+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ================= TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= 0. INTRODUCTION 1. WHAT'S NEW 2. ORIGINS 3. ATTRIBUTES 4. SKILLS 5. SPECIALIZATIONS 6. TALENTS 7. EQUIPMENT 8. COMBAT HINTS 9. COMPANIONS 10. TIPS & TRICKS 11. CLOSING WORDS +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ =============== 0. INTRODUCTION =============== The Dual-Wielding, backstabbing Rogue is the most highly damaging of the melee DPS variants. I've always enjoyed playing Rogues in Bioware games due to the subtle, treacherous and exotic nature of their combat techniques. In case you don't know, DPS = damage per second, the real measure of how deadly your character is. It takes into account damage per hit and attack speed. In Awakening, the Dual Weapon Rogue's adventure continues unabated with even greater power thanks to new Talents, Skills and higher level cap. The focus of the build is to achieve high DPS by using the following: * Fast attack speed * Backstab attacks * High critical hit chance * Increased backstab/critical hit damage * Other melee Rogue tricks Meanwhile, your defense is not neglected and the character is able to contribute to the party by picking locks and using skills, be it Coercion for the main character or a different skill for a companion. There WILL be spoilers in this guide, although I try to keep them fairly minor. Most of the spoilers are from the early parts of the game. When I mention the original Dragon Age: Origins game, I will refer to it as simply "Origins". This game, Dragon Age: Origins Awakening will be refered to as "Awakening". This is an extension guide to my original Dragon Age: Origins Dual Weapon Rogue guide. I hope you enjoy it. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ============= 1. WHAT'S NEW ============= There are many new additions in Awakening. Some of these can affect the dual weapon rogue significantly. Others may seem irrelevant but can affect you indirectly. Here are some of the most significant additions: * Increase to various limits, for example experience level now capped at 35 and backstab damage bonus increased to 200% more than base backstab * 4 new Rogue abilities * 2 new Rogue specializations: Shadow and Legionnaire Scout * 4 new Dual Weapon talents * 3 new skills: Runecrafting, Vitality and Clarity * 6 companions, 5 of whom are new: 2 Warriors, 2 Rogues and 2 Mages * Many new weapons and armour * Manual of Focus: re-distribute all Attribute, Specialization, Skill and Talent points on activation * Runes now available for armour, some new runes for weapons available too * Stamina Draughts: Lyrium potion equivalent for Rogues and Warriors With the availability of Manual of Focus (bought from Herren in Vigil Keep's Courtyard), initial parameters are no longer so important. The Manual allows you to redistribute Attributes, Specialization, Skill and Talent points as you see fit. It is available in infinite quantity for the low price of 6 gold each. The Manual of Focus is I think the most significant change in Awakening. It allows you to try out as many builds as you like, customize all companions to your liking, and eliminates any regrets of "permanent" choices you made during Origins. Always remember that you can re-make any character with this manual. Stamina Draughts are long overdue. Previously, the only way was to munch on Deep Mushrooms with very little effect. I won't comment much on the other changes, they are quite self-explanatory. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ========== 2. ORIGINS ========== If you are using an exported Origins Warden then your choice is already made. Try to export at as high a level as possible. I was almost level 25 (the maximum in Origins) at the start of Awakening and only got to level 35 (the new cap) just before the last area. If you're making a new Warden, the best choice remains to use Dwarf due to their innate resistance to magic. However, since origin-based free skills and talents no longer play any part, the choice is a lot more free. Pick Elf or Human if you like, it makes little difference in the end. Note that you won't have any of the upgrades you receive from the Origins game, namely Attribute bonuses from the Fade and points from Tomes. If you're not using a Rogue Warden, there are two Rogue companions that you can recruit. Both are viable for the build thanks to customization from Manual of Focus. This was not something you could do in Origins, NPC talents could not be 100% moulded to suit your needs. Before we continue, let's take a quick look at the stats you get as a Rogue: Attributes: +4 dexterity, +2 willpower, +4 cunning Level up: +5 health, +4 stamina, +1 skill every 2 levels (not every 3 levels like the others) No matter how you start, you would probably need to redistribute points using the Manual of Focus once or twice during Awakening. