Making a Duelist in Dragon Age: Inquisition

I’ve always loved the style of Rogue that the DA games have allowed us to make; the ones that are not afraid to stand proud and tall in the thick of battle. While (usually) not as tanky as a warrior, the Duelist adds additional survival to the Rogue, to balance against its already great offensive capabilities.

This style of build was at its height in the Awakening expansion for Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) and in Dragon Age 2 (DA2), combined with the Legionnaire Scout subclass in the former and standing on its own two legs in the latter. Alas, this specialization is gone in Dragon Age: Inquisition (DAI), but is the playstyle?

If we are talking about pre-Trespasser, then the answer is probably yes. There are no Rogue skills that really benefit facing your opponent or even support you in the thick of battle. You also have no Guard or Barrier skills, leaving your survivability behind, bleeding out in the gutter. Parry can help you against some attacks, but there are many skills that ignores it. With Trespasser, however, the game changed. The alternate upgrades for skills included a few that altered some key features of the Rogue; most notably Twin Fangs and Poisoned Weapons.

The new skill upgrades and why they work

Twin Fangs got the fantastic upgrade of Unyielding Fangs and Poisoned Weapons got Leeching Poison. These two skills alone make up for two of the biggest deficiencies of the original Rogue in the Duelist archetype.

It is important to note that Unyielding Fangs is not better than Ripping Fangs if you play as a more traditional backstabbing Rogue, so leave it to the Duelists. And the reason it works so well with Duelists is because it fundamentally changes the rules for the skill. Instead of getting a damage bonus and knockdown when you flank someone, Unyielding Fangs gives you those benefits when you don’t flank someone. Together with the skill’s short cooldown (8 seconds), this allows you to stand toe-to-toe with enemies with much better results than before.

Leeching Poison fixed the other major problem for the Duelist; survivability. While Stealth and whatever mobility skill you prefer are the only proactive damage reductions, because not getting hit is the best defense, Leeching Poison makes it so you heal whenever you attack with Poisoned Weapons active. This reduces your reliance on potions and your Mage friends.

Skills to consider

In addition to Twin Fangs and Poisoned Weapons, there are a number of skills that are useful for this build. One of the mandatory ones would be Parry. Unlike Block and Slash from the Two-Handed tree, however, it does require timing without the Patient Defense upgrade (from Trespasser). If you’re having trouble parrying your opponents, consider picking this upgrade up.

The passive skill Evasion and the activated Evade are both worth picking up, because of a boost in survivability and a good mobility skill. Note that you have to pick up the Stealth skill to get these, so use it. While this is a Rogue supposed to be more accustomed to the thick of battle, don’t ignore the strategic benefit of singling out mages and archers among your enemies. And, if you’re worried about the lore implications for your Duelist, consider the DA2 Duelist skill Vendetta and its description:

“Every duelist, even an archer, knows that the most memorable fights happen at close quarters...and that the first strike is the most crucial. To gain that advantage, the rogue vanishes behind a cloud of smoke, then strikes the enemy viciously from behind. This ability can be used from across the battlefield, for few rogues are as capable of moving under stealth as a duelist.”

So do like the proper Duelists and take full advantage of your ability to vanish from an opponent’s view!

A last skill worth having on your bar, before taking specializations into account, is Deathblow. It is one of the best damage skills for the Rogue, effectively working as an execute when an enemy is below 50% health. It also has a short cooldown (8 seconds) and no cooldown if it kills the enemy.

On the passive Sneak Attack: You have to pick this one up to get Deathblow and its sole benefit is for flanking targets. Don’t dismiss the usefulness of this passive, even on this style of Rogue! In essence, this passive makes your Duelist capable of both toe-to-toe combat and ambushing priority targets. It also works well with Deathblow, which is a skill otherwise neutral to whether you’re flanking or not.

Prior to getting enough ability points to get Deathblow, it might be worth having Flank Attack to have an additional damage skill on your bar. It too has a cooldown of 8 seconds. You can always respec once you have enough for Deathblow, at a minor cost.

All these core skills should be possible to pick up by level 10 or so, so what the hell do we do with the rest of our levels?

Specializations

So, with the basis of the build well in place, what should our characters specialize as? Or should we skip subclasses (specializations) altogether? As for the latter, I wouldn’t recommend it, because the subclasses are really powerful, but whatever floats your boat.

Tempest

I told something of a lie before; there is a survivability still for melee Rogues pre-Tespasser; Flask of Frost. But without support for this skill, I still say the Duelist isn’t particularly viable pre-Trespasser.

In general, however, the Tempest is an excellent choice, mechanic wise. Flask of Frost is a great defensive skill and Flask of Fire will give you a massive DPS boost for a short time. Flask of Lightning also have some good uses, as it slows down time around you. And, because their duration is so short and they are mutually exclusive, the Flasks require timing to get full benefit.

