Mage specializations in dragon age inquisition. Leveling up the party (by Darth Swordman). Usefulness of Vanguard abilities

Not much different from leveling up in various other RPG games. Almost all actions will bring you some kind of experience. This number includes the so-called “Breaks”, completing various tasks and, of course, the classic killing of enemies.

Every time your hero gets new level, then its standard attributes increase. In addition, you also receive skill points, which you can spend on acquiring new abilities/skills/abilities.

Having received a new level, you will be able to complete a task that you could not complete before or was inaccessible, since there are stronger opponents there. Before you begin the task, first look at what level is required (minimum), then decide for yourself.

The most important thing in the game is leveling up your heroes. Of course, this is not a very fast process, even if you do everything listed below.

Shadow Rifts are something you encounter early in the game and fight through afterwards. You, as an Inquisitor, can close/seal these Rifts! You can find these “holes” absolutely all over the world! During the training you will be taught how to do this. In return for closing the "hole" you will receive experience. The experience you gain depends on what area of ​​the game you are in, that is, each area gives different quantities experience.

You can get to the area where enemies are higher than you and try to kill them. Killing such enemies will give you much more experience than if you killed a regular enemy. But you just need to be prepared for the most difficult situations and have the appropriate equipment. IN bad option you will simply commit suicide.

There are a total of ten Dragons in the game - they are the most dangerous in the entire game! Once you kill the dragon, you will receive a simply magnificent reward along with tons of experience.

Usually such places are guarded by high-level enemies, so this is another way to gain more experience! If you are not too confident in your combat potential, then try to refrain from what you have started, otherwise the result will be sad.

Sometimes, simply exploring the world will allow you to gain experience much faster. Even the most insignificant tasks, such as setting up a camp, hunting game, searching for herbs, can bring much more experience. And considering that the game can be said to be “crowded” with various documents, secrets, treasure maps and other items/details, collecting experience will not be a problem.

Besides this, it is much better to know the world you can use the Inquisition perk, which is taken from Josephine. You will be able to gain much more experience for various finds. Therefore, it is best to postpone reading documents until later until you have learned this skill.

Naturally, the most accessible and obvious point in pumping is. Sometimes you won't be able to progress further in the story because your level is too low, so it's best to focus on the side quests and Inner Circle quests.

In this guide, we will introduce you to some good builds for mages in the game. Most of these will be based on a specific specialization featured in the game.

It should be noted that magicians in game series Dragon Age are almost the most interesting class and there are many reasons for this. Firstly, they have their own storyline related to the eternal confrontation between magicians and templars. Still, it is much more interesting to watch this confrontation when you are directly related to it. Secondly, the ability to combine different spells to obtain a unique effect. Thirdly, excellent visualization of magical techniques.

In the third part, the developers seriously worked on magicians; for example, they removed all their healing abilities and provided only eight slots for active skills. At first glance, many may think that this significantly reduces the number of possible builds, but in reality everything is different. The game features three basic, well-developed skill trees, each of which can be used to achieve different goals. Plus there are three more branches of specializations. As a result, you can create a huge number of combinations that can significantly change the magician's fighting style.

In this guide, we describe five different builds: two of them are based on basic skill trees, and the other three are based on specialization skills. To take full advantage of the build, that is, to unlock all the necessary skills, your hero must reach level eighteen.

Lord of the Underworld

Already from the name you can guess that this combination is based on the skills of the “Necromancer” branch. As a rule, magicians are considered dangerous fighters, capable of greatly harming the enemy with the help of powerful “spells” that hit the area. Necromancers are noticeably different from such wizards. The fact is that their attack spells do not deal damage immediately, but gradually (spirit mark or walking bomb), plus his main skills are based on control, and not on dealing huge damage.

Note: A controller is a character who can influence opponents, reducing their stats and controlling every move. For example, mages can frighten enemies, keep them in one place, or push them away from themselves.

