Dragon Age 3: Inquistion

[Krandor]

Honestly, if you've already got the goty edition just play all the dlcs. They add some decent enough self contained storylines. Just make sure you flip on the level scaling Trial since you'd likely out level all the content in Jaws and Descent if you've already beaten the game.

[Leashedragon]

Sorry for the bump, but had to comment on this.

So I started a new save for Inquisition last night. Bored, never finished a second play through yet. Have a Mage that I started romancing Solas and said "no, I already did that let's try something else." So I started a 2H Warrior and tried romancing Cullen. He's so.. bland. I don't find him interesting or attractive story or game physically wise, so lost interest. Also trying to talk to everyone for individual stories and quests which I didn't do the first time through.

So, fuck it. Let's start an Archer type and go with Solas again. I played with some of the custom settings for difficulty and it warns you about having back up save files because of bugs caused by them... it wasn't kidding. I've run into multiple warrior type mobs that glitch with their defense thing(Guard?) and they become unkillable, or damn near close to it. Their HUD will show it still having the iron bars, normally 2 left, but their actual HP bar doesn't. So I get stuck plucking away, hitting it for what should be chunks of its HP and it's health doesn't budge. I think I fought one for about 10 minutes before I finally killed it. We were the same level. I think I only enabled two of the "trial" type things to get bonus rewards. Maybe now that I have T4 weapons crafted I might do more, but I fear what bugs I might run into with more enabled.

Game runs soooo smooth on my new video card on Ultra. I even put a scar on my new character because they actually show up now! She looks a lot like my first play through Rogue though.

[Obsidian]

I thought Cullen looked pretty good actually. I also liked his development thread with the Inquisitor, but I've never romanced him so I can't comment there. I think Cullen has some depth to him but that depth relies on knowledge of his experiences from the previous games. He became a Templar because he wanted to help people. He was scarred bywhat he witnessed at the Circle in Ferelden which influenced his opinion of mages, then struggles with the idea of forcing Lyrium on people (Templars) after watching Meredith go mad. He's very conflicted about his own choices and being able to convince him to give up Lyrium was pretty cool, I thought.

Can't comment on bugs because I never experienced any major ones on Xbox. Didn't play a lot with the Trials activated though.

[Leashedragon]

True. I haven't played the previous games to know enough backstory on him. He had some cute dialog, and the romance scenes were ok, but I just couldn't see it through to the end despite wanting the final scene. (I watched all the scenes previously.) As for looks, I meant he's not bad looking, just... dunno. I hated that Solas was bald at first, but it really grew on me.

I love Solas for his story and detail, among othe things. It wasn't/isn't hard for me to romance him as I pick answers I would actually say. Maybe if Cullen were as involved in Inquisition like in the previous game, he'd be more appealing. Being there through everything with him. I just can't seem to get on the Cullen wagon.

I never bothered with most of the NPCs the first round through. I knew I didn't like Vivienne and that still stands now actually interacting with her. My god I can't stand her. I should have told her to go fuck herself, but I wanted to try and be as thorough as I could this playthrough.

I'm trying to change up my party as well.... well other than Solas. First time it was Solas, Dorian, Iron Bull. I used the starting party for a bit but now that I picked up Blackwall, who in my first game actually LEFT the Inquisition on me, he replaced Casandra. He's not my favorite by any means... too serious and broody. Plan to bring Cole in place of Varric and see how it goes.. it pains me not to bring Dorian as I really enjoy him. He and Iron Bull made things... interesting.

[Anoat]

I was trying to play my first character as the honorable Ned Stark type but when it got to Blackwall's main quest I couldn't bring myself to do the "right" thing because Blackwall had been my primary tank, and I still had dragons to kill, damn it.

[Andalusian girls]

ey yo fam i grabbed the whole series during the Origin sale and was planning on doing a shot through all three, played Origins when it released but never touched the other two. was wondering if 2 is worth playing through or one should just Origins--->Awakening--->Inquisition? aware of the rough reputation it has.

[Krandor]

2 is fine, just not up to the standards of the rest of the series.

[Anoat]

2 is alright but not as good as Origins or Inquisition, but you'll have a better appreciation for Inquisition's stories and characters if you play through 2. Personally I'd just put it on the easiest difficulty setting and breeze through it for the story to get you up to speed.

[tyven]

shit i didnt realize this shit was on PC LOL WHAT AM I DOING

[Krandor]

Yeah, the events of 2 is very heavily tied into the story of Inquisition. It all be explained in some capacity so you wouldn't be lost, but alot of weight to it is tied into knowing the story of 2 and then tying all your decisions into the Keep for transferring to Inquisition

[Anoat]

shit i didnt realize this shit was on PC LOL WHAT AM I DOING

Also in the EA Vault if you sub to that.

[Obsidian]

DA2 is worth playing just for the Hawke/Varric banter.

Also Blackwall is pretty easily the best tank because of his Specialist, Champion. So don't feel too bad about not offing him.

