Nearly Solo'd Broken Circle with No Health Pots - No Health Pot Solo Discussion

Actually after your explanations it really makes no sense to make comparison of simple attacks: there are many variables, so many circumstances affecting these numbers.

It is not like e.g. to check the description "highest crit chance" of Battleaxes. Varibles are still there but it is another matter, imo.


Thank you for clarification.


Added: finally got the Harvest ring and KCP is ready to be used. Time for Desire Demon.

well, thanks anyway



oh, will read ASAP. Merci.
Is it with the last patch?

I already wrote a whole composition as introdaction and described rules/armor/weapon + several battles (went better than expected actually so want to continue this solo); everything ready to go to be sent to the thread.




they are dead now.



hmm, again cancel animation....



than in my PT it was simply some glitch.

Thank you for your time to check these things


***

Alright, for now continuation.

Decided to go to Honnleath w/o going to my camp or Denerim.
First needed to fo to that merchant Felix to get the rod - unneeded encounters 3 times.
Went to the Lake - Gentle Path.
Lake - Felix - Twisted Path - nope.
Lake - Felix - Genthle Path.
Mountains - Felix - nothing.
Felix - Honnleath - Trecherous Path (with several "Red" Shades - the mod is working...) - nope

OK, thanks to mod I thought would never get out of that spot - wherever I go - ecnounter I can't win: tried different directions 10-15 times. Good mod....

Finally got Gentle Path on the way to Honnleath.

Honnleath.

Used Qunari Sword + simple Maul tier 4 - both were good, MB crits about 65-67.

Good I had bombs - about 10 attempts outside.
Inside was easy - lured them to the spot with a pile in the middle and they for some reason did not go further.

Shades: bombs + running almost to the exit. After about 20 attempts finally killed them all.
Note: MB usually killed simple lackey shade on the spot. Good.

Put on Harvest Festival Ring and finally KCP!

Kitty.
From the 2nd attempt. Use 1 acid flask + fire resist.

Got lvl 8.

Some thoughts about it all:
- lost almost all my bombs here for outside fights for darkspawn - time to chat with Zevran (have ingredients for some bombs);
- Templar passive ability helped a lot with fade creatures;
- most simple shades were killed with only 1 MB;
- PS is still one of the best powers of the warrior;
- mod "random encounters" is working in full force.


Following actions in my mind:
1) camp chatting;
2) enchantment time;
3) Denerim tour;
4) the Circle.

yep, managed to do that. Only almost naked my GW died rather quickly.
So ended up using bombs if they like to cluster so much.

From my recent run in with Zevran.

First picture is at the exit, the second is after I turned and walked up behind them.

Anyway, I didn't pull it off the first time, had to redo it. But the second time, basically I walked along as far right as you can go, hugging the very edge of the map. More or less sliding along the edge. There is a trip wire over there that looks like it should trigger, but doesn't along the edge.

Turning around and walking up by the cart as I did, the encounter doesn't trigger until you get in front of the "traveler" mage.

Re: Back Alley Justice scaffolding. I seem to pop up there if I move back and forth enough behind that platform.

***

DN SnS Continued

Shah Wyrd - Petra and her Fireballs are the biggest enemy here, but I think basically I scaled this character's durability quicker than normal, so I just had to beat on the demon with my sword and he died.

At this stage I was tempted to do Soldier's Peak or Return to Ostagar for even more good gear, especially the former for Starfang. But instead I decided to try getting ready for and completing Nature of the Beast.

Careless Accusations

Shield pummeled the 2H leader, then ran towards the mage with deathroot extract active. Killed the mage and tried to move back behind a large tree. I didn't manage this one quite right from here, with a little too much target switching between 2H and the other two. But my idea was to try and block sunders (via sunder arms or shattering shot), but perhaps I should have just killed the 2H as fast as I could.

Denerim

Turned in Careless Accusations, sold loot to get to 42g 15s 86c.

The Long Road - Zevran Ambush

As per above, actually when I walked past the mage from the back and triggered it, I ended up fighting it. That scene dumped me in the same spot as usual, so ran towards mage to take her out. I ran to the right to block line of sight to archers and fought melee there. Recruited Zevran.

Frostback Mountains

Bounty Hunters - Started encounter by going left until in line with mage, then ran towards here. Shield bashed, and threw and Acid Flask. Killed the mage, then ran across the bridge, and around the corner where it could be a series of 1v1. Main point was to avoid sunders. Used a deathroot extract as well.

Level 11 - +3 dex, Cleanse Area

Orzammar

Realized I hadn't actually gotten Key to the City out of the crate, pretty amazing. Talked to Mardy. Then spoke to Dagna. Leliana pickpocketed Rogek, I didn't have enough coercion to start this at the cheaper level, so I skipped talking to him.

