DA:O DA combat tips

Dragon Age: Origins
As DAO combat is quite MMO-like, something from the MMO school of fighting applies here as well.

Lesson 1: Pulling. Never just charge into a group of enemies. Stay out of the enemies aggro range (their spotting range) and try to pull one or two of them at a time. This can be achieved with ranged weapons and spells. Target the one enemy that's furthest from the group. If possible, maneuver into a position, where you're on the opposite side of the main group when compared to your "straggler" (i.e. the less bunched-up enemy) or at least in "that sector". This is important, because this way your target can charge you without going closer to his buddies (and possibly pulling them too). More often than not, only the one you targetted and perhaps few of his closest buddies attack you. Now you can dispatch them and possibly even recover your Health and Stamina/Mana back to full, before tackling the rest and/or pulling the next couple of enemies. If the enemy is an archer, usually only he (and perhaps someone right next to him) attacks you with arrows, while his buddies just stand around clueless. Note: Do NOT target the boss of the group (yellow when others are white, etc.). He'll usually pull the whole group with him, making this tactic useless.

As you may have noticed, I used the word "usually" quite often. That's because, these don't work 100% of the time. They sometimes do, sometimes don't. But when they do, they make larger fights/groups of enemies much easier to manage (and win).
 
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Not necessarily a bug, but maybe they could make the enemy a bit smarter as in 'hmm… I just whacked this guy with my club and he didn't even flinch, maybe I'll just attack someone else'.
I think the problem comes with aggro. Since I start the fight with a fireball, let's say I do 50 damage. So all enemies hate me for '50' only switching when they hate someone '51', so they keep attacking the phased mage while I order my other 3 members to concentrate on one of them… by the time it hates someone more than it hates my mage, it's dead.

Sounds like bad AI programming to me... hope they would make them smarter than that in a patch!
 
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Sometimes it's nice to exploit the flaws though. It just takes a bit of time to find out what they are, and how you can exploit them.
Of course, if you exploit too much, you can break the game for yourself...
 
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Another maybe not so combat tip:
The button row at the bottom screen can be enlarged by dragging on the right end of the bar.
 
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As others have mentioned, crowd control is the key. Sleep, Prison, Petrify, Cone of Cold, Scatter Shot, 2H swing thingy, Dirty Fighting, Shale's various stuns, and so on and so forth. Get as many as possible - some monsters are immune to certain effects. Just never let the enemy move at all. :)

Oh, and if a fight is really hard, go out of their trigger range, and use one of the long range AoEs on them (the top fire and frost talents). They won't actually know what's hitting them, so they'll just run around in the AoE like headless chickens. Most enemies will die using this tactic, without engaging.
 
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About characters moving close to the main character, I seem to have the most success setting my ranged dudes (two mages in my case) to "Ranged" in default behavior. This works most of the time and they do stay behind and at range.

The most difficult fights (for me) are those involving multiple mages on the other side, but I've had great success with "Spell Ward" on my main (rogue) and simply moving him towards mages and slaughtering them quickly. If you have petrify/crushing prison - you can take them out without this approach, but getting into position can be challenging in certain fights. I recommend setting a tactic on your mage(s) that targets "Target using magic" with these spells - so you don't have to micromanage so much.

Just walk in with your main tank and have him taunt + Force Field - and you can win most fights doing this.

When fighting big single bosses (like High Dragons), I highly recommend 2 healers, 1 tank, and one ranged DPS. If your main is a melee rogue, just equip him/her with the best bow/arrows and stand at range. You will still do decent DPS and you won't ever need to worry about falling or stuff. Just keep threat on the target with the tank and you'll basically be able to go get a coffee while the target is being killed slowly. I can't guarentee this for all fights, naturally, but it's worked fine for the vast majority of "boss" fights so far. You can worry about flanking for a quicker fight, but generally they move around so much with your tank being knocked every which way - that patience is likely the easiest approach.

Oh, and get "Haste" ASAP - as it makes everything easier and you don't have to use "Momentum" on your rogue, saving a talent point. They don't stack, unfortunately. But moving around during non-combat with Haste is really comfortable and fast - and speeds the unnecessary walking bits up nicely.
 
Dont use your levelling points until you really (I mean really!) need them. This prevents you from wasting them on useless things that might lead to gimped characters.

I usually save most points until I find a battle that is too hard. Then Ill try different levelling combinations and see which one is the most efficient way to spend those points. It automatically leads to good character designs and you dont need to plan everything ahead.
 
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4. If you have boss and lot of small adds, kill the adds first. However this has not always worked for me if the boss is hitting way too hard.
As a rule of thumb: If the boss is a mage/spellcaster with melee adds, it's usually better to go for the boss first (following the old adage: "Kill the casters first").
 
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As a rule of thumb: If the boss is a mage/spellcaster with melee adds, it's usually better to go for the boss first (following the old adage: "Kill the casters first").

I usually do a mix of the two :
stun, freeze, or force shield (even better) the boss with one of my characters, while the others focus on his underlings. Agains enemy mages, morrigan's Hex is also often a very good first choice…
If those aren't an option for you, or if the boss resist your first try, there's always some nice bombs to throw at him. And theses doesn't require any stamina/mana. :biggrin:
 
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I usually do a mix of the two :
stun, freeze, or force shield (even better) the boss with one of my characters, while the others focus on his underlings. Agains enemy mages, morrigan's Hex is also often a very good first choice…
If those aren't an option for you, or if the boss resist your first try, there's always some nice bombs to throw at him. And theses doesn't require any stamina/mana. :biggrin:

against mages, basically anything that stops their big spells (you'll see the chanting bar on them). When I see this, I use a CC on them, and there are many, like the ones you mentioned, plus... fireball (it knocks them back), grease (knocks them down), earthquake (down), sleep, bash, etc. There are also arrows that are special against mages, and of course templars.
 
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