Dragon Age II – Character Creation Guide

Dragon Age II – Character Creation Guide

August 1, 2024 Off By Nathan Garvin

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

    1. Continuity {INT002}

II. Hawke

    1. Hawke/NPC Comparison {HWK002}
    1. Warrior {HWK003}
    1. Mage {HWK004}
    1. Rogue {HWK005}
    1. Table of Starting Stats {HWK006}

III. Attributes

    1. Strength {ABL002}
    1. Dexterity {ABL003}
    1. Magic {ABL004}
    1. Cunning {ABL005}
    1. Willpower {ABL006}
    1. Constitution {ABL007}
    1. Damage {ABL008}
    1. Attack {ABL009}
    1. Defense {ABL010}
    1. Armor {ABL011}

IV. Abilities

    1. Specialization Points {ABL002}
    1. Sample Hawkes {ABL003}
    1. Sample Hawke Warrior {ABL004}
    1. Weapon and Shield {ABL005}
    1. Two-Handed {ABL006}
    1. Vanguard {ABL007}
    1. Defender {ABL008}
    1. Warmonger {ABL009}
    1. Battlemaster {ABL010}
    1. Templar {ABL011}
    1. Reaver {ABL012}
    1. Berserker {ABL013}
    1. Sample Hawke Mage {ABL014}
    1. Elemental {ABL015}
    1. Primal {ABL016}
    1. Spirit {ABL017}
    1. Arcane {ABL018}
    1. Entropy {ABL019}
    1. Creation {ABL020}
    1. Force Mage {ABL021}
    1. Spirit Healer {ABL022}
    1. Blood Mage {ABL023}
    1. Sample Hawke Rogue {ABL024}
    1. Dual Weapon {ABL025}
    1. Archery {ABL026}
    1. Sabotage {ABL027}
    1. Specialist {ABL028}
    1. Scoundrel {ABL029}
    1. Subterfuge {ABL030}
    1. Shadow {ABL031}
    1. Duelist {ABL032}
    1. Assassin {ABL033}

Introduction {INT001}

Here I am again, trying to push out another FAQ before we’ve really had time to absorb everything there is to know about this game. Still, that’s what I do. I’ll be honest, this is – like most of my FAQs – a segment of what I hope will become a much larger work. It is, however, a stand-alone segment. It’s apparently become my style to create a Character Creation guide for a game before branching out into a full FAQ/Walkthrough. This is mostly to get something out there, generate some feedback, and better polish the most important part of any RPG – creating your unique avatar. I’m hoping this will be like my Fallout: New Vegas guide, where plenty of people let me know what they liked, what they disliked, and what is just plain wrong. Corrections will be made, and three versions later we’ll have a pretty good guide on our hands. Hopefully. This is a near-release launch, and you all have the right to be skeptical, many FAQs that come out this early are either uselessly incomplete or inaccurate (much like release-date reviews of games tend to be). Therefore, I’m not claiming perfection, but I have done all anybody can hope to do at this point: I’ve dedicated my spring break to playing this as well as watching my fiancée play. After a week of playing and seventeen hours of furious writing based off of several imperfect builds, various notes written down over the course of gameplay, and brute ability comparisons, this is what I’ve got. With any luck, it’s mostly accurate and somewhat helpful, although it’s certainly not as in-depth as I would like it to be. At the very least, I hope it gives people who are new to this game somewhere to start. Oh, and for the record, the Xbox 360 version of this game does not frame skip for me, Gametrailers. Get a new Xbox. The PC version is still far superior, however.

Continuity {INT002}

If you’ve played Dragon Age: Origins, you can import your own history from the first game into the second. Since my character was the queen of Fereldan I found this immensely more satisfying than picking one of the pre-made endings. Martyrdom is for sissies. It also gets you progress towards the ‘Epic’ Achievement.

Hawke {HWK001}

(Character Creation)

In Dragon Age II you’ll play Hawke, which is a surname by which you’ll be named (like Shepard in Mass Effect). Fortunately, Bioware got their senses for this game and gave your character a speaking role. You’ll actually get to interact with folks instead of lamely pantomiming and performing canned expressions. This is also the character creation part of the FAQ, which is vastly simplified over most RPGs. As that is the case, this section will largely cover the classes Hawke can pick, which are the only real gameplay-relevant choices you get to make before starting the game.

Hawke/NPC Comparison {HWK002}

There are – like in all RPGs – several things that separate Hawke from the rest of his or her companions. First, Hawke can specialize in either one of the combat forms unique to the classes (Weapon and Shield or Two-Weapon, Archery or Dual Weapon, for example). This is a moot point, as it’s only worth progressing down one tree or the other. Hawke is also the only character who can Specialize (Hawke can spend Specialization Points at 7th and 14th level to gain access to a new Ability Tree, whereas your NPCs have access to one unique Ability Tree each). Lastly, and most importantly, only Hawke can equip new armor; the rest of your party has standard outfits which increase as they level. You can buy/find special upgrades for them as well, but generally their armor is going to be inferior to Hawke’s. After all, you can equip a Helmet, Gloves, Boots, and Armor, and they only have one outfit. This seems to be a growing trend in Bioware RPGs, as Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins both allowed you to equip armor on your NPCs, but the sequels both gave your NPCs static attire. Perhaps they got sick of people looking at Morrigan’s boobs? In any event, you can expect Hawke to be a more resilient version of whatever class he is, which is moderately useful in the case of Mages, but very important for a Hawke-Warrior or Dual Weapon Rogue.

Warrior {HWK003}

Warriors are the masters of melee combat. Some heft an enormous two-handed weapon that strikes several foes at once. Others pair a one-handed weapon with a shield that doubles as a bludgeon.

Warriors are either your premier defensive characters (Weapon and Shield) or excellent damage-dealers (Two-Handed). Either way, they both excel at one thing: Crowd Control. Whether it’s by luring them to you and resisting their attacks, or by simply destroying them. All Warriors are good at drawing aggro due to their armor, although in addition to this a Weapon and Shield Warrior should get Taunt, and a Two-Handed Warrior should… well, just use their abilities. A Warrior should focus exclusively on Strength and Constitution, as these will increase their damage output and health, respectively. They’re also required to equip most armor and weapons, which really makes attribute allocation in Dragon Age 2 a no-brainer. I’m perfectly fine with using Aveline as an aggro drawing support character. For my Hawke, I’d much rather pick the Two-Handed approach, which is much more hands-on.

Mage {HWK004}

Mages command arcane spells and hurl bolts of magic from their staves. Despite their immense power, mages are vulnerable when their allies fall or whenever enemy troops attack them directly.

Like with everything else, Hawke makes the best mage in the game. Arguably, at least, and this is because of their specializations. At the very least, Hawke is the best healer in the game as you’ll possess the Spirit Healer Ability Tree, which makes Anders’ Vengeance Tree look like a cheap door prize. And of course, Hawke has all the normal Mage trees, which means at the least you’ll have more options than any other Mages in the game. Let’s not lie here, you need a mage to heal, and at that Hawke excels. Other than that, pick another tree or two that has some great combo/crowd control options. If you have NPCs that can hurt BRITTLE enemies, there’s not much better than the Elemental Tree, and if you have allies that can STAGGER enemies, look no further than Chain Lightning in the Primal Tree.

Rogue {HWK005}

Rogues can wield a dagger in each hand or rain arrows from a distance. They are particularly adept at tearing down individual opponents and are the only class that can pick locks or disarm traps.

