In this section I'm gonna suggest character builds. I'm not saying they are the best or it won't work as well with other builds. Of course many talents are a matter of taste, like if you prefer the Speed buff over Power or Precision .
It's just supposed to be a little compendium of what worked best for me after trying several things on many Nightmare runs.
Hawke
Attributes:
I start off putting all points in Dexterity to wear decent daggers as soon as possible (24 Dex needed). Cunning and Constitution are also important, I don't invest into Willpower.
Once I reached 40 Cunning and 25 Constitution during act 3, I skilled only Dexterity.
For a little orientation: At the end of act 2 I had 41 Dex, 36 Cun, 20 Con. Everything else base stats.
Abilities:
I use neither area damage (e.g. Bursting Arrow or Rigged Decoy) nor any disorientating skills (Miasmic Flask) due to the friendly fire risk. And fortunatley we don't need them at all.
I don't use buffs at the early game due to the limited stamina pool.
First we decorate our Duel Wield tree before we specialize on Assassin at Level 7 and later Duelist at Level 14.
Assuming you use a Maker's Sigh potion at LVL 6 the talents could look like that:
Act 1
1. Backstab
2. Unforgiving Chain
3. Explosive Strike
4. Backstab Upgrade: Perforate
5. Twin Fangs
6. Blindside
7. Mark of Death => Specialization:Assassin
7.2 Back-to-Back (Use Tome of Technique)
8. Bloodlust
9. Pinpoint Strikes
10. Assassinate (the reason to choose the Assassinate tree! Use it to one-hit dangerous enemies, such as rogues, poisonous spiders, mages, arcane horrors or simply enemies who are bothering one of your squishy companions)
11. Follow-Through
12. Devious Harm Act 2
13. Stealth (useful if the rogue drew a little too much attention)
14. Parry =>Specialization: Duelist
14.2 Throw the Gauntlet (Extra skill if you deal with the demon in Night Terrors)
14.3 Vendetta(Use Elexir of physical Technique) 14.4 Twin Fangs Upgrade 15.Assassinate Upgrade 1: Annihilate (this one plus upgraded Petrify can one-hit Lieutanants, Rage Demons, Desire Demons and Stens. Nice!) 16. Parry Upgrade: En Garde: (You have to rebuff to get the 10% crit bonus!)
17. Assassinate Upgrade 2: Overkill 18. Vendetta Upgrade
19. Precison
Act 3
20. Power 21. Speed
23. Harmony 23. Speed Upgrade 2 24. Speed Upgrade 3 25.Mark of Death Upgrade 2: Mark of Doom 26. Mark of Death Upgrade 2: Enduring Mark
Merrill
Attributes:
This is easy, 50:50 on Magic and Constitution right from the start.
Don't waste a point in Willpower.
Abilities:
Pick up Horror and go straight Primal. The bonus you get from Galvanism is priceless.
I used to skill fully upgraded Arcane Shield on my previous runs. It's not really necessary to boost her Defense and Resistances unless you plan to play Merrill as an offtank. The bonus for the entire party is 5% on Defense and Resistance. Overall not really worth 3 skill points that early in the game.
Act 1
1. Horror
2. Chain Lightning
3. Stonefist
4. Rock Armor 5. Chain Lightning Upgrade 6. Petrify
7. Tempest
8. Petrify Upgrade 9. Galvanism
10. Blood of the First (I only activate it if she's out of mana.)
11. Mindblast
12. Barrier
Act 2
13. Crushing Prison 14. Crushing Prison Upgrade
15. Barrier Upgrade
16. Elemental Weapons (great skill. I just can't seem to squeeze it in earlier) 17. Arcane Shield
18. Arcane Shield Upgrade 1
19. Arcane Shield Upgrade 2
Act 3
17. Wrath of the Elvhen
18. Wounds of the Past (the tooltip says physical damage, but it actually does elemental damage depending on the staff Merrill is wearing. I activate Blood of the First all the time now.) 19. Wounds of the Past Upgrade
23. Stonefist Upgrade
24. Wrath of the Elvhen Upgrade 1: Loss of the Dales 25. Ensnare
26. Wrath of the Elvhen Upgrade 2: Arlathans Grace
Varric
Attributes
I go almost straight for Cunning so he's got 40 at the start of act 2, for
there will already be Master Chests and Master Traps. Every now and then a point into Dexterity and Constitution.
Once he reaches 40 Cunning I concentrate mainly on Dexterity.
When Act 2 started I had 40 Cunning, 17 Dexterity and 15 Constitution.