On the roleplaying/lore side of things, however, the Tempest is a mess when it comes to being a Duelist. While the Duelist is a methodical and deadly swordsman, the Tempest is something of a maniac. Rushing in, smashing bottles and utilizing the elements to gain the advantage. Kihm, your Tempest trainer, describes the Tempest as a “storm”.

Artificer

Like the Tempest, the Artificer depends on tools beyond your weapons, poisons and stealth. Specifically traps.

Mechanically, this subclass works quite well. Spiked Trap has a strong crowd control component and can be used very effectively in melee range. The passives of the Artificer also work very well.

For roleplaying, this subclass has the problem of being an Artificer. You’re specialized to make traps and mines, not to be a master of melee combat.

Assassin

All three subclasses for the Rogue works for the Duelist on a mechanical level, but the Assassin might be the best for the roleplaying aspect of it. It is still not a Duelist, but it relies mostly on the Rogue’s own skills at arms (Hidden Blades) and singling out enemies for death (Mark of Death).

The passives also work well, with increased damage the more health an enemy loses and a passive armor penetration. The ones affecting Stealth also fit well, due to the aforementioned description for Vendetta. Hidden Blades itself can also work as a substitute for that ability, and Mark of Death can work for Throw the Gauntlet.

Focus skills

If you play this on the Inquisitor, I recommend sticking to Mark of the Rift, at least on Assassins and Artificers. Since this is a Double Daggers build, the Artificer’s Hail of Arrows does literally nothing. The Assassins’ Cloak of Shadows also fall short of the Mark.

The Tempest’s Thousand Cuts, however, can work well. It depends on whether you want a single target or area of effect skill.

If you’re making Cole or Varric into duelists, I’d pick up at 8^th regular skill over a Focus skill. They are, for the most part, going to do more for your party.

Some skills to consider if you have points to spare

If you have maxed out your subclass and your core skills or you want to skip a subclass altogether, these are some things to consider.

Looked like it Hurt & Cheap Shots

A 3 point investment, given the requirement of picking up Caltrops first. Looked like it Hurt will regenerate stamina on all critical hits and Cheap Shots will sunder armor on critical hits. Great with Sneak Attack and a high critical hit chance in general.

Bloodied Prey & Unforgiving Chain

Another 3 point investment, this time in the Dual Daggers tree, since they require Flank Attack to unlock. Bloodied Prey is a good combination with Throatcutter (Assassin passive), as it increases your damage if your target has lost a higher % of health than you. Unforgiving Chains will increase you critical hit chance by 2% for every hit, resetting when you score a crit.

Easy to Miss

Simple threat reduction. Makes enemies less likely to seek you out, letting you engage single enemies more easily. 1 point investment.

Ambush

Another 1 point investment, as you will likely pick up Evade as one of your core skills for this build. It gives you a 50% armor penetration on all attacks from Stealth. With Gaps in the Armor (Assassin passive) and Mark of Doom (upgraded Mark of Death from the Assassin skills) you’re leaving your enemy with a pitiful 5% of their armor to protect them.

The Toxic Combo

Down from the Poisoned Weapons, this requires 4 points. Fighting Dirty, Explosive Toxin, Toxic Cloud and Lost in the Mist.

The things that makes this combo a possible investment are 1) some nice area of effect damage, and 2) stacks of Elusive. The latter of which is the most important.

Lost in the Mist makes your Toxic Cloud, including those spawned from Explosive Toxin, grant all allies up to 3 stacks of Elusive. And each stack of Elusive grants you a free “get out of damage” card. Very useful if you have the points to spare. Also worth putting on your ranged Rogues, because of its group utility.

My Build for Hard

Currently running this archetype on Hard, with the Assassin subclass. My talents look like this:

Sabotage

Poisoned Weapons – Leeching Poison

Double Daggers

Twin Fangs – Unyielding Fangs

Parry

Dance of Death

Sneak Attack

Deathblow – Thrill of Victory

Subterfuge

Stealth

Evasion

Evade

Assassin

Hidden Blades – Overkill

I Was Never Here

Knife in the Shadows

I’m at level 13 on a Human (with 1 Amulet of Power, found in Crestwood). So far this build has been viable, and quite effective, on Hard even without any additional survival added from things like Guard on Hit.

Guard on Hit Masterworks

If you want more survivability, with or without Trespasser, to make this playstyle viable, just pick up some Guard on Hit Masterworks. Fade-Touched Silverite and Fade-Touched Obsidian work well. As an effect, it is so overpowered that it can make any build a survivor, including the Reaver warrior while spamming Dragon Rage.

If you want to play this on Nightmare, a Guard on Hit Masterwork should definitely add whatever survivability you might lack.

