User:Basileia tou Theou

=Basileia tou Theou's Pure DPS Arcane Warrior (Modified Hollowness) Build=

The goal of this build is quite simple: to create a purely DPS oriented Arcane Warrior using maximum attainable damage auto-attacks and DOT spells. Essentially, the idea is to make a mage that plays like a warrior with higher damage, greater flexibility and utility, and area of effect and distance closing/shutdown skills. Concentration will be placed on minimizing fatigue via the use of light armor and relying on placing Force Field on the main aggro for tanking purposes. This build has been constructed specifically for Nightmare mode using an unpatched version of the game.

The Build

 * Base Statistics (with Fade fonts and essences) at Level 22
 * Strength 15
 * Dexterity 15
 * Willpower 18
 * Magic 87
 * Cunning 17
 * Constitution 12
 * In other words, put ALL stat points into Magic.


 * Gear
 * or or  on switch.


 * or  Gloves are optional: pick either dexterity (Wade's Superior Drakeskin Gloves | Dalish Gloves) or +XX% to spell damage. Gloves of the Legion if you really need the attack rating.


 * almost essential


 * Rune Suggestions

Skill Bar Setup

Usage Discussion


 * Although the player will have a respectable amount of armor, still it is most effective to relegate tanking/aggroing to another party member--most preferably, Shale with Stone Aura, Threaten, and Taunt. Once Shale has activated all three of these skills (obviously, with Stone Aura last), the player can cast Force Field on Shale, effectively turning her into an invulnerable health and mana battery.


 * Stinging Swarm is absolutely brilliant for consistent DPS, has a much lower recharge time than Curse of Mortality or Crushing Prison, and is easier to manage than the Walking Bomb spells with similar functionality. By around level 12-14, the player will typically have enough mana to cast two or three DOT spells on a single boss at the same time. This, plus constant damage from auto-attacks, translates into rather massive DPS which can be focused on a single target or spread around multiple targets. Finally, see below discussion "Starting Skills Suggestions and Tactics" for maximizing the efficacy of Walking Bomb.


 * A moderate challenge to this build is the Arcane Warrior's relatively low attack rating (that is, relative to, say, a sword and board warrior with max strength that reaches 130+ attack rating at level 22 with similar equipment), which makes maximizing dexterity / attack through equipment rather important. This problem can be further mitigated with Miasma and companion attack rating boost skills (like Stone Aura, Song of Courage, etc.). Plus, the player can switch over to staff weapon for guaranteed hits, and DOT spells (that aren't resisted) always hit per tick. And, if the player still is not hitting to his satisfaction, stat points can always be spent on additional dexterity.


 * On my playthrough (Nightmare), I finished the game at 81% hit rate, using the staff weapon only when absolutely necessary. Again, absolutely no attribute points where spent on anything other than Magic. For comparison, Alistair finished at 84%, Morrigan (staff weapon) finished at 92%, and my 134 attack rating sword/board warrior in another Nightmare playthrough finished at 85%. As you can see, with the right setup, the AW's hit rate is really quite competitive.


 * Obviously, this build is quite expensive, so the average player will most likely have to sell Potent Lyrium Potions to come up with the necessary cash.

Getting Started
As with any Arcane Warrior build, this build starts off pretty slow, so this portion will discuss how to streamline the early part of the game as much as possible.

Starting Skills Suggestions and Tactics


 * The player will probably want to invest up to Death Syphon and Force Field asap, moving up to Virulent Walking Bomb and Crushing Prison. Death Syphon is fantastic for mana management, and Force Field lets the player use Walking Bomb safely. The Force Field/Walking Bomb combo will also help you survive team wipes and finish off the Ogre in the Tower of Ishal after the rest of your team is already down. Remember, Walking Bomb will continue to do its DOT damage regardless of whether or not you are force field locked, so use that to your advantage.


 * A good strategy at the early game, especially for the Chanter's Board quests in Lothering, is to hold the team back a little ways, run in solo as the PC to gain aggro, cast Virulent or normal Walking Bomb, then cast Force Field on self and let the bomb skills do their thing. Finish off whatever is left by moving in the rest of your party.


