Game:

Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

Duration: 10:16

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Where Parts 1 and 2 had the Arcane Warrior fighting a single powerful foe, Parts 3 and 4 show the Hero dealing with mobs.

This video, like the others in this series, is on Nightmare Difficulty on the PC version of Dragon Age:Origins. Again, it uses the same build and gear as the previous videos in this series, optimising tanking power+armor+resistances and the ability to maintain Shimmering Shield forever, yet still be able to cast spells regularly with a Mana Regeneration rate of 11 points/second. Want to hold a staff and cast spells like a mage instead? No problem, this setup also minimises Fatigue to a mere 5% when holding a staff, yet leaves the mage with an Armor value of 36! (Which is the same as most Warriors encased in a full set of Tier 7 Massive Armor!) Talk about versatility and staying power, all in one build.

This showcases how the exact same setup in all the videos, can beat anything the game can throw at it, without pauses or using consumables.

This plot quest right before the Landsmeet has the Hero facing the mastermind of the Unrest at the Alienage: the Blood Mage Caladrius, the elven rogue Devera, and a small army of Tevinter slavers.

To this extremely hardy Arcane Warrior, only Devera and Caladrius matter. The other slavers, though capable archers, melee fighters and rogues, and numerous enough to pose a threat to any lesser Hero, are but mere nuisances; their attacks and special moves are irritants that slow him down as he methodically slaughters them one by one.

The small army of archers, Devera included, stick the Hero full of arrows as she activates all her enchantments. The Hero has a bit of fun with her Crushing Prison spell, finishing Devera and the archers on the stairway, then hurtles down the steps to deal with Caladrius, an avenging angel all translucent and shrouded in several layers of protective magic.

The Boss, Caladrius is left for last, watching the Hero massacre all of his minions before the Shimmering-Shielded and Spell-Shielded Arcane Warrior turns her blade on the Blood Mage. I take my time to do this battle, so he does get in a few lucky hits with his spells in between my Spell Shield coming back up.

Battered into submission, Caladrius buys his life by draining that of the slaves' to boost the Hero's Constitution by 1 point.

(Alternative setup: the other viable setup for sword-and-shield for the ultimate Arcane Warrior would be Maric's Blade+Cailan's Shield, which gives the set bonus of increased damage and stamina regeneration! The advantages of this are: an extra +3 stamina regeneration, +0.75 health regeneration, higher damage, +1 more armor and -2% fatigue. However, the tradeoff is a smaller mana pool of 40 points less, lower Defense of 5 points less, lower Cunning of 3 points less, loss of the +20% healing benefit of the Fade Wall, and 1 less rune slot since Maric's Blade only holds 2 slots. The smaller mana pool means this AW cannot cast the most powerful spells with all sustainables on. Also, in combat against the same foes in this series of videos, I have found that bearing Cailan's Arms, other than increasing the frequency at which Regeneration can be cast during the fights, makes little difference to this Arcane Warrior's performance or tactical play - she still needs to use the same tactics against Gaxkang and Flemeth to survive. You will have noticed that this Arcane Warrior doesn't need to cast healing spells much anyway! Thus, practically speaking, either configuration is generally equally balanced. If requested, I would be happy to put up videos showing how the same Hero performs with Cailan's Arms, against these foes.)

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