Hold Guard/Stormcloak and Imperial Armor - Some thoughts

First off, I'm going to completely ignore the actual in-game stats of the armors. Not only would I say they are rather misleading compared to the designs of the armors(at least when putting similar quality armor up against one another), but they are also primarily used to determine some sort of path for equipment advancement. Instead I intend to look at the actual design of the armors. And on that note...

... I'm also going to overlook the widespread use of bare arms that inexpliably permiates the Nordic and Imperial armor designs. It seems to me that this was likely a result of 1) the developers wanting to showcase the new arm designs, since in Skyrim we can choose how big and muscled arms we have, or 2) the armors were originally designed to allow for clothing underneath, but this feature wasn't implemented, yet the armor design stayed the same. Since both the Imperials and Nords have armor designs in previous games that do not show that much skin, I'm assuming both races would mostly use that.

For the Nordic Hold armors, we have a few things of note. With the exception of Haafingar, all the Hold Guards use Fur Gloves and Fur Boots (or just the boots, for whatever reason, in Whiterun. I'm guessing oversight), all Hold Guards uses the same full helm and there are two main designs for how the body armor is constructed. Both types use chainmail shirts, but one design uses a gambeson and the other uses scale armor. Eastmarch/Stormcloak, Hjaalmarch, the Pale and the Reach uses gambeson, while Haafingar, Whiterun, Falkreath, the Rift and Winterhld uses scale.

On a side note here, it seems odd that they wear the gambeson on the outside of the armor. I think this is another stylistic choice, more than anything, to let the player see the armor combination. This is also a problem with the Imperial Studded Armor.

Now, are these armors good? I would say mostly yes.

Something that is important to note is that a lot of "historically accurate tests" of chainmail armor are not historically accurate at all and, often, don't even construct the parameters of the test correctly. Taking a subpar piece of chainmail (explaining that one in a bit) and putting it against something hard and immobile does not produce accurate results as for how effective these armors were. You need something to simulate the reaction from a human body to being attacked in such a fashion to begin with. Second point is that you need to test it with gambeson underneath, because that is how it was used, which also improves it quite a bit.

The most problematic flaw in many of these tests is that they don't construct proper chainmail, but a subpar version. Now, I'm no expert, so I don't know of any professional terms for these different types of chainmail, but the layman names for the main types seem to be "butted" and "riveted". Butted chainmail would be this waste of metal, time and effort, where about 2/3 of the rings have a significant structural flaw; it isn't a full ring. This makes it very weak, since most of the armor have a structural defect, and makes it weak to piercing by arrows, spears and such.

Riveted chainmail, on the other hand, would be this; what the metal, time and effort of the butted version should've gone into making in the first place. In this type of chainmail, the structural problem is solved by riveting the rings, making it far, far stronger. Now, these pictures themselves are not meant to be historical examples or anything, just a general idea of how the rings in each style look like. For historical riveted chainmail, it could look something like this, though i think there were several styles.

Main point, "proper" chainmail was much better than a lot of "historically accurate tests" show. So if you see a test, keep these things in mind.

Another point is that, if it was that bad, it wouldn't be used. If it doesn't save your life against a modeicum of piercing power, the elite warriors would get the smiths to make something better. Yet the chainmail remained in use for a long time.

Gambesons (often called "padded armor" in many RPGs like Pillars of Eternity) is also usually misrepresented. While nowhere near as good as chainmail, it is a decent armor that could stop some types of arrows and cuts and thrusts. And, of course, scaled armor is another layer of metal armor, though that would probably be rather heavy to wear.

In short? The Hold Guards and Stormcloaks in Skyrim would be pretty well protected. Not good equipment compared to the standard issue plate armors of the Legion in the 3rd Era, but, then again, the Legion armor by the time of Skyrim also wouldn't compare to that either. So let's look at the Legion armors.

Getting one thing out of the way right away; the heavy Imperial armor that seemingly is reserved for officers of the Legion is the best armor in use by soldiers we see during the civil war questline. But it is also rather rare and only one non-officer is seen wearing it (Hadvar if you sided with him in the intro) unless the player (who can wear whatever they like during the questline) also uses one. From this, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the Imperial Light Armor and Studded Armor are the most common armors in use in the Legion in 4E201. So how does those compare?

The Imperial Light Armor would be the least defensive armor in use during this civil war. It is leather and could charitably be compared to gambeson in usefulness, meaning it would be outclassed significantly by the armor worn by all Hold Guards and Stormcloaks. And since the Jarls and Stormcloaks can keep their soldiers with proper chainmail, I'm going to be charitable to the Legion and assume the studded armor is the "default" Legionnaire armor. Otherwise, I don't see how they'd not be massacred when engaging the Stormcloaks, given the profound advantage chainmail would give them. Especially since the Legion mostly uses one-handed swords, which are strongly disfavored against metal armor. So I'm taking Belrand's word for it mainly being armor for scouts.