 * These tactics should carry you through to the point where you can start using high end equipment.

Getting to Potent Lyrium Potions


 * To be able to afford the high end equipment, however, Morrigan must reach level 10 (for Master Herbalism). This can be done before any of the main quests by heading over to Denerim after exiting Lothering (you should be level 7 when you exit) and doing the side quests there. Do Honnleath, spam world travel for all the random encounters and get all the codex experience points from Wonders of Thedas and Dalish Camp or Orzammar.


 * When Morrigan hits level 9, you'll want to spend her skill point in Expert Herbalism. And, unless you want to wait for her to hit level 12, at this point the player should spam world travel until he runs into Old Tegrin. Buy a skill tome off of Tegrin and spend it on Morrigan for the last Herbalism tier.


 * To start Potent Lyrium Potion manufacturing, sell off basically anything you aren't immediately using to a convenient merchant (Bodahn Feddic is pretty convenient). Remember, you can buy all this back once you have a good cash flow. If you need more starting capital, head over to Dust Town in Orzammar and deal with Rogek for 20 sovereigns (though getting past the mercenaries and dignitaries before Orzammar might be a tad tricky).


 * At this point, you should have more than enough gold to buy the formula from Wonders of Thedas and several stacks of lyrium at the Circle Tower. Head over to Gnawed Noble, buy what you can of the concentrator and distillation agents, and build from there.

=Basileia tou Theou's Utterly Ridiculous Accuracy Build=

This build is completely simple: maximize Dexterity for damage, defense, crit chance and put a dabbling of points into Cunning for utility. It should be noted that the build works off of an imported character from the original campaign (that is to say, this character has two extra stat points from the two Tome of Mortal Vessels available in the original campaign, and all the points from the Fade fonts and essences as well, available for redistribution). Additionally, I may have access to items in this build as it stands that are not available in DAA from the import--as of this writing, I have yet to explore much of DA:A, so I will be updating this build as I learn more about the items available in the expansion.

This build uses Assassin and Legionnaire Scout specs for their base bonuses (+crit chance, damage, and dexterity) and for Mark of the Legion.

The Build
The first thing you want to do is get a Manual of Focus so you can redistribute the extra points from the Fade fonts and essences that would have gone into Strength, Willpower, Magic, and Constitution: a total of 12 points there. Note that you'll get a massive bonus to Strength once you take Mark of the Legion. The attributes at level 28 (where I am with the character as of this writing) as follows:


 * Attributes + Item and Spec Bonuses:
 * Strength 11 = 27
 * Dexterity 106 = 131
 * Willpower 12 = 23
 * Magic 11 = 17
 * Cunning 30 = 39
 * Constitution 10 = 36
 * In other words, anything you don't put into Cunning, put into Dexterity. And honestly, 30 Cunning is probably much more than is actually necessary.


 * Skills:
 * Master Coercion
 * Master Combat Training
 * Master Vitality
 * Master Clarity


 * Gear

Usage Discussion
 * It has been my experience that using Aim with this build actually significantly lowers your DPS because, with the above set up, Accuracy gives 82.3% crit chance by itself (with Aim, it's a ridiculous 162.8% crit chance). It just isn't really worth it to take the rate of fire penalty from Aim.
 * As of this writing, with a level 28 character, the normal auto-attack damage is 160.4. This makes taking any of the archery damage skills completely unnecessary, and indeed probably detrimental as you'll end up doing more damage just auto-attacking in the time it takes to cast one of those skills.
 * Such a high amount of Dexterity means you'll have so much defense than you can basically just stand there in the middle and not take any hits at all. At this point, I'm doing a better job tanking with this build than my tank.
 * With the above set up, you should have a boatload of extra talent points lying around.
 * One side effect of such a lop-sided build is that it completely destroys any sort of challenge that might exist in the game. I keep having to check that my game options are set to Nightmare mode because it's like playing it in casual.