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ============= 3. ATTRIBUTES ============= Strength (Str): --> 24 Dexterity (Dex): --> 52 by level 26 Willpower (Wil): --> n/a Magic (Mag): --> n/a Cunning (Cun): --> 70+ All spare points go into Cunning Constitution (Con): --> n/a If you're making a new Warden I suggest you get the Strength requirement out of the way, set Dexterity to 35, then maximize Cunning. Upon leveling up make sure you get 52 Dex by level 26 then simply put everything else into Cunning. There are more free Attribute bonuses that you can get in Awakening. I did not pay much attention to how many of each there were, again because you can simply redistribute the points. Explanation: Lets go with the obvious first, the stats you don't really need. Magic is a downright throw away attribute. You are no mage, you don't need this. It does improve health poultices but to invest in magic just for that is a waste. Willpower and Constitution are both semi-important, giving you more stamina for abilities and more health respectfully. Investing heavily in them, however, will lessen your damage-dealing focus. I tend not to increase them at all. You really only need them in the early game, but investing in them in early game noticably delays getting your main attributes to a solid level. At higher levels, when your main attributes are solid, increasing Wil/Con will no longer have much of a noticeable effect, so you may as well just maximize your main attributes. Note also that the new Awakening Armor Runes can boost Willpower by up to +7 per rune or Constitution by up to +14 per rune. Furthermore new Awakening skills Vitality and Clarity increase health and stamina respectively. These eliminate any need to boost Willpower and Constitution in the late game. Strength affects melee damage and Attack. However, with Lethality, you can use Cunning to increase damage instead. Cunning also contributes to Armor Penetration and many talents, which Strength doesn't. Therefore keep Strength to 24, which is enough to wear the best Light Armor. 18 or even down to the minimum base of 11 can be passable if you boost it using equipment, but I like to save myself the hassle of being equipment dependant and just raise the Str to 24. Str also increases Physical Resistance, but so does Dex, and Dex is more useful. Next let's take a look at Dexterity. Dex is a pre-requisite to many of your Dual-Wielding and Rogue Talents. In Awakening, the priceless ability Flicker requires 52 base Dexterity. This is what we'll go for. Cunning contributes to Armor Penetration and, with Lethality, attack damage. Also, many other important abilities like Exploit Weakness and Riposte use Cun in their calculations. Cun also boosts Mental resistance and allows you to pick locks and Persuade people. There were some convincing calculations done in favour of maxing Cunning for DPS back in Origins: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/66/index/223777 http://i47.tinypic.com/2zz2qo8.jpg I do not know if this formula still applies, but I don't see any changes that immediately suggests otherwise. In any case I would get 70 Cunning just to be able to open any locks without needing other Talents. Also, several key abilities, namely Exploit Weakness, Song of Courage, Lethality and to a lesser extent Riposte all depend on Cunning. There are no such key abilities that depend on high Dexterity. This is yet another reason to maximize Cunning. For those of you who wonder whether the Cunning build gets a high enough Attack rating to maintain a decent hit rate, don't worry. My Warden has over 90% hit rate throughout Origins. My NPC rogue had 86% hit rate throughout Awakening. Player characters have extra bonuses, so the hit rate for them will be higher. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ========= 4. SKILLS ========= As a Rogue you get the privilege of gaining a skill every 2 levels instead of every 3 like everyone else. You also get 3 skill points when you create your character. This means by level 35 you will have 20 skill points, not including bonuses from the tomes you could get in Origins. The most important point to remember is that companions can acquire skills too. There is no need to have more than one Master Herbalist, Trap Maker, Poison Maker, Runecrafter and Thief (pickpocketeer) in your party. I tend to assign these party skills to companions and pick Coercion for the main character since companions cannot use that skill. You as a Rogue start with a point in Poison-Making. This is extremely handy because it lets you use poisons and grenades. Higher points are not necessary and can be acquired on companions if needed or acquired later when you have spare points. The only skill you really absolutely need to invest in is Combat Training, which is required for some of your core weapon talents. This skill also gives small but useful bonuses to your combat stats such as Attack and Armor. Max this out first. A useful skill to get is Coercion which is only available to the Warden and not to any of your companions. Since only you can use it, and since it helps quite a lot during quests to bring extra rewards or make things easier, I generally always pick it. It also adds flavour to dialogues. In Awakening you also get two other "personal" skills: Vitality and Clarity. Vitality increases Health and Clarity increases Mana or Stamina, each by 25 points per skill. This is quite a significant boost and you want to get both of these maxed out by the end. The best way is to use Manual of Focus at level 26 and re-assign your points to Vitality and Clarity. If you're exporting from Origins then your skills have already been chosen. If you make a new character, you will have 12 skill points at the start. At the start of Awakening you should have at least the following: 4 levels of Combat Training 4 levels of Coercion 1 level of Poison-Making (already locked in) 3 more of anything you like, you can mix it up or focus on one skill At the end of Awakening, you will have the above, plus: 4 levels of Vitality 4 levels of Clarity +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ================== 5. SPECIALIZATIONS ================== In Origins a dual weapon Rogue typically went with Assassin and any other one of Bard, Ranger and Duelist. In Awakening, for this build, only three specializations really fit: Assassin, Bard and Shadow. Assassin is needed mostly for the increase in backstab damage from Exploit Weakness. This Cunning-based bonus also synergizes very well with other Cunning based abilities such as Lethality and Riposte. Mark of Death is also an awesome ability to increase DPS. Feast of the Fallen gives you extra Stamina to unleash your powerful abilities. Lacerate gives even more damage boost. Bard was chosen solely for Song of Courage. This is an excellent party buff that increases Attack, Damage and Critical chance, all of which are important to this build. You cannot miss this. If there are other Bards in the party, the more the merrier: this ability can stack. Shadow was chosen for Shadow Form and Shadow Striking, which combine to reduce hostility and, most importantly, add +50% backstab damage. Decoy and Pandemonium are also nice abilities to have, adding more defensive measures. Duelist is overlooked because it's underpowered compared to the others. It only grants +10 Attack and Defense, which cannot compare to the awesome damage boost from Shadow and Assassin talents or the party-wide benefits of Song of Courage. Pinpoint Strike may seem nice, but doesn't last long and has a very long cooldown. Your critical hit rate will be very high anyway without it. Ranger just seems a little out of sync with the ideals of the build. It does not improve your fighting skills in any way and simply adds a pet to run around with you. The other specializations just add so much more to the concept. The new Legionnaire Scout specialization is not strictly speaking a bad one. However, it has a definite emphasis on defense, which is not the point of this build. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ========== 6. TALENTS ========== These are the most important choices, it is what makes the build. Some choices are obvious, others can be dubious. By the end (level 35) you'd have at least 39 talent points. This may seem like a lot, but you need them. The are many awesome new talents available in Awakening. Most of these have a Level 20 requirement. These will keep you busy from level 20 to at least level 30, so any talents from Origins will need to be taken before level 20 or wait until much later (after level 30). Assuming you don't export, you will start at level 18 with 21 Talent points plus Dirty Fighting, which is already locked in (total 22 Talents). * Assassin : 2 to 4 points You need at least Exploit Weakness for your backstabs to work properly. Lacerate is a relatively weaker ability. Feast of the Fallen can be used to refill your stamina for more havoc, but in Awakening you can use Stamina Draughts to do this. Feast was more valuable in Origins when you had