Best Tips and Tricks - Dragon Age: Origins (DAO)

For a person who has no experience with RPGs, Dragon Age: Origins can be overwhelming. However, the game rewards you with a rich story, interesting items, many role-playing options and tactics-filled combat. In this post, I would like to share Dragon Age: Origins tips. You can also think of it as a short Dragon Age Origins beginner's guide.

Dragon Age Origins tips

Different races and classes result in different beginnings

If you start as a Noble Human warrior you will have one type of introduction and backstory, however, with Dwarven Rogue it will be totally different. There is also an aspect of stats. Elven main characters will have higher magic if they start in the circle. Humans will have good all-around attributes.

Use the Checklists to not miss the early game

So, I have created Checklists for Ostagar and Lothering that will help you find all the important and unmarked quests and items. This will help you maximize your loot but also help you uncover most about the world.

For example, did you know you can improve your backpack size 2 times in Ostagar? This gives a better inventory management for most of the game.

Early Game combat - bow is your savior

So the early game maps are wide fields that give various options to engage in combat. One of the easiest methods is to use a bow (or Daveth who has a bow) to lure enemies one by one. This makes these encounters much easier to handle.

Just make sure you activate the hold command for allies, target an enemy that is a non-archer, and shoot at them. They will start running toward you and you can welcome them with 4 of your buddies.

First companion - Alistair

Alistair is a well-rounded Tank character for the first playthrough. What makes him special? He has probably the best banter, is involved in the games one of the most decisions, and is similar to you - a Grey Warden. Check Alistair Tank build guide for how to best allocate his skills, which gear to get, and which talents to prioritize

Spells with Friendly Fire

One of the irritating things that can be easy to miss is Friendly Fire. This is especially deadly with mages, who can cast Fireball and knockback and damage everyone that hits. Friendly Fire mechanic only works on Hard and Nightmare difficulties. So I would not worry about it on lower ones.

Tactics Menu

Play with the tactics menu for your companions, to get a hang on what is possible and what is not. This will minimize your need for micromanaging. It is important to learn how you should use skills and magic spells with your companions.

A Mage with Healing spells

Always have a mage who can heal in the group (you will meet one in Circle of Magi, which already specializes in healing). This doesn't mean that you should unlock the Spirit Healer specialization and drop 4 talent points. Just a single Heal spell will go a long way.

Maintaining Control of the battlefield

There are two main things that I emphasize in this type of game - control and damage. The former makes sure that enemies are either stunned, knockback, frozen, confused, or on any other effect that disables their combat potential. So this means when picking a spell or a talent make sure it can disable at least one foe here are some good ones:

• Scattershot
• Sleep
• Waking Nightmare
• Cone of Cold
• Crushing Prison
• Fireball
• Two-Handed Sweep
• Pommel Strike
• Shield Bash
• and many more

The second part is damage. Do you deal enough damage so that enemies don't have time to inflict debilitating effects or disable your group? For example, dual wielders can inflict crazy damage and shred foes one by one. Here are some things to consider:

• Dual-wielding Rogues - extremely high attack speed and big backstab damage.
• Mana Clash - instantly destroys mages.
• Attacks like Mighty Blow that inflict critical hit.
• Dual Wielding Warriors.

So a good party composition is somewhere in between. Of course, you can run a party with only one type of build but this will most likely be boring and some encounters will be challenging. Having a mage that can apply Sleep, then a rogue that can quickly dispose of those enemies and a warrior who can knockback and single hit KO foes is a key to a good party setup. I recommend checking some of the Dragon Age: Origins Builds on the website.

Play as Dual Wield rogue

My personal opinion is to play as dual wield rogue for the first time. It is really exciting specialization to play, as you are always trying to position yourself smartly and utilize your companion's tactics to the fullest

Sten has one specialization

Qunari Sten (whom you meet in Lothering)will only be able to have one specialization. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a default one. For this reason, I recommend using Alistair as a tank. So he has a bit of a disadvantage that we can overcome with the Sten Warrior build

Use Pause often

Pausing is your friend. You can easily micromanage in this game by pausing the time and issuing new orders. For example, a mage like Morrigan can react to enemy positions by using correct skills and magic. For this to work, you need the correct setup for the tactics menu.

Changing companions is not necessary

Some people may recommend changing the companions as you play. I personally would disagree with this and for the first play go with the ones which you find the most interesting. For example, I played through the whole game with Morrigan, Alistair, and Wynne on my first playthrough.

Role-play a specific type of person

Don't try to be best friends with everyone (similar to in real life) this will make the game more enjoyable. You can be a Warden who has sided with the mages and hates templars. Even though you may lose some companions it will make your decisions heavier and throughout.

Of course, you can also have noble goals and side with the ones that reward the most gold. There are numerous possibilities

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this post and I hope it will help you to be a better warden with your main character. Your task is to save the world from Blight by fighting the Archdemon. However, this is not easy and these tips should definitely improve your Dragon Age Origins journey