Rogues are the only class who can disarm traps and pick locks, and like the game says, it’s almost a necessity to drag one along for this reason. But unlike in most games they’re also useful in combat. Wonder of wonders, eh? I guess all the whining about the nerfed dual-daggers in the first game really lit a fire under Bioware’s ass. Because of this, the Dual Weapon Rogue has – by far – the highest DPS in the entire game. That’s right, even more than a Two-Handed Warrior. They are, however, much less hardy and typically can only strike one foe at once. Frankly, I don’t see much point in the Archery Rogue, not when the Dual Weapon Rogue has such astronomical DPS. That’s not to say some of the Archery abilities aren’t great – they are – but it seems more like an excuse to create a shoot-and-forget support character that rarely needs to be controlled. Varric works just as well in that role, why make that your Hawke when you can be a backstabbing DPS fiend?

Table of Starting Stats {HWK006}

(ATTRIBUTES)WarriorMageRogue
Strength131010
Dexterity101013
Magic101310
Cunning101112
Willpower111211
Constitution121010
(DERIVED STATS)WarriorMageRogue
Fortitude300
Critical Chance0%0%3%
Magic Resistance0%3%0%
Critical Damage50%51%52%
Stamina105160130
Health160100125

Attributes {ATT001}

Attributes determine your derived statistics, which include such useful things like your damage, attack, defense, critical chance and damage, health, and stamina/magic. Typically a fairly complex system in most games, Dragon Age II has dumbed it down considerably. When all else fails, follow what your gear tells you – armor and shields for Warriors require Strength and Constitution, weapons require Strength. For Rogues, armor requires Dexterity and Cunning, and weapons require Dexterity. For Mages, armor requires Magic and Cunning, and staves require Magic. That’s right, to simplify each class requires two attributes in equal measure, as shown below:

  • Warrior: Strength, Constitution
  • Mage: Magic, Willpower
  • Rogue: Dexterity, Cunning

Strength {ATT002}

Strength increases damage and attack values for warriors. For all classes, it increases fortitude, which measures resistance to effects like being knocked back or set aflame.

StrengthFortitudeDamage (Warriors)Attack (Warriors)
100n/an/a
133466
166677
199790
22129106
251510125
281812147
312113174
342415206
372716244
403018289

Dexterity {ATT003}

Dexterity increases damage and attack values for rogues. For all classes, it increases the likelihood of landing a critical hit.

DexterityCritical ChanceDamage (Rogues)Attack (Rogues)
100n/an/a
133766
166977
1991090
221212106
251513125
281815147
312116174
342418206
372719244
403021289

Magic {ATT004}

Magic increases damage and attack values for mages. For all classes, it increases magic resistance, which absorbs a proportion of damage from magical attacks and affects the duration of hostile magical effects.

MagicMagic ResistanceDamage (Mages)Attack (Mages)
100n/an/a
133566
166777
199890
221210106
251511125
281813147
312114174
342416206
372717244
403019289

Cunning {ATT005}

Cunning increases defense for all classes as well as the amount of damage inflicted by a critical hit. Cunning also determines rogues’ aptitude for picking locks and disarming traps, with difficulty thresholds every 10 points.

CunningCritical DamageDefenseTrap Disarming/Lock Picking
1050%0Simple
1151%60Simple
1353%68Simple
1656%83Simple
1959%102Simple
2060%109Standard
2262%125Standard
2565%xxxStandard
2868%xxxStandard
3070%xxxComplex
3171%xxxComplex
3474%xxxComplex
3777%xxxComplex
4080%xxx

Willpower {ATT006}

Willpower increases the size of the mana pool for mages or the stamina pool for warriors and rogues.

WillpowerStamina (Warrior)Mana (Mage)Stamina (Rogue)
11105N/A130
12110160135
13115165140
16130180165
19145195180
22160210195
25175225210
28190240225
31205220240
34220235255
37235250270
40250265285

Constitution {ATT007}

Constitution increases maximum health for all classes.

ConstitutionHealth (Warrior)Health (Mage)Health (Rogue)
10N/A100125
11160105130
12175110135
13190115140
16205130155
19220145170
22235160185
25250175200
28265190215
31280205230
34295220245
37310235260
40325250275

Damage {ATT008}

Damage determines the effect of an attack from the equipped weapon against an unarmored opponent.

Depending on your class, your Strength, Dexterity, or Magic scores affects your damage output (improving your damage by one point per two points of said attribute increase). Also note that the very description of damage tells you that this value is against an unarmored opponent. Since every opponent has some armor, you’ll invariably be doing less damage than indicated.

Attack {ATT009}

Attack determines the likelihood that a normal strike from a weapon or staff will succeed in hitting an enemy.

The higher your attack, the more likely you’ll hit. Rogues tend to have uncannily high Attack values, but if you keep up with your Strength, Dexterity, or Magic, you shouldn’t fall below 70%. Ultimately weapons and accessories will provide a good bit of your attack, as well as some abilities (Control, Heroic Aura, to name a few.) Since your abilities and spells cannot miss, for the most part, as long as you’re being an ability-abuser you’ll do just fine. Note that Attack degrades in efficacy against higher ranked enemies, as shown below:

  • Attack = X% vs. normal enemy
  • Attack = X%-15% vs. enemy lieutenant
  • Attack = X%-30% vs. enemy boss

Defense {ATT010}

Defense determines the likelihood of evading an enemy attack.

Defense looks good on paper, but it’s a largely useless stat for every class but the Rogue. It only comes from items and Cunning, and the only class to put points into Cunning is the Rogue. Also, since its true value (Defense %) scales as you level, what might start out as 12% with a Defense score of 60 at level 2 can end up 5% by level 12. On the other hand, if you have Cunning, a 200 Defense score equates to roughly 40% at level 12. Unfortunately, Defense gets hit the hardest by ranked enemies, so against bosses it’s largely ineffective, even for Rogues.

  • Defense = X% vs. normal enemy
  • Defense = X%-20% vs. enemy lieutenant
  • Defense = X%-40% vs. enemy boss

Armor {ATT011}

Armor determines how much damage the character can disregard from a physical attack.

So it works like Defense, then? Instead of showing your odds of reducing damage, however, your Armor shows how much damage you resist. Everybody has at least some Armor worth considering, but Warriors tend to surpass Rogues, and Rogues tend to surpass Mages. That’s just with brute equipment. A moderately well-equipped Two-Handed Warrior should be around 50%, and thankfully Armor holds up against ranked enemies better than any other statistic.

  • Armor = X% vs. normal enemy
  • Armor = X%-10% vs. enemy lieutenant
  • Armor = X%-20% vs. enemy boss

Abilities {ABL001}

Abilities are where you define how your character fights. All Warriors are-if they’re any good at what they do-strong and high Health. Whether you become a crowd-controlling damage-dealer or an aggro-drawing defender is determined by your Abilities.

All NPCs have five Ability Trees and one unique NPC Ability Tree, the latter of which typically requires them to be a mid-level character before they can progress down the tree. Hawke, on the other hand, has six Ability Trees, although one of them is generally useless as Hawke will need to specialize in one or the other. For example, a Warrior-Hawke has both the Weapon and Shield and Two-Handed Ability Trees. You can work on them both, but since you need to be using a two-handed weapon to use Two-Handed Abilities and you need a weapon and a shield to perform Weapon and Shield Abilities, they don’t benefit each other. Pick one and stick to it. NPCs have already picked one such Ability Tree and automatically excluded the other. For example, Aveline only has Weapon and Shield, and Fenris only has Two-Handed. Characters gain one Ability Point per level, although there are Tomes that can be purchased that will give you more. In addition, Hawke gains Specialization Points as he levels, which will allow Hawke to gain access to new trees.

