I usually roll with Sera, Cassandra, and Blackwall. As much as I like Iron Bull, the two sword-and-shield characters are more survivable I find. Sera bc you never know when you need a rogue around. My inquisitor is a knight-enchanter mage so having any of the other mages in the party is kinda redundant.

My typical party was The Iron Bull, Sera, and Dorian. My character was a Knight Enchanter also, so really the rest of the party was irrelevant except for their banter and making sure to keep a rogue around for lockpicking.

Knight Enchanter is so OP it just breaks the game, even on Hard difficulty.

@mb: It's a shame because I usually find the other mages have the most interesting things to say on whatever's happening. But they are rendered quite unnecessary.

playing on nightmare, with friendly fire on, as a tempest rogue kiter, i settled on a 2H Cassandra (templar buffs are the best) spamming Pommel Strike, an archer Sera spamming Full Draw, and Dorian spamming Spirit Mark, and after level 12 or 13 i was able to play without using the tactical pause for the most part.

however, during end game that dragon wing aoe attack became a bit of a problem for Sera and Dorian, so i swapped them out for Vivienne, spamming Barrier, and a second 2hander, Iron Bull, spamming Devour. problem solved.

Solas and Vivienne for the constant shade-throwing contest.

Damn.

I actually avoided the mission where you get Sera in your party because I'm playing a dual-wield rogue myself but now I think I need to go back and pick her up.

@renegadedoppelganger: Sera is an archer but I think respeccing her into dual daggers is way better. Tempest seems to fit better with daggers than a bow, I haven't spent that much time toying around with her specs though.

Sera ( fave character), Iron Bull (cool guy), Dorian (funny guy as well)
I sometimes switch Vivienne for Dorian as she has some nice interactions with the others.

But to be fair I almost always switch it up, diversity and all. But those 3 would be my favorite combo.

Been playing Viv, Sera and Cassandra. Cassandra and Vivienne have some interesting dialogue; Vivienne is impressed by cassandras royal lineage and really wants to see her in a dress.

@mb: Yah I had her use daggers from the very beginning and her subclass does work a lot better that way. I actually think there isn't a single Rogue subclass that really does justice to archers. The one Varric has is O-K but a lot of those abilities don't seem all that amazing. That said I think I only ever found 3 unique bows in my entire playthrough and they were a lot weaker than those 300+ DPS daggers I had on Sera. Cole is a better dagger rogue but his dialog was kind of annoying to me so I took him off my team after a while. Not that Sera is much better mind you.

I used sera with daggers, too. Very effective. Just couldn't stand Cole.

@humanity: Yeah I noticed that as well about the lack of bows and general underpowered state of bows as well. I keep picking up 300+ DPS unique daggers. I'd say for every five amazing daggers I find, I get one mediocre bow that isn't as good as the one Sera is already using. I'm near the end of the game now so I'm probably not going to bother changing her spec since I can solo everything as a Knight Enchanter anyway, but if I play through again it'll probably be as a rogue just so I can use all those daggers.

@mb: @humanity: don't you guys use crafting? i stopped using drops pretty early on, and used perks to get those recipe packs for each class, being able to decide all the stats on all the gear adds a lot to party efficiency, and the dps is always higher anyway with the right mats.

@hh: I have only gotten the mage recipes so far, and they were worse than the equipment I was already using. I did try to craft the staff, but it was about 30 dps lower than the one I had been using since around level 11.

Besides a couple of weapon upgrades, I haven't found a single recipe worth crafting at this point that is better than items I have looted. Not that it really matters though since my Knight Enchanter absolutely wrecks everything in her path as it is, even with a low dps staff.

@mb: fair enough, maybe it was just the way things panned out in my game, i did find quite a few recipes while exploring, and farmed the better mats when i could.

@hh: Yeah I have been doing that as well...I have collected everything, fully explored multiple areas, done all of the Astariums and landmarks and what not in the areas I've been through, done as many side quests as I can find, and more. Occasionally I go back through my recipes thinking I missed something, but nope...it's all just garbage. I have made some armor and armor pieces that turned out alright, but the stuff I have looted is still better than those. I have a huge collection of materials, plus the Skyhold garden, and the rare materials perks as well.

It's probably just RNG, maybe the next time I play it will be the other way around.

It is quite annoying how many amazing daggers I am finding and how few unique staves and bows there seem to be, though.

The real unfortunate part though is how unnecessary all of this gear actually is to my Knight Enchanter. That class is just too good.

@hh: @mb I was also playing a mage and bought the mage schematics and was severly disappointed by them as they were also worse than my original stuff. I agree that certain crafted items can get really powerful but unique purple drops look cool because they're unique so I really like those.