With this build, you will not be able to support your companions, but you can seriously help them by controlling the enemy. For maximum effectiveness, your group should consist of two tanks that will protect you from enemies, and one damage dealer (preferably an archer). Thus, enemies simply will not be able to reach you, and in the meantime you will send various curses on them with impunity.

You should not give up the “step into the shadows” spell, which allows you to move away from the battlefield at a great distance. In battle, it is necessary to correctly combine “spells” from the basic branches that can cause damage to certain territory with the controlling powers of the lord of the dead. In this case, you can deal with an entire crowd alone.

Skills used

The “Storm” branch - we open chain lightning, a flurry of energy, storm petrel, electrical conductivity and lightning. The first ability is effective against several monsters or people. When used, the caster releases an electrical charge that damages one enemy and then immediately transfers to others. It deals over two hundred percent of the damage of your main weapon.

Note: as you may have noticed, the damage of spells is not fixed, but directly depends on the characteristics of your weapon, that is, the stronger your staff, the more effective the abilities will be.

Thanks to the petrel, you can protect yourself from opponents who come too close to you, since this “passive” will hit them with lightning. The lightning spell can deal a lot of damage to a single enemy. In addition, it is capable of paralyzing the target for several seconds.

A great help in combat is a burst of energy that damages your enemies with elements. Works great against monsters with elemental weaknesses. But for this you will need to change staves in time. As for electrical conductivity, it increases the damage from all skills, but also spends a certain percentage of mana.

Branch “Underworld” - take sacrifice and flash. The second can inflict considerable damage on the enemy and cause him terror, while the first inflicts small damage across the territory. Note that eight slots may not be enough for all spells, so when more powerful abilities appear, you need to get rid of old ones. For example, you can remove the flash.

The “Winter” branch - opens a step into the shadows and an icy grip. For the first ability, you can unlock an additional skill called “Chilling Walk”. With the help of his grip, the magician is able to freeze the enemy, injuring him and preventing him from entering into battle. Particularly effective against fire demons of wrath. We already looked at another ability earlier.

Branch “Necromancer” - all abilities should be unlocked, plus secondary skills. Using “fear” you can force all enemies to run away in horror (works for six seconds). Thanks to the spirit mark, you can kill a strong enemy, since this “spell” deals enormous damage over twelve seconds. Plus, if a fighter dies while carrying the mark, a ghost will move into his body and he will become your ally. According to its principle of operation, the walking bomb is similar to the previous skill, it’s just that after death the enemy explodes, and it’s better not to ask what happens in this case to his companions.

The remaining abilities are passive in nature - they can increase the damage from all “spells” for a short period of time after killing the next monster or fighter, make it possible to suck the souls of the dead to raise your health level and reduce the parameters of enemies in a certain area. Using the haste ability, which works on concentration, the necromancer can speed up all his comrades and slow down his opponents.

Rift Maker

By developing a specialization called "Rupture Mage", the mage has access to incredible strong spells, causing damage in a circle of small diameter. With this build, you will not be able to control the enemy’s behavior as well as necromancers do, but you will have the opportunity to destroy large groups of the enemy at once.

This build mainly combines skills from two branches: rift mage and underworld. The second has excellent abilities that cause large area damage, and the first can “boast” of having a spell that pulls all enemies to one place.

But do not forget that in Dragon Age: Inquisition you can meet monsters and people who are resistant to fire attacks, so you should open the barrier and ice grip. Most spells act at a great distance from the target, so taking a step into the shadow is not necessary.

The basic combination will look like this: cast abyssal attraction, pulling all enemies in one place, then hit them with a stone fist and a curtain strike to weaken them and knock them to the ground, then put a fire mine and use a sacrifice. Only bosses usually survive this attack.

Skills used

Branch “Underworld” - here we take sacrifice, flash, flashpoint, oncoming fell, pyromancy, fire mine and fire wall. We have already looked at some of the spells earlier, and therefore we will not talk about them again. We just note that, as with the necromancer, some skills can be gotten rid of at later levels. Decide for yourself what you don't need, but we recommend removing the flash.

