What are you favorite party members and why?

For my knight-enchanter-mage I have been loving iron bull as a reaver. I love the reaver gameplay and I like the character.

Second is cole as an assassin. He is great to take down a single enemy but he is so whiney, I'm thinking of trading him in for the red hood girl or varric.

The third is Vivian as another knight enchanter. I love the enchanter and mage gameplay but she feels redundant. I'm also thinking of replacing her.

Any recommendations for replacements or for enjoyably character/class/spec combos?

I can't find a suitable last 2 party members for my knight enchanter & reaver mainstays.

My first playthrough as a Rift Mage I ran with Cassandra, Blackwall and Cole for 70% of the game. But in my current playthrough as a sword and shield warrior I am rolling so far with Sera, Iron Bull and Viv. I like the combo of two warriors a mage and a rogue.

My Rift Mage is currently lvl 13 and specced all Rift and Fire at the moment.

I have Dorian along specced heavy into Spirit with Necromancer and Lightning. I like the "life and death" vibe of his build so far and because I have him set up to prioritizing defending my tank and specced into Spirit, I'm able to just focus on damage on my own character.

Blackwall is my Warrior specced heavy Champion and Vanguard.

Sera is my rogue of choice, specced Tempest and Archery.

I've tried other combos but this is easily my preferred cast. I enjoy their banter, Sera and Dorian lighten the mood and Blackwall is just awesome.

I hated having Vivienne is my group the most..... daaarrrrrling, lol.

I'm a mage and roll with Sera, Iron Bull and Blackwall. I like the mage rogue and 2 warriors combo and their banter is pretty excellent. Occasionally I swap Sera for Varric or Cassandra for Blackwall but Iron Bull never leaves my side.

I tried to use everyone a bit, but my go to party was usually Cassandra, Varric, and Dorian or Vivienne. I was a dual-dagger assassin so I basically never used Cole.

I wanted to use Iron Bull more, but it was hard to find a spot on my team, and he seemed to die too quickly.

The game's pretty easy so I just roll with whoever has the best banter, my character's an archer but I usually roll with Varric, Iron Bull and then it's a tossup of Dorian or the elf mage guy.

@gunslinger0130: On the higher difficulties I feel like having a sword and shield tank is almost a necessity.

@zeik: That makes sense, I could see the difficulty really ramping up on higher difficulties, I've just been playing through on normal though.

Cassandra, Dorian and Varric. Next playthrough I'll use Iron Bull/Blackwall, Vivienne and Sera.

im a 1 handed warrior and its pretty boring being him but i really cant die at all. i pretty much only roll with iron bull vivian and cole. i chose not to have verric in my team because i absolutely hated him in dragon age 2 and although he is slightly better in inquisition its still not good enough for me to want him around so as soon as i could replace him i did. i love the banter between vivian and bull and bull as a two handed warrior ends up being good at dealing some damâge including some aoe effect attacks. vivian is fully specket knight enhancer and some lightning with enough in that green thing i cant remember but the one with the barriers pretty much only the right side of that tree. so works great in combination with all my chars in the party. cole is a dual whielding dagger and assasin specket. he is amazing at dealing heavy damage against single targets but if or when i get sera i will properly replace him with her.
pretty much never used blackwall or cassandra since they both fill the role i have chosen and there is no reason for another one of that kind.
oh and as much as i love dorian i just cant use him since he breaks the game sometimes. i have had some problems with quests because the enemy diddent (acording to the game) die because dorian raised them from the dead to the point where i could not continue on the quest before i swapped him out. its rare but thats enough to let him be a gloryfied librarian in my castle

Cole, Darian, Solas

I really like Cole's design and idea but i feel his character sounded awesome on paper but just fell flat in motion. His constant riddling talk got really annoying fast IMO.

Playing a sword and board warrior. I try to switch it up but for the most part I use Varric, Cassandra, and Dorian. It probably seems silly to use two sword and shield warriors but it's nearly impossible for enemies to get to my ranged guys... Oh and we never die. Ever.

Ps. You can cancel Dorians raised dead by just casting the spell again. Annoyed me at first but it takes no time to fix once you figure that out. Bioware should really add something for the Ai though.

