One tip I haven't seen is to Pause frequently during combat on the higher levels. Pause is your friend. It helps just to stop and take a look at the field in case something needs tweaking or someone needs an emergency heal or something similar.
All my companions' tactics are set to Ranged or Default. I don't use Aggressive because they go running through traps or Defensive because they only attack what's attacking them. Alistair, Sten and Oghren have strength boosted until they can wear the best massive armor with points in constitution and dexterity with cunning left at 16. Zevran's strength is boosted until he can wield dragonbone swords. Leliana's dexterity is boosted so that she can use higher level bows. She's killer with Marjolaine's Recurve later in the game. Wynne and Morrigan get just enough constitution that they don't get one-shotted, and everything else in magic and wisdom. I seldom have constitution over 20-23 points for rogues and 18 for mages while I set warriors higher with 27-30.
Everyone's first tactic is to use highest (rogues/warriors) or lowest (mages) health poultices when health is <=50%. Mages may Drain Health at <=75% health. Healers are set to heal when allies' health is <50%. Dog guards the mages if my PC is a warrior or the PC if s/he is a rogue. In as far as possible, I focus my party's attention on mages first; Templar abilities are invaluable here.
There are also keyboard related things I do. I set the quick slots up in the same order every playthrough so that I don't have to look down to see which button to press. I've remapped my keyboard a bit so that the most commonly used keys are all under my left hand. Since I always use the mouse to move, I can remap the W, A, S and D keys.
As for mods, most of mine are art things or tweaks/fixes, but I do use Dog as a Fifth Companion and a tweak which keeps my people from taking friendly fire at the higher difficulty settings. (Yes, I know, but I like to think that my mages have more control than that, and my people have more sense.)
no subject
All my companions' tactics are set to Ranged or Default. I don't use Aggressive because they go running through traps or Defensive because they only attack what's attacking them. Alistair, Sten and Oghren have strength boosted until they can wear the best massive armor with points in constitution and dexterity with cunning left at 16. Zevran's strength is boosted until he can wield dragonbone swords. Leliana's dexterity is boosted so that she can use higher level bows. She's killer with Marjolaine's Recurve later in the game. Wynne and Morrigan get just enough constitution that they don't get one-shotted, and everything else in magic and wisdom. I seldom have constitution over 20-23 points for rogues and 18 for mages while I set warriors higher with 27-30.
Everyone's first tactic is to use highest (rogues/warriors) or lowest (mages) health poultices when health is <=50%. Mages may Drain Health at <=75% health. Healers are set to heal when allies' health is <50%. Dog guards the mages if my PC is a warrior or the PC if s/he is a rogue. In as far as possible, I focus my party's attention on mages first; Templar abilities are invaluable here.
There are also keyboard related things I do. I set the quick slots up in the same order every playthrough so that I don't have to look down to see which button to press. I've remapped my keyboard a bit so that the most commonly used keys are all under my left hand. Since I always use the mouse to move, I can remap the W, A, S and D keys.
As for mods, most of mine are art things or tweaks/fixes, but I do use Dog as a Fifth Companion and a tweak which keeps my people from taking friendly fire at the higher difficulty settings. (Yes, I know, but I like to think that my mages have more control than that, and my people have more sense.)