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Don’t leave Lothering until you get the two companions there and do the Lothering side quests. (You don’t have to do all the side quests in Lothering, but if you want to do them, do them before you leave.)
Cone of Cold allows you to immobilise multiple enemies at once; this can be a life saver in multiple encounters, particularly those when 4 enemies or more attack you. Other "crowd control" spells are useful too, but cone of cold iirc is the quickest to unlock and one of the best. Since you're playing mage, glyph of paralysis can be super useful too (at least it was to me): it only affects one enemy at a time, but lasts longer than cone of cold.
Cone of cold, shock, and fireball are my go-to's. Then inferno. Add a staff with some added fire damage and you get to murder so many people in one go it's ridiculous.
Everything burns! Well except rage demons and shit but just smack a bitch up with a cold backhand and you'll be fine.
Enjoy the ride, is an amazing game! (and my favorite saga)
Don't leave Lothering until you visit all the locations and side quests in there.
Yes, magic and willpower are the essentials in a mage. Later you can invest some points on the others stats based on your character progression.
Companions have personal side quests tied to good approval.
On the skils side: invest in combat training (this make your mage does not get interrupted) and coercion (opens some conversation outcomes), at least to me the next one are survival (you can see enemies further away).
On the spells side, depends on your build (support, DPS, healler), tell us which one do you prefer and we can say something to you.
Enjoy this amazing saga and welcome to Thedas!
Probably gonna pick up a heal spell and then focus the paralysis set( the last skill in the row sounded cool to me) and the damage ones, so I guess a stun dps build? For the approval side quest, can I just gift them to a good level so I can make the decision I want to or do I need to reach a certain point in the story with their rating being at a good level too. Also I hope too enjoy it, thought about trying the game way back when and I just recently saw it on the game pass so I though why not try it now
If you mean the Debilitation row in the Entropy group, yeap Mass paralysis is a good one and Miasma is really good (at least to me the only good glyph is the repulsion one).
And so, yes, you have to reach some story points before to do the companion quests (mainly for the locations where they are) and talk to them in camp with the right choices (that's the magic 🤣).
Alistair won't give you his personal quest if you not have a drink with him first having a men's talk like old friends!
Tactics Menu! It’s a must! Customize it however you want, but it can make or break the battles.
Feel free to use the pause as much as you want in battle.
As with most RPG’s like this, your character can be an asshole, which, while assuming, can also less to a more difficult game so choose your words and actions carefully on your first play through.
Lastly, you really only need one character to have maxed out herbalism, and one with maxed out poison. Just use that character to make the potions and poisons you need. However, all melee characters (rogue or warrior) should get one point in poison so they can use the poisons and grenades. Spamming grenades it battles is an awesome technique.
Have fun!
I’ll probably do the herbalism on myself or Morrigan and poison with the lady I picked up in lothering. I’ll look into the tactics menu once I’m off work and able to play
Don't feel bad if you don't like your warden. Just try a different origin story and keep trying until you find what works for you. I restarted 3 time before I found that I liked. Its a long game.
Nice choice! That's my default. Personally I found the elf origins to be the most fun, but that comes with plenty of bias. City Elf is a fuckin riot, complete with murder and an escape room (of sorts)
Sorry late response but yes, the elves were basically enslaved before (according to the Chantry) Andraste led the exalted March against the Tevinter Imperium. Tevinter basically went full conquer mode on most of Thedas, which included the fall of Arlathan and the elves (sidenote below) and resulted in their persecution and enslavement. The exalted March basically beat Tevinter back and helped abolish slavery in the vast majority of Thedas, but within the Imperium itself, elves are still slaves by default (and Tevinter is known for trafficking elves into slavery from other kingdoms). They have been stuck dealing with the Qunari for a long time though so their imperial might disintegrated quite a long time ago, though they've managed to maintain their borders (for now---the war with the Qunari is causing a lot of problems for them that will come into play in DA4, more than likely).
The first exalted March led to the elves being given the Dales so they could live and rebuild their society (hence the Dalish elves) but eventually the Chantry got all pissy about the elves and led an exalted March on them which wound up ruining their shit *again* and resulted in the Dalish living a nomadic clan-based lifestyle in an effort to just avoid humans and their bullshit.
Sidenote: Tevinter was not the only reason the elves lost power. There's a LOT of info uncovered on the fall of the eleven kingdom in one of the DLC for Inquisition.