Specialization Points {ABL002}

At levels seven and fourteen, Hawke gains a Specialization Point to spend on one of three Specialization Ability Trees. Once picked, Hawke gains a passive bonus for picking up that tree, and he can progress through it as normal. You do not need to learn Specializations to pick them, like in Dragon Age: Origins.

Sample Hawkes {ABL003}

Below I’ll include a sample Hawke from each class which is close-if not identical-to the Hawke of that class that I created, or that I would have created, if I had known better. Anyways, at this point in time I’m far from ready to say that these are ‘ideal’ builds. I’m sure with more testing, playing, and input I’ll find better builds, but this is the limit of my knowledge thus far, for better or worse. Each build is set up with twenty-two Ability Points. Why such an arbitrary number? The ‘soft’ experience cap of the game is about level twenty-five, if you don’t miss any side-quests. With items like ‘Tomes of Technique,’ you should be able to make up for what you might have missed in experience, and potentially get even more Ability Points. Being conservative, however, it seems reasonable to provide a rough build up to level twenty-two so even the less fanatical gamers can bother with the builds.

Sample Hawke Warrior {ABL004}

I prefer the Two-Handed build for Hawke, so this is what I’ll show as an example. He’ll pretty much stick to the Two-Handed tree, with a few points into Vanguard and Battlemaster. For his Specialization, he picks Reaver, for the sole purpose of adding some damage to his attacks as he inevitably loses Health. He’s all about getting into fights, using Cleave and following with as many of his Two-Handed abilities as possible. Then he performs basic attacks, waits for his cooldowns to expire, and uses Second Wind if necessary.

Two-Handed (7)

  1. Mighty Blow
  2. Giant’s Reach
  3. Sunder
  4. Scythe
  5. Whirlwind
  6. Shattering Blow
  7. Tornado

Vanguard (6)

  1. Control
  2. Might
  3. Cleave
  4. Command
  5. Claymore
  6. Destroyer

Battlemaster (3)

  1. Bolster
  2. Second Wind
  3. Last Push

Reaver (5)

  1. Blood Frenzy
  2. Sacrificial Frenzy
  3. Devour
  4. Sustained Frenzy
  5. Fervor

Berserker (1)

  1. Berserk

Weapon and Shield (Aveline, Hawke) {ABL005}

Warriors who specialize in the shield trade damage for protection. Attacks made with one-handed weapons hit a smaller arc than two-handed weapons, although shield users have the perfect tool at hand for knocking foes around the battlefield.

This Ability Tree is for conservative, or defensive, Warriors. They’ll draw a lot of aggro, and they have the ability to endure more damage than any other class. They have some interesting offensive abilities, but they’re mostly there for defense. The Defender Ability Tree is an obvious addition to the Weapon and Shield Warriors, as it grants them most of the great defensive abilities they’ll want, such as Stonewall, Turn the Blade, and especially Environmental Aegis. Warmonger ensures they can draw and hold aggro better, even without using powerful attacks, and the Templar Specialization, if pursued, will make them quite resistant to magic. Shield Wall is the indispensable defensive skill in this tree, as it gives you 25% damage resistance and a brute 20% chance to turn hits into glancing blows, the same thing that the Defense statistic does. Who cares if you lose damage? A Weapon and Shield character isn’t really designed to be a damage-dealer anyhow. Again, there are plenty of abilities that can do damage in the Weapon and Shield tree, but I am fine with a Warrior who uses almost all of their Stamina to maintain defensive/buffing modes, punctuated by the occasional Taunt. With Resolute in the Defensive Tree and Annulment in the Templar Tree, you’ll have a character with a base 60% magic resistance. Elemental Aegis and Rally will produce a character who can, temporarily, give the entire party 60% elemental resistance. That is a good thing.

Two-Handed (Fenris, Hawke) {ABL006}

Warriors who wield two-handed weapons can reap tremendous damage through wide arcs of enemy flesh, although they forgo the protective benefits of a shield.

If you want to deal considerable damage to multiple foes at once, this is the tree to pick. Although the Dual Weapon Rogue deals more brute damage to one foe, the Two-Handed Warrior is better protected by both Health and Armor and is one of the best crowd control classes in the game. Because of your flashy attacks and heavy armor, you’ll draw a lot of aggro, but since you’re a Warrior you should be able to withstand it most of the time. Combine this tree with Vanguard for the Cleave ability, and you can cheaply double your offensive power. Add on the Battlemaster Ability Tree for Second Wind to ensure that you always have some Stamina for prolonged assaults, and the Berserker Specialization becomes an appealing choice. There are no real dud abilities in this tree, although it might be a better idea to learn the Activated Abilities (Mighty Blow, Scythe, and Whirlwind), then pass on to the Vanguard and Battlemaster Trees to get Cleave and Second Wind, which will double their effectiveness and make them usable more often.

Vanguard (Aveline, Fenris, Hawke) {ABL007}

A vanguard believes that a good offense is the best defense. Their powerful strikes are matched with ruthless technique.

One word: Cleave. This is, in my opinion, by far the best Ability in this tree. After upgrading it, you can use it every twenty seconds, for fifteen seconds, meaning you’ll get a 100% damage boost three-quarters of the time for only twenty Stamina. Yes, please. Pop Cleave on and use all your devastating Two-Weapon techniques, and you can easily destroy most normal foes. With Second Wind, you can regain any Stamina you expended (provided you didn’t regain it all in your killing spree) and do it once your cooldown time is up. Very nice. The other abilities in the tree don’t really compare, although it might seem tempting to get Control and Might and then get the Rally ability from the Battlemaster tree, I haven’t found the expenditure of three extra Ability Points worth the small gains to attack and damage. With an upgraded Control, however, it might be worth your while to get Destroyer. Frankly, the 90% damage resistance on all hits is good enough (it’s really as good as having Might active), but the extra 10% critical chance from Control can bring your critical chance up to 20% (if combined with Sunder) and make the 50% damage resistance to critical hits that Destroyer gives a worthwhile perk. If you bother to get Assail, you’ll get yourself another 10% bonus to damage, which, mixed with Destroyer and Cleave, can really become brutal. However, having Control active, and using Assail, Cleave, and then popping off Scythe, Whirlwind, and Mighty Blow will take a fairly high-stamina build, which is fine if you also grab Second Wind.

Defender (Aveline, Fenris, Hawke) {ABL008}

Defenders specialize in survivability, taking everything the enemy throws at them and walking away unscathed.

