Help with Nightmare

[Cravinovv]

Nightmare mode is the only thing keeping me from this platinum and I'd like to have a platinum for each Dragon Age game.  I need help with some tips on how to conquer this mode cause other sites have not been as useful as I'd like them to be.  Thank you for an help that may be given.

[HokieCAB]

I'm still working my way through Nightmare mode myself, but the biggest thing I've found helpful is over leveling. I completed the Haven battle at level 12, and had no issues with it. I'll probably get to 15 or 16 before Doing the imperial ball quest.

Sorry if that's not much help, but it's been working so far.

Also, I've been running with Cassandra, Blackwall, and Vivienne in my party, and my Herald as a dual-wield Assassin spec.

[quintriplet]

Another important thing is crafting equipment and armor, you can spend some time farming materials or getting them through running wartable missions but having good equipment really puts you over your enemies. I'd also recommend respec-ing your main team to get their focus abilities, more powerful abilities, abilities that synergize well together, etc. I basically chose to one arm of the skill trees to focus on to get to the last ability (usually very powerful) more quickly.

[Happy]

Knight Enchanter.

[Dragon-Archon]

Nightmare mode is the only thing keeping me from this platinum and I'd like to have a platinum for each Dragon Age game.  I need help with some tips on how to conquer this mode cause other sites have not been as useful as I'd like them to be.  Thank you for an help that may be given.

Take a look at  Inquisitor in this guide for a detailed information on how to tackle Nightmare difficulty. Note that you need to delete the patches to use the various exploits.

[Elyther]

I have a couple of useful tips! This got me through nightmare fairly easily.

• Play as a mage. Get Knight Enchanter specialization.

• Focus on the Spirit Blade skills, Fade Shield, Fade Cloak with detonation (this does like 1000% weapon damage + Fade Shield = massive barrier boost). Fire Mine is also an excellent emergency barrier boost.

• Craft a weapon (or armor, I can't remember which one) with Fade Touched Obsidian. This adds guard whenever you hit an enemy. I regularly had both full barrier and full guard while surrounded by enemies. I was almost untouchable and dragons became very easy with this build.

But you have to get here first! So here are some things that got me there, starting with party build.

• My party build was two mages and two tanks.

• The best tanks were Shield and Sword (so Cass and Blackwall) and to make them survive longer set their Shield Wall skill to Primary Use (Or Starred Skill/Most Important Skill/etc I can't remember what it's called but it's one of the few AI decisions you can change). This makes them use this skill more than others and ups their survivability. This can work with Bull as well if you upgrade Block and Slash and set it to Primary Use. The point of your tanks is mostly just to act as a damage sponge.

• Your second Mage should focus on Barrier.

• I didn't have to use the tactical camera very much with this build, the AI generally took care of itself. ​The only times I really had to work with it were to position Cass and Blackwall into a choke and just set them to guard.

​Now the hardest part of the game for me was before getting to Skyhold (and a specialization), and the two most irritating areas for me were the Redcliffe main quest (with the large number of terror demons), and the attack on Haven with the ten thousand red templars.

• Redcliffe: the best method of dealing with demons is to prevent them from spawning. When demons come in waves there are always small green spots on the ground that you can Dispel and limit the number of enemies that enter the battle. You lose a little XP since you don't kill them, but taking three mages to Redcliffe can get rid of 3-6 demons before they spawn, each wave. This helps with rifts as well.

• Haven battle: DON'T USE ANY OF THE POTION CRATES UNTIL YOU ARE AT THE TREBUCHET. I emptied them all out like an idiot on my way in and struggled with the templar waves later and it will let you run around and replenish per wave when you're cranking the trebuchet. With the trebuchet, crank it once, kill the enemies, crank again, kill enemies. In my experience, it's usually a wave of 2-3 archers for two waves, then a big wave of knights/abominations/etc. If you continue to crank as fast as you can, the enemies will all spawn at once and you will be overwhelmed. 

• Haven Behemoth: probably the best piece of advice I can give for this one is that you don’t have to kill it. In the final part of the trebuchet battle, you spawn regular enemies and the behemoth. Run away. I hid in a small alley behind a house, set Cass and Blackwall to defend the choke, took out the enemies as they followed, and then led the Behemoth around Haven until it was far away from the trebuchet. Then I ran back (with frost step), cranked the wheel, and ended the battle.

​I honestly didn't have much trouble other than these few situations. The more general advice I can give is to run away if you need to and get the perks to hold more potions. After you get Knight Enchanter, most of the difficulty is gone. Hope that helps! I know this is an essay haha

Edited May 25, 2015 by Elyther

[Cravinovv]

Take a look at  Inquisitor in this guide for a detailed information on how to tackle Nightmare difficulty. Note that you need to delete the patches to use the various exploits.

I'm not one to use exploits but thank you.

[Aoi Nagisa-chan]

My advice : take a mage and then make him a knight enchanter for your specialization.

 

Always take at least one tank and a mage with the barrier which is very useful.

 

Knight enchanter is great as it will allow you to fight dragons, bosses on your own.

 

 

There is no best squad in my opinion but whenever i play i choose :

 

Cassandra as my tank

Solas/Dorian as my second mage

Sera as my archer (DPS)

 

if you got question feel free to ask

[Dragon-Archon]

I'm not one to use exploits but thank you.

