What did you do today in DA? [Spoilers]

I started Jaws of Hakkon again after disabeling a lot of mods. It works now. But the rifts there are incredible hard. I had to walk away from one, where only level 26 demons came out (Riya and group are level 17, I have 'Take it slow' activated) and was killed by another with a lot of level 20 monsters. I think, I have to either turn off the trials for this one or set the difficulty down.
SO far we destroyed three JoH camps and set up some camps, got rid of tons of poisenous spiders and got attacked by something that looked like a crossover between a pig and a rhino - I'm not sure, how that happened, maybe Iron Bull said something crude aout it's mother.

Here are Riya and her merry men

Riya and friends met up with Colette an elven student, who wanted to search some nearby Tevinter ruins. They followed her there and were glad to see, she made it and found something worthwhile. Now that Colette is save for the moment, Riya moved on to find a friendly Avvar tribe, that can help to get to some mysterious island, according to Professor Kendrick. More spiders had to die along the way, I'm afraid.

The most annoying ones are the Hakkonite gladiators with their whirlwind attack and dual dagger rogues.

Yes, JOH can be tough!  (Riya truly looks angry in this pic!) The spiders are particularly annoying!  Definitely a place with a lot of "accidental bosses"!  It may be time to start crafting new weapons and armor with Tier 4 materials!  With trials, I frequently focus weapons on barrier or guard penetration.

phoray One thing I do miss in the unmodded games are the soft options to rekindle a romance if you shut down all others. I thought it was rather good that they allowed the PC to go back to Zevran after Alistair's let PC lose. Overall, I prefer running romances in parallel for a bit, seeing romance conflict and have the openly obvious scene where you pick one or another. I know it is awkward, but it is preferable to me to being always afraid that I won't know if a romance shuts down.

fylimar I can see after finishing the game that you can sort of force to game to make Morrigan fit into the story, but really, Merrill and Flemeth would have done just fine for me. But, I think we are doomed for her to become plot-central from now on

I have finished my run of the game proper, and the Trespasser now shows up under the Path of the Inquisitor tab. It took 46 hours (for Sin Fell), and he was level 18 only when he returned to the Skyhold from the Temple of the Sacred Ashes (really, that old place again?) I had to switch the game to Casual from the garden scene onward, because I was lazy to do anything about gear or respec or, like, learn how to prime bosses for my two detonators... Also, apparently, the huge creatures are really hard to hit with the Spirit Sword. :)

Figure 1. Sure, Sin finally gets a pet Dragon, and it's the lousy one. He has to finish the job.


By the time Sin finally got to Corypheus, it occured to me that in the end of the day we really learned zip about him. What he was, why he awoke, why he wields the off powers he wields...

Figure 2. Sin killed Corypheus anyway. Mythal FTW. Assumed Corypheus was a random madmen with powarz


Bunch of chit-chat in Skyhold followed up... made me think how on an ideal PT, I would restrict the recruitment to only one or two characters in addition to the core three the game starts with. While I did not mind any of them, it really was too unfocused, particularly since 4 advisers were also people of interest. So, it's a bit like ME2, so on a repeat PT it would be better to be really strict in recruiting working with a smaller pool.

Figure 3. Team Inquisition, victorious. Luckily w/o Morrigan


My epilogue would have been much more satisfying if it was not narrated by Morrigan. The only thing that was not just a restatement of how things turned out was that Leliana became the Divine in my game. So, Anders' finally got his wish. Maybe Hawke will catch a break now.

Speaking of wishes, Dorian replaced the rags in Sin's quarters. I guess, Sin redoing the entire keep in Tevinter style after Dorian sounded homesick did have some impact. Or at least I chose to think so. :)

The foreshadowing in the end with Solas disappearing is nice. Though why he is the first Elf in what appears to start shaping up as essentially Elven magic and power vs. Human magic and power story, I dunno. Wish he drained Morrigan, not Flemeth... Flemeth was cool.

With the first, I wanted Flemeth take the boy from her. It felt like the boy wanted to leave with her.

With the second, I am good, I am pro-Flemeth/old gods.

melbella & deadlydwarf

Yes, I can see, that JoH is tough. Luckily, I already have tier 4 weapons since I'm approaching the end of the main story. I turned the difficulty down and the trials off for the moment and see, how far I can get with now level 18.

deadlydwarf
my sister and I were only traveling inside Germany (we live there), nothing fancy, since it was only the weekend - it was a wellness trip with a nice spa day and some walking through nature and a bit of wine tasting .

Riya was probably angry in that pic. That was after she had pick up Dorian and Varric the third time and the group had to run for their lives by that rift with the level 26 demons
And yes, the Stormcoast walk with Blackwall was really a nice setup for what's to come.

About Morrigan; that's the thing, I don't find her interesting as a character, she is the typical fantasy bitchy witch and BW did a better job on that with Viconia (and Edwin - oh and Kreia, she was cool) already. I understand the intention to give someone, who wants to play ruthless, a fitting companion, but Morrigan was the reason, I never wanted to play ruthless in the first place. Such a shame, her sister and her mother are such interesting characters and I have to deal with Morrigan.

phoray



Jethann and Idunna are not in the same room in the BR. Jethann is in the left room and Idunna somewhere in the right. You can pick the questlines both up at the same time and do one tour to the BR

Yes, I saw Morrigan much better mother than was Flemeth. Flemeth taught Morrigan many magical and survival things, but was bad as mother, this was clear, even in Origins, and later. She's not totally heartless, but if she liked Morrigan somewhat, she didn't really shows it. When she let Kirean back to Morrigan, shows some emotions.

JoH rifts are tough.  I usually take 3 dispellers (Cassandra + 2 mages).  You can generally skip the entire second wave this way which makes them much more manageable.  Ironbull as a tank is also going to make it more challenging.

The level 26 demons?  Was that on the island?

I spent some time in Germany some years back.  All in the southern half of the country, particularly around Stuttgart.  I, of course, had to visit every castle or palace I could find and I was sucker for every museum!

Dumb question...who's Viconia?  From Baldur's Gate?  (A famous game I never played.  Prior to DA, my video gaming tended to focus on Tomb Raider or Call of Duty.  As to Sword and Sorcery/Fantasy, the closest I came was "Adventure" for the old Atari 2600!)

Morrigan really... hmm... morally questionable, but I can't call her liar. She is too practical/cruel, but I don't remember, that she said anything that wasn't true, or at least she doesn't believe, that this is true. She seems honest. In fact: too honest. So: I didn't have any reason, that I don't believe, that Flemeth was bad as a mother (by the way: doesn't show this Morrigan herself?).

About Flemeth: I like her, she is wise and practical Cruel, yes: Merrill said, that not so much people survived a meeting with Asha'bellanar...