no other effective way to refill your stamina. * Bard : 3 points Song of Courage is the one you want and is one of the best ability in the build, increasing Attack, Damage and critical chance. Captivating Song will stun enemies but it leaves you immobile which is quite against the build's concept. * Rogue, Dirty Fighting line : 3 points Coup de Grace is awesomely good, enabling you to score backstab hits to stunned or paralyzed enemies from any angle. It combos well with many other abilities and, well, the point of the build is to optimize back- stabs anyway. Note that Dirty Fighting is automatically selected. * Rogue, Below the Belt line : 4 points Lethality is probably the single most important talent in the build. It makes Cunning a damage attribute, without it maxing Cunning makes no sense and the use of many other talents just won't fit. From Lethality it takes just one point to get Evasion, which significantly boosts your ability to dodge attacks. * Rogue, Deft Hands line : 0 to 2 points This is nice, but you will soon have enough Cunning to open any lock without investing in this at all. That said, you may not have enough Cun for SOME locks at the start. 2 points here should be enough to cover it. * Rogue, Stealth line : 0 points The point of Stealth is to use it to perform critical hits out from out of Stealth mode. You do *not* need it to scout ahead while hidden, it slows you down so much and the game is not hard enough for that. The real toughest fights. You need to invest all 4 points for it to be effective in combat and when you do, you still only get the 1 ability. * Dual Weapon, passives : 3 points I would take all the passive Dual Weapon abilities except for the last one (Mastery). The -2.5% Fatigue that it grants is simply too little, especially compared to the -10% that warriors get from the Powerful talent. Also, you will be using only Daggers, making the other half of Mastery completely useless. * Dual Weapon, Dual Striking line : 0 or 2 or 4 points Dual Striking mode itself is the most useless talent you can get for this build. There is no place for a mode that disables critical hits and backstabs in a build that emphasises them. That aside, all the other abilities are fantastic burst-damage dealers. Riposte is my favourite as it stuns the enemy, leaving them open to Coup de Grace backstabs. If you are going to get Cripple, you may as well spend an extra point and get the awesomely good Punisher. * Dual Weapon, Dual Weapon Sweep line : 0 to 4 points This line is full of more damage dealing goodies. All four abilities are great, so unlike Dual Striking where the main drawcards are Riposte and Punisher, you can go for any number of points here. Momentum is of particular note since it greatly increases attack speed and thus DPS. There is only one situation in which investing in this line is not recommended and that is when you wish to use Haste for your party. Momentum and Haste are bugged such that if you use both, you cross a threshold that actually makes your attacks slower. Momentum reduces attack time by 30% while Haste reduces it by 25%. Together this is a 55% attack time reduction while the cap seems to be 50%. When deciding which to use, know that Haste increases movement speed whereas Momentum does not seem to (even though it is advertised to). These bugs are very unfortunate, but you must adapt to it. Note also that if you have two mages in your party both using Haste, this will be better than Momentum and still fall within the 50% attack time reduction cap. This is what I used when I played Awakening and in that playthrough I skipped this line altogether. This gives us a total of 27 talents, 5 more than we have points for. From level 20 onwards, you'll be taking high-level talents new to Awakening. This will take up all your talent points until level 30, so any Origins talent you don't get now will have to wait until much later. Level 19 gives one last opportunity to take one of the Origins talent, leaving us with 4 talents to cut from the list above. The final choice is up to you, but I feel there are 4 sets, each with two talents. Pick any 2 of the 4 sets to get the 4 talents you are cutting. Remember that you can still get these talents later, after level 30. * If you're planning to use Haste or Double Haste, you may want to skip Momentum and therefore Whirlwind also. * Feeling that you probably won't have enough stamina to use all your Activated abilities, you may want to skip Cripple and Punisher. * Knowing that you'll soon have enough Cunning to open all locks, or will soon recruit another rogue who can, you may want to skip Deft Hands. * Since Lacerate is