Ok, even without the exploits there's still a lot of useful info to beat Nightmare mode. Good luck .

[starcrunch061]

Long after the fact, but a few things:

1) Keep the patches. The help you get is far outweighed by performance issues.

2) Knight-enchanters are awesome. I kept two in my party at all times (myself and Vivienne).

3) Blackwell is a great tank. His specialization is perfect for it. The 4th member is your choice. I generally chose Cole when I was not on a story mission or fighting a dragon. He does massive damage to rank-and-file enemies with his Assassin specialization, and barriers keep him going.

4) Build your own armor. Standard armor that you build is generally better than unique stuff you find. Once you get tier 3 schematics, and tier 3 (or 4) materials, you'll be mostly unstoppable.

[dakk55]

My suggestion:

 

Use Mage Class. Spec in Spirit early on for the Barrier/Revive skills. Have Solas focus on Winter/Lightning trees.

 

As soon as you get Iron Bull, replace Cass with him. Have Iron Bull spec in Reaver. Reaver's the only Warrior class that self heals and deals alot dmg. Plus with Barrier from your Main, it will go a long way in dealing with some of the troublesome points. I suggest going the Mage path, so u can get Dorian earlier, his Necro spec will come in handy in dealing with mobs, so make sure to spec as much in his tree as you can. I mostly used Varric due to his high DPS Bianca with plenty of upgrades from the higher tier schematics as the Rogue in the party. Plus, his caltrops comes in handy with mobs.

 

When u get to the point where you can pick a spec for your Main, pick Knight Enchanter. And do what you can to spec everything out in that tree. Congratulation, you are all set for the rest of the NIghtmare playthrough. The way it works, Iron Bull is the Tank/Aggro, Varric the ranged DPS, Doran the mob controller and the Main character keeps everyone alive. Trust me, the KE focus abilities will come in handy, plus constantly regen barrier is a good thing, no?

[Patrickosan]

Guys what about archers? I hear that they are also very good. I like distance class so it would be nice to play as archer. 

[Shakilrahman96]

On 5/8/2017 at 1:25 AM, Patrickosan said:

Guys what about archers? I hear that they are also very good. I like distance class so it would be nice to play as archer. 

I thought using the archer was the best class to tackle nightmare mode. They've two abilities which can be used to dodge just about every single attack an enemy can throw at you. I forget their names but one is where you shoot arrows and do a backflip and the other is a dodge roll. Extremely helpful when you got them mastered. Just need to work on their timing 

[BlueBerry_1337]

On 7/1/2017 at 2:32 PM, Shakilrahman96 said:

I thought using the archer was the best class to tackle nightmare mode. They've two abilities which can be used to dodge just about every single attack an enemy can throw at you. I forget their names but one is where you shoot arrows and do a backflip and the other is a dodge roll. Extremely helpful when you got them mastered. Just need to work on their timing 

 

I think being a mage is the best class for nightmare tho. Because after you pick a specialization class (knight-enchanter) youre pretty much overpowered in DAI.

[acasser]

On 7/1/2017 at 7:32 AM, Shakilrahman96 said:

I thought using the archer was the best class to tackle nightmare mode. They've two abilities which can be used to dodge just about every single attack an enemy can throw at you. I forget their names but one is where you shoot arrows and do a backflip and the other is a dodge roll. Extremely helpful when you got them mastered. Just need to work on their timing 

 

Archer is perfectly viable for Nightmare mode.  In fact, it's what I used.  Bring a Warrior tank (or two) to draw most of the aggro and a Mage to heal him/her and you can frequently stand on the perimeter and snipe to your heart's content without being bothered overmuch.  You'll want some of those nice moves like the backflip and dodge roll (or whatever they are called) for those times when enemies are coming after you, but I actually found the whole Archer/Nightmare experience rather sedate for the most part.

[wackt1]

What's the best party set up you guys had for nightmare?

[Sardavanua]

1 hour ago, wackt1 said:

What's the best party set up you guys had for nightmare?

Me: Archer+Artificer (Backflip and Invisibility keeps you out of danger in most situations, good dps and the ability to spam throw mines and instakill pretty much anything that's not a boss enemy if it comes too close)

 

Blackwall: His Champion specialization provides awesome synergy with taunts and guard. He pulls aggro 24/7 but keeps his guard up and rarely even takes damage.

 

Vivienne: Knight-Enchanter is OP and has good synergy with barrier. You always need one barrier casting mage  anyways and she's by far the best support mage.

 

Mid game I went for Cassandra as my 4th party member. She is decent at everything as long as you go for 1h + shield and taunts.

 

Late game I chose Cole, because an high leveled Assasin melts everything (literally everything) with a few hits. 

 

 

 

Iron Bull: Dies all the time on Nightmare.

 

Varric: Requires micro-managing.

 

Dorian: Worst support mage and only decent damage dealer.

 

Solas: Decent support mage + requires some micro-managing (his pull)

 

Sera: Good dps, but eh specialization

 

[wackt1]

So Blackwall, Vivienne, Cassandra, and Cole. Is there like a list somewhere I can see how to level their skill trees correctly?