Defender is a bit of a tease tree that’s really only great for Weapon and Shield characters. Okay, it’s great for everybody, but Two-Handed Warriors are likely to have more important things to spend their points on. The Stonewall Ability (and its upgrade, Bulwark) can make you 100% damage resistant, 100% knockback resistant, and 100% knockdown resistant for 10 seconds every 15 seconds. That’s as good of a physical defense as anything in the game can offer you. Mix that with Shield Wall, and you’ve got a tank. Unfortunately, the Weapon and Shield character is more methodical with their attacks and probably won’t see the Stamina returns that the Two-Handed Warrior receives, so the idea of using this constantly (like Immunity in Mass Effect) is probably out of reach. Environmental Aegis is another indispensable defensive ability, making you 40% (60% with the upgrade) immune to elements. The first time you get zorched by a Mage for over half your Health, you’ll be able to determine if this is worth it or not. Best of all, you can give it to everybody with the Rally Ability in the Battlemaster Tree. Turn the Blade, on the other hand, sucks. Why, you ask? Defense is great! Sure, but as a Warrior, you’ll have around 60 Defense (because face it, you’ve got more important attributes to boost than Cunning). +10% to that is 66 Defense, which will raise your ability to turn a hit into a glancing blow by a handful of percentages. Against bosses, this is going to drop to a brute 5%. A character with over double the 60 or so most Warriors will have has a 29% chance to avoid attacks, and still a 5% against bosses. Also, the +20 Fortitude sucks because you can get Stonewall, which makes you immune to most of the things that Fortitude prevents! It is, however, a prerequisite for Adamant, which adds a nice 5% bonus to your damage resistance. Yes, I just told you that 5% Defense was bogus, but 5% damage resistance (Armor) is not. Why? You’ll have at least a 50% damage resistance as a Warrior if you’ve got anywhere near decent gear. Against lieutenants, that’ll be 40%, and against bosses, you’ll have 30%. That +5% will actually do work for you, unlike the 10% (or even 15%) Defense. Oh, and if you’re going to get Bulwark, why, oh why, would you get Resilience?

Warmonger (Aveline, Fenris, Hawke) {ABL009}

The warmonger is a confident adversary, well-versed in taunting foes, cutting through them, and sending them to the dirt in a bloody heap. Warmongers are also experts in controlling enemy aggression, possessing abilities that draw foes toward them and that, through stun effects, cause enemies to forget who they were fighting.

This tree is particularly useful for a Weapon and Shield Warrior, as it gives them the Taunt and Bravery abilities, both of which increase threat and thus draw aggro. Those wonderful defensive stats aren’t any good if the enemy is beating up your other characters, after all. It’s also handy in conjunction with Primal Tree users, as Pommel Strike and Tremor both can cause STAGGER, which plays into Chain Lightning. Of course, if you’re a Two-Handed Warrior, you’ll want to force a Mage to make use of their BRITTLE-causing spells instead.

Battlemaster (Aveline, Fenris, Hawke) {ABL010}

When fighting solo, a battlemaster is an efficient killing machine. When fighting alongside allies, the warrior becomes a seasoned leader who can rally others to turn the tide of combat.

A rather sneaky tree, it lures you into false premises in some areas. First, it’s a great tree for a Stamina junky, as Bolster allows you to infinitely increase your Stamina by 5%, and Second Wind fully restores all your Stamina every 60 seconds, which is essentially a free refill once per battle for most normal battles. With an upgrade, it also makes your abilities cooldown faster (and when else are you going to be out of Stamina, except after expending abilities?) and decreases its own cooldown to 45 seconds. This is obviously a match made in heaven for the Berserker, who deals damage based on your remaining Stamina. By comparison, the Mana/Stamina regeneration rate: +10 of Deep Reserves is bogus in comparison. Why do you need it with the other two abilities? That’s right, you don’t. Rally is good for teamwork, but the only crucial ability it works for is Environmental Aegis. Giving everybody 60% resistance to elements can have a big impact on select fights. Of course, you could always strap on some items that give you specific resistances for specific fights, as most foes don’t use multiple elements. On the other hand, Synergy seems nice, but notice its range. 10 meters. You only get those bonuses when you’re within 30 feet of your allies, and as I stated above, Defense is useless for Warriors anyway. You have better ways to improve your damage reduction and better ways to generate threat.

Templar (Hawke) {ABL011}

The strong arm of the Chantry, templars serve as guardians of the Circles of Magi, hunters of apostates and maleficarum, and, rarely, as a standing army at the command of the Divine. Through ingestion of carefully prepared lyrium, templars gain resistance to magic, including the ability to interrupt spells. Though the Chantry controls the lyrium trade, those with the right connections can acquire enough to emulate the abilities of the vigilant warriors.

Templar must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Damage +10% vs. spellcasters and Fade creatures

The Templar is all about confounding Mages and other enemies that like using their abilities too much. And at this, the Templar largely excels. Cleanse is a wonderful offensive and defensive ability that silences enemies in a large area while dispelling harmful effects on allies in the same area. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s probably the only such ability a Templar really needs. Silence seems more impressive until you note that it affects only one foe, even if it’s for double the time. To be fair, you’ll usually only encounter a few Mages at once, and the odds that you’ll ever really hit two with one Cleanse aren’t too common. Righteous Strike sucks, as it just gives a 10% chance to silence an enemy for four seconds with your attacks. Four seconds is nothing. But, it’s a prerequisite for Annulment, which passively gives you magic resistance of 50%. Awesome. Holy Smite is decent, so long as you weren’t spoiled by the damage on the Two-Handed abilities. The eight-meter range makes up for this limitation, and the chance to stun, well, it’s better than nothing.

Reaver (Hawke) {ABL012}

A true reaver has tasted the ritually prepared blood of a dragon. It is more than a state of mind. These fearsome warriors revel in death, regaining energy from the suffering of their foes.

Reaver must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Physical Damage: +5% Fire Damage: +5% Cold Damage: +5% Electricity Damage: +5% Nature Damage: +5% Spirit Damage: +5%

The Reaver is all about dealing more damage as they sustain more damage, and almost without variation, their abilities reflect this. In conjunction with a Two-Handed Warrior and Cleave, the damage output can get rather fearsome. First and foremost, the best ability the Reaver has (and the whole point of the class) is Blood Frenzy, which increases your damage inversely proportional to your Health. At 50% health, you should be dealing 150% damage. The best part? It’s passive, and you need only one ability point to get this ability. Add that to the passive bonus of the class, and you’ve got a healthy chunk of damage without much of a commitment. Sacrificial Frenzy doubles the effect of Blood Frenzy, and to speed you on your way, it deals 20 damage to you; better yet, it costs you no Stamina. Beyond that is Fervor, which is passive and will increase your attack speed by 30% for 10 seconds every time you kill an enemy. Again, with the power of a Two-Handed Warrior, this means you’ll attack 30% faster most of the time. Aura of Pain is another ability that serves to decrease your health while at the same time harming enemies. You lose 5% of your health for every pulse (every four seconds) and deal a paltry amount of spirit damage to enemies in a fairly short range. Again, the main purpose of this ability seems to be to reduce your Health. Frankly, Blood Frenzy works just fine for me. Then you have the black sheep of the family: Devour. This ability actually heals you, as it harms enemies. Best of all, it STAGGERs enemies, which a Mage with Chain Lightning can abuse. The flow of a Reaver’s battle then seems to run like this: Start out with Aura of Pain and Sacrificial Frenzy, after your health is depleted somewhat, deactivate Aura of Pain and keep using Sacrificial Frenzy. When your health gets dangerously low, use Devour. Frankly, however, I’m quite happy just using Sacrificial Frenzy to boost my damage a bit (down until I’m at around 50% health) while using my core Two-Handed attacks paired with Berserk.

Berserker (Hawke) {ABL013}

The dwarven culture is in decline, and many dwarves have turned to the surface, bringing their customs and battle traditions with them. Anger is only part of being a berserker. Anyone can fly into a rage, but only a berserker can channel that anger into brutal hits that cleave through armor, flesh, and bone.