If we talk about spells that have not yet been considered, then flashpoint is a good “passive” that can immediately restore an already used ability after your mage inflicts a critical hit on the enemy. On initial stages there will be little benefit from it, since the magician rarely inflicts crits on opponents. However, then the magician’s likelihood of delivering critical hits will increase significantly, and this skill will be very useful to us. Thanks to pyromancy, the duration of burning and fear will increase by a quarter.

An oncoming attack significantly speeds up the recovery of skills. We open this “passive” as early as possible, because in this case the damage you deal per minute will increase significantly. But the most useful ability is the fire mine. It deals 1600 percent of weapon damage to opponents, and therefore can kill weak opponents in one go. But this spell does not begin to work immediately, but after a few seconds. Therefore, it should be combined with Abyss Rift or Stone Fist, which will stun enemies (keep them in one place). The wall of fire does not do much damage, but it causes fear in opponents.

“Winter” branch - we take the icy grip in order to be able to effectively fight monsters that have high resistance to flame. From the “Spirit” branch we open the barrier. This spell can protect your character from any damage for a short period of time.

The “Rupture Magician” branch - it requires all the “spells”. To open them, you will have to sacrifice several skills from the “Underworld” branch: flash and fire wall. We unlock additional skills for all spells. Veil Strike is capable of weakening enemies and causing them minor damage. Be sure to use it before casting more powerful attack spells. Thanks to the stone fist, you can force opponents to fall to the ground - this will take them out of the fight for a short time and allow you to lay a fire mine.

With the help of recharge from the veil and veil torpor, you can restore your mana and strengthen your spells, taking energy from weakened opponents. Choking Veil and Twisting Veil reduce enemies' stats and increase the damage of your magic skills. The attraction of the abyss is considered an incredibly useful ability - it pulls monsters and people to one point, and also weakens them.

Knight Mage

The basis of this build is the “Knight-Sorcerer” specialization. In its name, it is similar to the “Battle Mage” specialization, which was popular among players in the first part of the series. But at their core they are very different from each other.

In Dragon Age: Origins, the battle mage became practically a warrior, that is, he could wear heavy armor and fight with a sword rather than a staff. If we talk about the sorcerer knight, then he is an ordinary magician who is simply capable of fighting in the thick of battle and helping his allies with supporting spells.

The mage knight has good offensive skills (spiritual blade or counterstrike through the veil) and defensive skills (shadow cloak, shadow shield, knight protector). However, they achieve the greatest effectiveness when combined with the skills of the “Spirit” branch. Using an improved barrier and several “passives” you will be able to fight the enemy at close range and not die.

A spell that works on concentration is a return to life, which can completely turn the tide of the battle in your favor.

Skills used

The “Spirit” branch - in it we take the spirit of the defender, barrier, elegant protection, fortitude, revival and explosion of the mind. The barrier is notable in that it is capable of creating a special shield around the caster and his comrades, which acts as a temporary additional health bar. It disappears quickly, so you need to cast it before or during the battle. The secondary skill of this “spell” increases the speed of barrier recovery. The spirit of the defender will automatically activate the shield of a magician who has received heavy damage.

A mind explosion is a kind of push of power that allows you to throw opponents away from you and reduce their aggression towards the wizard. An excellent skill that will often save the life of your magician when fighting a group of enemies. Another useful ability is revival. By using this ability, you will instantly raise all your comrades lying on the ground to their feet. The power of spirits increases the strength of the barrier by half.

“Storm” branch - here we open chain lightning and a flurry of energy. We have already written about them in previous builds, so we will not repeat them. The “Winter” branch - we will need it in this: a step into the shadows and an icy grip. We have already described them too.

The “Knight-Sorcerer” branch - we take all the skills except the retaliatory strike through the veil. Most often you will use the soul blade and shadow cloak. The first skill allows you to create magical blades that penetrate the enemy’s armor and magical shield, causing damage directly to health. The second one surrounds the magician with a Veil and gives him invulnerability for a short period of time (two seconds). Helps to break into a group of enemies, inflict maximum damage and quickly retreat (use shadow step). Passive spells like shadow shield and knight protector increase the barrier's strength. The return to life ability, which consumes concentration, restores the health of all party members to maximum and constantly heals them for ten seconds.