Here is the Dagger to Bow situation. This is basically one of 3 purple bows I've found in the entire playthrough.

Gallery

- I went Rift-Mage to control the battlefield. I like the class a lot, and feels more like "being the leader" than going knight or necro.

- I usually had Viv with me since her Knight Enchanter can easily kill bosses

- Sera was my main rogue, sometimes Varrick. Going daggers isn't really my play style and Cole did nothing for me personality wise.

- Iron Bull or Cassandra as the warrior. Iron Bull is better at offense, she's better at defense. I thought he kinda sucks against giants, dragons, and other big enemies. I only brought Blackwall around when the Grey Warden stuff popped up

- Looking at banter/personality: Sera/Viv, Iron Bull/Viv, Cole/Solas, and Cassandra/Varrick are good combos.

@deathstriker: Rift mage is really great because you can combo easily by yourself with paralyze/freeze -> stone fist.

@humanity: that's a nice looking bow alright, the crafted bow i have on sera is 201 dps at the moment, and the daggers on my char are 401 (kinda poor looking though), but i've been hoarding dragon mats and i'm going to recraft before the final push, so those numbers should go up, but the trouble is i haven't been able to farm for cleansing runes, cannot find any more revenants, only got three hearts all game, i had already closed the corpse pits in exalted plains, and the corpses in fallow mire don't drop hearts at all, all of the rifts i had left also refused to spawn either revenants or corpses, it was all despair and pride demons, pretty annoying, i'm just gonna have to go with lightning or cold or whatever.

I spent most of the game with Rift Mage Inquisitior, Cass, Varric and Dorian. Varric was terrible until I took Hook & Tackle off his bar (and eventually respecced him to unlearn it). I can't even begin to understand why the auto-learn path for an archer involves a distance-closer, or worse, why his AI allows him to use it.

The Tevinter perspective is really interesting to me. I can't imagine not having had Dorian around for the Arbor Green.

@humanity said:

@hh: @mb I was also playing a mage and bought the mage schematics and was severly disappointed by them as they were also worse than my original stuff. I agree that certain crafted items can get really powerful but unique purple drops look cool because they're unique so I really like those.

Here is the Dagger to Bow situation. This is basically one of 3 purple bows I've found in the entire playthrough.

Gallery

Yeah that seems about right for my equipment as well, although I'm a few levels under you right now. I suppose it's a balance, risk vs reward thing since archers are theoretically much more out of harm's way compared to rogues, but still. Maybe this will be addressed in whatever expansion pack is coming up in April or May. (Come on, it's EA, you guys know there will be one)

Definitely going rogue for my next playthrough though.

@mb: Rogue does seem fun. Either that or maybe 2H reaver looks interesting. This is actually the most I've been excited for DLC in a while and is going to be a day one purchase for me. Right now after having beaten the main story I'm going around killing all the high dragons and doing a lot of the side stuff and it's still all a ton of fun. Definitely my Game of the Year for 2014, I'm just having a blast top to bottom.

Also about your predictions about the DLC, haha you have no idea.

My dual wielding rogue rolled most of the game with:

Cassandra

Vivienne

Iron Bull/Varric/Sera (was probably an even mix of these)

Jeff/Vinny, but Drew/Dan is catching up.

Wait, I fucked this up, didn't I?

Also Sera just always freaks the fuck out is seams, Cassandra has an awesome amor ability and Vivienne's teleport/fast run ability is good to get out of stick sitiuations.

I didn't start enjoying game until I figured how to have a reasonably synergised party, both in terms of abilities and personalities. I almost always bring Sera, in addition to Blackwall or Cassandra, and Vivienne or Dorian. I play as a mage, so it's interesting to have three ranged and relatively squishy characters. I mean if Blackwall goes down, I'm pretty much done. I want to bring Iron Bull along, but I just need to figure out to not make die in 10 seconds.

I went with Iron Bull, Dorian, and Sera for most of the game. Their banter is great since they all come from very different backgrounds.

I pick my guys for their dynamic and banter rather than any really combat benefit, so I mostly rock about with Varrick, Blackwall and Dorian, though sometimes swap out Varrick for Iron Bull if I feel like respeccing my character and playing ranged for a bit. I played on normal so the combat was never really a problem except for the dragons.

