So, I'm going to start Dragon Age 2 for the first time...

[LetalisK]

...and I'm looking for a little bit of character advice. The first class I always play in an RPG is a warrior. However, because I'm a totally casual newblet and will be playing on normal, I figure I'd do a tank/dps hybrid build and looking for suggestions. Mainly, I'm not sure if I should go one-hander or two-hander for a hybrid build.

I figure I'm probably going to go Vanguard/Warmonger/Reaver/Templar[footnote]Probably just to the Templar resistance ability if I'm two-hander, further in to Holy Smite if I'm a one-hander.[/footnote], though if I can throw a couple points in another tree(I don't know how many trees you can dabble in), I'll pick up Second Wind out of Battlemaster too. I'm willing to be convinced of other combinations, though.

 

[Joccaren]

Honestly things are a bit more clear cut in that area in II than in the original.
Two hander is DPS for warrior, Sword + Shield is Tank.
Warriors cannot dual wield, at least not from my memory. Only Rogues can dual wield weapons, and they are a dedicated DPS class with a couple of disables.
Mages are even more essential than in Origins, and are OP as fuck with AoE damage spells. Useful as all the enemies come at you in swarms of weaklings that die in one volley of an AoE, with the occasional stronger person that the rest of the party can handle. There are times when there's a bunch of strongish enemies too, that permastun you thanks to ministuns on every hit and them ganging up 3 to 1 against your party, but maintain aggro with your tank and you should be fine.
Didn't get into playing warrior to know the skill trees sadly. Rogue then didn't pick it back up 'cause I found the game a massive let down.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Personally, I think you should drop the warrior and go mage. Dragon Age is one of the few games that does mages right, and you want to play a warrior. Done giving you grief though. I understand.

I never really played a warrior, so I don't know, but frankly on normal you can pretty much survive with any skills you want.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

Normal in DA2 is... really quite easy. A good deal easier than it was in DAO. But if you're set on a warrior, go for a two-handed, damage-focused build. If you need a tank, drag Aveline along. She's just... she's really good at it, man. The big problem for fighter classes is the semi-optional boss at the end of the second act, so when that's coming up, I recommend stocking up on grenades, especially those that root your enemy to the ground.

 

[Reise]

Really, play what you enjoy. Combat in DA2...well, on the surface it's somewhat better designed than DAO. The fact that it's not better than DAO really is a testament to how much BioWare half-arsed the game.

Normal is probably the difficulty you want to play at. The difficulty above it is okay too once you're familiar with the game. The highest difficulty is pretty dumb and only increases enemy health and damage.

DA2 is much easier setting up combos for than DAO, and every class can take advantage of it too. So, really, it's in your best interest to have multiple classes.

On my warrior run, I was a two handed weapon user and it was pretty nifty. I took along two mages--one as the healer and one as the debuffer (both were focused on one of the damage trees). I then took along the ranged thief because that particular character is the most interesting companion.

 

[MercurySteam]

Mage is the best class in DA2 followed closely by Rogue. Mage also has some cool exclusive conversation options.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

Don't try to multi-class. I learned that lesson the hard way. Just wasted an upgrade point in sword and shield when I mostly used two handed swords. Pick your class and stick with it.

 

[OpticalJunction]

Go for the mage, combat is more fun. It also gets you Carver as a squad mate who I found far more entertaining than the more bland and stereotypical Bethany.

 

[WolfThomas]

Don't go a warrior. They regenerate stamina by kills, so a Sword and Shield warrior is pretty useless. Two handed can cut through lower levels enemies but suck against bosses.

Both dagger and bow rogues are pretty fun. But I enjoyed Mage the most, even if you're just throwing out AoE spell after another.

 

[00slash00]

...and I'm looking for a little bit of character advice. The first class I always play in an RPG is a warrior. However, because I'm a totally casual newblet and will be playing on normal, I figure I'd do a tank/dps hybrid build and looking for suggestions. Mainly, I'm not sure if I should go one-hander or two-hander for a hybrid build.

I figure I'm probably going to go Vanguard/Warmonger/Reaver/Templar[footnote]Probably just to the Templar resistance ability if I'm two-hander, further in to Holy Smite if I'm a one-hander.[/footnote], though if I can throw a couple points in another tree(I don't know how many trees you can dabble in), I'll pick up Second Wind out of Battlemaster too. I'm willing to be convinced of other combinations, though.

I went with a rogue archer but I did play a weapon and shield warrior for several hours and it was...interesting. If you want to do damage, go two handed warrior. Sword and shield warriors barely do any damage. They can soak damage to an absurd degree but the damage you deal will be miles below even the weakest member of your party. Weapon and shield is there to distract the enemy while your other party members kill him. I guess if you're worried about difficulty, it would probably be the easiest class to play, but I just found it very boring

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I advise going for a mage in Dragon Age 2 but really it is up to you.

 

[Imre Csete]

Seems like I'm in the minority, I played a Sword & Shield warrior on my first playthrough, since microing the tank in DA:O was the only way to do some proper tanking, so it might aswell be the main character.

The skillset is vastly improved from DA:O, you can customise it to your playstyle, but the bad encounter design and lack of enemy variety kinda favours cookie cutter builds. I went for Templar/Berserker, investing in Battlemaster for Stamina regen. It was fun, you truly could build an inmovable object with the right fortitude/knockdown resistant items.

Since I played it at time of release, the Sebastian bug (stacking -5% dmg resistance, I didn't know about it until I finished the game) crippled my character into uselessness by the start of Act III, I rolled with Fenris mainly, and I went with 2H DPS tanking on my second playthrough (1,5 years later, after rebalances, DLCs and ironing out the bugs). ^^

 

[LetalisK]

Seems like I'm in the minority, I played a Sword & Shield warrior on my first playthrough, since microing the tank in DA:O was the only way to do some proper tanking, so it might aswell be the main character.

