#cyekic

If you don’t know much about the setting I’d recommend checking the Dragon Age Keep, which lets you change what happened in previous games, and then have someone read it back to you! Full of spoilers for the other two games though, sorry. There’s a few decisions that effect DA:I (Morrigan’s dark ritual, who’s in charge of Ferelden, who tf is Hawke) but over all most of them won’t make any major changes (with the exception of Morrigan’s dark ritual from DA:O).

Steer clear of the wiki, seriously it spoiled a MAJOR thing for me. Also maybe don’t go hunting through my dragon age tags..........uh. There’s spoilers.

Basic Lore: 

(some of this is technically wrong, but this is what your average player would know going into DA:I)

The Chantry (the catholic church), and they worship the Maker (god) and his wife Andraste (Jesus+Joanne of Arc) a mortal woman who raised a slave rebellion in Tevinter and was burned at the stake as a result. The Southern Chantry is headed by the Divine (the Pope), presently Divine Justinia. Cassandra and Leliana are her bodyguard and spymaster, respectively. (I say Southern Chantry, because the Tevinter Chantry has a different mentality on a lot of this. Go talk to Dorian about it when you meet him.)

The Southern Chantry preaches that the power of Mages is dangerous, so they should be confined to Circles, where they can study and also not fuck up the world. The Chantry employs Templars (think Paladins) to keep the mages in line. Templars take stuff called Lyrium to give them magic-suppressing powers. Talk to Cassandra and Cullen about Templars. Lyrium is mined up by dwarves, and it’s very dangerous when raw, just not as dangerous to dwarves. Lyrium can also be corrupted into Red Lyrium, which is Really Bad News and makes shit float and makes you go all kinds of loopy and also want to eat it? Bad stuff. Varric really hates it.

Mages get their power from the Fade, which is the dream world. Dreamers are especially powerful mages who have control over dreams. In the Fade there’s The Black City, which is supposedly where the Maker rules from. In the Fade there’s Demons, who can possess you, which mages are more susceptible to, and are all around bad news. There’s also spirits, and if you want to know about them go talk to Solas and Cole.

A bunch of old Tevinter Magisters (Roman Senators but mages and worshipped dragons) a longass time ago decided that the best way to get more powerful was to enter the fade themselves and go to the Black City. As the story goes, the Maker got pissed at them and sent them back to Thedas (earth) with The Blight (kind of like a zombie curse?) which is really bad news. So what was basically the zombie apocalypse (well they’re technically Darkspawn) started, causing the Wardens to be created. Wardens are sort-of blighted destroyers of the Blight. They shoved them into the Deep Roads, which is where the Dwarves live, so the Dwarves have been sectioning off areas to live in that are safe. Ferelden (the country where you are) recently got over the Fifth Blight (DA:O’s plot). Blights happen when one of those big ol dragon fellows (Old Gods technically) meet up with a bunch of Darkspawn and decide to terrorize the surface.

At the end of Dragon Age 2, the Mages started up a rebellion because they were basically being imprisoned. The Templars got mad and fought back, and succeeded from the Chantry, starting the Mage and Templar war. The title screen is the Conclave (peace conference run by Divine Justinia), at the Temple of Sacred Ashes (where Andraste’s ashes once were). Your character is attending the Conclave.

There’s also a civil war in Orlais between Grand Duke Gaspard and Empress Celene. Also, there’s this lady named Flemmeth, or Asha’Bellanar, who’s a major figure in Elven mythos and can turn into a dragon. She’s Morrigan’s mom and shows up in every game and is sort of immortal.

Combat Basics:

When it comes to combat, I think DA:I has the easiest but least intuitive combat system out of all of the Dragon Age games (there’s a casual mode and don’t worry about starting out with that mode if you haven’t played any Dragon Age games before).

Early on it’s totally a great idea to try out switching between different characters to see which class fits your playstyle best (I think that rogue archer is the simplest for a beginner), and if you want to recreate your character early on that’s totally rad (it took me three tries to realize that I really love 2 handed warriors the best, for example). Basically, here’s a breakdown of playstyles:

Warrior, sword+shield: melee tank, not built for damage. Best with the Champion (Blackwall) or Templar (Cassandra) specializations. One of the better AIs, so don’t worry about switching onto your tank as much. Would recommend having one of them in the party at all times tbh. 

