DA:O Ash Wraiths and Revenants.

Dragon Age: Origins

RivianWitch

Keeper of the Watch
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Have you guys got tips as to what kind of damage works best against;

1. Ash Wraiths

and

2. Revenants?
 
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On normal, the only way I can beat a Revenant is to have Allister or Shale keep aggro on it and then keep everybody else as far away as possible and use physical attacks. Stone fist seems to work well and it will occasionally knock it down. Freezing doesn't hurt it, but it gives Allister precious time to renew aggro and drink potions. I've only fought a few of them though and always when it's just the Revenant alone. If he has buddies, I bail :) In my games, I've never been able to successfully cast imprison or arcane barrier(?)-2nd level mind spell. Those would be nice in a buddy scenario.

I'm only level 11, so these things are nasty!
 
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I'm level 13, and though I deal around 52, 53 physical damage with my dual wielder (Shale is pathetic at 36), but even so, about the only thing I've found to be effective so far against ash wraiths, is to first cast hex, then freeze, then shatter with stone fist.

Nothing else seems to really work.

With revenants, I've so far only figured luck helps.. :p
 
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I'll agree with that RW! They're a bear for me too. If you knew ahead of time, it might be worth taking dog, Allister, and Shale. Have Shale keep aggro with his special power and let dog and Allister whale away at him. Have your main do whatever works best for them. I would be casting cone of cold so that my toons could quaff potions/dog biscuits.
 
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Wraiths have never been a problem for me, but my 3 mages do have all sorts of useful spells at their disposal - petrify, paralysis, crushing prison and freeze to name the most important ones. One of them usually works and the wraiths will be dead before they can do anything.

Revenants, however, are nasty. They make mincemeat out of my mages. For two of the revenants I had to resort to easy mode — those were in the elven lands, when they came with reinforcements. Whatever I did, my group was slaughtered. Otherwise, regular freezing from Morrigan seems to help, she's also responsible for vulnerability hex, weakness and misdirection hex. Gotta be careful though and keep your warrior's taunt ready (or force field), whoever gets that treatment from her will be very pissed off.

Whatever weakens your opponent and increases the survival of your own group, do it. Whittle them down slowly, don't let your damage dealers go all out if Alistair or Shale had some misses.

The last revenant I fought against was the easiest. Might have been lucky with the level scaling though, he was only yellow as opposed to the usual orange, but it was still funny: He must have been accidentally caught in a Storm of the Century. When he was halfway to my group he didn't have much life left in him anymore. I shot some spells, gave him a final blow from Shale and that was that.
 
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I remember my first Revenant - it was resisting most of my mage stuff, but I kept it occupied enough for the others to wear it down before dying and then I got it with Tempest when I had almost no health left ...
 
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I did OK in the first one I encountered but the second wiped me over and over. I just couldn't cause enough damage to overtake the loss of fatigue/chugging of potions. I eventually dropped it to easy and still only just scraped through.
 
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Right, thanks for all the feedback. :) Yes, it took me a while to see the usefulness of that vulnerability hex...

Just keep in mind though, that an Ash Wraith seems to be about 100x worse than just a normal wraith, the latter which I usually deal with pretty easily. ;)
 
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When I get a tought bad guy with friends I often through force field on the boss. I then have time to clean up the distractions before the FF wears off and it lets me focus all my energy on the boss.

I find FF far more useful to protect the enemies than the good guys :)

My main was a mage with a ton of healing, buffs and magic nullifying abilities that I found very useful on Revenants.

My party was Myself (Mage, healer), Morrigan (with some healing as backup), Dog (who was awesome) and Alistair heavy on the sheild and templar talents.
 
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I beat them but the battles were tough and I had to do a few reloads every time before I got it right. As was said, it takes tactics...a good mix of party members and lots of healing...and a LOT of pause button use..... It sure feels good once you kill them. :)
 
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So far I have killed 5 Revenant, only died the 1st time fourght one, whit the right spells they are not that though.

