Dragon Age Origins - questions that bother me!

[Arch Demon]

I was having trouble killing an enemy mage that was completely immune to all my magic spells. Then I "made" Alistair use "Cleanse Area" to remove the enemy mage's magic-protection and then turned the tide of the battle. Now, comes the question(s).

1) Before the fight, I had a tactic setting for Alistair that was like "if enemy has any buffs, use Cleanse Area". Didn't work. Then I changed it to "if enemy has rank Elite or above use cleanse area", then it worked. Why didn't the first tactic setting work?

2) Is "Cleanse Area" the only way to fight enemy mages who have enabled magic protection? No other faster/easier/effective way? I don't want to use Alistair every time just for this kind of situation.

 

[communist gamer]

1. enemy buffs might have not been considered buffs by game standards (they might be something like special effects, item effects etc.) It's prob. just a problem with the code of the game

2. Use mele chers. stelth specialised or very heavy hitting. I never use cleanse area once in the game

 

[Arch Demon]

Thanks, Copy Clerk! Pardon my ignorance, but what did you mean by "mele chers"?
You mentioned that you never used "Cleanse Area" even once! So how did you manage to take care of mages having protection against magic-attacks? I assume you might have used heavy hitting, maybe directed your warriors towards mages first. My questions arose when I was playing the last fight in the "Last Request" quest in Denerim. Died a million times, when I was using AListair, Morrigan, Leliana and myself(mage). Now I've changed the party to use AListair, Sten and Wynne. I'll change the tactics also and hopefully I'll have my revenge!

 

[Albino Boo]

Thanks, Copy Clerk! Pardon my ignorance, but what did you mean by "mele chers"?
You mentioned that you never used "Cleanse Area" even once! So how did you manage to take care of mages having protection against magic-attacks? I assume you might have used heavy hitting, maybe directed your warriors towards mages first. My questions arose when I was playing the last fight in the "Last Request" quest in Denerim. Died a million times, when I was using AListair, Morrigan, Leliana and myself(mage). Now I've changed the party to use AListair, Sten and Wynne. I'll change the tactics also and hopefully I'll have my revenge!

I suspect what communist gamer means is use all melee characters and just whack on everything until they die. Your first party is magic heavy which is why its having problems with mages.

 

[communist gamer]

melee, my bad. I mean the dudes who run around with swords and are your main DMG dealers, you know the ones that hit the hardest, like the dwarf dude or what ever. You want one mage in your party not two, although if you are high enough lvl Wynne is a kiack ass healer. It might also be a problem of your lvl, you might just be too week for the quest

 

[Arch Demon]

Thanks, Albino boo . Thanks, Communist Gamer.

Communist Gamer, you are right in saying that my level might be too weak for this quest. I had absolutely no idea before that each area can be cleared based on certain level and requirements. Anyway, I'll give it a try with my current team , with new tactics (forcing the warriors to attack the mages). Still if I fail, then I'll switch to some other area.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I was having trouble killing an enemy mage that was completely immune to all my magic spells. Then I "made" Alistair use "Cleanse Area" to remove the enemy mage's magic-protection and then turned the tide of the battle. Now, comes the question(s).

1) Before the fight, I had a tactic setting for Alistair that was like "if enemy has any buffs, use Cleanse Area". Didn't work. Then I changed it to "if enemy has rank Elite or above use cleanse area", then it worked. Why didn't the first tactic setting work?

2) Is "Cleanse Area" the only way to fight enemy mages who have enabled magic protection? No other faster/easier/effective way? I don't want to use Alistair every time just for this kind of situation.

1) Cleanse area only specifically works on magic buffs and the game does not consider all buff equal. My suggestion is to manually deploy cleanse area when needed. Mages are pretty rare and because it can wipe your own buffs out, best to handle things personally.

2) There are several anti-mage attacks in the spirit tree on a mage, the best of which is mana clash. It essentially does spirit damage equivalent to the remaining mana of the target you are attacking (plus any spirit damage multipliers). That means that if you were to use it on a target with more mana than health (i.e. most mages in the game) they are insta-killed.

 

[Arch Demon]

Thanks, Happiness Assassin, for your tips! As of now, I'm not comfortable controlling character other than my own, the main (mage) character but I'm slowly getting the hang of it! I jumped into this game without even understanding many basic mechanics and suffered...but now I'm getting better!

 

[Arch Demon]

I finally completed the "Final request" quest! Like I said, I changed my team, changed the tactics; made the two warriors focus their attack on mage bose and the second mage while I (main mage) was protecting wynne from damage. Two attempts failed but in third attempt, cleared...Feels very satisfactory...Had died a million times yesterday in this stage!

 

[queenie]

Mana clash will oneshot almost every mage in the game. And if you were fighting the one I think you were fighting, if you cast it twice, he's toast.

As for tactics, you have to be careful about the order you have them in. Not sure if this was the issue, but you may have ended up in some sort of tactics loop, since the game cycles back to the top of the list of tactics every time it completes one. So it may not have even reached the one you set up, if conditions for any previous actions in the tactics lists were met.

For example: If Alistair is taking a lot of damage, and the first tactic on the list is "If health<50%, drink health potion", and he keeps getting smashed to bits, the game won't ever let him try the last tactic on the list.

Hope this helps!

 

[Denamic]

Mana clash is the single most OP spell in the game. I've one-shotted boss characters on nightmare mode with it. It can do damage in the thousands.

 

[Imre Csete]

Yeah, if you are playing a Mage then just Spell Might + Mana Clash all the caster fools. Throw in a good Vulnerability Hex just for the lulz if you want to see almost 5 digit damage numbers.

Mages are hillariously overpowered.

 

[Furbyz]

If you're using Leliana, it would be a good idea to take the Ranger specialization specifically for the wolf. It doesn't seem that great at first but if you're willing to take a little time, it becomes essentially a 5th party member. See, whenever you summon it, the icon indicating tactics pops up. If you click that before it disappears, you can fully set the wolf's tactics, which includes abilities you can't otherwise access on it's bars. Chief amongst those abilities being Overwhelm, which hurts like hell, interrupts, and knocks the target down.

You have to reset the tactics each time the pet gets resummoned, but essentially having a full party + the mabari can be pretty useful. Starting combat with an Arrow of Slaying to the mage is a good idea as well.

And since you seem to be mage heavy, Sleep + Horror is a great combo for taking things down fast. Actually, Sleep is just good in general. Gotta love that CC.

Also, if you like using mages, you should try for this spell combo at some point. It will basically kill an entire room, excluding bosses, but even they will take a good chunk of damage. Be careful not to kill yourself with it though.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_of_the_Century

But of course, as everyone has been saying, Mana Clash is the best mage killer move hands down.

 

[Breakdown]

I liked the combination of earthquake to knock enemies down and pin them in place, and then death cloud to kill them.

The living bomb spell always seemed really overpowered for a low level spell.