30 Days of DA: Ultimate Team

[owlmoose]

Day Sixteen: Your ultimate team from all games

In terms of fighting battles and mopping the floor with the opposition, I was pretty fond of my final party from my Sereda Aeducan DA:O game -- dual-wield stealth Assassin rogue Aeducan, Templar/Champion/tank Alistair, damage mage Morrigan, support mage Wynne. Our default party in my first time through DA2 -- dual-wield rogue Marian, archer Varric, damage-and-tank Aveline, and support mage Anders -- worked really well, too.

If you're asking with whom I most enjoyed running around Thedas, it has to be the ladies of Dragon Age 2: Isabela, Merrill, and Aveline. Because Isabela largely duplicated my Marian Hawke in terms of battle skills, I didn't get to pay with this team much the first time through, but they were a great, well-balanced group in Marissa Hawke's game, and so they saw a lot of action.

But my favorite thing to do, really, was to switch people in and out as much as possible, so I could hear all the banter and get all the interactions. Every team is different, every group has its own charms. So if you're asking for my favorite party, the answer is: all of them!

Complete list of questions

Comments

[lassarina]

Since I played a "fuck you, burn to death" mage on my first run of DA2, I varied between Vivian Hawke's Harem (Varric, Fenris, Anders) and Ladies' Night Out (Aveline, Isabela, and Merrill) because with the exception of not having a healer in the latter group, it was really effective. And I *loved* the banter.

[owlmoose]

Having only one healer was definitely a problem my the first time through. It was either bring Anders everywhere or die *a lot*. Fortunately we also liked playing with Anders, but if I ever rival him it could be an issue.

[lassarina]

Yeah. I mean, I play on Easy so it's mitigated a little bit, but ugh the recharge time on potions ;_;

[owlmoose]

omg recharge time on potions need to DIE. Especially the fact that using one healing sets a recharge time on ALL of them. That may be my least favorite aspect of the gameplay in DA2.

[lassarina]

Yeah--doesn't it do something dumb like Fenris using a potion sets Aveline's recharge timer, too? DAO definitely does not do that, as I discovered to my joy when I started my replay.

Next time I might play a healer!Hawke just to be able to have more party variety. :|

[sarasa_cat]

Although I'm now a few days behind, my answer will look similar to yours. ;)

Running around with Isabela, Merrill, and Aveline is awesome. I recently used this team to do the second half the "Enemies Among Us" quest and I got a laugh out of the gender role reversal when rescuing Keran.

I just have to say this now: Tank Aveline is fantastic! Far too often video games give the healer and support roles to female characters and the heavy battle roles to men. I like how Anders and Aveline not only flip these stereotypical fantasy video game roles but do it in a way that you (well, at least I) NEVER once think of them as being forced into a role for the sake of a gender flip. Honestly, it didn't occur to me until I put together my Girl Squad to go to the brothel and then I realized how cleverly the genders had been flipped away from game stereotypes. Aveline and Anders are both wonderfully believable characters.

(I need to update my meme shortly and squee about DA2)

[owlmoose]

I love, love, love that they made Aveline a tank. That was something I had side-eyed DA:O for, a little bit -- the fact that the female party members in Origins and all the expansions were either mages or rogues (and no male mages until Anders). You could build a female Warden as a pure fighter, and we did with f!Cousland (she was actually our party's best tank), and Sigrun was something of a tank rogue, which makes for an interesting combination, but it's not the same. So I was very excited to discover a straight-out fighter in Aveline.

I agree about Anders, Aveline, and the gender role reversal, too.

[sarasa_cat]

DA:O - as much as I love the game, I was dismayed by Far Too Stereotypical portrayals of the female companion characters. Yes, the character were very well realized and a lot of fun but... but... *sob* Fantasy played painfully straight.

In DA2, I totally SQUEEEED when I met Anders in his Darktown clinic. He struck me like bad-ass version of Thedas Médecins Sans Frontières. ;)

Oh, and Aveline. Aveline. Aveline. Her story so far makes sense of the kind of woman she is and she may become my most favorite tank ever. I am so looking forward to watching more of her story unfold.

[owlmoose]

Did you know that Anders was going to be in DA2 before you started playing? I was spoiled for more DA2 things than I would have liked, and that was one of them.

[sarasa_cat]

Yes, I vaguely knew that Anders was going to be in DA2 somewhere but I didn't know where and, when I finally stumbled upon him, it was such a moment of WHOOO-HOOO!!!

Anders is far more serious in DA2 than he is in Awakening.