Berserker must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Mana/stamina regeneration rate: +10

This was my go-to specialization in Dragon Age: Origins, and although it hasn’t fared as well in the sequel, its base ability-Berserk-makes it worth a look. Berserk deals extra damage per attack equal to 10% (15% once upgraded) of your remaining Stamina, at a cost of four Stamina per attack (two Stamina once upgraded). So at its best, we deal at least 15% extra damage at a cost of two Stamina each hit. Let’s compare it to, say, Cleave, which deals 100% extra damage at a cost of twenty Stamina. Berserk gives us 7.5% damage per stamina used (mind you, using Berserk itself costs no Stamina, only attacking while Berserk is activated), while Cleave gives a 5% bonus per stamina used. Granted, the lower your Stamina goes, the worse the returns are, but paired with other damage-boosting abilities (like Blood Frenzy and Sacrificial Frenzy in the Reaver tree, which don’t use any Stamina to boost damage) you’ll regenerate your Stamina as quick as you expend it by mauling enemies. Also, there’s Bolster and Second Wind, which become even more potent with the Berserker specialization. Adrenaline works somewhat contrary to the Berserk bonus, as it causes you to deal 5% (8% with the upgrade) extra damage every time you attack. Unfortunately, it costs 20 Stamina per use, and even if you get rid of the cooldown time of 2 seconds, the animation for it still takes time. Even with several uses, you might be able to boost to 40% damage stacking, then pull off a few attacks, which seems like an awful lot of work for such a short duration and a lot of Stamina. Barrage seems pretty useless, but the Reaver has an ability that’s passive, works every time you kill something, and doesn’t require any Stamina and doesn’t incur any damage resistance penalties. Finally, Death Blow restores some Stamina when you kill an enemy, but 5% is a downright paltry amount of Stamina considering that most enemies restore a considerable chunk of your Stamina bar already.

Sample Hawke Mage {ABL014}

Hawke has the Force Mage, Spirit Healer, and Blood Mage Specializations. Force Mage has a plethora of unique debilitating spells that put Entropy to shame, and Spirit Healer has the best healing spells in the game. I prefer both of those trees to Blood Mage. Elemental has the best pure-damaging spells in the game, and with cold spells, you can make enemies BRITTLE, which allow a Two-Handed Warrior to excel. And of course, Creation is added for basic healing. This creates a dual-role healer/offensive mage with a good bit more Health and Fortitude than normal.

Elemental (8)

  1. Winter’s Grasp
  2. Cone of Cold
  3. Fireball
  4. Deep Freeze
  5. Searing Fireball
  6. Winter’s Blast
  7. Firestorm
  8. Elemental Mastery

Creation (4)

  1. Heal
  2. Greater Heal
  3. Heroic Aura
  4. Valiant Aura

Force Mage (4)

  1. Telekinetic Burst
  2. Fist of the Maker
  3. Unshakable
  4. Gravitic Ring

Spirit Healer (6)

  1. Healing Aura
  2. Revival
  3. Group Heal
  4. Unity
  5. Refusal
  6. Vitality

Elemental (Anders, Merrill, Hawke) {ABL015}

The Elemental Tree is a collection of everybody’s favorite mainstays of fantasy magic. We have Fireball, and Cone of Cold, and… other icy-firey stuff. Anyways, this tree splits between two Fire Spells and two Cold spells, the latter are a good way to inflict BRITTLE on enemies, as well as slow them down considerably. What’s not to like? The fire spells deal less damage, but have much greater range. It’s the most basic, and probably the most effective brute damage tree the Mage has, and if you are interested in some of the abilities, you might as well just get them all.

Primal (Anders, Merrill, Hawke) {ABL016}

Another basic tree, this contains earth and lightning (or sky) magic. Chain Lightning has a rather restrictive range, but its damage is good, and it really does bad things to STAGGERED targets. Tempest is a lightning version of Firestorm that deals half the damage over twice the time? Still not sold? Me either. You also have Rock Armor, which boosts your Armor by 25%, which, for 10% of your Mana, isn’t a bad deal, really. Especially if you’re Hawke, and therefore liable to get a decent Armor score. On the earth side we have Stonefist, which deals good damage, and if upgraded has outstanding physical force… but really, I’d rather have the speed impediment and BRITTLE chance of Winter’s Grasp. Then there’s Petrify, which seems pretty good once upgraded. 100% chance to turn any normal foe BRITTLE, albeit at a +20% damage resistance bonus, for 15 seconds? But then there’s the word ‘normal,’ and you just have to wonder how infrequently this will work on bosses-when you need it. I’d just as well use Cone of Cold, myself. I really don’t see any good reason to pick this tree over the Elemental Tree-just grab Rock Armor and be happy.

Spirit (Anders, Merrill, Hawke) {ABL017}

Ah, another tree I’m not too fond of. You have the indispensable Dispel Magic, which is always handy… even at a pathetic five meter area. Spirit Bolt deals moderate damage, but, as the game itself points out, can be used quite often. Walking Bomb functions like Corpse Explosion from Diablo II (anybody else still remember that game?), but its radius just isn’t quite good enough to make it a must-have ability. If you’re particularly good at micro-management you can put this ability to fairly good effect, but I’d opt for the guaranteed damage of a Fireball any day. Death Siphon is a real nutter, it’s a mode you activate sacrificing 20% of your maximum mana to gain 5% mana for every corpse within 10 meters. This ability will-in most fights-probably not even cover the amount of Mana it wastes to activate! If you’re not sold by the rest of these spells, you won’t be sold by Spirit Mastery, which hardly even affects the most useful spell in the tree, Dispel Magic.

Arcane (Anders, Merrill, Hawke) {ABL018}

Eww… well, let’s just get this over with. Elemental Weapons will enchant the weapons of your entire party, making them deal elemental damage (of an element determined by the staff you have equipped) equal to about 10% of their weapons’ base damage. This means, for 10% of your mana you give everybody a damage bonus of a handful of points. Sounds good, but for most early-to-mid level weapons, it’ll only add a handful of points. Granted, if you’re a Dual Weapon Rogue this is great, as your weapons have high base damage, and you make lots of attacks with them. If you’re a Warrior, your weapons have absurdly poor damage, and most of your damage comes from Abilities, making the effects of this negligible. Then there’s Arcane Shield, which can boost your (and eventually your parties’) Defense by 20%. Again, great if you’re a Rogue as you actually have a Defense score, not so great for everyone else. The elemental resistance is nice, but you need to decide if it’s worth two Ability Points and 20% of your mana. Most Mages have Mind Blast by default (apparently it’s their Miasmic Flask), and it does what it’s supposed to do-stun enemies and give you a chance to escape their attentions. It really only works well if it’s upgraded, however, and since you are the center of the effect, you need to be in the thick of combat to use it offensively. Its low mana cost and cooldown time make it very spammable, however, and capable of keeping lesser enemies off guard. Barrier would be nice-100% damage resistance is fantastic-but with a six second duration and a 45 second cooldown you’re better off just letting your Warriors use Stonewall. Then there’s Crushing Prison, which was so fun in the last game… in this game, however, it only has a 40% chance to even slow down normal enemies, and it deals its considerable damage-again, to one enemy-over ten seconds. There is no way in which Horror does not exceed this.

