Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.

[Arbitrarity]

I assumed that one. I still have 120 gold, since I never buy anything.

If find any of these relevant, they're decent-priced items I've bought before:

Carta's Right Hand (25 G, Bonnie Lem, second-best non-DLC dagger in the game)
Ring of No Wishes (27 G, act 3 Black Emporium, Immunity to stun and knockback(!))
Sundering (39 G, Nexus golem, electrical damage maul. Good if you also have Bloom, since you get some elemental variety)

[Yora]

What's bloom?

[Arbitrarity]

Best (non-DLC: Empress's point is sometimes better) 2h weapon in the game. It's a battleaxe that does cold damage.
38 cold damage
(62 per second)
+16% cold damage
5% chance to regenerate 4% health
2 rune slots

You get it from Awergian scrolls quest, on sundermount. I think you need to be in Act 3.

Only enemies immune to cold are some basic humans in Kirkwall, so it's pretty versatile for Act 3. There are a LOT of weaknesses to cold, and the health regen passive is also surprisingly useful (especially if you're running a Berserker; Barrage is amazing). Cold damage also ignores armor, which is obviously a huge plus.

[Giggling Ghast]

You should probably invest in some Mythal's Favor (ie. resurrection bombs), plus some combustion grenades. I loves me combustion grenades.

[Yora]

I was just fighting the arishok and everything went swimmingly, when suddenly these nugsh*** Hawke and Varrik decided to leave the second Sarebaas alone and instead run up to the throne to attack one of the spear throwers. Before I had them run all the way back, bastard set up an area spell and killed everyone but Aveline.
Why can't the AI keep attacking the target I tell it to?

But doing everything on Hard has me at level 18 now and it's all really not that hard. Most fights in the city were quite easy and I could have easily taken on 4th and 5th waves of enemies.

[Douglas]

Meh, I took the option of challenging him to single combat. It involved lots of running in circles waiting for my cooldowns to finish (he has a truly ridiculous amount of hp, and a nasty damage combo), but it wasn't especially difficult and the continuous direct control meant the AI didn't even have the chance to be an issue.

Oh, and apparently your dog (I think the DLC he comes from is free if you get the game firsthand) doesn't count as separate from you, so it's really you plus dog vs the Arishok. Not that the dog does terribly much against an Act boss that far into the game.

Edit: Wait, I think you have to earn the Arishok's respect for that option to be available, so you may not have been able to do that. There's no particular quest for earning his respect, it's a cumulative result of your overall dealings with him. Certain resolutions of a number of quests can earn or lose degrees of his respect, as can certain dialog options on those occasions when you talk with him, and you need to accumulate a certain positive total.

[Yora]

Usually the dialog options don't tell you anything how the NPCs react.

And in this case it's the Arishok. Half of my conversations with him end in "I'm bored of talking with you now. Let's kill something!"

[Douglas]

Yeah, you have to infer his reaction from his character and his actual in-game dialog, and that can be difficult with the Arishok. On the other hand, he's Qunari, and if you have any understanding of Qunari values it's pretty easy to predict.

He respects competence, honesty, straightforwardness, responsibility, and a refusal to play blame games. Trying to put a good face on bad news, or waiting to tell him anything until after you have good news, loses respect. Telling him unvarnished bad news with no delay earns respect. Accomplishing something incredibly difficult and dangerous earns respect. Attempting and failing to do so earns respect if you willingly claim responsibility for the failure but loses respect if you claim you failed because of someone else. Trying to hide a deed he disapproves of loses respect. Unflinchingly (and truthfully) claiming the deed as yours to his face earns respect despite his disapproval of the deed itself. Standing up for yourself, your accomplishments, and things promised to you earns respect. For example, with that dwarf in act 1 who's trying to get the black powder recipe, telling the Arishok that you were promised money gets the Arishok to force the dwarf to pay you and gains some respect from him.

[Kish]

Usually the dialog options don't tell you anything how the NPCs react.

And in this case it's the Arishok. Half of my conversations with him end in "I'm bored of talking with you now. Let's kill something!"

Really? I disagree with every syllable of your post. It's easy to tell how the NPC's reacting. If the arishok consistently said he was bored with talking to you, well, that wasn't at all the same as no reaction.