Winter Defender

As you may have noticed, past builds were based on using the skills of the three specializations. However, this does not mean that you cannot level up in Dragon Age: Inquisition good magician without using the skills described above. It just may be less effective in certain situations.

All healing spells have been removed from the game. The “Spirit” branch now includes spells that only support allies, but do not heal them. But with the right combination of these abilities with the skills of the “Winter” branch, you can create such strong defense from their companions, that after each battle not a single scratch would be on any of them.

Plus, you will be able to not only support your allies, but also inflict considerable damage on the enemy. To do this, you will need to use the spells blizzard and ice mine. They will be most effective against enemies vulnerable to cold.

You also cannot do without the ability to step into the shadows, which allows you to leave the battlefield and help your comrades from a safe distance. The main goal is to support satellites with the help of a barrier and revival.

Skills used

Branch “Spirit” - take a pacifying aura, barrier, elegant protection, revival, dispel, mind explosion, life preservation, spirit of the protector, invigorating barrier and strengthening explosion. Some of these skills were discussed by us earlier, and therefore we will begin the description immediately with a calming aura. This passive skill reduces the enemy's aggro, making you completely invisible to them, so they immediately switch to your companions. The dispel ability removes all negative and positive effects from enemies or allies. Thanks to the invigorating barrier, your magical shield not only protects your companions, but also increases their rate of stamina and mana recovery.

Branch “Winter” - we open the icy grip, step into the shadow, ice wall, mine and armor, winter silence, blizzard and blizzard. Some of the abilities were studied by us earlier, for this reason we will move straight to the consideration of other skills. Winter Silence speeds up the mage's mana recovery after standing still for three seconds. In a protracted battle it can be very useful. Using an ice wall, a wizard can create a large enclosure made of ice. This wall can protect the magician from enemies. The ice mine is similar in principle to the fire mine. Although it deals much less damage, it is capable of freezing an enemy, rendering him incapable of combat for a short period of time.

Ice armor reduces damage taken by half. Use in cases where your caster is surrounded by enemies. Using this skill, you can also strengthen the tank, making it practically invulnerable to enemies. But the best “spell” in the “Winter” branch is considered to be a blizzard. When used, a real blizzard appears, slowing down enemies in a certain area and causing them constant damage. The secondary skill enhances the main spell, after which it not only slows down enemies, but freezes them.

Once you reach level eighteen, you will notice that you will begin to have free ability points. We recommend that you spend them on skills in any specialization that interests you.

Fury of the Elements

Even without using specialization skills in the game, you can create a powerful mage capable of inflicting monstrous damage on your enemies. This build will be useful for those players who do not like to complete absolutely all the quests in the game, but just want to go through the main storyline. The fact is that in order to obtain one or another specialization, you need to spend a lot of time completing rather complex missions.

The elemental rage build will help you in battle with almost any type of enemy, since they are all vulnerable to certain elements. But do not forget that this magician does not have any protective spells, so it would be useful to keep another wizard in the party with a pumped-up “Spirit” branch.

Another drawback of this combination of abilities is excessive monotony. In battles, you will need to constantly use the same methods and skills in the same sequence. Plus, you will have to rely on your comrades in arms (tank and support mage) all the time, since you will not be able to protect yourself on your own.

However, if you use spells wisely and don’t get into trouble, you can take out large groups of enemies with just a few button presses. The main thing is to constantly monitor your health bar and keep another caster nearby.

Abilities used

“Storm” branch - open chain lightning, flurry of energy, arc burst, static charge, lightning, explosive lightning, storm atmosphere, storm petrel and static cage. We have already talked about many of these spells, so let’s move straight to the consideration static charge. It sends a paralyzing electric charge to an enemy who is not attacking you. This will give you time to get out of his sight and set the tank on him. A thunderous atmosphere will speed up the use of abilities. The static cage allows you to stun enemies in a small area.

