Dragon Age: Inquisition Multiplayer – Best Build to Solo Perilous
I already shared my Arcane Warrior group play build last week – this week, I’m sharing my Arcane Warrior solo build! With this build, it is pretty easy to solo Perilous at Level 13-16. It is possible to do it at Level 10 or 11, too – I’ve seen it done, I just haven’t done it myself, so I’ll only vouch for my own gameplay :)
First, for all the people who are about to comment, “Proof or it didn’t happen”, here’s a vid of me tanking some Perilous with the Arcane Warrior (it’s kinda messy, I didn’t do it very well):
Ok, now to go through the build – as usual, you can watch this video or keep scrolling for text:
The active powers you’ll need are Spirit Sword, Chain Lightning, Fade Step, and Fade Cloak – all fully upgraded. Spirit Sword is a no-brainer. Chain Lightning is super useful for getting your barrier up and paralyzing enemies so you can destroy they with Spirit Sword.
Fade Cloak is absolutely required for this build. It makes you immune to damage for two seconds and when you de-cloak, you do 1000% (yes, that says one thousand) damage to every enemy around you. Because you get swarmed so quickly on Perilous solo, that means you’ll have 100% barrier instantly almost all the time you use the power. Also, activating Fade Cloak gets you up immediately, so if you’re knocked down by the Demon Commander for example, you can instantly get up and keep doing damage. This makes Demons the easiest faction to solo against on Perilous, FYI.
Fade/Frost Step is also critical. Here’s why – it’s easy to keep barriers up when you’re swarmed by enemies, but it’s hard when there are ranged enemies picking at you. Frost Step helps you close with ranged enemies so you can do massive Spirit Sword or Fade Cloak damage.
You’re probably wondering why I skipped Pull of the Abyss (PotA) – basically, PotA is good for grouping a bunch of enemies together. On Perilous solo, enemies all swarm against you anyway, so it’s really not necessary to have PotA. I always have an easier time solo-ing all factions using Frost Step than PotA.
You can spec out almost all the passives using this build as well. Make sure to spec out anything that increase mana regeneration and armor. Now here’s the important thing about passives:
DO NOT SPEC OUT STRENGTH OF SPIRITS.
DON’T DO IT! Ok. I know the 50% barrier sound tempting, but it actually makes your barrier deplete faster if you take this boost. This is because your barrier depletion rate is based on MAX barrier, not your actual barrier. Here’s the math: let’s say as a base, you have 100 max barrier that depletes at 10% per second. So, you lose 10 barrier per second. Strength of Spirits gives a 50% max barrier boost, giving you 150 max barrier. Your barrier still depletes at 10% per second, so you lose 15 barrier per second. Let’s say your attack gives you 90 barrier. In the first case, your barrier will last 9 seconds because you’re losing 10 barrier per second. In the second case (with Strength of Spirits), your barrier will last only 6 seconds because you’re losing 15 barrier per second. Make sense?
Anyway, that’s the Arcane Warrior build I use for solo-ing … Hope you enjoy!
Have you solo’d Perilous mode with another character? Let me know in comments!
I am still in love here…. XD I especially like the singing parts like “…they’re the easiest thing to kill EVUUUUUUR…” XD Bloody Lovely. XD XD XD We might need to add that your mage classes were promoted like 54 times and you are swinging a staff with 160+ DPS and a lot of attack bonuses not to mention Heal on Kill, etc. ;) Those things might help a bit in solo aside from all the remarkable ideas and advices you are giving here… XD
Ha, yeah, I’ve prestiged a couple times – only 30 though, not 54! So it’s like 15% attack bonus all the time :D I am using a staff with Heal on Kill but it’s only 4% and doesn’t honestly make too much of a difference. It’s the 2% chance of veilstrike that is actually the best part of the staff. Sometimes I use the staff that does 10% chance of Immolate as well. Hehehe thanks for the compliments!
Would you use the increased lightning damage ring in this build plus the Hok ring?
I use the 30% increased chain lightning ring – I don’t have the healing ring sadly but I would totally equip it if I did. I am currently using the critical damage ring instead.
Ive started playing the last 2 weeks and thought I was the most unluckiest guy when it came to chest loot but reading everyone else’s comments on items they are after not dropping, in particular accessories, and myself having so many of them I’ve changed my mind im doing ok! haha! Still not able to solo perilous on a Aw… but pretty sure I can on my elementalist! Do you know if their is a Enhanced (barrier/duration) ring?
@Matt: Yes there is such a ring. You can always refer to this database here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mjiy-pKF6YbBavpwMhOFO7Vvp-KxY-DcVVFbv7aWfhI/pubhtml#
@Robine: total unrelated but have you looked into the Armor Penetration % stuff? As far as most sources are stating it is only applied when doing physical damage. The question is why does then some staves have Armor Penetration % bonuses by default then?
Yeah I have no idea! I try not to equip the armor penetration or barrier penetration stuff just in case it’s bugged :)
Great video? I have a question about the armor passives. Force of will & spell sword. I read somewhere that +armor didn’t effect the degrading of barrier. I’ve never taking them with the idea that it would only help when barrier was down. Is this true? Do you see a noticeable difference with them?
Oooh good question – I don’t think that the +armor works until the barrier is down, but sometimes it’s a life saver in the event that your barrier does goes down :) Sometimes I spec my arcane with the random lightning bolt and lightning stun powers in the other tree (instead of the armor skills) but I haven’t seen much of a difference in performance either way.
Well, now we have a chance to put this into test. This weeks event is called “Trial by fire” which has two agent objectives, which one involves trying to do 5 matches on “perilous”-difficulty. I’ve not been able to complete even one match on perilous(Though I’ve only got my tank that’s got enough levels). I bet that most of them roll out their arcane warriors for this.
Surprisingly enough, money grabbing is the biggest reason why most of missions go down the toilet on threatening and up(at least for me). More times than I care to count one of the group decides to go trying to grab chest of money alone before waiting others to catch up….which usually results Arcane Horror or Revenant rolling out, curb-stomping the lone player and then decimate rest of the party who were fighting with the enemy wave.
Arcane horror is the worst for Arcane Warrior unless you can close in quickly with Frost Step. Revenant is pretty easy to take down solo because he is close range. If you’re on Xbone, look out for me in a few hours in Perilous lobbies! :)
Great freaking build. Unfortunately, fade cloak was nerds to 800%, and only effect the target you are within (from what I’ve noticed). Other then that, I amhaving a blast playing now! Thanks for the great video.
Fade Cloak is for sure the key to AW. If you get knocked down it picks you right up and it does crazy damage to anything on top of you. I build my AW with this build every time and I dominate. Equip the storm ring and watch everything just melt. By far my favorite character to play. PS4 ginabean70.