The Old Guard (Ye Olde Cullen Thread v4.0 + gen discussion)

OMGosh no thank you!!! It's been up for hours and has all these hits and no kudos so I thought, creators this thing must really suck!!

I'm glad you liked it It's a rare pair, so I'm always honored when someone reads one of my stories 

EDIT: I'm combing over it again and there were two huge errors in the first few sentences.  I just cannot with my awful typos that my eyeballs fucking BREEZE OVER no matter how many times I edit. *huff*

I also think I always have shitty beginnings. Any other fic writers feel that way? My bad endings I can sort of understand because at that point I get way too eager to just finish so I can post and let other people read it. So my endings are often rushed (bad me). But often I read over my beginnings and I have to admit, if I read the beginning of this fic, I probably wouldn't finish it.

So would mine! Not necessarily this current one I'm playing, but my "default" one, for sure. 

Honestly, with the way this year is ending, I think I just needed something happy and peaceful. "Regular dude" Solas is kinda just what I need right now. None of that god-in-disguise betrayal nonsense. And thanks again 

Question: Has anyone used those... I can't remember what they are called now. They are sort of like "special challenges." They're new since I last played. I have one of them turned on, and I guess it makes random baddies elites. But when it's a mage they erect unbreakable barriers, essentially. None of the characters can break the barriers, no matter what they do. I have to reload and hope the bad guy doesn't spawn as a super elite again. It's very annoying. (Just happened at Adamant; everyone was dead except this one random mage... then I realized he had 40,000 health points and a continuously respawning barrier. No thanks.)

You need dispel for those barriers and/or lots of crowd control. Stun them, knock them down and perform combos on them. Combination of these will make short work of the barriers. Or you can just survive and keep dispelling. Each dispel is guaranteed to remove at least 1/3 of the barrier.

I'm playing on hard... there ARE no supply caches!!! Do you know how painful it was getting through the Fade after Adament with only two healing potions between us?

What is dispel?

Cassandra also has Spell Purge if you tend to bring her with you.

I'm not an ass lol, you are just asking very obvious questions, I literally thought you were kidding.

Mages have 4 spell trees. Spirit, Fire, Lightning, Ice. Dispel is in spirit tree, its green. Barrier is the first spell you learn in that tree.

For better usage, you can make Dispel a preferred spell in tactics menu. That way, whenever there is something to dispel, the mage will prioritize that over every other spell. Its practical when you have nasty enemies challenge on.

I did a nightmare run with most challenges on, it was very hard but worth it in the end. I suggest you play a Knight Enchanter in this playthrough. Taking Vivienne with you is not even close. The AI control of KE is terrible, you need to be in control of it.

I had to choose between the best and safest companions. Your tank cannot be anyone else but a champion, So its Blackwall.

You need two mages in the party, no way around that and one of them needs to be a knight enchanter. Given that you are the KE, I think taking Solas is better than Dorian, simply because you'll need AoE damage and Rift Mage is a lot better than Necromancer when it comes to AoE. Not to mention the AI plays with Rift Mage very well.

For your rogue you have more breathing room, but an archer is going to be better than a dagger rogue. Your dagger rogue will be so squishy in Nightmare with challenges on, he will always going to die. You can give a bow to Cole and Archer Assassin is quite viable, or you can take Varric or Sera, as long as they are ranged.

Happy New Year, all! Sorry I haven't been around, but the holidays have been crazy stressful and busy. Plus... meh, not focused on DA right now. Santa brought number one son his first console, so I've been breaking my brain and my thumbs with a PS4 controller (ugh) and new random games (wow is Disney Infinity annoying; no wonder it's discontinued). Also finishing TW3. But, maybe I'll get back into DAI once I've sufficiently forgotten everything about it. LOL

For now, may you all have a wonderfully Culleny New Year!

I usually leave the Winter Palace stuff as long as I can because I hate the level (except for the dance at the end of course). I plan to do it sooner but was wondering if you have to do the desk scene in order to get the dance?

Good to see I am not the only one who hates it.  Well, I hate the timed aspect of it.  Anytime a game puts a timer on me I tend to start panicking, which just ruins my fun.  I do love the dance scene and running around listening to poor Cullen get hit on by the Orlesians though, and I've enjoyed taking different people in my party to hear their comments.  I suppose Cullen's reaction to getting his bum pinched makes up for the timer.