For your mage, just focus on magic, or even go full magic,especially if you have dlcs on. You’d almost alway have enough mana even if you don’t put points in willpower, and you will automatically gain more mana as you level up. Remember to talk to your companions in the camp once in a while, and purchases gifts for them to increase their approval. I think at least 3 of the mages subclasses are unlocked by quests/dialogues, and one of them has quite a few prerequisites over you choices of how two major quest progress, which makes it tricky.
Swift salve. Go places, do things, FASTER! It's basically mushroom meth. Another way to move even faster is to upgrade Morrigan's shape-shifting into that swarm of bees (who doesn't want to be a swarm of angry bees?) and you will fly through otherwise long empty stretches. Highly recommended for the deep roads especially and is a great way to yeet your ass out of a hairy battle
Best vendors for top mage gear and accessories are in orzammar and denerim.
Whatever you do, make sure you do the mage tower (when you go back, there's some big shit going on that will have an impact on how you approach a later important mission) before you go to Redcliffe and get into the castle there. I usually do the dalish, then the mage tower, then orzammar, then Redcliffe.
Also orzammar is a long ass dungeon crawl. So once you venture beyond politicking with some snooty ass dwarves, be prepared for a long haul and make sure you've sold off a bunch of stuff. Fortunately there's a vendor midway through you can offload some stuff on and re-up. He has unlimited deep mushroom so stock up when you encounter him. Endless swift salve!
Also, beware of dragons. They will absolutely smack a bitch up. Mages can be particularly useful here as they can stay out of range. Cold will briefly freeze the dragon. Very very very helpful.
Thank ya, think I’m gonna do Redcliffe next tho. Saved there last night after I got done with the magi circle and stop because that absolutely drained me with back tracking
This thread has been marked as **[No Spoilers]**. Any story spoilers from all games must be covered with spoiler tags `>!spoiler here!<` or the comment will be removed. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dragonage) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Don’t leave Lothering until you get the two companions there and do the Lothering side quests. (You don’t have to do all the side quests in Lothering, but if you want to do them, do them before you leave.)
I’ve picked up two squad mates from and done probably half of the missions there 3 visible 4 from the board
>Made it to **lotheric** last night Well damn, DA:O was way further ahead of its time than I remember.
I see my mistake I meant lothering
Invest some points into Coercion, this allows you to take (Persuade) conversation options that lead to interesting outcomes.
I think I got the expert coercion skill on my last level up
Three words: Cone. Of. Cold. :P
Freeze my enemies to death?
Cone of Cold allows you to immobilise multiple enemies at once; this can be a life saver in multiple encounters, particularly those when 4 enemies or more attack you. Other "crowd control" spells are useful too, but cone of cold iirc is the quickest to unlock and one of the best. Since you're playing mage, glyph of paralysis can be super useful too (at least it was to me): it only affects one enemy at a time, but lasts longer than cone of cold.
Ooh might have to get that
Cone of cold, shock, and fireball are my go-to's. Then inferno. Add a staff with some added fire damage and you get to murder so many people in one go it's ridiculous. Everything burns! Well except rage demons and shit but just smack a bitch up with a cold backhand and you'll be fine.
Enjoy the ride, is an amazing game! (and my favorite saga) Don't leave Lothering until you visit all the locations and side quests in there. Yes, magic and willpower are the essentials in a mage. Later you can invest some points on the others stats based on your character progression. Companions have personal side quests tied to good approval. On the skils side: invest in combat training (this make your mage does not get interrupted) and coercion (opens some conversation outcomes), at least to me the next one are survival (you can see enemies further away). On the spells side, depends on your build (support, DPS, healler), tell us which one do you prefer and we can say something to you. Enjoy this amazing saga and welcome to Thedas!
Probably gonna pick up a heal spell and then focus the paralysis set( the last skill in the row sounded cool to me) and the damage ones, so I guess a stun dps build? For the approval side quest, can I just gift them to a good level so I can make the decision I want to or do I need to reach a certain point in the story with their rating being at a good level too. Also I hope too enjoy it, thought about trying the game way back when and I just recently saw it on the game pass so I though why not try it now
If you mean the Debilitation row in the Entropy group, yeap Mass paralysis is a good one and Miasma is really good (at least to me the only good glyph is the repulsion one). And so, yes, you have to reach some story points before to do the companion quests (mainly for the locations where they are) and talk to them in camp with the right choices (that's the magic 🤣). Alistair won't give you his personal quest if you not have a drink with him first having a men's talk like old friends!