Went to Figor and bought 10 flasks.

Camp

Talked to people. Then I tried traveling some more to try and get Gentle Path for a Tome of Skill and Sundry.

Have You Seen Me

This was pretty simple with this gear. Abomination susceptible to stuns and knockback.

Civil War

A lot of NPC allies.

Dalish Camp / Brecilian Forest

Did Sign of Safe Passage, and bought more toxins for Negotiation Aides.

Denerim

Turned in quests. Activated and turned in Restocking the Guild with something like 6 lesser health pots to spare.

Wonders of Thedas - bought a Master Dweomer rune (8% spell resist).

Cesar - bought T6 Saw Sword with two rune slots. Saw Swords are pretty decent with +1 damage enchant, and I want a sword for my damage runes, and planned to use Gorim's for spell resistance runes.

Circle Tower

Talked to Irving about Dagna. Bought a backpack from the quartermaster. Took care of Summoning Sciences.

Orzammar

Gave Dagna good news, and got another Master Dweomer rune. Saw Sword got the +5 and +2 lightning runes, and Gorims had 2x 8% spell resist. Total spell resist with gear equipped was 70% (10+40+4+8+8).

River Crossing

This turned out to be a bit easier than I expected here, but I do have very good durability. I am not sure if the archers didn't have Scattershot yet, or if they simply couldn't quite get the shot off before I got to the ramp. Ran past people towards the tree near the exit. Parked myself on the other side to block LOS to the archers. Sometimes the "leader" will stop and pull out a bow, but that didn't happen, and so I had to fight the melee mooks. Had 53/305 health after I killed the melee. Used a deathroot extract.

Dalish Camp

Talked to Athras with Leliana (couldn't pass persuasion by myself yet). Left for Denerim again.

Gentle Path

Finally. Bought Tome, used it for Coercion 2.

Denerim

Turned around immediately

Dark Forest

This is the one with a lot of spiders. Conservative estimate is that I was webbed 1000 times. But armor rating is high enough, and I have Lifegiver so it didn't matter so much.

For the "queen," I put on Varathorn's Amulet (+20 nature resist, -1 dex) to reduce poison spit damage, but since I was able to mostly keep the queen in melee, I didn't take a lot of damage from that. Took a while, but killed her, then the other ones.

***

Nature of the Beast

Cammen - talked to him, persuaded Gheyna to make the biggest mistake of her life and support him. Got the book (for trade with Hermit).

Ogres - in the forest section, the part near the gravestone, the two ogres here were the most annoying units in the forest. Shield pummel was reliable if I could hit them, but the cast time is a little long. Could survive Grab so it didn't matter a whole lot.

Hermit - traded for the acorn and helmet. I didn't feel like killing him yet. Or rather, I didn't feel like dealing with the huge mob of bandits that are near his tent the next time I was back this way.

Ruins

In general, it seemed like the enemies had started to catch up to my damage output a bit, part of that may be the dex investment I have been making, which does not improve longsword damage at all, other than attack rating.

Tried Olaf's Cheese Knife at one point, but it is worse than Saw Sword at these attributes though. Not completely surprising as its enchantments aren't great.

Ah well. For the most part I was durable enough that this didn't matter. There were a couple exceptions though...

Dragon - so I decided to do this melee weapon only, although I still used the tree to the left to give me an inaccessible area as needed. Even so, this took ages as generally I could just get in a swing or two before a Rake or Overwhelm. Fortunately at this level, with this gear, overwhelm only took ~25% health or so. Wasted a lesser fire resist at the beginning of the fight, but didn't reapply one after it ran out since my damage rate was low.

Four Poisonous Spider Ambush - my damage output here was ok, but this was worth mentioning because I was pretty close to dying here before I could reduce their numbers. I was trying it with just Varathorn's instead of using a consumable though.

Level 12 - +3 dex, Stealing, Shield Mastery

I wanted +10 defense for Shield Wall.

Spirit with Shade Support - 70% spell resist helped, but with attack debuffs from the Shades, it took longer than expected for me to actually kill the spirit.

Black Vial Revenant - I gave the one in the ruins a go for fun, although from my stats I did not expect to be able to beat it with no health pots. And I was right. I had ~98 Attack, and even so my hit rate was terrible (50% misses or so). I think with Aura of Weakness their effective defense is around 100, so this makes some sense. I did not want to burn my Swift Salve, and I didn't remember to buy more Rock Salves. Oh well.