Abilities:
I prefer passive abilities because I don't micromanage Varric unless I have to move him away from an attacker. His area damage and his sabotaging abilites do friendly fire and thus need a lot of micromanagement. So I always concentrate his skills on Marksman and Specialist.
Of course an upgraded Archer's Lance with two Mages on the team being able to brittle enemies is a powerful damage spell. I will try it on my next run. Speed, Precision and Power are all three excellent buffs. On my last run I started off with Precision and ended up with fully upgraded Speed.
21. Speed Upgrade 1 (I buff Speed now, attack is long maxed and crit pretty high, too)
22. Speed Upgrade 2
23. Evade Upgrade(you have to stand with your back to the enemy for an effective stun) 24. Stealth Upgrade: Camouflage 25. Autolevelup 26. Autolevelup
Anders
Attributes:
Magic has the highest priority, nevertheless willpower and constitution must not be neglected.
At the End of Act 2 I had 39 Magic, 25 Will and 25 Constitution.
Abilities:
Anders is obviously a Healer but I wouldn't upgrade Heal until you don't know where else to put your points. Our companions don't have much health early in game and as Anders' Magic attribute raises his heals get better, too. On my last run I played without revive because I managed to keep all allies alive. However I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, so I strongly suggest to get his revival skill "Regroup" before fighting the Ancient Rock Wraith.
13. Tempest
14. Petrify Upgrade (one more chance to get an enemy BRITTLE. Always look for the symbol before assassinating. If it doesn't proc, try Merrill's Petrify.)
15. Galvanism
16. Haste Upgrade
17. Vengance (going for Swift Justice, I'd never activate Vengance)
18. Swift Justice (Vengance doesn't need to be activated for reduced cooldowns!)
19. Heal Upgrade
Act 3
20. Stonefist Upgrade
21. Tempest Upgrade
22. Martyr 23. Blood of My Enemy 24. Elemental Weapons 25. Autolevelup 26. Autolevelup
Aveline
Since many players don't want to miss a real tank, especially on their first play throughs, I'm gonna introduce Aveline as an alternative companion.
If you plan to play with her all the way I'd suggest to kick Varric since his tasks and duties are more than covered by Hawke.
With that build, Aveline is able to tank Xebenkeck and her 4 Rage Demons for several minutes. It served me overall very well on Nightmare.
Attributes:
It's mainly 50:50 on Constitution and Strength. Some points in stamina since 2-3 buffs will drain her stamina pool. But for the occasional Shield Bash it should always be enough.
At Level 15 I had 32 Strength, 31 Constitution and 15 Willpower.
Abilities:
Aveline's job is pretty obvious: She can stagger, taunt and take a lot of beating. The upgraded Shield Bash is a key talent. Due to its short cooldown, you've got a guranteed STAGGER effect every 10 seconds. With two mages and two Chain Lightnings in your team, you can take advantage of that effect quite frequently.
Once I get Battle Synergy I try to move the entire party as a pack so that everyone profits from the damage reduction and threat transfer.
Just be careful with talents like Shield Bash or Scatter, for they can hurt your other party members.
For the companion quests we must take our other comrades into our group.
I usually let them replace Varric.
Isabela:
I skill her like Hawke. Two DW rogues is actually quite fun.
Unfortunatley Isabela has neither Assassinate nor Vendetta so she will
never be more than a smaller, more harmless version of our Hawke DW Rogue.
Bethany:
I take her until level 7 to replace her finally with Anders then.
I don't waste a Maker's Sigh potion on Bethany so I'm stuck with Fireball. Furthermore: Heal, Heroic Aura, Mind Blast, Barrier, Crushing Prison and finally Heroic Aura Upgrade.
Fenris:
Contrary to Bethany and Isabel, Fenris is an excellent character.
His Fugitive Skill Tree combines the the best passive talents from the Berserker and Reaver specialization. The Lyrium Ghost buff is very powerful, too. The talents from the Two-Handed and Vanguard trees complete a very effective Fenris-Build.
Unfortunately, Fenris' strikes aren't only lethal for our enemies. His special talents like "Mighty Blow" are able to knock even the hardest Aveline off her feet. In my opinion he's not the most ideal partner to stand beside our rogue Hawke and smash on the same target.
If I play with Aveline, Hawke gets a Shield Bash every now and then and lies staggered on the floor. While this is annoying it's not necessarily lethal in most cases.
If you position yourself badly next to Fenris on the other hand, the worst case scenario could look like this:
This kinda gives the word "Annihilate" quite a new meaning.
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