that were resolved in them (probably most notable on the Exalted Plains). But be aware that once you finish the main quest all the Inner Circle quests you haven’t finished will become unavailable.
- As far as Wartable Missions go, make sure to do Companion-added/related missions (such as the ones for Bulls’ Chargers) as soon as possible since you never know when a decision you make might result in losing access to them. If that happens the mission will disappear from the table and (if you were in the process of doing it) you’ll just get a “Such-and-such couldn’t be completed.” message when it would have finished along with a lesser reward.
- The repeatable ‘Gather Resources’ Wartable Missions will sometimes reward you with Throne Accessories in addition to the resources.
- Don’t worry about money. Buy whatever you want whenever you want. You’ll be swimming in the stuff as long as you sell all the tons of useless (since crafted is 10x better most of the time) equipment you find lying around.
- Caveat to the above: Don’t buy Weapons/Armor/Addons since you can almost certainly craft better ones for ‘free’.
- Health seems to be a bullshit statistic. No matter how much of it you have, if an enemy can damage you it tends to just melt away in a couple seconds. So you should instead focus on not being damaged with Guard/Barrier generation and a high Armor Rating.
- Blackwall likes killing darkspawn, Varric likes killing Red Templars, Dorian likes killing Venatori, and Iron Bull likes killing Venatori & High Dragons. Defeating those enemy types with those companions in your party will grant slight approval bonuses.
- Every so often you’ll find green globe-like things that will glow if you activate them (a quest Solas gives early on will let you start activating them). Solas gains approval if he’s in the party when you do so.
- Similar to the above, you’ll also sometimes come across chests marked as a ‘Red Jenny Stash’ if Sera’s in your active party. Opening them slightly raises her approval.
And we’ll close with some incomplete lists. The first contains the maximum levels the basic enemies of an area will scale to (levels separated with a slash are for areas with starter regions and advanced regions), while the second contains the Fade-Touched material effects I’ve found so far (note that there appears to be two possible variations for each material):
———————–
Max Enemy Levels
———————–
Hinterlands, Valammar, Caer Oswin – 11
Storm Coast, Forbidden Oasis, Fallow Mire, Crestwood, Western Approach, Exalted Plains – 11/15
Temple of Dirthamen, Shrine of Dumat (Leliana/Templar) – 15
Emerald Graves – 15/19
Hissing Wastes, Shrine of Dumat (Cullen/Mages), Cradle of Sulevin – 19
Emprise du Lion – 19/??
———————–
Fade-Touched Items
———————–
Bloodstone – +7.5% Damage per nearby Enemy
Blue Vitriol – Max Stamina +10
Dawnstone – Heal 25% of damage taken over 10 seconds || 10% chance of 3 second Walking Fortress
Drakestone – Max Stamina +10
Everite – Heal 25% of damage taken over 10 seconds || 10% chance of 3 second Walking Fortress
Iron – Heal 15% of damage taken over 10 seconds
Lazurite – Max Stamina +15
Nevarrite – Target Explodes on Death for 75% Damage || Chance of Pull of the Abyss
Obsidian – 10% of 75% Damage Chain Lightning || +3 Guard on hit
Onyx – 10% of 50% Damage Chain Lightning
Paragon’s Luster – Heal 20% of damage taken over 10 seconds || 10% chance of 3 second Walking Fortress
Serpentstone – +10% Damage & -100% Damage Resistance || 2% chance of Shield Bash
Silverite – 10% chance of 100% Damage Chain Lightning || +5 Guard on hit
Stormheart – +30% Damage & -300% Damage Resistance || 10% chance of Shield Bash
Summer Stone – +5% Damage per nearby Enemy
Viridium – +20% Damage & -200% Damage Resistance || 5% chance of Shield Bash
Volcanic Aurum – +10% Focus per nearby Enemy || 10% chance of Unbowed
August Ram Fur – Abilities cost 7.5% less Mana/Stamina || 10% chance of 8 second Horn of Valor
Bronto Hide – +10 Max Stamina || +20 Stamina on Kill
Canine Leather – +10% Damage if not hit in 5 seconds
Deepstalker Hide – 5% chance of Poison || 2% chance of Fear
Great Bear Hide – +50 Stamina on Kill
Gurgut Skin – +50% Stealth Movement Speed
Halla Leather – +15 Max Stamina
Hardened Gurn Hide – +30% Damage if not hit in 5 seconds
Lurker Scales – +75% Stealth Movement Speed || 10% chance of Veilstrike
Nugskin – +25% Stealth Movement Speed || 2% chance of Veilstrike
Snowfleur Skin – Heal 1% of Max Health on hit || 10% chance of 12 second Horn of Valor
Wyvern Scales – 10% chance of Fear
Cotton – 5% chance to Revive at 50% Health || 10% chance of 5 second 50% Damage Walking Bomb
Dales Loden Wool – +30% Focus Gain || 10% chance of 70% Damage Caltrops
Darkened Samite – +7.5% Focus per nearby Enemy
Everknit Wool – +7.5% Focus per nearby Enemy || 10% chance of 50% Damage Caltrops
Highever Weave – +20 Magic for 10 seconds on kill
Infused Vyrantium Samite – +10% Focus per nearby Enemy || 10% chance of Mind Blast
King’s Willow Weave – +30 Magic for 10 seconds on kill
Lambswool – 10% chance of 30% Damage Caltrops
Lustrous Cotton – 10% chance to Revive at 50% Health || 10% chance of 5 second 75% Damage Walking Bomb
Plaideweave – +10 Magic for 10 seconds on kill
Plush Fustian Velvet – Abilities cost 10% less Mana/Stamina || 10% chance of Hidden Blades with +5 hits
Ring Velvet – Abilities cost 7.5% less Mana/Stamina || 10% chance of Hidden Blades with +4 hits
Royal Sea Silk – Abilities cost 20% less Mana/Stamina if not hit in 5 seconds || 10% chance of Fade Cloak
Samite – +5% Focus per nearby Enemy || 2% chance of Mind Blast
Silk Brocade – Abilities cost 15% less Mana/Stamina if not hit in 5 seconds || 5% chance of Fade Cloak
Velveteen – Abilities cost 5% less Mana/Stamina || 10% chance of Hidden Blades with +3 hits