a bit underpowered and Stamina Draughts can be used instead of Feast of the Fallen, you can choose to skip these two talents. ============== Example Build: ============== For the 22 points you get at level 18 this would be my preference: 1-3 Dirty Fighting -> Combat Movement -> Coup de Grace 4-7 Below the Belt -> Deadly Strike -> Lethality -> Evasion 8-11 Mark of Death -> Exploit Weakness -> Lacerate -> Feast of the Fallen 12-14 Song of Valor -> Distraction -> Song of Courage 15-17 Dual Weapon Training -> Finesse -> Expertise 18-21 Dual Striking -> Riposte -> Cripple -> Punisher 22 Dual Weapon Sweep Level 19: Flurry I skipped Deft Hands because it'll become obsolete later and anyway you can still open the easier locks without it. I also skipped Momentum and Whirlwind, opting to use Haste from a mage companion. From here you'll be taking the new Awakening abilities that require at least level 20. At level 22 you'll also get another Specialization point. This specialization should be Shadow. * Shadow line : 3 points Shadow Striking is what you're after, with the +50% backstab damage. Pandemonium is interesting, but it is mostly a defensive ability. * Rogue, Heartseeker line : 4 points Every single one of these are very powerful, take them all. Heartseeker essentially halves every Elite enemies' Health, since once they get below 50% HP you can instant-kill them with this. I've seen damage from Heart- seeker exceed 2000 points. Two thousand! Ghost is an excellent panic button that practically ensures you cannot be killed from attacks. Weak Points increases damage, which is the aim of the build. Flicker is one of the most damaging AOE abilities in the game. A whole lot of win. * Dual Weapon, Twin Strikes line : 4 points This line emphasises dealing massive damage to a single target. Of particular note is Find Vitals, which passively increases critical chance and critical damage as well as improving Twin Strikes. Since they all combo together, you may as well get all of them. The order is pretty much set in stone with Shadow and new Rogue abilities interweaving perfectly. Level 20) Heartseeker 21) -save a point- 22) Ghost + Shadow Form 23) Decoy 24) Weak Points 25) Shadow Striking 26) Flicker 27) Twin Strikes 28) Find Vitals 29) Low Blow 30) Unending Flurry ------------------------ 31) as you like from here on, you would already have everything you need 32) 33) 34) 35) One thing to note is that you won't have enough slots in your quickbar for all your abilities. Knowing this, I tend to favour passive abilities. ------------------- A Note on Evasion ------------------- Evasion and other dodge abilities have a short blocking animation when triggered. This is where your character visually makes a blocking move with his or her weapons/shield/whatever. This takes away about a half a second where you cannot attack and thus it protects you at the cost of your DPS. If you feel that this is a lousy deal, skip Evasion and don't equip any item that gives you a dodging bonus. This is harder in Awakening since many great items include dodging. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ============ 7. EQUIPMENT ============ While Awakening presents many new weapons, armour and other items, you'll find that many pieces of equipment from Origins are worth carrying over and even remain the best throughout the game. A note on exporting: all original Origins, Stone Prisoner and Return to Ostagar items can be exported. All other DLC items will NOT be exported. This includes Warden's Keep and individual DLC items such as The Edge. HOWEVER, if unexportable items were equipped, a bug will make all effects (such as Armor rating and attribute bonuses) stay on the character permanently even though the item itself will be removed. --------- Weapons The Rose's Thorn (export) --------- Voice of Velvet (Amaranthine, Crown & Lion, ~140g) Daggers are the best choice for DPS dual weapon Rogue mostly due to their great speed and armour penetration. It also happens that many daggers have bonuses that are right up your alley, such as +damage and +X% backstab damage. The other main reason is that you never need to invest in Strength to be able to wield daggers. Many other good one-hand weapons require a good amount of Strength, upwards of 30, which you won't have. Voice of Velvet is without a doubt the best dagger in Awakening. The second choice, surprisingly, is still the Rose's Thorn from Origins. I'm not sure if you can get it in Awakening, if not, there are a couple of other daggers you can find that are quite good. ------- Runes Elemental ~5 gold each ------- Paralyze ~1 to ~45 gold each depending on tier Intensifying ~5 