The “Underworld” branch - in it you need to take a flash, pyromancy, sacrifice, fire mine and flash point. We have already talked about all these skills earlier. Branch “Winter” - take winter silence, icy grip, wall and armor, as well as blizzard.

21.11.2014

No matter what anyone says, it’s almost completely linear role-playing game with corridor locations, so it will be very difficult to get lost here. Consequently, questions related to “I don’t know where to go” disappear by themselves. The same can be said about dialogues. Conversations in the game are more for show and have a real impact on the plot only in rare cases. The developers cheated by completely remaking this RPG towards action-adventure, but oh well.

There are also no problems with choosing a character and there cannot be any. No matter how hard you try, you will be offered several classes of absolutely typical heroes that differ only appearance. Even if you initially want to develop the hero in the direction of, say, two-handed swords or a bow, then in the early stages of the game you will still find one-handed and two-handed weapons, shooting and other weapons. So you can try to reshape your character directly in the game.

It's a completely different matter with transferring saves from previous parts. This possibility, as such, does not exist. Instead of a traditional transfer, BioWare danced a little with a tambourine and offered us Dragon Age Keeper: a service for transferring your completed plot. At the end of the game, when the results are tallied, all your past merits and deeds will be credited to you.

The main character will have to close the green portals. The more you close them, the more influence points you can get. Influence points are a key resource, without which you will not be able to advance through the story. It is noteworthy that the mandatory closure of a couple of portals awaits us only at the early stage of the game. The further we move through history, the less the developers will let us down and poke our noses into portals. You'll have to find everything yourself.

As for the character's karma, this indicator is not critical for passing. It will be possible to go through as a good and completely evil hero. At the same time, your allies will not get angry and leave you, weakening the group. At least, the author of this material was unable to anger his comrades in arms in this way. Instead, the characters around you will show reactions to your actions and your words. The scale of morality depends on whether your actions are approved or disapproved. Honestly, the indicator of this scale on the plot, if at all, has a completely negligible effect, so be rude when you think it necessary and don’t adapt to anyone, you’ll get away with it.

The situation is approximately the same with sentencing. We remind you that you are an Inquisitor called upon to save the world. And, from time to time, while you, in the rank of savior of the world, are running around collecting herbs on behalf of some village pharmacist, various defendants will be brought to you. Their fate depends on you. You can show cruelty, or you can, on the contrary, be the height of humanism: your decisions will not have any consequences, so you can judge according to your conscience.

At the beginning of the material, we mentioned that the locations in the game are corridors. Not only are the locations corridors, but the world itself is closed. We are only given the illusion of freedom of movement, but it is just an illusion. You will not be allowed to run wherever you want, this is not The Elder Scrolls, however, there are open spaces and you will have to move around them. Therefore, as soon as you have the opportunity to get a horse, be sure to do so. With a horse, things will move forward much more vigorously.

Now, since we touched on the world and the environment, we should talk about this. The developers have said more than once or twice that the game will be completed in no less than 70-100 hours. Naturally, gamers value those games that you can play for a longer period of time and enjoy plenty of adventure. However, to prevent some cunning citizen from completing the game in a couple of hours, the influence points that were mentioned earlier were introduced into it. Without these very points, you will not be able to make your way further in the story. And, it just so happens that the influence that you earn in the process of completing the main storyline will not be enough for you. Consequently, you will have to run across fields and hills in order to engage in the most thankless and dirty work. Simply put: complete primitive quests that are not at all suitable for your status as the head of the Inquisition, and grind, grind, grind.

For this activity you will just have to run around all the nooks and crannies of Thedas. Locations in the game are divided into corridor-story and spacious. In these same open spaces you will need to walk from marker to marker, take on and complete tasks. With this maneuver, BioWare killed another hare: you will have to, out of necessity, in search of adventures that promise influence points, wander into such remote places that you would not have wandered into in your life unless necessary. There will be many surprises there. So, when traveling around Thedas, you don’t always have to take the road. Pull into the nearby bushes and take the winding, off-the-beaten paths.