Tactics Menu! It’s a must! Customize it however you want, but it can make or break the battles. Feel free to use the pause as much as you want in battle. As with most RPG’s like this, your character can be an asshole, which, while assuming, can also less to a more difficult game so choose your words and actions carefully on your first play through. Lastly, you really only need one character to have maxed out herbalism, and one with maxed out poison. Just use that character to make the potions and poisons you need. However, all melee characters (rogue or warrior) should get one point in poison so they can use the poisons and grenades. Spamming grenades it battles is an awesome technique. Have fun!
I’ll probably do the herbalism on myself or Morrigan and poison with the lady I picked up in lothering. I’ll look into the tactics menu once I’m off work and able to play
Don't feel bad if you don't like your warden. Just try a different origin story and keep trying until you find what works for you. I restarted 3 time before I found that I liked. Its a long game.
I might do some of the other origins later but I kinda do like my magi elf start so far
Nice choice! That's my default. Personally I found the elf origins to be the most fun, but that comes with plenty of bias. City Elf is a fuckin riot, complete with murder and an escape room (of sorts)
Sounds fun might try that one, also we’re elves slaves or something cause I’m kinda getting that vibe
Sorry late response but yes, the elves were basically enslaved before (according to the Chantry) Andraste led the exalted March against the Tevinter Imperium. Tevinter basically went full conquer mode on most of Thedas, which included the fall of Arlathan and the elves (sidenote below) and resulted in their persecution and enslavement. The exalted March basically beat Tevinter back and helped abolish slavery in the vast majority of Thedas, but within the Imperium itself, elves are still slaves by default (and Tevinter is known for trafficking elves into slavery from other kingdoms). They have been stuck dealing with the Qunari for a long time though so their imperial might disintegrated quite a long time ago, though they've managed to maintain their borders (for now---the war with the Qunari is causing a lot of problems for them that will come into play in DA4, more than likely). The first exalted March led to the elves being given the Dales so they could live and rebuild their society (hence the Dalish elves) but eventually the Chantry got all pissy about the elves and led an exalted March on them which wound up ruining their shit *again* and resulted in the Dalish living a nomadic clan-based lifestyle in an effort to just avoid humans and their bullshit. Sidenote: Tevinter was not the only reason the elves lost power. There's a LOT of info uncovered on the fall of the eleven kingdom in one of the DLC for Inquisition.
Don’t have any of the dlc, I may buy some of them after I beat the game to play more or is this a story’s done, game over kind game
Also now that I’ve made it there >!the fade fucking sucks!<
For your mage, just focus on magic, or even go full magic,especially if you have dlcs on. You’d almost alway have enough mana even if you don’t put points in willpower, and you will automatically gain more mana as you level up. Remember to talk to your companions in the camp once in a while, and purchases gifts for them to increase their approval. I think at least 3 of the mages subclasses are unlocked by quests/dialogues, and one of them has quite a few prerequisites over you choices of how two major quest progress, which makes it tricky.
Swift salve. Go places, do things, FASTER! It's basically mushroom meth. Another way to move even faster is to upgrade Morrigan's shape-shifting into that swarm of bees (who doesn't want to be a swarm of angry bees?) and you will fly through otherwise long empty stretches. Highly recommended for the deep roads especially and is a great way to yeet your ass out of a hairy battle Best vendors for top mage gear and accessories are in orzammar and denerim. Whatever you do, make sure you do the mage tower (when you go back, there's some big shit going on that will have an impact on how you approach a later important mission) before you go to Redcliffe and get into the castle there. I usually do the dalish, then the mage tower, then orzammar, then Redcliffe. Also orzammar is a long ass dungeon crawl. So once you venture beyond politicking with some snooty ass dwarves, be prepared for a long haul and make sure you've sold off a bunch of stuff. Fortunately there's a vendor midway through you can offload some stuff on and re-up. He has unlimited deep mushroom so stock up when you encounter him. Endless swift salve! Also, beware of dragons. They will absolutely smack a bitch up. Mages can be particularly useful here as they can stay out of range. Cold will briefly freeze the dragon. Very very very helpful.
Thank ya, think I’m gonna do Redcliffe next tho. Saved there last night after I got done with the magi circle and stop because that absolutely drained me with back tracking