gold each You will have up to 3 rune slots per weapon for a total of 6 runes. With Runecrafting in Awakening, acquiring any rune you want is just a matter of being able to afford them and finding the Tracing. You'd need someone in your party with the appropriate skill, of course. The simplest option is to go for Elemental runes, which add 2 damage from each element for a total of +8 damage per rune. 3 Elemental runes add a very considerable +24 damage to each attack. Elemental runes are also fairly cheap and outclasses even Paragon tier Flame/Frost/Lightning runes in damage. The next option is to go for Paralyze runes. Paralyzed enemies are open to backstabs from any angle thanks to Coup de Grace. Remember also that paralyzed enemies are unable to cause any harm to you. 3 of these runes per weapon will give you roughly 15% chance of paralysing the enemy per hit. If you want to use the highest tier Paragon runes, this will be very expensive as each will cost more than 40 gold. Intensifying runes increase critical chance by 5% and critical/backstab damage by 20% apiece. This may seem like the best option, but know that there is a +200% limit to backstab damage increase. With the two aforementioned daggers equipped and Shadow Striking, you already have +180% backstab damage. This means at least one Intensifying rune could be used to maximize backstab, further ones will be wasted. The critical chance still applies though, but there are other sources for that. Obviously you shouldn't use more of these runes if you reached 100% critical chance. Intensifying runes are quite cheap to make as well, similar in price to Elemental runes. --------- Poisons Deathroot Extract, Concentrated Deathroot Extract, --------- Crow Poison, Concentrated Crow Poison No Assassin would be complete without the use of poisons. The best poisons not only deal damage but also stuns the enemy, perfect in combination with Coup de Grace! The humble tier one Deathroot Extract grants 10% chance to stun for three seconds. The improved tier two version grants 15% chance to stun for 4 seconds. The extra 1 or 2 nature damage are inconsequential: those decent length stuns set you up for Coup de Grace backstabs! The tier one poison is the most cost effective choice of course, you'll find plenty of Deathroot plants around. The tier two poison is more expensive but quite a bit more effective too if you are able to afford ingredients. The Crow Poison and its Concentrated version are even more effective, with 3 second longer stuns and triple the damage of the respective Deathroot counterpart. However they are far more expensive, requiring more ingredients. I have not learned the new Awakening poisons yet, but there doesn't seem to be any new Stunning poisons. ------- Bombs Any bombs: Acid, Freeze, Shock, Fire, Soulrot ------- Assassins lack AOE damage dealing and bombs are an excellent way to fill this gap. The AOE is not big at all, but enough to hit 2 to 4 enemies if they are clustered. Any bomb will do as they all have the same AOE and damage and use the same amount of ingredients. Use the one least likely to be resisted by your target (eg. don't use Acid Flasks on Golems or Undead). All bombs need tier 2 Poison-Making to craft. There are new bomb recipes available in Awakening I think, but I haven't learned much of it yet. ------ Bows Heartwood Bow Master Wade after completing Wending Wood ------ Misery Amaranthine, Crown & Lion, not cheap What, bows?? That's right, you're a melee fighter but having a bow equipped in your secondary weapon slot will give you far more flexibility. Sometimes you don't have time to rush a distant enemy while a bow will get the job done quickly. You want a fast bow, after all if you cannot get rid of that faraway target in a timely fashion you may as well sprint there. As such the important quality for your bows to have is Rapid Aim. Good crossbows need high Str, so they aren't really an option. Take any Bow that has Rapid Aim. The above two would be the best ones from Awakening, but there are a few others with Rapid Aim. Any will do, you'll very rarely use it. -------- Armour -------- Helmet: Helm of Honnleath (export) Cap of the Nimble (Yuriah at Vigil's Keep) Gloves: The Slippery Ferret's (end of the Silverite Mine) Armour: The Felon's Coat (export) Vest of the Nimble (Vigil's Keep quests) Boots : Wolf Treads (last Vigil's Keep basement quest) The Helm of Honnleath remains viable as an excellent helmet for Awakening. The best helm in Awakening for us is the Cap of the Nimble, available fairly early but only if you choose to protect trade. The Slippery Ferret's Gloves are by far the best gloves available. It