Arcane Horror - only mentioning because it isn't practical to do this in melee, as it hops too much. So I used Falon'Din's Reach.

Lair of the Werewolves

With this armor rating and regen, the main thing was to not run in and aggro too many Shadow Wolves at once. I opened the door, and then moved back to the corner at left. Shadow Wolf overwhelm didn't do enough damage to make this too perilous. At most I had two at once. I did not have my health drop low enough that it was a problem from the others. This is one advantage of doing this quest line relatively early.

Witherfang

I was just going to try this fight for the hell of it, although I didn't think I had enough DPS to make it practical. Was planning make Zathrien break the curse.

Anyway, this was not beatable by normal means. My hit rate against Witherfang was not really any better than against the Revenant. Also, I think Witherfang will deal some non-physical damage, so that isn't mitigated by armor. Nevermind that Zathrien froze me a couple times.

The standard werewolves did not hit me for more than ~1 damage per hit due to my armor, so a goofy strategy was like I have done with Cauthrien where in a corner a couple low tier mooks block the boss, but you can still hit her.

Also tried emptying grenades, which can clear some low tier wolves. But doesn't do enough to Witherfang. The closest to a "fair" run I did was emptying grenades, and using Demonic Poison and Swift Salve to try and reduce Witherfang's health as far as possible, as fast as possible, before I dropped below 50% health (where it would use Overwhelm), then run to the corner. Zathrien would occasionally cast something useful, in this case Misdirection Hex on Witherfang. But I couldn't quite pass it this way, Witherfang could kill me after SS and poison wore off.

Zathrien

Cleanse Area. Then I ran and killed him myself though. Actually his defense is not very good, so it is possible to reduce him to the threshold for the cutscene pretty quickly.

***

Denerim

Sold loot. 115g 77s 56c

Killed Paedan, they were somewhat simple at this level. The elf was nice enough to drop Chevalier armor, which I just put on Alistair so he could have something.

Deserters (Run Down Alley) - traveled there and killed them.

Twisted Path

This is the one with the bandits. It is optional. I choose to "skillfully avoid their trap," moved along the path until the lone enemy working on the trap, and then forced the encounter. Tried to keep a tree or object between myself and the bulk of the archers, but that is kind of hard here because some of the terrain and objects don't seem to actually stop objects. But this character is pretty good here, I am starting to avoid a fair amount of attacks in addition to the high armor rating.

Orzammar

Talked to Rogek to start Precious Metals.

Circle Tower

Delivered the Lyrium, persuaded for more gold, then blackmailed for more gold. Had Leliana unlock crates, and activated Five Pages Four Mages by clicking all the pages. Bought a Swift Salve on my way out.

Camp

Bought Spellward.

Five Pages Four Mages

Now I had 100% spell resistance. I wanted to stay in the clump of melee and let the mage help me out with "friendly fire." The mage did cast a Fireball, but it didn't seem to do a lot of damage to the enemies. I had deathroot extract active, killed Beyha, then ran to the mage and killed him. Then finished the rest.

Denerim

Just talked to Slim, didn't exactly start the quest.

Went to the Tavern and talked to Ignacio. Told him about Paedan and got the next contracts.

-

I haven't decided what exactly I want to do next. I was almost thinking about just doing the Urn quest. Damage is lackluster, but I think that should all be mostly manageable. Drakes and Kolgrim fight are a question mark, would need to make sure I have Swift Salves.

The smart thing to do would probably be Soldier's Peak (for Starfang, WC armor), or maybe Return to Ostagar (Cailan's stuff, Duncan's stuff).

Alright, thank for demonstrations.
More clear now, but unmanageable.
One glitches after one reinstalles, after another - new glitches, but the old ones vanished/hald-vanushed.

I still remember in ME2 I just couldn't land Pragia to do Jack LM, tried different ways - nothing. In all 60 PT it happened only once.




Fireballs? Do not remember using any of them force-damaging spells. Though played the Circle in the beginning/middle/end of the game.



Another formula to use GW "coercion" + Leliana special talent "to squeal with pleasure" to pass that check?



Maybe. Tried him in Orzammar, started to miss again and again.



And why? With normal and promoted wolves it was fine, but the leader has very high dex (no auras noticed)?



I did not change his armor at all, DLC items are too fancy for him.
Why do you care about his looks at all? It is already the 2nd mentionning about it, and only about Alistair.
(I use a mod to keep things in the camp).

***

Thoughts about "dex SnS" for further build? Damage will be crap, but desence is already good as you say.
What's the point to put more points into dex? Will only make fights longer because of lower damage.

So how will "dex" in this build will be integrated? And accodding to your constant remarks Leto is alreay strong enough.