You will also have to periodically visit the headquarters of the Inquisition. This is quite a useful place, primarily because of the opportunity to give instructions to your subordinates. You won't get much benefit from this, but it certainly won't make things worse. After some time, depending on the complexity of the task, the subordinates will complete the work. The secret is that to speed up this process you can change the clock on your computer. Save the game, exit, change the time, log in, and all your instructions have already been completed. Saving time and effort.

Well, the most important thing in Dragon Age: Inquisition is the combat. Humanitarian skills play a minimal role here, however, as in the two previous parts. The main thing is to learn how to fight, and in particular, to learn how to manage a fighting team. One of the main skills is the ability to use the advantages that a tactical pause gives you. You can take a pause both before the fight and during the fight. And if at first such a possibility may seem unnecessary to you, then later, when the enemy is stronger, without tactical pause it will be very bad. Using pause allows you to see your enemies' weaknesses. Take a break and distribute roles. Let each hero do what he knows best: the archer shoots from afar, the tank takes damage and deals sensitive blows, and the mage casts spells.

By the way, about spells. There are no healing spells in Dragon Age: Inquisition. This is, in its own way, a unique situation when in role-playing fantasy, where magicians are present in abundance, you can only be treated with potions. This innovation was dictated by the need to make the game more difficult and the battles more dangerous. Now the cost of each mistake increases significantly, and magicians do not become indispensable.

Now for the opponents. In principle, you won’t have any big problems getting used to the behavior of enemy mobs. Everything is quite banal, especially since teammates are not a burden, but rather actively help in battles, sometimes even taking the initiative. The exception to this is boss battles. Bosses in Dragon Age: Inquisition are a different matter. main feature All bosses are that it is not recommended to approach them close or even close at all. At the same time, bosses are divided into two parts: those that you can still approach and solve your problems, and those that are completely impossible to approach. In this light, warrior heroes with melee melee weapons, who perform well in battle, will not look the best, especially when there are many enemies, they surround you, and the surrounding scenery has rallied and does not allow you to maneuver. There, armor and a sword will play an excellent role, but ranged weapons are more suitable against bosses.

As examples, let's look at three typical bosses: the pride demon, the rock-throwing giant, and the dragon.
The Demon of Pride is the very first boss. He swings his arms wildly and hits with an electric whip, so it is not recommended to get close to him, especially since he is completely invulnerable to blows. At least until you start destroying the rift: the green glowing ball. Energy needs to be pumped out of it. At the same time, your rest of the team should not so much beat the boss as distract you while you drain the energy from the ball. By slightly weakening the rift, you will deprive the boss of immunity. That’s when you need to get close and hit him with all the super blows you have. After half his lives are gone, he will begin to call for help. Here you again need to disperse to the sides, give the team instructions to destroy the help that arrives, while main character will weaken the fault again. After the demon has a quarter of his life left, he will become available for any attacks. Consequently, he again needs to be surrounded and engaged in close combat.

A giant throwing stones is a completely different matter. The giant is fairly immobile and is really best killed from a distance, but running up from behind and landing a few hits on the ankles is quite useful. The giant will take a long time to turn, but when he turns, be prepared for him to pick up a stone from the ground and throw it at you. He throws stones very accurately. To avoid getting hit, you need to run as fast as you can, while switching to the hero you are planning to throw at. In general, the giant is a boss that can be defeated both in close combat and by shooting from a safe distance, but you need to be prepared for the fact that your safe distance is not so safe.

Well, a dragon that breathes icy breath definitely needs to be killed only with ranged attacks. If you attack him from behind, you will not have time to make even a couple of blows before he wags his tail, and you will fly a good three dozen meters. It’s even more difficult to attack him from the front, because a dragon is a dragon, although it’s not fire-breathing, but it won’t be enough for you. The dragon is a boss that you need to shoot from afar, but you still have to hide behind obstacles that will be destroyed one by one, so if you drag out the battle, you risk making the situation much more difficult.