will greatly improve Dex, Cun and Critical chance, all valuable for the build. The Felon's Coat from Origins remains one of the best light armour even in Awakening. I am not sure if it's possible to acquire it in Awakening. Either way, the Vest of the Nimble is offensively superior even if it's defensively inferior to the Felon's Coat. The downside is it's a bit tricky to acquire. There aren't many good boots available in either Origins or Awakening unfortunately. Wolf Treads is probably your best bet. ------------- Other Items ------------- Amulet: The Spellward (export) Illumination (Wending Woods) Belt: Andruil's Blessing (export) Gladiator's Belt (Blackmarsh) Rings: Key to the City (export) Harvest Festival Ring (export) Ring of the Warrior (export / several available) Ring of Subtlety (Knotwood Hills quest) Many of the best accessories from Origins remain viable for use throughout all of Awakening. If you aren't exporting, good accessories are fortunately available in Awakening too. The Spellward remains one of the best defensive amulets you can have. Illumination is an outstanding piece, granting +3 all attributes. You can't go wrong with Illumination, it is equally good on any build. Likewise Andruil's Blessing is still the best belt around. If you aren't exporting, the Gladiator's Belt is probably the best you'll get. Key to the City remains one of the best rings in the game. The Harvest Festival Ring and Ring of the Warrior are also solid options. The latter can be exported but a couple of copies are also available in Awakening. Companions can start with one, for example. Ring of Subtlety is a better option than the Ring of the Warrior with its +3 to both Dex and Cun. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ =============== 8. COMBAT HINTS =============== Here are some combat hints, some of which are dead obvious and some are more subtle. * Right before the battle begins, decide if it's worth it to use a poison. Unless it's a totally trivial fight, it's generally worth it. Activate it. * Try to go for mages first because they are easy to kill but dangerous if left alive. If they are far away though, you will waste time running to them. Instead use a mage or archer that can do the job from afar. * Enemies cannot stop you from focusing on their mage, but you can stop them from doing the same to your mage! Your mage is just as dangerous as the enemies' so you should try to protect them. Draw enemy mobs attention away using abilities such as Taunt. * In emergencies, have your mage cast Mind Blast to clear enemy Threat level on her. or even Force Field on his/her own self. * Since it takes precious time (one second or so) to turn on Sustained abilities, it is better to leave them on once you feel you have enough Stamina to use your other abilities. In Awakening, this should be always. * At the start of battle, Flicker gives you a great opening move. You should be able to hit three or more enemies with it. * Position yourself so that you're behind an enemy, facing the black part of their selection circle. This will enable you to perform damaging backstab attacks. Once you have Feast of the Fallen, killing enemies with backstabs will regain stamina which you can use for more combat abilities. * If a target refuses to show his back to you, stun them with Dirty Fighting and continue hitting them with Coup de Grace backstabs. Other stuns include Riposte, chance of stun from poisons, and chance of Paralyze from runes. * Use Dual Weapon Sweep when there are two or more enemies in front of you. You can hit a few enemies at once with this skill if they are close enough in front of you. In a pinch, don't hesistate to use it to deal extra damage against a single target. If there are no enemies in front of you, the skill can still be performed but it will hit nothing but air, so be careful. * If you're surrounded by 3 or more enemies, use Whirlwind if you have it. * If you see enemies clustered nearby, use a bomb and try to hit at least 3 with it. Note that if they're currently moving around your grenade toss can miss. Your toss range is quite short so don't aim at distant enemies. * If there is one big major threat with high HP, use Mark of Death on that target and focus fire with your team. * For such dangerous boss enemies there are two ways about it: either take them out first, or leave them last and deal with the supporting mob first. Last is best if your mage can use Force Field to disable the boss while you clear the mob. Either way use your Mark of Death to get the job done faster. * On big bosses, use the potent combo of Low Blow, Twin Strikes (auto-critical thanks to Low Blow) and Unending Flurry (auto-critical and cannot miss if you use the other two abilities before it). * Below the Belt, Cripple and especially Deadly Strike are not as useful as your other abilities. If your stamina is low, give priority to the other abilities. * If you get into trouble, use Ghost and Decoy to save yourself. Feign Death also works if you have it. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ============= 9. COMPANIONS ============= As always, it's good to have a balanced party. There are a few novel ideas that have good synergy. With the Manual of Focus, you can now re-spec all your companions as you like. Therefore it's not useful to treat them individually like in Origins. Once again, you'll have 2 Rogues, 2 Warriors and 2 Mage companions. * You can have up to three Bards, stacking the Song of Courage bonuses. This is very powerful, but it does not stack perfectly. The 1st Bard to activate Song gets all 3 song bonuses. The 2nd bard gets only the bonuses from the 2nd and 3rd song. The 3rd bard only gets the bonus from the 3rd song. * It's best to make the last Bard in the above sequence an archer since they can get the relevant bonuses from the talent Accuracy instead. * You can have two Mages and stack two Hastes for the highest possible attack speed increase. Again, the 2nd Mage will only get the bonus from the 2nd Haste, but caster mages don't rely on attacking anyway. * Having two Mages can also give you two Blood Wound users, potentially permanent-paralyzing all enemies. If nothing else, two mages give you twice the amount of healing spells. * My favourite team will have 2 Bards and 2 Mages, with at least 1 mage being Arcane Warrior. This will give you three fighters, all with double Haste and two with double Song of Courage. Note that Haste messes with archers (bug) so it's best to have both Bards be melee fighters. I prefer the last mage to be a caster since Arcane Warriors don't generally have enough Mana for that much casting. * Tank warriors aren't as necessary anymore, with better survivability now available (Ghost, Decoy and Scout talents for Rogues, Keeper/Battlemage and other new spells for Mages). That said, being a tank is easier than ever with the new Guardian specialization and new Shield talents. * It's better than ever now to use greater offense as defense (killing enemies quickly before they can do much damage). For Warriors, the new Spirit Warrior specialization seems to be the best bet, in conjunction with the old Berserker. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ =================== 10. TIPS & TRICKS =================== Here are some non-combat related tips and tricks. Included are some bugs and exploits. * The new money-making exploit in Awakening is making and selling Menacing Runes. You need a lot of empty inventory slots for this, but it's a lot quicker to gain money this way compared to selling Potent Lyrium Potions. * A good portion of game time is spent walking around to places. To increase movement speed, use Swift Salve, the Haste spell, or Shapeshifter in Flying Swarm mode. * Very long cooldowns can be refreshed by saving and reloading the game. * Choices you make during the early game, such as where to direct your troops, can have a significant impact on the game. * More so than Origins, you can miss out on many items depending on how you decide to complete certain quests. Much more so than in Origins, many good items are rare random drops that you'll almost definitely miss unless you know exactly where it's supposed to appear. I suggest you look up the wiki site for Dragon Age if you're concerned about this. * It's probably too late, but any gifts given to Oghren during Origins as an exported Warden will count towards the diminishing returns effect. In other words if you gave Oghren 3 gifts during Origins and exported, the next gift will give 3 less disposition accordingly. Since his disposition is rest to 0 even if it was higher during Origins, this is a very bad deal. * After entering the Silverite Mine, if any of your characters wake up naked then the game is bugged and you'll lose that character's equipped items forever. To avoid this, unequip that character before you enter. * Your characters don't have to eat, but you do! Bioware does not want to lose any dedicated gamers. +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ =================== 11. CLOSING WORDS =================== And that's it, hope you enjoy the guide and it was useful to you. Do I even need to cite copyright stuff? Don't plagiarize. Questions and comments? Email to zeusodinra at yahoo dot com +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+