Imperial Studded Armor looks like Imperial Light Armor with a bit of chainmail added around the shoulder and neck areas, which would barely make it more useful than regular Imperial Light Armor. As such, I'm going to work off the assumption that there is a chainmail shirt underneath the leather. And, as such, you could expect it to perform very similarly to the chainmail/gambeson combination used by Hold Guards and Stormcloaks, though probably worse than the chainmail/scaled combination.

In the end? The Haafingar Guards would be the best outfitted among the guards, because their chainmail/scale combination, steel bracers and boots. Most Legionnaires compare pretty much one for one with Stormcloaks in terms of equipment and Legion officers are the best protected soldiers in the war.

The Morrowind Mage Guide

The question for anyone who begins to play Morrowind is obviously; how can I be a truly badass mage? Well, I have the answers as to how and I will share the simple steps required for you to make the most badass mage you can.

Step 1: Racial Choice

The 10 races available in Morrowind can be classified by their attributes, starting skills and passives into the somewhat simplified Warrior, Thief, Mage and Jack-of-all-Trades categories, though it is important to remember that none of these determine what a race can do if you want to go for something unusual.

The Warrior races are Nord, Orc and Redguard. The Thief races are Argonian, Bosmer and Khajiit. The Mage races are Altmer and Breton. And the JoaT races are Dunmer and Imperial.

Obviously, the best races for spellcasters are Altmer and Breton… but if you want to make the best magician you can, you should avoid those races. Ideally you should pick a race with the lowest possible score of Intelligence, which is the primary Mage stat. And the additional magicka multiplier the Altmer and Breton have are useless racial passives.

My recommendation are the Warrior races, perhaps especially Nords with their incredibly useful passive resistances to Frost and Shock. This is because you’ll have a good starting value in Strength and Endurance, which will give you more carrying capacity and health.

Step 2: Class

The first rule is simple; do not pick a mage class. You don’t need the magic skills. If you’re picking from the pre-made classes, the Warrior, Barbarian and Knight are excellent options if you want survivability and general badassery. Or you can pick one focusing on Marksman or Sneak. Anything to give you an edge while you build up your magic power.

If you make a custom class, the only – and I mean ONLY – magic skill worth having on your character is Enchant. Leaves the rest out of your class.

Step 3: Birthsign

“Ah,” I hear you saying. “This is where we start to pick magic stuff, because you’re thinking we’ll exploit the limitless training and grinding option to master our magic skills.”

Nope, all wrong. The magician (or more accurately Battlemage/Nightblade sort of thing, depending on your choice of combat or stealth) I’m building for you does not need to increase their magic skills at all.

Morrowind have some truly powerful birthsigns. And some absolute garbage ones. For this character, you should pick something that fills out your character, depending on racial choice and class attribute bonuses. Attribute bonuses are great here.

For example, take a Nord Barbarian. He has good values in Strength, Endurance and Speed, but low Agility. So the Lover with its +25 Agility is an excellent choice here. Or an Argonian Barbarian, who has low Endurance, so the Lady is a great choice.

Do not pick the Mage or the Apprentice. Their primary benefit is additional magicka, which you will not need. You can pick the Atronach for the passive chance to absorb magic directed at you, however, with no drawback. As you will not use magic, you will not be harmed by the additional limits on magicka regeneration.

Step 4: Enchanted Items

Enchanted items are the true power behind spellcasting in Morrowind. There is just no competition between Spells and Cast When Used items. Here are the main reasons, in no particular order.

Chance of failure. Spells can fail to work, though this usually stops being a problem shortly after beginning the game. Enchanted items, however, do not even have a chance to fail.

Independent resources. Each enchanted item has its own magicka pool to draw from, unlike regular spells, which all share.

Regenerating magicka. While your characters magicka does not regenerate just by the passage of time, your enchanted items do. And most items regenerate reasonably fast. A simple “Restore 10 Health” item will almost always be ready to go, which is incredibly powerful early in the game.

Instant cast time. Spells in Morrowind have 2-3 second cast animations. Enchanted items are instant and without animation. So you can cast several fireballs with an item in the time it takes for a “real” mage to do it once.

Custom Enchantments and Soul Gems. You can make custom items containing spells (though you have to know the effects, but you can just buy any spell for that) that can have very significant magicka reserves. The soul of a Golden Saint, for example, have an impressive 400 charge, while your normal max magicka is 100, plus any additional magicka multipliers.

Conclusion

The best mages in Morrowind are not the mages, but the Warriors, Barbarians, Assassins and Thieves who carry around a fine selection of enchanted items.