For the first third of the game I rolled with Blackwall, Iron Bull, and Varric. That was alright, I liked having Varric poke at Blackwall's backstory, and it was pretty fun to hear Iron Bull and Blackwall talk about killing shit all the time. Once I got Cole I traded Varric out for him, I just wanted someone new. I feel like I'm one of the only people who likes Cole. He had some good stuff with Blackwall and eventually Solas, who took Iron Bull's spot for the last third. I thought I'd like Iron Bull more, but he had too much anachronistic dialogue and there just wasn't enough to him. Solas has some perspective on some shit man.

Mechanically speaking I liked my final party best, I was a Knight Enchanter, and since I fought up close with Cole and Blackwall it was easy to hit all 3 of us with a barrier at the same time. Between Solas and myself we just always had one going. My Blackwall was unkillable, and the damage output between Cole and my character was nothing to scoff at either.

Cassandra, Sera, and Vivienne. Always. I stumbled upon that particular combo at first just because I usually always switch around party members a lot early on in Bioware games for no real reason, but i ended up sticking with them simply because of their interactions. The way Sera's dumb jokes annoy Cassandra and the way Vivienne's pompous attitude scares Sera is fucking hilarious.

First time through being an Archer-Rogue I ended up with Blackwall, Sera and Dorian most of the time. I sometimes switched out Dorian for Solas. I started over to see some different stuff, an so far (playing a Mage) I mostly used Cassandra, Iron Bull and Sera/Verric. I probably will switch Iron Bull with Cole from time to time, but I just got Cole so not really a chance yet.

Playing on hard, my 2-handed reaver kills everything except a giant or shielded enemy in 3 dragon-rages, so I just roll with whoever I personally like as characters. Which is Cassandra (romance), Varric, and Dorian

My first playthrough was with Cassandra, Varric, and Solas(used Vivienne for a bit, but decided to go with Solas). That was while I was a 2h warrior.

I'm about 7 hours into a new playthrough, and that will probably be with Iron Bull, Sera(with daggers), and Vivienne. With me being an archer rogue.

I can't commit, It's always a problem I have with Bioware games. I always switch around party members, but it's a fair bet I'll roll with either Varric, Dorian, or the Iron Bull. Come to think of it, If I have to choose my favorite party, it's probably that.

Though, Solas is pretty cool, same with Sera....and Blackwall, fuck I can never decide.

same here.

Cassandra, Sera, Solas, and sometimes Bull. Game wasn't difficult enough, even at hard to care about matchups or anything, so I just rolled with who I could deal with. Weakest cast of characters in a Bioware game, to me. Not terrible, just very uninteresting for the most part. Origins, Mass Effect 2 and Baldurs Gate 2 still have my favourite Bioware characters. Thats a high fucking bar, though.

I'm a sword and board character and I usually roll with Cassandra(Though I do switch her out often for Blackwall), Varric and Solas.

I'm a one-handed warrior rolling with Iron Bull, Dorian, and Varric. From a combat perspective I like having two ranged characters (Varric is using an upgraded Bianca) and two melee. From a story perspective the banter between those three characters is usually pretty funny.

Currently rolling with Sera, Iron Bull & Vivienne

I rocked pretty much Cassandra, Varrick/Sera, and Droian/Solas the whole game. Eventually Solas and Varrick ended up with awesome equipment and thus I stuck with them the last 15 hours or so.

As a Level 7 Mage I am currently rolling with Blackwall, Cassandra and Vivienne. No Rogue at the moment which is a new thing, works okish. My thing is I love Varrick and his banter, however I find Blackwall as the (currently) last Grey Warden still around and Cassandra more vital to my mission, I've found Vivienne useful for some dialogue options when recruiting agents as they are impressed she is part of the Inquisition.

2-handed Rogue at level 14, I was rolling around with Cassandra, Iron Bull and Dorian for a good while. It worked ok, but the problem is, Iron Bull just needed way too many of the party's potions, and ended up taking a beating too often, and it wasn't worth it for how much damage he does. It made fights super messy, with enemies switching aggro all the time and everyone getting caught in multiple cleaves because they all want to stand directly on top of each other under AI control. I know I could sort it out by moving people around in tactical but the camera makes that a bit of a nightmare in any enclosed space.