First things first.
Frustrating notion, for me at least.

There are two goals of this no-pot 2h solo:
- see if can actually do this PT as 2h;
- compare weapons and their stats: crit chance, AP etc. (can't resist to do this, it is very interesting for me to test and check things; what else can I say).

But it seems some of my PC guts need replacement and now I can't do that.
So 30-50 reloads are impossible now do to.
Will reload of course, try some things, flows of battle, stats etc (already have done some things for further posting).

Really frustrating as wouldn't be able to relaod 10000 times to make comparison how the games treates different weapons.

What is left? No-pot-2h solo with unavoidable reloads, use different weapons in such cases and try to notice at least some things -
not exactly what I wanted to do, but at least it will be something.

***

Orzammar

Items I managed to get: Lifegiver (had to use Leliana to steal from others, barely had gold to buy it only after leaving Orzammar), Key to the City, gloves of dligence.


Now I realize that probably DC Origin is not the best for no-pot -solo for 2 reasons:
- in Jarvia figtht you have 1 additional enemy named Leske; and the fight is difficult already w/o him. Tbh already think to use traps: I already use poison, steal myself, why not to use traps? Imo it is not cheating considering that talent is included for a warrior;
- pure annoying factor in the form of your sister: I always choose Bhelen in the end anyway: better for the kingdom even I know what kind of person he is + 1 additional and useful for a warrior quest in DA2 in this case, but still do some tasks for Harrowmont to get more gold.

Anyway.
Did some quests to get more gold and loot (incl stealing).

With weapon comparisons there are some changes (have mentioned why).

Anyway had battles on my way.

Battles:
1) Dust Ambush;
2) Tunnel Thieves in the Palace;
3) The gang near the person with the stolen Shaper tome;
4) Palace Dragon;
5) Orzammar Revenant.

Wanted to check thing as always:
1) flow of battle in general;
2) MB crit numbers from different weapons;
3) crit chance with simple hits;
4) SB Passive as it did not work in some places;
5) Battleaxes "higerst crit chance".

Results:
1) with Revenant and Dragon missed many times, the Dragon used ovwewhelm anytime; with Revenant had only a 3-4 hits from 7 reload;
with many enemies used usual tactics;
2) MB crits - considering I used them in every battle several times + several reloads just to check crits, MBs worked all the time (just several misses);
3) crit chance with simple hits (now talk NOT about BA) - do not remember really such things though each weapon still has that stat "crit chance" and I used many simple attacks;
4) SBs worked all the time (the duration depended on the enemy I noticed, or luck);
5) BA crits - again wanted to remind used only simple attack and several realods on puropose. Number of crits - 1.


Lvl 8
- used Elfroot poison all the time + some bombs;
- could not kill the Dragon and the Revenant (figures);
- battle 1,2,3, are won from 1-7 attemps.

General impression:
- still try to compare AP and still inclined for Mauls;
- used 3 Mauls, 2 Swords, 1 BA;
- faster wins had with the Maul actually with 1 rune slot (+ 2 spell resist).
- BAs are broken.(???)


Wanted to go to the DRs to be an errand girl for Behlen and get more gold, but too difficult.
Tried there to use some simple traps - in some cases they even helped.

Next stop - the Circle.

Ok so at Level 12, character has these "natural" stats (and total with gear):

STR: 42 (47)
DEX: 32 (36)
CUN: 16 (21)

So right now, "excess" dex is only 6 points, since gear doesn't count for unlocking Shield Expertise Mastery (26).

With the T6 Saw Sword using +2 and +5 lightning runes, no Precise Striking or other speed modifying things, the difference due to those 6 points of dex is only about 2 DPS. So that is not too bad.

As may be suspected, with continued dex investment, the damage with the longsword would flatline (except for level bonus damage of 0.4 per level), and so the DPS difference would be expected to grow.  At level 14, the difference should be ~4 dps, then a bit over 6 dps at Level 16.

In any case, still haven't decided. Maybe I go STR from here, but still buy Rose's Thorn for fun.

Why should it if this Passive relies upon strength? (wki info only).



Is that "2 DPS" noticable in battle in comparison with lower dex if you write "that is not bad"?




So in this case SnS dex warrior can just auto-attack enemies to the death even w/o using Offensive Abilities?




And? Go for strength for more damage but still buy a dagger w/o knowing how many points will put into dex for more dps?
Do I understand right (more or less) you way of thinking about Leto build?

Yeah, the specialization would be different. I don't know, I have truly not made up my mind. I would need to by the next level because that is the second spec, and Berserker probably makes the most sense for dex dagger. Although ok with longsword / axe.


