How do you build your Hawke?

I just...kind of wing it? Before coming to Dragon Age a little over a year ago, my RPG experience was limited to Neverwinter Nights and tabletop D&D. My NWN characters were of the button-mashing variety (and I never actually beat the game, though I started it many times) and with D&D we were a bunch of high school kids who aimed for the goofy and flashy rather than the strategic. So when I started Origins, RPG tactics were new to me, so I played a warrior on the easiest difficulty level, allowing me to button-mash while I learned how to use the tactics system and learned the capabilities of the different classes.

My first Hawke was still largely a button-mashing character (2H warrior), but as the game went on, I started using more strategy and planning out what abilities I would acquire so that I could raise the difficulty level. Now that I'm playing as a rogue and mainly on "hard," I feel like I actually have to plan out what abilities I choose, taking my play style into account. I'm certain my builds are not optimal -- not even close -- and I still have to do better about taking my companions' abilities into account when building my player character, but that's all mitigated by the fact that I still really like button-mashing.

The only two DA2 mods I have that aren't just aesthetic are an inventory-increase mod and a potion cooldown reduction mod. The former is just to reduce how often I have to run back and forth to a merchant, but the latter definitely makes the game easier on all levels, though I'm getting better about not using so may health potions.

I don't use any guides, but I always plan my build to fight the Arishok, whatever class I'm playing. Act 1 is just getting the basics covered but in Act 2 I concentrate on damage and disable spells/abilities. Once past that and into Act 3 then it's just whatever I feel like adding.

I only play DA2 on Normal though. The tougher battles (Arishok, Malvernis, Sky Horror, Leopold) are tough enough that I don't need to artificially make them even harder. The Cory battle in Legacy is more a chore than difficult, but I know his fire rings do a lot more damage at higher difficulties even if you try to move as far away from them as possible.

Dragon Age is the first series of games that I've played enough to know anything about builds and I only started in March 2016.

I definitely don't look up guides or count damage points. What I DO do is shoot for the mix of Wow! and functional.

As a rogue in DAO, I ended up a stealthing deulist double weilder. My 3rd ever mage, I was a mix of destruction and control. I plan to experiment with glyphs more going forward and that's rather interesting to me, because I wouldn't go near them before playing an Origins mage. I liked massive casting, but then blizzard made everyone fall over, so I had to abandon it except in very specific situations. I liked the RP idea of being a mage who used hex and nightmare, but I'm too impatient for monsters to be shrugging off my attempts as I waste mana. so I wasted some skil tree points on a handful of things I never used.

As a rogue in DA2, stealth was unneeded, because there was like, no one to sneak up on. So, then, what I remember most about DA2 was crowd control and flying across the screen with rogue magic to backstab someone. I don't care if that made sense, it made me feel amazing and powerful to be exactly where I wanted to be one shotting people while keeping an eye on my companions to ensure they weren't overwhelmed. As my 2nd ever mage, I focused on spirit healing and basic damage, nothing fancy. I especially liked the skill that got rid of injuries automatically. It seemed my fire balls literally caused enemies to melt. I like DA2 battle mechanics to be the best.

In DAI, I found my first ever mage to be BORING AS HELL. Cast spell. spell. spell. Wait, basic pew pew. pew pew. Spell. All the while, I'm standing a good distance away from the battle and can hardly see what's going on way over there. AS a Tempest Rogue, freezing my opponents, whether with ice or time, gave me some flashy control maneuvers that reminded me of the greatness that is DA2 rogue ness. What I ran into HEAVILY as a rogue in DAI, however, is the heavy restriction on skill slots. I WANTED to use posion daggers and flip backwards from danger, but only if I sacrificed two other things I thought were better. Since I am now more open to the idea of magical glyphs, I am equally now more open to the idea of artificer. So, we shall see.

I like function. I like motion. I like control. I like flash. I fiddle around until I get something that works for me within the confines of what's given.

Yes. My destructive build is Elemental–Blood–Force 
And my "deffensive" build is Force–Spirit Healer–Primal (a bit odd, that in the scenes he also executing bosses with fire, despite, that he can't create onle little spark...)
And I have Force–Blood–Primal too.

All build working fine. I Always have the first healing spell from the Creation, and Rock Armor from the Primal.

(This builds only just for fun, I don't play nightmare, and don't read strategy.)

I lean toward Cunning for my rogues with just enough Dexterity to wear the best rogue armour possibly a little more if I go Duelist/Shadow.

In Dragon Age, I mostly try out what looks like fun. I love the rogue class and tried all specs there. I played some mages too, but seldom use blood magic (I think it was someone in the 'Harry Potter' books, who called the dark arts the last resorts for untalented and lazy mages - for me, BM is the same, therefore no character of mine used it ... plus demons). I never play warriors, I started a few, but I never liked it much.

I have some games, where I did look up some guides (at the moment: Pillars of eternity), because of some mechanics and/or classes (Cipher for example), I didn't fully grasp at the beginning. In DA, I normally start looking, what other people did, after a few playthroughs, to get some new ideas.

As for mods, I use a lot of cosmetic mods in DA2 and the spiders to skeletons mod (I'm not really arachnophob, but the spiders in DA often freak me out - I don't have that problem in any other game strangely) and I have a mod, that gives an archer Hawke Sebastians skilltree, since I normally don't bother with him anymore, but I like his skillset. I have two gameplay mods installed: one that gives a female Hawke, who romances Anders, the whole Karl story (I like that story and I don't think, that it should only be told to a male Hawke) and anotehr one, that leaves Orsino be - he wont turn into the Harvester when you side with the mages. A great mod, since I never did understand his overreaction, after he and Hawke just defeated a lot of templars.

IMO , one need to focus on dex. There are passives and equipments that raise your cunning easily to give critical damage > 100%. 30 cunning should be more than enough. At 23 Cunning I now have 186 % critical damage, but even at 72 dexterity, I have critical chance of only 88%. Remember high dexterity can knock off most of enemies, denying the flipping chance to the enemy rouges.

Can you try to dig up how did you get that much Critical damage? My dex is now 72 and I have best of the gears. Or so I think. Champions armor(except helmet) with Rune of valience.

All about defense.

I like to do my research. I enjoy reading about other people's builds, getting tips and finding out what works and what doesn't. Or what is just outright broken/bugged. It's very rare that I actually follow someone else's build to the letter though, I usually customize it to fit my own tastes and playstyle even if that results in a "weaker" build. I'm not much of a min-maxer, never have been. Mainly I look to official game forums for info but sometimes Reddit or GameFAQs.

Same with me really as ifind that with the Arishok fight being the hardest the game throws at you it makes sense to make suer you have a character/build that cvan take him down as te only fight tha tcomes close I think is the High dragon in the Bone pit during Act 3. The final fight with Meredith is pretty straightforward compared with him.

Lego. Always lego.