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=

or

This build is completely simple: maximize Dexterity for damage, defense, crit chance. A dabbling of points goes into Cunning for utility in the Rogue version, and a similar amount of points goes into Strength so the player can access Death Blow in the Warrior version.

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.

The Build (Rogue Based Version)
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 (so you can wear armor) once you take Mark of the Legion. That is to say, you don't need any strength points for this build.

The set up at level 28 (where I am with the character as of this writing) is as follows:


 * Attributes + Item and Spec Bonuses (at level 28, with Misery, pre-Shadows of the Blackmarsh):
 * Strength 11 = 27
 * Dexterity 106 = 131
 * Willpower 12 = 23
 * Magic 11 = 17
 * Cunning 30 = 39
 * Constitution 10 = 36
 * In other words, besides the handful of points that go into Cunning, everything goes into Dexterity. And honestly, 30 Cunning is probably much more than is actually necessary.


 * Notable Derived Statistics (at level 28, with Misery):
 * Defense: 171 = 186
 * Attack: 124 = 265 (with Accuracy) (that is to say, 100% hit rate as of this writing)
 * Damage: 160.4 (with Accuracy)
 * Ranged Crit Chance: 82.3% (with Accuracy)
 * HP: 455
 * Stamina: 303
 * Physical Resistance: 107


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


 * Gear
 * or

Usage Discussion


 * It has been my experience that using Aim with this build actually significantly lowers your DPS because, with the above set up (again, level 28 here, so dex has yet to be maxed), 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 regular archery damage skills, except maybe Scattershot, completely unnecessary.
 * Rain of Arrows does a surprisingly high amount of damage--if you can get the mobs to stay within its radius. You don't get the bonus to damage from Accuracy, but it does give you the max base damage you can deal with your bow. At the end of my play through, I was getting 71 damage per tick. Like Walking Bomb, however, you'll need some sort of crowd control method or a high threat aggro puller with damage immunity (Carapace, Force Field, etc.).
 * Such a high amount of Dexterity means you'll have so much defense that you can pretty much just stand there in the middle and dodge everything--the only times you'll get hit are when you are stunned or overwhelmed/grabbed/comparable creature ability. With the advent of paragon immunity runes, and Legionnaire Scout spell and knockdown immunity skills, it becomes feasible that one might be able to solo the game with this build.
 * 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.

Alternate Build (Warrior Based Version)
This build has a slightly lower damage output than the rogue version, but it does have better survivability against casters as it receives spell resistance bonuses from Spirit Warrior talents, and anti-magic abilities in the Templar line of talents (Holy Smite in particular). There's also the and  per level up to consider (versus rogue's  and ).


 * Attributes + Item and Spec Bonuses (at level 28, with Misery, Lifegiver, pre-Shadows of the Blackmarsh):
 * Strength 25 = 31
 * Dexterity 108 = 124
 * Willpower 10 = 21
 * Magic 11 = 19
 * Cunning 16 = 22
 * Constitution 13 = 30
 * 25 base str is required for Death Blow, which is used to maintain Beyond the Veil. 16 cunning for Master Coercion. The rest goes into dex.


 * Notable Derived Statistics (at level 28, with Misery, Lifegiver):
 * Defense: 159 = 168
 * Attack: 128 = 258 (with Accuracy)
 * Damage: 194.6 armor bypassing spirit damage (with Accuracy, rank 4 Beyond the Veil)
 * Ranged Crit Chance: 70.8% (with Accuracy)
 * HP: 487
 * Stamina: 390
 * Physical Resistance: 111
 * Mental Resistance: 42
 * Unknown amount of spell resistence bonus from spec talents


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


 * Gear
 * or
 * or
 * Unfortunately, the high dex bonus gloves and boots mentioned in the Rogue version are Rogue restricted. Fleet Feet or Stormchaser set (minus chest piece) might be up for consideration here, but those would require another 15 or so points into strength, which those items can't quite make up for in dex.
 * Unfortunately, the high dex bonus gloves and boots mentioned in the Rogue version are Rogue restricted. Fleet Feet or Stormchaser set (minus chest piece) might be up for consideration here, but those would require another 15 or so points into strength, which those items can't quite make up for in dex.