Entropy (Merrill, Hawke) {ABL019}

The Entropy Tree is a bit of a mixed bag. First the Hex of Torment spell only affects one creature, but when you give a strong enemy a 25% damage reduction penalty and your allies a 100% critical hit chance against it for 15 seconds, you can really put a dent in any enemy, and at 20 mana it’s a bargain. An upgraded Misdirection Hex takes away any chance an enemy has to land a critical hit, and reduces their attack and movement speed by 75%, and lasts for 10 seconds. Put on an enemy Rogue and this can pretty much take them out of the battle. Finally for the good abilities we have Horror, which has a flat 100% chance to work and it stuns enemies for 10 seconds, upgraded it’ll do a fairly large amount of damage every second it’s stunned. It’s a far better spell than Crushing Prison, as it does more damage, works more often, and fully takes any enemy out of the fight for the same amount of time. Sleep, on the other hand, suffers like Crushing Prison, as it’s only likely to work on normal enemies 50% of the time-which is pretty lame. Especially since even when they’re asleep they’ll awaken after being hit. Finally there’s Entropic Cloud, which tries to do a little bit of everything to the enemy and rarely succeeds at much. For that much mana, why not just use Horror? Sure, Entropic Cloud has a pathetic range, but I’d rather have a certain spell than a bunch of low-chance effects.

Creation (Anders, Hawke) {ABL020}

Another tree of mixed usefulness. Glyph of Paralysis can be useful if, and only if, it’s upgraded. Paralyzing two normal enemies for four seconds is just a joke, but paralyzing four enemies for 10 seconds actually has some weight. Glyph of Repulsion can knock smaller enemies back for a duration of ten seconds, but there are so many better things you can spend thirty mana on, it just seems like a waste to bother. Heal is the basic and most useful spell in this tree, although it’s really not enough by itself. A forty second cooldown? That’s ridiculous. Finally there are the two buffs. Heroic Aura isn’t much to write home about until it’s upgraded, but once it is it gives the entire party +15% Attack, +8% Defense, +10% Damage, and +10% Critical Chance, although 20% of your mana is a hefty price to pay for it. Haste increases your attack speed by +50%, but with a ten second duration and a sixty second cooldown you’ll have to weigh whether it’s really worth it. If your Hawke is a Dual Weapon thief, it might be worth considering, as attack speed is wonderful, but Two-Handed Hawkes have their own ways of increasing their speed, and the other possible party members-Weapon and Shield Warriors, Archer Rogues, and other Mages just won’t get as much out of it, since they’re only secondary damage dealers.

Force Mage (Hawke) {ABL021}

Force mages are a fearsome sight on the battlefield, bending the laws of nature to crush, toss, and debilitate their foes. Kirkwall’s Circle houses a higher-than-usual percentage of mages who excel at this specialization, and their combined research has refined the school considerably.

Force Mage must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Physical Force: 125% for all attacks and spells Elemental Force: 125% for all attacks and spells

The Force Mage has spells that are more designed to keep enemies off their feet than they are to damage them. On top of this, these spells are typically fairly expensive to cast. They are also very good at knocking enemies down and affecting large areas. Case in point is Telekinetic Burst, which-when upgraded has a six meter area and deals 30x physical force. It’s a parlor trick compared to the ability it leads to, however. Pull of the Abyss costs the same mana and only has a five second great cooldown, but its area is-when upgraded-a whopping fifteen meters. It has the same physical force and slows enemy attacks and movement by 50%. That’s better than Telekinetic Burst and Misdirection Hex put together! Its range makes up for its short duration (five seconds) and lower rate of slow (-50% versus Misdirection Hex’s -75%). Gravitic Ring is more of the same, getting up to eighteen meters and slowing enemies based upon how close they are to the center of the effect. Sort of seems like a Mass Effect ability, no? Fist of the Maker is the sole damage-dealing spell, and when it’s upgraded it covers a hefty ten meters, although it deals a fairly paltry amount of damage, at least it does without regard to enemy armor, and it affects a lot of enemies. It’s especially handy against STAGGERED enemies, to whom it deals 900% normal damage. It also comes with a cooldown reduction to make it usable every ten seconds, but at a cost of forty mana per use, it’s not all that feasible to spam it. Lastly, you can buy the Passive Ability Unshakable, which gives you a +100 bonus to your Fortitude, making you just a little over twice as resistant as a good Warrior will become. It’s a good tree, especially if you don’t need to rely on it for your physical damage.

Spirit Healer (Hawke) {ABL022}

Few mages are watched more closely by the templars than spirit healers. For all the good they can do, their consorting with any denizen of the demon-infested Fade is a matter of intense suspicion. Still, the benefits outweigh the risks, if only just.

Spirit Healer must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Mana/stamina: +25

This tree makes Anders’ Vengeance Tree look like a joke. First, you get +25 Mana just for picking the tree, and second… just look at that healing! Okay, Healing Aura kind of sucks, because it’s focal point is you, and only characters within eight meters will get the benefits, but that’s fine, Force Mage had a bum ability too (but it’s still better than Ander’s Panacea, which sucks twice as much.) Since we know that we need a Mage who can heal in our party, let’s just compare the two best healing alternatives, and show how good Spirit Healer is. First, we have Anders’ Aid Allies, which heals 30% of the parties’ Health, costs 35 mana, and has a cooldown of 50 seconds. Compared to Group Heal of the Spirit Healer, which heals up to 50% of the parties’ Health, costs 30 mana, and has a cooldown of 40 seconds. Next up it’s Anders’ Regroup, which revives a fallen companion and restores 30% of their Health and 40% of their stamina at a cost of 45 mana, with a cooldown of 120 seconds. Compare this to Revival, which revives a party member with 50% of their Health, 60% of their Stamina, has a mana cost of 40, and a cooldown time of 100 seconds. The Spirit Healer also has two Passive Abilities we should mention-Second Chance, which prevents party members from suffering injuries. Of course, you could always just use potions and Injury Kits to fix injuries, so it’s not a great ability. Then there’s Vitality, which gives you a ten-point bonus to Constitution, which is fifty Health-or a 50% boost to your base Health. As if this weren’t enough, your Health Regeneration Rate improves by +100, which makes you a fitting beacon of health. The only downside is you’ll have to spend seven Ability Points to get these abilities and their upgrades, where Anders only needs to spend three on his.

Blood Mage (Hawke) {ABL023}

The Blood Mage is built around the idea of using Health instead of mana (at a rate of one Health for two mana) to cast some unique spells. First, let’s discuss Sacrifice and Grave Robber, which only exist to restore your Health (and hence are only useful if you buy into the other abilities since you can’t heal while using Blood Magic mode.) Blood Magic itself takes a ridiculous 50% of your mana pool to use, but with an upgrade can sustain itself by using your Health at a 3:1 ratio. With about 100 Health, and 200 Mana, Blood Magic allows you to have a noticeably higher spellcasting potential of 300 points. Now, onto the two abilities that you’ll actually use. First, there’s Hemorrhage, which can deal heavy damage in a ten-meter area. None of this damage is blocked (as the spell reduces enemy armor and damage resistance down to 0%), and has a 50% chance to paralyze normal enemies and deals a whopping 900% damage to STAGGERED enemies. The next ability is the one ‘mind control’ spell in the game-Blood Slave. This can outright kill lesser foes once its ten-second duration is over, and otherwise has a 100% chance to enslave normal enemies. Again, normal enemies. I don’t see how that’s much better than the Confusion ability the Rogue has, and it doesn’t hurt you to use it. So, you’ve got one good spell. Ehh… Grave Robber requires you to be within six meters of a corpse (or, if you upgrade it, within six meters of any enemy). At least it doesn’t require you to expend any mana. Then there’s the aforementioned Sacrifice, which takes 20% of an ally’s Health and gives it to you. If you get the upgrade you get +50% of the Health loss (or 30% of the ally’s health), and if you kill them, an improved regeneration rate. Still, they can always heal themselves other ways, so it’s at least a guaranteed way to heal yourself without getting into the line of fire. So let’s do the count, that’s one good ability, but to ensure you can use it well you need to expend… five or six Ability Points? That just seems bogus to me.