It's a real shame since I actually liked playing him more than anyone else including my dumb rogue. Yank a dude towards you, Smash him on the ground, then start twirling, twirling twirling towards freedom. Lots of fun. But as soon as I let go he's running in there and taking hits from all sides. His health was less of an issue once I made his block move preferred, but the dmg suffered.

So anyway I switched him out for Vivienne and now I just wreck shit with magic from a distance. She's fun to play with her phasing and sword moves and they do stupid damage, so I don't mind too much. It's not the best party setup for chatter, since Cassandra is kind of boring, but it works out nicer in fights.

I tried to vary my party up all the time because I like hearing all the different dialogue, but I still did find myself gravitating towards a few.

I played as a mage and at least one spot was always a tank. I'd say 75% of the time I went with Cassandra, but Blackwall did get some use too.

For the rogue spot it was probably like 70% Varric, 25% Sera, 5% Cole.

The last spot was the one that saw the most deviation, but I'd say Iron Bull was my most used followed by Solas, then Dorian, and almost never Vivienne (I disagree with pretty much everything she ever says, plus my character is a Knight Enchanter so I had no use for her anyway).

So, while my group was in rather constant rotation, I'd say my go to party is Cassandra, Varric, and Iron Bull.

This is also my setup. I like to swap Iron Bull for Blackwall if I'm doing anything involving Grey Wardens, or I swap out everybody for my B-team if I just want a change of pace: Varric, Vivienne, and Blackwall.

I never use Sera, Solas, or Cole.

All that said, I really only play my character. I'm playing on Normal, so I haven't felt the need to swap around or micro-manage the rest of the party.

I like to mix it up a bit. Mostly I use 2 mages (incl my character), a sword and board warrior, and a rogue.

Currently I'm rolling with Iron Bull, Sera, and Dorian. But I've also used Cassandra instead of Iron Bull and Varric instead of Sera.

Do you guys make party choices based of the character themselves or the equipment you have for them? I find I lean more towards the equipment. But in the case of two characters I never used them after I didn't have to. Solas because I didn't like him, and Varric because I used him the entire time in DAII. Other than that it was all about the gear load outs for my play style. I didn't care about the party banter in this game as it was no where near as good as it was back in Origins. Unless that is because I just never had any good combos.

Cassandra, Dorian and mix up the third depending on whoever seems to fit the mission.

I'm very flexible with party combos and I've been experimenting with a lot of combinations. However being a DW rogue playing on Hard, encounters vs a lot of enemies forces me to omit another DW rogue like Cole but I can afford another archery-type rogue like Varric or Sera but if I need crowd control, I'd need to have two mages: Solas(lightning)+Vivienne(ice) or Solas+Dorian(fire+energy barrage) or Dorian+Vivienne. Mage combinations would depend on expected enemy types and their resistances/vulnerabilities.

The only constant besides my MC is that I need to have at least one warrior for taunt and tanking so either Blackwall or Cassandra. I really want to have Iron Bull in my party but being a 2-handed warrior type makes it difficult versus a lot of higher level enemies since I spec'd him to prioritize his 2-handed skills and thus I'd be forced to roll with another tank warrior but that would only leave me with only one long range threat.

@sterling: I usually base it on the characters themselves. I prefer the more "open minded" characters who challenge tradition or conformity and think a little differently. Dorian, Solas, Varic, Sera, characters like that. I initially thought Blackwall was a stuffy and boring old bastard until I heard some exchanges between him and Sera, his opinions on nobility and the rich basically made him my instant favorite.

It would be a very rare circumstance where a piece of equipment couldn't simply be re equipped on a character I prefer. But my party is strong enough as I like it so I'm able to ignore the odd time a character I don't reallt care for gets an upgrade nobody else can use.

I'm a two-hand templar, and I constantly shift my party. When the chips are down and I need to pick my go-to's though, it's Varric, Dorian and Blackwall (romance). Blackwall never dies, Varric is my bestest buddy (and I like playing as him sometimes for variety's sake) and Dorian is my other bestest buddy who throws fireballs. I've been partial to the two warrior, one rogue, one mage setup.