And finally, a few tips.

Be sure to distribute tasks to your assistants at headquarters. A resting assistant is useless.

Be sure to collect resources, ranging from plants to metals. Closer to the middle of the game, all this will be very useful to you.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the world is not very interactive. There are often villages where there is no one to talk to, but if you find an NPC talking, then stick with him until you get everything you can out of him.

Be sure to set up camps. Fast travel between camps is possible. This alone will save you a lot of time.
Be sure to upgrade your lockpicking skills. In the homebrew localization, this skill is called Skillful Hands.

Be sure to equip your mage with three staves: red, blue and purple. With their help, he will be able to break magical barriers, behind which there will be a lot of interesting things. There will be barriers different color. By matching staves to barriers of the “rock, paper, scissors” type, you will significantly expand your own capabilities.

That's all. We hope that our humble guide to Dragon Age: Inquisition will help you in your difficult journey through Thedas.

Leveling up the party (by Darth Swordman)

Actually, a lot has already been written about leveling up a particular specialization in the game; but I have not yet found any mention of the technical approach to the entire game in the game, and therefore I decided to present my view on this matter in a short article - it is quite possible that it will be useful to someone. I’ll immediately note that I will not become attached to specific characters, because some prefer Zevran as a robber, others prefer Leliana (and personally, I don’t take robbers with me at all); Of the warriors, some more often carry Alistair with them, and some carry Stan... sometimes you can get by with your own magician. Therefore, I will simply try to summarize my thoughts on the optimal selection of specializations in the game for passing in the form of a short, so to speak, guide. Of course, it reflects solely the author’s idea of ​​the game’s progress and does not claim to be a 100% guarantee of optimal balance; although any comments are welcome. :)
The guide assumes at least basic knowledge of the game mechanics and the ability to work with mods.

So, we will need:
Mosk - 1 piece. No comments.
DaO Modmanager – 1 piece. As they say, playing without mods is a waste of money.
Extra Dog Slot mod – 1 piece. At a difficulty level above the third, it’s difficult to call it cheating, and the dog seems like a full-fledged character, to be honest, even from the point of view of the RPG canons.
Character Respec Addon mod – 1 piece. Extremely useful thing for re-upgrading the stock specializations of party members, allows you to redistribute their skills at your discretion.
The Lock Bash mod takes us back to the good old NWN, where all the working roleplayers opened chests with fireballs. ^^ At the same time, it allows you to do without robbers in the party, if somewhere you need more striking force in the close. To prevent possible comments about cheating, I’ll immediately explain that when opening chests by force, there is a fairly high chance of breaking part of the contents (or even all of them).
Other mods, including those of a cosmetic nature, are up to your taste.

Actually, about the composition. In my case, after several not the most successful, let’s say, starts of the game, I still chose the most successful, in my opinion, composition of the party.

First of all, the tank has clearly proven its usefulness (for me this is the main character, but you can easily upgrade another character for this purpose). The basic specialization, of course, is military.
Since its main task is to hold the maximum possible number of mobs on itself and not go down, first of all we pump up the branch of weapons with a shield to the maximum. Of the military skills, the mandatory ones are power to reduce stamina in heavy armor and provocation to aggro mobs. We always dress in the most armored sets, it is more advisable to insert runes for resistance to magic into weapons, we hang accessories from the same series. The main thing is to remember that the goal of a tank is not damage, but receiving it. Against mages and dragons after passing Brecilian, the juggernaut set with a bunch of resists for all elements is perfect.
The battle tactics are quite simple - periodically cast taunt, take a defensive stand (the shield defense skill is practically useless, since the tank still focuses on strength, not agility; so they will hit constantly, but the damage will be less) and actively consume all kinds of tinctures to prevent yourself from being killed and at the same time allowing your party members to defeat their adversaries.
When gaining additional specialization, it would be a good idea to take a templar if there is no other in the party. Firstly, this will give you a little mental stability as you gain the appropriate skills, and secondly, the ability to beat magicians and dispel spells, which can sometimes be a great help not only for the character himself, but for the entire party.
A tank's best friend at all times is a healer, aka a spiritual healer. Well, everything here is also quite simple - without fail we download the entire branch of the healer itself, and then, at our discretion, something no less useful. I recommend entropy, since many spells of this school allow you to weaken, paralyze and put to sleep crowds of enemies at once without harming party members who fall into the spell’s zone. Don’t we need to remind you that a real gamer doesn’t even consider the easy difficulty level? =)
With well-constructed tactics, direct control of the healer can be almost unnecessary; It is enough to indicate that it is mandatory to treat the tank and throw “cleanse” for the rest so that they can constantly use skills and spells. As an option, you can take a spirit branch that has a force field; the rest of the spells in the branch are also good, but the field can cover a tank when a crowd of adversaries is hanging on it, and the healing is still on cooldown.. Well, it won’t hurt when attacking the healer himself (which is rare, but it happens) to throw something like sleep or horror at the villain, and in the same case the tank will throw a provocation once again.