Sample Hawke Rogue {ABL024}

The Hawke provided here will be a Dual Weapon Rogue, as again, I prefer the Dual Weapon version to the Archer. This Hawke is built around dealing as much damage to one enemy as quickly as possible-to achieve this I’ll rely heavily on the Dual Weapon and Assassin Trees, with a good bit of help from the Shadow Tree to boost my Sneak attack and critical hit damage and to avoid drawing unwanted attention.

Dual Weapon

  • (1) Backstab
  • (2) Critical Strike
  • (3) Explosive Strike
  • (4) Twin Fangs
  • (5) Reversed Grip

Subterfuge

  • (1) Stealth
  • (2) Evade
  • (3) Ambush

Assassin

  • (1) Mark of Death
  • (2) Bloodlust
  • (3) Pinpoint Strikes
  • (4) Relentless Strikes
  • (5) Devious Harm
  • (6) Assassinate
  • (7) Overkill

Shadow

  • (1) Inconspicuous
  • (2) Pinpoint Precision
  • (3) Indiscernable
  • (4) Disorienting Criticals
  • (5) Decoy
  • (6) Shadow Veil
  • (7) Imperceptible

Dual Weapon (Isabela, Hawke) {ABL025}

Dual-Weapon rogues wield an instrument of death in each hand. This talent tree is required for characters to equip dual weapons.

Dual Weapon is my personal favorite tree. Combined with Assassin and Shadow you can rule the battlefield. Backstab is a great ability for any Rogue, as it can cause you to evade attacks if timed correctly and does a fair amount of damage. Getting it the 100% critical chance perk can be useful but isn’t necessary considering that you’ll naturally improve your critical chance up to near 50% (especially with Unforgiving Chain) and when you obtain Pinpoint Strikes you’ll always critically hit for 10-20 seconds. Now that we mentioned it, Unforgiving Chain is a nice ability that gives you a +2% critical hit rate every time you hit, for ten hits (up to a 20% chance). Again, with Pinpoint Strikes it’s not essential, but you’ll be hitting a lot, and gaining that much critical hit potential from a passive ability isn’t bad. Most importantly, you need it to get Explosive Strike, which gains 50% physical damage as you complete attacks. The idea is simple, get ten hits in a combo for 20% critical chance from Unforgiving Chain, then launch an Explosive Strike at +500% damage. Best of all, there’s Twin Fangs, which deals damage about equal to twice of what the +500% Explosive Strike does, and always critically hits. The last and lowliest ability in the tree is Lacerate (and its upgrade). Too bad it’s not a Passive Ability, as 10% of your Stamina for an ability with a 10% chance to deal paltry damage just doesn’t seem all that great to me.

Archery (Varric, Hawke) {ABL026}

Archers specialize in picking off distant targets and suppressing enemy ranks. This tree is required for characters to equip bows.

Varric is your default Archer (although he calls his Archery skill Bianca), and that’s a role he can govern, as far as I’m concerned. The big disappointment with bows is their slow firing speed. With Inconspicuous, threat isn’t a big deal, and certainly not worth keeping a character out of melee over. With all the same damage boosts, a Dual Weapon Rogue has a much higher DPS than an Archer, although beyond this they both fare pretty well. Pinning Shot can be just outrageous in this game, with easily the highest damage of any Archery skill, and when upgraded it DISORIENTs enemies and pins them for up to 15 seconds. Shattering Arrow is great against BRITTLE enemies, and Hail of Arrows deals minor damage, but can hamper enemies in a huge area for a short while. Archer’s Lance deals fair damage (especially against BRITTLE foes), and can outright kill lesser enemies, but getting a line of enemies requires more than a bit of luck, and chances are you won’t hit more than three enemies at a time under the best of circumstances.

Sabotage (Isabela, Varric, Hawke) {ABL027}

Rogues who excel at these abilities are adept at stupefying and undermining their foes.

Sabotage has a few interesting abilities, including one every Rogue seems to start with-Miasmic Flask, which is good for breaking aggro and leaving foes vulnerable… at least, at the beginning of the game. Rush is also interesting, if for the sheer fact that it’s one of the Rogue’s few damaging ranged attacks. It doesn’t do much damage, but let’s say you’re mid-level, say level 12, and you do 52 Damage-with Blitz you’ll do 52 damage to all enemies you hit with it, which is bound to be several. Now let’s say you have Pinpoint Strikes on, and a fairly high critical hit rate-say, 100% (which is easily doable by this level.) You’ll deal 104 damage, which isn’t anything to go crazy over, but with a 16x Physical Force you will knock nearly everything down. It’s something to consider, anyways. Fatiguing Fog will slow enemy movement and attacks, and with upgrades it can obscure you and make enemies DISORIENTED. If you want to do either of the latter two things, the best way to do it is with some additional slowdown. Finally, there’s Confusion. It’s got a very nice duration (20 seconds) but a horribly small area of effect (4 meters.) Eh. All in all, I’d rather invest my points into other things than bother with the latter two abilities at all.

Specialist (Isabela, Varric, Hawke) {ABL028}

Specialist rely on precision, power, and speed to overwhelm their opponents.

This tree is nothing but a waste of points, and I’ll tell you exactly why. If I didn’t it wouldn’t be much of a FAQ, right? First, it consists of three Sustained Modes that don’t work together. To make you feel good, however, they throw in the passive Harmony, which gives you some perks of the other abilities while using one of them, to sucker you in. But let’s look at the abilities. Power gives you a 3% chance to stun. By investing three Ability Points you get a 6% chance to stun, and you deal extra damage against Stunned enemies. By comparison, Miasmatic Flask automatically stuns, and you start out with it, although there’s no extra damage involved… but it works on a radius. Also, Lacerate in the Dual Weapon tree has a 10% chance to deal extra damage. Even though it’s slightly less damage, it takes up half the Stamina. Use an ability like Inconspicuous and it doesn’t really even matter if your enemy is stunned or not, they won’t be attacking you anyways. Next, there’s Precision. This one’s easy, attack is useless because any Rogue will likely have more than they can shake a stick at. Second, critical chance sucks because Pinpoint Strikes raises your critical hit rate to 100%. Granted if you had Precision (+15%), a high Dexterity (which you will get, about +30%), Throw the Gauntlet and Parry (20%), and the Duelist Specialization bonus (+5%) you’d have a critical hit rate of 70%, but at the expense of quite a few more Ability Points (quite a few meaning about six more). Also, consider that two of the best Rogue attacks, Twin Fangs and Assassinate, already have a 100% critical hit rate, which fills the gap between Pinpoint Strike uses nicely and renders the need for such a high base critical hit rate redundant. Lastly, there’s Speed. A +15% attack speed is paltry compared to just having a Mage cast Haste, although the 10% cooldown for all talents is pretty nice. Still, considering that you’d have to spend six Ability Points to get the best benefits out of this tree (+15% attack speed, 10% cooldown, +10% Attack, +5% critical chance, +1% stun chance), it just doesn’t seem worth that high of an investment. Especially when you look at what those same six points will get you in Dual Weapon, Archery, Shadow, and Assassin…

Scoundrel (Isabela, Varric, Hawke) {ABL029}

Rogues proficient in these dastardly talents delight in exploiting their enemies’ weaknesses and controlling the flow of battle.