[Yora]

The problem is that you never know what Hawke will say based on the options like "I agree" and "She is right". Unfortunately by that point I only remember the content of what was being said but not the exact words used by what characters in what order. I agree with who on what?
Will Answer #1 be diplomatic for a qunari, or will Answer #3 be a diliberate result?
You will find out after you klicked it.

Not being able to tell how the others will react to what I chose to tell them is fun. Not being able to tell what I will say is not.

[Douglas]

With the Arishok, the content of what you say is far more important than how you say it, and I never had any trouble figuring out which dialog options fit the Qunari values I listed and which ones didn't. What Hawke says is always a rephrasing of the simplified and shortened statement shown, and that was always enough for me to figure it out when it mattered. Not every dialog option affects his respect score.

[Kish]

I agree that the dialogue wheel is seriously aggravating, and hope that any future games will go back to "you see exactly what you're going to say." They can still put a mood on it, if they want, but there's no good enough reason to obscure what your character is going to say. (Why why why does "Justice, I presume?" translate to, "Don't get comfortable here"? Just to pick a single random example of many.)

[Yora]

When it's a one-liner, write that one line down. When it's something longer, write down a summary of what it will be.

Reading all four options and then having to listen to the one you may already have read twice draws dialogs seriously out and breaks the flow of the game.
But you can do better than it is done in the recent games.

[Giggling Ghast]

In truth, it doesn't matter what tone you take with the Arishok. He values honesty and strength; one of the key ways of earning his respect is 'fess up to slaying his men. He's not only impressed that you were able to take down one of his lieutenants, but that you were so forthright about it.

There are occasions where the dialogue wheel has irritated me, but I also had some problems with the Warden's dialogue in Origins. (The tone of some dialogue choices was apparently different than what I intended.)

[ImperiousLeader]

Honestly, I quite enjoy the dialogue wheel. I think it gives me a pretty good notion of what Hawke is going to do, but still makes listening to Hawke say it important.

[LadyMeyers]

Edit: Wait, I think you have to earn the Arishok's respect for that option to be available, so you may not have been able to do that. There's no particular quest for earning his respect, it's a cumulative result of your overall dealings with him. Certain resolutions of a number of quests can earn or lose degrees of his respect, as can certain dialog options on those occasions when you talk with him, and you need to accumulate a certain positive total.

IIRC, the Arishok either has to respect you and either:

Spoiler

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Isabella has to give the book back, or Fenris has to be there.

I don't believe it will trigger the dueling option otherwise.

[Zevox]

IIRC, the Arishok either has to respect you and either:

Spoiler

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Isabella has to give the book back, or Fenris has to be there.

I don't believe it will trigger the dueling option otherwise.

The Arishok does not need to respect you. I did the duel the first time around, and did not gain his respect until my third time (I never would have if I weren't curious enough about it to look up how to do it online).

Zevox

[Kish]

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Isabela does not need to give the book back and Fenris does not need to be there.

So no.

Note that there are also gradations of respect. If he respects you somewhat, but not enough to outright challenge you, he sends a group of qunari--four qunari, I think, not sure--against your group, and if you beat them then he challenges you. From Yora's description making it sound like s/he had no clue there was any option but to immediately fight every qunari there including the arishok, as well as his/her saying the arishok's conclusions in his/her game have usually been "I'm bored with talking to you," I would guess that the arishok despises him/her.

[Yora]

I picked up the fight against the Arishok again, and this fight is so tiresome. Not because the enemies are too strong.

First time went okay, but the Sarebaas killed everyone with lightning, my fault.
Then I rush through the dialog again, kill the four elite guards, level up (I need just 10 XP before entering the room!), reconfigure tactics, change equipment, rush through the next dialog. The fight starts, Varik runs up the stairs and dies before I kill one enemy.
So I rush through the dialog again, kill the four elite guards, level up (I need just 10 XP before entering the room!), reconfigure tactics, change equipment, rush through the next dialog. The fight starts, I move everyone into a corner, which I have to attempt three times before they start doing other things before reaching the corner. Then I notice Merrill is missing, as she's still casting spells against the qunari and dies.