The remaining free slots are filled directly with damage dealers, aka damage dealers, for those who are not particularly advanced - with striking force, which is designed to easily and naturally demolish enemy HP, like shopaholics - display cases with goods for which there is a 90% discount.

The primary damage dealer in any RPG is, of course, the mage, whose upgrade option we will now consider. I definitely recommend taking the ice branch as the first branch, and downloading the first three spells. Why ice and only the first three? Because even creatures with resistance to cold still end up frozen (believe me, a cone of cold will save you a lot of HP, nerve cells and impressions from the game more than once), this time. Two - the last spell in the branch, “Ice Storm”, despite seemingly decent parameters, often turned out to be useless. If you throw it at a distant crowd (not counting a crowd of archers who do not move - and there are very few of these in the game), then those whom the spell did not take or quickly released will joyfully run in a crowd to bring down the magician who offended them, and even the tank sometimes it can be difficult to aggro the entire crowd before the magician falls; if you cast a spell on the area next to your fighters, then, according to Murphy’s law, they will be frozen more often. Since we will use the cone of cold almost constantly, and we also don’t forget about the ice strike, at the first opportunity I advise you to buy Zimodykh from the “Wonders of Thedas” in Denerim - a staff perfectly sharpened for an ice branch. But for the undead it is always better to have a spare one, because they have a noticeable resistance to direct damage from the staff. Tested by several killed batches...
I recommend taking land as the second branch, as well as the first three skills. The stone fist is excellent for breaking frozen adversaries, and turning to stone, although it essentially duplicates an ice strike, is often useful as an alternative spell if the ice one is still on cooldown; and his level is higher, which allows him to immobilize opponents more high level.
The third branch is good entropy, and a branch different from the healer. All kinds of damage are most useful when actively using elemental magic; Well, mass paralysis is simply irreplaceable when there is a large concentration of enemies on the battlefield.
In general, given the not-so-strong health of the magician, in my opinion, massive debuffs are optimal for him, rather than single impact spells. Five, for example, frozen opponents with big amount The warriors will endure health much more effectively than the three active villains who survived the fireball and attacked the magician.

The remaining slots remain for two melee warriors, one of them is a mabari, in the build-up of which everything is basically linear, and the second is the warrior itself at your discretion.
An excellent DD is a warrior with a two-handed weapon. First of all, we’ll download it, then I recommend taking the basic military branch for the “exit battle” skill, because often enemies rush from the tank to the one who deals the most damage. As soon as possible, we fill weapons with runes to increase damage. I always advise you to carry both a sword and a hammer with you in order to react in time to heavily armored enemies. It is better to choose an armor set from those that give a bonus to stamina; you will have to use your skills often. We select jewelry for bonuses to willpower (all the same skills) and resists depending on the situation. The tactics are simple - we knock down everyone nearby, finish them off with minimal health, and fight off the magicians from the attackers.

This is approximately the alignment I came up with, which at the moment is proving itself very successfully as it progresses. Suggestions, comments and additions - in comments. Good luck to everyone... ;)