Man, we’re almost done with these skills. If only there was an easy Ability Tree that I could describe quickly to speed this up… Oh, here it is! Scoundrel sucks. Blindside is decent, but honestly, most enemies won’t be engaging allies. Once you start beating on them, they’ll focus on you. And Twist the Knife is outshone by Pinpoint Strikes. Then you have Armistice and Goad, which break aggro from other party members, which frankly should be the job of the Weapon and Shield character in your party. Failing that, most Mages come with Mind Blast and most Rogues have Miasmic Flask. They can break aggro just fine. Back to Back is just stupid, although I suppose if you were trying to make the best of the 120% damage on Blindside it would make sense. Brand gives other members of your party a 10% Critical Chance against an enemy, which might have some effect on a boss. Finally, Follow-Through gives such a paltry bonus… ugh… It’s not like these abilities are downright awful, but aren’t there better things you could spend your points on?

Subterfuge (Isabela, Varric, Hawke) {ABL030}

Subterfuge talents focus on trick maneuvering and deception to gain the upper hand in battle.

The Subterfuge Tree, as its name implies, contains the Stealth Ability. Yeah, it’s an automatic way to break away from attacking enemies, but it’s just not a fantastic ability, not on its own, and not with any of its upgrades or subsequent abilities. There is one exception-if you get the Shadow specialization, getting Ambush might be a good idea. First, it’ll make all Backstabs automatically critical hits, and second, it’ll cause you to always gain a critical hit when you attack from Stealth. Since you’ll have a passive 3% chance to auto-Sneak, it can come in handy. Evade is a more interesting way to break from a confrontation, although the best aggro-breaking ability the Rogue has is Inconspicuous in the Shadow Tree. Speaking of Evade, it has a chance to stun enemies while breaking aggro, and leads to the passive ability Subtlety, which reduces the threat you generate by 25%. Still doesn’t match Inconspicuous, but then again, nothing really does. As for Chameleon’s Breath, I don’t really care too much for it, especially with such a small radius.

Shadow (Hawke) {ABL031}

Shadow rogues employ misdirection and an unassuming facade to waylay their opponents with devastating attacks. As a smuggling hub, Kirkwall has more than a few practitioners of these techniques who will pass down their secrets to those they deem to be sufficiently skilled.

Shadow must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Stealth Chance: 3% when Hawke takes damage Duration: 5s

Now, if you’re looking for a way to break aggro and keep yourself safe, this is the tree to look at. Better than any other method is the ability Inconspicuous, which, when upgraded, not only sheds 100% of your threat but reduces your threat generation to nil, meaning you really shouldn’t get attacked at all unless you’re the only character on your team left alive. Then there’s Pinpoint Precision, which should be married to Pinpoint Strikes. An ability that gives a 100% critical hit rate, and an ability that increases critical damage by 25%? It’s a match made in heaven. The other abilities I’m less sold on. Disorienting Criticals is nice, but since there are only so many ways to become obscured (one is getting Shadow Veil and Stealth, but the duration is dreadfully short, another is with Chameleon’s Breath, but it only works in a 5-meter area (or 8 meters, if upgraded), and the last is with an upgraded Fatiguing Fog, but this is only a six-meter range. All options leave much to be desired. Predator gives you a permanent 100% critical rate when you’re flanking an enemy, but this seems moot with Pinpoint Strikes. Finally, there’s Decoy. Frankly, Inconspicuous is a good enough way to reduce threat, and who really cares about the fire damage if the enemy beats up your decoy? It’s peanuts compared to the damage you can do in twenty seconds with Inconspicuous.

Duelist (Hawke) {ABL032}

Duelists specialize in calling out single opponents and eliminating them quickly. While the art of dueling is less popular in Kirkwall than in the more-refined cities of Orlais, there are still plenty of trainers who can teach rogues they deem sufficiently quick of wit. The rogue’s preferred weapon, be it blade or bow, has little consequence on this tree. A distracted and enraged foe is an easy target at any range.

Duelist must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Critical Chance: +5%

The duelist is all about taking on an enemy one-on-one while combining favorable buffs for you and debuffs for the chosen foe. Frankly, however, my Rogues tend to do better when they’re not the explicit target of an enemy. This tree is all about boosting your Attack and Defense (by up to 60% with passive abilities and benefits from Parry and Throw the Gauntlet). Frankly, however, Inconspicuous gives me better odds-having the enemy go after allies and ignore me is better than having one pay sole attention to me, along with whatever enemies might be out there, and Assassin has better damage bonuses. The Defense bonus is nice, but not foolproof (like Inconspicuous, and for most of the game my Rogue had a 90%+ chance to hit a normal enemy, which rendered a good bit of the Duelist Tree useless to me. Frankly, I’d just rather have Shadow and Assassin than Duelist.

Assassin (Hawke) {ABL033}

Anyone can kill for money, but those who follow the Antivan traditions know how to do so with style. While every assassin is different, some favoring up-close and personal kills and others striking at range, they are all deadly predators and skilled at exploiting their foe’s weaknesses. There are a surprisingly large number of assassins at work in Kirkwall, although most are away on contract at any given time.

Assassin must be purchased using a specialization point before any talents may be taken from this tree. Specialization points are granted at levels 7 and 14.

Critical Damage: +10%

Shadow had a few good abilities, and Duelist left me desiring more, but Assassin is where it’s at. First, you get a brute 10% bonus to critical damage for picking this tree, and you make all the critical chance bonuses in all other trees obsolete by obtaining Pinpoint Strikes. This makes all of your hits critical hits for 10 seconds (20 seconds upgraded). With a 40-second cooldown, this means half your attacks at any given time should be critical hits. Also, you can pick up Devious Harm, which gives you another 1% critical damage per point of Cunning. Now, most any Rogue worth anything will end up with at or near 40 Cunning. That’s a 40% critical hit chance. Add this to the base 50%, plus the 30% we expect you to get from Cunning, the bonus from selecting the Assassin Tree (10%) and the 25% bonus from Pinpoint Precision and you have a bonus to damage on critical hits of 155%. If you have a 100% critical rate for 20 seconds… Absolutely unreal. And that’s not even considering damage boosts from using your Archery or Dual Weapon abilities! Then there’s Mark of Death, which can be used to further cut an enemy’s damage resistance by up to 50% for 20 seconds. How perfect. Lastly, we have Assassinate, which automatically critically hits (and therefore, like Twin Fangs, should be used when Pinpoint Strikes isn’t active, to tide you over) and deals whopping damage to boot. Oh, and just to keep the party going you have the passive ability Bloodlust. I poo-poo’d the Warrior’s Death Blow because they already gain Stamina-a lot of it-for killing enemies, but this new-passive-source of Stamina for the Rogue should not be ignored.

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