I gotta say as far as Dragon Age goes, the Broodmother was kind of an underwhelming encounter. I guess its the boss design I wasn’t very keen on, but anyway. I feel bad for those who come into the Broodmother fight with a party full of tanks, honestly I don’t see a way to beat the Broodmother without a mage. Maybe its me. Maybe its Bioware. Maybe its RPG in general. The mage is always your clutch who can turn any battle around even if it seems basically over.
By this point, I have Morrigan maxed out in favor towards me, which gives her the benefit of Massive Magic influence (I think its like 40-50 extra Spellpower? Have not confirmed) on top of gear that adds more spellpower and cold damage, with a maxed out branch of Cold magic. If you’re looking for the best way to do crowd control, pass over Shale and Alistair (my 2 tanks) and fall back on Morrigan. If you have them both trained up to Threat or War Cry, they’ll draw aggro easily enough in any encounter, leaving Morrigan open to wreck adds with Blizzard with Tempest stacked on top. Two AOEs going with one freezing most types of enemies clears riffraff faster than you can imagine.
Anyway, I got wiped the first time I got to Broodmother because I had no idea what to expect. If she grabs a player during battle its basically over for them, she crushes them to death (as I found out). This is a random attack, but you can attempt to juggle between players and time your spells and indefinitely incapacitate the Broodmother.
The second attempt I wisened up a little bit and let Morrigan start things off with Blizzard and Tempest so there would be constant damage going. This will quickly remove the tentacles from the first wave of the battle. Then I sent everyone up to melee, and Morrigan cast Cone of Cold to freeze Broodmother in place. If you have Shale, when she unfreezes, hit her with Slam to draw aggro and stun her for a second or two. By this point, Blizzard, Cone of Cold or Tempest should be recharged for use to stun/freeze her again. Drop the AOEs when the Darkspawn start to add, or you will lose control quickly. Some simple juggling of health potions and Heal from Morrigan should keep things relatively organized. If you have the chance, drop Vulnerability Hex on the Broodmother too (or higher equivalent)- with Shale using Large Flawless (crystal type) and any Rune enhanced weaponry, your damage output will be great.
Her loot sucks though.
I don’t know how close I am to the end, I feel like I have made no progress at all (indication of a great game, since I have clocked over 36 hours into the game). I hope the game lasts another 20 hours. I can see another playthrough happening.