I don't know about a formula exactly, but if going for "strength" SnS, 26 natural dex for Shield Mastery, rest into strength. Use best longsword or axe.

For "dexterity" SnS, 38-42 strength for armors, then I would probably do dexterity until total defense is 120-130 range, after that back to strength (probably won't be to that point until level 21 or higher). Depends partly on what gear you run though.

Really for any dexterity character, I end at that 120-130 defense usually. There really aren't any enemies that have good hit rates once you have that level of defense, ignoring "automatic hit" abilities.



Perhaps middle ground is around 100 defense, but with percent chance to dodge gear on top of that.


I meant Mastery there.


It probably isn't quite as noticeable as Shield Wall penalty is getting to be. At Soldier's Peak I was losing about 8 dmg per swing with Shield Wall on IIRC.


If built that way, probably should. Shield talent damage is taken from strength only. And the resistance check is against strength, so more enemies will resit them more often.

But I suppose once you become "unhittable," it doesn't matter a whole lot if the dps is lower than it would be from a "strength" build. Of course, won't be unhittable by every enemy, Ser Cauthrien has 116.5 attack at L19 (to go with her 101 defense, absurd). Although even that is sort of misleading since she will just activate Perfect Striking if she gets tired of missing.



As long as all my points are in strength or dexterity, damage from dagger will be the same. Benefit of Rose's Thorn would be extra health regen, and also since the attack speed is a little faster, rate of activating things that depend on chance per hit is higher (paralyze, poison stun, etc).


10% spell resist racial bonus for dwarves should put it at 84%. This was a dwarf commoner, right?


Aura of Weakness should just give attack and defense penalty for weapons, and a slow to movement speed if you fail a check.



Denerim

Ended up doing the first two marks for Crime Wave, and broke into the first place (actually did that before getting the information from Slim).

Decided to pick up the Tome of Physical Technique in Orzammar, then just do Soldier's Peak.

Roadside

Encounter against a horde of darkspawn with a friendly mage and two apprentices.

Orzammar

Bought Tome, used it for Shield Expertise. Went to the tavern, talked to the adventurer, and Lord Helmi. Bought two Rock Salves from Figor. Exited to the Frostbacks, and bought the Swift Salve recipe from Faryn.

Soldier's Peak

Went to camp to talk to Dreyden, then headed to Soldier's Peak. I did a lot of it with Shield Defense active instead of Shield Wall, despite getting the knockdown resistance with the tome earlier. For the most part, this worked fine.

Level 13 - +3 STR, Precise Striking

I went strength on this level, hadn't really made up my mind yet either.

Sophia - forced the encounter when I met her. Needed to weed out the skeletons first, then fight her. They die faster, and otherwise there are too many Shield Pummels.

Final Fight - The wave with two Rage demons and the two Ash Wraiths knocked me pretty far down health wise. I wasn't using any resistance salves/balms or other things, just spell immunity. I think the mistake here was prioritizing the Rages, it seemed like I was able to actually kill the Ash Wraiths more quickly.

Went to camp and came back to get Starfang, but still haven't decided if I want to use it.

Like I said, still undecided on whether it should be dex here on out or not. Or if I will go to Redcliffe, Haven, or possibly even do more on the Orzammar quest line.

The Circle

Got Yusaris (simple fight. Spell resist helped).

Bought a new Maul in the Circle

Maul
Silverile Tier 6
Damage 13.50
Crit chance 0.75
AP 12.25
SM 1.25
+ 2 rune slots

As already have better weapons sold some older ones.

Now have:
- 2 Mauls: new T6, Diamond Maul;
- 3 GW: Yusaris, Qunari Sword, Starfang (did Soldier's Peak)
- 1 Battleaxe: the old Dalish BA Tier 4

Wanted to do the Dalish Plot Quest, but decided to go to th Soldier' Peak (first went to the camp to the enchantment boy).

Soldier's Peak

All the time used a new Mal Tier 6 (+ 4 spell resist, + 10 physical resist)

Sonya sealed the Veil.
Died once when was overwhelmed by fade creatures (the second wave).
The second time used fire and spirit resist - was a close call.
The BM is alive, got a new ability.
Killed Sonya very easy.

PS again saves my life many times.

Get ctits 90 +. Good.

Camp

Leliana told about her crime past so, suspect, will have an ambush now if take her.
Wynne has her countless enconters as well if take her.
Though there are still difficult encounters from the tower and mages + those Plains are not done yet.
Do not know about that.

And Morrigan already has ordered assassination.


Next stop - Dalish Plot Quest I think.
Before that some Spectre business.

Period for now.