1: Force Field the Revenant, and clean up other mobs.
2: Then send your Tank in, other use spells or bows.
3: Use Cone of Cold then you can, it won't harm it, but the tank get a break.
4: Mages staff is good against them, as it auto hit, it dont crit and break frost from Cone of Cold, but in higher level the Revenant can be immune to some type of magical damage.

Hope you can use the tactik :)
 
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I never found Ash Wraiths to be difficult. I've been whacking a bunch of them recently in the Frostback mountain caves while doing the Urn quest.

There was one room where 4 of them ambushed me. I had no problem taking them out with myself(Human Warrior), Leliana, Wynn, and Morrigan.




Drakes on the other hand….. :wall:
 
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Drakes on the other hand….. :wall:

Encountered yesterday while searching for the urn.
Thats a lot of blood,
Hey! Wait a minute, its from my guy!

Guess I have the big one left, no idea how im going to tackle that one so I went back to the camp :-/

Say chicken! in a loud chorus :blush:

/C
 
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I played all the way on hard, just finished the game and here's what I did against Revenants.. (I completed the quests where you have to kill those with buddies in elven lands as well as the other that has you kill…like 6 revenants I believe across the land).

As some people mentioned before, having a tank keep aggro as much as possible is a must. Cone of cold to freeze him works quite fine to give your guys a sec to quaff some potions.. Force field is also extremly useful against just about any foe, you may not damage them, but it allows you to recover and your spells that are on timer to reset… Before Force field / waking nightmare and using crowd control better I had a bit of trouble with the revenants that had buddies, but after that it was relatively easy.

The one annoying part I found was that the revenant aggroed way too often on Morrigan for whatever reason heh, and kept casting pull. So just being away doesnt work as he brings you all the way to him. There's two tricks I found when he aggroed Morrigan too badly, either have her run around and cone of cold him every now and then.. And hope for tank to get aggro back :p, or you can place whoever is being pulled behind an object. You'll still get pulled but you'll slam into the obstacle and remain there rather than be pulled all the way to him, after that he usually switches aggro back to the tank.

I must have fought ash wraiths at some point although I can't say precisely where. But I probably used crushing prison there, thats one great spell....hrms...and maybe petrify too if Im thinking of the right mob.

As for drakes and high dragons and such… Freezing works superbly on any type of dragon in the game to give you some time to heal yourself or damage them. If you use some lesser/greater warmth salve you'll also be able to withstand any fire special attacks they might throw at you with ease. The drakes in quite a few places came with groups of mobs, there I often usead sleep + waking nightmare. Its fun to get them all stunned/confused and fighting amongst themselve :).. Also I believe regular drakes can be stunned by a rogue.

In all the hard fights timing is also important :p Timing your cone of cold or whatever ability you have that may interrupt them is way more useful if you do it when they're actually casting a spell/ability.
 
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Pump his tanking stats - dex/con and give him every available talent for mitigating or avoiding damage. Make sure he's got Threaten enabled. He'll make a half decent tank, though not as good as Shale.

Oh, and remember to give him items with as much armor/def as possible.
 
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It seems to me that this game is impossible (or at least a lot harder) without a mage (or preferably 2)?

Someone with a pointer to making Alistair useful?
He´s a nice enough chap but I have a hard time keeping him alive or doing any dmg.

Playing with dw warrior, leliana, Alistair and Wynne.
/C

Taunt + Forcefield = autowin 90% of the fights.

However, you want to ensure Alistair can survive a few hits - so I'd pump his strength until you can wear something like the Juggernaut armor. Beyond that, simply pump his constitution and reserve a little for dex to get some of the later skills.

The shield line of skills are good for defense, obviously, but in particular for missile defense which can be a problem in some fights.

But Shale is FAR superior as a tank, imo.

Also, you should have picked DW Rogue for the backstab mechanic. With that setup, you really need as much DPS as you can get.
 
I also tend to prefer Shale - he;s got more varied tactics, and some nice buffs for the rest of your party.

For the drakes: I equip Wade's first set of drakescale armour, and as much anti-fire jewelry and potions as my party can wear/consume.
Yes, they do freeze nicely, don't they?
 
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