Dragon Age II Walkthrough - Night Lies

Dragon Age II Walkthrough - Night Lies
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Night Lies - Introduction

This is one of the toughest fights for cleaning up the streets. If you go into Hightown at night, you’ll find that there are groups of false guardsmen (guardsmen pretenders) setting up ambushes. As usual, they assume that the hardened mercenaries are good for easy money for reasons unclear to me. Regardless, once you take out four groups you can take out their hideout.

Note that the guardsmen seem to be the toughest of the three bandits. In general, they seem to have more health and armor. The third wave can be very tough if you don’t watch your stamina, and you will probably blow most of the reward on potions.

You may have to leave Hightown and come back to rack up 4 kills. Just check the big courtyards for groups of them. There doesn’t seem to be a true order. As a rule, you seem to be in good shape with a rogue and a warrior along with a tank and a healer/assault mage. The tank can easily shrug off the attacks of the toughest men while your rogue and fighter stab the rest repeatedly. Take out the archers quickly and watch the two waves of reinforcements to keep your mage out of trouble.

Night Lies - The False Barracks and Captain Qerth

Dragon Age II Walkthrough - Night Lies - Captain Qerth and the Guardsmen Pretenders

Taking out their fake barracks is quite easy…conceptually. The battle is an absolute nightmare on hard, and incredibly easy on normal. I’ll cover that in a second though. The battle with the bandits takes place entirely in the main room of the mansion. Archers will try to hold the steps while the fighters will flood the floor.

Captain Qerth is a brutal enemy. He will do a buff fairly often that greatly heals the men on the floor. He can also do a version of the pommel strike, in which he’ll punch one of your men after setting down his sword. This stuns them for a while and leaves them badly hurt. Don’t let anyone engage the captain with low health. Finally, he has a whirlwind ability that does a lot of damage. If you see the yellow light start spinning, fall back until it passes (except for your tank, they can usually ignore it).

Qerth can be very tough, because you have to kill him quickly. There are several waves of reinforcements that come in regardless, but it appears that additional waves will just keep coming as long as Qerth is alive, with smaller numbers of ridiculously elite guards. If you don’t kill Captain Qerth after a few waves, it may be difficult or nigh impossible to hold out after the long battle.

You’ll want to have a rogue with you, along with a tank and a warrior. You’ll probably need Anders as a healer, since having the extra health option is vital. Buy some health potions before you engage too. They’ll help a lot.

The key seems to be a lightning raid on Qerth. Qerth can be frozen and stunned by several spells. While in this state, backstabs and mighty blows will do tremendous damage. If you can keep him off balance you may be able to kill him very quickly while your tank ties up the rest of the men. Note that Qerth will chug health potions if given the chance, so don’t let up for long.

Once Qerth dies, the battle is easy. You just have to circle up in the center of the room and hold out for another wave or two until the guards die. Loot the bodies and loot the chest in back, then leave.

Note, that if you just can’t do this, lower the difficulty. On normal, Qerth will die in a matter of moments under a good barrage. He won’t heal himself nearly as much and the battle becomes very easy. Temporarily lowering the difficulty does wonders for frustration.

References

All screenshots and references from “Dragon Age 2.”

All information is based off of a “hard” difficulty playthrough, unless otherwise noted.

This post is part of the series: Dragon Age 2 Walkthrough - Side Quests - Part 3

There are a lot of side quests in Dragon Age 2. If you want to get the best gear and collect the money you need, you’ll want to do as many as you can. This set of guides will cover Herbalist’s Tasks, Night Lies and Pier Pressure.

  1. Dragon Age II Walkthrough - Herbalist’s Tasks - Act 1
  2. Dragon Age II Walkthrough - Pier Pressure
  3. Dragon Age II Walkthrough - Night Lies