Ditto, and I found typical warrior tanking dreadfully boring, but Arcane Warriors very fun to tank with. Thus, I'm aiming for a tank/dps hybrid, especially considering I'm on a fairly easy difficulty that probably doesn't really require a dedicated tank. You can respec in the game, right? I think I'm going to start out with a two-hander tank at first, because I tried some sword and board dps action and it's just sad in the beginning. I think I'll wait until later to respec into it to try it with some better abilities.

Also, if you were choosing between Anders, Bethany, and Merrill to bring in your party most of the time, which two would you pick? I figure I'm going to run with two mages for more yummy explosions. I'd make it three if I didn't need a lockpick mule.

 

[Imre Csete]

You can respecc if you have The Black Emporium DLC. Try out the 2h DPS aggro tanking it's lots of fun. Bravery on the Warmonger tree with the upgrades on is insane.

It's going to be Merril and Anders. Anders is the only dedicated healer, and Merrill can Chain Lightning the enemies since you Stagger them.

I rolled with Varrick and Sebastian since they do insane amount of focus DPS with the 'attack target of Hawke' tactics setting. I played on Nightmare and needed to kill those pesky special enemies fast. But since you don't play on that, AoE-ing everything is the most valid option, since there is no Friendly Fire.

But give the 2 ranged rogues a try, after a while they will buff each other and attack so fast the regular cannon fodders will become chunks of gore even before you can target them.

 

[Sp3ratus]

-snip-

Ditto, and I found typical warrior tanking dreadfully boring, but Arcane Warriors very fun to tank with. Thus, I'm aiming for a tank/dps hybrid, especially considering I'm on a fairly easy difficulty that probably doesn't really require a dedicated tank. You can respec in the game, right? I think I'm going to start out with a two-hander tank at first, because I tried some sword and board dps action and it's just sad in the beginning. I think I'll wait until later to respec into it to try it with some better abilities.

Also, if you were choosing between Anders, Bethany, and Merrill to bring in your party most of the time, which two would you pick? I figure I'm going to run with two mages for more yummy explosions. I'd make it three if I didn't need a lockpick mule.

Only if you have the Black Emporium DLC. There's a potion that resets all attribute points and skill points. In the vanilla game though, there's no option to do that. If you have it on Steam(or Origin, I suspect as well), you'll have it, since from what I remember it comes with every new copy of DA2.

I had a lot of fun with a Sword & Shield warrior as well, which was during my third playthrough, which was half a year ago or so. If you invest your points right and get good gear and good gems for that gear, you can end up being almost unvenerable to most elemental/magic damage, which is really useful, especially if you decide later on that you want to play on nightmare(because of friendly fire).

As for who to roll with, I'd suggest taking Anders and Bethany. I don't like Anders too much, but he's the only dedicated healer. Also, I like Bethany more than Merill.

,
The skillset is vastly improved from DA:O, you can customise it to your playstyle, but the bad encounter design and lack of enemy variety kinda favours cookie cutter builds. I went for Templar/Berserker, investing in Battlemaster for Stamina regen. It was fun, you truly could build an inmovable object with the right fortitude/knockdown resistant items.

I'm not really sure what you mean by lack of enemy variety, I personally thought the variety was pretty good, certainly not any worse than Origins. I'll admit, that during the main quest there's not much variety and that it comes mostly from sidequests, but I'd still say that counts.

EDIT: Bleh, ninjaed on the Black Emporium. Information about availability is still valid, though.

 

[Doom972]

I had fun playing a sword+shield Reaver. She was pretty much a pure tank though, and didn't do that much damage.

I suggest having one tank (warrior of course) and one DPS character (warrior or rogue) in the party, instead of tank/dps hybrids.

 

[Imre Csete]

I'm not really sure what you mean by lack of enemy variety, I personally thought the variety was pretty good, certainly not any worse than Origins. I'll admit, that during the main quest there's not much variety and that it comes mostly from sidequests, but I'd still say that counts.

The cannon fodder division (makes up roughly what, 80% of the enemies?), you have: Melee 1h, Melee 2h, Ranged cannon fodder enemies, all colored different (like bandit archer, skeleton archer, venomous spider, those lance throwing tal'vahshot, ranged rock wraith, hurlock bolter, etc). They look different, but they behave all the same nevertheless. They don't even have abilities like the random mooks did in DA:O, wolves Overwhelming, Archers Scatter-shotting, rogues using dual wield abilities.

There is some veriety in the Elite department: Captains got Revenants, Stens, Guard-Captains, Templar-Commanders, etc. Revenants got pull, pretty much they are all the same, they bolster enemies, stun, drink potions, chose targets on higher difficulties.

Mages are the only ones really varied somewhat, but they pretty much do AoE, teleport away with barriers on, or cast some uber-single target spell, but with different effects, depending on the school of the caster.

All the Rogues (Rage Demons, Rogues, Assassins, Templar Hunters) go stealthy-stabby and nick some potions off from you.

Some cannon fodder gets promoted to Elite (increased HP and DMG, that's all), some Elite units cameo as cannon fodder occasionally (mostly rogues).

There are unique enemies, yes, like Golems, Ogres, Pride Demons and the bosses, but they make up an insignificant portion of the mobs you face.

My greatest greivance is that they mostly differ in looks, but they all require the same approach, whereas in DA:O atleast there was a tiny bit of behavioral difference now and then, because the mobs used the same skills as the PCs, even if only a few of them.

The encounters could have been spiced up a lot if the different melee/ranged random cannon fodders used some of the new awesome skills, like darkspawn stun, bandits 2h Whirlwind, etc.