Is this really neccessary?!

[Kish]

You could start over and try to get the arishok to respect you a little this time. Not that dueling him isn't tear-your-hair-out tough, either.

[Giggling Ghast]

You know, I think you can fight the Arishok one-on-one if you bring Fenris to the keep. He'll suggest a duel.

[Yora]

Actually, the game has been quite easy for a while. Once I manged to kill the two Sarebaas without anyone of my people running across the room drawing agro, clearing everyone out and beating the Arrishok was very easy. Since the Murder Mage, there hasn't been anything that required real thinking.

[Yora]

Quick update:

I'm midway into Act 3, and it looks like the crap is really about to hit the fan. Which, given how Act 2 ended ... that's impressive. If Act 2 is about choices, Act 3 is about consequences. And I've made some interesting choices.

I've done some stuff in Act 3 and have reached level 20, but so far things are looking as fine as they have ever been. Yeah, Meridith has to make the way clear and the mages are a bit edgy, but so far everything is fine.
But now I am about to visit the mansion with Varrik again and I'll be seeing the conspirators meeting in Lowtown. Oh, and I am to take a look at the mages who sneak out at night. All in the same night.

I better enjoy what few minutes of peace I've left.

Though I am already at 53 hours, and that's discounting the times I had to repeat some boss fights a lot. And the hours of my first attempt trying to get the hang out of the game before being quite ready to play the whole thing on hard.
I've easily spend more than 70 hours by now.

[Yora]

Now I know exactly what you meant.

Anders showed up and my thought was "I assume the crap has arrived".

There can be no turning back. "And this surely is the fan."

[Giggling Ghast]

Now I know exactly what you meant.

Anders showed up and my thought was "I assume the crap has arrived".

There can be no turning back. "And this surely is the fan."

Yes, that was certainly an "explosive" finale.

[Cristo Meyers]

Yes, that was certainly an "explosive" finale.

But at least he finally find that "balm" for what ailed him.

[Dralnu]

Hey all. I recently bought two DLC's, Mark of the Assassin and Legacy, after I decided that I liked this game enough. I'm not too far into the game yet:

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I'm almost done all the side-quests in Kirkwall before I go to the gallows to get Ander's map for some expedition mainquest thing. Currently level 8.

I was wondering if there was a "good" time to do the DLCs? Should I wait until I'm higher level or just do them right away?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hey all. I recently bought two DLC's, Mark of the Assassin and Legacy, after I decided that I liked this game enough. I'm not too far into the game yet:

Spoiler

Show

I'm almost done all the side-quests in Kirkwall before I go to the gallows to get Ander's map for some expedition mainquest thing. Currently level 8.

I was wondering if there was a "good" time to do the DLCs? Should I wait until I'm higher level or just do them right away?

Generally the DLCs are probably best played at higher levels, as they can have rather tough enemies. I generally save them till Act III.

[Kish]

Hey all. I recently bought two DLC's, Mark of the Assassin and Legacy, after I decided that I liked this game enough. I'm not too far into the game yet:

Spoiler

Show

I'm almost done all the side-quests in Kirkwall before I go to the gallows to get Ander's map for some expedition mainquest thing. Currently level 8.

I was wondering if there was a "good" time to do the DLCs? Should I wait until I'm higher level or just do them right away?

The dialogues you can have with...certain of your companions, especially your sibling, will be different depending on the chapter you do the DLC in.

Be aware that there are two potential party members who can be good healers--no more. One is Hawke. The other is Anders. Bethany is a passable healer...But past Act One, expect the game to be really hard if you aren't a healer and don't have Anders in your party.

[Dralnu]

I'll hold off them for a bit then.

Be aware that there are two potential party members who can be good healers--no more. One is Hawke. The other is Anders. Bethany is a passable healer...But past Act One, expect the game to be really hard if you aren't a healer and don't have Anders in your party.

Yeah, Anders has been one of my favorite companions so far. Building him full support and no plans of removing him. Right now my party is Rogue Hawke, Anders, Aveline, and Merril. I'm starting to think Aveline might not be worth it though. I have her support/tank but I replaced her for Varric for a mission and I'm not sure her tankiness is a good enough trade for her abysmal damage.