Most of the time my rouge assassin archer has been running with Cassandra and a combination of Solas, Vivienne and Dorian. Varric never appealed to me in D2 so I don't really like how much this game is trying to make him seem important to my Inquisitor (I get the feeling they want him to be the Garrus of Dragon Age, but he's just not that good). Sera, Cole and Iron Bull just never caught my attention when they joined to give a chance (partially because I am already a rouge and I had a tank in Cassandra). I like Blackwall but I don't necessarily want to have less mages on the team. At this point though it's probably less about their abilities and more about me sticking to a routine.

Maybe I should force myself to try some other characters just to see how it plays out.

Been swapping a few members in and out, but right now I'm sticking with Cassandra, Iron Bull and Sera. Cassandra's defensive abilities are extremely helpful and along with my mage's barrier skill got me through a few tough fights on hard. Anyone have advice on how to make IB a bit more hardy? Seems he goes down too easily in fights.

Otherwise I just like having two ranged and two melee characters at my disposal. May switch Sera for Dorian at some point and make him a necro mage, but Sera's banter is way fun and I don't want to bench her.

Honestly I like em all, except maybe Vivienne. Sera has my favorite banter.

My normal party was Cassandra, Varic and Dorian with appearances by Iron Bull.

This was my party which I rolled with for most of the game:

Me - Knight Enchanter Mage. I was able to get in up close when I needed to due to my specialization but also dealt massive damage from a distance with my Tempest Staff, 131 DPS after adding a rune. I put all my skill points into the KE tree first and then about half of the barrier tree. The rest I distributed evenly between my preferred spells in Fire, Ice and Lightning. Overall, very strong mage character that was able to support the rest of the party well but also deal massive damage.

Blackwall - Two Handed Champion. Originally I was not interested in Blackwall but I heard so much good stuff about him, about how he was near impossible to kill, so I tried him out. At first, I made him a sword and board champion. The DPS was decent but not as high as I wanted it, although he was basically immortal. Even in a dragon battle he just wouldn't go down, insanely OP. When I gave him a two hand weapon, I was absolutely amazed at the results. I recommend everyone to try this. After this, I had no use for squishy Iron Bull. Blackwall was dealing massive DPS but the champion+vanguard tree nearly maxed also prevented him from every dying. If he lost any health at all, my mage would just barrier him and he would be unkillable again. Overall, great character and can result in some hilarious party banter. Insanely powerful yet also immortal.

Cole- Assassin Stealth Rogue. Gave him two daggers with high damage output, result was just as I expected. Big numbers and excellent support for my Warrior. Iron Bull could replace Cole, but I had no need. I feel a dual wielding rogue is very different to an archer rogue, almost making for two different classes. By investing in the stealth tree, Cole became quick and defensive. He could dissappear and stab enemies from all sides, dealing insane amounts of damage. The assassin tree gave him a range of impressive abilities, helping to make him harder to kill and also a great support character. Finally, the dual wield tree gave him powerful abilities which once again increased his DPS and made him a must have.

Sera - Tempest Archer. As I mentioned previously, Dual Wield and Archer are extremely different. Sera is in a class of her own with this build. This is by far, along with KE mage, the most OP build ever. I was able to kill the Hinterlands Dragon in 5 mins with this build. In the tempest tree, I filled out the right side and picked up Thousand Cuts, including all upgrades. When Flask of Fire is active, Thousand Cuts takes up no focus. Hence, infinite Thousand Cuts, DPS goes through the roof, depleting quarter of a dragons health with a single button press. Plus, I can keep doing this since Flask of Fire has a very quick cooldown. I invested alot of points in the archer tree as well to increase DPS and get more bow based skills. In Subterfuge, picked up full left side and in Sabotage, poisoned weapons and some others. By setting Sera's behavior to defend Cole, Cole basically never died, making her an amazing support character.

Overall, this party brings an insane amount of DPS, defense, variety and more to the table. I recommend it to everyone. When I told my friends about it, almost everyone tried it out and was shocked by the results. I have tried every other party combination on this list and the only other one which arguably matches this is the Iron Bull+ Cass one. Vivienne is ok, but too annoying. Sera isn't any better, but damn is she OP and the party banter with Cole is priceless. Blackwall gets awesome down the line, later in game. Overall, awesome party IMO.

Well I'm a damage dealing soon-to-be rift mage and I usually play with Cassandra as a vanguard and Dorian as a healer/necromancer and Cole as a stabby assassin. I do mix up my team a lot more often than in the previous games though, but Dorian is pretty much always there because we've got a little scandalous romance going on.

I have a necromancer inquisitor with fire tree, varric with double daggers arificer, cassandra weapon shield, templar and vanguard, and last solas with rift mage. My question is if its good to pass varric to archer, thou its damage its really good as some people say it. What do you guys think?