I've been going with a tank, archer and support (being a 2-handed sword wielding DPS Qunari) and i switch out the characters based on the objectives i've set out to do.

side note: would anyone else agree that really there should be 4 main classes instead of 3 seeing as you have a 4 man team? i'm constantly finding overlap (thus the above team structure of 2 warriors). I cant help but feel the game needed a pet to be the 4th character in some way

No, I've always liked that there are 3 classes because it gives you more flexibility. You can have each class represented and still be free to choose whichever fourth character you want. If there were 4 classes you'd never be able to take the characters that are the same class as you, thus missing out on their dialogue and banter.

Being able to take two of the same class means you aren't as limited in your selection. For example, you can actually take Iron Bull (being a two handed DPS type) and still have Blackwall or Cassandra tank without having to be short a mage or rogue. Just because two characters are the same class doesn't mean they fill the same role and being able to take two of a given class is a luxury I wouldn't want to lose.

@ll_exile_ll said:

I am actually playing the game in this way but sometimes it just makes me feel like something was less on the table.
I keep getting in this situation with 2 warriors (me and blackwall for example) where we're in the way of each other and the AI isnt smart enough to flank or move around so it can get a clean hit. could totally be an issue with the landscape but I feel like the further I get in, the more often it happens.

either way, totally fair point.

I have been really irritated by the game's lack of healer classes. I'm hours in and I still haven't figured out how the fuck I'm supposed to heal members of my party, aside from whoever I'm controlling. When my hero goes down, I inevitably have to reload. Ugh.

OK, whining aside, Varric and Dorian are my only two constants. I try to switch out the last one for variety.

They automatically use a potion when their health gets to a certain point. Potions are the only healing in the game (aside from a heal on kill bonus attached to some gear).

@sparky_buzzsaw: First of all, you can revive party members mid-battle by running up to them and holding the interact button.

Also make sure you're equipping potions on other characters. You get the rejuvenation potion pretty early which can provide some supplemental healing (and can eventually be upgraded into a proximity heal) and there's also a healing mist grenade that provides some innate aoe healing.

I am a knight enchanter mage. I switch up the party a lot, basically every time I travel I switch it around. With that said I roll with Sera almost always. Iron bull mostly or Cassandra. I just talked to Dorian, cause of glitch before patch every time I talked to him game froze. I really like the party chat so I try to switch things around a lot. The only down side is when I'm listening to something else and than they start talking.

I've never found blackwell, I randomly jump between places so there must have been some quest I never finished.

I switch to try and get different conversation combos going. I'm a huge fan of Iron Bull's interactions with everyone. Cole keeps becoming more and more interesting as well.

I keep switching them in and out to hear their banter. If I need my best group I'll roll w/Vivienne(KE), Blackwall(2H), and Cassandra(S&B). If I need a rogue or wanna hear Sera's silly shit I take her in place of Blackwall. Against dragons I sometimes put in Solas for defensive help. I play a fire necro mage, and find his AI to be pretty smart. He almost always hangs back w/me.

Not to thread jack this one, but I cannot make a thread without getting a 404 error for what ever reason. But my question was related to the party. Does anyone know if it impacts the game when one or more of your party either "approves" or "disapproves" your actions?

I haven't seen it impact anything but maybe its a subtle thing?

I run with Cassandra, Varric and Dorian. I used to have Vivienne instead of Dorian, but I switched them out because I liked his character better.

I don't really like his specialization but it's working alright so far.

Cassandra is mostly invincible.

I'm liking Cassandra, Iron Bull and Sera as a party. They have some interesting conversations. Also Sera is insane dps, she killed this dragon all by herself for me. This is only on Hard Mode, but I think she still would have killed it pretty quick on Nightmare.

@kerse: What skill was that you triggered that did all that damage?

@sterling: It was Sera's Thousand Cuts focus skill at max focus.

I play two-handed rogue. I usually roll with Blackwall, Varric and Vivienne. Blackwall is pretty unkillable and Vivienne is a monster with her Knight-Enchanter skills. Varric I just tend to bring along for the conversation. Sera is good too. Her focus ability is crazy cool, but I don't like her personality as much as I like Varric's. Dorian is great, but I don't dig his necromancy stuff. Everyone else is just kind of meh for me. My party really seems to hum with the three I mentioned first, plus me zipping around being all butt-stabby on people.

I play with Varric, Cassandra, and Iron Bull.