It's got a solid tactical base on hard mode
Yeah. Abilities are pretty varied, companions having their special skill tree is a nice touch (though it´s badly balanced since Aveline´s and Anders´ are much, much more useful than others´), cross class combos are interesting and some changes on nightmare are pretty cool (some others aren´t though, FF for melee attacks grossly limits party composition, enemy rogues bypassing armor when attacking from stealth is totally unfair since there´s no detect invisible spell or such in the game, etc).
That said, as I´ve already mentioned few times, the overall speed, limited camera and horrendously unprecise targeting play very strongly against tactical approach.
On top of that, encounter design is repetitive ad absurdum and there´s the constantly used waves thing (adding new enemies to an ongoing encounter can work well when used sparsely - it surprises player, messes up with his resource management and so on, but when used constantly there´s no surprise, only tedium).
As a result, on higher difficulties the game becomes incredibly tedious fast and I can´t recommend playing the game that way, maybe just ramp it up to nightmare for boss fights which is what I ended up doing.
Personally, I think that many people stating they enjoy the combat just haven´t played much of the game yet, it really becomes more and more repetitive as time goes. And that goes for other aspects as well (running around boxy Kirkwall gets old, quests are formally almost always the same, etc).
I forced myself to finish the first act in dubious hope the game gets more interesting afterwards, but it´s still the same shit - heaps of uninspired side quests which play out in same old copy pasted areas, no unifying plot to speak of, the city barely changes after the 3 year jump and so on. Even the Fade section was a copy pasted area. I doubt I´ll ever finish this.
As for my "tactics", I played as a rogue and because I started on nightmare, dual wield was out of question, thus I played an archer.
Friendly fire for melee attacks wasn´t a good decision since it very strongly dictates party composition - playing with any combo other than 1 tank + 3 ranged is a pain.
Other problem on both higher difficulties are inflated enemy HP/resistances which, at least in the first third of the game, make encounters last unnecessarily long.
The wave mechanic makes average encounter time even longer and on top of that messes with threat management. As a result, fighting opponents in the same area they´ve "spawned" in is pretty much impossible rather often and the only viable "strategy" is to retreat in a different area and fight them there (new waves are set to spawn in the initial area, not in the proximity of player).
Early I´ve discovered that for some reason the offensive spells in the primal tree don´t cause friendly fire which makes them a must on nightmare.
But as I said, I highly don´t recommend playing the game on hard/nightmare other than maybe for boss fights, for the above mentioned reasons.
Few things I´ve found useful (mostly regardless of difficulty settings):
- primal spell tree
It has a defensive spell (rock armor), two area offensives and a paralyze spell (petrify) which works on almost everyone. On top of that, upgraded versions of 3 spells provide all 3 cross class combo states (brittle, disorient, stagger), so maxing this tree for whoever has access to it seems like a smart thing to do.
Upgraded petrify is a great time saver against those boss enemies who have shitload of HP and drink potions, especially if you have someone who can take an advantage of the brittle state - both Varric and my character have maxed archery trees and upgraded punishing lance can do exactly that, for example, and using both against a petrified miniboss usually killed him outright even on nightmare.
- Anders
Has access to primal tree and his personal tree contains the most useful healing spells in the game (panacea, regroup, aid allies). For more difficult scenarios he´s pretty much a must and Bioware obviously wanted everyone to play with him.
- Aveline
Easily the best tank in the game and I´m quite sure even better than a pc character designed for the same role.
The reasons being her personal tree, more specifically immovable, indomitable and thick skin and her personal armor. At least on higher difficulties also a must and much better than Fenris (who looks ridiculous anyway) since she´s a lot more durable.
- don´t ever invest in cunning for characters other than rogues
It may seem that investing into cunning for some non-rogue characters may be useful due to defense bonus but since defense scales with enemy rank, it´s always better to invest into constitution on which enemy rank has no bearing.
Speaking of which, investing some points into constitution for mage companions
is useful - unlike pc they can´t change armor and thus aren´t restricted by 2 attribute requirements. Skimping on points in magic isn´t viable because weapons have magic requirements and damage is important, but willpower isn´t that crucial.
- in general it´s better to specialize than to spread points across different trees, mainly because upgrades make abilities quite a bit more useful and are needed for cross class combos
I'm about to finish chapter one after about 20 hours.
The end of chapter 1 was one of few highpoints of the game for me - the boss encounter there is rather arcade-y, but cool nevertheless and on hard provides quite a solid (and interesting) challenge.
though probably Bioware's worst game
I´m quite sure it is, though I even wouldn´t say it´s a good game.
DA:O was such a promising start it´s a real pity the series were taken in different direction, but even when not taking this into account DA2 is a weak game on its own imo.