Usage Discussion


 * cf. Usage Discussion in the rogue version section
 * High defense makes armor unnecessary, so it is beneficial to minimize or eliminate the fatigue and attack speed penalties from heavier armors.
 * The player may be interested in Threaten + Taunt since, again, high dex means the player makes a superb tank.
 * At 5*(opponent level), Death Blow scales up quite nicely. One or two kills should fully restore your stamina on reserves.

=Basileia tou Theou's Nightmare Solo Mage=

This is a fairly effective, fairly entertaining mage build for soloing most of nightmare. I'm writing this up after just now having soloed Queen of the Blackmarsh at level 27 without any potions used, health, mana, or otherwise.

Once again, this build is working off a DA:O import. Therefore the number of your stat points and talent points (because of tomes, etc.), as well as certain equipment, may differ slightly.

The Build
At the time of this writing, I haven't bothered to respec the extra stat points I received during Shadows of the Blackmarsh. The diligent min/maxer, however, will probably want to redistribute those superfluous str, dex, etc. points back into magic.

Note that the Arcane Warrior spec is taken purely so that the player can equip certain items. Combat Magic is never used except in its passive capacity.


 * Attributes + Item and Spec Bonuses (at level 27, with Staff of the Magister Lord, post-Shadows of the Blackmarsh):
 * Strength 13 = 17
 * Dexterity 13 = 25
 * Willpower 30 = 55
 * Magic 106 = 124
 * Cunning 18 = 22
 * Constitution 12 = 34
 * Basically, put around 28ish points into willpower, 4 points into cunning for Master Coercion, and everything else into magic.


 * Skills (at level 27):
 * Master Coercion
 * Improved Combat Training
 * Expert Vitality
 * Master Clarity


 * Gear
 * on switch
 * The key here is to maximize defense as opposed to armor. The defense bonus from Libertarian's, Felon's, and Winter Boots add up to 36, and base defense should be around 55, so 91 defense without buffs on this set up. Already at level 27, this puts us very close to impervious defense range with Spell Mighted, +20 sp (from Spellfury) Arcane Shield, which should let you dodge most attacks. With Heroic Defense, you'll be untouchable.
 * You'll want to have a respectable amount of constitution bonuses from items so that you can survive a grab or overwhelm (or two). Consider stout runes.
 * The key here is to maximize defense as opposed to armor. The defense bonus from Libertarian's, Felon's, and Winter Boots add up to 36, and base defense should be around 55, so 91 defense without buffs on this set up. Already at level 27, this puts us very close to impervious defense range with Spell Mighted, +20 sp (from Spellfury) Arcane Shield, which should let you dodge most attacks. With Heroic Defense, you'll be untouchable.
 * You'll want to have a respectable amount of constitution bonuses from items so that you can survive a grab or overwhelm (or two). Consider stout runes.

Usage Discussion


 * The player should basically have Arcane Shield on all the time. Make sure to cast Spell Might and switch to Spellfury before turning on Arcane Shield to maximize the defense bonus (you can turn Spell Might off afterwords). Don't forget to cast Heroic Defense when necessary.
 * This build plays rather like a Retribution Pally in WoW. The idea is to run in and herd the mobs so they are within pointblank AoE range. Blast Hand of Winter to freeze mobs, then turn on One With Nature and cast Thornblades to finish them off (once you get Nature's Vengeance, you'll probably be able to skip over the Hand of Winter part). One With Nature's DOT damage should take care of anything that's left, while you can pick off individual mobs with the "on cooldown spells" listed above.
 * Mana Clash is extremely handy. You can typically take out emissaries, shades, demons, and other creatures with mana with one cast.
 * Never underestimate the value of staff damage and Arcane Bolt. Spellfury does physical damage, and also has rapid aim, so switch out to that if you are up against a mob with cold immunity, or want to get a little more dps from staff.
 * Certain mobs (Childer Grub, Blight Werewolves, and the like) will use skills like overwhelm. These mobs are very predictable, meaning you can turn on One With Nature, cast Force Field on yourself, and let them waste their overwhelm cast and take DOT damage.
 * Force Field is extremely versatile. Use it for everything from waiting for cooldowns to allowing yourself a short reprieve while you regen mana.
 * Draining Aura is basically only useful for a very particular situation: when you haven't hit level 28 yet so you can take Nature's Vengeance and you're up against nature damage immune mobs, waiting for Thornblades and Hand of Winter to recharge, and you have completely run out of mana (this spell is a zero activation, upkeep cost only spell, so you can flash it when you're mana is depleted). Otherwise, its just too mana expensive for the amount of damage it does.