[Leashedragon]

Ugh, that worries me. If he left me the first game by my choices without really interacting with him, and this play through I'm trying to do every individual characters stories/quests... I'm trying to use someone other than Cassandra for new party banter. Iron Bull did not work as a two hand tank, I tried in my first play. Eventually I had to bring in Cassandra for fights.

I really need to pick up DA 1&2. I remember playing FFXI when the first game came out and people raving about it. A friend even tried getting me to play, I wish I had. I was so absorbed with FFXI at the time nothing else mattered.

[Obsidian]

Iron Bull is definitely more a DPS than he is a tank, but he can do all right if you give him a Shield. Cassandra is really good (even if you give her a two-handed weapon), but Blackwall is just as capable is not moreso. He's also got some fun dialogue with a few different party members.

If you can get past the reused environments in DA2, it's a really fun game.

[Krandor]

At the end of the day all the Warriors have the same issue, which is the AI being kinda dumb. Any of them can honestly do any role, outside of Blackwall severely lagging as a dps character. Templar talents for Cass fill out either role quite nicely tbh, Bull can provide added dps over what a tank would normally bring, and the most important talents for tanking are outside the specialization trees.

The AI being stupid is only really an issue if you're doing a masochistic playthru (Nightmare with various trials activated), at which point I'd strongly advocate filling the tank role yourself for the least amount of headaches.

Aside, if you want to play Origins, 1000x over play it on PC. Besides the controls being infinitely better with kb/m compared to what was available on consoles, there are a few decent mod options available to improve the gameplay/graphics/etc

[tyven]

wat are some good mods for origins cuz i would like to replay it okay thx

[Obsidian]

At the end of the day all the Warriors have the same issue, which is the AI being kinda dumb. Any of them can honestly do any role, outside of Blackwall severely lagging as a dps character. Templar talents for Cass fill out either role quite nicely tbh, Bull can provide added dps over what a tank would normally bring, and the most important talents for tanking are outside the specialization trees.

The AI being stupid is only really an issue if you're doing a masochistic playthru (Nightmare with various trials activated), at which point I'd strongly advocate filling the tank role yourself for the least amount of headaches.

Aside, if you want to play Origins, 1000x over play it on PC. Besides the controls being infinitely better with kb/m compared to what was available on consoles, there are a few decent mod options available to improve the gameplay/graphics/etc

Champion can actually do some very good single-target DPS if you build around that one skill that tethers you to an enemy. It's my preferred Specialization for Warrior Inquisitors.

Part of the problem for Warriors is that the game doesn't provide a lot of actually good tools for controlling enemy aggro for them to use.

[Krandor]

wat are some good mods for origins cuz i would like to replay it okay thx

Gimme a few, I'll look thru my list and update this post from my PC

Edit : all this crap can be found on the nexus - http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/?, and you need to grab DAO Mod Manager from there to properly install stuff. Graphic stuff I'm leaving out since that's personal preference and you can just dig around on the site.

Gameplay Things (take a look for personal preference, but I'd go with all these being most important)

Advanced Tactics
Combat Tweaks
Lock Bash
Faster Combat
Forced Deathblows (I use Lieutenant Plus)
Skip the Fade

Fixes for various bugs (not really needed, since it's mostly random stuff)

Awakening Rune Fixes
Baroness Reward Fix
Awakening endgame cutscene fixes
Joining ritual fix for Awakening companions
Plus Healing Received Fix
Unobtainable item BUGFIX
Awakening Silverite Mines Bugfix
ZDF Dialog Fix
Dialog Tweaks .93a (I don't think this one is still on the Nexus, but you can hunt it down with google)
No Helmet Hack

New Gear

Grey Wardens of Ferelden
Phoenix Armory
Wings of Velvet (it's OP as fuck and doesn't fit lorewise at all, but if you want your healer to be a god, it's fun times)

If you can't find any of this shit I got the zip files on my hard drive and can hook you up

[Leashedragon]

Iron Bull is definitely more a DPS than he is a tank, but he can do all right if you give him a Shield.

Totally didn't realize you could give him a shield. I thought he was 2H onry.. lol. I feel a bit stupid. I know when you're picking your class for your character to start they have it broken down into two each. Rogue (Dagger), Rogue (Range), Warrior (Shield), Warrior (2H). I just figured he was stuck as 2H and didn't even think to try and put a shield on him. This was before they tweaked all the abilities and made the bonus options much better for a lot of skills. I went with a lot of the utility/defense stuff for him. He died.. quite a bit.

Any add-ons you would suggest for Inquisition? Was looking at a few cosmetic ones, but don't have any currently.

I was going to post screenshots... but they're way too big for BGBucket (3mb) and Photobucket went down the shitter years ago, what do you use to host images now-a-days? =/

[Elcura]

Skip the Fade

After your first playthrough I would add. You do get some stuff going through it (though I think the mod gives them automatically) and there is some story shit too. It was cool the first time around but I did play Origins through like a million times so it's definitely necessary the longer you go at it.