Warrior, two handed: melee AOE, built for damage. Basically just stick your two-hander in the center of everything and they’ll kill a bunch of people. Not as good against single-enemy fights (like dragons). Best with the Reaver (Iron Bull) or Champion (Blackwall) specializations.

Rogue, Dual Dagger: melee critical-based, does the most damage out of any build but fairly easy to kill as a result. Good with any of the rogue specializations, but really really good with Assassin (Cole).

Rogue, Archer: ranged damage, does the most ranged damage. Big bonus is the fact that you can move while attacking, which mages cannot do. Leave Varric as an archer, and upgrade Bianca a lot and he’ll become pretty strong! Sera also makes a pretty good archer, but she does pretty well as dual-dagger as well. Good with Artificer and Tempest specializations.

(you don’t get specializations until level 10, at which point you’ll get to pick your own for your character! Lot’s of fun ones, I recommend Reaver, Assassin, Tempest, and Rift Mage as my favorites to play, but just go with what sounds cool/fits the character tbh. Necromancy is a bit glitchy, just a heads up. Also you might need a guide for the quest, depending on which specialization you pick it can be a pain in the ass to figure out)

Mages have a lot more variety to them, and I recommend picking two trees for each mage (+their specialization once you get there). I personally go for Spirit+one type of damage for each one, and it doesn’t matter which type of damage you go for for each mage, since their specializations don’t change a ton of their playstyle. I would recommend having at least one Winter mage and one Inferno mage, so that you can fight dragons/tough enemies with the opposite type of element (there’s no Spirit dragons, and Storm is the least useful against big enemies anyways.)

Spirit: The most useful skill tree in the game, I promise. Barrier, dispel, and whatever the resurrection spell is are some of the most useful spells in the entire game. Also, dispel can be used when a rift is about to spit out more demons and like, you can see the lil circle-y bits on the ground, you just cast dispel on one of those spots and boom, the demon won’t show up! The AI for spirit mage is pretty alright I guess, I usually switch onto my main spirit mage during big difficult fights (dragons especially, dragons are Tough), but honestly I don’t enjoy constantly having to pause to cast barriers so I don’t play it myself.

Winter: CC, does the least amount of damage but the slows/freezes are So Fucking Useful, I swear. If you’ve got a pretty heavy damage team, Winter is great for a purely support mage. I basically build my favorite mage (Solas) to be Winter+Spirit, which is the best combo for playing what is basically just a healer that does very little damage. Also has the fantastic spell, Fade Step, which allows a mage to FWOOOSH across the battlefield to get out of trouble. If your mage is taking a lot of hits, switch onto them and move them out of the way with this.

Inferno: DOT, some AOE. I think Inferno and Storm are sort of tied for damage, but Inferno does more damage to individual enemies. Can also terrify enemies, which is a little bit annoying if you’re playing as a melee character. Just mostly damage, all around pretty solid. Makes my PS4 lag a bit when the entire screen is on fire.

Storm: AOE mostly, can also shock enemies. Basically allows you to chain attacks between multiple enemies. Super neat but my least used mage tree tbh? Not sure why. Does damage, not as useful against big enemies (especially dragons. I feel like I talk about dragons a lot, but there’s like, 12 dragons in the entire game? I just liked fighting them bc A. it’s Dragon Age and B. my character literally drank dragon blood okay, it was sort of badass and C. I like dragons)

I would have to look at my old skill-trees if you want advice on which kits work best together, I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head.

When it comes to building a balanced team, my go-to is:

One Sword-and-Shield Warrior

One Two-Handed Warrior or Dagger Rogue

One Archer Rogue or Damage-y Mage

One Support Mage

So like, pick some favs and build them to fit into that pretty much. Mix up your party though! Some characters, like Sera and Solas, have strange perspectives that can be hard to understand at first, but are really interesting once you get to know them, so stick them in your party!